Topic: The destiny of a man

[Elod-Hora]

I was a soldier. Then I was a slave. Now, finally, I have the possibility to become free. But on what cost?

Day 1.

I arrive to Korriban. I watch the ancient ruins. I arrive last. A man tells me I’m a slave. But I am no slave. I am a free man. I get an assignment – to kill a hermit. Or to speak with him. I didn’t quite understand. I go.

I go out in the valley. The sun is setting behind the ancient pyramid. Probably, a tomb. The skies are red. As my shirt. As the flags of the Empire. Which I hate with all my heart.

I check the mailbox. Spam.

Definitively there are excavations going on here in the Valley. What do they seek? Ancient knowledge? Artifacts? There are ruins of ancient vases. They definitively do not seek the culture.

There are beasts over there. And other people, hunting them. After a while, new beasts take place of the fallen ones.

I know how to wield my weapon. It’s a vibrosword. Back in the Academy, we used to train with vibroswords, so I know a couple of tricks. They won’t let me use the blaster. It’s an infamous weapon, they said. The weapon of the Sith is lightsaber. I hope I will find a way to escape this planet. I don’t want to become a Sith.

How is my brother? Where is he? Is he still alive?

I have my chance, and it’s time to use it. It’s only one.

I overhear a conversation of an injured Lieutenant in the med center outside the building I stepped out. It seems there is somebody here on Corriban who is against the Empire. I hope I will find them. They would help me out.

These beasts are everywhere. I have to be cautious.

A movement in the skies attracts my attention. It’s a dreadnaught! He is flying on low orbit a few kilometers from a place I am. I seek an open space, and find myself on a platform, which is in front of a giant valley, even greater than the one I currently am at. In fact, my valley is just a small crack in these mountains… And the statues! They are huge!

There is another dreadnaught further away. I raise my head, and there is another one just above me. I am in a cage. The giant statues which caught my attention at first seem to doom me.

There are landspeeders passing above my head. There should be a way of communication, somewhere here.

I manage to climb a wall. It’s a long way down… I will not surrender. Not now. It’s time to move.

The air is arid. I always tend to raise my shoulders high and my breath is not straight. I carefully make my way through the excavation site, paying attention to not attracting the beasts. Each one of them is almost my size.

An elevator brings me to upper level. There are other initiates out there. They look in the distance, maybe awaiting for someone. They are not very talkative, and I have no desire to speak with them.

Near the transportation center I find two prisoner Initiates. There is an Inquisitor and on officer there. I have to be careful, I cannot risk becoming suspect as well.

I enter the tomb that man, my overseer, told me to. It’s illuminated by unknown source. There might be traps here. After turning the next turn in this maze, I find looters. They don’t notice me. There are three of them, and I am alone. I’m not so confident in my forces. I decide to skip past them.

While I manage to avoid encounter with the first three looters, I can’t avoid fight with another one. Fortunately he is alone, and I prevail in the fight. I have to kill him. But suddenly, I feel more powerful. I search him and find a couple of credits and a magazine. To be thrown away, it’s useless without a gun, but I keep it. Maybe I’ll be able to sell it.

Other looters. Damn! This place is swarming with them!

I find other beasts. They seem the ones at the ground, ugly, many-legged worms, but much bigger in size. One of them is as high as me! They block my way, I decide to attack first. Hopefully my attack will be a surprise for them.

While I am preparing, three creatures attack me from behind. I manage to defend myself… Surprisingly easily. This place is mysterious, it fills me with power. While I am fighting the creatures, a strange thing accures. I feel rage boil blood in my veins, and a lightning parts from my hand, bursting the worm in agony. And again, I feel myself stronger.

I finally find my destination. It is the burial chamber, and there are acolytes training against some dummies. I pass past them. There is a man meditating before the sarcophagi. When I come closer, he raises and speaks to me, about my trials. And first is the trial of blood. What should be it?

I learn it soon. The acolytes stop their training. They turn to me, weapons drawn. I prepare to defend myself. None of us makes the first move. Finally, I break the stasis by attacking the one before me. Another lightning burst precedes me.

All happens in a less than 10 seconds. The last one manages to blow a lightning to me, before falling under my blows. Electricity tears my flesh apart, but it only makes me angrier. I run towards the hermit…

This skinny old man halts me with the only power of his thought. All my rage disappears completely. Something new takes its place…

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, power.
Through power, victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.


He is right. In this place, the only way to stay alive is winning. Nobody here looks at those who failed because they are dead. I don’t want to be dead. So I’d been better remembering these words. I leave. I still have to find my way back.

More than a dozen of beasts attack me all at once. I manage to get away alive. How have I?

A man approaches me. He tells me that somewhere in the academy there are people who can show me new things. I have to find them if I want to achieve victory.

There is an obelisk in the center of a big room. It’s not as high, but it… It breathes evil. There are crying faces on its sides, and an inscription: Fear in Power.

I find the trainer. He explains me about the Force, about the ways to use its power. I learn the Force Lightning. Now it’s time to meet my overseer.

He kills that girl, who was kind to me when we arrived. I feel sorry for her, but I have to watch myself for not following her. It seems that only one of us will become an actual apprentice… I have to be even more careful. I haven’t resisted all the tortures of the slavery to die here.

And I was given a black robe. I believe it’s better than the red one.

I am sent to an Inquisitor. He puts me in front of a beaten acolyte. He begs me to protect him, so he would tell me who killed an acolyte. I can’t promise this thing. I have to use the Force to torture the poor soul. But it seems I manage to save him from immediate death. For now. This is the most I could do for him. But he will die soon anyway. He is weak.

Gosh. Was this my thought?

Anyway, it’s time to come back to the Harkun. I believe, that was his name.

I have a new task, to enter Marka Ragnos’s tomb and, hopefully, exit it alive and with his holocron in hands… Maybe it’s better I visit the trainer again.

I learn that channeling the Force you can make hit the earth with a power enough for make it tremble. But it’s not enough. I have to find someone to tell me about the beasts which would populate that place.

When I exit the academy, an acolyte speaks to me:

Inpinkandstink: Are you walking around on purpose?
Me: Yes. I was given a task.
Inpinkandstink: Given a task by?
Me: By my overseer. Why do you ask? Were you sent by him?
Inpinkandstink: Yes, he said to tell you that things are going to be slow but will better.
Me: Strange. To me he spoke in different terms.

I move along. What a strange person.

I speak to the Inquisitor I’ve seen before, the one standing with the arrested acolytes. He was still there. He speaks about my loyalty! My loyalty! I don’t tell him anything that would blame me. But now I have to search for traitors, and kill them.

I take the taxi speeder to the lower valley. I think the tomb I’m looking for is somewhere there.

While overflying the lands, I notice a strange light. It might be worth exploring.

I find a vendor in the lower lands. He takes a great interest in stuff I fetched from my enemies’ bodies. I get a bunch of credits for it, and some rugged handwraps.

I try to understand the nature of that light, but I couldn’t get there. It’s too high. So I climb a rock on opposite side, and try to look better. There is a strange object, and an acolyte standing by it.

Me (yelling): How did you get there?
I call out “Hey!” to Daizer.
Daizer: Go around this rock.
Me (yelling): Thanks!
Daizer smiles.

On the way around I find a defeated acolyte. I call a medical probe. The acolyte thanks me. I nod, moving away. I don’t know what to say.

This place is not for weak minds. People go crazy in these harsh lands. I am attacked by some excavators gone mad.

I finally arrive to the source of light. It’s a datacron. I activate is and somewhat feel myself stronger of willpower. Maybe there are others out there…

Something which seems a cave entrance is in reality a lair of the beasts.

A Sith lord at the research center on my way gives me new gloves in exchange of some bones I extracted from beasts on the road. That’s good because the handwraps I bought before were tearing apart.
Another Slightly mad Sith lord speaks to me in this zoo. “The Force is alive. It expresses its will in the physical world…” Totally mad. But maybe I should listen to him. The place I am going to is not a child’s walk. And those dark creatures he is talking about are in the Tomb of Marka Ragnos.

His apprentice confirms my impression. She also told me he was mad. If she says so…

The night has fallen on Korriban. I will move out in the morning.

It’s been my first day here. And it’s been a long and difficult day.

[Elod-Hora]

Day 2.

I get up early in the morning, under the red sky.

I check mailbox. I got a letter from Acolyte Alif, the one I’ve interrogated yesterday about the unauthorized murder. He thanks me, and tells about his transfer to Dromund Kaas. Who knows, maybe this guy will manage to live. He also enclosed some credits.

I find more crazy men in the wilderness. I kill them all, it’s the best thing I can do for them.

I get on a rock and try to understand where I am. In the mid of Valley, it appears to me.

I find the giant head of the statue above me. It seems it fell away recently enough, and the impact half-buried it in the ground.
 
More madmen… More dead corpses on the ground behind me.

Several beasts, breathing the Dark Side, attack me, all at once. Their agony fills me with wild energy.

I finally find my destination, the Tomb of Marka Ragnos. As I expected, there are creatures of the Dark Side swarming there. I cut my way through them as through the Dagobah jungles.

I find a small chest in one of the chambers. It’s not what I was looking for, but it contained some sort of stim and a pair of boots. They are too small for me, but I take them anyway to sell them to the vendor.

I notice that more and more I rely on my lightnings. But keeping the vibrosword in my hand makes me feel more confident.

I get to the dead end. That means that I have to come back and seek another entrance. On my way back more worms come out of the ground, attacking me.

Wandering through the valley, I find the commander of the madmen, roasting some meat. I try to contact him, but he attacks me instead. I try to defend myself, but he knocks me off. The world goes black, and I fall to the ground, while he loses any interest in my person, so I crawl away quietly. Got on a safe distance, I stand and think about the words of the old hermit:

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

But of course! I attacked him sure in my victory, almost bored! I have to awake passion in my heart, in order to achieve victory. So I make the battle cry and attack him again furiously, but somehow he is faster and manages to knock me back again. So I stand back and think again:

Passion gives me strength,
Strength brings me power.

I have the Force on my side, I have to use it. So I attack again, bursting lightings. But he beat me again! This time, he almost breaks my nose. I stand back again, thinking hardly. What am I doing wrong?

The response comes, out of nowhere: you have no passion. You don’t want him to die.

That’s right, I don’t. But if I back off, I will fail.

So you kill him only for winning?

No! I mean, yes! I mean… He’s a poor madman, this is the only way to go.

You don’t have passion in your heart. Only pity. Pity makes you weak.

I suddenly understand what the hermit tried to deliver to me. All the times before I killed because I had to. To remain alive, to put end on someone’s sufferings. I never killed out of passion. I’m looking at this maniac, at how he raises his hands to the sky, and I understand: this man only deserves to die, in a long agony. So I slowly go out of the tent where I was hiding, and burst the most powerful lightning bolt I ever produced. His body start trembling under the power of the Dark Side, and he falls on the ground, fuming.

The power brings me victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.

I stand above the defeated enemy, and an aura of the Dark Side surrounds me. Then I turn around, and go seeking another entrance to the tomb of Marka Ragnos. I have to find that holocron, not to survive, but to become more powerful than ever. The Force will set me free.

I find the entrance to the tomb in the further end of the Valley. Unlike most places in this Valley, the chambers are empty, and I find no opposition as I pass through them. In the last chamber though, several giant winged creatures stay in midair by a pyramid. Shyracks. I kill them all. Then I walk around the pyramid. There is something strange on top of it…

There is a platform built around the monument. Seems that others came here to study it, but apparently nobody left these places sane of mind. I climb the ledges, and find myself just nearby the top. It’s glowing purple, and a carving says: Power in Fear. That should be the holocron! The holocron’s monument bears the marks of many hundreds of unsuccessful attempts to pry it open, so I understand that brute force wouldn’t help here. I stand in meditation over the Dark Side, and suddenly the earth trembles, unleashing several creatures of the Dark Side. I kill them all and come back to the holocron, but it remains closed. I continue my meditation about the nature of the Force, thinking of the Jedi and the light side, but nothing happens. Then I burst into anger and shoot a lightning at it. It seems to have its effect, the ground trembles again, and the top of the monument opens to reveal a tiny pyramid, the true holocron.

At last!

On my way back I notice another shining light. Was that an impression or it really worth investigating? I set off to check.

There are lots of bald acolytes around here, I notice. As myself… What would that mean?

On my way to the strange light I find a cave entrance, and a mad acolyte, making some excavations. He spoke about some ancient device the owner of the tomb has made… Maybe I will come back here later.

My suspects were true. I found another datacron. I feel my body is stronger now. Now it’s time to return to Harkun.

I find a vendor, and exchange the boots I found in the chest on some medpacs.

I feel relieved when the shadow of the academy falls upon me. The guards kneel in a bow as I pass.

As always, I am the last one to arrive. But at least I’m still alive and with a new task – go to another tomb and fetch some ancient texts.

While I go towards the exit, a Sith pureblood calls me and gives an assignment. All I have to do is scan some overseers, to see if they are pure. The object I used is strange, and while I succeed scanning the overseers I have no idea about what were the results.

I am definitively getting required. An inquisitor asks me to stage a Jedi’s escape, so he won’t believe he’s set free. I suspect something, but accept. Every new task is making me more powerful. The Jedi is confused. He continues to repeat himself the Code. I finally catch his attention, and he tells me that his belongings are in the tomb of Tulak Hord. Well then. This is my destination, in any case.

I go out of the academy. The guards at the entrance bow every time I pass. That must be dreadful.

A call comes.

Koluss: You! Yes, you! Join the expedition to the Hate Machine: now!
Me: Why should I?
Koluss: Cause you rock!
Me: I can accept this.

I remember the madman at the tomb entrance speaking about the ancient device on its inside.

I nod at a big fat acolyte, waiting for me at the entrance, and enter the chamber of the Machine. Hords of worms start pouring to the chamber. I feel filling myself with rage.
 
Me: Let’s make them suffer.
Koluss: Agreed.

The machine is absorbing the dark power of the dying beasts, and eventually explodes as the last one falls to the ground. Inside there is an ancient tablet, which we collect to bring later on to that man.

I look at my companion. Sith pureblood, slightly overweighed. Apparently he relies more to the strength in his arms, rather than the power of the Force. But his blows are powerful, and so I decide to move along with him exploring the tomb. As we proceed, I find two out of three ancient tablets, containing knowledge of Tulak Hord. I copy their contents, even if cannot understand the language.

We enter a chamber, different from previous ones. Rogue troopers are guarding it, and it’s packed with droids and technicians. All of them attack us, and eventually we have to pull back.

Koluss: Hard ones.
Me: Indeed. But everyone dies, eventually.
Koluss: Yes.

The number of dead starts to overweigh the number of alive (or functional). We finally get through the ranks of enemies to the sarcophagi. A Sith lord is watching us, with a glint of madness in the eye.

Me: Only the dark lord remains.
Koluss: Not for long.

The Dark lord is mad, and only for this reason we are able to approach him without beeing striken dead. The fierce fight starts. At last, the hands wielding two red blades lose their grip. It’s over. We search him and take a golden ring of his hand, and then we get out to the light. None of us is brave enough to take lightsabers of a cursed man.

Koluss: Do you have the datacron here?
Me: I have found two of them, across the Valleys. But not the one in this valley.
Koluss: Then come.

He brings me to a corpse of young woman. Besides her, a datacron lies. I activate it, and find a red shard inside. I take it with me.

Koluss: We are done it seems.
Me: Seems so.
Koluss: I will call for transport back, and you?
Me: We shall meet again, I sense it. But now I will continue my trials.
Koluss: Yes. I hope so; we fought well together.

He bows before me, but I reply with a slight bow. I am servant of no one.

When he leaves, I head to the ancient urn just next to me. It contains the Jedi belongings. Should have contained. Now there’s only the comlink. I feel anger grow in me. Where are his lightsaber and other stuff?

Some looters pass nearby. They don’t notice me. Ah, now I see.

I wait till one of the looters detaches from the group. I follow him and paralyze him with a lightning. His body shakes and when I stop the burst, he falls to the ground like a puppet, breathing heavily. After a short interrogation I discover that the blue bladed lightsaber and a datapad were brought to the main camp. I leave his body to the beasts, and quite soon his companions follow. I get everything I need.

After a long search I finally find the last tablet of Tulak Hord. I copy its contents; I’ve completed exploration of this dark tomb. It’s time to return to the overseer.