Another day in Nighthunter

[Er'in Tenel]

Rhyolite.

That wasn't the only reason anyone came to Nighthunter.

But it was one of two reasons why Er'in was here, the second being [member="Velok the Younger"].

She didn't hold with dressing like a prototypical Sith, here to buy alchemical components - but her more common dress sense was likely to get her mugged every step of the way from the port to the market, which wasn't all that far. So she settled for a dark purple Hapan-style jumpsuit and an obvious blaster alongside the more subtle lightsaber - people might mistake the latter, or assume she was a poser. No one mistook the former.

She needed an awful lot of Rhyolite. Never mind sword blades, what she had in mind would be a work of the Alchemists art... and was starship sized. This was going beyond credit limits and into personal favour territory.

She ducked into the tapcaff she'd been directed to and looked around - she wasn't here to buy from the Sith, she was here to talk to him - and that definitely wasn't going to be something you got from credits. On the upside, he should be easy enough to spot even without Force sensitivity.

 

[Velok the Younger]

He was. Sort of. See, about eight adult Whiphids had crammed themselves into a back corner of the tapcaf, where they wagered on a game involving grunts and stone knives. Someone's knife snapped with a sound like a turbolaser impact, to much good-natured ribaldry. Not a word was in Basic, but some things were universal.

Velok - just another ageing mountain of fur and tusks and rawhide clothes - squinted at the girl in purple and sniffed the air. <<Youngest, what do you think of the snack?>>

<<She has the scent, but not strong. This one spears cariboose too big to drag home.>>

He chuckled. "My grandson thinks you have a tendency to bite off more than you can chew, human. What are you, Sith? Witch? Unusually hormonal Jedi?" One huge three-clawed hand gestured at the lightsaber. "Or something oh-so-special and none of the above?"


@Er'in Tenel

 

[Er'in Tenel]

"Probably. But I'm not dead yet, which is a lot more than you say for a lot of other people throughout history. So I'll stick with my current approach for now, with all respect to your son."

It would be a lie to say Er'in wasn't intimidated by one particular Whiphid, but the others - and the group of them - didn't bother her at all. It wasn't exactly home, but it was a lot more than that.

"I didn't expect Velok the Younger to just blindly open with labels - your reputation speaks far greater than that. But, if you want a simple and clean label, I'm Sith. I'd argue I was a Witch - but only where traditionalist Dathomiri and Rythothian spirit-witches couldn't hear me to save my ears the endless pontification. I can cast a spell in more than one tongue, if that's any marker. I know a spell is a formulaic expression of working will upon the Force, regardless of tongue, if that's another."

Er'in doesn't shrug - she's too classically and gracefully trained for that, but she raises both hands, palm up.

"And I'm here talking, not charging in lightsaber drawn, which also says something. Many things."

[member="Velok the Younger"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

@Er'in Tenel

"So it does. <<Youngest, give her your seat.>>"

The largest and most heavily muscled of the Whiphids stood and shuffled into a corner, where his head brushed the silooth-carapace roof. He left vacant one large, warm, chitinous stool that faced Velok across the table. Velok gestured to the empty seat.

"I agree that only fools define themselves by labels, but I've met many fools. If you'd proclaimed yourself a simple thing...well, I have relatively few uses for simple things. Come play with us."

Someone slid a multi-kilogram flint knife across the deeply scarred table. Velok stretched out his left hand flat against the table and tapped four points with his own knife: between the digits and once on either side of the hand. "We sing a song in our tongue, a song with a heavy rhythm, and stab each point in turn. Cut a finger or fall behind the rhythm, and you lose a finger. Symbolically." He grinned widely. "You have five fingers and a sixty-seven-percent innate bonus to outlasting us. Will you play, human?"

 

[Er'in Tenel]

Er'in took the offered stool with a grace that was both utterly out of place, but also strangely fitting - as if she couldn't (and wouldn't) be anyone else for anyone else, but that somehow that fitted in. She even gave the Sith Lord's son a courteous nod, being mostly ignorant of Whiphid culture. Well, no, she knew a lot in theory. But this really wasn't the time to apply it.

"And a reasonably significant disadvantage due to the size difference in what our people consider hand weapons." She responded levelly. "But the universe doesn't play fair and isn't about odds. Life is not Sabbac." She laid her hand flat, fingers held wide and picked up the knife - it would be useless to her as a melee weapon and she was reasonably likely to more than symbolically lose a finger if she 'cut' herself given the weight. "Since I do not know the words, you start, and I will join in."

[member="Velok the Younger"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

A rumble of mild approval circled the table. Velok whuffled in amusement. "Fingers are replaceable."

The song began, and the Dark Side swelled in subtle ways. A rhythm of stone knifepoints clacked on the chitinous tabletop. Despite his age, Velok kept up handily. You lost your edge at a basic cultural trope like this, and you'd never get back their respect. In many ways, at least the ways that didn't involve accidental amputation, he had more to lose than the human.

The song became a harsh, urgent chant in basso profundo. Velok left off watching the human and focused on making the knife match the rhythm. A single flaw wouldn't be disastrous, but fall off tempo-

Someone did, a heavily scarred hunter, a crewer on one of his ships. The big Whiphid snorted in fury and leaned back from the table. First to get eliminated from a round was never a good place to be.

 

[Er'in Tenel]

Fail to make an impression - no matter how focused on cultural psuedo-machismo it may be, and you won't earn respect - less to lose, but also less to gain. Particularly not if more is being tested than your willingness to engage in unusual cultural games and physical bravery and skill.

Oddly enough, Hapan's have a very similar court game - if mixed up in fair more florid decadence, a hold over from the Hapan's days as the slaves of pirates. A test of skill for young women, with an edge of risk. But those were court games for a people long grown 'soft' - or at least very, very decadent.

While the Hapan courts as just as deadly as anywhere else (more so, if you're noble) they were not exactly preparation for this.

Er'in had naturally quick reflexes and was strong enough for a woman her size, shape and build - which made her but a child compared to everyone around her, a child wielding a weapon to big for her. She might not have been first out of the game, but she would have been second. But Er'in was not alone, she possessed the force - a reasonably angry determination not to be humiliated in a simple test. She never even began to pay attention to the others, beyond picking up the rhythm of the chant to begin - instead she let her senses ride the rhythm, she was next to mind blind - she couldn't predict from emotional queues when the tempo might change, but the immediate future was an open book for a reasonably skilled duellist and the sharp warmth of anger suffused her limbs with speed - and with the strength to hold the blade as her hand rapidly tired.

 

[Velok the Younger]

A couple of rounds in, the game ground to an abrupt halt as Velok the Youngest barked an unintelligible signal. Velok the Younger nodded to his grandson and stood. The stone knife slid back into his belt. He sucked on a cut between his fingers.

"Pragmatic, not bound up in tantrums and dignity and condescension. You're right, human: you're not a Sith in the usual way. My grandson informs me it's time to move on - a small matter of bounty hunters. Walk back to our transport with us and tell me why you came hunting for me."

 

[Er'in Tenel]

"I lost my dignity when I became Sith. Which is funny, I had always been taught it was Jedi who were supposed to be humbled."

Er'in rose to her feet, returning the knife she had been holding to it's owner.

"To learn. There is only so much one can learn from graves and tombs." She replied simply. "My Master is skilled in many things, but as a Dread Master he is... focused on a particular side of the Force, one he wishes me to master. Unfortunately, I was born with an affinity for other things. I also do not have the... temprement for the majority of the Sith Empire."

A pause.

"No, that's a social nicity I doubt we need. I consider them philosophically bankrupt as Sith, looking to do little more than grasp power in the name of the dark side - they are controlled by the Force, they do not control it, no matter what they believe. Order. Obedience. Genocide for it's own sake?" She smiles coldly. "Plus, they killed my Queen - she was a poisonous old witch, but she was ours. And I don't believe I need to start on the philosophical tenets of the Knights of Ren? Or lack of them. Pawns of their masters, all of them."

"I'm not going to flatter you with fawning praise, but your name is spoken with respect and fear and without the... blind approach you see in so many. You're not... what did you say? Simple."

[member="Velok the Younger"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

He kept half his attention on her, half on the walk through Port Nighthunter, and a third half on the Force in case the impending threat became real. So far, though, the bounty hunter crew hadn't materialized. With luck it never would. Velok had no taste for canned food.

"I've had similar thoughts," he said with a shrug that could register on a seismometer. "There's a reason I keep my distance from the vanity projects and echo chambers. I like to think myself above them.

"A few questions for you. What do I call you, what do you think you need to learn from me, and how will you use it if I contract it to you?"

 

[Er'in Tenel]

"Er'in Tenel. The sight - farseeing, all of that branch of the art."

Er'in replied quietly, keeping her eyes on the world around them - bounty hunters were bounty hunters. It seemed to be a short lived profession to her, but she knew unusual people.

"The physical you can master from texts or holocrons. Sorcery and alchemy from ruins and relics. But the ephemeral... that's different. The basics are beyond simple, but I can feel more, like... cobwebs in front of my face."

"As to what I will use it for? Eventually, to free myself - from everything - however that is done. No death, only the Force? Immortal in the Force? The Force will set me free? I don't pretend to understand any of those mantras, but I will, or die trying like so many others. Short term, I suspect I have come into possession of a Sith artifact, and I wish to master it before it masters me. Historical texts are quite clear on what happens to stupid students who grab the artifact of Darth Died-horrribly-at-the-hands-of-Jedi. It's not... like that. More subtle. But so more dangerous. Once I understand how it works, perhaps I can transcend the understanding of its creators. I have access to numerous texts that teach a little of alternate sensory traditions - the White Current, the 'Flow' - but the Jedi and the Sith laugh at people who do what they cannot. So there is little to learn from them."

[member="Velok the Younger"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

They came to a corner of the port where the Whiphids had parked a tough shuttle: a Santhe/Sienar S90 MAAT, twenty years old but still nasty. The Whiphids established a basic perimeter while Velok's grandson - the huge, amiable Velok the Youngest - performed preflight. Velok the Younger, for his part, ushered Er'in aboard and strapped himself in.

"Farsight, artifact, eventually the esoteric. I know enough about those areas to help you along. Something to understand about me, Er'in Tenel: I don't teach the Force as you know it for the sake of tradition or my own glory. I set contracts of mutual benefit and fixed terms, understanding that there'll be a time when that contract no longer benefits either one of us, at which point we part amicably or strike a new bargain."

Blasterfire kicked up outside the ship, and several concussive impacts. The noise died down in a matter of heartbeats. The Whiphids tromped aboard, fur smoking, and strapped in for takeoff.

"Simplest terms: I teach you, you work for me in some capacity. Do you concur?"

 

[Er'in Tenel]

Er'in made a mental note to add the unknown bounty hunter group to her watch list, doubtless she'd just been added to theirs if they'd gotten a look, and they might not be as incompetent as they appeared. The whiphids were very, very good after all.

"I never expected anything less. I don't enslave people, period and I won't kill children unless it really profits you - and I mean real profit, power. Not just credits."

She strapped herself down.

"I don't expect anything for free, I don't serve anyone for free. It sounds like we talk the same language."

[member="Velok the Younger"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

Velok snorted vociferously. "I have no interest in those tactics. I think you've spent too much time around the sort of people who're only happy when they're dominant. Torture chambers, grandiose legions, blood oaths, ultimate battlecruisers... No thank you. The farthest you'll find I go in that direction is the occasional raid or perhaps some blackmail as the opportunity arises."

The assault shuttle lifted off, straining at the mass of its passengers. The hold smelled like damp fur.

"Let's begin with a pilot project. Stretch out to the Force, ignore the distractions of the moment, and focus. Catch a glimpse of the surviving bounty hunters. Tell me about them, and your process."

 

[Er'in Tenel]

"To be fair to them, none of them have built an ultimate battlecruiser."

Er'in considers, then frowns as she closes her eyes.

"Yet."

Her breathing levelled - deep, strong and even, but not what you might call peaceful.

"There's... a point. Like a hot coal or a star. If you blow on it, it inflames, if you grasp it, it burns, if you watch it..."

Her voice took on a detached tone.

"Images. Like flames dancing before a fire. My mother, Metus, someone I don't know. So I breathe..." She does "... to bring the visions closer."

Pouring power into a visionary trance is... probably unwise for long term success.

"Six of them. Armoured. Nothing special. No, eight. Two are dead or wounded. They taste of sulphur and... steel? Durasteel. From a mining world. One of them has..." Her voice trails off as the power in the visions disorts them, and like many novice Sith, her response in return is to pour more power into stablising the vision, to holding the force steady. She began to sweat, every muscle going tense, then let out a suprisingly loud grunt for a small human and shook her head, spraying blood droplets from her bleeding nose in front of her.

"Then it flickers and fractures like cobwebs and no matter what I do, it never, ever holds still. It just... burns brighter."

[member="Velok the Younger"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

"Understand this," Velok rumbled, "that I'm speaking as someone who was mated for the better part of a century. Farsight is like intimacy. Focusing on any one point will cease to yield results in due course, no matter how hard you try. Vary your approach and let the moment develop as it will. Your instincts will guide you as you listen, watch, and respond. You and the Force pursue the same end goal. Balance assertiveness with sensitivity, yes?"

 

[Er'in Tenel]

Er'in can't help but jolt slightly, although she doesn't turn her head, Velok can feel her vision snap back into the cabin involuntarily.

"That..." She started to comment out loud, before noticing that in fact her eyes were not open, but her vision was clear. "... you're a very strange person, Velok the Younger."

But not, she didn't say out loud, a bad teacher. She didn't need to say that.

Intimacy, as Velok put it, was not... well... treat it how it should be, not how your relationships always turn out. Relax, go with the flow. You may always return to the same spot later. Her jaw unclenched, then her body relaxed.

"One of them has a daughter... dark hair. Another mistreats her mate terribly. Oh. And the final one has an anti-aircraft missile aimed at us."

Which is when the lock warning began to howl.

[member="Velok the Younger"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

Tension filled the other Whiphids in the hold. A couple of them finally buckled their straps - large, crude, aftermarket buckles suitable for huge three-clawed hands. The shuttle's guns hummed, and the little ship swayed into evasive maneuvers.

Velok's ears popped. A hole appeared in each wall and the Whiphid raider unlucky enough to be sitting between them. He roared hard enough that Velok winced.

<<I respect your injury, cousin,>> he said, unbuckling, <<and the scar it will yield when you live.>>

The younger Whiphid looked up at him. Blood welled from his shoulder, around the huge palm pressed to the wound. <<Curse them, ice singer.>>

<<Oh, I intend to.>> Velok collected a little blood on his claws and wiped it across his forehead. He gestured, and the two whistling holes in the bulkheads crimped themselves shut. "Er'in Tenel," he said. "Have you ever hurt someone from far away?"

 

[Er'in Tenel]

"No."

Er'in replies evenly, she didn't even flinch as the projectile roared through the compartment, although she did flinch at the raider's roar.

"I've never had cause. Show me what you mean to do."

[member="Velok the Younger"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

"Oh, I was only asking after your options. We can't return fire: Port Nighthunter is too useful, and we can't afford to get blacklisted." He moved to an escape pod hatch and began keying it for manual control. "I stumbled on an obscure Krath spell that should be useful."

The Jedi had run into it once, an old record suggested. In one of their early battles with the Krath, even before Qel-Droma's fall, a Krath fighter had crashed into a Republic ship on a suicide run. Injuries incident to the crash had resisted all healing. Velok explained the incident and the spell to Er'in while daubing blood around the interior of the escape pod. The Dark Side swelled in odd ways.

Another impact sent a shudder through the hull. Velok buckled in at the pod's controls.

"Do you know anything useful about instinctive navigation? If not, simply find the attacker with farsight again, and try to give me a direction."