Anakin Skywalker takes a detour to Neverwinter
Permalink

Kelié Amidala, as a representative of the Refugee Committee - has asked Anakin Skywalker to investigate a large temple looming over one of the sites they're scoping out for resettling the many, many refugees of the raging war. Mostly because it's making people nervous, and the workers nearby claim it gives them horrible nightmares. She doesn't recognize the construction, despite an intense interest in history during her stint with the Jedi - but the stone is dark, admitting no light, and the angles are strange, so she doubts it's a relic of the light side.

This is... Probably a waste of her talents. But with the Jedi drawn into the stupid, pointless war currently ripping the galaxy apart - and with most of the objectors who followed Anakin out of the Order having either gone into voluntary exile or joined the Separatists - there aren't exactly a ton of people to ask. And vacations are sometimes nice, and Anakin is absolutely terrible at telling her wife 'no.'

She explores it carefully, recording at intervals, documenting what she finds. It might be of historical interest, if nothing else, and... It's quiet. Her footsteps don't echo in the slightest. It feels - still. Not dark. Almost... Bereft.

It's kind of calming, actually. The Force is loud, usually - she likes it, considers it a good friend, but it's a good friend who never shuts up, and it's been full of the turbulent screams of war lately. She didn't need to come out to a cursed temple for haunted dreams; she has enough on her own, of twisted futures.

She paces around the temple until she concludes there's a void on the floor plan - in the center, actually. The process of finding a way in's almost idle, one she doesn't take too seriously, because, well. She hasn't even had a vaguely ominous feeling the entire time she's been here, and Anakin gets vaguely ominous feelings from her breakfast sometimes.

So she's calm and pretty much treating the entire thing as a historically interesting vacation when she finds the latch - Force operated - for the hidden door into the inner sanctum. It's pitch dark inside, in a way that swallows the light she carries, but she can feel with the Force just fine, and she's pretty sure there's no danger.

In fact, there's something interesting -

Anakin is calm, and using the Force to supplement her steps, and not at all sufficiently paranoid -

She reaches out, picking up - an arrowhead, it feels like, strangely primitive to be the center of all this fuss -

The tip slides, painlessly, just deep enough into her finger to draw a single drop of blood.

Anakin blinks, wrenched back to herself -

Total: 165
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

She's no longer standing in that temple. 

The place where she is... might be a temple. It's constructed from glossy black granite, the ceiling is high and vaulted, and she stands on a platform across from a strange, robed alien(?) whose face is shrouded in mist. The walls are lined with doors. Dozens of doors - hundreds of doors - uncountable doors.

"Greetings, Sojourmer," says the robed figure in a deep, sonorous voice. "How may I serve you?"

Permalink

...Anakin is feeling really dumb right now. And still holding the mystery artifact she should've at least worn gloves to pick up. But that's probably not relevant.

"...I apologize; I appear to be lost," she says, after a very short pause.

This place feels... Really, really weird.

Permalink

"You stand in the Gatehouse," the figure says. "The Realm of the Reaper. It is a place between the realms, a space that connects to many locations. Most come here when they are ready to pass on to their final destination. But you bear my relic, and I am thus bound to you as it is bound to me. So I ask: what do you will?"

Permalink

"...Uh for you to act as you wish because you're presumably a sapient being and deserve freedom, but if you're in the mood to answer questions, I'd like... An explanation? I don't know what the Reaper is, or what your relic is."

Permalink

The being pauses. "Your first impulse was noble, but my freedom is not such a trifle. I will try to answer your questions as best I can. I am the Reaper, and this is my realm. You bear my Relic - the artifact you hold in your hand. The powers of the Relic are... singular; the one most relevant to you is that while you bear it, once every twenty-four hours, you may step between the planes to my realm. If you would be slain while you bear it, and you have not used its power in the previous twenty-four hours, you will be healed and brought to my realm, where time holds no sway. Here you can take the time to recover and recuperate, and return, when you are ready, to the realm of the living. The Relic will not leave your side, and its point will not pierce that which you do not wish to pierce. Also, while you are here, you may step out into any place from which you have previously come through to my realm, whether it be somewhere you 'died', so to speak, or somewhere you deliberately activated the Relic."

Permalink

She nods. "Thank you. So - I can step back to my world, and return here if I'm badly harmed..."

Or presumably if she just needs a break. Which. Has been the case a lot, lately. She never seems to have time to meditate between all the emergencies...

Permalink

 

There's another pause. One that implies something the speaker does not wish to say, rather than a moment for thought.

"I regret to inform you, Sojourner, that... there is a complication."

Permalink

She thinks.

"...Deliberately." Deep breath. "I didn't activate the Relic deliberately."

Permalink

"It is not that. The place where you activated the relic simply... is not accessible to me. I do not know it, and no door in this place of endless doors leads there. I do not know how the Relic got there. But... if anyone can return you to your own home, it is not me."

Permalink

"Alright. I'll have to find my own way back, then."

Permalink

The Reaper bows. "I have every confidence, Sojourner. In the meantime, my realm is open to you: I have near-absolute control of it, and I will do my best to fulfill any request you make. When you have stayed your fill, you may go through any door you choose."

Permalink

She nods. "Thank you. Is there - a library or something, where I may learn about places the doors lead?"

Permalink

"I remember the destination of each and every door, and most destinations will have something written about them in one of the great atlases of Toril, which I can conjure at will."

Another hesitation. "...If I may recommend one, however, the one in the center of the room... its destination varies, but it will most often lead you to somewhere you are... supposed to be."

Permalink

She nods. "Going where I'm supposed to be is - a familiar concept."

"...But if time is paused here, I'd like to - rest, for a time. Meditate. Before I move on."

Permalink

"Of course, Sojourner."

Permalink

"Is there a good place for that, here?"

Permalink

"I do not know the requirements for your meditation," the Reaper apologizes. "I can instantiate a mat, or a candle, or a bed of nails..."

Permalink

She smiles, a little.

"I usually just need somewhere quiet, and something soft to sit or lay on."

Permalink

One of the doors in the wall opens, revealing a chamber about ten feet on a side, with a cushion in its center.

Permalink

"Thank you."

And she goes to meditate for - longer than she has in... A very long while, actually.

She used to drift in the Force, when she was a slave child and cooped up and bored, for hours on end, and Obi Wan had struggled to teach her but had at least felt meditation was unlikely to be bad - she had far more stamina than him, but that mostly ended up meaning that if he needed time to read without a bored child bothering him, he could leave her meditating.

She has no need to sleep, here, or drink, or eat. Nothing to stop her from simply - becoming.

Her mind settles, gradually, her increasingly jagged emotions curling into the Force, getting back under her control for the first time since before the war began.

She emerges refreshed - she's not sure how many hours later, and while she didn't have visions like she sometimes does when lost in time... Time is truly unreal, here, more so than it usually is when she's floating off into a gestalt of all times and places, and she hadn't felt its passing.

She's - not at peace with being separated from her world. But she's not as churningly afraid and upset at being dumped somewhere else. She'll get back. And maybe she can contact her wife or Obi Wan over their Force bonds, too, once time is flowing again. Let them know she's okay.

She glances at the Reaper as she emerges. "Thank you for your hospitality," she says. "Do I need to do anything else, other than walk through the door?"

Permalink

"You need do nothing else," the Reaper confirms. "Safe travels, Sojourner."

Permalink

"Thanks," she repeats. "May the Force be with you."

And - through the door in the center, the one the Reaper recommended.

Permalink

When she opens the door, it's dark on the other side despite the sourceless light of the Reaper's realm. When she goes through, it closes behind her and vanishes.

She's in an alleyway. In a city. The smell would seem to indicate that it's pre-spaceflight, possibly completely pre-industrial. The exit to the alley is lit by flickering lamplight; a rat the size of a small dog scurries through the pool of light as she watches.

Permalink

She wrinkles her nose a bit.

Maybe she's desperately needed for her basic sewage system knowledge.

She heads to the alley's exit, alert for - whispers in the Force, visions, what's actually in front of her face, potential problems...

Permalink

There does seem to be a whisper in the Force. It's pointing her in the direction of a more brightly lit building, a large wooden sign hanging above the door bearing the image of a bed and a primitive drinking vessel. The writing below this signage is illegible.

Total: 165
Posts Per Page: