#clever queue

Day 22: Do These Tacos Taste Funny to You? Poisoned | Drugged | Withdrawal Words: 542

Warnings: Poisoning, Needles (sort of) Characters: Qizulth Verryn (Darth Nox), Talos Drellik

“Would you look at that,” Qizulth breathed when they finally got the door open. An old temple, buried deep within a jungle crawling with predators—they’d almost missed it while the Ruin flew past.

“My lord—” Ashara’s voice crackled and died over the comm as the pair trekked down the winding stairs that would lead farther in.

It was in rough shape: holes worn into the walls and ceiling in places, vines climbing every possible surface, the skeletons of little animals that had found themselves trapped inside. It was a wonder the mechanisms for the door still even worked.

Whether the Sith or Talos was more in awe was hard to tell.

The stairs spiraled into darkness and only the light of the Sith’s lightsaber kept them from miss-stepping and falling to their deaths (and even then, there was a point where Talos grabbed Qizulth’s robes when he nearly slipped, and another where they took hold of each other’s arms when a step crumbled away practically right under their feet). Qizulth had never seen a temple quite like it, though he wondered if his companion ever had. It was as if a hole had been drilled straight for the planet’s core, and the temple built within it. As far as he could tell, it appeared almost perfectly circular.

“My lord, look!”

The steep incline of the steps had begun to taper off, and if he really strained his eyes, he could see stone floor below with what light his weapon gave off. And just beyond that, tucked away in the shadows and easy to pass off as his eyes playing tricks, was another doorway. There were a few skeletons, too—many looking like they’d fallen to the bottom while others showed no signs of trauma…

Both were grinning like children by that point.

That was, until they went down the last few steps and stopped cold to the sounds that follows. The step shifted slightly under their weight, sank down until it came parallel with the rest of the floor, followed by the sounds of stone sliding on stone and air hissing.

Qizulth spun to face his companion, used the Force to forcefully shove Talos back up a few of the stairs, winced and hissed through gritted fangs when he felt the sting of darts—multiple needle-pricks that set his skin on fire—landing in his lekku and piercing through his robes.

So careful going down the stairs, only to trigger a trap laying in wait right at the bottom of the endless flight…

Knees buckling to send him to his hands and knees, he held out a hand to stop Talos from coming any closer—from re-triggering the trap. “Get—argh!” Burning, burning, burning—it felt like molten lava was flowing sluggishly through his veins. He tried to move, but it only brought his brows to scrunch with a sharp gasp.

“I—I’ll get Ashara!” He’d pulled the light from his hip and turned it on—whether or not it was more effective than the lightsaber, Qizulth couldn’t tell.

With a shaky hand, the Sith reached up to pull one of the darts from his shoulder; whatever ancient toxin had filled it dripped from the end of the needle.

Day 24: Share your favorite Snappers