Bounty Cold-Blooded Contracts – Bounty Hunt on Dalna

[Voice of the Diarchy]

Cold Blooded Contracts - Base Camp​

The descent into Dalna's Southern Abyss begins in silence.

Snowflakes fall like shards of glass, dry and angular, swirling in slow spirals around the dropships and freighters as they punch through the frost-choked atmosphere. It is mid-morning - a half-light hour. The horizon glows a pale blue, jagged with the silhouettes of crystalline cliffs jutting from the ice like broken teeth. The ground below is not flat but treacherous, a shifting maze of pressure ridges and buried crevasses that groan beneath each gust of wind. Every footstep here might echo across a frozen ravine or vanish into nothing.

No friendly signals. No auto-landing beacons. Just a string of outdated coordinates and a warning loop that crackles intermittently over comms: "Atmospheric instability detected. Proceed at your own discretion."

Nearby, a shallow basin; once a frozen lake, now partially collapsed rests beneath the cliffs. Ice stretches over it like old scar tissue, crisscrossed with wide claw-marks and collapsed tunnels where creatures have risen from below. It is here that many choose to make camp: low-profile thermal shelters or buried repulsor sleds that can be disguised beneath snow.

The only sounds beyond the low blow of snow covered wind - come from the wildlife, and even those are rare.

A distant howl rolls through the air - Shard Wolves, perhaps, hunting in threes. Their crystalline fur shimmers in the low light like ghosts. Closer, a frost-leaper bursts from the snow, snapping at something unseen before vanishing just as fast. The planet itself seems reluctant to wake anything fully. Even the weather waits, tense and expectant.

Storm clouds pulse on the far edge of the abyss, backlit by veins of lightning that flicker, like the breath of some colossal thing buried deep in the storm wall.

The Ice Gators are out there.

Beneath the stillwater.
Inside the ravines.
Waiting for you hunters.

Tags: Eivii Tork Lok Amelie Berionne

 

[Eivii]

Outfit: Durasteel Armor
Weapons: Slugthrower Rifle | Blaster Pistol

Spoiler: Eivii's Cold Weather Loadout

Clothing and Protection:
• Thermal body glove (insulated base layer)
• Armored insulated outerwear (gray-blue, flexible, cold-resistant)
• Heated boots and gloves (custom survival gear)
• Thermal hood or balaclava
• Rebreather mask (air filtration and storm protection)

Primary Weapons:
• Precision blaster rifle (adjustable for stun, kill, and cryo settings)
• Dart gun with tranquilizer darts and paralysis darts (silent option)
• Vibroknife (belt sheathed)

Sidearms and Tools:
• Blaster pistol (quickdraw rig)
• Cryoban grenades (freezing effect)
• Electro-net grenades (capture/trap)

Survival Equipment:
• Portable heater beacon
• Compact ration and hydration kit (snow-melt system)
• Field medkit (bacta patches, trauma gear)
• Commlink with beacon mode
• Sensor macrobinoculars with thermal imaging
• Climbing gear and grappling hook

Tactical Equipment:
• Lifeform bio-scanner (tracking non-sentients)
• Portable shield emitter (emergency defense)
• Camouflage cloak (for concealment/ambush)

The wind howled across the broken wastes of the Southern Abyss, flaying at exposed stone and scouring the thin patches of snow into ribbons of white mist. Eivii trudged forward with quiet determination, her boots crunching through the frostbitten crust, each step a muted promise against the deadened landscape.

She was a lean silhouette against the sprawling gray — wrapped in fitted armor built for mobility and survival, matte gray-blue plates layered over a thermal body glove that trapped her heat without hindering her speed. A camouflage cloak flared around her legs with each movement, blending her into the rocky outcroppings whenever she paused to listen. Over her back was slung a long-barreled blaster rifle, half-shrouded by the cloak; at her hip, a compact dart gun rode low in its holster, ready for quieter solutions. Her breath misted faintly against the rebreather mask tucked under her hood, the only break in an otherwise unbroken facade of focus.

Dalna was colder than she'd expected. Meaner, too.

The creature's tracks were barely visible — wide, deep impressions in the drifted ice, with ragged tears at the edges where something heavy and clawed had dragged across the terrain. She knelt, running a gloved hand over one of the depressions, feeling the subtle warmth still lingering beneath. Not long ago. Maybe an hour, maybe less.

Eivii rose smoothly, brushing the frost from her knees. Her macrobinoculars clicked into place over one eye, cycling through heat signatures — the screen returned nothing larger than a frost-leaper in range. No sign of the real quarry yet.

Good. She preferred it that way. Better to catch the thing unaware — or better yet, watch the others bumble into it first and learn its weaknesses secondhand. The bounty was large, yes. But it was the Diarchy's sponsorship that mattered more.

Eivii’s lips pressed into a thin line beneath the mask. Alliance space isn’t safe for fugitives like her, she thought grimly. Names get whispered. Records get flagged. Sooner or later, you either vanish… or you're lucky enough to find someone willing to look the other way for the right price.

If the Diarchy took notice — if they valued her skills enough to look past her history — it might be a future worth bleeding for. And Eivii had never been afraid of a little blood.

She slung the macrobinoculars back onto her belt, adjusting the dart gun’s settings with a deft flick of her fingers: paralyzer first, then tranq, then kill, if it came to that. The cold bit at the exposed seams of her gloves, but she barely registered it. The hunt was on, and with it came the slow, deliberate tightening of her mind into something sharp and narrow and lethal.

Eivii vanished over the next ridge without a sound, just another ghost lost in the Abyss

@OPEN​