General Advice

[Collan]

Collan sought out Kota. He wanted to talk about his father and the inevitable confrontation.

[GM Craig]

You find him in a galley eating some sort of steaming mush from a bowl. He looks up as you approach. Before you can speak, he grumbles out, "Can I eat while you tell me whatever it is you want to tell me? Or do we need to go somewhere private?"

[Collan]

"Yeah," Collan said, "I can keep it short. I need some general advice. Have you learned who my father is?"

[GM Craig]

He raises an eyebrow. "Any why would I know who your father is?"

[Collan]

"Because he's Darth Banen, the Grand Inquisitor. Formally known as Inigo Rostiern," Collan said, "Demaia the Sage foretold that once I started the Jedi path a confrontation would be inevitable."

[GM Craig]

That reached him.

He sets his spoon down, and glances around warily. "We should remove to somewhere more private."

A minute or two later, you are in General Kota's quarters.They are bigger than yours, but smaller than the consular suites the senators had taken. He takes a seat beside a small table, and indicates a chair.

He says, "Perhaps you'd better start at the beginning."

You answer, "Well, my father..."

He waves a hand at you in frustration. "No, boy. Demaia. Tell me everything about her."

[Collan]

"It's a little long," Collan started, "It starts with a prison ship break out. It was our last op before the Karvan resistance was obliterated. And indirectly, that op was the cause. Our main troops encountered Royal Guard so we went in with a team to take them out. During the fire fight Demaia's mind reached out and touched mine. She was very subtle and powerful. Basically, we helped her escape and she in turn helped us help Ch'lana...Commander Dailen...defeat an Inquisitor."

"We evacuated to HQ and found out more. She was a Seer I think. She told us she allowed herself to be captured...surrendered in fact because it would bring her to Karvis. Something important was supposed to happen there. All other paths led to her death she said."

"She unlocked my lost memories and that was how I learned about my father. She put it into my head that I needed to go with Ch'lana. I karked that up. Then she gave Niil the same message. Nightshade...the Shinobi managed to get us all onboard. Anyways, as we fled Karvis, I felt her letting us go...she was at peace and something tells that was tied to the destruction of HQ."

[GM Craig]

He is quiet for several seconds, his mouth a grim line.

"She must have said more. Said something - anything - about what was happening on Karvis? Why did she need to be there? Think boy! Think!"

He's getting agitated.

[Collan]

Collan closed his eyes and his mind. He see Demaia and her words came to him.

"'Something important happens here. I cannot see what, exactly, or where it leads. But Karvis is where it all starts. I do not know when it begins, but I sense it will happen soon.'"

[GM Craig]

He had been sitting forward in his chair. When you speak, he slumps back, as if defeated.

"Nothing. Not a clue." He chuckles, bitterly. "She was as enigmatic as ever."

[Collan]

Collan almost smiled. Almost.

"I take it, General, that this is not the first time Demaia has entered your life? If it's any consolation, Wrynn Doha was a prisoner as well on that ship. Which led to Trax leaving on a mission to find Senator Bel Iblis which led to Corellia which led to the station which led to Alliance."

"I know just enough to know I don't really know a lot. But it sounds like that could have been it. The Force...it tugged at both Niil and myself. We felt that we needed to be somewhere and it took us to Horuz."

[GM Craig]

He waves all that away.

"I knew Demaia. When Chancellor Valorum was elected, she abruptly left the Jedi order. That would be, almost 40 years ago now? Never said a word. She just left the Jedi Temple the day Valorum was elected, and was never seen nor heard from again. It was a terrible blow to the Council. She was a gifted seer from a young age - able to use the Force to see the past, present - even the future. A prodigious scholar of the Force. The Council had come to rely on her wisdom."

He takes a breath, as if steadying himself. "There were those among the Jedi who blamed Demaia for the Clone Wars - well, for not preventing them. She denied her gifts to the Council right when they needed them most. I had thought she was dead, after so long. She was old when I knew her. She must have been over a hundred when you saw her. She was the last of the Seers. There hadn't been another seer since she came into her powers."

He abruptly slams the table with his fist. He then catches himself and takes another steadying breath. "Sorry. My frustration stems from losing my own sight, and not having access to hers."

But then he turns his bandaged face to you. "But... I think we need to go to Karvis at some point. I can't believe Demaia would just become one with the Force without leaving something behind."

[Collan]

Collan said, "There was a voice in my head when I was brought before the Emperor. It said 'Trust the Force.' I thought it was you; coulda been Ch'lana too. But I wonder if it was Demaia."

[GM Craig]

He raises an eyebrow. "Possible, but unlikely. It just as well may have been your own defence mechanisms trying to protect you."

[Collan]

Collan shrugged. The source of the voice itself was not relevant right now.

"Regardless. I'm not sure what she could have left behind that survived a bombardment by six Star Destroyers. And the ruins of HQ were probably picked over Imperial troops. If she left something, she'd make it hard to find, even for a Jedi."

He paused...

"Unless maybe they knew precisely what they were looking for?" He asked. It was a question both of himself and Kota. Would Demaia have done that? A Seer who vanished more than 30 year ago and then suddenly reappeared. She'd been out of the game and saw nothing but her death if she didn't go to Karvis. Why not Horuz? Or any of a thousand other worlds. What was special about Karvis?

"A Jedi Seer goes to Karvis...I just can't believe it was for two...no three Force Sensitives and a Bounty Hunter."