Open Onderon Quintessence

[Zorya]

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Q U I N T E S S E N C E
Queen of Darkness

Z O R Y A

Amid the dim twilight that bathed the remote Shatoon Monastery on Onderon, Zorya stood solemnly atop the ancient, weathered stone. The ruins whispered of forgotten epochs, their venerable echoes intertwining with the fervent cries of the obsidian wilderness beyond. The dissonant wind caressed the silver cascades of her dreads, its chilled fingers attempting to insinuate beneath her armored cloak.

Zorya's gaze, a potent fusion of sanguine and molten gold, fixated upon the cryptic etchings scribed upon the pedestal before her. A Drexl egg, veined with alluring hues of aether, rested in the embrace of the cold obsidian surface, its slumber oblivious to the formidable fates that vied for its embryonic soul. The muted Sith Master felt the poignant pang of separation from O'bog, her erstwhile Ximpi companion. Their bond, once a radiant beacon in the murky abyss, now lay fractured, leaving a chasm of unspoken yearning in the timeworn chambers of her soul.

In the fractured lilt of obscurity, Zorya unfurled the resonances of a forgotten Yacombe ritual. As the ceremonial incantations flowed in intangible rivulets, ethereal specters converged upon the venerable conclave, their nebulous forms undulating in the vortex of the burgeoning maelstrom. The heavens' firmament seemed to recoil as the penumbral energies wove an intricate pall over the stony aerie, intertwining shadows and light in an ephemeral dance of cosmic equilibrium.

Within the tempest's eye, Zorya beheld the Drexl's egg, now enveloped in a luminous shroud. The nascent entity within stirred, resonating with the celestial dirge that ebbed within the abyssal embrace. An amalgamation of fear and anticipation knitted within the maze of Zorya's thoughts as she prepared to sacrifice the cherished tendrils of touch, severing the delicate strands that wove the evanescent tapestry of warmth, embrace, and ethereal caresses of zephyrs upon her obsidian skin. The balmy solace of sun-kissed rays, the harmonious lull of cerulean tides upon the grainy embrace of the shoreline, and the tender bloom of spring's nascent kiss would henceforth whisper their celestial ode upon the cold, unyielding chasms of oblivion.

In exchange for the ancient Yacombe pact, Zorya would beckon forth a new sentinel from the cosmic ether, a Drexl, bound in symbiotic allegiance, to shatter the spectral chains that ensnared her celestial odyssey. The Drexl, emergent and resplendent in its primal glory, would serve as a surrogate sentinel rekindling the fragmented echoes of Zorya’s sundered bond with O'bog.
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[Crasdon Kaine]

Mapping new hyperspace routes was a dangerous business.

The galaxy was filled with objects, even in the spaces between observable spaces. Rogue planets drifted between systems. Dark stars floated in the endless black. Anomalous gravity phenomenon secreted themselves in unchecked corners of creation, their own gravity fields preventing any sign of their existence from creeping out and being seen by navigational sensors.

But perhaps the worst part of mapping new hyperspace routes was that... things rarely happened.

Of all the myriad things that could go wrong, usually none of them did. Space was big. Tremendously, awesomely big. So big, that you had a decent chance of drawing a perfectly safe straight line between any two points. Sometimes, it seemed that charting hyperspace lanes was a pointless exercise.

You could become complacent.

Lazy.

Inattentive.

Stretch your jumps just a little further than you ought to.

What were the chances, really, that something would go wrong?

Almost nil.

And then it happened. The Universe made you pay the price for your lack of attention.

This had happened to Crasdon. And it had happened at the worst possible time, when his droid partner 'Fancy' was in her charging berth. There was no one to harangue him about being more careful. No one to put a second set of eyes on the sensors. No one to help him maneuver a dangerous scenario.

No one... and then he'd jumped into a singularity cluster.

Crasdon was a good pilot. That's the only reason he didn't die in the initial seconds. He jerked. He juked. He hammered the stick this way and that way, forcing his scout to move in ways it wasn't designed to. Then he'd punched the hyperdrive again when he saw his first clear route.

No navcomputer.

Just go.

Literally anywhere was better than being in the middle of a singularity cluster.

He had no idea where he was when he dropped back out of hyperspace. He only knew that he was crossing the threshold of a planet's orbit and that he was going far too fast.

He flipped the scout, straining the inertial dampers and clenching his fists into a white-knuckle grip on the controls. Then he fired retro-thrust, slowing the descent of the craft for a minute before flipping again. His gaze danced across the landscape, identifying the first open patch he could find between structures and surface features.

Then he set the scout down.

His hands were shaking as he stood up and locked the control console. Then he walked to the back of the craft, opened the hatch, extended the ramp, and walked down into the atmosphere of this unknown world.

He had neglected to put on his gloves, or strap on his blaster. He had neglected everything.

He needed his feet on real ground and actual air in his lungs for a moment before he'd be able to think...

... or to notice just where he'd landed.