Ask Sinister Snare

[Amira Din]

Jungles of Scarif, Outer Rim Territories

Daylight broke on the horizon. Sunlight's first rays reflected upon the glistening foliage, still wet with the morning dew. As the shuttle's repulsorlifts powered down, the mechanized roar of an engine was replaced with the sounds of the jungle. Animals stirred, out of sight and beyond the tree line, disrupting ferns and vines as they paced and slithered across the jungle floor. Variegated birds called out from their perches above, amongst the canopy of palm trees that would block the the rising sun.

The air was suffocating—humid and sticky as it clung to your clothing like a damp towel in a sauna. Maybe black Sith robes wasn't the greatest choice of attire. Locator in hand, Amira descended the boarding ramp. Her boots sunk into the sand beneath her. "Well, we're in the right place," the Tiefling called over her shoulder, yellow eyes fixed on the locator. One hand reached to secure the lightsaber that hung from her belt.
"I sure hope you're wearing deodorant," she muttered, swatting away a mosquito. If her Sith companion was anything like her brothers, he'd probably sweat like a pig. The Tiefling didn't know which was worse—her brother's perspiration or the body spray they practically bathed in to cover it up. "Otherwise I have half a mind to leave you in the ship." @Faded

 

[Roman Antilles]

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Roman chuckled at the Tieflings' obvious discomfort, he personally didn't think the weather was too bad. The humid heat was different than what he was use to but it didn't feel that much more warm than the scorching sands of Korriban. He had kept his helmet off for a majority of the transport, only moving towards Amira's side as she stood on the ramp to dismount from their airship.

"I think you care too much about me to leave me here all alone..." He whispered with a sarcastic and playful tone. His left hand reaching out to grab hers affectionately and tug her body closer to his. "I thought we were going to have a few more drinks in the cabin before we got back to work?" He asked, knowing she'd said no but hell, you always miss the shots you never take right?

Placing his helmet over his head, Roman descended the boarding ramp now as well, loading up a locator off his datapad which surveyed a rather large terrain fields before placing singular coordinates to the distress signal that was nearby. The servant droid that had accompanied them, opened the cargo bay underneath the ship hull. His armored figure moved towards it and unbuckled the hatch doors, revealing a pair of speeder bikes. He mounted one of them, its chassis bumbling with a low grumble as he turned it on and shifted his attention towards Amira. "Shall we?"

@llamallove

 

[Amira Din]

Oh. So Roman Antilles was that sort of guy. The kind that was under the mistaken assumption that just because nature had blessed him with good looks and more than half a brain cell women would be captivated by his direct regard and swoon at even the most facile of advances. He was a far cry from the stoic, inarticulate Sith stereotype. "Care about you?" Amira repeated, arching a brow. He was confident—she'd give him that. They had just met a few hours ago and had hardly spoken five words to one another over the course of the journey that led them to this seeming paradise. What did he think this was? A holosoap where the heroine falls in love with the protagonist in the first act?
The Tiefling wrenched her hand free of his grasp, fighting the urge to slap him across the face with the tip of her tail or send him hurtling into the nearest palm tree with a little force push. Her lips curled, one hand reaching to rest on the blade that hung from her belt, just to accentuate her next words. "Touch me again, and I won't hesitate to gut you like a ghest," she vowed.

She was under the impression that they would trek through the jungle on foot to search for the Sith shuttle that had apparently crashed and now laid obscured somewhere beneath the verdant canopy, but perhaps speeder bikes would be more efficient. She wouldn't admit it, though. "Don't tell me you're afraid to get your boots dirty. But she obliged, mounting the second speeder bike and flipping a few switches. As soon as the engine had fired up, she turned to regard the Champion across from her. Still irritated, she couldn't help but add, "Oh, and by the way? You look a lot better with the helmet on," before racing into the jungle. @Faded

 

[Roman Antilles]

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Roman couldn't help but laugh momentarily as Amira laid onto him with her sass; one would think that the comment may strike a nerve but it seemed that the male Sith actually welcomed it and found it oddly refreshing. He ignited the speeder bike and raced after his companion through the jungle. The datapad interface laced into the navigation screen of his speeder, showing a map coordinates of where the distress signal and Sith signature were radiating. "A few more miles North" He yelled to the woman.

As they approached the distress signal, it came not from a location or object but rather a corpse. Roman slowed his speeder as he neared, hovering around the site for a moment before he disengaged from the vehicle and dismounted. Armored figure slowly moved towards the remains that still gave off dark seeded energies. The corpse belonged to what appeared as a deceased Zabrak, relatively familiar in appearance though the Champion couldn't put his finger on it.

"Features are vaguely familiar, perhaps an acolyte who recently failed his training rituals.." Running his hand across the corpse, he lifted it to glance at what appeared as a ghastly green dye, freshly encanted as its residue still lingered in force presence. "Alchemy traces...this was planted here for a purpose."

Roman said, kneeling beside the corpse and glancing upwards to look at the paths crossing onto their position.

@llamallove

 

[Amira Din]

Roman Antilles took the threat surprisingly well, particularly for a Sith with such a high opinion of himself. To most people, 'I'll gut you like a ghest' were fighting words, but he accepted them as gracefully as a high society lady might accept a cucumber sandwich at an afternoon tea party. The Tiefling could draw several conclusions from this reaction, and none of them painted the human in a favorable light. Either he hit on women regularly and had grown accustomed to persistent rejection or he was trying to hide a colossal amount of insecurity beneath that durasteel getup. Amira really didn't care which it was, so long as he kept his hands to himself. If he suspected that she would hesitate for even a second to strike him down where he stood and carry this mission out alone, he was gravely mistaken.

The locators built into the speeder bikes led the pair of Champions right to their object, a clearing in the tropical forest where two diverging paths met in the middle. The corpse of a deceased Zabrak laid at the center of the clearing, as if he had been paced there for them to find. This was... odd, to say the least, and if her exploits alongside Master Roth had taught her anything, it was that nothing in life came easy. Amira knelt beside the Acolyte, one knee sinking into the dirt. He was young, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old. A dark hand hovered over his forehead, the skin cold to the touch. There were no visible signs of decomposition, but he had been dead for some time.

Amira spun around, yellow eyes surveying the surrounding tree line. There was no wreckage. "Where is the ship?" she thought aloud. "And the other Acolytes? They never travel alone." The Tiefling might have been isolated from the Sith Empire at large for years, tied to the hip of her master, but she knew that much. "If they activated the distress beacon, they would have stuck close to the ship and awaited rescue." Unless they were stupid, which was certainly a possibility. Or they were being chased. "Why do I get the feeling we've walked into a trap?" she asked, hand already reaching for her blade. @Faded

 

[Roman Antilles]

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Roman remained knelt for a few more minutes, trying to analyze what Amira was saying and then placing the pieces together given their current circumstance. It was true, Acolytes always travelled together or in the company of a Champion or Master. This one was all alone and if they had in fact activated a distress beacon there would have been a ship around. None of the aforementioned were true, meaning only that this acolyte could have been that stupid or perhaps he was lured here and then a distress signal sent out to lure others.

"Look at his flesh.." Roman said, running an armored hand over the torso of the corpse. "This green mist is all over the body, almost as if it is decaying quicker than anticipated." He spoke, shifting attention briefly into his commlink as he communicated with the remainder soldiers at their vessel. "Lieutenant, upload the aerial view of the old facilities that are near our current location.."...few seconds later, a map emerged from his datapad, showing the corpse as well as what appeared to be a large underground network of catacombs.

"Hmm, I see no apparent entrance. Perhaps the Empire had wanted to keep this location a secret.."

Little did they both know, they were being watched.

@llamallove

 

[Amira Din]

Amira stared, golden eyes following the line armored hands traced over the scorched skin of the Acolyte. "It's shadow magick," she said, frowning. The Tiefling's knowledge of shadow magick, the manipulation of ichor across the galaxy, was all secondhand. Master Roth had routinely used it, but it was not an ability he had ever passed on to her. "Beyond the abilities of an Acolyte." Particularly one that had gone and gotten himself killed.
"Then why did the Sith send us here in the first place?" she asked, questioning Roman's suggestion that the underground system of catacombs was somehow connected to the Empire. Perhaps it had been, at one point or another in history, but the two Champions never would have been sent here if it put some secret Sith operation at risk. No single Acolyte was that important to the Empire. "I guess we should start searching for an entrance," she suggested, rising to her feet. One hand remained fixed on the hilt of the lightsaber that hung from her waist. "There's got to be one somewhere."

No sooner had the Tiefling stood than the jungle around them began to part, plants parting as slender figures emerged. They were deathly thin, as if they hadn't eaten in weeks, with skin as white and unnatural as chalk. They stared at the Champions out of dark, sunken eye sockets. There were too many of them to count, and the Champions found themselves outnumbered and surrounded.

Dice Roll: How many enemies are there? 19/20 :/ @Faded

 

[Roman Antilles]

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Roman had kept his attention fixated on the acolyte when Amira spoke to him, unaware that the flora around them parted as they spoke. It was only a few moments later when he saw the Tieflings' divert her gaze, his soon followed behind hers to view the newcomers. They were interesting little creatures, though as soon as they lifted their teeth to display ravenous canines and a deep growling tone for femished hunger, Roman knew that this would be trouble.

"Seems we've been invited to lunch, unfortunately, I don't think the menu is in our favor.." He said with a slight chuckle, trying to bring some humor to the situation. His armored form advanced slightly, taking a few steps forward to place himself between the creatures and Amira. If they did fire some projectiles, his armor would hopefully absorb most of the damage. Besides, he'd be embarrassed as hell if he had to tell his friend Altair that his sister got hurt out on a mission with him.

"I suppose you all wouldn't mind telling us the direction for the Temple?" He inquired, last ditch effort at diplomacy. One day though, he knew an adversary would take him up on that offer. The creatures simply roared out and snarled, two of them leaping towards Roman as he finished speaking. Lightsaber ignited in his right grip and he hurled it forwards, catching one creature right below the jawline to decapitate him cleanly.

The saber fly back into Roman's hand, his free grip sweeping forward to catch the second creature by its throat. Holding it suspended in the air by his arm, he quickly turned to Amira. "Should we just kill them?" Just then, the creature he had held, twisted its body and squarely slammed its feet into Roman's chest. An ooof sound came from the Champion as he staggered back several feet.

@llamallove

OOC: Saber throw, rolled 40/100 for mild success.

 

[Amira Din]

The Tiefling's vermillion blade hummed to life within her hands, and she hoped the weapon might scare the natives away. It didn't. They lingered, mouths agape with wonder as they stared at the Sith with blank, empty expressions, utterly devoid of any emotion. Then one of them muttered something in a language she did not understand, and they began to advance. Their appearance resembled humans, but they were unlike any human Amira had ever seen. They were frightening and unnatural. "Funny. I just lost my appetite," she quipped, planting her feet as her companion drew closer, pacing himself between she and the creatures.
Amira rolled her eyes, a scowl settling of her features. "Oh, now you decide to be a gentleman. I don't need you to stand in the gap, Antilles." Of course he couldn't have been a gentleman earlier, back at the ship when he was touching her without permission or making suggestive comments. No, only when it happened to suit his ego and appealed to his twisted, misplaced sense of machoism. The Tiefling stepped around him. If he thought she was the useless love interest from some cheap novel you'd find at a refueling station, he was sorely mistaken. They would face their enemies shoulder to shoulder. Side by side. The creatures charged Roman first, but Amira was quick to jump into the thick of the fight.

She tripped one of them, the force snaking around his ankle until he stumbled forward, falling face first in the dirt. "Looks like you already are," she replied, a head rolling to a stop three or four feet away from her, and she didn't hesitate to do the same, raising her blade to drive it through the heart of the man at her feet. Two rapacious, sweaty hands wrapped around her arm then, trying to hold it in place, while another creature jumped onto her back, grabbing ahold of her horns and pulling her backward. Whatever they were, they smelled horrendous. Worse than her Great Aunt Gertrude's house when she was making collared greens and liver for dinner.

They were outnumbered, Amira pinned in placed, but she hadn't given up hope yet. Her free arm reached out, flinging the dead Acolyte's corpse toward Roman's attackers. At least in death the Acolyte would be useful.

Dice Roll for Amira's Attack" 10/20 @Faded