STAR WARS: A Warlord's Gambit

[Causstik Rahn]

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

On the distant planet of Mugg Fallow far from the prying eyes of the public, slavers were having a hay day. Scum and villainy had come from around the galaxy to partake in the worlds largest black market. You could buy anything here. Particle weapons, Rakattan tech, and even slaves. It was like the galaxy's largest garage sale for scoundrels. Mugg Fallow was surrounded by a ring of old derelict ships caught in orbit. Many of these old vessels had been brought from space and were now featured in the sales or made up parts of the city.

​

Where ships did not make for homes bones did. Mugg Fallow had been racked for centuries by an entity the natives called the "Rot God". Over the millennia the hive mind had subsided and now lay in wait in the presiding seas. But the countless thousands who had been consumed by this "Rot God", they found their bones littering the city. Used for brick and their marrow for mortar. Trandoshans made up most of this cities population and they believed whole heartedly in their bastardized entity.

Source​

As a result they had dug a giant pit for sacrificial and gladiatorial entertainment. Great warriors would go into the pits and fight any of the slaves who had been so unlucky as to find themselves on Mugg Fallow at the time. These poor sods would have their bodies dedicated to the one true king. Causstik Rahn, in hopes that one day he would ascend to god hood himself and sit atop the throne eternal next to the Rot God and Scorekeeper. Occasionally during holidays the King might deign the time worthy enough to fight him self. It was always a grand spectacle when he did. Facing off against Rancor's or Drouk's. They say he once arm wrestled one of the beast and won.

Where did these tails originate from? One of Mugg Fallows many seedy bars. Deep in the slums, where the houses were made of bone and hide and sewage was lacking their was a bar called the Drunken Monkey Lizard. It was renowned for its most delicious ail and wonderful stories. Atop the stage a Trandoshan woman would sit hissing away her love songs and most outsiders would merely cover their ears, but back at the bar was where they really made their money. The ail was a tad bitter, but had a delicious tangerine fruity taste to it, coupled with a dollop of honey. It was said by some that the stuff was ichor of the gods themselves. It was here in this bar of slavers, scum , and scoundrels that the story began....

Source​

[member="Alice Tarr"], [member="Thraxis"], [member="Phoebus"], [member="Benjamin Atlas"], [member="Roth Staflo"], [member="Lark"]

 

[Alice Tarr]

A much urgent refuel had left Alice on Mugg Fallow and to be more precise in the Drunken Monkey Lizard. As an ex-lady of high status she felt that she stuck out like a sore thumb.

Alice surveyed the bar for a while before setting her sights on a secluded table. Slowly she made her way over to it, sitting on the seat and taking up her favourite hobby of people watching.

 

[Benjamin Atlas]

Mug Fallow, one huge black market. The assassin rarely found himself on this planet, but when he did he enjoyed watching the fights at the Pitt, where warriors would fight the slaves of the planet.

Benji walked the slums of Mug Fallow, he was looking for a bar, while the patrons itself was nothing special, but he had heard the ale was good. The teen himself didnt drink, or even eat anything that normal humans would eat, Rapax were different, they depended on the flesh of humanoids. Benji closed his eyes for a second before reopening them and walking into the bar, from the outside the only thing that could be heard was the singing of a Trandoshan woman.

Benji opened the door to the Drunken Monkey Lizard and instantly the smell of honey and tangerine filled his nose. The teen gagged before taking a step back outside of the bar, pulling down his mask, and throwing up, he hated the smell. Benjamin wiped his mouth and pulled up his mask again, he took a deep breath before walking back in, his red eyes would peer around the bar, the teen blocked out the smell of citrus and honey.

He made his way to the bar, it was pretty crowded, he sat at an empty stool and looked at the bartender but remained silent.

[member="Causstik Rahn"]
[member="Alice Tarr"]

 

[Frankenpup]

Roth's had apparently gotten on the wrong ship in this last attempt to stow away, because this was not the planet he had intended to see when he got off at all. He couldn't really tell where he was at first but from this he could find that he had not visited this planet before.

He quickly made his way out of sight, following his ears as his eyes and nose were being absolutely assaulted by the place he had landed in thus far. The sound of yelling and singing led him to a bar. Apparently called the Drunken Monkey Lizard from what he could tell. He thinks he has heard of this place before, but he knows he hasn't been in it. He adjusts the blaster in his holster before going into the bar.

He's finally able to sniff the air around him, and he surveys the area in the bar. A few odd ones definitely, and-

Roth's smile widens as he sees the seemingly high class woman sitting at a table alone. Almost asking for him to steal from her. He moves over, sitting across from the woman at the table, smiling in a bright, innocent way at her, nose twitching.

[member="Alice Tarr"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"] [member="Causstik Rahn"]

 

[Alice Tarr]

Alice turns her head to face Roth before looking him up and down. Her gaze is locked for a while before she turns away again as if he doesn't exist.

She briefly scans the room again, taking note of the teen sat at the bar.

[member="Roth Staflo"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"]

 

[Causstik Rahn]

Amidst the smoky room, a large burly Trandoshan made his entrance. Silence fell across the bar as he made his way across the floor and sat atop a bar stool. He looked around observing the room. The bar was dimly lit. Tables littered the floor in various positions. The floor was a myriad of all sorts of colors from puke green to beer yellow. Or maybe it wasn't beer.. The bar table was covered in shells of various nuts and bar wenches raced to and fro delivering drinks to drunken scumbags. The noise resumed in the room only this time as a whisper.

Causstik spoke to the bar keep while he eyed the wealthy woman in the back. "Someone would pay a fortune for her," The warlord decided he would hold her for ransom then when paid, sell her into slavery. "Give her the best drink you got," The bar tender knew what he meant and prepared a piping hot glass of tea for the woman. When done he poured a dollop of nightshade in too. Then sent it over to her. If she chose to drink the tea she would soon find herself very drowsy.

[member="Alice Tarr"], [member="Roth Staflo"], [member="Benjamin Atlas"]

 

[Alice Tarr]

The bar tender delivered the drink without a word from Alice, just a simple smile.

She observed the drink, pondered taking a sip but had her thoughts being overtaken by how out of place she felt. She knew the wealth from her old status still had an effect on her mannerisms and appearance, of course it would. After a while of staring at the drink, wrapped in though she lifted it and took a sip before planting it back down onto the table. Resuming her people watching.

​

[member="Causstik Rahn"] [member="Roth Staflo"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"]​

 

[Lark]

"When I told you to select a meeting spot, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind." Lark sat at a table that had seen it's fair share of bar fights, and the putrid scent of cheap alcohol filled the air. His companion, a serial killer that he had swayed into working for him, sat smiling across from him. That was good, a smile always meant that his assignment had been successful.

"Sorry about that, but it's the only spot I could find with such short notice. Anyways, Mugg Fallow is one big crime ring, I wouldn't be shocked if five other groups in here were having a similar conversation! I'm impressed you'd actually come here and pay me a personal visit. So you must need something done, I'll handle whatever it is you need. Just tell me, who do you want me to kill next?"

Lark studied the man, Bruj Tott was his name. Middle-aged, and the most average looking person you could find. On the outside he was a kind, smiling man, the type you'd invite over for dinner if he was your neighbor. A perfect target to corrupt into a killer.

Lark handed Bruj a picture of three people; a mother and father standing beside their seven year old son. He also gave a list of their names. "These three live in the outskirts of Mos Doba, on Tatooine. Kill two of the three of them, it doesn't matter which. Frame the local Hutt Cartel for the murders, then report back to me."

"Consider it done." Bruj took the picture and names and walked out of the bar, if he was efficient as he had been in the past, the family would be slaughtered within the week.

As soon as Bruj walked out, a behemoth of a Trandoshan entered, and all went quiet, his presence terrified most of the others. Lark lounged in his seat, legs crossed, curious. The beast had sent some woman who looked to be out of her element a drink, and if the monster was as brutish as he looked, the drink was probably poisoned.

[member="Alice Tarr"] [member="Causstik Rahn"] [member="Roth Staflo"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"]

 

[Frankenpup]

As Roth sat down near the woman, he ordered a drink. The first one he had in a while, given that he hadn't been able to get off the ship he had stowed away on for nearly two weeks. As the bartender goes to get it he turns to the girl near him.

"Hello!" he says in a rather sweet, innocent tone in his voice. "You look awful pretty to be in a place like this. What's a lady like you doing here?" he says, his ears going to the side, and smiling brightly in an attempt to seem both cute and unintelligent. This usually worked rather well on some upperclass women, and he was genuinely curious to some degree of why she was in the seedy bar on this planet he couldn't recognize.

Alice Tarr Benjamin Atlas Causstik Rahn

 

[Alice Tarr]

"My ship is refueling. You?" Alice replies before turning to face him.

She slowly lifts her drink and sips another bit before placing it back down.

Alice sat cautiously in her seat, unsure if she can trust him.

[member="Roth Staflo"] [member="Causstik Rahn"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"]​

 

[Frankenpup]

"Just kind of- ended up here." he says with a laugh, scratching the back of his neck and not losing the smile on his face.

The bartender brings him his drink and he pays, saying a quick: "Thank you!" before he leaves and he takes a drink. "The ship I was on didn't want me no more." he says with a sigh, smile dropping for a second, ears falling back.

[member="Alice Tarr"] [member="Lark"] [member="Causstik Rahn"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"]

 

[Benjamin Atlas]

The teen heard scattered catcalls as the Trandoshan woman finished a song. Benji would look over to the stage and smile. Soon the panted of feet could be heard, glancing from the bar, he would notice a Squib with blue fur enter. Benji would growl, the way the Squib carried himself as he walked over to bother a woman made him irritated, he shifted his gaze to the woman the Squib sat next to. She was more out of place than the Squib. She carried herself differently...the way she sat. He turned his attention back to the bar. He was about to speak to the bartender when the room went silent, a large Trandoshan male walked in as he sat next to the Rapax, a strong smell of iron would travel to the teen's nose. The smell of blood. The teen would grip the table as he helped back the urge to crack. He re-composed himself and listened as the man ordered a drink to send to the woman...he would smile, the tea he had sent... knowing this planet was drugged. Of course the teen didn't care he would chuckle softly at it before watching the order make its way to the woman.

As his red eyed gaze moved across the room, a man...classy...red hair sat staring at the Trandoshan that sat next to him. The teen was intrigued by the man, he obviously was not intimidated by the Trandoshan. He simply nodded ti the red haired man before turning to the Trandoshan.

"Getting a bride won't be that easy...you do realise you aren't the best looking guy here..." He would chuckle before holding a hand up in mock surrender.

"Of course I don't mean anything by it...you do have more of a chance than that Squib... though he is very...furry." he paused before gazing at Lark

"That dude over there might have a good chance though." The teen said as he chuckled some more.

[member="Causstik Rahn"]
[member="Alice Tarr"]
[member="Lark"]
[member="Roth Staflo"]
@Phobeus
[member="Thraxis"]

 

[Causstik Rahn]

Causstik watched as the girl drank her tea. Within moments she would feel the effects. The Rapax next to Causstik spoke of the girl as a beautiful object to be desired. Did he think of Causstik as some sort of hutt? A collector of lavish things? No this girl was profit waiting to happen. He was going to sell her to the highest bidder and with the money he would fuel his war machine. Slowly his Empire would grow. Slowly his name would be recognized through out the galaxy. And it would be feared. He was no Hutt, no power hungry senator, he was just a Trandoshan who wanted to see the galaxy burn. Causstik shrugged at the Rapax's words and stood up. A tankard in hand. He approached the girl's table and growled at the squib sitting there.

"Watch it pip squeak," he said, his voice sounding of gravel. He leaned against the table towards the female. "You miss, do not belong here," he hissed as his finger found purchase on the button beneath. It led to a series of trap doors that lined all the bars on Mugg Fallow. These trapdoors led to a large set of catacombs that lay beneath the city. They were lined with thousands of bones of the slaves who had become trapped in them. Anyone who attempted to find their way out would usually get lost and die. Only the Trandoshans knew the tunnels.

The trapdoor beneath [member="Alice Tarr"] opened and the girl fell down the rabit hole. A cacophony of laughter racked the bar as the scum and villainy watched her misfortune. Causstik looked to the squib "Your next," he pressed another button and [member="Roth Staflo"] would fall through another trapdoor. The voices were screaming in his head. Kill. Kill. Them all.. Causstik looked to [member="Benjamin Atlas"].

"YOU, YOU WILL FIGHT IN MY ARENA!" The Rot God called for blood

[member="Lark"]

 

[Alice Tarr]

Alice fell down the trapdoor, slowly passing out as she did. The ride down was bumpy, keeping Alice somewhat alert..

She hit the bottom of the slope, attempting to stand but failing, she passed out from the drugged tea.

[member="Causstik Rahn"][member="Benjamin Atlas"][member="Roth Staflo"]​

 

[Lark]

An uproar of shouts and jeers surrounded Lark as the woman and the blue one fell into the unknown depths below. The large Trandoshan had walked over and said something to the unfortunate pair, before triggering a lever of some sort that plunged them into the darkness. Lark felt around underneath his table, and felt a button that, if pressed, would probably send him into the same fate. If the Trandoshan approached Lark, he'd be prepared to jump out of harms way.

"YOU, YOU WILL FIGHT IN MY ARENA!"

Lark looked up, unsure on whether or not the Trandoshan was addressing him, but he was speaking to the teen that had been sitting beside him at the bar just moments before. Lark clicked his heels together, double checking to make sure his knives were strapped to his ankles. They were, and he had one more sheathed on his hip and another hidden beneath his sleeves. He thought about getting up and leaving, but he knew doing so would attract the attention of the Trandoshan, who must hold some authority to have his own arena. Instead he chuckled softly, trying to blend in with the others who still cackled on the piss-covered floor.

[member="Alice Tarr"] [member="Causstik Rahn"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"] [member="Roth Staflo"]

 

[Frankenpup]

"Pipsqueak?" he says, scrunching up his snout, still trying to keep his cute, dumb look about him. But before he could correct him on his words, he watched [member="Alice Tarr"] fall through the floor. His ears flatten and his fur bristles nervously as he takes another look up at the guy who had interrupted him and was now growling roughly at him.

He swallows and grips the blaster in his holster before he's sent through the floor, yelping much like a dog would. As he fell to the bottom of the slope, he looked around in panic. He scrambles to his feet and shakes himself, quickly calling out for the woman who he had been sent down with. Seeing her slumped over he rushes over, shaking her shoulder, and cursing when she doesn't wake up.

What the hell did this guy want with him and her? He could have just been a creep or something but why take Roth too? He sniffs the air to see if anyone else living was still around, staying next to the girl.

[member="Lark"] [member="Causstik Rahn"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"]

 

[Benjamin Atlas]

The Rapax watched as the Trandoshan shrugged off his comments and stood from his bar seat. With a mug in hand, the large warlord walked to the table that held the Squib and noble. A booming voice sounded as the bar went silent. The Rapax turned his attention to the Trandoshan who began to lean over the woman's table. Soon the monster would press a button, the woman would drop through a trap door...then a scream. Not much time had passed when the blue Squib had followed after. The shouts of bar patrons began 'kill kill them all.' would sound.

The Trandoshan would turn directly to Benji.

"You, YOU WILL FIGHT IN MY ARENA." The booming voice would sound. The Rapax could only give a small smile as he stood from his chair and gazed around. Surely he was dead if he opposed, only a fool would try to go against the will of a king...why, the whole bar would fight for his wish.

The Rapax glanced over to the man with red hair before turning his attention back to the warlord.

"What makes you think you could make me do chit?" The assassin said with a growl. He narrowed his eyes.

"You have no authority over me." He added all while remaining in a relaxed position.

[member="Causstik Rahn"]
[member="Alice Tarr"]
[member="Lark"]
[member="Roth Staflo"]

 

[Causstik Rahn]

The boy was either a fool or just very brave. He was surrounded by Trandoshan slavers whom were armed to the teeth and thought of Causstik as a god. They would do whatever he wished. He wanted no quarel today though. A great deal of money was soon to be made and this called for celebration. He twirled a finger in the air and the bar tender gave everyone a round on the house. He approached the lad and placed an arm around him.

"Listen to me. To serve the scorekeeper is a glorious honor. The victor is always rewarded..." Causstik's hand slipped to his belt and he withdrew a holorecording. He pressed play and the machine buzzed to life. A Trandoshan could be seen, one foot atop a Rancor. His hands thrust high into the air. The crowd roared in approval and credits, silks, gold, and other treasures reigned down upon him. "The champion of these festivities is always greatly rewarded. For he is truly chosen by the gods," The fact that Causstik failed to mention that no one had won since was of little consequence. In fact Causstik was the only one to have ever won and so his people believed him to be a demigod. "So what do you say?" He asked the rapax. If the man said no again Causstik would have him killed or thrown into the pits aswell.

Meanwhile in the catacombs where Alice and Roth lay...

The maze stretched for miles. Bones lined the walls. Skulls of the former prisoners that had served as slaves in life now served again in death. They were the basis of the very walls that had previously held them captive. Large bone pillars made up of forearms and hands acted as supports for the roofs. All over scattered piles of more bones lay in heaps. It was obviously a death sentence to be thrown down here. Soon a Trandoshan would emerge from the depths of the dark to retrieve [member="Alice Tarr"]. Leaving the Squib to brave the maze or wait for the arena, or if he was smart and sneaky... Follow the Trandoshan.

[member="Lark"], [member="Roth Staflo"], [member="Benjamin Atlas"]

 

[Frankenpup]

As he hears the footsteps of the large creature approaching, he curses under his breath once more before ducking out of the way, out of the Trandoshan's line of sight. As he walks off with [member="Alice Tarr"] , Roth perks his ears up.

He stays close to the ground, crawling on all fours behind the Trandoshan. He wasn't really ready to stick around and find out why that big brute had brought him down here, and he wasn't just going to leave the girl here all alone.

[member="Causstik Rahn"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"] [member="Lark"]

 

[Lark]

Not the wisest move to defy the man, Lark thought to himself, studying the scene. Although since fighting in the arena was likely a death sentence anyways, perhaps he felt he had nothing to lose. Lark thought the Trandoshan would instantly slaughter the lad, but instead he tried to persuade him without violence. How odd.

The bartender gave him an odd look when giving him his drink, but after seeing what happened to the woman from earlier, there was no way he was drinking it. He wouldn't be staying for much longer anyways. Once the excitement from earlier settled down, he'd make his exit.

[member="Roth Staflo"] [member="Causstik Rahn"] [member="Benjamin Atlas"] [member="Alice Tarr"]