Ask Picking up Shards

[Alexander Xerxes]

They had travelled far North, beyond the borders of the New Republic that Alexander called home, through the slowly dissolving Free World Alliance and past the growing Sith Empire that he owed some kind of allegiance too. But with every passing day that allegiance shrank, soon it would be as fake as the mask he wore today.

He had met Vex or Nahri however she liked to call herself twice before, he met both sides with both of his own. But the woman was none the wiser, at least at the moment that the Sith who called himself XII was also the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. Alexander needed to keep this secret until either he fully trusted the woman, or had bent her so far around his finger that she would never betray him. So he wore a full suit of Sith Armour his head completely encased, his voice modulated so the women could not identify the two men as the same.

He had worn the armour since he picked her up near the edge of Sith Space, XII having contacted her about a potential mission he had in the far reaches of the galaxy. Vex seemed like a competent individual and worse comes to worse he had some dirt on the wannabe CEO that could help keep her under his thumb if things went awry on the mission. Plus his apprentice was away on his own mission and this was clearly a two person job. The Upsillion Shuttle slid out of Hyperspace to show the visage of their destination ahead. “We have arrived at Birgis.” He called back through the cabin. “You never said, how was your meeting with Senator Xerxes.”


@Mockingjay

 

[Vex]

Dressed in full armor herself, helmet encasing the face of Nahri Nalju, Vex had sat in abject silence on the flight to Birgis. She didn't do small talk. Especially with equally armored men whose names she did not know. He didn't go by a name. He went by a number—Twelve. She knew that wasn't his true identity. Even the Empress wasn't cruel enough to brand a man by a number. He had chosen it for himself, to hide. And so she had tried to keep her distance.

Apparently, that didn't work. "I never said because I don't kiss and tell," Vex replied to his question with all the slipperiness of a garden serpent. "You're going to have to try a bit harder if you want to get the details of our secret meeting out of me." She wondered if he could hear the faint grin pulling up the side of her mouth creeping into her voice. "I know you're just dying for the details."

The truth was, she wasn't planning on talking no matter what she did. Vex knew how this game was played. Sith were always vying for power, even when it appeared they were making casual talk. Information was the greatest power of all. It allowed for black mail. It allowed for new avenues of attack. She would not open herself so easily to such weaknesses. Besides, the Senator would only remain her tentative ally if she could prove discreet. Which meant not vomiting up every detail of their meeting to complete strangers. Though, admittedly, XII was not a complete stranger. They had run into each other once or twice during their training. But she wouldn't exactly call them friends.

"You never told me why we were going to Birgis," she continued. Now that they were in the planet's atmosphere, she could hear the rain lashing the outer hull of XII's ship. Evidently, they had descended into a storm. "Must be something important if you want to drag us all the way out to the ends of the Tingel Arm." @Braden

 

[Alexander Xerxes]

The ship rocked to one side as the storm lashed down on the outer hull, the great wings of the Shuttle acting like sails in the wind. Alexander gripped the controls tighter as he tried to smoothly glide the ship to the surface. “Well if you won’t tell, I could always get the information out of him myself. I little shock therapy works wonders.” He replied with a slightly sinister tone evident through the modulator. “No, No I did not.”

He didn’t say anything else as they descended through the atmosphere without a word, only the weather battering against the ship breaking the silence. As the crested a mountain Alexander could just about make out the lights of a village up ahead, neselsted within a valley. A quick scan of the area showed no suitable spots to land the ship nearby so they would have to weather some of this storm on their feet.

The ship slowly settled into the mud near the top of the valley, the light from their thrusters would have easily given away their position to any in the village. “I hope you don’t mind getting wet.” Alexander said as he opened the door, the sound of the rain elevating to near deafening heights.

@Mockingjay

 

[Vex]

Vex choked back a light chuckle. "I would very much enjoy seeing how you intend to torture the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic," she mused. Though, she had to confess it would be a shame to see such a handsome face tortured by lightning. "Besides, it would be a waste of your effort. The meeting was cordial and professional. Nothing worth torturing a man for information over." She supposed he might have been interested about the assassination attempt on her life, but what information was that to a fellow Champion?

She stalked past him and onto the rainy landing platform. Her armor kept the moisture off her skin. She could feel its hammering, but none of the wetness or cold that came with it. The planet itself wasn't much to speak of and she again found herself confused as to why they were there. As far as she could tell, Birgis had no connection to the Sith Order. None to any of their enemies either. What was he after that could drag them out so far?

She didn't get the sense he was going to tell her. A petty reaction to her refusal to share the meeting details with him, to be sure. Well, fine. She was smart enough to puzzle it out on her own. She could decide what to do with the information then.

"I don't suppose you brought us here to appraise a new piece of real estate," she said, relying now on the comms in their helmets to speak over the deafening rain. "Though the planet seems gloomy enough for our kind." Up ahead, light glimmered from a village standing out against the pervasive dark. "But I must say, that village doesn't look much your type. That is our destination, yes?" @Braden

 

[Alexander Xerxes]

Vex was the first to step off the shuttle, no blaster bolt landed on the side of her head, so it didn’t appear that they had been tracked up to the top of the mountain. With that Alexander followed the women out into the rain, he could feel the thick droplets beat down on him through the cloth armour. It was dark, almost evening from the local time displayed on the inside of his helmet and the thick black rain clouds blocked most of the remaining daylight. The shuttle's landing lights gave them about thirty metres of light before the trees soaked it all up.

“No, though if we see something worthwhile we could perhaps fill out an enquiry form?” He replied, before looking down on the village in the valley. “Yes, we are looking for someone, or at least information on someone.” He wasn’t sure if anyone in the village would have anything on his target, if the information he already had was correct she would have passed through here some sixty years ago. But the Shard, would have left traces, something that powerful couldn’t move through civilization without touching something.

“I doubt she still lives here, but it is the only lead we currently have.” With that Alexander began walking, past the lights of the shuttle and into the darkness of the trees.

@Mockingjay

 

[Vex]

Vex took two steps in the direction of the village before coming to a dead stop. It wasn't the rain of the winds that halted her, but the rank stench in the Force. She would never have thought such a vile feeling would find its way to her on a virtually unknown planet this far towards the galactic disc, but there it was, like a fog obscuring her from sensing anything in that village. She had never felt such darkness. Even the Empress didn't leave her feeling so cold.

She considered asking again what they were after, but decided against it. There would be enough clues in that village with such a sense of evil emanating from it. Much as he would like to try, XII was not able to hide things from plain sight. Eventually, she would discover something. But that didn't mean she was going in there without some sort of assurance from him. "One thing before we go in," she said, glancing back at him from over her shoulder. "Whatever secrets we are here to uncover, I want a part in too. I'll help you get whatever it is you've brought me here for, but any knowledge we acquire is both of ours."

She averted her gaze back to the village. Figures stalked the mist and rain. There were people actually living a place so heavy with the dark side? There was no way they were not mutated. Even a Sith would buckle under the weight of all that shadow if exposed to it for long enough. Her hand shot down to the hilt of her lightsaber, but she didn't draw it just yet. So much darkness was likely to invite enemies. She didn't want to be caught unawares. Not around a man who was clearly sizing her up as much as she was him.

"Do we have an accord?" @Braden

 

[Alexander Xerxes]

He felt Vex stop behind him, he could guess why the Dark Side permeated everything around them. Only the strongholds of the Sith could compare to what was flowing from the village ahead of them. Alexander tightened the wards and defences around his mind, having spent so much time away from the Darkness in the Republic he could feel its pull more acutely than before. He would need to watch himself, using too much of The Force here could send him down a spiral that he would not be able to pull himself out of.

Alexander stopped and turned to the armoured woman as she spoke. “I doubt we will find much, you can feel that darkness as much as I can. Beyond what I seek, there is only pain, anguish and death here.” His own eyes followed hers towards the village, a small part of him was afraid what they would find here, but the power he needed to defend himself and The Republic could only be found at the end of this dirt trail.

“We have an Accord Vex.” With that he turned back towards the village, it was still a good few hundred metres before they would reach the first house. Only The Force knew what they would find in there.

@Mockingjay

 

[Vex]

Vex took careful steps into the village. She closed her eyes as she walked and opened her mind to the Shadow. Everything around her felt sick. As if this whole place had been touched by a curse long ago and never quite shook the disease. "What happened here?" she all but whispered to XII.

But before he could give her an answer, hands seized her and tried to pull her towards a worn down shack. She responded instinctively, throwing up her hands and capturing her assailant in a powerful Force grip that lifted him off the ground and held him in stasis. She stared at the old man, who appeared to be literally melting, with wild eyes beneath her mask. But calmed when she saw he couldn't be a threat to her. He was more a threat to himself than anything else.

"Whatever afflicts this man," Vex observed, "was not natural." She thought back to her recent mission with Varyn on Belsavis. The way the vault Guardian had ripped through their minds. The scars it had left on hers... "Something very dark did this to them." @Braden

 

[Alexander Xerxes]

The forest around them was silent, no birds, no insects, nothing. The tree’s themselves were black with fungus and mould, Alexander stood on a fallen log, his foot sliding through the tree trunk like water. This was a land of death, how had the people here survived? He heard Vex whisper something but before he could ask her to repeat herself he saw movement behind her. His hand quickly moved towards the lightsaber at his waist, but something slowed him. The nature of the creature behind Vex was not menacing or evil, it was pathetic, a husk.

Without much effort Vex seemed to pull herself free from the ‘man’, Alexander moved up beside her, his eyes resting on the decaying individual. His skin seemed detached from all muscle and bone hanging limp from his frame, his sickly yellow eyes seemed mad with hunger.

A bell sounded off to his right, the husk of a man startled and fled into the darkness at the noise. Alexander quickly turned to look at the source, from the middle of the village came a pair of individuals, one holding a bell continuously ringing it. The other held a blaster, pointed in the direction of the fleeing husk. Alexander flicked his cloak over his lightsaber as the pair approached. The man with the bell reached them first. “Greetings travellers, what brings you to our village?”

@Mockingjay

 

[Vex]

Vex let the man in her psychic grip drop pathetically to the earth below her and regarded the villagers. "Ask him." She nodded a helmeted head in XII's direction. "He's the one who brought us here."

She kept her gaze trained on the man she had just released. He did not attack her again, merely cowered on the ground beneath her. But she did not believe his cowardice. She saw the hunger in his eyes. The yellow glint told her that if she let her guard down for even an instant, he would be on her again. If he tried, she would kill him with little mercy, villagers be damned.

"Maybe," she continued, suddenly thinking of something, "you could tell us what afflicts this cretin in the meantime. Or is it village hospitality to have visitors jumped from behind by savage brutes?"

She realized she was being rude. She did not care. XII had said nothing about disguising her Sith nature. And she had grown rather tired of having to be diplomatic and restrained as Nahri. Now that she could be herself, she wasn't going to put as many shackles on her behavior unless XII indicated it would do their mission any good. Which she doubted. Several of the villagers who had come out had similar yellow eyes.

The rot had indeed spread far. @Braden

 

[Alexander Xerxes]

The man with the bell looked at Vex with a look of annoyance and anger. Alexander couldn’t fault the man, Vex was rather harsh in her language, it also did not help that both of them wore dark suits with full helmets, hiding their features, that alone was more than enough to be on edge. “He has the sickness.” “Sickness?” The man with a bell turned to Alexander and continued. “Yes, most on Birgis have it in some form. Though it seems to affect some more than others, Paulus there deteriorated after his wife died. Married thirty years then one day a ‘widowmaker’ caught her in the forest.”

Alexander turned slightly towards the dark and damp woods, he wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few of the people here were killed by falling trees, considering he had almost cut one in half with just a footprint. “We are for information. About a woman who travelled through here a long time ago?” Alexander asked, the pair of men looked at eachother, they both had concerned looks on their faces. But after a moment they nodded. “Come inside.” The man said, gesturing to a large building towards the centre of the village, perhaps the town hall or religious building.

Alexander nodded and allowed the pair to lead the way. As he stepped away from the entrance to the village something moved in the forest behind.

@Mockingjay

 

[Vex]

Vex stepped tenuously into what could only be described as a church of some kind, though its appearance gave her the impression of a cult's den more than anything else. Vines crept up the facades, and there were parts of the building that were beginning to collapse under decay. Vex kept her guard up, allowing XII to lead the way. It was his mission, but she wasn't about to let him get jumped by any surprises.

Once inside, it was the altar that caught her attention. Or, rather, the podium above it. The glass top was held up by a pair of what looked to be skeletal hands and arms carved out of obsidian. She had never seen something like it outside of Sith or Nightsister cults, which made her wonder exactly what was going on on this planet. "Make yourselves at home," the man leading them said. "I have a feeling we have much to discuss."

"We agree on that," Vex replied. "You can start by telling us what this place is." But even before he could answer, she was already stretching into the Force to see for herself. "Then you can tell us about the woman my partner over here wants to know about." @Braden

 

[Alexander Xerxes]

The decor of the building signalled a cult, if both he and Vex were not trained Sith he would be worried that he was about to be torn asunder and offered to some fake God for these people. Stepping through the door the thick odour of damp rot filled his nostrils, a strong breeze could blow this whole building down. But for some reason, something kept it from falling and crushing them all. The door closed behind Vex and it was just the four of them in the middle of the room. Alexander could feel the presence of others hidden in the dark of the room, their aura’s conveyed fear and concern, rather than anger or rage. Probably more townsfolk hiding from whatever was out there.

Alexander watched as the bell ringer placed the copper instrument on a table near the middle of the room before turning to face the pair. “This woman you speak of. We know of her. What do you wish to know?” It seemed like this was going to be like getting blood out of a stone, Alexander gave Vex a look to warn her not to jump to normal Sith means. He sensed that there was more than just stubbornness giving the bell ringer pause.

“This was the last recorded location of her, we want to know what she was doing here. And if she ever left?”

@Mockingjay

 

[Vex]

I think I can answer both of your questions, the bell-ringer said. Though much of what I have to say is conjecture, I'll warn you.

Vex rolled her eyes beneath her helmet. She couldn't explain why she was suddenly so agitated. Something about this place was off. And it wasn't just a feeling she had. It was under her skin. She could feel it worming its way through her. XII had made it quite clear that Sith methods were not to be used, but she was on the brink of disobeying him when the old man began to tell his story.

We know not what that woman wanted, he confessed. The villagers believed her a witch. And one can hardly blame them considering the plague she brought on us all. He gestured at the room around him. She set herself up here. Never spoke a word, but the pull this place had when she lived here... you can't imagine it. But not all the villagers fell under her spell.

Vex perked up. The mention of the word 'spell' had given her an idea. Her eyes faintly glowed violet as she met the man's gaze. Leafing through his memories was easy. She wondered if he even was aware of her in his head. As he kept telling his story without pause.

They ones who could resist her, he said. They came in here and tied her up. Took her out into the woods when winter fell. Never saw her again.

"That's not true," Vex blurted out. She had seen the lie coming in his memories. "You took something from her when you carted her out into those woods outside of town." The Sith Champion cocked her head. "She came back for it."

The bell-ringer suddenly became pale. How did you...?

"You refused to tell her where it was," Vex continued, cutting him off. "So she left. Then the children began to vanish." She had wondered why they had seen none earlier. Now, she looked to XII. "She was wearing what they took from her. The shard of some sort of... crown. Does that mean anything to you?" @Braden

 

[Alexander Xerxes]

Alexander stood still, arms crossed as the old man told his story. It was vague with little actual information, but he expected as much, it was sixty years ago and none of the villagers he had seen were older than fifty. A small swell in The Force signalled something was happening, though the dark nature of this village made his ability to sense its direction and intent difficult, he glanced over at Vex but couldn’t see anything that signalled she was using the Dark Side.

But it seemed she was, Vex had done something to see into the man’s mind. A little frustration crossed his mind, he had asked her to do nothing, but then again her little foray into his mind had gotten them the information they needed. “Yes, the term ‘Shard’ came up a lot in the research I had on this woman. It comes from a far off Ocean World though which one we don't know.” Uncrossing his arms he took a few steps towards the Bell Ringer.

“What happened to the Shard?” He asked. The bell ringer seemed to squirm under his gaze, not wanting to speak of it. Was it fear that kept his mouth shut? “I don’t, I don’t know. It was a long time ago.” He finally blurted out. “The elders hid it from her, but they are all dead.” Great, Alexander thought, the only leads they had were hearsay and myth. “And what of the woman?” He asked with frustration clear in his voice. “She left, years ago.” “But the sickness is still here?” The bell ringer nodded.

@Mockingjay

 

[Vex]

"Then she left something behind," Vex stated plainly. Her gaze cut across to the man next to her. "Sith magic leaves a deep and lasting stain in the places where it has touched. Even if the shard is no longer here, there may be some clue of where it went."

Sith? the old man said. There are no Sith here. The Empire... its borders are so far away.

Vex ignored him, keeping her gaze and attention trained on XII. "We should search the woods," she continued. "She might have left behind something. A dilapidated hut, a cave, some place she might have lived. There are... things," She avoided saying 'rituals' since XII was so intent on keeping their identities secret, "that I can do to ascertain where she's gone—or if she left her treasure behind somewhere."

No! the old man said loudly. You musn't go there! A fate worse than this plague exists for those who go out into those woods. You'd be signing your own death warrants.

Once again, Vex ignored him. The agitation she had felt earlier was growing. Her skin was practically crawling. She needed out of here, anywhere. Something in those woods was calling to her and the longer they sat here debating superstitions with this old man, the more insistent it became. Still, she controlled herself when she said. "Your call." @Braden