Chapter 1: Cold, Dead Worlds

Who can resist the power of the Dark Side? Set in the ancient Sith Empire, 5,000 years before the Battle of Yavin, characters take the roles of Sith initiates, just starting their climb to power. Can your actions determine the next Dark Lord of the Sith, or even better, take the role as your own?

Run by the GM Kakita_Gokumoro.
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Kakita_Gokumoro
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Chapter 1: Cold, Dead Worlds

Post by Kakita_Gokumoro » Mon Jan 16, 2006 2:45 pm

Darkness...

Three Sith awaken to the morning chill as the angry red sun crests the horizon. Each is barely clothed, their skin exposed to the elements, cold and sore from a darkness beyond physical sensation.

Pain...

Every little movement is a new agony, as flesh and bone bend and twist in ways never intended by conventional anatomy. The morning sky fills with the howls and screams of anguish.

Fear...

Memory slowly returns, horrible memories of the techno-entity of Ruaan Station, Sato Malar. Like a dark surgical god he descended upon each of the surviving Sith in turn, infusing their souls with the darkness of the Force even as mechanical arms that seemingly extended from everywhere warped their flesh.

Hatred...

Three Sith awaken on the surface of a dead world. The grey landscape slowly gives way to a baleful red as the warped morning star climbs higher in the sky. Two women and a man force themselves to their feet, shielding their eyes from the baleful light.

One, a woman, allows her serpentine limbs to stretch and bend, feeling the fluidity work its way through, breaking the agonizing stiffness that had consumed her previously.

The other woman, immediately recognizable as kin to the other, cracks the boney plates and spurs that now cover the majority of her epidermis as she stands. Looking towards she who was once her twin, she nods as the two of them turn toward their third.

The man, whose back is turned to the dull sun, shields alien green eyes more vigorously than the others, taking significantly longer to adjust to the light than the others. Once he has fully recovered, he turns to face the others.

Of the others who accompanied these three to Ruaan Station, nothing is known. Perhaps they were weak, and died under the care of the Master Artificer. Perhaps their mutations were even more extreme than those evident, and were left on the station for further study. Perhaps they were simply left in a different location on this (or another) planet's surface. It matters little, however; contemplation will have to wait.

What does become immediately obvious is that the morning's rebirth has not gone unnoticed. In the distance, a monstrous howl can be heard, which is soon answered by two others of its ilk. The Sith's fight for survival begins now...
Welcome to the continuation of the Shadow of the Storm! Players may feel free to post now. In case I didn't tell all of you, your equipment now consists solely of the clothes on your backs and a knife. Best of luck to you all!
Ia Bukkake Fhtagn!

Geist
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Re: Chapter 1: Cold, Dead Worlds

Post by Geist » Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:55 am

Mox remembers one particular moment throughout his captivity. He remembers that the Master Artificer once looked in on him to test his 'œnew' eyes. He remembers the polished metal surface of a beam that suspended some foreboding device over the table on which he was strapped. He remembers spying a glimpse of his own face in that mirrored surface. He remembers that the Master Artificer seemed intrigued at the thought that one of his creations could endure staying awake as long as it did while it tried desperately to come to grips with what had been done to it. Mox had thought of his nightmares'¦ and of his mother, then his father. He wondered what would have happened had he chosen to play along with his father's foolish games. Certainly a quick death had awaited him back there, somewhere. Not the prolonged agony of a life reborn in some hell as a resident of the infernal place. He doesn't know what he looks like now, but he endures the physical pain as he looks about his own body for evidence of tails or appendages or armored plates or spines that weren't there before. One thing is for certain, though'¦ His life, his dead parents, his conquests, his hopes'¦ all of it remains back there, in the past'¦ before he had made a bargain with Insanity itself to preserve what he thought could be salvaged ...after so many things had gone horribly wrong.

Mox looks down at his side and finds his weapons are gone, even his own homemade collapsible staff.

'œDamn him!'

He does, however, find a knife. He grasps it in hands that aren't much different than he remembers them to be.

That could just be his mind playing tricks on him. It's done that before.

He turns the knife over and over. Then he looks into the side of the blade. It isn't as polished as the surface he looked into before, but it yields a similar vision. At first he is instantly startled. But because he had already seen that visage before, he had braced himself for the shock. This is no nightmare, unless one is subject to living them.

Hearing a noise, Mox turns about abruptly and shields his sensitive eyes from the dull red morning sun. There are two others here. Both are female, both are similar, and yet both are very different, from him and from each other. He starts out in a cheerful but familiarly sly, lecherous tone.

'œWell hell-o, lovely ladies! If only he had known that you were both'¦ ah well, anyway'¦ he supposes you're both wondering why he's summoned you here?'

Mox finishes with a charming grin that extends just a little bit further than perhaps it ever has, or should have.

They'll know he's just playing with them. They can see (can't they?) '¦that Mox is just as bewildered as they are to find himself in this place.

He looks around quickly, when he hears the noise. Jerking his head about mechanically to determine the direction of the howls. His lithe fingers wrap slowly around the handle of the knife as if they themselves find comfort and security in the simple act of grasping a weapon.

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Vardaen
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Re: Chapter 1: Cold, Dead Worlds

Post by Vardaen » Wed Jan 18, 2006 4:03 am

Cold steel probes, burning hot elixirs, unemotional eyes.

The Nor woman known once as Dalik remembers little of what has happened. Her mind has blocked out those terrible days and nights of torture at the hands of Sato Malar. As each new experiment began her mind began to close off, her lingering ability to call on the Force sealing off that most delicate of places in her fragile psyche without her conscious thought. Unable to speak, to scream, to cry out in pain during the wretched days on Ruuan Station passed her only outlet was through a link to her sister. Formed before their birth, while in the womb of their mother Dalik and Salik Nor even then had some strange connection with one another. That connection began to grow as the experiments twisted at her soul. She would cry out to her sister Salik hour after hour with her mind.

Survival began her only goal soon enough. Survive the torture, survive the experiments, and survive the corruption that was overcoming her as the Darkside of the Force coursed through her flesh and bones. Her body was twisted, but it always had been, unable to breathe '˜normal' air, she had relied on a respirator to breath. Not any longer. Her mask was gone, her lungs were changed, her very chemical make up of her blood changed by the Techno-Fiend Sato Malar.

A deep inhale. A quick gasp of shock. A cry of surprise. A cry that rings out in the minds of those gathered an echo of a sound so far away that you can't be sure if it was really there, or some ghost of the howls of the nearing beasts. Who was once Dalik Nor pushes herself to her knees on this dead and blasted rock. She gazes over her twisted body and over her newly deformed fingers and skin. She runs a hand over her shaved head, where a strange knob sticks out from just above her temple. He eyes meet those of the other woman, a woman that once looked identical to her, but now, well now they could not appear more different.

A hand grabs the knife at her feet as she spins on the speaking man Mox. Eyes narrow, but they don't focus on him, as if she was looking through him. 'œA threat nears.' She touches her throat and mouth carefully, as if she is uncertain if they are actually hers cause for so long she wore her mask, removal of it is completely alien to her. Her life has begun, and as the howl is picked up by two more of its kind, survival has begun again.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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Wayloss
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Re: Chapter 1: Cold, Dead Worlds

Post by Wayloss » Wed Jan 18, 2006 11:40 am

Alone in the dark, the cold surgical table beneath her, Salik Nor cannot move. The mechanical ventilator mover her chest in a most foul and uncomfortable way. Not the familiar breathing, but something alien. Cold air forcefull fills her lungs forcing them outward. This is the least of the cruelty inflicted upon her.

Soon pain joines in the cruelties, single burning lines up pain as scaples begin to disect her skin, tearing it open. Cold air inflames raw and exposed nerves are further inflamed by the foul surgical steel playing with her body. Salik can feel the force flowing within her, and although Sato Malar has stopped her bosy he cannot stop her mind.

She reaches out and feels her twin's mind and can immediatly tell that her twin is enduring different torture but torture the same. Their mind's meet and regain a power as if they were in the womb, they share no secret from each other, Their mind's are once again whole.

Suddenly she is rendered unconcious, and knows only blinding pain, She finds she can move, her fingers twitch, once twice and she violently sits up. Her own telepathic scream echoing the other's. Strange boney plate's and spurs grow from her skin, she s weakend by the ordeal but the knife is a cold reasurance that soething is terribly wrong.

"What is it Sister, what do you see?

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Hunted

Post by Kakita_Gokumoro » Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:28 pm

Quickly gathering their wits, the Sith make their path away from the howling beasts that no doubt wish to slake their hunger on them.

The going is harsh, but between the three of them, there is enough sustenance to support their lives adequately, if not comfortably. Beneath the blasted ground are several species of alien insects, numerous and apparently edible, to keep them on their feet and away from whatever menaces stalk them even still.
Survival Check, DC 15:

Dalik Nor: 17 + 3 = 20, Success
Mox: 6 + 2 = 8, Failure
Salik Nor: 11 + 3 = 14, Failure

For every 2 points above the DC Dalik succeeded, she can support an additional person, easily finding enough food and water to sustain the rest of the party.
As the days pass, the terrain gives way slowly to a strange forest of rock formations. It is here that the Sith find some measure of hope. Casting their gazes skyward, they notice a shooting star, much to uniform in its flight to be an astrological phenomenon. The only logical conclusion is that it is a ship of some kind, apparently landing some distance away to the west.
Spot Check, DC 20:

Dalik Nor: 18 + 5 = 23
Mox: 19 + 5 = 24
Salik Nor: 17 + 7 = 24
Again, however, this does not seem to impress the howling that has continuously hounded the Sith as they've made their way across the nearly barren world. Have they gotten closer? Have more creatures joined the hunt? It seems difficult to tell.
Ia Bukkake Fhtagn!

Geist
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Re: Hunted

Post by Geist » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:12 am

The Sithspawn called Mox is able to keep up the grueling pace, but breathes heavy from the strain of it. Through his heavy breaths, he whispers to the two odd-looking females. "You and Mox need to shake the pursuers! You and he must run hard to out-distance them a bit. Then, you two can go on ahead while Mox brushes away your tracks! He will double back and try to hide himself. If this works you can meet him over in the low ground near where that ship is landing. It is either that, or turn and fight... and since Mox cannot tell how many pursue, that would be more foolish."

As Mox runs along, he grabs up as large a bush as he can find, to be able to erase their tracks later after they had run hard and fast for as long as they could.

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Wayloss
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Re: Hunted

Post by Wayloss » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:33 pm

Salik Nor is appreciative of their continued survival, though disfigured and weakened by her ordeal in the hands of the Artificer, she ahs come to a new understanding of the force, the dark power inherent is in her blood and growing, and through the telepathic link to her sister she can feel that her power too has grown. They have not talked much but suddenly Salik can tell that Mox now speaks of himself in the third person.

A telepathic thought passes between the sisters:
Sister, his plan is sound. And if he fails he will delay them for a time. Oh to be a precog and know what it is that follows us, we have to escape and live.

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Re: Hunted

Post by Vardaen » Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:42 am

The woman once known as Dalik travels through the barren land without much speaking. Her thoughts are passed to the thing that remains of her sister, but to Mox there is little conversation. Along the way she helps the others survive, instincts taking over, a will to live regardless of the torture that life has now become. Once along the path she pauses and attempts to focus her mind behind her, back toward the pursuers, an attempt to sense what is chasing her and the other two.
See Force perhaps, during the travel, hoping that the VP would not have been refreshed 'days later'
There is a pause in the chase, as a star streaks across the sky, the falling star most likely a ship, or perhaps another victim of Ruaan station being sent down to the planet. Either way that is the best hope of escape from this blasted terrain. She turns her direction toward where it might have landed, the others seem of the same mind at least at first.

Mox speaks, yes that was his name, he was the one that attempted to speak with Malar after Jial went insane and attacked her and her sister. Jial is dead now, so she figures, and she is happy for that fact alone. Lued is missing too, the Sith was weak as well, better he be dead now too. However Dalik was weak in her own way as well, Salik as weak too, cut down time and again during the fight that seems like years ago.

The twisted figure that was once Dalik stops when Mox begins to speak. She narrows her already heavy lids as her sister's thoughts exho in her mind, "Mox speaks a worthy plan. Come." She turns and starts the climb up through the forest of rocks, attempting to scale up into the higher ground to put distance between herself and the persuers. She considers drawing on the Force to aid her, but there is no need, not yet, and so she climbs and moves way hurriedly.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

Geist
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Hunted - Mox's Plan

Post by Geist » Thu Jan 26, 2006 2:42 am

Mox finds no brush, so he smooths the dusty coating of earth with his feet and hands to hide the tracks of the sisters as they begin to move out of sight. After they have gone, and he has done his best to hide their tracks (under the circumstances) he begins to run, stomping heavily, in a direction roughly 90 degrees from the path they were on. Before changing direction again, Mox rolls himself around in the dusty dirt and uses a rock (something that won't give off a scent) to smooth out his own tracks until he eventually circles around, doubling back behind the pursuers. Once he feels he has gained enough time for the "twins" and has eluded the hunters himself, he will return to the original path. When he reaches it, he turns onto it as if going back the way they came, then he leaps sideways, as far as he can, to cross over the path, then, continuing to use the rock to smooth out his tracks until he reaches harder ground, he starts off in the direction of the ship they had all seen landing in the distance.
I can imagine a plethora of Hide and Move Silently rolls. (I don't have the camoflage skill, but I have disguise. (Perhaps this could be used when attempting to hide or "disguise" scents). I'm sure what's really necessary here would be some form of Survival or Hunting skill. Oh well... It's just a pretty good plan... I don't expect it'll be easy to pull off.

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