Starlance

Mass Effect: Kingslayer

And the answers were starting to come. ”Ah, hi there. Finally someone, I was starting to worry I had the wrong address or something.” she swung her feet off the windowsill and got up to give Arthur’s hand a firm shake with a friendly smile, ”Lantea T’Keli. Room over there is free, grab the best bed before more people show up.” she gestured toward the second bedroom door with her left hand just as Key entered the apartment. ”Aaaaand here’s another, like- Wait, Bucket? What are you-?” she paused, realizing her mistake and turning back to Arthur, ”Nevermind, different Quarian with a green rag. But what she said, what’s your shtick? Not regular military or cop, they don’t let those grow big, beautiful beards like that. Does your helmet even seal properly?” she continued with a smile as she flicked her wrist surrounded by a blue glow, hurling the empty noodle box into the trash bin on her way to the couch.

She sprang right back to her feet no more than a few seconds after she sat down, her hand stopping just short of drawing her Stiletto when she realized the Vorcha introduced himself politely and without drooling. ”Son of a bitch, the legends were true. There are Vorcha with more than two brain cells bouncing around the inside of their skull, picture that.” the Asari grinned as she sat back down, postponing any further introductions until more people arrived.

The sight of Sivus, on the other hand, was a very welcome one. If her previous experiences were anything to go by, a Turian might bring some order and discipline into the group, an important thing to have when setting up a new team. His drinking comment made Lantea chuckle. ”If I had ten credits for every time I heard that, I’d be retiring by now. I’m Lantea, I guess I’m here to take fire so the lot of you don’t have to.” she got up to shake Sivus’ and Liyah’s hands, leaning closer to the latter with a subtle nod toward Osum, ”Don’t worry about that, they’re short-lived, it’ll be gone in a decade or so.” she whispered.

Mass Effect: Kingslayer

Approaching the Citadel for the first time was a sight to behold. The massive station emerged from the nebula like a ghost ship out of a storm in stories of old, flanked by angular-looking Turian warships and the eyesore that was the Destiny Ascension. It was almost as stunning as being not only considered, but actually asked to join a Council-backed, but officially nonexistent black ops squad. Spectres lite! The customs officer didn’t want to believe it either - the ‘official’ version she was given to get on the station that is - when the two weapons and a full suit of armor in one of her bags set off enough alarm bells to make even the salty old Turian captain raise an eyebrow. That was the last entertaining thing to happen for the next two hours the commute to the correct Ward and district took her. And she thought the cities on Illium were big.

Unfortunately, while they were told which district they were supposed to meet in, the precise location hadn't been revealed yet, leaving her to wander the district for an hour. At least it gave her time to look around and make up for the abysmal food served on the way here. Lantea was a bit surprised by the amount of Salarian and Asari C-Sec officers throughout the district compared to the docks and Presidium, but in a way it made sense. Humans could complain about too many Turian officers in what is effectively a majority Human area, and Batarians would definitely whine about Human officers. Exactly why anyone still cared what Batarians thought was unknown to her, but apparently she was ‘...a judgemental simpleton... ’ as some old bag on the ship told her when conversation turned in that direction. She was halfway through her box of takeout noodles when she received a message from the contact she got along with the directions she’d been following thus far, finally pointing her to a specific place. Livilla Towers. It sounded almost Asari. It was also about half an hour away at a brisk pace.

And a minute in an elevator. But at last, the Asari stood in front of an ordinary door, retrieving her Stiletto from the gear bag before using the authentication code provided to her to enter. ”Hey-ho? Anyone here?” Silence. ”Apparently not.” she muttered, opened the closest door and threw both her bags on the bed closest to the window before holstering the pistol and sitting down beside a window in the main room to finish her meal and enjoy the view outside. Not bad as far as bases go. Couldn’t hold a candle to the refurbished patrol corvette they had with the old company, but miles ahead of a prefab with a shaky AC.

Only questions that remained concerned the mission and the rest of the team: How many? Who were they? Who was going to be in command? She looked back to the door. And where were they? She brought up her Omni-tool again, going over every word of the latest message just in case she misread something. That would be some first - and last - day at work.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

Once they were clear, she picked up the song where she left off to clear her mind again, already starting to feel the effect of so many minds mingling with her own combined with heavy use of active magic. Had she not pushed this far, she might have had the presence of mind to push the back of the car down when braking to keep the wheels on the ground, or at least wear her seatbelt. Alas, she did neither, and the unexpected tilt introduced her forehead to the windshield frame, a fitting dot behind what was by any metric a shit day. Too tired to chew the well-meaning maniac out for excessive use of force against the Bazaar police, Avelyn got out of the car, giving Joey a quick “Thanks for the lift.” as she passed him and went to find the good doctor to get something to kill the headache before it killed her and to figure out just what in the name of everything both holy and unholy happened in that market.

Exiting the cargo bay, she found everyone in the lobby, discussing some newcomers. And a casualty. Well, not KIA, but AWOL. That could be even worse if Phi for some reason turned traitor. ‘Contingency plan, Avelyn. Now might be a good time to start thinking about what you’re gonna do if these people fail… Or when they fail.’ She thought glumly before turning to Flame to speak. “You want someone’s brain picked apart?” she started cheerfully before turning to Natasha and switching to a much less chirpy tone, “It might be worth scanning everyone else as well with one of our number gone, it’s not unheard of for people like us to lose their marbles and go back to the Ascendancy. Now, I hate breaching people’s privacy as much as the next guy, but if someone else wants to up and vanish without a word or worse, I think it’d be good to know in advance. Only problem being that there’s no one to check me. Also, what Laurey said. First, let’s get far away from here while we still can. Second, I’d rather Klein waited a few hours, my head hurts enough as it is. Lock him in a storage closet in the meantime if you don’t trust him to wander around.” she added in a tone that left one wondering if she was serious or not, “Speaking of the headache, doc, little help? It feels like someone stuck a fork in my brain.”

Mass Effect: Kingslayer

Lantea T'Keli

Lantea

QUOTE Does this mean I have to pay income tax on this... What?

PROFILE Full Name: Lantea T'keli Date of Birth: 13/02/2085 Species: Asari Gender: Feminine Age: 98 Occupation: Mercenary Service Rank: N/A Profile: Sentinel Powers: Tech Armor (Durability, Melee Damage, Durability) Warp (Detonate, Lasting Damage, Pierce) Throw (Force, Recharge Combo, Double Throw) Lift Grenades (Radius, Duration, Slam) Belongings: Stiletto pistol Tornado Shotgun Armali Council Nexus Omni-tool Light Mercenary Armor (Ariake technologies) Role: CQC specialist

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE

Lantea is a walking stereotype of a young asari. Cocky, brash, loud and confident at times to the point of arrogance in everything from her skills to her appearance, this is topped off by a moral compass that’s off by a degree or two. Despite this, although she’d rather die than admit it, she cares about those around her once she gets to know them, readily putting her attitude aside when it can solve a problem. Given her young age and the corresponding lack of experience, for an Asari that is, Lantea has a bad habit of dismissing good-natured advice and diving into things head first instead. The reason she’s still alive and with all four limbs attached, even after three decades of reckless mercenary work, is a combination of dumb luck, largely unappreciated help from her peers and the fact that she is both a decently powerful biotic and actually quite good at fighting, something that continually fuels her already massive ego.

DETAILED HISTORY

Lantea was born in Saefos Valley on Illium to a turian member of a small mercenary team and an asari corporate lawyer. Her father, still an adventurous spirit in her golden years, left early in her life and never returned, leaving her with no recollection of her. Raised solely by her mother, Lantea was exposed to the corporate world from an early age, and found it rotten all the way to its stinking core. While she hated it, she got useful lessons in dealing with various species, body language basics, a few useful contacts and a decent idea about several Terminus criminal groups and their activities out of it, as well as an interest in other cultures. Unsurprisingly, the more her mother pushed her into this disgusting swamp, the more she fought to escape it, creating a rift between the two. Lantea even purposefully failed law school in favor of pursuing tech education to spite her. At the height of their divide, Lantea began modelling herself after her father, all the way to wearing face paint copied from her picture for a short time, much to her mother’s dismay.

One day in 2151 at her club of choice, Lantea ran into a collection of malcontents who were in the process of forming a mercenary band and needed an armorer. The crowd sat right with her, so she packed what she had and kissed Illium a sweet goodbye. Of course with her only knowledge of her father coming from a few mentions by her mother and a single picture, she didn’t exactly get it right. Where her father preferred the target notice she was there the day after the job was done, Lantea found the direct approach much more reliable and less time consuming. The group went on to become somewhat known throughout the Attican Traverse, gaining some experience and a decent amount of credits, enough for Lantea to buy several suits of armor as tech progressed over the years and transform them to her liking.

Though made up of a few dozen of questionable individuals similar to Lantea herself, they were good enough to survive their jobs and smart enough to keep their activities mostly legal and not to piss on the chips of any of the major Terminus mercenary organizations or the Systems Alliance once they established a presence across the Traverse. The band eventually formed two groups as members aged and left, one preferring a controlled approach, the other opting for a more aggressive stance. Remembering the divide between her and her mother, Lantea set her attitude aside and tried to mend the rift before it tore the band apart, but the minds of turians and salarians did not seem compatible with batarians and krogan, not to mention the humans who were more often than not incompatible with each other. Seeing no alternative, Lantea bode her comrades a sour farewell in late 2181 and left the band on good terms before things could take a turn for the worst.

Having left the group behind, Lantea turned to freelancing, moving from the Traverse and into Alliance space proper, where driving back and in some cases hunting down batarian raiding parties proved to be a constant source of employment. In early 2183, she and the colony that hired her at the time got tangled with a slaver ring large enough to draw the ire of the Alliance directly, and her involvement there eventually led to her name appearing on the Kingslayer candidates list.

Mass Effect: Kingslayer

Lantea T'Keli

Lantea

QUOTE Does this mean I have to pay income tax on this... What?

PROFILE Full Name: Lantea T'keli Date of Birth: 13/02/2085 Species: Asari Gender: Feminine Age: 98 Occupation: Mercenary Service Rank: N/A Profile: Sentinel Powers: Tech Armor (Durability, Melee Damage, Durability) Warp (Detonate, Lasting Damage, Pierce) Throw (Force, Recharge Combo, Double Throw) Lift Grenades (Radius, Duration, Slam) Belongings: Stiletto pistol Tornado Shotgun Armali Council Nexus Omni-tool Light Mercenary Armor (Ariake technologies) Role: CQC specialist

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE

Lantea is a walking stereotype of a young asari. Cocky, brash, loud and confident at times to the point of arrogance in everything from her skills to her appearance, this is topped off by a moral compass that’s off by a degree or two. Despite this, although she’d rather die than admit it, she cares about those around her once she gets to know them, readily putting her attitude aside when it can solve a problem. Given her young age and the corresponding lack of experience, for an Asari that is, Lantea has a bad habit of dismissing good-natured advice and diving into things head first instead. The reason she’s still alive and with all four limbs attached, even after three decades of reckless mercenary work, is a combination of dumb luck, largely unappreciated help from her peers and the fact that she is both a decently powerful biotic and actually quite good at fighting, something that continually fuels her already massive ego.

DETAILED HISTORY

Lantea was born in Saefos Valley on Illium to a turian member of a small mercenary team and an asari corporate lawyer. Her father, still an adventurous spirit in her golden years, left early in her life and never returned, leaving her with no recollection of her. Raised solely by her mother, Lantea was exposed to the corporate world from an early age, and found it rotten all the way to its stinking core. While she hated it, she got useful lessons in dealing with various species, body language basics, a few useful contacts and a decent idea about several Terminus criminal groups and their activities out of it, as well as an interest in other cultures. Unsurprisingly, the more her mother pushed her into this disgusting swamp, the more she fought to escape it, creating a rift between the two. Lantea even purposefully failed law school in favor of pursuing tech education to spite her. At the height of their divide, Lantea began modelling herself after her father, all the way to wearing face paint copied from her picture for a short time, much to her mother’s dismay.

One day in 2151 at her club of choice, Lantea ran into a collection of malcontents who were in the process of forming a mercenary band and needed an armorer. The crowd sat right with her, so she packed what she had and kissed Illium a sweet goodbye. Of course with her only knowledge of her father coming from a few mentions by her mother and a single picture, she didn’t exactly get it right. Where her father preferred the target notice she was there the day after the job was done, Lantea found the direct approach much more reliable and less time consuming. The group went on to become somewhat known throughout the Attican Traverse, gaining some experience and a decent amount of credits, enough for Lantea to buy several suits of armor as tech progressed over the years and transform them to her liking.

Though made up of a few dozen of questionable individuals similar to Lantea herself, they were good enough to survive their jobs and smart enough to keep their activities mostly legal and not to piss on the chips of any of the major Terminus mercenary organizations or the Systems Alliance once they established a presence across the Traverse. The band eventually formed two groups as members aged and left, one preferring a controlled approach, the other opting for a more aggressive stance. Remembering the divide between her and her mother, Lantea set her attitude aside and tried to mend the rift before it tore the band apart, but the minds of turians and salarians did not seem compatible with batarians and krogan, not to mention the humans who were more often than not incompatible with each other. Seeing no alternative, Lantea bode her comrades a sour farewell in late 2181 and left the band on good terms before things could take a turn for the worst.

Having left the group behind, Lantea turned to freelancing, moving from the Traverse and into Alliance space proper, where driving back and in some cases hunting down batarian raiding parties proved to be a constant source of employment. In early 2183, she and the colony that hired her at the time got tangled with a slaver ring large enough to draw the ire of the Alliance directly, and her involvement there eventually led to her name appearing on the Kingslayer candidates list.

Made minor changes given the new equipment/powers ruling, marked in violet (Added a second weapon and removed Energy Drain).

Mass Effect: Kingslayer

Lantea T'Keli

Lantea

QUOTE Does this mean I have to pay income tax on this... What?

PROFILE Full Name: Lantea T'keli Date of Birth: 13/02/2085 Species: Asari Gender: Feminine Age: 98 Occupation: Mercenary Service Rank: N/A Profile: Sentinel Powers: Energy Drain (Damage, Drain, Armor Boost) Tech Armor (Durability, Melee Damage, Durability) Warp (Detonate, Lasting Damage, Pierce) Throw (Force, Recharge Combo, Double Throw) Lift Grenades (Radius, Duration, Slam) Belongings: Stiletto pistol Armali Council Nexus Omni-tool Light Mercenary Armor (Ariake technologies) Role: CQC specialist

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE

Lantea is a walking stereotype of a young asari. Cocky, brash, loud and confident at times to the point of arrogance in everything from her skills to her appearance, this is topped off by a moral compass that’s off by a degree or two. Despite this, although she’d rather die than admit it, she cares about those around her once she gets to know them, readily putting her attitude aside when it can solve a problem. Given her young age and the corresponding lack of experience, for an Asari that is, Lantea has a bad habit of dismissing good-natured advice and diving into things head first instead. The reason she’s still alive and with all four limbs attached, even after three decades of reckless mercenary work, is a combination of dumb luck, largely unappreciated help from her peers and the fact that she is both a decently powerful biotic and actually quite good at fighting, something that continually fuels her already massive ego.

DETAILED HISTORY

Lantea was born in Saefos Valley on Illium to a turian member of a small mercenary team and an asari corporate lawyer. Her father, still an adventurous spirit in her golden years, left early in her life and never returned, leaving her with no recollection of her. Raised solely by her mother, Lantea was exposed to the corporate world from an early age, and found it rotten all the way to its stinking core. While she hated it, she got useful lessons in dealing with various species, body language basics, a few useful contacts and a decent idea about several Terminus criminal groups and their activities out of it, as well as an interest in other cultures. Unsurprisingly, the more her mother pushed her into this disgusting swamp, the more she fought to escape it, creating a rift between the two. Lantea even purposefully failed law school in favor of pursuing tech education to spite her. At the height of their divide, Lantea began modelling herself after her father, all the way to wearing face paint copied from her picture for a short time, much to her mother’s dismay.

One day in 2151 at her club of choice, Lantea ran into a collection of malcontents who were in the process of forming a mercenary band and needed an armorer. The crowd sat right with her, so she packed what she had and kissed Illium a sweet goodbye. Of course with her only knowledge of her father coming from a few mentions by her mother and a single picture, she didn’t exactly get it right. Where her father preferred the target notice she was there the day after the job was done, Lantea found the direct approach much more reliable and less time consuming. The group went on to become somewhat known throughout the Attican Traverse, gaining some experience and a decent amount of credits, enough for Lantea to buy several suits of armor as tech progressed over the years and transform them to her liking.

Though made up of a few dozen of questionable individuals similar to Lantea herself, they were good enough to survive their jobs and smart enough to keep their activities mostly legal and not to piss on the chips of any of the major Terminus mercenary organizations or the Systems Alliance once they established a presence across the Traverse. The band eventually formed two groups as members aged and left, one preferring a controlled approach, the other opting for a more aggressive stance. Remembering the divide between her and her mother, Lantea set her attitude aside and tried to mend the rift before it tore the band apart, but the minds of turians and salarians did not seem compatible with batarians and krogan, not to mention the humans who were more often than not incompatible with each other. Seeing no alternative, Lantea bode her comrades a sour farewell in late 2181 and left the band on good terms before things could take a turn for the worst.

Having left the group behind, Lantea turned to freelancing, moving from the Traverse and into Alliance space proper, where driving back and in some cases hunting down batarian raiding parties proved to be a constant source of employment. In early 2183, she and the colony that hired her at the time got tangled with a slaver ring large enough to draw the ire of the Alliance directly, and her involvement there eventually led to her name appearing on the Kingslayer candidates list.

Let me know if the powers are out of whack or if there are too many.

Mass Effect: Kingslayer

Sign me up if there's still room.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

@The Jest

Avelyn didn’t need to be told twice to take a break. She knew the security guards were blindsided by their ability to counteract their plans, and a smug smirk crossed her face when the local commander called a retreat to regroup and restrategize. With that out of the way, Alan mostly burned out and the gang about to evacuate, she quietly started singing a song to help block out such a large volume of thoughts from her mind.

“The night was icy cold, I stood alone
Waiting for an army foot patrol
When at last they came within my sight
I squeezed the trigger of my Armalite
Oh mama, oh mama, comfort me
I know these awful things have got to be
But when the war for freedom has been won
I promise you I'll put away my gun.”

It took a while for the cacophony of confused and angry thoughts to become a background hum, quiet enough to leave her hidey hole and start making her way back to the ship. She took a step forward and found herself face to face with a stack of four officers about five paces away from her. Fortunately, though they had obviously been approaching her position with a clear goal and weapons at low ready, their heads were turned toward a side street, their attention drawn by a noise she only now noticed. It was a car. Was it about to crash? No- Well, yes, but actually no.

The car skidded to a stop beside her, the four poor bastards a little slow on their feet and now laying on the ground cursing and clutching their various broken bones. She’d never met the driver in person, but she remembered his face and name from the debriefing of their run at Plenty.

“What is that unholy noise? It sounds worse than Rau’ve food tastes!” Avelyn groaned as she crouched beside Joey, “We need to talk about your music preferences. Get back in the car, I’ll make some room.” Careful to stand beside one of the tires in case one of the cops was feeling smart and decided to shoot under the car, she formed a sideways-accelerating gravity field from about knee-height down underneath the largest concentration of people shooting at them, causing most of them to fall ass over kettle in perfect unison. Once they were down, she changed the direction by 45° upwards, reduced the height and increased power, thus throwing their dropped weapons away save for those who thought to wear their slings. With the amount of hate being thrown their way - however she sympathized given Joey’s wanton disregard for the ‘poor fucking infantry’ - now significantly reduced, she felt confident enough to leave cover once he was back in the driver’s seat, grabbing the corner of the roll cage and using it as a pivot point to get into the passenger seat with a gravity-assisted jump.

“Drive, I’ll clear the way. Straight from here and then the third left.” she ordered as she started sweeping the street ahead with Gravity Manipulation to clear a path, throwing security officers around like ragdolls to get them to stop shooting and get then into places they couldn’t get run over. Resigned to the headache that was to come, she opened her mind to the thoughts of others again, judging limited precognition and knowing what the nutter behind the wheel was going to do a worthy tradeoff for a few hours of discomfort.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

The shitstorm caught her in the cargo bay again. Ever since their big purchase, that was where she spent most of her time except one intelligence-gathering outing and the occasional supply run. Once she’d even fallen asleep sat upright on a box with an Fe-C diagram in her hand. Good thing no one found her there, or at least she thought so. Unfortunately, loud music and a particularly stubborn piece of material meant she only noticed the alert from Flame after a few minutes.

‘I didn’t do it!’ she sent back as she hurried back to her cabin to grab some essentials before making her way toward the… “Holy fuck they weren’t kidding.” She mouthed when she exited the ship and saw the problem of the day. The rogue’s brain kicked into overdrive, drawing upon memories of the Bazaar’s every back alley and service passage to get to the problem, arriving slightly winded more or less in sync with the first wave of first responders. “On site. Hold your breath, human torch.” she checked in on comms and raised two of the fire extinguishers above Alan with her magic before crushing them, dumping their contents on Alan all at once. “Someone make sure he can breathe when you get to him, but cooling this down is beyond my abilities.”

There was, however, something she could do. She retreated back into the dark alleyway and leaned against the wall. She didn’t want to bust her ass on the pavement if she did this wrong. Slowly, she stopped keeping other people’s thoughts out, and with the majority of civilians doing the smart thing and going in the opposite direction of the magical inferno at best speed, she felt confident she could walk around without the risk of her brain going ‘NOPE!’ from being overtaxed, left the alley again and made her way toward the largest group of Bazaar Security ground units. Shielding herself from their view in a shop entrance about a dozen meters from them, Avelyn started picking out tactically relevant information about the security forces’ plans and passing it over to the rest of the team via Omni-tool and the psychic link.

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

Amy’s reaction to the coffee wasn’t what Avelyn expected, and she was briefly worried Amy didn’t know what coffee was and her species were allergic to it. No, of course not, it wouldn’t be that fast and the team mom’s reaction made it quite clear where the problem lay, and the steam coming from the cup dissipated entirely as Avelyn further cooled it. “You’re going to reconsider that statement once you actually get to know us.” She laughed when Amy called them ‘The most amazing people she’d ever met’, “Or after today, depending on how it goes down there. Keep the seats warm for us up here, eh?” she gave the struggling Zvezd an encouraging pat on the back, purposefully avoiding touching any exposed skin and jogged off to meet up with Tarak and Trajan.

---

Going in under aliases was a prudent call. As her home was far away from any fighting for the entirety of the war, there was still a good chance her parents were both up and about, and Avelyn didn’t doubt for a second that as soon as the Ascendancy uncovered the identity of any member of their party, they wouldn’t hesitate to target their families where possible to make them either break or come at them angry and stupid. Not if she had anything to say about it. Avelyn didn’t plan more than 24 hours ahead, but she’d be damned if she let the Ascendancy torpedo the one long-term plan she had. And having a pre-made false identity carried the added bonus of not having to invoke the name and service number of her fallen friend from the war like she planned to, even if no one was aware of her demise as far as she knew.

Not that long later, ‘Aveline Laverrier’ stepped into the Circle’s mess hall and let her mind wander, collecting stray thoughts and conversations both yet unspoken and too far away for normal human ears to ear, separating the decent people that could be found in the lower ranks and conscripts from the human garbage that was most of the core-worlders and officer’s corps, finding that the latter were in an overwhelming majority here. Of course it would be so. On the bright side, if push came to shove, she wouldn’t have to bother too much with identifying the target and deciding whether to disable or kill.

“Nothing like a Meal Refusing to Exit to start the day.” She said as she caught herself before she could snatch the MRE from across the hall. No point letting them know what they could do in advance. Instead she reached over the table to grab it, bracing against Trajan’s shoulder as if for support, then shifting her hand to an exposed part of his skin and sending everything she gathered about the troops here to him in a manner similar to how she passed a message to Amy earlier, that way he’d know what she wanted him to know without littering his brain with someone else’s memories. As Tarak was sadly out of reach and covered head to toe, he’d have to be told later. With that, she sunk into the meal, while still keeping tabs on the thoughts of everyone in a 15 meter radius and conversations of almost everyone in the room, her ears boosting distant conversations to audible levels.

The triage of incoming information was usually the hardest part of an intelligence job, and she was doubly thankful for the small miracle the spell meant to affect the memories of others worked on her own ability to remember things, as anything she didn’t focus on now would always be accessible to her later. And using the magic and techniques taught to her by the Ascendancy against the Ascendancy was such a beautiful display of irony that the thought of it brought a smile to her lips despite her efforts to remain stone-faced.