Ask At the Edge of Known Space

[Ryder Blane]

Elphrona.

The planet existed only in the most obscure records the Sith Eternal had obtained from the archives of the First Order. Kylo Ren had procured its location from Snoke; and, from what Ryder could ascertain, it was a Jedi vault during the High Republic era. Where the Jedi Order stored potentially dangerous treasures away from the prying eyes of Padawan Learners and any other Jedi who might be swayed by the forbidden knowledge within them.

The entrance to the stone-engraved vault had been sealed by an avalanche over one hundred years ago. That was in the records too. Ryder suspected Kylo Ren had caused it, since it was his report to Snoke that survived into record; but also because of the tinge of cold he felt around the rocks. The lingering touch of the dark side. Ryder stretched out a hand and closed his eyes. He imagined the stones floating up into the air and out of his way. His face pinched with the effort of lifting the gargantuan blocks of clay and stone, but they eventually did just that.

The air inside was stale, the way most places were when they remained untouched for so many decades, and the vault was scarred with a century's old battle. The battle that had sealed this place to the galaxy. The battle that had knocked its treasures off their pedestals and left them scattered about the vault's floor. A treasure trove, and one that was likely to make him very popular with the people up top. Or so he hoped. @Nightfall

 

[Ilukai Koa]

There was a time in the galaxy when the Jedi could have afforded to take their time. After the fall of the Final Order it felt as if all that was left was a slow renewal into peace, whether that was true or not. Either way, those days were long past now. Ilukai had felt it all too keenly as well.

And in a sense it was time to dwell in the past. Though she wouldn’t reflect upon her lost master today, enough tears had been spent. Today was time to seek deeper knowledge, to bring the Jedi carrying the torch of ages past once more to a new future. And Elphrona was the start of that.

The High Republic was the Jedi, the Republic at its height. If they were to remake the galaxy once more they would need guidance from times like those, and here she meant to find it.

But through the dusty vault exterior she pushed on, and found it unexpectedly... open. The room was littered with objects ancient and uncertain, and something, someone, lingering in its shadowed hall.

@Malon

 

[Ryder Blane]

Ryder had just knelt down to examine a tome that looked to be bound in bantha leather when he sensed it. The Force in this place felt odd. Not fully Light, yet not frigid cold like the Dark. If he had to compare it to something, it felt most like a layer of dust. Old. Stale. Easily disturbed. He had disturbed it himself when he burst into the chamber. And now he sensed another.

Instinctively, his hand slid down to the hilt on his belt. There was not supposed to be anyone else on Elphrona. A world at the edge of the Outer Rim's border with the Unknown Regions, the Jedi of old had chosen it for its seclusion and because it could serve as a way-station for those searching unknown space for hidden dark threats. The planet had no natives, no cities, not even a trading port. It was as dead and empty as the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. But, if that was so, then who...?

His free hand drew his hood up over his face. Ryder didn't need to ask who anymore. The answer was fairly obvious. He had been sent to Elphrona by the Sith; they would not have sent someone else to do a job he was already assigned. And that could mean only one thing.

Jedi.

He floated like a wraith down the narrow corridor back towards the main chamber. But, just before he reached the entry point, his thumb found the ignition trigger on the hilt of his saber. A bar of blood-tinted plasma burst from his fist and from the shadows that concealed him, shading the room in dark crimson. He stepped out of the corridor and into the chamber where the Jedi was and pointed the tip of his lightsaber in her direction like an accusatory finger.

"You're a long way from home, little Jedi." The hum of Ryder's weapon echoed off the circular chamber's vaulted ceiling. "And I found this place first. Its contents belong to me." @Nightfall

 

[Ilukai Koa]

Following the darkness inside, she felt it too, the strange, uncertainty of the Force in this place. It had been good once, light, clean, and strong as a bulwark this far out into space. But time was never kind, not to anything, even the Force it seemed. Life had left it, and life created the Force. One day, one day they would return it to here, though for now the dusty innards would have to suffice.

If only they had stayed that way until she had arrived.

Just as the Sith sensed her presence, she sensed theirs. As the hooded figure stalked down toward her, she too reached for blade in response. A golden glow emanated from her own lightsaber, the light of the two playing in the shadows of the ceiling high above them, sending streams of light and shadow down across the walls all around, glints of metal across the ground as beams struck artifacts all about. A shame she had little time to consider the beauty,

"And would one like you even have a home, Sith?" she called back in return, not letting herself be cowed by the figure. Her first true encounter with a Sith, she had not expected to meet them here "That's the best claim you can offer? Finders keepers?" she spat back incredulously, she wasn't about to take lip, not these days.

@Malon

 

[Ryder Blane]

"I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding," Ryder said. He was already calling on the Force. As he sucked it out of the room and into his free hand, the heat trapped in the stones around them bled away, leaving a biting cold in its wake. "That wasn't an offer."

He thrust his free hand out and the Force surged out of him like a wave. And, like the waves on Mon Cala or Manaan, it had brick-crushing force as it swept across the chamber and towards the Jedi. A taste of his power. A mere morsel of the dark side.

And, yet, Ryder wasn't fool enough to believe a simple Force wave would be enough to catch the Jedi off-guard. That wasn't his plan. Not really. He kept his blade tightly gripped, ready for the moment she would spring at him. All the while he contemplated his luck. He had come into this tomb looking for some dusty old artifacts. But if he brought back a lived Jedi... the first captured by a Sith in generations, the Sith Lords would have no choice but to reward him.

To acknowledge his power.

And it was for that reason that he would not fail here, now. She would be his. @Nightfall

 

[Ilukai Koa]

Ilukai could feel the heat of the temple wash away as the Sith drew on the power of the Force that lingered here. She would not have much time to call upon it herself as they rush of the wave rolled toward her. What she could muster was not much, but she directed instead a glimmer of the light side that still sat here through her body and out her front, cutting forward as she pushed it out like a knife along her lightsaber, cutting herself a hole in the wave to stay upright within. Her robes and hair rushed back though, and she could feel the power of it against her limbs as she planted herself into the ground, focusing on the Force around her.

The Sith it seemed had no intention of moving, or backing down.

As the wave subsided she pushed of her feet and shot forward, shooting a blast of the Force at the Sith as she closed the distance to keep him off his feet as she cut right to left diagonally across his torso. She was smart enough to know now that confrontations with a Sith rarely went peacefully. Ilukai would spare him, if she could, but her first thought was to safety, and sanctity of the stones around her.

She just hoped he wouldn't get the better of her first.

@Malon