Private Enter the (Krayt) Dragon

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"Strike first and fast if at all possible. If you catch them inactive, try and destroy them before they revive. But that latter option must be done carefully." Nathan emphasized. "Nullification Resin is extremely toxic to their physiology. They break down in minutes if exposed to it. But we don't have any of that. So our best bet is to find a way to level it's tomb once we get what we want." Nathan explained patiently and carefully as Braze healed him. "C'mon, we're losing time..."

Nathan was silent, but clearly agitated as he led them all the way back to the Force Spawn's tomb. Nathan had a limp to his walk, and his hip and arm was still sore, but he pressed on until he reached the scene, once again gesturing for Braze to stay quiet and behind him as they went inside.

Nothing had disturbed the skeleton in the center of the pentagram and he carefully avoided it as he slowly, cautiously headed to the door that led deeper to the depot beneath them and crept down stone steps , checking for any sign of traps. Nothing.

"Whoever that freak is, she picked a good spot..." Nathan remarked to Braze as he reached the bottom of the steps. It was truly an armory...and it was covered in strange, glowing green runes on its walls. The ancient, partly dimmed lights turned on automatically. Rows of blasters, explosives, swords, pistols, all out of date but functional.

"It's a Light Spawn..." he observed. They use their blood to make those. You can tell it's a Light Spawn by the fact the blood they used glows green. Prevents their tomb from being sensed. Don't touch the runes. Any of them."

Nathan immediately began checking through the boxes amidst rows and rows of blasters and swords for kits, repair tools, any spare parts he could cobble together, head darting around at every odd sound. The training saber itself was totaled, but the Kyber wasn't. Nathan salvaged The Kyber, certain choice circuits, the crystal chamber, and the lens from the broken hilt, and went over to a workbench, looking furtively and suspiciously at everything around him as.

"When you scavenge enough stuff from temples before you even get recruited, you're inevitably going to catch on to certain particulars..." he mumbled to himself as he assembled the weapon before a cry for help deeper into the chambers of the depot caught his attention. Realizing he wouldn't finish his weapon unless he knew what was going on, he got up, grabbed a blaster pistol and motioned for Braze to follow him.

He came across a man, a local by the looks of it, who had stepped on a faint rune walking towards a Vibro Double Blade suspended in mid air somehow, surrounded by glowing green runes.

"Help me! I'm trapped!" The man exclaimed, sweating in fear as nearly invisible, heat wave like energy surrounded him.

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, but set aside his irritation after a moment.

"Remain calm, sir. We'll do whatever we can to free you..." Nathan promised. "How long have you been here?"

"A half hour!" The man cried.

I do not abide chaos. Nathan reminded himself.

Nathan turned to Braze, drawing him away momentarily where they were out of earshot.

"Try and calm him down. I have to examine what's holding him in place... distract him if you can..."

Nathan went and began examining the runes around the captive, careful not to touch them himself...

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl

​

Braze attentively absorbed Nathan's instructions, his expression conveying slight confusion. "Nulli-what? Oh... alright, level it. Got it," he echoed, trying to keep pace with Nathan's detailed plan. As they moved, Braze followed Nathan like a dutiful, albeit somewhat lost, puppy. He was cautious, mindful not to disturb the strange runes that seemed to pulse with an unseen energy.

As they navigated through the ancient armory, Braze couldn't help but marvel at the eerie beauty of the glowing green runes. Their luminescence cast ghostly shadows on the walls, creating an atmosphere both fascinating and foreboding. He watched, intrigued yet wary, as Nathan began the meticulous process of disassembling his saber, salvaging what he could for repairs.

The sudden cry for help jolted Braze, snapping his attention towards the source of the distress. He glanced at Nathan, catching his gesture to follow, and did so with a deepening frown, a sense of urgency building within him.

Upon encountering the trapped local, Braze's frown deepened into a look of concern. Braze could feel the tension in the air. He observed Nathan's methodical approach to the situation, noting the careful way he examined the runes, a clear indication of the danger they posed.

Braze stepped closer to the trapped man, his demeanor calm and reassuring. "Hey, it's going to be okay," he said in a soothing tone, trying to provide some comfort. "We're here to help you. Just stay calm and don't move too much, alright?"

As Nathan worked to decipher the trap's mechanism, Braze kept his focus on the distressed man, engaging him in conversation to distract him from his predicament. "Can you tell me how you ended up here?" Braze asked, hoping to gather more information while also keeping the man's mind off his immediate danger.

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan had clearly been exposed to this situation before because he focused on a few particular symbols out of a confusing jumble of them while the guy spoke.

"These ancient depot's...hardly ever overseen by anyone. Hard to break into though. You gotta do anything you can to make ends meet on this planet..."

"The large pile of corpses and the skeleton in the pentagram wasn't enough to scare you off?" Nathan asked.

"Do you know how hard it is here economically?" The local asked Nathan before turning to Braze . "Alliance don't give a chit what goes on here, even though the whole damn planet is an ancient storage area full of weapons and armor. People like me gotta eat. Gotta keep the gangs away. People this far on the fringe? We see weirder stuff than that skeleton."

Nathan took out the pistol he had acquired, having traced the ones related to movement to the ones around the sword itself.

"Okay..." Nathan trailed. "Here's the problem...we can disable all this right now by shooting those runes here around the sword. But we have to shoot them in a particular order. Otherwise, we trigger a ritual that will cause all these other runes and stuff to channel their power back into that skeleton to revive it...and some will need to be destroyed simultaneously, meaning I need your help Braze..."

He stood up. "It's kinda like untying a knot. Grab a pistol off one of these racks."

Nathan would then direct Braze to each rune to destroy at the same time he destroyed his own.

"Take your time to memorize which to destroy. We will need to have precise timing..." Nathan explained to the younger Padawan.

Nathan aimed his pistol at the runes...

"Whenever you are ready..."

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl

Braze rolled his eyes letting out a huffed sigh.

"Yeah, I've heard that line before. But do you have any idea how exhausting it is to always be the one who steps up, to constantly take on the burden of someone else's troubles? All to be used as some moral measuring stick by ungrateful bilge frogs. There's a limit to how far you can stretch, how many hands you can lend, how much energy you can expend. It's utterly unrealistic to think you can help everyone in the universe at any given moment. Expecting that from anyone is not just unrealistic; it's downright unfair."

He paused, his frustration simmering beneath the surface. "And it's all the more challenging when you encounter those who resist the help you offer, who obstruct it every step of the way. The world isn't black and white; solutions aren't always clear-cut. If you ask me, the universe would be in a much better state if people took more responsibility for their own actions. But apparently, that's asking too much. It's far easier to point fingers at those attempting to make a difference rather than confronting the real oppressors."

His voice carried a mix of cynicism and a plea for understanding, highlighting the complexity of altruism in a world that often seems indifferent to it.

"It's just so easy to remain the victim and go with the flow, rather than become a survivor and change the status quo. "

Braze nodded, acknowledging the instructions. He carefully selected his weapon, feeling its weight and balance. As he prepared himself, Braze sought a deeper connection with Nathan, reaching out through the Force to achieve a more definitive synchronization.

"Alright, let's do it," he affirmed, his voice steady, taking aim with precision.

For Braze, the upcoming challenge was reminiscent of the memory games he relished—short, fast-paced, and demanding quick reflexes and sharp focus. He was about to treat this situation with the same enthusiasm and strategy, turning the task at hand into a game he was determined to excel in.

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"Hey, don't get me wrong, pal. I ain't complaining 'bout you two freeing me." The local said to Braze. "And all that stuff is nice and all, but your bosses? It's as much a matter of pragmatism as altruism if they pay more attention to this planet: Can you imagine what would happen if someone here had actual ambition, and realized they were surrounded by enough equipment to outfit a whole planetary invasion twenty times over?" The man asked Braze . "You should be thankful the gangs are even selling all this stuff at such piecemeal rates: No one has gotten organized enough to turn what's going on here into a major smuggling operation for the Depot weapons. Even I only wanted a blaster or two. Not a whole crate. A good working DC-15A Rifle will keep you fed a month around here--"

"Quiet please. This is delicate work..." Nathan interrupted.

As Braze tried to connect to Nathan through the Force, he'd find an aura of static, and frayed connections. But in the distance of Nathan's aura he might perceive a more powerful link to something that could not be properly viewed from Braze's side of the connection. Like a chain of flame, connecting him to something-- someone -- that he wanted nothing to do with. The chain was unbreakable and stretched into an ethereal fog in Nathan's soul.

Nathan's Force connection only hesitantly linked to Braze's, it's ability to connect to anyone or anything at all severely frayed and damaged. And it only connected long enough to complete the task at hand, upon which Nathan fired immediately at his end of the runes.

Nonetheless, while they connected in the Force, wisps of Nathan's subconscious might have been perceived. A crystal clear image of a great castle burning, always in the back of Nathan's head. Sensations of shrapnel entering his eyes...

Some of the strongest wisps of his subconscious contained images of his wife, Lysandra. But every last one of those wisps had sharp edges of extreme pain attached.

Nathan of course didn't realize any of those wisps had gotten out in the momentary connection required to destroy the runes in the correct order. He himself was too busy on his task...

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl
Gear: Anti-Toxin Face Mask | Tactical Knife | Saberbreaker Gauntlets | Space Wizard Pattern Boots | Sunfire Signet Ring | GAB-34 Fang | [Pair of Eshan Charms] x3 | Training lightsaber

Braze was unusually connective in the Force—a part of the reason he often wore or brought with him a set of gloves, as he had recently been discovering he had been making more distinct and strong force bonds through touch. It was surprising to find some form of resistance when he reached out. It was not something he typically felt and had to normally put active effort into keeping his mental shields up and preventing forming unwanted connections so openly.

He was struck with curiosity and bewilderment, but he couldn't focus on that now; he had to focus on the reason he reached out to make the connection in the first place.

There was a lot Braze wanted to say, a lot he would have debated in a puckish, plucky, and boisterous manner, ill-cautioned towards offending the local; but he decidedly felt such arguments would be a waste of breath, and therefore silenced himself. He was painfully aware that most individuals viewed him as a naive child, incapable of free or complex thought, and dismissed him regardless of what input he had or what views might hold true value.

As Braze reached out to Nathan through the Force, he was met with an unexpected resistance, like trying to tune into a radio frequency only to find static and broken signals. This wasn't the seamless connection he was accustomed to; instead, it felt as if he were navigating through a storm, each attempt to connect thwarted by frayed and damaged links. Yet, amidst this chaos, Braze sensed a deeper, more potent bond within Nathan—a connection that seemed to tether him to something, or someone, with an intensity that was both intriguing yet alarming. This bond appeared as an unbreakable chain of flame, disappearing into a mist that seemed to shroud the deepest parts of Nathan's soul, hinting at a connection Nathan himself seemed desperate to ignore or sever.

The connection between Nathan and Braze was tenuous at best, as if Nathan's ability to form any bond through the Force was hanging by a thread. It lasted only long enough for them to accomplish their immediate goal, with Nathan acting swiftly to complete their shared task.

During this brief moment of connection, however, Braze was privy to fleeting glimpses into Nathan's subconscious. Vivid images flashed before him: a grand castle engulfed in flames—a memory that seemed to haunt Nathan constantly—and the visceral sensation of shrapnel piercing flesh, a harsh reminder of pain and loss.

Among these glimpses, the memories of Nathan's wife, Lysandra, stood out. Each memory was laced with profound pain, as if even the happiest moments were edged with a sharpness that made them difficult to hold. These were not just memories; they were scars, each one telling a story of love intertwined with deep, unyielding sorrow.

Unbeknownst to Nathan, these fragments of his inner world had slipped through their connection, revealing to Braze a depth of trauma and loss that Nathan himself might not have been fully aware of sharing. Focused intently on their task, Nathan remained oblivious to the intimate revelations his subconscious had imparted to Braze in those fleeting moments it seemed.

Braze decided it was perhaps not best to share his thoughts on such matters at present. A discussion for the future.

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

The runes around the sword, damaged precisely in the right order, deactivated and the man was freed, the double bladed sword clattering to the ground. Nathan, oblivious to the small fragments of his life Braze had seen.

The local they had rescued sighed in relief.

"Thanks so much! I would have been a goner if you two hadn't come along! You two are ace in my book. My name's Kolin." Kolin said to both.

"Be more careful with floating swords in the future, Kolin." Nathan warned him. "You might not be so fortunate the next occasion."

"Definitely." Kolin assured. "No more poking around in these old depot's for me for a while. Nerves are shot."

"Kolin, you mentioned seeing weirder than that skeleton. You see anything weirder than that recently?" Nathan questioned.

"As a matter of fact...I did." Kolin admitted. "Was going through a short cut in the woodlands farther from here to reach another settlement where my brother lives a few days back. Saw a Zabrak fella out there, by some rocks. Buncha people with him. They to be gathering near a large rock formation, talking in whispers and stuff. Really creepy. I stayed away."

"That's it." Nathan spoke . "That's where we head next. Could you give us directions?"

Kolin obliged, describing the route, a bit east by a few kilometers, of the empty village they had come across.

"We should leave together. But first..."

Nathan limped back to the workbench, to finish assembling his lightsaber. When he was finished, the full strength blue blade slid out.

"Braze, I'm done. You finish your blade now..." Nathan said, turning his own off...

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl

Braze stared at the peculiar individual before him, his curiosity piqued. With a deliberate motion, he tossed his lightsaber into the air. As it ascended, the saber seemed to disassemble magically, its components drifting apart yet held together by an invisible force, as if magnetically repelled from one another. Suspended in mid-air, the parts began to spin at a dizzying speed, creating a whirlwind of motion. Any moisture clinging to the components was flung off by the centrifugal force, leaving each piece dry and gleaming.

Then, as if obeying an unseen command, the spinning parts started to converge, realigning and reassembling with precision and grace. The lightsaber, now whole once more, descended gently back into Braze's waiting hand, ready for action. This display was a show of skill to the countless times Braze had performed this maneuver. He flipped it and-caught it again as if to test the weight and turned it on. " Alright after you your grace~" Braze teased Nathan lightly.

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan didn't react to Braze 's display of telekinesis. Kid had talent, certainly. In addition to having a big mouth.

Nathan checked the racks, retrieving a few plasma grenades, and a bulky sonic blaster pistol.

"Who pissed you off?" Kolin wondered.

"Not a matter of anger. Foe is dangerous..." Nathan muttered. "That spell that trapped you...we should take that sword as a sign it's not the only thing that abomination upstairs hid here..."

Nathan explored the immediate area, limping the whole way as he looked for any other irregularities. He saw a crack in one of the walls, like the whole wall had been broken then reassembled.

Nathan saw a rusty sledgehammer nearby and, after checking to make sure there were no Rune Booby-traps, he picked it up, swung it one handed and broke the wall open.

The inside looked like an old, sealed off section, and Nathan saw something glowing in the distance... surrounded by rings and rings of green runes.

At the center of those rings was a green Holocron...

"Braze..." Nathan called out. "I think we found our bait..."

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl

Braze noticed that their captive didn't rush to escape the perilous predicament. So, when Nathan inquired about the lure, Braze smirked and replied, "That's hardly a polite term for Mr. Kolin." He then scrutinized the peculiar holocron and pondered, "Do you think he's searching for this?" Arching a snowy eyebrow, he expressed his confusion. He couldn't grasp why holocrons were invariably concealed in remote spots or tucked away in libraries for straightforward browsing.

He kept away from it and mostly stood as an assistant to what ever Nathan needed ready to respond to any command or task. "Is our goal to take him alive or?" Braze asked Nathan uncertain they could get this odd opponent alive.

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"Dunno, Braze. Couldn't say...his talk of Spirit Liquor would seem to preclude that...but I have a feeling it's related somehow..."

"Wait, did you say, 'Spirit Liquor' ?" Kolin asked.

Nathan turned. "Yes. Why?"

"Well, things might be making a tad more sense on my end. If all this is connected, there's only one place on all of Ord Antalaha he could be going when talking about Spirit Liquor..." Kolin answered, scratching his head as he tried to recall the relevant information.

"The Distillery of Phobin...this fella you're after must have located it."

"This Distillery...tell me more..." Nathan said in blunt fashion.

"Well, Distillery might be stretching the description a bit...or perhaps not, depending on how you look at it..." Kolin explained. "It's an ancient Sith Facility, underground, some sort of horrible, gigantic machine to torture people in, supposedly."

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, shutting his eyes.

"But of course it is. Because The Sith don't do 'Chill the feth out'..." Nathan grumbled. "Continue, please."

"The machines within...at least, that's what I heard from people like my pa...literally condense the suffering of people somehow into a... liquid of some kind. That's all I know, honest. Feth, if your guy's found that horrible place, you need to stop him. That place was used to kill hundreds of people here during the Gulag Plague! Then some...some witch came in and shut it down."

Both Kolin and Nathan looked up at the ceiling, both thinking of the Skeleton upstairs.

"Oh no..." Nathan grumbled. "You gotta be kidding me..."

Nathan leaned against the wall...

"Braze...I think we may have to do something extremely foolish..." Nathan said to Braze .

"I think, in order to make any headway...we're gonna have to revive the witch ..."

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl

​

Braze's voice carried a mix of amusement and anticipation as he pieced together the situation, his words light and teasing. "Okay... I bet she's his ex-wife or something. This'll be fun," he chirped, the idea sparking a sense of adventure in him. There was no hint of apprehension in his tone; instead, it seemed as though he was almost looking forward to the encounter, intrigued by the dynamics at play.

With a playful shrug, he added, "Let's do it, and hope she doesn't try to murder us on sight, yeah?" The suggestion was half-joking, half-serious, acknowledging the potential danger of their mission while still maintaining a buoyant spirit

As they prepared to retrace their steps, Braze threw another suggestion over his shoulder, "Maybe grab your bait first." He chirped padding back towards the direction they came ready to get a move on to making some real headway here.

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan sighed. He really hadn't wanted to do this. He really had intended to blow it up before it could be revived.

He looked very pointedly as Braze made a joke about the abomination being an Ex wife.

"That's not funny." he said very quietly before turning back to the chamber.

He took out his pistol, approaching the green Holocron surrounded by runes. He carefully damaged specific ones to enable pathway to the Holocron itself. He hesitantly reached out, and grabbed it.

The surge of power from the Holocron made him stagger back a bit as he held it.

"I'll keep this. We can use it as a bargaining chip with the Spawn..."

Then he pointed his pistol at a very particular pentagram shaped rune.

"Now to wake the fethin' thing up."

He fired, and every rune in the lower levels flashed a brilliant green, blinding everyone for a second, before catching fire.

"Let's go see who we are dealing with..." He muttered, walking slowly up the steps.

When he got back to the entrance, he saw smoke swirling around the pentagram, where the skeleton had been.

Out of the smoke stepped a beautiful woman in a green gown , with fine sharp features and brown hair. Her flesh warped and bubbled unnaturally across her entire body for a few seconds, giving away her completely inhuman nature before it settled into her skeleton. She blinked, noticing the three, particularly Nathan, who held the emitter of his full strength lightsaber to her Holocron.

"You seem to have me at a disadvantage, good sir..." she said softly.

"It had better stay that way, or your little codex here goes 'bye-bye'..." he growled. "Who are you?"

"Katherine...a Force Sorceress..." Katherine introduced. "Master Jedi, despite what you may think, I bear neither you or this world any ill will..."

"Save it, Force Spawn. You have information I require. The Distillery of Phobin. Do you know of it?"

Katherine sighed.

"Oh, dear, has someone found that awful place again?" She complained. "Well joke's on you buddy... you're holding the only means that I was able to shut that place down the last time."

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl

​

Braze couldn't help but find amusement in the unfolding situation, despite the tension that hung in the air like a thick fog. As Nathan and the newly revealed Katherine exchanged words, a spark of curiosity was ignited. He stepped forward, his demeanor relaxed yet visibly intrigued by the entity before them.

"Katherine, is it?" Braze began, a playful smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "That's a pretty name for a Force Sorceress. Not what I was expecting, to be honest." His tone was light, almost teasing, as he sought to diffuse the intensity of their encounter.

He leaned in slightly pocketing his hands. "So, about this 'last time'—care to share more about that? How exactly did you shut down the Distillery of Phobin? Sounds like a tale worth hearing. And you don't happen to know some drunkard Zabarak fellow either do you?"

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"Why thank you, young man it's nice to know at least one of you isn't saber-happy..." Katherine replied to Braze , though she didn't take her eye off Nathan, who still had his saber to her Holocron.

"Why don't we all take a step back and you tell me what you know, and then I will tell you what I know. Deal?" Katherine asked.

"There's a real drunk bastard who has kidnapped a village of people, to take them to the Distillery. We don't quite know where it is, or what is inside." Nathan explained calmly.

"To be blunt? It's a deathtrap... Katherine explained. "The entire thing was designed for the purpose of breaking a person's soul down into a consumable. It's so foul with the Dark Side that parts of its insides are just focuses for suffering. There wasn't a lot of Jedi to go around during the Gulag Era, so the locals asked me to help them..."

"If they asked you they must have been desperate..." Nathan all but sneered at her. "You can tell us more on the way..."

"I agree. But listen, I ain't really cut out for this Force Stuff. After I show you where I found those people, that's where I bow out..." Kolin said in the back...

"That's all I ask..." Nathan trailed...

Twenty minutes later ...

"Much less corpses being burned..." Katherine remarked as they all traveled the polluted countryside back to where the Drunk Sith had first kicked both his and Braze's ass. It was the best way to reach the Forest.

"Be thankful none of you had to see the Plague. Never has there been a time before or since where the Jedi Order was truly so ineffective. Not even the Aftermath of the Clone Wars, or even the Aftermath of the Galactic Civil War, truly compared to what the Order was put through during the Plague. It even fethed the Sith up. Well, except for the Cult of the Brain Demon. Do any of you know if those monsters are still around?" Katherine asked as they walked.

"My cousin survived a visit they paid to a Colony on the Rim last year. Sick Feths killed everyone else there...ran for his life and didn't stop when the serrated knives came out..." Kolin mentioned.

"Oh, damn it all..." Katherine complained. "Thank the Force they never found out about the Distillery...if they had caught wind of it during the Plague, everyone on this polluted dustball would have been murdered..."

Nathan remained more noticably silent then usual during the question and answer between Katherine and Kolin.

"It wasn't even a full on Lord that found it during the Plague. One of those crappy Sith Acolytes... But he'd gotten his dose of spinach from the machine metaphorically speaking, so we basically tried to kill each other for like a week straight in the Distillery's innards..." Katherine explained as they finally reached the village.

It truly was desolate when they visited it again.

"This Drunkard..." Katherine said. "How was he able to fight you?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out. Normally, what he did should have been impossible. You cannot control the Force in such an intoxicated state. Not without possibly killing yourself, as well as others." Nathan explained.

"Search the village... maybe he left something. He was here when we arrived. Everyone else was already vanished..." Nathan said to Braze and Kolin, refusing to take his eyes off the Sorceress...

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl

​

"Yeah, sounds like turning 'spirit' into 'spirits'," Braze offered simply. "I don't know... maybe he can just detoxify himself, or maybe it's all an act to catch us off guard, and he has some wacky way of fighting. Some old Atrisian Holovids Ko Vuto lent me have people who fight like that in them. Crazy stuff, really," Braze mused, seemingly content to let Nathan lead their mission.
"I thought we were on a time crunch? Searching would only use up more time," he pointed out, highlighting their need for urgency.

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"If that's the case, then how do we explain the constant flatulence? And the vomiting? He should have been in the hospital after the vomiting at least." Nathan asked as Braze pointed out the obvious possibility.

"Maybe he's just a filthy bastard." Kolin pointed out as he began searching the cantina.

"Yeah! I once fought a guy who could naturally burp on command, and it smelled awful." Katherine chirped.

"Y'know...maybe...maybe..." Nathan pondered.

But as Braze said maybe they shouldn't stop to dally, that was when he objected.

"Y'know, I was thinking about that but Braze it's vital we dig up what clues we can, lest we suffer failure as we did before. See, there should be no reason for him to return after kidnapping so many. He was looking for something when he came here, I'm sure of it..." Nathan replied, not taking his eyes off the Sorceress. He still had the saber emitter to her Holocron in case she was lying. Katherine only rolled her eyes.

"Hey! What's this?" Kolin asked from inside the Cantina. "It looks weird!"

"Could you be a tad more specific?" Katherine asked.

"There's a big old hole in the Cantina! Whoever was digging uncovered some stone steps." Kolin answered back. "There's also some kind of pedestal at the bottom!"

"That's never a good sign." Nathan and Katherine said at the same time. They looked at each other in surprise before looking at Braze.

"Kolin, get back, we're gonna check..." Nathan said, going inside first.

"C'mon Braze!" Katherine called out as she followed..."

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl

Braze couldn't help but let out a sigh, his skepticism thinly veiled. "You've probably stumbled upon his secret stash of beans, knowing our luck," he muttered, the corners of his mouth twitching in a frown. Despite his reservations, curiosity nudged him forward, following the others into the cantina's depths. "With the way things have been going, it could be anything down there. Secret spices, an ancient recipe, some Sith artifact powering his distillery, or maybe just an old, forgotten magazine," Braze speculated, his voice laced with sarcasm.

He couldn't shake off the absurdity of the situation, yet the adventurer in him was intrigued by the mystery of the hidden steps and the pedestal Kolin had discovered. "Who knows, we might just uncover the galaxy's most coveted culinary secret or stumble upon something... significantly less appetizing," he added, stepping cautiously into the dimly lit cantina, ready to face whatever lay hidden beneath.

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan and Katherine took their approach very slowly as they headed into the Cantina where Kolin was with Braze , with Nathan heading in first to examine the Pedestal.

The Force felt strange, vibrated around whatever the object in the pit was.

"I'll go in first..." Nathan said in a Stony manner, descending into the pit with a long hidden staircase, dug up in the back of the Cantina, the floorboards pried away with what looked like feverish haste. He saw the pedestal and felt Katherine follow him, her flesh starting to ripple unnaturally as she got closer to the pedestal until she could go no further, stopping.

"Whatever energy that thing is emitting, it's making the flesh literally pull off the bones..." she complained. "It was built to repel my kind..."

Nathan brushed it off and proceeded ahead, getting out his lightsaber as he approached.

He could make out symbols. As his eyes adjusted he discerned what looked like ...

A Recipe...

Nathan looked at it, holding the light of his blade over it.

"So this is what he was here for..." Nathan muttered."

"What is it?" Kolin asked.

"The ingredients and process to making his Spirit Liquor..." Nathan muttered. "No kind of Liquor I ever heard of. Not sure how you would go about drinking it...it requires the blood of the innocent..."

"Yeah... that's about what I thought..." Katherine figured...

"This doesn't make sense..." Nathan said. "Even if you follow the directions, the resulting mixture would still be lethal..."

"Lethal? Are you sure it's the Spirit Recipe?" Katherine asked

He pulled back.

"It says it right at the top of the passage..." he explained..." He must know something not in this text..."

 

[Braze]

TAGS: Nathan Bloodscrawl

Braze frowned as he looked at the weird, undead lady's skin doing strange, icky things as they got closer.

"Do you have something to do with why this is here in the first place?" he asked, suspicion coloring his voice before hearing what they were talking about with the recipe.
"That sounds gross," Braze offered simply, his expression reflecting a mixture of confusion and skepticism. "What the kark even means 'innocent' anyways?" he asked, genuinely puzzled by the concept. "It doesn't sound like a very exact science, does it?" he added, his tone tinged with skepticism as he pondered the subjective nature of innocence.