Private The Depths we Travel

[Rayth]

"Do not eat her."

That had been the warning offered by Darth Reprimar as he headed for the shuttle.

"Her master is a rising star. He will not take the news well. Even though you are most definitely not my apprentice it will reflect badly on me. For you...a fate worse than death."

As Rayth sat in the back of the shuttle, huddled over his knees, it was quite an easy message to obey. He had fed recently. Even if he could feel her pulse and see the faint flutter against her pale neck, he kept his control.

It was something he needed to learn. On the streets he had almost always been hungry. In the event of catching a lone, drunk or spiced up reveller in a back alley Rayth had demonstrated no self control.

Annika Starfire seemed more interested in her personal device.

They had different skills. Reprimar had highlighted that, too. If her master was on the rise, then so was she. She was beginning to understand how to navigate the social hierarchy of the sith. He was not.

For this mission they would need to combine their skills. He knew how to hunt in the dark. And the lowest levels of Denon were always dark.

"What do you think we should do?" Rayth asked suddenly, silencing the tap-tap-tapping of fingernails on device screen. "Break the seals and head into the lost district, or ask around and find out what happened?"

And entire area of Denon had been sealed off. The official story was that there had been a chemical leak. Within that area had been a Sith safe house, from which operations to understand the Alliance presence in the area had been conducted. It was suspicious, but not important enough to warrant any more than two acolytes to investigate.

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

Annika sat on the shuttle flipping rapidly through her feed while the guy she had been fixed up with for this investigation sat on the seat behind her. Every so often when her screen went black she caught his reflection in it. She liked hanging out with this guy, he was cute, her sister judged her for having such a clichéd "type" but there was something about the edges brooding type that just did it for her. She was being good today though, she was consciously suppressing her zeltron pheremones so there was less risk of distraction, she couldn't afford to let down her new master so soon.

"What do you think we should do?"

The clicking of her purple nails on the glass screen on her device stopped. "So I've been chatting to this guy who lives nearby, he and his friends don't think it's a chem leak. Say there's been a few corpsec trucks but little hazard stuff...

...pop the seals and take a chance?" she offered. All the information had cost her was a few cute messages in one of her fan's dms and a personalised selfie, easy.

She wondered to herself about how safe this task was for the two of them, she had been given a blaster and was just beginning to learn how to sword fight, but she was far from an effextive combatant, she was however beginning to get the feel for her force powers managing to grasp the basics of several abilities.

​

 

[Rayth]

"You...found all that already?" Rayth asked.

He glanced at her device. Rayth had never owned a personal device. On Denon, that would have made him a social outcast.

Fortunately he had already been one. Living in am abandoned block of flats in the lower levels and hunting alone at night, he had been entirely removed from Denon society.

Not that night made much of a difference. It took a ray of light with true determination to make it so far down. There was more hazy neon at every hour of the day than there was natural light.

"We will look into it then. But really...how did you find out so much?"

Rayth sounded like an idiot. He was certain that his silence on the trip would have already been taken for idiocy. He remained quite unaware of what she thought and felt about his silent brooding.

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

Was he mocking her? Was it really that complicated to understand, sure the information wasn't water tight but it was quicker than asking around. She shot him a slightly irritated look, then raised her eyebrow when she realised her was being serious. "I 'asked around' I put up on my channel that I was on Denon and asked someone if they could give me a heads up. A bunch of people slipped me DMs, a bit of a chat later, sometimes a video message or personalised picture and yeah, they tell me what I want to know." she smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "My followers will do anything for me if I make them feel a bit special. I haven't paid for a hotel room since I was fourteen." she laughed and showed a picture of a bedroom decorated with all manner of witchiness with her and one of her fan's sat posed with a spell book in the middle of the ornate bed, it was a few nights old and was only the latest in long line of free accomodation. "You sometimes get a few weirdos, but I can usually pick them out pretty quick." she let out another little laugh,

The shuttle came to a stop on the landing pad and Annika looked up, this was their stop, then it was a short speeder ride to the target location, she had booked a taxi in advance to take then the rest of the way, nothing special, just some random droid with a cute little convertible speeder for them to sit in the back of she saw him waiting on the concourse outside with a holoboard with the word "Starfire" written on it. "Come on handsome, let's go and explore" as the exited the shuttle Annika, the noise of denon hit her and the wave of neon colours from billboards and other fixtures all around her hit her eyes. "I.love.this.planet" she said with a voice of teenage excitement.

​

 

[Rayth]

Rayth was thoroughly confused by the explanation. The picture didn't paint anything to clear up matters. That she was sat on an ornate bed made it hard to work out whether this was some form of sordid arrangement. Rayth wasn't certain what to feel on the matter.

"Darth Reprimar says a powerful sith lord always has strong followers," Rayth said. "These seem more like...minions..."

He decided not to ask what a DM was.

She called him handsome and he realised that he was following on her heels a little more smartly. How thoroughly embarrassing, he decided.

"I.love.this.planet" she said with a voice of teenage excitement.

"Despite being where I am from, I do not know it that well," Rayth explained. He knew the smell. Grounding, in its familiarity. The humid warmth, the tight knit convulsing mass of humanity. Rayth actually offered a brief smile for her excitement.

The speeder wove through the streets before hitting a highway that rose up over the landscape like an arch.

"I rarely saw it from up here," Rayth said. He looked past Annika - the myriad of neon colours reflecting on her pale skin - up at the towers that rose up towards the brooding clouds.

"From the lowest levels you could catch sight of the highest spires perhaps once a month."

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

She laughed aloud and smiled, "Minions... I like that. I get what you mean though, they arent exactly powerful, most of them are just some loser sat at home in their bed staring at a screen. But they are my losers and I bet I could stick a couple of posts out there and have a bed for us tonight before we even arrive at this lockdown place, give it an extra ten if you want something to smoke." she gave a suggestive raise of her eyebrows to the guy.

Annika looked out the side of the speeder as it flashed by half listening to the other passenger and also admiring the stunning view, the passed a gigantic billboard with a face of some corporate owner trying to sell this months designer goods, Annika took a quick picture of it, just the immense size made it something quite exciting. The speeder dropped abruptly as the droid rotated his head 180° to look at them.

"We are approaching a category 2 restricted area. Due to...CHEMICAL LEAK... all vehicles are reminded that stopping within this area is not permitted, and breach of this will render the vehicle subject to corpsec searching and decontamination. Please advise alternative destination."

Annika looked at the man next to her then looked back. "Then dont stop, get us as close as possible the we can jump. If neither of us break an ankle I'll tag an oil bath onto your fee."

The droid's head turned back and the speeder began to descend towards their target. The lanes were quieter now as only vehicles that were simply passing through were entering, and many had opted to divert any way due to fear of the potentially imaginary chemicals. Annika grabbed her gear together, checked her outfit and made sure her hat was on comfortably before preparing to jump from the decelerating vehicle.

​

​

 

[Rayth]

Rayth leaned over the edge. They were going slowly, but the street still seemed to be passing by quickly. He stood up and prepared to jump.

He was still trying to unravel the confusing jumble of words she had thrown at him. Fundamentally, he didn't understand how social holonet media worked, nor what kind of post she was referring to.

"Wait, did you say a bed?" he started to ask, but Annika had already jumped.

Not willing to be left behind, he jumped after her. He struck the ground hard, tumbling for a few feet before coming to a stop. Something went crack along the way.

Rayth stood up slowly, took one step and then stumbled into the wall of the alley. He couldn't place any weight on his left foot.

"Feth," he hissed. "Give me a moment."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He lifted his left foot from the ground. Rayth could feel his own blood rushing to the wound. The intoxicating power he took when he fed being burned up to heal the tendons that had torn.

"There," he said firmly, pushing off the wall and standing tall.

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

Annika lept from the speeder just as she heard Rayth ask if she really had intended to use bed as a singular. It made her laugh, but she wasn't about to put him out of his misery by telling him the answer to that. She hit the ground and tumbled along. First time in her life she felt that she might actually need to thank her parents for pushing her to do gymnastics as an extra-curricular activity. He hat went loose, but she dusted herself off and was in one piece.


Her associate seemed less comfortable. He landed hard not far from her and did not take the impact unharmed. "You alright? Looks like you've saved me the cost of an oil.... oh.... how did you do that?" she asked curiously to the guy as she watched him concentrate and the distortion in his damaged angle corrected itself and the bruising reduced. That was a handy skill, she had assumed he was as inexperienced with the force as she was, maybe it was something else. That was his business though, so she walked across the platform and picked up her hat, brushing off dirt from the ground and placing it back on her head. She pulled out her holodevice and quickly used it camera to double check everything about her outfit was still in order.

"So this is the place right? You said it was an old safe house or something. Know what's inside?" she asked, looking at a relatively unassuming prefab tenement block on the other side of the street.

 

[Rayth]

"How?" Rayth echoed.

She did not know what he was. Reprimar had told him to be careful about who he told.

If he was sensible, he would have deflected the question. Around a zeltron girl his own age, he instead blundered on.

"I am not like you. It's just...something I can do myself. What are you doing with your device?" he asked.

Rayth turned around on the spot, getting his bearings. Denon was noisy, but he had learned to pick out certain sounds above the din. There was no one talking nearby. They were quite alone.

"It was a hidden base," he said. "Just...a room...some people and some devices. They planned from here."

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

"Fine... don't tell me then." she grinned and stuck her tongue out between her teeth. They all had their secrets, it was fine. "Fixing my hair and checking my makeup after that speeder tumble... problem?" she laughed put the device away again so they could proceed.

Annika walked ahead of the guy and approached the front door, there was a cctv camera but the light on it was dead and the door handles were chained together with what looked like a remote locking system. That did look active and would pose a risk of informing the controllers of the building if it were tampered with. It was similar to the lock she installed on her bedroom after she found her mum snooping around and asking why she had a roll of cash in her bedside drawer. It was honestly earned through her channel, but it was the principal of the matter, girls deserved privacy.

She looked up and around, the two lowest floors were boarded up with steel plates, then above that it switched to what looked like pressboard. "Thing that guttering will hold your weight?" she pointed, she had climbed gutters before, but she was a small teenage girl. She looked her companion up and down, not for the first time since they had met, the guy must have had twenty to thirty kilos on her. She walked over and placednher hand on the cold steel piping an pulled it, it seemed secure.

 

[Rayth]

"Fixing my hair and checking my makeup after that speeder tumble... problem?"

"Oh," went Rayth.

His tone made it perfectly clear that it was not the answer he had expected.

Rayth stepped up beside her to look at the building. Nothing about their surroundings suggested a chemical leak. There was nothing strange on the air. There was, however, something familiar.

"Dried blood," Rayth said, as he placed his hand on the guttering above hers. "People died here. Not from a blaster."

He'd seen people murdered in back alleys with a blaster. The wounds were cauterised by the heat. There had been blood spilled here. A lot of it.

Rayth placed his other hand against the wall, fingertips pressing down. Claws extended from his fingertips and he tugged his whole hand down just a fraction of an inch. He left behind shallow grooves in the duracrete. If the guttering came across from the wall then he would have a little purchase on the wall.

"Let me go first," he said. If it can't take my weight we should find out first."

Rayth bent his knees, coiling like a spring. In the first movement he gained a few feet. one hand on the guttering, the other finding the joints between duracrete blocks and finding some grip with his claws. He sought out toe holds, but soon gave up on the idea and resorted to placing his boots against the metal brackets that fixed the pipe to the wall.

It creaked and groaned, but did not give.

Rayth slammed a free hand into the chipboard over the window.

"Watch out," he muttered, before wrenching it free with his claws and tossing it down.

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

She watched as he extended claws into the wall and cut grooves before climbing up, she watched him move and began to put two and two together. The healing, the blood, the claws.... a grin came over her lips as her mind ticked over the clues, she wouldn't ask, but it would be fun finding out exactly who this man was.

"Woah! A little more warning next time" she called up as she whipped the chipboard off of a collision course with her using the force, it was instinct, she didn't think about it, she just moved her hands and the chipboard went careening off to one side, missing her. She had so far mostly performed minor tricks using the force as she learned, it was in times of duress or panic when it seemed to just come naturally and happen without though.

"I'm coming up" she announced and began climbing the gutter behind Rayth. Her lightweight frame was easier on the pipe but there were still several moments where it creaked and protested at her. The guy had disappeared into the darkness by the time her hands reached the window and she pulled herself in, spending a few moments sat on the edge looking at the view of the neon surroundings. "I'm guessing you can see in the dark too right?" she asked mischievously, trying to extract further clues to extract her suspicion. The guy was already cute without having that going on, but if she was right...

 

[Rayth]

"I'm guessing you can see in the dark too right?"

"Everyone can see in the dark," he replied.

His pale silhouette emerged from the shadows. She was given a brief, withering side eye and Rayth turned back into the darkness.

"There is blood on the floor," he said. "It is all dried. You will not slip."

There was little expression to his voice. Rayt watched her from the darkness as he walked the perimeter of the rooms. She wouldn't see his gaze linger.

"No power on the lights," he reported. "The place could be watched so don't use a bright light."

He followed his sense of smell, not his keen eyesight, to a patch of blood. Rayth dropped to his haunches and ran his fingertips over the floor. Shallow grooves. A broken nail.

Then much, much deeper grooves. Deeper than even his claws would leave.

"Something killed them. An animal or...something big. A wookie?"

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

Annika widened her eyes and raised a shoulder as if chastised by his comment about her prying into his eye sight, he would know she suspects something, she was flirting too much to really hide it, but it was so much fun. The talk of slipping in blood and of the associated violence brought her back into focus.

She nodded when he mentioned the light and flexed her fingers as if squeezing an imaginary ball. Dim, heatless, purple flames appeared around her hand. It was an illusion she used as part of her act, it was harmless but would emit as much light as a low torch so was perfect for this environment. She had been told the trick was somewhere between pyromancy and magick, but was as strong as neither, but it was a good place for the novice to start.

Annika knelt down next to Rayth and looked at the claw marks. The dim purple light flickered and caught in her violet eyes, casting shadows in the room. "This does look like an animal, I don't think it's a wookiee though, believe it or not they're actually pretty civilised despite the appearance. They can rip a guy's arm off but they arent really about the tooth and claw." Kasyhkk wasn't far from Zeltros in Galactic terms so she encountered them more frequently than some people might.

"Did you hear that?" her head turned quickly towards the door of the small room they had broken into. It was off its hinges and with only this light it was impossible to see further than a few feet past the threshold. "It sounded like a glass breaking or something." Her heart was beating fast with the excitement and the mild fear that she was feeling. She reached round to her lumbar holster and pulled out blaster pistol she had picked up.

 

[Rayth]

Her heart was beating fast with the excitement and the mild fear that she was feeling.

Rayth's gaze didn't go to the door. It went to Annika. To the smooth curve of her pale neck. The single, thin choker that offered no protection.

He was not particularly hungry. Healing his ankle had taken some of his reserves. This wasn't a matter of need; it was a lack of self control.

Rayth reached under the back of his tunic and drew out a curved knife. He took a step forwards.

"Shine the bright light of yours into the room behind me," he said. If there was anything in there it would be blinded by the light for long enough for Rayth to close the distance.

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

This time she did notice the look of the man next to her, casting his eyes over her. "What?" she asked him, grinning as he spoke about the light. The flame on her hand wasn't bright enough to dazzle anyone, and she didn't know how to make it brighter but she had another idea, flicking her fingers to allow the flames to go out. It was nearly pitch black now save for the eerie neon glow coming in from the broken shutter.

She took her personal device out of her pocket and scrolled to her camera. She took a lot of night shots so had made sure to pick one with a high end flash. "If its in any way shy of the light, this ought to do it." She lifted it up to the dark passage way, nothing showed on the screen as the autofocus tried to find... anything. She hit the shutter button.

FLASH

The image of the debris stricken corridor filled her device, there was what looked like a half torn leg left decaying on the ground. But in a fraction of a fraction of a second it was dark again. She listened out and heard movement.

FLASH

The same image, the sinister corridor inviting her to come to her death. More noise, footsteps... fast... coming down the corridor.

FLASH

 

[Rayth]

"What?"

"Nothing," he lied.

He tightened his grip about the hilt of the knife. He narrowed his eyes, shielding them from the light.

Rayth reminded himself that it would be worse for anything looking towards her camera.

The flash went off as Rayth braced. The image was burned into his vision. A moment captured in time for those few seconds.

A maw coming towards him. Sharp teeth. A creature on two legs, hunched over. Wires or tubes embedded in its skin. It was running to go for Annika and the source of the light.

Rayth lashed out. He felt the blade connect with something. The sharp edge dragged through flesh. He felt a sudden, hot sensation below his ribs.

The creature landed heavily, skidding against the wall on the other side of the corridor.

"Shoot it!"

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

Time moved so quickly, Annika got only second to look at the beast before Rayth flashed past her and engaged it in combat. She heard it screech as the man injured it. He shouted for her to shoot it.

Lifting the blaster, she could barely see but she felt like she could feel the target and she opened fire, adjusting her aim in the flashes of the muzzle. She heard more screeching as she hit something, her deep seated malice and her desire to hurt this creature that tried to kill them guided her until she felt herself relax and loosened the trigger. The movement stopped and all things were quiet, she could hear her heart thumping in her ears and the breathing of her accomplice. "You OK? What was that?" she asked, summoning the dim purple flame back to her hand to give her more vision.

 

[Rayth]

"I have no idea what it..."

Rayth took two steps towards the body. As stopped suddenly. The next sound was the tip of his knife embedding itself in the floor.

He felt a sudden, hot sensation below his ribs.

Rayth had dropped the knife involuntarily. He looked down at his hand. His gaze was immediately drawn to the dark patch spreading across his side.

"Oh," Rayth went, he could answer her first question more accurately. He stumbled back against the wall. He pressed both hands against the wound, feeling his warm lifeblood seep through his fingers.

Rayth slowly slid down the wall. He left a trail of red - black in her light - against the wall. Eventually his feet were against the twisted form on the ground.

 

[Annika Starfire]

Location: Denon
Objective: Learn
Tags: Rayth
Wearing: this

Annika's head flipped round at the noise just in time to see Rayth collapse into a heap, she was about to throw out a witty barb but realised the guy was seriously injured. "Shit! Rayth!" she flipped the light on her holodevice on and placed it on the ground next to them, it cast awful shadows but it was better than nothing.

In the light of her camera she kneeled down and felt around his lower chest, trying to find the wound. She looked her hands, they were wet with his blood that glistened in the light. "You're hurt, can you get up?.... Rayth, I don't know what to do." She was panicking, her control of the force was barely beyond parlour tricks now, she couldn't use any of the healing magics that the Jedi or he.... "Can you heal yourself again like before?"

There was fear in her voice, not because of the blood, not because of death, she could handle that, but the guy was becoming a friend and in this new life it was something she felt she needed.