Thoughts whirled about in her head.

She had the Claw... she had the Finger now. Everything she needed, all the devices of pertinence. She now bore the marks of two clans; did not her own daughter bear warrior ones as well? And as for JhinDarra, well... her niece could establish clan leadership through marriage just as easily as she, Jharmeen, had done. A new Triad in the making, consisting of a different Unity, one of blood kinship.

One with the barest hint of actual Sith blood being involved; could it be that this disconnection was what that race needed to lead them? A distancing of bloodlines, bloodlines which produced heirs and claimants to then lead to squabbles and discordance. Was that what had reduced the Sith from their nobility; would removal from this be the key to their prosperity?

As well as to hers...?

She blinked, her eyes dark. Yet she couldn't entirely dismiss the tone in which Phalomir was making his case. It was almost beseeching, imploring, as if from somewhere deep within himself he was begging....

A distant howl came into her ears; M'wonBo'o, uneasy that his mental link with his Mistress was so intruded upon. Raising her face then, she turned quietly around, and stared up into Phalomir's face. Overlaid upon it were the gentle features of another Lord, another one emerald of eye; that ghostly image seemed to smile, and call forth that within her which was her true nature.

For the briefest of moments she allowed herself to soften.

"You come from a time yet to be, and speak of events yet to come as though they have already occurred. How am I to know whether what you say now is what would eventually prevent those dire occurrance from happening... or if those words are the ones which open the door to their eventual arrival?

"How can I trust you, Phalomir? Your very existence here is a paradox."

She paused, wondering about this even as she waited to hear his reply. And as for the implications in the other words he had spoken....

She shied away from that like a nervous colt.

[ 10-17-2003 12:02 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

--------------------

Jasyn frowned, looking over to Matt. "Have I mentioned that I really don't like this?"

Matt shrugged, then replied. "Well, it did get us onto the planet. We'll deal with what happens when it happens. Now about that lifeform reading--"

Matt's words were cut-off by Za'in's sudden...

...if somewhat disturbingly well-timed comm.

Jasyn lifted the wristcomm to his lips. "Not sure exactly where we are, since we've crashed. We believe there's a large building somewhere in the vincity of our crash site...

...and other than that..."

Jasyn paused, glancing up to the showy display the Imps were putting on. He scowled.

Better pilot instructor...

"...there is an escort of Impy TIEs over our current position. If you got through the blockade the legal way, they'll be expecting you. Hope to see you on ground soon, we're gonna start moving in the meantime, however."

Turning to Matt and Dash then, Jasyn nodded in the general direction the Imps were finding a lifesign. "Shall we have a look?" he then queried.

"Can't hurt..." Matt started. "I hope..."

Jasyn frowned in response before opening a comm frequency to the Imps. "Allright, we're heading over to check out that lifesign, and sensor readings and shadow are greatly appreciated. Considering how we just crashed, there's no telling what the kriffing hell is out there."

Saying nothing more than that, Jasyn began towards the unknown lifesign with his commrades right behind him, unconsciously pulling at his blaster as he did so.

That bad feeling of his wasn't getting any better...

[ 10-17-2003 08:46 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Jasyn Lancaster ]

--------------------

The inability to control the situation and understand everythign had become quiet awkward for him. He had normally understood things when he had jumped into it, but this time he had headed head-first onto the world from the blockade and without a clue of what exactly was going on.

"This is so dumb.."

--------------------

But, that is the path I always travel, wait and give in to... it.

This had become complacent so long ago, yet there is hope this time is different. Thanks in large part to these ancient beings known as sith.

With a supercilious gaze, I appear before the converging convoy lead by the apprehensive pilot. For which I can only presume, he clutched to his mortal weapon as a baby does his rattle.

Yet another man appears from nothingness, this time to the rescue.

With zealous Jasyn Lancaster in the lead by more than a meter, he was the only man threatened by the rock slide.

Jasyn is plucked from the peril of danger, this time. Plucked by a being from above, for soon Jasyn himself would be aware.

Orbing, we reappear in a nearby city, Jasyn and myself. In a back street so not to be noticed. If there was any chance of that was to be determined later.

Somehow, with all the evil I have inside me, it comes back to me as the cry of a heartbroken man.

My eyes turn black coal, to the firey depths of Hell. Another energy ball comes to my command.

"Anyone else feeling heroic?" Deep as a voice, and ground shaking, their imaginations could comprehend.

Rolling my eyes, I shake the evil monkey off my back. I give an uncomfortable laugh, as if hoping they might be of use to me.

"We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, my name is Kale... Kale Mallord." I hand them a business man's smile, reluctantly extinguishing my trembling hand of energy and fury.

“Well,” he said quietly, “I guess if it’s letting us in…”

He took a tentative step towards the temple entrance. The tuk’ata moved its massive head slightly and a large face tendril nonchalantly whipped from under its chin, knocking into Panthar and sending him back a step. Panthar frowned and took another step forward. Again the tendril slapped into Panthar, knocking him back. Panthar huffed and turned to call out to Shayla.

“Well, I don’t think it wants us to enter! Any ideas? Do you speak Monster?”

--------------------

...then there was that crazy-looking man with something or other blue blasting forth from his hand...

...a landslide of sorts...

...and then...?

Jasyn blinked, shaking his head a bit to clear the strange blue fog clouding his eyesight. As the fog dissapated, Jasyn's brown eyes fell upon a dark-blonde headed man dressed in...

...golden robes? If he hadn't known better, Jasyn would have thought that perhaps this was the vision of one of his drinking binges. He blinked again, just to see if the image in front of him changed...

...but it didn't. And now he was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that neither Matt or Dash...

...or that looney-looking guy for that matter...

...were anywhere around. Instead, he was in an apparently abandoned alley, with him. Jasyn's eyes widened suspiciously, and he reached for his blaster, taking a step back.

"Where the hell are we, where the hell are my buddies...

... and who the kriffing hell are you...?"

[ 10-19-2003 01:58 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Jasyn Lancaster ]

--------------------

Shayla pursed her lips for a moment, considering Panthar's question. Tuk'ata could communicate telepathically, though it was difficult for them to do so with a human, particularly one that they were not bonded with.

"Perhaps I can," she said quietly and thoughtfully in late reply to Panthar's question. He cocked his head in her direction, quirking a Sithly brow. "It's almost as if the tuk'ata is trying to warn you off...

...or perhaps protect you..."

Shayla trailed at that, frowning. "They can communicate telepathically, but they are difficult to understand. I do have some experience with their kind, however. So perhaps..."

Falling completely silent then, Shayla stepped forward a bit. The tuk'ata which had been flanking her all remained where they were for the moment, as if waiting to see just what she might do. But, as she then ascended the steps to the Temple to join Panthar, they moved in slightly. Remaining calm, she took careful steps towards the tuk'ata beside Panthar.

As she approached the tuk'ata, as it had with Panthar, reached out its face tendrils to investigate Shayla's face. Shayla closed her eyes...

...and in the same moment reached out into the mind of the great creature, who then once more sat back on its haunches and regarded she and Panthar both. With all her effort, Shayla stayed with the mind of the apparant "leader" of the pack.
We are with the one inside this Temple, and we need to get inside to find him, she thought.

A few moments of quiet passed, and then the reply at last came.

Only the One enter may til he finds self within...

Shayla's eyes snapped open, but she didn't release the link she had with the tuk'ata just yet.

"I don't think they intend us any harm," Shayla then stated almost unnecessarily, "From what I understand, however, Phalomir has been expected...

...and that we will not be granted entrance until he completes whatever it is he must here."

Shayla quieted once more at that, then "spoke" once more to the tuk'ata. We must wait to enter until the One completes his task? she queried.

More silence. Then, Enter you shall...

...sacrifice there must be...

And it was in that moment that a familiar vision flashed across her mind's eye, one of a dagger held in the air by a strong red-skinned hand. The hand, the dagger still in its grasp, began to fall seemingly towards her as the scent of sweet-smelling flowers nearly overpoweresd her. Shayla took a step back, suddenly feeling very faint...

...and very much afraid...

[ 10-19-2003 03:49 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Shayla Stargazer Petrolu ]

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"...as to your other questions, my name is Wyatt Mathews, and I am your guardian. An angel, to be more exact. We're not far from your party, I'm sorry I couldn't do more... more will be explained later, you'll have to trust me on that. You must pay close attention to what I'm about to reveal, understand?" He stopped at that, apprehensively waiting as if in the midst of battle.

...if not sooner...

...believe that you are the bloody Ghost of Khaandon."

He paused at that, his hand still on his blaster. "If you've got something to say to me, you'd better make it quick, cause there is no way I'm leaving my friends down there with that looney, whether they give him an advantage or not...

...and for whatever the hell reason that they do. Unless, of course, a guardian angel is going to drop out of the sky for each of them too..."

Jasyn trailed, the sarcasm in his last statement easily discernable as he reached down and punched an SOS signal on his wristcomm, one which he knew very well would be picked up by the Impys flying overhead...

[ 10-19-2003 09:08 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Jasyn Lancaster ]

--------------------

...and that alone was enough to disturb him, to say the very least. Ever the proper businessman, however, Matt decided to take it one step at a time. He could only pray that whatever had happened to Jasyn...

...and hadn't there been another figure in that flash of blue light which appeared before Jasyn disappeared...?

..that he was alive and well.

"Off on the wrong foot indeed," he said then coolly, his eyes still only for Kale Mallord. He wasn't particularly thrilled with the idea of possibly making this guy mad again...

...nor was he of being around this guy any longer than possible. Seemed one or both might happen whatever he said, however.

"Name's Matt Stanza, and this is Dash Kelderon," he said, waving back towards the quiet man behind him. "Mind telling me what happened to my other buddy who just disappeared, and what it is you may want from us after nearly crushing us all into spacedust?"

--------------------

"Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way." he says, shrugging off the sarcasm laden comment moments before.

"C'mon, lets go, we don't have much time."

Wyatt extends his arm, takes Jasyn by the shoulder.

On a high ridge, a few dozen meters from the crash victims of the EE vessel, they rematerialize.

"Did you have a plan?"

Broad grin, I continue.

"...about your friend, seems he has an admirer. Believe me, I hate when they do that." I laugh. It's been so long, insincere and abbreviated.

My senses sober,"Now, Matt, what information regarding this world are you willing to surrender to me?"

No more smiles.

"Depends on what exactly you want to know about it," he said in an as-a-matter-of-fact tone. Then he fell silent, his green eyes intense as he waited.

But then he couldn't help but add one final statement. "It's interesting, really, that you've gotten to this planet yourself. You must already know something of it if you are here at all..."

--------------------

I approach him with purpose, coolly.

"Were those your last words, Matt? Like it or not, you will help me."

I stop before him, alloting him a 2 foot cushion, and no more.

Twin faces duck down....

He turned to his sister with a snort.

"You and your stars!" he whispered as quietly as the footfall of a butterfly, yet in a tone which managed to sound both derisive and disgusted at the same time. "I told you it wasn't a meteorite!"

The young Sith's sister, a charming lass no more than the equivalent of perhaps eleven human years in age, stuck out her tongue at her brother. She glared at him, and tightened her grip on the bow she carried.

"You're so smart!" she mouthed back silently. "What are you going to do now?"

The young male straightened, trying to make himself look imposing. His fingers curled around the haft of the short spear he carried.

"We can take them, don't you think?" he queried with his eyes and by the mere fact that his fingers did curl about his spear. His royal blue eyes gleamed in the dimming light.

His sister shook her head, her long white hair tangling about her horns. She made a gesture with one hand, and slowly began to creep back down the side of the slope. Her movement didn't so much as allow for one stone to slip, so steathily did she descend.

The unspoken need for silence fled from the youngsters the moment they reached flat ground. With a swiftness belying their age, they took of at a dead run, haring off pellmell to the nearby city in which they lived, and from which they had gone forth to find "an adventure."

Little had they dreamed that such would come to them, but indeed it had, with a rapidity which had them still blinking as they ran...

...a rapidity matched only by the swiftness in which their parents, and soon thereafter an entire squad of heavily armed Sith warriors, responded to the hue and cry they raised about the strangers the moment they got home.

It wasn't long before those warriors returned to the crater and leaped upon it as though wishing to feed. Spears pointed threateningly, scowls evident on every visage, they ringed the strangers who dared to set foot upon their world.

A spokesman raised his voice.

"Why are you here?"

He fell silent, and the Sith moved in a step closer. Behind them came, at last, the slight patter of stones as the young brother and sister hurried up the slope, eager to see what would befall those who had fallen from the skies.

"Are they sith?" I articulate for his ears only, mute as a Shakespearean soliloquy.

"Hold there, you!" he said in an authoritative tone, putting emphasis on his words by the very special manner in which he moved his spear. His eyes hooded, and he stared at the men.

The man only stared back.

The Sith warrior scowled more blackly.

"I asked you a question," he finally growled, and shook his spear again to underscore the unspoken meaning inherent to his words.

"You are the ancient being known as sith, are you not. I've come to offer my... talents. In exchange for your help, of course."

"You are scarcely in any position to be speaking thus," he finally said, his eyes dead, his voice deadlier. "We seek no assistance from any other than the Sith-- with one exception! Our talents are to remain for us alone; we need not the likes of you.

"But then, this is not my decision to make here. You would do well to explain further just how it is you came to be here."

He paused then, cocking his head a bit to one side while he took in the dully colored eyes of the strangers, their even duller skin, the way that discomfort seemed to hover over them like a shroud.

Hopefully, the monarchy isn't as egotistic as this one. Or myself, for that matter.

He settled for another glare. Indeed it was lucky for the strangers that they had come to K'eel Doba and not its sister planet; the glare of a warrior at its best can incapacitate its receiver, sending him to his knees in fear. But the glare of a sorcerer can kill.

He ground his jaws together then, curling his lips to show off his rather intimidating fangs.

"I can take you to her," he snapped, suddenly wary of the direction in which events had proceeded.

"But I won't. Not until I have more to tell her of your sudden arrival here; otherwise she would expect we handle matters here, between ourselves. Her time is too important for trivialities."

Another gleam came into his eyes then, darkening them even as the very air about them seemed to lose its light. Their sun, never one for sending much out in the way of brightness, was slowly but inexorably approaching the horizon; the warrior leader wanted this matter over and done with as quickly as possible. It was fast approaching his time to dine, not to mention the fact that it was way past his children's bedtime.

"...while there is yet a proposal standing." Bellowed my demonic admonish.

He let a sly grimace cross his face.

"As I said, She has more important things to do with her time than to be interrupted by the likes of you."

Now all humor fled from his face, which smoothed into utter and deadly seriousness. The other warriors sensed this sudden change and in one smoothly executed maneuver closed ranks, coming in together shoulder to shoulder, one foot forward, the other back and loose, spears pointing in a ring of death into the face of the strangers, two of whom had yet to even speak.

They held their stance in rigid silence, while behind them came a soft inhalation of breath...