The Dark Side's Lure
"This is indeed a Sith artifact, confirmed by several high-ranking Jedi Masters themselves." The short Chubbit Jedi instructor held up a small pyramid-shaped object in his cloth-rapped hand. "I do believe they called it a Fornath, a well in which they bestowed much of their own power."
Nerca Gomika Beyul looked up from her datapad notes to look at the Sith relic. It was a small golden pyramid, covered by Sith symbols.
"The power is dark and corrupt, made to be saved for later times, when a Sith may have been low on strength. He or she could then take advantage of the power source he'd laid inside and replenish him or herself."
Nerca—more widely known as Gomika because her sister's name was also Nerca—raised her hand to ask a question.
The instructor gestured with a fat hand. "Yes, Student Beyul?"
"Does that mean that the power well can be tapped?" she asked.
"Yes."
"By the Sith alone or just anyone?"
The Chubbit's wide face was split by a frown. "Anyone with enough power to reach into the well with the Force can tap it. I believe it would be difficult for a student to even draw on its power at all, but a Master could do it easily."
Gomika saw her twin sister, Nerca Sombal, giving her a strange look that said "Why did you even ask?"
"That's very interesting," Gomika said to the Chubbit instructor. "And then it'd give the tapper more power?"
Again the instructor's face displayed a frown. "Yes, dark power would then flood the one who tapped it. You have interesting questions, Student Beyul, but we must continue this lesson."
She nodded.
"Now then, the power that would then overflow the individual would be dark and evil," the instructor said. "It is believed the power is addicting and overpowering, especially the first time. Those who not strong enough but touch it anyway perish, or are taken into a deep nearly mindless state, where they are out of contact with the world around them."
Gomika's attention drifted away from the instructor to her own thoughts about the Sith item. She had to admit that deep down, she was attracted to the idea of a power well, capable of being drawn upon by any Jedi, or Sith for that matter. True, the instructor said the power was evil, and overpowering, but what did he really know about it?
Yeah, she found herself thinking. What does he really know?
She looked at the item in his hand and raised her hand for a question. "Um, are we allowed to examine it?"
One of the instructor's hairless brows rose. "No, you cannot. Master Skywalker will not allow it. He says that it may accidentally be tapped, and then we might lose a student, and a future Jedi. Besides, even if a young student touched this, he or she would probably be taken over by longing to have its power, and then would probably be lost to the dark side, or torn apart by their own wishes."
Yeah, right, Gomika thought.
"Now, where was I?" The instructor continued on with his lecture. Gomika found herself barely listening.
After the class, Gomika found herself waiting around just down the hall from the classroom, waiting for the instructor to leave. She wasn't entirely sure why, but she guessed it had something to do with that Sith Fornath, and her desire to examine it closer.
"Hi, you're Beyul, right?" Gomika heard from her left. She turned to see a small, wide-eyed Twi'lek student hovering there with an armful of holobooks.
"Um, yes," she answered cautiously.
The Twi'lek nearly dropped his books, and scrambled to keep them in his arms. "Excuse me, but which Beyul are you?" he asked shyly.
"Well, I'm Nerca Gomika, and my sister is Nerca Sombal. And you are…?"
He gave her a shy smile. "Sorry, my name's Hyrokk." He offered his free hand for a shake, but Gomika just ignored it. Hyrokk saw this and withdrew his hand quickly. "Um, can I ask why you and your sister have the same name?"
Gomika rolled her eyes. She'd grown all too tired explaining this. "To make an extremely long story short, it's a family thing. We were named for my great-aunt, the original Nerca Beyul, the great Jedi Master of the Old Republic."
She noticed the Chubbit instructor hurrying away down the hall from her, without the Sith Fornath in hand.
"Interesting!" Hyrokk said.
Gomika pushed past him toward the classroom's slightly cracked door. "If you'll excuse me, Hyrokk, I need to do something."
She came to the door and turned around. Hyrokk saw a glimmer in her eye. "Actually," she said to him, "I'd like you to come keep watch."
The "Fornath" was not as Gomika had seen it a moment before. Somehow it seemed more welcoming, more pleasurable than it had.
She reached out a hand to touch it…
"What are we doing?" Hyrokk asked.
Her hand curled back. "I'm just checking something out." Back out to touch the pyramid her hand went.
"What kind of something?"
Back it curled.
"Nothing, really," Gomika found herself saying. "Go and stand watch at the door."
"What—" the Twi'lek began.
"Don't ask, just do!" Gomika snarled, more viciously than she meant to. She actually scared herself a bit with the harshness.
Looking hurt, Hyrokk obeyed and slunk back to the doorway to stand watch.
Gomika ignored her fierceness for the moment, and reached back out for the Fornath. Her hand was inches from touching it when she stopped for a moment, something inside her whispering, This curiosity will destroy you, Nerca Gomika. Life after this will never be the same!
And then there was a reply, So be it!
And she reached out and touched the pyramid.
For a moment, nothing happened and Gomika was severely disappointed. The artifact's outside was smooth except where the indents of Sith symbols interrupted it, slightly chill, but nothing else.
As Gomika grunted with anger and pushed into it with the Force, the deep power inside the Fornath was released, and she was completely engulfed by it. Her vision of the Yavin 4 classroom fell away and all she saw was swirling darkness.
And then before her eyes a vision appeared.
Two figures were engaged in a lightsaber battle, one with a violet blade, the other with a blood-red one.
They whirled so that Gomika could see their faces, and she noticed they were very similar. And both had dark eyes, and black hair, though the one with the red lightsaber had a cut down one side of her face…
And then the swirling black around her became too much for Gomika, and she passed out, unconscious.
She awoke what she assumed was probably about ten minutes later, lying on the floor in the Jedi Academy classroom's floor, with Hyrokk standing over her. She was aching all over, but especially in her hands, and there was some kind of burning across her throat and face in one line.
Her hand went up to feel across it, and found a nasty scratch there. And it ignited with pain when she touched it.
"Yow!" she mumbled, afraid that if she said it too loudly, it would attract attention. And then she looked at her hands. They were burnt, though not badly. "By the Force!" she whispered. "What happened?"
"I think it's that thing you touched," Hyrokk answered. He looked over her shoulder at something on the floor. "You had it in your hands when you hit the floor, and then you let go and it scratched your face. And it seems it burnt your hands too."
Gomika blinked. "Well, now, that's strange." She sat up, and yelped with pain as she did so. "How long was I out?"
Hyrokk shrugged. "Uh, I'd say about a standard minute."
Gomika's eyes bulged. "A minute? I thought I'd been out for nearly a half-hour!"
"Nope."
Gomika turned and carefully picked up the Sith artifact. It was completely unchanged, just as it had been before she touched it. She laid it exactly where it had been.
Her hand burned. She tried a trick she'd learned a while back and used the Force to relieve herself of some aches. She found it easier to do than it had been in previous times. A lot easier.
She grinned. It had to be the power she'd drawn from the Fornath… And it felt good.
Gomika found herself thinking of future times when she could touch this power again. And draw from it to help herself excel… With this new strength, she could be the greatest Jedi here!
And so Nerca Gomika Beyul—later known solely as Nerca Beyul the Dark—became one with the dark side of the Force.