Satyrical
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Satyrical | |
| Player: @Rapunzel | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 21 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | ' |
| Known Aliases: | ' |
| Species: | semi humanoid, sentient herd beast |
| Age: | Unknown |
| Height: | 4' 2" |
| Weight: | ~60 lbs |
| Eye Color: | brown |
| Hair Color: | brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Officially a citizen of Peregrine Island |
| Occupation: | Hero |
| Place of Birth: | An otherwise unknown and unimportant planet |
| Base of Operations: | Peregrine Island |
| Marital Status: | single |
| Known Relatives: | All back home |
| Known Powers | |
| Quick with a bow, hits like a mack truck, very fleet of foot | |
| Known Abilities | |
| telepath/empath accustomed to a herd mind structure, can not read or write | |
| Equipment | |
| bow, quiver, pouch of dried fruit | |
| While she has learned English, she can often switch between mental speech and mouth speaking without noticing. She will then refuse to admit she is a telepath. | |
Contents |
Affiliations
Supergroup
She is a member of Solace, one of Astral's recruits from his "recruitment drives" which mostly involve him drinking coffee and reading a paper at mass SG events.
Friends and Allies
She looks up to Raam and enjoys fighting beside Laamb, both also of Solace, mostly because they remind her of her herd. She gets very lonely.
Personality
Satyrical is bright, sarcastic, quiet, quick, and thoughtful. She can phrase things oddly, but she is a focused fighter. She has a driving goal of convincing Portal Corps to re-open the scout portal to her homeworld so she can rejoin her herd.
While she is very aware of thoughts and emotions, she doesn't pry into people's private affairs, she is very pen and honest with her thoughts and emotions as well. She is experimenting with learning to have an individual identity, which can be very hard on her. The city environment can also be difficult.
Background Fiction
The doe’s small hooves made hushy sounds as they crushed the grass of the clearing, a minimum of disturbance. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, fully formed for the woods summer plumage. Today should be a quiet day for the herd, a day for music and plenty, gentle celebration. Instead, the wind had brought them new, confusing sounds and smells. Lightning and tar, though there was nary a cloud in the sky and the journey to the tar pits was not for a moon. Big animals lumbered clumsily through the plants, breaking young branches carelessly. The herd was alert, and curious. The herd went into hiding, sending scouts to investigate the anomaly. Some went to examine the animals, easy to track by their noise. She had been sent to find where they entered the forest.
She followed their back trail, quickly, quietly, which brought her hooves to the clearing. She took care to avoid last year’s leaves and tinderfall, more out of habit than a need for silence. Even if she had snapped a branch or dry leaf under hoof it would scarce be heard over the din of the alien machine. It buzzed and whirred like never ending lightning or rockfall. She scented the air delicately, her large liquid eyes blinking. It smelled sharp, like blood or forging metal. It was metal-forged, a great circle, upright like a henge, lit with unfamiliar magic. She straightened her quiver on her shoulder and examined the clearing again – it was empty, except for the circle-henge.
Henges were portals, doors of power. The herd needed to know what powers were in the forest. Once the decision was made, she had no hesitation, she leapt across the clearing and into the circle.
“There’s nothing here, no sign of Clocks or Freaks or Nems or nothing. Its woods. Like Pennsylvania only harder to get to and no Amish. Can we go home?”
“Let Mick finish the scan, sit tight, will ya?”
“Whatever Sarge.”
“The scan is pretty clear, a couple of anomalies that might be sentient made, but nothing Praetorian. If they are, its pretty low tech. No signs of life larger than small deer, and this sort of woodsy stuff as far as the scanners can reach. Some good metal deposits, not enough to send a team back for, but if someone were here, they’d be using them. It’s a goosegg, Sarge.”
“Alright. Another useless dirtball in a universe full of them. Now, we can go home. Log it and lose it.”
The Portal corps scout team packed up their gear and tromped back to the exploratory portal. Their job was like most military grunt positions – 99% boredom, 1% pure, mortal terror. While every safe jump meant they crossed another location off the nearly infinite list of places to look for the Preatorians, it also meant that the unit pretty much stuck their thumbs up their collective asses waiting for a complete scan to come in before hiking back to the portal and then waiting in Portal Corps for the next jump to get set up. Excitement usually consisted of a scanner malfunction. Major excitement was large native predators. Those were the good jumps, on occasion, a scout group found enemy presence and things would get interesting. On more than one occasion, enemy presence was logged to a location because the scout group never reported back. This one wasn’t bad – breathable atmosphere that even smelled nice, neither mud nor desert, and even the bugs had figured out that the humans in the party weren’t good eating. Forty minutes after the scan came up blank, the troops burst back into the clearing.
“Where are we on time?”
“7.4 hours, Sarge. With three complete jumps today.”
“Lets call this a day then, boys. Good work…Hey! Where’s Pluto? That lazy SOB ...”
No one really talked about the hind guard. It wasn’t good to think about it. Portal Corps hired a special member for each scout troop that didn’t follow the chain of command. Officially, they were specifically to guard the portal, but most people understood that they were guarding it from capture more than they were guarding the rest of the scouts. A small scout troop wasn’t much to lose compared to losing a portal straight into the heart of Paragon City to the Pratorians. The hind guard made that choice, and was charged with the destruction of the portal in case of overwhelming attack. When that option was exercised, the scouts couldn’t get home until a new portal was opened. Usually, when a self destruct was reported back, the new portal was invasion grade and placed somewhere else, weeks later. The chance for a small group of scouts to survive an attack, in enemy territory, for that long, and be able to freely make their way to the return portal, in a war zone… was grimly small.
Hind guards were carefully evaluated for a personality that would be willing to self destruct the portal, regardless of what side they or any of the scouts were on. It took a highly pragmatic, and perhaps sociopathic, person to fit the profile. They were cycled between scout teams frequently – or more specifically, scout teams were changed between portals. Hind guards kept their portals, but not their scout teams. They were all referred to as Pluto, for reasons lost to tradition, as teams stopped trying to learn their names. In practice, hind guards paid little attention to which side of the portal they were on when they were guarding it, often wandering back ‘inside’ for a smoke or a bathroom break.
“Maybe he went inside.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter. Let the bastard watch his own back, I want to get off my feet and get a cold beer.”
“We should shut it down on our way out, serve him right if he got stuck.”
“What about it Sarge?”
“Nobody touches the controls but the Pluto. He can explain the extra drain on the grid if he leaves it on past when we sign out. We get in, get a scan, and get out. I suggest you all stop working your mouths and get out before I lose my giving mood and decide we need another scan.”
The troops hustled into the portal and within moments the clearing was only inhabited by the whirring, buzzing portal, droning in the fading sunlight.
Their boots clanged loudly on the metal ramp, their celebratory mood dampened when the Pluto entered the big Portal Corps mustering area. The opposing groups surveyed each other. Officially, the Pluto was supposed to be last in, last out and not leave his post. Officially, a scout troop wouldn’t be coming back without their Pluto. Officially, the Pluto wouldn’t be inside before them. Officially, no one on either side had the rank to reprimand the other. It was an uncomfortable silence.
“Your portal, Pluto. All scouts returned with full kit.”
“Thank you Sarge.”
The Pluto had the decency to hustle to check the logs so he could release the scouts. The portals used a tremendous amount of energy, and the records of their draw on the grid were used to track mass transferred through the portal on any given run. Until the masses balanced, or were accounted for, by the Pluto, the troops were held in the muster. Officially. Unofficially, if the Pluto hadn’t appeared, Sarge would have released them all, signed out the log and left.
The Pluto cleared his throat. “Ugh… Sarge.”
The silence deepened.
“We’re about 60-70 pounds off. Anyone shoot a deer, pick a bunch of mushrooms or something?”
“Off? Which way?”
“Too high.”
“Let me look at that.”
The collected audience sucked in their breath. Bringing stuff back was a no-no for log and lose locations. Too low could be explained by a lost kit, but too high meant contamination, quarantine. But no one ever second guessed the Pluto. An angry Pluto could make trips hell for a scout troop. The Pluto took it in stride, stepping back from the monitor, the scouts tried not to watch. The Sarge poked at the display roughly, trying not to let his nerves show. Sixty pounds of contraband would keep them quarantined for a month before they were disciplined, and none of them would be allowed through a portal again.
“Its not my scouts. It came through independent, see this spike?”
The Pluto nodded and again they were all silent. Independent meant alive, and either too stupid to avoid a large loud machine, or sentient.
“You find any sentients?” The Pluto’s voice lost its strident sting. An independent had gotten through his portal while he wasn’t at his post, and while no one in the muster could censor him, the facts could not be denied, and would be discussed with someone who was in his chain of command.
“Possible signs. Very low tech.”
“I’ve gotta lock us in.”
“Yes you do, son. Hope its still in here.”
The Pluto hit the lock down button and the doors to the scout cell shut with a heavy thud. Somewhere, alarms were ringing and combat troops were running to the other side of the blast doors. Officers were being made aware of the lock down and reports would have to be filed. The portal went dark and the buzzing they had all grown used to stopped, making the big room eerily quiet.
“Lets get a move on boys, search this hole.”
The space held one big portal, but a surprising number of shelves and bins of equipment, spare parts, old parts, ramps and sensors… a lot of places to hide for 60 pounds of…something. The scouts were scouts though, and they quickly organized a search, letting the Pluto sit out and try to figure out how he was going to try to save his ass. It didn’t take long to flush their quarry. Small hooves skittered across the metal floor, leaping from one hiding place to another.
“There it went!”
“Did you see? It’s a fast little bugger!”
“Circle it in!”
The scouts tried to get around behind it, but the little animal *leapt* over their heads. One panicked and fired a wild shot, the bullet pinging around the walls before losing enough energy to fall.
“What idiot fired that shot?”
“Did you see it JUMP?”
“God, its tiny.”
“Its in the corner, Davis and Pug, cover it from back here, when it goes up, STUN it.”
It never jumped, a scout on the flank ‘ooofed’ as the breath was knocked out of him and he landed on the ground, retreating hoof beats resounded in the chamber.
“You okay?”
“It hit me like a linebacker, but I’ll live.”
“I don’t think it wants caught, Sarge.”
“I think you’re right. Back off it, boys. Give it some room. Its probably scared out of its little skull. Its alright, the boys are just nervous about things they can’t see. Come out and say hi, will you? We don’t want to hurt you, but if we keep chasing, something bad’s gonna happen sooner or later.”
A few nervous taps identified their quarry’s newest hiding place, but a fierce frown from the Sarge was enough to dissuade anyone from trying to go after it. Small hooves on metal were the only sounds as the little animal revealed herself. She was most definitely female, and equally definitely not human. She looked human enough, from the waist up, if you ignored the heavy horns curving back from her forehead, and the fact that she stood maybe four feet tall. It was below her carefully tooled belt that made the scouts wonder at what they were seeing – perfectly formed deer, or maybe goat, legs. She wore little, some light leather armor on shoulders and forearms, a halter that was more for function than modesty, and the belt. Below the belt was only her pelt and hooves. She danced from hoof to hoof, her long, delicate legs graceful even in her tense state.
“Uh… Sarge?”
“She’s got…legs.”
“I think that’s a satyr. My kid has a book…”
“Let me handle this. Hello. I…Sarge. Can…you…understand…me?”
Her face broke into an infectious smile, and laughter flowed over them like a tiny waterfall or a series of bells. ‘Oh yes. There is understanding.’ Her voice was comforting and rich, sweet and musical. Her lips didn’t move.
“Good, good. We don’t want to hurt you. We were just looking at your plane to see if any of our…friends…were there. Why did you come here?”
She tilted her head charmingly and listened, while a scout crept around behind her with a sticky blanket for restraining live specimens.
‘Your search disturbed the herd. The herd looked to understand. We mean no harm to each other.’ She paused, exhaling in a little huff as the scout leapt at her with the blanket, trying to pin her. She fluidly stepped aside and he found himself with a wickedly pointed arrow pointed at his throat. As quickly as she had drawn and knocked the archaic weapon, he did not doubt her skill with it. Or her meaning. He went perfectly still.
‘You do not say true, Sarge’ The musical voice pulsed with sadness. ‘How can there be understanding without truth?’
The other scouts had likewise drawn weapons, but she scarce seemed to notice that she was the focus of half a dozen modern rifles. Her liquid eyes searched for and met the Sarge’s, filled with disappointment and innocent confusion. The burly, battle hardened man wilted under her disapproval.
“Sorry miss. We…uh…we’re in a spot of trouble over you being here.”
‘I am truly sorry.’
With her face turned fully toward him, this time he saw it, and understood that the musical voice was only in his head. “You’re a goddamned telepath!”
He turned to the Pluto in anger and the scouts withdrew from the psychic in fear. “You let a goddamned TELEPATH through the portal, what are we going to do now?”
‘Put me back.’ The chaos paused to examine the little source of the trouble.
‘Your magic brought me here. You do not intend to return. I have found what I sought, and you have not. I wish to return home. Put me back.’ The arrow and bow disappeared as quickly as they had come, and the scout she had threatened crab walked away from her before getting to his feet.
“You’re a telepath. You’ve read all of our thoughts and you know everything, we can’t put you back, it would be too dangerous. We’re at war, little miss.”
The little deer-woman looked indignant. ‘I would never <bzzzzz> anything you didn’t wish me to <bzzzzz>. To do so would be indecent.’ The voice did something, not quite a buzz, but fuzzed out to a layered babble, like a chorus all saying different words, maybe “see” and “hear” and “know” all at once with echoes of “taste” “touch” and “share”. The concept got across, that she found the idea insulting and distasteful, not just illegal, but immoral, and disgusting.
“She doesn’t really know English, she’s just …making words happen, somehow.”
‘I know no languages of yours, but there is understanding.’ She smiled and laughed again, and everyone relaxed. ‘Put me back. It is lonely here.’
“The portal’s down anyway. Its not up to us, you gotta work it out with the brass, little miss.”
That was the last bit of sympathy she was accorded for a while. The Pluto and Sarge made their reports. The scouts were quarantined, but released from charges of wrongdoing. The Pluto was dishonorably discharged to an undisclosed location due to possessing important war secrets. The satyr was reported as an independent sentient telepath and the Portal Corps promptly tried to hush up the news of a portal leak. She answered the questions of fifteen different nervous psychologists, as best she could, sometimes answering questions they had asked about her from outside the room. Or behind one way glass, which was quickly found to be useless. She refused to give up her weapon, and no one could find a way to separate her from her belongings without risking great injury – to others as well as to the unique being.
Finally, the Portal Corps could find no reason to hold her, and she was getting more and more strident that they return her home. Their primary military interest in her died early, as she flatly refused to delve into the minds of unwilling subjects, or participate in tests of her telepathy. She quickly learned “mouth talk” and, as news of her filtered to ever higher channels, fewer people believed she really was telepathic, not trusting the early reports.
Portal Corps gave her citizenship papers and released her into the city. If she had been a non sentient, they would have had to return her to her native planet as part of their policy on non-disruption. But because she was a sentient being, she was given the same right all other citizens of Paragon had to demand a portal be opened to a backwater plane – none at all.
“How am I to get home?”
“Please sign here, releasing Portal Corps from all responsibility for your well being in exchange for the costs of your transport and upkeep since.”
“But this is not my home.”
“You are lucky the company isn’t suing you for all you are worth – misusing a portal like that. Do you know how much it costs to operate those things?”
“I just want to go back.”
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“I didn’t know, isn’t that what your company was doing in the forest, seeing to know?”
“All portals are clearly marked as sovereign property of Portal Corps, and not to be used by untrained personnel of any species. Please sign.”
She took the pen, and examined it. The clerk had to turn it over so the nib touched the paper.
“Go on, sign your name.”
“Name?”
“Your name. Your identifier. Write down who you are.”
“The herd has no names. I am who I am, part of the herd, but always myself and no other.” She didn’t bother mentioning they had no writing either. She had discovered that the communal memory of humans was based on physical idolatry, unlike the herd’s mental network of thought and memory.
“Fine, I’ll witness that you were told. You’re free to go.”
“Go where? I only want to go home. Open another portal for me and I will go home.”
“I can’t do that. It is not worth the power to open a portal for just you, you’ve been told that. Unless you can convince Portal Corps differently, they have better ways to burn power.”
“I will do that.”
She left, leaving a disgruntled clerk with un-filed paperwork behind. Her determined hoofbeats quickly got lost in the noise of Peregrine Island commerce.
“Little miss! LITTLE MISS!”
She turned toward the noise and smiled timidly, the crowd having dulled her earlier ferocity as the reality of her situation sunk in.
“Sarge?”
“What are you doing here? I thought you would be long gone, especially after they hustled you off like that.”
“Portal Corps will not send me home. It is not their policy.”
“Aye. They can be difficult with their rules.”
“I hope I did not cause you too much difficulty.”
“No…Hey! You can talk! Did I just imagine…” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Nevermind. You look lost.”
“I want to go home.”
“Ah. But Portal Corps doesn’t listen to the likes of us. You know who they do listen to? Heroes.”
“Heroes?”
“Very special people, beings, some of them ain’t too human, most of ‘em are, whatcha call it, super human, for some reason or another. They protect the city, and when Portal Corps has a big problem, they help out. So Portal Corps listens to them. Maybe they can get you home, couldn’t hurt to try. If they won’t help you, they might give you a job, at least. The way you move, you might be able to hack it.”
