Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-5543592-20191021184338/@comment-3293219-20191029235651

The Vertibird touched down, outside the abbey, much to the amazement of everyone, who were drawn to it like insects to light. Such engineering was seldom seen, this far away from civilization and never seen up close. Cheyenne stepped down, from the vert, slowly removing her helmet as she did so, revealing her smooth, full head of black hair, unkemptly cut into a bobcut. She stepped forward, past the awestruck faces, who had just seen a mechanical bird fall from the sky and a mechanical man just march out of it, seemingly thinking little of the magnitude of their own existence. She found it charming, given how she would’ve been the same as an ignorant tribal girl. “Back to your dorms, children!” Called out a beautiful looking indian woman, who wrapped up in robes, to his herself from the world around her. Cheyenne found it a shame that she found the need to do it, until she looked down at the children before her. Some of which resembled the elephant man, in some places, due to their deformities. What has this place become? It used to be a place for hoarding knowledge, the biggest library in the Wasteland. Now it seemed to be something... more. Figuring that she wouldn’t get answers anywhere else, she stepped up to the Indian Woman, giving her a faint smile and a wave. “Hey, I’m here for a friend.” “Paul Morgan, right? The unknown strain.” “That’d be... Him, yes.” Cheyenne nodded. “He is with Goris, both are expecting you. Just be mindful of the furniture and the children. Both will break if you knock them, though the children are likely to knock you back. “Something I should keep in mind...” Cheyenne nodded in agreement, she believed it somehow. Everyone was so on edge and she could feel all kinds of things, just standing outside this place. Maybe some children, with telepathic abilities? Beings who naturally gave off radiation or emitted other things, creating a number of sensations for those around them. She was going to need to be screened, after she leaves this place... Inside the shattered ribcage of a church, she found herself surrounded by tomes of books, stacked up high on various heights of shelves. The smallest of the shelves were six feet tall and the tallest were roughly around twenty. It was rather impressive, to see the Library, even more stocked than it was the last time she was here. To her surprise, the elders were still here, in their robes. However, there were so many people of various ages, running about the place. It felt more like a boarding school, than a library at the moment. “Cheyenne?” A familiar, croaky voice echoed, down the hallway. It took her a moment to place it, though she knew that Goris was the Indian Woman’s master... She never imagined that it would be him. She almost broke into a sprint but then remembered that this would be a bad thing. She’d probably kill two or three kids on her way over to him, which would put a bit of a dampener on their reunion and possibly their friendship in general. She moved as quickly as she was able to, moving towards the creepy, dark stairway, that lead down into the basement. She could tell, that Goris had been that way, due to the scuff marks on the floor. Having toe nails, that resembled Machetes, did make it difficult to be discrete. The Tribal made her descent, glowing eyes illuminating the dark. It was at the bottom of this long trek, that she found him, still hiding under all of that burlap, like it would fool anyone. “Well... Time’s been kind to you.” She began as soon as she saw that the Deathclaw peeled his hood back, revealing his slightly faded and cracked albino skin. He seemed older, given that his crest was much tougher and he himself had grown a little, since they last met. In truth, she didn’t think he’d even be alive. The others didn’t last long, after she’d finished her quest and none of the survivors reproduced. She wasn’t even sure if they could, given that they were genetic experiments. “Then what has it been to you, Cheyenne?” Goris offered, eyeing her youthful face in the dark as she hadn’t actually changed a jot, since he last saw her, all those years ago. “I believe Time must truly love you.” “Hmm?” Cheyenne almost had no idea what he was talking about before reaching up and touching her face. Gone were the slightly saggy groves, that she used to like running her fingers along, to alleviate her boredom. It was... freakishly smooth. “You got a mirror?” “Few residents here like to look at their own reflection but there’s a barrel of water over there, if that will do the trick.” Cheyenne shrugged, figuring that it was worth a shot. She peered into it and it almost felt like some sort of time portal, seeing herself, exactly as she did in her twenties. “Is something the matter?” “Erm... Sorry, I took a stimulant.” Cheyenne began, peering back into the well, the girl in there looked almost as baffled as she felt. “It de-aged me...” “Permanently?” Goris offered, getting her to turn back, with a faint smirk. “Wouldn’t that be nice? Nah, it’s temporary... I’m going to start greying over the next hour.” “Hmm... This company that you keep, it’s somehow stranger than the old group, that you ran with. Which isn’t an easy thing to admit, given that you used to run with myself, Sulik and a man with a metal skull.” Cheyenne nodded, feeling bad about that last mention... Cass... She owed him so much and the one thing that he asked of her, she’d managed to fail, outright. “I heard about him... As well as his daughter. I... Wish that I could have done something.” Cheyenne was going to say ‘me too’ but there was a lot of things that she could have done. However, she just kept her cushy life, in California, sending out the occasional feeler just to keep up with her obligation. John was gone and so was his magnificent daughter. Part of her wanted to blame Josey for letting it happen but no... he was there. He tried. He almost died, protecting that girl, while she was consulting NCR politicians, knowing that they cared nothing for what she said. Her doing her job, mattered a lot more than her performance. As a result, she grew way too complacent... it wasn’t until Shrike ripped that one bit of good, left in the west, that she saw it. Old age was a poor excuse for laziness... “I wish I had done something...” She said, stepping up to the lizard, revealing that her hair was starting to lightly discolour as she stepped into the light. “That’s what I’m doing now. I can do nothing else but lend my aid to the people, who want to see her killer dead. I couldn’t do this, on my own, even when I was at my best but I sure as shit can dig the grave, whilst the next generation do it for me.” “Then what?” Goris offered, bringing his hands together. “Or is that how you’ll fix this?” Cheyenne paused, figuring what he was getting at. Annoyingly, he was right... She’d need to do more than simply kill Shrike, to truly make amends? She’d have to live better... To make sure that the world knew that the wilting of Sharon Cassidy’s rose would result in little more than business as usual. “I think I’ll... Help these guys, now that they’re together, a lot of the world’s threats could be easily taken care of. Imagine five Chosen Ones? Something like the Enclave wouldn’t stand a chance.” “Five Chosen Ones sounds like the start of the recipe to destroy the planet... I saw what your friend Paul did, out in San Francisco. He seemed like the sort of danger that we should be protecting the world from, feral, enraged... fractured in his mind and yet he awakens to tell me that he is apparently one of your ‘Devil’s Brigade.’” Cheyenne sighed, taking a breath as she rubbed her hair. “He’s erm... He struggles, with his nature. He draws his strength from his beastial side but he loses something, every time he does. Not too different from a super mutant really... Just more extreme.” “Oh, I know. I merely observe, rather than judge but it took my top Psyker, all of her strength to stop him. He has a behemoth inside him, a monster of insatiable rage. That kind of power strikes me as being a double edged sword... One that’s beyond anyone’s control.” “Well, he’s the only one that can hurt Shrike, from what I’ve seen. At least until the Eggheads come up with something more... effective.” “What manner of beast is she? From what I hear... She regenerates so rapidly, any effort to hurt her seems wasted.” Goris always was eager to learn but she imagined he’d know everything by now. In truth, Cheyenne was glad that she got to see a side of her friend, that nobody else had in possibly decades. “A hired killer, given inhuman strength, with motivation to kill Josey and anyone close to resembling him. The Wanderer, The Survivor, The Courier, possibly me but I’d more or less retired. I’d only be around for twenty years, tops so... doubt she’d care enough to try and do me in but it is a possibility, I guess.” “She has made no effort to contact me... Even if she is as powerful as I’m told, Nadira and her pupils would put her through enough, that it wouldn’t be worth the effort.” “Nadira’s the pretty one, in the robes, right?” “She read you, when you entered and reported it to me. She is the most powerful Psyker we have and I’d say the most interesting of them.” “Psykers? Like Tanner, right? Oh and that... Johnny asshole.” “Yes, Paul told me that you had a few among you. We have three, they came from all over the west coast. A rare phenomenon, that we don’t fully understand but we do our best to nurture their gifts, rather than  allow them to be abused, in the wider world. An enraged Psyker, a murderous Psyker? That could potentially kill hundreds before being taken down... I do my best to downplay the danger, out of fear that they would be rounded up and exterminated, were the NCR or any other flawed group get wind of their potential.” “Well, given that one just stopped Paul from tearing up San Francisco? I imagine that’ll go a long way for them.” Cheyenne shrugged, getting the Deathclaw to sigh, shaking his head. “Sadly, I fear that the public will interoperate it in the worst way possibly. As us flocking together or Paul being on my student, let loose on the town. He’s been thinking on his actions, by his own choice. Waiting for you to take him back, from the looks of it... If he rejects you, he can have a place here. So long as he keeps himself in check.” The Chosen One wasn’t exactly thrilled at the process of facing this but knew that it was necessary. “I’m glad you’re doing okay, Goris... Making the world a better place, more than I ever could.” “It’s your example, that I follow, Cheyenne. It’s your spirit, that I wish to keep alive.” “Why?” The Chosen One gently patted his arm. “Your’s is better than mine ever was.”