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last online Aug 25, 2011 1:42:01 GMT -5
Force Sensitive
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Jan 13, 2010 23:30:46 GMT -5
Post by majireon on Jan 13, 2010 23:30:46 GMT -5
Bio:
Early Life:[/u]
Kelnhon was born in the year 3649 BBY, in a Savrip village on the plains to the north-west of the planets capital city of Worlport. The Savrips lived a simple life, living off of the land, and rarely interacting with the colonists of their world. The planet had been a colony of the Galactic Republic since the year 12,000 BBY, and most of the citizens still didn't know that the Savrips were sentient.
The Savrips were content with this, and did little to attract attention, if you overlooked the fact that the species frequently entered into violent "civil wars". Neighboring tribes of Savrips would start fighting over the smallest of reasons, giving the various species that called the planet home, more than enough reason to hate and fear them. The Savrips were naturally suited for combat, and knew little else, and therefore most felt that for them to not fight would weaken the species.
Savrips were large, and Savrips were fighters. This led many of the seedier elements of the population to the only logical conclusion that their warped brains could reach. Soon a new industry sprung up on Ord Mantell. The Savrips were captured, and sold to slavers, and game preserves, to be broken or hunted by the most discerning citizens of the galaxy. The government of Ord Mantell overlooked these actions for several reasons, the main one being they were very profitable.
Clan Nelek was one of the smaller tribes on the Worlport continent, but they had a long tradition of fine warriors. This tradition was to be carried on by the newest arrival to the tribe, the infant Kelnhon, son of Nelek the clan leader, and his newest conquest. He was born larger than most Savrips, which Nelek attributed to his families history of large warriors. Over the next few years, Kelnhon was raised solely by his mother, who taught him the fundamental domestic workings of Savrip culture in the short time allotted before his father took him to begin his training as a warrior.
When Kelnhon reached the age of four, he was turned over to his father to be taught the ways of the Savrip warrior culture. His father was quite proud of how well his son was turning out. In a warlike culture on a harsh planet, the children grew quickly, and Kelnhon was proving to be exceptional. At the age of four, he had grown to the height of five feet, a full foot above other Savrip children born in the same cycle.
His father led him on a week long journey, explaining his importance to the clan, and the duties he must fulfill for the good of the Savrips of the plains. At the end of the week long trip, they arrived at the large junkyard that covers sizable portions of the planets surface. After a day of walking into the intergalactic garbage pile, Nelek sat Kelnhon down. He handed him a stone knife, and walked away.
Kelnhon waited for several hours, as was expected, before getting up, and starting his solo journey home. He had been walking for less than two hours, when a small ship ripped though the air above his head, leaving swirling clouds of dust that obscured the entire area. Kelnhon was not startled, for he had seen ships before, but he had no idea of the danger that they represented to a young Savrip, alone in the open.
He turned, and continued on his trek across the junk yard, hoping to keep up the same pace that Nelek had set on the trip in. He heard a piercing whine, that quickly grew into a roar. The ship had returned. In moments, Kelnhon was netted, and pulled up into the cargo bay of the grimy craft. He would not be returning home.
A month later, the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic received a frantic call from the Governor of Worlport. The Savrips had gone wild. It had started as a simple series of attacks on a slaver compound, which was of little concern to anyone really. It took a week, but the slavers managed to repel the Savrips. As soon as the slavers had a break in the fighting, the slaves had been sold to various citizens on and off world.
The Governor had thought that would be the end of it, but the attacks had continued. Only now, the Savrips were attacking homes in the city proper, destroying property and injuring his constituents, as they frantically searched the city for something. He begged the Chancellor to send a Jedi to sort out the problem. As he pleaded, the Chancellor saw a large Savrip smash through the wall near the door. It bellowed in rage, and smashed the Governor aside with one hand. The Chancellor immediately called the Jedi Temple.
A week later, Meerian Jedi Master NasAel, and his Felucian Padawan Dro’rel’kelva arrived on Ord Mantell. Their mission was simple. Stop the Savrips, and ensure that the slaver operations that had the gall to act in the open, were dismantled. Master NasAel had never seen a Savrip in person, and being small for a Meerian, he was not prepared for his first encounter.
Dro’rel’kelva, a native of Felucia, had seen more than his fair share of large beasts before he was picked from the mushroom jungles of Felucia, and he was excited. He towered over his slight master quaking in anticipation. He had heard stories about Savrips at the temple, after NasAel had been assigned to the mission. He heard them very loosely compared to Rancor’s, and had played dejarik rounds where a player had used a Mantellian Savrip, but he didn’t know what to actually expect.
NasAel quickly advised his Padawan to calm himself, and check his surroundings. The situation in the city was not the bleak landscape of death that they had been warned to expect. In fact most of the citizens were going about their lives as if the Savrips were of no concern. NasAel centered himself, and found the bright light of the force in his core, and allowed it to fill him, as he looked around the city. His mind sped through the city, searching for any signs of disturbance, finding none. He closed his eyes, and sighed. It looked like they were searching the old fashioned way.
After walking around the perimeter of the city, NasAel and Dro’rel’kelva had managed to pinpoint the Savrips. They were a blinding cloud of concern, and rage, hiding in a set of shallow caves outside of the city. NasAel was surprised. The creatures had emotions. He hadn’t been informed of that. They had been led to believe that the creatures were little more than beasts of burden. He scowled.
After much debate, Dro’rel’kelva convinced NasAel to open a dialogue with the Savrips. They exited the city on foot, their hands held high, as they neared the location of the enraged Savrips. The Savrips were not the least bit happy to see them. NasAel had received warmer receptions at blaster point in a Hutts palace.
After several moments of incomprehensible yelling at each other, a large Savrip stepped forward. He inclined his head, and crouched down so that his large eyes were even with NasAel. He opened his mouth, and began in horribly accented Basic to explain to the Jedi that for the last month and a half, his tribe had been looking for his son, who had been taken. They weren’t sure where he was, but everyday at morning and evening, the entire tribe had horrible visions of him being whipped, or crying out for his parents.
NasAel looked pointedly at his padawan, and mouthed the words ‘force sensitive?’ Dro, shrugged his shoulders, and performed an approximation of a grin. They excused themselves from the Savrips, after promising to find Kelnhon, if they would stop tearing apart the city.
That night, they stood on opposite sides of the town square, and when Kelnhon started reaching out for his family, they quickly narrowed down his position, and rushed off in the direction of the young Savrip. After cutting their way through some rather violent and unyielding guards, and into the secluded mansion that seemed to contain the force signature of the tormented Savrip, they made their way to his holding cell. Kelnhon lay on the floor, bleeding from several fresh whip lashes. He was near passing out from pain when they arrived.
NasAel cut open the cages that filled the basement, releasing the slaves and gladiators that the wealthy Arkanian citizen that owned the estate, had attained illegally. Dro’rel’kelva led the hoard of tortured creatures, and men out into the cool night air, carrying Kelnhons limp form. NasAel followed behind the group making sure that none of the mansions recently arrived guards attempted to stop them. He was slightly shaken, because when he had looked at the small Savrip, he had seen that a great many things hinged on his being trained as a Jedi. If he wasn’t, the fate of the galaxy could be altered irrevocably, possibly for the worse. He had made a decision. Kelnhon would be coming with them to the Temple.
Youngling Years:[/u]
It had taken some slick talk, more than a little bit of shouting, and reliance on the will of the force to get the Savrips to allow them to take Kelnhon with them, but they had finally agreed. Once Nelek realized what a place of honor his son would command when he returned home from his training, he was more than happy to let him go.
Kelnhon was directed to never forget what he had learned, and sent off on his quest with little fanfare. The Savrips were less sentimental than their frantic search had led NasAel to believe. After the Visions projected by Kelnhon had stopped, they had simply went back to their daily lives, and acted as if nothing had happened.
Three months later, Kelnhon stood quietly in the temple, and stared straight ahead, as his instructor demonstrated the proper way to execute the current attack pattern on the course syllabus. They were learning Shii Cho, and Kelnhon was determined to master the form, even if his long arms proved to be slightly awkward when handling a practice saber.
The class ended, with a nearly inaudible chime, that was more of a feeling sent out through the force, than it was an audio signal. Kelnhon replaced his practice saber on the rack, and headed to his next class. He was scheduled to study under Master Devkerian, the Master in charge of instructing the younglings in the tenets of the Jedi order, namely the Code.
The Jedi code was incredibly interesting to Kelnhon, who had many horrible memories of his time on Ord Mantell. Since he had arrived at the temple, he had learned many things from the code that allowed him to put those events into perspective.
There is no death, there is the Force, the last line of the Jedi code was, oddly enough, the first to be driven home to him. Shortly after he arrived at the Temple, he received word from NasAel who had returned to Ord Mantell to see to the Slave trade issue, that his entire family had been killed by the Arkanian that had purchased Kelnhon, as an example to the other Savrips and the Jedi. He was initially overcome with sadness, but he eventually overcame this, when he realized that the Code had more than one line that dealt with the situation. He soon became comfortable with the fact that the Force had a will of its own, and to sit around and mourn for the dead, was a waste of energy, that could be spent celebrating their accomplishments. He also found that as a Jedi he had to reconcile himself with the fact that many of the things he would be required to do may end in his death. For him to be paralyzed by this would be unacceptable and would risk others lives, so he took it upon himself to make this a non-issue.
In his first years at the temple, Kelnhon spent much of his time meditating on this, the first line of the Jedi code, There is no emotion, there is peace. He eventually came to understand, that the Jedi were not to close themselves off from their emotions, that emotions are not to be overcome or denied, but instead understood and dealt with. He studied this for months, thinking of his time in the slavers camp, and then in the dungeon of his owner on Ord Mantell. He came to realize that fear, hatred, and sadness were natural responses to situations such as this, and that in order to progress in his training, he would have to come to a place where he could understand these emotional responses, and turn them away, in favor of more beneficial thoughts. By the time he was selected as a padawan, by Master NasAel, at the age of 12, he had come to terms with his emotional responses, and become a very well composed individual.
At the age of six, Kelnhon felt that he had reached a point in his training in the form of Shii Cho, where it would be acceptable to begin training in another form. He decided to take up the study of the form of Soresu, and spent a great deal of time studying both forms, finding it difficult to master either, as his body was growing at an alarming rate compared to the other younglings. Nevertheless, he spent hours every day, retraining his long limbs to do the moves he had just gotten comfortable doing the previous day.
At first, Kelnhon thought that the third tenet, There is no passion, there is serenity, was merely a rewording of the first tenet, and was tempted to dismiss it, but under the guiding hand of Master Devkerian, by the age of seven and a half, he came to realize that it was not. He was taught that to lose oneself in the task, and forget the goal was a flaw that could lead to the dark side. He spent much of his life trying to master this discipline, and by the time he ascended to the rank of knight, he was fairly close to being able to prioritize, and make the proper decisions, even in the middle of the a fierce firefight. He holds strongly to the saying “When in doubt, Stay your hand.” He is often the last to resort to violence, sometimes to the point of getting himself injured, a decision that was affected in no small part by his discovery of the real meaning of the second tenet.
Kelnhon was very careful to stick to his studies, to respect the second tenet, There is no ignorance, there is knowledge, and wanting very much to prove to his fellow younglings that he was indeed intelligent in spite of some of their none-to-subtle claims to the contrary. He was soon one of the better educated younglings in the Temple, spending his personal time in the Temples archives studying. His main focus at the beginning was centered around becoming fluent in Basic, but once he had begun to grasp this on a basic level, he began to branch out, and soon he discovered he was very interested in the histories. He learned the histories of both the Order, and the Republic, spending much of his time on the many military conflicts that had encompassed both groups.
While his memory proved to be beyond reproach, he soon found that knowing the materials, and applying them were two separate things. He learned the value of true wisdom, when he almost led two fellow younglings to their deaths. He had been entrusted with a very simple mission to deliver some data pads to a Jedi Master across the temple. He was sent with two other younglings, and very soon they had become lost in the tangle of corridors, and found their way out of the temple.
In the courtyard, Kelnhon saw a passerby take a woman's cred-purse, and knowing that it was the Jedi thing to do, led the other two younglings after the man. In the course of the chase, the man pulled a blaster, and fired on the unarmed younglings, injuring one of them, and making the other fall over the edge of the walkway. Kelnhon managed to help the youngling that had been shot, until a senior Jedi from the temple arrived, and took them back to the infirmary, where he learned that the boy that had fallen over the edge had broken his wrist when he had landed awkwardly on the level below, instead of falling to his death as Kelnhon had feared.
Kelnhon realized that if he had acted wisely he would never have endangered the lives of the other younglings, but instead he had acted on his knowledge on an academic level, with no thought of the greater consequences of his actions. He had known it was wrong for the man to take the woman's belongings, and that it was the Jedi's place to return the unjustly gotten goods, but he had failed to apply his teachings, and call for someone who was capable of handling the problem. His lack of thinking had nearly gotten his companions killed, and he resolved to never let a situation like this occur again, if he could prevent it.
He spent his years as a youngling, trying to represent his species as more than a herd of thoughtless beasts, and therefore spent a great deal of time studying, and trying to perfect his execution of Shii Cho, Soresu, and his inborn talents of telepathy. He eagerly awaited the visits from Master NasAel, and Dro'rel'kelva, and when they made their visits to the temple, he spent all of his time with them. Kelnhon and Dro'rel'kelva, became fast friends, both coming from similar situations, where the majority of the galaxy saw their people as savages.
When Kelnhon was eleven and a half years old, Dro'rel'kelva was knighted. When he voiced his intention to select Kelnhon as his padawan, both Kelnhon and Dro were surprised to find that Master NasAel objected. He suggested that Dro select another Padawan learner, as it was the not the will of the force for Kelnhon to be trained by a Knight, and that he himself would take Kelnhon as a padawan when the force made it apparent that he was ready.
Padawan Years:[/u]
When Kelnhon turned twelve, Master NasAel made one of his now rare appearances at the temple, and after a short discussion with the council, left the temple with Kelnhon as his Padawan learner.
The council gave them a mission to go to the planet of Aduba-3, where reportedly, entire villages were vanishing, without a trace. They arrived at the planets one star port, and started asking around about the disappearances. It didn’t take long for the source of the problem to make itself known. They were staying on the ship the Order had procured for them, when they were attacked, and the ship was damaged before they managed to get the shields up. The pirates eventually attempted to board the ship to kill them, once they discovered that the ships shields were active, and more than a match for their speeder mounted weapons.
After a brief struggle they overcame the pirates, and after making sure that none of them had any hidden weapons, they began to interrogate the ones that they had managed to capture. Kelnhon was surprised to learn that they were merely working security for a larger slaver group that was run by an Arkanian named Cyneran Shaler. They were in the process of taking the people from the outlying settlements, and selling them to the Hutts on Nal Hutta, in the nearby Y'Toub system.
Kelnhon was not familiar with the name, but he saw that it had elicited a reaction from NasAel, and after they had turned the pirates over to the local authorities, he pressed the issue. NasAel revealed that the man they now had to hunt down was one that he had been hunting since the night he had removed Kelnhon from his mansions basement. He was the man that had run the slaver ring on Ord Mantell, and he was the man that had killed Kelnhons entire clan simply to prove a point.
NasAel revealed that he had been in search of Cyneran Shaler for a very long time indeed, but that every time he got close, the man would just vanish, and then reappear months later, in another sector of the galaxy, running another branch of the same apparently expansive operation.
They spent the next week tracking the slavers as they scouted the villages, planning to ambush them before they took their next load of victims. They made their move the night the bandits planned to take one of the smaller villages they had scouted, and with the ship fixed, managed to take down the slaver vessel, and detain most of the slavers unharmed, before they even knew what had hit them. They managed to get a location from one of the senior crewmen, but it proved to be a misdirection by the ever illusive Cyneran.
After the slaver ring on Aduba-3 was dismantled, they spent a long period of time performing a series of trivial missions that the council found for them, while they waited to catch a break in the Cyneran Shaler case. In this time, NasAel began to teach Kelnhon the basics of energy absorption, and the foundation of the Shatterpoint technique, of which NasAel was a master. They spent their idle hours training, and while they were almost comically mismatched in the size category, Master NasAel proved to be a very masterful lightsaber instructor.
It wasn't until this point in his life that Kelnhon finally began to grasp the fourth tenet of the code, There is no chaos, there is harmony, when Master NasAel began to teach him the Shatterpoint technique at age thirteen. The interconnectedness of all things no matter how distant or obscure, soon became apparent, and the meaning of this line of the code came crashing home. Kelnhon spent years using his natural affinity to reach out and touch people mentally, to hone his skills in the Shatterpoint technique, which he soon found to be far more useful than a simple combat technique.
It allowed one to see the very ties that bind people to others, and small events to other events on a larger scale, and take advantage of the technique to either strengthen them, or shatter them entirely. By the time he became a master, he was quite familiar with the meaning of this line of the code, and in fact used it to guide most of his life, more so than the others.
They finally caught a break in the Cyneran Shaler case, when a Jedi Knight on Nar Shaddaa reported that he had seen the man in the Corellian district of the city planet, apparently looking for pilots, and crew to replace the ones lost on Aduba-3. They immediately chartered a ship and headed for Nar Shaddaa.
On the way, NasAel began to prepare himself for the meetings that they would have to go through, to get to Cyneran Shaler. He had spent years doing this, and had it down to an art. He spent days getting into character, donning appropriate clothes, and getting his physical appearance to the proper level of disheveled, untidy, disreputableness that would be required to sell his story to the slavers, pirates, and pilots at the meetings. They could smell a government officer from a mile away, so NasAel went out of his way to smell worse than the worst of them.
After a few days of meetings during which Kelnhon acted like NasAel’s servant and bodyguard, they learned that they were in deeper than they had thought. Cyneran Shaler was on Nar Shaddaa, but he had hired the assassin Kos-ban Hellan to act as a bodyguard for the entire time he was on planet. The 147 year old Shi’ido assassin had made quite a name for himself in the underworld, after he had revealed that a list of 40 odd unexplainable killings that had been committed in the last decade had been carried out by his hand.
At first he was questioned, and was actually called out on the claim several times. The people that doubted ended up dead, and their friends who were off planet, blamed for the crime. Eventually he became the man the entire underworld went to when someone or something needed killed. A Shi’ido assassin changed the entire situation.
With their ability to use telepathy to convince others that they were who they had shape shifted into, there was no way to determine if they would actually be meeting the real Cyneran Shaler. They spent a few days working their way into more meetings anyway, and eventually got to the point where they were scheduled to meet with the crime lord. On their arrival they realized that the meeting was not going to go as they had hoped. They entered the room, and immediately felt the force stripped away from them.
They managed to cover their shock, and proceed with the meeting, but halfway through, the meeting went south. The man in front of them smiled calmly, and waved one of his security detail over. After a whispered exchange, the guard walked back to his post in the corner of the room, but the atmosphere of the room had already changed to one of mistrust, and anger. NasAel feigned anger, at the breach of trust, and Kelnhon rose to his full height, which even at the young age of thirteen and a half, was an impressive nine foot tall.
Cyneran Shaler stood up, before revealing that the room was being surveyed by multiple scanners, and that the facial recognition scanners had finally pinned them down. He bid the Jedi a good day, and ordered the security detail to kill them, as he exited the room. Kelnhon and NasAel had left their weapons on their ship, so as not to arouse suspicions, and fighting their way out of the warehouse full of guards without the use of the force was not something that either of them would ever wish to experience again.
They managed to get out, with only minor wounds, and a large collection of new blasters, but they had lost the crime lord. Once they had made their way out of the warehouse, they found that they could once again feel the flow of the force, and quickly decided to try to make it to the crime lords ship which they had found docked the previous day, on their recon. With any luck, they would make it to the ship before their vanishing man made another getaway.
Sprinting across the city planet, with the aid of the force they managed to get to the ships berth, just as the crime boss was exiting his speeder, with a handful of security guards in tow. They quickly opened fire on the two Jedi, forcing them into cover. Kelnhon and NasAel watched in dismay, as the man they thought was Cyneran Shaler transformed into his true form, and retrieved a large blaster rifle from just inside of the ship. They managed to take out two of the security guards, but they quickly got pinned down again as Kos-ban Hellan sprayed the entire hanger with laser blasts.
In spite of NasAel trying to destroy the ships main controls with the force, the ship took off, and they were once again at square one. They went back to the temple to report on their failure to apprehend the crime lord, and the two new layers in his security. When they made their report the council was certain that the crime lord was using Ysalamiri to shield his operations from the Jedi, and NasAel finally realized how the man managed to constantly evade him.
The council recommended that the duo take on other missions until another opportunity to chase the crime lord presented itself. The began traveling the galaxy, seeking out small smuggling operations that they had uncovered while tracking down Shaler on Nar Shaddaa. While they traveled, NasAel spent a large portion of the time in meditation, trying to determine the location of the crime lord, but he kept coming up empty handed, and eventually began to feel that this was a flaw on his part.
They continued the lightsaber training regimen that Kelnhon had set for himself at the Temple, which he had set up for himself to take into account the time he would have to wait to reach his full size. They studied Shii-Cho, and Soresu, as well as Djem So, a form which NasAel was more than a little proficient in.
NasAel also continued to demand that Kelnhon practice the techniques of Energy Absorption, and Shatterpoint, for the longer they chased the crime lord, the more it became apparent to him that they would both need any advantages they could have, and of the many techniques NasAel had mastered, those two seemed the most suited to the job, and Kelnhons inborn talents.
They got word from the council that several of the Jedi Knights that had made it their mission to clean up Nar Shaddaa, or whose missions had taken then there, had disappeared, and were assumed to be dead. They headed back to the Temple, to continue the briefing in person, and gather fresh supplies, and equipment, but were called off by the Council, who in the interim had received a message from Kos-ban Hellan, the Shi'ido assassin, claiming responsibility for the deaths of the Jedi knights, and demanding NasAel and Kelnhon return to the planet to face him, since they were the ones that had caused him to be hired to kill any Jedi on Nar Shaddaa in the first place.
Three weeks before Kelnhons sixteenth birthday, they one again landed on Nar Shaddaa. NasAel called on a few of his contacts from his previous missions to learn that the creature calling itself Kos-ban Hellan was indeed staying in the Corellian sector as he had claimed in his message. In the very same warehouse where he had deceived them in their last meeting. They spent a week, surveying the warehouse, and once they decided that there was no way that the assassin could have surrounded it with Ysalamiri, they decided to enter the warehouse, and see what they could do about catching the clearly overconfident hit man.
They snuck in to one of the side doors, after NasAel used to force to fuzz all the security cameras in its vicinity, and quickly made their way to the main office situated just under the ceiling of the warehouse, overlooking the floor. After several minutes they decided to storm the room, which they had decided contained only one being.
After they entered, and rendered the being unconscious, a monitor in the room flickered to life, and Kos-ban Hellan appeared on screen. He smiled as he surveyed the room, before telling them that if they wanted to catch him, they would have to survive the next part of his plan, and see if they could find him before he killed them. As he spoke, multiple speeders filled with mercenaries smashed into the warehouse, and opened fire on the office with their mounted guns, as mercs poured out of them and into the cover of the crates filling the floor.
The Jedi quickly began their evasive maneuvers and dove down into the floor area, separating to cover more ground, as they blocked blaster fire, and cut down mercenaries. Kelnhon approached one of the speeders that was pouring blaster fire into a stack of crates that NasAel had just dove behind, and reaching out with the force, twisted the barrel of the mounted gun to fire on the weak point that the force was showing him on the opposite speeder. It exploded spectacularly, before Kelnhon once again used the force to bend the turret around, and over into the cockpit area of the speeder it was mounted on, causing the speeder to lose control, and careen off into a stack of crates.
They tore their way through the remaining mercenaries, and NasAel motioned for them to return to the ruins of the office, to see if they could find any clues that would help them in their search for the hit man that now had them in his sights. They discovered that the screen that he had contacted them on was hooked up to a short range transmitter that had a range of less than a block. They were going to have to be very careful exiting the building if they wanted to search for the assassin for longer than the time it would take them to bleed out on the duracrete outside the door.
They decided to go for a non-conventional exit, and after cutting their way through the roof of the office, and the warehouse, they made their way across the rooftops toward the docks, where they had landed their ship. They got there without incident, and quickly took to the skies to prevent the assassin from identifying the ship. After a quick flyby of the warehouse district, they managed to get a fix on the assassins location by triangulating on the signal from the transmitter he had used to contact them.
They landed on a nearby rooftop, and stormed the building, but were to late. He had left once he had realized that they were no longer in the warehouse.
They flew across the moons surface, and landed in a berth in the Duro sector of the surface wide city. They spent days canvassing the neighborhood around the warehouse, in disguise, but never got a decent description of what Hellan had looked like at the time of the attack. They finally gave up, and decided to lure him to them, and “accidentally” revealed their identities to a few gang members. It only took two hours for the assassin to step into their trap, but it took them three to notice that he had.
They noticed that one of the homeless men that had stumbled into the perimeter of the area they had set up, and passed out, was surreptitiously checking a wrist display every little bit, not nearly as unconscious as he had first appeared. They had let slip that they were staying in The Smiling Nerf hostel, and then waited for him to come looking for them. And it had actually worked. He was apparently waiting for them to come back, to make sure that he had the right place, before killing them in some spectacularly painful manner.
NasAel nodded to Kelnhon, who left their vantage point, and headed back to the hostel that they had selected, purely because of the layout of the entryway. Kelnhon passed the covert assassin and entered the building. The assassin got up, and quickly glanced in the direction Kelnhon had came from to make sure his master wasn’t directly behind him, before following him into the building.
Kelnhon stood at the end of the hall, waiting patiently, as the assassin stepped into his line of sight. NasAel stood blocking the door back out into the courtyard, holding a remote. He smiled as the assassin realized that he had made a huge mistake, and pushed the button on the remote. The floor in front of the registration desk had been fitted with a man trap, a powerful reverse repulsorfield generator, designed to multiply a planets gravity by up to eight times. The hostel had installed it to cut down on unruly clients deactivating their front desk registration droid, and illegally gaining access to the rooms.
Once NasAel pressed the button, the section of floor that Hellan stood on hummed to life, slamming the assassin to the ground, as it multiplied the planets gravity beyond his ability to remain standing. Kelnhon quickly moved forward, and stunned the assassin with a blow to the head, before they restrained him, and deactivated the field. They quickly ferried his unconscious body to the ship, and after making sure that he wouldn’t be waking up for quite some time, flew the assassin back to Coruscant to face the courts.
They had tried to interrogate him on the trip to the temple, once he had awakened, but never got the shape shifting assassin to reveal anything that would lead them to his boss. They turned him over to the Temple security, and reported to the Council who once more was at a loss as to what to do about the Arkanian slaver Cyneran Shaler. He was effectively a ghost, since he used Ysalamiri as a shield to cover his movements. The Temple could do nothing to locate him.
The Jedi duo continued to try to track him down, but had little success. They searched the police and military files of several planets known to house his bases, and found that he had several aliases, but they could find nothing about where he housed the main bulk of his operation. They instead teamed up with Dro’rel’kelva, and took out a large number of his satellite groups, over the course of the next few years.
Kelnhon turned twenty one, and they had come no closer to capturing the elusive crime lord that had killed his clan. He spent his days training with NasAel, and Dro’rel’kelva in the time between missions, and eventually NasAel proclaimed that Kelnhon had learned all he had to teach him of Shii-Cho, and that he was effectively a master of the form. They continued to practice in the form, but shifted most of their focus to mastering Soresu, and Djem-so as well.
Kelnhon reached his full height, and decided that it was time for him to construct a lightsaber that was suitable to both his size, and the styles he planned to employ. He and NasAel began to travel the outer rim in search of crystals in the downtime between their attacks on Shaler's operations.
They spent more than a short period of time on Tatooine, hoping for leads, but searching for crystals in the meantime. They eventually found a cave that had a small deposit of Durindfire gems. They next traveled to the planet of Kadril, where they collected a Kunda stone, a fairly common stone on the planet that had the effect of making a wider lightsaber blade. The last crystal, an Eralam, was found in the abandoned mines on the third moon of Erai, after weeks of searching the devastated moon for a safe way into the mostly collapsed mines.
After they acquired the three crystals, Kelnhon spent over a week meditating on the crystals, and constructing the hilt of his new lightsaber. He opted for a staff handle, which to him actually felt more like a normal sized grip, and spent quite a long time making sure that the crystals were attuned to his force signature, and set properly in the housing.
Once the construction was complete, he had a fully functional dual phase lightsaber, which with the press of a button could switch from a normal lightsaber length, to close to three meters in length. Its blade had a silvery color, that varied depending on which phase was activated, going from straight silver in the extended phase, to silver with a very faint blue tint in the short setting. With the Kunda stone, and the weapons custom blade emitter, and emitter matrix, the blade was nearly double the thickness of a standard lightsaber. Kelnhon thought long and hard on a name for his weapon, and eventually decided on the only one that made sense to him Whiteknife.
He tended to use the saber set in the elongated setting, so that it was more proportional to his large size, but would on occasion when the need arose, switch to the shorter setting, to throw his opponents off, and turn the fight to his advantage.
The months that had been spent on the hunt for lightsaber construction supplies, and crystals had seemed packed with things to do and there had been little actual downtime, to Kelnhon however the time seemed to creep by, as he knew that the man that had ruined so many lives was still free to ruin more, and he could do nothing to stop him. His frustration was compounded, when several dirty security officers managed to get assigned to the facility housing Kos-Ban Hellan and release him, killing several of the legitimate guards on duty, and other inmates, in the process.
The news reached NasAel and Kelnhon in minutes, and they immediately set out to track the killer down again. This time however they had an advantage, he had been implanted with several tracking devices, in the processing phase of his incarceration, and had only managed to remove the obvious ones. They called Dro’rel’kelva, and gave him the coordinates of the planet Chazwa, that Hellan was headed toward, and asked him to delay him long enough for them to get there, if at all possible.
When they arrived on Chazwa, they found Dro’rel’kelva dead, with one of the blood covered tracking devices resting on his forehead as a taunt. Kelnhon was crushed by the death of his closest, and only friend but managed to contain his emotions, because he realized that if he was to be any use in bringing Dro’s killer to justice, he would have to pass this Trial of the Flesh.
They changed frequencies, and checked the location of the only remaining tracking device and found that it had stopped in orbit over Myrkr. It headed toward the planet, before the planets plant-life’s high metal content caused them to lose the signal.
NasAel very quickly decided that if they ran the idea by the council, they would not be allowed to travel to the force deprived planet, in spite of the fact that one of their order had died and they finally knew the location of the elusive Cyneran Shaler's main base of operations. After assessing the risks inherent in raiding a criminal enclave on a planet devoid of the force, they decided that it had to be done.
They immediately left Chazwa, and headed to Myrkr. When they arrived over the planet, they reviewed the last few minutes of the trackers transmission, before they decided that they would just have to travel to the planets surface in the general area that the signal had vanished in, and start searching on foot. Their ships sensors were next to useless, thanks to the high metal content of the planets vegetation, and visual scans showed nothing.
After landing in a clearing, several kilometers from the area where the signal had vanished, they began their trek through the dense forest, ever vigilant for signs of their enemies. This in no way prepared them for the welcome they received however. After walking for over an hour, they had come to the conclusion that the base must be very well hidden indeed, and had decided to head back to the ship and do a series of flybys to see if they could spot anything without getting shot down.
They were on their way back, when several vornskrs stalked out of the jungle, apparently awakened by their not so quiet march through the beasts jungle home. Sensing the force sensitivity in the Jedi the felt they had found a perfect meal, and quickly attacked the duo.
After they managed to chase the beasts off with their lightsabers, NasAel decided that they should make a run for the ship, before the vornskrs returned. They both ran for the ship, but Kelnhon soon got separated from his master, his size forcing him to take a different route, in order to fit between some of the small gaps in the trees that blocked the way.
He heard NasAel crashing through the brush ahead of him, when suddenly he stopped, as the sound of an activating lightsaber cut through the forest. Kelnhon tried to pick up his pace, but the vines in this section of the forest were incredibly dense. He assumed that his master had once again encountered the vornskrs, and was determined to help him, if only he could reach him. He slashed his way through the wall of vines, and was about to break into a run when a blaster fired into the ground near his feet. He came to a dead stop.
He turned to look at his challenger, to see that after all the trekking through the jungle Kos-Ban Hellan had found them instead. His lightsaber flared back to life, even though he knew it would be nearly useless for blocking the blaster fire. He hoped that the sight of the three meter long blade would be enough to make the assassin think twice. It wasn’t.
Hellan slowly made his way down from his perch on a mid level branch, his blaster always pointed at Kelnhon. He grinned as he landed, having leapt down from the lowest branch, to the ground. He looked at the large Savrip, and his smile got even wider. “What do you say we make this a bit more even?” he asked, as he began to change shape. He quickly assumed the form of a Savrip, growing to a massive size that his previous form should have made impossible. Apparently he was more than capable of distorting his shape to a ridiculous level, as Kelnhon had heard came with advanced age in the Shi’ido species.
This would make thing more difficult. Kelnhon had spent his entire life training against opponents that he dwarfed. Even the tallest creatures had seemed small to him. He would have to work around a great deal of ingrained reflexes to pass this Trial of Skill.
Hellan pulled a long vibro sword from his back, that now seemed little more than a large dagger in his Savrip sized hands, and waved Kelnhon forward. “It’s made of Cortosis, so don’t worry about breaking it,” he said with a nod at the sword, and another grin made awkward by his Savrip features.
He leapt forward and swung viciously at Kelnhon, who had not expected him to move nearly as quickly as he had, and nearly missed his block. He brought the saber up, and was shocked when the blade hit the sword, stopping its arc toward his neck, before shorting out, and retracting. He quickly reactivated the blade, and dove backward. This was going to go badly indeed if his lightsaber shorted out every time he blocked a blow. He decided to go on the offensive, and take the fight to his opponent, but without letting his weapon contact the clever assassins blade, if at all possible. He swung his saber in a slow arc at the assassins long neck, and tried to time the action as best he could with out the force. When his blade neared the assassins blade, he shortened it, and then as it passed the upraised blocking blade, he extended it once more, trying to take the assassins head off, and thus end the fight.
The assassin ducked the swing, and brought his free hand up into Kelnhons guts as hard as he could, his fist driving the wind out of the Jedi. Kelnhon backpedaled, gasping for breath, and waving his lightsaber in front of him in a nearly futile blocking pattern that he had learned in the early days at the Temple. His blade contacted the Cortosis sword on one of the swings, and shorted out again, leaving him open to yet another attack, that the assassin had timed perfectly. The vibro sword slid into the meat of Kelnhons thigh effortlessly, and he didn’t even really notice that he had been wounded, until the assassin removed the blade with a laugh, and an accompanying spray of blood.
He staggered as the pain washed over him, and really wished that he had access to the force to push the pain aside, and focus on the fight at hand. He would have to settle for his natural abilities, and just try to push past it, he decided, as he clenched his jaw, and reset himself to repel the next set of attacks. He was successful for a few minutes, until he backed into a tree that he had failed to notice, jarring his leg, causing him to lose his focus and let another attack slip through.
This time, it was his left forearm, the blade sliding across it, severing the tendons before he even knew that he had missed the block. His hand went limp, and he had to quickly grab for his saber with his free hand, as the assassin whirled away laughing. Kelnhon was beginning to get an idea of exactly Dro had spent his last moments, and he felt a deep despair start to work away at his resolve. He shook his head, and once again set himself to defend against the assassin. If he died here, Dro'rel'kelva had died for nothing, and he could not allow that to happen.
He had to bring this man to justice for the sake of all of the Jedi he had killed. It was only right. The assassin looked at Kelnhon curiously, as he prepared for the next set of attacks. "Do you really think you can survive? Why do you keep fighting? You must know that I will kill you like I did your friend."
Kelnhon smiled back at him, and spoke for the first time since the fight had begun. His deep bass voice rumbled out from deep in his chest, sounding vaguely of an underwater rockslide. "We have a saying in the Clans on Ord Mantell. In war, the victorious warrior only seeks battle after the victory has been won, where he who is destined to be defeated fights first and afterwards looks for victory." He smiled as the assassin cocked his head in confusion once more.
"What's that even supposed to mean? You lost the minute you decided to fol..." The assassin was cut short by the sound of a lightsaber activating, his breath stopped in mid word, as the blade burned through his head from crown to chin. NasAel leapt down from his perch in a nearby tree, to the Assassins shoulders, and shut the blade off, before leaping down from the tumbling body to a clear patch of ground to the side of the small clearing. "That is indeed a brilliant saying," he intoned, as he ripped a strip of his robes loose to bandage Kelnhons leg, and forearm. "But if I recall, it was one that Master Devkerian was quite hard pressed to make you understand, not one you learned on Ord Mantell."
Kelnhon smiled, and motioned for his master to hurry up, as he answered. "I saw you in the tree, and decided that I should confuse and stall him for as long as I could. Would you rather I had nodded to you?" NasAel laughed softly, before telling Kelnhon what he had learned from the mercenaries that had ambushed him, and kept him from returning sooner.
After a brief discussion and slight argument, they decided at Kelnhons request to press on and act on the information that NasAel had gotten. They trekked through the jungle for several minutes before they found the speeder in which the mercenaries had traveled from Shaler's compound. They raided the medical supplies, what little there were, and tended to Kelnhons wounds in a slightly more professional manner, before NasAel took the helm of the speeder, and flew them into the forest.
Kelnhon thought briefly about how little chance they actually had of making it into the compound and getting back out again. He decided that while they were on the way to the compound, he might as well try to center himself, force or no. He started going through his breathing exercises, when he saw in his minds eye, Dro lying dead on Chazwa, and his breath caught in his throat.
He pushed the image out of his head. This was no time for fear, or regret. He had a job to do, and he would do it. If he was to pass this Trial of Courage, he would have to push past all of the recent events, and stay in the now. Regretting the past would only get more people killed.
They stopped the speeder short of where the mercs had told NasAel that the main portion of the compound was located, and traveled the rest of the way on foot, so as not to alert any possible perimeter guards. They soon came upon a set of buildings built half into the ground, and covered with camo netting that hung from treetop to treetop, completely obscuring the base from orbital scans. Very clever indeed.
Sneaking into the compound was actually relatively easy, once you knew where it was. The security was more interested in detecting extra-planetary threats, than it was in spotting intruders. With the camo nets, and the plant lifes high metal content, the only people that could find this base were the ones that were meant to. At least that had been the intention.
After searching several rooms, they came across an unmanned computer terminal, and accessed the compounds security system, searching through the compound room by room until they found Shaler. They spent a while trying to figure out which room he was actually in in relation to them until they found the systems map displaying where the camera they were watching was located.
A short time later, the were standing outside the door of the room. NasAel nodded, and Kelnhon punched it with his massive uninjured hand. The door shot into the room, and NasAel sped in after it. Kelnhon crouched and smashed himself through the door splintering the frame in the process. Cyneran Shaler looked very shocked indeed, standing behind his desk slack jawed, a data pad held loosely in his hand, dropped to the floor as Kelnhon rose to his full height under the offices vaulted ceiling.
NasAel jumped onto the desk, and used his unlit lightsaber to club the crime lord in the temple, dropping him like a sack of rocks before he could react, and activate the alarm switch that he no doubt had somewhere near him. He motioned to Kelnhon to pick Shaler up, and quickly went back to the door, to see if the noise of the door being punched in had alerted any of the personnel in the base. He indicated the coast was clear, and they made a swift retreat back into the jungle to where they had parked the speeder.
Days later, as the trial of Cyneran Shaler was about to commence, and Kelnhon had finished his physical healing, NasAel took him aside, and suggested that leave Coruscant, and take a trip to his home world. He had decided that the events on Chazwa, and Myrkr had been difficult enough to be considered Jedi Trials, and the last he had to pass to become a Knight if the Order, was to pass the Trial of the Spirit. He advised Kelnhon to travel to the site of his families former camp, and meditate on all of the events of his life that had led to the death of Kos-Ban Hellan, and the capture of Cyneran Shaler.
His arrival in Worlport, wearing Jedi robes, and carrying a lightsaber with a handle that neared the length of most men's torsos, caused quite a stir. He quickly exited the city, and headed out into the plains, unsettled by the peoples reactions.
He arrived at the site of his former village, and was unsurprised to find that after nearly 18 years, very little remained of the camp that he remembered. He walked over to where he thought his parents tent had been, and sat slowly down in the dirt. He stretched out with the force, and felt the echoes of pain and death. He sighed, and closed his eyes, as he began to trace his life forward from the day he was taken prisoner, and called out to his family with the force instinctually, back the events of the previous week.
He opened his eyes, and smiled. It was dark. He must have been meditating for quite some time. He stretched his stiff muscles, and stood. He promptly fell back to the ground, his legs bending like rubber beneath him. He had relived his life in memory, and had experienced every horrible thing that had happened to him, and others in his life over again, and come to the conclusion that the force had orchestrated every event to put him in the place that he was in, and that in spite of the pain and suffering, his life could not have occurred in any other way, and have him still be the force for good in the universe that the Force practically demanded he become.
He made had made his peace with the death of his parents, and Dro'rel'kelva, and forgiven the men that had killed them, and now it was time to move on to the plans that the Force had for his future. He used the force to refresh himself, and made the trek back into the city. When he arrived at the Spaceport, he was shocked to find his ship that he had gotten on loan from the temple was gone. He asked the port authorities, what had happened to it, and was shocked to find out that he had been on the plains for over a week. After two days his failure to return had led them to believe that he had been killed, and they had impounded the ship to make room for new arrivals to the port.
He retrieved his ship, at a hefty fee, from the impound, and returned to Coruscant where he was met by NasAel. He explained what had happened, and what he had learned from the experience, and that evening NasAel and the Council, knighted Kelnhon.
Knight Years:[/u]
He spent several weeks at the temple with NasAel, working with the younglings, before he met his first Padawan. Vosadii Zavvos was a Devaronian female, and a member of a group of children that He and NasAel had liberated from a slave market on Nal Hutta. She and one other child out of the large group had been force sensitive, and had remained at the Temple after the rest of the children had been returned home, or as was the case with several of them who turned out to be orphans, relocated with families on Coruscant.
She was a spirited young girl, and seemed to find everything in the Temple to be a source of endless fascination. She seldom remained in one place for more than five minutes, constantly trying to find something new to do or learn about. Kelnhon felt a connection with the young Devaronian, and meditated on her selection. He felt that his slow nature and thinking process would be the perfect thing for the young girl who seemed like she wanted very much to be a Jedi, but lacked the ability to focus, and if there was one thing Kelnhon was good at, it was remaining patient.
He announced his decision to the council, and they agreed, with a wink and a smile. A week later, Kelnhon understood why, as he for the tenth time instructed Vosadii to remain still and watch his hands as he demonstrated the proper way to repel blaster bolts in combat. After some thought, he deactivated the remote, and purchased tickets for them on a ship heading for the outer rim.
They spent the journey with Kelnhon instructing Vosadii when he could get her to focus, and Kelnhon meditating away his frustration when he could not. They arrived at their destination, and were greeted by NasAel who had not selected another Padawan, but had opted to return to his pursuit of the end of the slave trade alone. They explained what they were doing to the young Devaronian, and then went to work. After one day on the planet, Kelnhon realized that he had found the way to make his difficult student pay attention. Thrust into the middle of the action, she was a sponge, and immediately picked up any bit of instruction as if it was something she had done her entire life.
They spent the next two years doing missions in this manner, each one full of lessons that Kelnhon had spent weeks trying to get her to pay attention to in a classroom setting. She was especially good with a lightsaber, and using her a sparring partner, Kelnhon mastered Soresu midway through his twenty fourth year.
Kelnhon and NasAel remained close, and continued to assault the underworld together, Vosadii an eager participant in their schemes, having once almost been enslaved herself. Kelnhon continued his study of the energy absorption technique that NasAel had originally taught him, having NasAel test his limits every time they met for a mission.
When he was twenty six, NasAel arrived on Coruscant, to offer them the chance to come with him to “collect” a mercenary that he had followed to the planet from an arms deal he had managed to break up. While they prepared for the mission, Kelnhon asked for NasAel to test him again, and promptly blew the little Meerian Jedi Masters mind.
NasAel ignited his lightsaber and whipped it through the air at Kelnhons outstretched hand, stopping microns from the skin. Kelnhon quickly closed his hand around the blade, and it sputtered and went out in seconds. He held up his hand, and NasAel watched in amazement as he used the energy he had siphoned from the lightsabers power cell to heal the burned flesh of his palm.
Kelnhon explained that he had been having Vosadii attack him at random, with multiple forms of energy weapons, and was not content until he was capable of snapping into the state of mind that would allow him to absorb the energy almost before he realized that he needed to do it on a conscious level.
NasAel admitted that he had never seen anyone use the technique in quite such a way, and that he believed that Kelnhon was most likely the current master of the technique. They had to postpone the mission, while NasAel replaced his lightsabers entirely drained power-cell.
Vosadii proved to be a quick learner, and soon she was teaching Kelnhon things that even he hadn’t heard about. With her help, he learned to use the force to calm peoples flaring emotions, and ease their fears of him. Until she demonstrated this ability to him, he had never thought to try to use the force in such a way, instead relying on his actions, and words to bring situations to a peaceful resolution. This technique spoke directly to his talents in the field of empathy, and he was amazed that he hadn’t been quicker to utilize it. Especially given his stance of not resorting to violence, unless it was a situation in which it was prohibitively dangerous to others to use no violence.
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last online Aug 25, 2011 1:42:01 GMT -5
Force Sensitive
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Jan 13, 2010 23:36:52 GMT -5
Post by majireon on Jan 13, 2010 23:36:52 GMT -5
They spent three more years doing missions with NasAel, and teaching each other the mysteries of the force. Their comfortable training and mission schedule was shattered however when Cyneran Shaler managed to escape from prison, in spite of the carbonite freezing that had been sentenced to.
Apparently his second had been a little less well suited for the job that had fallen to him when Cyneran was put away, and instead of loosing all of his ill gotten gains to a rival syndicate, had invested his remaining money in a plan that he was sure would make him rich again. Saving his boss. The plan had taken over a year to fine tune and implement, and another year to execute, but it had been pulled off without a hitch, and the man that had ruined tens of thousands of lives was once more free.
Kelnhon requested that He and Vosadii be given the mission to retrieve Shaler, and the Council approved. They flew to the Myrkr compound, but found it empty save a message on the dust covered remains of Shaler’s desk. When they entered the room, a hologram flickered to life, and Cyneran Shaler appeared to be sitting in his no longer intact chair behind the desk. “I’m going to assume that I’m talking to NasAel and Kelnhon,” He said with a smile. He paused, before gesturing around the derelict office, “Make yourselves at home, as you can see, I am not here to properly entertain you, but you are guests nonetheless. I am surprised that you actually came here, but I suspected that you might be more stupid than I assumed. If you are watching this, I guess I was right, and I’m slightly disappointed in both of you. Rest assured, I am NOT stupid, I will not make mistake like the ones that landed me in that warehouse full of ignorant thugs, stacked like compressed blocks of garbage, a second time around.”
“You have underestimated me and my connections time after time, and it is time for you to see what happens when I become really[/i] angry. I know Kelnhon must think he already knows, but that was my reaction to a petty annoyance. You will regret ever having heard the name Cyneran Shaler by the time I have finished with you.”[/color] The Hologram winked out, and Kelnhon braced himself for an explosion, or a release of some toxic gas. Nothing happened. He let out his breath, and left Myrkr.
The real consequences of the Shaler escape were not immediately apparent, as he had to rebuild his empire, a feat that had taken him two decades to accomplish the first time, from scratch, but Kelnhon searched for him every waking moment. He was determined to find the crime lord again before he managed to do anything to the innocent people of the Galaxy in some form of misguided attempt at retribution toward NasAel, and Kelnhon.
Kelnhon and Vosadii were constantly one step behind the ingenious Arkanian, and NasAel fared no better in his solo missions. They spent three years taking out groups that would at first seem to be directly involved with Shaler, only to fine that he had led them to one of his rivals operations. They realized that he was using their efforts to enlarge his invisible empire, but the could not stand by, and allow the people of the galaxy to suffer from one affliction in a futile attempt to save it from another one.
Master Years:
Vosadii turned twenty one, and Kelnhon recommended her for the trials. She passed easily, and was knighted in the same ceremony that saw Kelnhon granted the rank of Master. Afterward, Kelnhon spent half a year searching for Shaler alone, or with NasAel, before he decide to take on another Padawan. He again spent weeks at the Temple meditating focusing his thoughts on each padawan using the Shatterpoint technique to race their connections to himself, and the events that were likely to unfold in the future.
Eventually he decided on the human Karcen Krasiri, a young Corellian. Krasiri proved to be a model student, and Kelnhon didn’t have to resort to the rather extreme tactic of forcing him to learn techniques under direct threat of death, in the middle of a real mission, like he had with Vosadii. He still spent the majority of his time searching for the fugitive Shaler, but he refused to take any mission that he felt would endanger his padawan overly much. This left a great deal of the search for Shaler to NasAel, and Vosadii. They would contact him from time to time as they found leads, and offer him missions that they knew he would allow Karcen to participate in.
He spent days at a time in meditation sustaining himself with the Force, as he tried to perfect his execution of the Shatterpoint technique, looking for the connection that linked himself to Cyneran, but he could never find the thread of force that he was looking for in the massive tangle of connections that tied into him in some way. He would occasionally come close, but just as he would start to trace the thread back to its source, it would wink out of existence. The only conclusion that he could reach was that Shaler was using Ysalamiri to shield himself from his hunters again, but in a more effective way than he had before.
Kelnhon turned thirty four during this phase of his life, and marked the occasion, by beginning a week long stretch of meditation while Vosadii took Karcen off his hands. He was frustrated at the end of the week, when he ended the meditation no closer to his goal. He was clearly a master of the technique, and could easily shatter a plate of Durasteel by jabbing it with a hardened claw at the end of his massive finger, or trace a thread of connection from one person to another from across star systems using it to bring them closer together or tear them apart, but he couldn’t locate Shaler with the technique, even if he were standing right in front of him.
Kelnhon spent the next nine years chasing the illusive Arkanian while he trained Karcen to the best of his abilities. When he recommended Karcen for the trials it seemed like he had only yesterday decided to train him as a padawan, but he was not the least bit surprised when he passed. He did after all have three teachers, two of whom were the best Jedi Kelnhon had ever met.
Kelnhon decided that the search for Shaler may have been a hindrance to his training, and that he may have become involved in it to an unhealthy degree, so he went the next three years without choosing a padawan. He had hoped that this decision would give him the edge he needed to finally capture Shaler, but he found that he was as clueless without a padawan as he had been when he had one.
He returned to the temple to begin the process of selecting a new padawan, when the Council approached him with an offer. They were impressed with his dedication to the capture of the crime lord, and had decided that if he could bring the same amount of dedication to the tasks of the Council, he would be a perfect candidate for one of the remaining seats. He thought on this for a while, and decided that with the Councils resources, and the help of other more experienced master, he might actually be able to track down Shaler.
He accepted, and at age forty six, he was accepted to the Jedi High Council.
RP Sample:
Kelnhon walked quickly through the halls of the temple. He had just returned from a mission on the outer rim, when he had been informed. He entered the med-bay, and slowed his pace, so as not to disturb the wounded and ill. He paused to look over the room, until he found his destination, and then resumed his solemn trek.
NasAel was dying. He had been on his home world, having recieved a tipoff that Cyneran Shaler had an operation there, when he had been exposed to a biological agent that was apparently lethal to Meerians. It was only his quick thinking that had prevented him from succumbing to the same fate as the rest of the town. But no one held any illusions, he was at quite an advanced age for a Meerian, and not even his talents with the force could stop the enevitable.
Kelnhon stopped by his bedside, and looked down on his frail little master. He was nearly overcome with emotion, but knew that this would be the worst possible time to lose his cmposure, and focused his will on expunging the negative thoughts that ran through his mind.
He wanted very much to rip the medical scanners from the wall and beat Cyneran Shaler to death with them, but he focused on his breathing, and called on the force to aid in his relaxation. There was nothing that could be done about Shaler now, and the now was all that mattered. Nasael shifted in his bed, and Kelnhon crouched to put himself at reasonable level.
NasAel's eyes flickered open, and he smiled weakly. "I have been waiting for you." He coughed, and wiped his chin, trying to hide the fact that his spit was colored with blood. "I had some final thoughts that I wanted to impart to my last Apprentice."
He rolled himself onto his side with some effort, and looked up at Kelnhon, obviously in pain, but pushing through it for this one final mission he had set for himself. "I have been thinking over these last few days, and something occured to me. I want you to leave Cyneran Shaler to the authorities. Our quest to return him to custody has become an unhealthy obsession, and it has turned into something that is harming more people than it is helping.'
He motioned Kelnhon to be silent, before he could object, and went on. "He will eventually make a mistake, and the authorities will be there to bring him in." He stopped, his body shuddering as he coughed for several minutes. He was on the verge of collapse, but he was determined to get through this.
"I watched an entire town of my own people die a most horrible death, because I made the job personal. I let my connection to you fuel my desire to keep people from suffering like you did, and the Force time and again refused to offer up any answers as to how to stop it from happening. As I lay there in the street, crawling the last hundred meters to my ship, I realized why. He is needed. There must be balance. A world where only good exists is unbalanced, and will be put right in whatever way it must. It is a noble goal, but one that is unrealistic, and unatainable."
You must not look for Cyneran Shaler after my death, instead search for a way to bring balance in all things. Avenging me will not bring you the peace you seek." He collapsed back onto his bed, and the monitors started beeping loudly. He smiled up at Kelnhon one last time, and slowly faded into the force.
Kelnhon slowly put his hand on the now empty bed where his master had spent his final moments, and a tear slid down his scaly face. He slid his third eye lid across his eyes to remove the tears, and slowly stood up. He felt a great sadness, but somehow, he knew that NasAel had been right. Shaler would eventually be aprehended, but only when his presence was no longer required to bring ballance.
Kelnhon slowly exited the medbay, and headed to his room in the dormitory area of the temple. He stood in front of the mirror, andn truly looked at himself for the first time in years. He was drawn and haggard from his constant attempts to locate Shaler through meditation, ofter for over a week at a time, drawing on the force to sustain his body. It had taken a toll, even with his naturally slow metabolism, and he was easily a great deal under weight. He thought back on NasAels final words, and smiled.
He had work to do on the Council, and he couldn't do it by being half starved, and near death. He had a hard road ahead of him, but he was confident that NasAel would be there to guide him, in one way or another.
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