Log:Knights of Ren: Fractured Wisdom
Knights of Ren: Fractured Wisdom
OOC Date: July 23, 2018
Location: Coruscant
Participants: Knights of Ren: Kylo Ren, Ravelyn, and Lioria Thrace
After the discovery of a seemingly nonfunctioning holocron on Korriban, and a brief run-in with prospectors/archaeologists/raiders, the Knights of Ren have been summoned to Coruscant by Kylo Ren. After gathering his two favored apprentices the dark warrior has led them into the bowels of the planet's lower levels, searching for answers to questions he hasn't particularly shared with the other two until now.
His helmet is worn again, as it generally is when he doesn't want to draw too much attention on the streets. It's odd for such a distinctive mask to be less memorable than his face, but one is broadcast on holo-transmissions across the galaxy, and one is not. "The men we killed on Korriban should not have been able to /find/ that holocron," he's saying as he walks through a deserted alleyway. "For the same reason they were not able to open it. But whoever /could/ have found it should have known how to open it and been able to do it." For good measure, he pulls it out of an inner area of his robe as he walks, waving it over his shoulder at them with almost reckless abandon. "Such a little thing to kill over." It fits in his hand, if just barely. "And this one is... difficult."
Ravelyn always wears a mask, it's just how this Knight of Ren rolls, so it can't be any surprise that today is the same as every other encounter with the Knights. Mask, robe, armor, gloves, keeping every bit of what lies beneath covered. As Kylo leads the way and speaks, Ravelyn follows, listening and looking to the force artifact as it's carelessly waved over his shoulder. "What makes this one so difficult?" The question has a curious edge to it, though everything spoken through the vocoder has some sort of edge to it.
Lioria didn't have far to travel for this as she was already on Coruscant. The woman was in her armor though per the usual. Because she didn't know what they were getting into. R0-LY is also following them this time. "Do you think someone gave them the information?" she asks. There's a tilt of her head as the holocron is shown again and there's a nod to that information, "Do we have any indication of who it might have belonged to, or not until it's opened?" she asks.
"I think there's no way they found it on their own," Kylo answers, continuing along through the alleyway, his boots tromping into a puddle with a wet splosh. "Its gatekeeper is... stubborn," that to answer what makes it difficult. "I'm not sure if it's even functioning properly and hasn't been corrupted by... whatever those men we killed were doing to it. The Force makes holocrons possible but they're still physical objects, and they can be tampered with." Turning down a side passage, he heads down a clogged, rubble-ridden section almost too tight and cluttered to pass through. "Be on your guard. He sent us down here, and while I had my doubts at first... I sense something."
"I don't see how they could have found it on purpose without a force user to guide them," Ravelyn agrees, taking a leaping stride to clear the puddle that Kylo just walked right through. "An accident, maybe, but were it an accident, they wouldn't have understood what they found. That man clearly knew it was important." A bit of rubbish is batted aside with the toe of a boot, but the game of kick the can ends as the helmet turns slightly, as though seeing something. "I sense someone, too. Interesting. You would think they'd try harder to hide it, considering."
"Wonder who gave them the information." Lioria ponders as she follows them. The puddle is walked through, she doesn't really care about it. R0 goes around. "Stubborn seems to be a running theme in some things." she admits. Then she's looking to the spot where things are supposed to be sensed and there's a look to the other two. No, she's having an off day. She then looks back to the rubble.
"Maybe they want to be found," Kylo's processed voice suggests as he stares down the narrow, irregular passageway towards where it seems to end behind a wall of debris, fallen struts and girders that used to help hold up the levels above which are now blocking the path through. "Or think they're not worth finding. Or that they can't be reached." Nodding towards the pile, he lifts a gloved hand and makes a gesture as if to shoo it aside. "Get this out of the way."
"That may be so," Ravelyn answers as a gloved hand lifts to assist in the removal of the oversized debris. This is something that this particular Knight seems adept at, or at least appears to be so today. "I've seen people do many foolish things that made no sense looking back on it."
The rubble moves, some of it coming free more easily than others, the chunks of duracrete, durasteel beams, plasteel girders, all of it being lifted and shifted and eventually floating out of the way, a process that might have taken hours with manual labor. When it's finally moved, the chunks are all dropped n new locations, revealing a door and a path through to it. The dark knight steps forward and opens the door, pushing a key on a control panel that crackles and spits but still functions.
The light within makes it hard to see much, but that's not really that different from the alley they just came from. The space feels large, though, and a sour presence hangs in the air, almost nauseating even for these Dark Side practitioners. "I wondered how long it would take for you to find us," a deep voice intones from the shadows, and a figure in black robes steps forward. "And you brought the holocron with you." Reaching for an object at his side, a glowing red blade appears, piercing through the gloom. "I am Darth Signus."
The rubble moves, mostly thanks to Kylo and his mad force skills, which is nice when it's no your side of the fight. With the way clear, Ravelyn continues to move with Kylo, through the doorway and into that dark space. And then the source of pinging on the force radar reveals itself. "I suppose this all makes more sense now," the knight remarks, taking a step to the side away from Kylo, giving them more room to move and react to this new opponant. "Why is it you wanted us to find you? Just to bring the holocron?"
Lioria is following after them and then suddenly, there's a red lightsaber out and then more black robes than she counted. The woman steps off to the side of Ravelyn, giving them some more space. There's a look to Darth Signus, "Uurmyat thryoklosfi swisk plyor thryoklosfi smo isk tsyok, plyact, hutwyovri ithath pliyox kloiz chwit," she states in that unknown language she speaks sometimes.
"The Sith are /dead/," Kylo all but spits from inside his helmet, and another crimson lightsaber comes crackling into life as the Knight ignites his blade, the unstable red giving the room twice the tinted light as before.
"No religion dies as simply as all that, you know this," the unknown man called Darth Signus chides patiently, like a father instructing a headstrong child, and from behind him, there's another snapping hiss as yet a third blade lights the room, red again. "You killed one of my apprentices on Kohlma and then you stole my holocron. I simply seek to balance the account," he informs Ravelyn as another black-robed figure steps up to join him, this one smaller and thinner.
"You left your holocron with incompetent fools," Ravelyn responds as a couple more steps are taken, turning slightly to look at the smaller, thinner figure with the lightsaber. "You could have just asked for it back?" The suggestion is bland, and probably sarcastic, but that can be hard to convey through the vocoder. Rather than speak more, the knight turns and simply uses that same skill as before, only this time rather than move rubble, the force impacts the slender figure with a brutal force in an effort, attempt to throw it back against something and injure more or less any part of it that the Knight can.
"For people that claim a religion, you don't understand it's language." Lioria growls out as she takes her lightsaber from her belt and ignites it. There's a look given to the other figure that joins them. "You were a fool to bring more with you is what you were." she states when Ravelyn throws the figure almost effortlessly. She follows after to follow up with the lightsaber, but misses the unknown person.
Darth Signus starts to laugh at Ravelyn before the Knight abruptly sends his apprentice flying, crashing into something in the dark and nearly killing the feminine person outright. The identity of apprentice number 2 just got a lot less important, and with a snarl of rage, he lunges forward at the attacker, swinging his lightsaber at her with a humming chop of brutal and deadly power.
Kylo's response to this is the pull on the power of the Dark Side against this 'Sith', pretender or otherwise, to protect his own apprentice, managing to lessen the damage and block some of the attack outright as the Force itself steps in to fill some of the gap that even armor faces when dealing with lightsabers.
Lightsabers are no joke, kids. Even with the combined power of Kylo stepping in to help lessen the damage, and the armor that the knight wears, the crackling 'blade' still manages to find and exploit a weak spot, hitting flesh beneath. Ravelyn stumbles back from the attack a few paces, then drops to one knee in an effort to not sprawl on the ground completely. One hand is braced against the ground while the other lifts reflexively to fend off the attacker. It's as much an attempt to push Darth Signus away as it is to do the Sith harm, but any harm done in addition to distance is certainly a nice bonus.
Lioria's suddenly feeling a bit less concerned for herself when Ravelyn gets hit by the 'Darth' and there's a moment taken to go after the man with the lightsaber. Might be foolish on her part, but distracting might be good for the moment. And that's basically all she's doing for the moment. Because her swing goes wide and off target!
Ravelyn's telekinetic attack pushes Signus off balance, and Lioria's attack distracts the black-clad man. There's a lot of folks in black, it's dark side on dark side in here, and when the opportunity is given to him, Kylo lunges forward, thrusting his crackling blade through the other man's chest to sputter and sizzle as flesh and organs turn to charred ash before the blade is withdrawn, leaving the mysterious man a smoking shell on the floor. If the labored breathing in the corner is any indication, his apprentice is not long for this world. A heavy boot prods at the dead man's robes, as if to assure himself that he is, in fact, dead. "He was weak and foolish," the masked man announces to his own followers, the words not exactly triumphant. Instead the tone is wooden and the words are dropped out quickly as if holding them in his mouth any longer would make him sick. "So we destroyed him. There will be others, and we will do the same. Light and dark. They join us, or they die." A gloved hand fumbles at his side, checking his robes to be sure the holocron is still there. "Ravelyn, take care of the student."
The wound hurts, of course it does, the unseen skin beneath the armor singed, burnt, blistering, it's pretty unpleasant, but it brings what needs to be done into sharp focus. Ravelyn's teeth grit, jaw clenched while rising until the knight is upright once more. "If this is an example of the Sith, it's no wonder their time is done." The words are spat out, anger positively dripping from each syllable as one gloved hand lashes out. The blow that hits the Sith apprentice is brutal, not unlike being hit by a run away speeder, the force of it causing something, or many things, in the chest of the apprentice to crack, to crush, to break severely enough that if life remains, it probably won't be there for long.
Thankfully Lioria is the odd one out with crimson armor and she ducks out of the way when Kylo comes swinging with his lightsaber. It's a little crowded in here. She looks down to what is formerly Darth Signus and gives a bit of a nod to Kylo, "Foolish to come here and to bring the student." she agrees. "I'm not sure what he was trying to prove, but we'll prepare for others." she states. She wasn't happy they'd gotten into Coruscant...or maybe they'd always been there. It was a mystery to her.
Something is still lingering in the air down here. The darkness shifts and deepens, and Kylo pulls the holocron from his robe quickly as if the object has suddenly become unbearably hot, even his gloved hand not lingering on it long as he drops the thing onto the floor with a metallic clank. Deep red glyphs swirl and twist inside it, and suddenly flare brightly as a red projection, nearly as large as life, takes shape above it, an imposing bald figure of a powerful man, angrily looking around at the three Knights. "A thousand years in waiting and I awake to find the Jedi dead and the rule of two corrupted. These... mummer's fools, jackanapes posing in borrowed clothes, disturb my rest with not one apprentice but two. Two."
"We did your dirty work and purged your 'disease', old ghost, now share your secrets," Kylo barks at the gatekeeper, deactivating his lightsaber and putting it back on his belt. "You made a deal and I've kept my end of our bargain."
"No. You are no Sith and you are no better than these that lie dead. Consider that your first and only lesson. Although..." the figure turns towards Lioria. "You speak the old tongue of my people. What are you doing here with these destroyers?"
Kylo's thumb brushes thoughtfully against the activator button of his lightsaber, the mask concealing his expression, but the connection they all share to the Force makes it fairly obvious that he's less than pleased with this turn of events.
"If you think we're pretenders, you should see the joke the Jedi have become," Ravelyn hisses out the words, head turning to regard the 'old ghost' that inhabits the holocron. After that the masked Knight goes silent, simply standing there observing the holocron, and now Lioria as well.
Lioria tilts her head at the ghost and then reaches up to remove her helmet, "I was taught the old tongue as a child by my grandmother, whose mother taught her." she tells the ghost. "These destroyers?" she looks around. "You were an actual Sith in life, yes? Not in just name but actual pure blood, yes?" she asks the ghost. "We are not destroyers. We are trying to keep the peace and restore balance that people have undone." she states as she presses the button on her lightsaber. And she knows how Kylo hates negotiations.
"I am- was, a human like you, but I was the Sith'ari foretold by prophecy. The Rule of Two was mine. And now it has been spat on by imposters like these," a spectral hand held out towards the dead Darth, "and destroyers like you. But... if you have a reverence for the old ways, perhaps you could be taught. Perhaps you could be the one to renew the rule that brought down the Jedi Order, or all but the tin echo that's left of it," a harsh chuckle at Ravelyn's jibe.
Kylo's masked helmet is expressionless, staring at the gatekeeper as it makes the offer to Lioria, and after a long moment, he turns towards her and gives a short nod.
Aside from that jibe, Ravelyn has little to add to this, simply standing there like a statue that smells faintly of burnt flesh, and irritation. And impatience, probably, if one were to gauge by the number of times the knight glances back at the doorway through which they arrived.
Lioria's gives a soft ah, "That makes more sense." she states as she looks to him. Though his words concern her and there's a look to Kylo, because that's crazy talk. When he gives a nod to go ahead though the white haired woman steps forward, "My reverance for the old ways has a very long story to go with it. One I can tell you somewhere else. But we all must adapt to the new order." she states. Then she's crouching to pick up the holocron, hoping it doesn't burn her.
At Lioria's touch the device goes cool and the gatekeeper vanishes as the lights fade away from inside it. "We'll talk about this later," Kylo decides, because clearly the whole 'reviving the Sith Order' is a thing that he's not onboard for, but hey. "If there are secrets he can teach us we'll learn them and leave the past in the past. Where it belongs." Taking a cue from Ravelyn's impatience, he turns to stalk back the way they came.
