Private Lost in the Sauce

[Delsin Shaw]

VESTAR

Port-Esta. A long abandoned city that once had been a hub for the world of people who knew no death. Yet here we are. Looking at the ashes and remains of the immortal Icarii. A people who had long since been destroyed and been subjugated to a genocide in 3 BBY. Nearly a whole millennium ago. The planet since then has been colonized a couple times here or there, but otherwise no real power structure. No seat of an Empire or Republic. Just a planet in the Outer Rim that no longer saw any real investment.

However, there was a reason why I was here. These people could nearly survive through anything. Studies of many kinds told stories of people who could only be killed by brain damage. Which intrigued me. Such a feat I had only seen in Undead - or worse things that skulk in the darkness. Was there a chance to find anything of value here? Anything that could be gleamed even after so long? Surely with the golden age where planets were terraformed and entire species and cultures brought back from the dead after the subjugation and tithe of the Yuuzhan Vong. Sure, the gulag plague sent us back hundreds of years, but so much explosive expansion and unification of such powers. Maybe there could be the beginnings of their kind again? Could there be a minority of these people still surviving?

I had to find out. If not, then texts and ruins of theirs would suffice. With so many of their kind buried. Even if I could just find a sample of flesh from some mummified remains? I was not too sure if this was possible. The aspect of this alone was enough to bring me out here. Furthering my research and work that I had already spent a number of years after my father's death. Bastard that he was.

I spat on the ground even thinking his name. A quick shake of the head, removing thoughts of such things from my mind before setting off. Making my way to... somewhere.

 

[Niysha]

Tomb worlds came in so many different shapes. The majority of them were deserts or wastelands, of course, but every once in a while Niysha stumbled across a dead planet with a truly interesting biosphere. Vestar's climate was hot, wet, and extremely lively. The majority of the planet had been reclaimed by nature following the holocaust of its native population almost a millennium ago, leaving overgrown ruins and barely-identifiable landmarks to be the only signs of civilization on the whole moss-ball.

It was fascinating to see living tomb worlds. It was even more fascinating when those worlds were so shaped by a singular event that it rewrote the whole planet's identity. After she'd touched down, planted her tracker, and set the security on her scout ship, Niysha had time to truly let herself bask in the breath and heartbeat of a planet that had been transformed by death. Yes, tragedies were still tragedies, even when they were ancient, but the effect of that tragedy on the planet Vestar itself was breathtaking.

Port-Esta was an overgrown corpse. Vines, bushes, trees, and moss had replaced a significant portion of the streets and walls that would have once stood as a testament to Icarii civilization. Through what remained of the buildings around her, Niysha could pick out entire families of birds in the upper floors, and the occasional predator or rodent skulking through openings that had once been doors, windows, or facilities. The whole world was absolutely teeming with life, but the scars of the mass murder of the entire global population were as much a part of it as the foliage.

To be honest with herself, Niysha had no idea what she was going to find here, but she had a suspicion that it would be worth finding.

One thing kept tugging at the edges of her consciousness. Amid all of the primal, natural life and the residue of spirits so old they predated the Gulag Virus, there was a wink of sophisticated life. The whisper of a living thing of higher purpose than food and propogation. Niysha had had some pretty unfortunate encounters in allegedly abandoned places recently, so she was taking no chances. She smothered her presence immediately, reducing her Force signature as thoroughly as she could. With any luck, it would be easy to mistake her for a bird or a rat.

She proceded with caution and stepped lightly. If she wasn't the only explorer here, she wouldn't be caught off-guard like she was last time.

Delsin Shaw

 

[Delsin Shaw]

A deep breath. The smell of the flora and fauna. The air itself had a charm to it. One that wasn't molested by the likes of Sith, Jedi or even people. If it had been, traces of it were long gone and replaced with this expansive area in which allowed for life to reclaim all that had been once held by a higher sentient species. Spending years traveling, working, and stuck in locations where there was no real time for myself. It was... nice. Strange and almost foreign, but not unwelcomed. It reminded me of the early years when Darren was trying to be a father for me. Trying to do what he could. Living on Eshan was a treat at that time. Ignorance in what and who the man truly was under the guise of his transformations.

I knelt down. Feeling the blades of whatever strain of grass or weeds that broke through permacrete and reached for the sky and the star that hung between its horizons. Praying to give it the rays it needed. I softly chuckled to myself for a moment. A shake of the head to remove my thoughts and getting all poetic about stupid grass. Feet picking themselves up and righting my posture, I stood up and looked around more closely. Slowly filtering through the streets that had been taken.

Reaching into my jacket pocket, I produced a simple electromagnetic, and a sonic detector. The tool would push out waves that when reflected back would essentially paint an image in the wrist link for me to see. if there was anything of significance. Sure I could miss things if I didn't look well enough and some textiles could block those signals. But it would show up differently if you knew what to look for. Holding all this out and sweeping along the sides of buildings and moving into the first floor made me feel like the old men on Eshan who would do the same on the beaches. Trying to recover lost items covered by sands.

It started to softly beep as it was doing its job. The device was picking up another floor underneath me. And like any kind of lunatic i spoke to myself.

"Well, now I got to find some way to get down there. Hello stairs, where are you?"

Niysha

 

[Niysha]

As she explored - very cautiously, with a mind for whatever company she had on this planet - Niysha noticed a few very interesting things. She was surrounded by unique plants and animals she'd never seen before, of course, but as she moved deeper into what remained of Port-Esta, the thing that really caught her attention was what seemed to be some kind of substructure. It was a bit outside of her comfortable range, and she didn't want to stop and focus down far enough to see how deep it went when she was still on the lookout for her unknown company, but it was clearly worth a look.

If exploring ruins had taught Niysha anything, it was that after hundreds of years, the stairs would be long overgrown. She might have to cut through them, or else find another way. First things first, though, she needed to establish exactly who else was here, and whether or not they were a legitimate danger to her.

After a few minutes of exceptionally slow, deliberate movement through the ruins of the city, the Miraluka caught herself crouch-walking. It wouldn't do her any good to move slowly and quietly if she didn't even know what she was looking for. Niysha came around a corner and eased up a bit on the "extremely careful, super slow, as quiet as I can possibly move" vibe she'd been focusing so intently on. Instead, as she looked for a way down, she expanded her senses.

While her sight was much more refined than most of her species, Niysha's upper range was still a little over a hundred meters, and the edges got fuzzy by a hundred and fifty. Within that range, she understood sharply where everything around her was... though information overload sometimes made it very difficult to get smaller details when she was too far away. She found her fellow visitor to Port-Esta quickly, but at the distance she was away from them, it was difficult to make out the details of their aura. In general, though, her instincts had been right: the other explorer was at least a trained Force-user, and on the darker end of the scale.

She still approached with caution, though more speed than before. Now that she at least had a bead on where she was going and wasn't worried about danger around every corner, she didn't feel the need to be quite so meek. She'd have the element of surprise, after all.

Delsin Shaw

 

[Delsin Shaw]

I was stuck in my own little world. While I cared little for what was happening outside the little entryway to the building was, Its floors creaked heavily as I walked inward. The scanner picking up the foundation of the location deeper into the ground. Likely whatever floor had been in here had been covered up in the past centuries. Animals or others living within in the smallest of forms. I kept searching for something. Anything that might pick up on whatever was deep beneath the ground. As was the case in where items could be covered up and left to rot by years and years of neglect.

I sighed. Just accepting I wouldn't find anything when it beeped at me. Looking at it, something small was underneath the surface. Just for the hell of it, I scrounged up the multi-tool and plunged it into the earth. Digging a small way just to pull up bowl. It was super close to the surface. Which only told me that whatever had been here tried to use it, or it had been brought in here years ago. Once more, shaking my head and sighing and putting it off to the side.

Leaning back into the kneeling position I had been in to dig up this bowl, I came to let my hands rub down from the crown of my head to my jaw. Stopping for a moment before my hands moved to the tool. Picking it up and folding it away before turning to grab the scanner on the ground. However, I stopped in my tracks. I could feel a soft presence. One that was clearly not one of the local flora or fauna. Brow furrowed quickly before I moved back inwards of the building. Further away from the door and any possible other openings. While I was putting myself in the corner, I was giving myself space from any fulcrums of travel. If whatever this is would be coming for me, then I wanted space to fight it back.

In places of death and destruction, there were many creatures of Sithspawn that would call this place their home. Slowly, I reached down to the hilt along my belt. The crossguard weapon held gently in my left hand. Slightly behind me to keep it out of sight of anyone entering the doorway.

Waiting. Wanting to see if this thing would either leave, or attempt to make contact with me.

Niysha

 

[Niysha]

And closer, and closer, annnd...

Niysha hesitated on her approach only when she saw the person she was tracking react to her presence. She was close enough to determine the more minute characteristics of their aura, and that alone made her stop and really attempt to suss out what she was seeing. She'd need to be closer, of course, but from what she could tell at this range, the person ahead of her was... distinctly dark and very alert. Useful information. There were ways of putting dark Jedi off their extremely dangerous and somewhat twitchy guard.

Niysha didn't draw her lightsaber, and instead brought up her datapad, still running scans, taking imaging samples... standard researcher behavior. She didn't react in any way that would increase the level of tension in the air; even if she hadn't managed to bury her presence well enough to avoid notice - Bogan test her, again - she could at least keep her sharp current of anxiety smothered beneath her much more comfortable sense of curiosity and scholar's glee.

When she was within a hundred meters or so, she broke the silence and raised her voice. "Hello?" Well. "Raised her voice." Niysha's voice was barely loud enough to be conversational most of the time, and even attempting to shout mostly left it cracking uncomfortably rather than echoing into the city's ruins. She continued on her approach like a lazily guided missile, taking efficient but indirect paths towards the other Force-user's location.

When she happened upon the shelter he was inside, Niysha knocked gently on the outside, near the door. "Excuse me. Didn't mean to surprise you." Now that she was close enough, she spoke at her normal level; soft, warm, and a little bit intimate. It would've been hard to hear her in a room with even a small number of people talking in it. "I picked up a ship on my long-range earlier and figured we could compare notes."

For the moment, Niysha had the advantage of information. She could see the man inside perfectly, though that didn't provide her with anything other than more questions. He was dark, yes, and intense enough to be well-trained, but there was a truly uniquely odd hollowness to his aura, like parts were cut out entirely. Empty bits. The remaining darkness swirled with a cloud of guarded caution, the low level of anxiety that anyone felt when ambushed, and crackled like lightning with curiosity and readiness... but all of that maneuvered about as if his whole aura was still there. The clouds and sparks of emotion and power passed over empty holes in his entire existence as if they weren't even there, winking out of view and back into it as they crossed the verge back into a living being.

Honestly, that was one of the most unique souls Niysha had ever seen.

"I'll wait out here, away from the door. I'm armed to deal with animals, but I'll only fire in self-defense," she established, then backed away from the door to take a seat on a large, mossy clump of collapsed duracrete. Not her favorite chair, but it'd do to present non-aggression.

Delsin Shaw