Proceed with caution

[Loske Treicolt]

“Never have I ever had a Slurmo.” She repeated, almost chanting. Enabler at her finest. Now she was satisfied with the settling of her kid on the cup and gave it a final metaphysical Boop to seal it and grinned proudly at him.

The total for the chocolates, some carb-based snack, and the slurmos came up and she handed the credits over the counter.

“Enjoy those - this batch is good. It’s almost gone, and it’s only been 526 days since I changed the taps. Usually a batch takes 998 days to swap.”

The slurmo in Loske’s straw touched her lips just before she pulled it away in repulsion.

“Maybe we can use it for backup fuel.” She chuckled as she and [member="Cedric Grayson"] exited the shop back toward the freshly vacuumed and refilled speeder.

 

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"Never have I ever had a slurmo." Cedric repeated with about a quarter of Loske's enthusiasm, and about quadruple of that in awkward. The liquid seemed to be near bubbling up at the top, and then the Ugnaught said something about it being five hundred days old.

"Sounds lovely," he replied with unpleasant sarcasm as he turned to follow Loske out of the building. The shift from dimly lit corner store to even more dimly lit corridor was wholly unwelcome. He brought the slurmo up to his lips, took a sip, and learned something new.

Slurmo was pretty good.

"I dunno," he sipped at the drink, "Kinda like it. Difference of taste buds I guess." That, and a diet made up primarily or protein cubes. "He called me kid. Do I look that young?"

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

“Or conversely thats how old he is.” The pilot suggested, rearranging the cups for the caf and the slurmo, and setting all the snacks in their rightful places. This was a real road trip vehicle now! “Maybe it’s guilt by association.” She ran her hand over the seats and the dashboard, confirming the upholstery was shard free.

“You’re just beyond boyish.” Loske offered, smiling at [member="Cedric Grayson"]’s face beneath the cowl.


“Okay, let’s do this. Hopefully you don’t have to bring that thing out again for the rest of the drive.”

 

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The trip had been, thankfully, uneventful from thereon. Coruscant grew darker the further they went, and sentient life was replaced by sentient droids. Indeed, an entire nation of autonomous droids seemed to be living beneath the planet's crust, all going about their daily routines to keep Coruscant functioning.

The lowest levels received no light, and they had to navigate via the speeder's high beams. Creatures lurked within the shadows, but none dared assault the vehicle. They simply watched, and wondered.

The air grew musky and damp as the speeder traversed routes that had not been used in decades. It was clear that this section of the undercity had not been populated in generations, and the resulting pollutants spoiling the air made Cedric's nose curl with distaste.

Then came light.

A ray of golden light fell from a crack several miles high in the sector's upper ceiling. The ground below was made of mud and short grass - natural vegetation. There was nothing beneath this level - they had traveled to the very surface of Coruscant. In the center of that patch of land stook a large structure in the shape of a ziggurat. It was carved of the darkest obsidian, and the empyrean twisted violently around it.

This was a place of the dark side.

Cedric made sure to be the first one out of the speeder when it touched down, unlit lightsaber in hand.

"This is a place of the Bogan," Cedric murmured. "But here? On Coruscant? I don't understand," he paused, peering out into the din. He saw nothing, but something primal in him told him that he was being watched. "Stay close to me Loske."

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Delving deeper into Coruscaunt revealed a tickle at the nape of her neck she couldn't quite scratch. The manufactured and artificial walls began to fall away to something more natural, and impressively, more sinister. She took note of [member="Cedric Grayson"]'s earnestness, as he seemed to be activated in full protector or Jedi sleuth mode. Next to him, she felt the need to lower her voice while looking around cautiously.

"What are we looking at here?"

It was marvellous in a sense. To have something exist down here since the dawn of Coruscaunt, in its most natural of statuses. She itched to attempt her new trick down here, given they were both fairly in the dark about what had been so interesting to the trio of imps. It was safe to assume they hadn't made it this far, given their lack of success in mutinying the Emperor.

She crouched slightly, running her fingertips against the dirt and straightening to feel its natural dampness against her touch. Traipsing her thumb over the rest of her fingertips, inhaling to steady her natural excitement. Small glimmers of activity flashed behind her eyelids. Shapes of rotting flesh travelling over the spot she'd just touched was the first thing to reveal itself, and the rest were mostly footprints from dark soles. If she wanted anything meaningful, she'd have to invest some more time and effort into this.

General consensus was agreed through, thank you Force Bond, they were not alone.

 

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"Some kind of ziggurat," he scowled at the structure. The Bogan poured off of it in visceral, malevolent waves. Whomever had built this structure had likely done so a millenium ago, judging from the strength with which the Dark Side permeated everything around them. Cedric could only guess at his purpose, but he had a suspicion. "The Sith have conquered Coruscant a handful of times, and I have heard legends that the old Jedi Temple was built atop one of their shrines to weaken its influence. Perhaps this is the shrine they were said to have built," he gestured toward it with a disgusted wave of the hand.

"I'm not sure you're ready for this Loske," he admitted, "But you're safer near me than you are in the speeder. Whatever's watching us, something tells me it won't come close to the ziggurat." He glanced back into the darkness. He caught sight of weaving figures and wavering silhouettes, but nothing concrete. The creatures watched, and they waited.

"This might explain why Coruscant's underworld is so broken," he mused as he slowly began to walk up the ziggurat's steps. The gaping black maw at its apex beckoned the duo onward.

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Resentful of the suggestion that her competence was not adequate for the situation, Loske's brow furrowed. Parts of her personality that were imbued mentally protested, but her truth was acceptance. She was under tutelage for a reason, and nothing would make her a more receptive student than acknowledging and accepting her boundaries before she pushed them. She only grunted a response.

"I thought the Bogan itself wasn't real per say, only feeding off whatever something is offloading into it's energy." Conclusively, she looked at the doorway. That probably meant then, if [member="Cedric Grayson"]'s theorems were valid, there was something inside that was discharging sinister intentions. If he was suggesting this temple was powerful enough to misalign a civilization, then what lay inside may truly be out of her field of expertise. Gratefully, she slinked a little nearer the Jedi Master, mentally acquiescing to her limitations. Kiskla would have revolted then and there.

The ascension of the stairs only drew them nearer the source, and the irritation at the nape of her neck expanded the chill through to her phalanges. It was a feeling that mirrored the core of darkness aboard Ultimata, but this time it had a come hither.. sort of beckon to its permeation.

At the doorway, Loske risked a peek inside, and over their shoulders. The speeder was unadulterated, although the movement around the perimeter hadn't receded. If anything, it had grown a quiet murmur. They were certainly being watched.

 

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Immediately Cedric regretted bringing Loske along on this mission. Her company had been lovely, and the conversation educational, but this beast was something he felt even he might have difficulty understanding. The old histories were woefully fragmented, and discerning the nuggets of truth scattered about them was a near impossible task. He could not say when exactly the ziggurat was built, or know its purpose; he only knew that it posed a vast danger to Coruscant.

"It is and it isn't," he replied. "It does not occur naturally, but structures and places the Sith have damaged can host it until they are purified. A good analogy would be to see the Sith as scavengers carving off whatever pieces of the Force they need at any given time. They leave scars when they are gone, and it can take centuries for those scars to heal naturally. We are cultivators, those that help to grow the Force. We work to heal those scars, and restore it to what it once was."

He gestured toward the Ziggurat. "This is one of those old wounds, and it seems to have festered from a lack of care."

Speaking helped to retain the calm. As they stepped into the Ziggurat, they would both feel an overwhelming sensation of dread. The walls, ceilings, and seemingly every structure were carved of that black obsidian. Red lines thrummed across them, all interconnected, and shaped like veins. Every few seconds they would glow brightly, and then dim, almost as if the place had a pulse.

"This is an evil place."

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Those red, thrumming veins on closer inspection would reveal they were carved to replicate code from old tongue. Several generations ago, to the point now where trying to interpret the etchings would take a linguist...or at least several, concentrated hours. For those that could not read the words and their intentions, they whispered. The beat of the delivery matched the pulsing of the light. Some areas swelled with more brilliance than others, as if one could follow a conversation. Loske didn't know the ancient tongue, it was just harsh on her ears, but she was enthralled with the rhythm of the delivery.

"Can you tell what it says?" She parted ways from him, only a couple of feet or so, to try and parse some of the wall scrawl.

It would be foolish to think that the doorway was the only interesting thing about this temple. A few paces forward, around an oblong decorative piece randomly left in the foyer of the temple, would be a dead end. There was no way this single room, like a box, was the entirety of the temple.

The width of the next perceivable doorway (which was just a giant, concrete block that suggested no further admittance) was at least two speeder-lengths wide. On either side of the doorway were two pulsing spheres. Subconsciously, they beckoned the touch of [member="Cedric Grayson"] and Loske. It didn't really matter who touched them, but the stones craved interaction to serve their purpose. And with the distance between them, there'd be no way for one individual to interact with both at the same time. The rule of two. They needed flesh, and true electromagnetic currents belonging to a sentient operative.

By now, Loske was looking at one of them almost longingly, before back at the Jedi Master.

"We've..got to.." by way of the bond, she hoped she didn't have to complete much more of that sentence.

 

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Cedric had come across similar structures in the past. They were often places of old Sith knowledge, the languages through which their knowledge was translated often lost and forgotten. The Jedi Master had studied the Sith language for a time, though he was nowhere near fluent in it. He recognized a handful of piecemeal phrases sputtered here and there, but there was no context to any of it. Whatever the ziggurat was telling them, it was lost upon him.

"It's old Sith," he mused, brow furrowed distressingly as he trailed his fingers along the walls. The entire structure seemed to be absolutely steeped in the Bogan, the very walls themselves reeking of its corruption. The sensation made his stomach turn uncomfortably, but he did well to set it aside for now. They had a mission, and getting incapacitated from the Dark Side's sickly influence was certainly not a part of it.

"No idea what it all means though. The dialect is one I've never studied. I can only understand a handful of the phrases, and none of it really makes any coherent sense," he continued, his lips pressing into a tight frown as he eyed the two spheres. He suspected a trap, though they didn't have much choice other than to spring it.

"Don't open yourself to the Force here Loske. This place is a nexus of the Dark Side," he mumbled as he made his way over to one of the spheres. A hand was set upon it, and he felt an instant, unpleasant connection with the ziggurat, as if it were a living being trying to commune with him through the Force. The pulsing of the orb steadied upon his contact, casting the entire room in a sickly red light.

He looked to Loske, a mixture of worry and encouragement in his expression. "Time to find out what the Sith were hiding."

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Her palm pressed against the smooth stone at the same time [member="Cedric Grayson"] made the decision to take the action. Before them, the heavy stone quivered and creaked as it hefted itself upward. Loske kept her hand pressed down as it rose, revealing what had been hidden.

The murmurs intensified, and the glow amplified to the point where both herself and Cedric were basked in a crimson hue. This was exhilarating! The anticipation of what would be behind door number one was not quelled when the stone finally settled in its upper space. Cautiously, she lifted her hand, testing if the stone would fall back down. It did not. With more confidence in the structure, she stepped forward.

"No better way to know the enemy than operate within their walls, hm?" The wraith commander suggested, slinking into what would have been the next room.

The next spot was equally read, and equally confusing, although larger in size. With more doors as options. She looked at the markings in the walls once more, in this new room "A handful of the phrases, yeah?" Loske questioned, looking up and down. "I wonder if there's a way to know which door to choose. Or, but process of elimination, which ones to avoid."

 

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The deeper they delved into the ziggurat, the stronger the Bogan's presence.

Cedric suspected Loske would not recognize it as innately as he did. He was almost thankful that her training had not progressed terribly far - the more one opened oneself to the Force, the more power its aspects had over them. He cast aside the inante feeling of dread the place inspired, eager to continue on so that they might find what the temple held, and leave.

"I suppose not. The Sith are obsessed with deception, this would likely have served as a useful tool for them." His brow furrowed. "It very may still be."

The thoughts hadn't crossed his mind yet. Did the Sith Empire know of this place? Was it another of Carnifex's tools?

His brow creased as he trailed behind his padawan, eyes narrowed as he attempted to decipher some of the phrases that emblazoned the walls. "There is the symbol for death," he gestured toward a particularly jagged marking, "This is talking about a transfer of some kind," he added as he gestured along the walls. "A transfer of death..." he mused as he followed along the phrase, its ending emblazoned just above one of the doorways.

"I wish I'd studied more," he sighed, gaze shifting to Loske. "Most of these other phrases above the doors all illegible. I feel like this might be the right way." He placed a hand upon the door, and it slid into the stone above. Where the rest of the ziggurat glowed, this room was in complete darkness.

Cedric took his unlit lightsaber in his hand as he took a step into the chamber.

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Loske mouthed along with the words [member="Cedric Grayson"] suggested about transferring. While he attempted to read things, her own eyes darted about the room. It wasn't anything particularly orante, aside from the etchings in the walls. It was simplistic in design, with harsh lines in the structure. She was so tempted to try and read the history of the design, perhaps make their hunt a little less gut and assumption based and put some decision making into their boots. Before she could do anything, the Jedi Master spoke again and she turned to look at him while he admitted his wistful desire to stick his nose back in text.

Dutifully, she crossed to his location while the stone concealed itself into the ceiling and revealed nothing but darkness beyond.

"Something doesn't feel quite right," the would-be Kiffar murmured as Cedric was swallowed by shadows. The sound of his steps against the stone was the first sense that started to peak as her sight was veiled by darkness. Then she felt a loose rumbling beneath her feet. "Ah.." The temple had felt two pairs of feet in the hallway, and built with the mind of The Rule of Two, began to initiate its duty of not allowing anyone to venture in further. "Run!"

With a yelp of surprise, Loske darted forward as the stone beneath her feet started to dissipate. Her heels fell victim to gravity, and as much as she lunged forward, only her torso made it to the remainder of the unsunken floor. The temperature difference below her hips was drastic, a cold, beckoning chill. Desperately, her hands clawed at the floor before her and she transferred her strength to her shoulders to grapple her way back to her knees and assumed a panting table top position. The stones stopped their damage when there were several meters between the door and the end of the hallway they'd selected -- although looking backward, one couldn't necessarily decipher that given the opaque onyx the room was cloaked in.

Dusting her knees off, the padawan rose to stand. "If this is the right hallway to be in, would hate to be in the other two right now."

 

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Cedric spat a curse as the ground beneath their feet began to give away. He didn't need Loske to tell him twice. He broke into a surprised sprint, stumbling his way over the receding ground that was disappearing just a foot or so behind him. It was by sheer luck that he managed to clear the gap without issue.

"Kark," he huffed, turning about to see Loske hanging over the darkness. He jerked forward to grab her hand, but it seemed she had things handled all on her own. The Jedi breathed an audible sigh of relief as she clambered here way back onto solid ground. "Kriff Loske, don't scare me like that." He held a hand to his chest, willing the fluttering of his heart to still.

"Sith love their traps." He sighed, cyan blade roaring to life in order to illuminate the room. This chamber - or rather what remained of it - was utterly featureless. The walls were simple black obsidian, the floors much the same, unadorned and unwalked upon for centuries.

Up ahead, the light of Cedric's blade just barely illuminated the beginnings of a stair well that seemed to wind down deeper into the ziggurat.

"I expect the other two would just incinerate anyone that walked through," he replied as he slowly approached the stair case. The air grew far colder the moment he took the first step, filling him with an primal sense of dread - the kind of feeling one might have when being stalked by a large predator. There were no other options however, and so he pressed on, marching quietly into the depths of the old temple.

"It would really suck to come this far only to die in some unmarked temple a few dozen miles beneath Coruscant's surface."

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Loske cracked a grin at [member="Cedric Grayson"], although it was concealed by the darkness. Out of breath, she let a jest out on one of her recovery exhales "Just wanted to make sure you cared."

Willing herself not to step back when the blue light ignited, she followed suite. Her desire for a glowing blade of her own only grew when she acknowledged another utility for it. If she weren't in her civilian attire, she'd likely have been in her piloting suit which was amply equipped with survival tokens. Two of them being a flash bulb, and an actual glow stick. At the suggestion of being incinerated on arrival, she grimaced. How long would it have taken to build something like this, and how much slave labour had been required to complete it? She somehow couldn't imagine a Sith Lord on their hands and knees stacking the stones required. They probably just came in and bippity-boppity-Force'd it with the spells of disintegrating floors and touch-sensitive stairs.

"Maybe you should get a secretary and a tracking beacon." Loske mused aloud, feeling the chill seep through her clothing. It was a damp kind of cold, along with an evil one. "But then again, a mysterious disappearance could fuel the rumour mill for good publicity."

 

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"Well, I've already put a couple hundred hours into you. It'd be inefficient not to care about you at this point," there was that sarcasm again. It was good in a place like this - humor kept the spirits up. Ashla knew they would need it right now.

The air grew to be quite cold the deeper they went. So much so that Cedric found himself pretty glad he'd elected to wear a cloak. The farther they delved, the more archaic the design of the walls around them. It was as if the obsidian structure above had been built upon something more primordial: something even more ancient.

"Tracking beacons are too dangerous. Bounty Hunters seem to be able to get into them no matter what security measures are taken." He added, keen to keep the conversation going. "As for the disappearance, maybe good for publicity, but also an opprotunity the warlords could take to seize more power. Hopefully we aren't here too long."

The air grew stale as the stairs came to an end. It terminated into an ornate archway, beyond which that crimson light from earlier poured from. Cedric led the way inside, and found himself at a loss for words.

Twelve humans were strung up from durasteel slabs on either side of the room. Half were male, half female were female. They were each clothed in simple undergarments, their skin as white as a corpse's. Their bodies were completely hairless, and thick purple veins colored their skin in a way that unnerved Cedric. They barely lived, their presence within the empyrean like the slightest breath of a small rodent in the wind.

At the end of the room, another creature hung. It was seemingly human, though terribly massive, easily nine feet tall and likely more than that. It was clothed in long black robes, its blackened hair long enough to meet its shoulders. The abomination was bound to a throne of obsidian by straps on its wrists and ankles. Its eyes were red and bloodshot, peering lifelessly out into the void, unblinking.

If one were to look closely, they might note striking similarities between the abomination and the Sith Lord they had seen Cedric's father kill in the vision earlier. The thing that intrigued Cedric the most was the crystal embedded in the creature's skull. It was a murderous crimson in shade, the Bogan pouring from it in waves.

"...Is that the old emperor?"

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Where [member="Cedric Grayson"] was at a loss of words, Loske gasped. And then immediately regretted opening her mouth to let the stale air in. The sight was repugnant, and for whatever it was she had been expecting, this was not one of the options. The corpses that were strung were so close to lifeless, that they couldn't even emit moans, nor give any acknowledgement to the pair of Ashla beacons as they entered the room.

Who were these people? How did they get to be down here? How long had they been down here? Why were they down here?

"Oh my kark.." She muttered in response to the question of it being the Emperor from the dream walk earlier. The delivery of words was more of an exhale, again, because she was fearful of inhaling whatever it was that had been going in and out of the lungs of the dozen strung. Truly, she couldn't really tell. The emperor from older had been far closer to alive, even though it was only an apparition, than the monstrous individual strapped down here. At this point, none of the bodies in the room with the duo had made any motion to recognize the voyeurs, so the blonde dared a step. She too had noticed the glowing polyhedral gem in the skull, and it was impossible not to detect the fluctuation of the dark side from it. Or, what she supposed was the dark side. It didn't feel natural, or healthy.

"What is that in its head? Is he still alive?"

 

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"It looks like a kyber crystal," Cedric breathed, the horror of what they were witnessing a bit much on his psyche. Cedric had seen much in war. He'd been witness to scores of men being blown apart by artillery, been the source of others being rendered into disembodied pieces. Death was never a stranger for the Jedi Master - he understood it intimately, but this was something different. These beings were held within the gray area between life and death, forced to suffer for eternity rather than pass on into the Ashla's peace.

All of the inert half-corpses were force sensitives, and they were powerful at that. The greatest of them was the abomination, who continued to stare aimlessly into nothingness. Cedric approached slowly, coming within a foot of the thing before he halted. His eyes narrowed as he examined it closely.

"The emperor of the One Sith thrived on essence transfer. His body was killed several times, but his spirit would always find its way into a new host, at least until my father destroyed it. Perhaps this was the next body he had planned to take," he gestured toward the abomination, then to the others, "To keep something so unholy functioning, it would have likely required sacrifices. I suspect these might be captured Jedi," he chewed on the inside of his lip, turning to face Loske.

"I think we should -" the words were cut off as Cedric's eyes rolled into the back of his head, and his body collapsed to the floor.

The abomination blinked.

"Hello." Its voice rumbled with an unnatural quality, almost like an echo within a cave. "Foolish for this one to bring a nexus of the Light here. He suspected correctly of my Jedi here - they respond rather unpleasantly to one so bathed in the Ashla's aura, but you are different. There is possibility to you."

Its herculean face split into a wicked grin. "Ah, I know you! Both of you! Children of my foes, seeds of my undoing - what is this but divine providence?" It rumbled with laughter. "Welcome to my home, daughter of Kiskla, son of Mephirium. Your progenitors and I were...good friends."

[member="Loske Matson"]

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Getcher heart rate up​

​

A kyber crystal. That was what fuelled the power of a lightsaber. Loske knew that much, if only out of longing and research with Frank on what it might take to get one of her own. Light gaze traipsed over the suspended faces, consuming their discolouration and sunken wear and weathering with vacant listlessness. Several hundred miles below the livelihood of Coruscaunt, this was happening in its core. These Jedi had been forsaken.

"Cedric!" Came out more of a shriek than she would have otherwise preferred, but given [member="Cedric Grayson"] had just gone from standing, to a collapsed heap on the floor, there wasn't much room for concealing emotion here. What had been apprehensive fear was now full blown, and panic created a thrumming sound in her ears. Her heart leaped to her throat as she lunged to the torpid form of the Jedi Master, kneeling beside him and pressing against his chest as if pummelling his pecs would make him gasp for air.

"Cedric, come on..Ced.." Within seconds, the stagnant air was broken by a commanding voice and she yelped out of surprise again. Dread filled her belly and throat. At first, her own terror made her partly deaf to the introduction of the giant chained to the throne. When the former emperor confirmed the suspicions that those that lined the walls were Jedi, Loske's face contorted with grim realization and she gripped Cedric tighter, regretting that she'd egged him on to open that first door.

There was little time to wallow in remorse. The wicked royal continued his observation. It was remarkable to see the face come to life after so many years, but appreciation was lost on the pilot who was just trying to focus on how to get out of this situation. With both of them alive.

There was a lot of information in those few sentences. Potential, progeny. He knew who they were, and where they both came from...

"What happened to him!" She demanded, electing to focus on the primary problem at hand, in her hands, rather than giving credence to the maniac's discourse. She gave Cedric's shoulders a shake, and a pat on the cheek, before looking skyward once more at the wrinkled, decaying façade of the Sith Lord. "Wake him up."

 

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There was a deliciousness to the girl's terror. It had been so very long since the Lord had tasted the emotions of another. They were heady things, the foundation upon which the Dark Side had been built. A decade spent trapped in this tomb had rendered him rather unused to their flavor; it was akin to a cool drink of water after spending weeks in a desert.

"Cedric. An interesting name. His parents weren't ones for originality - no surprise there." The abomination chuckled, shaking his head bemusedly at the girl. His bindings kept him from reaching out, but the force was an endless thing. Even if he could not rise, he could still influence them.

"He is alive, for now. I am vulnerable here, and he would have killed me before I had the chance to speak. You, however, are not yet tainted by Jedi dogma." The abomination tilted his head toward Loske, a knowing grin plastered across his face. "Your mother sent his father to face me, did you know? Sent the man to die for following your Jedi path. I'm surprised he travels with you."

"I have been entombed here for over a decade. I cannot escape these bindings, my friend, but perhaps you can help me. If you would only free me, I would be forever in your debt."

[member="Loske Matson"]