Lawler's Mandalorian Campaign Log
Lawler Twindle's Jedi log accounts of the Madalorian Campaigns
Episodes 19-40
Series 2:
Episode I (19) - Friend or Foe - an unexpected opportunity...
After the Jedi elevation ceremony ended, the celebrations continued for two more days. Slowly, the crowds returned home, the other Jedi returned to their duties, and the diplomats went back to being diplomatic. Meqli announced that a husband has been chosen for her, so she may be returning to her home system for most of her work from now on.
I spent most of the next month in my cell or the meditation room in the compound. As Master Vandar had said, 'Whatever I do, where ever I go, I bring the Order with me. My triumphs are the Order's triumphs, my failures are the Order's failures.' I wanted to rush off and do a hundred things - right a hundred wrongs, but I knew it would be better to be calm, and let the Force lead me to where I needed to be. I have to fulfill my promise to protect the gorgonodons of Illum. We have encountered several dark Jedi in the past months, and now my friend Xieran is captured by them. These two tasks rose to the top of my mind.
After our encounters with so many dark Jedi, and seeing the effects of their power and influence, I've decided to find out what can be done to attempt the task of returning a dark sider to the Light Side. It's never been successfully done to this date, but I believe, as do several other Jedi, that it can be done. There are a small group of Jedi who call themselves Jedi Redeemers. I contacted them after our battle with so many Krath warriors at Bogga's palace. I've been reading over their histories and accounts of their attempts so far. They go to great lengths to bring a dark Jedi back, but so far have always failed, and have had to resort to battling the darksiders to the death.
I know my personal Force philosophy does not always seem to agree with the council's, but I feel that I'm not denying any of what they understand, but only approaching it in a different way. As long as they already consider me to be slightly askew in my thinking about the Force, I might as well attempt to do things they feel are impossible. If I fail, then they are proven correct. If I succeed, then we all enrich our understanding of the true nature of the Force.
I spent the time in meditation dwelling on these issues, my experience with the Force, my encounters with the dark side & darksiders, and on the symbiosys of the gorgonodons with the lightsaber crystals on Illum. The masters saw to it that the special crystal given to me by the gorgonodons was given to me as my own for my lightsaber. I had re-built it last time to include an area for a second crystal. I took all of this swirling great desire to do great things with the wisdom from the Force, and to defend the gorgonodons, and meditated on it as I imbued this special crystal with the Force. The crystal itself is a deep blue that shimmers purple in direct lighting (geologists, see "Tanzanite"). Most second crystals change the blade shape - making it harder to dodge and avoid, or making it easier to deflect projectiles. This crystal kept the blade the same shape, but changed the color to a deep green when combined with my greenish-yellow primary crystal. I'm not quite sure what effect it will have on the lightsaber's operation, but I'm sure it will be special.
The new crystal colony on Dantooine has been established - there are a species of semi-sentient spider-like beings who were interested in making homes with the crystal growths. We will monitor the situation, but it looks like a fine start.
I spent the next several weeks learning about my new actual duties as a Jedi Knight. I had much more time to myself to study and train. Master Eelmo and I became more friends than teacher and learner. I met a weapons instructor named Breen f'Brik. A huge, semi-aquatic being of the << species >> species, Instructor f'Brick, who was famous for helping liberate Couruscant during the Sith Wars, sparred with me on several occaisions, but even he could not solve the mystery of what the function of the secondary crystal was for in my lightsaber.
An alert call from the orbiting Republic fleet notified us that an unidentified ship had come out of hyperspace very close in to the planet. They captured and boarded the vessel, which seemed out of control, and had only one surviving occupant. I later learned that it was indeed Cpt. Darian's Dawn that brought the vessel in, though there was no resistance from the very unique occupant. The fleet was extremely cautious because this was a Mandalorian troop transport vessel, though it was horribly damaged.
The only crewmemer still alive, a Mandalorian woman named Selenai, requested that she be allowed to speak to the Jedi. They were reluctant to allow her any contact outside of their Republic custody, but they thought the better of it when she displayed Force abilities. Cpt. Darian called me on the comlink, and I came up to orbit with f'Brik. They told us they had a captured Mandalorian asking to speak to us, but didn't tell us she could use the Force until after we were brought on board. f'Brik thought ahead, and put on his old battle armor from the Sith War, I think mostly to impress the person, warrior to warrior.
Selenai turned out to be from a small section of Mandalorians who are perfectly capable of using the Force, but visciously suppressed by the rest of the race. Her companions were killed while trying to escape Mandalore in an attack by other Mandalorian forces. Her intent was to escape Mandalore, and come further Coreward to find Jedi who will teach her new ways to fight the Mandalorians, so she can help her kind survive. I'm not sure exactly what she expects us to teach her, but I suppose it's much better that she's coming peacefully to learn from and with us, rather than coming with a small army of hostile Force-using Mandalorians...
We established that she meant no harm, and took her back down to Dantooine to meet with the masters. Selenai is the visitor of whom I spoke earlier, this is the meeting outside of which I am currently waiting. I have a plan to present for the masters' approval for the protection of the gorgonodons on Illum. Using the credits from the donation Vala provided the Order at my elevation, I should be able to research and put a halt to the poaching problem, abolish organized hunting expeditions, and find a few ways to convince the rocket ski resorts to stay away from the Mountain on Illum. Plus it's going to be a bit of a laugh to use Mattale Corporation money to restrain corporate growth on that icy world and make the most profitable area of the whole system into a protected wildlife preserve.
Lawler Twindle, Jedi Knight
Episode II (20) - Republic Rescue
Instructor V'reen and I travelled back to Illum to curtail the poaching problem there, which we did without much incident. Those who would not respect the limits the Jedi placed on using out region of the world, and the ban on hunting the Gorgonodons were dealt with. Though he's not much into dialogue, Instructor V'reen tends to get attention from those who cross him.
While we were away, the rest of the group travelled back with Selenni to her homeworld, which they found destroyed and abandoned. They went in to recover whatever they could from her civilization there, but found very little. They did find a Mandalorian ambush team, however, which they dispatched quickly. They managed to salvage the ship that the ambush team came in, and brought that back to Republic forces. They also learned some information about an upcoming rendezvous between the Mandalorian and possibly some Krath representatives.
Captain Darian took a nasty fall, but he says the money from the salvage of the strike cruiser was well worth it.
Episode III (21) - We'll have to Force it open...
Using the information gathered in the last mission, the Republic forces want to strike at the rendezvous, and capture some of the Mandalorian ships. They are wary of approaching them with the Krath unopposed, though, and they wish to bring Jedi along. This is a bit of an ill-planned mission, since the Jedi aren't really happy about participating in an offensive action, and the mercenaries (let's face it - Vala's here by her own good will, and this is well above Darian's normal pay scale) have no reason to join in besides the bounty on the stolen Republic cruiser that they pirates are using.
Seeing that if we don't do this know, we'll just have to do it later when the Krath are more prepared, the group finally assembles and lauches as a pre-strike team to engage the Krath and prevent their ship from leaving when the Republic fleet arrives.
In what seems to be normal, we're approaching once again under a Force disguise of random space debris. Unlike normal, it seems that at least some of the Krath can see through this. Though the Mandalorian fleet surrounding the cruiser does nothing, the pirate ship launches fighters and fires blindly at us. We manage to evade the only shots that come in our direction, and we head for the main hangar bay. Finding the hangar doors closed, Selenni wrenches them open with a massive Force burst.
Once we land inside the hangar, the lone Krath fighter docks next to us. In what I'm sure was meant to be an imposing stance, the Krath pilot emeges with his two gunners/crew to engage us. What he finds is b'Vrick, the huge Jedi warrior, bearing down on them with his massive lightsaber. What was two gunners quickly becomes four ex-gunners, and the Krath is chased off down the corridor.
Episode IV (22) - Everything seems harder than it should be
Knowing that there are only a few Krath on board, b'Vrick continues chasing the Krath down the corridor, and he is not seen for some time. In the original plan, he was supposed to come with my strike team to the computer control bridge, but we'll have to manage without him.
Darian, Selenni, and Vala head off on a modified swoop-with-sidecar down another corridor towards the reactor control room. Disabling both of this and the computer control should prevent the ship from leaving or self-destructing. Flying down the hall at 100 km/h makes them a blurry surprise to any ship's crew they come upon. They arrive at the control room, and eventually get partially pinned down. Vala and Selenni get inside the control room, but Darian is left outside.
Selenni manages to dislodge the first of the reactor control systems, but is stunned and falls unconscious. The shooter, before Vala can ambush him, spots her approach and greets her with, "Vala, we meet again..."
My strike team of Graag the Garmorrean, eight marines, and myself head up the turbolift and are ambushed in the T-junction heading towards the bridge. The marines secure their half of the junction with a hail of blaster fire and grenades, while my side is cleared out by a spinning Force-guided lightsaber. We proceed to the bridge where our sudden invasion of the bridge scares most of the fighters there into inaction, but not all of them.
We are confronted by a Krath swordsman on the bridge. His double-bladed sword hums with dark energy, and his presence in the Force is smothering and oppressive. He says something like, "I've waited a long time to battle a real Jedi..." Many of the marines are disabled immediately by the Krath swordsman, they are just not equipped to deal with that weapon moving so fast. Fortunately he's also not equipped to deal with fighting off my lightsaber while I'm still standing outside the door to the bridge, and he is pushed back by an onslaught of near hits that scrape off of his alchemy enhanced sword and armor.
Graag charges him bravely, but he is caught badly in the next flurry of sword strokes that kills nearly half the marines. By some miracle of Gamorrean battle mettle, he stays standing even with a grevious head wound. To distract the swordsman from the other marines I close and engage him at close range. In my next flurry, I knock his defense aside and deliver a nasty blow to him that cuts through the armor, but not quite enough to finish him. He manages to recover his defense, and deflect my saber with a part of his sword handle that must be actual Kortosis - as it deactivates my lightsaber! Almost reflexively I shove him away from me with the Force to give myself more time to bring my defense up.
He trips badly and lands on his back next to the marine captain, who empties his automatic rifle at him. The swordsman rolls away and avoids most of the blaster fire. This miscalculation, though, is his downfall. He either discounted or forgot about Graag, and rolls right into his reach. Graag, with one mighty final blow, shatters the swordsman's weapon and drives his axe straight through his helmet. By falling over landing on top of the swordsman axe-first, Graag's impressive bulk drives the axe straight through to the hull metal of the deck.
Ironic it is that dark Force users always neglect to remember that Jedi use everything to their advantage - especially their friends. By accepting the help of others, we can always out maneuver and outfight ones who are too proud, and try to conquer everything single-handedly.
Episode V (23) - Short-term solutions create long-term problems
b'Vrick caught up to the Krath pilot he was chasing down, who is reinforced by a Krath sorcerer. They underestimated b'Vrick's fighting strength, and he almost got both of them before the sorcerer escaped. b'Vrick then assisted Darian in securing his corridor. There was an alarm from Darian's ship, and he raced to the hangar just in time to see it lift off - stolen by the Krath sorcerer.
Darian's compulsion of hardening his ship and creating failsafes and backup systems came back to haunt him when, having stolen the Krath fighter, he attempts to diable his own ship. The sorcerer uses the same illusion trick that we used to access the ship in order to escape through the Republic fleet. Darian knocks out the main hyperdrive, but the pilot escapes using the backup hyperdrive. Darian, distraught at the loss of his ship, has decided to blame x10 - the copilot droid, for not fighting off the Krath sorcerer lord...
Marine Major Ch'ode and I were now securely in the computer control room with a number of stunned crew, dead and wounded marines, a wounded Gamorrean, and a dead Krath swordsman. We healed up Grawgg so he could stand, and tried to find a way to stave off the crowds of pirate crews that gathered outside of both exits to the room. Ch'ode, by pretending to set thermal detonator charges at the doors, got them to back off, so we're safe for now. I opened the door to the main computer core, and was promptly shot within an inch of my life by the guard droids inside. When I was revived by the marine medic with some "experimental" stim packs, I found some of the computer had been damaged by the massive shards of exploded droids all over it.
Selenni's mysterious attacker turns out to be the former captain of this ex-Republic vessel - Vala's brother! He offers to turn over the ship, disable its captain, and shut off the destruct sequence if she will arrange him free escape and a transport. She really teeters on the edge of just shooting him in the head, but finally decides that we're in a bad situation, and this might be the best and only way out. They called me and made sure that I could arrange to provide the transport that he needed. It didn't sound like a good idea, but it was the best option at the time. Even if it were a partial defeat, Jedi must accept those when it is the wisest course of action.
I'm not sure exactly what steps were taken, but we found the pirate captain floating outside of the ship in a pressurized flight suit, just outside of the now vaccumous ship bridge which appeared to have been explosively blown open.
The other part of the deal was to receive information, though incomplete, about how to jump to the Krath stronghold. Though they intended to hide that information from the pirates, Vala's brother managed to record most of it, and handed it over to us. Darian demanded that we set off at once to take his ship back. That now would be the best time - his backup hyperdrive was slow - we could get there ahead of him. He would not be expecting us to be there at all, etc. The Republic Fleet commander Admiral Dodonna offered to bring his fleet. "If we're going to surprise them, we might as well really surprise them..."
However, with as spotty and untested as the information was, and with as beat-up as we all were, and with the other obligations we had - arranging transport for Vala's brother, reporting to the Republic, etc - I had to insist on reclaiming the transport at a later date. Soon, but not immediately. We needed at least some verification of the data - it's not worth risking all of those lives for nothing.
Episode VI (24) - New arrangements -or- ADRIAV!! Yo Adriav!
It's always useful to have friends in strange places. For instance, our little friend Skids has gone off doing her own thing, and she checks in from time to time with new things she's found that the Jedi order might find useful. This was definitely one of those times.
Darian caught up with me in the compound on Dantooine, mostly to check on how the research into the Krath jump coordinates was coming. It's slow work, slowed down by having the Republic fleet techs do most of it. He has his own copy, of course, and is studying astrogation hard to see if he can get the info faster himself. I don't think he will, but it keeps him from moping too much.
Darian also mentioned that a man just recently arrived on planet and was looking to Darian for mercenary work. That's certainly a first, and it struck me as sort of odd. Most of our jobs ended up being high-profile, but our actual involvement in them was never widely publicized. Where did this guy learn that Darian was connected to them? He, Darian, was meeting him, Adriav, for drinks later that evening, and invited me to stop by.
Selenni, being a bit of a odd-man-out in the compound, made a lot of the Jedi nervous and uncomfortable - so she was subtely pushed off on me to watch after. I wanted to learn about her Force abilities, but she's not exactly a stunning conversationalist. She was just about as excited about the arrangement, since she felt I was mostly a mind-bending sorcerer, and that she would tolerate me as a favor to the warrior Jedi (b'Vrick) who she really wanted to observe and learn from.
We spent time with b'Vrick learning his technique for fending off force-based effects and attacks (Force Defense). This training involved trying various Force techniques on each other (affect mind, move object, illusion, friendship, Force strike, etc) and resisting them. This didn't help my standing with Selenni, since I was doing most of the mind-bending to the other two of them.
What did finally get us actually talking with each other was when she saw me fighting a training-saber-wielding fencing droid. That is, she saw my lightsaber fighting the droid - I was some distance away, concentrating but not moving. Thoroughly impressed with this technique, Selenni's desire to learn this technique overcame any misgivings she had about me, and for the next several days I began teaching her what she needed to know. Her early attempts were crude small adjustments to throwing her fighting staff, but she's slowly getting better. I also used this opportunity to explain how the Jedi view and use the Force. Master Vrook had assigned me to monitor her Force usage, and see if I could steer her clear of any dark-side habits or temptations. So far, this hasn't been a problem. She's so disciplined that even her Force usage is amazingly well controlled and thought through. She doesn't use emotion to drive her energy. In fact, she usually "closes down" and meditates when she finds herself being too emotional about anything. This is a bit odd, but helpful in avoiding the pitfalls in the Force.
Selenni also examined the half of the Krath double-sword that Grawgg took as a souvenier, and found that it's cold with some kind of evil Krath alchemy. It raises some concerns, but it shouldn't be a big problem. If it was made by the energy from capturing people's souls into the blade, then we should destroy it and release them. More likely, it was made with the energy of torturing and killing them (as Krath are wont to do), and so destroying it would bring no benefit. However, using their weapon against them would have a certain satisfying irony.
Darian and Vala did some background searching on this Adriav and have possibly identified him as an AWOL Republic officer. While most mercs are ex-military, it would certainly not do for Darian to employ one who has arrest warrants out for him by the Republic Navy. This raises our suspiscions a bit about this guy. Adriav had planned to meet Darian and Grawgg for drinks, then meet with Vala afterwards. In one way or another, the whole "gang" ended up at the bar/casino in town near the Jedi compound. I came to check in on them, and to check out this Adriav guy using the Force. Selenni, knowing I would be there, came to deliver her findings about Grawgg's sword. Vala came just to bother Adriav by being early, and she seemed to find that she was a bit more drawn to him than she had planned.
Over the course of the evening, it became clear that Adriav had wanted to do something, or discuss something, but that his plan was stopped by having different company than he planned. I got a very good reading on him through the Force. He seemed to be ducking the truth about most things, when questioned, but also feeling very conflicted about what he was doing. This wasn't just about tonight, but about what he was really "here for." He was, oddly enough, completely honest about wanting to eventually give up the whole mercenary life and start a school for indigent youth.
As Darian, Selenni, and I returned to the compound, who should run up across the courtyards, but Skids. She wanted to talk about something, but stopped when Adriav walked in just behind her. Adriav had managed to annoy Selenni by claiming to be a merc, but being reluctant about fighting. They were just uncivil enough to each other to pick a fight. Rather than have a brawl in the courtyard this late at night, I arranged for them to settle their dispute with a formal sparring match the next morning. This would be a great way to observe this Adriav in action with minimal danger of actual injury to anyone.
After Adriav left to his quarters in the guest wing, we all went to Darian's quarters to see what Skids wanted to tell us. She said she'd been tailing this guy from Nar Shadaa, and that he had been sent to kill someone or a few people, presumably here on Dantooine. She had watched a meeting where he was `hired` (more like extorted and blackmailed) by a Hutt organization to track and terminate some targets here. She didn't know who precisely, but the signs pointed to Darian and Vala. She had let Adriav think she was just some kid with a few pickpocket skills, but not that she was spying on him. She said that she sort of liked the guy, that was helped her out of a major sticky spot. She thinks he's probably a pretty good guy, with the slight caveat that he's been hired to kill our friends.
This confirmed every suspicion about the guy. Armed with this knowledge, we decided to just be prepared. There are enough of us here that together he's not really even a danger to us. It woud be nice to be able to talk him out of his task, if posssible, rather than having to finish his employment a different way.
Selenni and Adriav sparred the next morning. In the sparring arena, Jedi sparring rules must be kept. No ranged weapons, no Force attacks, combat stops at first blood (or, in Padawan training, at their master's desire to avoid anger and frustration to lead to dark-side temptation). Adriav had no hint that Selenni could use the Force, but he admirably wasn't too unnerved by her fighting spear returing to her hands after she threw it at him. She fended off most of his amazingly fast punches, but eventually one really good punch sequence got through and landed her on her back. Since this was a fight about demonstrating fighting ability, that was certainly enough for Selenni's satisfaction, and the fight ended. She's not particularly hot-headed, but she does insist that anyone referring to themselves as a figher must be able to back that claim up.
Episode VII (25) - Adriav's death (3rd person)
The group is well aware of Adriav's plot against Vala and Darian's lives, but is still working on how to deal with that. Several members of the Jedi enclave are also hot on his tail, observing him and readying their plans for how to prevent harm coming to their guests.
Lawler was assigned to follow Adriav as he took Skids out for a hunting trip. Adriav sincerely wants to help Skids' development, but also to test his new rifle. Nothing happens.
Adriav develops his interest in Vala and takes her out to dinner. They sit at her family's reserved table at the swankiest restaurant in town. The rest of the group has decided to confront Adriav after dinner. They slowly move in to various positions around the restaurant, in case something goes down before they leave. Upon the pair's exit from the place, they are met by Lawler, and excorted to a transport speeder. One by one, 5 more people also entered the vehicle - Graawg, Selenni, Darian, Skids, and the Jedi master who had also been tailing all in secret.
Adriav was fairly straightforward in his admission, once he was cornered. He wasn't eager to complete the mission anyway, as he was becoming fond of Skids and Vala, in their own way...
It was decided that the best way to proceed would be to fake Adriav's death in a failed attempt at the assassination, to satisfy his observers. He set up an "ambush" in town, and fired fake tranq darts at the party. Combining good shooting with good acting, Adriav fell "dead" on the street, and the scene was immediately secured by Jedi, and Adriev's observers couldn't inspect the "wounded."
Adriav wants to take his revenge on the people who set him up, and decides to join the Jedi on their trip to Nar Shadaa. It's come out that Eelmo is being held prisoner after meeting an information broker on Nar Shadaa, and Lawler is heading out with group to rescue him.
Episode VIII (26) - Eelmo's rescue (1/3)
Eelmo disappeared after meeting with an information broker named Laatipha the Hutt. The group of Skids, Selenni, Vala, Darian, Graawg, Adriav, and I meet with her to find where Eelmo headed to after meeting with her. Vala managed to uncover some extrememly juicy gossipy information about a competing Hutt cartel, and negotiated information about Eelmo's location. We were told he headed to a certain residence to investigate it.
We borrowed speeders and guard droids from Laatipha and headed to the residence. Enroute, we were attacked by lightsaber-weilding assassins and attack droids. Adriav and Skids were in one speeder, and dispatched their attacker, but not until their speeder was spinning out of control. They were lost from sight. Vala and Selenni were in one speeder, Selenni grabbed the attacker and pushed him out of the speeder. They both fell out, but he managed to jump back in. Vala emptied her blaster at him, but only barely managed to hit him. He tried to escape by leaping out of the speeder, but Selenni managed one last attack on him by grabbing another car in traffic with the Force, and stopping it right in front of the now airborne speeding enemy. He managed to roll into the oncoming speeder, and was not flattened against its bumper. Darian, Graawg, and I were in the last speeder. The attacker almost exclusively attacked me, who he thought was the biggest threat. He wasn't aware of the growing legend of Graawg, Krath Slayer. After taking my lightsaber, Darian's rifle, and Grawwg's axe in the chest, he was feeling a lot less confident. He attempted to leap free of the vehicle, but Grawwg caught him with a final blow. The attacker's leg fell back into the vehicle, the rest of him fell and smashed into lots of stuff.
We arrived at the residence, short Skids and Adriav. We investigated the apartment, and we were gassed by some trap left in there. Vala and I got hit the worst, but she was nearly crippled by it for awhile. Some thugs came up the turbolift to recover their "catch" and were not happy to find us still kicking. Through the hailstorm of stun grenades we launched at them, some of them managed to keep stagger towards us. I managed to convince them that fighting was not in their best interest. The one who ran from me ran into Grawwg, who was less kind than I.
From the residence we got an encrypted datapad with all sorts of notes about Korriban. A Matale corporation employee found the data from the exploration teams on the Sith planet, and was planning on selling it to some sort of dark side group for a huge profit. At this point, if he's lucky, they've just killed him. There are many worse things they could do to him.
Episode IX (27) - Liberate me Eelmo (2/3)
After interrogating some of the thugs who were coming to, we headed downstairs in the residence to the room where their boss was. Skids, who arrived at the residence without Adriav, crawled through the ventilation system to get a head's up view into the room. Their second team left the room to follow-up the first team, and walked right into us waiting outside. Several members of their squad dropped before I... convinced... their boss to stop fighting.
We interrogated them and found that they had been working for some sorcerer guys. The boss was terrified of the dark sorcerer, and wanted a half hour head start before we attacked his headquarters. In return for his chance to leave, he told us where to go.
We went to a shipping warehouse where we were directed. By observing the Force I was sure this was the right place to find Eelmo. The thugs running the shipping area were distracted by our complaints about our missing cargo. Shortly, those thugs weren't particularly concerned about anything ever again. I would feel bad about such a well armed group attacking without warning, but when they're working for a dark Jedi and holding a Jedi Master prisoner, they have already sentenced themselves to the punishment.
We piled into the turbolift up to the top level to head to the offices. On our way up, the dark Jedi who attacked Selenni and Vala lept onto the top of the elevator where Skids and Selenni were riding. He quickly had to defend himself from the ladies on top, and me attacking him through the ceiling of the turbolift. Selenni used the Force to tear the floor out from underneath the attacker, and send him hurling down among us in the lift. I focused my strength and concentration and he had to match my concentration to avoid being bisected.
The lift reached the top level, and the doors opened to reveal another dark Jedi and a crowd of thugs waiting in the office. They witnessed Grawwg, Krath Slayer hammering their master in the back with Vala's Mandalorian battle axe and the darksider crumpled to the floor. Grawwg let out a ear-splitting howl of victory, and all of the remaining attackers fled.
We stabilized the dying darksider, and moved to find Eelmo. We located Eelmo in a stasis field in a dark side shrine. We began destroying the dark side statues there to remove their influence, when the remaining attacked charged us. Selenni deflected his attack, and saved Darian's life, most likely. In an attempt to remove his desire for violence, I pulled his lightsaber across the room to me. He pulled Eelmo's lightsaber from a table to himself and continued fighting. His luck ran out, as did alot of his blood when Darian and Selenni finished him off.
We hustled Eelmo and the unconscious dark Jedi into what turned out to be a Sith small transport ship. This would be our escape from Nar Shadaa, since we took public transport here. Adriav would just have to fend for himself, wherever he is.
Episode X (28) - We're where without a paddle? (3/3)
As a special teaching moment to the younger beings who will read this in the future, it is generally not a good idea to attempt hyperspace jumps in spacecraft where no one is able to read the computer outputs.
The ship we stole was of Sith modification, all of the readouts were in Sith, which none of us read, write, or speak. There was technology aboard that could directly interface with your mind through Sith alchemical crystals, but that's a good was to be posessed and lose your soul. Not knowing this, Selenni had probably the strangest experience of her life.
We were pursued off of Nar Shadaa by four Hutt fighters. Selenni interfaced with the gunnery port, and could pinpoint enemies with amazingly hard shots. Darian's flying skills helped us lose the pursuers, and we escaped into deep space. Vala and Darian managed to translate parts of the astrogation computer output, and we made the jump to hyperspace.
Our jump took us past an anomaly that pulled us out of hyperspace. We found a passenger liner that was also stranded and under attack from some opportunistic pirates. Part of our capabilities on this ship is to mask the properties of our ship, and "spoof" ourself as a different type of ship. We flipped the system over to "Hutt capital ship" and chased off the pirates. Staying our of visual range, we look pretty impresive on the instrument.
The pirates returned we negotiated "protection" for the passenger liner. Due to our need to stay back out of visual range, there was still some threat to the passenger liner. They had agreed to pay for Hutt protection with a massive cargo of life crystals, but they paid off the pirate raiders with the rest of their cargo of valuables. We had saved them from utter destruction or slavery, but it still cost them money to chase the pirates off. They were happy to learn, after the pirates left, that we were not going to take their life crystals, and both of our ships returned to hyperspace.
We were a total of two weeks in our return from Nar Shadaa. When we returned, the Republic was mounting their attack on Korriban. The data we got from the residence helped them plan their strategy. So it looks like we're turning right around to mount an assault against the last of the Sith strongholds.
Selenni had expressed some interest in learning the epitome of Jedi combat - lightsaber combat. There have been many times when we've recovered lightsabers from darksiders, which the Jedi Order destroys or studies. Darian seems upset by this sometimes, as I feel he'd like some sort of momento of all of this dangerous combat to show others that he's survived combat that very few others will ever see.
Before we left, I went to the supply room and got two sets of supplies for building lightsabers. It will help me concentrate and pass the time during the multi-week trip to Korriban. Hopefully I can train Selenni in some basic skills before the fight, and I can present Darian with the other lightsaber as a gift of recognition on the way back.
For reference: (left to right) Selenni's, Xieran's, Lawler's Padawan saber, Lawler's Jedi Knight saber, Meqli's saber, Darian's saber.
Episode XI (29) - Strike on Korriban
The Republic strike force makes its way through hyperspace towards Korriban - the Sith necropolis planet. Last-minute arrangements and plans are being made before the force arrives. Korriban has an orbital space station - a modified mining platform. This station is probably still functioning as a mining platform, but Jedi scouts have told us that there are 2 massive assault lasers on it that need to be disabled in order to make a full-scale surprise attack. We want to surprise the Krath (who currently control Korriban, and are doing some sort of excavation on some parts of the ancient Sith civilization) so that none of them escape. As servants of evil they have chosen side against the rest of the galaxy, and force the Jedi into opposing them to their own extinction.
What is not surprising about this attack is that the usual suspects will form a small assault squad to infiltriate the enemy position, and disable their main defenses. Then, the Republic fleet will hyperspace in - their sub-ether bugles blowing - and contain and destroy the Krath.
Along with a small squad of marines, Vala, Darian, Grawwg, Selenni, and I will approach from the far side of the planet, and use our stolen Sith ship to avoid sensor detection and move in close to the station. One we're in close, I can distract the station's sensor operators to mask our approach. During this approach, the marine captain showed a very unusual concern that I would not leave any of his men behind. This was a very unusual line of questioning from a marine captain to a Jedi, and at the time I wrote it off to battle nerves. Even the experienced soldier gets nervous when dealing with the Krath. There was somthing vaguely familiar about this presence, though, but I didn't take the time to sort it out then.
This approach went well, and we entered the main hangar of the station. Parked in the hangar near our parking point was Darian's Monaltiki Dawn! Several troops, Krath warriors, and a Krath wizard came out into the hangar and started crossing the maze of catwalks towards us. Before we landed, Vala took some potshots at the approaching troops and the Krath wizard. Four Chaos fighters craft flew into the hangar to cut us down.
Between the Krath wizard and I, there were several very confused Republic marines, Krath pilots, and Republic gunnery crew. As we flung persuasions and illusions back and forth, Vala took our ship's turret and erased the approaching enemy troops, along with a lot of the catwalks. She then managed to destroy so much of the catwalks around the Krath wizard that his otherwise elegant leaps to safety ended up with him falling several kilometers into the station's superstructure. The Krath pilots met with varying fates. One flew too close to Selenni and found his transparisteel cockpit canopy removed. It's hard to dodge blaster fire when you're strapped into a cockpit chair.
Once we cleaned out the hangar for the moment, it was time to move to the main reactor of the station. We had brought along 4 swoops and a repulsor platform to help us move through the massive station. Darian and Grawwg led the way, and I rode along a swoop that Selenni's droid D5-N0 was piloting.
The Krath set up a good defensive strong point along the way to stop us when we walked through the blast door exiting the hangar. Unfortunately for them, we didn't walk, but flew past at 150Km/h. Even more unfortunately for them, Darian is a really good shot with a thermal detonator. He demolished most of their personell in his one pass at them, and the remaining three speeders finished off the others, who kept having the remarkable bad luck to be too close to the passing swoops bikes.
Episode XII (30) - The Betrayal of the Dark Side
The Republic strike force makes its way through hyperspace towards Korriban... still... They wait one jump point away from Korriban for the signal from the forward strike team who are disabling the long-range weaponry on the orbital mining platform. Who are these unwise few who venture to strike at the hearts of evil? That's us, naturally.
Our flying through the space station on high-speed swoops takes us to the main reactor room. The entrance to this chamber was guarded by several squads of troops and two heavy-emplacement weapons. One emplacement shot itself, as a result of unwisely firing at the swoop passenger armed with a lightsaber. The other emplacement and its crew was struck by Darian's swoop - Grawwg first. The troops were unable to follow us as they were tied up dealing with those two.
The main chamber was littered with troops, Krath warriors, and Krath sorcerers. Several of the marines came under the effects of these sorcerers, and had to be restrained at certain times to avoid them doing disasterous things to the rest of us. It is important to stress that Krath sorcerers are not hardened fighters, and once their powers fail to stop an oncoming enemy, they have tended to fall somewhat quickly. This is why they are always accompanied by Krath warriors who wield dark swords or lightsabers.
It is an opportune moment here to state some Force wisdom. Some see the Force as a balance between the more passive and more aggressive sides of the same power - one tends to lead to wisdom, one tends to lead to power. Some see the Force as one unit, and claim that the Jedi only speak of the "dark side" to excuse themselves from the heinous actions they sometimes take.
Allow me to clarify: the Light Side of the Force is the only true Force, the Dark Side is merely a corruption of that power that has been perverted to serve the desires of those who do not fully understand its purpose. In short, the Force is generated by all living beings for the purpose of improving the lives of all of them. It is the combined contribution to the common good of all life everywhere. It is only truly useful for its intended purpose - to teach and guide those who will listen to it so that they can serve, protect, and advise others to bring about this improved life. In the long run, the Force (that is, the Light Side) leads to long, prosperous life for the Jedi and those with whom he comes into contact. The Force trains and empowers the Jedi to do the things he ought so that he can best serve others. The most important works of the Jedi are not fantastic or even preternatural - they are merely the actions all beings should take if they only had the ability, patience, willingness, and good-will.
It is no more or less than the misuse of the Force that is the "dark side." This perversion of the wisdom and abilities granted by the Force has grave consequences. In the short run it often leads to power, fame (more often, notoriety) but in the long run it will inevitably lead to utter destruction. What the Force freely gives, the dark side attempts to acquire by violence. While the Force flows from calm, stillness, and peace the dark side feeds on hatred, fear, and rage. It leads to the deterioration of mind, body, and spirit - only by increasing the dark side connection can the darksider remain functional at all. While the Light Side rejoices at the success of the Jedi, and in the end brings him forever into the flow of the Force, the dark side laughs at destruction, and taunts the darksider with his uselessness. The Light Side will support the Jedi through impossible situations, the dark side will abandon the devotee at his hour of greatest need.
The dark side needs continual destruction in order to keep existing. The power that has been perverted and corrupted by darksiders continues to tempt and subvert force users so that they will grant it more power. Without this granting of power, the dark side would burn itself out and cease to be. That would be a day long celebrated in the history of the galaxy.
The Light Side is the only true power, and I count on it to bring me safely through whatever it requires of me. I have done so ever since I was a small boy in Tion. As my missions bring me closer to the very heart of the dark empire, this is almost all I have left to count on. All the might of the Republic fleet behind me is useless against some of the things the Sith were rumored to possess in the ancient legends. While my team is stout-hearted, none of us have ever seen anything like what we will face here. Selenni stands a good chance of being ok, but I haven't had the chance to really teach her how to recognize the dark side when it whispers. Mere combat skill will not protect me - these are the same enemies that captured or killed Xieran.
That said, I will continue with this entry. I hope the events that follow help to convince Selenni and the others about the uselessness of the dark side in the face of the real will of the Force. As I've said before, several of the marine squad were hampered and wholly unprepared to face the enemies here. As we entered the chamber with the main reactor, only Selenni's Force premonitions saved our swoop from being bisected. A saber-weilding foe leapt out at us, and was deflected by her as we flew by. One of the marines shot a grenade at him only to have it Force-thrown back at us and separated the repulsor platform from the swoop - scattering Vala and the marines onto the floor of the chamber a meter below.
Several sorcerers began confusing the marines, who in turn began to mistakenly arm their detonator packs, then to shoot a fictitious monster off of my back. Thankfully through her familiarity with Jedi Vala saw through the illusions and began distracting the sorcerers with blaster fire. Selenni began tossing Krath from the catwalks down into chasms and onto the chamber floor, quickly freeing up the marines' minds. The Krath warrior who originally attacked us sprinted across the chamber floor and waded amongst the marines with his lightsaber. His concentration was destroyed and he thankfully only killed one marine before attacking Vala. As the first example of many to come of the dark side betraying its devotees, he was completely unable to block anything as Vala unloaded her heavy carbine into him. He crumpled to a heap on the floor.
A master sorcerer guarded the main power reactor. Selenni flew the swoop up to it and engaged him. He was concentrating on corrupting Selenni to the dark side, so he didn't see (as none of us had) Skids pop out from the swoop's storage compartment and shoot him with Darian's sniper rifle that I had left there. His concentration interrupted - we come to dark side betrayal #2. In a horrifically clear display of how the dark side treats its followers, he was catastrophically demolished by the dark side itself. He seemed to implode with dark energy and only various chunks of him remained on the catwalk. An evil force spirit appeared there for a moment, and taunted his memory. It felt superior because it in life had been a Sith, the ancient group that the Krath try to imitate and learn from. It didn't notice the irony that they were both enslaved to the cold horror of limitless time with nothing but hate and rage to sustain them. Massive tremors in the Force shook me and stopped everyone on the chamber.
With most of the defending force destroyed, Selenni proceeded to tear off the connectors to the assault lasers of the station. I followed the marine captain up a ladder to the power regulator station. He decided that blowing up the controls was better than disabling them. One thermal detonator later, all power in the station cut out. That included the magnetic fields holding in the atmosphere....
Over the screams of derision from the rest of the party at his stupid decision, the marine captain and the rest of us piled onto the two remaining platforms and raced back to the main hangar before we were in total vacuum. We managed to escape the dying station with both of our initial craft as well as the Monaltiki Dawn to Darian's great delight.
Several fighters followed us out of the station, but they had the poor fortune to run head on into the Republic fleet exiting hyperspace. While they may have outgunned a courier ship, a transport and one fighter, they were suddenly facing hundreds of capital ships and two thousand fighters...
One extremely interesting detail that was revealed during the firefight concerned our marine captain. Though his disguise was quite good, through her excellent observation skills and familiarity with him, Skids recognized him as our ex-assassin Adriav. I'm a bit ashamed of not recognizing his presence before then, but I didn't take the time to try, and those not strong in the Force are difficult to tell apart without scrutiny. His earlier questions lead me to think that he feels he was abandoned on Nar Shadaa. I'll have to make sure to clear the air between us.
We have awhile to rest and be debriefed before our role in the main assault on Korriban itself. The fleet is blocking exit from the system. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to prepare Selenni for the assaults of the dark side that we will no doubt face there.
Episode XIII (31) - Into the Valley of the Sith
The Jedi Masters who have accompanied the Republic Fleet to Korriban have recommended that none of the Sith tombs be investigated without Jedi escorts. They've formed three teams to search and clear the Sith Tombs, led by Master Thon, Nomi Sunrider, and me. Added to my team of the usual suspects is Zyll Baille, a Jedi Knight trained under Master Thon. As it happens, she is a distant relative of Vala's. Vala, acting on advice given to her from her cousin, leaves us and returns home to study some information we had gotten during one of our raids.
Adriav, his identity now revealed, is not welcomed warmly by the Republic fleet, and they send him along with us - mostly I think to avoid someone accidentally spacing him while we're away. He's a good addition, though I wonder if he really appreciates the danger he's walking into. Skids volunteers to come along. Her sharp eyes will help us work through conventional locks or traps. I fear for the safety of a number of the non-Force users in the group, but we should be ok with three of us escorting the others.
We land to find our target tomb slightly open. There are fairly recent tracks of one person entering, but no exiting tracks. The tomb looks very small with only three rooms, but by examining the recordings left of the master of the tomb, we reason that his body is not in this first section, and we locate a hidden passageway inside. One of the rooms in this first section held bodies which were possessed by some kind of spirits. They rose up to attack us as we entered, but destroying the bodies left them scurrying for a new host. When they were not strong enough to enter any of us, they left.
In this second section we encountered two much more powerful Sith spirits of the two wives of the Sith Lord. Though they seemed mostly concerned with fighting each other, these are still very dangerous creatures, and cannot be allowed to keep hanging onto existence when they should pass on. Selenni and Zyll destroyed the mummified bodies of the two Sith wives, and this sent their spirits looking for other hosts. Before they could enter any of us, I used a rare old technique to blast them with the Light Side of the Force, and they were destroyed. Darian became annoyed that I hadn't warned him of the possibility of spiritual posession here. For safety, he sent Grawwg back to the entrance to the tomb. No one wants an evil spirit with Grawwg's physical destructive power.
We located a trophy room with a pillared covered area in the middle. We took extreme precautions as we examined the floor to find it was built to fall away into a bottomless pit. After examining the treasures inside, we decided to walk back to the entrance and open the main sarcophagus from way back there - guessing that that would trigger the floor dropping. As we were all moving back one by one, the floor dropped. Darian was back at the entrance with Selenni. Skids and Adriav were halfway back across the room, and Zyll and I were still in the middle. The problem was that Darian, while had attached a rope to the door and one of the pillars in the center, the pillars were smashed as part of the trap. He and Selenni had to scramble back because even the floor they were on dropped away. Selenni, with amazing concentration, used the Force to hold up the now unanchored side of the rope, so that it was still stretched as tightly as it ever was. Adriav grabbed the rope, and grabbed Skids, whose arms were full of data records. Zyll, seeing that the ceiling over the middle section was falling on us (as the pillars holding it up were destroyed) Force flung me along the rope (which I had clipped myself to earlier), and jumped on top of it herself to avoid the ceiling. I lifted both Adriav and Skids out of the room and onto the stairs leading to the entrance, which were still safe. Selenni brough the whole rope - Zyll and I and all back to the steps to safety.
Further investigation found that the coffin in the middle was a decoy, and also did not hold the body of the Sith master. While the rest of the group went on to search for more false walls and secret doors, Zyll finished searching the now floor-less room using the Force. While she was bouncing off walls to return to the door, she took a false step and flung herself out over the chasm. I had been thinking she was just trying to impress a fellow Jedi with her skills, and was preparing to foil this by catching her and bringing her back to the door myself. As it turned out, things went fine, and she didn't fall to her death. It was for the best that no one else was watching. We know we're perfectly capable of making mistakes, but it's best not to worry the others by having them lose confidence in our abilities.
We found a false wall a ways back in the passage. Darian and Adriav, who had been pestering us with door-opening options involving explosives for the whole trip, were just finishing rigging the wall to blow when Zyll and I arrived. They discovered that the ore that Korriban (and hence this tomb) is made of is quite resistant to explosive, and only managed to break a tiny hole in the wall. I finished carving a people-sized door with my lightsaber. Skids and I stepped inside to see a few large sarcophaguses and a huge engraved metal door behind them. This felt much more like the entrance to the tomb of the Sith master here.
To confirm our suspicions, the sarcophagus lids slid open from the inside, and a large armored figure rose out of each one...
Episode XIV (32) - Dealing with the Devil
Zyll and Adriav rush forward to take the armored guys in the tomb. They both fall completely in half, and the floating lightsaber that did the damage flies back to my hand. The tomb beyond the metal doors looks precisely like the "false" tomb we were almost trapped in before.
In the tomb we find Viluusook, an ancient Sith Lord. Viluusook the Sith lord spends most of his time taunting the other Sith spirits, but doesn't tend to go for corrupting new acolytes. I don't want to leave him alive, as Sith spirits are corruptions of nature which should not be. However we do not know where all of the most dangerous Sith spirits are. Viluusook offers a deal. I tend not to like to deal with the devil, but we gravely need to quickly find and destroy the major evil spirits here. He offers to show us to the tombs of the spirits we'd be most interested in if when we return to destroy him we fight him one-on-one. I intend to return one day to finish him off.
Reluctantly, we headed to the other tomb. We passed Grawwg outside guarding the speeder, and he and Skids traded places.
Inside the tomb we ran into a number of flying worm creatures guarding that tomb. They had lines the floor with sticky nets made to be some kind of webbing. Tough creatures, but they ran into blasters, lightsabers, and Adriav's fists. We found an old sentinel droid that was powered down. We didn't think there would be any harm of letting Grawwg take some swings at it, but it powered back up and took some swings at us. It's self-destruct explosion injured both Grawwg and Adriav.
Past a metal door that tried to entrap Selenni's hand when she opened it, we ran into a dark hallway full of alcoves. Adriav turned on his stealth suit and crept down the rubble-strewn hallway. He was trying to be helpful, but his technology could not hide him from the living mummies we ran into. We all rushed into the hallway and eventually discovered that there were only a few mummies attacking at one time. However, when we destroyed one, one more would always replace it. We remembered the spirits earlier that left the destroyed bodies in search of another host. Our options were then to either destroy all of the bodies that were here, or to destroy the spirits. As there could be hundreds of available bodies, Zyll opted for the latter, and used the technique of Force Light to eradicate the spirits.
Once again we found ourselves outside of a large, heavy, engraved metal door...
Episode XV (33) - Mysterious Arrivals and Departures
Coming through the doors (by way of smashing it off its hinges), we ender a room that looks empty save one hole in the floor. The Force Illusion masking the room fades, and we're attacked by tobo-Sith snakes. Adriav and I are bitten and poisoned. Seelenni smashes the big snake with the metal door she had earlier made portable. Adriav and I recover, but are a bit testy.
The party goes down the hole, past a cloud of fog that had been obscuring it from the top. Down the hole there is a Krath swordsman and a spirit, who each implore the party to attack the other one. The swordsman seems tough, but another Krath fighter jumps down the hold and attacks him. I felt a familiar, but disturbing quality about the Force presence of the new fighter. In between him forcing the swordsman off his bearings, I recognized his lightsaber handle held in his cybernetic arm. This was Xieran!
I call to the others to back off, but Selenni's hatred of the Krath keeps her attacking both fighters. She is knocked out just after Xieran finished the swordsman off with a blast of lightning from his fingers.
In a confusing turn of events, as the swordsman's body falls to the ground, the spirit floating in the room vanishes, but another spirit rises from the body. It appeared that the Sith Spirit now hovering around had force the other spirit out of the body before we came in.
Adriav freaked out because Xieran recognized me when he came into the room, assumed I was collaborating with the Krath, and ran out to the speeder yelling about contacting the fleet. Darian was so fed up with Adriav, who he never trusted, that he just about shot him in the back as he ran out.
Zyll and I now had to figure out how to deal with this Sith spirit. If he is the master of this tomb, he is certainly strong enough to kill any of us if we don't act soon. He taunts us, noting that it has been quite a while since he has gotten to kill fully trained Jedi Knights. Xieran attempts to use lightning again to injure the spirit, but with no effect. Zyll and I begin repeatedly blasting him with Force Light - the only thing we know that can injure dark side spirits. The ancient Sith remembers why he hates Jedi so much.
Darian thinks quickly and bombards the sarcophagus in the corner with his grenade launcher. Two huge blasts later the massive stone coffin is so much rubble. Infuriated the Sith spirit charges us again with waves of dark energy. Zyll and I answer with one more blast each, and the Sith lord is torn apart.
Rather than calming things down, this just leaves us with another dilemma. An old friend who now is clothed like a Krath and fights like a Krath, except a lot more competently. Now he's in a room full of people who have spent months hunting down Krath and finding their sorcery at the end of every troublesome path. Selenni has never met Xieran and sees him as only another member of the cult that turned her own race against her clan. Darian knows Xieran, but doesn't trust anything that's touched the Krath. Zyll has heard all of the reports about Xieran, but is unsure of how trustworthy he is. Even though we outnumber him four to one, we're so weakened from fighting that we wouldn't stand a good chance against him if he decided to harm us.
I chose to believe Xieran that he had been waiting to be rescued, and was just looking to get off planet and away fro his tormentors here. The others were cautious of some ulterior plan, but after being held and persecuted and tortured here, I decided that he just needed some trust and some relief. What good would it be to him if we treated him just as badly as the Krath had? Compassion is what makes the Jedi different. I was willing to risk myself to show Xieran that he was right to trust in our coming to rescue him.
Zyll contacted Master Thon and Mistress Sunrider, and told them about Xieran. They came to pick us up with a large contingent of Republic soldiers, in case of a trap. Xieran surrendered to them, and was taken back to the fleet to begin therapy. His fate is uncertain, as there are many opinions about what to do.
Upon arriving back at our speeder that Grawwg had been sent back to guard with Skids, we found an unfortunate situation. It seems that Adriav was panicked in trying to contact the fleet. Grawwg for some reason objected to his using the comm system in the speeder. Adriav pulled his blaster and shot at Grawwg. Grawwg had much better aim with his axe than Adriav had, and sent the mortally wounded Adriav flying over a cliff and down into the darkness below. As beaten and bloodied as Adriav already was before he left the tombs, there was no hope of him surviving a fall into one of Korriban's chasms.
Episode XVI (34) - How do you solve a problem like Xieran?
With Xieran's rescue, our group and the masters flew back to Dantooine where many other masters and knights had been summoned to hold council on what to do with our friend. Xieran is held under house arrest in his quarters. I visited him often during the trip back to Dantooine. It must be miserable for him - to be back in the midst of your own kind, only to be held as some kind of horror to be "dealt with."
One of the Jedi knights brought in to advise and assist is the famous "Rothar Dashing." Selenni tells me that his name has some kind of connotation of pretentious vanity in her Mandalorian language, but I didn't quite catch the details. Rothar is well-known for two things: firstly, he has often been sent to hunt down dark Jedi who are attacking others, and has often been quite... efficient... at it. Secondly, he tends to be the representative of a number of Jedi who have concerned themselves with searching for Sith infiltration of the Jedi ranks. Much is made of this, and it would be paranoid to think that there are large number of dark side devotees in our order. It's probably also incorrect to assume that there are none.
Xieran was brought into a formal meeting with all the knights and masters in orbit around Dantooine. He recounted his memories since he was sent on his Jedi trial, until he was picked up again on Korriban - covered in Sith tattoos and sporting a dark metal Krath cybernetic arm. Upon arriving at the Krath vessel, having sent the other artifacts and crew of the freighter on to Master Thon, Xieran destroyed the one crystal he brought with him, and fought with the Krath master and his swordsman. Xieran assumed he would fight to the death, but after he destroyed the sorcerer, the swordsman knocked him unconscious and captured him. Through months of torture and taunting, the Krath seem to have twisted Xieran's hate for them and he has grown in the dark side, as we all feared. He has no desire to join the Krath or Sith, and still considers himself a Jedi, but even I have seen him do things that no Jedi would.
After much discussion, and not just a little bit of hinted blame pointed towards Master Vandar for sending him on such a dangerous Jedi Trial, Xieran returned to his quarters. There seem to be three major routes to take, and the decision rests with Master Nomi Sunrider - head of the loosely formalized Jedi Council.
One option is somewhat clear - Xieran has fallen an unknown amount to the dark side. No darksider has ever returned to the Light Side of the Force. Therefore, as a danger to himself, the Jedi, and the Republic citizens, he must be destroyed.
Those Jedi with their proper wits about them recognize that we do not murder our own kind, and must seek another option. There is a rare technique that Master Sunrider teaches her students which can destroy the connection between a being and the Force. This eliminates their ability to call upon the Force. Master Nomi is the only Jedi to have ever used this technique, and do to the circumstances surrounding that situation, it had dire consequences. Jedi Dashing, as her student, knows this technique quite well. Master Eelmo, though he was Master Sunrider's student, decided not to learn this technique, as he felt it was too devastating to inflict upon anyone. He did teach Meqli and I all that he had learned about its use, and it would be feasible for either of us to study and learn this technique. The second option is to use this technique on Xieran - to set him free, but sever him from the Force. Effectively making him an outcast, torn from the skills that so vitally make up who he is. Sometimes I think this is worse than killing him.
The third option is the last popular among the Jedi Order. Being Master Eelmo's student, and so always being among the vocal minority in matters like this, this is the path I would choose to take. This option is to make every effort to redeem Xieran back to the Light Side. Just because its never been done doesn't mean it can't be done. We've only been trying for nearly 1,000 years - we're still just barely starting. I know Xieran't history better than most, and I believe it can be done. The trick will be to convince the rest of the Order to let me try - especially with Jedi Dashing here. He typically advocates the first option.
Surprisingly, Rothar Dashing proposed to Mistress Sunrider and I that Xieran indeed be released into the custody of his friends. That he (Dashing) and I could observe him and help him to recover. Dashing suggests that being in prolonged isolation would not be good for Xieran, as it would promote brooding. Mistress Sunrider agrees to this idea, and Xieran is released into Rothar and my responsibility. We are to oversee his recovery and the completion of his Jedi training. In all of this mess I had forgotten that since he had not successfully completed his Trial, Xieran is still technically a Padawan.
I do not look forward to spending time working with Jedi Dashing, as we disagree fundamentally on a number of issues, however since he seems to have changed his mind in this instance, I would welcome and help he can bring. Zyll Baille has been assigned to assist us in any way we require. I get the feeling that she is there as a precaution. There are a number of Jedi who are concerned that Xieran will become violent and that we will not be able to subdue him. This may be why Zyll was assigned as well. In addition, she voiced her opinion as being in favor of "option two" - to neutralize Xieran as a threat to the galaxy, but not to keep him in captivity.
I don't know precisely where to begin bringing Xieran back to the Light Side. There are a number of immediate precautions we can take to defend ourselves, but it will take compassion from us, and hard dedicated work from him to accomplish this goal. The threat of death or Force severing hanging over his head won't help him trust the Order. In addition, there will always be Jedi who are wary of him, as even if we succeed they will not believe him.
Selenni seems to be a bit disgusted with the debating over Xieran's fate. She commented that some of the arguing sounded like the political maneuvering that happens in Mandalorian culture just before someone challenges for positions of power. If this were not the Jedi, I would agree with her. Things like that do not happen among us, however.
In addition to that she seemed particularly bothered today. She's been a bit distracted since we left Korriban. With the sudden attention she's put into her lightsaber skills, I have a feeling that she may be dealing with conflicts of loyalty. If she sees the lightsaber as identifying her more with the Jedi, then she may feel that she is distancing herself more from her race. It also could be that she finally has the time to put into learning more combat techniques, which was her original stated purpose for contacting us. She didn't have much time or interest to study lightsabers before Korriban, and I only just gave her that lightsaber on the way there.
So now it seems that I have two unusual students. One is only just barely a formal Jedi student, and I've become her de facto instructor. Though we certainly learn from each other, there is not the master / student relationship that is usual. It makes teaching her a more delicate task, but it is a good reminder that the Jedi do not hold a monopoly on wisdom, and that we much constantly seek to learn from the people around us. The other was my contemporary, but now is a Padawan only technically, and he also I do not treat as a lesser, though technically our titles would appear that way. His task will be more of unlearning than of learning. We have taken Xieran out of Korriban, we must now take Korriban out of Xieran. Even before he fell he was curious to a fault, prideful, hesitant to take responsibility for his actions, and a bit of a show-off. These things will not serve him well, and his efforts to correct them will be a good exercise in growing into the true Jedi he wishes to be. I think Xieran, because he feels he is so close to being a Jedi will find it harder to do the work required of him to learn than Selenni will. If she decides to fully become a Jedi, she will recognize that she must learn our ways, many of which still seem foreign to her.
I'm glad Xieran is back, and has the chance to redeem himself, but I have a bad feeling about this.
Episode XVII (35) - Dangerous Prey
In the middle of the night, I was awakened by a vision of Selenni locked in mortal combat with a figure I did not recognize. The vision showed them fighting in a place I did recognize - a small grove a few miles from the conclave. I threw on my robes, and raise Rothar and Zyll on the comm. Rothar and I ran as fast as we could to get there. Zyll used her speed technique and arrived there well ahead of us. What he found would change the easy-going informal acceptance of Selenni that the rest of the order maintaned.
Selenni was standing over the broken body of another woman dressed in the same combat fatigues that Selenni wears. Several of the trees around them had been smashed, one was completly severed as though something had smashed straight through it. From the looks of the other woman I could guess what it was that had been thrown through the tree...
From the extensive series of interrogations that followed Selenni's release from the medical unit - she did not come out of the fight unscathed - we got the details of the situation. The other woman was the leader of Selenni's cohort of Mandalorian Force users. She had contacted Selenni some weeks previously with the offer to return Selenni in honor to the organization. She revealed that the Mandalorians had many many cohorts like hers - each believing that it was the only one. The Krath had felt threatened by the Mandalorians developing their own Force traditions, and had demanded that they be destroyed before sharing secrets critical to Mandalorian advancement. Selenni's cohort was destroyed as a show for the Krath, because it was the only one that they knew about. That Selenni had escaped was surprising, but a happy event for her leader.
Selenni, upon learning that the order to carry out the destruction had not come from above her leader, but from her leader herself, chose not to return - even with the opportunity to lead her own cohort. Selenni's other choices were to be either stay and gather information on the Jedi Order to assist in the eventual Mandalorian conquest of the Republic, or to challenge the righteousness of her leader's order by one-on-one mortal combat. It is difficult for me to understand this aspect of Mandalorian culture, and Selenni has never been one to offer up such explanations.
While it is reassuring that Selenni did not choose to spy on us - it is most unfortunate that such violence was necessary. The rest of the Jedi are a bit less confident that continuing to instruct Selenni without formalizing her relationship with the order is a good idea. This means that now both of my "students" are under scrutiny from the order - even outside of Dantooine.
We recieved a request from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant for Selenni's presence there. There is a great interest in all of the information she can give us about the size of the Mandalorian forces, and their Force tradition development. Of course, she knows little of the situation above her station, as that is how their culture maintained order and security.
Several of us consulted the Force in mediatation to see what information would be given to us. In a vision I saw references to around a dozen cadre leaders. Judging from Selenni's experience, each cadre is around 1,000 people, but most are non-combatant focused villagers - if you can call any Mandalorians non-combatants. Selenni, for instance, is not one of their warriors, and yet I would not want to face her in combat.
Selenni and I were to head off to Coruscant. As Xieran had never been there, and had expressed a touch of envy that I got to go there on a previous errand, I felt it would be a nice gesture to him to bring him with. This, in its perposterousness, required Rothar and Zyll to come along, as well.
Upon arrival at Coruscant, we get word that Capt. Darian has been arrested on charges of misuse of Republic Courrier property with charges alleging that he used the Dawn on military raids, boarding operations, and assaults on terrorist engagements. The Bureau of Ships and Services has detained Darian and impounded the Dawn on its Coruscant facility.
Episode XVIII (36) - Darian Arrested
NOTE: These notes were pieced together from a very interesting source. It turns out that Rodians have quite a substantial talk-show circuit on which they discuss past adventures and braveries. While the events in question pertain to several close friends of mine, I am not rude enough to ask them about these events, since they are none of my business, and they are -- if they actually happened -- extremely illegal. Reading between the lines from several Rodian talk-show holos, and assuming that most of the mix of lies and exaggerations are based on some truth, here is what I believe to have occurred. If nothing else, it makes for a good story:
Lurd, a Rodian who was a great fan of the exploits (real and imagined) of Darian Thomsyk, decided that it was his duty as a fan to assist in breaking Darian out of the B.o.S.S. prison in which he was being held. He assumed that Vala Baille was Darian's flighty love interest, and that she (as was natural to Rodian culture) would be staging her own raid to do the same anyway. He raised a great deal of talk on Rodian and mercenary message boards by loudly recruiting for this purpose.
Vala, though of course the love interest bit being absurd, did see the necessity of springing Darian, as the BoSS is controlled by the Hutts, and Darians was merely a piece in a power struggle amongst Senators, it appeared. They were contacted by an incredibly powerful information broker (Archibald Franco, it appears, actually) who was interested in helping them for some unknown reason. The Rodian claimed it was because Darian was such a great man, but that's just as absurd as the love thing. There's no profit in that for Franco.
During a meeting with Franco - Vala, Karka, Lurd, and someone else travelling with them (someone low-key, the Rodian could never really remember his name properly even in his least cautious of ramblings) were in a restaurant on Coruscant that was hit by a runaway freight hauler. The craft appeared to have been sabatoged in an attempt to assassinate someone in the room. This was a super high-class place, as well. The kind of credits floating around that place - whoever did it has to hope they never get caught, or else the bounty on their head will be well paid-for.
Darians was officially "released" from custody, but was nowhere to be found. It turned out the Hutts were moving him somewhere, but had absolutely no legal ways to do it, so they were making up stories at this point. Franco did help Vala and Lurd find information on Darian's transfer from the BoSS facility to parts unknown. Vala, Lurd, and their other associate landed on the BoSS shipping platform over Coruscant and were working on a plan to track the BoSS ship on its way, and ambush it somewhere to steal Darian back.
Episode XIX (37) - Darian Released
While staying at the BoSS facility, Lurd reports that they ran into another of Vala's associates - a sneaky short little human female - I can really only assume it was Skids. Though there's no love lost between the two of them, they were both there to try to sneak Darian away, so that was a good thing. Skids convinced the group that the better move would be to sneak aboard the ship before it left, then just out and surprise the crew.
They arranged for someone to meet them at a certain point in space once they had taken over the ship, and they stowed aboard. Zyll, Karka, Lurd, Skids, and the fifth man popped out of their cargo containers in three separate cargo bays - cut off from each other. They managed some short burst radio communications, but they didn't want to attract attention. The fifth man may never have even exited his cargo box, but set to work slicing into the ship's control systems. Vala and Karka headed for the communications center - Skids and Lurd headed for the bridge. Lurd evidently thought it wise to rig the entire level beneath the bridge with explosives, just in case. Skids crawled through the ventilation shafts to get a good look at the bridge crew.
The fifth man evidently had some good success with the ship's systems and began sending misleading commands all over the ship. The ship was effectively neutralized except for the modified medical bay with Darian in it. This was not communicated to Lurd, however, who heard the (false) alarms going off, and decided on his own course of action, and he explosively erased the bridge from existence. While this gained him great popularity with the Rodian talk show host, I can't help thinking that Vala was not amused.
There was a brief firefight in the cargo area which Lurd was too slow in arriving to participate in. Evidently some of the maintenance droids were being controlled to harass the combatants - so the fifth man must have been having some fun with their programming. They had a little trouble with the engineering crew of the ship. They had been locked in their quarters to avoid them fighting and avoid them interfering with the operation. They threatened to cut off the life-support systems, but that matter was resolves peacefully enough. The raiding party was picked up, and never officially traced back to those who were responsible.
Evidently there was a Veripine tech assisting with the "interrogation" of Cpt. Darian. He had implanted some sort of bomb in Darian's brain as a safety measure so he would be brought home unharmed. He was returned to a Verpine research station. He was safely returned, and he disabled the device in Darian's head without incident.
The Rodian seems to have been left mostly alone. Perhaps if he ventures too far off of Rodia in the future there may be some attempts to pay him back. Overall it looks like the Hutts want to keep this rather quiet for the moment, though.
Episode XX (38) - A call from Meqli
The next time Darian woke up he was in the Jedi Med-bay on Coruscant next to a very woozy Xieran, who had just undergone what we are sure is the final surgery to remove the Krath artifacts from his system. Lurd, the Rodian, was also present, pestering Darian for a photo and an interview. Darian, in an act of trust borne out of desperation, asked Xieran for the favor of "convincing" the Rodian to leave Darian alone for awhile.
When they were up and about, Master Sunrider passed on to use a message from an old friend - Knight Meqli A'kli. She had been investigating a mysterious disease outbreak on an even more mysterious planet. Inhabited by a former corporate colony, the planet seems to have outbreaks of various diseases every time a certain comet passes on its orbit around the planet. It's the fact that the comet orbits the planet, not the star, that makes it suspicious. Meqli is asking for more hands to help with the sickness, as well as some investigators to look for the ancient, abandoned colony facilities that might hold some clues.
Xieran, Rothar, Zyll, Darian, Graawg, and I head out in Darians' newly released Dawn to meet up with Meqli. Selenni stayed behind on Master Sunrider's request for more information. Upon arrival we contacted Meqli, and Zyll and Rothar departed to check in with her. Xieran and I took a modified scout fighter ship up to the comet to try to get some readings on it. Xieran decided to show off a little and fly right into the field of the comet. We started picking up energy readings and relaying them back to the Dawn. We were investigating the power signatures when we were ambushed by several fighters of Verpine design! We escaped, and they did not pursue us out of the comet, but this puts to rest any doubts about the comet's interference with the planet. I don't know too much about the Verpine, but they are well-known for their technical and biological research and experimentation.
Darian set about trying to repair Xieran's fighter and the rest of us landed to try to help Meqli find some of the old colony installations. They were abandoned almost a thousand years ago, and we well hidden by time. We managed to gain entrance to one, but were besieged by some traps and slowed down. We got past them, but we weren't optimistic about what information we'd find about the people, the history, or the comet in the base or its archives.
We did manage to get D5, the little repair and slicer droid we borrowed from Selenni, zapped by an electronic floor trap. Hopefully he is reparable - otherwise Selenni will be quite upset with us. Without him we would basically walk dead into every trap with no ability to slice the computer systems. We would have to wait for him to come back online before proceeding. All this time the comet loomed closer and closer.
Episode XXI (39) - Star light, star bright...
After having waited for D5 to recuperate, we Rothar suddenly suggested that perhaps the archives might be the more useful (and less heavily defended) area of the compound to investigate.
Meqli managed to bring up the main computer through a vocal interface and communicate our intents with it. She convinced it to give us some of the records of the inhabinants of the old colony, so that we could verify the lines of descendence in the cutten population of the planet. The computer was concerned that we were working for the "insurgents' " party which it had been instructed to keep out of the compound.
After having verified that almost all of the current population was completely mixed among lines of both the old colonists and the old insurgents, the computer decided that the two sides must have come to an agreement, and was afterwards more helpful. It did show us many of the old records to help support the notion that the Verpine were indeed running experiments of some kind on this colony.
We returned to orbit to try to raise the Verpine in the comet on the radio. At first they didn't respond, but when we broadcast our intent to obliterate the seemingly now-uninhabited comet they were a lot more communicative.
We did get in a bit of a touchy situation where they claimed to own this system as part of Verpine territory. If that claim were true, that changed matters quite a lot. They claimed this was an ongoing research facility, and the planet was their laboratory environment. They were using it as a base to conduct research into fine-tuning disease deployment vectors. They were under the understanding that the human colonists had entered into the experiment voluntarily, as that was the only circumstances under which humans were legally permitted to land on this planet.
It was Xieran, surprisingly, who came up with the best compromise to remove the human colonists, who no longer wished to be subjects of experimentation without wasting this entire "reasearch" pass of the comet. He suggested that perhaps they experiment with how rapidly they could deploy antidotes or counteragents to the disease - and they could test and monitor the successes of their vectors. After they passed, we could administer the cures to those who were not successfully cured by their quick efforts.
Though there was still much disagreement from Rothar and Darian, who still appeared to hold a personal grudge against all things Verpine, this was the plan we enacted. After the pass of the comet, we surface hopped the ship to as many of the colony villages that we could find, and tried to let the people make educated decisions about whether to leave the planet or to stay on it - knowing what was really going on. Some things went well, others went quite poorly. Overall, many of the people came with us, and many decided to stay for various reasons.
We also convinced the Verpine to put some satellite buoys around the planet describing what was going on there, or at least informing would-be colonists and research teams that this was Verpine space, not an un-discovered world. At least next time someone visits this planet, they will know what the heck is going on.
Episode XXII (40) - It's best not to anger a Wookiee
After returning from Verpine space, we arrive back at Coruscant to resume our normal duties and regroup before being given other assignments. I find that several Knights and Masters have been interviewing Selenni about various parts of Mandalorian culture. Knight Malak seems particularly concerned about the threat of Mandalorian invasion, and has been her most frequent visitor. She has been making good use of the down time while we were away to review the Jedi archives, and to practice her remote weapons control. She is become quite proficient, and will soon surpass me in her complex control of her weapon at a ranged distance.
I met with Turko Brien over lunch to catch up on what's happening back on Dantooine. He has also been offworld as of late on "business" and didn't really have much to relate. He was taking a break for awhile and keeping some distance from his normal associates - whether this was because of a disagreement, or to throw off trailers, I didn't ask. He's been staying around the temple for the day.
Rothar Dashing met this afternoon with the rest of his group of "concerned fellow Jedi." On one hand his whole focus is a bit laughable, so I'm not too concerned. His tendencies might be off-putting, but unless real action starts being made, there's nothing really to be concerned about that's more major than them just wasting time.
I walked in on the aftermath of a barfight in the cantina near the temple. It appears that some Trandoshans were harassing a being called a "Wookiee" ( I've heard Turko mention them once, but never seen one before) and trying to goad him into a fight. He's some kind of diplomat, and a commotion would have been embarrassing. It appears that Turko, somewhat inebriated, "offered" to help and exacerbated the situation. It's unclear how much of the story he was exaggerating, but he was unharmed. Zyll and Rothar kept things from involving the Wookiee diplomat. Later I assisted a Jedi Order protocol droid in compiling what may be the first real database of the spoken Wookiee language.
The diplomat arranged with the Senate to stop Trandoshan slaving of the Wookiee race, and the Senate appointed Czerka as administrators of a treaty to handle offworld Wookiee employment, and to conduct some limited research on the bottom level of the Wookiee's forest homeworld, where they will not disturb the natives' culture.
Though I thought this would be a good opporunity for Xieran to work in a non-dangerous matter that is crucial to the Republic, Rothar insisted that Xieran use today for extra piloting practice - in which Rothar somewhat suddenly has become interested.