Mighty

[Jairus Starvald]

Sarova watched the exchange unfold between [member="Runi Verin"] and the elderly gentleman.

Somewhere behind them, she could sense anger and chained fury... it seemed that Scarra was still alive and kicking, but dampened in some way.

Stunned and chained up? A concern for another time, because she had enough on her mind right now. It was times like these that she cursed her specialization. People like Varanin could tank a gorram turbolaser to the face and walk it off, Jacobs could swallow an entire Force Storm and still come out on top, Dissero? A Force Fear effect that encompassed an entire ship. Rave? Master Swordsman, who could alchemize on the fly.

Her? Quite a good alchemist, sure. But she was nowhere near their level yet.

Didn't need to be, though. She couldn't get loud and big, but you didn't need that, if you went small enough. Her presence in the Force suddenly shrunk to a needle point -- the words shared between the two went from loud and clear, to the insistent hum of a pair of annoying flies -- and she focused.

Not on the elderly gentleman. He was the brains, but it wasn't the brains that would be difficult right now.

It were the three menacing Wookiees behind him with the raised bowcasters. What to do, what to do, what to do... bowcasters? Hmm, that was an idea.

Time was slowed in this exact moment. It was comparable to how a fly could avoid being swatted by a human hand for a while, for something so little... something so large was as fast as a snail. But the moment she started this, things would accelerate and that meant she needed to end all three at once or in quick succession; otherwise they were dead. Cerita quickly located the bowcasters in their hands and their molecular structure.

With enough time she could have made them indestructible or melted them down to scrap, but she didn't have that time. Instead it had to be a quick and dirty fix- rend the structure of the power source, cause a micro implosion that would probably take off their arms and then deal with the humanoid.

...that was strange. The last touch finished, she could practically see the iridiscent blue matrices of the structure unfold themselves, yet there was a weakness in her knees. Had she used too much energy? No, that did not seem right. Her knees gave out and she fell to the ground.

Her presence in the Force returned and so did the focus of her eyes to the events. Her vision was darkening, but she caught just the half-turn of the Wookiees screaming in pain, but it was just a backdrop to the man.

Frowning, but in his hand a little gorram ssi-ruuk paddle beamer.

"Now that was not very nice." Mister Gallows said in a huff. It dimmed. In the corner of her eyes she could just make out Runi laying next to her.

Then everything faded.

 

[Runi Verin]

As Gallow’s brought up his stunner, Runi was already flowing forward into a reckless charge, her beskad whistling from its sheath with grim purpose. Confident that, from her training with Jacaro, she could at least mitigate the first shot enough to buy Cerita time to complete… whatever the seven karkin’ hells she was up to.

That’s why there was a profound look of surprise creasing her features as the first bolt sent her staggering back, the beskad falling from lifeless fingers as a silvery rush of cold flooded her system. Then her legs buckled beneath her, dropping her to one knee, her strength – both her own and that she was drawing from the force – simply vanishing like morning mist beneath a Tatooine dawn.

Gallows, for his part in the deed, simply hmphed quietly to himself and levelled the stunner once more. “Forgive me, dear. It has been a while since I had the opportunity to use this delightful little device and it appears that I am rather embarrassingly of practice.” The stunner whined softly as it prepared another salvo. “Allow me to correct my error.”

“How about you go ka---”

The second blast cut off her no doubt witty rejoinder midsentence, dropping her like a puppet with its strings cut as darkness reached out to embrace her.

*****​

​

The return to consciousness was neither a gradual nor gentle affair, being more akin to a masked phasebat wielding assailant hiding around the corner than anything. As always, however, it began with a muffled litany of curse words that could very well peel the paint of the hull of a star destroyer at forty lightyears. Highlights included the words ‘sheb-licking’, ‘noona felching’ and ‘ghoza-munching’, but not necessarily in that order. The second and third verses were particularly memorable with increasingly graphical and quite frankly anatomically impossible suggestions.

It wasn’t the first time Runi Verin had regained consciousness face down in some crappy abandoned ruin. No, she was an old friend of the gutter. They might not have traded cards come Life day, but they were most assuredly on a first name basis at this point. So it came to no surprise when she found himself waking up, face down, with a head that felt three sizes too small and too large all at the same time. The only real surprise was that, in her pain addled haze that was the mandalorian’s world right now, she knew which way was up.

“Fierfek.”

Despite possessing all the refined elegance and grace of a dead fish, somehow she managed to flop over on to her back, ignoring the sudden wave of agony the movement seemed to send crashing down into her overly taxed brain. She traced a lazy hand over her face, mumbling softly to herself. “Sarova, I told you we shouldn’t drink the local moonsh---”

The Mandalorian jolted upright suddenly as the fragmented memories of that grinning bastard and his men suddenly seared themselves back into her mindscape. Images of [member="Cerita Sarova"] tumbling lifelessly as she was caught with the same silvery beam that had sent her into the arms of oblivion.

Gallows.

“Motherkarkin---”

Another fresh litany bounced off the crumbling duracrete walls of the abandoned vault.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

"I doubt it was the moonshine, Verin." Cerita responded to [member="Runi Verin"] in her usual absent-minded way, right after the fresh stream of expletives finished their course. She was already up and running, figuratively speaking, standing in front of the large bulkhead doors that denied them access to the outside world and kept them pinned in.

The treasure was gone, of course, and in its wake the gargantuan vaults felt eerily creepy. There was a certain silence now. Heavy and foreboding while it pressed on them from every side. It didn't help that the three corpses of the Wookiees were still very much in attendance, it seemed that Mister Gallows was many things... but concerned about the burial rites of his employees? Not so much or perhaps it was another punishment dished out to them.

To die in an empty, cold vault with nothing but them and the dead bodies keeping them company.

At least until the air ran out.

Or they died of dehydration.

This was what Cerita assumed was Gallows' plan, not what she expected would actually happen, of course. The man was sloppy or simply very assured of his own superiority, to simply leave his victims alive and still capable of retribution. Sarova probably wouldn't have tried to steal a treasure such as this one; especially because 'booty' had never been high on her risks of things to pine for, yet, if she ever deemed it worthy to kark someone over?

She would have made absolutely sure they couldn't come back for revenge.

"The walls are quite thick, can't punch through it and we have no explosives to blow them." She continued in a matter-of-fact tone, while staring at the structure, her hand briefly brushing past the material every once in a while. "But I think that with enough time I might be able to weaken the fabric enough, for it to collapse under its own weight."

She cocked her head slightly, before shrugging.

"A risk, considering I might bring down the entire roof on top of us as well, depending on how they build this structure. But I have nothing better, sadly."

The alchemist turned around, eyeing up the scrappy form of Runi.

"You?"

 

[Runi Verin]

[member="Cerita Sarova"]

Trapped in a vault and left to die. The location might have been new, but the situation was surprisingly all too common. Scavengers were a cutthroat bunch of ghoazas in the best of years, a trait only magnified in recent years as competition became fierce. Fighting over scraps like rabid akk dogs.

She cracked her neck irritably as she hauled herself to her feet, her appendages still numb from the effects of the stunner and lacking their normal, deceptive grace. She was really going to have to think of a new line of work – or foster better, more trustworthy contacts.

She had assumed Gallows was another scavenger at first. That either she, or Cerita, had been sold out. Of course, few had known of their intended destination and even fewer would have suspected they would actually find anything. If any at all. Besides which, Gallows had mentioned a debt.

As far as she was aware, the only debt hanging over her head was held tightly in the greasy, fat worm fingers of Dasooga Besadii Tai. A debt that seemed to remain static no matter how many credits she tried to pour into it.
That left only one possibility.

“That greasy hut’uun sold my karkin’ mark.” She muttered softly to herself as she made her way to Cerita, pausing only for a moment to retrieve her beskad from where it had fallen. She supposed even the value of Mandalorian iron paled in comparison with the treasure haul Gallows and his men must’ve dragged out of this place.

Hadn’t stopped them from relieving her of her blaster, however. The empty presence on her hip where the heavy, cut down carbine had one sat bothering her far more than she had expected. She rarely had call to use the blaster, but it had been her constant companion for more years than she could count. The very sight of it enough to ward off most would be opportunists.

“Not really, no.” Runi answered bluntly as she surveyed the door, her expression becoming distant for a moment as she let her connection to the force wash over her. A stark, cold emptiness was all that lay beyond the door. It appeared Gallows and his men were long gone. “Beyond the clothes on my back, they only left me with my beskad and knife. Neither are gonna make digging through those walls any qui---”

She stilled for a second, her head snapping down to her tool belt. Gallows men had overlooked it just as surely as her beskad, not even sparing it a second glance or bothering to check its contents.

“Scratch that. Do I have a better plan, no.” The Mandalorian reached into the folds of the belt, producing the trio of nova crystals Cerita had handed her earlier. They were almost completely inert, but there was still some life left in them, even after all the years. They just needed to be reminded of that fact. “Do I have a crazier plan on the other hand...”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Runi Verin"]

Both eyebrows went up at once at the sight of the crystals.

"...I like the way you think." She mumbled, before beckoning for the crystals. They felt warm in the hand -- not the warmth of a fully awakened crystal, but it wasn't completely dead yet either. With enough force? enough energy shoved into it? They could probably make a good boom out of this.

"I will need your help, though."

Alchemy was one thing, but Ceri had never been much of a Force battery. It would take a decent amount of energy, which she could supply, but then she wouldn't have anything left to actually set off the explosion.

Hell, she'd need to conserve her energy to weaken the structure more, that would probably make all of it easier.

"You got any experience with Alchemy?"

 

[Runi Verin]

[member="Cerita Sarova"]

“About as much as you have overhauling anti-matter injectors and alluvial dampers.” The scavenger responded with a broad shrug of those small shoulders. She was aware of the absolute basics of the process, if only via third hand instruction, but had never tried to learn any more than that herself. Isley Verd, the man that would pass himself off as her father given the chance, was reportedly pretty talented in the arena. Perhaps that’s where the root of her reluctance to learn stemmed from.

She cast her gaze across the fused doors, her hand reaching up to touch the weathered and ancient duracrete. Kakitai bel Toyuin’s architects and builders knew their stuff. She would wager it was as solid as the day it was laid. It wasn’t impregnable she noted, however, as she reached out with her telekinetic abilities, discovering micro fissures and faults in the wall that might hint at a weaknesses they could exploit. “I’ve got plenty of experience in making things go boom, though. That count?”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

"If we were loading up literal explosives? Sure. This? This needs more finesse than that." Cerita studied her current 'partner in crime' for a moment or two, before sighing and shaking her head. She had a pretty good idea what the problem was and it was annoying as all feth, Runi was reliable and not too stupid.

But there were a few things that kept her back from her full potential.

One of which was this silly insistence that by shoving her head as far in the ground as possible, it would somehow change reality. It didn't do that for her, when she tried to not be Circe's clone and it would do little to nothing about Runi's parentage. But that was how things went, wasn't it?

Until the moment called for hard choices and you had to ignore your 'feelings'.

"Look, I know how you feel about the whole Verd-thing." She glanced over with a 'Just trust me and don't argue for now'-look, before continuing. "But I am gonna need your help with more than just a telekinetic shove here and there. So, I am gonna give you a crash-course in Alchemy."

"It's either that or roll up and await our death, cus that wall you are touching right now ain't the only one between us and freedom."

[member="Runi Verin"]

 

[Runi Verin]

An all too predictable flash of emotion rippled across the Mandalorian’s features, her qukuuf tattoos momentarily distorting as her lips peeled back in a decidedly unfriendly expression. In that instant she was every inch the damaged salvager [member="Cerita Sarova"] had encountered before in that dingy cantina. The indignant Street rat with something to prove. The abandoned junkyard dog with a bone to pick.

Verd-Thing.

If only it was that karking simple. No, Isley Verd was only half of the messed up equation that was her existence, the rest laying at the feet of a much darker, twisted and bloodstained legacy. It seemed mass-murdering psychopaths were all too prevalent in either side of the family tree.

“First, you don’t know what the kark you’re talking about, so do us both a favour and don’t pretend like you do.” Her voice held a cold, sharp edge to it that would’ve made her beskad jealous. Her gaze remaining purposefully fixed on the reinforced duracrete before her. “And two, if you stopped to pay attention to anyone but yourself for five karkin’ seconds, you’d realise I’m not shoving anything.”

And it was true. She might have been stubborn as hell, but Runi wasn’t a complete fool. She was under no illusion that she possessed the raw telekinetic potential that ripping through the vault doors would have required. No, she was doing something a touch more refined than that, faintly tracing her power over the surface of the doors themselves, feeling the microfissures and tiny faults that remained otherwise hidden to the naked eye. It was something Jacaro had taught her when she was just a child and, until now, had primarily only seen use in finding faults in ship components and fuel lines.

“You’re the one that talked about finesse, right? There’s a structural weakness right… Here.” She shifted her hand up a notch, stopping just above one of the largest faults points in the doors. “If you want to get the most damage for your charge, that’s where you’ll want to put the first crystal.”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Chicka, the fact you reacting the way you do, only underlines my point.

But Sarova did not say it, because they both knew it already. Only the petty or the needlessly suicidal would continue to poke at a wound already inflicted, no, Ceri had more important things on her head. For example the fact that [member="Runi Verin"] wasn't a complete idiot and was actually doing something useful for a change. True, she was warming up to the girl, but there was still a long way to go before that would turn into anything akin to respect.

There were only a few who had her respects these days.

Difficult situations bred difficult caution in everything she did.

"Huh, looks like you are right." The Alchemist reported, after checking out the vault line herself. Her presence in the Force had shrunk before enlarging itself, the classic sign of Art of the Small at work. It was a focus of sorts. A technique that allowed you to do a great many of things, as long as you put your mind to it and focused deeply.

"Alright, Verin, come here." She beckoned and then settled herself down in front of the duracrete wall. "Alchemy is a schutta most often than not. Not surprising 'cause you are basically violating the basic laws of nature, so they serve your purpose instead of their own."

Ceri took one of the diamonds and held it up in her hand.

"It's not as clean and pretty as science, but the results you get... are astonishing."

Her mind went to the things Dissero had accomplished, the things Valik and Rave had done in their prime and before their death. Each one of them was blessed with a rare combination of talent, power and creativity.

"Close your eyes, reach out to the diamond and try to see it in the darkness before you."

 

[Runi Verin]

There was a flicker of understandable hesitation before Runi acquised to the woman’s invitation, taking a crossed legged seated position a small distance across from her. While [member="Cerita Sarova"] had proven herself to be a surprisingly less disagreeable travelling companion than the salvager had initially expected, there was still a hefty level of mistrust lingering between them. It would take more than a few days in the desert and a few off-handed promises at a bigger percentage of the treasure to salve the sting of being lied to.

The simple matter of it was, theirs was not a partnership built upon friendship, respect and all those other rainbow cacophony of touchy feely emotions the holodramas touted. No, it was simply a mutually beneficial arrangement, one born from the simple fact their goals happened to temporarily align. The moment that ceased to be the case, well, things were liable to get a lot more interesting and a lot less civil between the pair.

Still, while Cerita might have been as trustworthy as a viper, Runi could at least acknowledge that the woman was no fool. Nor was she crazy (although it had admittedly been touch and go out there in the desert, watching her talk and tinker with insects). While she couldn’t trust Cerita’s motives, more so because she still wasn’t entirely clear on what they were, but Runi knew enough that could at least trust in the woman’s own sense of self preservation.

“Fine, but don’t karking blame me when this blows up in both our faces.” She muttered as she closed her eyes, her breathing slowing to a gradual crawl over the space of a few constrained heartbeats. Letting herself fall into the limbo that existed a hairsbreadth between the world of the living and that of the unconscious, selectively tuning her senses out one at a time until the world around her faded away and she was left with nothing but an empty blackness.

As always, it was a tantalising feeling. A vast nothingness that was free from all the distractions and noise that constantly bombarded you on a daily basis. A void. That was what Jacaro had called it, she dimly remembered. The recollection serving enough to pull her back from letting herself sink too deep into the state, instead returning some measure of her consciousness back a silver a time. Letting her mind gradually rise back to the surface until she could make out a faint glimmer shining in the distance of her mindscape. Two glimmers. One alive, one not so much. It was the second she chose to focus on.

The nova gem.

Even in the vault’s gloom, even with her eyes closed, through the force she could almost see it clear as day. Even after millennia of collecting dust , it seemed the energy trapped inside the stone was very much alive. The Mandalorian’s expression strained slightly as she pushed herself to reach deeper than that, bullishly pushing her mind further and further until the image became clearer. Until it became almost intimately detailed. Until she could see each and every flaw and facet that made it unique in the galaxy.
“Okay, I can see your damn rock. Now what?”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Sarova sat back.

Her eyes were closed, but her focus was detaching itself from her body and into the wind. It took a moment for her - one breath and suddenly she was transfixed - until she could actually zero into [member="Runi Verin"]'s presence in the room. Another second passed and then it was clear where Runi was staring at.

The gem.

It wasn't a hypergem. Several dimensions hidden inside the keenly-crafted matrices, but it was no mean feat either. There was silence for a moment as she let the salvager focus her sight clearly on the object.

"Keep that image before you." Her voice would drift and curl before arriving to Runi. "And then, at the same time, become aware of the power that's hidden inside yourself."

Which was plenty.

She was still new to this- one day, she might even surpass her father and grandfather. But for now there was plenty to work with for their current needs.

"Grab it. Take control of it, then pull it from yourself and feed it into the gem itself." Her head cocked, before she added. "Not too much, we simply must rouse it from its dormancy."

 

[Runi Verin]

She traced the contours and features of the matrices, in that moment every inch as familiar to her as those of her ship. Her ship. Her concentration waivered slightly at the thought of her vessel and its probable fate, the thought of Gallows and that greasy smile of his coming within even a lightyear of the Boracyk enough to almost turn her stomach. Enough to make her hand tighten into a sharp fist, tight to the point the pain lent her a sense of focus one more.
Gallows could wait.

The Boracyk could wait.

Surviving this tomb, not so much.

As much as it pained her, she allowed the familiar voice to shepherd her back towards the crystal before her, letting her senses seeking out the vestiges of power that still remained within. A considerably easier task than attempting to form a connection between that and her own inner reserve. She gritted her teeth, pushing herself harder, all but forcing a bridge to tentatively develop.

Too late did she spare a thought to [member="Cerita Sarova"]’s caution about applying too much energy, her rush to form the invisible conduit completely bypassing her sense of caution as she slammed home enough energy to make it crackle and fizz in both the force and the waking world.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Runi Verin"]

If it was possible to both fix the situation and punch the girl in the face it would have been done.

But this needed all the concentration she had. Only a single curse escaped her lips as her eyes closed down and she saw the shimmering sight of Verin, the gem in her hands and the bridge forming between the two. The sudden influx, the coursing and rolling power enflaming itself within Runi was enough to tip her off.

This wasn't going well.

She latched on.

Forcing herself between Runi and the gem, acting like a buffer of sorts between the source and the target. This had a different effect though, one which was so subtle it was lost on her and probably would be lost on Runi as well. Sarova wasn't one with pretty, clean hands.

Couldn't be when Alchemy was involved.

There was always a cost there. You couldn't be completely pure and light when you were twisting around the laws of nature to your own gains. Some of that corruption, subtle, shifty, it influenced her and made her more ruthless. Probably was the root cause why she had such a difficult time connecting with people.

But it was that same corruption that found its way back through the connection to Runi. It wouldn't influence her immediately or rear its head, but at some point... something would happen.

"Feth." Ceri finally said, as the last drip of residual energy was hidden inside the gem or drained into the air. "Well, we aren't dead, that's something."