glowfic | A Sith Lord's Agenda

Lord Callida's gotten more freedom, ever since she earned her lord status. Her own ship, her own crew, her own missions. She's expected to not get herself killed or do anything stupid, but if she wants to manage her people in a way that Occlus finds kind of bizarre, Occlus is completely fine with it.

So when her engineer does not calm down, and still flinches every time she walks by - well, she finds a replacement, and she decides to transfer him to a place where he does not have to be near a Sith Lord. She has her translation droid, N-V09, nicknamed Envee, conversationally ask him where he'd like to live. Because if she asked he'd whimper out how he's happy where he is, and that's not the honest answer she wants. He turns out to have friends on Balmorra, and quite mysteriously, Callida learns of an open position on Balmorra and sends him a message asking if he would be willing to serve Darth Occlus from there. As it happens, he does, though he prefaces the reply with lots of I'll stay if you still have need of me, my lord, just say the word and I'm your man. She snorts and transfers him.

The astromech droid she picked up on Narr Shaddaa is quite happy with its new status as her ship's engineer, and is much less terrified of her. It rolls up to her near immediately, and beeps, Callida == buy new set of hydrospanners // TN-R13 == hate current set // TN-R13 == unable to do job and is perfectly happy to lead her to the exact set of hydrospanners that it would like. And then it beeps at her the next day, asking for a chassis upgrade and a set of wheels with more traction. Callida considers this a job well done, and upgrades the droid.

She wonders if she's going to end up replacing her entire crew with a legion of loyal droids that are just thankful she treats them in the same category as people. ... She might, though her pilot and doctor both seem perfectly happy to work with her. She'll see about defenses against ion based weaponry, just in case.

But ion weaponry isn't likely to crop up in the tomb that she's been asked to clear out for the archaeologists, so she tables that search for now. Droids as a rule, do better in Sith tombs than organic life, but they don't escape unscathed from the dark aura that tends to permeate the tombs of Sith. They'll stay on the ship, she'll walk in and kill any creatures living inside, dispell any ghosts that still haunt the premises, and disable any traps, and then she'll estimate how long anyone that isn't a Force-sensitive could stay in the tomb without their minds being twisted, and go from there.

Clearing out the tomb might take a few days, so she's packed for them. Ration bars, canteens, water purification tablets, and other such necessities. If she runs out of supplies she can always retreat back outside, but she'd like to get the tomb cleared out in one trip.

Unfortunately for her, she barely even makes it past the threshold before the scenery abruptly changes, and the oppressive feeling of the dark side dissipates. Instead of a dark tomb, she's in a forest of some kind.

She frowns, and begins carefully searching her new environment. This tomb just got a lot more interesting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Then I can make you a new gate, I know how. But it'll take a while to settle. You can safely take food from Yellow now, he's already your vassal."

Nod.

"Is there a way for you to safely have food, too? Besides candied dewdrops, unless you particularly like them."

"Fairy food's safe for me. Well, safe enough, it'd be astronomically unusual for someone to track down that weak and distant of food claim on something I found foraging. It's you who might run out and need to eat things you normally shouldn't."

Another nod. "And it's safe if the food is obviously his, or if he feeds it to me? He was trying to feed me one of the things you made, would that have made me your vassal?"

"If he feeds it to you. The dewdrop might have given me a weaker claim, which would have been really inconvenient if it held, because I was forbidden to speak my name and it would have had to be food on my end, name on yours."

"That would have been inconvenient. All right. Is there any danger in checking on the place I entered right now?"

"You might be accosted by another fairy," Promise says, "or meet an environmental hazard. Will you ask Yellow to tell me his name?"

"... I can, but what do you plan to do after?"

"I'm better at phrasing orders than you are. And if I have his name he can't hurt me. I don't need him for anything, I'm not going to keep him."

"Do I have your permission to get a lie detection from you on that via him before I give you his name?"

"...A lie detection? You already told him to tell you if I lied."

"I mean, yes, but - I don't expect he actually knows if you'd be lying about what you'd do with him or not, that was more in the way of 'are you lying about how the world works.' So, I'd want to confirm that that specific thing is definitely true."

"How?"

"Ordering him to give you a specific order that we work out beforehand, to make sure that you're not lying about that specific thing, and then clearing all of your orders again. He's an awful person, but I just met you ten minutes ago, I don't know what would happen five minutes after I left when you're free to tell him to jump off a cliff, or gouge his own eyes out. I'd fall in your favor in the 'which one of you is allowed to give the other orders' game, but I'd rather not play it at all if it's going to lead to a worse situation than what I've already got in front of me."

"I could think of situations that could come up where I'd need a vassal - or where I'd need a master - and then I'd come get Yellow sooner than find someone else, but I'm not in such a situation now and don't plan to get entangled in one if I can avoid it. You can have Yellow order me not to lie to you for a minute."

"All right." She looks at Yellow. "Give Promise the following order: 'For the next minute, you will not lie to Callida.'"

"That phrasing doesn't work, it has to be 'don't', not 'will not'." (Yellow is silent, presumably because there was not an order after 'the following order'.)

"... Ah, okay." She corrects the phrasing to the proper one, restating the order correctly.

Yellow relays it.

Promise says, "I have not lied to you."

Edited 2016-05-22 23:43 (UTC)

"All right then, thanks. Sorry. Yellow, tell her your name."

Yellow is kind of dangling midair, so he has to say it loud enough for Callida to hear too: "Vahriakre."

Promise relaxes.

Callida will just. Put him down now, she sort of forgot he was up there, he's just so forgettable.

"I apologize for making you say it where I could hear it too," sighs Callida.

"You fed him, unless you share his name or someone makes you do so it doesn't add anything to how much your vassal he is."

"Right, yes, but - still."

"I know."

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