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Name: Ruby Portrait: G16 Skillcore: Waitressing Backstory: Back in Teret, Ruby was a perpetual joke: an ingenue waiting tables until she got her big break... with a Waitressing skillcore, nearly guaranteeing she'd be waiting for her big break forever, because she was just better at her "for now" job than anything else. Until now, she's been... around. Serving drinks and rations, mostly, with industrious, invisible good cheer, despite being an Ascended Fröman. Be nicer to your servers, Horde! "Hmmm..." Ruby stuck out her tongue and surveilled the site of her work, roller skates momentarily taken off so as to keep her balance. "Tables and chairs... set up." (They were crappy little foldable numbers, propped up by a combination of accreted gum, spare wood from Captain Noggins's various projects, and hope... how they'd survived up to this point was anyone's guess.) "Menus... up to date, got our mushbrewm prices updated, and soon as Patsy gets on that pie crust, we'll be ready for world-famous Gateway Fortress key lime pie. Atmosphere..." She took a deep test breath. "Not quite as homey as the Oyster's Teeth Diner, but no one's choking to death any more, so more or less a wash. Wish we still had some of those nice scented candles from Teret. What'd we do with... wasn't it Captain Starn who used my last candle to light those cannons... and that spare tallow was Wendigo fat... shame." Well, it'd have to do. Whether they were pressing on to Frömage or sticking around to hold the Gateway Fortress, in the end, it did the Horde no good to stand around arguing in an empty building, instead of sitting around arguing and eating at her small, mobile restaurant inside an empty building. She even had cheery little napkins! And a reserved, least-splintery table for the Captains' meeting. She raised her voice to be heard above the din of the Horde, shouting with Ascension-enhanced lungs. "Taking orders! Table space is limited, but we've got all the pie you can eat!" She absolutely did not have all the pie the Horde could eat, or even a fraction of all the pie the Horde could eat, but a little hyperbole did a lot in the way of tips, in her experience. Having called down a presumable swarm, Ruby then positioned herself for a surreptitious aside to one Humbug. "That means you, hon. A man recently blinded and down an arm by way of cannon fire is a man who deserves a slice on the house, as my momma always used to say."
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Aug 17, 2018 21:00
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    Ruby Skills: Waitressing (using), Acting HP: 3/3 Glory: 0 -> 1 Scribbleykins posted:"Ah... thank you. Very much so. Ruby, was it? Your mother... hhm. Sounds like she had an interesting life." "Moxey the Knife Fighter. Momma was the finest hand to ever work in a kitchen, in my humble opinion. Taught me everything I know about cooking, everything I know about running a restaurant, and after a fashion, everything I know about combat. But there's time for that after you eat." Once Humbug started tucking into the pie, Ruby sat and regarded him. As well as Humbug had pulled through his Full-Frontal Grimping, he looked like death warmed over; whatever damage had been done to the Sleuth's airway made even the act of eating look like serious labor. "You know... I'd heard of the Horde before you folks arrived in Teret. Word gets around in diners. Heard lots of stories about the band of roving, amoral lunatics rampaging towards us at full speed. I'm a patriot through and through, of course, so I didn't mind all that. You were my band of roving, amoral lunatics. Still are!" She shrugged as she refilled his water glass (alcohol being a little iffy for a man whose remaining liver count was indeterminate). "But, once I got to know you all... well, I wouldn't quite call the rumors true. 'Based on a true story,' if you like. I've done my fair share of roving, of course, and we've chosen tactics that I wouldn't exactly call sane, but amoral... maybe not quite as good as we could be, but certainly not as bad as they say. As long as we've got someone around to remind us that the right thing is an option, however crazy it looks, we'll do the Unexpectable thing and make it come true. But we've got to remember it, first." "I know you've got your case to worry about, hon, though I'll admit I'm a little fuzzy on the details. But the Horde needs a conscience as much as it needs a private eye. Someone to keep us on the straight and narrow -- so we can be roving, moral lunatics. So take care of yourself, alright, hon?" Ruby stood and nodded. "Tips are encouraged, but not mandatory." Then she left. -- Incidentally, those members of the Horde working on the Törtoise and repairing Yacht-Sothoth noticed something interesting about the progress of their work: A) that whenever they turned to fetch materials, those materials were sitting around waiting for them, ready to use, and so many of them were able to avoid breaking workflow, and B) that they received complimentary drink refills. C) (Also, Grumbus's cup was thoroughly sterilized after every refill. She'd marked it for his exclusive use, though you could tell it was his anyway by the subtle way the bottom of the cup had turned Coke-bottle green and become soft to the touch.) Waitressing to keep everyone working smoothly: 2d100+10 161 Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Aug 18, 2018 |
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Aug 18, 2018 20:32
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 Ruby Skills: Waitressing (cooldown) (+20), Acting (using), Oratory (+25) HP: 3/3 Glory: 3 -> 5 -> 6 Snödis posted:"People should appreciate the support-staff more. I'm sorry, I should have talked to you sooner, but I haven't been allowed near the kitchens since my evölution. Ruby, was it? Here, for all the good work you do, and a little something extra just because I have no room for it. Keep up the good work, Comräde. Don't let those baseliners tread on you." Ruby accepted the compliment (and the life-saving equipment) with elan; as terrifying as Captain Snödis could be, one of the first things she'd learned about waiting tables was this: Moxey the Knife Fighter's Pearls of Wisdom posted:"If someone tells you that you're not appreciated enough for the work you do, they're correct, and you should say so." "Thank you kindly, hon -- er, Captain, that is. And I appreciate the work you've been doing for the Neötypes, and the rest of us Monsterists. I don't mean to complain, but it's amazing how quickly your auditions get politely denied when you've got a little something extra." She indicated her third eye and smiled. It was even mostly true that she appreciated Snödis's work for Monsterists -- the "long live the new flesh" parts aside. Though, of course, most of the Captain's contributions had been in the "long live the new flesh" field. The new skillcore had that familiar bitter-acidic flavor, but it was a treat to feel her voice suddenly mellifluous, her cadence steady and difficult to ignore. As the Horde moved out, Ruby practiced her old monologues to pass the time and still her nerves. "My mom always said life was like a box of Skillcores. You never know what you're gonna get..." -- For all that she'd decided to take a more active role in Horde matters, Ruby lacked the typical hordeling look, i.e. "festooned with bloody trophies of her conquests," and was Frö besides. It only made sense for her to take the lead on going to the right, far enough ahead of her comrades that her presence wouldn't go remarked upon. With her most polished spare glasses balanced on her serving tray (fingers positioned just so, keeping the hidden razor-blade mechanism from springing to life) and a feigned air of knowing exactly where she was going, it'd be practically impossible to peg her as out of place, as long as she moved quickly. Mild "pardon me"-ing would hopefully cover all the edge cases. The roller skates were a little kitsch, but not so absurd as to mark her out as obviously not belonging, either -- or if they did, it would be as someone not meeting dress code, not, y'know, the advance scout for a swarm of bloodthirsty Töans. Acting to seem like she belongs if she encounters Fromen: 2d100+10+3 166 (nat 100!) Monsterist's Enervating Acting: 1d100 83 166+83 = 249 (Missed the Cerveau Glory. That's a 251!) -- Pumping those Self-Resonations into Waitressing to bring it up to 20. Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Aug 20, 2018 |
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Aug 20, 2018 20:23
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Ruby Skills: Waitressing (using) (+20), Acting (cooldown), Oratory (+25) HP: 3/3 Glory: 6 -> 7 "Mm... if they're efficiently working to get their cargo loaded, the carrier will start lifting out the Inhabited here... but if they're feeling relaxed in the most secure base in all of Frö, as opposed to a busy place during the dinner rush, I'd bet dollars to donuts they'll start here, where it'll feel like they're putting more of a dent in their quota early on." Ruby chewed her pen and contemplated where to best capture the first guards off the ship. It was remarkably easy, after a little math. "My goodness. I suppose those Traveling Salestöan problems are finally coming in handy." Waitressing to work out where and when the air carrier is going to take the Inhabited: 2d100+20+6 122
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Sep 2, 2018 02:23
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Ruby Skills: Waitressing (cooldown) (+20), Acting, Oratory (+25) (using) HP: 3/3 Glory: 7 -> 8 At least in theory -- thought Ruby -- this might be a chance to be a hero. Glorious ascension aside, she'd done what one might charitably describe as jack poo poo to distinguish herself from the rest of the horde. If she so chose, she might stand against a Fröman tide and hurl her serving tray until her fingers bled from catching errant razor edges, or act the hitwoman and crawl into the vents to pick off leaders until death claimed her. These could certainly be Glorious deaths. At the very least, they wouldn't be ignominious. Or it might be a chance to run. Flee with the Neötypes and rely on their appalling noticeability to keep herself out of trouble. Join up, even, and become enormous and terrible and presumably not allowed into the average food service establishment, but there'd be some kind of camaraderie in that. Glory, of a sort. Certainly, there would be none in taking a back seat to the man who might honestly be the single most powerful asset available to the Unexpectables, not to mention a genius sniper and some kind of pig person who was implausibly dedicated to the bit. And yet, there she was, trailing behind despite her long legs and aggressive roller-striding. The Oratory Skillcore suggested some old monologues for her to cement her place in the history of the Horde -- Aglet's Speech on the O.G. Mountain? Torsie's Fistfight Soliloquy? The Forbidden Ten-Minute Yammer, whose creator had been executed for crimes against theatre? -- but Ruby shook them off, and found the faintly fumbling words she wanted to close her career on. "Folks..." She coughed a little. Should probably have finished her Töan Combat Water before starting this maybe-a-suicide-mission. "I don't expect we'll see much of each other after this. All I've done doesn't signify much, compared to you. Once the hubbub's died down and we give our reports, I'll be back to waiting tables, I expect. Hoping for a second big break. Though it might run a little smoother if it's not a big break from a Breaker, if you catch my drift." "Wherever we do end up, I know it won't be as glamorous for me as it is for you. Rightly so, too, so don't take this as me complaining 'bout my lot in life. Who remembers Panchtö when there's Dön Quitöte?" Ruby laughed. "I'll be grateful for a plaque, somewhere, if that. A little something something to remember when the customers laugh or try to pinch me -- not that anyone tries twice. But, well..." "Even if it's a footnote, I'd like you to say -- if anyone asks -- that someone named Ruby was there at the last redoubt. Not all that heroic, of course, just someone to carry your things and mop up afterwards, but I'd like you to remember I was there, in the end." And Ruby quoted the first poem that came to mind: "They also serve who only stand and waitress." Ah. There was the Relay proper. With those words on her lips, Ruby accelerated, pivoted on one toe, and flung her tray at the neck of a man whose eyes had grown dim in the moment between recognition and death. If nothing else, she'd cut the first throat, and serve up the first head. Step, turn, catch it on the rebound, remember to smile, and -- Oratory to Man The Van: 2d100+8+25 129 "Let's get you started, mmkay?" she crooned, and sliced. Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Sep 12, 2018 |
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Sep 12, 2018 04:25
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 Ruby Skills: Waitressing (using) (+20), Acting, Oratory (+25) (cooldown) HP: 3/3 Glory: 8 -> 9 Moxey The Knife Fighter's Pearls of Wisdom posted:The art of waiting tables can be boiled down to one secret: knowing exactly when you are being called to act, at all times. The perfect Waitress is aware that she only exists when her customers prefer that she exist, and at all other times she is a kind of restaurant background noise. This enables the best among us to take illicit smoke breaks mid-sentence. The event planners for the Coronation weren't idiots. When Ruby requested certain authorities over waitstaff and catering for the Queen-Elect's Ball (uniformed in Plain Suits so as to avoid outshining the decor), they provided her with handpicked agents, vetted several times over by unsmiling Actuariad assessors and kept strictly separate from her and her friends down at the Lampshade, possibly in vats. No one -- absolutely no one -- wanted to be the reason for two Fröman-sabotaged palace galas in a row. Months at the Lampshade had honed her particular talents to a razor's edge; frankly, half of Moxey's old lessons (being fairly knife-centric) ended up useless in Ruby's role as a mini-spymaster and fly on endless walls. But the one lesson that stuck with her was this: people see what they want to see. A Waitress becomes visible -- becomes important -- when she carries food, because food matters. At all other times, she is a ghost. The logistical plans for keeping the nobles flush with drink and tö d'oeuvres looked innocuous. They were workable. They required barely any backtracking, and would make the waitstaffs' jobs very easy, despite all the charts Ruby used to explain them. Serving trays would change hands here and here -- champagne would be refilled here, with aid from Mork and Thorney -- Darg would make very light conversation, and only on request -- it was all absolutely nothing to make even a single eyebrow rise. It also meant that, exactly one hour into the ball, every single attendee -- guided by their interest in being wined and dined, and just starting to hit the friendly valleys of inebriation -- would be looking in the exact same direction. Away from the exits. Waitressing to make sure we're all on the Ball: 2d100+20+9 102 For her part, Ruby decided that in lieu of politely running interference in the background (as she had delegated to the Palace flunkies), she would get mildly blitzed on red wine and cocktail shrimp and test her skating skills in a massive crowd, with a few stupid waitressing party tricks to keep things light, and provide cover for her waitstaff providing cover for those seeking the Relic. Roller derby was a kind of dancing, right? "I'm not a hero..." she crooned, swinging by as many horde members as she could with a drunken salute and plates of sugared butterfly wing (concealing not-at-all-suspicious notes about when, exactly, might be a good time to move). "Can't look the hero in the morning's light... I serve with a smile and I get by on tips and I stand by while real heroes fight..." It was a croon that suggested that belting was not off the table. If things came to blows, as they so often did with her Horde, they'd at least have a good soundtrack. Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Oct 1, 2018 |
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Sep 27, 2018 05:32
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Ruby Skills: Waitressing (cooldown) (+20), Acting, Oratory (+25) HP: 3/3 Glory: 9 -> 10 "The wine cellar is empty." Ruby talked a big game -- or, y'know, knowingly winked a big game -- but she didn't quite understand the import of the Queen's Relic, beyond the fact that sufficient Royalty could turn a horse or postage stamp into something worth commemorating in bronze, or assassinating, depending on your nationality. What did it mean for the Relic to be empty? Who would be confused, whose plans would cease to make sense, in the event that a secret tomb -- unknown to the public, a secret that the Unexpectables had acquired by their particular brand of murder-heavy, geopolitics-unconcerned espionage -- should be empty of the little crystal organs that no one would be disinterring anyway? The Council? The Handmaidens? ...well, the Unexpectables found out anyway. It wasn't a difficult message to relay, considering they all drank like fish -- she'd begun to gently, subtly replace Waesh's liver-melting Coronal Sunset shots with something several orders of magnitude lower in proof, and she was glad to give Neebs a water instead of her usual fare -- it wasn't even obviously code. (Still, it didn't hurt to reassure the occasional Hordemate about not getting a shot at a fine 744 Chateau Brigante, the one she'd known they'd wanted ever since they shared that rough meal in Fostis. "Mason, honey," she'd said, faking a hitch in her throat. "I'm afraid you won't be getting a taste of that hooch after all.") And after that... well, it just so happened that Ruby found herself at a lull in the action. The staff were operating like a well-oiled machine, and she saw no special need to "pull the ripcord" -- a small, subtle shift in the duty roster she'd posted in the kitchens which, when initiated, would result in the removal of key minor nobles and most of the waitstaff from the ballroom, all of them leaving of their own accord. (It had been tricky to compose that roster, involving many sleepless nights at the Lampshade listening to Neebs tell strange stories and speak prophecies, and frankly it seemed wise to burn it after tonight, so she wouldn't leave behind evidence, and also so the dreams would stop.) And there was Sarah, the Arborist. Sarah of yet another threateningly megawatt stare, uninterested in seeing through you as Söra might, or at least uninterested in showing it off. Sarah who would drink a nice glass of wine, possibly. Ruby carefully schooled her expression, insofar as it mattered, and offered her the nicest glass of wine she had to offer. Small, bright, silvered... beautiful. And Ruby made inoffensive small talk. It was a waitressing instinct. More than that, it was a spying instinct. Find the person no one was asking any questions, think of everything you could say to be remembered or make an impact... and don't. Policy questions, marked with quiet naiveté. Personal questions, but the impersonal kind, the kind you might read in magazines or short quizzes. Nothing dangerous, and nothing that would qualify as an attack. Always retreating at any signs of interest, positive or negative, with the smooth, anodyne tones she used to ensure that conversation didn't feel like conversation at all. It was a way of socializing as bland as rations and impossible to find frustrating, since "frustrating" was at least a kind of emotional content. And through all of it the drink flowed drop by drop, sip by sip. Relying on getting the target drunk was for amateurs. This was getting the target... comfortable. Disinterested. Kind, in a way that didn't matter much. Making all kindnesses inconsequential. Not twigging that primal fear of the wealthy, never making them ask the question -- "What if the help were sentient?" If she'd actually asked any questions that meant anything -- if you counted up all the questions she'd asked and tried to find a theme in so much pablum -- it might be something like "What qualifies one Handmaiden, and not another, to be queen?" But of course that was a ridiculous thing to ask, and so Ruby didn't ask it, and if anyone answered it, well, far be it from her to speculate on why... Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 06:27
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 Ruby Skills: Waitressing (+20), Acting, Oratory (+25) HP: 3/3 Glory: 10 -> 11 -> 0 The last few minutes had been a blur of screaming and threshing and deep, stomach-churning regret that she hadn't just pulled the ripcord a little earlier... and spared hundreds of servers and waitstaff from the massacre... Waitressing to have pulled the ripcord: 2d100+20+10 73 ...and yes, she'd reached the roster maybe a minute before the attack, but that wasn't nearly enough time. Obviously. And that meant it took Ruby a good, long while (and a Royalty-mediated flashback spanning the entire length of history -- like, the whole thing) to catch up to the conversation and remove herself from grief. But there were a few points that just... didn't seem to fit. Which, obviously, that didn't matter. These were -- this was? -- here was her Queen, a woman whose portrait she had saluted morning after morning, hidden in the lining of her mattress, underneath the sheets. It was not hers to question why. Moxey the Knife Fighter's Pearls of Wisdom posted:Don't dismiss the boss's plans in front of the boss. This isn't even specific to waitressing, kiddo, it's just common sense. The boss doesn't get to be the boss by knowing what's going on; he gets to be the boss because he can steamroll you if you ask questions. She'd gotten this far by not asking difficult questions, providing support, saying vaguely encouraging things that were of course complete pablum if you looked at them closely. She could smile. Ruby's fake smile and her real smile were the same smile, after all. She'd go along with the Queen's (Queens'?) plan, get ritually rewritten, and affirm the allegiance she already had... ...the allegiance she already had? "My queen," said Ruby -- surprising herself more than anyone -- "I'm... not sure I understand how this works. I'm -- I am your humble and devoted servant, of course I am, I just... I want to understand." "Wendigoism... or Neotypism, I guess, if we're being clear... it's not part of the OG plan, is it? It's not a faction the way Tö or Frö are, it's not -- it's not going to turn Captain Snödis's skin green once she's president-for-life, say. And I've never been obligated to Frö just because my skin is red -- allegiances change because people change, don't they? Otherwise we'd all be stuck with whatever our parents thought. Even if Tö's all one world nation, it won't stop people from being different from each other, or fighting over little things. Monsterist and base, or rich and poor, or... I don't know, anti-Queen and pro-Queen, something goofy like that." "So if we're talking about the OGs, what they've done to us, and making our own way instead once we're all one nation without instincts implanted in us -- what do the Neotypes have to do with it? There's a difference between Scripted loyalties and... ideas people had on their own, isn't there? So how are we going to end [the game] if we can't get rid of those things? ...can we end [the game], really, if it'd take no one ever disagreeing enough to be an us and a them again? Um... begging your pardon, your majesty. Just so I know what you want." Smile. Hopefully it was convincing. (Incidentally, Ringo might have found eleven Glory nestled in his canapes. Who knows how.) Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Oct 25, 2018 |
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Oct 24, 2018 20:19
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Ruby Skills: Waitressing (+20) (cooldown), Acting, Oratory (+25) (using) HP: 3/3 Glory: 0 -> 1 Well, there it was. For Ruby -- a servant of the Töan state, ruddy as any Fröman, the Waitress -- there was no escaping this situation as herself. The options were these: a corpse or a blue woman whose name wouldn't even make sense. She'd been praised, as an infant, on the healthy glow of her skin. Her game abstraction-mandated coloration. Whatever you called it, she wouldn't leave with it, or with her self intact. So what could a Waitress do, here, without any possible subtleties or deferrals left to her? Well. Splut was initiating a Plan, as he so often had, some ludicrous effort operating on levels she didn't even slightly understand. Humbug had named her as one of the finest among them, in the kind of speech she recognized as the type men gave before they destroyed themselves in some name or another. Noggins was directing her Knights' last furious charge, her Excalibur an ordinary nail-non-breaking hammer dwarfed by her Ascended frame. What the hell would her life be for if at this last moment, Ruby didn't do anything worth remembering? How did it go? "It is a far better thing that I do now..." Before all the speeches, before the attacks... there wasn't much her frame was good for, of course, but Ruby was at the very least fast. After all, she was wearing roller skates. So she called on the faint reserves of Esprit -- selfhood, personality, energy -- that every last Ö had somewhere inside and compelled herself to be ahead, in front, to look significant, to sound important, to be the emblem of the nation the Queen was extinguishing, to be an emblem of the game itself while very much not in the line of sight of all the important plans being executed by the Captains -- to be, in short, a high priority target -- "You are not my Queen," she shouted, loud enough for the Queen to pick up, "And I am not your subject. I answer to a higher authority, whose abilities you cannot grasp. I bring you this that you may know what the final consequences of defying my masters are --" ...remember how the Administrator talked, remember every self-possessed syllable, every mechanical pause, every stutter of undefined words, play on her megalomania and narcissism, convince her she's got to handle an actual rival for at least a moment, remember how to sound important or else this suicide charge is for nothing... it is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done... "-- when the [Stratagem] is [executed] upon your grievously misguided [substrate] so as to elucidate [actual victory conditions] beyond your misguided [refractionalism] --" Moxey the Knife Fighter's Pearls of Wisdom posted:"If you really have quit, honey... well, if you have to quit, make sure the bastards know what they're giving up. Remind them they can't trample on you forever. And, hell, have fun with it." "-- in the name of all that is worth keeping about this contemptible field of the soon-to-be-dead, o Queen, remember that it was all in vain, that even the works of immortals are as dust before Our Hand, that they will build no statues of you, and that we are [EXECUTING] [CONTINGENCY] [OMICRON] --" And then Ruby the Waitress dropped the pretense of having any kind of actual plan, clothesline-jump-kicked Her Majesty the Queen with a roller skate, grabbed her from behind like a particularly stubborn and suicidal limpet, lifted her up, and skated as fast as she could away from the Unexpectables. Oratory to Be Convincingly Important Right Up Until This Dumbass Plan Gets Executed: 2d100+25 140 Well, at least she'd go out with one Glory, instead of zero. Relying on the Fröller Skates to help me not get killed.
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Nov 13, 2018 03:28
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Ruby Skills: Waitressing (+20) (using), Acting, Oratory (+25) (cooldown) HP: 2/3 -> 3/3 Glory: 1 -> 2 Sometimes, life just isn't fair. Ringo, a Töan so startlingly potent that slapping him five had actually set Ruby's broken bones... how exactly was she meant to match up to that level of expertise? And that feeling had only gotten stronger since Queen Noggins acquired material godhood and Trinh went even more Wendigo... sure, she'd spent the last minute or so trying to get her roller skates' wheels unstuck (these were her formal skates, pog-dammit), but did that make her any less of a Horde member? ...Ruby slapped her own face and forced her distracted brain back into the game. Just like always, her Horde's weakness -- its inattentiveness to certain distressed persons, like a potentially-friendly commander bleeding out on the floor -- was showing. She rolled into action -- or tried, and immediately tripped on a stuck wheel and almost broke her nose ramming a carpet which was undoubtedly worth more than every single organ in her body, sold at market price to a desperate rich man. So she yanked off the skates and hurled them in... some direction (if they happened to hit someone in the face, well, she never claimed to be attentive, per se), then proceeded in her socks, maneuvering around incipient arguments/murderous violence by dint of looking as irrelevant as possible, until she reached a point near Sikatris's ear. Taking a prone position near a few twitching Inhabited, she located a blue-threaded vein on Sikatris's neck and readied her Shockgasp. "Psst. Commander Sikatris, hon -- er, ma'am? I don't exactly work for you -- well, never mind. I'm going to jab you with a shockgasp, hon. Stimulants and adrenaline and... oh, who knows what else, but it's all healthy. Should get you on your feet. Would appreciate it if you take a moment to suss out the situation before you make a move -- I'd like to think we can settle this without any more Grimping, considering one of ours -- Noggins -- is a good sight stronger than the monster Queen right now. Ah, the monster Queen is the one with a nail in her hand." Ruby hesitated, but... well, it wasn't like patriotism made a lot of sense after your head of state declared that her state existed for the explicit purpose of exterminating your kind from the face of the planet. "It's nice to see another red face, ma'am. Let's make sure we're not the last, alright?" Then she shoved in the Shockgasp and depressed the trigger. Once that started working its wonders -- insofar as a Commander's body was going to respond to that tiny medical miracle, plus hastily-applied medical supplies which she'd grabbed off the medics who couldn't be arsed to do their jobs, come on -- Ruby jammed herself between Sikatris's neck and the ground, and applied all her not-inconsiderable Ascended strength to getting the Commander naturally to her feet. Sikatris Needs Some Speedy Service (Waitressing): 2d100+20+1 200 Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Dec 4, 2018 |
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Dec 4, 2018 17:38
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Ruby, the Skills: Waitressing (+20), Acting, Oratory (+25) HP: 3/3 Glory: 8 -> 9 She could have poisoned the sandwich. It would've been the work of moments; Grumbus backwashed so heavily into every bottle of multi-million-kröner wine he drank that he could supply an entire royal distillery with replacement drinks (and class action lawsuits, presumably). Ruby could have doused the sandwich (slinker on rye with hot mustard, a remarkably proletarian meal for the patrician repast from which she'd snagged it) and served it to Her Majesty Queen Noggins, First of Her Line straight, letting whatever mysterious lethal diseases Grumbus carried do their merry work. No more queens, period. The crown removed and slagged. A prospect which would have horrified her back when she was under the impression that the country she called home wasn't, in fact, a cleverly disguised genocide engine. And she didn't, because... she was afraid of going down in history as a traitor? She was afraid of not going down in history at all? She was afraid of dying? She thought Noggins would be a good queen? But there was no such thing -- she had no real ability to judge, considering Good Queen Reina -- a woman whose portrait she'd kissed -- had been Some Kind Of Race War Fanatic. For that matter, no poison would be effective, Grumbian in origin or otherwise. If the Queen wanted her dead for any or no reason, Ruby would cease to exist; vague royal preferences would directly translate into material reality faster than you could say "shoot her and make it look like an accident." Well, no need to dwell on "because." She didn't poison the sandwich. -- By the time Teret was outfitted with Thumbnails, Ruby's position at the diner had been filled by Kultie the Boxer, some two-bit ingenue waiting for her big break in Teret's thriving bareknuckle underground fighting rings. It was a job no one did unless they were looking forward to something better, to their so-called Big Break -- and that was how Ruby realized that being an Unexpectable was, in fact, her Big Break, her chance of a lifetime followed through on to the hilt. She'd gone from waitress to spy to, according to Noggins, a candidate for Ambassador to Frö (such as it was). Which was worth about a minute's laughter and an entire bottle of schnapps. She spent some time with Sikatris, brushing up on the finer points of geopolitics in the new world, Fröan concerns and supply chains and all the rest of society’s little necessary concerns. She spent time mingling with a shell-shocked public, trying to get them a little more enthusiastic about tomorrow, and all their ungenocided tomorrows to come. On several memorable occasions, she dealt handily with the Queen’s Checkers — a weird grassroots offshoot of the Queen’s Pawns, trying to take on the departed Reina’s final mission for them by destroying all Frömen, to little effect besides angry periodicals and thrown bricks. Most of these brain geniuses ended up dealing either with broken shins or the ministrations of President(?) Sikatris, and none bothered her again, except insofar as the paperwork for sovereign Töan citizens rendered to local jails bothered her, which it did. She dedicated every waking hour to translating the skillset of a sleeper agent/murderer/drat fine waitress to that of an ambassador to Frö. Three weeks into her tenure, Ruby woke up from a troubled dream and realized that, strictly speaking, there was no such thing as an ambassador to Frö. Frö had no government besides a very tall military genius who, nevertheless, was not doing the work of an entire political class, and a bunch of assholes on the ground who were basically in a holding pattern, waiting for the Töan war machine to either grind them to pieces or give the go-ahead. Speaking to yet another local leader, a Belmysut militiaman who was, absolutely and without question, under the thumb of central Töan guidance via Thumbnail only confirmed it for her; she listened while he yammered on about supply chains and recognized several terms in a very familiar meaningless jargon. The man was another one of Splut’s patsies. “I have to say,” she muttered, interrupting some nonsense about supply chains for grain, “If he's going to stick his fingers in this many pies, I’d be obliged if he’d at least eat one eventually. Not natural for someone like that to have no vices.” -- That evening, skating around Tömate and nursing a key lime pie that was as heavy as lead, Ruby wondered what, exactly, she’d been sent out to do in Frö. Being red didn’t really mean anything, considering all the contacts the Unexpectables had built up by sheer virtue of being the entirety of the government for the world’s most powerful nation, out of a choice of three. Anyone could hire a charismatic Fröman with a few relevant skillcores to be a symbol of regrowth for the general public. And, frankly, Ruby wasn’t managing that. Oh, sure, she spoke to civilian leaders and participated in publicity events and waved from Sikatris’s shoulder at a parade, like a large, flightless bird, but a decently potent Oratory core could only take her so far. She’d heard herself called “Ruby the Foreigner,” “Ruby the Turncoat,” and — this last one really made her mad, she’d almost lobbed her roller skate at the guy — “Ruby the Red Sockpuppet.” So, if she wasn’t really the ambassador to Frö… She tapped the table. Could she, potentially, be the ambassador from Frö? OF course, that didn’t make a huge amount of sense. She sighed, and took another slug of her drink. Just playing aimless word games. She had no government to be an ambassador from, just a big red lady, a lot of smaller red folks, and a bunch of empty town halls. True, the steady trickle of former Inhabited were going back to work with all the industrious steadiness of people who had experienced exactly no war, but plenty of the jobs they’d worked and the local governments they’d run had ceased to exist without people to fill them. A million little civilian leaders, and no Commanders; however the Breaker/Commander cultivation process actually worked, it wasn’t going to bear fruit for years, yet. They were operating with exactly one leader, and that leader was so tied up in local affairs that she’d have no time for Tö, especially considering how little she already trusted them. Any kind of systemic aid was going to have to come from Tö and its gigantic coffers, none of which were going into noble pockets any more, but after the whole genocide thing, no Töan puppet government was ever going to be legitimate in the public eye. It’d be backed by an enormous potential for violence, nothing else. To have the institutions, you needed people to build them. And to cultivate people who could build them, you’d need institutions. Institutions got you Breakers, or Ascended people, or people who could heroically distinguish themselves in some kind of prosocial, non-murder endeavor. Tö, with all its wealth and power, could provide relief and aid, but anything they provided or any order they imposed would be useless in the long run. It wouldn’t be worth anything unless they felt they were being served — not coerced, not indulged, served. By their own, personal server. Someone whose relationship to Tö was close enough to get something out of them, but secondary to their relationship to Frö. Someone who could give them their full attention… “Oh, hell. That’s me, isn’t it…” — She’d expected her plan to be a harder sell to Noggins, but the Queen — after a minute or so of letting Ruby explain the particulars — just clapped her on the back and told her it was a brave thing she was doing. It hadn’t really struck Ruby as brave, per se, considering she’d just be going back to Teret after a fashion, but she took the compliment anyway, since that was kind of what you did with queens. She said a few goodbyes — to Humbug, who was gearing up for some complicated raid on Slinker City and still not eating enough good, solid meat pies, and to Grumbus, to whom she gave his half-melted personal cup, and to a strange Rahd fellow who’d gone unnoticed, like her, despite his stubble and godawful evil laugh, but who really deserved a little kindness. She donated her house to a local girl she’d met recently, who was surprised to learn her startup now had an entire house to be used as quarters. She almost convinced Skett to come with her, but former Fröman or not, the man was blue, which wouldn't fly with the people. And after a short, informal farewell party at the Wearing the Lampshade, during which a full sixty percent of the mooks learned her name for the first time, Ruby formally quit the Unexpectable Horde, handed in her Glory satchel and requisitioned equipment, and denounced her Töan citizenship, which she technically didn’t have, being a sleeper agent with official residence in Teret. It took a long few sessions at the civil service, and a series of planned speeches in Föstis to get the public aware of that, and of course the Queen’s Checkers tried to bomb her hotel room at Oxnyard because nothing can ever be easy, but after a few weeks of sleepless nights and a long, complicated explanation for Sikatris, Ruby defected to Frö, as their ambassador to Tö. “Public Service With A Smile,” was her campaign slogan. It took a while to stick, of course, but after she got the hang of it, Ruby started dragging resources out of Tö in earnest. This parade was wasteful. That reconstructive trade deal was exploitative. This military base is bilking cash out of locals and needs to be disciplined, and, no, it’s not harmless fun. That swarm of flies was fully monsterized and didn’t belong in local airspace unless Neötopia would provide its own accommodations for them. That national border there had been set in a completely untenable position, just to get the rights to OG tech which was rightfully Fröan property, which had been claimed by Fröan explorers hundreds of years ago before being abandoned, and yes that counts, you’re keeping the Thumbscrews you took with Madmist bombings so this no-warcrime claim definitely goddamn counts… The next time any Unexpectable met her again, it was at a summit for determining approved travel infrastructure and checkpoints on international roads, and Ruby was in a smart black suit with a stern, if not aggressive look on her face, giving absolutely jack poo poo away about her relationship to any of them and accepting no gifts and precious little small talk. Any attempt to play on her Waitressing instinct for hospitality or their old Hordemateship got stonewalled. If she exploited their old connections, if she offered a slice of pie after the meeting, it was exclusively for the sake of Frö’s prosperity and happiness. “We’re a sovereign nation, with sovereign borders. I don’t care whether you need Regentrock for whatever mad science y’all’ve cooked up back in Tömate. Unless you’ve got the permits — if you can't respect how much we need an unpolluted town and a decently stable underground and to run our own drat nation — none of you folks are ever going back to Föstis. Mmkay?” Ruby the Waitress posted:What do you do?: Ruby renounces her Töan citizenship and becomes a Fröan ambassador to Tö, working under Sikatris and acting to protect her burgeoning nation from the interests of her former nation and superpower, using her connections to and dirt on the Horde (as their former waitress) to keep them in check. She is almost certainly very annoying, but it's for a good cause. Without a royal family, or much in the way of centralized government for a while, Frö becomes significantly less monarchist. Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Dec 29, 2018 |
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Dec 29, 2018 07:37
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Dog Kisser posted:Is Ruby daunted at all by her new position as Ambassador? Is it what she expected it would be? Is she happy with it, or does she want more out of her life? It was strange, being able to say that she'd hit her zenith, her biggest opportunity and most important task in the public eye, period. Bigger than any role in any of the theater companies she'd aspired to join. A figure of possible historical importance. Ruby the Ambassador -- she realized, one day, enjoying a very modest blood törange mimosa and some Teret shrimp -- might, in some distant future, appear in a major production as a character. And that was a lot more intimidating than the work, which she'd finagled into going well with her developing geopolitical savvy and the backing of an entire government. Not even poorly placed, as it turned out. Somehow, over the months with the Horde -- and then months as an Ambassador, working under Sikatris -- she'd converted Moxey's advice and a bunch of tricks for getting tips into a skillset which barely resembled the tricks of her old Waitressing work. Sure, there were vague aesthetic similarities, and tricks that transferred over -- her attentiveness, her rolling gait, her dedication to satisfying other people, the various self-important misers who didn't think she could possibly be important enough to avoid spilling secrets around and who expected her to top off their drinks, gaaah -- but the person she'd been, the effort she'd put in... there was no linear relationship between who she'd been and who she'd become, not really. After all, what kind of Waitress moonlighted as a misunderstood antihero vigilante, hunting down those who would antagonize the disenfranchised Fröan population with methods that got results, dammit, no matter what Snorkus shouted/threw at her? None of it was what she'd expected, because Ruby the Waitress hadn't been the right person to expect any of this, with dreams limited to her name up in lights, the Glory of the stage. Ruby the Ambassador was, if only because she'd lived it, and had her expectations tempered/outdone by reality. Being big, as it turned out, was mostly little things, like well-placed words, good habits, and discreetly jump-kicking criminals through plate glass windows. They added up, sure, but they were still little things. An Ambassador, she thought, sitting in her office, the Red Menace costume safely stowed in a secret panel beneath her desk, her mimosa drained. Ruby had gotten a bigger part than she'd ever dreamed thanks to the little things. Serving little cocktail wieners, delivering intelligence, fitting her square peg into a round hole, because too many round pegs had died in an attempted round-peg genocide, enacted by a set of four-dimensional peghorrors. It was, after a fashion, exactly what she'd wanted, and Ruby couldn't deny that it was nice to be a household name, to move materiel and resources across the nation with a few words. Terrifying, yes, though the terror had waned as she failed to destroy the world, but nice. If her discreet word with the remnants of the Commander Program went through, she might even literally get big, one day. Even so... she couldn't help thinking she'd missed a step on the way. And so: A few years after everything had settled down, a small theater company in Föstis featured an understudy playing one of the secondary leads in Warlord Grimper's Tunneling Circus, a comic play about the legendary Unexpectable Coup (specifically, she played Doc, whose role had been somewhat diminished for the sake of not bogging down the action with tiresome murder mystery subplot). Her name, as listed on the playbill, was Urby, the Waitress. Ruby's costume itched. Her makeup had been done by an intern whose Logistics Skillcore could not, in fact, be stretched to tactical cosmetic action. Her acting was decent, but she stumbled over a few lines, and barely suppressed a laugh at Cornbread's soliloquy, even as it moved the audience to tears. Critics panned her as a slipshod substitute for Bluxt the Intimidator, whose performance in When The White Latch Sprung had cemented it as a masterwork in Frö's swiftly growing postwar theatrical corpus. Nevertheless, when that aforementioned intern cleared out Poltergrift fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jan 18, 2019 |
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Jan 18, 2019 03:26
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