The YoungWorld

scrivneria · Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:58 am Post subject: Tavern at the end of the universe

Premise: Does the leading character of your nation have an interesting backstory? Is there a colorful person in your nation's history that you'd like to talk more about or play as? If so, bring them in here. No need for character sheets, just come in on and weave into our frame story.

Opening: In a room that only select individuals can find, floating somewhere in a place that is neither here nor there, yet somehow everywhere; there is a bar. Lest you should think less of it, please understand that the ordinary appearance of this bar is entirely by design. Yet, the bar is made of extraordinary things. The long wooden top is carved of what appears to be ebony, but feels like it could be stone. If you were to ask the bartender, who says his name was something else once, but prefers you to call him Sam, he would tell you that it's a substance called ironwood. The bar rail is made of titanium coated in platinum - and the stools themselves have the same type of metal base, and what appears to be an ironwood framed stuffed armchair on the self-raising top. They are clearly designed to be sat in and enjoyed for extended periods of time. The cabinetry behind the bar is immaculately kept, with rows of closed ironwood cabinets that stretch all the way across the room and rise to the 20 foot ceiling. If one were to look at the ceiling too closely - they would see scenes from the history of many nations, and worlds.

Perhaps, one of them is yours?

Laskon · Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 8:37 pm Post subject:

It had been a long time since he had been called "Mr. President", an honorific he had worn despite being a glorified dictator, something he had eventually acknowledged after the nation collapsed underneath him. Laskon had lasted through multiple wars, constant border conflicts, and raging space battles consuming the skies above it's capital, but it couldn't stop the eventual decay that came from governmental negligence.

The people, until just before the downfall, had been content under his militaristic rule. All the wars and propaganda had always lead to great boosts in the economy, eventually, and he had never had persecuted a particular people in his own nation.

He wanted to blame the remnants of the Holy Avengers, an international terrorist sect that spread chaos and destruction across The Young World, with their own shadowy motives never fully revealed. It had far less to do with them, he knew, though. They had eventually organized the rebels in the capitals and had disabled the rural military bases, but if his back hadn't been turned, they never would have gotten the chance to organize that far in the first place. He had become obsessed with keeping up with the other nations in the space race and maintaining technology superiority over the unruly neighboring nation, Makaar. All the secrets and double-crosses weaved a convoluted web that blinded him to what was going on right under his nose. By the time he realized how he had failed as a leader, the HA were knocking down the doors to the palace and he was nearly killed...

_____

"Sir, do you think it's strange those explosions from the docks haven't been reported to your office yet?" General Orion Var looked back from where he stood facing the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out of President Shrew's private office onto the capital city below.

"Not particularly, no. Especially if it's not something serious." Shrew said dismissively as he shuffled through development reports from the various committees working on his current obsession, combining magic with science.

Var nodded and turned back to the view of the city. He hadn't decided whether or not he was going to tell the President about the recent activities of the Holy Avengers throughout the country. They were small events, stolen technology here, a few dead bodies, nothing more than their usual games. Two cells had already been tracked down and killed or captured. It was being taken care, and although no real information was being pulled from those being interrogated, nothing lead him to believe the President needed to be pulled from his recent distractions. He had been prone to angry outbursts, anyway. And although the General never had to fear for himself with the President, they had been through far too much together for such a thing to exist between them, he was concerned for his leader's present state of mind.

Still, Shrew always hated being out of the loop.

"Sir, I hate to distract you from your work, but the Laskonian Counter-Terrorist Unit has recently been..."

His words were cut off by a sharp ping from behind him. Recognizing the sound, he immediately dropped to the floor and his hand was on the .45 automatic pistol he kept at his side.

Shrew had also dropped behind his desk, and poked his head up, now clutching a .40 caliber pistol in his hands. The papers lay on the desk, forgotten.

Both of their eyes were drawn to the small divot now showing itself in the super-thick bulletproof glass of Shrew's office window. Tiny cracks protruding from it, it was unmistakeably a bullet now lodged in the glass.

"To make that much of a dent in the glass...that's a high caliber fucking sniper rifle." Var muttered and he rolled behind a chair that still offered him a view of the window. "We need to get out of here. Did you alert the..." Once more he was cut off by the sounds of gunfire, this time it came from everywhere, seemingly. The muffled sound of explosions followed, and suddenly hundreds of bullets were now smashing against the window.

The window still held, although it was visibly cracking and shaking. "Guess they figured a sniper rifles not going to work, whoever these fuckers are" Var snarled over the cacophony to the President. "We need to GET OUT OF HERE."

Shrew nodded, but looked dazed. It was unusual for him to be anything less than capable and calm during a crisis. Var noted this as he rushed back to Shrew's desk, grabbed him by the arm, and lead him to the nearest door to the hallway. It was just then that the first bullet made it through the glass and soon the whole window was being blasted apart. Then another explosion. Var had only an instant to realize this was coming from behind him in the room before hurtling through the door with President Shrew at his side. The two of them were thrown forward as most of the office was destroyed by the RPG round that just finished off the window.

Var felt unhurt, although his adrenaline was through the roof, and he checked the President for wounds.

"Where the fuck is security..." Var muttered. There should have been at least a dozen agents just outside the office, yet no one was here at all. That wasn't true, though. He heard men shouting from both directions down the hall. There were at least a hundred people working on this floor alone of the building, and he had just passed through here an hour ago, yet now, except for the distant shouts and the continued noise of gunfire, now louder outside the office, it was quiet.

It was when they started moving towards the stairs and elevators that all hell broke loose.

scrivneria · Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 2:18 am Post subject:

Walking into the bar with his cloak over one black-clad arm, Seiner Imperialistisches Majestät Kaiser Matthias XVII of Scrivneria sees a familiar man in a well tailored suit with the bulge of a high-caliber pistol on one hip, and a sword slung across the back of his chair still in easy reach. The man appears to be lost in his thoughts, and Matthias realizes that calling a greeting to his friend will be of little use for the present.

The thump of the Emperor's black boots is nearly deafening in the otherwise silent room of luxury. Taking a seat next to the suited man, and carefully hanging his sword and cloak on the chair for easy access Matthias addresses the bartender. "Sam, you know the drill. As always, I'm much obliged for your great care and kindness."

The man behind the bar opens one of the many cabinets, and it is revealed that inside is a pocket dimension. This one is coated in frost, and has a seemingly endless supply of whiskey glasses made of what appear to be carved ice. Sam carefully removes one and sets it in a special cradle which immediately stops the glass from smoking in the comfortable room. "New design, no melt. You're back in full control of the water level" he says with a pointed look at the black-clad man across the bar who has not missed a single movement. Turning behind him, Sam steps up an ironwood ladder and slides 4 cabinets to the right while climbing to precisely 5 cabinets from the top of the room. Reaching far inside he comes back down with a reddish-tinged amber liquid and pours precisely 2 index fingers and a pinky by measure into the ice glass. "Oloroso cask aged single-malt, 185 years old this morning. Happy birthday Matthias" he says with a smile tipping his head toward his only currently mentally present customer.

"Thank you Sam, it's been a long time since anyone remembered. Have I ever told you the story of how I came to live so long and age so slowly?"

"Maybe you did, but that was in another life. Maybe you'll wait for the President to join us so he can also hear it?"

"Of course you're right" Matthias says as he lifts the cradle delicately and presses the glass to his lips. A low, guttural rumbling comes almost directly from his chest before he intones "the finest you've yet found Sam. I'm in your debt"

After this exchange three silences existed in the bar. The contented silence of the Emperor with his glass. The uneasy and constantly shifting silence of the man in fine sartorial form, and the deep and placid silence of the man called Sam behind the bar. Perhaps that silence drew from the wellspring of a lifetime spent enjoying his work, and then perhaps that silence was derived from a void that was absorbing bad memories from an incredibly long life spent traveling the galaxies prior to the discovery of an out of the way little pocket, made cozy from years of effort and collecting. It is not for any of these three players as yet to say. Will you intrude upon the silence, and bring a story to bear, or perhaps, dredge one of these three from their respective reveries?