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RP: 188604 Sand World Dig

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dumont
  • Start date Start date
D

Dumont

Ragna City Streets: Afternoon.

Following the briefing by the offices of Her Imperial Highness, and the Thieftaker General: Ace finds himself faced with a mission!

An energy signature found early on in the invasion was located out in the wilderness beyond what remained of the mountain range. Ace had been given leave to investigate, and instructions to call in salvage once it was deemed secure. The journey would take him out into the untamed reaches of the planet, as yet untouched by the reign of Empress Uso Tasuki: The Usotzan empire's reign was mostly contained around the Algaeia sea, for the most part.

The only ones who for sure were willing to go with him were Tomblyn and Scrabler. Others may be convinced to go along, but it would take a bit more talking to if they were to be convinced.

But before more could be recruited: Ace was facing this task with little more than the clothes on his back, and a shovel. No vehicles were mentioned as being at the disposal of this venture. No horses, either. On foot this would be a four day journey beyond the rubble of Mt. Gleipnir, and into the desert.

At a guess.

Ace had no maps. Navigation could be done in baser ways, as both Ace and Tomblyn had such skills. But it could be easier. He also had no supplies. Foraging and hunting was theoretically possible, but no proper survey of the planet's wildlife had been done to date.

If the group wanted to go it alone, or try to outdoorsman their way to their objective they could give it a try. It would be hard. But if they wanted help, supplies and/or resources for their expedition: Now would be the time to do it.
 
No Lights, No Cameras, Shit I Forgot
Ace looked back at his motley crew and his lone shovel. Well shit I forgot to grab food and drinks. "Scrabler you have a built in communications device right? Could you contact Uso and try to requisite some supplies?"
 
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Somewhere out there, Uso's phone rings:

Unlike some others with mindware and built in HUDs, Uso is not always immediately reachable. Somewhere out there, Uso's communication device rings as Scrabler attempts to reach her. In the meantime, the three are left to wait in what's left of Ragna City. Once a great center of commerce, there are yet still some markets here where supplies and assistance could maybe be acquired without the help of the Empire itself.

Despite the streets full of sand and rubble, and the carts full of corpses being lugged away to the mass graves being dug to put to rest the storm's dead: Life does go on.

While Ace himself is out of equipment, along with his money: The others have some space money left in their inventory which can be exchanged at the makeshift customs house for local coinage or banknotes.
 
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"Ok until we hear from the great Empress... God help me... we'll stay here and talk with the locals see if we can't anything on our own such as a guide cause since I don't have Aries with me I can't have her guide us there instead I'll draw up a map and we'll use that it'll be a contour map so it wont have any thing to help us identify cept for latitude and longitude."
 
Call waiting:

The city's markets are open and available to peruse as Scrabler begins to seethe at lengthy call waiting muzak being piped in over his communications unit. Uso's prerecorded 'your call is important to me' message always managing to sound just that little bit too patronizing. Tomblyn runs off to change some money, and returns with a sack of coins and a small stack of banknotes with pictures of a few people Ace knows on them.

The open markets seem to contain the necessities of everyday life: A wide variety of algae-related foodstuffs, both preserved and fresh; clothes made from the planet's roughspun fabrics coming only in off-white, brown, and green; leather goods, such as boots, belts, and waterskins; and the ubiquitous Algaecole liquor seem to be the most popular items.

What few luxuries the planet affords that showed up at market remained limited to meat sold at exorbitant prices, brightly colored blown glassware, and a small variety of alien goods that had wormed their way into the economy from Ragnarok mercenaries bartering with locals. No guns, however. The Alien Goods for sale were limited to MRE's, cigarettes, and liquor that were slowly forming their own grey market economy. All of them extremely expensive.

Expedition equipment aside from provisions were sold at specialist stores.

Wagons and digging gear were sold at a place called Prospecting Provisioners run by a fat old man who sat out front of the store in a rocking chair. Horses were sold at the Osman Imperial Spaceman's Stables. Weapons were mainly sold at the one remaining open Armory in town called Guns and Glory by Gus, a little store with a window display showing muskets, revolvers, and cavalry swords brandished by dummies wearing surplus Osman military uniforms.
 
*Ring-Ring*

...

*Ring-Ring*

...

*Ring-Ring*

...

Uso reluctantly picked up her datapad, her voice coming through more than slightly annoyed,

"WHAT?! Why are you using voice instead of text anyways?!"
 
I don't speak for Scrabler, so he's got a speakerphone function I guess:

Uso's voice comes out of Scrabler. The robot punches Ace in the shoulder to get his attention, and pointing to his own head as if to say 'you handle this'.

On the other End of Line:

Uso notices her communicator's inbox is full of weird out of context pictures, executable files and blocks of text from Arccos.

Some of it is esoteric polysentience memes. Other parts are unintelligible machine code that would probably mean something if used with mindware. Yet more is pure unadulterated filth, in multiple chapters of graphic detail. The recipient field indicates that Uso is not the only one receiving this sort of spam.
 
Ugh Do I Have Too?!
"Hello Empress the reason why we haven't used text is because Aries isn't with us." Ace's voice was full of annoyance mainly towards himself for forgetting the supplies. "We need supplies and men for the excavation as well as a guide since again I don't have Aries."
 
Bananaphone

"Yeah, those would be useful on an expedition. You may want to get some transportation too, and maybe something to keep you safe from those dust-storms." Uso replied, groaning as she skimmed through the pile of spacer data that immediately made her regret both asking people to use text AND working with spacers. Spacers loved their 'adding lots of gibberish to hide their communications' trick, but no way was Uso willing to wade through 15 chapters of The Lusty Yamatain Maid just so she could view Arcco's reports.
 
"Roger. Quick question should I use coin or banknotes?" Ace looked over to his two friends. "Once this is all over we can hangout at my place and I'll do some odd jobs by myself and you can tag along if you want just like I promised. Also I will pay you back for this." Ace returned to Uso. "What ever you can get us will be much appreciated."
 
Bananaphone

Uso was quick to respond,

"Oh, I'm sure it would be... but you've made it pretty clear you don't want to be working with me. Why should I help you?"
 
Ace smirked before adding cheekily. "Since I'm the only one who knows where these facilities. Nah I'm joking I actually can't think of any good reason at the moment but you do get stuff out of the dig." Ace was already in deep enough with Uso so he thought better than to piss her off even more.
 
I didn't promise to not make them silly:

Tomblyn and Scrabler exchange a few significant glamces with one another. They express that they're fine with floating Ace a loan, but doubt that they'll get off the planet unless they strike gold with the expedition.

Their opinion on the money is about as informed as Ace's. The only difference seems to be that banknotes are used almost exclusively by Arccos' sheriffs. Otherwise they all buy stuff the same way. One lot just happens to have moderately distasteful pictures of Uso to comfort a soul on a lonely night printed on the back.
 
Bananaphone

"You want me to pay for everything on your trip in exchange for what? Maybe I get some pieces of ship left over from forever ago?

You already showed me you can't be trusted." She responded. "You've got very little to bargain with."
 
"Yes I know. I did bring you away from danger during the raid Aries told me a clean up squad came in some time after I pulled you outta there. So that's gotta mean somethin right?"
 
"Good point." Ace decided that it would be better to haggle for goods so he went to the weapons shop. "What is the best material you use for your blades and how much does it cost.?"
 
Gus, Guns and Glory:

Inside the weaponry outlet, an old man presumably named Gus sits on a tall barstool behind a glass display counter full of revolvers and large knives. The wall behind him is covered in tall racks alternating between swords, rifles, and muskets of all sorts. Dust hangs heavily in the air, and the shop feels gloomy with afternoon light softly filtering through the shuttered windows.

The old man is rail thin, with a whispy crown of white hair edging his massive bald spot. He wears a patched old cavalryman's jacket. A huge knife in one hand, and a piece of bleached bone in the other. He seems busy/not busy lazily carving an intricate scene of battle on to the bone, and it seems that the shop's specialty is weapons with these same intricate ivory carvings integrated in to them. One bloodshot eye looks up at Ace and his friends as they come in, as he only has the one.

"We got steel, steel and steel. Some got gold or silver on 'em fer fancy gennelmen. Don't got none o' ya fancy-dick space metals. Don't got frontier trash-iron neither. Price depends on what sorta blade yer after."

The shop seems to carry a wide variety of blades. The most popular seem to be large bowie knives under the glass counter, or cavalry sabers which are hung on the back wall. A few dueling rapiers are around, they seem to have intricate ivory inlays and gold filigree decorating them, probably once popular with the Osman nobility.

Quality of blade seems to go from battered things which are just haphazardly piled about, to utilitarian polished steel, all the way up to finely balanced weapons designed as much for show as for their ability to kill a person.

Scrabler, being not the nicest soul indicates to Ace that it's entirely possible that you can kill this man and take whatever you want free of charge.
 
"What I'm used to is twin knives at the length of twenty inches. What do you have in the way of that. I could also use a balanced machete." Ace looked around the shop. "I'm going to dig up some old space junk if I bring you materials and a way to make blades from what I gather could you make me a blade?"
 
There's a reason they don't know:

The old man put down his own knife, and half-finished engraving. The back door of the display case was opened, and he extracted a series of knives at around the twenty inch mark. First was his finest works, laid out on a strip of velvet for the alien's perusal. All finely polished weapons, with intricate ivory handles.

Diplomatically, he also produced a large tankard that would normally hold a pint of algaecole, in it were an assortment of old knives in various states of blunt or rust. The middle-range of well made but not elaborate knives remained in the case, however. Maybe it was a test of character? Something to work out if Ace was a tightwad, or was willing to actually prove a fine patron to the establishment.

There was a good range either way. Some were broader for hacking, others thin and needle-like for singular thrusts. Curved skinning knives seemed popular, as all these seemed to have been made for the former rich elite of the Osman Monarchist days. Only the richest would hunt large game, and have need for such blades. On the other hand, no machetes were produced as examples. He didn't even seem to acknowledge the word as being said, and there wasn't a single one in the shop on display. It was possible that this was a world where no one knew what a machete was.

And then Ace asked the old man if he could make him a weapon from space metals. To which the proprieter fixed a one-eyed stare of extreme exhaustion on the trio of spacemen.

"I said I don't got fancy-dick space metals. Even if I could work whate'er star devilry y'bringin' in 'ere, I retired from th' anvil years ago. I taught m' son ev'rythin' I know, so he could inherit this place." He took a deep breath full of phlegm and spat noisily into a spitoon behind the counter.

"I'm sure he'd be glad t' make y' somethin' once his arms grow back from when you spacefolk blew 'em off."

He didn't sound angry. Just tired. The invasion had apparently cost the locals dearly, and after all the bloodshed they were finally too tired to do anything but surrender to the spacemen.
 
RPG-D RPGfix
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