Public Weekend Treasure Hunt: The Haunted Storm

[Brooke Waters]

Crash of thunder.

Flash of light in the darkness.

This was the world she found.

Eternal darkness and storms.

The Force was her guide, as it normally was. Flashes of light illuminating her surroundings as she stepped under the archway into the ancient temple. The storm outside. The rain stopped. She looked around. Reaching for her bag, she pulled a few stones. Whispering a spell, she threw them into the air and they spun around her, clacking against each other before eventually igniting in a yellowish-green glow.

It wasn’t blue coral, like she preferred, but it was what she found.

There was already one out building where she landed. Thats where she grabbed these. Ancient nightsister creations. This world was part of the Witch Kingdom of the past.

The past was awake this night. As she stepped through, her shark skin robes slick with rain, dripped on the floor. The thunder outside hid the other sounds that were coming from this temple. Scurrying. Cawing.

Familiars of long dead sisters, keeping watch on the bodies. Their own bodies kept going, fueled by the Force, and their final orders.

Though they were walking again this night. She could hear the slow fragile footsteps. The raspy songs of the other witches, various clans, but if she was correct, this was a store house with many treasures of the history of the Witches.

How thin was the veil here? Would others have been called here this evening?

 

[Scour]

The stars may not answer to anyone, but my crew does.

A woman hung suspended from the ceiling fastened into a embrace of pain. A night sister. Her misery was a white noise in the room. Heard by Scour but tuned out. The captains focus was on the womans belongings. Minor potions, cloaks, charms and weapons. He handled them meticulously, slow and deliberate. Getting to know it and then press in and enter its perspective.

There was a flash! And then histories unfolded before his minds eyes like an hourglass. Raptured in visions of far and not distant times, a thump sounded and a organic door moved aside. Brooding into the chamber walked Latch, lieutenant and second in command of the Ten Thousand Fists. He bore ill news.

" Cap? The men have grown-" He began and was cut off. Somewhere lost in a shifting timeline his captain interrupted. " More what..deranged?!" His hands moved to another item and initiated his perception into another reality tunnel.

" Heh. Have you attained the secrets of this, Witch. Sir?" He asked and mused.
" Secrets no longer." The man jerked and anchored his mind to the present. " Tell the crew that treasure awaits for them all!"

That was how he arrived. A captain and some of his crew. They were bunched in scouting parties scouring all they could hope to find. Heeding a call of greed and fate.

Brooke Waters

 

[Darth Anathemous]

Wearing: Robes + Hat
Tag: Brooke Waters
Nearby: Scour

Anathemous had always hated guidance from the otherworldly.

An invisible hand shoving you along towards machinations not one's own, neither friend nor foe.

Just apathy.

But Mother Dathomir? Primal winds which smelled of home guided the half-witch to this stormy place, boots sinking deep into mud under weight hidden inside the warrior's body, yet on she trudged. The rain slicked off her hat, soaking the Nightsister charms which hung from it's wide brim, which occasionally vibrated to the pulsing rhythm of something ahead, a heartbeat.

And with each, whispers on the wind grew louder.

Dark stone rose in the distance, some kind of temple which the former archeologist theorized to be vastly ancient, predating the plague even.

Relief then, she thought, this rain has grown so cold.

When she arrived at the temple entrance, she knelt to examine muddy prints on the stone floor. Small and still wet, left by someone light on their feet minutes ago. A woman perhaps, of less warrior physique than her own. But were they a witch or mere tomb raider?

The crow calls drew golden eyes upwards, glowing in the dark room soon as she cleared the doorway.

She carried a staff over her shoulder, lest the tapping reveal her too soon.

Anathemous was no assassin, but she moved with a predator's grace all the same, quietly rolling her foot with each slow step into the ruins, eyes fixed on mysterious yellow-green flashes.

If only the half-witch knew what the spirits had guided her to, perhaps she'd have sang gratitude.

​

 

[Brooke Waters]

The darkness in here was encroaching on everything. There was definitely something here though. She could feel it. Even without a spell to help focus herself, there was the call of the Force. Perhaps other witches needed to take a little lesson from a Jedi, or even a Sith. The latter had different magic that than the witches, but the intuitive use of the Force? That was important.

Could it be the others that were here?

The blonde wasn’t certain, but there was power here. There was ancient power in this building.

Who are you? Came a shout, shadowy and shaky through the building. To all that were there.

Looking up, Brooke saw a green spectre of a nightsister flying her way, power emanating from it. There were others running through this area. Brooke held her ground, whispering a spell of protection, creating a shield of what could only be described as icey energy to block.

As the spectre disappeared, the room became more well lit, not warm, but the colors were. Looking up, the blonde nodded.

There was definitely a storehouse here.

Scour Darth Anathemous

 

[Darth Anathemous]

Wearing: Robes + Hat
Tag: Brooke Waters
Nearby: Scour

"Hrmh..." an ethereal shout stopped the half-witch in her tracks.

She could see them now, like green fog and flame ever shifting, there were other spirits here.

Not the ones who'd guided her, that would've been too simple. Grave guardians perhaps, two of them circled her at a far remove, warded to a safe distance by her amulet. They were not Sith spirits, she had no intention of consuming them, but they didn't know that.

Still, guidance or no, she was a trespasser here.

"I am Kaila Starfall," she softly announced to them.

"A daughter of the Howling Crags."

The spirits stilled, her molten eyes glancing between them.

In the end they vanished, leaving only the sickly sweet scent of jungle rot behind as the room was lit. This additional light cast flickering shadows across the rooms, one around the corner which caused the blonde's head to tilt. A figure, not close but neither far, in another room.

Having answered the spirits verbally, Kaila saw no point in hiding any longer.

And so on she marched, heralded by a rythmic * tap, tap, tap * of a metal staff against the cobblestone.

"Does something living yet draw breath amidst these ancestral halls?" she called.

​

 

[Scour]

Tags: Brooke Waters
Nearby: Darth Anathemous

There was the overwhelming feeling of being watched. For Captain Scour and his men, they approached and explored parts of the temple that they could. First was the outside, taking it slow, Scour taking the lead while his men followed along loosely.

Pillaging over old statues, ruins, carvings, ancient tools, weapons, bones. They handled all of the above with little care, an apparent lack of honor and respect. Some were even kept. They could be valuable after all. And others were trampled over, dropped, cast aside. It didn't matter, it was just stuff to them. The only thing that mattered was the greed, the credits.

But for the Captain, he knew more was going on. And though he could not directly see it, he felt as if him and his men were watched. All the signs were there. The crows cawed, squawking wildly. A murder of them, sounding off like an alarm. Rats and other such alien creatures scurried and skittered about, watching them, running away from them. Like an immune response alerting to a foreign pathogen. Then there were the shadows, in the corners of his vision, fleeting. As soon as he would turn to look, they'd be gone, but only to appear somewhere else.

The deeper they went inside, the quieter the world became. Even the elements seemed to still at a distance now. "Cap'n…" one of the men muttered, his voice bouncing off the stone like a nervous heartbeat. "Feels like we ain't alone." Scour didn't answer. He felt the gaze before he heard it. Pressure. Soft at first, like fingers brushing across the back of his skull.

He shook it off with a grunt. Then he heard it. A voice of a woman. A distant call within the halls of the temple but still present. The origin of said voice eluded him through sight alone but not through sensory acuity. Lub-dub-lub-dub. A heartbeat was nearby, felt as if it was his own. And if it was felt by Scour then the rest of his gen'dai crew were aware as well. The grouping hushed down and grinned to each other and then to their captain.

"Does something living yet draw breath amidst these ancestral halls?" she called.

" Does something living yet draw breath amidst these ancestral halls?" The captains maw motioned words, but his gravely voice was not found. Instead what called out was a perfect inflection of the woman voice. A mimicry that traversed the inner temple for all to respond to.