Ask Nothing More Powerful Than a Good Story

[Nathan Braxon]

They wound their way from the Chancellor's office up several flights of stairs, emerging onto one of the rotunda encircling the Senate chamber. They ran into nothing living on their route, but more than once they had to navigate a collapsed corridor or skirt around a jagged hole in the floor. Nathan had always believed in the power and prestige of the Senate and seeing its ruined halls wounded him deeply.

Lok followed like Nathan's dutiful shadow. The Senator was still impressed that nothing seemed to phase the man; he even sounded eager to secure their next objective. But overconfidence was only a step away from recklessness. Nathan would have to watch that his new friend did not slip into underestimating the risks.

He chose to enter the Senate chamber from one of the mid level floors, reasoning that there was no sense climbing higher than necessary but also that any creatures still lurking here would likely rest at ground level. He teased open a set of double doors that were remarkably intact, though as they slipped inside Nathan saw that several exits around the rim were torn open or blasted wide.

The huge spherical chamber was shrouded in near darkness, a dim glow emanating from emergency lighting and a few shafts of dull sunlight punching through rents in the wall. Some of the pods were still in their places, but others had been torn away and lay in mangled heaps. The Chancellor's podium at least stood unmolested on its high spire in the center.

"There it is" he breathed, nudging Lok and pointing to the small gavel just visible on the Chancellor's podium, brass fastenings glinting. "We just need to get to it".

Nathan crept forward into the nearest pod and turned on the display. By some miracle, the thing still had enough juice to get them across and he turned on the repulsors in readiness.

Something snorted and hissed nearby and too late Nathan saw a sleeping exalted stir and rise up on the neighbouring pod, a creature more serpent than man, incoiling and snapping at them with huge jaws. The commotion knocked their pod half free of its moorings and both of them would be thrown on their backs.

6/20 for undisturbed passage

@Mythos

 

[Skyshatter]

Standing upon the precipice of the old Senatorial Rotunda, Lok held a certain misguided mixture of emotions within his heart. And the Force that swirled around him mimicked them to a degree. As ancient as this place was, it once held a hope for eternal peace and utopian promises. But in the same action, it plunged the Galaxy into a darkness that it had yet to truly recover. The Return of the Sith. A blight that had plagued the Galaxy since. Silently he sighed, sorrow filling his mind as hopelessness became his ever quenching revelation as his gaze shifted to Nathan.

"I see it." He whispered in response, but as Nathan stepped forward and activated the Pod, the moment grew hectic in a fraction of a second. As the Serpentine Exalted rose from its slumber, it's massive maw striking in their direction, both he and Nathan soon found themselves trapped within their confines. Or so it appeared. In a jest, he spoke to Nathan. "I'm starting to think you're cursed Senator."

But no, Lok didn't believe in curses, nor in bad luck. It was mere testaments of what the Galaxy had became even for the most experienced, death awaiting at nearly every corner. In order to survive, as Lok had, instincts were heavily relied upon over pure thought, more beast themselves than Sentient. One hand touching the flooring of the Pod as the other brought forth the unactivated shoto, Lok closed his eyes and let the Force become his guide. For in his mind, he could see the moments slow down enough to stratagise.

As his eyes opened, Lok leapt up as the serpent recoiled, the Force flowing through his legs and feet as he jumped highly into the air. In a fluid motion, the purple hue of his shoto lightsaber met the chin of the Exalted as it slashed upward against its lunge and with his free hand, he called forth their objective. As he fell back down to the Pod and with the shift of weight, sent it roller coasting toward the cylindrical center below across the pods below. Growls and stirring could be heard as they went. But Lok paid no heed as he surfed the sea of pods to their final destination.

It was there, at the base of the Chancellor's Podium, the Lok noticed the gap where it descended, frozen in place by time and disuse. Just before the Pod crashed, Lok grappled Nathan and both of them jumped, sliding into the gap just as the Pod crashed over it. It was a minor fall within, but one nonetheless. Both would plummet for a few seconds before ground would embrace their forms and their wind knocked from their lungs. But both would live.

D20: 10 Partial Success

@Alhon

 

[Nathan Braxon]

For the second time in one day, Nathan thought his number was up. The serpentine exalted reared up and the darkness of the chamber threatened to embrace him.

Lok's purple blade flashed, illuminating their foe and cutting through the air. Nathan staggered to his feet, holding onto the rail as his companion fought back the creature. The senator pulled his pistol up and loosed a few shots into its maw for good measure, but as Lok landed back he was thrown aside again as the pd careened towards the center.

"If I'm cursed, then you're mad" Nathan replied. The way Lok seemed to take all of this in his stride was both impressive and terrifying. Nathan was distantly aware of other cries and growls around the room, but he could do little but hold on tight as they soared through the air. As the central spire loomed before them, strong hands grabbed him and Nathan found himself jumping with Lok into the darkness.

It was a tough fall and they hit the deck hard. Nathan managed a half-roll, some vestige of his military training still there, and quickly came up onto all fours, winded. "We're close" he panted "come on, quick". He clambered across metal fragments and debris, reaching for the control panel on the central column.

The Senate system was familiar to him and for all their dreaded strength the exalted were hardly the type to make network changes. The panel flickered to life and still accepted Nathan's old code. Slowly, grudgingly, the podium began to lower.

Once again, Nathan might as well have lit a firework. The moving podium roused every exalted in the chamber, stirring them all to begin charging down the lines of pods, vicious hunger in their alien eyes.

5/20 for lowering podium without issue

@Mythos

 

[Skyshatter]

Lok laughed at Nathan's analogy as he spoke it, a laugh that lasted until the wind was expelled from his lungs as his form hit solid ground. Was he truly mad? Perhaps. Perhaps not. There was thin line that separated the two, and for the most part, he walked it brazenly. Without a family to go home to, he often walked the Galaxy as a man with no tomorrow. And it could come across as madness to an outsider looking in. But until they day came that he would rejoin his family in the afterlife, he would enjoy it, even if it was a twisted life to perceive.

Rising from his fall, Lok shook the plum of dust that had erupted upon him from his contact with the floor and followed Nathan toward the console, rubbing off a few aches and pains in his approach. He wasn't as young as he used to be. But he'd manage. And yet, as Nathan keyed the Podium, Lok was slow to react and the dome above began to open as the podium began to descend as he grasped at the Senator's hands.

"I'm beginning to think your both cursed and mad." He spoke as the rustling of the Exalted began to stir and the growls and howls of the awakened began to echo and grow closer to them amidst the darkness. Opening his hand, he revealed the Gavel that Nathan sought before pointing at the descending podium. "I already had the objective. There was no need for us to openly invite our deaths."

As Lok finished, he spun to meet the incoming horde of Exalted that began to press and claw upon the expanding opening. Canister reloaded, Lok let forth another fury of hellfire upon the beasts and sending them reeling back in pain despite their mindlessness. But with so many trying to get in through its expanding opening, there was little that the flame thrower could do. So he spun on his heels and grabbed Nathan up and across his pauldroned shoulder as he quickly made their retreat through the exit. He may invite death on a regular basis, but he knew it wasn't yet time.

As each of the chasing Exalted grew closer, Lok would occasionally spin and let forth a small portion of the foaming fluid before finishing the twist of his form and continuing forward. Their objectives were now complete and now one remained. Survival. And Lok was doing his best to succeed in this aspect so the others would not be for naught. But with such a horde on their tails, it grew increasingly improbable. Lightsaber still lit and Nathan across his shoulder, they traversed the darkness quickly and into the neighboring stairwell where they first met the Exalted from before.

D20:6 - Bare Success in Escape; Singular Exalted awaits below

@Alhon