First Reply Stuck In A Sarlacc In Grek

[Tilon Quill]

Just enough of the urgency of the moment - she'd finally connected with someone - got through, and Tilon shut up. "I'm fine," he wheezed. The sarlacc was talking now, Chiss voices in his head accompanied by gurgles in its guts, a dam breaking.

The Chiss child's personality, what remained of it in the sarlacc's absorptive mind, had a great deal to say, a lot of fear to get out, a lot of anger at being compelled to come to this world and this part of the world when she'd known it was a horrible idea. She talked about sky-walkers and secrets and domineering adults and not being able to remember her younger childhood. She talked about what was clearly instinctive astrogation, but at a level that Tilon had never achieved, experienced, or heard of among the Jedi. She talked about loneliness and pain and realizing that she could persist as one of these voices.

As one of them and something more, a deeper echo. So she could continue — when her voice made it through the noise — being the guide she'd been for her whole short life.

So she could get people out.

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

"Hey! You still there!?" Asked the spacer on the other side.

Arris found herself thoroughly distracted by Tilon below her. She wasn't sure what, but something felt different. Was it the air? Maybe the drugs are wearing off? No... This was an unfamiliar feeling, yet at the same time, felt like it had always been there. It took another annoyed 'hello' from the stranger to shake her out of it.

"Yes! Sorry. I uh... Sending coordinates right now. Please. We are in urgent need of assistance." Thankfully, she knew how to send a beacon using her own cyberware. "Do you have the signal?"

No reply. The channel hadn't disconnected. The port was still open. But no reply.

The cyborg took a moment to refocus on Tilon. She wondered how he was doing and tried to look down, though she saw nothing.

"Are you still fine?"

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

He came up for air, so to speak, deeply unsettled.

"She told me about sarlacc anatomy," he wheezed. "The voice I was...speaking with. She's part of it but also held onto herself. We're in...a secondary stomach where it keeps smarter...people for absorption. She said there's paralysis toxin in the fluids; that's why we feel weak, it's not just the tendrils holding us. She also said the redundant hearts and...lungs are right besides us. I can...I have Jedi thought patterns for detoxification. Don't know what to do about the hearts and lungs but...something.You? Thoughts? Any luck on comms?"

In his childhood he'd once seen a Sith Lord stop someone's heart with a gesture. It was not a happy memory and not a route he could plausibly pull off even if he wanted to. At need, though...

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

As he began to explain, Arris followed along as it were any other conversation. It took her until 'I have Jedi thought patterns for detox' to find herself completely lost.

"What?" She asked flatly. "What does that even mean?" Oh, to be completely lost and digested alive.

"Listen, I don't know how much help I can be unless the brick of spice I'm smuggling would be of any use." She wasn't kidding. "As for comms... I don't know, thought they took me seriously, but they haven't said a word. Their channel is still open, though."

Okay, she had to back things up. "But what the hell do you karkin' mean by speaking with a voice? I thought you didn't have your own comms!"

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

"You're right, you're right, it's...too many threads. A day's worth of work and talk and...minutes to do it." The burning was quite painful now. He focused on Jedi detoxification routines regardless. The weakness began to ease.

With it came clarity. The voices in his head subsided to a roar, except for the one currently burning itself out to be dominant. The Chiss girl. She had thoughts.

Tilon said: "We're right above the... digestive cocoons, the long term residents that make up its consciousness. My boots are being grabbed by...that. If you find a way to get half the spice through the stomach wall toward the hearts and lungs, pass me half and I can shove it down into the consciousness..."

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris was glad that her cybernetics allowed certain levels of flexibility her organic body never could. It took some uncomfortable maneuvering, and probably meant she had pushed Tilon a little further down, but she managed to remove the tight package of spice that was strapped to her thigh.

A moment of self-pity. She imagined just how many credits she was throwing away, not to mention the pissed off dealer who expected the supply.

With a sigh, she bit down on one end and tore with her hand on the other. Some of it poured towards the Jedi below.

"Here, try to catch!" She said as she dropped half below.

The scoundrel had started to sweat profusely on what natural flesh remained. Her system was working overtime, and so she felt the strain.

Now, the next challenge... How the hell to get her half of the spice towards the heart and lungs. "What exactly am I doing?" She felt stuck and needed his guidance. Her fear emanated like a heat spike during a full burn, but she kept up a calm facade--for now.

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

"Just get it...through the wall!"

No easy task; that was all something like stomach lining up there. At least she was clear of the gastric sphincter region. Tilon had bigger problems: the spice was pouring down, not a brick exactly but a powder. Why had he thought it would be some kind of compressed solid-

Powder touched acid-burned skin and Tilon found the pain gone, replaced by a tense and terrifying euphoria. Frantically, he dug into his detoxification routines even harder, trying to prevent an overdose. What was this, some ryll kor derivative? Not glitterstim, thank feth, that could have really changed the situation, but hard to work with, hard to wriggle it down his clothes and boots while trying not to crash out. He shoved and trampled with his boots against the boundary between selective stomach and long-term carcass/intelligence storage; down there was membrane but also orifice, and it had a grip on him for that transition.

The grip twitched. Shivered. The voices in his head spiked high and jumbled one at a time as, he imagined, spice began to percolate through the sarlacc's distributed intelligence. The stomach quivered around him and its tendrils spasmed and relaxed. Right now, hopefully, she was doing the same to its heart and lungs as he was doing to its minds. This particular sub-stomach was certainly impacted already.

"Climb! Rip and climb! Go!"

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

The product was specifically a variant that crossed giggledust with the Ryloth OG, all of which was processed in facilities on Llanic.

"Through the wall?" Feth. That seemed easier said than done, especially in her current state.

She listened to him, though, as he was her only hope of escaping this place alive. She snorted a small amount of the spice and grimaced as she got to work. Her jaw had been reinforced some time ago, after it and most of her teeth were shattered in a swoop accident. Still, the idea of biting her way through the stomach lining of a sarlacc was... uncomfortable to say the least. Especially as the acid got into her mouth, and started to erode at the more sensitive lining of her throat.

It gave her the leverage she needed, a tear deep enough that she was able to shove her fist through and expand it. Slowly but surely. Now she was caught in an awkward position, like a trapeze artist caught in their ropes, with one arm bent one way, a leg a different way. It hurt, it was uncomfortable, and it made her claustrophobia all the worse. Were it not for the newfound high, she'd be screaming her lungs out.

Finally, she managed to shove the rest of her spice into that hole. She hoped it was deep enough.

"Climb!?" She shouted down below her. Her vision was sharp. Her senses more intense. She didn't even realize how much damage had been done to her body anymore. She squirmed and struggled, trying to move further up.

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

The stomach pocket wrenched and spasmed with agonizing tightness. Somewhere a Chiss child was chanting the equivalent of 'puke, puke, puke!' and howling it as a cheer.

The universe became a high-pressure upward rush. Tilon drew his limbs in tight and tucked his head and shut his stinging eyes. He had the sense of being shoved against Arris' boots, then through a tight space, then up through snaking appendages and a hard-edged beak the size of a starfighter, and then he was airborne in a torrent of digestion.

He sprawled helpless in tall green grass that steamed with sarlacc bile. This sarlacc lived in rolling fertile hills that would have fit Naboo.

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

"Wha-"

That was all Arris could mutter as the beast suddenly rugurgitated. A powerful spew and spasm to eject the drugs, and--fortunately--them along with it. She should've realized this was the plan, or at least part of it, though she thought their job was to relax the muscles and climb their way out.

Was this better? Yeah. Objectively speaking. But it still felt like chit to be covered in acidic goop and flung out and onto the grass, where she rolled like she had just bailed a moving speeder.

"Pius Dea!" She exclaimed, then tilted her head towards where Tilon lay. "I can't believe that worked," she said between bated breath.

Arris felt like she had just gotten her ass kicked and thrown out of a cantina. The smell made it authentic. Then, just as she had collected herself and was ready to ask questions, the roar of starship engines quickly approached. A shiny dot on the horizon that grew larger by the second. Was it the freighter she had been in contact with, or someone else?

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

Truth be told, Tilon hadn't expected the spasm thing either and was not doing so well. The nice grassland breeze scraped at his chemical burns. He puked only a little bit as he got to his feet.

He took in his co-escapee, who was definitely blonder than his mental image but just as cybernetic as he'd envisioned. He figured it must have hurt to get those — by choice or necessity — and also figured she had a decent pain tolerance, but this sarlacc bile was really something.

"Good to meet you," he managed. "Sorry to...jabber in there."

He wiped his hands in grass, then wiped his stinging eyes, and squinted at the sky.

"Is that the ship you called?"

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris looked down at the acidic damage on her cybernetics, and she felt the fresh wounds on the flesh of her face. Her hair was damaged, too. It seemed her pain dampeners had held strong throughout their ordeal, or else she would've noticed the severity of their situation sooner.

It was especially not great when she coughed up some blood. Arris waved weakly when Tilon greeted her. "Oh... If anything, I didn't mind the company. Jabber and all." It certainly made the experience more survivable. She likely would've been just another personality in the beast had she been alone.

She looked towards the ship and wondered. "I sure hope so." Because if not, then the very people who fed her to the beast might have noticed her signal.

It was the cyborg's turn to realize that Tilon wasn't anything she expected either. A species she did not recognize, and a getup she did not imagine. Maybe it was the whole 'Jedi' thing, but she expected a curt, plain, and--at least from her perspective--less pretty man.

Her momentary distraction was over when the ship continued its beeline towards their position.

"Well, whoever it is," she coughed again and cleared her throat. "They sure seem to be here for us."

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

Arris Windrun

Tilon raked stinging fingers through his mucked hair to clear it from his eyes. "Big ship, too...shavvit, I'm not hiding in the sarlacc if this goes bad."

On a scale of 1 to 20, where 1 is homicidal villainy and 20 is benevolent comfort aboard a state-of-the-art medical ship capable of rescuing not just them but some of the half-digested people entombed in the sarlacc...

 

[Arris Windrun]

"Don't worry, I can talk my way out of anything." Arris tried to reassure him.

A voice burst through the speaker on her jacket. Which now had the quality of a tin can after being damaged inside the stomach.

"Hello? We're at your signal, and all we see is a monster. This isn't some joke, right?" They asked.

Arris managed to stand up after some struggle with refinding her balance, but thankfully, her legs had a mind of their own. She just wobbled a bit at the torso, then began to wave her arms erratically.

"Wait," the ship added. "I think I see someone. Marv, land the ship."

She didn't recognize the voices or this 'Marv' character, which rang good to her senses.

"Hey we're down here!" Arris called out on their channel. She looked down at Tilon. "I think it's good news," she smiled weakly.

The vessel touched down about half a klick from their position. They weren't about to take chances with the sarlacc, probably a good thing, too. The cyborg walked over to where the Jedi was in the grass and offered her hand.

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon was a little wobbly now, and Arris' grip steadied him in valuable ways as they set off through the grass. "I didn't hear any feel of deception or malice," he said. "I've got a nose for that. Not to mix metaphorical senses."

He let go of her hand to wipe off sarlacc bile and wobbled quite a bit. Part of the problem was a sobering glimpse of vision. A young Chiss girl in a uniform, standing off in the grass alongside their path, giving him a sad smile and a nod, there one moment and gone the next.

"I wonder what it would take to crack a sarlacc open," he said absently. "Whether medical science and Jedi healers could pull someone out who'd been digested for decades or centuries and give them a life back. The right cybernetics..."

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

"Hmm?" She caught some of his absent speech, particularly 'cybernetics' as the word had been burned into her brain. "What's that?"

Her curiosity would never be sated, even in the seriousness of their survival.

Meanwhile, a trio departed the ship and hiked their way across the idyllic field towards them. Two humanoids and a droid.

Arris' attention bounced between their steady approach and the Jedi beside her. She looked at him again and asked. "So, what exactly are all these 'feelings' and 'senses' you have? I recall some mention of it in the stomach, too. I... don't get it."

Even a latent force sensitive such as herself could notice things that others did not, but she lacked any awareness or definition to put it all in perspective. To her, things were just gut feelings or personal wisdom.

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

"Well, imagine someone eaten away but fitted with a comfortable life support system and cybernetic limbs and sensory organs, maybe inside a protective chassis..."

What to even say to the second question though? He'd given the Force and Jedi Philosophy 101 talk to any number of people across multiple galaxies. Right now it seemed hollow.

"Different cultures have different names for it. Jedi call it the Force. It's more of a psychic and life energy network between everything alive. There's a thousand ways to listen to it or control it or get other benefits from it. Most people can learn it with a decade or two of the right training. A few have a gift to pick it up much faster. Like most Jedi, I'm somewhere in between. My thing is languages and translation. If these people didn't speak Basic..."

But they did, of course, and introductions were made, and a medical suite was promised, and pretty soon they were getting chemical burns treated in that medbay, thank feth.

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

"Yeah, I've heard of it." She replied. "I even met someone who claimed to be Grandmaster of the Jedi Order, though I'm pretty sure she was just a cop."

That was a bad day. A lost fight, a bar fight lost and then won. She invited the strange woman back to her place, for anything but fun, and all wrapped up in a swoop chase to the nearest spaceport. Okay, on paper it sounds kinda great with some bad mixed in. But it sucked. Arris shook herself out of the mental recap.

The only thing she caught at the end of that was his mention of languages and translation. "That explains the talented tongue of yours. I don't think I've heard half the languages or dialects that you spouted back there."

"Say, you wanna stay in touch? We've already gotten out of one mess together. Can't hurt to have competent friends, eh?"

Tilon Quill

 

[Tilon Quill]

Tilon, who was having a med droid resurface his face just now and was also laughing disproportionately at 'just a cop,' took a beat to process that. "I'd like that," he said. "I solemnly swear I have never done cop work, Jedi or not."

Were there even Grandmasters right now? Everything from Jedi Councils on up was a blur, one of the upside of being unaffiliated with Orders. There were at least two big true Jedi Orders. Maybe four.

"The woman you met — kind of sour looking? Spends more on accessories than your ship's worth? Death toll in the hundreds?"

Arris Windrun

 

[Arris Windrun]

Arris grinned at his solemn swear. Not that she expected him to be a cop at all, it was actually a nice thing to hear.

When he asked her about the woman specifically, she had to stop and think about it. "Well... I don't know about sour-looking, but she was well-dressed. Skin-tight jumpsuit that looked designed for her specifically. Quick to act, infallible confidence, a little pushy, and morally zealous." She tried to recall if they ever exchanged names. Probably, but she just couldn't remember who the woman was.

"Wanted me to be an informant in exchange for her help. She was interested in the Hutts specifically."

"No idea about death toll." She shrugged.

Arris tilted her head. "Why do you ask?"

Tilon Quill