Scaling down the wall, Snickers came to the bottom of the chasm and stepped into a (human) waist high muck. She trawled through it, easily doing so because of her marshy upbringing, and felt for Iisska. She knew where he had fallen and it was easy for her to find a small lump in the muck. She buried her face into the swil and found his shirt, biting and lifting him up and out. She shook him a bit to wake him up.

"Huurrgg! Kk--aagck! L-let go! I'll beat your stupid robot face in you pile of--" Iisska started and then slowed when he realized what had him, "... of lizard."

She opened her death trap and dropped him back down into the pool, snorting at his insult.

"Hey, you aren't the only one who's mad," he waved her off. 

He walked slowly through the foul smelling swamp water that flooded the basement of the facility carefully testing each step. There was no telling how many diseases he had contracted from this stuff already and he didn't want to go under again if he didn't have to. A shaft of dim light pierced down into the darkness but that was the only illumination in the suffocating dark. Iiskaa walked into it and looked up. It was a long way. A gaping pit that seemed to go through at least two or three floors of rusting rotting building materials that jutted out like teeth. Much of it looked like it had been broken ages before they arived. He squinted.

"Thinking I can't jump this one," he cast a look at Snickers who only stared back at him, "How helpful you are."

Giving up on that vanished glimmer of hope he cupped his hands around his mouth and started yelling, "HEY! ARE PEOPLE DEAD!? HELLO!?"

There was no response from above, but within a minute, something long fell down and landed on Iisska's head, giving him a nasty bruise. When he picked it up, there was a note attatched saying. "YES". It was then that he realized that he was holding Zen's lightsaber.

Iisska glared down at the weapon while rubbing his head. Somehow it felt like his brain wasn't functioning quite right. Actually he was pretty sure he was asleep. This didn't make nearly enough sense for his waking life. No. Actually. This was the perfect amount of sense for it to be his waking life. Part of his face developed a nasty twitch and he gripped the saber hard.

"ZEN! I NEED OUT! I DON'T NEED YOUR DAMN TOY! GET A ROPE YOU STUPID FUCK FACE! I SWEAR WHEN I GET UP THERE I'M GONNA RIP--" Iisska fell silent immediately.

Something was moving in the water. Now stilled he could hear that something turning into somethings. His heart began to race. As quietly as possible he dipped the side of his head into the water. He was met with a chourus of scattered scraping and thrashing and feral voices. All coming closer. He backed up.

"Oh, we have to go now. Right now," he flipped the switch on the hilt and the glowing black blade of the saber erupted to life.

At that very moment, Snickers started to growl loudly, searching for whatever was in the swamp muck.

Meanwhile...

"So, think he'll make it?" Nyrette said as they looked down and saw Iisska waving them lightsaber around.

"20 credits says he loses an arm." Zen said.

"I'll take that bet. He'll make it." Nyrette answered his call.

"You are both the holes of the butt." Cheshik scolded.

"This is mean. Entertaining, but m-- Wait, what?" Quin snapped at Cheshik, "No. No! You mean 'assholes.' Come on. It's not hard. Why is Basic so hard!? 20 credits says it's a leg, not an arm!"

Kobel whined at them and circled the crumbling hole in the floor.

Back at the plot...

"There's gotta be a way up," he kept telling himself, "If she can climb that so can I."

Snickers' growl was met with others far more unnerving. Like nothing living he had ever heard. A pale figure slinked into the white glow given off by the lightsaber. It crouched on a large piece of rubble that jutted from the swamp. Hunched eyeless horror covered in spines. A wide slit full of jagged and cracked teeth split it's face near in half. It snorted and sniffed the air through its mouth before tilting its head. Another joined it mostly submerged in the water. Two more of the creatures came into sight.

[i]Are those...[/i]

Iisska wasn't give time to think. The first beast came at him in a flash. It burst through the water in a splashing, furious uproar. Shrieks echoed up from the depths. A disembodied head sailed through the air and plopped into the water where it sank. Blood began to dye the foamy mess that was forming. But all this went unnoticed. Iisska frantically ripped through the first of the things that came forth running on instinct. The dangerously light weapon cut through bodies like butter. Steam wafted off the blade and anything that it touched. 

Iisska jumped out of the water onto a beam running the length of the celing where he took a precious second to catch his breath. No longer illuminated or aided by the small bit of light from above, but painted like a target by Zen's weapon. He stopped looking for a way out. Now he was just looking for the next target to destroy. If he couldn't run away he would carve his way out. Dozens more of the creatures ran through the darkness with hungry tongues lolling. A disgusting gut feeling pressed down on him and he was strongly reminded of the hssiss cavern.

He dove off his perch and whipped the blade in a wide arc through at least three of them. The smell was nauseating. Finally it struck him. Rakghouls. He knew he recognized these things. Horrible, virus-spreading, murderous vermin. Though most of the civilized galaxy had been vaccinated against transformation in the past decade such things did not make them any less dangerous to any creature. He brought the blade down and cut one of the monsters in half before leaping out of the water on to semi-sold footing once more.

"Snickers! Get!" he pointed upward.

He would not be responsible for anything happening to the friend of a friend.

"Go!" he snapped again. 

His awareness lit up for a split second and he turned, ready to swing but felt the teeth sink into his leg. The rakghoul didn't feel the saber go through its skull. With a pained grunt he pryed the dead jaws off himself only to feel another set go into his forearm and another into the top of his shoulder. By the time he had shaken them off and retreated to high ground again even more had poured in. Every single one was on the edge of his frayed consciousness and they were near countless. He would never be able to cut them all down. Not at this rate. He ground his teeth and bolted back to the hole from where he came. With a little use of the Force he bounded up the unstable wreckage to what may or may not have been the next floor.

"Snickers! Get your butt up here before I drag you!" he yelled down. 

The rakghouls could climb too, it would seem, as they were slowly making their way up the walls. Shifty little bastards. They couldn't be allowed out of this place. He could feel something inside him spiking and rippling. These cielings were awful unstable. He was getting a pretty good sense of the building's layout. The crazy was starting to tug at him. Snickers scrambled past him several feet before stopping. Iisska shut off the saber and put it in his mouth before finding a place he could crouch for a second. A place that didn't seem to be connected to the next floor. Boy he hoped this beam wasn't connected to the floor. He closed his eyes and spread his fingers. He had no idea why, but it felt right. Everything pressed down on the lower floors of this place. It wouldn't take much more time or weight or decay for disaster to strike. A little more pressure, a little more shaking and shivering and instability, a few broken supports. The foundations started to tremble and the entire level groaned in resistance. Harder. With another inhale, a slow, heavy exhale and a large dash of anger he crushed his will down on everything that lay below his feet. The dilapidated floor cracked and ripped and fell through. In a crecendo of distruction everything came collapsing down onto the rakghouls trapping them in a dark, swampy basement prison.

Dust blew out of the gap in the floor up above. It felt like an earthquake up there. After Snickers came scrambling out, Iisska bounded out into the light, covered in mud, blood, slime, dirt and other umentionable substances. He collapsed onto his butt, took the saber hilt out of his mouth and threw it at Zen.

"THIS PLACE SUCKS AND I HATE IT!"