ic Edge of the Black

[Tiffany Korta]

San El-H, Djanei VI

 

GM Post

 

In the height of the Delaztri Empire Djanei was the height of learning bringing scientists and academics from throughout the empire and beyond. Now it was a forgotten world on the edge of Lor space, it one great universities lost to the deciduous forest that covered much of the world. Sam El-H was a small frontier town sat on the edge of a mine reclaiming exotic metals from the soil.

Most of the miners were still working their claims so the cantina was mostly deserted when a half dozen armoured figures entered the bar. A mass of almost clashing colours and with an elaborate helmets it would be easy to underestimate them as purely ceremonial, except for the deadly blaster stapped to there waist.

They began to harass the barkeep, one of the original Delazti settlers, about expected supplies that they had no intention to pay a single credit.

There order didn’t say they weren’t meant to interfere, though technically it wasn’t there territory, but Sitara had alway been fuzzy about order in cases like this.

“I do believe that he doesn't want to help you with your problems, I suggest you leave now before trouble breaks out.†she was seemed relaxed, though she kept her hand near her power pike just in case.

“This doesn’t involve you stranger don’t get involved.†his spoke the local tongue with a heavy accent. “Besides...†he looked around a little over dramatically

 

“I count six of us, who have you got on your side?â€

[Exaccus]

Moon-moth found himself rather enjoying this little outing, the planet had a serenity to it, not the kind of silence and stillness of lanterns once great Lunar monasteries had, It was more like the ticking of some kinetic wound timepiece as the flora and fauna went about their lives, giving a sense that life would go on uninterrupted no matter what might befall him personally; In ages past he would've liked to spend a great deal of time simply exploring; However with everything that had befell the universe and indeed his fellow praetorians that was a luxury he had to forsake.

 

Myoth rolled his head exasperatedly at the bravado of the miner before him, his large, violet eyes being stationary in their sockets he had to improvise on the nuances of body language to get himself across. "Maybes you not counting so good, friend." Myoth pipes up and deciding now is as good a time as any to practise what he'd learned from observing kharag's interactions with others.

"I am counting 6 nothings...which is still nothing." he chirps as a little bit of excitement leaks into his voice even as his chest puffs up a little bit.

 

"You be wise for not antagonize honest persons around us."

[RobRX]

A figure, dressed in a flowing, albeit plain beige robe, hood covering half it's face stood up, slowly and purposefully. It stood there, presumably staring at them but it was hard to tell with the clothes covering the upper face. "You have made three mistakes." He said, bluntly and firmly. "One was to assume your target was alone. Two, you've made the mistake of assuming you had the advantage simply due to superior numbers." Scabby green-blue fingers made the gesture of one, then two, a fairly universal gesture to being who have fingers

 

"Third, you have now interrupted the king's meal." The alien pointed at the meager chunks of meat in a plate, next to his drink. "It will become cold. Not only have you interrupted my meal, but you have also disrespected he who have prepared said meal by doing so." As strange as it may seem, Kharag was quite serious about the ruffians interrupting a meal (good or not) to start a fight. Food on Za'ak was precious, acquired often at the risk of one's limbs or life; interrupting a meal to fight was ill-mannered.

Edited February 12, 2015 by RobRX

[Tiffany Korta]

GM Post

 

The warrior armour covered there face but there word sounded like it contained the hint of a sneer.

“You scum are in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’ll be happy to show you the error of your ways.â€

One of the others wasn’t quite as sure.

“But the Commander said...â€

“But these are just criminals blow in by the Solar Winds, there no match for the likes of us.†he dismissed his colleague with a wave of his hand.

 

The others were obviously convinced as they all drew blasters, sensing trouble the bar seem to suddenly very empty apart from the armoured warriors and the Praetorians.

[RobRX]

As soon as one of them even made the move of raising it's blaster at Kharag, the alien moved, changing his stance and center of balance. With one hand he grabbed the robe he was wearing and pulled at just the right place so the whole thing untied itself. Still in the same gesture, he spun around, as the cloak wrapped itself around the thug's face. Grabbing the cloak firmly with one hand, Kharag pulled on it, making the wrapped-up thug fall forward toward Kharag, blind and destabilized by having the cloak tightly wrapped around his head. Kharag's other hand, extended, quickly jabbed the neck of the warrior.

 

It wasn't at full force, in fact it was hardly anything that would leave a wound, but that single touch caused the fully armored warrior to fall flat on the ground, knocked out cold with the touch of simply two fingers.

[Exaccus]

slightly slower than the warrior king; moon moth still reacts with what he considers to be blinding speed, his pale white form suddenly aglisten with the chromatic sheen of his warding spell and his attack launched, though he barely moves at all, his long antenna swivel ontop of his skull and level themselves with his two, rather rapidly acquired targets, even as lines of multicolour electricity arch between them like lightning on a Jacobs ladder before parting at the tips and twisting through the air, ribbons of white that bleed every colour the human eye can see and a few he's quite certain aren't real as they streak through the air, striking two of the troopers, each on opposite sides of the mob squarely in the chest and knocking them flat onto their backs in a single minimalistic twitch.

 

"whoopsing daisies..I Zapped your battleoids." he says in what passes for a taunting tone.

[Tiffany Korta]

Sitara stood up her armour automatically deploying a faint smile on her face, as important as the mission was it was still fun to work out a little aggression. She drew both parts of her power pike and fastened the together as they expanded to it’s full length.

Swinging it in a wide arc she stepped towards the troopers, making sure she kept lines of fire open for the other Praetorians.

“We’re not just some wanders through space, we’re the Praetorians!â€

 

To emphasize the point she struck one of the trooper a solid blow causing him to fall down.

[Tiffany Korta]

GM Post

To their credit the soldiers didn’t panic when the Praetorians took down half of their number with little effort, they obviously had some form of training in their past. Instead they drew their blaster from their holsters and began firing in a rather controlled manner.

whilst they had some training so did the Praetorians and none of the was allowing the troopers a clear line of fire, the burst of energy went wide of all of the little team.

[RobRX]

As soon as the warrior began collapsing from the simple touch Kharag moved on to the other two. With one hand he blocked and pushed away the blaster aimed at him and with the other hand, he simply slapped his palm on the chest of his target, which immediately stiffened, before collapsing.

 

"Weak in body, weak in mind." Kharag said as he prepared himself to take down the other thug. Leaping in the air he landed on him and simply jabbed the target's chest with his finger. The power of such move was not in the physical force applied, althought Kharag could have easily cracked bones with his hands, but rather in breaking the connection between the mind and the body. Anyone with a weak and unfocused mind would be unable to resist.

 

With his target down, Kharag grabbed the helmet the last one was wearing and pulled it off in order to see who was behind such helmet.

[Tiffany Korta]

The helmet came off of the soldier with a hiss of air revealing very familiar looking features below.

 

“It’s Human or maybe Lor, I’m not sure if there is a difference.â€

 

Sitara turned towards the barkeep who was peeking back over the bar.

 

“Do these guy’s have a base nearby? Maybe started acting strangely recently?â€

 

The barman gave a little nod and Sitara turned towards the others with a grim look on her face.

 

“Look’s like they've gone rogue after what being going on back home. it’s not out mission but i think we should help sort this all out.â€

[RobRX]

Kharag didn't say anything at first, simply getting off the unconscious Lor and picked up his cloak, wrapping it around himself and sitting back at the table, finishing his meal in silence, safe for the noise of him chewing on the meat and drinking the water loudly.

[Exaccus]

"wells they mights have whatever we're lookings for anyway, ancient advanced technologies do tends to wind up as strategic resources." moon moth reasons to himself out loud "Plussing its kinda excitings, fighting corrupt pretenders in uniforms; bit more heroics than picking a plot and diggings." he muses to himself as he gestures towards the pile of defeated goons before him "what should we do with these ones; tie them ups or let them crawl back to their leaders and announce us?"

[Tiffany Korta]

“Well were still Praetorians and that means were peacekeepers and even though the empire fell long ago were still protectors of this planet. So we treat these soldier like prisoners and lock them in the Kavaca brig. Let’s just hope we have enough space for everyone.â€

 

GM Post

 

A short while later the three Praetorians were on a small hill overlooking the town looking up at the impressive structure that was the Lor base. It was a semi-circular platform perched halfway up the side of a cliff at the end of a steep valley. it was carefully designed so that no one could approach the site without being noticed by those patrolling the platform. On top of that the base when further into the cliff face away from prying eyes.

 

This was not going to be an easy place to make it way into unnoticed.

[Exaccus]

Moon-moth quietly appraises the situation before him, turning the problems presented to him over in his rather peculiar mind as he tries to unravel the defenses and circumstances before him, it was likely that three praetorians could storm such a base successfully, that much was for certain but it would be taxing even for them, they might've tried to sneak their way into the base but knowing the lor they'd probably have a much wider sensor array than they could mundanely hide from. true he could use his magic to create over for them,  but he was fairly new to that particular spell, having only picked it up a short few decades ago, he wasn't sure how much fine control he would have over it and making his allies and himself as unable to percive as his enemies seemed a rather pointless thing to do.

 

"Hmm, maybes we could take advantage of their perceived strength and control of the situation..." he offers at last "manipulate the soldiers into thinking they captured us and bringing us into their castles through the front door." he offers to traveller and kharag .well aware of his compatriots warrior pride he none the less presents the best tactical option he believes he has come up with. "bypassing their defences rather than overcoming thems." he turns to traveller "maybe you could disguise as one of the soldiers incases of they gets a bit blaster happy."

[RobRX]

"While these individuals are engage in questionable activities, they have done nothing to deserve an unfair treatment in battle nor have they lost their right to a fair fight. The most dire offense they have done so far is to interrupt my meal." He replied, proving Moon Moth was entirely right on the matter.

 

"But...with that said, your plan is indeed an appealing one and I am not the one in command here. As it is, I can also disguise myself as a Lor provided their armor cover all my skin, as my appearance is superficially similar to them." He didn't mention that the helmet would probably feel quite cramped around the cranial ridges, but that would be but a minor discomfort compared to some truly horrible things he had endured, such as once being swallowed live by a giant creature on his homeworld.

[Tiffany Korta]

Sitara was use to Kharg’s slightly skewed sense of priorities despite the years spent working together there was still a lot of the barbarian king left in him.

 

“This is a world of the Lor Republic and they swore to serve the populace here, they shouldn’t be try to secure supplies from the locals by force. You’d wouldn’t find a Praetorian doing anything like that.â€

 

Well not anymore that they were about half of the remaining Praetorians and she knew all of them as good people.

 

“Remind me of that time we infiltrated that military base on THX 1138, you know the whole prisoner transfer routine.†she smiled at the others “I can fit into Lor armour as well.â€

[RobRX]

"I have to admit those practices are indeed quite barbaric." said Kharag. The others would certainly find that sentence funny, but from his point of view he wasn't a 'barbarian'. After all, barbarians are those with no honor. "I was merely hoping for a good, honest scrap, not having to use trickery against low-life thugs with no sense of decency. Ever since I've returned after two millenias of absence and a few years, all I've been fightings are thugs, pirates and mechanical monstrosities. Is it too much to demand an honest, all-out battle to the death?" He clenched his fist. "I just want something worth fighting! Head on! Fair and square, I want to look a worthy and honorable ennemy in the eyes. But it seems I have awaken to a galaxy full of lowly scums."

 

"Nevertheless, you have my word as always. If you wish to proceed in this manner then so be it, you will have my cooperation." The alien snarled. "But after this, I will be looking for worthier challenges!"

Edited March 24, 2015 by RobRX

[Exaccus]

"I woulds also points out they drew blasters on us in what was a verbal dispute in a bar; though it was no threats to us they evidently didn't know of us, i hate to say it but they  would've turned a dissenting local into ash for speaking out." he amends as he turns things over in his mind once more "I'll make the jaunt to our ship and retrieve the disguise and some bindings; should return shortlies." disappearing in a subdued flash.

 

Materializing outside of the holding cells of the ship he takes a brief moment to straighten himself up, a scruffy moth was not a intimidating moth after all and once he was happy he confidently strides into the brig and singling out a officer of about Sitara's height and build turns on the intercom and speaks directly to her "I needs your clothes, your helmet and any identification you might have" giving the no doubt confused Lor a moment or two to process the demand as he presses the button to turn the forcefield opaque he adds informatively "Strip; replacement attire will be provided."

[Tiffany Korta]

With a little encouragement the Lor gave up their uniforms which were designed to adjust easily to the wearer. With a little effort Sitara managed to get the suits HUD system to display its informations, though unhelpfully for the others the information was all in Lor.

 

Following the HUD’s map they did however show  safe path up the edge of the valley and towards the base itself. The area should have been patrol or secured but there didn’t seem to be any others around.

[Tiffany Korta]

Sitara wasn’t the best of soldiers, she tended to be a little too independent to after so much time alone. But she did know and appreciate the basics and these Lor were following none of them.

 

“It looks to me that they abandoned basic procedures when they were cut off from home. I don't have to tell you that makes them dangerous, especially as they might have no loyalty to their own.â€

[Exaccus]

"let us err on the sides of cautions then," moon-moth whispers as telekineticly affixes the manacles to his wrists behind his back as he manuvers in front of traveller to give the image of being lead at blaster-point "lest we risk desperation or tempt frustration."  taking a moment to inspect the simplistic device before returning his attention to the road ahead "mayhaps a code phrase for when we're ready to spring our...surprise." he offers with bemusement in his voice.

 

turning his head slightly to look at proud Kharag and taking a mental image to enjoy later "Sometimes my friend battles must be lost so that wars can be won...tide yourself over imaginings the faces they'll pull when they realize we're not bound." he offers merrily.

[RobRX]

"Well no matter, I will assist. One last time." Kharag said, clearly still annoyed by the whole situation. It bruised his ego and that was never a good thing, especially pretending to fake weakness. He had sank to that level a few times and it felt dirty and shameful every single time. Especially in front of others. "But I'd rather not pretend being bound. It is a humiliating position. If we are to sink low and trick them, then let me alter their minds. They are weak-willed fools, I can easily slip in and control one of them to assist this prisoner transfer routine."

Edited April 13, 2015 by RobRX