The Legends of Darth Skhorrn Part 4

The Legends of Darth Skhorrn
Part IV: Trials and Tombs
Korriban
3666 BBY
Vonn Inek wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. He never had quite gotten used to the oppressive heat of Korriban. Alys had taken to the planet like it was her own homeworld, seeming to thrive in the heat, but Vonn could barely stand it. But as they were taught, suffering built strength. And Vonn had certainly suffered much since coming here.
He and his sister had first come here five years ago. Their father was trying to gain prestige in the Commerce Guild, and having two children in the Sith Empire would certainly improve his social standing amongst his peers. By some miracle (or curse, as the case sometimes felt to Vonn), both Inek children were Force-sensitive. Even though Vonn was older than Alys by two years, upon arrival to the academy, they were placed in the same group.
Ever since then, they had fought each other and their peers, been beaten by their instructors, trained in the dark arts of the Force, and had to scrape by just to survive. But by this day’s end, it would all have been worth it. For today was the day of the Final Trial. They would either pass and become Sith Apprentices, or they would die. There was no room in the Empire for weakness.
Vonn and Alys stood on the steps of the academy overlooking the Valley of the Dark Lords. Before them stood Overseer Quorr Malric.
“Listen here, human filth,” the Sith Pureblood said. “You have been at the top of your class ever since you arrived here. Your skills in combat are rivaled only by your mastery of the Dark Side. But you are not Sith yet. One final test awaits you, and it is one of my choosing. In all honesty, I don’t expect either of you to survive. Your species is weak and dilutes the purity of the Dark Side that my people perfected.”
Malric stroked the red tendrils hanging from his chin, looking the two acolytes up and down. Then, reaching into a pouch on his belt, he held forth a small datacron that projected a holomap leading from the Valley of the Dark Lords to seemingly the middle of nowhere. “Recently, the academy came into possession of this map. Memorize it now, for you will never see it again.”
The Inek siblings studied the image astutely, committing every feature to memory.
“Some Theelin plunderers were captured and the datacron taken from their meager possessions. And amidst their screams in the torturer’s chair, we were able to learn that they came here searching for a tomb. Interestingly, this tomb is not one in the Valley of the Dark Lords.”
Vonn and Alys exchanged looks. The Valley of the Dark Lords was the final resting place for all Sith. All who were buried on Korriban were entombed there. The presence of a tomb outside of the Valley was unheard of.
“You are to find this tomb, enter it, and each retrieve an artifact from it.”
“Sir, what kind of artifact?” Vonn asked.
“Whatever the dark side leads you to, Acolyte.”
“What kind of opposition can we expect?” Alys inquired.
“That remains to be seen. Certainly, something will be guarding the tomb, as is the case with all tombs on Korriban. But whether it be terentatek, tuk’ata, k’lor’slugs, or something else entirely, well, we just don’t know. But one thing you CAN count on is this: I am not the only Overseer who knows of its existence.
“Others of your stunted status will be searching for it, and they will either try to reach it before you, or kill you and take whatever you emerge with; should you make it that far. But between the guardians of the tomb and your peers, I would bet against your survival if I engaged in such debasement. Now get going.”
Overseer Malric stood in place as the siblings began towards the valley. They had barely made it three meters when his voice stopped them in their tracks.
“And acolytes, if you fail to find anything of note and somehow survive, do yourselves and me a favor and throw yourselves into the maw of the nearest beast you can find.”
Needing no reply, the red Overseer strode back into the academy. Vonn and Alys made their way down the steps. As they walked through the ancient burial grounds, Vonn couldn’t help but look up in awe at the statues of the great Sith Lords from ages past. Their tombs encompassed the entire valley around them, and the Sith Academy had long led archeological expeditions into their ruins to find ancient secrets of those Lords long dead.
“An unknown tomb,” he said, more to himself than to Alys.
“Puzzling, indeed,” she replied.
“Could it be someone disgraced long ago?”
“That seems logical, but I sense there is another explanation, one I cannot yet ascertain. But the existence of such a thing, I find it… concerning.”
Vonn guessed at his sister’s implication. “If there is one unknown tomb, could there be others?”
She nodded.
“And if so,” he continued, “who’s to say we may not end up in one when our time comes? We don’t know what caused this apparent exile, but it stands to reason that it could happen to anyone.”
“We will just have to vigilant. If we do not falter, we will have no reason to be disgraced. Let’s get through today and worry about our burial when we’re dead.”
Vonn suppressed the urge to point out all the reasons they may die today anyway. Their fellow acolytes, the beasts of Korriban, the tomb itself would undoubtedly be booby trapped; and barring all that, they might still die at Malric’s hand if the tomb turned out to be nothing more than a grave robber’s tall tale. The deck was inordinately stacked against them.
Sensing his feelings, Alys chirped up. “If it was easy, they’d let just anyone become Sith.”
With a sly smile, he retorted, “According to Overseer Malric, they already do, ‘human filth.’”
They shared a small nervous laughter but sobered up when they reached the end of the valley. Sharing a sense of unease, the prospective Sith unsheathed their vibroblades. Drawing upon their memories of the holomap, they ventured beyond the safety of the familiar and into the unknown.
Treading carefully, they used the Force to stretch out with their senses, listening intently for any predators that may lurk nearby. But the area around them was suspiciously empty.
“Do you feel that?” Vonn asked his sister.
“The emptiness.” Alys said, bringing her vibroblade up closer, muscles tight, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Vonn tightened his grip on his own weapon. He remembered a particular training session shortly after arriving at the academy. He had been handed a war blade and told to fight one of his peers. Vonn had never had any kind of weapons training before that point and was woefully unprepared for his first duel.
His opponent, a Kaleesh with a bone-plated face and tusks named Bregh, had easily swept the war blade out of Vonn’s loose grip and beat him mercilessly. The instructor had only interfered just in time to prevent Bregh from completely beating him to death. Vonn had learned his lesson quickly, and had gone on to become the envy of his fellow acolytes in sword combat. Now, he made sure no force could ever separate him from his weapon.
Following their mental map, the pair traveled for nearly a mile without encountering any resistance whatsoever. Yet as they stalked through a ravine near their destination, they both became acutely aware of a disturbance in the Force ahead. Alys signaled to Vonn to wait. She crept to the rockwall’s edge and peered around it.
“Holy shavit,” she exhaled under her breath.
Vonn had to know what could cause his sister to mutter such profanity. Creeping up next to her to look around the corner, what he saw stole his breath. In between them and the stone entrance to a tomb nearly buried in harsh sand was a hoard of tuk’ata. They had dealt with the vicious hounds on an expedition into the tomb of Tulak Hord, but they had been with their classmates and Overseer, and there had only been five of the beasts. That expedition had cost them the lives of three students and their Overseer had been severely injured. Vonn made a quick headcount, and this pack numbered twenty.
“Well, we’re farkled,” Vonn said as he eased back around the corner of the rockface. Neither of the Innek siblings were given to swearing very much, but given the circumstances, no other reaction seemed appropriate.
“It had to be tuk’ata,” Alys muttered as she peeked around the corner again. Vonn knew his sister hated the Sith hounds more than most beings who’d encountered them. Sith Acolytes were discouraged from forming friendships with each other, since most would be forced to kill one another by the time they were ready to graduate and become true Sith. But Alys had always viewed the dark side as more than just hate and anger, as they were taught. She viewed anything the Jedi shunned as worth exploring, and she valued her emotional attachments.
While Vonn was perfecting his war blade technique, Alys was making acquaintances with their peers. The only other person she knew who she could truy call her friend was a twi’lek girl named Esha. The two had become very close in their first two years at the academy, but Esha had been the first student to fall to the tuk’ata guardians of Tulak Hord’s tomb. One of them had impaled her on the horns rising from its head while two others tore her into several pieces.
Alys had crushed the beast that killed her friend by crushing its skull in a moment of pure hatred and grief. But it had taken everyone present to defeat the remaining hounds, including their instructor. And two more acolytes still lost their lives, as the tuk’ata were unusually intelligent and coordinated their attacks by means unknown. What was known was that they were mildly Force-sensitive, and used that sensitivity to hunt their prey. A concerning thought occured to Vonn.
“Tuk’ata are drawn to sources of dark side energy. When we explored Tulak Hord’s tomb, there were only five of them. What could possibly be strong enough to attract twenty of these things?” He asked, exasperated. But Alys regained her composure.
“Something that will make us Sith.”
Vonn stared at his sister.
“We can’t possibly make it to the entrance. We’ll be torn to shreds before we’ve made it two meters.”
“We may not be the ones who are torn apart…” Alys said, her gaze fixated on a particular shadow in the ravine. Suddenly, she reached out with her empty hand and seemed to snatch at empty air, but in reality, she used the Force to grab ahold of something unseen and pulled it forward. The air in front of her shimmered and dissolved to reveal Bregh.
“A personal cloaking device,” she explained. Vonn grabbed his nemesis and yanked him to his feet, vibrosword held to Bregh’s throat in an unspoken vow of violence. Alys patted the kaleesh down and removed his weapon and cloaking device. “He’s clean now.”
“So what was the plan, Bregh? Wait for the tuk’ata to devour us and sneak by into the tomb? No, that’d be too much effort for you. No, you were just going to sit here cloaked and wait for one of us to retrieve it. Then you were going to kill us and take it back yourself, weren’t you?”
“Why do the hard work when I can get rid of you and claim the key to my ascension, Yae kung?” Kregh spat back.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, Kregh. It’s time for you to die. But on the bright side, you finally get to contribute something to the Sith.” Vonn pressed his blade against the alien’s neck, ready to draw blood. But suddenly, Bregh grabbed hold of the rock face behind the Innek siblings and crushed it with the Force, sending rocks and debris hurtling at the back of Vonn’s head.
Vonn was forced to drop his hold on Bregh and turn to slice through the rocks as Alys dove to the side. Bregh rolled past Vonn and grabbed his discarded vibroblade. Coming up into a crouching position, Bregh stabbed at Vonn’s waist, but Vonn’s own sword deflected the strike. Alys rose with her blade aimed at the kaleesh’s head, but Bregh rolled past her and slashed at her sword arm, slicing through fabric, flesh, and scraping against bone.
Alys nearly cried out, but repressed the urge knowing that if the tuk’ata hoarde caught wind of the three acolytes, they would all be doomed. But as she switched her vibrosword to her other hand, she glanced at her injured arm and watched in horror as black veins began to spread from the cut. Vonn wasted no time and used the Force to yank Bregh by the throat to his hand. He kicked his enemy’s sword out of his hand, breaking his fingers in the process.
Gripping Bregh in a deathlock, Vonn ran to the edge of their cover from the tuk’ata.
“You wanted to see someone devoured by the sith hounds, Bregh? Well here, study the phenomenon first-hand.” Turning completely in a circle to put all his weight into the throw, Vonn launched Bregh out into the clearing. The beasts were immediately upon him. Vonn listened with smug satisfaction as his nemesis screamed while being ripped into many bloody pieces. The tuk’ata snarled, hissed, and clawed at each other to get as much blood and meat as they could for themselves.
However, Vonn’s satisfaction was cut short, as he quickly sensed his sister’s pain. Looking away from the carnage in the clearing, he turned to find Alys clutching her arm. Black veins crawled up the limb like deathly vines.
“His weapon must have poisoned,” Alys forced herself to say, gritting her teeth against the pain. Vonn ripped a sleeve off his tunic and wrapped it tight around her wound.
“We have to stop the bleeding before they smell it. We have to get you back to the academy and get this patched up, otherwise the poison will spread and kill you.”
Alys placed her hand on her brother’s. “We can’t go back without whatever is in that tomb, Vonn… Cut it off.” She held up her sword for him to take.
“Alys?” Vonn asked, incredulous. “I can’t-”
“You have to! If you don’t, I will die. If we go back now, we both die. The only way out is through. We get to the tomb, find whatever the tuk’ata are guarding, and use it against them when we claim it.”
“Alys, if I cut your arm off now, they will smell the blood-”
“You’re just a kriffing coward! I’ll do it myself!”
Before Vonn could stop her, Alys put her vibroblade to her own shoulder and began sawing. Blood sprayed across Vonn’s horrified face as Alys sawed with the serrated edge through muscles and bone. Finally, she cut completely through right as the black veins reached the edge of the dead limb. Blood pooled from the dismembered arm and the stump where it was once attached.
Alys groaned, suppressing her agony, internalizing it. She curled the fingers on her remaining hand and held them over where her arm had once been. She muttered in the Sith tongue, and Vonn’s eyes grew wide as fire emanated from her hand and seared the wound shut. He backed away slowly as his sister growled something guttural and looked up at him, her eyes glowing fiercely yellow with red streaks bleeding into her eyes.
“Let’s go,” Alys growled. She handed Vonn her sword and picked up her own severed arm. “Take Bregh’s cloaking device, you’re going to need it.” Vonn obliged, strapping it to his forearm.
“How are we both going to use this? I go first, then throw it back when I’m at the entrance?” He said, sparing a glance around the corner and immediately wishing he hadn’t. The tuk’ata were in a feeding frenzy.
“No, we won’t get more than one chance to cross. We have to go now, while they’re distracted by Bregh’s body. His remains won’t keep them busy for long, we have to go… now!” Without waiting for a reply, Alys ran from cover into the clearing, using the Force to give incredible speed to her steps. Vonn struggled to activate the cloaking device and ran out after his sister. He feared she would be set upon by the hounds, but his fears were quickly alayed.
The nearest tuk’ata looked up from chewing on one of Bregh’s arms at the wounded acolyte. But Alys never hesitated, she threw the bloody limb straight at the animal, who caught it and was immediately challenged by another hound. They fought over the arm, tugging at it from both ends, not understanding they were being poisoned even as they fought each other. As the others swarmed towards Alys, she used her pain to summon fire in her remaining hand and blasted the approaching tuk’ata with it. While some of them were set ablaze, one was completely engulfed in flame. It ran rampant, trying to put out the fire.
As she reached the entrance to the tomb, she pushed the remaining tuk’ata back with the Force and ripped the door open with one motion. She sensed Vonn right behind her, and they yanked the door closed as one of the beasts crashed against it. Collapsing against the door, Vonn deactivated the cloaking device, breathing heavily.
“And here,” he panted, “you thought… it was going... to be… hard.”
But Alys wasn’t even out of breath. She was looking at their new location. The room they were in opened up into a network of tunnels, going down into darkness. There seemed to be tunnels within tunnels, as if the catacombs beneath this place intersected with each other. It was a maze. Her glowing eyes glared at the tunnel that stretched before them. “It’s more powerful than I thought.”
Vonn sensed something powerful, too. He looked into the darkness of the tunnel that lay directly before them, feeling as though it looked back. He felt like he was being measured by something… and judged. It made him uneasy, and in the back of his mind, fearful. But fear was a Sith’s weapon against the weak, and the two of them had proven to be anything but. Fear was their tool to use, not to be consumed by. He quieted his anxiety with determination. Picking himself up off the dirt, Vonn handed Alys her vibroblade and reached into a pouch on his belt, retrieving a glowrod.
Dim amber light illuminated the tunnel for a few meters in front of them. Vonn started to move forward, but Alys quickly crossed in front of him, smashing the glowrod with her blade.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Vonn yelled?
Alys threw her vibroblade to the ground and and grabbed Vonn by the neck of his tunic, pinning him to the wall with her one hand.
“That light only stretches ten meters. These catacombs are considerably longer than that. If anything is lurking in here, they would have seen that light, giving away our position. We would be unable to see past the light’s reach, making us blind to their approach. You’re a sith acolyte. Use the Force.” She let go of her brother and picked her sword up.
“Alys, it’s pitch dark in there. Even if we sense something, we can’t fight what we can’t see.”
“I can see,” Alys said, holding her vibroblade close. She set off straight down the main tunnel. Halls broke off from it in all directions like limbs of pure darkness, reaching out for them. Vonn followed behind his sister, his own vibroblade at the ready. He stretched out with his senses, searching for signs of predators, enemies, or traps. But he felt none. However, that didn’t mean they weren’t there anyway.
“How do you know it’s this way and not down one of these tunnels?” Vonn whispered.
“The tunnels are the trap. Head down one, you’d get lost forever. I can sense the source of the dark side energy that attracted the tuk’ata. It wants to be found…” Alys answered, seeming to peer through the void at whatever their final destination was. Vonn tried to quell the growing unease in his mind, but his sister seemed almost possessed, and he was worried for her. This was unlike Alys. She was not normally one to give in to dark emotions, and she was fixated on something he could not sense.
From the tunnels around them, Vonn became aware of a draft. But the air around them grew more and more stale as they delved further into the abyss. Finding it harder to breathe, Vonn concentrated on slowing his breath and heart rate in an effort to conserve oxygen. As he did so, he focused his senses back on the tunnels around them, and he became aware of low whispers in the dark. He could not make out the words, or pinpoint the source. They seemed to emanate from thin air, but lead away from the tunnel they were in and into the void.
“Do you hear that?” He asked shakily, turning with his vibroblade in every direction. But Alys kept her gaze cemented forward, as if she didn’t hear him.
“They are guiding me to it,” she whispered to herself.
“Guiding you to what?!” Vonn could no longer keep the panic out of his voice. The darkness around them was more than just a lack of light, it was a living evil, and it was drawing them further into its maw, ravenous with hunger. “Alys, stop! We have to turn back! Whatever is down here, it’s not-”
Vonn crashed into Alys, who had suddenly stopped walking. But she remained unmoved, even as he fell to the ground. She merely stood in place, staring ahead. Vonn got up off the ground and put a hand on her shoulder, trying to turn her to lead her out back the way they had come. But she could not be moved. She just stared.
Vonn followed her gaze into the new chamber they stood at the mouth of. It was fairly nondescript for a tomb. Sand littered the floor, the walls were bare, lacking any Sith Empire symbology. But in the center of the room, there lay a stone sarcophagus. It too, was surprisingly barren looking: brown, rusted, and decaying. The whispers he had heard stopped when they crossed the threshold into the tomb itself.
“This is it,” Alys said knowingly.
“This is the source of the energy?” Vonn asked, once again trying to keep the fear out of his voice and failing.
“This is what we were meant to find,” Alys said, still not moving. Vonn held his vibroblade in a death grip and approached the sarcophagus. It came up to his waist and was covered in the reddish brown sand of Korriban. Walking around the perimeter of the tomb, Vonn searched for obvious signs of a trap, but could find none. Still, not one to take chances, he stood several meters away and used the Force to grip the lid and pry it off.
Grinding brittle stone against stone, the lid finally gave way and collapsed to the ground, landing with a sound like thunder. Vonn braced himself for the inevitable spray of acid or poisoned barbs, but nothing happened. Warily, he approached the open casket with his blade at the ready, peering inside.
It was just a body, like one would expect to find. Tattered black robes fell off dessicated skin and bones, skeletal hands clasped a rusted lightsaber hilt. The only notable contents of the grave were the saber and a gray mask, unweathered by time or decay. It seemed to glare up at Vonn, and he reached in to to retrieve it and the lightsaber. Two straps connected the mask to the skull of its previous owner, which came off completely in his hand. Vonn angled the mask upward, causing the horned skull to fall to the ground, the teeth clattering for a brief moment.
“I guess these must be the artifacts we were sent here to claim,” he said, looking down at the prizes he had claimed. “The lightsaber will definitely help against the tuk’ata more than our vibroblades wi-”
“Give me the mask,” Alys interrupted.
“What?” Vonn asked, surprised at the aggression in her voice.
“Give me... the mask.” she said, holding her vibroblade out to her side. Vonn noticed the implied threat, and took umbrage with it.
“Or what? You’ll kill me with one arm? You may be more powerful in the dark side, but I have always been a better fighter than you, little sister. And don’t forget, I have a lightsaber,” he said, holding it up for her to see.
“It isn’t meant for you,” Alys hissed. Vonn kept the hilt’s emitter pointed in Alys’s direction as he looked down into the eyes of the mask. It seemed… alive somehow. Like it wanted- no - needed to be worn. And now that he looked at it, Vonn understood, this was the true source of power here. This mask was what drew the tuk’ata here, was the power that ensnared Alys. Whoever this tomb belonged to had been more than just another Sith Lord. It was as if they were the physical embodiment of power, and Vonn held the key to that power in his hand.
All he needed was to put it on…
“No, don’t-!” Alys yelled, rushing with her blade raised. But it was too late. Vonn placed the mask over his face, strapping it into place.
Everything went wrong at once.
A wave of dark energy pulsed from Vonn, cascading throughout the tomb and knocking Alys to the ground. She landed on her empty shoulder, crying out in pain. But that was nothing compared to the screams coming from him.
Vonn knelt in the center of the chamber, clutching at his face, writhing and screaming with the wails of a dozen voices, all of them hateful. He clawed at the mask like an animal, but could not remove it. Alys watched as the lenses over the eyes retracted into the mask, and Vonn clawed at his own eyes, gouging them out. He began to run around the room blindly, ripping at the mask in a vain effort to remove it.
Finally he collided with the sarcophagus from which he had removed the mask to begin with. Collapsing to his knees, Vonn bashed his head repeatedly against the hollow stone, his screams never dying down.
Alys got up and picked the fallen lightsaber up off the dirt covered floor. “Like I said, brother,” she activated the ancient weapon, “it isn’t meant for you.” She swung the scarlet blade straight at Vonn’s neck, decapitating him instantly. The screaming finally stopped. Tucking the deactivated lightsaber into her belt, Alys held up her brother’s severed head to herself with the Force. Unsnapping the straps, she let his head fall just as he had the skull that previously occupied this space.
Without taking hold with her physical hand, Alys pulled the mask over her own face and strapped it on. A similar wave hit her again, but this time it was different. Raw dark side energy coursed into her from the mask, intensifying the pain in her shoulder, as if she were cutting her arm off all over again. But instead of running from the pain, she gave in to it and let it make her angry. Anger was a Sith’s tool, the whetstone against which they were sharpened into lethal weapons.
Alys felt the presence of all those who had worn this mask before her. They had been calling her ever since she first entered the tomb from the tuk’ata. They had guided her down the tunnel, directing her steps even as they tried to lure Vonn to his doom. She was always meant to find this mask, she knew that now. She had always been stronger in the Force, in the dark side, than any of her fellow acolytes.
She alone had the fortitude to do what was necessary to achieve victory, and she alone was worthy of the power this artifact wielded.
The lenses came back down and the heads-up-display came to life. Every time the mask had been worn by a previous owner, it logged the data in video files. They dated back hundreds of years across dozens of wearers. Alys watched the logs of every new being who had worn the mask. She soon discovered a name they all shared: Darth Skhorrn. This was the mantle she had inherited.
Alys needed to know why the last Skhorrn was buried in an unmarked tomb, separate from the Valley of the Dark Lords. What had her predecessor done that was so terrible? She found the recordings, dating one-hundred-and fifty years before she had found the tomb. The mask had belonged to a theelin, which explained how the grave robbers imprisoned in the academy knew of this place. They must be his descendants. The Skhorrn of that time had cut a bloody swath throughout the galaxy, killing indiscriminately. Jedi, Sith, civilian, bounty hunter, none were safe from his onslaught.
Skhorrn’s rampage had become so severe that a temporary truce between Jedi and Sith had been called, and the two Orders had joined forces to eliminate Skhorrn by all means. The conflict finally came to a head on Korriban itself. The bloodthirsty warrior had come to destroy the academy and prevent any new acolytes from being created so that he might keep the mantle forever. The Jedi and Sith converged on him, and were finally able to destroy him.
Their enemy defeated, the fragile alliance crumbled, and the two warring factions attempted to destroy each other. By the skin of their teeth, the Sith won, and only because they had the homeworld advantage of being able to instantly call upon reinforcements. They eliminated the Jedi they had just fought beside, and debated over what to do about Skhorrn’s body. Some Sith felt he should be left to the beasts of Korriban, others felt he should be given a burial in the Valley of Dark Lords.
Eventually, a decision was reached. The power of the dark side in Skhorrn’s body and possessions was overwhelming, and could not be allowed to just sit out in the open for the mutated beasts to flock to. They would become too powerful. But his crimes against the Order could not be forgiven, and he was denied a tomb within the valley. Instead, they dug his into the sands of the site of his final battle, where Jedi and Sith had shed blood together. The name Skhorrn was to be erased from all history, his grave unmarked, forgotten to the sand of time.
This was the secret the Sith had tried to bury.
“Fools. Nothing stay buried on Korriban.”
Using the Force, Alys dumped Vonn’s body into the stone sarcophagus and sealed the lid over it. She placed both dismembered heads on top of it and left the chamber. She followed the tunnel back to the entrance and blasted the door off with the strength of her hatred alone. Standing at the entrance of the tomb, Alys retrieved the lightsaber from her belt and activated it.
However, the remaining tuk’ata horde did not attack. Upon seeing her, they stretched down, as if bowing. Reaching in to the dark side, Alys let the spirits of all Skhorrns before her speak through her in the ancient tongue of the Sith: “Nu buti Skhorrn.” <I am Skhorrn.>
To Alys’s amazement, they spoke back in a growling chorus. “Kruso Urvaz Skhorrn, vmotai iv tave plejada.” <Hail Darth Skhorrn, scourge of the galaxy.>
She had heard legends of tuk’ata being able to speak, but had brushed them off as just that.
“Ka-ur dary j'us satyi?” <Whom do you serve?> She asked them.
“Urvaz Skhorrn,” they all replied. She had a pack of tuk’ata at her disposal. Alys thought about what to do with this. She quickly made up her mind and gave them an order in the tongue they shared. Then she began the journey back to the academy. She knew Bregh would not have been the only acolyte waiting to ambush her and Vonn when they had set out earlier that morning.
Sure enough, halfway back through the ravine, the HUD on her mask alerted her to the electromagnetic signatures of four personal cloaking devices.
“You may as well come out, I can see you,” she said. One by one, the devices were shut off, revealing her meager competition. She recognized them all. At one time or another, she had attempted to befriend each one. How asinine that now seemed upon reflection.
“We’re taking those artifacts back with us, Inek. You don’t have to die for that to happen,” one of them said.
“Of course she does. Even if we don’t kill her, Overseer Malric will. At least if we do it we can earn some prestige,” one of the others said.
Alys let her gaze drift across the four acolytes before her, their vibroblades drawn and held in offensive poses.
“Zudyti savimi,” Alys said, using the masks vocal processor to amplify her voice. Her words echoed off of the canyon walls.
“What was that? What did you just say,” asked the acolyte who had offered to spare her. But before she could get an answer, the horde of tuk’ata swarmed down the walls of the ravine and eviscerated the four students. Alys calmly walked through the carnage as blood and viscera sprayed across the rock walls. Amidst the screams, she simply answered, “‘Kill them.’”
A short time later, Alys arrived at the steps of the academy, her loyal pack following in step behind her. As she walked up the steps, she ordered the hounds to stay put. Acolytes, overseers, slaves, and Sith masters all looked in awe and terror as she ascended into the academy. Overseer Malric appeared to be the most shocked of all.
“Inek, is that you?” The Sith Pureblood asked, disbelieving.
“No. The Inek siblings died today, along with every other acolyte sent to destroy them. They went into an unmarked tomb seeking power. I am what came out.”
“And,” Malric seemed hesitant to ask, “what is that?”
“The scourge of the galaxy. I… am Darth Skhorrn.”