Faction Great Hunt: Sith Academy

[Ghruna]

"Who are you talking to?" She asked.

Ghruna’s eyes cut toward Anet, her nostrils flaring. The torchlight caught the sharp lines of her horns as she turned.

“No one,” she said flatly.

Her voice carried weight. It was harsher than intended, like stone grinding on stone. The cold deepened. The air pressed on her skin like ice-laden hands. She gripped her axe tighter and stepped further into the dark.

"Wait!" Ghruna turned back.

The teenage Maldrani wasn't particularly quick witted but she had a straightforward sense of logic.

"They said this place plays with minds and raises ghosts. If you can't see that but I can then stay with me," Ghruna said. It didn't sound like a suggestion.

"Then if we don't both see something we know it isn't real."

 

[Aicre Shar]

Tag: Anet Raine Lysander von Ascania Ghruna

"Agh!" the Arkanian flinched.

"Okay?? survive on your own then!"

She put her pale hands up defensively, backing up.

"Who are you talking to?" She asked.

The woman hadn't heard Ghruna over her own heartbeat and the bloody battle just around the bend. She practically jumped catching sight of those horns, way, way up on the taller girl's head. A wampa on one side, this axe wielding barbarian on the other, she could feel her own pulse in fingers wrapped around the weapons in her pocket.

"They said this place plays with minds and raises ghosts. If you can't see that but I can then stay with me," Ghruna said. It didn't sound like a suggestion.

"Then if we don't both see something we know it isn't real."

"Ah?" she gazed way, way, way up at her with a hopeful eye.

A glance was spared at Anet Raine , and a generous second of consideration.

"Well I'm going with the big girl." she pouted "you can keep falling on your face or whatever."

Then she marched passed Ghruna , chin high and dignified like as she made for the corner they'd come running from.

"Name's Shar, by the way. Doctor Shar."

Dr. Shar peeked around the wall, spotting the noticeably colder heat signature on the floor down the corridor.

"Oh! it's dead! it's dead!" she whispered, excitedly hopping up and down.

"Wait—frak!" but then she saw Lysander von Ascania .

"But there's some guy with a lightsaber."

The doctor groaned disappointingly.

"The others ran past him, so I think that's where we need to go. But how?"

​

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Tag: Aicre Shar | Anet Raine | Ghruna

The stink of scorched fur was still present. Lysander was rooted beside the Wampa’s corpse, blade humming, light painting across stone and shadow. The aftermath should’ve said more than words could, the way silence pressed in after violence. The teen’s hands weren’t trembling, not like they once had on Korriban.

Now his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. A year and a half of blood had burned at least one weakness out of him. Killing was no longer in question..

And now, he found himself in a strange place. His senses, dulled and distorted by whatever poisoned the temple, told him two had already ventured deeper. But there were three pressed behind him. He’d learned the hard way that those who walked the dark path were more dangerous than the beast at his feet.. treachery was the rule, not an exception. A lightsaber wouldn’t be enough against the three of them combined. Lysander also wasn’t keen on being outnumbered.

A slow step was taken forward, then another. His emerald gaze fell over where whispers carried. He didn’t want them at his back. He didn’t want them at his side. He didn’t want to cut any of them down, not unless his hand was forced.

His voice, when it came, was low and even, carrying just enough to reach them.

“I’m not your enemy unless you make me one.”

The words weren’t spat with venom, something of a warning.. less than a threat.

​

 

[Neriah Calven]

Tag:

Urgh. Where was she? Neriah had gotten too comfortable following the trail of blood and death that she had forgotten which way went where. She should have stayed with the group. It was better than being by herself.

You can only trust yourself.

"STOP IT!"

Her voice echoed through the corridors, as she had finally had enough of hearing that voice in her mind. It was her own voice of course, but it kept twisting her emotions. Her feelings. Saying exactly what she didn't want to hear. Even now, there were giggles and laughter surrounding her as the ex Padawan crouched down into a ball, holding her head in her hands. Tears welling up that she was trying to hold back beneath her glasses as more and more voices seemed to echo in around her.

"Weak." "Coward." "Traitor." "Fool." "Dead-Meat"

More and more. She didn't want to be here. Neriah wasn't a Sith. She wasn't an Acolyte. There was no way she was cut out for this. Even as the frustration was starting to build. The frustration. Anger. Fear. It was all boiling up. Stewing inside of her heart. This was what she got for abandoning the others. She should have helped. A real Jedi would have helped.

"But you aren't a Jedi. You-"

"shut up. Shut up. Shut Up! SHUT Up! SHUT UP! SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!"

By this point Neriah was begging. Her emotions bleeding into her voice. Almost wailing as she clutched her skull. The voices were in her head. No matter how much she tried to block her ears, she could still hear them. No matter how much noise she made. The voices felt like they were a part of her.

"Because we are."

And with that, Neriah snapped. Her lightsaber was ignited in the blink of an eye, the green blade igniting the halls as the girl slashed around herself with no rhyme or reason. She had no structure to her style, no proper technique. Combat had never been something she had done well with. Cutting gashes away into the walls, as Neriah aimed to strike down the voices.

"Shut up! Shut up! Go away! Die! Die!"

The blade cut through various formless shadows, the laughter growing louder, and louder. Neriah's heart racing as it felt almost ready to explode within her, before she thrusted the saber forward into a shadow...and all of the sounds stopped dead. As the shadow took a form, details and features slowly coming to shape as the shadow took the form of her master. The one she had abandoned. The one who had been cut down because Neriah had froze.

"Your actions, or lack of them, have consequences. My death is on your hands. You can never return. You have no-one."

That was the last voice Neriah heard, before the shadow faded, leaving her alone. Alone with just the sound of her own frantic breathing and the slight glitching sound of her saber at her side, as the beam seemed to pulse ever so often. The girl collapsed to her knees once more, the glow of her saber vanishing and plunging her back into darkness, where Neriah realised. She was alone. Truly. And with that, the sobs began.

"I'm sorry...I'm so so sorry...Please don't leave me...Please."

Yet no matter as much as she sobbed, nothing responded. Nothing but the cold void of silence.

​

 

[Anet Raine]

The Arkanian's reaction was about as she expected, but a twinge of anger rose up Anet's spine. She threw a dismissive hand at the woman, as her focus turned to Ghruna .

"They said this place plays with minds and raises ghosts. If you can't see that but I can then stay with me," Ghruna said. It didn't sound like a suggestion.

Her advice was the first stroke of reasonability expressed yet... regardless of the delivery. The scholar was about to reply when Aicre introduced herself.

"Doctor?" She scoffed. "Right - and I'm a senator."

It was a little ironic given her own academic background. Their collective attention turned again, this time to the man who struck down the beast. Pale blue eyes examined the corpse, and her thoughts drifted back to just moments ago, when it had thrown her into the wall. In fact, it wasn't until that recollection that she began to notice the dull pain in her body. Nothing felt broken, but she lifted her shirt partially to see an enormous bruise take shape. She quickly pulled the garment back down.

As well, she kept her own identity to herself.

Her eyes locked onto Lysander's as he approached them.

“I’m not your enemy unless you make me one.”

"And what would that entail?" She asked. "I mean, other than the obvious."

She fished for motives. Unlike him, from the look of it, Anet was not yet trained in the Force. Sensitive, yes, very sensitive, but could not grasp it for power or for wit. Suffice it to say, she would need a near-perfect opportunity to get an upper hand on him, and this current challenge seemed neither the time nor place.

The other two, however...

Her eyes darted between them. Eager to see whether there would be conflict or not.

Aicre Shar Lysander von Ascania

 

[Ghruna]

Aicre Shar Lysander von Ascania Anet Raine

"Name's Shar, by the way. Doctor Shar."

Ghruna offered a single grunt. For the maldrani a name was only worthwhile if it made it to tales of strength and heroics. Nearly every other exchange was made with violence. Meeting a friend, carrying out trade, finding a lover and finding a place in the pecking order all came down to violence.

“I’m not your enemy unless you make me one.”

Ghruna turned slowly and grinned. She revealed sharp canine teeth. She despised the bowing and ritual that came with the Sith academy. Her home was a place of endless danger, but everything had felt like it made sense to her.

A threat was familiar, but to Ghruna it was an invitation and not a warning.

"And what would that entail?" She asked. "I mean, other than the obvious."

"We have a task," Ghruna called out to Lysander. One of them - and only one of them - had to find the Holocron.

"But if you want to test yourself now..."

Everything about her posture made it known that she would relish the fight, just for the sake of it.

 

[Carisma Rostu]

​

Location: Temple
Gear: Basic Lightsaber
Tags: Open

Mere seconds after departing the chamber room, the feeling of disorientation, still lingering about, increased twenty-fold: prompting Carisma to reach a handout to the closest wall to brace herself. Then it was gone, and yet, her memories from that 'blackout' remained unclaimed. Her eyes turned toward the satchel, where the skull sat happily comfortable at the bottom, trying to figure what reason she had to tuck it away, and why was she again drawn to it now. "What are you," she mused to herself before pushing herself from the wall.

Six steps in and like a grenade exploding in her mind, those memories came rushing back like tiny pieces of shrapnel: piercing her mind repeatedly. Unlike the effects of the now fleeting disorientation, this was slightly manageable; at least she didn't need her new friend the wall this time for support. But the memories spoke volumes. A talking skull? The holocron? It was these two memories she clung feverishly to.

First, she reluctantly opened the satchel, withdrawing the mysterious skull. Holding it at eye level, she examined it again; nothing. It looked like a skull, nothing more. Yet, it talked. She knew that matter-of-factly. Silence now. She returned it back to the bottom of her bag.

Secondly, this holocron, this heavily cherished holocron that the others are so desperate to find, became intriguing now. Not so much for as finding it, claiming victory, and keeping it for herself. No, more about what this talkative skull said in regard to it not being real. Impossible, she thought. How could a skull, no matter the fact that it spoke, knew about the holocron, or its fiction or faction status? Was she being challenged, tested perhaps; but if that was the case, how disturbing she thought this was being proposed from a talking bone.

Whether to debunk the skull's proclamation of the holocron's existence, or simply out of her own growing curiosity, Carisma was now resolved to unlock the mystery of the holocron.

​