Log:Explorer's Guild: Introduce Ya to Felucia

Explorer's Guild: Introduce Ya to Felucia

OOC Date: November 29, 2017
Location: Felucia
Participants: Explorer's Guild: Corr Waldin, Netep Muri, Eilam, Sugg, Sar Yavok; Special Guest Stars Hex, Kasia Ashkuri, and Jehni'va Cihn

FELUCIA!

"This totem is sacred to the local Jungle Felucians," Corr explains as the airspeeder carries them along above the fetid fungal forest below, which is secreting a steady steam of spores and stank into the sky. "Now, they don't really got what you'd call a language, I don't think, but an athropologist that's been livin' among 'em, she does. Dr. Goddill heard about some of our other discoveries and contacted me when an Acklay made off with it. That's not normal Acklay behavior, and the Jungle Felucians are blaming her, so it's real important that we find this thing."

The shroomy jungle is thick and hostile, and the sheer number of lifeforms make scans from above untenable, so the speeder sets down in a rare clearing in the general area the Acklay is believed to have gone. Corr disembarks immediately, leading the way out into the wild, dressed in what is definitely not the same suit of armor he wore in CDF painted brown. "Keep your eyes and ears open, mind," he warns, turning to look over his shoulder at the rest. "Every livin' thing here has evolved to kill you and anything like you.

'Yes, I'll be /careful/.' Jehni'va had promised repeatedly, but now that she's here on the planet itself, that is seeming very unlikely. This death jungle seems like the perfect place to find a new friend (most likely one that's trying to eat her) and Jehn is going to have to check her self-control HARD because she /promised/. That or she's going to be eaten by a gourd: oh the irony. "So." Jehni'va chirps brightly, tracing a gloved finger over a wide, flat leaf that curls in the wake of her touch, needle-sharp trichomes coming together in search of meal. It unfurls, disappointed. "What's the plan to subdue this acklay? I'm sure there's something /up/ if it's acting like a lunatic." The cargo pilot-turned-adventurer has hidden armor on beneath her gray jumpsuit and heavy boots and, shockingly, a blaster at her hip. "I mean, we don't have to /kill/ it if we don't /have/ to." She continues, side-stepping some puffball fungus that emits a sticky yellow cloud to her left. She's very chipper about the whole thing. "It really is /lovely/."

Who invited Hex Ashkuri on this trip? Gross. A large, tattooed green Twi'lek, he's wearing ancient Imperial Scarif-make armor that can only be described as having been Twi-ified -- characteristically bright and janky alterations; extra bits added and the whole thing painted up to be a bit more colorful. He's got a pistol but is wielding a large Twi'lek style polearm weapon, a long spear-like shaft with a length of dangerous looking vibroblade attached to the end. He seems to be in the kind of jovial mood that only comes from /not/ running your own affairs for your own people, though there's a mindful watch on the jungle. "The last time I was here...." Hex twitches his lekku and doesn't go on. Instead, brightly, "You know what though, this time is gonna be better for sure." He exhales smoke from one last pre-mission cigarette, and reminds Jehn, "NO PETS."

From one extreme to another, Netep finds herself trading dessicated, black sands of the Doaba badlands for the suffocating humidity of ... Felucia. It's a far cry from where she'd like to be, but opportunities to lay eyes, let alone hands on sacred relics of indigenous peoples don't come around every day. Muri hopped on the first flight back to Nar.

Poor girl didn't even have time to dye her hair for the occasion.

So here she is, clad in some foreign-feeling materials - it's light armor, but definitely more than one usually wears when representing themselves as a non-threat to business associates. This Felucia though, is one cranky client - she's heard stories. Touched down ONCE in a landing field, and stayed only long enough to get the Nysillin crop. She's curious though, and a few more years of traveling under her belt has left her confidence boosted. Netep shifts uncomfortably in her own suit, following close on the heels of their leader. You know...in case they encounter any natives. Jehn gets a looong side-eye. "Pretty sure it's not going to drop it at our feet with a little sweet talk," she cautions.

Sar Yavok has had a hard week. Expense reports, securing permits, getting the Jawa maintenenced and cleaned. It's a hard life, you know. So, of course he's sitting in the back of the speeder with a six pack. Likely his second or third six pack, if the way he's putting them away is any indication. He downs the last gulp or two of his current can and crushes it in his hand before tossing it aside.

Once the speeder comes to a halt, the Old Man clambors out, grabbing his helmet as he goes. He reaches in to grab another beer for good measure, tucking it into a pouch on his belt. "So, what're we doin?" he asks, knowing full well that Corr just explained. "Somethin' bout bugs?"

Eilam himself didn't really feel the most comfortable coming here. He'd read stories about the place, heard /rumors/. THINGS. And it scared the hell out of him. Which is why, usually dressed somewhat lightly and freely, Eilam was wearing... a suit of D.D.C. armor of some make or another, as well as a wrap over his face and hair and everything. Nothing that was glowing that was left out, nothing to attract any predators likely. Hopefully. And in general the Ghostling was holding firmly onto the metal staff he had with him to possibly poke at or prod anything that got too close.

Even if that was at the moment whacking over dramatically at a fat bug that flitted too close.

The forest is made largely of massive, big flippin' mushrooms, at least in this part of Felucia, bright pink and cyan, colors that would shame even Muri's fashion sensibilities. Corr leads on, letting the chatter from behind roll off of him for the most part. "We'll see how it goes when we find the thing," he announces, to answer Jehn's question. "Dr. Jinn Goddill, she said it was awful mean, and Acklays aren't none for being friendly."

Abruptly, the ground gives way, breaking from the rest of the earth with a wet *thwump*. It falls only a few feet before spongily, soggily coming to a stop. It seems they had parked on a massive fungus, the sheer ripped edge of which will make getting back to the airspeeder similar to climbing a short squishy cliff. Shaken, but not stirred, Corr glances around at the others and waves ahead. "I told you, we gotta keep on high alert here."

"Of course not!" Jehn turns, flashing Netep a grin and nearly walking into some poisonous mushroom patch. "But, I mean, it's a weird behavior. If we can just stun it..." There's a good chance that she spent the flight over debating how best to transport the creature home, but if Dr. Goddill and Corr say it's mean, she'll just have to accept that. She doesn't acknowledge Hex's instructions because - ha, good one - instead, she shrugs and re-focuses her attention on the path ahead and /not dying/. Because she promised. This is a good thing because, sudden as a lightning strike, the ground is gone, but she manages (somehow) to keep her footing and scramble forward. "High alert." She repeats breathily, blinking at the mushroom cliff they'll have to deal with upon leaving. "Got it. Hey, you think any of this edible?" A small insect has splattered itself across her goggles and she rubs at the lenses with a sleeve.

Even Hex has to be impressed by this, though he's seen it before. "Mushrooms," he sighs in admiration. "Giant, /giant/ mushrooms... Ay, when I was here before, one of our crew got ate by a carnivorous plant, Jehni'va. Just straight up into the trees, ok ka, never seen again. And there was a rancor... just a small one... and some big flying things that tried to mate some airspeeders out of the sky, that was interesting, and some of the people, the natives, they... AGH," he breaks off, attention abruptly redirected toward not falling down and eating shit when the ground collapses.

Whatever Muri was about to say is totally forgotten as ground is no longer ground and they're all left doing a slip'n'slide'n'shake dance to stay upright. Kriff. Now what? "We uh...we proceeding up, or down?" she asks, feeling like a patron trapped on a partially descended elevator. The little linguist drops into a crouch and peers under the lip of what /was/ going to be her next couple steps. Her mouth seems stuck in a permagrin, though, envisioning Hex's account of wildlife sexually assaulting spacecraft. Only on Felucia.

Thankfully for Eilam, as he walked along, the Ghostling was paying attention. To everything around them, to where he was walking, and he had the sense to keep his guard up with that staff. Which is why when things started to go south, the Ghostling planted the tip of his staff down and practically vaulted up into the air and to safety with an acrobatic flip, landing safely and acting like it was closer than it was. If anything, Eilam was never in danger there, but he did seem quite panicky about it. In fact, he paused and looked to Muri as if trying to figure out if he /should/ be upset or not. But she was grinning, so... maybe not?

• CRACK* *HISS* "Somethin' bout bugs," Sar reassures himself, popping open his to-go beer. Sucking his teeth, he takes a look around, saying, "Y'know, I've always hated this planet. Muggy as all get out." He lifts the can to his mouth and is about to take a sip from it when the mushroom gives way. Sar manages to jump aside, but...his beer is not so lucky. It falls to the jungle floor, spilling its contents all over the place. "Man..." is all he says.

"That's bad luck," Corr remarks to Sar, scratching at his chin as a bead of sweat starts to roll down his face. Humidity is high, the sounds of the fungal forest are omnipresent and clamoring, and the stink is unbearable. To add to this, something is moving through the rubbery growths behind them. Something large, and colorful, and angry. It's moving fast, too, rumbling along partially concealed by the flora.

Felucia sounds thirsty as hell. "I think Tess might have mentioned that once or twice." Jehn muses, trotting to catch up with her boss, stopping to quietly pick up Sar's beer can from the fungal forest floor, shaking the last drops from it; killer mushrooms are no excuse to litter! She tucks it into the bag at her hip. "Yeah, this humidity is something else. Still pretty though." As if to accentuate this, her braid has slowly become less and less contained as they gain distance from the speeder, curls popping their frizzy ways loose at every oppurtunity. "I mean, the biodiversity alone is something... To be..." She turns, slowly, the words dying in her throat. "...Admired. Um, g-guys?" Her weapon whines as she pulls it loose and flips it to stun. Her voice drops to a frantic whisper. "We should move. We should really, really move. And, uh, hide." She is reluctant to shoot at the mother rancor and young now bearing down on them - it's a mama! But also she'll most likely miss that shot, it's just that statistics and Jehn never got along well. "Gogogogogogo!" She starts to push forward, stumbling over her own boots as she tries to take cover behind something large and likely poisonous.

Hex watches Sar's beer tumble down and down and down, far away, and places a hand on his erstwhile boss's shoulder in silent consolation. They remember the fallen. Whether he had final words or plans to build a memorial, however, that we'll never know; because bigger problems are about to arise. Hex blinks and looks over his shoulder, noticing Mama Trouble and Baby Troubles about the same time Jehn does. "Witchtits!" he gasps, but that sounds likely to be a curse rather than what's actually attacking them. "Rancors!" There we go. "If you're not fighty and stupid, get out the way," he advises the group, but being both fighty and stupid, himself, he's turned to face the thing. "I'll distract it how I can, but I'm gonna get spanked." If only someone else was fighty and stupid enough to help him. "Sar?!"

So dark in there. Netep obeys the hairs rising on the back of her neck and backs away from the gap between neighboring 'shroom before something of nightmares reaches out to snatch her into the abyss. Freaky. "Too bad about the beer," she mumbles as a sidetracked sorta sympathy to Sar and bends to poke at some goop on the toe of her boot. And then it's here - the first obstacle in their quest for pilfering Acklay. Jehn's urgent warning jerks her back to present and she jerks her head around to stare..and almost pee.

"Rancor!" she echoes for lack of anything more sensible to say and puts her feet to work, darting aside and squeeze/sprinting fast as she can between giant fungi.

As paranoid as he is, Eilam saw that thing coming and before he had a chance to speak, everyone else started to. Starting to follow Muri out of habit, his feet started to slip and he nearly fell, though perhaps natural athleticism saved him as he managed to twist just right with his body to get some traction and jump upright to keep running. No way at all was he about to try and fight that thing, nor did he even want to appear as a possible target of ire. He'd been a servant of Hutts for years, he'd /heard/ tales of one Jabba who used to keep a pet Rancor from a long while back.

"Party foul, right?" Sar asks, trying to spin some levity out of a horrible situation. RANCORS. The old man's eyes widen as the mama comes running at them. There's not a lot of things that Sar's afraid of but a rancor...also isn't one of them. Mostly just women and committment. "We dyin' today, son?" he asks of Hex, pulling the E-33 out of his holster and toggling the safety off. He shuffles his helmet around in his off-hand before sliding it on over his head. There's a hiss as the vacuum seal activates and his now-vocoded voice shouts, "Come on, now, you ugly sumbitch!" Yeah, he's drunk off his ass.

When the A-team gets in a bind and has to call in the big guns, everyone knows the first name on everyones' lips is... SUGG! Peering down the edge if the broken mushroom, Sugg doesn't just climb down as an oridinary man would. His descent is one of controlled rolls, hand holds, quick footwork, and graceful falling in true parkour style. His feet touch down lightly in whatever substrate rests in the shadow of such a mushroom, buggy eyes seeing the Rancors moments before his umbrella antannae leap upward and he takes off running in his tight white leather pants.

Kasia is here, she's been here, she's been quieter than usual, except for when she fell. There was a nice little shriek as ground gave way beneath her, because this is the second time in like a week that this has happened to her. Thankfully this landing is less disgusting than the last, and she's not hurt, really, maybe a little bruised here and there. And then there are rancor. Her plan had been to generally stick close to Hex, but he's getting closer and more personal with the creatures, and she's super not into that, so for now she's just hanging back.

The fearless leader, Corr, stares with consternation at the rancors as they come thundering towards the party, waffling on what to do in this situation as an explorer and not a soldier, because it feels like the two should be different. In this instance, he decides it isn't, dropping his hand quickly to the blaster at his hip and pulling it out to brandish at the rancors.

Hex has cut a firm jibline across the jungle floor, taking up his weapon against them and drawing the mother's attention with his loud clothing and unique odeur. She whirls on him, swinging a massive clawed hand, flecks of drool flying from her fanged mouth as she roars her anger towards the Twi. Sar is beset by the baby that peels off of her stomach, a smaller but quicker foe that tries to tackle him bodily, but misses, churning in the sticky mud as it tries to turn on him. The other juvenile rancor launches off of her back and goes scampering after Jehni, the slow poke who looks like the weakest member of the pack right now.

She isn't going to fight, she is going to /run/. Unfortunately, Jehn is about as apt an athlete as she is a fighter and she only makes it a solid four or five steps before her foot catches on an armored, semi-fossorial, armadillo-like creature that was flushed from its burrow by the charging rancor. Jehni'va and the critter both surge forward and hit the ground hard, but her momentum flings the stocky quadraped to the relative safety of the surrounding underbrush - lucky thing. The pilot is not so lucky and skids to a halt on the ground between Sar and the Rancor(s). She covers her head reflexively and curls into a fetal ball, more to avoid friendly fire (even though Tarion isn't here) than to protect herself from the clawed, charging death headed straight at her. One of them launches over her in an attempt to get at Sar, but the other baby goes straight for her.

Dammit, she /promised/.

Jehn remains curled, but juts a hand into her bag, rifling through it frantically as the smaller rancor gains ground - she closes around a ration bar and wrenches it free and unwraps it to start crawling slowly forward, brandishing the food instead of her blaster. "Hey, heeeeey, shhhhh. Hey, little one. I know hell/o/, cutie. Yes, whose a good little rancor, it's /you/ yes it is..." She continues to croon and inch forward with the ration bar. "Shhh theeeeere's a good -" quick check "-...Girl? I think. Yeeeeees, yes you are." While the battle rages around her, Jehni makes a friend. Typical. This is that shit with the eels all over again.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. Sar joins the fray with Hex, and asks if they're dyin' today. "What do we say to death?!" he shouts back over the din of rancor roaring, "PROBABLY!" Just being realistic, here. So there you have it, Kasia's ex and her husband are stupidly fighting wildlife together, roughly 5 minutes after landfall. You have a type, Kasia. Look at your life. Look at your choices. So far it's swings and misses for mama rancor, while Hex continues to stab it with that polearm weapon. He's splattered thoroughly with rancor blood, mud, it's all over his face, big disgrace. The thing's got a ways to go before it's dead, but it's not happy. "AHAHAHAHA," he laughs, and like he is having the best time, even if he is super dumb and slightly unhinged. Really, Kasia, we gotta talk about your standards.

"Skrag!" Netep bleats complaintively back at a rubbery whop of dangling mushroom bit that bends and resists her charge, rather than just snap the hell out the way. Perhaps swearing a little 'Olys Corellisi" at it will help? "May my ancestors of a thousand st--" It finally breaks and she staggers on ahead, but not without passing a panicked glance behind to check the status of her crew. There's Eilam. Where's everyone else?

"Come!" She hisses with an urgent flail of hand at Eilam to join her as she hunkers down behind a stem she deems thick enough and squats there in the spongey forest floor. Just waiting. Listening. Watching....really just trying to catch her breath and not get more lost/separated from the group. I mean, is she /really/ going to outrun a pissed mamacor? The Czerka is drawn from her hip and wielded close to her chest. A last resort. Ain't no way that lil holdout sidearm is punching through Rancor hide/skull, but it makes her feel safe. Ish.

Eilam was running away a bit to hide with Muri, but he found himself just... staring and watching the Rancor. Why was it running this way? Surely it wasn't just coming after them, right? If it was just hunting... wouldn't it leave the babies behind? That'd put the babies in danger. But what would cause the Rancor to run /with babies/?

"..."

"Hey, everyone, you might want to stop making asses of yourself and get the hell out, I think that Rancor was running from something with its babies. It wasn't just coming after us, it has the young with it... something scared it bad enough to make that Rancor run. It's either the Acklay, or something worse." Eilam spoke into the communicators so everyone could hear ideally. "I think the more noise you are making, the more likely whatever it was running from will come after us next!" In fact, Eilam didn't... run away, instead, the Ghostling ran forward, "Stop fighting the thing, back up, maybe block it's path! The babies are already down, if we can stall it and whatever is chasing it IS the Acklay, it might be able to help us stop it! Better than trying to fight it by ourselves, right!?"

Sar Yavok rolls out of the way of one of the baby rancor's charges. He's not gonna kill that one, obviously. They're cute in their own, gross way. Plates of armor crunch and creak as he lifts his gun towards the Big One. He looks over at Eilam and says, "Well, why don't you just climb up there and tell it to settle down." He pulls the trigger a couple of times and looses two bolts towards the rancor. She's hurting, but she's not down for the count yet.

Sugg was running, but not away from the fight. He had seen something, a rancor moving in for the kill on his best friend, and was honor bound to come to that friends rescue. His long suction cup capped fingers move beneath his flapping leather jacket as he runs, and once he is within range digs in his front foot, skidding in the undergrowth. "Don't worry Hex!! Thugg'th got you, baby!" he squeals as he pulls the thermal detonater from his hip, thumb toggeling on the arming button as he rares back to throw. Sar blasts the thing, causing the mama rancor to draw back and roar, and that is when Sugg releases, the red blinking light flashing merrily as it flies through the air, revolving, and down the rancor's throat.

Kasia still isn't diving into the fray, not yet, but she does have a blaster in her hand now, ready to shoot anything that gets too close. She listens to the warning from Eilam, eyes sweeping the immediate area for signs of anything else that might be near, that might have frightened the rancor. "Hex, be careful, there might be something else out there too," she says over coms.

The mama rancor, having just swallowed something she never intended to swallow and contending with the ferocity of a mad Twi'lek and a crazy old drunk, cries out in an ear-shattering roar of guttural pain and fury, clawing at her throat and calling to her babies. Lumbering away, she makes it a good five paces before Sugg's contribution, the thermal detonator, thermally detonates.

Chunks of bone and flesh rocket out of the mama like a veritable Mt. St. Rancor, and her broken corpse falls like a giant tree, slowly thudding to the earth. Corr begins to holster his blaster pistol when the group is abruptly beset on all sides by a band of overgrown, grotesquely mutated gibbit birds, the symbiotic friend of rancors everywhere. One dives and claws at his face, raking it with sharp claws. Eilam is pecked at, Jehn is latched onto by one with a weird mushroom growing on its head like a party hat, and Muri is in for double trouble as sharp little talons from two separate birds latch onto both her arms.

In the middle of all this, Kasia and Eilam are right. They are very, painfully right. With a distinctive shriek that calls to mind a demon dragging itself from a pool of holy water, a massive, crab-like monstrosity comes pin-footing in the wake of the rancor. It's the aggressive Acklay, you guys, and upon seeing the group, it throws its crested head back to the sky and shrieks, and as the sound raises in pitch and volume, a flume of lightning shoots into the sky. It breathes lightning.

They're hurting it! Jehn watches, pain in her eyes, as they hack away at the rancor. "We were trespassing." She bemoans to no one in particular, probably the baby, absent-mindedly stroking her new pet and trying to block its view of the fight. She continues to croon to it in baby-talk. "Don't watch, little chomper, it's okay. I've got you. I'm sorry, honey love..." Eilam's voice breaks through the comms like an angel. "Yes!" She stutters immediately. "Yes, I'm with Eilam. They're really quite sweet once they've calmed down." Sar's suggestion earns a deep, calming breathe from Jehni'va. She could do it, she could calm the beast - she's done it once, whose to say she can't again? She stands amid the blaster fire, eerily calm and collected, and strides forward with her hands held in front of her, crooning, whispering, wincing as she puts herself in danger of friendly fire and those swiping claws. "Mama, calm yourself love. You're okay, shhhh..." Is it working? Perhaps there is something akin to understanding in mama's eyes - but Jehn's are busy tracking the explosive. "You're terrible." She laments in the pause before the explosion, turning to cover the baby she's keeping forever from the sight... But then things get worse. "Help!" She pleads to her new rancor friend, but she is screeching in pain and sadness as it tries to make sense of what has happened to its mother. Where is its sibling? It doesn't know, it isn't going to help Jehni'va, so the pilot is left to fend for herself, batting at the mushroom-headed creature that's latched onto her. "Kriffing ballsacks." But if the birds weren't bad enough, the acklay is. "Kriffing /ballsacks/!" She repeats, her voice rising in pitch. "Get to cover!" She isn't talking to her teammates or friends, no; she's telling the smaller rancor, and tries to pull it (and the bird latched to her) toward the cover. She falls instead and goes fetal once more. "I promised." She whimpers.

"WHAT?" Hex yells back at his wife, momentarily confused as the Rancor roars, and stumbles away, and Sugg's tight pants gleam through the foliage like a beacon of hope and provide a morale buff to everyone who can see them. "What?!" he pants again as the Rancor stumbles off, and then explodes, showering everything in the vicinity with rancor goo and blood and guts and... evil birds. Breathing heavily, he mops filth off his face and switches out the lyaer'tsa for a pistol, choosing a target and blasting one of Muri's assailants, boom. And then... different boom. Over there. Lightning boom. "Ryma'at," he invokes the name of a goddess unlikely to help. "Yeah, Sar, gonna die today."

Netep's not complaining about the armor, anymore. She feels it's paid for itself already, or might, by offsetting what would otherwise be horrendous medical bills...and still might. As if the deafening BOOM of asploding rancor weren't enough, coupled with shower of gore that this shroom has thankfully sheltered her from, here comes the feathered demons to avenge their hosts death. And why wouldn't they? Aren't many beasts that'd let a flock of birds shit in their mouth in exchange for passable dental hygiene.

Her screams shriek with less fortitude than the Acklays, into the squelchy, too-wet sky. "Droyk'n...petchuk...GOOGLY-EYED ASS!" she fights the best way she can back at the winged miscreants that buffet her about the head with their wings, slashing with talons, and stabbing with beaks. Words. Words usually get her out of scraps, but this one may call for heavier firepower. Her left hand wielding the Czerka is struggling to aim it steadily, since that wrist is slowly being crushed in the ferocious talons of this symbiotic shit.

• • PEW** One shot pops off and goes wild, straight into the shroom bell above. Miraculously, that gibbit bird latched onto her poor arm is reduced to a smaller explosion of feathers and giblets. She flails it free of corpse and pops open ONE eye to look squarely at the one mangling her right and takes aim.....fires.

"Ah, n-no, damnit... if whatever that thing is comes at us we'll..." And then the explosion! Eilam dived forward for cover only to have rancor guts thrown all over him, and suddenly a bird is on him! "Get... off, now is not the time!!!" Suddenly the Acklay approached and shot lightning into the sky. Normally, Eilam would just turn and run, but something about this had him feeling different. Like running was pointless. If they couldn't outrun the Rancor... how they hell are they going to outrun that?

Not to mention Felucia, everything wants to kill them. Dropping the stave, Eilam flexed his hand, activating the Maglock in the palm of the glove he had on, pulling the stunsaber from his side to his hand and igniting it to whack at one of the picking birds, "Get... off!" and smacked it right on the head, causing it to fall over convulsing. ...at which point he got an idea. "Hey! Grab the birds and any parts of the Rancor you can and throw it at the beast! Try to distract it somehow, maybe it will try to eat them!" And on that note, Eilam kicks and punts one of the birds with the armored toe of his shoe with a wince, towards the others. That was going to be bruised like hell shortly, but he didn't have a chance. "We won't be able to outrun this thing, so... let's just do this while we can! Sugg, can you glue it's mouth shut maybe, so it... it can't shoot lightning at us? Stick one of those grenades onto a bird and throw it at it!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" shouts Sar as he begins walking slowly towards the Acklay with the pistol raised, ignoring Hex completely, because who doesn't? "Run! Just go!" he shouts at everyone else in attendance. Continuing his march, he fires a duo of shots at the lightning monster.

Sugg is covered in the fountain of Rancor guts and blood, but he doesn't seem to mind much as the lightning suddenly arrives and the Rodian has bigger fish to fry. His hand moves back for his hip, and he draws out another explosive. He takes a moment to line up his shot, and since no birds attack him he draws back his arm and throws the adhesive grenade. End over end it spins as it flies right over Sar Yavok's head and directly on direction for the Acklay's mouth.

Gross. This is just gross. Everything is terrible and gross, and terrifying. Kasia managed to avoid the worst of the exploding guts, being so far back but there is some of it clinging to her, but it's forgotten the moment she spots that huge monster of a thing with basically the worst breath ever. Lightning breath. "Hex, you need to get back. Get back from it now." A hand that was in the air in the process of trying to dislodge viscera and whatnot hangs there for several moments, swings outward, and then lowers to her side where she promptly wipes the goo on the back of her pants. "Everyone be careful, if it can do that with the lightning, we don't know what else it can do. Also it can spit lightning, which is bad enough!"

End over end it flies, and while the sticky bomb doesn't seem like it should have a snowball's chance in hell of making this shot, especially considering the fact that Sugg's already hit one smash-mouth tonight, but despite all odds, it's dead on target for that lightning spitter. The acklay opens its mouth, not to swallow it, but to blast it down with Force lightning. Wicked tongues of electricity shoot forth with the crispy scent of sizzling ozone, but it does not have the effect the beast expected. It just makes the grenade detonate early, spraying glue all over its mouth.

The creature tries to shriek, but cannot open its mouth. It has a mouth, and it must scream, but it can't, and the squirming of its jaw only makes the situation stickier, as a certain Twi'lek can attest.

Corr watches cautiously, his pistol half-raised. "That might have done it," he breathes, ready to declare victory and go find the the thing's lair, where perhaps the totem lies.

But NO, that has not done it! The acklay comes scuttering forward towards the group, in a rage, its needle-claw legs hammering the ground as it closes in, filled with silent fury.

Maybe Jehn can tame the acklay? Lol no, even /she/ isn't that dumb. Plus, Sar is already super willing to die not-young. "Stay down!" She warns the rancor, swinging her gaze around for the other baby to no avail. The one she /does/ have track of is scared and clawing into the cover with Jehn behind, still batting at the bird latched onto her. With her blaster on 'stun', she fires at the bird creature assaulting her, letting the war heros deal with the lightning-death-demon, but even at point-blank range on stun, she can't hit the thing. It keeps attacking her, and that acklay is /still coming/. Jehni'va, still on her knees with one arm taken up by the winged beast, plants herself firmly in front of her newfound pet and keeps her blaster raised.

The rancor, however, is finally going to be the loyal partner she knew it would be, and Jehn finds the gibbit suddenly wrenched from her person and crushed in the jaws of her friend. He's not enthusiastic about it, though. "Thanks!" She beams, breathlessly, still keeping herself between it and the charging acklay.

Hex gapes at his favorite alcoholic misanthrope. "What the hell, Sar! You miserable, godless, dust-eyed catastrophe, I am not letting you fight a lightning bug all alone. Did you see it? Did you see that chodry'crit? Straight /lightning/, Sar." He twitches his lekku in disbelief, and then trot-squelches through the evil blood-soaked mud to catch up and add pistol fire to Sar's, being as he's too far to poke the thing with a stick as yet. He does listen to Kasia as she calls to him, watching the adhesive grenade arc into the thing's maw, and is apparently still listening when she says it can breathe lightning, they don't know what else it can do. "Ay, are you saying it farts lightning too?!" He accepts this thing he made up as fact, unquestioned, and keeps an eye on its hindquarters.

"HAHR!" Netep jeers triumphantly as the remaining Gibbit flaps off her arm in the wake of her shot (which didn't even singe a feather) but apparently she's become too unstable a perch to make the pecks worthwhile. And that's just fine.

What isn't fine is that monstrosity barreling down on them, shrieking lightning bolts to the sky. The big boys with their big guns and grenades are on it, so where does that place her? Decisvely NOT on it, directly, but scurrying around, as she tries to discern whether or not this 'totem' is still being carried around on its carapace somewhere or if they've got to follow Acklay tracks back to its lair. Because that could be one hell of a hike, through more of this. Muri gives the rampaging beast as wide a berth as her hustling little legs can do, eyes widely pronouncing to the entire ecosystem what little desire she has to tangle with this mofo.

Eilam knew full well he was in no position to /fight/ this thing, so instead of charging in guns blazing - especially since he had no guns - the Ghostling took a different route! He ducked back out of the way and began to scan the surrounding area, hoping to find something of use against the Acklay. In his mind, if that giant mushroom was so unstable, perhaps something else in the area was equally at risk of being toppled over to their benefit! "Muri, help me out! Or anyone else who isn't fighting! I don't see anything yet, but surely something else around here can be used against this thing, right? If all the plants and animals on this planet evolved to kill everything else, is there something we can maybe drag the Acklay towards, or knock down something onto it?" then he looks towards Jehn. "...hey, is there anything that Rancor is still scared of besides the Acklay?"

"I ain't even tried to find its chody creep," Sar says, before turning his head back to the monster. "I want the totem thingy you got and you're gone give it to me! Then I'm gone hang that ugly mug o' yours over my mantle!" he calls out to the beast before he begins just screaming at it again. Pew. Pew. Pop. Pop. Two more bolts pick at the body of the beast.

Sugg makes a high pitched squeal of victory from his weird little trumpet mouth as the beast's mouth is successfully glued shut. He reaches out to grasp Hex's shoulder, giving him a respectful of the head before letting go and charging forward through the blood soaked mud, splat, splat, splat. The little Rodian charges the acklay straight on, before dodging to the right at the last moment and leaping up to catch his hands in the crook where its leg meets its body. His legs kick and he swings up in an ugly sort of fashion, rolling himself up onto the beast's back. He rolls slowly over to his hands and knees and blinks in surprise before he lifts up onto his knees and yelling out, "Hey! What itth it we're looking for? Thugg found it!"

Kasia doesn't exactly go charging at it, she sort of skitters off to the side in an effor to get out of the way should it keep on rampaging in this direction. She's got her blaster out still, but she's still too far off to fire it safely and not hit people, and she likes most of the people here generally, so that seems like a bad option.

The acklay is taking a beating, and now there is a weird trumpet-mouthed guy on its back. The wizard crab, his thunder having been stolen from him, can't bite, but his legs are still giant spears, and he's got six of those. Muffled shrieking, held in by the glue, reverberates through its crested head, and it stutters forward with surprising speed despite its injuries. Reeling back as it reaches the closests, ravingest, drunkest, loudest attacker, its pronged limbs thud and smash into the ground repeatedly, trying to pin him down, but Sar is too ornery, perhaps a master of the Drunken Junky style, and the acklay can't get him. It's not looking good for the magic crustacean.

If looks could kill, Jehni'va would knock that Acklay, Sugg, Sar, and Eilam out flat. "Don't you dare bring Milla into this!" Apparently she's named the ugly, dangerous beast after a beautiful, delicate flower - because Jehn. "I think she's pretty afraid of /blowing up now./" Looking at you, Sugg. Amid the battlefield of rancor gore, a rampaging acklay, explosions, gibbets, and blaster fire: she is worried about the rancor's feelings. Obviously, Jehni'va has her priorities in order.

While there are acts of heroics and sensible hiding going on around her, she continues to remain planted in front of the juvenile rancor with her blaster raised. "It's a totem! We're looking for a totem!" Jehn does, at least, remember why they're there, and shouts it at Sugg atop that acklay. Her weapon is still on stun, and she fires a desperate bolt at the acklay in a vain plea for a humane, unconscious solution. "Totem!" Her voice is high, squeaky, and stressed to the max. "I am getting /so/ fucked up when I get home and /none/ of you are invited." A pause. "Except Kasia."

"That's bullshit," Hex informs Sar, which is the meaning of 'chodry'crit', bullshit, but in context it sounds more like he disbelieves Sar hasn't tried to find the thing's chody creep. Everyone knows the chody creep is where the lightning farts issue from. He continues shooting as well, yelling over the sound of gunfire and breaking forest and muffled monster shrieks to remind Sar, "You don't even have a mantle!" That hand cannon of his manages a good chunk of Acklay, and he lets everybody else worry about the totem, because it's very important to yell back at Jehn, "Fifty percent of Kasia's fucked uppery is legally mine!"

"I SEE IT!" Netep screamed and flailed simultaneously, not exactly remembering about the whole 'com' system in her new helmet. "I see the tot**EEMMM*!" her com cut on for the last syllable, followed by an enthusiastic "Strapped to its back, Sugg, Yes!" as the Rodian goes clambering up there. "I...Be mindful of it, PLEASE!" Eilam's cry of her name in tandem with plea for help gets a worried look from the space gypsy, but she finds him to be in 1 piece and thusly keeps her eyes on the prize...and body OUT of the way of what happens next. The exclusion from Jehn's boozy plans either don't register or she doesn't care enough to lose focus, lest she become skewered and/or crushed by surely-soon-to- topple amphibious-repti-crustacean.

Sar Yavok starts laughing as he weaves, bobs, and rolls between the acklay's attacks. "Come on now, son! You gotta be quicker'n that!" his vocoded voice rings out. He laughs again. He rolls under the Acklay and points his blaster skyward. Pulling the trigger he sends a bolt straight up into the literal belly of the beast. Then all of its guts and stuff come out. But not the chody creep. Hopefully it stays in there, for all our sakes. He stands up and leaps forward, colliding with the ground, but just far enough away that the beast shouldn't land on him.

He rolls over onto his back and tosses his blaster off to the side before reaching up and releasing the latches on his helmet. With a hiss, the seal breaks and he pops it off. It, too, is discarded. The old man laughs boisterously, before offering, "Man, I'm a fuckin' badass."

The look on Sugg's face reveals that he probably does not know what a totem is, but when Muri begins to yell at him that the thing that he is looking at is the thing that they came for, he nods his head quickly and pulls his vibrodagger from his belt and begins to cut the thing free. When able, the Rodian picks the thing up and hugs it to his chest, turning to run and jump from the acklay even as Sar is shooting it in the belly.

"You'd better not die, Heksash'kuri," Kasia can be heard saying that over the coms as she continues to hustle out of the way, letting the others fire and watching that no one is too badly injured. She doesn't have a lot of medical training, but she can shove dirt into an open wound to try and slow the bleeding or something, though she doesn't see anyone specifically injured to do that for. You're all safe from her medical care for now, apparently. "You don't get half of my fucked uppery, Hex!"

The wizard crab- er, aggressive acklay, is dead. Corr smears rancor gore and feathers from his face, approaching the corpse warily and nudging it with a boot before he shoves his pistol back into its holster. "Well, that was... I'm not gonna say easier, but at least it came right to us." The laconic leader gives them all a tight-lipped smile, nodding at Sugg with the totem. "Good work, everyone. Everyone alright? Dr. Goddill's gonna be mighty pleased that her friends aren't gonna kill her over a chunk of wood, I'll tell you that."

Mission accomplished! The group heads back to the airspeeder to return the totem to the Jungle Felucian tribe and their resident anthropologist, another disaster averted, another job well done.