The Hand That Mocked Them (Levantine Sanctum Dominion of Tash-Taral)

[Ashin Varanin]

I met a traveller from an antique land​

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone​

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,​

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,​

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,​

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read​

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,​

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:​

And on the pedestal these words appear:​

'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:​

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'​

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay​

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare​

The lone and level sands stretch far away."​

~Shelley​

JAKEN PORT AND MARKET
TASH-TARAL
WILD SPACE
FORMER LEVANTINE TERRITORY

RESOURCES

Spoiler

Tashai Bond Tracker Talisman
Tashai Water Seeker Talisman
Tashai Assassin Poncho
Tashai Hunting Knife
Tashai Spirit Ocarina
Previous Levantine mission to Tash-Taral - irrelevant to this thread unless someone wants parts of it to be relevant

Yellow grit buried the Super Star Destroyer Intimidator, shredded by age and impact and violence. For ten miles, shifting dunes revealed ripped-up alusteel plating, its paint scoured away to nothing. Sand, Alec knew, filled many of the ancient wreck's corridors. The ship was inert; no amount of repair or refit would ever make it worth more than the handful of jury-rigged gun turrets that kept Jaken Port safe. And those ancient turrets, however massive, could do relatively little about the monsters (two-, four-, and six-legged) that had swarmed out of the flagship's deepest chambers. The port and towns, built of salvage, lay on the sand beside the wreck and on it. The long-dead engines held homes and villages, all choked with sand and fortified against the things that came out at night.

The lovechild of Korriban and Tatooine, Tash-Taral was always like this. It just wasn't always this bad.

Where the Intimidator's ragged hull met the sand, Alec clutched her bandanna to her mouth, filtering out windblown sand. She and [member="Seydon of Arda"] had interpreted a message suggesting the presence of a Vahla cult here on Tash-Taral -- and linking them to the disappearance of Seydon's wife. But the Relentless, Seydon's obsidian-hulled cutter, was not the only Levantine ship here at Jaken Port tonight. The resurgence of Sithspawn from within the buried flagship had brought Frontier Corps members and freelancers here, and others affiliated with the Sanctum. Jaken Port might not be as big as New Dreshdae, Lasaraleen, or Tashbaan -- the planet's other towns -- but a call for aid was a call for aid.

"Shoulda had a drink first."

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Kaia was different. She recently decided the Republic wasn't her cup of tea. But the Levantine Sanctum was. Plus they had the Frontier Corps. So that would give her ample time to fly and enjoy being among the stars. The one issue?

Well, her father was part of this group. She didn't know for how long. All the reports about him had painted him an adventurer, but an Imperial nonetheless. Wasn't the Sanctum like the new big good guys?

She heard about this world, but this was her first time. What was she going to find here? Landing her freighter, she was excited. And scared. Wanting to test herself,but afraid that she should fail.

Granted there was no guardsmen named Cort here to test her. No, the girl was not going to be a gunslinger. She was going to be so much more.

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[ Jaken Port & Market ]
[ Tash-Taral ]
[ Wild Space & Former Levantine Territory ]


Heat was dry, parching, scalding. Seydon bowed his eyes against the sun-glare. With Alec, they came down from a tongue-ramp issuing beneath the Relentless' stomach, taking in detail while the debarkation decking hissed back into waiting pneumatic sheathes. Beside them, north and east respectively, were another dozen additional vessels wallowing under anti-glare awnings as crewmen and hydraulic-armed droids tended to idling systems. The massive shade of the dead and fallen Intimidator rose up behind them, as monumental and implacable as a pyramidal alp. Citizenry ran like ants round its sand-caked haunches. Distant harpy-eagles soared high around the spinal remnants of the Intimidator's command tree, as he and Alec walked onto a broad, stamped avenue leading into the mouth of a yawning and gutted super-massive engine nozzle.

He had to agree: his gullet was pining for a stiff lager. They began strolling into Jaken Market. It constituted roughly two hundred spaced, out-door stalls and a few rare stores that had been built and welded into the nozzle interior heat-shield walling. Hawkers plied them with local delicacies, mostly beige and yellowed fruits resembling coconuts. A glass painter made astoundingly delicate murals out of glasteel and armoured clear plastics. Seydon spotted a pewterer, a limner, roofers and rugmakers, an ivorist beside a clothier, bodger's, carpenters, a small army of grizzled tradesfolk. One falconer let fly her pet high over the bazaar, where it swooped low, caught a packrat in its talons, swung back around and delivered the dead rodent to its keeper. No one batted an eye at the eclectic pair Seydon and Alec made.

The Dunaan wasn't sure what he was looking for. Everyone bore bone-charms, and smelled of grime and scathing tangs. A small, inked talisman. A rough artists impression of a woman with dark hair. One word scrawled in archaic glyphs: Vahl. Seydon paused beside a coppersmith, gazing over the droning hub-bub. That was when he noticed a scrimshaw stall. Two figures, hands blistered and stained with calcium, marrow, a wash of silver, laboured over animal impressions taken from dirty ivory. Seydon glanced to Alec, and went up to their counter space.

“Yes?” Said one carver. She was middle-aged, as tan as bark, with her hair tied back in a long, crazed flare of curled hair adorned in chrome beads and shards of steel. Seydon laid the talisman pin beside her plate of discarded prototypes. “We don't take refunds.”

“You recognize the craftsmanship?”

“No,” She grunted, and shooed him out of the way of a burly customer. Dumb question.

[member="Alec Rekali"]

 

[Micah Talith]

WILD SPACE
FORMER LEVANTINE TERRITORY



Trade was trade. And this little pit in the boonies of the Tingal arm was no different.

Well... maybe just a bit.

Okay a lot.


It all started out pretty innocent you see. The idea was to attempt to, well you know, go out there and explore a few worlds while in Sanctum Territory. Story goes that their mother had been taken in by Sanctum healers after Ember Rekali had plucked her out of that Geonosian Slave pit, and to be frank, the crazy spacer stories surrounding Tash-Taral was enough to want to find a way to get to the planet.

Granted, finding the proper path and method to get there was... well a bit more tricky.

And one doesn't just ask their mother to please take them to a place where the chances of crashing and dying a fiery space death due to the anomalies of the space around it.

No, one becomes resourceful.

Like ask their friends who they met that were part of the Levantine Astronautical Academy...

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

A harsh wind sprang up, the first chill of the evening. Alec pulled her slouch-cap low over her eyes and covered her face with a ragged blue bandanna against the grit. She stayed two steps back and to the right from Seydon, a decent habit to be in when watching a right-handed swordsman's back. Jaken Port could get a little rough, and in a country where men could get possessed or start to change, Seydon's eyes didn't speak well for him. She thought fondly of her Mandalorian armor, but a tough coat and her ostrine brass knuckles would have to do -- she hadn't brought her beskar'gam aboard Oswaft Station and didn't have it now. She had the next best thing to a beskad, though: a vibro-machete sheathed along her left thigh.

"Jaken Port's not the only place with a scrimshaw vendor," she murmured, too low for anyone but a Dunaan to hear. "New Dreshdae has a few, and I'm betting Lasaraleen and Tashbaan have a couple."

She squinted into the dark. Down by the pewtersmith's -- no, just past it, right where the town met the scar of an old turbolaser emplacement -- a man was crying.

"Smell like blood to you?"

 

[Seydon of Arda]

It did. It was sour as rust and iron, like a hint of copper additive that swept up through the bazaar. Seydon strained it through vying aromatics, against several hawker meat stalls scenting out enticing 'dog-meat' kabobs laced in pepper-spice and a glaze of molasses. Seydon back-stepped from the scrimshaw venue and left its busy carvers to their trade, winding round a small customer line. He strode along a boot-worn pathway following into town outskirts, motioning at Alec to follow in close. It was a rough crescent arching concave towards the Intimidator's spilled aft guts. Houses were forged out of fallen quadranium sheet plates, glued at right angles with hodge-podge solar welding tricks. Together, they passed open doors were haggard figures lounged in the shade. Some had enough bother to lean out past their jambs, spit at him.

“Cross-eyed freak.”

They found a man curled up in a back alley. He was tanner than cinnamon-sugar, flat-faced with hooded eyes beneath bushy eyebrows and a spiralling crown of curly hair. In his hands, clutched up by his nose, a length of obsidian beads linked by an intricate knot of yellow bone swayed. Blood dribbled into a low pool between his knees. There was more on the sandy walls. He didn't look up at Seydon or Alec's approach, instead peering ahead into the dark of his home's back door. Around him, scattered, were smashed remnants of cheap tin cups, pottery, glass plates, an upended flask or three dribbling foul alcohol. The Dunaan had an axe out in his off hand when they stopped at the man.

His crying had reduced to throaty whimpers. He held his bone-charm up with terrified faith. Beyond him, through into the dark of his house, something was walking or at least moving through a lot of broken detritus. Seydon knelt carefully down to him.

“Mister?”

The man tried mouthing something, but only produced fresher tears. Seydon saw a gash opening up deep into his right-hand side, beneath the ribs. He produced a small length of something gauzy out of a belt pouch and reached around to tug it over the cut. Now, at the prod on his wound, at pain, the man snapped his eyes around to them. They were as big and balled as saucer plates, one greying from a cataract.

“Wh-Where'd you come from??”

“We smelled the blood. What's going on?”

Mutely, he just pointed into his household. Seydon stood back up, and loosed Winterfang from its scabbard. The weight of silver and steel filled his palm, stepping forward onto the door jamb. Cat's eyes seared bright in the half-light, panning around slowly.

[member="Alec Rekali"]

 

[Eyrecae Alzari]

(Might be wise if we number our posts since we can only have 20 each max.)
[member="Seydon of Arda"] [member="Alec Rekali"] [member="Micah Talith"] [member="Kaia Starchaser"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

• Scary Dark Side planet? Check.
• Monsters and roaming horrors? Check.
• Crashed super freaking star destroyer?! Check. Check.

As Eyrecae looked down from low orbit she could see the great scar of the broken ship. Down there way the entrance to Jaken Port.

She turned to her companion. "So Sio...want to go down and check it out? I reckon we can find some things to do!"

She had her phrik armour and had her huge hammer with her. It was pretty clear what she wanted.

(1)

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

[member="Eyrecae Alzari"]
(1/20)

From low orbit the massive wreck of the broken warship was stretched out, further than the naked eye could follow. Once it had been a proud Super Star Destroyer before it became yet anoth relic of a battle long forgotten in the annals of history. Word was that over the ages it had been turned into a settlement inhabited by the natives and all manners of scoundrels. A bit bizarre perhaps, but also quite practical. It did not really rank as one of the weirdest things Siobhan had seen in her life.


Broken battleship, enormous sand dunes, an aura of darkness radiating from the planet and bleeding through the atmosphere so that it invaded her senses. In other words, the perfect place for Siobhan and Eyrecae to have a lovely vacation together. Oh, and do 'good' by presumably killing an ungodly amount of monstrosities and Sithspawn on the way. See, apparently Siobhan felt the need to escape paperwork, negotiations with the Qadiri court, raising her two daughters and, ahem, non-PG-13 fun with pliant Eldorai harem girls for a change.


No, she was not getting rusty at all. Nor was she old. She was not yet forty after all! Yes, maybe she was getting a bit tetchy about this sort of thing. Anyhow, here she was, looking out of the window of the Firemane shuttle as it descended through the atmosphere and swept across the vast dunes of the planet towards Jaken Port. Word was the improvised settlement was struggling to hold its own against an onslaught of Sithspawn. If rumours were to believed, this planet was home to dangerous beings such as giant sandworms and battle hydras.


"Like find the biggest beast on the planet and kill it?" Siobhan asked sardonically. "Sure. But we stick together. No charging off." Since Eyrecae had been liberated from the malevolent influence of her Creator Raik'aro, they were buddies again, so it was time to...do some bonding.


As the shuttle finally landed it threw up clouds of sand and dust that rose into the sky. Before them lay the crashed Star Destroyer along with ruins, pillars of long-forgotten civilisations. Maybe they would even find an obelisc with plagiaristic quotations from Ozymandias because they were all the rage. With a hiss the landing ramp of the shuttle was lowered. Siobhan slipped on her beskar helmet and made sure it was secured, then headed out with Eyrecae in tow. She was clad from head to toe in imposing beskar'gam, a bolter was magclamped to her thigh, while a shatterbolter was strapped to her back.


A couple dead bodies lay before them, giving the appearance of having been mauled and gotten their entrails ripped out by some wild animal. Siobhan briefly bent down to examine one corpse, before she abruptly tensed, feeling a sensation in the Force. Her eyes guided her to an 'alley' as a harsh wind swept towards them. In the distance they could hear strange screeches, hisses and calls. Nonchalantly Siobhan picked up what seemed to be a small rock, then tossed it against a wall, causing a loud bang.


For a moment there was silence. Then suddenly Siobhan spun to the right and pulled the trigger of her weapon. The boltgun barked as an explosive bolt leapt out towards a technobeast. The sharp crack of the gun firing was matched only by the percussive crump of the explosion a second later when the cyborg zombie got its legs blown apart. However, many more of the biomechanical constructs came into view. They looked like primitive cyborgs, with deathly pale, taunt skin, weapons fused into their arms. From vibroswords to hammers and force pikes, even primitive guns.


ASSIMILATE ALL LIFE
JOIN THE UNITY


"Again?" Siobhan asked in what sounded like a bored tone, bionic eyes flashing a bright, murderous crimson. On a certain level, though she might not admit it, she had missed this. "Eyrecae, technobeasts. Mow them down," she ordered. Her bolter barked again, then as she took a deep breath she pulled at the tangled web of power that was the Force, filling herself with its energies, before she unleashed them in an outburst. The air seemed to twist into strange shapes as a powerful wave of telekinetic energy swept towards the charging beasts, gathering wreckage along the way. Several were tossed through the air like ragdolls, smashed into walls or got their limbs crushed. Indeed, some were blown apart entirely and their pieces littered the ground.


One technobeast suddenly leapt at Siobhan from above from a pillar, its vibrosword and claws coming for her but it was suddenly gripped by an invisible force and smashed upon the ground with a sickening crunch before the creature was ripped apart by an explosion. The air was filled with the smell of burnt electronics and circuitry, broken metal and roasted flesh. The gauntlet covering her flesh hand was retracted, electricity cackling across Siobhan's open palm as she focused, then there was lightning. Lightning everywhere! Carnage and death ensued.

 

[Project Uriel]

Spoiler

Here to be shot at, and blown up and stuff. Leave it open to you whoever wants to come across her.

Uriel V1.4g Prototype Testing Model.
Archangel Deployment: Single HRD Drone
Accessing Uriel Unit Command Matrix:
Primary Mission: Secure technobeast samples for immediate study
Secondary Mission: Eradicate any opposition to mission.
Directives

Technobeasts, Uriel had been sent to observe and bring samples home for study, whether this was a threat or a resource for archangel. She was deployed in regular armor, which for the HRD was light tr-mkii armor, fitted with a standard personal energy shield to reflect most energy coming her way, and shield her from small arms fire or energy discharge. The armor covered her completely, so completely she didn’t look like a HRD or anything else other than an armored figure with a gun, carrying a standard issue ten shot bolter, backed up by a viborsword and a basic sonic pistol. She was also carrying a large green backpack with several vacuum containers to preserve the samples.

Walking over uneven sandy ground, her head twitched one way then the other to trace any sounds, still a distance from the upcoming battle, the armored figure had heavy steps but was surprisingly quiet given her HRD design. Tracking for possible targets and samples to take, she didn't have much cover on the landscape just some rocks, model U-1.4g was only programmed for basic stealth operations so it was only a matter of time till someone spotted her armored silhouette.

Test Subjects Identified: 0
Threats Assessed: None

Audio feed coming in.... sounds of combat, possible compromise to primary mission, response: avoidance, determine threats and removal from distance.

She walked to a small stone bolder to overlook the battle, and adjusted her firing arc to watch. Today Uriel was learning the value of stealth again, upgrading herself from the last time she'd been deployed and had orders which she couldn't integrate into stealth mode, today she could and was attempting to remain covert.

Analysing Uriel Unit:
Standard issue Personnel Shield: 100%
Standard issue Armor Condition: Nominal
Damage to Combat Chassis Endoskeleton: 0%
Primary Systems Damage: None
Combat Capability 200% (Shield/Armor + Unit)

Weapons: Viborsword, Bolter, Basic Sonic Pistol
Uriel 1.4g Upgrades: Heat/Night Vision

 

[Iona Starchaser]

Tash-Taral | Jaken Port & Market



Shaggy brows knitted in frustration after taking in the market before him. There wasn't much here. Various fruits and starchy looking vegetables were offered for sale. Local textiles were well-represented, some quite beautiful. Tobiah was garbed in something much less striking, tan and brown desert wear, fabrics designed to keep him from roasting in the sun.


Domestic supplies. Food stuffs. Extremely small electronic parts -- maybe for moisture evaporators or small droids.


Nothing he needed. Tobiah was on the hunt for something much larger. Moving to the side of the market, the shaggy man dug around in his pockets, producing a cigarette and lighter. A long drag followed by a trail of white smoke. He was running out of ideas of places to turn on this ball of sand. There was an internal debate about what to do as he finished the cigarette and tossed it aside.


Eyes scouted out for someone with information. He finally settled on a wrinkled elderly woman. A local might be able to point him in the right direction. Hands in pockets, Toby quickly strode over to the woman selling her wares.


"Excuse me, Ma'am...." Tobiah couldn't even finish his sentence before he was interrupted.


"No basic."


Well that complicated things. Tobiah tried once again, only in Wroonian. He doubted she spoke it but he could try. Nope, all the woman did was smile and shake her head. Toby reached up, scratching the thick beard that graced his face. This was turning out a bit more complicated that he had expected. He did know a bit of Bocce, one would think growing up in the space lanes he would have picked up more of it.


"Kazz ma kazz?"


Little did Toby know, his rusty Bocce skills just told the woman 'I have insurance'.

 

[Eyrecae Alzari]

[member="Project Uriel"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] [member="Tobiah Dashiell"]

Eyrecae was having fun.

As soon as they were within twenty feet of the ground she jumped, landing heavily, but unhitched her hammer and charged. There was a primal thrill, even if she was no longer possessed, in being able to charge, to attack, to crush her enemies into dust.
One creature, lurching along, met her phrik hammer head on (as it were) and was pulped. The next one slashed at her, deflecting from her armour, and got a pommel to the face. The next she buried her hammer in its chest, leaving it stuck there so she could physically lift the next one and break their back over her knee.
“Sio, four already!” she called happily.

But Siobhan was doing a Legolas and going Dark Phoenix. A hammer could only do so much.

It was time for something new.

“Bring me my little popgun!” she ordered.

Wheeled out on a mini turret came her ‘popgun’. Or, in the words of an anonymous helicopter pilot ‘that’s a damn minigun!’

Eyrecae picked up the 22kg weapon without the slightest effort, primed it one hand, and checked the ammunition lines were ready.

By now the technobeasts were swarming again, charging at the lone woman, the other Firemane people having prudently retreated.

“Hey, uglies, eat this!”

The result was as over the top as it was destructive. In seconds her score had gone from four to twenty-nine and there were no enemies left in sight.

Eyrecae dropped the smoking weapon the ground and hefted her hammer. “Next!”
(2)

 

[Micah Talith]

WILD SPACE
FORMER LEVANTINE TERRITORY
Tash-Taral
(2)

So... it took some finagling. Okay a lot of finagling. But at the very least they found themselves dirtside; minus a few upset stomach and close hurling calls with all the microjumps. There was no way they were going to be able to navigate here.

Micah might be a bit adventurous but he wasn't stupid.

Crinkling his nose, the pre-teen would walk down from the small shuttle that had brought him here. There weren't that many travelers; I mean who would want to come to the armpit of the galaxy? But it was interesting. He wasn't expecting a desert environment, and he found himself pretty hot under his cloak. With a pocket full of credits and some trinkets, Micah would first take off the cloak and shove it into his bag. A long length of gray scarf material would come out of his satchel. It might be hot and arid as all heck, but he knew he needed some sort of protection for his head and face.

Exposure was not a good thing.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TO: [member="Thurion Heavenshield"], Grandmaster, SJO
FROM: Captain J.Q. Merrill, Master of First Knowledge
RE: Holocrons

Grandmaster Heavenshield-

I'm heading for Tash-Taral to lend a hand with a Sithspawn disturbance. I was hoping to snag a moment of your time, either by holocomm or in person, to talk about holocrons. See, I've been running the holocron security program for the Jedi for a good six years, even though I'm not part of the Republic. I sort of look at my role as pertaining more to all the Jedi, not just the ones that follow the Republic's Council or fight for the Levantines, so I'm wondering if you want to get in on the Library Card program. I've got some pretty effective security measures going for all the top holocrons good and bad, and the good ones can all be accessed remotely -- I'm sure you've seen the Library Card headsets at some point. I've got a set of codes, Grandmaster Raaf finally got a set, Grandmaster Grayson had one, and Headmaster M'ti of Yavin IV has one. Seems to me you might be a candidate too, and have some holocrons to include in the common cause.

Best,

Jorus

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

[member="Eyrecae Alzari"], [member="Project Uriel"]
(2/20)


There was carnage, destruction and in a matter of a few minutes it was all over. Before the combined might of the two battering rams scores of technobeasts had fallen, been blown up or simply torn to shreds. Plenty of boulders had also been chucked and bashed technobeasts because Siobhan had used them as improvised projectiles. "Thus ends round one," the Countess said very dryly once the smoke cleared and she could survey the destruction both of them had caused.


In the old days she had revelled in slaughter and probably enjoyed combat a lot more than was healthy, what with being a blood knight and all that. These days she had...mellowed a bit. Perhaps an effect of motherhood. Or simply because getting maimed so many times had forced her to take a step back and find a life beyond bloodshed. That did not mean she could not enjoy a good fight. "Come on. I guess this was just the warmup," she spoke to Eyrecae and moved forward.


A harsh wind swept her way as she did so. One that carried the whispers of the dead, but her armour was environmentally sealed and she paid them no mind. Artificial eyes swept across the wreckage before them as she scanned for hostiles, sand crunching beneath her boots. Siobhan liked to think she had good instincts and she could not shake off the feeling of being watched. Of course, that was a fairly obvious and not particularly illuminating statement since this was a planet crawling with beasts and abominations.


There, as she looked upon a rock formation, she suddenly saw an armoured silhouette. Someone was hiding there, though she could not see who. Her brow furrowed as she pondered, then stretched out her senses to try and get a reading on things. Force Sense did not make you omniscient and Siobhan had never excelled at it, but she had experience and, moreover, recently received a minor aptitude for empathy thanks for a certain short stack of fire called [member="Coryth Elaris"]. Yet here she felt...nothing. The deep void felt very familiar to her. After all, she had experience with death machines.


Her jaw tightened. "Over there, behind the boulder. Think it's a droid. I'll flush them out." she transmitted to Eyrecae using her telepathic mobile phone, then pulled at the tangled web of the Force to let its energies flow through her and harness them. Siobhan could not be certain whether there might be more opponents in hiding, so she utilised the her powers in a simple, time and tested manner.They were unleashed in a powerful telekinetic blast that swept towards where Uriel happened to be hiding. With Siobhan turning herself into a telekinetic artillery cannon, the wave of energy would slam into the boulder with such force the rock would burst apart into hundreds of small pieces. Presumably if someone was hiding behind it they would be thrown out of cover and tossed backwards very fast and very hard , along with being showered by pieces of rock and whatever nearby debris might have likewise been blown up in the process. Boom.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Really, Kaia wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing here. But she came because members of the LAA were here, and because it seemed like the type of place she could find her father.

Or her mother.

It was a world that was rumored to have ghosts calling in the eaves. Ghosts all over. And her mother, she never came back from the other… place. It was sad, really, but how was she supposed to go and get over it if she never had answers? She knew there were what… nearly 17 years of her father and mother both being… cut off, just gone, when they were in their freeze. And now her mother was gone, she was on an Odyssey and her father was… was he following her?

She knew that the Rising, and even the Dawn Treader, the home ship were showing up in the Levantine Sanctum’s space. Maybe she should go home? Her freighter was home, but so was the home ship.

And the Force… what about that? She was trying to be a Jedi, would it be frowned upon to return like this? No… General Lily Ardellian, her pseudo mother from when her parents were… gone… was a Jedi. At least at one point she was. She still handled herself as one. Which way was she supposed to go from here?

Both in the Force and on the world.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

OUTSKIRTS OF JAKAN PORT/SSD INTIMIDATOR
(post #4)

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

There was something admirable and a bit chilling about how little the Dunaan hesitated. He drew his sword, not even a vibroblade, and slipped into the lightless shack. Between one heartbeat and the next, Alec was alone with the other man, the injured man. She hefted the vibro-machete and tightened her other fist around the ostrine brass knuckles. A few punches from those and you could freeze a Sith Lord's brain through his skull. But against whatever was in here, it might be insufficient. Anything might be -- or it could be overkill. Some people feared the unknown as it pertained to the future, or death, or the emotions of others. What Seydon had mastered, and what Alec would have to master if she wanted to help, was fear of the immediate unknown. The unknown that had left bloodscent floating on the air.

Not anxious to get in Seydon's way -- swords like that required whirling motion, and whirling motion was not compatible with bystanders -- she circled around the back in the gloom, outside the shack. She left the vibro-machete off, and walked as quietly as she could on the sand and broken hullmetal. Beside her, the SSD Intimidator rose in a shallow but inexorable slope, the kind that was harder to climb than it looked. A nearby rent gaped open, alusteel shredded by some ancient bombardment. A matching hole in the back of the house had been the attacker's point of ingress.

It was big.

 

[Project Uriel]

There was an unfamiliar sound headed toward her, so the testing droid listened carefully as it roared her way. Even though the main part of the shockwave hit the boulder, she still registered an extreme pressure impacting her, but Uriel being a testing prototype had never been hit with a shockwave before. So she just read the data as it came in, even as she was propelled backwards, studying the result as she skidded away across the ground.

Thump…

Thump…

Uriel levelled her gun to fire in the direction she’d been hit from, not picking out any targets yet through the dust and rubble floating around. Suddenly she stopped and quirked her head up at the approaching sound behind her. Any self respecting technobeast army need some big bosses thumping the war drum, these ones were rancor sized, happened to have great chainsaws for hands and were bristling with small guns. Thumping aside Uriel as they approached with the flat of their blades like she wasn't even there, she’d barely had time to fire more than two bolter rounds towards where she thought the shockwave had come from, before she was sent flying off again.

They just walked past the small armored figure not yet registering Uriel as much of a threat, the ground shaking at their approach, while Uriel again found herself on the floor. This was proving a repetitive theme for the droid on her missions, and a subroutine was being designed even as she picked herself up.

Status: Floor Ineffective for Combat, Response: Design Better Boots… subroutine stored for later.

For now the Uriel Unit was moving to find another larger bolder to setup behind, and beginning to aim another shot at one of the assembled parties, analysing her next response.

---
Test Subjects Identified: 2
Threats Assessed: Multiple Unidentified
Response: Find Cover.
----
Analysing Uriel Unit:
Standard issue Personnel Shield: 72%
Standard issue Armor Condition: Scratches.
Damage to Combat Chassis Endoskeleton: 0%
Primary Systems Damage: None
Combat Capability 180% (Shield/Armor + Unit)
Weapons: Viborsword, Bolter, Basic Sonic Pistol
Uriel 1.4g Upgrades: Heat/Night Vision

[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] | [member="Eyrecae Alzari"]​

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[ Outskirts of Jakan Port/SSD Intimidator ]
#3

Light was shallow cracks quietly filtering through a grime-darkened window and bent shade-blinds. Seydon was trying to read the individual scenes scattered across the main living space, extending to an open, narrow kitchen and walloping its way into a tight hallway leading into the household bed and bathrooms. Broken glass envelopes on the ground, shaded by crushed carbon filaments. Sunken prints in the carpet before a crushed, obsolete holo-tube console, a man's, a woman's, and something else that gauged itself roughly seven feet tall and about three hundred square pounds, if he read the stride and weight sink properly. On the wall behind was an obvious curtain of spattered blood stains. Between panicked palm slaps and sliding finger strokes were three-clawed tears that slashed effortlessly through wallpaper and sheet-rock. He followed more blood on the ground, silently wading past the kitchen. Seydon knelt, fingering something thin, wet, hairy, and fleshy left over atop a broken dining table.

“Human scalp,” He whispered. “Just clipped whoever it was chasing.”

He kept a few details to himself. Like, how he could hear in the far master bedroom sounds of a roping tongue lapping at pooling gore, heavy lungs snuffling, drawing eager, hunger-incensed breaths. Or a too-faint stench of stale salt, mange, dry foeces, acrid breath and saliva. Seydon stood, eyes peeled on the long bedroom hallway. One hand to Winterfang, he retrieved a small leather-skin pouch from its catch on a belt loop. The Korriban-compass hung round his neck like a medallion had its hands spinning so wildly it was vibrating off his sternum.

The lapping in his ear stopped. The house and all inside went still. A muscle along his right knuckles twitched.

...It came into the hall, hunched forward with boney spinal protrusions scraping furrows in the ceiling. Thick bristles of auburn-black hair spiked up over a pallid epidermal sheathe, thick with raised blood vessels hinting at several unseen circulatory obstructions. Its belly was virtually clawing back against its back bone, which sat atop digitigrade legs ending in hooked toes punching enormous, black talons through the floorboards. Notably, its face was a mess of broad, reddened bone swells and pouches of extra-sensory organs inflating the cheeks and brow. Eyes so small it may as have been virtually blind, it compensated with cavernous nostrils, whiskers, bat-ear wings, and a hinged jaw sporting pairs of prominent fangs.

The compass was jumping wildly.

Winterfang snapped up into a one-handed hanging guard while Seydon waited on the creature. Prodded by hunger, willing to ignore the stinging aura of the silver plating, it loped forward on its knuckles and barrelled into a keening charge. A sub-sonic cry rose: a painful vibration on the inner-ear, sickening, nauseating, spinning their senses of equilibrium off-balance. Briefly, their vision danced with duplicated imagery. The Dunaan loosed his clutched pouch in a curt, flicking throw. A beat... It sailed until that broad, flared nose caught it with a tart rupture of leather-gut.

Sulfur. Silver flecks. Brimstone ash, and a rankling ammonia-nitrate. At the smell and burn of the make-shift chemical cloud, the beast promptly shut up. It burled forward with its face clutched in either thin palm, clawing madly at its swelling tongue, a rash bumping down its hide. Seydon crossed it neatly with a transverse step-and-cut, hacking it with tight blade strokes that swung against its chest and then over its right shoulder, a portion of the spine. A bilious fluid that had more analogue with oil than blood spurted high.

“Back up,” He said at Alec. The Dunaan struck out a hand.

Fire, all ember and spark, hosed from the air between his gloved digits. Light flared in the mid-day shade. The beast turned from cradling its opened ribs into the cone of ignition. With a concussive shriek, the ammonia-nitrate straddling its hide caught alight and blazed its spine and haunches with scallops of hot-red flame.

[member="Alec Rekali"]

 

[Kaili Talith]

[ JAKAN PORT ]
[ TALITH SHIP ]
[ POST 1/20 ]

The sun kissed her platinum blonde hair and with the squint of an eye the kid found herself shielding herself from the occasional loose grains of sands carried forth in an attack on her vision. Tash-Taral was a desert, a ball of sand, but most of all it was a junkyard. Perhaps it would seem as fitting of a grave as any for a Super Star Destroyer. In truth Kaili had little idea what she was to do around here. Her brother had set off on one of his adventures again. He was the one with the Kiffar heritage whereas Kaili’s was merely a mix of Lorrdian blended with just the slightest amount of Garhoon. The orange tint to her eyes would be the big telltale sign for that.

She picked up a rock and tossed it away to stave of the boredom. The clank of a metal bucket being hit before falling to the ground spoke of the one thing this place seemed to have no lack of. Metal trash. The entire town reeked of tetanus shots. Kaili pulled at the seams of her glove to let in some air to her sweat-drowned and suffocating hands.

She was here and ready to continue her hunt for droid parts and what-nots for back home. Perhaps one day she would be able to actually use the parts, but that felt distant enough for the entire plan to just sort of fade into the occasional bout of obscurity.

She took the first few steps towards the scrapyard town with no real hopes of finding anything. Perhaps something to drink, but the risk of having to take twice the amounts of tetanus shots seemed to increase at the mere thought.

No, better keep it safe and just browse for now.

 

[Eyrecae Alzari]

[member="Project Uriel"] [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

(3)
Siobhan was doing…something…throwing rocks around or some such thing. Whatever it was, it didn’t worry Eyrecae much. She had other concerns.
Looming out of the mist were huge monsters. Eyrecae’s eyes lit up like all her birthdays for 20,000 years had come at once.
“Sio, gonna smash me a beastie!” she called.

Hauling up the minigun and threading in a new belt of ammunition she let rip on the mecha-rancors!

The droning whine of thousands of rounds smashing into metal and flesh filled the air as one of the beasts had its insides literally drilled away and pierced as if by lances of fire. With a scream it finally toppled over.

Before Eyrecae could turn on the second it charged her. One blow from its chainsaw hand would have decapitated her, it moved so hard. Instead, Eyrecae was able to block the strike with the minigun, though the weapon was smashed to pieces and she was knocked to the ground.
Then, the beast was on her, smashing and slashing and crushing her! Eyrecae’s hammer dropped from her hand as she tried to shield herself from the smashing blows. Finally though she went limp.

Roaring in triumph, the beast scooped her up, intending to devour her. At this moment, her healing powers finally kicking in, Eyrecae was able to pull the bolt pistol from her side and fire an explosive round right into its face.

In pain and rage the creature dropped her, and Eyrecae seized her hammer and struck the creature hard on the knee. Stumbling, it fell, and she brought the hammer down in a final coup de grace onto its head.

In the aftermath, Eyrecae stumbled and fell, her armour rent and her blood staining it. Still, indomitable, she rose to her feet.

“They count as ten each!” she called to Siobhan. “What a day…what a wonderful day!”