Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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The Long Game

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The Dealer’s Den, 841 ABY[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The dance floor of the ancient Dealer’s Den cantina was huge, a reflection of a time when dozens upon dozens of beings had crowded together for leisure within its walls. That was fortunate, because several hundred beings were now crowded together inside, desperate for the safety of the slumlord who reigned there. Looking out over the motley collection of beings, Shayde smiled, his mandibles spreading hungrily. Finally he had what he had always sought: power, influence, recognition. But it was only the beginning of his plans, this little sanctuary he was able to provide.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Behind him were the back rooms, his private fortress. He had spared no expense in preparing their defenses; already there were plenty of beings who would gladly see him dead. The entire cantina had been rigged with cameras and auto-blasters, all easily powered by the immense yield of Themodraft. All of the preparations he had spent years setting in place were now producing results. Further defenses came with the improvised armor plating his small army of scavengers had dragged back from various wrecked speeders and collapsed buildings. Inelegant but effective.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]It served most of all to keep the Cthons out. They was the reason that so many had pitched pitiful tents on the dance floor, sleeping on hard durasteel and laboring day after day to give Shayde something to prove that they were worth protecting. The hordes of grey cannibals just outside the walls had ruled these lost underlevels for as long as anyone could remember, too many for any of the slumlords to permanently clear out. One day, when his next set of plans came to fruition, Shayde would be the first to reclaim a great swath of the Below from them. One day, but not yet.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]Before going out to survey his domain, Shayde always took precautions.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Beneath the battered leatheris duster coat he had worn for years now, an undershirt of loose ceramite armor plates and blast-resistant gel flexed across his torso. That was a last resort, but it had saved his life many times already. He had built it himself, moulded together to fit his many arms and broad frame. It had taken months, but he did not regret a minute he’d spent on it. More expensive, and even more secret, was the personal shield generator attached to his belt. That he’d had to purchase, and it had cost him dearly. But the more people he ruled, the more danger.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Assured that his defenses were in place, Shayde stepped out among the tents. They were a varied bunch, some made of scavenged fabrics, some of stitched animal hides, others simple lean-tos made out of bent durasteel plates. There was no privacy in the little camp; families overflowed into one another, with barely enough space to move. Guards had to be stationed at the cantina’s bathrooms, but the fact that Shayde’s domain had working ‘freshers at all was quite an incredible feat. Greasy smoke from dozens of cooking fires had stained the ceiling black.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]It was an incredible collection of smells: unwashed bodies, rotten meat, machine oil, vomit, piss, blood. Each tent got a water ration drawn up through the pipes that Shayde had painstakingly repaired over the years, but food was hard to come by. Some of the backrooms were devoted to subsistence hydroponic farms, but they produced far too little to feed the teeming masses encamped in the cantina; most of their edibles came from hunting and from trade. That was why only those who scavenged or hunted got to eat. There was nothing left to feed to the useless.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The other area in which every inhabitant of the camp had to participate was defense. Despite the bright spotlights and the auto-blasters that drove the Cthons back, sometimes the creatures assembled in truly massive hordes. Shayde had traded for a shipment of blasters as one of the first purchases for his little army, and at least one armed person traveled with each of the teams sent to scavenge. Of course, he had to be very careful whom he gave blasters to. The same weapons that defended his fortress could very well be turned on him if placed in the wrong hands.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Blasters were checked in by trusted guards upon each team’s return, but they were kept close at hand; there was no telling when the Cthons might mass enough to dare follow their noses toward the smell of close-packed flesh within the Dealer’s Den. And each camp was a mass of knives, slingshots, and other improvised weapons. Arguments did break out frequently among so many people packed so tightly, but they rarely turned violent. Shayde had dealt with that decisively; both offenders in any violent dispute would be thrown out of the cantina. Order had to be maintained.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]As he walked among the tents, Shayde watched the families he passed avert their eyes. They needed him, but they did not love him. He accepted that; fear was far more secure. Without him, they would be sleeping on the street, at the mercy of the predators of the underlevels. If they angered him, he could put them back there. So they kept their heads down and did as they were told, scraping to bring back whatever they could find that might be of value to the Harch. It was an uneasy symbiosis, but it served his purposes well. None of this rabble would dare to rebel.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]Of all those granted trust and responsibility, Dzho Feng was the foremost.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Shayde looked up to see the Kel Dor thug striding calmly between the cramped rows of tents, no doubt looking for him. Feng was wiry, more quick and agile than bluntly powerful; no man in the underlevels would dare draw against his hand. He had come to Shayde’s attention by leading from the front during several incursions of Cthons, and the Harch had elevated him to one of his official guards. He had thrived in the role, and Shayde had gradually given him more and more responsibility: distributing water, checking in weapons, organizing and arming the salvage teams.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]There was no one on whom Shayde relied more heavily, and the slumlord was just as conscious of that as Feng himself was. Any position of authority in the underlevels was precarious, prone to sudden upward mobility - or a sudden transition to the grave. To be around one’s lieutenant was to feel an odd combination of safety and the need to be on one’s guard; in Shayde’s position, nothing was certain, especially not loyalty. But to rely on no one save himself would be impossible. It was said that the Sith felt much the same, the student always seeking to replace the teacher.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“We’ve fixed the leak at access point 771 Cresh,” Feng reported, his voice oddly distorted by the breathing apparatus his species was forced to wear on oxygen-rich worlds. “Water pressure should be back up. All the scavenging teams but one have reported back in; we’re getting ready to close the gates for the night.” It was that directness and to-the-point pragmatism, devoid of flattery or flowery words, that Shayde valued in him. [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]“We’ll allow them another half hour,”[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px] the slumlord replied. [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]“After that, shut the gates. They know the law.”[/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px] Risk and reward always had to balance.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]A commotion at the cantina’s entrance drew their attention. Hands on their weapons, they moved through the crowd. People parted before them like water, the fear they inspired ensuring that no one would stand in their way. At the jury-rigged electro-gates people were shouting, running for blasters. “What’s going on?” Feng demanded, grabbing a young woman by the shoulder and spinning her around to face him. She swallowed hard, her face turning pale. She knew that she was in the presence of two beings who could torture or execute her without a second thought.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“It’s the last salvage team,” she managed, her voice shaking. “Th… they’re coming back, but they’ve got Cthons right on their heels!” Feng withdrew his hand, dismissing her with a jerk of his head, and she ran off to the side. “What are you waiting for?” He bellowed, his goggle-clad eyes sweeping over the panicked crowd. “Get your karking blasters and get in firing position! Move, before I feed you to the Cthons myself!” With that final word the spell was broken. Everyone scrambled, pushing past each other in their rush to arm themselves and prepare for combat.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Shayde drew his own heavy pistol, steadying it with two other hands, one on the grip below the trigger and one along the barrel. The weapon had a fearsome kick; few near-humans could manage sustained fire with it, but the Harch’s alien biology made him well-suited to it. He stood among the firing line; in that moment they were united in the struggle for survival, all living on the knife’s edge that was dwelling in the underlevels. All of them held their breath, sighting down their weapons, as they waited for the first sign of the returning team - and the monsters behind them.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The scavenging team, or what was left of it, rounded the corner only seconds later. They were a ragged bunch: a pair of Twi’leks so close in appearance they might have been sisters, an old and stooped human man, a one-armed Bothan, all clad in filthy scraps of clothing, all with expressions of panic on their faces. They were carrying nothing with them, and the waiting guards looked nervously at each other - they knew that Shayde would not take that well, no matter the situation. The group of four fled at full tilt toward the safety of the Dealer’s Den, desperate to escape.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The Cthons were indeed right on their heels. The creatures came around the corner as a pulsing grey mass of flailing limbs and slavering jaws. The smell of rot hit the cantina’s defenders like a wave, driving several of them back a step as they coughed and wheezed against the stench. The sound of their coming was equally horrible: the scrabbling of claws over durasteel, the feral panting and screaming that echoed from their throats, the sound of wet tongues running over fleshy lips and sharp, savage teeth. They were hungry, and would not stop until they were sated.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]They were gaining on the salvage team with every pace, and by the blood on their snouts and the scraps of clothing clinging to their claws, they had already reduced its numbers. But no one dared fire yet - the team was still in the way. Calmly, Shayde raised his blaster and fired. The blast took the legs out from under the old man, and he crumpled with a surprised wheeze, The Cthons were on him in an instant, ripping and tearing before he even had time to scream. It was an old truism of the underlevels that you didn’t have to be the fastest - just faster than the guy behind you.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The remaining three members of the team reached the gates of the fortified cantina before the Cthons had finished climbing over each other toward the fallen man, scrabbling at one another in their frenzy to fill their bellies with fresh meat. “Wait there,” Shayde commanded, his tone firm but inscrutable. The trio shuffled off to the side where he had indicated. The looks that passed among them were half mourning for those who hadn’t made it this far and half panic at what would come next. But first the slumlord and his men would have to deal with the oncoming tide of monsters.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Fire,” Shayde commanded, and Feng echoed the command further down the line. Everyone opened up at once, lines of crimson blaster fire tearing into the great grey mass. Several Cthons, the ones standing closest to them, were shredded utterly in the first few seconds of the barrage. Others were struck by shots that passed the front line, each impact singing their pallid, spongy flesh. The bloodstained creatures howled as one, a feral sound filled with shock, pain, and hunger. They turned and charged, jaws wide, claws extended, ropey drool dripping among their toes.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The thin line of defenders was hardly made up of trained soldiers. Most of them had handled a blaster only a few times before, and had faced a horde this large only in their nightmares. They might have broken and run, but they knew from experience that Shayde and Feng would turn their own blasters on anyone who tried. So they desperately stood their ground, pouring as much fire as they could muster into the onrushing creatures. For his part, Shayde was unafraid. Every bit of violence brought back the memory of what he had done to Kovarri, and that was his sweetest.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]They had cut down half of the Cthons by the time they came within ten meters, but that was far too close for comfort. Every being in the line could well imagine the feeling of claws and jaws closing around necks, shaking until bones broke and organs ruptured under the pressure. The near-mindless cannibals liked their meat fresh, raw, dripping, and they would tear out the viscera of their prey and eat it before the victim’s fading eyes. If they broke this line, they would tear through the defenseless camp inside, feeding on families, on children, in a frenzied orgy of blood.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Shayde would not allow that to happen. It was not that he cared to defend the weak or innocent - he did not. But he would not permit anything to take his domain from him. As far as he was concerned, he owned these people, body and soul. No one and nothing would lay a finger on his property without his permission. Glancing over at Feng, he gave a barely-perceptible nod. They would have to break out the extra supplies for this one. Each of them reached into their jackets, producing several small, round spheres. Setting the detonators, they rolled them along the floor.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]They reminded Shayde of juggling balls, in a way. But he smiled.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The grenades exploded directly below the remainder of the horde, blowing them apart in a rain of limbs and gore. Blood spattered the front rank of the defensive line, leaving many of them coughing and spluttering in disgust. When the smoke cleared, all that was left was a few bits of pallid flesh and a deep crimson stain. Shayde holstered his blaster, drinking in the violence like fine wine. Behind him, Feng was organizing the return of the blasters to their holding racks. Another disaster averted. Shayde turned to the scavengers - it was time to deal with the source.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The trio shrank back before the Harch as he approached, towering over even the Trandoshan. “You brought Cthons back to my door,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless. “That’s bad for business.” He paused, letting his words sink in. The Twi’leks stared at the floor; the Trandoshan stared past him, deliberately looking at a blank section of wall. “I assume,” he began again, “that you at least brought something back to justify the trouble that followed you?” Again, his words were met with silence. They had returned empty-handed, and that was never good with him.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I see,” Shayde hissed. “Well, that [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]is [/SIZE][SIZE=14.6667px]unfortunate. We’ll have to think of some other way to cover the damage.” His eight eyes roamed over the Twi’leks. He supposed that Near-Humans would find them attractive; his own biological drives were much different, but he knew that beauty was worth credits. He turned to Feng, who was cleaning his blaster. “Sell these two. Twenty-five percent is yours. Get it done today.” He did not even hear their panicked weeping, their pleas as they threw themselves at his feet. He kicked them off of his boots, leaving them to whimper in a corner. He knew what would happen to them as slaves, but he didn’t care. They’d earned it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“This one,” he said, indicating the one-armed Trandoshan, “is useless.” He moved so fast that no one had even seen his hand reach for his holster, putting a smoking hole through the lizard-man’s head. “Skin him. He’ll do for boots, if nothing else.” Shayde holstered his blaster again, ignoring the screams that the casual murder had elicited. He was far more terrifying and unpredictable than any Cthon; it was time that everyone remembered that. But his thoughts were interrupted when a blaster bolt took him right in the back of the head. His mandibles curled as he fell. Feng.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The smoking hole right through the middle of the cranium that Shayde’s traitorous lieutenant had expected to see failed to materialize. The Harch caught himself on his hands and knees, then surged to his feet. His six hands found six vibroknives as he whirled on Feng, his mandibles spread in a terrifying expression of fury. A second shot caught him in the chest, but he barely even stumbled as he surged forward. The first knife went through the Kel Dor’s elbow, forcing him to drop the blaster with an agonized scream. Five more grazed bright lines of pain along his ribs.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“I’m very disappointed, Feng,” Shayde told his underling. The Kel Dor twitched on the points of the knives, lifted from his feet. Blood dripped down his body, pooling beneath the tips of his boots. “It was clever of you to aim for the head, knowing about my armor as you did. But I didn’t tell you about the personal shield. That,” he continued, twisting the knives and eliciting a fresh scream, “is new.” A swift kick removed Feng’s body from the knives, leaving him in a shuddering heap on the ground. “I suppose I’ll have to sell the twins myself,” the slumlord mused. Feng tried to crawl.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Dropping the knives back into their sheaths, Shayde drew his blaster again. He fired a single blast, burning a ragged hole right through Feng’s abdomen - a gut shot, the sort that it took a long, long time to die from. Turning to one of the other guards, Shayde gave his orders. “Tie him to the duracrete pillar in front of the holocam in Section 822 Aurek. Put the feed on all the screens.” The Cthons would be back, as always, and they would make short, messy work of what was left of Feng. Shayde turned back to his people. Their eyes were on the ground, all hope forever gone.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14.6667px]Their ruler, their tyrant, was immortal. All they could do was bow.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The Old Galactic Market, 844 ABY[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The crates, the ultimate solution, had finally arrived.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Shayde ran a three-fingered hand over the battered durasteel. Each of the shipping containers the smugglers had deposited on the concourse was taller and broader than even he. He’d paid no small sum to have them brought here, the culmination of years of trading whatever scrap his scavengers could bring him. But if they worked as intended, if they accomplished his purpose, they would be worth every credit. His mind buzzing with anticipation, he stepped forward and pushed the button to release the front panel. Stepping back quickly, he waited, arms crossed.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The droid that stepped out was a relic of the late Clone Wars. Its curved metal feet clicked on the cold durasteel; no less than nine gun barrels peeked out from its hulking frame. The old Separatist movement had never gotten the chance to deploy the Mark II Droidekas in combat against the Republic’s clone army, but the assault robots had been used to devastating effectiveness by a succession of crime bosses and petty warlords ever since. Capable of rolling up to move swiftly and deploying a vehicle-grade shield generator to defend itself, each was worth a battle tank.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]This would be the permanent answer to the Cthon problem. A dozen of these droids could clear and security more territory in a day than his little army could hope to manage in months. The Harch stepped up to each of the crates in turn, pressing the central button that would activate each Droideka - and cause it to acknowledge him as its sole master. Long after the Cthons were gone, these machines would ensure that no one without an army at his back could stand any chance of resisting Shayde’s will. They were growth, security, the assurance of power forever.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The arrival of the destroyer droids was timely; there was no option left for Shayde but to expand. The interior of the Dealer’s Den had become so full that no further tents could be squeezed in no matter how much space was rationed, and crowds of desperate beings huddled just outside the entrance, hoping to soak up some measure of security through proximity. They were easy prey for Cthons, and Shayde could not afford to leave such a buffet sitting on his doorstep. Sooner or later something would go wrong, his defenses would be breached, and his little domain would fall.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The Harch had no intention of allowing that. So it was time to spread his domain outward, to seize new living space from the denizens of the underlevels. Shayde had spent months drawing up his plans, the ways that he would use all of the territory he was about to capture. Storefronts, landing pads, apartments, workshops - every meter of the Old Galactic Market held something that he could put to use. If he could manage this offensive, then consolidate his gains before they could be taken from him, his power would increase tenfold and more. And the droids were the key.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The dozen Droidekas formed up in the center of the concourse, running diagnostics before they powered up their weapons and shields. They curled and uncurled their metal limbs, switching between the ball-like form that allowed them rapid mobility and the standing form that made them into deadly firing platforms. It was like watching a hunting pack at play before they began to stalk their prey, and it filled Shayde with a sort of savage, joyous anticipation. He had chosen well when he had purchased them; he felt assured that they would be up to the task, however great it was.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]But there was something for everyone in the shipment. When drawing up his plans, Shayde had recognized that there were places the Droidekas could not reach. They were tall and broad, incapable of flexibility, and the sublevels of Coruscant were filled with nooks and crannies that would have to be cleared as surely as the open spaces. That was why he had made his second purchase, though it had cost him nearly as dearly as his first. His men stepped up to the remaining crates. In sharp contrast to the massive Droideka containers, these were long, thin, and low.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Pushing the heavy lids aside, they reached in and produced the second treasure. Blaster bolts could kill, but they could not go around corners or fill a space, nor could they annihilate centuries of built-up corruption. The flamethrowers that Shayde’s thugs pulled from each crate could fully accomplish all of those things. Where the Droidekas could not go, a blast of flame would purify. Anything that lurked out of sight would be burned clean. The benefit of the durasteel construction of the Old Galactic Market was that they could use fire with impunity; it wouldn’t get out of control.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]All that remained was to get everyone organized. Shayde had never replaced his old lieutenant, Feng, after his betrayal; giving so much responsibility to any single underling, the Harch had decided, was dangerous. So he had formed a new military infrastructure, with relatively trusted thugs put in charge of small groups of others. Responsibility was limited, compartmentalized, and clear, so that any losses (or traitors) would be easy to replace. One could rise far above the rabble in the Court of Beggars, as people had taken to calling Shayde’s refuge, but not near the top.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]Battles had been fought on Coruscant before, from the great Sith raids and invasions to the everyday struggles between heavily-armed criminals and beleaguered law enforcement. This one would hardly even merit a footnote in the planet’s long history. Yet to the crowds that begged for safety outside the cantina, it was one of the most important events in their entire lives. To Shayde, too, it was significant, though for different reasons. This was his time to move beyond a career as a petty slumlord, cowering behind fortified walls. This was his time to emerge and truly rule.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]“Let’s go,” he commanded, and the Droidekas curled up into their mobile forms. They rolled out well ahead of his organic troops, disappearing down the concourse long before the motley crew had even begun to march. Shayde smiled; already they were beautiful to witness in action. Two of them had stayed behind to guard the cantina; the Harch trusted no one and nothing else to watch his stronghold while he was away. It was one of the first times he had emerged from the Dealer’s Den in years, but if all went well it would set a trend. Every part of the sublevel would be his.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Shayde cast a critical eye over his troops as they walked along the broad durasteel concourse. They were a ragged and varied bunch, the ones who had risen to his attention through brutality and the willingness to exchange blind obedience for greater privileges. They ate first, drank first, used the fresher first, and had the right to carry weapons - and if one of them had scores to settle among the common rabble, Shayde looked the other way, provided it didn’t cause a disruption to his tax. Undisciplined and weak, they were hardly soldiers; that was what the droids were for.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The sound of blasterfire brought a smile to Shayde’s face; the Droidekas had already engaged.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The first order of business was to secure the concourse bazaar, just north of the Dealer’s Den. The workshops there would provide a dazzling variety of new capabilities to Shayde’s forces; he had already mapped out how they could become self-sufficient for food as well as water and power, and the ability to manufacture and repair weapons and armor would make him the strongest slumlord in a thousand mile radius, if not further. If he got well-equipped troops, and the ability to resupply them, they would hear of his name all the way down in The Pit.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]But the bazaar was not unoccupied, even beyond the Cthons. There was another holdout of relatively civilized life, a group that had been there far, far longer than Shayde or any of his underlings: the Ugnaughts. The little porcine humanoids had wormed their way into Coruscant’s infrastructure thousands of years earlier, and through a combination of tenacity and mechanical skill they had made themselves so familiar with the function of the sublevels - and so intertwined with the process of keeping them working - that nothing and no one could dislodge them.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The Ugnaught workshop was the true prize in the bazaar, and Shayde would stop at nothing to possess it. If the creatures could be made to accept his authority, so much the better - their expertise would prove very useful. If not, that was also acceptable. He had built his domain over so many corpses already that a few more would be utterly meaningless to him. Already he could smell the stench of charred flesh and carbon scoring drifting down the concourse. It would not be long now until he and his men made their offer, and the Ugnaughts made a fateful decision.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]The Droidekas had cleared the concourse effortlessly.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Shayde and his men stepped over the bodies of dozens of Cthons, each one ripped apart in a withering hail of blasterfire. The smell was nearly unbearable - so many unwashed bodies, so much blaster-burnt skin. Shayde drank it in like fine perfume. To him, it was the smell of victory. For so long he had been forced to plan around the predators of the underlevels, to accept losses and setbacks on their account. But as he beheld the Droidekas, standing in an untouched circle surrounded by cannibal corpses, he knew that those days were definitively over. He had won.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]With quick motions of two of his hands he dispatched fireteams to begin moving from storefront to storefront. The Harch had no idea how Cthons reproduced, and he didn’t much care, but he intended to be thorough. No spore of the creatures, no offal or other hint of their presence, would survive. Their nests would by fire be purged until it was as though they’d never lived. For his own part, Shayde marched up to the reinforced doors of the Ugnaught workshop, his head high, his powerful frame unbowed. He moved without deference - from now on, he was lord in this place.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]With a single hand he beat on the door, three quick raps, then stood back. He knew that the Ugnaughts would be watching him through cameras, debating what they should do. Their heavy durasteel blast doors could keep Cthons out, but they knew - as he did - that the Droidekas were something else entirely. At a single muttered command from him, they could lay the entire front of the workshop to waste, leaving nothing but burning slag. This calculation must have gone through their minds, for a moment later the door slowly slid open. Fearless and calm, Shayde stepped in.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]Negotiating with the Ugnaughts did not take long; they knew they were outnumbered and outgunned. Shayde gave them relatively favorable terms - so long as they worked for him, he would not otherwise interfere in their workshop, and they would get the same privileges afforded to his guards. Their council of headmen had deliberated for only a few minutes before choosing to accept his protection. With the local Cthons dead and the firepower to destroy any newcomers in place, it was clear who the supreme power in the area now was. Defying him would be suicide.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]It was strange, after so many years of careful planning and maneuvering, to achieve so great a victory within an hour. As he left the workshop, Shayde looked around him to see his troops clearing the storefronts and back rooms with great blasts of flame. The remaining Cthons, cowering in the darkness of those hidden places, howled piteously as they burned alive. Duracrete slugs burst under the terrible heat, spraying the walls with superheated ichor before even that gelatinous substance evaporated. Nothing hiding in the dark could withstand this harsh light.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]A less ambitious being might have called it a day then and there. Shayde now controlled the northern half of the sublevel, more than doubling his previous zone of control. He could house the entirety of the crowds that had gathered outside the Dealer’s Den in the concourse and bazaar alone, creating a great sea of tents where people could live in relative safety even beyond the cantina’s protective walls. But Shayde was not content to achieve only this when he had the capability of seizing so much more. With a sharp word, he guided his troops back to the south.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

Guest
[SIZE=14.6667px]Before the Cthons had wormed their way up from where they had long hidden in the Works, the shipping and receiving docks of the Old Galactic Market - and the adjoining merchandising warehouses - had been a center of trade for Coruscant. Ships from hundreds of worlds had brought goods here to be bought and sold at fantastic prices. But with the rise of the 400-year darkness, the panic and xenophobia that the Gulag Plague had wrought in the Core Worlds and beyond, all that had come to an end. Now the warehouses were only full of bones and spoor.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Capturing the workshop had been a coup. Capturing the docks would be an overwhelming victory. Shayde had formed relationships with dozens of smuggling rings over the years, but getting their goods to his little fortress - and exporting the salvage his workers were able to find - had always presented a tremendous logistical challenge. Just getting the Droidekas delivered had forced him to spread his forces thinly, escorting the heavy crates through miles of darkened tunnels with the danger of ambush constantly on every side. But with the docks, he could ship and receive directly.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]It was a much larger area than the bazaar; victory would not be achieved in a day here, much less an hour. But when it was achieved, it would be the step that truly catapulted Shayde to an underworld figure to be feared. Steeling himself for the task at hand, he ordered men and droids forward. There would be casualties, he had no doubt; Cthons had a sort of vicious cunning, and there were a great many places for them to lie in wait for fresh meat. But deaths among his own men meant as little to him as deaths among the enemy. Everyone was only a tool at his disposal.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

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[SIZE=14.6667px]The sound of blasterfire, punctuated by the roar of flamethrowers and the occasional scream, echoed throughout the Old Galactic Market as Shayde’s little army advanced. The noise seemed to have drawn every Cthon in a dozen mile radius, and the air was thick with the smell of rot and filth. The durasteel plates that made up the floor of the sublevel were covered in great heaps of greyish bodies, interspersed with the occasional half-devoured sentient. In this part of the docks, the fight was over. Scavengers picked over the bodies, then heaved them over the railings.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]The cleanup of a battle was perhaps uglier than the battle itself. Every so often the scavengers would pick over the body of someone they knew. They wept over friends and family, spat on the brutal, stole trinkets from the wealthy. By the time they’d made it halfway to the first set of landing pads, they were covered elbow deep in gore. But Shayde had offered a double water ration and a tax-free week to those who assisted in disposing of the bodies, along with the rights to whatever they found, and that had been too good a draw for most to refuse - or stop once they had begun.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Shayde looked down at the wave of ragged scavs from his perch several stories up. The docks moved vertically as well as horizontally, complicating the notion of which structures belonged to precisely which sublevel, but he didn’t much care for the particulars. He was about to become undisputed lord of the territory as far as one could walk in the Old Galactic Market, and that was the perfect base of power. Moving forward to follow his advancing troops, he prepared to watch as they mopped up the last of the Cthon hordes. The only thing left to fear would be him.[/SIZE]
 

Shayde

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[SIZE=14.6667px]The very end of the Old Galactic Market was the Skyline Mall, a vast open-air (or as close as it could get on a Coruscant sublevel) shopping center that had once thrummed with the traffic of thousands of shoppers. Now it was the location of the last stand of the former apex predators of this sublevel. Hundreds of Cthons had charged across the open ground, hopping and frothing and gnashing their jaws, only to be smashed apart by a wave of plasma and a wall of fire. By now their primitive army had been broken. Droidekas and thugs went store to store, burning and blasting.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Shayde closed his eyes, capturing the triumph of the moment in his memory forever. He could feel the heat of the fires his men had unleashed; the acrid tang of carbon-scored durasteel drifted across his mandibled mouth. His domain had gone from being a petty hideaway to a vast territory, and all that remained was to consolidate his power. As the scavengers finished with the bodies, they would begin the work of installing cameras and autoblasters, then hooking them into Shayde’s network. There would be nothing in this sublevel that happened without his knowledge.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14.6667px]Rumors spread through the underworld like wildfire, and it would not be long before word of his success and the power it granted him reached all the way across Coruscant. New hordes of desperate supplicants would come to him, begging for protection, and he would grant it to them - on the condition that they become his subjects, bound to serve him however he deemed fit. He could already imagine the vast masses of people who would soon be huddled in the mall, tighter packed than the corpses of the Cthons. His power and control could only grow from here.[/SIZE]
 

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