Hunting the Unknown

I quickly got off of the mouse droid infested ship and Arron did the same, Jern finished up scanning through the ship logs and found that they had encrypted, or erased the logs somehow so we couldn’t find out where the pirates base was.

I got patched up by Haddock and Jern got some much needed help as well. I decided that I would try to see if there were any tracks left behind by the ECC, just in case any of them had escaped into the woods. The only thing I found was the signs of another one of the pirate ships. It had flown off toward the coast, so they probably had a lair out there.

When Varad was done with the interrogation he found out that the pirates did in fact have a cove along the coast and the pirates were indeed working for the hutts. We told the council about the pirate cove, but now we had community service to do.

My assigned job was to deliver flyers for various small events that happened throughout the month. It was an annoying and tedious task, especially with the weather. But it wasn’t hard to do and I found that I was more annoyed than exhausted.

Djinn Monka was still getting worse, and it felt like we couldn’t finish the cure fast enough. But the cure was finished just in time, but Djinn Monka would never fully regain the strength that he lost. Ojib, on the other hand, was doing fine and hardly needed the cure by the time it was done. The poison had a much weaker effect on humans compared to the chevin.

Just after our one of my last shifts, I got a call from Varad who said that we had urgent business from Djinn Monka. There was a major crisis with the planet’s comm system, and nobody could get any calls off the planet. So Djinn Monka wanted the four of us to go to the tower, which was on the highest mountain on the planet, and fix it.

It was the end of the month, so we got our earnings from our homestead, and more notably, the Flash fuel royalties. So Varad bought a bunch of survival gear along with some saddlebags for the varactyls. We had four very nice tents, a couple of stoves, I got a pair of infra-binoculars, and we all got custom grips on our weapons. We were now ready for an expedition.

In the morning we packed our varactyls, hopped on and headed out toward the mountain. The first two days of travel were quite enjoyable, and I was in high spirits, being in the wilderness for the first time after the community service. Then things got interesting. During the night, when I came out to take the second watch and let Arron sleep, he said that he felt like there was something out there. So I made sure to keep a watchful eye.

For the first part of my watch, there was nothing happening. Then I heard a noise in the woods. I whipped out my infra-binoculars, and scanned the forest, looking for any heat signatures.

It didn’t take me long, and I saw a massive lifeform in the forest. I woke Arron and we snuck closer to see what the creature was. I did not expect what I saw next. Walking through the forest, pushing trees out of its path, Was a massive elephantine beast. It had an extra pair of arms bashing its way through the wilderness and plated armour all over its hide. Its tusks were massive and it had rows of razor sharp, surprisingly, carnivorous teeth.

I cautioned Arron who looked like he might want to actually straight up attack the thing. I watched it for a bit longer and then retreated back to the camp, still keeping an eye on its whereabouts through my infra-binoculars.

The next day we were starting to get into higher altitudes and our varactyls were feeling strained but still kept up the pace. We pushed on and made it to the peak where the tower was and Jern walked over there to take a look. Jern called for me to come over while I was securing Jure. The main dish on top of the tower was missing and there was a torn up trail leading down the mountain where something had taken the dish.

I cautiously followed the trail in the dimming light of sunset, and I found a large cave and with closer inspection with the binoculars I saw that there was a massive figure in the cave presumably with the dish. It was the massive creature from the previous night.

I snuck back to the peak and told the others what I had found. We set up camp and the night watches were uneventful, the creature was sticking to its cave.

In the morning we scoped out the beast's lair. I prepared a hunting blind and we incorporated our heated tents into it so that we wouldn’t be freezing. Jern made a contraption to lure the beast out of its lair and I had a brilliant idea of making a tripwire that would trigger a small avalanche to land on top of it. We were ready to ambush the beast but we had one problem, we needed someone to get close enough to the beast’s lair to set up the contraption.

Arron snuck as close as he needed and placed the device. But as he was sneaking away, the lure went off prematurely and Arron wasn’t far enough away yet. He moved as fast as he could without drawing the beast’s attention. Then I started to fire. My shots didn’t manage to pierce the thick hide, but I did see that its armour was weaker around the ears and armpit. Then Varad shot a couple of times with his pistol. Needless to say it didn’t pierce the beast’s tough armour. But then, with the noise of the beast's aggravation and the annoying lure a small rockfall started and landed on top of the beast!

Jern was also looking for weak points and he called out, “If you aim a barrage in a line across its chest it should crack the armour!”

Arron just finished climbing up the ridge and Jern thrusted Arron’s gun into his hands. He immediately started firing and with Jerns advice he cracked a portion of the monstrous beast's armour. Then the creature smashed the lure and snapped the tripwire. There was a thundering crash and several large boulders crumbled on top of the beast, wounding and enraging it further.

Arron was sending a barrage of lasers into it the whole time, piercing the armour but it still wouldn’t go down. Varad took more pot shots, as I took aim, hitting the spots that Arron had already weakened. Then the beast started to charge, it rampaged up the hill and raised its two massive arms and pounded right in the middle of the four of us.

I got up reeling from the desperate blow and saw Arron already blasting the beast. I backed up firing into the weakened armour of the monster and finally, in a shriek of pain and anger, it collapsed to the ground. On top of Jern. We all dashed to help Jern get out, but he was already cutting through the hide with his fusion cutter and made it out with only a cracked rib.

We reorganised ourselves and I saw that one of our tents was destroyed. I helped Jern harvest a piece of the beast's armour and it was big enough that we could actually put it on our ship. We also got some smaller chunks for personal armour.

After Jern got the dish and repaired the tower we headed back down the mountain. Thankfully it was an uneventful return trip and we made it back home safe and sound.

Now I need to get some much needed rest and recover from the harrowing, yet exhilarating, hunt.