Echoes

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

She frowned for a moment.

This wasnt something she had seen before, but it reminded her of something that her father had once talked about. Slowly the Jedi Master stepped forward, her gaze sweeping towards the flickering flame. She wasnt drawn to it, not like a moth or some halpless victim walking to their death.

Yet she sensed something. "It's a forge."

She said quietly.

"My grandfather was famed for making Sith Aritfacts." A bit of worry tinged her voice now, but not fear. She could sense the darkside of the force lingering within the room. It didnt call to her, but the small fire at the end of the hall seemed to grow larger as the two girls approached.

Almost as if it were beckoning them.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Aela's words, if they were intended to be reassuring, were not taken in the manner she hoped for. For half a second she felt herself reach out towards Aela, almost grabbing onto her left hand before pulling back instead. Discomfort was putting her stress level lightly. Being here was different to her than all of the other places she had visited and documented. Something here still felt very much alive, as if the place itself was somehow conscious of their trespassing.

Jamie fell a step further behind Aela, her pace slowing the closer the two got. Quiet whispers began to echo around the air, and the Jedi looked to her master, silently questioning whether she heard the voices as well. No words were coherent, more so it was like mumbling. Mumbling of a person mere centimeters from her ear, telling her of secrets in some ancient language.

Blue eyes looked around the room, turning her body in full to search behind them, and above, for traces of the source of the voices, but she found nothing.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

As she wandered closer to the flame Aela hooked her lightsaber back onto her belt. She shifted slightly and then opened her palm.

”Jamie.” She called her Padawans attention. The force began to build within her, ebbing for a moment before it pulsed within her palm. She took a deep breath and then spoke quietly. ”Pay careful attention to what I do.”

That was all she said.

A second later a brilliant white light erupted from her palm. The almost searing glow bounded from her hand and instantly spread across the room, surging through the shadows and cutting off the strange voices that had echoed just a few seconds ago.

The flame at the end of the hall instantly shrunk, its size flaring and then becoming little more than a sizzling ember.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The girl stood bewildered by what was happening around her. Her eyes locked on to Aela's hand, watching with dumbfounded anticipation as a light was released all around. For a second she shuttered her eyes, the blinding momentary flash settling in a mere blink. When again she opened them, the voices whispering, not unlike those she had heard in the previous tomb they had traveled to, were gone.

"What was that?" She asked of both the voices and the light.

Not ignoring the fact that the flame that had been alight just heartbeats ago, the blonde tilted her head curiously, peering at the embers that now burned in place of the raging fire.

"And what did you do?"

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela said nothing for a moment, waiting to see if the flame lit once more. When nothing returned she let out a small sigh.

She hadnt been sure that the technique would work given the fact that they were on Byss, but apparently the effect was localized enough to actually function. Her eyes lingered on the flame for just a few more seconds and then slowly she looked at her padawan.

”Its a technique called force light.” She explained quietly. ”Its...well think of it like a concentration of the light side of the force. It burns away the darkside, literally sometimes.”

She glanced at the flames. ”Using it is hard...and on the wrong person...or thing it can be dangerous.”

Particularly if you were trying not to kill.

The darkside of the force had a way of eating into people, and if someone was so infused with the power you were burning away with force light...it could easily lead to their death.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie stood quietly, eyes shifting between Aela and the rest of the room. A confused look cast over her face as azure eyes darted about.

"So then what else is there here?"

Aside from the few things scattered about the room that looked as though they hadn't been touched in eons, workbenches and some rusted tools, there was nothing so far as Jamie could see that was of importance or note otherwise. Cleansing the room through her use of Force Light seemed to have expunged the only aspect of the chamber of any relevance.

"It looks to be a pretty empty room, much like the rest of this place."

If Aela was looking for information about her grandfather, the search was looking to be rather unrewarding for her thus far.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

For a moment Aela didnt say anything.

Jamie was right. Apart from the flame there seemed to be nothing else of note inside of the room. There were no doorways, no hallways, no exits or entryways, but something didn't seem right. The young woman frowned slightly, slowly looking around until she noticed a small draft pulling through the room, her gaze floated about, trying to find something.

”Look for a gap..anything that might point to a doorway.” Slowly Aela began to moved around the walls of the room, knocking her knuckles against the stone every few inches.

Again and again all she heard was a dull. She frowned up kept moving, until eventually a hollow echo rang out.

”Here.” She motioned to her padawan, pressing against the wall with her hand. ”Help me push.”

Aela said as she stepped back taking a stance that denoted she wanted to use the force to simply blow the ‘door’ open.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie fumbled around for a few minutes dragging fingers over stone to find whatever it was Aela felt was hiding. A few raps of her knuckles against the rock gave little away. Just when it seemed like there was in fact nothing within the room aside from the two of them and the dying embers, Aela struck a hollow point in the wall. The blonde turned towards the direction the sound had come from, stepping back towards Aela who had seemingly found something.

"Okay."

Lining up next to Aela she waited for the nod, and then both extended their arms outwards towards the wall, drawing from the Force and expelling it towards the hidden door, pushing and forcing its' way open to reveal what was clearly a secret room, meant only for those who knew of its' existence. Others would have missed it, Jamie among them, but not Aela.

"Woah..."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela let out a small gasp of surprise.

She hadnt exactly known what to expect, she hadn't even really known what she was looking for, yet as the heavy door swung open she couldn't help but feel that they had found it. Her lips thinned, her gaze drifted towards, Jamie, and then back towards the pedestal in the center of the room.

The object resting upon the small silver pedestal was not a holocron, nor was it a blade or a crown. Instead it was a small sliver of crystal, so small and thin that it barely looked big enough to fit inside of a lightsaber.


”I think…” She trailed off as she looked at the crystal.

The Jedi felt an odd sort of compulsion towards the rhing, but it was not of the darkside. It was a powerful force, a draw, but not like any she had felt before.

”This is it.” Slowly she reached out, grasping the crystal ever so gently. As soon as her fingers touched it a pulse ran through her, the force reaching out and the crystal suddenly shifting through a myriad of colors.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Before Jamie had a chance to warn Aela to be careful it was too late. She'd already grabbed hold of the crystal, compelled to it as she were. The girl felt the surge of the Force envelope everything in the room, Jamie and Aela together. And as quickly as the pulse had come it dissipated. When again Jamie looked to Aela she saw the crystal, shifting in color from the deepest red to the brightest blue, and all of the colors of the rainbow in between.

"What just happened?!" Her voice was filled with nervousness.

Quickly she circled around so that the two were face to face. Without a second thought Jamie pressed her index and middle finger underneath Aela's chin, lifting her head up so that they were eye to eye. Fearing that somehow something had happened to her she made sure that her eyes hadn't shifted to some terrible dark reddish tint or anything.

When her eyes remained the same soft bright orange she eased up slightly, dropping her hand away from the girl's face. "Are you okay?"

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela swatted at Jamies hand even before she pulled it away, clearly not happy about being mothered by her padawan.

”I’m fine.” She insisted, and actually did feel perfectly alright. The crystal was still shifting through color after color, moving from red to orange to yellow and continuing it in a soft cycle that seemed ever lasting. Aela glanced down at it for just a moment and then looked back up at Jamie.

”Im not..” She trailed off. ”I’m not sure what this is, or how its doing this.”

She frowned for just a second, then glanced around the room. ”Lets gets out of here.”

Aela had enough of family history.