Faction Peace Station: Into the Fold (Jedi)

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Nora Lithos had been a tricky soul to track down. Now in her late twenties, she'd been the leader of the Order of the Silver Lotus for years before it folded. Seasoned Jedi had considered her an elder. She'd been betrayed and nearly killed and got back in the saddle.

All that, and she couldn't touch the Force, which made her the galaxy's closest thing to an honorary Jedi Master. It also meant she couldn't have felt Wyatt Morga 's Force call, beckoning all Jedi to Peace Station. Ergo, Quill had invited her.

He was waiting on the old hangar deck as her ship touched down. He had a backpack full of interesting things - scrolls, talismans, crystals and so forth.

 

[Nora Lithos]

Jend-Ro Quill

Life, and in turn the force, had a fascinating way of surprising you when you least expected it. Nora had been on the move ever since the Sacred Lotus had decided to leave Monastery in the hands of the CIS. It was a move that had always felt more inevitable than anything else. The Lotus weren’t exactly gone but their presence wasn’t really felt these days either. A fact that both saddened Nora yet offered her a measure of relief.

The Lotus had done good, but Nora had seen the stagnation it had once gone through. It was for the better that they all went their separate ways once they began to notice the same decline once again. Both for the memory of what they had once been and what they had since become.

With a calm and collected set of footsteps she would descend the ramp of her ship wearing a world-worn yet meticulously cleaned set of white-blue Sacred Lotus robes. It was almost a stark contrast to the evidently pre-owned rust bucket that she had just stepped out of.

After all, being a Jedi did very little to weigh down your credit chits.

“Master Quill, I presume?” She asked with a wide smile and gave him a soft bow of her head to greet him as she approached.

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Nora Lithos

Quill returned the bow. "Elder Lithos, welcome to Peace Station." He didn't feel any particular discomfort or amusement about applying her well-earned title to a woman half his age. He'd have used 'Master' except it might come off as pandering.

"There's a lot going on here, and I don't just mean all the Jedi. A good portion of Peace is unexplored, as far as I know, and I've got plenty of peace and quiet and research materials. I've been studying ways to let people - anyone really - feel the Force."

He jostled the backpack over his shoulder. Various things clanked and rustled.

"Would you be interested in helping me?"

 

[Nora Lithos]

It had been awhile since she had last heard the title Elder, and even still it was amusing to her that someone at the age of twenty-something could hold such an honorific. Yet the thought, along with her warm smile, would quickly fade out at the mention of research. Instead she raised her brows, intrigued by the invitation as Jend-Ro described what he had in mind.

“I’ve focused on diseases and toxins all of my life. Disease especially, but I can certainly see what I can do to help.” She said and motioned back towards her ship, eager to get started already. “Do I need to get my equipment, or do you have what you need to run samples on your specimen?”

Wait, actually,

“... Do you have a specimen? I didn’t think you could get specimens of midi-chlorians. Because I’ve tried. A lot.”

Jend-Ro Quill

 

[Sor-Jan Xantha]

With tensions escalating between the Silver Jedi and the Sith Empire, and additional military pressure being exerted by the Directorate and Eternal Empire, it seemed a welcome respite to have been assigned a diplomatic assignment.

At least, that's what the Silver Council had dubbed it. A visit by a Silver Jedi ship to what was being billed as a City of the Jedi. They called it Peace, which seemed a rather wistful endeavor in these volatile times. En route, they'd be able to stop at a few planets. Try to maintain friendly relations, open communications, and perhaps encourage some meager bit of good will for it all.

The Silver Jedi Ship Sentinel emerged from out of hyperspace. The squat, dagger-like shape and sweeping arches of the heavy explorer shimmered in the starlight, as the ship reverted back to normal space-time. From Kashyyyk, it had been a long journey. Departing from the last Silver Jedi outpost at Nubia, they had made a port call at Devaron. From Devaron, they had stopped briefly at Frego. From there, it had been several weeks passage before arrival at Nantoon, which had been the last time anyone had been able to stretch their legs outside the confines of the ship.

Departing Nantoon, their course had turned toward Hoth, though a series of jumps at various points along the way had instead guided them along a zig-zag path of misdirection to this point instead. Finally arriving here.

Where ever here was.

"Now, that is impressive," the young Jedi remarked. Though still a distance away, the exotic glow of the enigmatic object was still clear through the viewports on the bridge of the explorer. Even if the rest of the galaxy burned down around it, he could definitely appreciate the awe that might have inspired its pioneers to have dubbed it Peace.

As the ship made berth in one of the docking rings, the tow-headed Jedi was already trying to get an understanding of the physical layout. There seemed to be a rather sizable library. He wondered just what kind of texts or materials might be available. "Well, this looks like it might be your first visit to a real Jedi Temple," the boy noted, glancing up at the Atrisian looking teen beside him.

"And a real mystery besides."

Xian Xiao​

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

As Nora Lithos talked, Quill found his eye drawn outside the hangar's atmospheric field. A gorgeous ship was pulling in.

"Specimens? I don't know about all that. No, I'm not a doctor or a scientist or anything." He unshouldered the pack excitedly and dumped it out on top of a shipping crate. Scrolls, crystals, more scrolls, more crystals.

"The Matukai monks from the Atrisia enclave have records about..." He chewed on his words. "People who can't touch the Force using Matukai training and meditation to become Force-sensitive. It only takes twenty years, give or take. Plenty of Matukai wound up here on Peace when Mythos attacked Atrisia the last time. And look here - Artusian crystals. Great little Force reservoirs. It's said the Reborn, Desann, Galak Fyyar, the Shadowtroopers - I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself."

 

[Nora Lithos]

Jend-Ro Quill

There were no specimens, and Jend-Ro was no doctor or scientist. Nora lowered the arm that pointed towards her ship with a confused glance set on the Jedi Master. On the one hand it was fair to assume that he didn’t have any isolated samples of a midi-chlorian due to how unlikely that was, yet on the other it was still a disappointment nonetheless. Even if said disappointment didn’t last for very long.

Artusian crystals. Though it was something far beyond the scope of what the Sacred Lotus had resources or interest in procuring, it was still something that Nora had managed to find mention of in a few separate books spread across different fields of research. The texts had been speculative at best, but the mention and potential use of such crystals were certainly not lost on her in practice.

When reading between the lines it wasn’t difficult to see where Master Quill was going with this. Though Nora was honored, there was just the small problem with his suggestion.

“I have considered Matukai before but…” Nora dragged out the ‘but’ and slowly began to shake her head. “I swore an oath when I joined the Sacred Lotus that I would always stay on the path of peace and respect for all life. As a form of martial art I am conflicted about practicing it.”

Her head turned to look at the content of Jend-Ro’s bag that had spilled out on top of the crate beside them. A contemplative grimace spreading on the woman’s face as she considered the other alternative.

“I assume, at least, that it is me we are talking about here. Don't want to get ahead of myself.”

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Nora Lithos

"Oh, ah-" Quill blinked. "Yes, I do mean you. I've got the highest respect for the work you've done without touching the Force, and if you want to hold off that's of course your choice, but yes. You, Force, yes."

He held up an Artusian crystal and admired the refracting glow of the running lights on Sor-Jan Xantha 's ship.

"Two things. First, plenty of people learn martial arts as meditation or sport and never use them in combat, or maybe just for nonlethal self-defense. Second, the Matukai aren't the only tradition that can empower someone who doesn't test as Force-sensitive. Ever hear of the Fallanassi? Most of them are negative on a standard test."

 

[Nora Lithos]

Jend-Ro Quill

It was to stare at the offer of everything you had ever wanted and feel your own perceived reality shatter. The idea that Nora would never in her life touch the force through her own body was something that she had made peace with a month into her stay with the Sacred Lotus. That had been a little more than a decade ago at this point. She had felt the force around her but never touched it.Nora had meditated with masters more than once and on other occasions made notes of just exactly how easy some of the Lotus members had made it seem to lift rocks with their minds.

And now, she was being offered some form of proper understanding on the matter. Her eyes set on the crystal before they lifted up to look at Jend-Ro, not quite sure where to start. Nora opened her mouth to speak,

“Yes, Master Quill, it is a self-defense platform but even then it is a means to potentially injure someone on purpose, even if it is non-lethal.” The Arkanian woman shook her head yet again to dissuade Jend-Ro from arguing the point further. “And, no. The Fallanassi are not a group of people I am particularly familiar with.”

“What did they practice?”

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Nora Lithos

Quill wasn't the best at picking up on cues but she had her mind made up, and that was clear enough even to him. He let the Matukai thing drop.

"No past tense - there's plenty of Fallanassi in the Kyrikal system. They're matriarchal pacifists, all women really. They follow what they call the White Current, which most people figure is just a different part of the spectrum of the Force. Mental influence and illusions are their specialties, and they don't really have powers beyond that. I don't know their abilities, can't teach, but if you go to one of the moons of Kyrikal you'll have no trouble getting found by them."

 

[Nora Lithos]

Jend-Ro Quill

"Oh." Nora quickly rubbed at her neck in embarrassment. "Right, so the Kyrikal system, find the Fallanassi."

She looked at the crystal again. "Though, I get the feeling you didn't call me here just to send me away again." The woman smiled once again with a soft chuckle. "Or at least, I hope not. I've looked forward to this for a while now."

"Did you say you had any immediate projects I could help you with?"

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Nora Lithos

"Well of course I'm not going to send you away right off. This place could be your home." Quill grabbed a handful of Artusian crystals and held them out.

"When a Jedi goes hunting for a kyber crystal, they feel a specific crystal call to them in one way or another. Artusian crystals are more or less a form of kyber crystal, and what we're talking about is personal, so - do any of these feel special? Drawn to you? If so, wearing it and meditating through it might have any number of effects. It would be a subtler and healthier process than what the Reborn used Artusian crystals to do, so it might be less reliable, take longer...oh, oh, and you might like this."

His pack had one more item in it: a black stormtrooper helmet, very old.

"It's an ancient Shadowtrooper helmet with an Artusian crystal already slotted in, attuned to the kind of purpose we're after, and purged of the Dark Side. Not much life left in it after eight hundred years, but if you put it on you might be able to feel just the tiniest hint of...something."

 

[Nora Lithos]

Jend-Ro Quill

The thought of having a home again had not been one that crossed Nora’s mind, but to suddenly think it was far more welcome than she had anticipated. At the invitation her eyes began to wander around the hangar for a moment before her attention was pulled back towards the older man and the crystals he had put forth.

To her they all looked the same. A slight light green shimmer that made them seem far more ordinary than she knew them to be. Nora stared at them before finally her attention began to shift towards one of them in particular. She reached out towards it and found herself spike with worry for a second as an unfamiliar sensation began to tickle at the top of her fingers. Nora slowly raised the crystal before her to look at the purple discoloration it housed within its core.

Master Quill began to speak again and only then would Nora slowly take her eyes off the crystal to look at him. There was an unmistakable sense of curiosity that sparkled at the corner of her eyes that quickly faded as they set on the helmet that the Jedi Master had brought out.

Despite her nerves telling her not to touch it, Nora grabbed the helmet in both her hands and held it before her. She spun it around to give it a quick inspection before she — with no small amount of apprehension — raised the helmet to pull it over her head.

In an instant it was as if a slow wind swept beneath the surface of Nora’s skin. The small strands of hair on her arms stood as she exhaled in disbelief at the feelings that ran through her. Although her white hair obscured the visor beneath the helmet it still felt as if she could see. The more she began to think about it, the less she felt it, but the sensation was still there. It was like having washed off a week’s worth of mud, or like dropping a heavy bag. The world felt lighter, yet it was once more only for as long as Nora did not think about it.

“Woah.” She whispered under her breath, her voice tinned by the helmet. “This is…”

 

[Xian Xiao]

Since Xian had left Coruscant as a stowaway on a ship, she had seen more of the Galaxy than she ever imagined in her wildest dreams. She had been taken under the wing of somebody shorter than her and still as much like a child as she was. Luckily as she traveled, she figured out, she didn't space sick. With all the jumps they had been doing, that was a good thing.

All the teen knew at the moment was they were heading to something that was a mystery to her. Her stomach was usually full, she wasn't cold and had a roof over her head...even if it belonged to a ship. Life was much better with somebody than alone. This wasn't quite the first time in her life she felt that way, but it had been a long time for her.

After she met Sor-Jan, he had almost taken her by the hand and she had followed him. Now here she was with him and going to some mysterious place to explore something she had no clue about.

Running up to the bridge just in time for them berth and her master turn his attention to her.

"What about the ruined temple of Coruscant? I remember going through that growing up and then it getting blown up when a ship crashed into it. All those nooks and crannies, things left behind and..."

Falling silent, it might not be good to bring up the past like that. That had been her first exposure to Force users. There had been good and bad there, thankfully he was one of the good kind.

"What kind of mystery?"

Sor-Jan Xantha Nora Lithos Jend-Ro Quill

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Nora Lithos

"...a stormtrooper helmet, yes. Sorry about the smell."

 

[Nora Lithos]

Jend-Ro Quill

Never mind the smell!

Nora took the helmet off with a wide-eyed look of excitement spread across her entire face. The inner child within her came up to light as she hurriedly put the helmet back down on a crate and grabbed the Artusian crystal to rapidly turn around in her hands. Of course she should have been more withdrawn or held the excitement back a little, but it was already far too late for that.

“No, not the helmet. The force!” She yelped happily before she put a four-digit hand on her chest and let in a deep breath to finally still her nerves and recompose herself. In through the nose, out through the mouth. “Thank you, Master Quill. I don’t really have the words to describe it.”

“Everyone I’ve talked to mentioned an indescribable sense of peace.” The girl began to drift off. “But to experience it for myself, that was always…”

“So far away.”

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Nora Lithos ' smile was infectious.

"Well look, keep the helmet with my compliments. That's just a taste of it. Once you and the crystal you picked get attuned to each other, you should be able to feel a lot more, maybe even do things. This is all uncharted ground, but it seems to be going pretty well. Thanks for being part of my little experiment."

His head tilted.

"Come to think of it, the helmet's dedicated crystal, even though it's weak, might help you connect better with your own crystal. Maybe try putting the helmet back on and seeing if you can feel your crystal."

 

[Nora Lithos]

Jend-Ro Quill

It was like being back at sixteen and staring as hard as you could at a rock to make it move. The difference being that this time around a small measure of success could be measured, even if there still were no rocks floating around the room with her. Master Quill offered the helmet and Nora’s eyes went wide again as an immediate struggle to decide what to do with herself ensued.

One moment she was putting the helmet down, the next it was up before her again.

Though it was difficult to tell, given the Arkanian’s lack of pupils and all that, Nora would shoot her new hermit BFF a glance that failed to show just how much she appreciated the gesture.

“Can-” She stammered, happily. “Can I hug you? I mean, I’ve heard you might not be a hugger, so I figure I should ask. I can’t- this is so much. A whole new world of experiments and notes and research and amazing new discoveries to explore and, I don’t even know how to repay you.”

 

[Jend-Ro Quill]

Quill was absolutely, one thousand percent, not a hugger. Never had been, never would be. Gingerly and somewhat tense, he allowed Nora Lithos to give him the hug in question.

"Just look at it this way," he said. "I learned an awful lot today too."

By which he meant the Artusian crystal experiment, of course. Certainly nothing else. His nose twitched, eyes stung. He broke off the hug and felt a powerful need for greater distance, nice as Nora was.

"I should get back to some, ah..."

 

[Nora Lithos]

Sor-Jan Xantha // Xian Xiao // Jend-Ro Quill

It wasn’t hard to notice when the hug lingered for too long and Nora would let go lest she angered the hermit. Judging by the way he acted afterwards, well, Nora figured he had actually enjoyed it to some extent. Many people did, and that was perfectly natural.

Master Quill had things to get back to and Nora gave him a gentle nod of her head to say she understood.

“Of course,” She said and tried her best to contain the smirk that spread on her cheek regardless of what she wanted. “Thank you, Master Quill.”

The hermit turned around to leave, and so did Nora. She pocketed her crystal and grasped at the helmet before she hit the bricks in the most ungraceful sprint one could imagine from an honorary Jedi Master. Up the ramp she went with only the one thing to say,

“KARL! YOU WILL- OH GOSH- KARL!”

It was the last things that one would hear for a while before out of the ship stepped one preppy Arkanian woman, shadowtrooper helmet on her head with a hidden grin underneath, carrying a whole laboratory’s worth of equipment in her arms. Behind her followed a blonde man, he too sporting the robes of the Sacred Lotus, and he too carrying even more equipment.

“Where are we taking this, Nora?” He asked, clearly frustrated by his lack of grasp on the situation.

“I don’t know, but we have a home!”

“Great, but where?”

“I said I don’t know, Karl! Let’s go find it!”

And so, unless interrupted by anyone else, Nora would venture deeper and deeper into ‘Peace’ with her friend in tow.