Jungle Rumble

[Shadowcat]

While Venin had made some effort to keep himself in shape, he was still unprepared for a trek through a hot and humid jungle. Soon his lungs were burning and his mouth gasped for air, but he refused to stop and take a break. He was half motivated by determination, and half motivated by fear to press on and meet up with his fellow acolytes.

Of course, as always, Venin's mind wandered. He thought back to his interactions with the Archanist. The Sith Crusader had been hard to read both through the Force and through mudane means, but Venin had still picked up on the fact that the Archanist truly believed that the acolytes would die completing his little mission. While Venin understood while the Sith were not worried about losing the other two acolytes, he was surprised that he too was considered expendable. Venin was from a rich family of high ranking Imperial officials on the planet Zygerria, though not by blood. He had been adopted at a young age. Growing up, Venin had wanted to believe that he had been adopted for his own protection, and that he might be the scion of a powerful Sith Lord who had many enemies, but that had been only fantasy, a false hope. Venin now realized that he may have been adopted into an Imperial family to be watched, or maybe even as some sort of hostage, as if his parents were Jedi or Sith traitors.

The realization his Venin like a wall. It drove more breath out of his lungs than endless hours of running, and forced his tired legs to halt. He hunched over, breathing in large, raspy gasps. He had always assumed the mystery regarding his heritage was an indication of his parents' own greatness, and that one day he would rise up and take the family mantle. Now he realized that the more likely story was that his parents were enemies of the Imperium, and that he was just some sort of pawn, an afterthought, a child with Force sensitivity raised by Imperials so that he would serve the Sith loyally and proudly. His parents were likely dead.

But there was only one way to know for certain.

Venin wrenched himself forward and failed to stop until he reached the clearing where his fellow acolytes awaited him. "Just wait a second", he ordered between heavy breaths, "Had a life-changing epiphany on the way here and just need to get my breath back". He slumped down onto the soft jungle floor. The warmth of it was almost soothing. "Glad we're not hunting wampas on some slugging ice planet eh?"

After listening to the Miraluka's report, Venin shook his head. "No, that's too many. We'll be ripped to shreds. We need to keep looking and find something easier".

Repositioning himself on the damp moss that lined the forest floor, Venin took a deep breath and concentrated. He felt the Force beat inside of him and every other living thing in the dark green jungle. It was as if everything was connected by a single vein, and shared a single heartbeat. Venin could feel it now. He picked up the pack his companion had sensed. He felt them slip through the waves like a submarine through water. He noticed how intimate the Vornskrs were with the Force.

Then a dark though raced through Venin's mind. He immediately receded his focus back towards his own body. His face took on an expression of dread and fear. "Be careful how you use the Force, I think the beasts can sense it. Whenever we call on the Force, we will stand out like beacons to them". Venin's eyes darted around the clearing. Was it him, or was there a pair of yellow glowing eyes gazing at him from a dark patch of undergrowth. He blinked and shook his head, and the eyes disappeared.

Venin cleared his throat. "This is a game of cat and mouse. We need to trap one of those bastards before that pack catches out scent in the Force, because once they do..."

 

[Slamdingo]

For all its varied and verdant life, the jungle was not a soft place by any respectable measure. Even with careful strength conditioning and training, Kara still found it an exhausting exercise to trek through the jungle for such a stretch, and the sweat and work made both her eyes and scars burn alike. The training saber was relatively useless in most all things but it soon proved to have at least one use in batting away at annoying fauna that got in the path of the angrily marching Kara.

The heat of the jungle served to dry away the water of the river as she had moved along - until it was replaced by heavy sweat and Kara found herself hoping for perhaps another small body of water to wade through to combat the heat. But no small mercy like that came along and she was left to her minor torment for the entirety of her trek. It got so bad that at one point Kara had stopped to shed her coat and leave it secured tightly around her waist, leaving Kara in her chest-wrap in some desperate attempt to fight the heat and humidity.

The trek was spent focused solely on that task. Kara had mercifully been gifted with a trait often comically associated solely with men and poorly understood by those not fortunate enough to have it. Besides the occasional complaint by Kara or Dirge, she was focused enough that her mind didn't wonder to other things. It was some nether-state where she was able to tune out the dull ache in her limbs and the sweat that stung at her eyes, but she wasn't distracted in some unnecessary chain of thought. She remained that way until she finally reached the clearing where her Miraluka companion was waiting so patiently.

And Kara had just found a comfortable spot and taken a seat to catch her breath when the third member of their party came bumbling through the foliage with no more grace or finesse than Kara herself when she'd stomped and tore her way through.

At the mention of a pack, Kara's brow furrowed. She didn't even dare focus through the Force to try and find them: it had only taken one warning of the beasts' sensitivity to it for Kara to avoid taking chances. Instead she left it to the most Force-sensitive of the trio at first and watched as their third did the same. By simply watching each of their expressions as they fell into the Force, Kara could tell before the Miraluka had given her input. Immediately after her their third, Venin Kara believed his name was, spoke his on opinion. But he felt like waxing poetic with something that Kara assumed was supposed to be an ominous pause to drive home an implication.

"Then we all die." Kara rasped out the words curtly. "Sad and tragic for us."

For somebody who had just as much to lose as the other two, her attitude was rather dismissive. She rose to stand, with gauntlet-clad hands having thumbs hooked around her coat.

"Fire." She looked to the east, "There's always fire." Though she offered no further explanation other than, "Everything out here? Can't fight fire."

 

[Shadowcat]

Venin smirked at his companion's brief response. She certainly felt no fear, a trait that he could use. "Yes", he agreed with a knowing smile, thinking of all the unaswered questions he would take to his grave if he died on this shithole of a planet, "Very tragic indeed".

As for the acolyte's idea, that caused Venin to smirk as well. "While normally I'm a fan of the whole, 'Kill It With Fire', concept, I'm afraid the Archanist wants his Vornskr alive, not roasted with a side of Corellian greens". Venin glanced around the clearing. "But we should light some fires around wherever we make camp, just in case".

 

[Alora]

- Not kill it. Flash it out. Any living thing runs from fire, except a few exceptions which vornskrs aren't.
Tar'ja stood up and looked through the forest. She wasn't reaching out with the Force, she was just seeing it, so the force-hunting beasts wouldnt be alarmed of her presence.
- But the pack will run together, so we need to seperate one of them from the rest. And for that i think we need a bait.
With those words Tar'ja turned her face to Venin.

 

[Vexillar]

Viole observed their progress, felt their emotions, watched them carefully, from his spot on the ramp up to the upper levels of the city. A few people had given him odd looks, but nobody seemed ready to jump on him just yet. And with good reason too. He reached out to the Acolytes through the Force, a task that was rather draining on him, not because he couldn't speak telepathically to multiple people across distances, but because he wished to 'be there'.

A green mist gathered around him as he spoke his incantation under his breath and extended his astral self outwards to the trio. Each one of them would have their world's ground covered with the same green mist, and from it Viole's form was emerge. Formed from the mist itself. He looked at them all with a casual smile. Remember, students. Just as these hounds can use the Force, so can you. How do you hunt a hunter? Who can tell him how you escape the Shadowlands with your lives in tact? Think on these questions...and then remember history. Think of our current time. The Jedi aren't exactly loved by the Hutts, and they are far from loved by us. Yet the Hutts and the Imperium do not team up to strike at the Jedi...and it's so easy for small groups to poke at two big bears isn't it? What happens when two hunters come across the same prey? What happens when the Hutts and Imperials have a similar target...but for different goals? Venin? For all your self proclaimed genius, can you not see the most direct solution? He chuckled slightly. It was a teasing statement, not a belittling one.

He didn't want these children to die, because if they did then he'd be without a new pet. No. Rather he wanted them to live...to learn. This was just part of the process.

 

[Shadowcat]

Venin rolled his eyes when the Miraluka bluntly suggested for him to act as bait. He almost wished he could switch sides to the Vornskrs, surely those beasts were better hunters than the lot he had been thrown in with. "But", he began, his voice betraying his growing frusteration, though he was more frustrated at his own inability to think of a solution then the incompetence of his teammates, "If the Vornskrs move and hunt together as a pack, then using me as bait will not work at all. When they're chasing me, they are hunting. Pack animals hunt together". Venin did not miss the fact that the Miraluka had just suggested feeding him to a pack of wild animals. He would need to keep an eye on her, for his own safety.

The situation appeared to get worse when an ominous green mist began gathering by the acolytes' feet. Venin,, whi had been sitting on the forest floor, immediately jumped to his feet. One hand briefly hovered over his training saber, but when he saw the mist begin to take a familiar shape, he bowed instead.

The words the Archanist said did not offer a clear solution to the Sith acolytes, but answers could be found in the Archanist's message if Venin thought hard enough. The Archanist had even addressed Venin individually, offering a challenge that Venin took personally; however, the young acolyte could not help but respond with, "I am notthe self-proclaimed genius you claim I am. I let the facts speak for themselves, and the strength of my intellect has been proven multiple times over".

In spite of his words, it seemed as though Venin would need to prove the strength of his intellect once again, and despite his insolence, Venin did absorb the Archanist's earlier words. He began analyzing them in his head.

The Archanist had started by reminding the acolytes that they too, had access to the Force. Venin was not accustomed to having the Force as an advantage, so he noted that perhaps his connection to the Force coupd be exploited to help capture one of the Vornskrs.

Next the Archanist had compared the Imperium and the Cartel to a couple of hungry bears. According to Venin's knowledge, whenever the Imperium and the Cartel shared a common target, they tore each other apart either before, during, or after the battle. Neither organization was willing to share.

Instead of two bears, the Sith acolytes needed to worry about six. Vornskrs were hunters, and they were motivated mainly by their lust for prey. It was risky, but if the acolytes could somehow get the Vornskrs to turn on each other, then it would most likely reduce the pack's numbers, and the surviving Vornskrs would be weak and easy to subdue.

"We don't need to split the pack up in a physical sense", Venin answered after quite some time, "We need the pack to turn against itself. If the beasts killed each other off until only one remained, then we could easily swoop in and capture the weakened survivor".

The main problem in Venin's developing plan was finding a method of causing the Vornskrs to start ripping each other apart. The easiest solution was to somehow leave the pack with a meager amount of tasty prey, but hunting would be difficult with only training sabers, and Venin was not fool enough to suggest one of the acolytes sacrifice himself/herself in order to help the other acolytes complete the mission. That was Jedi bullshit.

Manipulating the minds of the Vornskrs could be an option, but such a technique was probably too difficult given Venin and his acolyte's current experience levels. Venin racked his brain, trying to think of a solution.