ButtsnBalls

Cold Front: Antarctica (Completed)

Not as far as I'm concerned, @Zoey White. @Duthguy's post was just Niels' assumption (or a lie).

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 2 (Completed)

6pm, Last Seed 16
Royal Garden, Evermore Castle

---

Maj fainted.

The sight and the mention of Quyon Cox knocked Maj out like a charging Kamal. Ariane tried in vain to shake her awake, but it was not effective. So, per operational protocol, Maj would go back to Used Sundries. That meant Ariane had to haul Maj's unresponsive body out of the royal garden. Maj was surprisingly heavy, even though she wasn't very thick on the outside. A bit of feather spell helps, but it was hard to avoid the attention leaving castle grounds.

When Ariane finally came near the main castle gate, Maj was stirring. Ariane breathed a sigh of relief, but then her hopes were firmly dashed by a tall man clad in black trench coat, standing in the middle of the gateway and block their path.

"Stop right there, pirate scum!" The man declared. Ariane assumed it meant her and Maj, and when she checked on Maj again, Maj had apparently fallen back into unresponsiveness. How could she even drift in and out of consciousness that fast?

Decided that Maj was acting, and doing a horrible job at that, Ariane shook her again. No response, so she slapped her lightly. Well, Ariane slapped her a little harder that she intended.

"Wake up!" Ariane urged under her breath. She stood still as the trench coat man took a step toward her.

"Ow, fine, mom!" Maj grumbled. Her eyes opened reluctantly, then opened all the way to take in the man in black. "Oh shit, it's Lightsleep!"

"What? I'm a heavy sleeper..." Ariane puzzled.

"You are hereby arrested for piracy against the people of united High Rock." Announced the man that's supposedly "Lightsleep".

"You are surely mistaken." Ariane tried to explain, still holding onto Maj as to shield her. "I am Lady Fontaine of Daggerfall, and this is my consort, Kiralla Lima. We're on a diplomatic mission to Evermore."

"She is Maj Noor, part of the Corsair alliance and a traitor." Lightsleep rubbed his gloved hands together; Ariane could feel the static of magicka off them. At his beckon, four guards came to his side. "Take her away!"

"How?" Maj's voice was quivering, devoid of its usual cheer.

"A Nephelle Avalone told me all about you." Lightsleep titled his head back, letting Ariane and Maj see the tip of a all-knowing smirk. "I understand you and Nephelle were quite close, well, she's eager to reunite with you, in death."

Maj let out a feral scream. Magic pooled from her fingers; dreadful illusions and powerful atronachs took shape from Oblivion. But just as fast Maj was able to act, her spells were shut down equally as fast. Lightsleep's smirk turned into a frown. He extended a gloved hand forward, negating and silencing all the magicka Maj conjured. As the spells faded, Lightsleep shook his head disappointingly.

Maj, however, was not deterred. Ariane could sense Maj dipping into the depth of her reserves, pulling energy from beyond Mundus at the cost of her vitality.

"Maj, no!" Ariane warned. Her attempt to pull Maj back was just a second before the spells emerged. However, what emerged quickly collapsed as Lightsleep snapped his own hand into a fist, imploding Maj's spell into itself. Magicka didn't just disappear this time, they caused a violent explosion that sent Maj to the ground. If she was pretending to be passed out before, she certainly wasn't pretending now.

The guards marched forward to collect Maj. Ariane had one hand behind her back, trying her best to form a conjured weapon. It simply couldn't be done for some reason. Lightsleep had created a field of negation with the residual of his magical maneuver, and the guards weren't just wearing typical armor; each of them wore a pendant that disrupted magic. Without her magic here, Ariane realized it was impossible to fight back. As much as she suddenly wanted to protect Maj, Ariane had no way of taking on four fully-armed guards.

So Ariane settled on finding the truth; maybe she could find some way to get Maj back later, with the help of other mercenaries.

"Who are you?" Ariane questioned.

"I am a citizen of Wayrest, and an enemy of pirates." Lightsleep answered. The guards pulled an unconscious Maj onto her knees, and started binding her hands in rope.

"Why her?" Was Ariane's next question. "There are so many...she's not the only..."

"You're right, there are countless pirates out there." Lightsleep took off his gloves to examine his hands; they were patched and raw, as if they had been badly burned in the past. "We can't arrest every single one of them, but we can make an example of a select few."

The guards had secured Maj. Ariane looked to them helplessly, then to Lightsleep; he was applying drops of alchemical lotion on his hands.

"Do you know Maj Noor hailed from a successful merchant family in Wayrest?" Lightsleep put his gloves back on. "She was suppose to be a lady just like you, but she threw it away for 'swashbuckling adventure'. Her family invested so much in her; they and parents like them, need to show their children the consequences."

"But how?" Ariane still had countless unanswered threads. She felt, well, she was unsure how to feel. She had barely known Maj, and of course, there's bound be layers underneath the cheerful ex-pirate. This Redguard was the closest person she could call a friend in years. Ariane hoped, she really did wanted, to get to know Maj better.

"Her parents aren't the only ones concerned about her." Lightsleep nudged his head to the direction behind Ariane. Looking back, Ariane saw none other than Quyon Cox standing partly behind tall hedges, halfway across the garden. Quyon immediately walked away when Ariane saw him.

"You cannot outrun destiny, Lady Fontaine." Lightsleep concluded. The guards loaded Maj onto a horse-drawn cart just beyond the castle gates. Before joining them at the cart's helm, Lightsleep nodded courteously to Ariane. "I'd go back and enjoy the banquet, and try to pick a better date next time."

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 2 (Completed)

5:50pm, Last Seed 16
Kitchen, Evermore Castle

---

Chops-Lettuce had been gone for almost an hour now. As Tsleeixth finally settled into his food prep station and figured out how to clean vegetables to Breton standards, the head chef decided to pay him a visit. She berated Tsleeixth for doing a mediocre job (while the Breton and Redguard cooks were ignored for doing the same), and warned Tsleeixth to keep an eye on his "scaled friend". However, Tsleeixth was as clueless as everyone else about Chops. At this time, servants (including Sagax) were arriving to refill their refreshments and getting ready to set the dinner buffet.

As if on cue, Chops-Lettuce ran in frantically, knocking over pots and pans, and spilling scorching hot beef broth on the chef's exposed forearms.

"What the f-" The chef bellowed.

"Holy hist, Delacourt's dead!" Chops shouted.

"What the f-" The chef repeated, louder, but was once again interrupted by the Argonian.

"I saw them slit his throat! They drained the blood out of Delacourt!" Chops-Lettuce was almost crying. "They saw me, almost got me! They were going to drink my bl-"

Slap!

"Guards!" The chef had backhanded Chops, knocking the Argonian flat on her back, and knocking the wind out of her. For a few brief moments, the kitchen was still, cooks and servants alike stared at the unfolding spectacle. That was until the heavy footsteps of royal guards rushing in, and Chops began blabbering again.

"No, wait, they're going to kill us all!" Chops plead, only to be dragged away by two heavily armored guards. "They're vam-"

"Get this crazy lizard bitch out of my sight!" The chef gritted her teeth, gesturing with one arm and soaking the other one in a pot of cold water.

"We'll send her to the dungeon." A guard acknowledged. An armored fist whacked Chops' jaw, just to drive the point home.

"Back to work!" Was the chef's command. Gradually, the cooks went back to finish their cooking, while the servants took food and drinks out on trays and carts. Tsleeixth was told to fetch more seasoning from the cellar. When he's halfway there, Tsleeixth found himself stalked by the same pair of Breton and Redguard that had harassed him earlier.

"Look at that mess you made!" The Breton approached with a meat cleaver in hand. "I don't know about you, Zavin, but I've seen enough of these reptiles."

"You said it, Teranse." Zavin, the Redguard, concurred. A sinister grin appeared on his face, and a heavy meat mallet appeared in his hand. "Seems like we have a couple of people missing, but no one's going to miss you when we're done here, lizard boy."

---

Edith was listening nearby when the fiasco in the kitchen went down. At first, she was honestly baffled by how stupid the chef was. Then she realized that she was disguised among the working folks, the kind that grinds hours for a set wage. These cooks and waiters weren't mercenaries like herself; they worried only about getting through the job as fast as possible, not doing it thoroughly to earn a completion bonus. Now Edith understood why she was here in the first; Bretons are a lot dumber than they think they are.

As Sagax finished delivering his food cart, Edith dragged him into the servants' change room. "Delacourt's the old man that stopped you at the checkpoint, right?" She asked Sagax.

"I think he stopped someone else that shouldn't be here, and that may be the vampires we're looking for." Edith whispered, making sure no one else was around the room. "We need to see what's going on over there."

Cold Front: Antarctica (Completed)

RIP
Reno Valentine

^{Press F to pay respect}

Cold Front: Antarctica (Completed)

_{Light snow, -60°C/-76°F outside}

---

Day two began with a shocker, literally.

When the start of generators signaled another day cycle, STAB once again powered itself up. Heat and light resumed outside of residential quarters, and as the occupants began their day, they were disrupted by a loud bang. Something had gone haywire in the generator bunker. Looking outside, falling snow was obstructing the night sky, dimming starlight and making the base grounds a foreboding place. Although the main building continued functioning without a hitch, everyone soon rushed to the bunker.

Reno Valentine was slouched inside, dead. Judging by the opened locks and some of his personal equipment lying around, Reno was likely conducting one of his routine checks. A machine near him looked badly damaged, and Reno had the misfortune of touching it when a fatal electrical discharge took place. This machine was one of the back up control devices Jerry Hsu had installed two weeks ago, and no one besides Jerry himself had done anything with it. However, an attached warning label showed it could be easily tempered; anyone in STAB could do it.

As the four remaining occupants gathered around Reno's dead body, their body language difficult to read under their thick winter clothing, suspicion flowed freely among them like the dry heating system in the bunker. A coincidence seemed to be very unlikely now; Reno had checked and cleaned the very same location many times before, and it would be difficult to imagine that he suffered such as accident immediately after Jerry's death. As for the dead man himself, there was nothing malicious about him. Reno had no weapons, no out of place tools and nothing of secret on him; just a regular, scared custodian at the wrong place and time.

What Are You Listening To?

Dervish's Guide to GMing

Wew lad, this @Dervish guy sure GMs!

Cold Front: Antarctica (Completed)

The nighttime actions are confirmed. Day 2 update will come tomorrow or Sunday.

Wow. What A Line?!

Kinda late to the party, but here's another excellent piece from the RP @POOHEAD189 mentioned.

From: The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention
Post Written: Collab
Written By: @Hank
Written Words:

“No,” came the immediate response, blunt and decisive -- or so Narzul liked to think. Truth be told, it was petulant, born from the overwhelmingly frustrating idea that if Narzul had simply been surrounded by Redoran warriors instead, his own people who knew their place (and, more importantly, Narzul’s place), and that if he had a proper suit of armor instead of the low-quality disguise he had stuffed into his chest with disgust, Bleakrock Isle would have been a completely different story. The Armiger’s spear would have glanced off an ebony cuirass and left him unharmed instead of gouging a deep wound into his abdomen. More importantly, nobody would have forced him to be at the vanguard of the party, crossing unstable bridges with mercenaries that looked like they should be dead four times over. He had been a general, for crying out loud, but Dumhuvud had reduced him to a ‘tin can’ without a second thought.

He could see from the look on Sadri’s broken face that the older Dunmer knew all that and was guiding him towards the obvious truth; he was not surrounded by his Redoran allies. Narzul was going to have to learn to make due with what he got and to accept his current place in life. Ashav had made it perfectly clear when Narzul went to properly sign up with the Company that he was just another soldier now, a member of the infantry, and no more. But Narzul’s innate reluctance to accept this was exacerbated by Sadri’s inflammatory tone and extremely disrespectful sarcasm. At the same time, Narzul realised that the only reason he was even listening to Sadri was because the latter wasn’t sugarcoating his words. Niernen had already told him the same things, but he didn’t listen to her. And so it dawned on Narzul why Sadri was so successful at prying open Narzul’s facade; his candidness. Nobody he cared about had dared to be so blunt with him since his time at the garrison as an ordinary guardsman, twenty years ago.

“Perhaps,” Narzul said eventually. His body language softened as he laid the ebony sword across his lap and he glanced away, avoiding Sadri’s face -- he did not need to see the look of triumph that would undoubtedly flit across it. “There’s an old saying that goes as follows: ‘One must row with the oars he has.’ I suppose it’s true,” he added and stared out over the sea.

Context: Narzul is a former general searching for his lost sister, Niernen. He finds his sister in a mercenary company and joins as a mercenary himself to protect her. Narzul's conversation above with Sadri (played by @Peik), a callous adventurer, shows him questioning his superiority.

This is one of the my favorite passages from the RP. We talk about character growth and transformation a lot, and @Hank (with the help of @Peik) just pulled it off perfectly there, subtle yet impactful.

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 2 (Completed)

Remember the final line of this post?

'Ironically enough, fermented piss might be the only thing there I'd be mandated to drink.' Wy thought.

@Spoopy Scary

Turns out @Spoopy Scary has an acquired taste.