But Stranger Still is Lost Carcosa

[Hades Michae]

He’d never been to Bastion. In all honesty, he hadn’t been a lot of places besides Nar Shaddaa and Coruscant. Business hadn’t required him to fly off to exotic locales or rub elbows with the elite. In fact it often didn’t require him to be there in person whatsoever. The nature of his business had always required secrecy and letting those with less skill do the dirty work. So far it’d been working out pretty well. But the nature of his game was evolving in ways he hadn’t expected. Players bigger than he’d imagined needed the things he and his partners could provide and now that he knew what he could offer? Secrecy still trumped all, but he had his eyes on much larger prizes.

If pressed he’d be stumped on how to answer ‘why’? The money mattered only so far as what it could buy him to satisfy the urge for a fix. The power was meaningless to him – he was just going to die one day, and power wouldn’t matter to him wherever he went, wouldn’t matter to the husk of a corpse he left behind. At the end of the day, maybe building a good buzz was just better in a nice room, the kind of place he could have now, than in a cardboard box on Nar Shaddaa. He was less likely to get interrupted there.

He was standing on a balcony outside one of the huge fortresses that seemed to compose the world. He’d been told to wait here, that he’d be retrieved when it was time. Most of the meet-up’s he’d been too were far less formal than this and that he didn’t know how to act that part was obvious – not that he cared. A cigarette, half-smoked and no filter to speak of, sat between stained fingers as he lifted it to his mouth and took a deep drag. He closed his eyes, let it sit in ruined lungs, and exhaled as his lids fluttered open to watch the smoke curl away and up in to the Bastion skyline.

The edge of the balcony wavered, bending downwards and away from Hades as if it might slope to send him careening towards the ground far, far below. He heard someone come up behind him, inform him that he was to be seen, but instead he just pointed towards the anomaly. “You see that?”

The guard raised an eyebrow and looked slightly disconcerted before shaking his head that he did not, in fact, see the strange happening. Hades shrugged and flicked the butt of his cigarette over the side of the balcony before following the man inside.

[member="Anja Aj'Rou"]​

 

[Boethiah]

Bastion.

There were few worlds like it in this galaxy... But then again there were few people like The Primeval; zealots, conquerors, quiet-minded, and isolated--they're not the sort of people who do things that 'make sense.' Rather they do what they believe is right and although they've made many enemies along the way, there are some who can appreciate their motives. As long as it benefited them in the end, of course. Anja was not the devil but many did think so when they made deals with the Host Lord. The enigmatic witch remained in the reticent comfort of her chambers within the Imperial Palace in Ravelin. The massive complex housed many rooms, halls, and courtyards; without a proper guide it'd be easy to get lost and even impossible to escape should you be an uninvited guest.

The guard would lead this new arrival through the many corridors revealing an architecture that screamed efficiency and imperialism, the nature of the Remnant that founded it wished to emulate the palaces once found on Coruscant. As with any journey there was much to see and notice along the way if the traveler was interested in sights, if not it wasn't particularly interesting at all. Finally that journey like all do would come to an end as the guard stopped beside an open door.

Inside the room ahead, Anja awaited. A small table with refreshments, two chairs, an open balcony, and a couch were all that made up the sparsely decorated room. A doorway to the far end would lead into her living quarters.

[member="Hades Michae"]

 

[Hades Michae]

Hades was observant to the extent that he needed to be to have a leg up. That the way the place was designed was meant to emulate architecture from another culture or planet would always be lost on him, color and fashion a foreign concept. If explained to him he might have understood the motivation. But instead he looked at rooms and scanned for possible exits, hiding places for people or things, security – practical things.

And the room could certainly be described as practical. After a quick sweep of his eyes over the place he moved to where the brunette sat, pulling the chair opposite her out for himself and plopping down as if they were old friends.

He was fully aware of whose presence he was in, what they called her: The Host Lord. He didn’t know too much about the details of her life but that moniker conjured a thousand images, all ending with something roiling under her pale skin, insectile scurrying giving way to a thousand-thousand oily little pincers peeling back her shade. What she might do if displeased had dawned on him. He wasn’t brazen so much as apathetic.

They called him a lot of things too, a trail of different things to call him so long people stopped trying to trace it. “Afraid I haven’t been educated as to your title – Lady Aj’rou? I’m Robert,” he offered along with a gnarled hand stained by nicotine.

[member="Anja Aj'Rou"]​

 

[Boethiah]

"Titles are for people who wish to be remembered," she responded before a breath could be drawn at the end of his last word. One wintry hand placed itself on the table, the figure of which became distorted in the reflection on the curved glass pitcher containing carbonated water. Her fingers maneuvered ever so slightly much like the legs of a spider did as it sensed for nearby prey, "I don't concern myself with vanity." She finished her statement after a brief pause, allowing the words to slip through her lips in a placid tone.

All things considered, she understood very well that there was a reputation to her name. People knew very little about this 'Host Lord' yet the two words together precisely in that order had struck fear in the minds of the weak and irrational hatred in that of her enemies. It wasn't her actions that caused this, so much as the seeming lack of motive behind them. One day she might strip the force from an entire world, leaving it barren and dead; or she might liberate one and quietly bring their people into the fold. How she makes those decisions? That is an answer many would like to know but surely not the one to the questions the man in front of her is likely to have.

"Call me what you'd like, Robert, I'm here to serve your interests as long as you serve mine." Decidedly, she went straight to business.

[member="Hades Michae"]

 

[Hades Michae]

Straight down to business – he could respect that. He nodded slightly, tilting his head to look out over the view from her place. The day was overcast and he got lost in the murky swirl of cloud cover, the tug of a thousand edges in slow-motion races against each other. He might have been staring for five seconds or five hours. Time meant little to him.

In reality it’d been too long – far too long – but probably not long enough for Aj’Rou to believe he’d slipped in to a coma.

A face full of premature wrinkles turned back to her, he settled his elbows on the table, talking with his hands in stiff motions. His voice was a drawl that seemed to require a sincere effort on his part. He’d been assured by his contacts within the Sith that the Primeval could be trusted with the exact nature of the Rotary Club but Hades was careful nonetheless. He wasn’t stupid.

“I represent an organization that has been providing items and services of a sensitive nature to the One Sith and its constituents for the last year or so, and we’d like to extend the offer to your people. Now as I’m sure you can imagine it’d be unwise for both of us for me to list exactly what we are capable of, but I can promise you there’s little we can’t accomplish for you – slicing, information brokering, trafficking of various kinds, black market procurement, drug manufacturing. You ever think about mass-producing mind-altering substances? Imagine that’d make those uh…cult gatherings you guys have pretty interesting.”

He was guessing. The Primeval just seemed like that kind of crew.

He looked to the pitcher of water, watching the condensation sweat down the side and raising an eyebrow as it redirected and swirled in kaleidoscopic patterns to settle in the shape of a massive, blinking eye staring purple-and-green up at him, accusingly. “Are you doing that?” Casual. Mundane. Just checking.

[member="Anja Aj'Rou"]​

 

[Boethiah]

Bastion, to many, was a reminder of old times where empires expanded across the galaxy and with them various syndicates, criminal organizations, and cartels. This 'relic' of a world also reminded those same people how much was lost during the Four Hundred Year Darkness; an event The Primeval were fortunate enough to have been largely ignored by.

In their own way The Primeval are just as backwards as those times, they clung to old ideals that were seemingly impossible to maintain in the current state of affairs. Who would worship Gods when trillions die in endless war? Who would pray for victory when each one becomes less brilliant than the last? Who would feel insignificant in the face of power when they can claim such powers for themselves?

Anja's fingers wrapped around the pitcher's handle, pouring the water into a glass and taking that it to her lips. After swallowing some of the liquid content she placed the glass back down and sighed as cool water slid to her stomach. "No," she was not the one 'doing' whatever he saw that she didn't, and neither did she care to ask him what he saw either. He believed in something that only he could see and understand; that being for him the consequence of drugs? Didn't matter much.

"I understand how that could benefit my people," she traced back to his explanation, "but how does the One Sith benefit from this?" She asked a question that likely didn't seem terribly relevant to their discussion. The Umbaran grabbed her glass once again and took another sip of the water before gesturing to the pitcher, offering the refreshment to him if he'd choose to have it.

[member="Hades Michae"]

 

[Hades Michae]

There was a part of him that registered the lack of reaction on her part when he asked about something that, after her answer, was confirmed to not be there. It was unusual. Even the most unflappable usually allowed a microscopic movement of their eyebrows upwards in skepticism, a slight downturn at the corners of their mouth. It was a testament to his ability to make a deal that his moments of ‘otherness’ didn’t stop his relative success.

It was drugs, but it was something more. Even if he didn’t know it.

“I know the Sith have a reputation for steamrolling entire planets but not every war is won through just brute force. Most of our work is done on the basis of the individual – little organ stealing, little drug manufacture. But on a larger scale we offer information and goods procurement. One of our members is among the best slicers in the galaxy and we have contacts in just about everything on the black market. We offer discretion and results to the Sith and they get an upper hand. All we ask in return is the cash and recommendations to people you trust.”

He paused, letting the offer sit on the table for a moment. The Rotary Club prided itself on its ability to remain silent when it came to its client’s wants and needs and so he wouldn’t go in to detail, but he thought he’d given enough to enlighten Aj’Rou in to what she might obtain for her organization, should she want it.

“So, like I said, we run mostly on an individual basis so your people would be able to contact us and broker a deal for whatever it was they were looking for. We’d have a standing partnership like we do with the Sith if you’re interested. And we can cut one deal – on the house – as a gesture of gratitude for your ongoing business. So, what do you need? Couple hundred kidneys? Some dirt on the Mandalorians? A batch of those hallucinogens I was talking about? Non-addictive, I promise.”

He didn’t usually talk so much but there was a buzzing in his head nearly making him dizzy. He took the water with a nod, the buzzing nearly making the motion forward stay that way.

[member="Anja Aj'Rou"]​

 

[Boethiah]

"Interesting," she stated rather quickly after he had finished speaking. The tone in which she said so did not seem to have any enthusiasm at all, however. Still; Anja did not waste words thus she was not telling a lie nor trying to insult the man with such a simple, and utterly pointless reaction in the form of a single word. Merely she found it interesting and wished to state so. A brief pause in her words made the air rather still, the world around them waiting in anticipation for how the witch would continue.

Anja pulled back her seat and rose from it, she walked over to the wall and placed her hand on a small shelf, her fingers slid along the synthetic wood-like material and brushed the very thin layer of dust that had gathered there over the course of the last few days. "There are so many things around us... Little things," she lifted her finger off and looked to the much thicker layer of dust that had taken hold of her finger; the grey blanket was easily not so easily unnoticed now.

"But when it accumulates you tend to notice those little things, which is why you should always take care of a problem when it's hard to notice. I'd like to witness the significance of this organization before I make any agreements, a test run if you'd like it worded that way."

[member="Hades Michae"]