J*di suck.

Really suck.

They’re fucking stupid.

I’ve been a fan as much as anyone else has been, despite that weird seventh reboot where everyone was a robot. Taking away whatever meager acting skills were required in a sci-fi franchise was an unmitigated disaster. Try watching subtitles as clunky robots totter around a giant sphere of destruction.

Still watched it 4 times though.

Each time more hideous than the last.

Well, my attempts at being a Guardian of light and justice were doomed to failure from the start it seems. Sword in hand I had backtracked until I found more of my rabbit nemesises? Nemeses? Nemses? Bad evil opponents of mine.

I waited until there was one rabbit slightly separated from the herd.

Wait. Is a group of rabbits a herd?

So, herd-less fiend that it was, I stalked it for a short while until I was sure there would be no interruptions. Focusing within myself I drew on the Force around me and felt my senses becoming sharper. Striding forth I drew my blade and let the power guide my swing in a decapitating strike.

Decapitated the little fucker with one hit.

Wonderful so far, right?

Confident in my abilities, I decided to test my danger senses. Approaching two rabbits this time I decapitated the first and felt the second become enraged and charge at me. Clearly sensing the attack, I sidestepped and swung at the off-balance creature.

Two rabbits less to plague the world.

Next, three rabbits.

That’s when things started to go badly. I sensed the rabbits’ attacks and was able to dodge, but my skills meant that I wasn’t able to attack when I had to face two rabbits attacking me at the same time, the third already a headless mess on the ground. My attacks weren’t flowing from one to the next and I knew it. It was one swing at a time and that wasn’t going to work. So, I imitated the Katas I’d seen the J*di use.

Bad move.

Turns out that spinning around in a fight is abominably stupid. Even with danger sense and the ability to guide my strikes more effectively, it takes a long time to complete a spin. So, as I fell back battered by these vicious rodents, I relied on my new trump card.

Force Push! The attacking Rabbit was deflected to the side. (Seems I need to improve the skill, I could only shift its trajectory a little bit.) The deflection was enough to give me time to take out the other enemy before dispatching the attacker.

Sounds like things were going well? Yeah, they were. Until I ran into the skeleton.

Turns out Force abilities rely on sensing living beings. Faced with a clattering, ragged, undead being, it turns out that my vaunted abilities didn’t sense its snarling, until it bit me.

A skeleton bit me.

I did the only rational thing when you’ve been bitten. Scream and punch whatever the fuck it was in the head. Then take the head as a trophy. The minute the head flew off, the rest of the skeleton had become a puppet whose strings were cut and it collapsed. Note to self, when dealing with skeletons, remove skulls first.

Unsure of where it came from, I fell back to the rabbit pasture, skull hanging on my belt, and continued my experiments. The more I swung my sword in spinning arcs the less effective I became. It only went further downhill when I tried to influence the rabbits’ minds. Turns out rabbits don’t think. Especially evil doom rabbits like the ones that I faced. My attempts to cloud their minds were disastrous at best and catastrophic on average.

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How so?

My desperation embarrassed me.

“This is not the banana you’re looking for.” I told the hissing Rabbit while I was covered in its compatriots dried blood.

“Brilliant! Did you think of that line yourself?” Miranda opined while hovering above me.

“Its mind is too small to influence.” I whined as I drove my blade through its skull.

“Your mind needs to be bigger than the creatures that you want to influence.” She cheerfully criticized.

Taking too long to come up with a retort I decapitated the Rabbit in vengeance, and returned to grinding (Read: Murder).

I was ecstatic when I heard the system ping to announce something new after my 150th rabbit.

Swordstyle created: Dancing Blades of the Guardian

Although my happiness vanished pretty quickly when I read the description.

Swordstyle: - Dancing Blades of the Guardian Lv.1:- Created by a force empowered apprentice, these beautiful artistic movements are an excellent style for performance. Lacking the ferocity and ability of traditional sword styles, these moves are highly appreciated by the layman and scoffed at by the expert.

Effects when this style is used:

·         The movements of the sword appear clearer and charismatic.

·         Damage reduced.

·         Speed increased.

·         Easier to Bluff, Intimidate and Perform using this style.

So, I’m on my way to becoming a successful sword artist. That’s probably not the direction I want to go, and that’s why the only option I’m left with is empowering myself with the force to sense things and just hack away at whatever the fuck comes at me.

My experiments with the rabbits complete I found the mountain range, did a 180 and walked in the opposite direction as fast as I could. Not interested in searching the range, I figured the best thing would be to get as far from it as I could. Eventually Miranda would find some village somewhere and I could happily dispose of my spoils and get clean clothes.

I need clothes because the blood won’t go. Not because I pissed myself when bitten by the skeleton. Absolutely not.

This time I carefully moved through the woods. Or, as carefully as a blood-soaked man with a sword and skull can move.

The skulls for my next recitation of Hamlet. Joking. It looked valuable and when I’d tried to identify it the result had been intriguing.

Item Name

Mysterious skull

Description

A Mysterious Skull you removed from a Skeleton

Mysterious is a very intriguing word don’t you think?

So, I trudged through the woods with a snarky flying companion in tow until it started turning dark. Darkness is bad. Really bad. There’s not a single game that doesn’t make things bad for you at night. It’s already difficult to see but they have to make sure that you suffer even more from stronger monsters and all sorts of creepy crawlies.

That’s why I ran.

It’s also how I discovered there was a limit on stamina. I couldn’t keep running indefinitely, but it wasn’t as bad as my real-life stamina. Not that my stamina in the real world is all that bad, it’s just difficult to get time to exercise with a desk job.

Luckily the running did the trick and I managed to break out of the forest onto some plains.

Out of breath and sweating, I gazed at the massive plains that stretched out before me. These are the kinds of plains you see on old records of the African savannahs, filled with grass and sparse foliage. The blazing red sunset flaring against the horizon like a thousand tendrils reaching across the Earth. Blurry shadows of indeterminate size stalked the plains and I could only stare in wonderment at the sight. It may not be much to you, but to someone who has never seen anything of this sort ever before it’s an astonishing thing.

“Any luck Miranda?” I questioned after my breath came back.

“Not sure Jin. I’m pretty sure there’s a village in that direction but I’m getting some weird readings that I don’t understand.” The frown on her face may have concerned an average human but not someone as magnificent as me.

I don’t care to be honest. I want a bath so, off to whatever the hell weird village we’ve discovered.

Oops better retie the Mysterious skull. Damn things jaw clacks with each step when it gets loose.

It’s pretty creepy.