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The Chronicles of Faust
By: Nez

Part 8

(Click here to skip to the chapter beginning)

Author’s Note:  This next ‘saga’ is, more or less, downtime in between actual campaigns that we just decided to play out.  I think this is the best time for actual role playing, though some of our group members would beg to differ (Laucon’s player, for instance).  But either way, don’t get used to the idyllic serenity.  Shit’s gonna hit the fan again before long…

Lexicon:

Planet Freeza 00628 – A planet with a massive commercial and industrial complex and known neutral ground for meetings and the like.  The Freeza designation still sticks because of the lack of anything better to call the planets.

EGPF – Our old friends from awhile back, representatives from the Eastern Galaxy.

A (Brief) Peaceful Interlude

 Upon waking up some time later, feeling physically recuperated, he waved a nurse over to check him out so he could get on to matters more productive.  Upon his discharge, he immediately shanghaied one of the Namekian construction crews and directed them to create a dwelling several miles away from the main camp and told them to kindly direct traffic away from that point.

 Faust flew off to an abandoned part of the planet and began the process of purging himself of his failures and trying to come to terms with his new status as an utterly dishonored failure.  The area soon became pocked with craters, signifying areas where he had "lost it" and started randomly destroying things.  He had also stopped wearing his armor, or any trappings of the military besides the basic jumpsuit.

*(He probably looked a lot like Vegeta at this point, standing in the middle of nowhere, staring at the sky and after a time going Super Saiyan and making craters.)

 Carolyn was released from the infirmary shortly thereafter as well, though still in fragile condition.  Faust now spent most of his time training to control his newly acquired Super Saiyan power, playing with the children between training sessions and helping Carolyn with her rehab.  His normally razor-sharp schedule had been dulled to completely inconsistent comings and goings.  Besides reading his mail, he refused most contact with the outside world.

*(His honor and pride had been dealt a harsh blow in recent months, and the only way he feels to deal with it is to go into a state of social ‘shock,’ thus the isolation.)

 One day, a few months after his self-imposed exile had begun, Faust was contacted in person by the Eldest Namek.  He said that Faust's presence was requested at their meeting hall, two days hence.  The point of the meeting would be to select a new guardian for the planet Kimode, since the current one had declined the position.  Wearily, Faust accepted.  He was to report to a gathering area near a large Namekian settlement, nominally the capitol.

*(Faust’s first social interaction with the Namekians since scaring the hell out of them.)

 The next morning, Faust showed up at the appointed time.  Shortly thereafter Laucon and Ziganto arrived.  These three would be the ones to conduct the interviews.  Zaru, though present, would take no part in the selection, as decreed by the council.  The council would be there only to moderate if the situation would get out of hand.

 The process of the "try-outs" then began.  The questions were simple.  Why do you want to be the Guardian of Kimode?  Why do you think you're cut out for the job?  After many interviews, several almost degenerating to the point of blows, four candidates were selected.  The matter was then decided by a simple tournament, round robin style.  The four candidates:  2 mages, a fighter-mage and a fighter, faced off, with one of the mages, named Take, winning the tournament.  The final match, and nominally lesson, of the tournament was a match against Laucon, who easily overpowered Take.  This final match was fought to teach humility and intelligence when dealing with greater powers.

 Faust saw a great deal of potential in the loser of the final determining match, another young mage, named Schill, so he decided to take Schill under his wing.  The purpose was to expand his education with combat training and to give him practical experience with cultures other than the solitary, hermetic Namekians.  At this point, Faust started to fall back into some of his old habits as a commander with respect to this training.

*(I guess he’s coming out of his shell at this point)

 To celebrate the selection of the new Guardian, the Namekians threw a party and invited most of the high profile people on the planet, including the interviewers.  Faust was not planning on attending, however his wife somehow got wind of this and insisted that he carry her to the party.  She was getting sick of being cooped up in and around their dwelling.  He complied, not having a good reason to do otherwise.

 The party was relatively sedate in the beginning.  A jazz band was playing softly in the background while the partygoers made their rounds.  When it came time for the meal everyone sat down at a large table and began to consume.  Shortly into the meal, most of the Namekians, except Zazzi and Zaru, began to hiccough and keel over.  Zaru had spiked the water bowl and Namekians have a famously low tolerance for alcohol.  Once the Namekians began to drop, all of the Ki-sensitive people began to sense sickeningly high power levels coming from a long distance away.  It soon became apparent that a major battle was being waged.  Once again, it was sensed that Vegeta was a part of this fight, and someone related to him as well.

*(The events surrounding Majin Buu.)

 The party was effectively shut down at this point.  Most of the sensitive people were either unconscious or nauseated with the power.  The fight however raged on, seesawing back and forth, with the force of good eventually tipping the scales against the evil in the end.  The evil wasn't destroyed, though, only driven into remission.  The guests managed to drag themselves home after regaining consciousness/lucidity enough to walk.

 A week or so after the that incident, Carolyn handed Faust a list of stuff to pick up from Beauty (and Laucon's) place, mostly toys, clothes and other such baby things.  As an after thought she also gave Faust some stuff to take over there as well of the same nature.  Conveniently, the stuff she gave him was bulky, unwieldy and a pain to move over long distances.

 Departing with the list (and stuff) in hand, Faust took a leisurely pace to the Laucon/Beauty residence.  A very annoyed looking Laucon answered the door with "Be quiet, I just got the kids to sleep."  Faust nodded knowingly and explained his business by handing Laucon the list of stuff and the stuff that had been given to him.  Laucon gathered the Material Objectives (more stuff) and passed them on to Faust.  Beauty returned home just as Faust was leaving.  As he was walking down the trail, he heard the beginnings of a domestic disturbance…

 When Faust got home, it was early evening, the household was darkened and the children had been put to bed.  Faust entered the dining area to find the table set with dinner and a single lit candle (which set off alarm bells in his mind).  Carolyn was also seated on the far side of the table, wearing the skintight, red, thigh-slit dress, which Jerani's servant known as 4, had made on her for Laucon's wedding.  After stammering stupidly for a few moments he managed to turn around (to cover some inconvenient "tenting") and set down the stuff that he had been sent to get. 

 After regaining his composure, Faust turned back to see Carolyn stand and without the help of her crutches, walk over to him, throw her arms around his neck and plant a kiss on him.  Faust now realized the extent of the ambush and he also realized that he had walked completely and utterly into it.  The errand had, in reality, been a ruse to get him out of the house, which he realized waaaaaaaaay too late.

*(I didn’t even realize this as a player.  I figured it out to just be some sort of time-killer mini-quest.)

 The dinner initially went along smoothly, conversation drifting from current events to children and eventually to the Military, the question that Faust had been avoiding for the past two months.  Ever since his (perceived) spectacular failures to his wife and his crew, Faust had spent the time of his training sessions reshaping the Namekian geography while languishing in feelings of failure and inadequacy.

 To convince Faust of his former crew's need for him, Carolyn pulled a box off of the top of the refrigerator, which contained all the mail from the crew that Faust had read but then discarded.  Carolyn had saved each and every letter and now presented them to him. She quoted from a few in particular that had been written by his captains who were complaining of discontent among the ranks under Jerani's leadership (or lack thereof). 

 In the process of reading these letters, Carolyn punched a hole through the table in frustration at her husband, saying that he wasn't acting like the man she married.  Faust responded that it seemed he was no longer the man she married and laid out his perceived failures to himself, to the Saiyans as a whole and to her.  He concluded, saying that "I should have just saved the universe all of the effort and died on Jukarakym with the rest of my division." Carolyn slapped him at this and said in no uncertain terms that she NEVER wanted to hear him say that again.  She then flounced off to the bedroom, slamming the door and waking up the children in the process.

*(I loved that line of Faust’s.  As a commander, he had the presence of mind to realize that he had left the rest of the Saiyans to their fate while, recklessly, and angrily pursuing his wife’s kidnappers.  He wasn’t going to willingly step into a position to let them down again.)

 Having never happened to him before, this shocked Faust back to a sense of rationality.  He spent the rest of the night and the early hours of the morning in contemplation on the nature of his problems and in the light of all the letters of complaint.  In truth, he had read every single one but just didn't care.  Early in the morning Faust reached the conclusion that, for better or for worse, he would go back to the military for his wife, if nothing else and donned his commander's armor once more.  At this point he collapsed on the couch from the utter mental and physical exhaustion that he had been accruing over the past couple months.

 Faust awoke at about noon the following morning (on the couch) feeling better than he had in a long time, and decided against returning to the military straight away.  Carolyn was gone, having left a note that she was out on a walk with the children.  Faust decided to bring himself up to date on the current events occurring within the Saiyan Army since he had already missed half of a day of Army work.  While reading through his accumulated correspondence he noted a letter informing him that he had missed his training session with Schill, the Namekian Guardian-In-Training.  He also noted a memo detailing evacuation plans that Jerani had set up to move the Saiyans and surviving Hubians to another planet due to rising tensions with the Namekians.

 Most importantly Faust read a letter sent to him by the EGPF requesting information about "The Scorpion's" identity or whereabouts (payment negotiable).  Faust sent a reply saying that he may have knowledge that could be of assistance.  A response was received shortly after detailing a possible meeting on Planet Freeza 00628, a trading planet and known neutral ground.  The meeting place was set for a ritzy type restaurant, and said that Faust could bring a date if he so desired.

*(A Character ‘beef’ with Jerani.  She had effective ruling status over the Saiyans for three/four some odd months and didn’t really manage to do anything with it…)

 Carolyn had been gone all day, and she returned after Faust had fallen asleep, again on the couch and again forgetting to take off his armor.  When he woke up the next morning (@ 0500 sharp) the bedroom door was closed (again) and Faust noticed a small box on the kitchen table.  How long it had been there, he had no idea.  The box contained his rank bars and a note from Jerani.  The note said that Jerani was fed up with the job of commander and that Faust could have it back.  After mulling over how much of a mess she had probably made of matters, he clipped the bars on and left the house.

 On his way to base camp, he collected Schill in order to resume his training with the Saiyan military.  At 0530 after they got to camp, Faust told Schill, with an impish smile, to keep quiet and watch the fireworks.  Faust started kicking over cots in the Crimson squad barracks and berating them in classic drill sergeant fashion.  After reducing two of the squad to tears he accused them of becoming soft under Jerani's slightly less than competent leadership.  Figuring that the mental attacks were sufficient for the moment, he gave them a few minutes to pull themselves and the barracks back together before the physical beatings would commence.

*(This part was fun.  I got to be a real asshole, as if that’s nothing new :c)

 Five minutes later the squad had assembled outside of the barracks, at attention.  After staring them down for a few moments, he went Super Saiyan and told them to defend themselves.  The resulting power up broke every window within a hundred yards, caused the Crimson squad barracks to collapse and put a smile on Carolyn's face in her sleep.

 After thrashing Crimson squad, Faust told the rest of camp to get its ass out of bed (it was 0545 at this point) and to break down the permanent dwellings and put up the emergency shelters.  Most of camp had been woken up by the Super Saiyan power up anyhow, so getting up wasn't very difficult.  They would be roughing it their last night on New Namek.  Schill then demonstrated what he learned about leadership and combat quite exuberantly.

 Faust spent the rest of the day reorganizing the evacuation schedule and consulting with his command staff on matters military and political in nature.  He also approved 6 + months of leave for Beauty, stated reasons were maternity leave.  At this point, Schill was released from training for the rest of the day since this kind of paperwork was "boring."

*(Laucon put his foot down and began the long process of turning Beauty into a housebroken moron.)

 When Faust got home later that night after a long day of ass kicking, training and paperwork the bedroom door was shut, as was becoming usual.  Shakar had mentioned something about being in the "dog house."  Faust perceived that Shakar was trying to be funny.  Either way, Faust dropped his armor, took a shower, grabbed a snack and plopped down on the couch for another night of rest.  When Faust awoke in the morning, he awoke to find himself being used as a teddy bear/pillow by Carolyn.  After extricating himself and returning her to the bedroom to sleep he went off to work for the day and begin directing the evacuation preparations.

 The proceedings went smoothly; the Hubian survivors, Jerani, Shakar, Zazzi, Zaru and Take boarded one Tsufarajin cruiser, which was then sent to the planet Kimode.  Faust, Carolyn, Laucon, Beauty and Ziganto boarded the other cruiser with the fifteen hundred other Saiyans, which was bound toward a remote planet which was, as of yet, unnamed.  The journey for the Saiyans would take about three days.

 Before leaving, the Eldest Namek asked Faust if he had time for a round.  Faust said that he did and when the Namekian came to his house with some things called "golf clubs" on his back, Faust was confused since he had brought out a bottle of vintage wine.  Faust understood his request to mean that he wanted to stop by for a drink, not for a game of "golf." After taking a "round" the Namekian promptly passed out (they must be sensitive to alcohol or something).  As a favor, Faust flew him home and left a note, reminding him that he shouldn't drink and fly.

*(Personally, I think golf is one of the most boring pastimes known to man and I decided to relay that on to Faust.)

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