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

[poll_the_stars]

"Okay. Uh. Let her speak freely?" she attempts, and then she un-chokes him.

[imeanforever]

"You may speak," Yellow wheezes out.

"Tell him to rescind all my orders or I'm going to have to turn you into a sparrow, I picked that to stall," Promise says quickly.

[poll_the_stars]

"Rescind all her orders," says Callida, because really, that seems the best thing to do. "And then don't give her any others."

[imeanforever]

"I rescind all your orders," gasps Yellow.

Promise relaxes. "Thank you."

[poll_the_stars]

"You're welcome. Okay, how does this work, specifically?"

[imeanforever]

"He has my name; you fed him; that means that you're his master and he's mine. If he'd fed you instead he'd have you too. I would've been allowed to talk as soon as it wouldn't be interfering with a capture attempt and we could have maybe gotten away by cooperating because he's not very smart, but this is better. You can tell him to do whatever you want."

[poll_the_stars]

"Right, okay. Thank you. Uh, Yellow, always tell me the truth, and tell me in an obvious way if Promise lies to me, or has lied to me since she started talking." She looks back at Promise. "High stakes, paranoia, I'm not a monster but I need to be sure I won't have a master, I hope you understand."

[imeanforever]

"Then it's a good thing you didn't eat the dewdrop because if he'd gotten you my idea involved us vassalizing each other."

Yellow is silent.

[poll_the_stars]

"I think I would have accepted that over being his, but - yes, I'm happier with this."

[imeanforever]

"Do you know if you came through a tear or a gate?"

[poll_the_stars]

"What difference is there between the two?"

[imeanforever]

"Tears stop existing after you go through them. If you went back and forth before coming through that would be conclusive."

[poll_the_stars]

"I did not, but I think I could find the place I walked through again. What happens if it was a tear?"

[imeanforever]

"Then I can make you a new gate, I know how. But it'll take a while to settle. You can safely take food from Yellow now, he's already your vassal."

[poll_the_stars]

Nod.

"Is there a way for you to safely have food, too? Besides candied dewdrops, unless you particularly like them."

[imeanforever]

"Fairy food's safe for me. Well, safe enough, it'd be astronomically unusual for someone to track down that weak and distant of food claim on something I found foraging. It's you who might run out and need to eat things you normally shouldn't."

[poll_the_stars]

Another nod. "And it's safe if the food is obviously his, or if he feeds it to me? He was trying to feed me one of the things you made, would that have made me your vassal?"

[imeanforever]

"If he feeds it to you. The dewdrop might have given me a weaker claim, which would have been really inconvenient if it held, because I was forbidden to speak my name and it would have had to be food on my end, name on yours."

[poll_the_stars]

"That would have been inconvenient. All right. Is there any danger in checking on the place I entered right now?"

[imeanforever]

"You might be accosted by another fairy," Promise says, "or meet an environmental hazard. Will you ask Yellow to tell me his name?"

[poll_the_stars]

"... I can, but what do you plan to do after?"

[imeanforever]

"I'm better at phrasing orders than you are. And if I have his name he can't hurt me. I don't need him for anything, I'm not going to keep him."

[poll_the_stars]

"Do I have your permission to get a lie detection from you on that via him before I give you his name?"

[imeanforever]

"...A lie detection? You already told him to tell you if I lied."

[poll_the_stars]

"I mean, yes, but - I don't expect he actually knows if you'd be lying about what you'd do with him or not, that was more in the way of 'are you lying about how the world works.' So, I'd want to confirm that that specific thing is definitely true."