Jumpin Jack Flash

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

The Giant in the meanwhile was having troubles of his own, if you remember what had happened previously, you would know that Carach had dashed into a different room while immersing himself within the folds of the Current. Meant that he was practically invisible and unhearable in any regular sense of the word, the plan had been to circle away from the minigun-wielding lunatic and simply press on, hoping that either Adekos would deal with the problem or would find a different way out of the situation.

It had never come to the Sith Lord’s mind that perhaps Adekos was stuck inside a different room with no way of coming out, at least not until the crazed madman had stopped trying to shoot up the entire room with bullets.

Oh well.

Carach’s current problem was that the passageway he had picked to escape in ended with three distinct ends, and he wasn’t really sure which one he should choose. In the end he decided to go with the most simple way of picking.

‘Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.’

The Sith Lord’s finger moved from the most leftish of passages, to the middle one and ended at the right one, before going back to the first one.

‘Catch an Umbaran by the book.’

He repeated his finger’s journey.

‘If he complains, punch him in the throat.’

And again.

‘Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.’

There it was, the most leftish destination it was. Just to be certain that if Adekos managed to escape the minigun-guy he would manage to find him, Carach hid the other two ways in the Current and walked through the passage.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

The minigun operator was not a wasteful sort of person. In the absence of visible enemies, he stopped firing. This provided Darth Adekos the opportunity he needed to gather up a Force Cloak and dart into the room he had seen briefly seen Carach enter. Seen in the loosest sense of the word. There was only one other room which the Sith Knight could have entered from where they had both been standing. If Carach was not in this dead end room, he was probably in the other one. From across the hall, he could see another passage in the room, but that was it. Carach was either loafing around in there or had already ditched him.

Was Adekos surprised? No. Was he disappointed? Perhaps a little. But then again, Carach was such a dull person that hardly a moment went by where Adekos wasn't disappointed in him.

More's the pity.

The invisible, muted Umbaran darted across the hallway and into the room's middle passage. He remained blissfully unaware of the two other passages that had been masked by the White Current. Adekos lacked the temperament to master those sorts of illusions, just as he lacked the ability to learn Sith Magic and Alchemy. Not everyone could be a jack-of-all-trades. Adekos would have to settle to be a jack of one or two trades. Any more trades and he risked ending up like the infamous Ket Van Derfanthiel. That is to say: an overweight man suffering delusions of grandeur, coupled with a horrendous propensity to dress in only the tightest of leather pants. When people said there were fates worse than death, they were not kidding.

Eventually Adekos bumped into Carach's back, staggering backwards and his cloak vanishing.

"Oh. There you are."

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

Carach doubted that anyone who was in the business of operating miniguns and spraying chambers with bullets would be actually all that concerned about wastefulness, they seemed more people who enjoyed to spray as much bullets as possible.

Perhaps some strange fascination with holes, maybe Starchaser knew something more about it.

Huh.

At any rate, it was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things because this only worked in the favor of their plot. The Sith Lord couldn’t just claim the apex on his own, he would need the original holocron too and that meant Adekos. Which was okay, because deep in his heart Carach really was a team player.

Sometimes.

When something bumped into him, but didn’t actually cause him any pain he was curious for a split second before turning around. His hand was already at the lightsaber, but then the words came.

Huh, seemed Ardik wasn’t entirely without his tricks.

‘Was wondering where ya went.’ Carach simply said, raising a single eyebrow, before turning around and gesturing for the other Sith Lord to follow. They still had some distance to make.

He really hoped they would find the apex in this entrance and wouldn’t have to track back to the other hallways to explore them, it simply seemed so… wasteful of their time, so much of a distraction that really wasn’t necessary.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

"It's not as if I had a lot of places I could choose to go." The Dark Jedi replied, sauntering after the Sithling. "And you may want to quicken your pace. That machine-gun toting brute is sure to follow us once he realizes we've fled."

At that, Adekos cast a glance over his shoulder. It was a straight, narrow passage. He could still see the entrance behind them, which meant that if the chain gunner stood there and opened fire, they would both be sitting ducks. Perhaps this was easy for Carach to deal with, considering he had an Adekos as a human shield walking directly behind them. But how many bullets could the Umbaran's body absorb before Carach succumbed to heavy weapons fire as well? It was not in either of their best interests to find out, even if it would be interesting.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Darth Adekos"]

Behind them a new illusion appeared that would have felt, smelt, tasted and if the minigun-wielding thug was able to listen into the specific frequency of a stone wall, he would even be able to hear the stone wall. Not that anyone here would know how a stone wall sounded like, such things were above or perhaps beneath the general populace, but had they been able to hear that particular frequency they would have heard secrets beyond their wildest dreams.

Oh well.

The Sith Lord simply continued to walk with Ardik in his wake, the thug would probably be confused that a perfectly fine hallway suddenly ended in a wall, but that really wasn’t Carach’s problem. He doubted the thug had the mental capacity to realize just how strange it was, and probably would just assume he was still really high from the siesta of the previous night.

Yeah, that would probably be the best explanation. After that the thug would just walk back to his post and try to ignore all the new bullet holes he had added to the ancient, poor walls. As they reached the end of the hallway, they would enter a half spherical room with an object in the middle of it.

It was some kind of puzzle.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

Oh, but this was no ordinary puzzle, nor was this any ordinary room. The two dastardly businessmen entered a large, spherical room with a domed ceiling. Due to its position in the heart of the temple, the room would have normally been pitch black. Yet there were now an assortment of floodlights standing around providing illumination, hooked up to a generator near the mouth of the hallway they had just exited from. Dozens of pickaxes and assorted mining and drilling equipment lay at the far wall. Most of them were broken, and it would soon be no wonder why.

The walls themselves were not flat-surfaced and plain, but made entirely out of an assortment of gears. The gears were of varying sizes- the largest being the approximate size of a Nerf calf and others as small as a datapad. Regardless of their size, each gear had a single irregular chunk of glasteel stuck in the center of it. The object in the center of the room was also an irregular chunk of glasteel, seated on a pedestal. It glowed with potent electric power, likely coming from the fortress itself despite its age. How peculiar.

Adekos wordlessly ran his hand along one of the gears, scoffing. "This is reinforced quadranium- probably alchemized, too. And these simpletons tried to dig through it."

The Umbaran turned to face Carach, arms outstretched, gesturing to the room- the puzzle -the whole damn room was one big puzzle. "Do you know what this is?"

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Adekos"]

‘A puzzle.’ the Sith Lord replied calmly, while his gaze swept across the many gears and back towards the main attraction of the room. Truthfully he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, some part of him told him that it wasn’t his fault though, that somehow- someone, was keeping valuable information from him which caused this temporal distortion in reality.

But it seemed that Adekos didn’t have this problem as much as Carach did, and in a perfect world this would be the time when the Sith would confess that didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to do with this puzzle.

This ain’t no perfect world though.

Somewhere in the distance they could hear the sound of gunfire, slowly approaching their position. It seemed that the minigun-wielding dude had decided that a wall in the middle of nowhere wouldn’t have made any sense… and tried to touch it.

Ya can do so much with permanent fixture in reality without putting much effort into it.

Carach frowned and stared intently at the hallway they had just come from, before sighing.

‘Solve the puzzle, I will deal with mister Overkill there.’

Cloak swept behind him and he set off into the tunnel systems, leaving Adekos to deal with the puzzle for now.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

"No, no. This is far more... Significant."

Adekos crept back towards the center of the room, rubbing his hands together as he inspected the sphere on the pedestal. And here someone had once told him pouring over every bit of information, scrap of history, whatever, even remotely pertaining to Mechu-Deru and its associated powers was foolish. Now Adekos got the last laugh, because he knew exactly what he was looking at. He flicked the glowing glassteel chunk several times, and the energy within reacted violently each time. It spasmed, moved towards the point of contact, and returned to its normal state each time he touched it.

"This is a Paratus Puzzle. They cracked one of these open Raxus Prime, hundreds of years ago; the first one found. I don't recall what was inside." Adekos gave no hint as to who 'they' were, but that was hardly as important as the fact the Umbaran hadn't sounded this excited since... Ever. "But it looks like we'll have going to start calling it something else, considering this predates Paratus by thousands of years! I never thought I'd even get to see one."

The Umbaran distanced himself a foot away from the pedestal, then held his hand out in front of it. The energy in the glasteel chunk responded to the call of the Force, taking on a few different shapes as Adekos willed it. The variety of shapes were a little limited by the irregular shape of the glasteel chunk. Paratus may not have invented it, but compared to what Mekhis had here, his was largely more refined. Mekhis probably had better things to do than perfect a novelty. Paratus had about sixteen years on that junkyard world, doing nothing but being a nuisance.

Suddenly the energy sunk into the pedestal, leaving the glasteel chunk now mundane. Seemingly out of nowhere, the smaller bits of glasteel in three of the gears at different parts of the room began to exhibit the same unearthly glow. They grew brighter and brighter for a few moments, at which point the three gears in question attempted to turn. They jammed fairly quickly, dust that had settled on them shaking off and falling to the floor unceremoniously. The sound of the jamming broke Adekos' concentration. The light in the gears winked out, only to return to the glasteel chunk in the center moments later.

"It's all very simple, actually. We just need to-" The sound of gunfire echoed at the other end of the corridor. Minigun fire, to be precise. Darth Adekos had become far too familiar with that sound these past ten or fifteen minutes. Carach decided to go and deal with that issue rather than listen to his friend fawn over an important discovery. "Oh, alright. Good luck with that."

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Adekos"]

Of course he would rather just sit there and listen to Adekos rave on about this new discovery, it did sound really interesting and far preferable to dealing with some maniac with a minigun. But that was the thing with being a Sith Lord involved in whacky situations, you really couldn’t just pick your battles, sometimes you just gotta get your big boy-pants and do whatcha gotta do. Which was what Carach was doing right now.

At least, that’s what he was doing right then, until he stepped foot in the tunnels and saw the minigun dude- and more importantly the minigun itself, spinning, ready. Now see, that was the entire problem with being him, some people like Varanin or Cavill were basically built to withstand any amounts of damage and be fine.

He wasn’t them though.

So instead Adekos would be treated with the heavy boot sounds of his friend running back into the room, turning the corner and planting his back against the wall. Eyes at his fellow Sith Lords, they told him not to make any jokes right now.

‘Okay. So. Hmm. We might have a problem.’

The problem was that it wasn’t a very broad hallway, which meant that neither of ‘em would be able to maneuver there and wouldn’t be able to employ their usual tactics of not getting shot. Which meant they would have to wait ‘til the maniac arrived here.

Which would spell a lot of bullets for both of them.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

Carach's return to the room would be heralded by, for the second time, the sound of the large quadranium gears jamming defiantly. The light vanished from them and returned to the pedestal's glasteel, and Adekos turned around to greet his colleague. Instead, he found himself frowning, because apparently there was a persistent sort of problem that had been waiting in the hallway. This was nonsense, and Darth Adekos was not going to be tolerating any nonsense. Not when he was making profound historic discoveries and trying to crack open puzzles the likes of which the galaxy hadn't seen in centuries!

Maybe the origin of Adekos' self-importance wasn't all that much of a mystery after all.

"Do you mean to imply to me that the Voice of the Dark Lord and Kashyyyk's very own Thief of Armies has been irreparably thwarted by a single thug and the floorplan of a ruin?"

It was only fitting that the last thing out of Darth Adekos' mouth, before he and his friend were likely gunned down by a lunatic, was berating someone for not resolving an issue properly.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Adekos"]

See, that as the entire problem with being him. Yes, Darth Carach, Sith Lord, Voice of the Dark Lord and Thief of Armies, Sinker of Cities and blablalblablal- you get all of it, was a pretty badass. Who has done a lot of things in his time and wasn’t so useless to be gunned down on Kashyyyk by a single lone gunslinger. But that’s the entire thing, Carach wasn’t all-power-

Actually.

The Sith Lord totally forgot he wasn’t entirely too focused on mentalism anymore these days, he blinked as that realization settled into his mind before dusting himself off, standing up and returning to the hallway.

Said hallway was occupied by the gunman who was almost ready to enter the room properly and shoot up Adekos, who had been more concerned with biting remarks than to do something useful. Anyway, that was all in the past, because Carach suddenly realized there had been a reason why he had gone from a Sith Lord to a Sith Knight and now back to a Sith Lord.

The Sith Lord raised his hand and then gestured a push, a field of literal (perhaps more figural) death emerged and pushed itself directly into the thug, who promptly disintegrated.

Huh.

Carach shrugged, turned around and wandered back into the room.

‘Sorry about that. Totally forgot I respec’d my skill set. So you were saying.’

He was totally serious.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

What unfortunate times the galaxy had fallen on when a Sith of any caliber could arbitrarily "respec" their skillset. That included Adekos, who up until a decade ago had never used the word "Technometry" in a serious sentence. Now it was virtually his mainstay. Such shameful individuals, the two of them, but they could always take solace in the fact that there were far worse individuals lurking in the galaxy. Such as the current occupiers of Ryloth and Veradune. Rather despicable organizations, those governments.

"Was that so hard?" He asked, peering down the hallway at the pile of ashes and the minigun laying on top of them. Oh, that was rich. "Now then."

He walked back to the center of the room, gesturing at the pedestal with a single, open hand. "The way these puzzles work. You'll notice the bit of energy contained within that chunk of glasteel. It's been specifically charged with Force Lightning. Well, the exact details of how those things work have been lost for some time, but my guess is that it's Force Lightning. This energy can be finely manipulated by those with the proper skillset. Electric Manipulation and what have you."

"These gears; this is important." The Umbaran, giddy as a child who opened the mother-load of all presents on his birthday, now made his way towards one of the gears, tapping the glasteel in the center. "They can be powered by manipulating that electricity and directing it into the gear. But! While all of these gears can be powered, only the right combination of gears being powered at once will cause them to turn properly, thus opening that impenetrable door over there."

He pointed at the impenetrable door with all the broken equipment in front of it. As if Carach had somehow missed it the first time he entered the room.

"There's enough electricity to power three at once and about... Well, a lot of gears here, so the combinations are quite a few. There's also the possibility that inputting wrong combinations too many times may trigger, ah, traps."

That had been a prominent feature in the Paratus Puzzle on Raxus Prime. Darth Adekos couldn't quite recall the specifics as of now, but the total casualties amounted to something like seven inquisitors, thirteen droidekas, and half a battalion of Stormtroopers. In total. But that one had been much larger than this and thus taken longer to break open. This was comparatively small, and the traps had probably malfunctioned since being installed however many years ago. Besides, those schmucks didn't have their ingenuity.

Adekos folded his arms and rubbed his chin. "Though, there might be a way to speed this up. But that would risk triggering all the traps at once."

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Adekos"]

The Sith Lord thought long and hard about that, really pondered the implications of what it could mean if all those traps got enabled right at the same time and then thought back to all the other situations both of them had been in- that should have killed them by every stretch of the imagination, and yet they were here still.

Almost as if some kind of invisible hand just refused to let them to die, a grim outlook, but one which could probably work in their favor right at this point. Could they have simply puzzled a little bit more and tried to figure out the puzzle in time? Undoubtedly, it would have taken a while, but eventually they would have been able to get through to the meat of things.

But would they have enough time, before the SilverWolfSquad decided to parade back in here? Or maybe a few more minigun-toting thugs? Did they really want to take that chance?

Carach met Adekos’ eyes and at that point understanding might just pass between one another about the situation they were currently in. The last thing either of them wanted was an army of shirtless, jacuzzi-loving maniacs throwing themselves on their backs.

‘Do it.’ the Sith Lord finally said, referencing towards the last and dangerous option.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

"Oh? Really? Well." Adekos was mildly surprised Carach had elected for that one. "One must risk it to obtain the metaphorical biscuit, I suppose."

They were hard pressed for time, after all. Their skirmish in the hallway had not exactly been a secretive affair. If there were any more looters present, they would surely be looking for the two enterprising Sith. They would also be wondering why their friend with the minigun had vanished behind a wall and was no longer reporting in. Surely whatever unimaginable horrors waited for them in the form of traps could be handled, but only if they weren't rendered defunct by the passage of time as Adekos suspected. But really, in this galaxy, he was almost certainly wrong.

He relocated one more time so that the pedestal was between him and Carach. The Umbaran shuffled for a moment, situating himself into a ready stance. "You're going to hit that glasteel chunk with as much Force Lightning as you possibly can. Theoretically, that should supercharge the glasteel. I'll then distribute the electricity to each of the gears, powering them all at once. Try not to kill me."

There was also the possibility that the glasteel (it likely wasn't actually glasteel, but it did look like it) would just shatter and render them unable to open the door by any means. That, however, would not make for a very fun story, so it was unlikely to happen.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Adekos"]

A short nod would follow, indicating that Carach understood what his friend needed of him. He extended his hand, palm facing the probably-not-glasteel. In the grand scheme of things he was a bigger fan of kinetite, it did the job, made a big bang and made sure that whatever it touched would stay down or at least annihilated. But that wasn’t what they were after here, it needed to be more controlled, a focused effort towards the energization of the orb.

So he started to metaphorically generate the electricity, fingers started to buzz just slightly as lightning started to cackle around them, the air suddenly felt energized. Hair would become just slightly static if it came close to the source of power, he kept on the juice, energizing his hand before he would let it loose on the orb.

All he got.

He wasn’t no Varanin, who used to be a Lightning Master back in the days, so he couldn’t just storm it up with a flick of the wrist. Which would have been pretty cool really, but not what they were looking for anyway.

Pretty sure that Ashin would have wrecked the puzzle back in the day.

Finally then, secure in the knowledge that he had generated enough energy, the lightning lashed out from his hand towards the gem-glasteel-whatchamacallit.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

The lightning crashed into the gem-glasteel-whatchamacallit and immediately was absorbed into it. Adekos could already sense the immediate threat of an overload, and began directing the electricity at his discretion. One by one, the gears began to light up and try to turn. They all twitched and shuddered violently, refusing to budge. Dust were shaken off of the gears and fell in sheets to the ground, coating the two concentrating Sithlings. Neither of them seemed perturbed by it. The room itself seemed to start to quake, owing to the ever-increasing number of spasming gears. Eventually, one of them lit up a dull green color.

"The first one is unlocked..." Adekos muttered, skeptical that Carach could even hear him over the din.

That was when the first trap activated. Darth Mekhis, crafty little minx that she was, had rigged the room to fill with a cloud of toxic gas in the event someone tried to force their way in or crack the puzzle. Without respirators, both Sith would succumb to the nerve gas and die almost instantaneously. But that was thousands of years ago. The nerve gas had leaked out in harmless amounts over that entire time span and now there was nothing left. Though Adekos and Carach as well could probably hear the vacuum noises of the ancient facility trying to pump something into the room. How quaint.

Another gear lit up green. "Just one more..."

But that wasn't all the nefarious Darth Mekhis had in store. No, for embedded in the walls were a series of dart launchers that would fire off thousands of needles coated in Devaronian blood poison into unsuspecting tomb raiders. These needle launchers were not kept at chest level, but rather pointed downward from the ceiling. They would catch the two Sith Lords by their heads or necks, sending them into throes of pain before ultimately killing them. Or, at least, that's what would have happened if thousands of years of being left untriggered with no maintenance hadn't rusted the springs into oblivion. There was a small shower of useless needles that clattered harmlessly around the Sith and nothing else. This was just adorable.

A third and final gear lit up green, and the rumbling stopped. The glasteel chunk on the pedestal shattered spectacularly from the overcharge, and behind Adekos the heavy quadranium door began to open. They had done it- they had foiled the Paratus Puzzle. Or Mekhis Puzzle. Whatever. It was a pretty stupid mechanism anyway if it had this kind of work around. The Umbaran turned around, crossing his arms and gazing starry-eyed into the newly opened room. Who knew what arcane mysteries were contained within? The possibilities were endless. This was a moment of intense pride for Adekos.

Until the final trap triggered. A panel slid open at the top of the room, depositing a huge pile of Rakghoul bones onto the Umbaran which he was immediately buried under. Even Rakghouls needed to eat, even the ones being used as a defense mechanism against looters. Oh, Mekhis, you cheeky little woman.

"Ow."

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Adekos"]

While Adekos was spouting huge swats of exposition in his mind- exposition that his friend and fellow SIth Lord could not actually hear- which honestly made the affair just a little awkward. Picture yourself standing next to a guy who was mumbling to himself, silently smirking to himself and then eventually getting buried and giggling about it… to himself.

But Carach was used to the eccentric ways of his fellow Sith Lords, it was parcourse that they would be just a little bit strange in their ways and manners, that kind of power probably corrupted and Adekos was surely one of the stronger Sith in their organization.

So the amount of power he wielded must be corrupting him to a severe degree.

But now Carach was really doing the same thing, thinking things to himself and smirking about them, which would only seem weird to anyone who would be looking. That was the pondering which stopped immediately after he realized Gerion was actually buried.

He wouldn’t actually know what Carach was doing right now.

That realization gave him just a little bit of comfort.

Carach dug out his friend and associate from the dust and bones, before setting him back on his feet and dusting him off.

‘You okay?’ the Sith Lord would ask, before looking around and making sure there weren’t any more boobytraps laying around. That would have been annoying.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

Shaking himself out of the pile of ancient Rakghoul bones, then assisted by Carach, Adekos nodded in some kind of affirmation. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his gloved hand and violently shook it off. "I suppose that really depends on whether or not the Rakghoul Plague can be transferred by bonemeal."

They waited for a few minutes just to see if Adekos would start bleeding from the face or making snarling noises before turning into one of those abysmal beasts. Nothing of the sort happened, so it seemed safe to assume he wasn't going to turn into one of them. Clearly, the Force was a merciful entity. Darth Adekos could think of no worse way to go than to be turned into a Rakghoul and then killed in self defense by Carach. There were more innocuous, degrading ways to go, he supposed, but at least he wouldn't be a Rakghoul in most of those scenarios.

"Well, I think I'll live. Let's get going. They probably heard that little lightning show of yours, not to mention the vibrating gears."

Tyrin brushed the rest of the bonemeal from his body and beckoned for Carach to follow. There was only a short passage between them and the opened room, which was far more lavishly stocked than the rest of the fortress had been. Ornate furniture, shelves lined with datapads, a half-dozen or so locked storage lockers. The expensive ones with sophisticated eletronic locks. There were scrolls and tomes and assorted Sith jewlery as well, but the only thing that held any interest to Adekos was the holocron's apex- suspended by anti-gravity in the center of the room.

Before he could oogle the contents of the room any further or snag that apex hanging tantalizingly in the middle, the two Sith Knights in the room disengaged their cloaking devices. They were menacing creatures, humanoids grafted with more cybernetic implants than Gerion could count. Slightly Force Sensitive as well, making tampering with those implants more difficult. They angled their force pikes at the interlopers.

"IDENTIFY YOURSELVES."

Adekos didn't say anything. Largely because he was in far too much shock over how cool this was. Finally! An intact Sith Knight created by Mekhis herself. This was the greatest of days, truly.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Adekos"]

The creation of Sith Knights was a blend of Mechu-Deru and Alchemy. In many ways the more intricate, darkness-prone ways of Mechu-Deru Vitae were Sith Alchemy, they dealt with the distinct change of an organic being into something that it wasn’t supposed to be, the sentient being will fight your attempts to change its core principles and you will need to overcome this. Darth Plagueis’ writing had been fairly clear about that portion of alchemizing beings into something more potent and useful.

Whilst Adekos was enraptured by the sheer presence of the two beings, his friend was less impressed and shocked. Not that some deep, deep presence wasn’t heavily influenced by the possibilities that these beasts could grant them, but years of fighting wars had given him some inherent instinct.

Which boiled down to: ‘Act now, or get killed.’

Carach would not be surprised if they would try to destroy them, if they stayed silent for many more moments and so the Sith Lord did the only thing that came to mind in this specific situation. Talking wouldn’t really help, their auditory responders were probably keyed to their former creator and wouldn’t be acceptive of other voices.

A reasonable assumption, considering that during Mekhis’ years of glory the Sith were widespread and fighting amongst each other as much as they were against the Jedi. Instead, the Sith Lord utilized his knowledge of Alchemy and lashed out towards the Sith Knights.

Not in an attempt to break them, but simply to keep them busy with their own molecules attempting to reshape themselves, whilst Adekos would snap out of it and assume control over their cybernetics.

 

[Caulder Dune]

[member="Darth Carach"]

Generally speaking, alchemy wasn't something that could be done on the spot and in combat. Yet Carach was doing just that. Alchemy was not, by any stretch, Adekos' area of expertise, so he couldn't quite understand what was going on. Really, after being chased by a man with a minigun, piled with Rakghoul bones, and confronted by two aberrant specters borne of Mechu-Deru Vitae, Darth Adekos could not bring himself to question impromptu molecular manipulation. That was a discussion for another day. Or never, if they were lucky. Both Sith Knights immediately detected that they were being harassed on some level by the Force and immediately moved to engage the two Sithlings.

Adekos gestured, as if pulling a mind trick, but in reality he utilized the Force to command the Sith Knight on the left's power supply. The Umbaran had not quite progressed to the point where he could idly shut something like a Sith Knight on and off, but he could manipulate the electricity powering the thing's cybernetics. A short burst of power was diverted from other cybernetics in the Sith Knight to the ones in its skull. Given the primitive, aging technology employed in the Sith Knights (at least in comparison to the current era), this short burst was enough to overcharge its brain implant. More than overcharge, actually, as the back of lefty's head suddenly exploded. It crumpled to the ground in a neat pile, smoke billowing from the site of the mini-explosion.

The remaining Sith Knight paused to look at its comrade, then back at Carach and Adekos.

"You should probably get that last one."

It lunged forward, attempting to impale Carach on the Force Pike.