a temple moves into view like on wheels but non can be seen, A mutilated spirit stands on the stairs of the temple laughing scarilly.

"now i will get my body and you can't stop me...oh, and try not to disturb the natives..." as he finished he vanished and you can see the ghosts of people, living and dead but they don't make a move towards you because you are close to the temple.

on the steps off the temple sits four Veren's , each is a differant colour, one is gray and looks saddened, one is red nd seems to be tied up with a rage in his eyes, the third is blue. and is curled up into a ball, the last is his normal colour and stands with his back to you all...

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

She turned her gaze to Shayla, and blinked once.

"Well, this is certainly unexpected, is it not my Sister?" she queried, reaching out now to coddle M'wonBo'o's face tendril in her hand. Then she frowned as she tried to assess their situation and make some sense out of it.

"A strange use of an unknown Force, yet one not strong enough to overtake that which encompasses All." She now took a few steps through this place where Time had no meaning, but where physical matter somehow yet existed. Behind her lay the Temple, atop which the cyclone screeched, yet it seemed somehow ephemeral....

She suddenly gasped, her face growing just a shade pale as she suddenly whirled about. "Though we are protected from this by our unfailing abilities, we are not entirely unaffected." She pointed to the various shades of Veren, whose figures seemed to form a frozen tableau from some sort of Dalien hell.

"This is not real!" she suddenly whispered, beginning to draw back into herself, reaching for the loving warmth of her Chosen Sister's hand, her other removing itself from M'wonBo'o to fist at her side.

"But he believes it to be."

The tuk'ata let out an uneasy whine as Graysith made a motion to open the door through the All once again, to release them from the strange variety of Elseness in which they now stood... but suddenly stopped. The merest, tiniest speck of...something came creeping into her mind, something which resolved into two words.

"No... help."

She paused, frowning, debating as to the actual meaning behind those two little words. She couldn't help the little tremble which escaped her at the strangeness of it all, as she turned to her Adept to hear what suggestions she might have to offer.

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

Star Wars: Dark Apprentice: Episode I

Anakin trains under the look of Obi, meanwhile a Apprentice of the Darkness has faded away into the depths of light, heading for the one who killed Maul. What shall happen?

"You cannot escape! only if he faces his fear and accepts that which is, is, will he close his mind and you shall all be free, but that isn't as easy as it seems, you are in a place where the force or the all does NOT exist, you are his, what he feels you feel, what he thinks you become a part of,
his mind has no walls and no roof or floor, you cannot break out by force, oh, and if you try and kill his avatars you will all die along with him."

as the voice rang out the normal Veren slowlyy turned and looked into the emptyness but from the All Graysith could see that he was looking right into her eyes, a gaze filled with unsubmountable pain, sickening amounts of fear and hate, a gaze that would break even the strongest of wills.

"help...please..." the whisper came only to Graysith and was ghostly like he was dead while in his own mind...

[ 05-15-2002 03:08 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Veren Mechanica ]

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

The words exploded from the lips of Graysith, echoing about the strangeness in which they found themselves. "It is you who do not understand, Dark One! What is mind but the coexistence of flesh and energy? There is nothing that can exist without the All... nothing! It is the glue which holds time to space; it is the warp and woof of the very molecules of existence, it is the force which creates life and death and imagination from mere bits of matter and the space in which that matter dwells!

"Your own thoughts are what you battle with. Your own designs and desires! Yet while that which you allow yourself to be ensnared within paralyzes you, it has no meaning to me or to my companions.

"If you seek to place fear into the heart and mind of myself and my Adept, you are sadly mistaken. It is in truth inconsequential. Look!"

With that she gave a haughty wave of her hand... and found herself outside the mind of Veren once again, still holding Shayla's hand with her other. M'wonBo'o stood nearby, shuffling his great paws upon the soil, his ten-inch claws leaving great raking scars there as he settled himself into a crouch.

Above them the sky blackened as though with an approaching storm. Graysith turned slowly about, her signature cloak moving softly about her, her hair likewise, as she scanned the area about them. All remained still save for the rising crescendo of the wind. Then she pointed.

"Look, my Sister," she breathed quietly.

There atop the mysterious Temple lay the quiet and betendriled figure of Veren. He lay curled up in a fetal position, utterly still, as though caught in some kind of monstrous and invisible web.

Graysith shook her head at the sight. "We were in his mind," she commented with a slight shiver. "Placed there at the whim of his own 'Dark Master' via the channeling of dark energies through this place--" Here she waved her hand to encompass the brooding Temple about them, then continued. "A 'Dark One' indeed who, although misunderstanding the strength of that which we wield, still, I feel, may one day prove a foe to us. And there--" She pointed once again to the huddled form above them. "There lies his first victim, he who would determine the attitude of his 'Master'."

She paused thoughtfully, then straightened as her eyes widened with growing insight.

"His Dark Master attempts to break through the barriers this one has erected-- and doing seeks the reality of life. My Sister, I believe he is none other than this smitten one himself!"

Now she turned with a little shiver to Shayla, cocking her head. "I sense no relation, no connection here with my child," she stated, searching into her Adept's greeny-blue gaze. "Yet, there is something about the fate of that poor one above which draws me. Somehow I feel this unexpected bypass we have been drawn upon may have meaning to us at a later date... and the direction in which this sad personage turns may indeed play a heavy hand in that very meaning.

"My Sister, what say you in this matter?"

Erecting a chronotic shield about the three of them, should Veren's darker inner psyche attempt any more nonsense against their persons, she quietly waited once again for what suggestions or comments Shayla would respond with.

[ 05-15-2002 06:58 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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

If Veren was left to the whim of his "Dark Master," he would become completely and utterly dark. Though dark ones were powerful, they tended to have an insanity about them.

A dark One with an insanity about him. Now, why does THAT sound familiar?

This little realization only made Shayla's frown deepen. The missing Dark Lord Roan. One extremely powerful Dark Lord with an obvious insanity was dangerous enough, even for All users. After all, he had taken off with Graysith's child...

Shayla shuddered at the thought.

No need to have two such unstable persons if they were able to stop it.

And they were.

With these thoughts, Shayla turned her greeny-blue gaze to Graysith, knowing that her sister knew of her thoughts. "I believe it is of the greatest importance that we help him," she agreed. "Better to have a friend who struggles than a foe who is powerfully evil. Leaving him here with this great pain might only later draw him to become one of those who oppose us."

Then, falling silent, Shayla waited to see how Graysith regarded her analysis of the situation.

[ 05-15-2002 06:38 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Shayla Stargazer Petrolu ]

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

"I can only pray we can help this being gain victory over his inner battle with what appears to be himself. Those are oftentimes the most difficult of travails to overcome."

Turning now from Shayla, she mounted the steps leading to the apex of the Temple. Though the uneasy black light had somehow dimmed, she could still feel the odd and voracious energies swirling about in some sort of nearly invisible vortex. At the apex she approached the curled figure of Veren, where she stopped. Straightening and facing directly into the strangeness hovering to claim the Temple and all those who dared approach it, she raised her arms and closed her eyes. The Glyph ravened into glorious life, taking her essence and that of her Adept and her tuk'ata in hand, easily reducing them to oddly coherent charges which flowed about Veren's form like the fabric of spacetime swirling about the event horizon of a black hole.

In moments they were once again enshrouded in the darkness and despair which encompassed Veren's mind... and his beliefs.

Graysith moved forward toward the ordinary-colored Veren. "We are here to assist you," she said quietly, then fell silent, her eyes looking calmly into Veren's wide and pain-filled ones.

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

Graysith frowned, eyeing Veren; then her eyes cut to either side of him as she took in his three other doppelgangers. Her frown deepened and she cocked her head to one side.

"Shayla," she suddenly spoke up. "I believe I know what he wishes from us. We are in his mind--" she waved a hand about herself, taking in the bleak atmosphere he maintained within his psyche. "--and what do we see before us?

"Not one, but four Veren Mechanicas." She cut herself abruptly off, slightly puzzled as to exactly how she had come to know of his name. Perhaps because they were within his very essence....

She let out a quick exhalation, then continued as though she had never interrupted herself. "Four Verens, one who appears normal yet is somehow but a pale shade of himself. One blue, one gray, one red. It is obvious even to a child that these are the strata that make up his very soul... and now divide him. These are how he views himself: gray: not alive, having no love of life, no elan, no vivacity, no love of the wonders which are not only about him, but within himself as well. Blue: withdrawn, fearful to see what he thinks he truly is. Red: angered at his own weaknesses, his perceived frailities, as well as angry toward those about him who are not so similarly plagued."

She paused once again, her brow wrinkling as she pondered the enigmatic scene before her. Then a flash of insight struck her, and she turned back to the shadow of Veren who was still looking at her with moist and saddened eyes.

"Why is it that you cannot find yourself for who you are, Veren Mechanica?" she queried him in a soft tone of voice, taking a step in his direction and holding out a hand to him. "These are all parts of you, yet you somehow keep them at bay, unable to merge back.

"Why do you see yourself in such a confining and disparate way? Each by itself is but a small and pale thing; yet together they can add up to so much more than the mere sum of their parts, as is true with all that is in the Universe."

She fell quiet then but continued to approach the silent group, stopping only when she had come up alongside the blue version who was curled up like a womprat asleep in its den. In a graceful and flowing motion she lowered herself to one knee beside him, and laid a calm and soothing hand upon his shoulder, all the while never releasing her gaze from the "normal" Veren whose response she now waited to hear.

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

"Do not approach..." they all said at the same time but in differant tones like they want to distance themselves from you.

the blue veren stood slowly and spoke in a quivering tone with saddened eyes.
"I am afraid that i am the last of my kind or that i am a rejct of an experiment... if only i had proof that i'm not...

Next the red Veren stood and look at you with a truely evil look on his face.
"i am angry at myself for what i have become, and i am angry at myself for no staying with my friend..."

Next the grey Veren spoke in a very somber voice.
"I feel that i have nothing more to live for apart for pain and to be another person's toy..."

they all sat slowly on the step next to the standing normal Veren who had a very anoyed look on his face, certain changes could bbe seen that looked to have happened in a second or two, the tip of his tail had 6 7inche spikes on it, he now had a small pair of wings on his back and he had claws on his feet.

"My chance for freedom had been destroyed when i was trained as a sith, i could have waited for my friend to finish her training as a jedi but i didn't want her to go, the thought of being along for 12 years scared me so i looked for a way to get her back...but i failed...i have learnt one thing...there is no great power, there is no force...no All...only death..."

Graysith started to feel weakened in a way, like she had lost contact with the All and then she realised, she is in Veren's mind and because he no longer believes in anything then the powers of the all can't be used inside him, she was trapped...

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

Tiny spikes and wings nonewithstanding, she wasn't fazed in the slightest. She shifted her weight on one foot, crossing her arms across her chest, and just stood there in silence for a long moment.

"Oh but you are wrong, Veren Mechanica!" she finally returned in a quiet voice. "So very, very wrong. I have words to speak to you of this, but whether you take them to heart or not is up to you.

"Up to you."

She drew in a breath, then went on. "If you are the last of your kind, then what of that? It makes you unique, and outstanding from all the beings in the universe. What matters is that you are you; you are not 'alone,' as you say at any rate. I too am 'alone;' there are none other like me in existence either. Yet I choose to draw strength from this fact, and not let it destroy me.

"You blame yourself for your failure in training because your friend was apparently successful in hers. You blame yourself for your apparent inability to remove yourself from those who would use you. And you blame yourself for the fact that you are allowing yourself to continue in this manner. Thus you are blinded to fact which exists about you, as well as to those who may have reached out as well to assist you along the way."

She shrugged lightly. "Of the latter observation, it is mere speculation. I know not what roads you have travelled in your lifetime, Veren Mechanica. I only know two things which you may or may not take to heart and find useful in discovering who you really are:

"You can only fall into the depths of despair by the hand of another if you allow yourself to do so. How you respond to the actions of another is up to you. If you choose to view your plate as half empty, then you choose to follow the bleak path through existence. But if you choose to view it as half full, then no one can harm you here--" She touched her forehead lightly with one finger. "--and here." Now she laid her hand across her breast above her heart. She followed this with a piercing stare, then continued.

"Just because others view you as you believe them to do so, does not make it a fact unless you let it be."

She straightened now, her eyes beginning to flash with her old elan, the Glyph springing to life upon her brow.

"And secondly, Veren Mechanica, is this: simply because you believe something not to exist, simply because you reject it, does not make it a bit of dreamfluff as you desire. You are not the One who designed All that is. The Force does exist in wonder and beauty; power unimaginable is alive in the Universe, and your rejection of that, your refusal to believe in it because of the loss of your friend, does not negate its reality, even here." She paused to wave a hand about, indicating the bleak despair of Veren's mind, then turned back to him.

"I cannot make you believe what I have told you, Veren Mechanica. That choice is up to you. You must find the strength within yourself to believe in yourself, for without true strength in self all you may continue to offer to others -- as well as to yourself -- is but mundane redundancy. But--!"

Now she took a step back, sweeping her hands out to either side of herself as though sending an invisible blanket over her Adept and her tuk'ata.

"I can show you the ridiculous and shallow basis of your beliefs. Just because you do not believe in yourself and the wonders that exist does not make them unreal.

"We are not figments of your mind, Veren; we exist, and All that exists within us is there and can never be taken from our possession. You cannot 'believe' us to death.' And in showing you this, perhaps you can find strength to overcome that which plagues you so.

"It is up to you."

Now she closed her eyes, and let the power of the All swoop down and take hold of herself and her companions as she knew it had every capability of doing so. In but moments more, they were not only out of Veren's mind, but before their little Sith ship once again.

For a moment Graysith slumped, fighting fatigue from what it took to yank them back; then with a wave she dropped the chronotic shield from where it was protecting the ship.

"We can help this one no further, my Adept," she whispered lightly. "He pushes us from him even as he cries for our aid. Let us depart."

With no further ado they boarded their ship. In but a few moments more, swaddled within a protective chronotic shield once again, they had departed into hyperspace, and were gone.

((OOC: Follow Graysith, Shayla and M'wonBo'o to, "The Realm of Lost Lords" thread in this forum, thank you.))

[ 05-18-2002 01:07 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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

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

"some of the things you say ring true but they are easier said than done, you may find it eeasy to accept your aloneness but i do not, it isn't like clicking my fingers and the pain is gone...my pain is part of me.

"i do not disbelieve in your All, i doubt its powers, as you have seen you could not use them to take away my pain, what i have learnt is that there is no big devine power! the all, the force, they are things of the mind, they are simple entities in the universe, the only thing that your 'All mightly' all has created and holds together is the barrier in your mind that makes you hold you rediculace belief, the All isn't everything, realise that and free your mind like i cannot."

The normal Veren slowly drew his light sabre and activated it with a quivering hand. He raised his gaze to the red Veren and slowly walked to him.

"i cannot conquer my anger...but i can destroy it..." with that he thrust the blade through his red double killing it with a scream that quaked through the entire galaxy.
He then turned to to the blue one and got ready to strike.

"my fear, binds my mind and will help build my master's body, it cannot be allowed to continue." as he struck it his master's voice thundered through his head.

"what are you doing you fool! if i am powerful then i can make you powerful to!"

"and my loneliness...no longer will you drive my life..." he killed the third piece of him and then he noticed with grim facination that he was transparent.

"and finally...myself...my death will life a weight from the shoulders of all who ever knew me..." with shaking hands he thrust the light sabre though his chest making his form shatter and the vortex disapear.

Everying thing started to reapear in the real world from his colapsing mind apart from two things, his master, and the temple.

Everything was back to normal, it was now night time and the forest was serene around all who stood in it, the onlything out of place was Veren's cold dead body, with a cut straight through his chest...

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

"Who...is here?" He stated, with a light blazing in the distances, near the cockpit. It was slick, like a lightsaber, the color was dark. It was pure black....

[ 05-18-2002 03:10 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Za'in Kenobi ]

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

"It is a shame this one had to die before seeing the wonder of all that is, and all that he could have been...."

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

"I am Xaruka of the Juka race. I was the first padawane of Yoda...

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