First Reply Field Expedient Rations

[Tass Arceneau]

FORT CORAL
CAELIAR
WILD SPACE

Fort Coral exists in a constant state of war between cannibals and Charon. There is a rift to Otherspace in the undercity, beneath a gutted university. Fort Coral is on a rocky coast and frequently experiences hurricanes. On a clear night, the starscape above Fort Coral is pale gray.


It was a clear night and Tass Arceneau, picking his way through the gray-lit city, deeply regretted getting stuck here. He had a ship, an old Winter Eagle, but it was a dangerous hike away. The Charon and the cannibals were roasting each other again.

The handheld sensor gear he'd come to test against Caeliar's weirdness was not worth the effort, no matter how many debts he could clear if this gear was the real thing.

He tried to move quietly. He'd raided someone's survival cache and had a load of non-perishables that could get him closer to his exit point from this damn planet. The handheld sensor was showing strange, strange things. That made sense: tonight the sky was a window to a whole other universe that he really did not want to see any more closely.


OOC/ Open for all kinds of things at all scales, from survivalist skulking to extradimensional hijinks, people, ships, armies, whatever. Caeliar's a weird place I've under-used.

 

[Sienna]

Sienna listened. Footsteps echoed from beyond the alley corner. They were quiet ones. Intentional, and placed with purposeful care. If she hadn't paused to collect herself, she might have missed the stranger's approach entirely, at which point it might have been too late.

She settled against the alley wall, blaster in hand. Alone in the city, with no comms or backup, she needed the element of surprise on her side. The last stranger she'd trusted had turned out to have a hunger for people and an extra set of arachnid limbs hidden away in an oversized sweater. She wasn't about to repeat that mistake with another freak in disguise.

Gradually, the footsteps grew closer, until...

Sun above, don't let this one be a spider freak as well.

She turned the corner, pointing her gun at a—remarkably normal looking-man. The safety clicked anyways, and the blaster's XCiter spooled up. It gave a high pitched whine that signaled a capacity to turn tibanna into a highly destructive energy bolt with the pull of a trigger.

"Take your shirt off," Sienna demanded of Tass Arceneau , flatly.

She was prepared to fire if she had to, but despite that conviction, her expression betrayed an edge of the worry and aversion she felt.

 

[Tass Arceneau]

The handheld sensor read a power surge. He looked up to find himself face to muzzle with a blaster of some size.

He cycled through improbable explanations for the demand and settled on 'she needs more layers.' A good shirt was worth its weight in dubious jerky out here.

Slowly, he put down the sensor and began removing the shirt.

"I've got a blaster in the back of my belt" he said through the front of the shirt. "I'm not going for it. Just letting you know it's there."

Sienna

 

[Sienna]

On Thyrsus she'd learned to read people through body language alone. After her demand, nothing about this stranger had indicated 'oh snap, how do I hide my extra set of limbs'. Instead, he seemed a touch confused, and he was being courteous by declaring his weapon, too.

Sienna sighed away the tension and lowered her blaster.

"Thank you for that. I needed to make sure you weren't one of them," Sienna gestured vaguely at the city buildings around them.

"The spider freaks. One ate my commlink, then tried to turn me into lunch right after. I hope you can forgive my caution."

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

The tall young woman was way too put together to be a Charon-worshipping cultist playing a game, which around here meant she was a cannibal. Not that Tass had anything against cannibals, you know, personally, but he kept an eye on that blaster even after she lowered it. In Fort Coral, make one wrong move and you'd be dinner.

He eased his shirt the rest of the way back on, hoping he hadn't looked too nutritious.

"I'm going to pick up my pack and sensor gear," he said, and did so on the premise that he wouldn't get shot for it.

"Caution, uh, forgiven. I..."

His pack split. Canned goods tumbled out.

"Ah shavvit."

On this town, people had probably died for canned goods on any given block. But then again she had to be a cannibal, so he might not have just signed his death warrant. Cannibals, by all accounts, preferred people over canned legumes.

Sienna

 

[Sienna]

The stranger's belongings clattered onto the duracrete. A can of denka beans rolled to a stop against Sienna's boot. The sorry state of disrepair the stranger's gear seemed to be in underscored that he was likely nothing more than a scavenger on this world. But scavengers were useful. He likely knew the best places to hide or—Sun willing—could help her find a way off this nightmare.

"Hold on," Sienna unfurled her shawl and laid it out on the ground, placing the can on the cloth.

"I'm going to trust you for now. Get the rest of your belongings on here. Quickly," Sienna said.

She collected what she could immediately grab, then stood to take a look for any movement in the buildings around them, blaster ready.

"There's no telling who might have heard that ruckus, and the locals don't strike me as particularly friendly," Sienna said.

"You know how to tie it into a bundle?"

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

He did, so he did, knowing that she might just be getting him to carry it all for her convenience. The food hoofing the food around. Cannibals could be perverse that way. Oh, sure, she might be exactly what she pretended to be, but how could he really know. She'd probably act the exact same either way.

But he slung the bundle over his shoulder regardless, because what else could he do? Leave his split pack? Hell no.

"Thank you," he said, on the chance she was having him bundle it out of the goodness of her heart and not to keep him and his effects easily transportable. Besides, she was sacrificing a nice shawl to the demands of some none-too-clean canned goods and he couldn't help but appreciate that.

"...where are we going?"

Which was a bit too close to the subtext of 'you're the one with the gun' but also carried overtones of, uh, hope maybe? Was hope allowed here? Did he want to trust her with the knowledge that he actually did have a way off this planet, albeit quite a hike away?

Feth it.

"I actually do have a way off this planet, albeit quite a hike away. Is...getting off this...planet...something that interests you?"

Even cannibals might like to see the stars. Caeliar's night skies were half Otherspace.

Sienna

 

[Sienna]

Sienna narrowed her eyes, keeping her head on a swivel.

Nothing moved in their immediate vicinity. The windows remained as dead and empty as they had been, and no doors suddenly broke open with half-person-half-spider monsters jumping out at them. If anyone had noticed them, they were being careful about their opportunity to attack.

At the question of where they were going, she genuinely drew a blank. She'd been trekking across dead wastes, a constant strange feeling following her wherever she went, and had only arrived at the city sometime noon of the current—previous?—day.

She chewed her lip, doing her best to divine some direction that felt the most safe. She'd passed a tall building, vaguely university-looking on her way here, maybe—

Sienna turned and fixed the strange with a look of excitement.

"You have a ship?" Sienna said, with too much enthusiasm for what she imagined a wise, reserved Jedi should have.

She'd been practicing the Jedi fasting meditations, but a few days without a proper meal still proved too much. Her time with the order so far had been incredibly short.

"Even if it was on the other side of the planet, I wouldn't care about the distance. I've been stuck here too long. I'd really like to get home, preferably before I become spider-lunch."

She took one last look around. When she was satisfied they weren't in any immediate danger, she holstered the blaster, and retrieved the few scraps she'd managed to save from her pack from behind the alleyway dumpster. Her belongings had become a humble datapad and the most functional-looking scraps of half-digested metal from her survival gear.

"Lead the way."

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

Trying to seem normal about it, Tass paid special attention to whether her backpack's vicinity was characterized by more sapient remains than normal for vicinities like this. Inconclusive, just like her desperation to leave. Right now he was 60/40 on her being a cannibal versus a random stranded dumbass like himself.

"It's on the other side of the old university," he said. "I don't want to go through, too many sightlines to watch all at once, so I've been making my way around the edge of campus. We could cross it in a night or go around in two or three. Safe way, fast way?"

He deferred to her as the one with the gun.

Sienna

 

[Sienna]

"Fast way. We go through," Sienna nodded.

Reckless, perhaps. But she had too many commitments in the wider galaxy to remain shipwrecked on a strange world for this long. Master Bohren alone would probably kill her for skipping another one of her classes, no matter if her excuse was almost being eaten by cannibals from another dimension. And together, they stood a greater chance of avoiding such a fate. A lone hunter made for easy prey, but two could watch each other's backs.

And, she had to admit, she was curious about the university. What sorts of mysteries and opportunities for discovery lurked in a university on a world that was as strange as this one? She had to find out.

Tass Arceneau

 

[Tass Arceneau]

"Through it it is."

Fast way. So be it, Jedi, or however the holodramas put it. Tass shook dried cannibal detritus from his hat - long story - and settled it firmly on his head. With all his worldly goods (on this world anyway) in hand, he headed across tumbleweed-littered streets into the university.

Caeliar had never been a particularly populous world, but it had boasted a significant agriculture industry once upon a time, and the long-wrecked campus reflected that. The least decrepit buildings seemed focused on agriculture or offered the kind of open interior space that had once welcomed relevant events. Soon enough he found himself picking his way through a vast gallery of farm equipment — an industry show? Not quite; a job fair, decades old — overgrown by some sort of Otherspatial slime mold. He paused in the shadow of a colossal tractor and an equally colossal recruitment sign that had somehow, somehow stood the test of time. It was quiet enough to ask his burning question.

"What's it like to eat someone? Toes it taste like any other meat, or does it make you feel different in some way, or...?"

Sienna