Copyright J.B. Norman
“Oh my,” the ticket-bot says as the members of the Kraken Special Squad force their way past without paying for their tickets or picking up a complimentary map or audio tour of the Crystal Labyrinth. “The Ledu Tourism Board and the Ledu Security Agency shall hear of this!”
Running down the opening passage of the Crystal Labyrinth, Lieutenant Crem barks orders: “Fireteam One, take the left passage. Fireteam Two, take the right. Fireteam Three, with me, straight ahead.”
Hiding behind a snowbank in the main passage, Kathryn, Amarantha, and Dunstella cautious peer over the snow, waiting until the coast is clear.
“Okay,” Kathryn says. “They’ve all gone past us. So, we can just sneak back to the…”
“Fireteams Four, Five, and Six,” they hear Crem call, “stay back and block the exit.”
A thought occurs to her.
“And make sure Disintegrator Phil doesn’t disintegrate anyone,” she adds.
“D’oh,” Kathryn groans.
“Well, Captain?” Amarantha asks.
“Okay,” Kathryn mutters, running her hand over her face. “If we can’t break out to the exit, we’ll just have to keep going forward.”
She starts running through a plan in her head.
“They split up the fireteams,” she notes. “So, maybe, we can take them on one by one. Maybe we steal one of their comms, and then we call the teams guarding the exit in, lure them somewhere we can take them down, then we make a break for it.”
“Oh!” Amarantha exclaims. “Like Consul Ionel at the Battle of the Rings of Calliope!”
“…Yeah,” Kathryn mutters. She’s not up on her Alvaraean military history, but she assumes the comparison is a good thing.
“But, like, be careful,” she continues. “There are a lot of innocent tourists we don’t need get dragged into this. It’d be a shame if some kindly old Eleftherian lady ends up getting stunned in the crossfire.”
“Alright,” Dunstella says, adjusting her new snow goggles. “Let’s do this!”
Before Kathryn can catch her by the sleeve, she’s bolted and goes running off down the right passage.
“I guess we’re going that way,” Kathryn says, before chasing after her sister.
“You know,” Amarantha muses as she follows the two sisters. “The glacier really is quite remarkable. The striations in the ice and the way they split the light is striking.”
She sighs.
“It’s a shame these louts are ruining the experience.”
“Hey!” a voice calls around the corner. “Is that one of them? Quick, get her! Go, go, go!”
“Uh oh…” Dunstella says from around the corner.
Kathryn stops suddenly as she hears Dunstella’s footsteps, which had previously been getting quieter start getting louder – also getting louder is her voice:
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! Help!”
As Dunstella reappears around the corner, she is soon followed by the Kraken Fireteam.
Several stun bolts smash against the ice walls of the Crystal Labyrinth as the mercenaries chase after Dunstella, who quickly takes cover behind her sister.
Kathryn unholsters her Stun Pistol and returns fire.
“Quick!” one of the mercenaries calls as one of the others crumples after taking a stun bolt for Kathryn. He grabs his groaning companion by the scruff of his body armour and dragging him back around the corner. “Retreat!”
So, basically this:
Video via Imgur.
I’ve established previously that Realmgard-Elves speak Latin. In thematically keeping with “Realmgard in Space,” I’m leaning towards trying to make the Alvaraean language look like Romanian, which I’ve seen claimed as being the closest modern language to Latin (though there seems to be plenty of dissent to that claim) — hence the Alvaraean general Amarantha namedrops having a Romanian name.
Now, Romanian is a Romance language and does resemble Latin in a lot of ways. Regardless of how close it actually is or isn’t to Latin, I think it’s the best option to use as a basis for Future-Latin, given that it already looks plausibly like Future-Latin.
Also, Kathryn’s “D’oh” isn’t really a Simpsons reference. It really is just the best way to render the sound of a groan of frustration and/or disappointment in written words. Incidentally, this is probably well-known enough that I don’t have to explain it, but in Simpsons scripts, “D’oh” is actually written as “(annoyed grunt).”
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