The Open Door (megacrossover)

[Academia Nut]

At long last, I return. So that means I have access to my computer Chris! You hear that? *shakes fist*

Chapter Thirty-eight: Menzoberranzan

A few hours later, after they had encountered a strange point of space-time where reality folded in on itself to form a wormhole to another point in this strange underground world, or a portal as the drow like to unimaginatively call it, Skuld began to wake up. Possessing constantly active psychic senses meant that Lars was the first one to notice.

Skuld, its Lars. Don’t say or do anything, okay? We’re in a bit of a tight situation here, what with being surrounded by homicidal maniacs currently holding you at sword point, and any screaming or whining on your part would not help.

Skuld’s eyes fluttered open and considering that she probably only saw blackness while feeling the ropes binding her and the fact that she was suspended from a pole being carried, her first instinct probably was to scream out in fear.

Don’t scream!

Skuld somehow managed to keep her mouth shut, although a small whimper did escape her lips.

Her current guard glanced down at her, noticed that she was awake, and paid her no further heed.

Okay Skuld, here is the unfortunate situation. You are currently being held as hostage to ensure my good behaviour as they are appreciative of my ability to kill people… gods; I’m a freaking glorified radio, not a soldier! Anyway, let them hold you for only that, and not because you’re a goddess, for which I have no idea how they will respond. They are a bunch of xenophobic, matriarchal theocrats with access to some really nasty magic. Magic of the sort that can hurt me, and considering you’re cut off from home, you’re really weak right now. You got all of that?

Skuld nodded slowly and weakly, obviously terrified out of her wits by the unknown around her.

Please relax Skuld. I can’t exactly say that there is nothing scary in the darkness, but I’m here… actually, in retrospect I probably am the scariest thing in the darkness right now, but I’m on your side. Uh… okay, I was trying to be reassuring, but that appears to have not worked. Umm… shit, this is awkward. My culture isn’t very good at reassuring people from outside of it. Our reassurances involve promises of vengeance and evisceration and raining unholy fury upon enemies. We’re not a very cuddly group.

Skuld just blinked at him in the darkness, more confused than scared now.

Seriously, it’s pretty morbid and perverse. I never really got into it, but even our children are told that if any monsters dare hide in the closet or under the bed mommy and daddy are going to disembowel them and put their heads on stakes as a warning to any other monster planning on scaring their little one. Never having had children while mortal, I can’t really comment, but I must say that for all the problems my people have, child rearing is actually one of those places where we shine.

…

Where was I? Oh, right, umm… just, don’t get scared and freak out, okay? I’m doing everything in my power to protect you, and if you keep quiet that will make my job much easier, and incidentally extend your lifespan. This brings me to my next point. Uh… how should I put this? In order to save your life I had to do something… rude and unpleasant really… to you. Yeah… bear with me here for a second while I work out a proper analogy.

Skuld let a cross look reach her face, but she stayed quiet, waiting for an answer.

Okay… okay, I’ve got an analogy here. Let us say, metaphorically- metaphorically- that your heart had stopped beating, and in order to save you, I had to apply CPR. Not that it did, or that I did, just you know, as way of analogy. Anyway, in the course of performing CPR, I would have to touch your chest and make lip-to-lip contact during the compressions and the rescue breathing, right? But, I was just saving your life and nothing sexual or the like was meant, and any bruising you might receive would be considered just one of those things, right? And…

Skuld was glaring at him. She wasn’t saying anything and her aim was off in the darkness, but she was definitely glaring at him.

Look, I’m sorry! I only did what I did because I needed to save your life. You were running out of magic so I made a quick and dirty connection between your soul and the local magic field of this universe to keep you from fading away to nothing.

Skuld blinked.

Okay, maybe it’s a little different where you come from, but touching someone else’s soul uninvited is considered extremely rude, and even a crime where I come from depending on the exact circumstances. I mean, outside of combat anyway, but we consider cunt punching a viable combat tactic, so don’t even go there. But yeah, what I did would be considered like CPR. Still, sorry about that.

Skuld went silent and seemed to be thinking about these things.

Anyway, just keep quiet for a little while. I think we’ll be stopping soon, and you should be able to safely talk then, and we’ll discuss this. Okay? Aside from clearing this up, we’ll need to work out the implications of this world’s magic and its affect on you.

Skuld nodded slightly and remained silent and afraid. About an hour later Aruvixa did call for a stop for the day, and the entire party moved up to a defensible cave that branched off from the main tunnel they were travelling down. Setting up sentries, the drow quickly established their camp.

“My charge is currently awake; may I speak with her to ascertain her health?” Lars asked.

Aruvixa considered for a moment before she waved him off and said, “You may speak with her, but nothing else for this time. When we break camp I will have a more efficient arrangement.”

Skuld was sitting uncomfortably on the hard stone, surrounded by the brutish creatures used as slaves and a single guard that kept his sword at her throat. She was stretching out her wrists, rubbed raw by the bindings that had been kept around them. There was a faint amount of light from somewhere, just enough to see at close range.

Okay, time for some theatrics. Speak in a quiet but imperious voice no matter what is actually being said, and use Danish. We want these creatures to not understand what we say while still making them think you are in charge.

Lars then knelt before Skuld and bowed his head, saying sorrowfully, “Sorry about getting you into this situation.”

“Sorry? You saved my life! At least twice, maybe more!” Skuld cried out in an angry tone with a furious look on her face.

The drow all glared at her and Lars immediately said softly, “Please do not speak so loudly.”

Frowning, Skuld lowered her voice and said, “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. I mean, yes, if I had been conscious I probably would have asked you to find a different method before you… ahem… plugged me in to the local magic, but only because I think it might have been a bit rude to the one in charge of the network. As you said, what you did to me was like CPR. Just don’t touch my soul again unless similar circumstances come up. Your ‘hands’ are kind of clammy.”

“Sorry,” Lars noted. He then furrowed his brow and asked, “Wait… there’s someone in charge of the magic?”

“Yeah, that is why I wouldn’t have wanted you to do what you did if there were any other options. I feel a distant mind in the magic, sort of like Yggdrasil, but not. I kind of feel like a hacker who has yet to be noticed by the system admin,” Skuld explained.

Leafing through the dissected memories of the drow priestess, Lars said, “The deity in charge of the Weave, as they call it, is Mystra. I guess we’ll have to apologize the next time we see her.”

Upon dropping Mystra’s name the drow all looked sharply at Lars, which caused him to hang his head in exasperation while Skuld frowned further. Lars noted, “I think they might now believe you to be even more valuable.”

Aruvixa chose that moment to interrupt, coming up to Lars and saying, “I think you’ve had enough time with your ward. Now, go take watch at the mouth of the cave and kill anything that tries to get inside.”

“Yes highest,” Lars replied, dropping out of Danish before walking to the mouth of the cave and sitting down, shutting down most conscious thought while remaining alert. He could probably outwait a star sitting like this, but as it was he only had to wait about eight hours before Aruvixa summoned him back inside the cave.

She had a hand on Skuld’s head and a dagger to her neck. “I prayed to the goddess while we rested, and she provided me with the tools I need to ensure your compliance. Now tell her your ward not to resist or this will hurt more.”

Lars knew that Skuld understood, but he kept up the charade they had started by saying in Danish, “Don’t resist now; she knows that if she tries anything I’ll kill her. I’ll keep you safe Skuld.”

Skuld nodded a fraction of an inch, as much as she could with the knife against her throat, and Lars said, “You may do what you want highest, just remember…”

“Yes, yes, she dies, I die; we’ve been over this. Now…” Aruvixa then unleashed power she had dwelling within her and channelled it into Skuld. Skuld cried out and Lars tensed to move, but then Aruvixa shoved Skuld away, a sneer upon her lips.

“Ah, now we can act more civilized. Your little surface dweller here is now marked for death. At any time, I can activate the spell now residing within her, and she dies. Oh, and should I die, she goes with me, so my continued survival is now in your best interests. Don’t even try and undo the spell either, as that will trigger it too,” Aruvixa explained.

Lars growled, but he noted that he could now at least go to help Skuld up as the sword at her throat was now a metaphysical one, something that he could not get in the way of with his body. He tentatively probed at her mind with his and discovered a pulsing, ugly mark on her soul, one that had buried in deep and he knew that he could not safely remove it.

“You can carry her now; the slaves have better things to do. Now come on all of you, we’re moving out. We’ll be at Menzoberranzan within another five days,” Aruvixa ordered.

Lars picked up Skuld and carried on his back. She was crying. He asked, “Did it hurt?”

Trying to hold back her tears, Skuld said, “I… I… I can feel that thing inside me. It’s like the Doublet System, only stronger and more present. It’s sitting there, letting me know that any moment it can kill me. Oh god, it’s so scary.”

“The instant I get this thing out of you, I am so eating her soul,” Lars growled. “I’m going to peel her apart, raping every part of her being with delicate care and… oh… uh… sorry about that Skuld. Daemon thing.”

“Can I take my mallet to her a few times before you eat her?” Skuld asked angrily.

“I’ll hold her down for you,” Lars replied.

“You’re sweeter than I thought,” Skuld told him.

Lars frowned at that but did not say anything.


Five quiet, miserable days later, during which they started to run into other patrols of drow, although they mostly just breezed past them as it turned out that Aruvixa was the leader of her own patrol, just one with a much larger sweep radius as it extended through several portals.

Then Aruvixa said hungrily, “We’re almost to Menzoberranzan now,” just as they rounded a corner at a tunnel that opened up into a huge cavern that faintly glowed with flickering magical fires all over dozens of buildings and structures.

Tired from the march and concerned for Skuld, Lars asked, “So this Menzoberranzan place is just beyond this little town, right highest?”

There was a general confused blinking amongst the drow, and Aruvixa said, “This is Menzoberranzan.”

Lars frowned and asked, “But I thought you said that Menzoberranzan was a giant city, highest?”

“This is a giant city!” Aruvixa insisted. “It’s one of the biggest in the Underdark, the crown jewel amongst the drow!”

“Oh. Sorry highest. It looked small to me. Where I come from a community needs to be at least three times as big to be considered a city at all, and to qualify as a big city it needs at least five million inhabitants,” Lars replied.

Aruvixa’s eye twitched for a moment, probably from considering five million creatures like Lars all packed into a single city, before she said, “It is of no matter. This is Menzoberranzan and you will obey every order I give. Understood?”

“Yes highest,” Lars replied.

Marching into the city, Lars could already feel the prickle of emotion. This place was old, and treachery and pain and anger and despair and every possible negative emotion had suffused it for every last second. There were slaves being whipped, there were siblings betraying one another, and there were sacrifices being made. It wasn’t anywhere close to being stuck in Hell, but it was certainly getting Lars a little high.

They went down the ornately designed streets while passer-bys observed them quietly while trying not to gain notice. At only one time did Lars know he had someone’s undivided attention, and that was because he had felt a mind accustomed to psychic combat, barriers raised against Lars’ basic probing.

Interesting.

Indeed.

The link was then broken as they moved past, but Lars knew that somewhere within this city there was at least one foe that might be able to match him mind to mind.

Moving further along into the city, the group arrived at a compound in a sort of central area beneath a large plateau. Opening the gates upon Aruvixa announcing her identity and the guards seeing her, they were admitted inside. As with the city in general, everything within was overly ostentatious and drow were creeping in every corner, plotting something.

Turning to the group, Aruvixa said to her subordinates in her group, “Take the slaves back to their pens and find some place to store the surface dweller where she shall be comfortable… but not too comfortable. You, demon, follow me.”

Glancing at Skuld, Lars said, “It’ll be alright, I promise.” He then nodded to Aruvixa and trailed behind her as she took off.

Following behind Aruvixa, Lars soon found himself in a small throne room of sorts, where an elderly drow woman sat upon a throne made of black basalt carved to appear as a spider brooding at the centre of its web. No doubt this was the leader of their clan, their matron mother, and if Lars’ stolen memories were correct, the mother of Aruvixa.

Glancing up, the old drow woman glared at Aruvixa and Lars and snapped, “Aruvixa! I was told you had returned back early, but why do you bring this offal male before me as well?”

Grinning, Aruvixa turned to Lars and said, “This one is not a surface dweller, he merely hides behind that form, mother. He is in fact some breed of devil.”

Lars obligingly raised his right hand and let it mutate into the sharp, segmented crab leg form he used for combat, while lifting up his head and smiling to reveal his unnaturally broad set of shark teeth.

Raising a now somewhat interested eyebrow, the matron mother asked, “So you found a devil, so what?”

“He wiped out my dear sister’s entire patrol group single handed when they had surprise and the advantage of height. He is highly resistant to magic, and in fact is capable of manipulating the Weave directly. Quite the find for the house, no?” Aruvixa gloated.

“And how exactly did such a beast come to follow you?” The matron mother asked suspiciously.

“Oh, I have my ways. The one thing I can guarantee you is that this demon obeys every order I give. For example, devil, kill my mother,” Aruvixa commanded rather nonchalantly.

Having expected this, Lars let out a tiny sigh before he went into full eldritch mode, all tentacles and claws and he let out a horrific psychic wail that caused everyone in the chamber to clutch at their heads in pain. They recovered quickly and the matron mother immediately unleashed the first spell that came to mind, speaking a single word.

There was a riotous explosion of energy that washed over the entire hall, doing nothing to the guards that surrounded the matron mother, but it caused Lars to drop in mid charge while Aruvixa grabbed her ears in agony.

The guards were immediately on Aruvixa, but before they could run her through, the matron mother held up her hand and said, “Stop! I will not allow any male to kill my daughter, only I shall be given the pleasure. Just restrain her; the effect will wear off in a moment.”

Doing as they were told, the guards pinned Aruvixa’s arms behind her back and punched her in the face, knocking out teeth and ensuring she would not be able to speak properly around her broken nose and swollen lips. Then they kicked out her knees so that she was kneeling.

Towering over her daughter, the matron asked, “Oh, when will you learn that the goddess has no place with those who are not as chaotic as she?”

Looking up, Aruvixa started chuckling.

“What now my incompetent daughter?” The matron mother asked.

“It was a demon,” Aruvixa replied through her broken mouth.

Blood sprayed all over Aruvixa’s already soiled face as Lars punched his fist through the mother’s chest, her heart clutched in his clawed hand. The guards had a moment to look shocked before Aruvixa noted, “I do believe that I am now the matron mother, so if you would be so kind as to unhand me?”

The guards immediately released Aruvixa and prostrated themselves on the floor, even before the previous matron mother’s eyes had time to grow dark.

Standing up, Aruvixa brushed herself off and asked Lars, “How do I look?”

“Like you just had your face smashed in and are in need of serious reconstructive surgery, highest,” Lars said.

“I was afraid of that. Kill these two for harming the matron mother’s beautiful face,” Aruvixa said casually.

Scrambling to their feet, the two elite warriors drew their weapons and silently announced that they were not going down without a fight.

“Do you want their skulls for your throne? It’s very popular where I come from,” Lars asked.

“No,” Aruvixa said as she sank into her new chair.

Lars shrugged and hit them both with massive psychic blasts that caused their heads to explode.

“You’re definitely taking me places Lars,” Aruvixa announced cruelly as savoured her victory.

[holyknight]

Coffee, Cookies and Drow-slaughter aside, that was a darn nice introduction of Lars and Skuld into Menzoberranzan. Certainly it signals several kind of omens for both of them, Skuld specially.....

Now, it's likely that we'll take a peek to one of the other planes and scenarios on development...but what one...hmmm......

[Academia Nut]

Next chapter's working title is currently "Politics".

There are sooooo many ways that could go, I'll leave you figure out what universe(s) it could be.

[Darth Yoshi]

Funny that the matron should bring up chaos. I love the smell of dramatic irony.

[von Neufeld]

Good chapter.

Hmm, politics, let's see:

- Very likely: SG-1, Star Trek, nBSG
All very likely, SG-1 perhaps a little bit less than the two others.

- Somewhat likely: canon WH40K, Nahona, canon EVA
A long time since we saw the canon EVA universe, it would be nice to see the aftermath of the gods' visit there.

- Quite unlikely:OMG, Realms
For OMG, politics would mostly be about mounting a rescue operation for Skuld. Realms is unlikely because we just saw drow politics.

- Very unlikely: Haruhi, Buffy
The core groups here are too small to really call it politics, and in the case of Buffy it's more likely that action is coming up.

Did I miss any crossover?

[A Social Democrat]

This is quite good, I don't know half the series but I still like it.

If you'd like I have some suggestions for series you can bring in, hopefully you'll find something (it's in a bluely colour), this is overly long though

The Combine from Half-Life, they aren't called the Trans-universal union for nothing.
Command and Conquer, all of the various branching universes (it would be fun seeing their reaction to tiberium, or the goofy technologies in the Red Alert branch-off universes), and I'm, pretty sure in the eyes of chaos...NOD= or <SEELE.
The Elder Scrolls: Gotta love this: mystical towers that hold together reality, an anthropormorphic representation of chaos/change that is worshipped by a guild/cult of blood thirsty murderers, a man who became god, baseline humans conquering a continent of assorted fantasy people, extinct left-handed elves, extinct steampunk dwarves who are actually elves, a race of lizard people who are controlled by a race of sentient trees who worship said anthropormorphic representation, a race of snakemen that literally or metaphorically ate all men on their home continent, chaos-ish gods that can be nice but usually consider mortals their playthings, order-ish gods whom said man became one of who are really nice but cannot interfere to a great extent in their creation due to them weakening themselves by giving up their body parts (said ascended man didn't give up anything because he was later, so he can interfere a little more), a weird time disruption that allowed all possible outcomes of a certain event to be true, an ancient warrior who was reborn to defeat an affably evil and insane friend of his, An adventurer who was marked by the nice creator gods to save the realm from an invasion by one of the chaos-ish gods, the said adventurer also took the mantle of a god himself.

[Robo Jesus]

The Elder Scrolls: Gotta love this: mystical towers that hold together reality, an anthropormorphic representation of chaos/change that is worshipped by a guild/cult of blood thirsty murderers, a man who became god, baseline humans conquering a continent of assorted fantasy people, extinct left-handed elves, extinct steampunk dwarves who are actually elves, a race of lizard people who are controlled by a race of sentient trees who worship said anthropormorphic representation, a race of snakemen that literally or metaphorically ate all men on their home continent, chaos-ish gods that can be nice but usually consider mortals their playthings, order-ish gods whom said man became one of who are really nice but cannot interfere to a great extent in their creation due to them weakening themselves by giving up their body parts (said ascended man didn't give up anything because he was later, so he can interfere a little more), a weird time disruption that allowed all possible outcomes of a certain event to be true, an ancient warrior who was reborn to defeat an affably evil and insane friend of his, An adventurer who was marked by the nice creator gods to save the realm from an invasion by one of the chaos-ish gods, the said adventurer also took the mantle of a god himself.[/color]

There is a HUGE problem with using The Elder Scrolls universe.

It is CANON fact that you can't get anything from outside the TES universe into it without a Dragon Break. Let me explain.


Dragon Break.

Just to clarify, Dragon is another name for Akatosh, who is considered the God of TIME. A Dragon Break is where time itself is broken, and Weird Shit™ goes down. Continents suddenly appear or disappear, the lands may rearrange themselves, cities and armies with many people (some of them seemingly the same people) may suddenly appear, you end up meeting your evil twin(s), people who have been dead for years suddenly appear with no break in their memories (I.E. they remember living for the time that they were suppossed to be dead), you suddenly end up mutated or finding yourself in an entirely different body/gender, time may go really fast, really slow, or outright stop in some places, and reality in general shifts and bends.

It's real Twilight Zone stuff.

It’s also exactly what you need to kick off a crossover with the TESverse. Do not pass go, do not spend obscene amounts of time trying to circumnavigate the rules and laws of both canons, go straight to scenario at hand.

Ahh, you have to love a verse that has reality glitches built into it.


Also, just to let people know, there are a few ways to make a Dragon Break. Fucking with time itself (Time Paradoxes and the like), one of the various Guardians dying, or setting out and succeeding in becoming a God. And the Dragon Break isn't the event itself, but the end results of it.

That is how you create a Dragon Break. And without a Dragon Break, you cannot cross anything over with The Elder Scrolls. And Breaking the Dragon is generally considered a Bad Idea.

[A Social Democrat]

There is a HUGE problem with using The Elder Scrolls universe.

It is CANON fact that you can't get anything from outside the TES universe into it without a Dragon Break. Let me explain.


Dragon Break.

Just to clarify, Dragon is another name for Akatosh, who is considered the God of TIME. A Dragon Break is where time itself is broken, and Weird Shit™ goes down. Continents suddenly appear or disappear, the lands may rearrange themselves, cities and armies with many people (some of them seemingly the same people) may suddenly appear, you end up meeting your evil twin(s), people who have been dead for years suddenly appear with no break in their memories (I.E. they remember living for the time that they were suppossed to be dead), you suddenly end up mutated or finding yourself in an entirely different body/gender, time may go really fast, really slow, or outright stop in some places, and reality in general shifts and bends.

It's real Twilight Zone stuff.

It’s also exactly what you need to kick off a crossover with the TESverse. Do not pass go, do not spend obscene amounts of time trying to circumnavigate the rules and laws of both canons, go straight to scenario at hand.

Ahh, you have to love a verse that has reality glitches built into it.


Also, just to let people know, there are a few ways to make a Dragon Break. Fucking with time itself (Time Paradoxes and the like), one of the various Guardians dying, or setting out and succeeding in becoming a God. And the Dragon Break isn't the event itself, but the end results of it.

That is how you create a Dragon Break. And without a Dragon Break, you cannot cross anything over with The Elder Scrolls. And Breaking the Dragon is generally considered a Bad Idea.

That is why I think it would be good for Academia Nut's story. I mean, the reality is just about messed up as the 40K one.

[Robo Jesus]

That is why I think it would be good for Academia Nut's story. I mean, the reality is just about messed up as the 40K one.

Like I said, there are major plot issues with using it if you don't account for the lore and background of TES. Even Dragon Breaks are oneshot deals here, and would only let something in, and once in, it can't get back out. Nirn is totally cut off from anything outside of Nirn. They literally CANNOT get to the Realms of TES. I'm not saying this to fuck with your idea here, I'm saying this because it is canon.

Let me explain. There is no real way to open a gate or portal between the various realms in TES as your post is suggesting. The realm of Nirn is protected and essentially sealed off. The Gates seen in the game of Oblivion are the only real exception, and here is the reason why. Gates can only be opened by taking advantage of the cosmological geography between Nirn and the Spheres. You can't just open a Gate anywhere, nor could you open one that leads outside Nirn. The construction of the cosmology within TES makes it impossible.

Also, there's the fact that the Gates themselves are supposed to be impossible. The only reason Dagon and his minions could make them in the game of Oblivion was because:

1.) The cosmology had aligned properly.

2.) He managed to keep the Dragonfires dark.

Stable Daedric portals are supposed to be impossible. It's only because of Dagon's careful planning that he was able to figure out how to do it, and even then he had a very limited window to pull it off in. As for the Gate to the Shivering Isles, Sheogorath could only open the portal like he did because Dagon had already punched through Nirns defenses. That's not a display of Sheogorath's power so much as it is a display of Sheogorath's excellent timing.

I.E. using TES without understanding TES lore is not a good idea if you want to make a story involving it. That would be like trying to write a Star Wars fanfic without knowing who Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker is, or what the Jedi and Sith are.

[Academia Nut]

I.E. using TES without understanding TES lore is not a good idea if you want to make a story involving it. That would be like trying to write a Star Wars fanfic without knowing who Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker is, or what the Jedi and Sith are.

And this is why I am very picky about which verses I cross with, as unless I have access to at least some first hand material and plenty of second hand material, I prefer not to work with it as there is the chance of very badly screwing something up.

[Agent Sorchus]

If you are looking for an interesting way of bringing in star wars one could use Waru. Proclaiming him a Daemon would be a way for some for of plot with chaos to happen. Like an extraction of Waru by Tzinchi could be a little chapter showing stormtroopers versus chaos marines.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Waru

eh, it would be the only really interesting way to bring in star wars that I can see, but i don't have quite your flair for the dramatic.

[Robo Jesus]

If you are looking for an interesting way of bringing in star wars one could use Waru. Proclaiming him a Daemon would be a way for some for of plot with chaos to happen. Like an extraction of Waru by Tzinchi could be a little chapter showing stormtroopers versus chaos marines.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Waru

eh, it would be the only really interesting way to bring in star wars that I can see, but i don't have quite your flair for the dramatic.

You know, Chaos doesn't have to come in with guns blazing or anything like that. All they would have to do is drop a few words to the right people and the whole SW universe would change from there. Anakin being told that that he will bring about his own prophecy (or something to that effect), Darth Vader being told that his children are alive, Palpatine being told a means to immortality (and what the price for it will be), etcetera. The thing is, it's more involved than just Chaos coming in guns blazing, but it works out for them much more effectively plus lets them cause massive and subtle changes to the whole damn SW galaxy.

Plus, Waru sounds like something this brand of Chaos would kill on general principle.

[Aranfan]

Hmm, I wonder how this brand of Chaos would react to Wheel of Time?

[Setesh]

Hmm, I wonder how this brand of Chaos would react to Wheel of Time?

Badly. I lost the capacity to read anymore after 'A Crown of Swords', but from what I had already read... About half the yahoos who know what's going on would get killed for gross stupidity.

[Aranfan]

I was actually talking about the Channellers ability to retroactively remove you from existance and FTL portals. And if you're bitching about interpersonal issues, blame the Dark One for everyone being an asshole, Jordan practically came out and said as much in World of the Wheel. Rand is flat out nuts! Also, it's a fantasy setting, communications are of course going to be crap.

[Setesh]

I was actually talking about the Channellers ability to retroactively remove you from existance and FTL portals. And if you're bitching about interpersonal issues, blame the Dark One for everyone being an asshole, Jordan practically came out and said as much in World of the Wheel. Rand is flat out nuts! Also, it's a fantasy setting, communications are of course going to be crap.

That's not what I meant, I was more talking about how virtually everyone who knows the full meaning of Rand being the Dragon Reborn make efforts to control him despite practically every major success occurs when he tells people to fuck off and goes it alone. Gaining the Sword No One Can Touch, (real creative there Rob), cleansing the madness from the male side One Power, ect. ect. ect., each time he slips out of thier control and gets shit done. Though I can see them killing a lot of these guys off for being jerks to. Especially Rand's wives. The number one thing they would point out is the Wheel spat out the Dragon to be a warrior capable of putting the Dark One back in his cage, why didn't the first Dragon or for that matter Rand fix the Bore back to the way it was? He can remove anything from the Wheel's weave while he has that sword in hand, so remove the One Power from existence and the Bore will never form, no more Dark One, no more Forsaken.

As for the ability to remove things from existence, it would probably horrify them since it erases the soul, but be of no significance otherwise. It is after all an ability tied to the Wheel, and works by removing someones weave from it, an extra-dimensional being not tied to the Wheel would be unaffected.

[Aranfan]

Fix the Bore? What the hell do you think Rand is trying to do!? He's not a scientist! He barely knows the metaphysics of the place, the Bore is a fucking hole in spacetime!


Remove the One Power from existence? How? Balefire doesn't work that way! Also, balefire doesn't destroy the soul, the Dark One just can't timetravel when collecting dead people's souls.

[Enigma]

EDIT: Crap removed.

[holyknight]

How about bringing in the Star Wars universe into the crossover? Should be fun.

"Palms face"

You haven't read the posts of AN about it, no?...check older posts.....

[Setesh]

Fix the Bore? What the hell do you think Rand is trying to do!? He's not a scientist! He barely knows the metaphysics of the place, the Bore is a fucking hole in spacetime!


Remove the One Power from existence? How? Balefire doesn't work that way! Also, balefire doesn't destroy the soul, the Dark One just can't timetravel when collecting dead people's souls.

Unless things have changed drastically in the last books Rand's 'handlers' have him convinced he's going to fight and kill the Dark One. And yes that is how it works because of the metaphysics of that universe, as long as Rand has the Sword Who's Name Sucks. It is explicitly stated that the Sword is connected to the center of the Wheel, the very start of the pattern, so Rand can use Balefire to erase anything except the Dark One and in theory the Forsaken when they are infused with True Power. I'm not saying Rand will ever think of this, even if he could grasp the metaphysics of changing first cause actions, but our friendly neighborhood chaos gods will. I'm also pretty sure they will laugh themselves silly at how woefully unprepared Rand still is to do the job.

As for the soul thing yes that's exactly how it works, except for the Dragon, who explicitly stated to be an exception, souls are recycled through the pattern and returned to a 'new' state before rebirth, so they are exactly the same as new souls. After death all experience from life is 'washed away' as the soul travels around the wheel to be reborn. The 'person' who the soul belongs to basically ceases to exist. With balefire Rand is basically denying them the right to exist at all and the soul goes off to be someone else. The 'personal soul' like they are used to dealing with in chaosville is obliterated no matter which way you go, unless you're the Dragon or the Dark One considers you particularly useful.

[Aranfan]

Unless things have changed drastically in the last books Rand's 'handlers' have him convinced he's going to fight and kill the Dark One. And yes that is how it works because of the metaphysics of that universe, as long as Rand has the Sword Who's Name Sucks. It is explicitly stated that the Sword is connected to the center of the Wheel, the very start of the pattern, so Rand can use Balefire to erase anything except the Dark One and in theory the Forsaken when they are infused with True Power. I'm not saying Rand will ever think of this, even if he could grasp the metaphysics of changing first cause actions, but our friendly neighborhood chaos gods will. I'm also pretty sure they will laugh themselves silly at how woefully unprepared Rand still is to do the job.

When has Callandor been portrayed as anything other than a particularly powerful male Sa'Angreal? Heck, the Choedan Cal are more powerful. And what gives you the idea that balefire can do anything to the Source? I'd like to know where in the books it's explicitly stated that Callandor lets him do these kinds of things

As for the soul thing yes that's exactly how it works, except for the Dragon, who explicitly stated to be an exception, souls are recycled through the pattern and returned to a 'new' state before rebirth, so they are exactly the same as new souls. After death all experience from life is 'washed away' as the soul travels around the wheel to be reborn. The 'person' who the soul belongs to basically ceases to exist. With balefire Rand is basically denying them the right to exist at all and the soul goes off to be someone else. The 'personal soul' like they are used to dealing with in chaosville is obliterated no matter which way you go, unless you're the Dragon or the Dark One considers you particularly useful.

And what about the Heroes of the Horn? You know, the ones that reside in the Dreamworld? They keep finding themselves in similar situations every time they get reborn. And where is the Dragon explicityly stated to be an exception?

[Enigma]

How about bringing in the Star Wars universe into the crossover? Should be fun.

"Palms face"

You haven't read the posts of AN about it, no?...check older posts.....

Ah sorry. Read the fic but not the rest.

[Firethorn]

And what about the Heroes of the Horn? You know, the ones that reside in the Dreamworld? They keep finding themselves in similar situations every time they get reborn. And where is the Dragon explicityly stated to be an exception?

They're more like fated ones - when reborn, just like anybody else, they don't have any memories of their life.

It's just that they're fated to have more or less the same life no matter what, whereas a soul that was a king the last life might end up a peasant the next.

[Aranfan]

Firethorn, are you responding to me or Setesh?


I'm also going to question the notion that losing your memories destroys your soul.

[Academia Nut]

I apologize in advance, I'm certain I got the voice and attitudes of Laura Roslin wrong as my nBSG knowledge is lacking in comparison to everything else. Suggestions for improvement would be appreciated.

---

Chapter Thirty-nine: Politics

Rong-Arya sat brooding in their ready-room, thumbing through the reports that had been flooding in over the past twenty-four hours. Very few of them had been good. The Stiletto had taken a major shit kicking from the Borg, but not in the way anyone but the crew would have expected. The armour was relatively undamaged, which was unsurprising considering that a major armour break was likely to have simply destroyed the ship outright, and most of the shield generators were still intact.

No, where the battle with the Borg and the subsequent ride through the storm across the multiverse had really hurt them was in spare parts. Thousands of pieces of machinery had been damaged by the surge firing up the Gellar field cold had caused, many of them critical in key ways. Oh, there were organic systems derived from the Angels that could regenerate, but since they were more susceptible to damage in the first place, they were only ever complements or back-ups to inorganic systems. That meant that they had a definite set of problems when it came to resupply at the moment.

Rong-Arya looked over one report that indicated that the ship was simply out of AAA-grade fuses. Trip-As were used by life support, the reactors, and the energy weapons. They had enough amongst stores and in undamaged systems to repair two out of three of those categories. Rong-Arya went back through several other reports and categorized what in those groups could conceivably be saved, and they chose to give the order to have nearly three-quarters of the energy weapons taken off line to restore 95% of the life support machines and 80% of the reactors that could be repaired and needed the trip-As.

Picking up another report, they then passed along the order to remove the giant servo-actuators from half the pillaged guns and use them to get some of the offline lifts going. In what was perhaps one of the more brilliant strokes of stupid genius, some bright lad had decided to make the winch system for the lifts and the servomotors for the guns compatible, if only barely and neither set of machines worked very well outside of its assigned role. The design had initially been considered idiotic for compromising some of the performance of both, but it had somehow passed.

Rong-Arya would personally find the boneheaded engineering team that did that and kiss them when they got back to Earth. There was a large degree of standardization and swap ability between unrelated systems, and it was exactly for this sort of thing. The gods had anticipated their ships to be operating alone for long stretches of time so they had demanded the capacity to jury rig them and to let them limp home.

Once they had the nearly a hundred damaged lifts working again, in particular the mass freight transports, they would have a large increase in their ability to affect repairs. They could also start moving a lot of the big pieces of scrap to engineering and the machine shops within and start cutting things up for useful parts and materials to recycle. Aside from the superstructure, the armour, and the biggest reactors, the ship could more or less rebuild itself given the time, energy, and materials.

Of course, energy was a whole other problem. They were stuck in the Doldrums, which presented all sorts of lovely issues in terms of power generation. It was a rule of interdimensional travel that visitors carried their own little bubble of physics with them, but they still had to play by a lot of the rules of current location, especially when interacting. Thus their plasma reactors would work great… right up to the point where they had to try and refuel them with local materials that probably didn’t have the same energy density as the exotic stuff they could obtain back home, at which point output would drop. The S2 and S3 engines were only able to feed a tiny trickle of their full power output, their ability to tap the universe nearly nonexistent here.

Thank the gods for the Necrontyr!

It was actually one of the greatest ironies of the situation. If it hadn’t been for the Great Warding it would have been nearly impossible to develop the technology capable of adapting so well to the lower energy environments that prevailed in the majority of the universes visited so far. Even though the S2 and S3 engines were barely functioning, that extra trickle of limited power but unlimited energy would ensure that they would, given time, let them limp home.

Rong-Arya sighed at the final report, the one they had been dreading to look at. The casualty list; or at least the one from before the attempted boarding by the Cylons. The worst hit area had been the port side launch tube, and associated areas. Sixty dead there. Despite the fact that a medieval army armed with pole arms could slaughter Borg drones essentially forever the things were so slow and stupid, in some of the areas damaged by the fighting, again the port side, there had been wounded individuals who had ended up dead.

Borg nannites and the standard military medical nannites based off of some of Tzintchi and Reigle’s designs for Chaos microbes did not get along, and the results were often fatal. Those with mutations often fared better though as the alien physics and biology that went into them really confused Borg technology.

Oh, and they had also lost a few of the daemons working on the outer hull when they went into the Warp storm. The worst had been the loss of Lars, the primary communication daemon. He would have been useful to have around.

Hopefully he had ended up somewhere nice and had found his way back to Earth already. The sometimes morose former fisherman really deserved to catch a break eventually.

What it all added up to though was that Rong-Arya needed to plot a path for the Stiletto that would get them home. So far, their interdimensional sensors had given them a little information about the area of the Doldrums they were in. From their energy readings, they had a few options. The first was to see if they could ‘cut across’ the lower energy places and hope they were headed for home, as it was believed that the energy in the Doldrums was the lower the further from the Cosmic Plane and the Great Wall you got. It was pretty low right now, so they were probably really close to the middle of the region. The problems with that strategy were that they could easily get lost and starve, energetically speaking.

The other strategy was to head in the direction of increasing energy levels and essentially grope around until they found the Great Wall before sliding their way back to a Hub universe then finding a familiar place and hoping back to Earth. The problem was that that was the long path and they were certain that they would be travelling in the wrong direction for quite some time. The only advantage was the ability to forage and resupply would be improved by taking that route, and once they found the Great Wall, they would have a navigational point.

Of course, the resupply problem had a flip side. In any universe where they were better able to collect energy, so would any potential hostile forces.

Quite frankly after looking at the reports, Rong-Arya was more inclined to take the shorter, more risky path if it meant that the natives were throwing nukes and high explosive warheads at them with chemical rockets rather than neutronium and singularity warheads at them with reactionless drives. They could sit around storing up energy in the former sorts of places for years without anyone being able to touch them, but if they needed spare parts while in a running battle, they would not have that luxury of time.

A yeoman politely knocked on the open door to the ready room and said, “Ma’am, they’re sending over their representatives now.”

Oh yes, and there was this other problem to deal with too.


President Laura Roslin sat quietly in the Raptor as they approached what had been unofficially dubbed in the fleet the ‘Hell Ship’. Over two kilometres of mean, already it was starting to light up as it repaired itself. There were scorch marks and cratered pits along its weirdly designed surface, but none of them had been inflicted by the Cylons despite their best efforts.

The entire structure of the ship was… unholy. Their gun ports, big enough to launch a Viper out of, looked like the mouths of leering demons and gargoyles, while the overall architecture was equally disturbing, aside from just its terrifying enormity. It was the most terrifying sort of alien, for while the Colonies had never produced anything like it, the designers had clearly been human, for it possessed the sort of blocky structure that only humans could love for their warships.

Sliding up alongside the monster vessel, the Raptor lined itself up with a relatively small, yet still enormous, hangar bay open to vacuum and yet within there was clearly a massive assemblage of people, arranged in neat rows and blocks. Hundreds of soldiers, all turned out to welcome the representative sent over, all dressed up in what looked like bright red plate armour from an earlier era.

Those within the Raptor were silent as it was guided down into the bay, except for a startled yelp from the pilot as they crossed the threshold and somehow, impossibly, atmosphere returned.

Then they set down, and Roslin wondered again why she had volunteered for this. Hundreds of faces concealed behind snarling masks set with re-breather equipment were staring at them, at her. Then she remembered. William had initially volunteered, until she had overruled him. They needed someone with high level authority for this meeting, but unlike an admiral who had precious experience and knowledge, she was just a politician and in their situation, ultimately replaceable in comparison to him.

Stepping out of the craft, she looked behind her at the expanse of stars just sitting there, impossibly, and for a moment found it hard to breathe, her throat instinctively trying to shut to conserve what oxygen she had before it was sucked out into the void of space. She fought down the urge though and tried to look presidential as she set foot on the deck plates for the Stiletto.

A curious thought passed over her face as she realized that the deck felt much like any other space ship and did not make her skin crawl the way she expected. Oh, the gravity was a little different, and the air had a strange flavour to it, but there seemed surprisingly little wrong with the place from the inside.

A strange person of indeterminate gender dressed in oddly flowing clothing that obscured its entire form from the top of its head to its feet moved up to the Raptor, and while the marines kept it back, it politely requested in a hissing voice, “May we know the name of the representative sent to speak with our captain?”

“Laura Roslin, President of the Twelve Colonies,” Laura replied in a clear, commanding voice.

Nodding in an almost reptilian manner, the cloaked figure turned slowly to the assembled soldiers and announced in a boom, amplified voice, “ALL HAIL PRESIDENT LAURA ROSLIN!”

The response was immediate and the force could be felt in the bones, as hundreds of warriors all cried out as one, “ALL HAIL!” while raising their weapons into the air, a brutish collection of axes and swords and other unpleasantly primitive instruments of death.

Then, on cue, the doors on the far side of the hangar opened up, allowing sixty giants in armour, or at least Laura hoped they were giants in armour and not robots, to pour out and form a pair of lines stretching between the set of doors they had exited out of and the Raptor. There were six unique designs to the giants; each in a group of ten paired up along the lines so that there were six blocks of five along each line. Once they had finished lining up the began raising their weapons to form an archway of crossed swords, axes, and halberds, down which more cloaked figures carried armfuls of heads from Cylon Centurions.

“Tribute to you, a show of solidarity against the Cylons, who so cravenly attacked us both without provocation,” the cloaked figure explained as neat stacks were made of the decapitated robot heads.

It was a creepy display, and also a powerful message. The Cylons attacked you and the Twelve Colonies ceased to exist; the Cylons attacked us and we’re stacking their heads up like firewood. These people had a definite air of an older, more barbaric time about them, but they also possessed a great deal of firepower and all of this seemed excessive to try and get her to drop her guard when one considered how easy it would be to kill or kidnap her already.

Not quite knowing what to say, Laura replied, “On behalf of the Twelve Colonies I… thank you for this gift. We only wish we had some way of thanking you in kind.”

The cloaked figure said, “You are refugees, those without homes, a state many of those aboard this ship can relate to. Our captain was in fact an orphan in a war zone. We need no recompense for doing the right thing.”

That surprised Laura. This ship had suffered damage. Could these people have been driven from their homes too? Although anyone who could do that was not someone she wanted to meet.

“Come, come, the captain will meet you in the banquet hall,” the cloaked figure said, gesturing for Laura to follow down the line of giants. Reluctantly, she did so, her guards following along behind but no doubt feeling woefully inadequate.

Entering into an elevator large enough to move a Viper, they wait quietly for a moment before Roslin asked somewhat innocently, “Umm… why are you cloaked like that?”

“It is out of consideration for you. We have never experienced anything that could relate to you and the Cylons, so we have different views on certain things than you. We thus felt it best to earn your trust and friendship before revealing certain aspects to you. If you wish I can lift my veils, but please do not be alarmed,” the figure replied.

“Umm… what exactly are you afraid to show us?” Laura asked suspiciously.

“Two things: ritual scarification and uh… how to put it that won’t cause you to demand to leave immediately? Well… the thing is that we believe that the body you are born with need not be in the same form as the one you die with. Genetic engineering, body modification, and uh… cybernetics… are all used,” the figure explained.

There was a very, very quiet tensing of all the Colonials in the lift and Laura asked with that ultimate politeness of someone who now really wants to be very far away, “Cybernetics?”

The cloaked figure shrugged and said, “Our gods hold no sacred trust for the human body, and in fact alteration is considered a holy act. We are soldiers aboard this ship; many of us willingly take enhancements to better do our duty. Nothing is required though, and we are all born human. We are not vat grown creatures, we are not mass produced. We are not like the Cylons.”

Laura was very quiet before she said, “Let me see.”

The figure nodded and lifted the veil over the head to reveal a human face set with piercings, tattoos, cables, input jacks, a loudspeaker, and perhaps most disturbingly, the left eye had been replaced by a large implant that glowed a dull red. At least it didn’t scan from side to side like a Cylon though.

“Would you prefer my implants were less visible, that you might fail to see the machine within me?” The man asked, somewhat rhetorically, before replacing the veil.

Laura really wanted to turn and run, but for all their terrible creepiness and disgusting use of cybernetics, they were at least honest, as far as Laura could tell. And they may hold the key to salvation, so don’t reject their offers just yet.

The elevator coming to a stop, the creepy, cloaked cyborg led them through the darkened corridors of the ship, telling them not to wander off or they would become hopelessly lost. Then, pushing open the doors, he said, “Announcing the arrival of President Laura Roslin of the Twelve Colonies to Captain Rong-Arya of the Chaos Frigate Stiletto.”

The room was enormous, a cathedral within a warship, only it was made for dinning, as evidenced by the long table set with what looked like small thrones for chairs, with the largest being at the end where a very peculiar woman sat.

First off, her eyes were burning… as in there were actual flames coming out of her eye sockets. Second, she had a set of horns growing out of her head. Third, she had clawed fingers. Fourth, her eyes were on fire. That one needed to be said twice really. Of the less pants soiling strange features were a tight, bleached leather uniform and some eye wateringly strange iconography.

And then there was the fact that she was holding a small child in her arms, playing with her while waiting. Upon the entrance, the captain looked up and smiled slightly before she said, “We do apologize, but our daughter Cassandra has been rather upset with recent events and we felt it would not do to shirk our duties as a parent for our duties as a captain, especially when they compliment each other so nicely.”

It was a blatant and unsubtle move that actually somehow transcended such considerations to move back into the subtle territory. What this terrible creature was saying as she played with the child was that for all of their horrific appearances, they were still people. That they could be gentle with their claws enough that they would not scratch a toddler’s soft skin.

A slight frown moving across her face, Rong-Arya said to Roslin and her guards, “Just as a note, we would appreciate you relinquish your weapons while in Cassandra’s presence. Child rearing is the most sacred of duties among our people, and should our daughter come to any harm, the consequences for everyone involved would not be pleasant. We have of course already disarmed.”

Clever. The Colonials were already hopelessly outgunned, but until they had been brought to the negotiating table they had not had to give up their weapons. Interesting psychological tactic.

Taking an offered seat next to the captain, Roslin nodded to her nervous guards and said, “We’re just here to talk gentlemen, I see no harm.”

Of course there was harm. It was just that not doing what these people said right now was even worse.

Cloaked attendants moved up and politely took the guards’ weapons, to hang them on ceremonial racks brought out apparently just for this purpose. It was all very civilized in an archaic, barbaric sort of way. People had a place to safely stow their weapons for these sorts of things.

Stroking her daughter’s hair, Rong-Arya said, “Now, while we’re sure you are rather… nervous about people such as us, we will reiterate the offer we made your admiral. When we leave this place and head for our home, Earth, we will take you with us if you wish. We will not come back for you though. This is a one time only offer.”

Roslin nodded and said, “Yes… I can understand that, but should we take up this offer of yours, would we be able to change our minds?”

“Yes and no,” Rong-Arya replied with a shrug, a very curious expression for such a being. “You are free to leave at any time, but your engines are unlikely to carry you back here. Also, once you arrive at our home, you will not be allowed to go about as you wish beyond the confines of our solar system as we are currently in what might be considered a war that one side doesn’t know about yet, and thus security is a major concern.”

“So this is basically a one way trip,” Roslin pointed out.

“For all practical purposes, yes. From here to Earth, if you don’t want to die, you will have to stick with us. Once we get to Earth, you may be able to open discussions with our government to make a return trip here, but that is not something we can comment upon,” Rong-Arya replied.

“I see. I must admit, that as tempting as your offer is, your culture is pushing me away from it with near equal force as I am attracted to it. So I’m going to have to say: what’s in it for us?” Roslin asked bluntly.

“A new home, although there are already people living there you will have to share with, people who do not share your culture. A new home in a place the Cylons cannot chase you to. A world of fresh air and new opportunities. There will be jobs for you all too, of that I can guarantee simply from the fact that there are always jobs. Your soldiers can keep their old jobs but with better equipment, or they can retire to civilian life. Your children can grow up safe and sound with opportunities their parents never dreamed of open to them,” Rong-Arya explained.

“And the downside?” Roslin asked.

“You will be but a drop in an ocean. We do not believe in the same gods as you, and while we do not exactly proselytize, there are aspects of our religious life that makes recruitment a very aggressive affair. We do not share the same conflicts as you. In the long run, your culture is very much likely to vanish into ours,” Rong-Arya explained.

Sighing, Laura said, “I was afraid of that.”

“We actually got into a war about this in the last place we visited before we get lost. Is it better to help a group weaker than yours and destroy their culture from the simple fact that your society is more advanced, or is it better to stand aside while everyone in that culture dies out? Quite frankly, anyone who believes that leaving behind perfectly preserved mummies and ruins free from contamination from other cultures is a good thing deserves whatever comes to them,” Rong-Arya explained.

“I guess then that will be the discussion I will have with my Quorum when I return to my people: is it better to die here or follow you and have our ways disappear?” Roslin said morosely.

“Amongst our people, Rong is a worshipper of the god of hope. So we say that being alive is better than being dead, no matter the situation, for as long as there is life there is hope,” Rong-Arya said, drawing a confused look from Roslin, who did not quite understand the grammar. They had already explained that they were using a special translator, but this did not really make sense, so obviously it was not quite as good as they made out. The captain then said, “Now, before you return to your fleet, might we tempt you to stay for an hour or two to discuss some of the logistics and politics over a nice meal?”

“What are you serving?” Roslin asked.

“Nothing special, really. All of our food on the ship is based off of a mixture containing all essential nutrients, but we can add certain additives to mimic just about any flavour, texture, consistency, and shape you can image. The food isn’t quite as good as the real thing, but it saves a lot of space and you can still get a nice variety. I believe the chef tonight made a close approximation of a three course meal with steaks as the main entree,” Rong-Arya explained nonchalantly as veiled attendants brought forth cutlery and bowls of soup.

Roslin stared down at hers and blinked. For the life of her, her nose was telling her that she had a light, spicy soup in front of her, and her mouth began to water involuntarily. It had been a long time since she had smelled something this good.

“Ah, I remember that look, although not exactly fondly. That’s the look of someone who’s been on a poor diet for so long they forget what real food tastes like. If you want, we can share such painful stories for the next few hours instead of talking politics,” the captain offered.

Roslin knew that this was still politics, that Rong-Arya was trying to convince her, but damn it, with her stomach grumbling like this, she could at least get a good meal out of it.

“Also, if you want, we can talk the very effective and permanent cancer treatment our people have,” Rong-Arya added on.

Roslin’s head snapped up and she asked, “What did you just say?”

Rong-Arya smiled in a demonic manner.