Hellbound

[Ashin Varanin]

How did I come to this?

There was a time not long ago when I'd have asked that question in the context of my transition to the Dark Side. Now I ask myself about myself because my revenge has turned into a milquetoast reflection of itself.

I swore vengeance on the Sith for the deaths of Brembla Kol, Rach Kol-Rekali, Certh Kol-Rekali, Faran Kol-Rekali, and Benna Kol-Rekali. I swore vengeance on the Republic for the death of Aaralyn Rekali-Gyndar. I was named Warmaster of the Mandalorian Territories. And what did I do with it? Bow to consensus.

Against the Republic, this is what I've wrought. Clan Rekali stole the Republic's last major shipyard from Carida, but they built new ones. One of our subsidiaries moved into the Roche system and cleared out one of the battle's guilty - who simply moved elsewhere in turn.

Against the Sith, this is what I've wrought in recent times.

Nothing.

Alec stole an Immortal, and I helped her after the fact. Isley and I secured forgotten Fringe ships from the remnants of the Primeval. The Witchmasters and I eradicated the Cult of M'dweshuu on Kintan and slaughtered Sith Lords' shades on Malrev Four. Some Rekali forces and contractors raided a minor temple on Mayferria. Half a dozen other minor accomplishments. Distractions, placations, excuses, weakness. While I was making a foundation for my clan in the Hard Roil, the Mandalorian leadership bargained with the One Sith in a way that I'd never have done. Signed a peace I'd never have signed. And when I returned, I went along with it. That's all to my dishonor.

Perhaps it's old Jedi habits. Action through inaction, that was the phrase. Perhaps I'm not so far 'fallen' as I'd supposed. Perhaps I haven't put enough focus on the one and only true and useful principle associated with the Sith philosophy.

Find what you want more than anything else, a single prime goal. Then overcome all internal and external barriers in order to achieve that goal. Do whatever is necessary.

I found my goals. I was weak. I'd like to say that ends now, but I've failed before. I won't lie to myself as motivation.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Even my mode of diction changed after I fell to the Dark Side. For years and years, I tried to keep my tone...folksy, approachable, humble, straightforward, blue-collar. I'm not an educated man. My formal education is barely more than elementary. Algebra is largely a mystery to me, as are most of the sciences. I know metalwork and I know combat and I know the Force. How many other Masters are like me these days, uneducated fools who can warp reality based on their emotions, their prejudices, their stupid feelings of the moment? Fanged God alone knows, I took orders from enough men like that when I served the Jedi.

I suppose when I fell, I stopped pretending I wasn't superior to them. To nearly everyone. I no longer had patience for the mewling false humility that I always cultivated. Nearly always, rather. Sometimes it got out, the real me, like when Mikhail -- Iara's apprentice -- spent the night with Benna, or when Iara slept with Rach while Lyn-Char Beorht possessed him. I was a Jedi Master then, but what they saw was a Witch, and not a nice one.

I suspect my drive to make a solid place and inheritance for my clan has as much to do with equilibrium as association. I should explain. On the surface, it's all about offering safety to my extended family that I couldn't provide for my immediate family. But on another level entirely, I suspect some part of me believes I should balance destruction with creation, and I do plenty of both. Balance benevolence with snarling fury. I'm not talking about some mealymouthed spineless Force-unaligned gray Jedi nonsense, either. I'm talking about the truth behind the Dark Side. I'm talking about the commonality between the Sith doctrine of going after your own prime goal and the Jedi doctrine of avoiding attachments lest they etc. etc. The Dark Side, far more than many manifestations of the Light, requires that you care. Oh, of course most Darksiders choose to care about venal and worthless and petty things, but the Dark Side also encompasses my choice to care about what is mine. My family, my clan, my corporation, my demesne, my territory -- just as much as my revenge. Paradoxically, I've become more ferocious about my clan's interests since I fell to the Dark Side. You'd think I'd have become more selfish (and of course I did use the word 'my' a lot just now).

Where does this lead? I'll tell you. Regardless of why I fell, the Dark Side taught me there was more to life than revenge.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Something inside of me oscillates between acquiring power, authority, assets, territory, connections, abilities, trophies, and casting them aside. Acquire and forsake, accumulate and de-junk. I love my clan's territory; I value the Witchmasters; I want to cast all of it and all of them away. Sell everything piecemeal, throw aside possessions and worlds for billions of credits at a time, no matter what the rest of the clan thinks. I mention this because, right now, at this moment, I want to forsake everything. I want to toss aside this gaudy armor and these useless principles and these titles draped with vague yet stifling expectations. I want to throw away the Gordian Reach entirely, and those useless holdings in the Kathol. All of it is just a byproduct of circumstance, the fruits of passivity. Bit by bit, our connection to Yavin grew, so we secured the system, then the routes to the system, then everything. Suddenly we controlled a sector more tightly than nearly anyone. Hyperspace monitoring, denser, over fewer routes than anyone else has to monitor, and using better technology, and backed by better ships. One thing led to another, one footstep in front of another. What use do we have for a sector we don't know?

But it's become home to thousands, tens of thousands, of the adopted extended family. The clan. This is our home now, apparently, even if it's a result of circumstance and luck rather than planning or choice. I know Alec feels similarly, but she'd happily relocate all of us to our holdings in the Kathol. And when she's aliit'buir, she may do just that.

She's not a Witch, she's only one-quarter Vahla, she can't use the Force. She has relatively broad support, but when push comes to shove, how well will this particular clan follow a non-Force-user once I'm gone? What schisms and territorial shifts will result? Can she fill the power vacuum when I'm gone? She's not even closely associated with any Force-sensitives. Then again, perhaps that's what we need, someone to reaffirm the portions of our identity that don't have to do with the Force. We are more than one thing, even if I'm largely not.

I need to set her up for success. Assets, allies, equipment, resources.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

I look at what we are, at the pieces that comprise the clan, and I see no evidence of design. I see procedural generation; reaction, not action; to be acted upon, not to act. Our enemies are those who've wronged us, not those who stand in the way of any grand goal.

It began with me. I wandered and found what pieces I could find and I made myself out of them. Keetael, Fallanassi, Dathomiri, Aing-Tii, Jedi. Elements from each, picked and chosen almost at random -- or close enough, because those plans fit versions of me that only existed briefly. My self-image recycled over and over. In the end I accepted that I was a mutt, and I taught my children and then my cousins to be the same. Assimilative. We are rot. We expand, we eat what we find, we keep going. But rot endures in harsh circumstances, and we've faced harshness of all kinds. We became what we needed to become in order to survive, and that wound up being an ill-fitting portmanteau of nonsense. Rekali techniques blended with Dathomiri and Mandalorian and Vahla cultures. The Clan has its own religions, its own combinations of those beliefs, and some of it is frighteningly serendipitous. There are parallels - the Manda and the spirit world, the elemental spirits and gods and Vahl and fire entities. Blood rites, bloodlines, family. The whole is nearly harmonious, ever shifting, an embarrassingly gawky, ill-fitting amalgam of uncertain parts and procedurally generated function and unknowable end. What are we? What have I made?

 

[Ashin Varanin]

I've thought of making a curse of sorts. I think Je'gan Olra'en, Shule Windspeaker, gave me the idea. I was the one who broke his curse and killed him for the final time, at his request. That curse of his followed him through eight, nine centuries' worth of reincarnations. I think I could make something just that grand. And not solely because I could, either.

You see, all those disparate elements that comprise Clan Rekali -- witches, Mandalorians, Vahla -- are partakers in my identity. They are here, they are part of this, because of me. Because I am witch, Mandalorian, and Vahla, a throwback to an earlier time when a man could be more than one thing without criticism. Before every Mandalorian tried to learn the Force. But my point here is that the union of the three probably won't outlast me for long.

I have no illusions about immortality. I've dabbled; I know the score. The most successful essence transfer setups last no more than a century or three. The most successful soul bindings last no more than a handful of millennia. There is no such thing as immortality. Someday soon, I will die. Best-case scenario, I become a patron saint, like my son Rach: an ever-present force of unity, despite being gone. But in order to keep my clan together under Alec's leadership, I need to be more than his time-whispers. I need to be an institution, a monument, an edifice, a mantle.

A mantle.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Our conquest of Malrev Four provides one possible avenue for success.

Drawing on the spirit world walking arts of the Nightsisters, we crossed over at the Dark Underlord's fortress. We eradicated and bound the shades that slept there, on the other side. We conquered a small chunk of Hell, and we could do it again; the proof of concept worked as anticipated.

Binding my soul to a new body or an amulet or talisman or place is inevitably subject to entropy, and incurs vulnerabilities. I have no desire to be destroyed when a phylactery is destroyed. What I aim to do, instead, is to prepare the way. Prime the pump. Set up shop on the other side in advance of my death, and move in with a smooth transition. That's a long-term plan, of course. Still, worth noting that if it works, and it should, it'll seriously limit my ability to affect the material world. Chaos, Hell, doesn't overlap easily with what we call reality. That means I'll have to make arrangements for this mantle before I go, and it'll need to function independent of me. An artifact, or a place, with some aspect of my power but not the spark of my soul. And it can't be the kind of thing that serves as a second opinion, an oracle, an appeals court; that would undermine Alec's position. I need to make a resource for her, not reign to some degree, in absentia. No, I'll be tangibly gone, in a real sense. What I leave behind will need to be fully under her control.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

What we did on Malrev Four is comparable to what apex Nightsisters have done for Dathomir's corresponding chunk of the spirit plane. Derived from it, too. But both are also comparable to other phenomena in recent events. There's little point in owning a measurable chunk of the galaxy if you can't hire a few dozen data miners to collate anecdotal evidence. The end result is this.

A third of the galaxy vanished during what's called the Netherworld Crisis. Many returned -- from Hell, or close enough. I've isolated eight substantiated, credible locations for rifts that may or may not still exist. Some had curses or quirks, a few vicious and potentially prohibitive. The rifts allowed corporeal transition from reality to Chaos, just like we did on Malrev Four.

• The Blood Rift was on Alderaan. It led to a place called the Blood Wastes. To pass through the rift was to become homicidal, and kill the first being you saw.
• The Rift of Despair was on Dathomir. It seemed to require a key, a person. It led to a place referred to as Sinner's Despair. It brought on grief and sorrow and an urge to confess.
• The Rift of Fate was on Voss. It seemed to require a specific person as an intermediary also. It led to a place called the Whisperstorm. It was associated with transcendent knowledge of other rifts' locations.
• The Paradigm Rift was on Coruscant. It led to a place called the Oasis. There were conflicting accounts of this one; many spoke of an imperfect transition, an inability to touch solid objects, etc.
• The Rift of Lies was on Nar Shaddaa. It led to a place called the Valley of Lies. Those who stepped through the rift in either direction found themselves unable to tell the truth.
• The Rift of Hate on Dromund Kaas linked to a place called the Garden of Thorns. It rendered travelers...rude.
• The Rift of Love on Fondor required a person, led to a city of unpronounceable name, and involved knowledge of (and love toward) Akala. Best avoided.
• The so-called Clockwork Rift on Csilla led from (not to) the Blood Wastes, the same region as Alderaan. This rift was one-way. Best avoided.

So far as I'm currently aware, these rifts no longer exist, but this information can still suggest options, if used right.

There is a ninth and larger portal, of course -- in broken Corellia. That one remains intact. Where it leads is anyone's guess.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

I've spoken with the dead, and it seems that the spectral geographies reported during the crisis merged with a planet millions of light-years from here -- which is now here, in this galaxy, along with the other worlds that appeared at the end of the crisis. But those who've braved the remaining rift on Corellia indicate that the netherworld retains that spectral geography. Is it an original and the planet-merged version an imprint, or vice versa, or does the planet Arion now have the same relationship with that spectral geography as Dathomir does with its spirit world? Are all of these possibilities true, or none?

The obvious solution is to go to Dathomir, flow-walk at the well-documented location of the Rift of Despair, see what there is to see, and determine whether the standard spirit world crossing rites can be adapted to step into Sinner's Despair once more. This implies, and may confirm or disprove, that Dathomir still connects to at least two separate places or planes in the spirit world.

Should Dathomir fail, I'll go to Corellia, to the only confirmed remaining rift. Where that leads, however, is currently anyone's guess.

The next step from there will be to explore and prospect, leaving the Clan in Alec's hands as a trial run. She's come a long way, with stints in Theed Hangar and MandoBurger and other positions of responsibility. Educated at the Levantine Astronautical Academy, ship commander, explorer. She's spoken for the clan in council more than once. Now she'll be acting aliit'buir for a time, and we'll see how it goes.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

I wasn't able to flow-walk close enough to the rift's creation; Akala might have grown aware of me. Even so, the same rites that let Nightsisters cross to Dathomir's spirit world, the same rites the Witchmasters adapted for the Malrev Four crossing, proved equal to the primary task. I have crossed from Dathomir to the spirit world, and not the normal part of it. Specifically, I've crossed to what the shades call Sinner's Despair or Sinner's Rue.

It began as pitch blackness and rocky terrain, with a single light in the distance. That was a long and brutal trek, and I never reached the light. In my impatience, I looked forward in time and found a customized, oppressive, personalized, inescapable torment. Therein lies madness and an awful lot of people worth killing again. Worth it, except for the risk of getting trapped with them. I decided I didn't need the light, and just walked off into the dark like I did on my Ube-Tel.

Eventually I got a better understanding of Sinner's Rue. It's a large triangle of land, bordered by river on two sides. I stood on the shore and talked with the ferryman, filled my canteen with the water but never drank. It can damage your connection to the Force, or kill you. Pity; I was going to swim across. I opted not to talk long with the ferryman -- too perceptive. Instead I turned around, went back into the dark, ignored that tiny bit of distant light, and blundered my way across Sinner's Rue until I found something else.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Voices on the wind called the next place the Whisperstorm. I admit I was glad of the light. I've always found storm clouds beautiful. The noise was another matter. In short order I missed the silence of Sinner's Rue. I glimpsed an empty pool like the one Alec described, and a landscape like it too, that planet that's in the heart of the Maw. I looked back in time and saw echoes of a beast, of Akala. I didn't look too closely, but I glimpsed her drinking the Font of Power, the entire thing.

In some way, the Whisperstorm had merged with that world. I knew it for certain as soon as I stumbled across Alec's ship, the one she left there by the pools of immortality and wisdom. The ship I gave her: the Role Model. Modified Jo'henry-class mining barge.

It started up like a dream, despite at least one planeshift and a few years of neglect. I kept it low to the ground, skimming along the surface of Hell's ground. The storm was the problem. It intensified, if possible. Then, abruptly, it vanished as I flew over some kind of transition or barrier. I found myself in a pitted wasteland, dotted with pools and rivulets of red fluid. No good landing spots, just structurally unsound heaps of bone. Rains of burning blood splatted on the canopy, and I was glad to be inside the Role Model rather than still on foot. You could turn an ankle down there with the howling dead.

This was the Blood Waste: I recognized it from various survivors' descriptions on the HoloNet. It had once connected with both Alderaan and Csilla. It was of limited interest to me as a long-term prospect. However, in short order, the Role Model passed over something else entirely. I'd gained altitude once I left the Whisperstorm; now I went low again, circling around an unusually lush oasis.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

I touched down on the shore of the oasis, in the shade of palm trees. The white sand supported the mining ship's bulk, though I'd worried. I got out of the ship and began looking around.

Anecdotes linked this oasis, or one like it, to Coruscant via something called the Paradigm Rift. That rift had closed, though, at the end of the crisis, and after my potential close call on Dathomir I had no desire to flow-walk to the Paradigm Rift's creation. Rather than try anything especially ambitious, I began walking around.

The main ground of the oasis was a white sand beach, then a ring of lush greenery, then smooth sand dunes, then an abrupt transition from sand to Blood Waste. I got the distinct feeling that the oasis and the ring of dunes had been transplanted from a larger desert, probably much larger.

Shades populated the oasis, not densely, but adequately. Most of them were shades, trapped in the oasis proper; a few were corporeal leftovers of the crisis. They begged me to take a swim. First I took a canteen's worth of the water, like I'd done in the deadly river. Then I looked ahead in time, found no immediate threat, and shucked off my armour. After a trek through Sinner's Rue and the Whisperstorm, the water was delicious and refreshing. I swam for a good while among the shades.

I found the experience bizarre. The water calmed me, but as I swam deeper I found myself reliving memories. Good ones, to be sure, but with them came a greater awareness of those I'd lost. The evil dead, wandering. Rach, primarily. I sensed him and was sensed in return. I found myself keenly aware of my unfitness for that place. I wondered if the Netherworld represented some kind of eternal justice in any sense -- which I strongly doubt; it seems more a product of sentient imagination. Regardless, the people of the oasis are good and I am not.

When I came out of the water, I sat on the beach for some time -- if time had meaning there -- and considered my options. I pondered whether the water was a serious temptation -- or an experience I'd be unwilling to repeat.

The oasis was a good option. I set out, in the Role Model, to find a better one.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

I flew over the Blood Wastes for what seemed like an eternity. I saw no sign of the former rifts; either I missed them, or time and bloody flaming rain had worn them away. Eventually I flew over another stretch of the deadly river and a nearly bottomless canyon. I saw people climbing down the canyon walls and moved on. Whatever was down there wasn't for me.

Suddenly off to port I saw a tower, sort of shaped like a claw. A monolith, curved and pointed, almost serrated. This one...oh, this one had received as much HoloNet speculation as the rest of the Netherworld put together. I touched down beside it, in the crowds that approached it continually. I joined them, but as they pressed on to touch it, I held back.

The Spire of Destiny, some called it, both in HoloNet testimonials and all around me. Touch it, they claimed, and you could remake or undo some aspects of your past. I've always had an interest in time -- the Tyus Cluster, Aing-Tii flow-walking, and so forth. Though I didn't want to linger here, I found myself compelled to examine the possibilities.

For every family member I've lost -- my wife, all my children -- there's been some mistake of mine, some way those deaths could have been avoided.

But I've walked in time, and my son was a master of it. Most of it can't be changed. The Spire of Destiny is -- must be -- an illusion. I drew my witchsword and carved off a chunk for later examination, to the shock and indignation of the pilgrims. I didn't touch the Spire. I didn't try to review or alter my past. There is no royal road past the things we've done, the mistakes we've made. Progress comes from growth and adult acceptance, not a reset button. I knew the place was a lie, and I refused to be taken in.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Off to the west, as the Role Model lifted off again, I saw a massively overgrown maze, with walls reaching high enough to constitute a navigational hazard. I caught a glimpse of a huge tree, worked into the mess. The Garden of Thorns, the anecdotes called it. Once, a rift had linked it to Dromund Kaas, where I'd torn down the Emperor's Citadel by hand. I had no desire to risk the Role Model, or to get anywhere near things that might have come from the wreckage of Dromund Kaas. Instead, I continued north; I'd been travelling north since I found the ship in the Whisperstorm's overlap with Abeloth's world.

Shortly, however, I found another massive maze with immensely high walls, too high to bother with. This would be the shifting Labyrinth. At its heart was a mountain. Reliable anecdotes suggested that proximity to the mountain eased or erased memory.

No going west, no going north. I turned the ship to the east. In short order I found myself over another location I recognized from various accounts: the Ruined City of the Unpronounceable. It had linked with Fondor, and there'd been all sorts of nonsense about knowing and loving Akala, plus some problems with aggressive fungus. I steered clear of the city, despite the allure of a starport and an abandoned ship. Instead, I aligned with the river and continued east.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

The river branched north and south, a T-intersection. I continued east, toward a hot plain and a sparkling glint of metal, plus intense metal readings on the mining ship's sensors. The Role Model settled down with a crunch. When the ramp dropped, I found myself looking out over a plain dotted with protruding swords. Swords, points embedded in the dirt, stretched out as far as the eye could see. Spirits fought spirits, wielding those swords. Huge gears and wheels turned in the dusty horizon, and new swords rose from the ground. I grasped one and pulled it from the dirt, and found it well-balanced and fitting to my hand.

A spirit challenged me and I slew him, then placed several swords aboard the Role Model for later inspection. My first instinct was to take what I could and move on from this desolate place. As spirits whispered around me, though, I came to understand. Here, Dark Jedi and Sith fought and killed and died over and over again for eternity, hating and challenging their rivals and testing themselves, growing their skills, proving their supremacy. I saw the appeal.

I went with some of them, who rested between battles. They showed me a place where Kaine Zambrano, Darth Vornskr, had stood. I felt his malice and smiled. This was where he had destroyed, in a final sense, the spirits of his parents after they'd dared to pluck him from the melee for personal torment. Similar acts of violence, spirit against spirit, tainted this place.

An eternity killing Sith. Yes, I saw the appeal. The oasis had been nice in its way, but this? Yes, I knew I could live here happily -- so to speak.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

I'd already half decided on remaining in the Field of Blades. I had a new sword, and I'd daubed it with the lethal waters of the river. I had the Role Model. I had everything I needed, for the moment. Even so, I felt the urge to see the rest.

The dead of the Field took me to the edge of Serenity's Redoubt -- cliffs, swirling lights, dead Lightsiders, pyre-smoke that brought introspection and agony for Darksiders. I'm not one to shy away from pain, but I opted to avoid the whole experience. Instead, I trekked back to my ship by way of a few duels and headed over the Redoubt on the Role Model.

And there, of course, in the most inconvenient place possible, I found the Sanctuary. Just a wonderful little hut, a boat, a nonlethal river. From the air, I verified that there was no way from the Sanctuary to the Field of Blades without crossing the Redoubt.

Peace or satisfaction. Couldn't have both.

I noted it and moved on. Beyond it was an endless stretch of sand dunes that matched the transplanted ring around the distant oasis. The oasis, clearly, had come from here. After flying over the dunes for a good while, I determined there was nothing to see here. I curved my course west, then north, crossing the river twice and a canyon full of bones. I could see the Whisperstorm off to the southwest, but there was nothing for me in that direction. I touched down, instead, at the Field of Blades again.

Only to find that something unusual had happened.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

There had been a breach, a new portal formed. There had been a death, a permanent one. The Soulsaber of legend had come through that rift. And there'd been a massive battle, a spillover from another war in the real world. From Ruusan, some whispered. There had been a Herglic Sith Lord using Force Drain in a potent way. There had been a blademaster. There had been mortal blood spilled.

I'd missed it.

Irritated, I looked back in time, watched the battle as it unfolded, skipped back to the creation of the rift. I observed the strength of the breach, dirt and chunks of stone dragged into Chaos from Ruusan. Masters had fought here, Light and Dark both. I recognized none of them, but the Herglic mentioned the Coalition. So the Silvers and their allies had invaded Ruusan to tangle with the Sith Triumvirate. If I'd have been there in time, I'd have aided the Coalition, naturally. But so be it.

The Field of Blades was getting back to normal. Only part had been affected; this place was immense, more than large enough for just about everything. I probed at the breach, the former rift, and decided that I didn't want to attempt to re-open it, at least not just then. Ruusan didn't seem conducive to health.

However, I sensed another rift as well, some distance away. "Lashtu," whispered a spirit or two. The rift was immense, though the Field of Blades dwarfed it. And most importantly, unlike every other rift in the Netherworld, this rift was active.

I got in the Role Model, flew through, and found myself on Corellia.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Later, I would learn that Lashtu and Corellia had merged, and that a rift called the Rift of War had connected Lashtu with the Field of Blades. Later, I would learn that the Rift of War had all the effects of the Rift of Love, the one I'd tried to avoid, plus some. At the moment, all I knew was that my strength in the Force had increased. The Force thrummed in my blood in a way it never had. I understood Akala, cared about Akala, in a way I never had; frankly, I'd always tried to avoid anything to do with her. The pathos of her life, her lost love -- I didn't have the details, but I had an echo, and it echoed my own life, my own losses. And yes, in a way I suppose I did fall in love with Akala then. She was dead, of course, and the rift's effects had lessened, but trust me: you can love those long gone. You can indeed.

After a quick HoloNet call to Alec in Mandalorian space, I went back through the rift without ill effect and found myself in the Field of Blades. The Role Model had a prefab shelter aboard. I set it up on the hot plain between gears and swords and ghosts, and there it was: my new home. For now, and eventually forever.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Once my mortal body got tired, I left the prefab shelter and took the Role Model back through the rift. Corellia/Lashtu, riven by mantle-deep cracks and perpetually (impossibly) broken in half, was no place to look for a ride. However, I left the ship in a nearby refit yard, because its relativistic shielding was and always had been utterly bunged. Between this ship and the Chiloon Rift, Alec had lived fifteen years in two. I had no desire to arrive in Mandalorian space as an old man. Instead, I purchased a plain shuttle and headed back to the Gordian Reach, back to Yavin.

So that's my account, Alec. That's what I did, and where I was, and why. I didn't realize I was recording this for you, but I suppose it was inevitable. Who else is there?

Between the sword, the water samples, and the piece of monolith, I realized I had a good bit of work to do. Things to understand, options to explore, all in the hope of finding permanent stability on the other side -- and setting up a proper mantle to support you when I'm gone.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

I spent the return journey -- apart from the border crossings -- considering options. I corresponded with [member="Isley Verd"] and he suggested access rings for a direct realspace-to-Netherworld transition. I suspected I could make that work for the 'weak points' where Akala's rifts used to be. I aimed to start, though, by stabilizing a gate on Dathomir. Dathomir's realspace-to-spirit-world boundary has been breached and thinned for a millennium, repeatedly and deliberately. It's probably the only reason I was able to step through to Sinner's Rue instead of the traditional Dathomiri part of the Netherworld.

In fairly short order, I'd roughed out a stone gate on the site of the old Dathomir rift. I added a few pre-made Watcher statues for security. I'd always wanted to try and use the Nightsister/Malrev ritual to make a stable gate; this seemed as good an excuse as any. Since Dathomir was connected to two faces or planes of the Netherworld, though, the end result was decidedly weird. Walk through the gate one way from realspace, and you'd wind up in Sinner's Rue, in pitch blackness, looking at a tiny distant light. Walk through the gate from the other direction in realspace, and you'd wind up in the Dathomiri spirit world, talking to Woodrot and the rest of the elementals maybe.

Dangerous thing, that gate, but not much of an evolution of what people already did. Not much of an evolution at all, frankly. Just took me to think of it.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

In the end, the gate was just an artifact form of an ability. Make of that what you will. I stood on Dathomiri soil and walked through, heading north. Instantly I was in pitch darkness, in Sinner's Rue. I turned around and walked through, and returned to Dathomir. Back to Sinner's Rue, then walked around the Sinner's Rue gate, walked through, still found myself back on Dathomir. Perfect. Now I walked through the Dathomir gate, heading south, and found myself in the spirit plane of Dathomir. I tested the spirit-Dathomir gate's bidirectionality as well. The process, you know, required me to make three stone gates: one from Dathomiri stone, one from spirit-Dathomir's stone elementals, and one from the harsh orange stone of the Field of Blades. The spirit world gate and the Field of Blades gate each connected to one side of the real-Dathomir gate, exactly as intended.

It took a lot out of me, that gate, and by the end I couldn't even have told you why I did it, why I built it. Convenience? Maybe. Proof of concept? Possibly. It would help with my eventual plans for retirement-slash-death, but didn't have much to do with the mantle I aimed to leave behind. Maybe -- you notice my voice has been shifting? -- maybe I just wanted to work with my hands and get back in touch with my blue-collar side. Maybe I wanted to integrate all those disparate parts of myself and stop overthinking. Think too much about identity, and nothing you construct consciously will turn into a coherent unconscious. I've got no desire to live with cognitive dissonance if I don't have to.