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]

I've been silent for a long time, I know. I got jaded on Ra'jirra for a bit, then attempted NaNoWriMo, and finally managed to write some more. Since I finally managed to expel another Magic, As Opposed To Magic chapter, here's some more of the Ra'jirra and Ernie Show.

15 September 2277: Big Trouble

So the following morning I'm woken by Ernie doing exceptionally noisy things in the basement. Seeing as we'd had a couple of encores the previous night I considered this to be extremely unbecoming of my host, and was trying to figure out if yelling at him would cause my head to split in two and fall off, when the trapdoor to the basement opened as loud as an Oblivion gate.

Up you get," cries he as he shoves a water bottle into my hand, "We head west!"
"What?" is my understandable response.

"Vault 96! You saw what it was like. What about Vault 112?" his eyes were burning with that over-intense flame I saw when I first met him. "He could be trapped inside some mad experiment – or worse! And then there's the whole business with getting there in the first place. I – we – have to save him, and we've, ah, cleaned our plates haven't we?"

And I just sit on the bed draining the bottle and looking at him.

"Reckon you're right," says I, "Besides I've had a gutsful of city life, so let's go west young man."

I took my sweet time getting my gear together, ambled to the bathroom for a much-needed slash, then finally emerged to an Ernie nearly tap-dancing with impatience.

"Can we please go now?" asks he ever so snidely, so off we go, crossing under that ruined flyover and following the river west.

Apart from detouring around a yao guai and chatting to a couple of surly ghouls holed up in what apparently used to be a farm, the day went quietly until sundown, when we noticed smoke coming from a huddle of low buildings, very much like Haines' house. A Red Rocket sign still stood, along with a slightly melted playground set. It turned out that what was left was four roads in a square, houses on the outside, and a makeshift compound swallowed those on the inside. There was one entrance, a plank bridge over a small moat between sandbags.

There was also one guard, a nervous wreck with a gun who called out in a cracking voice, "W-wh-who are you?"

And I look at Haines and he looks back and we both decide tact is the best option here. "We're just simple travellers," says he, "we mean you no harm."

And if we did, from the looks of him we could probably bowl the poor sod with a feather.

"Right," he drawls skeptically, "What do you want?"

"Do you harass all of your visitors like this?" asks I, "Or have you just got bad neighbours?"

"Well, you can never be too careful!" He's trying to sound tough, but I hear exhaustion and despair. "Look, it's not safe here. Super Mutants attacked recently and carried off some of our friends." And he heaves a big sigh. "Come in. Just don't cause any trouble, okay?"

So we look at each other and cross the little bridge. "So, you have a mutant problem?" Haines asks the kid. Now that we're closer, I can see he really is a kid, about seventeen or so. Doesn't look like he's had much sleep, and that gun of his isn't in good shape, let alone capable of doing more than annoying one of the big greenies.

"There was a Super Mutant attack recently and where there's one big ugly, there are ten more just waiting to grab you by the throat." Yep, he's been on duty way too long. "Then the slavers will come and pick off what's left of your carcass, and drag any survivors to Paradise Falls."

We'd heard of Paradise Falls from Three Dog. Somewhere up north, a lair of slavers who would apparently pay good caps for good flesh. Apparently they're into gardening now.

"The best we can ever hope for is that they get here at the same time and fight over who gets to kill us." This came from a swarthy young Redguard whose slouch reeked of defeat.

"Flash," he introduced himself, "as in 'in the pan'. Pretty much sums up Big Town huh?"

I didn't get the reference, unless he was using some slang for chamber-pots.

After speaking to him, and several other residents, we had a pretty good picture of Big Town, and it wasn't a happy one. Apparently all the residents didn't live here all their lives, but came from somewhere called Little Lamplight. For some reason, as soon as you turned sixteen, you became a 'mungo', and that place had a strict No Mungos Allowed policy.

So on your unhappy birthday, you got shown the door, pointed towards Big Town, and hopefully didn't get eaten on the way.

Those who survived got to spend all their waking hours and quite a few sleeping ones dreading visits from the local mutants, raiders and slavers.

Still, it saved Little Lamplight from having to kill their grown-ups themselves.

"Ra'jirra." Haines called me out of my brown study from the door of a nearby house. "I could use a hand here."

The house was apparently being used as a clinic, and from the smell their healer was pretty stretched, wherever they were. Haines was bent over a badly wounded lad on a bed. "Can you cast a spell or something on this kid?"

Could I what! The Nine smile on those who look out for their comrades, at the expense of a little more magicka. I reached out to Stendarr, offering myself as the channel for his mercy to wash the boy's wounds clean. It wasn't easy. The kid was nearly dead, riddled with bullet wounds, and someone had a go at him with a hammer as well. Presumably he was one of Big Town's warriors. I couldn't have healed him alone, and Haines worked alongside, administering stimpacks and aligning bones.

About two hours later the lad's wounds were all patched up, leaving some interesting scars for the ladies. He began to stir, trying to open his eyes.

"Wha... what happened?" He opened his eyes slowly and stared at both of us, me more so of course.

"Well," Haines declared pompously, "Seven bullets, both clavicles broken, and multiple rib fractures are what happened to you. Fortunately Ra'jirra and I came along and were able to fix you up."

And the lad's eyes widen as he runs a hand over the scarring, wincing at some of the bruises. "Wow. That's ... you saved my life! Thanks. You're a good person, you know that?" And then he looks around. "Where's... oh merd. They took Red didn't they?"

"Who's Red?" is my intelligent query, "and who's 'they' by the way?"

"She's our doctor," says he, "but she probably got dragged off by the mutants." And then he pounds a fist on the bed in frustration. "Damn it! Damn it!"

And I think about things for a bit. "Haines," says I drawing him aside.

"What?"

"These kids won't survive without a healer," says I, "we need to find them one."

"What about Dad?" is Haines' response.

Not now! Your father obviously knows how to survive around here, so it's not as if he's taking shelter in an open crocodile or anything. But these kids need their spirits lifted, and this place is right on our line of travel when we bring Haines Senior back. Let's make sure they welcome us with open arms, hmm?"

And he mulls that over for a bit. "I suppose that's an idea," he grudgingly admits.

After that we handed over some tins of canned meat to the lad, Timebomb, he called himself, added some dire warnings about not exerting himself too much, and went outside. The nervous sentry had been replaced by a girl with what looked like chalk on her face.

"Oh, hey..." says she in an affected dreamy tone, "I was just trying to think of a word that rhymes with 'gloom'..." and she hums for a bit, looking off across the road.

"How about 'room', 'doom' or 'tomb'?" asks I. Wasn't hard to come up with 'em. I'd come close to doom plenty of times in rooms of tombs.

And her face might have brightened, it was hard to tell under the makeup. "Oh, those will work great! I'm preparing a poem for when Big Town falls."

Oh what an optimistic outlook.

With Red gone, we've no hope left," she goes on in that overcooked manner, "She was the smart one, but now all we can do is wait for the end."

And Haines tries to roll his eyes so far in his head he could see out the back.

"Sometimes I want to die," Little Miss Miseryguts goes on, "But I'd rather do it poetically. Like slit my wrist under a full moon... surrounded by candles... in my pretty black dress."

"I'd rather go out between one breath and the next myself," says I, getting thoroughly narked by her posing, "or failing that fall in battle, surrounded by the bodies of my enemies. Speaking of enemies, where'd the mutants take Red?"

"There's a police station up there to the northeast or something," she shrugged, "Bury our friends corpses if you find them. I've got enough ghosts haunting me." Then she frowns. "Don't tell Sticky, though. He's liable to kill himself if he knew Red was gone. And that would conflict with my own suicide plans."

"I'm not burying this Red until I confirm she's dead," says I, "C'mon Haines, let's go rescue people."

-o-o-o-o-

A crumbling bridge curved northwest, but our attention was claimed by a woman's scream from due west. Several large shapes were dragging a smaller one towards a lone wooden structure with a short bell tower on one end. It reminded me of a city temple.

"That could be Red," muses I.

"Only one way to find out," sighs Haines.

The firefight was nasty. As well as their spitty pets, one of the mutants was much bigger, tougher and better armed, with some sort of big gun that sprayed bullets like a hose. By the time we felled the lidgie both of us spent some time just catching our breaths and beseeching Stendarr for aid.

"Your spellcasting is getting better," says I.

"I could do without getting hurt first," says Haines.

While Haines got up and ministered to their captive, I had a look at the big gun the mutant leader had been toting at us – I'm assuming that bigger and meaner meant senior. A jerry-rigged harness held a box for ammunition, which was strung together like a ribbon, and there was some sort of mount on the bottom. From its weight, it seemed that this gun was actually meant to be placed on a stand prior to use.

What really got me was that it had six barrels, all attached around an axle. This thing fired so fast, the axle would revolve, bringing a new barrel into play before the previous one melted. Nasty!

"Red?" the captive was female. "Yeah, she's still alive. Or was when these futters decided I needed to go 'home' with 'em, wherever that is."

"Well before you take off," says Haines, "take these supplies, and that minigun Ra'jirra's playing with, to Big Town. Tell whatsername on the entrance that Ra'jirra and Haines sent you. And hug the right-hand side of the bridge so the raiders don't spot you."

"What raiders?" asks I.

"There's a camp on the other side of the river."

"Oh," says I.

This post has been edited by Cardboard Box: Dec 13 2012, 05:28 AM