Darth Jadus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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maskormenacelogs2018-06-28 12:11 pm
jadus) wrote in maskormenacelogs2018-06-28 12:11 pm
Seconds pass, and the flames rise [OPEN]
WHO: Darth Jadus and whoever the heck wants to encounter this weirdo
WHERE: De Chima, Heropa, the moonbase
WHEN: uh
WHAT: Experimental meditation, something heroics-shaped, and... more weird-ass meditation he's really into that. Open to wildcard.
WARNINGS: near-drowning, vague sith nonsense
1. (In the woods near De Chima): Begin From Darkened Edges
The early morning was overcast, the air sodden with moisture. Far in the distance, thunder growled and purred. But meditation in the forest still felt entirely unlike the damp murk of the Kaasian wilds. This forest was young. By natural or directed means, no tree older than a century stood here. On Dromund Kaas, the trees rose like great obelisks scattered across a monument field, beasts of great size and ferocity stalked both canopy and forest floor, and everything shivered with Dark.
His chosen place between the trees was slowly becoming more familiar. Plants were twisting in response to his focused thoughts and the remains of his projects, warped and gnarled. Scattered remnants of his experimental organisms formed a wide ring of decomposing meat and plant matter around the periphery, run through with flashes of metal and the dull gleam of plastic, no longer fused by his will.
A wide, shallow bowl sat before him on the forest floor. He'd set a delicate wire mesh upon it, then filled it with a mix of water and algae he'd collected. Onto the vivid green muck he placed a single broad leaf.
He knelt, hands in loose fists in his lap, and slipped fully into a meditative state. Before him in the bowl, the leaf began to soften, edges fraying away.
This was a concept piece. A first concerted test for the life support system he had promised the ship builders. All his other rotting projects had been purely experimental, testing his capabilities. Personal. And yet this was hardly different: If the message of his prophecy was rejected, he would have a use for this.
It was a shame there were no deep woods here. He had claimed this place, but it was still close enough to inhabited land and woodland trails that privacy could not be guaranteed.
2. (At the beach in Heropa): Bind the Ocean to the Earth
He stood at the shore, contemplating not the waves, but the clouds above them. Four months ago, prior to his arrival, a missile had stained the sky on its final approach. He'd seen the simulation of it in the training hall. Now, he stood and watched its absence.
Standing at the end of a nearby breakwater, a native man made a mistake. He lost his footing, pitched forward and fell. The flare of fear was almost immediately dulled to guttering embers as his head struck the uneven concrete, and he tumbled into the water, half-conscious. The current began to pull him out towards the sea. Jadus did not move.
Then the fear rose again, as a heat haze emanating from nearby spectators, and slowly boiling the man in the waves, as he reawakened to his misfortune. Addled as he was, he could not swim. The terror burned hot enough now to rouse the Sith from contemplation. As instructive as chance destruction would be to all who saw it, he would benefit more in the short term from a response.
Should he be given the opportunity, he will raise a hand towards the now distant form, drawing on the fear and loathing of death and shame of inaction around him to lift the man from the water, slow, gentle, like holding something gossamer that could be so easily broken. If another were to reach the man before him, they are welcome to do so.
3. (In the moonbase): Stand Within the Domain of the Enlightened
He returned to the planet's moon with a small sample of his work hidden beneath his robes. The construct functioned appropriately on the planet's surface, in the conditions its component parts had evolved under. But if a ship were to leave this fragile little world, it would do so without artificial gravity. This was the closest he could come to what it would be like.
He ascended to the observation deck, turning away from the crowd gathered at one bank of windows to view their home in the sky above. He faced the black sky opposite, focusing between the stars, on what was not.
By the Porter's machinations, the power he felt within him was not the Force. It was something lesser, bounded by distance, unable to cross even the gulf between planet and moon. Trapping him. Step beyond its bounds, and he might suffocate. Bleed all that he was into the void, and fall cold.
He turned this feeling towards the sample, hidden beneath his robes in the confines of its carrying case, fed slowly by waste air vented from his helmet, unable to taste the sun. The void was so close to it, and it was given so little to flourish.
"Will you fail?"
4. (Wildcard): enjoy this Day
[I'm on plurk atpaleantiquarian and discord at CellarSpider#9984. Hit me up there or in DMs if you want a special prompt!]
WHERE: De Chima, Heropa, the moonbase
WHEN: uh
WHAT: Experimental meditation, something heroics-shaped, and... more weird-ass meditation he's really into that. Open to wildcard.
WARNINGS: near-drowning, vague sith nonsense
1. (In the woods near De Chima): Begin From Darkened Edges
The early morning was overcast, the air sodden with moisture. Far in the distance, thunder growled and purred. But meditation in the forest still felt entirely unlike the damp murk of the Kaasian wilds. This forest was young. By natural or directed means, no tree older than a century stood here. On Dromund Kaas, the trees rose like great obelisks scattered across a monument field, beasts of great size and ferocity stalked both canopy and forest floor, and everything shivered with Dark.
His chosen place between the trees was slowly becoming more familiar. Plants were twisting in response to his focused thoughts and the remains of his projects, warped and gnarled. Scattered remnants of his experimental organisms formed a wide ring of decomposing meat and plant matter around the periphery, run through with flashes of metal and the dull gleam of plastic, no longer fused by his will.
A wide, shallow bowl sat before him on the forest floor. He'd set a delicate wire mesh upon it, then filled it with a mix of water and algae he'd collected. Onto the vivid green muck he placed a single broad leaf.
He knelt, hands in loose fists in his lap, and slipped fully into a meditative state. Before him in the bowl, the leaf began to soften, edges fraying away.
This was a concept piece. A first concerted test for the life support system he had promised the ship builders. All his other rotting projects had been purely experimental, testing his capabilities. Personal. And yet this was hardly different: If the message of his prophecy was rejected, he would have a use for this.
It was a shame there were no deep woods here. He had claimed this place, but it was still close enough to inhabited land and woodland trails that privacy could not be guaranteed.
2. (At the beach in Heropa): Bind the Ocean to the Earth
He stood at the shore, contemplating not the waves, but the clouds above them. Four months ago, prior to his arrival, a missile had stained the sky on its final approach. He'd seen the simulation of it in the training hall. Now, he stood and watched its absence.
Standing at the end of a nearby breakwater, a native man made a mistake. He lost his footing, pitched forward and fell. The flare of fear was almost immediately dulled to guttering embers as his head struck the uneven concrete, and he tumbled into the water, half-conscious. The current began to pull him out towards the sea. Jadus did not move.
Then the fear rose again, as a heat haze emanating from nearby spectators, and slowly boiling the man in the waves, as he reawakened to his misfortune. Addled as he was, he could not swim. The terror burned hot enough now to rouse the Sith from contemplation. As instructive as chance destruction would be to all who saw it, he would benefit more in the short term from a response.
Should he be given the opportunity, he will raise a hand towards the now distant form, drawing on the fear and loathing of death and shame of inaction around him to lift the man from the water, slow, gentle, like holding something gossamer that could be so easily broken. If another were to reach the man before him, they are welcome to do so.
3. (In the moonbase): Stand Within the Domain of the Enlightened
He returned to the planet's moon with a small sample of his work hidden beneath his robes. The construct functioned appropriately on the planet's surface, in the conditions its component parts had evolved under. But if a ship were to leave this fragile little world, it would do so without artificial gravity. This was the closest he could come to what it would be like.
He ascended to the observation deck, turning away from the crowd gathered at one bank of windows to view their home in the sky above. He faced the black sky opposite, focusing between the stars, on what was not.
By the Porter's machinations, the power he felt within him was not the Force. It was something lesser, bounded by distance, unable to cross even the gulf between planet and moon. Trapping him. Step beyond its bounds, and he might suffocate. Bleed all that he was into the void, and fall cold.
He turned this feeling towards the sample, hidden beneath his robes in the confines of its carrying case, fed slowly by waste air vented from his helmet, unable to taste the sun. The void was so close to it, and it was given so little to flourish.
"Will you fail?"
4. (Wildcard): enjoy this Day
[I'm on plurk at
paleantiquarian and discord at CellarSpider#9984. Hit me up there or in DMs if you want a special prompt!]
no subject
You are welcome here.
[The leaf unravels faster, stripping away the lamina and leaving only the veins, twitching oddly.]
no subject
[ She steps into the clearing shortly: a young woman in a white dress, with pale, tangled hair and a dirty face. She bends down to lay her fingers on a lump of rotting flesh, and a host of the crawling things within start climbing up her arm. ]
I'm very welcome. We're all friends here.
no subject
Yes. You bring corruption with you. Bring out what was already rooted. [Yet, it is not entirely like the Dark Side tainting the grove. Something else is there.]
I am Darth Jadus. We have spoken before.
[His mind reaches out, long and grasping filaments from beneath his mental armor. Carefully stopping short, tasting the ambient aura around her. Something else about it feels familiar.]
no subject
[ Not entirely dissimilar to Dark Side, no. There is corruption and death, certainly, and something that most would call madness. But there's neither malice nor mercy in it- just hunger, diligence, patience, love. There is no readable human mind in this shell. Whatever she (it?) is was not meant to be contained in a mortal form- and without the porter's nanobots, her living body would surely consume itself.
No one is more disappointed in the Maiden's humanity than the Maiden herself. ]
The meat humans called me Many-Wriggle. I'm always busy. Always, always.
no subject
[The rules have changed. He can use less refined materials, create without the support of alchemical artifacts and Imperial laboratories. But they fall to madness soon without his intervention, and lose their forms soon after.
And now, something new, and more constrained. Despite his desire to examine further, he does not do so. Not until some acceptance or ignorance of it could be discerned. She first real sign that the Porter would stray far beyond the humanoid, but could not abide them to remain as such.
Something to observe and learn from.]
And you are limited as well. Will you seek to escape the flesh?
no subject
Sought. Stubborn meat. But we're patient, patient. Living is- what we c-call- a self-solving. Problem.
no subject
[The veins that were once a leaf have arranged themselves into a ragged grid, overlaid on the metal lattice suspended in the liquid, slowly growing new tendrils that weave and fuse together.]
no subject
Porter bitch.
[ Or if the noise didn't, that does.
She peers over to his work. It's not hard to grasp the generals of it. Human invention was rarely of interest, but this is her business. ]
no subject
[The mesh and plant matter are slowly fusing together, wires now looping and twisting around and through organic tissue solidifying on the metal. Crude, he thinks. He's not yet at his limit. But this will suffice for its purpose.]
Others are seeking foes beyond Earth. Should humans make the journey, I will see to their life support. My constructs will consume their waste and provide them their air and water.
[This one was a test. Many more would be produced, joined together and given roots to drink from. Pores to bleed fresh water from. If the ship is built, as some still hope.]
The journey may tell us how far the Porter's reach truly extends.
no subject
[ A noise of agreement.
She looks over his experiment again, cocking her head like a curious animal. After a long moment, and certainly without asking permission, she extends a hand over the vessel, and a number of creatures obediently step off her fingertips and into the muck. ]
I see her. Your little daughter. A tiny, tiny circle, but complete to keep the canned meat fresh.
[ ]Her eyes close to better listen to the reaction as the little scraps of life are recycled. ]
eventually i remember what tags are
[A more reliable daughter.]
I volunteered to keep them alive. They are driven by terror to explore and attack. Their ambitions are useful.
[The algal scum in the tray is thinner now, but it crawls over the tiny interlopers, submerging them in the liquid.]
But they act without consideration of danger. They stir the humans to fear, and they do not have the grace to shape it. The results may devour our ambitions for freedom.
[Beneath the surface, new roots reach out from the developing construct, branching to ensnare them, nearly microscopic root hairs growing like mold over their captured prey.]
If they do not heed my warnings, I will break the circle.
[The ideal contingency would be to sabotage the mission before it could launch. But if the opportunity did not present itself, he could abandon this daughter of his. Without his guidance, she would go mad within days.]
o haaay
[ An insurance plan. How very human of him. But in truth his disregard for his creation and comrades doesn't bother her overmuch. It's his motivations and methodologies that hold her interest. Escaping Lachesis' bullshit would become necessary sooner or later, but space travel was only theoretical to even the most advanced humans she had known.
She makes another wordless thinking noise. ]
How far, how long?
no subject
[The root hairs enter through mouthparts, respiratory pores, anything they can find to reach inside the creatures and leech the life from them.]
Sixty million kilometers, to a moon of Earth's closest neighbor. A trivial distance, but it will take them days.
[The little hybrid thing in the dish strengthens, roiling slowly with new deposition of algal skin.]
There are humans here who may have the skill to build better craft. But this world lacks the parts they need.
[With no way to isolate hypermatter, there would be no faster than light travel. But even simple sublight drives were beyond this planet, as were the inertial dampeners to render them truly useful. Technicalities that rarely had to be dealt with.]
no subject
[ She smiles beatifically at the bugs as they're subsumed. It's an intriguing question, and possible option for escaping this humiliating flesh prison. ]
no subject
[He brings a hand down over the construct, gathering an electrical charge around it, reaching his senses out to the new little creature, monitoring it to see how it fares as the first stirrings of current flow through the wires.]
I traveled through a Porter to stand upon Earth's moon, looked up at this planet and its mass of living and dying creatures, and I sensed none of them. I turned to the stars, and I felt nothing. Utter void.
[It had been terrifying, a betrayal of reality itself.]
I could sense only my immediate surroundings. The Porter's range of influence must therefore be smaller than the moon's orbit.
[He tilted his head towards his guest for the first time since she had made herself known.]
There may be a test flight of the Alke, sending it beyond the moon. It would be a suitable opportunity for you to try.
Until then, the moon provides a unique experience. I travel there regularly to meditate. I would invite you to make the journey as well.
no subject
She nods. ]
Yes. Let's take a walk.