Private Lest It Be Repeated

[Rik Perris]

CITY of FORARD
ALMAS

Where he might’ve just taken the tandem x-wing, before, now any outward bound trip could attract surveyors, and others keen to map the ‘new’ galaxy they found themselves in. Or those same entrepreneurial spirits would create an opening for a couple of opportunistic Jedi to hitch a ride with them... sometimes deliberately, for protection.

With hyperlanes in disarray, any extended trip was more of an undertaking and more of a risk. Old maps were only so reliable, given the galactic situation. Some worlds and features of space were in their usual places, but in other cases, solar systems were pulled apart, smashed together, rearranged.

Once they left the area of space that the Foundation had inhabited along what remained of the Mara Corridor, which they had roughly began to map, travel slowed, as shorter jumps and recalibrations were required. One of these jumps landed them at a gas giant that definitely wasn’t where it should be - it might forever be a mystery why these two planets from the Cularin system had been flung some sectors northeast of their origin, but at least the mystery of what happened to them would be solved.

And because every world that wasn’t where it should be had to be documented to update maps, some of the stops were lengthy, also to take record of the effects suffered by planeshifted worlds. It gave him an unexpected opening to tack on a lesson on the history of another location of the Jedi long past. Almas wasn’t just the site of an ancient Jedi Academy, nor just the site of an even older Sith Fortress, but it had been subject to a long disappearance along with the entirety of the system it came from.

Just poof, apparently gone from the galaxy for close to a decade, because of a dangerous Sith artifact that had earlier destroyed the planet of Oblis in the same system, which became the Cularin asteroid belt. Amongst other evils it may have visited on the galaxy.

“Even the Sith thought that artifact was dangerous." Facts known from records left behind by a Darth Rivan, and later disseminated, long after his death. "Now if Ruusan is where it should be, we’ll get to visit the Valley of the Jedi, another place of ancient conflict between the Sith and the Jedi that caused a lot of things to change in the ancient Order, and the ancient Republic,” his lips bunched into a light smirk as he glanced sideways at Ceri, while they walked down a street in Forard, after a visit to the ruins of that old Academy, “more than a thousand years ago, you’d’ve been too old to start training to be a Jedi.”

Rik’s gaze flicked ahead, and he swallowed that smirk as his mood dipped to serious. That was a policy of the ancient Jedi Order he couldn’t agree with.

“Have a guess why that is.”

Ceri Fraissi​

 

[Ceri Fraissi]

SPARKY
CITY OF FORARD | ALMAS
TAG: Rik Perris

SHOCK TREATMENT​

Ceri still couldn't wrap her head around all of it.

Planets being hurled around the Galaxy from their original positions while all manner of freaky things happened at the same time. Starweird attacks, the Netherworld going funky and freaking hyperlanes imploding had her mind reeling. She'd been learning what she could about starmaps and stuff in her free time since that day that Master Rik took her to Corellia - fat lot of good that studying did. But it still wasn't enough for her to really understand.

But she did what she could as a Jedi regardless.

Which is why she and Master Rik found themselves on Almas right now. That and some interesting artifacts that also added to the mystery of planets shifting and just disappearing and reappearing in a different place. Was it weird?

It was weird. It felt like her brain was leaking.

And Master Rik had to keep poking at that leaking brain. She needed a packet of marshmallows.

“Have a guess why that is.”

Ceri screwed up her face for a minute, trying to really think about it and what she had learned when she originally started her training before she even became a Padawan.
"Beee....cause kids were taken from their families as babies already?" she asked him, her nose wrinkling in disgust. She couldn't imagine having to grow up away from her parents. As it was, she was barely into her teens when she was sent to the Order to teach her how to use her gifts. How do you grow up completely without your mum and dad? "It seems so...I don't know, evil almost, to take children away from their parents that young. Am I wrong to think that, Master?"

The continued their talk about this while getting back to the ship to start the slow trek to their next destination.

Ruusan was a strange planet.

Ever since they touched down here, and Master Rik jotted down it's location on their map, Ceri had a weird feeling about the place. From what she can remember from her free-time studies, it was the site of the ancient Valley of the Jedi. But there was something unsettling about the planet as well, though Ceri couldn't put her finger on it. Was it something she missed in one of her squirrel moments? She looked out across the canyons for a moment before turning to Rik.

"Master, I can't remember everything - what's the story about this planet?"

 

[Rik Perris]

CITY of FORARD
ALMAS

Rik listened to the answer Ceri gave to his question, and she was right on the nose. It brought a firm smile to his face that was more of a line with upturned ends than anything because of the subject matter, but he turned his head down towards her with a single, short nod. If she was too old at her age, then that had to be the only answer, or maybe she had been able to recall it from what she may have learned before becoming his responsibility.

Her short assessment sprouted from her values. Her sense of right and wrong. Perspective mattered, here.

“After what happened back then, the Ancient Jedi Order believed it was the best course of action.” Not a yes or no answer. He didn’t wish to tell her what to think, even though she appeared to feel the same as he did about it. He looked ahead again as they turned a corner and the starport came into view. “We’ll talk more about that at Ruusan.”

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RUUSAN

Ruusan was sparsely populated. More smugglers and Bouncers than anything else. The Valley had been freed of its trapped souls… but whatever the lingering sense was that he was getting here, it’d been enough to cause Rik to advise the team to bring extra caution and awareness ahead of their getting to work, visiting a handful of sites across the planet.

He meandered back to Ceri after finalising a few details of the plan here with the leader of the survey team and the captain of the guard, fitting an earpiece to his left ear as he walked. She turned, eyes rising with her words, near as soon as he got close.

“Ruusan was where the thousand years of conflict we know as the New Sith Wars ended, in 1000 BBY,” he began, looking out over the canyons himself, “that conflict was the outcome of the Fourth - and Final - Great Schism.” And the beginning of centuries of the Order’s descent into complacency and hubris, as his own master would have put it, in schooling Rik as a padawan, on why Jedi must remain vigilant, and keep the darkness in check. “More on the way to the Valley of the Jedi."

They couldn't just stand around talking about history. Especially not now.

"There’s some kind of disturbance here,” he continued, pulling that fact out into the open and giving the reason for getting moving so quickly. His eyes narrowed, observing the landscape, far as they were still from their destination. “Thought we’d be alone.” Almost, except for local fauna, and any Bouncers, of course. Others often had no reason to dick around in the Valley of the Jedi. If anything, mundanes steered well clear of it, far as he knew. He shifted the light pack he carried, re-adjusting the strap at his shoulder. "We're going to head out, but before we do, see what else you notice. Close your eyes and feel. Open your senses.”

The main reason why he’d wanted to come all the way to Ruusan, rather than relaying the stories to her at a distance was this: he could never forget his first encounter with such an unfettered wellspring of power, wanted her to experience it too… and to sense the energy was a small test of her awareness. It wasn’t quite the same as feeling an object, and it wasn't as strong at this distance, but he was curious what she might pick up... even if he couldn't put a finger on what was going on. The feeling of the nexus he could remember wasn't the same, but so much had happened as of late.

Maybe the chaos of the Planeshift affected it, too.

Ceri Fraissi​