Fading Memory

The Things We Fight For

The dim glow of a viewscreen reflected in his eyes. The nearly intangible thrum of a capital ship's engines emanated through the walls. The artificial gravity tugged at him in a way that was entirely too gentle. The blade, sheathed and shrouded, stand upright against the wall before him. Weariness gripped him. He blinked away the days of wakefulness. He blinked away the years of memories.

The last time he'd been aboard the Dream of Dawn, Thrax was shattering apart below him. He blinked through the fog of time and stared into the viewscreen anew. He'd reread this page thrice already. Alora approached. He began to read it the fourth time. The words were as new to his eyes as they were the first.

Abberant Integration System, Subject One...

Schematics. Blueprints. Anatomical drawings. Most of the information was redacted, but enough was there to have pulled Joab out of retirement. Enough was there for the brass to have gone to Maui Covenant and put a sword hilt in his hand. Enough was there for Lictor to be here now. His eyes watered. Through the reaches of memory, long bladed forelimbs rose from the viewscreen towards him. His hand tightened. The screen cracked. He blinked, and thumbed to the next dossier. As the now flickering holo-display shifted he wiped at his eyes.

A battle scarred Grizzly. Its paint job and loadout immediately drawing forth the smells of the jungle. Weight crept into his shoulders. He leaned heavier into the chair. His boot thumped heavily on the ground. He sniffed, and smelled the searing ozone of the tesla-trees. The still image of the Grizzly loomed in his vision. The Prometheus cannon spun as a phantom in his eyes. The roar filled his ears. Aberrant ichor and gunsmoke filled his nose. He could feel the earth tremble beneath the mech's titanic steps.

M.C.P.O. Howser, Teddy Bear, New Halcyon...

He licked his lips, and thumbed the cracked screen again. Carnifex loomed beyond the holo-display, the blackened scabbard piercing through a display of the Grizzly's tower shield and the phantom images of long-dead Bishops and Rooks. He blinked. The weight lifted from his shoulders. His eyes fell to the blade as the screen loaded the next dossier. A smiling face shattered his reverie.

Eight-Ball - Last minute addition, routing for accompaniment

That face. Those eyes. A familiarity loomed there. A familiarity that brought him far and away from Thrax. He leaned forward and looked down, away from Carnifex, and into the flickering screen. There was no mistaking it, that boy was a Valenti. He dug through memory. A battle, long ago now, where a man stood with blade outstretched. The phantom of a voice rose from his lips;

"I see the path." He murmured, gruff voice scarcely reaching his own ears. Word had reached Maui Covenant of Ricardo's historic rise in political sway. Word had reached him of a warrior who had taken up the pen. His free hand reached into his vest and retrieved a cigar. As he lit it, the ghost of the Ricardo he knew interposed over the face of the Alto he was soon to meet. He breathed deep. He blinked. He thumbed the screen.

Zejiang Erica Teteh...

He groaned through grit teeth, biting down on the cigar, and swiftly scrolled past the name to the end. Mortuuus-Orbitae LXXXV. He lifted the cigar from his lips and held it aside as he studied the academy reports of the girl's successes and failures. The thick cigar taste mingled with a bile born of quiet fury- but also a quiet pride. He had not kept up with the girl after he put his name on her sponsorship; seeing her career in writing before him was evidence that he had done the right thing. As he read, the cigar burned down until it burned the tips of his fingers. With one hand he crushed the display screen.

With the other, he put the cigar-stub out against Carnifex's scabbard.

---

Lictor was wearing a form-fitting tactical ensemble. Black nylon stretched skin-tight and silent from neck to wrist and waist in the form of a military bodysuit, atop which he wore an armored tactical vest complete with spare magazines, first aid supplies, short range radio equipment, and surplus ration storage which was partially being used to hold a cigar box. A heavy semiautomatic handgun was holstered at his hip, and at-rest in his lap was an infantryman's rifle. Carnifex, as tall as he was when seated, leaned against his shoulder with its rounded point resting between his feet. A radio headset connected to the equipment at his waists, and a tactical visor displayed data-feeds to his eyes.

Eyes which were closed. He leaned here, restfully, seemingly comfortable and at-ease in the thrum of the dropship and with the smells and thick scent of a soldier platoon around him. It wasn't until introductions were asked for that Lictor finally spoke;

"His nose wouldn't be so brown if your breath didn't smell like shit, Eorman. Keep that glove full-a Vaseline?"

It was ribbing, cold and direct, but it bore an unmistakable lack of vitriol or malice. Rather, it was the salted words of the grizzled soldier, an admonishment rather than a challenge. His posture shifted, but still he did not look directly at his companions. Carnifex tilted forward until it stood perfectly straight, his forearm resting on the crossguard as he thumbed the stock of his rifle and gazed into the thirteenth AB sword's black scabbard. His lips twitched upwards as Aissi's whispered echo of Teddy's humor reached his ears.

"I am the Lictor. This is Carnifex. White Dwarf, Main Class." He made a short gesture with two fingers towards Maximus, flicking his index and middle fingers to draw the man's eyes to Lictor's instead of gawking at Aissi. "You're gonna rile up the boys if you keep watching your ass like that. Focus up. I've got the pup."

Alto

Lictor's mind was a calm sea, minor ripples across a smooth surface, few disturbances on a reflective sheen. His harsher tongue and crude words were not of anger or disappointment, but of habit and familiarity. He was at peace, and a certain level of comfort emanated off of him. Like this was, in some way, a return to home for him. He carried an amusement that did not dare outwardly express itself at Theodore, but was unmistakably present.

The Things We Fight For

Lictor

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx B A S I C I N F O [Name] Joab of Thrax [Callsign] Lictor [Gender] Male [Age] 64 [Rank and Designation] White Dwarf - Main Class [Place of Birth]The rubble field formerly known as Thrax [Official Statement] ”Can you look someone weaker— someone more vulnerable— than you in the eye and tell them to go get hurt because you don’t want to fight?” Mood Playlist C O M B A T A B I L I T Y [Anti-Barrier Sword] XIII - Carnifex [Anti-Barrier Quotient] 30% [Physical Description] Depleted Uranium alloyed with AB materials, rendering the blade pyrophoric and flexible despite its immense density and weight. Provided a blow lands with sufficient force, the blade burns along its edge and maintains sharpness through prolonged confrontations. Stylized as an archaic Germanic executioner's blade, when paired with its lead-lined shroud and sheathe the full package of this ill-fated sword exceeds fifty pounds. It is worn over the shoulder on a sling, meant to be shrugged free before clearing the sheathe. In a world of high technology and incredible genetic capability, this is a weapon of deliberation and unmitigated devastation. [Attributes] Carnifex's capabilities are well regarded as accursed among the known AB weaponry. 'Unlucky Thirteen' has been its unofficial title for as long as the weapon has been in operation, for all who have wielded the weapon save for Lictor himself have died from the sword's unnatural radioactive emanations. It produces a latent level of radiation that is lethal within minutes for those who wield the blade. Thankfully, Lictor can handle this and the weapon only serves to enhance his natural capabilities immensely; his inherent resistance to Radiation can be channeled by the blade into his own retaliatory beams and waves of lethal energy. In other words, while in the hands of Lictor, Carnifex is capable of absorbing and deflecting laser weaponry as well as producing its own long ranged counterstrikes. In nearly anyone else's hands, it is merely an obscenely heavy blade for the short breadth of time it permits them to live. [Anomaly] Thraxian Grit [Origin] Line of Eorman - Splinter bloodline [Phenomena] Lictor's Anomaly has manifested in a duality of traits. The first is an uncanny and impressive inherent resistance to radiation, which went unnoticed the entirety of his young life until his enrollment as a Constellation. The second is an immense physical strength and prowess, which was believed to simply be uncanny genetic good fortune and favorable results from physical training... Until it exceeded human expectation. He is quite capable of dealing with lower caste Aberrants in hand-to-hand combat without the aid of Carnifex, and his immense strength makes wielding the obscenely heavy blade seem effortless in the moments where the blade must be drawn. [Limitation] Lictor's body burns an excessive quantity of energy. His metabolism is off the charts, his dietary requirements are staggering, and when pushed to the limits his recovery times can become prolonged. He is a candle that blazes like a forge, but should one withstand the inferno of his wrath then he is ultimately doomed to concede any prolonged, attrition based, campaigns if unaided. He eats a lot, he sleeps a lot, and while he may be a juggernaut in a fight he must pace himself.

Profile [Surface-level Impression] Lictor is a tool, a vessel for a blade, the only means of transportation for the sole item that has defined his existence for two thirds of his life. A grim man, dutiful and critical in equal parts. A man who has witnessed too much death. A man inured to horror and blood. A man who struggles to exist on his own two feet, so entwined is his identity with that of a blade. A man to whom retirement could not stop the nightmares. A man who is not whole without a sword in his hand. A man whose emotions run deep, but dare not to reach the surface. [Personal History] Thrax was a harsh, cruel, uncaring mother world. And yet, the peoples from there were strong. The higher gravity ensured of that, but so too did an environment that would have made old Darwin dizzy with theory after theory on specialized evolutionary traits. Humanity came to Thrax chasing metals; humanity had to bend to Thrax's primal energy to reach them. The violent, tribal, peoples of Thrax became as feral and wild as the world itself. Joab was born amongst these savage and proud people. Joab was born the son of a miner and a hunter. Joab learned to shoot before he learned to read. Joab learned to split the earth before he learned algebra. Joab learned to kill a man before his fifteenth standard year of age. By the age of eighteen, he had conquered six of his planet's eight rites of passage. He had swum to the bottom of the great lake basin; he had wrestled with the humongous spider-like predators of the southern jungle; he had been stung by the man-sized scorpions of the northern deserts; he had drunk of the nectar of the hypnotic honey-flower and seen visions beyond report; he had scaled the dizzying heights of the thick Tesla-Trees, who stormed with lightning eight months out of the year, to claim the egg of the razorbeak birds. The only two rites left to him were the easiest and the hardest of them all. Most by his age had already killed a man, but leaving Thrax on a vessel was almost impossible for most of the denizens of Thrax. Joab was a man, respected, with influence and power among the tribes of Thrax. Joab, three named, strong and proud. Joab wanted more. The military had often come to Thrax to take conscription, to run blood tests, to harvest the youth of Thrax before the planet could break them. Joab had watched his entire life as ship after ship came down to the great space ports, protected fiercely by rival tribes, as his people were forced to eke out a meagre existence trading their resources to those who had the right and capability to ship product offworld. Joab wanted more. His clan went to war. The battles were bloody, but over swiftly and decisively. By the time his clan's colors rose over the spaceport of Thrax's Throat, high on a mountain overlooking the equatorial jungle, Joab was only of two names. When the next military cruiser came through seeking conscripts, Joab was twenty. When he filled out the recruitment forms, it was to the applause of his people that he signed himself to the Constellation program as merely 'Joab of Thrax'. He excelled in the initial training, surpassing other candidates by sheer physical prowess and capability. Later tests cemented his enrollment and bestowal of an Anti Barrier weapon; a mutation in his bloodline marked Joab as the first to express an inherent resistance to harmful radiation. He spent days in sealed rooms experiencing blasts of unseen radiation, exposure to Aberrant cores, proximity to laser blasts, and the ultimate test of being tasked to draw Unlucky Thirteen from its lead shroud. Ten minutes later he was officially a Constellation, at the age of twenty two. The horrendous history of the blade was impressed upon him, as was the astronomically unlikely existence of his unique anomaly. The blade was renamed, but its form left unchanged. Thus was Lictor, the bearer of Carnifex, given his sacrosanct task to execute the enemy's command structure. Two terms. Lictor served for two full terms. His career was thirty years of trawling the void from operation to operation, heralding Carnifex to his sanctioned targets, bringing low the Aberrant foe, and surviving to get to the next battlefield. As colorful and decorated as his career may be, all acts of service or war are shadowed by the Siege of Thrax. Aberrant invasions are either repelled, or the world dies. Thrax lasted longer than most. For four months the planet itself, as it always had in its history, resisted the devouring hunger of its invasive predators. For four months Lictor commanded warriors from jungle trees, river banks, mud huts, desert dunes, and ocean vessels in a ceaseless resistance to the planet's destruction. Every day the jungles he had called home withered more. Every day the roots of the mountains cracked. For every Aberrant he slew, two more high caste entities were revealed. The planet was too rich in biomass, raw resources, and water for the Aberrants to be worn down. They could not find the Princess, and that meant that each day Thrax weakened and the Aberrants grew stronger. The natural might of the planet slowly turned against Lictor with each passing day. Eventually he was on the back foot, racing from defensive effort to defensive effort trying to hold the line. Inevitability struck like a guillotine. The Siege of Thrax was dubbed 'The Massacre of Thrax'. Lictor's name and career were bloodied with the failure to hold the resource rich planet as well as the blame for the loss of several billion lives. The survivors of Thrax know him as a hero; the rest of humanity knows him only as a red handed butcher who failed to secure the only kill that mattered. Lictor did not sign for a third term. His fifty third birthday was spent on transit to a mobile Anti-Barrier armory, where he relinquished Carnifex into its leaden vault. He was discharged with honor, but little fanfare. His fifty fourth birthday found him on a boat, under the sun, on the paradise planet of Maui Covenant. For ten years the ageless warrior fished, swam, avoided official news of the war effort, doted upon his god-children, and sought answers to all his unanswered emotions at the bottom of a liquor bottle or in the blackened vestiges of a pipe. When men in unmarked suits, walking in unmistakable military spook goose-step, approached him one year ago it was to find him filleting a massive fish. They spoke as he descaled the catch. He silently listened as he worked with knife and hand to remove gamey flesh from white bone. A long silence reigned as he cleaned his tools and packed the harvest away. When the spooks turned away from him, he finally spoke. "I'll carry the sword again. You said it yourselves, I'm the only one that can." Thrax The World Rent Asunder Thrax was once a lush planet dominated by a Pangaea continent, with incomprehensibly dense and tall rainforest jungles crossing the entirety of the equatorial latitude. The far southern pole of the continent was a permanent tundra, but the northern hemisphere was temperate by comparison with the ice pole distant from land. It was a dense planet that was larger than Earth, bestowing it a slightly higher gravitational quotient than humanity-standard. Higher levels of oxygen on the planet meant that plantlife grew rampant, grew large, and grew strong. Thrax's native wildlife consisted of insectoid creatures of immense size, as well as vicious predators that turned the primary jungle biome that spanned most of the continental mass into a blender of life and death. And yet deep within the planetary surface, rich ores hid. Humanity came, and where the iron boot of conquest and terraforming failed- adaptation succeeded. For much of Thrax's history, it was ruled by a confederation of intermingling tribal societies that fought one another for control of principle spaceports to amass wealth and import rights over their competitors. When the Aberrants came, the war for Thrax was brutal and long for invasion standards. Now all that remains of Thrax is the fragments of a planet that collapsed upon itself and shattered apart. A ruin left adrift in the void. Deathworld Tribalism Thrax was a brutal planet, ill-suited to human habitation. Hostile fauna, deadly plant-life, but ludicrously rich in raw metals and ores needed in nearby systems. The fierce world bred fierce settlers. The nature was so hostile that the only way to survive was to adapt rather than conquer. The peoples of Thrax were almost tribal in their organization, and superstitious as well, crafting myths about their world to rationalize the horrors of their existence. Most of these myths revolved around a prolonged coming of age ritual practiced on the planet, involving eight great trials of planetary feats of bravery and strength. The people of Thrax are given nine names at birth, and for each trial overcome they lose a name. Most adults of Thrax achieve satisfaction and respect with three or four names remaining. To achieve the full rite and be rendered singly-named is to become legend to Thraxians. The Line of Joab Of the known bloodline of Joab, following his enlistment as a Constellation, he is the first to express the key radiation resistance that defines his Anomaly. Notable Contacts [Name] Kyra Newman [Relation to Subject] Kyra Newman is the fresh recruit that the top brass have hoodwinked into being Lictor's battlefield chauffeur (Read: Pilot); she's allegedly an ace at maneuvering a battlefield in simulations, but she's green. Very, very, green. She has yet to see her first true combat scenario... The brass promised she'd hold up under pressure. [Analysis] Prodigy of a military recruitment drive emphasizing virtual and augmented reality 'gaming' rigs; champion of multiple tournaments throughout her teenaged years, the military compensation package that came to her and her family's mailbox one day was almost impossible to say no to. Her training continued in physical spectrums from the age of eighteen to twenty, and she has just been assigned to the newly un-retired Lictor as personal pilot. [Name] Jocasta Dorcas Mary Lilith [Relation to Subject] A fellow survivor of Thrax, one of humanity's best reconnaissance and scouting squadron leaders. Has refused promotion countless times, wishing to remain on the direct field of conflict with the Aberrant foe. Her recklessness and wrath are second only to her knack for surviving to paint a target on a critical Constellation target another day. Often outlives her squads. Her target acquisition capabilities often directed Lictor into key Aberrant kills. [Analysis] Jocasta D.M.L. and Joab shared a physically intimate relationship that was born with the siege of Thrax and died with the planet's destruction. They found each other in an opportune time, but their personalities could not truly mesh beyond physical attraction. Instead of a romance, they found a profound friendship that was forged into something indestructible as they watched Thrax break apart in their retreat. Lictor pursued retirement, Jocasta pursued revenge. [Name] Beornwulf Kantor [Relation to Subject] Beornwulf helms the mighty vessel known as 'The Dream of Dawn'; prior to Lictor's retirement, he and Beornwulf shared a grim comradery. The Dream of Dawn served as Lictor's primary transport and support ship during his official career as a Constellation. [Analysis] Kantor is the only person from his career that Joab kept in contact with during his retirement. Their regular communiques kept Joab apprised of the frontline developments, and in return Joab would pay regular visits to the captain's family; Joab's retirement was on the same paradise world that Kantor's family lived on, after all. According to official record, Joab is the registered god parent to the three youngest grandchildren of the Kantor clan, who all see him as brother to Beornwulf.

Relationship Map

Critical PC connection - Aissi

Planescape: Search for Tir na Og

Tell that to all the other alternate timeline Zaraknvyrs who exploded without even knowing why.

Planescape: Search for Tir na Og

I’m so chuffed he could have correctly identified a fireball.

Planescape: Search for Tir na Og

Believe it or not he got an 18 (19-1)

Planescape: Search for Tir na Og

@XxFellsingxX Can I use the Xanathar’s guide rule for identifying spells as a reaction? Zizzles is terrible beyond belief at Arcana but he is also paranoid and hypocritical and is gonna squint at the spell.

For short reference, he’d be looking at a 15+Spell Level DC to even try and recognize it. With his -1 to this roll.

A Stellar Tomb

Time to cross the t's and dot the lowercase j's!

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

Hey, crimson is enough different to warrant everyone staring at Brutrummuk when they find my corpse.

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

I should have known she would prey on my worst qualities.

AZUL Islands - Drama, Romance, Mystery, Slice of Life

@Pilatus

Iris was nervous, and try as she might to cover up the sensation it itched beneath her skin incessantly. Words flowed forth from her lips with a natural cadence, but the truth of the matter is that she herself was hardly listening to them as they bubbled organically from within. The initial noise of the flight and the vibrations of the propellors had done well at soothing her, but as their trip increased in altitude and shortened the distance between Iris and her father, the words began.

"...And so, it's about the dolphins, you see. Professor El-Rehman has been funded to study them, particularly since they seem drawn to Azul..."

She shifted in the seat of the Cessna, her legs shifting and stretching in what space they could claim. She constantly looked over at Chris as the words meandered from her lips. With all the equipment packed in there was only one natural place for Iris herself to sit; up front, up close. Her nose wriggled every so often, the smells of the plane, and of Chris and herself, assaulting her senses. She drummed a hand upon the thigh of her sweatpants and shifted again, scratching at her calf with the heel of her sneakers. Another shift in the tributary of her one sided conversation.

"...And yeah, Miami, it was nice. But you've probably been everywhere, right? God knows I'd have flown farther than just to the edge of this horizon if I were you. Anyway, the beaches there were nice. Scenery was good. This past spring was absolutely killer, this friend of mine had just bought a drone, so we were laying out on the beach and..."

She fidgeted again, her anxiety now wriggling up her spine. Her hands moved with it, tugging at the collar of a baggy shirt that couldn't quite stay on her shoulders. She looked out the window and down at the sea, scanning the distance as she filled the conversational space with verbal white noise. Isla Ramilo was nearly visible in the distance. She squinted, and felt the tingle of dread finally creep all the way up her neck and into her scalp. She shifted the headset on her head, scratching a hand through loose and wild hair to tug it back from her face and use the headset as a hairband, keeping the bangs out of her eyes. Before she could continue speaking she had to pause for a moment. Chris had spoken and she wasn't really expecting that. Nor was she really listening.

"--What-- oh, me? Really?"

She looked back over to him, staring for a few moments into his sunglasses. She met his smirk with a grin.

"Mm, brave man." Her hands slowly reached out and braced on the yoke, tentatively wiggling them slightly to test for any dead zone in the steering. She makes a breathy noise of indeterminate emotional origin at the negligible rolling of the plane at her own action. "--Alright, talk me through this, big guy. As much as I wish I was flying the opposite direction, I'd still rather land than explode in the ocean. I'm all ears."

Her smile reached her eyes, a genuine and not-so-feigned smile of mild thrill relaxing onto her features. She didn't quite seem to realize that her efforts of trying to hold still were already causing the plane to roll ever so slowly to the right.