Basileus

Lucius was convinced there wasn't anything untoward about the whales, and after a minute he reached back and shut off the thermal sight to conserve batteries. When it was his turn to check in, he keyed his radio's transmit button and said, "Night 7, negative contacts, out." The whales were actually a welcome break from the monotony of the slapping waves. The steady splashing sound could dull the senses, make him not hear what he should. He couldn't get the nagging feeling that something other than marine life was out there. A gut feeling of impending trouble had developed ever since his cameraman was so violently killed in Afghanistan. "Man," he said, spitting over the side of the ship. "That old tightness...like back then. Somethin' is goin' down. Cain't see shit out there." Although it had only been a few minutes, he reached back over his shoulder and turned the thermal sights back on. After a few seconds, he unslung his rifle, and looked through the scope out at the black ocean.

Lucius had just reached his position on the port side of the Green Whale, about three quarters of the way up to the bow. The fog lazily billowed by, turning every light source on the ship into a big ball of diffused illumination. "Cain't see anything in this murk," he muttered. Suddenly, amid the rhythmic splashing of the ship's bow wave, he heard a loud "PWASH" somewhere aft. He turned towards the stern, but couldn't see a thing. Then he heard yelling in Arabic. "Izzat Murtada?" He unslung his M4 from his shoulder, and powered up the thermal sight. "Come on," he said, impatiently tapping on the ATN ThOR HD 640 as it came online. He looked through it, and saw Murtada and Henry a few hundred feet aft, just as the radio crackled with an explanation. "Ahab? Hah, whales," he chuckled. He briefly panned his weapon over the side of the ship, but the sights couldn't pick up anything in the sea and fog. He decided to resling the M4 over his shoulder, but left the thermal sight on. "Just in case."

(Lucius rolls a 2 on Listen roll, 4 on Sight roll modified to a 2...he's feeling too good to spot jack) Lucius finished updating his blog, put away his laptop, and put on his jacket and wool pea coat for the expected night chill. He went to the shift meeting, picked up his web belts, weapon, ammo and other gear. As he got to his assigned area on the port side of the Green Whale, he turned up the collar on his pea coat, rubbed his hands together, and grinned. "Ah, fog. Reminds me of when I was growin' up in Chicago. That icy fog would come in off Lake Michigan, chill me to mah bones." He wore his web gear over the wool coat, his M4 slung over one shoulder. Clipped onto the Picatinny rail on the M4 was a thermal sight, but not wearing NVGs, he'd have to look through it to have night vision. But not hearing or seeing anything suspicious, he was at ease. Too much at ease...

(I rolled a 4) Lucius is half listening to Dennis and Adam discuss their musical prowess. He chuckled as he said, "Yeah, sure man...here's a little ditty, of a man named Smitty, who had joined the Navy, got hit by a wave-y, he yelled out "what the hell", as overboard he fell, then he met a mermaid, who gave him some Kool-Aid..." He grinned broadly. "Y'all better do it, my singin' is foul, just foul..." The burly bald man made his way to his assigned cabin. "Alrighty then," he said as he set his sea bag on his rack, took out his antiquated laptop and power supply, set it up and logged onto the ship's wifi. Stowing the sea bag under his rack, he sat down on the mattress, put the computer in a comfortable position (where the exhaust wasn't burning blisters on his thighs) and fired up his journal app. Checking his watch, he began to write. "Day one...trip to the ship was uneventful...have settled into my space and started writing in my 'log'...several hours until we muster for our shift...hope everyone back home are doing okay..." His background as a reporter began to reveal itself as he went into details about his day, his long fingers tap-tapping away.

Lucuis nodded as he listened to Henry. He laughed out loud at his anecdote about the neighbor. "Dayum, some people, man," he said with a toothy grin. "But yeah, I hear ya. I don't profess to know hella lot about Middle Eastern politics, shoot their bad blood goes back over a thousand years, man. Of course, before that ya had the Persians and Romans and Greeks all takin' turns lordin' over this land. I don't blame 'em for mistrustin' outsiders, so maybe that's what got the Saudis all riled up. Anyway, good advice, man, I'll let it drop." He gave Henry a thumbs-up, as the van pulled through the security gate. Seeing the Green Whale, Lucius beamed. "There she is. Lookin' mighty fine. Good vision and firing lines along the flush deck, little in the way of structures cluttering it up." He flashed a grin at Marek and Jake. "I mean, in case of trouble, of course." As the van came to a halt, he was closest to the handle of the side door, so he grabbed it and slid it open. The outside air smacked him in the face like a hot, damp mattress. "Oof. Good thing we got acclimated already. Now to see if I still has my 'sea legs'..." Rounding the open rear door, he grabbed up his duffle bag and gear, and followed the others up to the tanker.

Flipped a coin and got: Heads First 1d100 roll: 1 (ST:TOS) Second 1d100 roll: 97 (Calvin and Hobbes) 1d12 roll: 6 (the forest?) 1d20 roll: 2 (getting snowed in) hoo boy...okay, so Calvin and Hobbes were having an epic snowball fight, when they get lost in the woods. coming out in a meadow, they find a strange crystalline substance in the middle. just as they were about to touch it, there's a high pitched *shweee* sound and a glow all around them. sensing a trap, Calvin and Hobbes assume a back-to-back defensive posture. the light subsides, and standing there are Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and a redshirt. Ensign Redshirt steps forward, phaser raised, and says, "Captain, the Klingons have beat us to the dilithium crystals!" Before Kirk can tell him "Wait. Ensign. He. Might. Be. A. Normal. Kid," Redshirt attempts to fire on Calvin. But the canny Calvin had been holding his last snowball in his hands since they entered the forest, and now it was a good solid golf-ball sized marble of pure ice. He flings the ice ball, striking the onrushing Redshirt on the forehead, sending him sprawling onto the snow-covered meadow. Spock gives a Vulcan salute, and says, "We do not wish to harm you. Please step away from the dilithium crystals, they are highly radioactive." As Kirk finally finishes his first sentence, McCoy has rushed to the side of the unmoving Redshirt, running a medical tricorder scan. He looks up at Kirk, and says, "He's...not dead, Jim." etc. etc. yeah sure we can run with this one too ^^

Flipped a coin and got: Heads First 1d100 roll: 18 (SG: Atlantis) Second 1d100 roll: 89 (LOTR) 1d12 roll: 4 (the beach...how appropos) 1d20 roll: 15 (wondering what they did last night) heh, so the flying city of Atlantis ends up falling into a wormhole, and the crew loses consciousness...when they wake up, they have landed on the western ocean of Middle-Earth, and have beached themselves near Belfalas, in the land of Gondor. General O'Neill looks out upon the unfamiliar landscape, and says, "Where are we?" Just then, King Aragorn rides up with his knights, wondering what this massive thing is that just washed up...yeah, I think we can work with this one ^^

Lucius raised his eyebrows. "Dennis, man, you were with the Légion étrangère? Respect. I won't mention it again in your presence." He closed his eyes and nodded to him. His eyes popped open again when Andreia, Adam, Hannu, and Henry began discussing Qatari current events and Maxergy. "See, that's what I don't get about what the Saudis and the others are accusin' the Qataris of doin'. The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Muslim organization founded in Egypt. The Iranians are Shiites. They're like oil and water, day and night. Besides, Shia Muslims barely make up somethin' like ten percent of the population. The Qataris were supportin' the Saudis in attacking the Shia Houthis in Yemen. Combined with the belligerence of Iran, there's no plausible motivation for Qatar to support Iran or terrorists. Ya know what I think? Somebody has skin in that game, and wanted to break up the coalition between the Saudis and the Qataris. What better way than to fabricate some evidence, let it slip to the right ears, and the whole works start comin' apart. "See, when I was a kid, I used to get accused of all kinds of shit by damn liars. Whenever somethin' was missin', some mofo would whisper that I was seen near it. I spent my grade school years turnin' out my pockets, openin' my locker for teachers to search it, all kinds of degradin' humiliation. I know it was racially motivated, but nobody but brothers and sisters would understand. I didn't fight it, because my mama told me not to, and I saw what happened to brothers and sisters that did." He tapped an index finger on his temple. "You gotta use your head, not just to survive, but to make your life better. That's why I'm gonna keep an open mind about the Qataris. Not judge a book by its skin. Maybe Maxergy is the same way. Shit, who am I kiddin'. They're a corporation, it's all about gettin' the oil money locked up first. Dig?" The irony of not being judgmental about Qatar while dismissing the oil company as only concerned with lucrative relations with the country didn't seem to phase Lucius.

Lucius nodded to Jake, and glanced at Henry, Dennis and Marek as he said, "Yeah, man, first cruise with Clear Water was on a container ship off the horn of Africa, and it was smooth like butter. Nothing like A-stan. See, the way I see it, you might be able to sneak up in some quiet ass boat, but now you've got a fifty foot vertical wall of wet metal to climb just to get on board a ship, and while you're movin' at cruisin' speed. Out in open water, the waves be slappin' you silly, and if you fall in, there's a pair of twenty foot diameter Cuisinarts astern trying to suck you in and puree you. I say, Mistuh Pirate, you give it your best shot. You make it up to the railing, and we'll give YOU our best shots, right in center mass." He raised his beefy hands mimicking holding a rifle, and made a *pow* sound as his arms bucked, pretending to take a shot. "Then you fall overboard and get sliced and diced. Chump becomes chum." He flashed his bright toothy smile, which disappeared as he added, "Yeah, not like A-stan."

Lucius Clay the rifleman sat on the far end of the middle bench seat of the van with his muscular arms crossed over his chest. His "boonie" hat was over his face, as he tried to catch some shut-eye, with about as much success as Asim. He reached up with one burly hand, and lifted the hat just enough for one of his eyes to glance out as Henry expectorated his water back into his bottle. "Nasty, man," he said with a heavy African American accent before dropping the hat back into place over his face. Recrossing his limbs, he made a dry cough as he resumed trying to sleep. Finally giving up the losing battle, he took off the hat and sat upright, rubbing one hand on his shaved bald pate. His complexion was the color of dark roast coffee, contrasted by the bright whites of his corneas and the grill of his clenched teeth. "Can't wait to get on the ship, man. Wide open seas is where it's at. Nobody can sneak up on you, doin' shit. You keep your eyes peeled, you'll see any mo-fos before they get close to boardin'. No surprises." Obviously, Clay had a bad experience somewhere in his thirty years of life, part of it on an Afghanistan rotation.

An anti-grav field generator so the poor dragon won't fall to the ground, and a shuttle-sized warp engine to let him "blink" to a location he can see, then pounce on his prey and warp out again before the prey's buddies can return fire o_O

I think keeping plant-based spells under Wood (a living thing that can be manipulated after it's dead) and metal-based spells under Metal (a mineral separate from Earth that is never alive but can flow like a liquid if heated, unlike earth which mixes readily with water, whereas metal doesn't fully mix with water, or something something etc.) is best ^^; So, what about flesh-based spells like transformation/size change/healing/blood/bone/organs like eyes and ears, etc.? Blood can be the rare mix of Water and Metal (iron), but a simple Enlarge/growth spell would involve flesh, bone, blood, organs, the whole gamut working in concert to increase a creature's size (may also involve Spirit) Also, how would Light and Darkness be classified? I can imagine Light being a subset of Fire (even cold chemical light like fireflies), and perhaps Darkness too (absence of light, plus ashes/soot being a product of Fire)? I dunno... Finally, electricity (lightning bolt, chain lightning, St. Elmo's Fire, etc.) could be a subset of Fire I suppose, although the way it travels through Metal is unique (fire could use metal as a conductor, as in heating one end of a piece of metal, but it's not as efficient as electricity). Also, electricity can melt metal if hot enough, so definitely related to Fire there. Yet, electricity not only burns flesh, but causes paralysis by shorting the nervous system. An active nervous system is a required in most forms of life, therefore one could extrapolate that life is a subset of Fire, therefore Raise Dead/Resurrection type of thing might be related to "restoring the fire of life"?

Teena'los hurriedly cleaned her plate (something her mama used to tell her, "No crossbow until you've eaten all your mushrooms"), tossed back the last of her mocha, hoisted her bowcaster over a shoulder, and followed Shar and Sulap to the machine which promptly ate her tray, plates and all. "Good to know, thank you sir," she said to the captain. Hearing Sulap's question, she smiled. Awareness and precise marksmanship I can do, thought the sniper. Her fingers instinctively glided over her web belt, with pouches for extra power packs, and one cylindrical one containing the clip-on sights for her bowcaster.

Teena'los was surprised by Captain Shar's answer. No kidding? she thought, as she quickly cut the rest of her steak into manageable cubes and began tossing them one after the other into her maw. So that leaves only one question... "Cafthain, (chew) veeth vaemonth anf ve overth, (gulp) what weapons would be the most effective?" (takes a swig of caffè mocha, briefly enjoys the wash of chocolatey goodness) "I mean, will my Bowcaster be sufficient?"

"Whatever, Shynt, mine has heavenly garlic butter on it, try it!" Teena'los plopped a cube of yummy tenderloin on his plate, and continued to wolf down her own. "Want some mushroom to go with that?" She proffered her plate with a greasy smile. She listened to Shar and Sulap talk about the Outsiders and enchanting weapons. Her quick thinking put two and two together, and thought enchanted weapons might be key to bringing down these creatures the captain discussed. "Sir, since Sulap brought up enchanted weapons...will that be necessary to fight these demons, daemons, and feck-what-not? Or will my Bowcaster be sufficient?"