Private How to Tap the Past

[Onrai]

Donne Toulemonde

Kiross

The planet of Kiross had experienced revival on a truly tremendous scale. A great fleet of warships orbited the world as though they were a ring of metal surrounding the war world. And yet offensively, Onrai had yet to make moves against her neighbors in the Maw, for the greater galactic power had cumulatively chosen to work as a whole in order to further threaten and infringe on the Jedi.

How paltry.

She would continue to humor them for reasons known only to herself, but there were goals she had in mind that were ultimately irrelevant to the petty conflicts between galactic powers that perpetually consumed the galaxy. Such senseless acts were only doomed to waste the lives of mortals in conflict that, within hundreds of years, would be forgotten by all.

So it was that another was sought out, one to join Sasmay Cull , Shavara , and the few others who had been given an understanding of the greater picture.

Whether she accepted or not was but another question entirely.

 

[Donne Toulemonde]

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Tags: Onrai ​

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Decadence beyond measure.

That is how she had described the Sith. Indulgent, selfish, and lacking in honour.

She had learned subsequently that elements of what she had been taught all those years ago were true but only from a certain viewpoint. She had learned that, inherently, there was an inward focus that bordered on the venal and corrupt, but that only certain aspects called for such an attitude. There were other aspects she had found…appealing.

Donne's transport had made its way through the extensive planetary traffic with ease, touching down within a large city center that would have made any off-worlder blanch. She stomached it, here with intent and with a purpose.

Explore the past.

She rose, her dark robes shrouding her, long black cloak billowing in the fresh breeze as she descended the ramp onto the grounded platform. She began to feel a surge in the energies that almost danced around her fingertips, ineffable and intangible to all but the most attune Force adherents.

Donne was one such user. Her ability to draw from the echoes of the Force was of keen use to her. She hoped to expand upon the insight she already possessed.

She walked on, in hope of finding such insight would be forthcoming.

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[Onrai]

So, you have come to this world for insight into things long forgotten.

A voice seemed to come from everywhere, one the others at the starport appeared to give no heed to. Shadows seeped from the sections of the void and coalesced into the wraithlike form that Onrai found herself typically presenting as. She gave the woman a curious look and pondered over the rationale she could be here.

“You wish to learn of the past, the true past, of the galaxy. Of things that have been forgotten over the course of many hundreds of thousands of years. You have come to the right place. I am Onrai, and I will be your guide. Come.” She motioned for the woman to follow her.

Donne Toulemonde

 

[Donne Toulemonde]

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Tags: Onrai​

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Onrai

Donne stopped short. A presence. An image. An echo of the Force, both present and past. She took in the voice as it called to her. She hesitated, almost flinching to grab her sabre, much good it would do her in this particular battle. She could feel the energy was emanating from within the Force itself, something she herself had yet to master or come to understand.

A visage appeared, an entity, one she did not recognise or yet know. Perhaps she would. She listened with intent.

"I do wish to know these things and more. My connection to the Force is linked with some severity to echoes of the past, shadows that appear in my waking mind. I see what has passed and wish to know how it is so. I am Donne."

She began to walk with the strange entity.

"How long have you lived in this world? Or even this plane of existence?"

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[Onrai]

“A pleasure to meet you, Donne.” She said. “I have spent only a few short years on Kiross, rebuilding the world from its ashes with the aid of my many supplicants and followers. As for how long I have existed - decades, in an old form, and far longer in an even older form.”

As the duo walked, Onrai raised an intriguing question. “Donne, what do you know of the Celestials? Of the Old Ones? Of the great Cosmic Wars that came well before mortals achieved the ability to in their own ways master the domain of the material world?”

It was always best to start with what one already knew about.

Donne Toulemonde

 

[Donne Toulemonde]

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Tags: Onrai​

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She pondered on the response to give. There was no way of measuring what she did or did not know on the makeup of the Universe or even the fabric of existence itself. Her grasp of space and time had already been challenged by her connection to the Force, illuminating and expanding on the notion that life, existence and her own humanity were isolated and without connection to a greater power. She did not believe or give worship to deities; she was too far a humanist to do so.

She believed in an individual's relationship with the Force and the Sith code that guided it. That alone.

"I cannot speak with any authority on these 'Celestials'. I have not known them or seen them. I know of no 'Old Ones' or of the Cosmic Wars that predate our own time of living. I know only the Force and the echoes that it leaves behind for us to find and to utilise."

She felt honesty at this point was the best and only course of action.

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[Onrai]

Onrai nodded as she led the woman to an otherwise plain and unassuming building within the greater city complex that was the Kiross spaceport. “It is good to admit you know nothing.” She said. “Those who admit they know nothing are often those with the greatest capacity for wisdom.”

The building itself was structured most like an office without a care. The patterns of former cubicles were upon its floor, yet the room itself was empty and poorly lit. It was in such a malleable space that Onrai could best do as she traditionally did.

“Let us start with the Celestials, the Ones so revered in the galaxy. Those who once served as its guardians, preserving the galaxy from chaos and evil.” The room seemed to dim, to grow darker as though a pocket of a void was beginning to form around the two. In a way, it was - such a microcosm was the best way to showcase it.

“There was but one, known as Nakhash, who desires more. Dominance. Control. He wished to rule and so it was that sin was introduced into this reality. As would be presumed, he and those corrupted as he was were locked away, sealed to prevent their effects on the greater galaxy.” She elaborated. Before them the great swirls of light and darkness clashes within the void, an echo of the first war brought to life.

“The Celestials no longer call this plane their home. They have sealed themselves away, a deliberate act of fear of the terrors they have created. They have left the galaxy without order and allowed it to fall to the state it is now at. Shame upon Wutzek, Lluxos, and all of their kind.”

Donne Toulemonde

 

[Donne Toulemonde]

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Tags: Onrai​

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She listened to the story that the spectre told her.

"What does this have to do with the Force? Is the Force a manifestation of what they created? Don't the Sith seek to emulate Nakhash through their dominance?"

She was puzzled. She knew she had only begun to comprehend the narrative she was being told and asking questions wasn't conducive to an open mind. But she relented.

"I'm sorry. Please go on."

She breathed lightly, trying to focus her mind on the task at hand. She searched a little.

Flash.

An empty space. No. Not Empty. Dark. Very Dark. Deep. Solemn. No. Yawning. Immeasurable. Fathomless.

She could feel movement in the darkness. Something stirred. Waiting. Locked.

She thought she caught a glimpse of a small burst of flame in the very furthest reaches of the void. A flame? An eye!

Flash

She twitched a sharp but minuscule movement, back to the place she had been moments before. She recapped quickly in her head all she had been taught. She listened.

 

[Onrai]

“The Force is an extant creation that exists independently of the actions of the Celestials. Though they are one time sought to keep it in balance, it does not rely on them to continue existing, and in fact will always exist in perpetuity. When darkness arises, however… that is when the Old Ones rose up.”

The pocket went dark, only for strange and monstrous entities to arise: a hideous winged creature with a bulbous, tentacle-covered head. A mass of insectoid legs that seemed to have no beginning and end. A great ichor-weeping cube of flesh adorned with gilded scales. And a mass of perpetually amorphic slime, shifting through physical form after physical form.

“Typhojem. Tharagorrogaraht. Ooradryl. And Mnggal-Mnggal. All the offspring of the Soulworm, The perfidious form of thet which came before. The purveyors of blight and corruption, who sought dominion over all things. Three are dead and the last is wounded, barely clinging to life. I have spent much time seeking to eliminate them and ensure they cannot be a threat to the galaxy again.”

Donne Toulemonde

 

[Donne Toulemonde]

Onrai

Donne listened with an intensity that she couldn't fathom. She felt drawn to the information as if it were something she needed, something destined for her to understand. She hoped it would allow her to bring a deeper sense of control to her utilisation of the Force, to help increase her skill.

She walked on, taking in the surroundings, understanding as best she could. She saw the bizarre and inhuman creations of the mind ahead of, distorted and disturbing.

This strange entity that spoke to her with honeyed words was persuasive. She felt a sense of calm, however. She did not feel threatened.

Perhaps that was the danger. When one was completely unaware of just how much peril one was truly in.

 

[Onrai]

“There is much the Jedi and Sith remain silent about.” The visions ceased and the room returned to its relative state of plainness. “The Jedi seek to keep knowledge of these truths hidden, rightfully presuming the broader knowledge spread of them would drive the galaxy into a terror at the thought of such maleficent divinities able to turn them into pawns at their whims. The Sith on the other hand look at beings such as these with envy and lust, an avaricious craving fueling their desire to ascend to the same sort of godhood and become the crisis to the galaxy themselves.” She smiled.

“Few if any have ever been able to truly achieve such. And I do not share the same goals for galactic conquest that they do. Better to guide, to advise mortals to reach a state of being able to live their lives without the perpetual disturbance of the galaxy.”

She paused for a bit. “Do you have any questions? Anything you wish me to elaborate more on? Or do you perhaps wish to use your abilities to further discern the truth of my words?”

Donne Toulemonde

 

[Donne Toulemonde]

Donne paused for a moment. She felt cornered, as if she didn’t know whether she was being tested or not. She hadn’t felt like this since her apprenticeship to the last master she had known, the only teacher she had ever taken.

Ever since then, she had countered the typical relationship of master and apprentice, seeking only to fulfil her own needs and goals through unique and personal access to the Force. Her relationship alone would be the source of her joy, her pain, her grief and her tribulation.

‘How? How do I do it?’

She was tentative. She knew only that the visions and echoes she felt couldn’t be controlled, only witnessed. She had never accessed them at will before.


Onrai

 

[Onrai]

Onrai paused, lips pursed quietly as she pondered over how best to answer the question Donne had put forward. Onrai’s own experiences with psychometry were minimal to nonexistent - she had been directly exposed to the events of the past through consuming the very life force of a being that had experienced it, a process that had irrecoverably changed her constitution physically and spiritually. She had never actively sought to read an object in order to learn or discern facts or history about it, either through brief visions injected into her mind or through active immersion in the past.

In short, she was going to have to wing it.

“Close your eyes and relax.” Onrai said, the lights of the room dimming and reality itself seeming to slip away as she moved to stand behind Donne. “Every power, every gift that one has in this universe can be accessed directly. One only needs master control of it. Focus on the emptiness. On the place there Is nothing. Pull upon the void until you feel the chronons within. Feel the time, the data stored within it.”

Hands slid into Donne’s own - Onrai’s own eyes were closed as she sought to focus, to assist Donne in further tapping the secrets of her own personal accessibility of the past. She sighed, focusing on seeking to amplify the power Donne had available to her.

“Focus.”

Donne Toulemonde

 

[Donne Toulemonde]

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She wanted to scream. Not out of some mystical power, surging through her, boiling her blood and sustaining her life through the very essence of the Force itself. Not because the cosmic fabric began to rent and tear, casting her soul into an abyssal plain. Not because the fury and rage she had built inside her all these years had found new and unwholesome meaning and purpose in her newfound skill.​

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Because nothing was happening. No matter how she thought and willed and hoped and tried, nothing would come of it. All she could see was darkness. No. Not darkness. A lack. A lack of...anything.​

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Perhaps this is what the spectre meant. That the focus would show her the endless possibilities that a blank canvas could deliver.​

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A flicker.​

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Not the flashing surge of energy she normally felt. No.​

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This was a more minor, fainter feeling like a match being struck in the emptiness of the deepest ocean. She began to feel its strange warmth, despite its flame some hundreds of metres away. She realised for a moment that the words she had heard were echoing inside her own head.​

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Focus.​

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The flame shot into a ball of light.

Onrai

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[Onrai]

Onrai's focus at the moment was, even amongst the many avatars of her presence that pervaded the galaxy, upon one thing: upon Donne and her own. As the void filled, the ball of light illuminating the sight, the first words and whispers of the past contained within Onrai, of the many secrets she kept hidden, slowly began to slither into the light.

"You stall to protect those working to expose the secrets of the shadow world. They will die too, and you will watch as they writhe in agony knowing that you are to blame for their suffering."

"We are the shapers of your future and have come to right a great wrong. The ones who have positioned themselves above you claim to be your benefactors, but they are afraid you will amass greater power than they and have held back from you much that you were meant to have! Bow to me and you shall be given far more than these paltry gifts your jealous overlords have sparingly apportioned out!"

"I know of no maker, Maker, only the great Void and that is the sole master, for all others are but its servants. I will not reverse my reversions, nor provide restoration, for that is, as with all things, dull."

"You speak to me as if I am one of your pale Celestials, as if I am one of the inglorious Firstborn, who so easily abandoned the ways of your Maker who sits frozen on his boreal throne, indifferent to the horrors of a galaxy crumbling under the feeble rule of the Celestials. You are correct when you say there is a better way. I am that better way."

"You are but the arbiter of taste. I can translate it for you into even older languages if you'd like. Would you understand if I did? If I asked you, 'min ainee atra tiyet?' how would you respond, goddess? If I said 'hetep hena ten,' would you know I was being facetious, o maker of mine? Surely, if you were the true mother of all, you would know this: 'r'ëh änokhiy notën lif'nëykhem haYôm B'räkhäh ûq'läläh,' for I am that ancient malediction brought forth to bring to an utter end these fallen, lamentable spheres, and all who dwell upon them."

"I am my own maker, Force-demon. You would do well to see that I do not use my power to un-make you."

"War is the most fervent expression of the Father of Shadows, for it serves nought but him and those who serve him."

The voices were scattered from across various times and beings, with only glimpses of their shades and presences. Transcendent purity and utter malignancy both were reflected amongst the speakers whose words sung like colors within the light. Their meanings were unknown. Their rationale unexplainable. Yet Donne had managed to scratch the faintest sliver of the surface of what Onrai was, deep down inside - or at least who she was trying to be.

"That was... unusual."

Donne Toulemonde