A massive cataclysm has struck the universe, and destroyed most everything in its wake. The survivors are now trying to pick up the pieces, and figure out exactly what has befallen them. Gather together, lightsiders!! The darkness has shattered the peace and calm of the galaxy...and they will do anything to stop anyone from finding out exactly what has been done! This is our first sitewide RP plotline. Lightsiders, you are looking for the source of this massive event. Clues must be found, lackeys tracked down, and bits of memory discovered. Darksiders, you guys don't want that to happen....because of the one behind the whole thing is furthering his ultimate goal. Mandalorians, and non-force users, you guys can decide where you stand on this line....do you side with the Jedi, and try to discover the reasons behind the ruined universe, or will you side with the darkness, and protect those secrets. Will the secret of the cataclysmic reaping be kept under wraps? Or will the Jedi and their allies find out the truth? Your RP and writing will decide the outcome!
BATTLE ARENA
Welcome to The Saga Continues. We have a section called the Battle Arena. Here you can use your characters to fight other characters. Hone your skills and see what you are made of. Don't worry, anything that happens here, does not effect your characters in posts, so if your character dies, you can still use them over and over. Have fun and check it out!
The Saga Continues is the product of the mind of ADMIN ADI; all contents are copyright their original owners. All characters belong to their original creators, and may not be used or replicated without permission. All images are copyright their original owners. This skin Operation Mindcrime was made by pharaoh leap of Pixel Perfect and put together by ADMIN KRYSTAL
The Caridan district was a section of the planet Carida. Located just outside the Imperial Academy of Carida, the district was well-known for its booming nightlife.
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.
{ On the outskirts of the Carida District, in a nondescript bar, "The Thirsty Krayt," which has seen better days }
[/span][/ul] *That's the thirty-second time Dorian Schiff had had that line given as the rationale not to hire him. Add on to that twenty-eight iterations he'd heard of "I'm able to fly myself, but thanks for the offer," plus seventeen variants of "You look like you'd get lost finding your way to Coruscant," twelve instances of "Are you kidding? You reek of rum and clearly haven't showered for days," five versions of "You? A pilot? You're just trying to get me in bed, aren't you?" (he hadn't been, for four out of the five) and finally one "I'd rather not be associated with a race that used to serve the Empire," and you've got a grand total of zero clients who've accepted the services Dorian offered, but who's keeping track? It's easier just to say that it's been too many rejections, that's what it is.
Dorian sighed, and slumped over, patchy vest and all, onto the bar table. He tucked his head into the crook of his right arm, unperturbed by the scratchy off-white half-sleeved shirt on his sloppy cheek, and let his hand slide up his forehead 'til his weathered fingers were running their way through the top of his greasy auburn locks. Yeah, that's right, he hadn't hit the refreshers lately. By now it was verging on weeks rather than days of not washing, but who's counting? Those refreshers cost credits and he hadn't had more than a handful of odd jobs for far longer than that. You've got to make the money last, and that was easier said than done when he had debts aplenty and definitely wasn't one to keep a ship-shape ledger. There always seemed to be money for a shot, though, and he'd only had to drink & dash a couple of times. Turns out bars don't like that much, though, so there were now a couple establishments on Carida where he wasn't welcome anymore. To nobody in particular, he starts rambling.*
[/i]~ droid co-pilot? We'd get hired then, yeah ...by errybody. Never hafta beg fer'a job. Nerr again."[/font][/span][/ul] *But that was the problem, and if you caught Schiff at a time when he felt like being honest with you, you'd find out that he knew the flaws with that, too. He didn't even have the ability to save enough money up for a ship, much less to spend on a droid co-pilot (priority's backwards, anyways). See, no matter how personable you are, in a universe like this one there's simply not that much demand for a chauffeur. And if someone were to hire such a pilot, they'd be looking for a reputable service which thoroughly vets their employees, not some lone washed-up Corulusian who's drunk as can be in broad daylight. His priorities are backwards, but that's all he can do at the moment is complain about fate.
He had a ship, once. But pirates have a habit of taking things that don't belong to them, and with the losses incurred on him by the shipment contractors, Dorian hadn't been given any choice other than to sell his ship to (partially) recuperate the cost. Even then, he hadn't gotten even half of what his ship had been worth, due to the battle damage. So in a certain sense, he did have reason to blame fate.
But such things are surprisingly difficult to articulate, and he'd never been one for speaking his mind all too clearly (although that wasn't for a lack of trying-- he just wasn't good enough with words to make himself understood in a sympathetic light). And there's that whole victim-blaming thing, which others tended to do and, when sober, he also participated in to some extent. "Well if you'd have just been ready for pirates..." or "Taking out insurance on your cargo would have covered the cost of stolen shipments..." and other phrases of the like, as if it had been so simple and as if they weren't taking advantage of the benefit of hindsight. Pirates wouldn't exist if there weren't thousands of other spacers just like him who can't afford the caliber of weaponry with which to fend them off! Insurance? It costs money to get insurance in the first place, that's like taking a pay cut on every single delivery! Simply not a sustainable business strategy. And yet nobody wants to listen to reason, and in all truth he regretted the incident deeply because of where it had left him. If you catch him on a day when he doesn't feel like lying to hide the pain, he'll tell you that he's relived that attack off and on every time he has an unoccupied moment -- which, seeing as he can't get work, is quite often -- and he's thought of all the ways he could have done things differently.
But there are many mistakes in this universe which follow the rule of 'one and done': you don't get retries. You don't get do-overs. He can't undo the loss he's suffered and now he's doing all he can to cope and try to get back on his feet.
Fact is, it's just not enough. It isn't working. He knows that he's just buying time.
His vacant wrist slips to the edge of the table and gradually falls into his lap with a muffled thud. Elbow grazes the gunslinger's belt that he'd bought, back when times were better. The holster contains a BlasTech X-8, its white handgrip faded to a dull yellow, and its power cell depleted to only one shot left -- but who's checking the numbers? One eyelid lifts heavily to reveal a bloodshot blue iris with a dilated pupil that then wearily drops its gaze to alight upon the weapon that had just reminded him of its existence. Dorian eyes the handle, drunken thoughts just barely able to pierce the clamor of foggy incoherence surrounding him. He contemplates.*
"Ok listen, kid. Whatever happened, it's not bad enough to..." He stopped, sniffing the air as he settled onto the stool next to the young man, "...by the force you smell terrible." He downed the rest of his own drink, then slid the glass across the bar for a refill. "I take it back. Maybe it is bad enough to pull the trigger. Just not in here, yeah? Cops'll have to show up and close the place down for hours, and I'll have to give a karking statement." He shrugged in a haphazard gesture of noncommittal sympathy. "Maybe even get arrested and investigated. Huge inconvenience for everyone involved. Best go do it outside."
The teeth, ears, and cranium said he was sakiyan, the clothes mentioned his penchant for travel, and the lack of weapons combined with the wraps visible within his sleeves told a tale of mild to moderate martial training.
"Or," he dropped a credit chit on the bar in front of the kid, "you could go clean up a bit and see how you feel after."
*The advent of conversation -- or rather, being talked to -- took a little bit of time to register for Dorian. When it did, he gradually lifted his eye from his waistline and made contact with the Sakiyan. Then, he turned his head to see the charitable offering on the bar counter in front of him, at which point he lifted his head out of his elbow and opened his other eye, too.
Words still couldn't quite make their way out of his lips, but his eyebrows were creased in a sign of comprehension having yet to set in. His mouth, slack-jawed, kept starting to and stalling at formulating a reply. He turned his head from the chit to the samaritan a couple more times before it finally hit him.*
[/span][/ul]
*But that was the old Dorian speaking, the child who was a bright-eyed spacer-in-training, who loved reading stories about his favorite heroes and dreaming about the famed adventurer he'd become. If only he could have seen the future, maybe it all would have turned out differently. Every now and again, that incorrigible optimist and relentlessly well-mannered guy speaks out. Fortunately for Dorian's sake, his body knew what his mind wasn't in any shape to put together right now, and almost as though apart from any conscious command, his hand slapped down on top of the credit piece and pulled it off the table into an open and waiting pouch on the inside of his vest.
Then the rest of what Galen had been saying started to fall into place, and Dorian silently stumbled his way to the conclusion that this man could read minds. His mouth dropped a little wider and his squint grew a little bit narrower. The rest of the universe would piece together that someone who uses the phrase "by the Force" is really just a little more attentive to detail than most, and pretty good at picking up on context clues. But let's give Dorian a pass on getting hung up on the whole 'mind-reading' schtick; it's been a solid day's worth of drinking so far. His eyes slid to the left, peering at the table for a second, before rising back up to meet the stranger's.*
[/font][/span][/ul]
*'Stupid Dorian!' he thought to himself. 'You can't lie to a mind-reader!' So he let his words just trail off there and abandoned that whole train of thought. ...Introductions! That would be a better way to go. Still notably flustered, he stuck out his hand in a feeble attempt to offer a handshake. And accompanied it with an introduction for the ages.*
"Dorian." He'd been here long enough to hear the spiel half a dozen times already. "I'm Galen." Taking the proffered hand in the customary human greeting, he released it as soon as it was socially acceptable to snatch up his newly refilled beverage.
"So I hear you're one of the best karking pilots this side of the rim." Or overheard, rather. From him. During no less than four of those previously mentioned spiels. "Was that confidence talking, or the booze?"
To be honest, he didn't really care. He just needed someone either dumb or brave enough to fly him where he needed to go. Well that and a ship, but one thing at a time. He could worry about the transport after he found the fool to fly it.
*Oh, yes. The conviction that Galen was a mind-reader was now firmly rooted into the spacer's brain. It's worth applauding the attentiveness that this new companion had paid, though, given the ease with which a drunkard's ramblings can be so thoughtlessly dismissed. Dorian's not able to appreciate it, of course, but any given third party with just enough insight into the matter would nod, and probably raise their glass on Galen's behalf, and give him a nod of respect for this compassion he's displaying. Too much insight would alter that reaction towards the unfavorable. But what's for sure is the one with the least insight of all is young Dorian.*
[/i][/font][/span] "I'm a pilot, that's me. There's no one, uhh, better at flyin' than me, not on this side of Carida."[/font][/span][/ul] *His eyes close, and his head slowly nods for severaly beats. He's trying to keep himself from sounding over-eager, and to cultivate an air of thoughtfulness about himself, but it just comes across as yet another in a string of drunken antics. Peeling his eyes halfway open again, he continues the slow nodding movement.*
[/font][/span][/ul] *Schiff finishes this comment with a flourish of his right hand, but as he upturned his palm and extended the arm, he knocks over a basket of garnishes and hops hastily down from his seat to try to clean up the mess, to no avail. The bartended catches a glimpse of the tail-end of this, and mutters an audible grunt of disapproval as he turns back to cleaning the glass in his hand.*
[/font][/span][/ul] *From his kneeling position cleaning the mess he'd made off of the floor, Dorian peeks his head above the table's edge to place this inquiry. His left hand snakes up and deposits a handful of salvaged drink trimmings back into the container from which they'd been scattered; only a few flecks of dirt testified to the fact that they had lost 'sanitary' status. With a smarmy grin, he made to straighten up.
At just that moment, however, the door to the bar slides open to admit a robust Ithorian, being flanked on either side by a Weequay guard, complete with vibro-axe. Crime syndicates have a fairly well-established aesthetic, after all. Upon catching sight of the new arrivals, Dorian's eyes widen, and he drops once more into a crouch. Taking what cover he can from the table, though it's certain not to last. He glances up at Galen, with his eyes panicking ever so slightly and his forehead clearly conveying the impression that, at this moment in time, he would far rather be on any planet other than this one.*
