Sergeant-Major Adrian Shephard

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:03:33 GMT

Shephard's not entirely clear on exactly when the Douglas kid is from- they didn't teach the kings of Scotland when he was in school- but he knows it's a damn long while back. This is going to be a day for Xen monsters and hunting. Showing off his ship is not on the menu- by the time he got done explaining Borealis alone, never mind PIaDOS, they'd likely have lost so much daylight as to make safe travel in the woods a serious problem. Better, then, to come into Milliways from somewhere a little more explicable- the smokehouse outside the main Rowlesburg cave entrance'll do.

So if Shephard smells like a weird combination of wood smoke and some unknown meat or something when he comes through to Milliways all geared up for a hunting expedition, William, that's why.

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Tue, 16 Jun 2015 22:38:05 GMT

Some things you ask permission for over the radio, and some things are best done in person.

Shephard figures he'll have an easier time if he doesn't have to explain Milliways to every asshole who might pick up on radio communications between Rowlesburg and White Sulfur Springs, which is why he's taken the Buell to go see Ms. Vance.

(The fact that, thanks to Barsoomian engineering, the 155-mile trip through squiggly roads in awful states of repair took him maybe an hour and fifteen minutes... well, he's not gonna mention that to anyone.)

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Sparring [in progress]

Fri, 12 Jun 2015 16:46:43 GMT

Hey, Hansen, have you been sleeping well lately?

Because at 4:30 in the morning there's gonna be the kind of knocking on your door that only comes from a very insistent metal fist.

Shephard doesn't take no for an answer.

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Tue, 24 Feb 2015 15:34:13 GMT

Traditionally, sea travel is supposed to have at least some stretch of time during which the ship's crew complement has time to stare out at the ocean and get unaccountably philosophical, or at least stare out at the ocean and speculate about things of their own choosing. The problem with this is that it requires the use of a normal shjip. When you are the commanding officer of a vessel with a built-in portal generator, there is very little reason not to go from your starting location to your final destination in the span of ten seconds, other than maybe needing to come down in open water and pick your way into the harbor to dock safely. That does not leave much time to do anything other than your immediate duty, really.

Shephard's been thinking anyway. His service's old reputation to the contrary.

There's one part of the Cheat River that's been enlarged by rockslide and flood and a dozen different things to the point where it's deep enough and wide enough to hold a ship of Borealis' size safely. Their most recent voyage left from there and hit all the major population clusters left on the planet with nearby bodies of water, distributing the most recent batch of seeds, root cuttings, and animal germ plasm taken from the pre-Combine repositories in exchange for various local products. There were a few places where defensive actions had to be undertaken, but nothing spectacular or over-long, so neither his ship nor his Marines have been particularly dinged up by the trip. (Well, except for the part where Maripyaipok's people got out the damn ants again when the Americans arrived, but that doesn't count any more.) They're back in the Cheat waters now, and they're going to spend a little down time in Rowlesburg, and then there's gonna be the usual trip back to the Greenbrier and business will resume as usual.

Maybe. Shephard's got some people to find and talk to about that.

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Something possible, a very long time from now indeed

Mon, 01 Dec 2014 20:19:04 GMT

When you have been old for a very long time, you start to smell Death coming. You catch a whiff of her on the wind one day and you know, you know, that she'll be turning up; maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but she'll be there soon.

Sometimes you've smelled her coming before. Some people do. The difference is that when you've been old for a very long time and you catch that whiff of her on the wind, it starts being okay. You might need a little time to finish some things first, maybe get those last few stories written down before she arrives, but whenever she gets there, it's going to be okay. You've done enough. You know where she's going to take you.

Sometimes you've got a little niggling spark of spite and irony to you, one that says, I always knew something in particular was going to get me killed one day. Let's go see if I was right. So you put down the stylus- that hand of yours finally stopped moving anyway, there's nothing left for it to write now- and you turn out the light behind you, and you head on down to the hangar to see if there are any pilots willing to take an old man up for one last spin. She's coming for you now; there's nothing left about those fucking murderbirds that can scare you any more.

And you really see a hell of a lot from up here.

When you have been old for a very long time, you know how it feels. It didn't feel like that any more. Nothing hurt. Nothing was stiff. When he flexed his fingers, his left hand moved as easily as his right; when he looked around-

Huh.

"Okay," he said eventually, "I'm gonna need some help here. This don't look like what I was expecting. This ain't Heaven, is it."

Not that he had any kind of an objection to a huge, tumbling field of grass and stone, rolling away into fog and forest in the distance, but there wasn't nearly enough mountain to it for it to be a proper kind of Heaven.

"No," said the woman next to him. He couldn't make out much of her face or form- body armor and a proper environmentally sealed helmet tended to obscure a lot of distinguishing features- but that was very definitely a woman's voice, and an amused one at that.

"Huh," was his response. If he squinted some he could about make out a big, slope-roofed building at the edge of the field, lights in all its windows and little curls of smoke rising from a dozen chimneys. "Ain't quite what I'd've figured Hell was gonna look like either."

"No," agreed the woman, who sounded if anything more amused than before. "Definitely not Hel."

"And you ain't Saint Peter or Gunny Hathcock," said Shephard, "so I hope you don't mind my sayin' so, but I'm drawin' a blank here. Mind tellin' me where this is?"

The woman laughed at that, a sound too sincere to be unkind, and started undoing the catches that held her helmet on. "There are," she said, "more fates than that for a man. When the lion took your hand, all those years ago, it changed one of your names."

tiwazRotorhead to tiwazRegulator. He hadn't thought of that in years. "Yeah," he said slowly. "So?"

"So you went and you looked for what remained the same. What it meant," she said. "And when you found a book to tell you about tiwaz, you kept reading and saw and who it stood for-"

Tyr is a one-handed god / and leavings of the wolf / and prince of temples

"Wait," said Shephard, holding up one finger. "Wait-"

"And you kept reading, didn't you?" The helmet came off; a golden braid easily as long and as thick as his arm spilled out from under it. She grinned at him. "Do I have to give you any more hints? I thought you were more clever than that."

"You're a fuckin' Valkyrie?" he spluttered, belatedly recovering just enough good sense to add, "ma'am."

"Something like that," she said. "Call me Sýr, if you like. Are you so surprised?"

"No offense or nothin', ma'am, but I died a Christian last I checked."

"Oh, yes," she said, "you did. But that one has a war-host already, and has no interest in more. And you never turned away when other gods smiled on you before, did you?"

"They were right in front of me," Shephard felt obliged to point out. "I wasn't gon' be rude."

Sýr laughed again. "No doubt! So there was that. I saw no reason not to make a move. You would have been bored soon in the other one's presence anyway."

She had, Shephard was forced to admit, a point.

"The time came," she went on, "and I came looking for you."

"Question," he said suddenly. "I thought you ladies were lookin' for warriors on the battlefield to take back with you. Ain't there somethin' in the rules about dyin' of old age disqualifyin' you?"

"Says the man who died in the gunner's seat of an attack helicopter on patrol." Sýr fixed him with an arch look. "You went out of your way to look for enemies one last time before the end. No one could call that the straw death."

Shephard fell silent.

"Come now. How much have you been through? Did you truly think something so small as dying could stop the… what did you call it… 'weird mythic shit'?"

"I suppose not," Shephard said, and squared his shoulders. "All right, then, ma'am. I'mma guess that building I'm seein' over there in the distance's Valhalla, then?"

"Not quite, but you could not be blamed for that mistake," Sýr said, almost kindly. "Óðinn only receives half of those chosen, the ones who fight for glory or valor or conquest. Those who fight in defense of home and country and family, to defend rather than to overrun, are chosen first for she who is possessor of the fallen slain and of Sessrúmnir. This field is Fólkvangr; the hall is Sessrúmnir, and beyond it there is anchored a ship of the same name."

She put two fingers in her mouth and blew a short, sharp note. Two dark, shaggy shapes came trotting across the field, the biggest boars Shephard had ever seen- well, no; one was a wild pig, to be sure, but a sow instead. And a familiar one at that. "Uh, ma'am-"

"She only tried to gore you while she roamed Elysium," said Sýr. "She will bear you now, if you like. Or walk if you would rather, but Sessrúmnir is a longer march from here than you can see. I will be riding Hildisvíni, myself. Are you coming?"

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An Unexpected Journey [EVIL CACKLE GOES HERE]

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 15:42:04 GMT

Milliways is great about being a place where you can steal some extra time in your day, and Shephard's grateful for it, but a man can only spend so long there studying and sleeping and getting other work done before it starts feeling weird. He went back and got back into his usual daily duties. To no one's surprise at all, within about a week a communication came through from Beatrice's people in Andamooka offering a food-for-fuel trade, since spring was in full gear down there and autumn in the Appalachians was giving way to what promised to be a particularly vicious winter.

Well, Borealis is an icebreaker, not a cargo ship, but that portal generator it carries means a whole lot of potential world-spanning voyages don't have to be nearly as world-spanning as they used to. So, once again, Shephard's had to marshal his people and get a hundred and some-odd asses down to the far side of the world. At least they're not going to Brazil this time. The Mawe are great trading partners, but every time Shephard shows up they insist on offering him another round of the ant ritual, since who would ever want to stop short of full manhood status. Australia's the Kingdom of the Spiders these days but Beatrice doesn't greet him by dumping a sack of redbacks on his head every time he shows up.

Anyway, the FOOMP! of portal travel is uneventful, so as the crew starts bringing Borealis into port and getting ready to start the journey north to Andamooka, Shephard briefly excuses himself from the bridge to make quick use of a nearby head.

... dammit, Milliways nearly ambushed him that time. He'll find a different head and use that one instead.

Maybe he should've closed the door a little better behind him.

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Ride

Thu, 02 Oct 2014 17:53:46 GMT

After Shephard's bartending shift is over, he heads on down to the garage. Not that his bike's not up to the pseudo-Scottish weather outside, but it's less likely to wind up on the wrong end of some maniac using grenades on the firearms range if it's underground.

Yes, he's still sore about that.

Anyway, through one thing and another he winds up safely out back with the Buell at his side, its paint freshly waxed and its engine glowing blue.

Well, he did say there were upgrades.

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Tue, 15 Jul 2014 18:09:13 GMT

Shephard has responsibilities at the Greenbrier. He's not whining about them, you understand. It's a post-Combine world, everyone has them. Except the kids, but it's hard to think what kind of responsibilities you could give somebody under the age of three.

Thing is, he's- oh, he doesn't know any more. Something like twenty-five years lived, at this point. He doesn't count the time that sheepfucker in the suit knocked him out as part of his age, and he's not sure if Milliways counts or not. Point is, he's still a long way shy of thirty. At his age he's supposed to be married, with two or three kids and two, maybe- maybe- three stripes on his sleeve. What he is, is commander of the second largest military force known in what remains of the United States- after Ms. Vance's militia, anyway- and captain of a goddamned nuclear icebreaker- one with a complex about Arctic waters, no less. No wife, not just yet, but he'll be talking to Eleanor about that soon enough, and no kids, but they'll be part of that discussion too. And when he's not training up his would-be Marines or working with the people who actually know what the fuck to do to run his ship, he's bringing home the next best thing to bacon. Literally. Gutted and skinned and tied down to a travois, most of the time, because bullsquid are too heavy to sling over his shoulders.

And as much as he loves hunting, it's one thing when you do it for yourself and another altogether when you do it because if you don't there's a real good chance someone's going to go hungry.

And as much as he loves that batshit crazy ship of his, he's still learning and he still gets the feeling she deserves better than a captain whose naval experience to date could be logged on the back of his hand in felt-tipped pen.

And as devoted as he is to seeing the Corps reborn and his people protected, he's still one man, and a young one at that, with a quarter of a million ghosts watching over his shoulder.

It's a lot to handle. He's pretty sure he can do it, but that doesn't mean it's not still a lot. It's just that every now and again he needs to get away from it, to do something just because he can, not because people need him to. Fortunately, he knows exactly the place to do it.

It's been a long time since he went after catfish in the Milliways lake. Time to see what he can grab by the gills from the inside, yeah?

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Tue, 13 May 2014 15:06:01 GMT

So. A wish.

These things are tricky, and potentially dangerous. Shephard figured as much from the very start. Brimstone's not human, and he's not an alien, so he's something of a kind Shephard doesn't know. Might be Fair Folk with some kind of weird animal head action going on, he knows that happens. Might be an Egyptian god running in disguised, fuck knows that kind of thing happens at Milliways. Or demonic. It's the Bar. Demons happen just as much as gods.

Doesn't quite seem like something demonic, though. Shephard's no geek and he doesn't much know magic, but he's seen plenty of movies like The Devil and Dan'l Webster. Demons make it super, super, super easy for you to screw yourself over right from the start, from what he knows of them, assuming the deal they make you doesn't include the screwing to begin with. Trading animal teeth for wishes doesn't seem to have that kind of potential in it. Plus, Brimstone doesn't feel weird- not that Shephard knows what a demon's presence would feel like, but he's pretty sure there'd be something unusual in the local atmosphere. Something creepy, or something much too reassuring to be normal- trying too hard to pass, kind of thing. And there's not that. Brimstone just seems like a guy. One with an animal head, but a guy.

So that leaves him where he was in the first place, with a wish he bought and paid for and now he gets to use.

He's heard the joke about the man with the tiny piano player. He's read a couple of stories- not many, he's not that kind of reader, but a couple- about people who made stupid-ass wishes and got bit in the ass for it. Far as he can tell, this wish is his to fuck up. He knows what he wants- he wants to do his jobs right, all of them- but even with magic involved he really can't imagine knowing what he needs to do is gonna be that easy. And if he tries to make it that easy, it's only going to bite him in the ass. That's how these things work; the only person who ever, ever got all he needed to know to do his duty all at once was King Solomon, and that was because God Almighty was involved. Everyone else still has to work for it.

Well, the way he sees it, knowledge is knowledge. And while he's never been much of what you'd call a classroom type, he did okay in high school. Knowledge that's not in his head is still knowledge, it's just that it's up to him to get it to where he can use it. Books are probably safer than asking for all the knowledge he needs to show up in his head anyway. He's pretty sure that just asking to know what he needs to be a good captain and a good Commandant will either make his head explode or leave him with the voices of dead men constantly in his ears. Not to mention that books don't die with their owner, so getting what he needs to know in the form of books means he can pass that on to other people pretty easily.

You can't get everything you need to know out of books, but you can get enough to get by, otherwise Annapolis wouldn't have amounted to much, is how he sees it. Anyway, Bumi can fill him in on the stuff you can't write down, right?

Right. So, might as well make the damn wish, he's been working out the exact words for the last three goddamn days.

"Hey. Bead," he says, picking up the flawless garnet Brimstone gave him. "I got a wish for you."

It's not listening exactly, it's not that kind of magic object, but there's still an odd kind of feeling in the air that has him treading carefully as he reaches for the scratchpad he's been using to work out his exact words.

"'I wish for the knowledge I or anyone else in my world might need to be the best possible captain of my ship Borealis, as well as any other ship of my world's waters if that is possible, in the form of readable books in good, long-lasting condition that are written in good, clear English that I can read and understand'," he reads out loud, doing his best not to tense his shoulders.

A moment later there is an awful lot of cursing coming from his room.

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Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:33:23 GMT

Adrian Shephard is, by and large, an easygoing man who doesn't let much bother him. It's a character trait that's served him well; he wouldn't have gotten into the Scout Sniper program without it. Not that he doesn't get angry, mind. He does, as anyone who's ever heard him whip out the full depths of his vocabulary can attest. But by and large, he saves it for the things that are really worth getting angry about.

He's not a stupid man. Never has been, despite the mile-high stack of stereotypes that follows him around- hillbilly, drummer, backwoods hunter, grunt, Marine. He's got a brain, and he uses it, and he's done pretty well that way so far. Grace Augustine probably meant it as a compliment when she said he was too smart to be a fighting man; her kind usually does. He's known what he's needed to, and he's outlived a whole hell of a lot of other people, and he's saved a lot of other people in the process. He's done his job and he's done it damned well.

Thing is.

Ms. Vance gave him a ship. Oh, Borealis has that AI to handle a lot of its basic functions, but he's still the commanding officer. It's not a combat vessel, but it's the only real ship his people have, and it's vitally important to their development and interaction with the rest of the world. It's a nuclear-powered icebreaker with an actual crew, and he's in charge of it.

He's... honestly he's not sure any more, maybe twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. Stephen Decatur's age, when they gave him Constitution. He had a high school education and a whole lot of combat and survival training, but that's about it- he never expected to wind up a commissioned officer. He's in fucking command of a teleporting nuclear vessel at a younger age than any American naval commander ever, and he has a goddamned high school diploma. He's got less idea how his ship works than he does of how his Buell runs. He's not in charge because he deserves to be, or because he knows how to be; he's in charge because Ms. Vance thought he showed more interest than anyone else. That's all.

And, ship aside, he's History Division by default. He's training up the people Ms. Vance let him recruit to follow in the traditions and tactics and combat doctrines of the Marines, and they're learning well, but there's so goddamned much else besides- stuff he only barely remembers, or that he only knows because it's in those notebooks he filled up back when he had his original right hand. There's things he's only learned after the fact when he's looked back at something the metal hand wrote in his sleep, spilling out the lives and stories of all the Marines who fell after Black Mesa. Things he should've known and been able to recall on his own, but didn't.

When he has a job to do, he likes to fucking well know how to do it, and right now he doesn't. Bumi's trying to teach him about the ship and that's coming along okay, but there's way, way, way too much he doesn't know yet. There are things he needs to know that he never stopped to learn, and that other people are going to have to learn someday, and-

Adrian Shephard is not a stupid man. He does not like the quiet, creeping, undeniable sense that maybe he actually is.

He's going to have to do something about that.

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in progress

Mon, 17 Feb 2014 22:14:31 GMT

The houndeyes aren't coming to Svalbard. Shephard loves his dogs dearly but there is no way in Hell he's bringing those little boogers to an unfamiliar environment that's almost certainly crawling with predators. It's bad enough at home. So, he's taking what time he can with them now, including bringing them to Milliways for training runs.

And maybe drumming up some other company while he's at it. He happened to notice a familiar face heading into one of the upstairs doors the other day, so today he's found that door and he's banging on it.

The sun may or may not be actually up yet. Just sayin'.

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Rebuild All Your Ruins

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 16:54:00 GMT

The door Shephard opens is one he's been practicing with for some time. There's an equipment shed not far from where the Borealis is docked, and its door doesn't have a very good line of sight on anything except a clump of trees draped in snow. It's practically ideal for avoiding inconvenient questions, if you don't mind the way the ground gets muddy pretty much the instant you come off the topmost step.

"Welcome to West Virginia," Shephard says to Bumi as he holds the door a little wider. "We ain't far from the ship, but I reckoned this'd be a better spot to start."

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Downstairs

Mon, 20 Jan 2014 17:44:00 GMT

Shephard doesn't have to go back to his world for a while yet, what with the time stop and all. He's taken his beer to a table where he can sit and let the hand do some more of its high-speed writing; there's still plenty of life stories left to record, and if he doesn't give that hand time to work it winds up finding a pencil and trying to write on the wall when he's half asleep. Scribbling furiously away on the tablet Nepeta alchemized for him's as good a way as any to let the information out until Hansen's done with his tending shift. Not like the elevator's far from his table, anyway.

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CWDT 2013

Tue, 29 Oct 2013 04:01:36 GMT

He's been shooting, he's been running; it's been a day. He even got the chance to get out and walk his trapline, resulting in a fair few demon rabbit pelts he'll be tanning just as soon as possible. Bar's been giving him more credit lately for the skins he's turned in, so he figures he's been getting pretty good at those. It's all good, really.

'Course, that doesn't mean he hasn't got other responsibilities, too, especially now. And those are kind of sitting on his thoughts no matter where he goes or what he does, at home or in the Bar or outside or anywhere else.

There's probably somebody he ought to talk to about that.

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Tue, 22 Oct 2013 04:18:36 GMT

Shephard's been doing his best since encountering the little jadeblood grub. There aren't a whole lot of troll childcare manuals out there. Mostly he's been working from the premise that what worked for him during Cubefall should probably work now, which is why there's a cocoon-tub-thing in what little floor space of his room isn't taken up by notebooks and Mrs. Wilson. Got to keep the sopor slime somewhere, it's not like he's going to let the grub sleep someplace he can't keep an eye on her.

Thing is, she's worse than a cat. No matter where you put her down to sleep, sooner or later you wake up with the little wriggler huddled up on top of your blankets.

Oh well. He'll deal. He's exhausted enough not to give a damn after a week of child care and cheerful threats and profanities (trolls get schoolfed, he vaguely remembers that, but that's no reason not to teach her a little vocabulary, right?).

So, yeah, he's probably snoring at the moment. He does that sometimes.

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The Next Day

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 14:24:40 GMT

It's the day after arriving in the village. The trolls' hunt was successful, the reaction spectacular. Jecinaldo met with each of the Americans separately and then had an extended sit-down with Mari, of which Mari does not particularly intend to speak. Other discussions were had and other things were handled, and ultimately everything was set up to happen the next day.

When you have the better part of a Satere-Mawe village gathered around the town's common meeting area to see five young men pass the ant rite for the twenty-fourth time, there's a certain anticipatory atmosphere to the event. It's only mildly disrupted by the pointing and murmuring caused by two non-Brazilian white people and two Alternian trolls making their way up to the place.

This is gonna get interesting.

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Up the River

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:43:40 GMT

The door from Milliways opens onto the deck of a boat; the trolls will probably recognize the Borealis. The heat outside isn't high equatorial summer- this is, after all, the Southern Hemisphere- but combined with the humidity and the raucous sounds of Darwin only knows how many different species of both Earth and Xen origin out there, it's close enough. "Here we are, ladies," says Shephard. "We're in Brazil, pullin' up on the shores of... shit, I forget which part of the Amazon river this is."

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March Ör Die

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:10:04 GMT

The humans and the trolls're up to their ass in Synths, and everything hurts and nothing is okay any more, and Shephard doesn't care. He's killing shit.

( Sons of bitches, crocodile tears in their eyes
We scare'em shitless just by showin' up alive )

That's what he was born to do and he goddamn well knows it. He's told Terezi- I kill shit so folks don't die. That's what I’m for, simple as that.

( Total war, blow your stack
Say no more, you know you can't go back )

In good times that means hunting dinner or butchering farm animals. Bad times, it means this, splashing things that the good Lord never meant to allow in His good world with as much lead as he's capable of splashing 'em with. Grabbing their weapons off their corpses and turning those on them, too. House divided against itself can't stand, right? Shit yeah.

( The same old thing
The same old thing
I just wanna
Shut it down
Shut it down )

And they're moving, too, they're fighting their way through, the dead things and the living can't hold them back, he can see the trolls and Freeman and the humans and they're pushing towards the place where everything in the world is as wrong as wrong can be-

( Dark night nothing to see
Invisible hand in front of me )

Wait.

… wait.

( Your shadows alive, it breathes at your side
Got no place to hide, be with you 'til the day you die )

(There is no way to explain this. You have to be there to understand it. Unless you've stood there covered in smoke and ichor and blood and worse and so much worse and KNOWN it was all sliding away from you on every side and SEEN it shimmering and darkening and melting and rolling, oh God, oh God Almighty no-)

( Wide Wake, wide awake, hear the silence hiss,
Will you break, will you break, iron binds your wrist )

There are three things in the world that Adrian Shephard fears and this is none of them. Fear is one thing. Indescribable primal terror is something else. This is the black stuff at the bottom of the brain in the places of your mind you don't remember even existing.

( I don't think you understand
Ain't no-one holding your hand
You're only skin and bone )

When you're six years old and you're playing with a friend and the Cheat breaks its bonds to let loose with a century flood, you don't see the river rising. What you see is ALL THE WATER IN THE WORLD, and it's coming in from every direction and it's destroying EVERYTHING THAT IS. And maybe you heard the story of Noah and of God's promise once but you're six and you don't remember that any more. Just the water, and the ending of every single thing that is.

( You're born broke and you die alone )

And with the Adepts in full swing and the hell of the Overworld around him and everything else coming in at once there's this long sharp horrible realization of But now I am six, I'm as clever as clever; so I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

"From 1775, men have worn and died in that uniform. You will survive, and you will be victorious, and you will live to induct others into that tradition."

And then there's this other realization, the one that got him through the Bar's Apocalypse. That the good Lord isn't gonna make a liar out of Steve Rogers.

The world is still washing away and all of existence is drowning around him and he knows it as surely as he knows he personally exists to kill shit so other folk don't die, but fuck him if he's gonna let a little thing like the destruction of everything that is stop him from doing his goddamn job.

"Reign thou in Hell thy Kingdom, let me serve
In Heav'n God ever blest, and his Divine
Behests obey, worthiest to be obeyed,
Yet Chains in Hell, not Realms expect: mean while
From me returned, as erst thou saidst, from flight,
This greeting on thy impious Crest receive-"

They find him eventually. Not in the Overworld, outside the Greenbrier. Must've triggered his teleporter without meaning to. At least they assume it was without meaning to, considering when they find him he's got his knees locked around the narrowest part of something that used to be huge and winged and covered in guns, and he's painted up to his elbows in sticky stuff nobody's seen before.

It takes them a while, and a crowbar, to pry his left hand's fingers off the weapon he's still trying to bash it to death with. They give up on the other one eventually. That silver hand just plain does not let go.

(OOC: Lyrics not attributable to Milton or Milne are the works of Motörhead.)

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OOC: What D&D Character Are You?

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 14:44:50 GMT

I Am A: Lawful Good Human Paladin/Ranger (2nd/2nd Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-17

Dexterity-18

Constitution-18

Intelligence-15

Wisdom-14

Charisma-13

Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment when it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Primary Class:
Paladins take their adventures seriously, and even a mundane mission is, in the heart of the paladin, a personal test an opportunity to demonstrate bravery, to learn tactics, and to find ways to do good. Divine power protects these warriors of virtue, warding off harm, protecting from disease, healing, and guarding against fear. The paladin can also direct this power to help others, healing wounds or curing diseases, and also use it to destroy evil. Experienced paladins can smite evil foes and turn away undead. A paladin's Wisdom score should be high, as this determines the maximum spell level that they can cast. Many of the paladin's special abilities also benefit from a high Charisma score.

Secondary Class:
Rangers are skilled stalkers and hunters who make their home in the woods. Their martial skill is nearly the equal of the fighter, but they lack the latter's dedication to the craft of fighting. Instead, the ranger focuses his skills and training on a specific enemy a type of creature he bears a vengeful grudge against and hunts above all others. Rangers often accept the role of protector, aiding those who live in or travel through the woods. His skills allow him to move quietly and stick to the shadows, especially in natural settings, and he also has special knowledge of certain types of creatures. Finally, an experienced ranger has such a tie to nature that he can actually draw on natural power to cast divine spells, much as a druid does, and like a druid he is often accompanied by animal companions. A ranger's Wisdom score should be high, as this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

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Ow

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:16:17 GMT

Thanks to Manny Redondo's work there are a lot more people in the Borealis' infirmary than there usually are after a battle. This is not a good thing in terms of privacy, quiet, or supplies, but given the whole genetic bottleneck thing the planet's currently facing, it's far from the worst possible outcome.

Arnold, the medic from City 17, is just one of the countless overworked Resistance staffers in the infirmary today. How overworked, you ask? Well, this is Arnold. During Gordon Freeman's assault on City 17, Arnold informed his compatriots that 'when all this is over, I'm gonna mate'. Right now, Arnold's pretty sure he'd give up sex or the chance thereof if it got him a little slack. Or if it got one particular patient of his to stop trying to get up and walk around because dammit, bug juice or no, he's just not ready yet.

Please, for the love of God, someone interrupt him.

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Shephardviða

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 22:38:50 GMT

Now, here is the story of the aerial part of the last great battle of Earth, and those who have survived it will swear that it is true:

Of old were the days | when the Worms lived;
Sea nor cool waves | nor green things there were;
Sand only, and rock | and foot-road and rail-road
And mighty pipes | that fed then the Beasts-

Fed fat on life | on men, on beasts
On all things living | fed by their masters
Took in the good | and gave forth ill
Spewed gas for maggots | that horrors breathed.

Long days I remember | years without birth
No children brought forth | by the conquered ones;
Years under yoke | of out-world horrors
Brought to an end | when the black tower fell.

The road to days | not yet known, not numbered,
Lay open before | the sons of Men;
Fog over the future | lifted, parted,
Hope came again | to daughters of Earth.

They came then to places, | arms gleaming, loaded
Five places there were, | one for each land
Each place that bore life | to slaughter the Worms
They bore the lambda | or fought on their own

And last came the fighters | to the Khan's country
In the high desert, | center of centers
Farthest from sea | of all places on land
Sixth of the Worms, | to the last place they came.

Its death they brought, | foulness for foulness;
A venom most dear | to lay it low;
Within a shell, | an enemy's likeness,
Meant not to be seen | until the end.

But the Worm's masters | knew venom coming
Threw their sky-eyes down | destroyed what remained;
The battle then fell | to foot-fighters
The Freeman must cross | the blood-painted sand.

And a second burden | be given away,
A second death | be brought to the Worm,
Warheads in plenty, | the ninety-second element
A weapon to use | once in a lifetime.

The Freeman would do it | would end the Worm
But the Worm's masters | gave order to stop him
Sent frog-things, crab-things | synths once called men
And whales of the sky | living guns, sky monsters.

Others have sung | of the land-fighters
Other tales tell | the way of that battle
I tell the sky-story | and what followed after
Of battle in heaven, | and then of the fall.

Black were the skies | with the Worm's masters
Throngs of steel beasts | both living and metal
Heavy with guns | with eyes blood-seeking
Death for the sons | and daughters of Earth.

Few were their foes | who could take wing;
Few the fighters were | who met them there;
A small band, a sky-band | took heaven's roads
Rose up from the land | of the Khans to meet them.

From below the dragon | mighty comes forth;
Kreyu the vast | she of great power
Once-dead, twice-born | returned to our world
To waste the Worm's masters | and crunch sky-whales' bones,
To scatter foul blood | and make fair the air.

Then in the south | another rises
Steel and engines' fire | missiles beyond counting
Its pilot Grimm | son of the right hand
To light the skies | with burning steel
To shower the land | with ruined machines
And paint the sands | in fire and foul smoke.

A third fighter, now | him who flies low
To dodge ground-thunder | and rescue the fallen
More sky-roads he trod | than any other
More times he sank | and rose again
Not once was he caught | no man could match him
Redondo the pilot | who never lost any.

One more remains | to be remembered
One more takes flight | against the Worm's masters
No stomach has he | for treading sky-roads
The Black Lion bears him | casts down his foes:
Shephard, unprintable | last Marine and first.

That sky I remember, | blue burning and black,
When air-battle joined | and hosts were split;
The sky full of fire | and foes uncounted,
Wolves of the clouds | sent screaming to ruin.

Smallest of hosts | to harry the largest
Three times outnumbered | and thrice more over,
Oft and again, | yet ever they lived,
Ever they fought | and no wound stopped them.

Forth from their halls | the Worm's masters come,
Not sky-whales now | nor only drones;
True masters, now, | death-breathing monsters,
Pain-givers, maggots | Advisors most foul.

Brave is Kreyu, | who lunges towards them;
brave also Grimm, | who falls on his foe.
Even the wave | of mind-pain, soul-pain
sends neither fleeing, | angers them only.

No strike of missile | harms the Worm's masters;
ground-thunder is flung | harmless aside;
here only one thing | avails the sky heroes:
death-breathers scream | when lasers rend them;
no power of mind | can turn aside light.

Dark now the skies | with smoke and thunder,
Darker the shadow | cast by the Lion,
Bright the war-bolts | that spring from its eyes,
Searing the fire | that slashes the foe.

Worm-masters fell, | vile maggots burned,
but one struck back | with mighty pain,
seared nerves, blinded eyes | of the Unprintable,
sent the Lion falling | as the death-breather fell.
Maggots in dying | gave their last breath,
struck at the Lion | and burned into ash.

Much do I know, | and more can I see
Of the fighters' fates, | the mighty in war.
Dark grows the sun, | and in summer soon
Come mighty storms: | would you know yet more?

Fire then there came, | the Freeman's fire,
a thousand suns' radiance | burst forth at once
into the sky, | the Mighty One's splendor;
he was become Death, | shatterer of Worms.

Those who survived | beyond the fire's range
In number were few, | a handful, no more.
The returning pilot | who hunted the wounded
made one last flight | and one more only.

To the foulest place | where death-breathers' blood
Soaked the Khans' country, | sank into the sand,
He flew only once, | and came back shortly,
bearing with him | the unprintable one.

No more the Lion | would take to the skies;
its pieces scattered, | its parts destroyed.
Its pilot yet lived, | though not entire;
to free him from wreckage | sacrifice was made;
his wise right hand | torn off, left behind.

Speaks now the medic | to his patient,
"Do you hear my words? | How bad is your pain?"
The answer given: | "Aw, Doc, it's okay.
It ain't really pain | till the bones show."
Then he looks down. | "Oh. Well. Fuck me."
And wakens later | when two dawns are past...

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