The Path of the Lost (Collin's Training)

[Trakon]

Collin went to his knees. Breathing in deeply, Collin began to react to the Force as he had when he was a Jedi. But it was different. It was tinged with pain and sadness, death and loss. It seemed more, fulfilling? It had more substance and was closer to life than the Jedi technique.

 

[Ols]

"Accepting your suffering is how you will succeed. Once you've accepted it, you can rise above it, act without the constraint of it."

The voice echoed eerily as the man's deep breaths began to lessen his limited air supply. That was the immediate issue. Nescius had given him the tool he needed to overcome that, he would just have to understand how to use it. He could use the force, but he had not been taught a technique specifically to help him breathe, or the hold his breath for longer. It mattered little, necessity was the mother of all invention. Collin needed. He would have to invent, fast.

Nescius reiterated:

"No knowledge, only instinct."

 

[Trakon]

Collin's throat started to tighten from lack of air. It wasn't that there wasn't enough, just that Collin wasn't used to so much less. He heard the faint voice of his master though. Again, his mind could not decide anything close to holding a breate longer or to make more oxygen.

But his instincts told him to live, and the only way to do that was to hold his breathe longer. Several seconds passed, however that was not the case. Collin's inner clock had slowed down, while the world continued on. His breathing slowed, to such a extreme slowness, that he could have passed for being dead almost. His mind again could not comprehend it. His body's instinct to survive created something he couldn't willingly do. His body had used the Force on instincts to hold the breath for longer!

 

[Ols]

"Good," came the hollow echo from Nescius' resounding projection of his voice.

Just as the apprentice managed to secure his breathing rate, though, the next challenge was upon him. The noise of crumbling and cracking rocks began to fill the air as it sounded as it the small cave was going to collapse in on the lone man.

"No serenity, only passion."

 

[Trakon]

These words spoke to Collin's past, and the temptations that he should have taken part of. But a rock cracked. And another. And another. If this place was to crush down upon him, he was going to fight it somehow. How though? Collin didn't care about making a plan, he just wanted to live!

A smaller rock started to fall from the top over Collin. Instinctly he had the Force set up a small barrier, deflecting it away from him. It hit the ground a few feet from him. A second one fell, and again, Collin's small force shield deflected it away.

 

[Ols]

As Collin deflected the falling rocks, his small pocket of space gradually becoming smaller, the weight on top of him becoming heavier. The floor beneath him would seem to shake, cracking and teetering dangerously.

"Push yourself forwards," came Nescius' ghostly voice.

The rocks suddenly stopped falling. A second of respite. With gargantuan noises, cracks, crunches, unstable shifts, everything seemed to stop for a second.

"No harmony, only chaos."

And with that, the floor gave way. Collin would fall a hundred feet or so into a cold, rocky pool at the bottom, that was deep. Exhausted, hungry, thirsty, he would continue to fight for his life against the heavy water.