The Krayt Dragon's roar shook the glass plains, its gargantuan body coiling like a serpent forged from obsidian and malice. Acidic saliva dripped from its fangs, hissing as it melted the sand into jagged, smoking pits. James and his team—Lira, Rulan, and six tribesmen—stood trapped between the beast and the vault's ancient door.
Two warriors hurled sunflare grenades (crafted from reactor shards) at the dragon's eyes. The explosions blinded it momentarily, but the beast retaliated with a whip-crack of its tail, shearing a glass spire in half. Shards rained down, impaling a tribesman through the chest.
The dying man triggered his belt of thermal detonators, engulfing the dragon's left flank in fire.
[Casualty: Tribesman Jarek | Tribal Morale: -10%]
The teen loaded his sling with ion-charged stones, scavenged from the sandcrawler's engine. One struck the dragon's gaping maw, overloading its heat-sensing pits.
"Its throat!" Rulan screamed. "Aim for the—" The dragon's roar drowned his voice, but James understood.
Channeling [Force Telekinesis (Lv. 10)], he ripped a glass spire from the ground and hurled it like a javelin into the dragon's underbelly—a rare patch of unarmored flesh. The beast reared, black blood gushing.
The dragon's claw swiped at James. He rolled, staff spinning, and landed a [Whirlstrike (Lv. 2)] to its wounded belly. The force of the blow cracked his ironwood staff.
Panicking, the girl unleashed a raw Force Push, not at the dragon, but at a crumbling glass tower. It collapsed onto the beast's tail, pinning it.
"The key!" James tossed Tharak's skull-shaped artifact to her. "The door! NOW!"
James climbed the dragon's thrashing neck, dodging snapping fangs. He jammed the skull key into its milky eye, then channeled [Force Reinforcement (Lv. 1)] into the metal. The key detonated, blasting the dragon's skull into shrapnel.
The backlash flung James into a glass wall, fracturing his ribs.
[Teräs Käsi Combat (Lv. 5) → Lv. 6 – "Dragon's Bane" Title Unlocked: +15% Damage vs. Large Creatures]
[Force Telekinesis Overload: 35% → 45% – James Gains "Exhausted" Debuff (-20% Stamina)]
The team fled into the vault as the Shattered Wastes collapsed behind them. Rulan sealed the tunnel with a sonic charge, screaming, "Move, or we die here!"
-------------
The vault was a cathedral of forgotten Jedi ambition, its air thick with the hum of dormant energy.
Etched with holographic murals of robed figures battling Sith legions atop sandworms. Proto-Basic glyphs warned: "Beware the shadow that covets the light."
A hexagonal platform hovered over a pool of liquid kyber, its amber glow casting long shadows. Ancient terminals, crusted with desert minerals, lined the walls.
A fist-sized orb floated above the platform, pulsing with terraforming energy. James touched it, and visions flooded his mind: sandstorms bending to his will, crops sprouting in seconds, the settlement cloaked in a shimmering dome.
Synced with the reactor, it could manipulate Tanalorr's climate or project a Force-illusionary sandstorm to hide the tribe.
[New Item: Star-Keeper's Heart – Settlement Defense +50% | Requires Reactor Sync]
A weathered pyramid activated, projecting a Jedi Knight's ghost. "We severed ties with the Order to protect this world," she intoned. "The reactor's kyber is a Force Nexus, meant to empower guardians, not machines. The Sith buried here… they are not gone."
The vault was both a sanctuary and a prison—a Sith Lord's phylactery lay buried deeper, leaking corruption into the kyber.
The team crossed floating platforms that destabilized with every step. Lira slipped, but James caught her with a desperate Force Pull, straining his injured body.
"I've got you!" he growled, hauling her up as a platform dissolved into the abyss.
Rulan deciphered warnings on a sealed door: "Blood of the guardian opens the way." James sliced his palm, dripping blood onto the stone. The door rumbled open—revealing a Sith sarcophagus leaking black mist.
"Don't touch it," Lira whispered, her voice trembling.
[Archaeotechnology (Lv. 2) → Lv. 3 – Ancient Systems Mastery: +25% Decoding Speed]
[Lira's Force Sensitivity Revealed: Galactic Attention 35% → 50%]
-------------
The tribe's settlement glowed under the twin suns, now encircled by Tharak's stolen raider tech: makeshift turrets, scrap-metal barricades, and a captured AT-ST repurposed as a gatekeeper.
The warlord stood atop the AT-ST, his Sith vibrosword gleaming. "Where's my payment, Flame Survivor?"
James tossed him a Sith warblade from the vault. "Your weapon. Try not to stab yourself."
Tharak tested the blade, its crimson edge humming with dark energy. He slashed a boulder in half, grinning. "This'll do… for now."
The sword's corruption already darkened Tharak's eyes.
[Tharak's Loyalty: 40% → 55% – "Mutual Gain" Pact: Tribal Security +20%, Corruption Risk +30%]
James placed the Star-Keeper's Heart into the reactor core. The tribe watched as:
Withered crops regrew in minutes; sandworms recoiled from the settlement's borders. A translucent dome flickered over the tribe, bending light to hide them from scans.
[Terraforming Nexus (Lv. 1) Achieved – Climate Stability +40% | Galactic Attention: 50% → 30% (Temporary)]
That night, James led Lira to the reactor chamber. "The Force isn't a weapon," he said, igniting a salvaged training lightsaber (blue, cracked). "It's the desert's breath. Feel it."
Lira struggled to levitate a pebble, her frustration palpable.
"Again," James ordered. "Breathe. The desert doesn't rush."
[New Subplot: "Lira's Path" – Risk of Jedi/Sith Recruitment Increases Weekly]
-------------
[STATUS PAGE]
[Age: 13]
[Current Identity: "Victorious Defender of the Tribe"]
[Affiliation: Tribe of Stone Ridge]
[STATS]
[Strength (Physical): 18]
[Agility (Movement & Reaction Speed): 18]
[Force (Midichlorian Count): 8,500]
[Luck: 8]
[SKILLS]
[Staff Combat: 55%] [Advanced] [Foundation skill; opened into subskills like Whirlstrike and Fluid Assault.]
[Combo Chain – Fluid Assault: Lv. 2] [Allows for smoother, uninterrupted chains of attacks during melee.]
[Momentum Skill – Whirlstrike: Lv. 2] [A forceful spinning strike, useful for clearing space or staggering foes.]
[Pain Resistance: 60%] [Allows to keep fighting while injured. Developed from repeated exposure in training and battle.]
[Tactical Insight: Lv. 5] [Grants limited predictive combat intuition; recognizes enemy stance shifts and weaknesses.]
[Force Body: Lv. 3] [Boosts physical resistance and stamina recovery; triggered through willpower during the first trial.]
[Force Sensory Awareness: 35%] [Allows user to detect hidden threats, resources, or presences (e.g., water sources, approaching enemies, or Force-sensitive beings) through the Force.]
[Force Telekinesis: Lv. 10] [Most used Force ability. Can lift, push, and crush enemies mid-combat. Precision is improving. Lift limit is expanded.]
[Kinetic Control: 35%] [Compressing air with invisible force. Summoning the hyperstorm vortex during a battle.]
[Force Cloak: Lv. 4] [A rare and advanced Force ability that allows a user to mask their Force signature, making them undetectable to other Force-sensitive beings. It's often associated with Sith stealth tactics (e.g., Darth Sidious hiding his dark side presence) or Jedi Shadows (elite Jedi who hunt dark side artifacts covertly).]
[Force Reinforcement: Lv. 1] [A utilitarian Force skill that strengthens objects, structures, or the user's body. Jedi often use it to reinforce shields or fortify defenses (e.g., Bastila Shan's Battle Meditation indirectly bolstered allies). Sith might enhance weapons or torture tools.]
[Force Echo: Lv. 5] [Glimpse memories imprinted on objects with audio traces. Get glyphs reaction and ancestral visions from objects.]
[Kyber Purification: Lv. 3] [Cleanse dark energy from corrupted kyber crystals.] [Upgraded: Can now cleanse Sith corruption from kyber crystals.]
[Sith Lore: Lv. 1] [Identify Sith relics/curses (e.g., Tharak's corrupted vibrosword, the phylactery).]
[Force Nexus Synergy: Lv. 1] [Amplify Force abilities within the reactor's radius (e.g., faster skill progression, stronger telekinesis).] [Limitation: Drains reactor stability if overused.]
[Strategic Planning: Lv. 4] [New skill unlocked from tribe leadership and defensive planning. Provides insight into long-term survival and defense strategies.]
[Basic Engineering: 38%] [Construction and fortification design.]
[Salvage Crafting: 34% Success Chance] [Repurposing scavenged materials (starship parts, Skarn weapons, etc.) into tools, weapons, or infrastructure.]
[Starship Engineering: Lv. 1] [Can repair basic systems (life support, power grids).]
[Tribal Leadership: Lv. 6] [Governing, morale management, organization.]
[Environmental Empathy (Passive): Lv. 3] [Grants an instinctive connection to the planet's ecosystems, letting the user "read" environmental patterns (weather shifts, geological stability, resource distribution).]
[Hydraulic Mastery: Lv. 1] [Grants advanced understanding of water systems (+10% irrigation efficiency).]
[Hydroponics Design: Lv. 2] [This skill boosts food security by allowing soil-free cultivation in sealed greenhouse domes, using recycled water from hyperstorm runoff and Force-regulated humidity.]
[Crisis Management Lv. 1] [Enables the user to make rapid, effective decisions during emergencies (raids, natural disasters, resource shortages).]
[Risk Assessment: Lv. 1] [Calculates cost/benefit ratios for critical decisions.]
[Teräs Käsi Combat: Lv. 6] [A melee weapon and hand-to-hand combat technique that was created to fight force-sensitives, particularly members of the Jedi Order.] [Unlocked "Dune Tempest" Combo (spinning staff strikes + Force-assisted momentum).] [Unlocked "Dragon's Bane", +15% damage vs. large creatures.]
[Earthborn Resilience: Lv. 1] [Brutal training regimen blending Earth endurance and desert survival. Reduces fatigue from manual labor and combat.]
[Archaeotechnology: Lv. 3] [Decoding/repurposing ancient tech (e.g., reactor's stone tablet, geared mechanisms).]
[Low-Tech Engineering: Lv. 1] [Designing systems without galactic tech (Roman aqueducts, windmills).]
[Terraforming Nexus: Lv. 1] [Stabilize climate, accelerate crop growth, and cloak the settlement.] [Climate Control: Redirects hyperstorms, irrigates fields.] [Force Illusion: Projects a sandstorm shield (masks the tribe from scans).]