Divine Restoration - Dominion of Manpha [Moross]

[Vascious Relens]

[Crashing your Rebel party since I didn't RP with you guys during our time at Vagrant Fleet.]

The response that Inari's projected back into the Lord Crusader's mind was quite clear. Amorella simply wouldn't have said yes if she didn't have some concern as to the effectiveness of her security force. The situation was as clear as that answer. The devout of Liad that Vascious had originally accompanied were not currently being attacked. The Mandalorian had tracked a few Tukata to a relatively small nest. Solaiel's forces were searching out what was believed to be the main infestation of Sithspawn. However, Amorella's settlement was under heavy attack. She simply had the greatest need of him at that time. He had to move on.

Relens looked back @[member="Anaudius"] then and gave the suffering man a slight nod of appreciation for his part in helping to slay the creatures. "Dark and Mysterious, I'm being called back to serve Inari. I'll leave the soldiers here with you so that you can mop up what's left." The Crusader didn't leave Liad's follower much time to respond. Although to be fair, the mute man wasn't going to say much.

~~~

Ten minutes later the Mandalorian was already top side. His requests for a Dropship extraction were unsuccessful due to their resources being deployed elsewhere. In his mind he cursed his niece for deploying so few troops and ships to the planet. It was suppose to be a peaceful mission, but plans only survived up to the point that you tried to follow through with them.

It was pointless to complain about the situation. Amorella needed his help and as such he had a choice of waiting for pickup or at least moving in the right direction. Naturally this ended up with the Lord Crusader attempting to run, but ultimately just trudging his way through marsh filled terrain on foot. At least he would already be closer to his destination when the Dropship did come.

Then suddenly the old man could sense the presence of a couple humans nearby. None of his forces should have been deployed out this far. Vascious moved to investigate and could see the explosion in the distance caused by the rocket that @[member="Moira Skaldi"] fired. Moving quick was nearly impossible since his large size coupled with being clad in heavy Mandalorian plate armor made him sink into the putrid water and mud much more so than the Rebels.

The Crusader finally did manage to reach them as one of the creatures was dragging Moria down to the ground. @[member="Jorus Merrill"] 's beast of a shotgun did quite a number on another of the abominations. Unfortunately a two shot weapon like that didn't leave the owner of said weapon with a quick and efficient way of reloading.

Loosing lightning upon the Sithspawn would have backfired and caused friendly fire with all the water they were standing in. Vascious did the next thing that came to his mind. With one hand reached forward, one more of the charging aquatic tentacle equipped beasts suddenly started to thrash about as it was lifted from the water by the force. This naturally stopped it from surging forward to strike. It also left it quite vulnerable.

[also @Delila Castillon]

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

Soliael moved on, not wanting to stop for fear of being overcrowded by the beasts. He knew that in the swamps itself they would have the advantage. Their amphibious nature made it so the watery bogs would be to their advantage, and the False god had no intention of fighting something on its own turf. Knowing this Soliael simply jerked his hand upwards in a signal to his smaller companion.

If they made it into the upper branches of the tree's the creatures would either follow, or they would remain below. Either way it would be far easier to deal with the Sithspawn up in the tree's.

With a hard thud Soliael landed on the top branch of one of the tree's, coming to a stop and waiting for the sithspawn.
@[member="Zoey Marix"]

 

[Moira Skaldi]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"], @[member="Delila Castillon"], @[member="Vascious Relens"]

The incendiary shell of Jorus had caused a nice little inferno, setting the vines alight. As creatures screeched and sought to escape from the fire Moira's boltgun roared, explosive bolts shooting out to blast the aquatic creatures into chunks of flesh. Wielding the heavy gun with one hand she tossed an incendiary grenade after to further the inferno. It was then that the tendrils suddenly seized her from behind, enclosing around her back and throat with such a strong grip it was aimed to knock the wind out of her and strangulate her, choking her.

Sharp teeth tore into her armour, another tendril tried to seize her gun. Fortunately Moira did not need to breathe and she pushed back against the beast, ramming her full body weight into it, which, without wanting to arouse her wrath, was a lot heavier than her on first sight graceful form might make on assume. The beast was pushed back though due to the sheer force Moira fell over as well into the swamp. Tendrils came reaching out for her and she let loose with a bone crushing kick, grabbing another to tear it in half as she pushed herself up to the surface. Out of the depths a beast surged forward and pounced, long but wounded and partially scorched tendrils, tusks and five eyes crimson with malice.

Rather than seek to evade Moira stood her ground and when the creature was almost upon her grabbed its tendrils and, using its own momentum against it, flipped it over with a powerful pull so that it landed upon a piece of rock. The beast screeched and hissed in anger and as she approached it beat at her with tendrils and tried to bite into her hand, but she grabbed - or what she presumed it was - and simply bashed it against the rock repeatedly until, each blow causing a crunch, before it gave up the ghost.

 

[Garza]

Jumping from branch to branch, there were a few times where I almost tripped up by vines, but by catching myself I looked up to see Neth the Keeper motion up. Looking up to where he was pointing, I thought that he was warning, but really he was telling me to move up. With the force, I increased my strength and jumped many times higher than I ever could alone to be a branch behind the god. Pulling my sword into a ready stance, and activating my shield. The white glow comforted me to some degree.

I jumped to the branch that the god was on. and kept my eyes opposite of him. Last time we were surrounded by Sithspawn. However, that does not mean that they will do it again. "Back to back again?" I posed a question. Though since the God had turned around to see the ones chasing me, more might come his way. And before I could hear the ma's response, I heard a very loud roar, unlike the barks of the Sithspawn. "Oh feth."

@[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Vascious Relens"] @[member="Moira Skaldi"] @[member="Delila Castillon"]

Jorus nerved himself up as a beastie charged him. Helpless, for the moment, he fiddled new shells into the shotgun's breech. It rose from the water, perhaps a leap-

No, the armoured bear of a man who had just slogged out of the mist was lifting that critter with the Force. The Mandalorian shell gun snapped back together, and a CryoBan shell roared.

The floating vine-monster froze solid, backblasted water freezing into horizontal icicles. Jorus spun and fired a second CryoBan round at another such critter, just beginning to shamble into sight. A good chunk of the swamp iced over.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

“That would be prudent.” Soliael said as the massive roar tore through the jungle. The Sithspawn that were coming would be an issue, but the creature that had made that noise would be the far larger issue. Soliaels eyes glazed over slightly in disinterest. He would have to remember to yell at Amore for dragging him into this. Perhaps next time they went into a swamp he would send her into the muck with her capes. He smiled at the thought, and then slid one of his feet forward.

The Sithspawn came once again, they bounded from branch to branch, seemingly almost weightless.

Soliael scowled at their speed, not expecting their amphibious nature to translate so well into the forests. The first beast jumped at him, and Soliael reacted as quickly as humanly possible. He grasped the creatures lower jaw with his gauntlet covered hand. The Sithspawn attempted to snap its mouth shut but quickly found its path obstructed by another hand.

The False god tore the beasts face in half, ending its life in brutal carnage as another fight broke out.
@[member="Zoey Marix"]

 

[Garza]

With the God's response I smiled. Wanting to keep ourselves alive for the next fight, Fighting as a team was needed. With the Larger unknown beast looming somewhere in the distance, We would have to deal with these "smaller" Sithspawn first. As one jumped at the God, I got a handful myself. One jumping close to me, I sidestepped and cleaved down as it flew past me. I used the force to increase my speed, and incidentally my strength as well. The blade cut clearly through the head letting the body be thrown down by gravity. Behind me I could hear the tearing of flesh and the snapping of bones as one was ripped in half.

A second one came at me, With a stab to its open mouth, Its teeth got so close to my hand that I could feel its dying breath on the tiny hairs that were on my skin. Using my shield I slammed him off of my blade and moved to the next one by the scruff. Slamming him to the branch at my feet, I slammed my foot down on it's neck, hearing so many cracks that I thought the beast suddenly formed new bones under my boots as they were smashed to pieces. Turning around in time Another jumped for me to hold up my shield and with the power of teleknesis kept my body and shield from moving as the beast slammed into it.

I only hoped that they would thin out soon, or we would kill them all. However, I had a doubt that we would be able to possibly do ether without finding the source.

@[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]

 

[Delila Castillon]

@Jorus Merrill, @Moira Skaldi, @Vascious Relens

Freezing swamp water? Force lightning? Weird swamp Sith beasts? Normal people would find it highly unusual. For herself, for the Rebels, it was another day on the job. Waves rocked the water, lapping higher at her thighs as the beasts made themselves known. Quickly placing the blaster rifle against her back, Delila made quick work with the bolter. Charges zoomed towards the beasts, those missing causing massive sprays of water to froth forward.

"A gun that freezes water? Think of it all, dontcha Merrill?" Yet Dells was going to take full advantage. Pulling thermal detonators from her belt, she activated the explosives and sent them rolling towards the trapped beasts.

 

[Vascious Relens]

@[member="Moira Skaldi"] @[member="Jorus Merrill"] @[member="Delila Castillon"]

The old Mandalorian grinned behind his helmet as Jorus demolished the levitating beast before him. The Cryoban rounds were a nice touch. There was a split second where he thought of using the ice as a platform to fight from until more thermal detonators started rolling now. These Rebels didn't lack for explosives!

The Lord Crusader sloshed forward sinking his way further into the swamp as he moved to get closer to the trio to assist. Jorus was in dire need of another reload, but Delila made quick work of targets with her weapon as Moria seemed to have no problem brutalizing the creatures with her bare hands. Something about the way she crushed her Sithspawn's vitals on a rock made the Mandalorian swell with pride for a woman that he had never met before.

It seemed like the battle was starting to wind down as Vascious observed some of the surviving beasts retreating back into the depths. It appeared that they didn't need his help to repel the horrors after all. Although there was the small matter of what three highly armed non-Shawda-Ubb combatants were doing on Manpha.

"Mercenaries?"

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Delila Castillon"] @[member="Vascious Relens"]

His shotgun stock pulped a critter as the ice shifted and cracked under his migrating feet. "Yeah, General, now I just gotta remember how to walk on ice."

A wide swing sent the beskar muzzle shredding into yet another beastie. He slipped and fell to one knee, abating some of his momentum by slamming the stock into the ice. Some degree of silence fell.

"Mercenaries?" asked the armored man, and Jorus grunted, levering himself to his feet. "Rebel Alliance. We've got a little side deal with the Crusade higher-ups. Everyone needs a place to hang their hat."

 

[Delila Castillon]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"] | @[member="Moira Skaldi"] | @[member="Vascious Relens"]

The explosions fell, tearing into some of the beasts. Delila herself was now perched on the ice, well-worn boot soles not giving the amount of traction she had hoped for. Listening to the cracking and groaning, Delila wondered if she had suddenly gained a lot of weight or if the ice was that unstable. Well, she did just blow a hole in a large section of ice. Water lapped at her soles as she leaned against a tree and fired a bolter round at a half-dead beast.

"Mercenaries? I wish I was....the pay would be unbelievable."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

He snorted, ratcheting in a couple of new shells -- one incendiary, one CryoBan. "Remember when we first signed up with the Pyre, General? Good money. Not great for being on the tail end of a bacta monopoly, but good money anyway."

THe Mandalorian shell gun snicked back together in a satisfying way.

"Those were the days. Before the dark times. Before the drama."
@[member="Delila Castillon"]

 

[Delila Castillon]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"]

"It was good money. Good times too. All good things must come to an end. I've heard some negatives about our former employer recently. Seems folks don't like their borders anymore..."

Seeing her beast was dead, Dells pushed off from the tree and slid around on the ice. Before promptly falling on her behind of course.Slowly getting up, she looked around the swamp some more, then back to the man who came came to meet them. Seemed odd, wanting to overtake a swamp. Must be excellent resources hidden somewhere.

 

[Moira Skaldi]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"], @[member="Delila Castillon"]

"I calculate Omega to be put to the pyre soon. It controls prize worlds and resources many desire and is past its prime. It would have been logical for the Ithor Treaty to terminate it long ago. If it survives this year I will be surprised. Natural selection demands it," Moira commented, speaking in a, you guessed it, impassive voice. She may or may not end up being involved in bringing the Protectorate down.

She linked up with the others, loading a fresh magazine of explosive rounds into her bolter and securing the missile launcher on her back now that the beasts assailing them had been terminated for now, though cold mechanical eyes remained ever watchful as they advanced.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Delila Castillon"]

"I've heard that too," he said, eyes steady on the armored and taciturn man. "But Kerrigan always did warn them and us about imperial overstretch. They reached too far, and then when Cira disappeared..." He grimaced. "I heard they got the schutta who blew her up, and Rhommamool and Osarian. I used to do business with him, once upon a time. Funny how that works out.

"Now, me, General, I'm not inclined to go back. Reach too far, pin too much on one person, that's a recipe for nastiness. One reason I've always respected that you don't centralize.

"Well, Moira, if the Treaty of Ithor had stuck around, this'd be a whole new galaxy. Less fun for you, though, I'd imagine."

 

[Moira Skaldi]

@[member="Delila Castillon"], @[member="Jorus Merrill"]

"Yes, it would have been...more stable. A terrible thought," Moira said without any hint of irony. "He got taken out at Contruum it seems. The ripples that world still sends out are...always interesting to watch. Doubtless Kerrigan was disappointed not to get the chance herself after the joust on Metalorn."

Velok being permanently gone was unfortunate. He had been an organic with a scheming mind that she appreciated and would have been quite useful when it came to breaking the inertia that seemed to have overtaken the Galaxy and was slowly receding now.
"As for Cira, her style of rule if it can be called that was erratic, her understanding of great power diplomacy nonexistent. Alcori was nepotistic and too soft, unexceptional as a leader, but sufficiently level-headed and practical." Coming from Moira this was...higher praise than most organics got. "I hear currently recovering from injuries sustained by a Sith assassination plot. The media has been...sparse about details." Of course she had her own suspicions, but those were not the here and now.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Moira Skaldi"]

Jorus's eyes narrowed. "Interestin' analysis. More than a little. Now what interests me is how these Moross folks stack up. Leadership and leaders don't go hand in hand these days, if they ever did." One final vine monster lurched out of the water, and he fired both barrels. The CryoBan froze it solid; the incendiary shattered it to steaming shards of ice. It was gone within about half a second.

"Are we makin' deals with the genuine article here?" He chucked his chin at @[member="Vascious Relens"]. "Tell me about your leaders, hoss. How good are they? Where'd they get their experience, or are they just prodigies or what-have-you? What kind of people are we fightin' for?"

 

[Vascious Relens]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"] @[member="Moira Skaldi"] @[member="Delila Castillon"]

Vascious waited patiently as the three Rebels weighed the merits of their choices in front of him. It was the response directed back at him by Jorus that brought his eyebrows raising toward his graying hair line. "You're serious," asked the Crusader with a bit of incredulity in his tone.

A pause followed before the Mandalorian tilted his head slightly at Merrill. "I'm one of the higher-ups that you speak of. I'm second to the gods that I hold quite dear to my heart. You will have to meet them to judge for yourself. Still I do not suspect that you came to the Crusade with a lot of other options for Asylum. Conveniently of course we simply do not care about your transgressions against the non-believers. The Crusade will give you a hat rack in return for weight being pulled. I doubt you will get a more honest deal anywhere else."

The Crusader waded over to some of the intact ice that Delila wasn't sitting on. He motioned Jorus over before reaching down into the water to grab a handful of the mud around his feet. Relens slapped the mud onto the ice and started to use it to draw four spaced out circles and an arrow pointing outward. The old man attempted to additionally jot down some quick topographical features of the surrounding terrain, but watery mud on melting ice left little room for being artistic.

[SIZE=small]"Let me update you on the situation. Manpha is not an invasion. It's a humanitarian relief project lead by Goddess Inari the Reviver. We deployed medical personnel and supplies to four Shawda-Ubb settlements here, here, here, and ... here. God Neth the Keeper brought a paltry force to these coordinates here to seek out heat signatures we analyzed to be the bulk of the Sithspawn host." [/SIZE]

He gestured to each settlement on the map, and to the position of Neth's forces as he verbalized them. Then his finger came to rest on one of the circles as he looked up at the three rebels with that lifeless T shaped Mandalorian visor. "Three of the four settlements are moving forward with giving the Ubb medical attention unharnessed for the most part. This settlement is being overrun. We need to get a perimeter around them. If we can secure them and push out the Sithspawn then we will be back in business. Alternatively we simply need the Sithspawn exterminated as you've already started helping with."

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

While Zoey fought with a certain grace and smoothness Soliaels own combat forms were far more...brutal. As before he did not use a lightsaber or anything of the sort, he simply used his own two fists. He tore into the beasts like a butcher into a side of meat. He tore their spines from their bodies and ripped apart their jaws. To him it was incredibly simple, he spared no energy in anything that he did. He killed using the monsters own strengths against them, taking their momentum and using it to tear them apart.

One creature died, then two, then three. Blood soon covered the branches around them, and Soliael began to grunt.

While perhaps Soliael was not as smooth or graceful there was a sort of...elegance to the way he fought. Every move had a purpose, every hand and strike was well placed, and he only ever used the correct amount of force. It was like watching a fish in its own element.

 

[Garza]

I watched in my side vision as the god tore apart the Sith spawn with his hands. Causing blood to be everywhere. Hell, it even got on me. With more coming my way, I would use the sword to carve them in half, or in parts. Another few were thrown, or bashed back for me to stab down their throat. One, two, three, more went onto my list of the dead. Soon I have had enough. With my left hand, I lashed out to one of the beasts mouth. With the strength of the force, and my own natural strength, I grabbed at what would be considered it's tongue, and ripped it out. And before the beast could react, I pointed two fingers from my right hand at the beast, and threw it across my vision horizontally and bashed it into four more. WIth my sword, I lashed it out to the left. Throwing the heavy blade to stab completely through one beast and into another. Calling it back to me, It ripped itself from the chest, and slapped into my hand. Just in time for me to swing to my right and cleave off the another's head.

I had deactivated my shield with the force instead of manually, as I swung my sword up to cut another completely in half. Using the blade as though it were an extension of my own body, I lashed out point first to stab through the throat of one, and then slamming my fist into the one next to it. WIth the force my punch had literally thrown it back like a ragdoll. "You know a way to finish them all off?" I asked randomly. maybe he knew of some power that could allow the both of us to just ram through them all at once. If so, that would so greatly help us.

@[member="Soliael Devin Talith"]