Audio Log File #75928-Rho

Bruce Wolf: What you got there, mate?

Randy Georges: I’m just editing the footage form our little expedition over the last few days into a more... Presentable format.

Wolf: Right. That’s when you and the others (EDITOR’S NOTE: Takahashi Oda, Lee Zhen, Haki Aardvarksen) went out to meet those tribals. How’d that go?

Georges: Well, they prefer to call themselves neo-primitives.

Wolf: And like I can’t talk about bludgers who like to give themselves fancy labels, right?

Georges: Well...

Wolf: So as said, how’d that go?

Georges: Irisz will probably give you all a full briefing in the morning, but it can’t hurt to show you. Basically, she wanted us to try and track down the prisoners your lance released and get their help. After all, if we’re going to annoy the Wolves, why not enlist the aid of people who don’t like them already?

Wolf: Seems fair to me. So what, that’s their village?

Georges: Yes; as you can see, they don’t have much industry at all. There’s some light agriculture, yes, but most of it is at an early ironworking stage. Their primary source of foot does seem to come from hunting and gathering though.

Wolf: Village looks pretty clean though; not covered in crap and the like.

Georges: They seemed to be pretty proud of the way they lived, actually. Their forefathers landed on Shasta centuries ago, and they chose to be all neo-primitive from the outset. They’re apparently semi-nomadic, and uproot every few years to let the land and wildlife regenerate.

Wolf: I can see why they need our help thigh. Bows and spears are going to do bugger all against ‘Mechs, tanks and Toads.

Georges: So here’s us approaching the village. I don’t have the sound going at the moment, but they were wary of us but not immediately hostile and willing to listen to us.

Wolf: Makes sense and... Bloody hell! Maria, Will, get over here. You gotta see this.

Maria Perez: What have you got - Dios Mio! Look at that guy!

Will Owens: Bloody hell. He looks as big as me! Who is he?

Georges: That’s the chief’s son and apparently their top hunter and the like. He was the main guy we were dealing with throughout our little expedition.

Perez: I’m gonna have to meet that guy.

Owens: Why? Wanna ‘wrestle’ him?

Georges: So here’s us going through the village and meeting the chieftain. He told us about how they were he Red Rock people, how their original home was actually on the site of the mine we hit the other day and how the Wolves have been tromping into the jungle of late and giving them grief. He was thankful that we rescued his people and was glad for the offer of help fighting the Wolves, but...

Wolf: But?

Georges: Apparently we needed to prove ourselves first to them, show that we were able to fight without our fancy weapons and ‘Mechs and such.

Perez: See? Shoulda bought me. I would have wrestled everyone in the village to prove it.

Owens: I’ll bet.

Wolf: Yeah, I know how that sort of thing goes. So what was it then? Did you have to fight a trial?

Georges: Actually, they wanted us to go out on a hunt with them to see what we could do in their world and without our fancy toys and the like. There was the chief’s son, one of the other hunters and the four of us. Takahashi and I had bows; Takahashi also bought his Vibrokatana as it was seen to be ‘primitive’ enough. Likewise, Haki bought a Vibroaxe-

Owens: The Viking Maori has an axe? What a surprise.

Georges: And Lee had... A knife. He was a bit out of his depth.

Perez: So how did it go?

Georges: I’ll skip through the boring stuff and get to the good part. We’d tried to shoot up some red cat (EDITOR’S NOTE: Jardinan Firecat, an introduced pest species) but it’d bolted after everyone missed wildly. A bit more stalking and a bit of Haki falling out of a tree and some more terrible archery, and we came across a pygmy honking horse (EDITOR’S NOTE: The Highlands Microthere, a native rough Porcine analogue) which was something they usually eat. We bought it down, but the chief’s son was not impressed.

Wolf: Not looking good for us. It’s like you’re fluffing all your shots in your Trial of Position.

Georges: So we decided to change tack and use the Honking Horse as bait to lure out something a little more worthy. Both the chief’s son and nameless tribal number two were willing to go along with this ploy, if only to prove they were better at this then us. So after a bit of field butchery, we left the honking hose at what looked like a well-travelled crossroads. Turns out that Haki’s actually rather good at animal tracking.

Perez: He’s a man of many strange talents. I mean, I can’t think of the last time I met a palaeontologist.

Wolf: Guy’s good at darts though.

Owens: But did it work?

Georges: Well, first we lured out another honking horse, which we let go. Then another one of those red cats came along, which we were able to actually bring down. Son was about to give us a pass mark when...

Wolf: Bloody hell!

Perez: Dios mio!

Owens: He just got ripped in half! What the hell is that thing?

Georges: That is a Skatha Ape, the top predator on the planet. Sort of like a super-aggressive, six-armed gorilla. And, yes, that was poor nameless tribal number two.

Owens: Well you’re screwed

Georges: Fortunately Takahashi kind of sort of came up with a plan - in that he changed it head on and tried to sword it while others peppered it with arrows. Oh, and Haki climbed another tree.

Perez: And you chose to fight it with your camera, right?

Georges: I wanted to make sure that everything was properly recorded. I mean, who would want to miss this?

Owens: Point. This is great stuff and - what the hell! Takahashi just chopped one of its bloody arms off!

Wolf: Only five to go then.

Perez: That was close! That monkey nearly killed him!

Owens: And... What the hell is Zhen doing? He’s trying to sneak up on the stupid thing with a knife!

Wolf: Well that seems to have... Mildly distracted it.

Georges: The best bit is yet to come. Wait for it...

Wolf: Bloody hell! Didn’t expect that!

Perez: Haki leaped out of the tree at it with his axe. That’s insane. I love it!

Owens: Man’s got guts. That monkey nearly ate them.

Perez: He’s wasted in a ‘Mech. With an approach like that, he should have been one of my Mexicans.

Owens: But that thing’s still going! What the hell? I mean it just got axed by a massive load of Maori crashing into it!

Georges: Which also distracted it from -

Perez: Wow! That was a masterful move by Takahashi!

Owens: Yeah, it’s the most artsy dispatch of a giant six-armed gorilla I’ve ever seen,

Georges: That’s about the end of the interesting footage, but suffice to say that they were rather impressed by us; even after the death of nameless tribal number two. So we had a big celebratory dinner of Honking Horse; it’s quite gamey, but definitely grows on you.

Perez: Which means that the boss is going to want me to help plan our next move. Nice to know we’ve got some allies though.

Owens: Maybe next time we can get there without fighting a gorilla.

Georges: I don’t know. I mean, that would take away some of the fun of diplomacy, after all...