Private Incognito Nuns

[Maeve Linahan]

"I see." Maeve cocked an eyebrow. "That is an interesting way to put it."

She understood a little of what Eloise was talking about. Dealing with Sith was rarely pleasant. Many reeked of death, corruption, and more often than not, actual shit. Maeve had faced a few who left her with plenty of scars to count, but in the end, she survived. She won.

"You will eventually learn how to fight them on your own, and you will learn to be proud for it. May not be easy work, but we're Jedi. What we do, we do for the good of the galaxy." She nodded. "You will improve with training. That, or you will die trying. But I'll do my best to make sure that doesn't happen."

Maeve cast Eloise a smile that probably wasn't half as comforting as it should've been, then she continued down the hall. They passed several closed rooms, some of which didn't feel particularly important. She was just following her instinct, the Force, hoping it would guide her to the right place. She didn't want to stay here longer than necessary.

"You've been on a few missions with Master Serys-Organa before, correct?"

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

Eloise nodded along with Maeve’s words, grinning back at her. “Based.”

"You've been on a few missions with Master Serys-Organa before, correct?"

“Yeah. Although we spend most of our time in the Halls of Healing.” Amani was the Chief Healer, after all. Eloise didn’t actually mind the work, but she made sure to dedicate just as much time and effort (if not more) to honing her skills as a fighter.

Glancing around as they passed numerous closed doors, Eloise started to wonder when they would ever stop. Maeve at least seemed to know what she was doing, although in reality she was probably just wandering around hoping the Force would show her the way. Eloise certainly couldn't think of a better method for finding the relic.

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Healing," Maeve said. "Of course."

How typical of Amani. Always tending to the wounded, offering help and counsel. She wasn't sure how she did it. Not that Amani's work was any less important, but Maeve preferred to be out in the field, hunting Sith and cleansing Dark Side-infested temples. She wasn't a healer.

No, her hands were made for crushing.

Maeve stopped at an intersecting hall. One look to the right and she spotted an open set of doors into something of a library. Nothing too grandiose, but it boasted a small mural on the ceiling with a dozen row of shelves containing dusty old books and scrolls. The Force seemed to be calling her there, and Maeve answered at a brisk pace.

"Perhaps we may uncover more about the convent's history here," she said once they slipped inside. "See what details we can find about the abbess and this obsession with Carnifex." She glanced over at Eloise. "You do know how to read, do you not?"

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

"Healing," Maeve said. "Of course."

Eloise nodded, grinning.

Maeve led them into the convent library. It was small and humble, but had a slightly weird energy to it that even Eloise was able to pick up on.

"Perhaps we may uncover more about the convent's history here," she said once they slipped inside. "See what details we can find about the abbess and this obsession with Carnifex." She glanced over at Eloise. "You do know how to read, do you not?"

"Do I look like Loomi to you? Of course I know how to fethin' read." She strolled forward, peering at each of the shelves, until she found a title printed across a dusty tome. "'Pashvi Abbey Records, 850-900 ABY'. Hello there..." She carefully slid the book off the shelf and began leafing through the thin, delicate pages.

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve watched as Eloise strode forward. "Who the hell is Loomi?" she muttered.

No matter. Eloise had a good eye, and in moments, found a tome describing the convent's history. As she opened the book, she exhumed decades worth of dust, but it wasn't until one of the delicate pages unexpectedly ripped at Eloise's touch that Maeve finally stepped in.

"Oh, Ashla's Light. Be careful." Maeve took the old tome from Eloise and began to thumb through the pages herself. "These kinds of books are extremely fragile, and without proper—"

Another page tore between her fingers and she paused. "—care."

Ignoring whatever look Eloise might've cast her, Maeve—far more carefully now—perused through the tome. There was nothing special about what she read. The convent had been established centuries ago, but strangely, it had started as a sanctuary for Recipients of the Light, members of an ancient religious order dedicated to the Light Side.

"This doesn't make sense," she said. "There's no mention of Carnifex or the Patriarch anywhere in these pages. Whatever is happening here, it is recent." More and more, she felt as if the artifact was involved.

Before she could say more, however, a voice squeaked from behind them, a librarian in rusty spectacles. "Excuse me, sisters, can I help you?"

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

"Who the hell is Loomi?"

“Bug girl with robot legs, shy and awkward to an annoying degree and so painfully ignorant that I suspect she’s really just an idiot?” Maeve probably had no clue who she was talking about, so Eloise just shrugged and dropped the subject. She couldn’t stand the majority of her Padawan peers for one reason or another, but Loomi was especially bully-able.

The pages of the tome she had pulled from the shelf proved more fragile than expected. Maeve chastised her for tearing a page, but when she took the book from her she wound up ripping it too. Eloise pointed and silently laughed at her.

"Excuse me, sisters, can I help you?"

Her grin immediately disappeared as she whirled around to face the librarian. “Er, perhaps, yes,” she replied, her eyes darting wildly. “We are—new arrivals, and we were hoping to find information about recent events. So that we may be… well-informed of the goings-on here at the convent.”

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve rolled her eyes at Eloise's silent laughter, but she didn't have time to muster a retort before the convent's librarian surprised them. The young woman wore a dark pinafore and had a sheaf of scrolls tucked under her arm, and she looked between them with a nervous glance.

"New arrivals? I had no idea new sisters would be joining us. It's a pleasure. I'm Reyna." The nun adjusted the glasses on her nose and extended a hand to them.

Maeve simply stared back at her, blank-faced, long enough for Reyna to retract the hand with an awkward cough. "Well… uh, you said you needed information from the last few months?"

"If you have it," Maeve said bluntly.

"Of course! Just follow me, please. I know of all the information you need." As the archivist turned and gestured them to follow towards the back of the library, Maeve roughly shoved the old history book back onto the shelf.

"Now, what recent goings-on were you interested in?" The librarian asked, stopping at a dauntingly tall shelf of scrolls. "Last season's harvest reports? The month's weather pattern surveys? This year's expeditions? Our official convent registry? Or perhaps the latest scriptures penned by our dear Abbess Adah? Oh! Or how about...?"

Maeve resisted the urge to groan. This was going to take a while.

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

Eloise almost shook Reyna’s hand, but when Maeve did not, she imitated the Knight. They followed the librarian nun through the stacks to a tall shelf full of scrolls. Actual scrolls, written on paper! Nice.

"Now, what recent goings-on were you interested in? Last season's harvest reports? The month's weather pattern surveys? This year's expeditions? Our official convent registry? Or perhaps the latest scriptures penned by our dear Abbess Adah? Oh! Or how about...?"

“Relics,” Eloise said, pointing with two fingers for emphasis. “We want information about relics housed in the abbey. For, hmmm, research.”

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Research? Well, that's quite odd, but as long as it is in the pursuit of knowledge…" The librarian nodded and reached up to the highest shelf, plucking a clean scroll and handing it to Eloise. "This is a catalogue of what artifacts we keep here in the convent. Learn their history, if you wish. Now, is there anything else you need?"

"No," Maeve said, plucking the scroll out of Eloise's hands. "Thank you."

The librarian smiled. "Of course. Carnifex's blessings to you."

The bespectacled woman returned to her duties, unaware of the razor sharp glare Maeve was shooting her. Whatever. Long as she could find out the cause of the strange happenings around the convent, she could suffer the nuns a while longer.

Once the woman fell out of earshot, Maeve found a small table in the corner of the library and spread the scroll out for her and Eloise to see. There was quite an extensive list of relics, and her eyes slowly reviewed what she could. "The Sword of Saint Guillaume, the jawbone of an albino rancor," she mumbled. "The left toe of Saint Sylvester, Virgin Elisa's breast milk…"

She squinted and re-read it again. "The fuck?"

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

The librarian produced a scroll. Eloise took it from her graciously, only to have it immediately snatched from her hands by Maeve. She almost made a comment along the lines of try not to rip this one, but held her tongue.

"The Sword of Saint Guillaume, the jawbone of an albino rancor. The left toe of Saint Sylvester, Virgin Elisa's breast milk… The fuck?"

“A lactating virgin?” Eloise muttered. “Sounds pretty miraculous to me.”

There was a pause.

“... Don’t tell me we’re here for the holy tiddy milk.”

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"No, we are not here for holy breast milk," Maeve scoffed. She couldn't believe the sanctuary claimed to be in possession of such a relic, and how they even planned to store it. Was it just left on public display in the chapel? Where had it even come from? It was all so incredibly bizarre, but she supposed that was how most religions were.

"Here," she exclaimed, pointing a finger to one of the artifacts at the very bottom of the catalogue. Their most recent discovery, and their last. "The Holy Mirror of Lord Carnifex."

Sounded enough like a Sith artifact to her, but there were no details included about it. The only notes left claimed that the nuns had discovered the object in an expedition in the mountains less than a month ago before it was brought to the convent for safekeeping.

"It doesn't say where it's being kept, but it can't be far." Maeve put a finger to her chin, considering. "Now, if I were a nun madly devoted to a Sith Lord, where would I decide to store one of his most sacred heirlooms?" The question seemed rhetorical, but she left it for Eloise to answer, if only to see her deductive skills in action.

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

Oh. A mirror. “A holy picnic basket would be cooler…” she muttered under her breath.

"Now, if I were a nun madly devoted to a Sith Lord, where would I decide to store one of his most sacred heirlooms?"

“Depends on the relic,” Eloise mused aloud. “In Sith space, they’re kept on display in temples so that they can be revered. But if it was something too dangerous for that, it could be down in the crypts or buried in a storage room somewhere.” Only after she relayed this info did she realize that it was rather suspicious that she knew all that. Welp, too late to take it back now. "We could just ask the librarian where it's kept. Once we have the relic, it won't matter whether they figure it out it was us. They don't know who we really are."

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Maeve raised an eyebrow at Eloise's answer. That was more detail than she expected. Normally, she'd have questioned how she knew so much, but this was Amani's apprentice. She was bound to know a thing or two.

"A good idea," she said, rolling the scroll back up. "If she does know where it is, we can seek it out immediately and find out if it truly is the cause for why this convent has become host to a lump of Carnifex zealots. Then, we destroy it. No reason to risk smuggling it out of this place."

She nodded, glad they'd officially had a plan in mind. Without another moment to hesitate, Maeve turned and searched out the librarian—wherever she'd gone—but when she rounded the corner of a nearby shelf, she was surprised to find none other than Abbess Adah, dressed in her dark robes and headdress. The old woman smiled, all teeth.

"Sister Magdalene," she said before looking over Maeve's shoulder to Eloise. "Sister Griselda. I was wondering where you two had gone. The other sisters told me you hadn't yet settled into your quarters. What brings you to our library?"

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

Now with a clear course of action agreed upon, the two incognito nuns went to find the librarian—but instead, they ran into Abbess Adah.

“Reverend Mother, we were simply too excited to rest,” Eloise replied. “Sister Magdalene is very eager to seek a blessing from one of the abbey’s patron saints. We asked the librarian for information on what relics are kept here, so that we may revere them.”

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Is that so?" Abbess Adah said, one brow raised. The old woman didn't seem suspicious, if anything she looked excited, and that felt even worse.

"Well, if you are here to seek out worship, look no further, sisters. We are gathering for evening mass. You may join us to revere such a relic."

Maeve resisted the urge to frown. She had hoped to avoid mass altogether, but when faced with the abbess herself, there was no room to decline—especially if this relic she spoke of was the mysterious mirror they were now after.

Judging by Adah's fervor, Maeve had a feeling it was.

"Come, come," the abbess said, gesturing them to follow her back to the chapel she'd shown them just hours ago. "It's a special ceremony tonight, to honor you and Sister Griselda's arrival. You have done communion and mass before, no?"

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

From the sound of it, the evening mass would involve the relic. Convenient. Eloise smiled, only for her expression to falter a bit as soon as the abbess’ back was turned and they began following her to the chapel.

"It's a special ceremony tonight, to honor you and Sister Griselda's arrival. You have done communion and mass before, no?"

“Of course.” Eloise knew from personal experience that any ritual related to the Sith was probably pretty nefarious. Maybe with blood sacrifices and similar atrocities being performed.

That said, the nuns were sort of… benign. Demure, even. But it could just as easily be a mask hiding their true selves. Still, neither she nor Maeve had detected any sign of the Dark Side in these women, and it seemed unlikely that they would throw off their habits and engage in an orgy of violence and evil. But just in case, Eloise was prepared for anything.

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

"Good," Adah said. "This evening's mass should not be much different from what you normally expect, save for one particular ritual we will be performing in addition. But do not worry. There is little you need to do besides have faith."

The old woman smiled over her shoulder, all teeth. Without another word, she continued down the hall and through the courtyard gardens, the evening sun dipping behind the mountain peaks that loomed over the convent. Days went by quickly on Pashvi. Maeve hadn't expected nightfall would arrive so soon, and suddenly she wished she had moved faster.

She crossed under an archway leading into the chapel. Menacingly enough, the sanctuary was packed this time, the pews full of robed and veiled nuns, mumbling prayers and old hymns. Worse, when Maeve and Eloise stepped inside, all heads turned to them as if on cue.

By the altar, underneath the statue of Darth Carnifex, stood a lone mirror with a smooth and gilded frame. It seemed perfectly harmless, but that only unnerved Maeve even more.

"Come, sisters," Adah said, guiding them forward. "To the altar."

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

“What sort of ritual?” Eloise asked, though she expected she would receive no answer.

It was dusk already by the time they reached the chapel, Pashvi days being shorter than she was used to. The place was packed, and everyone immediately rubbernecked at them when they entered. Was it just because they were new? Did it have something to do with the ritual? Or did they suspect something was off about Sisters Magdalene and Griselda?

At any rate, the mirror was on display. Now that they knew where it was, they would have to find a way to get it.

"Come, sisters. To the altar."

Eloise’s eyes darted briefly toward Maeve before she followed the abbess down the aisle to the altar and whatever might await them there.

Maeve Linahan​

 

[Maeve Linahan]

Surprisingly, Abbess Adah did answer, but not in the way Maeve hoped.

"It is a welcoming ritual," she said. "A chance to fully embrace your faith."

Between the lingering eyes of the nuns around them and the dark undercurrent in Adah's voice, Maeve was left feeling increasingly unnerved. Hairs stuck up on the back of her neck. Alarms bells rang in her mind. The closer she and Eloise went towards the mirror, the more the Force was warning her, almost pleading with her to turn around and flee.

But she didn't. That was not what Shadows did.

She crept closer to the altar and the gilded mirror, seeing her own reflection in it and nothing more. She traded a brief look with Eloise. Do you feel it? she spoke into her thoughts. I hadn't before, but I can now. The Dark Side is here. Be careful, and remember your training.

"Sisters!" Abbess Adah said to the rest of the chapel. "Tonight, we welcome Sister Griselda and Sister Magdalene. Tonight, we invite them to join the embrace of the Patriarch. Tonight, we honor the name of Carnifex." She bowed her head and gestured to Eloise.

"Sister Griselda, as the youngest and most eager of the two, please, look into the mirror and upon your reflection, and tell us what you see."

Eloise Dinn​

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[Eloise Dinn]

Maeve’s thoughts filled her mind like ice water. The Dark Side was here. Yes, I feel it too, she replied. But what can we do?

The abbess called Eloise up first. Casting a wary glance toward Maeve, she approached the mirror as cautiously as she could manage without arousing the nuns’ suspicions.

In the mirror, she saw herself… and yet, it was not her. The hair was the first indication—instead of being dyed purple, it had gone back to its natural red. It was styled differently too, no longer in braids but in a more grown-up fashion. Eloise realized she was looking at an older version of herself. A vision of the woman she would become some day.

“I see my reflection,” she said softly. “It’s me, but years from now.”

Would she be happy? Would she accomplish any of the things she set out to do? The mirror had no answers. She felt a spike of anxiety as she gazed upon her future self, as if she were being confronted with her own mortality. There was a pang of sorrow too, but it was only what little remained of a childish desire to never grow old. To always be a fluid, changeable thing, full of possibilities. But if she never settled down, grew roots and became set in her ways, she’d never find peace, nor stability, nor a sense of belonging.

Was that what she wanted? To belong?

She turned her head to one side and stepped away from the mirror. Tears glistened along her lower lash line, but she took a deep breath and blinked them away. "That's it. I didn't see anything else."

Maeve Linahan​