eswareinmal | ORB - RD9, Mid-Morning.

[A new face, feminine, blue, and topped by, well, tentacles, appears in the Orb. She looks rather frustrated, and as she speaks, her voice carries a note of the same thing.]

My name is Dr. Liara T’Soni. My kidnapper insisted that this...device...would allow me to speak with others taken from their worlds. Like it was a gift, to help me play his little game. Of course, I’m probably just standing here talking to a rock. Goddess, I haven’t done that for a while.

[Shaking her head, she puts a hand up, covering most of her face.]

There isn’t much I can do without information, and what I’ve been given isn’t very helpful. I don’t suppose that anyone else had more luck getting answers than I did, but it can’t hurt to ask. Do you know anything?

[She drops the hand and sighs.]

We can’t possibly have much time left, so does anyone have a way to get a signal off of this planet? I don’t even know what cluster this is, so I have no idea how far away the front is, but I am certain that it is moving closer. They have hit just about everything else already. I must speak to someone in the allied fleet as soon as possible.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I find it hard to believe there is anyone in the galaxy who hasn't heard something about the Reapers. Especially a human, after Earth.

Yes, I know of a coming attack, though if the technology on this world is mostly forgotten, it may be spared in this cycle. But I know that mine, and hundreds more, have not been passed by.

And while my people die by the millions, I am being held hostage to discover hedge-trimmers.

[Tasha raises one brow at the insinuation but keeps a civil tone.] Well, sorry to burst that unbelievable bubble, but unless you mean Grim Reaper, I'm not sure we're on the same page.

Reaper. Giant, ancient form of sentient machine. As large as a building, even the smallest of them. Intent on destroying all advanced organic life in the galaxy, to propagate a cycle of destruction wherein they harvest us to allow races below their technological threshold to ascend into power, only to be harvested again.

Our cycle is at that point. Earth. Palaven. Kar'shan. Thessia.

[She pauses, gathering herself, forcing the rising emotion in her voice back down. Somewhat.]

I have been watching our worlds destroyed. Our peoples driven towards extinction. The fate of one human kingdom simply does not concern me. I may sound callous, but the scale is negligible. I am sorry if you had not heard about Earth, but more than any other world, any other species, the Reapers have sought to break humanity. Earth has been devastated. We're losing worlds, entire races. The Batarians may never recover, even if we win this war. I don't belong here.

[Given everything she's recently been through, this is slightly more believable now, but Tasha has to wonder if it's her Earth, and what point in time this Liara is from.

Keeping everything business like, she cants her head.] What year was it when you left, doctor? I assume you came by a book, too?

It was twenty-one eighty...

[And there is surprise, now.]

What did you say about a book?

[It's enough to deduce the future at least.]

One minute, I'm reading a book, the next I find myself here and assigned some role to help protect the kingdom. And it seems to be a recurring thing, so...going to assume you're included in that way of travel?

Yes, actually. I thought it sounded ridiculous, so I dodn't say anything.

What do they expect us to do? Details were...vauge.

There's a great deal of magic here. It takes...adjusting.

They have fairy tales where you come from?

I find it hard to credit that magic is the cause of this.

[Tasha snorts.]

How would you explain travel by literature, then?

I...well. Cannot. But simply because I don't understand the mechanism doesn't make it magic.

We once did not understand star travel, and called visitors from above gods. That...[here is a pause that seems meaningful in some way or another]...that did not make it true.

I'm just telling you what I've been told, doctor. Do you remember anything after you woke up? Someone should have greeted you, but...I didn't remember until later my first night.

I...of course.

I'm sorry.

[She closes her eyes.]

An older man. Human, or so he seemed to me. He spoke of danger and thorns, some kind of vine, I think, growing along the border of the kingdm. I did not meet the king, but he was mentioned. All a great deal about magic, which I ignored more than I should have, since it was probably full of clues about whatever process brought us here.

What I don't understand is how these people could be human. Thirty years is not nearly enough time for civilization to fail so dramatically.

[She shakes the sentiment off.] An apology is unnecessary, this place is understandably overwhelming.

[Tasha listens carefully, comparing notes to see what matches and what doesn't.]

Our job is to fight those thorns. They've already obliterated other villages and we have to make sure the incident doesn't repeat here. You were assigned a role.

[The latter can either be taken as a statement or a question.]

Obliterated how? What happened to the peo...nevermind, I don't want to know.

Role?

[She was, but it didn't exactly make sense to her at the time. Yeah, sorry.]

Mage, prince, rogue. I was assigned the role of entertainer.

[Half-truth. Despite her outfit being somewhat of a give away, it isn't completely so, and because it's a habit to withhold information, she regularly falls back on, Tasha doesn't give her exact role away.]

And there seems to be a point to these roles?

[She was the top info broker in her universe; she feels the same way.]

Haven't been here long enough to answer you honestly on that one, doc. But if there really is going to be a battle, then I would think so, yes. The thorns look scary enough, for what it's worth.

I'm an archeologist. I'm not sure I'll be any help fighting on the ground.

[Lies.]

Surely there are better people that could have been approached than I.

Not my call to make. If you have issues, I would guess the king is who you'd take it up with.

[She's not so sure she buys the archaeologist claim, but she's hardly been here long enough to gather a proper list of 'jobs'.]

I studied the Protheans for fifty years. They were more advanced than even my own people when the Reapers destroyed their civilization. I haven't studied primitive civilizations like this for decades. I can't imagine what I know that could possibly be useful here.

Where is this King to be found?

[The archaeology part? Not a lie. Misleading, but true. As far as fighting goes, well. Dr. T'Soni has some experience there...and don't think she isn't wondering what good an 'entertainer' would be, either.]

Probably at the castle. Avoiding us, no doubt. Again, I am sorry, Miss Rushman. I really am not angry at you, merely the situation.

ORB - RD9, Mid-Morning.

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