Private There is no death, there is the force.

[Rocho]

He was getting older, that was quite clear. His body was aging in ways he really didn't like. But he had no interest in retiring, his strength was still quite strong. His power in the force was strong too, and why waste time he still had. And that, was a mistake. For all his power, he was having to use more and more of it just to keep him on the move. And that meant he got himself distracted. This time, he had sought out more than he could chew. A sith tomb, somewhere there would doubtless be plenty to find. In particular, he was after tarentateks. Maybe dream singers if they existed here.

The trandoshan hunted it, so far, one very long and wide tunnel, statues on all sides, which to him meant threats on all side. Something hidden inside perhaps, maybe traps. Yet, he could sense none of that yet. None, until he was attacked. He was suddenly slammed against the ground and cieling, his own gauntlet activated and slammed into his leg. He definitely sensed things now, intense dark side presence. No, presences. Long dead beings of the dark side, powerful, and numerous. He roared as he wrested himself out of their telekinetic control, trying to pinpoint where they were at, before he realized, in utter rage and frustration, it would mean nothing to attack a ghost.

One of the statues flew off the ground at him, he swung his axe at it shattering it and throwing the remnants off him before anothing immediately was at him from behind, a kick against it, only to find a carefully carved spike inside drive itself through his leg. The hunter roared in pain and threw himself back with his good leg, pushing himself even further with the force, his body was thrown off course as were his thoughts as force lightning from three different angles struck him, starting to burn him up inside and convulsing his body.

There was an ever so brief reprieve, not because they were tired, but because he was using the force to take back control of his limbs. Before they could start again, he put everything he had into a lunge that sent him like a torpedo for the exit.

And then he met with sharp pains bursting through his body as stones became sharp and jagged and slammed through him with the force, and he was accellerated on his path with lightning burning his body inside and out. And then, he met darkness.

heklerkok-tdl-1-tempest (strapped to his back, extra ammunition on straps. Equipped with thermal detonators)
PS-1 Particle Shotgun in hand with extra ammunition on belt and legs. Focused on this ammo.
t-7-vibro-brace (left arm.)
g-11-shield-gauntlet (right arm)
Hekler'Kok LA-2 Light Armor (Isn't wearing shoes, helmet, or gloves.)
The Beast: (on back)

Carthus of House Marr

 

[Carthus of House Marr]

Tags: Rocho​

Carthus ran a pale, spidery hand over the rune-encrusted wall, brushing away eons of accumulated dust and grime. "Fascinating." He said, speaking to his guardians. He was aware they couldn't truly grasp it, but he didn't care. This was a significant find. Digging up the secrets the dead held so tightly was about the only thing that brought him pleasure any longer, and the only reason he'd venture from his compound.

Behind him stood a few hunched figures, loosely clutching blasters. One rasped at the air, sucking in the stale, dusty atmosphere through its skeletal jaw into an empty ribcage. He wasn't sure why some did that. A reflex, perhaps, remembering what they had once been. Thankfully, whatever they used to be, they were now dutiful, if somewhat inept servants.

Aside from the noise, the tomb was quiet. "Please stop that, if you would." He said, his soft, almost musical voice speaking up again. The undead soldier fell silent immediately. "Thank you." He said, patting the reanimated corpse on the shoulder. "I do so hate having my thoughts interrupted. We'll have to return later with more resources to secure this site. For now, let's return home."

He had a habit of speaking to the quasi-sentient things like they understood much of it. He was unable to entirely break the behavior, pointless as it was. He was about to say more when the noise of battle came echoing down the tunnels. Tomb robbers, perhaps? Maybe more manpower had come to him. Sometimes the universe was convenient like that.

He made his way toward the noises, finding spots of strange-looking liquid on the floor. Blood, if he was any judge, but not human. A dark presence lingered about, or several. He lifted one hand, banishing them with an incantation. He was not the most powerful Sith in existence. Unlike many, he didn't cling to that delusion. But the arts of the grave were his forte, and he wielded them with contemptuous effortlessness.

The trail led on a ways, until he found a scorched, smoking corpse. The damage was severe, enough so that it was a bit difficult to tell what it had once been. He was confident the creature had only been dead a few minutes, unlike everything else here. He reached down, peeling back a flap of blackened meat. The bones were reasonably intact. The creature had been strong. If nothing else, he could harvest the parts for a construct.

"Pick it up." He said, gesturing to the corpse. "Bring it back with us. The tomb guardians killed this poor fool. We'll get some use out of his body, and perhaps his soul as well. It seems only fitting."

One soldier grabbed the Trandoshan by the legs, and the other under the shoulders, and they obediently began to drag the remains after their master.

 

[Rocho]

Was that really it? A surprise attack from a horde of untouchables? Really? If he could have roared in frustration he couldn't, but he wasn't sure if his throat was even intact. Or if it had been scorched so thoroughly that it could be called a throat. That was of course, ignoring the fact he couldn't feel any of his body.

That was a great touch wasn't it. He thought this must mean death, just, existing. He wandered if the Scorekeeper would count that against him. Maybe that was why he hadn't passed further yet. Maybe a punishment for that final failure to even strike one of them back.

Then he felt something, lives, and not proper lives. But force energies, presences. And obedience. He was moving now, why? It wasn't the devils this time, he suddenly realized he couldn't feel them anymore. Or maybe he stopped sensing them the moment he died. He couldn't tell anymore. Maybe he really was drifting away by now. Thoughts were becoming less clear and coherent. His senses in the force had always been uniquely strong for someone who cared so little about the light or dark or the intricacies of the force, he had a great use for the skill on its own as a proper warrior hunter.

But even that was beginning to fade in these moments, what a shame. It was a long life, he gained many points. But the ending somehow felt shameful. No great battle, nor old age. Just...that.

Carthus of House Marr

 

[Carthus of House Marr]

Tags: Rocho​

The trip back was a silent one. Carthus focused on flying the shuttle, as he didn't trust one of the dead to do it. They lurked in the back, along with the corpse. He switched on the autopilot, and turned his seat to study it again.

It had really not been this fellow's lucky day. Then again, he should have known better. Poking around in the universe's undercarriage was generally not a safe activity, particularly where the Sith were concerned. Places where the unhallowed dead lay were places scavs tended not to come back from.

Such tombs were not the worst or darkest places in the universe. There were locations where darkness, pain, and horror pooled like a physical mass, where even a seasoned graverobber like himself dared not go. He judged this had not been one of those, and that he would indeed give the place a second look when he could return with more labor.

He had something special in mind for this poor fellow. In some ways, it was his lucky day. A second chance. Very few people got a second chance; many in the galaxy didn't even get a first one.

It wasn't long before they arrived, emerging from hyperspace at Carthus' isolated asteroid home. Those few who knew about it had come to call it "The Larder". He'd even started thinking of it that way himself, eventually, when he bothered to name it at all. The station was small, as such things went, a simple sealed building clinging like a tumor to the side of the asteroid. It was unimpressive, plain, and unadorned, at least outwardly. Its inward face was an entirely different matter.

The small knot of shuffling corpses, lead by their masked and hooded master, hauled the burnt corpse past rows of ray-shielded cells, each holding various bizarre altered life forms or stitched-together constructs. Nothing so mundane was planned for this fellow, though.

It wasn't long before they arrived at a room lined with temperature-controlled lockers for storing corpses. This wouldn't be an incredibly in-depth experiment, just a small one to satisfy his curiosity. He still hadn't decided what he'd do with the ruined and blackened meat, but the soul was perhaps still in usable condition. He paused, looking over a section of lockers containing some of his fresher corpses, before selecting one. Male, human, relatively young and vibrant. It would be enlightening to see how the once-Trandoshan coped with the comparatively weaker, if more graceful body.

The remains were placed together, rather unceremoniously, upon a pair of slate-gray metal tables in a nearby operating room. The air reeked of stale blood, rot, and embalming fluid, but that only invigorated Carthus. To him, that was the smell of discovery and potential. He closed his eyes, and concentrated.

Small wisps of greenish, sickly energy began to rise from the mangled reptilian carcass as he drew the flickering embers of life together, stoking the flames of consciousness once again. He wanted to ensure the Trandoshan was able to experience this. Carefully, he began to direct the returned life-force into the human body. It was difficult, like those children's games where shapes had to be inserted into corresponding slots. He was trying to put a square shape into a circle's place, and sweat beaded his pale brow from the strain of the effort. That was the lot of the Sith necromancer, though. Defying the order of the universe. Every day was breaking the rules of the game.

He saw the human corpse begin to stir slightly as stolen life flowed into it, and he almost lost concentration in his excitement. This very effort had failed more than once, producing only squealing, mad horrors good for little but cannon fodder. The rest was up to the soul. If it was strong enough to withstand the trauma of the experience, and adapt to its new form with any grace at all, he'd soon find out one way or another.

 

[Rocho]

Time was in question right now. Location was in question. He sensed things, specific things. Things that were less than what they were supposed to be, or more than. NO, he sensed that already. The improper living things. The obedient. How long was it already since he last thought of those? This was not agony, but nor was it bliss. And this was most certainly not the scorekeepers doing. So why was he still here. What was going wrong, or right? He knew his body quite well. And while he could endure a great deal, his could sense that death was supposed to be there.

So why wasn't it. Why did he feel like he was just barely hovering beyond his own body. Not one with the force, not sucked into chaos, or the void, not with the scorekeepers rewards. No reincarnation or obliteration. Something was happening. And it was intentional. He could feel now, recognize something, hanging onto him by force. In both senses of the word.

And then, pain. He felt like he was being crushed down, twisted, ripped, and warped. Squished into a rubber sack of an unnatural shape like he was some ghastly sentient putty. Wires skewered him, rubber ingrained itself onto him...light? LIGHT?! There was sound, and light, and pressure. Things he was sure he could not feel anymore.

Well before the pain reseeded, well before his mind actually recuperated itself into a logical being, or he understood what was truly happening. He shot up. His body hurled itself across the room with such vigor that had he not sensed the wall in his way he'd have died a second time by shattering his skull all the way down to his neck. Instead, his hands shot back, using the force to slow himself such that the impact produced barely more than a grunt before he fell on the ground.

And then was right back up, head darting around as the senses began to transform from utter agony and over-input to actual data, as his brain began to process. He was in a fighting pose...he thought anyway. This form was...wrong. He felt sore, and weak, his senses felt not only dulled, but as if he'd completely lost some of them almost. But that should be expected after such damage. But no, that wasn't what was so wrong.

He felt soft, stretchy. His hands and feet and ankles were all the wrong shapes. His face felt flat on his head like someone had somehow cut half of it off and put him back together with what remained. He could feel how slow this body-"Humaaan?!" the words came out all strange, softer, neither the roar nor the hiss of a trandoshan. Soft like a human voice. His eyes stared in disbelief, his mind shouted at him, before he let himself comprehend it though he turned on the presence, those inferior eyes he now had trained on him, Rocho's body shifting stance already to something that would fair better for a human. Rocho, of course, looked off to a well trained eye for martial arts, force users, or hunters alike, who primarily studied humans. But this was his first time in such a strange form. He reached out, his strength in force sense was impeccable. And this was the same being he sensed before, not one of the demons. He wasn't quite ready to make assumptions though, "What have you done? Why?" the pronunciation of it was a little off, almost but not quite slurred, like his tongue was too thick. But it was clear at least.

He knew this, he had been somehow transferred to a human body. Why, and how, he didn't know. Nor did he technically understand the 'what' of what had genuinely happened.

Carthus of House Marr