Dominion The Shadow War - Act Two - Into Shadowy Depths (Silver Jedi Concord dominion of Charros IV)

[Vertigo]

Scene 1 - Hallowed Night
Tag: Travot Ravenna | A AvRe | Haro Harend | Mig Gred

Thud Thud Thud. A three man Houk fire team plus droid had managed to double time it to the factory. They got there just in time. Seemingly out of breath, their huge 8-9ft tall frames were leaning over resting their hands on their knees. Until Vertigo stood up and pulled the others up with a good Houk headbutt to refresh them.

Their bulky aegis class power armor, made the already large Houks carrying about three guns each imposing. In the rear a hardy Marinus Series Battle Droid stood ready for instructions. All part of the single ranger fireteam unit.

Travot Ravenna | A AvRe

"Boss. Bosses. 91st Ready for Orders." The leading Houk rumbled in a low base tone. Only three of them plus droid, but they were armed like small tanks, a regular weapon, a large weapons, and even larger weapon. Gatling lasers, missile launchers, heavy repeaters, shotguns, carbines, grenade launchers. You name it those three Houks had it attached or carried, one even had a heavy mortar clipped to his side for the force's sake!

"Negative enemy presence at the beta site." One Houk grumbled in a deep tone to Mig Gred disappointedly through his helmet. Wherever they were coming from, the Houk's had no idea.

Out of breath but ready, if no further orders were given, the three of them plus droid took position around the Jedi to support, moving inhumanly large crates or stone for cover around as required. Scanning the horizon to see what was headed their way. With a smooth shifting of the barrel, the blaster chaingun attached to Vertigo's hip for stability, turned one way then the other.

And if they really wanted those blast doors closed, well three Houks in power armor might just be able to do it….

NPCs: Free to use in your posts. However you like.
91st Houk Fire Team
Marnius Droid
Aegis Power Armor

 

[Gir Quee]

Scene 2 - A Return in Darkness

Nearby: Barrien Siegfried | Nara Allam

Rhyias wasn't kidding...

The admiral watched as the ranger officer and a green and white astromech droid sorted through a bunch of spliced cables on the floor of the lift. Pale handheld lights illuminated their handiwork - a twisted bundle of cables and wires that the pair had partially removed from a panel within the lift. While the medical center had been left by the Concord in near pristine condition, it appeared that it had almost negative maintenance - the admiral had expected to find a dusty facility with a few systems offline or otherwise down - not a building with sizeable holes in the floor and torn electrical wiring. The droid whistled and let out a few short warbles as it managed to solder the wires together. Rhyias nearly ripped the cords out of the droid's graspers before wrapping them with spun-plast repair tape. He gently tossed the cables to the side and flipped a switch on the lift's side. The lights flickered on, revealing a thick layers of dust along with a few obvious scratches by a gargantelle at one point. Just looking at the mark, the man from Hast could picture the sort of destruction such a creature could make.

"Well sir, ready to give it a go?" said the lieutenant.

The man nodded, "We'd better. Sariya?"

The white-haired woman quickly stepped into the car and inspected it, "This is better than the lifts on Nar Shaddaa, all things considered. Seems safe enough to me."

"That's good enough for me," said the admiral, "we'd best get going."

He quickly moved in, along with a few of the others, mostly leading scientists who knew the Gargantelle before the Concord's departure. Can they fight them if it gets down to it? Or will it simply be a joyful reunion? He wished for the latter and guessed that the former was unlikely. If anything, the soldier thought it'd be some awkward conversations. How to explain to the Gargantelle the nature of the war and the Concord's near defeat? How would the Gargantelle explain what had happened to the med center, or would they know that their damage to the center was a concern to the Concord? The doors slid shut and the lift descended into darkness.

 

[Silver Strand]

The whine of nearing repulsorlifts rose up in the desert night, at first sounding no more than the nuisance of flying gnat. Yet the drone of engines crescendoed into a dull roar of engines that seemed to come everywhere. Dozens of headlights began to flicker across the sand before bounding up to illuminate the shattered hangar doors of the factory cathedral. Rugged speeder bikes, racing swoops adorned with the insignia of the Five Knives Gang, and a half dozen battered landspeedes all barreled down upon the factory, with a handful of their riders attempting to take pot shots at any of the Concord personnel present (or if something looked like a Concord fighter). It seemed like a large convergence of mere rabble until two bright bursts of purple plasma shot up from over the horizon. The flaming balls briefly bathed the attackers in a pale light: IG lancer droids carrying their old power lances and street gang members brandishing a motley assortment of blasters road side by side on bikes, seemingly oblivious to the origins of those next to them. Just as suddenly as the plasma balls had appeared, they descended to crash down near the hangar doors, creating brilliant explosions that'd buffet those nearest to the doors and possibly blind the Concordian defenders from seeing the horde of attackers bearing down on them.

Vertigo | Haro Harend | Mig Gred

 

[Travot Ravenna]

Scene 1 - Hallowed Night

The twin explosions struck just as the jedi master was nearing the entrance to get the latest report from the lookout. A cloud of sand kicked up among the violently bright light, causing Travot to instinctively shield his eyes with his hands. With some measure of thought, he side-stepped to take cover behind an abandoned ship and ducked down to lower the chances of getting by any flying debris. But it didn't prevent the groaning of metal nearby nor the spray of metal nearby. He heard a brief scream nearby from one of the rangers before the soldier abruptly went silent. He felt the man's presence fade from the Force nearby. Travot gritted his teeth as the whine of repulsorlifts grew louder. By the maker...at least the artillery fire stopped.

He abruptly pivoted back out from underneath the cover and drew his saber as he strode towards the hangar door. A handful of kintan soldiers had already taken up positions and started firing into the mass of approaching enemies. The shots of their rifles paled in comparison though to the anti-material rifles that a handful of Far Shooters had started to put to good use - a gout of flame in the distance followed by a careening landspeeder plowing through the rest of the syndicate formation told him that at least one of the Taris troopers had found their mark. Travot stretched out a hand and through the Force, grabbed a hold of a crate of Bryn'adul impact grenades. With the flick of a hand, he sent the crate flying into the night sky before releasing hold of it. It tumbled down from the sky, indiscriminatingly flinging the bombs among the Crymorah Syndicate personnel. Half a dozen explosions rippled throughout the incoming swarm of repuslorcraft before a duracrete-like substance encased the enemies.

Travot flicked the switch of his lightsaber on, causing its blue blade to spring to life even as he took on a classical Soresu defense stance. Come and get me...


Vertigo Mig Gred

 

[Vertigo]

Scene 1 - Hallowed Night
Tag: Travot Ravenna | A AvRe | Haro Harend | Mig Gred

Artillery threw chunks of dust nearby, and he pulled to the right to avoid the worst. The lumbering giant stepping sideways a pace, another Houk was thrown off his feet. Cursing in a steady stream of rimworld dialects, Vertigo pulled himself on top of a large metal crate to fire downward, and try to see through to the incoming horde. Thankfully his weapon didn't need to see much to be effective.

"Steady Boys." He said to his fireteam. The power armored Houk readied for for the right moment to fire, waiting to get a sign through the dust. The blaster chaingun he had strapped to his side began whirring around, picking up pace. Then it started firing some 1,500 bolts a minutes straight through the dust cloud. "Come on in." Shots came towards him too, but the answer was a stream of projectiles far faster than the eye. The tip of the weapon heating up as the continuous stream cut a circling line around their perimeter. Sight wasn't important to hit a horde.

The other Houks let missiles and repeating slugfire go, large shells at this range, cracking open huge chunks of ground far ahead of the front, a missile hurtled toward an unfortunate speeder, causing it to collide with the terrain, spinning out of control to join the others being downed. Joined soon by a hugely satisfying BOOM as a crate of explosives was Jedi tossed to hold them back. Travot Ravenna BIG. Vertigo considered. A Houk compliment.

Through the smoke Vertigo indicated to the others a speeder that was getting too close, trying to hit it with the chaingun, but it was bobbing and weaving too fast to get a bead on it! "Heads up!" His voice boomed loudly, it was headed right for them.

 

[Mig Gred]

"Karking...." Mig would quickly shift the ground a bit with Alter Enviornment to give him a chance to pull out his Trayc'kal. He looked back to Valen, then the droid next to him ducking for some cover he didn't have to focus on to keep up. "Guessing the bird isn't flying with this much fire."

"You think Alor? Striker wouldn't last too long taking off this close." Great. Well there's one gun down. Fora fired a few energy arrows into the speeders, and Mig would soon watch as Bryn grenades were sent flying into the fray. He looked at Travot nodding a bit as Vertigo's group opened fired. Mig closed his eyes, focusing before sending a blast of Force Lightning into the group of Syndicate forces. All this dang dust made it difficult for him to use his usual accuracy, se he'd just have to hope he hit something.

Gir Quee Vertigo

 

[Jorah zos Darnus]

BYOO - Faith, Machinery, and the Eye of the Beholder

++ Ruins of Workshop Xcan ++
[ lament from the grave ]​

At least the Jedi had made it interesting for them.

The distinctive hum of the lightsaber resonated in the air, as the young Nightbrother deftly wielded the double-bladed staff as he would a traditional zhaboka, batting aside two blaster bolts. From behind him, a volley of plasma arrows arced over his head, descending upon where the raiders had taken refuge within one of the Xi Charrian cathedral-factories.

Nightsister archers behind him, the boy ducked low. "Toocha, s'lotirat shuree jehayah," the youth intoned quietly, his voice carried on the winds by some otherworldy spectre. As the spell was cast, the Nightbrother felt as though time had suddenly stopped, though he continued forward as though now caught in a dream. Wisps of the spirit ichor seemed to trail his movements, as the Mistwalker strike team seized the initiative amid the chaos and disorganization of their quarry to end this conflict.

To the right, a Nightsister wielding a duskblade cut a swath through the raiders.

To the left, an elder bearing Keyn Res'tzela -- the sacred icon of their war party -- was readying an incantation.

Jorah had only moments before the spell's effects would wear off. Focusing his attention on the enemies that lay ahead of him, tunnel vision set in as the Nightbrother charged forward. As the spell he'd woven started to come undone, the world around him began to move once more. Slowly, at first, gradually gathering speed.

A diagonal slash of his lightsaber spun the first raider around, spiraling down onto the floor as the boy shot past a barricade where a second had taken refuge to reload a new power cell into his blaster. Passing the lightsaber behind his back, the red-and-black figure clipped the man's leg, sweeping his legs out from under him.

As the second man was falling, the boy plunged the end of his lightsaber into the chest of a third raider.

A moment. The blink of an eye. And the spell had ended. Reality resumed, and Jorah with it. A gasp escaped both boy and man, as the raider was startled by the sudden appearance of the eldritch blade protruding through his chest, and Jorah was rendered breathless by the effort. Behind him, the second raider that had been falling hit the ground, shrieking and grasping at his dismembered leg in pain.

Then the boy stepped back, withdrawing the lightsaber in one, clean stroke. The man before him seemed to give a shudder, hands coming up to grasp at the smoking hole in the center of his chest as his legs came out from under him. Dead before he hit the ground.

A burst of blaster fire caught the boy by surprise, his attention focused as it had been on the three opponents before him. A yelp escaped his lips, ducking instinctively even as he witnessed the Sister beside him felled. "Tze!" the youth uttered, reaching out a hand in vain, unable to catch the Nightsister before her body hit the ground.

Another round of arrows from the archers battered back at the raiders that had taken refuge in the scaffolding overhead, entrenched as they were in the rafters.

"Ama het lora, nȃlo nȃot hai nathmir!"

The Nightbrother felt the elder's incantation in his very bones. Gooseflesh crept across his body, as the breath was stolen from his lungs as a cold snap seemed to permeate the air as the Shadow Magic was cast.

And then had come the cry of the demon. Summoned from the nether, a creature malevolent and foul. Its shadow was enough to paralyze the youth in abject terror, watching mouth agape as the shadow raced up the walls of the workshop and into the rafters.

The screams which followed were nightmare-inducing, piercing ear and soul alike, as the raiders seemed to bob in mid-air as the shadow of the Fanged God descended, dragging the hapless raiders caught in its grip down with it.

When the spell had passed, the boy still found himself unable to move. Afraid to even breathe.

"Pilkat, chu majef liku," the elder uttered in Paecian, seizing upon the boy's trepidation. As the elder woman approached, the boy turned his head down so to only glance at the tops of her feet.

"Vi, Lora," Jorah recited obediently, as he tried to straighten himself upright on legs that were still trembling.

The elder Nightsister took stock of their war party. There had been seven of them when they had followed the Silver Jedi to Charros IV. Now only four of them remained.

Glancing at the body of their fallen Sister, the elder paused a moment. She said nothing, but the boy felt her gaze on him.

That a female would die and a male live was unlucky. The weight of the disdain she had for him was palpable, gripping him so that he couldn't breathe until the elder had moved on.

They would collect their dead later. When their task was complete.

Jorah had been to Charros IV before, alongside Jerek Zenduu . It was then he had learned that the Xi Charrians experienced religion and machinery as one in the same. The factories were their shrines. The works of their hands were their holy relics. The spark of electricity and the spark of the divine were one in the same to them.

The Witches of Dathomir knew what it was like to have one's religion scattered to the four winds of an uncaring galaxy. As such, they had agreed to aid the Jedi in helping the Xi Charrians to recover some of the culture they had lost to the Bryn'adul.

Well, first to the Bryn'adul, and then to the opportunistic carrion feeders plucking over the graves of their cathedral-factories.

A few Xi Charrians emerged from behind the two archers that remained, trailing behind the Mistwalkers as the troupe entered into the temple-workshop...

 

[Travot Ravenna]

Scene 1 - Hallowed Night

Allies: Vertigo | Mig Gred | Jorah zos Darnus

The fireballs from his showering of Bryn'adul impact bombs receded, briefly bringing back the beautiful darkness of the night with its twinkling stars. But lights soon flashed again throughout the darkness as each side attempted to hit the other with more gunfire. A burst of blaster fire from a Concord trooper drew back a burst of slughthrower fire from one of the speeder bikes. Travot's saber continued to weave about in tight arcs, trying to both draw the enemy's blaster fire to him and deflect or reflect it back to him. Even among the chaos and danger, the jedi felt something particularly dangerous was heading his way. The man frowned as he batted a blaster bolt back into the darkness. What is it? But Vertigo 's boomed through the hangar and ripped that train of thought from him.

"Heads up!"

Travot's head snapped to face his left and towards a speeder rapidly zooming through. His eyes widened. If that hits any of the crates, we'll be done for. He stretched out his free hand to try and grip it with the Force, but the houk's loud warning hadn't drawn only his attention. Several of the Taris Farshooters had heeded his warning as well and began to riddle it with their anti-material rifles. A pair of staccato shots smashed its engine block, causing its front end to plow abruptly into the duracrete, even as other shots quickly found the vehicle's occupants. Travot winced as he flicked his hand outwards, grabbing hold of the speeder through the Force and knocking it back into the oncoming horde. But it was too late, more of the Syndicate had managed to press through. A motley assortment of B1 battle droids and scoundrels began to flood into the hangar bay, with most dismounting as they sought to secure their loot. But the Concord's counterattack was fierce - Travot noted a blast of Force lightning from the mandalorian master jet out even as the group's dathomiri and xi charrian began to work their unusual craft.

We may be outnumbered. But we are better than them. The jedi grunted as he stretched out his left hand to and sent a wave of debris through the Syndicate's right flank: ballistakinesis. It was probably the one skill from his heritage that he had endeavored to studiously master. He advanced into the carnage he had just wrought, with his blue saber continuing to weave tight arcs around him to catch and deflect enemy blaster fire. The jedi managed to occasionally manage a strike of his own - primarily to destroy an enemy's weapon or to decapitate one of the droids. But this won't end it...we've got to grab one of the enemy's higher-ups. He began to search for Dorn Mors. He guessed the other man would be among the forefront of the Five Knives Club's fighters....

 

[Vertigo]

Scene 1 - Hallowed Night
Tag: Mig Gred | Jorah zos Darnus | Travot Ravenna

Lightning blasted around, artillery going off! "Fun times", Vertigo remarked with a low rumble to Mig Gred through the dust. Taking a glancing hit to his power armor for his trouble, a host of swear words followed far too non-PG to be repeated. They went on in a steady stream while he tried to hit that incoming speeder to no avail, chaingun blaster bolts buzzing like angry flies.

Force gripped sniper shots did the job he couldn't! Travot Ravenna Why didn't we pack sniper rifles! They'd loaded up with everything else under the sun, what would a fifth weapon matter? More the better, never enough guns to carry or arms for them. Tick that inventory off for next time with the quartermaster.

Hopping down with a CLANG sound off the crate, he went over to drag a Houk back to its feet. "Work to do!" The Houk was stunned but alright, shaken back to consciousness. A Jedi Master was pushing out, it was time to go help them not get shot. Take some of those clankers by surprise.

"Coming?" Mig Gred

Off the three Houks followed Travot Ravenna blasting droids around him to dust and giving cover fire to cut a path. A sure-fire string of expletives soon to follow as the three closed in behind the Jedi Master in tight formation. Giving one droid a Houk Headbutt worthy of song, and knocking its head clean off. Definitely a smug grin under the armor for that one!

Hope you know what you're going Boss, he thought but kept it to himself.

 

[Jorah zos Darnus]

BYOO - Faith, Machinery, and the Eye of the Beholder

++ Ruins of Workshop Xcan ++
[ yggdrasill ]​

The Xi Charrians were some of the most inhuman aliens that the Nightbrother had encountered.

Insectile, with hard exoskeletal carapaces that made them seem beetle-like. A hive mind. Not individuals, but a collective. It was a disturbing, if one thought about it. Their religion followed a similar pattern. Seeking perfection in the works of their own hands. Divinity in precision. Theirs was a clockwork god. A literal mechanism of salvation, in which ones works furthered the creation of machines that reflected their understanding of the divine.

If there was a religion further from the outlook of the Dathomirians, Jorah would be afraid to find it. This was testing the limits of his open mind as it was. But, it did, at least, help to explain why he'd had trouble connecting with the spirit world when he was here with Jerek Zenduu

He'd been looking for connections with the natural world. But the spirit in this place, if it had one, was almost certainly that of a machine.

To each their own. The Nightbrother would keep with his worship of nature and its forms.

Machines and technology? Definitely not his thing. But it seemed that getting this factory back into some semblance of repair was a rather essential facet to the survival of the Xi Charrian culture.

So the Mistwalker would not understand, but they would lend a hand.

After all, understanding was not required. One worshipped the forms they chose for the reasons they chose. Where understanding might be lacking, respect supplied all that was needed.