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WHO: Mal Durrish and YOU
WHEN: Early May
WHERE: Various
WHAT: Mal keeping up and meeting people - open to all new/existing interactions! Happy to build on existing CR or meet new people!
NOTES\WARNINGS: Will add if needed.

(Meeting your friendly neighbourhood Jedi...)

Target Practice - Open!

She kept to the outskirts for this part of her training, certainly. It wasn't that it was necessary, per se. Military service and then Jedi training had kept her weapons skills pretty sharp. And Jedi from the older versions of the Order might find the idea of a Jedi doing blaster practice to be a bit...gauche, or at the very least unusual - but practice definitely made perfect. Especially here, where she didn't know she could count on much of anything.

At one end of the clearing she'd set up a few cans at various distances. She stood at the other, checking over her trusty Bryar pistol. It was the sidearm of choice of the Jedi Master Kyle Katarn - whom she had a little bit of hero worship for, all things said and done. But it also was just a damn good choice, quite frankly. Not as powerful as a BlasTech, and not as flashy - but it'd be accurate and reliable.

She had made sure it was cleaned, readied - and took aim at the first can, standing firmly. There was a light choom sound, the blaster bucked slightly, and a yellow bolt of energy shot out across the clearing, blasting the first can off of its resting place. Ok, not so bad.

She nodded, approving, and set her sights for the next shot.

Saber Practice - Open!

Nearer in to the Apartments, she found the first open ground she could. Slowly she drew out a circle in the dirt with a boot, then settled herself in the center of it. The heavy cylinder of her lightsaber was taken from her hip, held in front of her. She took a deep breath, centered herself in the Force, and in the moment, and then ignited the weapon.

With a snap-hiss and a slight hint of ozone on the air, the blue blade shone in the light of the early morning. She settled into the first form, and for a moment, she stilled. Then, slowly at first, she began to move through each of the positions. Whatever doubts she had disappeared in these moments. This she could do, this she could always rely on - moving with precision from step to step, saber moving from place to place.

Then the movements became more elaborate; practice cuts and parries, shifting from movement to movement with quick ease. The lightsaber made its unique sounds as it cut through the air - and to anybody observing, it would appear to be a matter of grace. Her movements are smooth, seemingly easy - and gaining complexity by the moment.

Exercise - Open!

She could also be found in workout clothes, for once actually disposing of the hooded jacket, long sleeves, and gloves that seemed to be an absolute uniform for her. The lightsaber remained at her hip, because some things were universal, but the black exercise shirt was new. The bare arms revealed scars, here and there - signs that her life had certainly not been one in which the word softness had featured.

But it might not be noticeable since she'd be jogging when someone ran into her, or at best stretching before doing so - she wasn't pushing herself for speed, not this time, but she was aiming for endurance.

She followed a route that wound through most of this strange place; controlling her breathing and coming to a stop once after every lap of her circulating.

Maybe you are doing similar, or run into her when she stops to drink from a canteen, or grabbing a towel from her small pack to wipe off her face and neck.

Diner - Open!

Of course, a woman has to eat - and the diner has become a favourite haunt of hers. In part because the caf - or coffee, as other universes seem to call it - is excellent to her taste buds. But also because there's so much food there that is both tasty but also that she's never seen before.

She has a little sheet of paper on the table next to her - the menu is written out on it, with check boxes next to every item. One by one, she's trying everything, and a good number are checked off already. The problem being that she's discovered a few favourites, which keep tempting her back.

First and foremost? Waffles. What universe came up with these? Fluffy and crunchy at the same time; can be topped with nearly everything - though this Maple syrup is just...wonderful.

She may be on her second helping.

CYA!

[Always happy to open up custom prompts! Drop me a PM or contact me on plurk if you have an idea!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not that Riz particularly feels like he needs to practice. He's only been in this strange place for a matter of days, and he knows that he keeps his shooting skills well-honed regardless. But there's only so long he can try to put together the same dozen clues, over and over and over again, and he's almost ashamed to admit that he spends the rest of his time practically vibrating out of his own skin with boredom. If he doesn't have a chance to move, to work, to devote himself to something, he'll unravel in no time.

And so he sets out to do very much the same thing as Mal, hoping to set up something so he can let off some steam of his own, in absence of anything else that feels worth doing. He traipses off to the outskirts, only to see a familiar figure beat him there, her own gunfire strangely silent in comparison to his own beat-up arquebus, old even by Riz's own standards. He's quiet by nature, slipping by unseen as a matter of habit, and so he watches her silently for a couple of minutes before deliberately stomping his foot against the dirt to signal his arrival.

"Hey! Right here, please don't shoot me," he says as way of greeting, because he's abundantly familiar with what a bad idea it is to surprise someone with a firearm in their hand, largely because he knows what he would do in that situation. Riz looks a little better than when they'd last met, less visibly shaken, less like he's seconds away from having a nervous breakdown and puking in a potted plant. "Don't let me interrupt you."

He'd like to watch a little more. His preference is squarely for his own gun (his Dad's gun, something that warms him every time he thinks about it), but that doesn't mean he's not absolutely fascinated by hers.

She laughs a bit at his greeting, adjusting a setting on her weapon - and holding it down and away from his direction, because safety is a thing, and if he's paying attention he'll see the obvious military training there.

"I don't just shoot people," she says, "even on my worst day." Inwardly, part of her winces - no, she hadn't, had she? That had been what the red-bladed lightsaber was for. But she tries not to let that slight moment of being haunted show on her face, shifting gears quickly.

"And thanks, now the range is clear," she replies, with a thankful nod. She holds up the pistol again and tries its secondary mode, which charges up a heavier power shot - making an audible charging sound and a source of light emitting from the end of the barrel before the shot fires off - a thick yellow bolt that flies down the range and not only hits the target but leaves a smoking remnant where it used to be.

She nods, satisfied.

"Trouble is ammunition," she says, because her first question, if she were him, would be about powering the weapon. "It usually uses power cells utilizing pressurized tibanna gas. Best medium for energy weapons where I'm from. Not sure I can get that here. I can rig up a charge off of any decent power source, but I'll get fewer shots and sure won't be puncturing any armour any time soon."

Riz shrugs. "My Mom taught me that it's a really, really stupid idea to sneak up on someone with a gun. Better safe than sorry."

It's her. She was the one with the gun. Not that she'd ever shoot Riz, not even close, but he'd successfully sneaked up on her enough times while she was going through firearm maintenance for her to sit down and have an extremely stern talk with him about appropriate conduct around a firearm and to never, ever do it to any of her considerably stupider colleagues. Her lessons around firearms stuck in the way that none of her lessons about maintaining one's personal well-being seemed to.

He watches in blatant fascination as she fires off a round capable of blowing a guy's head clean off instead of just puncturing their skull like Riz's rounds, wandering off in that direction to take a closer look himself, rubbing the ash between his fingers to see the extent of its disintegration. Very, very cool, he thinks.

"What's so special about tibanna gas? There might be a way to reverse-engineer it. Or to find something even more powerful, though I kinda doubt that... this place is deserted." He's a little worried about ammunition himself, a thought he's tried to discard to the best of his abilities. "If you can make more cells, you could just carry more of them around?"

He wants to ask if he can shoot it himself, but that seems like it wouldn't be taken well considering she's working on limited power. Pity. He'd really like to have a go at it himself.

"A wizard might be able to come up with a magical energy source for them too."

"Smart Mom," she replied, a bit absently. It's pretty true.

"It produces four times its normal energy output when you pass cohesive light through it," she remarked in response. "So it's one hell of a conducting agent. I can make more power cells, sure, but there aren't any Beldons flying around making more of it, is the problem. Assuming we, uh, can't rely on wizards."

She shrugs a bit, offering the pistol over. She doesn't need the Force to sense the curiosity.

"Three targets," she pointed out. "I've gotten two. Wanna try for the third?"

"That wasn't a hypothetical. One of my best friends is a wizard, one of the best ones you'll ever meet. She can do all sorts of stuff," he says, because it feels suddenly very important that Mal knows that Riz isn't just talking out of his ass about the whole wizard thing. He knows that a wizard can do it is so cliche as to be nearly meaningless much of the time, but in his experience, it's absolutely correct. There are few things he thinks Adaine can't do, given appropriate time and resources to work her magic.

"Not that she'd want to do it without getting to know you first," he hastens to say with a shrug. "Just that, you know. Anything's possible."

As long as you're not asking him to be the one doing any of the magic, anyway. For all that he's surrounded by exceptional casters and people capable of performing incredible feats, Riz's own expertise is smaller, subtler. A little less useful as a jack-of-all-trades, he'll be the first to admit. He has no time to mull over that, not when Mal is making such a generous offer.

His lack of a poker face remains woefully consistent. His entire face just lights up, dark brows rocketing upwards and mouth curving into a broad smile as he hastens to accept. "Really, you'd let me?! Thanks!"

He whistles lowly, turning it over in his hands. It's lightweight compared to his own, but somehow more solid too, a true feat of engineering. He's not sure if anyone back home could manage to reverse-engineer something like this.

"Anything I should know before shooting it? How's the recoil?"

His overall case isn't helped, at the outset, by the fact that in her universe 'magic' is one of two things: a manifestation of the Force not used by the Jedi or Sith or absolute charlatanism.

Oh, and the entertainer sort. But she does smile at the latter part.

"So she's a smart wizard who asks questions? Smart move for anybody with powers of whatever kind."

She lets him take a look at the pistol for a long moment before responding.

"Almost none. She'll move in your hands a bit, but you don't even need to brace much. It's a perk of this type of blaster, really. There's, like, heavier ones, right? More powerful shots, but the recoil makes re-aiming difficult. This way, I can pot a couple of shots without having to adjust much at all."

Riz just nods along to that appraisal; Adaine is one of the smartest people he's ever met, and he's satisfied in the knowledge that she won't do anything without asking the appropriate twenty questions first. But soon enough he's moved on, fastening his grip on the blaster, lowering his chin so that he can get a good feel on the aim.

"I can see how that's a useful trade-off," he murmurs. "It'd be handy to have one of each."

He braces himself anyway, body too familiar with the tell-tale kickback of his arquebus to be able to do anything else when holding any sort of gun-shaped object. But when he squeezes the trigger, no such recoil comes, just a blast of powerful light escaping the end of its nozzle, whipping out even quicker than his own gunpowder bullets and to his credit, hits one of the targets smack dab in the middle.

He ought to. At the end of the day, he's more of a sniper than he is anything else. If he doesn't know how to aim, he's dead.

"Dang," he says, twisting the blaster to get a better look at it again. "That's awesome. It's so smooth, it practically feels like magic. It's so quiet, too." Dangerous. He could do a lot of damage with one of these things. It's a nice thought. "And this is just the sorta gun that everyone from your world's got?"

"Good shot," she comments with a nod. "Y'got some good experience to make that work on the first go."

But there's more to talk about, really.

"Depends on the person for what model people go for. Me, I picked up this idea from a more famous Jedi...this actually started life as a rifle, but actually works better when you break it down. Other people go for other ideas. And some people specialize, going with all sorts of things. Some like sonic weapons, others go for heavy-duty disruptors...which are pretty much illegal everywhere, and most of the time are back-room jobs as likely to explode in your hands as do the job."

She continues. "Some people, for specialization or for cultural reasons, still use slugthrowers like yours. Now that Jedi like me are turning up again, I'll bet we see more of them."

"I'd better be a good shot. That's, like, my whole thing."

He has only a few jobs as the Rogue of the party: he has to be good at dealing with traps, with sneaking through any areas that need a deft hand, hone his investigative skills, and be able to shoot things with relatively good accuracy. He's less impressive than his friends. No super-strength on his side, no incredible feats of faith and magic, no ability to inspire or destroy with a single word. It's just him, his gun, and the infernal engine that is his brain.

If he doesn't have that, he's nothing. He hands the blaster back to Mal, still looking pleased at having had the chance to shoot it; as much as he'd like to shoot it more, he's too cognizant of its limited charges to feel justified in doing so.

"I've never heard of a Jedi before. What is that? And why're, um, slugthrowers so effective against them?" He scratches his cheek. "Do you guys have ways to guard against blasters, but not actual bullets?"

That seems like a huge oversight.

target practice!

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exercise

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Exercise

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