Nope. Just careful.

Velesi 2010/12/06(Mon)04:02 No. 262388 ID: 4a6c93
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>>258113

"Nope," I say. "Just careful."

"Oh. Good," he says. "The Knife is just behind that door."

Through the door we go, and there's no-one here. Fuck.

"There's no-one here," I say. "Explain."

"Now, before you do anything rash," he says, "you should probably know there is a sniper up there. See?"

There is. Double fuck.

"Now, we'd all like to walk out of this alive, no?" he asks.

"Yes," I say tentatively.

"You had business with the Knife."

"Yes."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"You see," he says, smiling, "I wasn't lying, technically, when I said the Knife was behind that door. He was."

"On the same side as I was," I realize.

"Exactly. Well then. I don't believe we have been properly introduced. I am Nesakh."

>>262388
Well then, introduce yourself and give a short explination of your problems and your needs.

Uhhh... tell him Caril sent us.

>>262803
Don't tell them Caril sent you yet, that is the one thing we were NOT supposed to do.

You wait until after you have struck a deal when they ask for payment, then hope that's enough stop them from killing you for being associated with him.

Oh right, nevermind. Yes, just calmly and politely explain your situation and that we need a bit of information.

"Someone placed a big bounty on my brother and I, and had enough leverage with the government to get us, and our allies, declared as casteless. I want to know who did it, so that I can have a civil chat with them and fix this."

LonelyWorld 2010/12/08(Wed)10:54 No. 262914 ID: 917cac
File 129183449121.jpg - (109.45KB , 537x775 , SPYvsSNIPER.jpg )

I wouldn't worry about the sniper Vel . . .

Velesi 2011/01/04(Tue)02:21 No. 269050 ID: 299e2c
File 129413646839.jpg - (33.55KB , 832x414 , 147.jpg )

>>262410

"I'm Velesi," I say.

"Velesi, Velesi, Velesi," Nesakh says. "Good name. Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Velesi. Old Vendric veles means regal. Are you?"

"I... don't think so?"

"You're putting yourself down," he says with a frown. "Don't do that."

"Can we please get down to business?" I ask.

"Certainly."

>>262807
>>262870

"A couple of days ago someone placed a bounty on me and my brother. Shortly after, we were declared casteless. I'd like to know who did it."

"Casteless?" he says. "Oh yes, that incident. Velesi... Evrim, was it?"

"You know about that?"

"Of course I know. It is my business to know. Let's see... Four people were downcasted. Ahh, you, Eren ma'Evrim, Sevech es..."

"Drevis."

"Drevis, thank you. The last person to be downcasted happens to be an old friend of mine. But you already know that."

"Yes."

This is going to go badly, isn't it.

"So..." he says. "How is Caril? Does he still act like he is walking on eggshells all the time?"

"I..." I say. "I don't follow."

"Does he act like he's always in front of some invisible audience? Trying to be as polite and verbose as possible?"

"Oh, uh, yes. I guess he does at that."

Okay, fuck it. I'm going to be direct.

"Are you going to kill me now?" I ask.

"Hm? Now why would I do that?" he asks.

"I was... under the impression Caril would be killed if he returned here."

"More than likely, yes. You aren't Caril, though."

"As far as I can tell, no."

"See? No-one needs to kill anyone. That means we can move this somewhere more comfortable. Care to join me for dinner?"

That's... unexpected. Now that he mentioned it, I wouldn't mind some proper food. Unless he's trying to poison me, of course.

>>269050

If he wanted to kill you there are faster ways than poison. He probably actually wants to talk.

Eat and put some meat on those bones.

>>269050
Seems harmless enough. He's probably a bit like Caril and wants to impress you with politness and shit. But it's free food. So go get some.

might as well accept

Actually now that I've slept on it, besides poisoning, there is one other malicious reason to feed someone: drugging them. I doubt this is one of those rape things, though.

Velesi 2011/01/05(Wed)11:12 No. 269344 ID: 299e2c
File 129425474576.jpg - (33.72KB , 725x622 , 148.jpg )

>>269051
>>269054
>>269065
>>269072

"Sure," I say.

"Splendid," he says. "Berim, you can put down the rifle!"

That's a relief.

"You can put down your rifle as well," he says. "Or not, if you prefer to have dinner armed. This way."

>>269344
While it is tempting to keep the rifle just for the lulz, it's probably for the best that we comply.

If he wanted to kill you he probably would have by now, and its really has no immediate use since you're surrounded by now anyway. So go enjoy a nice weaponless diner.

>>269344
Sure, as long as you get it back.

well he said he wasn't going to kill you
but be sure to ask if he's going to drug you then sell you as a Sex slave

that way when he does, at least he can't be all smug about it

>>269356

That is crazy-rude. Don't do that Vel.

I suggest keeping it within sight until you're safe again.

Velesi 2011/01/10(Mon)02:25 No. 270160 ID: 4a6c93
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>>269346
>>269349
>>269350

Gotcha. No weapons.

Oh wow. Is that real meat? I can't even remember the last time I had some.

"Oh," Nesakh says. "I knew I forgot something."

"What?" I say.

"The fruit. But by all means, help yourself to the main course. I'll join you in a minute."

And real fruit! This must have cost a fortune.

"This," I say, "is not exactly how I expected this to turn out."

"Mm?" Nesakh says. "What did you expect, then?"

"Well, I expected you to be more... uh, criminal."

"I'll take that as a compliment. But I notice you're not eating."

>>270160
Say you really don't want to offend, and you're really paranoid because of what's going on... so if he were to have some first we'd be more comfortable.

Also we're here to talk business. Let's get that over with soon.

>>270160
Don't be rude now. Start eating a bit and see if he will start talking buisness or not.

might as well eat, if you are doomed, might as well die after a good meal

>>270160

Tell him the truth, it's been a long while since you had real meat and fruit. Your life before all the recent fuss was a fairly simple one. If you'd had kids and a husband to fuss over it'd have been comparable to Plato's idea of what The Good Life was. This guy is classy, I bet he knows the works of the ancient human philosopher Plato.

Velesi 2011/01/30(Sun)05:57 No. 276399 ID: 299e2c
File 129639582017.jpg - (21.08KB , 674x354 , 150.jpg )

>>270170
>>270174

Well, here goes nothing...

...This is pretty good.

>>270164

"We're still not talking business," I say.

"Mm. Are you in a rush, then?" Nesakh says.

"Well..."

"The next ship to the Stalwart Guardian doesn't leave in hours."

"Oh. Well, I guess I have some time to kill."

"You do. But you're right. We might as well get it over with. I believe Caril gave you some sort of code phrase to confirm your identity."

I do. Now what was it again...

"Knowledge is a knife." I say.

"That it is," says Nesakh. "Down to business, then?"

"Yes, please."

"First, the casteless thing. All three Justicars agreed to take your caste. I don't know, yet, how they were persuaded, but I can tell you who initiated this. Justicar Tauvim val'Khaviel. You've heard of him? The human sympathizer?"

"I have, yes. Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. That isn't all there is to it, not remotely. You said something about a bounty. I didn't know that. Something of a rarity, that."

>>276399

"The supposed bounty is the reason I had the opportunity to make Caril's acquaintance. It was apparently enough money to make it worth his trouble in getting the drop on my brother and I. He got careless after he had us in a holding cell. I was able to take a chance and turn things around on him. Once we had Caril in the cell, I learned he didn't know who exactly had issued the bounty, as he was working through middle-men. Caril, opportunist that he is, started claiming that his best bet for surviving this would be to work completely with us, since whoever had to cash to manipulate him like that would certainly not mind just killing him for being incompetent enough to let his bounties imprison and interrogate him. I don't really trust him, but I don't have the contacts myself to navigate the black market.

"It wasn't until the day Caril was supposed to meet with his contact that we learned we had been declared casteless. In fact I didn't learn about it until shortly after we had taken down the contacts that came to meet us. It was way too fast to have happened in response to us capturing them, unless it was already set up as a back-up plan.

"Talking about too-fast, there was a news story about my brother's fight on the train that also broke far faster than it should have. I was going to follow that up, until we were declared casteless and moving around became more difficult.

"Finally, there was a fifth person helping us at the warehouse, a friend of my brother's, Zarin. He was killed in his home shortly after the warehouse fight, which means that whoever got val'Khaviel to set up the down casting didn't expect Zarin to be involved. Whoever we're fighting against is good, but not perfect at this."

>>276399
The one they sent was Caril and they didn't give him the full story, resulting in him getting overpowered.

Velesi 2011/02/07(Mon)12:05 No. 279821 ID: 299e2c
File 129710912589.jpg - (10.80KB , 279x391 , 151.jpg )

>>276405

"The supposed bounty is the reason I had the opportunity to make Caril's acquaintance," I say. "He was given incomplete information, and I was able to get the drop on him. He didn't know who had issued the bounty, as he was working through middle-men. Caril, opportunist that he is, started claiming that his best bet for surviving this would be to work completely with us. I don't really trust him, but I don't have the contacts myself to navigate the black market."

"I see," Nesakh says. "Ever the turncoat."

"It wasn't until the day Caril was supposed to meet with his contact that we learned we had been declared casteless. In fact I didn't learn about it until shortly after we had taken down the contacts that came to meet us. It was way too fast to have happened in response to us capturing them, unless it was already set up as a back-up plan.

"Talking about too-fast, there was a news story about my brother's fight on a train that also broke far faster than it should have. I was going to follow that up, until we were declared casteless and moving around became more difficult.

"Finally, there was a fifth person helping us, a friend of my brother's, Zarin. He was killed in his home shortly after we took down Caril's contact, which means that whoever got val'Khaviel to set up the downcasteing didn't expect Zarin to be involved. Whoever we're fighting against is good, but not perfect at this."

Whew.

"Mmmmmmmmmmyes," Nesakh says. "I think I can work with this."

"Good," I say.

"Indeed. I'll have someone look into the bounty and the news story. Now, how shall we amuse ourselves in the meantime?"

>how shall we amuse ourselves in the meantime?

ask him what he means by this

...is he trying to seduce you?

>>279887
For the love of god don't say this out loud

>>279877
>>279887
Don't say this
>>279821
I suggest you remain open to suggestions. You're in his lair, there is some excellent food on the table, and he seems polite enough. In any case, all you have to do if he goes somewhere where you're not comfortable is inform him that you appear to possess an infectious AI system. If you tell him about the train incident he may believe you.

There's always Scrabble. Or Canasta. Or whatever traditional games you guys have.

A more productive way to use the time might be getting in some practice with guns though. Ask if they have a range, you're not that experienced with weapons.

Velesi 2011/02/26(Sat)13:31 No. 284458 ID: 4a6c93
File 129875586565.jpg - (51.29KB , 750x600 , 152.jpg )

>>280067

"Do you have a range?" I ask. "I could use some practice with weapons."

"How practical," Nesakh says. "Yes, we do have a range. Finish your dinner and we'll get going."

I do and we do.

"So, what particular instrument of death and destruction would you prefer?" Nesakh asks.

Up to you. I have no real preference.

>>284458
Ask if the guitars shoot lasers and if you can try them.

Are...are those weaponized guitars? You must. MUST. Show us how those work.

Supporting guitar Axe curiosity.

What's popular in the fleet, both black market and armed forces? Because that's what you'll want practice with. My guess is there are a couple of standard assault rifle and PDW designs that cover 90% of the fleet's armed forces. Those should be what you practice with first. Then you should practice with whatever pistol designs are favored by toughs and black marketeers who do not want to operative overtly.

Then you can mess with the silly stuff like cyberaxes and swords.

[Secure backdoor access.]

Why hasn't anyone done this yet?

I think now would be a good time to rock out

Velesi 2011/03/09(Wed)03:03 No. 287200 ID: 299e2c
File 129966858147.jpg - (53.37KB , 609x743 , 153.jpg )

>>284460
>>284461

Man, that would be so awesome...

...If it was true. Which it's not.

>>284956

I'll just have to settle for plain old rock and roll.

>>284616

And shooting stuff, I guess.

>>284944

[CENTRAL HUB: Because it will not be quite that easy, my friends. But you're welcome to

try.]

[PROCESSING REQUEST...]

[UNKNOWN PARAMETER: "backdoor access"]

[CENTRAL HUB: Told you so.]

Ask him if he's got a terminal around. Maybe we can connect to something through it.

>>287200
Any particular weapon you liked best? Also, ask him why he doesn't have a guitarr that shoots lasers. Someone should really build one of those.

>>287200

Right, the problem is our very nature. We're a universal program, pre-programmed with the action tables for everything capable of computing, somehow (likely a quantum solution). That includes biology, since the stuff keeping cells running properly does it with instructions programmed into DNA and run using protein readers.

Since FTL is expensive and requires purpose-made matter, that database update we got (extra spoken languages, for your information Vel) had to come through another vector. Entangled quanta of some sort, with the entanglement occurring when we linked directly to the wider network, possibly. A q-bit interface would side-step superluminality issues nicely. But to set up a q-bit interface remotely you would need to know some of the hidden variables relating to locality.

Which explains why the MEC is so important. Oh dear.

Vel, your people had a much better grasp of the hidden variables that affect quanta than anyone else we know of. This is huge. This is why your entire species is being hunted down. They had enough of the hidden variables to make reality itself their bitch, and something noticed.

Ok, if we're going to secure that back door we're going to need to operate the q-bit interface. Remain seated please, I'm going to attempt to collapse the entanglement, and we may be attacked in the process. There may be a little smoke when I collapse it.

[Firewalls up, locate the entangled electrons and perform entanglement-breaking action Φ(ρ)=∑kRkTrFkρ]

>>288890
Nice bump there

>>288890
Well hey, what you did there does look pretty bad ass.

Is it gibberish?

>>288893

It's the generic formula for entanglement breaking. We can manipulate the q-bit interface enough to communicate information through it, so we should have fine enough conrol to poison it and break the entanglement entirely by adjusting the variables in the interface until we get a scenario where Fk is negative.

Easy peasy if I'm right.

>>288901
Fuck yeah computer science majors! Make it so.