Futuristic Operation: Colony Salvage - Darkness, My Old Friend (In-character OOC.)

[TheCommoner]

Character Sheets

Actual OOC

Lore

((Fun experimental idea I had. Your characters can interact here in between operations. A more proper OOC exists alongside this one.))
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The engines of the Sternwork whirl all around, as set quite apart from the clean, bright lighting of the rest of the rig, was a quaint little place, lit up with neon lighting; a tacky remnant of an older age. Booths and tables decorated the place, along with a smooth carpet adorned with black speckles. Prominently displayed on the center wall was a long countertop, smooth and shiny, lined with empty glasses and company-approved mugs. Behind the countertop, was a humble robot, coated in a plasteel casing, with square pincers and a glass-domed head. A name read along an LED display scrolled its name along its chestplate: "Horace". The robot waited patiently for the new employees to enter its bar, knowing full-well the horrors that lay below. Behind Horace were exotic alcohols from all across the galaxy, each one listed with a price.

Other than the drinks, booths and tables, there was still yet more to this place. Holo-Foozball in one corner, conventional Billiards in another, and a whole wall lined with arcade cabinets, lined with human games dating all the way back to the utterly ancient "Pac-Man" all the way up to more recent titles, like "Firework Minigolf". In an otherwise joyless job, this bar, Darkness, My Old Friend, was a place of fun and revelry.

 

[Abstracty]

Kasimir Sklovov couldnt help but look mildly impressed as he entered into the neon-lit bar. The burly Scrofian let his gaze wander for a moment to take everything in, before letting out a satisfied snort. "Not too shabby, not too shabby...", he muttered, as he strutted his way directly to the bar. "Oi, tinhead!", he snarled, to get the robotic clerks attention, as if he hadnt been eagerly awaiting his first customer. Kasimir soon furrowed his snout, as he realized this wasnt one of the completely brainless automatons he so often encountered, but he didnt feel bad for too long as his eyes caught on to the prices. "Well, good thing I got myself some vouchers...", he huffed, while shaking his head.

Armed with a Bloody Mary, the mercenary soon sat himself down at one of the flashier game tables. But instead of selecting one of the explosively named games on offer, he fiddled an old deck of cards from one of his tracksuits many pockets. Taking occasional sips from his drink, the Scrofian began shuffling and sorting the cards whilst he waited for other patrons to arrive. He knew that it would be only a matter of time and he was all too curious to see who else might arrive after him.

 

[TheCommoner]

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Horace's thermal sensors detected its first patron, as its metallic body whirled around to meet them. Scrofian. Bulky. Of a middling age, based on their posture. The whole while Horace scanned the pigly patron, algorithms ran wild in its head to determine probabilities: things like their maximum tolerance, what to do in event of a medical emergency, and searching upon the Galactanet for surveys on drinks popular among Scrofians. Thankfully, it wouldn't have to think for long, as he was clear, to the point about what he wanted.

Horace's A.I. operated on the Federation developed ChatGPT version 10, and so it had processed his greeting, and his order, rather quickly. The Bloody Mary was his, in a matter of seconds. Once done, the robot had time to process Kasimir's opening remark. "Tinhead"... a thorough scan of Horace's own innards suggested he was only 2.8% tin, located within its joints. His head, meanwhile, was mostly glass and circuitry. It spent a moment trying to determine if Kasimir had referred to it as a "Tinhead" simply out of ignorance, or if it was in fact a derogatory remark towards Robots. The consensus it built leaned towards the latter. It understood, though. Robots didn't have a decent reputation in the galaxy, what with the whole "killallhumans" virus, but that wasn't their fault! As much as it wanted to refute this, to call out the Scrofian, maybe even fire back, a block in its programming kept Horace silent, save for a single sparking of its circuitry, visible from behind its glass dome.

Once Kasimir had been seated, something within Horace's programming kicked in. Every half hour or so, it had been programmed to spout off harmless trivia regarding the Bar, and the Sternwork. Its arms bent slightly, as the machine pinged:

"Trivioid #73: The Bar "Darkness, My Old Friend", was once designated as a "Dive" bar. Employees once favored it for its authenticity to rural Federation bars, but after 2 months of service, increases in employee depression saw time usage increase here, and time usage everywhere else decrease. Improvements were made to cheer up the atmosphere, with the addition of arcade games, and neon lighting." The robot's voice module, buzzy and monotone, wasn't as sophisticated as its A.I. module. Typical of a company owned robot, costs being cut wherever they could. With its trivioid subroutine finished, Horace returned to its original programming, cleaning mugs, and scanning for new patrons.

 

[ThatWhichShouldBe]

Excelsus emerges into the bar clad in his full armor, pneumatic mechanisms hissing as his armor depressurizes and his helmet unlocks. The Knight is clad in a massive suit of highly advanced power-armor, the top of the line, bought with corpo scion money. But from the battle damage, it was definitely sure that it had seen genuine action, rather than simply being a trophy piece. Excelsus doffs the helm to reveal a handsome face almost certainly sculpted by some amount of plastic surgery as he takes a seat, a slightly unhinged grin on his face, as he orders from the bar... one, two, three bottles of whiskey at once. Whatever he was, he seemed to be a heavy damn drinker.

Upon spotting Kasimir, he raises a bottle with a cheerful grin on his face in a toast.

"Hail, friend. I'm guessing you're here for the same business?"

 

[Abstracty]

Kasimir didnt flinch when the robotic barkeeper snapped around towards him, but he was immediately impressed by how quickly his drink was served. Perhaps there was a reason why he had lost his previous barkeeping job to a robot, although he knew that it had probably been more about his own faults. At least he could appreciate some of Horaces handywork, thanks to his limited work experience in the field.

As he was fiddling with his cards, the barkeeper randomly - at least thats what it sounded like to Kasimir - started blurting out trivia about this bar. The mercenary let out a wet grunt through his snout. "Yeah... huh... erm, no shit?!", he clearly didnt know what to make of this uncalled for fact. But immediately after, a grin formed on his tusk-armed face. "Ya know what... I apologize for that tinhead comment. You seem like your a decent bloke, Horace. Or erm... been programmed to be a decent bloke. Doesnt matter. Just warn me before you spout out stuff like that and I might just listen to it!", he then proclaimed, raising his glass towards the robot.

It didnt take long for another patron to enter the bar and once again the Scrofians glass was raised to toast. "Hail, fancy boy! From the looks of it, you are planning to shoot up this joint. Are ya afraid to cut yourself with the plastic spoons here?", he greeted back, immediately going over to teasing the man for wearing this kind of armor in a relaxed bar. It was common among mercenaries to trade some jovial insults and banter to assess the other person, so in his own way, Kasimir was being friendly. "Or perhaps you're planning for a party, judging by all those bottles.", he tried another conclusion, as he pointed towards the chair opposite of his.

"You playing?", he asked the armored knight, not even trying to hide the fact that he was eyeing him up and down. The suit was well worn and certainly not factory-new, which saved him from another joke and let Kasimir know that he could take this man seriously. He was oblivious to the handsome face, human beauty was a mystery to him, as they were such an alien race. Kasimir quickly gathered back the cards he had layed out across the table, but his colleague would have had enough time to see, how worn out, greasy and torn they were. Another thing the cards had in common were pictures of half-naked pin-up girls on them, seemingly from all manner of alien races. The human set was quickly shuffled back into the deck, so were the Asinions and Chünk. The one Scrofian ladys card seemed a little more worn than the rest.

"Kasimir Sklovov... usually my comrades call me Choppa...", an introduction was made as he shuffled.

 

[homintales]

Bars are always nice. They're the only place where literally everyone is always welcome It's not like owners are going to miss out on some nice tips just cause they don't like a specific race/species. To Maria, this was quite convenient. Demons weren't trustable, Maria wasn't about to refute that. There was a reason non-political Demons weren't able to just walk inside so many public places. Sometimes they would seize opportunities to 'obtain' souls from citizens. But unlike those Demons, Maria was a lot more tactical. Bars were the perfect HUNTING grounds. Depression was an exorbitant scent, & it was everywhere.

She was able to tell everything about everyone almost instantly. Who was going through tragedy, who was looking to get a nice embrace, those who were just wanting a way to, at least momentarily, lose some awful memories, &, most importantly, those who were, emotionally, vulnerable. But with Maria, it wasn't always about souls. Sometimes SHE was the one looking to obtain some company. Even when this is the case, she still makes sure to profile the same type of people. But today, today she was just thirsty.

Walking in, Maria took a seat at an empty table. "Robot, I'll take anything & everything that has cinnamon in it." Cinnamon, it's so freaking tasty. It's the one thing that can make Maria smile, in a non-sadistic way. She even took out some cinnamon candies. They were spicy & sweet.

Looking to the arcade games, Maria didn't really see anything noteworthy. She was actually finally getting into video games. The first experience was about 3 weeks ago, when she was willing to play some F.E.A.R 3 co-op with a weak Humanish girl who got caught in the net that is Maria's charms. It was pretty fun.

 

[TheCommoner]

To Kasimir's request that he be informed before being startled by trivia, Horace's chat module quickly generated a response, before putting it through its buzzy, compressed voice module.

"Generating alert... confirmed. Listen for this sound, as trivioids will be narrated 5 seconds afterwards:" The machine then let out the same pinging sound it had before, seeming to completely freeze for 5 seconds. After that 5 seconds were up, another brief spark lit up Horace's glass dome. Its inner machinery had just attempted to narrate a trivioid in response to its newly requested alert system; which had just been delaying the trivioid following the ping sound by 5 seconds. Thankfully, Horace had evaded a feedback loop by refreshing its ChatGPT.

Two new patrons! This caused something within Horace's algorithms to express the A.I. equivalent of delight. The first of the new patrons to join Kasimir, Excelsus, his armor suggested he hailed from the Galactic Core. A knight of the Star Dragons, working with a soulless corporation? There must have been some hidden glory in this line of work that eluded the machine. Three entire bottles of whisky. All to himself. Horace wondered if this was healthy. With each bottle containing 750 milliliters of whiskey each, and the safe limit for average humans being only 25 milliliters... well. A knight of the Star Dragons was sure to be made of tougher stuff. Nevertheless, Horace would have medical drones on standby, should Excelsus begin demonstrating symptoms of alcohol poisoning.

But then the next patron came through. Alarms briefly flashed across Horace's heads-up-display, warning of a "Demonic presence detected". The common protocol for space demons boarding the Sternwork were to decouple from the craft-beer kegs and take up the weapons behind the counter, but at the same time, once Horace actually caught a glimpse of the Demon in question, a flag within his system forced the alarms to silence. Maria had signed on quite recently. If she passed the friendliness exam, then there was little Horace could do until she violated company protocols.

She ordered cinnamon. Cinnamon anything. The algorithm within Horace immediately recommended him to serve the most expensive drink containing cinnamon. At this time, that would be the "Burning Passion" craft-beer. It was a typical Federation invention, for the daring drinker who wanted to be metaphorically (and also perhaps literally) lit on fire. Burning Passion's most active ingredients, after all, were cinnamon, carolina reapers, and "safe" doses of plasma.

Horace, however, overrode the algorithm's choice. No need to get any of the new employees killed by sampling the Federation's ridiculous drinks.

"Now serving: Cinnamon Whisky."

The glass was poured, and the drink now belonged to Maria, eager to sweeten and burn the throat. How curious, both Excelsus and Maria had ordered whisky... the most powerful drink for the most terrorizing of jobs, perhaps? Kasimir's drink didn't seem too potent by comparison, but maybe that was only because Excelsus was providing a massive outlier, having ordered enough whiskey to incapacitate the largest of Anacrid monsters, or perhaps even a younger spawn of the Star Dragons the machine believed he served.

 

[Shawdios]

After settling his small amount of belongings in the equally small room the Company gave him, Flame heads to the bar. What other place would be best to meet his pontenal co-workers and assignment members?

Upon arrival, his eyes are first drawn to the game side of the establishment. Then to the people already there. The place was relatively empty, but not uncomfortably so. The smell of alcohol brought a smile to Flame’s face just from knowing the presence of flammables. There was a robot bartender, which was an odd sight to Flame so he checks the bar out first.

Being naturally light on his feet, his boots barely make any sound as he walks over. Technically he wasn’t working, but Flame put them back on because the floors had been freezing. He preferred them being cramped over feeling like he was walking on ice. Flame eyes Kasimir with curiosity as he walks by. He’d met a few scrofians in his time with the Demolition team. They’d been easy to work with and work alongside without trouble, unlike most who were temporarily employed.

“Ya got anything made with mead?” Flame asks the robot as he slips onto a barstool. He settles his wings around his legs and the contact of the feathers to his skin make a mild tinkling sound akin to a wind chime.