The Arbiter ★|| Tavern Meeting

Silence came across the ship for just a small moment.... Thel was standing at the main terminal in the control room, reviewing the ship's trajectory towards Earth.. He looked out to the window, admiring the stars slipping by at an immaculate speed as he made his way through space with the help of slip-space technology. By his lonesome everything was quiet...too quiet.. Almost jinxing his own thoughts he was thrown out of slip-space at a violent rate, the sheer amount of force threw him into the wall right by the control panel absolutely knocking the wind out of his lungs and making him see stars.. The adrenaline kicked in and he could barely hear the beat of his hearts as he focused on his lack of air in his lungs. He quickly regained his breath before going against the force of the ship to see what in the hell had happened..

One hand had fingers flying over the holographic keypad to see what was damaged as one hand held onto the panel itself for dear life.. The engine bay had been compromised, bits and pieces of space rocks, some still aflame, had been flown into every single part of the engine... He was fucked... He let out a few curses in Sangheili't under his breath before finding the nearest planet by radar rather than by map.. The area he was in was..uncharted....untouched by the greedy hands of sentient beings with technology beyond their time. His radar picked up a planet within an agonizing minute, the air held oxygen and that was enough for him to manually pilot his ship towards that planet, using whatever part of the engine he had left and a silent prayer to the gods that he survived this surreal event.. Slowly but surely he forced his ship against its will to move towards the green and blue planet, similar to Earth in its visual qualities, a gorgeous gray moon peeking out from the right corner of this planet and a small ring of rocks floating around the top of the planet... but his mind was focused elsewhere. The ship's metal groaned and strained, the slow manual trajectory turned into a blaze of fury as he propelled towards this uncharted planet. The force and pressure alone of him being propelled into this planet made his vision go black, his body went limp and he was thrown into the wall behind him...

When he had woken up he was covered in rubble, his whole body was numb, sore, and felt as if needles were being shot through every vein all at the same time. He opened his eyes and looked around him for a moment... He was trapped underneath the control panel, and almost every last bit of his ship was blown to the nine rings of hell and beyond. His surroundings looked as if it came straight out of an elder's fantasy story, the ones he had heard as a youngling. Tall dense trees, bushes, flowers and tall grass filled his view. The trees concealed a lot of the sunlight, but it still felt...warm. Somehow his forest was...at peace, even as Thel struggled to breathe underneath the weight of his own control panel... He took as deep of a breath as he could without coughing it back out and lifted up the control panel with his arms, he slid the rest of his body out before letting go of the panel. It settled down with a louder crash than he had anticipated, electronics sparking here and there.

He started to go through the rubble, collecting what things of his he could, his energy sword, a few rations, an extra piece of clothing he could possibly use for a pallet should he sleep in the forest, and a hunting knife. It was metal, but it would do best in this environment... Once he had collected what he needed and had found a bag to carry his things inside, he slung the bag over his shoulder and headed towards a clearing in this dense forest.

As he got closer he could hear the laughter of children, the smoke of a fire in a fireplace, and the bustling of civilians.. Did humans inhabit this planet?.. It might be likely, considering the air was oxygen rich, but it was unlikely that they wouldn't report back to the UNSC about a new colony.. As he got closer what he found was far from your average town.. It held creatures, tall, spiked, horned, long eared, and humans alike. Different species that seemed to get along just fine without a hint of rivalry in glances...it seemed...divine. A few of the townfolk gave him some..odd glances, more curiosity rather than hatred or distrust. Likely never seeing his kind before but not thinking more of it, like seeing a new species was a daily occurrence for them.. A few of the children of different species looked up to him and his armor, seeing how the gold glinted in the sunlight but turning to themselves or running away when he looked their way.

He needed to find out how to communicate with the UNSC or the Swords of Sanghelios, and the only way to figure out how..was to find someone who at least knew the people, likely someone from...a tavern?.. A barkeep in this case.. He looked up at the sign and read in English 'The Silver Phoenix'.. It was an interesting name for a Tavern considering Phoenixes were a legendary creature, but at this moment in time..anything could be possible. He entered the tavern and overheard a plenty of people speaking in English, some of them with drinks, food, or even by themselves..

He approached the Bartender, clearing his throat to get the human man's attention. When the Bartender looked him up and down, he gave a small hum before speaking

"What do you want?"

Thel was quite...intrigued to understand that this man was not fond of him already.. He hadn't even met Thel.. But he spoke politely to the man anyways

"My apologies, might I know this area's currency and technological advances? You see, I am unable to contact the UNSC nor the Swords of Sanghelios and need to be able to get back home safely."

The man, raised a brow and leaned an arm against the counter

"What in the hell are you talking about, freak?.. If you're looking to stay a night, it'll be 20 Gold pieces. Don't have it? Screw off and go find another tavern to exploit..."