Lara White

You're just worried we're gonna steal your thunder. <3

Cheery. I might just start wandering around the regions, visiting and looking for interaction.

Wow...coming back and looking at some of my old haunts is bringing back memories. I'm almost surprised the same region topics are still up. Have I actually missed anything in the last few years?

I heard someone calling my name.

IC: Aokora groaned, her hand going to her mask. "Oh, fer cryin' out loud- THIS IS AN ARCHEOLOGICAL EXPEDITION! I'VE GOT MY PERMITS AND EVERYTHING!"

 

OOC: Lloyd, is Dail coming with? Didn't see you say OOC you were going.

OOC: I did say I was going, yes.

IC: Dail sat at the stern of the boat, eyes already scanning for trouble. She wasn't expecting any yet, but one could never be sure. She'd had contracts go sour faster.

IC: Dail stepped into the boat.

"Let's go." She said.

OOC: Dail is, obviously, attending.

IC: Dail added her name to the list without hesitation.

IC: Not just an archaeologist, the curator of a museum. That explained quite a bit about the history passion.

"When do we leave?"

IC: Dail looked back at her prospective client. Such a sum was...meagre, but if she scrounged, she might be able to stretch it to the next job. "Good enough." She offered her hand to shake. "Dail."

IC: Dail refused to let herself be shoved aside and shot the interloper a withering glare. "Services that cost nothing are worth nothing." She stated icily.

IC: Dail looked down at the Matoran. "That's a cheap price, girl." She stated. "If I was expecting this job to run into trouble I'd be charging ten times that. I can give you a hundred fifty widgets per battle, but I can't go lower than that." If she did, her budget wouldn't last a week.

IC: "Alright. So a hundreds widgets per day, sounds good?"

IC: Oh fun. Complications. "As long as I get paid." Dail stated. "How long do you expect this expedition to take? I can do contracts by time on retainer, battles, or objectives achieved, depending on what your budget is."

IC: Dail shook her head. "No, I am not. You seem quite passionate about this whole endeavor."

IC: Dail nodded. "I'm no archaeologist--I'm assuming that's the typical kind you want, if you're on about history--but I can fight. You'll need me."

Blunt, to the point. No point in letting a potential client argue the issue. I have firepower. You need it. I'll work for money. Boom, done.

She crossed her arms and waited a response.

IC: Dail was out of work. As a mercenary, you might imagine that such a thing was bad for her livelihood. This would be entirely true.

The Air Toa leaned against a wooden display stall, much to this displeasure of the owner, as she finished the last of her rations.  The Muaka had been a valuable kill, giving her some badly-needed widgets (now spent) and a whole week's worth of meat, which she had smoked and stored as soon as she'd completed the contract with her employer. Unfortunately, that week was now over and she was, once again, out of food. If an opportunity did not present itself she might have to acquire some food with a five-finger discount and make herself scarce for a few months...

 

Job!

 

Unimportant things!

 

Modest monetary pay

Blah blah blah!

Possibly Unique Rewards

 

See Aokora at North Docks

That was when the poster caught her attention. Unique rewards? Okay, nice. Stash them, if they were useful enough. Probably pawn them for more money. It was the "modest monetary pay" she was more concerned about. History...unless it dictated who she was working for, who cared?

She took a second look at the bottom of the poster. Aokora. She didn't know the name, and it didn't provide a way to identify the (presumably) Matoran on sight. North Docks, though. That was a place to start. She took off at a relaxed pace, though an educated eye could tell she had an objective.

~+~

The North Docks were actually annoyingly busy, which was no surprise. Commercial areas of a Koro often were, with merchants and fisherwomen finding buyers for their wares everywhere Dail looked. Time to start asking around. She picked someone who looked like they weren't busy.

"Hey, I'm looking for someone named Aokora. You know her?"

OOC: Keeper, hi.

I need a Brotherhood member interested in going to find these elemental gems that have cropped up. PM me for details.

IC: " And you say these are all over the Koro." Hewkii said, looking at the poster in his hand. The propaganda was...preposterous. Himself, a power-hungry tyrant, and the Sentinels who kept the peace as thugs with badges? The sheer...creativity of the piece was to be admired, at least. The perpetrator was someone who knew rhetoric. He looked out the window, past the Sentinel sergeant who had brought this matter to his attention.

"What have the men been doing to counter this?"

"We've been taking them down wherever we can, sir." The sergeant replied. "To date we've collected at least seventy copies, and we're not getting all of them. This just started a couple of days ago."

"I see. A respectable production rate. How do the men feel?"

Hewkii could almost feel the hesitation, and put two and two together even as the sergeant's words reached him. "Well, to be honest sir, they're not happy. They feel demonized. Everyone knows the civilians hate and despise the Sentinels, and this propaganda is just bringing it to the forefront." His discipline prevented him from shifting uncomfortably, but the look in his eyes was unmistakable. Righteous anger.

"The discipline of your men is your responsibility, sergeant, but I trust that none of the younger members of the Sentinels have...acted rashly in public? We can hardly gain the approval of the people if we act the tyrants they fear us to be." He said.

The sergeant was silent for a moment before composing himself and opening his mouth. Hewkii held up a hand. "I understand. Ensure that it does not happen again. Your men may continue to remove the posters and anything else they might find. But do so discreetly. Confiscating items held by citizens is out of the question. And begin identifying the most common source locations of these posters. I want to begin putting together a suspect list."

The sergeant nodded. "Understood, sir."

"Dismissed."

The Toa turned and departed, leaving Hewkii alone in his office with the paper. He looked down at it, then back out at the city.

Where did I go wrong?

The thought echoed through Hewkii's brain, unrelenting and consuming like a ravenous Muaka.

My every action has been for the best interests of my people. I have always done what I felt would benefit them the most...and I am I tyrant? How? Who could come up with an idea like that? What line of--

His train of thought was cut off by a knock on his door.

"Enter." He said, turning toward the door. It swung open with a creak, and he saw a Toa wearing the distinctive livery of a messenger. The runner wordlessly handed him a piece of paper, which he absorbed quietly.

Finally, he set it down, his brain on a completely different track than it had been a minute ago. Suddenly, he felt a cold chill go down his spine as he felt old fears resurrect themselves. Fear of invasion. Fear of an army marching down the slopes of Mt. Ihu and into the badlands in the south of Po-Wahi, toward his beloved village. Fear of not just a cold war, but a hot one.

"Find out if that telegraph line to Ta-Koro is done yet." He said.

Uh... maybe... sorry about that.

 

I'm just starting to get kind of sick of people talking about how something should be added to the game, or there's something they don't like about the game, or they wished something had happened differently - based on canon.

 

I learned pretty early on that this is not canon, and never will be. Deal with it. 

So, because people saw something they enjoyed in canon and said "maybe it'd be neat for us to be able to do X?" this angers you?

You know, this is quite a change from the old days. Back then you could get in serious trouble if you broke the fourth wall save for the vaguest one-liners.

Also, it's good to see that BZPRPG Heaven still has the same rotating doors we installed back then.

On the subject of watching Echelon be defeated with style, I'd totally be behind this. He wouldn't be talked down, but someone who can just render all his workings unto naught in front of his face and still keep his own cool would be very impressive.

On a side note, I'd just like to say that today is the centennial anniversary of the Christmas Eve truce. While, no, it's not as major an event as, say September 11th or December 7th, I think it should serve as a reminder that even in the most horrible circumstances, there are still good people. It's an event worth remembering.

What would get you to play (or more likely to play) more in the Kentoku location?

Archive binge. Too much background, not enough time.

Also, not enough average joes. This is probably due to the lower playerbase, but it seems more characters in Dasaka are high up fancy people compared to mata-nui. I don't really like too many of those in ratio to average joe characters. The solution to this is similar to the caste situation, if I want to see change I'll have to start making average joe PCs.

That would probably be because people enjoy being able to influence events, I suspect.

You know, I have to say I'm glad that whenever I may leave for good, I'll have at least left something to remember me by. It warms the cold, shrivelled organ I call a heart to see my term being used in common parlance.

More on topic, what is the political situation for our band of unlikely allies?

Speaking as the often-absent head of the Po-Koronan guard/Sentinels, Po-Koro has about the same size military as the others. We've been beaten, sure, but numbers are supplemented by Ihu-Koronan Highlanders who are on contract with Po.

 

But what Alex says is correct. Guards from the 2012 arc are extremely skilled because, well... By the time the Rahkshi assault happened we were down to half strength, but those left were only the ones who had managed to survive. So you have three types of troops, essentially. The original guard, who may not be the most talented buuuuuuut have enviable levels of toughness. The newer ones are a mixed bag, roughly on par with the slightly newer members of most other militaries, and the Ihu Koronans who... there aren't many of them and they're about the same as your average member of another military, if unorthodox.

 

This is speaking for NPCs, of course. PCs are entirely up to their players.

For all that I've had Kotuku trash-talking the Sentinels, this is very true and will be playing a part in the Revolution plot.

IC: Finally, they were ready. Sheaf upon sheaf of paper: pamphlets, posters, and a good many copies of the Populist's Manifesto, as Kotuku had taken to calling her handiwork. All that was left was distribution. One by one, quietly and discreetly, they began their work.

It was simple, really. A dropped book here, a poster on a board there, some graffiti in an alleyway, and soon their symbols began to leak out. Decrying Hewkii's crimes and incompetence, calling for his replacement. Kotuku was quite proud of her personal touch, lightly scattered invectives against Hewkii's secret police, the Sentinels.

"Hewkii has militarized the militia, turning it into something it should not be," one pamphlet declared, "He has made it his own private army and turned it on the people. When the people would not back him, he gave a badge to every thug and outlaw who would, and called them the Sentinels, as if they were some form of protectors! The only thing the Sentinels protect is Hewkii's iron grasp on power."

Such language had the intended effect. More than once, Kotuku had watched from the safety of a crowd as Sentinels demanded to know who had posted what they variously described as "drivel," "lies," or in one eloquent case, "libel."  More often than not, one villager or another would egg them on, and sooner or later the Sentienl would lose his temper.

Of course, there were plenty of cases in which such things did not happen, but when did something not happening get any attention? It was all about what the people saw, and what they saw was angry Sentinels trying to find the culprit for something relatively "harmless."

The snowball was rolling downhill. Now it was time to wait.