Dungeons & Dragons Experiment discussion

It was too good to be true, a whole abandoned world for the picking. The world was known as new Jerusalem. An old human colony world. Originally colonized by religious missions. Though it was glassed when the Torak invaded human space. Though scavengers spoke rumors that caches of weapons and rare artifacts were hidden away there.

K'YRA DYREM was down on her luck. She had a huge debt to a local crime family which she got buying her new space ship after her last one was confiscated by the UNSC customs authority after she tried to smuggle weapons out of their planet. Her Rival James knew she had escaped her detainment and was hunting her down with a small band of bounty hunters. So this place was suspiciously too good to be true but she was desperate.

When she exited hyperspace into the system she was shocked to find a collectivist light cruiser hovering orbit over the planet. They didn't seem to take kindly to her presence as it launched swarms of fighters at her ship.

"Well shit." K'yra muttered, maneuvering the aircraft to the best of her ability. She really should have known better than to take this job but desperate times called for desperate measures. She pulled down the gun-controls and fired a few shots. "Take that you littl-" Her words were cut off by a thunk and a creak. "Uh-oh." She cursed vehemently as her ship started plummeting out of the sky. "Where are the breaks?"

Soon her ship was tumbling to the planet. The fall through the atmosphere starting to catch her ship on fire. Before finally she was able to eject and float safely down to the surface. Only to find the once lush planet she had heard from her stories was now an unforgiving desert. Though at least the collective fighters were leaving her alone now that she was stranded.

K'yra stumbled towards the ship - or at least, what was left of the ship. Holding back a groan, she rummaged through the remains and tried to find anything of value. There wasn't anything much left in there but she would take what she could. Taking a glance at the barren and around her, K'yra sighed, wondering how the actual heck she was going to get out of here. She had barely any rations to last three days and itwasn't as if someone else was going to be stranded on this planet too.

As if to answer her prayers another ship can screaming down from the sky. It was the UNSC ship that was attempting to track her and catch her. Though it seemed the collective didn’t see that ship as any different. The UnSC ship shot back at the attacking fighters and downed one. Before being shot down itself and crash landing over a sand hill.

K'yra stared slackjawed for a good two minutes. Questions swam through her head but all of them came back to How the fuck? Careful to conceal herself, she slowly inched towards the crash site. Even if the fighter was dead, there was no doubt that a UNSC ship would have better resources than hers.

As she approached the downed UNSC pelican she could see that the ship was supposed to be carrying a team of bounty hunters but they lied scattered all about the crash site. Inside the ship was what looked like quite a bit of supplies. And the bounty hunters had plenty of human weapons. Near the smoking hill of the ship was a medic swearing to himself as he did the best he could to revive one of his dead teammates. Apparently he had recently passed.

There was a survivor. Just great. K'yra trudged towards the figure, still trying to disguise herself, despite the fact that it was near impossible because of empty space around her. The closer she got, the more she felt like she recognized the officer. Or soldier. Or medic. Whatever he was.

As she got closer she heard the heavy breathing and swearing of the officer. His voice sounded familiar to her. Then he caught a glance at her shadow and in a blink unholstered his pistol and aimed it at her. It was there they recognized each other. “Come to finish me off K'yra? After all your trap worked perfectly.” Said James the officer who was in charge of her imprisonment back when she was in human space.

K'yra grabbed the guns from their holsters and pointed them at him. "Well if it isn't our favourite James Heart." She sneered. "Putting licensed privateers in jail since the day he was born. And what plan? If you hadn't noticed, I'm stranded too, dumbass." She muttered the last part under her breath.

James laughed from her words. “I guess I was giving you too much credit. I didn’t think you would be stupid enough to come here and crash. I thought this was some sort or play.” He said then sighed and lowered his gun off of her. “Yeah well one man’s privateer is another man’s pirate. You are lucky, we are heading to war. If you help me out of this. Now is the best time for me to pull strings to give you back your ship.” He said figuring she would see enough sense not to shoot the only other person on this rock with her.

She stared at him cautiously, slowly lowering her guns to her holsters. "You're one to talk about stupidity." K'yra raised an eyebrow at him. "How about you pay off my debt too? It'll be your way of truly thanking me."

James signed from her word. “How about we talk one thing at a time. You get me off of this planet and we can see what I can do.” He said with a groan as he stood up. “So how bad was your wreck? Anything we can salvage?” He asked her as he send around to collect a few scattered supplies.

K'yra's tone immediately turned more neutral. "The reactor is fine and engine is bruised but running, so are most of the electrical appliances other than the lights and heating. But the wings took too bad of a hit to fly, and my weapons are down as well." She recited everything she remembered from her quick look around the ship, and took a glance at his aircraft too.

James nodded from her words. “Well the. We are in luck. My stabilizer engine is blown and my reactor is over loaded. But the structure is in tact. Good ole human engineering. No shields so the ship has to be tough as nails.” He then walked and picked up a med kit and rations and ammo. “Though our first priority is finding shelter. I saw a village to our east as we went down. I’m not sure what threats might reveal themselves at night.” He said as he started to walk towards the village and motioned for her to follow him.

K'yra stared at him warily, fingers playing with the hilt of her guns. "Right and how do I know you aren't leading me into a trap?." She might have no choice but to trust him eventually, but that didn't mean she wasn't gonna be careful about it. "For all I know, you could be walking me straight to people I owe money. And trust me when I say that list is near endless." She narrowed her eyes. "And how did you see a village from all the way up there?" She pointed at the sky. "Your ship fell too fast for you to notice anything. I believe."

James turned to her and sighed wearily. “You know you really aren’t the brightest knife in the crayon box. I’m not sure if you noticed big fuck off collective cruiser in orbit? Or their fighters that attacked us? Or perhaps you thought you were flying through a sand storm? I mean look at all my dead men. You see unlike like you I do have eyes that can see what is really around me. So yeah there is a village this way. You can either come with me and look for shelter or you can die when the next sandstorm or sand worm comes by.” He said with a shrug then turned back around to walk towards the village.

K'yra stared at him for a good few seconds, trying her best not to strangle him. Letting out a deep breath, she relinquished her tight hold on her pistols and gestured for him to lead. "Okay, sure, lead the way Captain. Or whatever you are. But if they happen to attack us, you're taking full blame." She pointed aggressively at him.

“I can’t help if there is anything there that wants us dead. I’ve never set foot here and the place has been abandoned for almost 200 years.” He said as he walked to the top of the hill and the village came into view. He looked it over with some binoculars he just pulled out. Then when he was satisfied he put them away. “Looks abandoned. Let’s check it out.” He said then started to make his way to the outskirts of the village.

With a huff, K'yra followed him at a respectable distance looking around herself, and once she was satisfied, K'yra sped up to walk right beside him. "Alright, Sergeant, care to share the rest of our plan? Or are you going to leave us on a cliffhanger?" She snarked, knowing full well that she was being of no help.

James sighed as she finally moved up to walk along side him and asked about their plan. “Well for now we need to find shelter. Weather the night. Then in the morning go and see what we can take from your ship and install in mine to get mine working.” He said to her as he walked to the outskirts of the village.

He paused as he saw the first set of dead bodies. They were on the ground behind a barricade. They were clearly from nearly 200 years ago. But the climate preserved them perfectly. They looked like the energy weapons that killed them happened yesterday.

"Right. And we're going to steal a hut or someth-" K'yra took in the sight of the bodies around her. "Well fuck." She pushed one with her foot. "Dead." She looked around them. "But a lot of houses to hide in. So that's a bonus I guess."

James nodded from her words. “A house will do fine for now.” He said and knelt and picked up one of their assault rifles and noticed bullet casings littered the ground around them. He pulled back slide and saw it was still chambered and ready to fire. “The torak don’t use energy weapons. They use explosive rounds.” He then sighed and put down the assault rifle then stood up and turned to k’yra. “Pick a house and we will make camp there.” He spoke to her not wanting to wait around and find out what happened to the people here.

K'yra did not share such restrictions and bent down to poke a body with a (gloved) hand. "How do you think it happened? Why do you think it happened? It was clearly a huge massacre, but why?" She looked at the houses around them. "They all look the same to me, so I don't think it makes a difference."

James watched as she put on a glove then leaned down and poked the dead body. James couldn’t help but get a good view of her butt as she did so. His cheeks growing a little red from embarrassment as he had to admit that she did look good for being an alien. At her question he cleared his throat. “I don’t know what happened here. They seemed to see the threat coming by the fact that they had barricades and there are casings everywhere though I don’t see any bodies out there. So either they lost or whoever killed them took their dead with them. These look like militia. Their weapons are home defense weapons and old military surplus.” He said as he looked over their gear. “I guess if they all look the same, then pick a house and we will clear it.” He said with a shrug trying to stay on mission.

K'yra shrugged, standing back up. "Yes sir." She mock saluted. "Let's go a bit further in. I want to see if there are any more bodies." She wiped her hand on her pant surreptitiously. "Come on then." She walked over the bodies, trying to avoid stepping on any of them, cringing when she sees ones with ripped limbs and jagged bones. "How quaint." She muttered.

James rolled his eyes and smiled from her mock salute. He saw the town up body as well. Almost as if something was eating him then got bored and left the rest of him. As they wandered further into the village center they saw a fountain and at the top of it was a bronze statue of a crusader knight kneeling in prayer. While below the knight it seemed the militia had turned it into a machine gun nest as the fountain was pot marked with countless energy craters. In the machine gun best was two dead women.

"Oh." Was all K'yra was able to get out. Trying her best to ignore the twinge of pity in her heart, she strode toward a house that didn't happen to have a flurry of dead bodies covering the porch. "Let's go into this one." She walked up to the door and twisted the handle only to realize it was locked. "Hey boss-man, mind doing your military magic to break the door?" She called him over.

James walked with her and heard her words and saw the twinge of putty in her eyes. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. She was having pity on humans? He was shaken out of his thoughts by her words.”oh um I can try. But these are all old enough to have mechanical locks. We need to look for something to pick the lock.” He said to her.

K'yra shook her head uncertainly. "I don't know how to pick a lock - and don't give me that look! I'm not a thief, only thieves pick locks - and I'm not sure if that was something they teach you in military school or?" She raised an eyebrow expectantly at him. It's not like he would actually know how to pick a lock...right?

James shrugged from her words. “Yeah I can lock pick it. Though I need a lock pick or at least a Bobby pin and since you don’t have hair well. We could probably find a Bobby pin on one of the dead women here.” He said and shivered from the thought of looting the corpses.

K'yra patted her lekku which had risen up at the tips as if almost offended. "Right. Sure." She looked around and ran up to one with a bun. K'yra combed her hands through the dead woman's hair, trying her best not to cringe, and finally grabbed one. "Here." She handed it to him. "Now pick it."

James took the Bobby pin and pulled out a screwdriver. “My grandpa taught me this when I was young. The way to deal with mechanical locks.” He said to her before picking the lock and opening it up. The door opened and they entered inside. The place was like a time capsule from 200 years ago. Perfectly preserved, or mostly if one were to ignore the sand seeping in from places.

K'yra's jaw dropped to the floor. "How...?" She blinked and tried her best to recover, still trying to ignore the shock. In this time period, it was very rare for someone to know how to work with old technology and mechanics. "Ahem, anyway, shelter, right? Let's go check out if there are any bedrooms. You know, for shelter." She looked around the house.

James smiled at K’yra. “Old human tech just takes the right know how.” He teases her. Then he chuckled about her comments if the bedroom. He held his pistol in the ready position the house has the main story, the basement and and the loft. He looked around and found the kitchen to be in order. As if the owner had left the day prior to go on vacation. Even though this was 200 years ago. There even was a note on the kitchen table. Something about going to the local caves to wait out the attack. The place was still fully stocked with food. Though all of it was expired. Next James made his way up stairs to the loft where he assumed the bedroom would be.

K'yra slowly opened a shelf, taking a sniff and then cringed in disgust and tried not to retch. "Oh, that's disgusting. Even I couldn't eat this." She eyed the overgrown fungus and mold. "But I did find honey." She reached out and warily poked the jar. "Hopefully not poisoned." After finally pulling it out of the shelf, she cautiously followed him up to the loft, puling out her pistols and holding them out in front of her.

James chuckled from her reaction. “Nobody poisons honey. And you are telling me there is nothing in there for you? I’m just curious I don’t know what your diet consists of.” He said then returned back to the mission at hand. He went to master bedroom door and opened it. He cleared the room and found that it was abandoned. Though everything was still neat. Like the residents left yesterday. The thin layer of sand coating everything was the only clues that this place stood for 200 years. James looked around and cleared the rest of the floor. There was a kids room and a nursery.

K'yra stared at him oddly. "I eat fungus, mold, and mushrooms, but this stuff is so old I would probably die of food poisoning." She took a glance around the master bedroom. A big bed, no blankets or pillows. "I eat meat too, Raw and cooked." She said it like an afterthought. K'yra took a glance at the nursery and her face fell. "They had children. How...uhm, nevermind." She said, remembering herself. These were just humans after all, they probably deserved it.

James chuckled from her words. “Of course not. You would only eat mushrooms that are 150 years old. These are expired.” He teases with a laugh then paused as he saw her face darken at seeing the nursery. “Yeah that was the MO of these people. They were all religious zealots trying to create a paradise here on this planet. They were always well armed, self sufficient and had many kids. If this place still had dirt you could probably find their garden out back. Though it seemed like the outside world came knocking on their paradise.” He said with a sigh as he went to the kids room and started to take their pillows and sheets and dust them off then take them over to the master bedroom. Making what he assumed to be his bed.

K'yra shot him a glare. "Shut up. At least I don't eat raw...vegetables." She made a face. "And religious...zealots? What? I thought this was just a normal world?" Okay, maybe she hadn't done any research on this planet beforehand, and maybe that's why she was in this situation but shh. "And why do you get the biggest bed? Shouldn't I have the comfier bed because, well, you're not the one with these." Her head-tails/lekku rose up. "They're sensitive."

James rolled his eyes and smiled at her words. “No world is just a normal world.” He says then sighed and stopped his making of the bed. “Fine you can have it. I just thought you would make your own nest or something. Don’t say I never did anything for you. But in return you need to go in the basement and restart the nuclear generator. We are gonna need warmth as it gets cold at night in the desert.” He said to her then went to the kids room to see what he could turn into his own bed.

K'yra spluttered. "Nest?! What do you think I am, a bird?" She huffed, her lekku jabbing into her back*. "See I totally would, but I don't know anything about old human tech. So like," She shrugged. "Go do it yourself or something." She snatched a couple pillows and blankets from him and stomped into the master bedroom. It was odd. And eerie, sleeping in a room that belonged to dead people. Suppressing a shiver, K'yra threw them on the bed and started looking around the room for nothing in particular. She should probably be helpful and she probably seemed like a brat, but she really just didn't feel like listening to him.

James glared at her as she dismissed him. “Here I was thinking I was dealing with a pilot and an engineer. Now I know I’m just dealing with a tourist.” He said with a sigh and left her. He went to the basement and started to work on the generator.

As K’yra looked around her room she found a closet mostly full of woman’s clothes and shoes. A dresser full of what looked like a male farmer’s clothes. In the night stand beside the the bed was a Bible and under it was a photo album. These people were sentimental as physical photos rarely existed even in their time. It was filled with pictures of the parents together and happy. Then there was pictures of the wife pregnant. Then it showed the wife and husband raising the baby.

K'yra brushed her hands over the Bible. Was this what Jam- Heart had meant by religious zealots? Was it really so wrong to believe in a greater power. She certainly did. She'd always believed that her Goddess was protecting her but... No, she wasn't going to think about that now. Deciding to store that thought for later, she started digging in the woman's closet for anything that might fit.

As K’yra dug through the woman’s closet she seemed to have saved many clothes from all different stages in her life. Her normal dresses, some work pants and blouses, even a few maternity dresses and at the back of the closet her wedding dress. It seemed that beyond the small spattering of sand and dust, the woman seemed to be a similar size to the alien looking through her clothes. If K’yra wanted it looked like she had a whole wardrobe at her fingertips.

((Sorry for the late response!!))

K'yra frowned critically at the clothes. They didn't seem particularly tough, but she could probably stitch a few of them together to make sturdier clothes. Digging through the closet she dully wondered about how James was doing. Did he have clothes that fit him? And how was the power generator going along anyway?

As if to answer her question the lights all of a sudden flashed on and the darkening room that was growing darker each moment from the setting sun all of a sudden lit up like the electric light of a spaceship. Though this light revealed a large beetle at the back of the closet where K’yra was in. It was metallic and the thorax glowed blue as If to hint it was robotic.

K'yra stared at it for a moment wondering what to do. A part of her wanted to reach out and touch it, but she figured that would most likely be the stupidest decision possible in this scenario and chose instead to consult the expert on all things old and dusty. "Hey James!" She called out, jogging downstairs to where she assumed he would be. "I found this really weird and creepy blue beetle thing that does not look natural at all and OH HOLY CRAP!" She stumbled over her feet, clutching her heart as a critter ran past her. K'yra looked around as if checking to make sure that nobody had seen her terrified expression. "Ahem, anyway, what was I saying?" She muttered.

This time a large rat ran across K’yra’s Path. James was walking up from the basement as he heard her calling for him. He got there just in time to see stumble and fall back on her firm butt clutching her chest. “What? Never seen a giant rat before?” He asked her teasingly with a small chuckle as he went to her and offered her a helping hand to her feet. “What was it that you found?” He asked her curiously as he lightly dusted her off slapping her rear and legs.

K'yra graciously accepted his hand but whirled around with a glare, ready to snap his wrist when he touched her in a way that shall not be spoken about ever again, ever. Deciding it was unintentional, she let go of him, taking a few steps away from him for no reason at all. "Ahem," She deflected. "I found a glowing beetle that does not look natural at all so maybe you can have the master bedroom after all, because I'm so nice."