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ARM: Journey Through the Living Unknown - Act 1
Topic Started: Jun 21 2013, 07:05 PM (1,121 Views)
Chaude
"Chaude"
 
"Hmm-hmm," Erina comments as she sinks the information in with steady learning intent.

Erina forgot to account everybody present. Looking around the table and counting everybody again...1...2...wait a minute, there's suppose to be 3 of them. Where's the third person?

"Um, Mr. Ricktl? Where's our other guest," Erina looks over to the warden.

"Other guest...?"

Fomori pondered for a moment before the good o' light bulb clicked. Looking rather embarrassed, he made a quick call via COMMON.

"Oh my, yes, Ruindja was his name. I just sent the request for him to meet us here."

"Thank you~," Erina looks back to Az and Lina before saying, "Before I talk about anything more, let's enjoy some more causal chat until Mr. Ruindja joins us. I would hate to leave him in the dark."

As several minutes passed by, and more missing donuts, the security chief came in with Ruindja.

"Welcome, Mr. Ruindja, my name is Erina Tobo, and these here is Az and Lina," Erina gestures him to take a seat as well while introducing everybody.

"What I was going to say before getting excited with our earlier conversation is, in order to be released from this facility, we're asking for some cooperation on a need-to-be basis. You can think of it as a part-time job. By doing so, we'll select missions suitable to your class which you mentioned in the form you filled out last week, and it'll pay for having an apartment the government will provide during your stay here. Oh, and I'm to be your operator, so I do hope we get along great~."

"Though if I do recall right," Erina pondered out loud. "Mr. Ruindja, I believe we recovered your spaceship. If there's anything you want to retrieve from the wreckage, we can head on down there next."

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Knight
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Chaude
"SwordXRequiem"
 
Ten days has passed since his crash landing into this planet. He used up all of the spaceship fuel warping to the other side of universe. It was his first time flying a spacecraft and somehow he self taught himself how to take off a medium-sized ship alone. Next thing he remember was he set the warp coordinate to an absurd number, with almost 19 digits in each axis. It wasn't long until his space run out of fuel, went out of the warp space, caught in this planet gravitational pull and free fall into a forest. Ruindja barely jumped out through a hole he made at the last minute. His luck has helped him to land in soft grass, leaving him with minor injuries.

Nevertheless, he lost his consciousness for a few hours. Ruindja woke up in the same room as he is in right now. He almost attempted to escape the facility, if not for the goodwill given to him during the first few hours after he regained consciousness. The captors started sending data to his COMMON, which Ruindja recognize as language learning program. Ruindja is a fast learner, by the fourth day he has been accustomed with their language. Still, he acted as if he doesn't understand most of it. He wanted to gather more information about them. He need to know, at least, whether a group of gunman is waiting for his arrival tomorrow.

A week passed quickly, yet no new information could be gained. This morning Ruindja told the warden that he now understand their language. He seemed to be happy and went to report the event to his superior. After few minutes waiting, came another guard asking Ruindja to follow him. Escaping has never left his head, not until he know exactly what these strangers want from him.

"Welcome, Mr. Ruindja, my name is Erina Tobo, and these here is Az and Lina,"

They would be your judge in this trial. Ruindja thought to himself. He know it won't be like that, not with the donuts on the table. "Pleased to meet you," Ruindja answered. He sit in one of the chair, waiting for an explanation.

"What I was going to say before getting excited with our earlier conversation is, in order to be released from this facility, we're asking for some cooperation on a need-to-be basis. You can think of it as a part-time job. By doing so, we'll select missions suitable to your class which you mentioned in the form you filled out last week, and it'll pay for having an apartment the government will provide during your stay here. Oh, and I'm to be your operator, so I do hope we get along great~."

Which mean, a slave trying to pay for his freedom. Oh well, at least it's better than staying here forever.

"Though if I do recall right," Erina pondered out loud. "Mr. Ruindja, I believe we recovered your spaceship. If there's anything you want to retrieve from the wreckage, we can head on down there next."

'His spaceship.' Maybe you can call it his spaceship, finder keepers right? He better not tell them he 'borrowed' the ship with unconditional return time and condition. Anyway, he does need to check the ship. He left all of his equipment inside it and without them, it will need some time to learn using this world's weapon. "Sure, all of my equipments are there, I believe we will need it for our missions, don't we? And please just call me Rune, it's easier to pronounce in your language than my first name."

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Knight
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Chaude
"Altivarde"
 
"...Operator? Mission...?" Az repeated, like the officer got four heads on her shoulders. Missions, to do, for strangers no less... And it's seem like something required to do unless they want to end on street. "...As long as it's not something involving killing innocents, I guess." he replied after a pregnant pause. Lina only nod in agreement. Az nodded his head as a greeting to the new addition to the room.

"...Speaking of which, let me ask a thing that bothering me. Did you did this to all people that basically ended up in your world? Does all people voluntarily agrees or do you bribe those peoples that doesn't accept this kind of offer? Because honestly, if it comes to me, without Lina here, I would probably in real stressed state and reject your offer no matter how promising it would be, knowing that my world are alien to yours, and possibility of you returning me to my land could be as well as 0%. And one more thing, I'd like to learn a little bit about your country... Afterall, from my data, I think you know my future interest, no?"

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Chaude
"Chaude"
 
Before Erina could show her enthusiasm for how quick Rune is willing to help, Az interjected.

"We would never ask you to do something so horrible!" Erina blurts out loud.

Taking a moment to regain her thoughts, she wondered why Az would say such a thing. Az continued with his conspiracy theories.

"We're trying to save lives and empower them. If you had appeared in Sol Republican Territory, you would've been enslaved for sure, or if you had appeared in the Topago Isles, you can bet the Beastmen would've gutted you for sure," Erina rebuked with redness across her cheeks.

"But to answer your question more earnestly," Erina continued with less tension in her voice, "If you were to refuse outright to aid us, we wouldn't imprison you here. The commander has expressed that you would be released upon being able to fully understanding our language and you would pay rent instead of conducting missions now and then. Personally, I do hope you can return home where you belong, but until we have leads, you're stuck here."

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Knight
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Chaude
"SwordXRequiem"
 
Basically, you're implying that crashing here is the best option. Well, I do hope it's true. Rune is quite familiar with slavery, except the slavery he knew was clear as a day without neither cover nor hiding. The Humans would enslave the beastmen and the beastmen enslave humans. An eye for an eye. Without Reina's explanation on the matter, Rune actually agree with Az side. He just prefer not making any trouble right now. An opportunity to get outside with a him guns and gears are almost the same as freedom. He would be able to run whenever he wanted to.

However, as the topic is brought up, he intended to take part in this conversation. "In short, we're free to do anything but we just don't have enough money to do so at the moment. Just to make all of us satisfied, how about showing us the contract? I believe the three of us would be more relieved when we can clearly see 'You may quit this contract by your own free will at any given time with no penalty'-part in there. That way, we would have something to refer if, I hope not, something happens. How does that sound?"

Rune is quite excited upon seeing his operator's reaction. She showed a clear belief for her commander. Those kind of people are usually kind hearted and trustworthy. All Rune could hope is the commanders are also trustworthy. Humans, after all, are simple creatures. They can easily corrupted, manipulated and changed. Throughout his career, Ruindja has experienced those things. None of his commander were good enough to serve under.

"By the way, are you short on workers? Just curious." Well, we do want a cooler conversation, don't we?

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Knight
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Chaude
"Altivarde"
 
"Although contract is good indeed, I don't see it's need over here. If we're in basis of trust-to-trust, setting us free no matter what happened even when we rejected their offer outright, then contract make it kinda awkward, that's my opinion. Offering contract while you're already free, saying something like 'you can sign this just in case, to make you much more secure', would result in 'is this stuff really safe?' reaction if it's me, like an upper up going to limit us... Well, sorry, just laying my two Eion on the table." Az replied.

Short on worker... that somehow sort of odd...

"...Now that one I agreed on something... like you don't have enough worker, 'why us'? I mean, in this world, we're aliens. Don't the other inhabitant fear us? Or is there is a reason for this land to be so accepting...? It felt too unnaturally accepting for any land if you ask my opinion."

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Knight
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Chaude
"Chaude"
 
"I'll be answering that question," the warden spoke up, as Erina was at odds as what to say.

Fomori sent everybody a publicly accessible video file via COMMON. Upon mentally opened the file, the video plays, dragging you into a virtual reality state of mind. Scenes all around you of Diplomatic ties breaking, deforestation and tribal retaliation, kidnappings, executions on roadsides, an expedition of Logomian soldiers getting killed. Exposed pictures of inhumane genetic research and bio-implantation experiments into soldiers. Soldiers turned into monsters and wreaking havoc from within. Skirmishes inside and outside of Logoma's very walls with causalities against the forest tribes and enslaved fighters of Sol Republic. War taking toll on the economy. Many felt despair.

A local hero emerged and united a scared nation, giving hope and love. The hero taught to trust and love one another and to rely on one another to survive. The compassionate Hero disappeared after brokering an cease-fire treaty with the locale tribes and Sol Republic. Finishing the video file, you realize you've been watching for several minutes.

"The old government was at war with imperialistic greed, challenging everybody at once for world domination. Many of our kin believed in uniting the world for global peace, but propaganda has a way of alluring good men to do evil deeds," Fomori continues. "It was our commander and some of the current heads of our current government whom rebelled and killed those imperialistic defilers when we realized they were experimenting with peoples lives to achieve immorality and strength to make a Grunder look like a child's toy. We lost a lot of our military men in all the chaos."

"Eh...that's why we've been setting up a special task force," Erina chimes in. "Where we can defend ourselves with fewer men, but when off-worlders kept coming one after another into our world, we reorganized our task force into the ETMS that you know now and more in the future, I hope."

Erina takes a sip out of her juice, emptying it and putting a brief moment about it.

"It's because of our Hero, that we've come to believe in compassion and being more trusting of outsiders after all that you've seen. Of course, we observed your behaviors for a while now to see if you were truly a threat to us or not. You appear to be friendly enough for us," Fomori cuts into the emerged silence.

"Although, if you want a contract, Rune, we can issue you one in a jiffy, though we hoped for a verbal trust to be enough between us," Erina overlaps as Fomori finishes.

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Knight
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Chaude
"Altivarde"
 
"Already been through that phase..." Az commented at the video. "...Mother once have same way of thinking, leading armies of Dwarves to simply unite the world. Needless to say it's a such fail that our race deemed as barbaric. Learning from past mistake, she said she 'have no interest be an omnipotent ruler'. Just like that, our race take more peaceful way... Although cannot say it applies to all of us."

He took a lot more relaxed stance. "...So, what do you want us to do now?"

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Knight
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Story How-To and Tips In A Pouch (Z-ARM)

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Chaude
"SwordXRequiem"
 
Rune watched the video without any expression on his face. He felt the video is quite nostalgic, his homeworld was at war too. After the video came to an end, he left out a sigh. Its ironic, he left the war just to rejoin another. Rune... If it were you... If I were the man you though I was... For the first time in his life, the deserter hesitated. As a former lieutenant, he was faced with decisive condition everyday, most of them would determine the fate of his squad. Not once he hesitated to choose, some of the time his choice was never the best but he has always find a way through any situation with the decision made.

"No need for the contract, I was just proposing a way to mediate us strangers. However... this war... this war we'll be fighting... Is it... Do you think... " Once again Rune became quiet. It's clear enough he's thinking about something important to him. "Nevermind, nevermind that. I will help you for the time being," he finally continued. Ruindja stood up and say, "So... shall we? To my ship, I mean. Or do we have any other thing to discuss?"

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Knight
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Chaude
"Chaude"
 
"Appreciate the help, Rune. Though I...wouldn't say we're at war at this very moment. Sure no peace treaty has ever been formed with only a cease-fire agreement, but any issues with the Sol Republicans can easily get us back into a nasty war for sure," Erina tries to reassure Rune and the others. "We're trying to give missions every now and then so you can do other things, but if you want to do more full time, we can do that too."

"That depends on what the Commander brings when he returns later tonight from the summit," the warden said with skepticism.

Erina gets out of her seat, walks over to the warden, and slaps him over the head. Fomori cried in shock and a bit of pain.

"Stop being so pessitmestic all the time, it's annoying," Erina said with irritation. "As for what to do next, Rune, we can take you to your ship now and collect what you need. Az and Lina, since we didn't find any craft of your worlds, you can explore the city and think what you want to do at your apartment. Refer to your COMMON for directions to the place."

As quick as Erina was upset, is as true as her being back to her more cheery self, clasping her hands together with a big o' smile.


"I don't think there's any more to discuss, so let's head on down to the tank hanger bay. We got it retrofitted to holding spacecrafts," Erina puts the show on the road. "Oh, Rune? I should probably warn you, you're in for a shock when we get there."

And with that, Erina lead Rune and some others down to the tank hanger bay, off past a Terran Euphoria Council expeditionary ship laid a massive wreck. It was only the cockpit and parts of the innermost hall left intact. If there were any wings, large storage areas, let alone an engine room, it wasn't recovered and presumed to have fallen else where on the continent.

"So...the mechanics said it was a pain to haul the large ship. We still haven't located the missing hull to your craft. Feel free to look inside, Rune," Erina explains.

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Knight
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Chaude
"SwordXRequiem"
 
"Inside? Is there any inside to begin with?" said Rune with a sad tone. His spaceship's condition was worse than he anticipated. Still, Rune was quite relieved. As long as he could remember, he carried all of his equipment until the crash happened-and he was in the cockpit before he jumped off, wasn't he? After a small sigh, Rune started searching for anything useful, if any.

The cockpit was neither small nor large, two men can fit there comfortable and ten men would fill any gaps left. A big explosion hole was clearly visible on the right wall-Rune's responsible for this one. It seems the explosion destroyed not only the wall but also broke the ship hull into pieces. This was a news for Rune, he didn't have enough time to look closely before he jumped out of the burning metal can.

In just mere minutes, Rune has done a complete check of the wreckage. Few of his armaments are still intact-not that he had many of them before, but the already small numbers now can be counted by fingers. Now he started to list all he had left: a pistol, a sniper rifle-the one with the best condition, some leftover bullets, a broken portable energy reactor, his military manual and a big metal scrap. Well, at least he will manage with it. The manual list any equipment he would need plus their recipes. That's enough for now.

"Well, how much can we get from selling this big metal scrap?" Rune asked Reina.

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Knight
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Chaude
"Chaude"
 
"Oh, um...what is it?" Erina was unsure the metal scraps worth. "Ratched Customs maybe able to buy it from you unless there's some cultural importance that should go into a museum."

Even the two guards with them were unsure what to make of it.

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Knight
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Chaude
"SwordXRequiem"
 
Actually, Rune would love to say yes in order to get more money... Oh, wait! It did have a cultural reference! "Hm... If I'm not wrong, this spaceship had ever been the base operation of a quite renowned space pirate... Or so they claimed," He picked up a half-burnt book inside one of the cockpit drawers. "The Serenadus, as they call themselves, has accomplished our greatest feat in successfully robbing a destroyer-class military vessel from Ilyen galaxy today. Our badly damaged ship is now heading to a planet called Ilyen Scarr for repair and refueling," Rune quoted the last page of the journal.

"Not so great eh?" He flipped through the pages, about a third were unreadable because of the burnt. Once again he sighed and gave the journal to Reina, "You decide. Were they good enough for your museum, or not?" Rune waited for a moment before finally asking, "I'm done here, what will we do next?"

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Knight
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Chaude
"Chaude"
 
"I bet Milli would love to take a look at that and study it into greater detail. The manual seems more interesting, but I can't say the metal scrap for certain though," Erina confessed her main stream culture's mentality to artifacts.

Given the manual, Erina holds onto it, despite one of the guards offering to take it for her.

"Eh, sorry, but I'm sure Ratched Customs would be more profitable for you, and if you wanted to do some adventuring, that's a great place for gear and supplies."

Erina tries to reassure Rune.

"Your apartment should be ready by now, so feel free to take the day off and rest. You can apply to work within Logoma City, and when a mission comes up, we'll message you via COMMON to take care of...unless you wanna drop by HQ later and do other kinds of missions."

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Knight
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Story How-To and Tips In A Pouch (Z-ARM)

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Chaude
"SwordXRequiem"
 
"Milli? Who's that? I believe betting that he or she is a culture scholar is a safe bet. Anyway, Ratchet Customs it is. I could sell this and buy what needed." Rune proceed to scan the remnants of his ship, at least he can now show what he would sell. "Well... Yeah, that will be it for today. Ratchet Customs and a good night rest. Tomorrow I'll wake up early so by noon I'll be able to start doing missions. I do want money you know. So... See you later I guess? Oh, by the way, It's nice to make acquaintance with you."

Accompanied by the guards, Rune left the facility. Relieved he had once again able to smell the fresh air, he left to Ratchet Customs by following a map he downloaded through the Ethra Net.

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