The Chronicles of Ra'jirra II: The Wasteland, In which Arch-mage Ra'jirra has an out of this world experience Options

[Cardboard Box]

CRITICAL EDIT: Haute Ecole Rider pointed out that 1) I'd used a variant of Julian without his permission, and 2) that I'd varied too far from the essential Julian as well. So there's no Julian in this splay any more.

Preface

It's probably a bit early to start posting this second fanfic, but seeing as I already have a chunk of the story... researched... I have no compunction about posting it already. If a fanfic in which Cyrodiil yankees land in Three Dog's court isn't suitable on this forum, just say so and I won't continue.

It's set in the future after the following events:

1. The elevation of Ra'jirra to the position of Arch-Mage
2. His marriage to S'jirra
3. The Oblivion crisis and the equally nasty affair of the Knights of the Nine, which was resolved by Zul gro-Radagash, Champion of Cyrodiil. (Ra'jirra and Zul don't play well together.)

More importantly, this should ensure your regular dose of everyone's favourite khajiit mage until I save up enough for a new graphics card. The original Chronicles will be restarted then, probably in November.

______________________________

Chapter 0. Prologue

"Now what's going on here?" I asked the pilus once my horse was stabled at Black Plateau.

I wasn't in a good mood. Five days ago, I'd been having a pleasant week with my family at Faregyl Inn when I received the summons. The kits are growing up so fast; R'mara and Sheeyin are following in their mother's footsteps - along with 'Auntie Abhuki's' – and with any luck will run the inn just as well. At least, once they get big enough to cook and see over the top of a broom.

Don't tell anyone, but we're thinking of taking over the Inn of Ill Omen as well. Gods know that place needs a decent cook at least.

J'dargo... well, he's a big boy and I've told him that when he's older there'll surely be a place in the Legion or the Fighter's Guild for him, if he doesn't go getting himself killed first.

And no, I will never bring them to live in the Imperial City. S'jirra hates the big smoke, and I'm not making her unhappy. Well, more than I have to. Besides, you all know by now about how so many buildings there became slaughterhouses at the height of the Oblivion crisis.

Let me tell you a truth: Despite what that cretinous "Champion of Cyrodiil", Zul gro-Kissmyarse-Radagash says, it was me who closed the gate threatening the Faregyl Inn and the Inn of Ill Omen. I even have the sigil stone, since I knew damn well that any stones that moronic snot golem found would be turned into enchanted gimcracks before you could say chump.

Anyway, the aforementioned summons was in the form of a rather tattered-looking apprentice who stumbled through the door four days ago. "Arch-mage!" cries he, looking very tired and like he misplaced a lot of blood somewhere. And here I am sitting in a corner reading The Children's Anuad to them.

So I get up and over to this apprentice who's bleeding all over our nice clean floor and land a healing spell on him. "What the hells have you been doing?" asks I, "playing with those bandits around Horn Cave?"

He just gave me a sickly look and I make a note to pay the drunken swines a visit. "At the bridge," says he. Ah. Better pay the lazy drunken Legion swines a visit instead then.

"Well," says I, "We'll put you up for the night, at twenty drakes." And he looks at me like a stunned slaughterfish and I explain, "That's bed, potions and labour. You can deliver your message tomorrow."

Then I grin to let him know I was teasing.

"Arch-mage," gods he was persistent! "I have a message from Vito."

And I just look at him. What did the pilus of Black Plateau want?

"The message can wait," says I, "let's get you sorted." And I swing everyone into action and grab J'dargo before he can head out the door.

"No," says I.

"Dad!" whines he, "I'm going to kill those ban-dits!"

"No," says I, "you're too young." And at twelve he was too. "Besides the bridge is six hours away, and they have big axes, and big swords, and bows and spells that will get you before you see them."

Well! He draws himself up to his full height and stares at me from around stomach level.

"I can see in the dark," says he correctly, "I'll kill them all first!"

This is why heroes shouldn't settle down and have kids. I think Trey, you know, the Nerevarine, would agree with me. He didn't let Athlain hare out the door with a toy mace at twelve years old in the dead of night, so why should I?

So I do the only thing I can. I'm bigger than he is, so I yank his mace out of his hand and stick it in my belt. J'dargo knows better than to try and take it from my belt, because when I take his mace off him, I'm serious.

And I look at him and he looks at me and sags. "Please?"

"No." The world would be a better place if more parents put their foot down and said no to their kids. I've got into all sorts of trouble just from wearing my distaste on my face when confronted with brats and their servile sires and/or dams. And I've got out of all sorts of trouble when they recognised me.

And the children of the aristocracy are the worst, which is another reason I'm not bringing my family to the Imperial City.

Anyway I turn away from J'dargo – case closed, father knows best – and he slopes off to mope with his toy soldiers to the amusement of the other patrons.

And I go up to check on our visitor. I find him in better fettle, partly due to the silver flash of healing magic observable under the door.

"You able to talk?" and he nods, but looking a little woozy still.

"Did you come all the way from Black Plateau?" asks I.

"No," says he, "the message came to your chambers at the Arcane University, and Master Polus called for a messenger." And he shrugs.

"I'll discuss your run-ins later," says I, "Now, what's the message?"

And he points to a sealed packet on the dresser; fortunately my girls are sensible and know better than to read the Arch-mage's mail – even if he is formally known as 'Daddy' or 'Husband'. So I opens it and find:

Ra'jirra,

Tuls Laren has had a fire in his laboratory as of 3 bells post-noon, 26 Last Seed 3E445. I think you should come and see this as soon as you can.

Brucellus Vito
Pilus Prior
Black Plateau Magical Research Institute

PS. Don't call me Bruce in front of the men.

That’s Bruce for you. A decorated hero from the battle of Bruma, but a knee smashed beyond repair condemned him to ‘manning the wooden fort’. He may be deskbound, but don't underestimate him. He effectively manages the place with an iron fist.

But at the same time, he knows I'm a busy Khajiit. I've got the various guilds to keep under control; the Guardians of Oblivion to worry about; battlemagi to train in order to deal to said Guardians of Oblivion; a whole new set of buttocks to kiss under Chancellor Ocato and that oaf of a Champion, Zul gro-Radagash; and the Bruma guildhall still isn't back up to speed yet. So he wouldn't summon me for a common or garden laboratory fire.

Moreover, he had a method of directly communicating with me in case of emergency. Whatever had happened in Laren's lab wasn't life-threatening yet, but he still felt I needed to see it.

The apprentice had either fallen asleep or passed out, so I slipped out into the hall. My darling S'jirra was there with a small bowl.

"Some brroth forr the apprrentice," says she softly.

"He's just passed out for now," says I softly, "but he gave me the message. I'm wanted at Black Plateau."

I hate it when S'jirra looks sad. I'd rather see her smile that smile that feels like warm sun in my heart. "Don't worry," says I, "I'm not leaving now. They can wait until tomorrow, when I've finished vital important business here." And I look her up and down in that way that always makes her chuckle and in this case almost spill the broth.

"Silly kit!" says she, "I will take this in, then we will rretirre forr yourr verry vital imporrtant business!"

And so she did and, once we finally got the kits in their own beds, we did. Allow me to add here three asterisks, to indicate the pleasant passing of many hours.

* * *

At dawn we were woken by various grunts and bustles as Abhuki and some of our guests got up and about, readying themselves to head off. And so did I – reluctantly.

My little pride came out as I, looking resplendent in my now increasingly long in the tooth 'travelling clothes' – Ayleid armour, the black bow from my Leyawiin days, and a silver mace I hung onto "just in case" – prepared to mount the white gelding I'd got to replace the unicorn and match my shield.

"Now then hot stuff," says I to J'dargo sternly, "I'll be back between a week or a fortnight, depending on what's going on, so I want you to take care of your mum and Auntie Abhuki–"

"I'll defend them with my life!" Yep, definitely warrior material. But he needs to develop brains to balance his brawn, or maybe it's that I gave him his mace back. Local rats beware!

"–and your sisters," making those two kits giggle. J'dargo made a face, but I gave him a stern look. "No arguments," says I.

"Yes, father," he knows better than to argue about that.

And so with the farewell cries of my family echoing behind me, I rode off into the sunrise to the Black Plateau Imperial Mage's Guild Research Facility.

_______________________________

Coming up: Mysterious voices! Phonetic spellings! Unexpected visitors! Amusing misinterpretations! More maledictions against the Chuampion of Cyrodiil! All this and less!

This post has been edited by Cardboard Box: Sep 9 2010, 04:45 AM

[Cardboard Box]

[And here we go again with another long-delayed episode of Ra'jirra's exile in the Capital Wasteland. Playing through the game, I found myself wondering why hitmen were waiting for me, and how they knew. So creating a natural explanation took up a fair whack of my time.]

21 August 2277: The Super-Duper Mart

The main reason I came to was because I wasn't dead. The other reason was that Haines was playing healer very roughly and causing me excruciating pain around the groin area.

Now when someone inflicts pain in those locales, a man tends to voice his objections, so I was not really surprised to find my own gauntlet muffling me.

“You're alive,” Haines said soft and tense like, “thank god. Take a look at this!”

He held up a wickedly sharp shard of gore-drenched metal – grenades, like landmines, are designed to shatter into lots of sharp pieces and literally shred the enemy. Mind you, on reflection, that's what their bullets do as well. These Earth types seem a bit squeamish about blood, preferring to kill folk in one go from a safe distance.

I was feeling a bit squeamish too since I realised the gore was mine. So I took my mind off matters by looking up at the sky, where a crescent of corpse-pale, leprous moon the colour of Haines' Pip-Boy light smirked down at me. Evidently Haines had dragged me back behind the Super-Duper Mart before anyone inside came investigating.

“Brace yourself,” Haines said, and that now familiar sting of a (blunt) needle heralded the burning coolness of a stimpack. “One more inch and your femoral artery would have been severed.”

I shivered, less from realising how close I was to death – occupational hazard when you're Arch-Mage – than from realising I was lying on a stone surface stark naked.

I spat the gauntlet out and managed to say, “Where's my gear?”

Haines just looked at me, reached over and mutely lifted up my cuirass.

Or what was left of it.

The left side was punctured and dented by bits of grenade, and the left pauldron was hanging by half a strap. The gousset on that side resembled rotten lace. The right side wasn't much better, pocked with bullet holes, and then Haines showed me my helm.

My helm had a thumping great crack running from the corner of my eye to the base of the left horn, and then another picked up the trail down towards the back of my neck.

Nothing needed to be said. My reliable, faithful Ayleid suit, which I had seized as of right after hard and bitter combat in the marauder den of Fort Cedrian; which had stood me in good stead as I rose to meet the challenge of Mannimarco; endured the fires of Oblivion; withstood the assaults of bandit, beast, undead and worse – and also helped me make quite the entrance into this strange new world – was utterly, irrevocably buggered.

“Fortunately we have a loaner suit for you,” Haines finally said with a ghost of a smile.

I didn't answer; I attempted to lift myself up enough to take a look at the most important casualty of war. While my left thigh was a mess of blood-sodden fur, my manliness was intact, and the wounds on my left side were reasonably minor. In my travels I'd kept an eye out for Ayleid greaves, but never found any. Traven wouldn't have approved, I think, but not everyone's got the broad back for sodding daedric.

I concentrated, shunting the pain into an invocation to Stendarr.

Stendarr, God of Mercy, if you can hear me–

No, I've done magic, He can hear me, all of them can hear me–

O merciful Father Stendarr, make me whole and strengthen my arm, so I may bring Divine justice to the wicked and the unbelieving, and return victorious in thy name and all the Nine Divines...

I felt the pain cool and burst into silver rain. I opened my eyes again to see Haines looking like he could do with a go himself.

“Prayer?” says he in an ill tone.

“Don't mock,” says I, “It's worked hasn't it?” I led one-nil.

I cast the invocation one more time, then gingerly lifted myself to my feet. Yep, I could walk, talk, and do all the things that separate the living from the more stupid creatures. But I was still stark bollock-naked in a pool of light that picked us out to any predators out there.

I looked at the remains of my armour, then at the dark outfit laid out next to it. Sturdy boots, padded pants of a tough material, and a heavily padded jerkin, which I now saw was black with that stylised claw in white. Looked like a clannfear's claw.

“That's proper combat armour,” says Haines, and I turn to see him lifting up another of the outfits in a measuring pose. “Better that this patchwork quilt I'm wearing.” Good point – when we left Megaton, Haines had changed into a leather armour suit apparently made of offcuts crudely stitched together. He nods at the kit next to my Ayleid wear. “Go on, looks like your size, and I doubt going in naked will work.”

You know something? Haines had a good measuring eye. To be frank I felt more than a little exposed with bare arms, but later I'd see myself in a mirror, and you know something else? I looked like a hardy Skyrim native. “Boots are a bit tight,” says I thoughtfully.

Haines just looks at me and almost steps out of his. So one pair of switched boots later we prepare to go in for the second time.

“Don't get too attacked,” says Haines grimly, “we've only got the one suit for spare parts at the moment. And then there's this. I think you'd better hear it.”

He pulls out a tatty note and starts reading.

“'Find Earnest Haines and show how we treat people that fail to live up to Mr. Tenpenny's expectations. Do not fail me. You know what will happen if you arouse my displeasure.' It's signed 'B', and it describes us both in unflattering detail.”

“Burke,” says I, “While you were talking to Moriarty, I was talking to Gob about your work on the bomb.”

“Go on.” He starts piling my ruined armour in one of the big containers along with some spare weapons. “I'm listening.”

“Apparently once this Burke guy had confirmation of what you'd done, he jumped up and stormed out of the place.” Zenithar gave me a slap upside the head. “And I'm guessing...”

And the two of us stare at each other in disbelief. Burke and this Tenpenny person must have wanted Megaton destroyed!

“But I've never met a Burke,” Haines says in confused irritation, “and I've never been into Moriarty's before today. How would he know what I looked like?”

“Bugger that,” says I, “how'd his thugs know we were coming here?”

Haines by the look of him had his suspicions. We stealthily retraced our trail – mostly my blood trail! - to the entrance.

The entrance smelled of old death from the corpses hanging above us. I felt the horrors; they hadn't been haphazardly chained up there, but carefully displayed in the sputtering flashes of a red and white machine. Haines crept up to it and cracked the thing open, then returned with a trio of bottles.

“The Nuka-Colas are on me,” says he, handing me one. I watched him twist off the cap; in the Eye of Night I could see the cap had been somehow pressed into place. I emulated what he did, and swigged the horrid potion – a sickly sweet fluid that nevertheless would help replenish my bodily fluids. I stuffed the cap into one of the pockets sewn into the pants – handy but not secure – and looked at Haines.

“Two entrances,” says he, “I say take this closest one.”

I'd no complaint. So we carefully pulled the door open and skulked into some sort of antechamber before one great hall. The dusty air showed long ranks of empty shelves and some sort of nearby counter with a contraption on top, but what concerned me was the raiders. The lidgies had set up the shelves as a raised walkway, and I counted three guards patrolling their beats. Worse, light fittings in and dangling from the ceilings were still mostly working. It hit me that my golden Ayleid wear would have stood out like a beacon.

So I look at Haines on the other side of the doorway and he looks at me and points past my right shoulder. So I take a breath and peep round the edge. There was an enclosed area with nobody in it. Which meant it was defensible. Great.

So Haines and I go creeping up to the counter. There's a contraption on the top, which I notice Haines takes pains to avoid touching as he flops onto the countertop and over. I take another look around the dusty, malodorous space and do the same, wincing as several cuts around my waist open.

I drop and crouch over the other side to see Haines picking the lock on a battered metal box. It was an interesting procedure, and I got the impression that I'd need to know how it was done since Earth locks are a completely different design to ours.

In one hand, he holds a straightened out example of what a little packet by his foot called 'BOBBY-JO TM Best Quality for Girls BOBBY PINS'. (Didn't look like a pin to me, more like a metal hair clip.) In the other, he holds some sort of hand tool not quite like a chisel. He rotates the bobby pin in the lock trying to tickle the tumblers and applies pressure to the lock with the tool. And I squat there trying to lockpick my memory. Something Bothiel told me about Dwemer engineering.

The click of the lock breaks my concentration and Haines chuckles as he scoops out that ammo he uses in his precious laser pistol. He then picks up another of the boxy devices – this one in pretty bad shape.

“We're in the money,” whispers he, and points past a door to the back, where a bulky, dirty white cupboard cowers behind some metal shelves. “Let's raid the fridge.”

So we raid the fridge – that bulky cupboard is a machine. I recognised meat, and some things that Sheogorath might declare fruit, but the rest was a set of paper boxes. “Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, pork and beans, and a mack-a-roeny and cheese dinner – 'just heat and eat',” Haines muttered. “So there's food here, but for medicines...”

“How old would these be?”

Haines stares at me. “About two hundred years old, why?”

“They can't still be edible, surely.”

“I've eaten them, and they are.” Haines grinned. “The power of Science, my good man, the power of Science.”

Fine. One all.

“How's your wounds?”

I check my side. Sticky. I check my left thigh. Also sticky and smelling coppery. “Breaking open a bit... leg's a bit stiff.”

And Haines has a look round. “Try your... spell... again.” Good idea – since we're under a light, nobody should notice my invoking Stendarr's mercy again. One shower of silver rain later I manage to stand and take a few steps. Stiff and awkward, but steps nonetheless.

“You're better off waiting here,” says Haines, and hands me some thick things the size of plates. We crouch our way to the counter where Ernie says “Watch,” and I do as he prepares one for anyone coming in that way. “Now you,” and so I set my first landmine where he points.

“I'll place one outside this door,” says he, “once I start moving. You keep watch and if I call, you provide covering fire so we can both get out of here alive.”

And so he pushes the door open, which swings out and smacks one of the many metal carts all over the place. We both freeze and wait for investigation.

“Hey, watch out with those carts cullyhole!” came a distant voice.

“Who you calling a cullyhole?” asks another, 'Sides I have to look at yours all the futtin' time!”

The upshot was that one savage on high thought some other savage on the floor had made the noise, and the argument meant nobody came to enquire just what Haines was doing strapping a doohickey I'd never seen before to his wrist.

Then he cast a spell of chameleon on himself – somehow without the usual flare of light – and slipped out and closed the door behind him. I heard the clunk of a mine on the floor, and now I just had to wait.

I spent the time peering into the metal boxes on the shelves – nothing of worth – and watching the raiders pad about on patrol. For bloodthirsty savages they were surprisingly disciplined –

“Hey! Jagger! Quit goofin' off before the bossman gets back!”

All right, not so surprising. And equally unsurprising that there'd be a hunting party out there. Great.

I went back to passing the time, and my eye fell on the box Ernie had tickled open. That little tool of his wasn't a chisel...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bothiel emerged with smuts on her just about everything from the guts of the orrery. “Almost done!” says she, “I just need to adjust a few tensioning screws on the secondary mainsprings.”

“Screws?” asks I, relishing the chance to speak in a normal tone inside the Orrery as opposed to screaming my lungs out over its creaking and clanging and clashing.

Bothiel explained that in many of their constructs the Dwemer had used a fastener like a nail with a long spiral down one side. These fasteners were more resistant to vibration, more secure, but since you couldn't bang them in with a hammer you needed to twist them in with a–

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Screwdriver,” gasps I, of course! Maybe these Earth people were related to Dwemer, or had been visited by them at some point. Now I looked, I could see screws holding the light fittings together, the contraption on the counter, the shelving, the–

I heard a door open close by – the entrance – oh hooray, hail the hero returning. I instinctively drew my bow and ducked behind the shelves as three unkempt people entered the hall and came over to the counter. One grabbed the stalky bit to his mouth and did something that made his voice echo all over the building.

“We're back. Open up the...” And he stares at the countertop – of course, my bloodstains!

“Hang on! Somethin' ain't right here...”

There certainly wasn't. Gunfire erupted over in the far corner of the hall. Two of the speaker's mates immediately turned to head towards the commotion, and I swung around the shelf and let arrow number sixteen fly. Mister Talky Man dropped choking and the other two spun back to me.

So I duck back behind the shelves as they open fire on me! One thing about those metal boxes – they were sturdy. The Earth people seemed to have a fixation about building things to last.

“I'm goin' over! You hit the door!”

Which is what they did. One fellow with a mangy haircut vaulted across the counter – and I smacked him with a flare spell. Not much damage, but it made him stagger back onto one of the mines.

The results were quite impressive. (If you're interested in the details, please apply to Raminus Polus at the Arcane University and ask about our experimental alchemy programmes. That way we know who to watch.)

The side door flew open, less from charging raider than flying body parts. Good ol' Haines. No wonder he didn't like landmines. Since the newcomers were sorted, I decided to go see if he needed any help.

I snuck out of the door and squelched through the remnants of a raider – in the Super-Duper Mart, the door hits you – and saw through the dust a figure on top of a shelving unit. He was looking away from me, weaving as though trying to see what he was aiming for. Haines, probably.

So I decide he needs to cool off and send a frostball his way. It hit him on the back of the neck, and did it make him yelp! He turned halfway and was about to fire his pistol when an almighty flash literally shattered his skull. Must have reacted badly with frozen flesh or something.

“Ra'jirra?”

“Haines? You all right?”

“Of course I'm all right! Well, as right as I can be, fortunately I still had some stimpacks left after your medical treatment, so we may as well go home.”

And we approach each other. Haines had a few new marks in his second-hand armour.

“So what'd you find?”

“Ah!” He preens himself. “That Stealth Boy got me all the way to the back there,” and he points to a counter past a double door. “Being knowledgeable of Science, I was able to unlock the door to the store-room, where I did indeed discover a cache of much-needed medical supplies.”

Oh, let it rest you lidgie. I didn't know what grenades could do, all right? I just thought that since saying it wouldn't help.

“There was also a protectron on standby, which I was able to activate.” He frowned. “Obviously it wasn't up to handling armed resistance, and I was forced to resort to guns and mines.”

“Did you? I was busy.”

“Yes. I noticed. Careful application of landmines took care of more, and I am so pleased I found this scope.” He frowned. “What did you do to that raider on the shelves?”

“Frost magic.”

“Really? Hmm... a laser does inflict heat on its target, and if the target is as a low temperature...” He frowns as thought he's been offered a light snack by King Helseth.

“Let's discuss this as we go,” says I, and Haines nods and is about to follow me when we hear a woman: “Hey! What's all the shootin' for? Thunder-struck? Yale? What's goin' on?”

She was just another raider, and so we ended up with another gun, then left, stopping only to load up with our stored loot before heading westward.

“Two in the morning,” Haines observed as we trudged along a shattered road, “We can rest a bit in my house before we see Moira and that spurius.”

We didn't actually discuss it as we went; I was too busy scanning the scenery with a watchful Eye where Haines was virtually blind. We reached the burnt bones of a town (“Springvale”, Haines said it was called) before heading north to Haines' redoubt – a surprisingly intact building. “Follow me,” Haines said, leading us to a metal trapdoor in what I judged to be a kitchen. It led to a basement, where I was relieved of my excess baggage. I looked around. There were three cabinets of metal, a fancy stand I didn't recognise, another fridge, but emblazoned in red and yellow with some image of a bottle, a bench, and a table with alchemical apparatus and a device like Moira had, some square dingus I couldn't identify, and an uncomfortable looking bed.

“You can rest here,” Haines says, “Me, I'll crash upstairs,” and was gone before I realised he'd taken the better bed I'd glimpsed upstairs.

Despite the uncomfortable appearance of the bed, the mattress inside was very comfy indeed, and I was out like a light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So why are we here again?” Simms asks us a bit testily outside Moira's later that morning. He'd been less than pleased to see us enter town until he realised who we were. Apparently Talon isn't good company to keep.

“Unmasking a spy,” snaps Haines, “follow me!” and he flings open the door, totally ignores a startled Moira, and up to the guard, who also props up a very important wall in the Craterside Supply.

“Recognise these uniforms?” snarls Haines.

And the guard looks real surprised doesn't he! “Hey – y-you took on Talon Company?” stutters he, “Y-you're a real pair of bad-cloonies y'know?”

“They were waiting for us,” snarls I, “and they knew we were coming.”

“And then there's these instructions,” says Haines all icy, passing that note he found to Simms, who read it and at once drew his gun. “Tell me, ah...”

“G-Geoffrey, look I don't kn-know...”

Don't know my backside! I gave him a little jolt to get his brain going a bit better. Sure he screamed and fell to the floor but you get these side effects.

“No games, fetcher,” says I, “Who is Burke, and who is Tenpenny, and why do they want us dead?”

“You,” adds Haines, “were the only other person in here when Moira gave me my instructions. So that narrows down the list of suspected spies quite a bit.”

“Take all the time you wish,” recites I to be encouraging, “I can boil the blood in your veins, or freeze your bones to the marrow... or worse. And should you be close to death, I can bring you back... and start over until you tell us what we want to know.”

Got that line from The Fall of King Handril.

Anyway he went to get up but Simms points his gun at him. “Well, Geoffrey? Care to explain?”

I prep another Spark to encourage him. Geoffrey was encouraged so much he pissed himself and started talking real fast.

He's a spy all right, for Alastair Tenpenny, up there in his Tenpenny Tower. Every night when he goes to “dinner”, he's been sneaking out to a hidden ray-dee-oh and finking on the town. So when Geoffrey snuck out to deliver the daily report after Haines had defused the bomb, he got grilled for a description and told to report on our movements. He was also told to not blow his cover, just keep finking.

“A-and Mister Burke's Tenpenny's right-hand man, h-he's probably the one who – who ordered the hit, not m-me!”

He didn't know that the mercs would attack this time.

“So you weren't surprised we were still alive then?” asks I.

“N-no! I-it's the T-Talon uniforms!”

“Never mind!” snaps Doc Haines irritably, “Why does Tenpenny want Megaton destroyed?”

“I-I-I-I dunno!”

And then he lunged at Haines' legs, knocking him over, scrambled to his feet, and then he pulled a knife and lunged at Moira, who'd been pretty much transfixed during our little talk. Simms opened fire – Moira screamed – she and Geoffrey fell to the floor.

There are interesting ways to start a day and this was pretty much one of them.