Play Testers Wanted Pt. 15

"You stand on thin ice. Much of our knowledge can help you but be warned. The ultimate truth will burn you if you unearth it." The gatekeeper cautioned me.

"This is one great holocron, isn't it?" I asked. "The huge crystal holds your wisdom."

"It is." The figure said. "Speak and let your desire be known."

I had heard plenty of stories about what happened to the greedy. I left the decision up to the gatekeeper. Its wisdom should prevail. Machinery groaned after being unused for millennia. A square aperture opened and four holocrons were spat out. Each was color coded for us. The red pyramid shaped device must have been meant for Thorn. Another was icy blue for Winter. The third was covered with delicate spirals and swirls that matched the markings on the lightsaber of the newborn Sith. The last was monochromatic and meant for me no doubt. The hologram ended and the roar of combat rushed into replace the peace I had experienced. I spun to see the three women fighting twice as many Jedi forces. My child had taken up the weapons of the two fallen Jedi we had initially encountered.

Thorn easily handled her opponents. Winter had retreated and used her devastating Force flame to burn and lash out at the Jedi. My child had a blue lightsaber in either hand and was attacking her former allies without any hint of hesitation. She had embraced the Dark Side fully. Then it happened, she transfixed a Jedi with her weapon and then the hunger took hold and she latched onto her victim leaving herself open to attack. I could have intervened but a part of me let nature take its course. If she survived, then I would train her. If not, I had broken a Jedi Master, and no one could contest it. The Jedi above her hesitated to strike her down. Thorn however did not. Her crimson blade cut the Jedi in half and she shook her head as she sought out her next foe. The alarm had been sounded and more Jedi joined their comrades. I put the holocrons into my inventory and ignited the Darksaber.

"Die Jedi scum!" I roared as I joined the battle. The killing ground was littered with Jedi bodies and my child took her fair portion of kills. She was blood soaked and shaking when the last light sided acolyte fell to her blade and fangs. Once the battle was over, I ordered Winter to burn the bodies. One child was one too many. We looted the bodies and there were enough materials for her to fashion a new double-bladed lightsaber. "Well done. You have proven yourselves in combat against our enemies."

"Kill me," the former Jedi begged. "This hunger is too much!"

"True, it is not for all. You fed well and still you thirst?" I asked as she wiped her face clean of coagulated blood.

"I do not want to continue like this. The Dark Side is bad enough." She said and I saw the spark of personality behind the Jedi Master. Even after becoming and slaying so many she somehow had the strength to beg for death and cling to the light side.

"Kill her!" Thorn urged.

"Your will be done," Winter stated.

"What I give I can take away. You have earned your freedom... what is your name Jedi?" I asked.

"I was Satele Shan." She said her lip quivering as she fought to retain control. I recognized the name. The blood of Revan ran through her veins. No, I could not kill her. She, like her ancestor Revan, had tasted both the light and dark sides of the Force. I did not have it in me to slay her, yet.

"Sleep Satele Shan," I growled as I withdrew the vampiric curse from her. She collapsed and I carried her to one of the cots the Jedi used when they slept here after a long day of work. I removed the crystal chip from the machinery. The apertures retracted into the ceiling which sealed behind them. I placed the holocron upon her chest. "Strength must be rewarded. Perhaps I will cross blades with you again."

"I agree," Thorn said lowering her head. "She will make a formidable foe if you meet her again."

"What now Master?" Winter asked.

"Treasure and secrets." I replied as I handed them their own holocrons. "The great machine provided those. Keep them close."

"Thank you Master!" They both replied happily.

"We move. Cloak yourselves we head for the main vault." We were crossing the stone bridge when we came across five dead Jedi. I spotted the burn holes in their chests. "Nice work Winter." I complimented her handiwork.

"I did not kill them Master." Winter replied. "I was too busy in melee combat. Besides, those burn holes are much bigger than those I inflict. Those are blaster wounds."

"If you did not kill them... the droid." Thorn exclaimed. "It was here, hell, it might still be around."

"Be on alert," I urged as I felt a pull to the far side of natural bridge.

The Force was guiding me, and I let it show me the way. We reached the other side unmolested. If the killer droid was here, we were not a target, yet. The console the Jedi used to teleport to the hovering platform was here and still powered up. I looked at the controls and they were simple yet efficient. My fingers danced over the controls looking for all possible destinations. Well, that was fucking odd.

"There is a hidden structure." I stated looking at the possible locations this device could teleport to. "We need to go there." I said pointing to a blank stone wall.

"Master, there is nothing there." Winter said sounding worried.

"How do you know there is a building there?" Thorn followed up.

"It is right here on the display." I replied. They gazed at the instruments and then at me. "What?"

"You can read that?" Thorn asked. "Of course, you can... how can you read it?"

"The chip! When I spoke with the gatekeeper it must have passed on their language somehow." I said.

"What gatekeeper?" Winter asked. "I did not see anything, but you were staring at a blank wall."

"Same here. I did not see dick." Thorn chuckled. "They must possess machine/mind interface." She suggested.

My fingers danced over the controls redirecting the teleport beam. Once I locked on the system did the rest. A countdown began as the hidden structure powered up, if I was reading things correctly, to provide a breathable atmosphere. The controls turned green and we could leave whenever we wanted. We approached the teleport pads, and I began wondering what would have happened to me if I had absorbed all the Zeffo's knowledge.

"Off we go," I said and the next instant we were inside a tube-shaped space. We stood on the bottom of it, and a series of concentric circles above us were the other levels. "I told you so."

"You look distracted." Winter observed.

"Oh, I was wondering about something. I do not want to bore you." I said and gods the wicked looks I received. "Fine. But if you get bored on your own heads be it." I said and they laughed. "This is not the first time I faced difficult decisions. The last time involved an ancient pyramid shaped starship. I was given the chance to see what the creators of the ship looked like but was cautioned against it. I selected a different vision and skipped being mind-fucked again. The gatekeeper also offered me a larger share of knowledge. I decided upon letting it decide what was best for me."

"You dodged getting your synapses burned out no doubt," Winter offered.

"I agree, you got their language and that alone has already proven highly useful." Thorn stated.

"Let's go, I smell treasure." I urged. Thorn found the secret door and my knowledge of the language allowed me to open it. The spiral staircase led to the second level. One hundred steps later and we reached a catwalk. We looked down and we were not on the second level but the fourth. "Oh, it is going to be like that eh." I growled as I suspected that we were going to be doing a lot of walking. The stairwells were just one puzzle for us to unravel.

"Did you hear that?" Thorn asked as her lekku or head tails twitched and shivered.

"No, where did it come from?" I asked.

"Up ahead, I will lead the way," she said as she removed her lightsaber from her hip. We were all on high alert when Thorn guided us to the first door we had seen since we climbed all those damn steps. I entered the combination to open the sliding door and we were greeted with a horrid stench. "Aw fuck!" Thorn cursed. "Look!"

Attached to the walls and ceiling were six empty cocoons. They were about six feet in length and two feet in width at the widest point. They reminded me of something a butterfly might spin but I knew better. By the dripping ooze something had hatched and recently. Winter ignited her weapon and used it to illuminate the chamber. She turned to look at us over her shoulder, flinched, and cursed.

"Make that eight," I growled seeing the other two cocoons attached to the wall on the same side as the door. "Up, hold up your saber." I said as I pointed to one of the upper corners of the room. "One wrecked air vent." Whatever the hell had hatched climbed up and tore through the vent and into the air exchange system.

"I hate insects!" Thorn grimaced. "If this room held eight, how many rooms did these things use to nest in."

"No way of knowing," Winter grimaced.

"My guess is that something happened, and this structure ended up inside the wall of stone. The air went bad and to survive these things went into hibernation." I surmised.

"Great! When we powered up this place the air rushed in, the temperature rose, and they hatched." Winter finished. "Yes?"

"Yes. Keep your weapons ready." I ordered. "Let us move and find the loot before these things find us. They are going to be hungry."

There were ten rooms on this level alone. Each had between five and ten open cocoons. We had reached the next stairwell but this one offered two directions.

"Up or down?" I asked.

"Down. Whatever it is we need my gut tells me to go down first." Thorn said smiling. "I can feel it."

"We go down." Winter agreed.

I led the way and halfway to level three the entire building shook as the walls opened and walkways slid from concealed openings. My gut screamed shit was about to get real. I triggered my battle music and continued. The causeways and catwalks formed overlapping paths and I cursed to myself that someone had spent too much time designing this place. Thorn screamed and activated her crimson blade. Winter looked to where the other spied the first of the insects. They were slithering snake like across one of the catwalks. I quit counting at twenty. Winter vaporized three of them and the rest finished closing the trap around us. They came from all sides. The Darksaber clove through them with ease but the damn things did not die easily. Either end possessed a deadly weapon. One end of the serpentine slugs was a mouth with serrated teeth, and the ass end possessed a barbed tail that oozed with venom.

"Master!" Winter screamed and I sensed it above me. I thrust upward blindly and was rewarded with a screech of pain. The thing that fell to its death below was not one of the serpent worms. I caught sight of eight spindly legs as it tumbled away. Spiders! So, there were not just one breed of these things. I did not need to warn them to be watchful. My blade moved ceaselessly. I quickly lost count of the creatures that fell to my weapon. I leapt to one of the crosswalks for more freedom of movement. I activated the Ghostfire blade and pumped the volume on the battle track.

I slipped into the zone and it nearly cost me when something new swooped from the roof of the structure. It had bat like wings, the slug body, and that damn stinger to top things off. I used my free hand to fire off black Force lightning and wreck the fliers and crawlers alike. The arachnid breed attacked from above and below as they either used drag lines or clung to the underside of the walkway. Thorn used her hatred of insects to drive her tireless attacks. Winter laid down withering flames and burnt dozens of the various breeds in wave after wave. The surge faltered and eventually stopped. Nothing moved and I felt like I should be covered in sweat. My stamina meter recharged as I reached out to try and locate the boss chest.

"It has got to be around here somewhere." I stated. I looked up and saw a brief sparkle before it was quenched. "What the hell?"

"No fucking way!" Thorn cursed as she pointed down. I looked over the railing and I saw what had caused her anxiety. I used Force push to shove the body parts down and away from me. Those creatures that Winter had not scorched to ash were regenerating and merging with other parts of nearby beasties. The monstrosities that arose were the stuff of nightmare. I deactivated the Darksaber and decided to rely upon Force abilities to defend myself. They rose on wing, or legs, or even slithered with greater speed than before. Soon we were once more under attack from the reborn spawn. None of us had restored our stamina or Force meters completely.

"We are in trouble!" Thorn declared as she began to lose focus and stagger from exhaustion.

"We must keep fighting!" Winter growled.

I lashed out with lightning, flame, and even the brand-new Wind Sword technique. The things did not simply die. When struck they burst like water balloons and their cells fell to the ground floor where a pool of living matter formed and grew. I was not immune to enervation. My Force meter was in the yellow nearly red. The first blaster bolt streaked over my head and took out a flying thing that was as much bat as it was spider and worm. It burst and rained down to the ever-growing puddle of pseudo flesh. I did not like where this was heading. More blaster bolts crossed the open air and killed the current generation of abominations.

"Exclamation. Hurry meat bags, we must take up a more defensible position!" A mechanical voice declared. The three of us half staggered to the source of the energy weapon. It was a droid. He was of heavy-duty humanoid construction. His exterior was a blend of traditional galactic form and materials as well as a clear influence of Zeffo technology and alloys. This had to be the assassin droid mentioned by the droids near the entrance to this complex.

"You left your master's tomb," I said, and the droid raised its blaster rifle and fired over my shoulder. I noticed that thin gleaming cables ran from the underside of the weapon and into the left side of the droid's chest. "You are powering your own weapon."

"Historical narrative. My creator was wise and clever. He designed me with two power plants. One to maintain my basic functions and the other for weapons. In dire situations I can use the supplementary plant to boost my physical abilities. Strategic notification. We move, this is a shitty location to defend. Command directive. Follow me meat bags."

Too tired to argue we followed the obnoxious droid to a chamber with two large thick metal doors. The room was an armory. There were blaster rifles and other munitions available. The droid pointed around and directed us to arm ourselves.

"Command directive. Female meat bags," the droid snarled. "If we are to survive the... the male meat bag needs time to recover so that he can drain the life force of the thing that is forming below. Exclamation. Here they come!"

The army of nightmares charged our position. The droid laid down withering fire from his weapon. Just as before the creatures burst and their cells slid between the diamond shaped metal grating. I calmed myself and fired as clinically as I could. It was between two bursts of movement from our enemy that I saw the cells flow to the edge of the walkway and fall into the pool. It was as bad as I thought. We were not fighting individual beings but a collective. Once we killed the last of the singular units the colony would take on a massive form and the boss battle would begin. Thorn popped the last creature, and they removed their empty energy clips and slid fresh ones in.

"How do you know that I can drain that thing's life?" I asked the droid.

"Limited answer. My creator told me." The droid replied.

"Got it!" I exclaimed. "Boss chest is one level up and on the far side of the building!"

"Tactical notification. Kill now treasure later!" The droid growled as the entire building shook. My stamina bar had just reached the green level. My Force meter was nearly full. "Strategic suggestion. Do not waste ammunition."

I dragged a sealed crate over and opened it. It contained thermal detonators. I passed them out so that we each got three. I grabbed the remaining energy clips and split them between Winter, Thorn, and myself. The droid did not need any. The next time the building shook we were thrown to the floor. Even the droid lost its balance.

"Irrational statement. I have a bad feeling about this." The assassin droid chuckled.

Massive tentacles plunged upward tearing through the metallic walkways with ease. The things wiggled and wavered as eyes, mouths, and what must have been alien sensory organs formed, dissolved, and reformed with no clear discernable pattern. They reminded me of Shoggoth created by the Elder Things. If that were the case our weapons would do little permanent damage.

"Combat directive. Fire!" The droid roared as he attacked with his blaster rifle.

I squeezed off shots aimed at the sensitive organs. After a few of them were destroyed the faint red aura around the tentacles shifted to a neon green. It lasted until the organs regenerated. I continued to fire until the droid cursed, not very well mind you, but he threw a series of random slurs together directed at me.

"Astonished statement. Cunt ass mother dip shit ass pussy! It is vulnerable when it turns green. Anal idiot!"

"I think he means dumb ass," Winter laughed.

"Shoot the eyes and mouths and things," I directed. I popped my weapon's clip and gave it to Thorn. My remaining clips I split between them. I raised my arms and waited. When the aura shifted, I used Force drain and entire tentacles dried up and turned to an eggplant colored dust. We got brief breaks, but each following round were fiercer and more intense. More tentacles formed and appeared. I was forced to lash out with Force lightning to rupture the organs faster and so open the formless thing up to Force drain.

"Tactical observation." Thorn called out. "It is weakening."

"Disapproving statement." The droid snapped. "Fuck you bitch!"

We all laughed until the next round proved almost too much for us to handle. I tried arcing the lightning along the length of a tentacle to make better use of available power. It proved quite effective. Instead of all the limbs becoming vulnerable only those that were damaged could be attacked with Force drain. I had to be observant and rely on my companions to attack so that I could take advantage when a tentacle became susceptible. Winter was the first to note that the tentacles were slowing down in both number and size.

"I think it is moving slower." She offered as the building shook for the third and final time. "What the fuck?!"

The creak and shriek of bending and tearing metal announced the final phase of the boss battle. The bulk of the thing was climbing up to attack us. Thorn and Winter grabbed a thermal detonator each while the droid loaded its weapon's grenade launcher located on the underside of the assault blaster rifle. A quiver went through the room as the first massive tentacles came into view. It was nearly the thickness of a large human male. The first blast of the obscenity's breath reached us and only the droid was spared its noxious fumes.

"It smells like something died." Winter gasped as she fought the urge to puke.

"Graveyard you mean," Thorn stated as she held her thermal detonator behind her back. The second tentacle rose, and we could see clusters of eyes sprouting like blinking blisters across its surface. "Open wide asshole." She snapped. The third tentacle appeared as its tip punched through the metal flooring and the side of it split open revealing a tooth filled maw. Thorn never hesitated. She fired off the thermal detonator in the same way a baseball pitcher might from the safety of her mound. I guesstimated that it traveled around sixty to seventy miles per hour and dead bang on target. Three seconds later the portion of the tentacle protruding and a good ten feet below it disappeared in gelatinous wave of flesh and gore.