The Template was forced to expend a large amount of energy to destroy the floating, screaming head, a massive burst of green lightning from her hand, her other firing her pistol at it, serving to utterly disintegrate the monstrosity, but not before the group had taken casualties. Both the Squad Leader and the one using the SAW had been killed by the lightning bursts from the eyes of the aforementioned floating head.
The Template had enough energy to remain young for not a few more bursts of energy like what had been required to destroy the Floating Head and she would start to age rapidly.
She holstered her pistol, tried to check the wounds of the others, only for them to shy away from her. She sighed. The fear she dealt with never got any easier. It's why she usually kept a distance from her own followers unless necessary... inevitably, even they would start to feel that instinctive fight or flight response long enough in very close proximity. Only the rare sort like her own son or something unnatural like herself didn't experience it. Those who fought often, it should be said, were more prone to this instinct and the strength it could manifest.
"I'm wagering whatever is causing this is deeper underneath us..." The Template noted. "But I can't figure out what they were doing unless I see records.
She peered around for directions, saw that the upper level was where administration could be located.
The same level that floating head had come from.
The Template went over to the fallen Squad Leader and took the lightsaber she had retrieved earlier and handed to him to build trust. She tested it and a yellow blade slid out of the hilt. She shut it off.
"You a Jedi?" one of the surviving squad members asked, still wary of her.
She didn't answer as she headed up the steps to the upper level. She was very cautious, moving slowly, head on a swivel as she went up the steps.
Her energized vibroblade gauntlet went active in instinct as she didn't quite block the vicious slash for her belly. Her stealthed attacker scored a cut on her stomach, spilling glowing green blood and muscle tissue and eliciting a metallic shriek of pain from Magdalena, who backed off, clutching her side as she evaded the attacks of the Sith Assassin in black robes who had come out of cloaking to attack. He was armed with a pair of short hook swords, alchemized. Her flesh sizzled at the wound from contact with the cursed edges. The others didn't fire, knowing they could only get in the way if they did.
Magdalena knew it would be relatively easy to kill him if she used Electric Judgement, but she didn't want to expend energy in this place unless absolutely necessary. The more she explored, the more oppressive the old airbase felt.
The Assassin moved swiftly. Magdalena, not as skilled at melee as she was in the Force, was immediately put on the defensive, sustaining more savage wounds as he got through some of her defenses, leaking more green blood out of the wounds he ripped open. Part of why her defense was so poor was she was distracted thinking about her adopted Son and the terrible injury she felt him receive.
Her defense had never lapsed like this before. She struggled to adapt to the cruel but cunning fighting style, trying to sense her attacker's mind.
All she felt in his thoughts were pure madness. Disjointed and chaotic. She couldn't make heads or tails of it. What had happened here?
If he was one example of a survivor...how crazy was everyone else?
The Template backed off, shaking, but she trusted in the light side of the Force, and trusted in its guidance. She took a deep breath and waited for it's command to strike.
The Assassin darted towards her with a lethal double swipe. The Template executed a perfect uppercut with her gauntlet equipped arm, catching the tips of both hooks at once, drawing her pistol swiftly and shooting him in the chest multiple times. He fell silently without a word.
The Template staggered back, her wounds sealing up much slower than they should have. The taint of the dark choked the very atoms around her.
She examined the Sith Corpse, pulling out a folded piece of paper covered in blood and opened it. All it had on it were strange child-like scrawls of snarling faces and floating eyes...
"And the mystery deepens..." she said quietly, turning to the survivors.
"I felt his mind. It was a total madness. I doubt anyone alive we find will be in any more mood to talk then he was..." she explained. "We've lost two. What do you think? Should we retreat?"
The team emphatically shook their head in the negative after collectively thinking about it a short moment.
"They killed our buddies. No..." said the farmboy who knew what she was, taking an unconscious back step away from her.
She tilted her head as they all agreed.
"That's the spirit!" she whispered with eerie enthusiasm even as her not quite shut wounds continued to leak glowing green blood.
The Template proceeded back on her journey to the Administration Office, only to find it welded shut on arrival.
She sighed, and whispered a spell that corroded the weld enough for it to be easily kicked apart.
The Office was covered in bloody runes. No bodies. But the sensation of murder was strong here.
The computer built into the desk was lit, functional, but she had no skill at computers, so the team techie immediately went to work cracking it.
While she and the others waited, she tried to engage the Farmboy Soldier that knew her nature in conversation.
All he did was stop her in her tracks by pulling out a strange, round red intaglio stone with the symbol of an angel in it, making her freeze in her tracks and slowly back away, never taking her eyes off the stone.
"Do not put your faith in such trinkets of deceit..." she said cautiously. (WE DRACUL HAVE A RIGHT TO BE PROUD: 700 XP)
The soldier ignored her, just keeping the stone in his palm while she kept a respectable distance, the others watching the exchange with worried looks ...
Shan
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Zaiya Ceti
