Another's Fleeting Mind [Achilles]

[Lief]

The slight use of the Force they could handle, as well as the ignited saber which shed light upon their dismal tomb. But the moment that the door was broken something seemed to snap within the atmosphere, the tension which had been built up released in one sudden uncontrollable flurry. Without warning the wind around the Temple seemed to pick up and move swiftly toward Jordan, careening into his chest. If the boy did not find a way to step around it he would be met with what felt like a solid wall, enough to force the air from his lungs.

And then came the voice, booming in his ear. "You think to come here, playing Sith, and disturb the slumber of the deceased?" The words were disjointed, with the pitch rising and falling dramatically and the final word hissed as though spoken through the tongue of a snake. "You are nothing, your name is unheard of, your feats are pitiful." The words seemed to be coming from all around him, each syllable sounding from a different part of the room as though the beast was circling him.

"Let us see how strong you are, let us see how you fare against those who already failed!"

Around him in the darkness pinpricks of light would appear, marching toward the boy at a steady pace; the motion was slow, yet they closed on him with each passing moment. Then came the accompanying snap-hiss of a dozen lightsabers igniting their blood red beams into the already sickly air. Without warning, juxtaposing their slow motions, one of them leapt at him. All the while the others continued to creep forward.

[member="Jordan Achilles"]

 

[Jordan Achilles]

[member="Kära Vi'dreya"]
Jordan felt the draft of wind pick up around his legs and then swiftly pressed his body against the door frame, nearly missing the powerful gust of near solid-like wind. He turned back and walked into the dark room, his red lightsaber igniting only a small portion of the dark room. Jordan hung onto the words of a strange voice as it's voiced its self about Jordan, it was right...his achievements were pitiful, his name was unknown...but what a better way to make a name for himself. He witnessed the strange almost humanoid creatures of shadow approach him slowly with lightsabers draw. He counted roughly a dozen around himself before seeing something jump within the corner of his eye. Jordan turned towards his right, his lightsaber now in both hands and he clashed sabers with the creature.

The sabers clanged together with a loft of crimson red flickering off. Jordan went in for a feint attack upon the shadow and then sidestepped the creature and ducked downwards with a sweep of his right leg, bringing or at least trying to bring the feet out from under the shadow. Whilst doing all of this, Jordan kept him mind clear of all thought.

 

[Lief]

[Sorry for the slow replies!]

His strikes hit home, after all these were old spirits, failed spirits, and their vehemence made them prone to mistakes. Their strengths lay in their numbers. Two leaped toward him this time, both from separate corners of the room, and oddly enough the rest seemed to halt and wait. The air became tangible with anticipation, however there was also malice laced within it. The greater spirit boomed unintelligible words, pillars and foundation shaking. The heads of the fallen Acolytes seemed to turn in one direction, before a hiss escaped each of them in unison.

And then, all at once, they all pounced.

From down below Kära felt the potent rush of energy, watched as dust fell from the ceiling, and pursed her lips. Jordan had no doubt awakened more than intended, but how he had managed it Kära could not say. After all, she had not seen him break down the door to what was effectively their tomb. Hopefully the boy would survive... There were plenty of ways to take the advantage even when facing a fierce horde. She only hoped that instinct would take over, it would be a shame to lose an apprentice so soon after gaining one.

[member="Jordan Achilles"]

 

[Jordan Achilles]

[member="Kära Vi'dreya"]
[It's ok]
A thousand upon thousands of shadow people leaped toward Jordan. A wave of wind flowed through his cloak nearly sending him tumbling over. One down, a near-infinity to go. Jordan outstretched his bare left hands, waiting for something to appear. Suddenly, a spark of electricity shimmered off of his fingertips followed by blue and purple lightning coursing across his arm, breaking the armor along his arm revealing his pale muscular yet slightly scarred arm. The lightning ran up and down his arm, even through his veins. Jordan opened up the palm of his hand and send out a concentrated stream of purple and blue lightning with a tinge of yellow in it.

This, now this was something new. What 'force' had Jordan called upon to help him...whatever it was, he liked it. The power, the darkness, the pain...it all coursed through his veins like adrenaline...a chemical adrenaline....a power, a unstoppable force. The lightning struck it's first target, vaporizing the shadow into nothingness. It then proceeded to chain through a good majority of the other shadows. Suddenly, the electricity retreated from his fingertips and flickered off and on his arm. His veins were pumping wildly and he slumped to one knee, breathing heavily. Although, something wasn't right...his arm was still electrified.
"W-what is this?! The lightning the power....it...it's...."

 

[Lief]

The air lit up with the ferocious static of the Force, leaving behind the stench of sulfur and singed skin. His own flesh had no doubt been caught up in the lightning, likely causing burns that would need to be tended to... But at the same time, all of the eeriness in the room lifted. Gone were the manifested spirits and the projected voice, all that remained was a slight tremor to the ground and the hiss of lightning as it grounded into the sandstone structure.

Down below Kära could not help but be curious. Perhaps it was time to pull the plug on the whole operation? ... Had she gone soft? Perhaps. But she had experienced a very rough trial once and had barely come out of it alive. That had corrupted her beyond belief, and the child who exited the temple had never been the same. Walking up the main stairway the Sith made her way toward the room where the ruckus had happened, only to find the entrance blocked with topped stone.

"Jordan?" she called, unsure if it was his presence she felt or another's. Something about it had changed. The room he was in happened to be one of the old archives. It had likely been emptied for anything of worth, but there were datacrons and the like scattered around, those deemed mundane and lacking any real worth. At least, any real worth to your typical power-hungry Sith. Knowledge was, however, always useful, no matter how small.

[member="Jordan Achilles"]

 

[Jordan Achilles]

[member="Kära Vi'dreya"]​

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxeTDpBT3Pw[/media]​

The lightning had singed Jordan's fingertips and the palm of his hand but it wasn't a 'normal' burn. The burns seemed to have been controlled by some third-party in which the burns upon his palm appeared to be in the shape of two horns extending outwards to his thumb and pinky fingers. While as for the fingers, the burns had ragged downwards and stopped at where the fingers bend for the last part where the fingernails were. Now as for the fingernails upon his hand, they had become slightly curved upwards, like claws, and they let off a slight metallic glow but the most striking feature was that they were a stone gray..like building bricks or cobblestone. Jordan then stayed at his collapsed knee and put his right hand to the ground as his left arm began to change in front of him. Electricity marked and ran along his whole entire left arm, sometimes zapping his skin. Once the blue and purple lightning had subsided, red and yellow lightning began to strike upwards and downwards upon Jordan's left arm..making imprints.​

​

"The Demon King.."​

Soon, strips of thin milky flesh began to strip away and become changed into burn marks circling and intertwining first at his upper left arm. Within a few minutes, the burns had become formed into a demonic shape, resembling the pure, dreadful essence for a demon, the king of demons. The shape of that was a skull of great signifying power, darkness, greed, and most of all, pride. Strips of flesh began to once more, strip away and turn to burns, reaching up this time from his outer left hand. The burns on his outer left hand began to slowly churn and form together, taking the exquisite, delicate, but yet deadly form of a black spider. The burns finished then at the two remaining legs, extending outwards towards the currently blank slate of the rest of his milky white arm. During all of this, Jordan experienced exquisite pain and yelled out, in both pain and triumph..but in most pain. It felt as if a thousand needles were probing his left arm from both the inside and out, both internally and externally changing his left arm. While in reality, they were doing just that, changing.​

​

"...The Foreboding Spider..."​

Soon afterwards, snake like appendages and snake like vines began to swirl around his arm towards the head of the demon on his upper left arm. The serpentine swirl's were as vipers, dashing up the arm at incredible speeds, yet staying straight and true like a perfect, masterpiece tattoo.​

​

"...The Devious Snake..."​

As the pain subsided, Jordan finally took heed to the mysterious voice around him and then right in front of his very eyes, a ghostly figure began to take shape. It started from the very bone and build up to muscle and then the white skin took shape and a black mask took hold of the figure and warped the figure into a black shadow, almost human in appearance but not at all. The figure had a ghostly transparent appearance as it approached Jordan and stroke it's finger onto the left side of Jordan's neck, making a green snake like appendage be grafted into Jordan's neck and soon dissipate. The figure then walked a full circle around Jordan before leaning in close to Jordan's face, eye level.​

​

"W-who are you..."​

"That is none of your concern, Jordan"​

"H-how do you know my name...?"​

"That is not important, what is important are those on your arm"​

The figure gestured to Jordan's arm before disappearing again and becoming a disembodied voice before finally continuing to speak once more, but in a more ragged and quickened tone, as if their was little to no time left.​

"Those Titles along with much more, Will one day become your's but only with my guidance and direction..."​

"N-NO, you are a hallucination...c-created by my mind...​

"Whatever you say...But in time...I will come to you again in dire circumstances, and you will call upon me for help....and i will come......but I will only come at that precise moment. No later, no earlier....I will come once you are ready, once you have become truly 'worthy' of my presence. Oh what a day that will be, and upon that day and in the years that follow that moment, your true self will die and you will be forgotten, but you shall be reborn....as a new entity...."​

With that, the voice subsided into that of a striking wind that swept through Jordan's cloak, throwing it off of his body and onto the dusty and rusted metal ground behind him. The wind flew through the chamber and then broke through the stone pillars impeding Kara's movements. The stone chattered into small crumbles and rocks along with slates of dust flying all around, they were knocked away from Kara in a unnatural fashion, like a supernatural force had moved and broke the pillar. With the end of that, Jordan pondered the strange words of the 'wraith' as he called it. What was that about, and what is 'this' on my arm about, are the questions Jordan pondered within his mind. His arm burned like a raging wildfire along with the sheer cold force of a glacier, his arm felt like it was on fire and yet felt like it was the coldest of Hoth's blizzards with no clothing on protecting him. Something had changed in him..something almost, dathomirian in nature. The Dathomirian's that is, the Dathomir Witches...but why?​

 

[Lief]

Outside the blocked off doorway Kära could hear nothing.

But that wasn't to say her senses were askew. She could feel it, the pulsating energy which radiated from the room. The seering heat, and the scent of burning flesh. Oh, she was well adjusted to such things, she had been raised by a fiery man - a phoenix - and knew the smell of brimstone when it lingered in the air. But this was something different.

The entity was not malignant, not inherently, that much was for certain. While darkness tingled the air and loomed around there was something far more mystical about it. Not quite so intense and raw as the darksiders lain to rest on Korriban. So if not some corrupting Sith Lord's spirit, then what?

Screams. Pained screams, almost inhumane, almost animalistic, primal. It set her jaw, her hands curling into fists. No, she had to put and end to this. Now.

Perhaps she had gone soft. Perhaps that did not matter. Times were different, and torture was not something she could abide. It never had been.

With a surge of the Force, Kära began to focus on the rocks which lay in her way. The very air began to vibrate, the ground began to quake, and the rocks fumbled in place. She was no Master of such arts, her prowess lay within the mind... Quite literally. But she had to try.

Her work was done for her, though, as all at once a wind burst through the chamber and dust and small pieces of rock blew outward toward her. They bypassed her completely, as if some unseen hand happened to be directing it, but it didn't stop her from reaching out to catch a sample.

The jagged piece of rock burned with a fury, threatening to scar her hand... Yet she held on all the same. Its very core shone with a magic she had not witnessed before, this wasn't simply an extension of the Force, or a spirit. Her lips pursed, and her eyes narrowed into the dust-filled room where the air was slowly beginning to settle.

He was knelt there on the floor, in the epicenter of chaos, his face a mask of agony. His arm looked as if it had been mauled by some beast, though the lines were too perfect. Further inspection revealed that the laceration-like burns made a shape, like an inkless tattoo carved into his skin.

Four strides brought her to him.

Kära crouched to his height, and delicate fingers danced against his cheek as she turned his face toward her. The Lady's eyes bore into his own, and for a moment she contemplated his very soul.

"It is time that we left" she said, reaching with her free hand to grasp the very first datacron which fell beneath it. His trial was done, he had found some mystical lost lore. There was no point in lingering. Kära had lived two lives of adversary, she had seen much and more. She was not about to put some boy's life at risk for hokeypokey shows of grandiose. She may have been Sith, but she had never been cruel.

Offering him her hand, the woman rose and waited for him to right himself. Her ship was not too far, and there he could rest. For now, though, they had to be on the move.

[member="Jordan Achilles"]

 

[Jordan Achilles]

[member="Kära Vi'dreya"]

Small streams of green smoke rose from where the 'burns' had made the most impact upon his arm. The spider, snake and demon was where the most green 'smoke' was apparent. As this happened, Jordan's fingers upon his left hand clenched and un-clench before he brought himself up on two feet with the help of Kara's outstretched hand. Jordan's eyes peered around the room for a moment, seeing the shadowy figures now dissipating from view...like water evaporating...though they were only visible to him and not Kara, but they could still damage both. Jordan's eyes fell upon Kara, disappointment clouding his mind as he did so.

Jordan struggled to find his voice for a minute until beginning to speak. "I-I'm...sorry I failed you.....you can leave me if you wish..."

 

[Lief]

Gently, as the boy took her hand, Kära pulled him up to his feet and stared intently into his eyes. She could sense his disappointment. She did not care for it. "Well done" she instead said, shoving the random datacron into his other hand; they could inspect it together once they were safely aboard her vessel. "You did not fail me, or yourself. I'm very proud."

... But they really did have to go.

Keeping a hold of his good arm, she led him through the darkened chambers she knew by heart - Kära did not even need her enhanced eyesight to see the place she had once called home - before the pair stumbled into the light.

"My ship is not far, keep up."

She released his arm, not wishing to chide him, and set off at a rather quick pace for one so small.

[member="Jordan Achilles"]