Welcome to Look Closer Baby, You're So Wrong - a Future/Fantasy Tech RP
This RP is now full except for invites! It is a mixed horror story / large-scale combat RP. This is primarily a story-based RP and my word is final
This RP is now full except for invites! It is a mixed horror story / large-scale combat RP. This is primarily a story-based RP and my word is final
PROLOGUE
Hisui Province, Wa District, Planet Laptev
Castle Takeshi, 0720 hrs
Fujin-Daimyo Takeshi took a deep breath and smiled. Despite his injuries, he kept his back straight and his step steady as he paced down the swept gravel path, his footsteps crunching pleasantly over the gentle breeze. Samurai lined the wide path, which led between two low stone walls under a gatehouse and into a large courtyard, bounded by the walls on one side and by nothing but a moat on the other. A wooden bridge, directly opposite the gatehouse, led to a paved road which curved down a meadowed hillside to the town below.
In the centre of the sandy courtyard was a set of scarlet tatami mats, with a small honour guard of red-and-grey-clad samurai and attendants. Closer to the bridge, a block of white and jade armoured samurai stood respectfully beneath the banner of the Jade Empire.
Takeshi paused at the edge of the mats, breathing deeply again as the summer blossoms spread their scent through the air. He almost winced as the pain in his ribs lanced fire across his chest, but he composed himself and stepped firmly into the center of the mats, removing his sandals and unbuckling his swords, which he handed to the man to his right, Gureda Kaisigi, his second.
Takeshi was about to commit seppuku. He had failed in allowing himself and his bodyguards to be overpowered by the Franks, and whilst his warriors had died bravely, with enemy slain at their feet, he had been captured. To efface that shame, he was ending his life with permission from the Jade Empress, who had sent a company of the Konoe Shinan to witness the ritual.
Kneeling, he glanced at his eldest son, Kansho, the heir to the feudal lands of Wa District. He despised the rat-faced little turd, who used etiquette and honour as tools and would drop them at a moment's notice. Very improper. Regardless, the family line would be continued. Perhaps Kansho's new wife, that foreign freak from Yukiyama Province, would influence him for the better. But he doubted it.
He drew his tanto, marvelling at the feel of the leather, barely used during his career of adminstrative excellence. It was a beautiful piece of work, and he felt a pang of annoyance that it would go to his son. Better that it would go to his grandson, he decided, when Sigurd finally popped out an heir. Laying the tanto next to his paper and his incense, he lit the stick of pungent spice and let the smoke drift as he penned his final will and death poem.
The courtyard was perfectly still as the old man scratched. Finally, knowing he could not put off the dreadful moment any longer, he laid down his pen, handed the scroll to an aide, and then picked up the tanto with quivering fingers and neatly drew his clothing into the proper position.
What a thing, to live, he thought to himself. He had died back on Neustria. With a jerk of his wrist he heaved the knife into his stomach. Simultaneously, with typical perfection, loyal Gureda whipped his own blade in a tight slash, taking old Takeshi's head with the faintest whisper of torn silk.
The wind picked up as Takeshi's head rolled twice on the woven mats before coming to a stop, his body slumping gently to the floor. Gureda ceremonially wiped his katana clean and then knelt, head bowed in reverence.
Suki Minowara, the commanding officer of the imperial delegation, realised at that moment what it was that had been clawing at her stomach since they arrived. It was the air. Something smelt wrong, almost rotten. If she didn't know better she would call it rotten seaweed, but the nearest coastline was an easy four hundred kilometres away.
Castle Takeshi, 0720 hrs
Fujin-Daimyo Takeshi took a deep breath and smiled. Despite his injuries, he kept his back straight and his step steady as he paced down the swept gravel path, his footsteps crunching pleasantly over the gentle breeze. Samurai lined the wide path, which led between two low stone walls under a gatehouse and into a large courtyard, bounded by the walls on one side and by nothing but a moat on the other. A wooden bridge, directly opposite the gatehouse, led to a paved road which curved down a meadowed hillside to the town below.
In the centre of the sandy courtyard was a set of scarlet tatami mats, with a small honour guard of red-and-grey-clad samurai and attendants. Closer to the bridge, a block of white and jade armoured samurai stood respectfully beneath the banner of the Jade Empire.
Takeshi paused at the edge of the mats, breathing deeply again as the summer blossoms spread their scent through the air. He almost winced as the pain in his ribs lanced fire across his chest, but he composed himself and stepped firmly into the center of the mats, removing his sandals and unbuckling his swords, which he handed to the man to his right, Gureda Kaisigi, his second.
Takeshi was about to commit seppuku. He had failed in allowing himself and his bodyguards to be overpowered by the Franks, and whilst his warriors had died bravely, with enemy slain at their feet, he had been captured. To efface that shame, he was ending his life with permission from the Jade Empress, who had sent a company of the Konoe Shinan to witness the ritual.
Kneeling, he glanced at his eldest son, Kansho, the heir to the feudal lands of Wa District. He despised the rat-faced little turd, who used etiquette and honour as tools and would drop them at a moment's notice. Very improper. Regardless, the family line would be continued. Perhaps Kansho's new wife, that foreign freak from Yukiyama Province, would influence him for the better. But he doubted it.
He drew his tanto, marvelling at the feel of the leather, barely used during his career of adminstrative excellence. It was a beautiful piece of work, and he felt a pang of annoyance that it would go to his son. Better that it would go to his grandson, he decided, when Sigurd finally popped out an heir. Laying the tanto next to his paper and his incense, he lit the stick of pungent spice and let the smoke drift as he penned his final will and death poem.
The courtyard was perfectly still as the old man scratched. Finally, knowing he could not put off the dreadful moment any longer, he laid down his pen, handed the scroll to an aide, and then picked up the tanto with quivering fingers and neatly drew his clothing into the proper position.
What a thing, to live, he thought to himself. He had died back on Neustria. With a jerk of his wrist he heaved the knife into his stomach. Simultaneously, with typical perfection, loyal Gureda whipped his own blade in a tight slash, taking old Takeshi's head with the faintest whisper of torn silk.
The wind picked up as Takeshi's head rolled twice on the woven mats before coming to a stop, his body slumping gently to the floor. Gureda ceremonially wiped his katana clean and then knelt, head bowed in reverence.
Suki Minowara, the commanding officer of the imperial delegation, realised at that moment what it was that had been clawing at her stomach since they arrived. It was the air. Something smelt wrong, almost rotten. If she didn't know better she would call it rotten seaweed, but the nearest coastline was an easy four hundred kilometres away.
Target Planet AT-30452, code-name Long Isle
Landing Zone Teal, mid-morning local time
Sergeant Thirsk cuffed at her wrist. Her PID was flickering, which it had a habit of doing only when the maintenance unit weren't looking at it. Above her head, a huge Bako-class dropship thudded as a shadow through the thick clouds, its wake churning the blue-grey seas even at this distance. She turned to peer up the long shingly beach, strewn with seaweed that, though it looked a little different, smelled just as strongly as the stuff back home. A pungent reminder of the wonders of convergent evolution.
Her battalion, the 2nd of the 845th Regiment, had been assigned to help in the settling of this new planet. Initial scouting forays had turned up nothing in the way of sentient life on the planet, except for a race of semi-sentient rodentlike beings which had developed basic tool use. The Kokubosho had designated them 'skraelings', or 'ashi-magari' - a nuisance to be swept aside, nothing more. So far they had landed forward elements at three different locations and only one platoon had discharged weapons, firing into the sky to scare off a gaggle of curious animals that had been loitering nearby.
She trudged along the beach, as ahead of her a PMOF dropped from the IJN Tezcatlipoca loomed through the salt-misted morning haze. The planet had been selected for its rich marine resources, with cold but fertile swathes of sea stretching down to vast shallow tropics along the equator, all studded with relatively small islands and archipelagos on which the Empire was planning to construct a network of settlements. The sheer, brutal lines of the Prefabricated Marine Outpost Facility looked strangely in tune with the rocky, foam-strewn coastland, but the colony had been thoroughly planned out. Over the next three years, a permanent population of 18 million would spread over six primary settlements and a constellation of smaller ones, tending to and harvesting the planet's rich ecosystem in line with a plan painstakingly developed by marine biologists and ecologists. Colony-worlds like this were springing up all over the near galaxy as the Jade Empire re-established its vast network of trade, exploration and civilisation.
The smooth black stones of the beach crunched under her slate-grey boots, the scene almost perfect except for the growing stink of rotting seaweed. Her foot thumped against something large and she stopped, glancing down. A small statuette, perhaps ten inches in height, lay nestled against the strangely smooth stones of the shore. She turned it over with her toe and recoiled - the little figure that turned its face up to her was not human, indeed it had abyssal undertones, hideously aquatic writhing limbs and a morass for a face. It radiated antiquity and nobility at the same time as a foulness. She crouched, scooping up the bizarre icon, then slipped it into a pouch at her belt and continued on her patrol. Behind her, in the gently rolling tide, a dark, humped shape moved lazily below the surface of the waters for a second, before disappearing...
Landing Zone Teal, mid-morning local time
Sergeant Thirsk cuffed at her wrist. Her PID was flickering, which it had a habit of doing only when the maintenance unit weren't looking at it. Above her head, a huge Bako-class dropship thudded as a shadow through the thick clouds, its wake churning the blue-grey seas even at this distance. She turned to peer up the long shingly beach, strewn with seaweed that, though it looked a little different, smelled just as strongly as the stuff back home. A pungent reminder of the wonders of convergent evolution.
Her battalion, the 2nd of the 845th Regiment, had been assigned to help in the settling of this new planet. Initial scouting forays had turned up nothing in the way of sentient life on the planet, except for a race of semi-sentient rodentlike beings which had developed basic tool use. The Kokubosho had designated them 'skraelings', or 'ashi-magari' - a nuisance to be swept aside, nothing more. So far they had landed forward elements at three different locations and only one platoon had discharged weapons, firing into the sky to scare off a gaggle of curious animals that had been loitering nearby.
She trudged along the beach, as ahead of her a PMOF dropped from the IJN Tezcatlipoca loomed through the salt-misted morning haze. The planet had been selected for its rich marine resources, with cold but fertile swathes of sea stretching down to vast shallow tropics along the equator, all studded with relatively small islands and archipelagos on which the Empire was planning to construct a network of settlements. The sheer, brutal lines of the Prefabricated Marine Outpost Facility looked strangely in tune with the rocky, foam-strewn coastland, but the colony had been thoroughly planned out. Over the next three years, a permanent population of 18 million would spread over six primary settlements and a constellation of smaller ones, tending to and harvesting the planet's rich ecosystem in line with a plan painstakingly developed by marine biologists and ecologists. Colony-worlds like this were springing up all over the near galaxy as the Jade Empire re-established its vast network of trade, exploration and civilisation.
The smooth black stones of the beach crunched under her slate-grey boots, the scene almost perfect except for the growing stink of rotting seaweed. Her foot thumped against something large and she stopped, glancing down. A small statuette, perhaps ten inches in height, lay nestled against the strangely smooth stones of the shore. She turned it over with her toe and recoiled - the little figure that turned its face up to her was not human, indeed it had abyssal undertones, hideously aquatic writhing limbs and a morass for a face. It radiated antiquity and nobility at the same time as a foulness. She crouched, scooping up the bizarre icon, then slipped it into a pouch at her belt and continued on her patrol. Behind her, in the gently rolling tide, a dark, humped shape moved lazily below the surface of the waters for a second, before disappearing...
