Worm Hunt (Open to Sith)

[Velok the Younger]

The Kyrikal system lay close to, but not within, Silver Sanctum Coalition territory. An old Sith Empire troop transport settled down on the arid landscape of Kyrikal Seventeen, overlooking an ocean of rocky sand. From the ship emerged a small parade: first a team of prisoners (bait), then some bobbing, spherical probe droids, then a few Sith led by an eight-foot Whiphid. Personal transports touched down nearby: not everyone had elected to come on the refitted transport.

Velok took a deep breath, tasting the air, then nodded in satisfaction and snapped a neuronic whip. The prisoners scattered. All had been soldiers; they still wore tattered military fatigues, identifiable as Republic, One Sith, et cetera. Some took shelter from the blazing sun by ducking into caves and tunnels. That was sort of the idea.

"I still say Eol Sha fireworm scales would have been better, Mazul," Velok growled, "but no, you just needed your lightsabre-immune leather catsuit. And you could easily have made your bullwhip out of fireworm intestine. It has a good snap to it. But I suppose that would ruin your whole sadomasochist aesthetic -- who finds worm intestine titillating, after all?"

Then again, humanoids often found titillation in the strangest things. Despite the heat and the weight of his fur, Velok shivered briskly.

[member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Anaya Fen"] [member="Grimoire"] [member="Neelig Waawat"] [member="Darth Metus"] [member="Zofia Marek"] [member="Siyndacha Aerin"]

 

[Nyra Mazul]

Nyra wasn't sure how she'd met the Whiphid. Sure she remembered running into him on a space station while on a job and striking up a rather... vigerious discussion... but the heart of the matter wasn't the event but rather the why. The force worked in mysterious ways, at least that is what people said. Jedi just accepted coincidence and what they called the 'will of the force' but Nyra knew the one universal truth. She had the will to power, the only will that mattered. "I'm glad you understand," Nyra said with a smile. She already had a whip and jumped rope down the ramp of the ship laughing a little as she did. Her own outfit suited her needs enough that she didn't need the leather for that. Instead she just wanted a whip and enough extra material to repair and replace as needed. "Besides one large worm is all we need. Think about it. These things are huge and everyone in our party can benefit."

Shrugging the woman reached her hands over her head and stretched arching her back and twisting her spine. She could, of course, change into any form, she was a shapeshifter. Human was her preferred form of choice. Humans were plentiful throughout the galaxy and no one noticed another human... "So what is our plan? I'm just the pretty one after all."

 

[Darth Grimoire]

[member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Velok the Younger"]

Grimoire descended from the disembarking ramp of the old transporter. The scathing sunlight oppressed Grimoire as she stepped under it. Her eyes strained as she moved from dark to light. Her dark red tunic over red robes felt heavy in the dry air of Kyrikal. She frowned at the landscape - desert. Reminded her too much of that dead world called AzaZoth. But, then her attention was laid down upon the Whiphid. His name is what drew her to his call. Mother had mentioned a Velok from long ago, during the days of her mother's apprenticeship to the Emperor himself. A master alchemist that helped her forge the battle worm she rode. The worm was now long dead. Consumed for another project - Grimoire.

Grimoire stepped out onto the desert sands and strolled to the side of Velok the Younger. She paused right behind him and she hissed her thoughts aloud on the matter at hand. "We hunt for worms." Grimoire growled, "Such amusing tasks you revel in." Grimoire's jests could have fuelled anyone that her mother was around, perhaps she was already forming into the old dead bat. But, as silly as the excursion was, these new menaces were important to meet and even more so in developing ties for greater ambitions.

"Velok..." Grimoire continued, now talking the necessary strides to stand beside him, "This wasn't the 'task' I had in mind when you invited me to your band."

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Nyra Mazul"]

"The plan is to bait the tunnel worms with the prisoners and detect them with the probe droids, then close in through the tunnels on foot for the kill. Use whatever weapons you feel are effective." He hefted his freeze ray. "Lightsabres, needless to say, won't be."

[member="Grimoire"] growled behind him, and he half-turned to watch her come around to his side. "I shouldn't be surprised your Master has already started teaching you disdain, Grimoire," the Whiphid rumbled. "The task is a task, no more and no less. An opportunity to do a number of things. One: test ourselves against a tikulini tunnel worm, no mean foe. Two: assess how easy it is to pass through the outskirts of Silver Sanctum Coalition territory -- the government that controls half the Stygian Caldera. Three: get a feel for Kyrikal Seventeen, a world which has seen a good deal of alchemy and comparable Jedi techniques in recent years, Jal Shey, Akure Executive Interstellar, any number of interesting influences and names. Four: separate the whiners from the functional, the patient from the children. These are all worthwhile goals, wouldn't you agree, Grimoire?"

 

[Cato Fett]

“...Did he say worms?”

“Did he say bait...??”

“Oh gods... Please...!” A prisoner in stun shackles tried shuffling against the waist manacles and turned at guard with a waiting electro-pole. “I'm a lawyer! I've got a wife and two kids! Take them!”

The procession being goaded across the broken plateau were arranged in rows of three, gowned in ratty, grey overall fatigues and thin, plastic sandals. Most had a patina of mange scabbing over their napes, some picked bloody, a cross-species affliction generated through combinations of dismal hygiene practices and perhaps an intentional presence of parasitic acari-mites. One prisoner, bobbing with exhaustion, tripped. Their sandal flopped loose. Naked foot sole skinned over a spar of sharp clastic jutting from the high tundra sand and began bleeding tartly.

“Gah!”

“Move,” Said a lance-guard and jabbed his electro-pole, in under the arm-pit.

“Gah-k-k-k-k-k!”

 

[Jaxton Ravos]

Neelig trailed behind the trio of Sith acolytes, listening to tails of intestine whips and complaining of tasks. Aside from the whip bonus however, Neelig found he preferred the Tikulini or the Sand Burrower to the Eol Sha scales. Much too brittle in Neelig's opinion. Though perhaps with a touch of alchemy one could reinforce the scales, give them a bit more tensile strength. It would make for a lot easier plate mail assembly than a greater calama shell, that's for certain. In any case, Neelig was not that skilled of an alchemist, or really a practiced force user in general. He was learning, like many others here. The galaxy would learn the evolutionary strength of Father Beast, but it would take time.

"It is quite the wonderful thing, evolution. To let a worm hold so much strength as to keep a lightsaber at bay." He hefted a few monomolecular blades as well as a few grenades if he got a shot at an open mouth. One worm would perhaps armor the lot of them, but getting two or three would be far safer.

"The Silvers lost at Ruusan, I do not believe them to be a threat to us. Retaking what is rightfully ours is a matter of gathering our strength and biding our time. It will take patience, but not much I suspect." The multi-throated Ithorian continued, as his presence restored the non-human male and human female balance so critical to Sith success.


[member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Grimoire"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Nyra Mazul"]

 

[Nyra Mazul]

The entire display was like candy to Nyra and she giggled a little looking back at [member="Neelig Waawat"] and his estimation of the Silver Jedi. Nyra wasn't like these others, and didn't hold an opinion on matters of the Silver Jedi. Although silver was second to gold so already in the naming of their order she got the distinct impression that they had won second place in some sort of contest.

[member="Velok the Younger"] gave his words of wisdom sounding an awful lot like the holograms of his father Nyra had seen, though she would never say so aloud, and granted the changeling an opportunity. Nyra contorted her face and enlangeded flesh spawning hair which sprouted from her. Her head enlarged and cracked taking form as clay into that of a whiphid. Best to try her Velok impersonation with him present. "Rwuf rwuf rwuf," she said in a deep baritone. She held the face suppressing a smile. "With the simple task of hunting a worm we shall test the defenses of the Jedi, gain us an advantageous resource, and test our own abilities." Holding up her still human hand she then added. "We separate the wheat from the chaff."

With a great exhaust of air Nyra's face warped back from the massive furred abomination to her own human form. A giggle escaped her lips as she fitted the crushgaunts to her hands and flexed the clawed fingers. Around her waist she wrapped the plain whip she used for utility work and strapped two grenades onto her suit. "Or whatever you sound like Velok," she shrugged adding in "rwuf rwuf rwuf I can have tusks too." Yes clearly it was a case of tusk envy. "So we go into the tunnels send in the prisoners ahead lure some of these worms maybe flush them out with smoke and fire and then we strike?"


[member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Grimoire"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Neelig Waawat"]

 

[Cato Fett]

One prisoner, grey-faced with rheumatoid warps in her elbows and wrists from decades spent before a patent-house data bank, dared a look back at the creature in oiled leather. Something like envy, horror, fear welled tears past her eyes, observing her flesh contort and fashion like plasticine, mocking the elder whippid's sombre upbraid of the young woman with dead, coal-hot eyes. A pole-jab to her hip did the exact opposite of muscle motivation and briefly lamed her leg down to the heel. Only the pace and weight of her fellow 'bait' helped limp her forward as feeling began returning.

“Are we going to die?” Someone mewled. At the head of the procession, a middle-aged once mother of two named Mariah just shrugged.

“Probably.” She tried reaching to tug an auburn braid out of her eyes, thwarted by the energy-links tying her wrist manacles to a heavy battery girdle locked across her navel. For the trip's duration, they were fed combinations of psychotropics and depressants to enforce docility. Mariah kept having to shake hallucinations out of her eyes. Balance was a challenge. Her last meal was four days prior and she'd only managed a mouthful of bracken that'd collected in the corner of the shuttle's poorly insulated cargo hold. Beside scabies were sores. She looked at the body beside her, at the abscesses in their neck between raw skin, red edged and pussy. They all stunk terrifically.

“I wanna die,” Mariah muttered.

Ahead was a butte face coloured sparingly by wind erosion, A handful of roughly hewn tunnels were woven against softer portions of rock and layered basalt and feldspar. Almost natural, save for a smooth, even rub that had polished the tunnel interiors in places. Most prisoners shivered against the cold. One wet themself. Another chattered a bleak diatribe and fainted, forcibly dragged along. Mariah just wished for a lho stick, a lumbar massage, the backpay owed to her chequing account, and a chance to tell Rithley she was sorry they couldn't work things out. She smelled the animal odour of the whippid, turning, lancing him with accusation, loathing, and grim, bitter anger.

[member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Neelig Waawat"] [member="Grimoire"]

 

[Cato Fett]

Double Post

 

[Mia Monroe]

Late to the party, it would seem. Calina's shuttle glided over the line of prisoners, darkened specs in the blonde sand beneath them. Her eyes narrowed slightly, wondering what on earth she'd been invited to. Tearing her eyes back to the skies she brought the vessel into land alongside Velok's, kicking up clouds of sharp sand as she did. Cycling the systems down, she abandoned her seat in the cockpit and descended down the landing ramp. A smile finding her lips as she made her way over to [member="Velok the Younger"] and the rest.

"Hello again, fur-ball." she jested, a wide smile spreading across her face as she joined them, faltering ever so slightly at the sight of @Grimoire. "Grimoire." she greeted with a small incline of her head. If her mother's apprentice was here, she would have to watch her words. The others, she did not know, but all would come in good time.

"So, bait and kill..." she turned er gaze to the prisoners. "Pity, I'd be interested in catching one."

[member="Cato Fett"] [member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Neelig Waawat"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Grimoire"] [member="Calina Ovmar"] [member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Neelig Waawat"] [member="Cato Fett"]

"The Silvers lost at Ruusan, I do not believe them to be a threat to us. Retaking what is rightfully ours is a matter of gathering our strength and biding our time. It will take patience, but not much I suspect."

"The Silver Jedi have numbers, and an obscene amount of money and influence. But you're quite right: once in defense and once in offense, they've failed, and they have no true successes to their name. Nothing but minor cults rooted out. I believe they are sedentary and lacking purpose."

Best to try her Velok impersonation with him present. "Rwuf rwuf rwuf," she said in a deep baritone. She held the face suppressing a smile. "With the simple task of hunting a worm we shall test the defenses of the Jedi, gain us an advantageous resource, and test our own abilities." Holding up her still human hand she then added. "We separate the wheat from the chaff." With a great exhaust of air Nyra's face warped back from the massive furred abomination to her own human form. A giggle escaped her lips as she fitted the crushgaunts to her hands and flexed the clawed fingers. Around her waist she wrapped the plain whip she used for utility work and strapped two grenades onto her suit. "Or whatever you sound like Velok," she shrugged adding in "rwuf rwuf rwuf I can have tusks too." Yes clearly it was a case of tusk envy. "So we go into the tunnels send in the prisoners ahead lure some of these worms maybe flush them out with smoke and fire and then we strike?"

Velok's nostrils flared in irritation. "Yes, that's what I said and how I said it. Truly, your mimicry is a wonder to witness, Mazul." Yellow eyes tracked the prisoners -- Republic and Sith personnel, lost in action here or there, some of them acquired secondhand. He weathered their hatred with ease.

"Hello again, fur-ball." she jested, a wide smile spreading across her face as she joined them, faltering ever so slightly at the sight of [member="Grimoire"]. "Grimoire." she greeted with a small incline of her head. If her mother's apprentice was here, she would have to watch her words. The others, she did not know, but all would come in good time. "So, bait and kill..." she turned er gaze to the prisoners. "Pity, I'd be interested in catching one."

The day's irritations, it seemed, wouldn't end. This crowd might be extremely useful, but they derived far too much sport from poking fun at him. Probably fear. He intimidated them. That had to be it.

"Feel free to snare a live tikulini if you feel up to the task, Ovmar," he said, adjusting the CryoBan dials on his freeze ray. "They're fairly common on Kyrikal Seventeen -- I dare say we'll find one or two to kill, and another to capture if you see fit."

In search of shelter from the day's annoyances, he stalked after the prisoners and the probe droids, heading into the tunnels.

 

[Nyra Mazul]

[member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Grimoire"] [member="Calina Ovmar"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Neelig Waawat"]

Everything seemed set, or at least set enough. The Whiphid grumbled in a manner most becoming his station and the preconception Nyra had at least of his species as a whole. "Ruf ruf ruf...." The woman said warping her throat into a deep guttural tone that matched Velok to a T. Raising hands to her head she pulled on her cowl and goggles and started down the deep tunnel into the darkness. Nyra beamed a bit and walked after the Whiphid skipping as she did so. "So a freezing gun huh?" It was a good choice and yet, "You think we're going to get close enough to use that?"

Nyra for her part couldn't talk. Her weapon of choice was crushgaunts which she fully intended to use to latch onto the creature and drop a grenade down its throat. That seemed best. "I suppose though," she said flexing her fingers and making her intent readily apparent to the Whiphid, "we need to show these youngsters we can keep up?" Poking an elbow into Velok's side she added, "Us old people need to stick together."

 

[The Subnet]

"Those that are sedentary and lack purpose can be the greatest of enemies when whipped into a frenzy. Sometimes it is good to poke the beast, others best to let it be. We should not underestimate them based solely on past experiences."

This endeavor was an interesting one. As time went on, he found himself curiously drawn more and more to his surroundings. Sometimes he wondered if that was how the Jedi were: drawn to the living things that moved about them, lost in wonder of it so as to be blinded to the struggles of the galaxy and the very nature of life itself. He could understand how easy it would be to do that, which was why he reveled in his ability to take that joy of life and master its calling to his own will. As such, he found that life could be brought to its knees in servitude to a master that knew how to withstand its calling of freedom and youth.

The others were full of bickering sentiment. Velok, it appeared, was a common target for them. None of them were particular friends of his, and in fact prior to this very mission he'd never met any of them. The galaxy was a large place, even for the Sith, but when orders were given, and you had not the ability to defy them, you went where you were told. Though he could be persuasive, his skills were still largely unrefined, and he lacked the political clout to deny anything.

"Capturing one or two would be useful. Think of what could be done with a mating pair. Production of lightsaber resistant armors in great quantities would be useful."

He followed after the large one, who was following the slaves and probes into the tunnels. Below them he could sense life, and there was, he was certain, more than one kind of worm that called this world home. Two distinct voices he could feel in the Force.

"This will be interesting."

[member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Calina Ovmar"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Neelig Waawat"] [member="Grimoire"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Nyra Mazul"]

Velok sighed; despite himself, he chuckled. "Accurate," he said. He considered giving her an affectionate shove, but a Whiphid-scale affectionate shove could just about break every bone in her body, shapeshifter or not. Instead he shifted the CryoBan rifle to a one-handed grip as he negotiated his way down into the rocky tikulini tunnel. Far ahead, prisoners whimpered, lights flickered, and probe droids buzzed in the dark. "And yes, it's possible. Tikulini move very quickly within their tunnels, and make new ones - double back for an unexpected attack. I believe they're intelligent, in their way. Fortunately, they lead with their faces, and even their recessed, protected eyes should be vulnerable to my freeze ray."

He glanced back. "[member="Darth Ignus"] - thank you for joining us. For a moment there, I thought our new associates were too busy commentating to actually hunt tikulini. Welcome aboard, friend."

Far ahead, screams echoed down the tunnel. Velok brightened. "Ah -- excellent. We appear to have flushed out a tikulini. Onward." His pace quickened, three-clawed feet scraping on the tunnel floor. The regularity of the tunnel here suggested that the tikulini had made this particular stretch of passage.

 

[Cato Fett]

They were following a bend around a particularly obstinate collection of cyclopean rock, tooth-pocked but otherwise unmarred, careening past nodal points of intersecting tunnels chewed out by lesser larvae following after parent worms that could 'scent' the richer lode veins. The prisoners picked or tripped up lengths of sloughed hide: paper fragile bundles of crystaline skin shed during the growth process, left behind as so much flotsam. 'Bait' chattered in the cold and mumbled, breathing hotly across white knuckles and running through hymn-sheets of prayers to whatever gods that might have taken pity.

The probe droids tensed and relaxed their energy tethers pulling the prisoner lines forward. Returns on their sensor suites indicated an organic presence of sonics, heat emanations ground into the surrounding tunnel structure, and faint, almost effervescent traces of spoor. They guided the procession left then right, down a spiral of worn tubing. Toward a hearty rumbling that was chewing and grinding its way through old, long cooled magma pockets. A row of three bodies were detached from the crowd and burled forward down an ancillary passageway. Quickly, shadow swallowed them and the feeble search lamp projected by the probe. ...A sound, like a wet slap of flesh against leather and a grind of steel against a honing rod, woke and rumbled. Plaintive screams echoed.

[member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Calina Ovmar"] [member="Neelig Waawat"] [member="Grimoire"] [member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Darth Ignus"]

 

[The Subnet]

"Velok, please. I have not achieved the level of knowledge sufficient to be worthy of that title yet. Refer to me as Leos."

Even now he was playing the game of politics. Velok was a powerful force. It was his intention to get into the beings good graces from the get go, rather than build him as an enemy. Of course it also made sense that, given the circumstances, he didn't really have a reason to antagonize the Whiphid. They were both there for the same thing: gaining plates from a worm so they could create saber resistant armor. Or, at least, that was the main reason they were there. Leos also wanted to capture some for himself.

"The others seem more interested in poking fun at you than getting to business."

He tramped down the tunnel behind the others, feeling out around him, one of his hands trailing fingers along the nearby rock wall.

"There are other worms here as well. Not as useful, but certainly hungry."

[member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Calina Ovmar"] [member="Neelig Waawat"] [member="Grimoire"]

 

[Nyra Mazul]

Stretching Nyra ran at a wall and ascended until she reached the ceiling using the force to stick her in place. It was a simple spell derived from the nightsisters magic that allowed her to cling to any surface and climb. Using clawed hands she dug into the ceiling crushing rock and throwing dirt until finally she created a hole large enough for her body. Worms of all different size ran through the tunnels and she wanted to get the drop on one, althought most were probably smaller than the one that made this, she didn't want to risk the largest returning and crushing her as she hung.

To live was to risk and Nyra clung to the ceiling stretching out her senses. Looking at [member="Velok the Younger"] she called out, "Think you can stop it in it's tracks so I can get the jump on it?"

In the air she hung looking down feeling the vibration of the event about to occur. There was peices of debris falling from the ceiling and a sense of foreboding in the air.

[member="Darth Ignus"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Calina Ovmar"] [member="Neelig Waawat"] [member="Grimoire"] [member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Darth Ignus"] [member="Cato Fett"]

"Very well, Leos, I-"

All further replies to Ignus and Nyra were cut off as the rumble grew more intense. Velok stopped talking and stretched out to the Force for whatever mild intuition he could glean. His freeze ray tracked slowly along the tunnel wall, then settled on a spot.

Ten metres farther down the tunnel, to his chagrin, the wall shattered. The tunnel filled with a tikulini, all teeth, face to them, trying to go around the ninety-degree bend. With a snarl, Velok backpedaled away, not that it would do much good. His freeze ray hissed, and a jet of blue light slashed into the gap between the tikulini and the tunnel wall. In theory, he was pouring CryoBan into the ninety-degree kink, so that as any given portion of the tikulini passed farther into this tunnel and straightened out, compressed and frozen hide would crack and shatter. Whether he was making a long thin weak point or not, the tikulini slowed, hissing in fury or discomfort. CryoBan was no fun.

For good measure, he shot some down its throat.

His fight-or-flight response was up, and he was satiating it by backpedaling as fast as he could. Firing the freeze ray was just an effect of the small portion of his mind he could control at the moment.

 

[Cato Fett]

The prisoners served as brief attrition. The worm slowed and tracked ponderously, following body-heat, tasting sweat emission, disconcerted at the alien sound of humanoid vocal chords roaring in cold terror. It swung, bunching and undulating, a combination of slithering mechanics and caterpillar traction, eating or crushing whatever hot flesh it found trying to stumble up along the tunnel breadth. The probe droids disengaged tethers and retreated, forming a retreating vanguard behind the whiphid, locked to the remote hitched on his belting.

Tasting CryoBan made each individual saw-tooth in its ocular jaw sing at a different frequency within its skull. The tikulini briefly shook, swatting its body against the tunnels. Dust clung against blood smears over and between skin ridges. There was a hearty crack of musculature finally bursting against stone as a trapped prisoner screamed and died, crushed against the tunnelling.

[member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Nyra Mazul"] [member="Darth Ignus"] [member="Calina Ovmar"] [member="Neelig Waawat"] [member="Grimoire"]

 

[The Subnet]

Before Velok could finish his sentence, the rumbling they'd all felt grew into an infernal crashing as a Tikulini broke through the side wall of the tunnel they were traversing. He was impressed with the sight of the creature, and equally unconcerned about the lives of the fodder that would fall victim to it. This was what they had come for. Truthfully it was a creature of extreme interest to him. He could almost feel the disdain and hunger emanating from it as it turned itself towards them. A sense of giddy anticipation welled within his being at the prospect of dealing with this leviathan. So much so, he could barely contain himself.

Of course there was the matter of the fact that it would destroy them all if they did nothing. Velok was the first to act, using his freeze ray upon it, specifically targetting where it was coming out of the new tunnel, as well as down its throat. This was much to his disappointment. He didn't want to kill the beast. They could do much more if they captured a few of them alive than they ever could just by killing one of them.

Like the others, he backed away, not wanting to become a flattened version of himself, or food. Unlike them, he chose to reach out to the creature, to commune with it through the Force. Leos had a natural calling for this sort of thing. Communing with wild beasts proved easy for him in comparison with the capabilities of most. Velok, for example, seemed only keen on killing the thing. This was likely due to his inability to do anything else. Not that he was at fault for such. Some people had the gift and some did not. The least he could do was try.

Drawing the Force to himself, he lifted his hand towards the great worm, and reached with his mind to touch its. Hungry. Pain. Food. Simple words that weren't words, but feelings that his mind translated into words. The creature had come because it sensed a meal, nothing more. Now it was being hurt in a way it did not expect. Even as he backed away, he focused on the task at hand. Using his will, he conveyed a sense of belonging, of abundant food, of sanctuary. He attempted to impress these feelings upon the creature in an effort to dissuade it from attacking them, to accept them, and to bend to his will in return for the things he offered.

Would it work? Who knew. But he was sure going to try.

[member="Cato Fett"] [member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Nyra Mazul"]