Drink Death's Water Free

[Darth Odium]

The Maw Cluster

The small fighter of unknown origin dropped out of hyperspace with a snap of light before flying straight into the ship graveyard in the distance. The being known as Odium knew his end was no longer so distant as to not be felt nagging at him. His hunger had grown nearly uncontrolled and his desire to contro it at all faded day by day. As his desire to feed on life grew so did his desire to watch the galaxy burn. He drew deeply on the force and faught to navigate passed the myriad black holes.

He looked at the jungle world below and knew it would bring his destruction far before it gave him anything else but it would also be where he constructed his tribute to the Darkness that festered in his breast. Pieces of the ship alowly pulled away before he made the planet's atmosphere and finally crashed in a cloud of sand and durasteel on the beach. There would be no leaving that way.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

A jungle pond in a cave mouth, a freestanding showerhead, its feeder tube's plastic filter bobbing in the still water. The sound of footsteps. A hurried splashing.

"Fethfethfethfethfeth where's that towel-"

***​

​

Roll back a couple days to a prospecting mission in the Maw Cluster. She'd always had good luck with spacetime flux. This week, not so much. The Role Model had gone way off-course and she'd been forced to touch down on what was, arguably, a death world. Everything here wanted to kill her, or at least give her awkward itches and make her feel slimier than the sonic shower could handle. So she'd found a pool that she was fairly sure included some mildly hallucinogenic algae; she'd dosed that pool with parasite-killer tabs and scanned it for life-forms; she'd put her little showerhead-on-a-pole in that pool; and she'd begun taking a shower and ignoring the occasional hallucination -- maybe she could package this water and sell it to spiceheads-

***​

​

Alec Rekali, prospector, thief and wanted woman, sloshed her way out of the Pool of Knowledge wrapped in an old gray towel just as the Nautolan exited the jungle.

"...feth."

[member="Darth Odium"]

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

The Nautolan looked at the woman and cocked his head to one side. Curious. He slowly began walking forward his hands in held palms facing the woman at shoulder height. He had come here to make his crystal and likely dig his grave. He had not expected company certainly not wrapped in a towel.

His black flight suit was not his usual garb but he was not here for his usual reasons....well at least he hadn't planned to kill anyone, today.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darth Odium"]

Alec felt her eyes narrow just slightly as she took the last few steps to where she'd left her clothes, draped over the hood of her little speeder by the mouth of the cave. Flight suit like his, underclothes unlike his, a blaster and a set of brass knuckles, boots.

"Might wanna drop your hands, friend," she called out across the speeder's hood, "or I might start thinkin' you're lookin' to get grabby. Grabby's not good in a place like this."

Feth, she hadn't finished rising her hair. Soap itched on her back and shoulders. She cinched the towel a little tighter under her arm and spent half a second worrying about how far down the towel covered. She needn't have worried. She'd bought this thing on Kashyyyk.

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

Odium stopped. The mute said nothing and using the force to speak to a girl with a Gun was a giod way to find yourself with more holes than you were born with. He let his hands drop to his waist and tried to 'smell' the woman's state of mind with his head tresses. He looked passed her at the clothes and then back then raised a brow...ridge? He lifted his hands again and put the large Nautolan hands over his black eyes.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darth Odium"]

"Talkative one, ain't ya."

Getting dressed modestly from a towel-related starting point was an art; a career spacer, she'd long considered herself a master of that art. Never taking her eyes off him, she exchanged the towel for graying underclothes, zip-up shipsuit, socks and boots. The knucks went around her neck on a string, just under the shipsuit's recalcitrant zipper; the blaster buckled onto her right thigh.

"All right, you can look now. Heard something a couple hours back -- thought it was a volcano or avalanche or something. You crash?"

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

He waited patiently though looking had crossed his addled mind for no other reason than to be more normal. He didn't however but he did sense something intensely odd about the woman. It was as if her life were vibrating in space and time.

'Curious.' He thought.

He nodded to her question and lifted his chin to motion to his throat then made a horizontal cutting motion infront of his neck. Whether she understood or not was irrelevant. He only needed her to leave for....a month? Maybe more and he would have his work finished and his enemies (ie. The galaxy) would come to him. He crossed his pointer and middle finger folded his ring finger toward his palm then extended his thumb and pinky to simulate a fighter. He moved the fighter hand sign in front of his face then smacked it against his other hand. His vocabulator was in his bag but to get it he would need to move in a way that would not get him shot.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darth Odium"]

To 99.99999999999999% of the galaxy, the throat-cutting gesture meant 'I'm gonna cut yours.' Her hand tightened around the blaster grip, but she didn't draw, just watched as he mimed a...spaceship crash, at which point the first gesture took on a less harmful light. A few seconds later, it clicked -- he was just saying he was mute.

Regular protocol droid right here.

"All right, so you're mute and you crashed." An image flickered past -- her shooting him and him...eating her soul? -- and was gone. Feth but the fungus in the water was good stuff. She could make good coin off this. "What brought you here? You pick up my speeder on scanners? Want a ride offplanet?"

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

He tilted his head to the side as he felt her force presence spike and fade. She was sensitive to the force if only just. He felt the daekside nexus nagging at him and a bead of sweat ran down the back of his neck. He shook his head he hadn't noticed her speeder. He was not good enough of a pilot to do that and navigate the Maw. He held up a single finger and shrugged off his pack. Then slowly knelt down finger still up. He pointed to his bag and his throat. He then made a blaster of his thumb and pointer and shook his head in the negative. He looked her in the eye and slowly reached to unzip the bag. He had planned on many things but meeting a gun toting spacer woman was not one.

The voices that had drawn him to this place in the first place began whispering to him to join them and he had to admit life beyond shadows was growing more appealing to him than this but he refrianed it wasn't the time. If she didn't shoot him he would produce a small circular object commonly known as a vocabulator as found in droids and pressed it to his neck.

"I came to explore." He said in the mechanical droid voice, "and maybe a bath"

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darth Odium"]

Well, that seemed normal enough. She could absolutely empathize. No shooting ensued. Maybe this pool had stronger stuff to it than she'd thought; if he hadn't tracked her speeder, he'd have to have known this cave was here. Coincidences didn't happen much, in her experience. And that right there almost flipped her opinion on the situation. Because if the cave was legitimately important -- she was the daughter of a Sith Lord; she knew the drill -- this might be the kind of man and the kind of place around which lingering was unwise.

"Don't let me get in your way," she said, and stepped on a rock to reach out and snag the shower-head-on-a-pole. She tossed it into the speeder truck bed beside the damp towel and made for the driver's seat. Didn't let him out of her peripheral vision.

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Alec Rekali"]

Odium stood and picked up his pack then walked toward the pool making sure to keep his eyes on the woman. Something about her tugged at something in the back of his mind. The bone fetish her wore under the flight suit felt cool to the touch something it had not done since his encounter with the terrible glare spirits.

He slowly put the bag down beside the pool and set down the vocabulator as the voices began beckoning him to bathe in the waters. He unzipped his flight suit and set his ever present satchel beside the pack. Possessing a great deal less modesty than the woman he undressed casually and piled his clothing then removed the fetish and placed it on the pile.

A quick glance from the corner of his eye and he stepped into the pool and let himself drop.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darth Odium"]

As she watched him from the corner of her eye, something tugged her gaze -- not the naked Nautolan, but the pile of clothes, or a small, angular shape in that pile...

Alex. Alex...free me. Put me in the pool, Alex.

Rach Kol-Rekali, Aing-Tii-trained timewalker, Sith Lord, and her father, had died as Rasho the Hutt only a year ago -- but for Alec, it had been far, far longer. Terror, shock and wonder tightened her hands on the speeder's control yoke. For a moment that felt like hanging over a cliff, she wanted to floor it, just bail through the plants of the death world.

If this place had enough to do with time that-

Alex, I let myself die and be trapped because I saw this moment coming. Because you can be so much more. Put me in the pool.

Her father's voice thundered. She couldn't get out of the speeder and run for the necklace, not without Odium seeing her and having time to react.
As luck would have it, insofar as her minuscule Force sensitivity had any real practical expression at all, it was in the realm of trick shots.

She drew and fired across her body, over the top of the driver's-side door. The blaster bolt glanced off the stone at the lip of the cave and slammed into the necklace, throwing it into the pool. A time-centric Dark Side nexus ran straight into a time-centric Dark Master in the presence of his time-centric daughter.

Abruptly, she was very much not here.

 

[Jaxton Ravos]

Not far behind the mute Lord of the Sith a young hopeful followed, eager to learn where he traveled. Even those outside the One Sith knew the wrath of Odium, what he had accomplished. If this journey to the Maw was a source of strength, or even just another exploit to be added to his list of achievements, then Randial wished to observe. To learn to work as he had, perhaps to thwart his plans, perhaps to realize them in his vision. He knew not what would happen. only that something would. Navigating the Maw was difficult, black holes at every turn, but Randial managed, just barely. He was notably behind the Nautolan, landing after the Nautolan was well engaged in conversation with the toweled spacer.

Randial didn't know any of this, nor see any of it either, just slowly trudging behind to a spot where he could see. The first thing he saw was a female spacer shoot a blaster bolt at the tip of a cave, only for it to richochet and hit a necklace, throwing it into a nearby pool. Afterwards the woman . . . she disappeared as far as Randial could tell. Not to be seen, nor felt, anywhere around.

What the feth was that about?

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Alec Rekali"]. [member="Randial"]

His eyes black as pitch became flecked with silver as if filled with stars. His body convulsed as visions began to wrack his mind, then in the blink of an eye the world flashed and he found himself in a world drained of color. He knew this place and knew it well. Whispers of person shaped being stood watching from around the pool as he climbed from the black pool. The dark energy of the place was visable here as it rose like a smoke from the very ground.

"You are changing Ket." The creatures said as his star filled black eyes gazed at them, "will you now drink?"

 

[Jaxton Ravos]

This planet, this place it was dark. Beyond Dark this place was evil. Were he a kiffar Jaxton would be able to tell the history of this place, how Abeloth came to be, the history of Luke Skywalker, Darth Krayt, Ben Skywalker, Vestara Khai. But instead he could rely on his sense, what the planet and the Force were telling him. He saw bits and pieces of this, that, the other, but no clear picture. Through the blurriness of it all Jaxton could tell one thing with certainty though. This place was one of power.

Heading to the Pool of Knowledge, thought Jaxton knew not it's name, he saw a nautolan, sinking into it's dank swamps. He considered for a moment saving the man from his decline, but he was a Nautolan. He should have been able to survive in the swamp, despite it's pull. The threat to him was not one of the physical nature, but of a spiritual one. By listening to the ripples of the Force, the waves made by the Dark Side Nexus of the pool, he could tell that the nautolan's spirit was in another place, though his body held here. Reasoning that the Pool itself was what detaching his mind from his body, he knew that the only way to find the Nautolan, the true Nautolan and not just his shell, was to enter the pool. The pool itself called to him, beckoning him to enter. To gain it's power.

Truth be told, the thought nearly reviled him. It was obvious the temptations it held. Would he truly be the same person if he entered? His mind thought back to a woman he respected, and what she told him. He had to make compromises to achieve what he wanted. He needed to weigh the costs, make sure he was willing to pay them. The Darkside in the place would change him, of that he was certain. But would he remain himself? He listened to the Force, but it gave him no answer, his hearing clouded by this place. Resolving himself that if he let his path slide others would correct him, forcibly if need be, he removed his clothes and entered the pool.

Force help me.


[member="Darth Odium"] [member="Alec Rekali"]

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Jaxton Ravos"] [member="Alec Rekali"]

Odium covered his ears as the voices of the dark spirits rose like a thunder. They shouted a thousand pronouncements, uttered a millions pleas, and screamed ten million jeers. His anger which was nearly aleays a colf things began to boil in a way he never knew it to. He saw visions, but whether past or present he couldn't say. He saw [member="Ryan Korr"] with [member="Quinn Vos"] in his arms and his once cold anger errupted at the spirits around him.

"EEEEENOOOOOUUUUGGGHHHHH!" he screamed with a voice like a volcano exploding. The release of force scream was enough to statter stone but here it left him standing alone with breaths coming is gasp like he had run a marathon. He turned as he felt another presence in the pool no he knew, simply knew it was coming.

"Jaxton. " he said in greeting as the name rose to the forefront of his mind.

 

[Jaxton Ravos]

[member="Darth Odium"] [member="Alec Rekali"]

Upon entering the pool Jaxton soon found that he wasn't in the pool. Well, he was, but he wasn't. The planet he was on, it looked like this place. It was strong in the Force. But here . . . here was different. It wasn't strong in the Force. It was the Force. It looked like the planet but it wasn't real, wasn't physical, at least not in the way Jaxton was used to. His body, was it really his body? Or just what his mind thought his body was? He didn't know, and for a moment, or perhaps an eternity, he didn't guess at what it might have been. He merely accepted his lack of knowledge, and continued on faith in the Force, faith in Fate, that it would help him understand what he saw. See through the lies that permeated him.

Visions began to flow, of memories long past. He saw an old friend, [member="Darron Wraith"]. The man and his golden flowing locks. His blue pierced into his, not greeting with friendship but the daggers of disappointment.

"You couldn't save me." Darron accused.

"No. I chose to save others." Jaxton defended.

"You could have read the Force. Seen my attack coming. Tried to stop it. Why didn't you?"

"It wasn't my place. Perhaps you were meant to fight him alone, perhaps you needed to become one with the Force. I won't pretend to know what is best."

"This isn't the first time you betrayed me Jaxton. Look." Darron said and motioned to his left hand. It was there, not synthflesh, not durasteel it was there. And then it was not. Severed, cauterized, as if were never there to begin with. Darron had sliced it in a duel when Jaxton was infected with the Clockwork Nanite virus.

"I didn't betray you. My body was not my own." Jaxton said as he looked at his hand, it constantly disappearing and re-appearing as the event played in his mind endlessly. He wasn't sure if it was real or not.

"No one's body is their own Jaxton." Wraith said with a sinister smile that he'd never seen from the man before. "There is no body, there is only the Force."

Darron vanished as quick as he came. Which was to say instantly, and over what seemed like eons. Time was wrong here. It didn't exist here. This place? It was dangerous.

"Jaxton." He heard the nautolan yell, and turned to see his face. He looked at the man and his name came to his mind, as if buried there before.

"Hello Ket."

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Jaxton Ravos"]

The broken vestiges of his mind had either eroded completely or had become something far more aware. The fact he couldn't tell which was a testament to the power of the pool and the strangness of this place. His body was at once there and not there, or was it merely his consciousness unable to relinquish the attachment to his only known form? His thoughts formed here with a clarity that he was not familiar with before.

"Do you know where you are?" He said as he began to connect knowledge known and his own beliefs with new knowledge he could not remember learning, " this is the space between the physical and the metaphysical where the unifying force splits into the living force. Beyond the shadows of our decrepit world and mingling with the force itself."

These were his guesses but his confidence was unshakeable. There was naught left before he could make the crystal but to drink from the font and transcend into the force itself.

"We are standing in the realm of Gods and Goddesses Jaxton."

 

[Jaxton Ravos]

[member="Darth Odium"]


Gods? Goddesses? Jaxton looked around but all he saw was Ket and himself. And while Jaxton and Ket were strong in the Force? They were no gods.

"Realm of the Gods and Goddesses? This place is strong. Not a Nexus the Force was imprinted on, this place is the Force, yet I see no Gods. Only you and I, and the shadows of memories past. Of our memories, of this places memories. If this is place is of Gods and Goddesses, then why are we here alone?"

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Jaxton Ravos"]

"Does the Sarlaac come to greet flies?" He asked in return, "the Kryat holocron talks of this. There are places here that do not exist in our galaxy. Do you think perhaps this is more than a manifestation of our own memories? I think this is the root of our galaxy. The base program."

He looked at the man's image.

"How long before you drown?"