Overlord's Orders XV

[Mhera]

Sir, I actually wasn't listening to James when he pointed out the add for the store because the add was stuck on the 138th page of an electronics magazine. When we first arrived James had picked up the magazine and started reading through the whole thing from the very beginning and would stop every few pages and say something like, "Guys, we should visit [such-and-such arcade/store/super market] and get [such-and-such electronic thingy]!" I stopped listening after about 76 pages of this and instead focused on the mission, which was trying to find a place that we could get what you wanted. I did want to go to the barbershop, but not to goof off. Let me explain.

Everyone knows that a good place to look for miscellaneous adds as well as get a good sample of people to interview about local spots is a barbershop. By going to "High Rollers", which was right across the street, we would be able to find a bunch of knowledgable locals and inquire about good places to find what you asked for. Everyone but James, who was rambling about that add, and Sage agreed to go (though unbeknownst to me they wanted to go to mess around). At this point I began to notice I was turning invisible. Someone must have slipped an invisible botion into my breakfast, sir, and I suspect it was Sage because he noticed me going clear and cackled, "So I see my invisible botion is taking effect! Mahaha! Here's hoping the your death that it will cause is slow and painful!" At his final sentence I whipped out a gun and pointed it at him, asking him for the botion's antidote. He gave it to me, I drank it, and went back to being visible and not about to die. I guess Sage mistook my actions for trying to get him to go to the shop when in reality I was trying to keep him from murdering me. The others seemed oblivious even though Sage was shouting something about throwing away your money. After that little episode we went to the barber shop.

Sir, you know how it's bad manners to walk into a business, use some of its services, and then not pay? If we went into the barber shop and didn't get haircuts that's what would've happened. Also, I was starting to look a little shaggy. Not wanting bad manners and bad looks to tarnish your name, I decided to clean up a bit. In the interest of getting in and out as soon as possible (because as James said, your time is valuable) I took the first available seat. I had no idea that the shop had reservations as there were nothing saying that this was the case and since the barber had called "Next!" without saying names I figured whoever was in line next was good to go. Mr. Fox only walked in after I was seated.

At this point I must mention Mr. Fox looks exactly like my afore mentioned twin brother, Ralphie, who is always trying to steal my place in lines and impertinently calls me "ma'am". Whenever he does this I make it a point to slap him upside the head so he'll learn some respect. When Mr. Fox said what he did it was so reminiscent of Ralphie that I automatically kicked into my sister response. Immediately afterwards I realized what I had done and started to apologize but his bodyguard aunt cut me off and started beating me, forcing me into using self defense. The fight was actually settling down and I was beginning to explain what had happened to a very understanding Mr. Fox when Sand and Jukka stormed over and started the battle anew, getting us kicked out.

Sand was still livid when we got to Joe's store. After he made his threat about the bombs he started to set up the explosives contrary to his claims that it was all just a bluff. I guess that he was just making his threat as convincing as possible, and it sure fooled me. I decided to attempt to defuse the bombs and was doing so when Sage walked up and pushed me into the detonator, causing the bombs to go off. I was never trying to blow up the store, sir, as you see I was doing quite the opposite.

[Hickory]

Mhera didn't mention that I was throwing  your money into the lottery machine. Why? Because I am amazing  at the lottery! I was just about to take the 10,000 dollar ticket out of the machine when Izeroth jumps in front of me, shouting "No! We have to waste as much money as possible!" I allso slipped the invisibility potion into Mhera's cereal because Sky (who, BTW, was also invisible) was threatening to lop Izeroth's head off! I favored Izeroth and did whata Sky wanted.

[Jukka the Sling]

Sir, Sand and I attacked the old lady with the Walkman because she was attacking friend Mhera. Up until that point, I had basically been following the group around, making a few suggestions here and there for how best to accomplish our mission, but besides that, trying not to make too much trouble. Sand and I were playing a relaxing game of chess in the barbershop when suddenly a commotion broke out. I immediately rushed over to save Mhera.

Also, when we were in the video store, I told Mhera at least twice what Sand had already told her - that he was just bluffing about blowing it up. However, she grinned annoyingly and said, "Oh, really?" I insisted that it was so, but she ignored me. At this point, I somewhat regretted saving her from the old lady.

[Skyblade]

OOC: Will post in a moment. I'll have fun with this

IC: "Sir, I did not threaten to lop Izeroth's head off for no good reason.

All of us in this group know that Izeroth, while he is serving you, is also a word-class magician. I became fascinated with his magic because 1) It may come handy in future missions for you, Sir Soren, 2) This was good magic, and not anything bad, and 3) It's downright cool. Life is meant be enjoyed, and I intend to experience breathtaking things as long as they are not wrong in any way.

Izeroth has this one trick in which he can grow his head back after somebody chops it off. I don't know how. Like I said, he's an amazing magician. Anyway, he showed me the trick , but after a while I wanted to learn another one. Turns out he is also a master at invisibility potions. Is there anything this guy cannot do?

Fascinated and impressed by Izeroth’s skills, I had him show off his talent to all the other servants. They clapped and agreed with me that was really good. I then suggested that we learn how to be invisible by taking the invisibility potion and getting used to what being invisible is like: it could indeed be very useful in future missions for you. All the others agreed.

I would have asked Mhera to put the potion in her own cereal or done it myself, but we are both allergic to it. So I asked Sage to do it for me, since he seems a trusty servant and good friend. I made it very clear that I wanted him to do it on a morning that we were not doing a mission for you, so it wouldn’t mess up our working. I wanted us to practice when we weren’t doing a real task. So as for why Sage put the potion in Mhera’s breakfast the morning of our mission, don’t look at me because I don’t know. I told him not to, though. And even though I was invisible, he knew it was me by my distinct and cool voice.

Also, he must have thought I was threatening Izeroth because I said, “Sage, if we don’t practice being invisible, our next option would be doing the chopping off Izeroth’s head thing.” Of course, I didn’t mean actually kill him. I meant that if we didn’t practice being invisible, the next magic skill was Izeroth’s head-growing ability.

Also, please try to keep in mind what I said before. I saved our lives and the lives of the others in the shop...

I hope you understand, sir.”

[Mhera]

Sir, I can't help it if Jukka thought my wry grin was annoying. That's her problem. I saw Sand setting up the explosives and even though both he and Jukka reassured me that it was a bluff it sure didn't look like it. That's why I replied with irony twice and then ignored Jukka from there on. I was paying attention to defusing the explosives. The very fact that the bombs actually went off when Sage pushed me into the detonator goes to show that my worries regarding how far this bluff was taken were warranted.

[Izeroth]

OOC: Will do

Quite amusingly, Sagetip seems to think I was in favor of wasting as much money as possible. I knew, you see, that the lottery machine owners secretly enslave anyone who wins the 10,000 dollar ticket. (Don't ask me why or how; they just do) Anyway, when Sagetip was about to win it, I jumped in front of the machine and came up with an excuse in an attempt to stop him from falling into the trap.

[Hickory]

((ya might want to change in from 10,00 to 10,000))

[Søren]

Soren raised his hand, signaling silence.
"I am appalled that this could happen. And one of you holds most of the blame.
Sagetip the Hare, you not only you not only interfered with the mission by being insistent about your hair, but also disrupted actions by Mhera, Izeroth and Skyblade. I have little choice but to supply the appropriate punishment."
Sagwtip was all of the sudden hoisted from the platform and launched into space. He monitor that showed the previous unreliable servents lit up again, apshowing the mortified Sage. He was being thrown between two giant space alien babies, who were apparently having fun tossing and sucking on his head.
"Ah yes, the Galordian twins will like their new toy."
"As for you other servents, I have a exciting mission for you, one that you will need to perform exemplary.
"You will be transported to the 5 dimension of relative space, where you will get for me a ship, the only Mandalorian scout ship left in existence. Once you acquire it, return to the planet that you arrived from, and you will return to out diminsion."

Two weeks later....

"What does it take to get good servents? You not only lost my ship somewhere in deep space, but wrecked a small planitoid and somehow started a galactic war between the Kree and the Breen. And I don't even want to know about how you managed to get into a race with 462 baby robots on little ships!"

[James Gryphon]

"We arrived without incident and secured the powerful Mandalorian scout vessel. As an experienced pilot, I felt it would be fitting for me to take the controls of the ship back home. Mhera, however, said that she should fly, explaining her feelings in a song she titled "Mhera Knows Best". Everyone else was actually convinced by this song, and insisted that Mhera fly. I knew it would result in disaster, but after Izeroth threatened me at gunpoint, I had no choice but to accept this."

"No thanks to Mhera's flying skills, we flew into Kree space, violating their neutral zone. Izeroth said, "It's okay, I set up a Breen transponder on our ship, so they won't think it's us". Mhera hung around Kree space long enough to get intercepted by their Purification Patrol. In spite of our ship's vastly superior armament and protection, we were nearly destroyed in a space battle, no thanks to Izeroth repeatedly firing our Nova Cannon at a planetoid instead of Kree warships. Mhera eventually caught on that we were losing (I think the "Hull condition critical" warning with the hundred sirens did it), and told Izeroth to install a Kree transponder. Then she flew right into Breen space, with the entire Kree fleet following us, and blew up Breen Central Command with one burst from our graviton disintegrator. This is what started the galactic war. It's all Mhera and Izeroth's fault."

"Anyway, after this incident, we crash landed near Optimus Beta. Our ship was badly damaged, and we needed repairs to make it home. The robot civilization that was nearby said that we were unworthy of their help. Sandpaw told us, "These robots are our Overlord's allies, and would do anything for him, but we can't tell them that we're his servants." Mhera agreed, and said that we should bet everything we had on the Little Robot Race, a biannual event they have there, to win ship repairs. I said that you would be greatly displeased with us risking your prize in such a way, but Sky squealed something about how the tiny robots were "so cute", and asked if we could "pwease pwease pwease do the race", and everybody else agreed to that.

The Little Robot Race happened to be exactly like Sky's favorite video game, but she refused to race on our behalf. She said, "I wanna watch the cute robots!". So, Sandpaw, who knows nothing about driving or flying anything, volunteered. Everybody else was okay with that, and he crammed into one of the tiny robot racers for their race. Needless to say, he quickly fell behind, and was disqualified before the first lap was over. When the robots came to possess your scout, though, it blasted off and flew off into deep space! Izeroth said, "I thought Sand would lose the race, so I programmed the ship to fly away."

The robots were very angry at us, and were about to put us all in suspended animation. Jukka desperately said, "But we're the Overlord's servants!" The robots' disposition immediately changed. They said, "Why didn't you tell us this before? We would do anything for him." I asked them to help us find the scout that Izeroth lost, but they searched for over a week and never found it. They said that Izeroth's poor course plotting probably caused it to fall into a wormhole. So, with the mission failed, we asked them if they wouldn't mind bringing us back here, so we could at least explain what happened to your Majesty."

"And that's the story. I'm very sorry that your Majesty lost this valuable ship. I did everything I could, but your other servants were too determined to make the mission fail."

[LT Sandpaw]

After James had finished his rather long and detailed story Sandpaw raised one of his hands offering to go next.

"Sire I just want to say that I was following orders the whole time. After the fiasco with the explosives James and Izeroth said  should be only trusted with the most basic tasks. There was two of them and only one of me so I didn't argue the point and stayed in the background most of the time.

Well during the battle me and Sky were supposed too maintain the engine room and keep the thing running. Sky noticed the thing was smoking she hit every alarm light we had to try and alert the Pilots and gunners that we were damaged pretty bad. That didn't work so I hit the super loud and annoying alarm which did the trick.

Well after we crashed I noticed the robots had your symbol on their chests and were most likely do you bidding. I also noticed them cooking servants they had captured over a roasting pit. That's why I told everyone too not tell them we were your servants.

Well when the race started I was volunteered to drive which I reluctantly accepted. Sky told me I would probably do great ad just too do my best.

Well when the race started I did remarkably well gaining third place when I noticed I was out of fuel. Izeroth had taken all my fuel to refill the Madalorian scout ship. Well I was disqualified and shamed.

When Mhera told them we were Your Servants they became much more helpful. Well all the others blamed me for losing the ship even though it was Izeroth who shot it into space. And that's my side of the story Sire.

[Skyblade]

"I thought Sand would lose the race, so I programmed the ship to fly away."

OOC: I'm dying xD


IC: "Sir Soren, James and a few other allies appear to have a propensity for portraying me as a fool. Only SaLT has the consideration to recognize the good things that I do. I always strive to make our missions successful, do my best, and end up saving people's lives more often that I should need to. Please hear me out.

Firstly, Mhera's song and argument for why she should fly the vessel were actually very rational and convincing. She explained that she had taken an extensive course on how to pilot a space ship and therefore had the proper skill set to do this task. This is why I was among the people who agreed to allowing her to take us back.

What Sand said is correct. I did my best to get everyone notified of the situation at hand. Kudos to Sand for hitting the most efficient alarm.

Now, the Little Robot Race is something that requires a bit of an explanation. As it turns out, the leader of the robot civilization we had crashed near and I are very good, close friends from way back. His name is Robo the Blue Robot Once he saw me, Robo took me to a storage room for a private conversation. After we finished the usual "It's so nice to see you! We haven't talked in a long time" chit-chat, we got down to business.

"Robo," I said gravely, "Our vessel has crashed. We really need repairs. Otherwise, there is no other way we can get back to where we need to be. We really, really need them."

"I am aware," he replied, "My robot community has offered repairs, but you must bet all you have that you can win our Little Robot Race."

"Robo, we cannot do that. That is risky," I said.

"Wait, let me finished," Robo said, "Since I'm your friend, I'll make an exception. At first, I'll tell the other robots that you're going along with the bet just to appease them, but just in case you do lose, I'll order them that we are not at all to take your Mandalorian scout vessel. As leader, they will listen to me. Besides, if they're mad about my decision, I have a whole closet full of BLTs in the back. They love those. Trust me, Skyblade. It will be fine, as long as your friends don't mess anything up."

And I knew I could trust him, because he was my deepest friend. And he was a robot programmed to not be able to lie.

"Why all the privacy though, Robo?" I asked.

Robo sighed. He explained to me that already news had reached his community that the galactic war between the Kree and the Breen had broken out because of the actions of some people inside our ship. "This is the real reason why me and the other robots would rather not help you all. But since you're my friend, Skyblade, I'll do it for you. Just promise me one, okay two, things."

"What?" I prompted.

"Firstly, I don't really trust your friends, to be honest, after what I heard about them starting a, you know, galactic war. Do by any chance they...dislike you?"

Memories replayed of James using my projects as firewood, Mhera calling me a poo-poo head, and Jukka trashing my room.

"Yeah...." said Robo, seeing my troubled face. "So please don't tell any of your friends about our conversation – I don't trust them. And the second promise, our regulations state that this race prohibits experts from participating. That means you. It would be very bad for you if you broke our law, so can you please refrain from being in the race? Make up an excuse about wanting to watch the robots because they're cute. Because they are pretty freaking adorable."

So, that is that. As for selecting Sand, well, I've seen the others play my video game of this race (Blue Robot Smash Race!), and they are – to put it bluntly – epic fails. Sand had to be better than them (everyone else always got dead last when they played), so I told him to do his best.

So after we lost, Robo was about to order his robots to not take the scout (carrying a bag full of BLTs, no doubt), when it just flew away by itself.

My apologies, sir."

[Izeroth]

 What the others didn't explain was that, in the song, Mhera subtly implied that she was going to blow up the ship if she didn't get her way. (None of the others seemed to realize this; perhaps they can explain.) When Mhera started singing yet another verse, subtly implying that she would blow up the ship if she didn't get her way right now, I figured I had to do something. So, I held Gryphon at gunpoint and forced him to allow Mhera to fly the ship. He can thank me later.

As for the space battle, I think Gryphon largely misinterpreted the series of events. While I did fire the Nova cannon at a large planetoid, it was because the planetoid contained radioactive nanites (part of the Kree defense system) that would have been unleashed upon our ship had I not destroyed their colonies. I might add that, during the duration of the battle, James Gryphon was listening to wierd pop music and dissassembling our shield generators.

And, for the fuel/race fiasco, I asked Sandpaw if he needed any oil, but he told me the tank was already full, and that it would last him through the whole race. Therefore, I used the oil on the ship.

Now, listen closely here: I had read in the latest issue of Galactic Geographic that one must never let C-17 servant bots onboard a ship, for they have a vital manufacturing error that will cause them to go berserk and start killing everything. Naturally, seeing as Skyblade had earlier told me (in a very serious voice, I might add) that the robots were C-17 servant bots, I knew I had to get them as far away from a ship as possible, even if it resulted in us being stranded.

A couple seconds after the ship flew away, Skyblade informed me that the robots had actually been C-18 models the entire time, but she told me they were C-17s because she "thought it would be funny."

[Mhera]

Sir, as Sky said I did indeed take a comprehensive spaceflight course and passed with excellent scores. However, no amount of piloting skills can make up for bad navigation, which is what James was providing me during the time I was behind the controls. After Izeroth convinced James it would be good to let me fly, James was sulky and upset. So Sky started talking about how James should be the navigator, and eventually we all agreed so he wouldn't be so down. He gave me the directions to the Kree airspace, and after we realized our destination, he took his own sweet time trying to figure out the way out, which was why we lingered so long in space. After we had waited long as possible for James to sort things out and we had sustained extensive damage, I asked Izeroth to install the transponder so that the Kree would think we were one of their own and not to be attacked. Right after the transponder was installed, James seemed to make up his mind about where to go. Focusing on flying out limping vessel out of danger, I didn't realize that James had navigated us straight into Breen space. Soon after that Jukka grabbed the controls from me; she seemed to be in a panic and crashed the ship.

Now as Sky said, I sang the song to convince the others I should fly. Again, I am an experienced pilot; not volunteering my top-of-the-line services would be irresponsible. As for the lyrics that Izeroth thought meant I was threatening to blow up the ship, I was just conveying in song the time one of my flight instructors had referred to my skills as "mind blowingly good." Apologies for any confusion that caused.

Also, I called Sky a poo-poo head after a bird relieved itself right above her head during a picnic. She asked me what she looked like afterwards and I told her; the term I used accurately described her state at the time and was not at all meant as an insult.

Finally, I was going off of Sky's recommendation when I said we should bet the ship in the race.

[Skyblade]

IC: Skyblade sighed. "Sir, there's a long backstory to what Izeroth said, and he has simply left out the details to make it look like it was all my fault.

Remember Opposite Day, which helped ruin our first mission? Well, if you also recall correctly, it was Izeroth who was the most enthusiastic about it. After getting tired of it for one day, he suddenly started jumping right back into it. I don't know why- it was not my idea and I kept discouraging him. He would do it to everyone at first, but eventually started doing it mostly to me. I don't know why; I've always been nice to him and never did a wrong thing to him or another ally.

At first, it wasn't that bad. He just said "bye" for "hi" and vice-versa. But things soon exacerbated. Because he kept saying the opposite thing, he kept tricking me on purpose. For one example, he told me to go into the basement when he meant to go to the attic, making me look for an important item for 5 hours.

I said, "Izeroth! Why do you keep doing this? It's not even Opposite Day anymore!"

"Because it's hilarious to make you fail in the things you do," said Izeroth. "And maybe I'll make you fail a mission for Soren, and you'll get all the blame." He then laughed manically.

I told him to stop saying the opposite of what he really meant, but he refused and kept doing it for literally EVERYTHING. The only time he actually says what he means is during a mission. I was very confused. Finally, I caught on, and Izeroth seemed to be annoyed when a day had passed and he hadn't fooled me.

The day after (which was not a day of a mission), we were reading (I was reading up on how to appease you by the way, Sir Soren) when he said, "Hey, Skyblade, there's something you should know."

"What?" I asked warily.

"C-17 robots will kill everyone, while C-18 robots are harmless. Remember that for future missions."

My mind clicked. He means the opposite, as usual. Which means...

C-17 robots are harmless.

C- 18 robots will kill.

Izeroth thinks he can fool me again! Haha, he thinks he can ruin future missions, but I won't let him. Joke's on him when he sees that I figure it out and save our next mission for Overlord Soren. So I lied about the robots, saying that they were C-18 instead of C-17 models. Izeroth told me they were harmless, but since he always said the opposite of what he meant, they were in reality killers. I was going to save the day!

As it turned out, however, Izeroth had actually NOT been saying the opposite. He explained this to me by saying (during a mission, so it was true): "Joke's on YOU, SKYBLADE! I knew you got the hang of my jokes, so for the first time ever, without telling you of course, I said what I actually meant! I programmed the ship to fly away to the Bottomless Pit of Despair, a place where we all know it can never, ever be retrieved! I managed to do this only because I had help from two other servants."

So, you see what happened. Izeroth tricked me. I really wanted to do what was best for the mission! My deepest apologies, sir!

Sky started talking about how James should be the navigator,

Sir, my apologies. I had no idea James was a terrible navigator. Actually, he told me that he was great at navigating vessels.

Finally, I was going off of Sky's recommendation when I said we should bet the ship in the race.

Betting the ship was the only way we could get the repairs we needed to get the ship back to you (for some reason, Robo the Blue Robot didn't want it any other way). Besides, as I explained in my earlier explanation, we weren't really betting the ship anyway. It was either you win something or you get nothing, which is safe.


Also, another thing: Mhera and Jukka were vital in helping Izeroth program the ship to fly away to the Bottomless Pit of Despair, where it can't be found. I had nothing to do with this whatsoever; the first time I knew anything about it was after the mission, when James told me.

As usual, I was working only for the success of this mission."

[Izeroth]

 Skyblade seems to believe that my actions came out of pure malice, and not the helpful, servile attitude that all should know me for.

I was only doing the "opposite game" because some rather unscrupulous-looking bounty hunters (which James had let in, for some reason) were lounging about the spaceport. Therefore, I decided that, when we were around the bounty-hunters, it would be a good idea to speak opposite so they wouldn't figure out our plans. I repeatedly tried to get the others to understand this, but none of them would listen to me.

I said, "Because it's hilarious to make you fail in the things I do," because I was being watched by the bounty hunters, and didn't want to appear too nice in front of them.

Anyway, the bounty hunters never accompanied us when we went on missions, preferring to remain at the spaceport and drink some sort of glowing green substance. This meant that I didn't need to speak opposite when we were on missions. (Again, the others never seemed to realize the true purpose of my opposite-speak)

One day, the bounty hunters finally left the spaceport! I told Sky this, and said that I didn't need to speak in opposite talk anymore, but I don't think she even listened to me. When I said the thing about C-17 service bots, I was absolutely serious, and even said, "you know I'm not speaking in opposite anymore, right?"

As it turned out, however, Izeroth had actually NOT been saying the opposite. He explained this to me by saying (during a mission, so it was true): "Joke's on YOU, SKYBLADE! I knew you got the hang of my jokes, so for the first time ever, without telling you of course, I said what I actually meant! I programmed the ship to fly away to the Bottomless Pit of Despair, a place where we all know it can never, ever be retrieved! I managed to do this only because I had help from two other servants."

As for those actions... you can blame a bottle of rancor juice. Gryphon gave it to me, you see, telling me it would make me stronger. I was apprehensive, but he urged me to drink it, even going so far as singing a song about the wonders of rancor juice. Finally, I drank it just to get him to stop annoying me.

What I didn't realize, though, is that rancor juice is a most powerful drink. A single drop can cause mental unbalance and hallucinating, so you can imagine what a whole bottle did to my brain. The rancor juice went into effect right after the ship had taken off, causing my outburst.

I don't remember who the two other servants were... perhaps they can explain.

As usual, others were responsible for the failure of this mission.