Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

You can't Drink to Forget when you know Nothing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB2Vj1gToig

Nar Shaddaa - Headache Bar

Only in the darkest corner of the already dimly lit bar, on a table that was riddled with dirt that probably already had been there a few generations ago, Derriphan felt a sense of security. The almost equally dirty confines of his ugly flat never felt like they could keep out the hostile environment of the endless galaxy, at least not in the way some cheap booze and a bunch of more important thugs around him could. It was one of the few places where he allowed himself to pull the ski mask of his face, revealing the crooked nose and myriad on scars that contrasted to his vibrant blue eyes and perfect blonde hair.

Right besides his disgusting looking drink rested his shotgun, angled so that it could hit whoever would come close without being properly aimed. His left reached for the liquid that was meant to be clear but oddly always came out of the bottle as an opaque sludge, while his right calmly remained on the trigger of his weapon. The hand hadn't moved away from the weapon once, since he had sat down in his corner three hours and eight drinks ago, and Derriphan had no intention to change that.

It wasn't like the enforcer for hire had many enemies, or friends for that matter, nor was his name and appearance of any fame or meaning around here. Still the young mercenary had come to the conclusion that he could never be save enough that no one planned to put a bullet in his head to let his guard down. He had seen what happened to people who did, he had even done it to them in more then a few cases.

[member="Cedric Grayson"]
 
Cedric looked very out of place.

He marched into the bar, his armor scorching still from the conflict. His hunt for Icarn had resulted in...well, problems to say the least. Shlurk was dead. That was all that mattered.

Under normal circumstances, Cedric would have meditated on the matter. He would have likely locked himself away in his room for a day or so, reconciled with the Graug's death, and moved on. As things were, drink was nearby, and his legs were feeling too wobbly to carry him back to the ship.

Thus it was that Cedric walked into the bar in full war-gear, his armor having been scorched in multiple places during the battle. The knight paid no mind to any soul - he knew he could deal with anyone that gave him trouble here - and plopped down in a chair at the bar.

"Balmoraan Bluesky," he grumbled, running a hand over his shaved scalp. It was only then that the knight noticed the man seated next to him. His gaze went to the man's drink. "Try the Bluesky. Better than that swill."

[member="Derriphan"]
 
"Noted."

The words were more muttered then spoken, and the mercenary didn't even turned his head to look at the newcomer. Other then some of the other patrons of the bar his interest wasn't enough to look away from his drink to catch a glimpse of the man that openly wore the marks of a recent battle. After quickly downing the remains of his drink, he tapped on the bar and the dirty glass was once more filled with the same repulsive liquor then before.

As if it wasn't obvious, Derriphan wasn't in the mood for a chat. Not that he ever was in the mood for a chat, but recent events had pushed him to isolate himself even further from any other thinking being. He reached for his new drink, and again consumed it in one go. The he tapped on the bar. This pattern had repeated for quite a while, and he had no intention to have it interrupted.

After once more raising the glass, his blue eyes subtly moved trying figure out if the other was looking at him or not. He wasn't sure, but he didn't cared enough to risk another look. Instead he placed the drink back down and reached into his pocket, looking at the drawing that kept him awake for the past days.

It was merely a doodle, made by a child most likely, showing a odd shattered planet encased in a ghostly green mist, locked tightly in a boney hand emerging from a black sleeve. It was the only clue he had to the reasons of his own existence, and yet he didn't had a single clue what it meant.

[member="Cedric Grayson"]
 
Cedric was most certainly not looking at the man next to him. His attentions lingered on the fizzing blue drink that was set before him. Without hesitation, the knight downed half the drink in one gulp. It was partly thirst, and partly a desire to forget his troubles, if only for a moment.

His thoughts kept returning to Shlurk; to the life leaving the Graug's eyes as his heart stopped. Grief threatened to overtake the Jedi Knight once more, and he met it with another downing of the alchohol.

It was only when the drink was finished that Cedric felt eyes upon him. He did not react, and instead reached out with the force. What he felt shocked him for a moment - this one had a presence within the empyrean that could not be ignored. It was a presence that spoke of a troubled past, and a lack of understanding. The shadow clung to this man as if he had been born within it.

The empty glass was forgotten. Cedric turned to the fellow.

"Your kid's drawing?" He asked, a brow raised as he looked over the man's shoulder.

[member="Derriphan"]
 
"No."

It took almost a minute for Derriphan to make the decision to answer the stranger. In a place like this it would've been easy to ignore him, but he hadn't learned anything new the countless times he had looked at the drawing and whatever the man had to say was probably more insightful then his aimless thoughts. While his marks of the recent battle weren't much to go by, he certainly looked like he had seen more of the galaxy then Derriphan had.

The note found its origin in the pocket of a now dead man, and for once one that hadn't fallen prey to the mercenary's shotgun. Instead the oddly clothed man had poisoned himself once his eyes meet the clone, and while Derriphan couldn't say for sure his appearance had been reminiscent of the blurry shapes he remembered from his time in the tank.

"You ever seen a planet that looks like that?"

He placed the crumbled scribbles on the bar, his left tapping against the deformed world depicted there. The hand holding it was most likely a cryptic metaphor, but the planet itself could represent a place that actually existed. Normally Derriphan wouldn't openly ask a stranger such things, but the booze had slowly loosened his tongue, at least enough to get out more then a few disgruntled grunts.

[member="Cedric Grayson"]
 
Cedric's curiosity was obvious; anything to distract him from the harshness of his current reality, if only for a few brief seconds. The knight leaned forward, his gaze never leaving the picture. There were many worlds across the galaxy, and though he had visited many, he knew he would never see them all. This one seemed to fall in the former category, though he couldn't place an exact finger on what it was.

"Looks like one of the rim rim worlds probably given the damage. You know the core tends to get its planets fixed with old vong tech. Seems to be torn up, probably from war. I'd take it whatever this place is, it's either made up, or somewhere near a war zone." He paused, his brow furrowing, "As for the hand? Probably an occultist symbol. That sort symbolism is fairly common in dark sided cults: they predict the end times, conquering of worlds, things along those lines. It looks lit fits the bill." Another glass of Bluesky was slid Cedric's way. The knight reached for it reflexively, then seemed to hesitate.

"I'll wait a bit," he relented. "So, yeah I've seen planets like that, but I don't think I've seen that planet in particular. Where'd you get the picture? Looking for a lost world?"

[member="Derriphan"]
 
"I don't know, I found it on a corpse."

Derriphan answered truthfully but he left out the exact details of the man's demise. Revealing them meant that he had to share his limited knowledge about his creation with a total stranger and that was something he rather would avoid. That the world on the drawing wasn't unique despite its peculiar appearance surprised him, as he had hoped that it would be enough to finally find answers.

"All I know is that I have to figure out where it is and how to get there."

It was the only certainty he had, the one clue he had found in the last months, and he would go to any lengths to find its meaning, even if he had to visit every damned dead world in the galaxy.

"Before he died he said something to me: His hand remains endless. Any idea what that means?"

Obviously he had already made the connection to the hand in the picture and it certainly aligned with the stranger's claims about cults, but the meaning itself still eluded him. He had searched the holonet for it, but while the phrase could be found a handful of times it was always devoid of any context. It seemed like merely another dead end in his search.

[member="Cedric Grayson"]
 
His hand remains endless.

Where had Cedric heard that before? He recalled the phrase from somewhere, though he could not ascertain as to just where it had come from. Something in the back of his mind told him that it related to the Sith, but in what way he could not say. The knight's brow furrowed. "I've heard the phrase before. I think it had something to do with a Sith world near my home..." he paused, mulling the thoughts over. "It probably pertains to a specific Sith Lord. They tend to have grandiose sayings about them, often exaggerated beyond belief too. Much like this one."

He took a sip of the glass, then looked to meet the stranger's eyes.

"Do you know who this corpse was?" He asked, a hint of amusement lacing his words. A distraction from his current misery was welcome, even if it turned out to be a waste of time in the end. "Can't really work off of a drawing alone. If you do know who he is, we can probably trace him to your lost lord, assuming the hand we're referring to actually belongs to a Sith Lord. That's just my assumption."

[member="Derriphan"]
 
Of course Derriphan had thought about this as well, but while examining the corpse it had quickly become apparent that the dead was an expert in hiding his identity. Most parts that allowed any insight into his person had been replaced by cybernetics and the rest had been erased by other means.

"No, he made quite the effort to make sure of that. False eyes, burned fingertips and a whole lot of cybernetics. No ID either, only the drawing and unmarked credits."

Derriphan emptied the rest of drink, while thinking back at the encounter. He had been very thorough when checking the body, but looking back one detail struck him as odd. During his examination it didn't looked like much, compared to his cryptic words, strange clothes and sudden suicide, but maybe it was a hint that could bolster the memory of the stranger.

"There was something off about his cybernetics. They looked anarchic even compared to the junk they have down in the slums, and most of them were held together by makeshift connections. Does that help?"

[member="Cedric Grayson"]
 
Cedric's brow furrowed as he formed a picture of the man in his head. The images were fuzzy at best, though the stranger's mention of anarchic drew his mind to a lost thread of information stores in the recesses of his memory. He recalled hearing about a certain Sith Lord and his activities over Malachor, and he also recalled deciding that information was not relevant at the time. His spies had never uncovered anything particularly damning about this Sith Lord, save for his own activities upon Malachor itself. Even then, details were scarce. This one had taken care not to overstep.

"I have an inkling of an idea," the knight frowned as he scooted his empty glass farther away, evidently deciding that he was done with the drinking. "I have an idea that might help, but you likely won't like it. Before I tell you what it is; my name is Cedric Grayson. I need your name too."

Cedric's stare was deathly serious.

"Otherwise this idea won't work."

[member="Derriphan"]
 
"Derriphan."

For a moment the mercenary hesitated. Sharing his identity wasn't something that aligned well with his personal dogma of shooting people instead of talking to them. Besides that he never felt very comfortable with his name. It wasn't really his name, but merely the word written on the tank he had crawled out from, and the young clone only picked it for the lack of anything else to call himself after being thrown into the galaxy on his own.

"Now tell me your plan."

Derriphan simply brushed over [member="Cedric Grayson"]'s statement that he wouldn't like his idea. As far as he could remember he never really liked anything, not even fighting. He was good at it, but his enjoyment of it was only born from the fact that he didn't knew how to almost anything else, and certainly nothing with the same magnitude.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom