Crossing Paths (Matsu Xiangu)

[Garet Stalan]

Korriban​

An Unknown Temple​

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Garet's hood had barely stopped the blowing sands of Korriban's desert from attacking his eyes, making him glad to be inside and away from the brewing sandstorm. The man lowered his hood, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darker insides of the mysterious temple. Nothing but his instincts had brought him here, when nowhere else he looked seemed to hold the knowledge he required to become stronger. Hope was a distant light now, and it almost seemed as if Garet's journey to power would end before it really started.

Drawing out his lightsaber and igniting it's bright red blade, Garet illuminated the path before him, a cruel stone hallway with walls covered in strange symbols. It didn't seem to be the temple or tomb of anyone important, but Garet's knowledge only stretched so far. As he continued down the path, he got the strange feeling that something was ahead, but he wasn't sure what...

A sound. A footstep? "Hello?" He whispered, aiming his lightsaber forward slightly in case of an attacker. Taking a deep breath, Garet turned the corner.

[member="Matsu Xiangu"]

 

[Matsu Xiangu]

The piece of the Ravager she still held on to hummed in her pocket – she thought, perhaps, that it sensed proximity to its other half…to its completion and awakening.

She wondered if it would burn Kail Ragnar, wherever he was in the Galaxy, to know that the sacrifice he’d made for her, the entire reason they’d been on Korriban in the first place, had not panned out. The last time she’d been on this Sith planet had been in search of the relic she possessed half of now and the mercenary had been there as extra protection. In the end, he’d protected her just fine – he’d taken the blow to the face that would most likely have killed her, lying in recovery for weeks with his jaw and pride broken.

She smiled at the thought of him somewhere out there, discarded.

But the Ravager was useless without its other component. The piece, according to any records left intact after the Gulag plague swept the galaxy, spoke of an experimental device created by the Sith that when placed over the head of a subject, brought all the secrets they swore never to tell to light. Of course…it had always melted the brain of the subject afterwards which had inherent problems when it came to negotiation and secrecy. But Matsu felt confident that the eight-hundred years of technology and progress since its creation had come up with something combined with her knowledge of the mind that would let her use it as it had meant to be used.

Searching through everything she could get her hands on, even the most unlikely places, she traipsed through one of the cavernous halls of the tomb. She’d heard nothing but her own heartbeat and the light scuttle of beetles and creatures far off for hours and the sound of someone else’s movement was like a gunshot it was so foreign and loud. She paused, catching the glow along the floor of a red saber and feeling a smirk grace her lips.

She looked up as he came around the corner, not moving to her saber since that wasn’t what she’d use anyway.

“Fancy meeting you here.” She just watches him, expressionless save for the little smirk, as if he couldn't reach out and kill her in one swipe.

[member="Garet Stalan"]​