Private Evil Undone

[Ishida Ashina]

DAUGHTER OF DUTY || THE SCION OF SARDUN
SOMEWHERE IN THE OUTER RIM

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Ishida was one of those people who knew their stuff, and was excellent in practice, but terrible — if not outright awful — at pedagogy.

Maybe this was partly because she resented becoming a teacher altogether, and in her spare time, she didn’t consider how to better advance her students through heartfelt methods, or genuine understanding and care. Instead, in her spare time, she did what she’d always done since she’d inherited The Silik: Tracked suspicious activity that was potentially related to darksiders. It was still her foremost duty to have them expunged from the galaxy, and she took that far more seriously than the tutelage of a turncoat.

Recently, The Band had been tracking suspicious shipments suddenly coming to a planet that lit up records in Sardun’s archives. She might have deprioritized it, but one of the elder members insisted it was worth her time, and that she should have a sense of urgency about it.

Admittedly, Ishida was all too happy to embrace exigency, and eagerly redirected Castian Vero to continue training alongside some members of The Band, and if he wanted to, suggested he train with Jem Fossk for bladework in her absence (perhaps Ishida’s only friend). Her rationale to her Padawan had been cryptic, but adamantly clear that he was not invited. Plus, it wasn’t an approved mission by the New Jedi Order, and his accompaniment might shade his reputation within The Order. Her surety was inarguable.

Ishida held on to her sense of responsibility like it was a vaccine against something else. And it was. Focusing on duty protected her from the indignity of grief; something she’d still managed not to fully suffer since the death of her late Master.

“Well that half explains the shipments...” Ishida murmured to herself as the automated vessel discreetly lowered itself onto the barely-named planet somewhere in the Outer Rim. The coordinates the ship concealed itself at matched the trajectory of the deliveries.

Coordinates that matched the archives that recorded a dark entity subdied deep within a temple. The imprisonment sounded eternal, and impossible to undo.

Ishida had such faith in her late Master’s ability to see his will irrevocably done that she’d come alone. Driven more by curiosity, and some innate sensation she couldn’t quite put a finger on. Because of this inexplicable sense, she hadn’t invited any of The Brotherhood to join her. She did not ask for help. The last two times she'd asked for help she'd been abandoned, rejected by someone she held close — and the other had sacrificed themselves in death. Help wasn't something she was keen to accept again.

"..but this isn't right.." She said to no one. Because she hadn't invited anyone.

Also according to the ancient documentation in Sardun’s keep, the town should have been abandoned.

It wasn’t.

It was fully populated.

That innate, indescribable sensation prickled along her skin and she frowned deeply. The town was too busy for her to skirt around unnoticed. She felt a stabbing unease at the thought of exposure, and instead ran schematics for a topographic summary that might point her to where — ah, there. The ship’s navicomputer highlighted a foot route through a cave that would point her toward the temple.

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Lady Nyx​

 

[Lady Nyx]

Even from high above, there was an eerie aura that seemed to flow throughout the town. People were populating it, moving around as if everything was normal. Seemingly unbothered by the large swathes of the town were still in ruin. Smoke and ember had long since faded away, leaving only rubble that was once a prosperous little town.

It was evident that a good chunk of the place had been repaired since that time. Residences, workplaces, community centres, and so on. One thing that was left untouched however, was the cathedral that once stood as the crown jewel of the town. But for some strange reason, it was still in disrepair. Despite the heavy influx of people going in and out of the building.

Once upon a time it was the main entrance to the temple hidden underground. As would’ve been highlighted in Sardun’s records, having been a primary target for their attack on the town.

The path Ishida’s navicomputer would take her to a sizable cave, located at the bottom of a cliff beneath where the town sat above. Sandy terrain blended in with dirt and grass as one trekked closer to the entrance. There were clear signs of a horse and cart being pulled along the dirt path, going from the cave all the way to a winding path that led up to the settlement.

For the most part, it looked like no one had been down this past in a while. Whatever their objective had been down here, it was already completed.

Walking through the entrance would open up to a large cavern, signs of a mining operation clear throughout it. Workstations, minecarts, and of course a railway track that led down deeper into the underground.

And that was the only path available to take…

Ishida Ashina​

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Cautious and curious, Ishida skid down the sandy slope at the tail-end of her hike. For a long time, she’d been following her senses, devoid of anything tangible. The long, parallel lines indented into the dirt indicated that someone had travelled up this way. Someone hauling something, by the depth of the tracks, pretty heavy.

Why would someone haul something heavy this way?

Happenstances and observations were quickly becoming clues in this little mystery of her own intuition. If Ishida was a bad teacher, she was a poorer detective.

Truth be told, she only noticed the tracks, and considered what they might imply, because Castian spoke of contextual and environmental clues as being imperative in a hunter’s arsenal. The land spoke when people didn’t. And in an instance like this, where Ishida had an indescribable feeling tangling in with her Force sensitivity, tangible tracks were almost more reliable.

Then the world went dark.

The cave swallowed up light and replaced it with black. Near-black folded into pitch-black, layers and layers of unseeing depth. At first, Ishida stuck her hands out to feel for the curve of the walls. But after a few feet, she realised the unsustainability of that method, and opted instead to withdraw her saber and use it to light the way.

Her swords were always her solution.

Beneath her feet, what she thought had been stones, turned out to be tracks. Mining equipment littered the way in front of her.

The practice of mining for a town was not uncommon, nor did it demand a second thought. Ishida wouldn’t have thought anything more of it if it weren’t for that siren-like beckon that called through The Force. So deeper, and deeper, and deeper she went along the tracks.

Minutes felt endless as she travelled, and at the end, the reveal was not what she expected.

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Lady Nyx