Mutated Lord Captain Ravion Orpheous Laetares was bored, or so he told himself. He had thought his greed limitless, but now he controlled three star systems and because of the quality of his underlings had nothing to buy, he literally had a pile of power swords lying in his closet even with most of the weapons he found as loot going to the Orks or V'ger as pay.

Now he was going to the west end of the Koronus Expanse to explore "Pulsar 484 Scran" deep in the Rifts of Hecaton.

Technically dangerous but who cared.

11 the techpriest was happy because you never knew where a NOVA CANNON might be hiding.

V'ger a heretical AI and effectively now a ship was happy because last time they'd explored he'd found (alien) nuclear weapons and he wanted to test them more.

Buzz(ork) was happy because there's always lots of fighting when exploring

"Into the warp we go" intoned Ravion from the helm of V'ger, a heavily modified Frigate.

"We follow" echoed the Fuzzy Duck of the raider class.

"Ere we go" echoed The Slamblasta, an Ork ship that had grown to the size of a battleship.

Upon entering the warp V'ger quickly took on the familiar uncomfortable feel of warpspace.

Quickly retreating to The Cat Palace to sit back and relax with his few remaining cats. Ravion Kicked back in a worn velveteen chair and stroked his chin tentacles as he pondered whether the natives of Ora tasted better than the natives of burnscour.

It was 11's fault the cats were dead. He'd hijacked the Fuzzy duck and forcibly jumped through an alien warp gate. It was only natural that Ravion had to follow not to lose his ship. It had not been a pleasant journey.

A blind gray tabby approached and lept up into his chair staring with his lifeless eyes into Ravion's.

Eating is my only pleasure now stated Ravion simply as he stroked the cat.

*12 weeks later*

The warp trip was taking longer than it should have.

Again.

I need a better navigator thought Ravion to himself. The first time he'd thought so had been years ago, sadly good navigators were not common.

*Shake* *Shake*

speaks over the loudspeaker. "Captain we seem to be hitting a swarm of some sort of warp insects, we're going to have to leave warp in order to clean the warpshield."

"Is it really necessary?"

"I don't like being dirty."

*SHalunk* sounded the ship as it left warp.

Oddly instead of leaving warp in deep space they were near a solar system of some sort.

"Passive Scans indicate 4 terrestrial planets, 4 Jovian planets and some other small hunks of rock we probably don't care about."

"Suppose we might as well see if there is anything we can loot while you clean off the windshield." Responded Ravion.

"Detecting radio waves from 3rd planet, I think they have internet access."

"How foolish they must be, Demons can possess and spread easily through networks, they should probably be cleansed but I don't really care, let's see if they have anything worth looting."

"We could test the nuclear weapons I found."

"If they're Eldar. If they're human I might be able to make money off them."

"Since there weren't any survivors of the last nuclear test when I purposefully shot the nuclear device multiple VU's away from the enemy ship I was considering simply doubling the VU's from planet earth when I fired."

"I thought I gave you plenty of test subjects from Ora."

"Results are inconclusive with small sample sizes.

I ran out."

"Fine if they're human you can kidnap some if you can do it discretely."

"That sounds logical. Oh hey there's a large rock here, I'm surprised to find this considering how far outside the system we are."

This earth never had a chance to discover their fourth dwarf planet

*Fade to scene of a giant Frigate class ship floating over planet earth.*

"Internet signals seem to flowing most strongly from the approximately 700 mile penninsula on the eastern side of the largest continent on the northern hemisphere. We should investigate the source? I've found a cabin on top of a mountain.

It seems to be connected to the network.

It isn't particularily secluded.

Would you like to take an unarmed shuttle that has no defense at all and risk getting shot down by primative missiles?"

"Sounds dandy. I'll wear my Space Marine armor and pack a parachute." replied Ravion

Skipping through the silvery, polished, somewhat creepy hallways Ravion passed numberous Servitors as he made his way to the hanger where his unpolished and still ugly red shuttle lay unmolested by V'ger's hands. His space marine armor was rough and dented and his helmet was unusual, sporting elephant tusks. He took a single power sword and a boltpistol figuring that would probably be enough, a bit less than his usual loadup.

Slamming the door the the shuttle shut he went up, took control of the grips, and hovered to the launcher where he settled into position.

"Ready for launch V'ger"

"Launching"

He zipped out at the speed of plot moving quickly to the earths surface.

It was a bountiful planet perfect for converting to the glory of the imperium of man and growing food on to sell. Pity that the warp in this area was so inconsistent. It wouldn't be worth converting a planet so apt to be cut off from the warp at any time.

When he reached about 30,000 ft. 10 missiles came at him from the northern end of the penninsula. At 20,000 ft. 30 more missiles had come from the southern hemisphere. He'd probably have to abandon ship in 20 seconds or something he mused.

By 7,000 ft. the missiles from the southern end had intercepted some of the northern missiles and blown them up. That was weird. However 3 of the northern missiles still remained. 14 or so of the southern missiles following them in tow as the edge closer to killing him. He decided this was a good time to jump, so he did.

His Augers indicated he was going to hit a missile head on but he ended up passing it with a 10 ft. gap between him and the missile. Perception is hard when your traveling 800 ft/sec.

3,000 ft. now, the atmosphere had slowed him down considerably, somehow when he fell through a flock of geese one had gotten stuck in his armpit. Probably a good time to deploy his parachute. So he deployed it.

Yep this goose definitely had a broken neck. Opening his helmet a crack his long mutant tongue lashed out grabbing the bird and pulling it down his gullet. He prefered food cooked but he'd settle for raw as his first taste of the native animal.

It tasted better than many things he'd eaten but definitely would have tasted better cooked. The feathers in particular were annoying.

{North Korea}

"What did we just fire at?"

"I don't know either, let's just say our system got hacked, I don't want responsibility for this. Let's blame America, their departments are bad at sharing information so most of them will never figure out that we just made it up."

"And those that do figure it out?"

"Look. Do you think that I'd have this position if I was smart enough to figure out the political results of saying our system got hacked. I'd have a better position ok? We're blaming America because "Blame America" is practically a buzzword here so even if it works out poorly we probably won't be punished."

"I'm looking through our plan files. 146 of our plans have blame America in their title line. If I search by the whole documents it's hard to find a plan that doesn't have that somewhere as part of the strategy."

"Use plan #46643."

"North Korea just fired over South Korean territory. They're claiming they saw something suspicious and fired on it fearing attack but after looking into their computer systems suspect sabotage by us. More importantly our missile defense system was completely successful, blocking 7 of 10 missiles with only 30 missiles."

"That doesn't sound very successful"

"It's election year"

"Let's just say it was successful without mentioning how many missiles then."

[Number of missiles information Redacted ]

"Will fighting North Korea help make British Natural Gas cheaper? No? Then we don't care"

"So if they're claiming America hacked them that means they don't want to attack us right now right? Whatever then we always have to keep our guard up anyway. Besides they didn't actually blow anything up, The American Defense missiles did more damage after they ran out of gas and fell to the ground randomly then their missiles did."

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"Yeah they tried to hack us too. Which is amusing because they build tons of their military equipment here. Don't take it too seriously."

*TOP OF OFFICE BUILDING*

Instead of a not particularily secluded spot on top of a mountain with a cabin nearby Ravion landed on top of a 16 story tall office building.

"I've landed V'ger."

"Good for you. I'm looking through your feed."

Looking over the edge Ravion sees humans on the ground.

"More Species 5618 then? I suppose I'll grab some discretely for radiation testing."

A woman in a blue security outfit approached.

"Hey your not allowed to be up here and what the hell are you wearing?" (In korean)

"What say you." (Low gothic)

"Your english sounds terrible, but that explains what your doing here come down customers aren't allowed on this level."

"Your low gothic is piss."

Ravion walked from the roof following the security.

"Nice costume by the way, your gun looks real but no-one makes a pistols that large in that design so I know it's fake, and that sword hilt is far to decorated to belong to a real sword."

"Erm.."

Ravion wisely kept his mouth shut as he was led to an elevator.

"The cosplay meetup is primarily on the main floor and in the basement so please try to stick to those areas. There should be a booth with maps."

As Ravion descended the elevator which was surprisingly written in familiar syllables crappy music played from a speaker above.

Then the door opened.

"Nice costume man." (Korean)

*Ugh I can't understand anything* thought Ravion to himself. Wait a minute are those terminals?

Behind a booth with what was clearly a cash holding device and a terminal sat a man guarding the enterance to a room full of terminals some with people sitting down and typing upon them.

Ravion approached.

"Hey man want to read up some on royalroad right? It's free for the first 15 minutes courtesy of the cosplay group but if you want to stay longer than that you'll have to pay."

Ravion didn't understand anything the guy said so he just stood there.

Cashier guy waved.

Ravion walked in.

Hmm I'd better find a far terminal.

But naturally they were already filled up so instead he took the most obvious terminal.

"Hook up your cable and I'll be able to hack in."

Ravion searched over the computer for a human interface link cable but there wasn't the proper input for one. Looking over the back of the computer he saw numerous ports though.

Pulling out his multitool he pushed it on a usb input and it whirred as it changed it's shape automatically to fit. Plugging his cable into the side of it.

"I'm in. Give me a few minutes."

*Ten minutes later*

"I'm gonna need a couple hours but I think I'll be able to get you a credit card. The language seems to be an archaic form of low gothic so I don't think it'll take long to create a translating device since they have built in dictionaries and I knew half the words already. As of now I know approximately 60% of the 20,000 most commonly used terms. Also there seems to be a game that would be interesting to run experiments in, because it's virtual you could eat as much as you wanted there all day long and never run out of space in your stomach."

"That sounds worth experiencing."

Ravion closed his eyes to nap...

*Two hours later*

"Alright preparations are complete. When the employee asks about paying just tell him that you had him bill to room 219 as you came in and keep insisting he check it."

Hey man time to pay man.

"I had you bill to room 219 as I came in."

"No way man I would remember that."

"Just check it."

"Oh wow man I'm sorry your right I guess I must have. I don't make mistakes like this often but every few months or so."

"Go to room 219"

"Why?"

"There's a pod there for the Royal Road game. I want you to patch the Vox-Caster into it, and I suppose you can play if you want."

Ravion pondered being able to eat as much as he wanted.

"Sounds good."

Ravion went ot his room with gusto, climbing over the sprawled out masses of costumed 9 through 30ish year old women and men that had come. Mostly teens. The women seemed more dresed up in costume on average than the men but there were more men than women.

Stopping before room 219 it occurred to Ravion he didn't have a key. Card locks are pretty common though so he had no trouble using his multitool to break in. The interior was white, and clean, and tiny for Ravion who was used to living on kilometer long spaceships and palaces and always monopolizing the best of places, the tallest of spires, the largest of tents. It was better than some of the places he'd lived in his accidental 10 year exile though.

The metal healing chamber, well that's what first came to Ravions mind, was sitting off to the side of the TV.

"Take off your helmet. Since it has the long range vox in it, connect it using the coord and multitool making sure you attach you attach your battery supply pack, unlike your suit the vox isn't a huge energy hog so it will probably last a few months.

Couldn't I hook up to the planetary power supply?

"With more tools sure, with the tools you have not really."

Ravion took off his suit and started hooking things up, since he was passingly familiar with electronics he eventually managed though it took him three hours of working and numerous instances of being yelled at.

Not like that you miserable excuse for species 5618.

Crawling into the pod Ravion was looking forward to eating whatever he wanted.

The scan on your iris and vein has determined that you are an unregistered user. Do you want to create a new account??

"Yes"

— Select the name of your avatar­—

"My name is Ravion Orpheous Yorke."

— Select your gender from male, female or neutral—

Ravion paused here.

"Is it true that women have more taste buds than boys?"

—In real life women tend to be better at tasting specific bitter substances but in royalroad tastes are gender neutral although personal brain chemistry may have some effect.—

"Might as well be male then."

— Royal Road has forty-nine races. You may select your race from the primary twenty-nine, Given your physiology we would recommend Octopus man. You sure are ugly women must hate you.­—

Ravion smiled to himself as he imagined the forty-nine flavors that forty-nine races must possess, some would taste bad, like the alien tentacle that mutated him, but some. Some might taste heavenly.

"I've had prolbems, I won't deny it. Is one of the races eldar?

—There is no race of that name.­—

"Are you sure? Pointy ears, stuck ups, ancient technology, like to pretend they're better than everyone else. ­"

— Replace ancient technology with ancient magic and that sounds similar to elves and dark elves. Replaces ancient technology with ancient tendencies toward bloodsucking and that sounds like vampires. Replaces ancient technology with ancient civilization and minus pointy ears and that sounds like most of the other races.­—

"Show these elves, dark elves and vampires."

—Now showing elves, dark elves and vampires­—

"I knew it.. Eldar, they even have dark eldar."

—Octopus men normally get a hatred bonus vs a race of their choice if you like I can set that to elves.—

"I hate Eldar."

—Most set their hatred to fishmen since there tend to be many racial missions against fishmen as the two races compete for territory.—

"I hate Eldar."

—Elves it is then.—

—Due to your unique appearance you may play as yourself however your mechanical left hand will have to be redesigned for use in aquatic environments and built to be powered by magic rather than electricity due to the nature of the versailles continent, it's ability will level with your character and will largely be cosmetic, is this acceptable?—

"Do octopus men have good taste buds?"

—They have one of the best senses of taste among the races of versaillles.—

"Then yes an octopusman sounds most acceptable."

—Octopusmen must start off the coast of the British Confederacy in the city of Aqua—

—Welcome to Royalroad would you like to take the tutorial?—

"Yes."