Private Death, Devilry, and... Dairy?

[Maeve Linahan]

"Don't get torn to shreds," she repeated after Kahlil. "Got it."

The man was far less encouraging than his wife, but he seemed experienced enough in killing these creatures that she trusted he wasn't wrong. Given the many traps scattered around the facility and those Kahlil was setting now, she strongly hoped it'd be enough to kill the beast behind that door. As long as she was just faster than it, then she had nothing to worry about.

"So, how many more traps do you plan to set before we—?"

A clawed fist shattered through the wall. As Maeve spun around, the abomination inside roared. It had clearly having given up trying to break down the door Kahlil had reinforced, now resorting to smashing through the wall. She should've known it wouldn't hold up. Still, Maeve didn't feel entirely ready for the wild chase she was about to embark upon, and neither was she ready for the face that stuck itself through the hole in the wall.

It was a cow's face. With a sea dragon's teeth.

"MOO!" the head of the abomination shrieked, just before it started chewing into the wall, tearing out the metal plating like it was paper.

Kahlil Noble​

​

 

[Kahlil Noble]

The sudden Moo would've made him laugh, if not for the terror that such a feat brought. Leave it to his young self to not reinforce the walls despite the reinforcements to the doors. That changed things, drastically changed things. The almost smile he'd had to try and help keep the air from being too tense was replaced by a far more focused expression. Still calm, but he stood from the trap he was making, and instead lifted his hand towards the now revealed abomination.

Runes flashed. The various spots he'd already scrawled, the runes he'd already made so long ago, brightened through the hall. Then shifted, sliding across as if they were alive. Freely moving across the flat surface to surround the wall that had been shattered before scrawling over the creatures arm. Brightened further before he closed his fist. The Light brightened further, then the arm was gone.

"Run, back to the surface."

If they were going to fight this thing, they weren't about to do it in the now less trapped but very much still trapped hallway.

Maeve Linahan

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve watched in astonishment as the runes glowed and moved. It was magick she'd never seen before in person. She thought to question it, but as Kahlil closed his hand into a fist, a blinding flash of light filled the hall, bright enough for her to have to shield her eyes. When she re-opened them, the abomination's arm was gone, a cauterized stump of smoking flesh and skin. The creature roared in fury.

Along with Kahlil's order, Maeve took that as cue to run.

Aware they'd need to escape to higher ground and more open space, she spun around and charged down the corridor. Again, the abomination gave a blood-curdling shriek and ripped into the wall. Shattering through the reinforced plating, the beast staggered through, its twisted body filling the entire hall, its many faces groaning and crying out. What might've been its main head reared up, covered in human eyes.

Maeve only cast a look over her shoulder once. She still couldn't quite believe what she was seeing, but her doubts and worries mattered little. They needed to draw the abomination to the surface, and that required actually escaping it and this damned facility first.

Kahlil Noble​

​

 

[Kahlil Noble]

And so began the mad dash to the surface.

Kahlil headed up behind Maeve, both trying to manage the old runic traps he'd left behind and, well, slow the damn abomination chasing after them. The hallway was lit up with all his old traps as he pulled on them, had them flow and change. Erupt in walls of thick, freezing ice. Not that the creature seemed to care. He grimaced it ripped through the first wall with ease, but continued to form more and more. Do what he could to slow it down.

And clear the path.

His brow knitted together in concentration. Weariness.

"Keep moving!"

Maeve Linahan

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Maeve answered, almost stumbling as she crossed into an intersecting passage, the abomination hot on her trail.

She could not believe her luck.

A small part of her had hoped the mission with Kahlil would end with relative ease. Maybe murdering a couple undead here or there, perhaps a hiding Sith Lord, but a horrifying, feral monster with a dozen faces of gnashing teeth and a hundred burning eyes? It was decidedly not what she expected. Still, she banked on Kahlil's plan, trusting he wouldn't get the both of them killed.

The abomination continued to barrel through his traps, tanking frozen spells and scorching flamethrowers. Even when a flash of lightning arced at the tunnel's end, a trap very similar to the one that had rendered the rancor to ash, the thunderbolt merely glanced off the monster's side, like it had used the Force to deflect it. But that was impossible. There was no way a creature this dark and twisted could be capable of it.

"Are we almost at the end?" Maeve called, feeling just as weary.

Kahlil Noble​

​