Tarnus Maelon (WIP)

[Pembleton]

Name: Tarnus Maelon, Lord Agoniah
Race: Hapan
Age: 76
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 175lbs

Appearance:

 

Unlike the many Hapans who go to extreme lengths to maintain their outward appearance, Maelon allows his many years and his experience with the dark side to show in his pale, sunken, gaunt face. Still, his eyes are the most striking thing about him – yellow from the influence of the Force, they are the only indication to an observer that they are not, in fact, looking at a corpse, as they are always penetrating and calculating.
 
His build is tall and lean, but with more muscle tone than one would expect from a man his age. He is not excessively strong, but maintains his level of fitness with a daily cardio regimen and fencing sessions three times a week.

His clothing is all well-made and tailored for him, less as a mark of personal vanity and more to indicate his appreciation of the finer things in life. He is equally at home in business clothes or robes, but always in black, with silver trimmings if applicable. However, on the occasions when dressing that way would be inadvisable, he is not so attached to his clothes that he will not deign to dress down – unfortunately, his upright bearing and commanding presence often will give him away as more than he appears to be when he attempts to don a disguise.

Personality:

Maelon is, quite simply, the kind of man who believes that evil is the most efficient tool to accomplish good. This conviction is the pillar of his character, a conclusion drawn from his many years as a scholar of both sides of the Force, and he considers it his mission to guide those with the capacity for great evil towards the same realization. His honest belief is that the galaxy would be most productive, happy, and efficient under an iron fist, and his allegiance to the Sith Order comes less from the desire for personal power and more from the recognition that his voice among a victorious Sith state could potentially improve the galaxy for everyone.

This is not to say that he is a completely beneficent personality. His principle sin is pride, as with many Sith. His natural gifts have been augmented with many, many years of training, and he personally believes that he is the wisest Force-sensitive individual in the galaxy (regardless of the veracity of that statement). In interactions with others, this manifests itself as an impression of airy detachment and condescension - he enjoys the feeling that he is several steps ahead of every being he meets, and feels humiliated in the event that anyone manages to catch him up.

This feeling of humiliation is one of the few things that can crack his icy exterior, along with any display of disrespect towards his abilities or his ideals. The perpetrator of one of these sins is typically made the object of a no-holds-barred Force beatdown, accompanied by a very quietly-delivered lecture on understanding one's place in the food chain.

His experiences amongst Hapan nobility instilled in him a distinct appreciation of beauty, elegance, and luxury. While he is not concerned about his personal appearance per se, his clothes are maintained impeccably, and his quarters decorated lavishly as a reflection of the status he perceives himself to hold amongst his Sith peers. Although he would be loathe to admit it, he has become rather accustomed to living the high life over time, and while he would willingly set aside his many possessions and creature comforts if necessary, he would find the life of an average civilian wanting, and the utilitarian lifestyle of a Jedi is nothing but a distant memory to Maelon.

Birth place: Hapes

Faction: Sith
Rank: Master

Previous Faction: Jedi, Fringe (Grey Jedi), Dark Jedi
Previous Rank: Padawan, Knight, Master

Starship: Coulé-Class Starship (link) - Ascension (false transponder lists as Hapan pleasure yacht Lady Tenen)
(Modified: Second transponder code, wing-mounted lasers, top-mounted turret, hidden compartments reconfigured into turret gunner's station, reactor upgrades to provide extra power for custom turret installation)

Equipment: Zeison Sha Discblade (link)

Lightsaber: Single blade, curved hilt (link)

Color: Purple

Practiced Lightsaber forms:

Shii-Cho 5
Makashi 5
Soresu N/A
Ataru N/A
Shien / Djem So N/A
>>Sub-form Backhanded N/A
Niman 5
>>Sub-form Jar-kai, or Dual Wield N/A
Juyo N/A
Double Bladed Combat N/A

Force-Sensitive Abilities or practices:

Telekinetic: 9
Telepathic: 7
Body: 6
Sense: 8
Protection: 0
Healing: 0
Destruction: 6

Specialized Skills:

Drain Knowledge - mastered
Force Wave - mastered
Force Sight - mastered
Language: Shyriiwook - understood

Attributes:

Physical Strength: 4
Intelligence: 8
Speed: 6
Leadership: 5

Unarmed: 0
Melee Weapons: 0
Ranged Weapons: 6 (Zeison Sha discblade), 0 (conventional weapons: blasters, etc)

Bio:

1

Tarnus Maelon was born with no great ceremony to a minor Hapan noblewoman in the Queen Mother's court. For having the misfortune of being male in the matriarchal Hapan society, the boy was quickly ruled out as a potential inheritor to his mother's estates and titles, and thus was given into the care of his father, an accomplished musician and consort of Tarnus' lady mother. Formis Maelon gave his son a name, a home in his private salon in the Royal Palace (more of an upper-class studio apartment for when Formis' "services" were not required by Her Grace), and all the love that the boy would soon find denied him by his mother.

Lady Tenen Galney never inquired about her son in the time he lived on Hapes, never interacted with him beyond ensuring that Formis had enough money to feed, clothe, and entertain the child, and after the boy left Hapes, she lived out her life in relative obscurity amongst the Hapan aristocracy, hardly acknowledging that she had ever been a mother.

Tarnus lived the first 5 years of his life in the beautiful tranquility of the Palace. He was cared for by his father or, in Formis' absence, one of Lady Galney's handmaidens. Unfortunately, this woman's close relationship with his family led to Formis becoming infatuated, and when he found that the handmaiden reciprocated his feelings, certain indiscretions were committed that were impossible to hide in the gossip-ridden halls of the Royal Palace.

When word reached the ears of Lady Galney, both the handmaiden and Formis were quickly dismissed and publicly denounced. Formis and Tarnus' residence in the Royal Palace was terminated, and the handmaiden refused to stay with Formis, seeing her humiliation and firing as his fault. This left the boy and his father alone and with barely enough credits to book passage off-planet. Knowing that he would not be able to find another comfortable position in the female-dominated Hapes Consortium with his reputation, Formis hired a Hutt merchant to carry them to his native system aboard his freighter (and was thus grossly overcharged for quarters that amounted to little more than a storage closet). Still, he hoped that his skills as a musician might earn them a place in one of the Hutt bosses' courts.

2

Unfortunately for the Hapans, the merchant's intentions were less than honorable. Rather than letting them off at his next stop, the captain transported them to Sleheyron and immediately sold the pair as slaves, an easy enough transaction for two penniless runaways whom he claimed to have stowed away on his ship. Tarnus and Formis were now the property of Chagga the Hutt, the master of several prominent Tibanna gas mines on the planet.

Had the Force not intervened, Tarnus Maelon would have been raised a slave and likely died along with the countless others under the cruel yoke of the Hutt Masters. Thankfully, among Chagga's retinue was a relative newcomer, a dark-cloaked Twi'lek who claimed to represent a significant party from the planet Ryloth who hoped to do business with Chagga. In reality, the Twi'lek was a Jedi Master, sent by the Council to look into certain rumors about under-the-table weapons dealing to Republic worlds that originated with the Sleheyron Hutt bosses.

When the Maelons were brought before Chagga the Hutt, Formis having convinced their overseer that he might entertain the master with his musical talents (and thus avoid the dangers of the mines), the Jedi sensed  spark of the Force in Tarnus. He visited the slave quarters that night and explained to Formis that he might purchase the boy from Chagga to reinforce his cover and have him quietly sent to Coruscant for enrollment at the Jedi Academy. Unfortunately, the price to purchase both the boy and his father exceeded the Jedi's means, and any attempt to help the pair escape would foil his primary mission.

Formis had no great love for the Jedi, being a descendant of the once-mighty Lorell Raiders, who had been purged from the Hapan system by Jedi centuries before, paving the way for the establishment of the female-centric monarchy. Still, he knew that his son's life on Coruscant would be much safer than the existence they would eke out on Sleheyron, and eventually being forced into the mines once the Hutt grew bored with the sounds of the Hapan lute. He accepted the Jedi's offer, and spent his final few hours with his son playing the boy's favorite lullabies until the Jedi returned, led by the overseer, and took his child away forever.

3

Life in the Jedi Temple suited Tarnus. Having known very few children his age growing up, he had become a solemn, bookish sort of boy, and even as a very new youngling, he devoted himself to his Jedi studies. When he had exhausted the materials available to him for a given week's lessons, he spent his time reading for pleasure, taking in the peaceful sights of the Temple, and exploring his budding connection with the Force.

His teachers noted that he was average at best in remote drills with the lightsaber, but an eager student of history and far advanced in his understanding of the theories and the Jedi philosophy of the Force. When applying the Force directly, he had a natural grasp of telekinesis, able to set aside the common doubts about the size and number of objects being lifted and focus on allowing the Force to move through him, trusting in his own sense of purpose to direct it the way he needed. Not long after his youngling class was introduced to meditation on the Force, Tarnus also demonstrated a remarkable sensitivity to the ebb and flow of the Force energies around him. With some practice, he was soon able to enter a deep meditative trance, feeling the currents of the Force moving and, he was surprised to hear from his classmates, levitating small objects in orbit around him.

As the boy approached age 12, his continued visits to the Jedi Archive for both his studies and to satisfy his many curiosities drew the attention of a certain Jedi Master called Giddean Porcil. Porcil was something of an oddity at the temple; neither a fighter nor a teacher, he considered himself a student of the Philosophy of the Force, and spent his time researching ancient and modern developments in its use, an scholar of rare abilities and techniques. When the Kuati inquired about the youngling he saw almost daily in the Archives, he was impressed by the breadth of the boy's areas of study, seeing how his natural curiosity about the Force drove him to seek out new ways of thinking.

The next day, Tarnus received a message from Master Porcil, formally extending his offer to take Tarnus up as his Padawan learner. This would set the tone for the rest of their relationship (as the boy eagerly accepted); the Kuati Master was formal, urbane, and rigid in his manners, a personality which assisted him in approaching the many various Force-using sects he visited or studied with in his line of work. He set a strict training schedule for his Padawan, consisting of two hours daily of combat practice and physical training, four hours of studying, two hours of meditation and reflection on the Force, and frequently sent the boy to attend lectures held in the Jedi Temple, either for his own enrichment or to take notes and record the lesson for Porcil's later examination.

At the end of each day, Tarnus would enter his master's quarters and deliver a summary of his progress in his studies. Porcil was moderate with his praise, but noted that his Padawan was often well ahead of where he would have expected in terms of his retention of histories and the various esoteric philosophies which he needed to familiarize himself with in order to truly begin to assist with Porcil's work. He was unsurprised to find that Tarnus spent most of his free time in the Archives researching further into his assigned topics, relishing the new databanks and servers he had access to as an official Padawan learner.

Porcil commended the boy on his diligence, but suggested that he would do well to cultivate his other skills, or even to take up a hobby or interest. He began to take his Padawan to the various centers of art and culture in Coruscant, hoping to get Tarnus interested in something that would allow him to take time off from the rigorous dual life of a Jedi/Academic. He soon found that his student was a fan of classical music, and resolved to call in a few favors to acquire season tickets for the Coruscant Full Symphony, which he gifted to the boy along with a free night out to use them whenever he could.

4

At age 14, Tarnus was rapidly approaching the point where Porcil would begin bringing him along on his expeditions to various temples and bases of Force-users across the galaxy. In preparation for this, he stepped up the boy's combat training regimen and introduced  survival training into their routine, in the likely event that the pair had to rough it on some distant world. Having noted Tarnus' natural telekinetic ability, Porcil introduced a new challenge to him: a second lightsaber form, which he would study concurrently with his Shii-Cho training.

Niman, the Master explained, was an effective tool for those who focused more on their connection to the Force than their skill with a lightsaber. It was undemanding, and allowed Tarnus to tap into the energies around him to guide his blade rather than try to master the intricacies of personal combat, a task which was beyond him at this point. It also freed the boy to put his Force powers to use, and he was soon quite adept at blasting away at his droid sparring partners with Force pushes. Porcil, puzzled by his Padawan's reluctance to fully take advantage of the environment around him with telekinesis, was unsatisfied with the excuse that focusing on the flow of the Force kept him from exercising any such powers.

In a post-combat-simulation meditation session, Porcil instructed the boy to enter one of his trances. As Tarnus did so, the Master's voice echoed in the back of his mind:

"When you meditate, you feel the energy of the Force flowing not just through you, but through all the beings and objects around you, no? Observe the sensation of the Force flowing through me, how it differs from the energy in the open air, in the machines in this room, and everything else in the galaxy. For now, you can use it to determine simple things - you know where I am standing, you could find your way to the open space of the door, you can point to the training droids. In time, you will be able to sense the Force so well, its eddies, flows, and the empty spaces it cannot occupy, that you can paint a picture, as an underground creature does with sonar, of your entire surroundings. This is the beginning of Force Sight."

Tarnus had always been merely an adequate swordsman, but the introduction of Force-guided combat into his fighting style changed his entire approach. Over the course of a year, he made rapid improvements to his capabilities in battle, congruent with his progress with Force Sight. The ability allowed him to see how the flow of combat related to the flow of what surrounded it, and thus connect the two. The Niman form was designed to allow its user flexibility in using the environment to their advantage, and Force Sight showed the boy where to maneuver himself, where to move his blade, and what objects were around that could easily be turned into projectiles or temporary shields.

The ability also allowed for certain improvements in his scholastic endeavors. He grew more adept at allowing the Force to tell him where to look, where to go, how to find information and accomplish his tasks. The sensation of an object that would be useful to him, that was necessary to accomplish the goals the Force had for him, he learned to associate with a kind of glow in his Force senses, like priority tagging in a HUD. When engrossed in research projects, he could now stride from one end of an aisle in the Archives, eyes closed, picking out the datacards and texts he knew without knowing that he would need and trailing them along behind him with the Force like a row of ducklings.

5

Porcil finally deemed Tarnus ready to accompany him on a mission shortly after his 15th birthday. It was a relatively simple assignment: having observed several Cerean Jedi in meditation with a certain variety of crystal from their homeworld, the Master had arranged for them to spend several weeks in the home of one of the Council of Elders in Tecave City. While there, they would conference with several scholars at the local university.

During their time on Cerea, the Jedi were given the opportunity to meditate with kasha crystals of their own. Although Porcil suggested that the boy keep his crystal to use later in constructing a lightsaber, Tarnus found its effect on his meditations limiting in a way, the hyperfocused state at odds with his observe-everything approach to Force senses.

Still, Porcil felt that their first mission together was a milestone that deserved some recognition; upon leaving Cerea, the Jedi made a detour to Ilum, where the Padawan was allowed to find his first lightsaber crystal, a striking blue specimen. When they arrived home on Coruscant, Tarnus received a private summons to his Master's quarters, where he was presented with a selection of mechanical parts which he was told he could choose from in order to find the pieces to construct a lightsaber. The boy allowed the Force to guide him, picking out the parts that glowed brightly in his mind's eye and topping them off with the blue crystal.

Porcil excused his Padawan from studies for the next month, during which time Tarnus assembled a simple, clean, cerulean-bladed lightsaber. The Jedi Master pronounced the weapon to be an excellent first attempt, and it thus became his apprentice's most faithful and valuable tool until the day it was surrendered to the Order upon Tarnus' departure.

6

The next two years passed uneventfully, with similar low-risk missions interspersed into Tarnus' normal schedule. Exposure to the many different Force-sensitive organizations his Master contacted diversified the boy's understanding of Force philosophy and he established the habit of adding the bits and pieces that he found useful to his own development and application of Force abilities.

By age 18, Porcil considered his Padawan to be as knowledgeable in the Force as the average Jedi Knight, and his bladework was improving all the time. Still, the young man had led a relatively sheltered life so far for a Jedi, exposed to little real danger or tests of his character. Accordingly, Porcil sought permission from the Jedi Council to begin taking Tarnus on more dangerous and uncertain assignments, that the Force might give him an opportunity to prove himself ready for Knighthood.

An opportunity presented itself almost immediately. Porcil, through his various contacts and associates, caught wind of a rare occurrence: a delegation of monks from the Order of Dai Bendu was rumored to be traveling through the galaxy. They had recently been seen on Kashyyyk, supposedly performing some kind of ritual on the deepest levels of the forest floor, what the native Wookiees called the Shadowlands.

The Order of Dai Bendu, which predated even the Jedi, was a mysterious organization, whose members were seen so rarely that it was presumed several times throughout history that they had died out and their knowledge had been lost. Any opportunity to learn from them would surely benefit the Jedi Order, so the pair immediately set off for Kashyyyk.

Upon arriving, Porcil arranged for them to be brought to the Shadowlands through a contact of his, a certain Wookiee shaman who held some degree of influence with his village chieftain. They were guided by the Shaman's son, Ralobuck, who would help them establish a base camp and assist in protecting them from the underlevel's many dangers as they searched for the monks.

Upon establishing their camp in the Shadowlands, the trio set out, with Ralobuck guiding the Jedi as they tried to pick up traces of their quarry in the Force. After a week, they had found no sign of the monks, but vague sensations in the Force and their Wookiee guide's expertise informed them that they had attracted the attention of a pack of katarns, vicious predators who were deadly even to seasoned Wookiee hunters.

The beasts had menaced them several times on their journey, but they finally made a concerted attack one night, while Ralobuck was on sentry duty. Without the Jedi's danger sense to warn him, he was suddenly set upon by a pair of the beasts, while another two attempted to force their way into Porcil's shelter. Tarnus stumbled his way out into the open air to see Ralobuck barely holding his own, bleeding profusely and being circled by the katarns.

The Padawan froze. He had never participated in real combat before, never done anything more dangerous than live saber training in the safe confines of the Jedi Temple. His master was still fighting his own fight and nowhere to be seen, and the boy's training, his studies, suddenly meant nothing. His companion was going to die, and he was powerless to stop it.

He was snapped out of this reverie by a sudden flash in his senses - time seemed to slow as he saw the katarns prepare to pounce, he could feel where they would be, and more importantly, he could feel where to exert himself to keep them from reaching his friend. He did not need his lightsaber - he raised both hands and heaved in the Force. The sensation was not like his previous use of telekinesis, like a hand reaching out to grab; it felt more like throwing his mind up against a wall, pushing and pushing until finally it crumbled, allowing the full force of his will to explode outwards.

As the beasts soared through the air towards Ralobuck, they were met with a solid wave of Force energy which blasted them back into the wroshyr roots with the force of a cannonball. As Tarnus rushed forward to ensure they were incapacitated, Porcil suddenly reappeared, victorious from his fight, and tended to Ralobuck's injuries. Listening to the boy's explanation of what had happened, he discerned that the event had been one of those rare acts of the Force which had unlocked a hidden ability in his Padawan in order to show him how to accomplish its will. The power, he said, was an early manifestation of Force Wave. True masters were said to be able to generate a telekinetic force like an explosion outward from their bodies.

With Ralobuck in no shape to continue through the forest, the Jedi were forced to return to the upper levels. Thankfully, they were unmolested by any more of the wildlife as they carried the injured Wookiee in turns with the Force. Upon their arrival at the Wookiee village, it was pronounced that Ralobuck would survive thanks to Tarnus' timely intervention, although he would remain in the care of the village healers for several more months.

The Jedi found no such rest among the Wookiees. They were approached by the Shaman, Ralobuck's father, who bore grave news. In a village not far away, the monks of Dai Bendu had reportedly chosen to honor the Chieftain and his elders with a gift of ancient Force knowledge. The monks had done the unthinkable and taken up arms against their Wookiee hosts at the ceremony arranged in honor of their friendship, slaughtering the elders in front of the disbelieving eyes of their families.

Nothing in Porcil's admittedly scarce resources on the Dai Bendu had suggested any such tendency towards violence. Therefore, the description of this senseless attack aroused both of the Jedi's suspicions, and further inquiry revealed that the "monks" had an unexpected ally in their fight - apparently, they had commanded a pack of katarns to keep the Wookiee audience at bay while they carried out their massacre.

This information raised more questions than answers for the Jedi. Still, the involvement of the katarns allowed Porcil to form a tentative explanation for what had happened. Some number of Force-users, using the reputation of the Dai Bendu to disguise them, had entered the Shadowlands and gained control of the beasts. Sensing the Jedi searching for them, they had sent a portion of their thrall to cover a rapid escape to the surface and thence off-planet.

Further inquiry seemed to confirm this theory; the Shaman reported that the false monks had no ship of their own, having arrived on the transport of a passing spacer. After their massacre, the imposters had proceeded to the chieftain's private landing pad, which housed one of the only hypserspace-worthy starships within a thousand kilometers. They had been holed up by the village's warriors while searching the dockmaster's quarters for activation codes. This meant that the Jedi might still have time to prevent these mysterious enemies from leaving Kashyyyk.

Within an hour, Tarnus and his master had taken up positions with the Wookiees at the landing pad. The warriors had previously been at a stalemate, easily pinning the sentients inside the dockmaster's quarters with fire from their bowcasters, but unable to advance against the katarns between them and their targets. The Jedi were able to turn the tide, using a concerted telekinetic effort to tear a heavy beam from the landing pad's guard rail and sweeping a great number of beasts off the walkway and to their deaths on platforms or branches hundreds of meters below.

As their allies engaged the remaining katarns, new confidence sprouting from their sudden numerical advantage, Porcil led his apprentice past the great melee and into the dockmaster’s quarters, where they were confronted by three hooded figures. There was no time for negotiation; the enemies sprang to engage as soon as the Jedi entered. Knowing his Padawan’s strength was flagging, Porcil maneuvered himself as best he could in the cramped quarters to ensure that he could stay between at least two of the Dark Jedi and Tarnus.
This left the boy back-to-back with his master, facing a single opponent with little room to maneuver. Even had there been an abundance of space and telekinetic ammunition available, though, the exertion of his previous trek and fight had worn Tarnus’ stamina down considerably. Within moments, he was on the defensive – seconds later, he was frantic. As he barely managed to bat the enemy’s powerful lightsaber strikes aside, a cold, rasping voice seemed to enter his mind.

Whispering through the fog of exhaustion threatening to overtake the young Jedi, this voice urged him to flee. He would not win. He could never win. In seconds, the boy would be in pieces, and his master would soon follow. How foolish he had been, to think he was ready to face the Trials, to set out on this mission, and to engage himself against a true master of the Force.
The voice was seductive, despite the harsh quality he could feel in the echoes it left in his skull. At first, he thought it was the Force – his constant ally, telling him it was his time to go, that his fate was to die here on the planet of the Wookiees at the hands of some unknown adversary. He opened himself to its will, prepared to fall if that was his destiny.

As he fully immersed himself in the flow of the Force, though, he felt his mind clear, the voice suddenly muted as though heard through a thick layer of glass. With his connection so reinforced, he suddenly realized that he was not hearing the Force speaking to him, but the dark figure with whom he was clashing. The enemy was trying to wear down his mental defenses and gain an opening, he saw. Though he knew he could not best the Dark Jedi with the saber, Tarnus drew up all of his remaining energy and gave a final, desperate push. Caught by surprise, the hooded figure was slammed backwards into a wall, his head smashing against hard wood with a sharp crack.

Tarnus barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before there was a sudden roar, a crackle of energy in the air, and then the world erupted into pain, and fire, and finally blissful darkness.

7

The boy awoke in a place that was unfamiliar to his eyes, although more attuned senses suddenly flooded back to him, the gentle aura in the Force that he associated with his home, the Jedi Temple. A gravelly Mon Calamari voice informed him needlessly that he was safe, to lie still, that his Master had been summoned. Within 5 minutes, he was looking up into Porcil’s weathered face. In the clear, formal voice that Tarnus knew so well, the senior Jedi explained how their mission had ended.

As the Padawan had struggled against his opponent, Porcil had slain one of the other Dark Jedi and been engaged with the other when Tarnus had suddenly lashed out with the Force and ended his fight. Porcil’s adversary had seemed to be enraged by this, blasting both Jedi with an immense storm of Force Lightning. The boy, already faltering, had succumbed to unconsciousness, and the final Dark Jedi had made his escape when Porcil rushed to his apprentice’s side rather than reengage the combat.

The Jedi Master had rushed them back to Coruscant, where Tarnus could receive advanced medical treatment for the severe burns he had sustained. Unfortunately, the surviving adversary had disappeared without a trace, and the fallen Dark Jedi’s corpses offered no solid information, other than the fact that they were a Miraluka and a Kiffar, two relatively uncommon species in the galaxy at large.

Tarnus could not suppress his sense of disappointment that his weakness had allowed one of their enemies to escape, but Porcil, in an uncharacteristic show of tenderness towards his Padawan, reassured the boy that his safety was far more important than capturing the Dark Jedi. Furthermore, the Council had deliberated during his recovery, and decided that the boy’s actions on Kashyyyk, both in the Shadowlands and at the landing pad, constituted successful completion of both the trials of Flesh and Courage (although his brief duel was not considered substantial enough for a Trial of Skill).

With the knowledge of this success to buoy his spirits, the Padawan was not even distressed to learn his injuries would confine him to the temple for at least another few weeks, and Porcil had decided to give him a break in missions for several months beyond that to better prepare him for the field. While the situation on Kashyyyk had been an uncommonly strenuous one, Tarnus had demonstrated a need for some more focused combat training.

8

He endured his stay in the Temple infirmary with good grace (although he prevailed upon his master to bring him datapads from the Archives so that he might continue his studies from the hospital bed), and upon being pronounced fit to return to his own quarters, immediately resumed attending lectures. The Jedi Healers had warned him to refrain from strenuous physical activity for another month still, and the lack of stimulation resulted in a sense of wanderlust, which Porcil understandingly obliged by granting his Padawan special dispensation to leave the Temple rather more often and visit Coruscant’s many museums and art galleries.

Following this month of recuperation, he returned to a full training schedule with new energy, which he would direct towards a line of study that had his Master slightly surprised. After their first full sparring session in some time, Tarnus brought up the subject of beginning instruction in another lightsaber form. The duel on Kashyyyk, he explained, had revealed a weakness in his swordsmanship – fighting in close quarters, or in a sparse environment with little ammunition for his telekinesis, he was at a distinct disadvantage against an opponent better versed in the ways of the lightsaber.

The solution, he concluded, was to augment his fighting style with the second Form, Makashi. This would give him something to fall back on in the event that their travels brought them into contact again with Dark Jedi. With Porcil’s blessing, they immediately added study of Makashi to the daily schedule. It suited many of Tarnus’ strengths, not requiring excessive power for its blows and allowing him to use Force Sight to improve the footwork that was key to the form. Using primarily a single hand to control the blade, he was also free to exert himself through the Force with the other, executing his customary telekinesis as well as refining his technique with Force Wave.
On the night of his 19th birthday, Maelon (as he finally rather stuffily informed his Master that he would prefer to be called, feeling the formality better suited what he regarded as his approaching Knighthood) was taking in the symphony when a chance encounter occurred that would shape his entire future. While trying to enter the concert hall, he heard his name called in a boisterous voice. The speaker was Joro Muldoon, the Republic Senator representing the world of Empress Teta, and a casual acquaintance of Porcil’s whom they had met on a prior visit to one of Cinnagar’s universities.

Joro, new to his position, had recently proposed his first piece of legislation to the Senate, but found himself lacking in support from his colleagues. Ever the opportunist, he recognized that a perceived association with the Jedi Order might serve to improve his standing in the eyes of his fellow senators. Maelon thus found himself half-dragged by the elbow into the line of sight of several holocam-toting newshounds as Joro loudly invited “my old friend, Master Tarnus!” to join he and his daughter in their private box.

Porcil’s influence had left the young man with impeccable manners, and he graciously accepted the senator’s offer, not recognizing the man’s opportunistic intentions. Within minutes, he came to hail this decision as the luckiest he had ever made (although in later times, he would lament it as the worst mistake of his life).

He was introduced to Joro’s daughter Pella, a young lady of 18, and to Maelon’s eyes the most beautiful woman he had ever met. Years from that day, he would come to realize that he had forgotten her face entirely, remembering only the red in her hair and the faint whiff of perfume that he caught in the air around her. He spent that night, though, with the beautiful music of the Coruscant Symphony drifting unheard past his ears as, in the darkness, he studied every aspect of her visage with his Force Sight, delighting simply in her presence.

Following the performance, Maelon surprised Joro and himself by readily accepting the senator’s invitation to join them in their box whenever he found time to hear the symphony again. As the young Jedi joined the senator and his daughter at least twice a month during Porcil’s imposed break from off-planet missions, his infatuation for Pella grew, and was eventually noticed by her father; luckily, he was sufficiently mentally disciplined to hide the feelings from his Master, but in the girl’s presence, his dreamy gaze and stumbling tongue gave him away immediately.
Although Pella held no reciprocal affection for Maelon beyond being flattered by his obvious attention, Joro encouraged their contact, still under the impression that he was being politically savvy by reinforcing an association with the Jedi. The senator’s daughter was subjected to multiple pre-concert dinners with her father and Maelon, doing her best to deflect his awkwardness with grace. Although she certainly did nothing to lead the smitten young man on, his good judgment and all the urgings of the Force were superseded by his personal feelings for her, and his foolish mind mistook her easy charm for romantic interest.

Between these infrequent and heavenly encounters with the young lady he was rapidly coming to believe he loved, Maelon continued to hone his combat abilities. His talents still being in the scholarly and philosophical fields, he was not a natural fighter, and the strain of improving both his Niman and Makashi while simultaneously trying to achieve mastery of Form 1 (as was customary for Padawans prior to their elevation to Knighthood) left him exhausted at the end of every day. Still, with enough practice, eventually the physical training became routine as his stamina increased – furthermore, his entire sense of movement and balance was altered by the influence of Makashi, and his prior gangly teenaged awkwardness was replaced by a new grace and fluidity in his movements.

Had he not been neglecting his other skills in exchange for the increased combat training, life might have turned out very differently for Tarnus Maelon. As it was, however, he spent much less time in his personal meditations and studies; he completed assigned work and carried out missions with Porcil when finally deemed ready for them again, but chose to rest or immerse himself in further combat study in his free time in lieu of pursuing his former habits of reflection and independent study.

It was perhaps this sudden cessation of his deeper communions with the Force that led to Maelon’s dreams. In scattered flashes of color and sound, he saw Pella, cut down by a dark figure’s lightsaber as he stood by, powerless and immobilized, unable to come to her aid. Over time, new images began to crop up: yellow eyes, a wheezy voice cackling in mad delight, and finally the faintest wisp of danger sense began to pervade the end of every dream, leading to the young Jedi’s nights being interrupted multiple times by rapid, confused awakenings, fumbling for a weapon even as reality sank back in.

He was unable to consult with Porcil about these dreams, which he took to be a sign of the Force sending him a warning. He knew his Master would only chastise him and it would spell the end of any contact with the object of his affections. Still, the dreams continued to increase in their frequency and intensity, until Maelon finally became so distressed that he had to act. Throwing aside all reason, he followed Joro and his daughter home one night instead of returning to the Temple after their concert. Using his Jedi training, he bypassed the security at the senator’s residence and was soon standing outside Pella’s bedroom, his heart racing with adrenaline (among other hormones).

Unsurprisingly, the girl was absolutely mortified by the appearance of her not-so-secret admirer in her personal quarters. Feigning polite interest in the Jedi had been one thing, but as he babbled on about seeing her in his dreams, how he intended to take her away with him so he could keep her safe from the dark figure he saw, she realized that he was, quite simply, unbalanced by his feelings for her. Terrified that he might become more forceful if she actively resisted his advances, Pella did the only thing she could think of and activated the panic alarm that she kept on her person at all times. Within moments, the room was flooded with personal security agents, who were baffled by the unique circumstances of having to detain a Jedi in a senatorial residence.
 
Joro was furious with Maelon (despite the part he had played in encouraging the young man’s interest in his daughter). The young Jedi was brought before him by the security agents, silent from the shock of having been so summarily and thoroughly rejected by his love, and subjected to a withering rant that served to illustrate the depth of his folly. The senator was prepared to recommend to Porcil and the Jedi Council that he be expelled from the order; when he received no reply from Maelon, he was further incensed, so much so that he actually struck him.
There was no thought in the Jedi’s reaction; pure reflex moved him, powered by all the self-pity, heartbreak, and growing sense of humiliation that was creeping up his spine as he imagined what his actions had done to his future. The senator was suddenly on the ground, cradling his broken elbow even as his team of security guards were screaming at the youth standing over him to back down, put his hands behind his head, and get on his knees.

It was naturally this moment when Porcil arrived, roused out of sound sleep at the Temple and told only that there had been a disturbance at the Senator’s home involving his Padawan. The Jedi Master defused the situation as best he could, permitting the guards to restrain Maelon and have him escorted back to the Jedi Temple detention block as Joro explained (with much exaggeration of the boy’s viciousness and minimization of his own guilt) the situation, his injury easily mended by Porcil’s healing arts.

Maelon would be left in the detention cell, his Force senses nullified by the ysalamiri nesting just beyond the walls, until the next morning. Porcil entered and demanded an explanation of his Padawan. The young Jedi had spent most of the night deliberating for this moment, and could only try to express to his master how certain he had been that the Force had intended for he and Pella to be together. Despite all of Porcil’s reasoning, reminding the young man of his obligations to the Order, the things he should already know about the temptation of the Dark Side and the necessity of detachment, nothing swayed Maelon from the singular thought that was still occupying him – he did what he thought was necessary to save her, to be with her.

This lack of remorse or repentance for his disregard of the laws of both the Jedi and the Republic meant that Porcil had no grounds to appeal on his Padawan’s behalf to the Council. The decision was made swiftly – the boy would remain in lockdown at the Jedi Temple, stripped of his rank and opportunities to rejoin the Order, rehabilitated until he was determined to be no threat to Senator Muldoon’s family or the galaxy at large, and then sent to make his own way from there.
Porcil, feeling obligated to deliver this news to Joro personally, was intercepted on his way out by Pella, who explained more accurately how her father had nurtured Maelon’s affections, going out of his way to push them together for his own benefit, and the Jedi Master saw a spot of hope for his apprentice: in his youth and inexperience, it could be argued, he had mistaken the Senator’s scheming for the machinations of the Force, and so become deluded into such rashness. With Pella’s testimony before the council, the boy’s sentence might even be lifted, and he allowed to remain under Porcil’s tutelage (or, at the very least, commuted to the Service Corps).

The news should have elated Maelon, when his master returned saying the Council was willing to reinstate him. When he heard the reasoning, however, he was crushed. Despite his circumstances, some small part of him had still been clinging to the hope that there was some mistake happening, that his detainment was simply the long way around to being with the woman he loved, and that some other motive had compelled her to reject him initially. Here, though, was the simple truth of the matter: he had been young, and foolish, and prideful in believing he could interpret the will of the Force.

Porcil’s approving response to this line of thinking was cut off, though, as the young man continued to explain: He had been young and foolish and prideful, but Porcil had not stopped him. The Jedi had been just as blind to these transgressions as he had been while committing them; the all-knowing, all-powerful, rule-making, restrictive Jedi had trained him his whole life to trust his feelings, to trust in the Force, and to trust in the Order – and all three had, in his own mind, failed him. Taken aback by this accusation, the Jedi Master could only listen silently as his Padawan made his answer to the Council’s offer.

Two days later, a young man left the Jedi Temple. He wore civilian clothes instead of Jedi robes for the first time in some 15 years, he had no lightsaber on his belt, and his Padawan braid had been untied, allowing his dark shoulder-length hair to flow free. Maelon had no home anymore, and he would never be able to call himself a Jedi again. Without a single look back at the Temple, he merged into the crowds and disappeared.

9

Maelon spent the next few years of his life wandering, but not aimlessly. His departure from the Jedi Order did not constitute the end of his studies of the Force; instead, he resolved to continue on the path he had begun as Porcil’s apprentice, travelling among worlds and Force-users to learn their skills and philosophies. He would not simply hoard this knowledge as the Jedi did, though – he sought to master the Force as no Jedi ever could, bound by the Order’s many restrictions, and to achieve understanding and insight that would allow him never to repeat his mistakes.

Although no longer being a Jedi gave him greater freedom of movement, it also meant he carried little authority, and had few resources to accomplish his goals. This last circumstance was particularly troubling to him as he started out on his own, until desperation and the realization that he would no longer have to answer for the crime led him to the first calculated act of delinquency in his life: with gentle use of the Force, he was able to acquire a cred-chip of no insignificant value right out of the purse of a well-dressed woman who had the misfortune of sitting the next table over at a tapcaf.

Although resigned to the crime’s necessity, Maelon did not relish in it, and the easy credits did not thrill him as they might an ordinary pickpocket. While he was certainly more open to ideas about the Force than most Jedi, he knew that the lure of the Dark Side was easy to succumb to, and that was not a path he dared to walk. In the future, he resolved, when he had attained the knowledge he needed, he would pay back this sin by doing enough good to cancel it out a hundredfold.

The circumstances of his leaving the Order had a profound effect on Maelon’s personality. He was inwardly more cautious and anxious, afraid of making mistakes; any setback on the way towards his goals was considered a personal failure, regardless of whether he had happened to be responsible. He guarded all his emotions jealously, putting up a mask of detachment, and adopting the excessively formal style of speech that his former Master had perfected, finding it much easier to hide feelings behind a veneer of urbanity and eloquence.

The first task he would need to undertake was the construction of a new lightsaber. His travels throughout the galaxy would, he knew, lead him into dangerous situations, and it was the only weapon besides the Force that he had ever trained in; he preferred not to have to take time away from his true studies to learn to wield a blaster or a more traditional sword. Furthermore, the inherent symbolism of the lightsaber, its association with the Jedi, gave its wielders a certain amount of significance in the eyes of the galaxy. While he would not deliberately misrepresent himself as a member of the Order, the mere presence of their weapon on his belt would elevate him beyond the appearance of a tale-telling vagabond and lend him some legitimacy in the eyes of other Force-users.

Maelon’s stolen credits were spent on a shuttle flight to the peaceful world of Dantooine. While most lightsaber parts were easily acquired or repurposed from materials available anywhere in the galaxy, he knew of only a few places where Force-attuned crystals could be acquired, and most of those were inaccessible to non-Jedi. The Crystal Caves of Dantooine, while often utilized by the enclave nearby, were open to any who could brave the dangers of the kinrath who dwelt within, and thus would be the source of his new focusing crystal.

His time in the cave proper was surprisingly uneventful, since the Jedi had evidently reduced the kinrath population during a crystal-gathering expedition mere days before. The few remaining beasts who were daring enough to menace the Grey Jedi were efficiently dispatched by his use of the Force, the only weapon the Jedi had not stripped of him, which he used to slam them onto the sharp stalagmites and crystal formations with brutal efficiency. The final product of his search was a stunning purple gem which he found growing out of a formation tucked away behind the rubble of a tunnel collapse, easily excavated with telekinesis once his Force Sight guided him to its location.

With the crystal tucked away safely, Maelon proceeded back to the cavern entrance. He was impeded from leaving, however, by the sensation of multiple nonsentient presences gathered not far outside. Advancing slowly, he found himself staring down a pack of kath hounds. While the animals were not normally aggressive (barring the influence of the Dark Side occasionally driving them to belligerence at certain points throughout history), their alpha was one of the extremely rare and famously ill-tempered albino horned variant. Picking up the scent of human, the beast bellowed its challenge just as Maelon reached the cave mouth, pawing at the ground in preparation for a charge.

The young man stood his ground, to the kath hound’s evident displeasure. Even as the beast barreled its way towards him, he remained calm and collected. He had no physical weapons, but knew that they were unnecessary in this fight. With a single gesture, like bringing clasped fists down on an enemy’s head, he directed a mighty Force push onto the hound – more specifically, he made sure the blow was focused on one of its horns. Already lowered in the beast’s charge, this sudden jolt caused its head to jerk downwards, its horn dragging a short furrow into the ground before – with a sickening crunch, and a quickly-silenced squeal of pain – it caught, and the kath hound’s own forward momentum served to snap its neck.

There followed a brief moment of stillness before the remainder of the pack, yelping in surprise and fear, began scrambling over each other to flee the scene. Maelon was left standing over the twisted carcass of his kill, unscathed and frankly bemused at the ease with which he had handled the encounter. As he gazed down at the poor brute, he felt a twinge of regret at having been forced to exterminate such a rare specimen. In an act that was half-reverence, half-pride at the accomplishment of having braved the crystal caves unarmed, he reached down and grasped the horn which was still imbedded in the ground. Using the plasma torch that constituted part of his basic survival kit, he removed the horn from the beast’s head and took it with him as he made his way back to civilization, for the curved shape of it had given him an idea.

Maelon spent the next three or so months on Dantooine, doing odd jobs for the local militia and farmers. While most of these services were rewarded with credits (which he used to keep a roof over his head, and saved the excess for his transit off-planet), he managed to acquire parts from the militia’s armory and certain farmers’ toolsheds which were used to construct the shell and inner workings of his new lightsaber. The hilt itself was curved to match the angle of his trophy and when the shell was completed, he spent a night very carefully shaving and hollowing out the horn until he had a smooth grip piece, which was fused around the lightsaber hilt.

With several weeks more of meditation in order to attune his focusing crystal, he finally had a completed product, which he examined with no small amount of pride. It was a Makashi swordsman’s blade, curved gently, and featuring a wicked pair of hooks on either end that would serve as both ornamental blade guards and last-resort weapons in the event that the lightsaber failed. With this project finished, he finally felt ready to leave Dantooine, spending the remainder of his savings on a shuttle ticket.

10

In his 23rd year, Maelon was visiting one of the Unifras temples erected on Onderon, outside the walled city of Iziz. While the planet’s history with Force-users had led him to hope that there might be some knowledge to gain from the leaders of the Unifras, he was dismayed to learn that their shrines had been erected more as tourist traps than real centers of learning. He had resolved to move on to his next destination, but these plans were thrown into disarray by the sudden arrival of the Mandalorian clans.

Making their final desperate push (which would lead to the signing of the Treaty of Mandoa), the Mandalorians staged an assault from the nearby moon of Dxun, landing a detachment of soldiers in the plains not far from where the Unifras shrines had been erected. While their main force attempted to breach the walls of Iziz, these troops had been sent to harass the temple’s visitors and divert the Onderonian security forces and weaken their defense of the city.

Maelon had, of course, studied the Mandalorian Wars in his time as a Jedi; he knew that the Neo-Crusaders had slain untold numbers of the Jedi Generals during their last push against the Republic. Still, he had a duty to the galaxy and its innocent peoples, and immediately made his way to the front steps of the building, where the temple’s meager security detachment and the few citizens brave enough to take on a squad of Mandalore’s finest were struggling to erect a barricade to keep the invaders at bay.

During the last few years, he had learned to take advantage of the impression given by a young traveler bearing a lightsaber – as the defenders saw him approaching, purple blade at the ready, cries of “The Jedi are here!” rang out, and he could feel the morale of his new comrades lifting substantially. They instinctively deferred to him, fear replaced by a certain blind faith that he felt it would be counterproductive to dispel by admitting his status as an exile from the order. He took command of the defense forces, using the Force to speed the construction of their barricade before he placed them in defensive positions (trusting in the Force to tell him where to direct his men more than any real understanding of the tactics of pitched battle).

He spent the last few moments before the enemy arrived ushering frightened tourists to safety inside of the temple. A sudden eruption of blasterfire drew him back to the stairs, where his defenders were engaged in a grueling melee; even with their efforts, the Mandalorians had soon rushed the barricade and were fighting their way, step by step, up towards the temple proper.
No combat he had ever participated in matched up to the sheer ferocity of a fully-armed Mandalorian shock trooper. The first soldier he engaged nearly took his head off in one clean swing, the power behind his heavy beskad blowing right through Maelon’s elegant defensive screen. He knew immediately that Makashi would be of no use, the quick jabs and glancing strikes unsuited to penetrating tough beskar armor even at its weak points.

RP Sample:

The chamber echoed with an unending cacophony of screeching, grinding, crunching machinery. The competing stenches of oil and smoke hung over the place; they were joined by the countless other smells, some almost sickly sweet, some nauseating, of the speeder disassembly line. The entire place was rippling with heat waves and partially obscured by smog, both the result of the massive smelting furnace at the end of the conveyor belt. Crushed scrap metal went in, and somewhere else in this factory it was poured into molds and sold back as any number of low-quality parts and tools. As always, the dirty, ugly process of destruction paved the way for efficient progress.

That didn’t make the place any less noisy, smelly, or hot. Maelon had not been planning for a duel when he chose his outfit that morning, and the long black cloak around his shoulders trapped an almost stifling amount of heat as well as being impractical for maneuvering. Still, the environment offered many opportunities that he knew could be used against this foolhardy opponent – this hunter, so confident for having been allowed the choice of venue, the element of surprise. The lizard thought that simple tricks were the key to eliminating an enemy’s advantages. He was right. He was also not nearly as tricky as Maelon.

As the Sith advanced down the length of the room towards the furnace, he felt without seeing as a rust-eaten chassis slid off the conveyor with a shower of sparks and swept towards his back at a deliberate (but still threatening, given the object’s size) pace. With a single fluid gesture, Maelon flicked his cloak back over one shoulder, detached his lightsaber from his belt, and sent a pulse of energy backwards. As the speeder chassis was deflected violently back along the line of scrap, his lightsaber snap-hissed to life and cast a violet glow into the shadows between stacks of machinery.

Who did the Barabel think he was playing with? It was almost pitiable, the overconfidence that had led the poor Jedi into his path. The council had thought that an uncommonly cunning reptile was a match for him. They would know better when they received their poor fallen knight’s lightsaber at whatever remote Jedi outpost was nearest his next destination. Casting his senses forward to pinpoint the location of his foe, Maelon suddenly touched a presence and jerked back, like the feeling of setting one’s hand down on a hot surface.

How quaint. He had overestimated his new Jedi friend. What he had felt from the other presence was not confidence or calculation. The Barabel was at war with himself, trying to empty his mind as fear clawed its way up his spine. He knew exactly who he was facing, and he knew he was badly outmatched. Like an animal in a trap, he was preparing to make his last, desperate bid for victory, for freedom from the cold, hard reality that awaited him.

Maelon kept walking, marking the place where he had made contact. Sure enough, as he stepped deliberately down the aisle, there came a place, a small patch of shadow that was not illuminated by the blade of his lightsaber. He took perhaps two dozen more steps, then he waited. It would come soon. Beasts like this one, when cornered, would fall back on their basest instincts. He felt the sudden tension in the air, the gathering of intent, the flash of danger sense – and suddenly there were two echoed hisses, one from the Barabel and the other from his lightsaber, as the Jedi leapt from shadows, faster than Maelon could turn.

But Maelon didn’t need to turn. He didn’t even need to raise his blade. All he had to do was reach up with his senses…and pull. At a point on the ceiling, halfway between where the Jedi had been concealed and where Maelon now stood, a cable snapped, followed by several safety chains. He felt the Barabel try to slow his momentum, try to turn, try to leap, but there was nothing to do and no time to do it.

An industrial lighting fixture, weighing several hundred pounds, came crashing down behind him, and given that he was still alive, he knew that it had found its mark. Finally turning to regard the mess behind him, the spray of gore and the crushed machinery, Maelon frowned. “Well. That won’t do at all.” Raising a hand, the Sith lifted the remains of the Jedi and the lighting fixture, and gently placed them onto the conveyor belt. “Not exactly the traditional Jedi funeral, of course, but one does one’s best.”

Wiping his forehead of sweat with one sleeve, he nonchalantly walked back towards the start of the line and the exit from the room, taking care to summon the Jedi’s lightsaber, which had kept its inertia and flown clear of the wreckage, and clip it to his belt, along with his own. This brief interlude was done with. Back to business.