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.

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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.

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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]

[A/N: Not dead! And I have to re-run from the Citadel outwards. Again.]

23-28 September 2277: Life With the Lyons

During our time in the Citadel, we began to appreciate the quiet life, namely being able to rise with the nice quiet sun instead of being roused by someone blowing a trumpet. Either he wasn’t too good or it was the speaker system that made reveille sound like an ogre dying of flatulence.

Anyway, the next morning, as I said we were roused by that godsawful noise. After some discussions after breakfast I saunter over to where Dr Haines is slumped on an old couch, not really looking at anything. That’s a worry, since we’re in the main lab with the giant robot. Science all over the place and here’s Ernie taking no notice.

“Let’s go outside and get some air,” says I.

“Farg off,” says he.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” says I.

“Farg off,” says he.

“Do a little job for him,” continues I.

“Farg off,” says he.

“Then we’ll see about showing these Enclave swine up,” continues I.

“How?” asks he, petulant like me as a cub being ‘asked’ to explain about the missing sweetrolls.

“Come up and find out,” challenges I.

So up we go, me striding and him moping, and we go looking for a certain instructor.

Now some of you might be wondering why I’m being all heartless to the newly orphaned Doctor Earnest Haines, otherwise known as The Kid From Vault 101. Well, it’s because I know that letting him fall into a funk is likely to lay him out long enough for the Enclave to work out where we got to and pay a visit, probably one involving heavy weaponry, the blockading of the only entrance, and those vertibird things parking in the middle of the Citadel. No doubt full of soldiers and officers as snotty as that Autumn dork.

The best way to deal with grief on the battlefield is to keep busy, and with any luck you’ll live long enough to have a breakdown afterwards. And I’d been directed to someone who’d be sure to keep Ernie nice and busy.

Said person was a hard-faced man in power armour, glowering at several increasingly nervous recruits as they attempted to turn target dummies into lace. “Initiate Hawkes, [censored], stop farging jerking that trigger! Squeeze it gently, like your girl’s tits. Initiate Spike! Will you stop letting that [censored] rifle call the shots and control your weapon! If you don’t the only way you’ll be useful in the field is as mutant bait! Mariposa!” And he simmers for a bit, and that’s when I take my cue.

“Paladin Gunny?” hails I.

“What in Mariposa is it Initiate?” snaps he, before turning around. “Damned wasteland pussies, always need some… Oh. You’re that Ra’jirra guy.”

“That’s me,” says I, then I clap a hand over Ernie’s shoulder and pull him forward. “Doctor Haines here wants power armour training.”

“You do?” demands Paladin Gunny to Ernie.

“I do?” asks Ernie of me.

“You do,” replies I, “He does,” confirms I to Paladin Gunny, “and before you ask, I had a word with Elder Lyons, so it’s all permitted.”

“It is?” asks Ernie, who’s a bit wrong-footed in case you hadn’t noticed.

“It is,” confirms I.

“So why in Mariposa does a pencil-necked geek like you want power armour training?” inquires Paladin Gunny.

“Why do I…” falters Ernie.

“Because you attack with the products of Science, and with the Enclave looking for you, why not be protected by Science as well?” explains I.

About this time I notice Paladin Gunny trying to hide a smirk.

“Oh,” says Ernie, then, “Of course,” he adds, finally catching up. “Not to mention that, er, either the Enclave presence at Project Purity will eventually be assaulted, er, or we will be attacked. It only makes sense that I should be, er, able to pull my weight.”

And I just stick my tongue in my cheek and look at Paladin Gunny.

“Cute words,” says he, “but they ain’t gonna cut it. Right!” And he turns and raises his voice to a modest bark. “Initiate Hawkes! Initiate Spike! Cease fire! Down weapons and get your skinny butts over here! Now then, ladies, Doctor Haines here will be joining us in learning how to wear, maintain and operate the finest military uniform in the world, namely the USA’s own T-51b Power Armour. As you have had prior training in the basics, you two will be assisting me by being good, or more likely barely adequate, demonstrators. And you,” and here he points at a still slightly stunned Ernie, “will prove my expectations of your complete inability to learn and fail. Am I clear?”

“Sir yes sir!” chorus the two Initiates, with Ernie a half-beat behind.

So he was pretty busy for the next few days, but at least he was learning a lot, including some interesting phrases which he would direct at me of an evening before collapsing into bed.

Yes, including a new curse word, ‘Mariposa’.

While Ernie was learning all about how to walk around inside a suit of heavy metal with a small atomic reactor on it, I was amusing myself with a whole lot of learning. Paladin Gunny had a high old time teaching me how to tame one of those automatic rifles, hells, even Spike lorded it over me at first. More interestingly, I had a chat with some of the resident Scribes, who kindly let me poke my way around some of their terminals.

“You’re absolutely certain the mutants were talking about ‘green stuff’,” asks Scribe Bigsley.

“Definitely,” says I, “seems pretty important to them if they want more of it.”

“If it’s what I suspect it is,” muses he, “then that would explain why there’s so many mutants, and why they’re capturing rather than killing people. There must be another military base in the region.”

“That wouldn’t be surprising,” and a blonde woman butts in. “Sorry – I’m Scribe Jameson. And I suspect what they’re after is the same thing that caused the Brotherhood’s formation.”

“Well, what is it then?” asks I.

“How much do you know about how disease spreads?” asks Bigsley, “Not how it’s caused, but the nature of what one is…”

“Foreign matter entering the body,” shrugs I, “might be a miasma, or dirt, or some other poison. These days I try to keep a cure disease potion on hand just in case. Vampirism’s spread by inhaling the dust off a dead vamp or getting one’s blood in your own wounds, and lycanthropy’s pretty similar but without the dust part... Why?”

And the two Scribes look at me. “The… um, substance… is known as Forced Evolutionary Virus,” begins Scribe Jameson, “It was… tested… on military prisoners before the war at a place called Mariposa.” She takes a breath, before uttering the name, and suddenly Gunny’s use of it makes sense. “The commanding officer there, Arthur Maxson, rebelled at this, took over the base and executed the researchers responsible for their crimes.”

“Hang on, who was behind this… research?” asks I.

“The pre-War government,” responds Bigsley, “as in the Enclave before they became the friggin’ Enclave.”

Now I’ll try to summarise what was explained later. Basically the old pre-war government got it in their heads that these Chinese people would use plagues or something against them. So naturally they decided to drop the technology version of a rotten corpse in the well on their enemy first.

Now here’s where it got a little fuzzy. Apparently this FEV was supposed to be a super-plague that would completely slaughter the Chinese, which is bloody silly. All it takes is one person with enough immunity to hold it off long enough and next thing you know, it’s your team who’s all coughing blood and falling off the perch. Then again I speak from experience when I say that the high-up nobs lack common sense on a regular basis.

Later research found out that FEV could be tweaked to cause changes in its victims. And that led to a whole new avenue of madness: creating ‘super-soldiers’ that were tougher, stronger, more brutal, and more obedient than regular army. So I’ll let you guess what they were doing to prisoners held at Mariposa, and why the great Maxson basically committed treason.

By now you’ve probably gathered that in the run-up to everything going to Oblivion, or hell, or Mariposa, take your pick, the United States government was hardly governing. By all accounts it dumped its obligations to its citizens in favour of not just defeating, but completely obliterating the Chinese. And here’s us, having seen its descendants in the Enclave.

Anyway, the story, such as it was, had Maxson leaving for somewhere called the Lost Hills and founding the Brotherhood of Steel. Unfortunately he didn’t lock the gates when leaving Mariposa, and someone or something got in. And the first super mutants were born.

Then Bigsley started asserting that the Enclave had deliberately gone after the FEV in Mariposa, which Jameson disagreed with, and I just tried to tune them out as they argued. Which I couldn’t.

On the other hand, their arguing knocked a revelation loose, and out comes the fist and bang on the table.

“The mutants have a base in this area,” says I, “but they need more FEV.”

“Damn straight,” Bigsley agrees, “we think it’s west of here, up the Potomac. Unfortunately, we were pretty worn down when we made it to the Citadel, and when the Outcasts broke away, that reduced our strength even more.”

“What Outcasts?” demands I.

So it turns out that the Brotherhood is all about the technology and doesn’t really give a flying about the people. Which is bloody ridiculous, since technology’s useless without people. Elder Lyons twigged to this, since it also helps if the locals don’t think you’re just a pack of bandits with better gear than most. It’s called diplomacy, I think.

Anyway, since I was so interested in the history of the Brotherhood, Jameson lets me access the records terminals in what was called the 'A Ring', and here I found one far more interesting that confirmed what I feared about the Vaults.

By the end of the war, the United States government no longer cared about its citizenry. It was a tyranny like that of the Ayleids.

There was another vault, Vault 76. Notes on it stated that the thing would spring open after twenty years, when 'the residents would be pushed back into the open world for study in comparison to the other experiments'. Vault 101? Literally a study of inbreeding. And of course there was Vault 106, 92 and 112, where the victims suffered needless experimentation.

What gets me about this is that there was no reason for any experimentation. Who would collect the data? What would it be used for? It's sheer, almost Daedric uselessness still makes me want to punch walls when I think about it. Even Sheogorath would have asked if the instigators had thought things over at all.

But what really interested me was the one file – an equipment manifest – I found for Vault 87. It had this line:

1 G.E.C.K.

So of course I up and shoot off to find young Ernie. Young Ernie is performing exercises in power armour, along with Initiates Hawkes and Spike, and for once Paladin Gunny isn't putting them down.

“And nineteen! And twenty! That's it, ten-hut!” Then he notices me. “Well, well, if isn't Tiddles of Sherwood!”

It's taken me years to understand half that reference.

“Well? I suppose you've invented a power bow to go with this armour?”

“I need Haines here for a briefing,” says I. Won't rise to the bait. From what I understand Gunny's still a prick.

“What sort of briefing? Mariposa! I thought you said I was supposed to train this Wasteland noodle in power armour!”

“From what I saw just now you're doing a good job. And this is important to Elder Lyons,” snaps I.

“Fine. Ini... Haines... take five and go with your friend here. As for you two slobs...” and I'm convinced he just likes making trainee's lives a misery.

So Ernie and I walk off until he gets his breath back and doesn't resemble a tomato. “What is it?”

“Vault 87 has a G.E.C.K.,” says I, “and we know it's somewhere out west. We need to go back to Vault 112 and start poking around.”

“Why 112?”

“It's in the area. It could be roughly north or south, we'll just have to find the entrance. How soon do you think you can escape Paladin Gunny's clutches?”

“Tonight. When he finally lets us eat and sleep.”

“All right then, we do a midnight flit. You're able to walk in that thing?”

“Yes, Mom, and shoot guns and work the crap-flap and all the other stuff. That farging Gunny seems to want us to ballet dance in these suits.”

“That doesn't seem useful to me.”

“Then we're agreed?” And he manages a smirk.

“I think you need some practical training in power armour usage. A nice field operation.”

“That sounds like a sensible hypothesis.”

“So, set your Pip-Boy for 3am?”

“Four.”

“Four it is. I'll go ready our things.”

This post has been edited by Cardboard Box: Aug 19 2014, 08:29 AM