Dervish — Roleplayer Guild

Here's my stupid and probably entirely too meta story about how one of my Mass Effect characters, Tanya ((http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3334153)), has impossibly ended up in Tamriel and in front of a bewildered Khajiit who has no idea what to make of future-woman.

Enjoy.

A thunderous clap filled the sky and what appeared to be a meteorite thundered through the sky like an enraged burning fist that raced to punch the ground. When the crash didn’t occur, a perplexed Do’Karth stopped flinching and covering his ears in anticipation for the deafening soundwave that was almost certain to come. In fact, things seemed strangely quiet, as if the meteorite never happened, except for a strange scent in the air that was unlike any Do’Karth was familiar with. A primal part of his mind tried to tell himself it was a burnt oil, but that immediately crumbled apart under any form of scrutiny. He looked at his modest campground he was establishing for the night, including the makeshift shelter, debating if he should leave everything behind while he went to investigate or take it with him. Looking around, he was well off the road and nothing was likely to stumble across his lake view abode in the time it took him to investigate the strange thing he had witnessed, so he decided to leave things as they were.

Cutting through the forested lands of Cyrodiil, not far from Cheydinhal, it was a rather peaceful and lovely day, and the Khajiit made good time with quarterstaff in hand, his nose twitching as followed the strange scent, feeling somewhat apprehensive about what he was about to come across. What if it was a Daedric gate, or something otherworldly such as that? Even he didn’t care for his odds of fighting something from another plane of existence. 

When he came to a clearing, he finally caught sight of the meteorite; a strange metal house with a glowing pair of drums on the back looked like it had been dragged several dozen meters before coming to a stop on its own. It was a sight that defied explanation, and it made him deeply uneasy. Nothing in Tamriel looked like that. 

Torn between leaving to avoid finding out what horrors waited at the house and the same curiosity that took him to Skyrim to find dragons, Do’Karth was deciding what to do when one of the only visible doors opened upwards from the siding, and a figure emerged uneasily. Do’Karth tensed until he caught sight of the figure’s face. A woman.

A human woman.

“What on Nirn…” he asked himself, flabbergast. Nothing about this was making sense. From here, he could make out the short-cut hair with a short mohawk dominating her crown and her pale face, which was only a few shades darker than the white on her armour, which resembled full plate armour in only the most superficial of ways. In her hands was some kind of weapon, not anything he’d seen before, although it reminded him very vaguely of the general shape of a crossbow. It was hard to tell if she was hostile or not.

She lifted her wrist, which was suddenly encased in an orange glow of very strangely stiff glowing magic and ahead of her emerged the strangest Atronach or Oblivion creature Do’Karth had ever witnessed. It was an orb with several translucent and shifting plates and discs, like it was some kind of Dwemer construct. Suddenly, it turned, it’s featureless “eye” staring at his direction. No, at him.

Do’Karth wanted to run, thinking he was about to come under attack, when the woman didn’t immediately react, her arms at her sides and her grey eyes locked upon Do’Karth, an eyebrow raised. She called something out to him, but he was unable to understand a word she was saying. She turned to look at her Atronach, and said something. The thing whirred and the air was filled with a soft music, almost invitingly. The woman waved at him, and he returned the gesture, to which she exclaimed something, positively from the tone of her voice, jerking a fist down in a sign of victory. She turned her attention to him, beaconing him closer. Now more curious than afraid, Do’Karth complied, walking cautiously towards the woman, who watched him approach with an expression that was not unlike his own.

Now standing a few meters from her and her Atronach, she spoke again, in a tongue that was completely foreign to him. He shook his head, gesturing he did not understand her. The Atronach whirred a bit and her voice was repeated back, in different languages this time. It was translating her words, trying to find a common thread.

“This one does not understand you…” he replied, scratching the back of his neck. The woman’s wrist began to glow again, and she poked her fingers at the magical spell she was concocting, to which to Do’Karth stood back in alarm. She raised her hands, saying a word he felt meant no repeatedly. She looked worried; not wanting to upset him. She resumed what she was doing, looking excited, and suddenly, her spell materialized a small crystal like object. She held it up to her ear, nodding a couple of times and extended her metal-clad hand to him with an open palm. He took the device, which felt nearly weightless and completely rigid. The woman nodded excitedly, gesturing to her ear again, and to his. He cautiously lifted the device to his ear and she spoke again, the words became translated in languages he did not understand. She spoke a single word extending her fingers out from her mouth each time she spoke. 

“Do you wish for this one to speak?” He asked. She nodded excitedly, gesturing for him to continue.

For the next several minutes, both spoke back and forth to each other, not quite understanding what the other was saying, but the words were becoming increasingly familiar, until finally. “-ting close, I think.”

“This one understood that!” He exclaimed, surprised and utterly enraptured by the magic he was witnessing. 

“Oh, thank god. I had no idea universal translator software could work for first contact…” she said excitedly, trailing off, and staring at Do’Karth. “And I realize I just spent the last twenty minutes talking to a bloody cat.” She said, blinking. Her accident sounded somewhat like a Breton.

“Are you a Breton?” he asked, his confusion renewed.

“A Britain? How could you possibly know what Britain is or where I was born… wait. You aren’t reading my mind are you?” She asked, eyes wide with a slow blink.

Do’Karth uttered a confused non-committal sound from the back of his throat. “Do’Karth does not think so…? Your magic worries him.” He admitted. Britain? Was that how it was actually pronounced?

The woman ran her glove through her hair, perplexed. “Steal a shuttle, they said. You’ll get paid a bonus for it, they said. Bloody hell, did I hit my head harder than I thought? I’m imagining this, aren’t I?”

“This one is fairly certain he is real.” Do’Karth replied, wondering if the woman was crazy or concussed. 

She blinked, slapping herself gently across the face. “Okay. Definitely awake. And strange cat-person, magic isn’t real. I know I’m not supposed to be showing non-uplifted species advanced tech, but fuck it, I’m not an anthropologist and you sure as shit don’t look like a krogan.” She paused, looking back at her house. “I need a bloody drink.”

She stepped away, climbing inside her home, and came out with a container that opened mechanically, kind of like a Dwemer chest. Inside were packages and utensils. She pulled a bottle out that looked like rum. 

“This is whiskey. Do you drink? And if so, I sure as hope we share amino-acid classification because I would hate to murder the first new species humanity’s discovered in decades because you couldn’t tolerate it.” The woman said, screwing the bottle open and pouring one glass, handing it over to Do’Karth. She knocked it back and drank right from the bottle, as if it were water. The Khajiit sniffed it, and took a sip. It was both extremely potent, but it tasted pure and not at all gritty like most alcohol he’d tried. He obviously made a face, because the woman offered a cheeky grin. “Sorry, pal, it’s all I have. So what the hell is a Do’Karth?”

“…It is this one’s name.” he answered meekly.

The woman blinked. “So you talk in the third person? Great. A talking cougar who wears people clothes and talks about himself like a bloody hanar. This is getting stupid.”

“This one did not mean to offend you. He is just… out of his element.” Do’Karth replied.

“You’re even polite like a hanar. I guess it could be worse; you could be trying to eat me.” The woman replied, knocking back her bottle.

“Why would Do’Karth eat a human?” He asked, perturbed. “He is in a courtship with a human woman, a Nord-“

The woman covered her mouth with her arm, suppressing a hard cough after choking on her drink. “The fuck? Roll back a tick. A human?”

“This one tends to get that reaction from the purists, yes.”

“I mean, yeah, it’s weird, but people from where I’m from hook up with alien species all the time, like we have this, uh, bird-reptile who’s been fucking another one of her species and a frog-lizard guy and… okay, yeah, when I think about it, interspecies buggery is hardly the strangest thing I’ve run across. But there’s humans on this planet? How did none of them tell the galactic community about this planet? Is it all cat people-“

“Khajiit.”

“Okay, Khajiit, sure. Is it all you people and humans here? What about turians, or asari, or salarians?” the woman asked, excited. 

Do’Karth blinked, shaking his head. “This one wants to pretend you are just naming off high elf meals. He does not understand a word of that.”

“Elves… you have got to be fucking with me.” The woman said, hitting the bottle again. “Just I just crash land in a Tolkein novel?” she demanded.

“Tolkein… is that one of your story tellers?” He asked, trying to piece together everything she was saying. Frog-lizards?

“Yeah, he wrote a few books nearly 300 years ago about some short guy called a Hobbit who went to throw some magic ring into a volcano because it was pure evil or whatever while palling around with a king, a few of his Hobbit midget pals, a dwarf and an elf, all while dodging orcs and running into talking trees and shit. They were popular, kind of inspired a bunch of fantasy stuff.” The woman explained.

Do’Karth blinked rapidly. Wherever she had come from, things that were regular in his world were fictional characters? “We have orcs, the Dwemer were sometimes called dwarves, and there are forest spirits that are called Spriggans that are kind of like talking trees…”

“I really need to stop finding new ways to be both surprised and half tempted to call out bullshit, but today is one of those days where my expectations are getting dashed most expertly. So your orcs are a bunch of marauding savage twisted and deformed elves that slaughter innocent people and work for the most powerful evil entity of all time that wants to rule the world?”

“Well, many orcs can be described as barbarians, and they do like fighting and warfare, but Do’Karth wouldn’t call them savages, and they worship Malacath, but he is a Daedra that is something of a warrior outcast. What you are describing sounds like Mehrunes Dagon, who invaded Tamriel two hundred years ago trying to conquer it with his Daedric hordes.” Do’Karth explained.

The woman just blinked. “I’m just going to stop asking questions I’m not ready for the answer at this point and overlook the fact you just implied your gods are real. I’m Tanya, by the way. Tanya Carson. I come from some planet called Terra Nova that’s a number of star systems away, and this planet is in uncharted space and completely hurting my bloody mind. So, humans. Are they nearby?” 

Do’Karth nodded, gesturing to the Northeast. “There is a city called Cheydinhal about two hours from here. He could take you, if you wish?” he offered.

“That’s mighty kind of you, I may take you up on that if I don’t get a reply for my distress signal soon. I doubt anyone here’s capable of entering a sophisticated spaceflight capable shuttle, let alone knowing how to operate it.” She replied, looking up at the Atronach, which pivoted. “Looks like we have company.”

She stood up, setting her bottle down, and Do’Karth rose his feet, turning to the source of interest. A group of armed men, two Imperials and an Orc, approached, weapons drawn, including a bow. Do’Karth knew he could slip away to fight in more favourable terrain with relative ease, but what of his companion?

“They are bandits. The green one is an orc.” Do’Karth mentioned.

“What, seriously? I mean, I know a few people who would be attracted to that, if you got rid of the tusks.” She said to him, stepping forward. “Hello there. My friend here tells me you three are a bunch of cunts. That true?”

The three bandits looked at each other, confused. Right, universal translator.  she thought.

Apparently deciding that they weren’t going to get anything out of her through dialog, Do’Karth stepped forward, ready to protect from a charge, when one of the Imperials loosed an arrow, impacting Tanya’s chest and stopping dead with a shimmering blue glow. She looked down at the broken arrow at her feet. “Right. Cunts it is, then. Shithead, resume playlist. Full volume.”

The Atronach suddenly emitted a painfully loud sound that sounded like music that was churned out of the most hellish pits of Oblivion with a slow, ponderous voice growling some kind of lyrics that Do’Karth did not understand. His ears flattened and he cringed at the unexpected volume, but still caught sight of Tanya pulling the strange crossbow-like weapon from the small of her back, which extended out into a longer weapon that she held with both hands. Raising it up to her line of sight, the weapon exploded out the end with a blinding blue flash,  and almost instantly, the archer collapsed to the ground, a large hole bored out of his chest. The other two bandits turned to run, and she elected not to pull the trigger a second time. “I come in peace, assholes! Don’t fuck with me; I’m from the future!” She called out to them, hopefully cementing the idea that trying to rob strangers was bad for your life expectancy. When they were clear, she turned to the Atronach once more. “Hey, Shithead. Pause feedback.” She instructed it. Everything went silent again. 

“So, aren’t you glad you decided to be-“ she started, turning to Do’Karth, who was bowing on the ground, looking both astonished and terrified. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Are you… a god?” he asked, awe in his voice.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She groaned.
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