Beware the Sound of Drums [Locked]

[faithfulson]

Who: Luke, Maul, Airy, and Ezra
What: Board game shenanigans, Luke accidentally making it worse by being good at surviving.
When: Some nebulous time during the event.
Where: Starting in the jungle and going on from there.
Warnings: All event warnings apply; more to be added as the thread continues.

The drumming was impossible to ignore.

Luke tried, probably harder than he usually would over something that was clearly calling out to him like this. Trench was making him steadily more paranoid about unusual things nudging at him, but when the Force started to nudge him toward what was causing the sound, he couldn't ignore it anymore. There was urgency in that nudge, the sense that his help was needed, and he was not the kind of person to pass over something like that.

And yes, maybe a sense of excitement over a new adventure was hard to resist as well, though he would never admit it out loud.

He hadn't expected the end of that nudging would lead to a board game resting innocently out in the middle of no where. It wasn't something he ever played with as a child; even hologames were hard to come by for the farmers of Tatooine, yet despite that he found himself opening the wooden box that served as the board, carelessly picking up one if the pieces. He flinched when he pricked himself, but it didn't bother him -- this was fine, all he needed was to roll the dice...

Sense and warning flared in his mind at once as the Force screamed in his head that this was wrong this was wrong this is a trap, but the dice were already cast, and he found himself being tugged, pulled along like he was just a game piece himself -- pulled and pushed and shoved and stretched, until all of a sudden he found himself crashing through dense jungle foliage, managing to tuck in on himself and roll the rest of the way to solid ground.

He let out a breath once he finally stopped, feeling the gross, sticky heat engulfing him and the wetness of fresh morning greenery. It took him a moment to pull himself together and get back to his feet, aware of the board game near his feet, but not exactly in the mood to pick it up yet. The greenery he was surrounded by caught his attention more, and he shifted his feet as he turned, feeling more like he was stuck in the middle of Yavin, far from where the Rebellion base had been, yet his surroundings were alien enough to him to know that was not where he was.

"Oh... kriff," he muttered to himself, before raising his hands to cup them around his mouth. "Is anyone there? Hello?"

Comments

[faithfulson]

Luke wasn’t entirely sure what Airy was doing, just that he could sense the faint air of deception in her attempts to sound more like a kitten than a cat. If he was completely honest, he even wasn’t certain on all she was capable of, outside of what she outright told him since they met. Part of him didn’t doubt she would kill someone if they weren’t pulling their weight or endangering the rest of them.

What was clear was that she was falling all of a sudden, and he immediately shifted his footing, reaching out and catching her in his arms with very little effort.

“You okay?” he asked, though there was a faintly quizzical expression on his face, as if he were asking what in the galaxy was she up to.

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra honestly has very little idea what Ariandne is even on about. He hasn't made threats to Maul? He certainly hasn't cut anyone's limbs off....ok, tentacles from the beast from the oceean the previous month, but that was to save himself and others from immediate deadly danger.

Being lectured in this exact context made his skin crawl a little. He has too much bad history with the version of Maul in his won time, and this one went and proved he was willing to violate people in very similar ways.

But he hasn't really told her about any of that, so he just swallows it down. He can explain later
when they're not in this much danger.

In fact, he just keeps his mouth shut entirely, watching to make sure she is, in fact, ok.

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul being Maul, he was the only one who didn't seem concerned with Airy's fall at all. She had two other people there concerned about her well-being, she certainly didn't need him being a third. His face remained impassive against her scolding and he just seemed to be just detaching himself from the whole situation, letting himself just slip into that mindset of a cold-hearted killer instead of having to deal with anything around him. He'd work with the others if he had to but that didn't mean he was going to be at all happy about it.

Maul glanced around at the jungle. "I don't doubt this place is meant to make us work together. The Pthumerians do so love their group-project exercises to build friendships and things like that which I could do without." He sounded woefully unimpressed, though he would give them points for using a new setting that they never had before in their monthly games.

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne had sort of been hoping Luke would catch her, not that she didn't know how to take a fall. Unfortunately, the Pthumerians, being the Pthumerians, immediately made her regret pretty much every single choice she'd made. Because in her desperation to put an end to the snarling, she sort of forgot about the fact that her blood was rebelling against her right now. And that even the slightest touch from another Sleeper sent a spike of pain through her. She was like one big bruise.

Sucking in air between her teeth, she gave Luke a small, grateful nod. Then promptly planted her feet on the ground, determined to prove her readiness to go forward. Even if all she wanted to do was curl up beside him and take a very, very long nap.

Anyway, Maul's attention was off Ezra, so that was good. It was what she wanted, anyway. "The sooner we find the board, the sooner we can get going," she said. "We find the board, we roll the dice, we deal with consequences. This is not going to be easy, but the four of us are all trained. We can do it if we work together."

[faithfulson]

Luke sensed the flair of pain the moment he touched Airy, and didn’t even question it when she wanted out of his arms immediately. He gave her another concerned look, but didn’t question it for now. They could talk later if they got a moment in private without the other two in earshot; for now making it through this was more important.

He paused a moment, looking around, particularly focusing on the ground around them.

“I remember holding onto it before I felt like I was being pulled in,” he said. “It might be near where I landed; we’ll have to look around here.”

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra watches Airy, brow furrowed in concern, but nods at Luke's suggestion.

"Sounds like a good place to start. And then we'll take what comes, like Airy said, together."

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul turned to the direction Luke had come from and started marching off in that direction. He didn't look pleased at all with having to play another of the Pthumerians' games. "Then let us get going. The sooner we start, the sooner we can leave, and I can go back to despising half of the Sleepers in this wretched town from the comfort of my own home."

Such a cheery sort, wasn't he?

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne had to hide a weary smile. "He says that," she muttered, her voice low so only Luke and Ezra would hear. "But in reality, it's more like one-quarter of the Sleepers." Probably fewer. Maul and Savage were snarly, but they had quite a few friends, between the two of them.

She gathered her hair over her left shoulder, making quick work to divide it into sections and begin braiding it. Her body was completely spent, but if she as going to do this again, she was going to give everything she had. "Let's follow."

Let Maul lead. It would make him feel important. Anyway, Ariadne was pretty sure she could smell the leather of the board in that direction.

[faithfulson]

Luke gave Airy an amused look at that comment, because he definitely knew that the Zabrak brothers were more just prickly until they got to know people. As long as you were nice to them, they eventually calmed down enough to be more like upset kittens than feral loth cats.

He glanced toward Maul stomping off, before turning his attention back to her.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked. He knew she was very capable in a lot of ways that he didn’t completely understand yet, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be worried about her.

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra moves quickly for a few steps, to keep Maul more easily in sight, and lets Ariadne and Luke bring up the rear of their little group.

"Yeah. Are you hurt? We can take some time to see what we can do about that, before we push much further ahead. I can heal people. A little."

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul couldn't hear precisely what the three were muttering behind him but he didn't care. What did matter is that the three were slow. "Are we all done having a chat back there? If you three want to dawdle, I'll go ahead and bring the board back when I find it." Maul's childhood had been taught learning that only the strong survived. Even here and learning about different kinds of strength, he couldn't help but still fall back on old lessons learned in a harsh, brutal manner long ago.

Besides, this jungle reminded him far too much of some of the places that Sidious would dump him off in as a child with little more instructions than simply to survive until he came back. Mau always did, of course, usually a little scrawnier and more beat up then when he'd started out as. But it wasn't easy being a child who wasn't even ten years old yet and forced to be on his own. Old memories like that were never far from the surface and Maul could never predict what kind of reaction he was going to have once they reached his consciousness.

[demonicbeauty]

"We're coming!" Ariadne called after Maul in a bright, perhaps slightly too cheerful voice.

But she dropped her tone to a murmur for the other two. "There's something wrong with my blood," she said. "It's been happening all month. Every time I touch someone, it hurts."

And Maul, she supposed, didn't need to know. It wasn't like the affliction was going to stop Ariadne from doing what needed to be done. If someone was falling, she would do everything in her power to catch them. That was just her way.

Still. From everything she'd learned about Maul and Savage, the last thing she needed to do was make her weakness apparent. She had a good sense of how those viewed as weak were treated on Dathomir.

"Come on," she said, resisting the urge to take Luke's hand. She nodded after Maul. "We'd better stay close together. Before he gets hurt."

[faithfulson]

The concern on Luke’s face was clear at that revelation — their own blood could turn against them now? It was bad enough they had messed with his powers, but to know that it could cause pain, too… He wanted to reach out to Ari, to pull her close and comfort her, but he held himself back, knowing that it would have the opposite effect right now. Instead, he gave her a concerned look, silently promising her a big hug as soon as it was safe to do so.

He glanced at Maul’s direction at his grumbling, sparing him a faint smile. The zabrak was reminding him of Han at the moment, and for a brief, amusing second, he tried to imagine the two of them together in one spot. A grin spread across his face as he shook the mental image away, following after the others.

“Don’t worry, Maul; we’re coming. We’re coming.”

[ezra_of_lothal]

"That, I don't think I can fix," Ezra admits, reluctantly, in a low voice.

"I mean, I could probably do something on an empathic level to...separate you from the pain, but it wouldn't be real healing."

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul spotted something that was very incongruous with the jungle landscape at large up ahead on the ground. It was the Jumanji game board. He approached it cautiously, making sure it wasn't about to do anything on its own. When it didn't, he folded it up and turned back towards his companions.

"I found the board," he announced. "Now we can start getting on with things."

[demonicbeauty]

Ariadne gave Ezra a tiny shake of her head. She didn't want the pain to go away. Well, no, of course she didn't want to be in pain. But in a survival situation, pain was a useful warning. And despite his attitude, Maul was unlikely to be the most dangerous thing in the jungle.

Which wasn't to say he didn't need to be handled with care.

"What do you suggest?" she asked him, glancing warily at the board, as she came to a stop before him. "As the person with the most experience here." Flattery. Yet also the patent truth.

Anyway, Ariadne had no desire to be the alpha in the group.

[faithfulson]

"I assume we need to keep rolling, considering that's how the 'game' started," Luke spoke up, a concerned frown on his face as he folded his arms over his chest. They didn't really seem to have much of a choice but to do that right now, even if it could lead to more problems.

He looked up to Maul, giving him a slight nod. Despite his teasing before, he was willing to trust him with whatever came next.

[survivalthroughhate]

"That's how this place usually works. The Pthumerians sees us as amusement for them anyway, this is just a bit more obvious than how they usually work." The contempt in Maul's voice was obvious. He was none too fond of any of the pseudo-gods and trusted none of them, not even his own patron.

"Who wants to roll first?" He asked. Maul did seem to be bracing himself as if expecting the worst. "We should be prepared for anything to happen next."