First Reply Echoes of Madness (Jedi/Lightsider Preferred)

[Darth Nefaron]

Battu || Black Spire Outpost
TAG || OPEN

A storm has consumed the vibrant sky.​

Battu was hardly ever a world of renown, but in these days of endless conflict, it had become a haven for refugees passing through to reach the relative safety of the Core Worlds. Yet commerce seemed to go on, market stalls full of trinkets and fresh fruits remained even as the onslaught of rain forced buyers and sellers alike indoors or into the crowded cantina. But under the cheap junk that passed for momentos and the overpriced food lay a network of smugglers and artifact hunters that have used Black Spire and the surrounding forests for their illicit trade. Usually, these were little more than chunks of stone or ancient fertility idols that rich collectors fell over themselves to collect, even though it was very much against Alliance law, but credits always made for a rather worthwhile risk.

Occasionally, someone stumbles upon a relic of significance, one that draws the interest of parties outside of the eccentric collectors or foolhardy adventurers. It was such a relic that had drawn darkness to this little backwater, a specter cloaked in darkness, accompanied by a band of local mercenary raiders as protection. The storm that engulfed the outpost provided perfect cover for one who wished to avoid any unwelcome onlookers, and for those persistent enough, a cadre of blasters and blades was enough to remind them it was not worth asking questions.

The thud of a cane against stone echoed among the cracks of thunder. A monstrous being, fueled by hatred and a desire to see the galaxy consumed by terror.

Darth Nefaron had come. But this was no terrorist attack or slave raid; he had come to carry out business. ​

Protected by a baker's dozen of poncho-wearing marauders of various species, he turned to enter a small courtyard, the buildings surrounding the space were seemingly unoccupied or little more than ruins. Standing under a hastily erected umbrella were a collection of Devaronian smugglers, led by a woman named Hunchi Vamond. She had been hired by the Dark Lord through proxies to locate a device long thought lost to the galaxy, one few would seek to unleash after millennia hidden away in the farthest reaches of the Outer Rim. Something important enough that Nefaron would come in person to collect instead of dispatching another servant to bring it to him on Anoat.

"Could have done this in the cantina, or even aboard my ship-"

The woman seemed taken aback when she got a glimpse of the Corpse Lord, his hood briefly illuminated by a flash of lightning. She quickly composed herself.

"No offense to your choice of local, Lord Nefaron-"

"Do you have it?"

The sudden interruption from Nefaron once more caught the smuggler off guard, but she cleared her throat and beckoned to one of her men to bring forward a sealed case. The Corpse Lord approached, but a rather brave hand rose to block his path.

"No offense, my Lord, but we have been on the hunt for this thing for months, searching 17 different systems. We would like to know if this was worth all the trouble or if you intend to kill us."

At the suggestion, two of the smugglers tightened their grips on their blasters, and Nefaron's goons did the same. But the Corpse Lord simply chuckled and beckoned for one of his men to bring a case of their own forward. With a nod from the Sith Lord, the case was opened to reveal a dazzling collection of jewels. While credits would have sufficed, Nefaron preferred to keep transactions of this sort off the record. These jewels were actually smuggled out of the Royal Palace on Ukatis during the Sith's attempted coup d'état, which did not succeed but still gained Nefaron much in the way of valuable assets and filled his coffers for transactions such as this.

"As promised, I will not waste valuable agents if you have indeed brought me what I have asked."

Hunchi, more than satisfied along with her men, allowed Nefaron to take hold of the case in their possession. Laying his cane aside, he opened the case to reveal but fragments of what appeared to be a crown of some sort. But this was not something a monarch would ever want to wear atop their head, for doing so would lead to endless madness and a death far more painful than they could ever imagine.

This was the Ravager.

A weapon created by the Sith Emperor Vitiate in the days of the Old Republic.

A weapon designed to rip a being's mind apart and force them to reveal even their deepest secrets.

Jedi and Sith alike could not resist its power.

And now Darth Nefaron was about to possess a weapon none could withstand. ​

 

[Tilon Quill]

Yet commerce seemed to go on, market stalls full of trinkets and fresh fruits remained even as the onslaught of rain forced buyers and sellers alike indoors or into the crowded cantina.

he turned to enter a small courtyard, the buildings surrounding the space were seemingly unoccupied or little more than ruins. Standing under a hastily erected umbrella were a collection of Devaronian smugglers, led by a woman named Hunchi Vamond.

The Vamond gang had a reputation, and having shared a drink and a sabacc table with four or five of them over the years, Tilon knew it for fact. That reputation called them tenacious - as scavengers, smugglers, thieves, and above all treasure hunters. The kind of people you contracted to get the thing nobody else could reach or find. He'd tried to hire them once and been laughed off at the gulf between their going rates and his budget.

The whole Vamond gang had gone very quiet the last few weeks. When they showed up on people's scanners in random systems, they didn't talk about the job, and they were clearly on a job. So when Hunchi Vamond's ship put down at Black Spire, Tilon braved the rain to go ask her, out of sheer curiosity, what the actual feth she was hunting for. She probably wouldn't answer but he had to ask.

Fast-forward a minute to an outlying courtyard, Tilon raking rain-soaked hair back from his eyes, not close but not too far. Looked like a handoff, the Vamonds swapping a successful find with a hooded client who made Tilon's sphincters tighten just out of instinct. A lot of armed people in there, Vamonds and non-Vamonds, and it looked tense.

He took stock of his options if this whole area went sideways. Lightsaber and blaster pistol/ascension gun, visible on belt; overriding speciality in acquiring and sharing languages and similar thoughts; quite good running speed; very nice ship parked in the Black Spire landing pads. Not a lot else going for him. But feth, this was starting to feel like a situation begging for intervention. Instinct suggested reluctant obligation, and then there was the curiosity angle.

His big question was what ship the buyer and his thirteen assorted toughs had brought here. He slipped back into the ruins and got out his comlink for a quiet conversation.

"Traffic control? Hi, Crays, it's Quill. Yeah, he was great, thanks for the tip. Listen, any heavily armed strangers set down in the last few hours? Gunboat, Sith shuttle, anything like that?"

 

[Darth Nefaron]

Battu || Black Spire Outpost
TAG || Tilon Quill

Indeed, there was an unusual ship sequestered at the Outposts landing pad.

No manifest. No known name.

Just a freighter with a suspicious amount of communications equipment.

And protected by two of the mercenaries that accompanied the cloaked Sith.
​

Speaking of said Sith, Nefaron had something nagging at him, like a little needle poking at his senses that he wasn’t quite sure what to make of. Battu did not have a strong presence in the force, so he doubted the planet was reacting to him being on its surface. The Ravenger might have explained this uncomfortable feeling if not for the fact that its dark power was rather reduced in its fragmented state. The Corpse Lord looked to the force for answers and found an equally confusing mess of sensations. Still, he was starting to believe that the exchange had not gone unnoticed, even if he couldn't quite prove it.

"Were you followed?"

"Lord?"

The woman seemed confused as her compatriots sorted through their newly acquired wealth.

"Did you speak to anyone about our meeting? About your mission?"

"Of course not! We are professionals, Lord Nefaron, that is why you hired us is it not?"

"I hired you because you were expendable. You have proven to be more useful than I believed, but I expect you to clean up after yourselves. Should anyone approach you about what you carried out for me, I expect you to kill them. No exceptions."

Hunchi, not afraid of a bit of violence, was a bit unerved by the request.

"We aren't hired killers, Lord Nefaron, what you're asking-"

"I give you the choice of continued employment or a long and painful death. Not just for you, but all those you claim to love. Should you carry out my command, I will reward you. Contact me if that were to happen."

The Sith handed the case containing the Ravenger to a large Ovissian and retrieved his cane.

"One of my servants will approach you again when I have need of your services. But know that I will be watching."

That last line came out like the hiss of a serpent, a final warning from the Dread Lord to those he deemed expendable. In truth, he did plan on killing them, but in the end, he would need agents to operate without his oversight, especially within the Core as the Alliance became ever more vigilant for signs of his presence.

Nefaron turned to one of his mercenaries and spoke quickly.

"Have the ship prepared. I want to be in orbit within the hour."

"Yes, my Lord."

With his business done, the Corpse Lord motioned for his entourage to follow as he left the courtyard and made the long walk back to his vessel, his senses on high alert for even the slightest sign of treachery or ambush.

 

[Tilon Quill]

So: a likely ship back at the Black Spire Outpost landing pads, where Tilon had parked the Wake of Balmorra. He kept his distance, being highly visible, and hung up the comlink as the meeting wrapped up. And yes, the mysterious buyer who pinged Tilon's instincts in every bad way was coming in this direction, entourage included.

Hastily, chewing on the rudiments of a plan, Tilon set off running through the woods and ruins. As a Sharuka he had good endurance, and running had often been his main method of engaging with danger. He hoped nobody saw him running but honestly he shouldn't hope that, being colorful.

He intended to weave through the edge of the outpost at speed and reach the landing pads first, there to get aboard his own ship and power up. From there he'd have some options to learn more and take appropriate action. If he could get there with a good lead time, those options broadened considerably.

 

[Darth Nefaron]

Battu || Black Spire Outpost
TAG || Tilon Quill

Darth Nefaron normally enjoyed the rain.

But he did not enjoy an unwelcome pair of eyes.

Especially if they threatened to spoil his plans.
​

To his credit, he did not react immediately. Instead, he strolled back to the landing pads, his cane quietly thumping against the stone path. Around him, the mercenaries he had hired waved the residents back inside if they had bothered to peek out and see who was crazy enough to venture out into the storm. If he had more time and perhaps greater numbers, he would have seen this little hamlet burn, he would have unleashed the terrors of Anoat upon these unsuspecting citizens of the Galactic Alliance, and looked on with glee as they succumbed to the terror that was coming for every living being in the galaxy.

Nefaron would have to be patient. He had his prize, a prize he would use to great effect in the coming months once he had managed to resassemble it. Already, he had ideas on how to amplify the Ravengers' power, but it would require a great deal of study and countless test subjects before he could make his plans a reality.

The Corpse Lord also chose not to inform the guards protecting his ship of his suspicions, instead allowing his seemingly invisible foe to strike first and show Nefaron just who he was dealing with. He was certain that the being was force sensitive to some degree, but other than that initial feeling, he had little else to go on. No matter what, he would deal with this unwelcome intrusion and be on his way.

Or perhaps he had simply found the first victim of the Ravenger once it was reassembled?

That thought brought a grin to the Sith's face, or at least what amounted to one for a man who lacked lips.

"Captain?"

Nefaron spoke to the large mercenary carrying the case, one who stuck close to the Dark Lord.

"Yes, Lord Nefaron?"

"Order your men to set weapons to stun. A precaution, I do not wish to attract any more unwelcome attention."

"As you wish, Lord."

 

[Tilon Quill]

Rain veiled the landing pad where he'd left the Wake of Balmorra, a flat thin ship a hundred twenty metres long and painted black-and-gold. He got a glance at the suspect ship while running past - less large, but with enviably powerful comms gear protruding. The pads here were separated by service buildings and forested crags.

Breathing hard, he keyed himself through his ship's service airlock for speed and headed for the small bridge. His B-1 translator droids, Daella and Diana, eerk-eerked quizzically as he ran through the fastest preflight ever. As soon as possible, he juiced the repulsors and got about fifty metres of altitude. That let him see the other ship.

The rain hid a lot. He wasn't sure whether Darth Nefaron and friends had made it to their ship yet.

Unwilling to earn a black mark at Black Spire, and not 100% certain this ship pertained to something and someone he should be trying to stop, he held off with his guns. Instead he went out to the airlock and hucked a tracking beacon over that way. He prided himself on a good throw even without the Force. He aimed to settle it into that complex comm setup.

If that went normally, he aimed to fly away into the rain's cover.

 

[Darth Nefaron]

Battu || Black Spire Outpost
TAG || Tilon Quill

The force had a funny way of bringing beings exactly where they needed to be.

For instance, the Dark Lord and his retinue arrived just in time to watch a hovering ship come into view, albeit some distance from their vessel.
​

The mercenary captain rushed forward, shouting orders to the seemingly incompetent watchmen he had left to protect their vessel, while Nefaron merely stood back and watched the chaos unfold.

"You idiots, open fire!"

While the rest of Nefaron's protective entourage rushed forward, the two protecting the Corpse Lord's vessel directed their blasters upward, aiming at the ship that now stalked them. Naturally, the rain made their aim far from precise, but more were coming to simply overwhelm the ship with sheer firepower.

Yet Nefaron still did nothing; he stood in place and simply stared up at the ship, his cloak hiding his face. He had proven his hypothesis to be correct; he had indeed been discovered, and yet there was no part of the Jedi coming to stop him, no gaggle of Alliance soldiers to oppose him. This was one being, one very curious being, and that made them all the more interesting. Nefaron did always enjoyed getting to know his prey, and this being was no different. Perhaps they were employed by a rival? Perhaps Black Sun had sent them to retrieve the artifact instead of paying for it as Nefaron did?

Regardless, the Dark Side swelled within the Sith as he reached out with his mind to determine just who he was dealing with. The power of the Dark Side was oppressive and cold, and now it descended on the captain of the vessel that had so rudely interrupted what was to be a simple deal.

"If you were simply curious, why don't you land so that we might speak?"
​

The Corpse Lord's words were a fell whisper on the wind, the Sith attempted to worm his way into the intruder's mind, while the mercenaries attempted to switch their blasters off stun. The mercenary captain rushed aboard the modified transport that had brought the Sith Lord to Battu, making for the large laser cannon that sat atop the vessel's roof. That would certainly be enough to force the ship to flee or bring it down.

"But why are you so curious? Yet another slave of the Jedi doctrine tempted by the dark, is it?"

A flash of lightning struck near the landing pad, igniting a few of the trees nearby to fully illuminate the area. Nefaron was revealed in all his terrible glory.

"Land. Let me show you the true nature of the force."

​

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon hunched for cover at the edge of the ramp; blasterfire crashed against it or whipped past close enough to touch. It sizzled on the Wake of Balmorra's black-and-gold-and-rainslick hull plating. He wanted to run; he wanted to stay; he wanted to land; he wanted to shoot. He wanted an awful lot of things and he got the feeling that he couldn't trust any of those instincts.

Alright, so what made the best sense at just a basic 'I can do this' kind of level? That big cannon down there was a risk any second now, obviously, and the blasterfire was marring the new paint, so - shields.

It took Tilon a couple of tries to bap the control and close the ramp. He shook his head, trying to get the Sith Lord's voice out of it, and ran - he could run fast - left across the main bay and up stairs to the small bridge. Shields, and just in time. They went from a hundred to sixty immediately.

Distance. He needed to be able to trust his thinking. He hit the engines and slewed out over Black Spire Outpost by a few hundred metres, whirling to face the landing pad.

"Black Spire, Black Spire," he said, and that was all by habit, contacting traffic control, "under fire from Pad Three. Returning fire."

"Wake of Balmorra, do not-"

Laser fire from that ship's dorsal turret choked off the sound as it splashed against his bow shields. Tilon flinched at the glare and slewed sideways over the forest to avoid collateral damage to the town. He had a dorsal turret too, a big chugging 'Hushaby' rotary ion cannon, a turbolaser's worth of firepower, and he fired back at the landed ship.


Action summary: Shields up, got a little distance out over the forest, returning fire with a big rotary ion cannon.

Darth Nefaron