Lorash closed her eyes as she felt the ship fall out of hyperspace, fumbling for the connection she'd once felt to Seia. The mental door remained closed. Either the Sith was still warding her off, or Seia really was dead on Despayre like the vision from the vergence had suggested. With a sigh, she released her concentration on the Force and then drew in a deep breath. For the first time in a long time, she felt halfway prepared to face whatever truth was waiting for them: Yyrfh had been able to adjust Nabeila's armored robes to her measurements, showing an amazing amount of skill at armory to complement his skill with engines.
Much to her disappointment, they'd taken Corr's ship, but perhaps it was for the best that she hadn't made the journey with all of those memories grinding into her face. She wasn't certain if her own tenuous balance would have been able to handle all of that nostalgia and pain bound up together.
"Anything?" Corr asked from the doorway, leaning against the frame. He'd traded his tasteful jacket for heavy durasteel armor and a blaster rifle slung across his back. This mission was more combative than most of his dealings, not that he was uncomfortable with that fact. If anything, the arms dealer had seemed almost eager to put Imperial pawns in their place.
"Nothing." Lorash rose to her feet, hanging her lightsaber from her belt. She donned the mask and then pulled the hood of her brown robe up, letting it fall low over her face. Her protection narrowed her field of vision considerably, but she had such a good grasp on sense that she didn't really need her eyes or even ears anymore. She followed Corr towards the bridge where Eso was bringing them down on the opposite side of the moon from the Imperial ships that they'd followed, low and slow to a landing zone between two of the strange, ruinous pyramids overgrown by jungle that dotted the moon's surface. The stone behemoths weren't visible from above the canopy, but they were marked on Eso's ancient star-charts and planetary data.
Yyrfh was waiting near the cockpit, this time carrying his favorite bowcaster. Lorash knew that even she needed to be careful around that weapon: it was more powerful than even a heavy blaster rifle, firing metal quarrels energized into plasma when the mechanism launched them. If a round went her way and she wasn't able to parry, even her armor might not be enough to save her.
The entire ship shuddered as the landing gear lowered, Eso's fingers dancing across the console in the cockpit to adjust the engines just so. They couldn't risk being spotted by any exploration droids, so he had brought them into a storm. Lorash felt the charge in the air before each strike like the anticipation before a kiss. If Tython had been a still pool, a calmness in the Force, this place was almost its opposite: conflict and echoes of an ancient darkness roiled under the surface of the moon.
"We came to the right place," Lorash said quietly, both dreading that darkness and somehow comforted by it. "Something terrible was done here."
"You, uh, think the rebels are alright?" Eso asked as he keyed the engines down and then off. The ship settled and now Lorash could hear the drumming of a torrential downpour on the cockpit's hardened crystal viewports.
"The conflict here is old. I suspect any rebel forces would have gone to ground the moment an Imperial ship showed up in the moon's skies." Lorash noted the violence of the storm as lightning struck a nearby pyramid. "Do we have a plan for locating them?"
"No, uh, luck with the mojo?" Eso asked as he slid out of the pilot's seat, grabbing his gunbelt and strapping it on.
"I didn't feel Seia," Lorash admitted. "I didn't try for anyone else. With the way the Force is here…I don't know if I could attune the way I could on Tython." She felt like she was treading on someone's grave just being on this moon, whether or not it was really the last resting place of Exar Kun. Beneath their feet slumbered darkness, and it was not sleeping peacefully.
Attuning would pose a risk, Nabeila warned her quietly, sounding far more alert than normal. Better that what is here remains in its stupor of the ages. These ruins have a bloody history and a depraved master. His power and the suffering of those who stacked stone upon stone are anything but benign, even if you are far more sensitive than most to its call. Even the average jedi wouldn't key into it so quickly. Better that we not tempt the shadows.
Then Seia will have felt it too.
Oh, I am certain of it. That is why they brought her.
"Lorash, what are you thinking?" Corr asked, reading her silence as contemplation.
"If we find why they're here, we'll find them," Lorash said quietly. "I think we're much closer than where they landed."
The arms dealer chuckled. "Knowing the destination does tend to take the guesswork out of pursuit. I hope we cut off some of their head start."
"Hopefully," Eso said with a bob of his head. He grabbed a coat on his way to the door, something thick enough to handle the rain. "You think it's, uh, in one of these pyramids?"
"Likely," Lorash confirmed, following him out into the downpour. Even knowing it was raining hard, the assault of water from the skies hit like a battering ram. She winced a little, even with the water running off her robe in rivulets.
Eso eyed the looming grim shapes covered in jungle greenery. "I, uh, was kinda hoping you'd say no. Or lie."
Corr and Yyrf took up the rear, letting Lorash and Eso lead. The jedi knight felt a little like a human dowsing rod as she moved through the area. The moon was colder than she'd expected for a jungle between dusk setting in and the rain, full of things that watched with hungry eyes. She didn't sense anything more than animal minds, but already predatory creatures were trying to determine whether they were prey or higher on the food chain.
Lorash steered them towards the greatest of the pyramids, the dread in her stomach growing slowly with every step forward.
"Anybody else, uh, got a bad feeling about this place?" Eso said as they ascended slippery stone steps, almost kicking a venomous lizard of some variety as they neared the main temple doors.
It shouldn't be this awake, Nabeila warned. The Order was careful to try and purify what they could, and ward away everything else. Someone has stirred at the bloody past.
"The worst kind," Lorash said in answer to Eso, her hand resting on her lightsaber. Ahead, behind the closed doors, she felt something cry out and then suddenly fall silent. "We are not alone."
"Imperials?" Corr asked, unslinging his blaster. "Damn it, I thought we were ahead of them."
"Well, uh, based on that, I'd say we're in for some trouble," Eso said, pointing off to the other side of the pyramid. An Imperial troop transport speeder sat in the jungle there, barely visible through the sheets of rain. "If they've got a guard out there or, uh, any kind of eyes, they'll have seen our ship touch down."
Corr narrowed his eyes, red cybernetic flashing for a split second. "An assassin droid on standby, but no stormtroopers on the exterior. I'd expect to see more movement if a ship just touched down. They must all have gone into the ruins. Certainly enough of a watch to have alerted them, however."
Lorash unhooked her lightsaber from her belt, leaning into the balance of calm she'd learned to find above the fearful tumult. "Then we should expect an ambush," she said firmly. "Let's get inside."
Yyrfh growled in agreement and moved into the lead, using his claws and considerable strength to open one of the main doors. The sound of grinding stone gave way to the smell of burning flesh, potent enough that Lorash gagged despite herself.
"What the hell happened here?" Corr asked as he launched a little floating light from his belt. It was a tiny droid piloted under its own power, answering to his commands, and it immediately illuminated the fresh scars of blaster fire everywhere on the stone. Several bodies lay strewn about the stone in stormtrooper armor, but there was no sign of Seia or her lightsaber.
"Well, uh, it sure looks like they all decided to shoot each other." Eso's words came tumbling out quickly, anxiously, and he drew his blaster. There were probably ten bodies here, which was considerable, but also only half the complement of a regular troop transport matching the size of the one they'd seen out in the jungle. "Uh, that is, some of them did."
Lorash tried not to look at the bodies. The longer she did, the more unsettling the feeling in her stomach, and it had nothing to do with the fact that they were dead. It had a lot to do with the fact that some of them had been half-stripped of their armor and gnawed on. The Dark Side energies she'd felt in the storm now ravaged the surface of her mind, looking for a way in. Seia, what hell did you unleash in the name of revenge?
There was no answer here, only the whispering tendrils hinting at a powerful Dark Side presence, more than anything Lorash had encountered before.
Yyrfh growled, his hackles rising as he advanced towards the far door.
"Wait, my wookie friend," Corr cautioned. "Let the droid go first. Better the light is ahead of us than behind us, you know? People tend to shoot at silhouettes and I have no intention of joining the dead here."
You tread upon the sacred ground of the God of the Massassi, a chorus of voices breathed in Lorash's ear. All at once, the darkness surged around her as she passed through the doorway. The Dread Master. The Dark Lord of the Sith. He Who Has No Equals. You are as bold as you are lost, jedi. This place will be your tomb.
Lorash heard the door to the outside world slam behind them and felt a sudden jolt of panic course through her system. It took her a moment to steady herself.
"That, uh, sounds like we're trapped." Eso's voice sounded a little higher than normal, tight as a wire with anxiety.
The only way out now is through, Nabeila said, somehow still serene even with a tinge of worry entering her tone.
Lorash composed herself, thumb sitting on the switch for her lightsaber. "Let me take the lead, Yyrfh," she said quietly, cutting herself off from the ambient churning of tainted Force. She would have to rely on her eyes here, but there was plenty of light ahead from the little droid controlled by Corr. "I don't think your bowcaster is going to be enough to deal with it."
The wookie growled in protest, but stepped aside to let her past.
Together the four headed further into the complex. Whatever dormancy Lorash had imagined looking down at the moon's surface, the evil here was very much awake.
A snarl echoed down the passage as they approached what Lorash assumed to be a greater chamber. She ignited her lightsaber immediately, the amber flash of light reflecting in large, predatory eyes. The next thing she knew, she was the only source of illumination as the great beast moved, crushing the droid in its jaws.
"The hell is that thing?" Corr shouted even as he fired at it. The blast of plasma from his heavy blaster barely seemed to even get its attention. "A rancor?" The hulking creature filled the passageway, rows of spines decorating its huge back. Its large, angular head seemed to contain altogether too many sets of teeth and a pair of tusks, one on each side of its maw.
A terentatek, Nabeila warned. They are Sithspawn that feed on the blood of force sensitives, Lorash. Beware its venomous claws and bite.
Lorash flowed forward, double-headed lightsaber flashing in a carefully controlled arc just as the Sithspawn lashed out with its claws. She stepped inside its reach, amputating one of its claws. Unfortunately, that only brought her closer to its fangs. The creature surged forward, powerful jaws snapping down at her shoulder as it bulled her backwards. Lorash had to extinguish her lightsaber a split second before being slammed back into Corr and Yyrfh. Eso managed to dodge.
Its bite couldn't puncture the beskar armor she wore, but the crushing force applied threatened to destroy her shoulder. The next thing she knew, she was being lifted high into the air by her torso, the creature trying to adjust its bite to find a chink in her armor.
Yyrfh fired his bowcaster, the plasma passing so close to Lorash's face that it singed some of her hair and threatened to burn her cheek. Fortunately, it moved so fast that it didn't really hurt her. The beast, however, howled as the bolt hit it in the eye. It recoiled back, almost crushing Eso, and lashed out blindly.
Lorash thrust her palm forward, slamming into the creature with every bit of power she could muster in the Force. It slid back far enough that its venomous claws just barely missed Eso. She reignited her lightsaber, drawing its attention with a flurry of movement on its good side.
"Lorash, we need a good shot!" Corr barked.
The hall was too narrow for her to give them an excellent opening, but maybe it could be good enough. Lorash twisted out of the way of its next blow, using a combination of Soresu blade movements and Niman's rushing spirals. She hooked her fingers and tugged, sending Eso flying back behind Corr and Yyrfh where he would be safer, or at least out of the line of fire. Without time to be gentle, he'd probably be feeling the impact, but she hadn't done it too hard.
The Sithspawn's nostrils flared as it prepared to charge again, but this time Lorash was ready. She stepped off line to the side, drawing its vision towards her. Now Corr and Yyrfh would both have good shots at its blind spot. Claws arced viciously, but she parried with a graceful swing, this time severing several claws. It howled and smashed its head into her just as two powerful discharges flashed towards it.
Lorash gasped, wounded ribs cracking again as she was smashed between its head and the wall. Her armor was the only thing that kept her alive. The bowcaster's bolt again penetrated deep into the creature's thick hide, and Corr's shot was so well placed that it hit the already wounded eye. She sucked in the best breath she could and stabbed into it with the end of her lightsaber. Nabeila's weapon burned straight through the hide and into its heart.
The beast quivered, claws flexing and then falling limp. Next its body slumped and pulled Lorash to the floor as she extinguished her lightsaber. She was still so close to its jaws that she could feel the heat of its dying breath, venomous drool spattering onto her armor.
"You alright, Lorash? That was a hell of a hit," Corr said, approaching cautiously. He fired several more blasts into the creature's weak points to be certain it was dead before stepping into reach of it.
"I've been better," she admitted, wincing as she tried to move.
"Do we, uh, need to pull back and check you out?" Eso asked, pushing the beast off her with both hands. He was careful to avoid the claws and teeth.
Lorash shook her head. Reaching the temple's center in a timely fashion was much more important than how her ribs were feeling. She could fight through the pain, which was all that mattered. Seia's love taps were good preparation for that much, not to mention the body hardening and focus drills she'd done under Nabeila's supervision. "There are more pressing matters."
"Are you injured?" Corr asked as she clambered to her feet.
"Cracked ribs," Lorash admitted. "My shoulder's probably pretty bruised too. Otherwise fine." She rolled her shoulders and held out her hand, calling her lightsaber back into her palm. "If there are dangers like this in here, we need to find Seia as soon as possible."
"What was, uh, that thing?" Eso asked nervously.
"A terentatek. They're a particularly nasty form of Sithspawn," Lorash said, carefully wiping away the venom with her sleeve. Her arm was armored beneath it, so the ichorous toxin wouldn't get on her bare skin. "It's probably been here since the days of Exar Kun or perhaps even earlier."
"Then maybe it wouldn't have put your friend on the menu," Corr said, still warily watching the body. "I would have expected it to be dormant. All the reports from rebels in the area is that this place has been dead quiet for years."
Lorash nodded vaguely, trying not to think about whether Seia had stirred this up and set the beast on any intruder. "She is a powerful Sith warrior," the jedi knight said softly. "I don't think even a Sithspawn would have stood a chance against her in single combat. It seems more like it was left here to deal with any who came after."
"Then I shudder to think what awaits at the center of this place," Corr muttered.
The jedi steeled herself, taking a moment to find her calm even as her adrenaline surged in the wake of the attack by the beast. She still remembered the voice she had heard altogether too clearly to feel truly confident and fearless.
You are as bold as you are lost, jedi. This place will be your tomb.