Which it really could be... but don't go there, pal--

"Well-ll," I said slowly. "At first she was kinda cool, all logical and whatnot, positing the question of why a tuskadero would attack a Dark Lord when they're supposed to be their bodyguards or something. She actually got angry with your dad and the other weird Sith dude. She got really, really mad when he changed his mind and opened the path, and accused him of trying to lead us somewhere else but not to you. Said she, ummm-- wasn't going to be lead as a lamb to the slaughter, and then whammied them."

I paused a moment, meeting the Sith Lord's verdant eyes with my own green pair.

"Funny... but that path did take me to you, or at least to where you had ended up before-- well," I fumbled, trying to piece things together.

"Your trail ended at the hut, and Fido found me and brought me from where that stone statue was, to here.

"Anyway, Thea went a little crazy, calling her a traitor and evil and all that, I think she would have attacked her; I tried to calm her down, but--"

Again I paused, now closing my eyes so as to better resolve the shaky shadows swimming about in my head into more coherent memories.

"She told us your father constantly lies, that he was going to take us back to the Darker Realms to kill us, that he had taken you somewhere and tortured and tried to kill you. All through this she was adamant that you were alive, although by this time I didn't know what to believe. There was once when I thought I saw.. something, deep in her eyes, when I was confronting her, reminding her of what she did back in the sick ward on your planet.."

I stopped abruptly, a frisson racing up and down my spine.

"Anyway, that's why I decided to set out on the path your dad had opened, to see if I could find you myself. Only then could I be certain who was telling the truth, and who was lying."

A final peep of memory squawked for attention: an image of Shayla, tears welling in her eyes, telling me that her husband was trapped on Dagobah, that Phalomir wasn't the only one who had been betrayed. After a few minutes of waffling as to it's importance, I tossed it out to the Sith Lord as well, then fell into a thoughtful silence, trying to remember if there was anything I had missed telling him.

"Oh yeah... she had us all by our heartstrings-- all with the sole exception of Thea. She didn't believe her for a minute; it wasn't long afterward that she suddenly passed out, and that's when I really decided to act on my instincts and go find you."

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

“I do not know what to believe of her,” he said. “We were clearly betrayed by Jharmeen, or rather, Graysith, when we were sent here instead of Dagobah. Whether Shayla knew of this deception or not, I cannot say, but I must think she did. If she were truly betrayed along with the rest of us, however, she may blame my father somehow…”

“My father was once a part of the Darker Realms, a prisoner to his own darkness and blind devotion to a cause that he thought was right. But he was misled, and believed that the way to save the Sith from impending doom was to bring about the birth of a super-being. He wanted to fuse the darkness that gave power to the Darker Realms into me, and in order to prepare my body for that, he tortured me and had his demons commit certain – atrocities. But that is over.”

Phalomir’s body language indicated that deep within him, just the opposite was true. He would bear the trauma of that time for the rest of his life.

“The Master was defeated, beaten by Jharmeen and Shayla, and the others. They rescued me, we fled, and then later something else drove the darkness from him. I do not know what did this, but it is indeed gone from him. If any wickedness lives within him, it is his own.”

Phalomir shot a look to Yaoksi, as another idea struck him.

“But that too is key, for if this darkness is the same, then whatever drove it from my father could drive it from Shayla and Jharmeen. By the gods, could the answer have been staring at me all along? Do you recall where she left my father?”

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

"Back in the little clearing we were all in when the tomato grabbed you and ran off," I answered.

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

Phalomir stopped as the sound of the tuk’ata’s claws clicking on the stone came to a halt. It stood still, staring down a long hallway at the light that spilled from an open door.

Phalomir looked at Yaoksi, who looked back in turn. Phalomir nodded and stepped closer to the animal, and put his hand on the tuk’ata’s back. The tuk’ata did not move, and Phalomir slid past. He walked slowly and quietly, hugging the wall, towards the door. Halfway there he paused and looked back at Yaoksi and tuk’ata. He then swallowed and continued on.

When he reached the door he paused, collected himself, then turned and stepped to fill the doorway. He tried to see inside, but as soon as he moved into the doorway the room went dark. While Phalomir stood, waiting for his eyes to adjust, the tuk’ata moved like lightning to stand beside him.

“Seven Hells!” exclaimed Phalomir. “What is happening?”

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

Only to discover that it wasn't dark in that strange room at all...

It was blue. A weird, deep, electric, ultrviolet kind of blue, the blue that just edges in upon one's visual limits, leaving one with the sensation that he is looking at something but just can't quite determine exactly what...

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, squinted... and thought I could make out a wavering image of--

"K'kihl?" I whispered to no one in particular, now seven leagues beyond shock or surprise.

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

The strange lightning in that room, however, was quite more than enough to gain his attention.

Everything was blue...

...and there were devices, everywhere.

Aaron's jaw nearly dropped to the floor with a resounding thud.

"Woah," he whispered instead, at first just scanning the new area they found themselves in...

...and then hearing something that for damned sure sounded like scratching, and footsteps.

More than one set of footsteps, at that.

He reached down and fingered his blaster. But then he heard something. A voice, and perhaps a familiar one.

K'khil?

Aaron took an involuntary step back, now seeing to shadowy figures in somewhere in the strange blue vicinity.

"Yaoksi, is that you?"

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

He turned around, beginning to speak, but drew himself up short with an agitated clack of his mandibles.

The bookcase, indeed, was firmly closed. And he had an all too clear direct line of sight to it.

Aaron and the kids were gone...

[ 05-03-2007 10:07 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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“Aaron?” said Phalomir. He blinked twice to clear his eyes.

The near-blue wavering lights began to diminish, and the normal lighting came back. Phalomir stepped forward into the room.

“Aaron, it IS you!” he exclaimed.

Phalomir stopped to think logically about what had just happened. Then the knowledge of the Clan, deposited into his mind when he completed the ritual of becoming Dark Lord, came forth with a theory. The Temple was known to have traps, devices that work on warm-blooded creatures to keep certain areas guarded and inaccessible. The lights in the room could perhaps have been caused by such a device, transporting the victims via an All-powered portal to here…

“Are you well? Where, um, were you just now?”

[ 05-03-2007 10:55 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Phalomir ]

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Wherever that happened to be.

Frustrated, he turned back to consider the room he found himself in. It stretched off into an unknown distance, it's walls hidden by murky shadows. The only light was provided by the sole glowstick that he carried. He held it down below his waist as he moved along, so as to not blind himself against the gloomy dark.

As he moved along the sensation of hulking devices pressed down upon him, devices which were hardly seen but instinctively felt. His antennae quivered this way and that, seeking answers to myriad questions, but the one of primary importance to him received no answer whatsoever:

What had happened to Aaron, Thea and Link...

Suddenly the light from his glowstick revealed something: another set of doors, richly carved with strange runes and sigils, inlaid with ancient woods patinaed with age. He approached the doors, reached out to touch them; they oiled silently open, revealing a corridor leading off to his left and right.

Shrugging, he picked a direction at random and continued walking, being extremely careful to not touch anything further as he moved quickly along.

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

He trailed then as he turned and looked behind him, only to find no bookcase there whatsoever. He turned back to the others, his eyes widening, opened his mouth to say something...

...then closed it again as with a start he realized something else, frowning more deeply. "I followed K'khil in here," he finally said, frowning, looking around. "Didn't you see him come in before me? Where is he?"

Suddenly Aaron had a very funny feeling. For as far as he could tell, K'khil wasn't anywhere in the room.

[ 05-04-2007 09:12 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Aaron Barnes ]

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“Let me help you with Thea,” he said. “If K’khil was with you, this helps explain things. Wherever you were, I believe you may have stumbled into an ancient trap of sorts. The Armorers devised many means of keeping unwanted visitors from entering places of importance.”

Phalomir stepped closer to Aaron and offered to take Thea.

“But if you did indeed walk into such a trap—or really more of a ward—then it would have been one infused with the All, since you obviously came here by means of a portal. If Yaoksi saw K’khil – which is why I assume you called that name, Yaoksi – then perhaps the portal was triggered but did not effect him, since he is not warm blooded.”

Phalomir stopped and thought for a moment.

“But if it were infused with the All, then that is most curious. The Armorers did not work with the All, it was not until the days of my – well, they did not do it. So it must have been placed by someone with the power… From the days of Tralanicus? Or perhaps the Master? Or Aelvedaar even?”

He looked back to Aaron, not realizing he had been staring at the wall beyond. Again he held up his arms to offer to take Thea.

“Where exactly were you? I mean, how did you come to be in the room you were in? I do not know of a greeny-gold thing that answers questions. And Yaoksi, are you certain you saw K'khil?”

[ 05-04-2007 11:34 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Phalomir ]

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

I turned back to Aaron, who still looked a touch on the befuddled side.

"Don't ask me, I'm clueless too, pal," I opened with, then went on.

"How are the others? What's been going on since I left to find Phal? Hey, you know those tomatoes? Well, seems like we might have a big 'un on our side, which is going to be helpful should push come to shove."

Against-- what, exactly, Yaoksi ol' pirate?

A brief flash of white captured my attention, pulling me away from darker speculations. it was Link, who was standing still as a statue in front of one made of carved stone.

"Hey kid," I called to her. "You all right?"

[ 05-06-2007 12:29 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Yaoksi Joao ]

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"What... oh um... I've been better... You know its amazing I've been all over the galaxy and never have I had the time to see things like this. I'm always on the move chasing the next job, now I find myself with the time to appreciate all art and architecture of this place and the only things I have to worry about are crazy lady, and those weird Tu..."

As I was turning around I saw it and I instantly cut off what I was about to say. Even though the others spoke of it in conversation it didn't process that what Yaoksi affectionately referred to as a 'tomato' had tried to kill me earlier.

A wave of fear washed over me and instinctively I tried to backpedal only to trip and land backward on the ground. The fur on my body stiffened and I grabbed desperately for anything to use as a weapon and found my vibro-blade which I held as more like a club then a blade.

"Stay back..." I screamed to it. "Keep away from me."

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

“Do not fear,” he said quickly. “This tuk’ata is my blood hunt brother, a guardian of this temple and loyal to me. He is not wild, as the ones you may have seen outside. He will not harm you, and will in fact protect you – and all of us – to his death. He is the one who took me from you, but he was doing it to get me away from Shayla. His name is – well, rather hard to pronounce, but a friend of mine, Panthar, called him ‘Diffy’. I do not think he would mind that.”

Phalomir stepped closer, holding out his hand. “Please, trust me.”

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

I shook my head, and quickly moved past the Sith Lord, raising a hand to him as a reminder that, strong though he might be, he was still holding my charge and loosely adoptive daughter by only one hand now. I approached the terrified Link, and let that raised hand now arc smoothly toward her in offering.

"It's ok, Link; I think we can trust him," I said with a nod backward.

"And as for dear ol Diffy, well... I think if he was truly dangerous we'd all be bug-splat by now, don't you think?"

I smiled, relieved to see that her demeanor seemed to be loosening a tiny bit; I drew in a great breath, for danged if I wasn't going to help her lay her final fears to rest.

"He just might have something there in the Shayla department, you know," I reminded her. "Remember, it wasn't until Thea was openly confronting her that she suddenly fell asleep-- if she's really just sleeping, that is."

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

...excepting K'khil, for whatever reason...

...we were being attacked by one of his wild relatives," here he paused, pointing back at the tuk'ata, "So we headed into some hut. K'khil bumped into some huge, weird-looking statue and accidentally opened a secret entryway to a staircase. We took those stairs down, kept following through some really rich looking doors, took another set of stairs down...

...and ended up in some room...

...with a frozen thing that looked like it held a pretty fabulous copy of yourself in some rather impressive robes. Beside it was another space for another block--

one that seemed to have been melted because all that was left was the water; no body. Anyway, we then ended up in a strange set of tunnels, stumbled upon some weird bubble device that carried us on to a particular stopping place where we ended up in another room full of gadgets, rich tapestries and rugs...

...and that greeny-golden thing that answers questions. We discovered we were in some big ediface, were in the process of working our way into it via a bookcase that K'khil had somehow surmised would take us out of that room, I guess...

...and then I ended up here. Or at least, it was something like that."

Aaron paused then, his frown deepening. "We need to find out what happened to K'khil, and soon. The tuk'ata that drove us into that hut sounded to have some awful, untimely death as judging by some sounds we all heard...

...and I think we were being followed by whomever or whatever killed it."

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

K'kihl, ol buddy--!

I quickly apologized to Link by taking her hand quickly in mine, giving it a little squeeze as I helped her to her feet, and then before she could get too embarrassed I let it drop and turned back to Phalomir.

"That doesn't sound good; look, I'm kinda worried about my buddy, K'kihl. You know, the walking cricket with a fondness for hydrospanners? I wouldn't think a critter like Diffy there would find him especially tasty, but who knows who or what caused all the ruckus Aaron heard behind them."

I paused a moment to shoot a concerned glance his way, and then went on.

"Do you think your tentacled buddy there could scent out K'kihl? Or is this place too big for him to hunt in that way?"

I cut myself short as a surprising thought struck me.

"What is this place, anyway?" I asked, now spreading my arms out to either side of me.

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

Phalomir sighed, moving Thea to a better positon, curled up like a doll across his broad chest.

“As Dark Lord, I was granted the knowledge of this Temple, and what it holds within. But the places and devices Aaron describes are not known to me. This is most troubling, for there seems to be a part of the Temple that was intended to be hidden even from the Dark Lord. Diffy brought me to the hut with the statue you spoke of, and I read the runes, but did not discover the hidden door. If my guess is correct, then that door opened into an underground compound of some type, concealed and powered by both Sith magick and the All. I still think you stumbled into a trap that sent you here to prevent you from entering further. K’kihl was not transported here, I believe, because he is probably not warm blooded.

“However, if you were being pursued, then it is imperative we find him. I honestly do not know where to begin to look for an entrance from here, if one even exists. However, if Link can overcome her fears, I believe the tuk’ata could carry us all back to the hut, where we could ascertain the situation. And I could look at this pair of blocks you spoke of, and this copy of me.”

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

"I'll... I'll..." I stuttered. "I'll try, just so we can find a way off this planet and away from that thing."

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

"Seems that this could go on for a while." I said, noting the apparent length of the tunnel. "Care to see how far it goes with your magical all powers, or is that too much?" I asked, wondering if he could pick out where they were.

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

But as the power surged through his fingers, it immediately fell flat and seemed to seep out of him. But it not stop there, the power continued to flow from him, as if falling into the open air and dispelling. He gasped, and concentrated on burying the power back inside of him.

After a moment he fell against the wall and sank to the floor, gasping for breath.

"Well this is bemusing.." I murmured, noticing that the junction was completely clear of tracks, dirt, or dust. "Seems someone doesn't want us following them." I chuckled.

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

"Ahh-- send Fido out on the hunt for him; won't that work? I mean, he sure seemed able to nose his way through the jungle out there, and then obviously managed to find you. Maybe he'll be able to find K'kihl, too."

As I spoke I sneaked a reassuring hand around behind me to waggle at Link's nose. Yeah, the gesture was something a father would more than likely do to a very young child, but I hoped it would help her bolster up her spirits. Perhaps if she could see the lightheartedness there, she'd realize that the animal probably wasn't going to eat her, or me, or any of our party for that matter.

There were, after all, bigger and nastier beasties out there we had to worry about, having a tomato bristling with fangs and claws and muscle had to be handy.

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

“If we are to help him, we need to find a way to him. The only way we know for certain is through the hut. Perhaps if we opened the door, though, Diffy could then track him.”

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

"Umm-- that's the only way you know how to get around in your own palace, or whatever it was you said we're in?" I asked, my faith in our resident Sith Lord cooling by degrees.

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