The Last Bastion

(Mmkay, it’s been a while since I’ve made a Roleplay, so beg pardon if I’m rusty.)

(Edit: Mmkay, learned that 'Vampirates' is actually a fantasy-school book series. Here I thought I was being original *headdesk* Sooo... changed the title which is thankfully, still somewhat outlandish.)

(( Rules: Classic Forum Rules.

And while there will probably be some fighting, and silliness, cause and effect exist in this world. So calmly slaughtering redshirts en masse or threatening a subordinate with death would make most sane characters back away slowly, and blasting a hole in the airlock is always a bad idea.

The position of Captain is open. If no-one is interested, the ship will run by shares and votes. The ships official political stance is one of moral and legal ambiguity and long term self interest.

Blooders are essentially like Vampires. They live a long time, age slowly, go ‘OM NOM NOM’ on peoples necks if they don’t get enough nice, synthetic blood, are infectious, see well in the dark, hear and smell as well as wild animals, and have miscellaneous abilities that get stronger with age. They do not sparkle. Unless they have access to glitter and are being horribly, terribly ironic. Because Blooders live a long time, the more successful ones tend to think about long term scenarios and benefits.

OOC posts are as of now, fine in this Roleplay as long as they're focused on it.

Rules subject to change or be added to. ))

No-one knew how long the patchwork of a ship had existed. But historical engineers could pin the oldest parts down to before the blooders were created. It was a wheel ship, which rotated on a center axis, providing centrifugal force on the rim to substitute adequately for gravity. It was a superbly practical low energy design that humans tended to hate due to the incessant curve of the floor.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers. And ‘The Bloody Mary’ had far more beggars than choosers aboard.

“Well, this is interesting, first signal in weeks.” Alania murmured, grey eyes lighting up. That was the problem with deep space. There was a lot of it and it tended to be quiet. Sitting at the communications booth, she fiddled with a few switches attempting to clear the signal. Several minutes revealed it to be a consistent pattern with minute aberrations. And it wasn’t a clearly carried signal, but simply bursts of energy. “Three, a different three, than the first three.” It crossed her mind that it could be engine maintenance interfering with her equipment. Hmm… A little more research defined it as a radio signal, ancient technology that, and definitely not originating from the ship. She raised the program to triangulate its origin, grabbed a hand held ‘Control Link’ to the booth to monitor it wherever she was, and bounced out of the room. Literally bounced. The communications room was close enough to the axis, that gravity pulled lightly.

She had the appearance of a pale, fit young human, as that was her original species. Before infection. Her athleticism and good nature were her most attractive merits, though she didn’t feel right taking credit for either. Her hair was deep brown, and if you ignored her elongated canines that accented her speech, how her pupils widened in the dark, and her habits of staring at anything ‘tasty’ and occasionally carrying around extremely heavy objects, she looked fairly normal. She wore soft black boots, gloves, and a grey one piece suit, with a hood draped behind her shoulders, that when adjusted, gave her full protection against the UV spectrum. In deep space, with the nearest sun days away, most blooders didn’t feel the need for such, but Alania knew she goofed off enough, that she had to err towards caution as a default. Close proximity to stars wasn’t the only way to receive a lethal dose of UV light.

Bouncing out the door, she was immediately struck upside the head by metal coated feathers and flew back in mid air, and bounced twice against the floor, in a way reminiscent of Earth’s Anime. From the hallway, came a ‘WHAM!’ and the metallic scrape of claws and hard feathers against cold floors. Alania felt her head, judged the damage to be light, and stepped into the hall to see Leukos, her instructor, pick himself off the floor.

“Dost thou not look?” He said, translator whirring over the squeaks and cries of his native language. His curved beak gaped and feathers hackled in irritation.

“Er, you said that a warrior should be able to expect an ambush. And it’s kind of a narrow hallway for flying, isn’t it?”

Leukos crossed his taloned arms and glared, nictating membranes flashing once across his sensitive pink eyes. A biped with two sets of upper limbs, one set winged, one set taloned, he closely resembled an eagle and had a similarly proud disposition. His beak, feathers, talons and scaled hands and feet were all carbon grey, giving his eyes, the red inside of his beak, and the pale skin between his talon scales, a very dramatic effect. A belt held his compact translator and several tools, but he wore nothing else. Feathers gave him all the comfort he needed, and all the modesty that human convention required. “Such chatter shall not be redeemed by my comment, sirrah! Why hast thou left thy station?”

Alania raised the control link still in her hand with a feral grin. “Signal! An unusual one. Maybe we’ll find an unusual ship to ‘escort’.”

Leukos nodded in approval. Ships were hard enough to find, that the Earth convention of blowing them out of the water or sky was unwise, and even The Bloody Mary was difficult to repair if damaged in combat. Far better to ‘sympathetically’ offer a protective escort in return for ten percent tribute. Given that The Bloody Mary was predominately a Blooder ship, with the only other creatures being those that didn’t mind close quarters with powerful infectious predators with a tendency towards aggressive insanity if greatly hungered, few objected.

“So,” she continued, “Thinking we should report this.”

“Mayhaps it is but a beacon? Thrice in my time here, we have run to useless signals, coming from unmanned things no greater than my wingspan.”

“Maybe, but we’ve been in maintenance for weeks. Yeah, yeah, boring is good, but boring is boring. Even chasing a beacon would be something to do.”

“Well spoken.” Leukos admitted, and they started down the hall.

Captain Guildenstern was different lately. The usually flippant, amiably-disposed Blooder had fallen into something of a slump, and was in quite a depressed mood of late. The sound of footsteps outside his quarters caused him to awaken from his light slumber, and his head rose from the mahogany desk he had been resting it on. In front of him lay various liquors in exotic-looking bottles, and several glasses that had seen significant use lately. These objects came into view several seconds after Guidenstern opened his eyes, the blur slowly lifting from his field of vision.
Guildenstern groaned, tidied up his long white hair with his hands, then rose to his feet. He realised that he was wearing only a pair of black formal trousers and black weighted boots, so he wandered over to his wardrobe and hastily put on a white shirt and black waistcoat - it didn't do to address your subordinates half-dressed. He then sat back down at his desk and poured himself a whiskey - an Earth beverage. The footsteps grew closer as Guildenstern picked up the glass with his left hand, and he stared into the amber liquid in contemplation.

"Perhaps they have something to report" he said to himself, "Wishful thinking, of course, but what's a pirate without plunder? Ha!" he exclaimed, downing the whiskey in one.

His head hit the desk with a loud *BANG*.

In the hallway, Alania jumped a little at the sound, then stared at the door. "Think he's busy."

Leukos shook his head, rousing his feathers. He stepped past her, striking his talon knuckles twice on the door before entering. His fixed beak and overhanging brow gave him a consistently proud and disapproving look, even when he felt otherwise. But now his expression was fairly accurate. While Guildenstern's taste in uniform made him look far less ridiculous than most other hairless apes, almost.... avian, Leukos had nothing polite to say about the unprofessional use of intoxicants.

"Those two are actually pretty good." Alania commented, gesturing to two of the smaller bottles.

Leukos gave her a withering stare, which she returned with one of utter blandness. Then he saluted, and made a soft, high-pitched cry, the equivalent of clearing his throat. Alania saluted a second after. "Captain, a signal of coarse and simple technology hath been discovered not but three minutes afore this time." He stated formally, at full attention.

"We don't know what's sending it, it's pretty low powered, but we can track it." Alania added.

A little man, equivalent to one of Santa's elves, stepped behind the pair talking to the captain. This man was an odd one. He had heard stories of vampires on Earth during his time as a lone vampire and strove for the dracula effect. He always wore a red cape and tried badly to speak in a Transylvanian accent.

"Vat seems to be the problem here? Blah?" he asked, trying uneffectfully to be scary. He obviously hadn't had blood in a while, so was quite infectious. There was a look in his eyes bordering deranged man and rabid animal at the same time. "Some signal? Maybe some blahd?"

It was obvious to everyone else why he was avoided, but he couldn't seem to get his finger on it. He felt vampires should act like vampires did, which was his first mistake. His second was probably being secluded from people for about 500 years.

((It's been years since I've rp'ed, so I'm really rusty. Sorry.))

((Welcome! Two minor details I should have clarified. The ship can manufacture synthetic blood which while not as tasty as the real stuff, has a similar nutrient content, and the Blooder infection is transmitted through a blood to blood swap. But either way, glad to have ye aboard. ^_^ ))

((Ok, I understand. So, instead of him being infectious, he's only insane from years of being alone.))

"Vell, don't just stand there. Start talking," the little man demanded. "I'm desperate for the real stuff, blah."

((I really don't have anything left to post, except that I don't have any idea for a name. Somebody else can come up with a nickname or something for him.))