Tomb Raiders, Mostly Proportionate (Levantine Sanctum Dominion of Tash-Taral)

[Arage Bao]

I took a deep breath, a literal one and just sat there for a moment. Rationality dictated that if there wasn’t a pink brother I was probably hit my head, hard and was now seeing things. The good thing was that with this realization, with this clarity, I could do something about it.

Breath rushed into me, the figural kind, strengthening my body and replenishing my stamina. Blinked once, blinked twice and the brother was gone, though I still saw a smear of pink next to [member="Tal"]. Hopefully that would go away soon.

Again I focused on Tal.

‘If you are here… does that mean we have landed?’

Gotta feeling landed was a stretch of the word at this point.

 

[Onith Trill]

Nui takes a deep breath and I simply watch him, making diagnostics on his condition. While I don't have medical knowledge my combat matrixes do have some minor programs on discerning enemy's condition, finding weak points where an enemy might be fatigued or vulnerable. Thus far he seems to be in acceptable physical condition, though a visual scan can only really tell so much. He blinks a few times before finally talking to me, and I can see his pupils having trouble focusing on me. Seems like we're in trouble. He asks me if we've landed and I stretch my vocabulator a bit.

"Our descent to the planet has ceased." I answer, before squatting somewhat and extending a hand. "We should probably conduct a ship diagnostic soon, though I believe establishing a perimeter first would be wise."

[member="Nui Akona"]

 

[Arage Bao]

Took his hand, pulled myself up and stretched a little. Could still feel the body ache, but it was a distant thing, suppressed by the breath, gave me clarity. Vision, hearing, it was all restoring itself. It was a temporary thing though, the body needed something else, something real.

‘Aye.’ I replied, looking around, before starting for the medbay. ‘See if ya can open our exit, I am gonna see if we have some stimpacks left.’

Everything was a mess, shet laying around the place, I had a feeling we wouldn’t be leaving this planet on this ship. Except if [member="Tal"] had an engineerings degree that he hadn’t told me about.

Otherwise we would need parts, can’t fix a ship with no parts. What am I? A Celestial?

 

[Onith Trill]

"No problem Nui." I tell him as I head towards the door while he goes to find his 'stimpacks'. There's a joke in there somewhere involving a far off land called 'The Mojave' but my database can't find it at the moment. A bit disgruntled with my lack of processing power and joke databanks I continue on to my objective and get to the cargo bay, spotting the loading ramp. Except, the loading ramp isn't all there. The bottom of it looked like it was bent on impact, then torn apart. Patches of sand laid around the cargo bay but stopped about halfway through. This was not good.

"Nui." I 'shout' by raising the volume on my voabulator. "Evidence of infiltration by native beasts. Likelihood of Sithspawn in the ship is eighty-eighty-point-"

A series of growls began to echo throughout the ship.

"Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent." I finish and pull out a BTI rifle and turn on ultra-violet vision. It was time to hunt.

[member="Nui Akona"]

 

[Arage Bao]

Took a step into the medbay and knew immediately things had turned for the worse, it ain’t really hard when you notice your mission is totally and utterly frecked. But this time it was especially easy to spot. You only had to look straight into the eyes of a huge tuk’ata rolling around the medbay and making a mess out of things.

Then [member="Tal"] decided to shout a warning.

‘Thanks, Tal.’ I shouted back. ‘Think I see what you mean.’

This, of course, alarmed the Sithspawn. It growled, showing razorsharp teeth, eyes burning in the darkness and jumped straight for my throat.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Anders Sivas"]

"The Jal Shey are another Force tradition." He squinted in the desert light. "Probably not as old as the Jedi, but far older than, for example, the Witches of Dathomir, the Disciples of Twilight, maybe even the Fallanassi. They're crafters -- think alchemy, but light rather than dark, and tone it down an awful lot, and you wouldn't be far off. Most of their creations are for enhancing mental clarity. Removing distractions, calming tempers, improving perception, that kind of thing. They're wanderers and diplomats, not warriors, so their idea of a solution for Sithspawn is more mental and spiritual than physical. From what we've discussed, it'll probably be most effective against more recent Sithspawn. Tuk'ata, terentateks, hssiss, less so."

His eyes adjusted, and he nodded. "I can sense it. My speeder's this way."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

A scattering of bones -- some humanoid, some larger -- lay half-buried in the hardpack. Jorus drew his utility vibroblade, but didn't activate it until after he'd pried a long specimen from the lakebed, a femur or tibia from something all out of proportional scale, long enough to serve as a lever. His knife buzzed through one end at an angle, taking off the wide knob and making an asymmetric wedge. The bone chisel-tip grated into the crevice beside Seydon's blade, cut-side down to put stress toward the core rather than risk splitting the bone. The hatch rose slowly but inexorably, pausing only when Jorus wedged the truncated knob in by the rudimentary hinge.

He got his shoulder under the thing long enough to cut the much-abused chisel tip off his bone lever, then braced the flat end against the ground and rested the hatch on the remaining knob. Whether Seydon chose to push the hatch all the way over and make a tremor that would absolutely awaken the critter, but ensuring them an escape route, wasn't a call Jorus felt comfortable making.

 

[Onith Trill]

Nui says he sees what I mean, probably means some sort of beast in the med-bay. I head over to help him out, but I pick up sight of two tuk'ata's on the way over, both heading towards the med-bay. I raise my rifle, aim at one of the dog's noggins, and pull the trigger. My shot's good, the beast goes down, but now the other one knows I'm a threat. Was probably ignoring me and sniffing out Nui as food. It comes at me and I fire another shot, but it's a bit off course hitting it's tail as the Tuk'ata runs just under the blaster bolt. It's coming at me faster now, snarling and scratching the bottom of the hull as it goes, but that's not the problem.

The problem is the other Tuk'ata I didn't notice pouncing at my side. It doesn't exactly knock me over, I'm a bit too heavy for that, but it's hanging on with it's claws and trying to bite through my plating. With alarming efficiency. I'm divided, part of me wants to run a diagnostic to see how long my plating can hold up, the other part of me is saying "Just get it the feth off". It takes me half a second before I turn my blaster and begin shooting at the wolfish being on my left shoulder. Hopefully [member="Nui Akona"] is doing better than I am right now, because it'll be a little while before I can help him out.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

"Wow. They feel like the kind of people this dude would want to know. I like those ideas. Light Side crafting. . . It's hard enough being a light sider in a galaxy full of Dark, there's an edge there that fits." I walk with Shule to the speeder and Bucket lends me a hand in. What can I say? The droid thinks he's a butler. I latch in and put one ankle across my knee. Calming tempers. . . Would the Jal Shey know how I could craft something to calm Mikhail? To... No. I can't experiment on my significant other it's not fair.

But what would he be if his first reaction wasn't the anger? He said himself he doesn't like that his mind goes to violence. I know him intimately enough to know he hates it. The guilt is more epic than Jorus Merrill making space lanes. But would it be right to alter the experiences of a man I love to protect the sovereignty of others? Maybe I need to meet these Jal Shey. Guess this is the problem with trying to be Jedi in a land of Sith. All I've got to go on is their constant barrage of tactics and infamy, with random holocalls to my ever busy Master Nytrau. It hits me now that I've gone suspiciously quiet. Hopefully [member="Shule Windspeaker"] likes the lack of noise. "Does the calming tempers thing work on anyone, or just Jal Shey?"

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

Sepulchral doom, the lingering exhalations of lost ages and musculoskeletal bone-rot, tainted winds soured with blood-borne disease, gusted through the levered breach in the crackling sand-slab door block. Beside Jorus, Seydon had drew in close and closed Winterfang back into a waiting scabbard, inhaling and exhaling over timed beats. Despite the shock-jolt whenever he touched at the glyph'd ring-jamb, he pressed one naked palm onto a just-visible footstep. The rock was less granular and more polished, cold with hinting frost-flakes edging the step-lip and slick like an alpine rivulet, Seydon noting how his skin got stuck against the material. He stilled himself quiet for another long beat, reading into some noetic pattern apparent to the Dunaan.

Senses coalesced haughty and frightening impressions into his mindscape. A long train of fore-sloped reptilian beast-things parading up and down the hidden stairwell in uninterrupted sequence, carrying or dragging broken, flailed corpse remains in their wake, until their dropped physical refuse created a crackling layer of caked filth clinging to the stone 'neath the spell-charmed doorway. Residue from constantly moisturizing tri-digit footpads constructed frail lattices, that broke under his touch and whisked into mimicking dairy-powder.

"...They've receded down less than a day ago," Seydon said, coming back to his feet. He stuck his boots into firmer rock and braced each hand on the door-block. He intended to lift it free and unjam the entrance. Violent tactile vibration in the stone would doubtless reverberate into any sub-cutaneous chambers or grottos how ever many meters below in the monolithic dark. Mayhap even wake that dead-undead world that consciously dreamed in spaces of lightless coal veins. Dunaan were either blinkered idiots, or dangerously committed to fulfilling their contracts.

He gave a tight flex and wrested the door aside. It tumbled once on the make-do hinge and broke the encrusted seal tying it to the jamb-frame. Its weight didn't break measurements of pound-tonnage, but it certainly counted for more than a man or four. Before either of them extended a diagonal passageway dropping on and on until light was walled off by impenetrable black. That awful grave-stink that plagued them now swept up with fulsome wrath. Tash-Tarals sun glowed very, very cold then, as chittering sounds cackled up the weird, ribbed stone.

Seydon murmured a lyric.

​

"All that's strong inside us,​

That tells us wrong from right,​

Become a song inside us,​

To chase away the night."​

​

"Let them fear the night now," The Dunaan growled. Winterfang slid free and took up a warding hang-guard from Seydon's shoulder, as he took point and began venturing careful step by step down. Noetic shadow edged around him. Sure but this was a bad, bad idea. He gestured Jorus to follow after him anyway. One more quick blade or shot in the deep dark was never balked or scorned at.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Tal"]

Better was relative in this particular situation, two tuk’ata dead and three more hanging around me, trying to bite me in the ass. Wasn’t exactly a happy deal for anyone involved. Only thing that was helping me out currently was the fact that I had a wall behind my back and that there wasn’t exactly a lot of freedom in movement, meant they couldn’t come at me all at the same time.

I was still woozy, that was the entire problem. Hadn’t it been that I might have made meat products outta them, but as it stood? Had to check myself, before I wrecked myself and I didn’t enjoy that feeling whatsoever.

‘Come at me.’ I bellowed, two alchemized pivot knives clenched in fists. ‘Want some of this?’

What followed was a whirlwind of teeth, blood and sharp edges.

 

[Onith Trill]

After a few shots the Tuk'ata on my shoulder falls to the ground with a pained yelp that implies system shutdown. He didn't fall alone, bringing half of my shoulder plating down with it. I don't have nerves so I can't feel what's going on the same way nature's can but I get an alert that tells me I have circuitry and my 'endoskeleton' of sorts exposed around the shoulder. Karking sithspawn. Claws aren't supposed to rip through Durasteel like that. But I have bigger problems than just that one exposed shoulder plate. While I was shooting the right Tuk'ata I was still getting charged by the one in front of me, it pouncing atop just as soon at the other had fallen down. It's trying to claw at my torso, but it's landed on my arm, which was crossed over to shoot at lefty-Tuk'ata. Claws go up and down and I hear the noise of something powering down. Diagnostics show I'm still fine and my chest-plating has minimal damage, then what's?

Kark

My fething blaster is torn in half. I never really wanted to test my hand-to-hand programming but it seems I don't have a choice. My right arm pushes out, trying to get some distance between my chest plating and the Tuk'ata. It holds on, but now it's gut is exposed. My left hand curls up and plunges into the Tuk'ata's stomach. The Tuk'ata lets out a small yelp but continues trying to bite at my arm and scratch at my chest. I throw a punch into it's gut again, and again, then my audioreceptors hear a crack. The Tuk'ata yelps and let's go of it's grip, falling to the ground. I go down, put a knee over it, and put both my hands over it's neck, compressing with everything my motors can give it. The yelping stops, as does all sound, until two-point-four-nine seconds later the creature goes limp. Three down, and only partially damaged. I'll take it as a win. Now it's time for me to head over to [member="Nui Akona"] and give him a hand, so I begin walking towards med bay then stop.

I should probably get a blaster first.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

Fear could draw a man inside himself until he saw nothing, heard nothing. Fear could become an inescapable obsession, perhaps involuntary, perhaps not -- and that was the great question. Whether self-engendered compulsion overrode agency. Whether 'I couldn't help myself' or 'the devil made me do it.' In that, fear was identical to addiction, or any desire given too much rein. And that made Jorus wonder if he wanted to be scared -- if he wanted the excuse to run from something that, logically, he knew he should avoid.

But fear could also be inextricable from sense -- 'I couldn't look away' and similar sentiments. His fear, though he struggled against it, tightened his throat and soured his gut. The details of the subterranean crypt latched onto his eyes and his mind. The grips of his Tenloss revolvers would have been a comfort, but the only thing louder than a fifty-cal ripper's plasma-shrouded slug was a fifty-cal ripper's plasma-shrouded slug underground. He stuck with the knife, for silence's sake, and for the moment.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"Jal Shey crafting works for anyone; you don't have to be Force-sensitive to get the benefits of wearing the things they make. Pretty egalitarian of them."

***​

​

In due course, they separated. Shule made his way through the desert by speeder, drawn by something inexplicable. The tuk'ata had stuck in his mind; at least, when he tried to take a nap in his speeder outside New Dreshdae's town hall, tired from a meeting with the mayor, he dreamed of blue-gray fur and teeth and the Sith language. The dream included a valley, much like the Valley of Dark Lords on Korriban, perhaps a derivative. His shuttle's scanners confirmed a structure more or less where instinct directed him.

The desert tasted and smelled like the one he'd known on Tatooine, and elsewhere. It felt purer than Korriban somehow, or at least less defiled, though equally dark in its way.

 

[Thessa Kai]

[member="Shule Windspeaker"]

The modified x-wing flew smoothly above the desert's skies. The Galan's climate controlled cabin felt amazing. A flimsi of Judah and Makai decorated the dash.

Systems tracked a lone-speeder as her scale-speckled hands configured the comms to the right channel.

"Master Shule Windspeaker? Thessa Kai of the Sanctum. I've been sent to give you back-up if you need it, over. I can land or watch you from the skies. Please advise, over."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Thessa Kai"]

He hesitated on the verge of the decision. Call down an X-wing, one of the finest war machines known to man? Leave it hanging in the sky to spook...

...the village?

"Come on down," he said, and smelled tuk'ata on the air. "There's a little town here, nestled into the ruins. Tuk'ata...on their hind legs. Most of them can do it naturally, but spending the whole time bipedal? That's something nobody's seen before. And I don't feel malice at all. Come on down and meet the locals."

 

[Kaida Taldir]

Seraph Kaida Taldir had sort of forgotten what her role in the plot was, since her sadly unobservant writer had neither been paying much attention nor been tagged recently. Presumably she and the band of Eldorai had killed Sithspawn thingies that needed killing. Mind you, without causing any natural disasters because that would be terrible for marketing. Bringing down storms on villages or unleashing a whirlwind upon them was not cool.



Anyhow, word was that a couple miles away there was a town nestled into ancient ruins...with Tu'kata standing on their hind legs! Supposedly said Tu'kata were nonmalicious and not out to eat the tourists. So our terribly stoic Cryomancer, who was presumably stoically cursing the fact that this planet happened to be bloody hot and covered by a desert, naturally headed over to town to see this after saddling up on her speeder. Whilst appearing nonthreatening and nonmilitarist and stuff. As much as she could given her heavy body armour and the fact that she looked like an ice queen all the time. Mooks performed guard duty at their LZ. She had taken a holocam with her to take pictures.


[member="Thessa Kai"], [member="Shule Windspeaker"]

 

[Thessa Kai]

[member="Shule Windspeaker"]

"Copy that." She found a spot near his position but not too close to the locals and set her favorite bird down. Orange-tinted canopy popped open and she quickly found herself on the ground. She walked up to the one she assumed was her contact.

She extended a hand, peeling off her flight gloves and stuffing them in her pocket.

"Master Windspeaker? Thessa Kai. Let's go see these locals."

Iced-azure gaze looked around nervously. Even though he said they were friendly there was no way she was leaving her blaster behind.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Kaida Taldir"] [member="Thessa Kai"]

"Pleased to meet you," he said, shaking the proffered hand. "Looks like there's quite a bit of overhang down there, plenty of shade between statues; you'll be able to stay out of the sun pretty well, I think."

He spoke up as the armored Eldorai approached. "Almost took you for a local. I'm Master Windspeaker, and this is Captain Kai. We're just heading down to introduce ourselves to the village."

 

[Kaida Taldir]

[member="Shule Windspeaker"], [member="Thessa Kai"]


Kaida brought her speeder to a halt and disembarked, approaching the man who identified himself as a Master Windspeaker and a female Galen called Captain Kai. Windspeaker's aura resonated in the Force. Felt light side and like a Jedi. Kaida had not had many dealings with them, beyond with Master Alince.



Blue eyes flickered over to briefly look at the Galen pilot. Kaida distinctly remembered Kerrigan mentioning the name a few times. Something about her having been with the Rebels and now being the wife of a Judah Dashiell, with whom Firemane did plenty of business. Not that Kaida paid much attention to whatever 'Countess Kerrigan' said.



"Seraph Taldir. Pleasure meeting you. If it's no bother I'll join you," Kaida said laconically...which was the way she talked to everyone, giving the two a nod. Seraph was an Angelii officer rank that roughly equated to Major. When it came to their ground forces and elite praetorian guard, the Eldorai still clung to the traditional ranks, though they had reluctantly decided to use the galactic standard ones for their naval forces. Well, for their tiny flotilla!