Junction The Sundering Dawn – Act IV: The Last Turn of Calladene (SO/DIA/RNR Junction of Noe'ha'on/Wielu)

[Phillip Slate]

Tags: Isla Reingard

Why. Why had he agreed to this? He knew why. He cared. He cared too much about his friend. He couldn't say no to this. The idea of her going off by herself was more terrifying to him than him going with her. He had already lost his Lightsaber somewhere in the corridor as the pulses of gravity sent debris hurtling all over. This was the second time his brain just wanted to shut down. To go into some kind of self-preservation mode where he'd curl up and give up on everything...

But he couldn't. Isla was here. Fear was gripping it's frozen claws around Phillip's heart. Around his mind...But not his muscles. He could still move. Even as he was thrown to the side by the shifting gravity, crashing against the cold and hard wall as a spasm of pain shot through his system. That was it. Pain. He was alive. Even as there were flickers of reflections in the pools around him showing otherwise. Flickers of him broken. Bleeding. Futures that could happen. That might happen. In some timelines, might have already happened. But not this one.

And so he rose to his feet, wincing in pain as his left arm hung limply at his side. Something was wrong. Pain was throbbing from his shoulder as the Artist closed his eyes for a moment. Focusing upon the Force. Perhaps it was dangerous to use the Force, with everything that was going on...but he used it to dull his pain. To keep himself moving forward through the corridors.

"I'm...not a hero...I'm not brave...but...I won't...give up..."

He could have tried to escape. To run like the coward he believed himself to be. But he couldn't leave Isla. Not with the Alpha still around. That Thing. Why was it every threat he went against was like some out of his worst nightmares? No. Don't focus on that. Clenching his jaw, Phillip continued onwards. As long as he had breath in his lungs, he wouldn't give up. Just put one leg in front of the other.

 

[Isla Reingard]

​

The floor wasn't a floor anymore.

Isla had taken maybe three steps before it started - before the machine beneath her skin decided to see her back. Her vision spun like a star-map dumped out of its grid, constellations slipping free of meaning. It started with light: too much of it. Then sound: voices not hers, voices future, voices dead. And then-

The visions.

They didn't come in images. They came like burns. Futures scorched across her brain, sizzling into place before her mind could say no. Isla doubled over, grabbing the sides of her head like she could hold it shut, like she could dam the flood. Her knees hit the floor - at least she thought it was the floor, it felt like glass, or breath, or maybe someone's memory.

A future where she watched the galaxy shatter from orbit, fingers pressed against the viewport, whispering Phillip's name like a spell that never worked.

A future where she stood triumphant on the Alpha's corpse, its crystalline ribs erupting into holy flame - except she was older, colder, and alone.

A future where she didn't make it. Where she didn't save anyone.

"Stop it." she begged, to no one, to everything. Her voice cracked. "Not like this, not now-"

Something in her chest seized. A vision within the vision - Phillip screaming her name as he was pulled into a radiant fissure, his hand reaching, reaching, reaching, never close enough.

She screamed.

"Phillip!" she gasped, fumbling blindly, crawling now. The corridor twisted again, the world rotating ninety degrees without permission. "Phillip, I can't see right!"

The Force was still there. Flickering. Distorted, like trying to hear a whisper through glass and water and the scream of dying stars. But she reached for it anyway, the way she always did, hand outstretched and trembling.

She could feel him. Hurt. Afraid. Moving.

"Don't leave me!" she called. "Please!"

And then, crackling light danced across the floor. Another gravitic pulse surged. She was yanked backwards into the air, arms flailing, visions roaring like thunder. She hit hard, and the world went sideways again.

Everything spun. The ceiling shimmered with reflections of things that hadn't happened. The coolant pool pulsed nearby, mocking her with possible endings.

She was still breathing.

She could still see.

Barely.

Phillip Slate​

 

[Phillip Slate]

Tags: Isla Reingard

Everything had went dark for a moment. What Phillip hadn't realised in the moment is that he was catapulted once again to the side, crashing up against a metal pillar and knocking himself out. The sudden impact knocking all of the wind out of him and tumbled down to the ground limply, accommpined by nothing but darkness and silence. Which is where he laid until he heard her. Not audibly, but through the Force. She was calling for him.

His eyes snapped open at the voice echoing back to him, the sensation through the Force making him alert once more. Everything throbbed and his head was stung to touch as the Lad brought his fingers away to give a short glance at them. Blood. That wasn't good. It was something he could focus on once they got out of here however as he scratched and clawed his way through the corridor to get to Isla.

Flashes of futures. Futures where he was alone here and terrified, and faded from existence as nothing more than a number recorded in a repot. Futures where he was too late to find Isla and never did as he dragged away from here, kicking and screaming. Ones where he did find her but was still too late. That was the one that terrified him the most. He had snapped in it. He had hunted down the Alpha...but wasn't the same anymore. His eyes were different. Hollow. Cold. He didn't want that future.

The next time the gravitional pulse came, Phillip had managed to brace himself, grabbing onto one of the nearby pillars as his legs dangled for a moment before he dropped back down to the ground. This proved to Phillip that he needed to keep learning. Training. He was too far out of his depth here but he wasn't going to leave Isla. It had been a promise he had made.

And so he moved on, finally making it through the corridor to find Isla. He wasted no time at all, sliding straight down to the ground to wrap his arms around his friend. This could have been a hallucination. It might not be real. But that didn't matter. Not to him.

"I'm here...I'm here. But we need to leave."

 

[Isla Reingard]

​

Isla was inside the ruin again.

But this time it wasn't Calladene - it was her old home, the one that had burned when the visions started. The walls buckled with flame, the ceiling caved inward. Her mother's voice echoed from a room that wasn't there anymore, calling her name like it was a curse. She stumbled forward into smoke and grief, arms raised to shield her face, but the fire didn't burn, it whispered. And the whisper was the Alpha.

You brought him here.

Her knees hit phantom stone. Her hands pressed to ground that crackled and hissed with memory. Her chest ached. Her breath came in quick, shallow pulls, the kind you make before you scream. And somewhere in the smoke, in the collapse of everything, Phillip was dying.

And then-

Arms.

Real. Solid. Pulling her back. Now.

Isla snapped.

Her hands flew up before her mind caught up - pure reflex, a frightened animal with too much power and too little control. The Force twisted around Phillip's throat like a coiled noose, until-

"NO!"

She let go, tumbling back, crawling in reverse with wide eyes and guilt already curdling in her chest. She scrambled like she could take it back, like she could undo the fear she'd just shoved into his lungs.

"Phillip! I... I'm sorry - I didn't know it was you - I didn't-" Her voice broke, cracking like glass underfoot as she lunged forward again. Her hands found his shoulders, trembling. "Are you - did I hurt you? I didn't mean to!"

The moment she touched him, it struck.

The vision didn't ask permission. It invaded - a slick, oily wave of memory-not-memory pouring across both their minds, binding them like wire. And they were there-

Isla, older by years, stood over Phillip.

He was on his knees, expression unreadable. Not angry. Not afraid. Just… resigned. Like he'd seen it coming. Like he understood.

And she-

She drove the blade in.

Blood bloomed dark across his shirt. Her hand trembled on the hilt. And behind her, the Alpha loomed - grinning, if it could grin, its vast silver face twitching with ecstatic pleasure, like a god watching its prophecy fulfilled.

The vision cracked like a mirror under fire.

Isla recoiled, wrenching the Force around them like a shield, shredding the shared nightmare apart with raw instinct. The chamber reasserted itself - glassy floors, humming walls, coolant pools still and treacherous.

Her hands were still on Phillip's shoulders.

She was crying.

"I didn't mean to bring us here." she whispered.

"You were right. We have to go. We have to leave-"

Then the corridor behind them bent.

A silver filament unfolded from shadow, long and slow, like a spider stepping into its web. It pulsed in and out of visible space, trailing streamers of ice and hate. A Starweird.

Not the Alpha. But close enough to know its name.

Isla turned, eyes wide and shining, the tears still wet on her cheeks.

"...Run," she whispered. "Now."

Phillip Slate​

 

[Phillip Slate]

Tags: Isla Reingard

It was all so much. So fast. Phillip's brain couldn't keep up with it. Not at first.

He had been so relieved to find Isla, and then the next thing he knew, the Force was tightening around his throat. Cutting off his breath as his hands scrambled for his neck, as if he could pull at the invisible noose tightening itself. Phillip could have lashed out at Isla, to snap her out of it. To get her to stop, but he didn't. If anything, he was far more accepting of it than he should be.

Then the Force loosened around his throat, as Phillip fell down to his knees and hands. Gasping for air, sweet oxygen. Letting it rush into his lungs as tears streamed down from his face. Fear coursed through his veins. It was different to his usual fear. The creatures he fought against...Phillip fought against them in response. He didn't accept the fear. This...fear...He had accepted.

"Isla...Breathe...You...were...Afraid. It's...OK."

Just as his mind had started to wrap around that, Isla had touched his shoulder and they were both thrown into a shared vision. Phillip in a similar position as he had just been in. But instead of feeling the cold embrace of the Force around his neck, restricting his breathing, taking the words from his throat...Instead he felt the cold, and wet sensation of blood against his chest. His life fading with every beat of his chest. Yet...Phillip was still accepting of it all. He didn't fight against it. He didn't rage against it. No. Phillip had accepted it as if it was something necessary. As if there hadn't been another option.

Once more, they were back to reality. Phillip could hear Isla's crying. Her tears. No-one would have blamed him for pushing her away. For yelling at her. For being afraid of her. That wasn't him however. Instead he wrapped his arms around her in a hug once more. Phillip needed her to know that he wasn't afraid. That he didn't blame her. He wouldn't push her away.

"It's OK...It's OK. It didn't happen. Don't focus on it. Don't let it distract you."

Yet if there was anything that was did scare him...It was whatever was behind them. He had no clue what it was but the Force and Isla was already telling him to run as Phillip reached out to grab Isla by the arm to start running with her. They had to get out of here and even after that vision, even after the Force around his throat, Phillip wasn't going to leave Isla. They needed to talk about what had happened. And they couldn't do that if she was left behind.

 

[Isla Reingard]

​

Isla didn't deserve the hug. Not after what she'd just done. Not after what she'd seen. But Phillip gave it to her anyway - tight, real, and full of the kind of trust that made her chest feel like it was collapsing all over again.

Her fingers gripped the fabric of his tunic like it was the only stable thing in a world made of knives and shadows. Tears poured freely now, burning hot against her cheeks, and her body trembled from more than just exhaustion. He said it was okay. He said it didn't happen. But Isla knew better.

Because in a place like Calladene, every terrible thing that might happen already had, somewhere.

"Don't forgive me for that," she whispered into his shoulder. "Don't say it's okay. It wasn't. I don't want to be someone who-"

She didn't finish. The corridor roared.

The Starweird had unfurled completely now - its shape half-formed and flickering like bad memory, impossibly thin limbs trailing as if pulled from deep water. Its face, if it had one, was a negative space: a screaming silence that folded every noise in the chamber into its open mouth. The temperature dropped instantly, frost blooming across Isla's boots and the edge of her breath turning to mist.

Phillip's hand grabbed her arm, tugging.

They had to run.

She nodded, legs finding motion before thought. They sprinted, boots skidding over the prismatic floor, dodging debris. Another pulse - gravity twisting - sent a column crashing down behind them, sparks bursting like dying stars.

But the Starweird followed.

It wasn't fast, but it slid - warped. Moved like a holofilm playing backward and sideways at once. And with every inch it gained, Isla felt the pressure behind her eyes increase. The Force rippled inside her chest, wild and terrified.

Something snapped.

Her feet stopped.

She didn't think. She just felt.

She turned.

Anger.

Hot. Hungry. Protective. Righteous.

It wasn't the cold, twisted fear the Starweird wanted - it was the fire behind Isla's teeth. The scream inside her ribs. The fury that something had tried to take Phillip from her in a hundred thousand futures, and she was done watching it happen.

The Force surged.

Light and wind exploded outward in a sphere around her, slamming into the corridor walls with a deafening crack. A coolant pipe ruptured nearby, spraying mist and frost. Debris lifted. The air turned gold with charged particles. She reached out, hand trembling but held aloft, and let the fury burn.

The Starweird recoiled.

But it didn't die.

And in the middle of her fury, she almost forgot who she was. The lines were so thin. Power was so loud when it roared like that.

Her breathing turned ragged.

She staggered, sweat freezing to her brow, her hand falling.

Her voice came small now. Human. Young.

"Go," she said, not knowing if she was speaking to Phillip or to herself. "Just go. I'll catch up."

The Starweird skittered sideways, limbs slashing the air with dimension-warping sharpness.

And Isla, eyes blazing, stood her ground, for a second longer.

Phillip Slate​

 

[Phillip Slate]

Tags: Isla Reingard

"We will talk about it. Later."

He had tried to snap her out of it. It was something they'd have to discuss later. once they were safe. They couldn't worry about a future they might not have. They had to run. Especially as the Starweird made it's way towards them. Phillip didn't know how to stop it. Didn't know how to hold it back. But he knew how to run. He had done plenty of running in his life. And he planned on doing more as they moved.

More debris were coming towards them. More pulses of gravity. But Phillip was starting to figure out when they were going to happen. The sharp warning in the Force telling him when to wait. When to brace himself. That was what he did best. As long as they kept running, they'd be able to get away from it. That's what he believed. He didn't dare risk look behind them. If he saw how close it was, it would have shattered him. Shattered his confidence.

That's when he felt Isla stop, his grip slipping on her as he carried on a few steps, turning his head back to look at her and the Starweird, as the fear gripped around his heart once more. He could see the Force radiating off Isla as it exploded in a sphere around her, Phillip throwing his arms in front of his face to protect his view for a moment. Why was it every Padawan he met was so much more powerful than him? So much more impressive.

Isla wanted him to run. She said she'd catch up. There was a part of Phillip that believed her. But it would mean leaving her. There was that small chance that things could go wrong. That he'd go back without her. That he'd have to explain what had happened. HIs hands clenched up in tight fists, digging his nails into the palm of his hands as he knew he had to make a choice. Did he continue to run like he always did...or did he try to face down the Starweird with Isla. Even if she managed to kill it, what if she was exhausted? What if she couldn't move any longer.

"I am not leaving you Isla. I still have to deal with your annoying questions."

He made his choice. Phillip wouldn't abandon Isla. Either they made it away together, or fell here together. Isla blamed herself for bringing him, whereas he'd blame himself if he left her. It was not a situation either of them would be happy with as he took a step of firm steps towards Isla, turning his attention towards the Force. Letting himself Sense through the corridor, to the sounds of the electricity crackling from the Conduits. Phillip had done his best to avoid them, he knew how dangerous electrical discharges could be...yet now he was going to try and use them to his advantage.

Turning his attention to the metal lining the corridor. Using the Force to rip the metal out, and hurtling them towards the Starweird. They were distractions. Obstacles to hold it back as Phillip worked on digging deeper into the corridor. Into the lining as he was pulling the wires out from beneath them. Would the electrical discharge even have an effect on the Starweird? Was this all for nothing? It didn't matter to Phillip.

"...I won't run."

He had tried to run from everything in his life. He went to the Shiraya Order to get away from his family. He ran away from responsibility and put leadership roles onto others. Even when he found against the Netherworld Beasts, he had wanted to run but had followed the jobs given to him because he had no other choice. But here? He had a choice. Run, or Fight. Fear or Trust.

Philip had always believed himself to be a Chicken. That he was weak. A coward. But in this moment, none of that was on his mind. In this precise moment of time, Phillip believed himself to be a Jedi, using the Force to protect those important to him.

 

[Lily Decoria]

Location: Calldene (Objective 2)
Outfit: Jedi Attire
Equipment: Arwr Da (Main Crossguard Lightsaber), Hydrangea Moonblade (concealed secondary Lightsaber)
Tag: Briana Sal-Soren | Vytal Noctura | Tasia Palpatine | Pel Grennin | Merion Oreno

Lily aiding in the restoration of the cosmic gears felt strange. It was a sensation of being overwhelmed by the reality of such things existing and how precarious the galaxy was in things. It was also strange for them to be working alongside enemies that they had been fighting for centuries and were going to return to fighting now that this threat that united them had been dealt with.

Hearing the witch coming over and asking what they were doing next. Lily was uncertain herself since she was not confident in what was needing to be done next. But there was also an acknowledgement in herself that there were other places she needed to be. Lives to be saved now that this threat had been handled. "I think it is best that I go. The alliance was temporary and best I do not test how soon that it falls." Lily confessed, feeling that the truth was necessary in this discussion, especially since it was not revealing anything on herself or the RNR.

"It was an honour to work with you and thank you for leading the charge in restoring things here." Lily added, not wishing to diminish the work that Vytal put in keeping things safe.

Lily then returned to the ship that her Master had flown them on to the location.

 

[Isla Reingard]

​

Isla barely heard him at first. The Force was screaming, the Starweird was screaming, she was screaming - if not out loud, then deep in her blood, in the parts of her brain that had never belonged to her in the first place.

She felt him, though.

Phillip.

The idiot.

The sweet, stubborn, painfully noble idiot stepping toward her instead of running the other way like any sane person. And even now, with her whole body humming like an overcharged circuit, her bones threatening to liquefy from the pressure, she wanted to yell at him for it. For staying. For choosing this.

"I said run," she growled through clenched teeth, but it came out more like a plea.

But he didn't. Of course he didn't.

She saw what he was doing - ripping up pieces of the corridor, hurling shards of jagged metal and conduits at the Starweird like improvised missiles. Some bounced harmlessly off its flickering form, but others connected, cutting through its translucent limbs like static through a broadcast. The creature twitched. Flinched. Recoiled.

It gave her an opening.

And the Force - her Force - roared.

Her anger burst open like a dam breaking, not wild now but focused, channeled. Isla raised both hands, eyes glowing gold with the storm inside her, a radiant brilliance bleeding out of her skin. Wind howled around her, a gale born from nothing, pulling in debris and light and the echoes of what might've been. The air bent around her fingers.

She screamed - one word, one release - and the Force surged out of her like a tidal wave made of sound and light and fury.

It hit the Starweird in full.

The creature shrieked in the Force, a sound not heard so much as injected into every nerve. The walls shook. The coolant pools boiled and fractured. The thing's form splintered and blurred like a corrupted datafile, rippling backward, tendrils flailing in panicked patterns.

It lunged one last time - but Phillip's trap had taken root.

The severed conduits he'd yanked now pulsed, overloaded, and ignited. An arc of raw electricity jumped across the corridor, slamming into the Starweird's form. It spasmed, its scream cutting off mid-howl.

Isla's knees buckled, but she raised her hands once more - just once, one more time - and the corridor above the creature collapsed. Pillars snapped free. A wave of ruptured structure and debris cascaded down, sealing the passage in a roar of crushing metal and fractal light.

Silence.

She collapsed to her knees beside Phillip, every cell in her body feeling like it was vibrating in the wrong direction. Her eyes flickered, the golden glow dimming back to their warm brown. Her fingers twitched uselessly in her lap.

Then, somehow, she smiled. Weak, wry, herself.

"Okay," she panted, voice like gravel soaked in static. "Maybe I should… listen to you more."

She fell sideways into him, half-conscious, heartbeat pounding like war drums in her ears. "But only when you're being smart. Which, like… twice a week. Max."

Phillip Slate​

 

[Phillip Slate]

Tags: Isla Reingard

"Run? I thought you said...Fun."

His voice cracked, even as he tried to joke around. He was afraid. Deeply. But...perhaps that was it. Being brave wasn't being absent of fear. It was fighting through the Fear. Carrying on. Fighting against that instinct that told him to run. Instead he went against that instinct and stood his ground to send the metal down towards the Starweird. To push his control of the Force. He wasn't strong. Not in his Lightsaber combat, nor in his knowledge of the Force...but he was smart. He could figure out how to use his environment to his advantage.

Even as the pressure through the Force was immense, he didn't stop. Isla might resent him for choosing to stay here. To fight against the Starweird. But that hadn't been what he had chosen. No. He had chosen her. To stand by her side. If that meant he had to fight against the unknown, then he'd do so as he could feel himself pushing himself. Beads of sweat dripping down his face as he had to keep focus. His knees buckling as he kept tearing up the ground until finally the wires were exposed.

And with that, his trap was sprung. An arc of electricity erupting from the wires beneath the Starweird, flickering around the corridor, giving Isla enough time to collapse the corridor upon the creature. Even as Isla collapsed next to him however, he reached out to support her, letting her lean against him as he gasped for air.

"I'm...smarter...more often...than you are...Now...Let's get you...outta here..."

Phillip pushed himself up to his feet, his knees still shaking as he closed his eyes for a moment. He still needed the Force right now. To support himself and Isla as he tried to lift her up to make their way out of here. He was far more conscious than she was. It wasn't saying much...but he could still walk. He could still see ahead of them and he started to make his way out of here with Isla. They were going to survive and that was what was important for Phillip. He didn't care that he had lost his Lightsaber here. It was a small price to pay compared to losing his friend.

"...You better...let me sleep in...the next few weeks."

 

[Laphisto]

Laphisto rolled his shoulders with a low growl, hand drifting to the hilt of his saber. With a crackling snap-hiss, the blade ignited, casting a pale glow across the narrow space as he stepped forward, locking swords with the opposing Kiev'arian. His ears pinned back, muscles tense. The warrior before him was a twisted reflection scales blackened with rot, flesh reeking of decay, every breath they took tainted by the stench of death. And yet… Laphisto hesitated.

His strikes lacked full force. Every clash sent a whine of conflict through his throat. For all his resolve, he couldn't bring himself to kill this corrupted soul. It wasn't real some part of him knew that but the old stories haunted him. The ancient curse passed down through generations warned of this very affliction. Spill dragon's blood, and the Black Death would pass on to the killer. Then, a spark flared in his chest. A memory not his own surged forward vivid, divine.

Through the eyes of Dra'ko, he walked the sunlit streets of Elda'mir. He paused before a young Kiev'arian boy, trembling and afflicted with the curse. The god's heart swelled with sorrow, pity. He knew not how the child bore such suffering but he reached out, gently placing a hand upon the boy's forehead. A shimmer of golden light pulsed from his palm, cascading over the child like a veil. Slowly, the rot faded. The boy was healed. Laphisto gasped as the memory shattered, reality snapping back like a whip. His resolve returned.

With a fierce cry, he lunged forward, locking blades with the cursed warrior once more. Then releasing his saber with one hand he reached out and gripped the warrior's forehead, claws splayed. Golden light surged behind his eyes. Ethereal energy flowed into the afflicted man in radiant waves. The cursed Kiev'arian threw his head back, crying out as the corruption began to peel away. Black scales cracked, split, and dissolved. Beneath them, the ocean-deep blue of untainted flesh emerged. The rot was driven out, retreating like shadows before dawn.

Diarch Rellik

 

[Lirka Ka]

There's a beauty to be found in the expected. A handful of possibilities lay before her now, and Lirka took the one that pleased her most. Something chortled out of the Sephi's that must have been a chuckle - it echoed in the silence that had quickly become another meaningless thing to the old warrior. Serina Calis had become far more a focus, destruction was second nature to a monster like Lirka. But toying out that wonderous beauty of the expected out of her least favorite Sithling? That demanded her attention.

"I suppose then, Serina Calis. I am a very old child."

Lirka Ka was never one to let up so easily. There was always a barb to sink, especially when the Sith were such an emotional bunch. Serina may not have looked at her, but Lirka listened to each of the girl's words with assassin's precision. Such wonderfully empty comparisons, though she felt no need to lash out yet. Though all it took was another prattling of gods for Lirka to shake her head, though with something perhaps closer to exaggerated exasperation instead of genuine frustration this go around.

"Am I truly so boring? Are my words so vacant that they are unworthy of young ears? Come now, Serina Calis. You understand my feeling on this whole debacle of gods among us."

She understood the drama of the wording. Melodrama did run in Lirka's veins like blood, but there were some things she would never humor too deeply - and after spending so many decades among Sith kind, and dealing with far too many people who believed themselves gods among men (including Lirka herself in a rather unfortunate period of existence) she had come to realize such an ego should never be humored when walking the Path.

But Lirka understood very well how to jest.

"Besides, I am very happy."

The sacrifice of happiness was an amusing lie ultimately, at one point in her life Lirka had even believed it. Power was to be a miserable thing, and in many a ways it was - contentment and pleasure where not the catalysts of transience after all. But Sephi lived a long, long time, and if one didn't enjoy their work? Well it certainly made those years drone on extra long. In much a way it felt almost like a duty to impart her wisdom onto a girl whom Lirka saw so much of herself in that twisted form, even if it was an endeavor dancing to deaf ears.

But for now, she would allow Serina Calis to believe her foolishness. It was not Lirka's place to compel such feelings after all, her lot in this Galaxy was to be but a guiding hand masked in the cold plundered steel of Moridinae.

Riddles struck her brain, and with it Lirka frowned. So the celestials were too good for a blastdoor, how disappointing.

"A door it would seem. How wondrously flowery our supposed creators were. But please, girl-who-calls-herself-Weaver - speak of yourself."

It would have simply been bad form for Lirka to actually admit the many contradictions that came with a life as long and as seasoned as her own. But in grandiose and dramatic gesture, a swirl of the hand, and a actor's bow did she yield to the young Calis,

"It would be woefully disrespectful of me to deny one who lies so gracefully the opportunity."

It was to no particular shock Lirka yielded first, another opportunity to consider her cards in the wake of a fellow manipulator - though, Lirka strummed over that title sarcastically gifted to her. High Priestess? A humorous concept. One that tickled something in the back of her mind, a possibility of what could become if the Path were to expand.

 

[Serina Calis]

"The Rewrite Begins."

Tags - OBJECTIVE 3: Lirka Ka [OPEN]



Serina watched Lirka's bow with all the reaction of a statue observing a thunderstorm. Not impassive—just measured. The corner of her helm tilted downward in a gesture that might have passed for a nod if she were being generous. Or if she were humoring a child.

The title Girl-who-calls-herself-Weaver rang faintly in the charged air, another needle threaded through the complex tapestry they had begun to spin between barbs and truths. And gods. Always gods. It took effort not to sigh—Serina had never believed in them, not truly. But she knew how to look like one.

She stepped forward.

The gate loomed silent and unchanging. But the Archive listened.

Six violet eyes turned toward the ancient obsidian, and the armor—Tyrant's Embrace—stilled. No pulse at its chest. No hum in its plates. Just silence. Silence before confession.

She raised a single taloned finger and traced a circle in the air, not quite touching the door. Her voice, when it came, was not loud. But it was irrevocable.

"I am Serina Calis."
"My name hides a being never born of mortal hands, never truly a Calis."

The door shimmered—slightly. Not a reaction of approval. Merely... noted.

She took another step forward, her hands folding neatly before her, not in submission but in control—like a monarch ready to address a senate of corpses.

"I desire control."
"The lie it requires is the myth that control can be shared."

Another shift in the walls. A flicker across the obsidian, like ripples beneath a frozen lake.

Serina's gaze narrowed, the amusement gone from her voice now. This was the final cut.

"My purpose is to impose order."
"The paradox is that I must first unmake every order that resists it."

The silence that followed was perfect. A silence that accepted. A silence that judged.

And then, from somewhere deep within the core of Calladene, a deep pulse of acknowledgment.

Not verbal. Not written.

The obsidian monolith breathed. Just once. A faint expansion. A signal.

Serina stepped back half a pace and gestured without flourish toward the door.

"There. Now you may enlighten the Archive with divine contradiction."

A pause.

"Or lie spectacularly. I'll respect either."

Though she stood motionless, every inch of her gleamed with the tension of a coiled doctrine. If the Archive responded to truth and artifice, then they had both found their altar.

 

[Kilgorin]

Objective 3 – The Celestial Archive​

Kilgorin walked behind Nizhalgal and Junpei Kenobi with a relaxed gait, carbine blaster in his hands, at the ready in a moment's notice. He had the feeling someone was tailing them. It was not from the Force. He was not a Sensitive, like his wife and son had been before their deaths at the hands of the Maw. No, it was merely the gut instincts of a soldier. He was certain his Givin boss already knew who or whatever it was following them, and he seemed unconcerned.

Still, Kilgorin had been tasked with protecting the boy from any potential threat, so he had to be wary at all times. So far, they had not openly encountered anyone. And when they steeped through the doorway, he no longer felt like they were being followed. Odd. "Sir, are the doors teleporting us, or something?" He would not really be surprised if it were so. He knew the Force could do bizarre things, and this place seemed to take that to the next level and beyond.

As for the kid... Kilgorin had been against bringing him. This was no place for a teenager with no real experience in combat or even life in general. He wasn't even sure he was up to the task here, and he was a veteran. Nizhalgal was the only competent one here. Kilgorin was one of the few people who knew his secret and just how powerful the man was. To the outside, he was just an actor turned politician. Nobody would suspect he was a powerful and brilliant Arithmancer. Even to those with the strongest of Force Sense would see him as just another non-sensitive. The thought boggled Kilgorin's mind. He couldn't tell anyway, not unless he saw someone use the Force. Even then, there were devices that could imitate it.

 

[Isla Reingard]

​

Isla didn't remember much of the next few minutes, only sensations.

The warmth of Phillip's arm around her shoulders. The cold bite of the corridor's air as it hissed through ruptured ducts. Her own feet stumbling forward, not entirely by her will but carried by his, as if their legs had made some temporary treaty for survival. Her thoughts were static and steam, flickers of fading adrenaline, her mind still half-locked in the Force's echo chamber.

But she felt his words. Heard his voice in the dark, cracking through the tension like a flare in a cave.

"I'm smarter more often than you are."

She gave a noise that might've been a laugh or a cough - unclear. "That's… wildly untrue," she rasped, her head resting against his shoulder, eyelids fluttering but refusing to close completely.

Still, she didn't pull away.

They limped past another coolant spill, steam curling around their legs like spirits too tired to haunt them properly. She could hear the dull groan of the collapsed corridor behind them - the Starweird buried, for now. For now. The Force still quivered with unease, like the whole world was holding its breath.

But Isla couldn't hold anything anymore. Not pain. Not pride. Not secrets.

"You didn't have to stay," she said quietly. "But you did. And I don't know if that makes you brave or really, really bad at listening."

A few steps more. Then she added, softly, with more weight behind it than anything else she'd said: "Thank you."

The distant sound of Republic ships echoed somewhere far above, distorted by the depths of the machine-world. Help would come soon. Or they'd just keep walking, half-dead, until the sky cracked open and someone noticed two Force-touched disasters crawling out of a trench full of nightmares.

She felt herself slipping again, the kind of exhaustion that didn't just drain your body - it erased it.

"Okay," she murmured, almost a sleep-slurred mantra now. "You can sleep in... a week. But only if I get the last candy bar."

A beat.

"…Unless it's the cherry one. I'm not touching that. That's gross."

And then, as they finally reached a stairwell leading up, up, out - Isla let her eyes close.

Safe enough to fall asleep.

Because Phillip was still walking.

And for once, the visions were quiet.

-Exit-

Phillip Slate​

 

[Lirka Ka]

The Galaxy had a certain humor to it. Lirka was not a woman who believed much in the grand cosmic fate - the only fate for reality was the embrace of darkness, after all. Yet, here did she stand in this strange land, side by side with a snake forced to indulge in the secrets that jostled around in their brains.

Now, all she needed to do was enjoy the show.

She watched the form of Serina Calis with some mixture of fascination and amusement, Calladene had forced their hands enough to reveal things that would have much more preferably been locked away for better company.

Words allowed to echo in the silence, all the more time for Lirka to ruminate their meanings and drag out whatever value she could in these brief moments before the pair descended deeper.

In some, Lirka found familiarity. Others were merely footnotes for her ever-growing dossiers born of interaction - control, order, destruction. It was the usual business of Sith kind, yet Lirka knew better than to entirely discount a future prospect. The throne of the Sith was a fluid thing, and the day would come when Empyrean’s withered ass would be booted off it. Lirka had every intent to be on the winning side.

Or sit her own withered ass on it - whatever came first.

Lirka’s face was usually a hidden thing, but she was undoubtedly smiling when she addressed Serina Calis

“Oh I assure you, everything I do is done spectacularly.”

Lirka took a confident stride forward, she had every intent to make sure that if she was to lie - dear little Calis wouldn’t have a single clue where she stood between truth and falsehood. It was the greatest boon of being a liar, even the truth was cast in a questioning light. And with thundering mechanics, Lirka spoke.

“I am Lirka Ka. Lirka Ka is dead.”

“I desire strength, yet strength demands the lie of peace.

“My purpose is to guide. Yet to guide, I must make pandemonium.”

An odd a woman as ever. The purpose of Lirka Ka was an esoteric thing, the life of a petty tyrant something left in the youth of a dead Empire with the butcher king at its head. She had divine purpose to guide her along the Dark Path now, and Calladene would be forced to acknowledge it as the doors opened for the duo. Another chance to strike at the heart of this wretched place as Lirka slapped down another charge in response.

“Well, dear False-Calis, after you. I wouldn’t want to rob you of the chance to dive headlong into the unknown.”

A wonderful chance for a new name too, this trip was really turning in her favor

 

[Serina Calis]

"The Rewrite Begins."

Tags - OBJECTIVE 3: Lirka Ka [OPEN]



Serina Calis stepped forward into the dark.

The monolith groaned as it split—not with mechanics, but with intention. Its seams peeled open like petals of black steel, revealing a descending corridor of fractured glass and coiled metal, where gravity bent and pulsed with something close to desire. The air itself was laden with encoded tension, thick enough to taste. Every breath felt watched. Every step forward was not permission but provocation.

She didn't hesitate.

Tyrant's Embrace whispered as she moved, its plates flexing with sensual elegance, the hood of her armor parting slightly as if reacting to the atmosphere of thought that pressed inward. The cape flared, trailing behind her like the banner of a dynasty that had never existed but demanded worship regardless. Her body was poetry written in razors. Her mind was the scalpel that cut through myth.

Behind her, Lirka Ka followed with that iron-clad swagger, armored blasphemy and brute force dressed in a frame too large for subtlety. A contrast in every way—and yet, for all her brute bearing, she fit here too. The Archive didn't discriminate between precision and carnage. It only cared for intention.

And theirs were blinding.

The descent was slow at first, the stairs irregular. Time became unreliable. One blink, and Serina's boots clicked against obsidian. Another, and they were skimming through open vacuum. Lanes of data flickered along the walls—holographic projections in Celestial tongue, sprawling like digital mandalas. Information streamed past her like falling rain: star system atlases older than any Republic, diagrams of Force geometry that sang with ancient logic, records of empires erased not by war but by choice.

The bones of gods. Filed, categorized, and forgotten.

At the base of the steps, the Archive proper opened up like a cathedral born from machine thought. Spires of crystal stretched upward, arching into domes made from refracted starlight. Each structure vibrated slightly, as if humming in pleasure or warning. In the center sat a dais—a wide circular platform lined with dozens of crystalline terminals, some lit with internal radiance, others dark and waiting.

Serina paused at the edge of the threshold and let her hand drift to her side.

The pouch there was simple. Black synth-hide, sleek and fastened to a strap beneath the armored girdle at her waist. With a flick of her clawed fingers, she unsealed it, withdrew a single palm-sized crystal—pale gray with faintly humming grooves—and lifted it to eye level.

Her six eyes narrowed behind her mirrored mask.

This one sang.

It was not just data. It was memory. It vibrated on the same frequency as her ambitions: ruthless, methodical, hungry. Her fingers curled around it, and with the same slow grace she had used to cast Force shadows or slide a blade between ribs, she slid it into one of the AI ports built into the breastplate of her armor.

Click.

The armor accepted it without resistance. A violet pulse flowed outward from the socket, running along the engraved Sith glyphs embedded in the armor's rib-like etchings, pulsing briefly in time with her breath.

She didn't smile. She breathed it in.
The same way a starving priestess might inhale the incense of a forbidden temple.

Three more crystals followed.

One glowed like darkness as its own light.
The second bore the seal of an empire that hadn't existed for a hundred thousand years.
The third was blank—until it touched her fingers. Then it screamed.

She logged them all.

One by one, she pressed them into place, sockets along the armor's flanks and lower spine. They didn't change the armor's function. They didn't empower her strikes or shield her vitals. But that was never the point. These weren't upgrades.

They were keystones.

Each contained fragments—not weapons, but tools. Codes of Celestial dialectic. Sith methodology unseen since before Exegol. Names. Coordinates. A logic-tree for how the Force might be manipulated without binding it to morality. Perhaps most importantly—examples. Of ascension. Of failure. Of how to become something more than a Lord.

Serina had not come here to mirror the path of other Sith. She had come here to supersede it.

She collected more from the active terminals—ten, twenty, maybe thirty or even more data-crystals, some narrow and dagger-like, others fat as fists. Some she could read instantly. Others would take years. She slid them into the pouch like a collector storing seeds. Seeds that would one day grow into doctrines—into wars.

The Archive didn't stop her. It did not warn. It watched.

"Beautiful," she murmured, finally breaking the silence. Her voice echoed off the crystal vaults like the sigh of an immortal creature reawakening. "This is what they feared. Not the machine. Not the Starweirds. Not the fracturing of space."

She turned slightly, her voice rising like silk drawn across flesh.

"They feared insight."

Then she turned fully to Lirka, helm still expressionless, but her stance almost… intoxicated.

Not in the way of a zealot. But like a woman freshly bathed in fire, hair slicked with vapor, skin tingling with a thousand possibilities.

"You're right, Lirka Ka."
"Gods are dead things."

She extended her arms to either side now, palms open to the Archive.

"So let's make sure we leave behind something worse."

A flicker of static rippled across one of the vaulted data pillars behind her. Some response—some mirror—as if the Archive itself was logging her declaration, filing it away in the same stack as galaxy-ending declarations, insane warlords, and would-be prophets.

Serina withdrew her hand.

She held it.

The crystal was unremarkable at a glance. Smaller than the others, shaped like a jagged shard of glass, its edges dulled by entropy and time. Its color was a void that refused definition—not black, not obsidian, but some hue beyond human chromatic theory. When the Archive's light touched it, it cast no reflection. When the Force brushed it, it recoiled like a wounded animal. It was old. Too old. Older than the Jedi. Older than the Sith. Older, perhaps, than the Force itself as mortals knew it.

And in its core, something slept.

It was not a weapon. Not in the traditional sense. No saber sprang from its core. No virus screamed within. There was no spirit howling for freedom. And yet Serina felt, even through the armor, even through the breathless hush of Calladene's eternal hum…

The weight.

It was the same weight as a promise. A prophecy unfulfilled. A gate not yet opened, but aching to be.

Her six violet eyes shimmered as she studied it—no longer with the analytical gaze of the scholar, nor the acquisitive gleam of the strategist. This was something else. Something darker. Something sacred.

"You are not meant to be touched," she whispered, voice caught between reverence and possessive hunger. "Not yet."

Because this—this was not a data crystal.

It was a construct. A singularity compressed into logic and myth, encoded in ways that defied the laws of exchange and equivalence. It didn't hold wealth. It didn't represent value.

It generated value.

The archives had no name for it. Not in Sith, not in Celestial. Only a cipher—etched faintly in spectral light along one fractured side:

Xia'hir

A word that bent language around it. Not a name. A designation. A warning.

It didn't rewrite economies. It bypassed them.

It was the myth of limitless wealth, made object. A philosopher's stone for the post-hyperdrive era. A thing so valuable the Celestials themselves had torn it apart and buried it like a god's shattered bone beneath their great machine.

Now here it was, warm in Serina's palm.

But broken.

She could feel it, deep in the marrow of her senses—the fractures weren't just physical. Conceptual rot riddled the core. Corrupted pathways, shattered initialization sequences, missing metaphysical linkages. Whatever miracle it had once performed, it could no longer do so. Not yet. It was a sleeping god, starved and cracked and half-forgotten.

And Serina knew, without knowing, what it wanted.

It needed a host.
It needed her.

Her breath caught behind the helm. Not with awe. Not with fear.

With recognition.

Slowly, reverently, she opened a hidden compartment in the inner lining of her armor's girdle—beneath the spinal mount, where no data ports lay. A space meant for one thing, and one thing only.

She slid the crystal inside. Locked it into a containment sheath wrapped in obsidian mesh and Force-dampening fiber. It would be safe there. Hidden. Until she was ready.

She turned to Lirka then, slowly, the coils of her cape catching the last flicker of the lights above.

For the first time in the entire journey, Serina looked… different. Heavier. Taller. Like a creature whose spine had just remembered it could straighten. Her armor pulsed once. And then again.

Not with power.

With promise.

And in the deepest part of her corrupted, brilliant, calculating mind, Serina Calis knew one immutable truth:

"Why does the galaxy, or the Primordial Dark," she whispered, almost to herself, "demand the destruction of something so beautiful?"

 

[Lirka Ka]

Darkness was a welcoming thing to Lirka Ka, yet all the same was it unfathomably dangerous. Lirka had felt the Darkness beyond Darkness that clawed at the edges of one's senses, and with it had come the enlightenment necessary to see this horrid place undone. Yet alas, one could not herald about destruction without taking a step into the unknown.

So as Serina Calis descended, so followed Lirka's bulk. She moved with caution now, there was no telling what would actually be down in the depths of Calladene. Yet for all their contrast, the pair danced a similar tune. Calis may have worn her precision on her skin, let the universe know she was a scalpel. But Lirka Ka? Lirka Ka was a liar. Lirka's scalpel was hidden away, masked by overlapping plate and behind watchful slit-lenses. A scalpel as much as a shiv, waiting for the moment to be slid between the ribs.

Lirka watched this place with growing amusement the deeper the two descended, all this lost lore - a librarians dream. Yet Lirka paid it no more mind than the gibberish of a madman: such things were merely a distraction, irrelevant information pouring out from the ancient's revisors: Lirka had learned all she needed to upon Rhand in the company of the Sorcerer's Lorekeeper. This...drivel? It was nothing in comparison, just another distraction keeping the would-be-worthy away from the cruel enlightenment of the Primordial Darkness.

It gave her all the more time to focus on the form of her associate. Even in the wake of winding false steps and the impossible vastness of voids where they should not have been able to walk. All Lirka did was watch and wait, caution behind her being. The two may have shared their little moments of "openness" but Lirka was far from stupid enough to actually trust the Sithling in any real capacity - it was certainly nice that destruction came to Lirka as second nature, she didn't even need to take her eyes off the girl to set charges while they walked. The mechanical click of eventual explosion following the pair wherever they went.

Of course, eventually Calis spoke once more - and Lirka listened. Biting her tongue when the desire to correct crawled into her brain, as confident and incorrect as ever: Lirka knew better now than to expect anything less. Her slit lenses focused more on her "keystones", briefly allowing her mind to run the quick calculations on how long it would take the Once-Sephi to erupt into violence, though for all her murderous contemplations. The steel goliath that was Lirka Ka remained unmoving, nothing but a droid-like sentinel in the presence of the Archives themselves.

Lirka felt no need to respond yet, watching, waiting, if the Archive was to categorize her as well let it be by her mere presence alone: the impending dread of the iconoclast's flame. Yet the longer she watched her fellow, Lirka's resolve steeled more and more: a stark reminder of why this place did not deserve to exist. Why lost things deserved to stay lost. A reminder that the baubles Serina Calis wished to bring home most certainly would need to be cast into the flames too, when the time came.

This wretched place was a disease. And so Lirka Ka would play doctor.

Change was far from an unseen occurrence to her, transience was a fundamental tenant of the Primordial Darkness after all. The bravado for the girl's new form fazed her little, it mattered not if it were power, or promise, or something in between. A Sithling was a Sithling. Life was life. If Calis wished to turn herself into another obstacle to overcome on the Path - so be it. But Lirka was not an unkind woman, and if the girl had questions. She would answer.

"Why...such a poignant question. Why not? Why does it matter? Why does this place deserve to exist? Because of beauty? Beauty is a fleeting thing. You think they fear the insight of this place? Then you are a fool. The insight, the lost lore of the ancients, the potentiality within these halls? It is a thing to be coveted, to be fought over. They will kill themselves clambering over each other to stick their flag in this place. This archive is a disease Serina Calis, a disease that masks itself in a veneer of power, but this is not power. Not truly. This place is a tomb, and I will not see worthy souls wasted over the drivel poured from ancient crystals and mythical powers - they will earn it. They will struggle. They will evolve. Or they will die. On their own merits, not whatever is drawn out of this horrid place."

As if to accent her claim, another charge dropped to the floor between the two. Sometimes, fire was the best way to cleanse away rot.

 

[Serina Calis]

"The Rewrite Begins."

Tags - OBJECTIVE 3: Lirka Ka [OPEN]



Serina turned her head toward Lirka Ka, slowly, like a dancer pivoting mid-performance. No haste. No hostility. But every motion precise enough to cut air.

There was an elegance to Lirka's words, though she would never admit it—an architect's fury in the way she described fire not as destruction, but as method. Serina respected that. Even adored it. In another world, with different masks, she might've knelt beside that kind of certainty. But she had not come here to share the torch. She had come to strike the match against the world.

She regarded the dropped charge between them with a soft tilt of her helm, the six glowing eyes like gems embedded in some ancient relic. Her voice, when it came, was as rich as ever—honeyed dusk smearing across broken stone.

"You're wrong," she said, without offense. "And that's why you're so gloriously useful."

The glow of the Archive danced across her armor, casting her in hues of blood-washed indigo and violet, an oil-slick goddess born from intellect and sedition. Serina took a slow step forward, circling Lirka like a shadow learning how to speak.

"You say they will kill themselves over this place. That they'll covet its false wisdom and lose themselves in the promise of easy power."

She nodded once, as if agreeing—then raised one hand and touched the side of her helm as if whispering to the space between them.

"But isn't that what you want, Lirka Ka?"

There was no accusation in her tone—only invitation. Something warm. Intoxicating.

"Isn't that what your Primordial Darkness demands?" She turned her full body toward the Sephi, standing before her not in defiance but in communion, like two wolves facing a shared moon. "That they come here. That they choke on it. That their weakness is exposed. That they grasp and bleed and fall into fire and failure because they were not strong enough to resist?"

She stepped closer.

"Would you deny them the chance?"

A pause.

"No. This place is not a disease. It's a crucible. One they must enter to be judged. And what do we do with crucibles?" Her voice lowered, velvet and dangerous.

"We throw people in and see what burns away."

She let that linger, thick in the air between them. Another step. Another data crystal slipped into her pouch with a whisper of metal on fabric.

Then she turned from Lirka, the argument made—not as victory, but as seduction. The most truthful lie of all: the illusion that both of them were right.

She continued collecting crystals—two, four, six more—gently cataloguing them, scanning each for the deep-vaulted runes of legacy and myth. Some held secrets to military constructs, others to esoteric Sith sorcery. But her movements had slowed now. Her hands were still deft, but her breathing had changed.

Something… touched her.

The Force did not stir. It ached.

A presence. Not violent. Not even strong. But real. Like a breath brushing her skin through the fabric of time. A ripple across the surface of a pond long stilled.

She paused mid-motion, a crystal halfway into her pouch. The light in the Archive dimmed, just barely. Her armor's pulsing slowed to a low, unsteady rhythm.

For the first time since entering the Archive, Serina's posture broke.

Not dramatically. Just the faintest tilt of her head. A soft curl of her clawed fingers around a crystal that suddenly felt cold in her palm. As though, through it, a part of the past had reached back and pressed its lips to her skin—quietly, without promise.

She said nothing.

But her breath caught.

Because she knew.

Quinn Varanin .

Not a face. Not a word. Just the sensation. The memory. That soft, terrible familiarity that danced between heartbreak and hope. The warmth of being seen—not as weapon, not as manipulator, not as sovereign—but as someone.

Someone chosen.

But she hadn't been.

Not then. Not when it mattered.

She forced the breath out through her teeth—quiet, mechanical, sharp. A soldier's breath. A breath taken before breaching the final chamber, loading the final shot, knowing the last magazine is already in.

She turned, abruptly now, clutching the last of the crystals like a wounded talisman, and strode toward the heart of the Celestial Archive—toward its core, its pulsing nexus where perception bent and futures unraveled.

Her voice, when it returned, was low. Almost too soft for Lirka to hear.

"We all throw something into the fire, Lirka."

"I'm done waiting for mine to burn."

And with that, Serina disappeared into the center of the Archive's great circuit—drawn not by logic, not even by ambition, but by something far more dangerous.

Hope.

 

[Lirka Ka]

Helmets locked, and Lirka waited for response. She knew the likelihood of agreement was all but an impossibility, but that certainly hadn't stopped her preaching before: they simply wouldn't get it, not like she did. But in time, they would be illuminated in Dark enlightenment and understand the path that true strength demanded. Calis's barking denial was met with nothing but a grin beneath Lirka's helmet.

Useful. They called her that often, its why she was still alive after all these years after all. Yet usefulness served a valuable veneer for hiding the tumor that was Lirka Ka, a thing of dark ambition nestling within the cracks and waiting with the patience only the long life of a Sephi could muster. Today, she would be useful. Perhaps tomorrow, she would be the knife slid between the ribs.

And then it came, that self confidence that Serina Calis radiated marred with the pungent scent of ignorance. What did Lirka Ka want? It was a good question, a question so incredibly simple yet wrapped in layer upon layer of complexity - what was a monster's end in these grand games of Sithdom?

With it came a hearty belly laugh from the Once-Sephi, a chortling thing distorted by the woman's helmet. So close, to even skim the surface of darkness was a cause for celebration - one step closer to understanding. And yet, so much more to grasp upon that darkness primordial. So Lirka would accept the girl's invitation, a teacher walking to deaf ears.

"What I want will always be an enigma to you, Serina Calis. Would I deny them? Gladly. I will deny them this false-strength, this might born from the work of others. You have listened to me more than I had expected, girl: yet there is one most crucial aspect to understand about Darkness. The Primordial Dark does not care - all of this lot will be tested, time, and time again."

The guiding hand. That is the lot Lirka had decided for herself.

"You speak of crucibles, yet do not grasp the Endless Struggle. Our crucible is existence! Every day when live on against the will of Primordial Darkness is a success, our crucible where the weak wither away and the strong evolve into more than what they were."

Philosophy was one thing, but it was not the true reason Lirka would deny this place as long as she drew breath. No her reason was far simpler than that, for Lirka Ka was a coin constantly in motion, flipping face to face. She was a zealot, she was a heretic. The Primordial Dark did not care about such meager things, so it came to the mortals to guide the path.

"Why deny them, Serina Calis? Because it is simply unproductive. Suffering will be perpetuated by this Empire surviving, the Eternalists and their endless war. The Kainites and their galactic sadism. The Tsis'kaar scuttling and murdering breeding mistrust wherever they go. The Jedi, the Mandalorians, every enemy in between to live and serve as a beacon for the wrath of your kind."

Ultimately Lirka knew her answer mattered little. The girl had already moved on to her baubles and trinkets, lost lore and whatever other myriad of drivel this place could cram into ones brain. So Lirka would do as she always did, she would watch, she would wait. Assess and determine the correct course of action - a stark change in demeanor, something of value uncovered.

Lirka debated, her whip could lash low and catch the girl's hand pre occupied, she could blow the charges early before swinging for the leg...ultimately Lirka decided on a rare pacifism. No violence, not yet. Serina Calis could suffer by her own emotions today, Lirka was no mind reader. The girl's tumult was her own, a shame as Lirka gladly would have warned her of one of the simplest facts in Galaxy.

Hope was the first step on the road to disappointment.

With that, she allowed Calis a moment to push ahead. Setting a handful more charges before following the girl down into the center with a uncharacteristic silence, her mechanisms quiet and her movement precise. A stalking shadow waiting for that moment to pounce.