— ✧ Star Captain Rauda Mad Dog

They had begun with cratering charges, then cleared out the rubble, and finally smoothed the bottom through the judicious application of pulse lasers. Coolant trucks were already filling it with water to create a shallow pool.

On the top of the central sauna, a projector had been set up, directed at the smoothest section of the Dropport baffles, and the evening's entertainment loaded and queued. While they would not be getting through the entire series - the first run alone had something like two hundred and fifty episodes, each of them about an hour long - it was a rare Clanner who would object to watching 'Tails of Strana Mechty' and none of the First Helios had ever seen it.

He was looking forward to Isidora's reaction to Astrid's character.

On either side of the nascent pool, packing crates had been set up as makeshift tables, and more cratering charges had been used to create barbecue pits. Most of them simply hosted grills of whatever meat could be requisitioned from the supplies they had brought with, but some of his Warriors had tried their luck in the hills, and there were a few examples of the local game roasting.

The weather was giving cool but clear, and having cleared his schedule for the day, he settled his back against a step and watched as tanker after tanker delivered there loads of water, waiting for evening and the start of festivities.

She remembered the imposing sight of the Blakist armor; the feel of armored fingers around her neck. "If another warehouse needs to be cleared by me then I will simply blow it up."

Rauda rubbed their stump absentmindedly, half paying attention to both the conversation and the show. It was hot in the sauna (obviously), and they took a deep swig of their drink, trying to properly relax. They felt like they were drinking quick but, well, they doubted anyone gathered would be too put out if they left the sauna less than sober, so long as they did not make too much of a fool of themselves.

"I am sure you could take some... appealing shots in an elemental," they argued absentmindedly. "From what I remember of the arcade game... fans, many people are interested in busty women with helmets on, neg?" They shrugged. "Something about the anonymity? It is not what I look for in a pin-up."

He stood up, sighing with relief as his joints cooperated.

"Anyway, I need a bite. Anyone want anything?" as he climbed onto the bank, and turned in the direction of the barbecue pits.

She settles back, shifting her posture slightly to watch the show, chuckling at the ongoing conversation.

"I believe the appeal of the fully-armored soldier, is somewhat down to the air of mystery, in that anything one could imagine could be under the armor. And often, that imagined occupant will often be more appealing to anyone given to such fantasies. Luckily, at least for Elementals, the real occupants are quite often handsome and/or beautiful, which is why I suspect they have become the most depicted form of these armored soldier pin-ups," she chuckles. Then she looks at Isidora, curiousity in her eyes. "Though I imagine on Helios, there may be a market for the highly cybernetically augmented equivalent, quiaff?"

She turns her head towards Isidora, "The beauty comes from centuries of selective breeding and genetic engineering. It results in beauty, true, but there is a level of... Perfection in the pristine Trueborn which I always found slightly boring. They take a few scars to really marinate properly into something attractive, I believe."

Rauda paused with a bottle halfway to their mouth.

"Do you mean dragons..." they tapped their cheek absentmindedly, "like the beast? Or the heavy mech? Either way, I am... struggling to picture it." They snorted, the binder, heat and sake combination making the alcohol go to their head. They weren't drunk, far from it; but the mental image seemed far funnier than it had any right to be.

"Which wears the skimpy outfit? The Grand Dragon seems bustier than it's predecessors, quiaff? And with thirteen double heatsinks, it promises to surely handle itself."

As if realising they had been rambling about a scantily-clad mech, Rauda suddenly cleared their throat. "But, I agree. I too find a person with scars more interesting."

Inner Sphere: Wait shit the Blakists are going to absolutely fuck us

Devlin Stone: But what if, and go with me on this journey, we enlisted the assistance of a bunch of extremely angry elite warriors in OmniMechs

Inner Sphere: But where would we get those?!

They had begun with cratering charges, then cleared out the rubble, and finally smoothed the bottom through the judicious application of pulse lasers. Coolant trucks were already filling it with water to create a shallow pool.

On the top of the central sauna, a projector had been set up, directed at the smoothest section of the Dropport baffles, and the evening's entertainment loaded and queued. While they would not be getting through the entire series - the first run alone had something like two hundred and fifty episodes, each of them about an hour long - it was a rare Clanner who would object to watching 'Tails of Strana Mechty' and none of the First Helios had ever seen it.

He was looking forward to Isidora's reaction to Astrid's character.

On either side of the nascent pool, packing crates had been set up as makeshift tables, and more cratering charges had been used to create barbecue pits. Most of them simply hosted grills of whatever meat could be requisitioned from the supplies they had brought with, but some of his Warriors had tried their luck in the hills, and there were a few examples of the local game roasting.

The weather was giving cool but clear, and having cleared his schedule for the day, he settled his back against a step and watched as tanker after tanker delivered there loads of water, waiting for evening and the start of festivities.

She remembered the imposing sight of the Blakist armor; the feel of armored fingers around her neck. "If another warehouse needs to be cleared by me then I will simply blow it up."

Rauda rubbed their stump absentmindedly, half paying attention to both the conversation and the show. It was hot in the sauna (obviously), and they took a deep swig of their drink, trying to properly relax. They felt like they were drinking quick but, well, they doubted anyone gathered would be too put out if they left the sauna less than sober, so long as they did not make too much of a fool of themselves.

"I am sure you could take some... appealing shots in an elemental," they argued absentmindedly. "From what I remember of the arcade game... fans, many people are interested in busty women with helmets on, neg?" They shrugged. "Something about the anonymity? It is not what I look for in a pin-up."

...Hafnar Ghost Bear, but that is okay, Hafnar Ghost Bear is one of those men who it might be considered a benefit to not know. His reputation runs as such: "The large, bearded man carried a battleax inside his 'Mech cockpit, learned Norse specifically so he could scream curses at his enemies over open comm lines, and dedicated his kills in battle to the Norse gods."

But Hafnar is noted as being of the Invasion era, and thus we are left with two possibilities surrounding his religious beliefs:

The Neo-Nordic traditions which would eventually evolve in Rasalhague were, in fact, also preserved in the Clans, or-