[Faolán had been accidently sent both through time and from a parallel dimension by way of a tear in reality caused by a Chaos magic attuned Ancile. He just knew his sisters would somehow find and rescue him … they always did … but this was just a little more intense than his usual troubles. In the interim, he had to do something. This story occurs mere months after he arrived in 2019 and precedes “Once Upon A Sandstorm”
At this time he thought he’d somehow been just sent back in time … that he’d actually come from an alternate dimension hadn’t yet been realised.
Also I apologise for any issues missed by the “Continuity Police” These stories have grown over 3-4 years of RP. The story is slowly evolving … some details changing to help it tie things together more fluidly.
I want to play the older versions of the triplets in game and needed a reason why the ‘usual’ theoretical issues with time travel, such as paradox and the like were less of an issue (to me at least).
Further I wanted to avoid any situation where I may have accidentally suggested that I expected another player to be ‘required’ to take some action because my character was from the future and thus knew what they were going to do. So the history between when they arrive, starting in 2019 is different to that in this timeline.
Any interactions between the future versions of the triplets and a player has always been with the consent of that player. This also includes what may have happened to the alternate versions of their characters in Faolán and Ceara’s home dimension. For example, the Astra character died early on in the alternate dimension, but obviously not here. I hope that makes sense.]
Faolán had found himself in what seemed to be his own past for the last number of months. Initially loneliness had driven him to contact some of those he had known growing up in the safety of House. He had soon worked out that this was possibly not a good idea, and since then had drifted as a lone mercenary in order to earn enough to put a roof over his head and food and … beer in his belly.
He had found that skilled warriors were still in demand. He was going by the pseudonym of Jack … yes … yes … it was indeed Jack Sparrow. One of the many things learned in his childhood was a love of all things pirate.
He spent a while trying to work out what to do and had no idea how he was going to get ‘home’. More, how he was going to get back to his when than where. As was usual, Faolán regretted his lack of forethought after the fact. While a more than competent warrior, he really shone when teamed with his sisters and was really missing their presence.
He hated how he was cut off from his sisters and the people he had come to depend on. He knew that in this timeline there were many who he held dear. But the short time he had spent with them since ‘The Incident’ had caused some of these great distress, especially mum. He had watched as some tried to convince his mum that he was indeed somehow in this timeline. While others wondered if he was some creation of the hated Roaches.
No, he couldn’t go to them. Another issue, his past self is here, probably at The Barn. At this period in his time, the family only rarely left The Barn.
It was this line of thought that found him kneeling in the far northern aspect of the Scorched Desert. He had worked out that now (in this timeline) was just after the time his sisters had had their adventure in the desert. This had been while he had been investigating some spooky asylum, looking for Uncle Rhys – well that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it. No one wanted to remember the fear and panic at being hunted by the Orochi through some psychotic version of an insane asylum, in a lost pocket dimension of time and space.
One part of that story that had been a great worry to his parents, was the fact that an Orochi drone had left the camp just before the Confidi obliterated it from the face of the earth. Intel retrieved by the Confidi from the Orochi camp suggested that while a drone had got out, the Orochi had lost control of it and it had disappeared into the desert. Despite the huge search effort that followed, the drone was not recovered and the precious sample of Ceara’s blood lost.
So, rather than wallowing in self-pity, he had decided to see if he could solve this mystery. He was actually putting a lot of faith in the ingenuity of his sisters, solving the problem of how to get him back to his own time issue. He just knew Áiny would work out a plan, and Ceara would work out how to make that plan happen. So, he thought of running an operation. If this succeeds, it will hopefully mitigate how much trouble they will be in for creating this … umm … situation. Especially if he can recover Ceara’s missing blood sample … well … that was his plan anyway.
He had been going over the area where the Orochi had lost control of their drone, for a couple of weeks now. He wasn’t overly surprised that Roach patrols were virtually non-existent. The destruction of Base Camp Charlie, by the Confidi, had been particularly thorough. Cultists, on the other hand, were all over the area like fly’s on dung. There were also still the ghostlike patrols of Confidi scouting the area. Their presence was much less than soon after the girls had been rescued, but they were most likely to detect him, if he wasn’t careful.
Like the Confidi before him, he had found no evidence of a drone, disabled or otherwise. This could only lead to three paths; [1] It was still lost; [2] The Roaches had recovered it; [3] someone else had recovered it. Which was frustrating … these were the same paths he’d started with. For the bazillionth time, he gets out his tablet and examines the planned path (extracted from the Roach laptop before the camp’s destruction and the precise position they lost control of it. Where it could reach depended on how much power it had. Was a 10-mile radius enough? At the time the commander of the Confidi unit, a Confidinix Ohmar, had thought a 10-mile search radius should cover how far the drone could get.
He’d started his search assuming it was still lost … following this presumption had sadly borne no fruit. So, he was left with option two and three. He really hoped the sample hadn’t been recovered by the Roach’s. He decided to see if he could find any evidence that the sample had been found by a third party.
Which direction would it go? This was an unanswerable question. With control lost, there was just no way of knowing for sure. Looking at the topography, you’d think it more likely to … sort of head in the original direction of travel. Even if it veered left or right, it’s collision detection protocols would, most likely, have it continuing sort-of-easterly. This is of course, assuming the collision detection protocols were still operative. This was not a new line of thought. He is struggling not to fall into the search pattern that had already been a proven failure. How could he search differently?
Still kneeling, he quickly removes his cap to swat at some of the ever-present flies. Before moving into the shade of a nearby outcrop of rock, sitting with his back against it. “What can I do differently?”
Pushing up his sunglasses and pinching the bridge of his nose, “OK … if the drone did just wander off, after control was lost. It would still act like I thought. Then we add in the variable that someone had found it. Who are they likely to be?”
From the archives in The Barn, he knew the Confidi searched out and neutralised every Roach they could find and still found no trace of the precious samples. Who else could have found the drone and still managed to avoid the Confidi? There were two groups that came to mind … one could possibly fly under the Confidi radar … The Bedouin, not cultists … normal Bedouin. Cultists received the same treatment as the Roachs’.
Faolán racks his brain trying to remember the reports from that time concerning this incident. Try as he might, he can recall no mention of Bedouin’s being checked. Digging out a tablet he does a search … “The effects of the Atenist Cult on the indigenous population of the area”. Being a mobile people, it seems most fled the area when the troubles started. This was and wasn’t helpful. It meant that one of their number could have found the drone and that they could then have left the search area with it. While not certain by any measure, it did give him something different to investigate. Gathering his gear he sets out for al-Merayah, a coffee and a coke at Zhara’s café will be a better place to make a plan.
He was traveling in the cool of darkness, the air shimmers around him as he shifts to his Direwolf form. In this form he is truly enormous, standing about 4½ feet at the shoulder and about 8 to 9 feet from tip of nose to base of tail. He’s jet black with a silvery Fehu rune on the (L) side of his head – 2-3 cm in diameter. His eyes are a brilliant sapphire blue. Almost silently, he speeds across the desert sands until he reaches the outskirts of al-Merayah.
Shifting back to his human form he enters and makes his way to Zhara’s Cafe. Ordering a cappuccino, an ice cold can of Coke and a Bacon and egg roll before taking a seat at a back table, he ponders his next move. “What would Áiny do? How would Ceara do it?‘’ The thoughts of his sisters brings up yet another important issue to consider. “How would his sisters find him when they came to find him?”
While he had no doubt that they would try and come get him. Of how they would find him, he had no clue. While he was thinking he had been absentmindedly carving the shape of a Fehu rune into Zhara’s table. He stopped and looked at it for a while. Faolán lacked many things, a degree of natural intelligence wasn’t counted as one of them.
To the ‘F’ rune he adds MMXXXVI and underneath that Gorm MMXIX. He ages the carving a little with a mixture of saliva and dirt. Admiring his handiwork before standing and heading back into the desert to search for the elusive Bedhouin.
((Note: The V in the first set of numerals is slightly miscarven and looks more like 2x I’s))