Ask The Shaman

[Renfry]

Unfortunately, Renfry was difficult and she had a knack for answering exactly the question that was asked of her. It was ingrained into her in order to protect the magick of the Nightsisters.

She listened to his explanation of tapping into the Shadow with interest. They powered themselves by hate, fear, and passion? She supposed it made sense on some level, those were powerful, primal emotions. Such basal instincts were what the galaxy was built on at its foundational level.

Forcing yourself not to feel sounds stupid, she said bluntly. Individuals felt things. Animals felt things. It was instinct and nature. The Jedi believed in suppressing feeling? They defied the laws of nature? That seemed highly questionable to her.

Emotion isn't usually the gateway to the Shadow, but it can be, she said. They accessed it through the power of the Spirits. They simply... could access it.

She held up her hand a moment later and crouched as the underbrush began to once again lighten from the density it had taken on.

I want you to distract it, she said. She knew she was asking a lot but she also knew that he'd already trusted her up until this point with his mind. If she wanted him dead, she would have done it already.

She gave him a good hard look and her brow arched just ever so slightly. Are you well enough? she asked. If he passed out and was eaten that wasn't very helpful to her either.

 

[Darth Invictus]

Renfry's response to the Jedi's ideals as stupid humored and he couldn't contain the smirk that touched his face. "You'll find we tend to agree on that front. But I wouldn't underestimate it." For some reason, the Lightside was still powerful and quite dangerous in the pair of adept hands. Ender had fought numerous Jedi and while most were pathetic, there were a few that actually knew how to put up a fight.

The Shaman revealed that emotion really wasn't to her power and he wasn't shocked. He hadn't felt anything when she conducted the ritual, no anger, hate, exhilaration, nothing. He wondered what it was like to experience such power but feel nothing towards it like the Sith did. It was an interesting dynamic but one he wouldn't be able to think on long as they finally approached their destination. Renfry crouched down and Ender did the same but with a slight grunt as he was much slower about it. "Easily done." He murmured as he scanned for the creature but his voice didn't carry that much strength.

"We're about to find out, aren't we?" Ender was about to stand up but that's when he started to hear the snapping of branches. Without hesitation, he turned toward her and aimed his hand at the ground as he sent a blast of force energy between them. It would send them both flying back as a massive fist would slam into the dirt where they once were. The rancor pushed the nearby trees as it let out a massive roar, drool, and other gunks of meat flying out. Ender had no clue how something of that size moved silently.

Upon further inspection, the pair would be able to see what was wrong with it. The creature was covered in cysts and black fissures, clearly affected by some disease as even its eyes were starting to become milky. It swung its head left to right as it sniffed the air and directed its attention to Renfry. It let out a huff before it started to prowl towards her but before it got too far, a streak of lightning screamed through the air and stuck the face of the creature, charring some of the infected flesh as it let out a scream.

Ender stood back up with a grunt as the rancor started to gain its bearings once more and turn towards him. "Do we have a plan here?"

 

[Renfry]

His answer to her question didn't inspire a great deal of confidence, but the fact that he said it was easily done seemed like... an improvement. Well, he was either right or he was going to be eaten. That pretty much summed it up.

Before they could discuss it further, however, the conflict was afoot. She was slammed backwards, for a moment thinking that she was being attacked by the man she had just helped in order to avoid repayment, but the fist that slammed into where they had been moments earlier put aside that thought.

As it turned to her once again, she saw the streak of lightning and felt the power arcing and crackling through the Shadow. It was from none other than her "partner." As it turned back toward the Sith - Ender - she could now see precisely what was wrong with the creature. There was an infection, of that there was no doubt. She knew she didn't have much time to think about it, but it clicked in her mind what was going on.

Keep it busy and don't die! I have to get into its lair! she shouted. She turned and made a full sprint to the cave where the creature had emerged from on the far side.

Find it, Renfry. Find it! she shouted in her own mind as she began scouring the cave for the talisman she was looking for. Bones littered the floor and it positively reeked, but she knew she couldn't worry about that right now.

Outside, the creature had "locked onto" the source of the lightning, but fortunately its vision was worsened by the coverings on its eyes, but it somehow knew. Almost a preternatural ability to track just as it had known they were in the bushes. It wasn't natural.

 

[Darth Invictus]

Well, he successfully distracted it. The rancor turned toward with the full weight of its attention as little flames flicked along its skin. The smell of burnt and diseased flesh filled his nose and he knew that it only ticked off the creature. It let out a roar that even shook Ender's bones and that's when Renfry told him to distract and not die. "Great instructions." He called out to the shaman as she dashed away from the chaos to find wherever its lair was.

The rancor slammed its hand once more into the ground but when it struck, it instead stretched its fingers out to lift a nearby fallen log. Ender's eyes drifted to the log and then to the creature, "Great plan." With a heft, the rancor threw the tree carcass directly at him with surprisingly good aim. Raising his hand, Ender commanded the force to wrap itself around the log as he began to slow it down mid-air. He struggled from the ritual he had just conducted to purge him and it forced him onto one knee until the log eventually stopped a few feet away from his hand. He tossed it to the side and revealed the rancor bull-rushing towards him.

Without thinking, Ender quickly got to his feet and turned around, lifting his knees high and up in the water so he could actually move. When he got so far, he used the force to propel him from the water and up into a tree. He roughly collided into one of the branches when he did and he had to wrap his arms against to secure himself as he spun around.

The rancor's hands struck water as it created a geyser of it from the pressure. It whipped its head to the right and the left, expecting to find the Sith. But once again, as if it somehow sensed him, it tilted its head up towards the sky and to the tree. A snarl escape from its throat as it slammed both hands against the flanks of the tree, beginning to climb. Ender simply sat on his branch as the whole foundation shook and he rolled his eyes as he couldn't believe the commitment of this thing.

 

[Renfry]

Great plan? Probably not, but she had warned him she was bringing him along as a distraction. She hoped he didn't die, he seemed decent enough, and she'd really rather not have the rancor barreling down on her behind because he had been killed.

She kept rummaging through the leftover bones and nasty things on the floor, looking for the totem in question. It had to be here! It had to!

She was beginning to get very worried when she spotted it. It was small and wooden, easy to miss. Ritualistically carved by the hands of someone who knew what they were doing. The old Shaman, she thought. She had heard about the fallout between the tribe and the old shaman.

She drew on the Shadow and her hand began to glow green, the flames of Dathomir poured into the totem, disintegrating it from the inside out before it ruptured with surprising force, knocking her back into a pile of bones on the ground.

She gasped and pushed herself up, scrambling out of the cave and back toward the creature.

Yarith calaba, lyne eith elberai! she shouted as her hand reached out. Her voice echoed as if played from a speaker, reverberating through the spell. Wisps of green escaped from her fingers and her eyes closed, touching the mind of the creature. Although sick, it was no longer so possessed by the evil of the totem.

Ender would see the creature stop its advance and become almost docile in what was a surprisingly short amount of time.

She continued to hold her hands out, eyes closed as she guided the creature away. She instructed it in the Shadow, sending it away from the area.

But that was only half the battle. The old Shaman was the real problem.

I know what caused this, she said, rushing back over toward Ender with the fragments of the totem in hand.

One of the old natives. I have to... deal with him, she said. She was unsure if hunting and killing him fell under the umbrella of their agreement.