Private Dreams Undreamt - Visions of the Past

[Jak Meridian]

Jak cursed just beneath his breath. Malachor wasn't a place he had visited before, nor did he plan on staying long. His ship fought the controls of the planet's twisted gravity the entire ride in. Despite the annoyance of landing and traversing this twisted world, he was absolutely determined to reach his destination.

His recent hijinks with Scherezade deWinter had left him distracted. Shortly after departing the derelict station where the pair had met, the mid-twenty year old Sith had done some research on her. She was far more powerful, and reputable; than he had initially thought. Yet there was a... curiosity to her. A curiosity he wanted to further explore.

Yet it was also a distraction. He was reminded of his missions and goals shortly after departing Nar Shadda, where the pair had recently encountered one another, when his dreams suddenly came under assault of various images. While he had always suffered nightmarish visions of his final days with his family, it was only now that he was starting to get an inkling for what they were saying.

Jak did't have the knowledge or power to truly confirm his suspicions. That was what had brought him to Malachor. Among various members of the Sith Order he had heard a name, Seren Gwyn . Supposedly one who dabbled in the mystical arts, Jak believed she could help make sense of things.

Landing on one of the few stable cliff sides, he began hiking through the crackling mountains of the dead world. He didn't know where she was, but he was convinced she likely already knew he was here.

Either way, he continued forward, ready to face whatever lay ahead.

 

[Seren Gwyn]

The air was heavy long before he reached her. Malachor did not welcome—it observed.

From the shadows of a collapsed archway, Seren stepped into view, her presence neither hostile nor inviting. The faint glow of sigils traced across the stone at her back, pulsing in rhythm with the quiet thrum of her power. Amber eyes fixed on Jak—assessing, weighing the kind of man who came here willingly.

"You've come far for something uncertain," she said, her tone calm, melodic, yet edged with something that could have been amusement—or warning. "Malachor does not reveal its answers easily. Those who come seeking truth often find reflection instead."

She let her gaze linger, the faint hum of the Force brushing against him like a probing hand, testing the depth of his conviction. "You wear curiosity like armor. It serves you, for now. But curiosity alone is a fragile shield when faced with what this world remembers."

The sigils brightened faintly as she took a step closer, her presence enveloping, deliberate. "You seek understanding of what you have seen, the visions that gnaw at the edges of sleep," she continued, voice soft but certain. "The Force does not torment without purpose. It calls. It marks those who are ready to listen."

Seren paused, studying the flicker of thought behind his eyes. "I am Seren Gwyn. The Dark Court names me a keeper of shadows, but names are only echoes of intent. If you are truly ready to know what haunts you—if you would walk willingly into what others flee—then step closer, and let Malachor decide whether you are meant to understand it."

Her voice dropped lower, almost a whisper carried on the wind. "But understand this: knowledge here is not given. It is taken. And everything taken leaves something behind."

Jak Meridian

 

[Jak Meridian]

At first the voice came from seemingly nowhere. Despite the source being in the material plane, it bounced off the rocky walls and through the steep canyons around Jak as if projected through the Force. He stopped a moment, recognizing the authority and power in her calm yet commanding tone. He wasn't surprised, however, that she knew why he had come.

Malachor was no ordinary world. It is a world of ruin and scars that will never heal. A perpetual storm front plagues most the world with intense lightning storms to boot. Meanwhile the gravity itself was unstable: often times it would work in one area but not another, or it would just stop all together only to return a mere moment later. The dark side still held a firm grasp to this dead place.

He knew she wasn't kidding him either. Easy as it was natural for a Sith to deceive, they more often than not were truthful in cases of the Force and the mysteries or held. This wouldn't be easy.

Jak didn't believe in the mystical or religious aspects of the Force- in fact he didn't believe in the Will of the Force. But he knew what it could do and how it could be manipulated. The how or why didnt matter, and he was certain a scientific explanation* existed, what did matter was the potential tool it could be.

As the Sith sorcereress let herself be known, she gave one final warning. "Nothing is taken without something being left behind," he whispered to himself, confirming that's what she had said. He shrugged, "I make my own luck."

Without saying another word he continued forward, ready to face whatever tests Malachor had for him.

Seren Gwyn

 

[Seren Gwyn]

Seren did not move when he spoke those words—I make my own luck. The faintest shift passed over her expression, not quite a smile, but close to something resembling approval.

"Luck is a comfortable illusion," she said, her voice carrying easily through the canyon, reverberating off the stone like a living thing. "But illusions have their uses. Even here."

As Jak drew closer, the air thickened—pressure without weight. The darkness bent subtly around her, acknowledging the authority she carried. Malachor itself seemed to hush, its ever-present hum falling into rhythm with her measured tone.

"You treat the Force as a tool," Seren continued, her amber eyes steady on him. "That is not wrong, though most mistake that belief for arrogance. The Force will permit use—but only by those who understand the price of direction. You came seeking understanding, not faith. That is what makes you dangerous."

She stepped forward, the hem of her cloak stirring faintly against the ash and fractured stone. "Your disbelief is an anchor. It keeps you from drifting into madness, but it also keeps you from depth. Here, even disbelief becomes a ritual. You will learn to see patterns where logic falters. That is how Malachor teaches."

The sigils along the canyon wall flared dimly in her presence, casting pale light across his face. "Follow me," she said at last. "If you wish to make sense of your visions, you will first need to understand what it means to see through the Force, not around it. You will not like everything you find, but that has never stopped a true seeker."

She turned toward the narrow path descending into the ruins below, where the air glowed faintly with violet mist, and the sound of distant echoes whispered through cracks in the earth. "Come, Jak Meridian. Let us see whether your will can hold against a world that has no mercy for certainty."

Jak Meridian

 

[Jak Meridian]

-

 

[Seren Gwyn]

Seren's steps were silent along the shattered stone, her presence an anchor amid the distortion rippling through the ruins. The air itself trembled beneath her feet; reality wavered as though the world held its breath for what would come next.

"You speak of tests as if they are handed down," she said, her voice calm but edged with quiet power that vibrated through the air like the hum of a struck chord. "But the truth is simpler, and far less forgiving. Malachor gives no tests. It reflects them. Whatever you carry within you, it will draw forth. Doubt, conviction, fear… disbelief. You will face only yourself."

She lifted a hand, tracing a faint gesture in the air. The space before them shimmered—the thin veil of reality fracturing just enough to reveal a distortion, a shape that was not entirely of this world. "You do not have to believe in the Force for it to touch you," Seren continued. "But when it does, denial is a form of worship. Even rejection feeds it."

The wind hissed through the broken pillars, carrying whispers that might have been voices or only echoes. Shadows began to stretch, alive, coiling along the walls like ink spilled in water. Seren turned her gaze toward Jak, her expression unreadable, patient.

"You call it luck. Fine. Then let your luck guide you through this place where luck has no meaning," she said softly. "If you can emerge from what waits below without faith, then perhaps you will prove that control requires no belief—only will."

She extended a hand toward the veil of shimmering distortion, the unseen current bending to her motion. "Step through when you are ready, Jak Meridian," she said, amber eyes glinting in the fractured light. "Whatever you find on the other side will not lie. It will show you what truth costs when one denies the price."

Jak Meridian

 

[Jak Meridian]

-

 

[Seren Gwyn]

Seren did not answer him immediately. The chamber still trembled faintly with the echo of what he had endured—the air warped where the veil had been torn. She could feel the residue of his vision, its failure humming through the Force like a discordant note.

Her expression, usually composed, flickered with something sharper—frustration, contained but unmistakable. The nexus had not obeyed her. That anger wasn't for him, nor for the Force itself, but for her own miscalculation.

"No," she said finally, voice low and controlled, "I do not trust it. Not anymore."

She stepped closer, the faint light of the sigils catching the edges of her face, lending her a cold luminescence. "The vision door is meant to reveal truth through reflection—to draw what is hidden into form. It has never denied me before. Yet it turned on itself. It withheld."

Her gaze drifted past him, to the fading shimmer of the rift. Her shadows twitched restlessly across the floor, alive with her displeasure. "You went in seeking answers, and it showed you nothing but mockery. That failure is mine. The fault lies in the resonance—the connection between the nexus and the seeker. It did not reject you, Jak Meridian. It rejected me."

Seren's voice softened then, the sharp edges smoothing into something quieter, heavier. "You were right not to trust it. Blind faith would have left you broken. The Force does not always reward obedience…and perhaps that is why I brought you here—to test something I should not have tested at all."

She drew a slow breath, reclaiming her composure, the pulse of the shadows calming with her will. "Tell me what you saw," she said, amber eyes fixing on him once more. "Not for your sake—but for mine. I would understand what the nexus chose to hide, and why it thought to challenge me through you."

Jak Meridian