milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

ellen park,
kreyu

(no subject)

The saying is, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Eventually, though, persistence ceases to be a virtue and becomes a waste of resources instead. And both Elder Lyons and Protector Casdin have said as much of Second Diana.

Ellen's not sure what to think about that.

She is, however, pretty sure that she could use a drink right now. She made sure to speak with each of her Scribes and Initiates after the higher-ups had gone, and she made sure none of them, not even Cancio, were anywhere in sight, and she slipped into the Bar as best anyone wearing prototype medic power armor ever could slip anywhere. "Bar," she says, "I know it's not good for me, but this has not been a very good night. Could I have some decent whiskey, please? I don't think this calls for beer."

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"Ah, Ellen!" Kreyu calls as she comes downstairs. "I have been working on the spell to keep anyone from tampering with those robots you found. It lacks only a trigger."

"Oh- hello, Kreyu," says Ellen, looking up. "Thank you, that's going to be very helpful. How have you been?"

She made sure the factory was able to replicate the mad scientist woman's head-exploding chips, too, just in case. It seldom hurts to be redundant.

"Well enough, although the door prevented me from assisting a friend in their world recently," she explains with a frown.

She was in quite a temper after that. (Adrian may end receiving the hide of the truly gigantic sea serpent thanks to that fit of rage.)

"How have you been?"

And don't think he won't appreciate it!

"I've been... more or less okay," says Ellen. "I had a technical project go right, but it came back with bad results that were outside my control."

"How so?" Kreyu asks, concerned.

"Well," says Ellen, "we... I forget, have I told you about the Brotherhood of Steel's organization? We're commanded by the High Elders in California, about three thousand miles away. They sent Elder Lyons east twenty years ago, and the last descendant of our Founder was sent east by his mother five years ago to protect him from the local politics. We haven't heard from them since."

"Well, we managed to get a communications device working that bounced a signal off the Moon so that the people in California could hear it. Or should have been able to."

"You got no answer," Kreyu replies with a sigh.

She gives Ellen a grim smile. "I wonder if it was not merely local politics his mother was protecting him from when she sent him east..."

"Only one from what might have been a field force, that told us to stop signaling before we gave their position away," Ellen says. "A friend of mine from out West and a few years in my future told me that the New California Republic had been at war with the Brotherhood and she'd only ever found one extremely isolationist chapter. I'm... pretty sure the rest of the chain of command is dead. The NCR seems to have won."

Kreyu wraps an arm around Ellen in a sideways hug. "I am sorry for your loss."

Words are never sufficient in the face of grief, but they must suffice.

Ellen sighs, and closes her eyes for a moment. "I never knew any of them, and from what I heard a lot of them were jerks as a matter of institutional policy," she says, "but... the Brotherhood's all the family I've got, and- well-"

Yeah.

"Losing family is always hard," Kreyu replies, her own voice tinged with old grief.

Human lives can seem so very brief when one is immortal, bright sparks that blaze then gutter swiftly out.

"If there is any way I can help you and yours..."

"I don't know. I don't think so," Ellen says. "But we only just found out the other day, so... I don't know. If I can think of something, I'll let you know."

"Thank you, Kreyu. I appreciate it."

"You are welcome," Kreyu replies with a small smile.

"I had a few questions for you about the robots. Do you wish to limit tampering to yourself, or to the Brotherhood of Steel?"

A change of subject is a good thing, right?

Yes. Yes it is.

"Can you limit it to the Brotherhood?" Ellen says. "Those who're active in it, or consider themselves beholden to it? I may not always be on the robot project, and Lord Ashur used to be Brotherhood but doesn't consider himself part any more. I'm- not sure about the Outcasts but I don't think they care about the Pitt..."

Kreyu hums thoughtfully. "Blood is the surest way to trigger such things, but you are not related by blood to the rest of the Brotherhood and getting samples from ALL of them could prove difficult to explain."

'I need your blood to key a spell so it doesn't zap you' is likely to sound tinfoil hat crazy.

"Does a member of the Brotherhood swear an oath or take a vow?"

"There's an oath, yes," Ellen says. "Mostly involving loyalty to the Elders and the Founder's ideals and swearing to uphold the chain of command and all that."

"That could work," she says with a nod. "If you could get me the exact wording, I can start working on the trigger."

Ellen nods. "I can bring you a copy," she says. "Will it matter that Lord Ashur swore the same oath once and no longer holds himself bound by it, though?"

Kreyu shakes her head. "If that is so, he is an oathbreaker in his heart. A vow broken in such a way offers no protection."

An oathbreaker might, in fact, suffer MORE than some poor raider mucking about with whatever is protected by the spell.

"Would a nonlethal initial warning be preferable?"

"Please?" says Ellen. "One-hit kills are fine against animals, but... people deserve a warning."

Kreyu nods. "Understandable. I was thinking of a strong shock that would lock up the muscles for a few moments?"

Yes, there IS a magical equivalent of the Taser.

"That would work," Ellen says. "I've been on the wrong end of those once or twice- from alien technology, not from magic, but still."

"Alien technology?" Kreyu asks. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh- little green men from another world who've been coming to my Earth to kidnap and study humans and other life for a long time now," Ellen says. "Some of the ones on their ship had stun wands that they used on the prisoners. I got lucky, I was in a cell with a woman who helped me overpower the ones who came at us."

"Are they still a threat?"

It wouldn't be the first time Kreyu's chomped on aliens at this point. (Thanks, Gordon Freeman!)

"The ones who were are dead," Ellen says. "The survivors were their servitors. We negotiated a peace with them- they're living on the alien ship and keeping it from falling, and we're reclaiming several hundred years' worth of stolen Earth goods and frozen kidnapped people."

"They acquired your language when they were taking all those people, I presume?" Kreyu asks with a scowl.

"And what do you mean by 'frozen'?"

"I don't know. There are some recordings of them forcing humans to talk, but I can't tell what they're saying," Ellen says. "I brought an Asgardian from here to the ship- Thor Odinson- and he used the Allspeak to communicate with them and negotiate the peace. Whatever he says in it, the hearer will understand, and he can understand anybody else that way too."

"Oh- the aliens have machines for preserving people in cold stasis, like... I don't know, frogs or fish or something stuck in ice that can be revived when it gets warm. They've got people fro the past several hundred years that way. Alive, but only barely, and frozen in sleep."

Kreyu sighs. "I fear I have no idea how to help people in such a state."

"But I can give you a more permanent solution to the language barrier, if you'd like."

"We need to figure out how to handle the machines ourselves," Ellen says, "but I shouldn't get dependent on Thor. What did you have in ind?"

"I can, thanks to the nature of my kind, acquire a language in minutes with a spell."

She grins. "Then, I could use a ritual to grant you or someone else the language, as if you'd learned it the hard way."

"Really?" says Ellen, looking interested. "What would you need in order to acquire the aliens' language in the first place?"

"I would need to hear them speaking normally for about 10 to 15 minutes."

"Hm. That's probably easiest if I get you to my world and onto the ship at some point," Ellen says. "That might take a little bit to arrange, but- when I'm in contact with the ship and going up there next, shall I let you know?"

"I would like that," Kreyu replies with a smile. "I've never met an alien on friendly terms before, so it should be an interesting meeting."

"All right," says Ellen. "Thank you, Kreyu."

[OOC: Did you want to OOM thread this out or just handwave it?]

"You are more than welcome," Kreyu replies.

(OOC: Either one is fine with me.)

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