The Master pushed his way back through the portal, into the ship with Rykounagin, and closed the portal behind him. He immediately opened another, and stepped through it, beckoning for Rykounagin to follow.

Within the chamber he opened a small chest sitting on a table, and withdrew a small dark red orb. He then turned and waited.

"What the hell just happened?" I snarled, entering from the wreckage of the ship, coughing sharply feeling something twist inside me though I did not complain at the pain.

"Now where the hell are we?" I asked, looking about the chamber and at the table the Master stood before, and then more suspiciously at the orb in his hand as the pain shot through my center again.

I wasn't aware of it, but all the "bumping" a moment earlier had redamaged one of the already healed areas, which, though healed, was still a bit rough as most scar tissue was. "What the feth is that thing?"

[ 01-10-2007 03:04 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Rykounagin ]

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“You are standing deep within the Temple of Armorers, lad,” he beamed. “You should feel welcomed here, as my son is currently the Dark Lord of this abandoned ruin. I hear he plans on rebuilding it, though.”

The Master looked around the room, as if appraising it. “So I have laid claim to this building as my own, now. Rather homey, don’t you think? Oh, of course, it could use some new curtains and shelves, but one makes do.”

The Master returned his smile to Rykounagin and petted the crystal in his hand.

“This,” he purred, “is a device I helped to forge a long time ago. It allows me to keep tabs on certain friends, and I am suddenly most curious to know how some of them are doing these days.”

The Master waved his hand over the device. “Lord Phalomir,” he said. The crystal turned dark and milky, then cleared to show an image within of Phalomir standing next to a bed, his arm outstretched. Beside him, in the bed, was Thoran. The Master’s eyebrow rose.

“Interesting,” he mused. “But at least it still works! Lord Aelvedaar!”

The device cleared, then showed a vision of Aelvedaar sitting in what appeared to be a passenger area of a star ship. Delighted, the Master waved his hand over the device again to clear it.

“Do you see what it does, lad? And who it is able to find for me? It does have it’s limitations, after all. But let us perform one more call, shall we? I am most curious indeed to know the answer to this one.”

The Master waved his hand over the crystal once more.

“Lord Roan,” he said steadily.

The device went black in his hand, and remained that way for several seconds. Finally the milky clouds formed inside and then cleared, showing a very dark room, bare except for a decrepit form hanging from chains against a barren black wall. The body was limp, red skin chaffed and sore, the bases of horns protruding pathetically from its head. After a moment the body stirred, a shallowed head lifting as if to peer back through the device.

I looked at the Master. "What of ShaRhylla? Is she alright, or is that device only limited to those you pretend to care about?" I asked, narrowing my eyes, considering that he had asked about his son whom he had shot only a while ago.

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Once again a pair of bantha-sized Eyes materialized, blinking against the other-sky like a pair of silver-streaked, periwinkle suns.

A whirlwind of air presaged their sudden growth; soon they were as large as the Temple itself... then rapidly shrank to tiny motes which floated upon the air, dancing like touches of dust in the Koris'ian sunlight.

They wafted into the chamber where the Master held the assassin, and popped to their normal size once again.

"Foul!" came a booming whisper, but whether that was intended as a remark of their skills in playing the game they were wrapped up in or one concerning their personal hygiene, the Voice didn't elucidate.

The Eyes merely stared at the Orb sitting in the Master's hand, and in a twinkling of an eye had shriveled it into a blackened pea.

"This has gone on long enough, you know," the unlocalized Voice commented off-handedly, "so I think you can stay put here a bit and ponder this."

The great orbs darkened slightly."Reality shall continue... but you remain the same. Once there was a laughing girl, who sent a Raven to dancing upon a Mobius strip..."

Chuckling at that stupendous joke, the Eyes disappeared. The sky outside grew sunny and calm, a fresh breeze sprang up...

...which managed to wend its way into the Temple, to the chamber where the pair were held, effectively squelching the Portal back into the dimension of Man and spinning a wonderful tale that would prohibit such a doorway to be opened into it again.

Or at least until That Which Is deigned it time to open one back to where this one had come from, then to free the system back into space where it belonged.

"What the hell did you do?!" I cried out. "Furthermore, what the feth was that?!" I personally had no idea, but all I knew was that there were some answers wanted, and my anger at what was going on in the last ten or so minutes was increasing exponentially as the seconds ticked by.

I began to wonder if the magical bonds keeping me from killing people worked in other dimentions. If not, at least I'd have a cadaver to play with while we were stuck, since in life he wasn't doing much more for me anyhow.

"Answers, now!"

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The Master stood quietly for a moment, staring at the useless dried ball in his hand. He then closed his hand over it, crushing the ball into dust and letting it slip through his fingers.

“We have been discovered,” he said at length. “Putting it simply, there is an entity, an embodiment of All That Is, which usually keeps to itself as long as everyone plays by the rules. Apparently it did not like us making that particular discovery and now we have been penalized.”

The Master wiped the remaining dust from his hand and paced to the wall.

“But what puzzles me is why. Evidently this is part of its game…”

He turned to face Rykounagin, his face grim.

"I have an idea." I smiled. "You're the one who broke the rules, so..." I reached out the Lotus in my mind, but for some reason, it felt like trying to touch a painting behind glass, seeable and understandable but untouchable.

So magic from the material doesn't work here? Perfect. "...you're going to fix this problem before I lose my temper. Or, I'm going to be wearing a rather interesting looking coat by the time I get out of here. Understood?"

I glared at him. "In the time I've spent with your unpleasant company, you've prattled on and on about the apocalypse, unity, and special rules of which so far, you've only told me to keep me occupied. Well I'm not playing games, because games are for children. This is life, and I'm tired of being used as your pawn. Fix it, get us out, and don't push me any further. Because guess what?"

I smirked. "Apparently magic doesn't work here. So I can't stab you to death, but guess what that also means?"

I reached up and grasped one of his horns, pulling him down to my height. "There's nothing between you and me." I pushed him back. "Got me? Nothing!"

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“Except brute strength!” he shouted, flipping his head to the side and batting the boy’s body fiercely to the side. The power of the Sith sent Rykounagin flying across the floor to bounce softly into the wall. The Master’s hands glowed brightly as he raised them, holding them out as if on display.

“Do not assume magick has abandoned me, and do not raise yourself to the height of your ego,” he said. “I have come to you with an offer, I did not force you to go with me. Work with me and we both shall profit, work only for yourself and we both shall die alone. Why must you always be such a twit?”

I growled. "You've been lying to me, so stop with your damn games. If you really wanted everyone on your side, you'd stop sneaking around. If you weren't chalk full of feth, you'd be working with someone aside from an assassin right now. You said it yourself, you could be the shadow, so why don't we just split you open and find out? It's not like, according to everyone else, you've done the galaxy any good!"

I grinned now, my blood up, beginning to circle in the room, watching him move by default to counter. "It's people like you and me who put bad things into motion. You do it because you want to get things out of it. I do it, because that's my purpose. So why don't we just rid the galaxy of the lesser evil shall we?"

My eyes narrowed. "Because I'm yet to see a thing come out of this working relationship that I like!"

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“Nothing except your life,” he said. “You would like it better if I had left you to die?”

His instinct cried out to smash the boy and leave, but he held back.

“I would think you of all people would see the benefit of ‘skulking’. You make no sense to me, lad, are you an assassin or not? I know you are afraid to retrieve the Finger of R’lous, especially now that the truth has been revealed, but redirecting your fear to hating me is counterproductive. Redirect it elsewhere.”

He search for more to say, more to do. His instinct still cried out, rid yourself of this menace!, but he was not finished. Whether he liked it or not, he needed this boy alive.

“I have no wish to kill you lad,” he said, then paused. His instincts again cried out.

“All right,” he said, sighing. “I shall be honest with you lad, completely honest, if that is what you wish. I would wish nothing more than to kill you where you stand. But I will not, because the task at hand does not change. If we do not retrieve the Finger then all is lost. But you be honest with me, if you feel you cannot overcome your fear then tell me now and I shall find another.”

He smiled slightly.

“Once we escape from here.”

I knew what I already was beginning to form in my mind was risky, but somehow I knew it was worth it. I knew that if I didn't get to Phalomir soon and have him release me or at least have him command me, my hands would become more than tied. There were consequences to "avoiding" your master when he had power over you.

I just had to hope the master hadn't killed him with that blow, or I was stranded until someone found the magical link that he would have left behind and picked it up.

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Now fuming, instinct screamed for the worse. The Master instead switch strategies and waved his hand in another direction, this time a shimmering portal glowing into existence beside Rykounagin. Smiling fiercely, the Master threw his other hand before him, directing a force at Rykounagin that shoved him into the portal.

“Deal with it yourself!” he shouted, closing the portal that led to the only place he could open such a doorway, further out into the Elseness.

Let the creativity continue...))

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I glanced around, sighed, and began to walk in a random direction. None of them mattered anyway in an endless realm.

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I saw the growingly familiar spark of a portal, but this one was not far away... no this was only a few hundred feet at most!

I began to run towards it, hoping it would not shut upon me as had so many others when I neared. I slowed to a cautious gait as I came within fifty feet or so, and came to the very edge of the portal, looking to see what was beyond...

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Where is this? When is this?

I wondered, some deep curiosity causing me to extend a hand towards the portal, fingers piercing through. I could suddenly feel intense heat radiating from the world it was upon. Where ever this was, it was hot.

Suddenly, two figures came through the storm, wrestling over a strange snake-like weapon that writhed between them. One seemed human or some subform, the other a scarred alien wearing a curious carapace armor. They struggled for minutes until suddenly the weapon struck the human, and within moments he was still.

The Xenos got up and glanced around, and then looked right at me. It seemed surprised for only a moment, then began to charge the portal.

I stood, blinking for a long moment, before suddenly the portal swirled shut, the alien only a few paces away from the portal as it vanished from my sight, and I from its time.

"What hells this place reveals.." I murmured, turning away and beginning to stride through the mists of the elseness again.

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Shayla needed no more cue. She lead the way through the portal, ignoring that the others had quite a bit of materials to gather and carry through as she did so. As she stepped through the portal, she stretched out with her talents and sensed, and was almost immediately impacted with the truth of their location...

...but she didn't bat an eye regarding it. Instead she turned back towards the others standing on the other side of the portal, waiting for them to step through as well.

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I did not know where, but I needed not to. Whispering a scant word of caution into the air, I pooled magic around it and sent it off to its destination as I had before to ShaRhylla and others in the past. As I did so, I felt something oddly quirk in my stomach, as though something had twisted painfully.

I shrugged the pain off, and began to follow the trail the message was leaving in its wake of the magic I had sent. I'll find you, and why you're here.

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"This does not feel like Dagobah - there isn't enough life. What are you doing with us, traitor?"

She lowered her blade at Shayla facing off with her.

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...and deadly. Let us be on the move...

...and now."

Even as Shayla stated these final words, she drew the Force about herself, stretched out with it and sensed their location...

...and began considering just what to do, all the while remaining remarkably inscrutable.

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"If this is Dagobah, where is my Master? I don't feel him any closer than I did on Sullust - in fact he feels farther away. I don't trust you, traitor. I trusted you once and now everyone I cared for is dead, and I blame you. You use the gift of the Force for evil and I will not follow that. I will be a Jedi, and I know you tricked us - that is what you are. Master Petrolu is not here, none of the others will be either. I know my Master's signature."

Thea opened herself to the Force ready to fling anything in sight at Shayla should she make even one move towards her friends.

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But, and this was something that Thea's years just hadn't had the time to bring to her yet, it really didn't matter whether that trust was actually there or not. The important issue here was timing; and this was most certainly not the time nor the place to start confronting each other straight on. We did want to get out of here in one piece, after all.

"Thea, dear; are you certain?" I questioned as I came up quickly behind her and placed both hands on her shoulders.

"Do you think maybe there might be a teensy little chance of error in what you're thinking?"

I squeezed her shoulders, hard, trying to convey to her that considering our predicament we had every reason to believe that discretion was the better part of valor.

"Are your instincts with finding people through the Force always completely accurate? Are you certain this isn't Dagobah? I mean, yeah it's not quite as swampy as I thought, but we could have stepped out into a polar region, which wouldn't have as much water. We'd have to wait until night to watch how the stars move to determine that; come to think of it, did the Dark Lady let you in on any little secrets as to exactly where it is we've come to on this planet?"

I lifted my eyes and addressed Shayla, but before I let them stop on her slender form they tarried in the emerald green ones of the Sith Lord.

Behind me, K'kihl wasn't helping matters any with his occasional, worried clack of mandibles...

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At least not yet.

She was keenly aware, however, that there was wild life in the area, and that she didn't sense any intelligent life via the Force. But there was Something familiar about the place...

Her eyes, momentarily defocused, snapped alert once more. Shayla chose to do what she felt, and decided to work from there.

"I think we should go that way," she commented, pointing out in a direction in front of her and behind the others. "That is at least what my senses are telling me."

She paused. "Unless someone feels something otherwise?" she queried, her eyes resting for a moment in the eyes of each one present, falling for perhaps a moment more in those of Thea's before returning to regard the group as a whole.

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"Hon, I believe you. But this isn't the time; we have to tread very gently..."

I cut my eyes back up to Shayla, grinned over the top of Thea's and Link's heads.

"Lead on, MacDuff!" I said with a heartiness I in no way came close to feeling. Then as the blond began moving us out I slowed my steps, dragging on Thea bit by bit until she and Link and I were tagging along in the rear.

"Any other concerns you might want to fill me in on, Thea?" I breathed scarcely loud enough for her to hear. K'kohl, bless his cricketty lil ol heart, must have figured out what I was doing, for he chose that exact moment to clack and clatter his mandibles again, effectively masking that statement from the ears of anyone else but those to whom it was intended.

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