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kaialone · 4 years

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Spirit Tracks Translation Comparison: The Resurrection

This will be a comparison of the original Japanese version and the US English localized version.

Specifically, this will cover the cutscene in which the Demon King Malladus is resurrected.

You can also watch this cutscene for yourself in English and Japanese. If you want, you can check out the EU English version, too.

For the comparison, the usual points apply:

Bolded is the original Japanese text, for the reference.

Bolded and italicized is my translation.

Italicized is the official NOA translation.

A (number) indicates that I have a specific comment to make on that part in the translation notes.

As you read this, please keep in mind that with translations like these, it’s important not to focus on the exact literal wordings, since there is no single “correct answer” when it comes to translations.

Rather than that, consider the actual information that is being conveyed, in which way, and why.

Characters in this part who had their names changed between versions:

Kimaroki = Cole, Dego = Byrne, Mallador = Malladus, Sharin = Anjean

Malladus’ Resurrection:

Byrne:

キマロキ! マラドー復活の首尾は!?

Kimaroki! Was Mallador's resurrection successful?!

Cole! Was the resurrection successful?

Cole:

…ディーゴ様あんたにはがっかりですよ

...Master Dego. I am very disappointed in you.

I'm very disappointed in you, Byrne.

Byrne:

な何だと!?

Wha- What did you say?!

What?! Why?!

Cole:

あんな奴らも片づけられないとは

You can’t even do away with the likes of those? (1)

Even those children proved to be too much for you.

Cole:

…ま時間かせぎにはなりましたけどね

...Well, you did buy us some time, at least.

Well, at least you bought us some time.

Cole:

ごらんなさい! 魔王様復活の時です!!

Behold! It is time for the Demon King to be resurrected!!

Behold! The Demon King's return draws nigh!

Zelda:

いやぁーっ! わたしの体がぁーっ!!

Noooooo! My bodyyyy!!

No! Not with my body!

Cole:

魔王様 ! ご復活おめでとうございます!!

Your Majesty! Congratulations on your resurrection!!

Congratulations on your resurrection, Your Majesty!

Byrne:

魔王マラドーよ!

Oh, Demon King Mallador!

Oh, Demon King Malladus...

Byrne:

復活を遂げさせてやったのは私だ!!

I am the one who allowed for you to be resurrected!!

I am the one who has freed you from your prison!

Byrne:

…我に力を!!

...Grant me power!!

Grant me the power I have dreamed of!

Cole:

けっけっけ…ご協力ありがとうございました

Kekeke... Thank you very much for your assistance.

Nyee hee hee! Thank you for your help.

Cole:

しかし簡単にだまされてくれましたねぇ?

But man, you really are quite gullible, huh?

But you are too gullible, my friend.

Cole:

魔王様が力をくれる訳無いじゃありませんか?

There is no way that His Majesty would grant you any power, is there?

Don't you know that he will never give you new power?

After all...

Cole:

忌まわしい神の使いの一族なんかに…

Not to some repulsive divine servant... (2)

You were once the servant of those disgusting spirits.

Cole:

バーカ! バーカ!

Idiot! Idiot!

What a buffoon you are.

Cole:

だまされてやがんのこの間抜け野郎!!

You've been had, you dumb bastard!!

Thank you for your help, indeed, you blind fool!

Cole:

さあ魔王様! まずはこいつらから血祭りに!

Come, Your Majesty! Let theirs be the first blood spilled! (3)

Now then, Your Majesty!

Let us sacrifice these base creatures to your glory!

Malladus:

グゥ…ウォォ… グゥオオォッ!

Urghh... Arrrgh... Raaaarrrgh!

Unnnnngh... Groorreeerk... RAAAAAAAWRRRR!

Cole:

むぅ… 魔王様まだお体がなじんでおられないようですね

Hm... It appears that you are not accustomed to the body yet, Your Majesty.

Do not fear, Your Majesty.

You simply aren't used to your new body yet.

Cole:

止むをえません

Nothing to be done about that.

None of you can stop us!

Cole:

よくお聞きなさいいまいましい神の番犬ども!

Listen well, you lapdogs of that wretched god!

Listen well, you lapdogs of the spirits!

Cole:

魔王様が完全に復活なさる時… それがあなたたちの最期です!

Once His Majesty's resurrection is complete... it will be the end for you!

When the Demon King's revival is complete,

you will take your last breaths!

Cole:

震えながらその時を待っていなさい!!

Now please tremble in fear as you wait for that moment!!

I would suggest you tremble in fear!

Zelda:

あーっ!

Ahh!

Nooooooo!

Zelda:

わたしの体ーっ! 返しなさーいっ!!

My bodyyy! Give it baaack!!

Give my body back to me!

Anjean:

ムダじゃ…例え戦っても今のおぬしらでは奴は倒せん…

It's useless... Even if you fought him, you two can't defeat him now...

It's useless, my dear.

There's no way you can hope to defeat him now.

Zelda:

シャリン様! …幽霊…じゃないですよね?

Lady Sharin! You are not... a ghost... are you?

Anjean! You're not...a ghost...are you?

Anjean:

それはおぬしじゃろワシはこのとおり生きておるわ..

You're the ghost here. I'm still alive, as you can see...

The only ghost here is you, my dear.

I am still among the living.

Translation Notes:

The verb I translated as “do away with” is 片付ける/katazukeru in Japanese, which usually refers to “cleaning up” or “putting something in order”, but also works as a euphemism for getting rid of someone.

What I translated as “divine servant” is “神の使いの一族” in Japanese, which more directly would translate to something like “member of the clan serving the god”. I ultimately decided to shorten this to make the line sound more natural in English.

In Japanese, Cole makes use of the word 血祭り/chimatsuri, which would literally translate to “blood festival”, though it allegedly once used to refer to blood sacrifices, and later the killing of captured enemies before a battle in order to raise morale among one’s own troops. As far as I can tell though, in modern times the term is used in a manner similar to the English word “bloodbath”, both in the literal and figurative sense.

Comparisons & Thoughts:

A lot of the differences in this part are general changes I’ve already explained, or results of those earlier changes.

So there aren’t a lot of “new” things to go over here, but interesting things nonetheless.

In both versions, Cole expresses his disappointment in Byrne, in almost the same matter.

The difference here comes from the actual impact of him saying this.

In the Japanese version, Cole had acted like a subordinate to Byrne up until this point, cheering for him in an almost over-the-top fashion.

So this might have been the first time Cole took such a disapproving tone with Byrne, which would explain his both angry and shocked reaction of: “Wha- What did you say?!“

In the English version, Cole had been the one ordering Byrne around, even if it was in a seemingly affable manner.

Therefore, Cole expressing disappointment seems less like a shock, since it’s in line with the idea of him being the one calling the shots.

In turn, it seems to lean more into the idea of Cole's stern tone just being a bit unfair to Byrne here, with his reaction being changed to: “What?! Why?!“

I considered putting this next bit in the translation notes, but I need a bit more space to explain it.

In the Japanese version, Cole refers to Malladus as 魔王様/Maō-sama, which is the word 魔王/Maō (”Demon King”), with the highly respectful suffix 様/-sama added.

When you got a regular, non-demonic king, or 王様/Ō, being referred to as 王様/Ō-sama, you would usually just translate that as “Your Majesty” in English.

With 魔王様/Maō-sama, you could just translate it as “Your Majesty” too, since a Demon King is still a king. But that loses the demonic aspect of it.

However, if you translate it as something like “Your Demonic Majesty”, you risk sounding a bit silly, like trying too hard to sound evil.

And if you just translate it as “Demon King”, you don’t reflect the speaker’s reverence for said Demon King.

Both the English localization and I went for “Your Majesty” in this case, with a few instances of “Demon King” when it seems fit.

I don’t know the reasoning of the localizers of course, but my own reasoning is that Malladus being a demon is obvious to everyone involved, so there is no explicit need to highlight it here.

But I still wanted to explain this detail, so you can be aware of it.

When Byrne addresses Malladus, in the Japanese version he says ”I am the one who allowed for you to be resurrected!!“, while the English version has him say “I am the one who has freed you from your prison!”

Both have Byrne basically taking credit for most of the work, but the Japanese version has him be ever so slightly more indirect about it with the wording.

In the English version, Byrne also says: “Grant me the power I have dreamed of!”

This is slightly different from the Japanese line, but matches his English dialogue from earlier scenes.

In the Japanese version, Cole says that Malladus would not grant Byrne power specifically because Byrne is from the clan that serves the god. In other words, because he is a Lokomo.

In the English version, Cole instead says that it’s because Byrne had previously served the spirits.

This changes the implications of Cole’s disdain for Byrne just a bit.

In Japanese, it’s apparently more about disliking the Lokomo people on principle, and insulting Byrne for being one of them. He’s basically being a bit of a bigot about it, for the lack of a better term.

In English, he’s rejecting Byrne more for his former association with the spirits, which is still petty, but ever so slightly tones down the potential prejudice vibe. It makes it at least sound like he would be okay with a Lokomo who hadn’t served the spirits beforehand, somehow.

In any case, I’m not sure if this was an intentional change, because having implied intolerance among the different fictional people in the Zelda world isn’t that uncommon, and this isn’t even a particularly strong example.

And another minor thing here: In English, Cole says “those disgusting spirits“, but I think that in this case, that adjective was originally meant to be attached to the Lokomo, rather than their god.

I already went over how Cole’s general characterization was changed in the English version, and we get another example of that here.

After Byrne swipes at Cole, the Japanese version has Cole switch to talking in his informal, sort of crude manner, acting downright immature as he is taunting Byrne.

The English version again rewrites this informal dialogue from Cole to be more refined and fancy, even if he is still mocking Byrne.

I think this is a moment where this change especially stands out, because Cole’s mannerisms here match the tone of the Japanese version more, with the way he’s jumping around and cackling madly.

It also ends up downplaying how Cole completely changes his tone again the moment he flips around and addresses Malladus, where he of course goes back to speaking more formally and politely.

I have several things to note about this bit of dialogue from Cole:

Come, Your Majesty! Let theirs be the first blood spilled!

Now then, Your Majesty!

Let us sacrifice these base creatures to your glory!

I already brought up the term 血祭り/chimatsuri in the translation notes. I don’t know if its supposed origin as a blood sacrifice and later war ritual is true or if that’s just a myth in Japan, but the “blood sacrifice” interpretation of it is probably what the English localization went with.

In the Japanese version, I’m fairly certain Cole is using it in the sense of “bloodbath”, though.

Basically, in Japanese, Cole is talking about starting a bloodbath, like a killing spree, beginning with Link and Byrne, which is why I adapted his line the way I did.

So while the English version retains the idea of killing Link and Byrne, it lacks the direct implication that Cole and Malladus intend to keep on killing more people afterwards, too.

Regardless of that difference, I want to point out some neat things about the English version of this line.

Like I said before, Cole uses polite and respectful language when addressing Malladus in Japanese. In contrast, he talks quite dismissively about our heroes, even when he’s being formal.

In this particular line, he is using the term こいつら/koitsu-ra to refer to Link and co., which is especially disrespectful.

Normally, こいつ/koitsu is something you would use to refer to animals or objects, somewhat similar to the English word “it”, though in Japanese you can also use this to refer to a person, in which case it’s usually a sign of disdain and lack of respect.

Both of these language devices that Cole uses in Japanese to show respect, or a lack thereof, don’t have direct English equivalents.

But the English localization still did a good job of conveying the idea behind them, by having Cole use phrasings like “your glory“ and “these base creatures” here.

After Cole notices that Malladus hasn’t completely adapted to Zelda’s body yet, he says “Nothing to be done about that” and summons the Demon Train so they can escape with it.

Specifically, the line he says there is a phrase you could use when you gotta do something you had hoped you wouldn’t have to do, but you can’t really avoid now.

You can translate this differently depending on the context, or how you want to phrase it. One alternate phrasing I considered in this case here was “Regrettable, but oh well”, for example.

So, what Cole means here is simply that, since Malladus isn’t at full power yet, the two of them will have to postpone all that killing he suggested earlier, and instead retreat for now.

Of course, he’s still being smug for the rest of the scene here, seeming confident that this won’t be a huge issue in the long run.

In the English version, this line is adapted as: “None of you can stop us!“

While this could’ve been meant to reflect Cole’s smug confidence, I’m pretty sure this was actually a translation error.

If you translate the original Japanese line too literally, you would get something like “cannot be prevented” or “cannot be stopped”, and I think that’s what happened here.

Hence them adapting the line the way they did.

A minor detail, but when Anjean appears, both versions have Zelda wonder if she is a ghost at first.

In the Japanese version, this is a bit of a follow-up to something from the scene before the battle with Byrne, where it’s at least implied to the children and the audience that Anjean might have been killed.

Since this implication was omitted in the English version, Zelda acting like she thought Anjean was dead might seem a bit more random here, but it’s still not all that strange.

Looking at this cutscene as a whole, I’ll have to say again that I think Cole’s dialogue is probably the biggest change between versions here, though this time around it’s closer than in the previous scene featuring him.

They still rewrote a few of his lines completely, but overall the things he says still have the same basic meaning.

However, the way the dynamic between Cole and Byrne was changed in the English localization does make Cole’s betrayal of Byrne feel different.

In the Japanese version, Cole had acted as Byrne’s lackey, and now reveals to Byrne that he was never really in control, dropping the faux-admiration he had displayed for Byrne before.

In the English version, since Cole had always acted as the boss between the two of them, it’s more like Cole disposing of a servant of his who’s no longer useful. There isn’t really an aspect of Cole revealing he was actually the one pulling the strings, because that’s how the English version already presented him.

Of course, Cole betraying Byrne eventually wasn’t hard to guess in Japanese either, but it’s definitely a different kind of betrayal.

But outside of some of Cole’s dialogue and different implications due to prior changes, the localization in this scene is another fairly close one, maybe even one of the closest in this game, from a certain point of view.

I’m glad to see it was handled so well, considering its importance.

So that should be it for this part, then. Feel free to check out the next one!

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#legend of zelda #the legend of zelda #spirit tracks #tloz #legend of zelda spirit tracks #legend of zelda translations #spirit tracks translations #my translations #spirit tracks comparisons

11 notes · View notes

wizardsnwookies · 6 years

Text

FOC011718 - New Friends(?)

“Shail is still recovering from the public bombing of political hopeful Numb Nib several days ago. The final total of those killed were 27 casualties, three of which were Numb and two of his personal guards, the rest almost entirely civilian. While Nar Shaddaa is not unfamiliar with shady dealings and organized crime, the collateral damage has the public stirred up and on edge.

“While repairs are being made to the area local Imperial officials as well as Shail Metropolitan enforcement begin a troubled investigation. Sources say the organizations are still struggling with jurisdiction, the imperials far more concerned with the death of one of their own, while local enforcement point to the heavy casualties as grounds for a local investigation.

“In the political world Traad Araan has suggesting that rebel sympathizers are behind the attack. He says, quote...

‘The war has been brought to Smuggler’s Moon, there is no longer any denying it. If we are to stay safe and independent, we must take no sides in the matter. Nar Shaddaa has always conducted things its own way, there’s no reason to change that now.’

“Viewers may recognize this neutral stance as the platform of the ever elusive Polski Marr who has continued his campaign in seclusion for unknown reasons in the last few months. His office has released a statement on the bombing however, condemning the actions of those involved and offering his condulences to the families the victims.”

Rugor clicked off the holos. He was getting bored. They all were. Aisha had contacted them immediately following the bombing, and from her tone she did not seem all too pleased. The message was brief, and cold. Stay low. Let the heat die down, and she will contact them when she had made a decision.

“Made a decision.” Vrssl didn’t like the sound of that. Graalbar grumbled about never trusting her to begin with, but then the same argument between the two just ran through it’s circles once again for the millionth time.

Graakus couldn’t be trusted. Aisha was a convenient way out of that relationship. It was the same territory tread over and over again. Rugor found himself hanging out in the cockpit more and more just so he wouldn’t have to hear it, making minor setting adjustments, and tooling around on the holonet to see what he could get away with.

It was on the third day that the comm link finally rang. Rugor sent the call to the lounge and stood from the pilot’s chair. It was about time.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m not happy gentlemen.” Aisha’s voice was hollow, she spoke curtly through the connection and frequently spaced her words, choosing them carefully.

“What’s the problem? He’s dead isn’t he?” Vrssl waved off a sour look from Graalbar.

“Yes, but so are 25 innocent civilians.”

“Meh, you make an omlette...etc. etc.”

“Sigh...it makes me wonder about our relationship. Believe it or not I care for these people. I built my organization around helping the community, not taking advantage of it like Graakus.”

“Well, choose your words more carefully next time.”

“I wasn’t so sure there would be a next time...but, unfortunately due to your skills and your position I have decided you are too valuable assets to waste.”

Vrssl smiled and nodded towards Graalbar. The wookie still wasn’t convinced of anything with this Tongruta.

GRAAAHHHH ROOONK

Over the comm they could hear Aisha breath heavily through her nose at Graalbar’s grunts. “I suppose you can’t continue working for free, no. Fine. This one LAST chance to prove yourselves will be paid for, regardless as to whether or not our relationship continues beyond.”

RAAARW

“How familiar are you with the workings of the Arena?” Aisha ignored the comment and moved on.

GRAAAAH RRAAAWR

“You’re half right. Not all the competitors are voluntary. As I’ve stated before Graakus deals in slaves, but it’s much more than that. His arena and the surrounding complex lives on the backs of slaves. His personal attendants, the Gamemaster, and a full stable of fighters are all claimed as he personal property.

“Not only that, but a significant amount of money, his money, runs through that arena whether it be profits from gambling or laundered through it. Shutting it down would be a significant blow to him and his filthy organization. It would also spare the lives of dozens of slaves.

“That’s your job. Prove to me we are on the same wavelength. Shutter the games, free the slaves, and then we can work together. You have two days.”

Everyone in the room just sat and thought for a moment before Vrssl leaned forward and muted the transmission.

“Well, what’s everyone think?”

GRAAAAH RAAAWWR

“I know you’re not, but I’m not a big fan of the slave trade.”

“Neither am I.” Rugor chimed in. “What’s his problem?” Shirwook was still evading him, and he didn’t have his translator tablet on him at the moment.

“He doesn’t want the games shut down.” Kara explained. “I’m ambivalent frankly. It made us a lot of money. Not to mention I’m not too keen on giving that bitch everything she asks for just because she wants to have the warm fuzzies.”

“Either way, this is a point of no return for us and Graakus.” Vrssl thought aloud. This was the chance he was looking for, but there was one thing. One possible complication that had been on his mind. He looked at Kara. “What’re your thoughts? You’ve been with him, what, a few years?”

“Five, what’s your point?”

“I dunno, are there any...loyalties...we should worry about?” Vrssl studied her carefully. He liked Kara, maybe even trusted her...mostly....but the question was a valid one.

“Not really.” She shrugged. “I’m sure we can find someone who pays better, and is less temperamental. Besides, just because I’m human doesn’t mean I’m a fan of the alien slave trade. I’m down for whatever you guys want to do.”

“Good to know.”

“But you’re right on one thing. This is the point of no return guys. We screw over Graakus, we need to get out of the system as soon as we can.”

“Agreed.”

RAAAAAAAWRRRR

“Oh, absolutely.” Vrssl and Kara both smiled. It seems Graalbar was also of the mind that a job of this magnitude would have to set Aisha back quite a few credits. “So, we all in agreement then? We take the job?”

There were no objections, and so Vrssl leaned over the table and switched the audio receivers back on.

“Ok, we’re in...for 1 million credits.”

There was stark silence over the comm, followed by a whispered curse. “I don’t know what I expected. You are mercenaries after all. I’ll have to think on this. I’ll contact you this evening with my decision.”

---

“It’s a shame this is the right ship. Saw a cute pair of brown eyes heading his way to the hanger next door. Maybe once I have a few drinks in me I’ll get lost and ask for directions.” Charmer smarmed his way up the ramp a cheap bottle of Rot dangling in his hand. Although he never really dressed on occasion to begin with, he still managed to look far more casual than they were used to seeing him.The sabaac table was already set up in the lounge, and as he rounded the corner and saw the green felt his eyes lit up. He didn’t usually get personal calls from clients, but when Vrssl mentioned cards it was rather easy to stop asking questions.

He had been good on his word, surprisingly, and hadn’t visited a table since they found out about his little debt to Aisha but that little inconvenience was no longer an issue. When he went to make his latest payment it was rejected with a message claiming all debt had been forgiven on his account. Again, it was rather easy to stop asking questions and take this little blessing. He got so few of them

“Kara, always a pleasure. Glad to see the boys got you back safe and sound.”

“Took them long enough though.” Kara teased, pouring herself a drink from the dry bar setup on a fold down table on the wall before finding her seat.

Rugor was already shuffling the deck, the chips already in place.“We could have just taken our money and left your scrawny ass there.” He dealt out the starting hand one by one. Graalbar took his seat next to Charmer, putting him inbetween the wookie and Vrssl around the table.

“My ass is many things-- toned, tan, perfect to name a few --but scrawny isn’t one of them. What’re the stakes?”

“Good question.” Charmer smiled at the comradere between Kara and the three aliens. He’d known her since she started taking jobs for the Hutt five years ago. She was always the loner type, but somehow she had found a place in this group and seemed to be fitting in rather comfortably.

“100 credits, each.” Vrssl took up his cards and reviewed his hand, immediately tossing in a chip to the pot to mark his acceptance into the round.“500 at stake? Chump change for you guys now isn’t it?”

“We’re just having fun here tonight, no need to go overboard.” Vrssl shrugged. “You in or what?”

“Oh, I’m in.”

---

Charmer leaned back in his his seat and surveyed the damage, which didn’t take long as there was a vast spance of empty space on the table in front of him. Meanwhile everyone else had some amount of chips piled up, either braking even, or in Vrssl’s case, cleaning up completely.

“Well. I think this is where I bow out. Thanks for showing me a good time, this uh...actually doesn’t happen all that often.”

“You keep bringing the credits for us to take off your hands and you’re welcome back anytime.” Vrssl smirked.

“Yeah...oh, speaking of which.” Charmer leaned forward a bit and lowered his voice to a whisper, more out of habit than anything. “Just between you guys an me. There’s another arena battle going on tomorrow night, if I were you, I’d bet everything on the house.”

GRAAAAH RONKKK

“The house?” Vrssl translated.

“Yeah, no champion and challenger this time. This is something special. Every now and then Graakus has a someone he wants to...be rid of. If he thinks they’ll put on a good show for the crowd, he’ll have the Gamemaster setup a no-win scenario and lets nature takes its course if you know what I mean.”

Looks were exchanged between the table. Here was the crucial moment. They had discussed it at length before the bookie arrived. Graalbar knew his role and made a show of stretching and moving about the room as if to give his muscles some exercise after the long game. He conveniently positioned himself between the Charmer and the nearest exit.

“It’s funny you say that. Graakus actually gave us a job along similar lines not too long ago.” Vrssl looked down at the chips in front of him, methodically stacking them in neat towers as he spoke.

“Aisha? Yeah, I heard. Whatever happened with that anyways? Heard you guys were sent running with your tail between your legs...no offense.”

“Of course...and we’re working on that little venture, but that’s not what I was referring to.

“See, Graakus wasn’t too happy when we told him that Nik the Dick had managed to get the information on our little trip to Siskeen.”

Charmer suddenly felt his heart leap into his throat. His eyes shifted as casually as he could manage, making note of the door and the large wookie standing in front of it. “Y-yeah?”

“Yeah. He knew that meant he had a leak in his organization, and he hired us to...well...plug it.” Vrssl locked eyes with the scarred face of the human across the table. All subtlety was gone. In that moment, Charmer leapt from his chair and made way for the door, hoping beyond hope that he could somehow maneuver his way around the massive hairy arms reaching for him.

The wookie found a firm grip on the back of his neck and dragged him back towards the table, spinning him around to face the rest of the room. Even Kara had a look of dead seriousness about her now.

“Awww jeeze, come on guys don’t do this!!”

“Calm down Charmer. If we were going to kill you would we have sat here and played Sabaac with you all night?”

“Sure, to take my money!”

GRAAAAAH

“He’s right, dead men are easier to rob than poor players.” Vrssl stood on his chair and leaned against the back rest.

“Then...why tell me?”

“We wanted all the cards on the table, so to speak. See, we’re taking down Graakus, and we wanted to give you the heads up but we needed to make sure there weren’t any loyalties that would lead you to rat us out.”

“In which case we WOULD have to kill you.” Rugor pointed out.

“You...you’re taking him out?” Charmer blinked, he still wasn’t fully reassured as to his own safety, if anything, this kind of information endangered his life even more with the hutt than before. “For Aisha, I assume.”

“For the 1 million credits she just agreed to pay us, yes.” Vrssl walked across the table to put himself eye to eye with the human nearly three times his height. “But we have to do it before tomorrow night, she thinks she’s some kind of idealist and wants all the slaves freed before the next battle.”

“So while we appreciate the insider info, we probably aren’t going to need it.” Kara smiled, finishing her drink and setting it down gently on the table.

“...so...you aren’t going to kill me?”

“No.”

Charmer let this process for a moment. It still didn’t add up to him. He was a nobody, a two bit jobs broker with a busted face and a hopeless gambling addiction. He worked all the angles, trying to work out how helping him out benefitted them in some way, and he found nothing.

“Why are you doing this for me?”

Graalbar reached to his belt and pressed a button on his vocoder and a hollowly pleasant voice sounded a single word.

[[FRIEND.]]

“...r-really?” Charmer looked back and forth between each face in the room, stunned.

“Well, you have made us a LOT of money.” Vrssl laughed.

“Guys...I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. In fact, you CAN’T say anything. Not a word about this to anyone.”

“No, no of course not. I’ve got no loyalties to that hutt, even before he hired you to kill me. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Just lay low, we’ve got this covered.”

---

“I’m sorry sir, but you really can’t be here.” The twilek looked up at Graalbar with overall air of annoyance. The wookie had shown up unannounced and strode his way through the staging areas of the arena demanding to see tomorrow’s fighter. He wasn’t expecting trouble, there was no possible way he knew who it was that would be in the arena tomorrow. The wookie was arrogant, brash, and saw himself as a great warrior. He had assessed this over the several times he had met him over the past few weeks. There was no threat here. Still, it always paid to be cautious, thus the pair of Magnaguard droids flanking him in the hallway.

GRRRRAAAAAAH

“The contender is resting at the moment. And besides, you can understand our policy against private assessments of fighters before public wagering has begun.”

Graalbar had hoped he would have gotten a bit further into the complex before being stopped. Just beyond the annoying man and his tin cans he could see a bustling hallway of attendants making preparations through a transparasteel window in the security door. That was where he needed to be.

RAAAWWRRR GRAAH

The twilek’s manufactured politeness dropped and his smile faded. “Why don’t you do that. See what he says about it. I’m sure he’ll tell you the same thing, that is IF he feels like explaining his policies to mindless fighters like yourself.”

Graalbar bared his teeth in a wide smile, hiding his frustration. This wasn’t unexpected, and in that very moment “plan B” was crawling its way out of his fur and skittering along the walls and hiding among the ceiling tiles. Still, he didn’t like wasting his time.

GRRRAH

“Good choice. Have a nice day, and do feel free to place your wagers anyways. It will be quite the match I assure you.” His phoney smile returning, the twilek turned on his heels and disappeared beyond the security door, droids in tow. Unseen by all, Vrssl’s tiny spy droid followed in the brief moments before the durasteel slab slammed shut behind them.

The hall beyond was a buzz with activity, and peering through the open doors and transparasteel windows it became clear why. Beyond that door held the entirety of the slave quarters. Attendants made their way up and down the hall, carrying various pieces of equipment and datapads. All of them stopped to report to the man in charge, the Gamemaster. Dressed in flowing blues he personally addressed everything that was brought before him, making adjustments and orders as needed to prepare for tomorrow’s execution.

“How many do you count?” Vrssl broke contact with the viewing screen to ask Rugor. On the right side of the hall, rows of large holding cells ran the entire length, each holding a what appeared to be dozens of slaves both human and alien.

“47, including the Gamemaster.” Rugor checked his datapad. “Aisha’s estimate makes an even fifty.”

“Margin of error?”

“One or two, not five. What about there?” To the left Rugor pointed out turn in the hall. As the droid skittered along the ceiling it revealed a short passage with large security doors on either side, about half dozen in total.

“Bingo.” Vrssl changed the droid into flight mode and hovered dead even with the observation windows for each door. These cells were different, smaller, obviously meant to hold only a single prisoner. The insides were softer, no sharp angles, hard surfaces, or exposed light fixtures. Their occupants made the reasoning for this abundantly clear.

They had found the missing five within the cells, the hard cases. In one a small human female sat bound to her cot, a plastisteel mesh covering her face, her eyes burning with intensity. An aqualish paced the floor in another cell, large gashes in the padding hung on the walls. Everyone looked like they very much belonged there. They were dangerous, vicious.

That was until they found the oddity in the group. In the final cell on the right side sat a young human male who, by all appearances, was wholly unremarkable. He sat on his cot, leg bent at the knee as he stared off into the distance. Vrssl couldn’t tell why he was there. As far as he could tell, he was just a regular human, with short straw colored hair and a tan jacket. That was until he saw the emblem emblazened on his shoulder. It was the unmistakable red wings of the rebellion.

#Star Wars Saga Edition #campaign diary #role playing games #fistful of credits

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