Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » Travellers (Semi-Open RP between Tara and Catrin)

Catrin smiled, took a step away from the wall and swayed, having to steady herself against the wall again. “Oopsie. Conjuration and alcohol don't go well together. I think I'd better lie down.”

Thyr laughed, "Think that means we won, Tara." He said, his words slurring slightly.

Tara giggled, "We're the masters of story-telling!" She stood up, but did it too quickly and gasped, going dizzy, stumbling slightly.

Without thinking, Thyr reached out and grabbed her arm, steadying her, "Careful."

Tara blinked, looking down at his hand touching her arm for a moment, "2Oh, hey, I'm drunkerer than I thought. It almost feels like you can touch me."

"I can." Thyr said, a note of drunken pride in his voice, "Forcefields." He said.

"Oh." Tara said, "Clever."

"Thanks." Thyr said wih a grin.

Catrin smirked. “It just means I shouldn't be making cool bracelets while drinking. Wait until next time!” she said passionately, then she giggled. “Oh, gods, now I'm giggling. I really need to go and take a nap,” she said, a little horrified. Leaving the glass of wine where it was – in the food processor – she started making it for her room, hardly noticing that Thyr caught Tara. She stopped in the doorway and turned around, smiling. “Thanks, masters of story-telling!” Then she made it to her bed where she slid under the sheets quickly. She grew too hot after a moment, though, because of the fur, and just tried rearranging the pillows a bit before lying down again, this time without the blanket. Five minutes later, she hadn't been able to find a comfortable sleeping position, possibly due to the wine, too.

“Um... Thyr? Do you have any suggestions for sleeping comfortably while being a drunk Terelain?”

The completely sober voice of the AI, the parts of him that weren't a part of the drunk subroutine anyway, said, "I'd suggest curling up, lie on your side and curl up into yourself, it seems like most Terelains sleep on their sides rather than their backs, and they usually end up curled up after they've fallen asleep. Since the ships' got temperature controls, you won't need the blankets for warmth, so just use them for extra padding for comfort." He chuckled, "Just think about how a cat sleeps, and try that."

Catrin tried curling up even while the AI was speaking and smiled. This felt much better. “Thanks.” Five minutes later, she was spread over the bed like a kitten, but she automatically shapeshifted back to her human form halfway through her sleep and sleepily covered herself with the blankets.

She woke up another hour later and touched her face. Very unfurry. Oh well. It took a while for any form to be able to keep itself up for prolonged periods of time without any focus. She took a couple of minutes to shapeshift back and went to see if the bathroom was available.

The bathroom was indeed free, but as she entered it Thyr's voice came from nowhere and whispered to her, "Catrin, I hope you are well. Tara appears to be quite hungover. I'd suggest being quiet if you don't want to get eviscerated by an irritated Terelain with sharp claws. Terelains have exceptional hearing, as you know, and that really doesn't help when you have a headache like two Ihkrandir hitting you in the head." He chuckled softly, "She told me to delete all of the alcohol from the food processor's database."

Catrin nodded while entering the shower. "I'm good, just really stiff," she whispered back, "and need to drink a lot of non-alcoholic fluids." The shapeshifting in her sleep resulted in a severe need for relaxation - her human body spent some time in the kitten position. "Don't you have something you could give Tara for the hangover?" she asked before looking at the shower controls.

Doing her best to select something warm that would also give her a bit of a massage, Catrin pushed and pulled around the controls before running the shower, hoping for the best.

"Terelains long ago perfected medical nanotechnology, they're injected with tiny self-replicating machines when they are young, which travel in their bloodstream and act to destroy pathogens and toxins that their natural immune systems can't handle, or would be slow to act against, they also self-correct the immune system if it goes a bit haywire and attacks healthy cells. At present her nanomachines are scrubbing the alcohol out of her system, but they can only work so fast. She'll get over her hangover quickly, but it still isn't a pleasant experience." Thyr said, "I could also administer some painkillers in the form of an odourless, tasteless aerosol into her room, but I believe the hangover is the traditional resolution to a night of drinking, and one mustn't go against tradition." He chuckled again.

Catrin chuckled and then she enjoyed the wonderful benefits of the shower before letting it dry her and going about the rest of her basic hygiene.

When she was done, she asked Thyr, “So your drunk subroutine is now hungover, too, to keep up with the traditions of drinking?”

Then she headed back to her room to do some stretching exercises. She spent the next 30 minutes in all sorts of interesting positions before heading to the food processor to get something to drink.

"Oh Gods no!" Thyr said, "Having such a niggling discomfort in one of my subroutines might affect the ship's operations! I purged the subroutine, retained the memories of course but deleted the files afflicted with the hangover-causing parameters." Thyr's hologram appeared next to Catrin and grinned, "Being an AI has its perks."

Catrin looked at the hologram and grinned back. “You don't say,” she said quietly, hoping that she won't disturb Tara. “Now, could you recommend something to drink with electrolytes, vitamins and the like? Or can I just adjust an existing beverage to contain all those?”

The hologram held out a hand towards the food processor and the holographic interface flickered, a few symbols changed and he nodded, "There, parameters altered." He did a shallow bow with a smile, "I live but to serve." He chuckled, "Just pick a drink and it'll contain everything you've just listed, without affecting the taste."

Catrin smiled, chuckled even, when he bowed, nodded her thanks and picked a tropical-looking drink which turned out tasting like mango juice. Then she selected a meal and ate it in her chair, then she came back for another, selecting a different one this time, finishing off with a dessert. It was enough food to feed three people. She needed a lot of energy to make up for what the conjuration had cost her yesterday.

After that, she tried getting a sweet hot drink, but it wasn't what she expected. Wrinkling her nose at it, she put it back into the food processor. It tasted like chalk. She got water to help her get rid of the taste, and went back to her chair to sprawl in it. After just lying around for a while, she asked Thyr, “Is there a way for me to browse the ship's database from here?”

"Of course, technically speaking, you're doing right now; the ship's archives are a subset of my cognitive matrix, and I, or at least one of my subroutines, can act as an interactive interface. There is, of course, a slightly more traditional method." Around her chair there appeared floating holographic screens, and floating symbols in the Low Terelain script, "You've used this before, just touch the symbols to query the database and the information will appear on the screens, pictures and the like will be holographic projections."

Catrin nodded and smiled. “Thank you. Could you bring up information about our next probable stop?”

Thyr nodded and in the air in front of her appeared a floating model of a solar system; a yellow star burning brightly in the middle and five planets spread around it, their orbits traced by rings, the outermost planet was a dull brown gas giant, relatively small for a planet of that type, between the gas giant and the other planets there was a thin asteroid belt, the next two planets were rocky, terrestrial worlds, but there were symbols next to them to indicate that they were cold and lifeless, like Mars. The second planet out from the sun was a blue-white world, and symbols indicated that it was this planet that was home to the human colony, scattered symbols around it indicated major habitats and other satellites, the planet closets to the sun was a tortured, barren piece of burning rock. The system's Jumpgate was located in a Lagrange Point halfway between the third planet and its moon, orbiting near it was a station marked 'Gateway Control'.

"This is the Saekai-Vas System, called the Tau Draconis System by the present Human inhabitants. It is only recently settled, the colony is barely a decade old, but it is the main human settlement in this region, and is the farthest-out Senate-aligned system, so it is a staging ground for exploratory missions deeper into the Near Frontier." Thyr said, "We won't be staying long though, we'll drop in-system and take the Jumpgate to the next system over in the network, we'll hop like that until we get to Terelain territory."

Catrin played with zooming in and out of the system for a while while listening to Thyr, then she nodded. “Thank you. How much Terelain territory is there? Do all the planets settled by the Terelains count, or just Aerin?”

"They all count, every planet, habitat and system controlled and inhabited by the Terelains and Isthenir pledged to the Kingdom count. As for their territory... At its greatest extent, shortly after the Second Great War when the former Gillorian territories were annexed, the Terelain Star Kingdom held sovereignty over thirty seven thousand, eight hundred and seventy six stellar systems and more planets, habitats and other colonies than I can be bothered to list. However, after the Second Great Peace ended and the Younger Races emerged, the Terelains began slowly abandoning or seceding their territory to other Races. At present, the Terelain Star Kingdom hold about one and a quarter thousand systems." Thyr shrugged, "They keep to themselves and the galactic community largely ignores them. They remain the most technologically advanced civilisation in Known Space, but a few of the most powerful Younger Races are starting to catch up, it'll be another few generations before they can credibly be called equivalent-tech civilisations, but they're progressing."

Catrin nodded. “Interesting. It sounds almost impossible, for such a slow-reproducing race to inhabit so many planets, especially without them drifting off language-wise or culturally,” she remarked, wondering whether it would be possible to pretend she's a Terelain from some rather remote habitat as a cover for her potential social botch-ups.

Thyr chuckled, "Most of the Kingdom's population was made up of Gillorians and Isthenir, and just Isthenir after the Second Great War, quite a few 'colonies' were more like remote mining outposts, or places for scientific research. The human home system, Sol, for instance, was occupied by a Terelain scientific team observing the new-to-sapience Humans. We called the system Tamrith-Ilus,a and the planet Terra was known as Ilus. Because it was a permanently inhabited outpost, it counted as a colony of the Kingdom... technically we still own it since we never formally handed system control to the Humans... they've got a hell of a lot of rent backed-up." He mused, Thyr 'shrugged', "Anyway, most colonies were inhabited by Isthenir, who breed much faster, ruled over by a local Isthenir Caliph under the authority of whatever Terelain Count, Baron or Duke who owned theplanet or system."