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“What a cheap shot. I release this asshoIe when I could have murdered him, and he dares to attack me?!”
Nissa pounds on the controls to her mech and says, “I’m gonna ask a favor. If he attacks me after what I do, beat him unconscious—because if he can’t hold back, it means he’ll have failed the test his own Guardian gave me.”
Nissa uses the supernova to destroy her own mech. Once her body reverts to her normal size, she is floating with her hands up in a surrender position.
Nissa makes sure to look vulnerable, beautiful, and most of all, like someone who does not want a fight!
"Whoa! Watch out, Nissa, he's about to throw some stuff at your mecha!"
Unable to think of anything better to do, Kai tries to telepathically repeat the chant they had previously heard at the prince. Nissa had said that it was in his language, so perhaps it would help calm him down. That, and some hopefully universal hand gestures of peaceful intent.
Kai feels the Prince begin to soften when he hears thoughts formed in his own language. He feels like he might be about to lower his guard. Then, Nissa blows up her mech and he gets right back into a fighting mood. He dismisses the sphere of darkness. Nissa can see him again. He floats in the water with dozens of pieces of jagged metal floating around him, levitated, apparently, by some kind of telekinesis similar to Verve's. He flicks a finger and one of the pieces of metal shoots at Nissa. It barely misses her.
Crap.
The Olympian sees the darkness leave the mech and the 'Prince' is full-on attacking Nissa. Ragged, haggered, the godling swim up to the 'Prince', hoping to send him to Morpheus.
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Nissa continues to hold her hands up.
She focuses on looking beautiful and harmless. She hopes her alluring lips catch the Prince’s attention as she says the words: “Banoo atalas… Nissa nagi banoo atalas.” She repeats the message with emphasis on the Atlantic word for ‘defend.’ “Nissa nagi banoo atalas.”
As she is saying this, she continues to focus on the chat she had with the Guardian, hoping the telepath—now that he can see her—will read her mind.
"Well this is a mess. Just like last time. Things never change haha "
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Nissa continues to hold her hands up.[dice=Supermodel]d20+12+1
She focuses on looking beautiful and harmless. She hopes her alluring lips catch the Prince’s attention as she says the words: “Banoo atalas… Nissa nagi banoo atalas.” She repeats the message with emphasis on the Atlantic word for ‘defend.’ “Nissa nagi banoo atalas.”
As she is saying this, she continues to focus on the chat she had with the Guardian, hoping the telepath—now that he can see her—will read her mind.
The Prince fends off Theo's attack and then stops. He thinks. He asks telepathically, "Nissa nagi banoo Atalas?"
If Nissa responds by repeating or saying something affirmative, the Prince allows the telekinetically lifted debris field that surrounds him to fall to the bottom of the ocean.
The Olympian, witness the fight leave the 'Prince', holds his hands down in a non-aggressive way, then points toward the surface.
Nissa nods. She touches her heart. “I, Nissa.” Then extends an open hand toward the prince. “You, banoo atalas.” Then says slowly, “I protect you.
“Nissa nagi banoo atalas.
“I, Nissa protect you, banoo atalas.”
She points to the surface as Theo does. Theo nagi’d Nissa, she thinks as she flashes him a smile.
Nissa then extends her hand to the prince.
The Prince does not take Nissa's hand, but begins to ascend, as she had gestured. He swims upward with impressive speed, helped by his web-toed feet and webbed fingers. Those and his gills show him to be not quite human in appearance; he is not a mermaid at all though.
He ascends unless stopped towards the top of the crevice. When he sees the mounds and realizes that this is all that remained of the Atlantean outpost and he realizes how many years must have passed, he stops in shock. You don't understand his words when he communicates telepathically with you, but they are full of alarmed emotion.
“Awww… poor guy.”
Nissa isn’t sure what to tell the prince. But she is fairly sure if she speaks into the mirror, she can get a hold of someone who speaks Atlantic. Maybe not right away, but…
Relieved, Kai follows the others upwards, although obviously unable to match the prince's swimming speed. All the while, Kai projects soothing and reassuring thoughts at the prince.
On comms, Kai brings everyone else up to speed. "Alright, Nissa and Zellgato have retrieved an Atlantean prince from the alien-looking ship. We don't seem to speak each other's languages. Do we have any footage of the Nazis being defeated? Perhaps something we can show the prince and calm him down a little. Ah, and modern superheroes doing obviously superhero-y stuff?"
He shows you images now. He shows you the Prince being chased on a tropical beach by humans, the humans using some kinds of white-light energy weapon to attack some fishy-looking humanoids that seem to be allies of the Prince. It isn't until the Prince dives into the water that you see his gills and notice the webbing on his fingers; he is not human nor is he a merman. He is an Atlantean.
He swims to the vessel you found him in, which floats on the water not far from the beach where this fight is taking place. He climbs into the ship; before he can dive beneath the surfaces, the humans fire on his ship. They hit, but he escapes.
He jets in his vessel beneath the ocean, down, and several miles away, until he is over a merfolk outpost with anachronistically advanced technology--it looks much like the mounds the Thin Spot guys discovered. It has been destroyed. Dead merfolk float in the water. You can see his rage and sadness. He slows his ship and circles the outpost.
Humans, again with Atlantean technology, hide in wait within the structures. They attempt to ambush the Prince.
He flees into the crevice, but the white light energy weapons broke something in the ship. Shards of crystal fall from the engine. The ship slows but lights flash across the gem-like control panel. The Prince is panicking. You can feel that the ship is about to explode.
Nothing about the men who attacked the Prince in those earlier thoughts said 'Nazi's'. These men were using Atlantean technology, but their clothes and other gear says they got their hands on that technology several hundred years 'Before Christ'.
The guardian mentioned the Nazis coming later looking for something and that he summoned sharks to kill them.
I didn't make that clear enough, I think. But, sorting through her recollections of the data and the images, it might occur to Nissa that these things were in two different time periods.
Being at the beach, Nissa has a flashback of her conversation.
“Oh, Kai… I was confused. The prince was already in stasis when the Nazis arrived. They failed the Guardian’s test and, as a result, they were overwhelmed by sea creatures. I assume that’s whose skeletons we found.
“Those who exterminated the merfolk weren’t Nazis. They just seemed equally evil…”
Nissa tried to focus on this memory that she wouldn’t talk about. Molten-gold tears run down her cheeks. “There were dead merfolk floating in the water. Humans did this. They were armed with weapons that fire energy beams.
“I always felt like time travel was inherently evil. It’s weird because I only knew about it from movies, and movies always glorified the concept. I never thought it was real. Just think—our world should have mermaids!
“How many lives were wiped from existence because some jerk invented a time machine? It’s not just mass murder—it’s just…”
Nissa looks up at Zellgato.
“Our worlds really aren’t that different. If the people in the vision weren’t FATE, they’re FATE by another name. Nazis by another name. The vision I saw was genocide. I’m sure the merfolk are beautiful… but in the vision I saw, they were all dead or dying.”
Nissa takes out her comm and calls L.C. In all her confusion, she now wonders if the mirror is in L.C.’s office! She wipes her eyes. Stupid glowy tears.
Shrugs best he can " So work to end that. Although from my pov I've never even seen sea life. So this world is doing a lot better, even if not the best. Good Evil are degrees. Just try our best to err on being kind. Being kind is always the valid choice on the good-evil scale. Although might have a high life price."
Pushing the topic on to cover up any glowing? tears..."One concern though; do fishy-humanoids breath air like amphebians or only water like aquatics? Can't even try speaking verbally underwater. Which I'm guessing why the whole mind chatter is about. Also could be hungry-WOnder if eating shark is a fouxpaux? That's all I have on me that won't soak in water.."
The Prince is docile after a bit. He boards the mecha, as do the wounded and vulnerable. Nissa's mecha is destroyed and at the bottom of a very, very deep trench, costing Boston Theoretical a staggering sum in clean-up costs. Zellgato gets back to the yacht in his mecha. (Was it blue or red?). The boys have fish cooking on the yacht.
The Prince approves of the yacht. Calls it, "Atalusea-ae" a few times and finds himself a seat where he can sit regally. He's still shaking his head and asking questions.
He asks questions, mostly in Aquaan, but he tries the few words he knows in human languages. You don't recognize them until he uses Greek.
Nissa is more than happy to try some fish. She doesn’t eat much, and in fact, she doesn’t need food at all anymore. She hadn’t really thought about it, but the sunlight she emits is all she needs for sustenance.
After enjoying enough for a taste, she flutters around as a mote.
“EIG, is there anything you can’t do?” Nissa’s clearly impressed by her repair job. “Heh… sorry I kinda blew mine up. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
"Seems like he can breathe air well enough." Kai remarks as the prince makes it to relative safety. "Legion was also destroyed in the blast," Kai adds to Nissa, shrugging. "Metal and circuits can be fixed or replaced, but lives not so much, so I am very glad that you all returned in one piece."
Kai starts tinkering with a program that would generate visuals that the prince may either recognize or interpret as current information - a satellite map of the area as it is now, and as it likely was 3000 years ago in the presumed age of Atlantis, several "artist's interpretation of the city of Atlantis and the Atlantean civilization, ranging from fairly realistic ones rooted in actual research to some truly fantastical pieces, and a similar range of renditions of merfolk (including a couple of pictures of particularly skilled and creative cosplayers).
Theo's eyes widen with comprehension that The Prince is speaking a language the modern man recognizes.
Charles had never been so glad to see the sub as when he reached it. As soon as he was out of the water he peeled off his damaged suit and took a deep breath of air, making sure to ignore the viewports reminding him he was still deep underwater. As such he's very happy when the group finally reaches the surface and he can stand on solid, er, sand.
"So... Atlantean Prince? From... our world in the past, and his people got killed by time travelers? Or from a different world? Did anybody figure out what the, um, T-Rad source was?"
He groans and rubs his head with one of his upper hands.
"Or maybe I need a rest day and I can understand what's going on tomorrow. I don't ever want to go underwater again."
Nissa seems relieved that Theo and the Prince can chat in a familiar language.
She replies to Kai, “Yes. Loss of life would have been my only regret. That’s… actually what got the Guardian to end the temporal stasis, actually. It might have been, like, AI… but he was beautiful. Not like lean hunka bronze muscle, although yeah. That too. But I mean inner beauty. Like… you never met Uncanny Valerie, but the Guardian had her beauty.
“He noticed we were going out of our way not to harm the sharks. We proved we were quite capable of blowing them to bits, and so he asked me, why we held back. And I guess I coulda just gave the simple answer…”
Nissa reverts to her normal form. In part, it’s to buy time.
…just barely enough to control her tears.
“…but I told him about those men I killed. How horrible it was, even to save lives. How important it is to me—to us—that we use potentially lethal force as a last resort.”
Nissa stares at the floor for a bit, then finally says, “I’m sorry about Legion though.”
[dice=Will]d20+5
Nissa is more than happy to try some fish. She doesn’t eat much, and in fact, she doesn’t need food at all anymore. She hadn’t really thought about it, but the sunlight she emits is all she needs for sustenance.After enjoying enough for a taste, she flutters around as a mote.
“EIG, is there anything you can’t do?” Nissa’s clearly impressed by her repair job. “Heh… sorry I kinda blew mine up. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
EIG is quite happy with how things are going on the yacht. People here really seem to see her.
She's a little clumsy, but has a thing for systems and is enjoying Ian's explanations.
"I'm not trained in grief recovery, much less something this scale-and language barrier. If he needs some calmling meds call me; otherwise.. I gotta help Blue. Saved me. Saved him. Blue earned a good repair, paint job, and polish."
Zellgato shortly joines Ian and EIG in repair work, looking affectionately ad an inanimate object. Technology always saves him.
Remembering briefly "Theo, Charles, when you have a moment I can patch you both up. I must say. you both are considerably more durable than I estimated."
Kai finds a lot of stuff about Atlantis, and one representation comes up more than others: Atlantis as a ringed city.
The Prince is amused by some of what he sees about Atlantis and excited by others but he recognizes all the images of a three-ringed city as "Atlantis" or 'Atalus-tas" as he calls it.
He also makes it clear that the area you saw at the bottom of the ocean was not Atlantis. He makes "tiny" and "big" gestures with his hands .. "Atalus-tas beeeg; Marias-tas no beeg." he says, gesturing.
The Thin Spot guys hear, with no ambiguity that they were wrong about that site being the lost City of Atlantis, and they're a little disappointed. As Ian points out though, "But, it is the Prince of Atlantis telling us we were wrong, so, big picture, we were kind of right! Atlantis is real. Or it was." Mackie says, "But, we'll have to redo all the advertising." The others stare at him like he's an idiot.
Similarly, the Prince approves of many of the different pictures of merfolk that Kai finds. He seems to recognize an number of species of fantasy creatures including mermaids and other merfolk, sahuagin, aquatic elves, locathah, kuo-toa, Lovecraftian deep ones in various stages, ... It's hard to rell what he thinks about each, but he definitely believes they are real and mimes their walk or swim or fighting styles.
Theo's eyes widen with comprehension that The Prince is speaking a language the modern man recognizes.
** spoiler omitted **
Theo's news distresses the Atlantean at first. He seems to have a lot of questions about what happened to Atalus-tas, as he calls it.
It's not clear what those questions are.
He asks Theo, if Theo is "Banoo Oly-pus?" or "Oly-pus-ae" It's clear he means "Olympian".
"Did anybody figure out what the, um, T-Rad source was?"
The Olympian nods.
"Did anybody figure out what the, um, T-Rad source was?"
"Honestly I was assuming it was the Prince; but I was wrong about that. Its likely still down there wherever it was buried. Woudl be real hard to track now--the area is pretty flooded according to the detecter; or its broken. Anyone going down will be going down solo it sounds like-One mech and all."
Kai smiles sympathetically at Nissa. "I feel the same about the use of lethal force. And, well, we cannot undo the past, but we can resolve ourselves to do better in the future."
The amount of stuff that the prince recognizes makes Kai both very excited and more than a little sad. All these creatures, gone? Their cultures, languages, everything - gone. And speaking of language...
"I am going to start working on a translator program. I can show the prince images of things and ask for the words, hopefully find some patterns in the linguistic structure. And for more complex concepts we can use the common language that him and Theo apparently speak."
Kai nods at Zellgato and Charles. "We do need to recover whatever it was down there. We cannot let it fall into the wrong hands." Assuming that their hands were the right ones, and Kai always has doubts about this kind of things, but the alternative was worse, with FATE around.
"Good to see you!" Charles says to EIG, with a smile that's only forced because he's in a bit of pain at the moment.
He turns to look at the... Atlantean prince? He gives them an awkward wave, not quite sure what else to do with a person he couldn't speak with who, apparently, just woke up to discover everything they'd ever known destroyed.
"I'll be ready for that patch-up whenever, Zellgato," Charles says, turning to him. "In fact, right now would be great."
When Theo refers to himself as a godling, the Prince gestures to himself as well. Evidently, he thinks he's a godling too, or something similar. From this point on, the Prince kind of hangs with Theo. He seems to think Mackie is a servant because Mackie cooked the fish and gestures a lot for Mackie to bring things for Theo and him. Mackie has no idea what the Prince is asking for and keeps bringing the wrong things, but he's doing it. Another hour of this and Mackie will be bowing when he leaves the room.
When he sees Zellgato start to patch up Charles, he does nothing, but when Zellgato tries to bandage Theo, the Prince intervenes. He makes humble, "allow me" gestures and waves a hand over Theo's wounds. They begin to heal at a much faster rate.
In trying to converse, even with Theo, he's limited. He understands words here or there, but the Prince speaks only a smattering of ancient human languages, both Latin and Ancient Greek as well as something that might by Mayan. Beyond a few words, many of which are insults, he isn't able to communicate much.
He seems to think all of you should speak the Atlantean dialect of Aquan. He is pleased to provide any language input to Kai in assembling the transmitter once he understands what the goal of the project is.
Zellgato will work with the bothersome audiance; but he has enough time properly clean the area, disinfect, and seal-suture the damage.
Bristling at someone interrupting his duties; Zellgato doesn't disguise the look he gives His Highness--though thankfully wearing a mask simply makes it look likea glance. HOwever, Non-combat situation rudeness aside; he certainly can not fault the effective healing treatment.
The Prince watches Zellgato work with a bemused smile. He manages to express that humans have made a lot of progress while he was sleeping, but it sounds condescending.
Mackie comes over and, avoiding the Prince, asks the group, "So, what now? Back to Boston Harbor or do we still have some diving to do tomorrow? Also, I think Ian is losing it. He's been talking to himself A LOT ... more than his usual when-he's-working chatter. It's all the time."
"Ian's fine; surprising mental resiliant if I"m understanding things correctly. I'm guessing we do need to go after that; I'm not sure how much parts and how much repairs we can manage on the mecha-or Legion; but probably should try. "
Nissa hears Mackie out, smiling about Ian talking to ‘himself.’ She’s surprised she can retain memory of EIG, but explains nothing.
She calls up L.C. “Hey, Dr. Preston. So good-news, bad-news. I kinda went and got Big Red blown up rescuing a Sleeping Handsome, but that’s the good news: we eventually got the Atlantic Prince to realize we’re not Nazis and he speaks… I can’t tell if it’s Greek or Latin. You’re a doctor, so maybe you can tell. I hope it’s Greek though. Then he can place an order at Orbit Pizza*.
“Anyway, do ya need me and Zellgato to dive again and check on the T-Rad source, or should we head back to Boston with plans to return with better diving equipment?”
Charles frowns to himself, crossing both pairs of arms. "I don't like leaving something there unguarded, myself. We know there's people around here who'd look for this kind of thing, and now that he's here," he nods at the Atlantean, "There's probably nothing to keep them from getting it if they know it's there."
"My thoughts exactly," chimes in Kai in response to Charles, before going back to slowly building a vocabulary of Atlantean words with the help of the translator app. The app has the working name of EsperAtlanto, but Kai is sure that a better name can be found once all of them start workshopping it.
Nissa then says (to LC as well as Charles and Kai), “I think I should suit up and use my note form to join Zellgato in the mech. I think they’re right we should make that dive before we leave.”
"Either or; although we've got no realistic way to know if anyone darts down there through the ocean. Not like we can honestly keep watch. Also. No exploding in the mech-I am far less durable than those macha"
taking a moment to make sure Nissa knows-he is very explodable. He is not durable.
He continues
" Or I go fast now in the mecha, try to dig up Presumably no sea creatures will attack? So it's only a concern if we come under attack now. But that radiation spike? That. That is easy detection I'm betting. I'd say we are on the clock. On the clock with people who are very good at being at the right place at the right time. Honestly I'd say now. I can go; anyone willing to brave it, stage at the diving spot; if I get in trouble we meet in the middle. Will have to try and find th spot; or a way to sort out the radiation overlap and retune the detector."
exhaling and pondering briefly if that was his longest speaking since joining these odd folks
Nissa nods. “I can join you, if you wanna go now. Oh... and I can also keep explosions 11 to 40 feet from the mech.”
Whats the status on the T-rad Sensor exactly? I know it took a hit; and showed flooded area. but I wasn't sure if it was broken, or just flooded out. Kind of hoping we'll be able to find thhe spot where digging was occuring. Presumably its still fairly obvious-only two holes in the ocean floor there-its the smaller one!
L.C. listens to Nissa describe the destruction of the mech. "You know we just seized those from the Red Shirt Labs guys, right? The charges were related to trans-dimensional terrorism so those guys will be happy to avoid jail time, which they probably will. Their lawyers are the ones on Hawks News."
"Do what you think is best about the T-Rad source, if the place is too flooded with radiation will you even be able to find it?" she adds.
"I'm curious about the Atlantean Prince! Hurry back whether you make that dive first or not. We'll have to contain him in the cells. I guess we'll try to get one looking regal! Is he amphibious? We can do one up like an aquarium. But, I'll hold off on calling the Marshall and asking what she knows. Oh, did I tell you Dr. Moore has gone missing? Him and his group of World V refugees disappeared from Tarokh. The Marshall thinks they're leading a raid on the Great Library against the Canonites. Something about sticking non-canonical books on the shelves faster than the Canonites can remove them. Like being a libarian, but with more shooting. He's now officially on TAROT's Most Wanted list because he's attacking World V transdimensionally, which is against some kind of TAROT World's accord."
Whats the status on the T-rad Sensor exactly? I know it took a hit; and showed flooded area. but I wasn't sure if it was broken, or just flooded out. Kind of hoping we'll be able to find thhe spot where digging was occuring. Presumably its still fairly obvious-only two holes in the ocean floor there-its the smaller one!
Finding the source is now going to require an Engineering check to get the T-Rad detector focused on the source.
Nissa is shocked to hear what Dr. Moore did. “Oh, that ass! Although… he did come through for us when I spoke to him through the comic. The guy does have principles. Just… their weird.
“A shootout at the library. Are people, like… actually dying?”
Nissa is shocked to hear what Dr. Moore did. “Oh, that ass! Although… he did come through for us when I spoke to him through the comic. The guy does have principles. Just… their weird.
“A shootout at the library. Are people, like… actually dying?”
"Only the Canonites and the Fictionauts and some very old and some very new books have been hurt. Apparently the Canonites are eliminating any stories that don't match the canon, while the Fictionauts are leaping back into the stories to altering them and then sneaking these books back into the library. Like, one Fictionaut was arrested after she jumped into Shakespeare and added some feminist monologues--you should have heard Ophelia!--and then snuck those stories into the 'classics' section. World V sounds ... different. Anyway, that's what Alashine, I mean, uh, the Marshall said. See you soon."
"That was a very confusing conversation for me, and probably several others" Zellgato opines, briefly wondering how one jumps into books- but given the rest of the stuff, probably normal; while also trying to gloss over the whole "Contain him in a cell" commentary but deciding that might be a policy to keep an eye on.
"I'm not the leader here. So, whats the call; Kai zero's in the scanner and we go for broke-digging, or we pull out with what we have."
"I can take a look at recalibrating the scanner, give me a moment," Kai offers.
Kai gets the T-Rad sensors as finally calibrated as possible. The sensors should help.
Nissa can travel with Zellgato in fairy form to assist as an extra pair of eyes.
She also assured Zellgato, “L.C. will back your decision to check that T-Rad now, I’m sure.”