Play Testers Wanted Pt. 07

"No. What is it?" I followed up.

"Star ship armor," She stated with a calculated lilt in her voice. "I have done some research and the material is called Cortosis. It is as difficult to mine as it is to work with. I wish you the best of luck."

"Thanks." I said as I returned my focus to the task.

The first day was awkward but educational. I learned how elemental energy worked against Cortosis. The stench the burning alloy gave off was noxious and I was thankful I no longer breathed. I had visions of a living student coming down with cancer from exposure to the fumes. The second day I tried different elements and temperatures to see if the Cortosis was vulnerable to electricity, or even extreme cold. Deep bitter temperatures worked far better than heat. I watched the slow trickle of Cortosis fill the bowl. It took only a week, but I didn't inform my Master of my success. I wanted to push my elemental abilities, namely flame. I felt if I didn't push it to the next level, I would be cheating myself. I spent two more weeks attacking not just sources of Cortosis but metal alloys as well. I also experimented with different colors of flame to see if they had any impact or if they were simply cosmetic.

"Ghost man, you keep forgetting to eat." Traci chastised me one evening. "What are you attempting now?"

"Watch." I said and extended my arm. I opened my hand palm up and produced a pure white flame. "Behold." I continued as I slowly ran the shimmering gout of flame through its paces. The incandescence changed color from red, to yellow, to orange, to green, to blue, to violet, to indigo, and finally flawless black. "What do you think?"

"Impressive. Let me guess... you are going to make the Ebony Flame your trademark." She laughed.

"If you only knew how damn hard it was learning how to create that you wouldn't joke." I chuckled. "I do like the name though Ebony Flame."

"I am proud of you. You have done an amazing job attacking the Cortosis challenge." She declared.

"I agree." My Master added as the holocron levitated into view unbidden. "Now, I will show you how to weave the Cortosis into silk like material. My student will possess only the most impressive armor and yet it will appear as mere cloth. Attend me."

Eager to see this new technique I followed the holocron to where I had stored the bowls. The Rakata displayed devices I would require drawing the liquid Cortosis across and then load the thin strands into a machine to weave them into the cloth he described. Traci and I attacked the task and built and rebuilt the devices multiple times considering the extreme temperatures involved in melting the Cortosis and how it would impact the machine. After a few test runs, I was ready to perform this next task. I followed my master's instructions and over the next nine hours I had enough Cortosis cloth for one set of robes which included gloves, boots, and of course hooded robes. He showed me how to dye the cloth and where to find the raw natural materials for the dye.

"Patience slave," the Rakata purred. "Next you will require a weapon. You cannot stride across the surface of this world without one."

"My hand feels empty." I admitted.

"Excellent." He replied. "Gather the following alloys from the ship in these quantities." He declared and then listed them off. Traci showed me where each of a half dozen metals and alloys could be found. I ripped, tore, and shredded them from various locations within the ship. "We need to design this together." I stated asking for her continued help. "Function and beauty."

The leaf shaped blade took form and with Traci's help I breathed life into it. It took me three days to tweak the design to what passed for perfection to me. Once I had a clear image in my head, I began the lesson and added the elements in the proper portions and sequence. The Rakata directed my actions precisely. I performed them to his satisfaction and in the end, I had ingots of the new alloy to forge into my weapon. I rested after the exertion of creating those ingots. The next day I began the task of forging my weapon. I used a huge solid block of metal as my anvil as well as pyrokinesis to heat the ingots, and telekinesis to hammer, shape, and sharpen the sword. Just as I had before I lost myself in the creation of the sword. Time became meaningless as mind and metal blended as perfectly as the various elements did to form the alloy. In the end I used my own blood for the final quenching.

Armed with the sword I was sent to a nearby cave to collect mineral deposits for the dye for my robes. Each was a separate test devised by my Master to push my skills and see if I had what it took to survive and evolve. Traci wasn't allowed to enter the cave, but she stood watch outside. The test was simple. If it was alive, kill it. I had no armor and only my blade to defend myself I ducked into the low-lying cave entrance. The squeaking sound was faint but the further I went the louder it got. The ceiling varied from up to fifteen feet high to so low I was forced to squat and slowly move through those areas.

The squeaking got steadily louder when I reached the main portion of the cave system. It was clearly marked with a stone effigy that looked like a blend of a gargoyle and a bat. I cried out in pain when something struck me from behind. I rolled away and winced feeling the burning sensation across my upper back. I glanced up to see three of them hovering at the top of the roof. I drew my blade and in my free hand crackled Force lightning. I lowered my hand letting the energy dissipate. I was to defeat these things with weapon alone. One of them dropped like a stone in an attack run. I timed my thrust and nearly had the blade ripped from my grasp when the corpse of the creature fell to the floor. I used my foot and braced it on the body of the thing and plucked my blade free.

The last two were more cautious. They might be mindless animals, but they knew another predator when they faced one. I took up a defensive stance and waited. They separated and attacked from two different directions simultaneously. I was quite proud of my footwork and skill with a blade. Those two dropped close to the corpse of their fellow creature. I examined them to see what I was facing. The creatures were blind and navigated using echolocation. The whistling sound I had heard was them bouncing sound off the surfaces to 'see'. There were more of them, I could hear faint whistles deeper in the caves. I cleaned my blade before continuing. I moved as quietly as I could. My goal was at the deepest portion of the cave. My Master had described what the mineral outcropping would look like. I drew on the Darkforce to see clearly and navigated quite easily from chamber to chamber. The creatures preferred the tallest of the chambers.

"What is that smell?" I complained as a strong stench caught my attention. "Smells like shit and death blended together."

They were coordinated fighters I had to give that to them. My blade cut through bone and sinew as easily as it did their pale colorless flesh. Proud of my handiwork I crept triumphantly to last cave. The stench was damn near overwhelming. Once I peered inside, I knew why. The mound was at the rear of the chamber near the middle portion of the wall. It was eight feet high and perched atop the egg laying apparatus was the Queen of this hive. Much like a queen ant or in the cinema sense a queen alien she produced eggs from which those flying nightmares hatched. She was four times the size of the other creatures I had encountered so far. They had been the size of a large dog while she was twice the size of an adult horse.

She wasn't alone. The Queen had six airborne protectors and they were bigger than the others by a good foot or more. The defenders were far more aggressive than the others as well. They didn't wait for me to get close enough to attack the Queen. The soldiers as I thought of them broke up into three groups of two. They were relentless but I had hard cover to hide behind. It was a matter of observing their repetitious attack patterns before I could do anything but defend myself. It was slow going but one by one I was able to take them out. The Queen wasn't idle as she removed herself from the egg laying portion of her body.

"Just you and me sweet thing." I growled.

She hissed and whistled as I closed the distance. When I was about fifteen feet away, she lashed out surprising me and damn near killed me. The blast of Force lightning struck me in the chest and sent me head over heels. My life bar was down to twenty percent. One more blast like that and I was done. I didn't have an energy blade to absorb the blast. I checked the details of the quest on my HUD.

'Kill the Queen with your sword. You cannot use talents to harm her directly.'

Let's see if I can use them indirectly. My health was slowly refilling but not before that bitch launched an area attack and killed me stone cold dead. I levitated the sword and flew it around the chamber to keep her attention. She could blast that all she wanted. I spun the sword around in glittering angles to keep her attention until I had a clear shot at her underbelly or a weak spot.

"Come on your bitch, show me your special spot." I growled.

She flapped her wings and slowly took to the air. How long since she had flown? I sent the sword at the vulnerable leathery membrane that made up those wings. She shrieked in pain and crashed to the ground. The sword deflected off her armored chitinous hide doing little or no damage. I brought it up as she crawled in my direction. I saw electricity collecting just behind her head. I spied a small pair of antennas that were getting brighter by the moment. I hoped I was right. If I was wrong, I was dead. The sword sped down and struck those projections sending the arc of purple lightning into her body via the sword's blade. Her body spasmed once before falling still.

Cha-ching!

She was dead and once I collected the mineral for the dye this quest was done. I levitated the blade free from her and watched the last great discharge arc from her corpse. I cleaned the blade and sheathed it. I dug the deposit from the back wall with my fingers. I grabbed one particularly large chunk of stone when something shifted, and the vein of mineral collapsed and fell to the floor. When the dust cleared a hidden lever was revealed.

"What the hell?" I gasped as I grabbed the lever and pulled down.

The hidden door behind the wall opened sending a second block of stone crashing to the floor of the chamber. I waited for the dust cloud to clear when I peered into the room beyond. A soft buzzing sound filled the air as ancient lights came to life illuminating the chamber. The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered with murals. In the center of the room was a pedestal and atop it a holocron. I looked at the murals first and there was a definite ocean or water theme to the designs. The whirls and waves reminded me of stylized Japanese art I had seen growing up. The tsunami sized waves with their brilliant white crests crashed over stone towers, buildings, and people fleeing the cataclysm. There were things in the water. Most were easy to see like the whales, brightly colored fish, but woven into the whorls and whirls was a menacing force.

"Whatever is behind the tsunami is hiding in the water." I muttered. "I can barely make out tentacles and creepy alien eyes."

Enter the Lovecraft element. Was this dreaming Cthulhu waking from eons of sleep? I checked the pedestal and floor for traps or security measures. I didn't find anything. I did my best to memorize the elements and find all the hidden imagery. I couldn't be sure of course. I removed the holocron and a dull rumble reminded me of a classic movie. I hoofed it to the exit at breakneck speed. The entire cave system collapsed behind me. I had mental flashes of the murals matching what was happening behind me. I almost didn't make it. I was forced to follow the caves and passageways. The collapsed followed flaws in the earth and they were straight and covered a shorter distance.

"Shit!" I cursed as I flung my body out of the mouth of the first cave. A cloud of dust boiled outward and enveloped me and Traci's primary robot avatar. "Ack!"

"Did something happen?" Traci asked and I lay face down on the barren earth and replied.

"No, what makes you ask?" I chuckled as I checked my inventory and found that everything was still there. "Yeah. I didn't lose anything."

"You need a bath." Traci offered.

I got to my feet and looked at my dust caked limbs and chest. I agreed with her assessment. We trudged back to camp. Before I bathed, I blended the dye and soaked the bolts of Cortosis material. Only then did I perambulate to the nearby waterfall and pool that it fed. I stripped out of my clothes, placed my sword nearby just in case, and stood beneath the pounding water. It drove the anger and stress away as easily as it did the filth that had caked my hair and skin.

"One last lesson." The holocron announced scaring the shit out of me when it appeared without warning. "If you are to survive you must learn to truly mask your essence, your aura, and your intentions. Attend."

The lessons were simple to pass on but difficult to master. My presence had become that of a predator to the local wildlife. My aura was tainted by the life stealing technique I had learned. It was unlikely I could move around in polite company without learning the Force cloak technique. I dove into its intricacies with everything I had. At first glance it might seem a simple stealth skill, but it was far more than that. Once I mastered it, I could hide my presence and blend into crowds effectively reducing my notoriety score to zero. I could conceal my aura and appear as a mundane non-Force user. The most important aspect was hiding the darker nature of my aura so that I could walk unseen and unfelt among any crowd or environment.

I spent my days mastering the rare and difficult talent. At night while my power was at its most potent, I sought out herbivores and tried to walk up to them openly. My failure rate was one hundred percent for a long ass time. I couldn't get within a thousand yards of any living thing. On the bright side the catamaran was finished and ready for a test drive. It took a week to tweak the repulsor engines to get them into sync with one another. During that time, I had the smallest of successes with my current training. While practicing a small lizard walked across my foot by accident. It looked up when it realized my foot wasn't a rock and tore off in search of shelter, but I still considered that a victory of sorts.

Encouraged by the lizard event as I thought of it, I doubled my efforts. The triumphs were small and infrequent, but they occurred, and that is all I needed to continue. Out of all the Force skills I had attempted to master this one was by far the most difficult. My month of using life drain to feed came and went. I alternated between feeding traditionally and using that technique so that I could strengthen its attack power.

"You look down hearted Ghost man." Traci said one night while I prowled the perimeter of the star ship graveyard.

"In the past when I attempted to master a technique, I was either able to see past what I was doing wrong or a whole new solution presented itself to me. This is the first time where I honestly need to stick to the training and grind away until I master it. It is humbling."

"Humility itself can be useful." She offered with a chuckle. "It is a good anchor times when things come too easy to us."

"I agree." I said and closed my eyes. Maybe I was getting too full of myself. I started this game as an unemployed schlep as Kat had described me. I had lost touch with my roots. In the end I was just another guy.

"Ghost... keep it up." Traci whispered.

"What?" I was about to ask when something furry brushed against my cheek. I slowly opened my eyes and standing next to where I was seated was a strange armored feline. It was about twice the size of the average house cat with bright green eyes, tufts of fur around its face, and a scale like epidermis covering the rest of including its tail. "Hey you." I whispered. "What are you?"

"It is the product of Sith sorcery. It is part feline and part lizard. They are favored by the nobles among the Sith and difficult to domesticate." Traci listed off the data file on the creature.

"Nice Lizard Cat..." I continued to whisper.

"Kill it." The holocron demanded of me as it floated into view. "Kill it now."

"I could do that," I agreed. "Or..."

"Or... or what?" The Rakata snapped.

"I could try and keep and domesticate it. If there are a few Sith on this world it would impress them and make it easier for me to pass as one of them." I offered.

"Good. You know when to argue and when to acquiesce." The gate keeper laughed. "A few Sith... you amuse me slave."

"Might I ask what is so damn funny?" I asked and the Rakata did share the joke.

"It is amusing because you are on the Sith home world of Korriban. That is why I am amused." He explained before floating back to camp.

Korriban! Oh shit! I glanced at the cat thing and it had fallen asleep on my leg. That is a good beginning. Traci was already displaying images of pure blood Sith, the race that the dark siders called themselves after a group of dark Jedi outcasts accidently found the planet. They conquered the Sith and intermingled with them. If I was indeed in the past, how far back was I? Was it before or after the arrival of the dark Jedi? I'd have to find out. I wouldn't have the chance quite yet.

"Congratulations Apprentice," The Rakata declared. "Slave no longer, I grant you the rank of student. You have claimed my second holocron. Attend."

The relationship between us changed after that. If there was a skill I was struggling with, like Force cloak, then he would instruct and reveal hidden techniques to help me along. The price for those clues was entertaining him. The Rakata would summon foes for me to fight and he would lay down ground rules for each match. Most were death matches but there were the occasional first blood. When I asked about the mind I had touched, I was told to stay out of it. I accepted that answer for now. I focused on my training and found that there were aspects to existing skills I never tapped into. I was casting various types of illusions in short order. My mastery of shadows included some slick shit from doppelgangers of myself to mimicking walls and ceilings to hide behind.

"It is time." The Rakata declared after six weeks of honing my cloaking ability. "I have two tests for you to accomplish. The first is a bloodless feat that you must master before you may attempt the second."

I strode towards the waterfall. I spied the clump of herbivores clustered around the edge of the pool drinking. My task was to walk to the waterfall without disturbing the critters. I had to pass like a wraith. I dug deep for this one. I closed my eyes and as I had during combat, I found that tranquil place and settled deep. I opened my eyes and took a step forward. The herd didn't budge an inch. I fought my excitement because that would undo things as easily as losing control. I took a second step and a small flutter passed through a few but they remained in place. Each step was harder than the next. The closer I came the deeper I was forced to plunge. It was like wrapping the shadows around me and keeping them from moving. I couldn't allow a single ripple to occur. My reverie was broken when the water from the waterfall slammed into me from above.

I spun around and the herd was still there. I had done it! I tried it a second time. I had to know it wasn't a fluke. I didn't delve so deep that I lost sense of my surroundings this time. I crossed the pond to the middle of the critters and they never flinched once. I'll be damned, it works. I returned to the holocron and instead of praise I was told where to go to take on my second and most life-threatening challenge yet.