The Shadowzone

[Dusaro Dresari]

Dusaro let out a light snort of amusement at the 'cooler then i thought you'd be' remark, followed by a lightly bemused chuckle and shake of his head. "Me cool eh? Well i can live with that i suppose." He remarked with a bemused expression over something or other. Dusaro never really had to worry about many strange looks, though most people did tend to look at him twice because of how he looked, golden skin and two toned hair and all.

"Passed out huh? Might have been something related to all the force shenanigans that were going on. I know the Sith did something for instance. Not sure what though, i just know it messed with people's heads. Though my head was, ah, already messed with at the time so that did not really mean much for me." Dusaro said with a awkward shrug. "Aye. We ain't dead, so it is all good. There is always tommorrow."

"Honestly i think this is big enough to roll a large tank through if you wanted to." Dusaro responded with a chuckle, his voice echoing down the mouth of the cave. After that, he quieted down his voice. "Aye, sure." He nodded, turning on a light and placing one of the beacons at the entrance before going in. The cave sloped downwards at a fairly steady pace, the rocks inside smooth and hard, the sound of both their voices and their boots reveberating cleanly. A few scans showed that the rock was exceptionally stable and hardy, it would probably make for one amazing underground bunker or fortress with just a little bit of work.

"Can you say, natural defenses?" He remarked drly as they desecended into the caves. "Would make a good natural underground bunker, ignoring the Tuskurs." Dusaro said as they desecnded down, down into the depths. Dusaro continued to place the sensor nodes as they went in, things for the most part going silently and steadily. But something seemed to be making the hair on the back of Dusaro's neck stand on end, but he couldn't quite place it...

[member="Liuna Ondizi"]

 

[Liuna]

A smirk curled her lips. Well, at least her head had not been the only one messed up on Mirial. And her Jedi companion was right, they weren’t dead – so it was all good.

As they neared the entrance, the size truly was astonishing. Liuna ventured closer to the mouth of the cave, and let her gloved hand slid along the rocky wall. At the moment, the light touched the edges of the entrance, but was quickly engulfed by the darkness waiting within.

The Shadow watched as Dusaro placed a beacon down on the ground, and then moved in. Her footsteps carried her along after, staying close but maintaining a few paces of distance. Holding her glowrod out, she watched as the light reflected off the smooth surfaces. Her boots slid along the ground every now and then, but she was able to catch herself.

“Yeah, suppose it would make for a fine bunker.” She agreed. That is, if one liked having a dank, subterranean hideaway. The thought made her chuckle, a sound that echoed lightly through the tunnel. After the area went quiet again, she couldn’t help but wonder if there were any cave dwellers here. If so, had they already been alerted to their presence?

Glancing at the back of Dusaro’s head, she wondered if he sensed anything.

Shrugging to herself, she figured that he’d speak up if anything seemed amiss. But there was a nagging feeling. "Hey, you see anything up ahead?" She called forward.

[member="Dusaro Dresari"]

 

[Dusaro Dresari]

Perhaps the most intresting thing Dus found about the cave was that it was actually rather well ventilated. It was small at this point, but the air was still definitely moving even this far in. Though being this deep underground was a bit unnerving in a way. Miles of rock surrounded them on all sides after all, hard to stay completly calm with that kind of oppressive sensation.

"See anything huh? Does black count?" He retorted with a wry look as a sensaiton nagged at the back of his mind. A warning, like something was not quite right. "Hey, slow down and stop for a second." Dusaro said, shifting his eyelids and taking a look through the ultraviolet spectrum, a nice little 'extra feature' of being a Firrerreo. Nothing seemed to be moving or out of place. After checking how deep they were in he looked back over. "We are in the zone where the exploration teams started dissappearing. Be on guard." Maybe, just maybe that was what put him on edge. Or maybe it was something else. Dus chose to think it was something else and kept his attention up, both on his scanners and in the force. This proved to be a wise choice.

As they walked through the passageway, Dusaro would suddenly get a strong, negative sensation. Something primal, beastial in nature like a predator was rearing itself for attack. If her light was bright enough, Liuna might see movement on her left side as what looked like a pile of rocks a moment before silently rose up and brought a massive crushing arm down in their direction. "Contact left!" Dusaro bellowed, jerking his body back and sending a force push at Liuna to try and help make sure she would be out of the way of that descending arm. The force of critters fist when it empacted the rock was enough that Dusaro could feel the vibration through his feet. Right after dodging, Dusaro was starting to draw a shattergun in his left hand while his right ignited his lightsaber. The critter would end up focusing on Liuna as it's target.

[member="Liuna Ondizi"]

 

[Liuna]

Liuna let out an amused huff as Dusaro quipped about the darkness. But that sense of lightness and jesting quickly fell away when the Jedi Merc told her to stop and wait. Her steps slowed and then her boots came to a halt. Standing still, she turned her head just slightly to look around. Liuna’s dark eyes roamed over the rocky cave walls, what she could see of them dim light.

“Oh, right…” She answered, feeling strange now having reached the point where the others had mysteriously disappeared.

Well, each step forward would be a step further than the last teams. The looming sense of the unknown was felt in the pit of her stomach. The Mirialan wouldn’t have wanted to admit that she had anything less than iron nerves, but this was eerie. A shadow shifted ever slightly, enough to make her pause.

But the sound of Dusaro’s voice quickly alerted her to danger.

Turning to throw herself down to the ground, she felt the sensation of being pushed out of the way. Her body skidded along the cave floor a few feet, and out of harm’s way. As the hulking arm hit the ground, the cave seemed to shudder. Reaching for her blaster rifle, she looked wide-eyed at the strange creature. No wonder the locals were so hesitant to enter here, she couldn’t really blame them.

“You, uh… you’re good, right?” She stammered, her gaze not breaking away from the beast.

Then it seemed that the creature had taken an interest in Liuna. Oh great… scrambling to her feet, she activated the light-shield on her left arm. She took a few tentative steps backwards, moving away from Dusaro. The beast lowered its head and matched her pace, moving steadily towards her. Catching a glimpse of her merc friend, she turned and started to run – hoping to draw the beast away from the Jedi, giving him time to strike. Her blaster was at the ready, and she would fire off a quick shot over her shoulder, grazing the creature’s arm.

[member="Dusaro Dresari"]

 

[Dusaro Dresari]

Dusaro was glad he had noticed that they had reached the point where the other teams began to vanish. If he had not, he might not have been quite as alert as he should have. Jedi or no anyone who gets caught not paying attention pays the price. He was just glad he didn't have to pay it. He watched Liuna back up as the critter matched her pace, not exactly a bad move but not the best either. Though it seemed to be alone for now at least, whatever the... thing was. "I am fine aye!" Dusaro called as the shattergun was raised, firing off a round into the critters left side as he closed in from behind. It let out a roar of pain, blindly swinging back in Dus's direction with it's giant fist but Dusaro was not within it's reach when it made the attack.

When it felt it's attack not hit anything, the creature began to flee. It was still angry and in pain, Dus could feel that. But instead it fled, running down a side passaged with surprising speed. His follow up shot did not manag to connect, with how the critter blended in with it's surroundings getting a proper sight picture on it was surpisingly difficult inspite of it's size. When the critter had dissappeared down the tunnel Dusaro moved over to Liuna, keeping his weapons out and looking around. "Once that thing rounded the corner i could only just karking hear it." He growled, his Firrerreo side showing as he barred his teeth in a snarl.

"Let's keep moving down into the caves. I wanna get distance between us and here. Keep your weapon and shield up, if that last spat was any indication we won't have any warning when one of those things pops up... Let's just hope they don't like to run in groups." Dusaro would wait there for a moment to let them both get their bearings after the sudden conflict, resting for just a minute to let the adrenaline pass before moving onwards and downwards. Dusaro chose to keep his lightsaber running, the golden blade acting like a oversized glowstick in the tunnel, his eye's and head on a swivel as the large path started to have more and more side passages appearing on either side of them. The tunnel systems seemed even more complex then initially expected. After a while of silence and nothing happening, Dus would look over to her.

"How are you holding up? I know the dark and silence gets oppressive... Espcially after being attacked by a critter as silent as that." If he was being honest, the thing was still giving him the chills. He would never admit that of course, but it did.

[member="Liuna Ondizi"]

 

[Liuna]

Liuna’s hurried footsteps echoed within the cavern, as did the roars of the creature on her tail. Aiming a glance over her shoulder, she spotted her Jedi companion firing off a round from his shattergun. The cry of pain that followed indicated a hit. Drawing in deep breath, Liuna skidded to a halt and ducked down behind a small formation of rocks. With the Jedi out of its reach, she watched with a relieved stare as the beast fled.

Standing up, she watched as their foe made its way back down into the darkness of the tunnel.

As Dusaro commented on the creature’s stealthy steps, and the Mirialan gave a nod. She hadn’t heard much of anything, unfortunately. Liuna rubbed the side of her face, content to be in one piece. Silently, she made a pledge to keep her senses sharp, even if she didn’t have the keen edge that the Jedi did.

“Right,” She said, offering another nod. Liuna had to agree that it probably would be best to keep moving. “Aw, c’mon…” Liuna started, “We can take a group.” She said, a chuckle followed her words. But really, she hoped that they wouldn’t face that beast again in any number.

Weapon held tightly in her hand, shield active, she continued on at the side of the Jedi mercenary. With their way forward illuminated by Dusaro’s saber, the tunnel almost had a warm glow… almost. Squinting ahead, she kept her eyes peeled for anything – even the slightest movement ahead. But for now, it seemed quiet. Her brows lofted as Dusaro spoke, she acknowledged him with a brief glance, but turned her eyes forward again.

“Oh, me?” She asked, “I’m fine, yeah. It’s going take more than that to shake me.”

Of course, she needed to keep up her tough front.

“But say, do you think we’re getting close?”

[member="Dusaro Dresari"]

 

[Dusaro Dresari]

The area was just a little too quiet for Dusaro's liking. Caves were not something he was used to dealing with in the first place, but this seemed much more complex and involved then most of what he had seen in his time. Granted he had not seen many, but the scanner had not shown much of any weak spots in the cave walls at all like you would normally find in a natural cave system such as this. Interesting as all that information was, Dusaro was far more focused on keeping an eye out for any more nasty critters.

"Yeah just send, you know, a couple twenty of 'em at us. It will be fine, what is the worst that could happen eh?" He asked with a decidedly wry look, getting the feeling that for now they were in the clear, but not quite willing to trust that feeling either.

"Getting close? Well... As our job is to get into and map out some of this 'shadowzone', we are about at that level of depth that deep scan sensors were starting to have issues at." Dusaro said, taking a moment to look through the equipment that was running, placing another beacon. "Course, job is to go deep as we can. Now that we know at least to really expect nasty critters, honestly i feel a bit more at ease. Now i at least know what the things that lurk in the dark look like, eh?" He remarked with a overly cheery grin. That said, they had gone about three miles at this point, which made one think they were deeper than they really were. The path they had been taking was by no means a straight descent, it was more a gradual descent. Or at least it had been, but it was about this point the caves started to take more serious downward slopes. Nothing they couldn't traverse, but they were certainly going to start getting depth faster. But that was not all, the amount of tunnels that lead into and out of the path they were going down also seemed to be increasing.

It was not long after this that they found one of the things they had been looking for, remains of those who went before them. They smelled it before they found it, that pungent odor of rotting, decayed flesh and death. "I think we just found one of our objectives..." Dus said with a grim tone, readying his weapon as they went around the bend in the tunnel, shining a flashlight down it. They found four dead bodies, thoroughly eaten at and with not much left to them. Bits of what had been either light or medium weight armor were scattered all around, thoroughly torn asunder by whatever had attacked them. Going by the clawmarks in the armor and the beast they saw earlier, Dusaro had a pretty good idea of what had happened. "..Poor sods." Dusaro said with a tone of sadness, starting to work on securing the area. "I will pull security, mind seeing if you can find any informatio from them?"

Normally, Dus would take that particularly grim task upon himself, but with these strange new critters they were dealing with he wanted to make sure that they would not get snuck up on. He got the feeling that getting snuck up on was likely what lead to this entire 'mess' happening.

[member="Liuna Ondizi"]