Stories

Part 3 of the Valkyrie Six


They spent the rest of the day recovering at camp. Aliaga had some skill at cooking, so after Valeraine started a fire going with her magics, the two went to Bodahn and bought what they needed to cook a nice dinner.

It was a stew, with a nice big cauldron cooking up enough for days. Bodahn said that all of their cooking equipment and leftovers would stay with the camp and wherever they traveled in the world zone they could always go back to the camp.

Aliaga started working on the Mutton stew, with carrots, potatoes, celery and spices. She marveled that it didn't cook up like her home world but took time to cook.

All evening long the recovering Valkyrie troop looked longingly at the food cooking away, and looked for someone fun to do while they recovered.

Alendria took it on herself to entertain the group.

"I collect stories," she said. "Sometimes I retell them or write songs about them. I think it would be fun if we tell some stories about each other's worlds."

Surprisingly, the normally subdued Melara told her story.

"I was a padawan under Master Youn Par, who specializes in archeology and exploring, especially in finding old Jedi artifacts and sites. Tython's aggressive natives, the so-called Flesh Raiders, attacked us while we were looking for some holocrons, which are recordings made by past Jedis, or, past Sith.

My master fell under the sway of a sickness of the dark side, which took away her moral faculties and restraints, and she attacked me when I was with her at the medical facilities on Coruscant, the Republic's homeworld.

Luckily, I was able to find out more about the condition my master suffered, and I cured Master Yuon Par of her condition, but it took a lot out of me in the process.

I was granted the rank of Jedi knight, but what I ended up doing is tracking down several other Jedi on other worlds who had fallen under this curse. Many of them had done a lot of damage to our cause in the process, killing and doing the bidding of a Lord Vivicar, who they constantly referenced.

Each time I healed the curse, it took something more out of me, and I struggled to continue. But eventually I fought out that Lord Vivicar was actually someone known as Parkanas Tark, who was abandoned during evacuations after a failed Jedi mission on Malachor Three.

I was able to locate Parkanas, and fought a vicious battle with the fallen man, but eventually prevailed. With Parkanas gone, the curse that had inflicted so many was no more.

It was only a few weeks ago that I was able to prevail against Lord Vivicar, and I had just received a new mission, to serve as an advocate and peace-broker for a group of planets called the Rift Alliance. I was in my Defender-class ship, and I made the jump to hyperspace, something went wrong and when I regained consciousness, I was here."

Alendria smiled, "Good story, I need to translate some of your terms though. We need to make it alive and fill it up. What kind of quirky people did you run across during all of this?"

"Padawan means basically a Jedi apprentice, who is not ready to work on their own yet, but will continue to train with an experienced Jedi until she is ready. I was the Padawn and Youn Par was my master.

I was part of the more diplomatic and force focussed part of the Jedi order. I rarely ever saw Master Par use her lightsaber, but she was well versed in the force, and she loved peace, gentleness and serenity.

From what little I understand of your world, Alendria, the Force is a bit like your Holy mana, but it also has its own intentions. The Force is a sort of being on its own, as well as a field of energy which you can learn to sense and feel everywhere. In this new world we are now in, I believe the force has somehow been channeled and limited to become merely a power source.

I don't sense any temptations from the Dark Side. The Dark Side is no longer trying to sway me, it's like it's not there at all actually. I don't mind that, at least."

Alendria nodded, "In my world, every God has his or her preferences and focusses, but in addition, every God has her Good aspect, and her Bad aspect. The song of healing I sing is called Hodierna's lilt. Hodierna is the God of healing, springtime, morning and light.

But she has a Good aspect, Berengia and an Evil aspect, Asketi. Even though Hodierna herself is for all these good things, Asketi is truly one of the vilest Evil aspects. I get the sense that the force itself is good in the way that Hodierna is good, but then the light-side is more good, and the dark-side is very bad?"

"Do Bards study the Gods and learn about them, and sing songs about them? To be honest, most of the masters of my order would see you as too jovial and whimsical for their taste. The force is a serious matter, and to know the force is to dedicate a lifetime to meditation and study, honing your greater awareness."

Alendria shook her head, "Some Bards may sing about the Gods, because we sing about everything, but the Clerics are much more like your order. Some clerics of Gods such as Glythtide, the God of joy and mirth, may be more light-hearted, but in general, our world's clerics are as serious and dedicated as the order you belong too. And I may be jovial and whimsical, but I have spent many days practicing my instruments and honing my voice as a weapon. I hope I get my screams back."


"Hmm, another thing about the story, if you want more, was my companion, Qyzen Fess. Qyzen was a good friend of my masters, and I became good friends with him as well. He is a Trandoshan who believes in a being known as a scorekeeper. He believes that he is required to fight for this scorekeeper, and fight worthy opponents for some kind of points to prove his honor.

He was always telling me about fights that were much points, while we were fighting to deal with various issues on the planets we went to during the story. He used a sort of fancy sword like weaopn called a tech-blade. I know we found him a few different types of tech blades before I ended up here.

There was a few other companions I met and could have chosen to work with, but I preferred Qyzen. Wish he was here right now really. I know he didn't really have a Jedi perspective on things, but I appreciated his perspective."

"Anyone else have a story you want to share?" Alendria said.

She was still practicing the spoons she had bought from Bodahn.

Isseria spoke up.

"I was just a normal university student. I was going to Northwestern, and I had been into martial arts since I was a kid. I even kept up with it at college. I was struggling in choosing my major even by the time my freshman year ended. But I heard about this exchange program with a Chinese school of martial arts. I could spend one semester abroad learning about how traditional Chinese martial arts work. I managed to get my parents to agree with it, and so I went to China, intending on staying for three months, and ended up staying for 3 years.

When I first got there, my pride in my skills was shattered, as this program really showed you how to fight for real. It wasn't a McDojo. Gradually, I went from being worthless, to being OK, and by the time my program was complete, the Guru of the program told me I had become an acceptable beginner.

He said if I went back to the US, I would slip back and lose my good habits because of the bad habits of the trainers there. So I stayed past my visa, and my parents didn't know where I was. I had long sense given up my phone and every other modern convenience. The part of the program I had experienced as an exchange student was just the fund raising arm of the guru's bigger plans.

After I agreed to stay, I followed the guru to a much more remote facility, that even the Chinese government didn't know about.

I trained every day, and I was a trainer for others every day, and the guru said I was making progress, but just as I had faced the difficult choice of major before, now he made me chose a specialty to work toward mastery in.

I had seen the master Wong Fei using pistols as a form of martial arts. He worked with two pistols and spun, maneuvered, fired and lived and breathed his weapons. He made them an extension of himself. I asked Wong Fei to teach me, but he refused to teach a woman. The guru refused to give me  access to weapons until I became a master in something myself, so I was stuck.

But Wong Fei reluctantly told me to make two mock pistols and practice with them. So I did.

It took another two years before Wong Fei acknowledged me as a good practitioner of the craft. I had got my pistols, and I was planning on spending years more at the compound, but I started to get more and more homesick, and so I eventually left the place and returned to Shanghai, where the Chinese authorities reported me as found, and I returned to the west.

It was horrible, the decadence in the west, now that I had lived with nothing for so long. I had helped grow the compound's own food, and we had done everything on our own in isolation.

I returned to Northwest to try to complete my degree, but I couldn't put up with all the lies. I knew the university was full of western assumptions even when they pretended to be multi-cultural.

Eventually, I grew extremely bored and irritated by the lack of competent martial arts dojos in Chicago and I set up my own.

When I soundly defeated a field full of men in a local Chicago martial arts tournament, and then did it two years running, I drew some interest from organized crime, the magical kind.

A local gangster demonologist threatened my life and told me he would kill me if I didn't get this certain item for him in 24 hours.

The FBI started investigating the break in, and I had a run in with a man who specialized in growing carnivorous plants. After a misunderstanding, we escaped from the gangster and the FBI together, and evaded a manhunt that crossed into Michigan.

Eventually I found out my old guru's own specialty, which was ki-attacks. Issac and I were able to defeat the gangster who was threatening us, but that old guru had been supporting the local gangsters by providing them with magic.

It was disappointing to have to fight my old guru, but I was able to defeat him by learning a form of Gun-Ki in the middle of getting pummeled by him.

The guru had been ranting and raving to me about this wave theory of history, where society went from being dominated by science and technology to being dominated by monasticism and mysticism, and he thought the wave was coming crashing back to his own position and that western society would be destroyed. I was on my way to China again to investigate what was left of the old training program when the plane through some stormy clouds, and I lost consciousness and woke up here.

"Your world is weird, I though Melara was using a lot of jargon, but I don't get most of what you talked about," Alendria said.

The story telling was interrupted while Bodahn came and told them that they had a visitor.

Valeraine went to speak to the visitor. He was a peasant, looking more frazzled than ever.

"Ma'am! We need help. My village, Ulburban, is under attack. Some raiders have taken our village and are keeping us hostage. I only barely managed to escape."

"Do you know who attacked you? Was it those orcs that have been wandering the countryside of late?" Valeraine said.

"No ma'am. These were Sea Raiders! Everyone's afraid of Sea Raiders, even the army. Please, we need help!" the man said.

"Where can I find Ulburban?"

"South east of here. I can show you," he said.

"Everyone, let's get ready, we need to save whomever we can from these Sea Raider. Be ready for the worst, we haven't fought these foes yet!" Valeraine yelled.

"Oh thank you. Thank you!"