Ask Tales From the Crypt

[Leon Baudelaire]

Addiction takes many forms. The shapes at which it shifts to meet the needs and desires of it’s host truly are a manifestation of pure evil. Unless you’re Jabba apparently. Then it was a freaking force puzzle. Leon chucked and set back the chore of sharpening his sword, before dragging Ezra to the dining area.

“Lind of Wife?” he hissed at Ezra in a harsh whisper, then quickly back to the elder’s perplexed gaze he mouthed, “Sorry, he’s slow,” The Elder bellowed with laughter.

“I see.” said the elder humor still coloring his words, “I am glad the order sent the two of you. I believe you both have an important lesson to teach us here as well,” his grace lifted both hands and the whole hall fell quiet. Leon elbowed Ezra so he’d look up from his crotch for a freaking second, “Warriors! The Wind is with us, may we revel in it’s breeze and give thanks for it’s power!”

The dining room burst out in whoops and howls as Elloran warriors around them banged the table and their chests. Leon smiled, the concept of the force on the wind had never occurred to him with such clarity before. He breathed in, held it, then let it out slow. Where ever he was, so was force. Food was delivered and they spent the remainder of the evening enjoying the company of the Elloran warriors, that is except for one Motep. Leon watched as he stood from the table, his eyes bore into Leon’s before he turned on his heels and stormed out of the room.

“What a drama queen,” Leon muttered as he watched Motep go. What was his problem anyway?

A few hours later...

It was taking every bit of discipline within him to not bust out laughing. The bowl of porridge Ezra was carrying was so big that the giant himself could barely fit his massive wing span around it. Leon knew exactly what the plan was before Ezra even got started, “K-keep your voice down,” said Leon through snorts of laughter, “I think it’s perfect!”

A few seconds later the porridge was in the air over the door. Leon slinked up to the door and knocked twice. He waited until he heard someone moving toward the door, then bolted for the bushes. He practically dove back in whipping around with so much anticipation that he thought he was going to explode!

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

“Keep my voice down? You’re gonna piss yourself from laughing,” Ezra hissed, “Keep it together, man!” It was a credit to having a very stoic father that he could keep a straight face and cool head even in the most absurd circumstances. While Leon was losing it, he was all focus and chill with his oversized bowl of porridge and his hair half sticking up over the plants suspiciously.

Ezra focused on the Force and concentrated hard, floating the container up. It took a lot of strength, but the Force flowed easier here. The bowl wavered a bit, globs of porridge landing on the ground as it traveled and hovered. Leon did his part, knocking on the door and disappearing from sight.

Seconds later, the door opened and a very moody Motep stepped out. He was clearly irritated at being interrupted late in the evening. He took another step and the bowl tipped and dunked right on his head. There was an audible yelp, but Ezra was already ducking down.

It was only as he heard Motep being loud and indignant that he realized they didn't really coordinate an exit plan. Ezra looked back towards the bush where Leon ducked, and he had no way of contacting him. It was every man for himself. He wished his buddy luck as he practically crawled on all fours on the ground to get out of Motep’s visual radius.

After a while, he was back towards the quarters where they had their shared room. Ezra returned all right, but he didn’t spot Leon yet. He looked around, starting to feel nervous. Ezra couldn’t wander around outside since it would give away who pulled the prank, but not spotting Leon gave him mild anxiety.

@Zay

 

[Leon Baudelaire]

A wet splat followed by a howl of surprise and disgust broke what little discipline Leon had left. It didn't help that Ezra's head was still sticking up from behind the bush on the other side. Motep grunted frantically wiping the porridge from his eyes, so he didn't see Ezra bolt out of sight behind him. He did however hear the cackling laughter of the boy he'd literally locked the soul out of earlier. Leon realized as Motep lept into the air that he’d been spotted.

He rolled out of the way, struggling to stop laughing long enough to defend himself. The Elloran was PIIIIIIISSSSSSED, but his anger didn’t make him stronger it made him more predictable. Leon managed to roll over his should and press up off the ground coming to his feet as Motep attempted to bare down on him. The Padawan slipped to the side, throwing a leg out at the last possible moment. This trip caught Motep’s forward momentum and sent the four-armed dingleberry toppling into the dirt.

Leon wasted no time getting the hell out of there. Before Motep could scramble to his feet The Padawan shot off around the corner. He didn’t have time to think, he just kept running until Motep’s hooting and hollering faded away. He found himself at the crest of a hill overlooking the village. The lanterns looked like fireflies in the night from his viewpoint. He took a breath and sat down to enjoy the view. The sound of grass crunching scared the shit out of him. Leon lept up taking a fake echani martial arts stance.

The Elder was standing there, two arms clasped behind his back and the other two resting on the top of a gnarled staff. “Enjoying a brisk run this evening I see,” said the elder with a small knowing smile.

“Uh, yup, you caught me!” he lied. Well kinda, he had been running, but it was more for his life than for exercise. He got the feeling this Elloran wasn’t a fool though so he dropped the act. “I’m guessing you somehow know about the porridge?”

The Elder laughed, “Oh, I had an idea when I watched your companion carry what I would call a vat of the porridge out of the kitchen.”
Leon winced, “Ah, I see.”
The Elder bared his teeth in a baboon’s smile and laughed, “Motep will get over it. I suspect he isn’t completely innocent,” One of his hands came up to his face and smoothed the long white fur down, his brow furrowed in thought. “Padawan Baudelaire, I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Uh, okay,” replied Leon.
“Have you ever heard of Felwinter Peak?”
An image of the mountain shrouded in the storm flashed through his mind.
“Maybe?”

An hour later…

Leon walked back down the path leading to the temple. The Elder’s favor was a big one. He was starting to think he should have read the fine print on the mission, but he hadn’t seen anything about a force anomaly in the briefing. He didn’t have a choice as the representative of the Jedi on this mission he had to check this out, but that didn’t mean he had to endanger Ezra.

The Padawan sighed, he’d really hoped to just have a fun weekend hanging with a buddy and learning something cool, but that didn’t look like it was possible now. He knew dwelling on it would only make him feel worse, so he did his best to just accept the outcome.

He stepped into the room and was surprised to see Ezra still awake. The dude seemed a bit worried, but Leon didn’t tease him about it. “Please tell me you saw Moteps face before splitting?” A smile lit up his face as he reenacted the event. He’d fill Ezra in on his rematch with the Elloran being sure to embellish the entire thing in grandiose fashion. As he wrapped up his story, his smile faded a bit and he sighed, “I think you should head out tomorrow…”

Leon would explain this situation he’d been presented by The Elder. The real reason the Elloran’s had reached out to the Jedi was to ask them to investigate a series of force anomalies, or Storm Aberrations, as the locals called them, on a mountain known as Felwinter Peak.

“There’s a pretty good chance this is going to be dangerous, and I can’t ask you to come along,” of course, he wanted to. It was one thing to gaslight someone to come to a fun training camp, it was another to ask them to come along on an adventure with real danger.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Ezra lost his patience waiting around in the room. Letting out a stream of profanity and giving voice to all sorts of scenarios that consisted of bashing Leon’s face in, Ezra walked out of the room. He wandered aimlessly looking for his friend. Wait, when did they become friends? Whatever, he was too pissed to think about that now. He plodded through mud, walked in on an Elloran taking a bath and immediately needed eye bleach, almost got into a fight with that Elloran’s lover and stumbled towards where some of the Elder’s council were wandering around.

One of them spotted him and ushered him over. Ezra’s normal routine of pretending not to hear or see someone didn’t work this time.

“You are Padawan Thorne, yes?”

It still felt weird hearing that, “Er yeah..”

“Your presence here is not without purpose,” The Elloran said. Ezra could tell this was serious and he stopped thinking about their prank and other nonsense, “You may be new to this world, but your destiny weaves into it all the same. You have felt it, called upon it..and now it calls to you.”

An hour later…

Ezra was staring vacantly at the wall of his room wondering if someone had slipped some spice into his food. The entire encounter felt like a spice trip. To occupy himself, he resorted to messing with that Force puzzle again, finding new outcomes each time.

Ezra looked up when Leon entered, his eyes betraying his relief. He cleared his throat, “Took you long enough,” He said curtly. Ezra rolled his eyes, “All I heard was you laughing like a hyena. Did you get your ass beat? Please tell me you got a four handed bitchslap,” He asked eagerly, genuinely thrilled at the prospect.

After Leon laid out what the Elder had told him, Ezra’s face fell slightly. He said nothing for a long moment. Eventually, he nodded his head in agreement, “You’re right,” He said, “I’ll start packing,” Ezra said as he stood up. He started to put a few things in his bag. That was when he gave a dramatic pause.

“I wouldn’t know what to do with this anyway,” Ezra said as he held up a piece of paper that looked like a map with handdrawn details on it. A map that thoroughly outlined the path towards Felwinter Peak. Ezra said nothing else, simply giving Leon a look.

@Zay

 

[Leon Baudelaire]

Leon’s mischievous grin lit up his face when Ezra asked bout the rematch, Baudelaire pulled out all the stops, “Dude, I can’t believe you missed it, it was incredible, Motep was covered in porridge and then he was all like,” Leon changed his voice in shockingly close impersonation of Moteps manner of speaking, “You have defiled my sacred honor, prepare to die,” then switching back into his voice said, “and then I was like, uh yeah right, bruh. And then he came at me and he was all like WAHHH! Then I was like PESHAW! And then he was like, Oh no, I can’t compete with how awesome you are,” Each sound effect as accompanied by a ridiculous Taras Kasi impersonation and was delivered in Leon's falsetto, “And then, he just died. Right there, slayed by my steeze. Tragic really,” then Leon burst out laughing.

Baudelaire’s eyebrow cocked in confusion as Ezra just accepted the mission. Before he could protest the pretty boy handed him a map. “Did… Did you draw this?”

What was happening? Ezra was supposed to talk shit then pull out his NalPhone and be teleported off the planet, but instead, he’d somehow figured out about the mission and had drawn a map? Before he could get lost in the idea the seed of excitement blossomed and said, “Dude, this going to be epic!"

And he moved in for the final test. The truest test of a bro’s bond that there could ever be, Leon initiated a handshake.

A little while later they were on the trail. They’d snagged some supplies for the trip and Houske was glimmered at their backs as they set off on their adventure to Felwinter Peak. This shit was gonna be dope.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Ezra stared in stunned silence as Leon gave his very animated and over the top recollection of what happened with Motep. Ezra’s face was the complete opposite of Leon, impassive with a perfectly calm bearing. He watched with morbid curiosity as if appraising a curious work of modern art, “If you ever tell a story to my sister, you should say it just like that,” He said, nodding confidently.

He nodded at the question, “I drew what I remembered from his rambling,” He may have been lazy in school, but he did have impeccable memory. When Leon started the handshake, his own hand moved of its own accord. Before he could even realize what was going on, he matched the handshake in a simple rhythm, completing their first complex bro greeting, “Whoa..” He stared in silence. It was destiny.

Ezra packed entirely too much and was already regretting it. He was slightly behind Leon, his cardio needing some serious work. The path began to incline up and he noticed there were no signs of civilization nearby. However, the Force pulsed even more powerfully the further they walked.

“So the first checkpoint is a big boab tree,” He explained. Of course, the elder had neglected to mention anything about local creatures prowling the trail. Ezra was starting to get out of breath and stopped to sit on a stump, taking a drink of water. Almost at once, his ears twitched slightly.

“Either you’re due for a snack or that’s something else growling…” He muttered with distaste.

@Zay

 

[Leon Baudelaire]

”You have a sister? I’ll keep that in mind,” he said jokingly waggling his eyebrows at Ezra.

“Yo, that was DOPE!” Their handshake nearly brought a manly tear to Leon’s eye but he sucked it up and walked it off. This friendship had without a doubt just been blessed by the force.

The hike was brutal, no way around it. He packed light. The had emergency supplies in his utility belt, his weapons, food for a few days just in case, and a canteen. Ezra on the other hand brought a whole damn store. It wasn’t a big deal to Baudelaire though, what did he care, hiking was awesome. The sheer beauty of the force-infused flora made the trip worth it. As their incline leveled Ezra stopped and pulled back out the map he’d drawn.

Leon scanned the horizon for the tree. He reached out to the force for guidance feeling the shuddering usherance of the omnipresent power. Leon’s gaze shifted eastward as Ezra mentioned his hunger.

“What?” said Leon looking back to Ezra. Before the home could say anything Leon’s eyes would go wide and he’d point behind Ezra, extended finger shaking, “D-d-d-da-DINOSAUR!”

Then he started laughing. Through gasping breaths, he’d say, “You-Should-Have-Seen-Your-Face!”

Crack, Leon’s head whipped up as a pack of four Maalraas-looking beasts burst from the nearby woods, “Oh shit!” shouted Leon yanking his blaster and opening fire!

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Ezra jerked around to see what Leon was pointing at, only to realize he was pulling his leg. The part Sephi glared and chucked his granola bar, which he began to unravel, at Leon’s face. He ignored it when Leon tried the same trick twice, rolling his eyes and preparing to find another snack. Unfortunately, his ears confirmed Leon’s source of panic and he looked around to see four things that did, miraculously, look like dinosaurs.

He only had his stupid electrosword, and he drew it out uselessly. Ezra had no intention of getting close to the things. Leon shot at them and the bolts bounced off, one of them back towards them.

“Dude!” Ezra called out, tackling Leon to the ground dramatically like in the movies to shove him out of the way of the deflected bolt. Thankfully, Ezra didn’t get shot either, “You better tell this story too,” He grumbled as he hastily crawled off to the side as the beasts began to roar and move closer.

Blasters weren’t going to be of any use, and something told him the things used the Force. The Force came to him easier here, so he used it to send a telekinetic blast towards one of them. Fortune smiled on him as it sent one of them flying back and tumbling into another. This sent two of them toppling, resulting in a convoluted mess as they growled and snapped at each other, drawing the other two in. He took the previously chucked granola bar and hurled it into the group of ‘dinosaurs’. Who knows, maybe a snack would keep them occupied.

“Let’s go!” Ezra hissed, keeping a low profile to quickly scurry away. Leon was a doofus if he thought they could actually fight those things, so if he insisted on fighting Ezra would ditch his ass.

They had two options - keep running up the open hiking trail or run into the side forest and take the longer route. It was only a matter of time before the beasts disentangled themselves and gave chase.

@Zay

 

[Leon Baudelaire]

Super-heated plasma ricochet off the scaling quadrupeds sending bolts in different directions. One such bolt bounced off the pack leader and nearly slammed into his chest. Luckily Ezra was there to help him out of the way.

They landed hard and something hit him so hard between the legs that he squeaked involuntarily. Ezra’s bowcaster had swung around during the fall and as they came to a stop, so too did the butt of the weapon. Leon turtled up immediately whimpering as checked to make sure his eggs hadn’t been scrambled. The bigger dude jumped up. He dipped into the force and gave them an opportunity to escape.

Leon tried not to barf as he got to his feet staying hunched over to follow Ezra away from the devil dogs. The pain in his groin finally eased and he was able to pick up the pace. They followed the hiking path, looking to put as much distance as possible between them and the hounds. A haunting howl echoed behind them closer than Leon would have liked.

He pulled his blastsword he knew to the main component of the weapon would be ineffective on the plated animals, but with his weapon, he could defend himself from the fangs and claws that would inevitably come. A howl rang out from their left. The rustling of branches was the only warning they’d get before a Maalras burst from the brush, Leon intercepted the lunging beast with his blade. The sharp edge slid under the beast, and Leon followed using the creature's momentum to redirect their trajectory, sending it to the ground in a heap.

A second exploded out of the tree line and Leon fired a force push point blank managing to divert the beast just enough to avoid having his throat ripped out. He could hear the loping footfalls of the pack just beyond the trees and kept moving. He fell in behind Ezra protecting his back. This wasn’t looking good.

“If you’ve got any ideas, I’m open to suggestions!”

@Sreeya