Night Owl let a scowl cross his face, it looked like things were going bad already.
"Our meeting with Phoenix wasn't exactly inspiring, I hope that shouting match counts as clearance through Legion territory." Night Owl scoffed at the fallen Legionary as he walked past.
Knox was a bit surprised at the asshole-ness of Legionairres, and considered huffing up a can of jet in front of them just for spite. He decided against it at the last minute, noting that one of the corpses seemed to have the leather of the Khans on it.
"Siding the Khans with the Legion seems to get worse and worse all the time..."
"I would watch yourself Profligates. You are in Legion territory now. It would not be hard for us to turn you into a warning to others," Lucius said while watching the others.
"The Legion are welcome to try their luck, I'd be obliged to give them a good old fashioned NCR Ranger farewell." Night Owl knew this topic was dangerous considering their current company and thought it better to change the topic.
"Your man Phoenix, he's not the most reasonable of people, how do we know every legionaire in CottonWood Cove isn't going to pursue us?"
"You are in our territory. If you speak bad of an officer, do not expect it to be met with friendliness. You are in our house now. You would do best to respect that," Lucius replied as he continued to stare coldly at the others.
"I've seen how Legion respect NCR territory, so if by showing respect you mean slaughtering civilians and taking anyone who survives as a slave... You'll have to forgive me If simply act peacefully instead." Night Owl shot back in a mocking tone, he found it amusing a legionary would even mention respect.
"That'd be right, NCR is closing in on the Mojave, expanding bit by bit, the Legion are just waiting over the Colorado, they'll just pour in soon enough, either way Mr. House is in trouble no matter who wins. It wouldn't surprise me if he made up some scheme to kill off the greatest members of each faction and spark off a huge war."
"If we survive and I get my pay I don't mind what he does. He will never find our bunker." said Alex confidently.
"Does anyone have any food or water? This could take a while"
Am I the only one actually attempting to RP this in NV?
[occ] So guys sorry for not being active and I wont be for the rest of the night. My weather in my city finaly turned good and now the lawn care service I work for is crazy busy. After that I have my neices first communion, then My prom is tonight. See you guys tommorow.[/occ]
"So how is this guna work? Your taking the NCR sniper with one of the highest bountys on his head in Legion history directly to Caesar?"
He said as he calmly paced the raft.
"my old buddy boone would kill for a chance to get this close to caesar."
Don't worry about it, we all understand that shit happens, and I'm pretty sure everyone's trying to RP this... what're you trying to get at? I mean if we're really trying to play this as close to NV as possible, then I could just write in a crash and hard restart. "Suddenly everyone's joints locked up, they could not move as the sun abruptly burned out and all was lost in black They, woke up in their beds, the last place they had meaningfully stopped, as if their last few hours of progress had simply been erased, as if it never happened"
As the boat touched the shore and the group disembarked, they were approached by a guard. He was perplexed by the presence of the non legionary members, but they were in the presence of the elite of Ceasars legion, Centurion Bernicus, and Aurelius of Phoenix, this lone guard would not dare disagree or even question their decisions, he would do his job, and he would do it to the best of his ability, for the honor of Caesar and The Legion.
"Ave, True to Caesar." He saluted the legionaries, then spoke to the other members of the group. "By order of Caesar, all visitors must disarm and relinquish all banned items. If you come in peace there is no reason to not disarm, you will not be harmed unless Caesar wills it."
Ethan looked around, debating telling him to go fuck himself, but on seeing the hard stares of the legion soldiers that surrounded them he unstrapped his guns and handed them over to the guard. "These are fine weapons, they have served me well, Don't lose them"
Another legionary walked towards the group, this one bearing the armor of the legion elite. "Hold!" He turned to Marcus and Aurelius and saluted, "Ave, why are these Profligates not in chains? I hope the two of you can offer a proper explanation as to why they are in the fort."
Aurelius exploded in rage. "A Decanus does not speak in such a way to a Centurion, give me your name so I can have you punished properly." After he thoroughly shamed the legionary he spoke to the group, "I would advise you profligates and dissolutes to stay close to us, and not engage in any further acts of violence," he looked meaningfully at Ethan, "while within these walls." he then led the team up the dirt road of the fortress, towards the tent of Caesar, and the seat of Legion power in the Mohave.
Since we can't really have any of you trying to kill Caesar, because if you succeed then you've fucked up the story of New Vegas, and if you fail then you get killed before the first mission. So we're going to assume that you all also begrudgingly complied with handing over your weapons and the NCR members were patted down, so you're all completely stripped of weapons.
Knox gives over all weapons he had on him. The Legionairres tried their damndest to search him for drugs, but to no avail.
"Yeah, thats right. I'm a clean Khan. I wouldn't touch that shit with a ten foot pole"
Night Owl casuallly handed over both his rifle and knife, and waited with a bored expression while the paranoid legionarys made sure the ranger had no other weapons on him. Night Owl opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again, realising he had very few things to say that didn't insult the Legion.
"Ave, True to Caesar," Lucius saluted back. Lucius watched with a little satisfaction as the others were stripped of their weapons. But Lucius remembered quickly that he had a job to do while he was here.
Stepping off the side, he moved over to another Legionaire standing near the gate and began talking with him in a softer voice. "Let Vulpes know that I have arrived and am able to meet with him when he wishes to discuss what I have learned."
With that, Lucius moved back over the rest of the group, taking his position behind Marcus.
The groups walked up the dirt path, passing destitute slaves and examples of the harsh treatment of those who did not bend to the will of the Legion. They saw several children playing war games with wooden swords, under the watchful eye of a legionary. An iron barricade surrounded the forts interior, as the gateway to the fort proper lowered itself to allow them access the NCR members of the team showed increasing signs of trepidation, as they paced in place and increasingly looked over their shoulders.
When the gate dropped they walked among the tents a legion blacksmith worked on machetes to be wielded on the field of battle. in the center of the compound there was a tall circle of metal, the arena, the sand interior was marred with the blood of those who had entered it and had not survived.
At the top of the hill, in a position of clear power stood a tent larger than the others, inside which was surely Caesar. A Praetorian stood outside and waved the group through at the sight of Marcus and Aurelius, each standing as tall as their builds would allow, trying to make themselves appear more important than the other, each trying to present themselves as the most important of the group. Marcus taking long strides, swinging his impressive build, and allowing the duster he wore as a trophy to billow behind him.
At last, they entered Caesars tent, an impressive display of power military might, the floor was lined with some of the few carpets that managed to survive the war, their presence alone declared Caesar to be a man of wealth and power. In the center sat a throne of metal and bone, tipped with spears, and upon it the man himself, Caesar, the man who had managed to unite dozens of warring clans under the power of his fist, and then transformed them into one of the deadliest fighting forces the Mohave had ever seen.
"So, you're the ones the camp has been buzzing about. I heard there were NCR troopers in the base, at first I was worried it was war, but the NCR wouldn't be stupid enough to just send two unarmed troopers to kill me, especially if they wanted their grunts back." Caesar chuckled to himself, the Praetorian guard said nothing. "Lucius, Marcus I sent you to parley with House, and you bring back two dissolutes and a pair of NCR troops, what happened?"
-----Lucius-----
Lucius stood forward before Marcus had a chance to speak and assert his position, he bowed to his leader, and the man he believed would be leader of the entire Mojave. "Caesar, Mr. House is looking for us to help him retrieve some objects of his that he lost. Apparantly he is looking for several members of different factions, not just the Legion, though why I can not guess. Because of that we brought these dissolutes and profligates along with us."
"And what did Mr. House have to offer the Legion for their generous contribution?"
"He's promised to send us better armor to equip our legionaries with. I did not feel that I should be the one to make the decision, so I told him that I would bring the offer before you to agree."
Caesar scratched his chin in consideration of this information. "...fine, this is acceptable, but before I commit the par of you to Mr. House's further service, I'll need an example of his payment. I will send a legionary to New Vegas to join you in the lucky 38 when you've finished here, he will pick up the armor and come back."
"Very well Caesar" He bowed again and saluted to Caesar before stepping back among the crowd.
-----Back to me-----
Pointing at Ethan Caesar asked, "What about you dissolute? do you have anything to say for yourself?"
"well, I've gotta say, I'm impressed with what you've built here, I've heard rumors of the legions strength, but this is quite impressive, you managed to slap together fortifications and muster an army to pose a serious threat to everyone in the wastes. Of course I see a lot of problems here right off the bat, your men are poorly equipped compared to the stronger forces out there, at least your grunts are. On top of that everyone looks terrified of each other."
"are you seriously talking to me like that, think carefully kid" he leaned forward and his Praetorian guard brandished their weapons.
"I am"
Caesar laughed, a loud laugh with the gusto of one who's seen combat and stared death in the face. "I like you kid, you've got balls, tell you what, I'm going to let you guys go. You can leave the fort, even get your guns back and go about your business... But I'm going to need something from you, my men have been bored lately, we could use some entertainment, I'm sure you saw the arena in the middle of the camp, well, we just captured a tribe of fiends. You kill them in the arena for the entertainment of my soldiers, and you can go, with my blessing."
"I just have one question for you."
"Fine, go ahead and ask"
"I saw a lot of slaves out in the camp, tell me, does your slave master keep records on the names of captured slaves, and where they were captured."
"He does, win in the arena and you can ask him yourself."
As the team was led away by members of the Praetorian guard towards the arena, Caesar shouted at them "Marcus, Aurelius, wait, I want to talk to the two of you." He then pulled aside one of the guard, "get that psycho we confiscated, pump it into those fiends, let's make this fight interesting.
The arena fight is going to be an opportunity for you to flex those writing muscles and write at good and long post detailing the fight between you and a drug-crazed fiend. Except for those of you with a Legion character, in which case, you'll be writing about what you're doing on the fort while everyone else is fighting for their lives. You've got at least a week to write this post. If you don't have a post up by may 8th and haven't given either Outcast or myself a reason, we'll assume you don't want to play and consider you inactive.
If you want to better participate in these big, plot advancing posts, while I am writing these I have steam up and running, and I will contact anyone I consider relevant to the post I'm working on (In this one's case, that would have been, well, everyone.) I've added most of you as friends on Steam already. If you don't have steam, get it, the first one to create a steam profile, link it to their Escapist profile, and contact me via PM, gets a free game. Also This is a list of some free Steam games, that I can't play because I own a mac. [http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=851573]
Right here's my post, hope it's what you were after.
Night Owl allowed sinister grin to cross his gaunt face as he left the tent, without speaking to any of the to the others he made a beeline straight outside the arena and spoke to the Legionnaire outside.
"Rumour has it I'm going to fighting in this arena today, know anything about that?" Night Owl had a mocking tone of voice but Legionnaire responded in serious monotone.
"It is the Will of Caesar that you that you fight in the arena for the amusement of the Legion, none of your profligate weapons shall be returned to you, there will be one knife in the centre of the arena either you get to it first or you will fight with your bare hands."
Night Owl nodded in understanding and entered the arena through the rusted iron gates which were slammed shut behind him. A fiend was already in the arena, shouting profanity at the rusted wall of the arena. The hilt of a knife protruded above the sands in the centre of the arena. Night Owl could tell the fiend was on some serious shit and hadn't even realised he had company so Night Owl called out to him.
"We can fight to the death or you could stand there and talk to the wall, your choice."
The fiend whipped around to face him so fast the crazed man nearly fell over. He stared blearily at Night Owl through bloodshot eyes, driven mad by excessive amounts of psycho, his reply consisted of an enraged roar and he took a charge at Night Owl.
Night Owl let his face fall back into apathy as the maddened fiend tripped over the protruding knife before stumbling back to his feet and wrenching it from the ground and making a slower advance towards the ranger this time.
The Fiend got within striking distance of Night Owl and took a blind swing with his knife. Arm moving like a striking snake, Night Owl grabbed his wrist in an Iron grip, pulled the man closer and launched a jab straight into the man's stomach, doubling him over. Night Owl released his grip on the Fiend's wrist and swung his knee straight up into the man's jaw as he was doubled over.
There was a loud crack and Fiend stumbled backwards, the chems in his system allowing him to the pain. Night Owl didn?t wait for the next attack and curled his fist into the long fist style instead, springing forward to deliver a rapid series of strikes to the man's torso, driving his knuckles into the Fiend's ribs.
The attack succeeded in distracting the Fiend, who loosened his grip on the knife, unable to do anything but stare in confusion at the ranger punching him. Without wasting a moment, Night Owl was jumping back, his foot flashing through the air and brutally knocking the knife from the Fiend's hand with a lightning fast kick.
The Fiend let off another crazed shout and swung out with painful slowness at Night Owl. The veteran ranger easily dodged around the blow and responded with two quick jabs into the man's side. When the Fiend clumsily turned to face him, Night Owl landed a cross right into to the man's face, the rotation of his body adding immense force to the strike.
With blood pouring from the Fiend's now mangled nose, Night Owl knew it was time to end this one sided fight. Closing the distance between them for one last time, Night Owl lashed out with two hooks, one slamming into the man's left temple and the other crashing into the right. Dropping into a crouch, Night Owl quickly exploded upwards, driving a ferocious uppercut into the man's jaw, using the full force of his body to knock the man right off his feet.
Night Owl casually strolled over to where the knife had fallen, picked it up and rammed the blade right into the Fiend?s chest. Night Owl got back to his feet and strode out of the arena as the gates opened for him, another fiend already being dragged in as a replacement.
"No one will miss him much," muttered Night Owl.
After seeing how the fighting would go down, Knox more more sure than before about his abilites. He was a Great Khan, they had to go through a beating worse than this just to join, and being the son of the clan leader, he had to go through it the worst. "Heh, nice fight Ranger. How is Vault 3 still in action with fine specimines such as yerself in action?"
He walks into the arena pit to the hooting, jeering masses of the Legionairres circles around the walls. His opponant was already there, a fiend was messing with his helmet, looking at it, headbutting it, tossing it up into the air ect. all while having the same eyes-glazed-over-babbling-incoherantly look that Knox knew all to well belonged to someone who was fucked up on an ungodly amout of Psycho.
That look instantly changed from the pyscho-induced stupor to drugged-up rampage as soon as he saw the Khan take his first steps into the arena. The fiend lapped on his helmet and took off in a dead charge toward Knox, before stopping to notice the knife on the ground glitter in the sun. The fiend gives off a growl and stares a the knife for a second before picking it up and resuming his charge. Knox cracks his knuckles and gives a smirk "Alright fiend, let's dance!"
As the Fiend charged him, Knox winds up a hefty left-handed haymaker, and let it fly when the fiend was in arms length, but it was a tiny bit of a bad idea, because as his fist connected to the Fiends jaw, the knife circled around and caught Knox in the side of the arm. Knox gives off a howl of pain and recoils before the Fiend turns around to cut again.
Knox remembered a trick that the Khans taught him in case of a tough fight, and scooped up a handful of the soft sand on the pit floor and hurling it into the drug-addled man's eyes. At the moment the Fiend reared back from the sand that went flying into his eyes, Knox took the opportunity to wrestle the Fiend to the ground.
The fiend growled, snarled and thrashed as Knox put his full weight down on him and commenced to sit on the Fiend's chest and beat the ever-loving crap out of his face. After the fiend no longer seemed to move, Knox gets up, looking a bit worse for the wear. "There," He said as he climbed off the ground, "I think I'm home fr-SHIT!"
The Fiend had caught a second wind and grabbed Knox at the knees, attempting to bite his leg. "You son of a-" Knox whirled around to the best of his abilities and sent a right hook into the teeth of the man trying to bite him, sending him crashing into the ground. "Oh-ho, now I'm REALLY gonna make sure you're down now..."
Knox picks up the knife and carves into the Fiend, hacking away with the same sadistic frenzy that Khans where known for, stopping only when the Fiend was not moving, nor breathing. "Goddamn...That's what our drugs are doing to these poor bastards..." Knox mumbled as he walked out of the arena and re-joined the group. A Legionairre scurried into the arena and dragged out the corpse and re set the knife for the next fights.
As Lucius exited Caesar's tent he noticed a Legionaire standing near the entrance looking as the people went out. Upon catching Lucius' eyes he walked up to him letting out a quick "Ave" and allowed him to respond before giving him a message.
"Vulpes Inculta is ready to see you and hear your report."
"Good, I will go to him now," Lucius responded before moving off into the camp.
He made his way through the Fort before finding the tent he was looking for. Entering into it, he walked up to the man he was looking for. Vulpes Inculta turned around to look the Legionaire Scout over before starting to question him. His voice was soft, but seemed quite hard and menacing. Lucius knew he was standing before a dangerous man.
"Ave, True to Caesar. So you have returned from your mission. As you know we sent the Centurion Marcus along to aid you, but you were sent for more than just talking to Mr. House. What did you learn of the Dissolutes and Profligates in the area?"
"Ave. I have learned much about both the dissolute Mr. House and some about the Profligates in NCR. It seems that Mr. House is looking to reclaim some items of importance of him. I doubt they are random trinkets as there would be no need to send dangerous warriors like ourselves out to obtain them, even one of them is guarded by Deathclaws. It also seems that he is willing to aid some of the forces that close in around him, such as the Legion or NCR. He is willing to give us better equipment to fight with but he is also willing to give New Vegas over to the NCR as a new state."
"Did he really? That is most interesting. He must realize the vice that is closing on him and his city and seeks to avoid being caught between the two forces if he can. Or perhaps weaken them both so he can stay safe."
"That seems likely. Also it seems that the NCR has rangers and scouts overlooking several important locations, including Cottonwood and Red Rock Canyon. They did not say where these locations are but they did mention them. They seem quite confident in their ability, both to watch the Legion and to fight it off should we attack."
"Typical profligate attitude, to believe they can defeat the Legion with their superior technology," Vulpes said with a sneer. "Was there anything else that you learned on the journey? Anything useful about New Vegas?"
"New Vegas seems well guarded by Mr. House's robots as well as some NCR soldiers. He also failed to appear in person at all, only communicating to us through screens. He seemed quite confident, even threatening to attack the main NCR camp near New Vegas, but considering what he is asking for, it might just be a bluff. Also it seems that a group of Brotherhood of Steel is somewhere in the Mojave, within a secret bunker. Once again I did not find out where, but that information can still be useful. And the Great Khans still seem angry at the NCR for the massacre at Bittersprings. They don't seem likely to ally with them," Lucius listed of before ending his report.
"All of that is good information Lucius. You have served the Legion well. Keep alert for any new information you learn on your quest for Mr. House and be sure to let me know if you learn of anything critical. I will relay what you have learned so far to the Caesar. Do well in this task and you are sure to be rewarded."
"I serve the Legion and the Caesar, that is the only reward I need," Lucius responded unwaveringly.
"Good, now it would be best to return to the group before any of them grow suspicious," Vulpes said while dismissing him.
Before the Frumentarii returned to his work though, Lucius told him one more thing he had learned on his way back to the fort. "I thought it was best that you know that the Centurion Marcus and Aurelius are at each other throats. Aurelius has openly stated that he is willing to defy Marcus' orders. He had some reasonable doubt, but the two are obviously close to openly fighting."
"Hmmm, this is good to know. I have known about their rivalry for some time now but I did not realize that it has reached such a point. I will be sure to make sure that if one of them crosses the line, he will be killed. The Legion cannot have anyone disobey an order, no matter how illustrious they are."
"My thoughts exactly Vulpes. I will go now," Lucius said before backing out of the tent. Once outside he made his way back through the Fort to the arena to watch the Dissolutes and Profligates fight there. Hopefully some would not make it out alive Lucius thought while a thin smile crept across his face.
Also if anyone has questions about the RP, make sure to ask them in the Group we have set up so that we can keep this space free of random clutter. If you haven't already joined, you can find the group here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Home-on-the-Wastes].
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
