Khem and I left lunch and headed back to Zash's home to gather supplies that we might need, something moderately similar to what we'd taken with us to the jungles previously. My master met us there a few hours later as we waited for a droid to return with some field rations and fresh water purification tablets.
"Well, Apprentice," said Lady Zash. "There's your excuse to go beyond the wall."
"Why do we need me to go beyond the wall again?" I asked, knowing full well she hadn't said a single thing about my real mission.
"There's a Sith Lord by the name of Gratham who lives in an estate beyond the wall," said my Master. "It's near enough for you to stop by on your way and on your way back; the perfect cover. I have a contact there, a scientist, who's been working on developing a special item for me. His name is Dorotsech, and he's one of Lord Gratham's top researchers."
"What exactly is he making?"
"An interdictor field that will trap and hold any droid that comes within it," she said smugly.
"Any droid...or any cyborg?" I asked, seeing immediately what she intended.
"Skotia is more than enough machine to be affected," Lady Zash said. "This is the last piece that we need; that cyborg is still stuck on Korriban, selecting a new apprentice, so we have plenty of time for you to get the weapon, find Chiara's apprentice, and make it back here to set the trap."
"It is dishonorable not to face your enemies in fair combat," grumbled Khem.
"Silence!" she snapped at him. "It is prudent to use every advantage to advance one's power." She turned to me. "Dorotsech will meet you early tomorrow morning in the market area of the compound at the front of Gratham's estate. Remind him that I will pay him half again what I promised him when I successfully use the item."
"Of course, my lady."
However, an early morning meeting meant that Khem and I had to go on another nighttime speeder ride. We took a public speeder out to the wall, a towering structure that jutted out of the massive jungle trees, dark against the dusk. I wondered briefly why someone would build such a thing in such an odd place; it didn't seem to be protecting anything of note, but then again, perhaps in the distant past, some powerful Sith had more obvious reasons. Not wanting a history lesson, I didn't bother asking Khem what he knew of it.
We chartered a private speeder to take us directly to Lord Gratham's estate, and we arrived in the early hours of the morning. The massive main estate and its various outbuildings were surrounded by a tall, well-guarded wall, but outside the main gate, a small village had been built to support the needs of the various staff and support people and droids that served the Lord. There were people already up and hard at work, so we shouldered our packs and began to walk towards the section that appeared to be the market. I smelled food.
"Khem, keep an eye out for our scientist," I said, remembering the image Lady Zash had shown me. I led him through to a small bakery manned by a human youth and two droids. After purchasing caf and a parcel of meat-filled pastries, I stood by the tall table and watched the crowds. The locals were intimidated by my presence, and although they queued to get their own food and drinks, none stopped to eat at the other available tables.
"There is the man," growled Khem. I turned quickly to see a small human, not much taller than I was, slipping into line at the cafe. He bought a small cup of tea and approached us, choosing to stand at the table beside me.
"My lady, my name is Dorotsech," he said, with a little bow. "I have created the device that Lady Zash ordered."
"Excellent," I said.
"I've been testing it," he said, "but because I didn't have much warning of your coming, I did not have time to prepare the new power cores necessary to power the device. I can do so, but it will take me all day to harmonize the correct frequencies to suitably sustain the field."
"I see," I said.
"The device is finished!" he quickly assured me, "And I can meet you here again tomorrow to provide you with it and the cores."
"I suppose that'll have to do," I said, feeling very put-upon. "As it happens, I have business of my own to take care of in the area. I'm not sure when I'll return, but I assume it won't be long. If I'm not here, you'll just have to continue to return to the cafe every day until I am, is that understood?"
"Yes, my lady," he said, a stressed tone in his voice.
"Lady Zash wanted me to remind you that she pays you very generously," I said, "and that upon successfully testing the prototype, she'll give you what was agreed upon."
"My Lady Zash is very magnanimous," he said, fiddling with his drink. I didn't know what that meant, so I sniffed haughtily. "Please reassure our Mistress that I will be the soul of discretion."
"See that you are," I said warningly. He got the message, if the large gulp of tea he took was any indication.
"I'll see you soon, my lady," he said. With a small bow, he hurried off. Khem and I finished our breakfast, in no hurry now that we'd met our contact, and then Khem and I headed out on our journey. Lady Zash had provided plenty of credits, so I hired a speeder and had it head out over the jungle trees, away from Gratham's estate and deeper into the wilds of Dromund Kaas.
"We've reached the coordinates, my lady," said the droid pilot. I peered carefully over the side of the open speeder, down at the thick, practically seamless canopy. No room for the vehicle to land; I couldn't even see down to the jungle floor.
"Where is the nearest clearing?" I asked. It paused for a moment, accessing the most recent aerial maps of the region.
"East by Northeast, almost a kilometer," it reported.
"Let us out there," I ordered.
"I cannot guarantee your safety," said the droid flatly. "The..."
"I accept the risk," I said, and it obeyed me. I sank into the force, feeling the familiar wind chill my soul in spite of the humidity that had only worsened the deeper we drove into the jungle. My forcesight blossomed around me, and I focused on sensing any living creatures or lurking dangers in the trees. Nothing stood out to me-just the expected flora and small creatures, both on the ground and in the branches. "We can land."
Khem and I climbed out after getting the speeder's comm frequency and unit number for our return journey. Shouldering our packs once more, we began hiking through the jungle, back towards where Lady Shalath's apprentice supposedly lay. Khem was always more lively once we were outside. He moved deceptively lithely, making almost no sound as he slipped between the thick underbrush. I was smaller than he was, but I felt like a nerf, tromping noisily through the mud, getting my feet stuck in roots and grass, slipping on the moss-covered stones, and even breaking smaller branches accidentally.
I didn't need Khem to tell me when we'd reached our destination. We came to a section of forest that stank of decay and death. At the foot of one large tree lay the body of something humanoid, positively covered in flies. I stepped forward and fanned with my cloak, driving them away and revealing what had clearly once a Sith Pureblood. It was slumped, large, bloody bandages wrapped around its already-decaying limbs. Maraad's red flesh was oozing and swelling in the places that it was still intact; scavengers had begun to devour his body, quickly reclaiming it for the soil.
"He fought well," said Khem, looking down at the ground. I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering what he could see that told him that.
"There were many vine cats," he said, gesturing around the area. I realized that there were corpses of the beasts in various stages of dismemberment strewn all about the area. Khem pointed specifically at a tree, at marks where a lightsaber had hacked away some of the lower branches. "They attacked him from all sides, including above, but he defeated them all, for they did not feast on his flesh. He died from venom, not wounds."
"Where are the runes?" Lady Shalath had sent her apprentice with five carved crystals so that he could complete a ritual and acquire whatever it was that she needed. "Where is his pack?" I held my breath and gingerly used a nearby branch to shift the corpse, but it wasn't beneath the body. Thinking he might've ditched it during the fight, I paced the area, looking for signs of where he could've dropped it, but found nothing.
"Do you see his pack, Khem?" I asked. The Dashade shook his head, scowling. As I continued to search, I felt the desperation rising slowly in my chest.
I pulled out my comm and tried to call Maraad, thinking that the chime might alert me. I heard the quietest, sublest ding, and I held my breath, focusing on trying to locate the sound. It was muffled, somewhere behind me to my left, and as I turned slowly and headed in that direction, I could barely hear it become clearer. I persevered, step by step, sometimes closing my eyes to concentrate more. Khem had fallen silent and stood behind me, like a great, hulking shadow. I called again.
"There," said Khem, just as I too identified the source of the sound. It was a small hole, narrower than my shoulders, but wider than my head, situated just at the base of one of the massive jungle trees. I could barely see it between the tangle of roots. I carefully turned up the light clipped to my belt and held it out, shining it into the blackness, but all I could make out was the beginning of a tunnel. Clearly, some animal had dragged the pack down its burrow. Now what was I to do?
"Is the creature inside?" Khem asked. I shrugged, and he gave me that flat, unimpressed glare that made me realize what he wanted.
"Right," I said, stepping back a little and dropping my own pack. Feeding my frustration into the force, I pulled the dark side closer around me and stretched out my feelings, trying to sense the life around me. My presence in the force was a small maelstrom in the winds around us; Khem was an odd shadow, not quite disturbing the way the force flowed around him, but not completely invisible only because I knew exactly where to look for him. The bugs around us were tiny specks of life among the larger presences of the jungle trees. At the base of the tree, two or three meters down, was a small creature.
"It's there."
"Probably a sleen," said Khem, eyeing the hole and bending to examine it closely.
"Can we lure it out?" I asked.
"Unlikely," he said. I waited for a helpful suggestion, but nothing was forthcoming.
"I don't want to have to come back with a shovel," I complained. It seemed somehow very demeaning to have to do manual labor, but I didn't think I had enough credits to buy an excavation droid, and I didn't want to wait for Zash to send one from Kaas City. That would draw too much attention to my movements, anyways. Khem laughed at me.
"Even now, you are still a slave," he said.
"Helpful as always," I drawled, reigning in my fury at his accusation. The more I showed I was upset by his words, the more he would use them to attack me. My mind raced, trying to prove him wrong. But in this, he was right. I was thinking like a slave. Five months earlier, I would've grabbed tools and dug them out, using my bare hands if necessary. But I was a Sith. How would a Sith handle this? I wondered. What would Zash do?
Deep in the dark side as I was, I put forth my hand and tried to probe the burrow with the force. I felt foolish, but I wasn't about to quit. I wasn't very good at telekinesis, but I knew how to do it. I'd never tried to lift something I couldn't see before. I concentrated with all of my might, trying to locate the missing pack with the force. I could sense something odd, something off, in the burrow, which I assumed was the crystal runes I needed, but I couldn't seem to get my mind wrapped around them. They lay at the back of the burrow, in a larger space where the creature still waited.
The sleen was frightened but alert; its wariness felt sharp to my senses. I knew that it was prepared to defend itself against me. I focused closer on it in case it was about to come boiling out of the hole and attack me, but it still stayed huddled in the darkness. As my mind reached out even more to the creature, I found myself pushing back against its sharpness, and it was almost startling when it gave way before me. It felt mellow, calm, and I pushed harder, suddenly wondering if I could influence it further, as Skotia's apprentice had done with the yozusks and gundarks. I'd felt the influence of his mind over those creatures, so I tried to stretch my force awareness over the sleen, trying to imitate the web-like way he'd wrapped the force around the beasts.
It felt like it took a long time, but Khem had not yet begun to complain when my consciousness shifted. I didn't know what I'd done differently, but all of a sudden, it was as if I slipped into place and everything went still. I could feel the sleen pressing back against my mental invasion, but the force held it firmly in my grasp, and it didn't struggle much. I pushed forward, deeper into the core of the creature, and it was as if I'd opened up senses that I'd never known I'd had.
I could hear the way sound echoed through the underground chamber. The dirt felt cool under my powerful clawed feet. My full belly rubbed against the ground, and I opened my eyes. For a moment, I saw double-one point of view from outside the den, beside Khem Val, and another from within the hole, where I could see clearly in the near-blackness. Then, as I closed my real eyes and concentrated on what the sleen was perceiving, I found myself viewing things in a spectrum of colorless texture that was entirely foreign. Nevertheless, the outlines of objects were still distinctly visible, and there, beside the sleen, one pouch ripped open and completely shredded, lay Maraad's pack.
Bite the pack, I urged the creature. Drag it again. It couldn't understand my words, but its mind reacted obediently to my intentions, and it scurried forward to seize the leather bag in its mouth. Then it turned backwards and dragged it centimeter by centimeter up the long tunnel. As it's tail emerged from the hole, Khem Val made a sound of surprise, and I pulled back again from the sleen to open my eyes.
I blinked a couple of times, trying to adjust my vision. The Dashade had his blade out, ready to attack as needed. "Hold, Khem," I said. I had to withdraw even further into my body, and my control of the sleen waned. It bucked against my mind, and I held it tightly in the force. "If it attacks, defend me. Otherwise, leave it alone."
"As you command," he growled. I seized the sleen again and forced my will down upon it. It resumed its slow passage out into the dappled sunlight beneath the forest canopy as I tried to find a middle ground between being so deeply in control of the sleen that I lost track of everything else, and losing control of the beast entirely.
"Get the pack, Khem," I said, wondering if I could hold my influence over the sleen while the Dashade came near, for the small creature was practically flooded with fear in the presence of such a large predator. Khem huffed and gave me a sidelong look, but as I reached out with the force to urge the sleen away, he grudgingly stomped forward to get the bag.
"One of the runes is missing," said Khem. I pushed the sleen back down into its hole, urging it to search for the not-food in its burrow, and it quickly located a few scraps of leather, a multi-tool, and finally the crystal rune. It held it in its mouth and scampered back out of the hole. I was very nervous that the beast would swallow, leaving me no choice but to eviscerate it and retrieve the rune that way, but to my great relief, it made it out of the hole and dropped it at Khem's feet. The sleen felt weaker to my senses now, as though its force of will was being lessened by my continued presence.
I released my hold, and it gave a long shiver and then scurried back into its den. My head felt as though I had sand in my ears and sinuses, like the one time I'd almost been caught in a sandstorm on Korriban, but triumph was singing through me. I'd done it! I'd handled my problem like a sith, displaying new prowess in the process! Now I could control beasts! Well, potentially control beasts, and with much practice, I reminded myself.
"Lady Shalath will be pleased," I mused out loud, hefting the heavy runes as I loaded them into Khem's pack. They were carved pieces of a semitranslucent crystal, sleek in their understatedness and heavier than I expected them to be; the runes were inlaid with something like durasteel. "Is there anything else that's missing?"
Khem didn't fidget; his stillness belied the impatience I knew was filling him. I opened Maraad's datapad and started looking through his instructions, for I wanted to make doubly sure that I had everything I needed. As I read Lady Shalath's words, an idea took root in my head. I knew it was reckless, but riding on the high of my success, I felt like I could do anything.
"Change of plans, Khem," I said, making a snap decision. I held out the datapad, highlighting coordinates. "We're heading here. There's an altar, and we're going to finish this ritual for Lady Shalath."
"You're joking," he said.
"Nope," I said, holding my breath as I bent over Maraad's body to claim his lightsaber. On Korriban, the dead dried out in the desert climate until they were completely desiccated, weighing little more than my satchel. Here, the corpse's bloated, rotting, eyeless face made me want to vomit. I shuddered. "Lady Shalath wants a vial of venom from a Sith-spawned beast. We go to the altar, place the runes and a venomous creature on it, and then I channel the force through the runes, which should change the beast somehow. We get the venom in this bottle" I held up a tempered glass vial from Maraad's shredded pack "and we're done. Easy."
"If I must," he said, rolling his shoulders.
We trooped deeper into the jungle. We weren't far from the spot; it was a shallow natural cavern in the side of a mountain, framed by two converging rivers. The altar inside was formed of large, roughly cut slabs of stone; some light came in through the broad entrance, though, so I didn't mind going in. I paused by the entrance; the dark side felt twisted, sideways, somehow, as though the force was following an invisible groove. If this place has been used for a particular ritual again and again, over hundreds or thousands of years, that has to have had some effect on the force, I mused.
I set the runes on the stone as Lady Shalath had described, and I dug out a set of beast snares and restraints from Maraad's things. Then I settled down to try to find a creature. The forest was surprisingly empty of animals; I sat, meditating, trying to force the dark side to bend to my will as I stretched farther, trying to find something. Another sleen caught my attention, and I drew my web over its mind. This one seemed rather docile. Once under my sway, it was perfectly willing to prance through the undergrowth towards my location. I wasn't able to give it directions, exactly, but I could draw it closer to where I felt myself waiting. Nearer, nearer, until finally, through its strange, colorless gaze, I could see the cavern.
"Khem?" I said, practically falling flat on my face as I came back to myself a bit and tried to stand. My legs had lost circulation. It was almost night; I hadn't noticed the passage of time, deep in my meditation as I was, and my view from the sleen's eyes hadn't revealed the sunset's vibrant colors. The Dashade laughed at my blunder.
"Khem, tie the sleen to the altar," I ordered, trying to regain control of the situation and the sleen simultaneously, for my hold had slipped and the beast was in danger of fleeing. Under my thrall, the sleen did not struggle as Khem collared the creature and fastened its head to the altartop. I wasn't sure what sort of changes might take place, so I had him teather all of its limbs as well, just in case. The altar had more than enough anchor points installed in it.
"Be ready," I said. My earlier confidence had waned and as my doubts set in, so did my grasp of the dark side weaken. I began to draw on the force, using each rune in turn as a nexus of focus. Mindful of the strange echo of patterns in the force that I'd sensed previously, I tried to bend the flow of the dark side to follow what I thought had come before. I knew I was close. It felt almost right; just a little too wild and free. I released my hold on the sleen's mind entirely, and the beast began to thrash and struggle, hissing violently. Without my concentration split, I bent myself to my task and felt the exact moment it clicked into place. What started as a small wind roared into a gale of the dark side flooding through my body, through the runes, through the sleen, winding, twisting, melting, changing. The creature keened, a horrible ringing shriek as though it was dying, and the sound changed as I watched the sleen's neck bubble and shift under the skin. I let the power die away.
The sleen lay panting, its long tongue lolling out of its mouth, foam and blood dripping in equal measure. The force had remolded its face to be more angular, less rounded, and its fangs were larger and more pronounced. Its eyes still faced forward, but the skull had grown ridges of bone around them to protect them, emphasizing its predatory nature. The creature was obviously bigger, both in height and length, and I noticed how its fourth rear claw had become more pronounced, more barb-like. The tail had grown a heavy, club-like scaly protrusion, which it was now whipping around as it growled and hissed, flailing against the cables binding it to the altar.
I reached out to calm the beast, but the moment the force touched it, the creature ceased its mindless thrashing and focused on me. The sith spawn was snarling now, an eerie sound from a sleen (or what once had been a sleen), and its energy was now entirely devoted to breaking free and attacking me. It was a little frightening to see that much menace coming from the creature. I tried again to cover its mind with the force, imposing my will upon it, but the dark side seemed to feed it, not control it. I was making it worse. It managed to wrench its left rear foot free of the tether, and I gave up.
"Kill it, Khem," I snapped. The Dashade took three steps forward and swiped up with his sword. The sith spawn tried to dodge but couldn't escape him. He cut deeply into its throat. Blood splurted everywhere, but it quickly slowed to a steady flow. The beast was weakening, stumbling to its knees, but even dying, it stared at me with hatred. I was glad to have it gone. I didn't like the beasts on Drommund Kaas already, and comparing this thing with the sleen it had once been left me feeling rather unsettled when I considered what changes might have occurred with a fully grown vine cat or gundark.
Extracting the venom sacks was easy for me, who had grown up having to carefully avoid poisoning myself when eating the venomous lizards of Korriban. I used a small knife to cut away the sleen's head and mouth until I found the opening for the sac, and then, having placed a jar beneath the fangs to catch any venom that might drip, I cut into it and allowed the dangerous liquid to drain into my vial. Protective gloves kept it from getting on my hands, but I was still very careful. I didn't want a single speck of the modified venom or even the blood to touch my skin, just in case.
"I think that will suit Lady Shalath just fine," I said smugly, stripping my bloodied gloves away. "Now let's get back."