You consider your options. This is not an easy choice. These people... Knowing they're near your home, it makes you angry. You want to deal with them. Remove them. Kill them. Eat them. For Ali's sake. For your sake. For everyone's sake. You know how. Just set up an ambush. One sneak attack and they'll be gone. Easy. But... even though the inhabitants of this world are fragile and weak, there's a reason they survive. There's a reason those people cause so much fear. Numbers. Tools. Maybe other things you don't know about. What if you lose? You only have one life. And in the end, your life is the most important. And by extension, the lives of those who care about you. What if they escape and attack them? You can't protect them all the time. But you don't want to lose them. You don't want to lose Ali.
In the end, you fear that there's too much to lose and too little to gain. Under no circumstances should you get directly involved. ... But at the same time, it feels as if you should at least do
something. You don't know why. Maybe it's because you hate feeling this fear and powerlessness and want to feel like you have at least
some control over the situation. Or maybe it's because you know what it's like to be alone and afraid and on the run, searching for a safe place to rest. You can't provide her with a home, like Mom and Dad did for you, but you can give her some help.
You search your pack until you find the credit chip you were looking for. As you approach Iseng'ela, you see Eiwhyl giving you a disapproving look but she says nothing. You nudge her and present the credits to her. There's momentary confusion in her eyes before she accepts the credits.
Lost item: Yellow credit chip (100 credits)"I... I don't understand."It's strange. You expected her to be a bit more relieved, but she's still filled with desperation.
"For home." you explain.
"But these are barely enough to cover rent for one day! How am I supposed to-""Didn't you say he was paying you 'good money'? Just use some of that."She shrinks, embarrassed, as if she'd prefer it for the ground to swallow her up so she could escape this.
"I can't, he... The credits were in my apartment and I can't go back there."Eiwhyl scoffs but says nothing.
"Stay in Maintenance Tunnels. Use credits for food." you suggest, trying to be helpful.
"I can't stay there! What if something attacks me? What if-""Look, he gave you credits. That's more than I would do. Just be happy you got that much and leave."Iseng'ela looks into your and Eiwhyl's eyes, from one to the other, looking for something, anything to hold onto.
"Out. Now."She gets up and starts slowly walking towards the door, defeated. She pauses at the threshold.
"I never thought you'd be so mean."Eiwhyl just grunts in response.
"You're evil. Everyone in this forsaken world is evil." she mutters.
She walks outside and the door closes behind her.
Eiwhyl emits a long sigh and rests her head on the counter.
"As if I didn't have enough trouble already."...
This night does not proceed like the others. Eiwhyl's behavior is different. Instead of going to sleep she stays with you. She lets you do most of the work and merely exchanges a few words with her patients, remaining otherwise quiet. When you try to talk to her abut what happened she very clearly tells you she doesn't want to talk about it, so you drop it. Instead you talk about things like food and drink, the weather and the latest holovids. Neither of you are very good at holding conversations, so they are long, staggered affairs, a few short exchanges of words separated by long periods of silence.
Eiwhyl drinks something called "Trash Grog" and offers you some. You take an experimental lap out of her glass. It is somehow both pleasant but also manages to burn your throat and tongue so you decide not to drink more for now. Eiwhyl probably comes to the same conclusion, as she stops drinking after a few sips and just goes back to sitting around and messing with her datapad.
Age: a few months (hatchling)
Size: about the size of a large dog
Status: tired, satiated
Health: fine
Weapons: claws and teeth
Armor: soft scales
Abilities:
- Short Flight: You can glide in order to survive falls and quickly move great distances. You can even fly upwards for short distances. You can use favorable winds and updrafts to increase your glide time.
- Basic Human Language: You are able to understand many of the most common words of the human language, including some that express more abstract things, though there are still a great many words and expressions that you have yet to learn. You can also read, though it takes you some time to understand the words. You can also speak, though it's sometimes hard for others to understand you.
- Communication: You have a knack for understanding other beings, even those whose language you don't know.
- Basic Nursing: You know the basics of caring for patients and preparing and maintaining equipment used in their care. You can also administer certain simple treatments. However you still lack much of the knowledge necessary for you to be able to determine what said treatment should be.
- Large Sonic Rifle covered by old torn clothes (in Maintenance Tunnels, behind a pipe)
- Pack with plastoid tape modifications (equipped on left side)
- Half-used medpac
- 190 credits (4 blue, 1 red)
- half-used roll of plastoid tape
- flashlight
- small can of droid oil
- small metal toolbox
- Ali's Apartment (Lair): A tiny 2 bedroom apartment. The little human Ali lives there with Dad/Jobal and Mom/Ania. Room 327.
- Ali's Apartment Tower: Apartments arranged in a circle. Clean, bright, mostly locked doors, few hiding places. Little traffic during the night.
- Eiwhyl's Clinic: Sells medpacs and other healing items and provides treatment. Warning: stabby. Room 509.
- Streets: Dirty streets, parked hovercars, shops, building entrances, street vendors, little traffic during the night.
- Maintenance Tunnels: Interconnected tunnels, small and large, going low and high. Connect various streets and buildings. Wires and pipes. Dark, dirty, with old machines constantly rumbling. Scavenger-vermin and hunters-of-vermin.
- Garbage Pit: A large room with mountains of garbage half-submerged in a sea of sludge. More garbage frequently arrives from holes in the ceiling. A monster lurks here, may pull prey underwater.
- Hydroponic Pool: A room with a large pool filled with plants. A ceiling full of bright lamps. A spherical gardener-droid takes care of the plants. Patrolled by hostile gunmen. A corridor leads to other rooms. Storage room. Processing room. Other rooms are unexplored.
- Iyran Grower Shop: A store located deeper into the tower's streets. Operated by a cephalopoid. The grower sells cheap synthetic meat, amongst other things.
If you have nothing you want to do or talk about at the moment let me know and I'll continue.
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Topic: Surviving in an Alien World [Suggestion Game] (Read 106995 times)