Player Plot: Even the Odds

[harlequinchimera]

Who: Cid, Donnie, Oki
Where: Materiel Storage/Acquisition Outpost 14
When: Nine days after the Emperor's broadcast.
What: Recovery of Oki's Powered Armor and A-M Rifle as well as any other available materiel.

The days following the Glorious Imperial Lipflapping Official Imperial broadcast had seen Oki increasing the amount of reading and indeed, intelligence-gathering about specific subjects, not merely weapons and food and materials, but also the methods by which the Empire pulled people from other worlds, about which the Corsairs had just very little. So she had written down everything she could remember about her captivity and where she had been.

She had also spoken to some of the others concerning it, Donnie for one - she still valued the turtle's expertise and friendship - and Cid for another.

She met them nine days after the broadcast with sheafs of notes and a couple of maps, at a table of all places, laid them out and spoke in concise language.

"Gentlemen, I have a plan and favors to ask. I have strong evidence of the location where they first captured me and good intelligence," she began without preamble. "I'm not planning on messing with either the power generation facility they're using - the draw seems to be pretty formidable and I don't want to wind up causing the kind of trouble that goes along with monkey-wrenching a bloody reactor. I'm not a spikey-headed terrorist, not like that." A single snort.

"But I found that they do keep some of the things they take from us. Not usually clothes, but they found me in... all of a duffel bag and my skin. As close as I can sniff out, they could make neither head nor tail of my equipment, since one is a nondescript black box that could turn anything short of outright explosives and has no hinges or locks in the traditional sense - and the other would look like a peculiar wristband. And to anyone else, that's all they are."

She looked up at the pair.

"If I am right about this, we might be able to find anything else that the epaulettes didn't understand and did not find valuable enough to hoard, but not pedestrian enough to destroy or throw away."

Comments

[purplexing]

Donnie arches a brow back at Cid. "I mean, only if you want to be stuck under there, otherwise I was the one volunteering," he says dryly, although he can't quite keep a smirk from his face at the thought of Cid being tied to the bottom of a carriage.

He leans against the table to follow Oki's detailing as she goes over the rest of the locations.

"Anyway, whichever works better." He's up for keeping out of sight or playing at being a servant. Not like he hasn't had experience there, but Cid's thankfully nothing like the nobles he's had the misfortune of dealing with.

[thunderwarden]

Cid listens to Oki's explanation with a nod, crossing his arms, and glances to Donnie before responding.

"Aye, so, here's the plan. I'll walk us right the hell on in. Donnie, mate, you'll be the one they don't expect, keepin' to the underside of our carriage as you are. Oki, you're my muscle." He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, it's with a serviceable Imperial accent. He's an outlaw where he's come from, too, and if there's one thing he's damned good at, it's charming his way into places he doesn't belong. "My name is Septimus Gradian, the seventh son of some lesser house who finds his amusement in collecting oddities."

He grinned and spoke normally again. "Sound passable enough?"

[harlequinchimera]

Oki nodded. "That works, Cid, that definitely works." She nods, lets out a breath, looks at Donnie. "Carts are a dime a dozen, but there's something I need you to do if we are going to sell this, and I've anticipated it."

She lowers her head, and her jaw tensed a bit. "Donnie, you're going to need to chain and padlock my wings. Being a servant to the Empire means being visibly... subservient."

She looked at Cid and spoke again, tone more serious than before. "While we are before their eyes, I am a slave, I am bound and limited - I cannot speak or respond without your explicit permission. I move where you say to move, lift what you command me to lift and sleep when you command me to sleep."

She looked the man in the eye, then to Donnie as well.

"These are the fine tools by which we unlock our treasure and add to the means of our liberation, my friends. No words may pierce my hide and no slaps or humiliation will turn me from this purpose."

She let out a long breath. "If we do get compromised, cover blown, then we strike fast and run, take what we can. I promise you this, from the heart. If they surround us and try to imprison us again, every single one of them dies, even if I use only the tools I was born with, that is a promise."

She straightens up and nods. "First, a simple carriage acquisition. Then, we advance."

(Next post from me will begin the sequence of events proper)

[purplexing]

The turtlekin nods at Cid, grinning with a barely contained laugh when the man switches up his accent. "Wow, that's pretty good. I was almost ready to smack you right there," he smirks.

The expression vanishes when Oki makes her request of him, Donnie looking startled at the suggestion. He knows full well why, but he's never put chains on anyone. He remembers the ones that had first bound Oki's wings, tensing.

"...okay," he says quietly, knowing how much of an ask this is. At the very least he'll be so much more gentler than the Imperials might have been. Perhaps he can include a weak link in the case of an emergency, so that she can at least break free without waiting for a key.

But it seems they've otherwise made their decision, their plans set. Donnie looks from Oki to Cid, nodding.

[thunderwarden]

Cid understood necessary evils, but that didn't mean he had to like it. Looking between the two of them, the moment for levity passed, at least until they were able to get in and out without getting thrown in real chains again, he nodded.

"Right, then. Let's go irritate some Imperials."