Personal Log

It’s been one hell of a week. The potion that was supposed to give me back my face backfired and now I’m not even human anymore. Something reacted to the potion Prince Hyde made and now I’ve been transformed into a literal sith. My skin is thicker, tougher, and is now as red as blood. My teeth and nails have been turned into tools better suited to hunt prey and they have been by far the most difficult thing to adapt to. I have to be more careful with my tongue in case I accidentally bite it off with my ridiculously sharp teeth and I have to make sure that I don’t tear anything up with my claws. The claws are less of an issue since I’ve landed in a kingdom where it’s inhabitants are born with talons and sharp beaks. Falca assures me that torn up cloth and shredded furniture are a common enough occurrence in griffin lands that they have shops dedicated entirely to fix such problems.

Overall, I’m not too upset about my newest transformation. Every time I changed my character’s look in the game I always molded him into what I thought was handsome at the time, (and who doesn’t do that during character creation?). I think the red skin and bone structure around my face kinda gives me a devilishly handsome charm. Falca and the rest of the castle don’t seem disturbed by my new look, but I can’t help but wonder what Katy will think of it. Oh god… what will my sister look like as Undyne the anthropomorphic fish lady with actual scales instead of blue paint and tangible fins for ears? I hope she’s adjusting to her new body as well as I have.

Let’s move on, Princess Falca insists that I just call her Falca from now on since I’m now a ‘member of the House’. The only one I have to address by their full title is King Grinnail since I am to be his right talon in my new job as Warden. Yeah, believe it or not, the king offered me a title for killing the Aper Major and saving his daughter. I accepted the position after a few conditions were met, although now that I think back on it, I think I may have acted a little too hastily. As this Warden of The Isles, I’ll have to fight for a kingdom that I literally just landed in. I can’t shake the disturbing thoughts that I may have to kill if ordered to do so by my new king. From our conversations at lunch and dinner, he doesn’t strike me as some heartless and unthinking tyrant, and I think I may have started to form the beginning of a friendship with him. But I still fear that he may call upon me one day to hurt people I’ve never met

I realize that this may have been foolish of me to just take his offer after I just landed on this alien planet days ago. But, I think I was a bit desperate, the thought of a home and stable ground to call my own really tugged at my desires. I could have just left and lived like a vagrant on my ship, but that’s no way to live. He said it’ll be years before he’ll actually give me duties to carry out and in the meantime I can learn more about his people and the kingdom they inhabit. Who knows? Maybe I’ll actually want to defend these people in the coming years. If there are more griffins like Falca out there I can see it more as a likely possibility. Heh, sorry Katy, but I joined the military before you could, (even though I’m only Warden by name for now).

Since Falca has taken responsibility for me, she has agreed to be my guide and teacher as I learn about her kingdom. I worried that I may be taking her away from her own duties, but she assures me that I’m not getting in the way of anything. With my connection to the Force, I could tell that she was truly emotionally happy at the concept of guiding me, but I could also detect a small trace of sadness. She hid it well, but I could sense her sorrow ever since the day she and Hyde had their conversation with her father. The sadness has decayed over the week, and I’ve kept my nose out of what was undoubtedly private family business. I couldn’t help but ponder though, is she sad because I slew the Aper Major when she couldn’t? Did I take away her only chance to become queen? I’m worried, she is my first friend in this alien world and I'd hate to think that she may be hurting in any way because of me.

*Note: Find some way to cheer up Falca.

I worry about my possible second friend the most of all however. Hyde ran out the castle as soon as he finished talking with his father and I think that he may still feel guilty over what happened to me. He seemed very excited to discuss some experiments with me, but I think I ruined his scientific curiosity after my shocking transformation. I wanted to leave the castle and tell him in person that I’m really okay with what happened, but I’m not allowed to leave until after King Grinnail announced me to the populous. Falca didn’t know what her brother and father talked about after he finished talking with her, and she is just as worried as I am. She ensures me that the day after the announcement she’ll take me to see her brother on the Nether Isle.

*Note: Find a way to amend possible friendship with Hyde.

I’m also helping Boreus prepare for my new accommodations during my meals. I’ll apparently inherit the Warden’s Stronghold, which is a small castle outside Horaca’s walls with a good view of the sea. Every Warden in the Shattered Isles history takes the stronghold for their own and customizes it to their own specifications. Boreus will tell me the features of the stronghold and I’ll decide what the workers keep and get rid of. The last Warden apparently lived 300 years ago, before the civil war between the griffin Houses and the destruction of King Grover’s dynasty. So most of the old decrepit furniture is being replaced with comforts more akin to my size, and a steel landing pad is being created to hold my starship. Me and Boreus are already having a problem with the budget, so we plan to discuss it with the royal treasurer tomorrow morning.

My Studies on the Force

My philosophy and goals in life have always revolved around my curiosity in science, my sense of self-worth in serving others, and my desire to make my loved ones proud of me. I went to college to become an environmental toxicologist because I was good at chemistry and I wanted to contribute to the world by helping people find what is and what isn’t healthy for organisms in multiple environments. I had no big ambitions, just a desire to live a secure but experienced life. A life where I would see and experience all the wonders of the world and all its cultures while hoping to find love along the way.

But now…

Now, I have a strong influence over a power that is just as common to this new world as gravity, light, or time. A power that is connected to all the forces of nature. A mystical power that I once thought was the creation from a man’s imagination. Something that would always remain as a dream. In this world however…

The Force. Is. Reality.

I now have new goals and more inspiration than ever before. I will master the Force and use it explore things that humanity never thought possible. I will master the lightsaber and dedicate myself to its combat forms every day. I will explore all of the Sith warrior’s Force abilities, and once I have mastered them, I will expand them. I will use all I learn from the Force to protect my sister when I find her, and one day, I will use it to protect the kingdom that has so kindly taken me in.

With the holocrons I found on the Fury, I have begun to set up a schedule dedicated solely to training until the day of my announcement. For lightsaber training, Darth Malgus’s holocron has provided for me a harsh but effective physical training regimen that focuses on the strengths of the Sith Juggernaut. After an early morning hour-long sprint around the castle, unassisted by the Force, I’ll practice heavily on the movements and heavy strikes of Form 5 and Form 7 on a training dummy from the ship. I’ve started to learn how to effectively use the Dark Side to supply myself with strength without becoming a slave to my hatred. As I practice my core offensive forms, I’ve instructed HK-55 and a few training remotes to fire volleys of stun bolts at me in random intervals to better my defenses with Form 3. Every training session will take up all of both the morning and afternoon each day, and I’ll only take a break to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the royal family and Boreus.

I’ve managed to learn these forms quickly with the assistance of the foreign memories and I’ll soon master them with time. I’ve decided to focus solely on these three forms for the time being, mainly because I support the idea that a master of a few techniques is often stronger than a jack-of-all trades. I’ve chosen to focus on these forms specifically because my larger and more powerful body frame enhances the stronger strikes of Form 5 & 7. Form 3 was chosen because throughout nearly all of the foreign memories, Form 3 was used the most. Every foreign memory of a battle had shown a use of Soresu at one point, and the form has become the one I’ve mastered the most by far. Soon, I hope to make an impenetrable defense with my lightsaber.

After dinner, I immerse myself to the study and manipulation of the Force. While Darth Malgus instructs me how to turn my body into a weapon and harness the Dark Side, former Jedi Grandmaster Satele Shan’s holocron teaches me how to enhance my control over the Force. My telekinetic precision is improved every night as I use a training method from the Jedi Order called the oxygen bottle. It is a great exercise for telekinetic precision as it requires me to fill an empty bottle with nothing but oxygen molecules plucked one by one from the air.

*Note: Oh what would scientists such as Einstein, Dalton, and Bohr have given to have access to these powers? To literally sense the atom itself could’ve hastened their work by years.

For matters of control I’ll practice by levitating myself and multiple objects simultaneously by using a meditative trance that Satele has helped me master. I lift just about anything I could telekinetically grasp, like books, the holocrons, furniture, even the Fury.

After practicing precision and control for a few hours, I’ll move on to having Satele teach me more about my sense abilities. For the rest of the night, I’ll enter a deep meditative trance and stretch my awareness of the environment I inhabit. It’s… overwhelming, having a deeper, cosmic awareness of the Living Force. To have the metal and stone of the castle stripped away and the currents of the Force laid bare. In the city, I can feel the echos of the minds of thousands of griffins within the Force. Their anger… their passionate greed… their sorrow, but I also sense love, joy, and empathy. It is life.

When I close my eyes and focus on a smaller scale, I can feel this castle around me. I can hear the sound of the guard’s wings cutting the air as they fly around the castle to complete their patrols. The cutting of meat as the kitchen staff goes about their work at the end of the night. I hear the rumble of electricity as its currents flow through the Fury, the circulation of a starship’s lifeblood. The large concentrations of power inside each royal family member within the castle’s walls. The gentle breathing of Falca and so many other castle staff as they try to fall asleep to end their day. Then the foreign memories remind me that I can listen deeper, and I stretch past their breathing, and listen. The surface of their thoughts are exposed to me and I’ll decline to put their thoughts to paper for the sake of privacy.

(Yes, I’m aware of the hypocrisy since I’m already breaking into their privacy, but I’m not so cruel as to tell their thoughts to others.)

I can hear them, truly hear the essence of what they are. Their emotions, their dreams, their worries, these griffins are such a strange but familiar people. They have emotions and quirks like any other human, and these sessions at night have helped me understand who the griffins of this kingdom truly are. It has helped me form a bit of an attachment to them even now. I’ve already stretched out beyond the islands to find Katy, but alas, I’ve reached a problem. The sheer mass of minds and thoughts in this world are so overwhelming, that my progress to sense Katy’s presence is at a snail’s pace.

I’ve taken what I’ve learned about Force Sense from Satele, and incorporated it into my training sessions with Darth Malgus. Recently, I’ll go through the whole day with a blindfold on and enhance my training sessions with the lightsaber while simultaneously deepening my senses with the Force. It’s arduous and a bit painful at times, but I know that it’ll improve me in the long run.

Author's Notes:

I wanted to give Katy a logbook at the same time that Jack did, but I wrote myself into a corner over time. She will eventually, don't worry, and its not going to be like the logbook that Jack's writing.