Shadows of Bankor

Juri had left her clinic to aid in the recovery efforts. The Slums were likely the worst impacted by the quake. And so she went about, aiding in the recovery. Her keen memory, amplified by the sparkle of her earrings. She worked with a small group of people, using memory to begin recovery, and reinforcing.

The relief efforts had a good start.

LA4 - Memories to Rebuild By - (Intellect 4, Knowledge (Lore) 2, +4eB Neural Charm, Hard Difficulty, +1eS Chaos, +1eS Suspicion, Difficulty reduced by 1 by Secret Lore, -1eS Secret Lore. Destiny Upgrade): 3eP+1eA+4eB+2eD+1eS 3 successes, 4 advantage
4 strain suffered from Neural Charm. Using 4 advantages to recover 4 strain. Triumph added from Vaya's Valuable Facts during the quake.

Suspicion reduced by .5

”Flashback to the Clinic… wrote: "That felt big," Vaya said. "Real big. Think we'll be busy soon?" She tried for deadpan, but her voice shook slightly. "Give me a second, I think I can find the first responder channel..."

Valuable Facts (Education, for the bureaucracy of emergency management)
D4MA Valuable earth quake facts: 1eP+3eA+2eD 1 success, 1 advantage


Add to Juri’s roll a Triumph and two Advantages.

Vaya was a one-woman electron cloud around Juri, scouting ahead to find which ways were safe and which collapsed buildings were soon to have still-savable people pulled from them, with her handing her supplies, trying to manage the crowd, and helping with the lesser parts of triage, and behind her making sure the walking wounded knew which way to go to find more help. All the while she kept her comm to her ear, using the chatter on official channels to help guide their unofficial response.

She wiped sweat from her brow. Her antennapalps alternated between full extension, aimed at half-collapsed buildings and alert for the cracking sounds that might mean they were coming the rest of the way down, and huddled retraction from the aural and emotional clamor. She stepped in front of Juri and shoved a canteen at her. “Medical practitioner, prognosis thyself,” she said insistently.

The Witch gently took the canteen, bowing her head in thanks to the Balosar. She drank from it, finding herself quite refreshed from the liquid. Savoring it for a moment, she returned the canteen.

"The situation isn't as bad as it could have been, thanks to your help, Vaya." She responded, wiping her brow. The "doctor" examined the work that was occurring around them. "But there is still so much to do. And our neighbors here... they won't get it from the Empire."

Not quite far from here a lanky nemoidian was studying the damage and was...asking...people to do certain thing. Many where too panicked to listen but there was more then enough to form small groups and form more efficient chains to remove rubble and clear streets.

Earthquake! helping the locals. Knowledge warfare,: 2eA+2eP+3eD+1eS 2 successes, 1 advantage


''If rescue teams arrives, they will need the way open.'' They might get to where it is easier to get to as well

Juri Saizesh wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 03, 2020 5:28 pm

"The situation isn't as bad as it could have been, thanks to your help, Vaya." She responded, wiping her brow. The "doctor" examined the work that was occurring around them. "But there is still so much to do. And our neighbors here... they won't get it from the Empire."

Vaya gave her a hard-to-read look as they paused a moment in the shade, and, with the decreased self-control brought on by mild heat exhaustion, spoke some of what was on her mind. “It’s terrible, but I think I like this better than the other times I’ve come to help you,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse. “The day-to-day stuff, the way people have to live, I can’t see me ever making that better. Here, now, like the night we met…” she took another swallow of water. “I can see it more clearly.” She offered the canteen again.

"It will be the small day to day things, that lead to the shift in the big picture." She nodded. "But the direct action in working after drama. I get what you're saying. It actually feels like you're making a difference."

A small sigh, gently resting a hand on the balosar's shoulder, then taking the Canteen. "Harmony occurs with small little steps, Vaya. Big shifts have big reactions, not always good."

Vaya’s lips quirked up at the hand. She wasn’t very touchy herself (one of the many deficiencies in her bedside manner), and more often got to watch Juri’s unselfconscious approach to it applied to her patients.

“Historians argue a lot over whether the day-to-day or the drama makes the difference. The maximalist positions are either that the drama sweeps the day-to-day away, or the drama is only ever the result of the day-to-day building up.” Vaya wasn’t really self-conscious about dropping ten-credit phrases like maximalist position in any context, but with Juri in particular she’d come to expect her to follow along, whatever her mysterious and unorthodox educational background was.

“The black-and-white’s more fun to argue, but I figure the smart money was on somewhere in between. I think I wrote a good paper on that once…” she trailed off, remembering that she had, but she’d written it for a wealthy Commenorian in exchange for drinking money.

It occurred to her that even though she was probably too hot to feel hungry, she should eat. She reached in to the pack of clinic supplies for a ration bar. Offering half of the processed injection-molded protein to Juri, she said on a whim “If you could have any meal for dinner tonight, what would you pick?”

The Witch politely took the offered portion, thoughtfully chewing on it as she thought on the question. "The system I was from, had a species of wild porcine, a hellboar." She looked to the Balosar. "Heavily season the meat, charred over a bonfire. Usually served with foraged vegetation. The meat was succulent and cooked where even with the char, it was still rare and tender."

Juri nodded. "I haven't had it in a long time. And I very much would love to have it tonight. What about you?"

“That sounds pretty good right now.” Vaya had been listening to Juri rather than composing her own response, so she took a minute as she chewed on her ration stick. She swallowed the dry lump and made a face.

“I’ve had a one-two-a couple of real fancy meals in my life, like the kind where you have more utensils then you really know what to do with. Usually before or after an expedition, if whatever more-important-than-me Professor who was leading it was either raising money or showing off what we had done to the people who had given us the money. Sometimes I got picked to go along. You can get bad luck and something gross is fashionable, but mostly really rich people hire really good cooks. That’s probably the tastiest stuff I’ve eaten.

“Growing up, though, what I always thought was the aurum standard for luxury was a really big combo meal from Biscuit Baron." She gestures as if holding such a prize. "Ardees, extra blue sauce, all the tinsel and glitter.” She shrugged. “So that’s the first thing that comes to mind. Or stomach, anyway. Classy, right?”

"Class has nothing to do with what one desires, Vaya." She was quite intent on the Balosar as she listened, holding the little remainder of the ration bar in her fingers. She took a last thoughtful bite, looking to the nearby crowd being directed by a Neimoidian.

"Your any meal choice should be what sparks the most joy. And damn anyone who judges that choice."

Vaya found herself looking away from Juri's sustained attention. It wasn't unpleasant per se. She paid attention to you with a focus that was unusual, and even with no judgment in it it was... bracing.

Juri Saizesh wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2020 3:02 am

"Your any meal choice should be what sparks the most joy. And damn anyone who judges that choice."

Vaya laughed, once but genuinely, mirth scaled to the damage around them. "I think that's the harshest thing I've ever heard you say, Juri."

"You receive twice back what you put out into the Galaxy. I try to keep my thoughts positive, Vaya." She rather enjoyed the Balosar's laugh, and it was reflected in the way she beamed at her.

"Can I ask you something, rather sensitive?" She spoke, lowering her voice and leaning in.

"What did you think of..." she looked over her shoulder, and raised an eyebrow before whispering, "...the Jedi?"

Vaya, who had had no idea where it was going when she leaned in to match the smiling Juri, smirked like she had just made a dirty joke. This was one part artifice, in case anyone was spying on them (in the middle of a disaster zone?). The rest was genuine amusement that Juri was basically acting like she was asking if Vaya had noticed the posterior on the cute so-and-so nearby. She’s also using the past tense. She gestured to a fallen chunk of masonry wide enough for two, and sat.

She spoke in a quiet voice. “I didn’t really think about them at all, for most of my life. Never met a Jedi Knight.” A careful half-truth, there, less because she didn’t trust Juri and more because it wasn’t her secret to share. “They guarded the Republic, I guess, but what had the Republic ever done for me?

“At the University, you specialize a lot. People have been picking at history for so long that it’s like people who keep on cutting a pastry in half over and over because they don’t want to take the last piece.” She made a mincing gesture, one hand’s edge towards the other’s palm. “I ended up picking a sub-field, and then a sub-sub-field, because that’s where the grants and the least obnoxious PI’s were.” As is usually the case with Juri, she doesn’t stop to explain maybe-obscure terms, trusting her to pick it up from context or ask. Also, she was rambling because of the damned heat, and apparently comfortable enough with Juri to let herself.

“Anyway, that led me to my current interest, in things,” she dropped her voice a little lower, and said the words with the exact same intonation she might name some kind of feitsh, ”ancient and mystical.” She continued, still quiet but normal. “Doing that I mostly got the sense that the Jedi were real pains in the ‘palps. Both personally -- I’ve been told to back off culturally sensitive materials on more planets than you have fingers, but the Jedi act like they’re cosmopolitan beings of the Galaxy. Then all of a sudden you have a librarian with a laser sword telling you they can’t let you read their stuff because it’s ‘forbidden.’” She made air quotes with her fingers and her antennapalps simultaneously.

“But they also were just so… monolithic! There’s other traditions out there that speak of something like…” she had briefly let herself get more engaged, realized she was getting too animated for this sort of public conversation, and leaned back with a smile. “... the, you know, whatever. But the Jedi have been… were so big for so long, it’s hard to find them in all the noise.”

She grew more subdued. “Now, though… historians read a lot of narratives manufactured by people with power. They’re the ones most likely to survive for millenia, after all. And I can see the story changing in front of my eyes. The day before the Clone Wars ended, they were heroes who could fling around starships with their minds. The day after, they were sorcerous traitors who almost took over the Galaxy and had to die. You still hear that on places like Bankor where they’re being hunted.

“Other planets, though?” She took on a mock-officious tone. “‘Oh, the Jedi? Weird old religious order. There were only ever 10,000 of them. How odd that such a relic was part of government.’” She frowned. “In ten years? It’ll probably be ‘Jedi who?’”

"It would be sad if such knowledge was lost." She said sadly, but then offered a knowing look. "You're right. There are other traditions." Juri remained close to the Balosar as she spoke, gauging her reactions.

"Some maybe closer to you than you think." Her eyes narrowed, quite pleased with herself. "We should have tea tomorrow, Vaya."

And you'll see something that may just spark your interest.

Vaya couldn't hide a grin. Now we're getting somewhere. "I'd love tea."

/Scene?