Dominion Pt. 2 - Mistwalker | GA Dominion of Caamas

[Leon Gallo]

It knew his name. A chilling went down the Jedi's back. It knew his name. How? How did it know who he was, or how he would get out? What did it mean by this time? Leon stumbled, not from exhaustion but from the sudden fear that gripped him. It was clear to him he was communicating with a dark-side spirit, but what kind? What did it want from him? What if it tried to posses him?

Whatever the possible consequences were, Leon reminded himself why he was there. He needed to find a way to avenge the citizens of Brentaal IV. He needed to stop that tragedy from happening again. What ever this spirit wanted, it could have knowledge to help him. He had to try.

"What you were doing was allowing me to channel your emotions into force energy, right?"

"Yes. you learn quickly, young one."

"So if I was somewhere else, could I channel the spirits of the dead to do the same?"

"Perhaps. It would require immense energy to pull them from their graves. But if they are not resting peacefully, it is much easier. Still, immense power is necessary to use them without their consent."

"What if they had reason to help me? Like if they were all angry at one being, who caused their deaths, and I was fighting it?"

"It would be far, far easier. in fact, it would likely be harder to not loose yourself in the maelstrom of the spirits. Your soul, your very being, may get lost among them. Another may inhabit your body when you finish if you do not stay anchored down."

Leon had begun walking by now, heading towards the fortress, now far away in his field of view. He brought the sword he had picked up with him, and his helmet behind. There was little it could do for him now, with the large hole. The blood coming from his cheek injury had dried, and the injury itself began to scab over. The young Jedi was lucky it had been such a superficial cut. Slowly, a group still outside the fortress came into his view.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Amea Virou Loske Treicolt Maynard Treicolt

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

Much witty banter took place between Nimdok and Allyson on their journey to the center of the maze, during which they encountered a ghost rancor and an ewok death cult. But through hard work and dedication they defeated these obstacles, and finally reached their goal. Now Nimdok's ghost would be able to return to the world of the living and be reunited with his daughter, and Allyson could go home and get some sleep. All they had to do was get that fragment.

The artifact in question was resting in a reliquary fashioned from bones at the heart of the maze. A thin, jagged sliver of black metal broken off from the original weapon, it had been deliberately placed in a position of honor, like a sacred object. Presumably the ewok cultists were responsible for this, seeing as they seemed to be guarding the fragment from would-be looters and the too-curious ghosts who wandered in from the Field of Blades.

“Well, here it is,” Nimdok remarked. “The broken weapon that will supposedly save the galaxy.”

He reached for the legendary shard of blade. But as his fingers closed around the jagged edges, he heard a sound behind them. He whirled around, the fragment clutched in his fist.

It was one of the ewok cultists. For the most part, the primitive forest-dwelling little bears had been an annoyance to Nimdok and Allyson. On their own, they were easily dispatched, but they tended to attack in droves, dogpiling their victims all at once. This little schutta was alone, but it had a gun trained on Nimdok.

"Shoot it!" Nimdok yelled to Allyson.

But the ewok was already on the move. It dodged the technomancer's fire, darting forward. But rather than shooting at Nimdok, the little bastard lunged at the pointy-eared archaeologist who had dared to retrieve the sacred shard, howling like a rabid dog.

What do I do? The hapless Nimdok wondered in the split-second before the demented teddy bear collided with him.

<Get out of the way!> an exasperated Arimanes replied.

For some reason, Nimdok decided to duck. The ewok promptly landed on his back, digging sharp bear claws into his suit.

A brief struggle ensued, not only as the man wrestled with the beast, but an inner conflict as well.

<Let me handle this!> Arimanes insisted, attempting to wrest control of his body back from Nimdok's spirit. <You’ve done your job, now let me do mine!>

<No! I’m so close!>

The resulting flood of panic and desperation from the ghost overwhelmed Arimanes. For all that they were currently occupying the same body, sharing each other’s thoughts, Nimdok did not trust him. The professor was afraid he would be booted from the slippery changeling's body permanently unless he resisted all attempts at regaining control.

The ewok’s claws were beginning to tear through the suit, deliberately attacking the thinner weak points in the armor.

<You’re not prepared for combat! You’re going to get us both killed!> Arimanes tried one last time to reason with Nimdok, but it was no use. He increased the pressure, pushing Nimdok into the metaphorical backseat of his mind.

From the no doubt bewildered Allyson’s point of view, the whole scene would’ve looked pretty weird. Rather than fighting back, her scholarly companion was doing the bare minimum as far as trying to get the little demon off his back. His expression was nonetheless contorted as though he was locked in an intense battle with an unseen foe.

Finally, something seemed to break within the scholar. He reached around, grabbed the ewok by the scruff of its neck, and slammed the small furry creature on the floor with all the force of a professional wrestler performing a power move. The impact was palpable. The ewok slumped and didn’t move again.

Panting, Nimdok met Allyson’s gaze, looked like he was about to explain himself, then sighed and waved his hand in dismissal.

“Forget it. I got the fragment, let’s get the hell out of here.”

***

Rather than sitting on the rock beside Gala, for some reason Miri decided to stand on top of it and then crouch down. The silly girl would eventually realize how uncomfortable this was and adjust her position, but for now she was squatting with her hands on her knees next to the green lady.

“Um, when I was on the ship with the lady and the man that took me from the orphanage, I was sleeping all the time,” she said, playing with the straps on her shoes. “And one time I woke up in a tube that had little droplets in it, like a water slide. And there were wires all over me like I was sick in the hospital. But I wasn’t sick. I think the lady put some bad stuff in me. That’s why I was always asleep…”

Her expression pinched in discomfort at the memory. Looking around distractedly, her gaze was attracted to a bright red insect fluttering through the air nearby. As the bug flew away, she repeated the question at the forefront of her mind.

“When is Daddy coming back?”

Allyson Locke Gala Geert Din Marren The Hound Gedri Fehen Leon Gallo Loske Treicolt Maynard Treicolt Amea Virou Vaulkhar Credius Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Gala Geert]

Objective 3 - Welcome to the Filler Episode // Camaas // Outside the Portal
Jacen Nimdok​

Normalcy never returned to the conversation, and Gala's stare at the child was...impolite in any other society. Was this a test tube baby? A science experiment? She was suddenly somewhat uncomfortable sharing such a close space with the girl, who she partly expected to start glowing in a second. Or falling asleep, as admitted by the little brunette.

Thankfully, the kid was more interested in talking about the present.

Gala reached into her strapped datapad, checking in on the readings that connected her to the other commandos - namely Din Marren . The interference from the cosmogryal disturbance made their location nigh illegible, and she squinted at the plots, rotating the screen a few times over. Din was represented as a little red dot amongst several navy ones. The rest of the team were barely registered and individuals were indistinguishable from her position.

In an attempt to get an answer ––not so much for Miri, but for herself –– she pulled her helmet over her head and tried to open the network of communications. Ear-splitting static crackled over the comms, and she winced with a shudder in reaction to the horrible noise. <Din -- team -- can you hear me? Do you have an ETA?>

It was incredibly unlikely she'd receive a reply. If it'd been so easy to communicate with the dead, more Halcyon soldiers would be alive. The best she could do was wait for them all to pour back through that purple gateway.

As if it helped, she held the screen out for Miri to look at if she so wished.

"Probably soon."

 

[Din Marren]

Netherworld // Field of Blades
Objective - Escape

Spoiler: Tags

Gala Geert
Jacen Nimdok
Allyson Locke

Din had managed to backtrack the distance he'd made by memory with his equipment failing in the strange dimension. It was by luck that he'd found the portal they'd arrived through, which had becoming nothing more than a slight bending of light with the absence of life around it. As the commando approaches it, the swirling colours return and grow more vibrant, and the structure of the vortex becomes more tangible as a writhing and swelling mass of unstable energy.

<<Yeah, I'm here. Waiting for the Jedi Master and investigator -- they have the fragment. We've lost some of the science team, but I see the rest of them on the approach.>>

He holds up a hand, flagging over the panicked civilians and the other two commandos who had been escorting them.

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

“We gotta go now!” Nimdok shouted across the Field of Blades. The remark wasn’t really aimed at anyone in particular—most of the group was still hanging around the general radius of the Caamas portal, either in a daze or still too scared to go any further.

The pointy-eared archaeologist was running, his feet scattering sand with every step as he barreled toward the portal. “I got the fragment, everybody get inside!” he yelled as he passed, before promptly leaping headfirst through the mystical gateway in a manner not dissimilar from the Cowardly Lion fleeing the Wizard of Oz.

He flopped on the ground in reality, landing on the grass with a grunt. A group of bewildered scientists and military officers immediately clustered around him, clucking worriedly amongst themselves. Quickly Nimdok clambered to his feet, shook himself off, and then held out his fist.

“Who do I give the fragment?” he demanded, looking around. “Is it you?” he asked a stunned female technician. “You want it? Here.” He slapped the shard of the Dagger of Mortis into her palm. “You can have it. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

He forced his way through the group crowded around him, emerging to find himself in a field as verdant as the Netherworld had been barren. His eyes scanned the area, searching for a little brunette girl in a flowery dress. He found her sitting cross-legged on the ground a few feet ahead, picking at flowering weeds and strands of grass under the watchful eye of the Mirialan woman.

Arimanes had been begrudgingly letting Nimdok’s ghost take the reins for much of the return trip (for a dead man, he was quite energetic), but once his eyes landed on Miri, the Shi’ido was completely superseded in his own body.

Yet Nimdok hesitated, holding back as though afraid he was dreaming. He reached up to take his helmet off, then let it fall from his grasp before he started forward, picking up pace as he drew nearer.

In many ways, he didn’t know his own child. She was just shy of three years old when he died, and Arimanes only had her for the last couple of months. Could he really just pick up where he left off, as if there had never been a gap in their time together? Seemed like wishful thinking. But stranger, more difficult things had happened before in a galaxy far, far away.

Miri’s face lit up when she saw him, and all obstacles promptly evaporated. Arimanes turned away from the reunion itself, retreating as far as he could from Nimdok as the latter broke down. He would let the dead man have this moment. He would sink into silence.

Allyson Locke Gala Geert Din Marren The Hound Gedri Fehen Leon Gallo Loske Treicolt Maynard Treicolt Amea Virou Vaulkhar Credius Ashin Cardé Varanin