.png.84706b6804547745ac3712de553d4a7e.png)
|
Tlaiowaha Subsector
The Floating Palace, Drinax
005 1105, Imperial
Walking into half the rooms in the Floating Palace is like being hit in the face by a firehouse of baroque beauty. Where do you look first? At the onyx floor inlaid with a map of the subsector made from artificial diamonds, lit by hidden lasers to perfectly match the color of each star? Or at the dozen Hiver-scented sculptures imported at great expense from the far side of Charted Space? Perhaps, instead, at the first printings of the works of the Sindalian poetess Shing Za Zoha that spill from a bookcase, carved from the living heart of a genetically engineered amber-plant?
The splendor is so great that it can almost distract you from the absurdity of it all. The Floating Palace is absurdly overcrowded. Every ballroom and feasthall is home to a dozen families; children will play among the works of art and technological wonders.
The people who live here 'make do' amid the the greatest collections of art and creation in the whole sector, stringing washing lines between golden statues, and using ancient tapestries as blankets and curtains.
The Palace is the size of a floating city, a flying Gormenghast of plas-steel and carbosamite. And it is a place where everyone from the lowliest of janitors to King Oleb himself can lay claim to a noble title. You, having been born here, are no exception. Somewhere down some family's line, however distant, you have titles and lands that would theoretically be yours to claim if the empire weren't the dying and exiled thing it is now.
Behold, then, the Floating Palace - a flying city, an aerial pleasure-dome of surpassing beauty, of endless wonder, and of total despair. But at least there's a view...
Ensign Mahan, Star Guard
The Office of Lord Wrax, Star Guard Barracks
The Admiral's front office isn't normally so... stifling. It is one you've been in perhaps a dozen times previously on official business, but this summons was something unannounced. One of Lord Wrax's personal messengers had come running for you nearer breakfast, just before you had the morning's tea, and had said the Lord Admiral had summoned you specifically with urgent business. Of course you haven't officially been in the Star Guard for a fair measure now, so the messenger couldn't exactly say what it was you were being called for.
But, regardless, the messenger had ushered you to his office with little delay.
Through the door, you're able to catch fleeting clues.
" - damnable girl!"
" - the most jumped up - "
"I took Asim for this!"
A shatter of glass.
You are left alone in the gilded and well-decorated front office. A pair of desks flank heavy double-doors, though the secretaries are absent with one having disappeared into the inner office on your arrival. A chronometer on one wall, over an ornate faux-fireplace, lets you watch the minutes tick past. A window on the opposite wall gives a lovely view of a rolling lightning storm miles below, with purple bolts of fury lancing out from the rolling gray of the clouds.
Perhaps ten minutes pass when the door opens and the young woman, Ms. Deneer, steps out and greets you with a strained smile and a nod of her head to your technically superior station, "The Admiral will see you now, Ensign."
And she ushers you to move past her before shutting the door behind you wordlessly.
"Ensign!" Captain Cho smiles as he turns whole-body to face you, though the expression is no less strained than the secretary's despite the warm way he reaches out to clasp your hand, "Good to see you. Damned good." He gives a nervous chuckle and nods further into the room, "Come on, friend. The Admiral wants to see you."
The inner office is no less ostentatious and well-decorated than any other part of the palace, yet it holds a spartan military design to everything. At least by Sindalian standards. No banners depicting great battles or busts and paintings of the Lord Admiral himself, heroically posed. No, the only example of the Star Guard's senior-most officer stands half-hunched over his desk with shoulders rising and falling from each deep breath. His expression is pensive and it barely breaks as he takes a hard pull on the half a cigar he clutches in one gloved hand. And it doesn't even shift as he turns to you.
He sighs, speaking even as he exhales a billowing cloud of smoke, "Mahan. Hold the formalities." He circles his desk and that is about the time you notice he moves to block what looks like a shattered bottle of liquor from your view as he does, "Good of you to join us on such short notice."
He beckons to a pair of padded chairs in front of his desk.
Captain Rho doesn't sit, but instead stands back with hands clasped in front of his waist.
Admiral Wrax sniffles, taking another puff of his cigar before roughly shoving a varnished box and a pearlescent black lighter in your direction, "Do you know why I called you here, Mahan?"
Kesperziaiepr, Zhodani Guard
The Pavilion, the Royal Gardens
The call has been going out for months now that the King of Drinax was seeking volunteers for a rather vague and ill-defined contract. It was delivered through the sorts of back-channels that one used when they didn't want the general public to know of things, and was rather far-reaching for what the offer claimed was ostensibly "local" work within the Trojan Reach. But a job extending for work beyond its borders would hardly be the weirdest thing to come out of the Trojan Reach in recent history.
The journey here wasn't exactly pleasant. Packed on various tramp freighters and free merchants, but at least in most of them you were afforded a room to yourself, comparatively decent food, and a clean enough refresher that you didn't have to share. The last of such merchants was a young woman by the name of Sal Dancet, who picked you up on Oghma while running sundry goods to Drinax in the hold of her subsidized merchant.
As the the vessel came in for landing at the starport docks, she'd given the announcement, and her near-skeleton crew had set about preparing for offloading, and she had made a point to visit your and others' staterooms to make sure the few passengers were ready for departure.
Sal is kurt, her lips pursed in a thin line, and offering a simple, "This is your stop, tall one." And that is perhaps the most she's said directly to anybody not in her crew this entire trip.
From there it was a simple matter of finding directions. Those coming to attend courses at the Scholar's Tower - a towering monolith to the south end of the station - were pointed in one way. Those who stated they were here for the apparent call for work were held up for perhaps half an hour. Then asked if they could elaborate. Then held up for another thirty to forty minutes. And finally, when asked to reaffirm, pointed to the Royal Gardens where you and others were instructed that beverages and meals would be waiting.
A butler, finely garbed, greets you with a smile, "Sir, please, this way as you would like. You are just in time. Our Lord was considering putting an end to reviewing applicants. We received message ahead of your arrival, but his Lordship isn't always... the most patient sort." And he gestures you to follow him, leading you along cobblestone walkways flanked by finely trimmed greenery, "Do tell, sir: would this be your first time being presented to royalty?" He regards you with a neutral smile over his shoulder.
Urien Konicek
Personal Quarters, the Royal Apartments
Solomoni space, home to some, is almost a year behind you with some of the best engines. But that's assuming you could find a J-5 shuttle willing to take you all the way back through Hierate space. Quite the commitement to put one's old life behind them, and answer what would smack to most Solomoni senses as a base call for foreign mercenaries to die in a local war.
What was it the old man had told you about those sorts of jobs, when training you?
Astrid gives a soft mewl from the corner of the royal apartment you were provided, batting at the half-full food bowl a member of the apartment staff had provided when you first arrived. You were one of hte first people to arrive - despite coming from the farthest away, from what you could gather - and while you've yet to be granted the King's audience you have been assured that the delay is just to allow for appropriate background checks.
Interview after interview. Asking if you have experience with this or that.
Do you know what to do in shipboard operations?
What is your experience with criminal sorts?
What sort of hands-on practice do you have with politics?
Would you like a red or white whine for dinner tonight, sir?
A million questions and you've been assured it all serves an end for the offering. And the room service, of late? Name it, and its been provided to you. It went from simply scheduled meals to a butler or maid stopping buy whenever you press a call button on the panel at the door to the multi-room apartment you were provisioned. They won't explain why the sudden shift. But its hard not to notice.
The apartment you were given has three bedrooms - all of them just for yourself - and Astrid has been furnished with meals and snacks at your request, as well as passing scratches behind her ears whenever she bats at the ankles of passing staff who come to your call. Is this what nobility usually live like?
There is a knock at the door. An older gentleman, in a pressed suit like so many of the other staff, is waiting for you with an inoffensive smile and a tray with what has become your usual morning refreshments, proferred to you the moment the door opens, "Good sir, I'm so glad to see you're awake. Did you rest well?" But he barely waits for an answer, "I have wonderful news. His Lordship is requesting a summons for the assembled company. Would you need a few minutes, perhaps?" Astrid gives another plaintive yowl, batting the bowl, "And would you like for me to attend to your feline - companion? - sir?"
Dawappa-ta-pefoba-a-awapate-a-ka, the Bwap
The Baths, the Royal Apartments
While it wouldn't be an oddity in a commune of Bwap society, a mudbath isn't terribly common amongst many human cultures and establishments. Yet tucked into a back corner of the Royal Apartments, you were able to find one with just a bit of questioning. When you weren't being called away by staff for interviews and questioning, you've been given relatively free roam of the parts of the Royal Apartments that you've been shown so far. Though under the close watch of the Hawk Warriors standing at guard in full battle dress.
When you arrived, you were told you had arrived in the middle of the pack, but you were already standing out by being the only non-human who wasn't also sporting fur. You were initially put into more conventional housing elsewhere on the Floating Palace, but as the days went on and interviews were seemingly passed you found yourself upgraded to accomodations in the Royal Apartments, and you were shifted from being treated as one of a crowd to seemingly being doted on.
Some of the staff have even seemed to be trying to learn the basics of Bwap morning rituals.
It was an inquisitive maid taking time to read on Bwap culture who had realized you were possibly in need of more specific accomodations and had led you to the small and secluded mudbath - across the hall from a perhaps less appealing hot-tub. But the bath holds a nice, humid atmosphere, it isn't visited often by most of the occupants of the Royal Apartments, and after the second visit the Hawk Warrior at the end of the hall stopped asking you to identify yourself as the only Bwap in the royal apartments.
The windows in the mud bath are high up, not allowing anybody to peer inside - not that they could, given how many stories up you are - but it allows the golden light of Drinax's sun to shine in as the chronometer on the far wall tells you it is just now shifting to morning for the royal apartments. At about this time is when the staff and occupants are getting up to start their days, for the most part.
That is when you are able to hear the voices outside your door.
"I don't know what to say, do you? They're all about rituals."
"Of course I don't! Do I look like an amphibian to you?"
"Look, we need to - "
"You need to. You."
"I just want some - "
"You."
One of the staff outside clears their throat, just loudly enough to be heard through the thick wood of the door, before rapping their knuckles against it, "Sir? Good morning, sir. Are you decent?" And as if that is warning enough, the door is barely cracked. Though not enough to let anybody see in, it does clear up the matter of speaking through the door, "Sir, when you are ready, Our Lordship has requested to meet with you."
Lindsey Zhukova, the Steward
Personal Quarters, the Royal Apartments
Home - if it was ever truly home to you - is a year away by the best ship. And that is only if the ship has quite the jump-drive and a captain with the tenacity, or simply the suicidal drive, to push straight through the heart of the Hierate. Your journey was made aboard a number of tramp freighters and merchants. Of particular note was a freighter who had as much fuel as cargo in her holds who ferried you across the "J-5 Route". "Comfortable".
The final leg was from the very border of Hierate territory where you managed to secure passage aboard the vessel of a muddy-colored Bwap by the name of Rachando. To find a Bwap so far from the heart of Imperial space, while not uncommon, was enough to make the strange-speaking fellow stand out in the starport when you had been inquiring about passage. When you told him where you were going, he was more than happy to charge you only a modest fee for a stateroom aboard his ship.
When you first arrived here, they had put you in what the guards and staff had kept referring to as "general housing" while arranging countless interviews. Sitting in some nice room while your background and credentials were gone through, they'd picked at every past experience you'd had and what skills you would bring to a crew. It was around about the time you brought up your time spent as a stewardess and estate tender that you had seemed to really pique their interest.
The next day, you had been shifted to the Royal Apartments, and furnished with a multi-bedroom estate to call your own for the time being. Three bedrooms, an included kitchen, and a well-furnished foyer that looked as if it had been well lived in for many years judging by the state of things. Of course the new move came with the addition of guards in battle dress at certain doors, but...
Rising from your slumber, you are met with the view of your south-facing windows, which grant you a view of the towering obelisk of the Scholar's Tower - what you were told is one of the Floating Palace's few exports to the greater world, knowledge. Backlit by the purple flashes of a rising storm far to the Palace's south that they have been outrunning for the last several days, rather unintentionally.
You barely have time to glance at a nearby chronometer before knuckles rap against the door, "Ma'am. Morning tea, ma'am. Further, I was asked to inform you that Our Lordship has requested your audience. May I come in?"
Eirene Kovačević, the Corsair
Loacation
Piracy is such a funny word, isn't it? If you were to peal away the labels and just describe it bluntly - engaging in criminal affairs for personal financial gain - there isn't much difference between what you have done in life, and what corporations do. So with that in mind, the Hawk Warriors who have been guarding the Royal Apartments these last few days could trust you at least as much as they might trust some corporate billionaire. But the way they look at you whenever you pass by - and you can't confirm they're glaring - tells you that isn't the case.
During the past weeks of interviews, they managed to pry the hints of details about your past careers from you. You had noticed a tonal shift in several ways. The first was that they had moved you into the Royal Apartments at a certain point, telling you that you had passed muster, and were going to officially be extended an offer once the rest of the crew had been vetted and compiled. The second was that the Hawk Warriors seemed to always be watching you intently whenever you stepped from your apartment.
Of course, that could have also been your nerves and past experience talking.
The apartment they provided you was a two-bedroom affair with a kitchen and living room of sorts. Hardly something that would fit the Solomoni aesthetics of spartan design and "comfortable simplicity" but at the same time, whether it clashed with some Party member's sense of decorum didn't make the bed any less warm or the meals delivered each day any less filling.
One feature - love it or hate it - was that the windows of your apartment are west-facing to open sky.
And Drinax is a world with an east-to-west orbit.
The sunrise shoots into the room with brilliant golden rays, illuminating the sea of rooftops outside your window, and back-lighting the towering sillouhette of the palace's center where you have been told King Oleb rests his head. Though you, and to your knowledge none of the other applicants, have been given access to the throne room or audience with the noble responsbile for arranging all of this, just yet.
You have time to go about your morning preparations. You had at least a footlocker worth of possessions, and you've found there's more than enough room in the quarters to place your possessions and stretch your legs. In fact, if you had a mind to stay in your private quarters all day, you'd likely still not feel like you were running out of space to stretch your legs.
Almost timed for the end of your morning preparations - you wouldn't be surprised if the staff had taken note of how long that normally took you, and had been waiting - there comes a knock at the door, "Good madam, I hope the morning has found you well." The butler calls through the door, "I bring news. Unfortunately the morning's scheduled breakfast has been delayed. I've been instructed that Our Lordship has requested your audience. Are you decent?"
.jpg.3b37ec508d6b98a774c1bf6468446054.jpg)