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

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[X] Tell them about the nature and history of this place, but avoid answering the real question

This was great and adorbs.
 
[X] Tell them about the nature and history of this place, but avoid answering the real question

Brenbys decent for a Sith, but I'm still not feeling he's romance worthy.
 
Raiseth said:
Welcome to the club.

I've once written a short omake about a Miraluka and made three references to her nonexistent eyes.
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The earliest conceptual version of this quest was literally going to be "You are a Miraluka Sith apprentice". Which would have been a fun sort of writing challenge, but also I know I would have messed up and referenced eyes or colours or something at least once.
 
Gazetteer said:
The earliest conceptual version of this quest was literally going to be "You are a Miraluka Sith apprentice". Which would have been a fun sort of writing challenge, but also I know I would have messed up and referenced eyes or colours or something at least once.
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I GMed an Exalted game with a blind PC for almost three years. Her eyes got healed right about the time I finally remembered to stop asking her to make visual Awareness checks) - about two years in.
 
[X] Admit to them Skylah's role in your vision, but omit something crucial

The other two look like something that can backfire horribly, while this one only looks like it can backfire terribly
I'm sold
 
[X] Admit to them Skylah's role in your vision, but omit something crucial

Brenby's totally smitten with Skylah. He just doesn't really notice yet.
 
[X] Admit to them Skylah's role in your vision, but omit something crucial

Let's be honest, I'm getting "bully Skylah" vibes from Brenby
 
Gazetteer said:
"Huh," Skylah takes a second or two to process this. "If you're going to go it alone, then I guess... you're probably not seeing anyone?"
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"do", perhaps?
Gazetteer said:
You're tall, and kind of built, and like... low-key honourable, and you're actually pretty cute when you fret.
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"Low-key honorable", now that is a backhanded compliment if I ever heard one. :D

Whoa, we got a Sith to disarm first. Headpat proficiency is doing what Jedi Mind Tricks could never hope for.

[x] Tell them what Lord Myre suspects is in the vault, but not the way you believe he's wrong
 
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[X] Admit to them Skylah's role in your vision, but omit something crucial
 
Not super ambiguous, so far.
Adhoc vote count started by Gazetteer on Mar 19, 2020 at 1:26 PM, finished with 22 posts and 16 votes.
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022: Archeology
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    • Brenby admits Skylah's role in his vision, leaves something out: 11

    Brenby explains what Lord Myre believes about what's hidden behind the door, not why he's wrong: 4

    Brenby dodges the question by explaining the history of this place: 2

    Skylah

    Brenby sighs, giving you the impression briefly of a large, cornered animal. You don't worry about him exploding for long, though. He answers Amira: "I have been receiving prophetic dreams through the Dark Side for months now," he explains. "Of this place, and a... weapon beyond the sealed doors. Whenever I open them in the dream, Skylah was present, and they only opened with her help. I recognised her immediately."

    Amira Rist nods. You don't remember her face, so you must really have been young on your last encounter. Semi-retired or not, your mom certainly knows a lot of Jedi. The ones she's close enough with to meet her family are smaller in number. Although, if Amira spends all her time poking around in old ruins, maybe she's just been away from the Core for a long time? "That matches our information," Amira says.

    You cock your head to the side. "You had information about needing me?"

    "Oh, no," Amira says, reassuringly. "Just your blood!"

    You stare.

    "Not all of it!" Amira says, waving a hand as she backpedals. "Imperius promises that opening the door alone isn't what killed her, when she used her blood."

    Brenby stops for a moment, frowning deeply. "Imperius?"

    Then, you're standing in front of a chamber with a huge, scary door in it. A super-ominous door. All stone and creepy, Sith carvings. Your attention only lands on it for a few seconds, though, before it turns to the two people in the room. One of them is very familiar.

    "Keel!" The Pantoran man turns at the sound of your voice, aiming his blaster pistol pointedly at the floor ahead of you rushing up and throwing your arms around him.

    "Skylah?" He sounds relieved, if confused. "I got worried! I thought you were right behind me, then you were gone."

    You release him, grinning, and get the explanation of the way fast. "So, me and Jorden were fighting — because Avress was in trouble but then he threw her one way and had to drag me another — and then we got attacked by two Sith! And the one I fought was kind of awful, but I cut off her fingers, but then she tricked me, and then she and Brenby — that's him over there! — took us captive and put us in cages, until I woke up and they took Jorden away to be questioned, but also he told me to go find Avress, and Brenby helped me, so we did. We're friends now, I think! Anyway, then he and Avress didn't kill each other, which is good, I'm very proud of him, so now we're here, how are you doing?"

    He blinks at you for a moment, trying to catch up with the speed at which you delivered that recap. That's when you notice the Pantoran woman lounging on the floor, who he's standing guard over. She's currently looking up at you with an air of half-vexed bafflement. "I can't decide," she says, her voice a drawl much posher than Keel's, "whether she's obnoxious, or adorable."

    "You found Elra!" you guess. "I"m glad she's alright!" You turn your smile on the woman sitting on the floor. "Hi, I'm Skylah."

    "That's... not Elra," Keel says, uneasily. "She was like this when we found her. It's some kind of Sith thing."

    "A Dark Side spirit is possessing her," Brenby says, coming up behind you. He sounds very troubled. "Calling itself 'Imperius'."

    Oh, right — it must be handy, being able to just... see into someone's inner-most soul, like that. You take a step back. "Oh. But, uh... so, we're cool with this? This is just... a thing?"

    Imperius shrugs. "I'm inconveniently in this body and I won't come out unless I've been untethered from this place, so they're putting up with me for now. You're the one with old Sith blood, yes?"

    "Yeah?" You admit, feeling Avress's eyes on you at the open admission. You look at the door dubiously. "Yeah, I am, but... what, I've gotta bleed all over it, or something? Ew."

    Imperius gets up, stretching Elra's body with the smug languor of someone who hasn't had a body of her own in a long time. "Amusing, but no. Do you see the panel beside the door, here?" She points a delicate, blue finger at a scarcely different patch of stone in the wall. Maybe it's a little indented, compared to the wall around it.

    "Yes," you say.

    "Good. Watch this." Imperius presses on the stone around the panel in sequence, then quickly takes a step back, as the panel shoots out of the wall nearly half a metre with a stone-on-stone screech. It juts out as a solid grey slab, apart from an indent in the top shaped like a four-fingered hand. Imperius looks at you expectantly.

    Instinctively, you pull your hands closer against your body. "I don't love this!" you say.

    "Neither do I," Amira says, dubiously. "Can't you just drop some blood into it?"

    "No, no, I tried that," Imperius says. "Right after I hit it with some lightning."

    "You... hit it with lightning?" Brenby sounds a little horrified. "How did you know you wouldn't break it?"

    "Don't tell me how to conduct archeology, Apprentice," Imperius says, dismissively. "I promise you, I know more about it than you do. The point is, she has to put her hand in the receptacle if we want to open the door." She holds up Elra's hand, middle and ring fingers crossed over one another, demonstrating how to fit five digits into something designed for an Ancient Sith.

    "I'll pull you back the instant I sense anything wrong," Brenby tells you, seriously. Well, that's a nice thought, you think. Apart from the assumption that something definitely will go wrong.

    Amira still looks dubious. "If... she agrees, I suppose it's the only way in?"

    Brenby turns to face her. "Why do you want to get past this door, Jedi?"

    Amira crosses her arms, unintimidated by his height. "What's past this door is an unstable, increasingly dangerous collection of trapped souls. Unable to rejoin the Force," Amira says. "It is an atrocity, and I intend to destroy it and free them. Before it can fall into the wrong hands."

    Brenby doesn't respond, but turns away from her again. Internally, you wince. You promised him you'd help claim whatever he's looking for if he helped you find Keel and Avress, and he has certainly kept up his side of the bargain, as well as proving a reliable companion to you. Obviously, though, Amira and Avress won't be incredibly excited for that idea, and you're not sure you are either, if it really is some kind of horrible forever-prison for ghosts.

    Well, it'll probably be fine.

    "Fine, I'll do it," you say. "But, like, if something really bad happens, you're all pitching in to help me get a cool robot hand." You mean it as a joke, but by the end of that sentence, it no longer seems particularly funny. No one else laughs, certainly.

    You step toward the receptacle, crossing the fingers on your left hand the way Imperius demonstrated, and slide your hand into the uncomfortably cold stone. Almost instantly, four blades stab into your hand, one in each of the four fingers making contact with the receptacle. You cry out in pain, even as you feel strong arms wrap around your chest from behind, lifting you free.

    "Oh, don't act surprised," you hear Imperius say, as Brenby lowers you to the floor. "As if you didn't know exactly what was going to happen." You catch sight of Amira glaring at the Sith ghost, before dropping down to your side, examining your hand with a trained eye. Your fingers are bleeding, your maroon-tinted blood pooling on the floor. Reaching into an inner pocket of her clothes, Amira pulls out a small medical kit, ready with kolto and bandages.

    In front of you, the great doors creep slowly inward. "Well, that worked," you say.

    In front of you, the stone doors creak inward, revealing a dark, narrow passageway beyond. Already, you can sense that this is the way to the source of the Darkness in this place.

    "Going in there is the only way to save Elra, isn't it?" Keel asks, from where he's awkwardly hovering over you.

    "Most assuredly," Imperius says. "I won't voluntarily leave her until I can be sure I won't simply be trapped inside that thing again."

    "Then... that's it, I guess," Keel decides.

    "Yeah," you mutter, using Brenby's shoulder to lever yourself up. A smile creeps over his face as you do. Sith boys should not be allowed to be unconsciously cute.

    "There's only room for two at a time," Amira notes, once she's sure you're fine.

    "Me and Amira should go first, then," you reason.

    "Why?" Avress asks narrowly.

    "Well," you reason, "you and Brenby are tall enough to see over our heads. And Keel and... Imperius don't have lightsabers."

    "She has a point," Brenby says.

    Avress shoots him a look, like she doesn't trust it that he's being reasonable. You don't want to think about how bad that could get, if they were left alone with each other for too long.

    In the end, the order you walk doesn't matter. For a moment, when the last foot has crossed the threshold, it's just another dark, musty hallway, only narrower than it had been before. Then, all at once, your stomach drops, and the world goes dark. Perfectly dark, like with Brenby's spell earlier, only this time you know it isn't that, because you hear his gasp along with all the other alarmed sounds.

    Then you're falling, and the only scream you hear is your own.

    ==========

    Article:
    When you wake up, one person is with you. Keep in mind, you have no way to know who the characters you do not choose end up with, and no influence over what they do until you meet up again.

    [ ] Amira Rist
    [ ] Avress Dar
    [ ] Brenby Vox
    [ ] Imperius
    [ ] Keel Sevria
     
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