jumped without a jump drive

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick, in a full environment suit like any sensible person would wear in untamed wilderness, is overseeing a small swarm of robots harvesting various useful plantlife from the uninhabited parts of a sparsely settled planet, when something suddenly comes tearing through the undergrowth towards him and it's not showing up on scanners-

He raises his hand-phaser, notices it has a mirror for a face and hesitates a little too long. And then he is in a clearing, cut off from his ship and 'bots, with all available sources of data telling him he just went through a jump.

What.

Comments

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"A dockworker's or farmer's or some other low-skill thing. I literally arrived here this morning, Kaja rescued me from a lich, I don't even know what the currency is called but I know I can make it work."

[alicornucopia]

"All right. I'll give you fifteen gold - in mostly silver so people will make change - at fifteen percent annually to be collected in six months unless you can repay sooner. Or, I'll give you thirty at twelve, if you hire my grandson, who I know will not steal from you and who can make sure you don't do anything obviously stupid."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I'm thinking the latter, if he won't want a ridiculous excessive wage. I'll need some copper to use as raw material, if you use copper. And how will the twelve percent annually be compounded? For that matter, this country uses twelve months in a year, correct? Some places don't."

[alicornucopia]

"Twelve months in a year, yes," blinks the moneychanger, "I can give you some of the money in copper -" And then she goes over the compounding math with him.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

Nick is either very good at math, or using a device.

"Sounds good. Where is the contract?"

[alicornucopia]

"I'll fill one in... I'm satisfied with the paladin's witness if you are."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Yes, same here."

[alicornucopia]

So they sign things and Kaja watches them sign things and the moneylender gives him a sack of coins and her grandson's address.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He asks Kaja, "Are you terribly bored? Ideally I could talk to her grandson with you to translate if I run into difficulty, but if you need to return to your compound I will make do."

[segreant]

"I don't need to be back until around suppertime, if you still need me, but you didn't seem to require much translation."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I think I'll be alright. I might mess up idioms and turns-of-phrase, but I have the basics. Thank you for your help."

[segreant]

"You're welcome."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"Oh, I almost forgot, you were going to test a piece of my armor! Let's do that before I forget again."

[segreant]

"Sure. And you probably want to get... something... else... to wear."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

...He buys a set of cheap generic clothes- pants, shirt, decent quality boots- for as few coppers as he can get them. These get folded up under one arm.

Then he follows Kaja back to the paladin compound, removing some sections of plate from underneath the outer layers of the suit along the way.

[segreant]

And Kaja fetches her swordstaff, and awaits a piece of armor.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I'm not sure I want to be holding it when you try this, you're likely to knock me over. I'll prop it against a wall?"

[segreant]

"On the ground. We like our walls."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He sets a forearm-guard, a shoulderpad, and a breastplate on the ground.

[segreant]

Kaja fetches her swordstaff, stands at a reasonable distance from the objects, and brings the weapon over her head and down onto the breastplate with an earsplitting clong.

There's a dent, but it doesn't break.

"Nice stuff," she says.

[rockeye_stonetoe]

He fetches the armor. "It's resistant to fire, by the way, in that it won't let heat pass through it as easily as steel. I can make more, with a few days' warning and some coin for the materials. Would the Bright Sister be interested?"

[segreant]

"Let me see how it takes a blessing," says Kaja, "before I spend her time on finding out." She picks up the armguard. "If you don't mind?"

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"I don't mind."

[segreant]

So Kaja holds the armguard between her hands. "Winter Light, to safeguard your agents from violence and to better serve you, I ask that you grant some small part of your strength to this armor, to protect whichever of our sisters and brothers in your service may have cause to wear it. In your name let it be blessed."

The armor glows a little bit.

"Not as good as fresh steel," she says. "But that might be entirely because you've worn it and you're not a paladin. It'll break if you wear it again, incidentally. And it wasn't bad, and it does start stronger than steel. I bet Bright Sister would like to put paladins in suits of this."

[rockeye_stonetoe]

"...I hadn't expected it to become unusable to me. I wish you'd warned me. Well, in a few days I can replace it and have you bless a fresh piece and see if it turns out better. I still expect to make communication devices for the Order, which will take longer than armor, and I would like to know which to try for first."