Open The Haunted Haven

[Vahn Berand]

“And always be prepared for a fight.” Vahn stated, gesturing vaguely towards his lightsaber as he allowed the two Jedi to move in ahead of him.

Vahn slowly came to regret his suggestion. The vents were wide enough to allow him to slowly edge through them, but by the Force was it a tight squeeze at times as he kept Ralta tucked under his arm like an overblown kickball. Nonetheless, he kept pace with the two Jedi, holding up the rear as he made sure Isen managed to get ahead of Rishe. Best for the two knights to hold the forward and rear guard.

“First gate isn’t far.” Vahn said after a short while, and he would have continued if the trio of Jedi didn’t stop before the impaled ceiling vent. “Well that’s inauspicious,” Vahn said as he observed the impaled body. His eyes flicked down the passage. There was a faint, blinking red light below an irised hatch some ten yards off down the vent, just barely visible in the darkness. That would lead past the first gate and they could drop down.

“Go, girl, do your magic” Vahn said after a moment, and softly shoved her down the gap in the ventilation shaft around the body pinned with that spear. He focused, drawing on the Force to guide her through the narrow passage so that at least she didn’t go bouncing off the walls and create a terrible racket. There was eventually a soft bleeping from the far end of the shaft as she went to work slicing into the hatch.

“Excuse me.” Vahn said as he squeezed his way past the two other Jedi, and braced himself in the vent with one arm on the ceiling, his boots on the paneling below. The poor bastard had been dead a while, but perhaps there was still something to learn. He leaned down and started rifling through the corpse’s clothing, pockets, anything that could give him some info. As he searched, he kept his lightsaber fixed on the body. Just in case.

After a short while, he leaned back into a crouch, and examined a spread of broad silver coins arrayed between his knuckles. He’d found them amongst a pile stashed in a hidden pocket.

“Guy’s loaded with wupiupi. What is so much Hutt currency doing so far up in the galactic north?” he asked.

Moments later, the hatch yawned open, and Ralta gave a short, bleating whine. The shaft ended just beyond, with a ladder leading down to the floor below just behind the locked gate leading into the rest of the station.

“Well. Good news first. She got the hatch open. Bad news is that she says there’s something moving down there. No clue what,” he added grimly, and performed a brief moulinette around his wrist with his dormant saber. He rolled his shoulders, and took a calming breath.

 

[Isen Ramm]

Isen waited on the droid. In the meantime, Vahn made an interesting discovery about the corpse having a lot of Hutt currency on him. There was no telling why that would be. He could have been a bounty hunter that took jobs for the underworld and was tracking a quarry to Dathomir or elsewhere. Maybe he was a criminal on the run. Dathomir wouldn't be the safest place to go, but if you wanted to avoid Sector Ranger entanglements, it would be a gutsy, but effective spot. Then again, it seemed like the Hutts had their sluggy little paws all over AMS, and AMS was here, so why not Hutt currency?

Then he heard the news relayed to them by Vahn from the droid. The hatch opened and Isen floated over to it and looked down. It was pitch black, and even with his light, he would spotlight an area, but the surrounding space was complete and utter darkness. "The question is...it something or some things?" Isen asked to himself, but loud enough for others to hear. "Only one way to find out, I guess."

Isen opted not to use the ladder. Besides, he was floating down...it wasn't like the fall was going to hurt you. Isen opted to go down the hatch head first so he could he could see from the very beginning. He lifted his flashlight up to take out the darkness and immediately a snarling Zabrak face was flying at him with a spear in hand. Isen parried the spear with his right hand and delivered a hard left hook to the Zabrak's body. He managed to whip his right around the Nightbrother's neck and Force push against the floor to cause himself to fly backwards, cracking the Zabrak's horned head into the wall. To make matters worse, Isen's light took damage against the wall as well, and it became completely pitch black all around him. A lot good that did, Isen thought to himself. Isen grabbed the somewhat stunned Zabrak by two horns and threw him so that he started floating to the far side of the room. The Jedi was a little disoriented because he did all of this upside down, so he used the ladder rungs to correct himself and get right-side up again.

Isen ignited his righthand lightsaber to provide some sort of light, and did so to the sight of a spear hurtling at his chest. Isen flung his left hand out a the projective and used stasis to stop the spear mere moments before it would have impaled him. The javelin stopped short just inches in front of Isen's hand. With a flick of his left hand, the spear started floating aimlessly toward the floor behind him. The Kiffar Jedi ignited the lefthand lightsaber blade as well and held them both out in front of him. He saw, no more than five meters away, five angry and snarling Nightbrothers looking back at him. For the moment, the vision and knowledge of what a trained Jedi with lightsabers could do was holding them back. On the bright side, they weren't zombies. On the other hand, that meant they could reason. Isen said to his team through the comms in his mask, "I could probably use a hand down here guys."

@Stick @The Steel Stag