A Sith Lord's Agenda

[poll_the_stars]

Lord Callida's gotten more freedom, ever since she earned her lord status. Her own ship, her own crew, her own missions. She's expected to not get herself killed or do anything stupid, but if she wants to manage her people in a way that Occlus finds kind of bizarre, Occlus is completely fine with it.

So when her engineer does not calm down, and still flinches every time she walks by - well, she finds a replacement, and she decides to transfer him to a place where he does not have to be near a Sith Lord. She has her translation droid, N-V09, nicknamed Envee, conversationally ask him where he'd like to live. Because if she asked he'd whimper out how he's happy where he is, and that's not the honest answer she wants. He turns out to have friends on Balmorra, and quite mysteriously, Callida learns of an open position on Balmorra and sends him a message asking if he would be willing to serve Darth Occlus from there. As it happens, he does, though he prefaces the reply with lots of I'll stay if you still have need of me, my lord, just say the word and I'm your man. She snorts and transfers him.

The astromech droid she picked up on Narr Shaddaa is quite happy with its new status as her ship's engineer, and is much less terrified of her. It rolls up to her near immediately, and beeps, Callida == buy new set of hydrospanners // TN-R13 == hate current set // TN-R13 == unable to do job and is perfectly happy to lead her to the exact set of hydrospanners that it would like. And then it beeps at her the next day, asking for a chassis upgrade and a set of wheels with more traction. Callida considers this a job well done, and upgrades the droid.

She wonders if she's going to end up replacing her entire crew with a legion of loyal droids that are just thankful she treats them in the same category as people. ... She might, though her pilot and doctor both seem perfectly happy to work with her. She'll see about defenses against ion based weaponry, just in case.

But ion weaponry isn't likely to crop up in the tomb that she's been asked to clear out for the archaeologists, so she tables that search for now. Droids as a rule, do better in Sith tombs than organic life, but they don't escape unscathed from the dark aura that tends to permeate the tombs of Sith. They'll stay on the ship, she'll walk in and kill any creatures living inside, dispell any ghosts that still haunt the premises, and disable any traps, and then she'll estimate how long anyone that isn't a Force-sensitive could stay in the tomb without their minds being twisted, and go from there.

Clearing out the tomb might take a few days, so she's packed for them. Ration bars, canteens, water purification tablets, and other such necessities. If she runs out of supplies she can always retreat back outside, but she'd like to get the tomb cleared out in one trip.

Unfortunately for her, she barely even makes it past the threshold before the scenery abruptly changes, and the oppressive feeling of the dark side dissipates. Instead of a dark tomb, she's in a forest of some kind.

She frowns, and begins carefully searching her new environment. This tomb just got a lot more interesting.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

It is: a forest. None of the individual plant species are familiar. Trees, bushes, moss and grass and lichen, vines and mushrooms. A little person with four wings and brilliantly yellow hair.

[poll_the_stars]

Hm, interesting. Some kind of extremely thorough vision, maybe? ... No, doesn't seem like it. Visions don't feel this - devoid of Force energy. Something else. She'll have to be very careful.

"Hello?" she calls to the person with the brilliant yellow hair. "Do you speak Basic?"

[alicornucopia]

The person with yellow hair laughs. "Of course," he says lightly. "Hello! What's your name?"

[poll_the_stars]

To leave the Lord off or to use it, hmm.

"Callida," she says. "And yours?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yellow," he says, smiling less. "Are you lost?"

[poll_the_stars]

"I might be. Where am I?"

[alicornucopia]

"Not too far from my house. Do you want to come get something to eat?"

[poll_the_stars]

She considers.

"Sure," she says. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble."

[alicornucopia]

"None at all," he says. And he flits into the forest, pausing every few trees to let her catch up.

[poll_the_stars]

She follows at a leisurely walking pace, considering the situation.

He seemed disappointed when she told him her name. She wonders why.

[imeanforever]

He has a little house right up against the edge of a lake! It is very cute and not sized for her. "Mind your head," he suggests when he shows her in.

There is another winged person in the house. She's in a side room, with a book; she looks up when the door opens, sees Callida, her eyes go wide with horror and hope at the same time.

[poll_the_stars]

Callida minds her head. She's on the tall side, for a human woman, but not so tall as to make this too awkward.

She notices the second winged person's expression, but decides to play dumb. "Hello," she says, cheerily. "I'm Callida, it's nice to meet you."

[imeanforever]

"That's Promise," says Yellow. Promise says nothing. Yellow goes and rummages around among some food. "Fruit? Cattails?"

When Promise sees him head for the food she twitches.

[poll_the_stars]

... Callida recognizes that expression.

She frowns a little, despite herself.

"Nothing just yet," says Callida, "I'm not hungry. Your house is lovely, do you both live here?"

[imeanforever]

"Yep," says Yellow. "Ooh, do you want a candied dewdrop? They're not filling at all."

[poll_the_stars]

Pushing the food angle an awful lot, isn't he.

"I couldn't impose," she demurs.

[imeanforever]

"I'm not about to run out," he assures her, offering a clear thing that looks like it has the texture of a gelcap.

[poll_the_stars]

She is not eating that thing. Nope.

"I'm not really a sweets person."

[imeanforever]

"It's not sweet. Candying's just the name for the process."

[poll_the_stars]

"What process is that?" wonders Callida.

[imeanforever]

"Oh, Promise makes them with sorcery."

[poll_the_stars]

"Sorcery?" says Callida, delighted, turning towards Promise. "How does that work?"

[imeanforever]

"She's not talkative," says Yellow. "If you'd like to learn I'm sure you could, though."

He's still holding out the dewdrop.

[poll_the_stars]

Yeah she bets Promise isn't talkative.

"How would I do that?"

[imeanforever]

"There's books and I'm sure Promise will warm up to you if you stop snubbing her dewdrops. She does them quite well, you know," says Yellow.