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

[Raiseth]

Alright, like, I take full responsibility for this piece of crack, but I've had the idea for whole five minutes and it wouldn't leave me, so it must be fate.



... Lord Nyx was not having a good time. First, the bitch — the utter bitch — betrayed her, which in retrospect wasn't entirely unexpected, was it now? The plan had been quite simple: present their Master with a holocron, play it off as one having succeeded where another failed, wait for a moment of distraction, then blam! Force Lightning to the face.

So when her former friend had failed to show up during the meeting, well, that set off quite a lot of the warning signs. She saw the look on her Master's face, even when she couldn't feel much in the Force. A glaring weakness, really, being able to hide your emotions in the Force while having no pazaak face at all.

Nyx had a personal theory that it was a large part of the reason for her Master dressing up as a Revan wannabe most of the time.

( Her Master being a shameless Revan fangirl being the other part, of course, even no one who wanted to stay alive said it to her face or where she could overhear. )

Regardless, she saw that her Master was aware of the treachery. That damnable flicker of amusement, like she wasn't a threat at all, only a toy to be played with. That set her on edge, feeding the burning furnace of hatred she'd constructed in her heart, like a shrine exalting all the reasons for why that vapid shrew had to die. The ruse was no longer necessary. She struck in open, knowing her loss would mean a really, really agonizing death.

Well, she lost. Now came the dying part, she supposed.

In that regard, unlike many others, her Master didn't disappoint, because no, torturing her in her inner sanctum wouldn't be fun, now would it?

She didn't know the name of the world she was on, and she didn't care. The world was in its death throes, even the agony of final moments of many sentients on its surface muted, washed away. What happened here? Was it Imperial? Republican? Was it destroyed during the Galactic War? The Great Hyperspace one? Sometime earlier?

Despite what she told herself, she cared, if only a little, if only because knowing more would help her survive and maybe find a way to get off the piece of dead rock.

Certainly not because of an idle daydream she used to have about becoming a Sith Archaeologist during her tenure as an Acolyte. But then, the war was already heating up, they were losing badly, and no one quite cared anymore that she was an 'impure alien', when she was also more blaster fodder to throw into the fray, her and her newfound friend.

She preserved, she excelled where others failed, got noticed by a powerful Sith Lord, they both did... only to end up dying in a cave surrounded by nothing but fading memories for her company. If this was irony, she didn't like it.

She was dying twice over, she knew. The lightsaber wound in her shoulder wasn't immediately life-threatening. Why, if someone had told her that's how she was going to die, she'd probably have stabbed them just in a way they described to test that theory. The drugs however... she was pretty sure the concoction was a product of Sith Alchemy, even if she never cared much for the subject, but the facts sure checked out. Force-resistant, extremely painful yet almost soothing, which made no fucking sense.

First, she couldn't manage to feel rage, so she settled for spite. Second, once she realized what was happening, a dull horror spread through her, only to be replaced with fear, then weary acceptance. Third, the pain became ever-present, yet somehow more and more irrelevant. She could bet who suggested that touch to send her off. She had always told Nyx that she couldn't emote even if her life depended on it, and now look, it really did. She'd probably find it funny or extremely irritating if she wasn't so tired.

Perhaps, if she closed her eyes for just a minute...

"Uh, hello?" A female voice called out from the entrance. Nyx opened one eye, glaring in annoyance. It was day outside, and whoever was standing there couldn't see too deep into the cave. "Excuse me, is anyone here? I think I can feel someone, but... not? Doesn't make any sense." She heard the figure mutter. She probably didn't expect her voice to carry enough for the last sentence to be audible, but they were in a cave, duh.

So, who was she? Someone her Master sent to finish her off? Didn't make any sense, so Nyx immediately discarded the thought.

She reached out with the Force, her grasp feeble just like everything in her, and touched the mind of the young woman.

"Huh, that tickled," A Jedi. Of fucking course. "A Sith? You're a Sith... Acolyte?"

Nyx felt her left eye twitch.

"I am a Lord... or I was," Nyx conceded. "Doesn't matter so much now."

"Why not? A Lord is impressive," she heard the woman say, even as she drew in, warily, slowly. She heard a click, but instead of a lightsaber, a flashlight shone on her face. Eh? "Especially for someone sounding... huh, you look very young." She said suddenly. Was she for real? "Not that I'm not young too, I mean, I'm twenty, and I'm still a Padawan, and you don't look much older than me, but you're already a Sith Lord, and you know what they say when they talk about Sith Lords, you always expect someone old and wrinkly, but you are clearly not. Honestly, you even look a little hot." She said and smiled confidently, before her face sank as she realized just what she said. Was she for real? "I mean, obviously not, not what I wanted to say, Jedi don't attach any meaning to such notions as hotness. Not that you aren't hot! Uh, handsome? Attractive? Yeah, attractive!" She backtracked before backtracking again. Nyx felt her head going a little dizzy, trying to track it.

"... go away." She finally said.

The young woman hanged her head.

"Yeah, alright, fair." She looked like a kicked akk puppy, which was honestly a little adorable, and no Nyx that's the drugs talking you are drugged yes obviously that's the reason shut up. "Wait, no! Let's start over. Look, I have a ship? It can fly and I could take you with me? Well, I could, if I managed to fix it first, and I've a distress signal on my commlink from another ship, probably from a hundred years ago, and I think there are some parts I could scavenge. But, I could use some help? There are... things in the fog, and they really don't sound like-"

"If I agree, will you stop talking?" Nyx asked, aggravated.

"Yeah, sur-" Nyx glared at her, and she finally took a hint and shut up. Blissed silence, Nyx thought. You never know how much you'll miss something until it's taken away.

"I also need... help," Nyx ground out. "As you can see, there's a wound on my shoulder and ...something in my system I can't seem to be able to rid off." Although, now that she said it, she could feel her emotions returning. Was the Padawan responsible? Was she just that annoying to deal with even the Sith-manufactured drugs buckled under the strain?

She felt a smile tugging at her lips. Looked like it.

Speaking of, she looked like she was about to explode.

"You can speak now," Nyx said with a sigh.

The Jedi took a deep breath and... calmed down.

"I think I can help," she replied. "My Master is... was a good Healer. I never picked up that much, but I know a little." Well, wasn't that just her luck? Then again, with the Force, there was no such thing as luck. "But I need to touch you and I'd like you to promise not to stab me with a lightsaber while I'm working on you."

She studiously ignored another feeling at the edge of her mind, caused by someone who sounded sad that her Master was dead.

Irritation? Envy?
... Sympathy?

No, of course not.

"I promise not to stab you with a lightsaber while you're working on me," she dutifully repeated. It was an easy promise to make when she didn't have one on her, after all.

"Great!" The Jedi smiled easily, readily, and kneeled beside her, taking out what looked like a medkit out of the bag she'd been carrying on her back.

Nyx felt something like a vast echo build and build and grow, larger than the narrow cave she was hiding it, larger than the planet, yet smaller than space between the two of them? That made no fucking sense.

She heard her voice asking, as if from afar:

"What's your name?"

"Arlunia," In contrast, the answer was very easy to hear. She saw her beaming at her and felt an echo again, louder than a frag grenade going off almost in front of her face, yet quieter than a whisper. Fucking Force metaphors, they made her head hurt. "Arlunia Lavaeolus. What's yours?"

"Nyx," she answered. "Just Nyx."

————
Whew, that got longer than I expected from a shitposting omake. Also more serious.

 

[Gazetteer]

Because I forgot to reserve a couple posts after the OP, I'll just let a threadmark do the heavy lifting here.

Characters:

Skylah Lavaeolus
Species: "Mostly human"
Home world: Empress Teta
Age: 19
You. A young Force Adept with a convoluted and mysterious past. Cheerful and talkative, but rash.

Avress Dar
Species: Mirialan
Home world: Mirial
Age: 18
A young padawan on a search and rescue mission with her master. Loyal and earnest, but stiff and self-important.

Brenby Vox
Species: Miraluka
Home world: ???
Age: Early 20s
An apprentice serving under a local Sith Lord. Serious and pragmatic.

Others:

Jyte Blackstar
Species: Human
Home world: ???
Age: 20
Brenby's fellow Sith apprentice.

Myre, Lord of the Sith
Species: Human
Home world: ???
Age: 50s
Brenby and Jyte's Sith master.

Jedi Knight Amira Rist
Species: Human
Homeworld: Alderaan
Age: 30s-40s
A Jedi who went missing exploring ruins on Tyrost.

Elra Sevria
Species: Pantoran
Home world: Tyrost
Age: Early 20s
Keel's twin sister.

Keel Sevria
Species: Pantoran
Home world: Tyrost
Age: Early 20s
An only slightly sketchy young man who has asked for Skylah's help.

Darth Shaed, Dark Lord of the Sith
Species: Unknown near-human
Home world: ???
Age: late 40s
Sith Master to Lord Myre, has a history with Skylah's parents, fickle and dangerous.

Jedi Knight Jorden Venn
Species: Mirialan
Home world: Mirial
Age: 30s-40s
Avress's master.

Spoiler: Character spoilers

Darth Imperius, Dark Lord of the Sith
Species: Human (force ghost)
Home world: Dromund Kaas
Age: she literally has lost count
The ghost of a powerful Sith Lord, hero of the Galactic War.

Jedi Master Arlunia Lavaeolus
Species: Human
Home world: Empress Teta
Age: late 40s
Skylah's mom. A warm and personable parent and spouse. An "unorthodox" Jedi. The Order doesn't look too closely at what she's doing at home.

Jazt Lavaeolus
Species: Human-Mirialan hybrid
Home world: Empress Teta
Age: 17
Skylah's brother who isn't actually important to the story (yet?).

Nyx Lavaeolus (aka Nyx, Lord of the Sith)
Species: Mirialan
Home world: Dromund Kaas
Age: Late 40s
Skylah's pa'ma. A stern but loving parent and a devoted wife. Still a Sith. Only daughter of Skylah Naht, an alien slave.

Skylah Lavaeolus
Species: Human-Sith hybrid
Home world: Empress Teta, born Dromund Kaas
Age: 19
You. A young Force Adept with a convoluted and mysterious past. Cheerful and talkative, but rash.

Darth Mortanna, Dark Lord of the Sith
Species: ???
Home world: ???
Age: Dead!
The Sith Lord who trained Nyx and Shaed, defeated through the efforts of Nyx and Arlunia.

 

[Gazetteer]

Spoiler: Results

Tell Avress you told her so: 14

Say something embarrassingly revealing: 12

Kiss Brenby: 4

Skylah

You can't help it. You give in, and shoot Avress a self-satisfied look. She receives this with a brittle dignity, holding her head up in that I'm above this because I'm a Jedi way that no one who's actually passed their trials ever has to do. "Told you!" you chirp. She continues to regard you, stone-faced.

Brenby frowns, the lightning of the Dromund Kaas sky framing him from behind. "What did you tell her?"

You shrug, smile turning a little sheepish. "Well, uh, you know..."

"I know what?"

Imperius sighs. "Skylah gave a rather impassioned defence of your virtues as a teammate. Evidently correctly. Personally I wouldn't have put credits on it, but then, I've known more Sith than she has."

Brenby looks genuinely taken aback. The idea that you might have had enough faith in him to legitimately argue this point to others isn't one that comes naturally to him.

"We decided to trust each other," you say, face heating. "I meant that! So, I'm not going to like... she was saying things for no good reason, and—"

"I think," Brenby says, "that I get the picture." Which is an odd expression to hear from someone with no eyes, but it seems rude to bring that up.

"Well, uh, good then!" you say. "I'm glad!" Avress is looking between you and Brenby like you're in the middle of doing something both reckless and stupid. Treating a dangerous animal like a house pet, or confiding in a well-armed stranger about how very many credits you're carrying.

Avress can be kind of a jerk.

Imperius leads you all onward with focused purpose, navigating the city's walkways and side streets with the confidence of a long-term resident. You can't help but wonder if this familiarity is actually born out of memories of her life, or from the lifetimes she's spent in this sad, empty little simulacrum. She was a Lord of the Dark Council, after all, and you know that the Dark Council had primarily convened on Korriban until the Republic had taken it back in the last decade of the war that had finally broken the Empire. Did she ever actually live in this city, or was it just a blur of black and grey durasteel viewed from above as she'd commuted from spaceport to opulent, official buildings in the sky?

You're headed for one of those, you can tell. The largest one, a hulking menace periodically lit by the near-constant lightning overheard, a tower reaching toward the roiling black clouds overhead.

You've seen pictures of the Imperial Citadel, both as a standing structure and as a bombed out ruin. They don't do it justice.

"Hey, are you doing alright?" you ask Keel, sidling up to him and Elra.

He blinks his gorgeous, yellow eyes. "Me?" he asks.

You shoot him a harried sort of grin. "Yeah. This has all been a lot, huh?"

"Yeah," he admits, running a hand through his hair, "yeah, it definitely has. I mean, I haven't had as rough a time of it as Elra, though..." he shoots a glance over to Elra, who is definitely still taking comfort in the protective weight of Avress's tall, strong presence.

"I think Avress is kind of into your sister," you tell him, voice a conspiratorial whisper.

Keel looks both stricken, and taken aback that this is what you're bringing up in this situation. "I... I thought maybe she was, but... don't Jedi not do that?"

You consider his question for a moment. A deceptively simple one, disguising a fairly complicated philosophical issue that affects your own family pretty intimately. How to address this with the careful nuance it obviously requires? "Okay," you begin, "so... you know how sometimes there are rules everyone is supposed to follow, but some people just... don't follow them? For different reasons?"

Keel actually gives a little snort of startled laughter. "Yeah, I'm... familiar."

"Well, it's like that."

"How are you this calm?" he asks, abruptly. The strain comes through in his voice. "Aren't you even a little bit scared? This is all insane!"

You blink, startled. "Um... yeah. It's pretty scary! I'm, uh... really, really not calm, honestly? But it's like... if I just keep going, and just keep talking enough, it's not going to catch up with me until everything is over."

"Oh." He looks a little abashed. "Sorry."

You shrug. "Don't be sorry. I guess it's working, if you didn't notice anything."

"What happens after it catches up with you?"

You give that a moment's thought. "Uh... I dunno. Panic attack, maybe? Panic attack sounds about right."

Keel nods slowly. "Yeah," he says, "that sounds pretty good."

Abruptly, Imperius picks up her pace. "Hurry!" she hisses, darting down a side alley. Bewildered, you follow, even as she breaks into a sudden run.

"Where are we going?" Brenby demands.

"Here!" Imperius skids to a halt in front of a building. You barely have time to process the sign out front: Aklan's Eatery. It's a small, out of the way looking place. The kind of place that silently promises decent, working-class food for your lunch-break, with a sign boasting about specials on Kaasi staples.

"What's here?" Amira asks, squinting up at the sign.

"A restaurant I passed by twice as an apprentice, always wanted to try, and never got around to before I was made a Lord of the Sith," Imperius explains. "At which point, you really can't go into this kind of place without causing an intolerable stir and scaring everyone half to death, and in my particular case, there was the whole business of having to flee for my life off-planet for quite a while. It's—" she shakes her head. "Anyway! It's somewhere I remember distinctly, but don't know what the inside looks like. But the simulation won't have had time to populate it. We've been skipping from setting to setting too quickly. We've ever outrun the mad ghosts at this point. So, if you step through that door, as long as you have a body to enter on the other end, you'll fall ou—"

Elra bolts past Imperius, shooting her a defiant look. "You can't have it!" she says, as she throws open the door, plunging into the blinding white beyond.

The rest of you only have moments of being stunned, before Avress lunges after her. "Elra!" Then she's gone too, followed narrowly by a half-panicked looking Keel.

"...t of the dream," Imperius finishes, belatedly. She glances at the rest of you — yourself, Brenby, and Amira "Well, you had better go on as well."

Amira looks at her searchingly. "What are you going to do?" she asks.

Imperius hesitates. "I've thought about this," she says. "Freedom would be ideal, but I'd like an end almost as much, if I can't have that. And I'd rather just die than live as an unwanted parasite forced on another."

"An end?" Amira asks, as if making sure she understands something exactly right.

Imperius nods, looking abruptly exhausted. "If you could manage it, Jedi," she says, pinching the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. "It's certainly better than being left in this place."

Amira nods grimly, clearly understanding. Imperius is asking her to destroy whatever relic or repository has trapped you all, which she'd been planning on anyway. As she does this, Brenby doesn't make eye contact with you — of course he doesn't, how could he? — but you feel the full force of his attention prickle down your spine in the Miraluka equivalent. You know that he wants the relic, or the knowledge contained within it, and you're also well aware that you've made him promises about helping him get it. It would be a bad way to repay his loyalty, stabbing him in the back at the last moment.

You watch Brenby step through the doorway, worry in the pit of your stomach.

"You go ahead," you tell Amira. "He and Avress probably shouldn't be alone together."

This forestalls any protest or inquiry. The Jedi grimaces. "May the Force serve you well, Darth Imperius," she says, invoking the Sith version of the valediction as an unexpected olive branch. A final show of respect.

Imperius cracks a smile as she watches Amira pass through the doorway, surprised and a little pleased, despite the seriousness of the situation. She stares at the open door for a long moment. "And may it be with you," she replies, too late for Amira to hear.

At this point, she realises that you're still standing there, looking at her. You shuffle in place, sheepishly. Imperius raises an eyebrow. "Is there some reason you're still here?" she asks.

That's a good question. is there a reason why you're still here? What do you do?

Article:

[ ] Say your goodbyes, and leave
[ ] Promise to find some way to get her a body
[ ] Surprise her by hauling her through the doorway along with you

 

[Gazetteer]

Spoiler: results

Surprise her by hauling her through the doorway along with you: 29

Say your goodbyes, and leave: 2

Skylah

"Yeah," you say, slowly. "There's kind of a reason. Maybe. A bit."

Imperius arches an eyebrow, her form lit from behind by a particularly violent flash of lightning. "'Kind of maybe a bit'?" She might be making fun of you.

"Yeah," you agree, grinning sheepishly, "that." Then, with her guard down, before you can talk yourself out of it, you lunge forward, grab her by her robes, and throw the both of you through the door behind you.

"What are you doing?" Imperius demands, as you fall together into blinding light.

"Not leaving you behind!" you say, voice almost lost amid a roaring in your ears.

"That's—"

==========

Avress

You wake up uncomfortably sprawled out on cold stone. As your eyes crack open, you find yourself bathed in a sinister, red glow. With a sound far closer to a whimper than you'd ever admit — Jedi don't whimper, you're very sure! — you sit up, staring around the chamber you find yourself in. You're back in the Sith ruin, here at the bottom of the inverted pyramid you'd been descending through, laying among the unmoving bodies of your companions. Well, most of them are unmoving — someone nearly tackles you back to the floor.

"I'm me again!" Elra cries. "No ghost in my head, no horrible dream land, just me!" She laughs for the pure joy of it, actually tightening her hug. You feel your face begin to heat. Oh, no, is she close enough to feel that?

"Yeah!" you say. "That's great!" There is no passion, there is serenity, there is no passion, there is serenity, there is no passion, there—

Before you can entirely form coherent thoughts apart from that, someone else groans nearby. "... El?" It's Keel — Elra peels herself off of you, rushing over to check on him. This gives you the opportunity to finally take a closer look at the chamber you're in.

As you'd seen before, immediately around you are the others: Amira, Skylah, and Brenby, in addition to the Pantoran siblings. The first three have yet to wake up. Beyond them, though, are yet more motionless forms littering the floor in what proves to be a fair sized chamber, curving hallways coming off of it at both ends. They're corpses — most are only ancient bone, a few sporting a more mummified appearance. Clothing long since degraded in any case, but their more durable belongings, their tools and weapons, are much more intact. Many of their bare skulls bear the distinctive facial bone ridges of Sith purebloods. These, you realise, are the source of the faceless ghosts who had attacked you repeatedly in the dream.

You stare around at this grizzly sight, paralysed in mute horror for longer than you intend. "A disquieting thing to wake up to." You jerk around at the new voice beside you, not startled, certainly, just... surprised. Brenby is awake, his Force Sight taking everything in more efficiently than your own senses.

"Unexpected, certainly," you acknowledge, stiffly.

"Yes, I can tell from your heart rate," Brenby agrees. "Although, perhaps that has... other sources."

Despite his inability to look pointedly at Elra, you know exactly what he means. You flush all over again. "Watch your insinuations, Sith," you hiss.

He smirks — actually smirks! You bristle, ready to leap up to your feet, when you feel a small hand on your shoulder. Amira is standing over you, a concerned expression on her face.

"I trust you're alright?" Amira asks.

"I seem to be, Knight Rist," you say.

"We're both fine," Elra reports.

Brenby gives a noncommittal grunt, offering no further comment on his own wellbeing. "Was Skylah right behind you?" he asks. Almost as if he really does care about her.

"Yes," Amira says. But looking down at Skylah's tiny, motionless body, she frowns. A moment of heavy silence stretches on and on, as the last member of your group fails to so much as stir.

"What do we do if she's stuck?" Keel asks, uncertainly. The thought is troubling to you. Skylah isn't a friend, precisely, but she's an ally as much as she's also been a general annoyance. She doesn't deserve to have her spirit trapped inside an ancient Sith relic, certainly.

Amira's expression is grave. "I'm not sure we—"

You feel a surge of relief as Skylah finally gasps and sits bolt upright. "Skylah! Are you alright?" She doesn't immediately respond to Amira's concern, blinking her large, red eyes as she stares around in obvious disorientation.

"Skylah?" asks Keel. Still no response.

Brenby strides over, kneels down, and puts one large hand on Skylah's shoulder, giving her a firm shake. "Skylah!"

Skylah snaps into alertness, finally. "Oh, hello!" she says, grinning a little awkwardly.

"Are you well?" he asks, gruffly.

"Oh, uh... I'm fine?" she says. "I'm fine! It's fine. Everything is fine!"

"... Is it, now?" Brenby is the picture of skepticism.

"Yep! It'll be fine." Skylah shoots up to her feet, as if to demonstrate this.

"Is it fine, or will it be fine?"

"Both!"

You exchange an uncertain look with Amira. Skylah doesn't seem entirely fine. She's rattled and distracted in a way that the others don't seem to be.

With everyone up and seemingly ready to move again, Skylah pointedly crosses the room, stepping over bones and discarded warblades alike, until she reaches one body in particular. It's certainly still old, but much fresher than its companions, at least. The robes, cloak and elaborate mask, speaking of a much later period than the other Sith corpses around it, give that much away. Skylah stands over the body, a sad expression on her face as she looks down at it.

"Imperius?" Amira asks, somberly.

"... Yeah, it was," Skylah says. She kneels down, carefully retrieving something from the body: The distinctive shape of an ornate Sith saberstaff.

"What do you intend to do with that?" Brenby asks.

"She has a tomb waiting back on Dromund Kaas, I guess," Skylah says.

"When did she mention that?" you ask. And who would ever go to Dromund Kaas for any reason, let alone to deliver a lightsaber to a glorified hole in the ground? Sith tombs are nothing but garish monuments to their own vanity and obsession with temporal decadence over true, spiritual health. Their refusal to accept that death is not an end, but merely rejoining the Force.

"Uh..." Skylah freezes up at that. "... Before we met back up with you?" she suggests, inexplicably awkward about it. Before you can question her further, she adds: "Wait, what was that?"

This last is actually important. You all stand in place, listening to a familiar grinding-stone sound: The door, the one Skylah used her blood to open. As it opens, you feel a new presence. Not the ambient darkness pressing down on you from all sides just from being in the ruin — a single point of cold rage, approaching you all steadily from the way you came.

"Lord Myre," Brenby says. "My master."

"If he had the blood to open the door the whole time, why didn't he already?" you demand, going for your lightsaber.

Brenby scoffs. "Because he didn't know precisely how this place would be trapped, but he didn't want to set it off himself. And was far too paranoid to allow anyone else to just walk in ahead of him to see, on the off chance that we might gleen something at his expense."

"The trap takes some time to reset," Skylah says, a little distractedly. You have no idea how she can possibly claim to know that.

"Leave the Sith to me," Amira says at once, eyes fixed on the passageway you've already come through.

Brenby doesn't even hesitate. He nods, turns, and continues onward, a man with places to be.

"We outnumber him!" you protest, drawing close to her.

Amira puts a hand on your shoulder again. This time, there's some steel in her voice as she speaks in a low murmur, one that won't carry to the others. "Padawan, I need you to make sure that that artifact is destroyed."

You try not to glance at the others. At Brenby, the unapologetic Sith, with all the accompanying naked ambition that entailed. Skylah, of dubious origin and plainly conflicted, disinclined to view his actions through an uncharitable lens. Keel and Elra. Didn't someone have to make sure sh— they got out alright, in addition to this task from Amira? "Force be with you, Knight Rist."

"And you, Padawan," Amira says, with a wan smile.

"Come on," you say to the Pantorans and Skylah both. "You heard her."

Skylah is looking after Amira, a frown on her face. "I don't want to leave someone behind again," she says, guilt flashing across her features. She's holding your master's lightsaber.

Leaving Amira behind isn't any easier for you to swallow either, considering that you hadn't even been present when your master needed you, and the Sith who has him captive is rapidly approaching. But you've been given a task. "Jedi Knight Rist knows what she's doing," you say. "Come on."

Skylah nods, and turns to follow Brenby. You still can't shake the impression that something is subtly off about her, but you don't have the time to dedicate to it. Elra flashes you a nervous smile, evidently still feeling safe in your presence. Keel is just nervous — of the two of them, you have to admit that he might be having the more rational reaction.

The last thing you see of Amira Rist as you round the corner leading further into the ruin, is her small form, hands clasped in front of her, eyes closed in meditation, quietly drawing on some wellspring of inner peace you wish you had at your disposal.

You hope you'll see her again.

Article:

Something is about to go wrong. What is it?

[ ] Amira is in greater danger than she realises
[ ] In accessing the artifact, tensions rise between Brenby and Avress
[ ] Something puts a hard time limit on all your escape from the ruins

 

[Gazetteer]

Spoiler: Results

Something puts a hard time limit on all your escape from the ruins: 16

In accessing the artifact, tensions rise between Brenby and Avress: 9

Amira is in greater danger than she realises: 1

Serenity is not Amira Rist's native country. By nature, she is a creature of nerves and anxiety. The human equivalent of an overbred lap-pet, she used to think: cringing and wide-eyed and entirely too excitable. In the past, these traits had proven to be extraordinarily well-suited to being twisted toward fear and Darkness. There had been many in the Order who had voiced severe doubts as to whether she would ever make a real Jedi.

As she does many times a day, Amira ignores those clawing doubts and insecurities threatening to lead her astray. She focuses on her breathing, on herself as she is in this moment, rather than on an uncertain future, simply accepting the world as it is and is meant to be. She finds her peace, and with it the Force.

Amira opens her eyes to meet the gaze of the man who has just stepped out of the passageway she stands guard over. His posture is as impatient as it is arrogant -- a thin, severe human, eyes burning a baleful yellow beneath his hood. "Lord Myre," she says. "You will go no further." Myre had been the name of an ancient Sith Lord who had once ruled over this world, the namesake of the nearby city of Myresend, in fact. Amira wonders if the Sith in front of her can truly claim any direct ancestry with the ancient despot, or if he's merely appropriating the name for his own.

"Jedi," he says, not even trying to hide his sneer, "I will walk over your corpse to reach my goal. Do not entertain otherwise."

Amira regards him levelly. "A Jedi does not fear death." A Jedi Knight is many things at many different times. A barrier between others and danger is one of them -- Amira had been shown that long ago, and it's an example she intends to follow to her last. Especially given whose daughter is currently in her charge.

"A good trait to cling to, when one is about to die." A lightsaber is in Myre's hand. It ignites a sinister violet, its light mingling with the red glow of this place.

Amira takes one last steadying breath, drawing her own, the angry orange of her first master's blade glaring out at him as it ignites in turn. She slips into her standard reverse-grip Shien stance.

Then he's lunging for her, and the two of them are dancing amid the corpses of the ancients.

=========

Skylah

"Turn left ahead. I can sense it."

"Left here," you announce for the benefit of the other four. You helpfully point toward the particular passageway ahead. Those of them with eyes are staring at you.

"How do you know that?" Avress asks.

"Oh, you know! Just a feeling!" You take matters into your own hands, venturing on ahead. They reluctantly follow suit.

"Well done. Very subtle," says the voice only you can hear. "If they think you're mad, they'll never suspect you're merely haunted."

Well, you're doing your best! You want to tell her as much, but unfortunately you seem to need to speak out loud for her to hear you. Which is very annoying, when you're trying to avoid certain weird conversations at the moment. You raise your chin confidently, striding forward down the hallway ahead of your companions, trying to ignore the ghostly figure trailing along beside you. At least while she's being mean, anyway.

"Are you sure you're okay, Skylah?" Keel asked. He's concerned, which is sweet.

"Like, uh... physically, or emotionally?" you ask. "There are lots of different okays."

"... Both?" he asks.

"I banged my elbow a bit, and I keep getting weird twinges from where I got hit by lightning earlier, and I'm pretty hungry, and, uh... we talked about me being emotionally not-okay later." You grin, even though you're not really feeling it at all.

Despite your impressive efforts, you can't help but feel that you're not entirely fooling everyone. Ordinarily, you wouldn't hide something this important, but... how do you even talk about this? Elra in particular keeps stealing almost suspicious glances in your direction. Which isn't encouraging: Out of everyone, she's the best equipped to guess the truth. These looks only become more and more frequent as you unerringly guide the way through twists and turns in the hellishly-lit maze at the bottom of the pyramid. It saves so much time, though, that you don't stop doing it.

You arrive at the dead centre of this place with little warning. Here at the bottom of this inverted pyramid lurks a construct of stone and evilly-glowing crystal, encrusted with ceremonial ancient Sith runes.

"... you did know where you were going," says Brenby, stepping forward in wonderment.

"Well, don't sound so surprised!" you shoot back. You glance at Imperius, an obvious question on your face.

"This is what trapped us," she confirms. She narrows her eyes, glaring at it as if she might reduce it to a pile of slag with her will alone.

As you watch her, you nearly miss Avress striding forward, lightsaber in hand and grim purpose in every line of her body. Brenby steps in front of her. "Step aside, Sith," she says, staring up at him with a hard expression. "This thing is evil. It will be destroyed, and all those souls returned to the Force."

"No," he says. In that moment, he seems particularly large and implacable. "I did not come here, betray my master, risk the wrath of Darth Shaed, throw in with Jedi, to leave here with nothing."

Oh no, this is going to be bad. And you're going to need to pick a side. Will you—

"The purpose of this device was always to compile all the knowledge of those so entrapped," Imperius hisses. "You can remove the holocron storing the knowledge and still release the trapped spirits."

Oh, wow. That's convenient. "Isn't this like... evil information, though?" you whisper, nonetheless.

Imperius shoots you a look of purest exasperation. "It's a Sith artifact," she says, as if this is interchangeable with unethical knowledge-gathering practices. Which... well, she might have a point, actually. "Would you rather watch them kill each other? Because we can certainly do that."

"... No," you mutter, approaching the brooding nexus of Darkside energies. "Here?" A particular, pyramid-shaped section lifts off at your touch: You've never seen a Sith holocron in person, but the shape and the eerie red glow seem to match. It buzzes with dark power under your touch, oddly enticing, drawing you in, beguiling you with what it has to offer... You tear your mind away from that. While no one's watching you, you do your best to shoot Brenby the kind of meaningful glance that should hopefully resonate in his Force Sight, tucking it away into your pocket and mouthing: "I have it." You just hope he'll trust you.

"... Very well," Brenby snarls to Avress, to everyone's evident surprise.

You flash him a grin. It's a good thing Imperius is here, because your only other idea would have been to suggest that maybe the real prize is the friendship he's found along the way. You... don't think it would have gone over as well, compared to the stolen knowledge of a jillion murdered Sith Lords, or however many bodies had been in that room back there. You probably would have had to actually pick a side, or else just watch them kill each other.

Avress slowly nods. "Thank you for seeing sense." She moves past him, staring hard at the relic as if trying hard to decide what part of it would be most susceptible to a lightsaber strike. She takes in a deep breath, then moves impressively fast, both green blades of her saberstaff scything out to gouge deep furrows in the ancient artifact, brilliant red sparks flying in all directions. It lets out a sound like a blood-curdling scream, accompanied by a furious gust of wind that blows all of you back a few steps.

As the lightest, you're nearly flung off your feet... until Brenby seizes the back of your jacket, wordlessly holding you upright. It's not the most gentle catch, but you flash him a grateful smile regardless.

"It's done," Avress says proudly.

"I won't deny enjoying that," Imperius admits, looking upon the destroyed wreckage of the relic that killed her and imprisoned her for centuries.

"Great! Good. I'm glad," says Keel. "How are we getting out?"

Avress frowns at him. "We'll go back and help Jedi Knight Rist, then escape the way we came."

"If we get past my master," Brenby says, "He will still have his forces guarding the entrance, at the very least. And I'm not convinced that Rist will be a match for him. She struck me more as a scholar than a warrior."

"She is a Knight of the Republic," Avress says, trying to be affronted, despite a certain doubt playing over her features. Amira had passed her trials, certainly, which implies a baseline competence in the more martial aspects of Jedi life... but not every Knight was a swordswoman first and foremost.

"The runes on the back wall there point to an exit," Imperius tells you, interrupting these thoughts. You blink at her, startled, as she seems to walk all the way over to the wall in question, pointing an insubstantial hand at the strange writing there. You walk around the sparking ruin of the relic and peer at the spot she's indicating, cautiously laying your hand against the place in question.

Immediately, as before, needles emerge from the wall, drawing your blood. You step back with a gasp, and an exit slides open in the stone. Beyond it, a narrow passage slants sharply upward at an incline just barely traversable for your average human. "Um... I found an exit?" you offer.

"... How?" Brenby demands.

You shrug a little sheepishly, taking a few seconds too long to come up with a good answer. "Uh... the Force?" Beside you, Imperius sighs.

"No," Elra says, shaking her head. "That's not it. She keeps... talking to herself when no one's looking, or staring at thin air." Oh. Whoops. Maybe you weren't as subtle as you thought. Everyone is looking at you again.

"Skylah," Keel says, "is there something you need to tell us?"

You shift in place under their scrutiny. After a second or two, you can't take any more of it. "... I kind of maybe could have brought, uh... something with me from in there, a bit," you admit, pointing at the destroyed relic.

"You didn't," says Brenby. He studies you hard. A moment later, he puts his head in his hands. "No, you definitely did."

"Imperius says hi?" you offer. "I couldn't just leave her in there all alone again!"

"What is wrong with you?" Avress demands. "You can't just let a Sith ghost into your head! When is that ever a good idea?"

"Sometimes it is!" you say.

"No, she's basically right," Imperius says, with the tone of long experience. "It's never worth it, really."

"You're not helping!" you shoot back. To everyone else, this just looks like you shouting at thin air.

Before anyone can keep yelling at you or anything horrible like that, the relic begins to spark more violently, hairline cracks forming along the furrows Avress carved into it. A deep, bass pressure seems to exude from it.

"That's going to explode," Imperius tells you.

"That looks like it's going to explode!" Elra says. You close your mouth, preempted.

"Time to go," says Brenby.

"What about Jedi Knight Rist?" Avress demands.

"She made her choice," Brenby says. "It was brave. Let's make use of it." He's already headed toward your exit, expecting you all to follow.

"Avress, we need to go," Keel tells her, a hand on Elra's shoulder. His sister is really flagging, with all the stresses of this misadventure, and seeing her like that seems to make Avress deeply torn. She doesn't know what to do.

Do you?

Article:

What do you do?

[ ] Escape now, get the twins to safety, and...
- [ ] ... convince Avress to come with you
- [ ] ... tell Avress to help Amira

[ ] Stay behind to help Amira and...
- [ ] ... give Brenby the holocron, even though Avress will see it
- [ ] ... keep the holocron — you'll catch up later

 

[Gazetteer]

Spoiler: results

[X] Stay behind to help Amira and keep the holocron — you'll catch up later: 14

Stay behind to help Amira and give Brenby the holocron, even though Avress will see it: 11

Escape now, get the twins to safety, and convince Avress to come with you: 1

Lord Myre's swordsmanship is explosive in its intensity, the cold precision of Makashi married to the rage of a Sith Lord in the heat of battle. Every cut and thrust aimed to kill or main, contemptuous hatred for Amira Rist oozing from his every motion.

"Your struggle amuses me, Jedi," Myre says, his smile a vicious baring of teeth. A predator toying with cornered prey.

Amira ignores it. She knows what he's doing, trying to unbalance her, to break her calm and make her fall to her passions. She barely has time to register the thought when he lashes out like a striking serpent, violet blade poised to run her through on the spot. Amira, in that ineffable state where she doesn't know where she ends and the will of the Force begins, lets it guide her — she takes a step to the side, lightsaber flowing into a series of perfect Shien parries, weathering blow after furious blow with a calmly graceful defence.

"You delay the inevitable," Myre tells her. "Once you've fallen, do you think that those you shelter will last long? My foolish Apprentice and those two little girls you call Padawans?" He doesn't know who Skylah is — that means Jorden Venn didn't tell him anything at all of value, holding fast even as a captive of the Sith. The thought is heartening. Amira must match his example.

She parries another blow, rolls to avoid the next, allowing Myre the initiative in a bid to simply outlast him, allowing him to tire himself out as the hurricane pace of his assault takes its inevitable toll, broken against the fortress of her defence. It's a precarious strategy at best, however — just as Amira allows the Force to guide her movements, Lord Myre seizes it violently, bends it to his will, twisting it into a weapon to be wielded.

Here, a cut scores a glancing burn on her shoulder. There, a stab very nearly goes right through her skull. Amira is a Knight of the Jedi Order. She has passed her trials, is worthy of the weapon she carries. At the same time, she's never been a great warrior. She's dedicated her life to uncovering lost knowledge, not to combat. And a Sith, any Sith, is a mortal foe indeed, one against whom even the slightest weakness can mean the end. There comes a point, crossing blades with him yet again, that Amira begins to understand: This duel will end with her death.

There is no Death, there is the Force.

Amira weaves her way through this impromptu crypt, this dumping ground for Myre's hapless forebears, driven all the while by her enemy. Their blades flash and snap with each parry, adding to the unworldly, nightmare atmosphere. She turns aside yet another deathblow, and barely senses the flick of Myre's offhand wrist in time: A skeletal corpse sails through the air toward her, still gripping the rusted remnants of a warblade. Amira slices it in two before it can crash into her, but the move puts her fractionally off balance. She spins in time to avoid a disembowelment, but the tip of the plasma blade still skates across her stomach, carving a line of searing pain into her skin. A ferocious followup swing sends Amira stumbling backward, exposed for the few seconds Myre needs.

His empty hand lashes out again, breaking through her defences and hurling her bodily into the stone wall behind her. Amira's head makes contact, and she sees nothing but stars, the Force slipping from her mind. She has barely managed to slide bonelessly to the floor when an invisible hand wraps around her throat, lifting her up and slamming her back against the wall with jarring force. Her lightsaber slips from her grip, the angry, orange blade hissing off as it falls.

"And so it ends," Myre says. The room is suddenly shaking, for some reason. Amira doesn't know if that's true, or just a result of her circumstances. She tries to reform her spiritual defences, to break his telekinetic hold on her, but he's squeezing so tightly that blackness is creeping in around the edges of her vision. "I'd ask if you have any last words, but..." His grip tightens, denying her the luxury of even a cry of pain. The Sith Lord laughs.

"Stop!" a voice declares. Myre turns to face the newcomer.

==========

Skylah

"Go," you say, facing Avress. "I'll help Amira."

Avress looks at you, startled. "You'll... I can't just leave both of you!" Something deep in the core of her stiff, proud being clearly balks at what seems so much like cowardice.

"Well, sure, but like... you kind of can? You should get them out. They need you right now." You gesture to Keel and Elra — his hands are still full supporting her.

"This is not a good idea!" Imperius hisses, only for you to hear. The others aren't far behind, though.

"Skylah," Keel begins, "you can't just—"

Brenby's raised voice runs roughshod over him. "Rist made her choice. Respect that."

"I won't!" you say. "I mean, not— I respect it! I'm just not going to let her die. It'll be fine, I'll catch up!"

His Force Sight bores into your awareness, reminding you the thing you're carrying that he has done all this for the sake of. "Trust me," you say, voice plaintive. "Help Avress. Keep them safe for me. I'll catch up." The room shakes ominously, cracks forming the walls.

Brenby sighs thunderously, and turns on his heel again. "May the Force give you strength," he says, his back to you.

"And you," you tell him, grinning with relief.

Avress wavers. "But..."

"Come with us, or stay," Brenby snaps. "Decide now." Avress glares at him, but the room trembles again, dust falls ominously from the ceiling.

Avress wavers. "But..."

"Come with us," Elra whispers to her. "Please."

You watch Avress's resolve fold on the spot.

The last thing you see as you turn a away are Keel's pretty, yellow eyes on you. "Good luck," he whispers.

"Thanks!" you say. Then you're running down the passageway, back the way you all came.

"Why did you go through the trouble of dragging me into your head if you're only going to get yourself killed five minutes later?" demands Imperius, gliding along beside you.

"The same reason I saved you even though you could like, eat my soul probably or something!" you tell her in between breaths, running flat-out down the red-lit, already-quaking hallway.

"I am not going to eat your soul!" she says, appalled.

"So, it wasn't such a bad decision!" She puts her head in her hands, a strange look for a ghostly Force apparition floating along beside you. You try not to spend too much time watching her, to avoid tripping, or running headlong into a wall.

What propels you forward isn't the fear that you'll die or be too late. Rather, it's the hope that you'll make it. A determination to see everyone out of here in one piece. The Force is your friend and ally in this, helping you retrace your steps where you reach out and ask it to, spurring your feet onward faster than you could ever run on your own.

"You have some skill with a lightsaber," Imperius says, "but I don't think you're ready for this. A true Lord of the Sith, if I understand correctly — not one of those pale wraiths from before."

"Maybe not," you say, "but I don't have to be ready to fight one on my own to help out Amira."

"Are you prepared to arrive there and find her already dead?" Imperius asks.

"Probably not, because that would be horrible! But... it's probably not going to be that. Jedi are tricky."

"They are," Imperius allows, voice implying long experience with tricky Jedi. "When they're not unrelentingly straight-forward, that is."

Are you ready to face a Lord of the Sith? Words from a lesson you'd half-forgotten drift back into your head. Your pa'ma's voice, that particular kind of stern where you know it just means she wants you to pay careful attention:

"The difference between a Lord of the Sith and an Apprentice is not merely martial. 'Through strength, I gain power' — power is the capacity to bend the galaxy to one's will. The Force. People. Nations. A lord of the Sith has the power to rule others, and the strength to keep what they have. Should you ever corner one away from their followers and pawns, be prepared for a fight that tests your resolve as well as your might. They will seek to dominate your emotions, twist them against you. There are those who have sought me out over the years — young Sith seeking to test their skills against a master of Form II. None of those who faced me yet live. Let this be a lesson to you."

You sense them before you see them, the stone around you trembling more all the time, bits of masonry threatening to tumble loose. Lord Myre stands before you, thin and yellow-eyed, face a mask of gleeful hate as he squeezes the life out of Amira Rist, holding her aloft by the throat with the Force and laughing.

"Stop!" you shout. You don't yet draw your weapon.

The Sith Lord turns his gaze on you, as though you're an interesting insect he's probably going to smash anyway. "And who will make me stop, girl? Not you, surely."

"This whole place is about to come down on your head!" you tell him. "That will stop you even if I can't. We already smashed the relic you're after!"

Myre's face contorts in utter fury, glaring daggers at you. He flings Amira aside with a cruel flick of his wrist. She tumbles on the bone-strewn floor, then lies still. "Years I have been on this miserable planet," he snarls. "Years! And you rob me of my prize and leave me to face my master's displeasure? You will not leave this place, and I regret only that your suffering will be brief!"

The intensity of his anger, how much he means every word he says, how much he wants to hurt you, comes crashing down on you like a wave of Darkness. "Well... Well, fine, be that way!" you draw Jorden's lightsaber in both hands, igniting the blue blade.

He raises his own in one hand, holding it vertically in front of his face. The standard Makashi salute, one you've seen your pa'ma do countless times in training bouts. He doesn't do it out of any respect for you, though. It's mocking, challenging, the flourish that brings it into a low guard expressing something beyond arrogance.

Makashi excels at situations like this — two combatants armed with lightsabers, no blasters, no interference. But you know that he was trained by Darth Shaed, who shared a master with your pa'ma. Djem So is a good match for her particular Form II variant, its impressive defence holding fast against an all-out assault and its powerful counterblows smashing aside Form II's lighter guards. You've seen your mom do this in sparring. The problem, of course, is that you've never managed to beat your pa'ma like this even once, no matter what you try. You'll just have to hope that Myre isn't as good as she is.

You fall into your two-handed ready stance. "Please, don't die," Imperius intones beside you. You have no time to respond. As you anticipate, Lord Myre moves first. You can predict what he's going to do, you know that lunge-cut combo exactly. Nonetheless, that first pass is the closest you've ever come to death, and you emerge with a plasma burn running up your arm, your jacket sleeve smoking and in tatters.

"Well done, child," Myre says. "You've already lasted longer than I expected." He says it like you won't last very much more.

"Uh... tha—" You don't have time to respond, to retaliate, to recover, to think. It's all you can do to survive second-to-second as he falls on you with all the wrath he can bring to bear. Small wounds pile up, the pain dragging down your movements bit by bit. This all happens over the course of seconds that seem to drag out to hours.

Then, his blade hooks under yours, the humming,lethal plasma field sending Jorden's lightsaber spinning out of your grasp as you fall back, landing on top of a Sith corpse, staring up at your own death.

"Give me control, I can do this for you!" Imperius says.

"Now, you die," Myre tells you, lightsaber poised to run you through.

"I can't!" you protest, to one of them, or both.

"Trust me!" Imperius implores, from over his shoulder.

Article:

What do you do?

[ ] Trust Imperius
[ ] Trust yourself

 

[Gazetteer]

Spoiler: Results

Trust Imperius: 23
Trust yourself: 6

Skylah

"Trust me!"

Isn't that what you've been asking of others this whole time? How can you do any less yourself?

"Fine! Fine! Take it!" you shout. As you do, you give over control, like fumbling something precious into her steady hands.

"Good choice," she says. Then command of your body is ripped away from you faster than you can cry out.

You feel yourself react so quickly that leaves you disoriented. She doesn't bother with the lightsaber that was hurled from your hand earlier. Instead, she goes for the ancient saberstaff that you'd forgotten was hanging from your belt. Her saberstaff. A deeper purple blade meets Myre's violet one, turning aside the stab that would have gone straight through your heart. Your foot sweeps out, and he has to leap back to avoid being tripped, eyes widening in startlement.

"Lord Myre, was it?" It comes out of your mouth in your voice, rendered unfamiliar by Imperius's Dromund Kaas accent. Your body straightens, activating the other side of the saber staff and leaping smoothly to her feet. Despite the dire circumstances, the deadly foe, the ruins about to collapse on top of you all, Imperius is thrilled. Joyful nearly to the point of giddiness at having a body again — a Force sensitive one, this time! She reaches out to the Force now, greeting it like a beloved servant that's been awaiting her long-delayed return.

Lord Myre stares, able to tell that something has fundamentally changed about his opponent. "Who are you?"

"Allow me to introduce myself: Darth Imperius, Dark Lord of the Sith." She adopts an unfamiliar stance — you've never been trained in saberstaff techniques, but you're certain that this low guard is not entirely orthodox.

Myre can't repress a look of shock, for a moment. Afterward, though, his eyes harden again. "I will not be bested by a dead woman's mad ghost possessing a child." He lunges forward. Your body almost seems to melt away from him, tilting aside from his lightsaber, spinning around him to give him a scything slash across the back. Your body fades away again when he whirls to counter, and he only earns a plasma burn streaking down his sword arm for his trouble.

"You will be," Imperius tells him, your lips twitching up into a sardonic smirk that is deeply alien to your face. "You will die here, and no one will mourn you. A sad little failure of a Sith Lord, too weak even to bully a 'child.'" You try very hard to send her the thought that you're not a child. As it turns out, she makes talking without a body seem much easier than it actually is.
Myre roars with anger, but there is fear in his eyes now. Imperius fights like the ghost that she is. Your body is always just out of reach, flitting out of the path of deathblows with insulting ease, never letting Myre get the momentum that he so desperately needs. You're disturbed to realise just how much she's enjoying his growing terror. True, she's using positive passions to reach the Force, but she's still, after all, a Sith. And she wants to break this opponent, not merely win.

He feints to the left before reversing course, an expert blow to cleave your head from your shoulders. Imperius ducks, rolls, and in the same motion slashes deep into the nearest of his ankles. As she comes up, the other end of her saberstaff follows through, nearly cutting his sword arm off. Lord Myre gasps, falling to one knee. He still manages to Force pull his weapon into his offhand and parry the executioner's blow bearing down on him. It isn't the real threat, though.

Imperius thrusts your suddenly empty left hand at his chest, fingers arcing toward him. You've known the basics of the Sith's relationship to the Force for most of your life. That it is not an ally, or a friend, or something sacred to be revered and passively guided by. To a Sith, the Force is a resource to be used, a weapon at best, a slave at worst. You feel it as she seizes the Force with a conqueror's grip, and for a horrible moment, breaks its will entirely. Lightning pours out from your fingers, coursing into Myre's body, lighting him up with purest agony. The Force doesn't want to be used this way, doesn't want to be reduced to an instrument of petty torture, and that sensation is almost uniquely upsetting to you.

It's also exhilarating, a heady mix of guilt and power, disgust and vengeful elation, feeding each other inside of you with their sheer opposition. Myre has nothing left to defend himself with -- the lightning takes him, fills him, stabbing at his heart and his mind, hurling his body into the far wall at bone breaking speed. You know he's dead even before the wet crunch his spine makes against the stone.

You try very hard to express your discomfort. This time, Imperius responds out loud. "I did what I said I would." She doesn't even look at the corpse as your body steps past it, going to where Amira Rist is struggling to rise. Imperius kneels down beside her. "Hello again, Jedi," she says, still smiling with your mouth again.

"... what have you done?" Amira manages.

"Nothing that wasn't willingly allowed," Imperius says, voice cool. The room shudders again, more violently than ever. A brick falls out of the ceiling, shattering a skeleton beneath it. "Well, time to go. Please, do not die on me after all this, Skylah."

You're back in control with no further warning, gasping like you're breaking the surface after too long underwater. You don't waste any time — you slip your shoulder under Amira's arm, lifting her to her feet. "Sorry!" you say, at her initial wince of pain.

"... You brought her out with you," Amira murmurs. Her voice is hoarse and pained from her recent strangulation.

"Uh, yeah, maybe a little," you agree. Scooping it up from the floor by her foot, you press her lightsaber into her hand. You can tell it's precious to her. She closes her fingers around its dark handle.

"You shouldn't have come back," Amira tells you. She manages to walk along with your help, moving at a good enough pace.

"Do you want to die?" you ask her.

"I'm a Jedi Knight," she says. "I was ready to."

"Do you want to, though?"

"... No," Amira admits. "All things being equal."

"Then it's good I came back!" You steer her back into the narrow hallway, retracing your steps as fast as you can once again. "These things just work out, sometimes."

"If you're going to give that sort of line, you're on your own next time," Imperius says. She's back floating beside you. It's all a little disorienting, the lingering feeling of the Dark Side power she wielded still tingling in your limbs, the memory of the words she'd spoken lingering on your tongue.

"Well, excuse me for being an optimist!" you say. It comes out a little angrier than you mean it to.

Amira looks at you with obvious concern, but doesn't have the energy to ask, and focuses instead on helping you both get out of this awful place. It's practically falling apart around you now. The Force is all that saves you and Amira from being brained by falling rocks several times over, and even then, you're stumbling down the corridor like a pair of lucky drunks more than trained adepts fleetly dodging your way past danger.

Finally, you make it back to the hellishly glowing artifact, a mess of rocks and crumbling crystal now. The passage up is still open, thankfully, even if navigating the stairs with Amira and this much shaking is far from easy. The strange, pervasive lightsource that casts the whole place in its sinister, red glow is gone. Now, there's a dot of light ahead, and a long stretch of dark between you and it. Neither of you have drawn your lightsabers again for light — it would be impossibly dangerous to do so, in the current circumstances.

"Skylah!"

The familiar voice startles you, coming from out of the darkness. "Brenby? What are you still doing here?"

"Waiting for you!" he snaps, and you feel him strain more than see it, struggling to hold up the ceiling with the Force, making sure there's still a way out for you on your return.

You start to ask, "Are you okay—"

He cuts you off. "We need to leave. Now."

"He's right," says Amira.

"Rist, come here." Brenby unceremoniously lifts the injured Jedi up and away from you, turns, and begins to climb the stairs at a rapid pace, carrying her as he goes.

"Why did you come back for me, though?" you ask him.

"Isn't it obvious?" he demands.

"I mean, like, uh... there are maybe a couple reasons it could be? So it's kind of—" you nearly fall as the stairs buck under your feet. Why couldn't the Ancient Sith invent handrails, while they were making doors that stab you when you open them and horrible soul trapping crystal things? "Gah! It's kind of ambiguous?"

"Is this really the time for this?" Imperius hisses in your ear.

"Do you actually expect me to answer that right now?" Brenby asks.

"... No," you say, to both of them.

You fall silent then, focusing on the treacherous climb ahead of you. The light at the top of the tunnel grows as you grow closer and closer to it, until you're near enough to actually taste the fresh air of the forest beyond. Brenby, still carrying Amira, busts out into the light. You're right behind him... but you sense the stairs crumbling beneath you a second or two before they actually go. With a startled scream, you feel yourself slipping backwards.

Snarling with alarm, Brenby whips around, stretching out with his free hand to grab at you with the Force, pulling you up and out just ahead of the tunnel coming down on top of you. You hit the dirt hard, roll down a steep embankment, and come to a rest against a large rock.

You give a sigh of relief as Brenby throws himself and Amira down beside you. It's a short-lived feeling — the entire temple, the vine-choked top of the inverted pyramid visible above you, is in the process of collapsing down onto itself, dragging the entire top of the slope with it. Trees, rocks, and anything else unfortunate enough to be too close go with it. You watch, wide-eyed, as a group of armoured insurgents fall screaming into the rubble.

In the end, all that's left is a large crater of broken masonry, churned earth, and ravaged vegetation. You have no idea if Keel and the others are alright, or where they might have ended up in this mess. "Are you two hurt?" you whisper to Amira and Brenby. You're not actually sure why you're whispering.

"No worse than before," Amira says.

Brenby groans, in frustration more than pain. "I twisted my ankle on the way down."

You frown in concern. "It's not bad, is it? Do you need—"

"Down below!" Imperius's voice and pointing finger alerts you to the threat a moment before it announces itself with an achingly familiar snap-hiss. A softly-orange lightsaber flares to life through the dust in that direction. Your lightsaber!

Sith Apprentice Jyte Blackstar strides forward, blade held in her uninjured left hand, advancing on a group you recognise with a stab of mixed relief: Avress and the two Pantorans, sheltering further down the hill.

Avress stands to oppose the young Sith, but even as she does, red blaster fire lashes out at her — more insurgents supporting the only Sith left standing. Avress blocks, but she's soon going to be contending with both the soldiers and a grinning, bloodthirsty Jyte.

A hero's work is never done! Or so you read in a book once. Your two companions are somehow in worse shape than you are.

Article:

What do you do?

[ ] Intercept Jyte, leave Avress and the others to deal with the soldiers
[ ] Try to occupy the soldiers, letting Avress handle Jyte

 

[Gazetteer]

Spoiler: results

Try to occupy the soldiers, letting Avress handle Jyte: 18

Intercept Jyte, leave Avress and the others to deal with the soldiers: 15

Skylah

"Wait here!" you say to Amira. Despite the day's many strains and bruises, you're up and running down hill before either she or Brenby can stop you, Imperius's unlit saberstaff clutched in one hand.

"Skylah!" Benby calls after you. He takes a step as if to follow, then gasps, grabbing the boulder you'd all been sheltering behind for support. That might be more than just a twisted ankle. There's no time to check in on him, though, no time to stop and talk it through or make a plan. At the bottom of this hill, Avress is standing protectively in front of the two Pantorans, guarding them against a group of soldiers and an approaching Sith apprentice. The Force guides your path down the twisted and broken hillside, keeping you from killing yourself despite your breakneck speed. You leap from fallen tree to boulder to tumbled piece of ancient masonry.

You make your final leap, one side of the purple saberstaff humming to life in your hands, clearing Avress's head easily and landing on the far side of her. You're just in time to deflect a blaster bolt back into the chest of the soldier who fired it. The helmeted woman goes down with a scream — your third kill, now. Or even fourth, if you count Lord Myre.

"I'll cover you! You take Jyte!" you tell Avress.

"You!" Jyte snarls, rounding on you. Her attention nearly costs her — you hear the back half of Avress's saberstaff come alive, spinning through the air to just barely be stopped by the lightsaber Jyte stole from you. You can't turn back to look at them, though. Your own task won't let you look anywhere else.

You advance on the soldiers, and one of them shouts: "Scatter!" They all instantly dart in different directions, finding cover in the mess of a hillside. They barely even pause in their blaster fire, now aimed squarely at you. Coming as it is from all different directions, it's hard to address one without opening yourself up to be shot in the back.

"Ah, good," says Imperius, "even if this is the sad state the Sith Empire is reduced to, they still know how to fight a Jedi."

"I'm not a Jedi!" you shout, flowing through anti-blaster forms, the long handle of the saberstaff strange in your hands, even held one-sided.

She is unconcerned by this distinction. "They don't know that, though. Be careful with the weapon, please — you're holding one of the oldest functioning Sith lightsabers in existence. It's been in my family in some form for thousands of years."

"But, I thought you used to be a slave!" you say, still mostly distracted by your attempts to avoid being riddled with holes.

"Correct. However, despite the old Imperial propaganda, slaves are not a naturally occurring resource. They are made, not born."

Ouch! "Right, sorry, I— Sorry!" In your defence, most Imperial slaves don't have ancient Sith blood regardless. It's not the sort of thing you can exactly dispute, though, especially not while in combat like this.

You're holding your own, but you still can't even spare the time to check on Avress or the others. Fortunately, a lighter blaster bolt comes sailing past you from behind, clipping one of the insurgents. "Keep covering me!" Keel calls.

"Sure, I can do that!" you shout back. That's the hope, anyway.

==========

Avress

You're tired, battered, and pushed to your last nerve. You've spent far too much of a terrible two days in the company of multiple unrepentant Sith who you've had to accept as allies, all while your master is off being subjected to Force knows what at the hands of others like them. You've been compelled to abandon a fellow Jedi to die while Skylah — whatever Skylah even is — threw all caution to the wind to go back and save her. Now at last, things are simple. Behind you there are people to protect. In front of you is an evildoer. No temporary alliances or confusing ambiguity, just this woman's sword against your own.

"Surrender, Sith," you say. "Your master is dead. Your troops are scattered."

The Sith smiles at you, her eyes dancing with cruel anticipation. "A charming offer. But I think I'll carve a few pieces off of you instead. Then the other two aliens. Then Brenby, so I'll be the last Sith left on Tyrost. The mouthy girl last, I have plans for her." Jyte flexes her maimed hand as she mentions Skylah, seeming to exalt in the pain from the motion. The stumps of her missing fingers are concealed beneath kolto-infused bandages. Her eyes never leave you, whoever else she's talking about, like a predator eyeing its next meal.

"Very well, then," you say, face hardening. "You leave me no choice."

Her smile turns savage, her slim form positively shaking with sheer, bloody-minded impatience for a fight. All at once, in this single moment of respite before Jyte falls upon you again, you look into those rabid eyes and understand something: You are looking at the natural endpoint of your own greatest shortcomings. Your own impatience, arrogance, desire to prove yourself in combat. This feral beast of a human is where such things end if they are left unchecked. It's a stark warning, disturbing in its own way. It also brings with it a startling insight: You know how to fight this woman.

With a battlecry, Jyte lunges for you, every bit as skillful with her left hand as she would have been with her right. You meet her calmly, a tree in a storm that will sway, but never break. You have the quiet satisfaction of watching her mouth twist in frustration as her every murderous blow is turned aside by your unwavering Soresu guard.

Your master warned you when you first told him you intended to build a saberstaff. There are drawbacks to such a design: More unwieldy and less versatile than a traditional lightsaber, in truth closer to a polearm than a sword. Such a weapon does have its advantages, though, and you lean on them for all they're worth. You don't let her close with you, using your saberstaff's long handle as well as your greater reach to ward her off, countering at angles that would be otherwise impossible.

Jyte stabs at your chest. You block, sliding back out of the way. She circles around to go for your arm, and you spin away from her, your followup forcing her back before she can do as much as she'd like. You don't pursue as she retreats, this or any time.

"What's with that expression, like you don't even care?" Jyte demands. "I'll give you something to scream about in a moment!" You don't give her anything. No aggression, no banter, no fear. Only resolve, and the peace of the Force guiding your hand. You can tell that she absolutely hates it.

"Just die, you alien filth!" There's a madness in her eyes now, practically glowing with malevolence and the Dark Side. A tunnel-vision rage that precludes everything aside from killing you. You expect it to make her sloppy: It doesn't.

She goes in for a low stab, and you trap her lightsaber easily, the warm orange of her blade crackling as it meets the green of your own, just like a dozen times before. Ahead of any further response from you, Jyte flips up into the air, executing an impossible cartwheel in the process. Her durasteel-toed boot cracks hard against your jaw, and when she comes down, she's inside your guard. You jerk your head to the side, taking a plasma burn on your neck instead of a decapitating blow. Her knee slams into your gut a second later, driving the breath from you, forcing you back.

"Not so serene now, are you? Not so above it—" A rock, of all things, strikes Jyte square in the temple. She gasps, staggers under the blow. Without even thinking, you carve her chest wide open, and she crumples lifelessly to the ground.

Still stunned, you stare at Jyte's body uncomprehendingly for a fraction of a second, before looking up to see Elra staring right back at you. She's breathing hard, the same hand that threw the rock still shaking. Nearby, you see Skylah still shielding you and the Pantorans, several of the soldiers dead to her and Keel's efforts. Despite your pain, you tense to leap to her aid.

"Stand down!"

Your head jerks up to find Brenby hobbling down the slope toward you. For a moment, you think he's talking to you, until he follows up the command by thrusting out a hand and telekinetically choking one of the soldiers. "I said, stand down!"

To your surprise, with only a moment's hesitation, they do. Blaster rifles hit the dirt, hands go up into the air. The soldier he's choking lets out a pained gasp as he can breathe again, sliding limply to the ground. "Thank you, my lord!" he croaks. You realise what this means after a brief confusion: Brenby is the only Sith left standing. These people will follow his lead, at least for now, for all that they'd been trying to kill you all a moment before. The lingering depravity of a nation created by Sith.

Still, it means that, for the time being, things are fine. Brenby limps over to 'his' people. Keel drops fully to the ground, panting. Skylah just stands there, tiny shoulders slumping, bone-tired. You deactivate your weapon, and without the background hum the silence rings almost painfully in your ears amidst the smoke and death and rubble of this place.

Elra is the one you don't expect. She throws her arms around you the moment you're no longer holding a lit saberstaff, looking up at you with those yellow eyes in that gorgeous face. "You're hurt!" she says.

"I'm fine, thanks to you," you tell her, a heroic smile crossing your lips. You hope it's heroic, anyway. Elra doesn't pull away, or break eye contact. Neither of you do. If anything, she seems to be getting closer. Oh no. Oh no. You can feel heat rushing to your face.

Article:

What do you do???

[ ] Remember that there is no passion, there is— oh no why are you kissing her
[ ] Create an extremely awkward distraction
[ ] Explain Jedi views of non-attachment to her, badly. Skylah will 'help'

 

[Gazetteer]

Spoiler: results

Remember that there is no passion, there is— oh no why are you kissing her: 18

Explain Jedi views of non-attachment to her, badly. Skylah will 'help': 17

Create an extremely awkward distraction: 2

Skylah

Your breath comes in ragged gasps, shoulders slumped at this sudden resolution. Still, you flash Brenby a grin of beaming gratitude. He's not facing you, but he'll notice, you're sure.

As you move, your foot kicks an object on the ground. You glance down — your lightsaber! You snatch it up, running your hands over it like a long lost friend, fingers curling around its long grip.

"Jyte took this from me, before," you tell Imperius.

"It does look like it would suit your style," Imperius decides.

"Yeah, it's based off of my mom's," you say. You turn to look at the results of Avress's duel with Jyte. Your eyes are pulled away from the Sith Apprentice's sad form on the ground to settle on the sight of Avress and Elra.

Oh, wow. That escalated quickly!

Elra has her arms flung around Avress's neck, kissing her industriously. The Jedi seems helpless to do anything but hold her close and kiss her back, strong arms wrapped around the Pantoran woman like she's something rare and precious.

"She always did like them strong and serious," Keel says, amused, as he sidles up beside you.

"Well that works out then," you decide, still grinning.

"If you say so." Keel glances up the hill as he says this, and you follow his pointed gaze. Amira Rist is looking on from a little ways up, taking in the scene as she climbs carefully down toward you all.

"I have no idea what I'm going to tell her master," you hear Amira say in tones of mild despair.

"I think it's cute!" you say in a stage whisper.

Amira bites down on the length of her index finger as she glances your way, a nervous tic you haven't seen from her so far. "I doubt he'll think so. Assuming he's... well enough for that to be a concern." She moves past you, heading in Avress and Elra's direction.

"My master would not have killed him this quickly," Brenby says from behind you.

You crane your neck up and back to look at him. "Can you let him go, then? Since you're like, in charge or whatever?"

There's a pause. You're trusting him again, you both realise, and this time he has much more power over the situation even than he had when you first met. Finally, Brenby says, "I can."

You turn around to fling your arms around him briefly. He goes rigid at the gesture, but at least doesn't shove you off. "We really need to work on that," you tell him.

Avress seems to have noticed her audience. Coming up for air, she looks at Amira, face flushing dark green with deepest mortification. "... Jedi Knight Rist! I... I didn't realise you were here." There's a note of panic in her voice.

"Indeed not, Padawan," Amira says. She's had time to take her finger away from her mouth and adopt something a little more stern and authoritative. "It is good you're unharmed."

Elra, reading the mood, gives an exhausted sort of laugh, leaning up and kissing Avress on the cheek before stepping away from her.

You glance between the two Jedi, the tension of the situation getting to you after all this. "Brenby says we can go get Jorden!" you blurt out. That makes both Amira and Avress look at you. "He says Jorden should be alright!"

"... Alive, I said," Brenby corrects.

You wince. "Brenby says he's alive!" you say. Beside you, Imperius winces.

One of the soldiers who'd been shooting at you moments before steps up. He addresses Brenby with the sort of respect usually reserved for dubiously-tamed nexu. "... My Lord?" he asks, uncertain.

"We have a truce with the Jedi," Brenby says. The soldier freezes up for a moment, clearly not liking this much. Brenby's voice takes on an air of menace. "Was I unclear?"

"No, my Lord!" the soldier says. He salutes.

Well, you're sure this will go fine.

==========

You'd worried that, even under truce, going back to the insurgent base would be stressful and hideously awkward. This is because, sometimes, you're actually pretty smart.

You flinch away from the hard stares, even as Brenby's presence seems to ward off any potential violence. "So, we're not killing them this time, my Lord?" Corporal Dee, Brenby's aide, is at least still seemingly chipper, even if she's obviously confused by all this.

"We aren't," Brenby confirms, leading the way confidently through dim hallways and past many glaring people with blasters. Avress is right on his heels, eager to confirm her master is really alright. Amira brings up the rear, nerves from before hidden back away behind Jedi calm. The Pantorans walk in between, ahead of her and behind you.

"Make sure no one disturbs us," Brenby orders Dee, coming to the door to his master's private chambers. He slides the door open like he owns the place. The first room is about what you expected. Some shelves with shady Sith things on them, strange equipment, a full-sized holocomm setup. Brenby ignores all of these, heading for one of several doors branching off of this room.

The door slides open as he keys in the code, and you instantly recoil from what's inside. A harsh, antiseptic scent drifts out from a place of durasteel surfaces and what almost looks like medical equipment. Except, medbays don't have this much of an aura of darkness and pain hanging over them.

This is a torture chamber.

"Master!" Avress pushes ahead, running for the body strapped down to a table inside. "Help me get him free!" she snaps at Brenby. To your surprise, he doesn't argue.

"Calm yourself, Padawan," says a quiet voice from within, not unkindly. You feel a surge of relief — Jorden really is still here. You didn't leave him to die when he told you to go with Brenby.

You have things you'd like to say to him still, of course, like apologising for having lost his lightsaber in the ruins. But the horrible room isn't so big, especially with Avress and Brenby already inside and Amira standing in the doorway. So you back off, awkwardly waiting outside with Keel, Elra, and Imperius.

Out here, you hang back awkwardly, most of your concentration going to trying your best not to eavesdrop, edging slowly away from the doorway. You become aware of a familiar chiming sound, and begin patting your pockets for a personal holocomm unit. At this point, you realise it's coming from the full-sized unit behind you, a rounded, table-like apparatus up against one wall. Without thinking, you've already hit the answer button on the control panel.

Immediately, Brenby pushes his way out of the torture chamber, hissing: "No!" It's too late.

A figure flickers to life in blue-cast monochrome. A tiny humanoid woman as short as you are, wrapped in ostentatious robes, face covered by an ornate mask that hides everything but her eyes. These last fill the eyeholes without visible pupils or sclera, faintly luminous even through this projection. Brenby freezes in the doorframe, very much not wanting to enter into the holocomm's pickup range, where this woman could see him.

You're every bit as rooted in place, unable to do anything but stare at the masked woman, a nervous grin spreading over your face. "Uh, hi?"

"You aren't Lord Myre," the woman says. She has the sort of posh Dromund Kaas accent that your pa'ma does. The kind of perfect diction that comes from having it beaten into you until however you'd spoken Basic before is nigh physically expunged from your mind.

"No, no, I'm definitely not," you say. You don't like the way she looks at you, somehow, despite not being able to see her face. It's like being a rodent in front of a predatory bird preoccupied with whether it's hungry or not. "I"m, uh... Skylah."

"Do you know who I am?" asks the woman. There's an odd, artificial quality to her voice, beyond just the comm static. It goes a little tinny at the extremes of her range, whenever her mocking lilt swoops up too high. On her belt, you notice what is clearly a hinged saberstaff, currently folded.

You have a good idea of who this is, and it makes your heart sink just thinking about it. "Yeah, uh... probably I might," you say, voice sheepish.

Darth Shaed, self-styled Dark Lord of the SIth, throws back her head and laughs, an unhinged cackle that sends a shiver down your spine. "Oh, very cute. Is Myre dead?"

"A bit," you admit. "Well, no. He's a lot dead."

"And what do you imagine I'll do to the one who killed my servant?" Shaed asks, voice still playful.

"Uh... honestly I'll pass on imagining that?" Imperius buries her face in her hands. From the corner of your eye, you see Amira hovering nearby, ready to intervene if this all goes bad. "Like it's just going to just boil down to 'killing them horribly', right?" Your mouth just keeps going, your very real fear of a woman who you know to be a dangerous psychopath with a possible grudge against your family actually making it harder to stop.

Shaed pauses, spearing you with her uncanny gaze. "You said your name is... Skylah?" It's not quite a question — she's turning the information she already has over in her head, trying to rule out the horrible suspicion that she's increasingly sure might be true. "Just who are you, little girl?" Shaed's voice is abruptly sharp, piercing.

Article:

What do you tell her?

[ ] Tell Shaed the truth
[ ] Lie unconvincingly
[ ] Throw Shaed off her game on purpose

 

[Gazetteer]

Spoiler: results

Throw Shaed off on purpose: 19

Tell Shaed the truth: 10

Lie unconvincingly: 5

Turn off the holocomm off. With your lightsaber: 1

Skylah

You stare at the hologram of Darth Shaed, heart pounding in your chest. Who are you? That's a dangerous question, under the circumstances. You don't want a murderous dark lord taking out old grudges on you. "I'm, uh, you know. Just passing through!"

Shaed stares, voice scathingly incredulous. "Just passing through?

"Yeah, that's what I just said. Are you okay? You know, because of your apprentice."

Shaed pauses in whatever she was about to say. "Am I--" It takes her a moment or two to find her footing again in the face of your genuine apology. "Of course I am, he was my apprentice, nothing more sentimental than that!"

"Oh," you say, shrugging as if you don't understand the dynamic she's describing at all. "That's sad."

"What on Korriban are you talking about?" Shaed demands.

"It's sad," you insist. "Everyone should have people who care about him. I didn't like him much, but no one actually seems upset that he died. So! That's sad. Seems kind of lonely."

"I do not have time for this," Shaed mutters, squeezing her eyes shut for a long moment. "Tell me what happened to Lord Myre."

You shrug. "Well, uh, the ruins kind of collapsed on top of him. Like, all the ruins."

This draws her attention fully. A wild fixation that does nothing to diminish her volatile, predatory aura. "My relic?"

"Everything down there got buried," you say. "Sorry!"

She seems to go perfectly still for a long moment. Then you notice that she's trembling slightly, a terrible, agitated energy running through her tiny frame, building and building toward some terrible end. When it finally reaches the inevitably bursting point, she lets out a savage, piercing scream, hurling a saberstaff that is suddenly in her hands, snapped open and lit. You see the blade scything through away from her, sailing out of pickup range of the holocomm. Shaed is briefly bathed in a shower of bright sparks, before the weapon flies close enough for her to snatch it back out of the air. She turns back to you, breathing hard, shoulders heaving up and down with furious exhilaration. "Girl!" she says, in between savage breaths. "Girl, you do not want to cross me."

"Yeah, probably not!" you agree, heart very much in your mouth. "You... you seem busy. Maybe I should go."

"I know someone whose mother was named Skylah," Shaed says. Oh no. "It's Mirialan. You don't remind me of her, though."

"I don't remind a lot of people of a lot of things," you agree, uncertain.

She stares at you for another silent second. "I never knew how she could put up with that Lavaeolus woman." Oh no. Shaed continues: "Honestly, anytime I was near that Jedi, I just wanted to hurt her until she'd hopefully shut up. That one, you do remind me of."

"Right," you say, decidedly wincing. "Well, I guess that makes sense."

"Do not meddle in my affairs again. And make no mistake, if I discover that you're concealing my prize from me? I will find you, and Nyx will not be able to save you all the way out here." She lets that hang for a few seconds more, luminous, inhuman eyes boring into yours. Then she hangs up.

You cringe, turning slowly to face the others. Everyone is out of the torture chamber now, and is looking at you. Keel seems outright horrified. Brenby is just slumping in defeat. "She was going to find something out eventually," he mutters. You can tell that he's worried, even if Darth Shaed's baleful attention is not yet turned on him.

Jorden is supported by Avress and Amira. He's even more tired than the rest of you, sporting numerous small injuries and what look horribly like electrical burns. His eyes are fully alert as he looks at you, though. You shift uncomfortably under that gaze. "She said 'Lavaeolus," he says.

"Yeah," you admit. "She kind of did. It's, uh... my name. One of them. My last name!"

He looks at you, eyes drifting down to your lightsaber, with its distinctively moulded grip. You can imagine him piecing together various strange things about you. "'If someone just gives her a chance at the right time,'" he says, quoting you from earlier. You'd been offended by his characterisation of Sith as slaves of the Darkside.

Avress frowns. "Master?"

He keeps looking at you, frowning in a way that has nothing to do with his injuries. As though thinking of something distasteful that he doesn't want to fully give voice to. "Master Lavaeolus did not part ways with her... companion from her youth, did she? The Sith."

You fidget in place, caught between guilt at his injuries, frayed nerves from Darth Shaed's parting threat, and an almost irrational irritation at his expression as he talks about your family. "Just because they're both women doesn't mean you can't say 'wife'!"

"This... explains a great deal," you just barely hear Brenby murmur into the silence that follows. You're the only one who notices him. Jorden stares. Avress stares. Amira sighs. Imperius starts laughing, which is pretty rude, because you weren't even remotely joking!

It's a moment before Jorden can bring himself to respond: "That is so far away from what is concerning about this, I don't even know where to begin."

You cross your arms. "They're fine. There's nothing concerning about Pa'ma." Well, not usually, anyway.

Avress looks torn between shock and outrage, but Amira cuts in, thankfully. "We can discuss this later, when we're all somewhere else." She looks around meaningfully. These are not welcoming surroundings. "These people are abiding by Brenby's orders not to harm us for now. We owe him all our gratitude, but I would sooner not test that further, if possible."

Brenby nods once in acknowledgement. "A good idea."

Jorden nods as well after a moment of thought. "I require medical attention. And we all do need to get to safety."

You let go of your outburst. They're right. "I'm sorry, I lost your lightsaber in the ruins," you tell Jorden. You offer your own. "Do you want another one?" You can't very well give him Imperius's. That would feel wrong.

"No, child," he tells you. "I only hope it served to keep you safe through this ordeal." He means it, you think.

"Yeah, it did," you say, slumping in relief. You don't want to give your lightsaber up again, so soon after getting it back. "Thanks."

You linger back behind the group for just a moment, giving Brenby a quick hug again. He's not coming with you all, of course. This time, he feels you slip something into his hand — the holocron. "Don't let the scary Sith lady catch you with that," you caution him.

Brenby nods. Away from other eyes, he raises a slow hand, laying it against your back to return the gesture almost cautiously. Imperius has the good grace to turn away. "I may have to leave the planet, sooner rather than later. She isn't a woman I want to challenge yet."

"Let me know before you go?" you ask. "I want to say goodbye, at least."

"We'll see," Brenby says. Hopefully, that's a yes.

==========

The subsequent days pass in a blur, in part because you spend a lot of them asleep. Jorden and Amira are able to prevail on the Tyrost government for aid. They're in the awkward position of having told the Republic that the Imperialist insurgency was no longer a problem and that there were no Sith left on the planet at all, which both Jedi Knights have independently confirmed to be false. As a result, they put you all up for the time it takes to recover, including Keel and Elra. You're also finally getting your ship repaired, by people who know what they're doing.

Once you're lucid enough, it's time to take care of something a little awkward, but nonetheless important.

"I was going to, I was going to!" you say. You're just coming back to the room you've been given, already being nagged as soon as you step through the door.

X2-L4 gives a deeply skeptical series of beeps, managing to give you a critical look despite only having a single large camera lens and some sensors for a face. He's mean like that. Still, you had given the astromech a tight hug the moment you'd been reunited, much to X2's disgust.

You set the drink you left to get on a nearby bedside table, crossing the room to the holocomm unit mounted in the wall. It's a small chamber, and everything in it has that cold, black-brushed, triangle-heavy quality that all former-Imperial architecture seems to have. You got clearance for this particular call already, which is good. It's not such a cheap thing, maintaining calls over the kind of distances you're going to now. You key in a complex sequence of characters, telling the holocomm to make a call all the way to Empress Teta, a city planet all the way within the edge of the Deep Core.

Then, call placed, you retreat to the bed, where you flop down cross-legged and retrieve your cup of hot chocolate. You wait for the call to connect, suppressing a yawn. It's quite early in the morning here — you called once without checking the time difference first, and you won't make that mistake again.

"I would caution you against unwise candor," Imperius says. "News of our... situation is liable to cause more alarm and confusion than it is to do anyone any good."

You hold the warm cup in both hands, blowing the fluffy raft of mallow paste around the dark surface. "I don't know. They deserve to know something."

"It's your life, not theirs." Imperius perches on a nearby chair, one leg crossed over the other. It's disconcerting when she pretends to interact with real objects like that. "You don't need to answer to anyone about your choices."

"Well, yeah, that's true," you say, "but I'm gonna let them know that I'm alive, and okay, and how many ghosts I have in my head, if that's like... more than none." Even if you didn't want to do that, Amira knows, and she can certainly tell your mom if you don't.

Before Imperius can respond, a figure flickers into existence, projected onto the floor in front of you. The one who answers your call could hardly be more different in appearance and bearing than Darth Shaed had been. A tall, slender Mirialan woman, dark clothing simple and unpretentious. Her bearing and scarred features give off a brooding intensity that seems to threaten at any moment to veer toward violence. Upon seeing who it is that's called her, though, her single fierce eye softens, and the hard line of her mouth twitches up into a fractional smile. "Little one. You're on Tyrost."

"Hi, Pa'ma!," you say, grinning back. "Yeah, I made it all the way to Tyrost. Sorry it's been a while. Things have been pretty busy!"

Nyx nods. "Your other mother is out. She'll be home soon, though, if you have time to wait."

"Yeah, I have time." This call isn't on your credit, after all. You can't help but add, completely honestly, "It's really nice to hear your voice."

Nyx tilts her head in that inscrutable way of hers, the only tell on an otherwise unmoving face that she's processing new information. "What's wrong?"

Well, damn. It was too much to hope you'd hide that there was something, wasn't it? You still don't want to have to explain about the big stuff more than once, and it can wait until your mom is here too. There is still a lot on your mind, though.

Looking at her, you have a sudden memory of being very young, of curling up on her lap and confiding in her about the various small woes of a happy childhood. One clumsy finger tracing the length of the lightsaber scar that slices down from the bridge of her nose to her jaw, disrupting ceremonial tattoos as it goes. You're not that little girl anymore, and your problems aren't anywhere so simple these days. Still, her steady, deep voice speaks of safety to you on a deep level. Telling her about some of what's been bothering you might help, before you get bogged down in ghosts and Dark Lords.

Article:

What do you talk to you pa'ma about before your mom arrives? This will help Skylah cope with something difficult that's been playing on her mind.

[ ] Taking a life for the first time
[ ] Nearly being killed by Sith
[ ] The way Lord Myre's soldiers just dropped everything to follow Brenby after Jyte died