Ask Event Deepest Dark

[Theia Durand]

One thing Theia could be certain about was how ugly this ship was; the blocky design was so .pre-Republic in her opinion (Ew). She paused as she rounded an edge to find a door; she pulled hard, two or three times to just make certain it was locked. She noticed the keypad...wasn't really a keypad, it looked more archaic. Her face contorted with confusion on why someone used a deadbolt on their ships' door. She didn't really have specialized tools to finagle with such a lock and decided to leave it be, but first giving a loud knock on the door-just in case there was a second individual present.

The echo of her banging rung through the entire hanger and she took a couple steps back, observing the ship. Perhaps it was a good thing she didn't know who flew the ship, she would certainly a lot of judgement on their taste. Theia pulled out her EZphone and took a couple more steps backwards to snap a quick picture. She added it to a message to Ezra (@Sreeya), adding: Look at this! Its uglier than Uncle Em's geriatric junker!. Hitting send was not an option, her EZphone giving her an error, clearly there was a lack of service reception within the Maw.

Taking another look around the ship, Theia went to catch up with the rest as long as no other interruptions occurred. Foot prints following the groups to the doorway and down the corridor, she could still see them standing, talking. As she got closer she heard the small mouse-like being (@AutoFox) translating something on her datapad.

@Nefieslab @René @Apollyon @Akheron @LouJoVi

 

[Rowan Allaird]

“Merian,” Rowan repeated, smiling at her, “Well, I don’t know how you got into this mess, but you’re out of harm’s way now,” He told her, checking her vitals one more time. Cognitively she seemed with it, and the rest was up to recovery. The droids appeared good enough to keep her stable. With luck, after this expedition there would be a way back to the galaxy they knew.

“I’m Rowan,” He said, though he doubted she really cared. Sith were supposedly selfish and evil. He wasn’t going to lecture her on her life choices - his job was always the same and to provide medical attention where needed. He felt that familiar call towards the others, wondering if the Doctor was safe with the Sith. The adventure crew could be the only way off the ship.

“I must go check on the others,” Rowan said, “The droids here will take good care of you. Please do not move from the bed - you need time to rest and heal,” Whether she listened or not was up to her. In his role, he could only advise a patient so much. As he spoke to her, she would be able to clearly sense that he feared her. He found her presence unnerving, flinching slightly anytime she moved as if she would strike him with some unseen Force attack.

After a nod, unless she had objections, he would step away and find another shuttle to rejoin the group that followed the Doctor.

@Volene @Nefieslab

 

[Azathoth]

Aza had approached the door with the others, absentmindedly not paying attention to much that had occurred in the past ten or so minutes. Her thoughts had drifted elsewhere, curiosity about this place running rampant through her brain, and she simply must have just been on autopilot.

Luckily nothing bad had happened to her in that short period, and for that she silently thanked the force.

Do you want to go investigate it? Aza asked Four idly, gazing at the squirrel out of the side of her eye. I can come with you if you are too afraid to search on your own.

Normally Aza would be loathe to help someone, but at this point she didn't want to hear the fresh and new ways the Jedi were going to disappoint her with their chosen approach. At least if she accompanied the squirrel, they might run into something more interesting.. and she would be more able to do things in her own way.

Of course, Aza had no idea what they would do if they actually happened upon a literal child. She was no baby sitter, though she doubted that Four would be willing to discard the child into the gutter - which is what Aza would be inclined to do.

Still, with how little information they were gathering elsewhere, might as well go check it out. If anything, perhaps a child could be the new leverage for use against the being behind the eyebot, and the Jedi so foolishly giving theirs away so soon wouldn't be much of an issue to begin with.

I might be able to use the force to amplify it, or at least give us a heading. It might be able to pick something up that your sensitive squirrel ears were unable to.

Aza would give Four a shrug, though if the woman didn't want to go take a look, she would simply turn her attention back to the weird camera and it's garbled speech that she didn't quite understand.

@Remileah @Nefieslab

tl'dr

 

[Iymril]

Iymril walked silently in the middle of the group, just as they had before. Their ruby eyes were focused solely on Kyssiara. Not to ensure her safety, they didn’t care if she lived or died. No, it was in case she was engulfed in flames or blasted into oblivion or mauled by an unseen creature. That way they could identify where the danger came from and eliminate it immediately, not to protect the group. The others also meant nothing to them.

This was all self-preservation.

So it came as no surprise when the sudden spurt of binary caught them off-guard. Iymril’s ears immediately pinned themselves back and their eyes grew wide with fear. Their heart beat rapidly and internally panic took over. They spun to face the clear threat and their hands fumbled to create the sign for lightning but in their fear they couldn’t accomplish it.

“It wants to kill us!” They hissed as they stumbled away from the source of the binary.

@Nefieslab

 

[Merian Sere]

“Rowan,” she said, slowly, in that same empty voice. She’d have forgotten in an hour.

“Thank you.”

Too early to tell if really she meant it, but for now, it felt like the right thing to say.

Then Merian passed out again.

@Nefieslab @Sreeya

 

[Kaedan]

Team Professor
Kaedan couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary with the force. As a result, he simply focused on what was in front of them. The information was pretty much scattered. There were people there and then they ran to safety, probably behind the locked door.

He heard the observations from Nye and Four. When she asked if they heard the sounds, Kaedan nodded. “Yeah, I hear it. I was trying to pinpoint the location of the whimpering just now but I got nothing. I don’t think there’s much more information we can gather here.”

Kaedan looked over to the door where the others were. He noticed the electronic camera hanging out of the hatch. “Looks like that may tell us where the people went.” He pointed in the direction of the door. “I think our best bet is to see if we can communicate with the locals who are hiding behind the door.”

The young Jedi knight approached Alhazred, the pilot and the professor who were at the door. His movements were slow as he didn’t have much reason to rush over. “Any progress?”
@Nefieslab @Remileah @Interdictor @The Good Doctor @Narzen

 

[The Gatekeeper]

Team Professor

@The Good Doctor @Charndley @Interdictor @StephDLegend @Narzen @Logan @Laskt @Remileah​

With the sounds of a distressed child in her ears, Cipher Four was slightly distracted but she was still gifted with hearing acute enough to hear the sound of footsteps in the distance as well. Fast but light, they seemed to be leading away from the locked door, slightly closer to the agent, the red-head Jedi, the gothic tiefling and the corpo. But, still, nothing was immediately viable as the source of the sounds, but more of the market stalls seemed to move slightly as if moved by a breeze of wind that did not exist.

Through the Force, Azathoth and Kaedan both would be able to sense the feelings of curiosity and fear that seemed to radiate from the unseen child. The Force, however, was not like sonar so they were still unable to pin-point their location with certainty but both of them would be able to tell that the child was close - that the curiosity came from them before observed, directly, by the child.

As Nye was heading deeper into the market itself, he would be moving away from the source of the sounds but he would be able to spot something as he moved through the market stalls. Behind one of the stalls, hidden just out of sight from the front, was a lock-box and atop it sat something else; something that the young corpo would be able to recognise even if he didn't know the specifics.

It was a handgun.

One that had a slightly longer, sleeker, barrel than anything that he had come across before. The construction was solid, giving the sense that being robust was far more important in the design philosophy than appearance.

Back at the door, the Professor rapidly tapped away at a datapad he had brought with him, muttering some of the phrases used by the voice behind the door. He was repeating them to try and keep them in his mind, to try and remember the entire message, as he furiously typed away at his datapad screen.

"It seems to share some vague similarities with the dialects of some of the more backwater planets of the Tion Cluster." The Professor piped up, grinning from ear to ear, "Isn't language fascinating? It can tell us so much about these people! Were they in contact with people from our Galaxy I wonder?"

There was silence for a moment as the people behind the door tried their best to absorb Alhazred's message. Unfortunately, the Force would be free in letting the Jedi Knight feel their confusion and their fear spiking as he spoke - it seemed that they didn't understand him either. This was broken, slightly, as the eye-stalk looked down and spotted the explorer droid making its way toward the door panel.

The fear spiked in the Force but, this time, was accompanied by anger as well.

"Go ropa an diabhal thú! Faigh ar ais! Faigh ar ais!"

As the little droid produced its scomp link, the voice became almost frantic.

"Déanfaimid tine!"

Of course, there was the small issue of finding a scomp port for the small droid to plug into. None of the ports seemed to be designed for the scomp link but it was able to jam the device into one of the ports and began the process of accessing the panel. There wasn't any information connection but working on the lock was something the droid could do and started the process of unlocking the door.

The Professor piped up.

"Oh...! 'Tine'! I know that one... the hill folk of this one planet said that one to me before! It means... Fire?" he translated with a grin, "Yes! Yes, it means fire! Tine means Fire! Do you suppose there's a fire in there?"

Team Doctor

@René @Apollyon @Akheron @LouJoVi @AutoFox​

As the two fully trained Sith seemed to default to the tried and true method of many a teacher of dangerous professions (i.e let the intern do it), if Kyssiara looked back she would see that the Doctor seemed to be of the same mind. Though the apologetic shrug he gave her did let her know that it was nothing personal - someone had to go first and he was just very much in agreement that it was better off being someone who was, a) not him and b) a trained combatant in case things got heated.

The door slid apart smoothly, though it was slower than most door openings back in the rest of the Galaxy, as though the door's mechanism was functioning on reduced power for some reason. But still, the door opened and the young Pureblood was able to step through the doorway, emergency lighting above illuminating the way but not entirely. There was still an air, a suggestion, that the main power was not flowing through these areas.

Beyond the door, Kyssiara would find a large room complete with a massive central column that doubled as a bank for an array of computers. Each one of the screens was covered in a film of dust so thick that it would be a wonder if anything could be seen through it. One screen was the exception, with a large amount of the dust smeared off of the screen as if by a hasty wipe of the hand. The input pad beneath the screen also had evidence that someone had disturbed the dust, with several keys clean but with some still coated in the familiar layer of dust.

The room around the column was circular in nature, with more computer stations around the room - it looked familiar to those of them who had ever been on a large ship before. To either side of the central pillar was a door, though these seemed to be heavy-duty security doors that didn't have access panels linked to them at all. Visible just past the pillar were viewports, likewise covered by armoured shutters.

Across the floor, the same footprints as before lead first to the pillar before disappearing through the door on the right-hand side.

In the corridor, the droid stared ahead down at Rina with its lone, red, photoreceptor as the tiny woman worked at her datapad. When she played her message in binary, the droid didn't seem to react - but there was a very soft sound emanating from its chassis for a moment before it straightened up and began to move. It was a large droid, the 'statuesque' appeared aided by it standing almost two meters tall, but it was near silent as it raised a leg and stepped down from the plinth it had been stood on.

Closer inspection once it had moved confirmed that the plinth had actually been a charging station.

The droid began a careful walk through the corridor, minding its size to avoid pushing any of the explorers out of the way as it entered the main room.

"01010100 01100101."

Another garbled burst of static-ridden binary was issued as the droid stepped through the main doorway and moved to stand by the central pillar. A head-light turned on, giving more light as the droid gestured to the console with a large hand.

"01010100 01100101."

On The Wildcard

@Sreeya @Volene​

As a purely combat medic of a droid, the on-board robotic doctor watched the byplay between the two humanoids with some anxiety. They were both odd examples of humanoids, though one was less than the other and was, thankfully, the one vertical and in full charge of his mind. The other, the horizontal one, seemed to have a moment where she disassociated from their current surroundings.

The internal memory banks assured the droid that this was not unheard of for those organics with access to "The Force" - but that it could be a sign of imminent violence using said power.

Still, no attack was perpetrated so the medic droid relaxed a little bit and drained the sedatives from its in-built needle. There was no immediate need to sedate the Force User for the safety of crew, guest, vessel and self. Seeing that it was being left in charge of the horizontal sentient, patient Merian, the medic turned its gaze to the vertical sentient, Doctor Rowan, and acknowledged the transfer of primary medical professional to itself.

"Charge of care acknowledged, doctor." the medic intoned, "Patient Merian - your care is this unit's prime directive."

Rowan would find that the Wildcard had a rather large stock of shuttles in the hanger bays. The base model of ship had been designed to house dozens of droid starfighters but, as a repurposed ship, the compliment was reduced to the ten shuttles - two of which had already flown. Around the hanger, Rowan would find that there were organic and droid pilots and engineers coming out of the woodworks now that their repairs to the rest of the ship had been secured as best they could - there would be no shortage of people willing to fly him to the station.

 

[Alhazred]

Team Professor

At the approach of Kaedon (@StephDLegend ), Alhazred looked up and nodded. "Some. We've established contact with someone, albeit can't understand their paticular dialogue."

The Professor began to speak. Alhazred nodded to her. "That's possible I suppose. "

The robot eye spoke again. Alhazred sighed. Communication was impossible at the moment. It seemed they were doomed to try to either break it via cutting with a blade or hacking the main-

Alhazred gasped loudly in surprise and held out a hand for someone to catch him. In his life, he had practiced being 'in tune' with the Force numerous times, to varying effect. Usually it was to help manipulate the force better or simply to ease his own worries, but this...this was different. For the briefest of moments, Alhazred was perfectly in sync with the Force's song. He didn't know how or why, but his own essence and the the essence of the Force were one for the briefest of moments, and Alhazred's mind trembled as the world of the Force opened up for the briefest of moments, communing with him to the fullest.

Then the moment ended. Gasping and breathing franticly, Alhazred looked around, his black eyes wide with terror. Then...

"STOP!" Alhazred called out, throwing both hands in an intricate position aimed at the Togruta's robot. The robot would hopefully freeze in place as Alhazred performed a form of Force Stasis on the small thing.

"DONT OPEN THAT DOOR!" Alhazred whispered as loudly as his underdeveloped vocal cords would allow him. He refused to move and loose the droid until he was understood by the droid's owner. "If we open that door with violence, people will die. As certain as the end of all things, I am certain we will be killed by the people in there. Professor, I don't think there is a fire, I think they said they would open fire."

However, Alhazred could not maintain the hold on the droid for long. He released the droid after his warning, and attempted to slow his breathing.

"I apologize for my abrupt command, but the Force...it spoke to me. Or rather....I communed with it..."

Alhazred shook his head. The only person here who would understand was his fellow Jedi knight. He could only hope the Togruta wasn't too upset with his method of halting the droid momentarily, and the professor wasn't too frightened by his action.

The Nu-Vaal looked back at the robotic eye and had an idea.

"This is going to sound ridiculous... but I have an idea...if people in there are scared, we need to show a gesture of goodwill... please, follow my lead"

Without listening to anyone else, Alhazred fell to his knees and placed his hands palm up on top of his head. A common action law enforcement issued to criminals to indicate surrender. Hopefully, with the others following his lead, the people inside would see their genuine efforts to be harmless and peaceful.

@The Good Doctor @Charndley @Interdictor @StephDLegend @Nefieslab @Logan @Laskt @Remileah

 

[Kaala]

Kaala reached out to the Nu-Vaal as he stumbled, but before she could reach him the Jedi was ordering Vaze to stop. The little droid bleeped in annoyance and twitched, trying to complete his task. Finally, Kaala sighed wearily. "Stand down, Vaze," she said. Vaze retracted his probe and was released by the Jedi. Then the tentacle-faced alien knelt down, hands behind his head. "This is a bad idea. We can just cut through the door. Or Vaze could have been allowed to open the door," She grumbled, but knelt, placed her two blasters in front of her, and put her hands behind her head. Quietly, she made a motion with her fist and her Whistling Birds armed, the tiny projectiles sliding into place with the blue bands on them illuminated. Kaala still had a way to defend herself, at least. "If anything so much as touches me, I'm going to fry them," she hissed, half to herself and half to the Jedi beside her. Her helmet was on, so the alien couldn't see her expression: part fear, part adrenaline, part planning.
@Narzen @Nefieslab

 

[Kyssiara Serket]

Kyssiara walked through the now-open door slowly, looking around the dimly lit room. A large column of computers stood in the center of the dusty room, with shuttered windows at the far end and a variety of other computer terminals around the perimeter. To the Pureblood's surprise, nothing immediately jumped out to attack her, or poison her, or jettison her out into the vacuum of space. A welcome surprise nonetheless, but a commotion behind her brought Kyssiara's attention away from her survey of the room.

"It wants to kill us!"

The acolyte hadn't spent much time with Iymril, but she'd never seen them appear panicked; their reaction only confirmed her immediate suspicion that the weird statue was BAD. What's worse, the statue began to move. A massive droid, bright red photoreceptor, massive hands big enough to crush her head? Alarm bells blared in Kyssiara's head, everything she knew about droids telling her this was an assassin droid or some other kind of battle droid.

Like the Doctor had mentioned earlier, better safe than sorry.

"Assassin droid, get down!!" she yelled, warning the group behind it of her incoming attack. The Pureblood's right hand raised towards the approaching droid, the sign for pyrokinesis already prepared. Kyssiara flicked her wrist 90 degrees, second and fourth fingers extended as a concentrated jet of flame burst forth from her hand aimed towards what she assumed was the droid's face. She was not letting that thing get anywhere near her.

@Nefieslab @Apollyon @Akheron @AutoFox @LouJoVi @GABA

 

[Caerllion of Cyfnos]

Team Doctor

Caerllion watched while Kyssiara opened the door. The Annfyn only left his place several steps away from it when he saw the Pureblood girl walk through the doorway without being gunned down or incinerated by a flamethrower. When she was a good distance inside the other corridor, he followed her there.

The Annfyn looked at Iymril's sudden panic with the binary language. Wondering if they had really understood that, or was only afraid of his lack of understanding. Anyway, Caerllion would be careful.

And he was right, because the massive droid that suddenly started to move seemed to be very dangerous. Even the Acolyte rushed away and attacked it, right on time for it to gesture at a console nearby. Interesting.

While Kyssiara did her role of dispensable Acolyte and attracted the attention of the possible dangerous droid to herself, Caerllion carefully approached the console. He noticed that the characters on the keyboard were similar to the Sith language. This followed the pattern of the letters from the previous room.

He noticed the lack of dust in certain keys, giving the impression that they were used previously and Caerllion was sure that he could recognize it. A light illuminated his mind and the Annfyn remembered that an instructor in the Sith Academy used Pasuo Redis as its password and they matched the letters that had been used in the console, besides the number 8.

“I think that I discovered the code for the door.” he said, while typing it. His attention still remained on the strange droid. Caerllion would have preferred to have the Acolyte doing it, but she had decided to play with the piece of metal. Once he pressed enter, the Annfyn rushed away from it.

@Nefieslab @Apollyon @Akheron @René @AutoFox

 

[Trodai Narat-iv-Adas]

Team Doctor

Trodai observed still cautious about the statues, until he felt something bump into his leg. Looking briefly about to set we had it could be, he looked down for see the unexpected sight of a mouse looking species he couldn't recognise. How is that even a species and not a household pest? he questioned himself. As she looked fearful up at him, he looked down at her with a piercing glare and saying nothing initially. As if to say watch where your walking.

He waited for what happened next, allowing his apprentice Kyssiria to advance.

Meanwhile he was shocked to find the mouse like creature spoke basic and even more. He felt something familiar about her, something that connected them. And then he realised as he dug a little deeper into the Force, she had the gift too. Or curse depending how one viewed it. And this surprised him, that a creature so small could have the potential. It was curious indeed and yet he recalled old tales of the loathsome Jedi. Yoda and others. Size really didn't matter it seemed where the Force was concerned. He filed this away for later and decided to pay closer attention to the small being from now.

When she mentioned it being a droid, Trodai sighed. He figured, had to be droids with his luck lately. Although apparently this particular droid was conducting a inquiry, which made him a little less cautious at least initially as it seemed benign. He observed, allowing the 'mouse' to attempt a dialogue with it. Binary was beyond him.

He left her too it as he cautiously followed after his apprentice.

As he entered he noted the large room. With it's massive central column that doubled as a bank for an array of computers. Curious as to what each contained. He observed as one of the screens was covered in a film of dust with another being an exception. Someone had been here recently that much was increasingly more obvious. And so he was extra cautious. Just in case they were not useful but a threat.

Trodai took note of the circular nature of the room, with more computers. He recognised most of it...It was familiar almost. Like a large ship, if which he had seen a few and worked upon. He observed that beyond the central pillar was a pair of doors, heavy duty. It would be a strain for any to us the Force to get through those or attempt to cut through with a lightsaber. Finally as he moved about, he was the shutters. Likely blocking the view outside he imagined.

Across the floor he saw them. Footprints. The very same footprints as before but leading to the door on the right. It became obvious that was probably the right way to go. Although he was distracted by the yelling of the Sephi. Lymril. They started shouting something about the droid trying to kill them and frantically waving they're arms about. It was a most unusual sight, and inwardly he chuckled at the absurdity of it.

They didn't seem the type to scare easily, and that a simple droid like that could do it was somewhat amusing.

At least it was until his apprentice decided to go along with them and try to burn it. At first Trodai was also convinced after she asserted it may be an assassin droid, at least momentarily not knowing every fact since he had been investigating. And so he struck at it with Telekinesis to try and remove the head. After the Instance 13 incident of which he had been there and witnessed it, he didn't trust droids much at all. And so aired on the side of caution in its destruction. Better safe than sorry later. As they had earlier agreed with Doctor Lile, if in doubt destroy what they found.

It was only the he turned to see Caerllion speak, stopping. And then he went to join his former master and ally. Nodding with approval, he waited by the door, not entering just yet. Again he would nominate his apprentice for the task, keeping his word about additionally punishing her by making her go first through every door to make sure the way was clear.

"Stop messing about with the droid. It's destroyed more or less" he said "Come here apprentice, through here. Ensure the way is clear."

@Nefieslab @AutoFox @René @Apollyon @LouJoVi

 

[Rowan Allaird]

Team Doctor

Rowan boarded a shuttle and asked to rejoin the same team he started with. He made sure to collect a lot of instant sedatives and other medical devices to quickly incapacitate people if needed..

OOC: Sorry not much to add outside of that lmao. Nef, you can outline at which juncture he stumbles into the group.

@Nefieslab

 

[Nye]

And Nye found something interesting as he continued his search. He looked at the odd, robust weapon and then realized what it is soon after. "A beam tube?" he inspected the handgun. "They still make these?" Nye was pretty savvy on firearms. Afterall the mega-corporation he works for specializes in weapons. Beam tubes were early energy weapons. Their invention goes way back, long before the modern blaster. Beam tubes were one of the main recognizable aspects of the times of Xim the Despot's Empire. Is this where the place comes from? Seems likely based on what he's found so far.

As for the object in his hand right now, it seems very well-made and designed he would have to admit.

Nearby, the others near him (@Logan @StephDLegend @Remileah) others remarked they might have heard something, maybe whimpering of a child. The force-users were content to investigate it.

Focusing on himself and what is in front of him. He would pocket the beam-tube pistol and then attempt to get into the lock-box in his search for more potentially valuable items clues.

Regardless of if he's successful or not, he would shortly after notice there is commotion back the door. Nye was still at a distance in the deserted market stalls though but he could see one of the Jedi and the pilot seemingly surrender while the professor looks like he's attempting to make sense of what's going on. Have they made contact with someone?

Nye would take cover behind a market stall and crouch down as he would observe what is happening near the door from afar.

@Nefieslab @Narzen @Interdictor

 

[Rina Oziaf]

TEAM DOCTOR

Rina was looking up in amazement at the ancient, dusty arrays of cathode flasks that composed the display system of the massive computer. She tried to remember where she had ever seen equipment so primitive; sure, there were terminals that used such equipment to this day, but holography was the preferred technology for these sorts of large scale-

One of the Sith attacked the droid.

"Kriff! Wait! Stop!!"

As it presumably fell, Rina ran toward the toppling giant, cursing to herself. The machine was really their only source of information, and if it had been destroyed, they would be going into the bowels of the station blind. Besides that, it was a magnificent piece of machinery; Rina had wanted to learn everything she could about its construction, who had built it...

She rounded on the two Sith, Master and Apprentice (@Akheron, @René) she thought. For a moment, anger triumphed over good sense, the wrath of a wronged technician bubbling to the surface.

"Could you not choose violence, for five minutes!! That thing was communicating! It was giving us information! We-..."

Rina took in a deep breath, let it out, then seemed to wilt as she realized just who she was ranting at.

"...w-we need a guide in here, i-if we can find one."

@Nefieslab

 

[Theia Durand]

Team Doctor

Theia's eyes grew wide as she watched the droid step down to guide the group inside. Her mind begun to quickly filter through her droid knowledge and she couldn't recall ever seeing a design like this one. The droidspeak seemed off...definitely binary, but she was relieved that Rina had her datapad to translate what it was saying. She pulled on her own senses to prepare for any surprises from behind the door. Though the real surprise, and yet not really a surprise was the hot n' stupid bigrade (@Apollyon @Akheron @René). Was this like a flex for them? The young red sith had yelled something about an assassin droid, and thinking there was one behind the door, Theia rested her hand on her vibroblade, but was greatly displeased to see the two red sith attack the droid that was helping them into the room.

And while Rina (@AutoFox) reprimanded them, Theia turned her attention to the second droid "statue", cautious as to if it were functioning just in case it would decide they were now all hostiles. Their mystery ship owner clearly made their way into this room, footsteps stopping at the pillar before going to the door on the right side of the room. They somehow were able to get in, use the computer and then leave without droid assistance, as she glanced to the floor, trying to find evidence of their now fried droid had made its way inside earlier also. As Caer (@LouJoVi) fiddled with the computer terminal, Theia inhaled deeply, a clearing breath to focus her mind from the questions that continued to form and very the very little answers that came with them. She would need to focus on the present and what they had if they were going to achieve their objective.

"There was no guarantee that droid would be our guide," She disliked feeling as though she were giving the sith a free pass, but they couldn't change what was happening now, "However, we have a guide," she said to Rina, and glancing to the Doctor (@Nefieslab) pointing to the trailing footprints. It was too much of a coincidence with this mystery person being present shortly before themselves, "And if we need to, we will cut our own doors to get past any barriers." she said implying they could use their lightsabers instead of trying to figure out lock codes.

 

[Cipher Four]

Team Professor

---

___Four's ears flicked as Azathoth (@Logan) posed her question. She cast a cursory glance over her shoulder, watching Nye delve deeper into the market to pursue knowledge, wealth, or whatever he was after. Her attention turned forward again.

___"There's a fine line between fear and caution," Four answered the Sith. "I'm breaking off, kid. Don't do anything to get yourself hurt," she informed Nye (@The Good Doctor) as she stepped forward to approach Azathoth in the approximate direction from which the noise originated—at least, where she thought it originated. Four lowered her weapon for the first time since leaving the ship, looking at the Sith. This would be the first time she worked with a Sith following the Empire disavowing and removing them.

___"If you have any tricks up your sleeve, go for it," Four stated. "After listening to it a little closer, I can tell it is a child. I'd rather not leave them to fend for themselves since we have no idea what happened here." She looked the woman over and turned her attention ahead again, once more raising her rifle to keep it at the ready. "Do you want to take point, or should I? I don't know if this trick of yours will leave you incapable of fighting, should we encounter anything hostile."

@Nefieslab

 

[Iymril]

​

Fear and panic weren’t things that Iymril was accustomed to feeling. However, what they’d said in a moment of surprise had caused a domino effect. They’d been caught off guard and that led to Kyssiara leaping onto the offensive to prove herself. Trodai, her ever present Master was quick to back her up in the destruction of the “assassin droid”.

As their heart rate slowed, and fear left them, Iymril paused to regard what was clearly not an assassin droid. Not that they would tell anyone that, especially with the Acolyte and her Master bearing the majority of the blame. They’d simply allow them to be treated with scorn as they smoothed the front of their dress shirt and cleared their throat.

Iymril wouldn’t spare Kyssiara or Trodai a glance before moving off to a data terminal to try and pull any information from it. Be it a map, station logs, anything that could be useful. Because the small rat creature (@AutoFox) was right, they needed something to guide them beyond intuition.

They had to recover from that embarrassment after all.

@Nefieslab @René @Akheron

 

[Azathoth]

Aza chuckled at Four’s line about fear and caution, finding the reply humorous in a “who are you trying to convince, me or you” kind of way. She kept her more caustic views to herself for now though, still doing her best to seem more like a teammate and less like an adversary.

Letting the force out like a fisherman’s net, Aza tried to find anything that resembled useful information. Of course, the force was no homing beacon, and as such she couldn’t come up with anything better than what Ears had come up with.

Who or whatever it is, I can feel fear washing off of them. Fear and.. Something else. Curiosity maybe, but I am uncertain.

Truth be told, it was hard for Aza to keep the glint out of her eye when she mentioned the fear. It was palpable to her and it made her eyes shine, like when the highnoon sun sparkled on desert mica.

They are close, though. Maybe if you swished your tail they’d think you were some kind of critter and would come out to pet you. Kids love critters.

Aza would continue in the direction she thought was the most prudent, still letting the force echo from her on the off chance it could provide more information on finding the child, or whatever it happened to be that had piqued their interest here.

She heard the faint squawking of the squid faced Jedi but paid it no attention. It might be better for her in the long run if the people at the door ended up on the wrong side of a firing squad anyway.

@Remileah @Nefieslab

 

[The Gatekeeper]

Team Professor

@The Good Doctor @Charndley @Interdictor @StephDLegend @Narzen @Logan @Laskt @Remileah​

"Oh my... open fire... well that does fit the gist of what I was able to understand. That would be troublesome!"

The Professor did not have a degree in understatement but there were probably more than a few people in his current group who thought that it ought to at this point. His ears flattened to his head and he eyed the door warily. There were only so many ways to avoid violence and he wanted to make sure that he was at least trying to find one of those ways that could work for them.

His knowledge of the Force was in the more factual sense but he had learned a long time ago that it was best to believe in the practitioners of the Jedi arts. They tended to be truthful and very respectful of the warnings of the Force - the Sith tended to react with more force.

He was grateful that the Sith hadn't been the ones to find this hanger... he didn't imagine they'd have taken things as well as the Jedi have, so far.

Still, he wasn't sure he expected one of the Jedi Knights to literally drop to his knees and suggest that they all surrender. That... was a new one on him.

When Kaala seemed to be happy to go along with it as well, the Professor blinked a few times before his ears flattened to his head before placing his hands on his head as well - he didn't kneel down, though, as his stature was diminutive enough that he was still around the same height as the two kneeling sentients.

Nye would find that the beam tube appeared to have been used fairly recently but the power levels were holding steady. With his knowledge of technology, he would know how to use it and that it would be equivalent to a light blaster pistol if compared to a modern weapon 1 to 1. The lock box had a fairly simple lock, without any real electronics, which meant the young agent was able to force the physical lock to gain access.

Within were a few stacks of the same currency that he had found before, along with a piece of paper. As he pulled it free, Nye would discover that it appeared to be a still image captured and printed on the paper. It was clearly a family picture, with a mother, father and a child smiling forwards. What was strange, however, was that the mother was very clearly a human and the father was a red-skinned race with small tendrils of skin on his chin - one of the rare Sith Purebloods that ran around with the Sith Order in the home Galaxy. Their daughter, however, appeared to have mostly taken after her mother, with only a slight redness to her skin to indicate that she was not fully human.

As Nye was discovering this keepsake, Four and Azathoth were continuing their search for the source of the noise. With a stroke of good fortune, the child they were seeking seemed to be distracted by the voices coming from the door so was less thorough in hiding herself than she had been before. Azathoth would feel in the Force that the fear seemed to dim in the light of Hope and child-like love and affection.

The Sith and the Imperial would be able to catch sight of the child, a light red skinned girl of about eight, looking over at the door, caught completely unaware of them as she stared at the door as though her life depended on it.

Over at the door itself, there was silence from the other side as the camera took in the sight of members of the group showing that they were not a threat - though it didn't seem to notice how Nye focused more on taking good cover.

After a long, tense, moment the door began to open.

As predicted by Alhazred, the doorway was crowned by people and the business-ends of weapons. Easily two dozen people were crammed into a large, circular, room with a central pillar of machinery and computer consoles behind them. The people themselves were a mixture of species and ages, but they all seemed to be dressed in finely crafted clothing with eye-catching colours made from some of the collected samples of materials around the marketplace.

Half a dozen of the people in the front were armed with what appeared to be blasters, physically attached to power packs on their belts. One of them, an elderly Zabrak woman, seemed to be in charge - taking stock of them people in front of the door, lowering the weapon barrel slightly to speak.

"Cad a bhfuil tú?"

The Professor took a moment to think about what fragments of the local dialect he remembered from the Tion Cluster before whispering to his allies.

"I think... she asked who we are?" The Professor offered a small grin, "Well at least the locals are more curious than, well, shoot-y?"

For now at least.

Team Doctor

@René @Apollyon @Akheron @LouJoVi @AutoFox @Sreeya​

The combination of Iymril's surprise and the sheer size of the droid was more than Kyssiara seemed to be prepared for. She was prepared for pitfalls, explosions and maybe even Force-traps but not for the sudden appearance of a large maintenance droid speaking binary in bursts. The droid turned to regard the pureblood woman as she shouted at it, not really showing understanding but acknowledging that it was being addressed.

The address was Fire.

This was then seconded with a blast of telekinesis.

Like the ringing of a gong, the heated metal deformed under the pressure of the telekinesis from the Sith Champion and Acolyte working in tandem. The droid rocked on its heels, like a boxer hit hard enough to be punch-drunk on his feet. There was a second, a long beat of silence, where the droid seemed to just stand there as if impervious to the damage done to it.

Then, with a sound akin to sheering metal, the droid began to fall. Unresponsive, the large maintenance droid collapsed onto its back on the ground, large rents in its upper machinery sparking and glowing from the heat.

It was to this sight, along with Rina's angered rant at the Sith and Theia's mediating touch, that Rowan rejoined the group, walking away from the newly landed shuttle to approach the group from behind as they argued over the neccessity of the destruction of the droid in question. The Doctor rubbed at the bridge of his nose, his glasses pushed up to his forehead as he tried to fight off the headache that was forming. Catching sight of the returned Rowan, the Doctor sighed.

"I am glad to see you, Doctor. You are just in time to see if we are able to get through this room without the supposed aide of a local droid." he explained the situation concisely, "It appears to have spooked some of our number..."

The Doctor's blaster pistol was, still, very definately pointed directly at the downed droid, letting everyone know that Iymril was not the only one who had been spooked by the droid. Ahead, Caerllion was able to enter the password as he was able to puzzle out, the computer screen lighting up as it was fully engaged for the first time... in not so long actually.

As he booked up the system, power seemed to come alive in the room and the lockdown began to automatically lift itself - the door that Trodai and Kyssiara waited in front of began to slowly open. It opened to reveal a curved staircase leading down to another door only one floor below them.

Along the far wall, the security shuttered opened far quicker, all-but shooting upward into their houseing again and revealing that the room they were currently in was a control room of sorts. Through the reinforced glass, looking down into the room below, the group would be able to see that which the control room was built to observe; a generator.

The generator was a large structure in the centre of the room one floor below, a mass of different pieces of technology long since considered obsolete and, yet, still working. But it wasn't quite working at all, as the main power source seemed to be a large, silver, crystal the size of a young Sith Pureblood male's head.

It was very easy to compare the crystal to the size of a male Sith Pureblood's head because there was one right there, holding onto the outside of the generator with one hand while the other pulled the crystal free from its casing. Dressed in light brown leathers, the Pureblood looked up at them through the viewing port, from under the brim of a wide rimmed hat of the same kind of leather.

Giving them a cheeky grin, and a tip of his hat, the Pureblood dropped down from the generator and made a break for it - rushing out the other end of the room, down a long corridor built in a similar fashion to the power generator used by the palace of Theed on Naboo. Gates of vibrant red energy were not, however, present.

What was present, however, was the large droid that was emerging from a sliding portion of the wall opposite the door Trodai and Kyssiara would be able to see at the bottom of the stairs. It was similar in design to the maintenance droid but this one was clearly built for security in mind - its entire left arm had been replaced with a series of beam tubes. As the droid began to activate, the Pureblood was sprinting away from the scene of the crime.

The Doctor pressed himself up against the glass to get a good look, cursing as he did so.

"He's taken the power supply - we need this generator running to get the station powered enough to help us leave this place. After him!"

How hard could it be to catch one plucky fedora-wearing Pureblood running away from an activated booby trap?