EliteCommander

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

I'm sure they can talk again later, if you want to move us to a new one. Neesa certainly has no inhibitions about saying what is on her mind.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Hal-Neesa gave a brief huff. "Typical. Too stubborn and thick-headed to see what is right in front of you. Though, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given your youth and inexperience. Sometimes, it almost physically pains me to know that people like you have the same potential as myself. If your leaders don't end up throwing it all away, of course."

Again, Meesei found Hal-Neesa's words to be somewhat bizzare, considering her personality. She did not seem to be the type that would willingly admit to anyone's potential, much less for it to be equal to her own. Regardless, Meesei saw the look that Lunise gave her, and she had no particular desire to engage Neesa in conversation, regardless.

"We should get you situated here." Meesei finally interrupted. "We can deal with all of the details later, once I have spoken to my council."

Hal-Neesa quickly disregarded any response Lunise might have had as she turned her attention to Meesei. "Yes...I will require your finest room available. I had little hope for what that would mean coming here, but I suppose the fact that you are squatting in a Dwemer city will make it somewhat more comfortable."

"Well, I am afraid our finest rooms are already taken, but..." Meesei began, though she was quickly interrupted.

"Then kick them out." Neesa demanded, narrowing her eyes. Meesei was about to open her mouth once more when Lorag stepped up alongside her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Look, I'll handle this, Alpha. You've done plenty already today; take a break." He suggested.

Meesei took in a long breath and took a moment to calm her mind. She doubted Lorag was keen on dealing with Neesa either, so he was probably offering purely out of sympathy for her. She agreed to Lorag with a silent nod while Neesa, without a word, snatched her bag out of Janius' hands. She started to leave without comment, though not without a few more judgmental glances towards Lunise.

Somehow, Meesei was looking even more uncertain about the situation than she had been before the axe was empowered. She had anticipated that Molag Bal's help would come with a price, but she had not expected that the help itself would be the price. "So..." Meesei began, though her words trailed off into uncertainty.

Ahnasha watched with no shortage of suspicion with every step that Neesa took away from them. "I don't think I need to say how much I don't like this."

Kaleeth had preferred to stay as quiet as possible with Neesa around, but she finally held up the axe, clutching it close to herself. "At least we have this...right?"

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Meesei acknowledged Fendros and Ahnasha with a nod as they approached, though she had to keep one eye on Neesa and Lunise at all times. Logically, she doubted that either of them would be willing to resort to violence, considering that Molag Bal himself had instructed Neesa to serve cooperatively with them, but that did not stop Meesei from being worried. To give Meesei a chance to focus, Lorag stepped in close to Fendros and spoke at a whisper. "The short of it is that we got the axe empowered, with too many strings attached. Alpha managed to beat the vampire in a duel to get the Daedra's help, but then he made her tag along with us. You, uh, can see how well that's going."

Meanwhile, Hal-Neesa stopped her smiling for the first time since they started speaking, perhaps disappointed in the fact that Lunise had stopped giving in to her goading. The vampire finally took her hand off of Lunise so she could cross her arms. "Hmph, what, do you not appreciate my story? Are you suddenly now so reserved about the knowledge you gain? Well, it was a trick question regardless; I learned nothing of value from those slaving despots. Sure, I thoughts I did at the time, and for hundreds of years after, but all I really should have taken out of it was how little I mattered. If you want to be worth anything, you have to earn it. No, I was hatched a pathetic weakling who couldn't free herself on her own. I could only thank Alessia that I managed to live long enough to make something worthwhile out of myself."

Meesei raised her brow at the curious choice of phrasing that Neesa used; it was not how she expected a worshipper of Molag Bal to speak, certainly.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Neesa did not move her hand, nor did Lunise's words seem to have much affect on her aside from amusing her further, based on her grin. "You are lucky. I would be offended, were it not for the fact that I find your ignorance so funny. Indeed, you truly have no idea exactly how ignorant you are; how much the nature of this world, or myself, elude you."

The group reached the Silent City in a short time, though Neesa was too engrossed with her conversation to pay much attention to it. She has showed some reaction upon arrival, but she was considerably less awestruck by the cavern than most visitors. As they headed up the stairs and into the courtyard, they were spotted by Ahnasha and Fendros, who had been awaiting their return. It was unusual enough that they were walking into the city, instead of taking a portal to the courtyard as Meesei would usually have done, but the sight of Hal-Neesa was something that neither of them had certainly expected. And of course, Neesa paid little attention to them as well, even after they approached.

"Perhaps I should grace you with the honor of hearing some of my story?" Neesa continued. "It is a tale that could fill multiple libraries, but it might help you understand how wholly outmatched you are in this little exchange. And, if your skull is actually a little thinner than a daedric helmet, you might manage to learn something. Oh, but perhaps I should not be so hard on you. After all, you were disadvantaged from birth by being born into the Dominion. You don't look like you could be much older than the current iteration of them, at least. We actually have something in common, you know, with our disadvantaged births. Surprised? No, I wasn't always the superior being you see before you; I was once a naive, pathetic weakling of a mortal, hardly worth anyone's attention or respect. I was hatched in the city of Silyanorn, as a slave to Elves. Do you know what that is like, Thalmor? Being a slave to Elves? What one might learn from that experience?"

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

"Oh, I knew you would be a fun one." Hal-Neesa grinned, staring Lunise in the eyes with her long fangs on display. "I shall ignore the fact that you brought a Thalmor into the heart of my home without my permission, mutt. Even I must admit, a relationship with the Dominion is not what I expected from you lycans, though I should hope that you are not so stupid as to give any actual support to the Dominion. Trust me when I say that every Dominion, from the first to the current, have been collections of some of the most vile fools to have ever walked on Nirn. There have never been any beings, not Molag Bal or Mehrunes Dagon, not Dagoth Ur or Clavicus Vile, who have posed a greater threat to the future of all mortals in every part of Aurbis than these idiotic Thalmor. They are children who understand just enough to make some of the stupidest mistakes possible."

As if it were her intent to anger Lunise as much as physically possible, Neesa stepped up beside Lunise and placed a hand firmly on her back while maintaining constant eye contact. "But I doubt you are smart enough to believe me, nor do you even understand how it is your masters intend to doom all mortals to eternal imperfection."

Despite her immensely insulting attitude and quite intentional goading, Meesei found herself most surprised by the implications of what Neesa was saying. It seemed to be that, somehow, the vampire already knew of the Thalmor's plot to destroy Mundus and return Mer to their supposed divinity. Something that they had made great efforts to keep secret for the time being.

Star Wars - Lawless Galaxy

Delni took in a few deep breaths, her eyes closed, and her mind clouded in fear. She was sat in the corner of the room, which was lit only by whatever lights the group had with them. She had her knees pulled up to her chest and her datapad in her hands, the light from which allowed her to see Boqo laying on the ground next to her. From everything they could tell, he seemed to be fine; he had awoken briefly, but was now resting.

It took a while for Delni to start concentrating on what the others were discussing, which was what she had been thinking about to begin with: how to escape. Naturally, it was everyone's priority at the moment. The Hutts were going to be outraged by the bombing on their property, and Delni had lived on Nar Shaddaa more than long enough to know how bad things could become when the Hutts were angry. Considering that they had all been wrapped up in a fight out in the open, she worried that they would not care about the fact that they were uninvolved in the actual attack on the Hutts.

"I...well, Boqo has a ship. A fast one too, but I mean...you saw what happened when that crazy dark jedi escaped in that shuttle. They tried to shoot them down immediately, and we won't have an army of TIE fighters helping us. I, um, I sent a message to my sister. Maybe we can try getting help from the outside? Let me check..." Delni began, her voice trailing off as she picked up her datapad once more. However, her expression became increasingly more worried, and her desperate button-pressing more rapid. "Can anyone else get a connection to the holonet? It's not working for me now."

Regardless of what they tried, no one else would be able to establish a connection with anything but local devices, since all communications out of the district were now being jammed.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

I think Neesa's presence may lead to some very interesting conversations. She is very old, and has knowledge and understanding about Mundus that is far more...fundamental than most. They might find her goals surprising.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

I find it particularly satisfying to play Neesa. Only one more ageless and insufferable than your average Thalmor.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

While the others were silent, Meesei did comment on her curiosity. "Is that so? I confess, we know little about it. Obviously, it was important to the Dwemer; we easily gathered that much. But, its properties have eluded us. It cannot be forged, enchanted, and is alchemically inert. Dwemer translations on the subject are characteristically vague and difficult to make sense of. The most we've learned is that they built a special forge specifically to work with it, and the crystal itself is 'harmonically volatile'."

Neesa narrowed her eyes sharply at Meesei. "Because it is, and you have no idea what that even means. Let me put it this way: you have not even begun to grasp the concepts necessary to begin to meaningfully study the crystal. Which is good, and you should leave it that way. Don't get me wrong, power is the birthright of mortals, but there's a certain process to gaining power that has to be respected. Else you can, I don't know, disappear an entire race." She said, motioning towards the nearest Dwemer structure. "And I have too much left to do in this kalpa to have you erasing all of the Argonians with your foolishness."

Neesa's judgmental gaze slowly scanned across the rest of the pack. "And you best spread that warning to the rest of your friends, too." She said, pointing a claw towards Lunise in particular. "Especially you. Don't think I didn't see that look on your face; you Altmer all practically have the same one. I've seen it countless times. Give an Altmer a taste of forbidden power, and they can't resist sinking in their teeth. I could fill a mausoleum or twenty with their bodies. And while we're on the subject of you, I think it's time for you to tell me a bit more about yourself, child. You definitely were not there the last time the Champion of mutts visited me, and I want to know how a plain Altmer earns the trust of the highest ranking lycan. Enough to go on what is probably a 'mission' of the highest importance for you lot. Remember, I am going to be here for quite a while, so we are going to have to be friends, right?"

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Hal-Neesa shot a glance at Janius out of the corners of her eyes, still looking mostly straight ahead as they began their walk towards the Silent City. "Blackreach was essentially the capital of the whole Dwemer Empire, at least in Skyrim. Of course I know about it. Only Red Mountain took on greater importance near the end of the Dwemer's existence in Mundus. I never saw it myself before now, though. It was my first husband that told me all about this place. But to be the largest hub of Dwemer civilization in Tamriel, and the largest Aetherium mine in the world? I am insulted you would expect me to be ignorant about it."

"You know of Aetherium as well?" Meesei commented, though she almost immediately regretted making it. She had little desire to actually talk to or engage with Hal-Neesa in any way. She would have been content remaining in silence the whole way back, but Meesei had given in to a moment of weakness and allowed her scholarly curiosity to get the better of her.

While not quite angry, Hal-Neesa did sound mildly annoyed. "Obviously. They would not have excavated so much otherwise. I doubt you even understand the magnitude of power that is concentrated in this place. Aetherium represents the reason for the first time that the Dwemer nearly destroyed themselves. Though, through the much more mundane and boring method of warfare, rather than trying to manipulate Lorkhan's song. So yes, I know all about Aetherium, and before you even ask, no, I'm not going to tell you anything about it. Nor do I want any of 'your' Aetherium for myself. You would best leave it all buried and forgotten if you know what's good for you."

Out of anything that Hal-Neesa had done, that statement was perhaps the most surprising thing yet. Neesa honestly did not seem like the type of person who would consider any kind of knowledge or power to be forbidden, or too dangerous. Though, her words did serve only to make Meesei more curious about the strange crystal.