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Republic Reckoning 4.16.87

The smoke clears and Kast is dead. Marcus Dormammu is dead. Altair is greivously injured. The Heart of Darkness is a lost cause. Bellisarius has trumped us once again, and laughed. Our boats are gone and nobody seems to be answering our distress signals. The Republic Forces in the area are scattered and defeated. We are stranded in the middle of a jungle, in the middle of a swamp, with two dead (and uncounted native casualties) and nothing to show for it.

We decide to build a catamaran and locate Dormammu's ship, which should be a couple hundred miles north. We begin the process of salvaging the engine components from the 2 sunken boats and fell a few trees to build a raft and hollow a few logs to serve as pontoons. Elbram does most of the raft building while Quindo and Dabai cobble together a working engine. Brojen tends to Altair's injuries. We wrap the two bodies up in plastic for transport. Elbram has trouble with the logs until he decides to meditate on the task. "Visualize the log. See the pontoon. Remove everything that isn't pontoon." It works beautifully and we've made considerable progress by nightfall.

Republic Reckoning 4.17.87

First thing in the morning, we take stock of out supplies. We're short drinking water and foodstuffs and we're planning a trip that could take a week or two. We spend the morning purifying drinking water and gathering all remaining supplies at the temple. We harvest local food to supplement our supplies and pack it up. Dabai eats something unpleasant and spends some time ill.

The rest of the day is spent working on our pontoon boat. Altair recovers enough to wake up and we plan to leave first thing in the morning.

Republic Reckoning 4.18.87

We travel for three days without incidident, nursing the kludged engine the whole way. On the third day, we almost lose the engine, but Dabai and Quindo get it working again after a few hours. Progress is slowed. On day 4, the engine seizes. Quindo accidentally flushes the oil while trying to repair it. They get the engine working and run it until lack of oil causes the entire thing to fuse into a smoking lump of metal. The last 50 miles are spent paddling for three days.

Republic Reckoning 4.26.87

A tired group of young Jedi reach Dormammu's ship. It's locked but not protected againt intrusion. We climb aboard and load the bodies (ewww) into cold storage for the trip back to Coruscant. We're worried for a moment when the onboard computer asks for a password. Marcus had told us that if we needed it, his ship was open and unprotected. Dabai decides that the password must be blank and hits "Enter". It works and we fly home.

It's three days to Boende, back up the "River of Stars" before we can enter hyperspace for Coruscant. It's a quiet trip. Too quiet. We're all pretty depressed.

Republic Reckoning 4.32.87

We arrive at Coruscant and are immediately summoned before the Jedi Council. We basically tell them that our mission failed and here's Kast's body and are generally the opposite of happy. The Council actually congratulates us on doing the best job we could and decides that it's time to renew our training for a while.

Dabai decides that he needs a psychiatrist and goes looking for some much needed help. Quindo seeks out Ariel Astraleno, the Jedi weaponmaster on Coruscant. Brojen and Altair are grilled by the Council due to Bellisarius' insistance that they already possess the Heart of Darkness. Both need time to rest, reflect on their actions, and do a little atoning. We ask about Igashu and are told that he's been officially declared a Rogue and Marosia Wolde-Tsadik is on a mission to bring him back. Elbram confronts Councilmember Valis to no avail. We discover that J'ror Tholin is on planet, currently in divorce court. Seems that he and Vraile weren't able to work out their issues.

Quindo spends all morning in a remedial lightsaber course with 8-year old kids, being taught by Master Astraleno. Good meditation.

Elbram talks to J'ror about what we should do, why J'ror was responsible for this entire mess, and why he should (or shouldn't fix it) and so forth. Basically J'ror deflected him and said "You're all growing up, so it's not my problem anymore. Sure I started some of this, but it's gone far beyond just me now. You have to finish what you have started doing regardless."