Mevlo Raj
Born in Aldera, Alderaan, to a family of successful Emerald Wine makers, making deliveries for the family business before deciding to be a professional pilot. These days he's dealing more than just the family vino!
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We did it!
It all seems too good to be true... So if this was all some sort of cruel dream that I'll wake up to inside my tent on Dagobah, still starving and desperate, then just kill me I say.
One thing I've learned so far is that this crew just might be the kind of caliber I've been hoping to come across for years. Everyone brings something unique to the table and even I feel like I could find some real sense of purpose together with them, outside of my own designs alone. Maybe there really is a bigger picture, or destiny to things.. Listen to me, talking like this..
I'll try and explain.. If Phaedrus wasn't there to use his pressure point wizardry to render the Dragonsnake unconscious, I think it's safe to say we were all toast. It was a sobering moment for me to take careful aim and fire with my trusty blaster at short range, encouraged by D-0-G3 and the lingering stim pack, only for the shot to be absorbed by the tough hide as though nothing at all happened!
I felt suddenly more vulnerable at that moment than I ever recall feeling.. I was 100% reliant on others at that point, which I've never truly felt before. I've always been comfortable as a bit of a lone-wolf, but this was a wake-up call. If there's ever a next time we take a fancy to monster hunting, I might be better off staying on the ship and doing what I can from there.. I don't know, but that moment definitely made me question everything I thought I knew, and hell knows I've seen my fair share.
Zeeroh's another gem I must give proper credit to.. Through his inspiring leadership we worked together to somehow heave that monstrous hulk onto the lift and into containment before it awakened. He also walked a tight line and negotiated for our ship to be towed all the way back, and partially repaired at that. I finally got my glorious shower! I was willing to have them hose me down in the cargo bay but thankfully that wasn't necessary.. Eating something besides diarrhea-inducing psychedelic mushrooms did wonders for my mind and body as well I should say!
Finally after we got back, Zeeroh came in with the hat trick and pulled off the sale of the Dragonsnake to Korluu. Albeit we basically broke even since they had designs to rescue their old friend in exchange for the prize, but at least we aren't in debt... and that Jarrmin didn't seem willing to negotiate after all the history they've had, anyway.
I only wish we had more capital on hand to spruce up the Starhunter so that we could get back in business! I figure we all have a stake in this ship's value, but I'll step up first as a willing pilot, and as a token of my faith I'm willing to chip in what I've got. We'll see if my streetwise sense can help find a suitable buyer for the Middies I have on hand to help..
Here's to a fresh start and new adventures with this crew, if they'll have me.
Until next time...
First Impressions Be Damned
Hi, me again. We're doing this journal thing now, and now seems like a fine time as ever.
A few moments ago Janico and Phaedrus crawled headfirst into a musty, moist, cramped hole. I was about to follow them into that glorified birth canal but took one look and my gut kicked in. What good would I be, the caboose, groping my way through the darkness like a blind fetus? Visibility's terrible outside but at least I can keep some sort of watch to ensure no leaf-tail critters are crawling up our asses. Although... I'll admit it's grown considerably more darker and intimidating out here, even for Dagobah standards. There's a whole 'nother side to Dagobah that comes awake in the night... the haunting echoes and forlorn cries of wailing wraiths in the darkness, growing steadily into a cacophony, diffused by the trees so that the sounds reverberate from all directions and completely overwhelm your senses. With that said, it's not nearly as bad as when you're tripping on the "Middies" as I've come to call them. Still, I cannot help but jump at some of these sounds, peering into the void and listening intently after finishing each of my sentences.
Speaking of "Middies," everyone here probably thinks I've gone off the deep end. No one could understand that once you've tasted the forbidden fruit, there's something about them that calls out to your mind to seek them out yet again and again. What are they trying to show me? I wonder if that green goblin would know- if it indeed stole some from my stash back at camp like Kathirra said. It's got to know SOMETHING. And lo! Just my luck that it stole from our camp, but when it came to our new Chiss companion Ruthi, it brought her food and snacks? Where's my food and snacks, goblin?? Only tricks and no treats..
On a serious note, I am so very glad that we came across the Starhunter ship and found Ruthi, who turns out to be a gifted mechanic. I hope I didn't scare her away by my filthy, smelly, disgusting, (and probably crazed) appearance. With her mechanical knack and my pilot skills, we could be a great team just like Blaze and I were.. I took her jest at my pilot skills on the chin- I know I'll prove to her and the others that I'm worth my salt in this swamp and will fly this hulk up and out of here, when that time comes eventually!
For now my first impressions be damned. While everyone else was making themselves useful in and around the ship, I've been out wandering around apparently looking for psychedelic drugs like a fiend, and failing at that! I originally went outside with the intention to begin working on clearing away the tangle of vines and overgrowth on the ship's exterior, when a thought came to me: Middies. Not for me! No, not for me. I haven't told anyone else about my plan yet, but what if we were to capture and wound a smaller beast as bait for this fabled serpentine monster, then secure a hefty bag of Middies around it's body so that when the monster feasts on it, it will become disoriented and confused in it's hallucinations? It's a bit of a wild card, but it might just give us the edge we need to subdue it. I've kept this secret so far, since we have yet to come across any game that would do the trick...
Blast, I just noticed it's been awhile since I've heard from my burrowing new friends! Time to put down the book and call out to them.
I have a bad feeling about this...
Where to begin...
Let me say first that I'm not typically one to pour my heart out into a diary- risky business if you ask me. And yet, after today I don't give a wookie's hairy nutsack. There's a good chance we'll all end up in the belly of some kind of titanic ravenous serpent anyway, so why not spill some blue milk!
I usually trust my gut instincts. A deal that's about to go sour, the look in someone's eyes before they try to lie, that subtle whine a flux capacitor makes before it's about to ruin your express passenger delivery.. you catch my drift. Somehow I get the feeling like my gut failed me on this one., but I digress...
You might say Kathirra slipped through my defenses. Before I knew what hit me, I agreed to practically all her terms for my professional pilot service, taking her all the way out here to a remote planet in the Outer Rim called Dagobah for half of what I'd normally charge. Was it her charm? Don't get me wrong she's a looker, but in my line of work I help plenty of "entertainers" get to their "performances" and hold my own just fine, thank you. Something was just too intriguing about her to pass up- so screw it, I said yes. My trusty co-pilot and mechanic Blaze would forgive me, the poor bastard.
After doing a little digging, I found out Dagobah is actually rumored to be a very rich resource in some of the hottest black market drugs: "Midi" (a psychedelic fungus), "Bog Weed", and some kind of bat dung stimulant called "White Devil." Now, I normally try to keep my nose clean- you can't be too careful with the Empire these days. But hey, sometimes you have to kiss your blaster and make ends meet. Porkchop had seen better days after all- and my gut KNOWS I needed to keep that little piggy flying.
We can skip through all the bantha fodder and.... oh, poor Porkchop. Fried that prize bacon worse than the grimiest back-alley cutlet. She's a goner. No one told me that landing on this planet would be literally impossible?! I don't brag about a lot of things, but I consider myself a damn fine pilot if I may say so.. Yet nothing could have prepared me for flying into fog so thick, and the branches.. We never had a chance with all the branches. Blaze... he didn't make it. Got skewered right through the chest, right beside me. Only later would I come to envy him- at least he got a timely death while Kathirra and I hopelessly nibbled through the rest of our rations, waiting to die and be eaten (a minute later with my luck). Somehow we made it nearly unscathed. Life isn't a fairy tale, even if she's a believer in the hocus pocus.
Speaking of hocus pocus, she's been acting funny lately. She seems to be tossing in her sleep more and more too. "Oh who are you kidding," she'd say, and she'd probably be right. I began to forage and hunt for food. I'll never eat a bog wing again in my life, not for a million credits. But let's just say I found "Midi'" mushrooms, and they are fantastically delicious. Only problem is that they 1. give me terrible diaarrha, and 2. give me INTENSE hallucinations. As if Dagobah wasn't the stuff of nightmares already, here I am living the dream. Kathirra only tried them once, and a small dose at that. She'll come around eventually I hope. In the meantime I've collected a huge stash in one of my salvaged cargo containers. I did question her after finding some missing one morning, but Kathirra said there was some little green walking goblin who went through our camp and probably stole some? Likely story, Kathirra, you sure YOU haven't been digging into the old cookie jar?
Just when I began to resign ourselves to our demise, I see a huge bulk freighter land, miraculously, within hailing distance of our camp! I could have kissed my distress beacon, Kathirra, and all of their crew at that moment, who hailed us and came to our camp. Thankfully I was not 'tripping' at that moment and had better sense. Turns out they came not to rescue us, but to hunt some kind of prize trophy beast called a "scrange." Never heard of it, nor seen it in our 2 weeks from what they described. Well, at this point we were along for the ride. I'm not sure if they caught my bad luck, but we were beat to the chase by a sassy Trandoshan. I nearly stunned her with my blaster after she gloated about her capture, but thankfully my gut served me well and I held back the trigger as her ship full of hardened fighters arrived to haul it back.
Alas, you'd think this is where I'd get to say "well that's too bad let's just go home then eh? I'm kind of starving and half-insane?" Nope, we found a datapad along the way and it told of a bigger, badder beast. The gang wants to try their luck with the Hutts on it. Good grief, I have a bad feeling about this...
But, let's hope my gut is wrong again.
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