2018-09-15: Tabula Rasa: Difference between revisions

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[[Category:Chapter 1]]
[[Category:Chapter 1]]
[[Category:Chapter 1, Act 4]]
[[Category:Chapter 1, Act 4]]
[[Category:Tzadkiel]]

Latest revision as of 01:35, 18 December 2018

  • Cutscene: Tabula Rasa
  • Cast: Lan Lilac
  • Where: The Tzadkiel
  • Date: September 15th 2018
  • Summary: Lan investigates a silver bird and ends up in a dangerous predicament. Takes place during and after Leviathan Wakes.

OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UABWdS9sIss



"Hmmm. It seems you've gotten yourself into a fair bit of trouble, haven't you? Sneaking aboard our ship..."

*-*-*-*-*

It'd been silly, hadn't it?

The way she'd run from the... whatever it was, just because she and Thomas had been a little spooked already from talking about the Stranger. Are a loud noise and some goosebumps really all it takes to send her packing, tail between her legs?

Lan's been having some doubts lately about her ability to do... well, much of anything at all.

So she'd come back. Out to the forest where she and Thomas had lost their way, and she wasn't leaving until she'd... well, until she felt like she'd accomplished something.

But now that she's here, now that she knows where that noise came from... Whether it's a temple or a boat of some sort she's not entirely sure, but this has to be it. It's the size of a village!!

Maybe something amazing is hidden inside...

*-*-*-*-*

"I've heard that in some countries, they've been known to punish 'stowaways' with death."

*-*-*-*-*

She'd been in a room made just for washing clothes (what a strange place) when she felt the first tremor. An earthquake-- uh, moonquake?? It's not like any ship could be launching, there's no water for miles. But it doesn't stop, and Lan, distantly, recognizes the feeling in her lizard brain to be ‘moving, up, away from the ground, oh no'. It's a feeling that sharpens, distills into cold hands wrapping around her waist, settling in too-snug at her ribs.

Something's wrong. Something's very wrong.

Something's out there--

A scream echoes through her skull, the non-sound of solar wind scraping at the edges of an asteroid's craters. It's alien, and yet Lan knows it - it echoes with the voice of her patron Guardian, Rigdobrite. She flinches, the ship shudders around her, and another voice spools out into gibberish from inside the walls. "Flight status is limited. Please be prepared for extreme maneuvers. 92% of weapons capacity offline. Force projection is limited to Gear deployment... All Gear pilots, stand by for immediate launch. Repeat: Stand by for immediate launch..."

She's got to get out of here. She can't even communicate with the Guardians; the endless shrill of alarm won't leave the back of her head. Lan stumbles to the wall, half-blind in the darkness, and slides down it to a seat on the floor. Is the world ending? Right here, right now, while she's lost and blind inside some weird village-sized boat and she's got a splitting headache? Really?!

Less than half an hour later, the lights are restored. Lan blinks blearily up at a young man in a uniform she doesn't recognize. "Thomas? What are you doing here? Who are they?" Geez, he's sure got a lot of friends for someone that doesn't like people very much... Friends with pistols...

Lan's voice pitches up a little higher. "...Thomas?"

*-*-*-*-*

"But, please do not worry. We are not so barbaric. Hmm... You are a shaman, as I understand it?"

*-*-*-*-*

"That's right. She's the Baskar Shaman I was using as a contact." Loren shifts slightly where he stands, as if uncomfortable.

"She had... followed me into the forest. I redirected her before she should have seen anything, but I suppose she became curious."

They'll just kill her. He knows that. He can't seriously argue for her life after what she's seen.
"...I didn't have the chance to report it formally between the launch and our engagement with that," he pauses, struggling for the word. "That creature. But apparently she's encountered Azazel and lived to tell the tale, ma'am. Even some of our own haven't managed it."

Is it possible she could be worth more alive than dead?

The Lieutenant Commander's expression is as calm and composed as ever. He can't read her face, or guess what she's thinking.
That's how someone of her class got to that rank, after all.

*-*-*-*-*

In the end, there Lan sits, alone but for one other person, in a small and sterile sideroom aboard the Tzadkiel. There's little here but a pair of chairs amidst the clean white walls.

Across from Lan sits none other than the Lieutenant Commander, Myyah Hawwa. Hands folded in her lap, she's no less than understanding, calm as she speaks to the young Shaman. One of the Baskar, is she?

She's no less than kind.

"How fortunate you are. Now, what did you say your name was again...?"

A Baskar Shaman, an inheritor of a power that makes even the Metal Demons quake.
Adlehyde has once again been assaulted. The statue is in ruins. ‘Mother' is free.
Faintly, Myyah's lips curve in a smile as if amused by something, however distantly.

Perhaps there is fortune to be had here.

"'Lan Lilac'. What a pretty name..."

And she gazes deeply into Lan's eyes.