The Seeker's Tale

[R. S. Esalis]

The gardens of the Imperial palace were a sight that few could ever truly appreciate. Immaculate care had been given to maintaining its' beauty and life, showing a side of the Empire that so few truly understood. With order and discipline came unparalleled and exquisite sights that would have otherwise been lost to unkempt and wild neglect. Nurturing hands and unyielding sheers had brought forth the true beauty of nature to be had.

So much like the Empire. So much like their relentless pursuit of order. Like those who tended to the gardens here, so too did the Empire tend to the gardens of the galaxy. Pruning systems of unsightly and wild overgrowth. It was a tireless and unending task, yet it yielded satisfaction each time unwanted detritus was removed. Sadly, like the weeds that were always cut away, so too did the Rebellion always return.


But, now was not a time for ponderings and idle analogies.

R. S. Esalis sat in her office far from the Imperial gardens, her icy gaze settled upon the various datapads atop her desk. The office itself was a spartan affair and gave no indication as to her own personal tastes. The only pieces of decoration that she'd chosen were a pair of small statues, set on either side of her door. Both were headless; one in a pose of exquisite ecstacy, and the other in terrible agony. For whatever reason remained a mystery had she chosen them.

The neutral expression on her features covered a mind alive with frustration. She'd lost Ravenwing. She'd lost k'Vik. She'd lost Orem. And worst of all, she'd lost Erasmus Karrnage. All to that cursed Lupine, Loklorien s'Ilancy.

Slender fingers drummed upon her armrest, and R. S. Esalis continued to brood.

[Karl Valten]

In his wisdom, upon organizing the administrative juggernaught that would become the Galactic Empire, Palpatine subtly crafted every branch and department none was entirely self-reliant so that no one entity could possibly shake the claim to his rule. Even the indomitable military machine of the Imperium plagued itself with petty intrigue and necessary cooperation with other branches so that an incident akin the clone wars could not occur.

Perhaps the only pair that seemed to have made any head-way with these pre-constructed were the Office of the Inquisitoriate and the Department of Intelligence. With similar purposes, the two branches formed a strange symbiotic relationship. Rare was the occurrence that agent from each actually worked directly with one another, but information and resources flowed between as needed.

Still rarer was the occurrence that an individual from the opposite group set foot in the other’s headquarters. Which was perhaps the only reason the secretary charged with admitting or denying access to the Director’s offices gave no word of warning of the man who had calmly walked past the reception desk without a word, the poor woman simply had no clue how to react, especially considering him

So it was that the only forewarning Director Esalis received was a buzz…..three seconds after the door to her office had opened.

“Madam Director. You look quite…distracted.”

[R. S. Esalis]

Cold blue eyes flickered up to glare icy daggers at the man who'd so brazenly allowed himself entry into her office. She knew him well enough that it was the sort of behavior to expect from him, but Esalis still couldn't help but allow Grand Inquisitor Valten a lofted brow. She sat up a little straighter in her chair, her head ticking to the side at the sound of the belated chime from her secretary. This she silenced without a word.

An odd assortment of expressions flitted across her features, but she kept herself composed.

It was not entirely unheard of for two individuals of such stature as themselves to be seen in one another's personal domains, but it was certainly rare enough to warrant a healthy amount of concern.

If she was in any way intimidated by the Grand Inquisitor, she did not show it.

"Grand Inquisitor," Esalis afforded him an odd half-nod.

"Distracted is not the correct term, but I suppose it will suffice."

She refused to rise from her seat.

"What can I do for you?"

[Karl Valten]

“I apologize for not giving any advance warning on my arrival. But I have some information that might interest you.”

Valten gestured towards a seat at the desk before the Director.
“If I may?”

The woman’s reaction remained entirely unreadable to him as he expected one of her skill. But today the Grand Inquisitors visit was not one of subtle games or hidden agendas….well not to the extent as was accustomed by either of them.

“Two days ago at 2231 hours standard time, three Inquisitorial seekers where destroyed near the University District”

[R. S. Esalis]

Esalis pursed her lips at that.

"A shame."

For a short while there was silence, as she pondered her next words. The tools that the Inquisitoriate chose to use were often far more abstract than what she herself preferred, but there was no denying that such creations of modern science accomplished the tasks they were given.

"... And rather surprising. Your chosen tools, from what my own men have told me, are rather efficient in their duties."

[Karl Valten]

“For their designed purposes, yes. But this is a…unique…case”
Valten produced a datapad, keeping the device in has hand.

“We were only able to recover the data logs from one of the specimens. Unfortunately the others suffered too much damage to be salvaged.”
The Grand Inquisitor slid the data pad over to Esalis. As the vid began playing, Valten spoke.

“At around 1750 hours Seeker 6-Reaver-0 followed an routine facial-recognition anomaly from a security camera at the Tarkin Institute. Reaver and two others were able to track and identify three individuals; two of these on the Imperium’s most wanted list…and the other a presumed hostage captured from the Tarkin Institute’s Xenoliguistics Department. I’m certain you’ll recognize all three.”

“As one of the assailants was positively identified as a threat-level adept, the seekers were ordered to delay them while Inquisitorial containment teams mobilized. However as you’ll see, they ran into some difficulties.”

[R. S. Esalis]

And indeed they had. The video she watched had been damaged at its' source without doubt, and the quality she was now seeing being the result of many hours' worth of restoration. Still, it was not hard to tell that the patchwork job Valten's men had been able to accomplish was only partially successful.

Esalis frowned as she stared at the blurred scenes playing out before her eyes.

Something caught her eye, and with almost unnatural quickness the Director of Imperial Intelligence reached out, tapping the pause button. The playback froze on the face of a woman. A woman that had so far eluded the Empire with such apparent ease...

For a few moments Esalis sat, staring at the face she now saw; the face of Loklorien s'Ilancy. Loklorien s'Ilancy who had been here, on Coruscant. She'd originally thought that Karrnage's abduction had been at the hands of simple Rebels, but now.

She shot upwards to her feet, blue eyes going from the datapad to Valten.

"What sort of joke is this," she demanded in a deceptively calm voice.

[Karl Valten]

Valten met Esalis’s icy stare with his a gray undecipherable one of his own. This as much a reaction that he had ever seen provoked from this woman. And to waste words with such a useless question piqued the Grand Inquisitor’s interest farther than it already had been.

“There is no joke here.” Karl regarded Esalis before continuing “The terrorist leader Byl Laprovik was also identified before communication was lost, along with an unknown force adept and human female that were able to dispatch two seekers without on their own.”

He motioned towards the datapad.

“Loklorien defeated the third with little effort”

The Grand Inquisitor spread his hands in a derelict manner.

“However, this isn’t what interests me at all. I’m more intrigued by a follow-up investigation headed by one of my best psychometrists.”

Whether or not the Inquisitors archaic choice of wording adept disciplines was lost on the Director of Intelligence mattered little. The fact of the matter remained that Valten had been intrigued enough to send force-investigators out.

“Your name has come up.”

[R. S. Esalis]

"It did, did it."

Slowly, like a snake recoiling itself once more, the Directer lowered herself into her seat. She brought in a deep breath, giving the barest of sneers to the face still frozen on the 'pad, and wasting little movement, blanked the offending screen by shutting the whole thing off.

"And what did your follow-up tell you?"

She had once more regained control of herself, and while to some her reaction seemed minor, both she and Valten knew that it'd in fact been rather blatant. R. S. Esalis was nearly the definition of calm, collected ruthlessness, and to be witness to an outburst such as what just happened spoke well enough of her level of surprise.

[Karl Valten]

Valten shrugged his shoulders, seated himself into the chair opposite of her. That Loklorien woman merited such disdain from Esalis…something else was at play here. Certainly the adept had run the Empire through hoops and back, the Director seemed to take her absconding with Karrnage personally.
“Nothing. Nothing that makes a iota of sense. The psychometric searched the professor’s apartment and collapsed into a fit of jabbering after inspecting a curious artifact in his possesion.”

“She was raving in High Galactic mixed with some strange language, uttering nonsense about fairy tales, force users, genetic manipulation. Spouting…….names and titles and stories. Somehow your name found its way in.”

“I myself spent several hours searching and found a few interesting specimens, but nothing that would quite drive me into a fit of madness.”

The expression on Valten’s face clearly showed that the man was baffled beyond belief. Adepts were unreliable at best, especially for those who claimed divination as their specialty. But Valten only once witnessed such a drastic corruption of the force in an Inquisitor. A shame really, Veneria had been one of the best.

“I was hoping that you could enlighten me.”

[R. S. Esalis]

Ah, so it was about that then. She should have guessed. The Force users retained by the Inquisitoriate were unique to say the least, their talents bordering on pure old-age alchemy in her mind. But, regardless, it seemed that Valten had stumbled his way into a wholly new level of the galactic chessboard.

"Fairy tales," she repeated quietly.

She leaned back in her seat, steepling her fingers.

"To some I suppose 'fairy tales' would be the correct term. To a very few however, it would most certainly not apply."

She opted to cut to the heart of the matter.

"Lupines, Grand Inquisitor."

[Karl Valten]

“Lupines?” Now that was something the Grand Inquisitor wasn’t expecting. Was the Director implying that only a single word could explain every oddity that had revealed itself during this particular mess. It was his turn to wonder is she was joking.

Still that word as almost unfamiliar, he mulled on the word before his mind settled from a fantasy tale he’d heard long ago.

“….Werewolves” A less elegant term he had to admit, but shape-shifters and changelings were not unknown to the galaxy. What matter was the breed of the beast?

“So what do rebel terrorists, a former jedi, some strange adept, a Professor of Xenobiology, and these…lupine…creatures have in common?”

“And why do they merit the Department of Intelligence covering up the shifting of several million credits worth of equipment and manpower?”

Valten had very much lied about what was discovered during the Inquisitoriate’s investigation.

[R. S. Esalis]

She brushed his last question away with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"What we do here in Intelligence should matter little."

She sat for a short while, staring at him. It was impossible to pick apart Karl Valten, but she was not without her own powers of observation. Pulling the datapad towards her once more, she thumbed it on and watched once more. This time however, she focused on the second adept. A distinct frown turned down the corners of her lips as she recognized the woman.

"Your 'strange adept'," she pursed her lips, "Is a former Jedi by the name of Milivikal k'Vik. She was in my employ, but it seems that she's placed her allegiance with the Alliance. With the Lupine."

She watched him, then went on after a rather long sigh.

"I trust you have cleared your schedule for the rest of the day? We will be here for quite some time."

[Karl Valten]

Former Jedi in the employ of the Department of Intelligence? Not overly absurd, the fact or that the fact had been hidden. Valten knew well enough about secrets and personal agendas and did not bother pointing fingers with the Director.

Karl wiped a palm over his face, Esalis looked as if the mere thought of explaining the circumstances were exhausting. Long day indeed.

“Unfortunately, no, but I assume that this is going to take precedence. I tend to get concerned when adepts and rebels team up and end up kidnapping a more renowned citizen from our backyard.”

He let his hand drop back to the table.

“This also seems far more interesting than any business I may have today.”

[R. S. Esalis]

A less than amused grin.

"Interesting, yes. Also rather frustrating."

As if the act of essentially breaking bread with the Grand Inquisitor was a monumental chore, Esalis pulled open one of the drawers in her desk and brought out two crystal glasses, followed by a decanter of Ithorian honeywasp liqueur. It was one of the few indulgences she allowed herself, and considering her new task at hand, would be needed.

She filled both tumblers, pushing one across her desk to rest in front of him.

She stared at the deep amber liquid in her own glass before beginning.

"Before the Purge, there was a padawan living at the Temple," a gesture to the datapad, "... Loklorien s'Ilancy.

"She is our Lupine, or rather, one of them. Your psychometric was not ranting of anything inconsequential, I assure you. Everything she most likely spoke of is of amazing importance. The problem lies in the fact that the only person who would've been able to interpret her ravings is the very man who now seems to find himself abducted."

At that she took a small first sip.

"But I suppose that is not truly the beginning.

"What we had once thought of as fairy tales, bedtime stories told to us as children, are rather very real."

Esalis gave a shake of her head.

"They lived and breathed as the both of us do right now. Oh, there are changelings and other shapeshifters about the galaxy, but they are all naturally occurring. For as ancient as the Lupine race is, they are nothing more than a created anomaly, manipulated on the genetic level into what we now know them as."

[Karl Valten]

“A created race of shapeshifters?” Valten mirrored the Director’s sip of the liqueur, his tone of voice betraying skepticism. Genetic manipulation was not an unknown science, but creating the unknown gene that produced the ability to alter form? Unlikely.

Then again, Inquisitors commonly dealt with things the general populous would consider myth. History and knowledge remained a key facet of the Inquisitoriate, though nothing in the archives hidden deep in the Citadel made mention of these Lupines.

But Valten was not daft enough to presume that something did not exist simply because the Inquisition had no knowledge of it. Simply another piece of information to hoard.

“Very well then. A history lesson it is.”

The Grand Inquisitor smiled, looking forward to enlightenment over the droll bureaucracy required even at the Citadel.

[R. S. Esalis]

"Not much of one I'm afraid."

She frowned into her drink.

"Those bedtime stories told of them speak of horrid beast, waiting in the dark to prey upon children. During the day they appear normal and even kind, but when darkness falls they prey upon others."

She waved a hand.

"All very formulaic as stories told to misbehaving children are.

"What the Colonel was able to find before his abduction though was a rather different picture."

She held up two fingers.

"Two distinct strains, or bloodlines if you will. One called Loveloxx, and the other called Losstarot. The Loveloxx were apparently the first, with the Losstarot coming second. From what myself and the Colonel were able to discover, the Loveloxx strain has a rather aggressive reaction to the Force, while the Losstarot do not. Chaos and order; it is a duality that is more than a bit overt in this species."

For a few moments she was quiet, thinking on her next words.

"From what we've found so far, there is one from each bloodline still alive... Loklorien s'Ilancy of the Losstarot, and the Loveloxx being a smuggler by the name of Arya Ravenwing. Ms. Ravenwing was sent to find s'Ilancy, but as you can see she has decided to stray from her appointed task."

[Karl Valten]

Valten raised an eyebrow at the Director.

“You have two strays it seems.”

He did not presume that Esalis had not taken steps to assure their cooperation, the woman was far too meticulous to make such mistakes.

Only one answer remained. Some unpredictable variable had appeared.

“I’m surprised that such a race would have dwindled and fallen into mere fantastic children’s tales.”

[R. S. Esalis]

"Near as I can tell, it was a deliberate self-erasure."

Esalis scowled. She did not particularly enjoy the thought that both Arya and Milivikal saw fit to terminate their forced employment - which was nothing to say of Bartleby Orem. There had been no word from her underling in far too long, and the Director had slowly begun to suspect his death.

She sipped at her liqueur.

"And they've done a more than admirable job of it too I will say. As if they were so ashamed of their failure to multiply and ensure their own survival, that they removed themselves from existence so fully that all which remained were fanciful bedtime stories. They were the new bogeymen."

[Karl Valten]

The Grand Inquisitor raised an eyebrow.

“Failure to multiply? Then they are sterile?”

It was an anomaly that often arose when scientists began playing around with genetic codes; whether the mutations created were just too extreme or by fluke. Of course this also begged the question of how the species even maintained enough numbers to gain the prestige that Esalis claimed they once had.

“Why do you care if they are a doomed race with no future? You have certainly put a lot of time and funding into this.”