Private Burn Me To The Ground

[Veyla Tass]

LEVEL 1313
THE GUTS
CLUB CADAVER​

Piercing, mechanical bass filled the air of Club Cadaver, Coruscant's premiere nightclub for scoundrels, scum, and Sith. It was busy, even by its own high standards, but that wasn't surprising - the Covenant's soldiers and its Acolytes had filled Cadaver for nights now, celebrating their victory on Abregado-Rae with an endless wave of spice, drink, and every other vice they could think to indulge in.

And down on the bottom floor, covered in her ratty coat and tugging at the tangled mess of her hair, was Veyla Tass, viciously harshing the vibe around her.

Veyla wasn't partying.

Veyla was drinking.

Grim and alone in a sea of people, the pale, surly Acolyte nursed a bottle of some bottom-shelf swill, while her vision swam with dark spots. Stiff arteries and bum knees, undiagnosed tumors and chronic injuries, they all stood out to her, made black and oily and ugly by the Smog. She took a little comfort in it, whenever she spotted one of the monsters who might die soon.

The thing she wanted least in the whole damned Galaxy was for someone to speak to her.

So of course, someone was about to start speaking to her.

Ketra Tepesh​

 

[Ketra Tepesh]

With a heavy thud-clunk, Ketra force pulled the drunk Neimodian murmuring in his cups next to Veyla out of his seat and onto the floor. Taking the chair beside her,

"I saw you gunning down those Gados scum. Good work on downing those transport ships."

 

[Veyla Tass]

Veyla looked up. Slow, almost reptilian, she blinked, as if she just couldn't quite understand the words she'd just heard. Some kind of defense mechanism in her brain, maybe. That or the booze.

For nearly a full second, the one Acolyte stared at the other, as understanding slowly dawned on the drunk. Her scowl deepened, twisting her face while the hand that held a bottle started to tremble with rage. With the last remaining scraps of her sense, she managed to put the liquor down before it shattered in her hand.

Tell her to fuck off, the rational part of her brain said. That'd be the smart thing to do. She didn't need this, didn't need a fight or some psycho-Sith freak pretending to be all buddy-buddy with her.

Too bad, then, that the drunk, stupid animal part of her brain was screaming kill her kill her kill her kill her kill her.

Sudden and spring-like, Veyla lunged across the table space between her and the other Sith, hands outstretched to grab her neck and wring the life from her.

The band would've stopped playing, but this was the fifth fight of the night. Club Cadaver wasn't named that just to be cute.

Ketra Tepesh​

 

[Ketra Tepesh]

With a uneasy backwards leap out of her chair and a frantic wrench of her right fist, the supine Neimoidian's body jerked aloft as Ketra force lifted it in an attempt to block Veyla's assault.

"All of this violence and you haven't even asked for my name. I've heard the other acolytes sing your praises but this just proves that you're a natural Sith. Before we go any further though, I have something I'd like to show you."

Ketra's left hand reached into a hidden pocket in her Seeker's robes and pulled out an intricately filigreed pyramid, awash with a soft and sinister crimson glow.

"I found this when we were looting a Mandalorian cache on Abregado-Rae. It's a Sith holocron of a map of some kind, and I've been assigned to form a team to investigate it. You were my first choice, of course."