Robert Meta
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Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 176
🕑 Added 2024-10-28 15:40:02 +0000 UTCI managed to scrounge around for some decent ingredients in the kitchen, putting together a leafy green salad with some seasoned grilled meat. It was a light meal, and the grilled meat was pre-cooked, but it was still good and filling. Once we were done eating, the mood improved significantly as we talked about some of the stories I knew about the Clone Wars, some with happy endings, including a few about Luke's father. A few hours later, Miru moved back to the cargo hold to work on whatever project she had brought with her, and Luke went to his room to meditate.
Over the next few days, we kept ourselves busy, waiting to arrive at our destination. I learned a single spell, Circle of Healing. I didn't quite remember the spell from the game, so I was pretty sure that it was a replacement for a spell that affected the undead. The spell created a three-meter wide circle that was tied to a significantly large surface. The circle, which glowed with a swirling golden energy, lasted for a full five minutes. Anyone inside the circle would heal at a rate about as powerful as a standard Fast Healing every other second, making it a pretty decent way to get a large group healed. People could step in, wait until they were healthy, and then step out.
I envisioned using it when healing after a battle. The circle could heal the moderately injured, while I could focus on people who needed more direct attention.
Of course, I didn't just spend my time learning magic. Luke and I spared for a while, mostly because he was interested in what it was like to fight with a sword and shield, as I had mentioned previously. While I didn't use one myself, since I used my free hand to cast magic or hold a dagger, my initial sword-wielding download included plenty of knowledge on how to use a sword and board. Miru was nice enough to weld some handles onto two metal plates, letting us practice for real.
As I was trying to teach him, most of the sparring was slow, showing him the basic ideas and stances involved with them. I also spent some time drawing out the different kinds of shields. He seemed to lean towards the quintessential heater-type shield, which was a decent middle ground between the flexibility of a buckler and the protection of a kite. He seemed intrigued by the idea, as it somehow fit his style and seemed to gel with his own natural instincts. By the time our destination drew near, he had plans to ask for a beskar-plated shield from the Rebellion.
"Speaking of beskar, any idea how the Rebellion is going to use their cut of our heist?" I asked when he mentioned the shield. "Do they have someone who can work with it?"
"They are still figuring out how to work with it," He admitted with a shrug. "But I think the plan is to make a weave like your uniforms and then outfit a small group of commandos like your ground teams."
"Copycats," I said with a smirk. "Let's hope they keep it full coverage, because that's the real key."
"The Mandalorians seem to be doing fine," Luke points out. "The only protect the essentials."
"Only because they struggle to find a large supply of it. Besides, they still lose people. In the last year, they lost three of their combat team," I corrected. "The death is terrible, of course, but from a logistical standpoint, they also frequently lose that persons beskar, depending on how they died. That means that if the Rebellion only covers vitals, chances are their beskar supply will slowly dwindle. Go big or go home, and their commandos have a better chance of coming home intact."
On the third day of our journey, we gathered back on the bridge for the last stint of hyperspace travel. The ship's computer, as well as Artoo, counted us down before we dropped on the very outskirts of the system. Slowly, we traveled through the system, making a secondary micro-jump through it to arrive at our destination, Dagobah.
Luke slowed us down into a stable orbit around the planet, watching the weather systems spiral around the large, green sphere. Luke leaned back in his chair, a complicated expression on his face.
"This planet… it feels alive, like Nirn," Luke said, having heard the name as we talked about it during our journey here. "Maybe even more so… But it also feels wrong. Heavy… Dark... Wrong."
"That's probably the well of Dark Side Energy," I explained with a frown. "Which makes me think there might be something similar on Nirn… we really need to scan the planet deeper, especially the island."
"Is it safe to go down there?" Luke asked with a frown, focused on the planet in front of us. "It feels... Wrong. Where do we even go down?"
"As long as you take it real slow and try and aim for something we can land on that's stable, we should be safe," I said, hoping that the fan theories that Yoda had been why Luke crashed weren't true, cause I would have strong words for him if he yanked on my ship. "As for where, that's kind of up to you. Reach out and feel with the Force, let it guide you."
I was pointedly not mentioning that I could find him with Clairvoyance. This was Luke's moment, and unless he pointed out that I could, I wanted to let him try.
"What about the Dark side well?" Luke asked with a frown. "You said it was dangerous."
"It is. But you're strong, Luke. Just keep yourself centered, and don't let it influence you."
As I assured him, the young man nodded after a moment, taking a second to take a deep breath, letting it out slowly, his eyes closed. After a few deep breaths, he finally opened his eyes and leaned forward, gripping the ship's controls.
Slowly, we began to descend, though not nearly as rapidly as I would have thought. Instead, we went all the way around the planet before we really started to descend. As I instructed, Luke went very slowly, descending below the cloud layer into the thick layer of fog that clung over a huge part of the planet. Rather than panic, Luke simply frowned, leaning forward and tapping at a few different controls. A sensor display popped up, showing that we were descending over a massive, viney, swampy forest.
We continued to fly above it, until eventually descending into the forest, landing in a clearing made by an absolutely gigantic fallen tree. All of the trees were massive, but this one must have been tangled and growing with several others, as when we finally landed, we did so on solid wood. We were at a slight angle, but with the artificial gravity on our ship, we didn't notice.
"Should I leave the ship going?" Luke asked as he leaned back.
"Leave it in low power mode," I responded, pulling my armor on before checking Miru's to make sure she was all hooked up. "We can deploy the ships B2s to keep it safe, and Boxi and his troops can come with us."
Luke nodded before flipping a few switches and tapping on his console before getting up to get his own gear ready. We opened the boarding ramp, which sat unevenly against the massive tree beneath us. At a closer look, it was clearly several trees tangled together, partially fused, and, as far as I could tell, still alive. Stepping onto the boarding ramp was a very strange experience as it meant we were crossing out of the artificial gravity. In one step, we were perfectly straight up and down, and in the next, we were standing at an angle.
Boxi and the four other BX units, all with freshly painted beskar plating, walked down after us, followed by five B2s. After we disembarked, the boarding ramp rose up and locked. Artoo was still inside, as were the slicer droid and Leddy.
Miru and I were fully armored up, though our helmets were clipped to our hips. Luke, on the other hand, was in a set of flight suit fatigues. If I remembered correctly, they were the same ones he wore to Dagobah in the movies, which led me to believe they were a standard Rebellion uniform. It wasn't as bad as his flowy, useless Tatooine garb, but it certainly wasn't armored. When I asked about his lack of armor, he pulled down the neck, showing that a beskar woven uniform, probably the one I had gifted to him ages ago, was underneath.
"I pulled off the paneling so I could more easily wear it under things," He explained. "The higher-ups didn't like me walking around in something people could easily identify as your uniform, even if your symbol wasn't on it."
After all five of the BX droids pulled on packs of equipment and supplies, we slowly made our way off of the massive tree, descending to the foggy, misty swamp below. It smelled just about as horrible as you could imagine a swamp could, and it was difficult to traverse. The commando droids weren't held back at all, they simply gave up walking on the ground and started jumping from tree to tree, occasionally even swinging on vines. Luckily, I had a brilliant idea about five minutes in, otherwise we would have been left behind. After sinking to my knee for the third time, I used a blast of Frostbite to freeze our path, making it much easier to cross the squishy, unstable ground.
Even with me walking ahead to freeze the ground, Luke was directing us, guiding our small party through the horrible swamp, set on whatever target the Force was leading him to. We made good progress, but it was broken up by a few times when we were forced to cross ponds and rivers. Thankfully, Luke didn't have a problem with a little wildlife engineering, cutting down trees to make bridges across anything overly difficult to navigate unaided.
Eventually, the landscape shifted slightly, and the open ponds and deep swamps seemed to stabilize slightly. It was still wet and soggy, everything choked with trees and vines and moss, but the open pools of water became less prevalent. Still common, of course, but no longer constant. Luke was also looking around a lot more as if expecting something to come up to us.
"It feels darker here," He explained. "It feels oily on my skin like I need to take a shower."
"The downside of being Force-sensitive, Luke, is that you're very sensitive," I pointed out. "You're gonna get similar emotions from places like Imperial prisons or battlefields. Really, any place someone or a group has suffered greatly."
"Huh…"
In truth, it was interesting that Luke was reacting so strongly to the planet. He hadn't reacted nearly this negatively in the movies, which made me think it had something to do with how much training he had. Originally, he had showed up here with only a few hours of training, barely able to reach out to the Force and move a lightsaber. Now, however, he could call on the Force on command and had forged a much stronger bond with it, meaning he could feel all the Dark side energy flowing through the planet.
Regardless of his sensitivity, we continued to move, hiking through the swamp. We hadn't spent long in the new, slightly more stable terrain before Luke stopped again, a frown on his face as he looked ahead.
"What is it?" I asked, craning my neck and squinting to try and spot what he had.
"Nothing specific," He said, shaking his head. "As terrible as it is, there is something familiar about this place."
"You're from a world where you could buy a speeder with a few gallons of water," Miru said, sounding confused. "What could possibly feel familiar about this place?"
"I dunno…" He said, frowning as. "I feel like…"
Suddenly, he spun around, prompting Boxi and his commandos to spin as well. Luke had his lightsaber out in a defensive position, though he did not ignite it. The commandos held their blasters steady, locked on to a single target. I could imagine the only reason they didn't fire was the modifications that Miru and Racer made to their programming to keep them from being so murderous.
There, standing on a small perch, just a root coiled down for the base of a tree and into the soft ground, was the gremlin himself, Yoda. The small alien recoiled from the weapons pointed at him, raising his small arms and jabbering in supposed fear.
"Like we are being watched," Luke finished, recovering from the surprise quickly and standing up straight, hooking his lightsaber back to his belt, and bowing slightly to the newcomer. "Greeting Master Yoda."
The ancient alien stopped his act, turning and putting his arms down, suddenly going silent. He tapped his cane on his tree root perch, his brow furrowed as he leaned forward slightly, studying all three of us. It was odd, he was still hunched and disheveled, but I could still see the moment he mentally stopped pretending to be a crazy old hermit.
"Recognized me so quickly, you have," He said, his gaze shifting from Luke to me, to Miru, and then back to Luke. "Strong in the Force I feel you are, training you have received. Beyond Obi-wan, who has taught you?"
"I received training from Ahsoka Tano," Luke explained. "As well as from Deacon Roy, my friend and leader of a Rebel leaning mercenary force."
Luke gestured to me, directing Yoda's gaze to me again. This time, it lingered, and I could only imagine what sort of feelings he was pulling from me. After a long moment, I spoke up.
"Perhaps we could retire somewhere a bit more comfortable?" I suggested. "I believe Luke has a lot to share with you, and I'm sure you are very curious about what has been going on in the rest of the galaxy."
For a moment I thought he was going to say no, but he simply shook his head, slowly crawling down off his perch.
"Safe place, I know," he said with a nod. "Will have to make with outside, built for so many people, my home was not."
Without another word, the short green man walked away, leading us in the general direction that Luke had been leading us. We were forced to move slowly since we were matching the small creature's speed, but now we had a definite heading and a solid destination.
"He seems nice," Miru said, whispering into my ear. "I thought he was going to send us away."
"He might have if he didn't think Luke would go with us if he did," I responded with a shrug, not bothering with whispering. When Miru gave me a meaningful, panicked look, I snorted. "You think you can whisper around those ears? He probably heard us coming from space."
"My fault you make so much noise, it is not," Yoda responded from further ahead. "Send you away so quickly, I would not. Alone for a long time, I have been, but not a savage have I become."
We followed after the Jedi Master, letting him lead us to his home, with the BX units following after us.
Comments
Fortunis
This is gonna be interesting. I'm looking forward to his reaction to Deacon's magic. Also, I'd kinda like to see Deacon and Yoda throw hands 😆 🤣
Freya
Tyftc
Noob
Tftc
Elaine
good chappie
Duke of Coffee
Lol Yoda can hear you Miru. 😜
Cmols897
I've always loved Prank Master Yoda, people don't expect him to be joking so when he does it really hitn
Nicholas Rambusch
Thanks for the update
