All In (Ovmar)

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"Stop that."

A flicker of spirit ichor became a knife in midair.

"Or at least use a proper knife."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

He accepted the knife, and continued peeling.

'I didn't create that out of thin air and it isn't an illusion.'

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"Doesn't make it any less a parlor trick, does it."

But she couldn't help the curiosity. Her technique had been a Nightsister spell, advanced but well-trodden ground in its way. "Who'd you con into showing you that? The Aing-Tii are locked down." Well, she'd been there a couple of times, but she was better than Ovmar at most of life. "Don't tell me your lost treasure of Plagueis includes that kind of aperion manipulation."

If Ovmar turned out to have acquired another overpowered specialty -- hers -- and to have done it better -- there would be words.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

Ovmar snorted. ‘One day the Gods of the Crusade will find out that putting a place within their territory doesn’t give them full control. They ain’t locked down enough to keep a Mentalist with a stealth ship out.’ he noted her expression and smirked. ‘Oh relax, putting all my personal beliefs on how the Force operates aside, I ain’t nearly well-versed enough in alchemy for direct aperion, anima or pneuma manipulation.’

‘That being said. While you were busy experimenting with alchemizing time, I was busy experimenting with mentalizing space.’ he cut open the orange, and revealed that the inner-core of the fruit was spoiled and rotten. ‘Got some difficulties and chinks to work out though.’

‘There is teleportation - moving an object or person from point A to B, and reverse. A viable path, but not one I am currently interested in. What I am trying to accomplish is… slightly more esoteric in nature. I am trying to move an object from our dimension, realspace, to… elsewhere.’

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"It's ambitious, I'll give you that. Just remember that those who dabble in things like this generally take years or decades to get competent. Plett took close to a century, if I remember the story right. Not that I doubt your work ethic -- just don't spend so much time around Varanin that her hubris rubs off on you. As for the elsewhere...well, there are five generally accepted, ah, planes. Realspace, subspace, hyperspace, otherspace, and an unnamed fifth that very much doesn't work like ours -- it generally takes a quantum-compressed stellar event and some negative-Force influence from the other side. There's also the potential for minor planes, pocket universes if you will -- an entire Imperial fleet got lost in one once. My brother's the only Master I've ever met who's capable of interacting with other planes, and that's all he does. He's given up pretty much everything else for it. So my question is, between your constant whack-a-mole corporation-hopping, your fifteen specialties, your skirt-chasing and training Xiangu and hobnobbing with the spirit of Darth Plagueis, where the feth are you going to find the time to learn how to mind trick the spacetime continuum?"

 

[Arage Bao]

She had a point, a decent one at that. Jared had become busy, too busy, attention always being pulled in this or that way. That being said some things were already resolved, either fully or at least partially.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"] was a full-blown Master now, she didn’t need his lessons anymore, she only pretended to for his sake. Skirt-chasing had not been a big priority for a long time anymore, sure he still got around, but it had to do with cultivating a reputation and keeping it.
Few people took a man serious who was more concerned with the ladies than anything else, which suited Ovmar just fine. When they ain’t concerned, you can step in and do some of your own hurting.

The corporation was a different thing, for some time now he had been working with [member="Marek Starchaser"]. He trusted the man, at least when it came to the corporate world and more personal friendship. His proxies and Ovmar’s would do a fine job guiding the company ahead, while Jared was training himself. Besides, he might have been the main Sith Lord in charge of Neuro-Saav Corporation’s rise, but there were other men in his employ.

They would do fine.

The fifteen specialities? Couldn’t really do anything about that. Sure, he could explain to Rave how the Force wasn’t about specialities. It ain’t a computer game with a limited amount of points you gotta invest into a skill tree to progress, this was the real world and there was only one commodity that was relevant right here and now.

Time.

And for most people it was a limited resource one had to cultivate carefully, but they weren’t most people, they were [member="Rave Merrill"] and Jared Ovmar. Hubris aside? That meant something in this Galaxy of theirs.

‘What if… we make time.’ the Sith Lord answered her with a smile. It wasn’t a coincidence they had been hunting for this artifact, it wasn’t a coincidence they were traveling to the Rift.

This was an opportunity.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"Then you better be prepared for a long time in a confined space. Temporal distortions on that scale are generally fairly isolated. The Monolith comes to mind, and even that...well, it may not be totally within our control, even with the Orb of Passage on our side. I don't mind saying, this is one field that makes me a little bit nervous. Of course, the flipside is we could theoretically get a section of the Monolith stabilized, move in whatever we'd need for a subjectively long haul, take a subjectively longer time to ponder major corporate moves and develop assets..."

The Nightsister shrugged.

"Bottom line, I've been running myself ragged too. I've built AEI up from a minor fashion house, I've trained more alchemists than anyone ever, I've made the most ambitious things since the Golden Age of the Sith -- I need time for me, without letting down my various commitments. Reputation. A lifetime to build, seconds to destroy."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

The more they were talking about it, the more attractive it became. There was this desire burning in his chest to be free again, at least for a little while, it had been a long, long time since he had had the opportunity to simply go away for a little while and… focus on himself. Not in the plotting-kind of way, no corporations, money-concerns, no artifacts needing protection.

Just him, a dimension and all the time he needed. Oh… well perhaps there was also Rave, but there were worse conversation-partners.

‘Let’s do it.’ Jared simply said.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"First things first -- I introduce the Orb to the Monolith. While I meditate, there's a tramp freighter pilot that my firm contracts with for hazardous cargo runs, one of thousands. This one, though she doesn't know I know, is worth tracking down, and as it happens she's prospecting for AEI in the Chiloon Rift right now. She doesn't know how old she is, and neither do I. What I do know is that she's survived longer in the Chiloon Rift than most, she has an unusual instinct for temporal distortion -- knows where to step -- and she's the only known child of Rasho the Hutt, Rach Kol-Rekali, the modern era's only flow-walking specialist so far as I'm aware. I strongly suspect that we'll need a guide into the Monolith, someone who has more natural, well-entrenched instincts for time than I do. If you can find her and hire her for a guide job, I'm betting she'll take it. With her, we may have an easier time finding a temporally stable area to set up shop. Alec Rekali is the name, and the ship is the Role Model, a modified Jo'henry mining barge."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

And another piece of the puzzle simply fits in, just like that. Jared had already made contact with Alec on a different occasion - simply business transaction, but the foundations had been made right there and then. Besides, he had told her he’d stay in touch, though at that point in time he hadn’t considered it would be this soon, or for this particular mission.

‘I know of her.’ the Sith Lord said. (man, this was really becoming an occurrence all by itself.) ‘I will get in touch.’

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Rave paused, then blinked. Then paused again. Her mind kept starting and stopping until her sentence fragment actions began looking positively JSC-esque. She butchered sentences. Until they fully expressed. The magnitude of her realization.

"Feth. You screwed her, didn't you."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

Jared blinked too. He opened his mouth to say something, before closing it again - he really had no clue what to say to that. The Sith Lord rubbed his neck and finally spoke up.

‘N-no?’ he half-asked sheepishly, before the realization fully hit him. ‘Gawd, Merrill. She’s like… fifteen or something. Cut me at least some slack here.’

He pulled out a smoke, one that wasn’t conjured up from the air, he really needed one now.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Rave snorted. "Yeah. Fifteen from our temporal perspective. She's spent too long in the Chiloon Rift, and I'm fairly sure I heard something about bad temporal shielding on that ship's hyperdrive. That, and I've seen a picture of her. I remember being fifteen. I even turned heads at fifteen, had some Vahla princes after me and this Falleen Sith-"

With a massively uncomfortable jolt, she remembered that the twin Vahla boys had, in fact, been Alec Rekali's great-uncles. She did not opt to share that.

"-I sure didn't look like that at fifteen. I'd be willing to be you've more than noticed."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

The Sith Lord sighed slightly uncomfortably, before scratching his nose. ‘Yes, fine. She ain’t a bad looker, Merrill.’ he admitted. ‘But who cares, she won’t be interested and I have a thousand and four things to do, before I get to courting the granddaughter of Rekali Senior.’

‘Now, let’s drop this. I think we are almost at our destination anyway.’

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

"All right. If you say you didn't screw our guide, I'll do my utmost to believe you."

The ship exited hyperspace over the monolith, a command-ship-sized geometric structure, featureless save for the new research platform clamped to it like a tick on an angular nerf. Rave went back and procured the Orb from its velokite box; the little stone hummed in temporal resonance with the monolith, in a way she found unsettling. Temporal resonance basically equated to an awful lot of deja vu, even though she'd never seen anything like this before.

Except for the Spires of Hell. Maybe. She stopped short of equating this monolith's creators with the Celestials. Contemporaries, perhaps, or one had derived from the other, though when one spoke of connections a hundred thousand years dead and gone, the matter was the definition of academic.

"I'll take the Orb and meditate at the door, I think. If I disappear while you're tracking down our guide, look for hundred-thousand-year-old graffiti."

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Rave Merrill"]

‘Mhm.’ Jared confirmed, before returning to the cockpit of the shuttle and trying to get a lock on [member="Alec Rekali"]. If everything went alright she should receive a message in a few, or not.

Distorted holo-image of Jared Ovmar, courtesy of the Rift wrecking havoc to every signal in sight an all.

‘Miss. Rekali.’ it would say. ‘you might remember me, Jared Ovmar. Pleased. I’d like to hire your services for a certain mission in the Chiloon Rift. You’d be acting as guide for me and [member="Rave Merrill"].’

The silhouette seemingly shrugged before concluding.

‘It’s probably going to be dangerous, but the pay will be good. You can always count on that, miss. Rekali. Ovmar out.’

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

Her holocom was cheap enough that it didn't correct the time differential. Ovmar's message came through sloooooowly, his voice deeeeeper and moooore naaaaasal than nooooormal. It tooook herrrr a looooong tiiime -- maaaaybe clooooose to fiiiive minnnnnuttttesss -- too liiiiisten to his messsssssage.

By which point she was thoroughly sick of it.

The Role Model had been given little choice about selling its cargo of songsteel ores to Ovmar out by 244Core, way on the other side of the galaxy. These magnate types never could sit still. At least Alec had an excuse for wandering: step-by-step financial necessity. A payday like this could get her a good meal, a hot shower, some badly needed refit work, and out of the dang Chiloon Rift. Out to somewhere that clocks liked a bit better.

"Lord Ovmar, I accept your offer." Because he was not a man to refuse, not when it came to money. "I'll be there within the hour."

Her hold was only half-full of ore, still half-melted from the plasma jets, but she punched it anyway. Sold off her ore at Sarnus, crossed the Bubble of the Lost, and off to rendezvous with a corporate magnate who was almost certainly a Sith Master.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

In that hour the Sith Lord wrapped up certain business, make sure things would run smoothly while they were busy here. Sure, time-dilation was a thing, but they’d still be gone for a few weeks, months maybe and while going back was a possibility Ovmar had the distinct feeling they wouldn’t want to return when they were gone.

Freedom reached and beckoned, few things could really tempt a man and woman of their caliber anymore than that. The sheer capability to walk off for a time and work on some self-improvement.

So he made arrangements, made sure Neuro-Saav Corporation would run smoothly without him, that the InterGalactic Banking Clan wouldn’t be expecting him for a few months, [member="Matsu Xiangu"] got a message (that she probably would only read in a few weeks anyway) and a few other things were taken care of.

After the hour was over the many-faced-man was finally ready to depart this world and reach out for the next.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Jared Ovmar"]

The first thing she noticed, as the Role Model's hatch closed behind her, was the smell. This research platform appended to the monolith like a hairy wart of modernity, like an outhouse tacked onto a baroque cathedral, like a mentalist trying to be a real Master. It smelled like a well-travelled tomb. Droids shuffled supplies of arcane kinds from floor to floor, preparing for what looked like a serious expedition. Through a side door's transparisteel window, she glimpsed a petite brunette meditating, a small rock suspended in the air before her yellow eyes. Forcers. Always Forcers. They made no sense, they made themselves indispensable, and they were all ubercompetitive sphincters.

She moved away from the door, looking for Ovmar but not too intensively, more trying to get a handle on the gut feeling the monolith gave her. She was a Sith Lord's daughter and a Witchmaster's granddaughter, but the Force was weak with her - she qualified as Force-attuned, not Force-sensitive, so far as she was aware. Her sense of time and its perturbations was her marketable quality here, but a monolith was no joke -- and especially not if that rock was some kind of time-related artifact from elsewhere. She had no desire to find herself in the middle of a temporal allergic reaction.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

Ovmar moved through the facility, speaking with a few of his own personnel. AEI had moved in and brought indispensable experience to the cause, Neuro-Saav was all good and well, but they were a company catered to a lot of things. This generalization was its strength and weakness, AEI on the other hand… they had a knack for Force-based studies, one of his assistants had admitted that without Akure they probably would have been here for many months trying to get to the bottom of this.

As it stood, they were discovering new things by the minute. With time being relative here, that didn’t mean all that much really.

Eventually he reached the hangar bay, one of the guards there indicated that their guest had arrived, promptly within the hour even. The Sith Lord nodded and stepped through the doors, taking in the sight of the girl. Merrill had been right of course, she ain’t no fifteen-year old girl and perhaps she was even a touch attractive.

But the Rekali-name floated above her, and that was enough for the Sith’s eyes to blur over. Some stones were better left unturned.

‘Miss. Rekali.’ Jared called out, getting her attention. There was a vague notion of concern radiating from her. Perhaps it had something to do with Merrill’s eyes glowing amberlike, or the artifact hugging the air above her lap, or the presence of the Monolith. Perhaps it was all of the above, or none of them. But standing in the hangar and looking at what they were doing here?

He’d lie if he wasn’t just a tad concerned himself.

‘Welcome.’