Primitive Polygon
🎖️ Game Master
- RP Date
- Late YE 45
- RP Location
- Planet Dynatt (Galactic Northwest of UX-5)
((OOC; A very long JP with @Hollander !))
Late YE 45,
Planet Dynatt (Galactic Northwest of UX-5)
The sandblasted dunes of the Enfron plateau were a desolate place, coloured bone white beneath a leaden gray sky. Only small red shrubs marked the place as capable of sustaining any life, and the plant life was too strange and hardy to act as a marker for decent water supplies even then.
Fruit did not grow. Bones did not completely decay.
Rickidi had received only simple orders, since they were unceremoniously defrosted and dumped on the ground several months ago. Mostly along the lines of ‘crank that gear shaft lever exactly six hundred times’, or ‘go to the ground and overt your eyes when your Kuvexian superiors are here’. Or simply handed a rusty pickaxe near the entrance of a makeshift freight elevator shaft, and told not to come back without ‘two wagons of the yellowish rocks’.
Forced into a sweltering environment like this, Silanbar could be easily forced to work, for access to the singular shared water source on the entire northern hemisphere.
It didn’t matter that the Kuvexian war was pretty much lost. They didn’t know where they were. And from overheard conversations, the governor in the stone palace of the mountains above, well… They came here to get away from that civilization in the first place.
Blinding day… scale-splitting work, dust, heat… ample beatings with shock rods, or withdrawn food rations, for talk or complacency… cold nights with farm animal hay or tarps as bedding…
Everything was meticulous and hard-edged. It was like a finely tuned orchestra, and Rickidi was one of the drums.
How long had it been? How far even was this from Skorlamech?
Today he’d awoken with the thrashing of a stick to the face. Was it a dream- no?
The high arches of the dull place heated up as the light crawled in… Sound of grunting and bustle… but no throat-warble of the Silanbar at all…
His shoes were gone…
Dry-throated, Rickidi gasped into the lifeless air. “Ghegh!? Whargh!?” he asked, as though the ever-present floating clouds of dust would answer him. Blindly, he felt his body, worried that with his shoes, someone had also stolen his feet, or something even more valuable. The Silanbar desperately tried to blink away the eye-gunk of sleep, but this damned dry land seemed to sap all the moisture he had and turn all his liquids into awful, sticky solids. He sat up, wobbly, and tried to identify the source of the bustling and grunting.
Cut stone and stray pebbles kicked by a multitude of tired and disgruntled claws, the bigger creatures of the compound took their fill of the ration food bars from the containers, then left the more conventionally sized monsters to stare each other down for the rest. There was also the daily stress of who was going to be first to access the water tub, too, before it got too rotten to be worth using…
Rickidi could do nothing but sigh. It was another defeat in a long line of defeats that had begun back when… Well, it wasn’t worth thinking about. Frustrated, he dropped his long-necked head back onto the pile of shredded cloth and junk that was his ‘nest’. He ground his teeth, or at least those which he still had, and he slapped his tail fretfully onto the floor. The fins of his tail, once elegantly shaped and actually one of his nicer features as a youth, had gone ragged. He looked like he was waving a tattered flag… The flag of a failed soldier. Of a deserter. Of a Silanbar who had killed a superior officer.
Another morose sigh rose up from his lungs, and he scratched idly at the scales of his chest. “Ugh.” he announced. He knew he needed to eat, but eating meant living longer. Rickidi tried holding his breath. Maybe he could just quit breathing, and go to the dark place you went to when you slept. He gave up on that too, exhaling once again. Finally, slowly, he roused himself, seeing that at least the ragged shirt and one-sleeved jacket were still on his person. A pair of shorts remained wrapped around his waist, and he still had bits of bone and handfuls of sand in his pockets. A meager collection. He stretched, opening his triangular maw in a yawn as he headed toward the water tub. The damned thing stank from here… Rickidi felt limbered up enough for a fight, unless there were Skrumpos in line. Skrumpos were too damned big to fight. Strong too.
Some small measure of luck, but it seemed he’d gotten to the tub chamber right as a massive and fearsome brute called Karagad was just leaving, which meant his many subjects of ire were nowhere to be seen. The water did still stink and was dusted with a froth around the edges that it was best not to think about, though. Same went for why it was warm.
A strange blurting from a distant intercom echoed… Couldn’t recognise the language. Weird time in the morning for it, though.
Water was soothing if you didn’t think about it too hard. Stone basin was a bit arcane too, now he thought about it. Advanced star-folk like the blue bastards… carving something like this?...
A sudden, sharp pain in their foot, endangering their webbing further.
A pocket knife?... No, the end of one of Karagad’s claws had come off…
…The heck did that giant animal eat, to keep himself going?...
Rickidi suppressed a groan at the frothy, and very likely ‘flavor-enhanced’ water. Not for the first time, he imagined killing that wretched Karagad and sparing all of them his cheap bullying. It was the sort of act that had got him sent here in the first place… Why not make it a habit? With a wince, he dipped his forepaws in the water, figuring a little water and ammonia would help more than it would hurt. His ears heard, but his mind failed to understand, the babbling over the intercom. As Rickidi shuffled restlessly, his foot found the claw. “Airgh! Spike-thing!” he hooted, hopping briefly on one ungainly, un-shoed foot before spotting the offending item.
Thoroughly flustered, he nearly kicked the detached claw before his other instincts kicked in. There could be a use for this discarded thing… Maybe even a use like sticking it in Karagad’s big stupid neck. Rickidi leaned down and fetched it, finding that it could end up having a bit of use. He was about to place it in his pocket before he realized that was a risky place to store something sharp, so he stuck it through one of the many holes in his shorts instead.
Thoughts of enemies and dust and desperation got Rickidi thinking. He was alone here, had been alone since he’d been dumped on the planet to mine yellowish rocks until his body failed him. If he really did want to make things better, perhaps by killing Karagad, he’d need a team. Or at least a couple temporary allies. Shuffling away from the contaminated water, Rickidi looked toward the food line, wondering if there were any gullible goons queuing up that might be susceptible to a little persuasion.
The situation he walked in on was more than a little tense. A sandy red creature with one eye called Yrid was butting heads with a lizard he knew as Thakron- Jet black and much too fast with a knife. Neither was even saying or emoting anything, just increasingly posturing towards the inevitable conclusion of somebody getting their head kicked in.
Almost camouflaged against the gloomy sandstone, it took an extra moment for Rickidi to detect a third creature through the damp steam rising from their own body. White and gray striped, this lizard was smaller, trying to sneak around and get to the food crate whilst the other two were distracted.
A little sneaky one probably had their own plots and schemes, Rickidi figured. Tricking a tricky person meant being even trickier which. Would be a challenge. There might be a use for that one though... First, Rickidi headed over to the head-butters, slapping his tail on the ground to get their attention and ducking his head down conspiratorially. “Hey! You! Two youse!” he said, waggling his limbs as he addressed them both. He held up the talon. “See this-y. Being a… foot-spike offa Karagad. The big-dumb.” That part was true. Now came the lie. “I gotta give-back, but not uhh… No good give-back when… People around. Karagad big-shame, loss his foot-spike. Fell off.” He waggled his triangular head, sending his ruddy-brown hair a-shaking. “Two youse… Ever see Karagad alone-time? Nobody with? So I can give-back with no shame.”
“He-he is weaaakkennned~” Thakron rasped in his distinct nasally tone, as if this news was some great stroke of luck. “Yes we should stab and kill and eat!”
“Yes yes, kill kill!~” Yrid agreed with distinct amusement, though their trade-tongue was worse and more hissy, requiring Silanbar-language body moves so they could remember the words in their head.
Either way, the both of them had immediately stopped staring each other down, and were very much more interested in this story about the ‘crippling advantage’ they now had over the biggest, worst lizard in the complex. Just because the red and black silanbar were trying to kill each other before, didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends now, after all. Any additional story about Rickidi trying to help the big guy kinda got lost in the mix… probably for the best.
<Tis only one toe.> The shorter, bone-white, rather portly creature thumped their feet and snapped their fingers, already on their second ration bar whilst body-signaling. <He is still nine times stronger than that.>
Thakron jumped with a start, only just realizing the pale thing was there, and seemed to smolder in their head for a moment whilst they thought about why they should be pissed off at the diminutive thing… Yrid just started eating some bars themselves, whilst the oily onyx one was distracted.
There were about four left in the container, each not much bigger than a brick… Pasty white and flavorless… but, hunger was the best spice...
Rickidi waggled his serpentine body in unison with theirs, joining the body language dance. He kept Thakron and Yrid’s attention as he snagged a tasteless food-bar with each clawed hand. Handing one to each of them as he spoke.
“One toe, nine times, good count, good math.” Rickidi said, referencing the point that the smaller Silanbar had made. “But but but… We gots more toes than nine, we four.” While the sandy-red and onyx-black fellows were hopefully chewing, Rickidi took the remaining two bars for himself. He’d eat one now, and save the other as another bargaining chip. Gifts could be so useful….
He extended a foot, waggling it in the air as if to show that he had all of HIS toes, and so did they… Since toes had somehow become a measure of strength at the moment. “So… Karagad alone… We in a team. Stab and kill and eat a big one. No more piss-piss in the drink-pot.” He shuddered, remembering he’d bathed his own paws and claws in that same fluid, and had then picked up food too. Gross…
Trying to distract himself, he repeated his question, hoping he’d formed these disparate, desperate Silanbar into a murderous confederation. “So… Where he go? Alone-time means alone-guy.”
“Alone? We all alone. We Silanbar.” Thakron hissed, unamused about the concept of being so weak that they’d need a team to defeat Karagad. “Win with many, means nothing. Win with self, you are the strongest.”
Not exactly philosophy, but very conventional lizard thinking.
One-eyed Yrid seemed to deliberate sullenly, visually quite intent on remaining the intimidating void-creature’s friend… But maybe not so thick-headed as to realize their own personal survival in this place might be a priority.
“...You could keeps it… Or you could gives nail-claw to Igniy.” The short, pale creature changed their tune, expressing a befangled, dangerous little grin. Despite their stubby horns and long fluffy ears, this cream-coloured creature did have the Kuvexian-letter imprints on their neck and gut-belly, suggesting a pit fighter… or at least such a dedicated heretic consigned to such a fate, at some point. “You gives to Igniy, she gives you special brain-knowledge only they know!...”
A distant, rolling kalaxon… followed by the familiar static blurt and bored alien-tongue commands. It was nearly time for their shift to start. And it was never really a good idea to leave the blue bloods waiting…
Rickidi bowed his head as Thakron hissed; sometimes a ploy flopped. Silanbar valued personal strength; implications that they weren’t strong earned displeased reactions like that hissed response. Rickidi pawed at one of the scars on his neck, feeling one of the many lessons he’d learned ‘experimenting’ with his unusual propensity for lying and manipulating.
Yrid seemed close to following Rickidi’s guidance…
But then the pale one surprised Rickidi with some suggestions of their own. Igniy… Igniy… Rickdi twisted his head around, looking side to side as he tried to remember. He ended up looking at the pit-fighter-marked Silanbar with just one half of his face. He didn’t know any Igniy, but she had brain-knowledge? Brain-knowledge could be as useful as muscle-pow-strong, as big-jaws. He wanted to question the pale one more…
But the klaxon was rolling off, whining and squealing into the dry, dry wind. Start of the shift. There’d be no more plotting at the moment, no more time to recruit these creatures into a murderous campaign. The other chunk of ‘food’ was still hidden away on his person, a token, perhaps, that might be useful later.
Mechanically, robotically, he started moving off toward the workplace, his body still feeling tired despite the sleep he’d tried to steal earlier. His shoe-less feet already hurt.. Webbing was dried out, mermaid-like tail felt crusty and awful. Rickidi found himself trying to keep pace with the pale one, as he’d already planted seeds with Yrid and Thakron. He hadn’t quite gotten any ‘hooks’ into the white-and-gray-striped lizard. Maybe he had a chance as they walked?
“What’s Igniy?” he asked moving at a slithery pace. “Got a look a-some kind? Big head? Bad teeth?”
He hadn’t picked up on the fact that Igniy was, in fact, the white-gray Silanbar themselves.
“Dun’ say mean thing! I goin’ get angree!~” The shorter one made an annoyed, high pitched grunt, at the same time as their neck autotranslation implant projected the words verbally… Probably not a great time to get into a straight up fight with somebody, but they still had time to scowl and hook their shoulders forward, webbed claws arranged menacingly. “Igniy is very smart! Their brain is very good! I only not want fight Karagad, because nobody helps us if we bleeds!”
A short look around, twisting their head 360, to see if the other two ‘food fighters’ were still following them. The bustle was growing, with many other dinosaurs of different agitations and physical disfigurements emerging from the stonework.
“Red one maybe considering he let you fight big one, and kill who wins! Even you think?-” Body-signaled, just in case. “Igniy not trust!~ Igniy not trust you either!~”
Another flub! Rickidi winced, the pale one’s response definitely seemed to indicate that THEY were Igniy. He patted his paws together as they walked, making his own apologetic noises; it wasn’t his style to play the tough guy role when he had made a mistake. He’d prefer to dissemble and distract and fib. “I dun know what a Igniy is! Hush, hush, didn’t mean a fight-start.” He played like the bunny-eared Silanbar had successfully menaced him, to placate their feelings.
‘Igniy’ then revealed something they’d observed; a plan within a plan. A kill after a kill. Rickidi sighed… Yes, that tracked. Why couldn’t his kind just do what he told them to, and nothing more? They always seemed to have their own goals and motivations after the fact. Very messy. When Igniy declared that they didn’t trust Rickidi, Rickidi believed them.
“Igniy is a very good brain.” he said solemnly, confirming that the grey-striped dinosaur was right not to trust the red one, or Rickidi himself. As they shuffled along, he felt for the claw where he’d stashed it, moving slowly so that Igniy wouldn’t think this was some kind of attack. He handed it to them, making a gift of it. “Do a thing with it.” he suggested. “As a sorry. You-keep.”
The long-eared creature still looked bristled, perhaps suspecting some kind of trick. Perhaps just trying to keep up the ‘act’ that they were tough, and had somehow intimidated this rather nervous, stringy-taller fellow…
A paw wafted, as if indicating he should bring his head closer, though her hooded eyes feigned disinterest, completely overting themselves now. Trying not to draw attention.
“Sometimes, they tell Igniy fix wires... Sometimes she knows things the bluebloods not knows I knows.” The small whispers were encapsulated into Rickidi’s ears, as if a hazardous liquid that could leak out. “Them doors not use keys. They take photo of hand- Look for blueblood hand, I think?... It…”
Another look, getting into the real meat of the concept, now-
“Problem, some small break?- For when you put your hands on picture box- Any of the box in that house- All take same picture, I think?-” A new, insidious little gremlin smile. “One door is open, they all be open, you see? You put your claw-hand on box same time... You see? You see how smart Igniy is!?~”
The fenced-off elevator in the middle of the courtyard was becoming visible now. Orders and quotas audible, though it was in Kuvie-speak and not necessarily understandable to the Silanbar.
A que formed, as it did every day. The fence opened, closed one lizard in- a box on the side automatically dispensed a shoddy looking pick-axe- and then the metal floor lowered noisily down into the gloom…
Only so much time left for Rickidi to figure out what this weird little lizard was trying to tell them.
Rickidi readily leaned in, though doing so was risky. A good chomp to the next could bust his airway or rip open an important artery, and if long-ears was indeed a pit-fighter, that kind of maneuver was very likely in their repertoire. Still, Rickidi dipped in anyway; trust had to be given AND received, right? An exposed neck meant ‘yeah, you could kill me. I’m hoping you won’t, and trusting that you don’t’.
Igniy whispered carefully; it was a little weird, but strangely kind of fun. He felt like a super-spy, conspiring. It made him want to tell Igniy something important to, make something up, tell a false tale about how useful he was! Igniy was smart, Rickidi wanted to have something too, to be unique and special too. He opened his mouth, wanting to weave some story about what HE knew… This compulsion almost distracted him from the important facts Igniy was attempting to convey-
And the fence was ahead. The line was forming. The pick-axe was looking particularly pick-axe-y. And Rickidi was being shuffled and elbowed away from the source of interesting and useful knowledge. He grumbled, hoping he’d have the chance to confer with that clever one further. Smart and sly ones could be tough to puppeteer, but if they were on your side of their own choice… Maybe that was even better? Tricking Yrid would’ve very likely led to a bloody death. The former Silanbar slave-soldier thought this over, twisting and writhing around the thoughts in his brain like a worm wiggling through juicy mud.
Rickidi did make a note, however, about the ‘picture boxes’. Hadn’t he seen something similar on Kuvexian space stations? From a distance, of course. From the pens, where he and other fighters had been kept. Or in even worse places…
Igniy didn’t try too hard to stay attached, allowing themselves to be separated into the crowd. Upon closer inspection, the elevator fence had a little rotating camera-node on top, and it probably wasn’t a good look to conspire and scheme right in front of them… It was also about five minutes before an utterly grueling work day began, so it was possible the pale lizard was taking their lofty dreams of freedom and mentally pocketing them away for safe keeping, too.
The camera shifted, watching each lizard individually as they moved into the hungry maw of the lift pad. It didn’t really speak to them or anything, it just made a beeping noise when the lift was up again, and ready to be boarded once more.
Not a Kuvexian soul in sight. Not that Rickidi had seen one outside of that golden power armor in months… And when they did turn up like that, it was big groups, seconds before they started opening fire.
Beep… shuffle shuffle… ca-clunk… whiirrrr-
Beep… shuffle shuffle… ca-clunk… whiirrrr-
Beep… shuffle shuffle… ca-clunk… whiirrrr-
Rickidi was inside the fence now. The doors were sliding closed. The riveted, two-piece rock smashing tool popped up on a pair of pressurized pegs, and clattered loudly in front of him.
A wobbly shudder under their feet… Some distant sounds of commotion?... That was a little strange-
Then, suddenly- WHOOOSH- A rush of air- something pod-like and silver? Overhead? Was that gunfire he could hear?-
Lower and lower, his body sank into the ground, swallowing him in pitch black, the fence-wiring at waist height, now- The horizontal hatch doors began to lazily slide closed-
Was… finding out what was happening, and trying to climb out, worth getting in trouble for?
Yes… Yes it was. For better or for worse, Rickidi would always have that strange desire to be more than he was. He’d grown up with it, developed it in his hum-drum origins of Skorlamech’s Fat Worm Swamp. The miserable soldier’s life had stamped his spirit down, but strangely, he was springing back up, uncoiling like a snake tucked into a can and finally let out. With a hiss, he grabbed the smashing tool and hustled toward that closing door, thrusting the tool into its open space and dashing through. He’d leave that tool there, perhaps for others to try and use as well.
There was fighting up there! Shooting! There was nothing to shoot on this planet-whose-name-he-did-not-know, unless the Bosses were finally just using them for shooting practice. No, something else was going on. He trained his ears, wondering if he might recognize whose weapons were doing the shooting! And was anyone else around?
For a moment, there was a very strange, discordian silence- The garden of dragon heads all turned towards a glimmering sight in the distance, like sunflowers following the sun.
Something like a silver missile darted around in the distance- No… It had a pair of windows at the front?- Maybe a small space ship? Using two little sidelong pods, it opened fire on the tiny golden specs darting and weaving around it- Together creating a blue-green latticework of laser fire that crawled across the horizon at a ridiculously fast pace.
Just a moment later, the booming calamity of the airborne firefight finally reached them, and pandemonium began in earnest. The camera and the pole-mounted bullhorns started making a long, repeated shrieking sound. Silanbar and the rare unknown gribbly alien slave darted about in all directions- Yelling, growling- Looking for answers, for weapons, for places to hide-
Could this strange craft actually defeat their captors? What would it do to the dinosaurs if it won? Why here and now?
“All workers return to habitation. All workers return to habitation.” Somebody in the control room finally had the presence of mind to press the right language button, today of all days. “Any dissidents will be shot. You will comply immediately. Your Kuvexian masters demand obedience. This will be the only warning!”
The repeating din went on and on over the rage and terror of the crowd. How long would this last?
Late YE 45,
Planet Dynatt (Galactic Northwest of UX-5)
The sandblasted dunes of the Enfron plateau were a desolate place, coloured bone white beneath a leaden gray sky. Only small red shrubs marked the place as capable of sustaining any life, and the plant life was too strange and hardy to act as a marker for decent water supplies even then.
Fruit did not grow. Bones did not completely decay.
Rickidi had received only simple orders, since they were unceremoniously defrosted and dumped on the ground several months ago. Mostly along the lines of ‘crank that gear shaft lever exactly six hundred times’, or ‘go to the ground and overt your eyes when your Kuvexian superiors are here’. Or simply handed a rusty pickaxe near the entrance of a makeshift freight elevator shaft, and told not to come back without ‘two wagons of the yellowish rocks’.
Forced into a sweltering environment like this, Silanbar could be easily forced to work, for access to the singular shared water source on the entire northern hemisphere.
It didn’t matter that the Kuvexian war was pretty much lost. They didn’t know where they were. And from overheard conversations, the governor in the stone palace of the mountains above, well… They came here to get away from that civilization in the first place.
Blinding day… scale-splitting work, dust, heat… ample beatings with shock rods, or withdrawn food rations, for talk or complacency… cold nights with farm animal hay or tarps as bedding…
Everything was meticulous and hard-edged. It was like a finely tuned orchestra, and Rickidi was one of the drums.
How long had it been? How far even was this from Skorlamech?
Today he’d awoken with the thrashing of a stick to the face. Was it a dream- no?
The high arches of the dull place heated up as the light crawled in… Sound of grunting and bustle… but no throat-warble of the Silanbar at all…
His shoes were gone…
Dry-throated, Rickidi gasped into the lifeless air. “Ghegh!? Whargh!?” he asked, as though the ever-present floating clouds of dust would answer him. Blindly, he felt his body, worried that with his shoes, someone had also stolen his feet, or something even more valuable. The Silanbar desperately tried to blink away the eye-gunk of sleep, but this damned dry land seemed to sap all the moisture he had and turn all his liquids into awful, sticky solids. He sat up, wobbly, and tried to identify the source of the bustling and grunting.
Cut stone and stray pebbles kicked by a multitude of tired and disgruntled claws, the bigger creatures of the compound took their fill of the ration food bars from the containers, then left the more conventionally sized monsters to stare each other down for the rest. There was also the daily stress of who was going to be first to access the water tub, too, before it got too rotten to be worth using…
Rickidi could do nothing but sigh. It was another defeat in a long line of defeats that had begun back when… Well, it wasn’t worth thinking about. Frustrated, he dropped his long-necked head back onto the pile of shredded cloth and junk that was his ‘nest’. He ground his teeth, or at least those which he still had, and he slapped his tail fretfully onto the floor. The fins of his tail, once elegantly shaped and actually one of his nicer features as a youth, had gone ragged. He looked like he was waving a tattered flag… The flag of a failed soldier. Of a deserter. Of a Silanbar who had killed a superior officer.
Another morose sigh rose up from his lungs, and he scratched idly at the scales of his chest. “Ugh.” he announced. He knew he needed to eat, but eating meant living longer. Rickidi tried holding his breath. Maybe he could just quit breathing, and go to the dark place you went to when you slept. He gave up on that too, exhaling once again. Finally, slowly, he roused himself, seeing that at least the ragged shirt and one-sleeved jacket were still on his person. A pair of shorts remained wrapped around his waist, and he still had bits of bone and handfuls of sand in his pockets. A meager collection. He stretched, opening his triangular maw in a yawn as he headed toward the water tub. The damned thing stank from here… Rickidi felt limbered up enough for a fight, unless there were Skrumpos in line. Skrumpos were too damned big to fight. Strong too.
Some small measure of luck, but it seemed he’d gotten to the tub chamber right as a massive and fearsome brute called Karagad was just leaving, which meant his many subjects of ire were nowhere to be seen. The water did still stink and was dusted with a froth around the edges that it was best not to think about, though. Same went for why it was warm.
A strange blurting from a distant intercom echoed… Couldn’t recognise the language. Weird time in the morning for it, though.
Water was soothing if you didn’t think about it too hard. Stone basin was a bit arcane too, now he thought about it. Advanced star-folk like the blue bastards… carving something like this?...
A sudden, sharp pain in their foot, endangering their webbing further.
A pocket knife?... No, the end of one of Karagad’s claws had come off…
…The heck did that giant animal eat, to keep himself going?...
Rickidi suppressed a groan at the frothy, and very likely ‘flavor-enhanced’ water. Not for the first time, he imagined killing that wretched Karagad and sparing all of them his cheap bullying. It was the sort of act that had got him sent here in the first place… Why not make it a habit? With a wince, he dipped his forepaws in the water, figuring a little water and ammonia would help more than it would hurt. His ears heard, but his mind failed to understand, the babbling over the intercom. As Rickidi shuffled restlessly, his foot found the claw. “Airgh! Spike-thing!” he hooted, hopping briefly on one ungainly, un-shoed foot before spotting the offending item.
Thoroughly flustered, he nearly kicked the detached claw before his other instincts kicked in. There could be a use for this discarded thing… Maybe even a use like sticking it in Karagad’s big stupid neck. Rickidi leaned down and fetched it, finding that it could end up having a bit of use. He was about to place it in his pocket before he realized that was a risky place to store something sharp, so he stuck it through one of the many holes in his shorts instead.
Thoughts of enemies and dust and desperation got Rickidi thinking. He was alone here, had been alone since he’d been dumped on the planet to mine yellowish rocks until his body failed him. If he really did want to make things better, perhaps by killing Karagad, he’d need a team. Or at least a couple temporary allies. Shuffling away from the contaminated water, Rickidi looked toward the food line, wondering if there were any gullible goons queuing up that might be susceptible to a little persuasion.
The situation he walked in on was more than a little tense. A sandy red creature with one eye called Yrid was butting heads with a lizard he knew as Thakron- Jet black and much too fast with a knife. Neither was even saying or emoting anything, just increasingly posturing towards the inevitable conclusion of somebody getting their head kicked in.
Almost camouflaged against the gloomy sandstone, it took an extra moment for Rickidi to detect a third creature through the damp steam rising from their own body. White and gray striped, this lizard was smaller, trying to sneak around and get to the food crate whilst the other two were distracted.
A little sneaky one probably had their own plots and schemes, Rickidi figured. Tricking a tricky person meant being even trickier which. Would be a challenge. There might be a use for that one though... First, Rickidi headed over to the head-butters, slapping his tail on the ground to get their attention and ducking his head down conspiratorially. “Hey! You! Two youse!” he said, waggling his limbs as he addressed them both. He held up the talon. “See this-y. Being a… foot-spike offa Karagad. The big-dumb.” That part was true. Now came the lie. “I gotta give-back, but not uhh… No good give-back when… People around. Karagad big-shame, loss his foot-spike. Fell off.” He waggled his triangular head, sending his ruddy-brown hair a-shaking. “Two youse… Ever see Karagad alone-time? Nobody with? So I can give-back with no shame.”
“He-he is weaaakkennned~” Thakron rasped in his distinct nasally tone, as if this news was some great stroke of luck. “Yes we should stab and kill and eat!”
“Yes yes, kill kill!~” Yrid agreed with distinct amusement, though their trade-tongue was worse and more hissy, requiring Silanbar-language body moves so they could remember the words in their head.
Either way, the both of them had immediately stopped staring each other down, and were very much more interested in this story about the ‘crippling advantage’ they now had over the biggest, worst lizard in the complex. Just because the red and black silanbar were trying to kill each other before, didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends now, after all. Any additional story about Rickidi trying to help the big guy kinda got lost in the mix… probably for the best.
<Tis only one toe.> The shorter, bone-white, rather portly creature thumped their feet and snapped their fingers, already on their second ration bar whilst body-signaling. <He is still nine times stronger than that.>
Thakron jumped with a start, only just realizing the pale thing was there, and seemed to smolder in their head for a moment whilst they thought about why they should be pissed off at the diminutive thing… Yrid just started eating some bars themselves, whilst the oily onyx one was distracted.
There were about four left in the container, each not much bigger than a brick… Pasty white and flavorless… but, hunger was the best spice...
Rickidi waggled his serpentine body in unison with theirs, joining the body language dance. He kept Thakron and Yrid’s attention as he snagged a tasteless food-bar with each clawed hand. Handing one to each of them as he spoke.
“One toe, nine times, good count, good math.” Rickidi said, referencing the point that the smaller Silanbar had made. “But but but… We gots more toes than nine, we four.” While the sandy-red and onyx-black fellows were hopefully chewing, Rickidi took the remaining two bars for himself. He’d eat one now, and save the other as another bargaining chip. Gifts could be so useful….
He extended a foot, waggling it in the air as if to show that he had all of HIS toes, and so did they… Since toes had somehow become a measure of strength at the moment. “So… Karagad alone… We in a team. Stab and kill and eat a big one. No more piss-piss in the drink-pot.” He shuddered, remembering he’d bathed his own paws and claws in that same fluid, and had then picked up food too. Gross…
Trying to distract himself, he repeated his question, hoping he’d formed these disparate, desperate Silanbar into a murderous confederation. “So… Where he go? Alone-time means alone-guy.”
“Alone? We all alone. We Silanbar.” Thakron hissed, unamused about the concept of being so weak that they’d need a team to defeat Karagad. “Win with many, means nothing. Win with self, you are the strongest.”
Not exactly philosophy, but very conventional lizard thinking.
One-eyed Yrid seemed to deliberate sullenly, visually quite intent on remaining the intimidating void-creature’s friend… But maybe not so thick-headed as to realize their own personal survival in this place might be a priority.
“...You could keeps it… Or you could gives nail-claw to Igniy.” The short, pale creature changed their tune, expressing a befangled, dangerous little grin. Despite their stubby horns and long fluffy ears, this cream-coloured creature did have the Kuvexian-letter imprints on their neck and gut-belly, suggesting a pit fighter… or at least such a dedicated heretic consigned to such a fate, at some point. “You gives to Igniy, she gives you special brain-knowledge only they know!...”
A distant, rolling kalaxon… followed by the familiar static blurt and bored alien-tongue commands. It was nearly time for their shift to start. And it was never really a good idea to leave the blue bloods waiting…
Rickidi bowed his head as Thakron hissed; sometimes a ploy flopped. Silanbar valued personal strength; implications that they weren’t strong earned displeased reactions like that hissed response. Rickidi pawed at one of the scars on his neck, feeling one of the many lessons he’d learned ‘experimenting’ with his unusual propensity for lying and manipulating.
Yrid seemed close to following Rickidi’s guidance…
But then the pale one surprised Rickidi with some suggestions of their own. Igniy… Igniy… Rickdi twisted his head around, looking side to side as he tried to remember. He ended up looking at the pit-fighter-marked Silanbar with just one half of his face. He didn’t know any Igniy, but she had brain-knowledge? Brain-knowledge could be as useful as muscle-pow-strong, as big-jaws. He wanted to question the pale one more…
But the klaxon was rolling off, whining and squealing into the dry, dry wind. Start of the shift. There’d be no more plotting at the moment, no more time to recruit these creatures into a murderous campaign. The other chunk of ‘food’ was still hidden away on his person, a token, perhaps, that might be useful later.
Mechanically, robotically, he started moving off toward the workplace, his body still feeling tired despite the sleep he’d tried to steal earlier. His shoe-less feet already hurt.. Webbing was dried out, mermaid-like tail felt crusty and awful. Rickidi found himself trying to keep pace with the pale one, as he’d already planted seeds with Yrid and Thakron. He hadn’t quite gotten any ‘hooks’ into the white-and-gray-striped lizard. Maybe he had a chance as they walked?
“What’s Igniy?” he asked moving at a slithery pace. “Got a look a-some kind? Big head? Bad teeth?”
He hadn’t picked up on the fact that Igniy was, in fact, the white-gray Silanbar themselves.
“Dun’ say mean thing! I goin’ get angree!~” The shorter one made an annoyed, high pitched grunt, at the same time as their neck autotranslation implant projected the words verbally… Probably not a great time to get into a straight up fight with somebody, but they still had time to scowl and hook their shoulders forward, webbed claws arranged menacingly. “Igniy is very smart! Their brain is very good! I only not want fight Karagad, because nobody helps us if we bleeds!”
A short look around, twisting their head 360, to see if the other two ‘food fighters’ were still following them. The bustle was growing, with many other dinosaurs of different agitations and physical disfigurements emerging from the stonework.
“Red one maybe considering he let you fight big one, and kill who wins! Even you think?-” Body-signaled, just in case. “Igniy not trust!~ Igniy not trust you either!~”
Another flub! Rickidi winced, the pale one’s response definitely seemed to indicate that THEY were Igniy. He patted his paws together as they walked, making his own apologetic noises; it wasn’t his style to play the tough guy role when he had made a mistake. He’d prefer to dissemble and distract and fib. “I dun know what a Igniy is! Hush, hush, didn’t mean a fight-start.” He played like the bunny-eared Silanbar had successfully menaced him, to placate their feelings.
‘Igniy’ then revealed something they’d observed; a plan within a plan. A kill after a kill. Rickidi sighed… Yes, that tracked. Why couldn’t his kind just do what he told them to, and nothing more? They always seemed to have their own goals and motivations after the fact. Very messy. When Igniy declared that they didn’t trust Rickidi, Rickidi believed them.
“Igniy is a very good brain.” he said solemnly, confirming that the grey-striped dinosaur was right not to trust the red one, or Rickidi himself. As they shuffled along, he felt for the claw where he’d stashed it, moving slowly so that Igniy wouldn’t think this was some kind of attack. He handed it to them, making a gift of it. “Do a thing with it.” he suggested. “As a sorry. You-keep.”
The long-eared creature still looked bristled, perhaps suspecting some kind of trick. Perhaps just trying to keep up the ‘act’ that they were tough, and had somehow intimidated this rather nervous, stringy-taller fellow…
A paw wafted, as if indicating he should bring his head closer, though her hooded eyes feigned disinterest, completely overting themselves now. Trying not to draw attention.
“Sometimes, they tell Igniy fix wires... Sometimes she knows things the bluebloods not knows I knows.” The small whispers were encapsulated into Rickidi’s ears, as if a hazardous liquid that could leak out. “Them doors not use keys. They take photo of hand- Look for blueblood hand, I think?... It…”
Another look, getting into the real meat of the concept, now-
“Problem, some small break?- For when you put your hands on picture box- Any of the box in that house- All take same picture, I think?-” A new, insidious little gremlin smile. “One door is open, they all be open, you see? You put your claw-hand on box same time... You see? You see how smart Igniy is!?~”
The fenced-off elevator in the middle of the courtyard was becoming visible now. Orders and quotas audible, though it was in Kuvie-speak and not necessarily understandable to the Silanbar.
A que formed, as it did every day. The fence opened, closed one lizard in- a box on the side automatically dispensed a shoddy looking pick-axe- and then the metal floor lowered noisily down into the gloom…
Only so much time left for Rickidi to figure out what this weird little lizard was trying to tell them.
Rickidi readily leaned in, though doing so was risky. A good chomp to the next could bust his airway or rip open an important artery, and if long-ears was indeed a pit-fighter, that kind of maneuver was very likely in their repertoire. Still, Rickidi dipped in anyway; trust had to be given AND received, right? An exposed neck meant ‘yeah, you could kill me. I’m hoping you won’t, and trusting that you don’t’.
Igniy whispered carefully; it was a little weird, but strangely kind of fun. He felt like a super-spy, conspiring. It made him want to tell Igniy something important to, make something up, tell a false tale about how useful he was! Igniy was smart, Rickidi wanted to have something too, to be unique and special too. He opened his mouth, wanting to weave some story about what HE knew… This compulsion almost distracted him from the important facts Igniy was attempting to convey-
And the fence was ahead. The line was forming. The pick-axe was looking particularly pick-axe-y. And Rickidi was being shuffled and elbowed away from the source of interesting and useful knowledge. He grumbled, hoping he’d have the chance to confer with that clever one further. Smart and sly ones could be tough to puppeteer, but if they were on your side of their own choice… Maybe that was even better? Tricking Yrid would’ve very likely led to a bloody death. The former Silanbar slave-soldier thought this over, twisting and writhing around the thoughts in his brain like a worm wiggling through juicy mud.
Rickidi did make a note, however, about the ‘picture boxes’. Hadn’t he seen something similar on Kuvexian space stations? From a distance, of course. From the pens, where he and other fighters had been kept. Or in even worse places…
Igniy didn’t try too hard to stay attached, allowing themselves to be separated into the crowd. Upon closer inspection, the elevator fence had a little rotating camera-node on top, and it probably wasn’t a good look to conspire and scheme right in front of them… It was also about five minutes before an utterly grueling work day began, so it was possible the pale lizard was taking their lofty dreams of freedom and mentally pocketing them away for safe keeping, too.
The camera shifted, watching each lizard individually as they moved into the hungry maw of the lift pad. It didn’t really speak to them or anything, it just made a beeping noise when the lift was up again, and ready to be boarded once more.
Not a Kuvexian soul in sight. Not that Rickidi had seen one outside of that golden power armor in months… And when they did turn up like that, it was big groups, seconds before they started opening fire.
Beep… shuffle shuffle… ca-clunk… whiirrrr-
Beep… shuffle shuffle… ca-clunk… whiirrrr-
Beep… shuffle shuffle… ca-clunk… whiirrrr-
Rickidi was inside the fence now. The doors were sliding closed. The riveted, two-piece rock smashing tool popped up on a pair of pressurized pegs, and clattered loudly in front of him.
A wobbly shudder under their feet… Some distant sounds of commotion?... That was a little strange-
Then, suddenly- WHOOOSH- A rush of air- something pod-like and silver? Overhead? Was that gunfire he could hear?-
Lower and lower, his body sank into the ground, swallowing him in pitch black, the fence-wiring at waist height, now- The horizontal hatch doors began to lazily slide closed-
Was… finding out what was happening, and trying to climb out, worth getting in trouble for?
Yes… Yes it was. For better or for worse, Rickidi would always have that strange desire to be more than he was. He’d grown up with it, developed it in his hum-drum origins of Skorlamech’s Fat Worm Swamp. The miserable soldier’s life had stamped his spirit down, but strangely, he was springing back up, uncoiling like a snake tucked into a can and finally let out. With a hiss, he grabbed the smashing tool and hustled toward that closing door, thrusting the tool into its open space and dashing through. He’d leave that tool there, perhaps for others to try and use as well.
There was fighting up there! Shooting! There was nothing to shoot on this planet-whose-name-he-did-not-know, unless the Bosses were finally just using them for shooting practice. No, something else was going on. He trained his ears, wondering if he might recognize whose weapons were doing the shooting! And was anyone else around?
For a moment, there was a very strange, discordian silence- The garden of dragon heads all turned towards a glimmering sight in the distance, like sunflowers following the sun.
Something like a silver missile darted around in the distance- No… It had a pair of windows at the front?- Maybe a small space ship? Using two little sidelong pods, it opened fire on the tiny golden specs darting and weaving around it- Together creating a blue-green latticework of laser fire that crawled across the horizon at a ridiculously fast pace.
Just a moment later, the booming calamity of the airborne firefight finally reached them, and pandemonium began in earnest. The camera and the pole-mounted bullhorns started making a long, repeated shrieking sound. Silanbar and the rare unknown gribbly alien slave darted about in all directions- Yelling, growling- Looking for answers, for weapons, for places to hide-
Could this strange craft actually defeat their captors? What would it do to the dinosaurs if it won? Why here and now?
“All workers return to habitation. All workers return to habitation.” Somebody in the control room finally had the presence of mind to press the right language button, today of all days. “Any dissidents will be shot. You will comply immediately. Your Kuvexian masters demand obedience. This will be the only warning!”
The repeating din went on and on over the rage and terror of the crowd. How long would this last?