Nomi and the All-Furnace

The interior of the catamaran-turned-submarine is just as cramped and uncomfortable on the journey away from the All-Furnace as it was on the journey out there - maybe even more so now, thanks to the gigantic cephalopod now taking up a good chunk of floor space. Nomi Amersu finds herself reaching for the meditation skills she's recently spent so much time practicing. Maybe if she takes a few moments now to ground and center herself, it will be easier to make sense of everything that just happened and to face whatever might be coming next.

The darkness behind Nomi's eyelids is absolute. Before long she feels her heart rate slowing and her breathing evening out, her racing thoughts beginning to calm and sort themselves into a more orderly pattern. She thinks she might be ready to talk coherently to the others now. But when she opens her eyes, darkness is still all around her. The sights and sounds and smells and other sensations of the submarine are nowhere to be senses - just an impossibly dark, silent space, completely different from the place she expected to be.

Damasa Kovani's voice suddenly echoes in Nomi's ears. "Hello? Is someone there?" She sounds nervous and uncertain.

Nomi blinks rapidly, trying to resolve some sort of light into her vision. It doesn't work. Taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly, to maintain her calm, like Efnir Kis showed her, she finally answers Damasa after a long wait. "Damasa? It's Nomi. Where are you? Where are we?" she asks. Nomi does not sound nervous; she does sound curious. While she has no idea what is going on, she doesn't see any source of danger in this infinite black and her composure from meditation remains intact now that the first moments of confusion have passed.

Damasa's tone grows even more alarmed. "Nomi? I told you to leave! Why didn't you listen? You all have to get out of here! It isn't - " Her voice cuts off abruptly, as if someone ended the transmission on a commlink. Only silence replaces it. But somewhere in the darkness, Nomi can now see a tiny point of reddish light. She gets the sense of it being far away from her, as if a vast empty space is somehow surrounding her.

"Damasa? We did get out!" More quietly, muttered: "Or at least, I thought I did. What in stars is going on?" Nomi strains to look at the small red light, to feel anything around her. Is there a solid surface under her feet? Can she touch her own body? Or, like she described it to Vic what seems like ages ago, is she just aware of being aware and now, of the light and nothing else? If she has no body, can she transmit herself to the light, just by deciding to be there? If she has a body, can she propel it forward by moving its legs across whatever surface she is on?

As she concentrates, Nomi is aware of both her own body and the ground beneath her feet - a hard and constructed-feeling surface, like the floor of a house or deckplates on a ship. She begins to move forward, closer to the light, hearing the faint thud and echo of her feet against the floor. It's hard to maintain a sense of time with so few external stimuli to help track its passing, but it feels like she walks for a long time as the light gets gradually larger and closer in her vision. She feels as if her legs should be tiring or her pulse accelerating from this level and duration of activity, but strangely, neither of those things seems to be happening. As she moves the shape of the light becomes clearer: a faint rectangular outline of red light, as if she's approaching a closed door with a light source on the other side shining around its edges.

Nomi continues toward the red outline at the same pace which she has been keeping. As she goes, she experiments, checking all of her senses. If she covers or closes her eyes does she still see the red door? Can she smell anything or hear anything besides her own footfalls? Does she feel it when she pinches herself? Nomi then checks her new sense of the Force, not sure what she might be able to sense, but she was meditating when she arrived to this place, so it is possible that she will be able to sense something.

When Nomi covers her eyes, it blocks out the view of the outline. She can feel the pinch she gives to herself. There don't appear to be any noticeable smells in this place, but as Nomi moves closer to the light she can hear a faint low hum growing in volume - sounds like something mechanical. When she opens her senses to the Force, she feels intense dark energy swirling all around her - similar to what she felt inside the strange facility beneath the sea when she reached out to suppress the dark spirit's powers.

Feeling a bit more cautious now that she knows she can feel pain, at least the little pinch she gave herself was a small bit of pain, Nomi reaches out with the rubber-soled toe of her boot to gently probe the "doorway;" hoping that if it is an energy barrier of some sort that the boot will provide some protection from any conduction. The rectangle that had been outlined in red swings open slightly and the strip of red light widens as the mechanical hum grows louder. Curious, emboldened by the lack of response to her movement, Nomi uses her hand to continue to motion of the "door" stepping forward into the gap so that she can see what is on the other side.

Nomi steps through the door and finds herself in a place that is, oddly, familiar. She recognizes the carved and strangely marbled material of the walls and floors, the distinctive architecture that Efnir said must have been designed by the ancient Sith, and knows herself to be back within the All-Furnace. But something about it is different than the dusty, abandoned facility she just left behind. The large octagonal room she has entered appears to be empty of other living beings, but it isn't dark and silent like the All-Furnace was before. She can see now that the source of the red light is emanating both from fixtures embedded high on the walls and the screens of computer terminals built into a number of desks positioned all around the room. It reminds her of some sort of control center. Chairs are pushed away from the desks, and in some cases tipped over entirely onto the ground. The screens scroll and flash long strings of text written in the same Sith language Vic Dantor's translator struggled to decipher. The hum she heard before seems to be coming from these computer terminals, which are working very hard at something or another, even in the absence of their operators. It is as if the people working on these computers abruptly got up and left in a considerable hurry, perhaps through one of the several wide-open doors that lead out from this room into identical-looking hallways. However, when Nomi looks over her shoulder to see if she can spot the entrance she came in here through, she sees only a solid and unbroken wall behind her.

omi rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands and looks around. If only Vesper Syl'tine were here, or Vic. Nomi is helpless with computers. Knowing that she won't be able to get any useful information from the terminals, especially since she can't read Sith, she bypasses them all together. As she walks across the room to the closest open door Nomi tries to think back to any time in her life when she's heard about someone using the Force to travel through time, travel to a different location or just go into an existing moment in the past with their mind. Perhaps she is in someone's memory like others see when the Firith Mobak-ghost showed Firith's memories. Thinking of the artifact, Nomi wishes she had had her abilities when those visions were first seen, she would have been able to see them, not just hear them!

She looks out of the door first, then walks through, looking for she knows not what.

Though Nomi's experience with the Force and its associated legends is (as she well knows) admittedly limited up to this point, she can't think of any stories she's ever heard about people physically time-traveling by using it. Mentally, as far as she knows, a lot more is possible. She remembers overhearing conversations at the Jedi Temple where Knights and Masters talked about using the Force to look into the past, just as it can be used to catch glimpses of the future. If she had to guess, she'd say something similar is happening now.

The hallway she's entered is long and narrow, curving gradually to the right while also sloping gently upward. Closed doors line either side of it. There is still no one else in sight. But as she walks, Nomi thinks she hears Somi Amersu's voice echoing in her mind:

"You're strong enough to make it through this. I believe in you."

"Thanks Som." Nomi responds to the well-wishes. Honestly at this juncture in her life it doesn't matter if the vote of confidence is real or imagined. If she is imagining it, it is because she knows that her sister has faith in her and her abilities. If it is real she can hear it because her sister has faith in her. It all pans out to the same thing,

Nomi puts a hand on the wall as she walks, following the slow, gentle upward curve. As she does so, she tries to do what Efnir had been working on showing her, she tries to sink into that mind-space of meditation where she follows what the Force is showing her and goes where it wants her to go. Apparently there is something she is supposed to see and if she came here through the Force, she needs to navigate what it wants her to do.

As Nomi walks and brings Efnir's lessons to mind, she thinks she hears his voice in her mind too, accompanied by a powerful sense of support being conveyed in her direction:

"We're back on Avernus. All of us are okay. Please wake up. There are two scones on the table."

Nomi tries to "wake up," though she feels fully awake here in what is apparently the All-Furnace again. A scone sounds amazing. For a moment she feels as though she can smell them.

I hope Vic is getting a good scan of whatever is going on in here right now, she thinks.

Aloud, Nomi says "Hello? Is there anyone here that can hear me? Why am I here right now?"

It's probably not too surprising when "waking up" doesn't seem to happen. Efnir will have to explain whatever he meant by that later. But a voice responds to Nomi when she speaks, though she can't tell where it's coming from. It doesn't sound amplified by a speaker, yet seems to occupy the entire space around her. It's masculine, but soft, and when it speaks it does so in the Twi'lek language.

"I wanted to show you something important. But it might be hard to see. When I saw how you weren't like the others, I started having second thoughts. I think now...it should be your choice. Do you want me to show it to you?"

Nomi feels some surprise at how calm she remains. "What do you mean, not like the others? Because I'm new at this or is there something different about me?"

She shrugs. "I'm here, so you might as well show me this important thing. I like knowing important things." She responds in Twi'lekki as he spoke to her in it, her Lekku conveying emotional depth and tone that she never speaks with fully in Basic.

"Are you new to it? That would explain things. You don't have the same preconceptions that some others do. Beginner's mind, my master would have called it. At first I thought you might have been a child. A child shouldn't see this, but...I'll show you, then. Keep walking."

As Nomi picks up one foot to put it in front of the other again, the environment shifts subtly yet perceptibly around her. It's a little like an imperfect edit in a holovid - the feeling that she's traversed a long distance in no time at all. The backdrop of her surroundings isn't that different - curving dark walls, that sloping floor - but their contents are. Bodies lie all around her, some in bloodied white robes, some in the same metallic armor she saw the Sith spirits reanimating before. Many of them are still clutching lightsaber hilts. Ahead of her, around the curve and just out of sight, Nomi hears the sounds of battle.

"Yes. Fresh as a babe in the ways of the Force, but not in the ways of the world. My name is Nomi. Who are you? What are you?" she asks as she takes a step and falls silent as the world spins around her.

"Oh," she responds simply to the new sight around her. She may not be a child, but that doesn't mean she enjoys seeing the dead. Figuring that she is supposed to witness this, it's important, Nomi takes a breath and picks her way around the corner trying not to step on anyone and also trying not to be seen by anyone, just in case.

"My name is Ryor Sand," the voice says, slowly and uncertainly, as if remembering the answer to a question no one has asked it for ages. "I died here. A long time ago."

Nomi moves delicately and quietly as she walks, but as she comes to the end of the curving corridor it becomes clear that nobody else in this place (if they're even really here) is paying attention to anything she's doing. They have much larger concerns.

The end of the corridor terminates in a wide-open set of double doors that leads outside to some sort of large, circular plateau made of grey and brown rocks. Lightsaber blades in red and green and blue are flashing all around the rim of some kind of central crater. Now Nomi *does* smell something new: fresh air and a salty breeze, much like the smell of Sura Sindo that's become familiar to her over the past two-ish weeks. Though the smell is familiar, the sky overhead is anything but - the gas giant that is at least a little visible at all times of day or night is gone, replaced by a few glowing moons and unfamiliar patterns of stars. The most intense fighting seems to be centered on a walkway that protrudes out over the edge of the crater. Several figures are fighting there, two red blades against many blue ones. From this distance, Nomi can't see them any clearer.

"Ryor. Did you die defending this place, or attacking it? Is this Sura Sindo? I thought it was, but," she gestures up at the sky. "This is very different from how it looks now. Like the planet is not in the same place."

Nomi moves out onto the walkway, trying to see what details she can make out, as there's something here that this Ryor wants her to see.

Ryor doesn't answer - at least not yet. Nomi moves toward the walkway with the fighting continuing around her. None of the participants stopping to notice her passage - as if she is a ghost herself, drifting through a memory.

As she approaches the walkway, the image becomes clearer. The battle taking place pits several people wielding blue lightsabers against one woman wielding a red lightsaber in each hand. The woman with the red sabers is plainly very skilled, but the numbers aren't on her side. Little by little, her adversaries force her backwards toward the end of the walkway. Nomi's gaze drops to what's below and sees a vast lake of magma, similar to the one beneath the All-Furnace only even bigger. As the woman teeters on the very edge, she lifts her head and Nomi recognizes the face of the spirit she saw in the facility below: Alashaa Sanu. She doesn't look especially frightened or even alarmed by what is happening to her. A sudden smirk splits her face and she tips backwards over the edge. The people fighting her rush forward, watching her fall -

The scene around Nomi freezes. Ryor's voice echoes out again, sounding as if it's directly behind her now. "They didn't understand it then, and you don't understand it now. The Sith didn't build the All-Furnace on Sura Sindo. They made Sura Sindo into it. And when she died, she became it."

Nomi walks forward to look over the edge, just as the others still standing on the platform are frozen doing. "But, what is the All-Furnace? And why did the Sith make it?" She asks. Nomi looks amongst those frozen there for any Twi'lek. "And what role did you play in all of this?"

Nomi peeks over the edge to see Alashaa Sanu's body in the middle of being consumed by lava. That same weird smirk is still on her face. Nomi looks away. Turning around, at the other end of the platform she sees a Twi'lek standing over a corpse - or, more precisely, the spirit of a Twi'lek. He's young, fairly close to Nomi's own age, and wearing Sith armor with a lightsaber hilt at his belt. The substance of his whole being is made up of red translucent energy, like the other spirits within the All-Furnace. When he speaks, he uses his lekku too, conveying a sense of deep sadness with his words.

"It's a weapon, of course," Ryor says. "That's all the Sith really knew how to build. I tried to stop it. But I made up my mind too late."

Nomi's Lekku gesture in a manner expressing sympathy and wishes for peace. "So, what can I do to stop it now? What can I do to stop Alashaa? Help me now, and maybe it will not have been too late after all. We all make decisions we regret. It's what we do with them after that makes a difference in ourselves and hopefully for others." After a moment she adds. "Do you need help? Are you stuck like the others? Is there anything I can do?"

Ryor's lekku undulate, conveying his distress. "I wish I knew. The only way I know of to stop it would have been to stop her all those years ago. I want to help you. All I can think of to do is to tell you what I saw.

"Stuck? Yes. We all are. But she is too. For now."

"okay ..." Nomi pauses as she tries to figure out what's next. "So, what kind of weapon? Besides being a powerful Sith? What is the All-Furnace meant to do? And why is Sura Sindo in a different location now? How did that happen?" Nomi gestures at the sky indicating the change in scenery. "In present day there is a gas giant, not moons... Or is this on the other side of the planet?"

Ryor opens his mouth to speak, but as he does, the surroundings of the All-Furnace begin to melt away around Nomi. Against her will, she can feel herself waking up, coming back to full consciousness somewhere else. Her eyes snap open and she finds herself lying on a cot near Rogue Ronto's bacta tank with Beepo hovering inches away from her face.