The Body Parts

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

In the Depths of Taris' Sewers...​

The small piece of debris wasn't just anything; it had been a microchip, with recordings of the user's whereabouts. Fancy tech, almost too fancy for the bodies left aboveground. Skuld Stark loathed being underground; having spent most of her time above it, or amongst the stars, kept her very wary of anything that stirred beneath the earth.

She was pragmatic, but stories of her youth about unspeakable, unnamed things that rose from deep underground kept popping to mind. She had checked over her equipment all over once more before turning to her younger companion, her features unseen, but the voice conveying a strict tone of sternness. This was where the signal was last routed... before it was shorted. It only made sense they follow the trail, so to speak, but where to go from there was a different story.

The trail of blood didn't help the mood either. Old blood mingled with the stench rising from the greenish miasma below.

"Stay close, and keep your eyes sharp," she spoke calmly, blaster rifle up as they stepped towards the maw of the open sewer access line.

Who knew what lurked in these dark, dank tunnels. She wasn't in a mood to kriff about, it was time for business, and to settle scores with this mysterious Body Dealer. Then get the kark outta dodge.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tomic Domin]

Tomic was literally in the shite.

There were so few things that would make such a journey even remotely worth it and yet here he was! What the hell kind of karked up investigation led to a trip through the sewers? What was this, a video game? There didn't always need to be a god damn sewer level!

And to make it worse he was doing this investigation with the old Deucalalala lady. Sure, Skuld wasn't the worst but there came a time when bad things happened only around one person that you accepted those people were just bad luck charms.

The old lady was terrible luck.

"Yeah I'm ready." He declared with a sigh as he pushed open the door to the sewers proper and began to descend down the stairs, "I hate this already."

As he descended he winced as the smell got worse... and the sound of animals grew louder.

"We won't be alone at least..."

@Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

By this point, Skuld had to acknowledge the Gods were sending one message loud and clear: stop karking about the galaxy and settle down some. And honestly, she was just about prepared to do just that. She could also just as easily let the boy, Tomic, go by himself, and put his own skin at risk, but she wasn't about to let him. It wasn't necessarily out of conscious will, but somehow, dammit, the boy meant something to her, and she wasn't going to let him face some shady being alone.

She chuckled darkly, giving a one shouldered shrug. "Ja, don't like it either... but it's not too late to back out, sonnur, if you wanted."

The stench was manageable. Was it appreciated? Hells no. She would rather be facing down a rancor with naught but a blade and sheer wit, but no one ever asked her opinion, did they?

But the grunts, snarls, and roars were animalistic... that didn't mean she was going to relax any time soon. Awareness prickled the fine hairs at the nape of her neck, and she gripped her rifle closer, body tensed in preparation. To brace herself, or to spring in to action, she had no idea, but they would find out soon.

As they descended lower and lower, the eerie green glow was the only true source of illumination in the bowels of the city. Ja, perhaps that was the best way to think of it, for it felt as though there were eyes on them, and she kept checking as they descended further. Suddenly, the growls ceased.

Skittering came their way. Scraping, like metal to metal, something clawing and snarling down the corridor ahead. Whatever it was, no animal could have made that noise. A low sigh parted past her lips, ending on a groan.

"That's never good. Heads up!"

@Nefieslab

 

[Tomic Domin]

What came around the corner was a nightmare of twisted flesh and metallic limbs.

It was less of a creature and more of a mass - a mass of limbs both naturally and grafted, of gaping mouths and blood-shot eyes. The thing filled almost the entire width of the passageway ahead of them as it half-ran, half-rolled towards them with it's desperately clutching hands.

Tomic took one look at it before opening fire with his blaster pistol. Two of his shots hit the creature in one of it's many eyes and it screeched in pain but did not slow in the slightest. Even with the damage done by the blaster, it advanced and was, in fact, picking up the pace as well.

Pushing Skuld into motion, Tomic started to run in the opposite direction.

"Run Deucalala!" he shouted for her, "We need to try and lose this monstrosity before it tears us limb from limb!"

The fact that many of it's limbs were replacement metallic limbs was not lost on him.

@Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

As the Thing(because it definitely justified the titular emphasis, dammit) half rolled, half scrabbled towards her, her first instinct was to open fire and charge. And she did, firing two more rounds into the many roaring mouths and watching it stumble before it just. Kept. Running.

Running was not her strongest suit; she was a warrior, not a soldier. But even a warrior could see the wisdom of living another day. Did the Thing need so many karking limbs though? Some of them had definitely been custom makes; one or two of them were the brass that had stained one of their victims' arm stumps; that answered one mystery.

The Body Dealer perhaps could have sent this lovely Thing to meet them. And if so, she would oblige by living another day.

But as Tomic shoved, she was already twisted away and moving fast. But as Tomic sprinted down one direction, she went the opposite way. He was young, she had survived far worst. If the creature came her direction, she could distract it long enough for him to get safely to the surface.

He couldn't fight it in close quarters, but she could. It had multiple weaknesses, its' own bulk being one of them, and the fact that most of its' flesh was exposed, and just as sensitive to blaster fire and thermal blades. And those limbs, no matter how advanced, were not impervious either. The passages were narrower and narrower the further they went in; she fully intended to use that knowledge to her advantage.

It would come for either her or him, but the boy had a point. They had to lose the thing...

And then the real hunt would begin. "Split and double back!" She bellowed in response, hopefully he understood. The boy was smart after all. Divide and conquer was still a valid strategy, after all. But then again, she did not know what they taught that passed as adequate in Imperial training.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tomic Domin]

Ah hell.

He'd just told the old woman to run and if he knew anything about the old broad then it was that she was absolutely not the kind of person to accept that. She would probably end up fighting the damned thing with her axe alone if she had her way so he kept an eye on her to make sure she wasn't doing anything stupid.

The fact that she was pushing for them to split up was either a valid strategy or absolute stupidity and there was nothing else for it. It was either going to work or it was going to doom them both. Cursing, he nodded in agreement.

"Don't die old lady!"

Dashing down his own way, Tomic glanced over his shoulder and blinked once at what he saw.

The Thing split in two, one half going after Skuld and the other half coming after him. The decrease in bulk wasn't enough to make the two Things anything less than massive but they were now small enough to squeeze into the tighter spaces of the narrower tunnels and their many limbs meant that they were still moving as fast as they could sprint.

Cursing, Tomic dropped a grenade behind him as he ran, smirking slightly when it exploded beneath the Thing following him. The smell of cooked flesh and it's strange screams were music to his ears.

@Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

Don't die he says.

Don't die?

Old lady?!

She had no intent of doing any such thing, now or anytime soon, and give that smug young man any reason to crow about it later. And considering the state of things, she was hoping he made it too. Too often they faced such dangers; it would be a disappointment if the lad were mauled, or worse, by this vicious creature.

Simply because it split in two didn't make it any less of an adversary.

The explosion made the other Thing pause; such an effect caused the fleshy creature to roil and judder, suddenly eyes focused on its' other Self as mouths opened, limbs both cybernetic and natural grasping and clenching, limbs flailing as it began to turn.

The hum of her ax and the hiss of her shield springing to life were the biggest giveaways. But the bulk of the creature had already halfway turned to investigate the sounds; shield lowered, she charged with a bellow, the sound booming from the walls. Clawed limbs tried to block as she slammed her shield forward, causing some limbs to stumble back with ugly slapping sounds to the damp ground.

Ugh.

Mouths opened wide to screech as she cleaved her ax down, snarling back as it sizzled down into grotesque eyes and gaping, shrieking mouths. But hands began to claw at her head, grasp at the edges of her shield, and she stumbled back. Three limbs twitched on the ground before falling still from her downward defensive slashes. Seven more to go. It flinched back, many mouths hissing at the pain of the raw stumps bleeding freely once more, exposed to sewer air.

Time to lure it deeper into the maze, and strike again.

The Thing's blood made an ideal backtracking device; she only hoped the boy continued to fare well. Kark, but the lad owed her a good drink after dragging her this far.
For both their sanity.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tomic Domin]

Tomic fired ahead of him with his pistol, blasting a hole through one of the drains that had bars on it. Why it had bars on it, he didn't really question, instead throwing himself down the drain at speed in his continued attempts to evade being eaten by some weird mess of limbs and fluids and other such things. Thankfully he had thought to jump in feet first because the angle of the drain was rather steep.

Meaning he was picking up some speed.

He laughed almost despite himself as he landed at the bottom, turning the landing into a forward roll to avoid being mulched by the thing because, of course, it had managed to follow him. Cursing up a storm, Tomic still laughed even as he ran. What the hell was that saying? There was a saying about madness but he couldn't remember it for the life of him.

Turning a corner, he cursed as the thing started taking to throwing bricks and other, less savory, objects after him. It was only the fact that there were an awful lot of corners in these sewers that meant he was able to keep ahead of it. He touched his comm unit.

"Old lady, you dead yet?" he sent through the comm line, "I've got an idea. Sewers like these have a decontamination process in the event of a pandemic. If we can trigger it, it will flush the whole sewer with plasma."

The fact that they would need to be able to avoid this went unsaid.

@Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

If that little pup called her old lady one more time...

She snorted in response, skidding left just as the tunnels gave a sharp turn left to right, hearing the thing slap and screech its' way behind her. Left, right, right again...

When she finally made another turn that caused it to roll, she deigned to respond.

"Ja, am alive. Good to hear your mouth still works, sonnur," she quipped back, growling a quick expletive as one cybernetic limb brushed dangerously close to her shoulder, sliding back. It was getting harder and harder for the thing to keep up in the tunnels; soon it would have to split again, maybe, to fit much longer. Two humanoids would be able to run in this space, but their luck was going to run out soon.

"Give me a minute, try to meet where we were. I'll meet you there," she clipped back. There had to be a trigger closer to the surface, but they had to meet up to get the thing in a prime place to be flushed.

One more right, and she could track the blood trail back to the beginning... and move from where he was at.

Meantime, the thing screeched when one limb flopped dangerously close to her thigh, spurting ichor-like black blood from the stump when she lashed back. It cost her a few steps, but with the turn wrenching to the right it shivered and quivered disgustingly, slapping into the wall wetly before scurrying after her again.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tomic Domin]

Running through the sewers was going to get old very quickly but it seemed it was not to be out of his life just yet. He nodded to himself as he charged around a corner, completely blindsided when he crashed into a cleaning droid. Both he and the droid went sprawling to the ground and Tomic's eyes widened.

Shite.

Rolling to his left purely on instinct, he was able to watch as two robotic limbs of the thing slammed down where he had been, hard enough to shatter some of the stone the ground was made of. In the end though, the robot was what saved him. Rather than seeing the creature as a sentient being, the cleaning droid automatically labeled the mass as a clog.

"Activating purge procedures."

Tomic's eyes widened and he scrambled to his feet and dashed back towards where they had first climbed down into the sewers. He tapped his comm unit as he did.

"A cleaning droid has started a timer! We gotta move!"

@Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

Kark.

Of course something had to happen when she was on the run. It made perfect sense. She would not have minded taking on the Thing once more; four limbs had been removed, it was becoming less of a threat than a burden. But of course a cleaning droid would activate it... never mind that there could be a manual override somewhere.

This new limb had best be worth it, or she and whatever it was that was giving her this level of luck would have a real heart-to-heart.

Besides, the boy was ahead of her. That would hardly work in her favor, especially when he kept calling her old. She wasn't old yet, kriff it! She was still in her twenties. The fact she was getting close to 30 was irrelevant.

She cursed, and made another hard left, hearing the thing shriek loud enough to ring down the hallway. Another screaming sound ahead confirmed she was in the right tunnel at least.

The second thing... and Tomic… were dead ahead. She made another right. Let the karking thing rejoin itself. By this point she hardly cared.

"Right behind you, lad, get to the surface!" There was a left, and then another left... and now the screech was behind her.

That boy better be ahead. If not, she wasn't certain she could forgive herself before the timer ran out. As she sprinted, she strained to hear other footsteps... or another voice ahead of her.

@Nefieslab

 

[Tomic Domin]

Feck.

Kark.

Shite.

Alright so maybe thinking curse words really 'loudly' in his head wasn't actually doing anything but Tomic didn't much care. His legs were beginning to burn from all of the sprinting he was doing but he would take a little muscle workout over the impending burning death because, you know, he rather enjoyed living.

But the old lady wasn't dead yet so that was a bonus he supposed.

"I'm running as fast as I can you old snow witch!"

Seriously.

Gritting his teeth, Tomic flung himself at the ladders that would lead them out of the tunnels. He grabbed hold of the ladder's rungs, already a few feet off of the ground so Skuld could grab on as well. Without missing a beat, he used all of his Imperial physical training to practically glide up the rungs up to the surface again.

Behind them the purging fire swept through the sewers, burning the thing to death.

Laying on his back, Tomic groaned.

"Today was a bad day."

@Killa Ree

 

[Eva 'Skuld' Stark]

She coughed once, bending to put her hands on her knees and get a breath in. The smell of charred flesh and melted metal greeted her senses before it was obliterated, along with the shrillest, most terrifying shrieks she had ever witnessed.

It was good the boy made it.... but that was all she allowed herself to think before leaning back against one of the walls, waiting until the small stitch in her side eased before standing tall once more, exhaling slowly. "No kidding," she deadpanned, then sighed, closing her eyes for a moment to inhale and exhale once more, trying to calm her blood pressure.

They had to wait until after the purging was complete. But she'd be damned if their target was going to escape this time. She wanted her new kit.

And the Body Dealer's head to go with it.

​

@Nefieslab