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JANUARY 2021 TDM

JANUARY 2021 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to January’s Test Drive Meme!

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

CW: Claustrophobia, panic attacks, ghosts, demons, hallucinations, blood, violence
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Prompt Three
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

THE ONLY ME IS ME

The room is unfamiliar. You're not even sure how you ended up in here. Had you fallen asleep? That has to be it. Even if you're not a being who ever sleeps (which must make being in a dream world feel that much more surreal), it feels like the answer. There’s no door, no windows, and the only source of light in the whole place is two tiny, extremely dim side table lamps that give a soft, orange glow to your surroundings. It’s hard to see and easy to bump into the sparse amount of hotel room furniture that seems to be scattered around the small space. Hopefully you don’t have bad knees.

While there is no exit, if you look along the walls, you will eventually find a peep hole. The small hole in the wall makes you feel instantly uneasy, even if you’re someone who isn’t prone to fear in the first place. You’ll feel fidgety and tense, but there’s a part of you that still desperately wants to look through it. Avoiding the peep hole will make the tension disappear eventually, but it creeps back up every time you look at it.

If you woke up here alone, another person will appear in the bed you woke up in the moment you turn your back. It’s good to not be alone, right? But with the room so small, the air might start to feel a little thin. Is it getting hot in here? Is the ceiling feeling a little lower than it did last time? Are the walls closing in? It’s hard to tell if it’s all in your head or if the room really is getting smaller. Having to share it with another person, to share the limited air with someone else, is enough to make anyone panic a little.

Whenever one of you decides to look through the peep hole, you will see a man standing on the other side in a typical hotel hallway. He’s just waiting. Watching. Or at least you think he’s watching; it’s hard to tell when he doesn’t have a face at all. His presence makes that fear in you spike, your worst memories flashing before your eyes, and you won’t be able to look for long without going into a full panic attack. Getting as much distance between you and the peep hole is the fastest way to get a chance to calm down. If you can get yourself to calm down at all.

The key to getting out is the person beside you. If you choose to let them close, eventually the panic will start to ebb, and you’ll find yourself feeling more at ease the longer you sit beside them. Touching, whether it’s a hug, a hand on the shoulder, or more, will eventually make the room stop feeling so tight and the air won’t feel as thin. Eventually, you might start to feel some semblance of trust— trust that they can keep you safe. Approach the peep hole with your roommate and look through it together; while you’ll still see the painful memory from before, one of your happier memories will play soon after to soften the blow. Seeing both your dark and Your light is the best way for someone to truly get to know you, after all.

Once the memory fades, you’ll both be on the other side of the wall, and the man outside the door will be nowhere in sight, with no sign that he was ever really there at all.

DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL NOW

Walk through a door, any door and you're not where you thought you'd be. Instead, what lies before you as well as to your right are what looks like perfectly normal hallways you'd find in an apartment building or a very large, fancy house. There's doors spread out along either side at varying intervals and one of them opens to let another person in, someone just like you who probably meant to go to the restroom and ended up here. If you try opening the doors, none of them budge no matter what you do and so it seems the only choice you have is to pick a direction and walk.

There's a tingling sense of dread that creeps up your spine as you go. You pass what looks to be doors to restrooms, bedrooms, living rooms and recreational rooms, but none of them seem to be an exit. On the walls are pictures and paintings, it looks like there's a familial theme to them, there's group portraits and moments captured in time such as when someone's Dad spilled punch all over himself at the family barbecue. All wholesome and loving looking pictures but oddly not of just one family, in fact you might see some familiar faces in there. Along with pictures, there's narrow hall tables with vases and more photos in frames and all the drawers seem to be locked, though you get the sense there's something in there...

Eventually, you turn a couple corners and it almost feels like you've come full circle, but at the end of the hallway there's a clear exit. Three steps down to a cracked open door. It sort of looks like a garage from what you can see, but when you open it... you're right back where you started. Only now, the halls are colder, the lights overhead that were once warm and steady are flickering and the pictures on the walls are tilted, some even cracked. There's a creaking sound somewhere far off, like something heavy swinging from a rope. You feel as though something is watching you, following close behind as you hurry your way through the halls again to find another exit.

Again, the only exit is the garage door and with no other option, you step through. And you're back where you started only now other doors in the halls are cracked. In one you see the light of a television playing static in a dark room and someone sobbing and muttering to themselves, in another there's bright red light spilling out of the crack and you see movement, something swaying, the creaking is louder. Heart pounding, you make your way around the corner and the drawers of the tables in the hall all open at once to let damaged photos fly out, all of you and your friends and family in horrifying circumstances or dead.

Run to the exit again and you are back at the start and there's now spatters of blood over the walls like a grisly murder occurred in several locations along the halls. The creaking is louder and so are the wails of the person in the room with the television. More doors are open a crack here and there and each promises something horrifying should you open them. Maybe they're abstract manifestations of your greatest fears, painful memories coming through the static T.V. set, or a stereotypical ghostly spectre with unfinished business. There is a supernatural force in this place and it feeds on your deepest traumas and fears whatever they may be, or it'll be content to sip on the fear brought on by a jump scare or a ghostly shadow watching you from afar wherever your turn, waiting for the moment to suddenly appear beside you.

To escape this haunted loop of rising torment, you must bring the demonic spirit with you as you pass through the exit door. This can be any way you wish, though the easiest is to allow it somehow to possess your body while your companion wrestles it, and you, through. You can discover this solution through clues behind the pictures and scratched into the wood on the bottom of the drawers in the form of riddles, or you can stumble upon it by accident. Once the spirit is pulled through the door, it will break the loop and you will be back in Deerington, though perhaps not quite where you were when you opened the door the first time.

NOW'S THE TIME FOR ACTION

There's something watching you. You don't know what, but you can feel it in your bones. Sometimes you think you see it (them?) out of the corner of your eye, but you can't quite make out the who or the what that might be following your every move. Sometimes it looks supernatural, a mythical creature from your own world maybe, and other times... It looks like someone from home you never wanted to see again. People show up here all the time, it's not impossible...

It doesn't stay just one being, though. Eventually you start to see small groups of people or things you can't quite make out before they disappear. It's hard to tell if they're really there at all or if it's all in your head. But the danger feels real. The inexplicable feeling of pure terror, the solid idea that they're going to kill you and you aren't going to be able to fight them off, the absolute assurance that they're evil. The longer this goes on, the more drawn to a crowd you'll begin to feel. There's safety in numbers, after all. But just being surrounded by people doesn't feel like enough, not when the other Sleepers you find feel just as on edge as you are.

In the center of the crowd are scattered tables. Each table has a bowl or jar filled with various party supplies. Bluetooth speakers that can connect to your Fluid to play music, noise makers, snap poppers, even pots, pans, and their lids. It's enough to make a real ruckus. And you're realizing that that might be the answer. You start encouraging the people around you to make as much noise as possible. Grab the things on the table and just start shouting whatever comes to mind. The more noise you make, the more the fear ebbs, and the shadows following you start to disappear. They almost seem like they're actually running from the noise. You keep shouting just to drive them as far away as possible.

You might notice that you're shouting out things you never expected— and so are the people around you. Emotions you wanted to keep buried, confessions you never planned on giving to someone, secrets you've been trying to keep to yourself. They come pouring out faster than you expect them to and they're there for anyone to hear before you can even stop yourself. Hopefully this doesn't have too big of a fall out for you.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.

The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.

If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You must be new," Maul said. The town was small, and while he didn't know all the Sleepers that inhabit it, Maul definitely would have taken notice of the change in the Force that yet another Jedi would have brought.

Maul's eyes dart around the room, taking in how there appear to be no windows or doors. "The last time I was in a room like this, it filled all the way up to the top with blood." What a comforting, cheery though that was. At least that didn't seem to be the case this time, but then Deerington never did seem to pull the same trick twice.

"Rather new, yes. I literally woke up here yesterday, and then again here in this room, in that bed, alone." He then turned around and the bed was filled again with someone new. Someone dark.

He moved back to a wall, a gloves hand reaching out to it, to feel over it for a door. "Blood? That's a cheery thought. So far, so clear though." But apparently from what others have said, this place can do anything.

And that creeping feeling didn't change at all right now It was still there at the back of his neck.

"Then you'll soon come to realize this is a town of horrors," Maul says in a rather flat, dour tone. "I sometimes feel our gracious host must feed off our misery and fear." He's not trying to scare the other man, merely let him know just what he's in for.

Maul gets up and begins to search the room. There must be a way out, though knowing Deerington, there will likely be a trick to it. They just need to figure out how. When the Sith Lord reaches the wall with the peephole on it, he pauses for a moment. Part of him says to stay away from it, but another can't resist pressing his eye to it.

He sees the man out in the hallway and an unbidden memory pops into his head. His brother, mortally wounded by his former master, apologizing to Maul for failing him as he clutched his hand. He never did get to say what he wanted to Savage, to let him know how much he'd meant to Maul. At the end, there had been no time.

He jerks away from the peephole as though it has scalded him. With how ominous the presence out in the hallway felt, he wasn't entirely certain he wanted to get out that way. He backs off until he's up against the complete opposite wall, as far as he can get away from the wall with the peephole on it.

It didn't exactly scare him, but it was intel he needed to know about. Something to understand about this place that seemed to be so hard to understand. Dreams. Knowing what he's in form is more helpful than not. "That's good to know." He said softly, watching the man get up.

The closer he got the better he felt, but there was still that lingering feeling of dread in his chest about that peephole. "I wouldn't..." he started to say, to the stranger, as he moved to the peephole.

And then the man was moving back, against the wall.

Luke had found the peephole before the man had woke. Had seen his recent fight with the Emperor, feeling as if he were being shocked again. It had made him shiver and he'd backed off, thankful to the distraction of the other waking up. Well, somewhat thankful. He wished neither of them were trapped here.

"Careful, there. You alright?" he asked again, knowing it might be a stupid question. "Did you see something too?"

"I'm fine, Jedi," Maul said. with a snarl. There was something a bit feral about the Zabrak, in everything from his closed-off posture to the fangs in his mouth to the hand that hovered over the extra-long lightsaber hilt clipped at his waist. In his mind, he'd shown weakness, and that could be used against him, especially by someone who belonged to the order that was made up of the Sith's mortal enemies.

He glared at Luke with anger and hate in his eyes, though neither of those emotions seemed to be felt on a personal level. Maul just naturally seemed like a person who was always furious. It was how he'd survived for this long.

He nodded his horned head towards the peephole. "If the way out is through there, I am content to remain in here for now." Even as he said that, he could feel a sense of unease curling around him, like the walls were closing in the already small room.

Interesting. So he could tell, much like Luke could tell the other was of a darker nature. It didn't surprise him though. The man radiated with a darkness. Luke raised his gloved hand up, in surrender as the other snapped at him. He didn't mean to encourage the others anger at the moment, but here we are.

"It's fine. We don't need to leave just now. Or we can find a different way out, perhaps. For now, I'd stay away from the hole." He said easily, watching the others reactions. He was a bit concerned the lightsaber would come into play, so he kept his in mind beside him, but honestly, he's over fighting for now.

"So we're from the same universe. Which I have been told is rare." He said, his hand moving down a wall, checking for cracks or hidden doors. "I'm Luke, by the way. Luke Skywalker."

Not engaging Maul's anger allowed it to fizzle back down to his usual belligerent state, a tactic Obi-Wan had also often used in their time here together in the town.

"It took you that long to realize?" Then again, if he'd only been here a day, how would he know that non-human alien species were rare in the town? "As you'll spend more time in this town, you'll realize most people are from the planet Earth, which a terribly human-centric place. There's less diversity here than the worst backwater moon."

"Skywalker?" Huh, that was the same last name as Obi-Wan's supposed Chosen One apprentice. Did the man have a brother? "Any relation to Anakin Skywalker?" Yep, he wasn't quite bright enough to put all the pieces together yet. No one from the future of his universe has shown up in the town yet.

There was no point in engaging in anger. This situation didn't need it, and he felt they needed level heads to figure out what was going on here. He glanced in the dim light towards the peephole, feeling an uncomfortable chill run down his spine. Looking through that again would grant them no answers, would it?

"Earth? What an odd name for a planet. I've never heard of it before." Why would you name a planet earth? How curious. "Does anyone know how we really got here? Or is the letter to be believed?" That this was a dream and they were here to help.

Ah, Anakin Skywalker. So he'd heard of the name before, but not of Luke. There was something that told him that this being being from the past made sense. If Younger Obi-wan could be here, why couldn't others.

He frowned, wondering if it was a good or bad idea to say this or not. It was clear he was going to take a moment to decide if he wanted to answer that or not. This, most likely Sith lord, Zabrak had heard of Anakin, but did he know of Vader? Hmm.

"He's my father." he ended up going with the truth.

"I never had before coming here either. It is apparently in a system unknown to the galaxy at large." The stars Maul saw at night were all completely unfamiliar to him, something that sometimes created a wistful feeling in the Zabrak.

"Father?" Maul said, astonished. As far as he knew, most Jedi never had children, for the obvious reason of forming attachment to them. Looked like Obi-Wan had failed to teach his padawan properly on that point....or at the very least the finer points of birth control. "The Force does seem to run in families." Maul's brother and mother had also been Force-sensitive. It made sense it would happen in others.

There was also something that stirred in his mind, a memory from the future he'd been granted. The others from that time had faded, but the last one had remained. His death on Tatooine at the hands of Obi-Wan, the one he'd wanted and been searching for so long. 'Perhaps you are protecting something...? No. Protecting someone.' He wasn't sure why the memory had sprang unbidden to his mind once more talking to Luke. But if the old man had known of Anakin's son, didn't it make sense that was who he was protecting? He stared hard at Skywalker in the dim light, wondering if his thoughts were on the right track or if he was completely off-base.

"So, some place not even in the outer rim or wild space? How's that possible?" It seems a bit farfetched, but if this were a dream, maybe it was so? He wasn't sure how much stock he put in the dream thing yet.

The reaction to 'father' made him turn to look back at the man. The force ran in families, yes. And though he might say his father was Anakin, he would absolutely hold the fact that his twin sister was Leia. There was no reason to bring her into this.

Luke's brow raised, but he gave a nod in the dim light. "I suppose it does run in families. Though all the myths said the Jedi didn't have families. I suppose Anakin was different." Vader. Lord Vader. How different can one be? Luke thought back to Journals and Holocrons he's found, but none of them explained how Anakin turned into Vader. No all he had to go on with that was Obi-wan's word, and the Emperors boasting of the Dark Side.

Luke pursed his lips, looking away again to feel his way down the wall, coming close to the hole again, though not peeking through it yet. "Did you know him? Anakin?"

"Jedi may not have families but the same restriction has never been for those of the Dark Side. It ran in my family as well." It did confirm, yes, Maul was a Sith but he curiously still hadn't identified himself as such. As of late, the Sith Lord had been undergoing a crisis of identity, especially since he'd been trying to become a better person. It was a slow undertaking for someone who had been entrenched in the dark their entire life.

He came closer to where Luke was, the startled anger he'd felt upon peering through the peephole having dimmed back down as well. Two sets of eyes were better than one and maybe he could discover something that the Jedi wouldn't.

"No. I knew of him, but I never met the man personally. But his master Obi-Wan Kenobi?" There was a strange emotion laced through Maul's next words, heavy in the same way Obi-Wan himself got when talking about the past. "Him I know all too well."

Well, that did lead to some conclusions, didn't it. It did sounds like Maul was a Sith, and it did, in fact, make him wonder more about the Dark man before him. It also lead him to believe this must be Maul, the one Obi-wan had mentioned to him about staying away from. Great.

When the tattooed being came closer, Luke felt like stepping back, but then the tightness in his chest lightened only a bit. Not trust yet. And the panic was still there though he tried to hide it still. The air still felt like it was thinning and he hated it.

He felt oddly heavy just hearing how the other spoke of his once Mentor and Master. Some how that confirmed that this was Maul, and he felt no ease in that. The first warning Obi-wan gave him when he met him here was to stay away from him.

"You know Obi-wan Kenobi?" Dumb question. He just said that. Luke covered with a huff of sound, frowning. "You two must have a dark history together." He pursed his lips again, not wanting to get closer, but here they were, close, by the peephole.

Being near the Jedi produced an odd feeling in Maul. His tension at being in this enclosed space didn't disappear, but it began to die down, the same way loud music on a radio would quiet when a dial was turned. Interesting. Very Interesting.

Maul first gave Luke a withering stare as he repeated what the Zabrak had just said. Keep up, dumb Jedi. Then he chuckled deeply at Luke's speculation of their history together. "Indeed. We have both left our marks on each other."

He gestured down to his waist and legs. "He once cut me entirely in half. I survived through relying on the Dark Side of the Force. And since that time, I have sworn that I will seek revenge on him until he has been put through as much pain as I have." He certainly sounded like the worst sort of Sith imaginable, but beneath the anger, there was something else. Luke, being who he was, might sense it: pain. Terrible pain that had lasted a lifetime, someone who had been hurt so much they only knew how to deal with it by lashing out at everyone else around them.

The turning down of the tension helped a bit, but he still felt it, like the air was thin in here. Like if they breath in too much they might use it all up. Still, he was interested in what the other was saying. Interested to know more about Obi-wan's background and history.

And as the Zabrak mentioned being cut in half, Luke actually winced. The first time he ever saw Obi-wan fight, he took the arm off a guy in a cantina for getting gruff with Luke. He could only imagine what this guy did to piss off Obi-wan. Okay 'piss off' might be the wrong word, but he clearly had to DO something to the man, right?

Luke didn't back up from the other, staring at him as he spoke. He could feel it. Sense it. On the beings words and tone. There was deep seeded pain there, and he had the feeling the other used it to fuel his every action. "And how much pain did you give to him in the start of it all? What did you do to be drawn into a fight with him in the first place?" Because he couldn't see Obi-wan picking a fight just to do so.

He didn't mean it as an accusing statement, and he said it softly, curiously. There had to be a reason for a fight like that. Jedi didn't just cut someone in half on a whim. Did they?

This conversation was clearly not going to get them anywhere or out of here, but Luke didn't take his eyes off the other beings yellow eyes.

Maul glared at Luke for a moment, trying to figure out if the human was being nosy or judging him outright just because he was a Sith. But that didn't seem to be the case.

This wasn't a story Maul could tell standing up, so he went back over to the bed where he'd woken up, gesturing for Luke to take one beside him. Strangely, he didn't mind the closeness of being next to someone, touch adverse as he usually was. "I was sent by my master to capture the Queen of Naboo. It was another step in his quest for power, to become Supreme Chancellor of Republic, and gain revenge upon the Jedi. Obi-Wan and his master, Qui-Gon Jinn, had been sent to protect her. I was to eliminate them as part of my task before kidnapping her.

We dueled to the death. I separated the master from his padawan and killed him right in front of Kenobi while he was helpless to do anything but watch. Then we battled. I gained the upper hand but grew too confident, allowing him to strike back. He sliced me in two and I fell down an endless shaft. He, my master, and the galaxy at large thought me dead, but I survived through sheer will and the power of the Dark Side."

So it was easy to see why both men had such viewpoints regarding each other. Maul had started it and he was determined to finish it as well.

He wasn't judging the Sith for being a Sith, not really. He wasn't judging at all, really. He was... curious. There was so much history he didn't know about. Lost to him. He was raised to believe the Jedi and Sith were all myths, even if the Clone Wars were simply not that long before. It was strange to think there were still Jedi when he was born, when he had been taught they were nothing more than stories.

So much history. So many different sides to view it from. 'From a certain point of view' he heard old Ben Kenobi say in a ghostly form. When Maul moved and made room on the bed for him, there was a conflict in his mind. He didn't exactly want to sit by him, but then as the other moved away that tightness returned. He glanced to the hole in the wall and felt a chill, like the room was losing the air right from it again. So Luke moved, taking a seat, and suddenly feeling... almost comfortable with it.

Like he trusted the other, though he knew he really shouldn't. He leaned his elbows on his knees, his gloved mechanical hand folding with his flesh hand. Head turned and eyes watchful as the other filled him in on more than he knew about Obi-wan. He wondered how much was true. He had a feeling it all was. There was no reason to lie, was there?

"Who was your master?" Was all he could think to ask at first. "I've spoken to Obi-wan, but even he didn't know. Why was he so intent on taking power?" It sounded like Emperor Palpatine to him, seeming to thrive off becoming the most powerful being in the universe.

Maul hesitated to tell Luke the identity of his master. Even now, so far away from the galaxy, Palpatine's claws dug deep into his former apprentice, that threat of death if he ever revealed who he was ringing around in Maul's horned head. But for some reason he couldn't fathom, he felt he could trust Luke with this information. He was from the future, so it was possible the secret identity of his master was already known to the populace at large.

"He is Sheev Palpatine, Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. Known to scant few as Darth Sidious. As for why he wanted power..." Maul shrugged.

"He is a Sith. We are taught power is something to covet. You can never have too much of it. The Dark Side whispers to its acolytes to take as much of it as you can, always of action to gain more. He is the strongest Sith Lord in a thousand years and meticulously planned how to become the ruler of the galaxy while killing off the Jedi as well."

This was the most Maul had spoken frankly of his master and his many machinations to anyone. It was easy to do with someone who didn't want to judge him or condemn him for his part in it. As for Maul, he was beginning to grow curious about Luke himself. He had a few questions he would get around to asking soon and finding out the answers to them.

He can tell the other is hesitates to say his masters name. Unlike the Jedi, the Sith must try to keep their masters identity hidden, perhaps to protect them from being hunted? Or perhaps because Palpatine just knew how to hide so well he trained it into his apprentices.

But honestly, the name of Palpatine is what made a paleness cross over Luke's face. His jaw lowering a bit as he realized just how amazingly messed up everything was. It told him how long the Emperor had played his games (and unknown to him, in another 30 or more years, those mind games would still be played). His eyes widened a bit, and he watched the Zabrak, almost missing his answer for why the other wanted power. It all sank in slowly, but he still felt that cold ball of ice hit his belly. "The Emperor ..." He whispered.

And was Maul... Darth Maul, apparently, still devoted to Palpatine? Would he react badly to hearing that he was, well, dead? Thrown into a reactor and killed by his own other apprentice. By Anakin Skywalker. His father.

His mouth felt a little dry for a moment, as he tried to find words. "He's Emperor Palpatine, in my time. The Republic is no more and the Empire has taken over for some time now. He's had... huge weapons built. Death Stars. His Apprentice, Darth Vader, helped wipe out the Jedi. You're master has gripped the galaxy in a tight fist of terror for nearly decades." And something pushed him to say more. As much as he was concerned about a fight breaking out, he said it. With conviction.

Almost with pride. "The Emperor is dead. I faced him just before I appeared here. It was... it was my father who stopped him at last. Who turned from the dark side to save my life, and the galaxy. Palpatine might have got everything he wanted for a time, but it didn't last."

Maul heard the words Luke spoke. So, it had happened all according to plan. Sidious had become Emperor as he always wanted. Hearing all the rest that had happened merely depressed Maul, knowing he'd gotten exactly what he wanted. All the way up to the last point Luke made. Then Maul's head snapped up, fixing the Jedi with an unblinking gaze.

"He....is dead?" There was a long pause where a look of astonishment crossed his face. Then, rarest of all rare expressions on Maul's face, a genuine smile crossed it. Impulsively, celebrating the news, he reached over and hugged Luke, the bearer of the best news he's heard in the entire year he's been stranded here in Deerington. Don't mind him if he nearly cracked your ribs, Luke. Sometimes he doesn't know his own strength. "Good."

Then he pulled back, suddenly aware of the display of emotion he'd just undergone. "I thought nothing would ever kill the old bastard. Much as I wanted it to be me, I knew that I would never be powerful enough to defeat him."

Suddenly, it all clicked in his head. The Force visions he'd been experiencing that he'd found out when he'd been thrust into the future, how Anakin Skywalker had somehow been the key to it all, a puzzle piece Maul couldn't fit into everything else he knew about the man. How someone here had told him of how he had a third apprentice after Dooku was killed. The disturbance in the Force when he'd been kept in the Mandalorian sarcophagus, hearing his master and another man, his voice full of pain as his master committed the last step of his plan to eliminate the Jedi. It all finally made sense to Maul.

There was the briefest of moments where Luke worried he was going to have to deal with a lightsaber battle in the smallest bed room on any one planet. Trapped in a room with a Sith Apprentice of the Emperors or something. Even through that trusting feeling the room gave off, he still was jarred as the other's head snapped to the word of the Emperor being dead.

And then the hug came in, so sudden and strong. Luke stiffened, surprised to be hugged by not only a stranger but the exact Sith Obi-wan had warned him to stay clear of. The hug was strong and intense, and Luke had just enough time to let a hand pat the other's shoulder lightly in return. Good. The man was GLAD for this news. And in this strange hug, the room seemed to lighten around him too. The trust was fully there now, and he felt like he could breath clearly once more. Like something about the contact helped.

He... he let out a faint chuckle, a huff of a laugh in surprise as the other pulled back. Luke smiled a great smile, looking at the tattooed being, glad they weren't going to go head to head over some master/apprentice bantha shit. "It turns out all it took was a bit of love to over come the dark side. If my father hadn't of stepped in to save me, I'd be dead and the Emperor would still be in control. He never saw it coming. In that moment Vader died as well and Anakin returned to the light." And then Anakin died as well, and for a moment there was a pain of sadness that crossed Luke's face. He drew back, a sad smile on his face, head down.

"I never got to know my father, but I couldn't be prouder of him."

He could feel it too, the minute that the room seemed to expand and let more air in, even if it was exactly the same size as before. He felt like he could trust this Jedi, young and naïve as he seemed to be.

Maul, were he any less dignified, would have rolled his eyes at the mention of love being able to redeem a Sith Lord. "You sound like half of my foolish friends in this town. They all believe in redemption through love as well." Something Maul kept being told but staunchly refused to believe himself, even when something like a simple hug from Usagi had been enough to stop him right in his tracks when his vendetta against Obi-Wan had blinded him with rage.

They would be proven right, of course. No one on the Dark Side was immune to the power of love save for Sidious himself. It could redeem even the most twisted souls, including Maul himself.

In a generous mood after being told Sidious would eventually die, and feeling a pang of sympathy for someone who had also lost their family after having such a short time with them, Maul told Luke something he would have otherwise kept to himself. He placed a friendly, gloved hand on Luke's shoulder. "Ask Obi-Wan about him. He is in this town as well and trained your father as his padawan from the time he was a small boy."

The touch to his shoulder helped keep things light in the room. What kind of weird magic was this, that things felt... better, safer, with contact? For a moment he'd forgotten about the faceless man and the bad memory at the peephole, though they were going to have to confront that sooner or later.

"Maybe, just maybe, there is something to it. Love." He said with a shrug and a smile. There was also that Jedi code thing, about not falling in love? But hey, none of his masters had really brought that up, and had his father not loved someone, he and Leia wouldn't be around anyhow, so honestly, maybe there WAS something to it.

When the other mentioned asking Obi-wan, Luke smiled almost sheepishly. "Ah, yes. I've spoken to Obi-wan. I've asked a bit about my father, but I feel like I need to be careful of what I mention to him about what I know of his future." he winced, side glancing to Maul. "I really should have been more careful of what I said to you as well, but at least that was good news." Not much about Anakin's future, or Obi-wan's, was good news. At least not in HIS time.

"Still, I intend to ask him what I can." He said, moving to stand again, letting out a long deep breath of a sigh. "That is, if we can get out of here. Do you think cutting through this wall will help any?" Not that he wants to DO that though. That faceless man and the memories are on the other side after all. But they can't stay here forever, can they?

"So you say. But it has always proven to be more of a handicap than help in my experience." It was a weakness he'd only allowed into his life a few times before ending up in Deerington, and always, it had ended badly for him. Here, he was tentatively experiencing it again, but always afraid it would be snatched away from him somehow.

"I know how to use discretion. I won't tell him of what we've spoken of here." Granted, the delicious suffering Obi-Wan would have undergone had Maul told him was tempting, but Maul at least knew enough to know someone telling him about his own future would have been a terrible and awful thing to do.

"I must ask you one question. Your home planet. Was it Tatooine?" He had to know if what he'd asked Obi-Wan while he lay dying in his arms was about Luke. Was he the one who had brought balance to the Force? Granted, what he'd already told Maul made it seem very possible, given he'd redeemed a Sith Lord and destroyed the last two of them for good, but he had to know for certain.

Maul, savvy to the ways of Deerington, shook his head. "I don't think that's the way this room works. I believe that hole in the wall is the key to it all." He gestured back towards the peephole. While the last thing he wanted to do was look through it once more, having the Jedi beside him gave Maul strength he didn't normally possess. This town always had a key to get out of situations, even if they didn't seem obvious at first glance.

He felt a smile creep onto his face. It wasn't easy for others to take love as an answer. And he felt it would be worse for a Sith, really. They were trained to use their hate after all. "Thankfully it's only ever helped me." He said with that tight smile.

He was standing now, moving to the walls once more and searching them by hand again, but avoiding the peephole, for a bit longer. His head turned though, brow raised as he asked about his home planet. "It is. How did you know?" He'd been away long enough to not smell of sand and dust, but maybe it lingered still. Or maybe he just... knew. Because of Obi-wan? "I was raised there until a few years ago."

His hand came over to the peephole, feeling uneasy again, but his fingers covered it, allowing him to glance there but not look through. He frowned at it. "I've never felt so... uncomfortable before. About a hole in the wall."

Jedi are all a bunch of optimists. Maul just made a "Hmph" noise and decided not to pursue that train of thought any further. He refused to allow anyone to convince him otherwise.

"I die there." It was an weird and disconcerting turn of phrase to use but Maul had no better way to put it. "I was thrust into the future here at one point and saw my ending. I tracked down Obi-Wan there." Because he wanted to die, though Maul wasn't brave enough to face the facts that was the reason why. "I deduced his purpose there wasn't to hide but to protect. As I lay dying, I asked him if it was the Chosen One, and he assured me it was. That had to be you."

Looked like the Jedi had misread that prophecy after all. It had been one generation early they thought it had come, but what was balance if not equality? To whittle down the Jedi and Sith both until there was none left and the Force was allowed to begin anew was one way of looking at it that neither side had ever dared to consider.

"You'll experience much worse than only this while in this town. But I think I understand now." The closeness, the physical contact, the sense of trust between them. "It will take both of us to be able to escape this room."

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