will you sink down to me?
It was hard to land on a planet that did not seem to have one spaceport to speak of, but Damsy had done it before, so she managed. She eased the starfighter that Idris had loaned her into some particularly thick outskirts of the Jungle Highlands on a small continent in the southern hemisphere known as Keshtash Minor. Once she had popped the sun bonnet and hopped onto the lush ground cover below the landing gear, she called on nearby foliage to bend towards the vehicle. When happy with her weaving of durasteel and vegetation, Damsy broke from the semi-closed canopy onto plainlands. She shielded her eyes against the brighter light before scanning the horizon for the Takara Mountains, which then became her waypoint.
Early morning had drawn into evening, sun likewise beginning to draw down on the skyline, when Damsy could smell far off sea salt. She glanced down at her gauntlet HUD. She must have been sensing the Sea of Flames a few kilometers west of…whatever city was standing in the way. Damsy squinted up from the screen, then back down to it. It shouldn’t be here, the city nor the desert that it lay in. Neither wasn’t listed on the map.
Yes, the map was some 4,000 years out of date, and while of course new cities were periodically established, did deserts sprout up in such short spans of geologic time? Unlikely. Very unlikely.
But it was the only way on to the Sith Temple.
A few steps ahead and Damsy’s boot was embedded in quartz sand. She could immediately feel the dry heat of the new biome opposite of the comfortable atmosphere of a few meters backwards. She pulled up her hood and rushed towards towards the red walls of the mystery city that waved in streams of heat over yonder dunes.
There turned out to be much more ground to cover than her eyes had originally seen. It probably came down to perspective. Night had fallen—which was welcome—and then rose—which wasn’t—before Damsy reached the gates. No guards were posted along the walls, even on the top, but the trellis was shut. She stumbled towards it, all but falling against it when she wrapped fingers around the wooden spokes. Beyond the gate, the city opened into a marketplace, which was nearly empty at this hour of dawn.
”’Cuse me, sir?!” Damsy called to a pair of green wings hunched behind a stall, clearing her throat once and trying again to speak more clearly to break up the cotton in her mouth. They straightened, then the attached humanoid rose from obscurity. He walked over to her. “Where am I?”
”This is Naneti Sso Jri Qorit,” he replied. “Last bastion for devotees of the Lost Tribe.” Damsy felt her face screw up before she could stop it. Idris had given her some reading regarding them to occupy her hyperspace jump from his homestead to Kesh. In another response, the S’kytri frowned. “You should move on if you‘re not one of us.”
”Sure. I jus’ need some water.”
He stepped back. Damsy didn’t have time to anticipate disappointment before she fell through the gate. ”Middle of the plaza. That way. There’s a fount.” He pointed before walking away to return to setting up his shop.
”…the feth?” she muttered once she was alone. A glance back at the gate revealed that it was still lowered. She was confused, but thirst overrode, driving her toward the apparent source of water.
And it was there a short distance down an unpaved street. She approached it with her canteen poised to refill it. Once it was, she rose it to her lips, gulped at the new contents, and slide down a nearby wall. When she had emptied at least half of the canteen’s volume and came to sit in the sand, her eyelids flutter closed, opened, and it was mid-morning. The market was bustling: children running, mounts braying, customers bartering. Her hearing was overwhelmed, then honed to one conversation.
”I already told you—“
”And I told you, old man, the Keshiri people don’t need your false hope.“
Damsy strained a moment before her eyes, too, fell on the sight dead ahead.
Two near-humans stood around a metal stele covered in vaguely familiar runes. The older man faced them, while a woman stood to the side of him. He seemed to be reading to himself until he glanced over at Damsy.
A long moment of surprise passed between them both, stretching past simple embarrassment of catching a stranger staring or being caught doing so.
”…Oh Bogan, Halmethe, that’s her.”
Damsy began clawing at the sand for leverage to stand. Chit.
Last edited:
