Overlord's Orders XV

[Mhera]

Sir, Jukka was the one doing the programming to get the ship to into the Bottomless Pit of Despair. I was just holding a flashlight for her. She'd asked me to do so as it was dark in the place where you do programming, and when I asked what she was doing she said she was reinforcing the ship's shields. This seemed like a good idea and I offered to help. I had no clue that she was actually harming the mission, Overlord.

[Jukka the Sling]

Sir, Skye says I trashed her room at some point before the mission, but it's not quite true. I was merely looking for my annoying kitten, Bombadil, who had scurried into her room and was hiding somewhere. Her room was already a mess, and I was frantically throwing things around, trying to find Bombadil before he smothered to death under all the stuff. (I eventually did find him, still alive, but no thanks to Skye.)

Also, it isn't true that I deliberately sent the ship to the Bottomless Pit of Despair. I was indeed programming, and Mhera was indeed holding a flashlight for me, but I wasn't trying to wreck anything. You see, Izzy had said something to me about how the ship was secretly headed for the Bottomless Pit of Despair (and not to tell anyone else), so as I am a very good flight-programmer, I went to reprogram the ship and thus save all our lives. I asked Mhera to bring a flashlight and some extra batteries, since it might take a while, but she apparently thought the extra batteries weren't necessary and didn't bring them. (And when she asked what I was doing, I lied and told her I was reinforcing the ship's shields. I did this because Izzy had told me not to tell anyone, and I didn't want undue panic among the rest of my companions.)

So, when I was nearly finished programming, her flashlight suddenly died. I was really annoyed, but since I was almost completely done, I supposed I could do the last couple of programming things in the dark. I did. Just after that a red light flashed in the programming room and a robotic voice said, "Warning: Flight path set to the ABSOLUTELY BOTTOMLESS PIT OF DESPAIR. This flight path will take effect in exactly thirty minutes, and can only be manually overridden in the cockpit." I had heard of the ABSOLUTELY BOTTOMLESS PIT OF DESPAIR, and knew that besides the fact that it's always written in all caps, it's ten times worse than the Bottomless Pit of Despair. I was horrified and ran, waiting in the cockpit and looking at my watch constantly. As soon as the half hour had elapsed, I wrested the controls off Mhera, frantically trying to change the flight path. Unfortunately, Skye was jumping around screaming, "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" at the top of her lungs (she apparently has great faith in my flying skills), and James was trying to get in an escape pod that was designed for a five-year-old (he also seems to have great faith in my skills), and being distracted and frightened, I crashed.

I do apologize, but I don't think I can be held responsible for my actions. Izzy apparently programmed the ship to go to the BPoD (I'm just assuming that he did it, since he somehow knew about it. I'm not sure why he decided to tell me, but I suspect him of having a crush on me (which is weird, since I'm already married to Matt Damon)), and Mhera didn't bring extra batteries as I told her to.

EDIT: Fixed it so I wrest the controls off Mhera rather than James.

[Skyblade]

Skyblade looked slightly troubled, but she never lost her confidence in that the mission had not failed because of her.

"Sir, I never knew ANYTHING about the bounty hunters. They're in reality extremely stealthy, and everybody else wouldn't have known if it wasn't for that James, Mhera, and Jukka had told them. For some reason, they thought it would be funny and mean to leave me in the dark. Thus, I had absolutely no clue about the hunters and was left confused. They could at least have tried to tip me off about the situation.

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 I never heard of the bounty hunters, saw them, or sensed them with any other of my senses, I thought he was still saying the opposite. I know that may sound foolish of me, but just look from my perspective.

Every day for two weeks, Izeroth would say the opposite of what he meant at least twenty times a day and fool me quite a bit when I was caught unawares.

After this obsessive routine, I had a really hard time trusting him.

And another thing: Izeroth even told me way before he told me about the C-17 robots, during an earlier mission so I knew it was true, "Skyblade, I will stop speaking opposite only after two full months. Before that, I will always speak opposite. And if I ever change my mind, I'll tell Mhera to tell you, and you'll know."

Well, two months hadn't passed before the C-17 incident, and Mhera (or anyone else, for that matter) hadn't told me a thing about Izeroth changing his mind. Izeroth did not give me a clue or indication that he was going to stop other than saying he was being serious, and I couldn't trust that. After tricking me so many times day after day for weeks, I couldn't trust anything that came out of his mouth until the two months was over (and it was not). It's like the boy who cried wolf, but literally a thousand times worse.

As for what Jukka says, my room is a mess because everyday, James and Izeroth think it's funny to walk in and ruin the place. As for screaming that we're going to die, I was honestly panicking a bit. Also, because I was having trouble getting the alarms to work, I was resorting to yelling something to get everyone to realize what was going on and I thought that would do the trick. If it wasn't for me (and Sandpaw), nobody would have even found out about the perilous position of our vessel until it was too late. I even told Jukka that I was about to start screaming hysterically to alert everyone on the vessel, but despite that I gave her proper warning, she still got distracted for some reason.

Sir, please do seek to understand. What would you do, in our shoes?" With that, Sky once again stepped back.

[James Gryphon]

"Insert righteous indignation for being unfairly accused of everything here," James said.

"Those bounty hunters were perfectly trustworthy people, who I hired out of my own savings to protect your spaceport. When we first got there, Izeroth used the comm panel to send out a message to everyone within fifty quadrillion light years: "HEY EVERYBODY, THERE'S FREE SHIPS AT THESE COORDINATES. WE DON'T WANT THEM. COME PICK THEM UP ANY TIME!" So, I hired the bounty hunters to defend us from people attempting to take Izeroth up on his offer. I said that they should be very stealthy, so as not to upset Sky. Sky, you see, has nightmares whenever she meets strangers, and when she has nightmares, she runs screaming into my room, begging me to "make the bad men go 'way". I did tell everyone else about this, though. Nobody but Izeroth seemed to have a problem with it."

"At this point, I was concerned about Izeroth's mental health. You see, I had found an empty bottle of rancor juice the other day, with "Izeroth's" marked on it. I knew the only cure for rancor juice was another bottle of rancor juice. He said that it tasted yucky and didn't want any more, so I sang the very catchy jingle from the ad to help convince him. He drank it and seemed to get better, up until we left to go on this mission, at least."

"As far as Mhera's alleged navigation skills, she said that when she took the spaceflight course, she got a F grade on everything. I never took that course, having gotten into piloting and navigating before it was introduced. Instead, I got into spaceflight with the "Notch" military-grade simulator, and ranked as Elite during the War. They considered that the highest grade of equivalency and gave me an automatic top-level space flight license. Rest assured that I know everything about this subject."

"The reason why, then, the navigation was bad is Sandpaw. Mhera and Izeroth had said, "Don't do anything unless Sandpaw tells you to do so". Izeroth took out his gun, which he's always waving around, and said, "If you disobey Sandpaw, I will shoot you with this gun". Granted, he's threatened to shoot a lot of times in the past, but knowing what a temper he has, I was concerned that he might actually do it. After all, he sure did a number on Sky's room the other day with it. So, against my better judgment, I cooperated. Every poor decision and every delay was Sand's fault."

"During the battle, Sand said, "I have no clue where to go. Go fix parts of the ship while I figure it out." With Izeroth's gun still pointed at me, I obeyed and went to disassemble the backup shield generators, which were broken when we found them. I fixed them very nicely, but it was a tedious job, so I listened to music to keep my mind occupied while I did this. Then, figuring we might need them soon, I started fixing everything that was wrong with the escape pods. I was trying to get into that escape pod to fix it too, but it was hard because whenever I pulled the "Open" lever, Sky would giggle and press a button to close the doors. I said, "Please don't do that; I need to get inside the escape pod to fix it, dear," but she just giggled more and said something about buttons being fun."

"Finally, as far as Sky's projects go, the reason why I used them as firewood is because they were firewood. Sky had taken some from our stockpile for some reason, and started shaving bits off with nail clippers. When we ran out of all the other firewood, I had to get more, so I went into her room (and I politely knocked, even though she always barges into my room without asking) and retrieved that which she had taken. I did say "We need more firewood; would you mind giving up yours, dear?", and she said yes, so I'm not sure why she's upset now."

[Mhera]

Sir, as Sky said I did indeed take a comprehensive spaceflight course and passed with excellent scores.

As far as Mhera's alleged navigation skills, she said that when she took the spaceflight course, she got a F grade on everything.

Overlord sir, this flight school did their grading on Opposite Day. While I did indeed receive an F it actually meant I got an A. In the interest of being totally honest, however, I mentioned my given grade instead of my actual grade to the other servants, clarifying that it was still an excellent score despite appearances. I'm not sure how James didn't catch that. Also, seeing how James thought he would be the better choice for pilot in this situation, he should have mentioned his commendable flying skills instead of merely sitting there insisting he should be behind the controls without giving reasons.

When Izeroth and I ordered James to do whatever LT said, I was just trying to humor Izeroth. The situation was potentially dangerous, and so I did best to keep the situation calm.

Sky said that Izeroth would tell me to her if he ever decided to stop his Opposite Months gig, and he did. However, because he'd been doing the exact opposite of everything he said he would for so long I figured his statement meant he was going to keep on being opposite for an additional two months and not to tell Sky about it. I apologize for the misunderstanding, but I hope you see that it was an honest mistake.

As for Mrs. Damon's batteries, she had given me AAAs and the flashlight used D cells. I decided to leave the useless power sources behind.

[Skyblade]

OOC: Mrs. Damon

IC: Skyblade spoke.

"Sir, it is true that I have nightmares about strangers. However, first of all, that's not really my fault. As it turns out, I had a traumatic experience with strangers when I was a child. The nightmares were the result of that. In general, people can't really control if they have nightmares - it just happens.

Having explained that, I also want to add that I made it very clear to all the other servants (and it wasn't on Opposite Day, either) that if any stranger(s) was to come to please let me know. "It is imperative that you notify me of any strangers. I must be aware of the going-ons of this place or there may be consequences. Also, I have pills that I can take, which alleviate my nightmares, so do not worry about that." despite that I told everyone this, you can see, sir, that I was still left in the dark.

James said that I prevented him from entering the escape pods. That is very true. However, he left out an important detail. On the side of the escape pods, in bright red, bold letters where clearly both of us could see them were  the words, "TO ANYBODY, NO EXCEPTIONS: DO NOT ENTER ESCAPE PODS OR THEY WILL EXPLODE AND KILL YOU!!!!!" (With exactly that many exclamation points) I was just saying that buttons are fun as a side note (and it is true, admittedly). The real reason nobody could enter the escape pods was blatantly obvious, so I didn't think James had to be actually told. I have no idea why James was trying to enter the escape pods when it had that warning sticker. And also, I don't know whose cruel idea it was to replace our perfectly fine escape pods with those exploding ones, but I sure as heck wasn't involved in that.

To put it simply, Sir Soren, by preventing James from going into the escape pod I saved his life and the lives of anyone else who would have tried to get into those exploding machines.

Also, I should clarify the firewood thing too. All of the servants know that my project, while it was firewood, was also a gift for you, Overlord. I know that gift sounds lame, but I truly hoped you would like it. I am in reality a master carver of firewood and can build impressive sculptures. I borrowed wood from the stockpile because there was plenty of wood anyway and it wouldn’t be missed. I told everyone else about my project so they wouldn’t touch it.

However, one winter night, everyone was freezing to death because we had run out of firewood (not my fault, by the way). James asked if we could use my project, and I agreed only because it was the last wood in the house and to save everyone’s lives (which I seem to do very often). I was upset because I had worked so hard on that project and now I had to start all over again.

Oh, and the reason I enter James’ room “so rudely” is that there’s actually a sign on his bedroom door that says, “Please barge in my room without asking”. I don’t know why but ok.

Those are some more clarifications, sir. I still am and always will be your loyal servant."

[Izeroth]

 As for my message about free ships, that was for the greater good. Gryphon, you see, was hoarding all these old, rusting ships, and there was barely enough room in the spaceport for our own ship. I thought it would be a good idea to get some of those old ships off our hands. It was perfectly safe-- I even had a communication device that I could use to reach the Galactic Police at any time. For some reason, Gryphon got really paranoid, and told people to stay away from his "preciouses".  

As for the rancor juice, that was not my bottle. Someone must've written the word "Izeroth" on it to frame me. When I said I don't want any more, I was referring to a childhood incident.

I was going to let Gryphon fly the ship, but then he stated that, if he was not allowed to fly, he would shoot everyone. Naturally, being a little freaked out, I pulled out my gun and forced him to let Sandpaw (who had told me he was completely qualified) to fly the ship.

And one more thing: I told Jukka I that the ship was headed for the BPD because I was under the influence of the rancor juice. Can I really be blamed for anything I did while that was taking effect?

[LT Sandpaw]

OOC: I was in the engine room the whole time with sky


BIC: In light of this current blame laid upon me it is very hard to navigate when your forced to stay in the engine room without any equipment. Izeroth had gotten it into his head I was a skill navigator, (Which I am)  Well he thought I was So skilled I could navigate from a windowless room with no mechanical aid. After a while of giving James random orders so Izeroth wouldn't shoot him I told him I had no clue where to go and he was on his own.

Well surprisingly enough James got us out of there quite well but unfortunately due to the damaged engine Jukka crashed the ship anyway. The only reason I was telling James what to do was because I didn't want Izeroth too shoot him.

OOC: If I messed anything up just holler at me and I'll fix it K.

[Izeroth]

 OOC: The reason I was pointing a gun at James was because he threatened to shoot everyone.

[James Gryphon]

"This claim about me hoarding useless old ships is a gross misrepresentation of reality. They were, in fact, part of your Majesty's own prized ship collection. The reason why they were in such poor shape can be directly blamed on Sandpaw. He had somehow acquired a rare time-forwarding ray, and gave it to Sky to play with, saying, "Shoot it at something to see what things will look like when they're old". He didn't tell her that it actually made those things old, and she didn't seem to notice. Then Izeroth came in. He smiled to see the state the ships were in, and said, "We need to get rid of these junky old ships. I'll advertise." Izeroth hasn't seemed too concerned with obeying you or taking care of your property in the past (he seemed positively gleeful about marking up your walls with his gun), so I said that they were mine and that I needed my preciouses, in the hopes that this would keep him at bay. Obviously, that didn't work."

"On the allegedly dangerous escape pods, and, coincidentally, my bedroom door, Sandpaw went around the ship making signs and stickers with a magic marker, and posting them up onto everything. I asked him to stop, but he refused, and whenever I took his signs down, he would just put more up in their place. The escape pods were fine, or rather, they would have been if they weren't malfunctioning. As I mentioned, I had already fixed several of them before Sky kept me from working on the five-year-old-sized one."

"About flying the ship... what I said was that our odds of success were so much decreased by me not being at the helm that I might as well save everyone the trouble and shoot them now. I didn't think that anyone would take me absolutely literally, and indeed, most of them didn't. I might have figured that Izeroth would think that way, though. I guess he's so used to threatening people with guns that he assumes anyone else saying it must be serious too."

[Izeroth]

 Most esteemed Overlord, whar Gryphon said is true: Sandpaw did infact shoot your prized ships with a time-forwarding ray. However, it should be noted that Gryphon witnessed the entire process, and didn't lift a finger to stop your ships from being damaged. When I came in and asked what was going on, Sandpaw told me the ships were just junk he'd found at the annual intergalactic auction.

And as for the whole marking-the-walls-with-my-gun incident... I was shooting an imaginary finger gun. Perhaps Gryphon has lost the ability to tell real guns from imaginary ones?

[Skyblade]

OOC: This is hard. Which makes it even more fun! I'm gonna get a post here later.

IC:

Skyblade stepped forward, seizing an opportunity to speak.

"Sir, I had no idea that the time-something ray really did make things old. Sand told me to shoot the ships with it. I didn't know why, but he seemed to be freaking out and very urgent. He hastily said, "Don't ask; just do it, Skyblade! Trust me!" So I trusted him and did what he said.

I also had no idea they were part of your ship collection. In fact, there was a sign next to them that said, "THESE ARE ALL COMPLETELY USELESS SHIPS. YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO THEM". There was no indication whatsoever that they were important ships. I was left in the dark, once again.

I also need to clarify that I had no idea that the signs on the escape vessels and James' room, or anywhere else for that matter, were jokes. Due to this, I really thought they were serious.

Sir, please consider this from my perspective. If you saw a friend about to enter an escape pod that had a huge, bold red warning label on the side that said, "WILL EXPLODE AND KILL WHOEVER GOES IN THIS" and you had no idea it was a joke, would you just let your friend walk inside? No, of course not. That would be like allowing your friend to die. That's why I stopped James from going inside. I couldn't just let him be in danger, as I believed. I truly acted with the intention of saving his life and the lives of everybody else on the vessel, increasing the chances for success on the mission. It was not evident whatsoever that the signs weren't real, and nobody told me."

Sky lowered her head, staring at her feet. She lifted her head again to say, "Please accept my apologies, Overlord, for the confusion.

Oh, and I thought that sign on James' bedroom door was a little weird. But then I figured, James is the type of person who would do strange and unexpected things."

OOC: No offense meant, James! Actually, I consider that a compliment

IC : "And I'm sure Sand, being the good servant he is, has a good reason for everything he did.

[LT Sandpaw]

The ships were James fault, he had originally given me the device that made things old. He insisted that it only made things look old. He then shot my cat to prove the power of the device. Then he yelled in a sing song voice.

"Hehehehehe I am king of the world!" Then he ran off yelling something about preciouses. I thought he had gone deranged but then I realized my poor cat had turned into dust. I was furious and chased after him. But then Mhera ran into me with a massive pile of cardboard signs. She began crying that they needed to be put up all over the ship so she could find the bathroom better. She started crying up a storm so I handed Sky the device warning her it made things look old. And then I told her what James did to my cat.

So she proceeded too shoot all the ships that he kept calling his preciouses wanting to get revenge for me. I tried to warn her that the ships weren't James even though he had stolen all of them from you lord. But Mhera grabbed me and the signs and with surprising strength hauled me too the ship. I put up the signs in the proper order but James came along and mumbling in a crazy voice started taking them down and throwing them on the floor.

They got really confused and I wasn't sure if I was putting them up right. But right about there I went to put some up in the engine room and James locked me in. So it was actually James acting like a mad person that causes all these problems.

[Jukka the Sling]

I didn't mean to give Mhera AAA batteries rather than D cells. I don't have a lot of experience with batteries. When I went to the battery storage room (no idea why the ship has an entire room devoted to batteries), I saw a container clearly labelled "D cell batteries". I grabbed a handful out of the container, handed them to Mhera (who was standing in the battery room with me) and walked out, heading to the programming room.

I was unaware that the container label for the AAA's had been switched with the D cells' label. But as I know barely anything about batteries (and the individual batteries didn't have the usual foil-y label identifying them), I can't be blamed for not realizing they weren't D cells. In fact, Mhera is to blame because she recognized them as AAA's and didn't inform me or try to find the right ones.

[James Gryphon]

"As far as Izeroth and his guns, I don't know or care what he was shooting, whether it was a laser gun, finger gun, cap gun, pellet gun, or water gun. I wasn't actually there anyway, as he full well knows; Sky was the one that told me about that incident. All I can say is to look at the bullet holes in the walls. They speak for themselves, no matter how many snide remarks Izeroth makes about me."

"In his eagerness to deflect attention over to someone not at fault, Sandpaw omits all the details that make sense of the situation."

"When I first gave the device to Sandpaw, I said, "This device is very dangerous; it makes things old. Don't ever use it on anything!" He said, "You mean it makes things look old, right?" I said, "No, it makes them old." He just repeated himself, "So it makes things look old, right?" I tried to tell him about what it did for five minutes, but he just kept repeating the same thing, with a big smirk on his face. I was getting frustrated. I knew that Sandpaw kept and had a bizarre attachment to a robotic exploding cat that was hazardous to the ship, so I decided to take care of two things at once. I said, "Okay, fine, you're right, it only makes things look old, it doesn't do annnnnything else! I insist! Watch and see!" I shot it at his exploding robot cat, and it turned into metal dust, proving the actual power of the device. Hoping this would convince him of the need to keep it safe, I gave the device to him, and warned him, saying, "The Overlord will be very upset with you if you let this device be misused."

"After this conversation, I was greatly relieved, as I trusted in Sandpaw to redeem himself by taking care of this minor assignment, and skipped away cheerfully singing some lines from a song, as mentioned. The song was from your Majesty's favorite musical, Peter the Scarlet Pirate Phantom of the Secret Society, where the title character sings about the collection of ships he discovered, and I felt it was appropriate considering that we were, in fact, surrounded by your Majesty's glorious ship collection. Anyone that is a faithful subject of yours would know of your undying love for this play, and should recognize the song. Sandpaw, on the other hand, claims that it meant I was laying claim to and stealing your ships (which, in fact, I never once touched, due to my respect of your property). I think it is obvious how things lie here."

"As far as taking the signs down, it was necessary to do that, because they covered up all of the ship's internal solar power emitters. Everything inside is powered by these, and putting signs over them would have kept all of the ship's instruments and devices from working. When I was "mumbling", I was quoting the ship's instruction manual, which said all of this."

"As far as the engine room, per the spaceship's instruction manual, the door is supposed to be closed and locked at all times, unless everyone onboard is in a space suit. I assumed that someone carelessly left it open, and closed and locked the door, not knowing that Sandpaw was in there. Even if I had known he was in there, though, it still would have been proper to do this, per your instructions to follow all ship guidelines. It is not my fault if others act in disobedience to your Majesty's orders."