Symphony of the Night

[Rowan Harlow]

The Perils to Come

Rowan stood at the crest of the last foothill before reaching the mountains proper, taking a deep drag of his cigar as he looked up at the depressing sight. The sun had started to fall behind the line of mountains, causing the shadows to deepen and the air to become even more chill. Above him loomed the ruined city of Juranno, his ancestral home. It had long been laid to waste during the Civil War five centuries past, his own family almost wiped to extinction and forced to leave their home lest they also suffer eradication. His fist clenched around the head of his cane as he took in the sight again, as he had done so many other times before when he had stolen away to this place during his years at the academy.

It was here that he had found himself, in a sort of way. The confidence that masked his anxieties and depression, that allowed him to keep putting one foot in front of the other, all of that and more had been forged in the ruins of his old family home. He had been younger then, able to more easily avoid the various gangs and thugs that had taken to using what they could of the ruins as their destitute homes. The poor and homeless had also flocked here, taken advantage of almost immediately upon doing so by the scions of the old Cartels that had taken a perverse joy in settling the home of their ancient enemy. This would be their last night here. Rowan was no longer alone and he would not suffer these miscreants a moment more. He waited for his companions to arrive so that he could better go over the plan to retake the city. He would make sure all were repaid for their efforts. To do anything less wouldn't exactly be noble, now would it?

@Nefieslab @christhebarker

 

[Eddard Thul Drast]

Sometimes Eddard would like to look to the past, to point to something in history and point out how he enjoyed learning from it, how he enjoyed being someone who had taken that lesson to heart. But when he looked at Juranno? Well when he looked at Juranno all he saw was a waste; a waste of talent, a waste of space and a waste of time. Juranno was Rowan's dream and he would respect that but Eddard himself felt nothing save, perhaps, boredom as he looked at the city before him, across the middle distance, as he enjoyed his cigara.

More power to Rowan to secure his gloomy, cold, ruin for himself because Eddard wouldn't want any of it at all. He was dressed up in his regular Sith armour with his regular armaments, waiting to set foot in the relic of the past of House Harlow, once his cigara was done with after all.

Wandering on up to stand beside Rowan, he looked down at the city for a moment without saying a word before he spoke.

"Long time since you've seen it?" He asked quietly as he looked it over once again, "Seems a reasonable enough place. Not very well defended from this angle - something to fix when you control it again."

He glanced over at Rowan.

"Are you ready for this?"

@Insalius @christhebarker

 

[Zarya]

Zarya had never been to Alderaan, she never saw a reason to, a whole bunch of stuck up nobles that likely hated her just for existing, that to her didn’t seem like a good time but Eddard managed to convince her to go with him to help a friend of his, something Harlow, she couldn’t remember exactly. it was mostly the idea of being rewarded for her services that convinced her

“So tell me why I’m on a mountain freezing my ass off,” she asked the both of the men in front , from behind him in heavy coat over her robes looking over skeleton of a ruin city. “And what I’m looking at?” She knew nothing of the history of the planet or this place. All see saw was the ruins of something long dead. Maybe one of the two them would explain it to her.

@Nefieslab @Insalius

 

[Rowan Harlow]

Looking between the two, Rowan knew they didn't fully want to be there with him. He couldn't blame them. It was cold, getting dark, and the night only had the prospect of combat and possible pain with the danger. Juranno did mean something to him, to his family, but it also meant more to him than just the symbolic value. He hoped he would be able to convince them of this in a moment, taking a small hologram projector from his pocket to set on a flat rock nearby. He'd prepared this for them when he'd decided to go for his ancient home, wanting to have planned everything to make for the least surprises possible. Eddard and Zarya weren't pawns to him, they were his precious companions. He wanted them to excel with him, not use them as shields and stepping stones to his rise to glory. That just wasn't who he was, despite how rampant that behavior usually was in the Imperial Republica. Perhaps that was what would set him apart from the rank and file.

"Yes, I know it doesn't look like much now. There's definitely a lot more holes than there should be, at least from how my family described it. I just want to start off with saying that, while this IS my ancestral home, my goal for taking it back isn't to return it to it's former glory. No, I don't want to recreate the past, I want to make it better, something valuable to us all and to the Greater Good. Retaking the city is just the start. I'll show you those plans when we're done here, I just ask...That you trust me, for now. You two even being here means more to me than you know, and I will make sure that you receive due recompense for this." He gave the two of them a genuine smile before zooming in on various parts of the mountain in the hologram.

"Some earlier reconnaissance shows that things haven't changed much since my last visit. The base of the mountain has a large series of caverns that served as the slums of the city proper, now filled with vagrants and other destitute members of society that our Noble brethren tries their best to ignore. A gang skilled in gambling and slaving runs this part of the whole, which they will need to be taken out first. None of these groups are allied, so the possibility of reinforcements should be next to nothing. We start by freeing these slaves and wiping out the gang, giving us a starting point." He changed the picture to an internal view of the mountain, near halfway between the main city in the peaks and the bottom level.

"This area here is used by a spice refining organization, labs of the stuff and storage of their product taking up many of the caverns that originally led from the slums to the main city. I'm not a fan of the stuff, yet if we can limit damage to the facilities here we might have something we can sell for more assets. These caverns lead to the city itself, now mostly deserted. A group of criminal slicers have trapped the buildings they use to carry out their crimes. Just like with the Spicers, they might have something we can use. Mainly, though, we just want to take out any hostile elements we come across." As the hologram moved to the keep on one of the taller peaks, his face turned to more of a grimace.

"This last location is the old Harlow Manor, more of a castle than anything. This place is controlled by a militia that acts more like a terrorist cell, run by a man with enough brains to not make himself too much of a target. Getting in from the front is near suicide. Thankfully, I know of a back way in. It's called 'Spectre's Fall' in the family, named after someone who had committed a grave crime against the family back during the Civil War. It's a bit of a tight squeeze, yet it should be unguarded. Once we take out the militia, our job will be done. Between all these groups, there should be weapons and assets aplenty to give tot he Venatori. That's when I'll start with the plans to turn this place from a ruin into a reliable base of operations, in secret of course. Any questions?"

@christhebarker @Nefieslab

 

[Eddard Thul Drast]

Zarya was here because he had asked her along and she seemed pretty comfortable being here with the two of them - just not anywhere near as comfortable being in such a cold location. Naturally Eddard could sympathise but he wasn't about to speak up to agree with her. That would just be needlessly insulting about Rowan's dream destination or home or fortress or whatever the correct term for the place would be for when Rowan was done with it.

Watching as Rowan brought up a hologram, Eddard crossed his arms and waited for his ally to explain his thoughts. He waved a hand at the sincere thanks Rowan gave.

"Please don't get emotional on us until the job is done and the wine is poured." he joked in a deadpan before nodding, "Good that you plan on improving it instead of reverting it. Clearly it's old state didn't lend itself to surviving."

Perhaps that last bit might be a bit of a low blow but Eddard was prickly like that. It seemed that the bottom feeders had infested the city since the fall of House Harlow as well, including slavers. Eddard wasn't a very conscientious Alderaanian but even he found the practice of slavery to be abhorrent but that might have had more to do with his first 'training exercise' than anything to do with the actual practice itself.

Spice was perfectly fine to Eddard.

If people were stupid enough to want to buy it then their credits were best held in the hands of others as far as he was concerned. The only thing he would make sure to do was sell elsewhere. To his mind there was no point in selling on his own doorstep. The slicers might be useful though. He hummed as he heard about the militia.

"Numbers?" he asked simply, "Surprise will only last so long and we cannot hope to last against hundreds of these pests."

Even a Nexu or an Acklay could be downed by insect bites.

@Insalius @christhebarker

 

[Zarya]

Watching as Harlow brought up the holoprojecter, the image was accurate to what she was looking, it was very obvious that Harlow had done his homework. Slavers and drug dealers the only thing they were was missing weapon smuggling and they would of had the criminal trifecta she thought to herself not seriously of course, they were scum, vermin and like vermin they would exterminated from the city.

“You’ve certainly done I lot of homework, I see this place means a lot to you,” she understood what he wanted to do, she to was driven from her home and hoped to reclaim it and build upon the ruins something stronger, for that she respected him and will do this for him, not because of the offer as reward but in hopes he would return the favour in kind.

“so when do we begin” she said enthusiastically with a smirk across her face.

@Nefieslab @Insalius

 

[Rowan Harlow]

The question of numbers was important, something that Rowan knew quite personally. He'd made the rounds through this place years ago and from the light scouting he'd done, things were still mostly the same. "Well, the lowest level swims with people pressed into service, yet once their handlers are gone the homeless will flee instead of fight. You can tell who a gang member is because of the garish yellow clothing they tend to wear, something their leader finds fashionable and uses to recognize all the blooded members. They number a couple dozen at most, for the true members. As for the Spice Cookers, there are around twenty with most of their number being the chemists. They had been working with few defenders thinking their expertise would keep them useful. It seems it worked...Well, for them, not for us."

Rowan lit a cigar, thinking of the next groups they would have to face. "The slicers are mainly loners, focusing more on their traps than their numbers. Barely a dozen there, but very tricky. It's the last group that has numbers, that militia. I could never get close enough to get a sure count, so my estimation is around fifty or so of them. By the time we're inside, though, we can turn their weapons on them. I know they have at least one tank on the grounds, and we all know how well tanks work against groups of of cannon fodder. Based on all that, I figured you two would be the perfect balance of numbers and power to handle this without drawing the attention of further garrisons, who would swoop in and claim this place as their own. As for when we start?" He smiled, letting the cigar fall only to be crushed under his shoe. "Now." Taking the hologram projector, he headed down the hill towards their first objective, using a little known foot path through the harsh terrain to make their trek easier. This would be a long night.

/Endthread