Khu Ioduan Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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archishellago2018-04-15 12:27 am
khuimods) wrote in archishellago2018-04-15 12:27 am
Entry tags:
Test Drive Meme #004
KHU IODUAN; TEST DRIVE MEME #004    | |
I. THE OPARA CORE - May I Borrow That? The engineers of the Opara Core facility are always on the lookout for new technology they can adapt into the ever-growing web that provides communications across the archipelago and beyond. Their staff are assembled represent a wide swath of the native races in Konryu whose skills are mechanically-inclined, and of Dreamfolk who've arrived and want to pitch in. Part of their standard operating procedure is to take an interest in tech coming in with the newly arrived Dreamfolk. An excitable female Muin, her bright shock of electrically pink hair and matching, jewel-like eyes alight with a madcap glee, is wheedling for whatever gadget you have on your person. "Please?" she asks for the third time, blinking at you hopefully. "I'll put it back exactly how it was when I'm done. I promise..." II. KIRIN RODEO - Place Your Bets! At the end of every month, the Mounted Division of the Sentry holds their skills competition. When they're not on the field, their steeds are often the subject of much admiration from children and more than a few adults. Astride many breeds of kirin, some lithe and fleet, some stockier and stronger, these off-duty officers demonstrate their control and bond over the notoriously strong-willed and intelligent creatures with complicated maneuvers. There's a surprisingly in-depth system for betting on one's favourite to win the various matches, and just about everyone's willing to explain the odds to newcomers. There's only one rule: all proceeds go to funding of the city's charities. (Bragging rights on winning are still yours to keep.) Two bells ring loudly over the crowd - last call for wagers! III. WE HAVE REGULATIONS ABOUT THIS - Munga on the Loose! Munga are ill-tempered, rat-sized spiky lizards with a gift for camouflage, and whose venom in their spines and teeth is also highly hallucinogenic. And... they're on the loose. Fortunately, keeping them is highly regulated, and pretty much everyone in Aifaran knows about them, but loose Munga are uncommon enough that the reaction is more likely to be startled flailing at a hint of spines and skittering. Today someone's exotic pet has slipped out of their hands, and it's trailing a harness and lead as it zigzags away, prickling and hissing and going for the ankles. It's given a wide berth, except by those who don't notice until it's too late or those too preoccupied by something else. Hopefully the proper authorities have been notified to catch and return the creature, but maybe someone helpful can keep it from getting too far away? IV. KNOWLEDGE IS PRECIOUS - Accosted By Monks The Tariken monks are out in full force today, their orange and green robes making them easy to spot in a crowd, and there's a high chance you might be approached by one. Their sect values knowledge above everything else, so recording information from Dreamfolk, who are transient to Konryu, is something they see as imperative. Some of the questions are standard ("what's the name of your world? is it anything like Konryu? do have have any special position there?") but sometimes they move into stranger territory, like what's your favourite bath soap scent and how many times you wear your socks before washing them -- all of which are asked with the most studious attentiveness, just in case your answer holds the secret to the multiverse. V. INTO THE UNKNOWN - Watch Your Back Out There The sea patrol discovered the new irregularity a few days ago, reporting that it looks like a series of tall and jagged stone towers rising up from the ocean. It's incomplete as these planar-shunted locations often are, as if something massive had taken a bite of some mysterious city and then spat it whole into the seas of Konryu. Having been chosen as part of the exploration team, you've been working your way through the complicated labyrinth of stone tunnels and dead ends, searching for what the Opara engineers had enthusiastically described as a potential new power source. "Trace the green glowing power lines," was their (sort of helpful) instruction. However the lean, dark and toothy thing you've just glimpsed should probably be a more pressing concern... warn others? Take it on yourself? Pray it hasn't spotted you? VI. WILDCARD - Because You're Not The Boss Of Me Anything else that doesn't fit the above prompts is welcome, just keep it within the game setting please! Applications • Reservations • Taken List • Game Navigation |
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God, he hates his life.
"Wow, Jack, that's... really great," he says a little flatly, and yeah, it's true that being able to set up a company from the ground up in a couple of weeks and get it running is a difficult thing to do.
But also, the very idea that Jack's making a power grab in this brave new world thing that they're in? That's horrifying. Tim had helped Jack rise to power before; he'd helped him get his robot army and the Elpis vault and the H-source. Handed him the frigging keys to the kingdom or whatever and let him set himself up as a tyrant. Tim doesn't want to do it all over again. At least there probably aren't any vaults around here to give Jack some bullshit eldritch knowledge or horrible alien superweapons?
Also also a thing: Tim doesn't want to have to deal with one of Jack's temper tantrums. And he's pretty sure that, no matter how much he wants to tell Jack to eat shit, refusing him would just piss him off. Maybe... it's best to just go along with it for now. Tim'll still need money and Jack pays (usually), and, if he's depressingly honest with himself... what else can he do? The only thing that anyone's ever found value in him for is hunting vaults. He's kind of low on marketable job skills.
"What exactly am I supposed to do for you?" he says, because yeah, he needs to know that up front. "This place doesn't exactly look like Pandora or Elpis, you know? It, uh. Seems kinda tame?"
Exactly zero bandits. The worst he had to deal with was that overexcited engineer, and she was just an annoyance. This doesn't really seem like the kind of place that you'd really need a vault hunter's skill set.
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In fact, history was still being made! Jack wasn't completely down and out. The Warrior might've been a dud, but maybe there was more to that vision he saw before the Firehawk punched the artifact right into his face. Maybe he was supposed to die and wake up in Aifaran. It already had a lot more magic than those vaults. Tim's presence confirmed it more in his mind -- if he wasn't meant to have Aifaran, the people that gave him Hyperion shouldn't be around.
"It seems kinda tame, doesn't it?" Jack steps away from Tim and gives their surroundings a look over. When he next talks, his voice is serious, commanding attention. "In my timeline, I got murdered by those crazy, backstabbing psychopaths. So did a bunch of other people. My daughter, my little girl... They broke into her room and murdered her. Your buddies Nisha and Wilhelm -- that's what your timeline is, right? They're your buddies? Murdered. For loot." A dismissive hand. "I'll spare the details. But this place... it can bring back the dead. Like their death never even happened. There's untapped magic resources all over the place. It's crazy nobody's even thought to research and control it! If we can monopolize that magic, we can bring them back. Reset the timeline. Make it all right."
Everything that happened was just a setback. As long as he was still living and breathing, he could still win. In stories, heroes were given obstacles for them to conquer so their victories were made even sweeter.
"That's all I want, Jack. To make things better. We can do that by establishing ground here. There's a lot of bandits, untamed wildlife, and mysteries beyond this island. I'll give you a target, and tell you when to shoot."
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"Wait, what?" This is a lot to infodump on him at one time, Jack. "What the hell are you talking about? What psychos? When did something happen to Nisha and Wilhelm?"
He wouldn't exactly call either of them his friend; Nisha still terrifies him in just about every possible way and Wilhelm is just sort of... generally unfriendly. But they were just with him on the mission into Claptrap, and obviously his boss wasn't dead, and since when did Jack have a daughter? None of this makes any sense. He's kind of worried that Jack's been standing out in the sun for too long or something.
"You're not making a whole lot of sense right now."
He gets what Jack ultimately wants him to do-- the same shit he did on Elpis, be a good errand boy and do whatever Jack tells him to do. It's the rationale behind it, this whole resetting the timeline stuff, that he's stuck on. And Tim's life has sounded like the plot to a really bad movie since he got to Elpis, but this is kind of a genre switch and also there's a lot that's deeply concerning about Jack talking about bringing back the dead. Like, there are about a million books and movies about why that is a bad idea and you shouldn't do it, and apparently Jack has seen zero of them?
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"Time and space work differently in Aifaran, idiot. I told you. Untapped magical resources. We --" He gestured between them, "-- are from different timelines. You, I'm assuming, from your clothes and lack of mask... were from when I was sending you kiddies out to get the H-source, huh? Remember the Elpis vault? The artifact and the unspeakable knowledge it gave me? That shit's done. I fulfilled the prophecy. I took over Pandora, awakened the Warrior, died, yadda yadda yadda -- ancient history, donezo, are you getting me?" He gritted his teeth. "I didn't win. Those backstabbing psychopaths, Lilith and Moxxi, got a little help from other Vault Hunters. They ruined my plan and killed everybody along the way."
Everybody that mattered to him. Everybody that he loved. Well, Wilhelm was just kind of this weird robot fetish guy that took one for the team, but maybe if Pandora wasn't such a a shithole, he wouldn't have poisoned him so the Vault Hunter could get to the power core, you know what he means?
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And this is clearly a really bad topic of conversation, there's no way that Jack talking about his failures could ever be better than a shitshow. There's something probably poetic with Lilith and Moxxi coming back to finish the job she started on Elpis-- a job that Tim probably should've finished on Elpis, when Jack had been vulnerable, before he'd gone from just being ten pounds of psycho in a five pound bag to being practically a goddamn king with all of Hyperion's might behind him. But, y'know. Hindsight or whatever, and Tim's also shit at doing the right thing.
"Even me?" Maybe not the best question to ask, but when somebody says they know what happens further along the timeline, it's hard not to. And anyway, he wants to know if he gets brutally murdered by vault hunters. God, he should've listened to Athena when she tried to convince him to ditch once they were done with their missions. "They kill me too?"
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What's important was that Tim wasn't disposable now. In fact, he currently might just be one of his greatest assets. Tim was combat competent and he knew how Jack operated. Jack knows Tim has reservations about him, so if he wants to utilize his talents to their full potential, he's gonna have to win some loyalty back. Back to the bottom of the ladder, Jack. If you wanna work your way up, you gotta kiss some asses.
Jack shrugged. In a grave voice, "I had my doubles sent to Opportunity while I was restoring Pandora." For a number of reasons, mainly for assassination attempts, showing off, and to serve as workers for The Pleasure Palace. "The Vault Hunters came in and absolutely wrecked the place. It was brutal. They destroyed statues, drowned workers, and -- yes, killed my body doubles. There were too many casualties to tell who exactly died there, but it's safe to say you weren't safe from their rampage... Sorry."
His gaze isn't necessarily softer, but it's not irritated anymore. "They say when the Dreamfolk go back to their universe, they return to the same state of when they left and everything that happened will repeat in the exactly same way. But we've both been given magic and a do-over. I don't intend to let it go to waste, and neither should you."
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That's assuming, of course, that Jack's being honest. It's probably... partly true, at least, Jack has the tendency more towards half-truths than outright lies. And Jack definitely wouldn't lie about his own death, so Tim can be pretty sure of that part, at least. Man, all that work that he did, all the people and monsters that he had to kill to get to the Elpis vault, right down the shitter because Jack just had to cark it.
So it's kind of a big thing to ask, for Tim to toss his lot back in with Jack when it apparently got him killed the first time. When he thinks about it, though, there isn't going to be anyone around who's more invested in figuring out how to get back to their universes in one piece. And even if he doesn't always like Jack's methods-- or, like, ever, he almost never likes Jack's methods-- it's hard to deny that he gets shit done. Tim doesn't want to be a stepping-stone on Jack's route to power, but he also doesn't want to be dead. He crosses his arms over his chest, pensive and still a little apprehensive, but, god. What are his options, really?
"...Yeah, okay."
Two words that feel like diving right into the deep end all over again.
"What's the plan, boss?"
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Tim always folds, one way or another. Besides, there's no time for either of them to be on opposing sides when there's a bigger threat to their lives. He gestures for Tim to follow him back to Hyperion HQ.
"Step 1: We get big enough Hyperion influence in the island. More influence means more power and resources. Step 2: Research. I need to gather up the best minds in Aifaran to figure out the magic in the island. There are uncharted areas in the island and beyond that I'd like you and a few of my accomplices to investigate and bring back to them the best you could. Step 3: Use the research to revive our accomplices and get back to Pandora in one piece, harnessing the island's magic to its full potential."
A beat.
"And then... we make them pay, brutally, slowly and without mercy, until all they can do is beg for death." He grins. Not that he's planning on giving it to them.
In front of them was a tall building, much more modern in style than the buildings around it. A path of perfectly trimmed trees lead up to the front door, where the sign 'HYPERION' sits in classic white and yellow.
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"Okay, got it."
It's a simple enough plan for something that'll undoubtedly have a whole bunch of little details mucking it up along the way. But this is the big picture, the overarching set of goals that Jack'll worry about while Tim gets the little things done. And he's just going to ignore the whole... no mercy overkill vengeance bit, because that's a long way down the road. He'll burn that bridge when he gets to it or whatever.
Then they're in front of the new Hyperion HQ, all sleek and modern and manicured. The sense of deja-vu hits him hard-- here he goes again, making the same bad decisions over and over. He hadn't learned his lesson the first time, apparently.
Tim follows Jack.