Worm Hunt (Open to Sith)

[RC 212]

[member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Darth Ignus"] [member="Calina Ovmar"] [member="Neelig Waawat"] [member="Grimoire"]

Vassara had tailed them for some time. As a newer member of this little group she was not well versed at all in their names at first. Time had gone on as they marched through the tunnels, parading the prisoners like bait.She'd watched and listened and learned until the battle was met.

Her thoughts turned to her virus and how it would interact with the worms DNA. After a successful test at Metellos she was interested in introducing it to new species, and creating a hive of beasts to do her bidding. Much like an overlord she was gathering her minions, corrupting them one soul at a time.

The worm erupted from the tunnels, screeching in anger as they entered. Velok was blasting it with Cryoban, Nyra was crawling and Ignus was intent on touching it's mind. Under their combined assault it would no doubt fall. She had a choice then, whether to turn her mind into the wheels of Ignus' plan, or to hatch her own.

"Why not the path that favors both?" She said to herself.

It was in this moment the menacing woman, once a Rogue Jedi stepped from the shadows. Her cloak trailed in the dull breeze of the rock tunnels and her midnight armor clashed in sharp contrast to pale white skin and evil yellow eyes.

"Allow me to assist."

Both Midnight armored hands rose, fingers outstretching and separating into a loose knife hand.

The force gathered within her body, a black sickness surging through her very bones. Pure willpower swirled and manifested itself. Crackling bolts of searing purple emerged from her fingertips, striking the beast where Velok had directed his initial blasts. The other hand came flat, aiding Acolyte Ignus in his mental pull.

Energy flowed from her being to his, empowering him two fold, as if a spinning wheel of darkness was transferred from her body to his.

"Focus, keep the wheel spinning, keep the assault up." She said, voice crackling with heretical vibrations...

 

[Nyra Mazul]

[member="Velok the Younger"] shot with his villianous freeze gun causing the creature some torment and stopping it in it's tracks. It wasn't the largest worm, but then again it didn't need to be. Even a run would be a larger than she needed by a magnitude in the thousands. Nyra remained safely in her hole as the creature thrashed to and fro.

And then Nyra dropped. She fell from her hole in the ceiling and landed on the soft luxurious leather that she was here to collect. Of course Nyra was a team player, while she was willing to stab her claws into the creature moving to the head and climbing through it's eye until reaching brain she decided against it. [member="Darth Ignus"] was trying with all his might to control the creature, and get a breeding pair.

Nyra had her own tricks up her sleeve. Her species was telepathic, they used this ability to trick species with scent or other identification methods that her species couldn't mimic. As such she latched to the head of the creature and focused on it. With a little effort she found a few evolutionary triggers and started to calm the creature as best she could considering it was just shot with a freeze ray that one might see a holovid villian use.


[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

Self-preservation instincts reached a state of consonant dissonance, bombard by a concert of psionic pulsations that drove nerve-end agony toward portions of almost mammal-esque brain tissue. CryoBan had shot into its maw, flash-freezing stretches of pallid gums, bone-white teeth, down to the globule jaw-structure ringing forward out of its skull. Psi-pathic trails were leaching into its frontal lobes. A weight was jostling on its back and tried at reconciling all the offensive inputs that urged the creature to smash it against the root ceiling. The tikulini convulsed, shuddering. A kind of palsy attack. Probe droids wheeled close and fired off burst-scan fields that measures ganglion activity in certain nerve clusters and collected physiological read outs. The tunnel structure trembled with muted quakes. What few, very few surviving prisoners edged and crawled as worms themselves, belly down and scrabbling on bare knees and elbows. The woman-bait, Mariah, ignored two sprained wrists and wriggled for freedom. The tikulini finally arrived at a solution that helped discharge the collecting acids in its belly being bred by physical stress:

It hosed noxious vomit.

[member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Darth Raxis"] [member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Darth Ignus"]

 

[Carach]

It had been decided that whilst the others would move towards the tunnels, Tai Fa and his would stay behind near the shuttles to monitor the situation from relative safety.

This in itself pleased Tai. He always had considered himself more an administrator than a warrior, genetics predisposed him towards commanding and not necessarily towards the raw labor of others. But as with most things, they do not always go completely as planned and this was no different.

The avian listened silently to the report brought by Vnut, his main right-wing these days.

"The probe has detected a presence two clicks away from us, Lord Fa." There was still the strange meld of words tying themselves together when the Balinaka spoke, but Tai was getting more and more accustomed to the accent. Such was it that he simply nodded and then pondered.

"Close proximity to Silver territory... gives us insight what this presence could be."

"To fight is to die.​

Equipped for war, we are not.​

The time is not now.​

​

Swiftly we must act.​

Relay this to those who hunt,​

Shadow, our great strength."​

​

Vnut nodded, before turning around to execute the orders given.

[member="Nyra Mazul"] | [member="Cato Fett"] | [member="Darth Raxis"] | [member="Velok the Younger"] | [member="Darth Ignus"]​

 

[Kamon Vondiranach]

[member="Tai Fa"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Darth Raxis"] [member="Velok the Younger"]

With the help of that Master Raxis, Leos was able to tap into the large creature's mind and subdue its rage. It thrashed for several minutes more due to the pain that it felt, but eventually even that subsided under the onslaught of the others. It felt incredible to be inside this huge creature's mind, touching its emotions and desires with his own. At the same time, he felt a profound sadness knowing that this one was going to die, even though they'd managed to calm it. Taming it would have been useful, but it was injured now, and they'd come for the hide of a Tikulini, first and foremost. This great creature was to be an unfortunate sacrifice.

Unfortunately, the vomit managed to kill all the remaining sacrifices. He could offer no retort for this; the creature was simply in pain and slowly dying. Vomit was bound to happen. A deep sigh escaped him as he looked at the now calmed, but significantly pathetic looking, creature.

"Such a shame we must harvest it."

He shrugged then and nodded to the others.

"Well done, everyone. With Master Raxis' help, we've subdued the beast. Now we harvest its hide for our uses. I hope someone brought the right tools for the job."

One of them had, and soon enough they were carving sheets of hide from the creatures body and carting it back up to the ship. Someday, Leos vowed, he would return and tame a couple of the beasts, and then he'd breed them and they'd have an ever expanding supply of hide at their disposal. That would be useful in the coming turmoil. Of that he was certain. But for now, one would do for them all. It was certainly big enough. A good test of their skills and teamwork. A test they passed.

THE END