Mass effect oc rp

“Unsurprising that he hasn’t,” the voice replied. “But you SHOULD care. You are his latest target. Zimri Gautland is a Terra Firma sympathiser… and a murderer.”

The blurred images on the screen disappears, and is replaced with the photo of a much younger Zimri saluting on a stage. Terra Firma logos and banners hang in the background, and there is a determined anger in his eyes as he looks out over the cheering crowd.

“It is his game,” the voice continues. “The sick bastard exploits aliens like tools, then murders them in cold blood once he has used them for his own ends.” The voice grows more urging. “Naria, you have to look past the illusion. You are hardly the first to fall prey to his charismatic personality.”

The voice cuts out, as does the photo of Zimri. Instead, a video loads on the screen and starts playing:

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Zimri is standing in a room that looks like some sort of clinical facility, perhaps a laboratory. The camera angle suggests that the footage is from a security camera. With Zimri is a young asari in custom military gear.

“The drill has finished,” the asari says excitedly, reading her omni-tool. “Dropping the orb now.”

“Excellent work, Reyas,” Zimri tells her, and pats her shoulder encouragingly. “Then our work here is done.”

The asari smiles at him. “Yes. It’s finally over. We can finally put this behind us and start a new life together.”

“Of course,” Zimri assures her. “Just get your gear stowed away, my sweet. No point leaving expensive equipment behind.”

The girl nods eagerly and turns to put some of her things into a bag. As she does so, Zimri casually draws a pistol from his holster and aims it at her. The hiss from the gun when he switches off the safety makes the asari freeze, and she slowly stands. “Zimri?” she asked incredulously as she turned to face him with frightened eyes.

“You are the last,” he simply says, offering no further explanation. “This is how it has to be.”

The asari hangs her head dejectedly and sobs. “S-somehow I knew…” she whimpered, “There was always something cold in your eyes… I- I feared that you would do this, in the end.”

Zimri let out a cruel laugh. “And yet you obeyed me blindly, you disgusting alien!” At that, he pulled the trigger. The pistol barked off a shot that struck through the woman’s head, and she fell to the floor lifelessly.

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The recording stopped, and the blurred image of Naria’s new friend returned on the screen. “I am sorry you had to sit through that,” the voice said. “But now do you see? This is who he is, and this is what will happen to YOU if you let him string you along.”

(lol! Go to sleep xD Or otherwise, don’t blame me in the morning if you feel like crap :P )

“Do not think like that!” the voice snapped back. “Your life matters, and you can come out of this alive. I am giving you the information on your sister as a gift – a gesture of good-will. Once you have found her and brought her home, I trust that will be enough to dispel your doubts about my sincerity. But until then, I can also offer you this…”

The blurry image cleared up, until a turian was staring back at Naria. “My name is Varlin Ranus,” he said, his voice now normal as well. “You now know my face and name, and you can look me up. I am a C-Sec officer, or well…” his mandibles twitched in agitation. “…I was one, in any case. You can look this up also.”

He leaned forward in his seat. “This is enough information to destroy my operations as a broker,” he said, “but I am trusting you because I need you to trust me.” His image cut out, and instead a digital code started glowing on the screen. “Type that code into the data-pad next to you. On it, you have all the information on your sister. I only ask that you take Zimri Gautland with you to recover her.” After another pause he added, “And I ask that you find a way to keep his apartment unlocked while you are off-world. He keeps extensive logs on his past affairs, and I need access to them to find answers. For myself, and for everyone he's killed.”

“Perhaps the information can even cast things in a new light, and vindicate him,” the turian suggested, but didn’t sound very convincing. “Though otherwise, it will still bring a lot of answers to grieving families, and once they have their closure, you and I can discuss further what to do with Mister Gautland himself. Naria, is this agreeable to you? Can you do this? A favour for a favour?”

(Hehe :P )

“Thank you Naria,” Varlin said encouragingly, back again on the screen, “you are very brave. Do not think for a second that I don’t sympathise with what this must be like for you.” His mandibles moved slowly as he studied her from the screen with his black eyes. “Remember, I only need the apartment unlocked. Don’t take any unnecessary risks; I will take care of everything else from there.”

“You are far from the only person about to get closure once this his over,” he concluded. “Thank you for helping me make this galaxy a kinder place, Naria. I suggest you take a moment and calm down before you go back out to mister Gautland.”

(Yeah… I get that a lot. xD Thanks for the compliment ;) Also the data contains everything Naria would need to find her way. Planet name, coordinates, and if you want, even some new images of Mickey in captivity to prove that she may still be alive. I leave that up to you, since this is Naria's character progression.)

Varlin clasped his hands together and rested his head on them, his elbows were on the ebony table wherever he was sitting. While Naria read through the data, he kept staring at her in silence, waiting to see if she had any final remarks before they parted ways. “If there was nothing else,” he said once he deemed Naria was done, “then I will be in contact with you in the future. Spirits be with you- or well… hmm… your goddess too, if you so will.”

(3 whole hours?!? Unacceptable! :P )

Varlin nodded casually on the screen. “Your thanks are not necessary, only your cooperation,” he said calmly. “Go on your mission. You will be in my thoughts.” At that, the screen went dark, and the computer seemed to shut itself off. As Naria stepped towards the door, it opened once again. The hallway outside was empty.

Meanwhile, Zimri was waiting down in the lobby, standing about and making idle – and fairly awkward – conversation with the salarian from before.

Zimri was leaning against a column and pushed away as soon as he saw Naria approach. He was smiling at her at first, but then turned utterly baffled as he saw her icy stare. “Well I’m not leaving your side,” he said assertively, but then his voice sounded more confused. “I’m hoping you got good news at least... But what’s with-” He trailed off and decided that she was probably just stressed, and that her soldier training was kicking in as a result. He narrowed his eyes at her to make a show that he wasn’t very happy with getting shouted at, but then snapped off a parade-ground salute to her all the same. “Ma’am,” he said with a tinge of sarcasm, “I don’t suppose there will be some spare gear on this ship you mentioned?”

(Also, I just read back a couple of posts. To be clear: Did Naria transmit the lock codes for Zimri’s apartment to Varlin?)

(lol! Do you really want me to spoil it? And what if BOTH those options are true? ;)

But fine. xD I’ll tell you:

Enjoy! )

Zimri followed Naria like a shadow as she greeted her crew. ’Okay, now I understand what she meant with “tense and serious” last night,’ he thought to himself as he listened to the exchange. He boarded the ship without saying a word, but while Naria started changing, he finally looked her crew over one by one, giving polite nods and greetings.

He gave the batarian a stern but polite look, and bowed his head to the two turians before offering the young asari girl the most soothing smile he could muster. He understood Naria’s disapproval of bringing the girl on the mission as she looked jumpy, and scared soldiers were the sort that would accidentally open fire on friendlies if the fighting started getting too chaotic. Finally, he gave his most cordial greeting to the quarian, as he made a point to always treat her people with respect and kindness. “Tartary, ma’am,” he said, showing that he’d picked up her name. He then saluted her respectfully and smiled.

“I’m Zimri,” he said and looked around the group. “Zimri Gautland. I’m pleased to meet you all. I don’t know what sort of combat specializations we’ve got going on here, but if someone can lend me a pistol that isn’t so loud it blows my eardrums out every time I pull the trigger, I can work with that and the stealth systems in my omni-tool once we go in.” At that he smirks wryly. “Now… Naria never told me if you lot were the talkative sort or not, but I would love to have some names to put to all of your faces at least. Even if we plan to just spend the rest of the trip staring down our own feet.”

(Omg! MEAN! )

He noded along politely during the greetings, smiling disarmingly with the ease of the practiced dissembler he was. “I’ll just refer to the both of you as Drucus,” he joked to the turians. A little unsure where Naria was at mentally, he tried to avoid meeting her gaze, but he no longer let his unease show in his body language now that he had an audience to worry about. Instead, he stretched and stood tall, trying to look confident.

He took the assault rifle from the quarian and eyed it quizzically. “So long as you don’t expect me to be a stand-in for this ‘Tank’ fellow, I’ll try to manage,” he said casually, and continued to inspect the weapon, checking it’s thermal clip. “Though I always felt assault rifles were a bit like shotguns; designed for people who don’t know how to aim,” he added jokingly and grinned up at Tatary.

Finally, he sat himself down in an empty seat next to Manx, surprising himself with the realization that the varren was the closest thing around to something that he could calm himself down with right now. “Don’t tell me you also go crazy on missions, girl,” he muttered quietly as he stroked the beast. He held in a sigh, and leaned back to start thinking about ways to pass the time. Finally, he couldn’t stop himself, and his eyes went to Naria to see how she was doing.