Ghost Town - A DM'ed Investigation

[Darth Empyrean]

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[SIZE=10.5pt]Just outside the iron grip of The Sith Empire stood the planet Ession, a relatively quiet environment where only a few truly laid their claim. Although populated, the planet in itself had less to do with modern history as it did the archaic pasts of entities like the now gone Dominion, and alliances left to the holobooks in children’s schools. Now, it seems to be the scene of a mystery few could even begin to understand.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Following the civil war brought about, Ession fell from grace as the Capital of a strong empire to nothing more than a criminal pasttime for many of the galaxies worse off. A stopping point for pirates, traders, and crime lords alike, there was an overbearing abundance of drugs and black market activities all across the planet. At least, in part; while much of the planet still sought a better life in the echoes of their prior goverment, now they are left with a power struggle; fighting for the very morality and future of their planet.[/SIZE]

It was these government types that sought the help of the outside galaxy. A crime had bore its way onto the planet like a cruel punishment for a rule they did not know they broke; the entire disappearance of a major city. Alusi, a city just short of a million strong, was the fifth largest GDP producer on the entire planet, a strong component of many groups as a whole, and the single largest producer of weapons manufacturing in the entire sector.

This was to say, there was a few darker elements that sought the outright corruption of its governmental body, something they worked for actively. This combined with the massive weapons manufacturing creates a strong correlation between violence and mafia related activity through much of the area; yet there is where the true mystery seems to begin.

Although there was an obvious suspect in mind, there was no entity powerful enough to simply cease Alusi’s communication in a moments notice. There were no words to escape calling for an SOS, no ‘Be Back Later’ notes left for loved ones, only the mocking nature of an urban center reduced to nothing but silence; not even the soft chirps of nature to signal its reclamation by the planet. No, the planet moved forward, but the city stood static in time, never changing and forever watching as the world passed by.

It is here you find yourselves, a small group of elites deployed by The Sith Empire to investigate just what could have caused such an immediate recourse. Whatever dangers lie ahead, they entrust you not only to find them; but stop them if necessary. It is here you sit now, aboard a transport destined for the city soon to be invaded by scavengers, next to as strong of mortals as any. It is you who will be forced to uncover the truth, and face down just what has become of the people of Alusi.

Good luck, Sith.

Spoiler: OOC Note

For all those interested in joining, you don't have to be Sith or TSE Related. Simply join in, and I'll help DM you to the end! What this thread will be is a fully DM'ed trip through the quiet remains of a city plunged into immediate darkness by some unknown force. You can either search the city itself for answers, weapons and parts, or simply turn it into a game to hunt down the other writers. It is entirely up to you; just remember that Alusi is steeped in a dark energy, one that has no place; but a cloud that sweeps over everything.

Be you sensitive to the Force or not, something doesn't feel right about whats going on here. It's your job to figure it out.

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[Diranor Cadain]

Coming into low orbit over Ession, his borrowed freighter blending into the criminal traffic, Diranor Cadain suppressed a shiver.

His assignment was clear, though that was about the only clear thing about the whole affair. As he began the landing cycle, prepping his craft to skate through the atmosphere and alight on the snows below, the agent allowed his mind to drift back to the briefing. "You've heard of Ession?" The shrouded figure of Gallant, his mysterious handler and a legendary spy in her day, crossed her arms, and even through the static he thought he could read tension in her movements. If something had put her on edge, he should probably be fething terrified. "Planet on the far side of the Sith Empire," he'd rattled off. "Used to be important. Mostly overrun with underworld elements now. Outside our primary theater of operations." Gallant nodded, the static covering her face bobbing with each movement. "Usually, yes. But as of today, it's of interest to us."

Grainy satellite imagines appeared beside her, and she gestured at them as she spoke. "This is Alusi, one of Ession's major cities and home to nearly a million people. At least, it was a week ago. Now it's gone totally silent. As far as we can tell, the population is just gone." Icy prickles had swept up Diranor's spine. "Some new Sith tech?" Gallant spread her hands, showing them empty. "We don't know," she replied simply. "Ession is outside Sith territory. If this was one of their weapons, and they're deploying it on currently neutral worlds, we need to know about it." Diranor had nodded. If this weapon, if that was what it was, could be used on Ession, the Sith might well turn it on Artorias next. He'd thought of everyone he knew and loved, spread across all of the planet's cities, and imagined losing a whole group of them in a single stroke, just vanished.

"Assume nothing," Gallant had told him. "Get down there quickly and covertly, find out what you can, and report back. If there are Sith present, don't make contact. We don't want to let them know we're aware of this one." As the freighter made its approach toward the outskirts of Alusi, Diranor tried to empty his mind of presuppositions. Maybe the Sith weren't responsible for whatever had happened here, but that still wasn't a terribly comforting thought. If it wasn't the masters of the Dark Side who were behind the vanishing of an entire city, it was some totally unknown quantity, and that was no less dangerous. But agents of Artorian Royal Intelligence were trained to adapt to any situation, and he intended to prove that his training had not been wasted. If this mystery could be solved, he would make sure that Gallant learned the truth.

Strapping on his blaster and drawing his jacket close around him, the young agent prepared himself to set foot on Ession.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

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As [member="Diranor Cadain"] and his team set foot on the outskirts of Alusi, the true scope of what happened came to light. Each footfall, although drowned out by the freighters overbearing engines, seemed to crunch grass and leave nothing in its wake. What they approached was a monument to mankind, but a monument left abandoned.

Still, nothing truly looked deplorable or destroyed as of yet, the city had only gone dark a week prior. In an odd sense, it almost looked like a city during a small nightly snowfall, not a single light on nor the populace to interfere; just sereneness left to be enjoyed. If it weren’t for the daylight, lack of snow, and obvious rumors abound, this might almost seem peaceful.

Before them stood stood this mystery, cars littering the streets in an semi-orderly manner while others still seemed to have clothes simply fall in place. No matter where they looked however, no corpse nor body could be seen. Only the clothes on their backs, the data pads they held, and the cars they drove littered around the metropolis with little in regard to signs of damage or conflict.

Suffice to say, they simply disappeared. That much was obvious, even now.

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[Diranor Cadain]

For literally thousands of years, the Sith had been inventing weapons of terrible power and mind-bending destruction. They had overloaded suns, blasted planets to fragments, twisted herbivores into vicious warbeasts, and melted the flesh of sentient beings with a single whiff of toxic vapors. When he thought of Sith weapons and what they could do, Diranor thought of those brutal technologies which left ash, blood, and despair in their wake, and he was ready to face them; such evil only strengthened his resolve to protect Artorias. But this… this, he wasn’t ready for. This was beyond his ability to understand.

The tap of his boots on the road was the only external sound as he approached, echoing eerily down abandoned roadways with each step. Beneath his jacket he’d donned a skintight bodysuit, goggles, and filter mask before getting too close to the city, in case some airborne bioweapon was to blame, and his own recycled breathing seemed overwhelmingly loud in his ears. It was as if Alusi itself was breathing, a vast, slumbering beast, and as the walls of darkened buildings loomed above him they seemed ready to close in, drawing him down like the teeth of a sarlaac. Stay calm. Breathe slow and deep.

Approaching one of the sets of discarded clothing, Diranor crouched down on the pavement, carefully examining the garment without touching it. He was ready for bones and blaster scars or venom-bloated corpses, but what kind of weapon could just vanish a person right out of their pants? It was the same inside the vehicles; he would have to check the buildings, but he had a sinking suspicion they wouldn’t be much different. It all reminded him of a missionary he’d heard as a kid, preaching on a street corner. The man had said that, on a day of judgement, all of the righteous would be whisked away to paradise, leaving everything behind.

Wherever the people of Alusi had ended up, he doubted it was any kind of heaven.

Producing a handheld scanner, Diranor ran it over the clothes, searching for any chemical or energy signature that might hint at what had happened here. Letting the sensors chew on the information, he stood and looked around again. One hand fell to his blaster, though there were no targets around; if only this was a problem that he could shoot. He needed to get some idea of how all this had gone down, needed to watch it happen. The idea hit him instantly: surveillance records. Government buildings, banks, police stations, all of them would have cameras, and that might mean a chance to witness whatever this had been with his own eyes.

Pulling up the agency’s satellite images on his datapad, the young agent began searching for a promising structure.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

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Quiet, breathless, all encompassing silence. Nothing but the agents footfalls let him know where he stood was truly reality; not a poorly crafted nightmare of the mind’s eye, nor the deplorable mess of some unruly joke. No, where he stood was exactly where he thought; the judgement of a people now lost to time.

Neither his scanner nor visual perception caught wind of anything outright, but as he began to consider just where there might be surveillance in the local area; he’d begin to realize something about Alusi. The entire city, from city block to building, was covered in cameras of various degrees and qualities, each with their own angle and purpose. It seemed he chose right.

The nearest uplink to the city wide surveillance system was only a block forward, able to be hooked up to through a small utility port likely used for maintenance prior to this mass-exodus. Nothing stood in his way to get there, only the fear that festered in his heart.

[member="Diranor Cadain"]

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[Diranor Cadain]

The more Diranor looked, the more he became aware of it: Alusi was a voyeur's dream, or perhaps a paranoid dictator's.

Curious and more than a little unnerved, the young agent cast his mind back to the information his mission dossier had given him about the city. It had been a major weapons manufacturer, and a place with a serious organized crime problem. Was that enough to explain the pervasive surveillance equipment? Were they anti-theft devices? The result of government crackdown on the criminals who had begun to run rampant when the Dominion collapsed? Or had they belonged to the criminals? Was there someone even now who was watching through a thousand mechanical eyes, making note of his halting progress?

No two of them seemed to be exactly alike, which seemed to hint that they weren't part of an organized effort. But then why had so many felt the need for a camera?

One hand still resting against his hip holster, Diranor stalked forward, feeling the weight of countless electronic gazes that mocked his efforts at stealth. He had located a municipal utility port, which might let him tap into at least a few of the cameras without needing to break into some official building's security center. In his other hand he prepped his datapad, extending a thin cable that would allow him to interface with Alusi's grid. Tap, tap, tap. The echoes were living things, taking on the form of beasts in his mind, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The stillness and silence weighed on him with their wrongness.

Finally he couldn't stand it any longer. Diranor drew his pistol, desperate to feel the reassuring weight of a weapon in his hand, but it brought him little comfort. His enemy seemed to be the very atmosphere, oppressive in its emptiness. Not so long ago, innocent people - people who could have stood in for anyone he'd ever met, people he'd smiled at, shaken hands with, rode the grav train beside - had filled this place, the center of their lives. Communication intercepts had revealed Sith adepts speaking of a place called Nathema, where the mystical Force itself had been ripped away, leaving not warmth nor life nor even feeling.

Was that what had happened here? Diranor steeled himself as he moved the cable toward the utility port, readying his datapad. He would soon find out, or so he hoped - and dreaded.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

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So too was the atmosphere heavy around him, that even what he was to bear witness to on his datapad would cruelly rip him from any last senses of security he had. The weight of his pistol, the years of training, nothing would deem him ready for the images that began to pour onto the screen for his sake. What he was a lesson, but the true teaching aspect seemed to fall short to his understanding.

And the screen began;

Cars drove by, people walked. Scrubbing the video led to no true sign of an invasion, nor careless superweapon meant to pull an entire population. No, as he’d look through the feed there was only a point where they either existed and moved, and where they didn’t. There was no inbetween. No signs of struggle, no signs of indoctrination to explain the lack of bodies; there was nothing to relieve his nerves.

Only the singular moment where it must have happened came to light, no matter the angle or position a singular position seemed to exist in time where they ceased. In that moment, men and women ceased for a singular second, as if the video froze at their hesitation; only to bear witness to the greatest revelation he had ever seen.

Men, women, and children alike flashed away in the blink of an eye. Glowing and disappearing was their own legacy, a faint transparent flow of smoke moving somewhere deeper in the city as some odd guideline in their wake. In truth, the surveillance was no true evidence of where they were going, only that it had happened.

He was left with more questions than answers, it’d seem.

[member="Diranor Cadain"]

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[Diranor Cadain]

Diranor wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but this wasn't it. This was no answer at all.

The young agent backed up the video feed again and again, scanning the environment for some lurking starship, some burst from an energy projector, some invocation of the dark side that could explain the madness before his eyes. But there was nothing. The people were just gone, present one moment and absent the next, like the throwing of a light switch. If there was a catalyst, if this could all be explained by science or mysticism or something within his realm of understanding, it hadn't been located here. But there had to be something, somewhere. Not just the laughter of some dark and unknowable god.

The thin trail of smoke was Diranor's only lead, and yet he was entirely sure he didn't want to follow it. The outskirts of Alusi were oppressive enough; he could only imagine what it would be like out of sight of the city's edge, beyond the hope of escape. Gallant would learn nothing if he, too, were reduced to nothing. He half turned, ready to write this one off and confine it to dancing through the nightmares of his remaining days, but stopped. Closing his eyes a moment, he slowed his breathing, let his racing heart ease its frantic rhythm. Serving Artorias was all that mattered to him, and that meant finding the truth.

Besides, could he live in a galaxy where this could happen without knowing how and why? Dread would stalk his every waking moment unless he found some explanation.

One more time he watched the last moments of Alusi's people, focusing not on their blissfully ignorant faces but on the wisp of translucent vapor that fled as they vanished. Looking around him, he situated himself based on what landmarks he could match to the footage, then set out to follow the trail of the smoke as best he could. Each step that took him deeper into the city seemed to echo louder, a heavy drumming that built like a funeral dirge. Beneath the gloves of the bodysuit, his knuckles were white on the grip of his blaster. He was a ghost, his identity surrendered to protect his people from the shadows.

If he vanished here, lost in an instant like a snuffed candle flame, who would even remember that he had ever been?

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

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Diranor moved to follow the smoke in the direction it came from. It was easy to track, judging by the cameras and what they pinpointed to; yet there was something else he would begin to notice the closer he got to this would be epicenter. Even if he wasn’t force sensitive, it would be obvious just how much latent dark side potential stuck to those walls and city streets; a memory of whatever it was that chose to drag these people to their graves.

Eventually, a rainfall began to take hold of the silence; drowning out the invisible ghosts with nothing more than the soft fall of rain. It was comforting, to hear something in such a large city, but it did nothing to relieve their inhibitions.

At last they’d come to what they were hoping to find, a small nightclub that seemed to ooze the dark side in every direction. Even if it weren’t for that, cameras would indicate this was the epicenter of whatever it was to come; whatever had dragged these people to hell. It's once glowing neon lights were quiet, but they could make out its name;

“Gomorrah.”

Ironic.

[member="Diranor Cadain"]

---

 

[Diranor Cadain]

Diranor had heard that the Force flowed in the royal bloodline of Artorias, and that a number of Jedi had been among their ancestors. He had never actually met a member of the royal family, but he'd observed plenty of people who could touch that mystical current of energy, all of them Sith who used it to kill, torment, and defile. He couldn't sense that invisible power, and certainly couldn't use it, but he remembered how it felt to be close to those masters of the dark. They projected a consuming coldness that was more than physical. It wasn't cold like a winter day; it was cold like the void of space, like an emptiness that could hate.

He felt that same sensation radiating from the walls of Alusi, a creeping malevolence, a stain of twisted emotion. He was glad he couldn't sense more.

The rain was a blessed relief. Diranor felt the first drops patter his bodysuit, and soon it was pouring down in a gentle curtain, stealing the overwhelming echoes and replacing them with quiet splashes. He had always loved the rain, lived for the grey days when the heavens themselves seemed pensive and all the harsh colors became soft and muted. He could almost make believe that this was an ordinary city, all the people shut up indoors to wait out the storm, while he walked alone in the water as he often had in his youth. Yet even the rain could not wash away the darkness that stuck to every building and alley. Perhaps nothing could now.

Earthquakes. Bombs. Tornadoes. Black Holes. They all had an epicenter, a ground zero, a heart of the disaster where the greatest potential was concentrated. Diranor stopped in front of the nightclub, wiping the back of his hand across his goggles to clear the water from his vision, and felt his sinking heart confirm his suspicions. This was where it had all begun - or ended? He had no way to tell. But someone had been watching - all the cameras pointed this way, at this faded structure with its dimmed neon signs, shadows and malice utterly infusing every centimeter of it. Gomorrah. Again the missionary came to mind, and his words of divine punishment.

Artorian Royal Intelligence kept exhaustive records on everything that might help them hold back the Sith, and that included information on what the Jedi called Vergences, concentrations of Force energy. These were places where reality as Diranor knew it was spread thin, where that energy he could not see or feel or touch had pooled like rainwater in a cavern hollow and worn away at the walls of the galaxy. Was this such a place? Would he even recognize one if he stepped within it? What kind of corrupted sinkhole had this nightclub become, and why? What did it have to do with nearly a million innocent people and their sudden fate?

He would learn nothing from standing outside, yet he dreaded what he would learn if he stepped beyond the threshold. But duty compelled him. He did it anyway.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

---

And so Diranor moved from the street and rainfall to the nightclub named Gomorrah. Doors swung open, and the silence became blindingly pervasive once more; the soft smell of smoke filled his nostrils from years of smoking inside the building. Something however was off in here, different from outside; leave alone the dark sensations that crept up his back.

What he soon realized existed inside was the soft churning death that seemed absent in the rest of the city. Not in presence, as only clothes remained, but in sensation. Here it had begun, here it was that whatever had happened found its genesis; some vague punishment found in the hedonists that floundered about under the influence of this drug or that. Divine punishment perhaps?

The faint churning of music littered the area, but even softer was the quiet knock of something in a distant room. A survivor? A scavenger perhaps? Could it be nature moving to reclaim the city through rats or some unknown creature, or was what moved in the room something else entirely? Perhaps even the reason for the destruction they faced.

Another crash of something and curiosity would begin to burn in his chest. What was in the room?

[member="Diranor Cadain"]

---

 

[Diranor Cadain]

The sound of the rain faded as the nightclub doors swung shut behind the young agent, like the sealing of a tomb. Silence rushed up at him again, a deafening absence. Diranor’s breath mask filtered out whatever scents lingered within Gomorrah, but he could well imagine what they would be: smoke, vomit, the staleness of spilled liquor, the sweat of bodies pressed close together. It could not filter out the feeling of wrongness, the absence of life, like an open wound on the soul. Sure enough, only piles of clothes remained within the building as well. Whatever this catastrophe had been, it had reached and ravaged every part of Alusi.

Walls had been no defense. Was there any? Diranor struggled to keep his breathing under control.

He had never spent much time in places like this. In his childhood he’d been accused of being born old, always too serious, with a ramrod-straight sense of morality that others found wearing and tearing to be around. In university he’d been married to his studies, and now he was bound to his duties, with no room in his life for anything else. Plenty of friends and coworkers had spent their nights dancing and drinking and flirting, and some part of him wished that he could join them, that he had someone he could hold close and forget the galaxy with. But it wasn’t in his nature. He found the music too loud, and personal connection more terrifying than Sith.

Diranor hated to feel vulnerable, in any context. And that was exactly how Alusi made him feel. Defenseless. Insignificant.

Faint music, as if distant and yet present all around him, slowly worked its way to his ears, a pale imitation of the ear-shattering beats that so many used as the soundtrack to shedding inhibitions. It was no less unnerving than the silence that had preceded it, an equal reminder of the wrongness of an empty place that should be full of life. As he stepped further into Gomorrah, checking each pile of clothes he passed as if hoping that this one would hold some answer, he became so accustomed to the soft melody that it might as well have been silence. And so the sound, though quiet and faraway, nearly made him jump out of his skin.

A knock. It was the first disruption he’d heard in Alusi that didn’t come from his own two feet, a noise that signified movement, an irregularity in a city that seemed frozen in time. Diranor dropped to a crouch, both hands on his blaster, aimed at the sound’s origin: a door deeper into the nightclub, some distant and unseen room. And then again: a crash, a collision, something in motion amidst the stillness. The young agent considered the possibilities. An animal? It seemed unlikely this far into the city, given that he’d seen no others. A droid? It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen any of them, either. Had they been stolen away by this strange effect as well?

Was there some survivor here, untouched by the event? Or did the person… or thing… responsible still linger here, at the center of it all? Either way, Diranor felt a measure of hope creeping in among the apprehension coiling around his heart. This was the first sign that there might be something left over, something that could give him some answers. He crept forward, blaster raised, ready - he hoped - for anything. With each step those coils squeezed tighter. He couldn’t help but feel that he was approaching a moment of truth, of revelation, and in his heart he wondered whether he was ready. In this, was there any truth that he could handle?

The young agent paused outside the door, took a deep breath, and eased it open.


[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

---

As the door creaked open, inside a new scene began to show.

The room was draped in red light, clothes strung along lines across the ceiling shrouding any view that could be made out. Only the constant crimson gave hint to anything past the sheets, as if a maze of rags and blankets became some sort of defense for whoever made home in this backroom. It didn’t take long to find this must be storage for the rest of the building, but that didn’t change the fact that someone, or something lay deeper behind the curtains.

Knock.

Another distant crash of something signalled he was on the right path. Whatever it was that had made its home there was just a few more meters infront of him, but a constant whispering began to become obvious. Whoever, whatever it was, was mumbling something foul under their breathe… A males voice by the sounds of it. His words were shrouded in mystery, too low and mangled to truly be made out, but the signs were there.

He very well could be dangerous.

The choice to approach, kill, or capture was now up to Diranor. Whatever lay behind those curtains was out of sight, but they were not out of mind.

[member="Diranor Cadain"]

---

 

[Diranor Cadain]

An eerie crimson light played over Diranor's face as he slipped into the room, blaster still raised, and checked his corners. Some kind of storage area, but someone - or something - had been busy transforming it. All of Alusi was swathed in mystery, but things were more literal here. The origin of the sound he'd heard, his only hope so far for uncovering the cause of these events, lay behind layer upon layer of fabric. A vast and twisting assortment of clothes, rags, and sheets formed a soft but obscuring curtain between the young agent and the far side of the room, a maze that drowned perception and disoriented those within.

Diranor didn't like the idea of stepping into it. If there were Sith here, masters of the dark with lightsabers and powers that could rip him apart with a glance, his only advantages were surprise and range, and the setup of this room largely negated both. But he hadn't liked just about anything since he'd set foot in Alusi, with the notable exception of the rain. This was going to be one of the assignments that stuck with him, provided he ever made it out, and it wouldn't be in a pleasant way. Briefly he wondered if Gallant had nightmares, fragmented memories of the horrors she'd witnessed during her long career as an operative.

Was it the curse of their line of work in a galaxy full of darkness? Or was he just bad at compartmentalizing, destined to burn out?

It was a consideration for another time. Diranor could hear whispers now, a male voice, but twisted and strange - like everything here, it seemed. Competing emotions raged through his brain - relief that another living being was here struggled with the persistent questions of who, why, and how. An errant thought occurred to him: he could just shoot through the fabric, kill this last vestige of life and leave Alusi for the ghosts. But the idea repelled him - to kill without even knowing why, out of fear? This city was getting to him. This could be a person in need of help or rescue. He might not be an Artorian citizen, but that didn't mean Diranor should treat him callously.

Switching his blaster to stun, the young agent crept slowly forward. One hand held the gun steady, pointed at the origin of the noise, while the other quietly brushed layer after layer of cloth out of his way. Seven meters. Six. Five. His heart pounded loud in his ears, and he had to clench every muscle - save his ready trigger finger - to keep his hands steady. If this man made a jump at him, or drew a weapon, well-honed reflexes would take over, and a stun blast would catch him in the center of mass. If not, if whoever it was didn't see Diranor or didn't make a move on him, the agent could observe, maybe even open a conversation.

Despite his apprehension, his fear even, his hope remained alongside it. Each step took him closer to danger, but also to the possibility of an answer...

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

---

As he snuck a glance at the man, he’d witness just what it was that the noise had been. The man’s mumbling, his rampant hysteria, all buried in a chest he was scrounging about in the middle of the room; the source of the red light a industrial looking lamp above them. In the corner, a singular protocol droid’s eyes lit up at the sight of him, its voice sparking to life in a synthesized expression of joy;

“Oh joy, you’ve come to save me!”

The droid however, didn’t realize what punishment it had wrought. The man who had his head buried in a chest, scrounging for this or that suddenly jerked his head up and towards [member="Diranor Cadain"]. A cry of surprise mixed with unadulterated anger rang out as he moved to grab a blaster pistol on his hip, though it wasn’t the only thing that the agent wasn’t likely expecting.

From his rear, a second man had moved to tackle him with a grunt. Full body, full blown weight came from the rear while the man infront moved to stand and pull his gun. The artorian was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and only his instincts and training could save him now.

How would he react?

[member="Diranor Cadain"]

---

 

[Diranor Cadain]

Flesh and blood. Finally, after all of the silence and emptiness, Diranor had found something living in this dead place.

Living... and scavenging? Beneath the crimson light, the man was muttering to himself as he dug through some kind of strongbox, intent on his frantic search for... something. Diranor moved forward cautiously, blaster ready, as he considered how to handle the situation. He had felt the edges of his sanity fraying just walking the roads of the city after whatever had happened. If this was a witness to whatever had come to pass here, he might not be entirely sane. Before he could come to any decision, however, a lone photoreceptor blazed to life. The voice of a protocol droid - the first voice he'd heard in Alusi, beyond mad whispers - seemed harsh and loud and grating.

Intentionally or not, the droid's cry of relief was also an alarm. The scavenger whirled, hand falling toward a weapon, and in that split second it was abundantly clear to Diranor that he was not wanted here. His blaster had been at the ready since he'd entered the room, fixed on the origin of the noise, and it should have been a simple matter to stun the man before he could so much as brush the grip of his pistol with a fingertip. It should have been, and nearly was. But in the very instant that the young agent squeezed the trigger, a heavy weight crashed into him from behind, bearing him to the ground as the air whooshed out of his lungs.

The blue coils of the stun blast met ceiling instead of flesh, and the blaster flew from Diranor's hand as he hit the floor hard. Two living beings, then, and neither of them happy to see him. Did they think he was responsible for what had happened here? Were they the ones responsible? Or had they come here after it was all over, as he had, to pick Alusi's bones clean of all that had been left behind? Questions to ask once he survived the next few seconds. Stars danced in front of his eyes, but he had no time to be dazed. Training took over, and he threw an elbow back into the face of the being that had tackled him, right where the soft flesh of the nose should be.

His gun had skittered across the floor, out of reach while he had his attacker's weight on top of him, so he would need to improvise if he wanted to avoid getting shot. Grabbing the arms that had tackled him around his midsection, he twisted on the ground, using his other hand to flip himself over so that his attacker remained beneath and behind him. Then, still holding that arm, he sat up. He was effectively sitting in the lap of the man who had tackled him, with his assailant's body - back first - interposed between his body and the blaster of the scavenger. If the other guy choose to shoot, he'd blow a hole through his comrade before he ever touched Diranor.

Using the brief time he'd bought himself, the young agent unhooked a stun grenade from his gear vest, primed it, and slid it along the floor toward the blaster-wielder.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

---

Instead of shooting, the man with the blaster hesitated as his friend was force in between the two of them. For a hesitation, it was obvious he still had some mortality left in him, some faint levels of humanity that gave him the know how not to kill and maim mindlessly. Still, as the group began to fight, he let out a stressful cry before the stun grenade went off.

In the next moment, the man with the blaster fell down and began to roll from side to side, desperately rubbing his eyes as though doing so would help them recover faster. Even the other was held tight in Diranor’s tactile grip, so for a few seconds there was ‘peace’, besides the ever present cries of pain and annoyance from everyone involved.

Eventually, the broken words of the man that once held the blaster spoke out;

“Why!? Why would you do this?”, he blurted before letting spit dribble from his mouth and his tone to turn into a frothy display of insanity once more.

For whatever reason, he seemed just alert enough to hold conversation with. Though, even that could be pushing it if he decided to grab for the blaster again.

[member="Diranor Cadain"]

---

 

[Diranor Cadain]

All sorts of snarky replies jumped immediately to mind. Why? Because your buddy tackled me and you tried to shoot me. But that probably wouldn't be very helpful, and Diranor needed to regain control of the situation before it got any crazier. "I don't want to hurt you," he said, untangling himself from the limbs of the one who'd tackled him and moving to stand. "Just don't hurt me and we're good." He badly wanted to scoop up his blaster and keep the two of them covered while he spoke, but he had a feeling that would only escalate the situation back to violence, so he just cast it one longing glance and then left it where it lay for the moment.

The stranger he'd hit with the stun grenade was not exactly a tower of sanity. Drooling and rocking back and forth, he seemed like a toddler in the body of a grown man, and that did not bode well at all for the possibility of learning anything useful from him. Still, Diranor had to try. And he had a backup plan now: the protocol droid. As far as he was aware, droids didn't generally go insane from what they witnessed, only from programming glitches. Human first, though. Keeping a respectful distance - and an eye on his other attacker - the young agent crouched down to stay on the man's level, making himself more approachable.

"I came to find out what happened," he explained slowly, his voice low and gentle. "People are worried about you. We want to help. Can you tell me anything about what happened to the city?" On-the-spot questioning might well not get results, but he might be able to get these two back to his ship. There were medical professionals back on Artorias who could help them, hopefully allowing them to recover enough to talk about what they'd seen. He would have to borrow one of the discarded vehicles littering Alusi - he didn't know if they would come with him willingly, and there was no way he could carry two of them.

But maybe they could give him an answer right here. Maybe they could finally shed some light on the city's dark fate.

[member="The Slave"]

 

[Darth Empyrean]

---

“You did this, don’t lie!”, he chattered while the other groaned slightly from the torque he was put under. It was obvious neither was a combatant, especially one as trained as he was.

“You took them all from us!”

Behind them, the protocol droid chimed in with a flurry of jubilant words iconic of their programming classification;

“It was the voidstone that saved them, hero!”, it called out as a robotic finger pointed to a small ornament on the desk near them.

“Everyone else just disappeared, but only the few in this room survived.”, it said once more as its eyes lit up. It took a few hobbling steps and wandered towards Diranor before speaking once more, “Well, lost their mind, but lived.”

The two remained on the ground as they all stood about, instead of reaching for a gun or even attempting to overpower the Artorian agent. A silence filled the room as the servo motors cooled from the robot's movements, and the others ceased their groaning to instead lay in quiet pain. What happened now was just up to Diranor.

[member="Diranor Cadain"]

---

 

[Diranor Cadain]

Some help these poor fools were. It didn't feel any safer to be in the company of lunatics than it had when Diranor was alone.

The crisis seemingly averted, at least for now, the young agent released the one that had tackled him and stood, pushing away in one gentle but decisive movement. He bent and retrieved his blaster, but slid it back into its holster before anyone got nervous about what he planned to do with it. Then he listened as the protocol droid spoke, considering its words carefully; it might be the only thing left that could give him an account of what had happened, given that the two survivors seemed to be too traumatized to tell him anything useful. And how could he blame them? He had no idea how long they'd lived in Alusi, but it was entirely possible that all they had ever known had vanished.

Even with his intense mental conditioning, he doubted he could have held up much better under those circumstances.

Voidstone. He'd heard the word before, and wracked his brain for the context. Not native to the galaxy, the meteorites came from Otherspace, a dimension sometimes accessed through spatial anomalies or hyperdrive accidents. They were supposed to dampen Force energy, which lined up nicely with the droid's explanation; if some kind of dark Force event had emptied out Alusi, it was possible that the voidstone had kept it at bay, at least within the limited range of this single room. But something didn't add up. Why was Gomorrah the apparent epicenter of the event, but also the only place that anyone had survived? The corruption was strongest in the same place it missed two people.

Diranor felt a chill creep up his spine again; still far more questions than answers. And could he really trust the droid, or was it somehow part of all this? It was so convinced that the voidstone had saved these people, but how did it know what the rock even was, or that it'd had any effect? If it knew that the voidstone had saved them, then it knew something about what had happened, or it couldn't be so sure that it'd done something. "How do you know the stone saved them?" Perhaps the direct approach was best. "What made everyone else disappear that the voidstone was able to prevent?" He hoped for a straight and simple answer, but hardly expected one.

His curiosity taking over, Diranor approached the desk, examining the little ornament. Could this trinket really have held back whatever happened here?

[member="The Slave"]