I’m a killer too...

[Darth Timoris]

Korriban. The ancestral home of the Sith. A place of great power; the Dark-side lives and breathes in the very core of this world.

And home to the Valley of the Dark Lords. Every young Sith visited them, to explore the tombs of all the Dark Masters buried there, hoping to find secrets hidden inside them.

A funny thing to seek. The secrets of the dead. Conventional wisdom said that four thousand years after the Jedi pillaged them, nothing of value remains. Yet Sith came, and new discoveries were made. Melori herself had come here with both her Masters. Once she’d found an ancient scroll and met the ghost of one of the Sith Lords. The other time she’d faced her greatest fear — something of a trial before becoming a Knight.

So why return now? A sort of homage no doubt. She had just been appointed be a Voice of the Dark Lord. And something drew her here. She never questioned the Force, or the machinations of the Dark Lord. She simply did as she saw fit. Whereas once she was narrow in her thinking, she now took in the wider vista. It was no longer about a solitary duel, she was dealing in the fates of planets, star systems. And somehow, she didn’t know precisely how yet, Korriban was connected.

So she marched across the scorched sand of Korriban's wastelands, noticing the sun sinking quickly below the horizon. She'd been walking for hours beneath its heat; the small city of Dreshdae and the temple that towered over it were far behind her. They had been reduced to mere specks on the horizon; if she were to look back, she would have just been able to make them out in the fading light.

But she didn't look back. She marched doggedly onward. The blazing heat hadn't slowed her; neither would temperatures that were about to drop to near freezing with the setting of the sun. Physical discomfort — cold, heat, thirst, hunger, fatigue — had no significant effect on her, sustained as she was by the power of the Force.

She remembered the first time he'd set foot on Korriban. She'd sensed the power of the world: Korriban was alive with the Dark-side. Yet the feeling had been faint and distant. And how, when she’d left the starport behind, she'd expected that feeling to grow stronger. With each step drawing her closer to the Valley of the Dark Lords sshe thought he'd feel the Dark-side growing in its intensity.

Instead she'd felt nothing. No noticeable change at all. As it was now. She was only a few kilometres away from the valley's entrance; she could see the shaded outlines of the nearest tombs carved from the stone walls. And still the Dark-side was no stronger than a hollow echo, no more than the lingering memory of distant words spoken in the distant past. But at least she expected it now.

She redoubled her pace. She wanted to reach the valley before complete darkness. She had a handful of glow rods with her; she could use them to find her way if necessary. Unfortunately, their light would act like a beacon in the darkness, signalling her location to anyone-or anything. But she was confident she could survive almost any encounter, but there were things that lurked near the tombs whose attention she would rather not attract.

The last few rays of light still hung in the air when she finally reached her destination. The Valley of the Dark Lords lay sprawled out before her, hidden beneath the cover of twilight's gloom. Day or night would make no difference once she was inside the tombs: she'd have to use the glow rods no matter what time it was.

She was drawn to the nearest temple, the only one she could actually make out in the dim light. Like all the tombs, this one had been dug out from the high stone cliffs that boxed in the valley on either side. The grand archway at the entrance had been built out from the cliff face, but the chambers that housed the remains of the Dark Lord interred within wound their way deep into the rock.

As she got closer, he could make out intricate designs carved into the archway. Something was written across the top in letters she didn't recognise. The craftsmanship would have been awe inspiring at one time, but eons of desert winds had worn away most of the detail.

She paused on the threshold, taking in the air of forbidden mystery that surrounded the entrance to the tomb. She still sensed no change in the Force, however and marched boldly through the shattered portal, making her way down the long entrance tunnel, moving slowly through the gloom. Half a dozen meters in, the darkness became absolute, so she pulled out a glow rod and activated it.

An eerie blue light filled the tunnel, sending a small swarm of deadly pelko bugs scurrying for refuge beyond the dim circle of illumination. They had been stalking her, closing in from all sides. She could still sense them there, lurking in the shadows all around her, but she wasn't afraid. After all, it wasn't the light keeping them at bay.

Pelko bugs, like many of the creatures indigenous to Korriban, were attuned to the Force. They would have sensed her arrival even before she entered the tomb; her power would inevitably draw them in. Yet it also kept them and their paralysing spines at a safe distance. Instinctively, the pelko bugs could sense the sheer scope of her power; they were wary of her. They wouldn't come close enough to actually attack her, making them nothing more than a nuisance.

[member="Corinna Synn"]

 

[Corinna Synn]

Korriban. Finally. She had spent years being denied her chance to train on the home-world of the Sith. Years of ignoring her force sensitive abilities as if they were nothing more than an inconvenience. Well, that was what her father had thought, but she had put him to rest at the bottom of some insignificant lake. Now, she was here. She had made it to Korriban. This is where all great Sith begin, and she had every intention of honing her abilities and body into a powerful Sith. Corinna knew her mother would be proud to see her daughter on Korriban. This was the planet her mother had always wanted to send her to when she had first started showing signs of force sensitivity. Her father had always stood in the way of her mother's dream.

Dipping her hand into a pants pocket shortly after arriving on Korriban, Corinna wrapped her fingers around the small, thin vial that carried a pinch of her mother's remains. She closed her eyes, grip tight around the small vial. "Watch me."

She had felt the unyielding power of the Force the moment she had arrived on Korriban. At first, it had been a shock. The only times Corinna had felt the power of the Force was during "accidents" back on Dromund Kaas. But this...the power seeping from this beautiful world was something she had never felt before. As she continued to spend time on Korriban, the constant thrumming of power became a steady rhythm. She wanted to reach out and touch such power, but she had no knowledge to perform such a task.

After abandoning her civilian clothes and adopting the simple black tunic and pants of an acolyte, Corinna came to face her first test on the road to becoming Sith. She needed a Master. She could not train herself, and only sparring with fellow students would only help her so much. She needed a powerful Sith Master who would be willing to train her. But in order to gain a Master she had to prove that she was worthy of one. That she wouldn't be a waste of time. But how? Corinna had only spent a short time on Korriban, but she had seen the power other students possessed. Some more powerful than her.

She came to the conclusion after several days on Korriban that perhaps a trip to the Valley of the Dark Lords was in order. Corinna had heard stories of Sith making marvelous discoveries at the resting place of powerful Dark Lords. If she made the journey and mediated, perhaps she would find the answers she needed. So, Corinna made her trip across the hot sands of Korriban with nothing more than the clothes on her back and the small, thin vial hanging from her neck, underneath her tunic, off a thin piece of rope. The journey took far longer than the young acolyte anticipated, although that did not stop her. She needed a Master, and if the Valley of the Dark Lords could help point her in the right direction than she would not turn back. She would never turn back.

Night had fallen by the time Corinna reached the Valley of the Dark Lords. The once hot temperatures had plummeted rapidly, leaving Corinna shivering as she reached the nearest temple carved out of the high stone cliffs. Power leaked from the temple, mixing in with the thrumming of the power that seeped from the world itself. She had no weapons to defend herself with against anything that may wish her harm and death within this temple. She had nothing but what little she could do with the Force. However, turning back now was not an option. It had never been an option. So Corinna entered the temple.

Her footsteps echoed off the rock walls of the temple. As Corinna walked deeper into the temple, the darkness began to grow and thicken. The feeling of watching eyes began to weigh on the acolyte as she pushed onward. She ventured deeper into the temple until the darkness suddenly consumed all light. Corinna came to a halt, the sound of something scurrying past hard to ignore. Drawing on her quick rise in fear, Corinna sent a small bolt of purple lightning towards the ground where she thought whatever beast was stalking her had been. She heard no dying cries of pain which could only mean one thing: she had missed.

"Whatever you are," Corinna spoke into the darkness and to whatever was stalking her. "You will not stop me."

[member="Darth Timoris"]

 

[Darth Timoris]

A little known fact about ancient Sith training sabers was that each blade was also covered with millions of toxin-filled barbs too small to see, fashioned from the microscopic ridge spines of the deadly pelko bug.

The pelko venom would cause the flesh immediately to burn and blister. Temporary paralysis set in instantly at the point of infection, leaving any limb struck all but useless. This provided an excellent way to mimic the effects of losing a hand, arm, or leg to a lightsaber blade.

Nowadays the blades were simply a variant of a regular saber, but once upon a time these little creatures were harvested. Now nothing culled their numbers.

Right now she was more concerned with the potential dangers the builders of the tomb might have left behind. Sith mausoleums were notorious for their fiendishly lethal traps. Melori reached out with the Force, carefully probing the walls, ground, and ceiling in front of her for anything out of the ordinary. She was relieved-and slightly disappointed — to discover nothing. Part of her had hoped she would stumble across an undiscovered chamber.

She continued down the tunnel, winding her way past various chambers where the wealth and treasures would have been buried with the deceased Dark Lord — along with his still-living lesser servants. The rooms held no interest for her; she wasn't a grave robber. Instead she continued deeper and deeper until she reached a burial chamber.

The pelko bugs matched her progress, endlessly circling just beyond the blue illumination cast by her glow rod. She could hear the high-pitched clicking-skreek skreek skreek-of the frustrated swarm: powerless to assail their prey, yet irresistibly caught up in the wake of her passing.

The burial chamber was easily identifiable by the enormous stone sarcophagus in the centre of the room, resting atop a small stone pedestal. It was little more than a blocky shadow on the fringes of the glow rod's light, but it filled her with a sense of awe.

Still using the Force to scan for traps, she cautiously approached the tomb, her trepidation growing as the blue light washed over it to reveal more and more details. The stone was carved with symbols similar to those on the crypt's entrance, but these hadn't suffered untold centuries of erosion. They stood out starkly, brutal and sharp. she could read the language as ancient Sith — a whole host of warnings to the unworthy.

She reached the platform; it stood a little higher than her knee. she put one foot on it, then reached out to grip a protruding edge of one of the carved symbols on the side of the sarcophagus itself. she half expected to receive a sharp jolt or shock, but all she felt was cold stone beneath her palm.

Using her hold to maintain her balance, she hauled herself up so that she was standing with both feet on the platform, looking down at the top of the tomb. She could now see that the stone slab sealing the sarcophagus had been virtually destroyed. Whatever had been inside was gone, replaced by rubble, dust, and a few bits of broken bone that might once have been the fingers or toes of the Dark Lord's skeletal remains.

She stepped down from the platform, frustrated but still not willing to give up. The Force had brought her here for a reason. Slowly, she turned in a great circle, as if she expected to find the stolen remains lying in a corner of the burial chamber. There was nothing: the tomb had been robbed and defiled.

But she now felt a presence, moving closer. It was Dark-sided for sure. She wondered if she should go and meet them, then thought better of it. She would wait to see if they were worthy enough to make it this far.

[member="Corinna Synn"]