Cornifer Rodgers had always won.
Cornifer Rodgers had never lost a single crew mate.
Cornifer Rodgers would probably go so far as to call himself the best man to ever commandeer a ship in the fleet.
Unfortunately, in the penultimate battle of his career, the battle to end all battles, Cornifer Rodgers lost.
By anyone else's standards, it was a mere pyrrhic victory. But to Cornifer Rodgers, it was everything.
He barely escaped alive, only being saved by the Red Sun hours after the fact and stitched back together right next to the worst of his enemies.
He spent years poring over the details, combing through every bit of data he could find, running simulations accurate to the nanosecond.
But that's all over now.
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The sound of flesh and metal impacting on damp wood could be heard, the supports that separated its originator from the tens of feet below creaked, some even snapped or shattered, but the majority kept hold, as the man and his wheelchair began groaning alike. "KUAN!" he shouted into the moist pollen-filled air. An expression of pain where he's from, but an unwelcome sound amongst the trills and howls of the jungle.
"Urkh, w-where am I? Where's everyone else?" he asked, not quite knowing who exactly he was saying it to. After surveying his surroundings, he began wheeling off towards what looked and smelled like the ocean. A better vantage point to see anyone else, even if the sand would be a pain to wheel through. He just marveled, staring at the majesty of nature firsthand while he wheeled for a few minutes, but eventually turned his focus to the situation at hand.
This could have been a crash landing on a planet, there wasn't any wreckage or major damage on him, but it was certainly a possibility. Teleportation could also have happened, though it probably would have led others to this position. There was also the possibility of interdimensional travel, but that would be unlikely unless the reach of the Conquistador was much larger than expected.
As the man mused through situations, the rotted wooden boards finally gave way beneath him.
BAMF! His chair managed to soften the first impact against a rotten beam.
CLUNK! It hit a rock and bounced, throwing him into the air.
SLAM! He landed on the side of a riverbank, hitting his back against the pebbled mud.
CRACK!
It wasn't a fatal wound, merely bleeding, but it would be a problem without proper medical attention. Which probably means it was, given how unknown the territory he was in. On the bright side, he hadn't been able to feel much of the lower parts of his body, much less move them in over 10 years, but as he bled out of one extremity, another was returned to him.
What luck. Would this be an honorable death? Exploring an unknown planet in an unknown... Universe, I guess, if the Conquistador did what the scientists thought it would do.
I... guess... It's not like there would be anyone around to judge me for it, anyone to... bury my body...
He began to sense the weight of his shoes, feel the oily sludge of the mud, even as his vision was starting to swim and his arm
Suddenly, movement. A plume of bats flew out of the trees nearby at a massive bird began circling overhead. It wasn't a coronerbird, it was far more vibrant and colorful than that, it opened its beak and...
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A low, mournful cry could be heard emanating across the forest, but Barny Burkins was concerned with more pressing issues. Like where he could possibly be. A quick tap of his seanmháthair (pronounced sha[m]-n-mo[re]-her) revealed to him that it was far more humid than any normal forest, which further raised suspicions that this was at the very least an uncharted planet was the fact the mould was a sort of sticky only found within one species of hymenopteran, not to mention the odd color of the leaves...
He shook himself back to reality, this was no time to pore over details. Standard practice was to get out of forest and into some sort of wide open area, preferably plains, but a... He stopped to feel the wind. Beach would do just as well.
That is, if the local fauna would allow him. Approaching from the direction of the sea was a pack of what could be described by multiple things, but most accurately some sort of Hyena, despite the fact that these ones had long, spiky fur, a singular, ridged horn, and seemingly lived nowhere near where Hyenas traditionally lived.
Normally, druidic magic would work on all sorts of creatures, but in the odd case that they were infused more with another element than nature itself, it would often have the opposite effect. All that to say that these things, clearly more than just normal animals would be tough to deal with. Then again, it was unknown what the fauna of this unknown planet manifested as, and all the things that set them apart from the types he was familiar with were natural in origin as well, not to mention he did have spells of opposing polarities, thus could deal with them even in the case that they were less so creatures of nature than say creatures of space.
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The creatures stood around the unfamiliar enemy, unsure of what to make of it.
Prey?
Yes.
Tasty?
Maybe not.
…
Not that it mattered.
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Suddenly he could see. He, merely a blind observer to the true nature of reality up until now could enjoy the real fullness that comes with having expanded your vision of the divine realization. He could see the way the mana pulsed like a vein throughout all of life, the way the waning sun made the spirits of the air shimmer, the... fading light of his seanmháthair.
Of course, it wasn't his real grandmother, but seeing his old mentor back in the closest thing they could ever have to in person was bittersweet. He could see the materia flowing out of their old form, dissolving back into the mana from which they were born, from which they were made real.
As for the shillelagh (pronounced shill-eyyy-lay) itself, the conduit, it had been thankfully neglected, and as his mentor of 142 years vanished from even this spiritual coil, it was all the more inviting to him.
He was strong, he could probably live on for many moons as a ghost or some similar creature in here, but what good would possessing random people, if people even existed, do? No, the only option would be to do the same thing as his mentor and each before them did, leading all the way back to the formation of the world tree.
Well, nothing left but to t-
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What do you get when a griminy fuck-ton of space sailors are all smooshed into one area with no one to lead them? A utopia, apparently, because when Deisa Ember found the rest of her crew stranded on a desert island, more of a sandbar really, they were all taking their survival training to the max, using what little they had with them to construct at least one good fishing rod, and sharing??? Madness.
Thankfully, the Crow's Murder was a light exploration ship, so it only carried around 20 or so crew, it would have been a much bigger disaster if the crew of a Sierra-Class ship had been stranded like this. After a quick headcount, it seemed only a few key members were missing, as well as one random person, but he was on the other pod, so that made some semblance of sense in this exceeding untenable setting.
Well, nothing left to do but set up a signal flare. Unsurprisingly, most of the equipment was in the other pod, so they didn't have any proper ones, but there were some arcrafters in the general crew, so if they managed to do their job right, they'd hopefully be out of here home free.
After a surprisingly short amount of time, only what seemed like a few hours, a ship was spotted coming towards them. Fina-fuckin-lly, it would've been terrible to be stuck in the middle of nowhere for more than a week. Unfortunately, it wasn't what they'd consider a ship, a massive behemoth build to oppose the hard nothingness of space, but the older type of ship, one made merely to withstand the domain of Lord Varuna.
Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be a friendly ship, it flew the skull and bones. What that meant was that they were here not to explore or to trade, but to steal. But, it was their only hope.
The vessel swept past them, nearly knocking over most of the crew with the wave it pulled. And then, the whale swallowed them.
Being bound in chains, bought for the captain of the ship, Deisa Ember felt fear for one of the first times of her life.
"Wait, Samir?"
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Family is a complicated subject, on the one hand you've lived with them for a lot longer than most people and know them better, on the other you already know almost every facet of them that they don't lock away for no one to see.
Family can be lost or found, but those bonds you make as a kid are truly special. Even extended family is always at arm's length, unless you live with them, a product of people that you don't truly know but are told about and shown to no end.
Its easy to be shallow or distant in your emotions for extended family, "Shahar is fine" or "Haseem doesn't really jive with me", its easy to disdain. But once you live with someone for an extended period of time and there isn't any novelty to how they act, the ways they act can start to grate on you, you can start to nitpick every little thing they do, good or bad.
Once you consider someone "family", there's a certain amount of hate you must hold for them. There's a certain amount that love can't balance out.
Rarely do you truly lose family, besides in the literal sense. The bond between family is strong, strong to last through times it's hard to get by, strong to last through things you don't really mean. But bonds can be broken, bridges can be burned.
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Shortly after pushing the button, George could feel an... emotional? almost nostalgic feeling sensation bubble up from within his...
Spring was always a nice season, all the cute animals came out and frolicked in the gutters, the wind was nice but not too harsh on the skin, and most of all, the adults were gone. It was a nice feeling, not having to worry about the adults stepping in and ruining our fun, those were simpler times, simpler spirits. It wasn't even that they were completely gone, just in the houses, free to go back and step into their waiting arms, but free to stay just one more minute outside, until the dawn-grasper threatened to snuff out the sun once more.
But for every peace and calm, there is a dread and fear. For once grown and whole, those same animals you once found friends would turn their fangs and claws to you. At best, they'd drive you back into the safety of the meta-homes, at worst, your family would rue the day, and those blasted beasts. In hindsight, we should've been more careful. In hindsight, we should've fled at the sight of those monsters. But in hindsight, you have clarity, in hindsight, there's nothing to do but remember, there's nothing to do but wince.
But still, those golden years, those moments of pure, unadulterated feeling, those were the days.