Character Sketch: Amber Diceless Role Playing Game.
Cody D'Avalon:
Player Name: Ron Wm. Hurlbut
Character Name: Cody D'Avalon
Gender: Male
Height: 6' 1"
Weight: 165#
Hair Colour: Sand
Eye Colour: Steel Blue
DOB: ~ Whatever fits~
Age: 16
Family circumstance: Single Parent (Mother) I'm agnostic about Cody's paternity. Although Avalon is/was Corwin's shadow/domain. I assume there were plenty of other Amberites that visited there before or during the Chronicles. Or it's an homage to uncle Corwin...
Maternity is obviously not Amberite if we are to believe Cody's narrative. However, M-unit has not been named anything in the narrative except Mx D'Avalon. Mother may want to raise child outside the Royal Court for numerous reasons and will reveal child's true identity upon 'maturity'.IIRC Oberon sired upwards of forty-seven children. Although, only twenty or so are named in the Chronicles. So Maternity/Paternity is wide open.
Ethnic origin: Caucasian(white)
Country of Origin: 'Station' - Space Station Number Three. (See origin story below)
Place of residence (where you live): Same
Current Education Status: ~High School~ - Mechanical Engineer / Flux Pilot
Rank the following in order of importance to your character (1:Highest->4:Lowest)
1: Intellect 2: Health 3:Fitness 4:Competitiveness
Maturity of your character:
- Consider romantic relationships your character may have had, past/current boyfriend(S)/Girlfriend(S), if any: Dating/Exploring
- Creature: Tch-Tch [The best way to describe Tch-Tch is a Lynx with six legs. It's fur is chameleon like that it can phosphoresce and change colour. It's toes are equipped with both retractable claws and suction cups that allow it to climb vertical surfaces and cling to the ceiling. Cute, but also an efficient predator. A sort of indestructible furry space Tardigrade.]
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Lessons are over and the lifts get too crowded at this chrono, so I palm my sgian-dubh and slip it between the grills of the vent to trigger the catch release. I duck quickly and roll into the shaft. Careful to close the grating behind me so that it doesn't slam shut and draw any attention from the nearby corridor. I perch in the darkness a moment to let my eyes adjust. The glow tag tells me what I already know. POD9L16D4V77. Not that I'd get lost. I've been station all my life. Most of my creche too. Not supposed to be in the guts. Not supposed to have the sgian-dubh either. Lots of not supposed. Like Tch-Tch. Not supposed to have pets. M-Unit doesn't mind, though. So as long as it stays out from underfoot we're golden.
The purzx hits my mind as Tch-Tch pads towards me. ~Hey, you little worm! How's hunting?~ I mind it.
~Holds are full of triticale. Triticale is full of vermin. Belly full of vermin.~ Tch-Tch nudges my thigh with its head and I reach down to scratch the soft fur between shoulder blades and around ears. The buzzing pursx fills my minds along with the now audible purring.
~Let's go lowG to the workshops and I'll rub your full belly while I puzzle and knock about.~ I crawl over to vertical and take to the rungs as Tch-Tch follows. It's not too bad flitting down the rungs. The slog is going the other way. Tch-Tch doesn't help much. Circling and nudging as it pads along with me on silent suction-cupped toes.
M-unit likes me to call her 'Mommy'. Too old for that now, so it's 'Mom' (In private) otherwise it's M-unit. Like any other Cresher.
She came from somewhere LowT as a refuge. She calls it Avalon but that's not any place charted. I was riding in her womb at the time so Station is the only home I know.
Not that she wants to return to Avalon anyway.
Avalon wasn't so great, she says. War and bloodshed. She was rounded up to 'service' the troops and followed them a ways away from Avalon. She says, thankfully, that she was in with the officers and not the general infantry so she didn't get passed around so much. Then she just slipped out of camp one night and took to the hills. Eventually wound up on the edge of a city where she didn't speak the local dialectics.
There were a lot of migrations happening and there were several camps on the outskirts of the gleaming city.
She picked up the local lingo spoken near the port and got 'rehabilitated'.
First, working the docks and warehouses. She showed an instant aptitude for broomstick and got cruited into pilot school before she knew what was happening. Her CNS was 'green' for implant and she was drafted in.
I was her ticket out.
M-unit was feral endowed with me which disqualified her for combat training. At least until I was out of nursery. But she did get jacked right away and she got her Wings and soon after, her Boosters.
Someone at Station saw her potential and pulled her aboard before she ever had to see Barracks.
She's exceptional.
And, except for furlough, we never go Green Side.
Speaking of Green Side, that's what I'm working on. Down in the workshops in LowG I got a locker full of salvaged flotsam and jetsam. As they say, "Blow-ups happen."
With what I've got, I'm building a pair of Broomsticks for M-unit and me to ride the next time we go Green Side.
Just to explain something to any Green-sider: Going 'down' to LowG is actually climbing 'up' the rungs. Out of centrifuge towards Hub. So what starts as a hard climb actually gets easier the further you go. But it's still a long climb.
Closer to Hub and LowG the rungs in the shaft are farther apart. It becomes more of a bounding motion than crawling as you climb the last couple of levels.
The quicker movement always gets Tch-Tch a little excited and it starts to phosphoresce a dim mauve with violet stripes. The tips of its ears throw off little sparks. The ultraviolet light Tch-Tch emits reveals the Blaschko's lines on my mostly bare skin. We're a pair of striped animals scampering through the darkness.
At a juncture, I crouch and roll forward past two grills and stop myself at the third. POD9L03D4V75. I pull the sgian-dubh from my boot and jimmy the catch on the grill. I roll out with Tch-Tch and lay on my back, blinking as my eyes readjust to the light.
In a blink, Tch-Tch's fur has gone grey/beige to blend with the surrounding. Glossy black eyes squinting like slivers of obsidian.
It's much cooler down in up and my perspiration makes my skin clammy. Blinking from the light, I stand up and peek into the corridor. A few paces and I'm at a man door to the workshop. I tap my jack on the frame and the door welcomes me, announcing "Cody D'Avalon." I step through the aperture with Tch-Tch on my heels.
On hooks beside the door are hung coveralls. I don't hesitate to pull a set on. Back down in up, clothing is optional as the temperature is kept at a comfortable level. Here in the shady parts the ambient is cooler and unless you are exerting yourself, it's best to wrap yourself in something, so I usually do. Coveralls are a requirement in here anyway. There's always something sparking or throwing off jagged bits, so protection is necessary. Goggles are a good idea too.
There's several others in the large workshop hunched over their various projects and a few more watching over them. There's a mixture of machine sounds and the susurrus of multiple conversations.
A couple look up from their projects and give me a nod. Jessop gives me a smile, "Hey, Rat!"
Can't help but smile back, "Hey Jess." She's cute, in all her frowning glory. Depilated bright clean skin, white teeth and blue eyes. Blue jacks that match her eyes. By comparison, my jacks are all flesh tone.
She's got a full pilot set, like M-unit; like me.
I'm one of very few males to have a full pilot set. I have the same aptitude and resilience as M-unit. Not a lot of guys do. Especially so young. The jacks aren't fully ripened and rooted. Just freshly installed.
She comes over, wiping grease from her fingers onto a rag and then she tussles my long wavy locks, "When are you going to chop off that mop?"
"Not sure I ever will."
"You're goldbricking."
Jessop's one of only a few that knows that I have been fully jacked. My long hair hides some of them. If I opt into Service I can get full Citizenship. M-unit's done well enough without full Citizenship, so I don't really see the point. Talent and skill will save me from kill, I think to myself. But there's a lot of pressure. Pirating is getting worse and they're outsmarting the defense drones. Flesh and brains with the right stuff are more effective in the flux against marauders.
"I've got other options."
"Goldbricker!" She laughs and slaps my ass.
Tch-Tch arches its back and spits in my defense.
To Tch-Tch, "Oh, Scruff... Rat can take care of himself, if he wants to. He doesn't need your protection." She crouches down and scritches Tch-Tch between the ears. Tch-Tch acquiesces with little sparks off its ear tufts and a soft purr.
With a purzx ~Mate this one~ Tch-Tch minds me.
I gasp and blush, forgetting that no one else I know of can mind Tch-Tch. At least, I hope not, at the moment. I'm not sure Jessop can, but she laughs, so I'm not sure.
I'm not going to ask her, either.
I walk over to the lockers and tap a jack. The AI acknowledges, "Cody D'Avalon." And releases the maglock on my storage. I pull out one of the broomsticks, heft it onto a maintenance rack and clamp it there.
[You may have guessed that a broomstick is more or less a flying motorcycle. It can be ridden by anyone, with or without cybernetic jacks. The more skilled/experienced riders go barefoot so that they can manipulate some of the controls with their feet/toes.]
With the Broomstick on the rack, I go through a mental checklist and gather up some diagnostic equipment.
As I start poking at the machine an Engineering Chief watches over my shoulder. Clearing her throat, "Ya know... At some point you've got to decide that yer done with a project, pull it off the rack and jump on."
"Uh, ya, I guess so. Just that I really don't like the idea of my M-unit falling out of the sky. Or me."
She slaps me on the shoulder and laughs. "Yer fine, Rat. I've been watching yer build. Yer just chasing yer tail now. Start a new project with some of that other scrap you've collected or free up the rack for someone else to use."
"Thanks, Chief!"
I take her advice and pack things up.
"Jess, are you ready for some grub?"
~Little Worm, do you want to come to the Canteen too?~
It's a rhetorical question. Even with a belly full of vermin there's always room for table scraps.
Even though I mentioned earlier that I'm not supposed to have pets: That's not a Station rule, it's an M-unit rule. One she really never enforced.
Tch-Tch followed me home one day, and it pretty much takes care of itself.
Jessup was in the process of cleaning up her project when I arrived in the workshop, so asking her was rhetorical as well.
Romantic ideas float around in my mind. Must be hormones. Jessup is a creche-mate and practically a sister to me. But, recently... I don't know. And Tch-Tch's prod.
I pull off my coveralls and toss them in a hamper. I watch Jessup do the same.
She stares me in the eyes but I detect a bit of a blush on her. Or I'm imaging things.
"Alright, Rat, let's get some grub."
Due to my recent growth my shoulders have broadened and I now stand a head taller than Jessup. Jessup's recent growth has broadened her hips and, well, you know...
We step though the doorway into the corridor together while Tch-Tch prods us forward by ramming his head insistently against the backs of our legs.
"Let's go up to Pinnacle. We can watch the Puffers being herded in."
Station is in near proximity to a binary planet. The two planets, Nereus and Doris, share an atmosphere. The Puffers are gigantic Tetraodontiformes fishes that can puff up like balloons and float out of the atmosphere. They naturally migrate between the two planets in the rarified atmosphere between them, and sometimes beyond, to spawn.
Their large fins are super black on one side and mirror like on the other that act as both wind and solar sails.
The people of Nereus and Doris have domesticated the Tetraodontiformes and fill their ballast bladders with cargo instead of rocks and water so that they can move between the two planets.
A large shipment of sea food is being brought up to Station with the herd of Puffers. They'll be loaded up with the Triticale for their return trip to Nereus and Doris. 'N-D' for short.
I guess I should mention at this point that Station is in retrograde orbit around Ra. Instead of following or chasing the other planets, we intercept and pass them (Or vice versa?) to facilitate trade between them. The system is possible because the Imperial Planets orbit nearly on the same orbital plane within the Goldielocks zone. Every couple of months we intercept the next planet in the orbital plane where we can offload/load cargo.
I should also mention that there are three other stations. We all call our own station, 'Station' but our station is number three. Only One would call itself 'One' and nobody likes to think of themselves as anything but number one, so we just call it 'Station'.
"Yes, right. Pinnacle." I scoop Tch-Tch into my arms and lift it to perch on my shoulders. Speaking of growth. Tch-Tch has been getting bigger too. Full grown, it'll get to be nearly two-hundred kilos. Maybe a little more.
"Have you been practicing the new material?"
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