So, what is it that Lana actually meant?

She said something about not being able to “hear” you when you spoke to Gilt, but certainly did hear you earlier. Now, you need to puzzle out what exactly that means, but you do have a hypothesis.

She can hear you — hear your voice and your telepathic messages. But, when you were speaking directly to Gilt, she failed to hear the latter. There is but one logical conclusion to that: your telepathy only works for the person you are speaking to. Others cannot listen in.

Well, easy enough to test this out. Gilt and Lana are both still here so you might as well ask them for just a bit more help. This time, you speak to Lana, seeking to engage her in conversation as she’s already distractible enough.

“Lana, can you hear me?”

“Buh—” she jumps in her seat, spoon falling out of her mouth. “Huh? Wha? You’re still here?”

“Uh, yeah. Can you hear my, er, ‘double-talk?’”

She stares at you quizzically, confusion pooling within her. “What do you mean?”

“You remember when Gilt said I do some sort of double-talk?”

“No.”

“That was only ten minutes ago!”

“That’s a long time.”

Sighing, you give up and turn to Gilt who has taken this chance to finally get back to finishing her lunch.

“Hey, Gilt. Did you hear any of that?”

Another stare of confusion greets you. “...yes?”

“I mean, with the double-talk thing — the telepathy. Did you hear my telepathy when I was talking with Lana?”

“No.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Alright, that solves that puzzle! Maybe. That was only one datapoint. You should probably test it out with a few others, and speaking of “others,” you know quite a few people who would like to know about your ability. Might as well test it out with them!

The cafeteria isn’t really the best place to be doing it though, so perhaps you should move somewhere else first?

≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡

You drop heavily onto one of the benches in the Initiate’s common area, folding your legs up and under you during the rebound. It’s a nice and cushioned seat, but crucially lacks a backrest — probably meant to force Younglings to adopt good posture, but also a boon for be-tailed people like you. It really hurts when you accidentally crush your tail!

Now then, who to start with? Maybe someone who is less likely to be angry at you for interrupting something? Tera, in that case. It’s not like she’s got anything important going on, Initiate that she is! Anyways, you get the feeling she’d much rather drop whatever she’s doing just for the chance to see or “hear” your telepathy in action. That’s settled then.

Concentrate.

Open your mind.

Now, where is she?

You have no idea where she is right now. It’s not yet time for lessons, so she could be just about anywhere. That means, you’ll have to look far and wide, but can you do it?

You expand your senses, searching. And, as you do, you come across more and more minds, far more than what was just in the cafeteria. Here you sit, in the Initiates’ area, searching for a single person in a kilometer-tall building. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people between you and Tera, and you must filter through each and every one of them to find your target.

You can do it. It just takes focus. It just takes concentration.

It’s almost overwhelming.

So many minds bump up against yours. You bounce between each, rocking back and forth in the current of thoughts — rapids of memory and sensation. A terrible ride; one you must somehow steer and navigate.

And yet, as you expand further and further, you do have some guides: your other senses. You have your Force Sight. Though its range is not long enough to encompass the entirety of the Temple, you can at least use it to filter out those nearby — keep your mind closed to them, but still seeking for Tera.

You have your warp-sight and witchsight, a potent combination easily able to point out who’s who and where’s where. But, is this not cheating? Perhaps, but you still must check each person, one at a time.

But, with these tools, you can do it. You check each sentient your mind comes across, ignoring those who are clearly too old or the wrong species, then giving a brief but thorough examination of those that remain, and as you do this over and over, you begin to find the process becoming easier.

The minds of those around you are not rocks to dodge — boulders in a roaring river of endless thought. No, you can instead pretend they are more… submerged. You can pass over them now, brushing against them for a brief check. Of course, this is still a challenge: there’s still so many rocks, and the process is still extremely tiring. You’re bruised and battered by even the smallest of bumps, your mind almost fading away from the experience.

However, you grit your teeth and continue, and after minutes of headache-inducing searching, you finally find her: a small girl at the base of one of the Spires. You see her with your eye, a speck of color that grows larger and more detailed the more you concentrate. You feel her with your mind, a familiar spark of light and life, whirling with excitement.

Tera? you whisper, keeping quiet so as not to rip her fragile thoughts to shreds.

That dot in the distance pauses in action, then continues, evidently having heard you but clearly not believing it is you.

Tera, I got the telepathy thing to work.

At that, she fully stops, excitement growing so much as to fill her entire being. She jumps to her feet, then pauses, not knowing what exactly to do. You feel her slight confusion and send to her a sliver of your own amusement — a twinkling giggle of delight.

Tera sits back down, flushing with embarrassment. She’d come here to speak with a potential Master, and now she’s gone and stood up for no apparent reason! It’s a good thing nobody’s actually nearby to see her. Imagine if she’d done that while speaking with someone?

But, she can do it now! She can speak to you from so far away! Can she hear you at this moment?

Yes. comes the answer, still ringing with amusement, but then also a tinge of concern. Why?

—And then you pull back, shivering. What was that? A connection of thought? For a moment, you were Tera, thinking of Xena as another person. Your best friend, but not you?

Tera can wait for a moment; you need to organize your own mind. You’ve kept your mind open for a while now, exposing yourself to so much outside influence. You’re afraid that the more you keep this up, the less you’ll be able to demarcate your own thoughts from those of others. You need to do something.

You sit for a few minutes, searching through your true-self. This isn’t your mind, but using your warp-eye to comb through your psyche should serve the same purpose, right? Your true-self is made of your memories. Knowing which ones are truly yours will fix this problem. Hopefully.

There, you spy a bit of taint. Not warp-taint, but the effects of rubbing your mind against so many others. A texture, like a graphite-rubbing, of someone else’s memory lines the ragged edge of your latest layer of true-self. Carefully, you reach over and grasp it. You pry it away, shoving your other hand into the gap and sliding it forward to make the job easier. A second more, and you have it: a shrinking thread of foreign thought. Now, what to do with this?

But, before you can think of something, a shadow bursts forward from one of your arms. It’s a formless shape at one moment; the next, a gaping mouth opens and rips the thought away, swallowing it whole!

And then it’s gone.

What was that?

You stare at your arm, veins glowing gold and a sated shadow swimming below. You feel something: happiness. No benevolence, but no malevolence either. It sits here, waiting, but also knowing not better than to do you wrong, not when you have that watching EYE.

You snap back to awareness and look around the common area. Nobody seems to be paying you any attention. Good. You’d half expected yourself to be unconsciously screaming in abject horror and confusion.

What is this thing? This shadow, this thought-eating-puppet, is a strange little fellow. You know it won’t harm you. It won’t eat your thoughts, but can it those of others? That is, can it eat thoughts outside the confines of your true-self? How often does it need to feed? Has it done so before you unknowingly gave it a meal?

This is… scary. Perhaps, if you feed it enough, you can keep it happy and compliant — like a carnivorous pet. Then, it surely wouldn’t do any harm.

You could continue to feed it by doing what you’ve been doing: bumping against other minds in your vast searches. But, you also have that same problem of having to check your own mind every so often. You could possibly narrow your searches more efficiently with greater use of your other senses. Actually, why not check if that works right now?

You mutter a brief apology to Tera — not actually to her, but you keep her in your mind.

…That’s also rather awkward wording.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

You have something else to try, though, so you must move on. This time, you look for Master Corr. You know where she’s likely to be: the Halls of Healing. You cast your gaze in the general direction, looking for another familiar sight, and not a second later you’ve found your mark. She’s just so bright! So easy to spot!

But, now that you’ve found her, you need to contact her. This time, however, you’re going to try keeping your mind closed to others as much as possible.

Rather than casting a net all around you in the hopes of catching a single fish among many, you now know exactly where that minnow is. Time for some spear fishing! Well, not really, but you’ll be doing your best to keep your mind only on your target, in more ways than one. All it takes is a bit of concentration, right?

This time, instead of brushing against those rocks in the way, you do your best to keep your hands and feet above the “water.” You do bounce up against some people who are simply too large to avoid — their minds standing far above that waterline — but you make it to Master Corr without much issue.

Hi, Master Corr! I got my telepathy to work!

“Huh, she actually did it,” Alba says. Her patient, a Rodian with a broken leg, looks up at her in confusion.

“Sorry, were you talking to me?”

“Ah, no. Now, lie back. There’s not much else for you than to rest.”

Alba takes a sticker out of the drawer to her left, then surreptitiously pastes it on the Rodian’s back. She helps him into a power chair, then gets that silly droid to push him out the door. She’s got something else much more interesting to do.

Now then, what’s this about telepathy?

A slew of images and sensations bombards her as Xena excitedly butchers an explanation. It’s a good thing those came with her words, for Alba would have had no way of understanding anything without them. One thing that really stands out, however, is a memory of a jumping shadow. A frightful, unexpected thing, that truly spooked the young girl.

What was that?

It’s the thing in my arm.

Alba thinks back to the memory, replaying it within her mind. There’s nothing there for her to do, though. She’s a healer, dammit! Not a mystical wizard who can solve all problems!

Yes, you are!

Oh, yes. Xena’s right about that, but Alba has no experience with living arm-shadows. It’s all she can do to help Xena fumble her way through this. Perhaps a liberal application of Force Purification might do something, though?

I’ll try that.

You break away and glare at the arm before you. Time for you to go!

But, it doesn’t. Nothing happens during the application of Purification. Nor, after. You flip your headband up for a moment and watch the shadow spiral across the arm, gliding peacefully, completely unaffected.

Force Stanch? No.

Force Cleanse? No, though you know you haven’t trained in that fully.

You dive back into your psyche and look down at the arm again. There it sits, happily writhing with joy at the taste of yet another meal. A glance at the top-most layer of true-self reveals a distinct lack of foreign influence. No thoughts of others. None of Master Corr’s.

Did this thing already eat it?

You look closer at your arm, but nothing shows. It’s just a block of shadow — all one color, all one shape. The edge of the layer of true-self, however, is lined with suspiciously teeth-like marks. Not damage, but a definite proof of the thing’s autonomy.

Perhaps this is good? Perhaps not. It’s definitely not gotten as full a meal as earlier, since you only bumped up against a few other minds besides Master Corr’s.

Still, though, you have more experimentation to do. This time, you’ll try to contact multiple people at once. With Gilt and Lana, only one of them had heard you at a time. What happens if you try it with purpose?

Who to speak to, though? Perhaps Masters Lasah and Nu. Both of them are very knowledgeable about esoteric phenomena. They might have something to say.

Master Nu is likely to be in the Archives as usual, and indeed she is when you look with your warp-eye. Master Lasah’s location, however, is unknown to you at this time. You have lessons with her soon, though, so she must be in the Temple somewhere.

How to search for her, though?

A combination of senses might do the trick. You reach out with your Force Sight first, looking through all the people nearby. Nope, she’s not close.

Time to search farther then. You look around with your warp-eye open again while “listening” with your mind. Two channels of input: a better way to speed your search. The problem still remains that you’re butting up against so many minds in your search. You can practically feel the shadow swimming about, ripping away those echoes of memory to keep you clean. It’s… refreshing, but without a concrete knowledge of what it’s actually doing, you’re going to keep a healthy amount of wariness before you’ll begin to trust it.

Finally, you find her. She’s… in the guard offices? Why? Well, why not just ask? You’ll start with her, then try to contact Master Nu too once you’ve established a mental connection. Better to do this piecemeal.

Master Lasah? Can you hear me?

Darling looks around, searching for the source of that little whisper. It sounded like Xena, but she wouldn’t be here right now. Darling’s Force Sight reveals everything around her, even through walls.

Drallig stands in the ‘fresher, giving his teeth a quick brush. Larner and Droj watch entrances through exterior cameras, directing droids and other guards to cover blind spots when needed. Three more guards sleep in their bunks in anticipation of a long night’s watch.

Outside, an insect dances on the ceiling light before melting its dainty feet to the burning bulb. Two Initiates rush past, late to a meeting, but neither one is the girl she’s searching for. A floor above, a sink continually runs, the owner of the room having forgotten to turn it off. Darling twists the knob with a wave of her hand, shutting off the flow.

Where is she?

Youthful happiness, an innocence half-broken, tickles the back of her mind. It’s not hers.

Xena? Is that you?

You smile behind the mask, eyes closed now that you’ve found her. So, this is what it’s like to have a fully developed Force Sight. Master Lasah sees so much more than you do, somehow able to perceive the letters on papers posted to a bulletin board. She’s aware of so many things at once, taking in the information and acknowledging and categorizing it all almost immediately. It’s truly amazing.

The clacking of teeth rings out from within you and you look down in surprise. The shadow glides through your true-self, selectively picking out what should not be there and pruning it away. It chews on each piece thoughtfully, then turns to you. It has no face, no features at all, and yet you could swear a pair of gleaming eyes stare at you in the dark — happy at a job well done.

You shudder at the sight, but look away. You’ll deal with that later.

Xena? Master Lasah calls again. She stands in what was formerly Master Masbau’s room, a broken clock face resting in her hand. She stares at it, remembering when she’d gifted it to him, then throws it away. It serves no purpose now.

Hi, Master. My telepathy works now.

She freezes in place, then continues moving, heading for where you normally meet for lessons.

…That is good. Does it place any strain on your mind, though?

Yes. You send across your memories. Slowly. No need to flood her mind with your own. It’s not like she has some creepy shadow creature to clean up a mental mess.

She continues walking, digesting the thoughts and formulating her own. You hold those at bay though, as you’d very much like to do the other thing you’d set out to do.

Master Nu remains where you’d last looked, apparently sorting some books or something. You repeat the same process as before with Master Corr, and make the connection.

Master Nu?

Jocasta drops the book in one hand and the datapad in the other, silently cursing at the cracked screen she discovers when she turns it over. She turns around to admonish Xena for sneaking up on her, but finds nobody in the dark aisle. Frowning, she turns back to the datapad, examining the damage done.

Sorry!

She curses again as the screen cracks once more against the floor.

“Xena! Stop that! That isn’t funny.”

I’m sorry, Master Nu. I’m using telepathy, though. It’s working!

Jocasta stops, just like the others you’ve contacted. It’s funny, really. They all act the same way! You look over back at Master Lasah to see—

Nothing. Your connection with her is gone! What happened to her? You reach back out to her, guessing at where she should be now.

Darling stumbles over the last step of the stairwell as a presence weighs upon her mind. “Xena…” she mutters under her breath.

Uh, I didn’t say anything!

Darling grumbles again, then continues onward. Thankfully, she didn’t twist her ankle, though it does feel slightly sore. She’ll take a look at it once she’s her destination. Speaking of destination, Xena had better be there soon. It’s almost time to meet.

Ah! Okay! Moving now!

You hop out of your seat and start walking over. It seems that your original conclusion was correct: you can only connect with one person at a time. A shame, really. You’d hoped you could somehow link together a full conversation between multiple people. That would have been amazing!

You halt in your tracks as another idea pops into your head. There’s one person you’d very much like to contact. One person you very well might be able to, now that you’ve done some practice! Your head does ache slightly from all of that mental workout, but the excitement pushes the pain away. Master Masbau. You haven’t spoken to him in so long! If you can speak with him any time now, you would be overjoyed!

Spinning back around, you rush back into the Initiate’s common area and drop back into the seat. Master Lasah can wait! This is way more important.

The pure rush of excitement threatens to overwhelm your thoughts, but a moment of concentration calms you down. It’s time to focus.

Now, where is he?

Oh, that’s a very big question — one you’d not considered in your excitement. How are you going to contact him if you don’t know where he is? You’ll have to search. You’ll have to search very far and very wide.

Do you even have the range?

You don’t know until you try.

You open your mind and expand your search area larger and larger, filtering through all the people you come across. Who knows? Maybe he’s still in the Temple and has been hidden away from you?

But, no. That isn’t the case, and so your search goes on. Your range soon encompasses the outer grounds of the Temple, where numerous guards stand ready to defend the Jedi within. Not here.

And then you’re listening to the city-dwellers — the population of Coruscant proper. One word describes them. Noisy.

A dirty mess of minds, far far louder than anything you’ve heard before. Each individual mind is already far noisier than a single Jedi’s. These people — these civilians — have not had the mindfulness training every Jedi has had from childhood. These people don’t know peace; not like the peacekeepers of the Galaxy.

You strain your mind, trying to search through all the people out there, but there’s just so many! You can feel the shadow glutting itself on all the marks being left on your soul, but you can also sense something like apprehension from it as it stares at the mountain of a meal piling up before it.

You must keep going though. You must! This is only Coruscant. Master Masbau could be anywhere in this Galaxy!

≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡

You blink awake as someone roughly shakes you.

“Huh? What? I’m awake!”

Tera leans over you, concern washing through her. “Xena, are you alright? You just suddenly stopped answering me!”

Oh, right. You’d kind of just left her so you could talk to others. And, you’d done the same to Master Corr, and Master Nu, and Master Lasah. That was maybe a bit rude…

“I… Sorry. I, uh, got distracted.”

Ugh… Your head really hurts now. That was definitely a mistake, exposing yourself to so many minds at once. You glance down at your arm. Hopefully this creature can help you. Hopefully it can keep you clean.

You look back up, asking, “How long have I been asleep?”

“Probably not too long. It took me some time to find you, but it can’t have been more than twenty minutes.”

“Oh, good. I’m not too late then.”

“Late for what?”

“Lessons with Master Lasah.”

“... You’d better hurry.”

And so you run.