Undisclosed Island
Selen, Dajorra System
39 ABY

Once again he found himself adrift in the void, so far away from any solid footing to anchor himself on.

The Jedi spoke of the peace and calm it should bring to a respectful soul. The Sith spoke of the intense and raw power it gave when fed with passion. Yet, not once in the many times he had ventured here did he feel any of those things. Here he found neither serenity nor passion. Instead, it was a sense of completeness.

The tendrils of the Force wrapped around him, enveloping him in an intangible cocoon. It was as if he could feel the entire beating heart of the Galaxy— thump-thump. Here, his mind so far off into the expanse of the Force, he was able to forget about his pain, forget about his suffering; and he had endured more than his fair share of both.

Yet, ever since that fateful day on Arx, the day that should have been his last, his soul had finally felt complete. His body had healed slowly, but his mind only grew ever sharper in his solitude. And with his newfound connection to the Force, he had made his decision.

He would take it all.

Thu-thump-thu-thump.

His pulse quickened as more tendrils of the Force swept over him. This was why he had once again reached out, so close to seeing what was just out of his grasp. He focused, sure this time would be the one where he would finally have the clarity to see what was on the horizon. Slowly the shapes gained definition, and a growing sense of dread welled up inside him. He realized he was not alone here.

Thu-thu-thu-thumpthu-thu-thu-thump—

Ding!

Evant Taelyan’s eyes snapped open, mind ripped back into the here and now. He clenched his jaw, flushed with rage at having been pulled out of his meditation. He had been so close to seeing, to understanding the threats before him. A web of hairline fractures spun out around him on the cool stone he was kneeling upon with a series of cracks so quiet it was like dying screams.

He took in his surroundings, reorienting. There was no completeness here, no void between slipstreams. The room was dug into ancient sandstone, small, dimly lit, filled with a haze of smoky incense. There were pillars in each of the four corners of the room, each carved carefully by his own hand in the script of the ancients, ur-Kittât. Each rune he had painstakingly etched brought with it more clarity to his vision.

For months now, his body had been recovering here, a secluded island on the Arconan homeworld. Above him was a medically well-equipped abode secretly granted for his use, but down here, this was his domain alone. Pulled from the wreckage of the Dark Ascent, his body had needed a lot of time and effort to repair and recognize itself, despite his savior's healing. He was unsure just how long he had been embraced by the Force, but upon being thrown back into the world of the living, his only limitations had been his broken body that could not then contain his newfound power; his connection to the Force was more now than he had ever imagined possible.

Ding!

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Summary

• Evant Taelyan has spent the last months recovering in secret on Selen

• His power has grown immensely since his brush with death on Arx

• He senses a threat, one that is also actively sensing him as well

• Dacien, James, and Idris arrive at Evant’s request

• James is already onboard with Evant, having helped save his life. Idris is happy to get more credits. Dacien needs some self-reflection to acknowledge how powerful Evant has become.

• Elsewhere, The Tenixir Revenants have been raiding abandoned Collective supply caches, a form of payment from their odd passenger (Avitus).

• Zyft mentions she caught Avitus “talking to himself” on the ship.

• Mav reflects on how his goals for a new Sith Empire, and a bringing true order to the galaxy have not gone to plan.

• He decides it is time to fall back on one of his many contingency plans, and summons all of the DC and Consuls.

• Avitus pokes around a dig site and talks to himself some more

• The voices from the crystals he stole speak back. He has made the primary one the central crystal in his new lightsaber.

• Everyone arrives to the throne room, to find a cloaked and hooded Mav staring out the windows.

• Rhent Ghosen (Goose) arrives demanding to know why ACE resources are being sent to the clans

• Evant arrives, tells Goose it was him, and then crushes Goose into a tight ball of ground up flesh and bone.

• Mav does a spooky ‘Phantom of the Opera’ disappearing trick, along with leaving a note for his successor.

• Between support from the Justicar, a healthy amount of blackmail and intel leakage, resources from ACE, and peer pressure under threat of death, the Dark Council and the Consuls acknowledge Evant has cleanly taken the throne.

• Evant names himself Darth Nehalem (A river in Oregon where Evant is from, also a code name for an intel chip so double fun connections there)

• The Seer ritually murders a man and experiences a vision of Avitus poking around a dig site talking to some voices he hears from a magic crystal.