Ruby Jades Diary: The Last Song I’m Wasting on You

So I get back to the Council, expecting that they’ll tell me that they know Vivicar is Parkanas and they have a lead and … the guy who had been overseeing the mission — and so had all the information I had and likely even more — was wringing his hands and going “Woe is me!” over how they have no idea who Vivicar is or how to find him.  I really, really wanted to smack him upside the head, but I settled for gently — for me, anyway — pointing out that Vivicar was obviously Parkanas trying to get revenge for being left behind all those years ago.  I mean, he was targeting everyone on that mission, knew all their secrets, and the only reason we had for thinking he was dead was because he was left behind and certain to die, and if you’ve paid attention to any of the holos you know that that only means that they’re guaranteed to survive and be very bitter about it.  I know Jedi don’t get out much but come on.  This one was obvious.

Anyway, at least Master Yuon agreed with me and figured out that she could use the link she had with him to track him.  This was risky, because it forced me to remove the shielding and for her to link up with Vivicar again, the strain of which could kill her.  And if she managed to survive that, she was going to attack me again, which again was something that could kill her depending on how patient I was feeling that day.

But, hey, I respect the risk she took and her willingness to put her life on the line, so I ended up shielding her again.  She gave me the location, and I headed out there to deal with him.  Yep, it turned out to be Parkanas, but he had a special prize inside!  He was possessed by the spirit of the Sith who came up with the plague in the first place.  We fought, and I managed to put him down, but the spirit inside him said that if I just killed him I would kill off all the Masters who had been infected, even the ones I had saved.

So this left me with a bit of a problem.  I so wanted to kill him, but I hadn’t worked so hard to keep those Masters alive to kill them off now.  Sure, I guess I could explain that I had to do it out of necessity and so they wouldn’t think I was going Dark Side, but I hate wasting effort.  But on the other hand, maybe he was lying.  The one thing that would get a Jedi to not kill him would be to threaten to kill lots of other people at the same time, but he was facing the one Jedi who wasn’t going to be bothered by that.  So maybe this was the move that would foil his plans, and letting him live would fulfill them.  On the gripping hand, I don’t think that he would see this move that I was thinking of coming, and so it was likely he hadn’t thought of it.

So I figured I’d take the advice of a guy I knew long ago, who said that you should always choose to do the thing that will most annoy the person you’re competing with.  Wait, he said that that was what I always do.  And it wasn’t advice.  Still, I might as well be consistent, so I took the option that I figured would most annoy him:  I shielded Parkanas, figuring that that would evict the Sith Lord and leave him, well, disembodied.

It seemed to work, although on the way out Parkanas told me not to trust the Republic and the Jedi and, well, pretty much anyone.  Okay, well first I already knew that, and second you would think that someone who people thought was crazy but was getting a chance to go back to Tython to prove he wasn’t crazy wouldn’t talk crazy to the person who still had a lightsaber handy and only spared him because she thought that he likely wasn’t crazy.

Still, I let him live.  He’s not really my problem anymore.  Let someone else kill him if he needs a killin’.

So, back to the Council.  I can’t imagine that what they might have for me to do next will be worse than this.

Tags: TOR Diary