Wratih - A roleplay character story

[Inzuher]

The first time Iradox set foot on the Smuggler’s Moon he labelled it a hub of depraved barbarians that were little better than animals. And, to be fair, his assumptions had proven true to a large extent. But the life he had lived in proper Imperial society, first as the model young Sith and later as an exemplary Dark Lord, had blinded him to the underlying benefits and deeper meanings inherent in foreign ways of life.

 

He was older and wiser now. Several decades laced with challenges and hardship had seen to that. In particular, the last one and a half year had seen Iradox make decisions he would previously have condemned. Those choices had left him a changed individual – to a degree, at least. Therefore, it should not be a surprise that Nar Shaddaa had grown on him. It was a jungle of opportunity where one with sufficient skill and resources could thrive absent restrictions. Not to mention, its many layers and dense population was ideal for an anzat.

 

A voice crackled to life inside his mask. "Wraith come in, this is Liberator."

 

Iradox lifted a hand to his ear and replied in a distorted voice. "I read you."

 

"We are prepped."

 

"Copy that."

 

He cut the connection and slipped down his visor. As much as he enjoyed the startled expressions invoked by his blazing gaze, the pragmatic part of him recognised that glowing eyes were a dead give away to anyone familiar with the power of the dark side.

 

He stepped off the roof.

 

Wind caught at the lose fabric of his tunic as he dropped sixty feet to the floor below. Knowing that landing on the ground would create a noticeable thump, Iradox instead positioned himself to grab onto a pipeline protruding from the platform. Despite drawing on the Force to strengthen his muscles and slow his descent, catching hold still sent a jolt of pain through his arms. Iradox heaved himself up with gritted teeth and balanced to safety. ’Kelly would murder me if she knew what I am doing.’ he thought to himself.

 

He quickly stalked to the backside of a container. ‘Time to hunt in earnest.’

 

Iradox could tell there was no shortage of security tonight; most of them were your average thug-for-hire. However, one stood out like a torch amidst a sea of candles. It was more than merely his Force sense conveying this to him - he could scent the potential that often accompanied someone touched by the Force. This one was neither a Sith nor a Jedi, but someone attuned to the Force without possessing the capacity to fully draw upon it.

 

A guard patrolled past his position. Iradox waited a few seconds and then stepped around the container. However, his movement prompted a startled yelp from inside the box.

 

’Sloppy’, Iradox chastised himself. He had started his career as a Sith warrior and had since then grown into more of a commander and scholar; sneaking around was still new territory, even if it felt natural to his anzat instincts.

 

Frightened shapes regarded him from behind bars. The container housed a diverse group, but the yelp had originated from a small girl that now pressed tight against a woman clad in ragged clothing.

 

An approaching footfall indicated that the guard was returning, and Iradox could sense that he was on alert. Judging that the surprised expressions of the slaves was bound to give him away, Iradox stepped out from his cover. This brought him face-to-face with a Nikto who managed to fire at Iradox within a heartbeat!

 

It did not matter.

 

The blaster bolt was absorbed into Iradox's palm, filling him with a sudden surge of power. Then, while his opponent gawked, Iradox transformed the energy and released it from his palm in the form of a compressed and meticulously aimed Force blast. It caught the Nikto on the throat, puncturing his trachea.

 

As the guard dropped Iradox moved to end him. Slowly choking to death could be loud. Then slaves watched all of this with wide eyes, but thankfully none of them made any more noise. He could sense both hope and terror emanating from them. The latter was stronger and, in his experience, more reliable when one required immediate obedience.

 

"Quiet." he hissed with great severity. Whether they spoke basic or not the slaves comprehended that command. No doubt the overseers had shouted it at them time and time again. A few of them even nodded. ’It will have to do.’

 

Iradox dragged the Nikto to the edge where he had arrived.

 

He was a predator out to hunt and not a hero - he would leave that part to young idealists like the ones he worked with tonight. He had come to terms with how his anzat nature required him to hunt; in fact he quite enjoyed it. But he might as well see to it that the death he wrought was delivered to someone who deserved it, and murdering slavers only to leave their captives lost and disorientated was just pointlessly cruel and impractical.

 

He flung the lifeless body into the abyss and was on his way.

 

He found the control room without further incident. Unfortunately, both the panel and is quarry were located inside a small building, and said building was also guarded by two trandoshans.

 

He could take them out at the risk of alerting more guards, or he could remove himself from their perceptions and enter unnoticed. However, the latter option would require him to maintain a focus on them while dealing with his prey and objective, which was not ideal as feeding left him temporarily exposed. ’Perhaps a darker approach is due.’

 

Closing his eyes, Iradox reached out through the Force to note nearby individuals. It was difficult with all the slaves packed so close together, but by narrowing in on emotions of control, boredom, lust or greed he soon located a guard. Next, he thrusts his mind forward like a spear, causing a shout to resound through the camp. He was not done - not by far. Urged on by the sudden attention of the dark side, Iradox slithered through the guard's mind in search of his subconscious. Upon finding it he breached it open and went in search of that sealed door that everyone carried. ’There!’

 

Iradox returned to the present just as horrified screeched cut through the night, followed by the incoherent shouting of someone pushed to the point of utter panic.

 

It had the intended effect; the trandoshans perked up and ran off in the direction the sounds originated from, as would several other guard patrols.

 

This left the control centre unguarded. Iradox strolled up to it and flung the door open. ’Too easy’ he thought, and therefore nearly missed a sudden flash of his precognition. He was fast, preternaturally so, but not fast enough to fully dodge a bullet at point blank range. It bored into his right shoulder, eliciting a sudden flare of pain. That pain in turn ignited flames of rage within Iradox.

 

His quarry, an iktotchi woman, stood a few feet away holding a slugthrower. A combination of her Force-Atonement and racial affinity for sensing the future had, no doubt, forewarned of his arrival. She shifted her riffle but before she could fire a second time, the iktotchi was flung into the far wall with enough force to knock her out cold.

 

Iradox’s vision wavered but he tapped anger to clear his head. First he ensured that his quarry was indeed unconscious. With that out of the way, he locked the door and went to the controls where he utilised the codes Liberator’s people had acquired to disable the camp’s security. Now the rest was up to them. He had other things to do.

 

Turning toward the fallen Iktotchi, Iradox permitted his feeders to emerge from the sacks in his cheeks and continue out the holes in his mask. Sometimes he utilised his telepathic prowess to mesmerise a victim to keep them from suffering, but by virtue of the throbbing pain in his shoulder the anzat felt particularly feral tonight…

 

 

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Later that night Iradox found himself in a makeshift safe house.

 

"And here my boys n’ I were starting to think you invincible. Turns out you bled just like the rest of us!"

 

Liberator extracted the bullet from Iradox’s shoulder and applied kolto. It hurt but he deserved that pain. In truth the freedom fighters were not the only ones who had thought him invincible. It was a mistake often committed by many Sith, but Iradox had fancied himself better than that. Now this scar would serve as an adequate reminder of his mortality. His old body had been ripe with them.

 

”It is not too bad though. Should heal in a few days with sufficient kolto. Sadly we can’t afford to part with more.” Iradox saw his masked visage reflected in Liberator’s feline gaze. He was a muscular cathar with a jagged scare running across his face. He was also a former slave, as was most of his crew, although Iradox had no clue where he had obtained medical training.

 

“Good.” He settled for a short reply. There was no reason to establish a relationship with this man. He and his men were idealists, which meant they were unlikely to prove useful to him in any other capacity than the one they were already fulfilling.

 

Iradox stood and put on his tunic. When he was done he noticed that Liberator was eyeing the lightsaber dangling from his belt. He rarely ignited it while hunting – lightsaber cuts, burns left by Force lightning or lifeless husks screamed Force user, and Iradox preferred to keep his nocturnal hobby low-key. Still, he kept the weapon with him just in case.

 

“You know.” The cathar regarded him with a thoughtful expression. “You’ve done a damn good job of cleaning up the streets on the lower levels – taken out a good bunch of people that nobody gonna miss. We even managed to loot weapons off one of the gang headquarters you hit.”

 

Iradox resolved to remain silent, but unlike more timid people this did not put off Liberator. “Until I met you I was convinced your kind didn’t care about us little people, you know? All that talk about justice and order, and yet you seem busy ragging war against each other instead of doing actual good.”

 

“I need to go.”

 

“You should join us! Not just for the occasional raid. If we coordinate we could make a real difference on this moon.”

 

“No.” Iradox turned to leave.

 

“We are thinking about moving up. There is an extensive slave marked in the Kuati Sector.”

 

That prompted Iradox to halt, which Liberator took as a sign of interest. “I realise that it will be more dangerous than targeting individual slavers b-“

 

“No.” this time Iradox silenced Liberator with an imperious tone. Then he slowly turned to face the crew leader. “The Kuati Sector is filled with Imperials. You would be facing trained soldiers, and Sith if you push.”

 

“Which is why we need you Wraith!” The cathar stood and gestured passionately. “Blast it, these raids are well n’ good, but we only saved seventy one people tonight. Do you realise how many slaves are shipped from the Kuati Sector on a weekly basis?”

 

“You are going to die.” The blatant matter-of-fact tonality finally caught Liberator to hesitate. Iradox seized on this to drive home his point: “Darth Iradox oversees that sector. He will not tolerate such insurrections under his supervision. You are unlikely to succeed even once, but even if you do, that success would call down the wrong kind of attentions on yourself.”

 

A light telekinetic excursion shoved Liberator back into his seat. “Stick to the good you can do.”

 

He held the cathar’s gaze for a long moment. Liberator had slumped his shoulders, indicating that Iradox’s words had found their mark. However, this man was passionate and defiant, making it difficult to tell whether he would see reason.

 

Iradox left soon after. He was not a hypocrite, merely a pragmatist. What is more, he liked Liberator and his crew. Hopefully they would not make prey of themselves.

 

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Edited March 29, 2018 by Inzuher