Log:Defiance Guild: Organ Donors

Organ Donors

OOC Date: November 6, 2015 (Optional)
Location: Nar Shaddaa, the Undercity
Participants: Defiance: Kasia Ashkuri, Tarion Tavers, Grom, Siha Archer, special guest star Pash Danigo, and Hex as GM

The short story: Defiance goes after some slave-catchers. They win! ....After a fashion.

The long story:

The UNDERCITY! The decaying remains of forgotten Nar Shaddaa infrastructure, wet and drippy with rainfall filtering down from above, lightless and odorous. Everything is hazardous here. The wrong step could send an uncertain floor crumbling beneath you, bad luck could cause your 'ceiling' to cave in after it's held on for a hundred years or more. This place is buried, and the only people who come to the Undercity are people with reason to hide from the light. Criminals, drug-dealers, villains or victims on the run, junkies, snitches...... Defiance. So here they are. It's been a long hike to an area of the Undercity called the Labyrinth, which is (disappointingly) totally devoid of David Bowie. The structure of this place is claustrophobig tunnels, but they have a goal in mind. "We're hunting slave-catchers," Hex reminds everyone of the plan. "They don't buy and sell, they're like slave-specific bounty hunters, catching and returning the runaways for a fee. They're holed up nearby. Some of my least favorite people. Hard to run after runaways when your kneecaps got blown off though, right? That's where we come in." He looks over his shoulder and grins his pointy-toothed grin at Grom. "None of 'em need to be left intact."

The general environment of this area looks like: [1]

Kasia is wearing pants, and an unhappy expression because once again they're in the Undercity, which is her least favorite place to be. On Nar Shaddaa, anyway, there are plenty of nature filled places she also hates. "Why can't we ever hunt people in really nice places," she complains quietly as they move through the gross tunnels, each step wary. She's fallen through the floor before. "A nice luxury apartment with a pool, and a well stocked kitchen." She has a weapon on her hip, and no obvious armor to speak of because she never has it and she apparently never learns.

Tarion is here, hunting wabbi- slave catchers, already holding his rifle in the ready position. It's convenient to have a rifle, people forget that in the fuss of looking like HAN SOLO, but with a rifle, you can sling it around your neck and hang it right where it needs to be. There's a green scaly handbag on his shoulder like a backpack, its gold rings totally not intended to be carried this way, really, but it doesn't seem to bother him. His spiky hair is slightly damp with... it's hard to say, but there's specks of rusty red all down his front already. An easy smirk troubles his face, lopsided and creased. "This is cheaper," he tells Kasia, with a wink. "You love it down here."

Two and a half tunnels ago, Grom's shoulder plate had snagged on a decrepit sign, tearing it loose from the rusted bracket. Deciding he liked it, wearing it with a length of chain around his neck, the half visible words 'Not an Exit' clatter against his chestpiece. Drawing his axe, the Houk bares his teeth at Hex's lack of limitations.

It wasn't a call he expected, despite having mentioned to Kasia that he would be around to help should anything like this come up. Nevertheless, Pash Danigo is happy for the distraction from his routine. He currently trails alongside Grom, and a sidelong glance at the sign bouncing off the Houk is a reminder that, with each further step, they're all walking deeper into senseless territory. "Who wouldn't love this," he mutters, drawing the pistol that hangs slack at his side.

Siha Archer is one of those people who actually frequents this place, but that's because by night she's Seehaw, helmeted crime fighter. Or, you know, she runs with the Ebon Guard as well and they dip their toes in this dank, deadly dumpster pit. T-visor'd helmet in place Siha is ready to go, sword at her side, bouncing gamely on her hip, a glance around given as she mutters, "I hate slaver-catchers more than I hate slavers, those dirty bloody-" She trails off into a series of huttese swears, hand on the hilt of her sword, a careful eye kept out for drop bears in the ceilings. They're true, she swears.

Further and further through the labyrinth of tunnels, the intrepid group travels. "Right?!" Hex replies to Pash, having missed any potential dry tone to that comment. Who wouldn't love this, this is clearly awesome. "I've had some run-ins with slave catchers in the past, ka. Like I said... not my favorite people." He seems to know where he's going, aided by gross alien low-light vision, because he's a gross alien noodle that historically lives in caves. Having sensitive head appendages when you live in caves seems like a bad idea, but I don't make the rules. He draws his pistol and checks the ammo, then they come to a stop, a doorway with a flickering light above the door. "This is the place," Hex announces quietly, and then takes a step back. "They're in here. We kick in the door and if it looks like a slave-catcher, shoot it." These are real simple tactics. "Any questions?"

Kasia shoots a quietly amused look back at Pash and his comment, clearly assuming there's some sarcasm on his part. She doesn't offer up any more complaints, though, Hex knows her feelings on this place he loves so very much. "Are we anticipating anyone else being with them?" She shoots a look around again. "Not that I'd imagine they'd bring family down here." Then again... another look is shot Hex's way. "Or any idea of how many we might be looking at?" She too pulls her blaster from the holster, ready to shoot someone, but she keeps back from the door so that larger meat shields can do the actual breaking.

"Yeah, who likes slave catchers?" Tarion agrees, with a creaky smile and a fake laugh. "Ha ha ha! Those guys, I mean, come on. Who would do that just to make a quick cred, right?" Smile. The bounty hunter who has definitely never caught a slave before in his life ever looks at the door with an appraising glance, brow furrowing slightly as he considers it. "Wait, this is the place? This quick? It's never this easy. Nothing bad has happened to us yet," he observes with a sort of smarmy paranoia, shifty glances peering this way and that. "My question is, did we ever find out how Hutt babies get made? That still bothers me, man." Okay, so he's totally got his head in the game here.

Grom rattles deep in his throat, clapping Pash on the shoulder. "Yes, little interrupting Human. DEEDS will be done." Abruptly he stops, eyeing a low hanging corroded iron beam suspiciously. A growl is given at the beam to warn it as he ducks and moves past. As Hex explains and indicates the door, Grom nods, once. The moment 'we kick in the door' is spoken, the massive warrior tromps forward. It takes until Tarion asks about Hutts for him to get there, raise a boot the size of a human's torso, and smash the portal off its aged hinges, bellowing, "GROM IS HERE," as he charges in.

Pash turns his head to Siha and her string of profanities. Given the type of person they're aimed at, he can't help but crack a grin. The rest of the way to their destination, he's quiet, but at the door he stops and eyes the flickering light. "Yeah, ain't nothin' this easy," he comments, looking to Hex for answers to the questions put forward by the others. Except before they come, Grom is crashing through door, causing the smuggler to wince. "That was excessive," he says, bringing his pistol to bear. Because, y'know, it was unlocked.

Siha Archer's eyebrows lift as Grom demolishes the door, like, she'll even cast a glance around her as she lifts up her sword to gesture the blade towards Grom, "Why are we even needed? Just send Grom the King of the Trees in." Vox'd voice asks the question in a sort of disbelieving way, the sword wiggling in the air a little, from side to side, woman still questioning if everyone saw what she say, "Yeah, geeze, for real. But ..Grom." Armored shoulder lifts and falls in a shrug, Siha moving to follow the along, "All the bad things, Tarion, Kasia, are waiting and just heard us smash our way in."

Hex answers Kasia, "It should just be them, no one else, they don't hang around with the captured goods. About six of them, assumed to be armed at least with pistols. Then he narrows his eyes at Tarion, "Remind me to murder you later." Following this, BOOM, the door more or less explodes into sad, rusty pieces. It is no match for Grom. GROOOOM! WHO WILL ANSWER HIS BATTLE CRYYYYY! What unworthy creatures lie within, forming an orderly queue for their heads to be bashed in like discount fruits, so everyone can go home and watch the Bachelorfett on space TV!

No one. No one answers. The room beyond the door is dark, lit only with a tiny, flickering light that does nothing except make creepy shadows among the debris. More tunnels lead beyond the room. Everything is deathly silent for about three seconds before Hex says, confused, "What the hell. Anticlimactic much? Look around and see what's in here, ok ka."

"Alright," Kasia replies with a slight nod, cringing back a touch as Grom makes the door explode. "Grom, I am really glad you're on our side," she informs the Houk in a soft voice. She doesn't seem all that concerned that people know they're coming, because roughly three-quarters of the time people know they're coming due to someone speaking too loudly, tripping over something, or a certain person having jangly jewelry. Not going to name any names here. When they're not all murdered by blaster fire after the door is demolished, she lets out a breath and heads inside with the others. She doesn't make it that far before she makes a sound of surprise and stumbles forward a few steps. She turns to figure out what she tripped over and shines her light on a leg, then moves the light said leg to illuminate the rest of the body. "Did someone beat us here?"

"No promises," is all Tarion has to say to Hex before he's interrupted by Grom being here. Peering into the empty room, he takes a few glances around into the corners, channeling his weird natural aptitude for this sort of thing, as that's the only thing he has going for him. It's definitely not skill. "We got us a cadavern over here," the hunter points out, prowling in to examine what is actually a cadaver. "Worryingly, someone seems to have cut several holes in it and taken the kriffing organisms! What the hell am I supposed to take, then? It's useless!" he complains, giving the body a kick. "We gotta find these orgasms, Hex, they're worth a fortune on the black market!" It's a miracle he's survived this long, really. "We can put them in my hand bag!"

Grom charges in a good five hard steps, axe drawn back and poised for a mighty blow- slowing down, he gradually realizes no enemies are at hand, his last step making a wet crunch, rather than a thud. Lowering his axe, and peering down at the dead body under his foot, the Houk grumbles, "Grom expected more." He shakes the gore-dipped boot, succeeding in getting several clinging bits of corpse off the boot (don't stand too close).

Pash's expression slouches when Grom's dramatic entrance is met with its polar opposite: Dark, quiet nothing. At Hex's command, he follows the rest inside the room. Being just a lame human, he has to dig into a little pocket on his spacer's jacket and pull out a flashlight. As he does, he hangs a right and keeps walking, tripping over something just as he gets the light on. "What the hell," he says, stumbling and losing his grip on the little device. It drops to the floor, clatters and rolls a bit, then settles in a way that it illuminates the face of one of the dead. "So," he says, bending to pick up his light. "We win?"

"MURDER BODY." So says Siha in a horrified yelp, who LITERALLY trips over said body, different from the body Kasia is illuminating, stepping on the back of one of the legs, a quick popcorning hop done off the body, "Gah, murder body, murder bodies! Gah, I stepped on it. What in the fancy pants of the ughnaught!" Bodies, dead ones, are perfectly fine when you are EXPECTING THEM. But random murder bodies are bad as murder legs in bushes, "Yes, someone did our jobs for us." Those last words are said in a less horrified way to Kasia as she tries to wrangle her dignity back into place, stepping off to the side of said murder body, sword extended out to poke at the thing in the hip. Poke. Poke. "Yeah. Murder body." Tarions and Siha's parents have to have sniffed gas while they were in the wombs. Seriously. To Pash she nods, "I think this calls for celebration food at the Blue Light." Yaaay, they won!

"I mean... orgasms ARE worth a lot on the black market?" Hex hedges, because he's actually less smart than Tarion, and you should probably reconsider following him into danger. The case with Tarion's corpse seems to be the same as all the bodies: All are humanoid species, and all of them have upsetting holes carved into them where several major organs should be. The cutting is precise, surgical, but also conducted with a clear disregard for the survival of the "donor." An ominous rumble creaks through the nearby environment, the sound of beams under stress groaning somewhere, but such noises are common in the Undercity. Everything breaks, sooner or later. "What the hell," Hex says again, stunned. "Someone did beat us here. Organ harvesters beat us here." Another creeeeeeeeak sounds from somewhere in the passages behind them, but it's not enough to drown out, somewhere in the passages above, the distinct sound of footsteps a little too close for comfort, and what might be whispering. "Organ harvesters who are maybe /still here/," Hex frowns. "We win if we get out of this with all our kidneys still intact, Pash. Ay Grom! Cut them up before they cut us up!" But where ARE they?

"Orgasms can be purchased on the regular market," Kasia points out quietly as she shines her light around the room to see just how many bodies are here. "No need to go underground for that sort of thing." There's already a frown in place, but the sound of something nearby makes it turn a little further, the light in her hand turned to shine at the door they just came through. "Yeah. Anyone who looks like they're going to try and take our insides and sell them? Cut them down."

"Oh wait, these are the slave catchers?" That didn't even occur to Tarion, who assumed these were, you know, slaves. The bounty hunter looks around at the corpses, confused, his brow furrowing again as he too hears the sounds from above. "Listen," he begins gravely, his eyes finding Grom's. "I want you to kill all of those harvesters and bring their organisms to me. We're going to make /so much/ money," the bounty hunter whispers excitedly, a slow lop-sided grin spreading over his face. "This bag was such a good investment." It's a purse, but he thinks it's a backpack.

"Grom will cut them up!" the Houk agrees, promptly turning to peer around in a circle, looking for 'them'. A thought occurs and he looks aside to Kasia. "They are not Little interrupting human's people, are they?" idly indicating Pash with a motion of his axe. Tarion's excitement draws a reptilian smile, "Grom did not know you shared taste for organ meats, funny little purse human, but GROM SHALL ASSIST YOU."

When Pash is bent over to pick up his flashlight, he's able to get a closer look at the body. Running the bright beam over it, he notes where incisions were made to remove the being's vital parts and wonders out loud, "Quentin?" But no, that's not something he actually wants to consider, and besides there are footsteps to attend to. Standing quickly, he grips his flashlight and pistol like he's seen people do in holomovies, so that it's sort of like a tac-light. "None of us are gonna be able to purchase any kind o' orgasm if we don't make it outta here," he comments, taking a step closer to and behind Grom, who he answers with a solid, "No, they are not."

"So, I'm gonna say, let's /not/ stand around gossiping in the room where all the dead people are, because they died here, probably ..all together so." Asked by Siha from behind that t-visor, her right hand lifting as the left holds her katana, gesturing loosely at shoulder level, "Traps? Ambush? So ..lets move? I really don't feel like becoming a murder body." The sword is plinked tip first into the floor, Siha leaning into it as she eyes the others from behind her helmet, "No?" Vox'd voice doesn't wipe out the very light sarcasm she uses, "Right, Grom, Tarion, it's time for /tea/ now." A plaintive look is given to Kasia which doesn't translate to the helmet, though the slight tilt of her head perhaps communicates 'c'mon, you're the adult here.'

Hex looks shocked. "Quentin Haslett? He would never --" The Twi'lek reconsiders. "Yeah no, that's fair," he decides upon second thought. "Nobody's going to sell anything though, we're getting out of here! And Grom, we don't people! Usually, I mean, it depends," he hand-wobbles, "sometimes that line isn't clear and I'm probably at least sixty percent okay with you eating a Kushiban or a Teek because seriously that's a mistake anybody could ma---" His rambling cuts off as that 'creeeeeak' from earlier turns into a deafening rumble, and the ceiling collapses wth a tremendous roar. Beams fall, bodies are buried. All of the heroes manage to scramble away, though weirdly Grom does so with the most fluidity, and everyone is unharmed... except Hex. Half the room is filled with rubble now, such that even Grom's prodigious strength will not be able to shift it quickly.

Kasia's com chirps to life. "I'm okay," Hex's voice comms. "But I'm on the other side of this. There's no going back. You have to go forward. Just go north-west as much as you can, and 'up' whenever you get the chance... and try not to be lost in switchbacks... and there might be traps or weird cave-blind animals poisoned for centuries by toxic waste. You'll be fine though. Right and watch out for organ harvesters, too, ok ka?"

"You're probably right," Kasia agrees with Siha's remark about not standing around, though her shift toward the exit is stalled for a moment. She holsters the blaster in her hand, and shifts the bag that she so often carries on these little adventures. An amused smile quriks her lips as she looks between Pash and Hex, head bobbing in agreement. "I could definitely see Quentin doing something like this." She's about to take another step toward the door when she hears the creaking, the sound making her pause, light sweeping around and then whipping up before she throws herself back, away from the way out, away from Hex. She stumbles back onto the ground, basically unhurt but in a sudden state of panic. "Ka're?" she calls, groping around for the light that flew out of her hand and now casts a useless beam of light at a wall. "Hex?" There's a rising panic in her voice, but then she hears his over the comm, and that helps to ease the fear. "Forward?" That's asked in a small voice now, head turning to look back at whatever their way out is now. "Hex are you going to be okay making it back on your own?" She tries really hard not to think about the toxic creatures they might encounter. Ugh.

"Hex!" Tarion shouts as the roof caves in and he realizes he doesn't see the head-tailed boss. "He's dead, fin-!" oh Kasia's comm. "F... Uh. For the love of Ryl, he's ALIVE!" the bounty hunter cries, falling to his knees, hands skyward as the rifle remains slung around his neck. His hands fall on the pile of rubble, head bowing as he's raked with grateful (?) tears. "Oh, that we might share his fate, but we are not to be so blessed. The tunnels, it shall be."

Grom sniffs to Hex. "Fine. Then Grom will not share pickled leg." Then, the roof is falling in. "Grom warned you, stupid ceiling beams!" he bellows, punching one of the fallen beams with a dull thump, in revenge. A plain grunt at word that they must go forward, and eventually up. There may have been other stuff, but he has the gist. "Can humans climb up walls?" he wonders idly, glancing up at the newly expanded ceiling.

"Is everyone else alright?" Kasia asks after she's assured of Hex's still living state, looking around to make sure no one else is bleeding or horribly injured. Not yet! Solid. They tromp onwards, and she tries to remain near the front of the group, having rescued her light from it's useless wall shining to now help illuminate the terrible area they have to move through. At least it's quiet. Or it WAS quiet, because something flailing and squeaking has dropped onto her head, and she lets out one of those embarrassing little shireks as she tries to swat it away. Her heart is thumping in her chest when she's free of the attacking beast, except then there are more. "Guys," she warns, though it's possible that they're all already aware and she's late to the game because she was distracted by the smaller rodent. The weapon is pulled from the holster again, and she fires off a round, murdering her some giant rodents. Rheisa is going to be so sad she isn't here to collect the dead things. Kasia isn't going to bring any back for her.

Pash barely makes a move in time to avoid being crushed, doing a sort of duck and weave through the falling debris that sees him skidding across some rubble, then fall-diving in a very graceless way to safety. At least he's not hurt, though! With a grunt, he pushes himself up into a sitting position. "This is why I don't come down here often." After a quick look around, he, too, feels something like panic wash over him at seeing one of the group missing. Then it becomes apparent that Hex is alive, and so he rises the rest of the way, slowly. "Bet there are no organ harvesters on that side of the debris," he says. Anything to help lighten the mood!

Siha Archer jumped back and grabbed onto a wall sconce when the ceiling started caving in, leaving the woman hanging, one booted foot hooked in along the rooms baseboards, the other dangling out to keep her balance, "No." To Grom. But they will certainly try. Releasing the sconce she'll drop to the floor, gingerly picking her way over the debris, eyeing Tarion as she regroups with everyone, "Right, so ..again. We need to /move/, because we are targets, both from ..falling and caving rooms, but people who would gladly pop our eyeballs out."

"Probably," Hex comms to Kasia's question. Then there's an "OUCH! KRIFFING--!" and the comm shuts off, so who knows. Good luck out there buddy.

With no choice but to head forward, the group listens to Siha and moves! The footsteps and whispering have stopped, which is either good or bad, and at first, the tunnel leads northwest, just the direction Hex said they should go to eventually escape. It's honestly a little boring for a while there, as they pick their way around ancient city-parts. Then suddenly, out of nowhere.... plop, a creature falls from the ceiling, a little rodent thing, squeaking in distress. It lands right on top of Kasia, haha, sucks to be you Kasia, but it just wants to squeak and cry and run AWAY. From what? There's suddenly more chittering down the hall... and then rushing their way down the tunnel, an absolute mob of BIGGER rodent like things. Different things. Sharp toothed things. They are little, but there's so many of them, and they look like they want to take chunks out of any organs the Harvesters missed...

"Is everyone else alright?" Kasia asks after she's assured of Hex's still living state, looking around to make sure no one else is bleeding or horribly injured. Not yet! Solid. They tromp onwards, and she tries to remain near the front of the group, having rescued her light from it's useless wall shining to now help illuminate the terrible area they have to move through. At least it's quiet. Or it WAS quiet, because something flailing and squeaking has dropped onto her head, and she lets out one of those embarrassing little shrieks as she tries to swat it away. Her heart is thumping in her chest when she's free of the attacking beast, except then there are more. "Guys," she warns, though it's possible that they're all already aware and she's late to the game because she was distracted by the smaller rodent. The weapon is pulled from the holster again, and she fires off a round, murdering her some giant rodents. Rheisa is going to be so sad she isn't here to collect the dead things. Kasia isn't going to bring any back for her.

"I can climb walls," Tarion volunteers, raising a hand from his spot on the floor, standing up to make it more clear to Grom that it is he who has volunteered to climb, because there are so many of them in here. "What?" the bounty hunter asks of Kasia, then, turning towards her to see what she's talking about, and when he does, his eyes widen. "Rodents, always the- why!" A quick hand grabs for the grip of his slung rifle, randomly firing off a shot that blows a chunk from the wall. "It's all-you-can-eat at the Dead Body Buffet!"

The chittering of fleeing rodents catches Grom's attention, as do the slightly less tiny rodents, in turn. "Bah! You think yourselves predators, stupid tiny-tooth mammals?!" The swipes of his axe appear to be doing as much damage to the walls and floor of the passage in chopping through the little beasts; though he also does a horrific degree of damage to the rodents.

"All good here," Pash replies to Kasia. Siha being right, of course, the group moves on, and so Pash does, too. His footsteps crunch over broken glass and debris, pistol held tight along with his flashlight. Expecting something pop out right away, he does feel himself getting a little bored as he hoists himself up and over a fallen beam. He's even about to comment on it when the first of the little rodents falls. He swings around at the chirping and says, "Oh no." Then more rodents come. Bigger than the last. "Ew-ew-ew," he he says, firing into the swarm of them. One blast hits a big creature square on, sending it flying, while another scorches the wall.

As Kasia shrieks Siha lifts up her blade to aim it towards the other female, blinking behind her t-visor to see what the eff is going down. And it's a mouse. Or rat. Whatever. Looking relieved, that look of relief hidden, Siha lowers the sword with a soft laugh of relief, "Okay, haha, wow, I thought -" Nope, she was wrong. Siha was very wrong. TONS of rodents. Tons and tons of rodents follow that one wee one, and so Siha is swinging, trying to kill them.

Rodents explode! They fly! They are cut to pieces! Gobbets of alien predator rodentflesh splatter Grom's Exit sign! But there are so many, so many, and although the group has cut a wide swath through the first wave, but there's more of the depleted swarm to follow, and having reached their targets, they begin to attempt to gang up and bite bite bite...

Kasia is shaken, a rodent touched her, there is /definitely/ rodent goo on her clothing, probably flung off of Grom's ax and onto her clothing. Possibly it's also person goo from Grom's earlier body squashing, but she hasn't made that connection yet and that's probably for the best. Then another rodent is on her, a /larger/ rodent, which elicits another squeal that turns into an outright shriek as she feels rodent teeth sink right into her arm. "GET OFF ME!" she orders, like a rodent is going to take commands from her. It's definitely not going to, especially since the moment she shakes it off of her, she blasts it to death so that it can't bite anyone else ever again.

Grom slashes and chops merrily through the rodents. Once the swarm is no more, the Houk reaches down to pick up a (large) handful of dismembered rat guts, which are tossed at Tarion along with the words, "For the many numbers!" He probably should have warned Tarion, first. Or made sure the other was looking. Oops.

Tarion, meanwhile, is busy rooting in his ugly hand bag, pulling out a stuffed rodent type toy and accidentally firing his gun again in the process. "SORRY," he yells, getting down on his knees to offer out his plushie as a peace offering, hissing, "I'm one of /you/" to the rodents as they go skittering angrily past. He's rewarded for his efforts by taking some rat guts to the face, courtesy of Grom. "...Good thought, Grom, I like where your head is at," the bounty hunter replies as he picks a piece of entrail from the bridge of his nose.

"Ew-ew-ew," continues Pash as his blaster fire rips through another undercity rodent. That doesn't stop him from getting swarmed, though thankfully he's able to swat away those that target him. "Let's move, please," he says, casting a worried glance to Kasia after hearing her scream. Everything looks OK, though. At least better than it smells. Noting that, he makes a beeling for whatever is ahead of them, because it has to be better than looking at Tarion covered in rat guts. Right?

Shavit. One of the rodent buggers winds its way up through Siha's loose flightsuit leg which she forgot to tuck in, getting bitten on the ankle, "Gah." A kick of her foot to send the rodent flying into a nearby beam and Siha is rushing to to look around, "They're all dead, right? TARION!" Siha yells, her sword lifted angrily, "That was a /gift/ you ingrate."

So that was disgusting. But they lived. The heroes squelch through mud made of alien rodent blood and parts, truly a horrible kind of mud, and pick their way down the rest of the decaying tunnel. Some sections have flickering, failing lights -- who are those kept on for? -- and other sections are total darkness, lit only by their flashlights and sunny dispositions. Eventually they come to a fork in the tunnel: One goes directly north and one directly west, but neither is exactly the "northwest" Hex suggested they move in. In the west passage, the keen-sensed and good-looking PCs can hear, as they did in the room with the dead slave-catchers, footsteps and whispering...

Now that all of the rodents are in little rodent bits, Kasia digs in the bag she's got to pull out some bandages. "Someone give these to Siha," she holds out the clean, still packaged bandages for someone else to take. She doesn't care who. Once they're taken, she wraps the wound on her arm, which has already bled enough to leave a thick streak of blood down her arm and a sizable stain on her shirt. "We need to move," she says through gritted teeth, trying to ignore the throbbing in her arm. They move, and she trudges on with the group, until they come to the fork in the road. Her lips purse as she looks from one passage to the next, pausing to point toward the west passage. "Anyone else hear that?" She doesn't ask which one they should take, but she does give a look around to see which direction the others seem inclined to take.

"Listen, I was trying to put it to good use!" Tarion refutes to Siha, tucking his stuffed rodent back into his hand bag and swinging the purse back onto his shoulder with a frown. "It's not like I threw it out." They've come to a fork in the road, however, and there are sounds of some kind down the westerly tunnel. "THE BODY SNATCHERS," the bounty hunter shouts, firing another wild shot down that corridor. No new noises follow.

Grom nods proudly, seeming content that he is helping Tarion make large amounts of money. "Onward!" the hulking warrior agrees, resuming his wet, crunchy steps ahead. At least someone seems to be in a decent mood. It lasts until his headsnaps toward the whispers. "Perhaps it is they who conspired with stupid beams against us-" Then Tarion fires, and Grom decides that this means attack; he charges west, bellowing, "Bring Grom your organs!"

Pash reaches for the bandages, giving a nod to Kasia before walking over to Siha to hand them off. "Here you go," he tells the woman, eyeing her wicked sword. Then, he marches on, the tunnel around him seeming to squeeze in more the longer he's stuck here. Though it's not entirely unlike the cramped space of his freighter, he's fairly certain the ship is free of vermin. At the fork, his attention drifts to the west. Apparently, so does that of the others. "Don't know about y'all," he says once Grom goes charging off, "But I'm stickin' close to that one."

Siha Archer stays back, briefly, to hunker down and kick out her injured leg in front of her, pulling up her flight suit pants and quickly bandaging up that bite, "Yeah right, Turdion! Last gift I get you!" She calls ahead, grumbling as her sword sits on her thigh. It's not until Grom's loud yell that Siha is blinking, the bandage quickly tucked into itself so she can push up and run, the sword swinging at her side, "What happened, what'd I miss-" Hissed in the tunnel, looking at where Pash goes. He's the bearer of bandages. So she follows him, sword kept close.

If only Hex were here! If ONLY! He could have told you people about the problems that may arise when you run pell-mell down a tunnel without forethought. Sometimes it's not good. Sometimes. This turns out to be one of those times. Grom RUN RUN RUN RUNs forward, and... there's nothing, this section is very dark... and then out of nowhere, shadows that just looked like debris get up and move fast. Knives in the dark zip out towards the group, and the attack is on. These must be the organ-snatchers, all human, but they seem quick and tough. Their weapons are like an unholy union of scalpel and machete, and the weapons snake out to stab Tarion and Pash, fiercely. There are five of them, one for everybody...

Kasia was all ready to confer with the others about which direction they should go, except then Tarion is shooting, and Grom is charging. "So, that way," she mutters mostly to herself. She's gone from front of the group to closer to the back, so as others are being stabbed, she's thankfully not. Not /yet/ anyway. Others are getting hit, however, which makes her come to a quick stop, firing off a bad shot at... someone in the group, but she misses and instead hits a beam. At least Grom might approve of that shot.

"Don't make promises you can't keep!" Tarion yells back at Siha before everyone is going ripping down the tunnel, and he stands there watching them go for a moment before shaking his head, putting it down like a bull, and running off after them, yelling "AHHHHHHH" at the top of his lungs. Out of nowhere, they're being attacked, and a machalpel slices after his kidney, or at least he assumes that is what they're after, because he gets cut in the side. "AHHHHH! MY KIDNEY!" the bounty hunter cries, stumbling backward and firing off a totally random shot that by no fault of his own blows one of Wall-eyes wall-eyes off. Now he's just One-eye. It's pretty gruesome (don't look Kasia), and Tarion, bleeding as he is, stops to laugh at how ridiculous his maimed attacker looks. "Oh krif, shit man, I just- shit maybe you got a spare from those guys back in the first room," he offers to his assailant around his laughter. This is a good strategy, guys, don't worry about it.

"You have blundered, organ sacks, for now you face GROM!" the Houk informs his opponent, as a preamble to a titanic swing at Bad Tats' namesake scalp, missing high as the knifeman wisely ducks.

If Pash makes it home from this, he'll have to reconsider running after anyone, ever, no matter how strong or skillfull they are, because as he hurries Grom he's soon met with a sharp pain in his side. "AAAAAH!" he screams, before a glance down reveals a knife dug deep into his side. And on the other end of it? Meth-Mouth! Pash slumps to the ground, getting two shots off at his assailant that go wide, despite lighting up the tunnel briefly. Blood seeps from his wound, and he wonders if his organ will be the next to go.

Siha Archer goes after Chad, because she doesn't like the cut of his gib. And because the jerk tried to go after her, and she ain't having that! She lets out a gutteral call, her sword brought through the air to slice through Chads soft, soft belly, causing entrails to get tugged out along with her blade, swoooosh. She ends up with one knee on the tunnel floor, the other extended behind her, blade at her opposite shoulder from where it started, yeah! Chad clutches at his guts, in shock trying to stuff them back in, collapsing to his knees with an armfull of himself, flopping over. Not dead. But basically.

"AHHHH, MY EYE, MY EEYYYYEEEE," Wall-eye wails, dropping his weapon as both hands come up to cover the bloody mess that is now his face. "That's not even how this WORKS," he yells at Tarion, like clearing up the organ harvesting procedure is some how important to establish here. Machalpels are whipping through the air and blaster bolts are lighting up the air, as one enemy is down (mostly, I mean, he's still complaining) and there are four to go... Kasia is unhurt but misses her shot, as does Grom. Meth-mouth, whom we have to rename Deathstick Dude because I just remembered Meth is not a star wars thing, is laughing a high pitched, deeply annoying laugh. It doesn't let up when Siha chops up Chad. He burbles something that might have been "hey maaaaan" but it's hard to tell through all the blood.

Kasia's eyes go wide as she sees Pash get hit, and bad, also Tarion, but she knows how much Tarion is ok with being shot so she's more concerned with the other injury. She pulls the strap from the bag off of her body and tosses it toward Pash, not seeming bothered if it hits the ground. Everything in there is pretty well packaged and secured. "There's a medkit in there," she tells him, and also anyone who might be willing to help patch him up for now. It might be on him, because her focus quickly goes to the attackers, focusing on and frowning at Pigtails. "I really hate this place," she announces as she squeeze the trigger, sending bolts flying at and almost killing her target.

"Oh shit, Siha, you- oh man, his guts are- save some of those, okay?" Tarion is saying, while busy pawing at his side to make sure his kidney isn't sliding out. "If anyone sees a kidney, GRAB IT!" he yells to the group, deciding to leave it up to fate as he catches someone hitting Siha out of the corner of his eye, a nasty fellow with a deathstick problem. What's worse is, he doesn't want to sell them to us. "No one shoots her but me!" the bounty hunter announces loudly, pulling his rifle up and blasting a sizzly spot on ol' Deathstick over there.

Deathstick Dude /does/ stop making that annoying laugh when Tarion shoots him, though he spits out blood through his Deathstick-Decayed Dentistry and looks like he might still shoot somebody. Unless someone shoots him FIRST.

Pash is on his knees when Deathstick begins to cackle. "You don't turn your back on me," Pash says in barely a whisper. He takes two quick shots at his assailant, but misses both. The force of those blasts sends him sprawling onto his back just as Kasia's sack of help is tossed alongside him. With his left hand, he clutches the bag, while with his right he manages to fire off a final, hopeful shot. To Tarion, he casts a serious look. "Don't touch that one. His kidney's mine." He doesn't know what he's saying.

"I am not grabbing any guts, now if my mentor said grab guts-" Siha grunts out, raising her sword up and bringing it down into the side of Chad, skewering him through his ribs, heart and lungs skewered, Siha using that momentum to push up to a stand, "I WAGH." PEW. She's shot! Ah! "In my tit! WHO SHOOTS SOMEONE IN THE TIT!" Clutching her chest she begins to bleed pretty badly, the Deathstick dude managing to hit her at just the right angle to get under that plate on her chest, her left boobsicle spurting out blood, which starts to soak her flightsuit. Why do boobs bleed so badly. Down she goes back onto one knee, left hand on the hilt of her sword, Siha wheezing, "Uhph .." A cough, some blood creasing her lips in a foamy way. Oh man. That one..that one hit deep, "Shavs ...you ain't ..shooting me neither .." To Tarion weakly, the woman struggling to stand up, which is good for Tarion because she's gonna stab him first before he ever gets to shoot her!

I want to be clear up front that this is not a Grompose, this is just a TRIBUTE, like that time Tenacious D defeated the devil with a great song but didn't write it down. Nothing I write can approach the greatness of what Grom would write for cleaving his foe IN TWAIN! For this is what happens. Bad-tats is probably the toughest of the bunch here, crafty in the darkness and hard to hit, even though the misspelled NO RAGRETS aurebesh letters on his head make you want to hit him. Grom swings and misses, swings and misses, but then eventually CONNECTS, with a predictably beast sound (it's gross) and then the guy's in two parts on the floor. His feet are twitching. Much like the rat carnage, the group is now in a hallway filled with blood and guts, but they're safe, if a little beat up.

At the end of the tunnel, a rickety but promising ladder leads UP, which seems very hopeful. At the bottom of the ladder lies a large case. The sort with a self-cooling unit. I'm not saying it's filled with organs, but it might be filled with organs. That's who these people were after all, the harvesters.

Down they all go, though Kasia can't help but to cringe away from the work that Grom does. She resists making a 'he had to split' joke, and though she doesn't make it, it just proves how strong an influence Hex has been over her life these last two years. She turns to look at the seriously injured members of the group, heading toward the bloodiest. "Siha, can you remove your armor enough for us to bandage it? We need to get you to a clinic, but we need to make sure you don't bleed to death first."

"Well, looks like we gotta put her down," Tarion announces, standing over Siha and doing his best to hold in the blood that's still seeping out of his side, adding some more red to his armor. "It was a good run- not really, it was an okay run. It was a pretty bad run, if I'm being honest, but, you know, why start now," the bounty hunter continues, eying the woman and her injury. "If you're still alive, like, help me carry that box of organisms out of here, that's good money! Money!" But wait, what did Kasia tell him... think, think, think... "-Do you need help?" Because he's totally fine, guys. Ignore the blood. "I impersonated a doctor once."

Pash is busy rustling through the bag of happy Kasia gifted him, searching for the medpack she mentioned. "There is a hole in me," he says, smiling. Maybe he lost a little more blood than he thought! Even so, he manages to get the medpac open and take a wild guess as to how to use all the stuff inside. At least he gets the bandages open, which are soon pressed against his wound to imediately soak up blood. Then he tries standing again.

Once the team patches themselves up enough to make it up the ladder, they'll find their way to upper levels of the Undercity, where Hex is anxiously waiting, and will lead them out of that dark hell like they're Dante and he's an oddly green and dysfunctional Beatrice. They did not succeed in destroying slave catchers, but said catchers aren't going to be going after more slaves, so as established by Pash early on... we win!

Should they bring the cool-box up with them, they will find that it does indeed have organs in it.

Whether they fence them or cook them, that'll be an argument for another day.