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General Chat => Fan Fiction and Art => Topic started by: Karmack on September 15, 2017, 06:55:46 AM



Title: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 15, 2017, 06:55:46 AM
This place always gives me the willies...

Arnor and Illian had disappeared into the establishment seeking cover among the crowd, though how anyone could "blend in" with such a dubious crowd was anyone's guess.  Still the utter diversity of the patrons was its own form of cover.  If anything, three humans together might stand out simply from being so uniform in species selection.

I looked up again at the distant strip of blue.  Nowhere else did canyons of such depth exist.  The sky was a distant, pale memory from here on the very floor of them.  There was no horizon: only towering walls of glass and steel.  "I have a bad feeling about this, Two."

R3-T2, or "Two" to his friends, rocked slightly and whistled his agreement.  The astromech droid, similar to the more popular R2 units, was primarily yellow and white and had a few ... special modifications.  I have  always loved electronics and I absolutely loved to tinker.  Two was only the most recent beneficiary of my hobby.  In the six months since we left Jedda the freighter, now called "Wayfarer", had also benefitted from several modifications.  Meanwhile our research into the origins of the "smart" kyber crystals had led us here, to this ... unnatural place.

I laid my hand affectionately on Two's dome.  "I will.  You watch your back out here.  Just watch and record, do NOT engage!  I don't want a repeat of that run-in with the bounty hunter last month!"

The droid made a rude sound and moved smoothly away and into the shadows.   For a moment I allowed myself to be in wonder at the sheer personality of the droid, as well as his resourcefulness.  He'd proven himself to be an invaluable companion in the last several months as well as a good friend.  And his services in this place would be uniquely valuable.

I looked around the street one last time, my senses tingling again.  There was a ... tremor in the Song, one that I couldn't pin down.  It wasn't the normal chaos of evil, just something ... different.  Something working at cross-purposes to our melody and causing discord in the Song.  Like everything else about this place it made me uneasy.

I entered the establishment, assaulted by the lights and sounds and smells.  Not that they were all bad.  My stomach growled of its own accord before I could suppress it, reminding me that it had been many hours since my last meal.  The smells promised something that would taste good indeed, but I had no time for that. Arnor was already at the back of the room, Illian in tow, and from the sudden spike in the flow of the song, the upbeat in rhythm I suspected that something more vigorous than a meal was about to come out of the kitchen they were headed towards.  I jostled my way through a crowd of inebriated beings, muttering my apologies to them as I tried to reach my wife and her padawan before they entered the portal.

I failed.  Arnor walked through the doors, her hand already reaching for her saber.  Illian followed her closely, and his saber was already out and ready.

All hell broke lose.

I sensed the danger to my left and my own saber ignited and swept through a tight arc.  Two blaster bolts deflected, one into the ceiling, the other back into the chest of the hired gun who fired it.  Two more hired guns appeared and my saber blade became a shimmering shield, deflecting bolts as I closed on them and then slicing through their weapons.  One of them chose discretion over valor and turned away.  The second, either braver than his comrade or just stupid, drew a force blade and swung it at me.  I parried, stepped back, and brought my blade around in a tight orbit, neatly severing the weapon-hand just at the wrist.  My opponent, now disabled, sank to the floor moaning in pain.

Screams erupted around me and there was a general dash for the exits.  I made a quick scan to insure that there were no others ready to fire on us in the room, then charged into the kitchen where the sounds of combat were coming to a crescendo.  I arrived in time to see Arnor disable a last defender in full armor while Illian moved to prevent their quary from escaping.

The man was small and had the aspect of a weasel.  Our information listed his name as Lym Plancal, but facial recognition had brougth them a half-dozen aliases in addition to the name "Loki", the trickster.  Illian gripped his arm and turned him toward me.

I could feel him, and his song ... oozed.  I couldn't describe it any other way.  It was just sickly and revolting, a parody of melody and harmony that was both pitiful and disgusting.  Yet somehow this man, this trickster, had been involved in the shipment and more importantly to me the acquisition of literally tons of kyber, including the "smart" crystals we had found and mostly destroyed on Naboo. 

I looked into his eyes and I sang to him, merging his song with my own.  "Tell me, Lym.  Tell me where the crystals came from."

There was resistance, then I felt his song yield to mine.  His eyes softened.  "All I did was arrange the transfer.  Never even hit the planet.  We used a different factor for each shipment.  Most went to Endor, some of the special consignments went to Naboo..."

I felt my pulse quicken a bit at this.  "The special consignments.  Where did they come from?  Who brought them here?"

Lym looked at me, and something deep in his mind reeled.  There was great fear here, fear of someone ... or something.   I exerted more effort. "It's ok, Lym.  You can tell me."

"They'll do horrible things to me..."  he said, and whimpered.  I steeled my nerves, and concentrated harder.  "They...  They...."

"Who are they, Lym? Who?"

He didn't say another word, but I had burrowed deep into his thoughts and I suddenly had an image.  Men, in black robes.  Like the five we'd fought on M'Tzigon...

I broke the connection and Lym collapsed, whimpering in fear, no longer coherent.  Arnor looked at me, the question in her eyes.

"Sith."





Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 15, 2017, 07:03:00 AM
Here's a picture of R3-T2, in case you were wondering.  He's an R3 unit, with the transparent dome and... well, you'll find out.  ;-)

(https://i.imgur.com/CnLD9NG.jpg)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on September 15, 2017, 06:18:08 PM
Hehe, it's back. ;D ;D I can't wait to read more. Your really gonna make me work hard with mine though. Your already on your second story, and I haven't even finished the first chapter of mine.  :D Anyways, great job.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on September 15, 2017, 08:50:39 PM
HELL yeah!  First off, glad to see Karm&Co. back in action  ;)

Glad that you continued the world building, Karm.  Feels like the "next season" of the SW Song and the Gray; I have to say that I'm absolutely hooked^^  Your writing is both relatable as well as engrossing; I really like the transition from "easy going" introduction that both begins this chapter as well as continuing the previous story  :)  Maybe it's my interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I have to say that I'm enjoying the continuity within your narrative, Karm  :D

I like the introduction of your astromech; I'm already wondering what part he'll play in this plot^^

Hehe, it's back. ;D ;D I can't wait to read more. Your really gonna make me work hard with mine though. Your already on your second story, and I haven't even finished the first chapter of mine.  :D Anyways, great job.
TR, post your next chapter at your leisure my friend; true writing isn't something to be rushed   :)
...besides, you're still one up on me  ;)

Until next installment, friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 18, 2017, 08:25:54 PM
"If I live a hundred years and never see another underground corridor it will not be long enough..."

I smiled as I heard Illian's comment, uttered sotto-voce to Arnor behind me.  Son, you don't know the half of it...  But then I grew up on M'Tzigon, where half of the population lived in subterranean chambers and caverns and the typical adult might spend a few weeks a year out on the surface.  Still, after years of wandering the galaxy I'd also developed a taste for open skies and fresh air.

I sniffed.  No fresh air in this place...  We were lucky the air was breathable and free of harmful toxins.  Which unfortunately didn't do anything for the smell....

"Concentrate, Illian.  Focus on the task."  Arnor's admonition was rote, without the bite it might have had normally.  She, too, was fed up with dark, dank, smelly places under-ground.

As was I for that matter.  But in order to discover who these neo-Sith were and where they might be operating from, we had to access some very specific databases.  Databases which most assumed had ceased to exist many years ago.   Databases that, if they did still exist, would no doubt be well guarded.

From above.

Hence our approach.  I had come here once, many years ago, with Master Chillum.  Nothing of that visit remained, but the site still glowed, a ringing harmony in the song hovering like a pedal-point, an anchor for the ongoing fugue of this place.

"We're close.  Stay sharp."  There was no indication of any presence, no heat signatures, no lasers.  Nothing to betray any kind of security devices.  Nor were there any ripples in the force's melody, nothing to betray active patrols. 

I rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a thick wall.  This was the place.  I stopped for a moment and rested my bare left hand on the cool metal, reaching out, listening.  The song of this place threatened to overwhelm me, a whirlwind of joy and sadness, fear and courage, anger and peace.  I let my heart sing with it, joining my voice briefly to the song and feeling it flow through me....

...blaster bolts sang through the air ... troopers in strange armor, shooting, dying, always more coming forward ... a thrill of hope as they pull back, a thrill which dies in bitter dispair as the red bolts are replaced by a flashing blue blade...

I snapped myself back from the song and out of the force vision.  For a moment the room spun as I struggled to re-orientate.  I staggered slightly, but managed not to fall.

"Karm, you ok?" Arnor laid her hand on my shoulder.  I covered it with my own.

"Yes.  The echoes are strong here.   This is definitely the place."  I stepped back slightly, recovered now.  "This will only take a moment."

I ignited my saber and plunged it into the steel before me, quickly cutting a rough man-sized portal.  I motioned for my companions to step aside and used the force to move the plug back and to the side of the room, the edges still glowing but rapidly cooling in the chamber. 

Beyond the portal empty eye sockets stared out.   The powder-dry smell of old bones invaded the chamber, overriding the damp unpleasantness with the smell of old death.

Maybe the smell down here wasn't so bad after all...

I kept my saber ignited as I stepped carefully into the chamber beyond.  There were dozens of bodies strewn across the room.  Left and right were bodies in armor which appeared to be from the Clone War era.  Troopers marked in red and yellow striping.  Between the two arcs were three bodies in traditional Jedi garb.  Two were small, younglings, and appeared to have died from stabbing wounds.  The adult lay between the two, his torso propped upright, a lightsaber hilt still gripped in his right hand.  His pelvis and legs were several feet away, leaving no doubt as to the cause of death.

"They didn't even remove their own dead..." Arnor said, her voice sick. 

"Not from here.  Probably because of that."  I pointed to the far side of the room, where heavy security doors had fallen, sealing the room from the rest of the place.  "The Temple was filled with redundant data nodes and back-up systems.  This was one of several, the deepest, and nearest the center of the Temple geographically.  When the doors slammed down, the order was given to seal these rooms off and keep everyone out.  No exceptions.  Those orders still stand."

"Then how did we get in so easily?  Where are the guards"  Illian asked, his own voice quavering slightly as he looked down at the younglings.  "Did they just abandon their posts?"

No.  This part of the city was rebuilt a few years ago, a massive attempt to remove any trace of the Jedi influence.  But this node was deeper than the rest, below even the lowest sub-chambers of the Temple's foundations.  When they razed this quarter and built it over, they left this one deep void in place.   Master Chillum came here when I was a padawan and confirmed that it was still here, but he was unable to penetrate the maze of tunnels at that time.  Since then much of the Imperial presence has left this area, which is why we were able to sneak through."

"Should we ... do something for them?" Illian asked. 

"No.  I would love to remove the bodies and bury them, but in the end the body is just a shell.  The people are long gone."  I felt a quickening in the song beginning.  "Come, time is short.  Find a live data port."

"Here." Arnor called.  "Standard port."

"Excellent."  I plugged in my mini-comp and queried the port.  "Yes!  Access granted.  Copying files."

I felt my pulse quickening in time to the urgency I felt in the song around me, but the transfer was fast through the high-speed port.  "Clear!  Lets get out of here."

We stepped back out through the portal and I carefully moved the plug back into place, then used my saber to re-melt the metal and weld it back, resealing the tomb behind me.

We hurried away, listening to the song in silence as we alternately hid from and ran from the patrols in the area until we finally emerged into the streets above.  R3-T2 squealed a query as we emerged and trailed along behind us, curious as to what we had found below, but none of us were in a mood to talk.  Finally with a disgusted snort he gave up.

I dropped back to walk with him, laying my hand on his dome in companionship but still no words came.  It would have to wait.  Eventually, I would tell my new friend about the experience.  But for now....

...we walked in silence, and sang...



Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on September 18, 2017, 09:29:26 PM
Excellent my friend. Your writing continues to be compelling^^  I particularly like the background home world and the subterranean nuances  :)

On that note: is there canonically a planet M'Tzingon?  Regardless: outstanding exposition delivered in an organic fashion  :D

One complaint: I keep reading too fast and I am at the end too soon (sorry, that's my problem, not yours  ;)).

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on September 18, 2017, 09:39:49 PM
Yes. Great job. I have the same problem as TD. It ends too fast. Maybe you should write longer posts. :D ;)

But seriously, great job.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 19, 2017, 06:16:59 PM
Excellent my friend. Your writing continues to be compelling^^  I particularly like the background home world and the subterranean nuances  :)

On that note: is there canonically a planet M'Tzingon?  Regardless: outstanding exposition delivered in an organic fashion  :D

One complaint: I keep reading too fast and I am at the end too soon (sorry, that's my problem, not yours  ;)).

Until next installment friends  :)

OK, I have to come clean.

M'Tzigon comes from "Michigan"  Though the planet doesn't resemble Michigan in any way.
M'Skigon Province comes from "Muskegon".  My home town.
I grew up in Muskegon, Michigan.
Karmack is from M'Skigon, M'Tzigon.

So, there you go.   Definitely NOT canon!  LOL

Taegin, I'll see what I can do about longer posts.  But I usually only have a fixed time to write (lunch breaks, for example) so that can be a problem. 
Besides, you don't want to get to the end TOO quickly, right?  ;-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on September 19, 2017, 06:30:47 PM
That. Is. Awesome!

Simple, yet simply awesome  :D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on September 20, 2017, 12:49:56 AM
OK, I have to come clean.

M'Tzigon comes from "Michigan"  Though the planet doesn't resemble Michigan in any way.
M'Skigon Province comes from "Muskegon".  My home town.
I grew up in Muskegon, Michigan.
Karmack is from M'Skigon, M'Tzigon.

So, there you go.   Definitely NOT canon!  LOL

Taegin, I'll see what I can do about longer posts.  But I usually only have a fixed time to write (lunch breaks, for example) so that can be a problem. 
Besides, you don't want to get to the end TOO quickly, right?  ;-)

I don't want it to end sooner, but do what you can. It fun to read, but definitely not necessary.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 20, 2017, 08:48:04 PM
LOL   I'll do my best!

I decided to create my own home town into the character mostly for memory.  And I love the fact that you can replace a vowel in a word with an apostraphe and somehow it becomes ... alien.  LOL


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on September 20, 2017, 08:59:24 PM
And I love the fact that you can replace a vowel in a word with an apostraphe and somehow it becomes ... alien.  LOL

Right. I do it all the time. :D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 22, 2017, 05:02:21 PM
Two was still chewing through data ... and we were getting restless.  Which did NOT make me happy about this little fishing expedition.  Sometimes Arnor had a mind of her own, and she had an ... unfair advantage when it came to persuading me to go along with her occasional schemes.

Still, song was not disturbed and continued on as a placid, background hum for now.  I suspected that would not change until the archive data could be interpreted and accessed, but even with the proper codes and keys Two was going to be working on that for many additional days.  And so, I found myself standing on a street corner holding a cup of ... something hot and sweet.  Reminded me of the coffee we brewed back home, but with a sweet cream in it and a fiery cinnamon flavor.  Quite good actually...

There.  I saw Arnor enter the area across from me, and my jaw tightened a bit in reaction.  It was her idea, and I knew that, and we'd done under-cover work before....  I took a deep breath and used it to blow steam from the coffee.  It was chilly, especially in the gathering darkness.  The sun had slipped below the horizon long ago, and even here, fairly "high" in the multi-tiered structure of the surface of Coruscant, the artificial lights of store fronts and bars were replacing the natural light of the sun.  I glanced across the crowd and saw Illian also at his post, and thankfully also able to look casual and not stare.

Though staring wouldn't have been unexpected from the young man.  There were plenty of others staring at the gaggle of women Arnor had just joined.

I looked back at the group and this time the wrench in my gut was one of pure rage.  Arnor was nearing 30 years old, but she was slim and very fit, giving her the appearance of a younger woman.  However, a few casual inquiries had determined that the average age of the small gaggle of human females preparing for their night's work to be 19, and that because they almost univerally claimed to be either 18 or 19.  There were a couple that appeared to be older, but most looked younger rather than older.  Only the eyes looked older, out of place in the youthful faces.

There was a slight stir as Arnor joined the group.  There was some real danger here.  Arnor had already contacted some of these girls to acquire what she needed to blend in, but if their controller showed up to soon...  We could have a problem.  The plan was to get them away from here.  However, these were not simple street walkers.  They were all here to meet someone at pre-arranged times and places.  We had a short window to make contact and get them out, and even to do that without revealing to much of who we were required this stealthy approach. 

Yes.  Arnor was rounding them up and leading them toward Illian.  I scanned the square quickly.  It was not crowded but there were hundreds of people milling about, heading for restaurants or places of entertainment.  None of them paid the slightest bit of attention to the girls, despite their extremely revealing attire.  And that also made me angry.

There.  Movement caught my eye.  "Illian, heads up.  I have a pair of security guards heading your way, from the left.  They will intercept just as the flock is entering the transit tube."

"Understood." Illian replied.  Our scrambled comms were another risk, but a minor one.  Now, to slow them down a bit...

I reached out with the force and found a low bench across the way.  As the two thugs approached, I slid it out and pushed it forcefully into the leader's knees.  He went down with a curse, tangling himself and his companion with the bench.   I managed not to laugh as they tried to extricate themselves from the bench, which I judiciously adjusted once more to again put it under foot.  They went down again, now roaring obscenities and gathering a small crowd around themselves, which further hampered their progress and screened the girls nicely.

"You're evil, Karm.  Evil."  Arnor said quietly.  "Nice."

"Thank you...  And move your but once you get into the tube.  This guy isn't going to just let these girls go.  In fact...  " I started moving myself now, headed across the square to the same transit tube our rescued girls were entering.  "I have four more coming from East and West.  Go.  I'll delay them."

"Be careful!"

"I will."  I looked back and forth between the two groups.  "Just promise me one thing, my love."

"Anything."

"Don't take that dress off until I get back."  I grinned, waiting...

There.  Arnor tapped me lightly on the shoulder with the force, the "long range" version of the light punch she would normally hit me with when I made such comments.  "Letch."

"No!  Husband!" I said back.  "Now, run.  I'm right behind you."

I reached the transit portal just ahead of the double-squad of thugs.  As we expected, the "controller", who we had not been able to ID, had kept his girls under surveillance.  It was partially to protect them, as he claimed, since they did represent a significant "investment"on his part.  But they were also there to intimidate and coerce.  From the stories Illian and Arnor had been told, there were occasional incidents where a girl would decide to run.  They rarely got very far.  The last one who had tried had ended up dead, beaten to death by the guards that they were told were there to "protect" them as an example to the rest.

I could hear them now in the force.  Collectively they were a dark cloud of evil hammering, no rhyme or rhythm.  Just chaotic evil.  I touched that chaos briefly in the force, and felt the battle song swell in my chest.  In that moment I no longer regretted the decision to come here, to do this.  But I couldn't just ignite my blade and cut them down.

Not yet.

The transit tubes were busy, but not busy enough to hide Arnor and her charges.  They were at the far end of the platform and boarding when the first of the guards emerged from the entry portal.  It was the same one who had been in the lead in the square, and his face betrayed a full-blown rage. 

I decided this was going to be fun.

The guards started to run as they entered the portal.  None of them noticed as the man at the end of the line suddenly flew sideways across the platform, through the open doors of a transit car, and slammed into the far side of the car before crumpling to the ground.  He wasn't dead, but he didn't get up as the doors closed and the car headed off with one extra passenger.

The next three in line suffered similar fates as the guards ran past me.  I was dwindling their numbers but running out of space.  Arnor and the girls were all aboard their chosen car now.  Illian was not in view, which meant he was probably already on the car as well.  I was running now, chasing the thugs.  I reached out and tripped up the leader again.  He fell hard, slamming his face into the floor before having two of his fellows pile onto him.  In that commotion, Arnor's car's doors closed and the pod headed out.

The leader was cursing again.  He waved a badge - an override! - and gestured to the next car in line.  It was like the one Arnor had chartered - spacious, plenty of seating, paired seats on either side of a central aisle.  Automatic guidance and a selection of pre-programmed destinations.  Some of these cars ran on a pre-set schedule of stops, like ancient bus or train service.  Others, like these VIP models on the end, could be chartered and programmed for one-time use.  Ours had been arranged that afternoon.  I wasn't sure what our friends were going to do, but I followed.  I managed to discretely roll one last man off the platform as we neared the car, tripping him over the edge and down into a nasty looking set of bushes.  That left five, and they boarded the car together. 

I waited a moment, then slipped aboard just as the doors closed.

"What the...   I told you OUT!  What do you think you're doing?"  The leader was wiping blood from his nose.  He'd used the card in his hand to override the car's controls and set it to follow...something.  A homing device?  Multiple homing devices?  There were several pips on the nav screen, and it was definitely following them.

"So, that's how you track them down so quickly when they run."  I was amazed at the calm of my own voice.  "I would applaud your ingenuity, if I wasn't certain someone else had thought of it for you."

The men in front of me spread out, three of them withdrawing weapons.  "And jus' who are you?"

I smiled at them.  It was not a nice smile.  "I am death."

My saber was in my hand and ignited an instant later, and the first cut blocked the snap-shot one of the men took at me.  The second cut removed his lower arm as well as the hand holding the other blaster.  Four seconds later I was the only living person in the car.

Several minutes later the car landed, next to the car leased by Arnor and Illian.  When the doors opened I was confronted by the pair, holding their own sabers.   "Karm!"

I caught Arnor in my arms and returned her fierce hug.  "I'm fine." I lied.  I was shaking.  I rarely yielded to rage as I had in those moments, and the dark stain of it still surged within me.  Arnor hugged me again and I felt her encouragement in our song and it lifted my spirit.  "Illian, the girls have trackers on them.  Find them.  These are the frequencies."  I tossed him the minicomp I'd taken from the car's navigational interface.  Illian tore his eyes away from the carnage in the car behind me, nodded, and walked back over to the girls. 

I stood and held Arnor, letting the shaking subside, reminding myself of why we were doing this, and let my mind flash back through the last half-hour.  The rage...  I knew why this had enraged me, as did Arnor.  It was the same reason she'd taken the mission when Illian had approached her with his tale from the girl he'd met in the square several nights before.   What we'd done was right.  But the rage.

I knew I would need to spend some time purging that rage.  Time in the Song with the Maker.  I stroked Arnor's hair and kissed her forehead.  It would not be easy...but I would have help.

As I always had help.

Illian returned, holding a handful of necklaces.  "I have them, Master.  All frequencies accounted for.  They're all here."

"Good."  I took them and tossed them into the car with the bodies, then plugged a coordinate half-way around the planet from our location into the minicomp.  "This could keep them busy..."  I plugged the minicomp back into the nav system and stepped back out.  The car rose obediently and headed off.  It would take nearly 16 hours to reach its destination.  At the least it would give us a nice head start.

"Lets go.  We have a rendezvous to make."

******

OK, so its a little side-trip.    Or is it?  How does this tie into the search for the Sith?  Is Karmack falling to the dark side?  What's going on with Illian? 
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!  ;-)

(Sorry, couldn't help it!  It just felt so much like an old radio soap-opera end-of-episode segue!  LOL)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on September 22, 2017, 09:08:52 PM
Great post. Fun to read, with just the right mix of action, humor and story. Can't wait to see if Karm is turning to the Dark Side, what's going on with Illian, or whether this has anything to do with their hunting of the Sith. I will stay tuned. ;)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 22, 2017, 10:10:42 PM
LOL  Thanks Taegin.  :-)

This might be a spoiler but...  I'm not really sure where this little scene came from.  The underlying story arc reason I know, but I had several options and I went with this one partially because of some experiences we've had in RL helping some young women who were victimized by human trafficers.  In RL these .... slimeballs make my insides quiver in rage.  I had the distinct pleasure of staring one of them down (with several friends, I will not say I would have done this alone, I don't know if I can claim that level of intestinal fortitude...) at a rally.  We had a girl come and literally run behind us and ask us to hide her.  Then a guy comes over and tries to retrieve her.  We closed ranks and kept him away from the girl until a rep from a local shelter got her into a car and away from the scene. 

I don't know what happened to the girl, but I like to think that I at least helped someone that day.

And so I projected that into Karmack (since he is my alter-ego) and amplified it a little.  This kind of side-mission is just the kind of things the Grays of his order find themselves doing.  Just carefully...  Order 66 is still in effect after all...

;-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on September 23, 2017, 08:52:02 PM
Great post. Fun to read, with just the right mix of action, humor and story. Can't wait to see if Karm is turning to the Dark Side, what's going on with Illian, or whether this has anything to do with their hunting of the Sith. I will stay tuned. ;)
I categorically agree with TR's comments^^  Perfect "mix"=apropos sentiments  :D

Karm it's a pleasure seeing you really become comfortable in your narrative; this particular submission really shows an understanding that balances and embraces the human condition and humanity^^  Suffering and altruism are universal conditions; yet you understand subtlety without being "anvilicious."  You also understand that not every SW story need contain EXPLOSIONS! STARFIGHTERS!  ;)

And I like this seeming interlude; is it pertinent to the larger story?  Or is it an indirect event tangential that serves as further character development?  I have always thought that great care need be taken by Gray Jedi else passions--despite the best of intentions--could lead to darker paths (heh, in writing this, I am kind of giving a bit of what I have been writing: at what point does confidence become hubris?  I would HOPE that all impetuous young men live long enough to learn that particular lesson  ;)).  Heh, sorry I digress; my point is: outstanding writing Karm  ;D

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 25, 2017, 02:15:40 AM
Thanks guys.  Your comments are a great encouragement!

As for whether this is part of the larger narrative.... 

;-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 25, 2017, 03:04:42 PM
I can feel the hatred within you.  Take your weapon.  Strike me down...

"No!"  I bolted upright in the dark, spilling the light sheets off my sweat-soaked shirt.  I looked around, confused.  Where was I?  It had been dark, but there had been others with me....

"Karm?"  A warm hand rested on my shoulder, squeezing lightly.  "Are you OK?"

I looked down at Arnor, recognizing her ... and still confused.   Slowly I sorted out the images.  A large empty place.  Darkness.  Space.  A disfigured man in robes sitting on some kind of throne.  Another warrior in dark armor....

Vader!  The warrior had been Darth Vader, and the other man his master, Darth Sidious aka Emperor Palpatine!  In some kind of throne room...  And I had been there...

Or had I?

I started a routine to control my breathing and heart rate and calmed my body as my mind sorted out the vision.  These flashes rarely happened to me.  Arnor was far more likely to get a glimpse of the future in this form.  For me it was far more a matter of following the parts of the force's symphony of song, and gaining insight from how the song was constructed.  I took a deep breath and laid my hand on hers.  "It was ... the future."

"Bad?"

I tracked back through what I had seen.  A lone Jedi facing Vader... and the Emperor....  "I don't know.  I cannot imagine how what I saw could end well, but the song...  The song underlying it was full of darkness and sorrow, but there was also joy and victory."  I laid back and wrapped my arm around Arnor as she snuggled into my shoulder.  "I don't know.  The song is jumbled, and I didn't see or hear it all.  But there is hope."

Arnor raised herself up and brought her face to mine.  "There is always hope, my love."

I kissed her and hugged her fiercely.  Yes, there was always hope.

A discrete knock on the door derailed our mutual train of thought at that point.  "Um...  I made breakfast?"

The quiet, hesitant voice made us both smile, and we could easily picture the flame of a blush on the young face.  While we'd gotten all of the other trafficed girls onto a transport and off-planet, headed for a safe place where they would be loved, helped and gently reintegrated into society, one girl had simply refused to be parted from her rescuer.  Her name was Talia, and in the two weeks since the raid she'd attached herself to our group, serving as cook and house keeper for us in our new "hideout". 

And every spare moment not occupied by her self-imposed duties she spent with Illian, who despite some initial awkwardness was returning her attentions enthusiastically as well.

The budding romance was an item of concern for Arnor in regards to her pupil, for Illian was nearing the point of Trial, and both Arnor and I could sense that his would be a difficult one.  But like my vision, the details were confusing and fragmented....

Arnor pecked my cheek and folded herself out of the bed.  "We'll be right out, Talia."  She called, ducking into the adjoining en-suite.  I rolled right and sat up on the bed, contemplating as the thought struck me....  Was Illian the Jedi in my vision?  I concentrated on what I remembered...

No.  It was hard to identify the man, since I'd been seeing through his own eyes, but from what I'd seen...   His saber hilt was unique.  The blade was a rich green.  And ... yes.  He had a cybernetic right hand.  A full replacement, not just a glove.  I flexed my fingers, noting the clumsy movement, and massaged my forearm with my left hand, feeling the hard angularity of the interface hidden within.  Was that the link?  Why had I seen that vision?  Who was the (probably) doomed warrior destined to face Vader and the Emperor alone?

No answers came.  What I recalled of his song was ... sad.  Peaks of joy and happiness embedded in a sad harmony filled with sorrow and loss, yet triumphant and victorious.  Almost a contradiction, like a song of celebration written in a minor key.  Joyful but tempered with sorrow. 

And somehow ... in balance.  More like one of our order than a Jedi....

Arnor emerged.  "All yours, my love."  She said.  "And don't dawdle, we may not save you anything."

"Yes ma'am!"  I said, setting the contemplation aside.  I would think more on it later.  For now, it was time to enjoy a rare morning of normalicy.  I headed for the shower, laughing.

****

"Talia, that was delicious." Illian said, pushing back from the table.  "Thank you again."

The girl blushed.  "You're welcome, Illian." she said, her eyes shining as they met his. 

"Yes, it was very good.  Now, Illian, get to work!  You will need to do some extra training today to work off this breakfast."  Arnor said.  Talia broke eye contact with Illian and nodded an acknowledgement to Arnor before beginning the task of gathering the breakfast dishes.  Arnor then turned to me.  "You, too, Maenowan Karmack." she said, back-handing me in the stomach.  "I would recommend at least an hour of drill and some sparring, or that nice flat stomach ... won't be."

"Sparring sounds like an excellent idea."  I replied, letting the challenge glitter in my eyes.

"Yes, sparring." Arnor said, leaning in for a kiss.  "AFTER the drills."

"Yes, ma'am." I replied, accepting the kiss before she followed Illian out onto the patio.

"You two are cute." Talia said, coming back into the room.  "I never thought I'd meet a Jedi who was so ... normal."

I chuckled.  "Normal...  There's a word I've rarely heard used to describe myself or Arnor."
 
Talia sat across from me at the table and made a face.  "It's true, though!  You act like... Well, like a married couple and their teen-age kid!"

I leaned back and smiled behind my coffee mug.  "Well...   We are married.  But Illian is neither a teen-ager or our child."

Talia's eyes went wide.  "Married?  I thought that was forbidden to Jedi?"

"It is.  We're not ... proper Jedi."  I said.  I started to explain further but something stopped me.  Some ripple in the song....

"Oh."  Talia's eyes went opaque and I could see wheels turning behind them.  "Oh..."

She didn't say anything else, but there was a new light in her eyes when she stood up to continue her chores. 

Yes, my love, there is always hope...

I glanced around the apartment we were in.  It was a Jedi safe-house, one of the first things Two had pulled from the download, along with a list of equipment caches spread across the planet.  It had a small automated maintenance system complete with four small droids, and it had been maintaining itself for nearly twenty years.  It was roomy, well stocked with supplies, had its own credit accounts which even after all this time were far from depleted, and had two large open-air patios suitable for combat training that were also shielded from prying eyes.

I rose and headed for the second one.  Arnor had been right about keeping our skills honed, and I needed to run through my Dulons and Orbits, to losen up before engaging in our sparring match as well as keep my own skills honed.  The slight chill now running down my spine in conjunction with sinister turn of the melody within the force also gave me a new and unexpected sense of urgency. 

Something had just happened...  Or was about to happen....

 I set my mind to finding it while my body flowed through the exercises.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on September 25, 2017, 07:17:56 PM
*Spoiler Alert*
I know who the Jedi with the rich green blade is. Luke Skywalker. ;D

Great job. Once again, I love how it is less centered on action, and more on story and character building. Really shows that you have a knowledge of writing, as well as how to keep the audience interested. You build a world that is both realistic, and believable, though at the same time inherently Star Wars. As always, looking forward to more.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on September 26, 2017, 01:32:56 PM
*Spoiler Alert*
I know who the Jedi with the rich green blade is. Luke Skywalker. ;D

Great job. Once again, I love how it is less centered on action, and more on story and character building. Really shows that you have a knowledge of writing, as well as how to keep the audience interested. You build a world that is both realistic, and believable, though at the same time inherently Star Wars. As always, looking forward to more.
Well thanks A LOT TR for ruining that mystery!*

*Just joking my friend ;)

On a serious note, TR said it perfectly: "realistic, and believable,...inherently Star Wars." All the while I am eager to read what comes next, Karm^^

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 27, 2017, 12:37:47 AM
I nearly spilled my coffee when Two came charging around the corner, screaching.  "Two!  Calmly!"

The droid stopped but continued to chirp and whistle at high speed.  I had made strides in learning to understand the electronic language since meeting Two but all I really comprehended from him was that he urgently wanted me to follow him back to the lab. 

"OK, ok, Two!  Lead on."  I said to the droid, who immediately turned and headed back into what we had christened "Headquarters" or just "The Lab".  It was a closet-sized room with power and computer terminals arrayed around a highly illegal direct-tap into the city's main data networks.

Jedi safe house.  You had to love it...

Two was already back in the Lab and plugged back into this console.  He'd spent most of his time here since we retrieved the Temple data node sorting and cataloging the data, which had been highly compressed due to the nature of the storage medium.  Arnor, Illian and I had spent hours daily pouring through Two's output, searching for clues as to the origins of our mysterious smugglers or the crystals they were apparently still after.  So far most of what we'd found were a wealth of information on everything from how to raise a padawan to maintenance schematics for obsolete Jedi star fighters and reams of local color guides with culinary compatibility charts and monetary exchanges.  But nothing about rouge dark-siders.

At least not until now.  I started scanning the output Two was flashing on the adjoining screens almost to fast to absorb.  My eyes went wide.  "Arnor!  You need to see this!"

My wife was next to me a few moments later, Illian and Talia right behind.  "I don't believe this...."

I rocked back, thinking furiously.  "I do.  It makes sense, and explains a few things."

"Like why the Jedi never detected them." Illian said, still reading.  "Right under their noses..."

"Yes.  But Palpatine operated right under their noses as well, and they never suspected a thing until it was far to late." Arnor replied.  "For that matter, if this is correct the enclave is still there, still operating.  Which means that Palpatine doesn't know any more about their true nature than the Jedi did."

I nodded.  Palpatine was the latest in a long line of Sith Lords who followed the 'Rule of Two'.  It was a play on words, a double meaning: Two Sith to rule them all, but also never more than two Sith Lords.  A Master and an Apprentice.  The Master generally using up his apprentices and playing potential students off each other to keep them weaker than himself until at some point one of them finally out-smarted or out-eviled him and killed him.  At which point the apprentice became the Master and the game started all over again.  Only two, always hiding and manipulating others, only coming out into the open when the Jedi threat was sufficiently diminished.  And always hideously strong in the force.

Balance.  There is always balance...

Master Chillum's voice echoed through my head, a memory rather than a ghost.  Yes, there was always balance.  One way or another. 

But this?  My mind raced.  How had they existed for so long?  Unless....

"The crystals are helping them."

"What?" Illian looked puzzled.  "How?  Why???"

I sat back and looked at Arnor.  "Think about it.  The crystals tune to whoever is nearby.  What do you think the force sensitives nearest wherever these crystals are growing want more than anything else?"

"To stay hidden" Talia replied, her voice quiet and thoughtful.

"Right." I replied.  So, the girl was paying attention.  Interesting.  I filed that datum away for the future.  Because there was more here.  "Unfortunately for them, it appears that at some point a Jedi agent did in fact locate them.  Unfortunately for the Jedi, he reported his findings to his superior.  Master Jedi Dooku."

Dooku.  Arch traitor to the Jedi order.  Leader of the Separatist Movement.  Pawn of Palpatine.  I could feel Illian bristle at the name.

"Calmly, Illian.  Calmly." Arnor said.  She was feeling it as well.

Calm.  I was to excited, to flustered...  I took a moment to calm myself as well, reaching out, listening...

The Song flowed.  It was in crescendo.  Our melodies wove together and led to conflict and furious action.  There was terror and trial, victory and defeat, life and death in that fugue. 

Nothing was certain, except....

"Two has the location.   The enclave is here, on Corucant.  And its time to shed some light on the darkness."


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on September 27, 2017, 02:32:37 AM
Oh NICE continuity nod with Dooku! This just got THAT much more serious Karm^^  And the plot thickens...

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on September 27, 2017, 04:17:37 AM

And the plot thickens...

It seems to me that whichever one of us posts first says exactly what the other is thinking. Must truly mean Karm knows what he's doing. Great job once again.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on September 27, 2017, 01:00:07 PM
It seems to me that whichever one of us posts first says exactly what the other is thinking. Must truly mean Karm knows what he's doing. Great job once again.
Lol "great minds" my friend   :D

But you said it TR: Karm knows what he's doing  ;D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 27, 2017, 05:20:45 PM
Lol "great minds" my friend   :D

But you said it TR: Karm knows what he's doing  ;D

*fist pump*  YES!  Fooled ALLY'ALL!  WOOT!  ;-)

More to come.  Time to go underground again....


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 28, 2017, 09:49:45 PM
I shuddered.  Underground again...  Darkness reigned around us, lit mainly by the light Two was putting out and our hand-held lanterns.

Darkness...  And not just an absence of light.  We were entering an area of utter dark.  Even the song was muted here, distant and faint.  In fact the further we went...

"I feel blind down here..." Illian muttered behind me, speaking for all of us.

Two whistled. 

"Glad YOU can see!" came the tart reply from ... Talia, actually.  The girl had come farther than anyone else to true fluency in the odd language of beeps and whistles that the R3- series droid used as his primary form of aural communication.  Nor was she as out-of-place as I had feared on our expedition, sporting an array of climbing gear in a subdued backpack and a powerful blaster hanging from a cross-body sling. 

Always more than met the eye with Talia.... 

I returned my full concentration to the area around me.  It was like ... walking inside of a bee's nest.  Or a giant crystal gong.   The Song was still there, it was just blanketed by this ever-present, growing hum of "white noise" in the force.  And the closer we came to the coordinates that Two had dug up, the louder that "white noise" became.  Without realizing it I had already begun adjusting our course to shape it into the very heard of that blinding cloud.  Cloaked in darkness this place may be, but even a shadow can be found ... if you're looking for an absence of light.

The eruption of red blades in our path came as a complete surprise.  "Halt!  Who goes there?"

Two didn't bother answering.  I saw the shimmer of his personal force field pop into existence and the manipulator arm I'd modified sprang out, the Destroyer Droid blaster affixed to the end of it.  With an electronic scream the Droid unleashed a rain of shimmering blaster bolts into the passage before us.  Amazingly two of the bolts scored and the guard went down, but there were shouts beyond and the red glow of more blades rushing to his aid.

And nothing, nothing at all in the force...  I pointed to a side corridor.  "This way!"

Arnor took the lead, taking Talia by the hand, her blade springing to life.  Illian was right behind them.  I followed, turned to beckon Two to hurry...

...and smiled.  He was flying now, weaving back and forth, continuing to fire back at the Sith giving chase while using the thrusters built into his legs to hover.  The corridor was plenty wide, even with his force field up, for him to have manuevered on the ground.  He as airborne to give me the maximum cover.  And indeed, blaster bolts now began to appear, splashing harmlessly into this personal shield.

I grasped my own saber hilt but did not ignite the blade.  There was no need ... and for the first time in decades I couldn't feel the incoming fire anyway.  It was all lost in that buzzing, humming background!

We turned another corner and hit a dead end.  Just a wall.  Arnor and Illian plunged their blades into the barrier and quickly cut an opening.  A quick push with the force removed the plug...

... and revealed a nightmarish drop into apparent oblivion.

I slammed the door shut, using the force to close another door facing the corridor we had fled down.  Hopefully that would slow the pursuit somewhat...  I tried to calm myself but for a moment my mind raged.  What is it with this place and bottomless chasms???  We were trapped...

Two never hesitated.  His force field snapped off and he blazed past, still airborne.  As he hit the hole in the wall a small piton was fired from a port just over his left leg strut.  The cable played out as he flew across the void and landed on a small balcony on the other side.  In seconds the cable was taunt and secure.

Talia had already taken some short lengths of composite cable from her pack.  "Throw it over the cable and slide across.  It should hold long enough to reach the other side."

I looked at the composite, then at Two's cable.  "Only one way to find out..."

Illian's hand on my chest stopped me.  "No.  Let me go first.  I'm ... expendable."

I saw the denial in Talia's eyes but before she or I or Arnor could say anything Illian was into the void and dropping down the impromptu zip line.  He made it without incident and beckoned us to follow.

Arnor and Talia followed in quick succession, and I brought up the rear.   Amazingly the pursuing Sith still had not found the room behind us, were searching the labyrinth of rooms and corridors systematically.  Perhaps confident that we were in fact trapped on the other side of the chasm.

Two was still in the lead.  He'd picked the lock electronically and led us into the corridors beyond.  I snapped on my blade and with a quick flip of the blade severed the cable.  No sense letting the enemy follow us across.

We were in.  The core of the darkness was before us.  We penetrated a new maze of corridors which quickly emptied into banks of storage rooms.  Or rather, rows and rows of storage containers arranged in order within one massive, cavernous holding area.  And just ahead, only meters away, was the center of it all. 

Two rolled up to the door and plugged into the data port, emitting a whistle of triumph, the port turning as he navigated its electronic maze...

...and was suddenly bisected by an angry red blade.  A blade which extended through the door from inside whatever the container was.  The crackle of energy as Two's motivator imploded sent metal shrapnel up and down the corridor.  Only an instinctive force push kept the deadly fragments from causing us harm.  By the time the far more powerful force push against the door came  - from inside - I had drawn my own saber and was back on balance.  The door flew into our faces, along with a second cloud of sharp metal fragments, but all three of us were pushing ourselves and the parts ended up going harmlessly over and up.

"I wondered when you would find us, Jedi."  Said a deep and menacing voice.  "We have long awaited your arrival..."

More red.  We were surrounded.

The Sith before me was still speaking.  "For decades we hid, and you never knew!  Your feable powers are no match for..."

He was monologuing.  Monologuing!  Concentrating on the moment.  Relishing the fight to come. 

But not concentrating on the here and now...

I struck.  Not with my blade, I never moved a muscle.  He was close enough, even in this horrible force-blanked zone I could just see him in the force.  I could hear him, here his cacophony of evil.  And I could see him.  Well enough to reach out and pull...

I missed the cervical vertebrae I was aiming for, but it hardly mattered.  My tightly focused force grip pulled his spinal chord forward and crushed it against the bone.  No broken neck for this one, but the effect was the same.  An abrupt end to his monologue, a look of surprise, and then nothing.

"Hold your ground!" I yelled to Arnor as I sprang over the body and into the room beyond.  The noise here was actually painful, and for a moment I shied away... 

No!  Concentrate!

No song.  No melody.  No harmony.  No rhythm.  Nothing but that horrible, aweful buzz....   

There was a small device in the middle of the room.  Nothing else.  I walked around it, dimly aware of the sounds of combat outside.  This was it.  This was the center. 

I ignited my saber, reversed my hold, and plunged it down into the device...

   *** BLACKNESS ***

I hummed the melody.  It was ... beautiful.  Full.  Complete.  Four strands, woven together...

My eyes snapped open.  There was shouting outside the room.  "Arnor..."

Nothing would work properly.  My arms and legs were clumsy, wooden.  The floor was tilting crazily, covered with something wet and slippery...

Blood.  There was blood on the floor.  A lot of it...

The pain registered.  Everywhere...  Blinding pain...

Someone was screaming in agony.  Arnor?  Illian?  Talia?  No...  it didn't sound right...   I dragged in a ragged breath of air, and the sound of agony stopped for a moment.

Oh.   It was me...

Slowly sensation resolved itself.  The pain narrowed, focused.  My leg...

I levered myself up into a sitting position.  Something had thrown me against the wall...  An explosion?  I couldn't remember....  But I was bleeding like a stuck pig....

Two wounds.  One just above my hip, not deep.  A shard of plastic still protruding through my belt.  The belt had stopped it from penetrating more an a couple of inches, or I'd probably be dead now instead of just dying...  A quick jerk removed it, a push to cover the small wound with cloth and another pull to tighten the belt.

One down.

Now further down... Something had ripped open my thigh.  It had missed the femoral artery and vein, or I'd already be dead, but the thigh muscle was mangled and torn.  I grabbed the medical kit on my belt, a precaution Arnor, Illian and I had adopted since Naboo.  Inside was a dressing laced with drugs and nanites designed to fight infection, pain and begin tissue repair.  With a groan I straightened my leg, clamping the edges of the laceration together long enough to apply a binding agent and the drugged dressing.  I tore a long strip of my outer robe and used it for an outer dressing, binding the wound tightly.

Where is your saber?  Your weapon is your life...

I looked around the room, feeling a sudden urgency.  Where...  There!  I spotted my saber, against the adjoining wall.  Sounds of combat continued from outside the room.  Whatever was happening here, it wasn't over yet.  It took all my willpower to push past the pain, to steady myself enough to reach out and drag the saber to myself.  I gasped at the effort, clutching the hilt to my chest.  Closed my eyes.

Listened.

Sang.

The analgesics started to have their effect.  I sang a healing song, helping the nanites along and further dampening the pain.  Slowly I regained a measure of control, a tithe of connection.  I reached out...

... and the melody blazed back.  The Song of Battle coursed through my chest.  With a grunt I rose.  The pain receded a bit more as I stood, and I was able to use the force to stabilize my balance, reinforce my leg, but it was dangerous.  The damage was bad.  Even small movements caused huge spikes in the pain levels, and every time that happened the new flood of pain in my system threatened to undo the control I was very slowly regaining.  I was certainly in no shape to fight. 

But maybe I could still help...

I reached out in the force, listening....

The door frame shattered as a body flew through it, force-pushed with savage energy.  Recognition ripped the name from my lips in a new cry of agony.  "ARNOR!!!"

She hit the wall and fell in a boneless heap...  Her song ...

The evil laugh from the door drew my eyes from my wife.  "So, you survived.  Jedi."

The eyes glowed yellow, and the voice...  The voice was ... different.  "Talia."   My saber ignited.  "How?"

More laughter.  "Talia?  Only this shell is Talia...  She is my hand, Jedi.  And now my Hand will end you with your pitiful friends."  I heard the ignition of a saber.  Light blue...

"Illian"

"Yes...  the fool."  The saber came up into a high guard.  "And now you, too, will pay for his lack of vision."

A Hand...  A servant, force sensitive, possessed by the Emperor himself.  Sometimes willingly, sometimes not.  For a fleeting moment I wondered which way Talia had gone.

Then it didn't matter.  The blow came down, and I blocked it as best I could.  One strike, and my saber was hammered out of my hands.  I found myself back on the blood-soaked floor, looking up at her.

"And now...  you will die!"  The saber rose...

...and a red blade sliced the hilt neatly in two.  "NO!"  Illian staggered into the room.  He was wounded, dragging his left leg behind him, with what looked like a saber stab wound in the abdomen.  But his strike was sure. 

A solid round-house punch, square into the side of the head.

Talia dropped like a sack, and Illian collapsed next to her.

I sank back as well, my last perception of a four-part choral rising majestically into the echos of the force....

*gray*





Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on September 28, 2017, 10:42:32 PM
Good twist re Talia being a Hand, that could make for some interesting back story to fill in at some point, some gritty action going on there too.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on September 29, 2017, 01:17:25 AM
Ouch. You really have no problem hurting yourself. Another aspect of good writing. Making it realistic. Too often people do not let their characters get hurt, and they don't have weaknesses. I haven't seen that with you yet. Great job. Now I'm really excited to see what happens next.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on September 29, 2017, 02:34:26 AM
YES!
NO!!
ARRGGH!!!

EXCELLENT pacing Karm!  I had to go back to make sure that I was reading every word instead of trying to see what was coming next^^

Good twist re Talia being a Hand, that could make for some interesting back story to fill in at some point, some gritty action going on there too.
LSG is right: AWESOME twist with Talia as Hand!  And subtle foreshadowing with her being just a tad too prepared  ;)

Ouch. You really have no problem hurting yourself. Another aspect of good writing. Making it realistic. Too often people do not let their characters get hurt, and they don't have weaknesses. I haven't seen that with you yet. Great job. Now I'm really excited to see what happens next.
I couldn't agree more; TR really brings up a poignant issue: too often people write their characters as superhuman (or worse, God Mode Sues).  Not you Karm; you've written believable characters that (and I feel confident in speaking for us all  :)) we care about.  I canNOT wait to read what's next!

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 29, 2017, 06:19:57 PM
Ouch. You really have no problem hurting yourself. Another aspect of good writing. Making it realistic. Too often people do not let their characters get hurt, and they don't have weaknesses. I haven't seen that with you yet. Great job. Now I'm really excited to see what happens next.

Thanks Taegin.  Trust me, I fight against making Karmack weakness-free.  Thanks guys for the encouragement!

LOL  Now I just have to come up with something not to crazy to get out of this mess....   he he he
Stay tuned!


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on September 29, 2017, 06:48:30 PM
The song cascaded around me, over, under, through...  I was immersed in it.  I could see the beauty of the Singer in ways I had not before.  Flashes of pure color.  Pure energy. 

Pure Joy.

I was enthralled, carried away in the tide of harmonious praise sung to the Maker....


"Karm..."

I recognized the voice.   It was distant....  The Song surrounded me, bouyed my soul in ways I had never experienced before.  Contentment filled me, wrapped in that song....

"Karm!  Stay with me!"

The voice was distressed.  Watery with unshed tears...  I felt the song turning around me, and from the majestic chorus a four-part fugue emerged...  I studied it, listening, seeing it as if written down, feeling it within my very being.  Four parts ... but also two sets of two.  Destined to split.  One line had faltered but was winding back into the dance of the lines.   Another...

"Please, Karm...  Hang on.  We're almost there..."

One of the pairs was falling apart.  From where I stood I looked forward in the song, and I saw one of the lines suddenly cease.  That line fell away and merged with the massive, victorious chorus around it.  But the other...  The other drifted, recovered, faltered...  No details, but it was clear that without its partner, that line of song would not survive long, and would come to an end as well. 

A bad end.

Realization dawned.  "NO!"  I felt, longingly, one last time the utter beauty and contentment of the Song around me... and turned away.  "No.  Not yet..."


I gasped.  Pain filled me....  Pain. 

Only the living feel pain.

"Karm?"

The voice again.  I realized my head was cradled in someone's lap.  Arnor?  I struggled to open my eyes, to look.

Light blinded me for an instant and I saw a face.  Pretty.  Dark hair.  Blue eyes, streaked with tears...

Not Arnor.

Talia!

The realization jerked me fully back into the hear-and-now.  We were in a vehicle, all four of us apparently.  What I had thought was Arnor's lap was actually a pillowed cervical collar, keeping my head and neck still to prevent the worsening of any head or neck injuries.  I reached out, partially blinded by the pervasive pain, but I could feel Arnor alive beside me, and Illian nearby.  Illian's song was nearly as pain-soaked as mine was but Arnor...  "Ar...  Arnor?"

Talia's eyes flooded with relief at the words.  "Arnor is OK.  She's drifting in and out from the pain meds the paramedics gave her.  She's got some broken bones but nothing like the injuries you and Illian sustained."

Something shadowed her eyes.  "Master Karmack, I am so sorry!  I...  I don't know what exactly happened.  I can't explain it...."

I blinked hard to clear my eyes and then captured her gaze.  She flinched away, but then steeled herself and met my eyes steadily.  The contact let me contact her song directly... 

Pain.  Not physical, psychological.  Torturous...  Her song twisted and turned through gut-wrenching discord, consumed and subsumed in a powerful darkness....

The Emperor.  Forcing himself on her mind in a psychic parody of rape.  Embedding himself in her...   And then suddenly, inexplicably, gone.  I There was sorrow and the pain of knowing she had done something horrible now, but the Evil that had been hidden below the bright surface was gone. 

I withdrew, gasping a bit from the effort.  "s'ok.  We'll talk later..."  I marshalled my strength and met her eyes one more time.  "But missy, you got some 'slpainin' to do..."

I felt her tears wetting my chest as I faded out again.  I had no idea where we were headed, but the song was still and stable.  The four-part fugue again weaving its way through the harmony intact.

Enough.  I hummed the song of healing and descended back into the darkness.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on September 29, 2017, 08:52:18 PM
Oh dear. What happens next. When it first started, I thought I might have an idea of where you were going, and I was right sometimes, and wrong sometimes. Now I don't have any idea what to expect. Great job, can't wait for more. :D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on September 30, 2017, 01:20:36 AM
Oh dear. What happens next. When it first started, I thought I might have an idea of where you were going, and I was right sometimes, and wrong sometimes. Now I don't have any idea what to expect. Great job, can't wait for more. :D
Lol I was thinking just that TR  :D. And here I thought I had Talia nailed down; GREAT misdirect Karm! 

You know, one constant that I REALLY appreciate is the presence of the Song.  As you (and TR) are musicians, I really get the impression of the import of music in life, even AS life^^  Long story short: the Song as a function/interpretation of the Force=genius  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 02, 2017, 05:02:43 PM
"I hate bacta..."

I looked at Arnor and chuckled.  "But you look so good in it!"

My wife shot me a very level stare.  "Exactly.  That's why I hate it.  How would you feel, suspended in clear liquid, helpless and on display for all to see?"

I looked over at the tanks we had only recently evacuated.  "Well, first off, as you'll recall I was right there across from you the whole time.  Besides, I wouldn't say you were exactly helpless."

It was now Arnor's turn to chuckle.  "Well, ok, maybe not..."

Our eyes met and I felt my heart lurch just a bit at the twinkle I detected in her clear blue orbs.  Maker, I love her so... 

Nor had I been offended in the least when Arnor had used her force abilities to swath her bacta tank in layers of cloth every time the medical personnel had entered the room.  As much as I might tease her about it, her modesty was one of the things I loved about her.

Illian's entry into the room brought my focus back to our current situation.  All three of us had emerged from the tanks in the last hour, aided by a clutch of medical droids.  I wasn't exactly sure how long we'd been in the bacta, but my best guess was about 4 days.  A good long stretch, actually.  Most bacta treatments were far shorter.  The saber wounds on Illian's body had healed nicely, showing only surface scars that he would carry with him for the rest of his life.  The massive rip in my thigh had also closed nicely, leaving nothing but a thin white line across the skin in its wake.  The array of burns and cuts from the explosion were virtually gone without a trace, an after-effect of the long bacta exposure.   Unfortunately, with such an extensive tissue repair there was going to be some continuing pain.  I was maintaining a low-level meditative state, humming the songs of healing in the back of my mind to complete the healing and keep the pain itself under control.  But I couldn't help grimacing a little as I shucked the medical "gown" the droids had wrapped me in for the clothing left on my bed.

Illian and Arnor were also moving slowly as they dressed.  Arnor more so than either Illian or myself.  Despite the lack of outward injury, she had been in the worst shape of the three of us.  The brutal force attack that had thrown her into the room had broken several bones, ruptured her speen and caused massive internal bleeding.  Somehow she had maintained consciousness long enough to initiate a healing state before passing out, and the paramedics that had come to our aid had immediately inserted her into their mobile bacta tube.  It meant that Illian and I had been forced to wait until we reached the med center proper for immersion, but thanks to their efforts we all made.

Them ... and Talia.

Talia.  An engima.  I reached into the satchel she'd brought for me and withdrew the outer garment, a dark gray poncho that went over the rest of my all-black outfit and looked like the quasi-uniform worn by the myriad of off-duty storm troopers that seemed to be everywhere.  Perfect for blending in to the crowd.  But below it was something that definitely would NOT blend in: My light saber.

I lifted it and shot a quizzical look at Arnor, who was also hefting hers.  "How did she recover these?"

"I have no idea." I replied, clipping mine to my belt.  It went into perfect concealment below the poncho. 

"I do." Illian said.  "But I think she needs to tell you about it yourself."  He lifted his own saber out of his satchel ... or what was left of it, anyway.  "Looks like the crystal is intact, at least.  Hmm...."  He reached into the back and drew out the Sith weapon he'd held at the end.  It took him under a minute to open the hilt and swap the crystals.  "That will have to do for now..."

I nodded in approval.  While it was possible to pick up a discarded blade and use it, without the connection built between the crystal and the user a light saber was awkward, like a poorly balanced club rather than a precision instrument.  By swapping the crystals Illian restored virtually all of the functionality of his current weapon, despite the unfamiliar grip.  The crystal, as always, the heart of the saber.  "Well, I'd like to hear her story.  Where is she?"

"Here, Master Karmack." said a soft voice behind me.  I spun, startled, to see smiling blue eyes.  "We have some time now, the paperwork on your release won't process for a bit yet.  So ... let's talk?"

She said the last tentatively, anxiety and fear coloring her tone, and I realized I had my hand on my saber hilt.  I relaxed and removed it, looking an apology to her as I gestured to one of the chairs.  "Please, Talia."

She smiled and sat, pulling her chair close to Illian as I pulled another chair over and sat across from her, next to Arnor.  With a start I realized we were mirroring the younger couple: I had instinctively offered my hand to Arnor in a reassuring and protective gesture, and she had taken it immediately, holding my hand with both of hers, pressed into her thigh.  Illian's hand was likewise held by Talia.  The site made me relax further and a slight smile crept onto my face.  "Relax, Talia.  Just tell us what happened."

The girl sighed and suddenly looked very young.  "Ok..." she looked at Illian.  "As you already know, I was lured to Corscant about three years ago with the promise of a job and freedom from the debt-peonage my family was under on my home planet.  My Pa and Ma are poor farmers, children and grandchildren of poor farmers, and they were never going to be able to work their way out of the debt the Combine said they owed.  So when that agent made me his offer, I thought I saw a way to help everyone and get away.  Even though I knew, deep down, what was probably going to happen."  Talia looked down now, her cheeks flaming red.  "At least, I thought I knew what was coming..."

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and looked back up, her eyes bright with unshed tears.  "I was wrong.  The agent who hired me wasn't a front for an escort service or anything like that.  He was one of the Inquisitorious." 

I felt Arnor's reaction next to me: surprise and pity, tempered by suspicion and disbelief.  She wasn't totally sold.  I let the song flow in my mind and found Talia's trace in the melody, still in tight fugue with our own, and started tracing it backward in time.  The discrepancy appeared almost immediately.  The bright, golden notes were suddenly not as bright, almost ... false....  I concentrated, drawing closer, studying that one melody intently, and it started to come clear.  It was a false front, but forward by....

I recoiled from the malevolent counter-melody that suddenly touched me in the force.  For a second a cackling, gravelly voice echoed in my mind.  Fool. Pitiful little pretend Jedi...

I snapped back to the here-and-now with a start to find three pairs of eyes focused on me.  "Karm?"

I took my own ragged breath and steadied my heart-rate, dampening the adrenal reaction coursing through my body.  "I'm ... ok."  I looked at Talia.  "He took you to the Emperor."

The tears were falling freely now.  "Yes.  He ... did something to me.  Touched me with ... evil.  Controlled me..."  She was sobbing now.  "I didn't want to ...."

Illian's arm was around Talia's shoulders now, hugging her to his chest while he kissed her head and whispered comfort into her ear.  I took another deep breath, glanced at my wife again, and then back at the two.  "And you became his Hand."

No words now.  She just nodded, tears streaming down her face.

"And his spy."  More agreement.  "And when you met Illian?"

She swallowed and when she spoke her voice was very small.  "I could ... feel him ... in the force, and because of that so could .... he."  She turned to Illian.  "I am so sorry!  I didn't want to do it!  I just wanted to run away, but he wouldn't let me.  He put the words into my mouth, used my own story against me...." She broke down, sobbing, pressed her face into Illian's shoulder.

"So, he wanted us to find the girls." Arnor said.  "It was a trap."

"More than that."  I replied.  "From the time we arrived, our song has been distorted.  I've encountered many forms of evil, but never one so adept at insinuating itself into the song itself.  Usually its all just chaos, or straight overpowering drumbeat.  But this?"  I shook my head.  "But things are clearer now.  I couldn't see it before, but now I can."

Talia was nodding now.  "Yes.  That was the whole point.  Whatever that device was that you destroyed in the caverns, that was his objective all along.  He used me to get to you, and he used you to get to them."

"Us?  Why us?"  Arnor asked.  "Why not just send Vader or other Inquisitors in?"

"Vader is not here.  He's on his way to Endor." Talia replied.  Then looked puzzled.  "I'm not sure why I know that..."

"Because you've been in the mind of the Emperor, Talia.  You probably know a great deal.  That's why we were all supposed to be killed the other night."  I looked at Illian.  "Only a young man's love and dedication to preserving life if at all possible thwarted his plan, but I'm getting ahead of myself."

I turned to Arnor.  "It makes sense.  Palpatine knew about the data node, and he knew we were here looking for a sith enclave.  He's a "True Sith", the Great Master Sith, Darth Sidious, the Master in the Rule of Two.  These other sith must be an enclave of dark-side followers not dissimilar to our own Gray order.  They use their power for evil rather than good, but they're not really Sith anymore than we're part of the Jedi order."

"And that would make them a very real and present threat to Sidious and his rule."  Arnor replied.  "But with that dampening field up..."

"...he couldn't find them any better than the Jedi could find HIM when he was maneuvering against them." I finished her sentence.  "Oh, the tangled webs we weave..."

"Wait.  So you're saying that Palpatine ... set us up?  From the beginning?"  Illian asked, incredulous.

"It would seem so." I replied.  "In fact, I am starting to suspect that this dampener has been in place since before the fall of the Republic.  Either Palpatine put it in place himself, or it was already here to hide these sith and he took advantage of it.  Either way, once his own purposes were fulfilled, he decided to eliminate it.  I wonder how long he's been searching for it."

"Decades, if you're right." Arnor replied.  And it burns me that he's finally succeeded by duping us."

"Yes, that is ... annoying." I replied, bringing my attention back to Talia.  "But that still leaves a question.  When we fought, you ... were not yourself."

"No." Talia replied.  "That fight was horrible.  He was in control, fighting through me, using my body.  He ... forced me to wound Illian, then he killed several of the sith....  When Arnor noticed what was happeneing he hit her with a force push so powerful...."  The tears started again.  "I thought she was dead.  And then you...  You faced him and he was laughing.  He enjoyed your pain.  And then...nothing."  Talia sniffed and wiped her eyes again.  "I woke up with Illian lying next to me and he was ... gone.  And then the Storm Troopers came, and asked for orders, so I identified you three as allies and ordered him to evacuate all four of us to the nearest medical facility.  Thankfully they didn't take us to the Triad."

"Thankfully." I looked at Illian.  "So?"

"So...what?" Illian replied, but his cheeks colored slightly.

"So, explain to the Maenowan Master exactly what happened before your Silver Koawan mentor knocks your block off, Teidowan!" barked Arnor.  The invocation of titles, rare for her, added emphasis to her point. 

"Well..." Illian looked at Talia.  "I managed to get my feet under myself and block most of the pain.  Talia had surprised me early in the fight, she force-pulled my saber away and stabbed me with it, but didn't follow up, just left me there.  But I managed to block the pain enough to initiate some healing and slowly re-centered myself the way you've taught me.  I was just getting to my feet when I saw her ... him, rather, throw Arnor through the door, and I followed ..." Illian stopped.  "OK, I'm just going to say 'her', ok?  Understanding that Talia wasn't in control of herself at this point?"

I nodded.  "Understood, Illian.  Continue."

"Ok."  He looked at Talia again.  "I followed her in.  I heard what she said to you, Master Karmack, and realized she ... wasn't herself.  So when she went to the high-guard, totally focused on you, I called the sith saber to my hand and sliced the power pack in my saber, then slugged her hard in the head to knock her out."  He kissed the side of her head where he'd hit her tenderly.  "Then I, uh, that is..."

I felt my eyes go wide.  "You drove him out of her mind..."

"Um, yeah.  But not by myself.  Talia was ... there.  She helped.  It took both of us, and we were barely able to do it." 

"How?"  I asked.  "How did you do it?"

Illian looked at Talia again, and she nodded slightly.  Then he looked back at me.  "Well, we've both been listening to you a lot the last few weeks, so..."

Talia finished his sentence.  "We sang."


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 02, 2017, 06:42:46 PM
Oh, nice. Perfect use of Shakespeare. Who'da thought that he would fit so well in SW. ::) I also really loved how you ended this one, fits the story, but also has a deeper meaning. A lot of dialogue, but it went really well in this stage of the story. Looking forward to what you do next.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 02, 2017, 07:02:29 PM
Oh, nice. Perfect use of Shakespeare. Who'da thought that he would fit so well in SW. ::) I also really loved how you ended this one, fits the story, but also has a deeper meaning. A lot of dialogue, but it went really well in this stage of the story. Looking forward to what you do next.

Um.....    Shakespeare?   LOL  It wasn't a conscious decision. 
What reference are you referring to?  Now I'm totally curious.  :-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 02, 2017, 07:09:09 PM
Um.....    Shakespeare?   LOL  It wasn't a conscious decision. 
What reference are you referring to?  Now I'm totally curious.  :-)


"Oh, the tangled webs we weave..."

Oops, my bad. It is Walter Scott, and still not exact at that. His is "O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!"


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 02, 2017, 07:33:41 PM
Oops, my bad. It is Walter Scott, and still not exact at that. His is "O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!"

LOL  Oh, ok.  :-)  You had me worried there, I like to think I know Shakespeare pretty well, and I was utterly stumped! 


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 03, 2017, 01:39:18 AM
Oh HECK yes!

Karm this chapter was incredible my friend!  I am completely invested with these characters. Having said that, Talia's betrayal was anything BUT simple and prosaic!!  BRILLIANT writing!  I never expected her to be a Hand, MUCH less against her will  :o 

I also really get the sense of family with the conversation; this was so organic, so right, it is a pleasure to share in  :D

Oh, and I know that I have said it before: I LOVE the "Song" as a framing device; its uniqueness within the narrative helps to illustrate the quality of writing, Karm. Well done sir, well done  ;D

Oh, and that ending is the best^^

Until next installment friends


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 03, 2017, 02:20:52 AM
The Song.  Always the Song...

Illian's announcement had stunned me.  While Arnor understood and even shared to some extent my view of the force, only Master Chillum had ever been able to sing it as I did.  It was a skill only the rare Sages in our order possessed.  It could not be learned, only refined.  Many Maenowan Masters had tried to learn it, some from Master Chillum himself.  Most had been stronger than even the great Sage himself in the ways of the force, but they didn't have the gift.  Like everyone, they had unique gifts.  We all, as a whole, were vital to the Order.  But the gift of the Sage...

Rare.  Very rare to one who could sing.  Arnor and I had been paired because to a greater or lesser extent we both had that gift.  It was hoped that our children would also display it, though none had done so to date.

"You sang?"  I had asked.  Stunned.  Paralyzed.  

Illian had bobbed his head.  "Yes, Master."  a pause.  "I'm sorry..."

I laughed at him.  It confused them both, but I couldn't help it.  He sang and he was sorry?!?

Arnor joined me, and then Talia and Illian last of all and hesitant at first.  "You sang!"

It was exhultation.  Joy!  

Always the Song!

But then it was time to go.  What had been placid stillness became a rush, and we were off again.  Talia's authority held long enough for us to exit the facility and disappear into the public transportation system, but going back to our previous location was out of the question.  Nor could we safely return to our ship, that would be staked out as well.  

"What about another Jedi safe house?"  Talia asked as we travelled through one of the endless districts of the planet-wide city.

I shook my head.  "No.  Think about it: Palpatine has been playing us since we landed.  He threw us a bone he knew we would chase and gave us the means to locate them.  I should have realized the Emperor would have eradicated all traces of the Jedi when he moved into the Temple and made it his Imperial Residence and headquarters."

"So, where are we headed?"  Illian asked.

My eyes twinkled.  "No place special."

It took us four hours and seven bus changes to get there, but at last we arrived at the tower.  A residential tower in the Rho quadrant, surrounded by technical workers and computer programmers.  A quick stop at the local Bank of the Core to tap into an account and then we were inside one of the towers.

I reached out and scanned the double-sized apartment quickly with the force: No surprises.  The door opened.  "Welcome home."

"Thanks." Illian said.  I could see he was reaching out himself, also scanning.  "Where are we?"

Arnor answered.  "This is called She'Val tower 88.  About half of the residential space is occupied by employees of TaggeCo's central planning teams.  Levels 9 thru 800 are taken up with semi-automated production facilities for Cybot Galactica.  900 thru 1400 are taken up by Industrial Automaton, R&D and production.  We're on level 3838, North quad, apartment C."

Talia was wide eyed.  "How did you know that?"

"Simple." I said, taking up the thread again.  "We spent the first three years of our marriage here."  I bent over and kissed Arnor.  "Welcome home, my love."

Illian swallowed and tried not to stare as I kissed Arnor again, with a bit more heat.  "I have a bad feeling about this...."

"Then get over it!" Laughed Talia, reaching up and planting her own kiss on his startled lips.

I felt the warmth of passion spread in the room and let it grow for a moement before breaking my embrace with Arnor and stepping back.  "Wait one."  I said, letting a stern note creep into my voice.

Illian and Talia, just getting into a very intimate embrace, parted quickly and awkwardly.  "Um. Ah..."

I stepped up to Illian and looked him in the eye.  I was open, listening to the Song.  Specifically to the melodies of Illian and Talia.  "Illian.  I perceive that you love this woman, Talia.  That she has become more important to you than even your own life.  Is this true?"

For a moement fear shadowed Illian's eyes, then he relaxed slightly, remembering that this was not an indictment or a failure in our Order.  Still, he never considered any answer but the one he gave.  "Yes, Maenowan Karmack.  This is true."

"Good."  I looked him in the eye.  "And are you willing to join your song to hers, no matter what may come?"

He nodded, despite the confusion I sensed in him.  "Yes, Master."

I turned my eyes to Talia, who had pulled herself up straighter, quicker than her companion to sense what was happening.  "And you, Talia.  Do you love this man?  Are you willing to join your song to his, no matter what may come?"

"Yes, Maenowan."

"Very good.  Illian," I turned my attention back to him, and he swallowed nervously as he realized what was happening.  "You have expressed your wish to join your songs as one.  You are a member of the Order.  We are Gray.  We seek balance in the force but we serve the Maker.  The path of light and love is our ideal, our goal, and our cause.  We seek to help those who need help.  We seek to preserve life, in the hopes that all will find light in the Maker.  However, sometimes evil must be confronted: when this is required, so we do.  Are you willing to join her song to yours, knowing that the path may be dangerous and deadly?  That the Maker may require your sacrifice, or hers, for the redemption of others?"

Illian's eyes were steady now.  "Yes."

I turned back to Talia.  "And you, Talia.  Do you understand that your songs, once joined, will be united in service to the Maker and his Song?  That the path may be dangerous and deadly?  Will you go with this man and join his song even if the path leads to death for the redemption of others?"

Talia's gaze was also steady.  "Yes, Maenowan"

"Very well."  I turned to Arnor.  "Koawan Arnor, you have observed Teidowan Illian and trained him.  Has he acquired the skills required for the rank of Knight of the Gray?"

Arnor pulled herself up straight.  "Yes, Master Maenowan.  His skills are complete."

"Very well."  I turned back to Illian.  "Illian, your Song is revealed: You have passed your test.  Rather than kill when it would have been justified and even deemed by many to be necessary, you spared life and then freed this woman from the grip of a powerful Sith Lord.  In so doing you not only saved her but yourself, your Mentor and myself.  Your Song continues with us, but not as a Teidowan.  I confer on you the rank of Koawan Knight of the Gray."  I bowed to Illian, who drew himself up and returned my bow.  

"And as for the two of you,"  I let my eyes twinkle now, and the smile that tugged at the corners of my mouth was allowed to show ever so slightly.  "I have seen for some time that your songs were as tightly bound as Arnor's and my own.  Indeed, they have become one song, as is ours.  In the presence of this witness you have declared your love and devotion to each other.  As a Seer of the Order of M'Actor I pronounce you Husband and Wife."

"Illian, you may kiss your bride."

Arnor slid into my arms again as Illian, now grinning ear-to-ear, reached out and embraced Talia, drawing her into a very passionate kiss.  We joined them.

This time, there were no flamed cheeks in the apartment.  An no one had a bad feeling about it.

Always the Song...


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 03, 2017, 04:14:34 AM
You know that feeling when you come home, open the door, and are greeted warmly by family?  Well this chapter epitomizes that feeling for me  :D

What a truly beautiful scene!  And Karm, your take on the doctrine of the Gray is exactly what I believe! 

Heh another anecdote: you know the joy and pride you get when you see a protege succeed?  This story was evocative of that^^
Now that's GOOD writing  ;D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 03, 2017, 04:16:23 AM
*blushes*

Well....  Time to get back on track...  What were we doing?  Oh yeah...

looking for crystals...  ;-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on October 03, 2017, 05:32:34 AM
Almost sounds like a happy ending!  Surprising how trusting they are of Talia, I get her explanation but if I were Karmack I’d have her undergo some serious deconditioning at some stage. 

Anyway I like the manipulation Palpatine has used basically playing various force cults off against each other is a very high level Sith thing to do, not the brutish deployment of Vader but the subtle manoeuvring of agents and using their pre-existing goals to serve his own ends.  I think that is very believable and even though he’s not on stage his machinations permeate the story line looking back on it.  Question is are they truly out of it yet?


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 03, 2017, 12:54:51 PM
Almost sounds like a happy ending!  Surprising how trusting they are of Talia, I get her explanation but if I were Karmack I’d have her undergo some serious deconditioning at some stage. 

Anyway I like the manipulation Palpatine has used basically playing various force cults off against each other is a very high level Sith thing to do, not the brutish deployment of Vader but the subtle manoeuvring of agents and using their pre-existing goals to serve his own ends.  I think that is very believable and even though he’s not on stage his machinations permeate the story line looking back on it.  Question is are they truly out of it yet?
EXCELLENT points LSG.  I also like the presentation of Palpatine as the chess master, full of guile and ruthless subversion  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 03, 2017, 07:43:30 PM
Almost sounds like a happy ending!  Surprising how trusting they are of Talia, I get her explanation but if I were Karmack I’d have her undergo some serious deconditioning at some stage. 

Anyway I like the manipulation Palpatine has used basically playing various force cults off against each other is a very high level Sith thing to do, not the brutish deployment of Vader but the subtle manoeuvring of agents and using their pre-existing goals to serve his own ends.  I think that is very believable and even though he’s not on stage his machinations permeate the story line looking back on it.  Question is are they truly out of it yet?

he he he.   In case it hasn't come through yet Karmack trusts his perception of the Song implicitly.
You could almost say it was a ... weakness ...

;-)

Or not...  he he he


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 03, 2017, 11:31:31 PM
I sat on the balcony and tried to meditate.  According to the clock it was just before sunset.  The orange-red glow of the sliver of sky barely visible directly above matched that assessment, but all that was really visible were the myriad of lights from the towers all around.  I closed my eyes, but concentration would not come.  Instead of the melody of the force all I could hear was the cacophony of worries rattling around in my head.  You've been played, Karm.  Played from the first moment you arrived.  Perhaps still...

And that was the rub.  The real worry. 

Master Chillum's voice came to my mind unbidden: "The song of the force is a faithful guide, a powerful ally, but never mistake it for the Will of the Maker.  Even the strongest, most sensitive seer can be drawn away by a false path or deceptive melody.  Always test the song against the Singer."

I closed my eyes and surrendered my struggle to hear the song.  Yes, the threads were there, the familiar melodies of our small group.  Yes, the nearly blinding background harmony of the lives of millions of people in close proximity were also there, forming a wide and broad harmony and rhythm for our own melodies to play against.  Yes, there were even other threads of dark hammering rhythm and chaotic counter-melody, some stronger, some faint.  But none of them were coming into focus.  All were elusive and distant.  So I let them go.

Instead, I did something I had not done in far to long:  I prayed.

I opened my soul and poured out my bitter grief at the death of Master Jothan.  My disappointment in myself and even my fear at my own willingness to kill.  I confessed the selfishness and impatience that led me to often to direct action instead of a more circumspect way that might be harder and longer - but less deadly.   With tears in my eyes I repented of the spike of pure rage and hatred that had flooded through me when I saw my wife Arnor nearly killed before my eyes.  The desire I'd had in that moment to destroy the one responsible.  And the relief when I realized that a boy, a Teidowan, had learned and exercised a restraint and respect for life - all life - that I had set aside far to often.

All my faults and deficiencies I laid before my Maker, trusting in his Goodness and Forgiveness.  And then, humble, on my face before Him, I opened myself to the Song...

The symphony of the Universe surrounded me.  Awesome complexity and yet ... simple.  Clean.  Perfect...   My perception swooped and dove, tunnelling through layer upon layer, section by section.  Parts became familiar.  The melody of my Master, Chillum.  Kage M'Tagget, Master Chillum's teacher and friend.  Master Jothan...

Arnor's melody entered my perception and wrapped around me, merging itself with my own.  Illian and Talia...

Now I was swooping away from them, following another thread.  This one was dark, forboding...  There was chaos and the rapid, hammering rhythm of evil, but always at its very core was the pure melody of the Song.  It was wrapped in violence and choked in chaos, but always the Song...

The darkness came from another place.  I turned again, following that darkness deeper.  I was clinging to the Song now, humming melody to myself as I left all that I held dear behind and spiraled ever deeper into horror and hammering evil.  I was nearing its core, when I saw another thread merging with the twin threads I had been following.

Light exploded around me.  The Song, submerged in the subordinate thread of the two burst forth and merged with the song of the light.  Together the two destroyed the darkness, but at the cost of the one.  It was a final sacrifice, a final redemption, making right a very old, very deep wrong.

The other thread soared away, and I was left alone.  Alone in the darkness, surrounded by...

What?  What was here?  The hammer of evil was gone.  What remained?


"Oh..."

My eyes opened.  They were here.  On the planet.  Something was coming, something distant.  But they were here....

Here.  In the dark.  Deep underground.

Eyes open but unseeing, I dove back into the song, following the threads of melody, the shards of harmony..   Where?

... there ...

No!

oh no....


I came back to myself again, drawing ragged breath.   I composed myself and rose, returning to the common room.

"Anything?" Arnor asked, a flicker of concern in her eyes.  My meditations had been less than fruitful for nearly a month now.  We'd needed the time to heal, to mend.  Arnor and I had both spent considerable time with Talia, probing for any residual effects of her possession by Palpatine.  We'd found nothing, but none of us, including Talia, were confident that we would even if it were there.  So we waited, trained, and did our best to search for any new leads without tripping any alarms that might give our location away to the wrong people.  The stress of it was starting to wear on everyone's nerves.

This was not going to help.   I nodded.  "Yes."

I poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.  "I know where they are.  Most of them are gone now, taken away for whatever Palpatine has use of them, but the original ones, the progenitors, are still there.  We need to prepare ourselves to go down to Level One.  Perhaps below."

"Level one?  that's not habitable."

I nodded.  "I know.  But that's not the worst of it."  I looked at Talia.  "Something is coming.  Soon.  We'll know when it happens.  That will signal that it is time to move.  Until then, we must continue to lay low."

"Know?  How?  What will happen?"  Arnor asked.  "How will we know?"

My eyes were still locked on Talia.  "Talia will tell us."


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 04, 2017, 02:30:22 AM
Talia will tell us.

No, no, NO!  The end came too quickly! And who's thread is sacrificed for the Light?!  Excellent Karm  :D

Oh BTW, "Kage M'Tagget:" canon or yours?  I would ask for... er, reasons  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 04, 2017, 03:52:14 AM
Talia will tell us.

No, no, NO!  The end came too quickly! And who's thread is sacrificed for the Light?!  Excellent Karm  :D

Oh BTW, "Kage M'Tagget:" canon or yours?  I would ask for... er, reasons  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)

Kage M'Tagget is mine.  He is Master Chillum's teacher and mentor.  Master Chillum is the senior member of their Clan - a branch of their overall order.  The Kage is the top dog, and in a different location.  :-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 04, 2017, 03:53:07 AM
And who said anything about the end being here???? 

;-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 04, 2017, 05:47:50 AM
"Together the two destroyed the darkness, but at the cost of the one."

I understand. :o :o  More references to canon, but I understand. :D Your story is fantastic. Your incorporation of canon is awesome, and you left it on a cliffhanger. >:( >:( >:( >:( ;)

Uhhgg. I hate good stories. >:( ;D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on October 04, 2017, 09:59:10 PM
Have to say Karmacks repentance is very interesting and well written, a painful moment of introspection. Perhaps he didn't stop to think of alternate ways, but what other options did he have given the needs of the situations he found himself in?  Yet there is something unsettling that he's seeking some kind of external validation and forgiveness.

Anyway one of the more interesting things I find about you're story is how often the spectre of Master Chillum, the reverence with which Karmack seems to hold him is...intriguing.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 05, 2017, 04:02:47 AM
Thanks guys!  I appreciate the encouragement.  LSG, your comments are always insightful.  Thank you.  You're right about the painful introspection.  In many ways Karmack is a reflection of myself.  It wasn't all that long ago that I went through a painful time of introspection and my personal Faith was rebuilt into something far more vital and real than it had been before.  I wouldn't say Karmack is going through something quite so profound, but he is a man who has fought his own impatience and impetuousity his whole life.  Realizing that perhaps his failings led to others dying, even enemies, when it might not have been necessary would be painful to him indeed.  Kage M'Tagget, the head of his Order of Gray Knights, eschews violence in nearly every instance.  Master Chillum, Karmack's personal teacher and mentor, also follows this path.  Karmack holds these men in VERY high esteem, and sees them as the standard of correct behavior, yet he is far more violent than either of them.

And that bothers him.

OK, I feel the muse moving.  And I have some time before my cut begins so here we go!


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 05, 2017, 04:35:56 AM
I was out of the bed and in a combat stance before conscious thought could register.  My blade was alive in my left hand, my right flexing into its cybernetic glove as it finally registered.

A scream.  A scream filled with pain, fear, anger, rage, horror...  Almost inhuman in its knife-edged, raw emotion.

Almost.

I had time for two steps toward the door of our room, Arnor immediately behind me, her own blade also glowing bright, when the wave-front hit.  It was like a shock-wave, a pure wall of energy smashing out. 

Force energy...

It slammed us back across the room.  I felt the heat of Arnor's blade as I ducked and twisted, pulling my own blade down and away, instinctively following the force queues around me.  Arnor and I ended up tangled together, rolled up against the far wall of our room.  There were saber burns in the floor and a neat round hole through the dresser and the wall behind it, but we were intact and breathless as we disengaged from each other and got back to our feet.

"What was that?" Arnor asked the air as she called her saber back to her hand.

I held up a hand.  "Listen..."

We heard it then.  Sobbing.  From across the apartment.

I led the way out the door of our room and let myself glide across the living space of the apartment.  Arnor came behind, moving into a support position.  Again, our sabers ignited in unison and I reached out with the force, yanking the door to Illian and Talia's room open....

The room was in a shambles.  Whatever had hit us had been centered here.  Talia sat on the bed, crumpled furniture and fixtures around her.  She was weeping, uncontrolled, the way a child weeps when they awake from a nightmare.  She was mumbling something, but her eyes were blank, seeing only whatever horror filled her mind.

Arnor's saber blade disappeared again and she went to Talia, cradling her and soothing her.  I found Illian crumpled up against the wall under a pile of debris and helped him up. 

"ow...  What happened?"  He asked, rubbing his head.

"I'm not sure..."  I looked at Arnor.  "Is she OK?"

Arnor was still rocking Talia, who was beginning to calm down.  "Yes, I think so.  You were right, he was still in there, buried deep."

I nodded.  "And he didn't want to leave.  I wonder what happened..."  I walked over and leaned in, capturing Talia's eyes.  "Talia, its Karm. What happened?  Do you know?"

Horror flooded her eyes again, and she shuddered.  "He's dead." Talia gasped.  "Vader killed him....  Falling..."  She buried her head back against Arnor's shoulder. 

I rocked back on my heels.  "Vader?  Why would Vader kill the Emperor..."

Illian sat on the bed and reached out to stroke his wife's back.  She reacted to the touch by letting go of Arnor and clinging to him instead. 

"Maybe he was trying to take over, and they killed each other?" Arnor offered

"No.  I heard this the other day...  At his core Vader still had the Song woven into him.  Someone or something finally released it, and that release led to both his death and the death of his Master at his hand.  But a good death.  A death of sacrifice, not vengeance."  I looked at Talia again.  "And his death finally freed Talia completely of his control."

Illian gave me a very level look over Talia's head.  "You mean he wasn't gone?"

"No.  And before you ask, no, I didn't know he was there.  But I suspected.  That's why I didn't want to go after the crystals again, not until we knew one way or the other whether Talia was truly free of his possession.  Now we know."

Arnor stood and moved toward me.  "You saw something else in that vision, didn't you?"

I nodded.  "Yes.   I know where they are.  Its all the way down, on the ancient surface of the planet.  Level One.  And as I said, Talia has told us when to go."

Illian looked grim.  "Now?  Right this moment?"

"No, we can wait a bit for Talia to recover first.  But its time.  Sleep, food, and we're off."

"Where?  You're not going to tell us even now, are you?" Talia said, getting right in my face.

I just grinned at her.  "Sleep.  Food.  Go."  I repeated.

Her answer was a hard punch to the gut.  I grinned some more.

Foreplay...


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 05, 2017, 05:39:47 AM
Sidious definitely went out with a bang. ;)  ;D A nice short burst of epicness, full of exciting action and story. I am starting now to wonder if Karm ever meets Luke. It would be cool to see, but of course, that is up to you. Anyways, great job. Can't wait for this coming post. It's gonna be good.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 05, 2017, 02:15:22 PM
Sidious definitely went out with a bang. ;)  ;D A nice short burst of epicness, full of exciting action and story. I am starting now to wonder if Karm ever meets Luke. It would be cool to see, but of course, that is up to you. Anyways, great job. Can't wait for this coming post. It's gonna be good.
My thoughts exactly  :D. I like how you incorporated the Emperor's death as well as the subsequent release of Dark-Side energies; AWESOME detail Karm!  I never would have thought of that  ;)

Now I have to wonder who will step into the power vacuum that Palpatine's death has left vacant  :o

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 06, 2017, 03:14:02 PM
It had taken far longer than I had anticipated to reach the lowest levels of Coruscant.  No one came down here, ever.  The air was toxic.  The water contaminated.  It was hot and very humid.

Essentially we were walking through hell.

Fortunately our attire was designed for this "habitat".  It had started life as something very akin to the armor worn by Clone Troopers during the Clone War, but had been adapted for use by individuals tasked with construction or repair in the lower levels.  Generally, anything below level 1000 had an atmosphere that was ... questionable.  Much below 400-500 and the heat, humidity and toxicity became dangerous to exposed personnel.  Even much higher up the air quality was bad enough that people visiting the lower levels often brought their own air supply.  To come all the way down required full coverage, and armor had been added to the suit to protect it from hard use and jagged edges.  The biggest difference from trooper armor was the helmet, which was essentially a clear armorplast bubble with low-vision gear and radio links built in for communications. 

I checked my guages and noted that my air supply was down 20%.  The power gauge was a little better, showing 18% depletion, but power wasn't as much of an issue anyway.  I had no doubt we could find a power port to plug into and recharge if necessary.  Air, though...

"How much farther?" Arnor asked over a private link.  It was meant as a joke, but I called up the schematic I'd downloaded before we left anyway.  We were close...

"Close."

"What the..." Illian muttered on the general frequency.  "That's really odd."

Illian was currently walking point and he was paused at the entrance to a new set of tunnels.   "What's wrong, Illian?"

"I'm not sure."  He turned and stepped back.  "Very strange..."

I stepped up to join him.  Talia and Arnor were several yards behind us, and they also stopped to avoid bunching up.  Illian, I saw, was checking his suit's controls.  "Problem?"

"Not sure.  I was fine, and I stretched out in the force to probe that new area, and I suddenly felt ice-cold.  Its gone now, the environmental controls seem good."  He looked up at me.  "And ideas?"

I looked into the dark portal ahead of us.  "Maybe...  We may be here."

I stepped up to the doorway.  Nothing.  Until I opened myself to the song, listening to the melody...

...it wasn't what I was expecting.  There was a song here.  Powerful, strong.  Even balanced.  But the twisting melody, the haunting harmonies, the asynchronous rhythm...  They were all highly disturbing.
A chill went down my spine.  It was cold.  Like stepping into a blast freezer.  But it wasn't physical... 

It was this ... song.

I hesitated to call it that.  I had spent my life listening to the song, learning about the Singer from its form and function.  I had taken comfort in its guidance and predictability.  I had been filled by and healed with it's beauty and peace and joy.  Evil, when it came, was always chaotic, a jumble of fragmented voices, or simply the all-consuming drumbeat of hatred and rage overpowering and burying all else.  But this....

This was different.  This was the song of Evil....

Nausea washed over me.  "We are here."  I stepped back and beckoned Arnor and Talia to join me.  "Steel yourselves.  This will not be easy."

"What is this place?" Talia asked.  She was uneasy, sensing something was amiss but without the training the rest of us had to parse it out.  Her hand worked on the blaster holstered at her waist unconsciously as her eyes darted around, always returning to the black doorway.

"We're directly below the Jedi Temple.   Again."  I said.  "Only we're FAR deeper this time.  The temple itself was built over a large pre-existing complex which was also built over another pre-existing complex.  Historically all of these complexes were essentially Jedi centers, until the Emperor made his last modification and turned the temple into his Imperial Palace.  But way down, far below, there's always been this secret place.  The original structure, and the reason for it's existence."  I nodded toward the doorway.  "This is the door to the first Jedi complex built here.  It wasn't a a temple.  It was a containment structure.  Inside is a Sith Monument, a Sith "High Place".

Four pairs of eyes now probed the doorway, as if to reveal its dark secrets.  "What's inside?"

I looked at Arnor, Illian and Talia in turn.  "Only what you bring with you." 

Arnor looked at Talia and Illian.  Illian was doing his best to suppress his own fear and anxiety.  Talia wasn't even trying.  "Um...  Do I...?"

I closed my eyes, concentrated...  That evil song was still there, but now it's melody was wrapping around my own, a cruel parody of a fugue...  But still in fugue...  There was ... an odd harmony to it.  The songs were warring with each other.  Fighting for supremacy...

Only one melody.

"No, Talia. Stay here with Illian and Arnor.  I must go in alone."

I felt the shock from my wife.  "Karm..."  Her hand gripped my arm. 

I turned and smiled at her.  In that moment I wanted nothing more than to kiss her, but that was impossible.  "Here, hold this for me until I get back." 

Arnor took my proffered saber.  "Just as long as you promise to come back!" she snapped.

"Yes, ma'am."  I replied.  "I love you."

"And I you, you crazy man.  Go!"

I turned away, settled myself, and before I could lose my nerve, I plunged into the void.



Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 07, 2017, 01:36:07 PM
I feel like a constant underlying minor chord (I think that's the correct term?  I should ask my wife; she's a musician like you and TR  ;)) is droning, just above the perceptible level of hearing.  Karm&Co. are walking into some BAD situation.... NO not the end yet!?!

The part that I really found excellent: the Song has its diametric opposite.  I never considered that a Sith (or Dark-sider) would have access to the Evil version (although now that I think about it, I vaguely recall that either TR or LSG had brought that up tangentially..?).  Sorry; my point is: nice twist!
Now that is an encounter that I am eager to see!  Heh, I' m reminded of a scene that I read about a long time ago between a priest and a vampire.  The priest held up a cross to ward off the vampire but the creature kept advancing.  When he grabbed the man, the shocked priest asked "How?" The vampire calmly replied "My faith in evil is greater than your faith in good." Obviously it stuck with me  ;) Of course the difference here is that Karm is a man of conviction; I wonder what happens when he meets his diametric opponent  ;D

Again Karm: you've set the stage wonderfully!

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on October 08, 2017, 10:07:17 PM
"Only what you bring with you"  A recurring theme in Jedi testing themselves, not just to become knights but at other times as well, the test to throw a mirror in your face and see what you are rather than what you believe yourself to be.  I like he's going in alone, feels like this is going to be continuing the theme from Karmacks earlier introspection.  Looking forward to what happens, and what it means...

"It's a quiet thing to fall, much more terrible is to admit it" - Kreia


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 09, 2017, 11:29:57 PM
Thanks guys.  I have to admit, I stole the essence of the portal from the Cave on Daghobah, where Yoda sends Luke into the cave.  Luke asks what's in the cave and Yoda replies "Only what you take with you."

In Empire we get a look into Luke - as he does himself.  The question I'm sure that's burning bright right now is "what did Karmack take in there with him?"

That is, of course, assuming that he was right....  ;-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 10, 2017, 12:35:44 AM
I advanced along a corridor...  The air was thick, but ... different.  As I moved deeper into the inky black my lamp revealed whisps of...

...incense?  How am I smelling incense?  

I looked down and checked my environmental controls.  All green.  Plenty of air.  Filters good.  

But I can still smell it...

I stopped.  There was a flicker of light ahead, wreathed in smoke.  I toggled a control on my chest panel and killed all of my suite lights - lamp as well as tell-tales and readouts.  The darkness of the room enveloped me, but the flicker of light brightened.  I waited a bit, letting my eyes adjust fully, then slowly proceeded.  I opened my senses, listening, feeling, probing...

Two songs ... as if two massive choirs were facing each other, singing discordant and very different songs.  One was full of good and light.  The other twisted with evil and darkness.  And I walked where they clashed...

I shook my head, drawing back in, reverting more to my physical senses and muting my connection to the force...  Or I tried to....

Waves over waves...  The competing songs rolled over me, opposed and out of tune...  I could feel the waves of energy hammering through my body, driving me this way and that...

"No..."  I croaked.   "To much...."  I fell to my knees and closed my eyes, concentrating....

Somewhere in the crashing waves of song I found the thread.  Our thread...   Arnor's melody, mine, and the Third, intertwined.  Embedded with our songs, the Singer sang, making something greater from the sum of our parts.  With difficulty I hummed, barely able to form the notes against the competing tides of energy at first, but then slowly the new Song built and returned.  It was familiar.  It was Us.  Our song, twisted together in fugue since our Joining over a decade before.  As I sang it again, the competing songs receded.  They were still there, but their power faded...

I took a shuddering breath and slowly regained my feet as the power receded from me.  I moved forward, closing with the pale, flickering light.  Slowly the features before me resolved to reveal a railing around a circular depression.  The light was coming up from below.  I headed toward the only opening in the rail, which proved to be the head of a very steep stone stairway.  There was nothing below me but some form of cask or monolith flanked by a pair of lamps, apparently fed from a fuel source internally.  The two lamps were free-standing pillars on either side of the monolith at any rate with an open flame burning on a flame-holder.  There were no visible controls, electronic or mechanical, on anything.

I stepped down into the pit ... and felt the cold.  Bitter cold.  Absolute cold.  For long seconds I was gripped by the irrational urge to simply turn and run, could think of nothing but escape.

Get a grip, Karm.  Go down.  Look.  Listen!

I gathered my nerve again and stepped down the stairs, the chill deepening with each step.  It felt like diving into a pool of ice water.  My joints ached.  My right hand burned as if on fire, while the interface itself in my right forearm simply felt like a lump of liquid helium within my flesh.  I sang a healing song, gathering light to myself and pressed on.  What am I doing here?

I stepped up to the monolith.  Look.  Listen!

With a cringe, I opened myself again, expecting the waves of hammering tonal energy again....

The competing songs were gone.  There was nothing but a banshee-like scream of discordant notes.  Like something or someone in pain...   Movement caught my eye and I looked up.  There were robed figures standing around the pit.  Former guardians of this place.   A few Sith.  Most Jedi.  The leaders of the competing choirs, silent now.  Observing.  Watching.  Waiting....

I blinked, and they were gone.  Just empty blackness...

I looked again at the monolith.    No visible controls...  I reached out with the force, probing...  There!  

I pulled the lever hidden inside the stone and the outer shell rose silently.  The pit was suddenly filled with light.

Angry, red light...

The banshee discord was suddenly focused, controlled.  Like a weapon...  The sound ripped through my body, driving me to my knees.... Knocking the wind out of my lungs...  Muscles turned to jelly and simple though became hard.  I gasped and reached for the song, but it slipped away.  I tried to raise a force shield, deaden the sound, but I couldn't form even the simplest melody.  Only the tearing snarl of death remained.   Only....   death....   cold.....    alone......

I collapsed, felt my head hit the floor.  ALONE ....  ALONE .... ALONE ALONE ALONE ALONEALONEALONEALONEALONE....  The scream resolved into the one word, ripping through me.  Destroying me....

not alone    ....      not alone     ....      NOT ALONE   ...    NOT ALONE    NOT ALONE

I lifted my head from the floor.  There was a soft glow around me.  The chant was driven back, now.  The new words replaced by soft chiming.  Not music, just a simple, major chord, like a massive crystal wind-chime.  

Crystal!  

I reached into my belt pouch and pulled out the crystal I had carried for months.  Since the saber I had built with it was destroyed on Naboo, I had carried it.  Somehow putting that crystal into a new saber had not been right, but like my other companions its pathway was bound to mine.  Its song intertwined with my own.

No longer.  I suddenly heard its melody, loud and clear, for the first time.  It was counter-point to the red crystal before me in the monolith.

Red and Yellow.  Dark and Light.  Balance...

I gripped the crystal in hand and struggled to my knees.  For the first time I noticed that there were three spots in the ... alter?  Shelter?  Container?  Habitat?  Whatever it was, the red crystal was in the slot on the right.  I considered for a moment ... and settled my crystal into the open slot across from the red one.

Nothing happened.

I felt myself sinking again.  The attack was still ongoing.  I was still in grave danger.  What was wrong?  Why didn't the crystal's song change...

Change!  It had to be free to change!  That first contact had been so brief...  I found the crystal in the force and I reached out, brushed up against it...  And in an instant, no longer than the time it had taken to bond the crystal to myself, I let it go.  Be free...

Light burst into the room, bright yellow, then pure white.  It blinded me, and I closed my eyes, raising a hand to shield my face...

The light faded.  The monolith was closed again... and the hammering, cutting energy that had been attacking me was gone.

I rose shakily to my feet, steadying myself by leaning on the wall.  My legs were rubbery as I very slowly climbed the stairs, back up to the main level.  

When I reached the top and looked around my breath caught in my throat.  What had been simply blackness before now twinkled with dim light.

It was a crystal cave, with perhaps millions of crystals embedded in the rocks...

Then the light shifted again, and they were gone.  Hidden.  I stumbled over to the wall and ran my hand over it.  There was no evidence of the crystals.  Just smooth stone facing.  Ancient, polished, worked stone.  There was no evidence of any kyber of any kind.  

but I hear them...  

The hum was there, in the background.  Like the crate we found, only louder, stronger, and no longer unformed.  Now it was purposeful.  The Harmony was real.

Go.  NOW!

The urgency came from nowhere, and I moved my abused body as quickly as I could toward the doorway I had entered.  At the portal I tripped, tumbled, fell...  I heard Arnor's concerned cry and then Talia's startled scream a moment later.

The portal was gone.

Goodbye my friend....  Thank you.... We are whole again....

I smiled and relaxed.  Darkness - the warm, friendly darkness of simple unconsciousness - enveloped me.

hummmmmmm





Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 10, 2017, 12:50:46 AM
 :o :o :o

A crystal cave on Coruscant?!?! SWEET!!!

Very very well written this entry. As I read, I could picture every single detail, the hammering sounds only heard in the force, the red light of the crystal, then the yellow of the other crystal. The cave glowing and twinkling from the light of all the kyber contained within. Amazing. Once again, your story has risen above all SW stories I have read in some ways. Maybe it is your descriptiveness, or maybe it is something else, but whatever it is, it is awesome. Can't wait to see what happens now.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 10, 2017, 11:49:28 AM
:o :o :o

A crystal cave on Coruscant?!?! SWEET!!!

Very very well written this entry. As I read, I could picture every single detail, the hammering sounds only heard in the force, the red light of the crystal, then the yellow of the other crystal. The cave glowing and twinkling from the light of all the kyber contained within. Amazing. Once again, your story has risen above all SW stories I have read in some ways. Maybe it is your descriptiveness, or maybe it is something else, but whatever it is, it is awesome. Can't wait to see what happens now.
This SO much^^

During Karm's assault, I'm reminded of In the Mouth of Madness, that is, a very Lovecraftian scene of metaphysical...cacophony. And afterwards...more questions  ;). Personally I like the fact that Coruscant would have these secret crystal caves; generation upon generation of constant building only serving to hide such relics...and their motives  :). And, as always, the end came too quickly  :D

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 10, 2017, 01:33:11 PM
LOL   I just read back over what I had written, and it almost felt like Karmack has a piece of a Vorlon inside of him...

;-) 

I don't know what its like for you guys, but this scene took on a life of its own as I was writing.  I had a plan going in and ... that wasn't it.  I like what ended up on the page, but its left me in a different place plot-wise than I was planning.  So now...

Well.  Now its time to improvise!  LOL


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 10, 2017, 07:36:59 PM
The lotus position was ... painful.  The sunrise, however, was spectacular.  The deep reds and golden hues bathed me from my perch as the orb of the sun slowly cleared the horizon.  It almost made the pain worthwhile.

Almost.

I was still unclear how our current "hideout" had been procured.  Arnor had informed when I awoke of the move.   Something had warned her off, so rather than trek back to our own apartment toting my unconscious form she and Talia had found alternate accommodations.  That had been three days ago, two of which I had slept through.  I had awoken hungry, thirsty, and very, very sore.  My first day "back" had consisted of a meal, a shower, a very brief discussion of what had occurred, and then pain medications and more sleep.

Now I sat watching the rising sun and trying to sort out what had happened ... and why we were still here?  What was the mission?  I had thought it was to stop the flow of smart kyber crystals into the Emperor's Death Star II project.  But that station was now destroyed and Sheev Palpatine aka Darth Sideous dead in it's destruction.  The Empire wasn't exactly dead, but it reeled headless.  Violence had erupted even here.  I looked down at Monument Plaza, where damage was still evident following the violent riots that had broken out the night Palpatine died.  From our balcony I could just see the mountain top that was the last bit of exposed natural surface on the planet.  It had become a monument to all that the planet had lost in becoming the unbroken urban wasteland it was today.  Over a trillion people lived and worked, many spending their entire lives getting only a rare glimpse of the sun, an occasional lungful of fresh (or at least non-toxic) air.  All to many of those lives were painful, violent and short.

I looked down at the plaza again, reaching out to feel the pulse of the place, the quickness, the life that flowed through it.  Even now, in the aftermath of the riots and crack-down by the local authorities, there were throngs of people who came to look at, reach out and touch the last exposed rock of this world.  Even in the perpetual urban environment that visceral need to have some contact with the bones of your world was there, expressed in the long lines and throngs of people who came daily to do nothing more than see and touch proof that yes, this was a planet and not some giant ball of machinery floating in space...

I was open to the song, and the sudden twist surprised me.  What? 

I listened and my first narrowed, then widened as the flow of the melody became apparent. 

Its not just the cave...  Its the mountaintop.  That's the key...

I started to rise, groaned and sank back down as a red haze of pain flooded me again.  I had direction, and as usual I was impatient to be about the work.  But not yet.  First, my body needed to heal.  The wound in my thigh was still not fully healed and every ounce of me still ached from the force energies I had absorbed in .... that place. 

No, first I needed some time to heal.  Illian and Arnor as well.  We were all battered and bruised.  I sang a healing song and dropped back into meditation, letting the soothing energy flow into me.  Time...

Time to heal.

And maybe ... time for a resurrection...



Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on October 11, 2017, 04:41:27 AM
LOL   I just read back over what I had written, and it almost felt like Karmack has a piece of a Vorlon inside of him...

;-) 

I don't know what its like for you guys, but this scene took on a life of its own as I was writing.  I had a plan going in and ... that wasn't it.  I like what ended up on the page, but its left me in a different place plot-wise than I was planning.  So now...

Well.  Now its time to improvise!  LOL

Yeah I get that feeling in a sense...I have the major plot points all panned out though so its more a case of the details of each scene taking on a life of its own...mean I have to spend time cross checking for consistence later though, that's probably the biggest thing that slows me down.

Anyway the semi sentient crystals sound familiar from somewhere.  The notion of a deliberate unbalancing of these crystals is intriguing, sound like another Palpatine plot...to channel the dark side better or something like that.

Keep improvising!


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 11, 2017, 04:34:10 PM
LOL  Thanks.

Part of the improvisation was also because of a big continuity error on my part, something I didn't catch until I was to deep into the creative process to easily fix it.  So that was also an improvisation.  I won't say what exactly my error was because I'm about to "fix" it.  I hope.  LOL

Sorry for the short segment on the last bit.  I might have a couple more little ones like that.  I'm still repositioning...

Enjoy!  :-)  I have to say this has been a LOT of fun.  I did something like this a while back and didn't even get a comment.  Its so much easier to sustain the effort when there's feedback!  Thanks guys!


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 11, 2017, 05:08:05 PM
I yawn, stretched, and drained my coffee mug.  It had been a very long night, but the physical build was complete.  I typed a few commands and ran a final diagnostic and systems check on the chassis, noted in my log that all checks were green, and initiated the data transfer.

This would take some time: Two had a LOT of data stored on the mainframe...  It hadn't been all that hard getting a replacement R3 chassis.  Industrial Automation still had the R2- and R3- lines in production on Coruscant, after all, though they were not as popular as they once were.  As the data flowed, my only real consern was for Two's personality matrix and core memories.  Yes, he was a computer at heart and not really alive, but it would help a great deal if he at least remembered who everyone was...

The console beeped: data transfer complete.  I disconnected the feed, took a deep breath, and initiated a system reboot and full operating system restart.  The droid immediately shut down, sat still for 30 seconds, then the systems came back online....

...and I was greeted with a long string of grunts, tweets, and whistles.  It was Two!  Rude, but definitely Two!  "Welcome back, my friend."

More electronic noises followed.  "I'll tell you all about it, fear not.  For now...  well, I left an archival file in your memory.  Header 2-Omega.  Its the best reconstruction of what happened between your last upload to off-chassis backup storage and... well, you'll see."

Two generated a series of low, woeful beeps.  "No, you're not going to like it.  But it's what happened."

There was a long pause, then another inquiry. "No, I didn't have time to re-mount the blasters and force-field generators.  It was hard enough getting the high-output thrusters and flight stabilizing gear.  Be happy you have a body and you can fly.  The guns will have to wait."

Rude beeps and sounds.  "No, I'm NOT giving you a lightsaber!  Now, plug in and start analyzing file STS-224.  I need a pathway."

Two made one final rude sounds and plugged into the data port.  After long seconds of clicking he chirped another question. 

"Yes, we're going there."

More rude sounds.

"I know.  But its necessary.  Just do your best, we need a way in."

A final chirping twill.

"Yes, a way back out, too."


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 11, 2017, 06:10:18 PM
"No, I'm NOT giving you a lightsaber!"  :D Great. I've always wondered what a droid would do if it had a saber. ;D I'm completely okay with the short ones, I just want there to be a lot of them ;D Great job. It is cool to actually read about rebuilding and reloading a droid, so I'm glad you put that in there. It seems to me that all Astromech droids are extremely rude. Except maybe BB-8, but R2, Chopper, Two, and probably some other ones are all rude. :D I guess it is just part of their personality matrix.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 11, 2017, 07:17:02 PM
"No, I'm NOT giving you a lightsaber!"  :D Great. I've always wondered what a droid would do if it had a saber. ;D I'm completely okay with the short ones, I just want there to be a lot of them ;D Great job. It is cool to actually read about rebuilding and reloading a droid, so I'm glad you put that in there. It seems to me that all Astromech droids are extremely rude. Except maybe BB-8, but R2, Chopper, Two, and probably some other ones are all rude. :D I guess it is just part of their personality matrix.

LOL.  I see Astromech droids as, well, engineers and technicians.  They're highly technical and short on social skills.  They tend to be blunt.  Add in that they speak a totally different language and can probably get away with being utterly rude in most situations anyway...  :-)  But earn their trust and loyalty and they are EXTREMELY loyal.

Where protocol droids are programmed to be polite and politically correct....  LOL


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 11, 2017, 08:25:03 PM
"You want to go WHERE?!?  Are you out of your mind, husband?"

I turned away from the view of Monument Plaza and faced Arnor.  There was no anger in her eyes, just concern tinged with fear.  Not for herself, but for me.  Fear for my physical well-being - and mental state.

I smiled.  How could I be upset?  I was a little concerned and even fearful of my own mental state as well!  But days of meditation while we healed and I rebuilt Two had only convinced me that this was the melody we were to follow.  Perhaps the final song in this journey.  "It is the melody we've been given to sing, my love."

I saw resignation in her eyes, and she suddenly rushed forward and wrapped her arms around me in a fierce hug.  "I know.  I just..."  She leaned back and met my eyes.  "I don't want to lose you."

My smile turned into a lopsided grin.  "Lose me?  Where are you going to lose me?  I mean, I know its a big place, full of dangerous passages and no doubt many secret rooms, but I'm sure someone as loud and obnoxious as I am, never mind tall, would be hard to lose.  Though if it will make you feel better I can wear a bell around my..."

Her kiss silenced my teasing.  After a very brief moment, I kissed her back.

It was a good kiss...

With another hard squeeze Arnor let me go and stepped back.  "OK, so we're going to the Imperial Residence.  I'm pretty sure the Emperor won't be there.  Palpatine is dead, Vader is dead with him, his Imperial Guard as well...  I'm not even sure who's in charge on the planet anymore, let alone next in line for the Emperor's throne.  That being said, I doubt they'll just let us walk in off the street."

"No, you're right.  We'll be going in through one of the old Jedi entrances, near what used to be a secondary vehicle hanger."  I pulled up the composite schematic that Two had constructed from the dispersed record files in the system.  "The Temple was badly damaged during the purge, and Palpatine totally remodelled and made cosmetic changes to the interior, but the fundamental structures remain intact.  Including this one."  I zoomed in on the schematic, isolating a small, ancient structure very near the pinnacle of the mountain outcropping that was encased within the former Jedi Temple. 

Arnor peered at it.  "Why there?  What's so special about this place?"

I shrugged.  "Honestly? I'm not 100% sure.  But the Order of Mactor on M'Tzigon originated on Coruscant, before the foundation of the Old Republic.  Our Order had a temple on this very mountain, long before it was covered over.  It was..."   I moved my hand down and to the side, near the bottom of the current Palace structure.  "...here.  It was removed by the Sith when they took over the site, then when the Jedi threw out the Sith they let us rebuild.  Then during the Galactic War the Sith again took over the site and removed all of the Jedi influence.  When the Jedi returned and the Republic was established again, they wiped out the Sith temple and preserved whatever was left of the old sites while rebuilding their own Temple over top of it all.  But this site..."  I returned to the small shrine near the peak of the rock outcropping, directly below the central spire of the Jedi Temple turned Imperial Palace.  "This site was removed and covered over ... but not destroyed."

Arnor peered at the schematic again.  "But if it was covered over, why does this small temple and shrine show on the schematic?"

"That's the million credit question, my love."  I said, shutting the schematic down.  "There's no record of it being rebuilt, but from some of the tidbits Two uncovered Palpatine moved a bunch of artifacts into the Palace after they were done rebuilding and remodelling it from the old Medical Center.  We think they're Sith artifacts.  And this small shrine has a direct connection to a larger cave near the base of this same outcropping, where there is ANOTHER Jedi shrine built over an ancient Sith Shrine, built over an even more ancient Mactor Gray Shrine ... and cave."

Arnor's eyes widened.  "The Mactor Cave?  THAT'S where we were?  But ... that's just a legend!  And even in the legends it was utterly destroyed..."

I nodded.  "I know.  I didn't recognize it either, until Two showed me the connection.  This is the upper chamber, where the Kage would go to meditate while the Council convened in the circle below.  The Sith desecrated it with a crystal of 'unprecedented power' augmented by a specially built focal chamber..."

"The monolith you described!"  Arnor sat and stared for a moement.  "But the chamber had room for three crystals..."

"Yes.  More legend.  The Sith crystal was something unnatural.  The Mactor Kage uttered an oracle from his perch minutes before the Sith broke through and killed him stating that the balance of the place would only return when a Knight brought the Sith crystal it's opposite, then retrieved the final crystal from the mountain top nitch.  The Kage died without drawing his own blade to defend himself and the Sith took over the site, but the legend states that the reason the Kage didn't fight was because he had already placed his own saber's crystal into the grotto and hidden it, so that one day it could act as the bridge between the Light and Dark crystals in the cave below."

I sat back and shook my own head.  "I didn't even think about the legends until I was looking down at Monument Plaza the other day.  The exposed mountain peak reminded me of the stories ... and they suddenly didn't seem like simple origin myths anymore."

Arnor only stared for a moment, her eyes opaque as she ran over the mythic legend in her own memory.  "But...  Wow.   Its true?  Its REAL?"

I felt my own smile widen.  "Yes, Arnor.  Its real.  The good news is, I finally know what our true mission here is.  The bad news is..."

I saw her eyes cloud with sudden recognition and we spoke the words in unison.

"The curse..."


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 11, 2017, 09:38:41 PM
*Warning! Not Enough Information Given*

Curse? What curse?

The amount of detail you have put into your world building is incredible. From the three crystals to all the monuments and temples. And now you are going to break into the Jedi Temple (now Imperial Palace)? Everything is starting to fit together finally, but still you only let us in on maybe one per post. >:( ;) You have made it so that even if we wanted to stop reading it, we couldn't. We know are required to finish reading it just so that we find out the answers to everything. :D I'm not complaining... well, maybe I am, but I'm only complaining because I don't like waiting. Don't rush it though, make sure it is how you want it before posting, or you may end up not liking it.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 12, 2017, 02:31:42 AM
I'm not complaining... well, maybe I am, but I'm only complaining because I don't like waiting. Don't rush it though, make sure it is how you want it before posting, or you may end up not liking it.

I'm not complaining... well, maybe I am, but I'm only complaining because I don't like waiting.
This^^    ;D

TR is so right: this world that you've built is fantastic and I really enjoy being able to share it  :D

A...no, THE Mountain, is a perfect visual given the backdrop of a planet-wide city.  And home to an ancient Gray Jedi temple?!  If it isn't already, the SHOULD be canon!  Keep them coming Karm because--like TR--I'm hooked  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 12, 2017, 01:19:05 PM
Thanks guys! 

On the details of the Temple/Palace - I pulled a lot of this from the Wookipedia.  According to that source, the Temple is built around and over other shrines that have been there for millenia.  The mountain it encases has been a holy site / force focal point for multiple sects of force-sensitives. Honestly, the first character that sprang to mind when I first read the entry was the blind force-sensitive from Rouge One.  :-)  A force-user, a force-worshipper, but not a Jedi.  Or like Mans in TFA.    Other clues are that the site is riddled with caverns and caves, and during the Sith occupations of Coruscant there was a Sith temple there, which the Jedi deconstructed and built over when they took over the site at the foundation of the Republic.  This Sith influence is sited as the reason the Jedi's ability to use the force was slowly eroded, a circumstance that Palpatine used to his advantage.

My order of Grays, the Mak'Tor, originating there is my own invention.  It gave me a plausible way for Karmack to know more than the average person about the place. 

As for the curse...  Well.  You'll just have to wait.  ;-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Greywolf on October 12, 2017, 02:32:24 PM
This calls for a double-quote ;D
...  Well.  You'll just have to wait.  ;-)
...I'm not complaining... well, maybe I am, but I'm only complaining because I don't like waiting....

Just kidding, please don't rush anything ;) !


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 12, 2017, 04:34:18 PM
LOL  I am SOOOOO tempted to go dig up a link to the final end-credit scene from "Spider-Man: Homecoming"...  ;-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on October 12, 2017, 09:45:52 PM
Jedi Temple....great minds think alike perhaps....but things are bit different 600 year before Karmack is snooping around.

Any way the idea of the imbalance with the crystal was something I was thinking about...in line with Yoda in the Episode 2 saying "the shroud of the dark side has fallen", this imbalance could work with that in that I can imagine Palaptine upsetting that balance to make he force more turbulent on Coruscant so he can work more freely without the Jedi noticing his powers - hence the shroud has fallen.

Anyway I liked that bit at the start of your last chapter with Arnor, she's a character I'd like to see more of personally, her trust in Karmack is obviously beyond doubt but sometimes I wonder what she would be thinking to herself at times especially in the last few chapter with Karmack going off on some strange dangerous trips.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 13, 2017, 11:37:27 AM
Thanks guys! 

On the details of the Temple/Palace - I pulled a lot of this from the Wookipedia.  According to that source, the Temple is built around and over other shrines that have been there for millenia.  The mountain it encases has been a holy site / force focal point for multiple sects of force-sensitives. Honestly, the first character that sprang to mind when I first read the entry was the blind force-sensitive from Rouge One.  :-)  A force-user, a force-worshipper, but not a Jedi.  Or like Mans in TFA.    Other clues are that the site is riddled with caverns and caves, and during the Sith occupations of Coruscant there was a Sith temple there, which the Jedi deconstructed and built over when they took over the site at the foundation of the Republic.  This Sith influence is sited as the reason the Jedi's ability to use the force was slowly eroded, a circumstance that Palpatine used to his advantage.

My order of Grays, the Mak'Tor, originating there is my own invention.  It gave me a plausible way for Karmack to know more than the average person about the place. 

As for the curse...  Well.  You'll just have to wait.  ;-)
Wookiepedia is a fantastic resource (as is SWFanon IMO)  :D. Karm, excellent melding of canon and creativity my friend!  It really enriches your story  ;D  Oh and GOOD way of avoiding a "Deus Ex Machina" with the origin of the Mak'Tor Gray Jedi  ;)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 13, 2017, 01:45:31 PM
Jedi Temple....great minds think alike perhaps....but things are bit different 600 year before Karmack is snooping around.

Any way the idea of the imbalance with the crystal was something I was thinking about...in line with Yoda in the Episode 2 saying "the shroud of the dark side has fallen", this imbalance could work with that in that I can imagine Palaptine upsetting that balance to make he force more turbulent on Coruscant so he can work more freely without the Jedi noticing his powers - hence the shroud has fallen.

Anyway I liked that bit at the start of your last chapter with Arnor, she's a character I'd like to see more of personally, her trust in Karmack is obviously beyond doubt but sometimes I wonder what she would be thinking to herself at times especially in the last few chapter with Karmack going off on some strange dangerous trips.

LSG, Arnor is not the happiest with her husband sometimes.  :-)  These last couple of stories I've written are flowing in a first-person format that I haven't used much in other writings.  I like the feel and flow of it but it does limit me a bit, in that I can't actually get inside the heads of the other characters.  But I appreciate this feedback because there IS a way to find out what's up - dialogue!  Something I need to work on.  :-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 13, 2017, 04:42:25 PM
The song was jumbled and confused, melodies and counter-melodies tumbling and twisting around dark, hammering cadences and screaming atonal cacophony...  Only with difficulty could I locate and isolate the threads of melody I sought...  Only long practice at sorting through the threads and isolating the melodies and harmonies of myself and those around me allowed me to finally find and settle on those threads, tracking them through the growing confusion and chaos of the Song...

"This one is very strong in the force..."

I spun, my eyes widening in startled amazement to find two figures standing behind me.  One was dressed in the formal garb of my Order, a Kage of great age and rank based on the sash and markings, but his face was veiled and the robes were familiar but ... odd somehow.  His companion was also utterly unfamiliar to me, but he wore the robes of a Jedi Master from the Republic era, his long hair and beard silvering with age and had piercing blue eyes.  It was the Kage who stepped forward and spoke however.

"This one not only hears the song but can sing it.  It is a rare gift indeed, even among the Mac'Tor.  No one has sung the song on Coruscant in eons." 

I stood and faced the pair.  "Master, may I know your identity?  Who are you?"

The Kage stepped forward and pulled his cowl back revealing a wrinkled, scarred and wise face.  "You know of me, young one, but that is of no account. Do you trust the Song?  Can you read the signs?  Are you wise enough to understand?  Or are you cursed?"

I felt my brow knit in confusion. "I want to understand, but  ... what?  What am I to understand?  What are the signs?"

The Kage did not speak.  Instead he spread his hands out to each side, as if attempting to embrace something or someone.  I felt my eyes widen as his finger-tips and forehead began to glow a bright, pale blue.

"Beware! You are cursed, Karmack of the Mak'Tor!.  You are not the One!  But trust the living force ... or as you would say, listen to the Song.  It can save you!  Listen, or the Curse will be your ending.

I nodded at the words of the stranger, but was drawn forward, toward the Kage.  Instinctively, I matched his pose and felt the influx of power surge through me...

Suddenly the Kage's eyes popped open.  "No!  Only the One!  You are cursed!"  He rasped.  I gaped as a skewer of fire pierced my torso.  I looked down and saw the fire of an aqua blade extending from my chest...


"AHHH!"   I sat up, drenched in sweat.  The threads of the ... dream?  Nightmare?  Vision?  I wasn't sure how to classify the experience. 

Arnor stirred beside me.  Her eyes were concerned.  "Again?"

I just nodded.  "Yes."

I swung my legs out from under the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, staring out at the lights of the city beyond.  Slim, warm arms slid around my waste and squeezed while a cheek wet with tears pressed against back and shoulder.  "Karm, don't go."

"My love..."  I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it.  "You know I must.  You know why...."

I felt the spike of pure fury that pulsed from my wife at that moment: it hit me like a shock wave in the force, making me breathless.  Arnor released me and sat up straight behind me as I turned to face her.  Her eyes were ablaze with a blue fire I rarely saw.  It was a look only her enemies generally saw - and they rarely survived it.  "No!  I DO NOT understand!  You know about the curse.  You know how its going to end.  You've SEEN it, not just "heard" it.  So why?  Why go?  When you KNOW what is coming?"

I reached out and cupped her cheek, and her fury dissolved like smoke, replaced by sorrow and loss and fear.  How can I explain...  "Arnor, I love you.  More than anything, but part of that love is a commitment to the Song, and over that to the One who Sings."  I looked into her eyes, locked her gaze.  "Do you trust Him?"

Her chin trembled, but her eyes were clear and steady as she responded.  "Yes."

"And will you trust Him and his Song, even if it means I, or you, or both of us must give our lives to fulfill His purpose?"

Her tears stopped now.  For a moment I saw the stubborn streak rise behind her clear green eyes, but it just as quickly faded.  "Yes.  Though it cost my life, I will trust Him."

"As will I."  I said.  For a long time I just sat and studied her eyes.  Her hair was dark but tinged in a deep auburn, and her eyes were sparks of green fire, laced with pale gold. 

Maker, I loved those eyes.  Why?

Do you trust me?  Trust the Song.  It can still save you...

I started.  It was the voice from my dream!  Or a voice similar to it.  It had the deep tones of the Kage without the rasp of age and abuse.  Pure, deep, musical...  A singer's voice...

"What?" Arnor leaned forward.  "What was it?"

I blinked and shook my head slightly to clear it.  "The voice from my dream, or one like it...  Arnor, we must trust the Song.  The vision is a warning to me, not a predetermination.  I must go ... but I cannot be the One..."  I shook my head again.  "I don't fully understand it, but there will be a sign of some kind.  I think ... when I see it I will know it."

"Well, that's so helpful!" Arnor retorted, throwing her hands up in frustration.  "And if you don't get it just right, you die?  Maybe we all die?"

"Maybe.  But the Song calls us to the Temple, to the ancient shrine."

"The Song.  Always the Song."  Arnor's voice was without bitterness now.  I could feel her releasing her fear, anger and pain, letting them dissipate.  Holding only to her trust in the Maker, her trust in me, and her love for both of us. "So we will go."

"Yes."

"OK" she replied, then opened her arms.  "But not until morning."



Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 13, 2017, 07:17:49 PM
I think everyone who is married can appreciate the relationship betwen Karm and Arnor  ;)  Of my own experiences, my wife and I have an anecdote that we often cite whenever we're doing something for one another so the OTHER one doesn't have to: "The Gift of the Magi."   ;D

I really like this "sect" of Gray Jedi that you've made (Gray ForceSingers?  GraySingers?  Hmmm).  It's a facet of the Force that I can see being truly expanded upon, or maybe an aspect of each Side of the Force.  Either way: this TOO should be canon  :D

I have to say Karm: I wish that I could write as quick and as deftly as you  ;)  It takes me forever to get story to page  :P

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 13, 2017, 07:48:01 PM
Again, an great post. It has a lot of depth, but is not hard to read or understand. I definitely agree with TD on the "singing should be canon" thing, it is awesome. I am also a bit jealous that you can write as quickly and easily as you do. Me, I'm still trying to figure out how to get chapter 3 to work. It is indeed very good.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 13, 2017, 10:15:20 PM
LOL  Thanks guys.  This story is rolling out nicely, but in all honesty its really the core that sparked "We Are Gray" in the first place.  The crystals were originally noted in my little notebook as "singing crystals", and I may still develop that, but the story is only coming as quickly as it is because the overall arc was already in place, and my "Karmack" Gray Jedi character has been marinating in my imagination for a while now.

More to come.  The fateful day is fast approaching.  Stay tuned! 


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on October 15, 2017, 10:09:44 PM
Another good instalment, Arnor frustration is understandable...she can't see the visions he's having after all...
Really interesting how Karmack is constantly on about trusting the song and his visions...maybe he trusts it a little too much....
Can't wait to find out what this curse is all about!


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 17, 2017, 07:25:26 PM
"Shouldn't we be doing this at night?"

I looked back at Talia and smiled brightly.  "You'd think so...  Two reasons we're not.  Look around, what do you see?"

Talia stopped and scanned the crowd around them.  I watched her eyes roam across Monument Plaza, taking in the smattering of brightly colored outfits and the noise of people visiting the last exposed earth on the planet.  The Monument was always popular, with crowds coming to see the last exposed mountaintop on Coruscant, to touch it and connect to the bones of their encased planet.  It was a nice place, with gardens and vendors of all types.  The air was crisp and clean, cool and dry.  But the crowds were thinner than normal, and they were not alone.

As I watched, Talia looked beyond the crowds to the Home Guard troopers, backed up by Imperial Storm Troopers now after the riots that had swept this and most other open plazas and venues on the planet.  There were blackened areas where vendor booths had been destroyed and burned out, usually because of some display of loyalty to the Empire or Emperor.  There were also other damages from exchanges of blaster fire and explosives where some of the initial riots had turned into out-and-out urban warfare.  "I see families, tourists ... and a lot of security."

"Good.  Now, reach out.  What do you feel?

I glanced at Arnor and caught her slight smile in return as Talia stopped, closed her eyes, and unconsciously raised her right hand slightly, as if reaching out to literally feel what was going on.  It was a common thing, that gesture, and it took years of training to reach a point of not using them.  Master Chillum had drilled it out of me with a zealous fervor boarding on obsession which I had fervently hated as his Teidowan and only reluctantly submitted to initially as a young Koawan.  It was only later that the benefits of having control without any props, particularly waving your hands around in the air, became apparent to me.  My grin threatened to escape as Arnor gently reached out and pulled Talia's hand down.  The grimace and eye-roll were becoming predictable, but she just took a deep breath and resumed her search through the force, listening to the songs of the area and concentrating on sorting them out and understanding them - this time with her hands folded together in the arms of her robe, out of site and still.

"I feel ... tension.  A LOT of tension."  She answered after over a minute of concentration.  "There's the normal ebb and flow of people doing fun things, but underlying all of the normal joyful noise of a place like this there's a very deep tension and suspicion."

"Exactly.  Which means?"

Talia made a face.  "Well, with the crowds around we have a pretty good chance of blending in, but even then there's an increased security presence.  They're on edge, so ...  Oh."  I saw the comprehension bloom on her face like a flower.  "After dark there wouldn't be a crowd here, or if there were it would be a protest.  Either way, we'd stick out like a Wookie in a room full of Mon Cal."

"Exactly.  During the day we can move about feely.  Thanks to the unrest and declaration of Martial Law, any activity at night isn't just suspicious, its illegal."  I nodded at the troops arrayed around the square.  "They're tense now and suspicious, but anyone out here at night is just a target."

Talia was nodding now.  "I get it.  But how are we going to get into the Temple?  Its way over there..." She gestured with a head toss toward the distant Imperial Palace, formerly the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, "...and we're way over here."

"That, as they say, is the million credit question." I replied.  "Fortunately, we..."

I was interrupted by a sharp whistle followed by a series of low and very rude-sounding chirps.  "Ok, ok, Two!  Fortunately TWO has found us a still-active but rarely used service conduit which we can access from one of the food courts.  This way..."  I held out my arm and Arnor linked hers through it.  Illian offered his arm to Talia and they drifted slightly away from us while Two followed closely behind Arnor and I.  Within seconds we were just two more couples out to forget a little of the troubled times in the Plaza.  It took several minutes to cross the square and we entered one of the largest of the eateries around the Plaza and took the opportunity to share a meal.  As we ate, chatting around the table, I caught Arnor watching me with anxious eyes, remembering what I had told her of the vision and worried about what was coming.  Listen to the Song.  It can save you...

I shook off the vision's echo.  I needed to focus.  Wool-gathering now could be deadly quite apart from an ancient curse that might or might not be in place around our final destination.  "Its time.  Two, where's that service portal?"

The droid gave a short whistle and led the way toward the rear of the place.  There was a long hallway which led to public restrooms, the kitchen areas, and ... a droid service corridor.  Two drove through that portal and into the corridor as if he were just another service droid moving from place to place.  The four of us followed, moving just as quickly if with less aplomb and panache as the diminutive droid.

The corridor ramped downward, dropping about five levels in a gentle slope that spiraled into the bowels of the infrastructure below the Plaza and adjoining "Triangle".    I found myself on edge, this environment more alien than any we'd encountered yet on Coruscant.  Everywhere else we'd gone had at least been "biological" territory, places where people were expected and welcome.  This was ... different.  A mechanical world populated by droids, built for droids ... and rarely if ever seen or entered by a biological.  Here we were the outsiders.

But even more disconcerting was the lack of music.  Droids, for all their cleverness, personality, and even genius, did not sing.  There was no Song here...

More wool-gathering.  I shook it off, opening myself to the flow of the song, listening ... and hearing it.  Still muted in that odd way that seemed to grow the closer we were to the Palace/Temple and the ancient force nexus it was built around and over, but there to be heard.  The direction was clear...  Two directions.

I waited until we'd reached the transit corridor, where two cars awaited us.  Each was designed to carry two or three droids and could easily accommodate and R3 unit and two humans.  Once again I toyed with the idea of taking Two with me and sending Arnor with Illian and Talia, or simply going alone.  The cars were big enough to carry three people and the droid with only a little crowding.  But ...

Listen.  Trust.  Follow the path...

I sighed.  "Illian, you'll take Talia and Two in the first car.  Your job is to get to the ship and prepare it for immediate departure.  Two has our beacon frequency.  When we're ready to leave we'll activate our beacon.  Your job will be to get airborne and pick us up as quickly as possible.  The holding area where Wayfarer is docked is lightly guarded and not far from here, but we're probably going to be on a short string when we do decide to leave."  I looked Illian in the eye.  "This is non-discretionary: If our beacons go dark, do NOT attempt to land and recover us.  Just get into space and head for M'Tzigon.  Two has the coordinates and can plot your course.  Report to the council what has happened here."  I opened a small pouch on my belt and withdrew a chip.  "This is a copy of my report to date.  Pass this along.  There is also a ... personal message for Master Chillum and ... others of import to Arnor and myself.  Master Chillum will know how to open those messages and direct them to the right places."

Illian took the message chip but his face was anything but accepting.  "I don't like this, Master.  Not one bit.  I ... have a bad feeling about this."

"I know, but this is the way.  Arnor and I will be moving with stealth but we will need to leave in a hurry.  The only chance we will have is if you already have Wayfarer ready to launch."  I looked at my wife and smiled a wane smile.  "We both know the odds of succeeding are slight, and the likelihood of survival is low, but if it works..." 

"WHAT?  If what works?  What is worth your lives?"  Talia interjected suddenly.  "How can stealing something from the Imperial Palace be so important?"

I looked at Talia, then Illian, then back to Talia.  Illian's face had hardened to impassivity but his emotions were a boiling cauldron below that still surface.   In contrast Talia made no effort to hide her confusion and pain.  Tears shone in her eyes, eyes pleading for answers.

Answers that, even now, I wasn't comfortable sharing.  Arnor knew, she knew the legends and understood what we were attempting, if imperfectly.  I knew more, Master Chillum had been a student of the ancient legends of the Mak'Tor and had shared many of them with me, though he had been less successful creating the same love of the ancient stories as he himself held.  An oversite I now wished I could revisit and correct, and which I vowed to do ... if I survived.

... a gleaming green-blue blade thrusting through my torso...

Arnor noticed the slight tremor in me as I blinked the end of the vision away.  Its a maybe, not a for-sure...   I reminded myself, then addressed Illian and Talia.  "Trust me in this: It is important.  Worth even two lives, if it works.  What it is, I cannot say.  When you get to M'Tzigon find Master Chillum and ask him to explain.  He will do so in great detail, I guarantee it."

"As you say, Master Karmack.  May the force be with you." Illian replied, bowing.

I returned the bow, with Arnor.  "And with you, Illian, Gray Knight of the Mak'Tor."

Two whistled his own farewell, mixed with his own electronic sounds of impatience to spur them along.  "Agreed, Two.  Safe journey and we should hurry, we've tarried her to long already." 

I stood with my arm wrapped around Arnor and watched them go, then we climbed into our own car.  "And now we're off as well."  I turned and kissed her.  "To balance."

"To balance."



Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 18, 2017, 12:07:52 PM
No, NO!  Karm, the curse!  *shakes head  :o

And is the reference to a "green-blue" blade SRD?!

On a serious note, I remember reading Timothy Zahn's "Hand of Thrawn" duology about 15-20 years ago and remember it referencing a mountain or mountain range but then also remembering in Phantom Menace that Coruscant was a planet wide city.  You perfectly addressed that AND to the point that it WOULD be significant!  I enjoy not only the unique aspects of your world building but also when you seemlessly add in canon materials as well  :)

Karm I really like learning more about the Mak'Tor Order (and by extension Master Chillum) so this installment is that much more enjoyable  :D

If only not for that curse...

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 18, 2017, 01:56:46 PM
No, NO!  Karm, the curse!  *shakes head  :o

And is the reference to a "green-blue" blade SRD?!

On a serious note, I remember reading Timothy Zahn's "Hand of Thrawn" duology about 15-20 years ago and remember it referencing a mountain or mountain range but then also remembering in Phantom Menace that Coruscant was a planet wide city.  You perfectly addressed that AND to the point that it WOULD be significant!  I enjoy not only the unique aspects of your world building but also when you seemlessly add in canon materials as well  :)

Karm I really like learning more about the Mak'Tor Order (and by extension Master Chillum) so this installment is that much more enjoyable  :D

If only not for that curse...

Until next installment friends  :)

Yes, the curse.  Now, you have to know that any kind of ancient, "haunted" cave-shrine HAS to have some kind of curse on it, right?  ;-)

I have to give a nod here to the Wookipedia.  I've pulled a LOT of info from there about Coruscant, especially about Monument Plaza, which actually appeared in the extended scenes at the end of RotJ.  One of the big celebrations after the death of the Emperor happened there.   Followed, per the Wookipedia, by riots and clashes with crowd control and Imperial troops. 

Another great source has been a simple google search.  If you search for "Jedi Temple on Coruscant" and then scan the images you'll see some cool cut-aways of the Jedi Temple, including the mountain peak its built over.  :-)

Honestly, though, I have to admit the idea of the Monument Plaza, a national park built around the last exposed mountain peak...  Yeah, that's kind of cool and very sad all at once.  I have this image in my head of the Jedi Temple perched on K2 with the tip of Everest poking up through the mega-city, the last exposed piece of earth....

Not my idea of a good place to live.  :-)

Anyway, ONWARD!  I think this one is coming to a head.   Curses!  ;-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 18, 2017, 04:55:48 PM
Amazingly the ride in was utterly uneventful.  I could only surmise that Two had cleared the way for us with his usual efficiency.  I further surmised that he had neglected to tell me because he had a low and base sense of humor, particularly for a droid.

I might need to adjust that...

Entering the Imperial Palace was anti-climatic.  The droid service ways were monitored but thanks to our little friend the scanners accepted us as just more droids.  I flexed my right hand inside its cybernetic glove in sympathetic awareness that we were still in alien territory as the car came to a stop and we entered the service corridors of the Imperial Palace itself.

I was struck by the .... immensity of the place.  And the malevolence...  Even with Two's directions we were both open to the force, listening to the songs twisting through the sheer power of the place.  Most were the sickening screams of evil, and my mind shied away from them instinctively, the way you might flinch away from any extremely loud or badly clashing sound.  But buried deep down were the melodies and harmonies of Good, still struggling against the twisted songs of Evil that had overlaid this place.

I knew from its history that the site had always been a focal point in the Force.  Orders like the Mak'Tor and Jedi and Sith had always been drawn to it.  Some had literally started here.  The main-stream "Gray" Jedi order had started nearly 150 years earlier when the Seven had formed the order on Daghobah with Leor Danal as Kage.  That order had maintained contact with the Jedi and the universe at large, before disappearing after order 66 took effect.  Exactly where and how they had managed to disappear were matters of great debate, a debate I had chosen to simply avoid.  They went wherever they went.  They would return when they returned.  Until they did, the rest of us were on our own.  The Mak'Tor had long been on its own....

We came to the end of a corridor and stopped.  There were portals to the left and right but just a blank wall ahead.  Unfortunately, the tracker Two had given us indicated we should go straight ahead.  I laid my hand on the wall, probing.  This was definitely the way... "Well, this is ... a puzzlement."

Arnor grinned at me.  "No problem."  Her saber ignited, bathing the corridor in its aqua glow, and she plunged it into the wall.  In a matter of seconds she had carved out a portal we could easily pass through.   A slight push dislodged the plug and we hopped through ... and landed on bare rock.  We were under the infrastructure, among various foundations and supports, but woven through the fabric of the buildings were pathways worn into the very face of the rock.  I put the tracker away: the pathway was suddenly clear.  I could feel the shrine, the ancient cave where our order had been born.  I could hear ... singing ... coming from the place.  I gestured for Arnor to follow as I headed up the path, weaving around and under the ancient and modern foundations that sank into the face of the mountain.

There were no lights here.  I pulled out a palm lamp and passed another to Arnor so that she could close her blade down.  In the stabbing beams we could see opening after opening: ancient caves, mostly sealed or simply enclosed with a small shrine.  Most of them were anonymous, either through the ravages of time or the deliberate defacement of opposed occupiers.  Some carried prominent Sith or Jedi markings.  A few, mainly those with Sith markings, showed signs of recent visitation.  The song, the ancient song of our order, was strengthening.  I shared a look with Arnor.  She could hear it as well.  It was a song both familiar and alien.  The melody twisting through the rock around me now was subtly different than what I had grown up within.  That made sense: This was Coruscant.  The song here had been sung by the ancient Mak'Tor, before the Jedi or Sith came, before light-sabers, before even easy interstellar travel.  I knelt down and laid my hand on the rock.  I could feel the power flowing in the rocks themselves.  Not a song: More like a wide river flowing, still and calm but massive and unstoppably powerful all the same.  "Arnor, imagine it.  No one of our order has set foot on this rock face since Kage Pollar sealed the shrine against the Sith over a thousand years ago..."

"And like him, you will never leave iot, Jedi."  growled a gravelly voice just off the trail. 

I killed my light, taking the time to drop it back into a belt pouch as I drew my saber hilt.  I did not immediately ignite the blade, taking a few steps to my left.  Arnor, her light also doused, was moving to the right, moving to a distance that allowed us to move freely while still within mutual support range.  "You have nothing to fear from us.  We simply wish to ... pay our respects to our Founder and depart in peace." I called into the darkness.

A laugh echoed back.  "You expect us to believe you, Jedi?  This is the second time you've intruded into our hidden place.  The last was our refuge, our home.  But this is our sacred place.  Our place of communion and power with the Dark.  It is the last intrusion we will tolerate." 

I could feel the twisted hatred of his very soul and the hammering drumbeat that I had pushed into the background came to the fore.  In my attempts to screen out the chaos and confusion of this place of power I'd also ignored the very close and real threats of these sith.  I felt the song of battle rise in my breast as red blades sprang to life around us.  We were outnumbered.  Badly.

Balance.  Always balance...

I wrapped the song of battle around myself and Arnor like a shroud and reached out.  The power here was amazing...  In the force I scooped up a group of boulders and hurled them down the side of the mountain, mowing down three of our attackers on the far side of Arnor with the heavy rocks.  Arnor hurled herself into the gap I had created, her saber igniting as she flew through the air, her own cry of battle ringing in the void.

I reached out for more rock ... and felt the strong parry in the force from my opponent.  I wasn't the only one tapping into the power focused by the mountain...  My own blade sprang to life in my hand as I closed with the nearest of the sith to me.  Despite the power flowing here, he was not expecting me to be so close: the appearance of my yellow blade briefly betrayed his look of surprise before the arcing sweep separated his head from his body.  The body fell in place, but the head rolled down-hill and out of the space lit by our clashing blades.

That was the only quick kill I was going to get today, however.  A shoulder-roll brought me into close contact with another sith and we nearly tumbled together on the rough ground.  I managed to keep my feet and pressed my attack with a flurry of powerful blows, seeking to batter his defenses aside.  I succeeded, but not quickly enough.  Even as my final stroke took his hand off at the wrist I felt the prompt to tuck and roll forward.  The move saved my life, but I felt a white-hot streak of fire score across my lower back where the tip of a saber cut across the skin.

Desperately I shifted my song to a song of healing, drawing the power of the place into myself to seal the damage and quell the fire in my back.  The pain eased and receded to a point where I could set it aside even as I regained my feet and turned to face the remaining sith before me. 

Two against one.  There were no words exchanged, no banter.  Just red fury and raw, unfiltered rage...

The song of battle rose in me again, augmented now with my own anger and fury.  Threaten me?  Threaten my wife?!?  Not today.  Today, you've made your final, fatal mistake.

We are Gray.  We are Mak'Tor.  We are NOT Jedi...

I wrapped my own anger and rage into the song and whirled into battle.  Golden fire swirled and danced on the mountainside as I dropped into the modified Soresu form that was my first love and favored combat form.  Swirling, turning, probing...  And finding the weaknesses in my opponents.  A flickering, lightning fast strike slashed across a foot.  Another stroke a moment later gouged a thigh.  Three hammering strokes against a blade created an opening and my blade pierced the exposed shoulder, before withdrawing into another whirl-wind of blocks and parries.  I shifted my position and sent a strong force push against the wounded sith even as I countered his partner's athletic strikes and moves.  Already weakened, he couldn't resist the push and slammed against a large boulder, the sickening crack of his back breaking lost in his scream of agony...

Three down...  I looked down-slope at my last opponent, my own fury the full equal of his own.  With a snarl he launched himself up-slope at me, striking at my head.  It was a futile move.  I deflected the blow and simply extended my parry upward - and his somersault took his right shoulder through the blade, the arm knocked wide by the parry before it was completely severed.

The sith warrior landed on his back with a howl of mixed agony and rage.  Before he could do anything I was upon him, my blade hovering at his throat.  Helpless now, his eyes were still filled with rage and he rasped up at me.  "What are you?  No Jedi channels their anger like that...  But you're not a sith..."

"No.  We are Gray."    I reached out, reached into his throat...  And stopped.  I could still feel the rage twisting within me, fueled by the edge of pain still present in my back.  Righteous anger was a useful tool.  Fury was a potent weapon. 

Murder...  That was evil.

"We are Gray." I repeated.  "Sleep..."

The sith's eyes went wide, then blanked as the suggestion, augmented by the immense power of the mountain, drove him into unconsciousness. 

"Well, that's a new trick for you."  Arnor said.  Her own opponents were gone.  In the haze of the battle song I had an impression of my wife separating both from their weapons ... at about the elbow.  "You've never been one for those kinds of mind-tricks."

"I know.  But here..."  I looked around at the mountainside, lit by the glows of our blades.  "Here I think I could do almost anything."

"Maybe.  Come on, husband.  We're close.  Lets get this over with."

I could feel the spike in my wife's emotions.  Anger, fear, and sorrow.  She expects you to die, now...

The insight startled me into speaking.  "Arnor, I am not about to die."

She turned on me, and the look was the one she usually reserved for her opponents.  "Why not? How can you say that?  You told me what you saw!  You go into the cave!  And then ... you die!"  She held out her blade.  "You die on THIS blade!" 

There were tears in her eyes now, streaking down her cheeks.  I stared at her blade.

Her blue-green blade.

Her blade?!?

"The curse isn't just kill you, Karm.  Its going to kill us." Arnor gestured toward the fallen sith.  "He was right.  We will never leave here."

I stared into my wife's tear-filled eyes and I had no words.  "Arnor..."

The song....   Sing the song....

I looked at her.  My wife...  "Arnor.  I love you."

"Sing with me."



Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 18, 2017, 05:50:35 PM
Okay, that is a bit of a twist. I honestly thought it was going to be Illian's blade that he saw stabbing him through. I love how this battle was almost "easy" compared to some of the other ones he has faced, but then he decided not to kill that last one. Seems like he might be starting to come back to who he was at the beginning of "We are Gray...". Very well written post, and I am anxious to see how it all pans out.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 19, 2017, 03:04:27 AM
Okay, that is a bit of a twist. I honestly thought it was going to be Illian's blade that he saw stabbing him through. I love how this battle was almost "easy" compared to some of the other ones he has faced, but then he decided not to kill that last one. Seems like he might be starting to come back to who he was at the beginning of "We are Gray...". Very well written post, and I am anxious to see how it all pans out.
Yes!  Well put TR^^  I see the duality in Karm reasserting; but that's not a bad thing.  Indeed, righteous anger IS potent; but you bring up the perfect caveat: murder (not " killing ") IS wrong.  But that's one of the reasons Karm is a maenowan and not " just" a koawan: Balance, made even more so poignant with the Song.

It's Armor's blade?! Excellent twist!  I did not see that coming  ;). And this is exactly why I love reading this ever-expanding universe!  ESPECIALLY with the cliffhanger you left us with Karm  ;D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 19, 2017, 06:11:03 AM
The song flowed around us ... and through us.  I opened myself to Arnor's song, and she to mine, and together, we didn't just listen.

We sang...

Melody and harmony, entwined with the rhythm of the moment. Following the symphony that was the path before us.  Singing out parts in it.  Engulfed by the music of this place, this moment, this task...

I never remember, afterwards, if we actually vocalize the song or if it is just something we share in the force.  In the moment it doesn't matter.  I can hear Arnor.  She can hear me.  We sing together and blend our voices with the great song, following the lead of the Singer, the Maker of all.

I do remember her eyes.  Clear.  Pure.  Full of love and peace as the worry and fear and doubt are washed away...

I gasp...  The song is interrupted by the vision.  Again, I see the portal, the glowing form...  Only this time...

This time Arnor stands in the portal.  Her hands are outstretched, touching specific points on each side of the door frame.  There is a faint blue-green glow...

My blade is live in my hands.  The imperative rolls through me: PROTECT THE SANCTUARY!  I raise my blade to strike... 

No.  The glow flares and fades under her fingertips and the urge and impulse dies.  I lower my weapon and watch amazed as the door, barred to me, lifts.

Lifts for Arnor...


I gasp in pain.  The singing leaves me drained, the pain from the saber wound on my back unblocked.  With a groan I fall to my knees, collecting myself and reforming my focus on the healing song.  Slowly the pain fades.  Only when I am back in control do I look up.  Look into her eyes.  "Did you see it?"

"Yes.  Only..."  She sinks down next to me.  "It was different.  I went forward this time...  And you were going to..."

"But I didn't.  The impulse came but passed."  I shook my head.  "The curse ... doesn't apply to you!"

"Why not?"  Arnor stood up, hands on her hips. 

I laughed at the defiant pose.  I couldn't help it.  "Really?  This offends you?"  I asked her.

She stamped her foot.  "It doesn't make sense!"

"Not yet.  Maybe its all an elaborate trap.  There's only one way to find out."  I gestured up the hill.

The journey was short.  We were less than 100 meters from the entrance to the Cave of the Mak'Tor.  The outer shrine had been long desecrated with Sith iconography, most of the small chapel destroyed.  Nothing remained but a small inner vestibule ... and a doorway.

A doorway sealed shut with no visible way to open it.  A door apparently made of stone.  But it was there.  Suddenly I could hear it, faintly.  A chiming sound I'd heard before.  Inside the chamber there was one more crystal...

Without realizing it I had already moved forward, reaching for the contact points, when Arnor gripped my arm.  "Karm..."

I followed the beam of her light.  Scattered around the vestibule were bones.  Lots of bones.  Mostly human.  Enough bones for at least a dozen individuals.  And from what was visible, many appeared to have been cut in half by a high-energy cauterizing weapon. 

Like a light saber...

"The curse." 

Arnor only nodded and set her jaw.  She stepped up to the door, reaching out...

I was hit by a wave of pure force energy.  I staggered back, but suddenly I was only watching, a passenger in my own body as my hand reached down and drew my saber.  I saw Arnor's shoulders tighten as the blade ignited behind her, but she kept going, pressing her hands against the contact points on either side of the door.  Offering herself...

I felt my hands raise the blade, preparing to strike. A clean cut across the torso, then a self-inflicted stab to the abdomen.  I knew what was coming.  I could do nothing but watch it happen.  I tried to say something to Arnor.  Warn her.  Tell her I loved her.  Nothing came from my lips but a slight hiss of preparation...


The panels flared and just as quickly as the wave had come it was gone.  I was standing behind my wife, my blade poised to strike...  I lowered it quickly and deactivated the blade. 

The stone before us moved backward.  Arnor followed it into the portal, and I followed Arnor.  We walked for a good twenty meters down a smooth corridor before the stone finally pulled back into a room.  We found ourselves in a circular chamber...

"No.  No way..."  I spun around.  There in the chamber was a simple stone monolith, flanked by a pair of flickering lamps.   For a moment I was back in the crystal cave, far below, at the base of this very same mountain.  But this cavern was different.  It was circular, mimicking the central shrine far below, but there was no upper area in this shrine.  Nor was the monolith in the center.  The massive stone plug had retreated across the room and depressed into the far wall about 30 cm before it stopped, but it would have bi-sected the room as it withdrew.  To one side was  the monolith and its lamps. To the other side...

It was hard to tell, there was little left but dust, but the skeleton across from the monolith appeared to have died sitting in a lotus.  In his lap was an ancient light saber.  And in front of him, a box.  I called the saber to my hand, trailing the light over it.  It had some distinct markings...  "Arnor.  I think this is the same script used in some of the earliest records.  I'm not certain, but I think..." I looked down at the bones, all that was left of a man revered by the Mak'Tor.  "This is Kage Pollar."

Arnor didn't hear me.  She was opening the box, all of her attention focused on it. 

When the lid opened, light filled the room.  The crystal inside just poured out energy!  It was a brilliant blue-white and it sang...

"Karm, open the monolith." Arnor said.  I blinked and turned back to the alter, scanning it with the force. Like before, the mechanism was hidden inside where only a force-user could find it.  I pulled the tab, half expecting to see the two crystals from far below still nestled inside.  In that I was disappointed.  Inside this monolith there was only a single nitch....

Only.  Like that word applied to anything anymore...

Arnor lifted the crystal from the box and carefully moved it over to the monolith, placing it into the niche.  I again felt the wave of force energy when she touched the crystal, but this time it passed almost instantly.  For a long few seconds we just stared at the crystal, shining in the monolith, until it suddenly closed ... and sank out of sight.  Dust filtered down from the ceiling, followed by some good-sized rocks.  "Arnor..."

"Agreed!"  She called, not resisting as I grabbed her hand and sprinted down the shaft.  The massive plug seemed to follow us down the passage-way, and we hurled ourselves out of the opening just before it slammed back into place, again sealing the site. 

I groped into my belt pouches and withdrew my palm light.  In the dim light of the lamps we just sat and caught our breath for minutes.  Finally I turned to my wife.  "What just happened?"

Arnor's eyes widened.  "Didn't you hear it?"

"Hear what?"  I asked, puzzled. 

"The crystals...  They sang to me.  All three of them."  She whispered.  "It was ... amazing...."

I was dumbfounded.  Arnor was strong in the force and sensitive to the song, but it was rare that she could hear something I could not.  And this apparently hadn't been subtle.  How had I missed it?  "What did it sound like?"

Arnor smiled.  "It was ... like a crystal wind-chime, only there was more structure.  All chords, but moving in a pattern and rhythm, but one so subtle and complicated that it almost sounded random.  It was amazing..."

I sat back and opened my senses wide.  I wanted to hear this song!  But before I could reach for it I noticed something else.  "Arnor...  Listen for a moment.  What do you hear?"

Arnor closed her eyes and cocked her head to the side in a gesture indicative of deep concentration on her part.  For over a minute she sat that way, unmoving, before her eyes opened again.  "I don't hear anything, Karm.  What is it?"

"That's just it.   Nothing.  There's ... nothing.  Before, there was a swirling cauldron of chaotic sounds and melody fragments, good and evil.  Just a ... jumble.  White noise blocking everything else, making even simple concentration hard.  Now, nothing.  Just that deep well of power and peace."

"You're right!  Could it have..."

That's when the surviving sith warrior, the leader of the group that had attacked us earlier, lurched into the circle of light created by our lamps.  "What have you done????"  he croaked. 

The warrior, tears in his eyes, collapsed.  "You've driven it away...  Opened the crypt...  As the prophecy foretold..."

He collapsed, but there were other voices in the dark, wailing.  And the rustle of many more people moving around, beyond what our lights could reveal.  I looked at Arnor.  "I think we should leave now..."

"I'm right behind you."



Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 19, 2017, 07:05:42 AM
Oh, and now there's a prophecy too. It's just one thing after another. One cliffhanger to the next. One curse to One Prophecy. How do you do it? How can you make something so deep and powerful, with so much meaning, yet at the same time annoy us all to death? It is amazing, and really cool to see you do everything. Just when you think something may actually go right, some little thing happens to set of a chain reaction ruining everything we thought we knew. You truly have a great gift for writing, and I cannot wait to read more. Carry on. :D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 19, 2017, 11:54:04 AM
IN-credible!  The shift from Karm to Arbor was well done.  Now we need to learn more about her  ;)

And Kage Pollar (or what's left of him  ;))?!  I want to know more about this ancient Mak'Tor shrine!  Especially now since it is not lost under the Sith defilement.  And what is Armor's connection to this new Song?   Hmmm, "prophecy" indeed  :D

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 19, 2017, 06:30:48 PM
Ha!  Glad you guys liked it.  I wrote that LATE last night, and like many of my posts it took on a bit of a life of its own and I didn't quite end up where I wanted to be.  But after re-reading it, I guess it works.  :-)

Now I am in that great dilemma of authors: I know what happened and why: how do I let you guys know in the context of the story? 
Hmm....

Definitely more to come!

Karm


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 20, 2017, 06:59:02 PM
We didn't get far.

Getting out of the foundations of the Palace/Temple wasn't particularly hard.  A little force-assisted leap and we were back into the droid service area.  The only problem being the area was no longer occupied by droids.

I was igniting my saber before the threat really registered.  A squad of storm troopers, white armor gleaming, were advancing cautiously down the hall, no more than 30 meters away.  "Jedi!  Blast 'em!"

There wasn't really room in the tight area  for my saber to spin unrestricted through the blast-deflection patterns I was using, but the walls around me were thin.  The saber tip sliced through them effortlessly as I wove a golden shield around myself and between the troopers and Arnor, only now emerging behind me.  "Arnor!  Replace the plug and seal it!" I shouted, then surrendered to the renewed battle song I felt in my chest.  A solid sheet of red energy hammered toward us, and I deflected it up, down, left and right ... and back the way it had come.  One by one the troopers were hit by their own fire and fell, armor cratered and bodies broken by their own blaster bolts.

The last trooper fell and I ceased my pattern.  "Arnor?"

"Done!"  She joined me.  "We need to get out of here..."

Arnor saw what I was looking at.  The fire had ripped the corridor around us apart.  The floor in front of us for nearly 20 meters was all but gone, and the walls and ceiling were almost as bad.  The structure was already beginning to creak and groan with imminent collapse.  "Oh..."

"Yeah."  I pointed up and to the right, through one of the larger fissures.  I could see what appeared to be a dimly-lit gallery through the man-sized hole.  "Do you think you make that leap?"

She grinned.  "Easily.  You?"

I grinned back.  "Well, its either that or go back down under with our sith friends."

Her face sobered.  "And your back?"

I smiled to reassure her.  "There is pain, but the song is masking it for now. I will be fine for a while more."

She nodded, seeing through my smile but accepting my reassurance.  In truth, the pain was growing again and I knew my time was limited.  We needed to get out of this place now...

"Be right behind me, love!" Arnor said.  She turned, stepped, and threw herself into a diving leap through the hole.

I was right behind her.

Arnor's leap was perfect.  She passed through the jagged hole and did a graceful shoulder role on the smooth floor beyond the rent, coming up into a fighting stance, her saber alive and ready.  My effort was ... less ideal.  And far more painful.  As I pushed off, the floor gave out under me ever so slightly, throwing my trajectory off.  Where Arnor passed through the middle of the ragged opening, I scraped along the side.  Sharp metal ripped into the flesh of my left bicep and cut bloody furrows across my ribs under my left arm before finishing their destructive work by tearing my left thigh open. 

I landed in a heap, suppressing a scream of agony.  I could see nothing but white-hot agony.  The song was lost.  Instinctively I rolled into a ball, my left hand clamping down on my thigh, my left elbow pulled tight in against my side, my right hand clamping over my left bicep, my whole being trying desperately to staunch the blood loss and quell the agony...  I was peripherally aware of Arnor bending over me, picking up my dropped saber, applying dressings and spray-sealer all while reaching out to me in the force in her best attempt to help me on every level.  I could feel her, caressing me physically and in the force.  Singing to me...

Sing ...  the ...   song .....

With a gasp I locked eyes with my wife.  Blue met green, and suddenly I heard it.  I locked onto the melody ... our melody ... and dragged it back into my mind.  Sing!  Sing with her...

The melody, simple, beautiful.  Our melody, two-parts intertwined into one with the ever-present song of the Maker.  White-hot pain...  pain... 

No.  Sing.  Sing, Karm!  Sing!

Sing the song.  Always the song...


I felt my ragged breathing slow and become more steady.  The white-hot pain dulled and partially receded as I sang.  I sang as one deaf and dumb...  I all I could hear was Arnor, her simple melody.  But the Song was there.  So I sang ... and slowly opened myself to the song...

And suddenly it was there.  Like a symphony suddenly unleashed, deep and broad and powerful.  The song flooded me, and I gathered it to myself.  The hot, white noise of pain and injury were pushed back ruthlessly until they were only background noise.  The song was center stage.

I blinked.  "Thank you..."

"Don't thank me yet." Arnor replied.  "You do ... what you do.  I'm not half the healer you are.  Let me get the blood flow stopped and take care of this leg..."

I nodded, swallowed.  I could connect to the song, feel the force, but I also knew that the damage to my arm and especially my leg was severe.  The fact that it was essentially self-inflicted only made it worse.  "Guess I kinda missed that jump..."

Arnor barked a tight laugh.  "You think?  Hang on, this is going to hurt."

I hissed as she tied off the bandage.  Despite the analgesics and the healing energy I was marshalling to my body the pain was ... severe.  I was more than a little afraid to even flex the muscle, let alone stand.  But...  "Help me up."

Arnor stood and used the force to assist me in gently rising to my feet.  As I had feared it hurt.

A lot.

"Well, this should make things interesting..."  I looked around.  "So, where are we exactly?"

Arnor pulled the schematic Two had given her from her belt and activated the small hologram.  "We're in ... the ancient tower." She said.  "According to the map, this is one of the oldest sections of the Temple."

"Makes sense.  Its directly over the oldest shrines and holy places established on the Spire."  I took a limping step forward.  Pain exploded up my leg and through my side and I hissed again.  "Oh, this is not good..."

Arnor studied the map for several seconds, then put it away.  She took my right arm and slung it over her shoulder, supporting most of my weight.  "Come on, old man.  Lets get out of here."

"Do you know where we're going?" I asked, suppressing another hiss as pain assaulted me again.

"Yes.  We're going up."  Arnor moved slowly but confidently.  "There's a bit of a maze before we get there, but there are lifts in this section that go to a meditation garden on the roof.  Palpatine redecorated and removed the Jedi iconography and relics, but he didn't destroy the architecture itself and apparently he enjoyed the gardens as much as anyone else.  They're private and they're open to the sky.  The Wayfarer should have no problem picking us up there.

I nodded, not trusting my voice, and did my best to help as my wife used the force to help carry me through the most ancient parts of the old Jedi temple and finally up to a beautiful green meditation garden on the roof.  There were signs of more troops all around, apparently hunting for us, but the ancient sections were a labyrinth even novice force users could get lost in.  I lost track of our location myself more than once, but Arnor took us unerringly through and before the pursuit could close on us our ship swooped down and picked us up.

The shock on Talia's face when we came up the ramp was priceless. She simply stood while we struggled up the ramp, her hand over her open mouth at the sight of my blood-soaked and tattered form.  She finally managed to stammer "Master Karmack!  Are you ... alright?"

I couldn't help but laugh out loud.  "No, Talia, I am most DEFINITELY not alright."  I said.  "Arnor..."

"Agreed."  my wife grunted back, straining now with the effort.  The two women steered me into a bunk and I managed to land with a groan.  "Arnor, tell Illian to head for M'Tzigon.  We need to .... report..."

My last view was of Arnor's nod of agreement as she wiped my blood off of her hands.  My last sensation was that of the Wayfarer shifting into hyperspace.

Home....   A song I had not heard in some time....   The four-part fugue of our small band was suddenly joined by two more voices.  One was familiar and welcome.  The other...

The other was ancient ... the song of the past...

Home.  And maybe ... finally ... some answers...






Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 20, 2017, 07:21:52 PM
I am getting the sense that this part of the story is coming to an end. It is sad, but also cool that you finally finished what you had started. Karmack may not yet have the answers to all the questions he has, and he may never get them, but that is the way of life. Once again, you completely destroy Karmack. And this time, I can personally relate. A few years ago, I ripped my arm up pretty bad too. Not half as bad as Karm just did, but still, it wasn't fun. I was hoping that it would at least leave somewhat of a scar, so that I could prove it really happened, but it didn't.  :'( That's alright. Once again, great job. This is one of my favorite posts you've done to date. And the reason why, is because even though it's not full of action, it is important to the growth of the characters. These characters have grown so much up till now, that you don't think they could grow much more, but his constant reminding himself to trust the Song, and sing the Song, is great to see. Especially when someone like Arnor who is can't quite hear the Song like Karmack is the one who brings it back to him, and makes him remember to Sing. You keep using the phrase "Always the Song", I like that. I like that you keep bringing it back in, that you keep using that as a way for Karm and Arnor to remember to Sing. But mostly, I like how you use it in a way that makes it seem both comforting, and annoying. Comforting, because it is something constant, and reliable, but annoying it that it seems to them that it is the most important thing in the galaxy, so they can't ignore it even if they wanted to. Great writing, and great job.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 20, 2017, 09:27:59 PM
Hmm...  Winding down?  Maybe....

Maybe not.  ;-)

Yeah, Karm gets ripped up pretty bad.  Again, that wasn't what I started out intending to do, but somehow...  LOL

And there's still something hiding... 


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 21, 2017, 02:43:22 AM
I am getting the sense that this part of the story is coming to an end. It is sad, but also cool that you finally finished what you had started. Karmack may not yet have the answers to all the questions he has, and he may never get them, but that is the way of life. Once again, you completely destroy Karmack. And this time, I can personally relate. A few years ago, I ripped my arm up pretty bad too. Not half as bad as Karm just did, but still, it wasn't fun. I was hoping that it would at least leave somewhat of a scar, so that I could prove it really happened, but it didn't.  :'( That's alright. Once again, great job. This is one of my favorite posts you've done to date. And the reason why, is because even though it's not full of action, it is important to the growth of the characters. These characters have grown so much up till now, that you don't think they could grow much more, but his constant reminding himself to trust the Song, and sing the Song, is great to see. Especially when someone like Arnor who is can't quite hear the Song like Karmack is the one who brings it back to him, and makes him remember to Sing. You keep using the phrase "Always the Song", I like that. I like that you keep bringing it back in, that you keep using that as a way for Karm and Arnor to remember to Sing. But mostly, I like how you use it in a way that makes it seem both comforting, and annoying. Comforting, because it is something constant, and reliable, but annoying it that it seems to them that it is the most important thing in the galaxy, so they can't ignore it even if they wanted to. Great writing, and great job.
Yes, yes, YES!  TR is right: the character development was fantastic with this chapter!  As with TR, I suffered a debilitating injury many years ago but have nothing outside showing...but it is those inner scars that can truly run deep and long (a fact I imagine that Karm can empathize with  ;)).

I really like learning more about the Song, and not just as a literary device but as a fundamental force for Karm and Co.  To me it seems only natural that the Gray Jedi would...use isn't the right word, neither is follow (although both are applicable).  Embrace?  Probably the closest that I can articulate  :)

Regardless, I hope that we keep reading about Karm's adventures for a long time  :D

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 23, 2017, 07:05:23 PM
I awoke to waves of red, hammering pain.  "ow..."

I sat up carefully, using my right arm and side and avoiding flexing the muscles on my left, particularly those in my thigh.  The lacerations there had been bone-deep, and despite four days of nearly constant healing trances in conjunction with top-notch medical technology the pain was still ... considerable.  I had found over the years that natural sleep was required for the healing songs and medical therapies to have maximum effect, which unfortunately meant drugs to block the pain were NOT an option.   So my options were simple: endure the pain and heal quickly, or block it and heal more slowly and less completely.

On reflection it wasn't much of a choice.  Besides, the pain was a potent reminder that we all make mistakes.  A reminder that I apparently needed applied far to often.

The pain is good for you.  Maybe next time you'll think before you jump!

The echo of both Master Chillum and my wife's voices rolled through my head and I couldn't help but chuckle.  Since my own days as a head-strong Taedowan I had fought a tendency in myself to favor quick, decisive action.  I knew it was partly because I could so clearly 'hear' the song of the force, and partly because I was also very gifted in applying the force.  Master Chillum had spent literally years beating that tendency toward arrogance out of me before letting me test for my first rank.  And her willingness to call me on it today was one of the things I most cherished in my relationship with Arnor.  In fact, it was one of the reasons I had fallen in love with her at all.  She had never, even as a fresh-faced young Gray, hesitated to tell me I was being arrogant or to quick to judge a situation.  Now, after years of marriage, those challenges tended to come as subtle glances or hidden in code phrases.  But the arguments in the first years of our relationship had been ... impressive.

And loud.  Very loud.

My smile turned to a fresh grimace of pain as I shifted my leg.  The song of healing had healed most of the damage, but the internal injury could only truly heal through movement and time.  The muscle was essentially whole now, but the newly knit edges were raw and untempered.  Only through exercise could the muscle finish its healing process.  Unfortunately at this stage every movement felt like getting stabbed again, until the muscle invariably began to cramp, which felt worse....

I rubbed the muscle, feeling the slight knots and catches that I knew would never totally disappear no matter how well it healed.  Yes, this one would be a fitting reminder not to leap to quickly.  Probably for the rest of my life...

"Look before you leap ... and make sure of your footing."  I said to no one, still rubbing my thigh, almost savoring the waves of pain that radiated out from the wound.  The physical pain would fade with time.  As would the other pain from the other wounds.   I brushed my back with the finger tips of my right hand.  That wound was totally healed, but I shuddered inside as I though about how close I'd come to death with that cut.  Two more inches, and the spinal chord would have been cut, and I would have been killed moments later by the follow-on blow.  Two inches between life and death.  Next time...

Next time?  Why should there be a next time?

No echos of my past there.  I knew the voice of self-doubt when I heard it.  I'd been offered a position, a promotion even, to the rank of Master Maenowan as a Sage and member of the Council.  It was a great honor.  I hadn't known the Council was considering me seriously until just before we left for Coruscant, and when we set out I had not been seriously considering accepting the role.  Being on the Council would mean being tied to M'Tzigon.  Yes, I would have the joy of training the younglings and even the older knights.  Yes, there was great prestigue in the position and title.  Yes, it would be being able to establish a permanent home and seeing Yelena and Karmon more.  It would mean stability.  Peace.  Serenity.  It was a tempting offer.

Now now, not so hasty.  Look before you leap...  Arnor's voice.  Chiding...

Arnor.  The offer would mean seeing HER far less.  Perhaps losing her entirely as she continued to go on missions for the Council.  Sending Yelena and Karmon out as well, first as Taedowans then later as Grays themselves.  Seeing their melodies in the force, and perhaps the end of those songs ... and being able to do nothing.

No.  The offer was tempting, and one day perhaps would be the calling I would choose.  But not today.

I flexed my leg, accepting the pain and pushing it back.  I had to work the muscle, but I needed something else as well.  Something for my mind to work on while the body ached....

There.  Pollar's lightsaber.

I called the saber to me from where it lay on a shelf.  I knew Arnor had run diagnostics on it while we'd been aboard Wayfarer and found it to be in near-perfect order, with very little deterioration considering how long it had sat unused.  She'd replaced the power cells just to be safe and attempted to activate it, but to no avail.  Everything appeared in good working order, but the blade would not appear.  Instead the plasma gate safeties activated every time and cut the power, almost as if the crystal was simply not there to attenuate and focus the blade's plasma stream.

I ran my fingers over the outer casing again.  The faint etching on the casing proclaimed this weapon as the possession of Kage Pollar in the runic text the Order had used when they first came to M'Tzigon.  The runes had been present in the inner sanctum on Coruscant as well, though the outer chapel and shrine had long been dismantled, first by Sith, then Jedi, then Sith again before the Jedi finally closed over the whole and walled it off, bodies and all.    The runes were not a true alphabet, but rather a syllabary of the original dialect of the Mak'Tor.  Very few still spoke it: none below the rank of Sage even knew it existed...

... except me.  Though I hadn't know it, deciphering the ancient language had been a key component in the Trial I'd unknowingly faced before being offered the position on the Council.  Maybe it was only my own doubts, but I simply could not accept the position or the promotion.  But learning the language had been both interesting and rewarding.  Deep down I loved history, almost as much as I loved gadgets. Maybe that was why the saber intrigued me so much.  How often did a person get to hold a piece of ancient history in their own hands?

I runes were not deep, more like an acid-etch than a stamp or tool mark.  I scanned the runes again, translating as I went.  The Light of Pollar - the path to knowledge lies within.   I smiled.  Typical Kage, enigmatic and obscure even in this...

My fingers stopped moving.  Without my gauntlet my right hand was weak and lacked fine control, but the fingertips were extremely sensitive.  There was a difference in the runes.  The first part of the phrase, "The Light of Pollar", were stamped in the metal.  The stamping had been largely polished away, probably from handling, and the runes had been acid-etched to make them visible as the stamping itself was lost.  The rest of the phrase, however, was only etched into the metal ... and as I examined it further I realized that it wasn't true acid etching, but rather the work of an abrasive.  Fine work, but something done by rubbing a tool rather than applying a chemical. 

So the phrase "the path to knowledge lies within" had been added...

A hunch filled me.  I laid my hand on the saber and opened myself to listen, straining for the echoes of the crystal's song...

...and heard nothing.  Nothing at all.  Even over this much time Kage Pollar's song should echo through the kyber crystal of his saber!  Unless the crystal wasn't "his" crystal at all...

I probed with the force, disconnecting the new power cell and disabling the internals before pulling the saber apart, exposing the crystal chamber and the crystal within.  Extracting it took a few more seconds of work, longer due to the clumsiness of my right hand, but soon enough the small, blue crystal was in my palm.  A kyber crystal to be sure, but not a saber crystal.

A data crystal.

"Arnor!" I called, standing up.  I took one step toward the door...

... and landed on my face as white-hot pain radiated up my left leg.  "Ow..."

Arnor burst into the room.  "Karm!"  She saw the pieces of the saber scattered by my fall.  "What happened?"

"Help me up."  I took the weight mainly on my right leg and showed her the data crystal as she helped me rise.  "We need to get to a data terminal.  I think Master Pollar may have left us more than a mystery."


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 24, 2017, 12:32:12 AM
A mysterious, archaic message from an ancient sage?!  :o  I LOVE where you've taken us Karm; but...but what knowledge is embedded in the crystal!?!  CAN'T WAIT FOR MORE!

On a serious note: I can COMPLETELY relate to Karm's pain (sadly  :-\).  I love the "healing" facet to the Song!  Once again, I have to consciously slow my reading, not only to appreciate the nuances of the narrative but so as not to finish too soon  ;). And IIRC, TR once stated that the "exposition installments" were his favorites in that the character development is TOP notch.  He's damn right  :D

Oh, and Gray Jedi to Gray Jedi: there's ALWAYS a "next time"  ;)

Until next installment friends  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 24, 2017, 01:59:27 AM
LOL  I was inspired by researching holocrons on Wookipedia.  Turns out there was a kyber data crystal stolen that had all of the force-sensitives listed on it during the Clone Wars TV show.  So ... why not?

;-)

Some answers coming soon.  And maybe ... another adventure?  Hmm....

hang in there! 


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 24, 2017, 03:43:55 AM

Some answers coming soon.  And maybe ... another adventure?  Hmm....

yes! Yes!! YES!!!

 ;D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on October 24, 2017, 05:53:42 AM
Poor Karmack seems to get injured at regular intervals, its a hard thing to hurt your characters like that, but seems its with definite purpose.  Interesting how things restabilised in the force after replacing that crystal, almost like a final step in a path Karmack and co. have been walking for a while now on Coruscant or even before...but with the data crystal only 'almost' the final step...


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 24, 2017, 01:23:13 PM
Poor Karmack seems to get injured at regular intervals, its a hard thing to hurt your characters like that, but seems its with definite purpose.  Interesting how things restabilised in the force after replacing that crystal, almost like a final step in a path Karmack and co. have been walking for a while now on Coruscant or even before...but with the data crystal only 'almost' the final step...

LOL  You're getting ahead of me!  But you're right.  That was the "plan" if you will, the reason they went there, though Karmack and Co. didn't really know that.  The crystal will hold some answers.  Hopefully it doesn't come out as to Duex ex Machina...  :)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 24, 2017, 03:42:18 PM
Hopefully it doesn't come out as to Duex ex Machina...  :)
I don't think that you need to worry about that Karm^^  In this instance, you've been referencing the crystals throughout this story.

...NOW say you'd had Exur Kun show up, saying something like "AHA the Sith that I lead have become Gray Jedi and they used their belt buckles as storage devices--by the way, yours is one such device--for answers!"  Now THAT would come off as a Dues ex Machina  ;)

But that's just a random thought  ;D 

No Karm, none of your writing is cliched, etc; that's what makes it so enjoyable  :D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 24, 2017, 04:11:36 PM
LOL  Thanks.  :-)

I think I do need to figure out a way to get poor Karmack through a story without getting torn to shreds, though.  :-) 

Just for the record: I do NOT have any injuries in RL that are so catastrophic.  Though I did break a couple of bones when I was in High School...   :-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 24, 2017, 06:46:31 PM
Arnor helped me into a comfortable seat and loaded the crystal into the data terminal.  At first nothing happened, then a message appeared - in runes.  She turned a puzzled expression to me.  "What is that?"

I grinned at her.  "Those are runes, like the ones in the Temple here on M'Tzigon.  The founders of the Order used them instead of Aurebesh.  They spoke a different language back then as well..."  I read the script on the screen.  "It says, roughly, 'gene sequence code required for security lock bypass'." 

Arnor scowled.  "So ... how do we hack past it?"

"Who says we need to hack?"  I said, eyebrows rising.  "Your genes worked on Coruscant.  Try it here."

"Ok..." Arnor turned back to the panel and placed her finger on the scanner, which took a miniscule prick of her blood and tissue and ran it through an analyzer.  "How long do you think..."

Arnor cut herself off as the screen blanked and the console activated the holographic projector.  An image of a man wearing simple robes appeared.  He began to speak but the words made no sense.

"Computer, translate vocal to standard and restart playback." I said.

There was a pause and the image froze, then reset and began again.  "Greetings, Tolan!  I wish I could have seen you again with my own eyes, but circumstances overcame me here.  If you are seeing this message, then you have managed to reach the shrine and restore the crystal to its chamber.  It is hidden for now, you will know where.  The Sith are everywhere.  I have put the defensive measures we discussed before you left in place and I believe they will be sufficient to protect this place.  Unfortunately, they are reactive to ALL force-users, and so will kill me as well as any interlopers soon enough.  As you can imagine, attempting to NOT connect with the force, not even to listen to the song, is nearly impossible.  Especially in this place."

"Pause." Arnor said.  The recording obediently froze.  "Karm, you're the history buff.  Is this Kage Pollar?  And who is Tolan?"

I pointed to the saber hanging from the figures' belt.  "That's the same saber.  Look at the markings.  As for Tolan..."  I stroked my beard, thinking hard.  "If I remember the legends, Maenowan Tolan Dunor was one of the Sages lost shortly after the Sith takeover of our center on Coruscant.  She led the evacuation from the Spire to M'Tzigon, then went back and never returned..." 

"No, she did not." grated a deep, gravelly voice from the doorway.  "Its long been one of the great mysteries of our order."

I turned toward the door with a smile.  "Master!  What brings you to our humble home?"

"Him, actually." Master Chillum pointed at the frozen image.  "I've inquired at Kage Pollar's holocron several times over the years, and it always ended the same: The answer lies within."  He laughed.  "Cryptic.  Even purposely misleading, since I was asking direct questions about the Spire sanctuary and its demise.  We always assumed there was a second holocron within the sealed walls, but the last time anyone tried to enter..."

"They died."  Arnor said.  "We saw several bodies scattered around the entrance.  I assumed they were Sith or grave robbers or even Jedi who tried to access the vault.  Are you saying they were ... Mak'Tor Grays?"

Chillum nodded, his eyes very opaque.  "Yes.  Mostly Koawan Knights."  His eyes focused on me.  "You were there, but you never left the temple. Koawan Silvick kept you and the other younglings occupied while we probed the site.  The "curse" killed most of us before we reached a safe distance.  We couldn't recover the bodies near the site."

I blinked.  I'd been very young, and not in formal training when I visited Coruscant.  The Jedi Temple had been a blur of incredible sites and impossible events...."  Yes.  I do have a very vague memory of the visit, and coming home with fewer people than we'd gone with.  I never knew why, though.  I think I was ... four?"

"Three." Chillum replied without hesitation.  "Silvick was planning to take you as his Taedowan, as you were his brother's son, but he was killed assisting a Jedi during the Clone Wars.  That's why you ended up with me, instead."  The old man's eyes twinkled.  "Scarred you for life, I'm afraid."

Arnor chuckled.  "More than you know.  He refuses to take a position on the Council, you know.  That's your fault."

The old man shook his head.  "Aye, lass, it is.  All that complaining about being put out to pasture and not being able to do the good I wanted to do."  His demeanor stopped.  "I wish I could have stayed in the field, but that was not my song to sing.  My place has been here, supporting the Kage.  Whereas you two..."  He turned back to me.  "When do you think you'll be back in condition, my boy?

I shrugged.  "Not soon enough.  Probably a month for the healing to complete, and another month to get back into shape." 

"Good."  Master Chillum lowered himself into a chair, moving gracefully despite his age and obvious frailty.  "Now, lets hear the rest of what Kage Pollar has to say, shall we?"

I tapped the key to resume and the hologram picked up where it had left off.  "So, Tolan, I am undoubtedly dead.  I am keying the defenses to your genetic code.  You will be able to access the sanctuary and free the crystal.  Come, restore the balance, and take me home.  Without the balance, the Light and Dark foci in the deep cavern will tear at each other and mute the power of this place.  That will hold the Sith's power in check for now, but balance must be restored.  And so it shall: So I have foreseen and written on the doorway for all to see.  The truth lies within."  The Kage's face wrinkled into a crooked smile.  "And now I bid you farewell.  Sing the song, Tolan, my daughter.  Sing the song."

The holographic figure bowed his head and the holograph ended. 

"So, there was a third crystal."  Master Chillum's gravelly voice was thoughtful.  "We always assumed that restoring balance would come from placing the light crystal back in its place down below.  But the two crystals were regulated by a third..."

I nodded.  "When I replaced the Light crystal in the cavern at the base of the Spire, the "white noise" that had been humming all along intensified.  But now I understand why the Sith were all over the Spire.  They were desperate to find out why the buzzing was suddenly bothering them as well as light-siders."  I looked at Arnor.  "That's what he meant by the prophecy.  Pollar's writing on the door saying the day would come when balance was restored.  He just didn't expect it to take a millenia."

"No, he did not."  Chillum rose.  "Part one of your mission is complete.  I've contacted ... an old friend.  We still need to find out where the original Singing crystal was taken and how these "children" are being produced."

"Master, I'm not ready to..." I began.

"Master Chillum, Karmack's in no condition to..." Arnor also began.

Master Chillum's raised hand silenced both of us.  "Did I say 'Go now'?  No!  Heal!  Rest.  Enjoy some time together.  Get your friend Illian and his wife settled.  Then report to the Council in ... 90 days.  No sooner!" he pointed his knarled finger straight at me.  "You need a rest, Karmack.  Maenowan or not, Sage or not, you take some time!  That's an order.  Then, when you're ready, come and see us. We'll have the details of the rest of your mission for you then."

I nodded, sinking back into my chair in relief.  "Yes sir."

The old, bright eyes shifted to Arnor.  "Ninety days!  Make him rest, young woman!"

She bowed and nodded.  "Yes sir."

"Good.  The song embrace you both." Chillum bowed, turned and left.

"The song embrace you, Master."

  *** The end ... for now ***


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on October 24, 2017, 09:40:37 PM
There's always more to do it seems...chasing the legacies of their forbears, seems the tussle for the sacred sites on Coruscant has left a long shadow across not just that world but the Gray Jedi and galaxy at large.  Good to see Chillum make an appearance too. Interesting that this is only part one of their mission, I guess my worry would be after so much travail just to get to this point, as resilient as Karmack and Arnor are, and even with Illian and Talias help, at what point will the accumulation of all these events start to take a toll on them...and how might that effect them...that is after all they've experienced even with a few months rest it still must leave a mark....Will have to wait an see I suppose!   


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 24, 2017, 09:47:33 PM
There's always more to do it seems...chasing the legacies of their forbears, seems the tussle for the sacred sites on Coruscant has left a long shadow across not just that world but the Gray Jedi and galaxy at large.  Good to see Chillum make an appearance too. Interesting that this is only part one of their mission, I guess my worry would be after so much travail just to get to this point, as resilient as Karmack and Arnor are, and even with Illian and Talias help, at what point will the accumulation of all these events start to take a toll on them...and how might that effect them...that is after all they've experienced even with a few months rest it still must leave a mark....Will have to wait an see I suppose!   

That's one reason that Chillum basically orders Karmack to take a vacation.  :-)  You're right, this kind of thing takes a toll.  I'll address that to some extent in the opening of the next story set.   Hopefully I can find a way to write the next one without beating Karmack to bloody strips this time.  LOL


Thanks guys!  More to come!  I promise!


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on October 25, 2017, 03:43:34 AM
Like LSG, I'm so glad you put Master Chillum into this one. Instantly a favorite character of mine. Such a real person. To me he reminds me of a grandpa. Mean and gruff on the outside, but that is all just an appearance. Inside, he has a sense of humor, and is full of tenderness, but is also strong and firm. Not to mention wise. I really hope he has a bigger role in the next one. Anyways, great job. So much happened, and now we find out this is only the beginning? You have a great gift for writing, and I (im)patiently wait the next story. But until then, I guess I'll have to be content reading LSG, TD, and HB1's stories, and writing my own. ;) Until next time friends.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 25, 2017, 11:56:29 AM
Excellent ending!  But I LOVE the hook!!  "The Spire" "Tolan" Master Chillum's (great to see him in situ!) "Old Friend"

Karm you know exactly how to leave us wanting more! 

There's always more to do it seems...chasing the legacies of their forbears, seems the tussle for the sacred sites on Coruscant has left a long shadow across not just that world but the Gray Jedi and galaxy at large.  Good to see Chillum make an appearance too. Interesting that this is only part one of their mission, I guess my worry would be after so much travail just to get to this point, as resilient as Karmack and Arnor are, and even with Illian and Talias help, at what point will the accumulation of all these events start to take a toll on them...and how might that effect them...that is after all they've experienced even with a few months rest it still must leave a mark....Will have to wait an see I suppose!   
LSG brings up a good point: how legacies can cast a LONG shadow "of their forbears" (excellent turn of phrase, that  ;). Hmmm). Again: this is fresh!  I wish I could write as swift as you Karm but I end up having to correct the clichés I incorporate...SO longer intervals between submissions  ;)

Like LSG, I'm so glad you put Master Chillum into this one. Instantly a favorite character of mine. Such a real person. To me he reminds me of a grandpa. Mean and gruff on the outside, but that is all just an appearance. Inside, he has a sense of humor, and is full of tenderness, but is also strong and firm. Not to mention wise. I really hope he has a bigger role in the next one. Anyways, great job. So much happened, and now we find out this is only the beginning? You have a great gift for writing, and I (im)patiently wait the next story. But until then, I guess I'll have to be content reading LSG, TD, and HB1's stories, and writing my own. ;) Until next time friends.
Excellently put TR! That is precisely what Master Chillum elicits for me!

And thanks TR for your support sir  ;)

Until next (story) installment friends  :D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on October 25, 2017, 11:24:23 PM
That's one reason that Chillum basically orders Karmack to take a vacation.  :-)  You're right, this kind of thing takes a toll.  I'll address that to some extent in the opening of the next story set.   Hopefully I can find a way to write the next one without beating Karmack to bloody strips this time.  LOL


Thanks guys!  More to come!  I promise!

One thing I also wonder about is could exposure to large surges of force energy effect a person in odd ways, Karmack has just in a short period been exposed to some pretty intense force powers....I think there was something in the EU somewhere about sudden drastic exposure of surges in dark side energy could alter someone's personality as it left a 'stain' like radiation poisoning...might be something I'll have to explore a bit in my own stories at some point. 


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: TheDutchman on October 25, 2017, 11:41:43 PM
One thing I also wonder about is could exposure to large surges of force energy effect a person in odd ways, Karmack has just in a short period been exposed to some pretty intense force powers....I think there was something in the EU somewhere about sudden drastic exposure of surges in dark side energy could alter someone's personality as it left a 'stain' like radiation poisoning...might be something I'll have to explore a bit in my own stories at some point. 
Oh NICE LSG.  I would NOT have thought of that, but, why not?  Force energy leaves a...resonance (think about the cave on Dagobah when Yoda tests Luke in ESB).  A place that won't "give up the ghost" as it were...


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Karmack on October 26, 2017, 02:01:53 AM
One thing I also wonder about is could exposure to large surges of force energy effect a person in odd ways, Karmack has just in a short period been exposed to some pretty intense force powers....I think there was something in the EU somewhere about sudden drastic exposure of surges in dark side energy could alter someone's personality as it left a 'stain' like radiation poisoning...might be something I'll have to explore a bit in my own stories at some point. 
Hmm.  That's an interesting concept and one that I hadn't really thought through.  I will have to think on that some.  This could certainly come into play, though.  And not just with Karmack...  :-)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lady Revan on November 08, 2018, 09:55:12 PM
*Spoiler Alert*
I know who the Jedi with the rich green blade is. Luke Skywalker. ;D

Great job. Once again, I love how it is less centered on action, and more on story and character building. Really shows that you have a knowledge of writing, as well as how to keep the audience interested. You build a world that is both realistic, and believable, though at the same time inherently Star Wars. As always, looking forward to more.

LOL even though this is ancient history now.... I thought I would let you know that this made me giggle.

On another note, Karm, I like that I'm getting to see with this how the song is incorporated into visions. :D It gives great perspective on our previous discussion.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on November 08, 2018, 11:13:49 PM
LOL even though this is ancient history now.... I thought I would let you know that this made me giggle.

On another note, Karm, I like that I'm getting to see with this how the song is incorporated into visions. :D It gives great perspective on our previous discussion.

That's good. That is what I was going for with it. ;D


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lord_S_Gray on November 09, 2018, 06:22:09 AM
LOL even though this is ancient history now.... I thought I would let you know that this made me giggle.

On another note, Karm, I like that I'm getting to see with this how the song is incorporated into visions. :D It gives great perspective on our previous discussion.

Oh its still all pretty live...some of the events in this story are quite important for the current series What You Leave Behind...also good to reflect on how Karm's style as a writer developed and his ideas coalesce more strongly over time.


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Taegin Roan on November 08, 2018, 11:21:21 PM
Oh its still all pretty live...some of the events in this story are quite important for the current series What You Leave Behind...also good to reflect on how Karm's style as a writer developed and his ideas coalesce more strongly over time.

I believe she was specifically talking about my quote being ancient history, not the going-ons in the story.  ;)


Title: Re: Hide and Seek
Post by: Lady Revan on November 08, 2018, 11:39:36 PM
Oh its still all pretty live...some of the events in this story are quite important for the current series What You Leave Behind...also good to reflect on how Karm's style as a writer developed and his ideas coalesce more strongly over time.


I believe she was specifically talking about my quote being ancient history, not the going-ons in the story.  ;)

TR is correct in his assumptions, but thank you for the spoilers, LS lol

Just finished! :D slowly but surely catching up on the forumverse! Onto the next story.... “A Tarnished Night” according to the list.



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