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Post by Legion on Nov 13, 2013 5:58:06 GMT -8
There was still enough about this job that made Race wonder if he shouldn't be asking what door they could throw him out of but then again, these people were discussing mass murder like a housewife talks about a shopping list. These were people who didn't take no. Race was in this for the long haul, whether he liked it or not. It wasn't that Race was queasy about the morality of the thing, he had killed plenty as well. However this lot was likely to kill him rather than let him walk out of there knowing their plot. He rather liked living and decided that as soon as his bit was done, he had to disappear. It was a damn shame too. He was just getting used to the name Race. "Alright, alright. I'm in. I assume we gotta get ourselves there in a matter befittin' the job and not tied to you?"
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Kairos
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Post by Kairos on Nov 13, 2013 16:16:59 GMT -8
"Bottom line is I doubt any of us would be here if we could not extract ourselves from shticky situations..."
The drawled out line was accompanied by the slap of the glass sliding into Caed's extended hand that had shot out in a blur of motion to reveal that perhaps he wasn't quite as befuddled as previously thought. He once again demolished the contents, once again regretful that it wasn't alcoholic, yet acknowledging the fact that alcohol and he did not mix well at the moment. Clarity was returning and with it certain truths that made him a little sad to believe. It was an abstract pain that nibbled persistently on his conscience, or what pathetic little tatters remained of it. He winced slightly, the smell of him suddenly becoming rather unpleasant and his appearance rather appalling. No this was not a total reformation of the character, but he wasn't usually this disregardful of self. Believe me when I say; he's look better.
His eyes, now burning steadily with their unholy amber glow as opposed to flickering madly like a candle with hiccups, turned in the direction of Desmond a trace of a smile gracing his angular features. The smell of the whore was now stagnant and he would need either a shower, or a fresh one to smear all over him. Perhaps this dude had both? Then again, judging by Cocoa's attitude hussy's were probably off the menu.
That did not stop the leer from doing the rounds as he languidly got to his feet, ignoring the question asked by Race and thinking "Sure. We'll go in with trumpets blaring and banners saying "Team Eralam"... >_>
"Well... That's all well and good. I got what I need..."
He said, as he promptly left the coloured in dossier on the table and walked around towards where Desmond stood. He had already decided he would drift over there in his own time, like a boss, and have little or nothing to do with the rest of these clowns.
"I trust a man as organised as you has arranged quarters and facilities for our use..."
His gaze ran up and down Vera for a moment, eyes narrowing with something of interest or maybe suspicion, before reverting to undisguised intent.
"Perhaps even some gigidy to... scrub my back?"
There was a comical lilt to the last three words, complete with sharply raised eyebrow and questioning look.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2013 22:19:05 GMT -8
Upon Race's question, Koko produced a datapad with an impressive list of ships, mostly innocuous freighters and the like. Dresden manipulated the hologram, highlighting several promising choices.
"You're free to make your own way there if you'd like. But if you'd rather us foot the bill, you're welcome to take a ship from our impound yard. It will, of course, be yours to keep. As for lodging, we have facilities for you to use down here for tonight. If you would like your back scrubbed, as you put it, we have pleasure droids, mostly HRDs, for your convenience. Please note that they are quite expensive, and any repairs required will be taken out of your salary."
Hopefully, the unspoken message would be clear: do what you want with them, but be prepared to pay through the nose, you sick fuck.
"Are there any more questions?"
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Post by Legion on Nov 24, 2013 15:29:14 GMT -8
"I think I got the gist." His eyes slid over to the Togruta in the corner, her rusty cleavage pulling his mind to other things. The HRD's didn't sound appealing, he liked a woman with fire in her veins and sass on her lips. Making it with a droid just wasn't his idea of getting a good piece of ass. You had to work for that. Race stood up and took his datapad, tipping it at Dresden, winking at Vera. "Guess I'll be seeing myself out then."
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Kairos
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Post by Kairos on Dec 14, 2013 10:08:20 GMT -8
Caed likewise didn't see any particular appeal in making out with a droid. What was the point if one couldn't feel their pleasure being ripped away into dread, then pain, then horror, then... the abyss of death. Such delicious emotions were the staple with which Caed fed himself and could not be drawn from a mechanic. He wondered not for the first time as to women who used vibrators. Such an unholy enterprise in the extreme to his mind. Such things were muttered in an incoherent ramble as he made his way from the room, not having a clue where he was going but confident that he'd end up where he was meant to. The underground facility was vast and likely had some kind of set structure that he could perhaps memorise, or at least become familiar with. Not so. He was soon lost and pissed off.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2013 15:29:50 GMT -8
Ordinarily, a protocol droid would have been dispatched to show Caed to his quarters. Ordinarily, of course, there would be a droid in the place that wasn't too damned afraid of the guy to get anywhere close. None of the organic staff really wanted anything to do with him either, and the Shards were all too busy laughing at his plight. Stoned out of his mind, lost as hell, with a little luck, he'd find a room full of wampas or something. Still, there was one member of the staff willing to show him the way, and her name was Olga.
Olga, at 6'8", was the tallest person in the complex. She weighed in at a solid 330lbs, and none of it was fat. There was a rumor that she could bench press a Gammorean, but that was false; she could bench press three. Bald of head and blue of eye, the massive woman spoke with a distinctly Slavic accent, which I will not even attempt to spell out. Use your imagination.
At any rate, she approached the wandering assassin, absentmindedly performing bicep curls with 100lb weights.
"You appear to be lost," she said, with a voice very nearly as gravelly as Lord Vader's was rumored to have been.
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Kairos
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Post by Kairos on Jan 17, 2014 3:45:27 GMT -8
The brooding nightmare swayed to a stop, hands extending out to the sides as if to help him retain balance on an uneven floor. Uneven? He looked down with a bemused expression to find himself once again on solid footing, none of the rough ups and down that his mind seemed fixated on these days. What the hell had he been drinking last night anyway? While somewhat recovered from his earlier discomfort, the darkside burning through him with vigor enough to banish most of his befuddlement, he nonetheless felt shaky and inconsistent of thought. When the booming voice growled out an assertion he frowned. The voice was so deep to his tender senses that it had felt like the sound had come from within. There was a flash of horror as he imagined the voice as his conscience, so long buried and forgotten under an avalanche of decadence and sin. As his amber eye rose to take in the form before him, he visibly flinched. Not only was his conscious back and speaking it now had the power to manifest itself in corporeal form. Truly the stuff of nightmares for an assassin...
He backed up a step, peering distastefully at the hulking form, surely some sort of parody of a Massassi warrior, a Sith slave of old, come back to point out the error of their masters' ways. Hands once again extended, this time to prevent a sure fall, Caed snarled out a swear word in some random language he did not speak, leveling a trembling finger at the iron-pumping hallucination with the jaw of doom.
"I know where I am.... and don't think I don't!"
He nodded his head firmly, the word sounding thin and reedy, needing the follow-up gesture as a vain attempt to add credulous validity to the claim. His head bobbed again, more like spasms of the neck than nods of a rational being, and his voice continued in a soft whisper, as if to himself he spoke...
"Yes... yes... I go left at the pentagram then right at the swastika. Follow the man with the bloody ax then only walk on the paving stone that spell 'madness'..."
He looked up... and up... and up at the apparitions face, a superior and knowing grin on his thin lips. His right hand came up and tapped the side of his head, right above the temple.
"See? Solid as a rock..."
There was a mocking air to him now, but whether a sign of jest or a symptom of madness who can tell? Even I don't know if I'm honest, begging the question "Am I mad in real life?"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2014 4:34:09 GMT -8
The woman nodded thoughtfully. This man was obviously high, probably mad, and possibly her father. Fortunately, training had included ways to handle two out of the three of those problems.
No one, herself included, had ever thought translating directions into mad person speak would ever come in handy, but Olga wasn't too worried about it at the time. Now, her brow was furrowed in concentration as she tried to push past the fuzz that surrounded all things that weren't weightlifting in her memory as she recalled the lessons. A faint glow came from between the ridges of skin; the air trapped between them was being compressed so tightly that it was being transformed into plasma.
Steroids are a hell of a drug.
"No no no. You do not follow the man with the bloody ax. You skip past the man with the bloody ax until you see the bacon unicorn, then listen for the sound of wookiees singing 'Ave Maria.' That is how you get to the sleeping quarters."
She paused for a minute, checking her mental translation. That would either take him to the sleeping quarters or the firing range, assuming he wasn't more insane than she had previously thought.
"Tell me, before you go, did you ever try to murderrapekill a prostitute going by the name of Helga Imaidthisup? Would have been working out of Kuat City."
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Kairos
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Post by Kairos on Jan 25, 2014 4:38:02 GMT -8
"Skip skip, or skip skip?"
He muttered uncertainly in response to the instructions, mouth watering at the mention of a bacon unicorn. It wasn't the bacon that aroused his hunger but the fabled creatures tears, exquisite in rubbing into the wounds of his victims. Only the tears of angels were as much of a boon in his trade and there weren't may of them left to pillage. Her next question went unheard for a moment, his powers of recall only bringing it to the fore of his cognitive centers once he'd sang Av Maria through once in his head. It was a catchy tune that would haunt him unto the end of days, something he would never forgive this woman for.
"Helga?"
For some reason names were a quaint concept to him these days. Something that seemed at the same time necessary and a waste of time. After all, he would learn a name then terminate the associating being rendering the name irrelevant. Yes. That was it! His face lit up as understanding of this peculiarity blossomed in his mind, pieces of a useless jigsaw slotting together to ease such a weighty concern. He was beginning to think that he was going a bit strange but this revelation proved, without any doubt to him, that every little thing could be explained with his particular brand of logic.
His smile was eerie in its complete lack of sanity, but somehow cute and childish in the way that it softened the demonic glint in his amber eyes. His head tilted to the left, again a child-like affection, and his brow furrowed a bit.
"I spent quite a lot of time in Kuat City. A lot of targets.... A lot of decadence..."
He shook his head sadly, as if mournful of a lost opportunity.
"I don't recall the name, no..."
He brightened.
"But that's not to say I didn't!"
He was excited now, arms gesturing madly.
"Perhaps she never told me her name! Most don't, you know. Or perhaps she used an alias. I once entertained a girl who claimed her name was Flowery Stinkpetal. Flowery Stinkpetal!"
He shook his head in wonder.
"Utterly deceptive twaddle-speak, says I."
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Post by Chazz Orcuul on Feb 17, 2014 18:07:53 GMT -8
Chazz watched through the speeder’s window as building after building slipped by. The Dressel marketplaces were impressive even by the standards of hardened spacers, and while he wasn’t new to space travel, between post-graduate studies and looking after Telaine it had been over a year since his last interstellar trip.
“This is it.” The cab pulled up to the curb. Chazz thanked the Rodian in the front, paid him and got out. Compared to the rest of Dressel’s famous bazaar, Eralam’s Emporium didn’t look like much. As he stepped through the doorway, his keen soldier’s eyes noted the unusual thickness of the walls. Why could a store possibly need walls as tough as the blast doors on the Moonshadow? Refocusing on the task at hand, he stepped further into the building, looking for an attendant.
“I’d like to talk to Eralam, please. Er, Chazz Orcuul. He should be expecting me.”
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Lord Sinistra
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Post by Lord Sinistra on Feb 19, 2014 7:39:04 GMT -8
A tall, rusty skinned toguta in a black body suit yanked open the shop door, swirling the dust by the entrance with small eddies of air. She looked mildly annoyed, perhaps upset, but the faint whiff of rum on the air in her wake gave her away. She didn't give the patrons in the shop any of her attention, making a deliberate path towards the back of the shop where the elevator was. She leaned her back on the wall, waiting for him to catch up with her, a more relaxed expression taking over as she surveyed the storefront. This was so much more than just a little gunshop. Someone had to make sure this place was watched after. She made a mental note, a drunken one albeit, but a note nonetheless to get all she could on Goran Starkiller. And she needed to send someone here. But that could be handled later. Right now, she wanted a taste of his private stock of the finest whiskey that had ever crossed her tongue.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2014 9:54:36 GMT -8
Dresden stumbled drunkenly through the door after Sin, and was somewhat surprised to find the philosopher he was supposed to meet with. This could get interesting.
"Hey, I'm Eralam. Or I was. There was a bit of an incident. So, what can I do for you?"
Here's where things get interesting. The timeline, always fluid here in the shop, split. The scholar was suddenly speaking with Eralam from a year ago, the robotic body towering even over Dresden's gangly frame. Dresden, meanwhile, headed downstairs with Sin, looking for an evening of drinking fine liquor in fine company. With a little luck, neither would know anything unusual had happened.
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Post by Chazz Orcuul on Feb 19, 2014 12:39:20 GMT -8
When no attendant appeared to answer his inquiry, Chazz became absorbed in examining the unique wares of the Explosives Emporium. The pieces were impressive, though clearly most of the stock was meant for mercenaries and bounty hunters, not personal defense. But his next stop was Tatooine, a planet known for some nasty predators, not to mention the warlike Tuskens he was planning to meet on purpose. One rifle had caught his eye, and the idea of some higher-grade protection was starting to seem more appealing the more he mulled it over. His hand strayed toward the display case, to see if it could be opened...
Chazz started slightly at the sound of a voice behind him. Turning to face Eralam, he couldn't help but be intimidated by the scarred robotic frame before him, which seemed even larger in the close quarters of the shop. Having never been a blue-collar boy, Chazz never dealt much with hulking labor droids. Nor had his frigate Moonshadow employed any battle droids. Being face to face with thinking metal being fully capable of ripping him limb from limb was an experience he had never had to become acclimated to. Combined with the trepidation he already felt heading into his first interview with a force-sensitive, the sight left him momentarily lost for words.
Despite all this, he was a confident man, and when he did find his voice that confidence could be heard in his words, though his speech also had a somewhat rehearsed tone. "Yes, CHazz Orcuul. We spoke over the holonet." He offered his hand for a shake. "I was hoping you could tell me a bit about your views on the force, for a series of articles I'm writing on comparative religion among force-users. Planning to write, actually- you're my first interview. Now, you don't identify with either the Jedi or the Sith, is that correct?"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2014 13:00:34 GMT -8
Despite having nothing like a human facial structure, the Shard managed to give the impression that he was grinning. He had noticed the scholar's interest in the rifle case, and opened it with a gesture and a controlled flicker of will. Eralam gestured towards the case. There were numerous weapons, both slug and blaster.
"If you see something you like, it's on the house."
With that out of the way, Eralam summoned a couple of chairs from the office. They weren't the most comfortable of seats, but they were sturdy and could support his robotic chassis's deceptively heavy bulk.
"You're right about that. Light, dark, these are artificial distinctions created by the organic mind's need to create dichotomies. If you can't prove yourself superior to someone else, what good are you?"
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Post by Chazz Orcuul on Feb 19, 2014 13:37:34 GMT -8
Chazz was a little taken aback when this merchant he barely knew offered him free merchandise. Could it be that the Shard was that interested in his quest? Or did he just think that a lone human wandering the Outer Rim was going to need the help? Looking around the shop, he supposed the loss of one rifle wouldn't affect things much for Eralam. The Emporium seemed to contain a far larger collection than it's humble exterior would suggest. In the end, despite all the questions swirling around in his head, all that came out was "Thank you."
After that, it was back to the script. "I suppose the Sith would agree with you about the need to prove superior. Jedi might as well, though I doubt they'd phrase it that way. In the end, both groups want to impose their will on the galaxy... but before we get into your own philosophy, I was wondering if you could tell me a little more about the Shard? All I really know is that you're crystal entities with a form of hive mind."
He sat down in the chair that was offered, thinking to himself that Eralam did indeed seem quite capable with his Force abilities. The small holocam droid hovering behind his shoulder followed his movements, prompting another question. "Do you mind if I record this conversation?"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2014 13:56:51 GMT -8
"Not at all," Eralam replied as the human asked about recording the conversation.
"It's true that, on Orax, the crystal formations have a sort of hive mind, but the same isn't true for Shards. Those with Force abilities tend to be able to communicate telepathically with more ease than organics, simply because our minds tend to work more like computers than the organic brain. There's less ambiguity. We rely less on emotion and mental images to convey information. It can be overwhelming for organics tapping into a Shard meld, due to the clarity and pace of the information exchange."
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Post by Chazz Orcuul on Feb 19, 2014 14:27:04 GMT -8
"IC, begin holorecording." A small red diode lit up on the hovercam, but nothing else seemed to happen. Chazz had only bought the small droid earlier today, and hadn't had a chance to test it out, but he certainly wasn't about to start fiddling with it here. For now, he'd just have to hope it was working as advertised.
"I see. Perhaps it accounts for your ability to interface with a droid so easily." The holocam began to twitter in Binary, something about order confirmation, and it servos whirred. "Yes, IC, continue recording. Recording. Yes."
He turned his attention back towards Eralam. "Sorry, new camera. Earlier you were saying something about the Force, that you don't believe it has a light and dark side, right? Could you explain how you do think of it?"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2014 14:40:00 GMT -8
"In a way, the Force is like water."
This was an explanation he had given many times in the past.
"You take water, run it through ground up coffee beans, and you get coffee. Throw some tea leaves in it and you get tea. The Force is the same way. You can filter it through whatever emotions or philosophy you want and end up with an astounding variety of flavors, but at the end of the day, it doesn't care. It is the Force. Why should it care what we think it should be?"
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Post by Chazz Orcuul on Feb 19, 2014 15:02:11 GMT -8
"Alright." Chazz took several seconds to digest the information. Allowing his eyes to wander over to the rifle case, he made note of a slugthrower, a collapsible model. It looked lightweight. Maybe he'd ask about it later.
"But even if you're right, and the Force doesn't care, tea isn't coffee. It'd be one thing if the Jedi and Sith had the same powers, and used them different ways... that's be a choice, plain and simple. But they seem to have separate abilities. Many Sith, for example, can conjure lightning, but the same isn't true of Jedi. Do you believe this is a failure of their philosophy? That interpreting the force in such a way cuts them off from some of the possibilities? In the same way adding lemon to coffee doesn't work? Or do they just not prefer these powers, leading to them becoming rarer and rarer in the order?"
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2014 16:16:32 GMT -8
"How one uses the Force depends largely on how you visualize the manifestation of the power. Take something simple, like Force Push."
Eralam flicked a pen across the room with a gesture.
"I see it as reaching out with my mind and pushing it, much like I would with my hand. Others see it as a beam of power reaching out and doing the work. Both do more or less the same thing, but are very different in the execution. When a Jedi or Sith use their powers, they're filtering the Force through their prejudices, perceptions, and experiences. But, back to the tea/coffee example, both may be manifestly different, but they're still mostly water. They taste different. They do different things. But, they're still 99% water. They'll be processed through the body in the same way. They'll get pissed out the same. And when it's all said and done, they'll enter the water cycle the same as they were before."
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