Space Dragons - Another Chaotic RP

[Channelknight Fadran]

Humanity was far from the first spacefaring race. In the year 2057, they'd first received transmission from another species congratulating them on the full colonization of Mars, but tracing the signal yielded nothing - it almost seemed as though it had come from empty space. In the year 2062, upon beginning to project to terraform Venus, the same species sent them another message congratulating them on their ingenuity. 2101 marked the founding of the first settlement on the once hellish world, and subsequently another message - this one decoding as some idiom that they couldn't quite make out.

2160 marked the completion of humanity's Dyson swarm, and a year later they received a message informing them that the aliens were coming to visit.

The last thing they expected of these creatures was for them to be dragons.

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Hi there, hello - welcome to the second ever 17th Shard RP collab (though it wasn't really a collaboration between all the sharders - really just me, Mat, and Not-Jeff). I'd love to explain the entire extent of our worldbuilding, but unfortunately that would take several days and probably even severaller arguments, so y'all are stuck with The Gist for now:

Spoiler

The gist: Dragons are the god-emperors of the local cluster, and have finally decided that the humans of earth are worthy of joining le evil empire.

• The dragons were the first species to evolve to intelligence in the local cluster, and took over their galaxy and then the neighboring ones because they’re super stronk.
• Dragons are incredibly powerful by default, wielding powerful magic and also just… y’know. Being dragons. But then they also meld their incredible power with technology to effectively become gods.
• Rather than wiping out all other intelligent life, the Dragon Government™ will incorporate them into a little fraction of their empire. Once a society becomes powerful enough, they are approached and appropriated via whatever means the dragons need. If a society does fight back, they are very quickly subjugated - y’know. Power armor magic supermonsters.
• The dragons will often invest early on in races with potential, pushing them along to becoming significantly advanced enough to serve Le Dragons’ needs. Humans have pretty much taken over their entire system by now, so the dragons recognize them as profitable.
• There is a caste system within dragon society, because of course there is:
  • Dragon God-Emperors: It’s a royal court of only the most powerful dragons (politically and magically), who all play off each other in obvious power struggles but ultimately just maintain the status quo of “dragons subjugate the lower dragons and lower races.” They don’t have their scales, because that would impede their magic.
  • The semi-royal court: kind of like the barons and earls and such of dragon society. Representatives of entire dragon worlds or system, but in the grand scheme of several galaxies are far less influential than the god-emperors. Most don’t have their scales either (for the same reasons), but some do.
  • General dragon upper-class: just sort of reputable families and dynasties. They’d be influential in their respective systems/planets. About even on scaleless (going for magical prowess) or scaled (feels they’re less magically-talented or whatever)
    • A lot will provide elite warriors to the Royal Grand Army.
  • Regular dragon “middle”-class: still very much dragons living in a perfect utopian society. They can pursue their dreams, rise in the system, never be in want… they aren’t genetically-engineered to be anything specific in most cases, but often are enhanced as an egg to be generally better at most things.
  • Dragon Blue Collars (for lack of a better term): These dragons are the workers, and are bred from birth to be one very specific kind of worker. In Plato’s Republic these would be the “Guardians,” who are given a specific role at birth and expected to maintain it.
    • Includes the soldier class, who are objectively more powerful than their other blue collar brethren but are also kinda sorta bred and taught to obey soooo
  • Dragon Peasants With Benefits: Dragon peasants who get to keep their scales
  • Dragon Peasants Without Benefits: Dragon peasants who do not get to keep their scales (because  r a c i s m). Obv they do the nasty manual labor jobs (the kinds with high danger that the dragons can’t send their wimpy alien slaves to do. Star mining and black hole maintenance and whatnot)

• MAGIC. SYSTEM. It’s a magic system that basically just lets v intelligent beings (like dragons and peoples) control reality with their mcbrains.  A powerful magical energy permeates the entire universe, driving every force of nature along in its path of creation and destruction. Dragons were the first beings to harness this energy, calling it Magic and using it to conquer the galaxy. By expanding your mind brain and tapping into this energy field, you can learn to manipulate the most fundamental aspects of nature. After much debate we’ve (kinda) settled on these categories of manipulation:

  • Spaceshaping: Space, time, spacetime, and all that jazz (obv not time travel - or I guess maybe time travel but it’s outside the bounds of anyone’s abilities)
  • Waveshaping: Light and sound and such
  • Powershaping: Chemical, Nuclear, and maybe some quark stuff idk
  • Notably, heat overlaps all these sections as Le Entropy.

Here is the link to our discourse doc, but really that's just me arguing with Not-Jeff about various things. Together we've come up with the overarching lore and science and magic of the universe, but in the spirit of a collab worldbuilding project imma say that most of the finer details are just gonna get stamped out as we go along. So far we've decided that there has to be epic biologically-engineered dragon power armor and also a whacky dragon linguistic system (check the doc for that - I'm not putting it here), but there's still lots else to figure out.

Here's a character sheet - for now I'm going to say we aren't RPing as dragons, but that's mostly for party power balance more than anything, so making dragon characters down the line will probably be totally fine.

Spoiler

Name: (full, preferred, legal... whatever)

Species: (feel free to come up with some human-adjacent aliens with funky traits)

Age: (if you're not a human be sure to clarify how your age scales up)

Appearance: (plz include clothes I like drawing people)

Various Personality Bits: (whatever you feel applies to this section. I like feeling out my characters as I go along too, so feel free to just leave it blank if you need)

Skills/Magic/Such: (all intelligent beings have access to the space magic, but few can even come close to matching up against a dragon - but you can also perhaps just be a really good pilot or a world-class chef or something)

Position: (presumably we aren't all just going to be inconsequential little nobodies)

Other: (for the stuff I missed)

Character List:

Spoiler

Blank (no notes):

Spoiler

Name: 

Species: 

Age: 

Appearance: 

Various Personality Bits: 

Skills/Magic/Such: 

Position: 

Other: 

@Channelknight Fadran

Spoiler

Name: Paprika Halwach

Species: Human

Age: 27

Appearance: An aggressively average height lady, dressed in combat gear most of the time. She keeps her weapon polished and hat smoothed out.

Various Personality Bits: Decently experienced in the combat field, though still not the cream of the crop just yet.

Skills/Magic/Such: A little late to the magic game, but an excellent shot with her rifle.

Position: Lieutenant under General Ikach

Other: Dunno yet

@Justice_Magician

Spoiler

Name: Amaranthine (nicknames: Ara, Ari, Mara, Tin, Ama,Tina- she's good with anything and everything)

Species: "Elvish" 

Ari's species made contact with humanity a few years ago, to establish trade and friendship. The first humans to set eyes on them began calling them Elves because of their long ears and tallness. The true name of the species is impossible for humans to say because the "Elvish" language requires sounds that human vocal cords can't replicate. When the language barrier was broken the "Elves" were more than happy to keep the name. They found human mythology of magical people (*cough* Tolkien *cough*) fascinating and kinda funny, they thought the nickname was sweet so they let it stick. 
Elves are mostly peaceful so of course they strive to be powerful warriors. Elves have a strong desire to protect those in need, and they want to make trade alliances with other species that can benefit everyone. They're not all sunshine and roses of course, but the majority are eager to make friends with the human race. I would say they're at about the same level of technological advancement as humans, and they haven't made contact with many other species besides humans.

Physically Elves are averagely taller then humans (6-7 feet is a good range). They have tails, small horns and of course long ears. Skin and hair stay within the natural human range of colors. With a hat to cover the ears and horns, and a skirt to cover the tail, an elf could totally pass as a tall human.

Is it too much of a stretch to create an alien species that just wants to friends with everyone?

Age: 78 (she's considered a young adult, Elves live to about 300).

Appearance: Cute pink dress that you wouldn't expect her to be able to fight in, maybe bows in her hair or something. Strawberry blonde with grey eyes. A large cross shaped scar that goes down over her left eye and across her left cheek onto her nose -earned in honorable combat of course. Ari is 5'9, short for an Elf.

Various Personality Bits: Typical dumb jock with a heart of gold

Skills/Magic/Such: Elves are warriors, its safe to say she can handle herself in a fight. Not too good at the intricacies of social situations, but she tries her best to follow along. No magic, she prefers getting stuff done the old fashioned way.

Position: Ambassador 

Other: Ari was sent to help smooth out details with the Elvish-Human alliance, and is currently on Earth working with human leaders. She has a kinda thick accent and struggles with larger words.

@EmulatonStromenkiin

Spoiler

Name: Atikskrakkaitak. Skrakk is what most can pronounce/call him. 

Species: Skkraaakiskakkkraitk Humanoid(bipedal with two arms). Lightly scaled, similar in size and shape to bearded dragon scales. Various colors and patterns through the species. Warm-blooded. Have six fingered hands with opposable thumbs. Heads are vaguely draconic, with crests and ridges instead of hair. They can see both UV and infrared light. 

The Skkraaakiskakkkraitk developed a fairly high level of technology before leaving their home planet for anything beyond exploration. After the colonized their home system, they started to develop methods of FTL travel and communication. At first these methods were crude and dangerous, relying on unstable materials and particles harvested from a black hole that's orbited in place of one of the planets of their system to bend space and time. Then, about a millennia ago, they discovered Magic. Magic, specifically spaceshaping, has allowed them to advance to other systems. And set up colonies. It also led to the Dragons discovering their existence through encounters with lone ships and distant colonies. With great difficulty and caution, they have managed to keep their home planet and system unknown, though this is also because the Dragons do not believe them worthwhile to conquer.

Age: 320. The Skkraaakiskakkkraitk can live up to five thousand years, so he is a young adult 

Appearance: His scales range from light aqua blue to a deep cobalt, and are faintly iridescent. He is around six feet tall. He wears loose fitting clothes that are neutral and/or dark colored. He wears pants, but often wears a loose robe overtop

Various Personality Bits: Cynical, and can get hyper focused on his projects.

Skills/Magic/Such: His main focus in Magic is powershaping, mostly electrical energy, but he also can do enough spaceshaping to move his ship across interstellar distances. He is also an inventor, using his Magic specialty to help create tools and other things, often to make it easier to run the spaceship he lives in. He is also a decent pilot and a fairly good aim with projectiles and weapons.

Position: He lives alone on his ship, and travels where he will. He does not have a specific position to anyone.

Other:  He built his own ship when he was just over his second century. He was born in the home system of his people, but left in his ship almost as soon as he could, with an insatiable desire to learn and explore. He has so far developed a device that harnesses the latent energy of space itself to move his ship, allowing his ship to have infinite range, though he is still trying to work out how to get it to power other systems beyond propulsion. He is currently working on a device that would allow safe FTL travel without an intelligent being that is proficient at spaceshaping.

The current system that he is traveling to is that of Sol, the system of the humans.

@PyroPhile

Spoiler

Name: Unpronounceable, so he just goes by Ghost

Species: Wraith (more info below, please tell me if anything doesn’t work)

Age: 21 (Wraiths mature at about the same speed as humans, but their max age varies wildly)

Appearance: Vaguely humanoid shape but all black with no facial features other than pure white eyes (All wraiths look something like this)

Various Personality Bits: Excitable about science things

Skills/Magic/Such: A tinkerer, likes to create gadgets, can use Thoughtspeak (see other)

Position: Average affluency, chosen as an emissary due to his scientific knowledge 

Other: Imma dump some wraith info here: They require no food, instead being powered by electricity that they get from UV light. They also can’t talk, due to the lack of a mouth (please note that they can still hear); they communicate instead by sign language, translation pads, or (for the more magically inclined(I’m not sure if this is possible(please tell me if this isn’t possible))) by talking into the minds of people, what the wraiths call Thoughtspeak.

@The Known Novel

Spoiler

Name: Prefers to be called Uen (like Yen, but spicy), but his full name is Terhieghenne Cody

Species: Human

Age: Yes.

Appearance: Modern. He wears very casual t-shirts and sweats most of the time. He probably feels a little out of place and out of time. Think Aes Sedai for how old he appears, though he does have a pinpointable age, it just shifts from day to day.

Various Personality Bits: Scifi nerd. I will say no more.

Skills/Magic/Such: Time weirdness. Uen can manipulate time with Spacebending. His ability is powerful but inconsistent. He has a tendency to get pushed out of the time stream, getting frozen or even all out disappearing mid sentence (if I don't respond in a day or so, assume he has done this). When he disappears, for some reason, he tends to reappear in the midst of the plot. He also ages oddly, appearing mixed on all days, but distinctly changing from day to day.

Position: He appeared in the middle of the plot, and nobody can figure out how to get rid of him. Also he was a scientist/lab rat at some point, but eh. Anyone who knew him died when he jumped forward half a century.

@The Bookwyrm

Spoiler

Name: Akat'tirri Raltathani

Species: Dragon

Age: Almost 2000 years old

Appearance: Large for a dragon, towering over many others even within his own species. He has a full set of deep blue scales, which despite his very high station, he chooses to keep as a remembrance of his past as a warrior. These scales have a number of augments, both technological and magical. He has six eyes, the two main ones and four smaller ones (two extra on each side) that were added during his time as a fighter. He keeps these extra eyes closed most of the time. He has an impressive set of horns that spiral in on themselves like galaxies.

Various Personality Bits: Currently, Akat'tirri controls a sector of the Milky Way Galaxy named the Raltathani Sector, after his family. It lies on the outskirts of official Draconic Space in the galaxy, and contains the domains of a few races that were the victors of previous Culling Wars. In what seems like a previous life to him, he was an intelligent and efficient soldier that served under his mother when she was Duchess of the sector. He, along with his father, fought to enforce the Draconic Empire's rule through their sector, which was (and in some ways still is) an untamed frontier.

Once the time came for the Culling Wars of the races in said sector, however, both of Akat'tirri's parents protested against the practice. Rather than declaring open treason and rebellion, however, they joined a secret underground movement, one bent on overthrowing the Empire's evil practices. They fought secretly and desperately to protect the victims of the Culling Wars in their sector, doing their best to save as many worlds as possible.

It was not enough. Akat'tirri's parents were on a diplomatic mission to a planet that had refused to fight in the war, trying to figure out some sort of compromise between them and the Empire. It was during this mission that the Empire destroyed the planet, and the civilization they were trying to save. Akat'tirri was left as heir to the Sector.

Centuries later, and much wiser and with much more political prowess, Akat'tirri serves the Empire loyally on the surface, but continues his parent's work under cover. He has shared his secret with some in power within his sector, and through his unconventional kindness, has gained their loyalty to the point that they follow him in his secret endeavors.

He is a kind person, but stern when times call for it. He has a family of his own now, including a daughter which is preparing herself to inherit the Sector when the time is right, and a son who fights for him in the same way he fought for his mother.

Skills/Magic/Such: Has carefully found ways to enhance his magical abilities despite the presence of his scales. Dabbles in each variety, but focuses primarily on Spaceshaping.

Position: Duke of Raltathani Sector

Other: Uh...wears a fancy dragon cape. Sometimes. As dukes do.

 

 

The dragons had made their offer a year ago tomorrow - and in just sixteen hours, they'd be back on Earth to receive their decision

Join the Draconic Grand Empire. Prove your value to our cause. Join the Culling War, and come out on top if you wish to survive.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Channelknight Fadran

[Mags she/they]

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Here's my character, I took some liberties with lore, please veto anything you don't think will work 

Spoiler

Name: Amaranthine (nicknames: Ara, Ari, Mara, Tin, Ama,Tina- she's good with anything and everything)

Species: "Elvish" 

Ari's species made contact with humanity a few years ago, to establish trade and friendship. The first humans to set eyes on them began calling them Elves because of their long ears and tallness. The true name of the species is impossible for humans to say because the "Elvish" language requires sounds that human vocal cords can't replicate. When the language barrier was broken the "Elves" were more than happy to keep the name. They found human mythology of magical people (*cough* Tolkien *cough*) fascinating and kinda funny, they thought the nickname was sweet so they let it stick. 
Elves are mostly peaceful so of course they strive to be powerful warriors. Elves have a strong desire to protect those in need, and they want to make trade alliances with other species that can benefit everyone. They're not all sunshine and roses of course, but the majority are eager to make friends with the human race. I would say they're at about the same level of technological advancement as humans, and they haven't made contact with many other species besides humans.

Physically Elves are averagely taller then humans (6-7 feet is a good range). They have tails, small horns and of course long ears. Skin and hair stay within the natural human range of colors. With a hat to cover the ears and horns, and a skirt to cover the tail, an elf could totally pass as a tall human.

Is it too much of a stretch to create an alien species that just wants to friends with everyone?

Age: 78 (she's considered a young adult, Elves live to about 300).

Appearance: Cute pink dress that you wouldn't expect her to be able to fight in, maybe bows in her hair or something. Strawberry blonde with grey eyes. A large cross shaped scar that goes down over her left eye and across her left cheek onto her nose -earned in honorable combat of course. Ari is 5'9, short for an Elf.

Various Personality Bits: Typical dumb jock with a heart of gold

Skills/Magic/Such: Elves are warriors, its safe to say she can handle herself in a fight. Not too good at the intricacies of social situations, but she tries her best to follow along. No magic, she prefers getting stuff done the old fashioned way.

Position: Ambassador 

Other: Ari was sent to help smooth out details with the Elvish-Human alliance, and is currently on Earth working with human leaders. She has a kinda thick accent and struggles with larger words.

 

 

[Going_North_cal]

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listen i’m not joining this (sorry it’s a lil intimidating)

but i just wanted to say

justice, you just described the tiefling race lol

 

[Mags she/they]

2 minutes ago, CalanoCorvus said:

justice, you just described the tiefling race lol

Quote

*loud gasp* What? I have no idea what your talking about . . .

It may or may not have been intentional lol

tieflings are just really cool okay?

 

[Going_North_cal]

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no i know i just made a multi class paladin bard tiefling for my friends campaign

i just thought it was funny lol

 

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

4 hours ago, Channelknight Fadran said:

me, Mat, and Not-Jeff

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Mat? MAT?!?!?????

[Channelknight Fadran]

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Mat

 

[Channelknight Fadran]

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Oh and Pancake Boi ig

 

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

Just now, Channelknight Fadran said:

Oh and Pancake Boi ig

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>:(

[EmulatonStromenkiin he/him]

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I'm probably going to regret joining, as it will only be till July, but here goes.

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Name: Atikskrakkaitak. Skrakk is what most can pronounce/call him. 

Species: Skkraaakiskakkkraitk Humanoid(bipedal with two arms). Lightly scaled, similar in size and shape to bearded dragon scales. Various colors and patterns through the species. Warm-blooded. Have six fingered hands with opposable thumbs. Heads are vaguely draconic, with crests and ridges instead of hair. They can see both UV and infrared light. 

The Skkraaakiskakkkraitk developed a fairly high level of technology before leaving their home planet for anything beyond exploration. After the colonized their home system, they started to develop methods of FTL travel and communication. At first these methods were crude and dangerous, relying on unstable materials and particles harvested from a black hole that's orbited in place of one of the planets of their system to bend space and time. Then, about a millennia ago, they discovered Magic. Magic, specifically spaceshaping, has allowed them to advance to other systems. And set up colonies. It also led to the Dragons discovering their existence through encounters with lone ships and distant colonies. With great difficulty and caution, they have managed to keep their home planet and system unknown, though this is also because the Dragons do not believe them worthwhile to conquer.

Age: 320. The Skkraaakiskakkkraitk can live up to five thousand years, so he is a young adult 

Appearance: His scales range from light aqua blue to a deep cobalt, and are faintly iridescent. He is around six feet tall. He wears loose fitting clothes that are neutral and/or dark colored. He wears pants, but often wears a loose robe overtop

Various Personality Bits: Cynical, and can get hyper focused on his projects.

Skills/Magic/Such: His main focus in Magic is powershaping, mostly electrical energy, but he also can do enough spaceshaping to move his ship across interstellar distances. He is also an inventor, using his Magic specialty to help create tools and other things, often to make it easier to run the spaceship he lives in. He is also a decent pilot and a fairly good aim with projectiles and weapons.

Position: He lives alone on his ship, and travels where he will. He does not have a specific position to anyone.

Other:  He built his own ship when he was just over his second century. He was born in the home system of his people, but left in his ship almost as soon as he could, with an insatiable desire to learn and explore. He has so far developed a device that harnesses the latent energy of space itself to move his ship, allowing his ship to have infinite range, though he is still trying to work out how to get it to power other systems beyond propulsion. He is currently working on a device that would allow safe FTL travel without an intelligent being that is proficient at spaceshaping.

The current system that he is traveling to is that of Sol, the system of the humans.

 

 

 

[The Bookwyrm he/him]

Spoiler

What the heck is the plot?

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by The Bookwyrm
...I hit spoiler instead of quote and it won't let me change it on mobile....

[Channelknight Fadran]

12 minutes ago, The Bookwyrm said:

  Reveal hidden contents

What the heck is the plot?

 

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Earth has been pulled into a culling war.

Presumably the space dragons are coming to inform them of the ramifications shortly.

 

[EmulatonStromenkiin he/him]

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Should we just start, or what?

 

[Channelknight Fadran]

14 hours ago, The Bookwyrm said:

  Reveal hidden contents

What the heck is the plot?

 

On 6/9/2023 at 8:14 AM, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

 

On 6/8/2023 at 6:35 PM, Justice_Magician said:

 

"Paprika," the general said, pulling on his jacket, "Donnie ran out today with his girlfriend. I hate to ask ya, but would you mind greeting our guests in his place?"

She saluted. "Sir."

[PyroPhile]

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I want to join but I have no idea what to do

 

[Channelknight Fadran]

3 minutes ago, PyroPhile said:

 

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character. make. do.

 

[Mags she/they]

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here we go, I guess

Amaranthine glanced around for familiar faces. She was very lost. 

Some of the human leaders had wanted her to be there when the new alien friends arrived, so she could help make negotiations. But then she had gotten distracted and lost her guide and now she didn't know where she was. 

"Uh . . ." she said loudly, to no one in particular, "Does anyone know where I'm s'pposed to be?"

[Channelknight Fadran]

1 minute ago, Justice_Magician said:

Amaranthine glanced around for familiar faces. She was very lost. 

Some of the human leaders had wanted her to be there when the new alien friends arrived, so she could help make negotiations. But then she had gotten distracted and lost her guide and now she didn't know where she was. 

"Uh . . ." she said loudly, to no one in particular, "Does anyone know where I'm s'pposed to be?"

Paprika waved at the... was that an elf? Looked like an elf. "Hello. Are you lost?"

[Mags she/they]

Just now, Channelknight Fadran said:

Paprika waved at the... was that an elf? Looked like an elf. "Hello. Are you lost?"

"Ah, yes, hallo, I am lost, I am supposed to be there when our new friends arrive-- do you know where I should go?"

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don't ask where I'm taking this accent because I have no idea

 

[Channelknight Fadran]

They were like some... cockney german lady? Paprika gestured at a pair of massive gates they had built into the United Worlds building. "The convention will be through these doors once the dragons arrive. Unfortunately we can't open them until six."

[Mags she/they]

"Ah, I see," she said looking up at the gate. "Six what? there are more than six people here so we go in?"

[Channelknight Fadran]

"Six o' clock, sorry."

[Mags she/they]

"Oh, right, the clocks," Arah blushed. She'd been on earth almost a year now, you'd think it would be ingrained in her mind by now but she still struggled.

"How many clocks are we away from six?"

[Channelknight Fadran]

Paprika chuckled. "About half an hour."

[Mags she/they]

"Oh then we don't haf to wait long! that is fun," Arah disliked waiting.

"Your name is?"