Log:Beauty Cream and Break-Ins
Beauty Cream and Break-Ins
OOC Date: July 29, 2016
Location: Noddreck Apartments
Participants: Rheisa Dirleel, Alana Zee
Noddreck Apartments - Corellian District, Nar Shaddaa
The Noddreck Apartment building is a thirty story tower that sits up on the upper level of the Corellian District. Even though its on the upper level, it’s still not a very well maintained place however. The caretaker is a droid, who sits behind a dirty glass window near the main entrance and he stares oddly at anyone and everyone who comes through the lobby with his beady glowing-purple eyes. 'Welcome to the Neddreck' he says at people in a metallic voice.
The floors are a grimy mess as they haven't been swept in ages and even the occasional crete-rat can be seen scurrying along the walls of the complex's hallways. There are two elevators, and both of them are locked and out-of-order level a spiral metal staircase the only way to walk all the way up to the upper level apartments... which is why all the rooms on the floors above the third are pretty much empty. (Though that’s not to say that there aren't people hiding out up there or conducting criminal activity...)
Only about forty percent of the light fixtures work so most of the hallways are dark and dimly lit.
Rheisa is doing something or other in her apartment, maybe retrieving some item or clearing out the freezer, when voices outside attract her attention. Possibly the name 'Zee' is used. Through a crack in the door she can see a group of humans, bright gang-color plumage, closing in around the next door. Alana's door. "Alaaaaaana..." one calls, jeeringly, a skinny redheaded human female with freckles. "Alaaaaanaaaaaa, come out, we know you're in there!"
Until the matter with the tall, bald man was resolved, Qo, Veela, and the children were staying at an upscale place in the Corellian district at Rheisa's behest and Raim's financial assistance. So it is, that the Togruta is rummaging around an empty apartment, hunting for a lost, partial jar of homemade 'beauty cream'. Lard and botanicals, really, to keep the thin cuticle of skin over her montrals supple and shiny. In truth, there's nothing beautiful looking or smelling about the concoction whose prep practically chased the family out of the apartment, those months ago.
But she needs it.
"Shall I check over here, Miss Dirleel?" inquires the polite Kee'tch'ka as it stands in the doorway to the fresher. Rheisa pulls her head out from under the leaky sink to squint in his direction. She's thinking. Concentrating. But not in regards to the droid, his question, or cream, as her failure to answer soon makes clear. Instead, she silently pads to the door and presses her palm and cheek there. Listening.
There's more conversation, low and indistinct. Something about waiting here. And then the general movement of people away from the scene. It might sound like they've all gone, were it not for the overheard fragments of the conversation, and indeed three minutes later there's the hiss of a match and the acrid smell of a dopestick being lit. "These things are gonna kill me," a woman's voice says. The jeering redhead. A throatier, male chuckle answers her, "Yeah. Probably." And then silence, as the watchers wait in the corridor.
Rheisa pinches at her nose as the poisonous stench starts to filter in
through the crack in her door. She doesn't like what she hears. Doesn't like what she smells. Doesn't like the little bits of what she can see. It feels like a lazy ambush is forming out there. The image of bored adolescents chewing grass in the shade of a nursery tree while awaiting the nesting avian parents' departure comes to mind. Waiting for the opportune moment for the precious eggs or plump little chicks to be left unguarded, ripe for the taking.
Well. There is one defender of this communal nest that isn't about to take flight. On the contrary, she turns to gesture for Kee'tch'ka to be quiet, speaking softly in hushed grunts and facial expressions. Native speak. Being that he is a protocol droid programmed to meet her needs, Kee'tch'ka comprehends quite well. His yellow eyes stare fretfully around the dump he's become trapped within before toddling off to a far corner to hide.
Unlike the eagles, this protective hunter does not need to see her enemy to strike a blow. She need only listen and 'feel'. Let her other senses form a picture in her mind...the blowgun left atop the table gets lifted cautiously, silently, in return to the door.
The picture forms quietly in her mind. The male is across the corridor, pacing impatiently, striding and turning, his boots grating on the dirty concrete. His companion is leaning on Alana's door, smoking, lazy and arrogant and over-confident, watching him pace. The door creaks slightly even though she's skinny, it must be badly fitting in the frame. As she forms the picture he even helpfully starts speaking, "Reckon she fled, Kira?" Kira snickers, "No, we'll find her, and then we'll gut her like an urrrck...." Alana's door bangs, there's a gasp, a yell...
"A FISH!?" Rheisa distinctly remembers hearing that phrase before, coming from such ilk. Immediately after a bang resounds from Alana's door, she uses one hand to yank hers open while the other holds the blowgun at steady aim for the pacing male. An angry puff of air fires the primitive weapon, sending the dart for his neck. By itself, it ain't lethal. Annoying? Yes. Painful? Certainly! But it's laced with a mild paralytic. Not enough to kill, but temporarily stun, possibly even immobilize an animal his size.
The male stares, lifting his hand to swat at the blowdart, and he growls and reaches for his blaster. It doesn't clear his holster; his fingers fumble, and it clatters to the ground. The redhead is struggling, clawing at the garrote around her neck that Alana has looped there, her eyes bulging. Her dope-stick is burning on the floor, dropped and forgotten. She has other things on her mind, like living. A prospect which is seeming increasingly remote.
Rheisa wastes no time in making a lunge for the fallen blaster...if she's successful, the hardest part ain't over. Because now she's got to hold it properly and point (hopefully) at the gal being snared against the door. Never has she felt such a weapon so heavily in her hands before, let alone prepared to fire one. There's a first time for everything. Maybe. If she can snatch it away from its owner as the chemicals work their magic.
His eyes are thick with confusion as his brain says one thing, his body refuses to comply. He bends, but Rheisa gets there first and his bend turns to a stumble as he goes down, collapsing first onto his knees and then crashing over sideways. Alana's eyes grow round at the appearance of Rheisa, and she gives a jerk back on the cord that slams Kira's head into the doorframe, knocking more of the fight from her.
The blaster bandit scrambles aside to get out of the way of the bigger man's fall, blaster held awkwardly in hand, beltween her knees. When it's clear that he isn't about to retalliate, Rheisa pivots on her bum and gets to one knee, then feet. Her arms are outstretched accusingly towards the strangling woman, hands shaking for a multitude of reasons. The blaster barrel quivers in turn, but seems more or less on point.
"Who send you, this time?" She demands while advancing just a couple steps nearer. The Togruta's eyes are as big around as Alana's, presently. Maybe just as surprised by her own ivolvement.
"Urrck...." Kira chokes, trying to wedge her fingernails under the cord, but without succcess. She's panicking, her fingers scrabbling helplessly. Alana obliges by slacking the garotte enough for her to croak, "We did...she's supposed...urrck....credits and jewellery....hundreds and thousands..." She's a redhead, her hair in two pigtails, her abused throat encircled by a lace-and-pearl choker. The man on the ground is quivering, curled into a foetal ball, drooling from his mouth.
Rheisa narrows her eyes, weight shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Then? Then her arms swivel, just a touch, towards the face peeping around that red plummage. "This true? You steal from them?" she directs a bit hoarsely to Alana. And it's back to aiming at the redhead. "Or they come to take what they hear you have? "Hundres and thousands"...from who know where?" Back. And Forth.
"I didn't steal from them, I'm a fence and a businesswoman," snorts Alana. She jerks savagely back on the cord, turning Kira's protests into a gargling choking noise, she's starting to turn blue. "They want what everyone thinks I have. Caves with mountains of jewels," Alana snorts dismissively.
"Grrreed make you stupid." Rheisa slides one foot after another back until she brushes the downed man's knee with her heel. Slowly, she stoops and reaches to feel about and secure one of his fingers between her own. She gives it a solid pinch between fingernails, testing. The blaster remains held more or less on the intruder with her left hand. "Could make you dead. If Alana choose."
"Can you do anything with them?" Alana asks bluntly, "alive or dead?" She's weighing her options. It's a public place, but this is Nar Shaddaa where life is cheap. The girl, Kira, stares in terror at Rheisa, her mouth gaping as she tries without success to speak, only making the faintest gurgling noises. Her gaze meets Rheisa's, and she soils herself in terror.
Rheisa shrugs beneath the weight of a very tense headtail. "I do not have a use for them." She turns an eye to sweep over the male, searching for anything of interest. "But I also have no place to bury the dead. And I do not want the rats feasting on their bodies outside my door. Stink." Not to mention the rats SHE eats would then be gut-loaded with...well. Their guts. Double gross.
"What if we leave them outside for NSec? I can make it so they do not run away." Slowly, the blaster lowers and she reaches beneath her sash to reveal a small knife.
Rheisa looks to the blaster in her hand. Her wrist is tired from the effort of holding onto the clunky thing. She tosses it unceremoniously into the open doorway of her apartment and picks up her blowgun. The knife goes away - seems she's decided to change tactics. After plucking a new dart off her belt, she loads the hand-hewn weapon and steps with a slow, sure-footed limp over to where Kira huddles. "Ha'a ne wah. Dis?"
She wags the flute-looking thing. "Ge bhat a Mrrriki e svah dhu yau. Brrgh hahm. Nehl." She taps once meaningfully at her bony temple before pointing the blowgun at Kira and raising it to her lips.
Kira is whimpering in distress, curling in her shame and fear into a huddled ball, hiding her face from Rheisa. "Don't let it hurt me!" she wails. The phrasing causes Alana's face to stiffen, and Alana glances swiftly at Rheisa.
Fortunately, Rheisa's Basic is still rusty enough that she doesn't quite identify the fauxpaus of ill-used pronouns as the slight that it might've been. In fact, she takes pause to consider this cowering heap of fear. The enemy has been beaten. But what's to prevent a naughty child from trespassing again? A lesson.
"The Tog'urr, the most smart of the shadow children, grew mean, grew bad, so much belief in themselves, that they forget their own weakness inside. It is then that Akul was made, to remind them. They are not most strrrong. Dhak sa yhal nah. Ghe vhee tah." Lips the color of ghostly death breathe a deep breath before sealing around the end of the blowgun once more. The dart fires, straight down for the eposed nape.
Kira shudders and collapses, the dart exposed in the back of her slender neck. And Alana brings her boot down on the back of one twitching hand, fingers splayed, grinding the back of the hand under her heel. Kira just twitches, whatever was in the dart delivering fitting revenge.
Yup. They'll be hurting in the morning. If still alive. Exchanging a guarded glance with the phalange-grinding Fence, Rheisa takes a step back from the felled woman and puts the blowgun to rest by stuffing it through the rear knot of her sash.
Meanwhile, there's been restoration of movement inside the shadows of A2. Chrome plating flashes brightly as Kee'tch'ka emerges from hiding and shuffles across the cluttered floor to stand in the doorway. "Look here, Mistress Dirleel!" It sounds almost cheery, one arm robotically lifting with a rickety wave. In its hand is the half full jar of sallow looking goop. "I have found it!" It shuffles a couple more steps out then stops, taking note of the pseudo carnage for the first time. "Oh. Tch'ke."
"Yeh," Rheisa grunts moodily, turning her back on the whole affair and motioning for Kee'tch'ka to follow. She steps over whatshisface on the way down the hall. "Khomrrro ca mi."
