Mind over Matter [Path to Transcendence 3]

[Darth Abyss]

Korriban, Somewhere in the desert

The location of Karness Muur laboratory was a well guarded secret. So well guarded that neither broken bones nor broken minds had brought Abyss even a bit closer to finding it. In the end the only thing that enabled him to find it was a fortune, pay to a man that was so illusive that it even impressed Darth Abyss, leader of more than one shadow organization in the galaxy. And even that only gave him a set of unrelated clues that had to be pieced together with what he had already collected himself. In the end all he had was a set of coordinates, but without the right planet.

After traveling to all the common sith worlds, Malachor V, Dromund kaas, Ziost and all those around them until he finally ended up on Korriban. The ancient homeworld of the sith had been the obvious place to look, which had been the exact reason why Abyss decided to visit there first. If it was so easy, why had no one yet discovered the laboratory before?

Karness Muur was ancient, even for a sith lord. He had been one of the first to be considered a sith, not that species, but the order. And his most notorious feat had been the creation of an amulet in which he encased his spirit after his death. Other than many that practiced the art of essence transfer Muur spirit had not perished for a unbelievable long time, lingering millennia after his death around the charm he had forged.

Now Abyss seeked to understand how all of this had been possible, seeked to understand what had empowered the sith lord to go so far without fading back into the flow of the force. The coordinates he had found lead him deep into the desert, and yet when he reached them he was only surrounded by sand. There was nothing, only a darkness lingering far below the surface, so deep in the sands that Abyss struggled to even grasp it. Yet he could hear it calling for him, a faint whisper in his ear. But every time he focused on it, it was gone again, he simply lacked the strength to summon this darkness on his own.

The only option he had was to call for help, and he already had in mind who would aid him in this task. [member="Connor Harrison"], the fallen jedi master had not only formed a strong bond with the darkness, but he also owned Abyss a favor since their last meeting. Sure he could have called for a sith to aid him, but sith never did anything without something in return. Over the com of his starfighter he send out a simple message, including only his location and his name. He was sure that Connor would understand it.

[member="Aria Vale"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor didn’t believe in coincidence much. Things happened for a reason, that much was clear following recent events. Nothing was just “by chance”. It had literally been a couple of hours or so after locating Aria Vale when he returned to his ship to find the message. Minus one Aria Vale.

Coordinates from Darth Abyss on Korriban.

Aria would probably be contacted if Connor had, knowing that the two had history with Abyss. None of this was planned. It was the calling of the Dark Side, not a silly coincidence that the Jedi would blame it on. This was how greatness, knowledge and power was achieved; by following the heart and the call of the darkness inside it.

It would be strange on the journey back out towards Silver space, but not into it, to Korriban. How things changed. Connor for one didn’t feel a pang of regret, or that he was missing out on anything. If anything he wished a Silver ship would come out of nowhere so he could blow it away. Just once.

Conner sent a message of confirmation to the Sith Lord that he was en-route.

It was time for Connor’s favour to be called in, and on a Sith world he only imagined it would further cement his and Aria’s transition to surrender their last grains of Light to become one with the Dark. And it was something that was, for him, very overdue. As for Aria? Well, the less he thought about the humiliation he felt, the better. I

It was early days. Baby steps in the development that would lead to giant strides for Connor Harrison.

[member="Aria Vale"] | [member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[NightSister]

Rather fortunately indeed, just enough time had passed since Aria's confrontation with Connor that her sullen mood had just about subsided when her datapad emitted the ping indicating a message. She was still stubbornly bitter about the whole thing, but one could only stare moodily at the ceiling for so long before getting a bit bored of it. There'd be chances aplenty to be grumpy later, at least. Today, it was the quick chime of her datapad that pulled the girl from her reverie. She hardly ever got messages these days, which was fine, but it usually guaranteed that what messages she got would be worth looking at. Setting her book down at her bedside, Aria touched the screen to bring up a set of coordinates and a name, printed neatly into her inbox. Abyss. Oooh, how interesting. They had plenty to catch up on.

In an instant, she tapped out a quick reply and then ambled over to the cockpit to start the engines, thinking over their last meeting. He'd been at risk of death then, but as far as she was aware, that had changed since. In fact, just about everything of note had changed since then. Oh, and apparently he'd befriended Connor Harrison, too. She'd have to ask about that.

It didn't take long to reach Korriban, and soon Aria was touching down by a large desert. She'd been to Korriban once before, before she'd left the Jedi, but the desert was unfamiliar and vaguely ominous; not her favourite kind of place to visit, but to each their own. Nonetheless, she was curious as to what had led to her summons, if nothing else. Presumably, it would be something reasonably important, but she still didn't love where she'd found herself.

"Abyss." As the landing ramp lowered, Aria called out with a faintly cheerful air, quickly stepping down onto the desert. "How are things?"

[member="Connor Harrison"] | [member="Darth Abyss"]​

 

[Darth Abyss]

"In a state of constant change. While the past is certain, the future is in flux, and the galaxy is about to transform in front of our eyes."

His voice was distant and emotionless, and his answer was probably not what she had asked for, but he had been spending quite some time in the heat of the desert, while trying to force a enormous darkness under his control, and so it took his mind a second to return to normal human interactions. In the emptiness of the desert there wasn't much to do besides thinking so he had become lost in his thoughts, and in the stream of the dark side.

"Oh, you mean personally."

It was like he had just snapped out of a trance, and for the first time of this encounter he actually turned around to look at her, his voice a bit less robotic and inhuman than before. He didn't needed the force to tell that she was no longer [member="Aria Vale"], Knight of the jedi order, but something else. It was written all over her face, and one deep look into her eyes showed him that she had finally made her steps into the darkness.

"Well, I am still dieing, slowly but steadily, my kind probably plans another mindless war for nothing, and the galaxy is in a state of utter chaos. So it could be better, but it could also be way worse."

He made a few steps towards her, his senses in the force now aimed to see what truly was inside her. Her turn to the darkness was a predictable yet still fascinating matter. She always had been ambitious, so he wasn't surprised that she had accepted the darkness. The first thing that he felt was her pendant, a object that radiated a aura of darkness, and as the collector he was it instantly caught his interest.

"I sense that you have finally accepted your fate. Tell me Aria, how does it feel to command the darkness?"

[member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

"Yes, Aria, how DOES it feel."

They would hear Connor’s voice, before turning to see him stood beneath a broken pillar, arms folded. He’d been there for a while, watching, shrouded under the large stone structure and masked within himself.

Lord Abyss was now with his Silver Jedi – FORMER Silver Jedi – ally, and Connor saw how they connected. He noted the defiance in Abyss, and the confidence in Aria.

He walked forward, without a care in the world.

"I apologise, did you not expect me?" He turned to Abyss. "Thank you for contacting me, Lord Abyss. Anything I can do to help you, I will."

Things certainly felt prickly now. Hours after parting ways in the most unflattering and rather emotional of moments, Connor and Aria were back together but poles apart which was awful to experience. However, Connor knew he had to carry on. He had to wear through the difficult times before he found his calling.

[member="Darth Abyss"] | [member="Aria Vale"]

 

[NightSister]

Aria grinned in amusement at Abyss's demeanour, her posture relaxing a bit, and her grin widened a bit at the mention of her turn from the Light. Nowadays, though her grudge against the Jedi was no closer to settling to a quiet dislike, she was really rather cheerful about the whole thing. The Jedi, of course, close-minded as ever, would've undoubtedly thought of it as falling to the Dark Side - though she was still yet to get to grips enough with efficiently channeling the Dark to call herself a true Darksider - but in honesty, she wasn't left feeling particularly regretful about the whole thing.

"Not commanding yet, but -" she was interrupted, and as her head turned she sighed with exasperation- "oh, hell."

It hadn't crossed her mind that he would be here. It probably should've done, but it hadn't. How dreadfully inconvenient. In truth, Aria wasn't so much angry about the whole thing - though there was plenty of that as well - as simply sad, disappointed. Well, that would've been the normal Aria. Nowadays, her mentality was tinkered with somewhat by the amulet she sported constantly, and so a spark of anger flared quickly as her gaze fell on Connor. Lucky that she'd already been in a good mood, or the aftermath of her Jedi instincts might not have kicked in fast enough to keep her gaze impassive.

"Right. Well. Anyway. Not commanding the darkness just yet, but we're getting there." That was the idea, anyway. It was taking a while. "So, what's up? Is this another, uh, big ritual thingamajig?"

[member="Darth Abyss"] | [member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Darth Abyss]

"At least the arrogance that so many that follow the darkness are plagued with has not found you yet, Aria. A trait I would advise you to preserve. Welcome Lord Harrison."

His eyes jumped from [member="Aria Vale"] to [member="Connor Harrison"], watching, or rather feeling the tension that filled the air between the two. What a interesting twist to all this, he had presumed that Arias fall to the darkness was guided by Connors eyes.

"So he is no longer your master Aria. Interesting. Tell me, who is it that guides you on the path of the darkness then?"

While he couldn't help his desire to ask for what exactly had happened to both of them, he had to turn his focus to the task at hand. Their reason for them being here was not to catch up on each others lives after all. With a swift turn, his eyes moved away from them, looking at the desert sand in front of him.

"Close enough. I did not call you to prefer a ritual, but to find one. Aria, Connor, reach out to the darkness, search for what is hidden below the desert. There is an ancient place, riddled with power, but while it calls for me, my power is to weak to lift it out of the sand."

It was strange that he couldn't lift the ruins on the surface, not because he was chained to an illusion of his own strength, but because it clearly called for him, invited him to search through the ancie ancient stones. The fact that he had to call for another to go into the darkness with him left him with a borderline certainty that this was all one elaborate trap.

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor didn’t look at either of them as he walked forward, gauging the sand and the desert around them. It was warm, but it felt cold at the same time. That would be the clash of Light and Dark around him.

"What are we looking for, a tomb? A crypt? We can’t lift one from the ground if it’s buried," he looked across at Abyss, "can we?"

Kneeling, he ran his hand through the golden grains, resting one hand on his knee and looking through the surface almost. The darkness vibrated through the ground and he could feel it. It was inviting and trapped, and it needed to be freed. He’s been to Korriban many times, and the last time he was here he had been part of the Silver Order squad to do just that – trap the darkness and bury it forever.

"We can certainly make short work of the sand before us. We will see what is buried under here."

Connor stood and brushed his hands and stepped back over. Then, he faced the plain before them and began to part his hands slowly, calling on the Force below them to leap up through the sand. To rise up to his calling and part the sand with nothing but force, and to hell with whatever it blasted as it did. A rumbling started to become louder, and pockets of sand started to bubble and spit up with the rising energy.

"Whenever you want to help, Aria," he called.

[member="Darth Abyss"] | [member="Aria Vale"]

 

[NightSister]

"Currently? I'm getting guidance from Darth Vitium, don't know if you know her."

Of course, Silara wasn't strictly speaking her Master. Aria owed most of what she knew of the Dark side to her, yes, but wasn't actually her apprentice. She'd even met the Sith Lord's Acolyte a few times - perfectly nice girl, when you overlooked the pathological need for control. But her progression towards Darkness sounded more valid if she had a name to give; besides, she felt entitled to exaggerate a little if it gave her the chance to wind Connor up a little.

Reach out to the Darkness. Alright, sure, she could do that. Aria nodded - she turned quickly to stare daggers at Connor for his jibe - focus, Aria. In fact, she ought to use this to help her. She was very angry; if he didn't vastly outrank her, she'd have seriously considered acting upon it too; but instead, she could channel it. That was, after all, what she was trying to practice these days. Running her fingers along the design of her bracelet, she quickly turned her attention to the traces of the Force running beneath the desert. It wasn't tricky to focus her power into the surface; sand blew about joyously as waves of energy hit the desert floor, and she focused intently.

"So, whatever this is," she shouted on top of the noise, quickly turning to look at Abyss, "it's...calling for you?"

[member="Connor Harrison"] | [member="Darth Abyss"]​

 

[Darth Abyss]

"No Lord Harrison, it is neither a crypt or a tomb we are looking for. It is laboratory, an ancient place that presumably belonged to Karness Muur, a man that belonged to the first generation of the sith, right after the hundred year darkness."

While he spoke, Abyss began to follow the others two in their attempt to lift enough sand out of the desert to reveal what was hidden under it. Other than on his last mission of his path to transcendence, he added a little information about the sith lord to which the knowledge they were seeking belonged to, as even his acolyte brother Darth Lykos, a man that had been a sith longer than Abyss himself, had lacked the knowledge about the more obscure sith lords of ancient times.

Turning his head lightly to look at Aria, listing to what she had to say. Vitium. There was another interesting glimpse, the story about Arias fall to darkness became more interesting by the minute. He always had a talent for predicting things, not with the force but by finding logical conclusions and patterns, but this had turned out completely different than he had presumed.

"I know her by name and reputation. And I saw her apprentice on the battlefield once or twice. Based on that I believe her to be a very capable master."

He wasn't actively trying to anger Connor, who like Aria seemed to be filled with a lot of resentment over this meeting. But Aria had made her first steps on the darkness, and he wanted to assure her that it was the right path to stay on. Very slowly he could feel the darkness coming closer, a vibrant energy filling the air around them.

"Well it is calling for anyone who can hear it. While others learned to create storms on their fingertips, or how to cut an enemy into pieces, I honed a few more exotic skills. Every stone, every piece of rubble that is filled with the force calls for me, because no one else is there to listen."

As the sand blew away, he could finally see a small black tip of a pyramid. Continuing his efforts, more of the sand moved out of the small hole they had created until his eyes meet an entrance, barely large enough to ve entered by an averaged sized man. The only thing he could see behind it was a set of stairs that lead right into thr darkness.

[member="Connor Harrison"] [member="Aria Vale"]

 

[Connor Harrison]

As Connor saw the pyramid start to form from the blizzard of sand blowing away from both their efforts, he tried not to listen to their conversation.

His eyes flicked to her on the mention of Silara, and it seemed she had her talons well into the girl, as there was an item he hadn't seen before. An amulet. Clearly, her pet had already been tagged. Looking away, he narrowed his eyes as he let the final push clear his side of the pyramid below. There was more than enough now to see what they had discovered.

Walking forward, he inspected the entrance before them.

"So what is it you're after here, Lord Abyss? I didn't think alchemy was your forte."

He couldn't help glance at Aria again.

The sooner he cut ties with Voss and found a place to call home, the sooner he'd be off to a place he could be more confident and more assured of himself, like she was now.

[member="Darth Abyss"] | [member="Aria Vale"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

"I have many interests my friend, and alchemy is one of them. The sith that this place belonged to achieved something never seen before and after his time. He disconnected his spirit from his body, ans bound it to an amulet, allowing to continue his existence through the ages, from the the time of the first sith, during Exar-Kuns war, until the days of the empire. That is what I am after, Lord Harrison."

In a slow pace the sith lord walked towards the entrance, embracing the darkness that filled the air since the old relic had been revealed from under the sand. It wasn't like the last breaths of power that could be felt in the other long lost places on korriban, it felt fresh, untouched, almost alive. There was no way to tell how long exactly no living being had ventured inside the laboratory, only that it had been in a time far before any of those present today had been born. With a few slightly hesitant steps, Abyss began to walk down the stairs, and after only a few metres he was greeted by complete darkness.

That was odd, as the sun stood high above the desert, and yet non of its light reached inside. Some unseen power was at work here, keeping whatever what was hidden here secured from curious eyes. With a flick of his right, a red blade pierced through the darkness, but its light was barley enough to see his own feet on the ground.

"Turn on your sabers, so we know where the others are. Also stay close, I suspect that this place has more means to keep out intruders besides the darkness."

He continued his path, and with every step the darkness around him, the one in the force and not the physical onr, grew stronger. It was like a whisper in his ear, words muffled, spoke from far away, and every time he tried to understand what they were saying they faded further in the distance. Without Abyss even noticing, the dark power that was at work here slowly infected his mind, crawling into his thoughts and believes. Right now it was only a faint feeling of danger and paranoia, but with every step they would take it would rise to something more.

[member="Connor Harrison"] [member="Aria Vale"]

 

[NightSister]

So that was what the goal was. Alright. Fair enough. It sounded a little...odd, but Aria didn't really mind all that much. She was still just as happy to help, of course; that's what friends were for and all the rest. She was fairly certain that was how it went.

Her gaze went to the pyramid as she carefully followed past the entrance, wary and curious at the same time. Unless you counted that quick spot of tomb-diving on Korriban - she grinned despite herself at the memory - Aria hadn't found herself in any similar structures, that she could think of at least. After all, she'd been almost rebellious in her curiosity during early days. Its inherent darksidedness didn't have have the effect on her it once would've, but the pyramid still had a faintly ominous air about it - surely intentional, if it was as important as it sounded. She could deal with it, obviously. She hadn't lost her touch.

At the mention of sabers, Aria hesitantly called hers to her hand; in all honesty, she was a tad bit self-conscious about unveiling her newly made saberstaff. It was hardly the sort of thing one could wield discreetly, after all. But she compromised by activating only one of the two blades, letting the crimson light serve perfectly as a beacon. If it did what it was meant to do, then there was that at least.

"Means of keeping intruders out?" Hmm. "D'you have any idea what?"

[member="Darth Abyss"] | [member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Darth Abyss]

"No, but ..."

Abyss was about to answer Arias question, when his mask slipped slightly over his eyes. Or at least it felt like it did. His left reached for his face to bring it back into position, clearing his vision just long enough to blink once, before something obscured a part of his sight once more. Again he moved his hand to the mask, and again it only rested in place for a long second. With a annoyed sigh, the sith lord pulled the piece of wood from his face, and stored it on his belt, before answering.

"But I have seen many ancient places of the dark in my live, but rarely was their power still as strong as here. We need to be ready for everything."

Normally his own words would tipped him of about the fact that what had happened with his mask could easily be part of whatever defenses this place had, as the wooden relic never moved an inch under normal circumstances, but his mind was clouded, sluggish from the darkness that lingered between the forgotten stones they were walking through. With every step the voices became louder, and yet he was still unable to make out what they were saying.

"What?"

He stopped in his steps, turning around to the two others behind him. In his mind it had just sounded like Aria had spoken, but he didn't caught the words themselves, only the sound of her voice. By now the power of the laboratory would have infected the thoughts of [member="Connor Harrison"] and [member="Aria Vale"], words whispering in their ears and shadows dancing in the edges of their vision while they would be unable to comprehend that the place was taking control over them.

OOC

Spoiler

Retagging everyone, because each thread of this arc seems to be at risk of dying.

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor followed on last, gingerly taking his saber and igniting the blue blade to cast a glow over them. He cast an eye over Aria's new weapon. A long way from a simple hilt.

"Nice weapon," Connor whispered behind her, "present from your Master?"

It seemed like Abyss was talking to himself, and wasn't with it. He squinted through the colours of their blades shining around them in the confines of the tomb.

"Abyss, what's - " he started, before a shadow move. "What was that?"

He shot a glance to the Lord.

"Who else is here? This is a set-up, isn't it. You're setting us up, the pair of us."

Connor moved forward to get closer, thinking he was hearing the Lord talk, and Aria murmuring. To him, this had been a trick and a ploy to get the two Force warriors together.

[member="Darth Abyss"] | [member="Aria Vale"]

 

[NightSister]

A smirk at the blue of Connor's saber was interrupted by an instinctive eyeroll as she heard his voice behind her. He never got tired of it, did he? It wasn't that Aria didn't hold every bit as much resentment towards Connor as he did her - quite possibly more so - but quite simply, this really didn't seem like the time.

"Have a little faith," she muttered in irritable response, "I know how to make a saber." Well, technically she'd gotten help - not Silara's help; this time had been another encounter with Imperia. Details, details. She was making a point here.

There were a few moments of silence until Abyss broke it, seemingly for no reason. Weird. It was getting darker. Different dark. Strange dark. Things kept moving about. Then she heard Connor again.

"Oh, stop talking, will you?" she snapped, looking around as she tried to figure out where his voice had come from. He didn't stop talking. Except now she couldn't tell what he was saying, and now she wasn't quite as able to tell him to shut up. She didn't like this; her brain felt leaden suddenly. All these noises. All these shadows. It'd been normal - as normal as a Sith laboratory could be, anyway - just a few minutes ago. Something had changed.

And she didn't like it.

[member="Connor Harrison"] | [member="Darth Abyss"]​

 

[Darth Abyss]

Arias and Connors words simply faded by Abyss, the only thing he was able was the word set-up, not clearly spoke as it actually had been, but a whisper shared between the two former jedi. Abyss still stood, looking at the two other glowing blades that pierced through the darkness, and to him it felt like he had finally figured out what was going on here. They had deceived him, posed as followers of the dark, but in truth they still were part of the order, send to keep an eye on him, maybe even to take him out should he grow to powerful. How could he have been so blind, putting his trust into a man and a woman with strong ties to the jedi.

"Traitors. Lairs. Deceivers."

The words were muttered by Abyss, and there was clearly a hint of madness in his voice, as the sith Lord pointed his blade in the general direction of the two others. But something was of, even more than the feeling of being tricked by those he trusted, something was lingering in his mind. He tried to make a step towards the others, raising his blade to a strike, but as he moved his foot he lost the balance, and the sith lord stumbled backwards, rolling and falling down the stairs behind him in a rather painful manner. His vision turned dark.

A few moments later, the glow in Abyss eyes returned as they opened again, when they were meet by darkness once more, unable to find the sight of the other blades to make out the position of Aria and Connor. Slowly he rose to his feet, his body still in pain from his rough decent down. Now, alone in the darkness, the whispers began to get clearer, and he was able to make out a number of familiar voices. The cold, emotionless sound of his master, Miss Blonde, the only person he really cared for, and in between a strange, inhuman whisper in the old sith language that reminded him of the vision of Nihilus he had experienced when he was named Darth. The words were still obscured, but from the sound of it he could make out that there was a conflict arising, between his master and the one he loved.

As for Connor and Aria, now that the sith lord was gone, the effect on them would become stronger as well. Familiar voices and figures, lingering in the darkness, whispering lies in their ears.

[member="Aria Vale"] [member="Connor Harrison"]

 

[NightSister]

She could hear more words, and she was sure they made sense, but they didn't. She knew what she had been called here for, and she knew she could trust Abyss, but she didn't. Everything made perfect sense, and all the weird hazy darkness would stop soon enough -

- but it didn't.

"Why are we here?"

An accusation, not a question.

For a moment, she could see Abyss's saber, and then the fog eating at everything visible obscured that too. That's what darkness does. She shushed the voice without knowing where it had come from, but another took its place. She shushed it. Then another. Even Aria, who'd had her lifetime of experience in shutting down the voices that made her question herself, had no defense against the rush of words that pushed at her mind, subtle but unyielding.

Some of the voices were even familiar - her mother, her father, Imperia, Vitium, Connor himself. Her head whipped round to one side, then another, as the Knight searched in vain through the blackness for where the voices came from.

She found nothing.

"Make it stop."

[member="Darth Abyss"] | [member="Connor Harrison"]​

 

[Connor Harrison]

Connor turned, but when he did, the passageway turned with him and the architecture blurred into one. The lights of the sabers blended into a dizzying sway of colour.

Falling back onto the hard wall, he closed his eyes, feeling as if he was spinning around, but inside…inside he knew he was standing still and nothing was happening at all. He killed his lightsaber. He pushed his hand to his head.

"It’s an illusion…it’s nothing!"

After a moment, he looked up and saw nothing but shadows around him; hunched over with no faces, huddled together pushing through making low groaning sounds.

"Abyss you make this stop right now!"

[member="Aria Vale"] | [member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

Normally Darth Abyss, the black assassin, and devout follower of the path of the shadow, cherished to be surround by darkness. So many time it had been his cloak, his shield and the key in and out of many places, but here, in ruins that were filled with a power that even the sith lorekeeper and scholar couldn't fully comprehend, it had the adverse effect. It chewed on his already fragile sanity, it haunted him with images and voices that he had locked so deep in his mind that no one would be ever able to find them but himself. The voice, the idea of the arising conflict and certain death of the one he loved, executed by the hand of the only being he truly feared, his master, numbed his mind, and like a drunk he stumbled through the darkness, his thoughts and actions out of his control.

"Help me Abyss .. No. N"

Patricias voice was cut short replaced by a set of pained growls and grunts, coupled with the sound of a saber cutting through the air. Yet every time he meant to follow the sound, he was caught by a dead end, and in the dark there was very little way to map out the path he was on. Time and Time he stumbled through the corridors, down the stairs, without any sense of orientation. It felt like an eternity, in which his mind slowly eroded and his eyes and ears lost the last glimpses of trust he had into them.

Then, after walking through yet another indistinguishable corridor, his eyes were suddenly meet by light, the brightness blinding him for a moment, as he forced himself to move forward. In the back of his mind he could still hear the voices that called for him, but without the darkness their power seemed to fade, at least to some degree. He took a look around, and painfully slow his mind came to the realisation that he had, either by fate or chance, stumbled directly into the laboratory he had came for.

From one moment to another his mind snapped, his madness replaced by another. He knew what he came for, but the promise of all this hidden, forgotten knowledge right here to take it was to much to pass up on it. Like a madman he began to search through the books, texts and artifacts littered over the tables and workbenches that filled the room, mindless mumbles and words coming out of mouth as he greedily began to collect everything close enough to reach it.

Connors and Arias path would also inevitably lead down there, once they found their way through the madness of the dark. And like Abyss they would feel the corrupting pull of powerful knowledge waiting there, right on their fingertips.

[member="Connor Harrison"] [member="Aria Vale"]