Finding Tranquility in Pain

[Setzi Lunelle]

Dressed in a simple black dress, with the barest of makeup on, Setzi Lunelle could have been mistaken for a funeral mourner.

Spoiler

And in a way, she was mourning. She firmly believed that her sister, Chastity, had died on the frozen planet, Ziost during the Primeval’s siege Citadel. She hadn’t heard from her sibling, despite some feeble attempts to contact her. Half-hearted attempts because the padawan had problems of her own with going back to Voss and communicating with Chastity's Jedi Master Connor Harrison

She had left Ziost with Sith Knight, [member="Darth Pyrrhus"].

And while she wasn't ashamed of this development and wasn't necessarily on the run from the Silver Jedi, she knew that wouldn’t be welcome back. Not until she severed ties with the Sith. And that wasn’t going to happen because she was firmly enamored by the handsome Togruta and each day fell deeper under his seductive dark spell. Setzi may have not called it love yet, since they hadn’t known each other long, but she was sharing his bed and helping him with his endeavors, as a partner would. If it wasn’t love yet, it was certainly developing into a deep devotion that preluded something more permanent.

The padawan did what she would normally do when her head was exploding with conflict – she dove into a studious distraction. Setzi was familiar with agriculture and husbandry, coming from her parent’s Aduba-3 farm, and then while serving with AgriCorps, she picked up some skills on genetic modification of botanicals. She wanted to make Darth Pyrrhus proud of her and chose to spend a little time away from him studying Alchemy at the new Temple of Pain on Fresia.

The Temple of Pain was perfectly fitting for her mood. Tanek would tell her to embrace the pain, but the assumed loss of her sister was the type of pain she could not confront without falling to her knees and slamming her fists into the ground. And in the sinister, somewhat intimidating halls of the Temple, she was quite afraid if she did that, she would be strapped into a straight jacket and taken to a cell, or worse to the laboratory as a test subject.

No. She kept her head down and her hands stiffly at her side, making eye contact with no one until she reached the Eternal Library. Breathing a sigh of relief that it was empty, she pulled out a dusty tome to read while she waited for her instructor [member="Sage Bane"]

 

[Sage Bane]

"Ah, Tanek's pretty little plaything," said an almost disembodied voice from deep within the stacks of the Eternal Library of the Temple of Pain. Sage had been doing a bit of research on his own, and he had sensed the strange aura of the recently turned Apprentice. There was darkness there, as well as some vestiges of the light. There was also a profound sadness in the young woman's aura, a invisible mist of moroseness surrounded her. It was merely a scab at which the Sith Lord would pick for his own entertainment. Tanek would not have sent the girl to study with him expecting him to be anything else less than ignoble, would he? He and Tanek knew other better than that.

"I've heard so much about you."

The Sith Lord stepped out in front of her, clad in dark black robes, with his amphistaff arm masqued for now. If Apprentice Lunelle looked closely, she would see that there was something not quite right about Sage's left arm, and likely assume it to be a slight deformity.

"What are you here to learn today, my dear Apprentice?"

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

At the deep, hollow, echoing voice, Setzi glanced around the vaulted-ceiling of the library. And then abruptly, Lord Bane was right in front of her, and this caused her to visibly startle. These Sith Lords always lurking in the shadows until they were right on top of you like a black mist, sucking your breath away until there was little oxygen left! Blast him, he gave her a fright!

And furthermore, how dare he call her a plaything?!? With an indignant huff, the padawan said, “My name is Setzi Lunelle. You can call me Acolyte Lunelle.”

She had done her research, but as she stood before him, he would notice she wrapped her hands to rest on her elbows and clutched at them nervously. In her stiff dress, the girl would resemble a pale, rigid, black-clad doll.

And what had he heard about her anyway? This piece of information caused all kinds of other horrible thoughts to plague her – what if Darth Pyrrhus was whispering through the Academy halls about her, flaunting her capture to other Sith Lords as though she were a trophy from Ziost?

No, he would not do that, she seethed. Not Tanek. But Setzi would get to the bottom of what Bane had heard later.

She did notice his disfigured arm and felt a slight wave of pity that here she was thinking so uncharitably of her new instructor.

“Alchemy. Poisons,” she answered. “Imbuing objects with power,” she answered. And even softer she added, “Beast creation.”

There was a reticence in the young, brunette girl, as though she knew what she was doing was wrong and had not come to terms with it yet.

[member="Sage Bane"]

 

[Sage Bane]

"Apprentice Lunelle, your list is so narrow," quipped the Hand with his ever-present smirk. Setzi wanted to learn almost everything under the sun. Sage could chide her for her lack of focus, but something in her aura told him that she would fold at the first scornful word. The woman was the walking wounded. He would have to choose for her, or simply use her as an aide for his own experiments. As good help was hard to find, he was leaning towards the latter.

"Don't worry," he said with a wave of his hand. "Alchemy is fifty percent research and fifty percent experimentation. Much like Sith Sorcery, it is the kind of subject you that grows with you, and even at the end of your lifetime, you'll find there is more you want to know and explore." He let out a dark chuckle. "Of course, at that point you may have discovered immortality."

Sage gestured with his good hand for her to follow him back out of the library and into the Hall of Sorrows. They made a turn to the right and Sage ushered Setzi to the Temple's Laboratories. The long chamber was packed to the ceiling with apparatus for such tasks as genetic engineering, chemistry, physics, summoning, and masking techniques. Sith poisons lined the shelves, sharing space with odd-shaped flasks and beakers. Around the room large birthing chambers rose up out of the floor, containers that were monuments to the meeting of science and dark side philosophy, the vessels that bore the infamous Sithspawn.

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

Setzi couldn't tell if Lord Bane was being saracastic or serious, and she cocked a quizzical brow at him, but listened quietly as he began to explain the rudimentary philosophy of Sith Alchemy. Fifty percent research and fifty percent experimentation. She felt naive making the comparison in her head, but it was a little like the farming she did as a teenager on her parent's small ranch. Obviously there were tried and true methods to growing maze stalks and raising nunas, but yes, occasionally experimentation was warranted if something wasn't going to plan. Families and children needed to eat. You couldn't just let drought or some other natural disaster win out. She heard Tanek's voice in her head arguing with her about the weak versus the strong. Shush you, there's no time for this mental debate now.

Immortality was a seductive proposition, but at what price? Whereas other beautiful Sith acolytes would worry about the darkside taking its toll on their attractive looks, Setzi was worried about her soul. How much strength would immortality leech from her - presently - fragile psyche?

Her gaze followed his hand, glancing warily at what she thought was the disfigured one, and she walked with him to the Hall of Sorrows. But they turned into a laboratory instead. Setzi had never seen anything like the birthing chambers, so honestly, she didn't know what they were. Only that they were most likely nefarious vessels of some sort. Hold it together, Setzi, she thought, fear spiking through her veins like ice.

She swallowed down her anxiety as bravely as she could and asked: "What are those containers for?"

Like a newborn fawn, the Acolyte was still very shaky on her feet when it came to all of this darkside magic. In fact, if Bane examined her Force signature right now, he would sense a fearful girl who was ready to run out the very door they just came in. He may have to take matters into his own hands to expose Setzi to the kind of fear that would help hone her into a better fighter, and not just stand there mouth agape at every new horror she would encounter.

[member="Sage Bane"]

 

[Sage Bane]

"These containers are used to make monsters, Setzi," Sage said ominously. He lovingly ran his finger across the glass of one of them chambers, tracing a bubble floating in the midst of the puke-green liquid within. The chambers were empty for now, but soon one of them would be filled with their new creation. The Sith Lord whirled on his heel, and launched into passionate professorial speech.

"Sith ancients used Alchemy to manipulate creatures, and transform them into loyal, fighting machines. The great Alchemists learned how to make such enhancements as extra limbs, wings, armored skin and even enhanced physical strength. Through Alchemy, we can even increase the creature's mental ability. Make it smarter. More loyal. Unable to be sensed with the Force. The possibilities are endless. Once these creatures are created, they can even be bred. The art is called Sith Spawning."

"You're going to assist me with my experiment today," he told the young apprentice. Nodding, Sage lead Setzi to a durasteel table farther into the room, where figure lay subdued. It was a beautiful human female, sleeping, and dressed in only underclothes. She couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old. Unbeknownst to Sage, the young woman looked strikingly like Setzi's missing sister, Chastity. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Perhaps it was fate. Force only knew.

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

Monsters were born in the chambers. Monsters would die in these chambers too. For every successful experiment, there were dozens of failed ones. And there was no doubt that spawning this type of evil being took its toll on both creature and master.

Setzi’s breath hitched in her throat when she saw the young girl lying on what appeared to be an examination table. It was Chastity, and she was dead, which she had suspected all along. But how could this be? How could she be here in the Temple of Pain? Or was she just an illusion?

She slowly approached the figure on the table, not close enough to tell that it was not her younger sister. Her mind became clouded, and as though accepting the touch of a soothing lover, she allowed the darkside of the Force to creep in and caress her grief, turn it into first a bottomless pit of sadness and then quickly spin it into blinding hot rage. For Setzi who was on a dagger’s edge of nerves already, this was just the push she needed.

“My sister died on Ziost!” she shouted. Her voice echoed through the laboratory. “And now you want me to experiment on her?!? I need to bury her! She deserves a proper funeral!” Tears obscured her vision and began streaming down her face.

With a burst of unbridled Telekinesis, enhanced by Force Rage, Setzi targeted the (probably expensive) chambers and began shattering them with her mind as though they were wine glasses she clumsily dropped on the floor. She knew better than to attack Lord Bane as that was akin to suicide, so she redirected her fury at the equipment in the lab like a petulant child.

[member="Sage Bane"]

 

[Sage Bane]

Setzi's eyes widened like saucers as she spied the still subject on the table. The Acolyte inched her way over to the experiment, her gaze never leaving the unconscious woman. Sage could feel the Force brewing up around her even before she began shrieking. Before she became unhinged.

First came the hysterical shouting about burying her sister and a giving her a proper funeral. Then came the tears, rolling down her dewy skin with abandon. Finally, a few of the birthing chambers began to crack and shatter, impacted by waves of the Force emanating off the tortured apprentice. The sickly-sweet smell of Bacta filled the air as the substance gushed out of the ruins of the containers. Sithspit! Sage had just finished fixing the damage that Zambrano the Hutt had caused to the equipment back when the temple was nearly finished. Now here was his new student, demolishing it again. Were the labs cursed?

The power of the lightning soon found the aggravated Sith Lord. Purple branches of electricity threaded through his right arm, dancing over his skin. His eyes turned red as he raised his hand, and a purple strike of lightning shot out of his fingertips, aiming right at Setzi. It was not enough to cause permanent damage, but enough to subdue the hysterical woman before she tore down the whole Temple.

"Stop this at once!" he snarled. "Control yourself, Acolyte! The woman is alive!"

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

Through her blurry vision, Setzi could see the purple bolts of lightning headed her way, but there was not time to get out of their way. She was hit dead on by Lord Bane’s Force lightning, and she crumpled, her body wracked with the acute pain of an electric shock. Her back arched up, and then Setzi shriveled up like a dried leaf trying to withstand the agony of the attack. Finally, as the lightning dissipated, she rose up on her arms and looked up at Bane from on the ground. Tears only pooled in her eyes now, and her face was a mask of calm. Like electroshock therapy on a mentally ill patient, the acolyte was shocked into a placid submission.

She heard what the Master said, that Chastity was alive, so Setzi lurched back up on unsteady feet and went over to the sleeping girl. But now, she was close enough to examine her carefully. She could see that it wasn’t her sister. She swallowed hard and touched the other woman’s arm, almost lovingly. This news filled her with intense relief, enough that she could begin to rationalize that it was perfectly fine they were about to experiment on a healthy normal human in statis. As long as it’s not Chastity, she thought, I can do anything now.

Ignoring the smell of bacta in the stuffy laboratory, she turned to Lord Bane and said in a soft voice, said:

“Okay, what do we do first?"

[member="Sage Bane"]

 

[Sage Bane]

His arm shot out at the two startled slaves lurking in the corner, their faces shadowed underneath their hooded cloaks.

"You! Clean up this mess now!"

Next, the Hand turned back to his subdued student who shuffled over to the subject and examined her.

"Now the fun begins," Sage said with a wicked gleam dancing in his eyes. He leered over the woman on the table like an eager suitor.

Sage did not have a formal education, but as soon as his obsession with Sith Alchemy was born, the young man devoured not only the teachings of the great Sith Alchemists, but also chemistry, biology, and other relevant sciences. There were holes in his knowledge, of course, and many a failed creature needed to be euthanized. Sometimes it seemed like the study was more error than trial, but Sage felt as though he now had a basic grasp of the dark art.

"We experiment with Sith chemicals. Some of these chemical recipes have been handed down to us by the greats, such as Darth Plaguies. Most we're still learning how to make."

He crossed the room to a cabinet of oddly shaped beakers, and excitedly plundered a few bottles from the top of the shelf, along with an armful of droppers, syringes, and other apparati. He called to Setzi over his shoulder.

"A little help here?"

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

Setzi eyed the slaves who abruptly appeared out of nowhere. The idea of using slaves for experiments, combat, training - basically just about anything - insulted the former Jedi's sensibilities. But she was slowly coming to terms with the fact that for centuries, the Sith had built their empires using slave labor. Darth Pyrrhus had owned a slave, although he had been mentoring this blue-skinned slave, so that she would eventually be a Sith Knight, and with it, would have power beyond that of, not just a servant, but an everyday courtier or higher ranked attendant. Or had he actually intended to set her free at all? She may never know the answer.

When Lord Bane beckoned Setzi over to help, she dutifully followed, not wanting to be subjected to any other surprised electricity attack, although for all intents and purposes she knew she deserved it. She just now realized how much damage she had caused to the lab, and as she approached the Master, she skirted around a puddle of green liquid. Whether it was bacta or at toxic chemical she wasn't sure. She felt lucky for a moment that she wasn't locked away in a dungeon under the Temple somewhere for this childish transgression.

Setzi gathered as many glass beakers and test tubes in her arms as she could. They clinked together with an almost-musical cadence, punctuating the silence and electronic hum in the laboratory with the soothing noise of efficient work.

[member="Sage Bane"]

 

[Sage Bane]

Sage dropped his haul of chemical apparati on a durasteel hover table, and rapped on the surface with his hand.

"Those go here," the Sith Lord instructed Setzi. A beaker was grabbed and inspected, the cork disengaged with a pop. Sage sniffed the rim of it and wrinkled his nose. His hand moved his jacket away to grip a sharp hunting knife that rested at his hip.

Bane turned to the young apprentice and placed the hilt in her hand. In the other hand, he pressed the beaker.

"We will mix your blood and my blood together with this ancient Sith chemical, its properties handed down to us by the forefathers of Sith Alchemy. When we inject it into the subject, it will bind the creature to the both of us. No one else may command it."

With his hands folded neatly behind his back, the Sith Lord tilted his head and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"A few drops of your blood please."

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

"Is that knife even sterile?" Setzi asked, sounding like an overly fastidious girl scout.

But at Lord Bane's unrelenting gaze, she slightly rolled her eyes. The brunette acolyte had a feisty streak, and now, had a little more color in her cheeks. With too much zeal than she intended, she jabbed herself in the palm and left a deep cut. She sucked air through her teeth at the pain and held her dripping hand over the beaker. She then set the beaker down and squeezed her hand hard to ease the flow of blood out.

Setzi looked up expectantly at the Sith Lord. "Is that enough?" she asked. And as rosy as her cheeks had become a few moments ago, they grew paler with the loss of blood. She felt slightly dizzy so in order to not pass out, she rifled through some drawers and found a med pack. Slowly bandaging her hand, she only watched Lord Bane to see what was next.

This probably involves more than a few drops of blood, Setzi so you better soldier up.

[member="Sage Bane"]

 

[Sage Bane]

"That should suffice, Acolyte Lunelle."

Sage took the knife, cleaned it thoroughly, and then slid the blade across his own palm. He closed his eyes, almost dreamily, as a rivulet of blood dripped from his wound into the neck of the beaker, mixing with Setzi's blood. Once finished, he lifted his palm to his mouth, savoring the coppery taste of his own blood. He glanced at Setzi, almost embarrassed, then placed a batca patch was on the gash.

"Now, we mix the blood with this alchemical solution, which I've preloaded into a syringe. The solution is a delicate mix of Sith chemicals, manipulated midi-chlorians and the Force power in our blood. The chemicals create a catalyst to unleash the power into liquid form, which then saturates the subject's bloodstream. The serum should give the subject the ability to wield the Force herself, while also bonding the creature to the both of us."

The Sith blood was added to the syringe, and the apparatus was prepped. Bending over the prone figure to inject the serum into her skin, he gave Setzi an ominous warning.

"She will be irrevocably and monstrously changed by this procedure. Prepare yourself Acolyte Lunelle."

[member="Setzi Lunelle"]

 

[Setzi Lunelle]

Setzi watched Lord Bane also perform the blood-letting ritual, and then lick his hand clean as though it were smeared with some type of sweet delicacy. With a sheepish grin, he launched into a little bit of the science behind Sith Alchemy. She had originally learned some of this information at the Praxeum on Arkania, but honestly wasn’t always paying attention to some of these biological details. It was both fascinating and a bit sickening to think about the mid-chlorians swimming around in her blood. And also that there were those out there in the galaxy, malevolent souls who would kill her, swiftly and without remorse, for her treasure-filled bodily fluids. To add to experiments just like this. She got a flashback to a time where she and Chastity had lost their bags at a spaceport and were assaulted by an alien with a dagger. While he was after their luggage, he could have easily been after their blood.

Shaking the memory away, she focused on Lord Bane’s administrations to the girl who lay on the table, still unmoving. When he plunged the needle into her skin, the figure suddenly rose up with a hoarse gasp, and then back down again, hitting her head on the hard metal table with a thump.

“Oh!” Setzi cried out, her hand clasped tightly over her mouth. She wasn’t sure she could watch what would happen next, but yet found herself unable to turn away. Tears sprung to her eyes again, and she was again, filled with the urge to flee the room. How horribly thin-skinned you are, Setzi, she thought.

She suddenly found the words she longed to say, not to Chastity out there in the ether somewhere, but telepathically to the girl on the table who, at this early point in the experiment, still resembled her sister:

What have I done, Chastity? She thought. How did I get here? By the maker, help me. My sorrow is boundless, my grief, infinite.

Did she hear her back?

[member="Sage Bane"]