Well that settles it, the companion is a flier, I'll tell you what kind once we settle on who our character is.

Long story short our story will start after You've been in hiding for about a month. One day the King's men invaded the house and hualed your parents away. They locked you in the cellar with a companion your parents had built for you, a weapon and a tool that was to be given to you when you completed your Rite of Passage.

The king's men ransacked the house and hauled away your parents and most of your texts on technology and other obscure subjects. What is your name, what do you look like, what's your race of cat?

I'm thinking...50%er, Ocelot, and We can call her Lottie Dynamus

>>442965
A serval.. no, wait, that's too close to sergal for my taste. How about a savannah cat from this?

http://www.exoticcatnetwork.com/savannahs.htm

As for names, I'm holding out for Cerise Bloomers, but anything sufficiently punny is fine too.

rolled 7, 1 = 8

---

>>442967
>>442968


rollan for it.

>>442968
Sadly we're Lottie Dynamus now, the good news is you get the consolation prize of choosing what our flier looks like.

Bengal cat. Awesome marbled swirls and spots. Plus, I like the head shape better than Savannahs.

No name preference.

>>442970
Hm. How about a kokapo?

In case you don't know what one is, here's a link. I must warn it is disgustingly obscene and contains filthy, filthy bestiality and rape.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNAkdHKx9SM

It's the moderately infamous "rare bird humps a guy's head" video

>>442974
Oops, kakapo*. Can I really be blamed for having my mind in the gutter on this one?

A Snow Leopard named Nivlek. King Leonidus ate his lunch.

>>442975
Kakapo it is. A greenish metal bird with an antigrav unit to help it fly and a built in sonic stunner.

>>442980
Awesome, what should we call it?

You are Lottie Dynamus, a 16 year old Ocelot, your parents were captured and executed by King Leonidus for having too much knowledge of old Technology. You've spent the last two weeks hiding in the slums, carefully spending your last few coins. In between KaKanimus your Tech-Familair and your own wit and intelligence you've managed to evade capture so far.

You're out of food and drinkable water though and you need to leave the abandoned building you've been squatting in to buy food. Taking the blaster you own with you will be too conspicuous so you take a dagger instead. You have Kakanimus fly above you and watch the streets in case the King's men decide to make another sweep of the slums.

>>442985
"buy" food? Hmm.

On the one hand, we're already going to be executed if we're caught, might as well steal.

On the other hand, being caught thieving would pretty much draw their attention and fuck us over. Of course, being caught shopping would do that, too, but that's less likely.


Check the walls. Do you see any "Wanted" posters of yourself?

Because if so, safest thing to do is have Kakanimus steal some food. No one questions birds stealing food, right?

You spend much of the afternoon shuffling from shopstall to shopstall trying to find clean food and drink, it's difficult and you have to haggle like an old fish wife to keep from being cheated but you're a merchant's daughter so that's not the hard part. Just when you think you're in the clear and you've got your goods ready to take back to your earstwhile home a young Bengali-Cat bumps into you and appologizes.

"Oh, my apologies young miss." You're filthy with dirt and grime and he's relatively clean so this is a tad odd. "You seem to have dropped this." He extends his hand, in it is a piece of parchment that's been sealed by a unique wax crest, a sphynx, underneath 3 stars.

That piece of paper most definetly is not yours, though you do recognize it from your family's dealings. These people used to be customers of your family, good ones. What would you like to do?

>>442987
its a large, obviously robotic bird, you can't tell if its real or technological from a distance but he'd have to get close enough to be seen if he wanted to steal some food, you could only really use this strategy at night. and people lock up their goods proppa tight at night.

There are wanted posters everywhere, for both men and women, luckily you don't seem to be on any of them. Most of them are aimed at rogue clerics and army officers.

>>442990
I don't think you can risk possibler spies so early. Say he must have mistaken you and then take a long, circuitous route back to your hidey-hole.

Unless...

Did your family have any secret phrases, shibboleths, badges, any identifiers like that? Check him for those and drop any shibboleths you might know into your excusing yourself.

You excuse yourself with a small curtsy and drop a small piece of techno-cant into your goodbye, interestingly enough the Bengali-Cat answers your techno-cant with techno-cant of his own. He moves Just so and reveals a pendent with the sigil of engineers, a secret society dating back to the founding of Thundera, keepers of technological secrets. Your parents were members and you always wear a ring with the Engineers sigil on it.

What would you like to do?

>>442995
Okay, he seems trustworthy enough for now. Follow cautiously, remember any escape routes, and keep Kakanimus in backup. Try not to let this guy know you have Kakanimus.

Since it's your first time here, may I make a suggestion? Make a questdis thread to dump any info, answer OOC questions, and let the suggesters argue about irrelevant stuff. Given that we seem to be trying to lay low, there is likely to be a lot of arguing about whether or not to trust X, if plan Y is a bad idea or not, etc.

The Bengali-Cat ( He identifies himself as Torrence) Leads you to an abandoned alley. He keeps one hand firmly on the Thundarian army issue sword at his side and glares at the Alleycats who've congregated here until they leave. Then he has you open the note.

>Lottie, You're in dangers, not from Torrence he's loyal but the King's Guard are going to burn the slums to the ground in six days and you, and everyone else who has even a loose connection to the King's enemies. Wait until midnight and then gather your IMPORTANT belongings. Go to the address listed.

>Burn the note and the wax seal.

>Signed, a friend.

With that Torrence bids you a good day and escorts you to one of the main slum streets. Then he goes on his merry way.

You make your way home without incident. You have enough food for a week.

What would you like to do?

>>443005
Research making yourself fireproof and fake a horrible burning death in a week. No one's going to try to execute you if they think you're dead.


...Okay, so many things can go wrong with that, starting with Leonidus being paranoid enough to have the ashes searched or the construction crew of the huge Neroesque villa he inevitably builds catching you. Keep it as a backup.

Do what the note says and spend the time until midnight searching the slums for stuff to use to upgrade stuff, maybe?

>>443006
You could spend the last of your fund buying stuff like metal or glass or other raw materials you need to make circuits and the various other items to make other items.

The tools to build the tools to build the tools as it were.

But there's no way you'll have enough time in six days to convert metal and silicon and other raw materials into like... the parts for a ray gun or something like that. Remember Leonidus is cracking down on tech, all the black marketeers have been run out of town and all the legitimate suppliers have been exiled or executed.

You have enough cash for some decent armor and a sword (or sword equivelent) as well as some travel rations.so there's that.

What would you like to do?

>>443011
We have a dagger and swords are a lot harder to use than people think. Unless your merchant family trained you in marching, sleeping, and going to the bathroom in/with heavy armor, I'd think it's best to invest in some boiled leather armor. Get a choker to prevent garrotes, and whatever else you can afford.

Gather your belongings, and be prepared to move. Remain wary that this could be a trap, but one way or the other, something is going to change tonight.

Since we're going to be leaving the area, try calling in and old favors or chits in order to get supplies. You're not going to be needing the favors much longer.

[as far as swords go you would've bought a machete, hack an slash, pretty direct approach. anyway you have a raygun so swords would be a last ditch thing.]

You spend much of the afternoon wandering the slums, in bits and pieces you buy metal rivets and boiled leather, never enough from the same person to let them know what you're doing. It takes all day and you work well into the night but you make your own suit of riveted leather armor, you even have enough left over to make a choker.

Then midnight rolls around and you gather up your raygun, you metal bird, and your omnitool. You set out into the night.

Bird should fly low recon overhead, so it can warn you on the off chance you're being lead into an ambush here. If the baddies knew your location, getting you to walk to them might be easier and cheaper than burning the area down.

The night is...quiet, unusually so. Ever since his bid to take control of the kingdom Leonidus has been hitting the slums hard and all the usual troublemakers are dead or jailed or in exile. Even just last week there'd be whores shouting out of windows, drunks staggering through alleys and muggings occuring around the hour. Things are safer than they were but you can't help but feel if someone's sucked the life out of this place.

You make your way through the streets with your bundle of belongings, Kakanimus follows you through the air. It takes some backtracking but you find the address, an old abandoned palace. There are some signs of habitation, foot prints in the mud, the ocasional piece of fresh garbage but otherwise it looks dead...empty.

>>443029
Yeah, this. And make sure to equip your new hopefully non-fetishy armor and keep your raygun at the rea...

Is the raygun banned now? Keep it ready to use if you can, but keeping it out of sight is more important since you have Kakanimus to back you up.

We should watch the meeting place for a minute or two. Watch for movement, identify exits if we'll need them.

How conspicuous is the science-ray anyways? Handgun sized? Rifle-sized? Bazooka-sized?

Kakanimus reports that the area is clear, for the moment anyway and you approach the building. It takes some effort to find a door that hasn't been boarded over. But eventually you find one, tall, wide with a large hatch on the front. You knock firmly three times on the door and the hatch opens. A pair of green eyes survey you for a moment and then you hear something like 6 to 12 locks being undone. An old grizzled Tiger invites you inside the building. He's wearing Thunderian army standard issue with a black cloak to hide his features.

You enter the building and after a moment, Torrence takes you by the hand and leads you down several hallways, you immedietly lose your way. Eventually you find yourself in a room, it looks to have been a place for ceremonies at one point in time. There's three prominent groups. One is obviously a group of Clerics, led by an extremely old Jaguar whose currently being attended to by a young puma woman.

>>443033
[ raygun is VERBOTEN if you don't serve the king and have special dispensation to use it. Rifle size, a very bulky rifle, a bit like megaman's blaster in function.]

The secon group are obviously engineers, presided over by a positively ancient tiger women, she's wracked by the occasional cough but seems fine otherwise despite her age.

The third are Thunderian Army Personel, officers, NCOs line troopers, they'r being led by a postively massive Puma man dressed up in old, patchwork platemail. He's got a halberd that he won't stop toying with.

"Lord Van Dyne will begin speaking in an hour or two. Please make sure to speak to lord Van Lyk." Torrence points out a black-cat who has a pair of clearly very damaged technological artifacts laid out on the floor in front of him, one's a scorched gauntlet, the other's a broken sword. "It was he who insisted that every single exile, rogue, officer, and noble be gathered up for these meetings. You're only here because of him." \

With that Torrence returns to the elderly tiger woman and begins speaking with her.

What would you like to do? Kakanimus reports that the area appears to be safe for the moment, but that he can't track you once you're inside this building. You can take out your raygun now if you feel like it.

Eh, I don't think it would help the situation to unsling our weapon as soon as we reached the rebels. Hardly a sign of good faith, especially if they're wary of infiltrators or assassins.

Let's go talk to our benefactor, then. The tech cat who had us brought in.

You approach the Cat who had you brought in. You're about to speak but "Lord Van Lyk" Speaks up before you can. "Lottie Dynamus, age 16, not yet passed her Rite of Passage, therefore not inducted into the full mysteries of Clan Dynamus." The black Cat looks up at you, he looks extremely tired and his bright green eyes are blood shot. "Daughter of Lonny and Adonis Dynamus, only child." He can clearly see your conclusion over this form of address, "I know a lot about you Lottie, because you're really very important to me." He hands you the Gaunlet, there's a large crease in the metal, right across the force screen circuits. The metal is slightly melted in that area. "Check the back of the palm." The same sigil from before, a spynx, a black sphynx, on a metallic grey plain, underneath a sky with six red stars. "My crest. Now look in the palm." You do and find an odd surprise. A makers mark, specifically the makers mark of your own clan. "The Dynamus Clan is old, goes right back to the Rise of Thundera."

"Your clan made that shield." He lifts up the broken sword, a saber, the blade has been sheared off, what look like force field emitters embedded in the handle look to have been overloaded. "And this sword. You may not know all your clan's secrets but I'd like to think these techniques are so old that you'd have at least a fix or two ready for me." Interestingly enough you can think of a way or two Jury rig these artifacts into working order. They wouldn;t be good as new but they'd work.

Well Van Lyk has said his piece, would you like to ask him some questions or talk about something other than tech?

apparently the Nobles here engage in a great deal of stalking. Uh, ask him what he'll give us in return for fixing his junk. Whats our Makers-Mark Look like?

>>443085
Yeah, this is good.

Well, you'd certainly be interested in fixing stuff. That's what you do! What's the story with what's going on here, though?

"Well yes I could fix them, just a little though. They wouldn't be capable of half of what they used to be able to do." Van Lyk thinks this over for a moment and getsures at you to sit, which you do.

"Please fix the artifacts, I'll be more than happy to pay you back with a favor or two, information is of course free. I apologize if I sounded..." He gestures as if searching for a word. "Well creepy, I've been looking for the best chance to fix these for a month. I'm a tad obsessed with having my heirlooms repaired." You use your omnitool to break apart the sheild-gauntlet and carefully begin to reshape the casing with a sonic hammer.

"Understandable, this is some Quality work. What's going on here?" Once that unsightly crease is gone you start working on the innards, removing burnt out worthless circuits and rerouting the remaining circuits so that the device will still be able to generate a shield.

"Ah yes, as you know Leonidus has been cleaning house for a year."

"For the past six months or so me and the family of the other generals, the remnants of the Engineers, the rebel clerics, have beein building a resistance. We've been cleaning out Leonidus's tech archives and filching his magical lore. We've also been breaking up his slaver caravans. Well he's had enough. He can't get us in the slums so he's just going to burn the slums down." He gestures around him with one hand. "This is us figuring out how to get out of the city and search for greener pastures." It doesn't take long for you to strip the ruined parts from the Gauntlet and Jury Rig a working forcefield array. You hand it to Vanlyk and he activates it. The resulting shield is a dim white in colour five feet in diameter and riven with cracks in the energy matrix which resemble static. The cracks are constantly changing shape and formation, the sight and sound is disturbing. "It'll have to do, thank you."

[I'll let you determinewhat her clan's crest looks like, as for the makers mark its a simple "V" with a small dot inside the V, its the simble of an ancient craftsman from your clan]

You pick up the sword, it has 3 or so feet of blade left and the forcefield emitters are burned out, or so it appears, in truth only half the emitters are burned out. You're able to jump start the forcefield emitters after you pop open the casing and start fiddling with power source. It takes a few minutes but you get the blade working. When activated a 5 foot long blade of crackling white energy springs from the sword hilt, it sparks and sputters and it hurts the eyes to look at it but it works.

On the plus side you're able to cobble together some working parts from malfuctioning artifact's discard pile. You have enough to build one small device, one involving energy or forcefields. You could charge up the device with your raygun's thundrillium reactor. It won't be terribly impressive but it could be useful.

What kind of device would you like to build, the most obvious would be aforcefield emitter for your dagger, but if it involves energy projection or forcefields you can build it.

Lets attatch a gravity gun function to our raygun, we can use it to grab stuff and pick up stuff from a distance and to throw stuff. It'll be fun!

Force shield apportation / hookshoot from the dagger. We can use it to grab things at a distance, or as a grappling hook.

You have Van Lyk bring you a roll of high strength wire, strong enough to lift around 200 pounds or so. After attatching that to your gun you pop open the gun casing and carefully add the power circuits, forcefield emitters and other parts, from there you program the forcefield to propel the dagger and to reel in the wire. You install the wire reel and carefully attatch it to your dagger. Whan all is said and done you have a bayonet/grappling hook attatched to your raygun. Van Lyk compliments you on your skills as a Tech-Wizard, he didn't think those busted parts were good for anything.

You can skip straight to vandynes speech or mingle a little bit with the gathered worthies (or Van Lyk) what would you like to do?

Mingle a bit. It wouldn't hurt to hear some other people's stories, and friends might be useful later. If we mingle with the techie crowd, maybe we'll pick up a trick or two we didn't know before.

okay there's clerics, soldiers, tech guys, and a gaggle of nobles is beginning to form. Who would you like to talk to?

Well, we're lower caste, right, so the nobles might not take us well. And the military is sexist. That leaves the clerics, and our fellow techies as best bets for useful information.

Spend some time with both.

You approach the clerics, you never did spend much time with them, they're supposed to educate nobles and the Royal line. You were never anything more than glorified merchants. You're just about to turn away when the Oldest among the Clerics, a Male Jaguar turns to you, his eyes are milky and white and it becomes obvious that he's blind. "Come...Closer child these eyes may have failed me but I can still see with my heart." He makes a gesture and mumbles. One of the clerics, presumably an apprentice judging by her age and height grabs an unmarked crate and sets it beside the old cleric. "I am Janus, I Tutored General Korraxxon when he was young, judging from what my young ones tell me you've been spending time with young Master Corax." You're confused for a brief moment but then you remember that Korraxxon Van Lyk was one of the Generals that Leonidus murdered. "But let us not gossip about noblemen and their children. You are one of the last additions to our little Family, I'm sure you have questions child."

"Ask your questions child, if I don't know the answer I'm sure my young ones will." Janus's face is creased with wrinkles and he looks positively ancient. He wears the regalia of a cleric but not the hood and he has a Crossier laid over his lap. "You've come quite some way child, your heart bears the weight of loss, and like everyone else you're tasting the poison of fear. Let us hope that Knowledge will help alleviate some of that."

What would you like to ask Janus about.

Knowledge. Knoledge Knowledge... I'm thinking this guy is going senile.

Anyways uh, Lets ask him about this Van Dyne guy and what precisely Leonidus is doing aside from...you know killing our family and enslaving his own people for profit.