Tempest, Kella, and Kev are all from the planet Ricalia. This planet is the only habitable one in its system, and in fact, the system does not exist on most charts. Ricalia exists in a sort of time barrier, and its star system cannot be detected by most usual means and instruments, so no one knows it's there, and while it is possible to pass through the time barrier, it has unpredictable effects. Time passes differently on Ricalia, and the difference is not relative. Actually, whenever someone passes through the time barrier, they end up at the exact point in time (and possibly space) where they are needed most.

As for our story, it takes place after the Star Wars movies (and I think after the books as well, though I haven't read enough of them to be clear on the timeline). The Empire has now risen again, with a new emperor in charge, a man who calls himself Ebannaw. He has a warped sense of leadership, and while he's kind enough and abhors the thought of torture or killing, he believes he is "destined" to rule and that others need him to. So he takes leadership by force (as little as possible, but force nonetheless). He's way too trusting, and his underlings take advantage of this, abusing people behind his back. Ebannaw himself, however, seeks to bring the poor lost souls of the galaxy under his kind benevolent leadership—as he sees it. There is also a Dark Lord of Sith to replace Vader, but this one does not serve the Emperor. His name is Sangran Vode, and he has an agenda of his own, one that likely involves the return of the Sith and their power over the galaxy.

A bit of info on Ricalia. Ricalia is odd in that it's reasonably technologically advanced, but they have no spacecraft, no supersonic planes, or any advanced aviation like that. Such study and development is also strongly discouraged, and no one ever leaves the planet—the Ricalian government sees to this. (This is because of the danger that a Hederon might escape the planet on such a transport, and become free to spread its Darkness to the rest of the galaxy—though the general populace does not know that this is the reason study of supersonic flight and rocket science are dicouraged. Continue reading to find out just what the Hederon are, and why they are so dangerous.) The government also sees that youngsters' abilities are assessed at an early age, after which they are put into rigorous training in their chosen fields. These include engineering (Kev), healing (Kella), swordfighting (Tempest), music (Tempest's father), and all sorts of other things.

There is a high rate of Force sensitivity among the Ricalian population, but they take a different form than they do elsewhere in the galaxy. Many people of Ricalia are gifted with what they call Abilities. Many of these consist of Jedi-like powers, but they are extremely narrow and specific compared to a Jedi's skills. For example, Tempest has an Ability in swordfighting (related to the skills used in lightsaber battle), and Kella has a healing Ability. Another kind of Ability is called Seeing. Tempest's swordmaster, Alden, liked to keep an eye on her through Seeing, which meant every now and then she would go blind for just a moment while Alden saw through her eyes; he would always warn her before he did it, though. Tempest is also strange in that she can control all the known skills—healing, fighting, "Seeing," etc. Moving or affecting anything with one's mind that is not alive is completely unheard of, although Tempest later also learns how to do this, in addition to her unheard of combination of Abilities.

Along with these Abilities comes a danger. Another thing unique to the planet Ricalia is the existence of what they call "Dark Streaks." A Dark Streak is a sort of selective block on a person's Abilities. Someone with a Streak will eventually reach a point in the training of their Abilities where they find it difficult to improve. The more they train, the harder it becomes to use the Ability. However, if the Ricalian in question becomes filled with anger, hate, fear, or any other strong, negative emotion, it becomes easy to break the barrier and grow in strength. Thus, the Dark Streak makes it almost impossible for a Ricalian to continue to use their Abilities, unless they train themselves to use the darker side of the Force. No one has ever been able to break this block. Streaks can appear in a person who has strong Abilities and a tendency toward anger or violence—or a Streak can be caused by an encounter with a Hederon.

The Lide Hederon are nasty shadow-demons that feed on the life and souls of living things. Usually they've got enough animal and plant life to graze off of in the Dark Hills that they don't bug the populace of the planet. But every once in a while, they descend from the hills in a black swarm to feed on the people. That is where the Force steps in. The Force is the Ricalian guard and peacekeeping body (not to be confused with the Force—this is a distinction that causes considerable confusion in the actual story, not surpisingly). The Force's primary duty is to protect the people, because they can wield the swords that kill the Hederon. The Force also acts as the peacekeeping unit, when it is needed, and eradicates Dark Streaks from the populace. This is because it is almost impossible to resist the dark influence of a Dark Streak, and those who are Streaked, no matter how they came by those Streaks, become more and more violent, before finally wasting away into a Hederon themselves.

The Force had found a way to stop this process, but it could only be done by erasing the Dark Streak—which, in turn, could only be done by erasing the person's memories along with the Streak. The Force was responsible for detecting those who had Dark Streaks and eradicating the Streaks, thus preventing them from degenerating into dangerous Hederon. However, there was a great fear that if memory were to return, the Dark Streak would return, as well. For this reason, Ricalians with Dark Streaks were taken away from their families, their friends—everything they ever knew—so that nothing would be there to remind them of their past, and possibly bring the Dark Streak back, along with their memory.

To have one's memory completely erased was even more tragic than it seems. This is because Ricalians have a sort of ancestral memory; each citizen can remember many aspects of his or her ancestors' lives. (Ricalian history goes back as far as anyone can remember, and because of this ancestral memory, that is a very long time! Needless to say, history class does not exist, as we know it!) This, then, is why getting your memory erased is such a horrid thing: because not only do you lose your past, but all the memories of those before you, as well. And if you are the last in your family, that is even worse, because no one will ever remember you or them again...

Tempest and her parents have Dark Streaks, acquired during an encounter with a Hederon that attacked Tempest when she was a young girl. Their family of three feared their Streaks would be discovered and their lives destroyed. The general Ricalian view was to be disgusted and shamed by someone who was discovered to have a Dark Streak, despite the fact that not always was the person actually to blame for their tendency toward Darkness. It was also believed that memory erasure was a mercy to both the Streaked and to those around them; few questioned it, or the pain and loss it caused and the families it destroyed. Such suffering, after all, was necessary for the greater good. And how much could one suffer, anyway? Those who lost their memories would never remember the life they had lost, and besides, their new life would be free of the Streaks and the fear that came with them. For those left behind, any family member with a Dark Streak was lost to them already, since Streaks were a shameful thing to them. Tempest never agreed with this general opinion, and in fact vehemently opposed it. Her swordmaster, Alden, felt much the same way, and although he was one of the oldest and most revered swordmasters on the planet, he risked his reputation and even his life, making himself a traitor by shielding Tempest and her parents so their Streaks would go undetected.

A familiar character now enters the scene. Luke Skywalker saw in his dreams that the planet Ricalia existed, and that a girl named Tempest lived there—a girl who had the potential to be both savior and destroyer, and who might possibly free the galaxy from the new threat that was beginning to grow. Luke found a way through the time barrier and came searching for Tempest. When he finally found her, he urged her to come with him, explaining about his vision and saying that he needed her help. Tempest refused, however. She was curious about the world outside Ricalia and anxious to help, but her parents could not maintain the shield on their Dark Streaks without her aid, and she could not abandon them. But one day, several days later, Tempest burst into Kella's house after school, sobbing incoherently. After getting her friend to calm down, Kella learned the story of Luke's appearance and his request.

Apparently, Tempest's parents had overheard her arguing with Luke, telling him why she could not go with him. Tempest's parents understood the importance of Luke's request, but they knew their daughter would never leave as long as she felt they needed her. So one afternoon, Tempest returned home from the academy to find the Force taking her parents away. They had turned themselves in and revealed their Dark Streaks.

No longer tied to this world, and in growing danger of discovery herself, Tempest felt she could not waste her parents' sacrifice. She agreed to go with Luke and do what she could to aid him. That night, Tempest and Luke went to Kella's house to tell her good bye and to explain where they were going. Before they left, Tempest handed Kella some blueprints. They were, she said, the plans to build a ship capable of breaking Ricalia's gravity and leaving the time barrier, so perhaps someday Kella could follow. (What no one else knew was that Tempest had received these plans years ago from her brother Ori, who had, unknown to anyone else, left Ricalia many years before. To her knowledge, he was the only Ricalian ever to do so, and he had never returned.) Tempest then swore an oath of friendship and sisterhood with Kella, using her sword to make it a blood oath. They agreed to meet again someday. Tempest and Luke then said good bye and set out for Luke's ship. They left Ricalia and headed for the Jedi Academy, and once free of the time barrier, for the first time in her life, Tempest no longer had to hide.

The above is from the Parallel Crossroads story, which continues on, but the subsequent chapters have not been written yet. You can find the above information in the first three chapters, which are in the "Artwork and Goodies" section. The next section of this summary leaves the story's timeline and picks up where our roleplaying begins, with Kella's efforts to follow after Tempest.

Kella presented the blueprints to her friend Kev, and after about a year of surreptitiously gathering parts and building in an unused warehouse of the academy, the two of them had finally put together a sort of a starship that would, they hoped, fly. Just after their graduation from the academy, they spent a last evening with their families, packed up some belongings, and snuck out to the warehouse in the middle of the night to see if this contraption would actually work.

The ship flew, but barely. The two managed to rocket out of Ricalia's atmosphere, break through the time barrier, and pop out in the middle of space near an apparently civilized planet. They crash-landed in a deserted area outside a city, but their ship, while having survived its maiden voyage, would never get off the ground again. Exploring the town, they saw Stormtroopers running through the streets. They decided they would have to dodge the troops, find transport off the planet, and find out where Tempest was.

And just as they decided this, who should come running toward them but...Tempest. Because of the unpredictability of the Ricalian time barrier, it is uncertain how much time has actually passed for Tempest, but it was obvious that she had been in training to become a Jedi. And a new thing had also taken place—from somewhere, Tempest seemed to have acquired a huge pair of beautiful, white, feathered wings! Taking charge as her friends watched, dumbstruck, Tempest used a lightsaber to block blaster bolts and led the others to an airfield where some Imperial ships were parked. They had just gotten the door open on one and were starting to climb in when Kella saw a Stormtrooper come around the corner, chased by other Stormtroopers, who were shouting at him. Some looked on the point of firing. Yelling to the lone man, Kella waved him aboard the ship. He scrambled in and they closed the door just before the Stormtroopers fired, and then Tempest got behind the controls, and the ship took off.

Derwyren, disgusted with Imperial policy, had deserted the Stormtroopers and was thankful that Kella had come to his aid. Other new companions included a protocol droid, G3PO, that they found switched off in the cargo bay, and two stowaways as well—Nekoi Kishuu and Kyron. Not long after escaping the planet, they accidentally ran across an Imperial star destroyer, a ship captained by Captain Balikura. Balikura was suspicious of them when they could not give appropriate identification codes, and he attempted to detain them. They managed to escape, but not without doing some damage to his ship. Balikura was furious. Also in the area was Sangran Vode, the Dark Lord of the Sith. Sensing a number of strong Force abilities on Tempest's commandeered ship, he listened to the radio exchange in silence and watched the ship's escape. Afterward, he boarded Balikura's ship, had a short Force battle with the Dark Jedi who was on board (named Darth Trindion), and defeated him. Vode convinced Trindion to join forces with him, and they took command of Balikura's ship. Vode's new mission: to track down whoever was in that stolen ship. He knew that at least one person aboard was very important to his plans, and to the Emperor's, as well.

The story goes on and on, but it's been a while and I will have to summarize. Tempest left, leaving the others on their own while she went out in search of Luke (they'd been separated some time back). Before she left, she told Kella and Kev that their Abilities were likely Force powers similar to her own. She did not know their strength, but she advised them to seek out the Jedi Academy. Tempest took off on her own. On the way to the Academy, Kella, Kev, and the others were captured by Sangran Vode and Darth Trindion. Their imprisonment was a harrowing experience, and he confused them by insisting that Kella, Kev, and Nekoi had strong Force powers, and that they must turn to the Dark Side. Fearful and hating the Dark, Kella refused. Nekoi turned first, and after much wearing down, Kev did too. They were released from their cell, leaving Kella alone. Eventually she managed to escape into the air duct system, where she hid for a while. After some time, Kev found her. She dragged him into her hiding place to avoid some guards, then carried on a heated discussion with him.

Kev told Kella that he had turned to the Dark Side in order to save her and his other friends. He told her she had to escape and leave him there. She told him that he was an idiot, that he might as well just turn back to the Light Side now, because she wasn't leaving him and she was disgusted by his giving in to Sangran. After some severe verbal abuse, Kev finally agreed to help Kella find Nekoi and get out.

In the end, Kella, Kev, and all the others except Nekoi escaped. Kev turned away from the Dark Side once more, but a barrier had grown between him and Kella, and they often fought about his decision. Kella hated and feared the Darkness, and Kev had given in to it—to save his friends, but he had submitted to it nevertheless. Meanwhile, Nekoi was being trained in the Dark Jedi arts by Sangran and Trindion.

Eventually they managed to hunt Nekoi down, turn her back to the Light Side, and take her with them. They ran into Phoenix and Tek, who offered to give them a ride, and they finally made it to the Jedi Academy, where they began their training. Kella still refuses to believe that she has any of these Force powers—her Abilities are not the Force, she claims, and she is not Tempest. She is not destined for greatness. But she trains anyway, understanding that her Abilities are, in some way, growing. Still, she lives with a growing fear, a fear that somehow she has a Dark Streak, like Tempest; her training has been growing more and more difficult, and her fear has become stronger.

Recently, Nekoi vanished. She said nothing to anyone before she left, only left a note in her quarters in the Academy. The reasons for her leaving are unclear; they might have something to do with her revelation of her feelings for Kev, and his rather harsh rejection of those feelings. Meanwhile, Sangran Vode seems to have a strange obsession with finding Kella, in particular, and turning her to the Dark Side. And that is where things stand now—turbulent and full of fear, with the New Empire's power growing, and Tempest's whereabouts still unknown.

Nekoi's note of farewell, written by Jenn:

A couple of weeks after the entrance into the Jedi academy brings studies to those who are to become Jedi. A task that is to save the world from the Darkness, or at least to quell this evil rumbling deep in the universe's belly. The balance is precarious, temptation runs wild.

A few notice after a week and a half, Nekoi seems back to her old self. Emotionless, hard. Cruel even, in answering initiates. Who could know what she's really thinking? Or the pain she has to face? She spend the last few days under a master's care for bloodloss, being hurt on one of her training exercizes. But there is more, a deeper sense of emotional bleakness that makes one wonder what she has lost.

One day, a letter is found in Nekoi's room. Her Jedi clothing and insignia left behind; her lightsaber and Empire uniform gone. All involved are asked to read the letter, the danger becoming just a little more real perhaps.