[D7MA] Carrel On

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

Vaya had restrained her trips to the Temple to be entirely in line with when the Jedi would be going back and forth anyway. The place hadn’t been exactly what she had expected or thought she had wanted, but the last thing she desired was to see it self-destruct to deny it to the Empire. Her visit now was on the occasion of some kind of significant meeting (she’d bug Petrus about it afterwards. Or Verse, who might notice less, but would be less able to conceal anything of interest).

In part, this restraint was a great act of self-denial, but also, it bought her time to think about what she actually wanted to look for. She had chased this place with the expectation that she would find something… numinous, perhaps (although she’d suffer greatly before expressing that mawkish thought out loud). She’d found something of undeniable value to her friends and to the continuation of the Jedi Order. Whatever it was that she thought she’d connected with, going on half a decade ago in that ancient cavern -- perhaps she had been of service to it, keeping that flame alive. But it hadn’t brought her peace.

She had procrastinated on finding a new question to answer by conducting a broad survey of the various media available at the temple. Then she had thought about the fate that she had feared for this place, when she thought it was a relic and not a living thing. Namely, discovery, exploitation, and destruction by the Empire. Surely such places were rare, but surely also there had to be more in the wide galaxy. What she thought she had been doing on Bankor, winning a race against the sort of Imperial graverobbers she was intimately familiar with, she might do elsewhere in truth.

And perhaps she’d find something else, for herself, as well.

She unconsciously fiddled with the silvery crown that she had waited until after she’d parted ways with her Padawan companions to don. She felt self-conscious in it for all three of its quality, its unfamiliarity as a class of accessory, and its supposedly mystical nature. Distracting herself from both her introspection and her self-consciousness, she spoke to the empty air as she reviewed her notes.

“How’s the meeting going, Master Surra?”

Ooc: I recall you allow a single interim modding check; if I could apply that to my cataloging &tc of the Temple archives (maybe increasing how many boosts it grants to me when I research there?) that’d be swell.

Right now, difficulty and skill to find other sites?

[Jedi Master Surro]

Master Surro said, "It goes well, what are searching for today?"

OOC: I don't know what you mean by interim modding check? Looking at a Daunting check with two setbacks as that would just be not very well known knowledge if they were being hidden. It would be Impossible but here it is Daunting.

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

Master Surro said, "It goes well, what are searching for today?"

"From you?" said Vaya. "Conversation. From the archives?" She tapped her stylus on her cheek. "Do you promise not to tell anyone?"

ooc: I thought I had maybe made it up, but I found it -- this is what I was thinking of, when you said that one modding check could happen over downtime. Was thinking of non-modding equivalents. No worries if not!

[Jedi Master Surro]

"Only if it does not threaten the security of this place or my fellow Jedi," she said flatly.

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

"You must've been great at parties," shot back Vaya, stung. "The only thing at risk is my dignity, trying to..." to use a glorified information desk as a confidante was what she bit back. "I'm trying to satisfy your curiosity. There is no Ignorance, there is knowledge, right? You want to know more about me."

[Jedi Master Surro]

"I Know a great deal about you already," she said honestly. "I am always watching."

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

"So what's your honest assessment, Master Jedi?" Vaya was genuinely curious, but a thrill of fear shot through her. If she thought of the intense presence as a human being, she would never have dared ask. Being truly seen by such a person as Surra once was would be like being dissected by some great pregalactic intelligence: exact, impersonal, annihilating. As the fascimile, she could maybe pretend there was some error of perception or judgement brought on by the transcription, and pretend to not believe anything she didn't like to hear.

[Jedi Master Surro]

"You are searching for something, you thought you would find that here and have not," she said.

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

Vaya shot Surra an annoyed look. She’d been braced for a blistering psychological analysis, and gotten the pithy version of her own introspection. “Hell, I could have told you that.” She gestured at the archives. “Well, I’m looking for it now. And helping Petrus, Verse, Qareme, and the rest, into the bargain.” She found it easier to think of her efforts as being for the benefit of the Padawans she knew. The Jedi as a concept was both too abstract and tied to some concrete realities that she wasn’t sure she liked the shape of.

She kept up the conversation as she worked, albeit sporadically. She also attempted the breathing and focusing exercises Juri had walked her through. She felt nervous, fearing and hoping in equal measure both that the strange gift Juri had given her would work, and that it would not. If it did, what would it feel like? Would it be like the various study drugs she had tried for cramming for exams at the University? Would it feel like that moment in the cavern, when she had felt her life’s course altered?

Will Surra strike me down on the spot with holo-lasers for bringing Dathomiri witchery into her Temple? Probably not, but the thought had occurred to her.

D7MA Carrel On 1 (daunting lore, 4 boost for 4 strain from charm, setbacks removed with Researcher): 2eP+2eA+4eB+4eD 2 successes


Ooc: Since obviously going to any of these places is probably a post-game goal, any details will be interesting, but the main binary I’m looking at is A) “Vaya has enough that a possible epilogue is adventuring trying to preserve/save/catalogue these sites, even if she can never come back to Orlandis” or B) “Vaya probably wants to keep digging here in order to get to A”

[Dapper Dog]

OOC: She finds some interesting things.

[Jedi Master Surro]

"Whatever you seek is not out in the galaxy," she responded.

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

Without looking at Surra, Vaya pointed her stylus at the holoprojection of a spinward sector she had called up from the archives. “That’s not what this starmap says,” she replied, with a grim satisfaction in her voice that surprised her.

Ooc: I was thinking for my other check I'd follow up on the conversation with Neela, and use the records here to study The Calm, with an eye to understanding what it is and what the Jedi did with it, so that I can guess what the Empire might try and how to protect it. The temple was established contemporaneously with the actual Jedi presence on Bankor, right?

[Jedi Master Surro]

"That isn't what I meant, but fair point," she said crossing her arms across her chest.

OOC: There had been a Sith temple or sanctuary there built by a powerful Sith lord, it as eventually cleansed and the grounds are now a place of study for an order of Force Users and a powerful vergence to the Light.

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

"Well, what did you mean?"

Ooc: research into vergences and what they do? Fine if the answer is not immediately useful! Knowledge is its own reward.

[Jedi Master Surro]

"That you will always find some new horizon to seek and that whatever answer you seek is within, but I am not so arrogant to believe that everyone needs the same resolution," she responded.

"You realize I can see every search and research result, Vaya."

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

"Well, obviously," said Vaya, who had technically only suspected, but been pretty sure. She did seem to be integrated with all of the Temple's systems. Then she thought harder about what Surro had said first, and looked at her. Or the holographic representation of her. Vaya sometimes felt tempted to make contact with the few optical sensors she had detected, instead.

"How many, uh, non-forceful beings have you..." she shook her head. That wasn't the right question. "You mean the Force is in everyone and everything, right? So it's been inside me all along?" The question was less than half-sarcastic.

[Jedi Master Surro]

"The Force is in all things, if you wish a metaphysical answer," she said.

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

"Metaphysics..." Vaya tapped her cheek with her stylus. "In your time, did the Jedi consider themselves a religious order? Or do you think of yourself as, uh," a hologram "a woman of faith?"

[Jedi Master Surro]

"We are Jedi," she said calmly. "We do not proselytize or convert others."

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

"But you have all these beliefs," Vaya persisted. "Like, obviously you can do and sense things that not everybody can, but you also talk about truths a lot deeper than is this your card or will it rain tomorrow. Things about destiny, and balance, and the, uh, inter-connectedness of things." She realized that even though it was only a holocronic reconstruction, she was sort-of explaining the Jedi to a Jedi Master. "You believe those things to be true, even though you can't see them or touch them, even with your gifts."

[Jedi Master Surro]

“Because they are true, we do not cling to blind faith, the Force is our ally. It is difficult to explain to those that lack the sensitivity to the Force but these things are real. Yes I understand the irony that I am simply a machine, and therefore lack that connection as I did in life but these are real things. They are not simply blind faith in some cosmic deity, the Force exists and it connects all things and thus destiny is a real thing but it is not fixed,” she said calmly explaining herself.

[Vaya Mer'darrow]

Vaya shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, we're on about equal footing in terms of noetic capital right now." Actually, she remembered some obscure debates about whether or how much non-organic sapience took part in the Force, but while holo-Surra's opinion on that might be interesting, it was a digression. "But my point is, that when I've read what other traditions have to say, not everyone agrees with you on everything. Other traditions based on a connection to the Force, or the Ashla, or the Eternal Breath, or the, you know, whatever," she waved her hands. "There are some similarities, maybe a lot, but my point is..." she trailed off. What was her point?

"I don't think it's blind faith, but the Force didn't hand down the particulars in giant fiery script on a mountainside. And the particulars mean something to you, and how you live, right? The Inquisitors, the Sith, they might agree that everything's connected and the Force is in all living things, but they don't think that means they have to be nice."