You must have other reasons to come see me beyond mere history lessons, Keeper. Most of what I have mentioned has been discussed, probably to a more elaborate degree, than anything that I can provide.

And I suppose that is because I lived through it?

At the beginning, maybe, but I had other obligations at the time that took me away from such duties.

Yes. It did.

No it's... [sighs] it's something I don't care to dwell on.

Turmoil is a fitting word, Keeper, but I am sensing that you wish to speak of my relationship with humans rather than the turbulence of those times.

Because of my relationship with my husband, correct?

Well, I suppose your interest is warranted, but I am hardly the only Nereid to engage in a relationship with a human.

Well, I appreciate the gesture Keeper... however, what do you wish to hear? That I saw him, and immediately felt some sort of raw, primal attraction to him, that I was drawn to his mere presence as he looked at me from across the room?

Well gladly it was none of those things. The first time I met my husband I tried to kill him.

[Smiles] I suppose to fully understand the context of that I should explain a bit of my situation beforehand. Unless that is of inconvenience to you, keeper.

Well noted. As we have already established, in the times before the War we Nereids would go off on Pilgrimages to the Poros Systems, the only part of the Galaxy that we could freely travel about without the concern of Empire rule. What that entailed, however, was always different for each of us. Some of us chose to participate in the market, others merely acted as tourists, traveling around the systems for a short time before heading back home. Many of us chose to be entertainers, and, with our appeal to a large number of the inhabitants at that time, that was often the more popular choice for those among us that wished for a longer stay within the Poros Systems. There were a few of us, however, that found ourselves pursuing a more dangerous occupation. I assume you are familiar with Furies?

That you are. It is a more organized group nowadays but back then it was what we called ourselves as we made a name for ourselves in the Poros Systems. We were nothing more than mercenaries for hire, of course, but some of us acted under a code of conduct. I did my best to abide by such rules, but in the Poros systems, it is difficult to say who or what is truly innocent.

As you can imagine, our psionic abilities gave us an edge in combat. You do not need cover if you can deflect or catch projectiles with a simple telekinetic field, and pulling someone from behind a wall is not particularly difficult once you get the hang of it. As a result, Furies were under quite the demand during those times, and it paid a nice sum to work as one. Of course it was always dangerous, but for the particularly gifted members of my species it was a steady job with a wealth of income. I remember when I was a little one I always thought they told the best stories, and that is what made me wish to be one when I started my own Pilgrimage.

It does, but reality can be a cruel mistress, and when you've hunted down dozens of Spike dealers and toppled a few druglords at another's behest, you realize that the stories you've been told amounted to only one or two encounters that, when embellished on, will wow some young girl into fantasies you never intended for her to have. Or perhaps that was just my own views of it, many others seemed to enjoy the profession. Whether or not is was because they were in an environment where they could finally let loose, I did not know. All I knew was that after a while, started to feel it wear on me. I didn't know when, but the time I was going to go home was coming up soon if it kept up.

[Smiles] It didn't, though like I said it wasn't in the way you would suspect. I was hired for a job, a rather innocuous one as far as the dynamics of the Poros Systems were concerned, but the client seemed particularly invested in its execution that I felt somewhat of a need to offer my help.

A hit job, against a rather shady businessman by the name of Rau Caezen. I suppose shady is a redundant phrase when talking of the Poros Systems themselves, but apparently the Salian had exploited a number of traders and weaseled out of paying them what they were owed, and they were out for blood.

Nowadays I would be more inclined to agree with you, but I was of a different mindset during those days, more... sensitive you could say. They had brought out their families, their children to plead for my help. Looking back, it was an absurd situation, the traders themselves should have not decided to start a family in such a fluctuating environment, not to mention such a lawless one, but there they were, and my younger self felt inclined to help them.

...I suppose I still would, I have a soft spot for children, but my "help" would have been getting them out of the Poros systems and into a more stable environment. We Nereid were no fan of the Empire at that time, don't get me wrong, but it was a far more reasonable situation for raising a family. If you wanted to make a name for yourself out in the Poros, it was best to go at it alone, without attachments that could be exploited.

[Laughs] Are all Keepers this blunt?

And they would be right. Though I cannot say I don't prefer it, makes this process far less one-sided. But, I should get back on track. Yes, the traders most likely played up my own emotions to get me to agree to the job, and while the pleading children certainly had their effect, I was more looking for a reason to keep doing what I was doing. Hunting down and eliminating a dishonest businessman was nothing new to me, but it had gotten to the point where the action was mechanical. It was devoid of meaning, and it was due to that that I may have let their pleading be far more effective than it would have normally have.

Precisely. No longer was it just business as usual, now I was an avatar of a pleading family's vengeance. It rung of something the stories I heard as a little girl had, but as I look back on it all I realize it was just myself wishing to justify the actions of someone whose life had mainly revolved around continuous combat. It was foolish, but it did what it was intended to do.

I found Rau on the planet of Cerebi. It was a sparsely populated planet, mainly composed of species that migrated from the Empire, but the low attention that it drew made it an ideal location to conduct business dealings for the lesser known merchants. Rau wasn't someone that I would call a lesser merchant, which is why his arrival to the planet had generated some noise among my sources.

That may be true, but the galaxy is a big place, and the Poros Systems themselves are quite expansive. There is only so much that one species can cover, especially on so secretive, and that allows some other species to fill in the cracks, so to speak. Salians especially were especially good at this, and ran a sort of shadow collective under the Thulu's own network.

I'm sure it is, but Salians happen to be one of the craftier species in the galaxy, and some of the less... let us say boisterous kind that inhabited the systems at the time. They knew where to stop pressing their influence, and that often meant that their methods would either go undetected or the Thulus would find out and simply determine that what they were doing was of no threat to them. There weren't as daring as say, the Humans, who when they entered the market took it upon themselves to challenge the Thulu's directly. That is an entirely different sort of interaction.

The general trade network between Salians is pretty decentralized, but every now and then a few prominent members arise from it to a decent amount of reputation, and Rau was one such person. Of course his methods weren't of the most noble kind, as evidenced by the fact that I was hired to kill him by his own workers, but you can imagine that kind of a reputation generally involves a lot of security.

Yes it would, but Rau must have let his reputation get to his head. He had a lot of men, to be sure, but it was fairly easy to find him on Cerebi as soon as I arrived. Of course, that many men required a certain degree of preparation.

Not in this case. Most mercenaries in the Poros systems are driven by only one thing only, and that is Credits, odds were that if I were to bring anyone along with me to attack Rau he could have easily just offered to pay more than my clients had and that would have been it. Whether or not he would have shot them instead of paying them was another thing entirely, but that is the trouble with mercenaries, they're pretty easy to sway.

Like I said, some Furies operated on a code of conduct, and the first condition of that was to never betray your client.

Perhaps, but that is why it is important to screen your clientele in the first place. If you just accept any job without thinking you'd end up doing things that you don't quite agree with. Of course there are a number of my kind that don't care about such things either way, and take any job they can. I want to say I was different, but in such a lawless place as the Poros systems it is often hard to tell what is what and who is truly in the wrong. In this case, however, there was a clear divide, at least, I believed there was.

Consider it a realistic look back on the situation. It is hard to take much in the Poros Systems at face value, and while I may have been swayed by their emotional plight, there was always a part of me that considered that the traders had ulterior motives. And they most likely did, but at the time I had only pushed such concerns to the back of my mind.

Well obviously, considering the numbers, a full frontal assault would be ill advised. A Nereid Fury may indeed be powerful but numbers do matter to an extent, and Rau had enough numbers to make up for my abilities. But when operating in the Poros Systems it helps to have a skill set that goes beyond mere combat, and, as you say now, I happened to have a few diplomatic skills that assisted me in my endeavor.

I suppose it would fall more under the lines of manipulation, but yes. Nereids in general are known to be a politically savvy race, as it tends to help when navigating the entirety of the galaxy to know what laws you are dealing with and what loopholes you can exploit for what you need. In the Poros systems, however, given that there are no official laws, an understanding of what buttons to push to get your way goes help tremendously when operating alone. So that is exactly what I did.

The man that Rau was negotiating with, Paladius Markin, was a Jorakin mercenary leader that had built up a reputation for ruthlessness in the Cerebi cluster, and was conducting business with Rau for a possible alliance that would ensure Rau's domination of the market in the cluster. In exchange, Paladius would be receiving a share of the profits, thought I suspected that Rau would be short changing him, which was to my advantage. Normally I would say it would be ill advised to judge a Jorakin on their large, rock-like appearances, as their bulk generally beguiles a generally cunning mind capable of deft negotiation, but with Paladius... let us just say that the book was only its cover in this case.

A rock headed fool at that. Negotiations with Rau had come to a standstill due to the fact that the Jorakin refused to move past a certain percentage of his cut of Rau's revenue. What he failed to realize in this case, however, was that demanding that large of a cut would result in Rau operating at a loss within the Cerebi cluster, meaning the merchant would have no reason to give the mercenary his business. Fortunately for me, Rau was a patient business man, and was still willing to conduct negotiations. One of them was bound to give sooner or later, but I suspected that if Paladius did "give", it would be in the form of a rain of gunfire.

This was, of course, what I was looking for. Throughout their negotiations, I had, directly or indirectly, planted a few pieces of misinformation that would ensure tensions to rise between the two.

It wasn't really, especially when dealing with two polar opposites. Drop an anonymous tip that Rau would be more willing on such day to come to a compromise that favors Paladius and he goes into the negotiations with heightened expectations. When such expectations aren't met, the tensions start to rise. Do the same with Rau, and inform one of his men that Paladius may show some give, and he'll become more aggressive in his negotiations, which in turn only angers Paladius even more. Sweet talk both the Salian's and Jorakin's men to get an idea of their mental states, and change your messages accordingly.

It does not stop there, however, for more often than not the men under these individuals will be of an entrepreneurial mindset. They would be there only for the money, and nothing more. To that effect, it would be naive to think that they would follow the orders of their respective leaders if tensions between them ever rose so high to where they would order their men to kill each other. So to counteract this, you have to create an emotional investment. Given that the men under each's command were of a simple sort, general hearsay of insults or mockery was enough to get them going, but even better was find small connections between the men on opposing sides, to find the smallest threads to exploit and cause conflict. Say one men of Paldius's knew one of the men under Rau from way back. If you just so happen to let it slip that the ex-loved one of one of the men left him for the other, that kind of information creates divide, especially if the people in question happen to be Fenicians, whose marital bonds are often treasured more so than other species. It did not matter if such information was true or not, because at that point these men were already far from home, and given the nature of communications at the time, there would be no way to confirm nor deny such information without waiting for a couple of weeks. That is only one example, however, as there happened to be quite a few avenues for me to find out and inflame for my purposes.

It did, but like I said, Rau was a patient individual, and had brought enough men with him to make Paladius cautious about assaulting him. Also, a simple firefight between the two over simple negotiations was not going to happen, regardless of my own efforts. What it did, however, was wind tensions so tight that it would take nothing more than a simple push to set things off.

You say push, I would say it was more akin to setting off a spark in a room packed with flammable gas. There was a very different feel to the air that day, one that gave off the sense that even had I not done anything, something was about to happen. But, to be certain, I planned on instigating the situation anyways.

To that effect my plan held two stage. First, I would escalate conflict between Rau's and Paladius's men, then I would go after Rau himself in the resulting chaos.

It very much plays into the tensions that were already formed by the time my machinations had fully taken effect. At that point Rau was most likely seeing Paladius as a nuisance, and Paladius would see the Salian as a pest that was toying with him. Should conflict start, especially in such a lawless land, it would provide a good opportunity to cut off a potential threat without the fear of law behind them. Paladius was hardly the only mercenary leader in the Cerebi cluster that held some power, just the one that held the most. If he knocked him off, it would be simple to negotiate with the person attempting to fill the void, and possibly from a higher position of power. This talk with Paladius was more of a formality to that extent, an attempt to come to a deal without the need for burdensome combat. By then, however, the Salian was most likely very much in the mindset of removing Paladius, and the Jorakin would be aiming for Rau's head. With the mercenaries themselves, it was very much the same deal, a chance to settle grudges and give someone theirs without consequence. They were just waiting for someone to fire, and I was happy to oblige them.

My opportunity came in the form of a small argument that occurred right outside the complex where Rau and Paladius were conducting their operations. I did not know what exactly they were arguing about, but one of the men had drawn his side arm as was waving it about threateningly, and that was the spark. As you are new to this Galaxy, I suppose I could give a brief explanation of psionics to help you understand its capabilities, if you would prefer that, of course.