His dear, beloved Lord Aelvedaar. He to whom he had apprenticed himself, four thousand years in their past. He for whom he had died, willingly letting the Dark Jedi rend his flesh asunder with their strange swords of light, trusing in the old Sorcerer Lord that he would be reborn, that he would live again...

Those words had proven to be true. He was indeed alive... but far from well.

"My dear, dear Father," he mourned to himself, over and over.

"He is gone, something has taken him, he is no more, there is a doppleganger, how can I continue in his stead, how can I shake the usurper from the throne? What can I do; it is of no use, no use, no use...."

With a small shudder he too sank to his knees, his amber eyes wet with tears, the bright light within them blanking out as he covered them with his hands.

In the shadows, something seemed to snicker in growing satisfaction.

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

"If we do not soon she may find the damage irreversable! Quickly!"

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

...exponentially so. It was as if you could see the lightning bolts in his eyes, he was so angry...

...furious. He was keenly aware of what was going on, knew that Graysith had fallen and was unresponsive, in a strange sort of unending despair...

...and he didn't give a damn.

Let her stew. Let her know how the betrayal feels...

...she's done it enough to her sister. Let her stew and rot in it...

As these dark thoughts clouded his mind and his logic, Terrin vaguely heard the words of the Onidorei...

...and the look in his eyes blackened even further.

"Shut the kriffing hell up!!!" Terrin seethed, actually inching up on the Onidorei, a hand shooting out to grab what would, on a human's anatomy anyway, be its neck. Before the device...

...or the beings inside it realized what was happening, he grabbed the translator, and shoved it, letting go shortly after he'd taken hold to send it sprawling towards the floor, not far from Graysith.

Somewhere nearby, Jasyn laughed an almost manical laugh...

[ 08-16-2005 08:46 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Terrin Danner ]

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“H-hey, guys,” he stammered. “Um, the machine thing is probably right, you know? We should, um, go?”

He looked around, seeing the people with whom he had spent many long travels. But now he felt a strange sense of urgency, and he no longer had faith in their abilities. Galen looked like she was ready to explode, Terrin had a distinct look of angry mistrust, and everyone else seemed like helpless kittens. Especially Graysith! The great and terrible Graysith, master of the All, the ability to bring down Dark Lords with a single kiss…

Dark Lords?

Oh hells bells, Phalomir! He was stuck in the Darker Realms, with only this group of imbeciles to save him. Oh, what a great set of odds he had!

And what about the Master?

“Oh, no, this just isn’t right,” Panthar shivered. “It can’t be right, can it? No no no no no no no no no no NO NO NO!”

He turned wide, bloodshot eyes to Aeylmaar. Suddenly so very unsure of himself, he questioned the Sith.

“If it’s not Aelvedaar, then what the heck has the Master been talking about? Dammit, he said Aelvedaar set him up, locked him in that ship… where we could find him? That doesn’t sound right, does it? I mean, the two of them are supposedly in some sort of conflict with each other, why would Aelvy put him there…? And with all those vials of whatever that was? I don’t know, dammit! I just wanted my name in a book, now I’m stuck inside a Sith body on a planet that doesn’t exist in a lunatic temple!”

Panthar dug his nails into the wall, ripping the bandage from his wounded hand. The pain was suddenly intense, bringing him from shivering lunacy to a sudden, if brief, clearness. Everyone was losing it, everyone. Why? What had Gray said about this place?

He felt the tremble of panic spread in once again, and needed physical contact. Now. He rolled to the floor and scooped up Jharmeen in his arms holding her close.

“Get us out of here, dammit dammit DAMMIT!”

[ 08-16-2005 08:56 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Panthar Dantares ]

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"You-!" We directed towards the sith. "You came here of your own foot and no other method, tell us how to escape from this place with haste!"

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Or perhaps she had been aware of its existence all along.

Dark to defeat the Dark...

... true potential...

Her growing feelings were not those of the despair Jharmeen Jhin'Dar Qu'taro felt. They were, instead, something selfsustaining, fueled by anger and hatred.

He would do such a thing to his own Chosen Daughter? To her friend? Her own chosen sister?!?

Even as these dark thoughts sprang in Shayla's mind, she stretched out, reaching to her chosen sister through the Force and connecting with her...

...Shayla's dark thoughts spilling in to mix with Jharmeen's despair, strangely enough bringing another entirely dark emotion to that which was causing Jharmeen so much grief.

"They would seek to destroy us and all we have fought for, Shayla thought, not knowing if her words were heard but knowing the feelings would be felt just the same. Do not let either of them succeed, they do not deserve the satisfaction. Instead, they deserve nothing short of death.

We shall avenge these wrongs, my Sister...

We shall...

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

...until he recalled what Galen had said about this place back when they were on Kori'san.

Oh damn. This was not good.

Erik grabbed Shayla, who was deeply intuned upon Jharmeen, and shook her by the shoulders.

"Shayla...Shayla!!!" We have got to get out of here!!!"

His wife frowned, not seeming to comprehend, almost totally enthralled. She didn't move an inch.

Erik frowned back at her, and muttered a "Sorry sweetheart, but we're taking off."

Then he turned to the others, who were mostly out of sorts...

...and caught Matt Stanza's alert green eyes. Likewise, he looked at the Onidorei...

...and then spoke up. "Look, this place is amplifying everyone's dark emotions," Erik spoke up for all to hear, "We've got to get out of here, fast...

...and I'm willing to help drag everyone out the door if that is what it takes..."

He paused, whirling to face Aeylmaar, who was still on his knees, but now looking up. "...but it would help if I knew where the door was," Erik finished, looking Aeylmaar sternly in the eye. "Think of what is happening here, of all this despair and strange action, please. Think of how you've seen us all before...

...and of the state of mind you were in when you arrived here yourself. We need you to get out of here faster, and I know you somewhere down deep know the powers of this temple and believe not all is lost, or else you would not have come here to begin with. So please, if you can't get us out of here yourself, point me in the direction of the door..."

[ 08-16-2005 10:21 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Erik Kartan ]

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The young Heir Apparent looked up at Erik, tears standing in his eyes. He sniffled, rubbed a clawed finger beneath his nose, then released a fresh flow of tears down the planes of his face as he blinked.

It seemed as if a pair of hands gripped him then, tightly, as if awash with some sort of urgency. He shook his horned head against the feeling, blinking again, striving to bring meaning to the strange monosyllabe that had just been thrust into his ears.

"Door?" he repeated, a look of almost wonder coming into his eyes.

A weird sensation came over him then. It was as if those incorporeal hands were shaking him, trying to bring him to his senses. Not quite succeeding, they did what best they could then do: they drew him upward to stand, albeit somewhat shakily, on his feet.

Glowing volcanic eyes perused him sternly. Something shook him again... harder.

"Door," he said a third time, but this time the tone of his voice was less mournful, more assured. He cast a quick look about himself, trying to get his bearings.

"I-- I have been here long... it is this way, I believe..."

He quieted then and simply pointed down a particularly dismal corridor.

[ 08-16-2005 10:21 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Aeylmaar ]

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Wait, door? Someone said there is a door? Where? Where? WHERE?

Door, yes, there, someone said it again. BUT WHERE?!

Panthar glanced upwards, again hearing the magical word. This time a hand pointed in a direction, and the combination of that and the wonderful word that hinted at safety brought him to his feet before his mind had a chance to react.

With Jharmeen in his arms, he sprang forward and padded down the dark hallway. His Sith vision aided his sight, but it did not matter. The hallway was short, and ended in an old wooden door. He turned backwards and crashed into it, sending splinters into his back. He moved forward and plunged backards again, this time bursting the latch that held the door shut. He tumbled backwards, outside the temple and into a large snow bank. He sank three feet into the snow, on his back, with Jharmeen lying on top.

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

With that we did our best to beat a hasty retreat, though found that as we willed our legs to run they merely walked.

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

Graysith spluttered against the force of impact, the fall exacerbated by shards of icy snow which flew into her face and up her nose. She sneezed, then glared, instantly alert.

"Mr. Dantares!" she burst out with, utterly shocked, not yet fully aware of where they were or what had just happened to them. All she knew was that she was laying on top of him, his face entirely too close to hers.

It was suddenly much closer as she put out a hand to rise up, only to have it slide out from under her, sending her crashing flat against Panthar's supine form.

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

Cold?

Jharmeen on top of him?

“What the--” he started, trying to rise but instead sinking further into the snow. He wiggled and dug his heels into the snow, searching for purchase.

“Snow!” he exclaimed. He held onto Jharmeen the best he could and rose to a sitting position. The temple stood before them, rising sinisterly from the rocks. They were sitting in a snow drift caused by the winds that whistled through the mountains by which they were surrounded. Peaks rose around them, and the temple itself seemed to be situated in a valley of sorts, albeit one sitting at extremely high elevation and formed by a convergence of rising peaks.

Panthar breathed hard, his lungs not quite filling with enough air.

“Gray-- Jharmeen. What happened? Where is everyone? Are you all right?”

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

She stared up at him, frowning.

"I can't think clearly, for some reason; we were looking for-- Aeylmaar, and we went into the Temple of the War God--"

A horrified expression shot over her face, chasing away every last vestige of puzzlement and confusion.

"The Temple of S'slan is the temple where warriors pay homage to their god of war; it is a dark place, and one into which only the most highly trained of the warriors dare to enter. Oh, how could I have forgotten--"

She trailed a moment, seething at herself for the glaring oversight. However, considering the pair of them were standing in snow nearly knee deep -- well, knee deep to her, mid-calf on Panthar -- high in the alpine wilderness, wasting what little breath there was to be gained in self-reproval was one of the farthest things from their best interests.

She let out a sigh, then spoke up again.

"The Temple is a very dangerous place; we must get the others out of there, now.

"Quickly, Mr. Dantares; have you the strength to withstand the terrors within if I allow you direct entry to their position, there to help the others leave?"

Without waiting for any sort of reply she simply shot her hand off to one side, the fingers once more peculiarly positioned, and tweaked the fabric of space and time. A Portal ripped into the spaces between molecules, opening a door between themselves and the last place they had visited.

Holding her hand thus, she turned back to Panthar and nodded.

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

He shook his head and cleared his thoughts, completing the entrance into the hallway. He found the group in disarray, each member seeming to be lost in their own thoughts. Well, almost everyone.

“Hey, grab people and get them through the portal, now!” he called over to Erik, who seemed to be coherent. He then grabbed for the nearest person, who happened to be Aeylmaar, and shoved hard until he tumbled through the portal and into the same snow bank. Panthar then turned back to grab the next person.

Actually two, for Galen and Terrin were both fairly small compared to the Sith body Panthar occupied. He grabbed one in each arm and dragged them through, each flailing about and connecting with some serious punches into his midsection.

Panthar briefly wondered what a bruise would look like on a Sith, then dropped both Galen and Terrin into the snow, not gently.

“I need to wait a minute before going back in,” he announced to nobody in particular.

[ 08-17-2005 08:50 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Panthar Dantares ]

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...well, somewhere. She frowned, her eyes not entirely focused, and began to struggle the slightest...

...when the blinding sun and a chill in the air made her freeze in his arms. She wasn't quite sure where they were and how they had come to be there...

...and her head was feeling fuzzy. She frowned deeper, shaking her head, blinking as if to lift the fog from her vision. Slowly, her husband's concerned face swam into focus. Still befuddled, Shayla stretched out with her Force senses, and was impacted with the feeling of several familar Force-essences...

...and overwhelming darkness. The fog immediately lifted, and she reached up to rub her eyes as if waking from a bad dream.

"What has happened?" she queried, first to her husband then moving her head to include both Jharmeen and Panthar into her question, "And where is everyone else?"

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

I shuddered as overwhelming fury suddenly sat back meek as a kitten, giving way to a fresh rush of confusion. Casting a bleary eye about, what should I behold but--

"Snow?" I asked, sounding like the universe's biggest idiot. I shook my head, feeling clarity finally come washing over me, just in time to hear Shayla calling out from somewhere nearby.

"I--" Another quick glance around. "That is, Terrin and I are over here, I don't know about anyone else--

"Would someone care to enlighten me as to what in Hell's Seven Circles is going on around here?"

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

Same novel, different chapter, he thought, eyeing his buddy, who was singing something to himself.

Oh, this was going to be rich...

"Com'n, Jasyn," Matt started, taking the other man by the arm.

Jasyn swung back at him, scowling. "No kriffing way!" he growled. "I'm in for adventure!"

Matt frowned, knowing that, despite Jasyn's attitude, the threat was serious...

...and knowing that this was going to take some creative manuevering. "Hey, look, everyone else has already headed that way," he stated, pointing towards the portal. "Your adventure is going to be cut short if we just stand around here."

His look black, Jasyn folded his arms. "More of the stinkin' Sifffth?"

Then it dawned on Matt. "Well, we already are in a Sith temple..."

If this didn't work, he was going to have to start dragging Jasyn, which he didn't look forward to...

"Awww hell!" Jasyn spat. "They're trying to bewitch us even now!!!" And without any further ado than that, Jasyn began to move...

...and stomped right out of the portal and fell, very ungracefully and off balance, into the snow.

Matt followed him out, keeping a steady eye on him...yet remaining upright as he stepped into the snow himself.

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

...and the next a chill cold enough to freeze Tatooine ran all over him. He frowned, confused, and blinked to clear what he was now comprehending as a strange white fog over his eyes...

...and then realized that there was something cold and white surrounding him.

He got to his feet as best as he could, glad that he was tall as he finally registered that they were all standing in snow.

Allright, when the hell did this happen?!? And as for this damn Sith burial robe it was...

...not...

...designed...

...for...

...COLD!

Terrin shivered...and looked about in time to see Jasyn fall into the snow...

...as well as enough to find Galen's red hair contrasting against it. He reached out to lend her a hand and get her to her feet...

...which were buried in snow, along with a good deal of the rest of her.

"Allright," he then said aloud. "I reiterate what Galen just said...

...what the kriffing hell is going on here?"

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

Last to come toddling out the door was the jerkily moving Oni, who was shouting out something before a servo appeared to freeze up on him, sending him tumbling into cold, white snow.

Graysith frowned.

"This shall not do," she said as she cast a quick look about. Then she found what she was looking for: nearby was a strange mound of snow. Pointing a finger at it she let a small blast of All strength energize the molecules of air surrounding that mound, until it heated enough to melt the snow, revealing a large boulder that had been hidden beneath it. Smiling now, she strengthened the blast, now energizing the molecules of the stone itself, until it began to glow a soft burgundy and started reradiating heat away from itself.

"There," she said as she floundered through the snow, each step becoming easier bit by bit the closer she got, the snow thinning beneath her feet, until by the time she was a couple meters from the boulder she was standing on solid, if rocky, ground. She waited until the others grouped around, then spoke up.

"This place is safe enough from prying eyes and ears, so I think it is here we should make our final plans.

"I have brought us to Aeylmaar, my friends. What shall we do next, and how best should we proceed?"

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

"As for a course of action? We leave this to you."

[ 08-18-2005 12:26 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Onidorei ]

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"Apparently I was mistaken in the reasoning you presented earlier to us," she said, giving him a bit of a cold look.

"Your analysis of our experience inside the Temple of S'slan is not only logical, but correct. Your opinions and suggestions concerning future matters would be much appreciated; indeed, this is why I decided to go with the group decision and release you. The greater number of minds available to address a problem, the better, and you house those of eighty highly intelligent beings.

"I am somewhat disappointed in the comment you just made."

With that she turned her back on the device, ignoring it now while she waited for the others to speak. More and more her thoughts regarding this strange machine were turning to simple expediency--

What does one do with unnecessary baggage, after all?

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

"Pardon us for not being as helpful as we could be. We are still not as knowledgeable as we would like to be, but we are sure we will learn in time. If you wish to know what we think of as a course of action, we would recommend pushing on with your origonal goal and task, it is the only way such a quest as we know it can be delt with."

[ 08-18-2005 11:59 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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"There is much danger ahead of us; the adversaries we have are of a dimension beyond this, with powers greater than those of our group combined!

"We need -- I need every available asset and can brook no flotsam."

She strode over to the gawky machine and stopped before it.

"There are many minds in your housing, highly intelligent and analytical ones. Minds of scientists, of those who dare to think outside the box, to reach for the new, and to find ways of making it work.

"I expect those minds to assist and offer not merely affirmation to an idea but to possibly naysay it, and offer another line of reasoning.

"I need assistance, not the mere parroting of what I say; if you cannot help us in this manner, then you are free to go about your business.

"This is not a field trip; I cannot afford to waste time at this point with mere tag-alongs, as cruel as that sounds to say it. Everyone in this party must pull his or her weight, and none can stand alone.

"We don't dare."

She quieted then, the Glyph lessening its eerie fires as the image of Phalomir floated up before her. She shivered, aching that even this little bit of time was being wasted in so foolish a manner, when every second counted in getting to him.

[ 08-19-2005 12:14 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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"But perhaps others of our party have thoughts as to what we should do?"

[ 08-19-2005 12:27 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Onidorei ]

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He quickly realized that there was some sort of dark magick at work in this temple, one that was fast tearing this group to pieces.

He had been able to calm his frustration back down to acceptable levels, and, not being able to reach the Lady Graysith, he was left with little to do but watch as Panthar struggled outside with Graysith, and they quickly retrieved the others.

After a time, as Graysith and the Onidorei creature argued somewhat, Ragorian also felt a need to speak, and reached out to Graysith.

"If I may, milady, inject a few thoughts into this discussion?"

"It seems that we may not be able to trust Lord Aelvedaar now, from what I have heard. As such, continuing on to visit him may not be a very good idea unless we either know we can escape if he turns on us and have something very great to gain from visiting him."

"Now, as you said, we require a great amount of power to combat this Master and rescue Phalomir. At first, your plan was to convince Lord Aelvedaar to fight alongside us, correct? It seems that may no longer be an option."

"As such, it would seem, as the Onidorei said, that our focus should be on recovering the Finger of R'lous. With it in your grasp, I assume we would have enough might to take on the Master."

Ragorian paused, searched his memory, then continued.
"I believe I know who stole the Finger, milady, and I also believe I know where it is, though I cannot be certain..."

Ragorian fell silent, again searching into his memory, deeper this time, searching to affirm his theory. after a time, he spoke again.
"However, milady, if I am right, then the Finger may well be beyond our grasp. Even if it is not, recovering it could be a very dangerous proposition..."

Falling silent, Ragorian awaited Lady Graysith's reply, and also began working on planning some sort of course they could take. As Graysith had said, every member of this group needed to pull their weight, and Ragorian planned to pull his own and then some.

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