Terminal

The Arena Inbetween has moved

Have you considered putting this in the Arena Roleplay Subforum? I realize not all the events are strictly combat-oriented, but they cater pretty specifically to your premise if nothing else and they have several roleplayers experienced with this sort of thing.

If you do not feel like having the whole thread moved, you might also consider just posting a connected interest check there.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

If you do not mind him being tracked by either another hunter or Theron for another meeting, do let me know, I am sure there would be no shortage of added questions they would have, @Terminal.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Either Theron or somebody else works. If you want to collab something again that's fine, or alternatively just have them set out on the path and I'll lead them in the right direction.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

If Intellitron is looking for something for Theron to do while they are pumping Golemeth for information, here's a suggestion if you are up for it. Tracy has distinct traces in the parts-per-million of refined Plutonium-239 in the fabric of his clothes and duffel bag, and given that most of their leads came from his line of questioning it is probably not too big a leap of logic for them to want to question him in turn. Especially since he likely knows a lot he was not saying.

The best part being, Theron is already geared to track Tracy down, given the normal trace amounts of background Plutonium are so low - even in Night City - that all he has to do is go back to where he last met Tracy and he could probably trace him all over town.

Bellum Numquam Mutat (B.N.M.)

The Zion New Unity

Territory: Southwestern Half of Zion Canyon

Population: Super Mutants, Nightkin, Humans

History

When the Legion expanded into New Vegas after their crushing victory at the second battle for Hoover Dam, Courer Six - Legate Six's actions in the Mojave had profoundly altered the disposition of the Wasteland Super-Mutants and Nightkin. The 'state' of Utobithia had dissolved after Legate Six persuaded Tabitha to leave peacefully, with many of its members leaving to eventually rejoin with the Jacobstown Mutants. The leader of the Cult of Antler, Captain Davison, had likewise been persuaded to peacefully leave the Reppconn headquarters once it had been revealed the shipment of stealth boys sent there by mistake had been returned. Unable to track the shipment any further, he and his Nightkin returned to Jacobstown as well.

When Legate Six reached Jabostown itself, they willingly assisted Doc Henry in curing the Nightkin of their Schizophenia via the rediscovery and analysis of the Stealth Boy MK. II, and convinced the leader of the Jacobstown Nightkin, Keene, to remain there with his people.

When the Legion expanded into New Vegas after their crushing victory at the second battle for Hoover Dam, they thus encountered very little resistance or troubles involving Super Mutants or the Night Kin. Marcus and Keene, despite their misgivings concerning the Legion and its modus operandi, would ultimately weigh whether to resettle or bargain with it due in part to the efforts of Legate Six. In the end, Marcus and Keene elected to willingly submit to the Legion, becoming a subject, dissolute settlement obligated to pay taxes and tithes in exchange for Legion protection. Their willing subjugation was only possible in light of the assistance of Legate Six, and only because the Legion had not encountered any problems with super mutants elsewhere in New Vegas. The single most influential factor, however, was the simple fact that Marcus recognized that Caesar would not live forever - and decided that the long-term benefits of working with the Legion temporarily would far outweigh the detriments.

Despite that, the Legion's discriminatory outlook towards Mutants saw them affixing the Jacobstown Mutants with a much heftier tithe than normal, as well as a stipulation requiring the mandatory auxiliary service of a certain quota of Mutants every year. Further, although Caesar was willing to tolerate the existence of the Jacobstown mutants, he found their proximity to his new, glorious Nova Roma to be distasteful - seeing a way to kill two birds with one stone, he therefore granted the Jacobstown Mutants a dispensation of land where they could peacefully resettle within Legion territory.

Zion Canyon. The same Zion Canyon where a certain nigh-mythical figure manifest in the Burned Man was rumored to reside. The same Zion Canyon the White Legs, a Legion auxiliary tribe, had been driven from in humiliation and defeat by the warlike tribes, the Dead Horses and the Sorrows.

Not anticipating Caesar's intent that the Mutants and tribes should grind away at each other, Marcus and Keene accepted the dispensation as an unforeseen opportunity. Under the protection of the Legion and thanks to some supply relief from the Boomers at Nellis Air Force Base, the Jacobstown Mutants were able to make the journey to Zion Canyon without incident, and at the specific recommendation of the Legion occupied Three Marys, where the White Legs had previously resided. Marcus and Keene, upon their arrival and initial settlement, optimistically named their Mutant colony the New Unity.

The Mutants and the tribes of Zion shortly came into conflict when the tribes learned of the Mutants' subject status under the Legion. Although the New Unity had several advantages over the tribes - their physical strength and resilience, their heavy ordinance, the Nightkin and their stealthboys - they remained largely outnumbered in unfamiliar territory. The tribals took to erecting traps to maim and kill mutants out on patrol or who became too bold, and the Nightkin found their favored stealth tactics countered by the sharper hearing and senses of tribal trackers. Compensating in turn, the mutants began to litter their territory in Zion canyon with barrels filled with radioactive waste, helpfully provided to them on-request by the Legion, eager to dispose of the hazardous materials - and taking further advantage of heightened wasteland security throughout Legion territory, the New Unity broadcast messages and instructions throughout the Midwest instructing mutants everywhere to flock to Zion canyon, while mutant Legion auxiliaries and scouts were able to peacefully negotiate with a number of wasteland mutant bands, convincing them to join as well. The mutant presence in Zion canyon steadily began to grow despite the casualties inflicted by the tribals, and as more and more mutants arrived they brought with them more fixtures of their culture - centaurs, gore-bags, heavy weapons, rebar, and repurposed scrap. As the Nightkin continued to prove themselves of greater and greater use to the Legion as auxiliaries, the Bull saw fit to supply the New Unity with a portion of its bountiful cache of stealthboys, normally reserved for use by Frumentarii, and assigned slaves to help clear portions of the Western entrance into Zion Canyon, enabling more regular overland travel between it and the remainder of the Legion's territory. The tribals of Zion canyon found themselves less able to infiltrate into mutant territory, and also saw themselves being pushed further and further back by the constant influx of mutants and their deformed pets - and were also taken aback when the land itself began to betray them, becoming twisted and unwholesome as radiation seeped into the waters and plants of the canyon. Though it seemed at first the Mutants finally had the upper hand in their battle for the Canyon over the tribals, the conflict was again turned on its head as the tribals began to acquire more and more of the very same heavy ordinance the mutants themselves were so prone to use, either stolen or else claimed as spoils of war. Under the instruction of the Burned Man, the tribals were able to make limited use of the heavy weapons - limited, but to great effect. This proved to be but the first of many new methods employed by the tribals in safeguarding what remained of their home.

Now with news of Caesar's death arriving at Zion, it remains to be seen how the conflict will unfold, given that Marcus and Keene would not otherwise care to battle with the tribals were it not for officers of the Legion breathing down their necks...

Government

The New Unity is a hierarchy predicated upon seniority. By dint of being one of the oldest super mutants remaining in the West, and being one of the few to have personally served in the Master's army, Marcus is widely accepted as the de-facto leader of the New Unity. However, the Nightkin, particularly those who joined the Jacobstown mutants along with Keene and Davison, insist that the Nightkin have rightful seniority over any lesser caste of mutant, as in the First Unity they served as the Master's elite soldiers and tacticians, having access to the best technology and being responsible for coordinating and managing their lessers - on top of being individually more intelligent than any regular mutant. At least, in theory...

The Nightkin are substantially fewer in number than the super mutants, and even though they have convinced some to see things their way they still lack true parity with the authority Marcus wields. Keene, however, holds status as Marcus' unofficial equal - nearly all of the Nightkin in Zion Canyon and serving the Legion as auxiliaries listen to him, and would follow him in nearly any decision he makes. The implicit threat of Keene defying Marcus' orders or attempting to further divide the mutants ensures that Marcus affords the Nightkin leader a healthy amount of attention and respect.

Marcus and Keene are orbited by a number of noteworthy mutant personalities, those few diamonds in the rough amongst mutant-kind who have retained their intellect, their charisma, or who are simply strong and vicious enough to command a following. They all operate within semi-independent bands, but have a firm grasp of the big picture and largely follow orders and direction from Marcus and Keene. However, the mutants who follow these beacons of personality typically must be corralled, intimidated, persuaded, or incentivized into doing anything, and when their leader falls they typically squabble amongst each other or gravitate towards other cliques.

The mutant hierarchy is thus loose and informal, held together by a small number of highly competent leaders commanding a larger morass of otherwise undisciplined and aimless violence. This system has its benefits and drawbacks; the absence of anything resembling bureaucracy and the reduced number of rungs and hoops in the chain of authority means that when something needs to get done, it usually gets done immediately and with excessive enthusiasm, and under direction individual mutant bands are nearly peerless forces both in combat and productivity - but this same compression of authority means that the mutant hierarchy is rife with critical points of failure, and the death of one or two individuals of importance can send the entire Second Unity into chaos as it attempts to restructure itself and reach a new equilibrium.

Persons of Interest

-Marcus, Founder of Jacobstown, Leader of the New Unity.
Marcus is interested in peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans, and in uniting mutant-kind once more. He has a firm moral code and believes that mutants must strive to be better than how the people of the wasteland view them. He accepted subjection to the Legion content with the knowledge that it would inevitably disintegrate with Caesar's death, and intending to use it protection and resources to gather together more mutants where they could be slowly civilized and rehabilitated. As one of the oldest Mutants left in the wasteland to have served under the Master, he is a figure of authority for most Super Mutants and even Nightkin. He deeply regrets the conflict between the Zion New Unity and the tribals led by the Burned Man, and seeks to make peace with them in the wake of Caesar's death. He also abhors the Legion's practice of slavery, and intends to establish a railroad movement to emancipate slaves from the remaining Legion splinter-states. This agenda is not strictly benevolent in design - Marcus fully recognizes and intends that such a movement will serve to endear humans to the New Unity, affording them legitimacy and improving the outlook of mutants in the wasteland. Within Zion Canyon, his word is nearly law amongst mutants. Some may grumble and complain, but even the most divisive and rebellious amongst them, including the Nightkin and their leaders, recognize his merit and the worth of having him as a unifying figure for all mutants.

-Keene, Leader of the Nightkin
Keene agrees with Marcus on several matters. He agrees that all mutants should be united, and he agrees that mutants should be better than how they are generally perceived by humans. However, unlike Marcus, Keene has no problem with the Legion's practice of slavery and even approves of the mutants independently adopting it. He views humans as inferior beings, and them serving mutants as slaves suits him just fine. Keene agrees with Marcus that conflict should be avoided where there is no clear benefit, and admits that the conflict with the Zion tribals is was originally pointless and done only at the Legion's behest. However, he is firmly convinced that true peace with the tribals is impossible, and that in the end either the mutants or the tribals must leave the canyon or be destroyed. Keene's authority is not as universal as Marcus', but it is far more widespread and subtle. His Nightkin who served in the Legion as auxiliaries made many distant contacts, scouted various surrounding lands, and uncovered many secrets not known by others, and it is thought that he retains many contacts with local remnants of the Frumentarii. Keene would not be likely to defy Marcus openly, as Keene respects Marcus despite their differences and acknowledges his status as the leader of the New Unity mutants, but not defying Marcus openly does not mean he does not defy Marcus at all...

-Captain Davison, Leader of the Horns of Mammon
The cure for mutant Schizophrenia, when administered to Davison and his band of Antler-worshiping Nightkin, proved effective up until the Nightkin discovered religious scripture in the form of editions of the King James Bible within the ruins of Zion Canyon, courtesy of the New Canaanites. Even worse, most of Davison's Nightkin retained the necessary intelligence and curiosity both to read and to be interested in reading, and worst of all, enough remnants of their eccentric and erratic behavior remained so as to transform their prior delusional obsession with Antler into a full-fledged cult, inspired by the stories of the New Testament. Davison's schizophrenic perception of Antler has since neatly sidestepped into a delusional pseudo-religious fervor. Obsessed with the precept of Unification as envisioned both by the Master and now by Marcus, Davison has not only made it his mission to cut down all opposition to mutant Unification and superiority, but also to rain torment and suffering upon those who would selfishly abandon others. Both humans and mutants number among his victims, and he is something of an unwelcome wildcard amidst the New Unity - albeit, a wildcard that has serviced to quash open dissent more than once...

[More to Come]

Economy

The Mutants of Zion Canyon do not have much resembling an internalized economy. They do not even operate by barter and trade amongst themselves; and the mutant population at large is paradoxically both tyrannical and communal. Mutants will readily and eagerly steal from one another if not deterred from doing so by their commanders, but also generally have difficulty internalizing the concept of personal property and readily share their possessions with other mutants amongst their own clique.

The mutants' ferocious strength and their willingness to get their hands dirty sees that their more skilled members have access to a diverse - if gruesome - array of scraps, technical components, weaponry, ammunition, and more - all either salvaged or else looted, with more always coming in as mutants arrive in Zion. Although the New Unity is flush with a variety of resources as a result, the low number of intelligent technicians and specialists - and their clumsy fingers - means that complex assembled mechanical and electronic devices are rare. Moreover, anything of nominal value to civilized people is relatively worthless to most mutants, and only their charismatic leaders are typically savvy enough to trade with outsiders as a result.

Super Mutants value heavy industrial materials, hazardous substances, and heavy ordinance bulky enough for them to reliably work with. They readily move and utilize mass quantities of sheet metal, concrete, rebar, wood, acid, and nuclear material. Common weapons and weapon components amongst mutants include miniguns, machine guns, carbines, heavy rifles, missile launchers, and grenade launchers. Mutans highly disfavor the use of caps, and favor food, particularly meat. Finally, due to looting and not using various items of value due to their nature, super mutants typically carry a diverse array of random high-value tech and junk items - All perfectly usable, as long as you're willing to wipe a little viscera off of it first.

Although Nightkin are largely more intelligent than most mutants, they nevertheless value many of the same things for mostly the same reasons, although they are typically slightly more willing to accept caps and significantly more willing to accept tech and electronic components for trade. They are willing to kill in exchange for stealth boys, but on the flipside are willing to kill you for yours. They are also, universally, more receptive to the arcane notion of 'alternative' arrangements.

And then there is Wrangler, who sells Wind-Brahmin for 20k a pop and single-handedly makes up 99% of the Zion Canyon's GDP.

Religion

There are two cult-like Mutant cliques amongst the Zion New Unity which bear mentioning - the Horns of Mammon, a Nightkin Cult inspired by passages from the New Testament, and the Indigo Children, Mutants who have curiously adopted or chosen to mimic aspects of the Zion tribals' ways of life and their ritualistic practices.

The Horns of Mammon is derived from Captain Davison's original Cult of Antler, inspired by passages from the New Testament of the King James Bible, and rooted in nostalgic reverence of the Master's original ideals combined with obsessive fixation with the success of the New Unity. The Horns of Mammon are Nightkin who deliver the retribution of their god - The Master - upon both insubordinate mutants as well as humans working to divide them. The Horns of Mammon individually identify as vengeance accompanying unjust enrichment - those who selfishly seek wealth or power at the expense of others, especially at the expense of families or organizations, are anathema and are going to get exactly what is coming to them. They are known for burning their victims alive, and placing their corpses on display, ritualistically impaled upon barbs and horns, with various items of worth scattered around the base - these are placed both as much as a trap as a symbolic warning, as these valuables are typically booby-trapped by mines or bear-traps. Although they will just as readily target mutants as humans, they are presently seen as more useful than not, as they generally only target those mutants who are genuine risks of creating substantial dissent amongst the New Unity.

The Horns of Mammon are noted for their use of tactics that inspire fear and dread in the enemy. Inspired by Zion Canyon's Shishkebabs, the Horns make use of bumper swords modified with flamer components to make mutant-sized flaming blades. They also make use of thermal lances, where they can get their hands on them. Their only dedicated ranged weapons of choice are flamers and incinerators. They disdain explosives beyond using them to trap their totems, and they make prolific use of molotov cocktails over grenades.

The Indigo Children are seemingly ordinary super mutants from the wasteland that, since their introduction to Zion Canyon, have begun to emulate the rituals and practices of the tribes led by the Burned Man. They habitually engage in stealth (poorly) despite not being Nightkin, adorn their bodies with ritual paint and marks, stack cairns, concoct ritual substances and chems (mostly ineffective given their physiology) and even carve personalized war-clubs from driftwood or, in extreme cases, steel girders. They have adopted similar social customs, are more tightly-knit than other mutant cliques, and have particular traditions concerning the handling of the dead, particular in regards to burial or, more commonly, their consumption. They seem inexplicably familiar with the landscape of Zion canyon, serving as scouts and guides for other mutant cliques. They also create their own local totems, etching, and drawings to warn and intimidate the Zion tribals. A few rare cases amongst the Indigo Children, exceptionally clever for standard second-generation super mutants, have even been noted to tamper and interfere with the totems and signs of Dead Horse and Sorrow scouts, throwing off their ability to track and guide.

The Indigo Children and their ideals are not widely understood amongst the mutants of the New Unity, but seeing as they cause comparatively little trouble they are largely tolerated.

Technology

The New Unity mutants have very little in the way of sophisticated technology, but thankfully also require little of it. Their optimized physiology grants them complete immunity to radiation, and a resilience to various toxins commonly found in the canyon - though this benefit cuts both ways, since this same chemical resistance also prevents most of the benefits conferred by derived pharmaceutical substances. They do not require clean water to drink, they possess enhanced cellular regeneration that allows them to heal from injuries more quickly, and although they require prodigious amounts of meat the wildlife of Zion Canyon is already appropriately calibrated for their size. The only technology the mutants 'require' is that necessary to maintain their heavy weapons, and basic electronic and junk tech components necessary to maintain stealth boys. The only other substance of reliable value to mutants are stimpacks and their derived chems.

The one boon the Legion has seen fit to grant the New Unity mutants unironically with nearly no strings attached has been regular shipments of stealth boys, as the Nightkin have been the most regular auxiliaries amongst the Legion and best-adapted to their use. Although these shipments undoubtedly have ceased with Caesar's death, the New Zion mutants nonetheless sit on a substantial stockpile of the devices.

Having worked with the Boomers of Nellis Air Force base prior to the second battle of Hoover Dam as part of a secretive arrangement, the Super Mutants have a stockpile of grenade launchers and ammunition for them, as well as a number of rockets and launchers.

Mutants favor heavy weapons not only because their prodigious strength favors their use, but also out of necessity, as few standard weapons are designed to accomodate for a mutant's massive grip and fingers. The original Jacobstown mutants, and those who came after, brought with them an armory's worth of heavy weapons and munitions, including light machine guns, miniguns, heavy carbines and rifles, flamers, and incinerators.

The New Unity mutants have been graciously accepting shipments of nuclear waste and material from the various territories of the region, using Zion Canyon as a dumping ground. The Legion was reasonably observant in examining everything they shipped to Zion for more useful tech components, but due to an aversion to chems and a susceptibility to ionizing radiation understandably missed a few items of note. The New Zion mutants consequently are in possession of a number of rare reactor and tech components that might otherwise only be found in power plants or military facilities.

Military: [Under Construction]

Bellum Numquam Mutat (B.N.M.)

@Wampower and I are reserving a joint claim to Zion, specifically writing for transplanted Jacobstown Mutants and the New Canaan Tribes under Joshua Graham.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

I personally have been pondering how exactly to proceed, and figured it might be best to lead briefly with a secondary character already mentioned.

Congratulations then, @13org. As for myself, I intend to post something this weekend, for anyone interested in dealing with the Intellitron Corporation. If not, well, then this notification obviously does not apply to you!

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

If there was any particular aspect of Tracy's interrogation of Golemeth that Intelligron was particularly keen to revisit and delve into, let me know.

Semi-Freeform Space Opera!

Interested. I will malinger around in the discord for the time being and get a sense of things before I start putting anything together.

World of Telduria [Reboot]

@OppositionJ, next time you are on, drop by in the Discord channel if you can. We are working on a collab between Sirroc and Hecuba, and the Archivist has just been invited into the room.

We can technically post what we have and leave it off for post-by-post responses, but we figured we might as well check with you first.

Printed guns, melded metal - An experimental GM-less Cyberpunk RP

"And if there's anything going to be wrong with him other than fragile packaging without all his metal, a warning would be nice."

Theron

"Like I said earlier. Once that gunk I just shot him up with finally starts peeling off from his neurons, his brain blood toxicity will skyrocket and he'll probably hemorrhage to death. That will happen in around a day, maybe. Probably a little less. Just get him to your people so they can put him on a slab, I'm sure they can do something for him." Tracy's entire body seemed to be distractedly shifting continually in the direction of the door, his eyes sliding across every surface of the room as he glanced around nervously.

"Wuh?" Golemeth managed.

"As for getting him to nap, just yank your coat's biomonitor feed. Once its source disconnects all of his autonomics will lose power again."

"Wuuuuugh?" Golemeth attempted, his eyes growing as wide as dinnerplates. From the way what remained of his neck muscles were shifting he was furiously struggling to move pieces of him that were no longer there.

"Now forgive me for saying I hope we never see each other again. If we do though, maybe we can try this again. The uh, helping each other thing, not the interrogating cyborgs in a sex dungeon thing. Bye." He turned and booked it out the room's door, the plastic-paneled door rocking against the opposite wall as it slammed open before starting to close again.

As Tracy was about to breeze by reception, the man in the wifebeater rapped on the glass divider to get his attention. Tracy stopped, clenched his fists, grit his teeth, and slowly turned his head to look at the man.

"What?!?"

"They might not have known something was wrong before." The receptionist said with a thin smile. "But they definitely do now."

"Do you even know who they is?" Tracy snapped back. The receptionist's eyes flicked down and to the left at the monitor on his side of the wall briefly in response.

"Yeah that's what I thought. Stick to your little niche and don't be such a smartass, you'll live longer." Tracy muttered as he hurried out the front door.

The brief exchange had been more valuable than the receptionist could have known. Tracy had been operating on the assumption the Phantasmagoria had already been en-route, but now it seemed more likely than not they had not been made aware of how Davidson's disappearance had fucked up their arrangement with him. Which meant Tracy might - might - have an extra day or two before the end of his world.

The next course of action was pretty clear. He had to head to Deeptower ASAP and try to start eliminating possibilities in the great chain of things that could have gone wrong. Maybe Davidson had never handed the case off to his proxy. Maybe he handed it off to the proxy but something happened to them. Maybe the proxy got the case and went to Deeptower but never checked in. All Tracy knew was that something tied to Davidson's appearance had prevented Tracy from being informed he had to go to Deeptower to pick up the case. But now he knew. In the best scenario, the proxy was still there with the briefcase wondering where the hell his contact was. Tracy doubted the reality of the situation was going to be that tidy, but assuming he managed to get in and out alive, hopefully he could at least pinpoint at what step things had gone wrong.

Even the small, simplistic chain of getting 'in' and 'out' of Deeptower alive was laughable on its own of course, and figuring out anything once he was inside was going to require a miracle. Deeptower had been architecturally inspired by the Kowloon Walled City, with the planners having more or less said: 'You know what would be great? This, but with a whole lot more verticality.' It was a hollow-interior tower nearly forty-stories in height above-ground and with nearly forty subterranean basement levels. It was made up as one massive empty shaft, with residential 'suites' built directly into the walls all the way up and down, all of them connected only by a tenuous network of rickety metal walkways and, nominally, by a pair of elevators that had likely never worked even when they had first been installed. The tower was rated for a presumed residential population of around two-thousand, assuming two people for each of the individual units on each floor of the building. In reality, Deeptower was presently home to well over ten-thousand people, if not more. Many of the individual residential units, already barely the size of broom-cupboards, had been converted into makeshift brothels, drug dens, ripperdoc sheds, and more. A thriving grey-and-black market industry flourished within Deeptower's internal shaft, with an entire working population being able to live their whole lives without setting foot outside or seeing the sun. And that was all without even touching upon the innumerable illegal tunnel networks below-ground that the residents had been carving out since forever. Even SWAT teams would not set foot in the place, and Corporate Security and Paramilitary firms rated the building as a 'Sextuple Hazard Pay Risk' area.

The entire place was a deathtrap and catastrophic public catastrophe waiting to happen. People in the surrounding neighborhoods took bets on when, exactly, the tower would collapse in on itself. It had already survived more than four historical fires that swept through every floor, and every layer of its structure had been punched through and riddled with unstable modifications by its residents. And Tracy was going to have to dive in, on his own, to look for a lead that may not even exist.

He hesitated. He had already poked around Babbage Cell earlier and had not found any trace of the case. That did not necessarily mean it was not there though. Davidson had a lot of high-security safes and storage units in there that Tracy had not been able to look in, conceivably it was just as likely the case was in one of them as opposed to the sprawling hell that was Deeptower. There was the small issue that those storage units possessed ultraviolet security ratings and that Tracy stood zero chance of getting inside them on his own of course, and time was a factor here. For a moment Tracy simply stood on the curb of the street, teetering at its edge as though he were standing atop a precipice in indecision of whether to fling himself off or not.

What he really needed right this second was more to go on. Another hint. Then it occurred to him.

Nailtooth was still in town. Alone. Without his crew. Probably without much in the way of backup. If Tracy could jump him, catch him by surprise...If he could even find him, of course. He could be anywhere in Night City, and Tracy had no decent means of tracking him down that would not also lead to him getting reduced to a black scorch-mark on the ground. Except...

He eyed the duffel-bag as inspiration struck. He had a time and place. He had something that had belonged to Nailtooth. What he needed was somebody who had top-shelf olfactory augs. He could hire them with a bluff, then have them track Nailtooth's location all the way from Babbage Cell to, hopefully, wherever he currently shacked up. The tricky part about that would just be finding somebody like that on such short notice.

Thus, Tracy began obliviously walking away from the parlor where he had just been working with Theron - who had the exact set of augs Tracy needed right that second.

World of Telduria [Reboot]

Kron-Nesis
The Capital City of Tarantis
Southern Gate Watchhouse

Hecuba shivered in the warm confines of the guardhouse, studiously examining the rough flagstone floor so she could at least pretend she was not aware of the lecherous looks the Sergeant and his men whenever they passed by. She had not really anticipated being cloistered like this. While she had been standing in line she had seen more than a dozen people in front of her who had been cleared to move through the city gates, even without any documentation. She wasn't sure why the Captain had even had her set aside like this as opposed to letting her enter the city normally so she could present her invitation to the Royal Guards at the palace proper.

Well. Not entirely sure. The looks he had given her and the occasional muttered promises - threats really - from the sergeant made it clear they thought the letter was a fake and that they intended to take full advantage of the predicament. That the letter was genuine was a cold comfort to her, given all the things that could go wrong. Maybe the runner would fall into a ditch or get pulled into an alleyway and robbed. Or maybe it would reach the palace and get sorted onto a mail shelf where it would would remain for weeks before getting opening while she was left to the tender mercies of the guardsmen. Or maybe it would actually get delivered but the Court Mage had died the previous day and his replacement knew nothing about the matter.

Or, perhaps more realistically, the runner had taken the letter just out of sight before shredding it, giving the guards all the pretense they needed. Kron-Nesis was a long way from Ithell, and if anything were to happen to her the worst that the Grand Observatory would do would be to send a strongly worded letter of complaint.

And although she was anxious about what the guards might do to her, she was more worried about what they might do with her belongings - particularly the carboy and its contents, or the marbles of enchanted pitchblende. If the guards started messing with them, the former would be...particularly compromising, the latter would be catastrophic and most assuredly get them and her killed. All in all, this complication was as unwelcome as it had been unforeseen.

Her fears were thankfully alleviated with the arrival of a scantily-clad beastkin from the palace. The guards had gawked and stared in equal parts disbelief and disappointment. At first it looked like the sergeant was going to object - who did this beastkin whore think she was, barging into the guardhouse like that? But his mouth snapped shut when he saw the emblem of the Court Wizard on the surface of her collar and heard her announce her arrival from the palace. Hecuba felt a surge of relief and practically skipped after the beastkin messenger as they led her out of the guardhouse, and beamed excitedly at her surroundings as she was led through the streets of the capital. It was still immensely tacky and gaudy to her eyes, but a near-brush with misfortune had a way of aggrandizing how one perceived their surroundings after the fact.

...But only for a moment. Less than a block later, Hecuba noticed all the stares and murmurs the two of them were getting as they walked down the streets, and her face perceptibly reddened as she realized what they were saying. She was used to the same accusations being muttered about her back at the Grand Observatory, but those were spread by singularly malicious rivals and jealous apprentices. Here, she was suddenly being judged by complete strangers due to her exotic appearance in conjunction with her proximal presence to her scandalously dressed guide. It was an altogether different twist of the unpleasantness she usually had to deal with, if not faintly worse since she could not even run away in this circumstance! What if somebody tried to proposition them in the street? Was this beastkin women really even a messenger from the palace, let alone an assistant of the Court Wizard? Hecuba did recognize the emblem on the collar, but why would anybody with this women's profession dress like that during the regular course of business? Hecuba had seen enough tribal beastkin to know some of them genuinely dressed like that, but civilized city beastfolk - like seen in the cities of the island of Kelnore and elsewhere - wore more conventional garments.

After nearly half an hour of uncomfortable walking later, during which time Hecuba had occupied herself by consciously endeavoring not to grind her teeth together due to some of the catcalls she and the beastkin messenger had received - they arrived at the palace. The royal guardsmen at the front gates let them both in without any issue, but Hecuba was immediately tipped off that something was off when the palace staff kept throwing the both of them askew glances and odd looks as the messenger gave her a tour of the palace interior. They were clearly not familiar with her guide - perhaps she was new? Hecuba was halfway tempted at multiple junctures to stop the tour so she could abandon this strange woman and look for anybody else to show her the way to the Court Wizard, but at the same time she recognized that despite the irregularities, the women had gotten her inside the palace, her collar had the emblem of the Court Wizard, and she actually seemed to know what she was talking about. Hecuba's receipt of the beastkin's anecdotes and historical references went largely undigested as she simply strove to understand what exactly the deal with her was. Her inflection seemed regularly, but her eyes looked a little glassy and unfocused.

Eventually they arrived at the Court Mage's chambers.

"Aaahhh...Miss Personal Assistant; what can I do for you? I hope that my servant gave you the proper tour on the way here. Marvellous collar I must say. My own invention. Eliminates any resistance and eventually makes the wearer want it themselves, removing the need them to wear it. Truly amazing don't you think? But where are my manners. I'm Firh Wystan Auleaus Caliean Aibek Sirroc, Court Wizard of the Grand Kingdom of Kron-Nesis, but most just call me Sirro."

Firh Wystan Auleaus Caliean Aibek Sirroc, Court Wizard of the Grand Kingdom of Kron-Nesis

"Oh my goodness!" Hecuba exclaimed, hunching over and exhaling deeply. "So that's why!" She exclaimed with equal overtones of realization and relief. She then realized where she was and who she was speaking with and hurriedly corrected her posture before returning Sirroc's bow with one of her own, ending it with a stylized flourish customary in the lands of the Court of Stars - touching the lower half of her chin with her left hand whilst raising her right arm and making the arcane gesture of the starcaller. "I am Hecuba Amaranth, apprentice at the Grand Observatory of Ithell and personal assistant to High Astronomer Ormoneric. May Dawn's Law favor you, Wizard."

"I must say we don't see too many Halflings, or perhaps more distant, with your particular looks around here. Perhaps an older bloodline..Hmmm...Would you care to leave me with a blood sample? It would be interesting to see what I can find in there. Oh yes, I'm sorry. Your visit. How much has the old codger told you about the visit?"

Sirroc

"I am afraid I have been instructed not to offer any substance of my own vigor for any particular purpose during our endeavors, my lord." Hecuba offered apologetically. "As for our arrangement, the High Astronomer has fully informed me as to most of our purposes here, save of course for his scheduled audience with his Grand Majesty of course. He apologizes profusely for having to request the King reschedule, but the agents of the Archclericy are singularly unreasonable. As I suspect you know." She smiled at Sirroc conspiratorially. "In fact, he even told me a little about this compulsory magical experiment of yours, back when he arranged to have certain texts from the Grand Archives shipped to you. The results are very good! Even knowing that you were working on it, I had no idea your assistant was being controlled until you told me just now. Her eyes are a little dull, but there were no other residual signs of influence that other forms of indoctrination might create. " She paused emphatically for a moment as she moved to open a satchel hanging from her shoulder just under her traveling cloak, and fetched her tines and the striking rod for them.

"Although I must say, dressed the way she is, I am afraid certain members of the palace staff and the commoners who saw us may conclude this women is your chatelaine. One moment please..." Hecuba then raised the tines and struck across both of its prongs with the accompanying rod, filling the room with the clear purity of its reverberating tone. Hecuba craned an ear in the direction of Sirroc's unwilling assistant.

"Hm. I see. That's a very recent enchantment on the collar, isn't it?" She remarked. "Is that why she's dressed like that? I thought I was going crazy, thinking she was wearing that of her own volition in broad daylight!"

"Perfect..finally succeeded.."

Sirroc, some time earlier that day.

"Is the enchantment a work in progress? Its coherency seems pretty tenuous. It almost came unraveled when I dowsed it just now. Err." Hecuba momentarily looked embarrassed. "Sorry about that. I got a little over-eager. But uh...you claim eventually the enchantment will allow her to serve you without the need for the collar? Have you even had time to test the long-term effects of the enchantment to be certain there are no attenuating effects?" After a brief pause while she looked at the Court Wizard expectantly, she suddenly seemed to realize who she was speaking too a second time. Her face flushed as she realized she might have offended her with her presumptions.

"My apologies, my lord. The work is yours, not mine, and I imagine you are much more intimately familiar with its workings than I am. I should not have been so forward. Perhaps we should discuss a matter I have actually been fully entrusted with." She hurriedly put her tines and rod away as she spoke, her expression clearly embarrassed.

"As you already know from prior correspondence, the High Astronomer is in need of large quantities of Black Blood of the Earth. Such large quantities and in such specific cuts, in fact, that we have given up entirely on natural harvests and have turned to getting the necessary circuits cast using molds. We considered consignment with the Darakeene Prot-" She caught herself from making yet another faux-pas at the last moment, stopping in the middle of her sentence and starting again. "with the Darakeene REBELS due to their clear expertise in such matters, but the High Astronomer was concerned that they might object to such procedures due to cultural and traditional values concerning the living blood of the earth. I was informed that the Kingdom's pursuit of such an investment would necessarily be contingent upon matters of discussion between the High Astronomer and his Grand Majesty that I am not aware of, but that you would be willing to assist us with some of the geomantic uncertainties due to the potential for personal mutual benefits, apart from any agreement made with the Grand Kingdom proper. If you are still interested, we would of course need a purpose for the very first Black Blood matrix ritual performed in known history - and as this is your home region, the High Astronomer will naturally defer to your own preference and seniority."

A Brief Recollection

The Black Blood of the Earth was an obvious academic reference to volcanic Obsidian, the frozen remnant of lava-flows (academically referred to in turn as the Blood of the Earth, as well as by most Dwarven cultures). One of the many proposals and topics of discourse between Ormoneric and the Court Wizard concerned the arrangement of matrices of Black Blood as material components of ritual circles. The benefits were evident enough - a stable Black Blood ritual matrix would have channeling throughput efficiency and arcane amelioration several orders of magnitude greater than any other known physical material short of Divine Ichor. It would even exceed the arcane utility of materials such as Kelnore Slade, the metal from which the Dark Knight's weapon and armor were made.

The tricky part, of course, would be arranging obsidian - a notoriously tricky substance - into a stable ritual matrix in the desired configuration. Mages had been trying and failing for millenia to come up with workable piecemeal configurations using obsidian powder, chips, and totems with varying degrees of success that inevitably still fell short of expectations. Cutting natural slabs of obsidian in such intricate patternings, in addition to being outrageously expensive and prone to disastrous failure, would still have left one with an incoherent channeling path due to the manner in which obsidian naturally cleaved when cut. But if one could cast obsidian in the needed shapes using a pre-made mold with foundry-grade precision...

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Elsewhere...

Nalon Tret - Nailtooth - veteran of the Sixth Division of the Grand Army of Kron-Nesis turned brigand and confidence-man, grimly tossed a dreg of meat into the campfire and took a deep swig out of his canteen, only slightly spiked with ale. This would probably be the last chance he had for a proper sit-down and rest for a long while. When it had just been ambushing nobs on roads there was usually time and safety with which to celebrate properly at the nearest tavern their blood money, either stolen or made by pawning stolen items. Now they were at the point of no return. Surrounded by the enemy at every angle, and they would be on the move soon, heading towards the Aemonvale.

Andromache still expected to carry out her will. She expected many things. Having been an infantryman in her section back when she had still been a Sergeant, the idea of carrying out the impossible did not cause him to balk. No, like any good soldier, he was simply annoyed over how exhausting the ordeal would be and how much running around it would entail. He was practically going to have to be in two places at once at every hour of every day in order to cover everything that needed covering, and that was even without assuming that the Grand Marshal and the attending nobility were not about to ream through their entire retinue with steely-eyed focus and watchfulness to root the band out.

As he glumly dwelt on the future of misery that awaited them, Trennor - a lad who audaciously claimed that he was eighteen summers old when Nailtooth was fairly certain his balls had not even dropped yet - came up to the fire looking as exhausted as Nalon imagined he was going to be when this was all said and done. He sat on one of the stools at the opposite side of the fire, clenching the sides with both hands nervously as he stared into the flames. Remembering what had transpired earlier, Nailtooth said nothing and idly poked at the wood in the campfire with a stick, waiting for the boy to speak first.

"Hey Tret. How do..." Trennor began, then paused. His face was equal parts bleary and terrified. He did not resume.

After waiting a minute, Nailtooth finally spoke up. "You know, before you came along, nobody else other than Andromache actually had the guts to brand any of the nobs we tuckered." He voice was low and stated matter-of-factly, as though he were speaking of the weather. Trennor visibly flinched, the grip of his hands tightening until his fingers were white.

"Nobody." Nailtooth repeated. "She would always do it herself, like you saw the time before. Never asked anybody else to do it for her. But somebody else always could have. She's never minded anybody else handling the iron, or even brandishing it. One time, a ways back, a fellow even tried to intimidate one of the fuckers when we had 'em pinned down. Had it floating over their chest when Andromache came up and started doing her thing. When the time came, he couldn't do it, it had just been bluster. Once she finished he just...drew it back and handed it to her."

"Not..." Trennor began haltingly. "...Not even you?"

"Not even me. Sort of been going out of my way to avoid being too close to that action." Nailtooth admitted, his voice slow and even. "I believe just about everything Andromach has told us. But nobody gets by on just faith, Tren. There is a boundary between what a man can accept, what a man can want, and what a man can actually do." He tipped the stick he had been prodding at the fire with so that it fell headlong into the flames. Several minutes of silence stretched out between the two, Trennor looking sick as he rocked lightly back and forth on his stool while Nailtooth simply weighed his canteen in one hand. Eventually, Nailtooth spoke up again.

"You were never in the army like you said you were, Tren." He stated. Trennor did not attempt to correct him. "So you probably got caught up in this on principle. You got her message. Well boy, let me tell you. Lot of people agree with the principle of things like Kings and Wars, killing other people for a cause and dying for it. Because of course they do, as long as they only have to say it and not do it. Anybody whose fought in the frontlines has felt what you're feeling right now. That sort of awning sensation of disgust and dread, not just with yourself but with the entire universe. Like you're standing on top of a bottomless chasm, and you're not sure whether you want to throw yourself or the entire world down it just because of how fucked up everything is." He took in an airy breath. Trennor was staring at him like he was a wizard, with eyes wider than the full moon.

"Right now, you're feeling uncertain. Just know, you're not the first. There was another man with us, around two full moons ago, name of Feldis. Now Feldis, he was...he was really good with words. Natural speechifying type, probably would have done well for himself if he'd been a priest. Nobody was ever more behind what Andromache was doing than he was. Not an hour of the day would go by where he wouldn't parrot somethin' she'd said or be telling the rest of us why and how she was right about everything. Was pretty damn annoying actually, but necessity makes for annoying bedfellows." He raised his canteen and took another brief swig from it, mulling over his words for a moment.

"He left us the very night after a hit. He was all gung-ho up until the moment he watched Andromache break that nob's arms with her mace, so hard you could heard the bones getting shred into bits. He couldn't even get up to the knife, the moment she took out the dagger he just split. Couldn't bear the mere thought of what she was about to do. Found him sobbing underneath a tree. Begged us to forgive him, said he just couldn't live with all the anguish we were doing to others. Pleaded with us not to kill him, said he still knew we were in the right, that he was just a coward."

Nailtooth finally looked up over the fire, straight at Trennor.

"You could leave right now. I wouldn't say a thing. Nobody would say a damn thing. Because we've all been exactly where you've been right now. And it ain't such a bad thing to not want to be here. It's ugly, bloody work. A whole lot of bad and misery coming out of it, and the only good that will ever come of it is going to be in principle. And Andromache's word ain't nice or good. It's hard, and a whole lot of bad will probably come out of it more'n anything else. So while you're asking yourself what the hell you're doing during the night, wondering if it's all worth it..." Nailtooth fetched the cap for his canteen and screwed it back on casually as he spoke. "Ask yourself if the principle on its own could be better than what we have now. Just ask any king or priest." Nailtooth got up, brushing off his legs as he did as he gave one last look at Trennor.

"Nothing important ever got decided without a war, and no cause ever got around unless you had steel behind your words." He turned and began to walk off. "You take the watch, boy. If you're not here by the time next shift gets in, they'll just assume I was just being lazy."