Siege of The Solar Praxeum.

[Andorreth Vikar]

I'd landed as well when I got the transmission about something being wrong. I was already loaded up with the gear I needed and was headed out the airlock into the hangar when I asked "Syd, I'm on my way out but what do you mean wrong other than the shields failing....." Looking at Syd I approached slowly so as not to startle her, then I saw the poor soul disintegrating into ash. That....was decidedly very not good. "Never mind, I understand what you meant. Anything you know that'd cause that? Cause that looks like something cooked that poor soul from the inside out....."

[member="Syd Celsius"]

 

[Kyoko Ike]

[member="Syd Celsius"]

Kyoko had been spending the time needed making sure everything was working as she stood there and had changed a little. The black vest on with ultrachrome plates and her sabers... three small disc blades that she could control and throw around. Kyoko had finished working though and looked to spend a few hours sleeping if she could. her eyes flicking back and forth before she woke up and stretched herself out. Working with Syd and the others would prove useful to her when she pulled her hair back into a tighter ponytail with a smile on her face. "Ready to go." She had prepared for this, her gear pack on her hip, saber blades and her chevron pad to look over and slice into things as a veil drone came near her. "Now you stay clear and scout ahead."

 

[Griet van Vliet]

[member="Syd Celsius"] already warned that something wasn't right, and charred bodies were found all over the place. Now it's clear just what sort of client I'm dealing with: it's bordering on criminal intent but I need the information in the station to prove the criminal portion of the client's actions. Should the info I'm looking for is destroyed, proving that the client intentionally put it there for destruction or proving the client's criminal neglect is another bag of beans. Now, if I wanted to use a dungeon to hide accounting information, such as computerized ledgers, I would probably want to hide it at some place where similar stuff can be stored, Griet thought, while [member="Andorreth Vikar"] and [member="Kyoko Ike"] were ostensibly much more interested than she is in knowing what caused this situation to occur. Also, she began to feel that treasure isn't the end of the story, whatever treasure she can get, will be well-appreciated, but it's not the end of the world, or even her career, if she gets nothing else from this dungeon crawl beyond those accounting documents from that client that tipped her here.

"If we can get to the technical logs, maybe we'd get a clue"

 

[Sigyn Vanir]

This was not comfortable for Thalo, being near a place of fire like this. Though he couldn't feel the heat so intensly, the view was also hurting. Since he was a pantoran, heat was not one of the things he liked. But this was the place they had to be, and he had volenteered to come along on this mission. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

"Alright," he said to [member="Syd Celsius"] announcment that they had arrived. But he had known for a time. Since he didn't have a ship of his own, he had asked to come With on Syd's ship, and luckily she had been fine With it. Thalo didn't need much preparing to go out. The only thing he did was strap his lightpike on his back, as it was impossible to have it there during the flight. He stepped out right after Syd, and saw the charred body too. "What the…?" He didn't manage to say more. The rest of the crew came too, and they also saw the body. This mission just got more interesting.

[member="Griet van Vliet"] | [member="Kyoko Ike"] | [member="Andorreth Vikar"]

 

[Reggie Faayare]

Reggie and Simon had taken their own ship when everyone was ready to head out, Simon piloting the ship. When they arrived and landed, Reggie quickly got out of the ship to meet with Syd and the others. The warning from Syd gave him an anxious feeling which was amplified when he saw the burned corpse that soon disintegrated. Whatever happened to these corpses was something that could possibly happen to them.

"I think getting to the technical logs is a good idea as well. It would be wise to find out what happened as soon as possible."

Simon came to the group soon after the Padawan said this, looking to see what everyone was looking at.

[member="Thalo Molidias"] [member="Griet van Vliet"] [member="Kyoko Ike"] [member="Andorreth Vikar"] [member="Syd Celsius"]

 

[Syd Celsius]

Syd floated over and hovered over the remains, examing them.

"I've seen certain microwave weapons do this during the Gulag Plague, but this is too recent...The Solar Praxeum is hundreds of years old...any bodies left from its prior inhabitants will be either petrified or long disintegrated..." she said to [member="Andorreth Vikar"] as she stared. "This corpse is more recent. Someone got here before us."

Syd floated to the hangar control office, landing and phasing through the barrier. She checked the old computers. Someone had jury rigged a more modern computer system to the ancient one, a portable laptop that was still logged in. Syd tapped a button and silvery, iris like doors creaked open in a reverse spiral.

(Zelda unlocking theme plays)

Syd perked up, looking around for a second, and could have sworn she heard some sort of catchy chime play. She quickly decided it had been what passed for her imagination, which was currently just odd musings about rubber ducks as she really hadn't built it up yet beyond her ability to guess at or improvise tactics, and now an imaginary catchy chime had a place there. She fancied it again for a moment.

(Zelda Unlocking Theme plays again)

"Hmmm..." she mumbled before checking the computer logs. When she saw what was on it she immediately unhooked it and phased out of the office.

"You all need to see this." she stated bluntly. "Apparently there were salvagers here a few days before the smuggler came across the Praxeum. But it seems there was something else. There's only visual feed..." Syd explained, playing the log and turning the laptop so everyone could see.

It showed an image of a young man in dark clothes, presumably the corpse they had found just now, fleeing the entrance that had just been opened by Syd, and watching as his comrades in another ship of Corellian make take off. He apparently started screaming in dispair, banging his fists on the ground...

And then...a glow...a bright orange glow from the entrance. Because the camera was at an angle that was looking at the office, where the man had died in front of, it was impossible to tell what was making the glow. The abandoned man started screaming in terror as it got closer, before the feed cut.

Syd didn't know what it meant. She looked at the ashes again.

"Whatever it was, it cooked him inside out at close proximity. Presumably it can't cook me because I'm not organic but until we know what killed him, you see anything strange like that it would be better to simply run." Syd advised before gesturing the others to follow her through the entrance. She knew where she was going, where every passage led.

She walked into the main hall, and despite its ruined state, it was breathtaking. Great archs led to various sealed doors and a grand podium that was trailed up by steps. The holoprojector in the middle depicted the fiery sun below them in a gentle glow, glowing softly in the center of a cracked and scorched floor, riddled with ancient dust and ashes and bones from various places, grand oval windows reinforced by alchemized circular transparisteel to withstand the incredible heat and fitted with inner lenses to let the light come in from all sides at a safe and even pleasing levels, though it was only golden light and orange trails from the sun to gaze upon. Statues of the Praxeum's founders and associates were lined in a circle on a grand podium, chipped and damaged from centuries of neglect.

Syd focused on one statue in particular. The statue of her creator, The Man in White. He was dressed as he had been in life, long, flowing sterile white robes and hood, face covered by an equally white mask, marked by a violet pentacle.

She had never learned his real name. She knew nothing about her creator save that in his heyday, many, many darksiders on the rim or the most plague ravaged worlds had been terrified of running into him and the Resistors, a fear which had grown after her creation. He operated like a vigilante and had the gadgets to go with it.

Syd pulled out her first lightsaber, the curved hilt, and jammed it into the statue's neck, ripping right through it and watching the stone head tumble from the shoulders and crashed into the floor. She floated back down and stared at the shattered head.

"That's for three hundred and fifty years trapped in a chunk of Nullification Resin the size of a human heart!" Syd exclaimed, the one exception to her diminished emotions being in regards to her imprisonment. An unjust one.

"I did my job! And I would have continued doing it happily if you had grown a pair and stood up to the council!" she said to the shattered head before floating away and back to her comrades.

"Sorry." She said, calming down. "It was personal. He created me."

[member="Thalo Molidias"]

[member="Kyoko Ike"]

[member="Griet van Vliet"]

[member="Reggie Faayare"]

 

[Kyoko Ike]

[member="Syd Celsius"]

Looking at the others for a moment and then at the screen with her hands clasped behind her back. THe jedi herself was checking it out as the screen captures she recorded and got for herself bringing up one of the smaller sato interfaces. One lens appearing over her eye so she could observe it and setting the scanner to work on the area itself. "Will do." She said it and was paying attention but she was also running the scans or what they might be able to search for if there was going to be a danger. Early warning and a chance to prepare themselves. Then she was looking at the statue and taking in the view of the man with the minimal effort to try and identify him... it seemed doubtful as a statue didn't give much information but there was always a chance possibly. "It might not well serve the best but we have an expansive database of jedi and information. If there is anthing we can find I'll send it to you." A smirk on her face though while she moved and stretched out letting her tail loose as it swished back and forth with fox ears twitching as she listened to the depths of the station.

 

[Griet van Vliet]

Upon seeing security camera feeds, of which a copy needs to be secured should it be used in court to prosecute whatever employee of the client, as shown by [member="Syd Celsius"], she could now realize that either that client was already cooked, or the client hired the person that was cooked. She also warned about the bright orange glow, but for now she was combing the remaining computer records for internal audit reports, financial documents as well as ledgers. Stuff she knew [member="Thalo Molidias"], [member="Andorreth Vikar"], [member="Kyoko Ike"] or [member="Reggie Faayare"] have no real interest in. Luckily for her, there was only one set of ledgers that was recent enough to fit a description the client gave her: it belonged to a corporation incorporated in Talz-land, Angie's Amazing Getups. Well, it was the client's, and, once the ledgers were uploaded, she was... underwhelmed: for a client that looked to a dungeon to hide financial information, it was rather easy to obtain. Poodoo: why did I have clients like these, with near-guaranteed adverse audit opinions? Griet thought, before moving into the main hall, with the ledgers in tow.