STAR WARS: RETROSPECTION- Initiation

In that case, you spend several hours laying down on somewhat comfortable bedding while Nume Rand hovers over you, jabbing needles into your skin and muscles. They are coated in some substance that burns tremendously when poked into your flesh. At some points, Vash has to help hold you down while Rand continues the procedure.

After he is done, you rest some... and your Strength is restored to 3.

But you also take 5 damage from the painful process.

Ick. Well that'll have put her in a thoroughly foul mood, and she's wondering if that was even really worth it...

You can endure slightly more damage than before! Time to fight your way out of here, right?

Being able to take slightly more damage, yaaaay.

Too bad she still is going to be terrible at fighting.

Still, sooner she heals, sooner she can get away...

"Was that really the only way of doing that?" Rianna snaps grouchily at Rand.

"Quickly, yes," Rand says.

Rianna doesn't entirely believe him...but she also doesn't know enough to really pick an argument over it.

"I'm just going to assume that you have something else you'll want me to do..."

Rand actually claims he has no tasks for you today. He recommends that you explore your surroundings so that you know what is in the area.

"Go together," Rand says. "While the people of Dontos sleep beneath the waves, not everything here sleeps."

Well, Rianna's immediately suspicious of that.

"I'm not going anywhere with him," she states flatly.

"Suit yourself," Rand says. "I have some work to do, and neither of you are staying here."

Rianna is doubly irritated by that.

"You can come with me if you're not going to try and kill me," Rianna says to Vash, before turning and leaving. She doesn't want to wander too far, though, because she doesn't really feel like getting lost.

"Fine," Vash says.

Rand has to lead you out of the caves, of course, but once you are there he gives you a comlink so that you can call him when you want to come back.

It is stormy outside, but not raining. Where do you want to go?

...not towards the bay.

"What do you know of this place?" Rianna asks, pocketing the comlink.

What is there that they can see, for that matter, that might be worth exploring? Does Rianna sense anything?

"Not much," Vash says. "Everyone died in a cataclysmic flood."

Everything is slippery rocks and slimy moss. The bay is the obvious option, but there is also the old fortress and the forest in the distance.

You sense decay and death. It permeates Dontos.

"Let's go look at the fortress..." Rianna says. Unless Vash disagrees she'll head that way.

"How did you wind up with Rand?" Rianna asks, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Vash follows.

"He found me," Vash says somberly, picking his way through the rocks. "Out beyond the Republic. He promised to complete my training."

"So you were never actually trained, then."

"I was..." Vash says. "The Jedi picked me out but I never trained on Coruscant."

"That's unusual...usually they snap up people and bring them to Coruscant right away," Rianna says with a frown. "Were you too old? Or just too far outside the Republic?"

"Don't get me wrong, they took me to Coruscant," Vash says. "I just didn't train there. I went to another, smaller temple. I ran away after awhile though. I didn't like the locale and wanted to learn from the Galaxy, not from the Jedi."

Vash shrugs at the damp, eroded landscape around you.

"Look where it's gotten me."

"Yeah. That part I understand...though I ran away for vastly different reasons and it was a last resort sort of thing...now I wish I hadn't done so."

Rianna falls silent for a while - she's still in denial that she truly fell to the Dark Side and is very much not happy about being here.

"Do you expect we'll actually find anything here?"