The cloaked man didn't even seemed bothered by Sakadi statement about the true understanding of the force,
"Oh I'm sure your Jedi teachings had told you that my dear. The Jedi does love to fear the unknown" added the Dark Stranger having Sakadi and Nezira going back to the stone gate. The Dark Stranger thought about it, making sense of what she suggested and looked the two of his men, nodded once, and saw how they grabbed the Nightsister, pulling her over to the bowl.
Nezira fought hard against the soldier's grip, but they were too much for her, given she wasn't exactly physically strong. A third soldier had to help the two others when they got Nezira to the bowl and had to force the Nightsister to hold her hand over the bowl. As the knife cut blood, Nezira hissed, baring teeth when the third soldier cut her.
The stranger just waved his hand nonchalant,
"Lady Sinvala, I'm not barbaric, I still have use for my little Nightsister. We are after all entering an ancient Nightsister tomb. Do use your clever little mind next time before you speak, though, I do know it can be difficult for you kind" replied the Dark Stranger to her warning, while also directly insulting her order and her intellect at the same time.
However, Sakadi was correct with the Dark Stranger's men. The loyalist was indeed following behind the cloaked man, while the Mandalorians were nowhere to be seen inside the hallway. As Nezira had been let go, she stood with her fingers pressed to the wound on her hand, listening without saying anything. Feeling Sakadi's hand on her shoulder, she heard the Jedi's message, however, it fell on deaf's ears. She scoffed and pulled her shoulder away from the Sephi's hand and faced both the Dark Stranger and the Jedi.
"I hope the Fanged God devours you all!" She hissed with such spiteful venom in her voice, before walking through the open gate and disappeared inside of the pitch-black tomb. The Dark Stranger looked to Sakadi,
"witches" he said with a light chuckle as if this was amusing to him, raising his hand for the Jedi Master to enter as well with his gesture. Not that she was given much of a choice anyway.
When they all entered, they couldn't see a thing as there was no light from the outside, but they could feel stone steps going down. After a few minutes, they could all feel a flat stone floor and with night vision, the soldiers quickly found old touches hanging on the walls. The soldiers started to bring in a few generators in the room with large cables they connected to them. After that, tall yellow light-poles were placed in each corner, lighting up the pitch-black area.
The first thing everyone would notice was the much more crud paintings depicting something that didn't really make much sense at first glance. The room led the group further down and deeper into the tomb with only the footsteps to echo around them. The Dark Stranger didn't say much, the soldiers knew better than to small talk on the job and Nezira ignored everyone.
Two soldiers would layout long wires while two others carried the light-poles, which they continued to place as the group went deeper and deeper in the tomb. After maybe half an hour of walking in the same looking barren hallway with crud paintings of something sacrificing something in white paint, they finally entered an enormous cavern. Standing by the start of the massive stone bridge, carved out of the rock a small speck of luminous light from high above. The light lit up the sides in the massive cavern, showing a glimpse of an abandoned city, carved into the sides of the cavern. If one would look over the long and wide bridge, they would only be greeted by darkness, unsure how deep it went.
The Dark Strangers finally spoke up, breaking the silence,
"my my, who knew your kind had the knowledge of producing something like this" said the clocked warrior, both insulting and testing if Nezira would attack him, which was something Sakadi easily would pick up on. Nezira just stared daggers at the clocked warrior and stood her ground, not jumping at his insulting taunt, which did show a slight disappointment from the Stranger.
While Nezira still hated that the tomb had been open and most of all, that she had been forced by strangers to do it. But she would be lying, if she wasn't a little bit curious about this place, now that she stood in this ancient and abandoned city of probably ancient Nightsister clan. She wouldn't even know how far back this city went, thousand maybe? At least, long enough to be forgotten.
"Let's continue" ordered the Dark Stranger, giving Sakadi a friendly gesture of
"please... continue walking, lady Sinvala". Though he acted like a gentleman to the Jedi Master, he still very much held an intimidating posture and area around him.
The city itself was made out of a beautiful stone carved stone, painted in all manners of shades of yellow and red. Even though the colour had faded by now, there was still a prominent sight of colours on the buildings. They also found a lot of pottery with beautifully crud design, bowls and many other household items the witches also used today. However, they also started to notice something else when entering a large house to get deeper into the city, was the large pear-shaped cocoon, hanging from the ceiling. It was made out of brown leather, wrapped around with matted red-coloured rope, helping to hold it up. A bigger than a humanoid and not moving.
The cocoon made some of the soldiers unnerving, seeing something so alien-like, that didn't go near it. The Dark Stranger found it interesting though and ordered a soldier to check it out, which he did reluctantly.
"Well?" Asked the Dark Stranger,
"I'm not sure, the bio scanner didn't pick anything up inside. Whatever was placed inside of it, are long gone" explained the soldier, looking at his bio scanner, which was used to scan for life. Then he turned to Nezira,
"why don't you tell us what that is, little witch" ordered the cloaked warrior. When he received no answer, he reached out with the force, causing the girl to start chocking heavily for air. Looking at Sakadi, seeing if she would attack or otherwise violently try and stop him, which he almost wanted and gave her an "I dare you" tilt with his head. All the soldiers even aimed at Sakadi, ready to fire.
If Sakadi didn't, then he would turn his attention back to the Nightsister,
"ready to talk?" He asked Nezira, waiting for her answer. The young Nightsister fought to resist, but blacken spots started to blink in front of her, dangerously nearing a blackout and more precisely, her death.
"I ask again, little witch, what are those things? Nod if you're ready to speak" he asked again, showcasing a bit of anger in his voice.
Desperately needing air, Nezira gave in and as the Dark Stranger dropped his grip on the Nightsister, she fell to the ground, gasping for air and coughing for a couple of seconds. Kneeling down by Nezira, the clocked man held the Nightsister's chin, turning her head to face his faceless mask,
"what. are. these. cocoons?" He asked now more annoyed by the girl than amused.
Still coughing for air, Nezira managed to gather a sentence,
"It's our way of preserving our dead...!" She coughed loudly, inhaling a big chunk of air in her lungs before she was pulled up by two soldiers. Happy with his answer, he rose up, standing tall again,
"See, that wasn't so difficult, now was it?" he asked, going back to his gentleman-ish self.
"Keep moving" ordered the Dark Stranger, which made the soldiers shove Sakadi and Nezira to walk.
However, if Sakadi had her attention on Nezira, she would have noticed, that the girl withheld information about the cocoons to the Dark Stranger. What the group soon discovered, was that the whole city was filled with these cocoons, some places even had clusters of them, hanging in open plazas in the city.
Sakadi Marathi Sinvala