Salt and Souls | CIS Dominion of Crait Hex

[Alwine Daye]

Wearing: Obsidian type Strike Armor | "Executor" Boots Exclusive
Wielding: Obsidian Knight Sword | WindWhisper | Pouch of Vita Stones
Tags: [member="Vytal Noctura"] [member="Zak Dymo"] [member="Pom Stych Tivé"] [member="Xobos Yakieer"] [member="Voph"] | + Feel free to join


So much empty space that can be toyed with right here!

Closing the door on the magic. Alwine said nothing, her wolf eyes continuing to look at the scene. There was absolutely nothing she could do to help them, nothing that she could do in her wolf form that she could not do in her human form that would in any way, shape, or form, would lend aid.

As the witch instructed the child, Alwine moved over to stand next to the kid. If she could not be of any help to either of the witches or Voph, perhaps she could help by guarding the child and making sure he stayed put.

Pressing her snout against his leg, she gave a small whimpering sound to let him know she was there, and nearby. Alwine would never let a child be harmed if she could help it in any way. Besides, she was in her wolf form now, better larger than a cub. Children tended to love that. And if it meant she kept him distracted and thus unable to get into danger, she would even let him play with her. Like a human child and a puppy.

Thankfully, a shower awaited her at home for afterwards.

 

[Pom Stych Tivé]

Pom's amulet, a crystal of magnificent purity, began to whirl where it was cast in the air overhead, a glowing sphere, intensifying and growing too bright to look at, as [member="Vytal Noctura"] approached the bonfire in the Netherworld. Pom too spoke her incantation aloud and in unison with Vytal, as she slowly approached. She would not rush her steps, for with each, the power which they battled shrunk and began to be pushed towards itself. She had to watch the actions of the entranced coven members, to make sure they did not charge her, and that if they did so, assure that she would still be able to support Vytal in the ritual.

As the Nightsisters slowly collapsed the surrounding dome of energy, the suspended amulet drew in the great and disruptive spirit that was conjured by the ravenous wayward coven which seemed trapped in their own incantations so long that their bodies had become hideously decayed. She could view their forms more clearly as she approached. Their souls had been long gone from their own bodies. The great spirit which they had brought forth, had grown out of their control and thus the coven had succumbed to the whim of their own spell casting.

Pom knew she had to shut them up as well. Their voices still rose into the air. She continued to support Vytal's spell on this side of the realm. Souls trapped on the planet began to raise a ruckus, for they do not trust the intruding Sorceress. They gathered around the eternally lit bonfire. Pom focussed and fought to press and entrap the great offending spirit into the crystal amulet. The threat of bodily harm loomed all around her. She reached out at the same time and poured the Force out to cloak herself, [member="Alwine Lechner"], and [member="Zak Dymo"]. Pom likewise reached out to shield [member=Voph] from his position where he stood across the bonfire from her.

 

[Kerstan Blackmoore]

​

w. [member="Scherezade deWinter"]​

​

"Clone her!?!"

Kerstan stopped in his tracks and simply bore a hole into the woman's head with his eyes. How ignorant was she to the idea of perfection that she could dare suggest Kerstan clone the most perfect thing he had ever created. No, [member="Áine"] was one of a kind, and she needed to remain as such. Perhaps there would be a point in time when the Dark Lord would consider making more of her species, but another Áine could never be reproduced. How was the sith bloodhound supposed to know. However, she was about to.

​"Once you have achieved perfection, you do not mess with it, that includes cloning. It is important to me that she be the only of her kind, unique. Some things in life are worth only achieving once in a lifetime, no matter how long that lifetime may be."

The sith was never one to give advice, except when he was with his creation. For some reason this was struck him as one who could use it, solicited or not. It was the price to pay considering he was going to steal a sample of her blood, or a strand of hair, anything that would get her DNA. Kerstan wanted to know where this ability to sniff out species came from. He had never seen the skill, and Kerstan knew he had to had to have it for his next experiment. He was fixated on it, obsessed with it, almost to the point the crystal foxes were no longer on his radar. It was not until he was told that they were approaching that he remembered.

"Lead the way!"

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Location: A few miles away from the commotion, where the ground makes way for canyons
Wearing: Armor | Pathfinder Boots | The Forgemaster's Ring | Ring of Stasis | Sofitor
Wielding: 10 Nozhi Blades | 10 Czerka knives | 2 Nastirci Combat Knives | Copero's Wail | Fire and Smoke (lightsabers) | Combat Gauntlets | Knight Obsidian Sword | 2 TOTT-001 Arc Light Blaster | 2 Dissuader K-30 Pistols with Glitter Bullets
Tags: [member="Kerstan Blackmoore"] | open

Scherezade rolled her eyes. The dude clearly had some issues. Cloning wasn't messing with anything, it was creating a copy without really touching the original beyond a simple DNA extraction. She was willing to bet whatever credit chips she had on her body that the creature he spoke of wasn't actual perfection; but she'd become the subject of his obsession. Every word he spoke about her oozed with it. Poor girl. If Scherezade had enough of a heart within her for strangers, she would have tried to squeeze some information out of the man, to get enough to be able to find the woman and help set her free. But, she didn't.

So instead of pointing out why he was being silly about it, she continued to lead the way. The cavern's ceiling became lower, causing her to need to crouch ever so slightly. The deeper into the cavern they got, the less light they had to rely on, but it was almost as if they didn’t need it. The crystal foxes were in the distance, glowing beautifully. They were close, so close. Scherezade wanted to reach out and touch one of them, feel those crystals that made their fur.

"Here pretty, pretty, pretty…" she whispered as she allowed herself to close her eyes, sending her Force Presence forward.

More than once, Scherezade had voiced how it hurt her that she had not inherited more from her mother. Her mother had been… Everything. Beautiful, popular, loved by all, including her enemies. She could walk into a room and smile, and everybody would be in love with her. But beyond that, her mother had also been trained in various things before she began the third decade of her life. She had been called a Seer, a Sorceress, a Necromancer, and… A Beast Master.

It was that latter part that Scherezade had inherited an ounce of. But, an ounce was all that she'd needed. Within moments, one of the crystal foxes had come half galloping towards her, and she's crouched there, her arms stretched out, ready to welcome him. The smile on her face was wide, almost like that of a child experiencing pure joy at their first time playing with a puppy.

"You're adorable!" Scherezade whispered, her hands coming up to carefully stroke its magnificent fur, the fox licking at her face, "So pretty!" she cooed at him, and then turned to look at Kerstan. "You can pet him. Just no sudden moves."

 

[Vytal Noctura]

​

Location: The Surface of Crait
Objective: Locate, Identify, and Pacify Hostile Spirits

The spirits were restless. They turned toward the Nightsister with their spiritual weapons ready to defend themselves as they called out for her to stop whatever she was doing. Despite how long these wretches had lived they were no more spiritually experienced than they had been in life. They could not see the obvious in the woven spell -- that it would affect darkness and not otherwise neutral or light energies. And should one of them be an unholy wretch caught in her web, Vytal would not shed any tears.

Just as she did not spare time to waste with the ignorant. Pom sought to help Vytal, which was appreciated, but a whirlwind of green fire billowed outward from her pale form as she advanced. It lapped at any spirit with the audacity to draw near, and scorched their spears and their swords that sought to offend. Flame leaked from Vytal's eyes with the drag net closing about the foul essence that plagued the area -- and in so doing the world. They had made a terrible mistake inviting her into the realm of the dead; for she had the strength of a god on her side, and his touch was stronger here than on Dathomir itself.

Spirits turned from the Nightsister whom they could not stop, and set their eyes on Xobos next. Whether they sought to die again was their business, but Vytal expected their business to be concluded soon enough the Miraluka should be able to handle herself.

Pom's amulet worked feverishly to cleanse the area as the net cast forced it closer to the trap. There was no where for it to go now. It lashed out at them as its time grew short in the world. Now, at the end, it recognized the threat the living posed to it and how the dead were not as enticing as they had been in life. The world had moved on since their time. Now it would move on again, by removing the past souls altogether. If they stayed, the Mandragora would put them to work; but the terrors and the suffering of the past would no longer claim the living on Crait. Their battles had ended. Time for their echoes to be silenced as well.

At last the dome shrank and forced the dark energy into Pom's amulet. Vytal stood before where the bonfire had been. Now all that remain was scattered ashes of long cold timber.

With the green flame gone, she turned to regard the dead around her. "The torment you endured in life, and your war are both ended. It is time for you to find peace in the After; else the Mandragora has use for you here rebuilding what was lost. These are your options. You will find new purpose in either one." What that purpose in the Netherworld would be was not her concern. So long as they no longer plagued this world and this time that was what mattered. Matters After were the purview of deities.

Tag: [member="Pom Stych Tivé"] | [member="Alwine Lechner"] | [member="Xobos Yakieer"] | [member="Zak Dymo"] | [member="Voph"] | Mandragora | Knights Obsidian | Open​

 

[Kelsie Sylvan]

Kelsie wasn't inefficient, and they were certainly going to achieve the mission objective, barring orbital bombardment or other disruption. Still, she had to rely largely on Missy for this one. This was the sort of thing where she'd trust the creation over the sentient. Math and slicing of this level was a step out of Kelsie's league... though she'd never admit it.

"Na, we're basically done here. Go check on mister Ministry of Science." She lazily waved off the droid. Holt would probably need a friend aside from that spooky Zabrak anyways. Not that she'd subject anyone she actually liked to hanging out with a droid. She didn't really care about Holt in all honesty. What she did care about was grabbing those juicy juicy schematics, and not having a witness might be slightly better, so...

<<"Decryption complete. Uploading schematics.">>

Kelsie sat up finally, her eyes quietly studying the plans Missy brought up on her glasses. "This thing looks like an Executor puked an ISD but screwed it up," she muttered. It was only moments later that the download was complete. Nice big tractor beams.

The young woman stood and stretched, even though she hadn't been sitting there that long, then grabbed the thermal detonator she'd hidden in her coat. A few moments later it found itself stuck to the hard drive, and in about two minutes any trace of the old computer systems would be gone. Nice and easy. Job done.

[member="Nyx N1X3"] [member="Daxton Bane"] [member="Holt"]

 

[Daxton Bane]

Deep within the ships bowels, a stealthy shadow flitted from room to room, totally invisible in the dank, stale gloom save for a impending sense of dread and fleeting echo of muffled footsteps as he pased by different rooms until he finally located the room he was seeking. Far from the core area where [member="Kelsie Sylvan"] was working, the shadow form of Daxton Bane had located a major engineering station.

The form slipped into the seat in front of a console and with a gesture began accessing the system. The archaic text presented no challenge to his skill enhanced by the Force and soon he was able to pull up schematics for the care, maintenance and use of the ships weapons and power systems, this data would allow him to reverse engineer and create weapons which suited his purpose.

Uploading into a discrete encrypted data pulse he sent the info to his ship overhead before powering down the computer and making its way back to the surface where his physical form was keeping the others occupied. While the Daxton they saw standing in open was physical enough, there was only enough residual energy to make him appear to be standing and amused at them, in reality his consciousness channeled into his wraith form, risky but the more rewarding in the long run. Plus in this form he was not limited by physical limitations, just another shadow moving in the darkness,

 

[Aspect of Defiance]

The Knights led by the Mandragora advanced across the plains of Crait where they found a group of dead conjurers in a ghost settlement around a bonfire. Knights and Mandragora alike were pulled into the Netherworld of Crait, and found a massive dark spirit tormenting other spirits. The Mandragora worked in both realms to trap the spirit in an amulet allowing the tormented spirits to move on to the Nether or stay and help rebuild. With the spirit secure the souls eventually found peace.

Ministry of Secrets agents managed to secure the plans from the ancient Resistance computer without corrupting them or destroying the equipment before the transfer was completed. With the schematics is the ancient Starhawk in their possession, the Confederacy of Independent Systems would have a new asset and model of ship to add to their armada.

Several teams worked together to repair the rundown base. The resistance had left things in shambles, and much work needed to be done from repairing or replacing old database systems, to fixing up broken down halls. A better part of a day was put into the work, but by the time the sun set over the planet, the base was deemed operational.

With the work compete and the base taken, another world fell under the influence of the CIS.

Spoiler

Feel free to keep your personal stories going as usual. Thank you all for another great Dominion. See you all next month!