Private Level 1315 — What Surfaces Below (PM to Join)

[Kalja Tal'Vera]

Coruscant​

Kalja stepped off the transit platform into a corridor that hadn't fully woken yet. The lighting overhead flickered in soft intervals, not broken, just inconsistent enough to leave parts of the passage in a muted haze. The air was thinner here, tinged with recycled ozone and the faint metallic aftertaste of a system that had been running too long without care. Beneath it, almost out of place, something warmer drifted down from higher levels—sweet, subtle, and fleeting.

She didn't move right away.

The corridor carried sound strangely. A distant footstep echoed longer than it should have, stretching across the walls before fading into the hum of machinery buried somewhere behind the structure. It wasn't empty, not entirely, but it was quiet in a way that suggested intention rather than absence. The few who moved through it did so with purpose, their pace steady, their attention forward. No one lingered. No one wandered.

Kalja let her gaze settle without turning her head, tracking movement through reflection more than direct focus. A pair passed toward a lift further down, speaking in low tones that didn't carry. Another figure moved alone, hands tucked into worn fabric, disappearing through a side corridor without hesitation. There was no randomness to it. Everyone here knew where they were going—or at least wanted it to appear that way.

She stepped forward then, her pace aligning with the rhythm of the space without effort. There was nothing in her movement that called attention—no hesitation, no urgency. Her clothing helped with that. A simple tunic, fitted enough to sit cleanly against her frame without standing out, paired with durable pants and worn boots that made little sound against the floor. The belt at her waist carried weight, but it didn't shift or draw the eye. Everything about her settled into the corridor like it belonged there.

The way down wasn't hidden.

A lift stood recessed into the wall ahead, its doors half-open as if it had been called and forgotten. Two others approached it from different directions, neither acknowledging the other as they stepped inside. Kalja followed without breaking stride, slipping into the remaining space as the doors closed with a soft, final sound.

The descent was smooth, almost too smooth. No jolt, no mechanical complaint—just a steady drop that pressed lightly against her balance. She didn't look at the others. Instead, her attention shifted to the reflective surface of the interior paneling, catching fragments of movement without turning her head. One of them adjusted their stance, shifting weight from one foot to the other. The other remained still, eyes forward, unreadable.

No one spoke.

The air changed before the lift finished its descent.

It thickened, warmer, carrying more than just the sterile scent of upper levels. There was oil here, and heat, and something else layered beneath it—voices, faint at first, then more defined as the doors parted. Not loud, not chaotic, but present. Alive.

Kalja stepped out into it without pause.

The corridor below was narrower, the lighting dimmer, the hum of the structure replaced by something more organic. Movement increased, but only slightly. Enough to suggest activity, not enough to expose it. People moved in small clusters or alone, their paths intersecting without acknowledgment. There was a direction to it now, subtle but consistent—a slow pull deeper into the level.

Something in the space shifted.

It wasn't visible, not directly. More a pressure than a presence, like the air itself had weight to it. Kalja didn't react outwardly. Her pace remained the same, her posture unchanged, but the awareness settled in quietly, acknowledged and filed without disruption. Whatever this place was, it held more than just trade.

It wasn't marked—but it didn't need to be.

The bazaar revealed itself in fragments first. A break in the corridor where the walls widened just enough to allow for gathering. Light spilled unevenly from within—warmer tones, flickering sources, illumination that came from stalls rather than fixtures. Voices layered over one another, low and measured, never rising high enough to carry beyond the space.

Kalja slowed a fraction before the threshold, not stopping, just enough to let the movement inside come into focus.

No one announced themselves. No one called out wares. Transactions happened in close proximity, words exchanged in tones meant only for those involved. Objects rested on tables or within cases, some covered, others deliberately visible. There was no uniformity to it—only intention. Each piece placed, each interaction controlled.

Her attention moved across the space without lingering. A figure leaning too casually against a stall, watching rather than engaging. Another examining something small, their posture too rigid for simple curiosity. A pair speaking closely, their focus entirely inward, cutting themselves off from the rest of the room.

Nothing loud. Nothing obvious.

But nothing accidental.

The scent from above drifted down again, faint but distinct—warm batter, crisp edges, something sweet carried through vents that didn't quite seal the levels apart. It didn't belong here. It cut through the density of oil and metal, a reminder of something simpler, something untouched by whatever this place traded in.

Kalja let it pass without reacting.

She settled into the edge of the space, not entering fully, not holding back. Just enough to be part of the movement without becoming a point within it. Her posture remained easy, her expression neutral, her presence unremarkable to anyone not looking for it.

She wasn't here to announce herself.

She was here to see what revealed itself first.

Then she moved.

Caelan Mataan

 

[Caelan Mataan]

​

The shift between levels registered only faintly, more an adjustment at the edges of Caelan’s awareness than something that demanded attention. The air carried weight here, warmer, touched with oil, and something less defined beneath it, the kind of layered presence that came from too many quiet dealings happening nearby. It wasn't unfamiliar. Spaces like this existed everywhere if you knew where to look, tucked just far enough out of sight to avoid scrutiny while still drawing those who needed them. He stepped into it without hesitation, though the difference between him and the rest of the bazaar was immediate and hard to ignore.

Black and crimson beskar sat cleanly against his frame, the finish worn enough to soften any shine without losing its presence, and the grey cloak draped over it did little to hide what lay beneath. The hood was down, leaving his red hair uncovered, a stark contrast against the subdued tones around him. There was nothing overtly confrontational about his stance, but there was a steadiness, a grounded awareness that didn't quite match the quiet, transactional flow of the space. He wasn't trying to blend in, and more importantly, he wasn't overly concerned about whether he did.

A few glances came his way, brief and quickly dismissed, the kind of acknowledgment that marked him as out of place without inviting further attention. That suited him just fine. His focus had already shifted elsewhere, drawn to a stall that looked no different from the others at first glance, its display minimal and carefully arranged. Small data wafers rested in deliberate spacing, each one positioned as if it carried weight, though nothing about them immediately suggested value.

He stepped in just enough to be within the stall's orbit, lowering his gaze to the spread before speaking, his tone even but edged with quiet scrutiny. "So I'm just to take your word for it?"

The merchant didn't answer right away, adjusting one of the wafers with slow, practiced care before finally looking up. "That's right, you don't get to look at the data until you pay."

Caelan let out a faint breath through his nose, unimpressed. "You're asking a premium for something you won't even confirm."

"I'm asking a premium," the man replied calmly, "because I don't need to confirm it."

The response settled between them without urgency. Caelan’s eyes moved across the data again, measuring, not the items themselves so much as the confidence behind the claim. There was no push to sell, no attempt to convince him. Just quiet certainty. It made the whole exchange feel less like a negotiation and more like a test of whether he was willing to play along.

"Or," Caelan said after a moment, voice still level, "you're selling empty storage and counting on people not checking until they're gone."

A faint smile touched the merchant's expression, small but deliberate. "If that's what you think, you're free to walk away."

That earned the slightest tightening through Caelan's jaw, not enough to be obvious, but enough to register. He wasn't unfamiliar with this kind of exchange, but his patience for it wore thin quickly when it stopped being productive. "I don't mind paying for something real," he said, quieter now, though no less direct. "I mind wasting time."

"And I don't mind wasting yours," the merchant returned evenly.

That was enough.

Caelan exhaled once, controlled the irritation there, and contained it before giving a small shake of his head. "Right," he muttered, already stepping back from the stall, the decision made without needing to linger on it. The alleged data wasn't worth the effort of pulling it out of someone who seemed more interested in the game than the trade.

He turned away from the stall, letting the space reclaim him without resistance, his attention shifting naturally back to the movement around him. The bazaar carried its own rhythm, subtle but consistent, and he let himself fall into it just enough to move without drawing unnecessary focus. Conversations stayed low, transactions closer still, everything contained within the immediate space it occupied.

It was as he moved that he noticed her.

Not all at once, just a passing awareness at first, the kind that came from habit rather than intent, his gaze caught the edge of her presence as it moved through the same space he had just stepped into. He didn't stop, didn't fixate, but the recognition settled quickly all the same.

Eldorai.

It wasn't something he had to think about. There was a familiarity to it, something in the way she carried herself, in the quiet weight of her presence that aligned too closely to ignore. It wasn't identical to his mother, but it didn't need to be. The connection was there regardless, instinctive and immediate.

The rest followed just as naturally, uninvited but no less real.

Beautiful.

The thought passed as quickly as it came, acknowledged and set aside with the same discipline that kept his attention from lingering where it didn't belong. He didn't turn his head to follow her, didn't give the space the kind of pause that would mark interest too clearly. His mother had raised him better than that. Instead, he let his gaze move on with the flow of the bazaar, outwardly no different than before, even as the awareness remained quietly in the back of his mind.

He adjusted his path by only the slightest degree, subtle enough to be nothing more than a coincidence to anyone watching, bringing him a little closer to where she stood without breaking the natural rhythm of his movement. Not an approach, not yet, but not avoidance either. Just enough to remain within the same space, letting the moment exist without forcing it into something more before it was ready.

TAG: Kalja Tal'Vera
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[Kalja Tal'Vera]

Kalja didn't turn toward him—but she registered the shift in proximity all the same, the awareness brushing the edge of her senses before settling there without urgency, acknowledged and left untouched. Something else had already taken hold of her attention, something that threaded deeper than movement or presence.

The air around the stall felt…disturbed, not in any physical sense—no change in temperature, no shift in pressure—but in the way unseen currents bent beneath the surface of something larger.

The bazaar carried a quiet, constant flow of intent, a low tide of measured exchanges, guarded curiosity, and restrained greed that moved through the space in predictable patterns most never noticed.

Here, though, that flow bent, drawn inward toward a single point with a quiet insistence that altered everything around it without ever announcing itself.

The Force did not rise from the holocron, nor did it reach outward in any display that could be easily named. Instead, it circulated, old impressions layered and fractured by time moving through the space in slow, overlapping currents. Echoes of hands, of minds, of purpose once etched into its structure now reduced to something quieter but no less persistent, threading through the crowd and brushing unevenly against those nearby.

Some leaned toward it without understanding why, their interest sharpening into something close to need, while others stiffened subtly, resisting the pull without knowing what they resisted. Greed caught on it and lingered, curiosity circled it without committing, and uncertainty disrupted it in faint, uneven ripples; and where those currents met resistance, they tightened, drawing sharper and more insistent in ways that went unnoticed by most.

Through her, however, they clarified.

Not stronger, not louder—just ordered, aligning rather than pulling, settling rather than tightening.

Kalja slowed just enough to match that rhythm, her movement becoming part of the current instead of opposing it. A loose strand of blonde hair slipped forward with the shift, brushing softly against her cheek before catching along the edge of her hood, where the fabric rested lightly against the taper of her ear beneath it.

She didn't adjust it, didn't need to; her awareness widened instead, expanding outward in quiet layers that took in not just the object, but everything orbiting it.

The crowd revealed itself in fragments of intention. A man lingered too long at the edge of the stall, pretending to examine something of lesser value while his attention drifted back again and again. Another stood with his back turned, posture just slightly too rigid, resisting the draw with quiet discomfort that showed only in the way he held himself. A pair passed through too quickly, avoiding the space entirely as if instinct alone told them not to remain. All of it fed the same center point, the same quiet gravity.

And there—

the holocron.

Angular and worn, its surface carried the quiet scoring of time, edges softened not by damage but by passage through too many hands and too many moments. Under the dim, fractured lighting, it held light strangely, absorbing more than it reflected, its matte planes broken only by faint, uneven glints that never quite settled. It should have hummed—should have carried some trace of audible resonance—but it didn't, and the absence of that sound felt wrong in a way that was difficult to articulate, as if something expected had simply been removed.

Beneath that silence, though, it moved.

The Force did not cling to it—it moved through it, a contained current cycling inward and back again, tightening slightly with each pass like something that had been opened too many times to remain fully sealed. It wasn't active, not in any conscious way, but it wasn't inert either, existing instead in a state of quiet repetition that responded to the space around it.

The vendor understood enough to stay hands-off, his presence hovering just beyond the object without ever touching it. His hands moved around it instead, adjusting nearby items with slow, deliberate care, letting others orbit the holocron without guiding them, allowing its weight to exist without explanation. He was waiting—not for interest, but for the right kind of attention.

The Nikto didn't hesitate.

He stepped forward with weight, his presence pressing into the space rather than slipping through it, broad and grounded in a way that disrupted the careful balance of the stall. His hand closed around the holocron with immediate certainty, possession assumed in the act itself, his grip firm and unyielding as if the moment of contact alone established ownership.

He turned it once, the ridges along his fingers dragging faintly across its surface as he tested its edges, its seams, the possibility of something hidden beneath. Then again, slower this time, his thumb pressing along one corner as if expecting a response.

The moment his skin met it, the current shifted—not outward, not in any display that would draw attention, but inward, compressing the layered impressions within it into something denser, more immediate. It did not awaken, but it reacted, tightening in response to the contact.

The Nikto's breath hitched, just barely, more a pause than a reaction, his grip adjusting unconsciously as his fingers tightened and then corrected as if something about the weight or balance no longer sat quite right in his hand. It was subtle enough to go unnoticed by most, but it was there.

Kalja felt it as distortion, a misalignment like a current forced through too narrow a channel, the flow disrupted not by strength but by incompatibility.

She stepped forward.

Not to intercept, not to claim, but to enter the current itself.

The space adjusted around her without resistance, her presence slipping into alignment rather than disrupting it, and where others pulled against it or were drawn by it, the current settled—subtly, briefly—as it moved through her, smoothing rather than tightening. Up close, the low light caught her eyes for a brief moment, clear sapphire and steady, reflecting nothing but quiet awareness before her focus moved past the Nikto entirely.

"How much?" she asked, her voice threading cleanly into the moment, neither loud nor soft but precise in a way that anchored itself within the shifting tension.

The vendor's gaze fixed on her, measured and calculating, his attention sharpening as he took in not just the question but the presence behind it. "Depends who's asking."

"I am."

The simplicity of it left no space for elaboration, and the stillness that followed settled heavier than before.

The Nikto exhaled through his nose, irritation surfacing as the moment fractured, his grip tightening again around the holocron, thumb pressing along one edge as if to reassert control. "It's already in my hand," he said, voice low and grounded. "That usually means something."

Kalja didn't turn toward him, didn't acknowledge the claim in any visible way. "I'll pay more."

The words cut cleanly across the layered hesitation surrounding the stall, not raised, not sharpened, but decisive enough to shift the balance of the moment.

That drew him.

His gaze passed over her, dismissive at first, taking in blonde hair, simple clothing, no visible edge, nothing that matched the weight of what he held—until something didn't align. It wasn't her posture or her tone, not anything easily named, but the absence of resistance, the lack of urgency, the quiet certainty that didn't match the situation.

"You don't even know what you're looking at," he muttered.

Kalja's eyes flicked briefly to the holocron, and in that moment she felt it again, the current tightening unevenly where his grip held it, resisting in ways too subtle to define but impossible to ignore. "I do," she said, and after a brief pause, added, "And it doesn't like you."

The Nikto stilled, not fully, not obviously, but enough that the change registered in the way his grip adjusted, no longer as certain as it had been a moment before. His attention split, shifting between her and the object instead of remaining fixed on one.

The vendor noticed immediately, interest sharpening as the dynamic shifted. "Then make an offer," he said, voice smooth, inviting escalation without forcing it.

Kalja didn't hesitate. "Twenty thousand credits."

The number landed with weight, real and immediate, enough to shift the energy of the surrounding space. A nearby conversation cut off mid-sentence, someone leaning in just slightly as attention recalibrated around the exchange.

The Nikto gave a short, humorless breath. "You're opening high for something you can't confirm."

"Thirty," she replied, just as evenly, without pause or change in tone.

The vendor's fingers stilled briefly against a nearby item before resuming their slow, deliberate movement, his attention now fully anchored to the exchange as the value of the moment increased.

"Forty," the Nikto countered, firmer now, his grip tightening again around the holocron as if to reassert control, though the current resisted in subtle, almost imperceptible ways that continued to unsettle the alignment of his hold.

Kalja's gaze lifted to him fully, and up close there was no softness there, only clarity, a stillness that didn't yield or press but simply remained. "Fifty," she said, the word settling into the space rather than cutting through it.

His jaw tightened, irritation sharpening into something more focused. "You think throwing credits makes it yours?"

"No," she replied, and after a beat added, "I think it makes you hesitate."

The words landed cleanly, not because of their tone but because of the shift that followed, his attention fracturing as the certainty that had grounded him pulled slightly off-center.

Around them, the bazaar responded.

Movement tightened at the edges, conversations shortening as voices dropped lower and bodies repositioned with quiet intent, space opening where there had been none as subtle lines formed through the crowd. At the far edge of the bazaar, dark silhouettes took shape, unmarked but uniform in movement, a faint click of comms breaking through the ambient noise as spacing adjusted with practiced precision.

Kalja felt them before she needed to see them.

Sith Covenant enforcers—low-level, disciplined, already inside the perimeter and closing it without announcement.

The vendor's eyes flicked once toward them before returning to the stall, calculations accelerating behind a carefully neutral expression.

The Nikto hadn't noticed.

Not yet.

Kalja didn't move, didn't reach, didn't force the moment forward. She stood balanced and unhurried, five-nine and grounded, her presence aligned with the shifting current as it moved through the space, through the holocron, through the man holding it without understanding what he held.

"Sixty," she said quietly.

The number settled into the air like a final weight, and the moment held—tight, layered, and on the edge of breaking—exactly where she wanted it.

TAG: Caelan Mataan