Good day to you all, and welcome to chapter 3 of Star Wars: Twilight Blade!

Creativity: We're feeling refreshed and re-energized after our little break, and we're ready to kick some ass!

Author: Indeed!

Now then, I'm hoping to have this ready for the release of Rise of Skywalker, since my Discord server recommended I put together three chapters as an appetizer and given how close the impending release of the final installment of the sequel trilogy. I figured now would be as good a time as any to get this story out there, even it it'll probably go untouched for semi-long strings of time.

Creativity: That's just what happens when you have no project management skills. Like us!

Author: We did overreach a bit with all of these, didn't we…

Anyway, let's get to the review response. That's what I would say, but there's new reviews! So, now I just look silly!

And with that out of the way, let us start the chapter!

Creativity: Oh, but first, Discord server password: xtydzBf

Author: Good catch. Alright, now new chapter. We now proudly present chapter 3 of Star Wars: Twilight Blade!

Arvos was cold. Arvos was tired. Arvos could see no end to this trial of endurance that the world of Ilum was putting him through.

Ever since he had finished climbing up to the top of that pile of boulders, it had been a suspiciously straight walk through the tunnels of Ilum. No curves, no sudden drops, not so much as a convenient patch of ice for him to slip on, and Arvos was starting to get suspicious. After all of this, he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was going to happen, and he knew it. When that was, he didn't know, nor did he have a clue as to what sort of trial of ice and gravity he'd be confronted with. But still, he knew it was going to happen. He just knew it.

"Come on, Ilum. You're starting to make really nervous." Arvos muttered as he kept his march forward until he realized that the air was starting to become pretty thick with fog… underground…

"Well, this can't be good." Arvos muttered as he stepped back. It was safer to assume that the fog wasn't something that was meant to be breathed in. However, given how thick and soupy the fog was, Arvos couldn't even begin to guess how long it would take to get through it, and he wasn't confident he could hold his breath all the way through it. So, how did he get through it?

After a few moments of consideration, Arvos smacked the side of his head.

"Hello obvious solution." He muttered to himself (a little annoyed that he hadn't figured it out sooner) before he closed his eyes and reached out with both hands, using the Force to push the fog back. Seeing his success, he immediately began marching forward, continuing to push the fog further down the tunnel. He'd made it a good ten feet before fate played a cruel joke. As it turned out, there was a sudden incline that Arvos hadn't noticed in his concentration, though he did notice when his footing vanished and he slipped, landing on his rear and began to slalom down through the catacombs of Ilum.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE I FELL FOR IT!" Arvos shouted in anger and terror as he continued to be tossed this way and that by the twisting, icy tunnel and gravity. The insanity went on for an additional minute before the tunnel levelled out and he was spat out into open air before crashing to the cold, hard ground. Arvos groaned as he slowly got to his feet and looked around. The room was large, domed and remarkably smooth. It was incredibly dark, but it was dimly lit by carvings in the walls and ceiling. The carvings were strange, depicting what looked like someone at a forge, hammer in hand in several carvings, as well as several carvings of crystals. However, what most drew Arvos' attention was the carving of someone holding a sword aloft. While lacking in detail, the weapon in the carving bore a remarkable semblance to the weapon he'd seen in his dreams of late.

"I can't imagine that was a coincidence…" Arvos muttered as he looked around more. Situated a few feet away from the back wall was some sort of structure, shaped roughly like an obelisk, but hollow. Around it were four pillars that had carvings of their own on them, though they looked to be purely decorative and not depicting anything. The pillars had large crystals inside frames situated atop them, which Arvos immediately wanted to try and take, but stopped himself. While they appeared to be crystals that were technically compatible with a lightsaber, they were definitely too large, and he wasn't confident in the possibility of chipping a piece off to use as his saber crystal. Of course, that all ignored the fact that he just didn't feel any connection to the crystals. But then, why was he here? This room was a dead end as far as he could tell.

With nothing better to do, Arvos approached the structure at the center of the room and began examining it. It too was covered in carvings, though they were harder to make out. Stranger still, these ones were actually letters and words instead of pure decoration and depictions of something to do with this chamber.

"From the Force came this Forge, from this Forge comes the Force… What does that mean?" Arvos muttered as he read the inscription. He wished he'd done more reading on topics other than the broad category of 'lightsaber' in his spare time. It might have (very possibly) helped in deciphering what this message was about. Then it stuck him. He had read about something like this in the Temple!

In old times, it wasn't uncommon for Jedi to use special forges to create lightsaber crystals, though they weren't considered to have the same efficacy as naturally harvested ones. The quality usually varied by Force user and the specific forge in question, but on balance it was considered more 'proper' to travel to Ilum or another world that produced saber crystals and harvest one there.

Additionally, some of these forges could be dangerous, especially ones that were originally constructed by the Sith. Those ones had been designed to torture the user of the forge as they made the crystals for their weapons.

And that was what was resting before him; an ancient crystal forge. An archaic device said to be able to channel the Force and create a lightsaber crystal from the ether.

"After all of the hoops I jumped through to get here, now I have to operate an old, probably on the verge of breaking down device to manually create my crystal?! Man, Ilum must really have it out for me…" Arvos muttered as he began trying to recall how forges worked. As he recalled, the user had to channel the Force into the machine and manually operate it as they controlled the energies within, ensuring that the power wasn't set too low, which would lead to an unfinished, malformed and useless crystal, or that the power didn't run to high, which would lead to the would-be crystal being completely destroyed. This would be a long and arduous process, taking easily multiple hours.

He should have turned back, tried to find his way back out the tunnel, sought out a crystal elsewhere. But Arvos didn't. He couldn't. The Force had brought him here for a reason, and he didn't believe it was to die, or to turn back when he'd made it all this way. This is where he would find his crystal; by using this ancient device to forge it himself.

Arvos returned to the center of the chamber and lowered himself onto his knees, hands in his lap as he closed his eyes.

"The Force is with me." He recited to himself, as if in prayer. He could sense the ancient device beginning to stir. His eyes opened a bit and he could see the carvings on the device, the pillars, even those in the chamber all beginning to glow brighter, the color shifting constantly and fluidly. The crystals atop the pillars began to glow brightly as the hollow space within the device began to glow and the air rippled with heat. Suddenly, beams shot out of the four pillars and into the space, concentrated in them middle.

Arvos let his eyes close again and continued to focus on the task at hand. He only had one chance at that this, perhaps not even that if he died before the process was completed. But he had faith. The Force had guided him to this place, and he believed that it would guide him to success and a return to coruscant, alive and with a crystal in hand.

His last thought before he threw himself into the task at hand was to wonder how his friends were handling their trials.

Tala had decided that there was something new about Ilum that she disliked more than the cold. It was ghosts. Specifically, it was ghosts that could somehow wear armor and wield weapons, and also didn't seem to understand the concept of staying down! She must have cut down two, maybe three dozen of the ethereal soldiers and yet they never seemed to stay down for very long.

Worse still was that she was getting tired. The old vibrosword was growing heavier in her hands and her strikes and blocks were becoming sloppier with every passing moment. Sooner or later, she was going to mess up and then she'd be dead, and she knew it. Her desperation was becoming visible through her swings and parries and the fear becoming visible in her eyes. Her legs screamed in protest as she rolled out of the way of a strike before the screaming began in her arms as she whirled around and slashed the blade through the wielder of the offending weapon. However, she found herself kicked in the ribs and sent flying back, coughing and holding her side in pain.

With a grunt, Tala used the blade to prop herself up and pried it out of the ground and held it at the ready. The contingent of phantoms advanced forward slowly, shuffling towards her and eyes fixed upon her own. Some of them dragged their weapons along the ground, making loud scraping noises as they advanced. Tala slowly steadied her breath as she waited for them to reach her; a task that was proving a lot harder than anticipated since she was completely exhausted. And no matter what she did, where or how she struck, there was no way for her to finish off the phantoms. They just kept returning over and over and over again. Even as she tried otherwise, she knew that she couldn't keep this up.

But then, what was the point of all this? Was she not meant to be a Jedi? Was it her fate to be killed here by these wraiths?

No, she couldn't believe that. There was a way forward, she was sure of it. But then, what could it be? It was fairly obvious that she couldn't fight her way out of this. But then, what else could she do?

"Maybe… Maybe I don't fight my way out…" Tala thought as she watched the approaching horde of ghosts before she began to slowly lower her weapon. She couldn't fight her way out, so why keep trying to? Instead, Tala slowly turned the weapon and held it with the blade facing the ground and jabbed it into the ice before she took a meditative stance in front of it. She closed her eyes and ignored the approaching ghosts. Instead, she let herself be at peace before she opened her eyes and looked up. The ghosts were almost on top of her. Suddenly, there was a loud whoosh and they all rushed forward as a mass of fog, a rasping gasp of air sounding between them all. Tala closed her eyes as the wind and mist rushed past her and when she opened them, it was all gone. The armor, the weapons, even the sword she had been kneeling before had vanished into thin air, leaving her alone in the caverns of Ilum. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her muscles still burned, and she could feel the sweat on her brow that quickly chilled as it was exposed to the cold air.

However, her attention fell away from all of that as she noticed something at the far end of the room. Something she hadn't noticed before. Within a small alcove was a glittering crystal. She was drawn to it, almost magnetically before she finally got close enough and reached out to it. She could feel it. This was her crystal.

Tala carefully plucked it from the ice that surrounded it and admired it. The crystal was an icy blue in color, a bit roughly formed but with no cracks or other surface-level flaws.

She clutched it tight to her chest as she turned to leave, finding that the tunnel that she had entered through, that had mysteriously vanished when the ghost horde had appeared, had suddenly reappeared as if it had never left.

"I don't know what I was expecting…" Tala muttered as she began her long trek out of the caves. All she knew for certain was that she didn't want to come back to Ilum ever again if she could avoid it. There was a long list of reasons why she didn't want to come back, but there was one thing that topped them all.

It was too kriffing cold!

Garo paced back in forth in front of the ice bridge. He'd tried everything that he could think of that wouldn't result in a painful death at the bottom of an icy chasm, but he'd been unable to come up with anything. The air from the vent always blasted him back whenever he'd attempt to cross the bridge. He'd have tried a running jump on the bridge, but he wasn't so desperate as to risk compromising its structural integrity like that.

He just couldn't figure it out. There was a solution, he was confident in that. He just couldn't figure out what the solution was, and it was maddening! He had no means of going around the vent and the only means of crossing offered him no traction against the howling gale it unleashed when he tried to cross it.

So, what was the solution? There wasn't some hidden one so far as he could tell. The only solution he could see was to somehow brute force his way across the bridge, but such a solution wasn't the Jedi way, at least to him. The Jedi way was only to resort to a 'brute force' method when there was no other recourse, and to otherwise approach a situation with diplomacy or to find a more 'creative' way out.

"Even if I tried to 'brute force' my way through, what kind of 'brute force' solution do I use? I have no traction on the bridge and nothing to really grab onto… Wait… Could it be that simple?" Garo muttered to himself before he turned back to the bridge. He thought about it again. In theory, it should work. He couldn't be sure, but it was the best he had.

Reaching out with the Force as he once more stepped onto the ice bridge, Garo sought to grab onto not the crystal, but the far wall instead. The instant his foot touched the bridge, Garo could hear the rumbling of the incoming rush of air to push him back off the bridge. He kept walking as far as he could though as he tightened his 'grip' on the far wall, pulling himself towards it as best he could. He grit his teeth as the howling wind persisted, but he could feel his grip slowly slipping. He was pushed back once again, but this time there was something different. He could feel the wind petering out before he'd been pushed off the bridge. That told him something very important; that the wind had a limit, that he could outlast it. And the way to do that was to plant himself in front of that wind and outlast it.

It was simple, but still difficult. He'd been forced back the winds many times already and was more than familiar with their strength. To cross this bridge and claim his crystal, he needed to be stronger.

Garo turned and walked back a short distance before he stopped and took a moment to center himself. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before turning around and opening his eyes. Before him lay his obstacle. On the other side of it was his goal. Garo dug one foot in before taking off at a run once more before his feet hit the ice and he began to slide. Immediately he reached out with the Force and grabbed hold of the wall. He braced as the wind began to rush towards him. He made it about two thirds of the way across before the buffeting wind brought him to a halt. Yet, his grip remained firm. He reached out with both hands as he felt himself slowly begin to slide back, feeling himself come to a stop. He grit his teeth as he used the Force and his grip on the far wall to plant himself to that spot. He would not yield to the wind this time, no matter the strain.

And strain he did. His grip nearly slipped once or twice, but he managed to hold on despite it. And through it all, he could feel the winds weakening. After a few more agonizing moments, the winds died and Garo was suddenly thrown forward, or more accurately thrown forward without the wind to counterbalance his pull. He groaned as he got up and brushed the snow off his face, chest and pants before he realized that he was indeed on the other side of the cavern and, more importantly, was only a few feet away from the crystal. Garo walked towards the alcove and slowly reached inside, pulling the crystal from within. It was beautiful, faceted as if cut by a professional. It was a deep blue, perhaps a shade darker than what he'd initially expected, but this was indeed his crystal. Clutching it tightly, Garo carefully crossed the ice bridge whence he came and began his trek back to the entrance. This was one more step of many on his path to becoming a Jedi.

Ilum was cold. This was a known, indisputable fact. You came to Ilum, you were in for near constant snowstorms and possible, even probable frostbite if you didn't find shelter quickly. And that was if you got off really easy.

So, it was incredibly paradoxical that the room that Arvos Moro was currently sweating buckets as the temperature of the room was at ridiculously high levels. Arvos had already shed his heavy coat; a task that had been much harder than one might think, given that he still had to maintain control of the forge to complete his crystals, but that too had proven insufficient as he was now slowly shedding his sweat soaked tunic underneath, leaving his torso completely exposed to the elements. In the light of the Forge, his skin glistened as large drops rolled off his forehead, evaporating on the stone below shortly after contact.

And yet, Arvos did not stop. He dutifully tended to the task at hand, maintaining the concentrated energy at the heart of the device that was slowly but surely coalescing into his saber crystal. He took deep breaths and tried to regulate his body temperature and the temperature of the air around him as best he could, but it did him little good. He'd just have to endure it until the Forge was done its work.

While this wasn't a Sith-designed crystal forge, it certainly wasn't a Jedi-designed one either. Sith-designed forges were designed to be torturous, to kill any users that were 'unworthy' of their use. However, they historically worked faster than Jedi ones. While Jedi forges weren't as efficient as efficient as Sith forges, they were also far less likely to end in a painful death, which would only occur if the operator was supremely thick and didn't exercise ANY restraint or control of the device. It spoke to the differing ideologies of the Jedi and Sith. While a Jedi forge tested the operator's patience and clarity of mind, a Sith forge tested the operator's strength of will and ability to cope with intense pain.

This forge was both, and yet not quite either. It was arduous to be sure, and the heat Arvos was being subjected to certainly made it all the more arduous, it wasn't torture in the way that Sith forges were.

Arvos took a deep breath, ignoring the way his lungs protested against the hot, heavy and dry air. He had to stay focused. His task was nearing its end. That much he could feel. He simply needed to endure the heat and exhaustion a little while longer, and he'd be leaving these caverns, crystal in hand.

Alvya frantically scanned the numerous outcroppings that were all that stood between her and certain death. She'd been trying to plot a route out of the deathtrap she'd fallen into, but she'd always come to a proverbial dead-end or start second-guessing the route, causing her to toss out her previous plan and beginning again. However, she was all to aware that her time to escape was dwindling away, and quite audibly at that, as cracks continued to spread across the floor, slowly and loudly.

"alright, the first three jumps are good, I know that. But it gets significantly harder than that. What if I did a pivot and leap there, a backwards… no, that won't work! I can't jump that far! What if I, no I already thought of that and it won't work either! Maybe… GAHH!"

Alvya let out an angry shout as she slammed her hand into the icy wall. She couldn't do it. She couldn't find a way out. She couldn't conceive of a single route that could even get her to the top of the sinkhole! She'd always prided herself in her forethought. In exercises back at the temple, she could always identify the path to success, be that a pattern to an obstacle course or training droid movement, or the strategy and/or habits exhibited by her peers during spars. It's why she was very narrowly beating out Arvos for the title of second best duelist in their group.

But now, now she was faced with a problem that for the life of her, she could not figure out. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't be handling this well. However, now that her life was depending on it, she was downright terrified. She'd always been able to rely on her mind, and now if was failing her.

"What do I do…?" Alvya murmured, almost a sob as she tried desperately to find a way out. The ice was going to give away any minute and unless she was at least on her way to the top of the sinkhole, she was dead. No two ways about it. She needed to get out, but she couldn't. Not through the way she was used to anyway.

Alvya was just about ready to give up when something clicked. She couldn't think her way out of this, so she wouldn't think her way out. She didn't have time to think. She needed to act. She needed to take a leap of faith.

"Trust in the Force." She realized, though in the end it went a bit deeper than that.

Alvya only had one opportunity left and no time to think about it. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she crouched down and leapt into the air. Her foot touched the first outcropping. Instantly her muscles were coiling to spring again. Alvya leapt to the next foothold. And the next, and the next. The whole time, her eyes were closed. The only thing she felt was wind, her motion through the air, her feet against ice and stone and most of all, the Force guiding her to her destination.

Before she knew it, Alvya was clear of the sinkhole and in the tunnel she'd been attempting to run to before the floor fell through. Shortly after she'd made it up, she heard the final groans of the fractured ice before it shattered and fell further into the depths of Ilum. Alvya breathed a sigh of relief as she turned and began to walk down the tunnel, feeling a bit lightheaded from her brief brush with death.

Still, she was out of the pit now, and that was what mattered. Now she just needed to… find… her crystal.

Alvya paused. She wasn't sure why, but her attention was being drawn to her left. She turned and saw it. Amid a cluster of glittering spots was a shimmering green star. Her hand unconsciously reached out to it and carefully pried it from its icy prison.

"And where were you hiding all this time." She murmured as she admired the crystal, turning it over in her hand and examining the faceting.

"Well, I suppose I should get out here. Wonder how I'm going to get back across the… pit… Where's the pit?"

Sure enough, the pit she had fallen down and had escaped just moments ago, but seemingly after the she had gone around one bend, it had vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed. Not intending to fall (ha ha) for it twice, Alvya carefully tapped on the ice with her foot. It didn't give any hint that it was going to break, so Alvya took a few steps back and broke into a full on sprint, clearing the ice as fast as possible. There wasn't even so much as a hairline fracture.

"I never want to come back here again…" Alvya muttered as she continued on her way back to the exit from Ilum's caverns.

It was nearly done. It had to be. He couldn't last much longer.

Arvos was reaching his limit. The temperature was too much to withstand and he was certain he had burns or blisters starting to appear on his exposed skin. He was immensely dehydrated, and he was pretty sure that he was going to pass out if he didn't stop soon.

However, despite how delirious he was becoming (or perhaps even because of it), he could sense that the Forge had just about completed the crystal within. Oh kriff, why wouldn't it end?!

Suddenly, as if it had heard his thoughts, Arvos realized that the Forge had indeed finished its task. He immediately released the mechanism and the Forge went quiet, the large crystals that powered it went cold and dead once again. There was a rush of cold air as the Forge's constant billowing heat was now absent. The frigid air felt almost magical to Arvos, who fell to his hands and knees, gasping for breath the moment he released his hold on the mechanism. He tried to get up, but he hadn't recovered enough. Instead, he dragged himself to the device and reached inside to remove the prize that lay within. Though, much to his surprise and initial horror, it turned out to be prizes. When he felt two objects in his hand, he'd believed that the crystal had broken during the process. However, that turned out to not be the case, and he instead found himself in possession of a pair of completely opaque crystals. Unlike the other common crystals of the Jedi lightsaber, these ones were black as space and weren't transparent at all.

"Strange…" Arvos muttered to himself before he realized that the air was turning much colder than he was comfortable with. He hadn't noticed since he was still recovering from the intense heat of the forge. After pulling his shirt and winter gear back on he began his long trek back, his steps shaky and off-balance. However, his fists clutched the pair of crystals in his hand. After all of this, he was going to get out of this icy cavern with these crystals that he'd just about killed himself for, or so help him he was going to find a way to bore down into the depths of Ilum to find the cackling imp that had no doubt been tormenting him this whole time.

"Jeez, I think I'm starting to lose it." Arvos muttered hoarsely to himself, not even realizing that the ice chute he'd emerged from was gone, and that he was walking down a straight, unchallenging hallway.

"Just made it!"

"You got your crystals? Lemme see!"

"What's going on with your face? Is that windburn?"

Three younglings had returned to entrance to Ilum's crystal caverns, greeted by master Yoda and padawan Dulme. However, they were quick to realize that not all was quite right.

"Wait… Where's Arvos?" Alvya realized, causing them all to start looking back to the tunnel. There was several long moments of concern and feeling unsure before they saw something slowly emerging from the dark depths of the caverns that they recognized as the missing padawan, filling them with relief. That was until they saw him more clearly.

He was dragging his feet across the ground, staggering as if he'd been walking for days on end. His face was caked with cold sweat and his eyes were unfocused and drifting. He was so close to being out. So close, but before they could even react, he collapsed to the ground a few feet from the entrance, which just finished freezing shut before their very eyes.

The panic in their eyes was palpable. Even Dulme and Yoda looked concerned, as Yoda immediately began marching over to the entrance as he reached out his hand and made a grabbing gesture, causing the ice wall to suddenly break and fly towards him before it stopped. Dulme was already in the caverns as soon as the way was clear, checking Arvos' pulse and trying to determine what had happened to him.

"He's alive. He's breathing and his heart is still beating. We need to get fluids in him; he's incredibly dehydrated." Dulme reported as he hefted the youngling up. Yoda eyed him carefully. It wasn't uncommon for younglings to return from the caverns winded, even exhausted. However, to be brought to the brink like this? That was rare. Exceedingly so, in fact.

"Is he gonna survive back to the ship?" Tala asked nervously. Dulme nodded.

"He might need a few extra layers, but he'll definitely make it. He'll be off his feet for a while though. And I imagine that master Yoda will want to talk to him about what exactly happened in there." Dulme answered calmly. Indeed, Yoda wanted to have a discussion with this youngling at the earliest convenience.

As the turned to leave however, master Yoda couldn't help but notice one of the younglings glancing back and forth between unconscious one and himself.

"Something to say, have you, youngling? Hmm?" Yoda asked the youngling in question.

"I'm sorry master Yoda. My name is Alvya Geran. It's just… Arvos wanted to speak to you after the Gathering." Alvya quickly explained.

"Oh? Wished to speak to me, hmm? What about, did he say?" Yoda asked as his ears perked up a bit.

"He's been having strange dreams lately and he wanted to get your advice on them." Alvya explained, though she felt a bit guilty for doing so. It was Arvos who should have shared that, not her.

"Hmmm… Well, speak to him, I shall. Much to discuss, there is now." Yoda answered before he began making his way back to his own ship. Alvya hurried after the rest of the younglings. Despite the scare at the end, it seemed they had all done it. They had harvested their crystals and completed the Gathering.

Now the next step would be to construct their first lightsabers.

And that's where we'll end it for today! WAAAY longer than I had initially anticipated, but I feel it turned out pretty good.

So, I'm writing these closing notes LITERALLY after having seen the The Rise of Skywalker, and I gotta say that I really liked it! I can see why others won't, but I think they did a good job. I do have a few notes, that I will probably discuss at the end of a chapter in future once people have had a chance to see the movie.

Well, not much else to say here. Hope you enjoyed, please review, I hope to see you on Discord and I'll see you next time!