A Greek Tragedy pt. 4 “The Death of Cicero an End to a Means”

When at last we left our villain Cicero, he and his party managed to escape the fabled planet of Iago, and pick a fight with a Hutt on Nar’Shaddaa.  As of this moment they are traveling to an old Sith planet, long since dead, now only filled with creatures, and spirits of the past.

Using the Sith Holocron, Cicero discovered on the abandoned planet that held no name, the party traveled to Korribban, an old Sith planet in hopes to possibly learn a little more about the evil that has been chasing them across the universe.  Upon landing on the Sith planet, the group exited their transport vehicle, and began a short ‘guided’ trip to a Sith temple mentioned in said Sith Holocron.  At the half-buried ancient door of the Sith Temple the party ran into the extremely formidable Nek Battle Dog.  Luckily, between several very good dice rolls and a few interesting choice of Force Power usage, we managed to force the creature to tuck tail and run.  Then with much time and a little bit of luck, we managed to dig up the Sith temple doors and open them.  So here we were.  On the edge.  Cicero moved in without recourse.  Alacath followed, however, McGuffey and Dunsmore kept their characters outside.  Both feared the temple far too much to allow themselves to go inside, so we kept them on the defensive in case the Nek Battle Dog came back with some friends.

Now the setting is as follows.  The new Sith Cicero, and the old Jedi Knight Alacath traverse though the densely fogged and overly ominous Sith temple.  Thick ‘moss-like’ plants covered the walls, and much of the artifacts from the ancient culture lay in ruins.  The voice that led Cicero to this point grew ever louder now, almost to the point of deafening.  It nearly weakened him, it was so powerful. 

“That is where we need to go,” he said covering his right ear with one hand and pointing to a dark room full of sarcophagi.  Alacath took point, moving into the room that suddenly seemed to swallow the light around them.  Cicero followed at his heels, the noise dropping to a deep throbbing noise.  Alacath stopped.  He turned around, and lit his lightsaber. 

“I will kill you Cicero,” the angered Alacath bellowed.  Cicero lit his own saber and scoffed.  “Always letting those emotions get to you at all the wrong times Alacath,” he replied cynically.

So, the battle began, but not quite the battle between good and evil as the throbbing nearly crippled Cicero.  The sounds of battle drew McGuffey into the temple but Dunsmore lingered behind.  He didn’t think he belonged in this battle.  Cicero ran.  Something in him told him of all the ins and outs of this temple, capable of showing him the better places to hide in the ‘Dark’.  When McGuffey entered the temple, and into sight of Alacath, the bewildered old man attacked him as well, distracting him just long enough for Cicero to slip past and to the Sarcophagus of an old fallen comrade.  The throbbing grew louder, more so that I had to start rolling will saves to force Cicero to make it to the Sarcophagus.  Just as Cicero’s fingers touched the resting place of a Sith Lord, Alacath dropped his attack and turned to Cicero.

“No!” he screamed, but it was far too late.  The throbbing stopped, and the room became extremely cold.  Then nothing.  The two Jedi Knights and the Sith collapsed as souls of the fallen, remaining in the temple for a time, stole their bodies from them.  Minutes passed, and their all slowly got to their feet.  The small beacon of light outside of the temple was the only thing left in this beast of a crusade.  The three Sith exited the temple with Cicero at the lead, and he lit up his light saber.  A red light saber, the one owned by his Master’s brother, but Dunsmore was gone.  The man knew he was in over his head, and fled to the transport ship.  He managed to fire the engines, and turn it to us, taking aim and preparing to fire.  Click went the guns.  The three Sith began laughing, almost hysterically.  The party never retrofitted the massive transport for fighting, so Dunsmore fled.  The Sith, now unsure what to do, began traveling, learning as much as they could as they traveled, until coming across a chamber, buried in the sand.  In the chamber they found a being trapped in a bacta tank.  Its vitals were being monitored, but otherwise still alive.  So Cicero and Alacath began to cut it free.  It awoken, and seeing the two Sith with sabers ready, it attacked, and was slain almost instantaneously.  The two Sith solemnly left the chamber but not before discovering directions to a nearby temple carved into the walls of the chamber.  They followed the directions and discovered two things.  A Sith, and an escape vessel.  After much deliberation (and fighting) the new Sith was allowed to join our pack as we headed for Courescant.  The birth place of the Empire.  The new Sith had information on where a new regime was formed built around two Sith.  One Master and one apprentice.

On the planet of Coruscant, any things had changed.  Once a big, thriving city, was no more than a militarily controlled ghost town.  Though people walked the streets, few ventured anywhere close to the clones.  After gathering a little bit of information, Cicero and his party found out they were now called Storm Troopers for something called the Empire. 

Just shortly after Order 66 was issued, the 501^st regiment of the Clone Army was resituated and renamed into Vader’s Hand, the group of clones whom just so happened to be the soldiers currently on guard in the area we were traveling through.  This is exactly the point when you have to metagame, but we chose to force our player to learn the hard way.  Y’see video gamers have a tendency to do video game things in a role playing game, especially when the rules have been bent to their advantage, so two of the four players plus the GM sighed heavily when Dunsmore asked very clearly, “Can I kill someone?” 

The simple reply was “yes you can, but you may not want to”.  Too little to late.  We found ourselves in a fire fight with the group of the worst of Vader’s arsenal, so we retreated, running anywhere that would take us.  Somehow finding ourselves in an office away from the fire we come face to face with a powerful being.  One the likes of we have never seen.  Beneath the dark cloak he wore, his face was severely burned. 

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Who are you, old man?” Cicero replied.

“Ahhhh… I sense the darkness in you.  I sense the darkness in all of you,” he said as he eyed each Sith.  “But you are weak…”  He followed his statement with a light chuckle.

“I am… much stronger than you know, old man,” Cicero growled, using his force grip to crush the surrounding room.

The old man’s eyes grew a little wider, but his smile did not fade.

“Good.  Tap your anger young one.  Good, I have someone for you to meet.”

With that the, old man provided us with a transport ship which was meant to take us to his Apprentice.  On our way to the meeting place, we felt a sense of emptiness, a fleeting of power, which Cicero noticed less than the others.  The transport ship stopped at a building, high up in the sky.  It was at the top of a sky needle, one of Courescant’s many famous marvels. 

We were escorted to a door and left there. 

“Go in,” said one of the clones, motioning to the door.

We entered the room, and before us we found a lavish room, complete with a man dressed in a black armor.  His voice was deep as he spoke a sense of dread fell over Cicero.

“I am Darth Vader,” he said slowly.  Though he was a living being, his voice had a mechanical drive to it.

“I am Darth Brutii,” Cicero replied, his fellow Sith replied with their names.

“You have but just one choice in this,” Vader said coolly. “Join me…or die.”

Cicero laughed.  “And what makes you think you can kill three Sith?”

Vader raised his hand and began choking Cicero.  In retaliation he used Force Lighting to break Vader’s grip.

“Impressive,” he said, “Most impressive.  In a few years I could train you to be very powerful.  But it stands:  Join me or die.”

Alacath lit his lightsaber.  “I will never join you,” and he took a swing at Cicero, “Or you, creature of the Darkness.” 

Now apparently, when we moved into the presence of Darth Vader, the spirits that inhabited us, fled.  This gave Alacath his soul back.  The reason Cicero didn’t notice was because frankly, he was already evil, but Cicero had a plan, and needed Alacath to keep Vader busy.  Alacath and Dunsmore charged the mountainous beast, and the fight began, but Cicero was not going to be treated as such.

Vader knocked Alacath aside.  The old man stood up and charged but was knocked aside again.  Dunsmore was cut down without as much as a challenge.

“Vader! “ Cicero shouted at the beast, “This ends now!”

Dumping what was left of my Force Points into Force Grip, I brought the sky needle down around us.  Alacath disappeared as the building collapsed and so did McGuffey, trying his best to fly out of the falling building.  Cicero caught Vader using Force Speed to move out of the collapsing building, and disappear out of a window.  Cicero followed, but out of Force Points, I could not muster enough speed, and I jumped.  Trying my best to maneuver myself to the next building, using my light saber to catch the building and use it to slow my descent.  Meanwhile,  Alacath was falling to the ground below, and with his remaining power, he capture the spirit returning to him, and destroyed it, colliding with the ground.  His death was epic and made sense to his character.  McGuffey was caught by falling debris, and crushed to death.

As Cicero fell to the ground, and drew closer and closer to the next building he brought his lightsaber to strike.  Much too late, as he collided with a speeder, and was liquidated.  Total Party Kill, and our party loved it.  An epic ending to an epic campaign. 

So the question is brought forth.  Since this was an alternate history, would it have been good for our GM to allow us to die, or allow Darth Vader to die?