The Force of Magic [Star Wars SI]

[WerewolfEros]

This chapter is dedicated to proper CHEESE.

Click to shrink...

But there's been no mention or hint of Sheogorath?? lol

 

[Vyraco]

I'm just waiting for Palpatine to steal all the knowledge of Magic he wants, deciding he don't need no Magic Oath with no stinkin Force Ghost, and going (more) absolutly batshit insane...

 

[Doomsought]

Ooh, I figured out the catch. The blessing of Hecate also protects against dark side corruption. Since many forms of Sith indoctrination rely on it, the effects will be especially noticeable to Sith acolytes.

 

[readsalot]

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Secura watching him a little more closely than necessary. There was surprise in her expression—and wariness.

He was a rather strange sentient, actually. On the outside he looked completely human, and inside his anatomy matched closely enough as well, but certain quirks in his biology pointed to some kind of shapeshifting chimera only distantly related to humanity.

Click to shrink...

Who's this dude a Vong?
Also great chapter, old Palpy has been shown the wonders of a Hardcopy Book well done

 

[FTR2017]

At this point it seems like the entire first class are spies.

Click to shrink...

Spies, and one or two viziers and ambitious princes while at it.

 

[Boroda Orka]

Tann watched the group of Force-sensitives passing in the distance out of the corner of her eye, with just a hint of curiosity. At their head were the visibly pleased Academy Director and a chuckling Thisspiasian. The Chiss pretended to be absorbed in the notes on her datapad. Yes, while standing in the middle of the corridor. Strangely enough, that was perfectly normal here—the students had a habit of picking up some of the Guild Master's quirks.

No anger stirred in her at the sight of the Jedi, nor any resentment. She found them interesting; she didn't particularly like them, but that was as far as it went. Her patron and teacher, however, had a... complicated attitude toward Force-sensitives who followed the Light Side. The Count never missed a chance to make some cutting remark whenever he encountered them. "A shadow of former strength." "Fragments of a glorious past." That was roughly how the aristocrat spoke of his former Order. And often, somewhere deep beneath the obvious disdain and the generous helping of contempt, a very attentive observer could glimpse a trace of bitterness and disappointment.

But to the Chiss, the Jedi were simply opponents. The young woman had a quick, powerful mind and was skilled at gathering and analyzing information from every available source. She had been trained for it—back home on Csilla and here, in Republic space. And from everything she had learned about those who followed the Light... she had no desire to follow their path. That insane mountain of restrictions they piled onto themselves and carried for the rest of their lives held no appeal for her. No enjoying the fruits of hard-earned glory, no personal possessions, no family.

At the thought of family, the Chiss failed to keep her expression perfectly composed. The faintest hint of an angry grimace crossed her beautiful face, forcing her to pay closer attention to controlling her emotions.

Vandalor...

Fucking sex-crazed piece of four-assed acklay shit! When Sev'rance found out what that primate had been doing after completing the Count's assignment... she did nothing. There was no point in arguing or making a scene. As always when dealing with outsiders, the Chiss kept a mask of icy composure on her face and simply handed him a datapad containing a recording of how he had spent his time in a Nar Shaddaa brothel. That was all that piece of filth deserved. After that, she stopped paying him any attention. If "a little variety" mattered more to him than she did, then he was welcome to enjoy all the variety he wanted.

Those who knew little about the Chiss tended to think them almost unemotional. The young woman allowed one corner of her mouth to lift in a faint, mocking smile. That wasn't true. It was simply a matter of her people's traditions. Emotion was reserved for those close to you—friends, family, those you respected enough to consider worthy of seeing what you truly felt. Showing everyone else what was in your heart was weakness, and weakness deserved no respect. The sex-crazed bastard she had once considered her lover had proved unworthy of that privilege.

Yes, Tann allowed for the possibility that all of this had been some elaborate game on the part of her patrons. Whether it had been the Lord's initiative or his Master's made no difference. But that did nothing to lessen Vandalor's guilt. Nor did it give her any reason to resent her mentor or his Teacher. In fact, even if the information that had found its way into her hands—and that animal's little adventure in the brothel—had all been arranged by the Count, she could only thank him for it. Who knew how long it might otherwise have taken for her former lover's true nature to reveal itself in all its glory? It had been another harsh lesson. Whether from her Teacher or from life itself, she had learned it.

She had learned the lesson, drawn her conclusions, committed them to memory, and moved on to the Count's next assignment. A disciplined, responsible officer—that was how the young woman saw herself—and she kept her attention firmly on the task at hand: mastering sorcery, studying the Guild, documenting its teaching methods, and becoming acquainted with the most important figures on Jabiim. The last part, at least as far as circumstances allowed.

So far, the only person she had managed to meet was Siith'khara'Dziha. A man of... contradictions. Probably human. She simply wasn't sure. After spending some time at the Academy, she had even begun to wonder whether he might be part Chiss. Sometimes, especially when meeting someone for the first time, his face remained just as cold and unreadable as those of her own people. But when he smiled, he reminded her of Count Dooku in the moments just before an especially painful lesson.

A faint air of madness seemed to follow their Director wherever he went. Talking to him, it was often difficult to tell whether he was discussing some serious, important philosophical subject or simply making fun of everyone involved. One moment he would look at the people around him like some ancient sage; the next, he would be animatedly discussing some moment from an online game with the young Togruta, Romri. Then he might suddenly stop in the middle of a corridor, his face intensely focused and his gaze fixed on nothing, only to pull out his datapad half a minute later and start frantically typing out notes. His lectures were lively and packed with easy-to-understand analogies. Easy to understand, yes—but most of them were either downright crude or outright indecent. Much like his sense of humor.

Then there was that habit of walking down the corridor with a glowing sign over his head that read I'M NOT HERE. If anyone tried to speak to him, the Director would look at them as if they were an idiot and point at the sign. And the nicknames he gave the students? Penro the Muun had become "Stretch," the Devaronian girl was "Hit-Girl," the Rendili was "Shipwright," and both Sephi were "Ears." The girl from Kuat, at least, had gotten lucky. He called her by her name—Littia. When Shipwright objected, the Director explained, "Shipwrightess sounds awful, and everyone will think the two of you are a couple." The Rendili refused to give up. Pointing at the two Sephi, he noted that they weren't a couple either. The Director looked surprised, asked the natives of Thustra, learned that they were brother and sister, shrugged, and said, "Still relatives."

Some of the students complained, but Tann saw more than simple mockery in it. There was recognition there as well: everyone the Director singled out in his peculiar way had caught his attention during practical lessons. The Devaronian girl, Wilmar Grark's daughter, had earned her nickname after she literally killed one of the other students with a bolt of fire. Burned a fist-sized hole straight through his chest.

While some of the students—including the killer herself—were busy losing their lunch and the rest stood frozen, unsure what they were supposed to do, the Director gave the fluffy girl a light pat on the shoulder and said, "Not bad, actually, but you need to work on your directional vector. Don't puke. I've seen spells with a lot more mistakes than that." Then, right in front of them, he held the body suspended with his aura and, with a running commentary, stripped the dead student to the waist, closed the hole, restored the organs, bones, muscles, and skin... and brought the corpse back to life.

"First corpse," the Academy Director said with a satisfied squint, clapping the slightly unsteady young man on the shoulder. "Go join the others, Deadman. Thanks for giving me a chance to demonstrate what chimerology can do. Next time, though, catch the pulsars with your head—the circlet will protect you."

And that was the full extent of the man's reaction. Though after watching the sorcerer work with her own eyes, Tann could understand why he was so calm: Deadman, a young man from Coruscant, had been dead for no more than ten minutes, and any problems involving his dead brain had been taken care of by the student circlet on his head—the only item of the uniform that everyone was required to wear.

Siith had added at the time, "If you somehow manage to drop dead, this artifact will keep your head in stasis for a week, giving me enough time to repair any damage done to the body. And if the brain itself is threatened, it'll generate a shield that keeps your skulls from suffering irreparable damage."

"Yes, young man?" the Director said in response to the raised hand of the student with a hole burned through his clothes where his heart had been. He was still a little pale, but he was standing steadily now, which earned him a small measure of respect from the Chiss.

"Why does the circlet protect only the head and not the whole body, sir?"

"So you'll have some motivation to learn the basic defensive spells as quickly as possible, obviously," Dziha said with a snort. "Pain, suffering, lost limbs, torment, the agony of death... You have no idea how motivating that can be!"

Tann could imagine it quite well. Pain, at least, was a perfectly workable motivational technique in her Teacher's repertoire. She herself had occasionally used similar methods back home to motivate certain subordinates.

"Admit it—after seeing how efficiently our fluffy beauty," the red-eyed man said, giving the Devaronian a playful wink, "breaks boys' hearts, every one of you thought you should probably put a little more effort into learning defense, am I right?"

At the low murmur of agreement from the students, the sorcerer bared his teeth in a grin that was both cheerful and unnerving, prompting a wave of nervous flinches through the room.

Speaking of names and nicknames, Dziha called the Chiss herself by her full name, which had sparked yet another wave of rumors that the two of them were, at the very least, acquainted—and still left the blue-skinned woman herself puzzled.

But none of that mattered. Why had so many Jedi been sent here? And with an actual Jedi Master—a member of the Council—leading them? That would definitely have to go into her next report. Before that, though, it might be useful to have a word with her new friend. Suti was a busy Twi'lek, but she was also very open and friendly. Tann could easily drop by for ten minutes after classes. The Director usually spent that time in the laboratories, working on his own projects.

---

The Dark Woman watched the strange little girl work. She was tiny, yet handled the Force with complete confidence. Just as the Jedi who had encountered these sorcerers before had said, the Force felt strange around them. There were no shades of either Dark or Light at all. Instead, there was a sense of rigor and precision—and in this case, a taste of blood and the stench of slaughter.

On the metal table near the center of the fairly large room lay a young bantha. The breed was called a "swamp bantha," though in truth it was simply adapted to worlds with rainy climates. Shorter fur, broader hooves—that was about all the Jedi knew about it.

The room itself was some strange hybrid of a spacious surgical ward, a sorcerer's lair from an old tale, and a technician's workshop. Medical equipment stood alongside cabinets filled with vials of various substances. There were machine tools, two medical droids, everything was sterile and spotless... and a little girl in a floor-length black robe, her hood thrown back.

The Jedi herself remained motionless under concealment atop one of the tall metal cabinets, which looked more like a safe than anything else.

Her independent mission had gone smoothly enough... if she ignored the journey here, when she had been forced to hide from her fellow Jedi, and that peculiar moment when someone—or something—had begun studying her intently from behind. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't identify the source of the observation, and after several attempts the woman had started to feel rather foolish, twisting around beneath the ceiling. Once she activated her concealment and moved to a new vantage point, the sensation of being watched disappeared.

In Kuro's opinion, the Council was taking the newly formed Guild far too lightly. Especially with the shadow of the Dark Side shrouding the future so completely. And the JMG's controversial leader himself raised far too many questions. Who was he? Where had he come from? What exactly was he trying to achieve with the organization he was building? The woman trusted the Grand Master and the Council, but... a little independent verification couldn't hurt. Especially since Master Rancisis was clearly far too favorably disposed toward the red-eyed man.

"Yes!" The girl standing in front of her "patient" jumped up, throwing both fists into the air in triumph. Then she launched into some incomprehensible but exuberant little dance. The redhead's face was glowing with joy and triumph. Very cute child, the thought slipped into the Jedi's mind before she could stop it.

The little girl darted toward the comlink lying on one of the tables, then suddenly froze. "But something's missing," the young sorceress drawled thoughtfully. "Right! The color sucks!"

A few quick steps, and the girl once again froze over the bantha in intense concentration. An'ya felt the Force begin to pour out of the child again. The amount was relatively modest, but the structure of it was another matter entirely. The redhead stood perfectly still. Only her darting pupils, focused on something visible to no one but her, and the faint twitching of her fingers betrayed the fact that this statue was a living person.

Nearly twenty minutes passed with neither of them moving. Then a wave of change swept through the animal lying on the table.

"Heh-heh-heh," the girl giggled in the cartoonishly sinister way only children could manage. "A pink, dwarf, swamp, guard killer bantha. P.D.S.G.K.B.-1. Heh-heh-heh. Dad's gonna lose it! Or maybe... Naaah... The four-butts joke won't be funny a second time. Hee-hee!"

"Mistress, have you finished?" the 2-1B medical droid spoke for the first time. Its companion, an FX-6, also began blinking to life as it came out of standby.

"Yeah, I think that's it." The girl ran her fingers into the hair at the back of her head and scratched thoughtfully. Kuro remembered seeing Siith'khara'Dziha make exactly the same gesture in a holorecording. "Pillkin, you, uh... keep an eye on the PDB... er... PDSGKB-1, hee-hee-hee. If the bantha's still doing fine in an hour, ask someone to move her to a separate enclosure. We'll test her tomorrow—there are Jedi visiting Dad, and I want to see the ones I'm actually allowed to notice!"

The girl grabbed her comlink and dashed out of the room, but not before casting a sly, barely suppressed look of amusement toward the spot where the Jedi was hiding, making her raise an eyebrow in surprise. The Dark Woman did not believe in coincidences like that, so...

A few seconds of silence followed, broken only by the sounds of the medical droids moving about—and by a quiet voice, too soft even for the machines' sensitive sensors to detect:

"I feel... stupid again..."

---

The young Knight Secura was a little disappointed. She had expected something far more insane from this place than an atmosphere that felt much like an ordinary school. The students they passed gave the sorcerer respectful nods, which he sometimes ignored entirely as he showed the Jedi around his domain.

Lecture halls, rooms for "practical exercises," testing grounds, laboratories... Allowing for the Academy's unusual specialization, it all looked like an ordinary educational institution. Even the students resembled perfectly normal young screwups—or, at the opposite extreme, overachieving nerds hurrying off to whatever they had to do. And for a complex this large, there really weren't that many people around. Aayla had been in places like this before, and while she wouldn't always have described herself as especially... disciplined, she did consider herself observant.

One of the students they passed did make her a little uneasy—a young man who felt very strange. His emotions were there, clear enough, but in the Force... not quite a blank spot, though close to it. It was as if, instead of a young man nearly six feet tall, she were sensing some small animal. His emotions were odd as well: dislike and envy mixed with a sense of... superiority? A rather unusual combination, but... the galaxy was vast. There was no telling who—or what—you might run into.

The biggest dose of cuteness, though, came from the Director's daughter—the red-haired child Aayla had seen at the library opening. She joined the tour right near the end, promising her father a "huuuge surprise" tomorrow. Siith seemed to have mixed feelings about that. His expression held both obvious fondness and a trace of apprehension. Though if the stories about the acklay were true, Aayla could understand why.

"Well, that's about it," the sorcerer said, spreading his hands with that perpetually unpleasant smile of his. "How about dinner now? My house isn't far, and my cook... Trust me, you need to try the food."

"If it wouldn't be an imposition," Master Rancisis said, looking at him questioningly.

"No, not at all. As soon as I was informed that the arriving Jedi were headed for the Academy, I gave orders for dinner to be prepared with guests in mind. And you can tell me what's been going on out there in the wider galaxy. I've been buried in work—only rumors ever seem to reach me," the man added with an exaggeratedly mournful sigh. "We can bring your injured colleague along as well."

"No. He's on a restricted diet and bed rest," Aayla cut in, giving Master Rancisis a stern look. The young woman had no doubt that if Quinlan were offered the chance, he would cling to the opportunity to escape the ward with his teeth and his remaining hand. Her former Master... wasn't exactly disciplined either. "Master Vos is still far too weak to go visiting."

"That's all right. Tomorrow, after the treatment, he can try Maria's cooking," the sorcerer said with an easy shrug, then turned his head toward an empty corner. "What about you, Master Kuro?"

The Jedi turned in surprise toward the white-haired woman who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Damn it! Third time today I've felt like a..." she muttered, trailing off before finishing the sentence, then fixed the red-eyed man with a suspicious stare. "How?"

"The concealment is good," Dziha said with a serious nod. "You just decided to hide in the home of a reasonably competent artifact-maker. And I have a hundred students here, Master. A hundred novice magic-users. Demons only know what might pop into their heads at any given moment. And the instructors aren't much better—mostly youngsters who were sitting behind desks themselves just yesterday, and most of them have already amazed me with the sheer force of their stupidity..."

"Hmph." Karray lifted her little nose, making Aayla smile. The child clearly did not consider herself one of those who had impressed her father with the sheer force of their stupidity.

"So, what about dinner?" Siith'khara'Dziha repeated.

"I don't mind. And what exactly gave me away, you're not going to tell me, are you?" the Dark Woman asked with a caustic, bitter smirk, casting a strange glance at the girl.

"Why wouldn't I?" the sorcerer said in surprise as he headed toward the exit from the academic building. "Body mass and scent particles—that was what gave you away first. And you kept tripping the security system's sensors, which don't rely on the visual spectrum alone. Echolocation, for example."

"So that's what those clicks I keep hearing are," exclaimed the Master, slithering along beside the sorcerer and occasionally shooting Master Kuro looks that promised a conversation later.

"You can hear them?" the red-eyed man asked, surprised all over again. "Your auditory system must be more advanced than ours."

"That's right," the Jedi Master said with a smile. "But don't even think about vivisection!"

"All Jedi are stingy," Karray snorted, still holding her father's hand.

"Karray!" the sorcerer said, giving her a reproachful look.

"But Dad, it's true!"

"Karray!" Dziha said firmly, shaking his head. "No name-calling. Apologize to our guests."

"Ugh..." The girl pulled such a mournful expression that Aayla giggled. "I'm sorry."

"That's better," the sorcerer said with satisfaction, ruffling the child's hair. "Tomorrow you'll be assisting me with the treatment of an almost-whole Jedi Master!"

The girl's eyes went wide with delight, and with a squeal she launched herself at her father for a hug.

"Children," the red-eyed man said to the Jedi with an apologetic smile, though somehow it still came out a little unsettling. "It takes so little to make them happy..."

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[Vyraco]

Some children would love to watch a lightsaber being disassembled and reassembled... Karray wants to watch the dis- and reassembly of a Jedi Master. She'd love to poke his liver, maybe even his heart or brain, but that would be unprofessional.

 

[Elmoslayer5]

... if you poke a specific part in a Jedis brain with electricity do you think you could get the body to do a force trick?

 

[WerewolfEros]

... if you poke a specific part in a Jedis brain with electricity do you think you could get the body to do a force trick?

Click to shrink...

Now I want Karray to ask Siith that with all the Jedi present, with Siith seriously considering it, that would be so fucking hilarious

 

[FTR2017]

I think this could be the STar Wars equivalent of The Addams Family, we're only missing an undead butler, an old hag well-versed in cauldrons, and a sapient disembodied hand.

I also foresee this pink bantha goring someone in the near future! Thus providing Siith with more opportunities for willing near-whole Jedi vivisections for researchrestoration purposes!

 

[Elmoslayer5]

Now I want Karray to ask Siith that with all the Jedi present, with Siith seriously considering it, that would be so fucking hilarious

Click to shrink...

Might be funnier if she asks that while siith is mid "healing".

and a sapient disembodied hand.

Click to shrink...

Hmmm i dont think Anakin would miss his hand, just gotta find the thing and bring it to life...

Anakins hand could totally do force tricks, also would the hand be considered the "chosen one".

Imagine it, his hand standing on its stump mutely screaming 'unlimited power!!!' While electrifying a misbehaving student.