Private The Trial of Two

[Dirk]

Location: Dantooine
Tags: Braze | Leos

Dirk felt that these berries were a fair exchange for the sweet nutty bar he was given. It did have other flavors he hadn’t recognized. Berries were sweet and sweet things could give lots of energy in small sizes.

But instead watched as their attention shifted to something else. Lowing the branch in his hand Dirk watched as they levitated the droid. He didn’t know it was a mechanical being. He’d seen it before, but thought it was some strange and shiny bug and could never catch them. The young Dantari let out a quiet growl over seeing it. Believing their presence to be bad omens. Dirk was confused over how it was floating, and wasn’t sure if the pale one was responsible. They addressed it so he wasn't sure if Braze was familiar with the creature or not.

“Warning: Reporting Foreign Contaminant in presence of subject D-23. Unit Immobile, waiting for further instructions.” The droid spoke through its vocabulator.​

 

[Braze]

It was at that point that braze used the force to pull the droid appaet to pieces and let each little part flaot away from one another before drawing them closer to before plucking out a few key components and letting the rest fall to the ground. He snapped in half the little homing becon chip.

"That's better."

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Braze , Dirk

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

A soft resonance brushed the edge of Leos's awareness, as though the stone carried a distant tone sustained somewhere beyond hearing.

"Hello..." Leos muttered as he approached the crystalline substance. "You're... alive, aren't you..."

It seemed impossible, yet he felt so certain in his heart about such a thing. That vein of stone before him, shimmering in such an unusual way. It was surely just as living as he was. There were many of them, all communing with him. Calling out in a manner he was hopeless to resist. Leos needed to know why. What had lead them to call. Wearily, he reached out with a cautious finger to touch one of the crystals.

"Will you... tell me why you called me here?" he asked. "I want to know."

He spoke in a more comfortable way, unlike how he spoke with most people. After all, faces had let him down and caused him pain many times before.

There was an ease, then, to one that bore no such features.

 

[Braze]

"Hello..." Leos muttered as he approached the crystalline substance. "You're... alive, aren't you..."

"Will you... tell me why you called me here?" he asked. "I want to know."

No voice answered when Leos touched the crystal, it only gave a faint hum through the Force, subtle like recognition rather than speech. It could not simply explain why it had called him there; it only shimmered beneath his fingers and seemed to draw him farther inward, as if the answer lay deeper within.

 

[Dirk]

Location: Dantooine
Tags: Braze | Leos

Dirk hadn’t necessarily known that it was a droid. He merely knew that it wasn’t quite natural. It made strange noises unlike an animal he’d ever seen before and was very shiny. However, the dantari flinched cautiously as he watched it be torn apart by invisible forces. Glancing at the ghost person and back to the droid trying to understand how they were doing that.

He made his way over to one of the fallen pieces, reaching down and picking up one of its legs and was finally able to examine it closer. He didn’t quite know what he was even looking at. Circuits, exposed wiring and shiny metal were all unfamiliar to the Dantari.​

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Braze

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

It could not simply explain why it had called him there; it only shimmered beneath his fingers and seemed to draw him farther inward, as if the answer lay deeper within.

"Sorry... suppose it was a bit selfish of me to assume it would be that simple..." Leos muttered. "Guess y'all don't talk like I do..."

He didn't dwell on that, though, not too hung over about the easy path not being an option. Instead he simply steeled his resolve and turned towards the call that lie deeper within. He had faith that the stones would not lead him astray, for some reason. Maybe faith was foolish...

But it was organic. Real.

So the Themian let that organic feeling lead him in further.

 

[Braze]

Dirk

Braze watched the native with mild interest as he examined parts of the destroyed droid.

“Looks like someone’s been watching you… kind of creepy, if you ask me,” Braze chirped. “I bet they’ll come looking for their peeper now that it’s been dismantled, though… but that’s okay. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I doubt creeper-watchers have good intentions.”

He offered the reassurance gently, uncertain whether Dirk could understand him, but careful to keep his voice calm and warm all the same. Reaching into the small bag at his back, he pulled out Gidgit and gave the tiny droid a light shake to wake him.

“Come on, buddy, time to wake up. I need some help here, all right?”

The little ladybug droid stirred from standby, a soft electronic trill slipping from him as his single blue photoreceptor glowed to life. Tiny shutter-like wings clicked open along his shell, and a faint hum rose as his repulsors engaged and lifted him into the air.

“Aye aye, boss! What can I do for you?” he chirped brightly.

“Scan your databases for languages, see if you can find anything our friend here understands.”

The little ladybug droid bobbed once in acknowledgment, then drifted toward Dirk.

“Hello, new friend!” Gidget announced with immediate cheer.

He began to orbit around Dirk in small, eager loops, a thin blue scanning beam slipping out beneath him as he took in vitals and biological data. Every few seconds he gave a pleased little beep, as if each new detail delighted him.

“Ooooh… you’re interesting,” he said in a hushed, fascinated tone, then spun a quick little circle in place. “Hold still… or don’t, I can work with both.... Probably.”

He dipped lower, hovering near Dirk’s shoulder, then scooted sideways with a tiny corrective wobble when he drifted a little too close.

“Scanning… scanning… still scanning. You’ve got all sorts of bits in there. Very nice bits. Normal bits too... Mostly.”

A bright ping sounded from him.

“Oh! Good news, boss, he is definitely alive.” Gidget paused, then added more quietly, “I like when that’s the result.”

He zipped upward again, making another orbit before projecting a few faint blue glyphs into the air that shifted too quickly to make sense of at a glance.

“Cross-referencing vocal structures, regional dialect markers, possible trade tongues, local variants, sub-variants, very grunty languages, very squeaky languages…” He paused. “There are more squeaky ones than you’d think.”

The tiny droid tilted in midair as though studying Dirk from a new angle, then gave an encouraging little chirrup.

[Ancient Dantooine Dialect] “If you understand me, blink twice… or wave… or make a noise. Preferably a friendly one.”

He hovered there for a beat, wings twitching with soft mechanical clicks, then turned one glowing lens back toward Braze.

“I’m working on it, boss,” Gidget assured him.

Then, as though unable to help himself, he drifted close again and gave Dirk a tiny, friendly wobble in greeting.

[Ancient Dantooine Dialect] “Don’t worry, new friend,” he chirped. “You are being assisted by a professional~"

 

[Braze]

Leos
As Leos stepped forward, one shard in particular seemed to call to his hand more than the others. It came free beneath his touch, flaring brightest in the instant his fingers closed around it. The little gem settled into his palm, warm with quiet light, while the rest of the cyber-vein faded and dimmed around him.

It all felt fair, right… as though this small shining thing had waited here for him, and he had been meant to find it.

Then a soft crack murmured somewhere below....Then the floor vanished beneath his feet.

Leos dropped with it, stone breaking away around him as he tumbled down a narrow shaft into the dark below. He hit the underground river with a heavy splash, the water catching the worst of the fifteen-foot fall while still jarring him hard on impact. The current rushed cold around him at once, brisk and biting as it pulled through the hidden cave system.

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Braze

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

Leos hardly had time to react to plummeting into the cave. One minute he was on solid ground, the next he was in a frigid water current, being pulled along rather helplessly. He clung onto the crystal with all his might held his breath where he had to. At least he had some experience with this sort of thing. It reminded him of falling into the sewer on Daiyu, which was similarly turbulent. Only that was warm and swampy. He felt like he might become a block of ice in this water.

At first, he instinctually tried to grab hold of something. Whenever he attempted to grab the jagged wall, however, it only sliced through the palm of his hand. A thin trail of blood followed him down the violent stream now. He gasped at the pain, taking in a mouth full of water that he quickly sputtered out.

He wasn't going to make it like this...

So Leos stopped fighting the current. He did his best to focus on keeping his head above the water and let himself be swept away to wherever it may lead.

Hopefully not to his death.

 

[Dirk]

Location: Dantooine
Tags: Braze | Leos

Dirk dropped the severed droid leg as he watched Braze pull out another. He instinctively backed away. Fearing that it could be a nefarious creature like the previous one. As it hovered and floated around the young dantari would begin to growl some at it. A low rumble in its throat gradually increased in volume.

Once it got close enough Dirk would finally swipe at it. Bapping it away, the feeling was not too dissimilar to swatting away a troublesome fabool given the way it floated about almost weightlessly.

He gasped once it actually spoke in a language he could understand. Not expecting the metal insect to sound like that. Narrowing his brown eyes he would respond. “Ahg…” Along with a nod of his head.​

 

[Braze]

Tags: Leos Dirk ​

Eventually, the tunnels opened into a small river, and he was swept over a short waterfall, perhaps about six feet, into the pond below. The water here was calmer, still enough that he could finally break the surface. If he remained conscious after the rough little passage that had carried him there, it might have been difficult to tell where exactly he had been taken.

[Gidgit]
═ ✦ ═══ ✦ ═

"[Ancient Dantooine Dialect] Ah! Excellent, you do speak. Wonderful. You are much less mysterious now… only moderately mysterious."

Gidgit did not seem particularly harmed by Dirk's swats. He bobbed back upward, little stabilizers correcting his hover as he righted himself. Then a sharp alarm began to beep from somewhere within the small droid, sudden and insistent, before Gidgit hurriedly silenced it.

"Boss, I do not wish to alarm you prematurely, but Leos's tracker is registering fluid exposure. A lot of it. Enough that I am upgrading this from 'odd' to 'concerning.'"

Braze looked startled by that, a frown settling across his features. "What direction?" he asked.

[Gidgit]
═ ✦ ═══ ✦ ═

Gidgit's lens dipped toward the readout blinking across his display. He rotated in place, then lifted one little arm to indicate the way with uneasy precision.

"Ah… give me one moment… there. That direction, more or less. Past the tunnels… and lower. The signal is still moving a little, which I dislike quite a lot, but it appears to be following a watercourse. So, unless Leos has suddenly developed an enthusiasm for swimming in underground rivers, I would advise immediate concern."

"Kark!" Braze suddenly darted off in that direction.

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Braze , Dirk

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

Leos curled himself up when he noticed a light in the distance. His eyes could hear the rush of a waterfall, so he had a pretty good idea that he was about to drop. It wasn't actually that bad of a drop, little more than a few feet. When he felt himself in calmer waters, he came to his senses and mustered up his strength to swim to that shore of the pond. A little sputtering to clear his chest and he was breathing fine again. With a tired huff, the Themian flopped onto the ground and laid on his back. He opened his hand to look at the stone he had picked up.

"There had to have been a better way to show me where to go..." Leos muttered.

A bit of a one sided conversation considering the stone couldn't talk back. Only listen, really. Still laying down, the boy's blue eyes scanned the area around him.

Where even was this?

Leos stood himself back up after a moment and began to look around for anything to lead him forward.

 

[Braze]

Tags: Leos ​

Braze vaulted over stones and low hills, making his way toward Leos until he finally spotted him below, tucked into a ravine along the riverside. He called down, voice carrying over the drop.

"Are you okay~?"

Then he leaped from the cliff, drawing on the Force to soften the descent. His boots touched down with a muted thud, and he padded over at once, breathing lightly from the rush of it.

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Braze , Dirk

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

"Are you okay~?"

Leos just lay there silently before he let out a sigh.

"Yeah..." he muttered.

Then, as he began to gather his thoughts, his eyes squinted slightly.

"How... did you find me?" Leos questioned, sitting himself up.

It's not like he had said where he had gone.

 

[Braze]

Tags: Leos ​

Braze moved to offer him a hand. He did not look as though he wanted to answer that question, and hesitated before doing so… but in the end, he told Leos the truth.

"I put trackers in your boot heels, and GIdgit told me which way to go," Braze offered softly. "If something bad were to befall you, I would rather be able to find you." HE said as he reached out to offer some minor force healing to try and stitch the wounds closed.

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Braze , Dirk

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

"I put trackers in your boot heels, and GIdgit told me which way to go," Braze offered softly. "If something bad were to befall you, I would rather be able to find you."

Leos just... sat there. His ears drooped and his brow furrowed. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel about this. Was he angry? No, maybe more betrayed. After a moment Leos swatted away Braze's hand, pushing himself up on his own.

"I don't want your help," the boy huffed.

The young Themian stuffed his newly found kyber crystal into his pocket and promptly stormed off back towards the ship.

Maybe he was a little angry.

 

[Braze]

Tags: Leos ​

Braze blinked and watched him go, then stood there a moment, uncertain what to say in the aftermath. He did not know whether he should call after the younger one or follow, if only to make certain he was all right… Braze himself had never liked being crowded when he was upset; still, he could not decide whether pressing the matter now would soothe anything, or only make it worse.

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Braze

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

Leos didn't stop or turn around once. He promptly returned to the Mud Duck, found his room, and closed himself inside. The first thing he did was peel off his shoes and start looking around in them. Where had he even put the damn things? After a moment he let out a huff of frustration and gave up, hurling them into his closet before he threw himself onto his bed. All Leos wanted was to be treated like he handle himself. Or maybe he just wanted people to be truthful and honest with him? All he knew is that it made him angry. Or sad. Or confused.

Maybe he didn't know how he felt. He just didn't want to be lied to. He had grown up around too many liars...

After a while he rolled onto his side and pulled his blanket over his head.

 

[DM Player-Slayer]

Tags: Leos ​

---

A faint, delicate sound stirred the quiet dark of the room… the soft scrape of something moving across the ceiling. It was subtle, and easy to miss, but sharp enough to catch against the quiet stillness that settled in the room Leo's pointed ears all the same.

Should he choose to look, Leos would find a small blue lizard clinging overhead, its tiny body lit by a dim bioluminescent glow. Little wings rested at its back as it crept after a black spider skittering toward one shadowed corner of the room.

The chase hadn't lasted very long.

The little thing gave a sudden squirm, then another, its feet and wings had been caught fast in a web stretched near the corner. The spider came back out from the darker corner, leaving the lizard hanging there, wriggling faintly in the strands as it started to spin new web to try and wrap around the lizard.

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: DM Player-Slayer

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

Leos' ears flicked when he heard the nearby struggle, the vibrations reaching the sensitive receivers. When his eyes glanced over at the spider wrapping up the lizard thing, he quickly acted, using the Force to pull the lizard out of the spider's trap and into his grasp. He didn't want to kill the spider, they were helpful for pests, but he didn't want it to eat the lizard. The Themian carefully secured it in his hands before he opened them up to examine the creature.

"Uh... hello," he spoke in a soft tone. "I won't eat you... I don't know if you understand that though..."

Even if it was a strange lizard with wings, it was still just a lizard.