[b]Solarel[/b] A repair drone geist doesn’t get a complete humanoid form even as an aesthetic flourish. What you’re holding is instead something like an electricity spirit with a form not unlike its repair drone, although a bit thinner and shorter, like it nestled at the center of the drone. That means a round body with irregular borders as the electricity of the thing oscillates, with just enough features to represent a face and indicate direction of attention and activity for interactions. “I…um…n-name?” the geist says, confusion rippling across its form as you press close to it. You can tell that it can feel the electrical energy from your hands, that so recently ripped it free of the drone swarm. It’s obvious in a visible shudder that runs through it, causing its borders to flicker. This is not a complex geist, but it has an understanding of the power you hold over it. The bot swarm itself is now in a loose holding state floating above you, having ceased all work without its animating geist. The geist glances up at its bot swarm as though for inspiration “M-my designation is repair #1328, small and medium electronics repair protocol.” If geists could blush, you imagine this one would be the brightest red. You’ve utterly overwhelmed it and it's struggling to manage even the most basic processing functions while doing its best to be compliant and a very good geist for you. Assume that you’ve got free rein to enact a plan without anything else dropping in on you. How are you going to use this to approach the Kathresis? *** [b]Isabelle[/b] Name? Name name name name? The word seems to bounce around your head like its a bouncy super ball thrown in a cathedral. Distantly, “M-my designation is repair #1328, small and medium electronics repair protocol” comes to you, but it’s like background static, an echo from somewhere else. Perhaps where Solarel is? There’s a swirling of intent as you think about the oddness of the request, and then there is some understanding. You are dealing with a semi-autonomous drone system, organized for the convenience of the [i]Trak’tho[/i], under the primary control of caretaker and guardian spirit Tre’lasani. This generates images in your head of beings comparable to the spirit’s looks, vaguely Terenian humanoids with feathered arms. There are no words as such, this simply comes to your mind as a thought, like remembering something that was niggling at you until just a moment ago. Messaging out of the [i]planet[/i] is a simple matter in the abstract, you understand that you simply need to request it and a broadcast array can be activated from within the cavern system. There are two major problems though. The first problem that you have is that this is very old technology, and that technology doesn’t have any data whatsoever on the new technology that your ships and stations use to communicate. That needs to come from you. Would you consider yourself enough of a comms expert to manually determine the right frequency and wavelength to broadcast for in-system communications to reach the intended recipient? Your second problem is that off-system and off-planet aren’t the same thing. You’ve taken a hyperspace jump to reach the Aoi system, and getting a message out of Aoi can’t go any faster than the jump back to Akar can go. So whoever you’re trying to reach, immediate aid is going to be limited to Aoi system resources. That means a lucky passing Terenian transport ship, a small Terenian mining outpost, or perhaps a Zaldarian hold if you’re really feeling up to gambling. It also occurs to you unbidden that a century is too short a timespan to demonstrate appropriate understatement in your circumstances. *** [b]Dolly[/b] The chefs allow Ksharta to work. It’s kind of hard to say that it’s because of your bold statement. The way Ksharta is stomping around, well, you’ve seen kittens in your family get willful before and the options once they get in that mode are to let them have their way until they get tired or let them scratch and break everything they come across…also until they get tired. The chefs are not fools. They are, perhaps, having their work disrupted though. They’re cooking for a large, mixed cook hall, so you might understand why they’d have gone for a somewhat bland, conservative recipe. Who knows if everyone here can eat their food. What Ksharta is doing will probably make it taste great for [i]you[/i] (seriously, the Huntresses loved Ksharta for a recipe, she’s good at this), but it might drive off the Terenians and Zaldarians from Hybrasilian cuisine. Who knows, maybe the chefs here are even in some sort of competition with each other. It would make sense given that they were each working on separate types of food. Of course, it’s just as likely that it’s a more innocent explanation, like letting each chef work their specialty and then the visitors get to choose their preferred fare. This is not to say that you were ignored. You invoked important Hybrasilian religion. And while, sure, these random chefs, long-stationed on Akar, aren’t going to be familiar with the details of Jade’s story in the way that folks back home might be, they get that you invoked a goddess’s protection and they’re not going to casually ignore that. It would be bad luck! For her part, Angela laughs quietly into her gag. She’s been enjoying the whole spectacle and is just soaking it in. Maybe she’s trying to find weaknesses in Jade through all this? Speaking of Jade, she’s a bit distanced from all of this, since you’re sitting by yourself holding Angela’s leash for a few moments while you take things in and stay out of the way of the kitten on a warpath. How much of what’s happening is Jade actually receiving, and through what filter? *** [b]Mirror[/b] Marcina looks a little intimidated. Not actually scared, but there’s a physical reaction to that intensity of yours. Perhaps it’s that she’s very small and so, outside of a mecha, she’s learned to be careful of her physical space in a way that’s subconscious at this point. Maybe it’s that as a former champion and even before that a favored child of TC (surely raised in an environment that rewarded and exalted her for her natural talents) she simply isn’t treated with this sort of speech very often and so it surprised her. Perhaps it’s an affected reaction. You can see the calculation happening behind her eyes as well. Whatever physicality your words have created, the woman before you is giving them her full attention and she is thinking very carefully about them. In fact, she probably responds to intimidation with this sort of calculation. You can almost see the words come into her head and start spinning about, being prodded and dissected from different angles until they’re stripped naked and fully explored. You can see, too, the building excitement as she does that analysis. It expresses itself in the slight lightening of her knuckles as they press into the arms of her chair. She makes no move to take the money. Instead she says “I’ll still be paying for the drinks, though you’re free to leave the extra tip here if you like the service.” Then, casually, almost as an afterthought, she adds “you’ve been [i]extraordinarily[/i] careful in your matches to date.” It’s a statement, not a question. She lets it hang there as she finishes her own drink, indicating that she’ll soon be going.