this is my first time attempting a story so I am putting this out their to see if anyone would be interested in it. the opening is extremely similar to "after the fall" by LunaDoptera one of my favorite STWOR stories out their and I highly recommend reading it as it is a million times better than anything i could ever write in my opinion. this story is not about the cannon Sith Inquisitor with Zash but is instead in a different sphere entirely although does happen at roughly the same time. I plan to make some divergences from the cannon but not to many atleast until we would get to the expansions. this is just a prologue for me to post and see if anyone would be interested in this or not so let me know what you guys think.

"Slave."

I ignored both the speaker and the provocation and continued eating my rations bar while reaching out with the force to monitor my surroundings. The dining hall on Korriban isn't a safe place on a good day but there was a huge difference between 'dangerous' and 'lethal'. It all came down to one thing - how many overseers were nearby and did at least one of them care enough to enforce the academy rules.

Right now Overseer Ragate was close by and I could sense Inquisitor Zyn nearby through the force as well. They were easily visible through the force with their auras radiating darkness to intimidate all the acolytes. To me however they meant safety or at least as safe as one could be inside the sith academy. They both were staunch traditionalist and respected the regulations of the sith academy not to mention strength. Since I had slain the group of shyracks and the massive wyrm during some strange blood ritual Ragate had been almost friendly towards. At least as far as any sith could be friendly.

"Slave!"

I finished off the last of my ration bar and washed it down with some water from my water flask that I always carefully filled myself. Being caught off guard on Korriban almost always meant death. I had already seen 2 separate attempts to poison acolytes and wasn't very keen on experiencing it myself.

"SLAVE!"

At this point my visitors voice had gone from angry to almost hysterical. I slowly stood up and stretched before looking at my visitor. I recognized him as Drelos an annoying hothead and the two lackeys flanking him were Alain and Jarin. Both of which were weak followers who posed no threat.

" Drelos " I greeted with the most insincere smile in history." I'm sorry, I almost didn't notice you. Perhaps you should speak a little louder next time?"

I watched as Drelos' head turned a rather unhealthy shade of purple. He has some serious anger issues. Or bad blood pressure. Probably both.

" Learn to respect your superiors slave. Now leave, your betters want to eat without having to endure your presence." Drelos sneered at me.

" You and your friends are free to leave whenever you want , Drelos" I drawled fully aware that any sign of weakness would most likely defuse the present situation but would only encourage more attacks in the future. It was better to just face this problem head on than try to simply put it off until later.

" You think your so clever don't you slave" He growled " I doubt you'll find it so funny when you choke on your dinner. There are so many lovely poisons out there I could use…"

I just shrugged.

" you can certainly try." I said completely unconcerned. I never touched the standard food served in the dining hall after having witnessed the first poisoning. Instead I snuck into the storage room and simply helped myself to a risk free meal unless of course someone was stupid enough to try to poison the whole academy but even then I still used my datapad to scan for any known poisons.

" Or perhaps you'll just find yourself getting electrocuted in the middle of the night." He continued menacingly

I just shrugged again. I always rotated shifts throughout the night with Kreussis just to make sure nobody tried something like that anyways. Kreussis was probably the only person in the galaxy I trusted even just a little. At first it was just an alliance of mutually survival because there is power in numbers so with the both of us we could take turns sleeping to make sure nobody killed us in our sleep and had back up out in the tombs. However over the past couple years we had saved each other several times and a bond of mutual respect and trust had slowly developed.

" Or maybe I should just kill you right now, slave!" he shouted as his anger consumed him.

I watched him draw his blade and prepare to strike me but still I just smirked at him. Just as he was about to strike me down he was engulfed by a powerful wave of force energy and smashed into the wall. Overseer Ragate had entered the room with her trademark elegance, her red eyes shining, and approached with a smile far more unsettling than anything I could manage. I resolved to try to practice that look in the mirror later.

I watched calmly as the woman lectured my would-be killer about the academies rules and laws once again. After she had finished I walked over and patted Drelos on the back - he was in far too much pain to try to make a move against me.

" Amateur" I smugly said, before turning and stalking out of the room with my head held high. Neither of his lacky's tried to stop me.

After I had reached a safe distance, I slipped out of sight and called upon the force to cloak me as I returned to my dorm room to wait for Kreussis to return from his training session. Once I was there I pulled out my datapad and activated the tracking program for the little sensor I had planted on Drelos' back. I knew all too well that retribution was coming but as long as I could see it coming, I was confident that I could handle it and if I needed help I knew Kreussis would have my back. However I hoped that I could take care of this without Kreussis as I knew he preferred not to kill when it was avoidable. In this case however if Drelos did come after me and I let him live he would simply come after me again and again until he either succeeds or I kill him.

KREUSSIS [POV]

I had just finished my training with master Raloch and was headed back to my dorm I figured Crow would probably be there waiting for me so we could finish our daily tasks in the tombs together. Crow was my roomate here and the one person in the hell hole that I actually trusted not to just betray me, if only because he still needed me. We had formed an alliance of opportunity of sorts when we first met here on Korriban and had quickly formed a bond. We worked well together in battle and our styles complimented each other pretty well. I still wonder if he suspects me of being lightsided or not, he is far more cunning and observant than most realize so it was very possible that he did indeed suspect it with spending so much time in combat with me. If so I could only imagine he was planning to use it against me later as a way to make sure I never betrayed him.

"Crow you here?" I inquired as I opened up the door to our room, not wanting him to attack from instinct thinking I was an intruder. It would not be the first time such an incident happened.

" I'm here." responded a voice that somehow managed to sound both bored and smug at the same time. I walked in to find Crow materializing seemingly out of thin air on his bed holding a datapad. I still found it somewhat disconcerting that he could just vanish and materialize at will with such ease and skill despite only learning the ability a couple months ago. It truly showed just how much natural ability he had with the force. Just another example of a slave who showed great power to cement my belief that slavery was not only wrong but it was also wasteful.

" So how many acolytes were there in training today?" he asked in a seemingly disinterested tone. However after spending so much time with him I had learned that Crow never made idle conversations and the calculating glint in his eyes told me he was really asking how many rivals stood in my way to becoming an apprentice.

"Four of us are still alive." I responded with an even tone.

"Then it looks like you are getting a lot closer to finishing your trials here. You only have 3 more obstacles in your way." He said in a neutral tone.

I hate the way he said that 'obstacles' he saw them as obstacles not as people. This is something that I never liked about Crow. for all of his great qualities at the end of the day he doesn't truly value sentient life. He simply saw people as tools to be used or as obstacles in his path.

" So it would seem. Three of my fellow acolytes have died in the past month so at this rate we will be down to the final survivor in two months at most." I told him while internally I felt saddened at the loss of life in such an unnecessary manner. Don't get me wrong I had no problem killing my enemies on the battlefield but simply killing all but one of every group of acolytes seemed like a waste of good people that could be used for the betterment of the empire.

"So what are you studying ?" I asked him curious as to what he was doing on his datapad.

"I'm just looking back over my notes on form two after all you can never have too much practice." he replied. However the subtle glance in my direction made he suspicious that he wasn't telling me the truth. As much as I wanted to press him on the matter I knew from experience that Crow would simply shut down if I tried to interrogate him on the matter. I would simply have to trust him to take care of whatever was bothering him on his own and that if he really needed help he would come to me.

"I need to head into the tomb of Naga Sadow to retrieve an ancient sith warblade, are you able to come?" I asked him. I knew that as skilled as we both were the tomb were dangerous and rival acolytes would likely try to take advantage of the lack of oversight to try and kill off their rivals.

" yeah but after we finish there I need to go and get a bunch of artifact shards from the tomb of Tulak Horde." He said

And with that we both got ready to head into the tombs once more.

Like I said at the start let me know if anyone would be interested in this. as this is a prologue it is far shorter than what I plan to make the actual chapters but let me know what you guys think any constructive criticism is welcome just no flames. Read and Review.