Communal Sanity
Posted on Sat Feb 9th, 2013 @ 1:56am by Thane & Bomoor Thort & Kip Hoddai & Sev Rezer
1,620 words; about a 8 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter III: Relics
Location: Ancient Temple, Tython
Timeline: Day Eleven, After "Breaking the Mind" and "Dispersal"
You are worthy.
The stone beneath his feet was warm, and the sand billowing through the tomb scratched at his scarred face, carrying more heat in from the desert.
He felt triumphant, honoured and determined all at once as he raised both hands high up, his features set in a grimace as he accepted the anointment, the dark majesty imbuing him with great power, as great times lay ahead.
And then suddenly, the ground shook beneath him, the tomb subsided and the dark figures collapsed into mist as he began to fall far, deep into the chasm, the ground flying towards at a great speed and-
Thane awoke with a start, a sharp and painful intake of breath jolting him forwards from his slumped position on the cold stone floor. His eyes were not yet focusing, but he could hear people talking - familiar voices - as he struggled to reclaim his most recent memories. As the former Jedi tried to move, his hold body sent him backwards against the wall in pain.
His head hurt the most, a sharp pain stabbing at the back of his cranium as the rest throbbed, and he began to vaguely recall a rapid impact. Thane reached his fingers towards where the pain began, and immediately recoiled, both because of the abject pain it caused there and the fact his fingers were singed at their tips - much as they had when Axion-
With a low and annoyed groan, the Human then recalled some of what had happened, of the insanity and rage that had taken him, of the mad rush of dark Force power he had gorged on foolishly and without control. Thane remembered the emotional backlash he had experienced when he thought he had lost his connection to the Force.
Looking back at it now, even in his battered and humiliating state, he realised how foolish the whole affair had been, that he had been played somehow, likely by whatever dark presence was in this ancient temple to Bogan. But even with all of the pain in the galaxy still flooding his head through his cracked skull, it was the realisation of what he had tried to do to Bomoor that stung him the most.
With his burning eyes finally beginning to clear, although a few fresh tears threatened to push through, he felt the reassuring presence of his Ithorian friend nearby, but Thane knew only too well how anxious he and perhaps the others would be to draw close to him. Even now, he still felt the last remnants of the rage-fuelled dark power coursing through him, although it was quickly dissipating.
What he had felt had been nothing like the dark power Darth Bane's holocron had been teaching him, and was in fact the embodiment of all that was wrong with the dark side of the Force, and what even many Sith despised. Thane's bleary eyes finally gave him some focus, and he could make out at least two recognisable forms - those of Bomoor and the Mandalorian.
"Bo-" He coughed, his throat dry and sore. "Bomoor?" He tried again.
Sev Rezer approached Thane and let the rifle pointed in point blank range at the Jedi's head. "Don't move or I'll kill you, Thane. Just talk until Boomor and I are conviced you're not going to attempt to murder us again. Do you understand?", he insisted.
Kip dashed into the room and skidded to a stop, cloak swirling around him, his body glowing faintly like a torch as orange and white flames seemed to run up his body from the floor where his feet touched. The stone and dust he had stepped on and skidded through continued to glow, as if hot, for a few seconds before fading to their normal hue.
"There's a negative entity here trying to drive us all mad," Kip announced calmly.
"Figures. First I get strange thoughts in my head saying things I don't like to hear it. Then I get to see those two fighting and Thane tried to kill. Negative entity? It sounds more like Dark Jedi trying to influence our minds. I have felt this before", Sev said, still eyeing Thane.
"Mind tricks are nothing new to the Jedi," Bomoor spoke, crouching down beside Thane, "But both of us are Jedi and you have your mental conditioning. To poison all our minds at once like that would require great Force power. This cannot be one person alone."
"Remember the two darksider corpses we found that had cut one another down at the same time? The entity can influence darksiders easier than the others through their common connection." He paused and added in a regretful tone, "I'm sorry I haven't been much help until now. The dark miasma the entity is using affected me as well. I did learn something useful about myself though," he added with a little grin.
Bomoor was not sure he liked that analysis, "Well, what we saw was intended to manipulate us. I would not take anything to be true," He turned to Thane and handed a small stim injector to him. He held a firm lock on Thane's eyes, which were now back to their usual subtle blue, "Here. This is for the pain. I had to knock you fairly hard into that wall but there's no wound I can see."
"Thank you," Thane said, his rasping voice regretful as he jabbed the stim into his neck, knowing that that brief sharp pain would be the lesser of several evils currently pummelling him. Almost immediately, there was a sense of relief flowing through him as the pain subsided, and he focused a bit more inwardly with the Force to encourage the healing process.
After a few seconds, he began to bring himself to his feet, finding them shakier than he expected, but he soon found his footing. Noticing Sev tensing and his rifle aimed quite definitely at his head, Thane raised an open palm towards the Mandalorian. "I mean no harm, Sev," he said, trying to sound as honest as he was, but his attention quickly turned to his friend. "I'm... I'm sorry, Bomoor, for what happened."
Now standing steady as he felt the Force aiding his recovery alongside the stimulant's chemicals, he stretched his limbs and neck before continuing. "I truly wasn't myself. Whatever kriffing piece of kark is doing this," he said, his voice returning more to its more regal Caanan tones, "it... took away all boundaries and then threw my greatest fears and weaknesses at me." His eyes wandered to Kip, whose confession of self-revelation was refreshing and surprising. "At all of us, it seems."
The former Jedi took a few breaths, still looking and feeling embarrassed as he tried to make clear his sincerity to Bomoor by maintaining eye contact. "Now we kno-" He looked about the room they were in, even more realisations crashing down upon him. "Where are Bería and Morgo?" Instinctively, he wanted to draw his lightsaber to his hand, noticing the hilt was still some feet away, but decided doing that would probably provoke some sort of reaction from either Bomoor or Sev - most likely the latter, who was still eyeing him warily.
Thane did not blame him, but the disappearance of the women was bothering him more... and he could already feel something trying to exploit that fear within him. He was not going to let that happen again, and his eyes narrowed slightly at the thought.
"I'm sorry, Thane," Bomoor spoke, "We were all together as a group, but then Berry sped off and...well, when the darkness took hold, we must have all got separated. They were no longer there when things began to clear."
Still eyeing Thane, Sev Rezer reached his belt and took the spheres out. "Time to use the globes again. They can find them faster than we can. We will not get separated any more, is that clear everyone? This hunt is already difficult without one trying to kill the other. We stay together and watch each other." He threw the sphere up and away and they flew away, already tasked to find the two women.
Thane nodded slightly, feeling more reserved than he usually did, and certainly not trying to provoke the others too much. He had no wish to give them any further cause for alarm, not simply out of respect for them, but with the way Sev was eyeing him, also out of self-preservation.
Cautiously, and ensuring the others saw him, he physically stepped over to, knelt down and picked up his lightsaber hilt, affixing it to his belt. Standing straighter, now that the Force and stim had already done a good deal for him, he tugged at his greatcoat, making it more comfortable as he brushed off some of the dust.
"Even through all the haze," Thane explained to them, "I can still sense Bería is well enough, but I can't tell about the duchess. We should get moving. As Sev said: we can't get separated any more, and whilst they're alone, they are exposed." He stepped to the front of the four, so that they could see his movements in the hopes of not causing any more concerns. It was a leap of faith to trust the Mandalorian not to get trigger-happy if any more voices started encouraging him, but it had to be done.
He watched as the light being emanated by the last sphere dwindled further down the corridor, gesturing to the others. "Let's do this right, and let's do this quickly."
TBC
KIP HODDAI
▬ Force Dispersal Increase (Radius, 1m)
SEV REZER
▬ Mental Resistance Increase
RSS Feed