Beyond - Legends HoloNet Forum Submission: A Mori Kasaa Adventure/Creepypasta

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HoloNet Forum submission…100%

Translating to Alternate Basic…100%

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Hello, my name is Mori Kasaa, Bounty Hunter license number 554 777-2, and these events are entirely true.

I’m not one to spin tall tales. Anyone who knows me even a little will vouch for this. But what happened in Washout Court just may sound like one.

Let’s start from the beginning. I was on Ovoon V responding to a warrant for the arrest of some local scumbag or another. I’ll leave his name out of his account, as the trial is still ongoing as of this writing. It was a pleasant trip, as I had been here many times before. The whole place is carved out of this huge planetoid; tunnels and caverns crisscrossing through it, crammed with city growth. The streets were packed with the usual assortment of beings; humans, charcoal-black skinned Ovoons, and the pint-sized Void Jawas, who had immigrated here Force knows when, scurrying about in their intricately decorated grey robes. There were also plenty of Omwati, a large population having immigrated in centuries ago, my mother’s family among them. I’m half Omwati, and half Equam, for those who care.

Anyway, I’m rambling, lots of people blah, blah, blah. I docked my ship, went to the police precinct to get the details and the warrant paperwork, and headed out.

Now, this is where things get weird.

Washout Court was a tiny settlement deep in the planetoid, set apart from the main cities by miles of tunnel. These small “towns” grew up when miners erected their camps in the tunnels, and they grew from there. Anyway, it’s a fairly small settlement, just some ramshackle plastisteel buildings held up with ship-tape and faith. It was dwarfed by a small Choka distillery, which employed much of the local populace, in harvesting and fermenting the bio-luminescent local rice. This target was holed up there, not hiding per-se, just refusing to surrender himself to the authorities for his punishment. Local cops would have taken him in if it weren’t for the added security needed for the arrival of a local suit of sector trade giving some speech on economic diversity. I normally try to follow local news, but this dry numbers stuff puts me to sleep almost immediately. Thus, they called me to pick up their trash for them.

Anyway, I park my rented speeder in the only main street of the town, lock it and head into the local general store, a small room crammed haphazardly with every kind of product imaginable, it seemed. After squeezing my way to the counter, I ask about distillery tours. I was trying to find an excuse to enter the building discreetly. The clerk told me that they didn’t offer tours, but I could drive past and have a look if I pleased.

Good enough for me.

After exiting the shop, (I don’t know how I didn’t knock everything over in spectacular fashion) I headed back to my speeder, and on to the squat building on the hill I went. The compound sat at the end of the main street, up on a hill, partially hidden from view by a small bend in the tunnel. It was surrounded by greenhouses stashed with rice, and docks for the speeder-trucks which would carry the liquor to the bigger ports and cities for distribution.

I parked my speeder and strapped my blaster to my hip, just in case. The gate wasn’t locked and I walked right in through one of the greenhouses. The Choka stalks rose from their beds, their small, glowing rice pods casting a pale aqua light throughout the space. The workers had almost all left for the night, but I heard a few still conversing further down the greenhouse. It wasn’t hard to slip past them and enter the main structure.

It was dark, only a few sparse lights casting lng shadows among the shipping containers, bottle fillers, and fermentation tanks. I’ll skip the boring details of my stroll through the deserted space and skip to my entry to the second floor. I drew my blaster at this point, as there was nowhere else this guy could have been at this point. Checking my corners carefully, I advanced toward the main offices.

That’s when things took a downturn.

The offices were all separated by panes of frosted glass, and I watched them carefully for movement, as well as kept an eye on my own background to avoid giving myself away. After clearing all the offices, I finally found my target’s bolt hole; an unused storeroom with a cot and holoplayer in it. He, however, wasn’t.

I sensed movement behind me and turned, raising my blaster. But before I could yell for compliance, I saw nothing. I saw movement in an office to my left, and moved to clear.

Entering the office, I checked the corners; 1, 2, and 3 clear. The forth, however, wasn’t.
Now, this is where many of you are going to call fake, but I swear this is real. In the corner stood a black figure, wisp thin, with tar black skin. It had no physical features below its head. Its head, however, was the awful part. Most of its face was taken up by its mouth, which was filled with triangular, sawblade-like teeth. They were so large that it couldn’t even close its mouth fully. I don’t know if it had eyes. I didn’t get close enough to look. My first thought was that it was a security droid, but it didn’t look like metal. It opened its mouth and let out an ear-piercing sound. It wasn’t a scream, more like a foghorn or a trumpet, wailing through the small space. It stepped forward, like a string-puppet controlled by someone none too skilled in its use. This thing was not natural. It jerked towards me and I fired two shots, which slapped onto it, not even phasing it.

I turned and ran.

Sprinting down the hall, I made my way down the stairs. Although when I got down, everything was different. I had no idea where I was. Only one set of stairs fed into the offices, but I had no idea where this set had spit me out. Nevertheless, I turned to my left and headed back toward where I believed the exit was. The building seemed to have rearranged itself around me. Rooms, hallways, and machinery were all different than I had mapped out coming in. Once I was satisfied that the thing was no longer chasing me, I stopped to get my bearings. I figured that if I just headed the way I was going; left, I would eventually hit the greenhouse.

That’s when I heard it, that trumpet-siren...whatever call, from a room to my left at the end of the hall, blocking what I thought was the way out. I stacked on the door, and opened it. I entered the room, checking carefully as I went. I had my finger on the trigger at this point. I know it’s not proper form, but screw range safety, I was hunting for a demonic thing from the depths of hell. The room was clear. I crouched down, literally forcing myself to remove my finger from the trigger guard and engage the safety. I changed magazines, sliding a fresh one into place.

I headed on, towards the only other door out of the room. Opening it I almost slammed directly into a squat, slightly paunchy human male in a dirty white shirt and work slacks.

My target.

I pulled him through the door and aimed my pistol over his shoulder, nothing. I slammed him to the wall, announced that I had a warrant for his arrest and cuffed him. As I was doing this I questioned him on the creature I had seen. He responded that it had been stalking him too, and that he had no idea what it was.

Great.

We advanced through the door he had come from, and down a hall that the man indicated that he had not checked. He had been searching for an exit as well.

The hall emptied into a small loading area, powered down speeders on blocks sat at one end, and cases of Choka bottles were stacked in the other. Finally, a way out. As we headed to the slatted metal shutters behind the speeders, we saw it, jerking out of the darkness of a corner, that…thing, wailing its siren wail. I scrambled backwards, dragging my target, who had fainted.

I threw him behind a box of Choka. That creature blocked the exit. I dialed my blaster to full and fired a few shots, nothing. I fired a few more, more out of spite than anything. It didn’t move. I needed to hit it harder.

Pulling a jug of choka from a box, I set it on the ground. I pulled out my third blaster magazine, full of power and pressurized Tibanna gas. Using a packing tape roll, I lashed the mag to the liquor bottle. That book in IEDs I had gotten from a…source was paying off its exorbitant price right about now.
I hurled the bottle as hard as I could; it bounced off the hood of the derelict speeder and landed near the shutter. As it was shatter-proof transparisteel, it didn’t break from the impact.

I definitely broke, however, when the fully-charged bolt from my blaster struck it.

The beam ignited the alcohol, which burned for a few seconds. The real treat, however, was when the heat touched off a full magazine’s worth of Tibanna. It exploded in a dazzling shower of fire, engulfing the creature and blasting the garage shutters from their hinges.

When the dust settled, the creature was gone.

I hefted the still passed-out target and headed out cautiously. The cool breeze of the tunnel was immensely welcome. I headed back to my speeder and got out of there as quickly as the antigrav could carry me. To hell with speed limits.

Come to think of it, it’s strange how most of my jobs usually end with me blowing something up. I made a note to remind my target that he was to reimburse me for the cost of the magazine.

I still can’t fully explain what happened; what that creature was, and how the layout of the building changed, but I do know something. I’m not lying.

Believe me or not, but, watch your backs out there. There’s a lot out there we don’t understand.

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