Ida was not having a good day. Her ship's systems had glitched (this was ridiculous, her systems never glitched, something must be wrong with this planet), and she was in the middle of fucking nowhere. Scrunching her eyes together, she leaned forward, and mashed her face on the console buttons, absentmindedly hoping that she would somehow activate some unknown command sequence, or possibly activate the ship's AI, which had shut down entering the atmosphere.
She cracked an eye open to observe the results, and when nothing happened, she slid it closed, and once more mashed her face against the buttons, this time groaning before sliding off of her seat and onto the floor. She groaned again, thumping her head against the metal, hoping maybe she'd shake her brain into doing something useful. After laying there for a few minutes, she realized exactly how cold the floor was, and peeled herself off.
"Well," she said, "sitting around isn't helping anyone. Also, I really need to stop talking to myself, it's a terrible habit. Well, when you're not deep in dark space, in between galaxies with nothing to do except talk to a sassy little shit of an AI, I suppose it's alright." While mumbling to herself, Ida had managed to get herself off of the floor. Idly standing there for a few seconds, she was hit with the realization she should probably start packing her bag and go explore, as she was probably going to be stuck here for some period of time, seeing as her ship was rebooting.
Staring at the array of things she had, from knicknacks and crumpled up clothing strewn across the floor, weapons of mass destruction and various medicinal paraphernalia, to the truly staggering amount of house plants she kept everywhere (and by everywhere, she meant every available horizontal surface). She pondered exactly what she should take with her to fit in with the minimal amount of suspicion. 'Thank god for planning ahead.'
She considered her choices briefly, before electing to take along her trusty dual dagger set (in their holsters on her arms), which she really hoped wouldn't become locked up again, as she would be unable to get the damn things off without assistance, let alone use the daggers locked in them.
Returning to her mental checklist, she added an easy-to-hide medi-kit for situations in which she couldn't bring out the tech, a few odds-and-ends that could be useful, a collapsable bladed staff, and a sturdy, nondescript satchel, which would hopefully be enough to tide her along until she could make her way back. Best case scenario, the AI would reboot and figure out what caused them to glitch as she entered this planet's orbit, and she'd be back on track within a month. Worst case, her ship would be permanently grounded, and she'd have to send out a distress signal to one of the galaxy's locals she had contacts with. Either way, she'd have quite the wait ahead of her. 'May as well start documenting this planet while I'm here, get some brownie points with the guild.'
This was one of the times she was abundantly glad she was a shapeshifter, and though the skill was always useful, this was a situation she was extra glad she could change shape.
Remembering the style of clothing she had observed on the area's locals, she shifted herself into some thick cream-coloured leggings, faded green tunic, a fur-lined jacket, grey gloves, and some sturdy boots, and styled her formerly bright blue hair into a braided, dark brown bun (couldn't have her hair in the way, after all), before covering her hair and face with a thick, lined shawl.
Pausing, she considered it for a second, before taking out her piercings, and got rid of her visible tattoos, incase she was ever in a situation in which her attire would be a bit much.
Hefting her satchel across her shoulder,and pulling her gloves on, she set her ship into stealth mode, with a life-repelling field around it, just to make extra-sure nobody would find anything (though she doubted anyone would, in the middle of nowhere, though they probably did see her ship crash).
Quickly putting in a command to make sure that the ship would water the plants while she was gone, she took one last look around herself, trying to remember if she had forgotten anything vital. Running through her mental checklist and finding nothing missing, she squinted, shielded her eyes as she opened the ramp to the blinding daylight outside, and descended. The entrance let out a hiss of air as it closed behind her, sealing shut.
Throwing her head back and letting out a groan at all the snow around her, she began crunching and grumbling her way towards the main road (or at least this world's attempt at it), heading towards some kind of temple, gigantic and magnificent compared to its surroundings. Most days, she would have turned into some type of bird, or animal, but she needed to get used to this body, and the environment.
'Figures. No matter what planet I'm on, there's still some head religion that demands everyone's money and attention.' After a moment's consideration, she added 'probably not to nice to minorities, either.'
The temple (and nearby village) were still a few hours away, so Ida had a while to survey the new planet she was stuck (not for long, if she could help it) on.
She paused once or twice on her walk between the pines to scan samples and scan the wildlife for any differences to registered species, or to upload the new information to her database, which was wired to her ship incase her personal tech got damaged. Though very unlikely, as it was literally buried in her skin. Actually, now that she thought of it, she was a good percentage implants and enhancements, when she didn't shift them away.
Normally, Ida would have appreciated the beauty of her environment; the untouched, pristine snow, gigantic pine trees and various other wintry things were very pretty, but after two hours of slogging through the deceptively-pretty-looking white fluff, she was tired, cold, and needed a long, hot shower. Preferably before she froze to death. Or got a cold. She was still deciding on which was worse. Unfortunately for her, and her daydreams, this was a pre-technology planet, which meant there would be no showers for her for a while.
As a matter of fact, she was so relieved when she finally came across the road she was looking for (and so close to the temple too!), for a second, she seriously considered kissing the ground. Then promptly decided not to, after getting a good look at the state of the road. Which was really torn up, what with all the people moving along it. Also she was pretty sure that wasn't mud.
'Looks like everybody is heading towards the temple. I wonder what's going on over there.' Joining the flow of people (and receiving a few glares in the process), she followed the flow of the crowd into the temple, through the gigantic, ornate doors. Making her best attempt at blending in, she wished she could find somewhere quiet and unnoticeable to shift into something less noticeable, so she could spy on what was going on. She peeled off of the flow of people, all of which were heading towards what she presumed was a meeting area in the middle of the temple. Slinking down the hall, she fervently hoped that no-one would see her, and that no one would figure out she didn't belong.
While attempting to get to what seemed like a relatively-unused portion of the temple, she began to hear what sounded like clanking. It turned out that the noise was guards, or knights, running around, questioning people, and ordering everyone they found to go to the main area, as someone called 'the divine' was missing. She sped up, not really wanting to see what would happen to her if she was caught evading the guards.
'Making my way downtown, walking fast' more guardsmen ran through the halls, 'walking faster.' Mentally cackling, she snuck her way down the halls, occasionally ducking into alcoves and around corners to avoid guards.
Finally, she entered an unused portion of the temple, judging by the slight layer of dust on everything around her, though not as much as she would have expected from a building of this size.
Pausing for a second to scan the architecture (never a bad time for that!), she realized how hard it would be to clean all of the nooks and crannies of the finely-sculpted statues, which reached upwards, towards the ceiling. Slowing down to a comfortable stride, she took some time to really look at the things around her. 'There are lots of statues of this one woman. Perhaps she is their head goddess, or something similar. I have no idea how this system of belief works. Though, it does look remarkably similar to that one old religion from home. Now what was it called... Ah yes! Christianity.' Actually, now that she thought about it, a lot of things in this
temple-church-thing she was in, really resembled the old christian faith. She'd seen photos of what the places of worship used to look like, and these really had some resemblance, except instead of statues of a man everywhere, it was statues of a woman. 'Well, it's nice to see something progressive, here in fantasy LARP-ing hell.'
Maintaining her comfortable stroll, she continued along, the urgency of shifting pushed aside for documenting the similarities between cultures. Things like this always got her a big bonus.
During her scanning of a rather ornate tapestry, her ears picked up what sounded like a scuffle from one of the nearby rooms.
Swiftly closing her windows, she slid her daggers out from their holsters, and crept towards where she thought the disturbance came from.
When she heard the deep timbre of a man, and then a woman's scream, her thoughts jumped to the worst possible scenario, and she burst through the double doors, into the room.
"What's going on here?" She shouted, trying to take in the situation before her... Wait, what exactly is going on here?
So, there's a woman in some pretty fancy gear being held up by red light coming from these other people in some nice-looking armour, and the woman's being... Tortured somehow by a glowy, red orb held by a very tall, mutilated (I mean, he had red spikes sticking out of him, you can see his ribs, and then there's this weird rotting furry pauldron thing going on) individual, who didn't seem too happy at her intrusion into whatever was going on (which, considering there's a woman being held hostage, probably isn't good).
While the suspicious-looking character was distracted by her appearance, the woman yanked her arm free of the binds the others had put her in, and smacked the sparking red orb the giant was holding towards her out of his hands, across the floor towards Ida.
Darting towards it, she scooped it up before it could get far. Unfortunately, the orb must have still been releasing energy, because when she picked it up, it started to electrocute her. She found she was unable to release it, her hand clenching the orb as at fried her nerves, the electricity being conducted and amplified by her implants.
While it was shocking her, the giant's face twisted with rage, and it (he?), lunged towards her, only to be blown back by a wave of energy the orb released, blasting her backwards, slamming her head onto stone, and knocking her out cold.