When at last we left our villain Cicero, he and his party had just been given the ability to escape the mythical planet of Iago by the powerful Star Dragon. Now as a side note, I did contemplate killing the powerful beast, as it seemed like something Cicero would do. Any creature with the knowledge it contained would do nothing but harm, but it wasn’t in the cards.

The DM admitted the logic, but eluded the impossibility, so even though the Star Dragon told of Cicero’s darkness, none of my other party members were around to catch it. This did give me (personally) a smile, considering all the times the creature could have told the party the dangers it was walking into. Now I had my own “DM leak”, of sorts, not only with my DM, but with another veteran player, whom kept his knowledge of Cicero’s actions to himself, but even with the little knowledge I gave him, he was surprised at the final betrayal.

Upon our arrival of our hilltop outpost, the party discovered the newly berthed transport ship. Literally, this beast was a patchworks transport vessel, looking as old as Alacath himself. With a fresh crew, and our band of misfits powered up for another adventure, we took flight. As the Star Dragon promised, we broke free of the Angels, and broke atmosphere. In our group, the balance of power shifted slightly.

Originally it had been our veteran Bryan, who was notorious for taking lead in the party, but when Alcath was brought into the equation, much of the decisions were made by the group. This did make some things a challenge, but overall gave everyone the opportunity to be heard. This eventually turned into a good idea; considering we had two Newbs, one of which had never played any form of pen and paper RPG. This gave them a little bit of opportunity to come out of their shells, but didn’t hinder the game with indecision.

At this point, a spirit of the Darkness had begun to call Cicero. In his dreams and in his waking hours and in this calling, Cicero demanded use of the navigation system, patched together from prior ships. Though archaic and incomplete, Cicero managed to guide the ship to an old “unnamed” planet, way on the outskirts of the available information, a place Cicero had assumed that the call was coming from.

The ship touched down on a barren, hot planet. Nothing but sands as far as the eye could see, but Cicero managed to touch them down next to an abandoned outpost. The party investigated the small outpost, to find it long empty. Apparently, the whole point of my reaching the planet was to find an object. A Sith Holocron, containing a message from my Master’s brother. An interesting twist indeed! It wasn’t something I had discussed with the DM, but something that he thought would be an interesting addition, but to add insult to injury, we quickly found out why the outpost and possible terraformers inside disappeared, as a giant sandworm surfaced. As if a demon itself were chasing us, we sped to the ship, and escaped the dead planet, and decided the next course of action was to travel to Nar’Shadaa, in hopes to find any other Jedi in hiding.

The logic was, any planet controlled by the Hutts were probably safer than any core planet, but just dangerous enough we could all get lost in the fray.

We had initial difficulties landing in Nar’Shadaa considering we had a patchworks ship with no identification code. After a few stout uses of the Force, we had one on the way, and minimal payments necessary to make. Good news all around, considering we were broke. The travelers that escaped Iago with us dispersed, and we found ourselves drawn to the feeling that there was a Force user on the planet.

The class I picked for Cicero had an interesting ability. He was able to blend in a crowd exceptionally well. So when the group set off to find this Force user, he decided it was his turn to find out things his way, and broke off from the party. Each rolled a perception to catch me leaving, but none made a high enough check to notice me, and didn’t notice I wasn’t even in the group any more until minutes later when they decided to stop at a local place of gathering to find out what they could.

As I slipped through the crowd, I was spotted by two thuggish looking beings. They approached me, with a disconcerting amount of respect. Though an obvious amount of scorn was in their tones, they propositioned Cicero to meet with their boss. A Hutt by the name of Porva the Hutt. Cicero agreed graciously, smiling ever so bitterly, knowing this was exactly the way that things had to go. He was going to find this Force user, and kill it, and take the light saber they held as his own prize.

He had already collected three; his and his master’s light saber as well as his Master passing down his brother’s light saber, and as well, used the light saber parts he had collected from the Star Dragon’s lair to create a Great Light Saber. Apparently, the shady folks that propositioned me, propositioned the rest of my group as well, but unfortunately those poor souls met an ill-advised fate, as Alacath became insulted and then angry as the thugs grew angry. The meeting adjourned in devastation, with the thugs dead.

Meanwhile, Cicero was being brought before Porva. The fat, disgusting mob thug, as it was, lived a life of semi-luxury. It lived underground, or as far as Cicero could tell, and as many Hutts do, it surrounded itself with different forms of luxury. This one in particular had a personal female slave, which screamed Force user. After a short discussion, Porva demanded that Cicero give up his light saber, and not to resist for he was “captured”. Cicero would not stand for this, and merely laughed at the fat worm.

“You obviously have no idea who I am, worm,” Cicero scoffed.

“And you obviously have no idea who my slave is…worm…” Porva countered. The Force user stared Cicero down. She drew from her side, a red light saber, and with a frown, demanded Cicero back down. Cicero drew his own light saber, and lit it up.

“You’re nothing but a fallen dog, working for a pathetic worm,” Cicero jeered.

“I am nothing but a dog, but at least after this I will be a living dog, that’s more than you can say,” the Fallen Jedi proclaimed. Initiative was rolled, and the stage was set. All the while, the DM kept giving me looks of uncertainty. After the fight, he revealed that he intended me to give in, by giving me an overly powerful opponent. An opponent apparently two levels above my own. With a lot of great roles, and wicked luck, Cicero actually managed to defeat the Fallen Jedi.

With constant use of Dark Force powers and great melee attack roles, Cicero whittled her down over the course of seven turns, and eventually decapitated her, at the expense of my own arm. Rolling well, to keep from succumbing to the pain, he calmly walked to her corpse, and collected her light saber. The once proud Hutt was utterly terrified, offering Cicero ‘whatever’ he wanted to allow the worm to live, but the angry man refused to accept him living…

Unfortunately, just as things were about to heat back up, my party burst into the room. The throwing around of Force powers was a beacon to any Force Sensitive being on the planet. Immediately, Alacath lost his mind, distracting Cicero from Prova. The residual darkness in the room drove Alacath around the bend; the old man began accusing Cicero of many things, which nearly resulted in a fight. Cicero took out after the Hutt, but due to poor rolling on tracking, lost the blob. Eventually, Alacath returned when his emotions were under his control, and he apologized, admitting to his faults with his emotions, tears flowing from his eyes.

Though things didn’t go exactly as Cicero expected, but things were getting better, as he suggested they head to Korriban, to learn more about the Sith threat. Things were certainly getting interesting when a DM looks you dead in the eyes and tells you that you weren’t supposed to survive the encounter, and your character has his choice between five light sabers. Now, without much reluctance, our party was heading to a Sith planet, from a character that has suddenly become questionable, but it was all to late. The next chapter is the completion of the tale. The next chapter is the Death of Cicero.

 

To Be Continued…