(((OOC: Rykounagin and ShaRhylla move into The Saving of a Soul, in this forum, thankyou.)))

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From somewhere deep within her spirit, that which is Jharmeen Jhin'Dar Q'utaro shies back in horror, as that which is known as the Beast rears upright in victory. It's flat, pewter eyes flash into blood red, and it howls its glee as it spews forth a particularly tarry mass from its maw.

Lying on the bier where she had been placed, the Chosen Daughter of the Sith twitched, moaned...

...and faded into an oblivion so deep it would take something momentous to find her. Then with a suddenness that took the hovering Aelomir quite by surprise, she sat upright, her violet eyes open and searching, the Glyph shining upon her forehead.

"Where am I?" she queried softly, painfully, and oh so very skillfully.

[ 05-26-2006 08:26 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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Clinging to Terrin like the line to Life and sanity that he was, I took a look about myself. Nothing much had changed from the last time I had been in this foul and deathly place: it was still black, it still echoed with the distant gibbers of nameless things which inhabited it, and the ground beneath my feet still felt like...

Well, what exactly it felt like I shied away from like a nervous ikopi. Shaking off a shudder I looked ahead, unaware that Terrin's fingers were turning white in my grasp.

"There's Shayla and Darra and Lord Aelvedaar," I pointed out, whispering without really being conscious of it.

"Let's go."

I took a step forward, then stopped in my tracks. For Darra had shifted her stance, revealing to my line of sight a vision that was almost flabbergasting it was so unexpected:

Rubble. Tons and tons of rubble. So much rubble that to tell Khaandon's truth about it, I was surprised I hadn't noticed it right away.

But that's what terror can do to a person, I guess...

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"Another day, another bad feeling," he then quipped, albeit rather darkly. And then he followed Matt into the portal...

...and found himself stepping into something that looked worse than his room as a child.

Which was saying quite alot. His jaw hit the non-ground of the Darker Realms, and he found it hard to pick up. But as per his usual, Jasyn managed.

"Kriffing hell, it looks like a sandstorm hit. We'd better find who we are looking for and get the bloody hell out of here, cause I don't wanna be around when whatever it was hits again."

[ 05-26-2006 11:18 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Jasyn Lancaster ]

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Mentally preparing himself for the utter darkeness he knew he was about to be surrounded with, Shawn stepped into the portal...

...and stepped once more into a realm that probably no other Jedi knew existed. As he did so, he arrived in time to hear Jasyn Lancaster's comments.

"Indeed," he replied with deceptive Jedi calm. "If this is the handiwork of the Finger, as has been implicated, I'd hate to know what the device might do to anything else..."

Jedi or not, a hint of darkness was easily readable in this observation.

[ 05-26-2006 11:47 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Shawn Petrolu ]

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Thoran stopped as he walked through the portal, staring at the devastation in disbelief. He stood motionless, gaping, until Panthar stepped through and walked into him.

Thoran looked at Panthar, disbelief in his eyes.

“The Tower,” he forced. “It’s gone. Destroyed…” His eyes widened, and he turned back to the rubble.

“Oh no, no no no…” he began running. “We have to see if she’s here!” he called as he passed the others. He moved into the rubble, searching frantically.

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Shayla's greeny-blue eyes snapped open in shock. "Something is not right," she whispered, uncertain as to the orgins of the darkness which had slammed into her.

[ 05-27-2006 10:18 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Shayla Stargazer Petrolu ]

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Gently, so as not to alarm whoever it was that had brushed up against her being, she pushed against the tendril, guiding not so much as rejecting it until it was out of her body altogether. A quick inner perusal affirmed she was clear of the oddity; she was not naive enough to believe it was a passing thing.

Her inward smile was as black as the oiliness now filling her as, the effort occuring with studious calm, she erected a mental and emotional barrier, skillfully weaving it with thoughts and feelings she found lurking within this neuron or that, until she was assured that if any further tendrils should come questing they would find nothing but what they were expecting to find:

Jharmeen Jhinn'Dar Q'utaro, the Chosen Daughter of the Sith.

Now she raised a soft and tremulous voice to Aelomir.

"Wha- why am I here? Have you taken me to this place? Please, let me go..."

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"Trouble is with the darkness this place exudes how could we define if anything else is out of place? We need to get out of here if we are going to determine anything, I'm afraid. Can you sense Jharmeen here at all, Shayla?"

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And with nothing further than that, Shayla motioned for the others to follow and took the first steps behind Thoran to begin helping him search, something deep in her heart telling her that Jharmeen's spirit was still hale and whole...

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"This is too easy," he stated aloud. "Not that I don't believe the vision, but please recall we were plotting how to kill this same Master about 5 standard minutes ago. While Jharmeen could very well be out there with him, as he stated, the Master could be using this as a rather convenient trap. We should be more cautious."

Erik paused at this, turning to Aelveedaar before he stepped out to follow behind his wife. "Is there anything we can do to brace ourselves, should the Master be using our quest to save Jharmeen to his advantage? He's already nearly gotten his claws into some of us once..."

...Shayla included...

"...and I'd like to take any steps possible towards preventing him from doing so again."

[ 05-27-2006 01:42 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Erik Kartan ]

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"Of course it's too easy!" I burst out, exasperation worming up through the terror that still tried to freeze me in my tracks.

"And for a very good reason; look!"

I waved at the expansive rubble we had now come upon, pausing at the fringes to decide what in Hell's Seven Circles we would do next.

"I mean, isn't it obvious that the Thing is dead? Destroyed? Down for the count, deep-sixed, shelved, lost to limbo--"

I bit off the remaining string of allegories, collected myself, shoved down the niggle of utter fright that used that moment to try to poke its nasty lil ol head out, and went on.

"Look, I remember what Phal told me about this place. This is an evil thing, this Tower; it isn't just a place, it's a thing. And I'd say it's pretty much toast now, wouldn't you?

"Besides, if there was any leftover in my sister, wouldn't you be sensing it, Shayla? Wouldn't someone be noticing something? We sure managed to wiggle it out of Panthar; can't see why this would be any different."

I ground to a halt and moved forward, now beginning to pick my way amidst the foul ruins.

"C'mon, Jharmeen has to be in here somewhere, right? Panthar? Lord Aelvedaar? I mean, wouldn't this be the logical place that Phal's dear ol' daddy would have taken her?

"I'm sure glad she's a spirit, or she would've gotten crunched, that's as sure as there's Treasure on Roon!"

Working my mouth a little wryly at the incongruity of those final words, I continued to pick my way along, forcing myself to pick up bits and pieces of something that wasn't stone, something which moved uncomfortably beneath my fingers, as I put away the last of my terror and began searching for my sister.

[ 05-27-2006 02:23 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Galen ]

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"Now is not the time for further, and of greater concern, time-consuming bickering," I state as with those words I send out a seeker tendril of my own. Indeed, the blasphemous Tower had been -- is yet immense; difficult it is to find that which I seek. But what I do manage to unravel is a particular emptiness.

Sensing only the normal abnormality of this dreary place, I now turn my focus upon Shayla, and with seeming ease reach out with my talents to lift a partial wall from where it lies in ruins. With some effort I attempt to keep the tonnage I now bear from shaping my features; it would serve no purpose other than to create yet more worry should the others discover that in this place of Death and Deathlessness, my own All strengths in many ways are somewhat paled.

It is because I yet live--

"Quickly, Adept!" I bark a sharp command.

"Put your link with your Teacher to good use, and find her quickly. For I would not waste my strength moving every last bit of rubble from before us."

[ 05-27-2006 03:25 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Aelvedaar ]

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"That way, where the rubble is the most dense, towards what was probably once the center of the Tower," she then stated, moving once again, her senses still open and searching.

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All the while, there comes about us a sweeping light, on and off, on and off, as the watching eye of this place thrashes in its throes of death.

[ 05-30-2006 08:02 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Aelvedaar ]

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“You are awake,” he said. “That is… fortunate.”

Even though the protective powers of the tower were gone from about her, there was still enough of his own powers still active to keep her suspended. But he no longer sensed it, and in fact its absence was very noticeable. Had he really lost that much energy? Something seemed not quite right, but he was too weak to concern himself greatly with it.

“I brought you here to keep you safe from dark powers that would do you harm,” he said. “To keep you safe from him. But he had something, he had a device of some sort, possibly – but no, it couldn’t have been…”

Yes, it must have been…

“But that it is not important. The Tower is dead, and I am free from its dark grasp. And you… you must be returned to your life.”

He looked back into the distance. He felt the prickling of a familiar sense, as if something were touching him lightly from afar. He smiled slightly, then tried to send out his own energies back along that line. He was too weak to establish a link, but he hoped he at least sent along a message of where they were, and of his good intentions.

He closed his eyes. “Believe me,” he said. “You have a much better life waiting for you than being forever trapped as a spirit in this realm.”

What was it he was sensing?

And the sense, along with that of Jharmeen's essence, was getting closer. They were making progress.

Although this thought should have been a silver lining in the cloud of darkness about her, Shayla couldn't help but frown at an accompanying thought. For while the darkness of the Tower had been destroyed, something yet remained. Her frown deepened as she continued to work.

"With his destruction of the Tower and seperation from the Master," Shayla observed, "Roan must have other connections to the living realm in place," she stated in seeming randomness. "Where is he...?" she then said quietly, darkly.

The thought of him prompted her into even more action, and she focused every last bit of energy she had on getting to those whom they sought within the remenants of the Tower, every movement of rubble bringing them closer and closer...

[ 06-02-2006 11:58 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Shayla Stargazer Petrolu ]

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“Over here!” he called out, seeing a head bobbing behind a large black slab. He rushed forward as best he could, finally resting on his knees next to the Master and Graysith in the clearing the Master had created.

“You...” he started, surprised to see the Master in his natural state. “You survived. I’m, um… I’m glad?”

He chewed on his lower lip, then finally said “What happened here?”

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“Roan,” he said. “He used a device, something to enhance the Finger of R’lous. It destroyed the spirit of the tower. It’s gone, the evil and its embodiment in the tower.”

Or released it… but for now that is not our concern.

“Thoran,” the Master continued. “Thoran, the darkness, the influence of the tower, it is gone from me as well. I – I must get back to my son. We must take her back to him, and back to her flesh.”

It is the only way to save her.

Thoran helped the Master stand, and by the time the others arrived he was balancing on his own. The Master stared sadly at Aelvedaar, not knowing what to say. Finally he turned to Shayla and smiled.

“You did it,” he said. “You remembered me.”

He saw the doubt in everyone’s eyes and he closed his own for a moment.

“I will explain everything, I promise you. But at this time we are grave danger the longer we stay here. Thoran, you must help, the only way we can transport a spirit out of this realm is by –“

Thoran held his hand up to stop the Master.

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“My dear, this may all seem strange to you, but Thoran has the ability to place your spirit temporarily into your adept’s mind. It shall be a very short period of time, but it is the only way for us to transport you from this horrid place and restore you.”

He nodded to Thoran, who lowered his head and placed his hand on Shayla’s shoulder.

“Be ready,” the Master whispered.

...but then, she was stronger than that. Something within her born of love and determination took the upper hand and lent her strength. She stretched to the Force for her strength as well, and closed her eyes a moment, still supported by someone.

The strength was within her. "I...I have her," she whispered, totally unaware of any possibility there was anything lurking within other than Jharmeen Jhin'Dar Qu'taro.

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“Then let’s get out of here, please,” he said. “The evil or whatever may be gone, but this place has plenty of darkness on its own, and whose to say there isn’t some other kind of evil lurking about? I still have the willies.”

He glanced at the Master, then turned to Aelvedaar.

“And maybe we should not go to her body just yet, but jump somewhere else first?”

[ 06-04-2006 01:53 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Thoran ]

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"Indeed," I state grimly, reaching out with no further ado and wresting from the fabric from which all is designed a Portal back into the realms of light and life and normalcy.

"I shall send you to a more unobtrusive destination, one removed from the place where the body of my Chosen One lies. I shall go thence, alone, and rendezvous with her material body at the place I send you, where it might be reunited safely."

I pause a moment, turning to the Adept, in whose essence dwells the spirit of Jharmeen Jhin'Dar Q'utaro.

"Take great care of this one in the meanwhile," I state to the others.

"For I too believe there is more afoot than the soul of that foul blasphemy of a Tower, a soul now thankfully destroyed."

I stop at this, not mentioning the fact that there is only one thing which to my knowledge has the power to destroy a soul. That it has somehow been applied to a use far beyond its normal intent, that of killing the soul of those called Jedi, is worrisome to me indeed.

A myriad possibilities as to what my dear brother Roan plans to do with this Nar Kelba raises ugly speculations in my mind; I force the thoughts away, knowing that once we depart from this realm he will be hard put to reach us.

Although the feat is not an impossible one.

"Go now," I state, waving the others into the Rift, through which billowing sands and mewling dewbacks and the soft glow of twin suns setting reflect a modicum of Life upon this bleak and deathly realm. They speak no more, but step through the Portal, which I then let close with a final schllpt.

I take a final glance about. I reach out, sensing...

The Tower is indeed dead, the hideous soul of that which inhabited it gone. But there was yet a portion held in stasis back on Dagobah, a little matter I must attend to when retrieving the body of Graysith.

I nod in satisfaction, send one more wary glance about. Then I clamber back through the immense rubble, move well away from the remnants of the Tower of Dark, open a Portal through the dimensions...

...and step through, letting it close immediately in my wake.

((OOC: Follow Lord Aelvedaar back to The Web of Life in the "CSWU" forums, thank you. The others return to Tattooine, the thread to be announced later, thank you.))

[ 06-04-2006 02:16 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Aelvedaar ]

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