Public Temple Ghosts

[Seela Khaan]

Spoiler

Deep Core
Pre and Post-Gulag Era Republic
Jedi Brighthome

Seela's vessel dropped out of hyperspace just before the asteroid field. Hidden in the Deep Core and, throughout the Galaxy, were Brighthomes. Old places of Jedi learning for Jedi who were at the peak of their power. Prior to the Gulag Plague the Republic had many such temples...Brighthomes they were called. Space station temples had been designed as places of learning, storage, and refuge. Their records were difficult to find and thus their locations even more difficult to pinpoint. Recently however, a scholar had found several dozen of them, many on the edges of known space and thus deep within Sith Empire or Outer Planets Alliance space...And most of those easy to reach stations had been piked clean by Sith, Jedi, and Scavenger alike. The Deep Core was difficult to navigate however, even for a Jedi and a Jedi as old as herself did not need such scholarly works to find these temples among the stars.

After all...She'd lived in them.

The aging shuttle flew through the asteroids and debris of the temple. In its old age it was falling apart, but its massive towers and statues of ancient Jedi heroes still stood tall. She recognized the Hall of Forgiveness, the Hall of Justice, and the Hall of Learning, though several other halls had been destroyed and the face of the ancient Jedi Master Mace Windu was destroyed, its debris floating around the Hall of Strength. Her eyes narrowed as she felt the touch of the Dark Side. The Sith had found this temple at some point after the fall of the Republic. She could sense their stink all over it. Her grip tightened on the steering yoke as anger flowed through her. She quickly quashed it though. Emotions such as anger could be used and harnessed if kept in check by their user, but like everyone there were a few things that made her blood boil like nothing else. She exhaled as her ship pulled into one of the hangars. The station seemed to be mostly functional and she inputted an old docking clearance before internal security measures could activate.

As she stepped off of the shuttle she felt a familiar brush in the Force, that of her old mentor, the head Master of this Brighthome and her own Master in her youth. She smiled that his light was so strong that even the darkness of the Sith could not dampen it here. Her focus returned to the land of the living however and she strode forward. Many of the crates looked like they had been cut or blasted open, likely the Sith and later archaeologists and grave robbers. The halls that had once been rife with the laughter of younglings and the discussion of Knights and Masters echoed through the halls in her mind. A strong feeling of nostalgia filled her as she wandered the halls, searching, looking for something.

 

[Tyde]

Within the halls of these ancient ruins, another entity moved through the darkness, exploring the corridors. The powerful energy of the force had drawn him here. The chaos within his mind was eased by the spirits here, and he found a certain peace to this place as he rummaged through the various scattered containers to be found. There wasnt much of value to be found anymore, the most sought-after objects having been taken some time ago (if they weren't well hidden).



Shuffling through the junk in one particular crate, the small being's piercing emerald eyes would suddenly turn to Seela as she approached in her explorations. There, digging through the crate, may be the most unusual sight to be taken in yet. A small S'kytri youngling stood over one of the crates, a pile of discard around his feet where he had obviously been digging through the container looking for valuables. His skin was a brilliant blue color, with ivory swirls covering him like waves on the ocean. His hair was golden and shimmered in the dim light, though most noteable were his glowing green eyes



His voice gave away his youth as he gasped, and leapt, an incredible motion of agility as he bound upward and began to climb the wall. Scuttling up the wall quickly, the boy stopped when he was hanging upside down from the ceiling, those glowing emerald eyes still peering at her suspiciously. His wings spread, ready to attempt to fly him to safety should she attack. One with a great enough connection to the force would likely be able to feel the force strongly flowing through the boy, it was what lead him here after all.



There were a few things that spoke of his nature -that moment of silence, along with the wild look in his eyes would slowly reveal something else about the S'kytri youngling - he wasn't from any sort of civilization...he was feral. His form was stark bare, something that didn't seem to bother him, another trait of his wild nature.



It didn't seem the small one was overly agressive or evil, he did not attack. Instead he seemed to take on an almost defensive position up there on the ceiling, watching to see if she would be trying to take anything from the crate. He had assumed her to be after the same thing he was of course - food.

 

[Seela Khaan]

A ripple in the Force drew her attention as she made her way through the Hall of Justice. Another being, afraid but not consumed by the fear...It was not of the Dark Side. Her eye scanned the room and fell on a source of noise. It was like a scurrying animal, or rather a scurrying kath hound. The youngling knocked over several crates as it made its escape to the ceiling and she wondered how the youngling had gotten here. He was obviously strong in the Force and she wondered if that was how he had found this place, drawn to it...As she was now in her own search for answers.

She smiled up at the boy. He acted feral but he at least knew how to pilot a ship considering they were in the middle of nowhere in the Deep Core. She didn't bother speaking to him though because flight skill didn't mean he knew Basic. Instead she sent waves of calm in the Force. She was no threat, so long as he did not threaten her. What had he been searching for she wondered...She doubted it was anything she was looking for. She continued through the Hall of Justice towards the Hall of Forgiveness. The Darkness was strongest there, she could feel it. In the past it had been where rogue Jedi, Dark Jedi, and captured Sith were "rehabilitated" or stripped of the Force and so the weapons, artifacts, and other powerful items of the Dark Side were also kept here, locked away behind a secret door that only a Jedi Master could open.

She wondered if she could still open it.

She gazed down at her scarred hand and hoped to the Force she could.

Tyde

 

[Darth Themis]

Armed with: Divining Rod (Green bladed Lightsaber-Spear)

Wearing: Armorweave dress

Arrived in: Lambda Class Shuttle.

Until she located her mobile base of operations, The Corona Class Armed Frigate known as Ashla's Platter, she was sticking to low key.

She had dominated the mind of a Sith Lord into signing his funds over to her, and then killed him promptly thereafter. The Bright Lord of the Sith showed mercy to the followers of the Dark rarely. Very rarely. They used the wrong tool for achieving order.

Themis had forced the Light to remove all traces of the Sith's taint from both the vessel and the droid pilot before boarding.

In her solitude aboard the luxury vessel, she had kept the lights low, found the cabin and had tried to go to sleep.

Themis did not enjoy being able to sleep again as much as she had thought she would. Mainly because her sleep was plagued with nightmares of her first death.

She still remember the way the black flames in that lake chewed into her soul. Still remembered her beloved De Lifte Family being butchered.

More than once, Themis had considered using Alkahest to ressurect the De Liftes. She had trained them as Jedi, as she had promised, essentially bound only by her word on that point but she had kept it. As she had trained more and more Legitimate Jedi, carefully concealing her own true nature, the more her public persona had started to become her private persona. Being Moya De Lifte, Jedi Master, had slowly started to erase Darth Themis...

...Light Side Sith Lord...

They had died believing in her. Died believing she had been the real deal.

How could she bring them back without them seeing the truth about who their teacher had really been?

Themis shot awake in the bed of the shuttle's custom quarters screaming just fifteen minutes before she entered the system. She had seen the final battle again. The final battle of the De Liftes. She ran into the sink and vomited. She turned the restroom brightness dial up, stared into her own Light-mutated eyes, the irises an unnatural dark green, the rest a bronze metallic sheen.

She had always hid her eyes, the sign of her true wisdom in The Light from her students, at first simply to honor the deal she had made with the Whill Guardians who had freed her, and in the end out of shame, too enamored with their way to let it ever show, even in the end, when she had sincerely made a go of trying to die as one with them. Only for the lake of black fire to be her reward.

She had tried it the Jedi's way. Now it was back to her way of using the Light. Controlling it. Not being controlled by it.

Themis grimaced as she remembered the screams.

One hour later.

The all black shuttle had settled quietly close to the bright home. Themis was clad in a simple brown armorweave dress, clutching a lightsaber spear composed of a shaft of cortosis weave durasteel, black in color. It had been her preferred weapon when traveling anonymously. The emitter was a solid black like the rest of the hilt.

Themis proceeded to walk calmly to this place, having journeyed here to obtain equipment for lightsabers. She still needed specialized materials only facilities like this, even in their ruined state could provide.

Themis just hoped nobody else currently had the same idea...if it was a Jedi, she might avoid suspicion about her odd light signature so long as combat did not occur. If worse came to worse she could say she was a healer.

Besides, how many Jedi like Seela Khaan had ever actually run into a Light Side Sith before. Would they even know what to look for?

Tyde

 

[Tyde]

The smile from the Jedi master seemed to sooth the boy's anxieties, his demeanor easing a bit as he simply cocked his head to the side a bit inquisitively at her.



Tyde's mouth opened a little in surprise as Seela began to send waves of calm out through the force. His emerald eyes blinked in wonderment as he made the connection, realizing she too used the force. Imitating what he felt, the boy would send similar waves of calm out around him, like she had though not nearly as strongly.



As it began to seem that she was not directly a threat to him, as well as being another force user, the S'kytri youth's curiosities piqued and he found himself wondering what she was doing in this place.



Still clinging to the ceiling, the small blue winged one moved along after her, intent to tag along and see if she should stumble onto any food she wasn't going to eat



The boy, to this point, was entirely unaware that a member of the Sith had entered this place

 

[Darth Ledgermayne]

Patience. The virtue often encouraged to be tested within the Jedi belief. Through faith and the art of waiting one could have any answer he sought to find. How wrong this was. Patience is a virtue worth growing within ones self but the second part? Faith? In action. To not move was not to be alive. To no strive to achieve was a life that had no worth. For every being or entity moved in a fashion they deemed fit. A law observed by the celestial masses themselves. For even stars died out with the passing of time. A solemn reminder than all things were indeed finite. Even himself.

Fire blazed reflecting from ruby eyes and sparking a smolder that could only compare to the true fire inside ones very soul. The core of who they were and are. Adorned with a back and red trim cloak marked with Sith runes. Exposed to the purified and filtered air within his ship one could observed that the Sith Lord had a lack of other garments. The part of the two trimmed fabrics revealing a bare chest comprised entirely of a crystalline mineral of red hues. With a slight shake the ship trembled and with a hesitant slam the back ramp let gravity take its course. Months of research and within Sith Intelligence. Time spent striving to succeed has now paid off. All the remained now was the dispatching of an Inquisitor. Darth Ledgermayne. Stepping down the ramp the Sith Lord gave a reflective pause, took in his new surroundings with rigid and quick movements and tilted his head slightly. Behind him strange grunts and groans could be heard in the adjacent area. The source? The ship.

Tyde Darth Themis Seela Khaan

 

[Seela Khaan]

The Hall of Forgiveness held nowhere near the same amount of knowledge as the Jedi Archives of Coruscant's old temple. Those however, were mostly lost, almost entirely destroyed between the first and second sackings of Coruscant by the Sith Empire and the One Sith. And so she was here, flipping through pages of digital archival copies and downloading them onto her datapad. Satisfied with her new collection she continued to the door she was looking for. It was a beautiful piece of artwork that displayed a loyal Griffin, guardian of the Light, standing in a protective stance in front of a stylized depiction of The Daughter. The stone and stained glass work was beautiful and as she laid a bare hand on the stone she felt the comforting Light of the Force radiate from the door, but she knew that it was only so powerful because of the great darkness. She rested her forehead against the cool surface and sighed, focusing on the Force.

She searched her mind and tried to remember how to open the door, reaching with the Force to open the complex series of locks and switches, but something was stopping her. The door...It could only be opened by a Jedi Master with the power of the Light Side. Was...Had her healing not been as complete as she thought? Of course it wasn't. There was still darkness within her...

Lost in thought she hadn't felt the presences enter the temple. A chill of cold air washed over her as a reminder of what true darkness felt like.

"Sith," she breathed. Whatever they were here for they would not have it.

Darth Ledgermayne Tyde Darth Themis

 

[Tyde]

Ever inquisitive, Tyde continued to observe and even follow the Jedi master as she explored the ruins, taking in the sensations of this place. Tyde too could feel the various force energies here, like a variety of flavors that he was just tasting for the first time. He had little basis for comparison, though he could distinguish between the light side and dark side energies well. He found the light side particularly comforting, supportive, perhaps like the mother the boy never knew.

The dark side didn't feel comforting or supportive, but to Tyde the raw furious energy felt necessary at times. The clash of fight-or-flight could certainly draw out the powers of the dark side within the boy when they were needed, so Tyde actually had a raw basic understanding of the balance between light and dark side energy.

The small wanderer watched the Jedi as she went through various archives of information, though he didn't know what the devices were accomplishing. Once the Jedi had finished copying the knowledge to her data pad, Tyde watched as she made her way to another door, the youngling following along on the ceiling as he had been.

When she touched the door, the boy could tell that she felt something. Creeping closer, the boy too would reach out, touching the top of the door from his position on the ceiling. His eyes closed, and he gasped as he began to feel something. He could hear voices, ancient ones that were spoken in these halls so very long ago. The voices were both young and old, teachers and students, a bond that could surpass time within the force, leaving its energy here.

He made a faint little sound, similar to a sharp breath being taken in, with a faint little hum of delight leaving him. The experience within the light side was refreshing and vitalizing to him, and he found himself grateful that he touched the door as the Jedi master had.

The first Sith who had entered the temple had entirely slipped by the boy's own force detection abilities as well, but as a second one arrived the dark side energy would begin to get the youngling's attention. He looked around, an uneasyness coming to him.


"Unnn"


The boy groaned, a bit of alarm on his face as he looked directly at Seela and pointed back in the direction that he felt the dark energy's source. He seemed to be trying to warn her of what he felt, despite his lack of communication skills. He was unsure that she knew of their presence, though the word she suddenly spoke suggested to him that perhaps she knew something was off.

Darth Ledgermayne

Darth Themis

Seela Khaan

 

[Darth Themis]

Themis snorted as she felt the hated presence of the dark as she drew ever closer to the Brighthouse ruins. It was a magnificent structure, even in its decrepit state. Themis could make the Light Side do many interesting things to this place.

And she would have, if given the opportunity to do so. But the presence of Darth Ledgermayne had changed everything. Strange...this man had only shown up in a few of the futures Themis had born witness to. Had she changed something on the way that ensured he would come. Had someone else, perhaps.

As dependant (Some would undoubtedly accuse her of being addicted) as she was on Force Visions, even she knew a look at the future is not a simple matter. The future is always in motion. Its just that her visions had a disturbing habit of being too on the nose...except when they were not.

She was ahead of him. She might still manage to strike up an alliance among whoever else was here. She saw the face of Tyde and Seela Khaan and made greater haste. A Jedi, whatever their other flaws in her eyes, knew the value of strength in numbers.

Themis at least managed to make it ahead of the Sith, by twisting the Force around her for speed to reach the ruins. She stretched her perceptions, saw Seela in the Hall of Forgiveness in all of them and quietly walked there, clutching an inactive spear, feeling the echoes of the Light everywhere. How wild.

How uncontrolled. How peaceful.

How wasted. If The Jedi had the courage to master, truly master, the Light instead of the other way around, the Sith would have been destroyed long ago. There would be no need for creatures like Themis to show the way, or so she arrogantly believed. That was the thing about Themis: At times, like any Sith, it was all too easy to ignore her failures.

Themis walked casually, the Light twisting through her body as she slowly but surely approached the exact area Seela was in, watching her fail to open the door.

Themis gazed upon the ancient Door Seela had tried to open. Puzzle doors. Ah. Normally these puzzle doors could only be opened by Jedi Masters with the Light.

Well...she HAD died originally as a legit Jedi Master. Maybe the door was more nuanced than that though.

Themis snorted quietly. Figures they would keep the good stuff behind lock and key. But there was more than one way to shave a wookiee. It was simply a matter of finding the right shaver.

Ugh, bad analogy...

The enchantments were very specific unfortunately. A couple of hours using her own special brand of magic could maybe undo it but it would not simply open out of fiat. But then again, Themis had even helped design doors like this when she had still been Moya: She knew how incredibly difficult they were to open.

Still...when you know how to do a thing...

Themis stretched out, drawing on all her knowledge and experience, twisting the light through the locks instead of flowing them through. Just enough power and skill to make the doors obey her due to being a Jedi Master.

Slowly, the doors began to creak open, the locks popping. Themis had no vision of danger.

"Puzzle Doors...Jedi seem to be even more fond of them than other groups..." Themis called out to Seela, remaining in the shadows. In her visions she saw Tyde observing the woman. He likely had nor noticed her yet.

"We are going to have company very soon..." Themis called out.

 

[Seela Khaan]

The other Sith had found her. She could feel it in the Force before the doors hissed their warning. This was something she was hoping to avoid., not just Sith but other powerful users of the Force in general. She pinched her eyes closed and sighed quietly, centering herself before turning to face the woman. Before she could speak the door behind her began to creak and groan and crack. A small chunk of the Griffin's sculpted feathers fell to the floor and crumbled. Seela's eyes widened when she realized what was happeneing.

"Stop," she hissed, "You don't know what you're doing!" The fool. The clicks were more lie pops and groans. The stained glass portions began to flicker, as if they had been lit by some light source and then she realized that the soft singing she'd felt in the Force from the door...Had been kyber. The stained glass wasn't glass, it was a collection of kyber crystals artfully made into the door. THAT was why it had been so insistent. And now as the stained glass began to tremble, the eyes of the Daughter began to change. In fact her entire form began to change. Her hair became tentacle-like and her eyes a sickly Sith yellow. Her smile turned to a snarl and the kyber glass around her began to flicker red and crack.

When the door finally gave way the griffin had been cracked and broken and the kyber glass had been bled into a deep red. The woman resembled an ugly, twisted version of the Daughter and Seela wept inside. The door creaked open more and what had once been a mix of Force signatures had become tainted with darkness all around the vault. She wondered if the holochrons and other artifacts would even function now.

She wanted to snap at the foolish Sith girl the way she nonchalantly spoke to her. She wanted to curse her, but she felt that tinge of darkness within beginning to rise to the surface and she quashed it down.

"It seems I already have company. Foolish company with no understanding of the complexity of the Force she wields. Or rather, she, much like the Force she bends to her will, has a twisted understanding of the world around her." She tried to keep the venom in her voice to a minimum.

"So tell me, am I going to be felling two Sith Lords or one today?"

Darth Themis Tyde Darth Ledgermayne

 

[Darth Themis]

Themis huffed in displeasure as the doors opened but she had been too quick about, accidentally bleeding the crystals, corrupting the whole thing. Even a Sith Heretic like her could bleed the crystals, yet another sign that for all her control over the light, it was still just that: Control. Pure Control rather than feeling. Themis would dispute this. It all depended on a certain view, of course. She wasn't going to let some silly pieces of force infused rock not play ball with her. As with all Sith. If they got fussy just because they didn't like her expired I.D. then that was their problem. This is why she stuck to Synths.

"Ugh. Kyber. Always so dammed stubborn..." she said.

She stiffened as she felt the darkness in Seela Khaan .

"Twisted understanding, eh?" Themis joked stepping forward, blinking her green and brown light mutated eyes, green veins showing slightly under the skin near the eyes.

"I died thinking the way you do. I've had quite my fill of 'your' kind of understanding..." Themis replied curtly, though she clutched her spear a little tighter. In many of the futures that branched off from this, Seela did not always feel like playing ball.

"You have your hands full with merely one Sith. Two against you would simply be unfair. You need not worry of me attacking you...as long as you show me a similar courtesy..."

Themis looked at the door. Few Jedi truly had the will and the stomach to force the light to do their bidding.

Her brand appeared on her forehead, the ancient symbol of the Ashla, a circle with odd patterns around it, encased in a black pentagram. She glided past Seela to the door, examining it.

Her hand shot out as she spoke strange, unnatural words, slitting open the middle of her forehead with a fingernail and bleeding glowing green blood.

The lightning that shot out of her hand was so warped by the Light, it did not look like normal Electric Judgement. It was dark green in color, its energy giving off hardly any glare as it hit the door. The dark green energy filled into the cracks of the griffin, the feathers that had fallen to the floor resetting themselves, the dark green lightning arcing between the cracked pieces.

The image of the daughter began to change as the blood-alkahest of Darth Themis took effect, the nightmarish features, warping into a more severe, less warm and welcoming looking creature in black, her eyes taking on the same warped colors as Themis's own. The Kyber flickered between red and bright, viridian green, that had strange wisps of green flame waft off the surface. The door was no longer tainted with the dark, but the door was merely being forced to function, without actually being repaired.

"You might not approve, but it is...mostly functional..." Themis said, walking inside. The effect of her alkahest did not seem to to be spreading beyond the door. The objects inside were just as tainted as before. More was needed.

"That door should buy time against the one who has come here..." Themis mentioned to Seela and Tyde as she headed deeper, looking at all the tainted relics.

"Ugh, this is gonna take at least a quart to restore to functional order..." she complained as though it were a spill of liquids on a supermarket floor.

Darth Ledgermayne

 

[Darth Ledgermayne]

His steps were not quiet. The distinct thump of crystalline feet rang true within the temple and its various large halls. Each step bringing him closer and closer to what he sought to retrieve. There was no rush or hurry in the Sith lord pace,but rather the opposite. Feeling no need to hide his presence to those around Legermayne let his natural aura plague the immediate area around him. Like wretched vines twisted and withered so to did the sensation and cold that crept down the spine. A shiver.

Quiet fury, resolve and a heartless nature.

The scattering of smaller but still dense feet skittered close behind the Gutretee. He was not alone. No signs of breath nor true life could be found. Only the mere movements of that which were. What were such sounds one might ask? Abominations. Scraping of bygone weapons against temple stones, snarling of lives fused with stone and eyes that reflected pain of those lost. Bound by ravenous desires. To infect and tear apart. Numerous in number they became. Ten? Twelve? No. Sixteen? Sound alone could gave no assurance of what was soon to come apon the others within the temple.

And judging from the look of things. Darth Ledgermayne was now closing two meters down the hall from where voices echoed within a room. Slowing his pace and examining the wall that separated him from the "others" in the temple. He traced the path to the open junction ahead. Snarling transformed into shrieks and the scattering of feet rapidly picked up in paced. Legs in panicked frenzy. Scouring every surface like spiders, all the while the thumping of their masters remained unchanged.

Soon.

Darth Themis Seela Khaan Tyde

 

[Tyde]

Tyde didn't understand their words. Their meanings escaped him completely; but their energy did not. He could tell they were in conflict, disagreement.



Their use of the force drew his steady attention however, and as he watched the force twist and taint the door, he felt a dread within as the energy was corrupted. He wasn't sure what they were trying to do at this moment, but he knew that the darkness he felt was closing the gap - approaching their position with a dreadful skittering of company



The sound in the hallway had grown, and Tyde knew they were running out of time.



Thrusting his arms toward the hallway where the darkness approached them, a surprisingly powerful force push would emit from Tyde, gathering containers around him along with the junk that they had once contained.



The containers would hurl and tumble through the air violently along with the debris that the containers once held. The mass of junk would send a blast of small objects down the hallway that may hinder the movements of the dark one and his skittering hoard, but it wouldn't be able to resist them much - hopefully delay them.



The larger containers would wedge together within the hallway, creating its own makeshift barrier of garbage within the confined space.



Turning now toward his current companions and having little time, Tyde leapt, thrust forward by a force push of his own as he leapt through the door after Themis, intent on escaping as well.



Darth Ledgermayne



Darth Themis



Seela Khaan

 

[Seela Khaan]

This woman was...delusional. She thought herself above the natural order of the Force, bending and twisting it to her will, denying its will with every step. She claimed to be a Master but it was clear with the disrespect she had for the Force she was just a woman who'd tasted power and now thought she owned it.

But she was also powerful in her own right. And right now, between the two of them and the child creature she believed that the other Sith that had entered was not long for this world. But then she felt it, a strange air in the Force. Alive, but dead....Unfeeling yet their emotions were like tumultuous storm in the Force. How had she not noticed them before? This woman bending the Force around her like a doll was dulling her senses. She heard them now though, the groans and moans and roars...She couldn't pick out the individuals but the mass was large enough...At least a dozen? Maybe more?

Then she heard the thuds.

Definitely more. The woman wasn't wrong, the vault would hold out for a time, though not nearly as long as it would have if she hadn't ripped the door to shreds trying to open it. The Sith could likely swing it open now with a flick of his wrist now that the door was so corrupted and the vault was not some ever expanding tunnel. It was smaller than the room it was a part of. With how many of these creatures there were, they'd be overrun in seconds.

"Better idea," she said and depressed a button on the console to the opposite end of the room. A second door hissed and the door they'd come in before slammed shut. She whipped out her blaster and fried the door controls and only moments latter did she hear the banging and groaning, even loader than before. She nodded to the second door and took off running, not bothering to look back and see if the woman was following. She knew the temple like the back of her hand and if they were getting back to the Hangars they needed to move quickly.

Tyde Darth Ledgermayne Darth Themis

 

[Darth Themis]

Themis followed Seela Khaan and Tyde through with some amusement into the chamber of artifacts, giving the boy a thumbs up at his display of power and control. Her Force Vision had let her see the things coming and that was when her spear went active. A bright green shoto blade, 007 inches long sprang out from the shaft.

It had been Moya's lightspear--Her original one was long since lost to time. She had found the crystal on Ilum, had not altered it with alkahest like she did with normal possessions like this.

The moaning grew louder, as they went past the vault relics. Themis knew they would be on them soon.

Darth Ledgermayne remained the closest approaching concern, however...

One of the stone and flesh monstrosities, carrying an ancient, rusted axe fell from above. Themis saw it seconds before it happened however, and neatly side stepped the death dive just enough at the last second, the monster clipping its head on her spear, killing it instantly. She whipped the spear behind her in a wide slash that gutted three more, and begin to stick closer to Seela.

"They've been fused with stone, whoever or whatever they were. Y'know, this reminds me back when I was I Jedi...knew this guy who liked to make creations much like these. He was a bastard of a Dark Jedi, so I ended up cutting his head off, but I wonder if he didn't visit this place at some point...his works were a little more polished however but thats what you get with the weirdos..." She remarked, casually impaling one more monster and flinging it into a hoard of more as she retreated.

"Then again, I use blood with a ton of my stuff, so its the pot sneering at the kettle..." Themis grumbled.

"So, 'Master' Jedi, (It should be noted that Themis used the term 'Master' sarcastically, as she had always found that tradition of addressing nearly every Jedi you could meet with the 'Master' prefix as incredibly silly.) what's the plan for the Sith or the Monsters? A lightsaber? Clever banter? Perhaps a nice cup of tea and a philosophy discussion?"

Themis was partial to the first option but she was admittedly game for the other two if Seela and Tyde were up to it. However, the only futures where they tried the latter option involved Themis making herself look like a giant chicken while Seela punched her repeatedly and Themis was too proud to let 'that' future come to pass, or the ones where she accidentally tripped and broke her leg. (She always avoided the futures that got her legs broken in them. She hated that kind of injury. Even though she rapidly healed from it.)

"By the way, how do you know this place? Did you study here?"