Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Jak-o-lantern Beasts

"Actually, because there has been a few complications, we couldn't destroy the Ruination. But what we did learn from our spies was that a shipment of Hijarna stones is somewhere on Mygeeto. Their contracts are not terminated although I would like to inform them that the deal has been altered" Julie tells Jessica over comms.

"Julie, you did what you could. I do not blame you. Kaine is more interested in defending the ship from the inside than from the outside. Any estimate on the size of the Hijarna stone shipment?"

"I'd say enough to fill about 30 to 35 high-cube containers. Stay on your guard, though: jakobeasts have been spotted in the region where the shipment of Hijarna stones is most likely to be"

After the failed attempt at intercepting the Ruination, the mercenaries hired by Julie, [member="Leo Vandermolen"] and [member="Guarn"], had their contractual rights as mercenaries transferred over to Jessica, which had other plans in mind. Jessica Med-Beq would then send a letter while being beside little Ziana, who will learn to walk or speak any day soon. She takes little Ziana and tickles her daughter, amusing her baby somewhat. That said, she has seen little of Ziana compared to her wife, who took more care of Ziana than she ever would. Clearly Summer feels more for Ziana than Jessica does, even though, biologically speaking, Jessica was her mother, and a near-perfect clone at that. By now Jessica has gotten used to life on a frozen planet similar to Mygeeto: Glyss had a pretty similar climate. She then shows Ziana the datapad on which Jessica typed the message to the attention of the mercenaries still under contract to inform them what the contract is for. But prior to departure, she needs to make sure that the equipment is there for this adventure: while she might have magic at her disposal, she still needs her suit of WESTAR Skirmisher armor, her big particle rifle, her lightsaber and what other equipment is pertinent to bring on such a journey across the frozen wilderness of Mygeeto.

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Dear mercenaries,

After due confirmation with Julie Jutland, the initial party entering this mercenarial contract with you, this is to inform you that the contract you entered has been altered. Your next assignment is on Mygeeto, with a shipment of Hijarna stones having crashed along the wilderness of the arctic region, apparently protected by jakobeasts. The planet's artic regions are very cold, and a ship shall be dispatched to salvage the cargo of Hijarna stones in due course. We will rendezvous on Mygeeto.

Jessica Med-Beq

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Guarn looked at the text.
Hijarna stone? she had to look that stuff up it was pretty rare to see it used still a small shipment off the stuff and only for killing a load of animals?
fair dooes.
looking over the location it wasn't a hard location to find.
the beasts were force resistant. and well hhe was good with the cold.

[ message] contract assepted [message ends]
[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
"Don't worry, little Ziana. It won't be too long"

"What's your next big idea anyway?" the baby custodian asked Jessica.

"Some sort of cap drain that can boost the power of the ship it is mounted on"

While Leo Vandermolen made no decision as to whether to accept the altered contract, she knew that [member="Guarn"] would accept. Jessica wondered whether this next big idea involving restricted materials was such a good idea. She was not at her first experience of using restricted materials: thus far she used AI (developed it in that particular instance; she may not have been where she is today were it not of that particular item), stygium, ionite, and she even has a small amount of laminanium sitting somewhere on Ringo Vinda, waiting for the time where she can actually commission the stuff she wanted to use it for. She knew what would the Hijarna stones fitted into the cap drain do, and how would that relate to the power circuits of nearby shield generators. Summer sometimes thinks that I might be a little negligent towards family, but when I do leave home, it's often because there is something important to be done. Is that project worth postponing because of family? I'm afraid not, because I am afraid that someone else would steal that idea later: normally I would be content with Julie securing Hijarna stones futures but because Julie has failed to secure such things, I would need to do it in her stead. I have to get my hands dirty, Julie leaves me no choice, she thought, while packing her broomstick on top of the remaining equipment prior to departure.
 
Hunting. well this will be easy, get to the planet it's cold, she liked the cold so that'd be fun.
but her nerves preferred the warm thus her heavy padding.
so she needed a decent
so here she was weighing up her options. and needed to get her Starlight to the planet that was fine the Black axe was as strong as it looked.
[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
As usual when Jessica is at the controls for anything involving hyperspace flight, she would run the topological calculations in her head, with the Force only serving mostly as a painkiller, knowing that using it to enhance her cognitive abilities would not work. IAC was one of those weird beasts that were more cognition-intensive than actually requiring the Force: like the Comprehend Speech portion of telepathy and mechu-deru; as such, Padawans could master any those things if their intellectual composition allows for it. But then again, she took off in an AT-AT barge so that she could collect the Hijarna stones alongside [member="Guarn"]. She reads what briefing notes were given for the jakobeasts, as per Julie's quandary: These beasts are dangerous because they are able to use telekinesis in groups: thank the Force for the broomstick! But using the broomstick would be a little tricky: snowstorms are frequent on Mygeeto, including but not limited to, the region around which the shipment has been last sighted, she thought. And so she have the AT-AT barge revert to realspace, while wearing her WESTAR Skirmisher armor and having the broomstick at the ready, with the copilot ready to fly to the location of the Hijarna stones. Once she arrives on Mygeeto, near where she would think Guarn would be...

"Even though 60,000 credits don't mean much to me, you will get at least this much if we manage to kill at least two beasts here, and the free item" Jessica tells her copilot.

"Understood, Your Highness!"

"Time for me to fly out of this ship and use the broomstick to meet with the other huntress that signed on for this shipment of Hijarna stones"
 
the ship dropped out of hyperspace as Guarn's ship the Axeman entered an orbit.
" i need a droid " she chuckled to herself it was weird she kept meaning to buy a droid but honestly she kept forgetting about it or to be more honest she kept putting it off till it never happened. admittedly she had been alone long enough it never bothered her.
the isolation at least 40 years in solitary did that to you.
most of the ship was basically a home she rarely took living contracts. part ialy die to her circumstances
" Ok to the surface"

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
[member="Guarn"] was soon to land near the location where it's safe to land a ship but yet, not too far from the target and shipment of Hijarna stones. Of course, Jessica made sure that there would be some means to retrieve the cargo once it was secured, for she knew her telekinesis skill was not sufficient. Which means that, for the time being, the AT-AT barge was to be parked at the edge of the crystalline glacier, if only because there could be jakobeasts hiding inside the crystalline formations. Also, given the cold environment in which she is operating in, she can use the full extent of her computational power for longer periods: that is going to help with her use of the Force. Like boiling the jakobeasts' blood away, one beast at a time. She flies around, getting a cursory survey of the area so that they know what to avoid and where to go to trap jakobeasts, knowing that the ability of jakobeasts to use telekinesis is going to make the task much more difficult (although not impossible) in a melee, so some ranged options would be undoubtedly necessary, under the form of Force-powers.

"Guarn, stay hidden among the crystal shards: if you're not pushed back by the jakobeasts, you might be able to sneak on their back"
 
as the tint warriot trudged her way up yo the large woman frost becan to appear on her metal mask.
" im more of a hit it till it stops moving type of fighter. sorry " she smirked. her voice still sounding like a little girls.
honestly 700 years and that still annoyed her being tiny didn't help either she still looked like a jawa that couls speak basic,
still the cold helped barely with the pain. her nerves being frozen deadened the constant pain she felt
[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
Jessica was so used to dwarfing other people that she often fails to realize how much of an inconvenience that could pose. Towering over [member="Guarn"] by nearly half a meter, she'd better hope that Guarn would have sufficient agility to actually be able to score hits on jakobeasts. In the meantime, she decides to go hide behind a crystal while sensing the presence of the jakobeasts on the lookout for the two. She realizes that she only have one shot at inconveniencing the jakobeast, using pyrokinesis to boil its blood, before the jakobeast would attempt to push her out (assuming the prey would survive the boiling of its blood), while simultaneously heating up her own blood by a much smaller amount so that her own blood could flow inside her body much more freely. By now the jakobeast would be made a little uncomfortable, dizzy even, much like what would happen to it if struck by fever, so it attempts to Force-push her out of her position, sending her flying a short distance and landing on her back on a snow drift as a result of the animal being dizzy. But she suspects that the jakobeast may need some cooldown time to attempt pushing them again with the beast being dizzied by its boiling blood.

"Guarn, the beast is a little dizzy: now's the time to kill the beast! We're a good distance from the Hijarna stones" she tells Guarn over comms while reeling in from the pain of the fall.
 
The cold was effecting her nerves a little. while it soothed the pain it sapped her speed still.
violence eased the pain better than anything.
she had a skeleton not much of one it was flexible she was almost all nerves now and muscle.
still she was strong easily able to lift 700 kg.
she ran leaped up a rock bringing her axe up in an upward swing to connect with the beasts neck.
" That aught to do it. " she grunted annoyed " hoped it would be more pd a fight."
[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
One down, but there would be more of those: Julie's briefing notes talked about a herd of those beasts. That one was a little young, weighing in at *only* 700 kg, she thought, while the tug droid brought the dead jakobeast back to the ship. [member="Guarn"]'s style of the axe was a little raw, but she could forgive it. And then she would sense, shortly after getting up and using the Force as a painkiller to enable her to move again, that the rest of the herd would be after the two, angry that they killed one of the younglings. Then again, she knew that someone else wanted some jakobeasts for whatever reason, paying 60,000 credits for each beast, and one item per person taking part in the hunt. The herd began to home in on Jessica; it appears to be splitting up in an attempt to hunt down the duet of hunters. Jessica would think that, by using Force-cloak, she would be able to let Guarn get the brunt of the herd's wrath. Maybe if I snuck past the herd I could use that trick again, boiling their blood and hence kill them... she thought again, now that her blood has the consistency for her functions to work optimally.

"Looks like we awoke the rest of the herd!" she warned Guarn before her refraction index becomes -1 and hence invisible to the jakobeasts.
 
true there were Howells from the caves near by.
" must have felt it's death in the force. " Guarn guessed as she shouldered her axe.
" Question Can you Lure them? i have an idea. " she asked trying to think of how to work out how to do this.
She could regenerate given time but [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] probably not so.
still she was here to be a tank.
 
"Try to gather some lichen to bait them" she told Guarn before doing the Force-dash.

As she approaches the cave from which these howls came, she realized that using multiple Force-powers at once, that is, Force-running under cloak, seem to take up more computational power than the sum of the two performed individually. And somehow, she doubts her ability of being able to carry out both phases of the plan, to be able to make their blood boil unseen, making her scramble for cover, yet at the same time closing in on the entrance of the cave. Lure them? I'm closing in on the rest of the herd, under cloak; breaking silence is not advised at this point, she thought, while the herd slowly sniffed in every direction, in search for [member="Guarn"] and her: these beasts knew better than to rush headlong into the unknown, in search for their prey. Yet, while their prey sniffed, her body needed to recover from the Force-dash, making it tiresome to get any closer; she is hidden behind a crystal, not suspecting that her window of opportunity is pretty narrow.
 
Guarn sniffed. if she could she would but her nerves were starting to freeze. she used to love the cold at one time she was from Neverwinter. " I best if you gather it the cold is slowing my movement. i need to conserve my energy for the fight. " she admitted looking to the woman.
" im all nerve endings and muscle no boddy fat. im almost full gen-dai the cold is effecting me worse than i expected." she added.
the howls were getting closer.
" better hold them off."
[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 
OOC: The content of the howls is represented <inside brackets>, while normal speech is not.

IC: "I'll mind-trick one of those beasts and then you'll move in to chase the rest of the herd when the others are confused"

Even though the idea of the lichen bait had some merit, [member="Guarn"] was freezing; that might not be going to work as she expected it to. For the time being, the jakobeasts have the impression that there is a Force-ghost nearby. But the time has come for her to play some new trick up her sleeve from a crystal near the cave entrance, just that she has to think hard about what the trick was, and whether it could work. The initial plan of using pyrokinesis under cloak may end up requiring too much computational power for my own comfort, I'm going to need some computational power in reserve regardless of what comes next: I'd rather mind-trick a beast under cloak and decloak later, she thought, while realizing that there's only so much computational power her brain might have and that the use of said computational power doesn't instantly cease when she stops using a given power, and not simply because emptying her mental cache requires some computational power by itself. She gets started in using the mind trick on the jakobeast deemed most vulnerable to a mind trick, while still under cloak:

"You have failed the herd"

"<I have failed the herd>"

"The herd elders are responsible for that failure"

"<The herd elders are responsible for that failure>"

"You will challenge the herd elders' right to rule"

"<I will challenge the herd elders' right to rule>"

With that said and done, the herd elders are coming under attack by the mind-tricked jakobeast, which attempted, alongside other jakobeasts that feel wronged by the elders, to flush them out, providing a much-needed distraction for Guarn to attempt killing the herd elders in the crystalline snowfield around the cave entrance. They do not suspect that some of those elders will have a nasty surprise later, whether it comes from Guarn or Jessica, while the jakobeasts fight each other...
 
the beasts had began to gather in a group that was as she planned if they were too close they were too close together to fight.
and [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] had managed to mind Kark one in to attacking the alpha.
" good i'll take out the pack see if you can locate that cargo you are after. " Guarn telled charging in to the pack swinging her Axe with inhuman strength. " i have this under controle."
 
Surprisingly, [member="Guarn"] using the distraction of the herd fighting each other allowed her to keep her use of both computational power and Force-energy at a level she can actually continue using Force-cloak, well, mostly retaining her computational power. With the herd now out of the way, she can enter the cave, using the Force to get a feel of what used to be the refuge, the home of the herd that was flushed out by first killing one of the infants. The inside of the cave was a little warmer than the outside air, but was still somewhat cold nonetheless. Her body still not performing optimally by using Force-speed earlier, she could only advance through the cave at a speed that she described as a somewhat slow slog (even though it might be more appropriate in other contexts to walk at a somewhat brisk pace). As she begins to feel the cold again, however, it begins to make her use of Force-cloak much more difficult (but that is entirely the cold on her skin) and she might be more vulnerable to other critters living in the caves, if there were any to begin with. She tells Guarn over comms:

"If you are able to make it to the cave afterward, you may want to rest in the cave"
 
Guarn glanced over to [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] only to be struck bu a beast.
" SHUT UP AND GET THE CARGO YOU FOOL. " Guarn yelled as the beast biting in to her arm.
this was all going to plan all she needed was a fair bit of her to exist after what she planned.
still.
the beasts ripped at her armor dammed things were a nuciance now she was distravted and slowed by the cold.
 
"The cargo lies on the other side of that cave" Jessica yelled.

Yes, the Hijarna stone shipment was to be a little bit beyond the cave, just that she had to get out of the cave first. [member="Guarn"] had no choice but to yell because Jessica was already in the cave, now fully de-cloaked. She then switched gears and then used tapas again to keep warm, and also to maintain the consistency of her blood at a level where her body functions can work best - because colder blood is usually thicker. Also, she could feel that there was something else lurking down below, that she needed to tread lightly around, awaken by the yell she had to do to answer to Guarn's query: a Mygeetan whiteworm. These things burrowed and even feasted on vulnerable jakobeasts when they went above the surface. But then the whiteworm had a roughly two meter inner diameter; this meant that the creature could eat Jessica whole if it was hostile. She took what time she could have to find whether there was an exploitable weak spot on the whiteworm before making her move.
 
the ake bit in to one Jakobeasts neck. so far that was 3 she had killed.
aaahh skev she yelled as a 4th geabed her by the neck tossing her like a rag doll
" oh right skevers here we go. " she yelled pulling out a thermal detonator.
only for it to be ripptd from her grasp.
" skev." she sighed as her leggs we ripprd off
[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]
 

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