STAR WARS: RETROSPECTION- The Council of Taneshla

"Not yet," Rand corrects.

"You still haven't seen your vision!" Gallador croons. "You cannot say what will or will not be. We can!"

"What became of your friend Tanic?" Rand asks, smiling.

"I don't care what you saw! I am not allowing anyone or anything else to dictate my life any longer!" she shouts back at Rand. She pauses for a moment when Rand asks about Tanic.

"I...don't know...he ran off..."

"Run along and find him," Rand says. "See just how well a Jedi can resist the Dark Side!"

Gallador and Rand laugh maniacally.

"I will resist..." Rianna hisses, before turning and walking away. She is kind of concerned and confused about and by Tanic, and wants to find him and what is going on.

Rand and Gallador follow at a distance.

You sense Tanic's fear clearly, clearer than you've sensed anything recently. You follow it and the trail he left behind, more bodies and destruction. He was running and shooting at anyone that followed. You find Geful's butler splayed out on the floor, a bolt through his heart.

The trail guides you to an open window. Tanic has gone to the roof.

The roof? Well, Rianna's nice and acrobatic, so climbing up to the roof shouldn't be hard for her. She'll head out the window and up there, keeping an eye on Rand and Gallador while doing so. She half-expects one of them to attack her, and she can't really take much more damage right now...

You climb out onto the sloping roof of the manor.

Tanic is propped against one of the sensor relays, shaking with cold and experiencing spasms. The fear he exudes seems amplified in some way... twisted and warped...

Tanic is clutching the Staff in both hands.

"Tanic?" Rianna calls out as she cautiously approaches him. "What are you doing?"

He doesn't respond.

"He can't hear you," Rand says, having followed.

"What do you mean, he can't hear me? How do you know?"

"I know because I know what the Tri-Staff of Duke Akarti does," Rand says. "Or, at least, Gallador knows. Jedi lore is his specialty; he may know more even than me."

Rand gestures to Tanic.

"Tanic is locked into its effects."

"...what does it do?"

"All it does is amplify the already powerful emotions that fuel the Dark Side," Rand says. "It then channels that into a sort of euphoric sensation. Duke Akarti used it and many like it to addict young Force-sensitives to the Dark Side."

Rand gestures to Tanic.

"He fell years ago, Rianna. I am merely helping him step past his denial."

"Do you take some sort of sick pleasure from this sort of thing?" Rianna snaps at him, before approaching Tanic.

"Put the staff down! We can destroy it, and then it'll never haunt anyone again!" she says to him.

"No!" Gallador fumes. "I cannot let you destroy such a precious artifact! The Staff is one of the last of its kind, a rare talisman of Sith power!"

"Go ahead," Rand eggs you on. "Try to take it."

Tanic does not respond to you. You can sense his fears keenly; it is a fear of loss that drives him. He is a coward at heart.

"I don't care if it's the last Sith artifact to ever exist in the galaxy!" Rianna shouts back at Gallador. She's going to grasp the staff with one hand, holding her lightsaber in the other just in case.

Tanic is holding on pretty tightly...

Then Rianna's going to be stupidly reckless and lightsaber the staff.

You bring your lightsaber back to destroy the Staff... but it does not come forward again. Gallador has run forward and hooked his lightsaber in front of yours, preventing your attack and putting you in a very vulnerable position.

"I said I would not allow it," Gallador hisses.

Rianna quickly lets go of the staff and spins around so that she's not so completely open and unguarded.

"Ask how much I care if you will or won't allow something..." she replies.