A News Post, regarding the second phase of the Sands of Time Naga Sadow Event, the competitions and fictional story behind it. Includes fiction, links and a brief explanation.

Somewhere.
Moraband

Firith braced his feet and pulled, the clasped arms bringing Mactire to his feet. Turning, he had a wry smile for the elder’s droid as it helped Lilith walk. Tasha had vanished ahead of them for a long while, longer than any of them would have liked, but came back with reinforcements, a welcome sight.

“So, ye found your way back, eh lass?” He looked at the Twi’lek, then the madman. “And ye brought a friend.”

Macron cackled at him, the sound twitching through the vocabulator of his helmet in ways that made the metallic static sound all but organic. “Well, I wasn’t about to let you have all of the fun.”

“Fun isn’t exactly the word that I would use.” Mactire grumbled, stepping to the edges of the chamber, shining a beam of light down a darkened corridor, then back across the group. Lilith hopped her way to the old man, nimble fingers tracing the wound on his face, senses pulling the healing weaves through the damaged flesh. Firith looked past her hands, watching the HK droid process whether or not it was going to move with her or not. “That’s one of the new HKs, aye?”

The coal-black droid paused, regarding the Sadowan with a cool gleam as he unscrewed the top of his flask. “HK Series Assassin slash protocol mechanical assistant. Since that is probably too much for your meatbag mind to handle, you can call me 22.”

“Double Deuce, got it.” He upended his flask, letting the liquor slide down his throat as the droid stammered through contesting the vernacular.

“Request to terminate friendly, master meatbag?” 22 ground the words out, the mechanical voice somehow deader sounding in the chamber. Firith replaced the stopper on his flask, stowing it behind his belt as he lowered his center of gravity calmly.

“Denied.” Macron chuckled again, staring at the markings along the walls, armored fingers tracing the symbols.

“So, if Macron is here, then I assume we have a path out of this bad dream?” Lilith smiled as she let her eyes slide across Tasha and Macron.

Tasha’s face fell, her lekku twitching in equal parts embarrassment and disappointment. She opened her datapad quickly, staring at it hard as she cursed the grey-faces in the chambers that had pinned her down. “I’m sorry, but…”

“Leave?” Macron cut her off. “Frell that. I didn’t fly all this way out here just to leave. Beside, unless I am mistaken…” He turned back from the symbols, century old dust between his fingers. He silenced himself, moving down the hallway without waiting for the others.

Firith narrowed his eyes. “Why, that wee daft…” Lilith shot him a look that would have frozen lava at thirty paces, and he shut up before finishing the thought. Gingerly, she turned to follow him, pausing in the entry and waiting for the others. Mactire moved first, shining his lamp down the corridor, the light bouncing off of the madman’s armor as he made his way down, stopping in front of a shambling frieze.

He cocked his head, looking up at the swirl of ancient sith writing, the carvings meshing into a depiction of an ancient battle. Armored warriors with blazing suns on their chests, wielding long blades tore through huge beasts, as those who held their chains looked on in abject terror. Macron let his fingers scrape along the largest sun, the points of lights giving way under his touch.

The gravel sound of heavy stone grinding against cogs of antique metal filled their ears with rumbling beyond what they were prepared for in the confines. The wall sank away from them, then slid to the side, the infernal gears drawing the locks away from the hidden chamber, exposing the darkness of an ancient empire’s secrets to them.

Macron laughed.

LZ-623
-13°9'47.31", -72°32'41.87"
Moraband

They carved their way through them, a trail of cauterized flesh and scorched armor leading from the shuttle to the pair of dark Jedi. The swarm folded over itself, trying in vain to get closer to them, closer to their own deaths.

Shikyo smiled as he threw his sabers in a wide circle around him, watching his sister-in-law do the same as she naturally glided through his own form, her own blades tracing an arc through the foes. They had trained to fight as one for years, as most of the Keibatsu had. There was no weakness to be exploited, no gap in their offense to hide within. There was nothing but pain and death as they tore them to pieces.

The distraction was working.

As the shrill cries and unnatural howls erupted from the grey ones, the rest of the shuttle emptied, Armad in his dead black robes, Scarlet with her half cloak, and Bentre in his stark white and blue armor bolting from the shuttle with a team of Warhost, their weapons picking at the edges of the crowd, drawing manageable numbers of them from the pair of Keibatsu.

Bentre smiled as he snuck the tip of his blade between the dirty grey armor plates, watching the death shudder as the thing fell. There was something oddly familiar, an echo of a memory about the way they looked. He disregarded it, joining the battle as blaster bolts flew, watching the flesh disregard the bolts, but not the blade. There was deep magic in play here in the sands of Moraband.

They broke them, snaring those who did not scurry off in immediate retreat between the pincers of the Sadow war machine. Blades dispatched more and more of them until only a handful remained, Bentre closing on it as Shikyo and Armad came from opposing angles, holding it with the invisible hand of the Force. Panic screeched past its lips, wild eyed and fearful.

“What are you? Where are you from?” Armad asked, almost rhetorically.

“They can’t answer.” Scarlet sneered, her own weapon flipping back onto her belt. “They’ve forgotten how.”

Bentre nodded, pulling out a commlink. “Command, we encountered heavy fire coming down. Advise future shuttles.” The static clicked for a few moments before the response returned.

“Confirmed, Bravo.” There was a pause. “November Hotel went down several clicks from secondary LZ, and we can’t raise them. Advise?”

Bentre snarled at the luck. NightHawk, Kaayn and Sabe were on that shuttle, along with something like fifty warhost troopers. And the loss of a shuttle was above and beyond acceptable losses for an artifact hunt. They had one of the other containment crates on that shuttle. Hopefully they would only need the one that he had with them. He stared at the horizon as he considered it.

“We don’t leave our people to rot.” Shikyo spoke, stepping toward the Rollmaster, eyes locked on the grey.

“Besides,” Ashia gestured with her blades at the mounds of dead. “You have to admit that this was fun…”

Bentre nodded, raising the comm again. “Received, command. We have caught one of them alive. Get that to Locke.”

“Locke is a few clicks away from your position with Sanguinius, attempting a different breach.”

That didn’t bode well. The entire Clan Summit on the ground on Moraband was inviting disaster. Bentre sneered, then clicked off the comm, staring at the grey. “I have seen this style of armor before.”

Shikyo laughed, looking at the creature as it breathed hard, seeming to work itself into a froth. “I should say so. Looks like early Kaminoan lowgrade.”

“Clones?” Armad sneered, looking at it, the muddied features, the grey flesh. “They don’t look like clones.”

“It was, before whatever did this to it.” Bentre looked closer. The square jawline, the heavy brow. It all slid together. Why there was so many of them. “But what is keeping them going?”

“Good question.” Ashia stepped closer to it, her blades regarding it as she moved. “He’s been corrupted. Dark side magic. Reminds me of home.”

Armad scratched his head, blinking. “That’s weird. I remember reading about some old Sith Lord who stole armies from his enemies, turned them to his own side in the middle of the battle. Completely wrecked faces for a couple hundred years back in the ancient years. It made the armies just about unstoppable.”

Bentre looked up at him, then back at the frothing grey. “What happened?”

“A Sith Lord with an unstoppable army...” Scarlet mused.

“His heart wasn’t unstoppable.”

Near LZ ‘Hawk’
-13°9'46.5", -72°32'41.9"
Moraband

The dust billowed around the crash site and apart from the occasional groan and scraping of metal on rock no other sound could be heart. Kaayn twisted where he lay and with some effort managed to struggle from outwith a fallen equipment locker. He stood and attempted to move away before being tugged back by the neck, turning he realized his cloak was still nabbed beneath the fallen locker.

“Ergh, blasted cloaks,” fumbling with the clasp the material drifted off his shoulders and he set to freeing it. “Come on you. Get out.”

A pair of footsteps came up besides him and he looked up into the visored face of Darkhawk, who without stopping stooped down and put his back into assisting the man with his task. The locked moved properly and the cloak came free, Kaayn nodded his thanks and put the garment back across his shoulders.

“Any time. Are you alright.” The Battleteam leader queried. “Got a few dead, half a dozen injured. You don’t even want to see the pilot.”

“Yeah fine. Cuts and bruises but I’ll live.”

“Good, try and assist others. I’m heading outside with some men, Set up a perimeter. Move who you can then join me and the others,” Darkhawk had already turned on his heel and begin to walk away. “Don’t tarry. We don’t have the time to waste here.”

Kaayn scowled and looked away moving amongst the fallen debris, men and woman of the warhost lay, sat or moved around him. He did what he could for those he came across but after a while he simply handed over the tasks to other members of the crew before heading out into the fresh air.

The sunlight struck him with a ferocious glare. He raised his hand and took in the surrounding area. Debris lay scattered all around. A few banged up pieces of equipment, thrown from the craft, lay here and there and as he turned his head to the left he took in the site of the crumpled flight compartment.

“Yeah, not pretty is it?” A woman approached. Roughly the same height as the mystic. He didn’t recognise her but he took in her features and blonde hair in moments.

“You are?”

“Oh, Sabe Baize, Captain of the Warhost,” the blonde woman replied. “You?”

“Kaayn Salis. Eh, Dark Jedi of Naga Sadow,” he felt daft referring to himself as that but it was the only thing he could work out to say in the moment. “So this is a bit of a mess eh?”

She smirked slightly “Yeah guess so. I’ve…”

“When you two are both quite done. Fill in the gaps in the perimeter. You can get to know each other later,” Darkhawk cut in from behind the pair. They both nodded in unison and separated, drawing weapons and taking up positions in the circle of warhost troopers. Some of the men chatted amongst themselves but the Sith noted but he didn’t feel the need to reprimand. They were under enough stress as it was.

Time passed slowly and nothing occurred for more than two hours. The first rumbles began sometime as the night had begun to draw in. First it was a deep rumbling noise, followed by a long festering groan. Pebbles and small rocks danced around the ground and then once more silence consumed the gaggle of men and woman.

The first scream ripped into the night air from somewhere to the far left. The next one came from somewhere near the centre and by the time Darkhawk had changed direction another two, or three he couldn’t tell, screams filled the air. At intervals the screams were intermingled with the fire of blasters echoing in the still night and then as quick as it began it was over. Silence once again took over the survivors and Darkhawk gingerly moved around the area. Ruffles in the sand appeared to be all that were left of the missing troopers. Discarded weaponry and clothing littered the area but no sign of the men or woman. A whimpering drew his attention to behind a piece of separated wing. Moving over he peered around the corner and took in the sight of a cowering war host trooper. A pungent smell wafted into the sith’s nose and stopped himself from recoiling from the soiled man.

“They...they came up from beneath the sand. Grabbed, took down. Tried to help. They cut, sharp. Held onto her and then...then. Teeth sharp, or a knife. I don’t know. It hurts,” Darkhawk noticed the man was cradling his arm to him. Though the man was rocking back and forth Darkhawk managed to get a glimpse of a stump exciting what was left of the tattered sleeve of the man's uniform. The hand had been severed and not cleanly.

The sith turned away and beckoned another trooper to take care of the man. Approaching a familiar face he beckoned the man closer until they were in whispering range.

“We are losing men to these things from below the earth now. We can’t raise the others as the comms are out. We need to get our people back. Find that woman, the blonde one and get a team together. We’ll take what's left and scout...what’s wrong?” He eyed Kaayn who was fidgeting.

“They took her too...I looked around and can’t find her. They took Sabe with them,” the words filled the Sith with dread and he scowled underneath his cowl.

“Get who’s left and let's go get our kriffing people back!”

Secret chamber
Somewhere
Moraband

Macron smiled as he stepped through, eyes darting all around as he found a stone bowl, connecting to a channel that went all around the chamber, as far as they could see. He paused, fingers snapping the clasps at his wrist.

Tasha followed him into the chamber, eyes wide before looking back at the others. “This should go without saying, but don’t touch anything.” She paused, then gestured for Mactire to step forward with his lamp. “And I mean anything. We don’t know what it could…”

Fwiiiffffffff

Tasha spun, watching the golden light scream across the room, twisted flames erupting from the channels above their heads, spiraling up to the top of the chamber. Macron giggled, turning to look at her, his naked hand dripping blood over the side of the bowl and then on the floor as he went to replace his crushgaunt, stepping down into the full chamber.

“Looks like an altar.” Mactire sneered as he nodded his head toward the center of the room. It was large, stone, ornately carved. Macron made a straight line for it, stopping to regard the things left on top, millennia of accumulated dust half obscuring them from view. He lowered himself so that his eyes were level with them, then slowly twisted one of the hoses for his helmet, the compressed air throwing the sand and debris off of it.

“Correction, sarcophagus.” Macron laughed. “This is a tomb.”

“Well, that is about par for th’ course.” Firith snarled, reaching back behind his belt as Tasha bolted to where Macron stood. Her lekku twitched as she took mental inventory of the items on top of the sarcophagus. A pyramidal holocron, crude and looking rather brittle, lay next to a dagger, the golden blade gleaming in the blood-fed light. A heavy tome sat next to that, looking as though it may fall apart the moment someone touched it, but covered in beautiful carvings and filled with crimson silk bookmarks. Beyond that, a fist sized crystal, glowing faintly the brutal bloodshine of the traditional sith sabers.

Macron stepped to the side, walking himself around the sarcophagus to read the symbols etched into the stone. “I think I know who this was.”

Tasha stepped backward, her eyes taking it all in, her heel catching on something small. She looked down, finding a clay doll, the scraps that used to be fabric crumbling away under the weight of time.

“That’s good news, right?” Lilith managed a smile, hobbling a little better on her leg as she carefully picked her way down the steps.

Macron laughed. “Not at all. But it does make sense. The grey-faces, the silooth…” Macron stopped, looking at the artifacts again.

“You’re thinking that one of these are responsible for the zombies we have been dealing with?” Mactire stared at him, making his way across from Macron. “That would be really useful for Sadow. Just imagine going to war and bringing an army of the dead with us. This is a heck of a find. We just have to wait for the clan to come dig us out of here.”

“Well, they’re not exactly zombies.” Macron corrected. “Least ways, pretty sure they aren’t. We definitely don’t want to touch, anyway. One of these things is doing the damage.”

The world shifted, or it felt like it did. Sand fell from the walls, from the roof. The dull throb of something moving beneath them echoed down the corridors and into the tomb. Lilith’s eyes went wide, darting to Firith, then to Macron. The rational response took over, weapons filling palms and everyone preparing themselves.

“That sounded large.” Mactire growled as Macron laughed, his saberblades erupting their sick light.

“We have another problem.” Firith mused, stepping backwards toward them, eyes locked on the entryway.

Mactire and Lilith both shot worried looks at him.

“I’m out of booze.”

The scream from behind them poured through their ears, stunning them for half of a second before they spun, readying themselves for whatever fresh hell this tomb had for them. Eyes found nothing but dust and sand. Macron stepped forward, his saber held to cast its orange light ahead of him. Lilith watched, her breath caught in her throat, stepping backwards, her eyes darting.

“Whe, wher, where’s… Where’s Tasha?”

The scream filled their ears again as she fell from the ceiling, fingers bloody and raw from clawing at the stone, her skin fading before their eyes. She opened her mouth and nothing but blood and inarticulate howls came as she bounded toward them, rage in her cloudy eyes.

The Second Phase of the Sands of Time Naga Sadow Event is live now!

Riku, Bentre and I will be grading the completed events very quickly here, and we will be working to try to get some comments listed in there as well. If you posted a link to google docs, please make sure that you have it shared with us so we can see the work and changelog. Thanks!

As you can see from reading the event, there were a lot of elements that were incorporated into the official fiction that were originally pulled in from your own fictional entries. This is completely intentional (and sorry for those of you we missed... last minute entries are not conducive to that sort of thing, we'll catch you on the next round).

Fictionally (for the TL;DR crew): Macron managed to find Tasha underground and she led him back to the rest of the team, but the fighting along the way got them lost, which suits them just fine, as they found some cool old tomb. Above ground, Ashia, Shikyo, Bentre, Armad and Scarlet kicked some grey butts and discovered that they are basically super corrupted early clone troopers that are under some old Sith magic stuff. Darkhawk, Sabe (Inyri) and Kaayn crashed their ship because of incoming fire, and are fighting to get a foothold on Moraband when more bad things happen. Back underground, Tasha touched something she shouldn't have. And that wraps up the TL;DR.

You can read more about the Sands of Time competition overall here: https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/competitions/11695

There are three events scheduled for this phase:

Terrors From the Deep (Joint Fiction) - https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/competitions/11709

What Lies Beneath (maps!) - https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/competitions/11707

Lurking in the Sands (Multimedia) - https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/competitions/11770

Relics and Antiquities (wiki) - https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/competitions/11708

Thanks for reading so far, and I hope that you enjoy what we are putting on for you.

Have fun!