Horror's Depravity 6 (Patreon)

A/N: this is one of the older stories of mine. Thought I’d update it for free because I got a bit o’ muse running through my veins.

Tags: Star Wars, Eldritch Horror, modified Worm CYOA v.3, SI

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13406182/1/Horror-s-Depravity for the first 5 chapters.

-VB-

Horror’s Depravity
Chapter 6

-VB-

24995.7.10

Ki-Adi-Mundi found himself on Ryloth.

The problem with the ominous presence in the Force had been its location: aside from the fact that it was to the galactic south, the Jedi Order couldn’t pinpoint its location. Was it in the Core? Was it in the Mid Rim? Outer Rim? Southeastern, southwestern, mid-south?

The Force couldn’t give them the proper guidance from within the Jedi Temple.

After finding himself out in space, however, the Force was very adamant about him heading to the galactic southwest. He guided his starfighter as the Force dictated.

In the end, he reached Ryloth.

And he knew why he was here.

The Force…

It was absent. He could hear its muted warning calls from afar as if he was listening to someone shout from too far. Here, on the planet, he couldn’t feel the force as if there was no life. He, however, saw life. He talked with the living and breathing residents of Ryloth. He just came out of the governor’s building - the governor was more than willing to tell him everything about the new and strange happenings across Ryloth, namely the Cult of Kalakata - and the guards there were not unliving automatons or droids but living twi'lek.

So why was the Force absent?

Could this “Cult of Kalakata” be behind it?

The cult intrigued him. While Force cults were not rare, Ryloth was never the center of such a cult, and what he heard about the cult - and he knew that the governor would have said what he wanted Ki-Adi-Mundi to hear, not what was holistic - made him believe that they could be like a proto-Jedi with their calls for peace and tranquility.

And yet Ryloth was the center of many dark premonitions.

It felt … a little too coincidental.

Ki-Adi-Mundi continued to walk the streets of Ryloth, taking care to keep his hood over his long head to keep the beating sun off his light skin. As he walked, he took careful observations. The planet and its people hadn’t changed since his last visit.

He knew that Ryloth depended on slavery to survive. So much so that the people’s culture had become intertwined with it. It was a despicable state of being, but it was one that he nor other Jedis could not engage to remove despite the fact that Ryloth was the homeworld of the twi’leks and a part of the Republic.

The reason for their inability - not unwillingness - was simple: it would spark a war.

Slavery, he knew, was a large part of the Outer Rim’s economy, but more importantly, it was one of the main income sources of the Hutt Cartels. Criminal organizations like the Hutts did not care who they hurt or how many of their numbers fell to justice; to the operatives of the Hutt Cartels, it just meant more profit they didn’t have to share with others. Should the Republic or the Jedi reach out to these slaves, the Hutts would make sure the Republic suffers dearly for it.

‘It doesn’t matter how righteous I or others feel doing it,’ he thought despondently. ‘The moment someone kills someone else, we don’t know who else will get drawn into the conflict and die.’

The Jedi can’t even manage crime happening on Coruscant itself. By what force could they manage the wider galaxy?

No, those who derided the Jedi and the Republic for the lack of action against slavery, while right in principle, knew nothing about the actual management of nations and crimes.

‘It sucks.’

And so he walked forward, sparing pitiful glances but unable to act.

Perhaps he would do his best to free one slave with potential before he left the planet.

“Would you like to hear the Words of Kalakata?”

Ki-Adi-Mundi stopped. He looked around until he found an odd twi’lek, dressed not in the traditional twi’lek attire fit for the deserts, but a priestly robe not too dissimilar from those worn by the Jedi. The blue twi’lek held a book - a book - to her chest as she engaged with the passerbyers, and occasionally, someone would stop to give her a hand clasped bow which she would return.

But those details were secondary to what Ki-Adi-Mundi felt in the force.

In that twi’lek “priestess,” he sensed a “void” of Force. It wasn’t absent; it was actively sucking in the Force like a black hole devoured everything around it.

He had his lead.

This Cult of Kalakata was the cause of the ominous premonitions that all Jedi across the galaxy have felt and seen in visions.

Now, to approach them...