The Telekinetic of Arx Mortis [SOLO]

[Nikolas Faselli]

The apple. It is green. It is supposed to be green. A green apple, a single apple, standing on a brown table made out of mahogany. It is quite dark. But it doesn't matter.

The table. The table is located in a great hall. The whole hall is dark, but not covered with darkness. Just... dark wallpapers, dark ceiling, quite dark floor. And that's it. There's only the table. Nothing else. The table with the green apple.

Isn't it a bit scary?

No, it isn't. Yet.

To be honest, there is something besides the table in the room. There are two slaves standing in two corners of the room. Why? Well, the question will be answered soon.

They are waiting for somebody.

It is the Arx Mortis Citadel, so who would they be waiting if not their lady Maria Zambrano? The green apple on the mahogany table in the dark room with two slaves is prepared for her arrival. Everything is ready. Everything is exactly where they're supposed to be.

Now the only thing to do is...

... to wait.

The lady should come soon.

Steps are heard coming from outside the room. She is coming. She is ready. A slave walks in a calm way to the table, takes a scroll out of his pocket, puts it on the table, and leaves then. The other slave then comes to the table, puts a candleholder behind the apple, lights it, leaves to his corner.

They wait.

And the lady steps into the room.

She is wearing her traditional clothing: a dark dress, nothing else covering ther body. The staff called Confectrix is in her left hand as a sign of power over the citadel she rules. At the moment, indeed, she can only control this single castle, but she is expecting something more to come soon.

There is a red mark on the ground. It's an 'X' letter. And the lady is supposed to walk to the mark.

That's what she does.

The mark is located ten metres away from the table, the apple, the scroll, and the candle are all directly in front of it, ten metres away. It is a symbolic ritual. Well, not a ritual, but something similar.

This is the first time Maria Zambrano tries to put her telekinetic skills in use. She has to become better in it, so she has to practise. This is the best way, as having a Master teach it is stupid. That's what Maria thinks. They limit an Apprentice, they tie their arms, their knowledge together. They do whatever they want to do with their Apprentices.

This solo training is the best way to learn something.

...

Then Maria remembers, that she has to do something.

The slaves wait.

The candle waits.

And so do the scroll and the apple.

Maria takes a deep breath.

 

[Nikolas Faselli]

Only darkness. Nothing else is seen for some moments. With the deep breath, eyes were closed. Whatever is going to come now will take much focus, concentration, breathing. But mastering this power is more than a stupid wish. It is a skill most of the Force-users in this galaxy use. It is something the most powerful favour.

And so she opens her eyes.

The green apple.

Raising her arm so that the open hand covers the apple from the sight of the Witch of Arx Mortis, she is ready to pull it towards her, into the hand. A deep breath in. A deep breath out. And with some concentration, Maria feels like the apple starts coming towards her.

It takes several seconds for the fruit to reach the body of the woman, but when it is finally near, she grabs it and moves it to her mouth.

She takes a bite out of the apple. It tastes good.

But then she throws it away. Even though she'll need it again soon. But whatever. She can pull it to her again when it is needed.

The next thing is the scroll. It is closed at the moment, but her task is to open it. By using telekinesis. It seems like a difficult thing to her. She has to do that, though. Otherwise, she wouldn't be able to become a Master of Telekinesis. And that would be strange. And dumb.

For some moments, Maria drops her hand and it falls back to its place on the side of Maria's body. It has to rest a bit before it's used again. Her mind also has to take a short moment of refreshment. A slave comes to the woman and gives her a piece of chocolate.

It's a nice dark one. Maria's favourite.

She eats the chocolate and sends the slave back to his corner.

Then she raises her hand again. More concentration would be needed this time. More hand movement, too. And definitely more thoughts about it. It is not a difficult task if she works on doing it. She has to actually focus on it. The last task was but a simple exercise. More like a warm-up, actually, not something called telekinesis.

A deep breath. Eyes closed. The scroll starts moving.

It is opening. Happiness flows through the woman and so she accidentally opens her eyes, even though she isn't supposed to do that. But this action is harder than a simple Forcer Pull, so she actually has to hold her eyes closed.

And now you may understand what happened.

One could see the scroll dropping.

It falls on the floor.

Dump.

 

[Nikolas Faselli]

"NOOOOOOO!"

It was not supposed to happen. Why did the scroll have to fall? Why?

The slave who had brought the scroll to the table now runs to grab it from the ground and put it back on the table. When he finally reaches it, he kneels, takes it from the ground, stands up again, puts it on the table, and runs back to his own corner.

A lot of corners are dealt with...

Now Maria closes her eyes again, breathes, concentrates. She must keep her eyes closed this time. She has to perform this task flawlessly this time. There is no other way.

Maybe she expects too much from herself? Anyways, she looks like a typical Sith; always wanting the best, never accepting failure. But there's one little problem. She isn't a Sith. She is a typical Neutral person who just enjoys the Bogan. Why should she ever become a Sith?

Pfft...

The hand of Maria's rises again and the scroll opens again. Well, at least starts opening, if not anything else.

But as time passes, the more the scroll opens. Maria would love to make it open faster, but she is afraid she'll lose control over it and destroy it. Or open her eyes again. It was a dilemma. She knew in the future, she'd have to do things a lot faster. Why not speed the learning process up a bit by perforing the tasks really quickly?

Yes, it actually looks like a cool idea to her, so she focuses a bit more. She presses forward, making the scroll open faster.

Finally, five seconds later, to be precise, the scroll is completely open and a slave is already reading it. She was able to do that. But she'd have to close it again, too. Opening it was a simple task compared to the previous one.

The slave turns around, nods, and leaves.

Maria has to close the scroll.

It is a lot more difficult. She basically has to make her mind think in the other way.

Phew...

It is difficult indeed.

 

[Nikolas Faselli]

The scroll is closing. Maria can feel it. And the slaves can see it. But doing it is difficult. It has to be closed perfectly. The paper must go around the 'tube' perfectly, as tightly as possible.

A slave starts walking towards the scroll, thinking Maria closes it soon. And she actually does.

After the scroll is closed, the slave takes it and leaves to his corner.

There are only a few more exercises left before Maria can take up the Telekinetic of Arx Mortis test. One of these exercises is moving a burning candle. It is clearly more dangerous than the previous ones. But she will have to do that.

The second slave goes to the table and lights the candle. He remains there just to prevent any serious accidents from taking place. He is also a Telekinetic, just like the other slave. And they are clearly a bit better in it than their lady is.

The candle burns and the lady's job is to move it without letting it fall down or setting anything on fire. It looks like an easy task... But it isn't, actually.

What would she have to think about now? Maybe she could use the simplest Force Pull, Push and Levitate techniques? Because moving it around is basically a combination of these three aspects. She wouldn't need anything else, at least theoretically.

So closing her eyes wouldn't be needed. But she has to take a deep breath.

Breath in. Breath out.

And so she raises her hand towards the candle and it starts rising into the air.

Wow... It's more difficult than I thought it would be.

Keeping the candleholder in balance was truly a harder task than anything she had done before.

 

[Nikolas Faselli]

But a few circles were done with the candle and the slave finally nods as a sign, that Maria can stop. Phew. Keeping the candleholder in balance was difficult because of the weight difference between the holder and the candle itself.

She had been told, that to move something, one must mentally hold onto the exact center of the object he is trying to move. Sometimes it may be really hard as the exact centre is not always the place where weights are in balance.

But she managed to do that.

Now there are only a few more tasks. She would have to move the scroll over the light of the candle without it falling down or dropping into the flame. It is a bit more advanced, but... now Maria feels optimistic. if she has managed to do the things she did before, she must be able to progress a bit, right?

Maria relaxes a bit; she sits on the ground and eats the apple which she had thrown away. It had been right next to her, actually, probably because of falling against the wall and bouncing back from that. It didn't matter, though. The slave who had worked with the candle was trying to control the flame a bit to make it more static. It would be a shame if the flame suddenly grew and burnt down the whole scroll. It held some important moves in it, after all.

The little moment of rest is soon over and the Witch of Arx Mortis has to continue.

The slave walks back to his own corner this time as he believes his lady is able to perform the task without any problems. They are all feeling optimistic, even though... Well, Maria is not that good at Telekinesis yet.

They should be a bit more careful.

Especially Maria.

 

[Nikolas Faselli]

The future Telekinetic of Arx Mortis stands up and takes a deep breath.

Her right hand moves away from her body, towards the scroll. She would have to raise it up into the air, make circles around the candle with it at first, and then move it right over the flame.

Seems a bit difficult.

And so does the scroll slowly rise into the air, Maria trying to balance it evenly. She remembers the little rule: find the center of weight. That point would be the easiest place to focus on. That's her style at moving items.

The scroll, after getting higher than the flame, starts - slowly again - circling the candle. It is not that difficult, that's why Maria doesn't focus that much yet. The next step would be a bit tougher. She doesn't want to burn the whole scroll, nor does she want to fail. So she would have to be successful. There's no other way.

The circling takes a bit time, but soon it is back in its starting place and... Maria is ready to move the scroll over the burning candle. She feels like she isn't able to do that.

But she still starts moving the scroll closer to the flame. The slave uses his Force powers to keep it from suddenly getting higher and thus, burning down the document.

The scroll slowly passes by without dropping. Well, yeah, it drops, but only after the candle. Right after it has flew by, it falls on the tabletop. It doesn't matter at that point anymore, though. The task had been completed successfully. Maria feels like she's getting a bit better in it. She should be, it feels like she is.

The slave who worked with the flame turns his head towards Maria now and nods. The candle as a whole bursts into flames because of that. "Not a single Force power can't be used without throwbacks," the slave said only some time ago, maybe yesterday, when Maria talked about the Telekinesis training session. It looked like the candle bursting into flames was the throwback of holding the flame static for so long.

Seemed a bit logical.

Yet the way how the candle started burning was... beautiful. It had happened so suddenly. It had been wonderful. And Maria realises she wants to learn Pyrokinesis, too.

 

[Nikolas Faselli]

The last tasks are coming. That is what Maria knows. The candle, the burning candle, had been only a simple task when compared to what is coming now. Maria would have to move all of the things she has already worked with in separate directions. The apple would have to move to the right, the candle to the left, and last but not least, the scroll would have to move straightforward and then up to the ceiling.

Maria closes her eyes again, focusing, and then lowers her hand next to her body. She has to move the items with only thinking of them, sensing them. No body parts would be used besides eyes, maybe. The slaves had told Maria that Telekinesis doesn't require using hands, that it requires focus and real Force sense.

Opening her eyes, Maria starts rising the items into the air, one by one. The first thing to elevate is the document which holds some powerful Force moves Maria is not yet able to use. It is the scroll. Slowly moving forward, Maria has time to start working with the other things. The apple gets into the air, stays there for a moment, and then starts moving to the right. Only the candle now.

The woman closes her eyes and feels all three items: their shape, their weight, everything. And so the candle, the flame on it slowly dying, rises into the air, and Maria opens her eyes. All three items start moving fast towards their actual directions, and the slaves start working against Maria.

It is part of the plan.

The slaves are supposed to telekinetically fight against Maria. But she has to remain focused, she has to succeed.