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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3625278" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 484: GemstoneThe world was currently a mesh of colours and blurriness. Slowly, it began to coalesce into a vaguely humanoid form. The wandering colours began to find single points instead of moving around, and there was familiar sight looking straight down at him.    “Come on, Toby...on your feet,” Jyren’s voice was distant, but that probably had something to do with the still blurry vision.    A few more seconds passed and Tobias realized there was a hand in front of him. He blinked, and the figure above him became clearer so that he could see it was Jyren extending his hand down and waiting calmly. Realizing he was on his back and his head was aching, Tobias accepted the help by taking the hand. In a swift, effortless move, Jyren pulled Tobias right up onto his feet, putting his other hand on the younger Alraxian’s shoulder to prevent him from falling over.    As his vision began to return to normal, again, Tobias’ mind caught up. He leaned back slightly and looked up to see a smile on Jyren’s face. Tobias had the sense to look confused, “How...?”    “You hit your head pretty hard there,” Jyren said, not seeming to notice the question, “You’ll be alright, though.”    Tobias shook his head, reaching a hand up to feel a bruise just under his hairline, “Be alright? I’m more than just seeing things I’m feeling things. And...and...” he trailed off and stared wide-eyed at Jyren, “I’m going crazy, aren’t I?”    A large smile formed on Jyren’s face and he reached up to ruffle Toby’s hair, “Its family tradition to be crazy, but you’ve got a few years left until then. You just hit your head pretty hard, little guy. Focus and get your bearing and you’ll be fine.”    As his head was still spinning slightly, Tobias decided that was probably a good idea. He closed his eyes a moment, took a few deep breaths, then felt his head settling. When he opened his eyes, Jyren was gone and he was standing on the bridge of the Gemstone, leaning against one of the rear bulkheads in the oval shaped bridge. Mon Calamari were everywhere in the white bridge, as were various human officers and, Tobias quickly noted, Master Ral.    His mind raced to catch up. They had headed to the bridge at the sound of the alarm, and were assisting the Gemstone’s commanding officer in coordinating with a group of Jedi aboard the largest of the Vong ships. Or at least, Master Ral was. Tobias had been staring through the large viewport at the absolute chaos around him. Flashes of green and red and orange were so abundant that it was actually hard to find blackness. As they’d moved in with the rest of the fleet, a few of the larger Vong ships had concentrated fire on the Gemstone and a strong hit had sent Tobias back and into the bulkhead behind him.    It was then that he realized there was a Mon Calamari holding him up. Tobias shook his head to shake off the last of the confusion and then looked to the orange-skinned medic to say softly, “Thank you...I’m alright.”    “You should head to the infirmary to have that checked as soon as you can,” the medic said, slowly letting go of Tobias’ arm. The Mon Calamari waited a few moments to make sure Tobias could stand on his own, then headed off to check with the minor injuries that others had sustained.    Quickly, he made his way back to Master Ral’s side. Still near the back of the bridge to stay out of the way, but apparently close enough to relay any important information to the commander in his chair near the center of the bridge with a good view of everything else.    Master Ral simply glanced down at his side to Tobias, but said nothing. Through the Force, Tobias could sense a bit of unease lifting from his Master, but it still felt a bit odd that the man didn’t say anything. But that was probably normal for him. But the silence from Master Ral didn’t last long. Through the orders being shouted across the bridge, the Omwati’s quiet voice was actually a bit hard to hear, “Focus on the Force...reach out and tell me what you feel.”    Of course he’d get a lesson at a time like this.    But Tobias was long past the days of feeling any urge to argue that. So he did as Master Ral said, first closing his eyes to cut out the visual distractions that were around him. Tobias made a conscious note to put his hands on the railing in front of him, just in case they took another strong hit, and then tried to bring his focus into a single point to then reach out from. That, alone, took a few minutes.    Slowly, though, he began to feel anxiety, panic, excitement, fear, terror, elation...and then something else entirely that he didn’t have a word for. It felt like a heavy, overbearing presence in the Force that extended like a blanket across Fondor’s outer orbit. And it was aware. Changing, reacting, adapting and...and angry. Very angry at something. Many things.    And then, in a sudden brief moment of near terror, Tobias realized that it could see him.    He jerked back into the world around him with gasp of surprise, immediately taking a moment to calm his breathing. When he was able to breath normally again, he looked to Master Ral and asked the obvious question, “What was that?”    “I am unsure,” Master Ral’s answer was not at all comforting, “From everything we know, the Vong somehow do not exist in the Force. They don’t even register as holes...if they did, we could just sense that to find them. Instead, its just nothing.”    “That was something, and it saw me,” Tobias mumbled, his voice not hiding the fear that feeling had elicited.    The Omwati Jedi Master nodded slowly, “It is also highly intelligent. I can sense it for short periods of time before it finds a way to hide from me again.”    That didn’t sound good at all. After another deep breath to finally calm himself as much as was possible, Tobias asked, “So you think its Yuuzhan Vong?”    “It is related to them,” that might as well have been a ‘yes’. Of course, Master Ral didn’t leave that vague statement alone, “It is centered around the Vong’s ships. I cannot tell if it is a single mind or more, but there is a relation to the Vong.”    “What does that mean?” Tobias’ question was asked as he looked out the viewport again. Fires were erupting from two nearby New Republic ships, but fighters were streaking all across the view and weaving through the asteroid-like wreckage of what had to be a Vong ship.    Master Ral looked down a moment as he thought on the question, then said in the same calm voice, “The Vong have no connection to the Force as far as we know. So unless that is false, which would be logical, they have either found or created something that can connect to the Force.”    “So...bad?”    That got a sigh from the Jedi Master, but Tobias sensed it wasn’t from the question, but rather the situation, “Quite. From what I can sense, it is also aware of the small group of Jedi aboard that large ship,” Master Ral pointed to the huge Vong ship that was near the center of the formation, “And it seems that most of its anger is directed towards them.”    Suddenly, a chunk of the large ship broke off. It wasn’t in an explosion, though, and there was no direct fire hitting the thing. Before Tobias could say anything, Master Ral held up a hand to silence him. Toby could feel his Master stretching out to the ship through the Force.    Seconds later, when Master Ral returned to his body and the emptiness faded from his eyes, a stern expression formed on his blue features. Leaning forward, Master Ral called out in a very loud voice to be heard over the rest of the various talk across the bridge, “Commander! There are two Jedi aboard the largest Vong ship and they’re going to need a way off!”    The chair that held the Mon Calamari captain of the ship spun around to face them and the aquatic creature waved a finned hand at Master Ral, “You know I can’t do that for just two Jedi, Corentan!”    The use of Master Ral’s first name surprised Tobias. Suddenly, he had a feeling that his Omwati Master had a few more connections on the ship than just a former apprentice. But Tobias didn’t say anything, and Master Ral was already snapping back at the Mon Calamari commander, “There are hundreds of captured New Republic citizens aboard that ship, too! Would you leave them all to die?”    The bridge didn’t go silent, but it sure felt like it.    Then, suddenly, the captain spun around in his chair to face what Tobias had quickly learned was the comm officer, “Relay that information to the Admiral immediately and see if he can convince another couple of ships to join us in punching through the Vong formation.”I realized yesterday something that I felt might be worth mentioning here to add some clarity.Many, many times I've made a comment towards a certain type of accent that a character speaks with. However, I haven't really changed spelling of words to reflect this too often, so its left as a rather vague idea and completely pointless if you don't know exactly what's what.Soooooo...a little explanation since I have a strong connection to many of the characters imply BECAUSE of their accents and how they sound in my head.One of the most common accents I've brought up is the Coruscanti accent, which could also simply be called an Imperial accent. Basically, its a British accent. Varying thickness depending on the character. Most all of the Core Worlds have a similar accent, and the best examples are most Old Republic Jedi(Obi-Wan, especially) and pretty much every single Imperial Officer. Kuati accent is similar, but with a bit of a thicker inflection.Most of the Outer Rim worlds and most humans outside of the Core speak with North American accents of one kind or another. Corellian's especially, so you get a fairly American sounding accent with someone like Jyren, where Voort would have a more English sound to him.Alraxians would also have a Coruscanti-like accent, though not as thick as many of the old Imperial Officers. The in-universe explanation for that would be the early contact in their civilization with ancient Jedi. The real reason is more of a 'just because'.So there, 16 pages into it, after many, many mentions of accents...I realized people might have no clue at all to what they actually would have sounded like. Hopefully problem solved. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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