The Outside

Posted on Thu Jul 18th, 2019 @ 12:09am by Amare & Bomoor Thort & Thane

3,882 words; about a 19 minute read

Chapter: Chapter V: Unbound
Location: XoXaan's Temple, Korriban
Timeline: Early Hours, Day 4

OLD

"Never have I set eyes upon the same face twice, since the betrayal of my kin," Hazzarah continued, contemplatively, his gaze cast down upon the unconscious forms of the three aliens stood before him, their visages immaculate compared to their battered physical forms. "Na-hah ur su ka-haat. Su ka haru aat."

With no further comment from any of them, Hazzarah slammed his hands together in an almighty clap, and the world dissolved.

NEW

When Thane, Bomoor and Amare had first entered the Mind Prison, the transference had been instant: it had been like stepping through a door, but without any need to lift a hand or even touch a door. Instead, they had not even blinked, and the world about them had been subsumed by an infinite whiteness; a void of pure nothing, in fact inhabited by many somethings, had become their reality, with not so much as a gust of wind to signify their gargantuan change in circumstances.

The return from the Mind Prison, however, was not so seamless.

Thane shot upright with a sharp intake of breath and several sharp, dry coughs, his lungs tight and his lips cracked from dehydration. His mind whirled in sync with the apparent spinning of the room, his pounding head making it nigh on impossible to associate his focus upon his new reality. The true reality.

He slumped backwards again, twisting to lay on his front. His hands reached out and his splayed fingers ran across the layer of ancient dust that rested upon the chiselled stonework beneath him. Fortunately, with each breath came a glimmer of recollection, as visions of monstrous cyborgs and gargantuan warhammers flooded back to his mind, as did the Force begin to return to him. Now instinctively, Thane embraced the sharp pain within him - a lesson of Jericho - and let the fury of the dark side swell.

"Bo... Bomoor?" He wheezed, pushing himself up, looking one way and then the next. "Co-... Amare?"

The dry heavy wheezing from Bomoor’s four Ithorian throats signalled his friend’s return to the mortal realm also, “Thane... we… made it back…” he croaked as he rocked his heavy head forwards and blinked to focus once again on the dim interior of Xoxaan’s temple, specifically the secret artefact room Nihl had led them into what seemed like days ago.

Amare remained prone on the hard stone floor, motionless save for her light breathing. Her head tresses obscured her face.

With a modicum of struggling, spurred forward and eased with some deliberate call upon the Force, Thane managed to raise himself up and over towards his apprentice. "We awoke at the same time," he observed as he examined the Nautolan as carefully as his wearied mind or body would allow him. Inwardly, he wondered if each of their excursions were doomed to result in their captivity (pseudo or otherwise) and debilitating fatigue.

“But Coda has yet to awake,” Bomoor finished the thought, craning his head over and looking towards the still-unconscious young woman who his friend now sat beside, “Her mind may still be trapped.”

Thane had begun to hover an outstretched hand over the Nautolan's head, his eyes closing in preparation of searching within her Force presence, partly suspecting some previously-unexpected duplicity from King Hazzarah. Before he made any headway, however, he yanked his hand back in surprise.

"NO!!!" Zaracoda screamed as if suddenly bursting awake from a horrible nightmare. Her eyes, as pitch black as an ocean's floor under a nighttime sky devoid of moonlight, were wide and wild with terror. She was hyperventilating as she quickly threw her gaze left and right, a measure of calm coming to her upon seeing the concerned look of her friends.

"W-where is he? He...he was...right here," she stammered between heavy breaths. She threw her gaze up at the ceiling. "And the dragon...I-I thought I was gonna die."

"Amare," her master began, kneeling beside her and his own tone calm but flecked with a degree of concern, blue eyes regarding Coda coolly. He felt some relief at her return to consciousness, sudden though it was, but this was - as seemed to be so oft the norm with the young former slave - balanced by her other contrary comments and behaviour. "Wherever you were, whatever you saw, is absent. You are back in XoXaan's temple proper; King Hazzarah released us." Thane's eyes wandered about their surroundings sceptically. "Only the ghosts of the One Sith here, I fear."

The Human rose carefully, much of his energy returned, and offered a hand to the young woman. She seemed elsewise - again - but he was content to attribute it to their shared ordeal, as well as whatever other grim experiences had befallen her on Korriban during their separation. For a master, he knew he had not spent the adequate amount of time expected with his apprentice, although Thane also knew he had no true contrast, as a Sith master.

Coda gratefully accepted Thane's hand. It gave her some comfort to know he still had enough care in his heart to offer even such a simple gesture of assistance. It took a considerable amount of willpower to keep herself from throwing her arms around her master, but she was afraid he wouldn't understand, or would grow angry and possibly see her need for affection as weakness. If it was a year earlier before the Force changed her life, the idea of Thane's possible rejection would have made her cry. Instead, she had the memory of Yavin 4 to remind her of what to do as Thane's apprentice, and what not to do.

“Welcome back Coda. Or is it perhaps a different name now?” Bomoor voiced the question he had held onto earlier, “It seems we all are seeing ourselves in a different light on this planet.”

"Coda...Amare...doesn't seem to make much difference anymore," the Nautolan said dejectedly with a frown and a pained shrug. "I just want to go and get away from this terrible place."

Bomoor felt somewhat out of touch with the young woman once again, much like he had done when she returned from Lorrd. Something had changed her then as she seemed to be changing now. When he and Thane had first met the Nautolan, she had seemed so open and willing. So quickly she had become like a stranger, but perhaps that could change.

He was about to ask more, when the three of them suddenly became aware of an odd knocking sound, like stone upon stone. They turned to see the bricks that comprised the mind prison, rearranging themselves to reveal a hollow interior. Within it was their treasure: the glistening ruby form of Hazzarah’s kaiburr shard, The Heart of Typhojem. It was real and tangible; perhaps the last tangible legacy of the dark-skinned Pureblood Sith.

"Ungh!" Coda grunted as she felt a series of sharp stabbing sensations throughout her body like a million tiny bits of glass trying to puncture her skin all at once. She wondered if it was the azoth fused in her body that was reacting palpably to the shard. There was a loud ringing in her auditory canals, and she put her hands up to cover them, wincing in pain and lowering her head under the stress of what was coming from the revealed artifact.

Instinctively, Thane had stretched out a hand to grasp Coda's shoulder, but this gesture was halted by the awesome glory gleaming through the Force from the revealed jewel, which had crashed against the would-be Sith like the first blinding ray of sunlight after a lifetime of darkness. His knees threatened to buckle from the power he could feel emanating from the kaiburr crystal, just as he felt his chest seizing from simply regarding it.

The relic was larger than the shard Bomoor had taken possession of on Jericho, and larger even than the piece wielded by Axion during the turf war on Nar Shaddaa. From memory, Thane was certain it rivalled the size of the Bloodfist of Caanus, the fabled stolen heirloom of his noble house. And, for a second, he did not believe that it could possibly be a kaiburr; the universe was not, after all, so forgiving and, comparatively, their ordeals had not been insurmountable. Yet, it indeed resonated within the Force with the same grand hymn of majesty its companion jewels did.

It caused Thane's teeth to clench and his pulse quickened. Time, briefly, appeared to slow, and the definition of his surroundings and senses heightened, growing in vibrancy; colours appeared brighter and sounds were louder. Bomoor and Amare were preset and mighty, but also deeply insignificant. The intoxicating wellspring he was now drawing from and being drawn to, Thane knew, was the dark side.

It was only as that realisation drew his mind back to the fore that the former Jedi Knight realised his hand was now but mere inches from clasping the Heart. It would be easy - it would be right, Thane thought - to seize the jewel. Bomoor had been permitted to use one, after all, so why should he deny himself the opportunity now? He could almost feel the power arcing from the crystal, like bolts of electricity springing from one point to another, ready to fuel his just and deserved fury. He would be a force of nature, wielding the shard as an extension of himself; he would be an embodiment of will and power, master of the Force, sculptor of the laws of existence!

But, he decided, retracting his hand defiantly and closing it into a fist, he would no longer be Thane.

Without so much as a glance to his companions, he ignited his lightsaber briefly and sliced away a portion of his desert-wear, which he then threw about the crystal in an effort to minimise direct contact, which seemed to be one of the vague and little understood rules under which the kaiburr shards operated in its lending of power. Even with that, however, it was as though the artefact were humming to him from within the hastily-made cover, singing sweetly for Serus to caress its lattices.

"Where is the machine?" He then asked Coda.

Coda felt some relief after Serus had bundled up the shard, but there was still a light irritating ringing in her head. She gazed up at her master, his question finally processed by her aching brain, and she glanced about the room until she saw the grav-sled hovering quietly a short distance away with G2's remains on board exactly as they were.

"Over there," she replied pointing to the sled whilst struggling to reacquire her footing. Her legs felt wobbly and sore as if she hadn't used them in some time. She wondered just how long they were stuck in the Hazarrah's little house of horrors and tricks.

So much power in such a shiny trinket! Coda could hear her dissociative identity, Amare, dwelling within the core of her being speaking to her in their shared mind. Are you jealous, Zara? Of course you are. I envy his prize. Do you think he'll share it with us...with me? Doubtful. No...we mustn't dwell on baubles. Knowledge is more important than magical crutches, wouldn't you agree? I know you do. We are of the same mind, after all. This little division between us will soon pass just like it did on Lorrd. You'll see.

"Master?" Coda asked Serus wearily. "Is that crystal what we came here for?" She really hoped so. She was on her last wind and drained from a long day of life, near-death, and life again. She had thought Irrikut, Vaa, and Lorrd were tough. By comparison, those journeys were vacations next to the living hell of Korriban.

"Yes, Amare," Thane answered simply, sensing the conflict within his apprentice. "It is." Giving her only a carefully-considered sidelong glance, his tutee's troubled mind was plain to detect, but difficult to assess. Since the start of her tutelage under him, early into his own acceptance of his Sith ambitions, she had experienced a dichotomy of traits vying for supremacy within her character.

She was young, he knew, and late, perhaps, to the Force. Her talents were growing exponentially, and Thane had a self-admitted concern about her power and ambition outstripping her wisdom. Such considerations, like so many others, would have to wait, however.

The shattered droid may yet serve a purpose within those realms, he now wondered, falling in line with the nearby Ithorian.

Now once again feeling that familiar power of the Kaiburr shard ebbing now it was out of view, Bomoor pulled himself upright and stepped over to the broken remains of G2-O7, “What a mess,” he commented, prodding what seemed to be the droid’s ‘leg’ with his own foot, “Poor machine was right to worry about leaving the Raptor. But he may yet return; droids do not expire in the same way we do.”

"I can restore his programming, but I'm not so good with hardware," Coda said. She had some knowledge with electronics, especially since she learned how to piece together a lightsaber without blowing herself up, but robotic engineering wasn't her forte, at least not without a detailed manual.

The thought of death cast a reminder about their present whereabouts and the trials they had just endured. Faintly, through the web of the Force, another darkness seemed to loom on the horizon that cast a chill along Bomoor’s spine. Looking back at Thane, he knew their Force Bond shared that feeling with him too, “Shall we find our way out of this place?” the Ithorian asked, “We have what we came for; the temple’s other secrets can wait for another time.”

Another time.

Thane considered those words a few times in his mind as he bundled the Heart of Typhojem within the remains of the Raptor astromech, feeling more at ease - more himself - with the added distance between him and the jewel. Just as they shared that lingering sense of darkness overshadowing them, he knew they also shared the tension that accompanied the kaiburr's intoxicating proximity.

Having risen from G2's metallic remnants, Thane glanced around the museum-esque chamber that housed the Mind Prison and other relics of the extinct One Sith. His eyes passed over the weapon of A'Sharad Hett once, as well as the Old Empire helmet, the yorik coral ornaments, and the gargantuan reptilian skull that adorned one wall. Unfortunately, it appeared the path that Darth Nihl's shade had taken them down had concealed itself once more, and there was no overt mechanism to free them from the ancient laboratory.

Deciding it would prove an interesting conversation with the duo of gatekeepers at their call, as well a remarkable trinket of historical significance, Thane summoned Krayt's Jedi lightsaber to his hand. He turned it over a few times and gave it a cursory inspection. "We should look around the chamber; there are a few things here we would be able to take on our persons or on the sled, and we may yet find a lever, or some other contraption to release us."

Coda walked over and spared a glance at G2's parts on the sled, trying her best to ignore the bundled crystal. "You deserve better than us," she whispered down to droid's fractured dome. Those were the words Coda's father, Capasegno Wolph, said to her one day in an intoxicated stupor back on Glee Anselm when she was only twelve years old. It was one of the few times she ever saw him drunk, and it happened shortly after she witnessed him have a heated argument with a mysterious stranger shrouded head-to-toe in a long dark brown cloak.

With the ringing still in her head, the Nautolan turned and caught something white in the corner of her vision, and saw a worn down old combat helmet of some sort lying on its side on the ground. She knelt down to pick it up and felt the soft heavy layer of dust caked on the helm. A small wormlike critter fell out and squealed as it quickly slithered away, giving Coda a bit of a scare. A quick check on the inside didn't yield anymore nasty living surprises, thankfully. Foolishly, however, she blew some of the dust off and got a thick plume of the stuff kicked up in her face as a reward. Coughing and waving the dust away, she rose up and turned her face to the side as she brushed off more dust and dirt and tried to get a better look at the old fractured headgear. She wondered how old it was.

"Do either of you recognize this?" Coda turned and held out her artifact for her masters to see. "Looks really old."

Bomoor, who had started feeling about the walls for some sign of the exit, looked back briefly at what Coda was referring to, “That was alongside a set of Old Empire armour Thane found,” he pointed over to the now headless body armour that he had sensed the empty Force essence from a few hours ago, “It must have toppled down when the doorway closed itself again.”

Thane's apprentice turned back to the helm and gazed straight into its eye lens. They were as black as her own twin orbs, and she tried to imagine who might've worn it in the past. She shuttered her vision and tried to focus on it for several seconds to try and feel for its past connection to its owner. She envisioned a human man similar in appearance to Thane, tried to even mentally conjure an expression on his face; something tough, scarred, and grim. It was her hope to elicit a response from the dead like other objects she touched in the past, but after several seconds, she felt nothing. She smiled slightly as she opened her eyes again, breathed a little relief, and hoped that the lack of response meant that the owner's helm found peace in death.

"Rest well...whoever you are," she softly whispered to the helm as she carefully set it back down where she found it.

Continuing to scour for some kind of switch, the Ithorian now was around the other side of the room, close again to the Mind Prison, which he kept a distance from. Aside from the interesting armour, the lightsaber and some other trophies, most other items seemed to have long since deteriorated to the point of no repair and running his narrow fingers across the shelves and stands yielded little but an uncomfortably thick dust that clung to his skin.

Behind the Mind Prison, there was a small gap, through which a breeze could be felt. Bomoor peered through and could see a corridor beyond. The wall was brittle, almost as if it had been bricked up after the construction of the temple, and a shatterpoint was not hard to find, “I’m going to try to break through here. I don’t sense that it will bring down the ceiling but this is an old, old place so be ready.”

He held two palms against the wall and exerted a targeted blast of energy into it, which broke a moderate-sized gap into the stonework and revealed the corridor beyond. There was a pause, where all three of them awaiting some kind of secondary rumble from the ceiling above but it did not come.

“Well then,” Bomoor nodded back at his comrades, “Gather what bits you want along with the droid and let's follow this corridor along.”

Coda extended her right hand to the grav sled and gently gave it some Force-driven inertia to get it moving again alongside her, moving to lead the way for her lords.

"I will light the way," Coda offered as she took point. "These secret passages can be dangerous to walk through. Mind your steps carefully."

With her left hand, she raised it up, and the Amare part of her provided the ignition of unnatural otherworldly scarlet flames sparked by the grim, heart-wrenching recollection of a terrible memory. Using the draining flames was getting easier and less burdensome to do each time, and all it took to manifest was simply revisiting something terrible in her mind. The dark side responded well to feelings of pain, anguish, regret, fear, and, of course, anger. All she had to do was take herself to those awful places for but a moment, and the magic came to life. The flames pleased her, danced and licked and wove up and around her fingers in a flow that permitted her a sense of control and order in her chaotic life, and gave her a beaming sense of pride to show off her blossoming talent to her more powerful masters.

After a few more glances about the chamber for anything further of value, Thane having only pocketed a couple of examples of the yorik coral features that were small enough to carry, as well as secreting away some half-formed notes on the crystal furnace's schematics, the former Jedi Guardian went to follow the other two along this new corridor. Before he did, he eyed the seemingly-dormant Mind Prison for a few punctuated seconds.

He had continued to mull over the final words of King Hazzarah, spoken as they were in the ancient Sith tongue, in an effort to decipher both the actual translation and, more importantly, the intended meaning. A large part of him struggled with the notion of leaving the laboratory behind, effectively abandoning Hazzarah's consciousness - and that of his kind and other spirits trapped within the device - to an infinite and repetitive doom without relent, at least until the next wanderer felt their way into the ancient temple.

The part of him that was struggling, he wondered, was possibly not even the Jedi still within him; there was a desire to take not only the knowledge and legacy of the Mind Prison's inhabitants with him, but also the prestige and power that accompanied ownership of such an artefact. There was much that could be learned from the Prison and its contents, just as he could be the owner of a unique and prehistoric piece of remarkable technology, almost unfathomable in the age they now lived. There was information within that device that was almost certainly unknown to anyone - or anything - still in existence within the galaxy, at least in any format that was accessible to the modern denizens.

But, he knew (and promised), such time and opportunity lay not in the present, but in whatever future Thane and his companions deigned to embrace. There was much yet to learn about the dark side and the storied legacy of the Sith, and the power they wielded, and he was intent on uncovering it and claiming that mantle, not content to let such treasures and repositories fall into ruin or, worse, the hands of the uninitiated.

The next person that dared set foot in this place, Thane vowed, would be Sith.

TBC

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AMARE
▬ Force Drain (Flare) increase

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