Ask Wasn’t

[Xim Zhan]

Xim inhaled deeply. The sweet smokey flavors filled his nostril. It was not unlike the spiced hookah lounges of the forgotten worlds beyond the edges of the Rim. The Mandalorian coughed slightly as he exhaled. He could feel something at work within his body; even if he could not describe it.

“And who, master fortune teller will
make the killing shot once the beasts are exposed? Who will hunt them as I lay tormented by nightmares? Him?” he gestured at @Alhazred. “He claimed that you would be the one to be armed beyond mere thoughts of the mind. Still,” Xim exaggeratedly glanced about the fortune teller’s shop as he began to feel the icy breath of the beast upon him, slowly encircling his soul. “I find demons succumb more easily to conventional weapons’ fire than sleight of hand and chemical manipulations.” Xim swiped the vial from the tentacles being, carefully slipping it into a slot on his belt. “They still have their place however,”

Xim glanced over his shoulder. He felt it. The monster had found him; perhaps, it seemed, more than one. He could feel the icy fingers of death. Goosebumps pickled his neck. On the other hand, he felt the hot red eyes of hatred and hunger as they burned into the back of his head. “Where are you?” he whispered as he looked about finding nothing.

Pushing his chair back, Xim slammed his helmet back on his head. His HUD came online scanning the room for anything and everything. Any life form, any possible weapon, chemical reagents, was registered. “Where are you?” he growled, hefting his rifle As he made for the door. “Come on Red. These dragons want live bait. We’re going to give it to them.”

Outside, Xim turned to stalk down the empty street. Even in the daylight that streamed from above he could sense the hunger of the beast; the desire for flesh, his flesh. Xim worried he would not be up for the challenge, but his imagined visage of self forbade him to run in fear. He did not know where to go; but he knew the beast or beasts would find him. For now, his head bobbed back and forth as he scanned the cityscape, he would at least try and chose the battlefield of their meeting.

@Narzen

 

[Alhazred]

Alhazred felt the demons affecting Xim before he saw the man become more emotional. He heard the dissonance reverberating around the mandalorian, his own song become disgruntled and anxious. It perhaps wasn't Watchman's fault, for the song that surrounded him was interlacing itself with his own, blending together with it, and then twisting it.

"Watchman, wait!" Alhazred started. Before he could follow, Khallid's large hand grabbed his cousin's arm.

"Alhazred, hear this before you depart..." Khalid began to warn. " Ruin awaits us all and then end of all roads, but haste and carelessness squanders the time before then. Tread carefully, and reflect on those lessons the Jedi have taught you..."

Khalid almost smiled, which unnerved the younger Nu-Vaal.

"When this carnival of horrors has passed, return to me, and I'll tell you how to return home"

Alhazred nodded, barely focusing on the words, and broke away, pursuing his companion.

---

Outside, alhazred tried to calm and focus his partner. It was unspoken, but the way the mando was handling himself was more emotional, more primal than before. Was this what he was like when alhazred was under the demon's influence?

"Watchman, hold on!" Alhazred uttered as he tried to keep up, his short legs barely carrying him behind the taller man.

"I must focus Watchman, and I can't do that with you moving so much!'

Alhazred began to pant slightly. It was good they were alone at the moment. Who knew what would happen if a homeless vagrant passed by and became an unfortunate target for the mandalorian?

However, as much as the drugs were affecting Watchman, Alhazred suddenly realized they were affecting him much more now than ever. Before, he was hearing the music of the force. Now, he was starting to see it. Streams of notes began to trickle down the walls. Lines of concertos began to weave through the air, trailing from living thing to living thing. Vibrations of chords resonated underfoot and overhead. And the shapes....the beautiful shapes that emerged within the notes were just as magnificent as the music itself.

Alhazred gasped. The notes around him shuddered and altered their pitches with his realizations. He had seen this effect before. Once, in deep space near the kahyyyk system. He had performed an unorthodox experiment regarding the force and celestial objects. The results included a temporary force nexus, and he had become so in tuned with the force that he could literally see its music in the air. He was both enlightened and endangered to the galaxy around him.

How much more danger would Watchman be in?

"Watchman, please, focus on my words..." alhazred whispered, hoping the man could hear him. If not, he feared he would have to do something more jedi esque. "Whatever you are feeling, he'll, whatever you are seeing may not be real. You need to silence your mind. Become...stoic"

Alhazred struggled for the right words. He did not expect to be an amateur teacher for a non-sensative today.

"Your mind needs to be calm, so I can discern the demons presence"

@The Mad Hammer

 

[Xim Zhan]

Xim paused mid-stalk down the street. It was empty. They all were, and yet, there was something out there. Xim could feel it. That was not why he stopped though. He only stopped to allow @Alhazred the chance to catch up and complain. Ha. As if he knew better how to hunt such beasts than he.

Turning, Xim patted an armored hand atop Nu-Vaal’s turbaned head. “I am not a monk, a philosopher, or a scientist. I am a man of the land. I am most calm when I am at work, be it in the fields of my home or hunting my prey.” Xim’s head turned to scan the skies overhead, the skyline of the rising skyscrapers. “Not when I am being hunted.”

”You wait here. Discern the beast from a safe distance.” Xim could practically feel the hot breath of the monster on his armored neck, it seemed as if even his protective plating could not keep the monster’s touch away. It frightened Xim. He could feel the frigid fear encircling his heart. More than that though, it tingled deep within his soul. The thrill of the hunt, of the fight. The edges of Xim’s sight seemed to dull, not that he noticed. He was too focused. He felt like a caged feral beast, released on the hunt.

“I will bring it to you.” With those words, Xim activated his jetpack and rocketed upwards into the sky. A sky that even now was beginning to twist and darken, flashes of red glowing anger pulsating with flashes of green envy and yellow lightning. The blackened clouds rolled and churned forward as if would reach forth and consume the planet before it. The beast, the dragon would surely show itself momentarily And Xim, ripping his weighty beskad blade charges into the maelstrom prepared to draw forth the monster.

@Narzen

 

[Alhazred]

Alhazred tried to grab the man before he flew off, to no avail. The man was set and iron focused. Unfortunately, that meant he was also unhinged in his own way. Alhazred half pondered if this was what he was like when he got focused on a paticular subject. After all, if he hadn't been so focused on the experiment near Kashyyyk...

Alhazred shook himself. Now was not the time to dwell on the past. He needed to focus. And he needed to focus just as much as the Mandalorian was stubborn.

This would be difficult to say the least.

Alhazred closed his eyes. There, in that dingy street, the short Nu-Vaal sat down and crossed his legs. While he could already hear the Force, it was wild and chaotic within him. He needed to be at peace, as the other Jedi told him. He needed his own song to become like that of a beautiful chord; balanced, firm, but also open and at ease. To be one with the Force and yet a separate individual. It was a difficult process overall. Some Jedi used mantras to help refocus, some used breathing patterns. For Alhazred, he had the advantage of his synesthesia. He could actually hear his own connectivity to the Force, and adjust as needed.

Still, the occasional mantra did help too.

"2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31..." Alhazred began to recite the prime numbers. As much as a Nu-Vaal he was, being raised amongst Givin had left a mark.

The notes rearranged themselves. The strings fell in line. The drums slowed. Alhazred's song became one with the song of the Force around him. He was no longer just a Nu-Vaal sitting on a dirty street. He was a jedi, floating in a sea of music that was the galaxy and everything in it. He was not one. He was not many. He simply was.

The song of Watchman shook violently. The Brass were overpowering. The Bassoons were vibrant but tone deaf. Alhazred's song began to mingle inside the song of Watchman, adjusting itself to match its chaotic vibrancy. Alhazred's brow furrowed. It was impossible to discern between the Watchman's song and the demons. The mind was too chaotic. Too violant. He needed to speak and quiet it down.

Calm... Alhazred's song plucked to Watchman.

Steel your mind... The drums echoed further. Alhazred's people's religion began to worm its way forth, pressing advice to the man. The end claims the anxious and the impressionable first.

@The Mad Hammer

 

[Xim Zhan]

Xim’s mind churned. The fires of passion and determination, of sheer willpower, burned and flickered against the ice that clawed at the Mandalorian’s heart. Fear clashed against pride and Xim was determined to not let it win, not again; to not fall in his moment of triumph. No, today, this time, he would best the beast; whatever and wherever it was.

Xim stared up into the churning sky. He just knew the dragon was within.

@Alhazred ’s voice seemed to echo through the chaotic turmoil of Xim Zhan’s mind. It begged him to calm himself, to shield his mind lest he be consumed; but what did the alien know? Was he familiar with the Mandalorian Way? Of course not! Xim was as steeled within as he was on the exterior. His armor had protected him from legendary and mythical monsters. His heart and mind were equally protected by the sheer power of his will.

Any distractions came from the suggestive power of the herbs he had inhaled. They were a trap for the monster that even now clawed at his mind And he would weather the side effects; the fear that seemed to trace its way down his limbs and numbing his fingers. Rocketing skyward, Xim clenched and unclenched his fist trying to hold onto some semblance of feeling as he cleared the rooftop.

Coming to a landing on the roof edge, Xim spun around to look down at @Alhazred just as the skies seemed to open up and a hot, near boiling, rain began to fall. “My soul is prepared,” he called out over the din that wracked and twisted his mind, “how about yours?” Xim ripped his heavy beskad blade free from his waist and held it aloft into the storm as thunder pealed across the sky, the great maw of a fiery red dragon beginning to take shape as it’s hot breath raked the rooftop. Xim howled in animalistic challenge. The beast was upon him and he was now counting on the voodoo witchcraft science that the Nu-Vaals had promised.

@Narzen

 

[Alhazred]

Alhazred could not see the Mandalorian. This deep in his focus, he was blind to the rest of the world. It was probably for the best. The world was a distraction, the Force was everything. It was the life, the song, the beauty of all things that existed. It was the wide ocean that all things swam in. It was the forest that all creatures dwelled among. And to Alhazred, it was the song that all beings lent their voices to.

Watchman did feel slightly more focused. His own song became like that of a beating drum of an army. It may have been a bit chaotic in its own right, but Alhazred could tell that the man's own beliefs and convictions were granting him something only a lifetime of training could provide. Alhazred half-wondered if all mandalorians were like this. So firm in their beliefs that, while it left them rigid and unbending, it made them strong in the mind. Alhazred knew the force could only trick the weak minded. Whatever this was attacking Watchman was strong indeed.

Alhazred turned his attention to the song that was trying to consume Watchman. Having a better understanding of what the Mandalorian's song was, Alhazred began to sift through the tunes for things that were out of place. Like a newly ordained conductor sifting through his orchestra, Alhazred listened for the notes that were disharmonic. There were things out of place. Things that were trying to overpower the Mandalorian's mind. To influence his song into whatever they wanted the song to become.

There. Alhazred could hear a trail of chords. Without hesitation, Alhazred's own song weaved its way into the chords of the clouds, intermingling with them. Instantly, Alhazred felt the effects. His mind throbbed with pain as the disharmony tried to swallow him up and consume his own song. The blaring of horns threatened to shake Alhazred's mind to the core, leaving nothing but an empty shell. Alhazred opened his eyes, not because he wanted to, but because this song forced him to. Now sharing in the same song that Watchman heard, Alhazred saw what Watchman saw: a great beast taking form.

It isn't real... Alhazred's song whispered, both refortifying himself and advising Wathcman. It is a trick. Steel yourself...

Alhazred closed his eyes again and refocused himself. Again, his song, being buffeted and swallowed by the chaotic song, made its way forward. He needed to find the source of this song. The source of these demons.

37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71 Alhazred recited continually. He was almost there. He was almsot there. He was almost there.

@The Mad Hammer

 

[Xim Zhan]

The fear crescendoed in Xim’s heart until he could taste the bile boiling in the back of his mouth.

Spoiler

The beastly monster‘s cry carried across the sky as it’s open mouth descended toward

the Mandalorian as he tripped and tumbled to his back.

Clattering to the floor, Xim’s hand tugged frantically at his holstered sidearm as the fear began to overcome him. In the chaos of certain destruction, he could not even manage to pull his weapon. Still he struggled, intent on a valiant end. Through the din; however, a single whisper seemed to carry. The voice of @Alhazred seemed to pass like a light breeze in a hurricane. Yet the message reached the Mandalorian, even if he could not believe it. This draconic demon was not real? A trick? This beast was the prophesied harbinger of the apocalypse.

The whisper was enough though. It was a reminder of the plan, of the mind-melding smoke of the fortune teller’s shop and of the vial. Xim’s hands left his gun as his eyes widened against the plummeting monster. They began to search for the safely tucked vial. Yanking it free, Xim’s twitching fingers fought against the stopper

Spoiler

as the fiery maw crashed into the roof and enveloped the black-armored soldier of fortune.

Xim screamed, a mixture of fear and defiance. He flinched and rolled in a fruitless effort

Spoiler

to try and avoid the city-shaking crash of the dragon.

Over the edge of the storied building, Xim tumbled through the air toward the street below. Nearly blinded with fear, he fumbled with the vial before he crashed to the street. The tube clattering down the street. Xim grunted in pain as he crashed, his fingers clawing at the medicine as it escaped him. Even as pain rocked his body, he lunged forward after the clattering and rolling flask.

Spoiler

Overhead, the apartment building crumbled as the crushing power of the monster enveloped it in dark destruction, fire lurching into the air.

Activating his jetpack, Xim shot uncontrollably just above the ground overshooting the clattering ampoule. He had overestimated his ability, he was sure of it. Xim needed to escape. If he could not win, he would survive. He would not be

 

[Alhazred]

The Chaotic song surged and resonated and revolted against Alhazred's. Alhazred refortified his mind and pushed forward. He was almost there. The source...he was almost there. The hardest part was making sure his song wasn't interfering with the song he was tracing. The more he dissonated with the opposing song, the more resistance it gave him. But if he let his own song become merged with that which he traced, who knew what would happen to his mind?

Alhazred opened his eyes. He was not in his body. He was in someone, or more accurately, something else's body. Sitting on top of what looked like a skyscraper. The clouds overhead were close enough to touch. The ground below was so, so far down.

The body looked to the left and the right, as if in confusion. Alhazred witnessed other things sitting on the drain pipes of the building. Small, capuchin-eques things, with skinny bodies and pronged twin tails, they latched over the drains, or even some were latched directly onto the walls of the building below. Alhazred's essence shuddered. Where the things' heads were supposed to be, instead they had skulls that looked identical to the post-rotting forms of humans. Each of the creatures stared intently down at the world below, at a target only they could see, but Alhazred knew already. They were focused on the Mandalorian, struggling for his own sanity.

Had Alhazred been a common humanoid, he would've laughed nervously. These...things.... these tiny little monkeys...these were the demons of Ektra City! In another life, he would've even called them cute, minus the skull-like heads.

The body shook its entire self. Suctioned cup hands came up and began to beat against its head. Alhazred became confused. What was going on?

Then the other things began to take notice of their compatriot. Several of them began to look and crawl closer. Alhazred's vision began to blur and fade as the song he had traced began to break. These demons were losing focus on their target, and instead were focusing on their compatriot who was struggling with the being that shared its mind. Some began to crawl towards Alhazred's presence. Their eyes, glowing with wicked malevolence, could sense an intruder in their midst.

Alhazred's essence writhed and wriggled under the sudden surge of chaotic energy enveloping him. The Demons were intensifying their focus now. Some were screeching and hissing and rushing their mate, beating on his body. They would cast Alhazred out, even if it meant by killing one of their own. The one saving grace Alhazred had was the longer he lasted here, the better chances Watchman had in shrugging off the hallucinations

Alhazred wasn't sure how long he lasted. It might have been just seconds, or minutes, or even an hour. But eventually, Alhazred's song could not hold out any longer. The last image was the body being thrown over the side, past a bright Neon sign, The vision was lost, the final piece being the sign's name: Gastess' Finance, Inc. Alhazred's essence drifted the void between himself and the skyscraper. These things...they were primal like the waves of the ocean. He was but a padawan. It would've taken a knight to last any longer, let alone perform any kind of counter attack.

As the Nightmare Demons pushed Alhazred's song back, Alhazred crashed into his own body. The Nu-Vaal struggled for consciousness. He had over extended himself and he had earned the ire of the Nightmare Demons. He needed to tell Watchman.

"Gastess....Gastess..." Alhazred whispered over and over as he tried to fight the void closing on him. He began to crawl forward, closing his eyes. The screams were starting up. The thing from the void was emerging. The thing from Alhazred's past was being reconjured for his torment. The Demons had been enraged. The nightmares would claim the Nu-Vaal with the Mandaloiran tonight.

@The Mad Hammer

 

[Xim Zhan]

Xim could hear

Spoiler

the crushing collapse of the building behind him

. He did not care. The ampoule that might ought reverse the mystic magics clattered down the paged street out of sight as he rocketed overhead, his fingers grazing it for but a moment unintentionally sending it further from reach. He did not care. The fear that coursed through the mythical warrior of legend was all but overwhelming and his goal now was to survive. Prophecies and paydays be damned.

And so he streaked, a black bullet, low over the ground, away. Banking hard, Xim took a turn, doing whatever he could to put distance and obstruction between he and the fell dragon. Quite suddenly, the fear began to lessen; not from distance, but from something more mystical, cerebral abd psychic. It was not that Xim took notice, for it was a gradual lessening, unknown to him, as the hell-spawned beasts were distracted; as they set their sights on one of their own and the foreign persona they sensed within. For to them, one of their own had become infected by a demon of another sort. It was a demon they would drive out without the restrictions of civilized society.

Rocketing on, Xim subconsciously began to take tally of himself. The very real fears still preyed like shadows at the corners of his mind. Still though, he pondered, an unkillable apocalyptic beast that not even his scores of explosives could hope to bring down, a world that he, a fabled legend, could not save, a job that could not be completed. Not only was his life in peril, that he could and did flee from, but his reputation as well. After this, he might as well return to Concorde Dawn and hang his beskar’gam up for good, a washed up and useless Mandalorian destined to be forgotten and washed away forgotten within the Manda of souls.

Xim continued on, his mind still intent on flight, even as he brought the rocket pack to a halt. He had flown far enough. From here, he would go on foot until he could commandeer a speeder. This world was destined to be destroyed. He could not stop that.

As he rounded another corner, Xim saw a familiar face, @Alhazred, and he looked as awful as Xim felt. Thr Nu-vaal flailed into the street mumbling incoherently as he was assailed again by the invisible monsters. Was this the dragon’s power as well or was his companion on this ill-fates adventure suffering from some form of brain melting exotic illness or mental decimation. Xim ran toward the man. At the very least, they could perhaps escape together. As he neared m, the fear began to take hold again, subtle and powerful so that as Xim drew up alongside the man he encountered two things.

First, as Xim skid to a halt he saw that which he was sure Alhazred had meant to keep hidden from him, the hilt of a lightsaber jutting out from his tangle of robes as he lay on the ground. Immediately Xim bristled with hostility. He ought have known! And his charlatan cousin was probably no better. Sith, Jedi, it mattered not. These mystics surely had summoned the demonic dragon to this world and so, it was such that the Mandalorian had been called to right their wrong once again. Xim had half a mind to kick the feeble magician in the head and leave him to feed the monster, but it was the second thing that prevented it; forcing the Mandalorian to tuck his resentment away to be dealt with later.

Spoiler

Suddenly a floating city shaking roar erupted. It seemed to come from everywhere. In the distance, a skyscraper crumbled to dust in gouts of hellish red flame as the impossibly large dragon emerged ringed in smoke and the flames of damnation.

“You fool!“ he screamed at Alhazred, “You led it right to us!” Xim reached down and shook the tendrilled alien violently, wrenching him to his feet. “You have to wake up! You have to run! You will die otherwise!” Activating his jetpack, Xim’s arms tensed as held to the robes of the Jedi and wrenched him upward into the air as he took off.

Spoiler

The monstrous dragon roared to the sky and with thundering steps began to claw and crush his way through the cityscape in pursuit of them.

Xim chanced a fearful glance at the beast and then from the beast to Alhazred. Somehow it knew. It knew they were there and it would not give up “We have to leave the city!” He screamed as the air rushed past them and they rocketed higher and higher. “It is the only way to save it! Us and your idiot cousin!”

@Narzen

 

[Alhazred]

Alhazred was groggy when the Mandalorian shook him. His mind was still reeling from the telepathic ordeal he had done, and the mental onslaught the Demons were bringing against him were coming in full force. The screams were getting louder. His blue blood was pumping faster under his panicing heart. These things were calling the nightmare from Alhazred's memory he wished to forget. After all, what mind could conjure something more terrifying than that starweird thing he once summoned in space?

"It isn't real..." Alkhared told himself over and over as the ground began to get smaller and smaller. It was the one thing he needed to focus on. After all, the thing died in space. It had been blown up by Alhazred's desperate and madness-driven attack.

"No...focus..." Alhazred whispered to the mandalorian. "Gastess... go to..."

Screw it, there are better ways

The Nu-Vaal's webbed hands reached and grasped the Mandalorian's helmet. The man's song in the Force was chaotic and crazy, but the core of the song was still there. It was buried underneath a torrent of random strings and drums, all violently trying to make his song act to its wishes. Alhazred needed to break through their song with his own.

Alhazred attempted to implant the image. In the Mandalorian's mind's eye, he would hopefully see the large neon sign on the skyscraper: Gastess' Finance, Inc. Alhazred would continue trying to imprint the image onto the Mandalorian. True, the Mandalorian would begin to see, or rather, hear, what Alhazred was hearing approaching from the depths of space. He might even see the thing from his own nightmare, hovering over the building, like some beacon of madness. But Alhazred half-hoped that perhaps the dualistic visions the two were sharing might help Watchman regain his senses and focus on finding the Neon sign where the demons were attacking from afar.

@The Mad Hammer

 

[Xim Zhan]

The wind ripped reassuredly past the Mandalorian’s armor. It was one truth that was, in fact, real. The city below continued to shrink, the sprawling slums of the world below spiraling out from its floating shadow. Somehow, in spite of this, the fiery spirit of the dragon persisted. Tearing itself from the carnage of the cityscape its impossible heavy frame lunged upward after the duo; his massive wings beating rhythmically on the air. “Thats it.” Xim growled as he looked down toward the monster, “Come to pappy.” before his head was wrenched back up to stare into @Alhazred ’s face. The alien was clearly saying something; not that Xim could hear with the air whipping by.

The cloudy sky suddenly seemed to break open as a piercing screech rent the air. It was loud enough that it carried through the wind and drew Xim’s fearful attention. As the fire of the dragon seemed to erupt and billow forth from below a newfound terror appeared overhead. Xim’s eyes widened in shock. What sort of armageddon was this world accursed to undergo? This world was doomed. The otherworldly abomination overhead was clearly a herald following on the tail of the demon harbinger dragon. Whatever apocalyptic cataclysm were to follow, Xim felt assured it could only get worse. They were cursed. They would never escape this planet.

And Xim knew there was only thing a Mandalorian could do. In the face of certain destruction, he would do what his predecessors would have done. As Xim’s mind and Alhazred’s coalesced , their visions minngled to one; their greatest fears materializing together in stark realism. Cutting the power to the jetpack, their momentum quickly fizzled out and their upward trajectory stalled. Tumbling forward, the duo plunged toward the billowing black and red plumes of fire and smoke that erupted from the maw of the world-ending dragon. Somewhere down in that city a shop existed, that place by which he would make his last stand; a stand against the dragon; the space demon; and whatever they foretold.

Angling his body, Xim became a fearful arrow of destruction as they plunged back toward the city. “<To death. To ruin. To the damnation of this world and the galaxy beyond.>” he called in his adopted native tongue.

@Narzen

 

[Alhazred]

There were worse ways to go.

Falling to your death is not a pleasant way to die. Falling to your death while hanging dearly onto a now madman speaking in a strange tongue that you had no means of understanding was way worse. Falling to your death while hanging onto a madman and while witnessing your nightmares come to life?

Well, at least Alhazred was going to die in view of the stars. Better than dying underground.

No! We cannot die to this! Some fall in the face of chaos, but not us! Not Today! Alhazred thought, his own mind intermingling with Watchman's. Alhazred's newfound resolve became light a thundering march, strong and overwhelming. It would break through the nightmare demon's song, momentarily shatter their control over the man. Such an act would break Alhazred as well, rendering him unconcious for a time, but at least Watchman would be able to see things for how they really were. As conciousness slipped from Alhazred's mind, the last image he would impart would be that of Gastess' Finance, Inc.

The rest would be up to Watchman.

@The Mad Hammer

 

[Xim Zhan]

The wind howled, tugging at the edges of Xim’s armor as the duo plummeted toward the great beast. Xim’s jaw was set and his teeth grit. He was afraid, more afraid than he would ever admit; but if he were to die, he would die in a way only a Mandalorian could.

Downward. They gained speed as the tentacled being squirmed in his iron grasp. Nearing the hellspawn, Xim could feel the sheer power of the beast, this close he could smell the sulfur of it’s breath. Moreso, it seemed, the beast’s power seemed to be tearing at the edges of his sanity. Lime wriggling worms, something seemed to be trying to find a chink in his mental armor, to force itself in and tear him apart from the inside out. Xim could feel it, and with whatever nerve he could spare he fought against it. A coward’s way to win, it was for sure; and he would not die a coward’s death. If this beast sought to win, it must best him as the gods intended.

Downward. The flames that seemed to erupt from the monster licked at their bodies. Xim could feel the heat building.

And then suddenly with a strange crash the monster vanished, as if it had never been. The rapidly approaching city lay almost ghostly before them as the alien in his arms became a dead weight nearly slipping free. Xim’s fingers strained as pain laced up his arms trying to cling to the suddenly unconscious traveler. He was bewildered. Where had the demon beast gone? It was as if it had blinked from reality, never to have been and never to be. Yet, Xim knew it was false. The fear he felt in his chest was too real, too raw. Even as the idea of an elaborate rouse toyed at the back if his mind, he refused it any further thought.

Instead, his focus turned toward the city. Clinging to @Alhazred , the Mandalorian activated his jetpack and slowly arced their way upward out of the dive before safely coming to rest atop a deserted skyscraper roof that was suspiciously free of ash, soot, or damage. There, Xim cautiously lowered the unconscious Alhazred to duracrete roof and stepped to the edge. There the low rail clanked against his shins as he looked out, muttering “Gases’ Finance.” For some reason, the place seemed important; although he had no idea why. Perhaps it was the source of the dragon, the entry to it’s otherworldly realm. Whatever it was, Xim had come to end it and end it he would.

 

[Alhazred]

The Nightmare Demons crept up the building. Their control over their target had been wrested from them violently, and many of them were shaken. But none of them were deterred. This prey, this target...it was too delicious. Too tempting to resist. Like spice to the addict, its presence was like a beacon for their minds. Even before the warrior's presence shined after it imbibed the Nu-Vaal occultist's concoction, this warrior was a delicious target. Its dishonorable death to its own fears would bring more satisfaction to their demented pleasures over the deaths of sending screaming men and women over building ledges.

There was also its companion. The being who had wrested their control from their target, at no small cost to itself. Such a thing was dangerous to their community of nightmares. Should it regain consciousness, who knew what it could do to the pack? No, both it and the warrior needed to fall. The warrior to its nightmares. And then when he was dead, its companion would be easily dispatched via an unceremonious push off the building's ledge.

Or perhaps, the warrior's honor could be tarnished by his own hands?

In the dark shadows, the skulls and glowing eyes of the simians skitted along the ledges as they sought perfect vantage points of their victims. As one, they began to prey on the warrior's fears again. Each one perched themselves on ledges of the building, staring their star-light eyes into his soul as their minds began to target the warrior. But this time, instead of dragons and mythical beasts, they directed their guidance a bit more. The warrior's auditorial senses would be affected first. The whispering and muttering that grew and grew in both noise and incohesion. Then the smell would follow. The smell of rotting fish, and decaying meat.

The lightning was flashing around the building again. Armored figures rose from the shadows, in attempt to hide the Demon's from the mandalorian's sight. Kad Ha'rangir and Arasuum and many others looked on in disapproving judgement.

Then, he would hear the Nu-Vaal groaning and whispering. If he looked, the Nu-Vaal's would slowly be rising unnaturally, as if being pulled standing up by strings. In reality, Alhazred was only just beginning to stir.

"Unworthy, unworthy..." The voice of Hod Ha'ran spoke from one of the figures. "Your kind is unworthy. You fall to tricks, you slay ghosts, and you herd sheep like they be worthy children"

"You have only my approval, and it is pathetic approval at best." Arasuum added, snickering. "I desire stagnation of warriors, not of worthless things like you. You are less then the grass of nerfs. Ni'duraa!"

"Ni'duraa!" all the beings shouted as one.

"Regain a sliver of your honor..." Kad Ha'rangir boomed with the lighting. "Kill your foe, your true enemy, and then give yourself to the void. That is the only honor left for a laandur like yourself"

@The Mad Hammer

 

[Xim Zhan]

Xim barely had time to move as he surveilled the floating cityscape stretching out before him before the smells of rancid and rotting meat, flesh, seemed to assault his senses beneath his helmet. The dead and dying of this place surely, their ravaged corpses bloated and cracked beneath this world’s sun. A sun that had been blotted out by the storm and a world that was illuminated only by the sickly green flashes of lightning that erupted from the sky threatening to reduce the Mandalorian warrior to ash.

And through it all, Xim knew he had to find the nest of the beast. Her lair beneath a financier’s office. Perhaps the potions of the magician were finally taking effect. Just as he stepped up, his metal boot clanging against the rail as he went to push off, figures materialized from the storm. Materializing along the rooftop as if birthed by the very storm itself. Figures of mist, shadow, and beskar. Armored silhouettes of bygone eras standing armed and twisted looked down from their towering heights as their voices boomed in unison with the storm. These figures claimed to be the gods of old; Mandalorians of bygone eras; the fewest and finest; the most powerful warriors to have graced the galaxy. They called down to him, calling the mortal man for what he was, a coward, without honor, unfit to wear the mantle of Mandalorian as behind him the twisted visage of @Alhazred rose up, a zombie-esque sorcerer bathed in the flickering green of the near constant flashes of lightning. These gods and legends bid him strike. They pulled at the core of his identity. Strike down this pretender and die. It was simple and it was a death any Mandalorian ought to be proud to greet with open arms; death in battle.

Xim’s eyes turned to Alhazred as his hand reached for his heavy beskad blade. It would be simple enough. His fingers closed about the hilt of the weapon. Lash out and end it all, release his tormented soul to the void.

With his blade in hand, Xim paused as he regarding the swarthed alien. He did not draw his blade. He did not move. His mind raced. ‘The void’ not ‘the manda’, a collective oversoul of the Mandalorian people. A small change of words, butnwould these figures who claimed to be the gods of his people make such a mistake?

Turning, Xim faced the imposing dieties and cried out, releasing his hand from his blade as he gestured upward. “Where were you?! For centuries your people have survived not by divine intervention, but by sweat of our own backs, the blood of fathers, of mothers, of children slaughtered by those you would have stood against. While you languish in your halls of eternity, we,” he beat a fist against his chest trying to drive off the boiling fear that was creeping up, “followers of the true Mandalore of the ages have stood in the gap and made for ourselves a mighty people when all about us fall to weakness!”

Pointing at each wraith individually, Xim’s fear was tamped and held in place by a greater emotion, anger. “I disgust you?? Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc! And I do not remember you; for your lives are not worthy of such! I remember the lives of my brothers, of my sisters, cut down in battle to save a people abandoned by their gods, a people who have survived when the cosmos stood against them, cut down again and again but rising triumphantly each time. I am Kyr’tsad. We are Kyr’tsad and we have done what none would do, defiled our very souls to sage those that YOU have abandoned!”

With deft movements, both subtle and natural, Xim activated both his wrist mounted weapons and streaks of blue and fire arced forth as whistling birds and a wrist-mounted missile screamed forward, spiraling and twisting into the storm-formed wraiths that were little more than shadows, illusions undeceived by the tracking systems of the weapons. Chaotically they spun until they locked onto new targets, simian in form that seemed to cling about the building. From there they hones in on their targets and detonated, erupting in fiery plumes all about the rooftopped duo.

As thebfiery plumes illumated the air around them, Xim shouted “Kote lo'shebs'ul narit! Ashnar ash’amur’mav!” as he stood in definace watching the forms of the old gods slowly fade from sight.

And as the illusions began to fade, the concentrations of the beasts disrupted by the blatant assault all about them. Turning, Xim saw the stirring form of Alhazred. He stepped over and kicked the man in the rib-area. “Get up darJetii. There is a dragon to be slain atop a hill of gold.”

@Narzen

 

[Alhazred]

Alhazred groaned under the kicks from the armored boots. His head was throbbing, still recovering from the mental pain he had undergone. The Mandalorian said something, but it was muffled in the ringing ears of the Nu-Vaal.

Alhazred moved up in a daze. He grasped at his head again, the throbbing of his mind quite painful. He even pulled off his turban, revealing all of his head tendrils flailing about in confusion. The Nu-Vaal looked truly alien now.

"What...what happened?" Alhazred whispered loudly, unable to hear himself properly. If he was a human, he would've shouted.

It was a valid question. Last Alhazred knew, he and Watchman were falling to their doom. Now, he was being kicked by a Mandalorian, on the smoldering wreckage of a skyscraper rooftop, smoldering flames .

Skyscraper...

Alhazred's mind instantly cleared as he realized where he propably was.

"The demons! Those...apes!" Alhazred exclaimed, grabbing the Mandalorian by the arms and shaking him. Looking up into the cold helmet, Alhazred pled with the warrior to believe him and hopefully not the illusions he had been forced to endure.

"Are they dead?"

D6 to see how many demons are alive: 4

The last of the demons were furious now. Their prey had proven not only a nuisance, but deadly. Their kind had been slain by the armored one's weapons, and one of their number died due to the tentacled one's mind. Now fully enraged, they scampered and charged the targets. They would bombard them with illusion after illusion, attacking every pain center they could, until either they could deliver a final blow with something sharp, or their minds completely broke. This was the final battle.

Alhazred fell backwards in fright. From the closed visage of Watchman emerged a face. His face, rotten and decayed past the point of life. Spectral limbs reached out with talon like claws. The thing screamed as its claws tore across Alhazred's chest. Alhazred screamed in pain as he tried to fight the thing that attacked him, only to feel more and more invisible cuts across his body.

The Nu-Vall rolled and crawled on the ground. The sharp pangs of pain coming from his backside as the thing screamed. Through blurred vision, Alhazred spotted a darting shadow. Willing up every ounce of willpower he could muster, Alhazred sent a blast of energy in the shadow's direction. The pain on his body lessoned as the Nightmare Demon was thrown off the roof and plummeted towards it's death.

1 down.

@The Mad Hammer