Private Roots Of Corruption

[Sable Varro]

​

Roots of Corruption

Mission Classification: [Top Secret]

Tags: Madrona A’Mia

Deployment Location:

• Primary Target Zone: [Dagobah]

Equipment Loadout:

• Primary Weapon(s): SD-L1 Long Blaster
• Secondary Weapon(s): HG-88 Big Iron, VB-113 "Tidefall" Class Vibroblade,
• Specialized Gear: Wrist Mounted Weapons (Hekler'Kok WMMW-01), DS-102 "Aegis" Personal Energy Shield,
• Armor & Attire: Personal Armor

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Nightfall crept quickly in the swamps, a gradual swallowing of light until all that was left was the oppressive darkness of the bog. The dense canopy above blocked out most of the stars, leaving only the glimmer of distant fireflies. Even the moons seemed reluctant to shine their light here, as if they too feared what lurked beneath the thick, gnarled roots.

Sable moved with practiced efficiency, setting up camp just on the edge of a small clearing. The soil was soft, yielding easily to her tools, and the smell of rot only seemed to deepen as the humidity closed in. She worked quickly — not just out of habit, but out of necessity. Even in a place like this, where the Force was thick and sluggish, the ever-present weight of silence made her uneasy. The shadows felt too alive, too patient.

She built a fire, but it was small — a flickering circle of warmth that struggled to hold back the encroaching chill. The crackling flames cast twisted shadows across the trunks of nearby trees, dancing grotesquely as though mocking her attempts to create order in such an unruly place.

Sable sat beside the fire, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her fingers found their way to the pendant again, the one that had once belonged to Eloise. It had been so long since she had thought of the woman, but in the stillness of the night, the old weight of the memory pressed down on her like a stone. The Force here — it felt like a living thing. Alive and watching. Thick with secrets buried deep beneath the surface. There was no sharp clarity, no comforting flow. It pulsed in waves, slow and unyielding, the very fabric of the planet itself. She felt it like a pulse in the back of her mind, and her instincts screamed that it wasn't just the planet that was alive. There was something else here.


Sable closed her eyes, reaching out with the Force. Her connection with it had always been... strange. She wasn't a Jedi, wasn't bound by any set of rules. She used it like a tool, a weapon, a compass. And right now, it was her only way to reach A'Mia.

You won't make it here, you're too weak.


A whisper threaded through her thoughts — faint, like a voice carried on the wind. But it wasn't a voice. It was a sensation. A presence.

You're going to die here, child.

A ripple in the Force, soft at first, like the turning of a page. Then it grew — darker, more insistent.

There is no healing for what you are.

Her eyes snapped open. The fire flickered as if responding to her shock, casting erratic shadows across the clearing. Sable's pulse quickened, the unease deepening as she felt the presence shift. It was ancient. A thread of power buried so deeply that it had taken root in the very land itself. Something alive and other. Sable's lips parted as she whispered, half to herself, half to the unseen force that lingered just beyond the corner of her perception.

"I hate this place…"

A branch cracked to her left, far too loud in the stillness, but when she spun toward the sound, she found nothing but shadows stretching long in the moonlight.

Her hand slid down to her blaster, but she didn't draw it yet. Not yet. The presence was still faint, the Force still wrapped around it like a shroud. The feeling — it was more ancient than anything she had encountered before. It wasn't just the planet, but the echo of something long buried. She had to be close. It was as if the planet itself was warning her to move cautiously, to tread lightly. But she couldn't stop now. Not when she was so close to finding what she came for.

There was only one choice: move forward.

The night pressed in, but she felt a subtle shift, a movement in the air that tugged at her like a faint thread of silk. It was like the land itself was drawing her deeper, deeper into the forest. Sable stood, leaving her camp behind, the fire now little more than a glimmer of warmth in the dark. The path ahead was murky, a thick labyrinth of roots and vines. Her boots sank into the soil, but she didn't falter. Her senses stretched out, focused, until she could feel the very pulse of the swamp guiding her steps. The Force, the land, and the fading echoes of a presence pulled her forward. And with every step, she could feel it — the presence was growing stronger.

Her only hope laid beyond, though the threads that pulled her there, began to weaken.

So close, and so far.

 

[Madrona A’Mia]

Dagobah
Trial Study: v2.5
Objective: Acquisition of Diverse Biomass
Project: Golem
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Deep meditation had consumed all of A'Mia's focus for untold hours. She herself had no sense for how long she'd been locked into a trance,practically a stasis, and the benefit of her arboreal lineage meant she needn't break focus from her work to tend to the needs of her body. The neti had rooted herself into the forest itself, practically into the planet her metaphysical roots went so deep.

From Dagobah itself and the pale but persistent star, she received all the nourishment needed to sustain herself. All the while, she was as a weaver- plucking carefully at strings of the Great Tapestry and delicately re-weaving them where she saw fit. It was as if she were a slicer cutting into the code, coaxing it to produce something new.

Her physical form sat still as a statue in a misty glade, while behind her a monument to her work grew yet larger and wider. From the very life-force of the planet and with the guidance of that blooming biomancer, a massive creature had been taking shape. It pulsed with dark side energy, as well as general life force. A'Mia needed this creation to be less unpredictable than her most recent creations. Though she had yet to fully grasp the creation of true sentience without already an existing neurological framework to overlay onto, she'd practically mastered semi-sentience.

With the ebb and flow of of day and night, with the energetic inhale and exhale of the very planet, A'Mia poured herself into the work undisturbed. Until something alerted her that she was no longer the only being of notable power on this sector of the planet.

Like so many mycelial connections, the neti's spidering tendrils of consciousness reached far and wide in her current half-wakeful state. The mycorrhizal network she'd created via immense dark side energies were notifying her of an approaching creature that was stong in the Force. A'Mia hazily weighed the risks... and determined that whoever it was, likely was not powerful enough to be a deadly threat to the neti such as she was.

For her part, Sable Varro would suddenly know without a hint of doubt that she was being observed. No longer was it just the vast forest, rich soil and the twitching of that metaphorical compass needle which filled her senses. Now it was as if a garden gate had been swung wide and the alluring promise of a fresh meal or warm refreshment awaited her so long as she followed the stepping stones which had suddenly revealed themselves.

The glade would soon come into view, and the hulking figure soonafter. Seated at the base of the massive tree-thing was a figure that was petite by comparison. However, upon approach it would become clear that the neti was tall compared to any near human, even while seated. She still looked as if in reverie, but a bright feminine voice carried across the glade.

Welcome...

 

[Sable Varro]

​

Roots of Corruption

Mission Classification: [Top Secret]

Tags: Madrona A’Mia

Deployment Location:

• Primary Target Zone: [Dagobah]

Equipment Loadout:

• Primary Weapon(s): SD-L1 Long Blaster
• Secondary Weapon(s): HG-88 Big Iron, VB-113 "Tidefall" Class Vibroblade,
• Specialized Gear: Wrist Mounted Weapons (Hekler'Kok WMMW-01), DS-102 "Aegis" Personal Energy Shield,
• Armor & Attire: Personal Armor

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The swamp breathed. Not in the way a living thing did, with lungs and muscle, but in something deeper, something older. It inhaled in the slow rise of mist curling between the gnarled roots and jagged stones. It exhaled in the quiet ripple of black water disturbed by unseen creatures, in the hushed rustling of leaves that had never known dry sunlight.

Sable walked through it like a ghost through a dream. Her boots sank into the damp, rotting soil with every step, dragging the smell of decay up to meet her nose. She ignored it. Ignored the chill that crept beneath her coat, the weight in her gut that whispered of something watching—something waiting.

Wrong place, wrong time. The voice slithered into her mind, dry as static, the first crackle of fire before a blaze. We should've stayed on the ship. Should've turned back, can still turn back.

"Didn't come this far to quit." She muttered. Her own voice sounded foreign, swallowed by the murk. It felt like the swamp was listening.

Yet you come here to die. The voice laughed. It was her laugh, she felt it slip past her lips, before she stopped herself.

A chill ran along her spine, her hands tightening into fists. She fought the rising fear with her own fury.

Oh, but you'd like that, wouldn't you? Easier that way. Just another lost soul swallowed up by the dark.

Sable's fingers twitched at her sides, curling inward before she could reach for the pistol strapped to her hip. A habit. A compulsion. Like drawing steel could cut through the ghosts in her own head. That she could somehow scare it into silence.

It was foolishness.

She pushed forward. Step by step. The further she went, the heavier the air became. It was not just thick with humidity, but something more oppressive, like walking through water too deep to see the bottom. And then…the pull.

It wasn't the first time she'd felt it. That tug, somewhere between instinct and compulsion, dragging her forward. It was subtle, like the twitch of a compass needle or the first draw of a cigarette before the craving truly set in. But now it was clearer than ever, humming in her bones. It called to her, luring her like a moth toward the promise of fire. Like the voice of an old friend, calling one home.

Her pulse quickened. This is it. it's here.

The trees parted, revealing the glade. Sable stopped.

The thing at its center should not have been.

It was vast, its form shifting in the dim glow of Dagobah's weak light. A monument of flesh and force, pulsing with something unnatural. It was neither beast nor being, not yet whole, but writhing, breathing, becoming. And in front of it, seated like a statue at its roots, was....something.

Whatever it was, she felt within her core, she was meant to be here.

Sable had never seen a Neti before, not in the flesh. She had no reference for it. The glade that she found herself in felt, enchanting, yet haunting. Her skin crawled as she felt herself threatened by the raw amount of biomass that she could feel.

Sable was not trained in the force, not in the proper means, but, even here she could feel the very life of this being....pulsating about her like a heartbeat.

She continued forward, her pace slow, her mind silent, body tense.

A voice. Bright, feminine, smooth as a river stone.

Sable halted at the glade's threshold, boots planted firm in the damp soil. The word, welcome, hung in the air. Weightless yet heavy all the same, as if the very forest had exhaled it rather than the being seated before her.

For a moment, she pondered her sanity.

You have indeed gone mad. Such a fitting fate for my murderer.

Her jaw tightened. She'd been watched before. Hunted. Measured like a beast on the edge of a trap. This was different. There was no threat here. Not an immediate one, at least. It was something deeper. Older. A presence that had tangled itself into the roots of this place, sinking through the marrow of the land like blood through cloth.

A presence filled the glade as much as the creation looming behind her, but it was the way they sat, the stillness of them, that made Sable uneasy. Like a thing carved from the swamp itself, waiting for something—someone—to disturb the surface.

Her gaze drifted upward, past the seated entity, to the thing behind them. No, the monument. A pulse of dark energy rippled from it, an unfamiliar rhythm against the natural hum of Dagobah's wild, untamed life. It wasn't simply living. It was becoming life.

Sable exhaled through her nose, steadying herself against the strangeness of it all. Then, finally, she spoke.

"Didn't think I'd get a greeting..." She said, voice low, the usual dry rasp of her words dampened by the thick, humid air. "Least not one so… polite."

She took a step forward. Then another. The glade felt aware, as if every fiber of it was noting her presence, measuring her weight against the moss and mud.

"I came looking for something," She continued, studying the figure now. She found it was feminine in features, her form unnaturally still despite the sheer presence that Sable felt. Was it from her own...senses, or something greater? The assassin had no way of knowing for now. "And...here I am."

Another glance at the pulsating, half-formed thing behind A'Mia. Her fingers twitched at her sides, itching toward the weight of her pistol, though she knew better than to reach for it. Blasters would do little more than provide an illusion of threat.

In this place, she was little more than dust under a boot. This place could swallow her whole she felt, and no one would even know.

Yet, she had been drawn here.

"What is this place?" She asked. A pause, then a slight tilt of her head. "Or should I be asking what it is you're waiting for?"