Weekend Treasure Hunt Infinity: At Last We Will Have Revenge (Open to All)

[Tyro Ventari]

Tyro stood watching the fights ensue. There was a great elephant charge, and then another appeared for Orcus to challenge. The youth, for his part simply did not fit in with the group of literary monsters. No he was the normal one, no less blood thirsty, and yet much more calculating. In that way he probably had more in common with [member="Darth Adekos"]. Not that he’d ever admit being akin to that aged loser. That wasn’t to say he didn’t hold any special places in his heart for the Sith Lord, he was afterall his master's friend and competent in his own way. But he lost. Frequently. That made him a loser.

Taking in his hand the gun of command that Orcus had given him he smiled and looked over at the fallen opponent. [member="Harmon Taldan"] had put up a good enough fight but yet now lay unconscious on the ground. “For the crime of hubris and defiance of my master,” Tyro said leveling the weapon to [member="Harmon Taldan"]’s limp form, “I hereby sentence you to servitude…”

Bang. The gun fired without any fanfare. Once, twice. Neurons and synapses fired within the victim's brains and forcing him into servitude. “You now serve my Lord Orcus.”

Tyro smiled and turned back looking at the wall that held Adekos’s attention. One day he would devastate this man, destroy him utterly for the place he held at his master's side. “Good day to you Mister Adekos. May I make a humble suggestion to you? There is a trail, debris leading in that direction. One may follow that trail as simply as one could follow breadcrumbs and in doing so end up in a vault yes? Information may be gleaned from such a venture no? My master can handle these men shall we venture forth?”

 

[RC 212]

[member="Darth Orcus"]

Jack managed to slip free of the Whales grasp, and with assistance on the force put his hands out in front of him. The whale took his breath just as the Pirate Captains palms impacted the wall and pushed off, sending to the floor and then into a back flip up and over the Herglic. As he sailed above the creature the Beskad swung right into his face, and then he landed, feet hitting the floor with a thump.

The flames of Jacks personal fire were burning greater now, hotter and ever more fearsome. Pain mixed with rage and desperation to survive. He was determined to take a chunk out of the Herglic, to bring him down to his own level.

The scream never hit him, simply cracking the walls stones and nearly blowing out the wall itself. As rubble came free Jack focused, grabbing it to fling the large chunks back at the whales front, sending them hurling all at once, a massive wall of blocks rotating ultra fast. Both hands whirled, and he pivoted, flying with force speed down the room and into the hallway. Here he had the advantage.

It was small, which meant no swinging saber, and narrow enough that he had a plan to evade the force scream.

Coughing more blood he laughed, a long maniacal laugh that rang through the halls. The pain was glorious, it made him feel alive. Never had he fought such an opponent.

"It won't be that easy Whale. Come on then.... *Cough*."

His bag of tricks hadn't run out just yet....

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

A parry from Orcus' great saber easily blocked the beskad as Raxis flipped behind the cetacean.

Insides jellied, eardrums burst and throwing off the balance of the inner ear, a saber cut on one arm, multiple ribs fractured, repeatedly blasted with concussion-grenade level forces and bodily smashed against the ground. Frankly, it was a surprise that the human could still stand, let alone do front flips. Resilience was admirable, but there reached a point of no return.

When in his right mind, Orcus might have spared the human after breaking him against the ground. Had him yield and carted off for ransom, just as he had the Hapan princess. Yet the pink one's persistence goaded Orcus beyond all sense of reason or thoughts of mercy. Now came the killing, the rending of flesh and the snapping of bone. He yearned to watch the calf die as one yearns for a true-love. Without reservations.

Once more stone flew at the Sith Lord, but he grew tired of this charade.

A bellow tore from his maw, turned the stone into dust, sent the shards flying back at [member="Jack Raxis"].

The human taunted him. Stuck barbs in him. Capered about.

Enough.

Orcus stayed rooted, but another bellow swept down the narrow hall, tearing apart anything in its path.

[member="Jack Raxis"]

 

[RC 212]

[member="Darth Orcus"]

The bellow was something Jack was expecting. He jumped high, going straight up and split his legs, one foot catching either side of the narrow wall. The bellow raced by below him, and he laughed, watching as the Herglic roared in his frustration. There would be no capture, and no kill.

Jack never yielded, he regrouped.

As the force scream tore brick and mortar to shreds Jack had more ammunition to use. Both hands waved outwards, throwing the torrent of stone and shattered rock straight from the mouth of the hallway into the chamber, hurtling towards the whale. His gauntlet popped open and a small flame thrower slid forth, an Old Mando trick built into his aliit'Gam.

"Barbecue time Buddy!" He coughed.

Jack hit the switch, a ream of fire exploded from the nozzle, whooshing and burning into the chamber, napalm like flames licking the entirety of the area...

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

Sadly, Orcus was a one-trick whale.

While the writer would love to regale the reader with tales of the cetacean's innovative machinations and sesquipedalian anecdotes about how he spent many long years under the mounts of the hidden rain, seeking to learn the ways of the shadow art. There is really nothing complicated about it. A Sith Lord with a very large set of lungs and a very small set of Force powers.

Say one thing for the Darth from Giju, say he's efficient.

Where the Force was concerned, the Sith Lord would not be held to contest. His muscles clenched, gut tightening, sinews flexing as he gathered his pain and hatred into a malevolent dervish.

When the shards of stone came flooding back toward Orcus, along with gouts of hot flame, he simply opened his maw for the seventh or eighth time and unleashed a monumental hauuuum that shook the walls. It was as if the winds of a hurricane had been funneled into that hallway. The rocks reversed direction immediately, speeding toward Raxis fast enough to impale him. The napalm-like substance did the same, carried backward by the shockwave, thrown directly back to the point of origin.

[member="Jack Raxis"]

 

[RC 212]

[member="Darth Orcus"]

Jacks eyes opened wide as the Whales lungs opened again, roaring with the crazy voice of his. Yes the force scream was a strong ability, very unique. Instead of getting blasted by his own stone and flame he dropped, falling face first on the floor. His face hit the glass of his helmet again and he went limp, letting his hands and arms snap to his side.

The flame, the rocks and Jack all swept from the hall from the pressure, flying straight backwards, sliding along the floor. The most of the counter attack sailed over his head, just a bit of it managed to wrench on his armoured plates, tearing him faster than he would have liked down the hall. A huge block of stone shattered on his back, knocking some of the air from his lungs and bruising him badly. More pain, more power.

As he neared the mouth into the next chamber he rolled, right, letting all the mish mash of debris fly past him and scooting up to the corner with his back flat. One hand drew his DL-44 and the other held the Beskad loosely. The Whale could cream all day, but Jack would wear him down eventually. He had learned two lessons now, don't get in close, don’t get hit by the scream.

With a growl he seized the currents of the force, imagining his next move. The Gauntlet reached around the corner, pumping another ream of superheated napalm like flames. They roared and crackled, and then Jack grabbed them, feeding them air and pushing the flames with the force down the hallway and into the chamber.

They exploded, flaring super bright as he fused the oxygen of the air, and the force and the flames together with great mental focus. A ball of flame rapidly expanded within the room, raging and hungry....

 

[Grundark]

Bloodied and wounded he marched on after his master, little droplets of blood making a trail behind him as he moved away from the fallen opponent with a limp. He could still move though, and he did so following the sounds of his master's force bellows deeper into the temple. Finally he found them the man exiting a corridor as he shot fire down the hall towards an opponent he could only assume was his master. Gripping his hammer tightly he moved towards the man, he didn't know his condition or his abilities but he didn't care, he was fighting one of his own. If had not been wounded he'd have charged in with a full trumpet from his trunk, but with a limp it would have just been a gross error.

So he took the distance between them as quickly as his leg would allow him, and perhaps too quietly for a man who's eardrums had been destroyed by force bellows. Raising the breaching hammer into the air he swung it at the man with the force of a thousand pounds of flesh and muscle behind it. The wide shockwave that came before it was made to crush and obliterate whatever it hit, it was a weapon made to destroy metal, not flesh. He imagined it would do the trick though if it connected.

[member="Jack Raxis"]
[member="Darth Orcus"]

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

Perseverance. A quality Orcus admired in his allies. Hated in his foes.

The flames billowed out from the human's wrist launcher, a crackling inferno emboldened by the Force. The blaze roared hungrily, desperate to cook his flesh and devour him into naught but ash and bones. Yet the wildfire of the forest would not prevail over the ocean's darkening storm.

A rush of air from that gaping mouth, a gale to snap masts and shred sails. The overpressure shockwave rippled forth, took the superheated flames and tossed them back down the hallway.

Orcus advanced steadily in their wake, one foot and then the other. The shards of rock dug into his inner thighs with every stride. He blinked droplets of blood from his eyes. Rivulets of crimson that ran from his head wounds and down. He saw the world in a haze of angry red. A terrible fury raged within him, every bit as consuming as those flames. Every bit as overbearing as that blast of air. The waves of his wrath swept him away toward deeper, darker places.

Toward the hell he'd met before.

As he moved forward, he saw [member="Grundark"] come up behind the human and raise his hammer strong. Orcus sneered, hefting his great saber in one hand.

If the human moved away from Grundark, Orcus would cleave him from the air. No more Ataru antics.

[member="Jack Raxis"]

 

[RC 212]

OOC: As he neared the mouth into the next chamber he rolled, right, letting all the mish mash of debris fly past him and scooting up to the corner with his back flat.

Back is flat to wall. Jack is poking arm around corner.

[member="Darth Orcus"] [member="Grundark"]

Seeing the Apprentice appear from nowhere was rather unsettling, as was the whale hurtling down the hall. Jack still had options, but they were getting lesser by the second. As the hammer swung for him he brought his Beskad up in a mighty strike, putting his counter momentum into it as he moved. Two hundred pounds of muscle aided by the darkside, connecting with the hilt of the hammer and parrying the blow to the side.

Then he retracted it, thrust once and sprung from the wall, bulling past the apprentice and away from the giant Whale. Full speed Jack flew, boots slamming the stone as he traversed another hallway. His lungs burned, his mouth and ears were bleeding. As he rounded another corner he ripped off his helmet, wiping the blood from the visor then slamming it back on.

The Comms finally came back to life. A crackling rang in his ear.

Text scrolled across the visor...

"Cap'n, where you at?"

"Trapped, get the vessel down to the west end, I'll be there shortly."

With that done he turned, gathering his pain and rage, stoking the darkness in his soul. Hen desperately desired to kill the Herglic. Every bone and cell in body was geared for it, hungry for it. Jack felt the dark currents slam through his body, sustaining his broken form.

With another roar he reached his hands high, and shattered the hallways roof. Stone and dust rained down like a waterfall, sealing the hallways off. There would be no victory just yet, but he'd be back soon...

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Harmon Taldan"] | [member="Darth Orcus"] | [member="Niysha"] | [member="Tyro Ventari"] | [member="Graze"] | [member="Grundark"]

The man's armor saved him, but that didn't make the sight of his revolvers going off in his face any less amusing to Darth Adekos. It was a little trick of his that would never get old. The Umbaran watched passively as Harmon collapsed to the ground and struggled to hold on to his consciousness. Periodically, in the background, he could hear Orcus bellowing with the Force. Some other interloper showed up. There was a knife in Orcus' skull and Adekos could guess that his Herglic colleague was going to be in a state of pure unadulterated rage for the foreseeable future.

That meant it was time to-

Darth Orcus' apprentice approached and, wielding a strange looking weapon, shot Harmon twice. Then he started giving the unconscious man orders. Adekos gave the boy a strange look. Was that a Hapan Gun of Command? A strange weapon manufactured by a strange civilization. He didn't know terribly much about them, but he could only guess that the victim had to be awake coherent for the weapon to function properly. "I don't think that's how-"

Orcus bellowed again. Sometimes, Adekos realized, explanations are overrated.

"A good assessment, boy. Very well, we'll go for the vault. Stay behind me, please. You can leave this one where he lies, I doubt he'll be a problem again."

Normally Adekos would have let Tyro take point in the hopes he would absorb a good volley of blaster bolts and then die, but this was Orcus' apprentice here. Professionalism and decent business ethics dictated that he at least try and protect the boy while Orcus was otherwise indisposed. Such as when Darth Orcus was in the throes of an apoplectic frenzy. Speaking of apprentices... "You too, Niysha. Let's keep this little expedition of ours on schedule."

Wary of any more interlopers, Adekos took his lightsaber in hand as he led the way out of the general area.

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

"Come back here you gormless worm!"

Orcus roared after the fleeing human, footsteps heavy on the flagstones. Red rivulets dribbled down his face, over his lips. He clutched the dagger in one flipper, his own blood dripped from the serrated edge. The other flipper raised the great saber in defiance as he charged the foe.

Yet the human was spry and light, despite the wounds he'd suffered. He made a quick escape. Orcus's thumping steps came to a slow halt, though his massive heart still hammered within, yearning for the fight.

The Herglic moved to shove past [member="Grundark"], a tunnel of red sweeping to and fro in search of the foe. Yet the Cragmoloid would not budge. Fury jetted within him with all the force of an underwater volcano, a boiling inferno that seared away thoughts of the pod and left only those with him and those who stood in his way.

"Move, mastodon."

 

[Grundark]

He'd heard of his master's dark rages, but this was his first time seeing one for himself, and the lack of control in his master surprised him. He seemed to still be searching for his missing opponent, as though his rage could make him appear again in the room. "Master, we must move on the others already go approach the vault." His words went unheeded though as Orcus tried to shove through him towards the direction his opponent had retreated through. In fact he doubted the Herglic had heard it at all as he shouted in his face, he could see the rage in Orcus' eyes clouding his judgement. He was Grundark's Master, but still he'd forgotten what they came for in his rage.

With a sudden growl he grabbed Orcus and drove him back against the wall, quite possibly the only time he'd ever been handled so easily. Grabbing at his pain, the bloody tears that had stopped bleeding finally but still stung, he pulled the Force to bear against the Herglic's mind. The sensations of raging seas and the desire to finish his opponent almost completely threw the Cragmoloid's purpose to ruin. Still he hung on though doggedly as he pressed his own mind against his Master's. With an constant force he pushed the idea of control into the Herglic's mind as his own mind was beat by the waves. He could swear for a moment he could smell the briny salt in the air just as he forced his own thought into the Herglic's mind. Calm yourself, you are master of none if you do not master your own mind. He isn't what you came for, now focus on the task at hand.

[member="Darth Orcus"]

 

[Gorba the Hutt]

The pachyderm loomed over Orcus and checked him against the wall with surprising ease. Orcus' eyes bulged, fathomless fury quaking in their depths. Tusks swung too close for comfort, the pointed ends of ivory far nearer to Orcus' neck than he would have liked. Betrayal is the way of the Sith. Whispered his thoughts.

The audacity infuriated the Sith Lord. I should have left this wretch in the arena. I'll have his tusks for trophies! He struggled against [member="Grundark"]'s weight, on the verge of taking that dagger and ramming it through the grey hulk's beady eye.

Suddenly, a probing tendril of thought wormed into Orcus' mind. He clacked his teeth, eyes rolling back at the voice that suddenly boomed in his mind. If a bucket of ice water had been thrown in the Sith Lord's face the reaction would have been little different. Master of none, he seethed, but the work had already been done.

Orcus sagged, Dark Rage dissipating and leaving his knees weak. He became acutely aware of the agony of his wounds.

"I," he began, throat hoarse, "I am myself once more. Release me."

The dagger clattered to the floor. He reached a flipper back, steadying himself agains the wall.

A little ways down the hall a pile of rubble shifted, rocks clunking as a dusty form rose. Orcus' eyes narrowed at the figure. "The human's accomplice. Take him alive."

[member="Darth Adekos"] | [member="Graze"] | [member="Niysha"] | [member="Tyro Ventari"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Far above Shambleau, a body tumbled through the hole where she'd entered. Head tilted, brow furrowed, she watched the body bounce from statue to statue. It landed unceremoniously in the sand with a snap of bone. Indifference became mild curiosity; she left off examining the pillar of light at the chamber's heart. The fighting had clearly grown close-

Her thoughts froze.

She stood over the body, feeling very small. She'd felt her sister die, tasted her fear and pain despite the interstellar distance between them. But feeling it wasn't seeing it.

"Raxis," she bit out, kneeling. She touched the wounds - broken bones, shattered face, lacerations, heavy burns. A fight, then torture, then an unceremonious dump out a freighter's hatch.

Elsewhere, not far, the Force roared with an ongoing fight. It went on for a while. Shambleau dragged her sister's body to the Valley's heart, but to no avail. Even the Force couldn't cure death, apparently, despite the raw strength that filled her. She cried herself dry, then consumed the body in respectful memory. Only then did she retake humanoid form.

"Raxis..."

 

[Tyro Ventari]

[member="Darth Adekos"] was a putz. Tyro knew this and yet followed him anyways. Better let the simpering ego maniacal profit mongering corporate whore take the lead. All the better for him to fall on a spiked trap, or take the first blaster bolt from any possible defenders on the interior. "Mister Adekos," Tyro said with a polite smile. "May I inquire as to how you became a Sith. I am most interested in you. I have heard stories of your legendary prowess. Your ability to cloak and hide is most impressive I'm told yes?" There was no malice in his voice, no disrespect or hate. It was a simple question that appeared on the surface to be an honest, but poorly phrased, one. In the ancient sith empire this man would be nothing. Only the weakness of the galaxy allowed his continuous existence. Then they reached the vault doors.

"Shall we penetrate the mysteries of this vault now?" Tyro said taking a step to the door and preparing to open it.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Tyro Ventari"] [member="Lady Shambleau"] [member="Darth Orcus"] [member="Darth Adekos"] [member="Graze"] [member="Niysha"] [member="Grundark"] [member="Harmon Taldan"] [member="Jack Raxis"] [member="Ayden Cater"] [member="Mira Rekali"] [member="Aeri Vyn"] [member="Saran Drast"] [member="Razelle Breuner"]

The vault door had been opened, hastily and crudely, not so long ago. As the door grated open, a vision of unusual force struck the minds of all in the area. Others connected to this chain of events, wherever they might be in the universe, likely felt it too. No Force nexus in the galaxy exceeded the Valley of the Jedi, and it had always been tied to visions and dreams.

A starship glided through a nebula like a Herglic through krill, dwarfing all around it. Comet shards and microasteroids pitted the archaic hull. On the bridge stood seven robed figures with red skin and jagged facial protrusions. Their yellow-red eyes focused on the dreamers. They growled in a colloquial, sneering dialect, muddier than any scholarly grasp of the Sith language could enlighten.

But the substance of the dream surpassed the details. A deep, foreboding ugliness permeated the viewers, a sense of portentous unease.

"The prophecy shall fail," said one. "We shall eat of the fruit, watchers, and you shall not forestall it." One clawed finger jabbed out, and a whispering spell ended the vision sharply. But the vision was not of the speaker's doing, and could be clarified by drinking from the nexus at the Valley of the Jedi.

 

[Arage Bao]

Objective: What?
Allies: [member="Darth Orcus"] | [member="Darth Adekos"] | [member="Matsu Xiangu"]

Living with the Force meant living with the knowledge that some things were beyond you. For example the insistence of the entity to insert random visions and premonitions in your skull at the least convenient of times - sometimes it worked out for the best, such as that time Adekos and him had their monthly tea-time, started talking about those stolen Sith artifacts and him getting hit by a mother of a vision.

But sometimes, rarely, but sometimes the Force had a truly awful problem with timing.

“The feth you looking at?” the alien with the gun snarled, before pistol-whipping Gregori straight in the face. In fact, Gregori wasn’t looking at all, or at least not looking in any regular sense of the word.

It would be more accurate to say that he was sensing or witnessing, perhaps even attending in the metaphysical sense of the word.

“Shhh, shhh, I am trying to listen here.” Gregori whispered back with quite unseeing eyes. The vision was growing stronger… he barely felt the pain now.

Those blue eyes shifted in hue towards the spectrum of molten amber.

Soon. Very soon.

 

[Eun]

“Captain, those are the worst of the dregs. Why run off now? Kathol is safe.”

“Kathol is too far from my objective, Koin.”

“Which is what?”

“If I wanted you to know, I’d have told you.” Kate waved him off as she stormed down the hallway. The XO meant well, but the incessant second-guessing of late had begun to fray her patience. “I picked those men because they’ll have the stomach for what I’ll need them to do.”

A frown creased Koin’s brow. “Kate, this isn’t like you. We’re supposed to be a cut above the rest. That’s what you’ve driven into the crew.”

“Well sometimes life makes you crawl in the mud with everyone else. Look, I’m all set to launch Koin. I’m not stopping now just because you disagree.”

He snorted. “Would be the first time.”

A smirk twitched at her lips. “Yeah.”

 

[Lord Ghoul]

The Monitor drifted through space, invisible to sensors and the naked eye thanks to the stygium cloaking device and a host of other stealth tech. Mikhail didn’t really know how all of it worked, but he did know that it’d been fairly easy to convince the crew to work with him once he’d snapped the neck of their CO with a flick of the wrist.

Now they followed his daughter’s craft through space, toward some unknown objective. Current heading suggested Ruusan, but Mikhail wasn’t sure why she would head there from the Kathol sector.

They’d been tailing her for the better part of a month now. Two mutiny attempts had shown the Alliance crew members that resistance was pretty much futile. Mikhail barely got any sleep, paranoid of more attempts to take him out.

He just hoped his suspicions about this endgame didn’t prove to be right. A lot of people’d died along the way. He wouldn’t let Kate be one of them.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

THE STORY SO FAR​

​

In search of an ancient treasure ship, operatives of the Galactic Alliance, the First Order, the Mandalorians, and the Sith pursued priceless relics across the planet Zeltros.​

​

The relics led them to the Valley of the Jedi, an ancient battleground steeped in the power of the Force.​

​

Years have passed, but still the galaxy dreams of the extinct Sith, and of a gigantic treasure ship, weapons primed.​

​

Tonight, nobody had the dream.​

​

***​

​

The Itsukusk -- 'Chained Dream' might be one interpretation, or 'Dream of the Chain' -- decanted from hyperspace in the asteroids of Polis Massa. Stray rocks rattled through holes in its shields and shattered on much-scuffed armor plate. At five thousand metres long, the Itsukusk was three times the length of a Star Destroyer and far vaster. Its architecture was clearly ancient, its weapons emplacements antiquated, but its bulk defied the asteroids. What did a monster have to fear from a pebble?

A decrepit shuttle disengaged from the Itsukusk and zeroed in on a single asteroid in particular, a place strong in the Dark Side. Velok's Maw, some called it: a place known for cultists and fear. The Itsukusk continued on, ambling its way through the system. Polis Massan customs ships drew near and promptly vanished in a ball of fire. Distress calls went out in all directions: the First Order, the Galactic Alliance, the Underground, even a nearby Mandalorian group.