                                Star Wars 

                           Wizard's RPG Stories

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          upload : 10.IV.2006


     The Darkstaff

     Scenario Supplement for Recursion

     By Morrie Mullins

     Former Living Force Plot Director and Campaign Designer

     What terrible evil lurks at the heart of the Cularin system?  The  recent
discovery of Darth Rivan's journals cast light on a dangerous object known  as
the darkstaff. This latest supplement to the Living Force campaign  ties  into
the August scenario, Recursion, the third part of  the  "Belted  In"  trilogy.
Warning: This article contains  substantial  spoilers  for  the  Living  Force
scenario "Philology."

     For several years, Cularin was gone, leaving an emptiness  where  planets
and moons once orbited two  suns  that  also  disappeared.  From  outside  the
system, nothing was known of what might have occurred. One moment, Cularin was
present. The next, it was not.

     Some of  the  heroes  of  Cularin,  though,  saw  what  precipitated  the
disappearance. They saw Len Markus remove something from  the  asteroid  belt.
They saw the creatures that live in the shadows of the Belt. They saw glimpses
of what might have been, and central to it all was a black rod a meter long  -
- something Len's datapad referred to as "the darkstaff."

     Little was known about the darkstaff until recently, when a team of  Jedi
researchers made their way once more into the  bowels  of  the  Sith  fortress
beneath Almas and emerged with a pair of ancient books. These tomes,  believed
to be remnants of Darth Rivan's personal journals, have been  turned  over  to
the Jedi Council. What follows is an excerpt of one of the few  sections  that
has been made publicly accessible through the HoloNet.

     One must wonder: If this is what the Jedi believe the galaxy is  prepared
to know, what else might be hidden in the tomes?

     The natives - - if one can call them that, since  I've  seen  their  kind
elsewhere in the galaxy, though they are one  of  the  few  species  I've  run
across who have managed to actually lose the capacity for hyperspace travel  -
- are tolerable enough. They have their planet, and they don't leave it.  They
can't, having eschewed even the technology  that  would  allow  them  to  move
beyond the peaks of those pathetic rock piles they call "mountains." I  go  to
that world sometimes to see what they are doing, and to see if they  have  any
recollection of what brought them here. They don't know. It was a drawing  for
them, and they arrived, and they believed it to be their own will that brought
them here, that trapped them in this backwater of the galaxy.

     There is much to be said for backwaters,  though.  I  myself  often  find
comfort in visiting places others avoid. More often than not, there is a  cool
darkness awaiting, a moistness like the air after  a  rain  shower  beneath  a
moonlit  sky.  The  typical  individual  finds  such  darkness  uncomfortable.
Uninviting. Dangerous.

     That is because they do not understand.

     Darkness is a friend, an ally. Darkness allows us to  understand  others,
to see what they value when they believe no one else is looking. It allows  us
to be honest with ourselves, to express those values that we would disavow  in
the light. The light blinds us. It is only in the dark that  we  see  clearly,
and there is a great dark hidden among these worlds.

     I had thought that the darkness would be here, beneath the frozen  sands.
Cold frightens the foolish just as certainly as dark, and the two go together.
But as the world begins to thaw, as the  kaluthin  finally  take  root,  I  am
finding that there is no more darkness here than that which I find wherever  I
go. This world has never known life at more than a microscopic level. That can
change. This world has never known progress that did not involve the  shifting
of sands as the winds whipped up and the planet slowly spun on its axis. That,
too, can change.

     I like the dark and the cold. I like that the suns are  so  far  away.  I
like that there is something nearby - - not on this planet, but in this system
- - that drew those creatures here, and that even now, continues to  call  out
to me.

     I do not want it for myself. I want to destroy it.  "Belted  In"  Trilogy
Summary Nirama, the enigmatic alien crime lord, has  an  agenda  -  -  a  very
public agenda. He's not happy about recent goings-on in Cularin, and he's less
happy with the strangeness in the asteroid  belt  that  he  calls  "home."  Is
Nirama helping the people of Cularin, are the people helping  him,  or  is  it
actually mutual?

     I could not wield it. I would not. It would not make me more powerful; it
would destroy me. And so, I want it gone, erased from the galaxy. Nothing that
has the power to destroy me should be allowed to continue to exist, no  matter
how sweet the promises it makes, no matter how dark the night would  be  if  I
held it. It must be destroyed.

     The dreams trouble me, if only somewhat. I see the thing  (which  I  have
taken to calling the "darkstaff," though it scarcely  qualifies  as  a  staff,
since I imagine such things as being nearly as long as I am tall)  not  as  an
object, but as an absence. It is an emptiness, a slice of the  universe  where
there is no light and no heat, but also no  cold  and  no  dark.  Light  moves
around it but does not come into its grasp. It  doesn't  want  the  light.  It
wants the Force.

     That is what makes this darkstaff  so  insidious.  If  it  were  a  tool,
something I could use to harness the Force to my own ends, to demonstrate  the
reality of pain and suffering to the remainder of the galaxy, I might want  to
wield it. There are still times that I think, "Yes, I could take it and use it
against everyone else. I could use it to drain the Force from their bodies, to
watch them crumble to dust as their  essence  evaporated."  But  I  know  such
thoughts are not my own. They are the darkstaff's thoughts. It would use me to
drain others, and then it would drain me.

     It pulled me here. It will pull more of us here. But I will do what  none
of them have the wisdom to do. I, who know what I face,  will  build  on  this
world a defense, a means of ensuring that this object  cannot  ever  be  taken
from this system.

     I've been working with a holocron, trying to pull up anything that  might
allow me to better understand the darkstaff. I now believe it was  created  by
one of my forebears,  though  the  generations  that  have  passed  since  its
creation I cannot count. I also have trouble fathoming  why  the  thing  would
have ever been made, and I have come to conclude that it was  an  accident,  a
byproduct of some strange experiment that could not be undone  -  -  and  that
ultimately was the undoing of its creator.

     The Force is our tool, after all. It is  what  makes  us  powerful,  what
allows us to stand above those who would put us down.  An  object  that  feeds
upon the Force - - which may, in fact, store the Force within it, for whatever
purposes it might ultimately have - - is antithetical to  our  existence,  and
any of us who created such a thing would surely have wanted it destroyed.  Yet
it exists, and any record of its creator is long gone.

     I've not seen it physically, but I know what it looks like. One meter  in
length and perhaps four centimeters in diameter, it sucks at the light just as
it sucks at the Force. It wants energy, power. It wants to destroy.  It  wants
to end lives. It wants - - and that, by itself, is the most disturbing aspect,
the reason that I fear it and desire it and seek to destroy it.

     The thing wants.

     Ambition is dangerous enough in  a  living  creature.  In  an  object,  a
creation with nothing to lose, it can be catastrophic.

     Part of the darkness in this system is the afterimage of a  scream.  It's
comforting. Most places, you cannot feel death. Here, it is part of  the  very
fabric  of  existence.  Something  truly  horrible,  wretched  beyond   words,
happened. That is what keeps the fearful far from here,  and  what  draws  the
curious in.

     That scream came from the last time the darkstaff surged. It was held and
given power, and then asked  to  provide  something  in  return.  It  did.  It
provided death.

     I respect that. But I will not serve a tool that seeks  my  demise,  that
wants my power. I will build defenses, and when I am ready, I will go  to  the
darkness and bring it to the wretched light.

     I must. If I am to live forever, there is no other way.