RIVAL

Lindrala covers her mouth at the awful stench from Zannah cutting into the rancor and removing the heart, she moves to shield Aya from the awful site. "We should get moving, time is not on our side."

Back into the mountain, where temple is located, the Mother stands near a window, casting its sight upon the world beneath her. She narrows her eyes when Jadus walks behind her. Jadus would open the discussion: "I sensed it too. A powerful creature was slain. And not to soon after Satele's ship crashed in on your lands. Coincidence? I think not." The Mother would remain where she is, still having her back turned towards Jadus: "And what of your men? What did they find at the crash site?" Jadus replies displeased : "Empty. My men did not find any trace of dead or alive crew members, nor its captain. If there are no bodies, then they are not dead. The search team is about to investigate the local village, if they fled anywhere, it will be there where they can gather food and supplies. And there will be no mercy to whoever harbors them there." The Mother frowns at those words and turns towards Jadus, addressing him with hostile tone: "I did not know I have to remind you that your presence here is as a guest, and not invader. The people of Dathomir bow to my and only my will alone. Should I discover you intention to take the rule from me, and you know that I can easily sense such things, the alliance between us will end. You do not wish to challenge me Jadus, not in my domain." With those words the Mother walks out of the room, leaving Jadus alone to think about what he said.



It has been hours since Pax crew and Zannah left Karliah, and now they finally returned, with the heart of Forest Rancor, just like Karliah wanted. The mission was successful but despite of Zannah's expectations, Karliah was not pleased. Not with their accomplishment, but at the current situation at hand. Without any acknowledgement, Karliah grabs the bag from Zannah, where the rancor's heart is, and brings it at the table where the rest of ritual tools are placed. "Do you feel it? Jadus' men tearing the village nearby apart? And with it your last chance to leave this world. The person who was supposed to help you repair ship is among them. If I summon the Mother now, we may not get the chance to bring back to life your space ship. But with rancor beast slain, it is just matter of time when the Mother discovers our plans. My magic cannot keep us in shadows from her visions forever. If we go to help the village, the Mother will gain upper hand and our plan will no longer work." Karliah now turns at Lindrala. "What do you want to do?" The frustration on Karliah face was clear to read. She obviously wanted and waited for so long to face the Mother. But is that going to happen now or not?

3. Split Crew.

Lindrala closes her eyes and thinks for a moment, she knows they need to defeat the mother but it is not the Jedi way to let innocents suffer, she comes to a decision.  She thinks on the strength of the crew, watching Oyo defeat the forest Rancor and Zannah slay the spiders. She decides to have faith in their strength. "Our only chance to win this is to beat them at every turn, I will go to the village with Aya and Benna, Zannah and Oyo can remain with you and face the mother."

Zannah felt indifferent on the decision Lindrala had made, she was more surprised that she decided to let her crew face the witch at all while the village was in danger. She looked at Karliah then back to Lindrala. "You have courage Jedi... Some would consider such courage foolish."

Influence Lost -5

"Satele trusts Lindrala, and I trust Satele, that is good enough for me to agree with this decission. Besides, whatever that old hag has in store for us cannot be more dangerous than the rancor we just killed." Oyo sides with Zannah. "I just hope that my new friends are more reliable than in the last battle."

Zannah clenches her fist at the reminder of been hit by the Rancor's swing, she channels the emotion into focus and prepares for the upcoming fight. She hopes that Oyo will be proven right.

Lindrala wrote:

Lindrala covers her mouth at the awful stench from Zannah cutting into the rancor and removing the heart, she moves to shield Aya from the awful site. "We should get moving, time is not on our side."

Influence Gained +5

Lindrala wrote:

Lindrala closes her eyes and thinks for a moment, she knows they need to defeat the mother but it is not the Jedi way to let innocents suffer, she comes to a decision.  She thinks on the strength of the crew, watching Oyo defeat the forest Rancor and Zannah slay the spiders. She decides to have faith in their strength. "Our only chance to win this is to beat them at every turn, I will go to the village with Aya and Benna, Zannah and Oyo can remain with you and face the mother."

Influence Gained +5

Aya nods to Lindrala in agreement: "Yes. No matter what our mission is, when chance to help others occurs, we must act to help them. Besides, if this tech person that this old woman says would do anything for his freedom, then letting him to Jadus men would make him talk, and whatever deals he had with the witches that are on our side will only aid Jadus instead." Aya walks up to Lindrala and joins her group. "I just hope that three of them are enough to stop the Mother."

As Benna observes the others make up their minds about Lindralas decision, she's struck with a feeling of inner conflict. "Well, she starts off "I suppose it's the right thing to do" thinking of her past life on Tatooine and the moral dilemmas that initially drove her to leave the planet. Next time I will make sure I know the specifics of what I'm being paid to do.

Zannah senses Benna's conflict, ironically she finds herself feeling some small measure of sympathy for her. "Hey Mercenary." She says to get Benna's attention. "Don't get yourself shot out there, that is also the right thing to do, credits won't help you if you're dead." She gives Benna a wink.

Benna responds by looking at Zannah when she addressed her. Benna's surprise initially comes from how much Zannah could tell from what Benna thought was very subtle indications, but the stunned feeling is soon relieved when she realizes the light-hearted nature of Zannah's comment. "Right you are. I'll live to spend every single credit I get out of this mess." Benna replies and pauses briefly. "Maybe rewards and morals aren't always on conflicting sides." Benna looks in Zannah's eyes for a moment and from there to the ground. She makes me think, she does, that dark one. Benna looks back to Zannah briefly and then proceeds to turn around and addresses Lindrala, "I'm ready to move out when you are, Jedi."

Lindrala addresses the crew. "Then it is settled, trust in each other, trust in the force, on this day we shall prevail, stand defiant against Jadus and the mother and we shall know victory, for Satele, for Dathomir and for the whole galaxy."

And the crew decided to split so that they can advance their goals without losing at either side. But was it wise to split the team against difficult challenges set before them? Karliah was not pleased with decision, in her vision it was Lindrala's Force Signature that was needed for the Mother to fall. But she also did not want to break her contract, she gave the detailed description of the person they need to find to Lindrala, and the proceeded with Lindrala's decision. Karliah took Oyo and Zannah away to prepare them for the summoning ritual. They are now on their own, what happens to them will maybe be found out in future, but for now Lindrala, Aya and Benna had their own mission, to find the tech expert that can fix their ship. They made their way to the village, to the place where Jadus' men are looking for them. Still not acknowledged by the present imperial intelligence, Lindrala and her team could see how rough they are in their interrogation of the locals. There is even a mini tank going slowly through the village, following the the Officer who is escorted by two men. These men would invade villager's houses in search for Satele's friends, before exiting the houses and leaving their owners with broken furniture and windows. The mini tank that was following them was going without care through possessions of the villagers, that include vegetables and fruits grown by the locals. Their presence and behavior was leaving nothing but sadness and anger behind them, but villagers were powerless to do anything against them. Jadus' men proceed towards village they still did not investigate, and there are about fifty meters left before reaching the houses next set of houses in the village, where Lindrala is, and just across a street there was the person fitting description. He was leaning against wall, observing what is coming towards him.

The person was leaning with his back on the wall, looking over his shoulder at the direction of Jadus' men. His suit was tight against his body, but what would steal first attention of anyone that observes him would be his helmet, that seems to have a screen alike visor, processing data and information. The man had a pistol ready in his main hand, and what Benna would recognize, a closed Pyro CTI on his left hand, similar to the one Benna herself uses to fire Cryo Blast.

Lindrala slowly approached the man, she looked cautiously at Jadus men in the distance then spoke to Axo. "Hello there." She said calmly to Axo.

Axo's head fixes towards Lindrala and he takes less than a moment for his sensors to pick up information about her and her followers. "Good evening Madam. Good evening travelers." Although somewhat friendly, his voice wields a dosage of electronic sounds. Each time he speaks, his visor would glow brighter. "You are not on the list of inhabitants nor any clans that visit this village. Are you off worlders?"

Lindrala nods, we are... "Our vessel was forced to make an emergency landing, now we are trapped here but we are also looking to help a friend of ours."

Axo nods. "I've seen it crash in the forest, just as the Forest Seer (Karliah) predicted. I do not understand how can she access information of the events before they happen without any data analysis first. But she also said that Mistress Zannah will be accompanying you. Her predictions are not one hundred percent accurate, but without any proper calculation they are still high enough to amaze even me." Axo's sensors start picking up the approaching officer and his men. "They are looking for you, and if they do not find you here, they will target next village. They have an imperial devastator tank with them. Small yet powerful, a beautiful creation. You must be very powerful if they need that to stop you. I am instructed to help you repair your vessel. But what about the villagers? We have 45.2 seconds left before we are in their visual range, you must decide fast."

"We came here to help the villages, we have to stop Jadus' forces here and now, no more innocent lives will suffer for me this day." Lindrala brings her lightsaber into hand.

Aya did not welcome the sight of imperial intelligence tearing the village apart. But it was a pleasant surprise meeting Axo. Who would guess that Karliah and Zannah, two evil witches, had this person in their team. Axo did not seem like one of them. Aya was not really sure what exactly was he, a man, machine, or something in between? Whatever it was, it wanted to help villagers, and that was good enough for Aya. When Lindrala makes her decision, Aya stands ready beside her. There will be plenty of time to study Axo later.

"Imperials!" Benna's jawline becomes more marked as she grinds her teeth "I've had my fair share of encounters with them. Jedi, we need to do something about them." Benna looks in the direction of the advancing imperial forces. "But not like this. Our best hope is to keep the element of surprise.". Benna looks back to Lindrala and Aya.

Aya sights the tank and imperial men going with it towards them, and then she nods at Benna. "I will do my best to remain hidden as much as I can. But what about our new friend? His face is literally glowing in dark." Aya takes a cover behind the wall where Axo is. Not really smart choice after what she just said, but then again, she isn't really expert at stealth herself.

Lindrala moves with Aya and takes cover, she looks to her allies, "When they get close I will try to distract them, Axo, Benna if you see a good opportunity to disable the tank then take it."

The team takes cover behind walls to hide. If they success they are hidden until next hostile action or until they came into line of sight which is defined by the straight line between squares' edges. In order for the crew to remain undetected, they must win stealth total rank +d20 vs Imperial Officer's Awareness 8. On success their move actions no longer need stealth as long they are behind line of sight. If they fail, wall will provide 50% damage reduction against range attacks. Walls are about one meter tall. The tank may destroy the wall cover. Damage reduction of these walls increase by 1% per total rank in survival.

Crew Move Action:
1) Lindrala Stealth
2) Aya Stealth
3) Benna Stealth
4) Axo Stealth