Private Journey Without, Journey Within

[Ghorua the Shark]

LOCATION: ABOARD THE JAWSOME, DEEP SPACE
EQUIPMENT: IN BIO
CURRENT MOOD: VEXED
~SOME TIME IN THE PAST~​

None would dare describe Ghorua as an impatient man.

He was a bounty hunter, after all, one with a reputation for thorough and cautious strategies, so long days of researching the smallest leads, many of which ended up absolutely nowhere, were commonplace in his planning process. He had plenty of practice dropping leads-turned-dead ends, so rarely was he irked by it.

That being said, after a week of dead ends, Ghorua was getting irked.

The large hunter sat planted in his holochair on the bridge of his ship, parsing through two datapads at once. One presented a scan of a human brain, a diagram from a respected medical journal about memory. The other was a long-winded report about a moisture farmer who forgot the last ten years of their life after a nasty head injury. Ghorua sat with his hands hovering over each pad, quietly tapping each one as he read, skimming for anything he could use, anything that looked familiar.

Nothing, nothing, nothing...

In a brief moment of weakness, the hunter turned both devices off, and leaned his head into his massive hand, trying and failing to dispel his annoyance. He stared out the viewport of the Jawsome, wondering if any of the vast array of stars had the answers he was looking for. At this point, he doubted it.

But that didn't mean he would stop searching. His friend was counting on him, after all.

Ghorua let his fingertips rest on the datapads, and their displays flickered to life once more. There had to be something he wasn't catching. Something he didn't consider.

Pressing a small button, the Shark's voice echoed over the comms of the ship.

"Kay, could you come up to the bridge, please?"

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[NPC Treasury]

While Ghorua the Shark toiled away at the datapads, Kay had remained in her room. It was better that way; both for herself and for Ghorua. Many a times she had seen the look of sadness and despair on his face or merely in his eyes when he thought that she wasn't looking. The guilt of a death come too soon hung heavy and there wasn't much that she could do to change that.

At least not yet.

Her hope was that if she could become whole again, then maybe things would be better. However she wasn't certain of just what result that would have. Would this shell remain? Or would she just die all over again? There were many unncertainties in this new frontier for the both of them, and even their best guesses could be wrong. But it was better to be whole than to be fragmented.

"Coming..." Kay's voice was heard over the intercomm moments before her footsteps could be heard coming down the corridor to the bridge. "Did you find something?"

 

[Ghorua the Shark]

As his friend entered the room, Ghorua smiled welcomingly, although nothing he could do would banish the melancholy from his tired eyes. Kay had kept to herself for the most part, which was equal parts disheartening and relieving. Disheartening because if she were herself, there would be no pause, no need to distance. Relieving because, despite how much he tried to hide it, this new Kay's presence was a painful reminder to his own failure to keep her safe.

They would make that right. Probably.

Hopefully.

Ghorua spoke softly, attempting and failing to mask his frustration with the search. "No. In fact, it's the opposite."

The veteran bounty hunter stood up tall, massaging his wrists to banish the tension. "I've exhausted all my avenues of information. Your brain scans don't match those with retrograde amnesia. It doesn't appear to be a psychological issue, either. I've hit a rut."

"If I haven't found the answer by now, I won't be able to find it at all. Which means we have one option left." Ghorua raised a hand jokingly, waving it as if he were to use telekinesis. He added a dramatic quaver in his voice. "The Force."

"Whatever happened to you," Ghorua continued, sobering his tone, "may be more esoteric than anatomical. If that's the case, either we have to look within, or hire someone to, eh, 'procure' some Jedi texts." Ghorua shrugged. "I don't suppose you've had any visions about our situation recently."

He knew very little about the Force. His daughter was highly Force-sensitive, but he was more versed in what Forcies could do, not how they did it. Theoretically, the Force could guide them. And if he was wrong, and they couldn't, it wouldn't be too hard to hire someone to get them some books from a Jedi temple.

He didn't like stealing from Jedi, but it didn't matter. He would do anything for Lady Kay.

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[NPC Treasury]

"Oh..."

The more that Ghorua the Shark spoke, the lower her shoulders slumped as her hope faded. If anyone could find what they were looking for, than surely he could have?

Yet it appeared as though what they were looking for was entirely out of the hunter's reach. Or maybe they just weren't looking in the right place.

The Force.

Just the thought of it gave her a bad feeling, as though nothing but dread would lie in it's wake once that floodgate was opened. However there wasn't much of an option that they had left, and neither of them had the inclination to transverse through the entire Galaxy to try to find what was lost.

"I haven't had any visions, no....just feelings. It's like....it's like looking for something in one room, but it is sitting in another on the other side of the wall. That sounds silly, doesn't it? But I don't quite know of how else to describe it."

 

[Ghorua the Shark]

Ghorua could do nothing but watch as his friend's body language told of her mounting hopelessness. Ghorua himself wasn't quite there yet, but he didn't blame the woman for her fraying confidence. It wasn't like he was an unshakable bastion, either. Maybe he had phrased it a little strongly. Should he have cushioned the news with more jokes?

Ghorua crossed his huge arms in front of himself, leaning up against a console at the helm of the ship, listening as Kay detailed her 'feelings'. Ghorua tried not to go off of gut feelings. They didn't do him a lot of good.

At the same time, Ghorua didn't often raise his hand, and expect things to float. So he supposed the Force was different that way.

"Alright, that's a start, at least," the Shark muttered, letting his brain toss around the new information. "If the feeling is there, perhaps all we need to do is dive into it."

Ghorua shot Kay a dubious look, as if he wasn't even entirely sure if what he was saying was helpful. "Have you... meditated on your feelings?"

Just then, a shift could be felt in the Force, unknown to the bounty hunter. It was like a ubiquitous draft, as if someone had opened a window to the universe. Something was about to happen. Something entirely strange.

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[NPC Treasury]

"Sort of? I mean I haven't meditated on it persay....but I have thought about it. I mean, I've thought about what I feel. But I suppose that that's not really the same thing, is it?"

She knew that it wasn't. But what could she do? Not a whole lot. Except that maybe...she could do as Ghorua the Shark had suggested and tried to meditate. And if she had trouble focusing, well then she could always just drink one of her teas first.

Yeah....That could work.

"I'll give it a try."

Yet no sooner did she start to leave the bridge, that it happened. For her, the Galaxy seemed to shudder, causing her to lose her balance and stumble to the floor. She clasped her hands tight over her ears as an icy shriek cut through the air, piercing her mind's ears as the fabric of space and time wasn't just bent, but torn apart....

A Nethergate had opened in front of the Jawesome.

Kay shakily got to her feet as she still felt way off balance. "That wasn't me! I didn't do that!" Whether or not Ghorua had the same response to what happened, she didn't know. But she had to be sure that she wouldn't get the blame for it.

 

[Ghorua the Shark]

Ghorua felt entirely odd, giving Lady Kay advice on controlling the Force. He was certainly no expert, and he knew that the old Kay was certainly a master on the subject. On her query about whether thinking on feelings and meditating were different, he could only shrug. "You tell me."

As Kay said she'd try, the Herglic nodded, and turned around, ready to go back to researching. There was always the chance he'd missed something. It was then that Ghorua noticed Kay double over and fall down. He would have rushed to her immediately to help, had his ship's console not started beeping at him, and the Jawsome's viewport was assailed by the strangest sight Ghorua had ever witnessed.

Ghorua stood in shock for a second, before rushing to the ship's controls. It was lucky that the staryacht was stationary. If they had been cruising forward, they would have ran into... whatever that was.

"These readings make no sense," the Shark said, muttering under his breath as he checked the ship's systems. "Sensor data is going off the charts, but... there's nothing there. It's empty space."

Content that they weren't in immediate danger, Ghorua turned again to Kay, who had managed to get up. "Are you alright?"

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[NPC Treasury]

She checked her ears to see if they were bleeding, her back leaning up against the corridor wall for support. No blood appeared on her hands however. "Yes...what was that noise? Did something hit us?"

As far as she was aware, Ghorua the Shark had heard the same thing that she did. Yet without even waiting fir a response, she walked back to the cockpit to look through the viewport to see for herself just what had brushed them by. Of course she was no pilot, so the readings didn't make a lot of sense to her. Neither did the fact that there was nothing but the vastness of space ahead of them.

"I don't understand....there's nothing here but...we're close..." Her brows furrowed in utter confusion. What she felt and what she saw were complete polar opposites. "Try moving forward.....slowly..."

 

[Ghorua the Shark]

"What noise?" Ghorua gave Kay a questioning glance, just now registering the particulars of her strong reaction. She had grabbed her ears, hadn't she?

The gears in Ghorua's head began to turn, trying to keep up with the new developments. The sensors were still shrieking at him, telling him that there was something in front of him. If he really squinted, he could pretend to see some shimmer in the empty vacuum of space just beyond the Jawsome. Which should also be impossible, considering it's a vacuum and all.

Ghorua looked to Kay again, trying to guess what she was thinking. She seemed just as confused as him, but there was something else there. She was having a feeling.

Ghorua didn't like going off of feelings. But he shrugged.

"Ah, kark it. The Force works in mysterious ways, right?"

The Shark eased his ship forward, not quite sure what to expect.

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[NPC Treasury]

She gave Ghorua the Shark a double-take as he claimed to have not heard the noise. How could he not? It was ear piercing!

She wasn't crazy, was she??

Yet Ghorua seemed to humour her. He got the ship moving....

Her eyes were glued to the viewport, the sensors on the ship going off as though it saw everything that they didn't. And then that was when it happened.

​

The Jawsome was sucked into the Nethergate, controlled no longer by it's own power, but by something else entirely. Kay nearly lost her balance, yet she clung onto the control panel and widened her stance.

The whole ride was quick and with a shudder of the ship it was finished. An icy cold chill ran down her spine bringing with it a feeling of dread. "We're heeere....." Although the quicker that they got out of there, the better.

 

[Ghorua the Shark]

Ghorua slowly inched the ship towards the anomaly, with a light touch on the controls. Whatever was about to happen, he was completely unprepared for. He hated going into a situation blind. Prep was the only way he'd survived so long.

But he trusted Kay. Despite her current state, he trusted her.

Then the world turned inside out, and Ghorua stumbled back, grabbing onto the console as well to keep upright.

The Netherportal was a strange mix of beautiful and terrifying. It looked and felt a little like Hyperspace- if Hyperspace were a perverse tear in the universe that spirited one away with it's terrible and unknowable power. Despite his sudden terror, Ghorua reacted quickly as he heard his ship groaning, and he began checking it's support systems. The yacht had never groaned before, never had a reason to.

But as quickly as it came, it went, and the ship was deposited out the other side. The Jawsome obviously hadn't enjoyed the trip, as Ghorua's sensors told him, but it appeared to be undamaged. As he was checking, Ghorua heard Kay speak, and a chill went up his spine.

Before he knew what he was doing, Ghorua had his hand on the hilt of his sheathed Kandosii Blade, and his eyes on his companion. The Shark realized in that moment that he didn't trust this Kay as much as he thought he did. Something about her tone of voice unnerved him.

"Where is 'here'?" Ghorua didn't take his eyes off Kay.

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[NPC Treasury]

"Where we'll find it. I'm sure of it. Can't you--" She stopped mid-sentence as she went from looking out of the viewport to seeing Ghorua the Shark with his hand on his weapon and looking at her in what could only be described as 'fight or flight' mode. "....I guess you don't...feel it."

She clenched her jaw and turned back to the viewport again, furrowing her brows as she looked out ahead of them. It didn't really look like they were in space anymore, but moreso on some massive planet with a whole bunch of different continents separated not by water, but by space. "Just drop me off at the nearest port if you'd like. Then maybe you can go back the way that you came."

As far as could tell, it wasn't really vital for him to find what was missing. He could move on easily enough, so there was no reason for her to try to force him to stay. Plus he looked really uncomfortable. That wasn't to say that she was feeling peachy over it all either, but at least here she felt connected somehow. Maybe this was where her story was to end.

 

[Ghorua the Shark]

Kay's response didn't exactly assuage Ghorua's fears. Her words were strange, and Ghorua couldn't quite wrap his brain around them. He kept the observant eye on her, and his hand didn't leave his weapon, although he did loosen his grip.

Then, she offered to strike out on her own, and Ghorua balked even more. "What do you mean, 'the nearest port'? We're in the middle of..." He looked out the window, and could barely believe his eyes. ". . . nowhere."

Were they on a planet? Were there any planets where entire continents floated in empty space? None that he had ever heard of, and he'd been all over the galaxy. On top of that, there was a pervasive feeling of... wrongness in the air. Like Ghorua was somewhere he really shouldn't be.

Despite that, Ghorua set his face in a determined look, and took his hand off his blade pointedly. "I'm sticking with you 'til the end, Kay. You say you have a feeling here? Then let's follow it."

Then, frowning. "Sorry. You just spooked me, 's'all. Started going all cryptic."

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[NPC Treasury]

"I don't know what they have here; ports, landing pads, someplace for ships to go. I'm about as clueless as you are."

They were both as naive as the other here, and that made it all the more unnerving. There were no guides to help them.

The weight of the room changed as Ghorua the Shark eased and then removed his grip from his weapon. She saw it in his reflection on the transparasteel glass. "It's okay. I'm just as scared and everything as you are. I've never been here before. Or at least, I don't remember being here before. So...." She pointed a finger towards a continent looking dark and grey, not exactly the most inviting of places. "...let's go there." A heavy fog permeatted the peaks and valleys like a ghostly river. "I'm sure that we'll find somewhere to land."

 

[Ghorua the Shark]

The Shark had experienced many strange things in his life. He had been mystically attacked, received drastic genetic modifications, even been in a war over a massive superweapon, for kark's sake. But being transported through an unknown spacial anomaly to a planet that defied logic, following a hunch given to them by the consciousness of the universe?

A little out of the Shark's comfort zone.

All considered, he thought he was taking it all in stride rather well.

Ghorua followed Kay's finger towards the distant continent, nodding in understanding. "Alright, we have our heading, then. Shouldn't be too..." Then he saw the fog. And his stomach dropped.

Kay would be able to feel the fear of the Shark clog the room, like a sudden fog bank. Ghorua felt clammy.

"...hard. Shouldn't be too hard," the Shark finished, obviously thinking the opposite.

Of course it had to be a landmass covered in mist.

The Shark began to pilot the ship there, despite every fiber of his being telling him to go the opposite way.

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[NPC Treasury]

The fear in Ghorua the Shark intensified and it was difficult to not pick up on it. Yet she couldn't understand why...

She placed a hand on his shoulder in a bid to try to give him some kind of assurance, yet she wasn't sure if it would work. It was an odd thing to imagine a large Herglic being so afraid and yet there he was.

"We won't be long....I promise. Just a quick look around." Or at least that was what she hoped. In truth she didn't want to be there anymore than Ghorua did. Yet something told her that there was something there that she needed to find.

As the Jawsome moved on ahead and entered the mists, the fog would thicken the further that they went down. It wasn't dark like night time, yet it was dark enough to be gloomy. The moisture in the air left everything to be wet. The trees and vines carried very little leaves, their bark entirely lacking of colour. Everything was in various shades of grey and black. Buildings lay strewn about and as one expected, they were worn down, dismantled, overgrown and some were even upside down. There seemed to be no signs of life anywhere, not even any electricity.

"Just go nice and slow..."

 

[Ghorua the Shark]

Ghorua was nearly in a panic before Kay touched his shoulder. His eyes were locked on the mist ahead, unable to look away from the object of his nightmares. Nightmares that he hadn't succumbed to in many years, but lay dormant in the back of his mind. Nightmares he had almost completely forgotten.

But he was pulled from his past shadows by a hand. Ghorua turned his head to his friend, gratitude in his eyes. She had helped him through this before, even if she didn't remember it.

It was a very Kay-like thing to do.

"A quick look," he repeated, letting the words bolster him. "No harm in that."

After some time, the Jawsome broke into the fog, plunging into the depths like a diving whale. For a few minutes, they had to rely on the ship's scanners to navigate, as the world became mist. Ghorua couldn't bare to look at the viewport, now soaked with condensation, instead keeping his large head pointedly down at the sensor data.

A dark forest lay strewn beneath them as they descended, pocketed by signs of an abandoned civilization. Ghorua recited what they could both see on the sensors. "Scanners are picking up nothing. Life signs are negative, as are the thermals."

There was a part of Ghorua that wanted to say 'hey, we tried' and turn tail, but he quickly stomped out the thought.

Ghorua landed the ship in a large clearing between two crumbled buildings, the ship jostling as it rested upon it's landing gear. "I'm gonna go suit up. Don't leave without me."

The Shark stood, and plodded to his room. If he were stepping into the mists once more, he wasn't pulling any stops.

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[NPC Treasury]

There were no signs of life. That wasn't surprising, however, for the whole place looked abandoned. But at the same time she was sure that Ghorua the Shark had the feeling of being watched just like she had.

"I won't go without you. I promise. If there's anything out there, I'm sure that you're big enough to scare them." She gave him a bit of an encouraging smile, yet his fear was still too much on the surface. If she had to hold his hand on this venture, she would do so. Maybe they'd both feel better that way.

As Ghorua went to suit up, she headed over to the hanger door. There wasn't really anything that she had to bring with her. Her weapon was the Herglic and whatever else her instincts would produce. There was power in those instincts, even if she didn't quite understand it.

Outside the ship, a light breeze move by, shuffling the mist in swirls, yet it did not dissipate it. The air was too heavy for that. And there was silence, an almost deafening silence, for just like in a heavy snowfall, the mists muffled sounds in the air, not allowing them to be carried too far before they died.

To say that it was eerie was an understatement....

 

[Ghorua the Shark]

When Ghorua finally stepped out of his room, he looked much different.

Ghorua had donned his armor quickly, practiced hands making quick work of the power armor's systems. The black beskar plates were an old friend of the Shark, having saved his life on more than one occasion. He could only hope it would continue to protect him now, against whatever dangers were out there. A belt and bandoleer contained doodads and gizmos of all shapes and sizes, each one having been meticulously trained in by the bounty hunter. He knew where everything was, how to get it quickly, and how best to use it.

In his hands, he carried the Firaxa, an enormous blaster cannon that only the Shark could ever wield with any amount of proficiency. At his waist, his blade, a constant friend at his side. And at his shoulder, tucked in it's resting position, was a new toy. One that brought to mind Ghorua's first custom-made blaster; the Seamstress.

Truly, a living, walking armory, Ghorua the Shark was. Kay couldn't ask for a better weapon.

Ghorua found Kay in the Hangar, waiting to be deposited into the great unknown. Ghorua sidled up next to his friend, trying to mask his fear with bluster.

"Let's get going, then. Would hate to keep destiny waiting."

Ghorua opened the hangar door, and immediately forgot his bravado. The mist clung to the air, choking the sound, the sight, the very life out of it.

The Shark couldn't move his feet. It was as if they were welded to the spot. He was glad his helmet was on, as it hid the abject terror on his face. His throat got dry. He felt sweaty.

A beast stirred in the cage of Ghorua's mind.

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[NPC Treasury]

And just when she didn't think that Ghorua the Shark could get any bigger....there he was. The armour was striking and sure to intimidate anyone that saw it. If she wasn't his friend, then surely she'd of turned and gotten out of there quickly.

As the hanger door opened, Kay hesitated. The air was thick with the damp and she shivered. But it was more than just the coldness in the air. This was a different kind of place altogether...

"Well, here goes nothing..." She took hold of his left arm and then stepped down. Once her foot hit the ground, the very sound of it was....hollow. It was as though there was no bass level of sound. Maybe the mist ate it up? She didn't know. Either way it was strange.

She kept on walking, keeping her pace even and her eyes peeled. "Are your sensors picking up anything?" It was hard to say whether or not not picking up anything would be a good sign.