Dune Sea

Nartaga tilted his head slightly at Zed's question. The Tusken shaman was quiet for several minutes before he spoke. "Coming to Tatooine, no. The problem is their actions: to my people, to each other. Many outsiders...no regard for nature, for life. No reverence." It was a deeply philosphical quandary and dilemma, something he had often thought of previously, but had not crossed his mind in some time; even when they had ventured into the outsider settlement to retrieve a batter for Zed's lightsaber. "My people, not innocent either. Everyone thinks they are the hero of their own story...that they do no wrong. Always find way to justify the choices they make. Always find some greater good to point to. Like mirage in the desert." Nartaga lifted his left arm, waving his hand at the horizon. "Always just out of reach, but may become reality if only they can continue to do what they want...So they say."

Nartaga lowered his arm and shrugged. "Tuskens...Ghorfa...changed as well. Less connected to Tatooine. Because of Outsiders. Took some of their ways, made own. Adapt or die. Life...complicated." The Tusken felt a deep shiver in his spine, as if someone had set a curse upon him. It was a very uneasy feeling, one that he had not felt before. It was no mere night chill or natural shiver, it was something different. Nartaga stood up as he heard a whisper pierce the otherwise silent night, carried on the breeze. All of the hair beneath his garb stood on end, and he felt a deep weight in his stomach.

"......Liiiife....."

The bantha, Patashu, let out a growl-like rumble, standing up from the sand and shaking her horned head from side to side, and begin turning away from the camp and running away. Nartaga, the butt of his cycler rifle's stock held ready in his shoulder, called out to his mount in the Tusken language. "Patashu! Uk'Re! K'rar Urk'F!" The bantha let out a screech in response, not stopping or returning, instead picking up the pace into a sprint away from the location of the camp and heading back south, out of the boundaries of what the Tuskens called the Deadlands. The same whisper once more struck through the still night air. The atmosphere in the area became heavy and thick with an invisible force, and Nartaga felt his feet unable to move. Whether this was due to the presence that was felt around them, or fear, at this point he did not know. All he felt was that this was where he would meet his end, that there was no going further. The Deadlands would claim another victim.

".....Liiiiiiiiiiife....."

Several indistinct forms slowly appeared around the camp, four in total, as if from thin air. Their shapes were partially see-through, as if they were not entirely in this realm, but caught between two different existences. Each one was slightly different in their appearance, but what they shared was a slight glow of dark orange, almost red light that emanated from different parts of their figures. From the lighted areas small symbols, similar to that which Zed and Nartaga had seen on the artifact they had been shown at the Or'Rrk'Rkr Enclave, radiated out; dissipating and then disappearing in the open air just beyond their horrifying forms. The oppressive feeling continued to grow as the wraiths grew closer, enclosing Nartaga and Zed in the middle of the four of them to prevent escape.

".....Aliiiiiiiiiive....."

In a panic Nartaga raised his rifle up and fired at one of the creatures, but the slug passed straight through as if it was not there. The only change was that for an almost immeasurably unnoticeable instant the light that emanated from parts of its form changed to a slightly duller and more transparent shade the moment Nartaga had pulled the trigger. As soon as the slug from the rifle passed through it returned to its previous color and tone. As the creatures began to grow closer and closer, Nartaga could feel the weight in his feet and stomach grow heavier, and all the blood drained from his face in fear, though it could not be seen. This was not something of this world, not naturally, and certainly not living. As the manifestations continued to grow closer to the pair, another whisper drifted out.

".....Noooooone......Leeeeeft.........Aliiiiiiiiive......"

As the Tusken shot over his head Zed could sense the evil emanating from these apparitions, even if he had not been a force user he would have been able to feel it. Standing up he raised his hand out behind him and reach out in the force. From behind the Wraith the Krayt fang shot out from the tent Zed had been staying in and with a snap-hiss the icy blue blade sprang forth just in time to bisect the thing.

Had this been a living creature made of flesh and bone they would certainly had fallen, but as the blade passed through the upper body and lower body remained in the same place. Where the blade passed through was a clean slice the width of the blade, but by the time the lightsaber had reached his hand tendrils from both parts had already started reaching towards the other knitting the two parts together. Once back together the light flared

Don't listen to them, we will get out of this! Even as he said this he doubted himself and the truth of those words. If physical damage was not able to permanently harm these creatures then he was not sure what they were going to be able to do to them.

Powerful legs braced themselves as well as they could in the sand as the beast barrelled down on him, only to have it collapse into the sand and slide to a stop right in front of him. He eased his stance and took a knee before the animal's head, carefully running a naked hand over the bantha's thick fur. He remained there kneeling for a time, stroking Patashu gently while humming a soft tune from some Yuuzhan Vong fable. There was a fierceness to the warrior caste, derived from their love of combat and desire to prove themselves before their deity, yet that did not make them monsters as some would see them. He was not above compassion and had no use for cruelty. Here before him was an animal that needed help and he would aid it if he could. Reaching to his side, the subaltern removed a large satchel known as a bladder-flask, containing a combination of water and electrolytes.

He had intended on using the contents of the flask to hydrate him on his journey through the dune sea, but it was evident the exhausted animal would benefit more from it at this current time. His ship was not too far, he could always return for a spare satchel if necessary. For now he was certain Yun-Yuuzhan would want him to share his bounty.

With a stroke of his thumb over the the flasks sphincter, he unsealed the living container and placed the broken seal near one corner of the bantha's panting mouth, then upended the bladder as he attempted to pour the cool liquid into Patashu's mouth. He did this until a full three quarters of the flask had been emptied, then removed the organic satchel and returned it to his side. Again he stroked the bantha's head, sympathetic to the pathetic mewling coming from its throat.

What could cause such a large creature to panic so? It was true there were many large predators on Tatooine, he had done his research before returning. Frankly that was part of the reason he had chose this planet as his proving grounds.



In the distance the crack of gunfire could be heard, if ever so faintly from this distance, carried over the dunes like a sirens call to the warrior. He stood up and looked back to his amphistaff planted in the sand. Uttering a harsh word in his native tongue, he summoned the semi-intelligent serpent to him. Upon hearing his command, it unstiffened until it lowered completely to the sands, then slithered over to Xarl where it climbed up his leg and coiled itself about his chest and stomach. Once again his mqaaq'it ocular implants began to glow a violent crimson, reflecting the fury building in the Yuuzhan Vong, blazing brightly as though possessed by witch fire.

Was someone hunting these creatures? With firearms of all things? It seemed unsporting. His thoughts turned to leveling the playing field when he noticed something strange. He focused on the bantha's side where he noticed the beginning of a saddle that seemed to be mounted on the creature's back. So, this wasn't simply a wild creature. It belonged to someone and served as a mount, if the saddle was any indicator. Which meant it probably wasn't being hunted. Perhaps some of the locals were fighting one another and this animal lost its rider; perhaps its rider was even dead. Either way it had come from the direction of the gunfire and that demanded further investigation.

Xarl moved a hand over a seal in his armour and removed a squirming slug like creature known as a tizowyrm. Briefly removing his helm, he placed the slug next to his right ear and grimaced as it slithered its way inside, forming a symbiotic bond with the warrior. It was possible he would encounter enemies if he followed the sounds of combat in the distance. With the tizowyrm he would stand a better chance of understanding what any enemies he encountered were saying. He slid his helmet back in place and then went over to Patashu and took the bantha's reigns in hand.

"Time to go home, furry one." His words, though spoken is a harsh and guttural tone, were spoken in galactic basic.

He attempted to lead the animal back in the direction it came, back towards the sound of cycler rifle fire.

Patashu upper lip raised as her lower lip lowered when the cool liquid washed through her mouth as she bared her teeth in an open-jawed, animalistic grin. The bantha remained laying on her side in the sand as her mouth opened slightly wider and the creature's prehensile tongue slid out of her mouth, patting the sand and sucking up any spilled life-giving liquid that was offered by the strange being she had come across. Patashu let out a deep yet still pathetic pathetic bleat-like call. The tongue of the bantha, having sucked up the rest of the runaway water, began searching for more. The prehensile organ wiggled around before finding Xarl's foot and began patting it as if confused by what it was tasting, then crawling up the Yuuzhan Vong's leg and eventually to the Vong's face. Everywhere it touched left a nice coating of slime-like saliva, but it was not an aggressive tongue-lashing; It was more like the bantha was investigating the Vong, as if it was able to taste whether or not he was trustworthy and able to help.

Patashu's tongue rubbed both sides of Xarl's face, leaving nice thick coatings of slobber, before it went back into the large animal's mouth, letting out another deep bleating call. As Xarl reached for the Bantha's reins in his hand the large pack animal finally rolled back onto her feet and stood up, turning back in the direction where she had came, back towards the camp that was still under assault. As the Vong and bantha came within a closer distance, the camp being just beyond the next dune, Patashu halted in her tracks, and no amount of coaxing would make the large beast budge.

Fighting for the lives, Nartaga continued his chant, raising his right arm up with his open palm at one of the closer specters. Through his hoarse tones and a few coughs after nearly having his throat crushed, he was finally able to fully focus his shaman abilities. From the core of the wraith a fire sprang into existence, quickly consuming the entity and leaving naught behind except for the air it had occupied, not even ash. As it was consumed the wraith let out a piercing shriek, continuing until it ceased to exist. The other three apparitions, taking notice of the "death" of their ally, rushed ".....None.....Leeeeft.....Aliiiive." They continued to repeat as they closed in once more, two of the phantasms reaching each reaching for Zed and Nartaga's legs, the third attacking higher, to try and distract the lightsaber wielding Zed.

Nartaga continued his chant as he felt the wraith grab onto his leg and drag him away from Zed, lifting him up into the air. The light emanating from the wraith widened, the symbols growing larger as the upper section of the wight seemed to open up into a great maw, threatening to consume the Tusken shaman. Nartaga continued his chanting, but he had still yet to fully recover from his spiritual injuries. Setting that one wraith aflame had nearly exhausted his abilities. As the wraith continued to lower the shaman down into its gaping craw, Nartaga decided to make a more direct connection to achieve his goal. Bending upward at the waist, the Tusken reached and grasped onto the arm-like protrusion of the wraith that was holding him aloft. He continued his chant, and from his gloved hand another fire erupted, crawling up the arm of the phantom and burning it away. Nartaga was once more dropped as the arm of the creature was consumed by the shaman's created flames, and he hit the sandy ground once more.

The wraith let out an ear-splitting howl, similar to the first, though it was not consumed, instead hacking away at its own shoulder with its other appendage to amputate it, preventing the fire from spreading. A demonic whisper, in an untranslatable language, sprang from the burned wraith, and it began to retreat. The remaining two halted their attacks against Zed, and began to retreat as well. As quickly as they had appeared, they seemed to turn into a mist that evaporated into nothingness. With their disappearance the aura of death and hopelessness slowly lifted, and besides the nightmares that they surely would be the cause of, there was no trace of their appearance.

Try as he might there were just to many of the opponents. Attacking him from multiple angles while Zed was distracted by the other one of the wraiths reached out and grasped him. Its grip was like iron, hard and unyielding. Yanking hard on his shoulder it forced him off balance and in that moment the second creature reached out and grabbed hold of his legs. Pain erupted where the hands grasped him, both hot and cold at the same time, the extreme shifts causing him to lose control of his lightsaber. As it clattered to the ground he was pulled into the air. Both beings pulled in opposite directions. The longer they pulled, the more extreme the pain. He made peace with the fact that this would be his end.

And then he fell. Hitting the ground hard the air was knocked out of his lungs and he struggled to pull in a breath. His eyes watered, and he shook his head. The words of the wraiths were replaced with something he could not understand. Dragging himself to his hands and knees Zed crawled over to Nartaga who still lay on the ground. Nartaga are you okay? What happened?

Glancing around he had expected to see Kay'li maybe she had awoken from her slumber and helped? Instead he saw a being on the dune nearby that he did not recognize.

Xarl stood passive, some of the intensity displayed by glowing eyes diminished, dimming from a fiery rage to the low embers of calm rationality. Things were not as they initially seemed. With the flames expired his ocular implants were better able to pick out details, such as the fact that the lightsaber wielding individual the warrior had seen was actually garbed the same as the tusken that had been floating in the air moments ago, before the brief flash of a flames had ended the chaos and the camp seemed to calm.

So they were both tuskens? The subaltern had been under the impression that only the Jeedai carried energy blades, but perhaps that was a misconception. Admittedly he had never been one to study the details of the various infidel societies that occupied this galaxy.

He was still trying to decide how to approach the situation when Patashu came up behind him and nudged him forwards, startling the Yuuzhan Vong who had been too focused on what was in front of him to notice the bantha approaching his rear. He ran a hand through the beast's shaggy fur as it brushed past him and headed towards the first tusken, who he could see from the metallic glint in his hand was holding a knife. The tusken said something Xarl's tizowyrm couldn't translate, then seemed to collapse into the sand. That the bantha continued on towards that individual led the warrior to believe he had found the beast's owner.

Making a decision, he rubbed a thumb over his amphistaff's reflex and caused the stiffened biot to turn malleable in his hands. He brought it to his chest and allowed the serpent to once more coil around his black chitin garbed chest. Up came his hands next, displaying bare palms which he held just above his head as he walked closer. Those same hands went to the vonduun helmet that concealed much of his face, then lifted it off and away, revealing the alien features beneath. Xarl possessed a stub like nose, pointed ears, and a sloped forehead. His skin shared the grey pallor of a corpse, strewn with writhing black veins, marked by ritual scarring. There was no denying he was ugly. Combine that with the black bio-engineered crab-shell-plate he wore and he projected a menacing figure, though perhaps not as menacing as the second tusken he began to walk cautiously towards. Where Xarl's height ended a six feet four inches, the tusken seemed to tower at least a foot taller.

"I found your beast fleeing into the wastes." Obviously referring to Patashu, Xarl briefly turned and pointed back over the sand dune he had come from. "I thought to return it to its owner and see what could terrify such a creature so, when I heard the commotion coming from your camp."

He hoped they understood galactic basic. The only other language the tizowyrm in his ear could replicate was huttese, which also might serve given the planet he found himself on, though the former tended to be more common than the latter.

Once he was within a dozen feet of Zed, the Yuuzhan Vong halted his stride and clipped his helmet to his side with a membranous strand of flesh. Dark purple eye sacks beneath his mqaaq'it deflated as aggression gave way to curiosity. He fixed those glowing orbs on the large tusken and bared a mouth full of pointed yellow teeth, seeping steam into the waning night air.

"I am Xarl." He said, placing a hand on his chest as he did so, while also sparing them the long winded explanation of domain and political affiliation. His ocular implants flickered wearily. "What troubles this place?"

Reaching out with the force to grip the lightsaber where it had lay on the ground after dropping it Zed resisted the urge to ignite it. Despite being outwardly friendly Xarl was still a member of the Vong, the first that he had ever seen but stories of their kind were often harsher than those of his kind. Before acknowledging him Zed knelt down and placed his hand on the Tuskens back, after a moment he could feel him breathing. Doing his best to adjust Nartaga into a recovery position he stood back up and walked towards Xarl weapon still in hand but switched off.

Zed was surprised to hear the Vong speak in common and lifted his eyebrow under his mask. You have my thanks, I can assure you walking the Dune Sea without a Bantha is suicidal at best and he would know, having spent years doing just that. Her name is Patashu, and is bonded with my friend there He said pointing back towards Nartaga. My name is Zed.

It is a shame you did not show up sooner even here on Tatooine the battle prowess of the Yuuzhan Vong. Absently he wondered if Xarl would have been able to help at all. After all if the rumors were true their kind had no connection to the Force. Would he had been able to see them, or even interact with them if he could. For that matter how would he function around one after all he was one of the fabled Force Vampires and if he could not feed off a creature what would happen?

We had settled down for the night and were just talking when the camp came under attack by those he paused for a moment trying to come up a way to describe them ghosts, wraiths, apparitions. I am not sure what better way to put it. They could not be harmed by traditional means as you no doubt heard the gunfire and we had to improvise.

Zed stared at the Vong for a few moments trying to guess his intentions. Eventually deciding to risk it, he attached his lightsaber to his hip and walked over to the tent to grab a blanket. Moving quietly so as to not wake their other companion who had apparently slept through the attack only to find it empty. Looking around in fear Zed saw faintly in the sand a pair of footsteps in the sand leading to the opposite direction of where Xarl appeared from. Closing his eyes for a moment Zed breathed in sniffing the air in the direction of the footsteps. Faintly he could feel the force, like an echo or ripples on a pond. A large amount of the power had been used and recently he could feel, but de did not fear for her life. Assuming Kay'li was okay he returned to Nartaga and draped a blanket over and around the Tusken and moved the heat source closer. The sand would no doubt sap any heat from him and he had to combat that.

Motioning to the opposite side of the heat he looked at the Vong. Please take a seat if you want. Why have you come to Tatooine?

Nartaga slowly opened his eyes, and was surprised by the fact he was still alive. He was on his side, moved into a different position than he remembered falling, and was beneath a blanket, meaning that at the very least either 'Marie' or Zed was alive and had moved him. He heard the murmur of talking, and has his blurry vision became clear he saw Zed conversing with an unknown being, one of which belonged to an outsider species he was no familiar. Nartaga could also feel the warmth of his bantha, Patashu, laying directly behind him.

"Cr'R'Ku UR'Cru Cur'U Or'RFru'K." Nartaga said in his native tongue as he slowly leaned forward, his hand on the right side of his head as he felt a slight vertigo from the sudden movement. "Death not like to be looked for." The Tusken shaman said in broken Galactic Basic as he adjusted his position. "Hides from ones who try to find it. Only found when it decides." Physically, the Tusken was fine, or at least not any less than he had been; but he had pushed his abilities a bit too far too soon, which had left him exhausted and more than a little weakened from the encounter with...Nartaga thought back on the apparitions for a moment and felt a shiver down his spine. He shook his masked head to clear his thoughts before looking at the palm of his gloved hand, the hand which he had touched one of the wraiths to burn it.

The shaman had made a connection with the specter, though for only the moment he had touched it. He had never felt anything like it, but was unsettled by what he had felt. It was not nor had ever been a living creature. There was no soul, and he had directly felt the dark power that was there instead, a crude but created existence. It was a feeling that would give him nightmares for some time. Looking at the two beings near him, the Tusken did not see the other, the one who had called herself Marie, that he and Zed had crossed paths with in the outsider settlement. He turned his head to face Zed, signing to his friend. "Where Marie? Survive attack?"