Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic RPG

Recap the Eighteenth

17 July 2012

Recap of the previous adventure.

Blue Light, Blue Men

The docking bay of the Celestial Gate appeared to be created for people at least a kilometer tall. The computer consoles, doors, and other interfaces were three hundred meters off the ground, and the buttons were the size of a human. Once the group managed to operate one of the consoles and open the docking bay door, however, everything else seemed regular-sized. The docking bay door, in fact, opened up to a cross-section of three floors, the third of which had a bright blue light intermittently shining from it.

The light caught the pique of the group, and they headed directly for it. They discovered a large, circular chamber with a central sphere. The sphere shot out light at seemingly random points along the wall. Anything thrown to intercept the light appeared to be reduced to its component parts - rations became an apple, a gun became a hunk of ore, while a rock stayed a rock.

So Shagaar put his hand in the way of one of the beams.

Three things happened, almost instantaneously:

• Everything in the column shut down.
• An alarm sounded, and red light filled the room.
• Shagaar was reduced to a twelve-year-old Cathar boy.

From the perspective of the young Shagaar, he had been training with his father only yesterday, and had fallen asleep in bed. Then he had woken up to a big room filled with red light and three strange aliens he had never seen before. So he was understandably frightened, confused, and aggressive.

It took some time, but eventually the party was able to calm Shagaar down enough to get him out of the room to the other side of the chamber. Ish began poking at the computer console, and attempted to get a handle on what had just happened. He discovered that the chamber discharged temporal energy, without which the Celestial Gate could not function safely. It was shut down while it was checked out by the local droids, and, once given the all-clear, it would start back up again.

The trick was that the temporal energy wasn't constant. Some of the energy was negative, others positive, and all to varying degrees. The console could tell Ish what the next burst of energy was going to be, but *only* the next burst - there was no telling what the sequence would be until just before it happened. Armed with this knowledge, Ish proposed that they stand Shagaar in the chamber when the temporal burst was "close enough" - somewhere within a year or so of the age Shagaar had used to be.

When Shagaar was hit by the burst of energy again, it gave him an extra year. So, to resolve the paradox, the temporal adjustment AI placed him in the chamber a year previous to the party's arrival. Shagaar wandered around, learned how to disable the temporal chamber from either side so he could pass, and found the gigantic enclosed lake on the far side of the chamber, which he fished from. And so he waited, for a full year, until it was time for him to rejoin the party.

From the party's perspective, they put young Shagaar in the chamber, he was hit by a burst of temporal energy, and then he disappeared. Things were tense for a few seconds until Shagaar came from around the corner, looking a little worse for wear, and announced himself.

The party took one look at the giant lake on the other side of the temporal chamber and decided it was uncrossable, so they turned around and, after deactivating the chamber, explored elsewhere.

They discovered a gigantic necropolis, filled with the names of everyone that had died but never been buried. They discovered their own names, no less than twice each, and reckoned that it represented a host of possible futures. One headstone of note read, "Here lies Shagaar. May he rest in pieces, as he was a troublesome opponent all together." Once Ish realized what the room was, he covered his eyes lest he be tempted to look, and the others led him across the room.

Not too long after, they found a winding staircase, and at the top was Kaname, in a fierce firefight with several Celestials. There were only three Celestials against Kaname's eight, but they were managing to hold their own. Ish decided for himself which side he wanted to be on, and soon it was twelve vs three. The Celestials were defeated.

To describe Kaname as ungrateful would do her a disservice. She was, however, not pleased that Shagaar and Kistra had followed her here. According to her, the Celestials needed the blood of seven different alien species to activate the Gate, at which point they would go back in time and attempt to re-establish the dominance of the Celestial Empire. There were only four species among Kaname's forces (which she claimed numbered approximately one hundred); adding Kistra and her party, that made eight. It was, quite simply, too risky to have them assist.

The party excused themselves and discussed their options. To help, or not to help? If Kaname won, could she be trusted not to use the power of the Gate towards her own ends? If either side won, wasn't that just as much a threat to the galaxy? Kistra sensed that Kaname was not telling the whole truth, or at least wasn't as sure about the necessity of the blood - did they trust what she was telling them?

The Adventure Continues ...