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The Chronicles of Faust
By: Nez

Part 7

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Author’s Note:  This is the second half of the Trials saga as you could probably gather from the title of the section below.  Despite the fact that this is a really crummy time in Faust’s life, I managed to have a lot of fun roleplaying it out, mostly getting on the GM’s nerves by ignoring all of his little plot lines and running around the galaxy like a bull in a china shop.  Faust is one of my favorite characters, so naturally it was hard on me to role-play through all this crap happening to him. The resolution of this saga marks the resolution of the Tuscany issue, but the beginning of many others…

Lexicon:

Quetzecoatl – A character introduced in the last session that was played by a friend of mine who was around occasionally.  Basically the guy is half Saiyan, half Shadyk hound, and entirely big, furry and ugly.  More or less comic relief in that Steve (my friend) played him as a primitive that thought he had been brought to heaven or some other such thing.

Tuscany – A villain made mention of in the last chapter.  Has the appearance of a bipedal walrus wearing robes and wielding a walking staff. 

New Namek:  Home of the Namekians after Freeza turned their first planet into a party popper. 

The Trials Saga (continued…)

 At this, Faust demanded a sensor track and upon receiving the projected destination as New Namek, charged to the shuttle bay and boarded a transport shuttle (Faust also wondered at this time why the station only had one faster-than-light-speed transport, conveniently the one that the scum had stolen).  Unnoticed to him at this time, Quetzecoatl had followed him and boarded the transport behind him.

 At the transport's maximum speed, the trip to New Namek took about two days.  During the two days, Tuscany spent his time trying to communicate to Faust.  Whenever he actually managed to get a message through he was answered with various expletives and recommendations that he go play in traffic.  By the time the two days had passed Faust had smashed most of the communications equipment in frustration and shorted out the main power just after entering the New Namek system.

*(More GM bullshit, but at least it’s plausible, the ship’s internal workings were trashed to all hell.)

 Faust, unable to refuse, was given a friendly tow by a "passer-by" later found out to be Shayla and another shuttle manned by Ziganto and Laucon.  After the ships set down on New Namek, Faust blasted a hole through the side of the shuttle, since the door wouldn't open on account of the power was dead, and flew out, leaving Quetzecoatl behind.  Sometime previous to this, Quetzecoatl had taken to calling Faust the "Great Spirit of Anger."

 Faust immediately began casting about with his senses, searching for the greatest power level in the area.  Unknown to him, this happened to be the Eldest Namek.  Laucon, having had experience with the Namekians from his previous visit, knew they would react defensively, if not negatively, to him barging in and demanding answers so he decided to accompany Faust to try to reduce any potential damage.

*(This was a bunch of fun, people were almost yelling at me over the table to quit being an idiot about this.  Roleplaying is so much fun…)

 Faust (and Laucon) flew to the eldest Namek's place of residence and demanded/requested an audience with him.  Laucon began to explain their reasons for being there, but Faust cut him off and demanded to know whether or not they knew the whereabouts of the rogue ship.

 The response came up negatory, so the Namekian (and Laucon) became irrelevant to Faust at this point.  He turned on his heel to leave and begin his search for Carolyn the hard way.  The eldest Namek told Faust to wait, thinking that the Namekian had remembered something of relevance Faust complied.

 As he turned to address the Namekian, Faust realized that the eldest Namek had a hold on his tail.  Confused and impatient, Faust was about to demand that the Namekian release him when the Namekian pulled on his tail, taking it clean off.  The Namekian made some snide comment at this point that almost caused Faust to kick his teeth in.

*(Bump.)

 However, Faust realized that he had more eminent matters to worry about and turned back to head out.  That is, he tried.  Due to his recently changed condition, he was a bit top-heavy and he fell on his face like a felled tree.  He thought he heard some very "Jerani-like" laughter in the background, annoying him further.

 Fifteen or so minutes later, after being able to finally "miss the ground," so to speak, he flew off to find some trace of his beloved.  To that end he began to fly in a corkscrew pattern around the planet.  Flying from pole to pole he found nothing except cowbirds and scared Namekians.

 After wasting three days in his ultimately futile endeavor, he was convinced by Laucon to land.  For some reason everyone from the station was now on Namek.  He heard that the reason for this was because the station had been destroyed by two rogue robots initiating their auto-destruct sequences.

*(This last part happened when I ducked out for a few minutes to take a leak.  Needless to say I don’t take bathroom breaks DURING roleplaying very often anymore.)

 Upon hearing this news, Faust's grip on sanity and reality became dangerously weak.  Thinking that the bastard Tuscany had thrown him for a loop, Faust began walking toward the nearest staging area.  On his way, he came upon Captain Beauty organizing some of the refugees.

 Calling her to attention, for what he figured to be the last time, he stated his intention to resign.  Declaring himself unfit for command he passed his rank bars, and nominally command, on to Beauty.  Not waiting around to see the shocked look on her face, Faust continued to the staging ground and possessed a transport to get him off of the rock that people called Namek.

*(Everyone was surprised as hell when I did this.  The guy playing Laucon said something to the effect of “You’re not seriously giving command to her?!” The results remain to be seen…)

 Once again Quetzecoatl managed to sneak onboard the transport behind Faust, who was paying little attention except his objective at hand.  After running through the quickest of pre-flight checklists (checking the food stocks, fuel status and toilet paper) he engaged the engines and set his course toward the stations last known position.

 Shortly before exiting the Namekian planetary system the sensors onboard the transport detected a heat anomaly suggesting the presence of an engine, however no ship was to be found.  It seemed obvious that a cloaking device was in operation nearby so Faust altered his course toward the "hottest" part of the trail.

 As Faust was preparing the navigation lasers to fire on his best guess/estimate of where this ship's engines would be, a message came through demanding his identification and business.  Faust humored them, as he was targeting the lasers, and was rather surprised when they told him that he was expected.  He was given a course to follow that would get him through the cloaking field and into the docking bay.

 Upon docking and disembarking, Faust and Quetzecoatl found themselves inside what appeared to be a large ship or another space station.  A prissy sounding Shadyk hound wearing, presumably, mage robes, greeted them.  The mage-type guy told Faust that his wife and lunch awaited him in the banquet hall.  Faust and Quetzecoatl followed him, with Faust wondering what kind of sick joke these scum were trying to pull.

 After being led through corridors lined with hairy, slavering Shadyk hounds, the pair was shown into a cavernous banquet hall.  Before them was set a large table, loaded with food and high-class place settings.  At the head of the table was Carolyn, suspended nude a few feet from the ground by her wrists.  Faust was frozen in place at the shock of the sight.  She was beaten, bruised, bloody and unconscious.  She also seemed to have dropped a fair amount of weight, meaning that she had either had the children or miscarried as a result of the previous week's beatings.

*(Set.)

 Quetzecoatl moved forward at this point and began to break her restraints.  Bringing Faust to his senses, he moved forward as well and eased her down.  Faust waved off Quetzecoatl and began tending to Carolyn's wounds as best he could with the rudimentary first aid kit he had at his disposal.  Quetzecoatl moved onto the food, which Faust ignored.

 Several minutes later the Shadyk mage returned with several fighters and Tuscany, who took his seat in a prominently placed throne.  They made attempts at amicable conversation but these were generally rebuffed, coldly ignored or ended up netting responses like "go play in traffic." 

*(Despite everything, these were pretty good villains.  Sick as all hell, but pretty good.)

 Some conversation managed to start between Tuscany and his lackeys concerning Quetzecoatl and his origins, however Faust paid it little mind.  Jerani and Zaru teleported in while the meal was in progress and began to eat as well (Jerani at any rate).  Tuscany declared the meal finished a short time later and teleported the table (and food) away.

 "Negotiations" began at this point.  Many grudges were held around the room; Jerani and the mage seemed to have issues and Faust wanted the blood of anything that had even the most remote connection with his wife's abduction and subsequent torture.  Tuscany had Faust's children brought in and used them to try to jerk Faust around a bit.  He offered one or both of them as the "prize" of a tournament.  Faust told him to cut the crap or they would be fighting immediately.

*(See what I mean?  Sick, sick, sick…)

 Having lost the entertainment value in the matter, a tournament was quickly set up.  Faust fought first, laying out his opponent with a single blow.  All of the other major players:  Jerani, Quetzecoatl and Tuscany won their respective bouts as well.  In the second round Quetzecoatl edged out Jerani, who had taken a beating in her first fight.  As Faust and Tuscany squared off for their duel, Zaru sensed the massive power level potential in this fight and began to cast a spell.  Before anyone could react, energy began to ripple through the station and in a flash the station was in the middle of a cornfield.

*(Fuck…where’d he get that kind of power?  It hasn’t shown itself since…)

 Removed from the effects of zero gravity, the structural integrity of the station began to fail and collapse in upon itself.  The personnel of the station began a general evacuation.  The fighters evacuated through a hole that Faust conveniently blasted through the outer bulkhead.  Tuscany teleported himself outside of the station and created a pillar of stone, on which he placed Carolyn, magically chained once again, and the children.  After everyone got their bearings back, they circled up and prepared to resume the tournament.

 As Faust was preparing to launch himself in his opening salvo against the villain, Tuscany produced a magically charged whip from the end of his staff and proceeded to lash Carolyn a few times "for motivation."  It was motivation enough for Faust.  He felt something in his mind snap, overcome by the pent up fury and helplessness of the past several days.  Moments later, standing with fists clenched at his sides he let out a bestial snarl and flew out of a his newly formed crater and moved to engage Tuscany in an aerial battle.

*(Spike.)

 After the first few mighty blows were exchanged, Tuscany was driven back and hurting.  During the fight Faust's vision began to fade into the red haze of fury until he was suddenly enveloped in the blackness of unconsciousness.  Faust awoke sometime later to his wife's calling.  Upon opening his eyes, he saw several familiar figures standing above him.  Not thinking, he rose to his feet, not really recognizing any of the people.  One of them was gesturing toward a broken figure lying on the ground, heaving with the effort of breathing.  The figure evoked such a strong feeling of hatred in Faust that his barely functioning mind drove his body toward the figure on the ground and expended every last bit of conscious energy to remove the figure from his sight and existence.  After the light from the blast faded, he fell back into the blackness of oblivion once again. 

*(This last part where Faust woke up was complete bullshit, he got the SHIT kicked out of him, technically he should have been deader than road kill, but apparently the GM didn’t want to deal with a campaign in the Dead World.  The fact that they (Jerani) had to give him the last strike may be the motivation of some deeper psychological thing.  I’m not sure though, I never really thought about it.  After Faust left the building (after doing three quarters of the work), so to speak, everyone else gang-beat Tuscany and somehow Quetzecoatl managed to go Super Saiyan in the mix.  I won’t really get that since he didn’t really fill any of the criteria for it, but whatever, another Super Saiyan never hurt anything.)

 Faust awoke some time later in an infirmary (presumably on Namek, since he could hear the lowing of the cowbirds).  It was nighttime.  After struggling to raise himself to an elbow, he saw Carolyn and the children lying in the bed next to his.  Upon seeing his family safe and sound, he sank back into the deep, restorative sleep of the avenged.

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