Whispers in the Dark [TSE Dominion of Hex AG-18]

[Tathra Khaeus]

Location: ​​ Science Ship Hangar Bay ---> Labs
Objective: Survive the Science Vessel
Allies: ​​[member="Vaylin"] | [member="Morgan Vance"] | [member="Darth Vesper"] | [member="Dante Sotari"] | Science Peeps

​His vision was blurred, the screeches intensified as another Starweird fell. He felt the fire in the back of his mind, The Keeper's signet ring glowing a bright amber, as the Keeper's of the past boiled in the mind of the Keeper, his black eyes in the back of his mind as the invading presence was thrust back.

​The Matador struggled, coming to his feet as the remaining Starweird had retreated; fighting the small group of soldiers who were returning to their feet. It seemed that, as the presence of the creatures lessened; as did their influence.

​He burst forward with speed as Caleb fired at the creature, retreating towards the shuttle as one his men were cut down in a savage slash through his neck. The creature almost ignored him as it went for the closest, Caleb leapt at the creature, thrusting his shoulder and the butt of his rifle into its chest, knocking it back for a moment. The Starweird retaliated, thrusting its talons into his abdomen and launching his body against the shuttle's cockpit. The small of his back connected with a side of the ship first, blood pouring from his wound and down his face, leaking out of his helmet as he dropped to his knees, the momentum carrying his upper body into a slump on the floor.

​The Matador grinded to a halt as a telekinetic force clasped an iron fist around the Starweird. The creature immediately directed itself towards the floor, trying to escape to outer space. It's claws reached the ground as the Matador slowly began to pull the creature towards him against his will. He was fighting against its corporeal strength as the creature tried desperately to shift, as it drew closer to him, his pull became stronger and soon its talons jolted out of the ships floor. It's body launching upward and towards his blade, his arm shook as the creature wailed loudly in his mind, creating a great strain on his focus. The creature turned its momentum, launching into him as it dashed around his blade, using his body as a weight to throw itself around him. It clung to his arm, pulling his dominant arm in its momentum. The Matador grinded to a halt as he staggered, throwing his right leg over the other as it clamped down on the ground beneath him, his head closer to its abdomen now. The starweird intended to strike at the exposed nape of his neck, not expecting to feel the thrust of his horned helm against its chest.

​The creature recoiled backward as his right hand launched into its chest, landing a strike that knocked the creature backward and onto the ground. It met the ground with a thud, and immediately after his saber; manipulated by kinetic energy, danced in a diagonal pirouette towards the creature. The creature was too slow to react, the orange blade slashing through its torso, leaving orange burns across the ground. His saber returned to his, slamming harshly against his open palm and soon returned to a cozy spot on his hip.

​The Matador headed directly for the main entrance to the rest of the ship, stopping for a moment to examine Caleb. Two pools of blood had been created. One small, seeping from his broken mouth and the other from his abdomen, large and still spilling out. He stood there in silence until the two pools met, the red colouring the facedown portion of his helm. With some minute reluctance, his feet turned while his eyes lingered. Heading towards the door, and soon after the laboratory.

 

[Flora Burn]

Allies: @Vaylin @The Matador
Her fleet entered the nebular, and began to search. They kept the formation, while the fighter kept the patrol routes, as they advanced. They advanced slowly, they saw apparitions during the scouting mission, but seeing none of her crew where force sensitive, they where ignored. She carried on moving through, until she had word the ship was found. Soon one fighters came back with the word, they had found science ship, the fleet began making it's way to it. As they saw broken vessel, she saw sparks fly across the outer hull. She hailed the ship, she was unsure she get a reply, This Commandor Burns, my fleet is going to surround you, and begin to toe you nebular, we will laying on multiple tractor beams. This is help maintain hull integrity, but try and make sure, you are not to close to outer hull, in case part ship can not, withstand being pulled. She waited for a reply, as her fleet began to move into postion. The delicate movement of stricken ship would take awhile. As they waited engineering crews began fly over, and try to help identify where the hull was weakest, as they did not pull the ship apart. This delicate task would take an hour to, do, then calibrations, of tractor beam strengths, and where to put the beam would also require precise calculations. Without doing this, they would not rescue the ship, they would destroy it. As she waited she back in her chair, and drank a cup of coffee, she missed the days when she drank rum on the command deck, being a pirate was fun.

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

Location: ​​ Science Ship Hangar Bay ---> Labs
Objective: Survive the Science Vessel
Allies: ​​[member="Vaylin"] | [member="Morgan Vance"] | [member="Darth Vesper"] | [member="Dante Sotari"] | [member="Atlas Kane"] | [member="Ignis Imura"]

​The Matador made his way forward, passing through the hangar bay doors. He brought out a small portable holorecorder from his most left pouch, a small blue graphic appearing before him as he stopped in the hallway. Examining a map of the Dauntless for a moment, he pondered on what became of the other Rescue shuttles. Perhaps they had been attacked like his had, he was alone here. He'd had to reserve his strength, he doubted these entities were working alone. They're screaming was indistinguishable from each others, there were no singular entities among them. These bodies were likely vessels, possibly for a greater entity.

​The thought dawned on him, perhaps the stones he had been briefed on were their source. He did not know, they only begun their attack upon his arrival. Or so it seemed to him, the creatures were passive until they saw him arrive on the ship, intent on securing those on board and the stones. Perhaps that was it, they could smell the stench of malevolent intent upon his arrival. In a way, that made him responsible for the attack aboard the Dauntless. It left him without remorse, he cared not for the lives of Sith or Imperials. He was here to do a job, no more. No less.

​He followed the quickest route to the laboratories, however was stopped on multiple occasions by the ethereal creatures. Each time, they seemed to have learned from their predecessors mistakes. Yet, eventually each felt the need to strike. That was the trick to it, a simple pattern of allowing them to strike and retaliating and cutting them down. He drew close to an access panel, a door to the laboratories was its function. A starweird shot upward from the ground, through the control panel towards the Matador.

​The Matador dashed backward, awaiting for the creature to strike. It stopped for a moment, its head turning almost so fast it could've broken its bones. The creature dashed through the closed door, and soon the Matador followed. His hand running along the control panel, his body half twisted to reach the panel as he leapt through the door as it opened. Ahead of him, he saw the creature turn a right. The Matador broke into a sprint, following and opening a door with the force before he reached it.

​Beyond that, was a laboratory with quite an interesting scene inside. [member="Atlas Kane"] was carrying a massive container as fire crashed against the ground, at his feet and against a clear force barrier. The Starweird convulsed, shrieking.

 

[Dante Sotari]

The Science Ship
Pseudo DM Post
(Was asked to NPC [member="Atlas Kane"] so we could get a certain story point moving and intro the reveal for this part of the arc)
[member="Darth Abyss"] [member="Ignis Imura"] [member="Tsisaar Taral"] [member="Vereshin"] [member="The Matador"] [member="Aria Vale"] [member="Darth Vesper"] [member="Arken Lussk"]

The Lab was in chaos. His protective barrier held against the boy's assault, but the fire moved and flowed like water, splashing around the masked form of Atlas Kane, but preservation of the stones came first. There was a pause, a moment- not of indecision but something else. From outside of the cloaked Sith, it was impossible to say. But then he stepped forward, through the barrier holding back the Weirds.

In that instant, the weirds went from shrieking to silence. Complete and total.

Fire crackled, a flame caught on the edge of his cloak, but for a heartbeat, time stood still.

One of them hovered in front of Atlas, the two regarding each other for a moment.

And then he reached out, offering, and the weird plucked the box from his hands.

The room erupted into activity, yelling, confusion. The weirds retreated through the walls, leaving the lab in disarray, no longer caring about the scurrying of meat creatures now that they had what they had come for. But there was still one last thing. Urged on by the stones, just as Atlas, as Ignis had been, the Weirds changed their intention.

For on that ship, there were brothers, of a sort.

Everyone on the science ship could feel the vessel suddenly start to move again. It had been disabled by the weirds, but now was being drawn on by them. Bringing them somewhere. Deeper into the nebula.

For those who had been touched by the stones, there was no fear. Everyone here, they knew, would leave this place unharmed. Instead for them there was a certain excitement, as the will of the stones vibrated within them. Here, now, there was something they wanted to see.

*****

Rescue Vessels
[member="Morgan Vance"]

Dante didn't see the weird. Didn't see the room she'd finally dropped to her knees in. What she saw was that rooftop. Not the one she had been on that night, but the worst nightmares of the one Bea had been on. She hadn't seen him die, but had dreamed about it a hundred times. Every time a little different except for the words that had come over the comm. Except for the fact that, every time, she failed to save him.

As far as Dante was concerned, she was kneeling, again, like hundreds of nights before, beside his body.

The weird didn't care. It was interesting, to see what it had wrought. But this one had neither the force nor one of the stones they all sought. But the man in front of it....

That was interesting. Unaffected by the telepathic fear, standing resolute and weapon in hand, but the weird couldn't taste the Force within him. It tilted it's head too far to one side, then reached out, slowly, sensing.

Machine.

Just like the ship they were on.

Well, that was easy enough.

Machines, after all, were easy to break.

Not unlike how they had handled the ships to disable them, the weird went rooting around inside of Morgan. It found something that looked important. And snapped it.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Rescue Ship

The starweirds had come for her, homed in on her presence in the Force. But a Lord of the Sith was never unprepared against assault. The Eyes of the Satwas had been forged from the carbon frozen flesh of Force Users. When the neatly stacked molecules, the souls that lingered within had been anchored, trapped, and torn to shreds. She had tortured them with the dark side of the Force; she had twisted and malformed them. She had wrought weapons that ate, that hungered. Weapons that could cull the incorporeal.

Now that she was aware of the starweirds' presence, she could sense many more than the four that encroached on her personal space.

They looked to one another as if silently judging who came first. One seemed to push the others, and the shrieks changed a fraction of a pitch. Cheers? The starweird raised its long-fingered hands and opened its great maw as it prepared to feast on the mind of a forceful being. It looked surprised when the Rattataki swung her blade straight through both of its arms at the elbows; it looked surprised when its own arms dissipated like smoke beneath the bloodshine blade. She did not let it shriek for long as she stepped towards it and pressed her point through its head and then carved it in twain from nostril to groin.

A grin spread over the Queen of Shadows' purple lips as the tone of the room changed. By the end, the starweirds would fear her.

---

Baldus had only been an Armada technician for two weeks. He joined the war effort straight after graduating on Bastion. Now, he found himself running from ghosts on a ship. His weapons were ineffective - Useless even - and they made him see things. Terrible, terrible things.

One time a veteran from the Resurgent Empire had asked him 'what do you want from your life?' - Honour for me and glory for the Empire, Baldus had answered. He was proud then. Now, he remembered the look in the red-skinned veteran's eye. How it glazed over with tears, how small he looked in his silence. Baldus had thought it was pride that day. He knew now that the veteran had seen him die. Dead at the hands of a spirit of the void. Would it drag him, kicking and screaming and begging for his mama, into the cold still void?

No! Snap out of it ensign Baldus Vorle!

Yet he did not stop running. Everywhere he turned, he could hear the sucking, shrieking, howling sound like a leak of air that could not be mended. It could not be mended. It would not end. He turned a corner and looked straight up at the ghostly figure standing at the end of a hallway, turned to one of the doors. It looked at him and stretched out a hand. He tried to stop his momentum, he slipped and fell.

A rod of scarlet carved through the ghostly face from the side. A slender body of ash with eyes of burning hate. It tore the ghost to shreds, the howl of hunger became shrieks of pain. Then the ashen one looked down at him. She was bleeding.

---

Darth Ophidia almost took the ensign for another one of the starweirds. Her mind reverberated with the constant rush of the Force as the sabres fed her with the life of what she killed. The breath was quick in her mouth. The hunger, the fury, the wild, wild beat of her heart - All of it whispered in a choir: Peel him.

She stepped towards the Ensign with apparent calm and purpose.

 

[Via Dolorosa]

Objective: Rescue Ships
Location: Aboard the Maleficum, the Nebula

The two tendrils drove hard toward the Starweirds, one missing a dodging Weird and the other connecting; killing it then raising it quickly from the dead. Before the living Weird could react further, it's undead brethren fell upon it clawing it relentlessly in the face, ending it horrific fashion. The threat partially neutralized, Darth Venefica gestured with a nod to the two soldiers to detain and subdue Andarta. The undead Weird floated about until Darth Venefica drove her blade into it's chest.​

​

"Put my daughter in her room....and watch over her until I say otherwise."​

​

A pain only a Mother could know washed over the Queen of Madness as she watched her cuffed daughter ushered out by the two guards as she powered down her own weapon; reclaiming her daughter's hilt..​

​

"I'll replensih the guards for the lab."​

​

If Andarta was easily fooled, then Agrona would be too, so she rushed toward the bridge in double time. Entering the bridge, a scene of disturbing sights unfolded. Agrona held the Captain by his throat, the officers had their weapons pointed at her daughter, and several meaningless bridge workers laid dead, and one Starweird stood behind Agrona.​

​

Activating her nose ring, she rose one dead worker then spat the words to raise two more from the Sith spell; commanding them to attack the intruder. She, alone, approached her daughter staring into her eyes.​

​

"Whatever you are seeing is not real....simple, poor parlour tricks, Agrona. Release the Captain...now!"​

​

Seeing the numbers and threat massed against it, the invader phased out through the bridge's viewport. The hold it was having on Agrona left her, causing her to release the Captain's throat.​

​

"Agrona....I'm sorry."​

​

Like her sister, she too was cuffed and ushered away.​

​

"Com Officer.....get the other ships online...NOW!"​

 

[Ignatius]

Location: Science Vessel - Inspecting mysterious stones
Objective: Wait for whatever is happening
Tags: [member="Dante Sotari"], [member="Darth Vesper"], [member="Aria Vale"], [member="Arken Lussk"], [member="Atlas Kane"], [member="Darth Abyss"], [member="Jorryn Fordyce"], [member="Vereshin"], [member="Tsisaar Taral"],

The flames danced around him, and fell to the ground. It angered me that I could not break the barrier. However, that is what happens when your mind is slowly betraying itself by making your rage and anger a unwieldy weapon. What did it for me though, was I could suddenly feel the man within the force unlike I had with anyone else. It was as though our spirits connected to one another. The feeling of comrades in arms, and brothers on the field of battle. This feeling was only increasing my desire to let the Ghosts touch the stones.

That changed.

Atlas then stood before two wirds. Neither of them attacked one another. It was though some trade was going on. Moving forward a few steps behind the man, I smiled lightly as I could see what was going on.

​The ghastly beings then plucked the box of stones from the man, and began to leave. Looking down at the stone I still held within my hand, I was unsure if I should keep it, or give it to them. Even now, I felt a calm wash over me. The ship sped up, and I could feel it as we were moving into a new direction. One that would appease all of us. One that I had promised would come to fruition. An excitement for the path ahead. Riding the wave, and letting it carry us to this new place. Deeper within the Nebula.

Lucem was following behind me and stopped. Recording everything. Even asking about what was going on. What was I feeling?

"Um.... Ignis, what is going on?"
"We are being led by the hand of the ghosts."
"To where?"
"I promised it would be worth it."
"To where Ignis? and what would be worth?"
"Giving them the stones, Lucem. We gave them what they wanted, and now they will present us a gift."
"What kind of gift?"
"Nuh uh. Don't want to spoil the surprise."

Turning to the shard, I picked it from the air, and held it in my hand as I then just sat down right in the middle of the hall. Holding the shard. To which I could hear electrical moans of confusion. The Shard was not liking this side of me. Breathing in, I was at peace, yet ecstatic for what was to come.

 

[Kenth Typho]

Location: Rescue Ships
Objective: Be The Big Damned Heroes.... or not? Apparently not!
[member="Dante Sotari"]

Morgan sighed when Dante didn't seem to be able to snap out of it.

"Suppose it's only fair after you dragged my arse out of Mirial." A grumble as he roughly pulled her back by her shoulder and behind him. She had covered him with her body back then. Made sure that if something collapsed, it would collapse on her. He remembered. Even if Dante would never know about that, he knew. This was an easy decision to make, then, though it probably would have been equally easy without Mirial.

Lightsaber at ready.

It felt weird... the soft humming whine of the plasma hissing in the air a few centimeters off of him. It had no weight in his hand, it felt like holding a bar of simple air and waving it around like a stick.

The fact that it had the power to cut through almost anything?

That wasn't helpful.

Just as Morgan was ready to move, something... happened. A crack, a snap inside of him that caused him to grunt, in pain. Breathing more difficult, vision dimming for a second as oxygen became suddenly very limited. Later, the techs and engineers would find out the replacement lung they had inserted had been burned out, stopping about fifty percent of his supply.

Anyone else would have dropped.

But Morgan was a stranger to pain. "Feth you." Then he leaped and the speed of it seemed to even surprise the Starweird. Not even a moment to react as the plasma bar cut straight through the thing, then again as he kept hacking. Limbs, anything he could get his hands on, until it stopped moving and trying to cut him into ribbons with its claws.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Rescue Ship

The Queen of Shadows approached the ensign, blades in either hand. Her eyes were set on the figure sprawled out on the floor. The hunger, it scraped on her insides like a beast wanting out. Would she let it? If she did, could she return? Would she want to return? She could hear her own heartbeat: a rapid du-dunk du-dunk du-dunk. Towering over the manling, she saw him wiggling his way back until his head touched the far wall of the corridor. The two scarlet bars of plasma caged him as they hovered just over the floor. She put a foot on his chest and pushed him down against the floor. She lowered her head over his, staring at him with unblinking eyes. Her raspy voice summoned words:

"Make sure that room is cleaned up by the time I return."

He stopped, looked to either side and back up at her ashen face while nodding.

"Yes ma'am?"

Darth Ophidia rose back up to her full height once more, staring down her nose at the quaking for of Ensign Vorle.

"Spotless." "Yes, ma'am."

She was hungry, but still in control. It would take more than this to topple her mind.

She turned the foot on his chest and stepped off, heading down the hallway from whence she had come; hunting the creatures that haunted their ship and would hunt her if she let them. Ophidia would never resign to being prey, that side of her had long since perished. Claws phased through the door of a cabin and raked over her outer thigh. She let out a scream of pain as she stepped back and thrust her left sabre forward. It burst through the metal sheet and Touched something on the other side. She could hear the scream and feel the surge of energy passing into her body.

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

Location: ​​ Science Ship Hangar Bay ---> Labs
Objective: Investigate
Allies: ​​[member="Vaylin"] | [member="Morgan Vance"] | [member="Darth Vesper"] | [member="Dante Sotari"] | [member="Atlas Kane"] | [member="Ignis Imura"]

​The Matador stopped in his tracks, watching as what appeared to be a Sith, his form wrapped in black cloth and a narrow faced helm that hid the shape of his limp expressions as he mindlessly handed a crate to the creatures that had attacked him before. The Matador was heaving, his chest moving so that his breastplate slowly lifted and rested against his waist armour.

​His arms relaxed, feeling the ship begin to move. Yet there was no sound of power, nothing to indicate the ships systems had returned to a functioning state. The ship felt different as it moved, almost entirely unnatural in its shift in gravity with no thrust at all. Yet, even as this was a strange occurrence, there was yet no fear in his heart. The Keeper kept his deeper anxieties at bay, to stay focused on the mission.

​The mission was to secure the vessel, yet it seemed as though those on board. Including those he had been sent to secure, apparently had other intentions. He stopped, seeing that the Starweirds were no longer hostile. The Matador was aware of the disadvantage he was at, he had no idea how many Starweirds remained. Nor, did he know whether those he was here to protect would become hostile if he attempted to prevent the creatures attacks. It seemed futile to assume he could do anything at this point. The blade of orange plasma became silent, disappearing into the silver cylinder in the grasp on his left hand. He stood silent, stepping forward to approach the Sith and now the man who was sitting at their flank, holding a small crystal in the palm of his hand and behind them another within the laboratory.

​"The vessels engines haven't been reignited, where are the corporeal creatures taking us?"

​He asked, observing the Sith and the Pyromancer who seemed previously engaged in combat. But now, both completely at ease almost retrospective of the creatures themselves. Perhaps they were under the spell of their screaming songs. Unlike them, his mind was guarded by an external force. The Keeper kept his focus certain, yet he felt indecisiveness engulf his fighting nature. He was ignorant of how to proceed, and therefore hesitated to do so.

 

[Bo Lin]

Bo woke from his extended nap with a large yawn and looked around. His large green eyes scanned the room and found that the small crew quarters were empty.

"Hmph." He said as he slowly stood and promptly smacked his head on the bunk above his. He fell back to sit with a heavy thud and this time rolled off the bunk and stood carefully.

He walked out the door and into the corridor of one ship or another and bee lined for the galley. His heavy steps thudded along the deck as he lumbered along without a care. Finally he stopped at the gallley hatch and peaked inside to see if there was any opposition to his food objective. There wasn't.

He quickly moved through the door and leapt over a table with very uncharacteristic speed an agility and went straight for the cookies one of the Sithwas known to hide. He tucked the box into his shirt and then grabbed a bag of potatos. He topped it off with six lettuces and began carying his haul back to his bunk. However, the bunk was far and he was hungry so he sat on the floor and just began eating.

Fifteen minutes later he was sprawled on his back with empty packaging around his snoring form. If they were doing something important they would let him know.

 

[Dante Sotari]

The science ship slipped deeper into the nebula, tugged along like a kite on a string by the Star Weirds. There was no immediately clarity as to why they were doing it, just what they wanted those already in touch with the stones to see. To understand.

In truth, even once what they wanted to show was in view, it took a slow dawning to comprehend just what they were being shown.

At first, it looked like a small, lonely moon, floating at what was probably the approximate center of the nebula. Gleaming black and red, it was familiar, but so out of place. It was impossible, yes? All of their stones, the ones they had found so far, had been small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. To find one this large, floating in the middle of space, the middle of a nebula that, frankly, had no right to be here....

But as sensor equipment started to come back online, and they watched the strange ebb and flow of lights and clouds around it, suddenly, someone whispered.

"It's a Star Weird."

Impossibly large. Writ on a cosmic scale. It was difficult to tell where the nebula ended and the weird began but it became clear as they watched that the nebula was the weird.

It slumbered, if one could call it that. Sleep, perchance to dream, but what did celestial bodies dream of? They watched through the ship's viewscreens as the smaller weirds left their ship, bringing the crate of stones toward the small moon at the center.

"It's anchoring it," someone murmured.

"The stones are holding it here."

"But why?"

With a soft hum and a whir, the engines started up again. Whatever the weirds had wanted, now they had it. It was not truly a loss- the Empire had more of the stones back on Bastion in the labs. But what had been gained? More mysteries, perhaps some insight but without the whole picture, what guesses could be made?

As the science ship regained power, so too did the rescue ships. The weirds on them withdrew- they had what they wanted, and that was all that mattered to them. More stones, to anchor the nebula. To gain permanence. To what end?

Only time would tell.

For now, they decided to name the phenomena the Scintilla Nebula - they would continue to study it, the official standard to leave the stone anchoring the center of the nebula alone. Who knew what would happen if it was disrupted. And for now, as long as the cosmic weird slumbered, well.

Best to let sleeping giants lie.

​