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

[imeanforever]

"Fairyland's flat, apart from mountains and things, in all directions forever."

[poll_the_stars]

Weird Sith Tomb physics, possibly some sort of mind thing going on, making everyone inside think that it goes on forever? Yep, probably that.

"All right," she says.

[imeanforever]

"I can gate you wherever you need to be, though, I just need a geographical description. I should probably start that now, it might take a while to settle."

[poll_the_stars]

"Sure, uh. How specific do I need to be, can you find the correct planet easily enough?"

Of course she can, because this is all on the same planet, but Callida will humor how this works.

[imeanforever]

"You should probably describe the planet."

[poll_the_stars]

So she does! Luckily she knows a lot of the specifics.

And she'd like the gate to go outside of the tomb. To see if that works.

[imeanforever]

The tomb is likely not a geographical enough feature. Rivers? Mountains? Can Promise get a map?

[poll_the_stars]

Actually, yes, Callida can produce a map, on her datapad. Here it is! And here is the tomb, near the delta of this river.

[imeanforever]

"Okay. I'll put the gate at the wall over there." And Promise looks at the wall over there, then goes outside and gets a rock to throw at it. It bounces off. "Not an instant settle."

[poll_the_stars]

"How long does it typically take? And can the gate be closed, after?"

[imeanforever]

"It can be anywhere from instant to a week or a little more than that. I'll be able to close it from this side."

[poll_the_stars]

"All right." Pause. "Are you going to stay in this area, after I leave?"

[imeanforever]

"No. I'm going to give Yellow light precautionary orders so he doesn't come after me or tell my old master that I got loose and then leave. Why?"

[poll_the_stars]

"Instant travel to other planets would be very useful," says Callida. "Even if you couldn't make gates large enough for ships."

[imeanforever]

"What would it be useful for?"

[poll_the_stars]

"Travelling from planet to planet takes time. Sometimes not very much time, but some. And travelling distances on planets takes time, too. So you could transfer objects or people from one place to another faster, which would be good for things that can't be moved except under very specific conditions, or things that are ruined after a certain amount of time - so on."

[imeanforever]

"This would require leaving a lot of gates open, sounds like. That's not necessarily safe."