"I don't know if I like the idea of us splitting up," I finally said, reading what looked to be agreement in Terrin's blue eyes.

"I mean, look where it's getting Jharmeen... and anyway, just where in all the whole damned universe would we be looking for Aelvedaar? I mean, assuming he's still in it, of course?

"Isn't that going off on a kind of a wild goose chase?"

I shut up for air, frowning as I let my thoughts rumble around in my head some more. Then I leaned forward and spoke into the comm again.

"I think we go straight to the ronto's mouth, but bring with us something to make certain we're gonna be listened to.

"And that's something these Sith seem to understand and respect: power and strength.

"And it's got these worlds all wrapped up in tidy little packages, if you ask me."

I let my finger remove itself from the sigil, turning then to Terrin, for boy howdy if anyone anywhere ever looked like he wanted to say something more than Terrin did now, I sure as Roon's Treasure hadn't met him.

[ 09-05-2005 12:57 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

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He shook his head.

“Yeah, OK, he did offer Phal any resources he might need for whatever, I think… But Phal was giving him some line about booting out the ruling order and forming some kind of alliance. I thought that was just to get us the heck out of there, I didn’t think Phal was serious. But, damn, that might help us…”

Panthar thumped his forehead with his fist.

“But I still say it’s a bad idea in the long run. Maybe you can just drop me off down there first, huh?”

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

...but what else do we have to make the Sith listen to us? Jharmeen's back on Khar Delba, somewhere. We've got Aeylmaar with us..."

Terrin trailed, his frown deepening, thoughts emerging at a rate faster than he was really aware. "And I have a company that mass produces big ships..."

Again Terrin trailed, an almost visible lightbulb flickering above his head as he turned to Galen, cocking a brow. "You know the idea worries me concerning your safety...

...and concerning the safety of our daughter. But, that aside, the Empire does have some respectable "oomph." And I do have something we can offer them in exchange for their help...

...and it wouldn't be the first time I've done it. Imperials do, after all, seem to like really big ships. And speaking of Imperials...

...if he's still around, I always have Admiral Pallaeon in my corner."

[ 09-05-2005 10:01 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Terrin Danner ]

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...and wondered if this didn't look very much like something she might have seen from another powerful being before. With effort, Shayla reached out to switch her comm to send a message rather than receive. "Ummm...guys, that's an affirmative on Rykounagin being in control down there on Khar Delba. He has a blackened tatoo of entitlement to the Sorceror Clan...

...and he speaks of his "Father."

Shayla paused, her eyes momentarily flicking to Aeylmaar before she continued. "This doesn't seem like something that would be normal for the Lord Aelvedaar I know, who hesitated when Jharmeen took me on as Adept. Jharmeen will be, I believe, dining with Rykounagin...

...and will hopefully discern further just what is going on. Rykounagin speaks of his desire to kill Jharmeen...

...yet at the same time hesitates to do so. Because he is the one currently in charge, and because Jharmeen has not been captured in any manner, we will probably fare just fine in proceeding directly to Khar Delba."

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

“Heck yes, let’s proceed!” he shouted. “She is there with that kid? Who is saying the Aelvy is his father? That is just too wild to even be funny, especially since Aelymaar here is already Aelvy’s son – of sorts, or whatever those Sith Lords do. Anyway, I really have a bad feeling about this, and the sooner we get back with her the better.”

Panthar paused.

“Wait, isn’t Aelvedaar there, too?”

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

Time ticked by; he was but slightly aware of the conversation going on around him. But Panthar's closing query brought him out of his momentary funk.

He let forth a sigh and focused on the group again.

"I-- I cannot believe that my Lord Father would do such a thing," he stated at last.

"It is simply not in his nature, any more than is his sudden change in attitude toward the one you know as Jharmeen."

The Chosen One. The CHOSEN One.

How well he recalled that day, 4,000 years in the past, when he had trembled at Lord Aelvedaar's shoulder, staring via that wily sorcerer's magicks through the immensity of time to see a violet-eyed, flame-haired woman.

"Is she the one?" he had dared to ask. How well he remembered the simple affirmation, the look in the molten eyes of his Father.

Funny, but he had not seen that look again.

Ever.

He frowned at this seemingly glaring inconsistency, his eyes at first widening in fear... and then growing dark.

Slowly he rose to his feet.

"My friends," he said softly, blinking at how easily the appellation rolled upon his tongue.

"I agree with Shayla; we must continue forth to Khar Delba. The Chosen One-- that is, the Dark Lady, while apparently under no immediate duress is indeed in grave danger. We must get to her side, and quickly."

He raised his hand again, looked at his wrist. Closed his eyes against the quick rush of pain that filled him.

"I truly believe that the Lord Aelvedaar who occupies the Temple is not my Father, not the true Dark Lord of the Sorcerers. He was the most powerful of all the Sith, his magicks supreme, beyond blemish; his control of that power he had promised to teach me..."

Another pause; his frown of puzzlement and grief segued into one of anger. Indeed, since being informed of the true state of affairs of their civilization, Aeylmaar had received no further training. All he had was the merest understanding as how fully he could use that awesome power... when his training was complete.

At the moment, he could use it to the same extent that he could that terrible day when the dark jedi came ravaging in...

Why are you allowed this memory?

The non sequiteur came from nowhere, stalled him in mid-speech. He blinked, getting himself under control, realized the others were waiting for him to continue.

"His control over that-- that which he was beginning to teach me just as impeccable. It would take someone or someones with more than equal power to overcome him, and take his place.

"Who or why, I have no idea. I only know, I-- feel in my heart of hearts, that this is so."

He paused, searching each face before him.

"My Father is loving and kind. The Dark Lord of Khar Delba is-- is not. If he is indeed in residence, we must take the greatest of care.

"But we must go join with the Lady Qu'taro, and determine exactly what is going on upon my world."

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

"If you will excuse us, we would like to explore this vessel, if you do not mind."

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

(From the Dining Hall in the Temple of the Sorcerers) she ripped open a Portal through the All, and returned with the Blade to the yacht and her friends. There she moved to the nearest seat, fell into it.

"Lord Aelvedaar is missing," she stated flatly, the rest of what she had to report being cut off by the wave of pain and anger which flooded into her.

As well as utter despair.

The thought of Phalomir, alone in that hideous place with the evil Master and Roan and the imps to torture him was too much to bear; she couldn't stand it.

Despair flashed into resolve.

"I-- I will have to go back into the Darker Realms alone, and speak with this Master again," she finally murmured, looking up into the eyes of all.

"With my Sire in vacancy, I do not know if we would ever have the power to directly confront him. So perhaps another approach is needed.

"What, exactly, I simply cannot guess."

[ 09-07-2005 10:52 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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...going there alone will only give the Master an opportunity at you and Phalomir both."

She paused at that, the look in her eyes darkening as she continued then with, "As for another approach to come against the Master, I don't know where we would begin. The Eternal Flame is in the Darker Realms, that might have assisted us. The Finger may be in the hands of those whom we were prepared to use it against...

...is there some way to counter the Finger? Some object we aren't considering? Who indeed could come against the strength of the Master other than Lord Aelvedaar?"

Shayla trailed, frowning, as a few final things came to her mind. "What if we combined the strength of inherent All-users against the Master somehow? And what if..."

Another pause, another thought. "What of the Beast and Thoran? We lost Thoran back when we were battling the Beast inside of you, Jharmeen. Might he somehow now be a link for us to the whereabouts of Lord Aelvedaar?"

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

He turned to Shayla.

“By the way, what is the Eternal Flame?”

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

...I'm certain I probably don't have the knowledge Jharmeen has to inform you of it properly. It is fueled by the spirits of dead Dark Lords of the Sith...

...and is currently in the Darker Realms, though it used to be on Korriban."

She paused at that, another thought coming to mind. "Might the Great Library on K'eel Doba help us somehow with this as well?"

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

"The Great Library would be helpful, but only in things regarding the Sith and their magicks. I do not believe it was created to recognize anything having to do with the All, and we are, unfortunately, dealing with All users.

"But the Eternal Flame..."

She trailed, and deep within the depths of her eyes a bit of despair began to fade.

"That I can take us to; it will be dangerous, as yes it is in the Darker Realms.

"But--!"

Now she began to smile.

"I placed a chronotic shield about it to prevent Lord Roan from using it, after he dragged it there from its valley on Korriban. Since I placed the shield, I can easily remove it, allowing us access to its power and All enhancing abilities.

"Perhaps--"

She paused, sending Shayla a warm look before going to her and wrapping her in a hug.

"Perhaps in the presence of its magicks you will be able to overcome the All-inhibiting spell placed upon you, and some if not all of your understanding will return.

"If nothing else, we should be able to discover the whereabouts of My Sire, and perhaps even Thoran as well."

[ 09-08-2005 10:50 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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Panthar looked to Jharmeen.

“But, there is another question. What exactly is this beast thing? Phal said something about it, that it was somehow linked to Aelvedaar. Is he right?”

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

"Obviously the possible intelligence it could reveal would be of great value. But are there no other allies we could locate with it?"

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

...only time will tell."

Then she turned to Panthar. "in regards to whatever you and Erik found on Kori'san, considering the reaction of That Which Is to our presence and meddling in that location, I do not know that it would be wise to return there and remove the planet from Elseness. Although I do not believe that the events which are proceeding would please That Which Is, going to Kori'san would cost alot of energy...

...and would go against what we had accomplished by placing the planets in Elseness to begin with."

She paused, pursing her lips. "I believe going to the Eternal Flame is the best answer, although there are going to be risks involved since this requires that we go to the Darker Realms." She looked then at the Onidorei, cocking a brow. "And the retrieval of the Flame is a bit more...

...complicated than you realize. Still, it is plausible." Shayla's gaze returned to Jharmeen. "Shall we change course then, or proceed onward to Khar Delba?"

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

"Going back to Koris'ian would be a far more difficult feat than you think, my friend," she began slowly.

"For in placing the system into the Elseness as we did, we effectively have removed it from the space and time we consider to be real. It is not merely in another dimension, but outside reality, a place between one nanosecond and the next... and is not traveled through lightly.

"Having no Link established with anyone or anything on Koris'ian, or Korriban for that matter, I have no guide by which to return us there to the Temple of the Armorers. And from what I understand from the teachings of my Sire, although there are ways to enter therein through 'doorways' if you will, the probability of returning to the same space and time are so low as to be nonexistent. For the universe is a vast place, and we might find ourselves returning to a galaxy or another time so removed from our own that I would not be able to bring us home.

"But the Darker Realms..."

She trailed a little to ponder; what thoughts came to her head made the Glyph spring into brighter life, caused a slight smile to curl about her lips.

"That place, as horrid as it is, exists in our reality. It is merely in another dimension--"

Blank looks from the others interrupted her briefly, before she went on.

"Being in our reality, I can take us there via Portals. We can leave now, from here; we do not need to make planetfall anywhere, and our ships should be quite protected here in the emptiness which exists in this tiny solar system."

Her smile broadened as she spread out her arms, turning slowly to take in each and every one. That smile faltered a bit, though, as it came round to Panthar, and was in fact replaced by a quick frown of puzzlement.

"A-- a Beast?" she questioned, cocking her head to one side.

"I do not understand what it is you are speaking of; perhaps when our task is finished, when we have destroyed the Master and my love is safely here with us again, we may speak of this strange thing you ask.

"Now is not the time. I fear time is growing short. And so I ask, who is prepared to go into the Darker Realms, to combine all our strengths, whatever they may be, in the presence of the Eternal Flame, for we must be in its presence--"

This as a quick aside to the Onidorei.

"-- in the hope -- and please understand, I stress the word hope -- that this will be enough to enable us to complete our quest."

[ 09-13-2005 03:37 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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Most of what they discussed was unfamiliar to him, though quite interesting. Talk of the Darker Realms, the Eternal Flame, and the ways they could combat the Master all was archived into Ragorian's mind, raising many more questions than they answered.

When the talk turned to the Elseness and the planets now suspended in it, Ragorian perked up in interest.

For he knew of these planets and their state. Part of him remained within the Elseness, and was now, he recalled, inside a young tuk'ata.

As Graysith finished speaking, Ragorian reopened their link and spoke to her.

"I, for one, am willing to journey with you into these Darker Realms, milady. All my powers are at your disposal to aid you in finding this Eternal Flame."

"And there is something I feel I must mention. You mentioned before that journeying to the planets suspended in the Elseness would be difficult, because none of us has a Link with anyone or anything on them."

"As it were, Lady Graysith, it happens that I possess just such a link."

"Using it, I am sure I could provide us with guidance to the Elseness, should such a trip become necessary."

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

She trailed, pursing her lips a moment, "But who else will be willing to assist us, so that we approach this matter with the best combined strength that we have? The Blade has powers, and Erik and I have Force strength. Furthermore, Galen has assisted us before with the All strength within her...

...and All strength is going to be what it will really take to get the Flame to respond to us."

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

Panthar sighed.

“I’ll go where you say we need to go and do what you say we need to do, but I still wish we could zip into the Else-stuff, grab the red glowy ball thing, and zip back out. I mean, I get it that it’s hard to find stuff that you put in there, but… but damn! I wonder, that one tuk’ata that helped us out, he was talking inside my head. Could that be a link of some kind you could follow?”

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

"Perhaps it might be a good idea to go back into the Elseness after all," she mused, half aloud.

"If there exists a device which is All-driven, or All-protective, it would most definitely be an added bonus against those within the Darker Realms; recall, if you will, that the Master is All proficient, as is Roan.

"We now have two links to Koris'ian..."

She paused, her smile broadening into a crooked grin.

"Ragorian has serendipitously left a bit of himself there as well; using two solid links as a guide, I see no reason why we could not find our way to the Temple of the Armorers to this strange device which lies within."

Sensing Shayla's growing discomfort at this idea, she turned to her.

"I do not think That Which Is would begrudge us this. I feel it simply does not wish the natural entropic course of events to be disturbed, and unless the path we are now treading upon would be leading in that particular direction I do not see how a visit to the Temple would bring down its ire upon us once again."

She cast another glance around. No one said anything.

"Panthar," she said, the command soft and musical but very much there.

"Concentrate upon the tuk'ata; see if you can re-establish contact with it.

"And Ragorian, my friend, if you would reach out to yourself as well..."

She closed her eyes, reaching out a pale hand in preparation of tearing a rift between reality and non-reality, waiting for the links into that tenuous place to strengthen to where she could target Koris'ian and take them directly to the Temple of the Armorers.

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

Well, I can start by trying to remember his name. Duffy? Diffy? Yeah, Diffy. OK, let’s see. I remember him, let me picture what he looks like. OK… hmmm… Diffy… buddy, where are you? Can you hear me? It’s your old pal, Panthar. Um, we need you. The ‘son’ needs you – he called Phal that, yeah. The son needs you, talk to me, man. Oh heck, I need you, we all need you, talk to me buddy!

Panthar concentrated on the tuk’ata, trying to push his thoughts outwards. He closed his eyes and thought hard, thinking about the voice in his head. He cleared his mind of all else, and focused on the voice.

After several seconds, Panthar pictured only the image of the tuk’ata. He sat very still, his face going blank, not knowing if what he was doing was working at all, but staying focused on the tuk’ata.

---

Somewhere in the spreading shadow of the temple, lying in a bed of grass and dried leaves, a very old tuk’ata raised its head in curiosity.

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

Frowning, Terrin reached for the equivalent of the comm unit on the Sith fighter's navboard. "Ahhh... excuse me," he opened with, "Since we appear to now be taking a trip into the Elseness, and Galen and I are here aboard the fighter and not with everyone else...

...what are we supposed to do while you all embark on this little side trip?"

[ 09-20-2005 10:33 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Terrin Danner ]

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And at its door there lay a tuk'ata, it's head upraised, its eerie, pupilless eyes scanning the sky...

Graysith let out a reflexive grunt, her concentration abruptly broken.

"...supposed to do while you all embark on this little side trip?" came the irate query from their companion ship.

Graysith blinked, bringing herself back into focus once again. She shook her head at her own oversight in the matter.

"You shall come with us, Mr. Danner," she said quickly.

"And please accept my apologies for this seeming oversight; Shayla--"

She turned her attention to her adept.

"Lend me your strength, that I may create a portal large enough through which both our ships may enter. For I believe that, through Panthar, I have made contact with the Temple of the Armorers."

I know you have this yet within you...

"What say you, Terrin Danner?" she ended, turning toward the comm to direct the final question to the occupants of the other ship, even as her hand reached out to clasp Shayla's.

[ 09-20-2005 11:10 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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We considered. "Also, we must ask what exactly we shall do within this realm of which you speak- this elseness. Also, we must ask: What is a Tuk'ata and what is it's significance? Is not our objective to go to this Darker Realm and save Phalomir? How does going to the elseness aid us? Other then to retrieve this Tuk'ata you spoke of."

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