Arc 2 Chapter 7

Anaïs sat in the bed assigned to her, in the ‘Minerali’ Sect, unsure of what to do. After she had turned down the Headmaster’s offer of training formally, the man had stopped leaning on her with his Presence in the Force, and moved on as if hadn’t done anything worthy of note. And her Master had gone along with it, though she had been able to feel Master Lucian’s pride in her at not having been swayed in the slightest.

Was this a test? she thought, but of course it was. Everything the ancient man did was a test, of sorts, but most weren’t as blatant as that. Though part of her was pleased she’d passed, part of her had wondered what the older Jedi would’ve done if she had failed.

“We would’ve left, then and there,” he answered, when she asked.

Headmaster Draconis looked up, “But the Radiance-”

“Would’ve waited until I got her to safety, and then would be dealt with, Edward,” Lucian had cut him off, tone sharp. “Only without the care and precision I normally use.”

The old man paled, at the younger looking man’s statement, staring down at the paperwork on his desk. “Best for us all that you turned me down, young lady.”

She’d shot the older man a questioning look, but he hadn’t met her gaze, and Lucian, as always, waited for her to explicitly ask before he would answer. If she asked, he would answer, but she might not like what she found out. This time, she decided not to. After an awkward moment, the Headmaster questioned the older Jedi, “Minerali, same as you?”

“That would be best,” Lucian nodded in agreement, and this time she did ask.

“Minerali?”

The Wizard took the lead, glancing up at her, obviously glad to be on more comfortable topics. “The Circle of Magic is split into three Sects, depending on what type of Foci a Wizard or Wizardess uses. Anamalia houses those who use creature-based Foci, like myself. Plantae use plant-based Foci, though that includes fungus, and Minerali use natural elements, like stones, gems, and metals. With your saber, soaked as it is in your Essence, most would think you one of the third. With your pendant, there will be some. . . confusion.”

“Could I not use both?” she asked, quickly adding to her mentor, “Not that I’m going to, but-”

Draconis shook his head. “No. Using Foci from two different Sects doesn’t work. It’s been tried. Two from the same Sect can harmonize, but a tree is different enough than a cat or a rock that such things are not possible. No, you would cripple yourself, or be forced to choose one, and lose all the effort you’ve spent learning how to better work with the other.”

“A bit like trying to be both Jedi and Sith,” Lucian added. “Though none in the Circle have the latter’s proclivity towards insanity, thankfully.”

The Headmaster snorted, a few embers flying from his nostrils, “With some of the things my students have tried, I might disagree with you, but that likely had nothing to do with their Foci. How is her runecrafting?”

“Runecrafting?” Anais echoed, and Lucian sighed.

“You didn’t see it from the guards, because announcing your intentions like this is a good way to get dead, but you will see it in class,” the Jedi informed her, holding up a hand, and shadows coalesced above it, with hints of golden light, just like his Presence. Forming an odd symbol, he declared, “This is the ‘rune’ of ‘flight’. It is the basis of most levitation ‘spells’.”

With barely a ripple in the Force, one of the books on the Headmaster’s table lifted up into the air, before dropping itself back down. “It is commonly accepted in the circle that more complicated uses require more runes to better define what it is your doing, and to make better use of your ‘Mana’, really your own reserves of stamina.” This time, a circle appeared around the first symbol, the outside inscribed with half a dozen more symbols. The Force moved in a bit more of an obvious manner, and instead of a single book, every tome on the Headmaster’s desk lifted up, flew a slow circuit around the room, and carefully landed back in the original positions they’d started as.

“However, keeping each symbol manifested and separate is difficult, and the maximum number of circles one can maintain determines the Rank of the Wizard.” This time, circle after circle appeared, until twenty separate rings, each one full of symbols, hung in the air, in defiance of the Master Jedi’s previous statement. This time, everything in the office levitated, the Force twisting and weaving into intricate patterns of complexity that she’d never seen before. They danced in precisely choreographed patterns, nothing running into each other, though they came withing centimeters of doing so, moving with such speed that they would’ve destroyed themselves if interrupted, and seriously hurt anyone that did the interrupting. Soon enough, everything settled down, exactly as it was before.

“It’s also all complete and utter druk.”

The symbols rippled, the central ‘lift’ rune forming the symbol of the Jedi order. The runes along each ring shifted to Aurebesh letters, the written form of Galactic Basic, each forming a different sentence. The innermost wring clearly stated ‘I’m useless.’ Then the next read, ‘This does absolutely nothing.’ They continued. ‘Oh noooo, not magic letters. How mysterious.’ ‘There’s a lot of reasons we don’t use this, Anaïs.’ ‘Are you actually reading this? Come on. Really?’ and so on. Along the edge was the transcription, ‘I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves. Everybody’s nerves. Yes, everybody’s nerves. I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves, and this. Is. How. It. Goes. I know a song that gets on-‘

She stopped reading, as the exact same flux in the Force played out, the items in the room spinning and twisting just as before. As the runes dissipated, Lucian had given her the look that clearly said, ‘I’ve shown you the outline of the concept, are you able to figure it out?’ It wasn’t the first time he’d given her such a look, and she considered what she’d just seen carefully.

“If they don’t do anything, then why do people use them?” she asked herself out loud, the Headmaster starting to reply, but Master Lucian held up a hand to let her work through it. “If they’re using them, if they’re all using them, they can’t be completely useless.” Yes, the Jedi had made them declare themselves to be, but he hadn’t informed her as such, only made it form those words, and he’d made it clear that only the things he directly told her should be taken as true, and even then not always.

If they did absolutely nothing, people wouldn’t use them. Yes, there might be cultural reasons, but the Headmaster hadn’t used them at all. Looking to the man, she remembered his fire, and his transformation, all clear in the Force, but without any circles at all. If they weren’t needed, then. . . “Concentration aids!” she realized, catching the amused smile her Master sent Draconis, who just rolled his eyes.

“Different techniques, like Pyrokinesis or Animal Bonding, they require different ways of thinking, different ways of approaching the Force!” she announced, the pieces clicking together. “That’s why they’re so hard to learn, especially to start with. Using a Foci makes you lean in that direction, that way of thinking, as well, but if you believe the symbols are what does it, you can then remove yourself from emotionally even further, to deal with it at a remove. You aren’t shaping the Force itself, you’re forcing your mind into preset patterns to make the, um, the spell work!” She glanced up at her Master. “Or, I mean, I might be wrong.”

“You are, a little. It’s to create the needed emotion, instead of remove it entirely, and there are some other points that aren’t as you think, but you’ve got most of it,” he smiled. “The first step of a Wizard’s instruction here is learning the symbols and what they ‘do.’ This lets them use a wide variety of techniques, but they are stilted expressions in the Force, you might even call it ‘scripted’. Then the students learn to modify the base expression with more ‘circles’. With time they internalize the circles, like the guards that greeted us do, no longer needing to form them for anything other than working at the very limit of their ability. That is the point where most Wizards and Wizardesses of this world stop, and stagnate.”

The Headmaster took up the explanation. “And some of us realize the circles were within us all along. That they manipulate Mana, but we are Mana, and we start to, in our own ways, use Mana as your Order does. Not as dispassionately as you do, nor as cleanly, but in the same general function. However, to tell others of your way will only hurt your position here, young lady. It takes so much effort, and so much time, that it is only when one has hit a ceiling, with nowhere else to go, that one understands that maybe, just maybe, one has been going around it in a sub-optimal way all along.”

“Completely backwards, you mean?” Master Lucian prodded, and Draconis negligently tossed a small fireball at the Jedi’s head, which dissipated into nothingness on a shield of darkness. Her Master brushed off the attack, so Anaïs did as well, as the young-looking man turned to her. “Any you talk to will believe you are internalizing the circles, but some instructors will ask you to display them, so I’ll teach you how to form writing with your Presence. It’s utterly useless in almost every respect, but it’s an amusing shaping technique, if nothing else. Now, watch me, and do as I do. Don’t worry, I understand this technique thoroughly, and this one has no side-effects, but remember, replicate with techniques of your own, but do not copy the techniques of others exactly.”

And then he’d walked her through the process, which was surprisingly simple, with her getting the basics done in less than an hour. A senior student had then been summoned and had led her to her room in the Minarali dorms. As she was leaving, she could hear her master musing, “So who’s the new Hierophant, and how openly are they acting? With what I did to the last one, they hopefully learned some discretion.”

She’d been shown around the building, and introduced to her fellow year-mates, as she was being placed into the third Rank. The other Minerali students had looked upon her with general indifference, and after two dozen awkward hellos she’d retreated to her dormitory room to practice, to better fit in that way at least. Food had been delivered, hearty fare, with a lot of proteins and fats, and she’d thanked the student who’d done so, a fifteen-year-old girl in a white robe whose curiosity had been ill-hidden, but who hadn’t wanted to stay and talk.

Now it was the next morning, and she was wondering what to do.

A knock at her door broke her from her reverie, and she called, “Come in!”

A dark-skinned human woman, likely in her mid-twenties, in a gray robe opened the door and stepped inside. To Anaïs senses, the woman’s Presence was that of iron, shaped and set, and her facial expression reflected that. “I am Veora. I have been assigned to show you to your classes. I will do so now. Follow.”

Without another word, the woman turned on her heel and walked out, forcing the Jedi to quickly leap off her bed and catch up. “My name is Anaïs Vand-Ryssa. Thank you for your help.”

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Veora sent her an indecipherable look as they headed for the front door. “Have you been practicing long?” she inquired, as the two of them walked through the halls, then out onto the grounds proper, towards a large building.

“A few years,” the Padawan replied easily, remembering Lucian’s remark that those here started at fifteen, though many self-studied earlier. “Is your Foci made of metal?” she asked in turn, trying to be friendly. She was going to be spending weeks with these people, and she remembered from the diplomacy texts that shared traits were a building block of working relationships.

The woman, however, stopped, brows knitting as she stared at the Jedi.

“I’m sorry, was that rude? My Master and I are from a Circle far away,” Anaïs quickly apologized. “He’s helping Headmaster Draconis.”

Veora considered that, for a long moment, before nodding minutely. “Understandable. Yes. I use Voidsteel.” Pulling back her grey sleeve, she revealed an exquisitely crafted metal bracer. It looked a little like it was made from Mullinine, though it was almost glowing in the Force, seemingly with a Presence of its own. Actually, it was glowing, the dark metal festooned with tiny glowing points of light, almost as if it were dusted with stars. “Yours?” the Minerali Senior demanded.

“Kyber Crystal,” Anaïs half-lied, as her Master had instructed her to, pulling her saber from a pocket and holding it up for emphasis, before ‘sheathing’ it again.

Again, there was a pause, as if the other woman was carefully weighing her response. “Crystal. Of course.” It wasn’t a condemnation, just a statement of fact. At the Padawan’s confused look, Veora offered a neutral, “Crystals illuminate,” as if that was explanation enough, before she started to take off walking again.

Before Anaïs could ask more they arrived at their first destination, from which she was shown the cafeteria, and then the other common areas in short order. After that was the various classrooms, practice halls, and workspaces that wouldn’t be out of place in the Temple, though whereas the Temple was austere, it’s spaces open and airy, this place was almost. . . cluttered. Art was everywhere, as well as glowing crystals, suits of armor, weapons, and a great deal of other artefacts. All of them were filled with the Force, most having traces of their users still faintly hanging on them like the ghosts of ghosts.

It was enough to press in on her, even distributed as they were, but, with her training, she let it pass her by as she followed her guide, who finally gave her a piece of actual paper, instead of flimsiplast, with a schedule for her to memorize and follow. “You will be expected to attend class tomorrow. My task is done.”

Abruptly, Veora left, Anaïs standing in the hallway outside her ‘Runecraft’ class. “Well, thanks,” she muttered, looking around. Left to her own devices, she walked out into the open area, and, taking note of the students sitting out on the grass, did so herself. Centering herself and meditating, but with her eyes open, as Lucian had taught her to do in an unsecured location, she started to take in her surroundings.

Right away, the distinctions between the five different groups moving about was clear in the Force, and only confirmed with what she saw. The first group, who all wore uniformly grey robes, had to be those of the Minerali Sect. Their Presences differed, from metal, to stone, to crystal, but all of them, to an almost unnatural degree, felt solid. She’d known a few Initiates that felt that way, stolid and resolute, but their Presences were faintly so. They were often selected early by Knights, many of whom had a similar feeling to their Presence. Those boys and girls were. . . set, in ways that were hard to describe. She was told that she felt that way, Jorel informing her of her crystalline nature, though he had blushed talking about it for reasons she couldn’t understand. Regardless, his description had confused her as to why she hadn’t been selected, when that quality was so uniformly desirable for Masters seeking apprentices.

Too desirable, apparently, given how a Master Jedi had taken it upon themselves to ‘call dibs’, as Jorel would say, without bothering to inform her. She wondered if, having travelled with Lucian, she still felt that way. Most Initiates who came back as Padawans, after a year or two away from the Temple, felt different, but only in small ways. Rough hewn stone becoming smooth. Rain becoming a storm, or soft snow, or a light drizzle. Things like that. Others changed completely.

One girl, who was like a fyrnock, aggressive but skittish, had come back closer to a vornskyr. The Twi’lek’s Presence was still predatory, and a stealth predator at that, but one that moved with a pack instead of a swarm, and one that considered its prey carefully, but moved with confidence. Not exactly what Anaïs would think of for a Jedi’s temperament, but that girl’s Master was happy with her, and it wasn’t the then-Initiate’s place to judge.

Bringing her focus on the here and now, she could read the multitudinous Presences all around her. It was easy to understand them, far easier than it should’ve been, given how little practice they should have in the Force, starting when the did. They all had less training than most Initiates, less time to firm themselves in the Force, to develop that self-identity that could be read by others, but the strength of their Presences was more akin to those of experienced Knights. They didn’t have a Jedi Knight’s power, that was clear, but the signature of their Presences were incredibly easy for her to read.

The ones in uniform grey felt like rock, and stone, and crystal, so were part of the Minerali Sect. Others felt like, well, plants. Trees, and clinging vines, and lush fields of grass, those in green weren’t always in robes, but even those in more normal clothing still had the majority of it in various verdant shades.

Plantae, she thought, identifying them fairly easily. Their Presences weren’t as solid as those of Minerali, but they were still firm, rooted, for lack of a better word. In fact, as she looked around, most of those sitting on the grass were from the Plantae sect, the Minerali members only seen as they moved from one place to another. Anaïs realized she was attracting some stares, and gave the closest student a wave, the dark-skinned man nodding back to her, going back to his own meditations, a floating circle of symbols seemingly made of intertwined vines slowly forming in front of him.

Going back to her own studies, there were some students in white robes, though they were all young, all seemingly the same age. A few could have been Jedi Initiates, given the strength of their untrained Presences, but most were. . . weaker in the Force. Many, if not most, likely would not have made the cutoff of seven-thousand midi-chlorians per cell. Most of their Presences were faint, like most Initiates, to the point that it was hard to get any impression from them as to their owner’s temperment. A few had faint hints of something, but they were almost Jedi-like in their makeup, with the potential and almost ethereal nature of a true Force adept instead of the too-clear identities of these Wizards around her.

This is what they are before they pick a Foci, she realized, reaching out mentally, and not finding the echo of Presence on any of them that the Minerali or Plantae Sect Wizards possessed, indicating their Foci. Despite herself, Anaïs wanted to take those kids to safety, away from the mentally corruptive process of using an exterior Foci, but she let that feeling go.

As Lucian directed, instead of ignoring or suppressing her desire, she followed the irrational feeling to its source: her empathy for the innocent children, even if they were already teens, and her desire to protect others from harm. Except, it wasn’t truly harm, any more than the slug-tribe had been harm. It was merely different. These people’s ways, despite looking just like her own, were not her ways, and she had no right to interfere, nor any power to actually do anything.

Didn’t mean she had to like it though.

Moving her focus elsewhere, the people in casual clothing, carrying a delivery of food to the cafeteria, were Force-Blind, likely menial workers. Those in black robes were obviously staff members, with even more strident Presences than the students. In a way, they were even more obvious about their nature than the Presences of the few Jedi Masters she had met.

Except for Master Lucian, she mentally amended. Nothing here could compare to when the man had slammed his Presence across an entire city block, near-suffocating the souls of the warlord’s soldiers, giving her and the woman it’d been her mission to save an opportunity to escape.

The man hadn’t said anything about what he’d done that day, and she hadn’t asked. However, most times he held his Presence restrained, something that most Jedi Masters likely did to a lesser extant than her Master, who regularly drew himself down to Knight, or even Padawan levels, for seemingly no reason at all.

Grandmaster Yoda, to use a more. . . traditional example, was a mountain in the Force, but not one that felt like it was going to fall on you. The Staff here, however, seemed to just let their Presences spread out, the students getting out of their way, likely subconsciously. It must feel like having a boulder roll at you, a tree fall in your direction, or a predator stalking towards you, to be standing on the path the Staff wanted to walk.

In comparison, when a Jedi Master walked towards you, they were merely. . . there. Not dangerous, not worrying, even the most animalistic feeling Masters, like Shaak Ti were merely. . . present. She wondered if that was intentional, or merely an aspect of the way these Wizards trained.

Speaking of different, there was the last group. The group that, if she hadn’t known better, she would’ve called Sith. Almost none of them wore robes, though a few did, a deep red, the color of blood. Instead, most wore tight-fitting clothing, like she currently did, close without being restrictive. Their outfits, while many did have frills and decoration, were practical, many of them sporting subtle bits of armoring, just like her own.

What was universal among them was the fact that all of them wore a bit of that crimson red, even if it was merely a belt, an armband, or a scarf. Past that, their Presences were universal in their feeling of being viscerally alive. The aforementioned Twi’lek Padawan’s Presence was like a vornskyr, focused and predatory, but still clearly that of a Jedi. In the Force, the Animalia Sect students were their animals, their Presences half-formed into the creatures from which their foci belonged. The transformations were more pronounced in the Animalia staff, but it was only in Headmaster Draconis that she’d seen it not only completed, but then pushed even further.

Not every Animalia student was a predator, though a majority of them were, and it didn’t escape her notice that they all liked to move in packs, herbivores mixed in and following the lead of the others. Actually, she did spot one group that seemed to be trailing after someone that had a tri-horned Presence reminiscent of a reek.

Sitting, meditating, one group of Animalia students stopped, the leader spotting her, before they started stalking towards her. If she were younger, and less experienced, she might’ve been worried, but compared to the Ember Drakes, these half-formed threats barely registered, at least on an emotional level.

The leader, a man around her age, stopped a half-dozen feet away from her. “Haven’t seen you around,” he announced.

She nodded at this random declaration, replying, “Today is my first day.”

“So she’s a Seeker?” a girl with a somewhat pinched face and lighter brown skin asked scornfully, looking Anaïs over. “Kinda old. You must be slow.”

The leader glanced back, “Shut it, Chiku. She feel like a newbie?” He turned back to the Padawan. “What Rank?”

“Third,” the Jedi replied. “You?”

The man smiled, with a few too many teeth. “Same. You know your boss tossed my sister through a window, right?”

The Jedi frowned, looking at him more closely in the Force. His presence, that of a Nexu, matched the man’s too-wide, fanged grin. She’d thought the woman that Master Lucian had thrown was a Cathar, but if she was partially transformed, like Draconis had, that would explain her feline features.

“Into a window,” Anaïs corrected. “He didn’t toss her hard enough to put her through it. Also, she attacked him first.”

“You think I care?” he asked, and the Padawan tensed, cycling the Force Body technique, and prepping a Force Barrier. She wasn’t sensing danger, but when she did, she’d spring, slam it into place, and draw her saber. Anaïs thought she’d go longer than a day without killing someone, but apparently she took after her Mast- “Fight me,” the boy demanded, but made no other motion.

The Force remained suspiciously silent, when it should be blaring a warning in her ear, but that very fact meant she was able to take her time before carefully responding, “Here? Now?”

The cat-Presenced man blinked, confused. “Not here, obviously. But as soon as we can get a teacher to mediate it. You really have just gotten here, haven’t you?”

“Yes?” she replied. “Do. . . do I have to?”

“Pfft, coward,” the girl, Chiku, sneered.

The leader pretended the other girl hadn’t said anything. “No, you don’t have to, but it’ll be fun. ‘Sides, if your teacher could do that to Sis, I wanna see what his student can do. Come on, the healers are good at patching us up. Wanna see how tough the locals are?”

Her Temple training told her the answer should be an unequivocal no. Being a Jedi, according to them was about being above such petty, prideful concerns as who was better than others. Then again, there were several instructors in the Temple who had not taken it well when Jorel had fought them to a standstill, showing the very same Pride they derided.

Looking at it the Lucian way, this would certainly be a learning experience, and help her better understand the local culture. While Jedi were separate, they still lived in the galaxy, and thus had to be aware of what went on it. From the way this cat-man was acting, these sorts of things were common enough to have a formal procedure.

And, if she was being honest with herself, she did want to see how she measured up.

In a single motion, she rose from cross legged to standing, with the strength of the Force reinforcing her legs. Cat-man took a half-step back, his easy confidence strained a little at her display. For her part, she just smiled at him pleasantly, and spoke two words.

“Let’s go.”