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Syd's immense skill in Form 2 allowed her to sense when he made his attack and with a neat elegant side step, twisted away from the radius of his push.
"I don't really notice it, to be honest. I understand that my skin moving is creepy, but its like you blinking your eyes or breathing: you don't really notice. I've been exposed to dozens of magical systems over the centuries. My body or shell just adapts to it. I don't know if that's by design, or intended, constantly adapting to new magic as I am exposed to it. Sometimes I worry, one day I'll become so saturated with magical forces through sheer combat encounters I'll simply break down or worse..."
She hesitated before finishing, even as she maintained her guard.
"Sometimes I fear I'll become so saturated with magic there will not be any room left in my body for an actual soul...don't make my mistakes, Padawan. Learn magic, but employ it in moderation. Don't let it seep into your body and soul so completely you lose yourself, or become mortal only on technicality, as I did. Some secrets are simply too dangerous to the soul to learn, Dark or Light, and sometimes the smartest thing you can do is close your eyes, refuse to look or hear the secret and retreat, lest you lose your soul."
Syd darted forward using Force Slow with her focused mindset to try and slow him down, before directing an elegant slash that would leave a welt on his legs if it connected. Starlin Rand
would have to resist the slow effect with a counter slow field to try and cancel it out, or he could brute force it and try and block or dodge the Saber strike. Syd clearly believed in trials by fire.
The slash connected, provoking a yelp of pain from Starlin as his knees were burned. He had tried to resist the Slow effects, casting a counter of his own, but he wasn't quite fast enough. His attention was distracted by the weight of Syd's words.
He hadn't considered the idea of learning too much. The Force seemed so vast and complex, there was no way he could hope to learn everything about it within his lifetime. Or within several thousand lifetimes, either. But now that he thought about it, history proved what Syd said was true. You could dig too deep and encounter something stronger than you. The tales of the Jedi and the Sith alike were full of malevolent entities seeking a living host, ancient weapons of obscene power, and forbidden knowledge no mortal could possibly hope to comprehend. The galaxy was a big place, but the Force was infinitely bigger.
Though his legs stung, he managed to strike back, aiming a swing at Syd's shoulder, followed by a stab directed at her chest. Once again, he was using the pain as a motivator, though he made sure it remained a thing of the mind. Something he could ignore if he so chose.
Syd blocked the swing at her shoulder but did not quite evade the stab to her stomach. The blade skittered off her chromium covered stomach, the magic of the suit taking the worst of the damage, leaving a black scorch that slowly started to vanish.
But she recovered quickly, spinning, manuevering her blades around her body for complex attack sequences aimed at his legs and shoulder.
"Each attack must lead into the other, Starlin. Each attack supplemented by footwork, timing, and speed. Merely spinning the blades can confuse the opponent as to when and where you will strike." She explained as she attacked him rapidly, trying to trip Starlin Rand
up with constant attacks to his legs and wrists.
"Makashi is like a dance, ideally...even though it really isn't."
"Right," Starlin remarked, letting the Force guide him as he batted away her lightsaber, deflecting the attacks aimed at his legs and wrists. "You know, I met a swordsman on Coruscant—well, I answered his ad, actually. Name's Val Drutin . He's a famous dancer. Professional, like a ballet guy..."
Despite the effeminate stereotypes surrounding male dancers and the fact that Val was somehow even shorter than Starlin, the boy had been more than a little intimidated by the man's extremely athletic physique. The dude was ripped—looked like he could fold the scrawny teen in half like a cheap lawn chair. Not to mention that Val seemed to have a few screws loose. "...That's his day job. He teaches fencing—with lightsabers—on the side, and he's pretty damn good—hiya!"
The cheesy sound effect accompanied Starlin's use of Dragon Kung-fu as he executed a feint with his blade to hide his real target: Syd's larynx. He jabbed his fingers at her throat, followed it up with another slash of his lightsaber aimed at her legs, spun away and behind her before she could get an attack of her own in, and punctuated the move set with a swinging kick to her back that was meant to send her sprawling flat on her face. Press X + Up on the D-Pad to execute, baby.
Granted, he had a feeling beforehand that she would find a way to trip him up, regardless of how complicated and relentless he was. After all, she had the advantage of experience, strength, speed, agility, reflexes, knowledge, etcetera etcetera etcetera. She also wasn't a dumb kid who was starting to get a little full of himself after having tasted success the couple of times he managed to score a hit on his master during training.
Oh well. At least he hadn't tried to copy Bruce Lee's cry of "WA-TAAAAAH!"
Syd smiled at the creativity Starlin Rand
was displaying. He wasn't sticking to just rote mastery...he was learning to blend techniques from other styles to supplement and create his own breed of fighting. He had also some small understanding of Fighting Games.
Syd however was a Fighting Game Champion (This is not some idle exaggeration: Three days before she had unknowingly frustrated Laertia Io who had been using a childishly crude Username encorporating swear words and references to the paraphernalia of illicit substances to play online matches of Virtual Soul Alive Kombat Fighter 4 Super Mega Final Edition with all the guest characters and costumes. Neither one one of them knew they were playing each other.)
(Circle Button) Syd parried the strike to her throat. "An textbook feint, but executed too slowly." she noted clinically.
(Triangle Button) She blocked the slash to her legs, and while he did indeed escape her retaliation stab...
(Square Button) She twisted around, and caught the kick with a well placed arm, before trying to slash at his chest, twisting away to avoid retaliation.
"Excellent use of Dragon. Work on the Ki Shouts though. They're supposed to be more 'WA-TAAAAH!!!' rather than...than whatever it was you were doing, because those kind of Ki Shouts make roaches sapient enough to feel sorrow at having heard it. They make blades of grass want to weep chlorophyll. They make Casino Owners not want to cheat people out of their money."
She folded her arms and smiled.
"But that was very good improvisation on your part. Always try and keep the opponent guessing. But never pull your best moves first, save them for later in a duel. Your attack sequence would have been more effective if employed near the middle or end of the duel, when you knew you had the upper hand and had worn the opponent down. Its not always possible to do this on your own. So you need to create opportunities."
Syd held out her hand and conjured a sphere of flames.
"Pyrokinesis is one of the most dangerous offensive Force Abilities around. I cannot stress its lethality enough. I have burned whole military bases to the ground. Whole forests. Swathes of people died horribly in this manner by my hand. To control, direct and disperse flames makes you immune to them. You can ignite specific objects, flammables. Anything that can burn will burn. You can form constructs from flames. Its also a very useful survival tool. One who masters Pyrokinesis is a threat to all things living, meaning strict emotional control is necessary. It is better for you to start learning as early as possible, so you will have a string grasp of it by the time you reach knighthood. Try conjuring this small fireball--"
(Cutaway of Darth Themis teaching Alyosha Drutin to conjure a sphere of Water on Atrisia.)
A pulse from deep within the cavern system made Syd's flesh bubble everywhere.
"Okay, what the feth is that?" she asked after her flesh reset. "Dammit. Can't ignore it now. Okay...let's...'pause' the lesson for now. That pulse within the cavern just got---"
Syd's flesh wriggled violently at yet another pulse of the Force that reverberated through the whole structure, causing cracks in the chamber ceiling, that caused a few chunks to start falling towards Starlin Rand
. She stretched out her hand to catch those chunks with telekinesis tossing them to the side. The whole training chamber now had subtle, hairline cracks on the walls. One part of the wall had collapsed revealing a box inside a carved out cavity.
Syd went over and opened the box, pulling out an ornate silver key...
(Zelda Acquisition Theme Plays)
(Syd and Starlin got the Little Silver Key! It will open a locked door somewhere!)
"There is a locked door. Deeper in this cave system...follow me..." Syd instructed, leaving the chamber.
A few minutes later.
The multihued adegans growing out of the cave walls lit the way as Syd led Starlin to another golden door.
"This door has a very special lock. I was on the verge of commissioning a key to open it." Syd admitted, inserting the key into the lock in the middle, twisting it.
The lock clicked, the mechanisms twisting the iris like door open, the key popping back out.
"If all this seems awfully convenient to you, keep in mind that the Force has a will. It often warps the events of probability in sometimes subtle, other times not so subtle ways...best you can do is get used to it. While our decisions are ultimately our own, the Force still bends reality at times so our decisions seem to become more convenient to make. Its one of the largest reasons Jedi try to respect the Force and not abuse it...well...not 'too' much, anyway."
Syd was the first in, beholding a giant golden chamber with four large glowing blue crystals. Blue Lightning arced outward from the crystal towards the alchemized porcelain face mask of a beautiful woman at the center, resting on a pedestal, as well as towards golden doors covered in Wookiee Markings for weather, the blue lightning forming a barrier.
Syd paused, paced around, inspecting it.
"Word of advice, Padawan, stay the hell away from mechanisms like this if you have no clue what they are. This is a gigantic magical lock. Could have all kinds of nasty consequences for trying to mess with it. Observe the gigantic kyber crystals used as the focus for the lock magic. Its very basic, from what I can tell. But I've been wrong before..." Syd trailed. She got closer to the crystals and her flesh began to ripple violently everywhere as her suit absorbed the intense magical energy they radiated. She slowly inspected it, feeling through the Force for magical booby traps. She had nearly been killed before in such a manner.
Only when she was absolutely, positively certain that there were not a hundred curses that would blast her apart on disabling the lock did she disarm it. (The only thing that unsettled a creature like Syd was how relatively easy the lock was to disable. Why use a mask as the focus?)
Flesh wriggling violently now due to being to close to the crystals, Syd remembered the key and inspected the rest of the chamber very slowly, flesh wriggling less and less the farther she got from the crystals. She at last spotted it, hidden in the Inscriptions, a key slot.
Syd inserted and twisted the key into it, and the energy flow from the crystal shifted from a strong, loudly crackling, pulsing blue to a weak, hissing red.
"See? Treacherous little mechanisms, these things. They are NEVER as simple as they seem. I likely would have been instagibbed if I had tried disrupting the beams at full strength. If you 'must' go through one observe every facet of it carefully." She advised, re-approaching the crystals, flesh wriggling only slightly now. She reached for the mask at the center, pulling it away from the crystal energy. The beams cut, the weakened barriers over the doors vanishing.
Syd held the mask, curious.
"This mask contains traces of the one that created it...it was she who placed this barrier here." Syd said. Perhaps some idea of what lay ahead could be gained in absorbing its remaining traces of knowledge.
"Starlin, I'm going to try and 'pull' any magical essence in this mask into myself so I can get some idea of what was placed here and why. I'll let you know if something goes wrong..."
Syd concentrated, pulling the fragment of power and knowledge inthe mask into herself.
Her flesh shuddered and bubbled and shifted over the skeleton, pigment and facial structure rearranging into that of a young woman with a rosy tan and the same visage as the death mask that had crumbled in her hands as the last of its power was drained. She was slightly thinner than normal for Syd, and the only thing that hadn't changed was the red hair.
The thing in Syd's body opened its eyes, spotting Starlin and parroting her voice and memories to make sure he wouldn't realize something had, indeed, gone quite wrong.
(Plasmid Acquisition Theme Plays)
(Syd has gained a new Force Power!)
Power: SORCERESS OF KASHYYYK
Enables Syd to assume the form and Persona of The Sorceress of Kashyyyk, granting access to Atmokinetic abilities and Light Spells. Heals constantly in sunlight. Drawbacks include the Persona having a will of its own regarding the light as well as a weakness to flames
"Interesting...my physiology seems to have been temporarily altered..." she spoke, the illusion of the Zeffo Sorceress whispering into her ear.
"Welcome to the Coven..." she hissed.
"I believe in these doors lay an ancient Jedi Experiment the order was conducting on Kashyyyk. A way to constantly purify areas of corruption and deceit...and it lays unfinished...why...? It bears investigation..."
Syd catching Starlin’s kick didn’t just stop him, it knocked him flat on his ass. Grimacing, he cast his eyes down and grumbled under his breath as she darted away out of his reach. His mumbled words were criticisms directed at himself: “Stupid, stupid… just had to show off… tryhard, braggart, little…” From there the personal insults became increasingly unprintable.
He did chuckle at her appraisal of his Ki Shouts, and listened to her advice about saving the best moves for the end. Getting to his feet, he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, clipping his weapons to his belt as he prepared to try Pyrokinesis.
It brought back a memory he had tried to bury. A couple of years ago, Starlin had been given a free concert ticket at a nightclub. He was stoked to go, but his excitement would soon be deflated when his mother heard about it and refused to let him go due to his age. Furious, he had to stay home while his mother sold the ticket to someone else.
The holonews the following morning showed footage of the concert venue in flames. Illegal use of pyrotechnics combined with less than stellar fire safety had caused the building to be completely engulfed within two minutes. The club was filled past capacity, and at least a hundred people died either from burns or smoke inhalation. One of the band members was among the dead. So was the neighbor whom his mother had sold Starlin's ticket to.
Needless to say, Starlin wasn’t exactly thrilled to be learning how to control fire. But this was Syd’s element, her specialty. By becoming her apprentice, he knew he would have to try learning it someday.
Taking a deep breath, he put the images of the burning building out of his mind and focused on generating a single spark. From that spark, he would light a flame on the tip of his thumb… yes… and the fire would gather heat, burning oxygen, becoming a ball of fire hovering over the center of his palm…
Distantly he heard Syd’s voice, but he was so focused on the flame that his mind delayed in processing her words.
“Okay, what the feth is that? Dammit. Can't ignore it now. Okay… let's… 'pause' the lesson for now. That pulse within the cavern just got—”
The next pulse shook the cavern, creating cracks in the walls and causing dust to rain down on them. “Ow!” Starlin flinched as the flame in his hand singed his thumb, then shook out his arm, putting it out. He sucked on the burn wound as he looked at Syd, nearly puked at the sight of her flesh warping (it was some of the worst he had seen yet), then took his thumb out of his mouth as he watched her zip over to the box and take out a key. “Uh, I take it whatever is causing the pulse is bad? It doesn’t feel like a Dark Side nexus to me, at least…”
He of course followed her, staying close by as she unlocked the door.
"If all this seems awfully convenient to you, keep in mind that the Force has a will. It often warps the events of probability in sometimes subtle, other times not so subtle ways… best you can do is get used to it. While our decisions are ultimately our own, the Force still bends reality at times so our decisions seem to become more convenient to make. It's one of the largest reasons Jedi try to respect the Force and not abuse it… well… not 'too' much, anyway."
“Yeah, I get it,” he replied. “Awfully convenient too how I met Nimdok and you on two random planets I’d never been to before. The universe is weird.”
Upon getting inside the chamber, Starlin whistled at the sight of the beautiful woman at the center. “Oh, I’ll stay well away from places like this,” he said, and didn’t necessarily mean it. Ah, the folly of youth.
"Starlin, I'm going to try and 'pull' any magical essence in this mask into myself so I can get some idea of what was placed here and why. I'll let you know if something goes wrong..."
Starlin blinked. “Yeah, but what if something goes wrong and you aren’t able to tell me because of it…”
But she had already started absorbing the knowledge and memory from the mask. In seconds, she had changed into a form that was unrecognizable.
For Starlin, this was the second time he had ever seen his master change shape, and in this case he wasn’t so sure it was a totally willing alteration. The change alarmed him, though he tried to keep a clear head about it. She still sounded like Syd, at least… still had the red hair…
"I believe in these doors lay an ancient Jedi Experiment the order was conducting on Kashyyyk. A way to constantly purify areas of corruption and deceit... and it lays unfinished... why...? It bears investigation..."
He stared at her as she spoke, his mouth agape, before he realized how stupid he probably looked and quickly closed his mouth. Even then, he could only shrug and make bewildered monosyllabic grunting noises. “I… ah… guh… Syd, is that you? Is everything okay?”
"Of course. I'm perfectly alright. It's like having an alt costume in a fighting game, really..."
"Smooth..." The Zeffo Illusion complimented the thing puppeting Syd's body.
"Still feels a bit funny. When you channel one type of magic all your life, then you get hit with a whole new type...its kinda like getting used to the seat of a new speeder..."
The now youthful looking creature then began to head to the doors, flesh on her face bubbling as she went through the door bearing lightning markings, past fog and stopped as it ended in a dead end with a strange, dark crack in the middle of the wall that radiated the Force. Just large enough to slip through.
"Careful Starlin...this is a...a type of portal..." The Sorceress replied. "They have these sorts of things on Zeffo. Little cracks in a wall or obelisk that lead to somewhere they logically shouldn't...I'll go first. I'll call you after I've cleared out any hazards on the other Side."
The Sorceress of Kashyyyk then slipped through the opening, crawling through to the other side...into a rain covered temple on a stone mountain which was open air. Her flesh shuddered everywhere a second as she sensed a strong concentration of Light Energy nearby and began to walk forward to it, finding a machine made of Bronzium and Glass in an open air courtyard on a grassy but snow covered zlab of rock overlooking more grasslands. It was surrounded by soldiers in bronze colored armor attaching det charges to it.
"Crap..." The Sorceress muttered, clinically noting how many there were and what weapons they had. She stood above them on a hill, activating her orange bladed hilts.
The soldiers looked up, pointing their weapons at her.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" She asked.
"Making a paycheck Jedi. You?" One of them called back.
"About to kick merc ass if you don't tell me what the paycheck is for, darlings." The Sorceress said in a perky manner.
"A certain contractor is paying us to destroy these machines. We prefer not to name names. Its got nothing to do with your precious Order. Honest."
The Sorceress very crossly pointed to the Jedi Sigil at the base of the sphere machine with one of her Lightsabers.
Everyone of the mercs chuckled nervously before opening fire...and then got hit with a mini tornado of snow that obscured their vision as she tore open a portal behind them and whispered a spell.
"Ashla, let your glare deafen..."
Her face shuddered violently as a ball of light was ejected from her throat. It sped towards them, and concentrated bolts of sonic energy started raining down on whatever was below, knocking out or disorienting the mercs, allowing her to sweep in and disable their weapons, before punching their lights out, the mini ice storm she generated, throwing off attempts to aim or strike until they were all knocked out.
The Sorceress then headed back to the crack in the mountain side she had exited out of.
"Hey, Starlin! I found something cool and I have no idea what it does! Come check it out!"
"Wow, that was...enthusiastic..." The Zeffo Illusion noted.
The Kashyyyk Persona only grinned trollishly at this as she waited for Starlin Rand
to follow...
"Oh - Okay," Starlin mumbled. He was still noticeably cautious, however, following her at a farther distance than usual. When she disappeared through the portal, he remained where he was, looking down at his new shoto. Unhooking his lightsaber from his belt, he held them both, one in each hand, and felt... balanced. Yeah, he liked this. He'd have to make a point of asking about two-weapon fighting.
Minutes passed before he heard Syd's voice again, calling him in. Starlin hesitated, staring at the gap in the wall. He held up the two hilts in his hands again, shut his eyes, and stretched out, craving guidance. The Force gave him no blatant warnings of danger ahead, but it was always possible something was blocking his sight... right?
But if that was the case, how could he ever trust in the Force to show him the way?
He shook his head. Now was not the time to get bogged down in philosophy. Still, it was a question that seemed doomed to haunt him, and he didn't think anyone could give him a conclusive answer. It was down to faith, trust... and pixie dust, of course. Starlin had placed his faith and trust in the Force before, and it had pulled through. He supposed he had every reason to believe it always would.
So he finally stepped through the portal. He felt funny as he did it, his skin prickling, antennapalps vibrating, and hair standing on end. When he emerged on the other side, he was no worse for wear, possibly because Syd had already absorbed most of the magic in the area.
"Something cool?" he echoed, peeking out. His gaze wandered the temple before landing on the strange machine... and the unconscious mercs. "I take it you had a party in here without me. But is that some sort of Jedi machine? Should we turn it on, or wait until somebody else from the Concord can come in and take a look at it first?"
The youthful looking Sorceress of Kashyyyk paused.
"Remember what I said about turning on strange machines you don't know?. Kinda applies here to. Don't touch it if you don't know what it does. Fortunately for both of us..." she spoke, circling the machine. "I have gained some insight into what it does. I believe it is a weather experiment..."
(Back To The Future Theme Plays for a few seconds)
"Rather, its a machine that controls the weather in a localized area...I believe those sealed doors we came across in that underground chamber lead to other machines just like it...speaking of which, welcome to your first Atmokinesis lesson!" The Sorceress chirped trollishly.
"This machine sustains a particular type of weather in this area for a short time. In this case...Lightning..."
The Sorceress closed her eyes, and the sky above her rumbled.
"Atmokinesis...any form of Force Kinesis involve the manipulation of molecules, exiting them, slowing their movement...coaxing them. This is true of the weather as well. Atmokinesis, is neither inherently good nor evil. What you do with it makes you one or the other."
The Sorceress generated a small lightning bolt on a rock 007 hundred meters from them. But it seemed that the act of generating it, when her host body was only barely getting used to generating such power, caused her control over the body to fail, her appearance rippling the flesh back to that of Syd's in a gruesome manner, who quickly collapsed to the ground, the Zeffo Persona having quietly edited her memory to let her think she had been in control the whole time. Rest assured, all of this problem with a Witch Coven hiding in Syd, in addition to all the horrible secrets between her and Laertia, in addition to the ones she was keeping from Starlin on the finer details of her past, was going to crop up to a point that could only be described as "boiling".
Syd gasped, greatly exhausted from the exertion of channeling Atmokinesis. She was pale.
"Well...at least I got a 'little' bit of the lesson out..." Syd breathed, gesturing for him to stand back. Far back. She walked back to join him.
"I think you have to generate the sky lightning onto the machine. Any form of Kinesis, as long as its for non violent, constructive purposes, is a worthwhile use of your gift." she explained to Starlin Rand
“Yeah…” Starlin muttered. “Uh, well, as long as you’re okay—”
Turning his attention to the machine, he stretched out his hand and concentrated. Electric Judgement had come to him easily, but this was different. He strained, feeding power into the movement of molecules in the air around them, but at first it only generated a little bit of static on the machine and some gathering clouds overhead. Well, the weather normally moved slowly, unless certain conditions created a perfect storm. So in order to get this right, maybe he either had to be patient, or take a class on meteorology…
The static in the atmosphere grew into a hum. A bolt of lightning roped down from the firmament, striking the machine like the lash of a whip. Starlin stumbled backwards a little, blinking in shock, then expelled the breath from his lungs in a sigh. It had taken a lot out of him, but he had managed to do it.
Syd's eyes widened as the bolt of lightning finally came down and struck the machine, which lit up instantly, its base crackling and collecting the energy, a beam of light shooting from the top of the Machine into the air, and a mountain peak in the distance sent out a blue beam of light. Syd noticed the weather instantly become more pleasant.
"That looks like its where we should head next...you go back to the weird portal door thingy...I have a feeling this wasn't the last of the mercenaries..." Syd spoke. "That's a very good first try for Atmokinesis by the way..."
Syd gathered up the unconscious and tied them up, sending a distress call to the Silver Rest for pick-up of the mercs.
As she finished securing the site she worked over her mind about the fragment of Witch Power she had absorbed. She must have absorbed whatever was left of the Witch who had constructed these Atmokinetic machines. A powerful Light Adept. But it wasn't a fragment that was truly alive. But why were these mercenaries trying to destroy it? She should have dug for more details but she didn't feel like going to the trouble of waking up all these level 5 npc's.
(Cutaway of J. Jonah Jameson laughing uncontrollably)
Syd crawled through the strange crack in the mountain side and ended back up in the chamber of the magical portal doors.
"We must hurry...One merc team always, always means more..." she said. "General rule of thumb for mercs, if you see two dozen of them, you likely have about 007 dozen more waiting after the first two..."
Syd went up to the second door, pushed it open to reveal the second crack in the wall and paused, sensing danger. She gestured for him to get out of the way of the portal entrance, while she got to one side herself.
"Let's continue that lesson in Pyrokinesis..." she whispered. "Flames can be conjured in any space around the user with enough practice..."
Syd focused, conjuring a small fireball, which she sent through the wall portal. This was met with massive amounts of charric fire from the other side of the crack in the wall...followed by a thrown Thermal Detonator. Syd acted quickly and Force Pulled it to her hand, draining the energy required to set it off into her body, recharging her cells. She concentrated.
"They have the portal covered. I'll have to try something drastic...wait until I give the all clear...
She used all the energy she had absorbed to fuel the Light Power she had learned.
Her flesh wriggled everywhere, face bubbling as she went into the portal, actively being shot and blasted apart, yet healing almost as fast as she suffered injuries.
On the other side dozens of Assassin Droids waited, all firing their blasters at her, shredding her body and spilling glowing green blood everywhere, as she drew her blades, speed greatly reduced but nearly unkillable due to the Force Regeneration technique. Her orange blades gradually sliced apart their weapons, incendiary effects of her blades helping bite through tough armor plating before cutting them down efficiently, large holes on her body by the time she cut down the last one, which quickly sealed up, just as her flesh ceased to wriggle. She dropped to the ground on her knees in exhaustion. She would be greatly weakened for the next twenty minutes or so, and the pathway she needed to get through, which led to a structure built into the mountains themselves was blocked by a wall of ice.
"Starlin! Its safe! Blocked passage ahead. Try and see if you can melt it with what I just showed you. I'm too weak at the moment to do it myself!" She called out to the other side of the portal.
"On a lighter note, if you get it right, you'll never need a stove again!"
Smiling at Syd’s praise of his Atmokinesis, Starlin used the time while she was busy killing baddies to recover his strength. He was in no mood to deal with more mercenaries, especially so soon after creating lightning from nothing.
They were trying Pyrokinesis again. Starlin geared up, going through the same motions he had earlier. A flame balanced on the tip of his thumb… growing into a fireball that hovered over his palm… and when he commanded, he would launch it at the door, melting through the ice!
Except it immediately was put out upon contact with the much-colder-than-the-fire-was-warm wall of ice, vanishing in a puff of smoke. To actually melt it, he would have to produce continuous heat, not just a flaming projectile.
Grumbling under his breath, Starlin stomped over to the wall, holding his burning hand just above the ice. Water began to run down, then the ice started to crack, then it shattered, sending down a shower of half-melted chunks. One hit Starlin in the head, provoking an “Ow!” from the Padawan.
“I did it,” he said. “Wish I had some marshmallows or hot dogs or something. You know, I'm getting kinda hungry... There wouldn't happen to be a Force power that allows you to create food from nothing, is there?”
"If they did have a Force Power that allowed you to create food, it would have collapsed the galactic economy over night..." Syd said in answer to the question Starlin Rand
had posed.
"And you would have found me dead from a Pizza Overdose..." Syd added with a troll-grin. But there was still the question of hunger...
"There is one way to provide your body energy in an emergency...Tutaminis." Syd added, going over to an inert Assassin Droid who she had beheaded. Its power source was still half functional. She stretched out her hand, and though the effect was weaker as she was still recovering from her use of Force Regeneration, small amounts of white energy leapt from the droid's chassis to her palm, making the flesh on her body ripple. She had recovered...slightly. Well enough that she didn't feel nauseated anymore.
"Its a Light Side Ability. It lets you draw energy into yourself to recover from wounds and such, or channel it into enhancing your Force Abilities. With enough skill..." Syd demonstrated, activating her orange blade, plunging the palm of her hand against the tip, wincing as she drew its energy into herself before taking her completely uninjured hand away seconds later. "It can even block Lightsabers. For a little while at least.
Syd spotted a dead branch (She made sure to sense if it really was dead before continuing), sticking out of the rock. . Perfect.
"Lets combine those lessons. Set that dead Branch on fire...then draw the fire back into you. Fire is fairly basic as far as energy goes. Only use Tutaminis in an emergency, however...if your body gets too used to it it could cause...changes..."
Syd waited for Starlin to try out the technique, her mind still wondering what these mercs and Droids wanted the machine for...
“No kidding,” Starlin said with a smirk. Spontaneous food creation aside, there were a lot of technologies and abilities out there which, if they were made readily available to everyone, would easily solve a whole lot of the galaxy’s problems, but they were either too expensive or too difficult to master for most people. It wasn’t fair, but then very little in life was fair. He guessed the Force found a way to balance it all out that he simply couldn’t see with his limited perspective.
He abandoned that line of thought in order to focus on Syd’s Tutaminis lesson. Energy absorption, huh? Well, it wouldn’t fill his stomach, but he imagined it would make him feel stronger, if only for a little while.
“It sounds a little like Force Drain,” he said, using a term he had picked up from hologames about the wars between the Jedi and Sith. “Although I guess it depends more on how you use it. Tutaminis is only if you’re taking energy from dead things, or from energy-based attacks enemies fling at you, right? Force Drain is when you steal energy from living beings against their will.”
He had taken notice of the fact that she checked to make sure the tree was dead before asking him to burn it. Using his lightsaber like a match, he set the branch on fire, waited for the flames to grow, then reached out with the Force. Fire energy reminded him of Syd. Quick, destructive, but purifying. He opened himself up to it, taking its life into himself.
“Feels weird,” he murmured, looking at his hands afterwards. He rubbed his palms together as though trying to wipe something off them. “I can see why it wouldn’t be a good idea to use it too much.” It was more of a hunch than a true feeling, but somehow he knew.
"Yes. Exactly. Take all the energy you want from something like inert machines. But never take from living beings. Spare HRD's from this if you are not certain. Even I am not certain in that department. But circuits? Generators? Power Couplings? Have at it. Just try not to take too much too fast, or you could kill every cell in your body..." Syd explained, impressed at how quickly Starlin Rand
was catching onto things.
Now Syd began to walk to the half melted wall, across the passage to the structure in the mountain.
"The second machine must be in there...I can sense it..." Syd remarked as she walked. "Keep up...and get your blade ready. If there were Assassin Droids waiting for us, who knows what's up ahead."
It was a short walk to the structure entrance, which led to a staircase. A very long one that spiraled down.
"This may take some time...unless..." Syd floated a pebble towards her with her mind and dropped it down the middle of the spiral, and lightning traps erupted, destroying it.
"Crap...we walk down..." Syd sighed.
She then gave another troll grin at Starlin.
"On the other hand, great exercise!"
The trip down the staircase took so long that the theme from Snake Eater started playing OOC, causing Syd to have a lightbulb moment and realized she could have just floated down the steps, and she face palmed in embarrassment.
"Screw this, just float over the steps, my knees need a break...I swear, architects are too elaborate when it comes to making these places... can't have a turbolift, nooo, you gotta make a giant staircase..."
Syd floated the rest of the way down the staircase, her strength having restored itself halfway.
She found a team of mercenaries in front of some sort of magically sustained wall at the bottom of the staircase from hell.
The mercenaries hadn't noticed her or Starlin yet. She decided to keep it that way.
She hoped Starlin remembered the Spell of Stealth Flames. She whispered her own variant and transparent flames crept over her, rendering her invisible.
"Don't let them hear you...I want to know what they're after..." she whispered, floating down the final steps. "Let them make the mistakes as they move. Any Adept that serious about Security has a lot more dangers than that magic wall..."
The next few seconds revealed much.
"How do we know The Assembly won't kill us once we've done what she has asked?" One of the mercenaries growled as they drew runes on the floor. "I heard she skins people alive for the pleasure of it."
"Because it's gonna scare off anybody else that might wanna work for her..." another answered. "And you don't pay that many credits up front to people you'll just dispose of later. Trust me, we got repeat business here. As long as we destroy these machines so the Jedi can't use them, she'll have every reason to rehire us."
"We should ghost her as soon as she pays us..." another merc spoke outloud.
The runes on the floor glowed and the wall was disabled, leading to the dark passage beyond. The Mercs began walking in and Syd started to follow, making sure she kept a safe distance, sensing powerful magic ahead.
The mercenaries took about five minutes to reach another door, this one guarded by the same type of Mask Lock that had guarded the original passages. They began drawing the disabling wards just as before, but the black mask, styled in the face of a beautiful woman with symbols that looked like they were Tython in Origin, pulsed with blue Energy, and their weapons literally disassembled before they were Force Pushed backward by it, knocking them all out cold, and partly clipping Syd, who put herself between it and Starlin to protect him from the telekinetic wave from ahead, her flesh rippling like water as it slammed into her, but otherwise did no damage.
Syd ceased the effects of her invisibility spell.
"To quote a super-villain: This is why the pawns go first..." Syd joked after checking to make sure they were alive.
She then turned her attention to the Mask. Try as she might, no matter how hard she looked, she saw no way of opening the door, other than absorbing the Mask Lock's energy.
"Whatever Witch built this placed regarded it serious enough to leave a fragment of their power itself, just like in the Four Passages earlier..." Syd remarked. "No choice...have to absorb it. Otherwise...we don't pass..."
Syd held out her hands, drawing the mask energy into herself. Her flesh bublled and rippled, than began pulling itself slightly away from her skeleton before bubbling and melting again hack onto it, reforming into a blond woman with tanned skin and blue eyes. Not quite like the face Starlin had seen at Yurb, though, but still in Syd's armor. The mask crumbled to dust and the door popped open...and the new thing in control of Syd's flesh, already instinctively adapting to her memories so Starlin would suspect nothing, was forced to stop a volley of spears flung her way with her mind. Then another. And another.
Finally, the spear supply exhausted itself and she released her hold over them...
(Plasmid Acquisition Theme Plays)
(Syd got a new Force Power!)
Power: SORCERESS OF TYTHON (See Bio for details)
Take on the Appearance and Personality of a powerful telekinetic Sorceress, gaining telekinesis magic and a high resistance to Nuetral Force Powers. Downsides are the Persona having a will of its own and a vulnerability to heat, flames, and electricity
The thing in Syd's body had acclimated at this point to her memories and seemed to perk up, using Syd's voice.
"Hmmmm...most intriguing. One powerful Witch leaves a Mask Lock in that first chamber, and then another leaves one in this chamber. Very strange. They must have regarded this as a place of extreme importance. The fragment in the mask seems to have increased my understanding of Telekinesis. You know what this means? I'll never lose another game of Pool ever again. Or Softball for that matter. I'll be The God of both...yet I will always suck at checkers. Let's go see what the Mask Lock was for..."
The Sorceress moved ahead, a single blade active, her walk, measured and careful as opposed to Syd's normal, confident stride, though this could easily be played off as 'Syd' making very sure to watch out for danger.
The Tython Persona, last remnant of an ancient Light Side Master of telekinesis, felt shades of familiarity with this place, but it was all fragmented because she herself was a fragment like the rest of the Witches hiding in Syd. They came across a grand chamber guarded by what looked like a giant stone knight holding a spear, held together by telekinesis, standing in front of a giant metal box with visible gears under the Paneling.
"Note to self: I hate tomb guardians..." she whispered to Syd's student, now momentarily hers, spotting an alchemized glass sphere the Gate was in front of that contained the second machine, beaming a light into the shaft above.
"Okay, new problem. The giant knight isn't going anywhere, and I have a feeling the moment we try to open it, its gonna come to life and attack because these Tomb Architects are predictable as feth. The gates have to be opened but from what I can see, nothing we have is getting through the armor easily other than our Lightsabers. Which is where you come in. While I move the massive gears required to open the gate, you distract it with Pyrokinesis, and look for weak points or openings to send the flames to, but don't take risks if you don't have to...I mean, risks 'other' than pissing off a Stone Guardian scaled at one tenth kaiju." The Sorceress advised. "Good luck."
The Sorceress went forward, focusing her immense well on the gate gears, flesh bubbling everywhere horrifically as the gears started to move slowly, and the Guardian began to stir. The gears must have been truly heavy, because even with the power pouring from the thing in Syd's body, the gears STILL moved slowly...
After taking most of the stairs, Starlin was pretty winded. Syd realizing she could’ve just floated down provoked a groan from him. He followed her, taking flight, although he was clumsy and wound up stumbling on the stair landing, falling on his hands and knees on the floor with a muffled “oof”.
By some miracle, the mercenaries failed to hear it. Spell of Stealth Flames, right. What was the rhyme for that one? “So that this problem I might rectify, Ashla hide me from the Outer Eye…” he whispered. The invisible flames instantly engulfed him, obscuring him from sight.
Like Syd, he overheard the conversation between the mercenaries. So they were working for a woman and something called “the Assembly”, neither of which they trusted. They then entered through a portal and were promptly knocked unconscious by a telekinetic blast. Curiouser and curiouser.
Starlin still winced at the force of the blast despite Syd shielding him from the brunt of it. Phew, it packed a mean punch.
"Whatever Witch built this place regarded it as serious enough to leave a fragment of their power itself, just like in the Four Passages earlier..." Syd remarked. "No choice… have to absorb it. Otherwise… we don't pass..."
“Uh, well, as long as you know what you’re doing…” Starlin trailed off, watching powerlessly as Syd absorbed yet another fragment. He was thinking that these passages must’ve been built by a group of witches who knew each other. In other words, a coven. Who they were and what they stood for, he didn’t know, although so far they didn’t seem particularly malevolent. Just… defensive. Which made him wonder all the more just what was hidden down here.
The spears came suddenly. A now beach-blonde Syd caught them with the Force and tossed them as soon as the supply exhausted itself.
"Hmmmm… most intriguing. One powerful Witch leaves a Mask Lock in that first chamber, and then another leaves one in this chamber. Very strange. They must have regarded this as a place of extreme importance. The fragment in the mask seems to have increased my understanding of Telekinesis. You know what this means? I'll never lose another game of Pool ever again. Or Softball for that matter. I'll be The God of both… yet I will always suck at checkers. Let's go see what the Mask Lock was for..."
Starlin chuckled. Syd certainly wasn’t bad at fighting tactics, but general strategy wasn’t her forte. Neither was it Starlin’s.
But her words more or less confirmed what he suspected. This was a fortress built by a coven to hide something big.
Big enough to require a giant knight to guard it. Starlin craned his neck to look up at the guardian, baring his teeth in trepidation, then sighed and pulled out his lightsaber and shoto.
With a sound like an earthquake, the Knight came to life, stone parts grinding together. Starlin lobbed a fireball at it, then ran out of the way as it lumbered toward him. Stabbing down in the spot where he had been standing, the Knight turned toward him again. Very slowly. Starlin ran between its legs, gouging at its rock ankles with his blades as he passed. His new shoto spat flecks of lava that melted through the rock, creating deep gouges. Nice.
He kept it up, lobbing fireballs and slashing with his sabers, occasionally glancing toward Syd. She sure was taking a while to move that thing. Must be really heavy.
The Sorceress of Tython's flesh shuddered and pulled in multiple directions as she moved the ultra heavy gears. Starlin Rand
made excellent use of what Syd had taught him, dodging the heavy, but slow Stone Knight's fists.
Still the gears turned, and she heard more internal locks disengage the more she did. This particular Persona seemed quite powerful...strains that would have forced the other Witch's hiding in Syd back to slumber were simply an inconvenience.
She strained harder, to the point her flesh bubbled and tugged everywhere on a constant basis, trying to disengage the locks as fast as possible in order to save Starlin's life.
Slowly the gears turned, each click another lock disengaged...
"Hold on, Starlin! Just a little longer..." The Sorceress called out.
The creature puppeting Syd was hit from behind by a smaller, man sized version of the giant stone knight. The squirming half melted thing in Syd's armor staggered up and unleashed a powerful wave of telekinesis that smashed into it as her flesh reset on the skeleton, only to be besieged on all sides by stone knights in groups of 007, bursting from the ground. The Coven had prepared, whoever they were.
The Sorceress unleashed another massive, telekinetic wave at the Knights armed with swords, smashing them to bits on impact, but careful to avoid hitting Starlin in the process. The Knights were surprisingly fast, and The Sorceress fell back instinctively in Soresu training to dodge or parry their alchemized blades. She was patient as Form Three dictated, never striking unless the enemy made a mistake, then swiftly punishing that mistake by cutting it apart as fast as possible in a defensive blade sphere technique.
One sword got past and the Sorceress cried out in pale green, semi-translucent blood leaked out of a cut across her thigh and she fell back, defending against dozens more blows from all sides, until unleashing another wave at all sides that smahed her remaining foes to rubble, displaying the true level of power this Persona had.
She then shifted her attention back to the gate, and refocused on its gears, making her flesh shudder horrifically once more as she felt the final lock disengage.
The giant Knight instantly went dead before it could try and kill Starlin again.
At this moment, the strain finally overwhelmed the Persona's hold over Syd, and her flesh shuddered and melted back into that of the red head in seconds, and Syd dropped to her knees, coughing.
"Starlin, you alright?!" Syd called out, greatly weakened. "I worked as fast as I could..."
Starlin kept going even as it became difficult to breathe through the strain of constantly evading the Knights. There were more of them trickling steadily into the chamber, though they at least were smaller than the giant he had been fighting.
He heard Syd scream in pain right as he was climbing up onto higher ground, trying to escape the swarm. He scrambled up a fallen stone pillar, the Knights below him struggling to keep up. Gritting his teeth, Starlin flung his lightsaber at them, waited for it to do a full rotation, then caught the hilt again. Sucking air into his burning lungs, he breathed dragon-fire like he had seen Syd do countless times before.
He was vaguely aware of her blasting her enemies with telekinesis and then running back to the mechanism, but he was busy with his own foes. All his attention was narrowed down to a single-minded focus on survival. He was so in-the-zone that it came as a shock when he heard Syd calling out to him, asking if he was all right, and he looked around to find himself surrounded by the dead stone bodies of the Knights he had obliterated. The giant one had collapsed the moment she disengaged the final lock.
“Yeah,” he said. Speaking made him cough. Swallowing, he climbed down from the pillar and approached Syd. “You got it open?” After all that, he was eager to see what was inside. Maybe a little too eager, what with how dangerous every other chamber they'd entered so far had been.
As Syd got some small amount of her strength back, she finally processed all the Sorceress had caught during her time in control. And what she finally processed brought a smile to her face.
A thing very similar to Maternal Pride manifested in Syd at his accomplishment. He had learned Pyrokinesis! Every magic associated with it was now open to him.
Syd found the strength to stand as he approached.
"You've learned it! You learned Pyrokinesis!" Syd said, unable to contain her enthusiasm or excitement. He had done so well.
"And yes, I got the gate open. You're getting stronger! That's the first time I've ever seen you solo constructs like that!" Syd gushed before happily walking over to the pried open gates to view the second glass orb weather machine, bearing the markings of rain. Syd carefully inspected it for magical booby-traps before clearing Starlin to approach.
"The inside of the giant transparent orb needs rainstorm conditions created inside of it..." Syd explained. "But befooooorrre we do that...I have a new spell to teach you."
Syd concentrated and though the effects she produced were incredibly weak due to her exhausted state, they nonetheless manifested.
"Ashla, hide me from the scream of death..." Syd intoned, silvery gray flames erupting over her body.
"The Spell of Sonic flames provides protection from sonic attacks, absorbing a good deal of, but not 'all' of the damage..." Syd explained. "Try it out with your rhymes...once you have, try using your Atmokinesis gift to create a rainstorm inside the sphere..."
Starlin snorted, causing plumes of smoke to drift out of his nostrils. He beamed at Syd, basking in the praise. “Yeah.”
Of course, these signs of visible improvement meant that she doubled down on his lessons. Starlin suppressed a sigh, then started fishing around for a decent rhyme.
“Let my enemies waste their breath; Ashla, hide me from the scream of death…”
Silvery flames engulfed his body. The sounds of the world suddenly seemed muted, as if he had entered a soundproofed room. After the gray fire sputtered out, he turned his attention to the chamber ahead of them. Another weather machine, this one with a transparent orb.
“Alright, let’s make it rain, baby,” Starlin muttered, rubbing his palms together. He stretched out, focusing on the sphere, imagining molecules of water in the atmosphere gathering together into vapor… now clouds… and the clouds gradually growing swollen with moisture, too heavy, gathering into droplets…
A raindrop plopped onto his nose. He wrinkled it, blinking as he tilted his head back to look up. It had started sprinkling, at least. He turned to Syd, fatigue apparent in his body language and eyes. “That’s the best I can do for now.”
Starlin Rand
would have to resist the slow effect with a counter slow field to try and cancel it out, or he could brute force it and try and block or dodge the Saber strike. Syd clearly believed in trials by fire.
