Private Raising Zhell

[Onrai]

Ellie Mors
Coruscant, Level 0

Level 0. The surface of Coruscant itself. An inhospitable wasteland buried beneath the thousand-story towers of the Coruscanti ecumenopolis.

Whihc was why the shadowy form of Onrai now prowled its depths. Buried here, beneath the world's refuse and rubble, were the secrets of the original inhabitants of Notron - the Taung and the Zhell. While the Taung were a fascinating subject, and the ancient tombs and pyres of the proto-Mandalorian heroes were very much real and extant if forgotten history, Onrai was here looking for the graveyards of the Zhell - the original humans who lived on this planet many innumerable millennia ago. Already she had touched their spirits, the specters of their broken and benighted forms having arisen from the depths of whatever hell they had been confined to in order to wreak havoc on the Mandalorians of Clan Ha'rangir once more, and it was that which had clued her in to the burial place of the ancient rulers of that forgotten people.

She did, of course, hope that no one else would try to get to them before she did. After all, these could be some of the greatest archaeological finds in the galaxy's history.

 

[Ellie Mors]

History was, is, the past.

Outside of the things that impacted her day-to-day life or offered some kind of insight on things that mattered in the present she tended not to care about things connected to a time that was more than forgotten. There wasn't an iota of trivia Elle could come up with about the Zhell or Taung, in fact she only vaguely recalled hearing the word Taung in passing and couldn't even remember in what context or when it came up, but she knew that relics of the past and every conceivable anchor to power was like a magnet to the Sith and other darksiders. Confident of their own power outwardly, perhaps even inwardly, but always looking for something external to reinforce their own strength, or perhaps lack thereof, through some unrealized inadequacy.

"Find what you're looking for?"

She felt the tips of her fingers play at the base of her lightsaber, which was clipped to her at the waist, while she stepped around some sort of metallic trash pile fused together by time and dust. Elle wasn't here for site-seeing, and she wasn't here for the potential archeological finds either, and instead was here for the decidedly otherly presence that Onrai gave off. Something alien, certainly dark, but not quite familiar by any stretch of the imagination. "I never did pay attention in history, thought the past was better off staying that way." She offered alongside a half-cocked smile. It wasn't in her to try to move to violence without trying to work things out another way first, but that didn't mean she wasn't ready.

 

[Onrai]

Onrai raised an eyebrow in response to the verbal enunciations of the human woman who stood behind her. The emanations of the Force indicated clearly enough what this was - some sort of Jedi Master, perhaps a revenant of an Order long past. She was powerful, that much Onrai could clearly discern, as even skilled knights would've been hard-pressed to make their way down here past the Cthons, the feral Vongspawn, and the inherently toxic and nigh-lightless environment. Onrai's visage, a shadowed outline of a woman with pale orbs for eyes, seemed almost to be a pair of eyes alone floating through the darkness.

"Not yet, but as they yet served me before, so too will they serve again. In other ways." She continued to travel through the nigh-impermeable darkness, presumably tailed by the Jedi as she grew ever closer to the burial site she was yet looking for. "The past predicts the future, in a way. Those who know their history rarely repeat the mistakes of their forebears - unless outnumbered by fools."

It was closer - perhaps the entrance to the tomb complex would not be so innately obvious. Perhaps she would have to dig.

Ellie Mors

 

[Ellie Mors]

On Coruscant this was the only place she felt alive.

Sure, everywhere she looked was effectively a dead world overshadowed by its steel towers and concrete jungles. Even in a dead and abandoned wasteland, though, it at least felt like it'd been a natural existence, once, and that was the only thing that mattered for her. "It is a part of life to die, and it is a part of living to both remember the past and to then, eventually, forget it." She said, not quite missing the meaning behind the woman's saying but otherwise rejecting the connection it had to whatever it was she intended to do here. "I don't know who, or what, you are, but you aren't going to be accomplishing whatever it is that you're after today." She added, following the stranger towards yet more ruins.

Verdant green eyes were kept trained on the shadowy figure, the muscles along her face around her eyes tense, but the rest of her body remained lax - she didn't need the sort of caution that came with paranoia brought on by ages of corruption, and she wouldn't rely on assumptions of her skill or theirs to determine how much she should prepare for a fight either.

"I've been, for lack of a better word, retired for quite some time, I would so rather not pull a muscle today. Could you kindly forget about whatever it is you've come here for, if not I might be compelled to try to pull you over to the light first and - oh for Force's sake, I'd just really prefer to not have to hurt anyone."

There'd been attempt at some kind of pleading there but it had really turned into a bit of a complaint, if anything. The force was still with her, she could feel it running through her veins, but it didn't make the prospect of this anymore inviting to her.

Onrai

 

[Onrai]

"That depends on the circumstances of dying." She said. "I do quite intend to do here what I intend to do. I would appreciate it if you didn't involve yourself unnecessarily - you never know what might be lurking here." Onrai continued to travel across the surface of the world, seeking the signs of what exactly it was that laid beneath the planetary crust. As the Jedi yet continued to talk about pulling muscles and threatening to pull the Anti-Force creature to the Light - something she couldn't help but audibly laugh in response to, she carried on with her continued course of action, willfully ignorant of the Jedi's words.

"Be my guest, Master Jedi. You're not going to stop me. Certainly not with the usual bundle of tricks."

Ellie Mors

 

[Ellie Mors]

It was the first time in quite some time someone had called her Master Jedi, much less Jedi at all. It wasn't because she couldn't act the part, or that she was somehow less of a Jedi than any of the rest, or even that she'd been missing or otherwise indisposed, either - where Elle had spent her time she didn't make use of her lightsaber, and she didn't use the force in ways that telegraphed just exactly who and what she was. Coincidentally, it had been a very long time since Ellie had offered someone more than a second chance at redemption, or at the very least a peaceful way out, before actually trying to act. Both, she reckoned, had been Darth Carnifex .

"I am an instrument of the force, stranger, it is not up to me to stop you."

If she had trusted only in her own abilities, in her own skill, then stepping out of retirement and so quickly finding herself in trouble would've been the end of her - just as the Sith would've been the end of her on Csilla and so many other worlds. There wasn't an ounce of pride behind her sense of duty, it was born out of an obligation she'd realized she had the moment she escaped from the hellish life of being raised as a child soldier - an acolyte - of the Sith. It wasn't her own power that coursed through her and every living thing in the galaxy, and it wasn't her own strength that had kept her going when a better future seemed otherwise out of reach. It was the force, it had always been the force.

"The force is with me." She said, the blade of her lightsaber igniting into a pillar of vibrant green. "You will leave or you will be giving yourself up to it."

Onrai

 

[Onrai]

"And that's exactly the reason why you won't be able to stop me," said the shadowform. A crackle, an arc of obsidian briefly flittered across the shade, a suggestion of a malignant power within - yet the power in question was certainly no Dark Side ability. Not anymore. Ritual? Perhaps it could still work, but such casual acts were far too polluted by her time in Otherspace, soaking up the infernal energies of that domain. Perhaps it was now more evident, the sense not of perversion in the sense of dark magics, but in a general feeling of things being wrong. The sense of a building that yet curled into impossibly infinite spirals, of walking straight away only to find oneself walking on a wall, or the sky itself. the wrongness was corrupt in a way that was inimical to the Force. To the very laws and boundaries of the universe in question.

"You've given me more than one chance, so let me do you at least a favor - turn your child's toy off, turn around, and leave me be to discover what it is I've come here for. I have no intention of harming you, but should you make the first move - a very un-Jedi move, dare I point out - it will end poorly for you. The Force will not help you. Your fellow Jedi will not help you. There is nothing that will save you from what comes next - an understanding of the true horrors behind the veil, that which the Celestials stayed quiet about for so long that those few mortals who know are deemed half-mad." Onrai said, continuing onwards along her sordid path towards her intended target: a simple stone door, half hidden beneath a pile of distant stones that itself was under the edifice of a towering skyscraper whose ruined facade reached the midnight abyss. "If you're fortunate, maybe the Vongspawn and Cthon will stay far enough away for you to make it back to the temple and tell Grandmaster Noble of what happened here."

She was so close now - all it would take was getting within what yet lied behind that door, and Onrai would yet have a powerful new weapon, the reunification of flesh and spirit bound together to create a terror to the enemies of the Dark Empire - and of herself.

Ellie Mors