Fork in the Path, Mineshaft

The four Jedi had managed to escape the cave-in, and a glance back would show that the right hand path was now definitely blocked off. Fortunately, the collapsed ceiling appeared to have crushed the undead, as none of the foul creatures had emerged to continue the battle.

The Investigators gathered gasping for air, taking a moment to recover.

Anengy Facefoot remained slumped on the ground, clearly drained psychologically and physically by this first ordeal.

"Anengy!" said Vic, approaching his comrade. "You need to pull it together! You were chosen for this mission for a reason, don't let the Council down!" He paused. "Don't let Joshua down..."

"Anengy," said Kara, sitting beside her fellow Jedi and reaching out a hand to place on her shoulder."It's alright. You're safe now. It's just this place - the darkness here amplifies our fears, that's all. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"We can't linger too long," added Kimara, warily guarding the others with her saber ready. "Even if we have to carry her we should get moving."

There was only one path to take now- the left fork. The hissing that had sounded from it previously seemed to have stopped, and it did not seem to have been affected by the quake.

It was then that he appeared. It was extremely sudden- the Force gave no warning sign.

Standing in the shadows on the path ahead, he stood with his back to them, exposing the huge cross tattoo that covered his back. It was distinctive, it was instantly recognisable. His arms were metallic, and dirty blonde hair fell to his upper back. The man turned his head, glancing over his shoulder at the Jedi. He caught their stunned eyes with his crystal blue ones, and he winked. And then he was gone, deep into the darkness as quickly as he had arrived.

The Jedi had just seen Sydney Losstarot for the first time.

Tag: Xan, nemisis, Despised, Trimaj

It was several moments before any of the others escaped the collapsing tunnel. Sadly nothing about Anengy's condition had changed by then. The first to emerge was Vic, and though he tried to help the tone of voice only caused her to react in a way that was unbecoming. His words didn't precisely help matters either. "Anengy! You need to pull it together! You were chosen for this mission for a reason, don't let the Council down!" When he paused the Balosar almost replied, but his next comment bit a little as well. "Don't let Joshua down..." Tears streamed down her cheeks even more."Don't yell at me!" And she pulled away from him. "Do you think this is what I want?" Her voice was agonized, her emotional and mental pain almost palpable.

Kara seemed to have a greater idea of what was going on, her zeltron empathy proving useful for the first time in the dark enshrouded cave. "Anengy..." As the Zeltron set next to the weeping Jedi her tone managed to sooth were Vic's was abrassive. Anengy found herself turning the soft touch into a hug, clinging to Kara almost like a drowning woman to a life raft. "It's alright. You're safe now. It's just this place - the darkness here amplifies our fears, that's all. It's nothing to be ashamed of." It might not be something to be ashamed of, but her reaction to that fear arguably could be. The weakness that had managed to blindside her, that Anengy hadn't even known about crashing into the situation.

After several seconds her tears started to slow, and it seemed like the Zeltron was attempting to send soothing feelings. The distraught Anengy reached for them like a man dying of thirst. They allowed her to begin to regain control of herself. She knew Vic had meant no harm, but somehow he just hadn't realized what was going Jedi or no. Voice low, pitched so that only Kara could hear, "I've never been in so enclosed a place before... It terrifies me, the thought of being trapped here. Please don't let me be trapped here." Her last words are almost a whimper.

The last of their party had taken a defensive stance, ready to protect them all should any of the undead things emerge. Kimara gave the others several moments as none of their attackers emerged, but they all knew time was short. She made sure this was known, as well as her loyalty to the group. "We can't linger too long, even if we have to carry her we should get moving." Even though it likely wouldn't be seen Anengy gave the Arakanian a watery smile of gratitude. At least she wouldn't have to worry about her worst fear.

Of course things couldn't stay quiet for long in this hellspawned cave as something entirely unexpected happened. From the lone path that was left to them there was no sound, nothing. No warning from the Force, no warning from any of them possessed. A being stood in the entrance to the cave, a broad cross tatooed across it's back. Anengy's already frayed nerves couldn't quite stand this sudden appearance, and she called out wordlessly. The dirty blonde hair combined with the mechanical arms left little doubt who was standing there before them. When the man turned his head, crystal blue peering at them all. There could be no doubt, this was the man they had been sent to find. The man who had kidnapped Joshua. Then Sydney Losstarot winked. What the feth... the only coherent thought that could form in her muddled mind. Then as suddenly as he'd arrived Sydney was gone, as though drawing them down the correct path to meet with him.

Most of her composure still shot, her voice shaky Anengy asked "What was that? How could he appear like that?" Swallowing almost audibily, and Kara would certainly feel it, "Suddenly... I'm very afraid." She wondered if she was echoing anything that the others felt. The Balosar felt sure that if they would truly admit to themselves their true feelings fear would be found within their hearts as well. Perhaps it was well buried, perhaps hidden behind anger, but there just the same. "How can something bring the dead back like that? Have any of you ever heard of that before?" Suddenly she was sure that it hadn't been the Imperial knights to have killed all of the bodies that were laying around, some Sith sorcery had to have been used as well. "What have we gotten ourselves into?" This last thought is almost a whisper, but the silence in the cave made it echo far louder than it would normally have done.

"Don't yell at me!" Anengy responded, her tone betraying her distraught feelings. "Do you think this is what I want?" Vic could sense her agony through the Force, and realized his voice may have been a bit harsh. He was simply only trying to be heard over the noise made by the quake, nothing more. He realized that Anengy may have taken it as criticism, but Vic meant nothing of the sort. He poured calm feelings through the Force in an attempt to sooth her agony, while Kara played the job of soothing her with speech and physical contact. Anengy whispered something to Kara, but Vic was unable to make it out.

"We can't linger too long," Kimara added, doing excellent job of taking up a defensive stance so as to ward off any of those horrid corpses that may have survived. Vic thought for a moment how...strange that sounded to him. Had any of the corpses survived?...Strange, demented, unbelievable were some of the words that came to mind. "Even if we have to carry her we should get moving," Kimara added with a glance towards the weakened Jedi.

She was right, this waiting around was foolish, and very time consuming. This mission was best complete as quick as possible, as can be seen by the effects this mission was already having on Anengy, who was the oldest Jedi Knight amongst them. Unfortunately, the only path left to take was the left path, which previously had a strange hissing noise coming from it. It seemed to have stopped, leading Vic to wonder if the hissing had been a ploy used by the powers of the Dark Side to lure them into the right cave. If so, it certainly worked.

Vic did not see it right away, only out of the corner of his eye. It caused his stomach to drop, almost as if a 20 kilometer weight had been dropped in it. A man appeared seemingly out of nowhere, as if he had been hiding his presence in the Force. The form was immediately recognizable as the Cult leader, Sydney Losstarot. He gave a wink and headed off into the cave. Vic had to fight an urge to run after the man with his duel lightsabers. Vic may not be able to handle this Sith by himself, and he would only come to face the Sith if he passed through the cave unharmed, which would be unlikely.

He could feel the fear emanating off of the other Jedi. He would be lying to himself if he said he was not scared as this was a very scary situation. However, he realized that the Dark Side fed off these emotions, and quickly calmed himself down with the aid of a Jedi technique, a brief thought about his family and quickly stating the Jedi Code in his mind. The same could not be said for Anengy, who openly stated her fear.

"It's the city," Kara reminded. "Remember our briefing - Leá Monde is believed to be a nexus of the dark side. He's just - just feeding on that, trying to scare us. He might not even have been here physically."

She was right, and Vic would not allow this to phase him, no matter what. "We need to be strong. Suppress our fear, Losstarot is feeding off it; the city is feeding off that." He realized how ridiculous that sounded, but it was true. "Keep in mind, Sydney could have been an illusion," he reminded them. They were able to bring corpses to life, they would most certainly be able to create a Force Illusion. The fact they had not felt him through the Force would back that opinion.

"Kimara's right, we should go. The sooner we get out of these blasted mines, the better," said Kara. Vic gave a nod, and stepped forward to lead the group. It was apparent that Anengy was not up to it at the moment. He had to crouch to enter the pathway, and knew that this would be even worse for those who had a sense of claustrophobia, the path was so narrow he even had to crouch to walk. As he continued down the path, his awareness on high - all the while making sure he gave support to his Jedi teammates through the Force - he could only think of the question Anengy had posed. "What have we gotten ourselves into?" Vic could not find an answer.

Mineshaft

The group proceeded, with no time to fully recover from recent events. Vic once again led the way, with Kimara following close behind. Kara brought up the rear, keeping a close eye on Anengy, who still seemed very shaken.

The rest of the mineshaft was poorly lit and the ground was treacherous in places, but they encountered no more undead horrors or violent quakes.

Eventually they again came to two pathways.

The left hand side led down a set of crumbling stairs and to two heavy iron doors lit by wall-mounted torches. Above the doors was a worn inscription reading 'CATACOMBS'. The path to the city was indeed said to lie through the catacombs, and therefore it seemed that this was the correct route. The doors were locked fast, though upon them was another inscription:

Now I might freely move from here to there
In winter I am strong and do not roam
In summer I fly up towards the air
Say my name to enter into death's home

As for the right hand pathway, it appeared to lead back into another area of the mineshaft and was therefore of little interest to the Jedi. To most of them, anyway. For Vic Horkin, it was of huge interest.

For standing there in the darkness of that path, visible to him alone, stood his departed wife, Kelia, looking as beautiful as she ever had in life. She beckoned to him to follow, and disappeared.

Tag: Xan, Trimaj, Despised, Nemisis

Vic was relieved - to say the least - that he and his fellow Jedi did not run into any sort of problems as they passed through the mineshaft. There was very little light, but the lightsaber that Vic had held out in front of him gave off enough lighting so that they could see where they were walking. Along the way, Vic noticed many wholes and crevasses, but wondered if any of them were large enough for a creature that gave off that hissing sound earlier on. He had assumed that none of them were, which led him to believe that the hissing was only an illusion cast off by the Dark Side. There seemed to be a lot of those in here.

Eventually, the path led to yet another fork in the road. He first looked to the left, which was not very inviting, but he had not expected anything else. He could see a set of doors down the stairs which was below an inscription that read "CATACOMBS". If he could remember correctly, he had heard that the city lay just beyond the catacombs, so that seemed like the obvious choice. However, perhaps unfortunately for Vic, he managed a glance towards the right path. His heart sank. Standing there, just as beautiful as he had last seen her, was Kelia Logana, the love of his life who was the mother of his child. She stood there, staring at him, her beautiful brown eyes searing a whole through his heart as they always had, her gorgeous features blinding him with love. But, how could this be real? She had died years ago, five years ago to be exact. How was it possible that she stood in front of him?

Kelia motioned Vic to follow her as she disappeared through the darkness of the right path. Vic made no thought of it, he did not even say anything to the other Jedi as he simply began following his beautiful wife as memories flooded his mind. What if this was real? Would he be able to touch her again? Feel her hand upon his face, her lips upon his as she had done so many years ago? He could only hope.

Anengy nodded at the comment about this place being a nexus of the darkside. She hadn't really forgotten, but it wasn't like it was in the forefront of her mind either. That's how life tended to work, vaguely important details pushed to the background in the face of mindnumbing realities. She accepted the Kara's offered hand up, and stood still uneasy about the whole situation.

There was precisely one legit way for them to go no, as backwards wasn't an option. She watched vic go forward, and still holding tightly to the Zeltron's hand followed. Hanging onto the others hand didn't last long, as the cave proved to be even smaller than it's entrance had appeared. Her unease at the tight space increased, but was nowhere near as bad as the attack had been. Thanks to Kara she'd managed to regain her composure, at least somewhat. Kara and whoever else had been sending feelings of reassurane to her.

The tightly wrapped tunnel was enough to make anyone want out, as there were always overhangs for one to hit a head on, rocks and stalagtites littered the ground making every step a treacherous proposal. Several times Anengy stumbled and cracked her head on the ceiling when attempting to balance herself, or landed on a sharp rock causing further bruising of her alreayd sore knees. Did the Jedi get paid she would have demanded a bonus.

Finally they arrived at another split at which they could all stand. There was a very old door to the left down a brief flight of stairs, torches lit the way. A word was carved over the door, nearly illegible. CATACOMBS it stated. That's the way we have to go... at least we should be able to stand up. Anengy hated mazes, always had since she was a little Balosar. But one that you were actually walking through? That would prove to be evil in the extreme most likely. Irksomely there was another inscription on the doors, and this one was a riddle. Oh grand!

She really didn't pay that much attention to the other path, as it wasn't really of any concern to them... until Vic started walking that way. "Vic? Where are you going? That's the wrong way!" She walked towards him and tried to physically restrain him from walking down that path. An unlikely prospect do to her slight stature.

"Vic?" Vic heard the voice of Anengy, who sounded confused as to why he was heading into the right path, but he did not respond. "Where are you going? That's the wrong way!" Again, he did not care what she had to say. All he cared about was seeing Kelia again. It had been five years since the last time he laid eyes upon her. He felt the touch of Anengy, soft but firm, but merely shrugged her attempt to restrain him off.

"Hey!" Vic could hear the yell from Kara who had apparently made her way down the stairs a bit. "Come on, Vic, that just leads back to the mines -" She, too, made an attempt to restrain Vic. He turned around to face the two Jedi.

"Go, I will be there shortly," he said, his voice showing signs of his desperation to see his former lover. "I just...I have to see her." He turned around and began walking down the right path. He progressed slowly, slightly afraid - not at the dangers that may lay ahead, but at simply seeing her again. What if she was here to exact revenge on him for not saving her? What if she was simply jealous that Vic was alive to raise their child? What if she no longer loved Vic? The latter would tear Vic apart. He moved forward anyway. He was sure the others would try to stop him, but they obviously did not care about Kelia. None of them probably even recognized her for who she was since they never met her.

The thought of the mission was wiped from his mind, Joshua, the Sith, all of it was pushed aside as this seemingly more important matter arose. A thought crept to the forefront of Vic's mind: he was finally going to be able to say goodbye.

Vic had basically just told them to shove off... so he could follow someone who wasn't even there. At least Anengy didn't think that there was anyone there, as they weren't precisely visible. Sending out a tendril of thought through the Force, she scanned the area. Nothing had changed, it was the constant darkness all around pervading everything, but no signs of life in the immediate vacinity beyond them.

She saw Kara move and physically try to stop Vic again, telling him that there was no one there. The feelings pouring off of him were an amazing sense of longing, pain of loss, fear and hope. Not a terribly good comibination, and it didn't really do the Balosar's state of mind any good. Quickly she shut off any connection to Vic, and the surrounding area.

Joining Kara in trying to hold him back, she said "There isn't anything there. Use the Force Vic, feel! Whoever it is, isn't really there." There was a not of desperation in her voice as Vic continued to carry them a bit farther down the tunnel... If worse came to worst, she could just use the Force to restrain him. But that meant opening herself to this place again.