Sime~Gen Roleplaying on IRC: Snake River Dam Scenario
Episode #4: Lake Monsters and Rogue Farrises (5/29/00)
Edgar staggers down the steep path through the rugged pine forest, carefully balancing the huge pack on his back.
Edgar comes in sight of a clearing where he can make out a crude assemblage of seats made from planks on stones.
Edgar smells the tang of fermenting porstan in the air, mingled with the spicy scent of pine.
Edgar is far more interested in the possibility of a good drunk than the natural beauty of the environment.
Edgar approaches the bar area.
Edgar looks around for the proprietor.
Mardith look around at her little open air establishment. Someday she will have walls and floors and a roof that you can't see through.
Mardith spies Edgar looking around and puts on her best smile to greet him with.
Edgar catches sight of Mardith.
Edgar: Hey, Mardy-honey-chile!
Edgar: Look who's here!
Mardith: Edgar you old dog. Where you been hidin'?
Edgar: Digging holes, my dear. Digging holes.
Edgar: And maybe finding a few bones, who knows!
Mardith: Well it's better to find bones than leave 'em.
Edgar undoes the buckles that hold his pack in place and lowers it to the ground with a huge thump.
Edgar collapses onto one of the benches.
Edgar: Well, I think I may leave my bones here just a little while.
Mardith smiles and goes behind the "bar".
Mardith: What can I get you?
Edgar: A porstan would be lovely, my sweet.
Edgar: Quite an impressive establishment you've got here, Mardy, my dear.
Mardith: It will do until I can do better.
Edgar: Do you -- ah, extend, ah, -- credit?
Mardith looks at Edgar and thinks for a moment. He is well known in the area, but can he be trusted to pay?
Mardith: For an old dog? Sure this once.
Edgar: You are a Queen among women!
Edgar: High bitch of all the bitches.
Mardith: But I gotta have my bills paid by the end of the month. Selyn ain't free.
Edgar: Woooo-hoooo!
Mardith: Careful of who you call a bitch!
Mardith laughs.
Edgar: Hmmmm....
Edgar: Well, I just got back from an expedition.
Mardith draws Edgar a porstan and sets it down in front of him.
Edgar: And I haven't been to the survey office yet.
Mardith: So? What did you find?
Edgar lifts the mug and passes it under his nose with great pleasure.
Edgar: Ah, nectar of the Gods.
Edgar takes a good long swallow.
Edgar: Well, the usual assortment, you know.
Edgar: Odds and ends.
Mardith is pretty much convinced that she just gave away a mug for free. But it's very quiet now and the company is worth the price.
Edgar: I'd let you have first choice, if you want to do a trade.
Mardith: Well let's see what you got.
Edgar carefully undoes the elaborate series of buttons, ties and hooks on the pack.
Mardith watches the slow unveiling.
Mardith tries to see exactly what is under and in the folds, zlinning carefully so as not to get caught at it.
Edgar pulls out a long bronze poker, deeply etched with green corrosion.
Edgar: Now look at this beauty.
Edgar: A hundred years old if it's a day.
Edgar's pack is full of a variety of things, including metal, wood, and various organics. A huge claw-shaped metal object is particularly prominent.
Mardith tries to figure out what half of the stuff is. None of it looks familiar and all of it looks like junk.
Mardith: What is this stuff?
Edgar: Treasure, my dear.
Edgar: Antiques.
Edgar extracts a roll of copper wire.
Edgar: Now look at that. Real copper. The pure metal.
Mardith looks dubiously at the pile of junk until Edgar pulls out the wire.
Mardith: Where'd you get this?
Mardith: Is there more?
Edgar: Now that would be telling.
Mardith is thinking of lovely things to do with a stash of pure copper. Not the least of which is copper piping for her still.
Mardith: So do I get the wire?
Edgar: I doubt I am capable of drinking enough porstan to equal the value of that roll. At least, not this year.
Edgar: However, I would be happy to cut you an appropriate length.
Mardith tries to figure out what an appropriate length would be and what she could do with it once she had it.
Mardith: How long?
Edgar calculates. He is of course completely familiar with the current exchange rates on raw metal. Of course, this lot hasn't been assessed yet, but he is a pretty good judge.
Edgar: How about a five foot length in exchange for all I can drink? That should be a full ounce of pure copper.
Mardith wonders where she could possibly trade raw copper and what to even expect to get for it. She has no way of telling the worth of the wire. Watching Edgar, she zlins him closely.
Edgar: Or you can wait till I trade it in at the surveyor's office and get paid.
Edgar zlins about as truthful as he ever does, which is not saying very much.
Edgar is famous for believing his own lies.
Mardith decides it really isn't that important. After all, she was willing to give him the drink just for his company before she found out about the copper.
Mardith: All you can drink now?
Edgar: That's right.
Edgar: Or maybe you'd like this spoke from a cart wheel?
Mardith remembers hearing about Edgar's capacity for porstan. That could become very expensive.
Edgar pulls a rough wooden spike from the pack.
Mardith: Now what in shen am I supposed to do with that?
Edgar: You could use it on uncooperative customers.
Mardith: No, I'd rather have the wire. But for two more mugs and that's all.
Edgar: Or how about this copy of Gen Territory Law of Matrimonial Rectitude? Used to belong to Judge Hardy Fenston and has his signature inside the front cover... if you can read Genlan.
Mardith: Nope!
Edgar thinks about her offer on the wire. It isn't a very good deal, but the town is a long way away and the porstan is here now.
Edgar: You drive a hard bargain, my dear. Make it four mugs and you have a deal.
Mardith was born at night but not last night. She smiles sweetly at him.
Mardith: Done!
Edgar, with a flourish, measures out five feet of copper wire and cuts it with a little clipper.
Edgar hands it to Mardith.
Edgar: Now bring on your best!
Edgar sucks another deep draught from his cup, getting froth in his mustache.
Mardith rolls the wire into a small coil and puts it in the cash box.
Mardith: Yes sir.
Edgar rapidly repacks his treasures, in a whirlwind of tentacle movement.
Mardith waits for the repacking to finish and draws him another mug.
Mardith: When's the last time you saw that boy of yours?
Edgar: Been years. Got a post card from him last Faith Day.
Edgar shrugs.
Edgar: I'm just not a family kind of guy, I guess.
Mardith: How nice. He doing well?
Edgar: Sounds okay. He was in Valzor.
Edgar: Heard anything from Lila?
Edgar: Last I heard she was turning tricks in Walla.
Mardith: Well I don't get much into that trade, but there ain't too much call for it round here. Most folks being married and such. I think I did hear that she moved on to Walla.
Edgar: Well, I been out in the hills for months. What's the news from around town?
Mardith: There are a bunch of Tecton people coming in to work on the Dam. Big plans, lots of folks supposed to be coming. Lots of money to be made.
Edgar: Really!
Edgar's eyes gleam.
Edgar: Tell me more!
Mardith zlins the sudden glee and chuckles.
Mardith: Well rumor has it that they're sending in a Farris to head up the selyn management for the project. I don't think much of that rumor though. What would a Farris be doing out here in the back of beyond?
Edgar: Hey, anything would be better than that idiot Klyzer.
Edgar: Wash this, wash that....
Mardith shudders, remembering her last transfer.
Mardith: Yeah, just about anything would be.
Edgar: The guy could clean you right into attrition!
Mardith: Maybe they'll send him some place else.
Edgar: Like the bottom of the ocean!
Mardith: Well at least he'd have enough water to wash with.
Edgar: And speaking of water, what are they gonna do about the Dam?
Edgar: I been telling them for years, it's about to go.
Mardith: Search me. I guess some of those Tecton smart types have figured out a way to fix it.
Edgar: ~~disappointment~~
Edgar: Really? How?
Edgar: Because the Ancients built that Dam.
Mardith: I'm just the help, they don't explain this stuff to me.
Mardith: They must have something in mind or they wouldn't be shipping all that stuff up here.
Edgar: They used engines that ran on fossil fuel, which we don't got no more.
Edgar: No way you can fix it with what we got today.
Mardith: I can't argue that with you. I just know they said they're going to try.
Edgar: So what are they shipping up?
Edgar senses possible opportunities for profit here.
Edgar: Besides non-existent Farrises?
Mardith: You name it they're sending it up river. Or packing it through the woods.
Edgar: Any business going to the folks in town?
Mardith: There's not a whole lot around here that they could use. I guess some things, services mostly.
Edgar: Gonna have to check it out.
Mardith: You do that.
Edgar: Maybe they got a contract for an expert salvage guy.
Edgar: Gonna need one when that Dam comes down, for sure.
Mardith: Probably want a metal worker more.
Edgar: Maybe.
Edgar sucks at his porstan.
Edgar: You know, honey, I'm waiting for that thing to blow.
Edgar: I been waiting, a long time.
Mardith watched the level of the mug decrease and tries to decide when to draw his third mug.
Mardith: Well don't get your hope too high. They may just do a patch job.
Edgar: A patch job won't cut it.
Mardith: Like you said, we can't do what the ancients did. So what else can they do? Me, I don't know.
Edgar: Now I don't wish no body no harm.
Edgar: But there's no way to fix it.
Edgar: I hope the folks down stream have some sense and move out of the way.
Mardith: When have you ever known people to have sense?
Edgar: Never.
Edgar polishes off the mug and is ready for the next one.
Mardith: There are idiots who built right next to the Dam.
Edgar: And they'll be sorry for it.
Edgar: But darling, I'll tell you this. There's money to be made.
Mardith: That's what I'm hoping.
Edgar: When that Dam goes, and the lake empties out, what do you we'll find on the bottom?
Mardith: All of us dead.
Edgar laughs. He is feeling happy now.
Edgar: I personally plan to stay up-river.
Mardith: Some of us don't have much choice.
Mardith looks around at her little place in the woods.
Edgar: And when that lake empties out, I'll just wander down there into a junker's paradise.
Edgar: That bottom ain't been seen in two thousand years.
Mardith thinks it isn't like she would have to rebuild.
Edgar: Think about it.
Edgar: Anything could be down there.
Mardith: True. But there'll be a lot of pain before it happens.
Edgar: There's always a lot of pain, my dear. That's what porstan's for.
Edgar: You're in the right line of work.
Mardith: Maybe they'll find the Lake Monster.
Edgar: Yeah, could be.
Mardith: Long as they want to drink something besides water it's okay by me.
Edgar knows that the Gens swear they've seen whole boats swallowed by the Lake Monster. But no Sime has ever zlinned it.
Edgar figures a fish don't got much of a field anyway, so that don't prove nothing.
Mardith: Oh, by the by I heard that that Farris might be a rogue.
Edgar: Yeah?
Edgar: You mean not a real Tecton channel?
Edgar wonders if they would dare to send out anyone worse than Klyzer.
Mardith: Well yes and no. Seems they went rogue but came back to work for the Tecton.
Mardith thinks even a rogue is better than Klyzer.
Edgar: Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to write my boy and ask if he knows anything about it.
Edgar: Doesn't sound right to me.
Mardith: Who knows what the Tecton will do next? Some times I wonder if they know.
Edgar: Well, I don't care if they're rogue or not. Plenty of times we couldn't get anyone to work up this way but rogues.
Edgar: Just so they send someone out who knows how to serve a decent transfer.
Edgar: Heard anything about that?
Mardith: What makes you think that a Farris, rogue or not, would even touch the likes of us in transfer?
Edgar: Well, then what they coming here for?
Edgar: If not to replace that fool Klyzer.
Mardith: From what I heard they'll be shipping up a bunch of renSime worker and a passel of channels to serve 'em.
Edgar: So there'll be people with money in their pockets.
Mardith: I'm sure praying for it.
Edgar: I take it that's why you opened up shop here?
Mardith: Yup!
Edgar thinks.
Mardith: Couldn't make much of a living on the likes of you now could I?
Edgar has to work hard to think.
Edgar: Well, there might be some opportunities for yours truly as well.
Edgar: People with money want things. I'm pretty good at finding 'em.
Mardith is dreaming of walls, floors and a roof.
Edgar: And I've got a few special projects I'd love to get off the ground.
Mardith: Well maybe we'll both get rich.
Edgar: People don't know what's out here.
Edgar: The potential.
Edgar: All these bigwigs coming in . . . maybe I'll find an investor.
Mardith wonders if Edgar has forgotten his porstan.
Edgar dreams big dreams.
Mardith: Maybe.
Edgar: Hey, draw another glass and one for yourself too!
Edgar: Let's drink to the future!
Mardith: Suits me!
Go on to Episode #5: I Care Not for your Squat
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