Sometime after the destruction of the second Death Star

Conrad's scarf blew in the wind, just a few more meters to go. Sweat dripped down his face. He reached out and placed another climbing spike, connecting it to his rope and moved his way up another rung of the cliff. Finally, up to the cliff's edge. He reached out with both his arms and pulled himself up.

Dusting himself off, he stood up, before him the ancient tomb he had been looking for.

Korriban, the ancient home world of the Sith, its red sand surface pocked with ancient monuments and crypts from millennia past. Many pillaged by pirates and looters, but if his deceased master's research was correct, this one should be pristine, full of unfettered potential.

What sort of ancient Sith artifact could he find? Or even better, a holocron with its wealth of knowledge, his eyes glazed over as he let his mind wander, dreaming of its untapped power. A moment later, he snapped out of it, remembering the task at hand.

Checking to ensure he had not lost any of his belongings during the ascent, he reached down and felt around with his fingers, paying particular attention to the lightsaber hilt dangling from his belt. He pulled down the scarf covering his mouth, taking his water skin off his belt and took a sip. A moment later he put the water skin back on his belt and wiped his mouth with his sleeve and began walking towards the tomb.

At the entrance, he stopped to let his eyes adjust from the sun-soaked desert to the darkness of the tomb ahead. Walking a few steps forward, he heard metal clanking on the sandstone tile floor. Out of the darkness came a droid, about a meter in size, crafted in shape of a spider. An ancient Sith spider droid, of course he thought to himself, guarding this tomb. He had seen these in other ancient lairs he had explored but they had all been deactivated or previously destroyed.

Conrad, unhooked his lightsaber from his belt, taking it in both hands and igniting the blade. The lightsabers red glow lighting up the tomb entrance. He took up a defensive stance, with one foot in front of the other and holding the saber hilt in both hands.

The droid opened two antennae claws and began to close in. It stopped a moment, letting its claws orient and suddenly both tendrils sparked with blue electrical ferocity that would stun any opponent unfortunate enough to come in contact.

The droid lunged towards Conrad, at that moment he swept out of the way and made a broad counter swing, connecting and viciously slicing the droid's front claws clean off, then rotating the energy blade back and swinging his lightsaber for one more strike clean through the droid's abdomen causing its internal parts to spill onto the tomb floor.

With the spider droid dispatched, the room began to be engulfed with the sound of electric sparks and exuded electrical fumes.

Conrad clicked the lightsaber and its red aura extinguished. He pulled his pack around, opening it and rummaging through found his pair of night vision goggles, taking them out of the pack and securing them around his head. His vision drowned out in bright white before it corrected itself moments later.

He was now able to see further down, it was a long hallway, lined with statues and finally a door with unlit fire braziers to each side.

He cautiously walked down the hallway, inspecting each of the statues along the way but to his surprise no other threats appeared and he came to the fire brazier door. The door featured the expected aurebesh keypad his master had told him of which he quickly punched in the key code 066, the door opened showing the interior of an elevator shaft but no elevator.

Conrad moved towards the edge and peered down the shaft, he could see the elevator itself was sitting on the floor below and did not appear in working order. Once more he pulled his pack around his waist, this time removing one of his climbing ropes.

Instead of using one of his climbing spikes, this time he tied the rope around one of the braziers and began his descent down the shaft, finally making his way to the roof of the elevator which had a small hatch. He opened the hatch and looked inside the elevator. The double doors were closed so he was going to have to find a way through. With that in mind, he vaulted through the hatch and was inside the elevator.

He checked around for a power source but as it appeared before, the elevator was not going to budge. He unclipped his lightsaber once again from his belt, ignited and held it with both arms, he pushed the lightsaber into the door. After a long minute, he had cut a meter diameter circle in the door. He extinguished his saber and put his body up against the cut and pushed it out in the room ahead. He then leaned in and stepped over the newly cut door and stood up inside the next room.

The room was another hallway, this time alight by a set of four fire braziers with two sarcophaguses, the hallway was then split by another perpendicular hallway running down the center and followed by another equal set of fire braziers and sarcophaguses as the section previous. He would have to walk to the center of the hallway to see down the perpendicular hallway. At the very end of the main hallway though was another door.

Before going any further though, and with the room bright enough that he no longer needed his night vision goggles, he took them off and placed them back in his pack.

He walked past the first set of four fire braziers to the center of the hallway. He looked down towards both ends of the perpendicular hallway. In both directions was a caged door with each holding a Tak'Ata beast. The Tak'Ata appeared disheveled and malnourished. They had likely gone mad surviving in this confined environment on a diet of tomb rats for such an extended period of time. At the sight of Conrad, they salivated and shrieked with glee.

Conrad dismissed the idea of exploring in their direction, it would just provoke the beasts further. Instead he continued walking towards the main hallways door to figure out what was behind it.

As he approached the door he heard a click and looked down at his feet and noticed the tile he was standing upon had depressed. At the same time, the sound of rolling thunder and shrieks, he then realized the cage doors had begun lifting and the Tak'Ata were looking for their next meal!

With no time, he turned around grabbing his lightsaber off his belt, igniting it only to watch the two Tak'Ata run so fast that their claws could not find enough grip on the tile floor and Conrad saw both slide into one another as they rounded the corner coming into his view. With the Tak'Ata stunned for a moment, he saw an opening and ran toward the beasts. However, both regained their composure so fast that it proved no advantage to him.

With Conrad sprinting towards the beasts and his gaze now focused on the Tak'Ata to his right, he attempted to go for a killing blow by sweeping his lightsaber towards the Tak'Ata abdomen, but it dodged out of the way and Conrad stumbled. The other Tak'Ata took the advantage and snapped its teeth at Conrad and he moved away from them towards the elevator door he had come through previously. As he moved towards the door, both Tak'Ata pursued him and one of them jumped atop the nearest sarcophagus and then lunged at Conrad. At the same time Conrad countered the lunge by throwing his lightsaber at the attacking Tak'Ata, stunning it and causing the beast to wail in pain.

The opposite Tak'Ata now seeing Conrad weaponless, saw its opening for an attack but Conrad quickly completed a dodging somersault in the direction his thrown lightsaber had fallen to the floor and snatched it up. Now the Tak'Ata was back towards the elevator door where Conrad just had been and the slightly wounded Tak'Ata was still atop the sarcophagus. Conrad, lightsaber in hand jumped atop the sarcophagus and delivered a powerful overhead smash right through the centerline of the Tak'Ata forehead, bursting blood and brain matter in Conrad's face. The other Tak'Ata then jumped atop the same sarcophagus, knocking Conrad off and onto floor.

From the sarcophagus, the surviving Tak'Ata had the high ground. Conrad stumbled back to his feet and retreated away from the sarcophagus to see if the beast would pursue him on level ground. It did so this gave Conrad his opportunity, he once again took up his defensive stance and waited for the Tak'Ata to attack. The Tak'Ata with its teeth salivating began to run towards Conrad and right when it closed in, he vaulted over head of the beast, landing to watch the beast slide head first into the wall. The beast momentarily stunned, Conrad was able to deliver a sundering blow to the beast's abdomen, the beast squealed, and Conrad spun his lightsaber around to cut the beasts head clean off.

With one Tak'Ata defeated at his feet and the other dead atop the sarcophagus, Conrad extinguished his lightsaber. He then noticed both cage doors at the end of their subsequent hallways had closed during the fighting and a fresh Tak'Ata beast was again locked away in each. He imagined if he set off that trap again, the cycle would repeat and thought to himself "Let's not do that again".

Conrad wiped the blood from the battle off his face and walked back to where the trap tile had been depressed, it was back into place, but he now noticed there were five tiles, each with an aurebesh letter. The tiles read from left to right: "F", "S", "F", "M", "T".

A puzzle, he contemplated to himself. He remembered back to his teachings. He sat on the floor in front of the tiles, attempting to meditate and think of the teachings his master had given him.

Peace is a lie.

There is only Passion.

Through Passion I gain Strength.

Through Strength I gain Power.

Through Power I gain Victory.

Through Victory my chains are Broken.

The Force shall free me.

"The Force shall free me!". He walked over to the "T" tile, waiting a moment to gather the mental confidence for his next decision, with his eyes wincing, he stepped on the tile and uttered the word "The", this time no rolling thunder or shrieks. He continued, walking to each tile, proclaiming "Force", "Shall", "Free", "Me!". On the final tile, the door in front of him opened.

Looking ahead, the center of the room was a pedestal, above that floated red holocron in a spinning three-axis rotation. As he walked forward into the room he heard the mechanical hum of droids powering up, and he turned to see a spider drone in each of the four corners of the room.

Conrad once again took up a guarded stance with his right hand covering his lightsaber hilt. The droids this time though, did not show any aggression, instead they continued onto a patrolling path exiting the room and one of them even attended to clearing up the deceased Tak'Ata.

Conrad removed his hand from the saber hilt and put his focus back on the holocron, taking a moment to admire its beauty and again his mind began to bend into a dream of the power that he could achieve.

All his a sudden the power of the holocron overtook Conrad, his body was swept a meter into the air in front of the holocron, his body like a ragdoll and then his arms snapped straight outwards and his muscles began to tighten. With horrible agony, he felt as if his body was turning to stone, and he found himself unable to scream.

No longer in control of his body save for the ability to control his eyes. He watched, wisps of blood red clouds passing back and forth between himself and the holocron, he heard a powerful low voice in his head. A voice that he recognized, his own master! At the same time, the red clouds around the holocron formed the shape of a man in a hooded cloak.

"You are weak apprentice.

But you will do.

We thank you for your sacrifice."

His body tightened one final time, and all his lifeforce, all the midichlorians in his body were exhumed towards the shaped figure above spinning holocron. Conrad's body was released, he fell to the ground, but it was too late, his internal organs had collapsed in upon themselves, his body without movement, his skin now pale and blood began to leak from his mouth and nose onto the tomb floor.

"Your sacrifice shall free me."

A moment later the four spider drones returned to the room, the door closed behind them and they began to scrub all evidence of Conrad's existence from the tomb.