Log:Knights of Ren: Man on the Muun (4)
The Knights complete their descent into darkness.
OOC Date: January 26, 2021
Location: Muunilinst
Participants: Errod Zand, Malik Ren, Sebek, Tamsin Cas as Self/GM, Tarq Najjic, Knights of Ren
Previously on Muunilinst...
The Knights of Ren had made the journey from light into darkness. An estate had been discovered, a secret had been uncovered, a treasure has been found. A fine reward for a job well done. Until the truth had become a lie, and the Knights had found themselves trapped in the belly of the beast. They had fought long, and well, drawn by the power of the holocron. In the end, the lie had been revealed for what it was, and it had been Malik Ren, whose insight and cleverness had seen through the lie, Sebek of the Desert, Flagbearer of Coret, Conqueror of the Sixteenth Deck, Consumer of Hounds, Wielder of Tei Tenga, He Who Hunts whose rage had overcome cupidity, and Errod Zand, whose soul sang a threnody to life, and love, and hope, that had seen a lie broken, and the way ahead revealed. Now, there was only the way forward, and an end to riddles.
The Knights stood in the cavern revealed for what it was, the entryway into an old and old and old research facility. The tunnels and caverns which lay to all sides held no more interest for them, only the tunnel corridor ahead, beyond which there was the fading glow of light and the occasional sound of stilted movement.
The cavern which spread out before them was vast, low ceilinged but wide, so that the corners could not be seen. More of those holding containers were scattered on standing platforms, but, unlike the containers they had seen without, these held the remnants of the dead. It was difficult, desiccated as they were, to see what they had been, but there was enough to know that it was not only humans who had been trapped here, nor Muun, but species of every type and variety. Most of the computers appeared dead, long ago gone to rust and ruin, but in the center of the room there was a raised platform which still appeared to be under power. The technology was old, but still serviceable, holoprojectors of a sort.
[Errod Zand]
The hallucinations, if they were truly figments of the imagination and not something more foul, have vanished, leaving Errod blinking and staring at the empty space where, moments before, shambling horrors had stood. A shiver runs through him, and he shoves a cig in the corner of his mouth, lighting up the carcinogenic immediately and breathing in sweet decay and calmer nerves.
"This place is a special order of profane, for making us see those things," he decides, puffing out a breath and letting smoke curl up towards the ceiling as they enter the cavern with its rows on rows of encapsulated corpses. Bulging eyes scan quickly down the aisles, taking it all in for a moment.
"A catalog of all sentient life, perhaps. An attempt to create a library of flesh and blood with volumes from all the great masters of evolution on its shelves. What demented mind undertakes an effort such as this, to store up all the most miserable beings the process of selection has managed to create and cast conscious into the mill where the only guarantee is suffering, death, and to /know/ that one has suffered." He spreads his arms wide. "Behold, the greatest symposium of pain and despair possible outside of any city street on any planet."
[Malik Ren]
Into the depths! Spooky depths full of dead holding containers, full of corpses, full of lives extinguished so long ago, no one even remembers their pain. Malik studies them for a moment, though his expression is without compassion or even particular interest. "What I find strange about this," he eventually admits, Coruscanti voice thoughtful in tone, "Is that surely this research, this /facility/, was important to its proprietors, was it not? Such dedication to a project, all of this infrastructure, technology, traps and mazes. Yet here it is, summarily abandoned. Mid-project, it would appear. What so forcefully and suddenly removed these determined rats from their nest? We ought to be cautious." A brief scoff. "As though everything else here wasn't already reason enough for caution."
[Sebek]
"An achievement most true!" It was a rare day when Sebek of the Desert was agreeing with He Who Cares, especially as his voice boomed amongst the room with about the same indoor volume as a hungry rancor. "Behold the trophy room of the conquering hunter!" Otter: 'Hunter?' Boon: 'Forget it, he's rolling.' "Truly we have misunderstood our quarry! This is no chamber of secrets, but a monument to pride! Thus we should all partake in their victories, and drink in their successes!" The sheer exultation coming from Sebek's oozy deep voice was overwhelming. His hands had been thrown wide to bask in the nature of the cavern. It was like he was standing in an art gallery. And the art was people!
[Tarq Najjic]
Tarq blinks against the passing 'bad trip,' taking a deep breath and shaking his head, still staring into the nothing inside everything. When Errod speaks, it breaks a sort of spell for him. "No. /Wrong./" A hard stare at the man as he continues: "Watch HoloNet. Re-pub-lic - Senate - in session. /Then/ speak to Tarq Najjic of despair symposium. Not - before." He spares glances for the corpses. They're dead. Who cares about them?
His eyes are for the illuminated powered-on area, "Watch - for traps," he hisses. "Is how you kill bugs. Draw to light, exterminate."
[Tamsin Cas]
As the Knights moved through the room, something about their proximity seemed to trigger the computers, which sputtered and spit, as if they were attempting to follow their ancient directives, to offer their services as they had been built to do. That they were malfunctioning did not seem to matter. That the occasional spark of electricity seems to cause the long dead to twitch and shiver in their cases was unsettling, especially in the wake of the darkness they had faced before. As Errod came around, the closest to the central dais, a holoprojector flickered in and out again. The crackle of speech, but come and gone so quickly, it was impossible to make out the words from the momentary flicker of life.
Tamsin, following in Tarq's wake, still with her stunsaber flashlight in hand, turned in slow half circles as she took the place in.
[Errod Zand]
Errod isn't an investigator or a scientist. He's a hunter and philosopher. "You assume it was the work of several rats in concert. Perhaps it was one, and when he died, he stopped coming down here anymore. The bodies were left to rot, whatever their original purpose." He steps up to one of the capsules in particular, staring in at the alien face within, lying in repose. "Did they suffer, I wonder, in the end? Or was that capacity removed from them by whatever this apparatus is. Were they awake or asleep, or somewhere in the space between?" Finishing his cig, he steps it out with the tip of his boot, grinding soot into the floor. "Whether to pity or envy, I wonder."
[Malik Ren]
Malik Ren is walking, walking, prowling around the area like an overlarge cat. "Pity," he answers Errod as to where he falls on that spectrum. "They look dusty and hideous." A few moments more of prowling, and he pauses at a few of the body-bays, peering intensely. "They've been drained of everything," Malik eventually frowns. "Somehow. These are not just devoid of life, they are /separated/ from life, cut off from the landscape of the Force and the threads that tie everything together, in... an unusual way. Not unlike the power to Sever, though I don't know as any of you have direct experience with it."
[Sebek]
"Gloat, He Who Cares. So wrapped up you are in the thoughts of others you oft discard your own," advised Sebek, in that oozy velvety condescending way he loved to do when he was so sure that he was right. "You stand here in the monument of a thousand souls. That they exult or scream, it matters not." The Falleen was giving each entombed sentient a look that was... well it was a little hard to describe. It wasn't pride so much as admiration for someone else's handiwork, with a bit of 'have I been doing it wrong?' and 'man I gotta get something like this for home' mixed in.
"And yet..." there was something else to the trophies, a sort of hollowness that the alarmingly simple Sebek couldn't quite identify until He Who Leads stated it straight-up. This of course was cause for concern. "I bear questions of technique."
[Tarq Najjic]
Tarq sees twitching bodies, the flickered attempts at functionality, and starts looking for the wires and cables. He seems to be trying to follow them, like a rat in a maze, but he keeps circling back around and ending up in the same places. "Power source must be /somewhere/, yes? Needs more juice." Wherever it is, the Kuati cannot find it. "Ancient lab needs more cable ties," he mutters. Surely where things are plugged in would be clearer with better wire management.
His gaze is drawn back to the nearest corpse holder, boring into it, eyes unfocused. He tilts his head to the side, consternation plain upon his features. Then he goes to another corpse, eyes lidded. "Yes, bodies - dessicated... but not water. Not /just/ water," he amends.
As Malik offfhandedly reveals that people can just do that to you, he puts his arms around himself. "Well /that/ is horrifying."
[Tamsin Cas]
The room continued its struggle to come to life, in a place which had become, or perhaps it always had always been, the absence of life. The sounds of movements now had faded, or perhaps it was only that the sounds of the living Knights had drowned them out. This time it was Malik who moved close enough, as he investigated, to the central platform, and that holoprojector flickers once again. It lasted a second longer, allowing anyone who might be looking in that direction to see the form of a Bith, dressed in the robes once associated with the Sith. Again, that crackle of sound, but only a fragment of sound, '--guei--'
Tamsin, still remaining close to her cab buddy, leaned in, "They're husks? Sucked dry? But by what?"
[Errod Zand]
"We should do that to everyone, then," Errod decides immediately when Malik reveals that there exists an ability to sever someone from the Force. "Put an end to this mutation, this disease, and then move on to consciousness. One mistake corrected, and then the greater, more common one, the two sources of suffering." The holoprojector distracts him, and he glances that way. "What was that? It spoke, someone make it play more." The hunter moves that way, standing over the keys, looking down at them as one might regard a puzzle without the box to observe.
[Sebek]
"Ahai! The trophies speak!" Snapping away from his reviere and seeing a prey beast speak from the machinery, Sebek immediately changed his angle and moved towards the chattering console. "Bring forth your secrets, infernal machinery!" boomed the Falleen with reverence and respect, inasmuch as either were applicable when using the word 'infernal'. "Speak to us of your victories! We shall know your glories!"
[Tamsin Cas]
As Sebek approached the central platform, the system, sensing his living proximity, flickers fully to life. The figure was a Bith, the dark hood of his robes pushed back to reveal his face. It was noble, and well-formed...for a Bith, but it had an odd quality to it. It looked much younger than the size and shape of the Bith would indicate...if one was familiar with Bith, of course. The recording appeared to pick up in mid stream. 'We must have more subjects. None of these have enough to extract the quantity of midichlorians we require for the infusion. Do not fail me, Plagueis. We have never been closer to our --" As Errod approached the control console, the figure's head turned, its eyes somehow centering on the human male standing there.
[Tarq Najjic]
"If drained, then went - somewhere, yes? Is this holocron-making?" Tarq conjectures in ignorance. But then that holographic Bith is talking again. And looking at Errod? Interactive? He steps closer to the control panel himself to see if it reacts differently to a Force user. And then - the Bith looks right at him. "If is recording... why looking at nearest Force-y person? What does infusion do, Bith?"
[Malik Ren]
"It isn't permanent, don't get excited," Malik dryly replies to Errod regarding Sever. "This is similar, but it's obviously been drawn to a more significant conclusion. He does agree with Tarq, "One would imagine so. Into a person, object, holocron, or other reservoir of power, I couldn't say." He folds his arm and Bith-watches.
[Tamsin Cas]
The holoprojection, which continued to flicker, but did not snuff out entirely, and who was now focused on Tarq, did appear to have some form of interactivity, as it appeared to switch from the message, or perhaps the report it was reading to answer the question posed it, "The infusion of midichlorians from subject specimens when properly infused prolongs the life of the recipient." All around, as the holoprojector continued to flicker and hum, the computers, which had been struggling to come to life began to flicker off.
[Errod Zand]
"The same way the projection is siphoning the life from those computers," Errod observes, looking past his disappointment that there wasn't a permanent fix that doesn't involve all these capsules and wiring people up to them. The prickling on the back of his neck suggests something is wrong, but that's not even a new sensation at this point. "Where is the recipient?" he asks the Bith, crossing his arms over his chest defensively after being ignored by the thing a few moments ago.
[Malik Ren]
Malik Ren's brow furrows as he listens to the projection speak, able to make inferences if not enjoy complete understanding of what the holo-Bith is speaking. He is interested in what Errod's asked, of course, but his gaze snaps up to look around, suddenly suspicious and wary. "Watch out," he warns, snapping his saber to life! "Change is afoot."
[Sebek]
"Ah, the folly of the short-lived..." mused Sebek, distractedly, as the familiar scent of darkness and illusion started to bug him again. This of course prompted reprisal. Tei Tenga burst to life in his hands, bathing the room in a hostile red glow, and his expression hardened.
"They claw at our minds once more," he warned, fending off the familiar feeling of false battles and hollow victories. "Be ready, Acolytes." A satisfied grin started to form on his features as he truly comprehended the outcome of the next, and likely final encounter. "For we shall face battle of body and soul against the curator. And upon its doom we shall stand tall above its corpse and decree 'nay, we are your betters'!"
There was an angry sizzle-hum noise as Tei Tenga was brought into a ready stance. "So come forth, That Which Curates!" declared the Falleen. "Behold your promised end!"
[Tarq Najjic]
He concentrates for a moment before announcing, "Tarq Najjic senses is in rear of cavern. Behind central platform." He makes no move to go there himself, mind you. He just activates his stun saber, assumes a defensive posture, and raises his hand slowly, looking around to get a view of just what pieces of furniture and tech are around to serve as projectiles. "Corpses... useless."
Tarq Najjic depresses the uncolored button on his cylindrical Stunsaber's handle and with an electric snap-hiss a bright white beam leaps forth and hums with a subdued quietness, unlike that of a lightsaber.
[Tamsin Cas]
The Bith, who switched its gaze from Tarq back to Errod, spoke once more. "Subject has escaped confinement. System has been compromised. Security activated. Full system sterilization initiative initiated." From the rear of the cavern, coming loping out of the darkness on half a dozen legs, was a thing which might once have been droid, it had certainly never been a living being. And yet, perhaps in its way, it had tried to be. It was old, that was certain, but it appeared to have attempted repairs on itself using the material it had to hand. The bits and parts of a dozen different droids had been tacked on, flesh, bone, and skin had been used in place of plating or shielding. It had made of itself...itself. And it charged towards the offending knights. Interlopers in its domain.
[Errod Zand]
"/Who/ is your subject?" Errod insists even as the sensation that things have gone wrong builds, and a hand finally reaches over his shoulder to unshackle the electro-chain whip from his back as the clacking, loping, unliving steps of the haywire droid mishmash comes echoing to his ears. "This is going to have to wait." The helmet, with its blank face, is tugged from its clip on his belt as well, shoved down over his head, hiding all of his crazy features except for his eyes, which remain barely visible inside the slits.
[Malik Ren]
"Well, this one seems real." That's Malik's grim assessment of the ABOMINATION shambling their way, spinning the saber briefly to loosen up. Vwom-vwom! "Try not to die or lose any parts, anyone; I've a terrible feeling we may become part of it if we're not careful. And it's so unfashionable, isn't it?" Fate worse than death. He steps forward to swing at the creature, but it craftily avoids his strikes! It has good proprioception for something with so many parts.
[Sebek]
From the Falleen came a bellow most howling, alien, and triumphant. It was real! That was like telling him it was an all-you-can-eat Spicy Beef and Rice Bowl festival at the lair of She Who Admonishes! "AHAI!" he erupted at the top of his lungs, launching himself into the fray led by the ever-hungry Tei Tenga. To battle!
[Tarq Najjic]
"/Highly/. Gauche, even." With those words the creature's worth and fate are rendered, as Tarq raises a hand, and a terminal breaks free of its cables. He leans his hand forward, and as his hand goes limp, the archaic computer hardware sails out and smacks into the creature. When it doesn't immediately absorb the computer into its essence, he lets out a relieved sigh.
[Tamsin Cas]
The once droid charged in, seeming to care nothing for the damage it was doing to the systems which had existed in this place for so long. The weight of it crushed console and computer, its arms smashed containment capsules and tore at machinery as it strove to destroy the interlopers. It moved with a preternatural grace, avoiding the strikes from the two lightsaber wielding knights, its arms swinging out as it tried to swat them down, coming now into the center of the playing field, striking out at all comers. It had more arms than a bucket of ch-- nevermind, that doesn't work. It was going all out. It was rocked back, as one of the terminals slammed into it, the force, and another, perhaps from the stunsaber flashlight wielding Tamsin who was still as far as as back could be, rocking it on its many heels.
[Errod Zand]
Console, computer, and Errod Zand are crushed beneath the droid/organic nightmare, a heavy mechanical fist robed in flesh swatting into the man with the fury of a mechanical fist robed in flesh. The hunter is knocked bodily aside, thrown into one of the capsules that housed a body, his helmet making a dull metallic clang as it rebounds off the glass or transparisteel. "Krif," he mutters, picking himself off the floor, holding his ribs. The chain whip is still in his hand, and with an experimental attitude, he approaches, lashing out and lopping off a chunk of vestigial organic matter. Emboldened, but already feeling the effects of blunt force trauma setting in, his next swipe sweeps through empty space and smacks against a computer screen. "Blame the Bith," he grates to himself.
[Malik Ren]
Malik Ren has tested the defenses (and proprioceptive powers!) of the monsters, and now he's got the feel of it. This time the Master of the Knights of Ren steps forward and starts carving chunks out of the monstrous !creature left and right, heedless of the ooze and fluid that drips all over him! "There is no place in an orderly galaxy for /nonsense/ of this sort," he hisses, as though this, exactly this, was engineered to be the most offensive thing possible to a fine upstanding villain of lawful alignment. "This is why I hate Sith!"
[Sebek]
Sebek danced about like the small buzzing insects he liked to call people before he crushed them underfoot, paying no regard to the maiming of He Who Cares. "Hup!" was one dodge. "HUP!" was another! There was a wide-eyed smile on his face that was gleeful, if one could call a lothshark expression such. He flung himself out from underneath its /many/ whirling limbs, turned, pivoted, and slashed a huge X across the suddenly-exposed flank. The third, a straight downwards chop, went to empty air and took a gash out of the floor. "Fight until your last, That Which Curates! Entropy shall not claim you!" The laughter that followed was a sort of cackling-hissing mix, and then back into the fray!
[Tarq Najjic]
Corpses are useless, he said, but Tarq doesn't take the time to empty the vessel as he lifts the capsule Errod banged into free of its cables with his mind and launches it with full javelin-throw follow-through arm movement into the abomination. The entire tank is a weapon; the husk inside is just along for the ride, rattling about inside while putrid flesh and synthetic armor both give way to disgusting effect. Then the case shatters, and the shriveled body falls to the floor.
[Tamsin Cas]
It had been long and long, since the abomination had been tested, if it had been at all. Perhaps, in its lonely isolation, it had simply built itself into itself to give some change to the monotony. It did not seem to feel pain as its arms and legs were severed, nor as chunks of machinery were thrown at it, the console from Tarq, one of the specimen containers, with specimen from Tamsin, who turned immediately away to try to get to Errod, seeing him injured.
The monstrosity was falling apart, but that did not mean that it did not remained a danger as it lashed out at its two closest threats.
[Errod Zand]
Gathering steam as the adrenaline and conditioning takes over and pushes through the pain of the injury, Errod launches himself at the creature at full force. This is what he does, fighting monsters, and his time has come.
Stepping onto a capsule, he leaps and throws himself onto its back, grabbing at the grotesque construction of limbs, meat, and bone, a flailing line scored across its flank as he regains some semblance of balance and pulls the weapon back to plunge it into the mechanical core below, the plasma-chased speartip digging deep. The hunter holds tight, pushing the weapon further, both hands exerting downward pressure on the hilt.
[Malik Ren]
CHOP. SLICE. FURY. Malik Ren is GIVEN OVER TO WRATH in an appropriately darkside fashion, unleashing the power vested in him by a weird, creepy ghost a galaxy away on a planet steeped in a different kind of evil. He was someone else, once. Now he's this.
It's super effective!
Eventually it's over, and he is surrounded by parts mechanical, oozing, unmoving, or gently pulsating as the mockery of life fades from them. There's something in there, though, a light pulsating in the center of the mass where its 'heart' would be. Gross, though, reaching in? Gross.
"Sebek. Collect that, please."
[Sebek]
Like life, all good things must end. Morbid.
Sebek's relentless assault against That Which Curates was brought to a sudden smashing halt as one of its exolimbs collided full-force with his midsection. That wasn't the part that hurt.
What /did/ hurt was the bit where Sebek was flung a full twenty-five, thirty feet at least straight into one of the gloomy less-than-corpse tanks. He hit it with a THUD hard enough to seriously test the strength of the glass, his limbs thrown backwards with inertia. His back spines cut through his battle cassock and into his raiment, and his backside, being as fleshy as scaled reptilian hide could be, had nothing to impact the blow besides itself. Truly this was a comedy.
Crack.
Bruised and battered, the Falleen slid off the damaged tank, landed in a crouch, and hopped up on to a nearby console as cracks spread across the glass surface. Something had to give, and it did. The tank shattered open, sending a wave of goop and desiccated RODIAN across the floor. "Truly a fool to see value in such poison." Finally, having avoided /that/ trap, he looked up to see the flailing fall of That Which Curates, defeated by the deft strikes of He Who Leads.
Satisfied, Tei Tenga withdraw into its hilt. "What good is a monument to the weak?" Contemplative, but certain, Sebek hopped away from the goopy mess and limp-walked his way towards his compatriots. "Our superiority is proven. Burn this place. The conqueror does not permit the glory of the defeated to survive." At the order of He Who Leads, the Falleen's mind twitched and the Heart of The Curator moved not an inch. "Fetid." He shoved his hand straight into the guts of the thing and grabbed at the light, without even considering just how bad an idea he was. This is why he was He Who Leads's trap triggerer, guys.
[Tamsin Cas]
As Sebek's hand sank into the remains of the abomination which had made of itself...itself, his hand closed upon another holocron. He knew its shape, could feel its humming power. And as it was drawn from the remains of that which had been built and had built itself to be its guardian, the remaining, functioning began to blare an alarm, 'System shutdown. Sterilization procedures initiated.' The hiss of some sort of gas could be heard. Whether it would still function and would do them harm, well...did they really want to wait around and see?
[Tarq Najjic]
The Kuati is not one to dawdle and die. "Can hose it down back at ship, Sebek. Do not give precursor satisfaction of your demise! Hup hup hup!" Like a coach of a children's sports team, Tarq waves people out and starts that direction himself. "Go-go-go!"
[Errod Zand]
It's like Tarq knew Errod would be tempted to stay and find out. Having ridden the beast down to its demise and sat amidst the ichor and ruin while Sebek rummages for the heart, he pulls himself up when the Kuati starts giving them all a hup-talk, his helmet looking down at the mess of 'itself' all over himself. Breathing in a weird staccato, he looks up at the ceiling, pondering the gas, pondering the question he doesn't have to pose aloud at this point, but the hup-talk continues and he looks that way, starts to follow, weapon in one hand and the other wrapped around his torso gingerly.
[Tamsin Cas]
Tamsin, who had done, well, very little, but then, in the ways of the Force, she was very little, did not stay once she heard Tarq's call. When cab buddy said go, cab buddy went go. She stayed near Errod, though, making certain he was capable of making his way out before she paused at the entry to the tunnel, not wanting to leave without the others. No bodies got left behind. When they went, she went.
[Sebek]
The previous admiration that Sebek of the Desert had once held for the curated collection was gone. With the battle joined and the Knights of Ren achieving total victory, it now merely stood as a testament of failure at reaching one's goals. With the Curator defeated, why permit it to remain?
The Falleen spared the cavern not another glance as he turned and marched away, the glowing form of the true holocron clasped in his taloned hand.
[Malik Ren]
Who is Malik to refuse a hup-hup go-go?! Everyone's conditioned from childhood to respond to that! He's spent a moment assessing the hissing of the probable poison gas, the corpse of the creature, the room around them... "Take the holocron and go," he agrees with the plan, and then steps toward the exit. He is not hup-hupping, no, he is moving at a stately and dignified pace, if an assertive one. He will not be rushed by these SITH. He will not move in a manner that suggests he's prepared to admit how disgusting he is right now, covered with goo. He cannot. He will not. He refuses. The Knights are ahead of them, and he is following behind, resplendent in victory and power.
Behind them, something collapses and the poison hisses FASTER...... and he does a worried little jog forward, catching up with the group.
Hup-hup-hup! No one has to know, MR, it's okay.
