Mandalorian Hall Incident

Liisa · Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 5:42 pm Post subject: Mandalorian Hall Incident

The city of Nocturnus was exceptionally dusty and and the streets lay empty. The thought of a ghost town came to Riffric Drott's mind as he pulled the remains of his wrecked speeder bike behind him on the make-shift sled built from a large and old rusty steel plate and quite a few yards of wire he pulled from the abandoned mineral extractor he crashed against. For probably the hundreth time this day he cursed the sand as the wind pressed it between his lips into his dry mouth, through his ripped speedersuit and into every crevace of his battered tired body.

"Frag this!" he said and pulled off the harness he had knitted together from wire and an old backpack he found buried in the sand. It had been empty but it made a great foundation for a harness. Riff had always been good at working with what he had and the crash, as inconvenient as it may be, had been just another turn in his life offering what he believed could be a good opportunity to stop by a nearby town and get a few days of rest before he kept up his search for signs of that blasted jedi-thingy his employer seemed so obsessed about.

He couldn't care less about what he was searching for or why though, as long as the cloaked woman kept her part of the bargain. She had told him to go to Lok and find the Plateau of Xarínn and bring her the black rune stone he'd find there. She, on the other hand, would take care of a small misunderstanding between him and a certain Hutt on Tatooine which had been haunting him ever since he accidently borrowed some power converters from the stingy Hutt's personal sail barge. Crud, if that sailbarge was so important, why didn't it have guards?

It didn't matter much now though. So far not a soul he'd spoken to had ever heard of a plateau on Lok matching the description. All he gets when he asks about a place constantly hidden in thick fog are amused laughs. How could he know there's no fog on Lok? Damn spice junkies, as if its his fault he had to end up in the one system in the galaxy where the best climate found is barren steppes and sandstorms. Well, at least it was better than Tatooine herself. If he could help it he'd never set foot there again.

Riffric kicked the broken speeder and decided to leave it there while he tried to find someone to ask for a garage. He looked around and peered his eyes to see through the blistening sand and protect them at the same time. He started off towards what appeared to be a cantina but stopped halfway there. He wasn't sure why until he felt the tingling at the back of his neck... that feeling again. He began to back off and walk away.

"I have a bad feeling about this..." he said to himself and looked around. Still not a living soul but he could sense something was going on. There was something in the air and it wasn't the sand. He had often wondered if that sense of his was a blessing or a curse. More often than not it got him in trouble but at the same time that trouble always seemed to get him going on something new and exciting for a while. After all, if the sense hadn't taken him to that sail barge he'd never have gotten his old YT transport working and gotten off Tatooine just in time to avoid that flogging Hutt. Instead it got him a job.

As he walked down the street he still couldn't find a living soul. From time to time he thought he saw a shadow move in the dusk of the sand but whenever he peered closer there was nothing. For some reason he ended up in front of a huge building with large cauldrons of fire and statues of ancient warriors in front of it. The place seemed ominous enough, much less inviting than a warm cantina with dancing 'Leks and a cold Corellian beer to rinse the sand out of his throat. Yet, something urged him to walk inside.

The moment he stepped past the magnetic barrier keeping the sand and heat outside and the comforts of the indoors... well, indoors, he realised the smell. He couldn't place it at first. It smelled... wet, warm. He felt a presence and slowly walked through the narrow passage towards what should be the main hall but he stopped just before turning the corner. On the floor before him lay a severed arm. He took a quick step back.

"Frag me!" He started backing towards the exit as a voice in his head asked him to please come inside. For some reason he wanted to comply and moved forward, stepping over the arm and turning into the main hall. All around him he saw burning torches, litting up a grand room with trophies and statues or just armors in stands. It was a warriors' hall, that was no doubt. Before him lay scattered the remains of at least a dozen or more severed bodies. There was only clean cuts. Almost no blood whatsoever. He didn't understand.

The many torches created equally many shadows, dancing around they made the room swirl and jut in an unpredictable pattern. Riffric stepped slowly deeper into the hall, carefully watching the shadows as they seemed to creep ever closer to him, embrace him, and then crawl back across the floor and the walls only to turn and again reach for him. Suddenly one of the shadows stopped dancing and it took a distinct step away from the wall and towards him. It was a man, that was obvious, but he could not see the face in the shadow of the dark hood covering the head. The man held a short rod, probably a lightsaber. He had seen them before but not this close.

"Sir..." Riffric tried to sound respectful and secure but his voice failed him and he cursed inside over how weak and scared it had sounded. He began backing away only to feel a hand on his shoulder. He snapped around and stood face to face with a beautiful woman clad in all white. She was like a princess, a queen, and he awed at the sight of her. He felt such strong recognition, such strong kinship. If he only knew how to express the powerful feelings growing in him at the sight of this most divine creature of the galaxy.

The sparkling hiss erupting just before Riffric's head was cut clean off his body was followed by a similar one as the lightsaber was cut out. Before his head had even landed on the floor, joining the other dead, she had turned and was heading for the exit. "Xarínn, it is time."

The Mandalorian Hall in Nocturnus wasn't visited until two days later. Noone knew most of the Mandalorians who used to gather there and no record of them could be found at the scene. DNA samples failed to identify but very few of them and noone has seen or heard of the Mandalorian clan since the incident. It is not likely to be destroyed, but what happened at that Hall and what remains of the clan is yet unknown. As for the wrecked speeder bike in front of the Desert, well... surely someone took care of it one way or the other. After all, who wouldn't mind a free speeder in a town like Nocturnus...?

xyryn · Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:04 pm Post subject:

Xyryn stood on the Fire Height, lightly tranced and lost in the beauty of the birds flying below her. Without warning, the Goddess was in her, turning her body so that her eyes were looking at the far northern edges of Nocturnus.

As always when the Goddess came, xyryn could still monitor the sensory input of her body, could detect that in the Goddess which she had come to identify as curiosity. And the Goddess was intensely curious about something there on the edge of the city. Xyryn could only see two spots of brightness through the haze...then, her eyes sharpened preternaturally and she could see a building with two firepits and two statues in front, and an aura of swirling colors around it.

As xyryn studied those colors, an uneasy feeling began to build in her, growing rapidly. She tried to turn her head away, not watch that wild and fearsome dance, but the Goddess soothed her. From out of the perpetual wind, a voice whispered, "Watch and learn."

A space of time passed, a lone figure walked into view leaning a little against the wind. It paused, uncertain, by one of the firepits, then entered the building. The madness of the aura disappated, and two figures emerged from the doorway, one dressed in a black cloak, the other in a white one. White cloak moved as if it owned the world as the two headed north.

Her curiosity satisfied, the Goddess withdrew. Xyryn was again mistress of her own body. But now, she had her own curiosity, she wanted to see why the Goddess had been interested in that far away building, and she wondered if what she had seen was the way the Goddess always saw this plane.

Xyryn gathered her robe in one hand, stepped off the edge of the Fire Height. Maintaining her balance as she slid down the steep talus slope on her boot heels was a game she enjoyed when she knew no one was about to see the dangerous maneuver. Today, it was only the fastest way down the peculiarly shaped hill, her joy overridden by the sense of disaster.

With a lekku, she pulled the edge of her veil across her mouth and nose to block the now blowing sand. She ran the distance to that far hall, paused in the lee of a building across the street from the fire pits and statues. She studied the building through the storm of detritus and sand, waited until it abated. Then she crossed to the building, quietly went up the steps. But, the door was locked.

As xyryn turned to leave, her peripheral vision caught something...and she looked down. She knelt to examine the several smudges of still glistening fluid, red but browning as it dried. She had seen this too often in Nocturnus to mistake what it was. Someone had stepped in blood, left these traces of footprints. Death was behind that locked door.

The Kiva wondered if this would remain one of those unsolved mysteries of Nocturnus or if more information would appear to shed some light on what had happened this day, ... and why.
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"It is. Deal with it."