Dusting off the cobwebs for Scary.
Zen Rafell eased his chair back and stood.
"Gentlemen," he quipped to the distinctly ungentle creatures still seated at the table. "It's been a pleasure doin' business with you."
He tipped his wide-brimmed hat, as the aliens made various grumbles and clicks. Though not his favorite group of scum, the Geonosians had paid him handsomely for delivering their cargo. They hadn't volunteered any information on the contents of the crates, and Zen hadn't asked. Discretion was an important part of his line of work. And frankly, as long as they weren't slave traders (had to draw a line somewhere, right?), he didn't care. It was time to get off this rock. Zen flipped a coin at the bartender for his drink and strode out.
There were three people waiting for him outside the ship's landing bay, official Republic by the looks of them. Zen's hand went to his right holster and he unsnapped the strap over his blaster. The leader, a Jedi who wore a band of cloth concealing his eyes, turned toward Zen. He held up his hands and called out to the smuggler.
"Captain Rafell, we have need of your services."
"You gotta lotta nerve, stranger." Zen replied, tightening his grip on the gun. "And how do you know my name?"
"Please, out here in the open is not an appropriate place for negotiations. Let us board and we can discuss an arrangement." The Jedi suddenly had a bag of coin in his hand. "One that I hope will be mutually beneficial."
Zen glanced at the two thinly disguised troops behind the Jedi. "All right. We can talk inside the bay. Your friends can wait out here."
"Agreed." Zen strode forward to the bay door, punched in the access code and waved the Jedi though. Tipping his hat to the other two republics, Zen followed, locking the door behind him.
He stopped a few steps inside. The Jedi turned, "Nice ship you have here, Captain Rafell."
"She gets the job done. And you still haven't told me your name. Or how you know mine."
The Jedi shrugged dismissively. "I persuaded the dockmaster," he responded. "He said you had the fastest ship in port. As I said, my companions and I have need of your services."
"You have cargo you want moved."
"No cargo. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Valon Soturi, a consular of the Jedi Order. I would like to book passage."
"Well, Soturi, this ain't no luxury liner."
The Jedi smiled, "I am sure whatever quarters you have will be fine."
Eyeing the Jedi, Zen stroked the stubble on his face, considering. "You haven't told me where you want to go, and I haven't agreed."
And I hope you continue this story and skip taking a month off from writing. I enjoyed what you have so far and I'm intrigued. I enjoy story blogging a lot more than regurgitated blogging. I'll be pissed if you wait another month slacker! Keep the juices flowing!
ReplyDeleteThe only flaw I see here Rowan is that the MonkeySphere rarely gets filled with online play. Good guilds tend to cap out at 50 people or so, and you may not even know all the people there. So its nice to have some NPC's to fill out the sphere with.
ReplyDeleteUnless the argument is that the MonkeySphere IRL extends to your game play. I struggle with that concept though, I think the online realm is different enough to constitute its own sphere of relationships, perhaps with the caveat that they are not as deep as IRL ones.
@hzero I assume your comment was supposed to go on my more recent post. I don't know how to move it, but I'll look into it later.
ReplyDeleteTo answer, though, the monkeysphere represents the limit of all our possible personal relationships as a result of our brain's capacity, so this would include any online relationships we form. I doubt very many people actually have that many true friends in our modern society, so there is plenty of room for online friendships.
This is just personal opinion, but as I stated in my post, I'd be willing to bet that any celebrities we may care about take up space in our monkeysphere. Much like our auditory center cannot distinguish between sounds we hear and sounds we think about (that song stuck in your head, or your cellphone ringtone), I'd be willing to bet our "relationship center" can't distinguish between people we actually know and people we think we know. It takes our neocortex (the thinking brain) to make those distinctions.