Ask Sound Mind in Sound Body

[Naina Naberrie]

A City, Thule​

As the last bastion of Sith dominance in the Galaxy, at least as far as was public knowledge, Thule offered a number of advantages to a Sith that could not be experienced anywhere else. There were benefits, there were luxuries, and there was just enough leeway that you could enjoy them even as a measly acolyte. Naina had learned of a place desperate enough to even treat acolytes with the degree of reverence she was expected to treat a lord, and boy had she let that go to her head. She had thoroughly enjoyed herself, having more drinks than she had any right to. And the result was that she had showed up for this assignment more than a little hungover.

She was hazy on the details, something about reviewing the city's readiness for a military emergency or something like that. It hurt her head to try to remember more, but did she really need to know more? Check the ships, make sure they were ready to fly, and that ought to do. No one ever really read these reports, they were meant to give acolytes something to do, and get familiar with the command structure of the more plebeian arms of the Order, nothing more. She just hoped her partner for the assignment wasn't a stikler for the rules, she wanted to be done with this as soon as she could. She had picked up the number of a very cute looking Nautolan the previous night, and getting more drinks with him seemed like the best way to deal with her headache. So she took a deep breath, tried to clear her head as best as she could, and headed towards the speeder bay where her partner waited.

"Hey, I'm Naina. You must be.." She paused as she came up blank at her partner's name, staring at the Falleen for a moment as her thoughts ran around her head with tiny rubber hammers, forcing her to improvise. "really excited for this mission, you're early." He wasn't, a simple look at her chrono would have told her that she was decidedly late.

 

[Xohhar K'liir]

'One of these days I will remember that most of the other Acolytes think punctuality is some sort of disease and save myself the time... oh who am I kidding,' Xohhar grumbled to himself as he leaned against the wall outside of the Thule Defense Forces headquarters. He wear wearing a dark hooded cloak over his usual armor, the hood raised and obscuring his features. The Falleen acolyte had discovered that making sure he appeared as a Sith opened more doors on Thule than other worlds and had begrudgingly traded his coat for something a little more 'on brand'. It was nearly an hour and a half after their appointed meeting time that the other Acolyte arrived, the young human woman reeking of booze and bearing all the hallmarks of a raging hangover.

Raising his voice an octave or two higher than was strictly necessary, Xohhar began speaking - taking no small satisfaction from the way she winced at the way his voice boomed through her ears as he leaned in. "My name, as stated in your briefing packet, is Xo. And you're late, is what you are. I sent you five messages, if you weren't going to show you could have at least told me and I'd have started the inspection without you." Snorting, the Falleen shook his head and finally lowered his voice - whether out of pity or because he couldn't be bothered would be for Naina to determine. "I know how to secure a facility, not a city - I suppose we'll just do an equipment inspection and interview the pilots before speaking to the commander. With your lateness and our combined lack of experience we're going to do this one by the book, so I hope you don't have any other plans for the afternoon."

@Wit

 

[Naina Naberrie]

Naina tried her best to pay attention as Xo scolded her, but the volume of his voice had sent shard of pain through her head and she could barely pay attention. It was only when the mention of the five messages pierced through the haze of her mind that she realized that he had lowered his voice, and it didn't hurt quiet as much to pay attention to his words. A wave of gratitude rushed through her as the pain abated just a little.

"By the book," she nodded and gestured towards the entrance to the headquarters, "roger that." She started walking, and stopped almost immediately as her brain finally caught up completely with what Xo had said. She began patting all her pockets, checking and double checking in a panic.

She looked up at Xo with pure horror on her face. "I left it behind," she gulped before continuing, "my phone. I left it at the bar. It has all my info, all my texts, all my holosnaps." She went pale, and turned to Xo with desperation in her voice. "I have to go find it, you have to help me or there will be hell. There's...fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck...We have to go find it, now."

She started to move, not towards the facility but away from it, and try to drag Xo along.

"I could really use your help, I'd owe you one. Big time." Realizing that that alone might not be incentive enough, she continued. "My academy info's on there you know, someone could access the archives if they got in. You'd really be doing the Order a favor by helping me out." It might have been an afterthought to her, but she hoped something like that was of much more importance to him and would convince him to tag along. The state she was in, she had little confidence in her ability to find her phone on her own.

@Rom

 

[Xohhar K'liir]

Xohhar looked at the other Acolyte with a clear air of disbelief surrounding him in the Force and on his face, eyebrow ridge raised and his foot slowly tapping the duracrete beneath him.

"Why is it that you're more concerned about losing your holosnap streak than you are about giving access to the Archives and Academy to whatever drunk picked up your phone?!" his last words a furious hiss as he dropped the volume of his voice to a near whisper as several uniformed Defense Force members and a Sith Champion walked by heading toward the spaceport; he was frustrated, but he didn't want to see the other Acolyte strangled to death.

Yet, anyway.

"Okay, alright fine we'll go find your damn phone. Do you remember what bar you were at? Lead the way." Letting out a sigh, the Falleen reached into his pocket and fished out his own EZPhone. "And give me your comm code, maybe if we call it and someone answers we can find it."

@Wit

 

[Naina Naberrie]

Naina at least had the sense to try and look slightly abashed as Xo questioned her priorities. Besides, she wasn't so entirely out of it that she didn't know the sort of trouble she could be in.

"Comm code, right." She took a moment to wrack her brain, but that was the sort of info she did share regularly enough that it did come back to her, though in typical Naina fashion she had gone out the previous night without much charge on her phone so the thing was probably lying dead somewhere. "It was near that place with the pyramids, I remember spubering there. I can't remember the name, but I'll know it when I see it."

Leading the way, first to a speeder cab, which she sheepishly asked Xo to pay for, and then a short walk through a still crowded street full of restaurants and bars, she finally jumped excitedly as she spotted a sign up ahead. "There it is, that's the one!" A flashing sign identified the Little Ewok as their destination, but as they reached the location they would be greeted by a crowd at the entrance. Uniforms all around, off duty officers were practically fighting to get in.

"Oh right," she said as more of the previous night came back to her, "they had a military discount last night, guess that's still going on. Don't worry, I can get us in." Making her way towards the entrance, she spotted of low ranking officers and made a beeline for them. Noticing her approach, a couple of them put on a smile till a figure cut her off and stopped her in her tracks.

"Oh no, not again. Not after last night, shoo. Go, shoo!" Sending her off, waving off her explanations of looking for her comm as simple excuses, the bouncer got back to his job of letting in would be patrons.

"At least we know this is the place." She gave Xo a weak smile, having found a bottle of water in all the mess and taking a quick sip to calm her throbbing head.

@Rom

 

[Xohhar K'liir]

Xohhar found himself counting backwards from a hundred every time the human acolyte did something that frustrated him; when the comm code she rattled off immediately closed the connection every time he tried to connect a call, when she gave him that sheepish smile as the gruff Besalisk cab driver reached a hand back impatiently for a credit chit to cover the fare... when she led him up to a bar called The Little Ewok packed with off-duty officers.

When the bouncer cut in front of her and sent her packing he didnt bother trying to hide his own snort of laughter, quipping "Well, it sounds like you certainly made an impression. Come on, follow me and lets see if we can't get this sorted and back to our mission." The Falleen approached the bouncer, his scales shifting into a softer green color as he released his hold on his pheromones, hoping to make the bouncer a little more pliable.

"I am Acolyte Xoh of the Sith, my... companion misplaced their phone while they were at your establishment and we're trying to track it down. Do you have any idea what might have happened to it?"

@Wit