Ill Man's Indenture

[Shade of Decay]

Tsisaar's heavy-lidded stare peered out from his bacta tank. Yet again, the Keshiri knight he left in charge of the day-to-day operations of his ship had come to interrupt his preservative treatments. Unlike the last time, however, this wasn't expected, and Tsisaar's patience was quite a bit lower for such interruptions than another man's might be. Of course, this time, Jaron wasn't alone.

Jaron had been accompanied by a robed, hairless woman, one whose height approached his own, making her slightly taller than Tsisaar was. Judging by the look on the Keshiri Sith's face, he'd likely evaluated her combat effectiveness far above his own, and decided to save his skin by acceding to her demands and taking her to Tsisaar.

Of course, the first part was only speculation.

The bacta in the tank began to drain, while the various other machines that were hooked into Tsisaar's failing body began to shut down, the tubes automatically detaching themselves from the various ports and catheters that had been installed in his body. Jaron started to speak once the tank was fully drained, though a short glare convinced him to shut his mouth faster than he'd opened it.

Exiting the tank and pulling a loose robe on, Tsisaar turned back to the pair, facing his focus on Jaron first. "How fares our other guest?" he asked, seemingly relaxed. As he predicted, the unexpected question forced Jaron to reconsider the words he'd been preparing, the Keshiri having to consider something other than the immediate situation.

"She is recovering," he replied, warily. "The cloned organs limbs are still developing, though she seems to be responding well to the bacta treatment." Tsisaar nodded, turning to the woman in the room with them. "I trust that Knight Unskii here hasn't offended you at all?" he inquired. "I would hate for a guest to think myself or my crew impolite." His jaw set beneath his huleppi, a small, hidden frown forming.

"Whether they were invited, or whether they invited themselves, I hope to be found a gracious host."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

[member="Tsisaar Taral"]

So, this was the ill-stricken inquisitor.

Darth Ophidia's eyes narrowed as the tubes detached and liquids drained away. Many of the apparatuses were known to her from past experiments and times she herself had been placed in a tank to survive. The lichtenberg scars marring her back and neck reminded her well. She could tell he was in as bad shape as she had heard, but one had to admire his willingness to fight.

Admire and exploit.

"Most gracious and expedient." She replied. "A faithful servant."

With a nod of her head, her burning eyes closed for a moment as she released her hold on Jaron's mind and relieved him of the memory of her presence. Her hands remained at her back, one hand clasping the other and both obscured by the long sleeves of her robe.

Darth Ophidia had a strange presence, as though she nearly vanished if one looked away. Even when looking at her she had an eerie stillness about her, as though she was inanimate. Her appearance showed her as nearing middle-age, with ashen skin tattooed or otherwise painted in patters sacred to the Sith. The black markings crossed old scars that were still clinging to her.

She raised her eyebrows as if to say that Tsisaar should do what he intended to do and be done with it.

 

[Shade of Decay]

Tsisaar's eyes narrowed as he felt the currents of the Force shift around this newcomer. Jaron's eyes, previously slightly glazed over, came to clarity for a moment, and he looked quite confused. Somewhat more interestingly, Tsisaar noticed, was the fact that his eyes glazed over again every time they came near the guest. "That is all, Knight Unskii," he said dismissively, waving the Keshiri off. Jaron nodded, leaving the room. Leaving Tsisaar alone with the interloper.

As with any other time he interacted with those unknown to him, he was hyperaware of his surroundings. Of the other person, of whatever in the room could be used as a weapon by either party, where his own weapons were, what he had available to him in terms of cover. His private medical room was very much not an ideal location to battle, so hopefully that wasn't the purpose of this new woman. "So." The word hung in the air between the pair, Tsisaar's stare nearly as dead as his body was close to being.

"A Sith, I assume. I know of few Dark Jedi who could manage what you just did, and fewer still who would be able to track this vessel." He had gone to great lengths to keep its existence and route fairly secret; barring the occasional appearance over various planets, such as recently over Pantora, it spent most of its time in hyperspace or in deep space. The only group that would have any knowledge where it was—due to the large investment of knights and acolytes aboard—would be the Sith Empire.

But even among the Saarai'shash, such improptu, unannounced visits as this were rare; most often such things ended in bloodshed.

He resisted the urge to glance to his lightsaber. He knew where it lay, alongside that of Iresias, further down in the ship's primary medical bay. While he wasn't sure of his ability to defend himself with it, one of the crystals that was nestled within the hilt could prove useful. Something he'd received while first on Kruskan, and which he'd put to use on Coruscant; inducing madness on everybody within range, the wielder included. Yet, as he thought on that further, something seemed...familiar, in the slightest degree. What, he wasn't sure, though he imagined he would learn.

He gestured towards the door opposite that which Jaron had exited from, which opened to a hallway that led to his private quarters. "Shall we retire to a more comfortable room?" he suggested. "I can have the droids bring us some tea while you inform me why you've come. I'm sure it must be pressing, to have occurred so suddenly and mysteriously."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Tsisaar was not the only one maintaining awareness of the room. As Darth Ophidia took a step forward, she could feel the corners and loose objects around her as her presence eeled its way into every nook and shadow like tendrils, like dogs sniffing out secrets. Ophidia herself appeared to be unarmed, or as if her weapons were well hidden somewhere in the dark robes that draped over her slender form. But the way she carried herself spoke clearly: She felt no fear.

"How astute."

She continued on her path into the chamber, hands kept clasped at her back. As he gestured to the hallway, she stopped. It was not the jarring stop of aborted mission, but rather like water finding itself pooling rather than streaming.

"You are too generous, Inquisitor." She gestured the same way "I accept your invitation. Please, lead the way."

As she spoke, a smile spread on her lips, but did not extend to her eyes. However, there was amusement in her voice.

"It is indeed a matter of life and death."

[member="Tsisaar Taral"]

 

[Shade of Decay]

"How foreboding," Tsisaar replied drily, matching neither Ophidia's mirth nor her smile.

He keyed in a code on the door's access panel, unlocking it and allowing it to open. Keenly aware of the person following close behind him—and of how isolated his personal quarters were from the rest of the ship—he led the way down the short hall, straightening his back as much as possible. As his body degraded further, he noticed that his posture degraded with it; more hunched, shorter strides. He nearly needed a cane to get around, though he was still managing to avoid such measures.

Opening the next door revealed that Tsisaar, unlike the others aboard the ship, was the only one whose quarters constituted a full suite rather than simply a room. The space they entered was a fairly spacious private lounge, though with the additions Tsisaar had made, one could be forgiven for thinking that it was actually a library. Numerous texts were stacked on a table in the center of the room, accompanied by the mass of what he'd managed to borrow or appropriate and had placed in bookshelves.

"Please, take a seat," he offered, gesturing to the chairs and sofas near the table. Turning to a protocol droid, he gestured it over. "Gather us some refreshments," he commanded. "Tea, snacks, the usual, and be fast about it." The droid bowed, some sort of affirmation in the whistled tones of the Khil language coming out of it, before it left.

Tsisaar turned back to his guest, moving to join her in the center of the room. "I hope the space is to your liking," he said, although truthfully he didn't care if she did or didn't appreciate it. "I figured that when meeting important guests, I should furnish a space for it, rather than leaving the area as spartan as I'm used to...especially after I had to convert my foyer into a private medical bay." That medical bay had once been a far larger, more usable space, though with the amount of machinery and equipment that had been moved into it, it only seemed about the size of an acolyte's room at the temple on Korriban.

The protocol droid quickly came back with a decraniated servant following close behind, carrying tea and other refreshments for the pair to set on the table. "So, might I know who you are?" he asked curiously. "If this matter truly is life or death, I'd at least appreciate the name of the person bringing it up to me."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

[member="Tsisaar Taral"]

To his snide reply, Darth Ophidia simply bounced her hairless eyebrows. His non-participation did not damper her morbid enjoyment of the exchange. While she had read reports about the decay of the Inquisitor, seeing it up close gave her a whole other understanding of his affliction. She saw it with eyes only partially her own, through understanding she had consumed and refined in her own warping of flesh. She followed him as he proposed a change of venue. While it was irrelevant to her, it seemed to her like it would put Tsisaar more at ease and ready to talk.

That was why she was there after all; to talk.

"Thank you." She remained standing.

Ophidia intertwined her gloved fingers. Her eyes swept through the space quickly. She recognised a portion of the literature, some she did not. Some she had in her own collection, and some she had read in the great libraries of the galaxy.

"It is" H head cocked a little to the side. "-sufficient."

As the refreshments were brought in, she did not reach for them. She accepted what was handed to her, but did not drink from it right away. One of her fingers traced the edge of the cup, drawing the Force with its as she read what the Force told her about its molecules. She did not make a full read of it before she found she had to answer Tsisaar's inquiries.

"I must warn you, Inquisitor Taral: Names are dangerous things; you never know where they may lead you." She looked into his eyes, her own still and bright. "You, of all, should know that there are things in our Empire of which one does not speak." Her voice now carried no amusement or playfulness. "-People who do not exist." She spread her hands as to indicate that she meant herself.

"What is important is what I can do for you." Her hands met around the cup.

 

[Shade of Decay]

"If you are one of those people, surely you're one of the few who can speak of such things," he said after a moment. "And given that you're trying to offer me something, it seems I'm likely to be lead down a dangerous path regardless. So how much could it truly hurt to give me a name to call you by?" He grasped a glass of fruit juice that was offered to him by his droid, slurping it up through some of his huleppi.

And, as he'd often found himself doing in the last few months, keeping the grimace of pain off of his face that threatened to show itself there. Setting the glass down, he fixed his black-eyed gaze on Ophidia, setting the glass down. "Should I try to reveal anything of your existence or others, those few who might have inklings of what you refer to would merely think me an idiot, and others..."

He shrugged, gesturing back to the other room, where his lightsaber lay away from them. "They'd think I played around too much with that holocron shard from Kruskan, and would call me a raving mad man. It would be no surprise to anybody were I to suddenly disappear...and I doubt it would prove particularly difficult to somebody who could so easily force their way into my private quarters." He drew a hand along the exposed flesh of his arm, the top layers of skin dragging along with it with little resistance, black, ichorous blood oozing out of the new wound.

"I'm nearly dead already." He leaned back, folding his hands placidly in his lap. "So, if you think me useful, I would appreciate a name to call you by, as well as the knowledge of what it is you intend to offer me...and whatever is expected of me in return, of course."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

His argument brought a new smile to her face, as if she had seen a child reason his way to another piece of cake. Having even seen her was more than she usually gave, and while it was true that her name would not get him far, she simply did not have a habit of spreading it around before it was earned.

"True, they would think you mad." Her index finger parted from the cup as if leading to the next point. "And true, I could arrange that."

She stepped toward the back of the chair he had previously offered. One of her hands left the cup to stroke the top of the furniture's back. Her eyes had flickered to the sabre when he gestured it, her eyes narrowing at the mention of Kruskan. Oh yes, that had been an interesting affair. Cerbera, that darling, did leave the most interesting objects behind when she made her mark on a world.

She watched him open a wound with his bare hand, and saw the ichor pour out. All it summoned was a slight raising of the right eyebrow. She had seen the healthy pluck out their own eyes and eat them. She herself had boiled her own hand in a cauldron of bubbling flesh. This was a good display of his affliction, but nothing that could shake her.

"Patience, Inquisitor." "Once my name is given, the deal is struck. You will have it in due time, if you agree, but not before."

She turned the hand holding the cup of tea, but the liquid did not shift nor spill. Rather, the container stuck to her hand as if by illusion. When her hand turned to show the back of her hand, she turned the palm back, and where there once was a cup, there was now a small, wooden box.

"As for what I can offer: The key to salvation." A circular lock on the box turned, as if by itself, causing the lid to open an reveal the Sith holocron within. "In umbris potestas est." Those words were infamously inscribed on the holocron of Darth Andeddu: The Holocron of Heresies.

"I am willing to let you use it, for a time." She knew he was waiting for her next words "-For a price." Of course.

She rested the box on the back of the chair, steadied by her hand, open. The holocron seemed to pulse with energy and with light, calling for the touch of a hand that desires its knowledge.

"I desire a hand inside the Saaraishash." "You need to live." "That is the deal I offer."

She snapped the lid shut as if to punctuate. It clicked shut, the light and the energy of the holocron cut short. Was it lined with some substance that contained it? Possibly. Now there was only fine, dark wood and silver details. Her eyes were on Tsisaar, burning like embers, still like a doll, never blinking.

[member="Tsisaar Taral"]

 

[Shade of Decay]

Give and take, the play of the conversation went on. His eyes fell upon the holocron, taking in all the details he could before it was quickly taken back away from his sight. From the glance he'd gleaned, and the sensation he'd gotten, as far as he could tell, it was the genuine article; the key to unlocking the last piece of the puzzle he needed to survive. For access to the holocron to be offered, the woman's need must be serious.

He brought his eyes back up to Ophidia, frowning behind his huleppi. "You seem to have me trapped," he said after a moment. "You and many others know of my affliction, and how the ability to transfer my essence to another body would ameliorate it...and to offer the ability to learn this skill among others, you must be serious of what you say." Gently, he brought up a hand, stroking one of his facial tendrils.

"And yet, even now there's likely too much I know for it to be safe to leave me alive if I should refuse, even if the rest of the empire would decry me as insane for speaking up. Even if you didn't kill me now, there'd be somebody waiting to remove my head from my shoulders at any moment thereafter. Clever." Now that he had the closest thing this circumstance could give to a guarantee that she wasn't there to kill him, however, he felt more at ease. Certainly more than he had when she interrupted his session in the bacta tank.

With a peremptory flick of his fingers, a sheet of flimsiplast and a pen came over into his waiting grasp. "So. A hand within the Saaraishash. Given how I joined the organization more for the resources it could give me than any real devotion to their specific ideals, I'm not immediately opposed to the idea." He removed the pen's cap, readying himself to write.

"What is it that you need done?"

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

[member="Tsisaar Taral"]

She listened to what he had to say, hands resting on either side of the wooden box. Was he right? Was he wrong? She was not going to say. In the end, how Tsisaar persuaded himself would be more effective than any argument she could lever at him now.

"I wouldn't have come if I did not think you would arrive at the right conclusion."

She was offering him time with the holocron, and she knew Andeddu was not one to give up his secrets easily. It would take time, and many attempts before he gave up his dearest secrets. In addition, he made these pesky attempts at resurrecting himself into a host body with the very skill Tsisaar sought to learn.

"You are a clever man after all."

Her eyes flickered in the direction of the flimsi and pen when they were summoned. She did not tense, but it revealed an awareness in her mind about the objects in the room and any potential movement. She had not lived this long by luck alone.

"Some files in the Saaraishash's archives, concerning the name 'Darth Ophidia'." She knew he would figure that one out easily enough. "I desire the files deleted and copies brought to me."

One hand lingered atop the box, seemingly enjoying the texture of the wood grain under her fingertips.

"Upon delivery, I will grant you time with the holocron."

 

[Shade of Decay]

Tsisaar listened carefully to the woman's wishes, one of his huleppi twitching slightly at the thought of how tantalizingly close the holocron was that had the answers he needed. "It's lucky for you that I have the authority to actually alter the archives in that way, isn't it?" he mused, although he knew that she'd already known he had that level of access. He ran the name through his head. Darth Ophidia.

She hadn't yet given him her name, but he didn't doubt, at this point, that she was Darth Ophidia.

Somewhat absent-mindedly, he wrote down the instructions, before quickly folding the sheet of flimsi and putting it in a pocket of his cloak. "Copying the files for you, and deleting them. Why, is it, that you want copies of them?" Not that it was a terribly abnormal request when people wanted records of some sort removed; oftentimes, they'd rather possess the records themseles, rather than have them cease existing entirely.

He replaced the cap on the pen, setting it down on the table in front of him. "Though, before I do this, I do have a request for you—aside from the access to the holocron," he started. "I know my current condition is no secret, much as you've already proven, and I know that there are many who would like to see me removed to open up greater opportunities for themselves." He held up a different sheet of flimsi as an example, which detailed a certain ritual for reviving the dead.

"After all, that is much the same as how I started my path of advancement through the Saaraishash, though my role in my predecessor's death was not particularly active. Others, however, do not have similar compulsions as I do. With that being the case, can I draw your expertise into faking my own death?"

An odd request, though the way Tsisaar thought of it, there were few others than assassins who would prove as adept at faking a death as causing it. "After I access the archives, of course. I can leave enough of a trace of my involvement to draw suspicion to myself, to make me look like a traitor, or simply an idiot, which would necessitate my removal." He smiled, slightly, underneath his tendrils. "Who better to send to remove a wayward inquisitor than one of those unspeakable, non-existant members of the empire?"

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

[member="Tsisaar Taral"]

Of course he would figure that one out; the deal was done and she had said he would have her name.

"Why, if there are weaknesses in my network, then they must be purged." She tipped her head to the side for emphasis. "And such flaws are best seen from the outside."

If there was a leak, then she would like to know where it was. Otherwise, it would just leak again and her work would be in vain. While her network was very tight, she was not yet so wrapped in hubris that she thought it incorruptible. And if anyone could find a crack and exploit it, then it was the Lord Inquisitor and his little mice. She knew she could never be entirely out of his vision, but she could control how much they knew.

Now, when Tsisaar delivered his request, she was a little surprised.

It was no challenge. Between them, they had the resources and expertise to make it happen. Rather, she was pleasantly surprised at his dedication.

"This can be done." "I would ask a few days to get everything in order, but it should not be much of an issue."

Her eyes trailed off to the sides, then fixed back on Tsisaar. Her mental cogs were working, processing, already laying down the foundation of a plan.

"Do you have anyone to safeguard your ship or should I find you one?" "Assuming you want to keep it."

 

[Shade of Decay]

"I'm not worried about the ship," he said, thinking back to the woman currently recuperating in a bacta tank, along with other projects that he had in his cloning bay. "I have my own plans to maintain unseen control over the vessel, and even if they don't work out quite like I would wish, you've seen for yourself how easy it is to manipulate Jaron." That ease might partially have been his own doing; Jaron had proven harder to control at first, but the months of Tsisaar's suggestions seemed to have weakened his defenses considerably.

He stretched out a hand lazily, his lightsaber hilt floating into the air from where he'd left it at the entrance of the room. The casing of the weapon split open at a seam, and two of the three crystals detached from their housings and floated over to him. One was a fairly nondescript black stone, a stone that made what remained of Tsisaar's frontmost facial tendril twitch; the other was one that would prove familiar to both in the room, a shard of an ancient holocron. Once he had both of the more unique crystals in his hand, the hilt sealed shut again, and floated over by Ophidia.

"Take that," he suggested. "I have a non-functional copy I can wear when I go about my task, and nobody should suspect a thing. Depending on your plan, however, that can prove a useful piece of evidence to convince others that I did, indeed, die." He waved his hand again, and some hidden panels retracted from one side of the wall, revealing a few cloning tanks that had beings in them that looked the exact same as Tsisaar.

"I also have those, as a stop-gap measure in case my current efforts in creating a better body don't pan out as well as I would like. You can feel free to use one of them as a stand-in for my own corpse. It wouldn't be too difficult to accelerate them to a similar stage of decay, and they'd match my genetic records exactly."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]