[member="Tegaea Alcori"], [member="HK-36"], [member="Satara Hawk"], [member="Mia Monroe"], [member="Maya Whitelight"]
Meanwhile in the void...
"Oh, come on. You got to be kidding me!" Siobhan groaned in frustration when she suddenly found herself in...the exact same white room she had thrashed earlier. Minus the annoying anti-Siobhan - whose fashion sense from her perspective had been terrible and those nails had looked so cheap. This was a bit unfortunate as well because her lack of presence meant that Siobhan could not beat her up again. She wondered whether this was some sort of sick cosmic joke the Force was playing on her.
Figures that it was the ultimate troll. Or Velok, since everything in the Galaxy was his doing! She looked around the room as frustration rose inside her and was about to reach out and thrash it again. After all, it had worked last time!
"The fade would not be eternal if random property destruction actually broke it down," Siobhan spun around when she suddenly heard a voice. It was soft, with a melodious quality to it. However, for a change Siobhan was actually focused and not concentrated on fulfulling her carnal desires. Yes, this writer knows how shocking that is, but even in this world miracles happen! The figure before her was a beautiful, blue-skinned Eldorai woman wearing a white dress. Her hair was black and reached down past her shoulders. She was walking, but her feet seemed to barely touch the ground.
A blue space elf! Now that was something special! "I am not Melantha...but I deemed it wise to take a form you are comfortable. My true one is...overwhelmning for mere mortals. You are unable to comprehend its magnitude."
"Yeah, whatever. Who are you and how the hell do I get out here?"
"No comment about my beauty? You must be slipping badly. I am disappointed."
"I'm not in a good mood and I have no time for games. So if you can help get out here, say that. Otherwise I'll just have to thrash the room again."
"Such aggression. 'Tis oftentimes mortals' undoing. You use a hammer where a scalpel would be better advised. But then you live such short lives, fading away in the blink of an eye. You are reaching the end of the road. Tell me, why is it that you seek to return? Speak truly. You cannot lie to me. No one who is a denizen of your lesser plane can."
Siobhan groaned in irritation and somehow slapping the annoying the space elf, no matter how hot she was, seemed a terribly attractive prospect to her. "If you're so awesome and omniscient, why don't do you read my mind and tell me?" the elf just gave her a terribly annoying, enigmatic smile that reminded Siobhan of Chesna. Who, by the way, may be a planar demigoddess. Perhaps the two elves had a club. Yeah, for once Siobhan found an elf annoying. If only [member="Delila Castillon"] could hear this!
"I want to get back to Tegs. I have to get back to her....and kill Shadow."
"Love and revenge? Such interesting notions these days," the elf said thoughtfully, affixing Siobhan with a stare. It felt like her eyes were boring right into her, for they had a piercing quality. Siobhan felt a powerful sensation creep up inside her as she felt the power of the Eldorai, such that it seemed to envelope the whole room. "Your wife, Goddess bless her soul, is trying to do all she can to save you. She called healers from across the stars to your sick bed. A few millennia ago I would have found it sweet...now...you mortals live such short lives. Gromas was supposed to be your death. Thus is it was ordained by the Fates. You were supposed to return to the Wheel."
"Sorry for not being so obliging and dying," Siobhan said very dryly. "What do you mean...ordained? I don't get strung around by 'Fate' and I don't have time for this garbage. If this is the moment where I get told there's no exit door...," she suddenyl found herself unable to talk because her mouth had been sewn shut. Anger rise inside her stomach like bill and she tried to lunge forward but was blocked by an invisible wall. Suddenly the room turned very, very cold as the temperature dropped rapidly and soon she was freezing like on Hoth.
An icy shiver ran down her spine and she felt her limbs feeling heavier, then becoming paralysed. Everything turned hazy and she was in a haze as blood turned cold, no longer reaching her brain. She could not breathe, the Force failed to respond to her command as she tried to stretch out and defend herself. Pure pain overcame her as she felt her life force being leeched from her, all the vitality being drained from her very being. Then...suddenly it all stopped and she was left slumped on the ground.
"I am older than you can imagine, monkeigh. Your Force is but a pitiful child's toy compared to me. I can obliterate you as easily as I could crush an ant beneath my shoes. I am power incarnate. So I shall speak and you shall listen. Lest I leave you trapped in your worst memories forever...because I will it and it amuses me. Now...will you listen?"
Siobhan groaned as she got to her feet. "Yes...alright. What do you want from me then?"
"Ceasing that incessant angst would be a start. As would ceasing your random destruction of private property. An entire department of the celestial bureaucracy has been set up to catalogue your acts of wanton devastation and cannot keep up. They have gone through five grand secretaries."
Now Siobhan looked vaguely amused, despite her annoyance. "The afterlife has bureaucrats? Figures. So sorry I'm making their life...unlife...whatever, difficult. Is there an eternal waiting room as well?"
"Yes, I am tempted to send you there." There was a pause as she looked terribly innocent when Siobhan shot her a death glare. "That was a joke. You lack a sense of humour. At present you are in a limbo, hovering in a realm between your plane and...the otherworlds. The Fates ordaine one thing for mortals and cut the thread of life, but you are like a herd of cats...doing whatever you pleases you regardless of Their will."
"Well, I'm a rebel. Fates? That the 'will of the Force' Jedi keep yammering about? Never believed in that mystical twaddle. It's just a way for people to say they're not responsible."
"Putting you in the eternal waiting room sounds very attractive right now. I could explain the complexities of the heavens and hells but it is beyond your capacity to understand...and I would have to purge the knowledge from your mind anyway. It would be...very painful for you. You are in limbo, hovering between the otherworlds and your plane. Restless, unable to move on."
"What are you saying? Can I get back?! If it's the realm between there has to be a...door somewhere."
"As trite as it sounds you face choices. For a change those will actually matter. Unlike in certain video games mortals voraciously consume for some reason."
"If this is the moment where you tell me there's a red-green-blue ending and I have to press a button..."
"And destroy the Force, give everyone the Force or become an omnipotent force god? Please. If you had to press buttons, I would make sure you can only press one. But...choices are what you face." Suddenly a portion of the wall shifted and morphed before vanishing completely. Abruptly, even before her eyes could beheld what was forming before her, Siobhan was filled with a sense of peace, tranquility and calmness. What she felt emanating from the gateway was pure bliss. An image flashed through her mind, that of Lake County on Naboo, a beautiful villa at the sea.
"The void can conjure up more than memories of torment. It can create realms of peace, happiness and joy. Your most treasured memories. Those that matter to you. Peace after all the trials and tribulations you have endured. Adril Tythorin and Althenea are there."
"Al...," Siobhan looked mesmerised for the moment, unable to tear herself away from the sight. She heard what sounded like a siren call to her, beckoning her closer though part of her fought against it, willing herself to remember that she was supposed to leave and awaken.
"She forgave you, you know. She's waiting for you. The seventy Eldorai and Twi'lek girls are there as well. Puerile, if you ask me, too much sex rots the brain, but the reward you crave."
"I...don't...deserve it...."
"Probably not, but the celestial bureaucracy is not to be challenged. You can have it you so choose."
Siobhan gazed at the sight stretched out before her, images of pleasure and happiness coursing through her mind, before she finally tore herself away. "No, it's not my time. And I'm not leaving Tegs alone. Shadow is going to die by my hand. And frankly I'm waiting for the bloody catch. Nothing is ever this simple, shiny and happy. Let me guess, I'll end up finding out I'm some sort of battery for an 'angel' to drain and make everything?"
"If this were the matrix you would never notice. We learned from that failed experiment. There is no red or blue pill here." No, this writer did not mainly write this post in order to pile up meta references. "If you wish to forego peace and your chance at a rest...there is another way. One that may bring you back..."
Another section of the wall, this time on the opposite end, vanished. What Siobhan saw was a wall of fire, seemingly endlessly long. Agonised screams could be heard coming from it. A dark sensation washed over her as images of agony and pain flooded her mind. "Pain is just weakness leaving the body, so you often say. It all begins with pain, and so it must end with it. The rules can be skirted, but there is a price. If you go through it...and make it past you may wake up. Your powers will be of no use. Nor will your armour. the void will seek to claim you."
"And...if I don't make it..."
"Fires are eternal. You will suffer and burn. Forever and forevermore. Well, perhaps not forevermore, as much as that would appeal to your masochistic personality. Until there is nothing left and you are obliterated. You will not return to the Force, nor will you find peace."
"But if I make it I'll be back. I'll awaken again? No catch? No daemon who's going to hitch a ride?"
"Assuming your body does not die, yes. It cannot live on without its soul. Ghosting around as a restless spirit is not pleasant. As for your last question...that's up to you! But where your path leads you then...you may not like the end. Choice is yours. If it does not terribly inconvenience you I'd appreciate some haste. I have another appointment."