Private We never left the velvet cage

[KAR]

Tatooine
Mos Eisley
Velvet Cage Cantina

Life had certainly changed for Katarine Ryiah. Once a Jedi fighting alongside the rebellion, now she found herself a treasure hunter and explorer. Since her awakening and the realization that she was over 800 years old she had come to realize the galaxies wars were meaningless. All this time had passed and the wars still raged on. Only the players changed but the outcomes were always the same. She had become disillusioned with the mission of a Jedi, especially these days. What order was a Jedi to serve when there were so many? What was the point of service if ultimately there was always another war waiting around the corner? She had rid herself of all of it, but the sad fact was she still needed credits to survive in the galaxy. Without the Jedi Order she had to worry about providing for herself, and that's where the treasure hunting came into play.

There was a legend of an old crypt deep beneath the sands of Tatooine. Once a great king, the ruler was placed to rest with treasures galore, one of which interested Katarine greatly. It was a ring that was supposed to have special properties, and it was the type of thing that could sell nicely and give her time to figure the rest of her life out. So here she was, in the hive of scum and villainy looking for a ring called "The Black Pearl."

She went to the bar and ordered a drink, taking a seat and glancing around at the patrons. A simple prod here or a suggestion there would be all she'd need to start a discussion of the ring, and see what the locals knew. For now she would just observe and choose her target.


Rayne Centaris

 

[Rayne Centaris]

It had been two days since Rayne Centaris came back to Tatooine but, even though this was the first time he returned to the desert planet where he grew up as a simple moisture farmer, the Lord Executor wasn't here to visit his relatives. The reason for his presence was business, a dark kind of serious business which had all begun two months ago at Thorn Academy; the place where that particular brand of business somehow always seemed to start.

One of the students, a fellow Human from Tatooine, had presented a paper about a particular local legend. In this paper, the student explained the existence of a crypt which was rumoured to predate even the desert sands. This crypt was supposedly the final resting place of a once-powerful King, a highly compelling man who could bend even the very forces of nature to his will, and he was laid to rest there along with some of his most valuable treasures. While the rest of the paper continued to focus on how the locals used the legend to attract hopeful treasure hunters and how easy it was to manipulate people by playing into their innate greed, there were enough matches between this paper and what little actual data there was on this subject in the Thorn Archives to attract the attention of the Archivists. It seemed there was more truth to this legend than the student, or even any of the locals who exploited it, ever realized; in fact, the Knights Obsidian had been unsuccessfully searching for one particularly dangerous artefact, but they never managed to pinpoint its location until now.

And this was the reason why the Lord Executor now found himself walking through the streets of Mos Eisley; the base camp of his little expedition. He had come here alone, not wanting to waste Thorn resources on a potentially futile search through the desert, but also not willing to risk the possibility of getting stabbed in the back by someone who wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of the artefact just in case this search wouldn't be as futile after all. Nonetheless, despite being on his own Rayne had made good progress; having spent these last two days collecting the necessary supplies and making a plan on how to go about the search.

A plan he had to execute at daybreak, as frustrating as that was. While Rayne actually wanted to go about the search immediately instead of spending another night in Mos Eisley, he knew that a combination of darkness and the ever-present thread of being ambushed by Tusken Raiders made it dangerous to travel at night. As such the Lord Executor was left with an evening's worth of time to kill and, as he walked the streets of Mos Eisley in search of something to do, he naturally ended up at the local watering hole.

The Velvet Cage Cantina.

As Rayne entered the Cantina and his blue eyes met with the uninterested gazes of several other patrons, whom looked up to see who had walked through the door, the Lord Executor's first impulse was to put his hand in his pocket to make sure his wallet was still there. It was an impulse that was suddenly interrupted when he heard something he hadn't expected in the local watering hole, and it immediately put Rayne on alert; it was a whisper. While it wasn't strong enough to indicate a significant disturbance in the Force, Rayne sensed that something or someone created the most subtle ripples on the surface and he picked up on that butterfly effect.

He slowly looked around for anything out of the ordinary while he began to walk to the bar, trying his best not to look overly out of place himself, but as he approached the bar the whispers he heard began to grow louder. At that point it wasn't very difficult to discern that the person creating these subtle ripples was either the brown-haired woman sitting at the bar, or the Rodian bartender who was leaning against it from the other side. As Rayne looked at the Rodian and noticed how the man was digging in his ear with his pinky, displaying a ferocity like he was trying to excavate gold, the Lord Executor took a safe guess and ruled him out.

While Rayne wasn't sure what to expect from the woman, he knew that if she was strong enough for him to pick up, she undoubtedly knew of his presence by now as well. The woman's presence in Mos Eisley piqued his interest though and, given how he always preferred the more direct approach anyway, Rayne stepped up and took a seat at the bar right next to the woman. "Ah, whiskey on the rocks, please." As he spoke Rayne subtly raised his hand, almost as if he wanted to draw the bartender's attention despite already having it, before adding an equally subtle "Leave the bottle, keep the change.".

Asking for the bottle was a wise thing to do on Tatooine, even though it rarely went as smoothly as this for non-Force Users, and as the Rodian put the bottle on the bar before thanking for the change which Rayne hadn't even paid, the Lord Executor saw it was Jundland Joe; a cheap bootleg of the more expensive Anchorhead Sunbeam which the bartender undoubtedly intended to put on his tab. He probably still would anyway. Bringing the glass up to his lips and taking a sip like these kinds of small mind tricks were the most normal thing in the galaxy, Rayne turned his attention to the woman sitting next to him and suppressed the whispers. "I didn't expect to find you in a watering hole like this." The mind trick apparently hadn't freaked her out, at least not as far as Rayne could see, so that question was less of a bad opening and more of a subtle way of asking what a Force User was doing in a Cantina. That might have sounded like the start of a bad joke, which Rayne knew few patrons would appreciate, and he smiled at the woman before continuing. "So, what brings you here?"

K KAR

 

[KAR]

Things were going smoothly at first, and as her deep green eyes scanned the patrons she could tell several of them were susceptible enough to start talking of the topic that intrigued her. In the past this type of mind trick would have been something she would have sworn off as vile and dishonorable, but new times and new tactics were the key to a new life. Any moment now the Cantina would be alive with the talk of legends that she so much wanted to hear. Or that had been the plan until He showed up.

A man walked into the cantina and before Katarine had even let her eyes wander his way she could feel the darkside seep into the atmosphere around them. She was so sensitive to the darkside and even after all this time in sobriety the feeling was enough to rattle her. She gritted her teeth and afforded the darksider one glance as he walked towards the bar. Immediately flashes of a time centuries ago resurfaced in her mind. This past time included another dark male that offered the darkside in a way Katarine could not wield it herself. Just being near the darkness was enough to wash away her pain before, and make her mind cloudy and blissfully unaware of all that she had lost. Now, over 800 years latter she had lost even more and the desire for another hit of her favorite drug was a strong one. The darkside could make her forget the faces she yearned for every night. It could help her feel complete and content without a longing pit in the bottom of her stomach. She felt crazier than any spice addict going through withdrawal, even after all this time, and the realization frightened her to the very core of her soul.


The darksider approached the bar, subtly suggesting his way through a drink order. Katarine closed her eyes and turned her head away from him, as if she was checking the door, but really she was trying to get the smell of the man out of her nostrils. She felt lightheaded already. He was standing much too close, and now he was talking to her, indicating he wasn't leaving the bar anytime soon.

She turned to face him, and as she did so slid as far over on the small stool as was possible to put distance between them. It helped a little, and her lightheadenss seemed to ease slightly. She smiled back at him, and picked up her own drink, more so she could inhale its scent than his for a while rather than because she actually wanted any of the liquid in it. Her body only wanted one thing now, and alcohol was not nearly strong enough to dull the sudden longing for a different type of drunkenness.

"I fancied a good swim. You can imagine my disappointment when I landed." Sarcasm, her go to response for dealing with uncomfortable situations.

Rayne Centaris

 

[KAR]

(( Rayne Centaris do you want to continue this or shall I mark it done? ))