Then he turned to Panthar. "We were just discussing this communicator thing that Panthar has," he then said, filling Galen in. "Maybe that, along with her Force abilities," he continued, pointing towards Stargazer, who had just recently regained her footing, "And your maps, we can get everyone the kriffing hell off this rock, as Terrin would say."

He paused then, frowning. "I really ]i]am[/i] concerned about Shawn, he seems pretty resourceful..."

--------------------

“Good to see ya, Red,” he beamed. “Now by the kriffin’ treasures on Roon, whatever the hell that means, let’s get out of this swamp!”

Panthar walked forward and up to the ship. He pulled out the Sith device from his pocket and looked it over.

“The last time, when we were down in that hole, I used this button. It managed to find different frequencies and show little blips up here in this part, I guess giving an idea of where the other com devices were relationally. That’s got to be a help, right?”

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"Kriffing hell, I HATE bats!" HE growled, reaching for his side to unholster his blaster. Before Matt could object--not that he could see Jasyn's moves anyway--he pointed the weapon upward and fired. The resulting blast caused the bats to disappate...

...save one bat that perched on Jasyn's shoulder. Jasyn sat up, scowling, and reached his opposite hand up to flick the creature off. The bat, annoyingly enough, flew off and then returned to sit right back on Jasyn's shoulder. He scowled, and Matt, now shining the glowstick his direction, began to smirk.

But then he paused, pointing toto something the bat was carrying in his mouth:

A piece of blue cloth.

Jasyn removed it from the nightbird's mouth, looking over it. "Allright, so it might be a piece of Shawn's clothing," he observed, "But that doesn't do us a fat lot of good. Unless..."

He trailed, cocking his head at the bat. "Allright, I don't suppose you know the location of the owner of this?" he queried, waving the piece of cloth about, not expecting to get a response of any type.

[ 11-15-2007 02:25 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Jasyn Lancaster ]

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"Yeah," I finally agreed with all in general.

"But the first thing we need to do, I would think, in order to receive those frequencies, is to get back to the same place where we picked them up in the first place. And that's down that blasted crevass, which..."

I trailed, waving one hand around.

"Sure as there's Treasure on Roon is not on this miserable little hill! So my question is, where is the connection back to the mainland, if you can call anything on this boggy world land... or did you all just swim over when Terrin and I first got here?"

[ 11-15-2007 02:27 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

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"We came from that direction," she said simply, pointing. "It's narrow and a little bit of a moise walk though, so if we're going back that way we should be careful. I doubt anyone else wants to take a dip in those swamp waters."

--------------------

I gave my flightsuit a discening tug.

"Let's do it, then!"

With no further ado I turned away from the others and headed off in the direction Shayla pointed toward. It didn't take long before I came upon the little passage she had spoken of. It wasn't much, just a soggy lump stretching from where we were, out across the murky water, to segue seamlessly into the riot of greenery there on the opposite side.

I eyed the lump, not without some trepidation, for it didn't even look to be a meter in width.

"Y-you guys came over this?" I gulped before getting hold of myself.

"Well, so be it!"

Again I set off, staring straight ahead. For sure as Khaandon made little green worrts if I cast so much as a peep at the sinister waters about me it would more than likely bring the biggest, hungriest, and most dangerous critter running for dinner.

Along with its extended family.

--------------------

After a few moments of such aerodynamics it straightened it's flightpath, and beelined down the passage directly ahead of the two men. Said passage whose floor gradually raised, until at length there was scarcely room enough for a man to wriggle through. The little nightbat had no such issues, and soon disappeared completely, following the claustrophobically tightening passageway, the occasional squeaks it emitted leaving a faintly audible, and very much ghostly, trail in its wake.

[ 11-15-2007 03:03 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by The All ]

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..and hope it means something and not nothing. After all...

He trailed then, his scowl turning into a look of concern, "...for all we know he might have just found this scrape of cloth somewhere, and Shawn might not be there at all."

[ 11-15-2007 03:27 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Jasyn Lancaster ]

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Not. Quite. Utterly. Black.

For from the darkness something collected, something roiled, and gathered unto itself. And from the growing resolution there came a faint shimmer of periwinkle... of silver.

Something not quite a voice echoed in the otherwise pitch black, filling both men's heads with something akin to that one finds there immediately upon awakening from a nightmare.

You have a... Get Out of Jail Free card... it may be used in this Game but once...

Use it with wisdom, for by it are you judged.

The whisper of something beyond reality vanished, taking the ghostly echo of light with it. And with its disappearance, a blackness deeper than that punched out by solar totality descended upon the two men, in all its bone-chilling, shadow-swift glory.

[ 11-15-2007 03:48 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by The All ]

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Blink.

I instinctively froze, for in that fraction of time my entire surroundings utterly changed: one minute being a greeny-gray soggy mess, and the next...

Utter nightmare.

The bland, moisture filled atmosphere altered dramatically, being filled with roiling black clouds, heavy with something that I knew in my heart of hearts simply wasn't rain. The greenness turned ashen and sere, the swampwaters from cloudy to...

Something that wasn't quite water.

My heart ceased beating... but whether from sheer terror or the fact that Time itself had stopped who could tell. Certainly not me...

...for all of a sudden I found myself reinserted into reality again, standing on the edge of the mainland proper, not really knowing how in Hell's Seven Circles I'd managed to propel myself there. All around me, everything was green and gray and boggy once again. Everything, that is, except the image which stubbornly refused to leave my mind.

I'd seen that sky before...

[ 11-15-2007 04:15 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

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This was all too, too familiar. Back on K'eel Doba when they were caught in the maze...

A twinge of terror raced up and down Jasyn's spine along with the tingling sensation, and he fumbled around the ground at first unsuccessfully to find the glowstick, unable to see. In a small space of time, however, he was able to find it, and flicked the light back on, his eyes wide. Next to him Matt Stanza stared at the vanished sight quizzically, never having seen it before.

"Kriffing hell!" Jasyn finally sputtered, in no specific direction. "It's that All That Was and Is stuff back to haunt us, like Phal said."

Matt furrowed his brows in question.

"We encountered it on K'eel Doba, not long after Terrin came back to life," he explained further. "What it wants with us now...

...I don't know."

He paused then, scowling, his look darkening. "A "get out of Jail Free Card? What the hell?" With that, he raised his arm and fumbled for a general freequency on his wristcomm, hoping that the radio markers they had planted would give them a link to someone, anyone else.

Anyone human or at least somewhat humanoid, that is. "Hey, if anyone can read me, this is Jasyn Lancaster. We have a problem...

...Ole Googly Eyes has appeared here."

Squirting the message off, he then turned to Matt once more. "Well," he then said, "I guess we follow the bat...

...and hope that whatever a Get out of Jail Free Card is, it'll be something we can use. But I don't know if I'd count on it..."

[ 11-16-2007 11:06 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Jasyn Lancaster ]

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...before straightening its course and arrowing straight back into the darkness of the passageway once again.

[ 11-16-2007 11:12 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by The All ]

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"I am no expert on animal behavior," he then stated, "But I'm pretty sure the first thing we can assume as a certainty is that the bat wants us to follow."

Turning to Jasyn then with an arched eyebrow, Matt ignored the darkening look in Jasyn's eyes.

"Hey, you asked the bat if he knew the owner of the cloth. Stranger things have happened to us than the possibility that the bat is answering said question. Much stranger things."

Jasyn scowled further, then sighed and shrugged, beginning to head in the direction the bat had flown. The passageway, annoyingly enough, began to constrict, the floor becoming more and more raised with each step.

Matt shook his head in frustration as he had to duck further and further, his lack of height actually becoming somewhat an advantage, for Jasyn was practically on his knees by this point.

"If this passageway gets any more narrow," Matt observed, "Neither of us are going to be able to get through."

--------------------

...when the entire system seemed to shake, as if driven by a deep earthquake, a movement which caused the opening ahead to widen a bit further...

...through which the distinct sound of the nightbat's meeping was heard, although strangely magnified, as if echoed by distant walls.

[ 11-16-2007 12:10 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by The All ]

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"If we find Petrolu, he definitely owes me a..."

He stopped midsentence as the bat disappeared into an opening, and a strange shaking seemed to course through the entire cave system. "Oh, kriffing hell," Jasyn muttered, unmoving, hoping that they weren't going to simply end up bugsplat on the rocks of the cave. But the shaking subsided...

...and the opening looked as though they could still physically fit through, despite the bad feeling he had about it. Jasyn inched up just a bit more and shined his glowstick out to get a good look at what migh tbe awaiting them inside the opening...

...and froze there. "Oh, hell," he growled, seeing the bat circling around in a strangely open area of the caves as if to taunt him. "The ground...if it is there like I think it is...

...is probably about 10 meters down. And I don't think either of us are at a very good angle to jump safely..."

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No sooner had it disappeared than the system shook...

...and a section of wall spalled off, crashing into deafening rubble thirty feet below. But it left behind a convenient "path" carved into the wall, the bottom "edge" where the gigantic chunk had once seamlessly rested.

It angled conveniently up to the opening into which the nightbat had disappeared...

--------------------

Pausing for a moment then, Jasyn frowned a bit. "I would mention that these sorts of good things never happen to us without a price, but I don't suppose that now is a good time."

Saying nothing further than that, however, Jasyn began to work his way out of the hole and to the convenient pathway, Matt behind him. They worked their way up the rock, remarkably easily, and arrived at the opening. Jasyn shined his glowstick through to see what awaited...

...and found a fairly narrow, but passable, entry point. Jasyn scooted inside, once more followed by Matt, the bat just ahead of them. He had to remain on his knees to fit, but began to work his way through, once more following the nightbat. As he did, an occassional rumbling sound began to pervade his senses, and Jasyn began to wonder if the sound was a quake in the works once more...

...or perhaps something else entirely. For once, he was actually hoing it was the former.

--------------------

At length the nightbat let forth another meep; suddenly changing its trajectory, it turned tail and flew back, swooping over Matt and Jasyn to disappear behind them, only to return moments later. It performed this strange maneuver three more times, before finally bearing straight ahead, now following a tiny side-passage which after about twenty feet made a right angle, slithered about a boulder long fallen and held in place by its own sheer weight...

...and opened up onto yet another passage, one perhaps eight easily scalable feet beneath the opening. The bat flew for a length of time along this passage, now in absolute silence, coming at last to a distant, quiet, and apparently meditating form...

Upon whose shoulder it perched, and set up a soft and somehow forlorn meeping.

--------------------

"Well, I hope this bat knows where he is going," Jasyn observed, pursing his lips a bit. "And I hope Terrin and Galen are doing allright as well. He never replied to your comm earlier, did he?" Jasyn queried.

Matt shook his head,then shrugged, motioning for Jasyn to keep following the trail of the bat. Jasyn sighed and did just that, finding that they had to walk quite a while before arriving anywhere at all. Jasyn was surprised at that the cavern remained remarkably passable, and wondered how they had managed to come upon such a place in caves. His meanderings were cut forth, however, as he shined his glowstick ahead and finally saw the shadow of a quiet form, cross-legged on the cave floor, the bat perched on his shoulder.

"Hey, Matt, it is Petrolu!" Jasyn exclaimed, hurrying to the meditating Jedi's side. He knelt there as Matt rummaged through a supply backpack for some water and a ration bar.

"Hey, Petrolu, snap out of it!" Jasyn interjected, patting the Jedi on the shoulder.

No response.

"Awww, damn, what's the matter with him?" Jasyn queried in Matt's direction even as the other man came over with the open water container, his green eyes radiating concern.

"I don't know," was all Matt could answer. "Help me give him some of this water, maybe it'll help."

--------------------

For a long moment it simply stared at the tableau, its wings outspread, its eyes unfathomably dark. Then those eyes appeared to grow, to brighten, to take on immense proportions... until at last they completely encompassed the spot upon which the bat rested, bat and all.

Small indeed for them... but for the understanding of the tiny.

That Which Was merely contemplated the men. Then the shadows within the passageway grew even darker, pressed ever more closely, as the great periwinkle and silver eyes blinked.

Once.

"To that end, for the sake of one, is it seen the easiest path has been chosen. As has it always been done thoughout the Game.

"No point given here, but lost point may at length be earned."

With that enigmatic statement they disappeared entirely...

...taking with them every lick of magick, every connection to anything touching on the super or supranatural, every last touch of hocus-pocus which living entities had been allowed throughout the millennia.

Magicians, Cult assassins, Force adepts, All users...

Everything.

[ 11-16-2007 01:48 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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...and the connection he was feeling with his sister snapped entirely. The meditation he was locked in disappated as well, and his body went limp. The only reason he did not collapse on the cave floor were two supportive hands which rested on both of his shoulders. He finally began to register that something wet was being poured down his throat, slowly.

His greeny-blue eyes snapped open, he gasped, and then coughed and sputtered a bit before realizing that two people were with him. Still, he was disturbed by a strange sensation which held him, one which told him that something was missing. He tried to stretch out with the Force to ascertain what was going on...

...but came up entirely short. There was nothing. Nada.

"S...something's wrong..." He managed, looking back and forth between the two men.

--------------------

"Hell," I knew this was too easy," he growled, still supporting Petrolu yet looking around anxiously. "We've gotta get out of here," he then spoke up, looking back towards Shawn and Matt. "And I bet you big credits our sweet little bat friend isn't going to be around to help us this time."

He sighed, getting to his feet and helping the Jedi to his as they began heading back the way that they came. "What did we ever do to deserve all this?"

--------------------

...but nothing. Her greeny-blue eyes clouded a bit. "I... I've lost Shawn's Force signature," she said aloud, clearly worried. Everyone turned back to her, a question in their eyes. She read what she thought it might be, and stretched out to sense the EE men, whose signatures she was also familiar with...

...but nothing. Frowning at that, Shayla then realized that it wasn't just that she couldn't sense these people. She couldn't sense anything. At all.

"M--my abilities..."

She trailed, her greeny blue eyes darkening. "They're gone."

--------------------

It had been so long ago, when there was just nothing to worry about but he and Shayla. The last time he could really remember it being that way was when they had first gotten married and they were on whatever planet that was, enjoying some time together, truly happy...

...when little Zackary had made his presence known.

Erik's brown eyes glinted with even more pain at that thought, recalling what had happened to their child. He remembered the pained look in Shayla's eyes when they had lost him and had to leave him on Khar Delba.

He wasn't sure if she had really been the same ever since that event.

Sitting up a bit, wincing just the slightest, he motioned for a medic who quickly hurried over to see what the problem was. He quickly requested to speak to someone in charge, not really knowing any other way to go about what he was thinking. The medic nodded his head and backed away, promising to make his request known to the powers-that-be aboard the Hornett. Erik leaned over once more then, drifting back into his thoughts which now began to turn to his budding plans...

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