"And I'll keep right on saying it, until you decide to actually listen to my words as opposed to assuming you already know what's being said; I can't control my familiar for one very simple reason; I don't have one, and never did. Tink is a Gremlin, the polar opposite of a Familiar, chaotic little pains in the ass that make life more than interesting for anyone they decide to latch onto. I summoned him by accident, and he decided to stick around; I guess he's grown to like me over the past several decades, but even now he takes any commands I give him as more suggestions than anything else.

"And if you want to count going from a worshipped hero to a pariah overnight for the simple fact that those who screwed you over and killed many good people under your command refused to admit their mistake as a hard life, then yes you're correct. But the long as the short of it is I'm over eighty years old, so stuffing the entirety of me into a single sentence would be like fitting the monk's complete belief's on a lone paper strip found in a fortune cookie. Well, I guess you could at that, but it'd be one giant ass sized desert..."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:55, Sat 08 Apr 2017.

About that time was the time Tink chose to latch onto raven's head and aggressively peck at the crystals growing out of the side of it.

"Indeed I grew up on an island, the first temple I joined was there." Bowing his head in understanding, "We grew along with the island. Its very foundations were that of living plant matter. Tending to it, eating from its bounty. We kept it healthy and it gave to us in kind." There was harmony he missed from his old home, he would like to visit it sooner rather than later. Not for the node he held power from but to visit the people and share tales and lessons.

"College, so you are one of formal education. One of the system. How did you find it? Were you with those of the still dreaming? I believe that is a term used still by the many is it not, sleepers? Sorry I do love hearing the tales of others. I do agree with this quote however. Life is not something that can be solved and one should not seek such as it is endless. Certainly the individual can have goals, even some would say the ultimate of awakening fully and ascending but this is not a final. It is said the greatest thing for one of my order to do upon ascending is to stop, to stay and aid others raise their own spirits and souls to those heights."

In reply to Azraile (msg # 398):

Raven didn't duck or try to wave the Rust Spirit off, in truth he never even flinched; he was so used to this by now, he failed to even emit a pointless sigh. Instead he simply pointed to his head while still looking at Edith and said;

"Case in point..."

Dev was quite surprised  to hear the cat speak.  Numina, on the other hand, was not.  In response to the question, Numina puffed a bit of smoke out of her mouth so as not to singe the cat's whiskers.  She did not speak so much as send images and emotions.  she seemed quite happy to be making a new friend.

Donovan laughed at Huoshui's question, "Me and college didn't get along too well. I failed out. Part of that was my fault, I admit, but it was pretty boring. A lot of just talking about things instead of doing things. Lab was my favorite, but even there we had to do exactly what we were told- no experimenting. I like hanging with Edith a lot better. We get to go to all kinds of places and she lets me experiment."

He said in a lower voice, "Edith explained ascension to me, but I really don't get it. It doesn't sound very fun."

Meanwhile, Paracelsus was nose to nose with the dragon. When he saw that she could breathe fire, she was quite relieved. "I don't know if anyone told you, but there are a lot of things out here that eat cats. I know you're not a cat, but you're kind of cat-sized (OOC: Is she?) so you might be a target. They'll probably leave you alone once they see you can breathe fire."

Paracelsus indicated Devellana, "She looks tough. Do you get into fights a lot?"

Edith was tired of this conversation, but continued listening to Raven. When he was finished, she said, "I listened to you. I heard everything you said."

Raven shook his head, and sighed.

"You think Tink is a Familiar, but he's not; he's what's called a Gremlin, like the polar opposite of a Familiar. I didn't know what they were either, and then got stuck with one for four decades. Him and me get along now, but it wasn't always that way and though it's too late from me to learn from that mistake at least I can share what I learned with others.

"Whatever he did to you before I arrived in the bay, I didn't tell him to.

"Look, I gave you a bad first impression, but if it helps my ship had just been blown up, attacked by demon sushi and no I'm not kidding, then shot out a Smuggler's Run so fast I thought the Universe itself had gone and caught diarrhea. I'd say I ran out of luck, but my systems stayed on until I landed so I guess I had an ounce at least left in the tank.

"This is me trying to be a better person, and do I suck at it? You betcha, bigger than shit. The guy in the robe is supposed to be helping me find balance and all that fun stuff, but in his defense my first actual lesson was yesterday so I haven't made a shit load of progress just yet as you can imagine.

"We're going to be stuck in the tin can for who knows how long, and I just think it would go a bit easier if we were a bit nicer to each other."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:02, Thu 27 Apr 2017.

"Fair enough," Edith replied, offering her hand. She didn't want to spend the trip arguing with anyone. "I'm Edith Goddard. That's Paracelsus and my apprentice Donovan."

Donovan poked his head up when he heard his name and said hi, but quickly went back to talking about his favorite subject with Huoshui. Paracelsus twitched one ear toward Raven; that was as polite as cats usually got during introductions.

"I saw the way you came in. I wasn't sure there would be anything left of the ship or the dock."

She took a closer look at Tink. "Where did you get him? Does he eat metal or just destroy it?"

Numina was indeed the size of a rather large house cat, but she was still a  baby.  She had not mastered language as of yet, though she picked up on meanings --  sometimes.  She had expanded her wings to  show how brave and formidable she was and hoped that the cat would feel safer with her around.  When her knoght was mentioned, Numina looked over at Devellana and wrapped her rail around the knight's neck.  She reached back and slurped Dev's face.  Then she slurped the cart for good measure.

Dev smiled at the two familiars.  She stopped speaking with Edith as the woman had started speaking with the Captain.  She held out her closed hand to the cat for sniffing.

"Numina is pleased with thee Grimalkin.  She is a great friend and ally as well as mickle curious!"

Raven accepted the woman's hand in one of his non-taloned ones, and gave it a shake.

"You've met Dev and Numina, the monk's name is Huoshui, and everyone calls me Raven; it was my call-sign back in my Space Marine days, this spliced body you see actually came after. I've used it for so long now it might as well be my given name, since I've have to dig the one my parents gave me out of dust and cobwebs before I said it."



The old bird chuckled at that.

"Everything was fine, then there was a massive explosion so loud that just by sound alone you couldn't tell where it came from.

"There was a guy who had joined our crew, he was the leader of a religious group that had a ship small enough they parked it in ours. He was a nice guy and having some extra hands was helpful, of course it would have been nice if he either A; had warned us ritual suicide was part of their spiritual path, or B; taken his clunker outside my ship before hitting the auto destruct.

"After the big boom, these things that looked like demonic squids appeared all over the ship; just floating through space, like the normal version swims through water. It started attacking, I was working on the engine at the time and shoved one into a plasma stream; it worked beautifully, but I'm not sure if the smell has died down in there yet...

"Of course the explosion caught the attention of others who came to offer help, which was well and good before from the sound f the comms weird shit started happening to them too. We had opened a Smuggler's Run to save some travel time, but we ended up needing to use it to escape whatever was happening that also got three ships who just wanted to see if we needed aid.

"A Smuggler's Run is usually done in a small craft, in theory it can be done safely in a larger vessel if proper time and slowness is exercised; we had the luxury of neither. We ended up breaching the hull, thankfully it was only a livng quarters so the door was sealed and the rest of the ship didn't decompresserize. The end of the story, you saw for yourself.

"And would you believe me if I told you, that's one of the less hairy adventures I've lived through to tell the tale?"



"I got really drunk and high one night, and stupidly decided I was going to use my Magick I had no working experience with to grant my every wish. To start with, I decided to summon a car that used to exist on Earth years ago, a small boxy thing called a Gremlin; Tink is what I got. The Universe's idea of a joke, best as I could ever figure.

"After many, many, many attempts to get rid of him failed, I opened a few books to see if maybe I could find something to be free of him.

"From what I could find, a Gremlin is a Spirit just like a Familiar, in fact messing up the ritual to gain a Familiar is one way to get a Gremlin. Whereas a Familiar is bound to the Mage, a Mage is bound to a Gremlin; he ruined a steak dinner for me because he has this Where's Raven' Radar.

"I didn't do the ritual to get a Familiar, but he decided to stick around. I know another way to gain a Familiar is to spend a great deal of time with a Spirit until the mage and it bond, which I guess is the easiest way to explain what happened to us.

"So, I have the distinct pleasure of being the only Mage with a friendly Gremlin, playing the role of a Familiar. I can tell him what I do or don't want him to do, but he more takes them as suggestions than requirements or orders."



"Metal he destroys, but he doesn't do it to be destructive; he ruined the metal doors of the restaurant I was in simply because they were in his way at what he did was the easiest method for him to deal with them. As for your equipment, he was just having fun; he saw what he though was you offering him a shiny new toy, so he played with it. That's why I warned you against fixing it in front of him, or he would have just assumed you were playing a game with him.

"The only thing I know he eats are the crystals that grow out of the side of my face, as appealing a thought as that is. Sometimes he peck at other things, but it's more curiosity than anything else.

"You said the thing he wrecked was part of the equipment you needed to do your job, could I ask what job that is? I thought by you wanting to work on my ship you were an engineer, are you here in case one of the transports breaks down or something?"
This message was last edited by the player at 12:29, Sun 30 Apr 2017.

"I am unsure if I could explain an individual's ascension as fun but a more positive light certainly." Education was important in the monk's eyes, exploration and lecturer. "You and her experimenting, learning and discovering sounds ever so pleasant. May well lead to the ascension of you both." Smiling saying nothing more the monk took a drink from his water-skin.

Casting his eyes and senses to the surrounding area, taking in his allies, these new acquaintances, their guard and further a field. They were to offer themselves to their journeymen as much as offered to them, an exchange that the monk would try to make right. The Monk wished to see, hear, feel all around them that he was able. Alertness must be important in such wild lands.

(Things Edith would know: Smugglers Run is something she hurd about in school... some desperate, daring, or just dumb people use it some times as a way to get past patrols or get some where quick. Some one opens a moon bridge and they fly through it. This would be a good idea except when you fall out of a moon bridge you fall out where ever along the bridges path you where relatively, given the size of a ship won't fall out all at once and is going awful fast.... if a part of the ship falls out of the moon bridge then you have part of the ship outside the compressed space of the moon bridge and part of it in it.... so you instantly get MASSIVE amounts of drag on that part of the ship and it usually means it's instantly torn off this ship in a rather violent way that pulls the whole ship into the 'wall' even more. This usually results in the ship being torn appart over the coarse of several thousands miles of space. So seams they had the same problem but managed to pull away from the wall just losing a chunk o the ship. The fact that's all that happened with a ship that size shows they have a very good pilot as the kinda clearance they must have had even in a moon bridge as large as they came out of must have been only a few feet on any side. It also speaks they are ether desperate to get here quickly, avoid detection, or are just stupid to try that.

Those crystals are tass, for what ever reason Raven is growing tass out of that side of his face like a weak node.... very strange thing. She can't quite tell why right now with out scanning him properly. Makes sense though a gremlin would get it's own food, it's just kinda funny Raven is growing it out of his head.)

Paracelsus accepted the dragon grooming as a sign of friendship (although Numinia was more slobbery than he was used to). He sniffed Devellana curiously, but she seemed pretty normal. He tentatively sniffed at her armor, then tapped it with a claw. It must be protective, but seemed like it must be very cumbersome. "Isn't it difficult to run and hide with this on?"

Edith listened to Raven's tales, wondering how much was real and how much embellishment for the good of the story. She had never seen space-squid before, but the universe was a big place.

"I work as an engineer to get from here to there, but I'm here to help with the recovery of some material off an abandoned ship. Pretty standard salvage operation. Are you here to work on that as well?"

Devellana smiled as she watched the baby dragon's slobber dripped from the cat's chin.  She winked at Paracelsus as she received her own share of liquid Numina's liquid love.  She asked the cat:

"Maun I pet thee, or wouldst thou find this offensive?"

Looking down at her chain mail armor, she grinned,

"Twas most effective protection from whence I came, but now tis more for mine own  comfort as tis most familiar.  It doth remind me of who I am and what is expected of me.  Plus I would be most troubled without  as I am most practiced in the weight of it while exercising or wielding mine sword."

Cleaning up the slobber was priority number one, but was soon as he was done, Paracelsus bowed his head a bit so Devellana could pat it. He immediately started purring; attention was almost always appreciated.

After a minute, he asked, "Where do dragons live?"

The girl ridding with them oh's and speaks up. "There some in the islands surounding the Tinatin Sea, the Guinevere sea, and on Phoebe and Eastern Ishtar. I think there are even some down in Lada. Thankfully there arn't any, or least many, here in Aphrodite. If there are any here I would bet there up in Thetis or far east of here closer to Phoebe, and we will be will be spending as little time near Thetis as we can.... we don't need Jungle witches crashing the party."

Paracelsus considered this new information for a moment, then asked Devellana, "How large do dragon grow?"

"I hite from Ganymede which is where I met Numina.  There the dragons could be even larger than five war horses!  As for the largeness of this babe..."

here she pets the small head of her familiar ...

"I know not as her dam was already feasted upon when I saved the very last egg of her clutch."

Paracelsus considered Numinia again, "How long until she's full grown?"

"She's what they call a fairy dragon... little things with feathery or butterfly wings... ether breath acid or some goop that makes you sleepy... the picture in the Beastiary seamed to imply she come up past your knees so maybe the size of a medium or large sized dog??? Never actually seen one before but remember reading about them. All ways thought there kinda cute for a scaly thing. Make good pets if raised from a hatching, social things...
But in the wild they will gang up on you in large numbers if you bother them, and with acid or sleep breath, ether one, thats pritty bad if your not wearing a suit. Must have been a storm or some nasty sea critter that swallowed the whole swarm of them whole or something crazy like that for a nest to be unguarded... ether way she's lucky you found her..just one on its own would never survive to find kin."

In reply to Edith Goddard (msg # 409):

Raven shrugged.

"If they want us to, we will. We had to pay them to let us come along, and only then did they let us because they said me and the monk had abilities they could use. If they can find a way to squeeze more free labor out of us, I would think these guys would jump at the chance in a heartbeat.

"We're actually here hitching a ride, we need to get to a forest to harvest some seeds and the hunters agreed to be our guides in exchange for our money and sweat.

"But about this ship, did they give you any details? Is it a transport, cargo, or fighter class? Private or government owned? What size classification would you say it is? If it crashed and the owner didn't just walk away I would guess bigger, or there wouldn't be enough left after impact to bother with. Do you know what kind of engine it had, what power source so to be able to guard against possible radiation? How long has it been sitting? I've been able to find my way with a wrench for a while, the older the tech the more helpful to you I might be."

Raven's eyes brightened as he talked about the ship that awaited them, obviously more interested in that then the endless sea pf plants visible outside the carrier.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:26, Mon 08 May 2017.

With much quiet from his own, the monk smiled overhearing talk of dragons. Reminding him of his own, the one he'd fused with, bound with and made sworn promises with. That in mind the monk took to closed eyes for a moment and meditated on how it was doing. The dragon god spirit, casting his mind and spirit to the being within him. Seeking connection if the dragon was still well, if it healed, if its slumber was as they both wished it to be.

One of the other riders chimmed in, a guy. "Information on the ship is classified, we know it's big though, and they don't know if it's valuable but seam to think it's very valuable. My guess is it's a research ship, depending what they are researching the gear or the research itself could be exstreamly valuable. That or it could be luxury or diplomatic. What ever it is they just don't want anyone else knowing. They have a scrapping crew coming around into the lake by ship but it's going all the way around Cape Salus and Juno from Thesis Coast and will take a lot longer than us to get there."
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:00, Mon 08 May 2017.

Guy shows a hologram. "See there the red line and we are the purple one, the black was just what we where going to take before you guys got added on. We are coming up on the Turan Strait, after that we will be parting ways as we go south-east across Lake Virava and you head north into the mountains. "
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:12, Tue 09 May 2017.

"Yeah," Edith said. "They're pretty quiet about exactly what it is aside from abandoned and worth money. I assume they don't want another salvage operation getting there ahead of us."