Just a BioWare Fan

Dead but Maybe Not Gone

I took Urz back to where I’d found him and got a dead pyjack for a goodbye present. “Don’t eat Wrex,” I told him, rubbing my knuckles across his lumpy spine, “but the other clans are fair game, okay?” He slimed my leg one more time, rubbing against it, and then settled to his meal.

I said a fond farewell to Wrex, as well, though without the gift of vermin. He told me the Weyrloc women and children had begun to filter into the Urdnot camps. They would join his clan as his agents had defeated their protectors.

Then he relayed breeding requests from the females with barely-suppressed hilarity: several for Grunt, two for Garrus, and one of his men had sent one in for me. He seemed to have a difficult time getting that last tidbit out between the spasms of thunderous laughter.

Such a compliment cheered me immensely. Apparently I’d become acclimatized to the idea that everyone I’d met since returning from the dead wanted to get in my pants. I did a little dance of “no way am I sleeping with a Krogan but thanks for the compliment” and Wrex had to sit on that throne of his before he fell down.

The Rebellious Pupil

Garrus, Mordin and I hammered our way through the Blood Pack in the next room. Apparently they chose the walkways that lined it for the storage of explosives because every third crate blew up, a great help to my team although it made cover a little scarce.

The crates acted as a pretty good indicator of the average intelligence of these guys. They had forgotten the damned things would explode and tried to hide behind them during the firefight. Even seeing their fellows blown up didn’t dissuade them from trying the same tactic. Once I even exploded a lovely chain of boxes, clearing twelve feet of Krogan and Vorcha—boom boom boom—in as many seconds.

All in all we enjoyed ourselves. Obviously we’d taken down their A team on Omega. If there hadn’t been so many of the idiots they would have been no threat at all. We traipsed down the stairs and finally found the chief, Weyrloc Guld. I only know his name because I asked Wrex later. It wasn’t really the time for introductions just then and I wanted it for my scrapbook.

After a chattery greeting during which he carefully avoided any mention of genophages or Krogan live birth rates, Mordin let me explain that Wrex had already directed us to his Scout Chief. Wrex accompanied us a down the staps, ostensibly to show us the way.

“You’ve impressed the ambassadors in our camp, Shepard,” he said quietly, pointing unnecessarily at the Krogan we needed to see. “If you wipe out the males of Clan Weyrloc you will have strengthened my position as much as I have in the past two years. I’m not suggesting you go in there looking for slaughter, of course,” he cautioned with a sly wink of the eye his snout hid from those still standing near his rough throne.

I tried not to smirk too much and suppressed my dance of anticipated havoc. We could hardly admit to the visiting representatives that I was going to go take out another clan. That wouldn’t be politic, after all. Nor would sending home their dead bodies, as would surely happen if we admitted our intention.

Rites and Wrongs

After Okeer’s claims that the Krogan coddled the few of their babies that lived through birth I hadn’t expected the rite to be anything particularly dangerous. I hadn’t seen too many wimpy examples but who was I to question the experience of a warlord?

At first, it wasn’t. After telling Urz to stay we went to a blasted circle of ruins raised a few steps above the shattered plains that covered the planet between bombed-out cities. A button on one of the walls produced a portentous voice and a pile of varren, not a one even half as friendly as Urz.

While Grunt and Garrus wiped them out I surreptitiously looted the bodies of what I presumed were failed Krogan that dotted the area. Hey, these were desperate times and we needed the credits…and the weaponry that I piled in a stash to have some crew pick up later. If nothing else we could sell them off-planet. Surely the other Krogan would have claimed them if they were still considered worthy of use on Tuchanka.

Old Friends, New Problems

While we’d been marking time and exploring various systems for resources with which to make the Normandy as strong as she could be, Jacob had been patiently testing and investigating—for weeks—the guns we’d picked up on the Collector ship. He was thorough, I had to give him that. I suppose he didn’t have much else to do since I never took him anywhere.

After we returned to the SR-2 he invited me to the armory to hear the results of his intensive study. Jacob and I played around in the shooting range for a while so that I could get a feel for how each of the new guns handled. Between clips he ran down the specs and how they differed from what we already carried.

Though it looked impressive, the sniper rifle simply couldn't outperform my Viper, the only gun I'd ever wanted to tuck into bed with me like a teddy bear. I love that thing.