ctrlsaltdel

Eidolon: Conspiracy Theory

@Digmata yeah, we can say she just takes them; if she wants to do something with them that could ve a good candidate for a Gather Information downtime move.

Eidolon: Conspiracy Theory

"Oh you were barely an inconvenience, Mr. Leeds." Luka reassured Jehoshaphat. "The man chasing you was a lot more troublesome. Very nearly blew the diner up if you can believe it... Speaking of, if him and his are harder to lose than the usual riff raff, then perhaps you should lay low for a while before heading back to the Pines. If they can't find you in your forest for long enough, they might start thinking you moved somewhere else after your run in with them. And then once they've started snooping around other forests instead, you can head home and not have to worry about them disturbing you again."

@rush99999

Jehoshaphat showed all of his teeth; the effect was somewhat like watching a llama get ready to spit. "Why, that's an incredibly kind offer, sir. Tell you the truth, I'm not sure I could get back without help, at least as far as the edge of the city." He rose to his hind-hooves and traipsed over awkwardly, reaching down to shake Luka's hand with his fore-hooves. "Truly I was blessed to have come across such a kind and generous soul!"

Nerves In Carbonox: A Roll-Your-Own Giant Mecha Roleplay

Sanro and Nero Marques

---

Fortress Ship Solaire - VR Training Complex

---

Sanro was putting his fatigues into the locker, fully changed, when Nero came through the door of the locker room. The former raised his eyebrows: Cutting it close enough? Nero shrugged at him; even as he spoke, he began stripping. "I went walk over to the Frame; ran into Rose and some of the Rosnian contingent. Good people. Lost track of time."

Nero had yet to see real combat, but he was practiced at this part, and was pulling on his skinsuit within moments. "How about you?" he asked as he pulled the suit's gloves tight. "How did your talk with the Lieutenant go?" Sanro stood leaning against the locker next to him, drumming his fingers against the doorframe; his only response was to make a grunting noise and avert his eyes from his brother.

"I see," Nero murmured. He sealed the skinsuit up, straightened, and stretched his hands up into the air, taking a deep breath in exertion. Then he let it out, his arms dropping, and held up a fist towards his brother.

Ready?

Without looking, Sanro rapped the offered fist with his own.

Let's go.

---

"Critical systems check, complete. Power systems nominal. Legionnaire Interconnect System fully functional."

The various bits of white "armor" on Legionnaire flexed and shifted, vernier thrusters pointing in various directions as the machine vented coolant. Inside the cockpit, Nero's hands flew over the keyboard as he looked over the readings. The spherical holo-display in front of him currently showed a projection of Legionnaire, flashing various shades of yellow and orange which one-by-one turned green, and various bits of information presented themselves as they became available.

In the other cockpit, Sanro gripped his own controls experimentally; his systems hadn't yet been engaged, so the machine stayed still, but the resistance of the grips set him at ease.

"Onboard weapons check. Assault rifle, check. Energy projection module, check." The hands of the machine glowed briefly, then went dull again.

Sanro reached over, flipping his own communication set to the squad channel.

"Copying you both, Logic Diver, Goliath Buster," he said, his voice calm.

"Drone system check. Gladius drones, one through eight--" The "feathers" of the single wing hanging off Legionnaire's back rippled and undulated as the eight drones performed systems tests.
"--all check."

"I know we don't know each other very well, but I'm counting on all of you."

"Parma and Scutum drones: fully charged. Augury drones alpha, beta, gamma, delta, prepped for launch."

"And in return, you can count on me and my brother."

Nero brought his finger down one last time, and the holo-version of Legionnaire glowed green. "All systems check!" He reached over, switching his coms to the squad channel as well. "Remus, ready!"

Sanro grinned and leaned back in his shock frame, arms crossed, as a small monitor near his knee showed the same all-good diagram. "Romulus, ready. Legionnaire, ready to deploy!"

Nerves In Carbonox: A Roll-Your-Own Giant Mecha Roleplay

Nero Marques, Val, & Rose

---

Fortress Ship Solaire, Framewerk Hangar - collab. w/ @DracoLunaris

---

Having dropped off his things in the barracks, Nero walked through the maintenance door to the Framewerk hangar. Their brief stop there had confirmed for him that his and Sanro's frames had made it over, but something had compelled him to come back and give his machine a quick once over before training.

He admitted to himself that it didn't make much sense. Even if either element of Legionnaire had an issue, that wouldn't affect the VR training--and the same was true of any diagnostics he did. But he didn't have anything better to do with his time, so here he was.

Nero walked down the row of giants, looking for Romulus and Remus. Before he found them, though, his eyes were drawn to a curious-looking machine. Rather than the humanoid or semi-humanoid shape used by most Framewerks, this one resembled some sort of cephalopod. Also unlike many of the other machines in the hangar, this one was being actively attended to--and by Rosnians, no less.

He hadn't encountered many of the aliens, but he'd known a few, both in college and in the military. At the very least, he was able to pick out that this crew belonged to one of his fellow squadmates. Said squadmade--Rose, if he remembered right--was standing next to the frame where it stood inert. She was engaged in what sounded to him like an energetic conversation with a pair of what Nero assumed to be her crew--though with Rosnians it was hard to tell from a distance.

One Rosnian sat a short distance away from the rest--she was perched on a crate, looking at something on her holo-tab that Nero couldn't see. What he could see, though, was the military R&D ID card hanging from her neck.

For a second, he thought about continuing on to find Remus--then swerved, walking towards the sole Rosnian.

"Uh, hey. Sorry to bother you, but I saw your keycard." Nero gave her a wave and wiggled his finger around where a keycard would hang on himself. "I actually just got assigned out from R&D myself. Name's Nero Marques."

The Rosnan’s third eye, which had swiveled towards him as he approached, swiveled back down to what she had been reading even as the rest of the Rosinan’s features swiveled their focus to him. Her ears had raised in slight surprise at his approach, and then more when he told her his circumstance, which also caused her third eye to flick up again.

“To piloting!” she began forgetting, it seemed, to preface/amend this with an emotion, before her third eye looked up at the ceiling as she then said “Politeness: I am called She by whose hands we will forge a new age of wonders but you can call me Val!” with exactly the same tone as her initial statement.

Same went for “Curiosity: How can I help you, Cadet Marques!” as she put the device down, giving him almost all of her attention, sans that of her now wandering eye.

Nero laughed nervously. "Yeah, I don't quite get it, either. Well, it's nice to meet you, Val." Something seemed to occur to him, just then; his head tilted slightly to one side, and his eyebrows perked up.

"Speaking honestly, I just wanted to introduce myself. It's been a bit of a culture shock over the past couple of months, so I'm glad to see someone whose experience is more like mine in the hangar."

The young man straightened up and his expression turned curious. "Do you work on the Framewerk side of things, or are you on other projects?" Suddenly, he made a noise and pinched his nose. "Ack! I'm sorry, I'm being rude. If you're busy, just let me know and I'll get out of your hair."

Val’s third eye glanced up at her bald head as the woman herself made a clicking sound that she then clarified that she found this “humorous!” before saying “Placating: do not worry! We got all the professors’ modifications done already, so I am mostly killing time waiting for your test to start! ”

Having somewhat let on what her deal was anyway, she then proceeded to answer his question explicitly “helpful clarification: I am part of a team helping combine our tech with your tech to make something better than both! That mostly involves Framewerks here, but they’ve had us work on all sorts of different fields over the years, a few of which are part of the ship we’re on!”

Her ears had been wiggling animatedly as she spoke about that, before they stilled and she added “Apologetic tempering of expectations: I don’t have clearance for the blueprints, but I have noticed a few things while I’ve been here that are ours!”

"Oh?" Nero's eyebrows shot up. "That's really interesting! I haven't worked with many Rosnians, but I took a class on comparative computer systems in university, and I have to say that the way Rosnian architecture handles parallel data streams is really interesting."

The young man squatted on another nearby crate, his attention now very clearly focused on the conversation. "I tried to use some of the same principles when I was working on the command and control system for Legionnaire's drones, and the efficiency gains--" Nero started prattling on in that vein, his intention to visit his Framewerk before the training session all but forgotten.

Val, as it turned out, was more than happy to join in, and the minutes began to rapidly tick away without either one of them keeping track of them. Indeed, their nattering only came to an end when a certain Rosnian approached and cleared her throat.

So deeply engrossed had her daughter been, that she startled, ears perking right up in surprise and third eye glancing around wildly.

“Casual reminder: We have a test in 7 minutes!” Rose informed them, which startled her daughter even harder, the Rosnian saying “Ah! I need to be at observation!” in her tongue as she hopped up, before offering “I have to go! We should talk again!” before moving off in a hurry, only to glance back and toss back “apologizing and genuine!” to clarify her tone before continuing to hurry away. She was intercepted on her way out by her sister, who after a burst of Rosnian speech promptly tagged along.

“Light teasing: you two seem to have been getting on well!” Rose said once farewells had been said, or rather yelled. The older woman’s eyes sparked with amusement as she watched her daughters go, quite sure they’d be on time, while her third glanced Nero up and down, as if inspecting him.

Nero was just as startled as Val, but he recovered quickly and gave her a wave and a smile good-bye as she ran off. That meant he was facing away from Rose as she teased him, which was a good thing, since her comment sent him blushing--as much from the forthright admission that she was teasing him as anything. He spun around and turned his smile on the other Rosnian. "Oh, yeah, I guess so. Rose, right? It sounds like we ought to get going, too. Mind if I walk with you?"

“Polite agreement: of course!” she agreed, main eyes flicking to a holo-tab on which a little map was displayed while her third kept him in view. “Confident: this way” she asserted, ears flicking in a direction that she manually pointed to a moment later, before setting off.

Nero fell into step behind Rose, hands in his pockets. "You seem to know your ground crew pretty well," he mentioned offhandedly. "How long have you been working with them?"

The woman tilted one ear up and one down as she said “thoughtful: Quite a while for some! Ram and Rem are Fixi’s childhood friends, and Lilly Cheng’s been part of the crew since they started dating her a few years back!” all three eyes flicked to him for a moment, before she went on “Des, Hol and Noel joined when I was promoted to framewerk pilot, though (joke) you could say my crew from my starpilot days joined them instead!” before rattling off a few more names who’d joined up since then, as well as a few who had left for what seemed to be positive reasons.

Nero's smile grew gentle and wistful as Rose went on about the various members of her crew, both past and present. "You know," he interjected, once she had finished listing off the members of her team, "I'm a little jealous. I'm glad I've finally gotten to see--" Something seemed to catch in his voice; Nero looked uncomfortable for a second, cleared his throat, and continued. "--to see my brother again, but I haven't seen my parents in going on two years now. It must be nice to have people like that with you wherever you go."

“Assertion: Rosnians stick together” the woman, who had not picking up on the vocal hitch or facial expression, replied, before she insisted “We have to, with all we’ve lost, or we’d be scattered to the waves”

Had she instinctively understood his human mannerisms, or had had time to process them, she would have offered comfort there and then, but at it was, with the time they had, she only had his words, and so in response to them was “Genuine offer: if you want to talk about it, you can with me. Or val. It has been a long time since I saw her and I… she knows what that is like!”

Nero nodded as she spoke. He hadn't really though of it like that, but it made sense. 'We have to stick together with all we've lost', huh? The young man's look turned serious, and he regarded Rose for a moment. He was no better at reading her body language than she was his--probably worse, in fact. But... the loyalty she clearly inspired in others gave him the sense that he might be able to trust her too.

He nodded at her. "Thanks, I really do appreciate it." Looking up again, he came to a stop; their conversation had carried them all the way to the lockers adjoining the VR training room. "Well then. Glad we got to talk, Rose. I guess I'll see you inside."

“Enthusiastic; See you there!” she echoed, before they went their separate ways into the gendered changing rooms.

Scum and Villainy [Firefly/Cowboy Bebop/Star Wars Inspired, Forged in the Dark]

Thanks, all! Three is the minimum number of ppl I was looking for. I'll probably wait a bit before posting to see if there's a fourth person interested, but I'll start working on Something™.

@Penny,@rush99999--do either of you have thoughts on ship choice/game focus?

Eidolon: Conspiracy Theory

"If - as your titles imply - you make your home in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, then I'd say you are a few steps off the beaten path." Luka said with a nod of confirmation. "Right now, we're in the middle of New York City. As for how you got here, I only know the last few steps you took. At some point, someone who doesn't like you decided to try and make you explode. He chased you into a diner where my friends and I frightened him away. After that, I calmed you down with some music and brought you into my limo. Which brings us to now..."

@rush99999

"Oh. My." Jehoshaphat looked as shaken as his demonic features would allow. "I... do remember someone pursuing me in the woods. In fact, they chased me for quite a while." He took a deep breath. "Let me tell you, Mr. Durand, I've been living in those woods for a long time, and a lot of people have tried to find me. Normally, I can escape anyone in that forest, but every time I thought I had finally lost them, these people seemed to catch up with me." He looked around the limo again, though he didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. "New York City... wow. I guess it's no surprise I can't remember anything! I must have been scared out of my wits!" He looks back at you, Luka, and give you what you're pretty sure is supposed to be a smile. "Well, it sounds like I owe you and your friends my thanks, and more besides! Gosh, I hope I wasn't too much trouble."

I Arrive

Welcome! This guide has pretty much all the info you need, but as a quick overview: you can look in the Interest Check topics to find people gauging interest for games that haven't started yet, and you can check the status of active topics (either "Jump In", "Apply", or "Full") to see which games are accepting new people and what the process is for joining.

Eidolon: Conspiracy Theory

Caught off-guard by Mister MegaTen suddenly gaining the ability to speak, Luka spent a few moments blinking in abject confusion at this sudden turn of events. It didn't take him long to regain his mental footing though. Straightening himself up, Luka cleared his throat and then spoke his reply.

"I am Luka Durand." Luka introduced himself. "And we are currently in my limo. Please do not worry. You are quite safe here... Might I know who you are?"

@rush99999

"Oh, yes, thank you. It's nice and dark and quiet in here." The creature shivered; its chimeral form made the motion unsettling. "I get... nervous... when there's too much light. Or too many people." The huge eyes blinked again, focusing on Luka.

"It's very nice to meet you, Luka Durand. Most people know me as the Devil of the Pine Barrens, or just the Jersey Devil." It lifted one cloven hoof to scratch at its snout, and its face twisted in something that might have been a frown. "But I always thought that was kind of a mean name. You can call me Jehoshaphat Leeds." That long head swiveled around, taking in the details of the car. "If I may ask, how did I get here? It feels like I'm a long way from home."

Eidolon: Conspiracy Theory

Once they were gone, Luka willed the limo to become bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Once Luka had created enough space that he felt confident Mister MegaTen wouldn't start feeling trapped, he took hold of the pan that had been obscuring his new pet's vison and lifted it away.

@rush99999

Its improvised headpiece now removed, the spindly creature blinked in confusion and looked from side to side, taking in its surroundings. For a moment, it started to revert to its previous erratic behavior--and then something about the still-dark interior of the limo seemed to put it at ease. Instead, it blinked its large, black eyes, and turned to Luka with comprehension, if not recognition.

"Oh. Um. Hello." The voice that emerged was that of a young child--utterly incongruous with the long, leathery snout that produced it. As it spoke, the creature adjusted its posture until it was sitting... well, as upright as its physiology would allow. It sounded polite, confused, and just the slightest bit worried. "Ah. Um. Who are you? And where are we?"

---

Game Stats

Phantom Clock: 1 PM
Party Experience: 2
Fate Deck: 22/22

Luka Durand

Damage Track: Fresh

Emily Sanderson

Damage Track: Fresh

Ashley Whitlock

Damage Track: Fresh
Ready For Anything: N/A during downtime

The Crow

Damage Track: Fresh

Eidolon: Conspiracy Theory

Just checking in to see if anyone needs anything. Let me know if you have any ideas for downtime moves/tie scenes you want to discuss, or if you just have a question I can answer!