"Welcome, my child," says the man in front of her.

The tone of his voice will feel remarkably similar to what Kina feels when she uses the Force.

"...Huh."

She's still rebooting, give her a moment...

"Hello.  ...Is that mostly a metaphor, or should I slap you on behalf of my mom?"

"A metaphor, for the most part," he says, after a pause. "The Father is the only name I have, my child the only name I have need to use, for no one lives here with me but my two children... and for the past few millennia, only one."

"I did, in fact, have a role in your creation, though not in the... standard method of fatherhood. You were created by the Force itself, and so you were created by me."

"It would be somewhat inaccurate to say that I am the Force. The Force exists as an entity apart from me; it existed long before the mere blink of an eye that I have spent serving it; and it will exist long after I am gone. But I am the primary enforcer of the will of the Force, its consciousness. When you hear the Force call out to you, grant you advice, send you visions, it is through me and my children that it does so."

"Huh.  ...Why am I here?"

"The caves of Ilum have a special connection to the Force, and I was able to extend the standard trial of the Force, to one that would challenge you in every way, infuriate you, confuse you, and truly test whether you were worthy of the role the Force desires for you. You have passed my test with flying colors."

"Lord Vader's presence was only an illusion, if you are still worried; I am not quite capable of summoning visitors from other worlds, only glimpsing the many possibilities, and only on rare occasions. But it was a necessary test, and you made the perfect decision for the situation."

"If it was a Sith who stood before Vader, they would have struck him down with no regrets; their anger would have outweighed any desire to preserve life. If it was a Jedi, they would have let him go, too caught up in the moment and their standard procedures to recognize the decision that was necessary. You, however, managed to do the right thing; to make the ethical decision without being caught up in your fury."

"It is for your ability to balance all necessary concerns of the flow of life, that lets me know you will be able to stay calm, able to always make the right decision, able to preserve the galaxy from any threat. It lets me know that you will truly be my Chosen One, and bring balance to the Force."

"Oh.  Uh.  Wow.  That's...that's a lot.  ...but I'll do my best to live up to that.  ...The model Jedi would have let him go?"

"I suspect most Jedi would have let him go, especially had I not deliberately made him taunt them. I am not, in fact, all that sure what keeps them from doing so. But most people simply would not feel a responsibility to follow him."

"...How?!  He's a galactic-scale mass murderer!  You don't just...let him go!  Who does that?!  ...That's not the important thing to focus on right now.  What does being the Chosen One mean?  What are the responsibilities of your position, if I'm going to be taking it up?  What the kriff is up with the Dark Side and its incentive structure, if it's within your dominion?  How long do I have to prepare for this and what are the consequences if the position of - Force balancer - ends up going unfilled for some reason?  Who else is, and who else was, here?  What do, did, they do?"

"The dark side is not within my dominion, not entirely. I have grown old; my control is waning, and I do need a successor. I trained my daughter, who stands for the light side of the Force, and my son, who stands for the darkness. My daughter has been, if not entirely helpful, at least for the most part aligned. But my son has grown tired of my rule, and he broke apart from me. You have seen what has happened when his fragment of the Force tries to influence the galaxy."

"It is my hope that you will grow to be strong enough that you can control my children, and bring an end to my son's madness. I cannot see all of the future, only a few pieces of what might come to pass. But one thing is quite clear - in every future I have seen, a Skywalker has brought order on a galactic scale... one way or another."

"...I see.  Did he say why he did that?  I'm generally given to understand that people do things for reasons."

He sighs. "I have attempted to speak with him, but I would not describe anything he says as involving reason."

"I do not have much longer; this is a strain on my power to speak to you so directly. I am not requesting that you come to me immediately; I can handle things on my end for some time longer, and I know you have much you want to accomplish. But should you seek to find me, my planet is... not, exactly, placeable on any coordinate system, but you can find yourself there when travelling through the Chrelythiumn system."

"Have you any additional questions, that must be asked now?"

"What's the other Sith Lord's name?"

"He goes by Darth Plagueis, but his given name is Hego Damask. I'm not sure if you'll be able to use that information much, though; Mr. Damask's few public appearances are as a businessman on the board of a Separatist-owned corporation."

"As for that vein of questions, I'm afraid I won't actually be able to simply act as an overall basin of secrets for you; my visions are limited in scope, and while I might be able to sense general sketches of those who use the Force, I won't be able to hand you the passwords to droid networks, or anything like that. My children can see a little more clearly, but even they cannot sense everything."

"Just knowing who and where he is helps foil his...I don't even know what he wants with Jedi hearts but it's clearly not working.

"You should conserve your strength, you know how to get in touch if it's important."

He nods. "I suppose it would be somewhat ironic for me to say may the Force be with you. Goodbye, I suppose."

"May it be with us all, then."

And she...awakens?

Yep! She's back in Ilum, standing right outside of the place where she had found the mirror room. The place that should have been its entrance is now solid wall, and it may have always been that way.

Also, there's a nice assortment of actual lightsaber crystals sprinkled across the ground! This time, they will thankfully not summon any more visions.

The shimmery white ones her hands rest upon as she wakes are definitely hers, but two more call out to her - a paradoxically deep sky-blue crystal, and an incisively sharp green one.

Windu is waiting for her at the exit! He will be a little surprised to see her out so soon; the actual amount of time that has passed isn't nearly as long as it would have felt for Kina.

"Kina. Did you get everything you were looking for?"

"Rather more than I was expecting.  The other Sith Lord's name is Hego Damask, apparently, and while we can't enforce laws in Confederate space as far as I know, being able to devote surveillance effort to one person, rather than combing through the entire galaxy's public transactions, should help us keep him from doing any particularly horrible things just by keeping his experimental sourcing well within legal bounds.  Also, the galaxy's chief Force whisperer intervened during the trials, and wants me to take over for him at a later date."

Why does something like this always happen. He has been this surprised every single time Kina gets involved in something like this. The way surprises are supposed to work is that he eventually updates and stops getting surprised, but instead he is still getting surprised anyway.

Maybe he should specifically imagine crazy things happening before every mission, so that he emotionally realizes that nothing is going to go the way he expected. So when they get back to Coruscant... Jango Fett will have broken out of jail and will be riding a rancor through the Temple and killing Jedi to find an obscure Force artifact, but Kina will defeat him, disassemble the artifact, and use it to take over a planet.

When they get back to Coruscant, nothing is happening whatsoever.

Fine. "Master Yoda, we've returned," Windu reports, after sending Kina off to build her lightsaber... or maybe lightsabers. "She saw a vision of some sort of if she were a Sith Lord, but she managed to pass the test. Then she had a bit of a conversation with the will of the Force."