[Day 8 - EA] Allegory of the Cave [Closed]

[Dapper Dog]

There is a raging storm outside the cave she was huddled in… the stone and red dirt reminded her of Korriban. There was a fire deeper within, outside a terrible crimson sandstorm raged, there was no crossing the desert in this weather.

A single small figure sat by the fire.

[Lord Tenebrous]

Was this Korriban...?

She thought, she was in the court.

"Vas-Tsu...?" the woman, who now felt a little scared like a child herself, asked of the figure sitting by the figure. Shaisha really hoped it was the girl by the fire, and not Spindral in a cunning disguise.

[Dapper Dog]

“Vould you like some cake?” she offered.

[Lord Tenebrous]

She raised an eyebrow. It all seemed very odd, but... if they were on Korriban, in a cave, stuck in a terrible sandstorm, it seemed a terrible idea to decline an offer of food.

"How can I say no to cake? Yes, please," she managed a small smile, stepping closer to the fire. "... Is this really Korriban? Or... somewhere else?"

[Dapper Dog]

“It’s a safe place,” she stood and offered her cake and then tapped her little hand on the collarbone where she had bit the Sith. She said sweetly, “The Emperor cannot see us here, otherwise you would be lost.”

“We cannot stay here for long, he will know that something is not right.”

[Lord Tenebrous]

"Safe place," she echoed... accepting the cake. Vas-Tsu's tap on where she had bitten her before brought a smile to her. "My daughter is a biter too."

And Shaisha knew she had to get out of here to return to the fight. There were others who depended on her.

"It's... shameful, thinking my will have become strong enough to cast off my chains, and yet he had merely hid them. Thank you, for taking me to your safe place, Vas-Tsu." Shaisha took a bite of cake. "Now, what do we do?"

[Dapper Dog]

“Ve have to brave the storm and cross zhe desert,” she said calmly.

“He vill be vaiting or us. It is good you have resisted his lure… his control is not as strong as he zhinks.”

[Lord Tenebrous]

She took another bite of cake. Might as well enjoy the sweet and delicious calories if she was gonna cross a desert-storm to a life-or-death-scenario.

"It won't be the first desert storm I cross. Probably not the last either. But I'm ready to confront destiny." All of this... after three-hundred years. It had all led up to today. Or at least, it felt that way. It was the day of confronting the one who took everything from her.

"His power must also be stretched thin, if he's dealing with what we saw in the courtroom at the same time too?"

[Dapper Dog]

She nodded and said, “His power has been diminished and with Darth Malgus he is focused on that at the moment. Vhen you are ready, ve can begin the journey.”

OOC: Survival check at Average with a boost from Vas-Tsu.

[Lord Tenebrous]

Another bite of cake. "... Ready as I can be, I guess. We've no time to dawdle."

Though... this wasn't the Korriban she remembered. It seemed familiar, but yet different, and the variations threw her off her guard. Or perhaps she was still thinking too much back to her own time on Korriban, and getting the memories mixed up?

But that was preposturous. She had been among the top in navigating the desert there!

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D8 The Safe Place. Survival through "desert". Boosted by caek: 4eA+1eB+2eD 0 successes, 2 advantage


Advantages to... not get completely lost and just needing a breather before trying again? >_> Don't know what it is with me and Orokos today lol

[Dapper Dog]

The storm was relentless but the two stumbled there way through it until she was walking across golden floors and clean white walls. The sound of the storm easing into the sound of an ocean lapping at the beach below the balcony where her mother sat looking at a datapad.

Father was away, but would be back today and she realized she was the same height as Vas-Tsu… was that her name? The mean girl she didn’t like the one that bullied her. Her parents insisted she should fight back but her bully was stronger and it was hard…

OOC: Easy Discipline or Cool check with a setback due to reasons of family.

[Lord Tenebrous]

Family was a complicated issue.

It was a source of much trouble. Of much pain. And woe. And... had it been a root of all her mistakes and failings as well?

No. She decided firmly. Whatever failings she had fallen to was because of her own shortcomings. Her own hubris. It was true that her family's actions had set her on this path, but she would... she would succeed. She would win.

"You can't defeat me." The young girl said with a hard voice born of centuries of hardship.


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D8 The Safe Place. Discipline against family woes!: 2eP+1eA+1eD+1eS 2 successes, 1 Triumph

[Dapper Dog]

Her mother spoke with Valkorian’s voice, “Clever. It won’t matter.”

She turned to look at little Shaisha and said, “I am the closest thing to a parent you have had. You could still have great power just give in… your resistance delays nothing.”

[Lord Tenebrous]

"Never," little Shaisha gritted her teeth. "The only reason you could try to claim being my parent is because you took the ones I had away from me."

Her fists balled up. "Power borrowed is never your own, and it makes you beholden to its owner. A trap I will not fall into again, Vitiate... Valkorian... whatever name you style yourself with."

[Dapper Dog]

“I have had so many, perhaps the next will be Shaisha once I remove these traitors that Darth Malgus has exposed for me. I will thank him, with a swift if painful death,” her mother responded.

“Everything you know, I know… this futile attempt is doomed, and it will be you that made it happen.”

She stood as the seas side vista melted away to a seamless and boundless void. She walked and beneath her feet was solid ebon ground leading to what looked like a throne. She sat as her form shifted to that of Valkorian and he continued, “This was always my plan.”

[Lord Tenebrous]

She caught herself breathing unevenly, the sight of her vision coming to her mind.

I have seen this.

If she would allow this to come to pass, she knew that everyone in that courtroom would be dead. Like a sea of corpses. The throne heaped up on bones of the dead.

"You forget..." Shaisha swallowed, eyes fierce with intensity as she looked to Valkorian. "... A daughter will always break the chains a father enforces on them. Your plan will fail."

[Dapper Dog]

The little one squeezed her hand for support.

Valkorian chuckled, “You would not be the first daughter to think they could do as they pleased. No, you are laboring under an extreme delusion that you have had any choice all along. I am the Empire, Sith or otherwise. You would not be the first to think you could do better and sadly not the last… well until all there is… is just me.”

[Lord Tenebrous]

The squeeze was reassuring. And she found herself tightening her hand around the little one's hand in return. Allowing the power that was the Umbră-Ușoară that the Farros spoke of strengthen her.

"Your existence as a leech has gone on long enough - and arrogance has blinded you to the dragon that's awakened." Fight the bully.

"You're not an Empire - you're an infestation. Rotten, diseased, dying."

And you're no father of mine.

"Begone, Tenebrae."

[Dapper Dog]

He started walking down the stairs and said, “No.”

“I am the Empire, and even that has outlasted its usefulness. Sith… Jedi… pointless philosophies when you grasp the eternity of existence. I am not the beginning and the end. I do not believe in deities, but if such a thing existed, it would posses my face.”

He offered his hand and said, “I will not offer again, join me or you daughter and everyone you love will suffer far sooner than I have planned.”

[Lord Tenebrous]

The words along with the offered hand was like a saber through the heart. It hurt, and the fear of losing them festered like a wound... an infection...

In another time, in another place, Shaisha thought she had heard this before. But then she had been the leveraged piece.

Believe in Jo'ren. Believe in Lyria. Believe in Sylvain, Jun-Tsu, and the others. Let the Dark Light give you strength. Kristal, give me strength.

"No." Her hand holding Vas-Tsu's hand squeezed firmly. "I will not yield to you!" If she was crying, Shaisha didn't want to acknowledge her own tears now.


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OOC: Edited for autocorrect blunders