Hello everyone! Here's chapter eight!
Secrets of the Outer Rim II.
Act I.
The Edge of the Galaxy.
Chapter VIII.
Vault of the Ancients.
The Twelfth Sister's wide-winged shuttle settled down on in a clearing in the jungle.
I climbed out of the ship, altogether unsure how to dress. A white tank top for the jungle, a red leather jacket over that for the glaciers surrounding it, and the thickest boots I could find for whatever protection I could get from the lava flows that flowed across this planet as if they were streams. Yet, despite all the contrasts and chaos of this world, the Grand Duchy of Taaszon made working cities here, and those cities were readily repurposed by the Empire. I wasn't quite sure how the Empire explained these well-established structures to the settlers they shipped in when they made this planet the sector capital, but I suppose that, when offered sprawling apartments and high-paying jobs in the Imperial administration, most weren't about to ask inconvenient questions. Regardless of the capital city standing tall in the distance, that didn't seem to be what the Twelfth Sister was interested in.
I turned back to the ship, seeing the Inquisitor walking down the ramp of her ship. She was still dressed in the glossy black armor and had that circular lightsaber at her hip, but her helmet was off, exposing her Tholothian face. No one seemed to know that she was here - not exactly anyway - and there was no one to monitor her, so she could show more of herself here. That must be why she wasn't willing to tell me much on Kordoth's station, but here? I really was hoping to get some idea of what she had in mind for me. I was at the center of far too many competing schemes as far as I was concerned, and I needed to understand them in order to break my way out of them. Nevertheless, when the Twelfth Sister walked past me, she wasn't in a talking mood.
"Follow me." she simply ordered. I hesitated for a moment, wanting to protest, but ultimately followed her on her trek through the jungle, heading towards the glacial wall.
"How exactly does a planet like this form?" I eventually asked, feeling the snow falling as we neared the ice.
"That much is unknown to the Empire. Even the few prisoners they managed to take from the Grand Duchy didn't seem to have much of an idea." she answered.
"Yeah? And what do you think?" I asked, snooping for the reason behind this now that I got a few words out of her.
"Believe it or not, there's another world like this, called Belsavis. There, the ancient Rakata used their machines to twist the planet's biomes to their whims. Jungles right next to glaciers, with constant geothermal activity as the planet itself seemed to protest their manipulations." she spoke as the trees fell away, unable to survive this close to the glaciers. I pulled my jackets in closer as we climbed up the ridgeline separating us from the glacial wall.
"Alright, so why does that interest you?" I still didn't follow.
"Look at Telos. A planet that took an orbital bombardment and despite continuous efforts at terraforming it, some parts of it still aren't habitable - and at our current level of technology, perhaps they'll never be. But a civilization from tens of thousands of years ago could turn a whole world into their plaything? That's not just technology, that's the Force. The Rakata weaved the Dark Side of the Force into their inventions, and that allowed them to become the most powerful empire the galaxy has ever seen. Stronger than Palpatine could ever imagine to be." right...the fact that she seemed aware of the impermanence of her position and her disdain for the Empire gave me some hope - I thought that she might want to escape, and she had some plan that meant she was willing to take me with her - but right now, I wasn't hearing the broken girl that just wanted to get away from her oppressors. Instead, this was the schemer that wouldn't last very long, the very thing that Kordoth warned me about.
"And what if the Rakata weren't here? What if this is just a messed-up world for the sake of being messed-up?" I asked, poking holes in her plan as I pulled my arms along myself, trying to shield myself from the creeping cold. Natural or not, I clearly felt the thick humidity of the jungle when I was there and I'm clearly feeling the bite of the glacial frost here. I'm sure the lava burns in a perfectly authentic way as well.
"Because I've seen it in the Force, a temple buried in these glaciers, and in that temple, the secrets of this world." she confidently explained as she stopped and turned back to me. stopping as well, I looked all the way to the left, then looked all the way to the right, running my eyes across the uniform surface of the glacial wall all the way, and seeing nothing to break the monotony. That much was progress to begin with, because at one time, I would've discounted the very premise that a vision could've guided her here, but after what I've seen of Schweva...I couldn't. The Force has bonded me in such a way that I can talk to a near stranger from across the galaxy, so if something lead the Twelfth Sister here, she probably did see something. That doesn't change the fact that we're standing in front of a wall of ice as far as the eye can see.
"So...where is it?" I pulled my jacket in tighter still as the Tholothian looked across the wall just like I did, as if she could swear the temple would be right here, right in front of us.
"Buried behind the ice." she realized, sounding dejected "the temple stayed still, and the glacier kept moving over it."
"What now?" I doubted she came all this way for nothing, though she clearly wasn't prepared for a deep excavation. I was smart enough to know this was an unsanctioned mission, without approval and without resources. If she were to call in the Empire to carve through the ice for her, that would mean revealing whatever significance it has to her superiors. If she's right about this planet's chaotic nature being down to the Rakata, and the Rakata having had the power to shift planets to their will, then that was a power she intended to use against the Empire, rather than let the Empire use it for their own ends. Granted, that didn't mean that her ends were any better, in fact, for all I know, this is just about her usurping Vader and the Emperor. All I know for sure is that she is unhappy with the state of the Inquisitors.
"The Force buried this temple, and that means the Force can unbury it too." she decided, stamping her feet down and reaching her arms out in front of her. As I realized she was trying to manipulate the ice, I braced myself for an avalanche, thinking her desperate attempt was going to send pieces of glacier falling down on us. To my amazement though, the ice seemed to respond to her attempts, albeit barely. The Twelfth Sister practically growled "Well? Don't just stand there, help!"
"I exhaust myself just trying to use the Force, what do you want me to do?" I shot back, remembering my experiences on Coruscant, overexerting myself just for Agent Cerses to ultimately be the one to capture Poan Skrom.
"There's a mechanism in the ice. Somehow, it will slide open easily like a pair of blast doors. It just needs that initial push. That's all I need your help with." she let go of the ice for a moment and explained. I wasn't entirely convinced, but not wanting to argue with the one who has a lightsaber, I nodded and obliged, standing next to her and followed her lead. Standing up, back straight, and taking a deep breath. She closed her eyes, I kept mine open for the moment, and followed along as she physically reached out, letting her hands guide the Force as they gripped into the seem that I couldn't yet see, but could feel through the Force. I grabbed on as well, closing my eyes then to focus in, and at this point we both started pushing. One way or another, we ended up with her pushing left and me pushing right, with the seem eventually widening as the glacial ice opened like a pair of massive doors. True to her word, once they started moving, they practically slid themselves open, revealing the stone face of a temple that had once been built into the side of the glacier. So then, the glacier didn't actually bury the temple in ice, something else was going on here with those false doors of ice - somebody had tried to hide this temple. Perhaps the Grand Duchy, sealing away the secrets of this world before the Empire could find them.
With that, the Twelfth Sister took the lead again. I didn't know anything about her - not a name, not really her past either, all that I could gather is that she was one of the Jedi captured after their coup attempt, forced to become an Inquisitor. She wasn't happy with being weaponized against her own kind and recognized that, once her role as a weapon was satisfied, the Empire would reduce her to the same fate. So it was clear that she wanted some form of control over her destiny, whether that be escaping or usurping or proving herself more usual than as a mere Inquisitor, and I was part of that plan.
"Any of this look Rakatan?" I asked as we entered the stone temple, walking down a hallway flanked by statues robed figures.
"Not this part, no." she answered "This part is a Grand Duchy temple, built on the model of much older structures on Sith worlds like Korriban. Intentionally or not, it mirrors the Tomb of Naga Sadow in that it's built over an older structure, Rakatan era, and that's what I'm interested in."
"This isn't the first temple you've been in, is it?" I asked, trying my luck with another question.
"It is not. Vader likes to keep us busy of course, and pairing me with a loyal fool like the Eleventh Brother was no mistake, but there are ways to slip away. Precious moments to plan and to find a way to better my situation." she answered.
"Better how?" I pushed as we entered the first proper chamber of the temple, and the conversation died as we were both silenced by the striking mural on the wall. Pale blue beings with red eyes and sunken cheeks, prowling the jungles. They were armed with spears, bows, and other such basic enemies, hunting the local fauna, particularly large, green lizards that drank from the stream ahead. No glaciers, no lava, no cities, yet in this temple, it's clear as day that this is a depiction of the ancient past of Imperius Prime. Exactly how ancient, I had no idea, but old enough that I couldn't doubt the Twelfth Sister's theories. This planet was in a completely different state then, and it was transformed completely.
"The Chamber of the Primitives." she read, pointing to an Aurebesh inscription above the door. Aurebesh...so the temple is definitely recent enough for the writing system to be the same. A Grand Duchy temple, potentially over a Rakata terraforming device, including murals of an unrecognizable version of this very planet. Continuing deeper into the temple, the statues changed from robed figures to depictions of the pale blue aliens, once the natives of this planet, now gone without a trace, because there's no species of that description that I know of, and certainly not on this planet. Just as I was about to ask what happened to them, we reached the next chamber, and the Twelfth Sister stopped in her tracks, stunned and mouth agape.
The pale blue aliens from before were cowering in the jungle, alarmed as strange, alien ships filled the sky. A bulbous head, a thinning neck, and then a wider body almost like the thorax of an instinct, all in smooth black, covered with a series of silver metal polygons, evenly spaced and gently curving along the black surface below in a slight twist, looking like a segmented, armored shell over the ships themselves. And then there was the matter of the aliens themselves, represented here by one of their one. Alabaster white scales for skin, clawed hands and feet, noseless faces, and small black eyes. The alien lightly waved his hand, likely meant as a placating gesture, but the final panel focused in on the hand, closed into the fist, with the text above the next door reading:
"The Chamber of the Subjugation." I read, feeling the chills as I remembered that night on Zletino. Harana'shetton'tringalam told me about her people's history, Shahak'Tur, and their history divided into ages of liberation and ages of subjugation. These pale blue aliens weren't the Shahak'Tur, but with the use of that same word...could the alabaster ones be one of the races she mentioned? The Nar'Hadun or the Vesh'Hadun perhaps? I didn't have any proof, but the thought stuck with me, especially once I heard what the Twelfth Sister had to say.
"That's not a Rakatan." she sounded shocked, like she couldn't comprehend what was in front of her. Her whole theory was built on this, and yet, proof otherwise was staring her in the face "I thought for sure...but who else could have that kind of power? A world like this...Belsavis...it all..."
"He's not a Rakata," I admitted "But his people are showing up with ships and presumably hyperspace capability on a version of this planet without any glaciers or lava on it. It's not who you thought was behind it, but as far as I can see, it doesn't seem to make much difference."
"Perhaps not," she calmed down a bit "Still...to see two planets in such a similar state because of two unrelated species...it doesn't make sense to me."
"Maybe the next chamber will tell us more?" I proposed. The Twelfth Sister took one last look at the mural of the alien, seeing her initial theory shot to pieces, but pressing on anyway. Regardless of who did this to the planet, I was now convinced that she was onto something. Much like the last hallway had shown statues of the primitive aliens depicted, this hallway contained statues of the subjugating aliens. The one with the hand gesture was noticeably taller than the pale blue aliens around him, and that theme continued in these statues, with the spacefaring aliens standing taller than the natives of this world did. The height combined with their alien presence - plus the fact that, based on the Twelfth Sister's reaction, she had no idea who these aliens were either - made for an unsettling image. It was one thing to see a race of aliens you never heard of in their developmental stages, it was another thing to see ones that had dominated and subjugated others. The robed figures were the ones from the Grand Duchy who built this temple, presumably, and then the pale blue aliens were the ones who originated from this planet, but these figures? These were the ones that conquered it. That uncomfortable fact was only made more apparent by the next chamber.
"The Chamber of Slavery." the Twelfth Sister may have been an Inquisitor, but I could hear the discomfort in her voice as she read that out. The mural in this room didn't do much to make us feel any better though, with the spacefarers looking down and watching as the primitives pulled and then raised massive stones. Smooth black blocks, raised up, seemingly serving no purpose other than as a monument to their conquest. Other primitives were tasked with building ships, tanks, engines, and other such vehicles for the spacefarers, and others yet were being armed and directed to walk onto a landing craft of some sort, presumably the natives of this planet being forced to fight the wars of their newfound conquerors. Just like the last room though, just above the door to the next hall, a group of pale blue natives gathered around the fire, holding the stolen weapons of the spacefarers...the first sign of rebellion?
"Black stones and that twisted silver pattern seem to define the conquerors." the Twelfth Sister observed "Neither symbol is associated with the Rakata, and the physical appearance is obviously different, and yet their rule doesn't seem all that different. Conquering planets, enslaving the locals, and using them as cannon fodder."
"In fairness, some people would associate that with most empires." I pointed out, going with my better judgement and leaving out my barb about the Empire specifically. The Twelfth Sister didn't seem like an active threat to me, she mostly seemed like she was dangerous in the respect that she intended to use me in her plans, but I wasn't about to put that theory to the test unnecessarily.
"Hmm," was her simple response, leading the way into the next chamber instead of talking. All the while, we headed deeper and deeper into the glacier. All this ice, so capable of crushing us now, and not a single sign of it in any of the murals. Mountains in the background, sure, but even those were covered in jungle, no signs of snow or ice, let alone the massive sheet above us now. Unfortunately, the answer wasn't all that far away as we walked through the next hall, this time showing statues of the pale blue aliens fighting the spacefarers, but with more statues of the spacefarers and the particularly disdainful looks of the spacefarer statues flanking the entrance into the next chamber, it seems that their attempted rebellion did not go very far.
"The Chamber of Retribution." I read, frowning as the mural now showed the outraged spacefarers inflicting their revenge on their rebellious subjects. The ships rained fire down upon the jungles as the natives tried to flee deeper into the jungle. Masked troops hunted them on behalf of the spacefarers - I couldn't tell, but it wouldn't shock me if behind some of those masks were native soldiers, and if not, the humanoid frames clearly showed them as another slave race of the spacefarers - and the final panel, exactly as I suspected, showed four of the spacefarers gathered around a strange device - a circular table in the center, and four twisted metal columns at each corner, with the spacefarers standing between the columns - activating it.
"The next hallway just shows a mural of glaciers on either side." the Twelfth Sister observed. And that was that, they really did have the power to terraform this world, and when the natives rebelled against their masters, the spacefaring masters just turned the world into a desolate wasteland as punishment. That answered the question of where the glaciers came from, but it didn't answer how the current state of the planet came to be, with its half-and-half state and the lava boiling its way on the surface. Seeing that the Grand Duchy temple seemed to be chronically the history of this planet. They likely had the same questions we did when they settled this planet, and with more time and resources to devote to researching it, they got a lot further than we did.
"How do you think they knew enough about all this to make the murals?" I asked, noticing that the glacial hallway was longer than the others thus far, and eerily silent - likely the intention to convey the emptiness of this planet for the time - so I decided to fill it with some form of conversation.
"Visions in the Force, most likely." she answered. I suppose that with the vividness I see when i see Schweva, I could agree with that answer "While it's not our main role to hunt them, the Emperor makes no secret of the fact that the Grand Duchy is a thorn in his side. Any sufficiently large and motivated group of Force users would be a threat, and this one is one that he already tried his hardest to destroy. These inner systems were the first to fall to the Empire, but then he had to discover the rest. Starting from Taaszon we had to map each world and strike down any resistance there, but even as we mopped up more and more of this space, the Grand Duchy kept being a threat. We don't know where they are, what their numbers are, or where they even came from, really. Maybe the Emperor has some idea, but if he does, he isn't telling us. But we're not blind, we see these built-up planets, we see these ancient temples on planets like this, and we know they're an old and powerful group of Sith."
"They've had their own share of experiences with the Shahak'Tur - Kordoth seems to think they'll be useful for fighting the Shahak'Tur." I pointed out.
"Kordoth focuses on the Shahak'Tur because Taaszon was the Grand Duchy's capital, a trophy in his sector of space, and he lost it. It was already an embarrassment to him that his sector is the one getting raided by the Shahak'Tur to begin with, but to lose a world that the Emperor himself captured? Of course, he's going to use any means necessary to fight them, it's the bare minimum he can do to save face." Hmm, so Kordoth dismisses her as a schemer, and she dismisses him as a common Imperial. From what I've seen so far, I don't think either is wrong, but I don't think either sees the whole story either. Kordoth is faced with a legitimate threat to the Empire, a civilization that only knows conquest. Harana made it sound like there's no room for negotiation with the Shahak'Tur, and despite my own encounter with her going well, even that ended with a threat if we ever see each other again. At the same time, Kordoth is a Grand Moff, perhaps the youngest at that, so of course he knows the world of Imperial politics, and of course he'll be trying to maintain his reputation during all of this. The fact that the crisis is real doesn't change the fact that Kordoth, like any seasoned political figure, will look to get out of it better than he entered it. And for all the talk of the Twelfth Sister being a schemer...she was right about this place. Wrong about the species behind it, but that arguably makes it a greater discovery.
"So how would you fight them?" I asked, wondering if she had an alternative to Kordoth's plan.
"I won't." she answered.
"What do you mean you won't? You clearly see they're a threat if you left me working for him instead of going with you." I pointed out.
"It's not my job to handle the Shahak'Tur. My first priority is to survive under the thumb of Lord Vader, my second priority is to figure out how to better my situation. You'll play a role in that soon, but for now, Kordoth is just a useful way of keeping you out of Vader's grasp while we build our strength and break out of the Empire's grasp." she explained.
"So that's your plan." she finally slipped up and gave me an idea of what was going on "But why do you need me? This whole excursion is proof that you have time away from Vader and the Eleventh Brother, why not use one of those opportunities to make a run for it?"
"Because as an Inquisitor, I'm too precious an asset and as an ex-Jedi, I'm too much of a threat. As long as Vader, the Emperor, and the Inquisitors are around, I'll never escape them for long. And so long as the Eleventh Brother is alive, you won't either." she explained "The only way we survive is if we grow strong enough to cut off the heads of the Empire and plunge the galaxy into enough chaos that nobody will care about two Force sensitive girls."
"And this is the beginning of that?" I realized.
"Hopefully so, but I've already been proven wrong about this place - I don't even know what we're going to find in its deepest chambers." she admitted. She was hoping for the ancient evil she knew, not the ancient evil that nobody seems to know. Even if there is some sort of powerful artifact here, infused with the Force, there's no guarantee that it'll even be recognizable to us. And if it is recognizable, then based on the fact that the Grand Duchy was able to first build a temple over it and then seal it all behind a fake wall of glacial ice, why couldn't they have just taken it for themselves?
"The Chamber of the Interloper." I noted as we finally reached the end of the hallway, arriving in a chamber with no further doorway, no more corridors. This was as far as the temple went. The mosaic here seemed to take place sometime later - perhaps the longer length of the hallway leading to it represented that a greater amount of time had passed - but it still wasn't the Grand Duchy who was arriving here. A smooth, red-orange ship landed on the icy expanse, with a group of humanoids in matching protective suits leaving it, the leader of which wore a black cloak held by a golden chain over his suit and held a matching golden scepter. The modern appearance of the protective suit clashed with the traditional appearance of his suit, but there was one detail that tried to bring them together: the helmet. The protective mask was the same but it was surrounded by what appeared to be the mouth of a dragon, one jaw below the helmet, the other atop it, with the dragon's head extending up above the helmet into a pair of horns, curved inward, and making for a grand spectacle - it's how I guessed he was the leader of the group.
The dragon man lead the interlopers across the glacier for a time before descending into a crevice. The next frame to the mural was a long shot of the crevasse, showing the interlopers as tiny specs continuing deeper and deeper into this endless crack in the ice. They did eventually find something in the crevice, trading ice for the dark, metallic walls of the very same room where the spacefarers activated the device from the Chamber of Retribution. The interlopers had found their way to the room, revealing it to be larger than the original scope showed, as mirroring the four pillars at the ends of the table, there was a much larger, constantly turning pillar in each corner of the room. A moving helix that seemed like it was drilling into the world itself yet there was always move of it coming from the ceiling above, making for a never-ending pattern. Perhaps it was just an optical allusion, and the large column wasn't actually sinking at all, but after all I've seen today, I'm not sure if I could discount anything. The interlopers seemed shocked by this discovery, debating what to do amongst themselves, before eventually all of them turned to the leader, waiting to see what his judgement would be. A severe moment later, the leader stepped forward to the pillar, grasped his staff, and plunged it into the machine, destroying it.
The interlopers panicked as the very planet shook around them. Quickly deciding to flee, they ran down the collapsing crevasse. Ice fell around them, cracks appeared into the glacier, so deep that they finally showed the land below, only for fire to tear through them instantly as the lava revealed itself. The leader stumbled back as he was nearly caught in one of these blasts, struggling to his feet as, in all the commotion, his men ran off without him. Now just focusing on the leader, the mural followed him as he surfaced from the crevasse, as he ran across the buckling glacier, and as he finally reached his ship...only to see it hovering off the ground, his men having already made it onboard and taken off. For a moment, the fire and fury of the planet around them was forgotten, it was just the leader staring down his rebellious crew, while their ship held firm, continuing to hover, making no effort to rescue their commander. Then the ship flew off, leaving with a clear message: their leader had made the wrong decision, plunged this planet into chaos, and he would have to face the consequences for it.
In a defiant final moment, the leader plunged his scepter into the ice in front of him, serving as a monument to his people, and then stumbled back, falling onto the ground behind him. The mural didn't linger, it was clear enough that he died there, but when the crisis was over, the penultimate panel showed the scepter standing at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the exposed jungle below, crisscrossed by streams of magma. This was it then, this was the moment that led to Imperius Prime being in its current state. The interloper, at whatever time he found this planet, destroyed one of the four pillars - one of the machines keeping the planet in this condition - and the end result was a planet covered mostly in glaciers, but containing large patches of the natural jungle of this world, with the lava flows either being a relic of the abrupt and incomplete destruction of the machine, or a sign of the planet itself protesting the spacefarer's manipulation of it. The spacefarers, whoever they were, had the power to twist and corrupt worlds to their whim, but doing so seemed to have come with a cost, as Imperius Prime will never again simply be the jungle planet that it once was. Even if all the machines maintaining the glaciers are destroyed, there will still be the volcanoes and lava flows of the planet itself lashing out.
The final panel then, the last of the murals, was a view from space. Showing the white planet with splotches of jungle here and there, and a few orange cuts across its surface that could even be seen from space. Triangular ships with a piece out of the middle - creating a hangar - surrounded the world. It didn't take me long to realize that this was the Grand Duchy, arriving to find Imperius Prime in this state, and deciding to settle it once more. It wasn't lost to me that they counted their own arrival in the Chamber of the Interlopers, but whether that was a tacit acknowledgement of their colonization of a world that belonged to a people now lost, or some kind of warning not to tamper further with this planet, I couldn't quite tell. Nevertheless, seeing that these machines - infused with the Force, carrying the power that the Twelfth Sister so craved - buried this planet in glaciers and now seeing the violent reaction when one of those machines was tampered with...I was having my second thoughts about this whole scheme. Not that I was going to voice them, trying to argue with the Twelfth Sister now wouldn't do me any good. For now, she has some form of plan, for better or worse, and she does want to get me away from the Empire eventually. The thought of the two of us actually managing to overthrow Vader, the Emperor, and all the other Inquisitors wasn't all that convincing, but at least it was something. Better to be on her good side in the off chance that she succeeds than to be marking myself as a threat. It didn't help that, if she no longer saw me as useful, she could easily give me up to the Inquisitorius and they'd just turn me into another one of their weapons. It was very difficult to find moments of agency when everyone else seemed to wield some kind of power over me.
"Heh, they must think themselves above it." the Twelfth Sister sneered.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Oh please, this room is covered in unsubtle, sanctimonious warnings about using the ancient power, ending right where the next door should be, only for it to be a plain wall. They really did layer it on thick." she noted, pointing out that while there wasn't a door here, the room was still designed the same way as the other chambers, and it was clear to us by now where the door should be. So, it painted itself as the end of the temple, but in reality, this structure continued, just like the Twelfth Sister's vision said it would. That being said, I wonder if she would be so confident that this is a hidden door if she hadn't seen that vision. She was already thrown off when the aliens weren't the Rakata, so a false end might have thrown her off completely if she wasn't so sure this temple wasn't built over the original structure. In any case, when she pushed with the Force, the bricked over door gave way, revealing that the temple, did, indeed, continue.
There was a change though. The Sith-style stones, mosaics, and statues of the temple thus far were replaced with alien metal. Black walls and those twisted metal columns, in the same fashion of the ships that the alabaster aliens had arrived with in the Chamber of Subjugation. The main hallway led forward, but whatever it was was clouded in shadow - no natural light and the architecture being black meant I could see next to nothing - with the aforementioned columns along the wall. These were purely structural, perhaps decorative even, but when we reached the end of the hallway, we arrived exactly in the same chamber we already saw in the mosaics. Elevated platform in the center, topped with the table, surrounded by the four small columns, and the droning, twisting pillars in the corner. One of them was silent, destroyed, as marked by the thick gash down the center where the scepter was plunged into it and the machine turned itself into ruin. Other than the interloper's destruction, the only difference between the room now and the room we saw in the mosaic is that it was reached by a temple rather than a crevasse. In that case, it seems that the temple filled the exact space where the crevasse once stood, showing how civilization reclaimed this planet.
"Wow." I simply said, unable to think of much more now that I'm seeing this.
"Indeed. The spacefarers are long gone and the natives they wished to punish are extinct as far as anyone can tell, the interlopers ran off as soon as they came, and the Grand Duchy has been pushed off this planet by the Empire. All of that history, so many civilizations who rose and fell, and these machines still function. Technology and the Force moving in unison, preserving the very state of the planet. Jungles, lava, and glaciers maintained next to one another in a bizarre form of harmony. An ageless, limitless power, one that even the Emperor couldn't find an answer for - and all we need to do is find a way to harness it." the Twelfth Sister began to gloat, reveling in her moment of triumph as her visions finally came true, as she finally felt vindicated, and yet...I still didn't see a way for her to actually use this power.
"You can't mess with the pillars - do I need to take you back to the last chamber and remind you what happened?" I finally stood up for myself. Leverage or not, I wasn't about to let her destabilize a populated planet in pursuit of a power neither of us really understand.
"Of course not, how would I use a giant pillar like this against Palpatine anyway? Don't be absurd." she scoffed, easing my concerns a little bit. The sting of her barbs was nothing compared to the thought of what might happen if she hadn't said that. She led me over to the table and on it, beneath a lower of dust, sat two scale model pillars, thin, just about a foot long, and easily man portable "Just like I saw in the vision - the same kind of technology as the pillars, only a smaller scale. The ability to use the Force to create a near limitless amount of energy, all in a package little larger than a lightsaber."
"So...what are we going to do with them?" I asked.
"Load them into your bag for now. We're going to head back to Kordoth's station and figure out how these work - and what we could do with them." she announced. I followed her instructions. Perhaps a weapon in their own right, perhaps as a power source, the first step in a larger scheme against her masters. Whatever exactly it would end up being, we had it now, and now we just needed to make it back out of here.
"So, I get it, you think the only way to break free is to kill your masters and anyone else that might be able to track you down, and you don't think you can do it alone." I summed up the situation as I understood it before asking "Why me though?"
"Two reasons," she answered as we passed through the Chamber of the Interloper and into the glacial hallway "The first is, admittedly, a lack of many better options. Vader keeps the Inquisitors on the move, we requisition local troops when we need to rather than having our own assigned to us, and, in my case, my most consistent companion, the Eleventh Brother, is pretty much just there to keep me in check. Loyalty is rewarded, competition is fierce, and our survival is always in question - I couldn't trust any of the other Inquisitors with this because out of sheer desperation, they'd sell me out for treason just to get ahead. You, though, are an outsider. You don't have any love or loyalty for the Empire, nor do you have any ties to the Jedi. You have all the power of a Force sensitive with none of the baggage, none of the pain, none of the conditioning - the Empire hasn't broken you and they don't even have the formula for breaking you yet."
"Lucky me, I guess." I muttered, remembering what Schweva said about me being fortunate and how that was echoed here. The Twelfth Sister is the worst-case scenario for a Force user it seems, she was trained in the Jedi, she probably even fought in the Clone Wars based on her age, and just as her days as a child soldier seemed to be coming to an end and there was going to be peace in the galaxy, the Jedi Coup happened. Well, whatever the Emperor painted as the Jedi Coup anyway, given he apparently has well-developed methods of breaking Jedi survivors and turning them into weapons against the other surviving Jedi. This all seems very orchestrated to me, like Emperor Palpatine was five steps ahead of the Jedi all the way and engineered their destruction - the Twelfth Sister certainly seems to view it like that. Though, on the other hand, considering how quickly the Empire backed me into a corner and forced me into working for them, I'm not sure if my past makes all that much of a difference, at the end of the day, they've pretty well broken me too, just in a different way "I'm sure it wouldn't take them long to figure out how to turn me, if given the chance."
"And that is precisely why I intend to keep you out of their grasp for as long as possible." she answered. That was the comforting aspect of all this, for better or worse. The Twelfth Sister's plan was in its infancy, she was only focused on gathering power for now, not actually killing anyone yet or doing anything irreversible. The point of no return for her scheme is still some far away point, and until we hit that point, she's content to leave me in my current situation. Of course, I've still been more or less conscripted into Kordoth's plans and the threat of the Inquisitors looms over me regardless of her actions, but it was the devil I knew.
So, to that end, I started thinking about Kordoth and Cerses - maybe by the time I got back, we'd already have information back, from Nar Shaddaa or Copero or wherever the Grand Moff figured we'd have the best chance in finding the Grand Duchy and thus Schweva. Shifting my focus from one crazy task I was roped into and onto another, only for us to reach the entrance to the temple and realize that we weren't quite out of this scheme yet again. Because as we reached the surface, we found the ice walls open, and the Eleventh Brother blocking our way out, flanked by a squadron of stormtroopers. The Twelfth Sister and I stopped, seeing his horned, Chagrian silhouette with the light of the planet behind him, making him appear taller, more menacing, like more of a threat than he actually was - though I doubt it would be hard for him to lock the Tholothian in a lightsaber fight while his stormtroopers surrounded us and peppered us with stun bolts...if not outright shooting us down.
"You aren't supposed to be here, Twelfth Sister." I could practically feel the Eleventh Brother's sneer through his helmet.
"Neither are you." she spat back, glaring at him.
"On the contrary, Vader was none too pleased to see you abandoned the Fortress Inquisitorius. He dispatched me right away to your ship's last none coordinates. And where do I find you? Pilfering a Sith temple - one you kept secret from us - with the Asset." I couldn't help but feel a chill when he addressed me that way, dehumanizing, dismissive, but no doubt exactly how the Inquisitors would treat me if he got his way "Perhaps Vader will even allow me to watch as he interrogates you."
"I kept the temple secret from you because I didn't want any of you vultures stealing Vader's favor from me." she shot back, shutting the Eleventh Brother up. She walked over to me, opening my pack, and grabbed one of the miniature pillar devices. Seeing where this was going, I kept quiet about the second one and let her do the talking "An alien device, infused with the Force, capable of generating multitudes more energy than most starships. You can complain about me breaking protocol all you want, we'll see who Vader is happier with when I present him with this."
"You must think yourself so clever." he growled, not the slightest bit convinced by her lie, but seemingly unable to do anything about it. The Twelfth Sister knew her situation well, the Inquisitors really didn't have any power - so as much as he may bark, he cannot bite until and unless he's given permission - I don't doubt that he'd like nothing more than to cut us down and take the device for himself, but he can't do that. Hell, he's even said as much, his mission was to recover the Twelfth Sister so that Vader could interrogate her, if he strikes us down and takes the device for himself, then suddenly he'll be the ambitious one breaking protocol. It was a bold bluff, she wasn't convincing anyone, but she was working her situation to perfection. Kordoth didn't give her enough credit - she is a schemer, but there's a reason she's survived this past five years under the rule of the Empire.
"Easy to do so, considering my counterparts." she smirked, visibly relaxing more that the situation seemed handled - she may have planned out how to handle this, but she didn't know exactly how the Eleventh Brother was going to react. As far as she was concerned, there was still a chance he'd lash out and attack anyway, but she took her chance and, thankfully, it seems to have worked out.
"Get back to your ship - and put your helmet back on, you know the rules." he impotently growled, storming off. A confused moment later, his stormtroopers following, not knowing who the Inquisitors really were - other than they had to take orders from them - or understanding their power dynamics.
"Losing one device to Vader was regrettable - we don't know what he'll manage to learn from it - but it was the only way to buy us time." she whispered to me as we walked back to the ship. The Eleventh Brother was too frustrated to deal with me right now, so I guess I was free to go back to Kordoth's station and see about the next steps in his plans for the Shahak'Tri crisis.
"Do you want mine?" I asked, not wanting to plant any more of a target on my back than there already is by carrying around such a valuable Dark Side relic.
"No, you hold onto it. I'll be under too much scrutiny when I get back. The Eleventh Brother will be looking for any opportunity to take revenge and I doubt Vader will buy my story either. Giving him one of the devices buys us time, it doesn't fix our situation." she explained as we boarded her ship again "I'll need to keep my distance for now. Keep the device safe and secret, I'll contact you again once it's safe."
"Understood." I nodded. I couldn't say that I trusted the Twelfth Sister completely, but her plans for me at least ended with me being alive and free, even if them actually succeeding seemed like a longshot. Not only that, but after today's events, I saw that the Eleventh Brother was going to be a problem - he knew about me, he didn't like that the Twelfth Sister was keeping me secret from Vader, and if he had his way, he would've already turned me into an Inquisitor - we needed to get rid of him. Ugh, this situation is already making me think like the Twelfth Sister, a single day with her and I already feel like the walls are closing in around me.
Schemes and Lore: the Chapter.
Ciao!