Trouble on Takodana [Exploration/Raid-Open to All]

[Cato Fett]

“…Mereel?”

Cato turned. The man was across the galley hall, rooted in place before a pulpy door frame. Saw-weevils were wriggling in exodus from the jamb and scuttling out past his boots, while he stood with rifle raised at the darkened junction passage beyond. He appeared nonsensical, locked in an inexplicable stupor. Cato edged to his side, feeling a knot of hoarfrost unfurl in the pit of his diaphragm. “Mereel. Aru’e?”

Suddenly, sensation struck Cato at once. Nausea sent sickness up his throat while his nose filled with the smell of blood. Air grew close, dry with furnace heat, prickling a melt of sweat down his shoulders as his body fought the wave of disorientation. There were catches of dislocated sound though his helmet’s aural detection showed nothing sonic, preceding a brief shriek of ringing against the bones of his ears. For a moment, he swore there was a mixed, hushed jumble of pseudo mando’a, whisking on the back of a low breeze tossing ancient must across his boots.

Ahead, through the junction, shadows seethed and throbbed. Then, at once, the eerie calm returned. Cato blinked, swallowing to clear his ears. He was about to readdress Mereel when a last detail caught his glance. A shallow pool of bracken, dripping. Dripping the wrong way, beads of dark mud whisking away up into the ceiling. Churlish, prepubescent giggles gained volume from down the junction, turning into a gale scream that fought to unman the pair of Mando’ade.

The dead had never mocked him before. Cato unclenched his jaw, taking a brief ammunition tally, watched the sense return to Mereel’s bearing as the man looked to him for confirmation. You caught all that too, yeah? Definitely, he thought, most definitely. He fitted the magazine back into the feed and settled the rifle snugly in his shoulder and grip. With a nod, he took point, easing down the passage.

“Come on,” He said to Mereel. “Can’t leave without something substantive. Never mind the osik.”

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Itash Mecetti]

"Aha! I knew it!"

The voice of Wyman suddenly boomed throughout the plateau and made Tash whirl around. Eyes ran from one side to the other, but he couldn't find any menacing threat in the moment. "...everything alright, Baron?" He was standing next to a wall. A rock face. Steep hill, lots of nooks where mynocks could hide their nests, but nothing that really seemed to invite the kind of outburst from the Baron though. For some reason he was currently crouched next to a particular part of the wall- it was odd how bendy the old man was for how... big- nevermind.

"Baron?"

Another look exchanged with the Thyrsians. It was becoming a ritual between all of them. Tash would look, they would look back impassively and then the Tapani nobleman would sigh. There was a subtle contract between them and him.

He did the talking and the leading.

They did the shooting.

Anything else wasn't there problem and quite frankly it was unreasonable to expect anything else from them. That sentiment trickled down through the bond they shared. That was what had caused Tash to sigh and walk on over to the Baron. He crouched down next to him and started looking at what he was looking. It was just... wall. "Baron, you are starting to worry the men." Or him anyway, but that wasn't something Wyman had to know right away.

"What? Oh. I was enraptured by this." Meaty hand waved triumphantly.

"...the wall?"

Eyes bulged and Wyman stared at him like he had just insulted his lineage. "Wall? Wall? The pavement fixers of Coruscant deal with walls, Lord Mecetti. This is no mere wall." Breath was sucked in and before Tash could get a word in... there he went again. "This is a facade! A rampart. An uncut surface in the midst of paradoxes. This... this, my dear fellow, is-"

"...a wall?"

The annoyance in the Baron's expression was clear, but come on. He had literally just described a wall with different synonyms!

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Part of Mereel wanted to run outside of the castle's interior as quickly as possible. Another part of him felt obligated to track down what he had just seen to destroy it. If that was even possible.

The thing was undeniably tied to the dark side, and whatever it was he was almost certain that Cato had seen it too. The man had stopped walking at the same place he had. "Ar'ue."

As the duo pressed on through the darkness, Mereel hoped that they would stumble onto an opening to the outside soon. "If I see that again, it's going to have a real nice conversation with my DC."

Mereel suspected that they would be seeing more of the thing. He hoped blaster bolts worked on supernatural beings born of darkness, if not they would have to improvise.

Somewhere behind him, he thought he heard a barrel rolling on the stone floor.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[STaCLO]

SN continued into the brush until the trees cleared and the droid stood at lake. This was the kind of thing he was hoping to find. Looking down the sides of the lake he could see a rather large structure, it looked to be quite worn as well as it rested against the edge of the lake. 'Surely that must be the castle' he thought to himself.

As the droid made his way along the coast of the lake the sun shined down on him. His medals gleaming now that trees were no longer above. Not much longer and he'd gotten close to the wall by the lake, native plants all over it. Looking in from the side one could see how the water could've leaked in. Getting through a rather large hole in the wall the droid eyed the complex he was now in. Then SN made his way to what he figured was an entrance. But as he did a gust of wind blew into the dark structure. SN thought of way that was. Certainly it's just air going from a high pressure area to a low, but then again, why would an abandoned castle do that?

 

[Cato Fett]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEAdF_sddwA​

Sound and phantasmagoria plagued them. Cato led the way north at a guess, the on-boards for his helm and wrist-comp at odds: directional software was frequently crashing, rebooting, only to display pixelated artefacts and digital tearing. Aural helmet sensors painted false returns, bodies that weren’t there, sounds that never occurred. Every so often a channel would open, hoarsely groaning static before silencing after a second’s span. Both paused to sort out their tech, Cato watching something gangly and immaterial busk along behind Mereel and vanish through a wall of solid granite.

They breached earthen chambers, slowly assaulting along the castle wing. Most were cluttered under detritus and time-worn litter. The footlockers were rusted shut, those that were breached and filched through proving even less rich than the surrounding trash. Cato held up a platinum stub, remarking privately at the old chop-stamp cut into the metal: Sheev Palpatine, Office of the Supreme Chancellor, sequenced with various condensed numerical values. He pocketed it, passing out some antique brass cutlery, frowning at the lack of a take. A sudden peel of squealing metal: a fork they’d misplaced on a nearby wood counter had been twisted, snapped, and its prongs forced in against the counter grain.

At the next junction, they encountered a brief vision. Cato had blinked furiously, inching along and not trusting his eye. A shape kept shunting in and out of focus, like a bad holo-transmission on loop, flickering with photonic static as snatches of dislocated, agonized roars flooded their helmet speakers. Closer on they saw it as a figure; skinless and smashed, like still-living remains of a hovercar accident, trussed up on a pier of oxidized metal. It stilled long enough for broken, dead eyes to swing round in their sockets and glare at the pair. It snapped out of sight, leaving a hanging, groaning cadence.

“…Think we ought – “ Cato said, then paused.

‘It’ fell soundlessly through the ceiling and was standing poised behind Mereel. Hands composed of smoking, ebony bone, the knuckles ending in bright jet talons, languidly reached for the cheek-guards on Mereel’s helm.

“…Clear the line,” He said to him unhurriedly, snapping his rifle up and drawing a bead on a dark, eyeless skull.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

Mereel had completely stopped paying attention to his sensor readouts. He wasn't sure if his sensors were functioning correctly or if his mind was being tricked into seeing the sensors displaying readouts that were not truly there. Then, in the corner of the room, he thought he saw a dark form shimmer into existence before his eyes. He then saw the form scurry up a wall before latching on to the ceiling. His motion tracker had detected no movement.

The only thing that he knew for sure was that the dark presence he had felt in the force outside of the castle ruin now felt magnitudes stronger. It felt as if the presence was now standing above him and pushing its whole weight down onto his shoulders.

He heard the sound of loud, pained breathing reverberating through his helmet, but it wasn't his own. The alien breath stopped him from hearing Cato's first words.

As Mereel sensed it, he heard Cato loud enough to have his fear instantly confirmed. “…Clear the line,”


Mereel threw himself to the ground and made a difficult choice. If he fired at the thing above and behind Cato, he would be leaving himself open to attack at the hands of the foul beast that stood behind him. If he turned and ignited the thing behind him with his flamethrower however, he would be leaving Cato defenseless to the monster above him.

From his now prone prone position, he fired off three rounds from his rifle. Two streaks of azure sailed over Cato's head, impacted, and sent rock tumbling from the ceiling. The third streak sailed true, and impacted the dark form at the center of its mass.

As the being fell, Mereel saw it more clearly. The being looked like a human that had found out the hard way that live frag grenades were, in fact, not edible. As the headless monstrosity fell to the ground, Mereel caught a glimpse of a mynock's mouth in the hole he had just blasted into the beast.

Then, ribbons of half-transparent darkness began unraveling from the corpse until there was nothing left of the grotesque, fallen being. As he waited for Cato to decide his fate, Mereel was left staring at a floor occupied only by Cato's boots and some rusted, moldy lockers.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[SiRiDio]

Coming out of hyperspace he opens his eyes in outer space above the planet of Takodana he slowly flies down to the planets surface lands about 2 clicks west of an old castle he programs his spaceship to return to outer space until he calls it hopping out of the aircraft he made the next 2 clicks east finding the old castle.


With a stench of people inside the Zabrak enters with caution when stepping into the castle.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]
[member="SN-1411"]
[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

The Type-03 stuttered. Cato squeezed on the trigger and held for three whole seconds, emptying the magazine whole into the semi-corporeal ‘thing’ lunging to tear at Mereel. The resulting chaos nearly spoiled his aim, tracking ‘It’ as solid-slug rounds broke apart its ebon skull and ribbed low through its open ribcage. He tugged low, coaxing the firing vector down, shattering the length of shimmering spinal cord. ‘It’ clawed at empty air and burst apart, momentarily defeated. Wings of misty, star-lit gossamer peeled off disintegrating limbs. For a long beat, both Mando’ade waited, straining against ringing silence and the choke of their own breathing.

Cato ejected out the spent mag and slotted a fresh replacement. Then knelt, caught Mereel by his gauntlet and arm, and helped pull him off his haunches to his standing heels. Weapons discharge roiled over their shoulders, fogging out dim light. The ozone stench was ripe. Cato turned, nosing his boot through an ectoplasmic ‘shadow’ left on the stone. Three still-bright bolt impacts glowed in the ceiling, smoking like brimstone. He half-nodded to himself and bowed to Mereel. “Vor entye.”

He reached and undid the chinstraps to his helm, sliding it free. His face was a little aged, scar-lined and pock-marked from butterfly stitching. A line of jagged scar-tissue ran from one cheek and cut across the side-burn, slicing into the flesh of his ear. The right eye was similarly ravaged, but kept neat by a felt eye-patch. Cato wiped the sweat from his brow and hair, replacing the helmet on the next moment. His voice came filtered through an audio-amplifier.

“You’re a good shot, Mereel,” He said. “You didn’t take my head. …This is done. Say we continue on. Together or apart, it’s jate either way. Might be a storage cellar with something to salvage, or artefacts upstairs. If we can find the upstairs. Best to move fast, ‘fore whatever that was gets their wits together and come round. …So?”

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[Andulf Nicholas Teraan]

[member="Mereel Vaun"] [member="Cato Fett"] @ co.

Location: Headed towards near the ruins of a distant castle...

Post:1


So it was once the ship landed and those onboard disembarked that given their low key appearance alongside the company he kept at that time. Seem no one say a few gave them enough notice to seem even care given them a second look. Perhaps thinking them as nothing more than one of the crew rather than who they really were. Which he thought was ideal given the work they both had to put in to make it so thought in the back his mind he still had his worried or doubts about the place. Along with the idea of what he was doing here in the first place but then again looking across towards his friend he did owe him and beside. It was not like he didn't come prepared to see as they were not college youth anymore and he stashed in his gear a com along with a beacon to aid them if danger ever found them.

At which stage once the coast was clear that his friend the professor as he jokes remember his moniker was during their academy year for his buddy. Walked off to the side and then turn him waved him over as the pair sneak out on their own head off to the northwest direction of the main castle ruin.

 

[Mereel Vaun]

The sensed darkness was no longer bearing down on his shoulders, but he still sensed a hint of it. He could feel it looming up into the castle's damp air from somewhere downstairs.

Mereel watched as Cato removed his helmet. The man's face bore many signs of battle, but what stuck out to him the most was an eye patch covering his right eye and the cut flesh around his ear.

Some philosophical di'kut on Ithor would have felt the man losing his senses in battle was poetic. Mereel only felt pity for the man for a brief second as he wondered how Cato earned his scars, and if it had been in actual defense of Mandalore or in some hot-headed fool's conquest.

I wonder if a force user gave him those wounds..

Together or apart, it's good either way.
Except for it probably wasn't.

It wasn't safe here, and unless he did something about it, people would likely die investigating a spacer bar story.

He could go along with Cato and recommend that they go to the attic, or he could head down and confront the darkness where he believed it to be at its source.

"Cato, I have to go to the basement. I have a feeling that something down there is responsible for whatever those were."

Mereel hoped that Cato didn't ask how he got his feeling about the basement. He didn't want to have to fight Cato and ghost monsters.

As far as he knew, there probably weren't any Jedi on this planet. That meant the duty to fight this dark blight fell to him, a barely trained force sensitive with a rifle.

"If you want to break off to investigate the attic, that's your call. But I must go to the basement."

With: [member="Cato Fett"]
Nearby: [member="SN-1411"] [member="Darth SiRiDio"]
Presumably Relatively Nearby: [member="Itash Mecetti"] [member="Andulf Nicholas Teraan"] [member="Kyoko Ike"]

 

[STaCLO]

Just as SN took his first step into the castle, he was met with the sudden noise of blaster fire. Being a little shocked and caught off guard from sudden noise. Then the droid un-holstered his heavy blaster. It wasn't a gun good for close quarters, but it's all he had brought with him. Setting his sight to night vision the droid stepped further into the dark castle. Keeping an eye out for anything hostile. His sensors where beginning to get out of wack as he entered, all he could tell was that the moister levels were pretty high in the damp tunnels. It wasn't a mystery that SN liked to play hero, so he did want to save anyone in trouble. In his artificial mind he wondered who it could be, a damsel in distress, perhaps a beautiful Twi'lek. Not that it really matter to a droid like him sadly. Or maybe it was a group of hardened adventures seeking fortune like him.

Only time would tell.

 

[Kyoko Ike]

She could feel it as she got closer, the darkside was somewhere but there was always going to be more. She wasn't exactly sure where and fumbling around while you lok for something wasn't always the greatest idea so she moved down into the castle using her size to slip through some fo the rocks. There wasn't much information from her wrist datapad that was being pulled up but hopefully she would be able to get more once there was a more clear area and picture of what was going on. "This is strange." She felt the force from someone just as she heard the barest whisper of voices coming to the range of her hears. THrough rock and metal when she stiffened allowing the hairs on the back of her neck and arms to go away. Micro movements to not give away anything as she was hugging her presence in the force zbout her like a blanket in the rain.

 

[Andulf Nicholas Teraan]

Nearby:[member="Mereel Vaun"] | [member="Cato Fett"] | [member="SN-1411"] | [member=" Darth SiRiDio"]
Presumably Relatively Nearby: [member="Itash Mecetti "] | [member=" Kyoko Ike "]

Location: Ruins of a distant castle...

Post: 2

And so after trecking in the jungle on their own for a bit with him fall behind ever so often as if anything other than the fact. He could have sworn on the corner of his sights that he caught glimpse of movement. That somewhat made him uneasy as at the same time for whatever reason he couldn't help reach into his pocket and reach to grab hold of the small hidden satchel. As if to reassure him that it was still there perhaps thought there was no reason for him to suspect that it wouldn't be. When out of the blue he could have sworn to hear the rustling of a footstep behind him which made him pause and turn round look. Just as they soon came close to the struckture and come be under the shadow of one its few remaining spires left standing.


And it was then once he turns around that he at first come realize the professor went but then again it seems been a ruse. For tilting his head to the oposite side of where he assumed he was that he caught sight of him. A raised hand waved and becoming him follow to which he did rush along blindly as he did as he didn't want loose sight of him again. Given the seem uneasy feeling he could help get as the close into the ruins when all of the sudden. As they turn the corner that he felt himself free falling as the ground beneath his footing gave way. Which thankfully was not that deep nor long and he soon comes to land with a thump in what appeared to be some sort of darken cave. Which he could barely see into as his eyes took time to adjust the lack of light. As up ahead he could help note the outline of someone or something which made him nervous as it made one his hand fly back. As it began to try reach to his side for the hidden blaster he brought along to defend himself

 

[Itash Mecetti]

"Why didn't you just say the rock face was hiding a secret passageway?"

It was a shame that nobody had been filming Itash's expression, when the good Baron flipped some kind of mechanism behind a fake rock emplacement and the wall suddenly started rolling from its place to the left. That motion had revealed a deep cavern tunnel system- bathed in shadows, moving down the slope and not revealing much in the way of details.

According to the Baron the tunnels themselves were old, but the rock wall was relatively recent.

Which was odd.

When Itash had suggested to take it easy, maybe radio in some reinforcements, he had waved him off. And let this discovery be discovered by someone else?? No. I hired you to protect, so you will simply have to do your job here! Force knows Tash was going to put a big bonus requirement at the end of this job for this one. Potential lethal situation, et cetera.

Et cetera.

"I did." The Baron retorted indignantly- he still wasn't over the wall comment, it seemed. "You merely lacked the expertise to understand me, Lord Mecetti."

Good lord.

 

[SiRiDio]

Appearing behind the droid the Zabrak uses Force Telekinesis to hold the droid in place not allowing any movement from the droid as if his hands and feet are being held down.


" Who are you droid what is your place here " still wearing his cloak not allowing anyone to see his face only hear his voice filled with anger he steps closer to the droid pulling out his saber hilt not igniting it " I'm suggesting you talk "


With: [member="SN-1411"]
Nearby: [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[STaCLO]

The droid made a weird clanking noise as it tried to move forwards before it realized what had happened. His medals rattled a little from the sudden stop, and he almost dropped his blaster. "Huh?" SN felt very uneasy as the voice would be hear in his mind. His mind raced over what could be happening. But would go along with what the voice suggested. "I'm SN-1411, I'm just exploring the castle to see what I can find." The droid confessed, not sure if trying to act like a smart mouth would help any. SN was worried it was dealing with great supernatural forces.

[member="Darth SiRiDio"]

 

[Cato Fett]

“Then you must,” Cato said, and nodded. “Mereel: stay alive. We’ll catch up in time. Ret’urcye mhi.”

The man held his secrets and as was due courtesy, Cato didn’t press. He just acted with custom, bowing briefly in farewell, light winking off the must clinging to his barrel end as he shifted the weapon up and stalked away. He was gone by the next turn, haunting his way north still through the castle wing.

Mereel struck him as uneasy giving his suspicions voice, like as if he didn’t exactly trust natural tuition. Perchance, Cato mused, it was too natural, too on the nose, in the manner of some groups that practiced a certain tuning of their intuitive reasoning. If Mereel was Sensitive, he was already bound for inevitable hardship. Opinions were violently divided on their place in the Mando’ade. The Mand’alor had decreed the Force as spiritual poison and a soul-killer; a tack hardliners flocked to, long sickened by the presence of ‘hybrid’ fighters swearing to the Resol’nare while brandishing laser-swords and sweeping mind powers. If they didn’t kill Mereel, they’d benevolently force him to partake of their ‘cure’, otherwise they’d gut him, leave his meat for the vultures, sing mocking songs hailing the passing of another ‘traitor’.

It was barbarism. It was stupidity and impetuousness. And it was in opposition to everything the Codices and the Resol’nare stood for. To Cato, at least. He’d wrestled a teak door open after disabling a bolt and tumbler lock keeping it wedged into the jamb. It opened to a drafty stairwell, spider-silk clinging across the steps as thickly as cotton. He rose up through the tight landings, slowly addressing opposing lines of fire, trying to watch for movement in the strange dark. Helmet on-boards had finally stabilized. Vision modes swapped between thermal reads and infrared. Rodents, insect life, scuttled along out of the way.

[member="Mereel Vaun"]

 

[SiRiDio]

The Zabrak releases the droid from his control " SN-1411 you are the droid I was with on Teth " putting his lightsaber away the walks towards the droid " Sorry didn't know it was you now I have work to do " walks past the droid the Zabrak continues in the darkness walking for a solid amount of time then hearing a lot of noise and screams he followed the noise until he saw 2 people in armor talking just as he hears ones say something about a basement he walks upon them.

With: [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Mereel Vaun"]
Nearby: [member="SN-1411"]

 

[Mereel Vaun]

As Cato walked off into the darkness, Mereel muttered back his last words, "Ret’urcye mhi."

Mereel shouldered his rifle and descended slowly down a spiraling stone staircase that looked like it could accommodate three men abreast. If I ever meet that man again, I'm buying him a keg of tihaar.

As he descended the staircase, he thought about what horrifying new monstrosities would greet him once he reached the bottom.
I'm worrying too much. The headless man on the ceiling succumbed to blaster bolts easily enough. As long as I can keep my focus, whatever is here is as good as dead.

Mereel reached the bottom of the staircase, finding a room that contained several ancient but ornate looking pots, and a couple of rotten wooden planks clumsily toppled atop each other. There was another passageway directly in front of him, but more interestingly, there was a breach in the wall to his left and behind a few pots that had fallen over and shattered.

Well, well, well. What do we have here? He slowed his breathing, emptied his thoughts, and reached out to feel the energy in the force around him. He felt a repugnant hatred that made his skin crawl. It was coming from the 2 meter tall hole in the wall, beyond which was a dark tunnel that looked recently excavated.

He returned his breathing to normal and pulled back his force sense. Jackpot. "I'll be there soon hut'uun. You can only hide behind ghosts for so long."

Mereel raised his rifle and cleared the breach.

Nearby: [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Itash Mecetti"]

Closeish: [member="Darth SiRiDio"] [member="SN-1411"] [member="Andulf Nicholas Teraan"] [member="Kyoko Ike"]

 

[SiRiDio]

Following Vaun's force signature he walked around looking for the man knowing it was familiar not knowing how he continues to creep behind the Mandalorian watching him stalking him walking silently with his hooded cloak.


Next to: [member="Mereel Vaun"]
Nearby: [member="Cato Fett"] [member="SN-1411"]