Alkahest is Heresy (Darth Shadow)

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"]


The Rakatan had built many great and illogical things. The teleportation device was one of their inventions that was actually practical!


Moving on with the plot, Sumiko glanced over towards the ancient structure and the automatons guarding it. Though they were undoubtedly antique, they seemed as alert as they must have been thousands of years ago and she was not eager to get into a fight with heavily armed machines unless needed, since she was not a battering ram. However, there were alternatives.


"I'll shield us from their sensors briefly. Make sure you move quietly," she decided, then pulled at the tangled web of the Force, drawing its power into her. It took concentration, but she wrapped the shadows around both herself and Illyria, cloaking them from detection. She would also manipulate sound waves to make herself quiet and her own body heat, reducing it to obscure herself in case the droids had infrared. It was a strain, but for a short time detection would be virtually impossible. However, the distance was not that big and so she snuck through the shadows. Fortunately, the Inquisition had taught her to move rather quietly, even without the use of supernatural powers.

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
Though she lacked the skills of deception that Sumiko clearly had, Illyria was able to feed her power to the former Inquisitor. This would allow Sumiko to continue to maintain the stealth for long enough for them to get past the gaze of the droids.

And so, at an awkward, shuffling run they made it through to the large structure. Eldorai were naturally agile, and Illyria was used to being able to move quietly and not be noticed. It was fortunate indeed that the droids were not designed to notice the footprints in the snow as the two moved rapidly.

The downward descent into the underground cavern was littered with fallen stones and covered with drifted snow. On the edge of hearing they could discern a slight buzzing.
Illyria paused, their cloaking now dropped, and listened with her sensitive ears.
“Electronic. Some distance away, sounds like some sort of power field.”

As they rounded the corner though they saw one of the droids they saw before mindlessly patrolling. It had been patrolling so long it had actually worn a groove in the stone floor. There was no way to stealth around this one, they’d have to attack it…for added XP!

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"], [member="Valiens Nantaris"]


Sumiko's mechu-deru senses tingled as the shadow cloak dropped and they descended downward into the caverns. She did not have sensitive elf ears - which served an actual purpose beyond being the subject of certain sexual fetishes - but she was quite sensitive to all things technology. "Agreed. Be on your guard," she advised stoically. As they passed across the corner, they happened upon one of the quadrupedal automatons, which was apparently patrolling mindlessly. However, though it was so obsessed with this task that it had worn a groove in the stone floor, it was still alert.


Quick thinking was needed. The noise of a fight would undoubtedly alert other machines nearby. "You can magnetise it, yes? I'll hack it with my power. Make it shoot at any droid that pops up," Sumiko said simply before the machine levelled its heavy blasters at them and blasted away. Seeking cover behind some rocks as the droid unleashed a volley of blaster bolts and her sabre slashed shots out of the air, sparks flew across the Atrisian's free hand as she exerted her power of mechu-deru upon the machine.


That term was really a catch all for doing weird things to machines through the Force. In this case she would be seeking to hack it with what amounted to a techno-magical virus to...assume direct control. Her influence would infect the systems of the droid like a computer virus would, overriding its protocols and taking control as she forced her will upon it. It was akin to mind control, just expressed in binary code and droid speak. Combined with magnetism, it would be firing at its comrades, who were on their way, having been alerted by the noise, whilst registering the two intruders as friendly.

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
For Illyria, being a terramancer was sometimes a gift, sometimes a curse. In places like this, or on a metal spaceship everything metal and stone seemed to glow faintly. Power coursed through everything, it was not just the living which was open to her Sciia, but the inanimate too. Her Sith Lord (she usually refused the term Master on principle) Shadow had told her of the Force, but old habits die hard.

The droid before them glowed with the power in its metal skin. As Sumiko infected it the aura subtly changed. Calling on her power she dragged the droid around. She could make metal answer to her will, and as she pulled its guns around it opened fire, right into the new droids.

Target acquired. Open fire!

The language it used was ancient, unknown to her ears. Through her Sciia though she understood instinctively.

The other droids fired upon the traitor, with Illyria guiding its metal limbs like a puppet so the laser cannon blasts found target after target. It could not last forever though, and after the third droid was in smoking pieces ‘their’ war machine collapsed to the ground.

Trembling from the exertion, Illyria rose and looked to Sumiko.
“We go on?”

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"]


Some space wizards could use their mechu-deru magicks to mind-control or destroy entire hordes of droids. Supposedly at least. Sumiko was nowhere near that far yet, and in any case it seemed a bit wasteful to her. Inquisition training died hard. Regardless, she exerted herself as she focused her power upon the droid, causing a minor civil war as it turned on its comrades.


It was a bit amusing to watch it blast away at its fellow machines. That was one thing Sumiko liked about droids: Flip a switch and they'd be yours. But finally the war machine collapsed into the ground after having acquited itself admirably by turning its brethren into smoking pieces of scrap.


The Atrisian took a deep breath as she released her hold upon it now that her mental strings were cut by it going offline. She had been helped by Illyria's magnetism, but it still took effort. She glanced over to the elf, seeing that she was trembling, though she looked like she was still capable of action. "Yes, let's proceed," she said quietly and began heading down over the rocks.


With her heavy boots crunching upon the snow, she approached one of the machines and bent down, finding that though it was out of commission it was not completely destroyed. She ignited her crimson lightsabre to delicately slice through the already damaged armour of its chassis, revealing the inner workings of the machine. Then she exerted her power to pull out the droid's brain and memory unit. A bit of a grisly spectacle, but then she took both pieces in her gloved hand. Exertion would be seen upon her face as she focused her mind on it, beginning to deciphering its contents.


The unit had sustained damage during combat and so much of the information was gibberish, but she could use her knowledge of the inner workings of a droid brain, and the way programmings were formed, through the power of mechu-deru space magic that enabled her to actually make sense of this stuff, to recover some of the data.Then she downloaded it onto a datapad through touch. This would enable Illyria to have a look at it, too! "Alright, I got us a map of the place," she stated as she tossed the droid brain aside and brushed off some snow flakes from her thick coat.

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
Illyria nodded, taking a look. Sumiko’s powers were extremely impressive to her, given her own affiliation with metal and earth. Still, she controlled her questions and called on her Sciia.
“The other machines are not alerted to us yet. There are more waiting though.”

They progressed through the halls. A large room was full of broken droids, ones which had run out of power or broken irreparably.
Another two of the droids were waiting, guarding a large door. Illyria reached out with her Sciia to them.
“I can magnetise their weapons so they shoot each other,” she said.

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"]


Truly, so far Sumiko liked this adventure, since there were plenty of robots to play with. Undoubtedly things would get a lot more difficult soon, though! Regardless, she surveyed the large hall that seemed littered with the wrecks of broken or deactivated machines, resembling a sort of ancient scrapyard from primordial times. Eyes falling upon the two guardian droids, she gave Illyria a nod.


"Do that. I'll produce a minion or two for us." While Illyria would magnetise the two machines to fire upon one another, Sumiko vanished from sight in the blink of an eye. Well, as a matter of fact she was not totally gone, since she did not invest energy to conceal her Force Signature, meaning that the elf would still be able to sense her presence.


However, she became undetectable by sight for man and machine, though she could theoretically still be heard. Trying to move through the shadows as quietly as possible, she came to a halt as she crouched down before what seemed to be the wreck of a quadrupedal death machine. Once it must have been an impressive design for its time, now it was broken but still seemed serviceable enough. Parts of other machines were strewn around. Applying her hand to the droid's chassis, she exerted her power.


This obviously meant dropping her cloak, but she was still covered by the wreck. Exerting her technomagical willpower, she sought to bring the machine back to life, animating it. Bit by bit, pieces of the machine were being connected back together, weapons fused to it as she assimilated other machine parts. What came into being as she spread her influence was a big junk droid. Concentration and strain were evident on her features, but she persevered, then the red eyes of the robot glowed again as power was finally restored...

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
Whilst Sumiko performed her remarkable feats of reconstruction, Illyria focused on her two opponents. It would be very difficult to magnetise all four guns, so she settled for the one from each closest to the other. However, that left two cannons which would be able to actually fire at her. This would take careful timing.

Concentrating, she took cover behind a fallen pillar. Then, suddenly, she darted up.
“Hey, you!” she shouted.
The droids were fortunately the shoot first, ask questions later type, and so opened fire. Bits of stone and smoke filled the air, but Illyria managed to divert two of the guns so the droids blasted each other at close range a couple of times. With this done they promptly collapsed.

Looking around, she saw the junkyard droid rise, nodded. “Impressive,” she commented.

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"]


And so the two droids were blasted into oblivion as they engaged in a short session of fracticidal warfare. While Illyria played with magnetism in a more productive fashion than the eternal karma houdini Magneto did most of the time, Sumiko had finished the process of reassembling an ancient automaton.


She cocked her head to the side slightly. "Not bad for 20, 000 years old pieces of scrap assembled in less than ten minutes," she commented sardonically. Fortunately, the weapons systems were still functional and with power restored, the quadrupedal junk droid of doom took point. "Nice work," she added, referring to Illyria's exertions. Strain was evident on Sumiko's features and so she took a deep breath, since restoring the machine had taken a lot out of her.


A mighty blast door barred their entrance, but some technomancy overrode the door controls and so it opened slowly with a hiss. Behind it, you might have guessed it, dear reader, a boss enemy lurked. An ancient war droid created by the warped sciences of the Rakatan as a behemoth of war. One that was conveniently outfitted with runes to protect it against mechu-deru and the like to make things more challenging! Oh, and it was obviously bristling with firepower.

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
The giant machine within looked like a cross between a walker, a tank and a siege weapon. Towering over them it aimed its vast weapons down at them.
Unexpectedly then, before it opened fire it spoke through a vocabulator in rather garbled basic.
“Intruder: You have violated the deepest vault. You will be destroyed. The Ghost must not arise. When last it rose it brought death and destruction to a hundred worlds.”

Not being one to continue the conversation, but having helpfully exposited a bit, two of the massive energy cannons opened fire at the intrepid pair!

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"]


Well, this sucked a bit!


Sumiko had stretched out with her mind and tried to exert her willpower upon the mechanical behemoth to muck up its circuits. Unfortunately for her, the protective sigils shielded it from her dark influence, for the warped magicks of the Rakatan had been at work. Hopefully Archangel would never be able to harness such alchemy!


This also meant that she could not exploit the brief lull whilst the machine delivered exposition. "Take cover," she called out to Illyria as the two massive energy cannons were levelled at them and fired. Drawing upon the Force Sumiko ran, hastening for cover as crimson beams of energy shot towards them. Loud explosions resonated across the hall as the laserfire blew up part of the walls. A shockwave tossed Sumiko down hard to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. Presumably a rib had been broken. Part of the ceiling became unstable and rubble descended down, with her narrowly rolling aside.


Drawing upon the Force she threw up some rubble into the air to act as a shield, but then the war machine began firing its repeaters. A searing pain surged through her body as she felt her knee being struck. Fortunately, she was not without aid since the improvised guardian droid she had created earlier surged forward and unleashed a hailstorm of blasterfire upon the titan. Alas, the droid did little damage against the titan due to the latter's heavy armour, but did distract the behemoth for a bit before being blown away.


"Create a fissure beneath it. We'll drop it to its doom," called out to Illyria. Though proficient in telekinesis, the Atrisian was not a battering ram, and so she would require help. Pulling at the tangled web of power that was the Force, she focused her telekinetic willpower upon the floor beneath the massive behemoth. Then she poured all her power into systematically smashing into it like an absurdly massive hammer.

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
Illyria could feel the stone of the floor calling to her. Experienced terramancers of the Eldorai were capable of prodigious feats of manipulation of rock and metal. Her though, her efforts were less strong.
Laying her hands on the ground she stretched out, but the stone was too deep, too old, too thick. Maybe one with the power of a Master could pull apart the stone like the skin of an orange, but not Illyria, not yet. The ground trembled and the ground bulged upwards. A spike of the stone caught the machine under its mid-section and speared it into the roof before dropping it to the ground with a crash.
“I cannot create a fissure,” she said in frustration. Still, the machine had been damaged by her efforts, and several areas were cracked and broken, but it was still firing, still refusing to be destroyed.

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"]


I should've made more droid minions, Siobhan thought to herself grimly. Maybe they could've had an effect if they zerg rushed the titan of war! Then again, probably not. By now she was in good deal of pain since she'd gotten a broken rib and been shot at. She had some proficiency at dark healing, but was neither a master nor did she have the time. Moreover, dark healing was absolute crap.


The ground trembled as if a quake had struck it, the machine was damaged by rocks being tossed around, but still stood. Well, if the ground would not give way, the roof would. You could not let Siobhan Kerrigan have all the roof-dropping fun, after all.


Fortunately the room being thrown into chaos also meant there was plenty of rubble to hide behind. But they had to act fast if they did not want to be crushed by the menacing machine. "The roof...I'm pulling it down," Sumiko yelled, breathing coming across as being more laboured. Trying to calm herself and the exert the cold fury that came so naturally to her, her telekinetic power wrapped around a section of the ceiling, insistently enclosing around it. At first nothing happened, then metal and stone heaved under her power. She was no telekinesis master and just a Knight, but she was very determined. She pulled with such force and wroth that the ceiling was torn asunder and came tumbling down...

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
Swiftly seeing Sumiko’s intent, Illyria lent her aid. Calling on her powers, she assisted Sumiko by helping mould and twist away the rock, breaking girders so that the roof could come down with terrifying noise, dust and impact.
After a moment she stuck her head over the barricade and looked at the pile of rubble.
“We need to get past this…into the next room,” Illyria said, wincing. That would be now much harder said than done.

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"]


Boom. There was a loud, terrifying noise, massive clouds of dust rose up into the air, the entire room shook under the tremendous impact. When the smoke cleared, there was naught but devastation. The giant walker of doom had been crushed beneath the ceiling.


Sumiko winced strongly and breathed in deep. With a shaking hand she fished a medkit out of her backpack and began to see to her leg wound, which was playing up as a searing pain coursed through it. As has been said, she had Dark Repair, but using the dark side to heal was quite suboptimal. At least laser fire meant that the wound had been cauterised. Gripping a stimulant, she bit down on a piece of cloth, while she injected it into her leg wound. At first there was pain, then numbness, before she felt a bit strengthened.


Shakily getting to her feet she managed to stand and looked across the massive pile of rubble. The room shook as if tremors had struck it. "Indeed. Before the rest of the roof collapses on us," Sumiko said grimly. The Atrisian was not in a good shape, but with Illyria's help was able to shift some of the rubble away, which made surmounting the massive pile a bit easier. Now they only needed to collect their prize and leave.

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
The ruin and devastation filled the room. Scrambling up the mound, Illyria helped Sumiko move a little bit of the rubble, enough for them to scramble through. They’d only just gotten through when a rumble of stone and metal effectively cut off their retreat.
Illyria’s assessment of their plight indicated they’d need several days to carefully shift a way out. Therefore, they could only hope there was another exit from the facility.

A slightly corroded metal door blocked their passage. It quickly yielded to a combination of terramancy and lightsabre so that it was cut through and fell to the ground with a thud.

The room within was mostly dark, but odd pulsing lights occasionally flickered around the wall. Stepping inside the lights brightened a little.
A soft voice spoke, but in a language neither of them understood. There was silence, then the both of them would feel a slight pressure on their minds which quickly retracted.
A holoprojector lit up at the end of the room showing a Rakata. It spoke in the same, soft voice, but now in Galactic Basic.
“My apologies. I do not recognise your species. Processing. One moment.”
The hologram changed to that of a human female similar to Sumiko.
“Welcome. It has been ten million seven hundred and fifty thousand four hundred and eighteen daily cycles since my last visitor. I have therefore determined that my creators are long extinct and you are representatives of the new dominant galactic species. I am Legacy. I am pleased to meet you.”
Illyria looked around the room. Aside from the holoprojector there was little in the room other than the occasional pulsing light through the walls. Attempts to use the Force to determine the nature of Legacy were unexpectedly fruitless.

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"]


And so they faced a hologram that changed shape into a form you were comfortable with! Well, or rather the form of what it interpreted as being the dominant species of the galaxy for the time being.


"By your creators you mean the Builders," Sumiko surmised, though that wasn't much of a leap of logic. Builders was how the Rakatan had been referred to in ancient times, back when their Infinite Empire was actually a thing. The name was a misnomer since even if they'd ruled the Galaxy, it did not contain an infinite number of stars, and, moreover, their reign had obviously not been infinite!


"They fell from power aeons ago. Outline the purpose of this facility and your function, Legacy?" Since using space magic to ascertain the nature of Legacy provided futile, they would have to chat with the strange hologram.

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
“I surmised as much based on their absence,” the hologram said calmly.

“I was created to be a fully autonomous and self-contained machine intelligence. My goals were to assess issues and provide solutions to problems put to me. I do not have any ability to leave this room but I was granted access to the Creator’s data matrix.”

“You are not the Creators I can see. However, I have formulated a solution to the final problem put to me.” There was a pause, then a wry continuance. “However, it seems the solution is now irrelevant as the Creators are no more.”

“What was the problem?” Illyria asked.

“The problem was simple yet complex. Why is the Force leaving us? The Creators found they could not use the Force and tasked me with why this was happening. I determined that the plague which afflicted them had killed the midiclorians in the cells of the infected, preventing them from accessing the Force.. I further determined that the plague was synthetic in origin, but I lack the data to determine the origins.”

 

[Darth Libertas]

[member="Darth Shadow"]


It had been theorised that a plague, perhaps engineered by a slave species, had been responsible for the Rakatan being stripped of their powers, though the nature of the pathogen was undetermined. Archangel would love this, Sumiko thought grimly.


As a matter of fact, the Inquisition might've as well, if it could've been deployed surgically and we'd possessed the cure. It would have been an elegant way to topple both the Jedi and the Sith in one strike through the power of science. "The Creators are history, but I am still interested in your work. I will require any data you have on this virus," she spoke calmly. Aeons had past, but it could still be useful.


((Hmm. What now? Download all the data? Is the AI supposed to be the prize?))

 

[Darth Shadow]

[member="Sumiko Tanaka"]
(The AI is the prize, yes. We can even do a tech sub for it eventually if we want. Data might be useful too, though I doubt we’ll be allowed to use the virus to kill all Force users!)

“Very well. I will provide you this data if you free me from here and allow me access to your new data matrixes.”
AIs were quite rare, and ancient ones from so long ago might be quite dangerous too.