Dravik is a warm moon, but one punctuated by large swaths of grey, slate-like mesas and plains. Coming in, it gives one the impression of a mottle world that should be green, but is infected and sickly. Whether or not this is the moon’s usual state is difficult to tell. Upon landing, the group is met by a weary, sunken-cheeked, human man of middle years. He introduces himself as Sinan and offers to take the Jedi to where he claims Dassalya is currently working. Merrant thanks the man, bowing his head briefly before following. Jheva hangs to the back of the group as if she were keeping up a read guard position. She studies Sinan carefully as they go. Sinan looks haggard, like he hasn’t slept properly in several days. His body bears the bent-shouldered, hardened posture of one who has lived a life of hard labour.
The colony, too, is all but silent. Only a handful of beings grace the streets, and those seem to be out only by necessity.
Merrant mutters to Jheva, “…looks like it wasn’t an overstatement.”
“Mining is hard. I know,” Jheva says in a low voice. “But it’s more. Than just that.” Merrant quietly nods in reply.
Sinan leads them, eventually, through the abandoned streets to the edge of the most recent mining excavations. It is there that they see Dassalya, tapping away at a datapad as she frowns down at it. She pauses, occasionally, to touch a knuckle to her lower lip in thought. Jheva still lingers toward the back, letting Merrant take point on greeting Dassalya. She continues to watch Sinan and any other local near enough to be observed.
“I still recommend a quarantine of the area until we—”
Merrant approaches Dassalya as she speaks, clearing his throat. She looks up from her datapad, appearing vaguely surprised to see other Jedi.
“Oh! I… apologize. I did not realize you had come.” Her ‘you’ appears to be the more general of the term, as her eyes shift to Jheva to include her in the comment.
“Master Jalth sent us when you didn’t report in,” Merrant says. “Things are that bad here?”
Dassalya nods.
“I apologize for not making my report sooner. Things are, truly, not well here. There is something… off about all of this. The symptoms of the colonists are utterly unaffected by standard medicine, and even my Force healing has only been able to stabilize patients, not improve them.”
Jheva grimaces, very faintly. She looks to whoever Dassalya was speaking to about the quarantine, trying to see any visual symptoms on any locals nearby.
“Those who were first infected were reported to have been working in this mine—” Dassalya gestures to the cavernous opening behind and to her left. “—so I thought it might be time to begin a more thorough investigation of the space. None of the probes sent in have returned.”
“Do we know anything about what’s wrong with the people here?” Merrant asks. Dassalya nods.
“The symptoms of illness include fever, searing muscular pains, clenching of the throat and possible choking, fatigue, and potentially death. It affects across species and across age groups, although, so far, it is only those who have already been compromised by other conditions who have become one with the Force.”
“Age groups?” Jheva asks.
“Usually it is the elderly or the very young who are most at risk for illnesses, but this sickness has been contracted by healthy adults as well.”
“How old? How young?”
Dassalya checks her datapad.
“The eldest was… seventy-two, and the youngest has been nineteen months. The nineteen-month-old is still alive, although in an unimproving condition.”
Jheva’s brow furrows, a deep line between her ridges.
“I meant… working in the mine. But your answer means… it’s not affecting just… the workers?”
“…have you shown any symptoms?” Merrant asks, watching Dassalya. She shakes her head.
“Not as of yet. I have taken inoculations to protect against several known bacteria and viruses with similar symptoms and am maintaining a vigil of physical status. I can provide these inoculations to yourselves as well.”
“Who owns it?” Jheva asks. “The mine.”
“That would be—” Dassalya checks her datapad again. “—Oba Sarn. I believe this is the second colony of this variety she has founded, if memory serves.”
“…what’s the first one?” Merrant, this time.
“A similar mining expenditure in an asteroid belt two systems over,” Dassalya replies. “So far, they are not reporting any situation similar to this.”
Jheva looks grim. Her gaze shifts over to the entrance of the cave, clearing waiting for Dassalya’s next instructions.
“…hm. All right,” Merrant says. “We should check out the cave. Mind inoculating us?”
“Of course.” Dassalya slides her datapad back into its holster at her hip, then removes a small bottle of clear fluid and an injector from a pouch at the small of her back. “Your arm, please.”
Jheva’s eyes snap back to Dassalya at Merrant’s words. Dassalya glances at her as she prepares the serum, her eye caught by the motion. She offers a reassuring smile.
“Purebloods… resist some poisons,” Jheva says. “Do I need it?”
Merrant rolls up a sleeve, opens a panel on his armour, and extends his arm to Dassalya.
“Better safe than sorry, Jheva.”
“It is ultimately your choice,” Dassalya replies, turning her attention back to Merrant. She presses the injector against his skin and depresses the lever. A small needle within pricks his skin. “But I do recommend you receive it. The illness is documented to infect multiple species.”
Jheva watches Dassalya apply the inoculation to Merrant with a frown.
“Does it matter… if I’ve been… sick… from something else recently?”
Dassalya pauses, frowning. She takes the moment to drop the used injector into a clear bag, seals it, and returns it to the pouch at the small of her back. She retrieves a new one from within, but doesn’t ready it with serum.
“…may I ask with what you were sick? It… may affect whether you should inoculate or not, yes.”
Merrant nods gratefully at Dassalya.
“…I’ll give you two room.” He walks away so that Jheva might have something resembling doctor-patient privacy.
Jheva is silent for several moments, longer than her usual thoughtful pauses. She’s obviously debating something with herself.
“Alchemy. Sith. It’s… cured now.”
Dassalya’s frown deepens. Her gaze lowers in thought. Once again, she taps the knuckle of her right forefinger against her bottom lip.
“Sith alchemy is different from natural diseases. If you have been cured for more than forty-eight hours, I would still recommend inoculation.” Jheva clenches her jaw and thinks for another moment, but ultimately nods her assent. “Then may I have your arm, please?”
Jheva swiftly undoes one of her bracers so that she can eventually push up a sleeve and offer Dassalya skin. She doesn’t say another word in protest. Dassalya readies a new injector.
“Tell me, do you see the statue in the water to your left?”
“Yes.”
As soon as Jheva’s attention is drawn away, Dassalya depresses the injector’s lever and a quick pinch of pain pricks Jheva’s arm. Dassalya withdraws her hand.
Jheva looks back to her a second later, obviously waiting for the rest of her comment about the statue. When she does, another second after that, realizing what Dassalya did, she looks completely confused and even shakes her head a little, but says nothing. She sets to replacing her bracer.
“Good. Thank you,” Dassalya says, packing up Jheva’s used injector in the same manner as she did Merrant’s. She looks between the two. “Are we all ready, then?”
Merrant nods. “Yup.”
Dassalya then takes a deep breath and, without further ado, steps toward the mine. Merrant moves into point position. Because he’s wearing armour. That’s why. Totally. Jheva takes up as rear guard again, following them in.
A cool breeze drifts down from the towering mesa above as the group beholds the mine’s cavernous entrance. A single, dark shaft descends deep into the earth by way of a caged elevator, and something sickly briefly wafts up from within.
Merrant makes a brief face. “…well. That smell encouraging.”
“Did they… lose anyone? Down here? People who didn’t… come back.”
No light issues forth from the shaft as the trio presses further inside. Discarded lamps are strewn across the floor, some with broken handles or cracked lenses as if they had been dropped in a hurry.
“There are some who are not yet accounted for, yes,” Dassalya says softly. “But, as I said, no probes sent inside have returned. It is part of the reason why the Jedi were called.”
Merrant pulls a small glowstick out of a pocket on his belt, activates it, and drops it down the shaft. It is a long, long way down. Its bouncing echoes fill the otherwise silent cavern. Glints of ore are briefly revealed by its fading descent. Dassalya steps forward onto the elevator and turns to the pair.
“I hope neither of you are claustrophobic.”
“…let’s be safe. Sabres out,” Merrant suggests. He ignites his lightsabre and steps onto the lift. Jheva follows, gaze moving along the walls of the shaft, apparently studying the ore. If she’s concerned about being claustrophobic, she gives no sign. She takes her lightsabre hilt in hand but doesn’t ignite it yet. Dassalya, however, ignites her sabre as requested, and carefully hold it high as an extra source of illumination. She activates the lift controls. With a creaking groan and a momentary screech of metal, the elevator descends.
“……make sure we fine the owner for whatever we can. Just on principle.” Merrant’s words are swallowed by the sound-dampening weight of the earth about them.
It takes nearly a minute to reach the bottom of the shaft. A single, tripod-mounted, work light illuminates the immediate area. Merrant steps out, looking around, on guard for threats. Jheva follows out of the lift last, still obviously trying to keep rear guard. She sniffs at the air, like the scent might tell her something.
In the dim light, the group of Jedi can just pick out the forms of a distant console and an inert drill within the bubble of a large, excavated cavern. The air here is stale. It leaves a sour residue on the back of one’s tongue. Merrant moves toward the drill, his eyes glancing around at the darkness.
Jheva crouches once she’s stepped out onto the mine floor and passes her hand over the stone, studying her fingertips afterwards. She frowns and stands up again, deactivated lightsabre hilt still in hand.
“No. It does not,” Dassalya replies. “If anyone has brought with them a personal air filter, now might be the time to apply it.” She removes a small, translucent mask from the satchel at her waist and slips it over her mouth and nose.
The group moves deeper into the cavern, following Merrant’s lead. A few metres from the large form the drill—which glistens dully by the light of their sabres—Dassalya frowns at something on the floor illuminated by the green-tinged light. She kneels down, holding her sabre closer.
“There is something dark here. Oil or… something else. I cannot tell.”
Jheva looks down toward Dassalya, then up toward the darkness overhead. Merrant reaches out to grab something from behind the far side of the drill with the Force. A soft ‘click’ breaks the still air. The drill rumbles to life, raucous and noisy. It makes hearing difficult. Dassalya raises her sabre with a frown and rises her to feet. She turns about, trying to discern what else might have changed with the activation of the drill. Jheva immediately moves to the side with the swiftness of someone familiar with how much debris a machine like this, if not well tended, can kick up. Dassalya follows suit. The ‘something’ Merrant has caught is a humanoid figure, difficult to discern in the darkness of the cavern.
“Who are you?” Merrant shouts as he draws the figure closer, but his words are almost entirely swallowed by the echoing cacophony raised by the drill. Even if it could hear, it becomes abundantly clear as the figure is finally illuminated by their lightsabres that it would not reply. It is a Duros woman. Blood has coagulated about a lethal wound in her gut. She is dead.
The woman’s arm splays out behind her as she hovers in Merrant’s grip. A string attached to her wrist leads back to the drill.
“…damn it.” Merrant lowers her back down to the ground. Jheva steps around him and the corpse, giving it only a brief look. She finally ignites her lightsabre to give her some light as she steps up to the side of the drill, looking for the control panel where experience tells her it should be. From her side of the drill, she can see the string from the Duros woman’s arm attached to the main power lever on the drill’s controls.
Dassalya steps up to the body quickly and kneels to inspect it, then checks for life signs. She shakes her head at Merrant.
Jheva doesn’t move to cut the string. She steps up to the lever and hovers her hand over it, but doesn’t flip it just yet, allowing herself a moment to reach out with the Force to sense for what might be triggered by the action. When nothing is revealed, she moves the lever to the off position.
The drill powers down. A ringing remains in the ears even as its echoes fade. Jheva moves to carefully walk all around the drill, inspecting it from all angles, looking for signs of other bodies or string traps. What she finds is a single, bloody hand print on the drill’s far side where Merrant had first spotted the body. She kneels down beside and measures the hand print in comparison to the size and shape of her own. It is roughly comparable, five-fingered like hers… and like the Duros they discovered. A touch reveals that the blood is flaky and dry.
Dassalya shakes her head, touching a hand to her ear with a grimace.
“Have you found something, Jheva?”
Jheva finished her perimeter check of the drill before coming to a stop by Dassalya and Merrant again and actually answering.
“A print. Hand print. Blood. Old. Whatever killed her… wanted the drill back on.”
Dassalya frowns at that.
“That is a little disturbing and distressing.”
Merrant moves to the hole the drill was drilling.
“…only a little?”
Jheva frowns at it.
“It’s loud.” Dassalya nods in agreement. Jheva turns to look behind her, into the darkness, but she only see the light from the lonely lamp that remains on duty outside the elevator shaft. The lift cage is still in place, ready to take them upward whenever they decide. “Loud means… someone could hear.”
“The lift wasn’t exactly quiet…” Merrant says.
“No, but not as loud as the drill,” Dassalya replies.
Jheva starts looking around for any sign of the probes. There is nothing immediately in sight.
The lift cage closes, beeps, and recalls up the shaft, but it returns presently with Tela Sae’banni. Dassalya relaxes, and offers Tela a nod of greeting.
“Did you receive an inoculation before coming down, Knight Sae’banni?”
Jheva steps right up to the edge of the pool of light from their lightsabres, where the darkness deepens. She shuts off her sabre, letting her species’ night vision adjust. There might be something out there at the edge of vision, but it’s difficult to tell what it might be. Mining equipment, perhaps? Jheva, always one for patience, fixes her eyes on the indistinct shape and waits. If she can’t see it clearly, she might at least be able to see if it moves.
Merrant turns away from the drill hole, having found nothing of value other than a thought that this might have been an area the colony planned to excavate further.
“So, we think this drill is part of the problem?” Tela asks.
“Might have drawn something to us,” Merrant replies, peering into the darkness.
“It’s watching us,” Jheva says, watching something in the darkness—not the still form of the barely-visible mining equipment.
Dassalya frowns back at her.
“…watching us?”
“…I see a console over here,” Merrant says, taking a step toward the deeper, far side of the cavern. “Might control something important.”
“On the wall,” Jheva replies. “It’s watching us.”
“Let’s not get too spread out if there’s trouble in the dark…” Tela says.
Whatever Jheva has spotted on the cavern wall hisses, revealing a wide mouth full of needle teeth. It is about the size of a large akk dog and sports wicked, curved claws and a lashing tail in addition to its teeth. Its eyes, four of them, blink with a ravenous light. It lunges forward in tandem with three other creatures of the same variety—one toward each Jedi.
“Of course!” Merrant says, igniting his lightsabre and slashing at the creature leaping for him. It snakes under his guard and snaps at his leg and, while his armour saves him from the worst of the bite, a single fang penetrates his skin.
Jheva’s lightsabre snap-hisses into light, both ends of her sabrestaff this time, slashing out with a strike fully intended to bisect the charging creature. It falls to the ground in pieces, one half of its head snapping wildly for a few seconds more before it grows still.
Tela is a dance of sabre light that glints off her ice-white, Arkanian skin, but the beast is able to rend her tunic with a well-place claw. It darts back out of reach, hissing. Dassalya’s blade spears the creature attacking her through its clavicle. It swipes at her one last time before slumping forward with a groan. Jheva spins about, looking for any enemy still posing a threat to allies.
Merrant grimaces as his armour and skin are breached, but he falls down on the creature, grabbing it by the throat with his off hand and bring his lightsabre down hard. It gives a screech of pain before falling limp within his grasp. The creature harrying Tela makes another lunge for her with snapping jaws. She thrusts forward, impaling it neatly between its four eyes. Jheva snaps her gaze around whatever she can see of walls or ceiling, looking for more ambushers. She cannot see them, but she can hear them hissing and scrabbling in the darkness. With the echoes of fighting still bouncing off the cavern walls, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly from where the sounds come.
“There’s more. And something… was alive here that wanted them… to attack other people. How were they alive still?”
“Come together!” Dassalya says, her lightsabre held ready before her. “Present a united front!”
Merrant looks around, swinging his lightsabre idly.
“Kid, if you have any info we can actually use, don’t hesitate to say it!”
“There’s more,” Jheva says again. “I can hear them. Something put the string. On the drill. Something they weren’t attacking.”
Tela eyes the distance between her and a barely visible, scuttling form, then thrust her arm forward. Her lightsabre hurtles forward like a missile and impales a creature on the far wall, then returns just as swiftly to her hand. Merrant winces as he steps back with a faint limp, his eyes watching the darkness. They can all hear it now—a sibilant whisper of hissing and scrabbling surrounding them in the darkness just beyond their lightsabres’ glow. Jheva shoots a glance at the tripod-mounted lamp by the lift. Tela bends to examine the dead creature near Dassalya’s feet. As she does, something becomes apparent: this is not a natural creature. It is twisted and contorted in a way that no born being should be.
Merrant grimaces.
“…does the air feel more vile to anyone else all of the sudden?”
Dassalya glances over at him, turning her attention briefly from the skittering and hissing in the dark.
“I feel no difference. Anyone else?”
Jheva throws out a hand and tries to pull the lamp across the cave toward them with the Force. It comes easily, bouncing once on an outcropping of stone, but otherwise making its way to Jheva without impediment. She sets it down near the centre of the group so that its light will cover as much space around them as possible. There’s further hissing from the creatures in the dark. They do not move closer, their eyes squinting and blinking at the light.
“No.”
Tela’s eyes darken.
“These creatures have been… warped.”
Jheva now pulls the head of the creature she killed toward with the Force, holding it suspended a foot in front of her taut hand so that she can study it in the light, her other hand still holding her lit lightsabre.
“…just great,” Merrant says. “Okay. We have new information. Don’t let them bite you, not even a little bit. Also, I got bit a little bit. Not feeling too good.”
Tela eyes her cloak.
“Only damaged my wardrobe, thankfully.”
Dassalya, her eyes still on the creatures at the edge of their pool of light, beings to edge closer to Merrant. He glances at her.
“…left leg, just behind the shin. Early infection, that’s… helpful for understanding something like this, right?”
Jheva’s jaw clenches tight as she studies the creature’s head. Then she lets go of her Force grip on it, and it drops to the floor with a thud.
Dassalya nods.
“It is. Thank you. We should remove you to the surface where I can treat you.”
“…right. Run for the lift?”
“I can try and draw them off. Still young and bouncy,” Tela offers with a wink.
“It’s Sith. Made by Sith.” Jheva sidesteps closer to the body of the Duros woman and risks taking her eyes off the darkness just long enough to do a hasty inspection of the corpse. The wound, now seen in the proper light, appears to have been made by something that cauterized it instantly.
“I think if we go, we should go together,” Dassalya replies. “They do not appear to enjoy the light that Knight Jheva has brought us.”
“Or we can all go together,” Merrant agrees. “Whatever this disease is, it’s not slowing me down, and no one’s throwing themselves on a sabre for my benefit.”
Tela quips, “Was hoping they fall on mine. But whatever you think best. I’m ready.”
Jheva nods to herself, grimly unsurprised. She looks back at the others.
“If you can fight… I’ll take the bodies.” She deactivates her lightsabre and stows it. Crouching, she hefts the Duros woman’s body up over her shoulders with the experience and strength of someone who has a lot of experience with manual labour and loads. Once she’s braced herself under the woman’s weight, holding her in place by an arm, she throws out her other hand and calls the creature’s head to her with the Force again, unhesitatingly digging her fingers into flesh to hold it. She clearly want to leave here with both if she can at all manage it.
Dassalya steps forward, her eyes wary and her posture ready, and she removes one hand from her sabre to lift the lamp with the Force.
“Merrant, Knight Sae’banni, if you could please watch our flanks…”
She moves slowly forward. The creature hiss as the light touches them and retreat. They do not sound happy at seeing their prey escape. Merrant limps lightly beside her. Tela turns from side to side, watching whichever creature appears the most threatening, moment by moment.
“…anything special about that light?” Merrant asks.
“Not of which I am aware,” Dassalya replies. The lamp’s only immediately visible remarkable quality is that it is the only light source of distinction in the area. Jheva’s laconicism is only made more total by the effort of her carrying her loads; she says nothing at all as they forge onward, back toward the lift.
Dassalya sets the lamp down carefully as they reach the bottom of the lift and moves to the controls. The cage opens. She turns to watch the retreat, but is all but pushed onto the elevator by Merrant as he clambers on. Tela takes the position of rear guard as Jheva moves into the lift cage.
“Ready?” she asks without looking back, watching, instead, for a possible ambush.
“When you are,” Dassalya replies. Once Tela is aboard, she closes the lift doors and activates the controls. They begin to rise. There is a flurry of unhappy activity below them, loosely heard over the sound of the elevator rising and punctuated by dissatisfied hiss-howls.
Jheva braces herself against the cage wall of the lift, but doesn’t release either of her burdens. She turns her eyes up, monitoring the shaft above them as they rise.
Merrant deactivates his lightsabre and kneels down to remove the bitten armour plate. Dassalya kneels beside him. She places a hand on his leg. Those around her may feel her careful rerouting of the Force’s currents as she sets about tending Merrant’s wound.
“…so, how bad is it?”
“I sense the infection within you,” she says, her voice low. “I can stop it from progressing, at least for a time.”
Below them, with a sharp sound of shattering lenses, the lamp light winks out.
“Guess we’ll have to bring our own light next time,” Tela says. She turns away and looks to Merrant and Dassalya. “I… don’t like going there often, but I do still have a few family connections on Arkania. They have pretty epic hospitals… if less clear ethical review boards.”
As Jheva watches, the top of the shaft comes into view. It can be discerned by the faint outline of dark blue of the opening against the black of the shaft walls.
“….would chopping off the leg help?” Merrant asks.
“…we are not amputating your leg.”
“I’m not jumping at the prospect, Dass. Feels like a good question to ask, though.”
“I will be able to halt the sickness at its current stage, as I have been able to do for others. I can do this for at least a period of hours.”
Tela frowns.
“I didn’t get the briefing yet… What else does this disease do?”
“Lots of things. None of them pleasant,” Merrant replies. He speaks softly, calmly—a good deal more calmly than he actually feels.
The lift reaches the top of the shaft and comes to a stop with an un-greased squeal. Jheva steps forward and lifts a foot to shift down the release handle on the lift gate, then pushes the door itself open with the same foot. She shoulders her way out, not being particularly careful about whether or not the Duros woman’s body hits things, and gets out of the way so the others can step out as well.
“We will find a cure,” Dassalya says, helping Merrant to his feet. “If this illness has been manufactured, then I will find a way to un-manufacture it.”
“Yes,” Jheva says grimly. “It’s Sith. It’s made. Fix it. Or… kill who made it.”
Tela nods.
“Well, let me know if you think it’s worth calling in some help.”
“Thank you for the offer, Knight Sae’banni. I will keep it in consideration.”
Merrant starts to limp out of the cave, shaking his head slightly. “…feeling a bit feverish. Hot up here, more than I did before. And you didn’t answer my question, Dass.”
Dassalya moves to offer him assistance.
“And which question was that?”
“If amputating it would help.”
Her lips press together slightly in distaste. She doesn’t immediately respond.
“If you contracted it through a bite, as seems the case, then amputation before it can move to your other systems may prove useful in containing the infection, yes.”
“…….right. Good to know.”
“I will find a cure.”
“You said hours,” Jheva interjects. “We can go back. Before hours.”
“Yes. That is my intention.”
“More information is always good…” Merrant replies. “And I know you will, Dass.”
It does not take long to reach the sunlight beyond the mine entrance. Upon doing so, Dassalya instructs Merrant to take a seat and sets about treating him more fully. He offers her a wan smile.
Jheva steps away from the lift, to open ground, where she drops the creature’s head and then unslings the woman’s body from her shoulders with a grunt of effort.
