Fallen Empires -- An Old Republic Era adventure (Star Wars)

Skylah

"I'm uh... I've been better?" you admit. "She uh, wow. She sure is dead!" You're still speaking a little louder than is necessary. You try to do as he advised, and just breath. In, out. Calm down a little. "Who even are these people?" you demand. It seems suddenly important to know something, anything about this anonymous, brown-eyed young woman whose slackened face you can't get out of your head.

"A militant group founded by Imperial veterans, claiming to be the Tyrost's Imperial planetary garrison."

You shake your head. "The Empire hasn't existed for almost twenty years! That woman couldn't have been more than a couple years older than me! How old could she have been back then? And now she's dead!"

"She's old enough to remember that once her people were strong. Ruled worlds, felt safe and powerful. And young enough not to remember the violence. The oppression. That they started the wars that destroyed themselves." Jorden sighs. "Is it any wonder, though, that they fall to vengeance? The last vestiges of a culture created to serve the Sith. And vengeance has ever been a particular obsession of the Sith. One they... seem to inspire in turn in many whose paths they cross." His voice is a little distant at that last. You're too busy fighting down a stab of annoyance to dissect it too much.

"Yeah," you say, "and that's why they lost two galaxy-spanning Empires in five hundred years. They're still people. They can still learn from that, move on."

"The Sith are slaves to the Dark Side," Jorden says, implacably. "To be what they are is to be incapable of that growth."

That... That makes you a little bit angry. "Redemption doesn't have to be... be..." you flail for the words to describe it, "it doesn't have to be this all or nothing thing like that. It can just be... just, bit by bit, year by year! If someone just gives her a chance, at the right time."

Jorden, frustratingly, is unphased and seemingly unconvinced. And he zeroes in on the slipup, not anything of substance: "'Her'?"

You stare, mildly panicked. "Uh..."

Rescuing you from giving him an answer, Jorden holds up a hand, face hardening slightly. "Their mood changes," he says. "Can you sense it?"

"No." All you feel is bad, your mind racing between frustration with him and horror at your first kill.

"Calm your mind," Jorden says, gently. "There is no emotion, there is—"

"Peace! Yes, yes, I know. Give me a second." You're anything but serene just now, and reaching for it feels impossible. So you make due with what you have: A desire not to die here. To help Keel and his sister and even Avress out of that temple. You feel the enemy... restless, but excited. And a little fearful? Oh no. "Oh no," you say. There's something else, here — something darker, more volatile, lividly pleased at the very idea of killing.

"This may be beyond you," Jorden cautions.

You give him a hard look. "I can still fight!"

He frowns, continuing on as if you hadn't interjected. "I was wary of trusting the planetary government's claim that there were no more Sith left on Tyrost, but if I'd expected this, I would not have come here alone with Avress. She isn't ready for this, either, I suspect."

"Seriously, I'm not helpless!" you remind him, trying and failing to quash your own internal doubts. "And you're wounded. You'll need me."

"I fear you may be correct, in that last," Jorden says. His lightsaber is in his hand, not ignited. You have always been taught very carefully that, if you draw your blade, it is only when you are fully prepared to use it. You follow his lead, trusting in Jorden's greater experience.

"Two of them," he says, grimly. You can feel the presence growing, and struggle to separate it into two. It's possible, but one of them is... louder than the other. "Listen carefully," Jorden says, meeting your gaze directly. "When I—"

A durasteel vice, invisible and intangible, closes on your throat. You're too busy focusing on keeping it from choking you, on breaking the grip before it can choke you out, that you're unprepared for the real threat: It yanks you hard, flinging you backward out of the hollow like a doll on a string. You slam down onto your back in the dirt, out in the open, and, still coughing and trying to catch your breath, are immediately confronted by the sight of a blade of red plasma stabbing straight down toward your face.

At the last moment, it's blocked by Jorden's blue blade, a parry he follows up with a powerful Force shove to your attacker's chest, sending him staggering back. As you scramble up to your feet, you take in the sight of two dark-garbed figures, both holding lit, red lightsabers with an obvious air of familiarity.

"An old man and a little girl," drawls the one who hasn't just attacked you. "Hardly a challenge."

"He's not that old," you shoot back. Jorden is only in his forties, you're pretty sure. "... and you're like... my age," you add, glaring. She's human, dark-haired, middlingly tall. Her unpleasant smirk flickers at your reply, apparently not being quite the fearful response she had hoped for. It's all happening a little fast for that.

Her companion -- tall, broad-shouldered, eyes covered by a dark piece of cloth -- sighs in irritation. He's still straightening up from Jorden's shove. "We're here to kill them, Jyte," he says. "Not toy with them."

She rolls her eyes, a gesture you're not 100% sure he can actually appreciate, without eyes. "I can do both! Master won't complain as long as it's done right, in the end." She grins at you with open, predatory anticipation. And not the sexy kind — not that women are usually your thing, you've checked. "Come quietly now, and... well, it won't be easy for you, but you'll live a little bit longer."

Behind them, you can see the shapes of the insurgents who had you pinned down. They're standing back, clearly letting the Sith do their work. "... No thanks?" you say. "Both of those options are... they're not great, I think?"

Jyte's smile turns into something closer to a snarl. "The chatty one is mine," she says.

"If you want to waste your time with the weaker prey," her partner agrees. Which is rude! He doesn't even know you or your capabilities, even though he's also probably right.

"Stay close to me," Jorden tells you, as you try to ignore the burning in your throat to adopt your standard Form V guard.

You only have a few seconds to study Jyte's own stance with its high, two-handed guard. Then she's coming at you with a startlingly aggressive, flying slash, raining blows down on your head with a combination of acrobatics and her greater height. She's deliberately driving you back away from Jorden, who has become locked in his own engagement with the blindfolded Sith.

Your defences hold strong, your training and reflexes enough to put your orange lightsaber in the right place to block her red one again and again, but she's not easing up. Your resolve hardens as the worst of the shock at being thrust so suddenly into a real lightsaber duel is burned away by pure adrenaline. The next time she tries to take off your head... you parry, then follow it up with a riposte that nearly guts her, before she manages to leap back away from you.

"Fine. You're not as helpless as you look," Jyte acknowledges, seething at you from across the short distance. Behind you, Jorden is weathering an only slightly less ferocious offense from the other Sith. His defence seems impenetrable, but you know that his side must be bothering him.

"How helpless do I look?"

She blinks, taken aback. "Very!"

"I'll... just try to take the compliment anyway, I guess? I'm pretty new at this. At fighting to the death. You seem like you're used to it!"

Your babbling, more a stress response than anything deliberate, seems to acutely set her on edge. "I am going to sever your spine and watch you crawl before I'm finished!"

"That's— eep!" she's leaping for you again, although this time you're prepared for it. She's a bit stronger than you, but the Force helps even that out, even if it can't do much about her better reach. Fortunately, an aggressive style like Jyte's Ataru is effectively countered by your own Djem So: a solid defence, followed up by counterattacks to push her off balance and steal her momentum. It's obviously frustrating her. She's practically snarling like an animal with every strike, eyes burning, presence wreathed in the Dark Side. The power behind her blows is increasing, but the form...

"Anger is a precision weapon," you hear your pa'ma telling you. "It is deadly when properly directed. Controlled. When wielded as a bludgeon, however, it can increase one's power at too steep a cost."

You can work with that.

"You're... honestly a bit more harmless than you looked?" you offer, in between blows. "Like, you seemed way scarier than this. I guess that's good for me, right? I think your friend would have been the tougher fight." Judging by what little you can catch of Jorden's fight with him, it's even accurate. "Have you thought about—"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up" she shrieks, punctuating each 'shut up' with an increasingly vicious blow. Your arms are trembling by the second. Not the third, though — Taking a gamble, you don't meet this one with another Form V parry. Instead, when it comes down, you twitch to the side, stance shifting in mid motion, hands spinning your lightsaber up in a perfectly executed Form II disarm.

Jyte's lightsaber falls to the ground in two pieces, along with what are probably a couple fingers, but you're too busy smashing her in the jaw with the butt of your lightsaber to look too closely. The Sith crashes down to the ground, with your lightsaber hovering over her throat. The onlooking Partisans stare wide-eyed, as if unsure what to do. They don't intervene — you suspect that they've been instructed not to. On pain of death, if your impression of Jyte is accurate. She stares white hot hatred up at you.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see the other Sith dart toward you, only to be pushed back by a sudden burst of activity by Jorden, holding him off. For this one moment, Jyte is at your mercy.

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[ ] Finish her, she wants to kill you

[ ] Give her a chance to surrender