Ask Drastic Measures

[Finn Galfridian]

Finn didn't like Ancient Runes, the whole subject no sense to him. Why would you waste your time learning ancient runes when even the cheapest datapad could just scan anything, translate it for you, and dictate it you to you in less time than took to actually read whatever was hidden in the script. But it was one of the easiest electives he could take, and given his grades he needed it to make sure he wasn't held back a year.

Or so he had thought. Despite making sure he got into the course, there had been some mixup during the final class assignment and he hadn't gotten in. He knew the dumb TA was behind it all, specially because he had himself sliced into the professor's system the night before and added his name into the list. The only way this could have happened was if someone going in and manually updating the list at the last moment. He had beaten the TA in the last Mando Strike tournament, vibrobladed him in humiliating fashion, and he had had hated his guts ever since. He was sure the jackass had removed him form the class list at the last moment, but the only way to prove that was to reveal that he had hacked the system in the first place. So he was stuck with begging the professor, a cranky old champion who had agreed to let him in if he could convince one of the existing students to swap places with him.

So for the past seven hours he had been running from one side of the academy to the other, tracking down one name after another, and getting turned down every single time, till there was only one name left.

"Adrian?" He called out, walking into the library, the last location an ID swap had been registered, getting more than one dirty look from those present at the volume of his voice. Ignoring them, he called out once more. "Adrian Drast? Come on man, I know you're here."

 

[Ailis Drast]

Ailis had been studying her Ancient Runes homework in the library, poring over ancient tomes and translation books through a pair of glasses perched on her nose. She had one headphone in and her head was bobbing slightly to the techno club beats that came through them as she studied, scratching her head and trying to make heads or tails of the translations, scribbling out a mistranslated line in her notebook furiously.

This was all interrupted when someone came walking into the library calling out a name. The wrong name. She shot up from her seat, identified the culprit and stormed up to him.

Smack

A resounding slap echoed through the quiet library halls as she hauled up and hit him across the face with an open palm, surely leaving red. Before he could get a chance to recover she had dragged him out of the library and slammed him against the wall outside by the collar of his shirt with both hands.

"Where the fuck did you get that name?" She hissed in his face as she saw red. Her eyes held a painful promise that said the other acolyte better weight his next words very carefully.

@Wit

 

[Finn Galfridian]

Finn saw the girl walking towards him, noting the cute glasses she was wearing, but before he could figure out anything cool to say, which normally took him a pretty long time when a girl was involved, she slapped him. This wasn't the first time he'd been slapped by a girl, many an attempt at asking one out had ended similarly, but most times he would learn much later that he had in some weird way deserved it. But this time he wasn't so sure, heck he hadn't even met her before. It couldn't be about him being loud in the library, could it? First Trace, now her, how was he running into the most studies of people in the academy?

The thoughts, mostly questions, were racing through his mind as she dragged him out of the library, not even bothering to think why she was dragging him out. What she asked though left him even more confused, and out of sheer incredulity he replied at once. "It's in the registry." He held up the datapad as he answered, open on a page listing all students registered in Ancient Runes. "Right there, Drast, Adrian."

He paused for a moment, actually staring at her and wracking his brain to find any sort of connection, but her face wasn't one he recognized. Which wasn't saying much, he could literally count the number of people he knew on half the fingers on one hand. "Umm..do you know this Drast guy? I'm very confused about what's going on right now. Like do you go around manhandling everyone like this?" The last bit came out a little more shaky than he would have wanted it to, he had always hated fights, as weak and spindly as he was, and was sure that she could beat the living daylight out of him if things got out of hand. So the last thing he wanted was her to know that he was as scared as he probably looked.

@Arcangel

 

[Ailis Drast]

The dude seemed more surprised than anything as Ailis hauled him into the wall and screamed at him. His incredulous manner only served to make things worse as Ailis grew incredibly uncomfortable about her actions. "No, oh no. I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." She had meant to.

Not continuing that sentence, Ailis loosened her grip on him and turned the datapad towards her face with one hand. She peered through her glasses, reading the letters. It was all there, clear as day. "This... how did you..." She grabbed it from his hand and let him go, pacing as she read her file. "How did you get this. You can get into the registry can't you." She asked seriously as she handed him back his datapad, mind whirling.

She needed to slow down, she was already thinking ahead and she had just hit the guy who could maybe help her.

"I'm Ailis Drast." She introduced herself as she dusted off his shoulders and fixed his collar. "Sorry about the whole... slapping you thing." She smiled apologetically as she took a step back and looked at him without the red cloud of rage. "Do I know you from somewhere?" She asked suddenly. He looked familiar, and not like dreamland familiar but real life familiar.

@Wit

 

[Finn Galfridian]

Despite the change in her demeanor, Finn was still vary, unlike some of the crazier member of their order he wasn't a particularly big fan of getting hit, or feeling pain. As he loosened up, he cautiously taking the datapad back from her.

"It's..." He began but paused, visibly gulping before continuing. "It's pretty straightforward really, the dean put his idiot cousin in charge of security, and he's this relic of a man who knows nothing about cybersecurity. I mean even then it does take some skill, you have to set up a proxy to remotely access the network and access the blockchain without really corrupting it to..." He got progressively more confident as she started talking about the technical aspects of how he had accessed the registry, till he realized he was rambling.

"Sorry." He muttered as he stopped, and flicked when she reached forward once more, expecting another hit of some sort, but getting surprised when she instead dusted off his jacket and straightened his collar. "Umm, I'm Finn, might have seen me at orientation. I've been trying to get into that Runes class for ages. But, but, wait." He waved his hands in front of him as if clearing his head. "Ailist Drast? What am I missing?" Lacking more details to put together a full picture, he just stopped at that, not sure if the Adrian guy was somehow related to her. It seemed like a sore subject, given her prior reaction, so better to be cautious, because if there was one thing he was good at, it was avoiding a repeat beating.

@Arcangel

 

[Ailis Drast]

Ailis tried to track what the kid was spouting as he explained what he had to do to get the register. She imagined her face had about the same look that most people got on theirs whenever she talked about chemistry as his words slid right over her head. There was a sudden change in him as he spoked though, his voice speaking passionately about the subject.

Ailis was only a little bit glad when he realized he had been rambling and apologized.

"Finn." She said his name and thought for a moment, "No, that's not it." She answered as he mentioned orientation. She hadn't been to orientation. And she was pretty sure she'd seen him somewhere on the Holo before or something.

"You're not missing anything you need to know." She said a bit coldly as she looked at him. "Ancient Runes? Why are you trying to get into that? She asked. The class was a pain and a half, and the teacher was dry and boring. "And more importantly, what's it worth to you?" She asked as a plot began to form in her mind. Maybe there was a way she could use this and fix two problems at once.

@Wit

 

[Finn Galfridian]

"Oh I could care the least bit about Ancient Runes," he replied to her question, "I mean what's even the point of the course, a droid could do all of that. I just need it because it's an easy A. I need that grade," he didn't hold back, almost pleading with her, showing just how well versed he was at the concept of negotiation, "like I'm gonna fail the year without it, and every other filler class is full. It's worth my summer, that's what it is. Do you know how much summer school sucks? Like big time, I'm sure I'll die, and on top of that I'll miss almost all of the summer tournaments."

A smarter man, or even a slightly more worldly man, would have realized that he had just played into her hands, revealed to her just important the class was to him without really gaining anything in return. But to Finn the possibility of not getting into the class, and the dreadful consequences of that scenario were all that mattered. His one track mind simply failed to comprehend anything beyond that at the moment, and that was when he wasn't even high.

@Arcangel

 

[Ailis Drast]

Ailis raised an eyebrow the Finn guys suggestion that Ancient Runes would be a piece of cake. Tell that to her notebook full of translations, half of them scribbled out as she realized she had conjugated the wrong verb or gotten the grammar all wrong. Well. She wasn't about to correct him with how desperate he seemed.

"So, you need me to switch classes with you, is that it?" She asked, trying to sound a bit bored. Inside was another story and some of the mischievousness she felt might have leaked into her eyes a bit. He was practically begging her at this point.

She could get used to it.

"I might be interested in trading classes." She said before covering her mouth as she yawned. She'd been studying way too much and sleeping way too little trying to avoid the same thing that Finn was. Dreaded summer school. "What are my options?" If he was trying to trade classes he'd better have something good.

"Of course, I'll need something from you too, if we're going to trade. It would only be fair." She eyed him and gave a small smirk. She didn't really care about Ancient Runes one way or another, she did however care about getting into the registry and altering her file.

@Wit

 

[Finn Galfridian]

"Yeah," he replied, "would do me a a real solid if you did." He visibly relaxed when she said she might interested in trading classes, finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. In his mind he was already making plans about all the things he could do over the summer without school eating up all his time.

"Oh," he was brought out of his daydreams as she asked about her options, and he pulled up his own schedule on her datapad, "anything you want. Runes is all I need really. I can even get you into Jawa 101, I'm a TA, so will be an easy ride if you want." The fact that he had topped Jawa 101 the previous semester and was able to claim credits by helping the prof out was the only reason he was still in with a chance to pass the year, provided he got into Runes.

The worry though returned when she asked for more, there wasn't really much he could offer that she might be interested in. If her reaction to his earlier mini SED-talk was anything to go by she wasn't really interested in any of the things he was good at. "What do you want? I have a really cool keyboard that I don't use anymore, nicked it at a con in Coruscant, or I can give you premium membership to my stream. You'll get to see all the VODs the moment I finish streaming, everyone dies for a sub. Or even both..." He paused for a moment, wondering if that was worth it, before realizing just how bad summer school would suck. "Yeah, yeah, I can even do both."

@Arcangel

 

[Ailis Drast]

Ailis listented to Finn detail how much of a favor she was doing him and that he would do anything she wanted. And then he tried to throw Jawa 101 at her like that was interesting. "Mmmmm... No, not jawa 101. What else you got?" She asked, shaking her head and casting a little bit of a doubtful look on her face.

Then he started offering her more stuff. Nothing she was interested in but she'd listen to what he had to say. he rambled about a keyboard he stole somewhere, a membership to his stream. Stream... Stream? Her eyes very briefly went wide as she finally recognized him. FirePuma142. She was already subbed for his Mando strike videos.

"I don't need anything like that." She said. She was already subbed and she didn't have use for a keyboard, she already had one. She tried to keep her expression and tone the same as it had been before she recognized him. He might be a holonet personality that she wanted to gush over meeting, but he had something she needed and she wasn't about to let herself get in the way of... herself.

"That stuff you were saying earlier, about blockchain proxys and idiot cousins. Can you do that for me?" She asked, tilting her head down just slightly and applying the smallest of pouts to her lip. Between that and her glasses she figured she could frazzle the nervous boys brain enough to get him to do anything like he said. Even if that anything was corrupting directory files.

@Wit