Private You Wear Cotton, Cotton Breathes

[Niysha]

The sound of a lightsaber igniting was all too familiar. Niysha didn't need to turn to see it activate, and while she would normally have jumped behind cover for self-preservation, right now that wasn't an option. Also, unrelated, Valery's ire wasn't directed at her. In fact... she didn't have much ire at all. That was something she'd heard about, but didn't really have any experience with. Jedi - allegedly - swallowed their emotions when they fought. That was basically impossible, and according to literally every single teacher she'd ever had, it made them far weaker than they could ever be with blah blah blah blah.

Valery did not seem weak in the slightest. Niysha had stopped being surprised at how much of her training had been propaganda a long time ago.

Niysha, on the other hand, was quite weak. As the second massive guardian droid raised itself with a long, quite whir and approached her position one thunderous step at a time, all she could really do was look around for something to work with. Even if she drew her saber, she wouldn't be strong enough to pierce the shell in one swing if the blinding hurricane of raw power behind her couldn't do it in two. That meant she needed to find something else...

She scanned the ceiling, the walls... the supports? This whole room was a priceless treasure, but-

The juggernaut lunged forward with a battering ram stab, armed with a blade as big as Niysha's full body. A spike of fear caught her attention before it got close enough to actually hit her, and she was a solid meter away before the blade connected with the stone, right next to one of the pillars holding- The ceiling! A cave-in? No, terrible idea to intentionally cause a cave-in while underground. But still, gravity was probably her greatest ally here. Except the Jedi. The Jedi was her greatest ally and gravity was her strongest weapon? She went with that.

She caught the next swing half a second before it approached her head, dragging a line of destruction upon the unique and precious stonework behind her. Niysha ducked long before, so the only damage she sustained was dust in her hair. The droid's weapon seemed lodged in the stone for a moment, so she took her time to strike.

With a thought, she called her own lightsaber to her hand and ignited it in the same motion, the blood-red blade casting a similar but harsher glow into the room as Valery's violet weapons. It took her only a second to move to the droid's non-sword side; the construct grabbed at her as she did, and she could, for a moment, feel her skin break as it almost made contact. The back of its knuckles were sharp, but at least she avoided the claw itself.

Her counterattack, plotted out several seconds ago, would take a bit of finesse to pull off. One slice towards the bottom of the nearest support pillar, at a slight diagonal angle, leaning towards the droid. She took a deep breath and channeled her pants-shitting terror of mortal peril to leap three meters directly into the air, slicing the top of the pillar at a similar angle, then tried not to strain herself as she landed.

The droid wrenched, managing to get its sword-arm free. Niysha took a deep breath, grit her teeth, and brought the raw, undiluted rage of destroyed, priceless, unique, ancient structures to bear. Her hand was a conduit, and the Force lept from it with violent fury. The pillar went flying down at the ancient sentinel with a purpose, and as the dust settled, the meek little Miraluka stood and panted, keeping a weather eye out for any more surprises as she tried to catch her breath.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery felt the shift in the air before she saw it — a different hum of the Force, sharp and wild, flaring just to her side. She didn't look immediately. The construct before her was already lurching forward with its remaining arm raised like a club, stone groaning from the damage she'd already dealt. It came down with enough force to break bone, crush steel.

She pivoted. Smooth, tight, and fluid. One blade caught the strike and the other swept low, carving a clean line through the sentinel's midsection. Stone cracked. Sparks burst. And with a final flick of her wrist, Valery spun and drove the second saber up into its chest — right through the glowing power core nestled behind the smooth faceplate.

The light inside the construct died. It collapsed in pieces at her feet, a heap of ancient technology meeting the floor with a resonant crash. Only then did Valery turn.

The other side of the room was choked in dust. A pillar had been brought down — not collapsed, but aimed. And in the clearing fog, Niysha stood panting, lightsaber still humming red in her hand, the air around her thick with the aftershock of fear-turned-force. Valery's brows lifted, visibly impressed.

She stepped forward, blades still lit but angled low and non-threatening.

"You alright?" she asked, her voice low but lined with something gentle now. Her eyes scanned the space quickly, confirming there were no more moving shapes, no more traps clicking open.

Then back to Niysha.

"Because that was impressive." A faint smirk.

Niysha ​

 

[Niysha]

For what seemed to be an eternity, Niysha stood and caught her breath. Existed in the moment. She'd actually done it. She'd accomplished something legitimately challenging, and... frankly, it hadn't been so hard! She simply envisioned a reality and then made it happen. In the past, her standard modus operandi was to avoid problems like this. She would've just not triggered the trap, or run before the doors closed on her and found a different way out.

Today she had conquered something. Resoundingly. On her own, without assistance, and without complication. She wasn't even wounded, really, and hadn't expended any real resources. It was so easy. For just one single moment, for a blink in the maelstrom of her life, Niysha realized that she might not be as weak as she always thought herself to be.

Then Valery spoke behind her. Her sight sharpened and focused intensely on the Jedi with her weapons still drawn, and the dam broke on all of that terror she'd been swallowing. A tempest of raw panic, desperate self-preservation, trembling concern for her own safety. Whatever success Niysha had had to mute her presence on the surface above, the veil was properly broken now.

Niysha held her lightsaber in a very sloppy defensive grip, the sort of thing you'd get your knuckles rapped for as a child. Her voice was normally low, intimate, and warm. Now it registered more as a panicked whisper. "Please don't kill me." She wanted to disappear. Or run. Hopefully surrender was an option. Until then, all she could do was wait, hope, and keep her distance.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery didn't move.

She stood there in the silence left behind — no hum of machines, no grinding stone, no threat still coiled in the shadows. Just her, blades still aglow in her hands, and the pulse of Niysha's panic hitting her like a wave. It wasn't subtle. The Force flared with it. It wasn't just fear. It was survival instinct wrapped in scar tissue. That kind of reaction didn't come from this fight alone.

It came from a life that had taught her to expect pain.

Valery exhaled slowly. Then, without a word, she turned off both sabers. The blades hissed out in perfect unison, twin violet streaks vanishing into silence. She didn't clip them back to her belt yet — she just let her hands fall to her sides, empty.

"No one's killing anyone," Valery said softly, and that smirk from before was gone now. In its place was something quieter. Real. Her voice was calm, low, but full of certainty. "Especially not you." She took a slow step forward, careful to keep her posture open, non-threatening.

"You did good," she added. "You kept your head, used what was around you, and took down something most people would've run from. That wasn't panic." A beat passed. Valery let the words settle in the space between them before continuing.

"I've seen people try to fake bravery. You didn't." Her gaze softened, just a little. "You don't need to be afraid of me, Niysha. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here because I believe in what we're doing — and now, I believe you can handle it too." She paused just a breath longer, then, still calm, offered one gloved hand out toward the other woman.

"Let's get out of this room, yeah?" A faint smile. "Before the ceiling decides it wants to finish what those two couldn't."

Niysha ​

 

[Niysha]

Valery's lightsabers deactivated less than a second before Niysha's did. She didn't so much put it away as her arms sort of dropped to her sides in a motion exactly as unsteady as the drained wobble of her legs. Maybe she got a little bit too intense there for a bit. For the moment, she wasn't actively in danger, and that meant that she took the opportunity to engage in the greatest luxury she knew: about twelve seconds of relaxation.

Her head was, of course, still catching up. She heard the sounds that Valery was making, though the part of her brain dedicated to processing them was a little fried and taking a few seconds to catch up. Something resembling a compliment. Precious few people had offered those, though it was becoming slightly more common as she got older. She was up to two, maybe three people who had kind things to say about her this month alone. That was so wild that she had trouble processing it.

When her higher brain caught up with the rest of her senses and started parsing information and details, Niysha calmed down at least a little bit. There were a couple of facts that provided emperical proof that she wasn't in any immediate danger. Fact one: she wasn't dead, and Valery could easily have killed her at any point up to now, during the brief fight, or during the moment of uncertainty afterwards. Fact two: her aura wasn't violent. In fact, she seemed to have calmed down from earlier, somehow. After the fight. After fighting something. After the rush of endorphins and chemicals, the application of violence and threat of death, Valery's aura was calmer.

Honestly, that was pretty unfair. Niysha felt like her heart was going to explode and this Jedi looked like she just got out of bed for late afternoon tea.

Her response, her expression, and her tone seemed markedly less sure. "I'm confused," she offered, then stopped and corrected herself. "No, wait. I think you might be confused. That was a Sith lightsaber." Niysha hesitated for a moment and then stated flatly, as if it needed explanation. "It means I'm Sith." Another moment of hesitation. She cocked her head to one side, overtly perplexed. "Power of the Dark Side? Natural enemy of the Jedi?"

Niysha considered Valery's hand for several seconds. If she touched her, Valery could grab her, kill her more easily? But if she'd wanted her dead, as established, she would've been dead already. Many times over. She very cautiously, like she was about to pet a snarling animal, reached out one hand to take Valery's. "...Like, I understand if you don't think I'm enough of a threat to worry about at the moment? But I'm pret-ty sure we're supposed to be mortal enemies."

Her emphasis on that word was almost whimsical.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery didn't flinch when Niysha touched her hand — not even when it was done like someone half-expecting teeth. Instead, her grip was steady. Confident without being forceful. And as she gently drew the Miraluka upright, her eyes never left her. There was no judgment there. No disdain. Just curiosity layered over steel.

"Yeah," Valery said quietly, her voice calm. "I saw the saber. I felt the power you pulled." A faint smile curved at the edge of her lips, more thoughtful than amused. "And I've met many Sith before." Killed a lot of them, too, especially during her days of serving as a jedi Shadow.

But...

"You don't feel like that." The words hung there for a second. Not a challenge. Not an accusation. Just the truth.

"You didn't act like a predator. You didn't crave pain. You didn't even lash out when you could've. You reacted like someone scared. Someone trying to survive — and smart enough to do it well." Valery's thumb brushed briefly across Niysha's knuckles, a small grounding motion, and then she released her hand and stepped aside, letting the gesture open the path out of the chamber behind her.

"You're not my enemy today," she said gently. "Not unless you decide to be." A half-beat passed. Then her smirk returned, smaller this time.

"And for what it's worth?" she added, tilting her head just enough to tease, "You don't really look like a Sith either. No menacing robes. No dramatic speech. Barely even glowered at me." She gave Niysha a wink, then turned and started walking — slow enough that the other woman could follow without pressure.

"Come on. Let's go figure out what else this place is hiding."

Niysha ​

 

[Niysha]

As Niysha expected, it was primarily that she was so weak that she functionally didn't present a threat. While that was definitely just more reinforcement for the toxic void that her self-confidence had long since settled into, it was still a relief to know that her failure to achieve even the slightest hint of potential as a Sith was saving her life right now. A tiny monument of dust and crumbs to her own personal mouse-god, as if she really needed any more reason to engrave "run and hide" on the text of her soul.

"Yeah," she replied quietly. "Let's do that."

Niysha only took a minute or so trying to parse through her emotional response before she found the door that had slammed shut earlier. The mechanisms of these ancient temples often looked like gravity, but normally there was an actual motor or engine of some kind that guided them much further away. At the moment, the door wasn't just locked in place by sheer mass; it was being physically held down by something akin to a magnetic latch clamp. Difficult to lift.

"I don't think that door's going anywhere," the mildly demoralized and somewhat crushed Miraluka observed as she stood in front of it. "There's probably a lock somewhere down there. I might be able to find it if I can concentrate." Which was, of course, difficult to do when she was this nervous of potential harm, but at this point, Valery had done plenty to reassure her that she wasn't going to be attacked when she wasn't looking. Maybe that only lasted as long as she needed Niysha to get to the bottom of the ruin, but for the moment, she was at least... kind of safe.

Deep breath. Swallow your fear.

Niysha fell into herself. It didn't take her long at all to leave the unimpressive, feeble meat of her physical form behind and wash her consciousness deep into the Force. The emotions here were old and cankerous. Temples this old, especially Force-resonant ones, tended to have at least a relatively strong wind of greed blowing through, and Niysha easily rode that to her destination, deeper... two meters... three meters...

She snapped back to consciousness a minute or so later. "Five meters down, two and a half to the right of the door. There's a catch mechanism set to a pendulum lock. It's through way too much stone for me to get it easily. I'd need to really focus." Her words implied that Valery would do better, because at this point, Niysha was assuming she was in the presence of - functionally - a surprisingly merciful Sith Lord, and all that that came with. Destructive amounts of violence, raw Force power far in excess of what she could bring to bear, and ease of use that would make her look like a drooling child.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery stopped beside Niysha, folding her arms loosely across her chest as she listened. The younger woman's focus had shifted — Valery could feel it in the air, that subtle disturbance in the Force as Niysha extended her senses beyond the physical. And when she spoke again, pinpointing the mechanism deep within the stone, Valery's brows lifted with a quiet note of respect.

"Nice work," she said, her tone low and genuine. "That kind of precision isn't easy, especially not in a place like this." A hint of a smile ghosted across her lips. "Honestly? That kind of Force work — tech, mechanisms, small details — it's not my strong suit. I was never the best at fine-tuned manipulation." She stepped forward, exhaling slowly as she knelt in front of the door, placing one gloved hand gently against the cool surface.

"But brute-forcing ancient systems into submission? That I can do."

There was a low hum in the air as Valery reached out with the Force — not to the lock directly, but to the mechanism around it, her presence sharp and decisive as she followed the path Niysha had described. The catch was old, worn, and fused to the stone by time and pressure. But the magnetic hold? That she could disrupt.

Her fingers curled slightly, and the Force surged through the stone like a ripple through water. Not a violent push, but a directed, forceful override. She found the pendulum lock, the resistance it offered, and twisted. A loud clang echoed through the chamber. The ground beneath them gave a subtle lurch as gears groaned to life. The stone door let out a hiss of released pressure, then shifted, parting just enough for the stale air of the corridor beyond to creep through the opening.

Valery stood, brushing her hand off on her pants.

"After you," she said with a wink, stepping aside to let Niysha take the lead if she wanted to — though her eyes never stopped scanning the darkness ahead.

Just in case.

Niysha ​

 

[Niysha]

As Niysha expected, Valery was substantially stronger than her. None of that should have or ever would have surprised her in any way. Just about every student back at the academy, every Sith she'd ever worked with, even Leos' ...Padawan, since frankly that was just about the only thing you could call her. Almost every single classically-trained Force-user that Niysha had ever met had had that same, singular trait. Something Niysha had been taught was "strength."

In this moment, though, what Valery said hung in her mind. The idea that her light touch, her keen senses, precision and grace weren't a weakness, but instead a different form of strength. Raw strength and applied power were so romanticized by Sith teaching, tradition, and the Code that finesse and control hadn't even been part of her training until Adekos. Years ago, she would've dismissed that sort of thinking as excusing her weakness. Now...

Niysha's spirit measurably lightened, whether in confidence, self-acceptance, or just a modicum of peace. As she took the stairs behind the door, she moved forward without the same level of active, shaking terror that had been relatively characteristic of her so far. This area merited caution, and she kept her senses sharp as she made her way to the next floor down, but the shift was noticeable.

She wasn't as much for conversation, considering all of the thinking she was doing.

The next floor was as dark as the previous one. Slightly daker, even, considering half of the glowing lines of light seemed to be broken. The pathway stopped just a few meters from the stairway, and as the room unfolded to Niysha, she could easily see why. "Watch your step," the Miraluka stated in her quiet tone, no longer trembling or unsteady. "There's a hole in the floor. Looks like it goes down at least two floors."

The pit dropped at least a dozen meters, maybe more. Far too much for Niysha to be comfortable taking the jump. She'd used the line to rappel one floor up top. Down here, without any way to get back, it seemed like an even worse idea. Fortunately, she'd brought a belt full of solutions. Fluid dispensers and grapnel hooks galore. She reached back to pull one out and attached the line, then tossed and secured it around a pillar before moving towards the hole once more.

It took Niysha a moment to focus her vision down that far, but eventually, she found the bottom. "Probably twenty meters down. Debris at the bottom, but it doesn't look like anything sharp. There's power moving down there. Maybe an old door or a light?" She tugged the line again, to make sure it was safe, then gave Valery a big grin that she might or might not have been able to see terribly well. "Guess we'll find out," she finished, and hopped down.

The dispenser wasn't quite out of cable by the time she touched the bottom. Niysha tied the end of the line to a loose brick in the pile of collapsed floor she landed on, then pulled out her lightsaber and ignited it, facing away from the landing area. Hopefully, the bright red beam would give Valery something to guide her path... or aim her landing.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery stepped to the edge of the broken floor, her boots crunching faintly against ancient dust. The air here was thicker — colder, darker, and older. The kind of stillness that didn't just settle in buildings but buried itself in the stone, in the bones of places that remembered too much. She looked down after Niysha, watching the faint red glow of her lightsaber flicker like a beacon at the bottom. The younger woman's voice echoed faintly upward, calm and clear — a tone Valery hadn't heard from her before. Confident. Grounded.

That alone brought a small smile to her lips.

"Twenty meters," she murmured to herself, then exhaled slowly, centering. The Force stirred around her — subtle, practiced — and then she stepped off the edge without hesitation.

She dropped like a stone.

And then the air caught her.

Her descent slowed as the Force wrapped around her like unseen hands, guiding her down in a controlled fall until her boots hit the debris beside Niysha with a muted thud. Not a sound of strain. Just presence — calm and steady, like she'd never left the battlefield or the Temple. Her eyes swept the chamber as she rose from her crouch, already searching. Ancient light still pulsed faintly along cracked walls, flickering with dying energy. The depth of this place… it hummed. Resonated.

"This place runs deep," Valery said, her voice low and thoughtful as she turned to Niysha. "Whatever's buried here… it wasn't meant to be found easily."

She ignited her own saber with a low snap-hiss — violet light spilling out across the chamber.

"Let's see how much deeper it goes."

Niysha ​

 

[Niysha]

When Valery landed, Niysha deactivated her lightsaber and put it back away on her belt, tightening her blindfold and her boots over the process of a couple of seconds of prep. "I can't imagine it would go much deeper. This planet doesn't seem the right sort of environment for elaborate subterranean settlements," she mused quietly. "Though I'm eager to be proven wrong about that. If this whole region is honeycombed with elaborate tunnels and underground buildings... that would be remarkable."

For now, though, they needed to take stock of their surroundings. The hallway terminated in a door, as expected, though this one looked to have been broken through from... the outside. Whatever had entered hadn't exited, and it didn't look natural. The sort of collateral damage that a cave-in would've caused was messier and had fewer slashing lines and marks. A predator of some kind? Rogue sentinel? Whatever it was, it had clearly made a one-way trip.

Niysha noticed that the amount of energy flowing into the floor lights down here was a bit higher. It was likely not insignificantly brighter, though all it did for her was make sure she noted where the edges of the room were.

"The door up ahead is open, but watch your step going through. Jagged metal. Looks to have been torn. Getting a cut this far down would be a singularly bad idea." This time, Niysha waited at the door and let Valery go through first. She seemed mostly alright moving around in the dark, and she was far, far more dangerous than a failed apprentice with the general disposition of a startled rabbit.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery stepped lightly, her saber held low at her side as she moved through the torn doorway. Niysha's warning echoed behind her, and she stepped carefully over the twisted edges of broken durasteel, her gaze sweeping ahead. The corridor beyond opened into a larger chamber — wide, circular, and domed above with a ceiling half-collapsed in places. The light from her saber danced across walls etched with long-forgotten symbols, their meaning half-erased by time and wear.

But that wasn't what stopped her cold.

It was the smell first — old rot, dust, metal, and something sharp beneath it all, like burnt ozone that never fully dissipated. Then came the shapes. Her steps slowed as the beam of her lightsaber passed over the floor… and lit up the first skeleton. Then the second. Then a third.

Bodies. Dozens of them.

All in various states of decay — old, ancient even — their robes and armor reduced to rags and rust. Some were slumped against the walls, others scattered mid-step or piled near what might have once been a dais at the chamber's far end. A few clutched weapons, long since broken or fused to bone. The story here was silent and cruel. These people hadn't found what they were looking for.

Valery crouched slowly beside one of the fallen, eyes narrowing as she examined the marks on the bone — burned, some slashed, others shattered as if from within. Her fingers hovered just above the ground, and she reached out with the Force. It pressed back at her.

"Careful coming through," Valery said, her voice low. "Something bad happened here. And… it still lingers."

Niysha ​

 

[Niysha]

The shielding on those doors was pretty impressive. It took Niysha until her head was physically squeezing between them to notice the oppressive aura of the tomb they were walking into. Skeletons and rags were, of course, one thing. Obvious. Mummified and disconcerting. The more intense problem was the state of an old, savage battleground full of forgotten dead.

The Force came in many forms. Most people described it in terms of light and dark, and that wasn't entirely untrue from Niysha's perspective. Of course, it was far more of a gradient, but there were some things - some places - that were very strongly aligned one way or another. Tombs tended to fit on the gradient somewhere between "center" and "dark," with some being far, far darker than others. This ruin had been relatively neutral with a few dark streaks up to now.

This room was thick with ancient pain, fear, anger, and death. Darkness so cold that her breath felt like it would cloud. Pain so hot that touching the stone might burn. There were no spirits here; rather than just being too old, it was more likely that the people who had died in this room were either too weak to linger, or malicious enough to wait in ambush. And through all of the morbidity and darkness, there was a single, all-encompassing, smothering stillness. Silence at a level that shuddered to the bone. Rather than an unquiet tomb, a disquieting one.

Niysha's pace didn't even slow. She walked into what amounted to a catacomb under siege with the same ease she'd progressed through the mural chambers. Her voice stayed steady and calm, as if she'd done this a hundred times before. "Lingering resentment caused by violent death, simmered for a couple of thousand years to let it really toxify," she confirmed, hands on her hips like she was staring at a particularly interesting sunset. "It could be hostile, but if there are any animated spirits here, they're very good at hiding."

Considering her experiences with the spirit on Kyrikal 17 and the relic on Medi-Creen Station, Niysha had become quite accustomed to dealing with ghosts. She wandered blithely over to a pile of decimated mummies and crouched down onto her knees to get a bit closer. While that didn't make it easier to see, it did put her close enough to get a feel for any darkness that single open grave was emenating.

"Have you ever dealt with spirits before, Valery?" Niysha asked. A moment later, she realized with mild surprise that it was the first time she'd ever said her partner's name. "Of course, we might luck out and they just turn out to be zombies. Much easier to take care of."

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery's gaze remained fixed on the shattered remains before her as Niysha spoke, the sound of her voice oddly grounding in a place so drenched with death. There was something about the way she moved through the tomb — deliberate, composed, almost too at ease — that reminded Valery of the more seasoned Shadows.

Her fingers brushed just above a length of scorched stone. Cold. Too cold. The kind that soaked past skin and straight into bone.

"Spirits?" Valery echoed quietly, rising to her feet again and casting a look across the chamber. "Once or twice."

Her voice had dropped an octave — not just quieter, but rougher around the edges. A memory in the undertone. "There was one… on Jedha. Woke something in the catacombs that should've stayed asleep." She turned, slowly pacing toward the center of the room.

She glanced toward Niysha then, meeting her calm with a wry smile. "Zombies would be a blessing." The Force pulsed, faint and ugly, somewhere ahead. Valery stopped just short of a collapsed pillar, her hand drifting to her saber but not igniting it yet. The stillness had weight now.

"We should keep moving," she said, amber eyes scanning the far end of the chamber. "If anything's going to crawl out of the past to greet us, I'd rather not give it the home-field advantage." And beneath the words, a flicker of something else passed through her expression.

Readiness. And the faintest trace of a dare.

Niysha ​

 

[Niysha]

It would've been a lot more interesting, a lot more fun for them to stick around so Niysha could have a chance to study a few more of the tortured, lingering remains of the ancient dead... but in all honesty, Valery was completely right. While she was comfortable dealing with spirits and ghosts, Niysha didn't exactly want to. Intentionally wandering into danger you knew existed was always a bad plan, especially when you had no plan.

"Alright," she agreed, standing up properly and walking through the room towards the next door.

Another ripped open bulkhead. This time, Niysha took point. There wasn't much left of the hallway that connected the mess they'd just come from. Either security doors had come down during the initial catastrophe or else the second inhabitants of the ruins had blockaded the side passages, because the hallway through the second ripped door was largely one-way. The carvings on the walls were far less extravagant down here, as well. Utilitarian. Mostly script, which obviously she couldn't read.

The only path was forward in a straight line, and the only destination wasn't so much a "ripped open door" as the torn and destroyed ruins where a door had once been. It was much brighter here; though Niysha couldn't see the shadows playing along the walls, she could easily see the raw power of what seemed to be two fully intact suspended lights. A third hung broken and dead at a third corner of the room. The fourth, it seemed, had been ripped off in whatever rampage had destroyed the last two passageways and reduced half of this room to wreckage.

"Whatever came through here was completely undeterred by... I don't think that's durasteel. Some kind of ancient duracrete mixture, maybe," Niysha posited, her voice breaking the silence and echoing in what was left of a very deep, very secure chamber. "Whatever it was was very, very strong. War beast, maybe, or a siege droid. Not a natural predator, at the very least."

More importantly, the air was much, much more charged here than it had been in previous rooms. Thicker, but with an energy to it. "...We're getting close," the Miraluka confirmed. "I can't quite see the source, but... well, you can probably feel what I see right now."

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery followed Niysha through the ruined bulkhead, her steps slow, as her eyes scanned every corner of the darkened corridor. The carvings grew sparse, the artistry stripped away in favor of function. A place that once held purpose — military, perhaps, or something worse. The deeper they went, the more the weight in the air pressed against her chest. It wasn't just stale; it was saturated.

When they stepped into the broken chamber, the shift hit her like a wall.

Light from the remaining fixtures stuttered across shattered stone and twisted metal. Her hand instinctively brushed against the hilt of her saber again — not igniting it, but ready. Always ready.

Niysha's voice rang across the space, and Valery moved to her side, eyes narrowing as she surveyed the destruction.

"Talk about brute force..." she murmured, glancing toward the mangled threshold where a door used to be. Her gaze tracked along the clawed gouges in the stone, the ruptured metal warped outward in places, inward in others. Not the work of a single impact, but sustained fury. Like whatever did this wasn't just trying to get in — or out. It was hunting.

Then came that pull — in the gut, in the bones, in the Force. Thicker than before. Twisting. Alive.

Valery exhaled slowly. "I feel it." She took another step into the chamber, boots crunching softly over debris. Her eyes stayed alert, but her attention was elsewhere — casting out through the Force, searching.

"It doesn't feel distant. Not fully. If it left… it didn't go far."

A pause, her jaw tensing slightly.

"Question is… did it tear its way deeper in?" Her eyes moved to the partially collapsed corridor on the far side of the chamber, "Or did it break its wa out once?"

Valery turned slightly, glancing at Niysha.

"You see any signs that it escaped? Or are we walking into its den?"

Niysha ​

 

[Niysha]

This close to their goal, Niysha finally slowed down and took the time to plan around her surroundings. This room was... large, squarish, with several columns. The area to the side of the door they'd entered - far across from the mangled mess that was the innermost seal - was half-destroyed, with rubble a bit too heavy for her to lift even if she gave it her all. The ceiling was probably very weak in that corner, and that could be dangerous.

The far wall, meanwhile, was charged. The Force was rampant on the other side of the final, utterly brutalized door, and it leaked into the structure around it like creeping moss. Tempestuous, possibly. Niysha saw... something on the other side, but the more she looked, the more it hurt to look. There were a handful of things she knew might make that sort of impact in the world around them: a swirling hurricane of spirits, a fractured crystal, a truly ancient and powerful monster... but it wasn't dark. Darker than usual, maybe, but that felt more "raw and unchecked" than actually capital-D dark.

Whatever it was was making it very difficult to make out whatever else was in there. Or, dozens of times more terrifying, whatever was in there was an aberration so foul that the Force refused to touch it. That would make things... well, basically impossible for Niysha. She'd pack it up right then and there. Hopefully it was just camouflaged by the raw tempest of pure energy it was lurking within.

Or it was gone. That would be nice.

"Well, whatever's back there is giving me a headache," she replied with quiet concern. "It's hard to describe. It's like... staring into a huge ion reactor? But the energy is spiritual, not electrical. It's too intense for me to make out specifics without concentrating." And meditating was a horrible idea here. "If there's anything in there, I don't see it mov-"

By destiny, Niysha's statement was cut off by the sound of something huge and sharp tearing across ancient duracrete, followed by a horrible screech that echoed perfectly in the acoustics of the broken, ancient chamber they were standing in. There were no mighty thuds to follow suit, no heavy footsteps. Instead, the sound was scraping. Serpentine?

Niysha reached for her lightsaber and ignited it, moving back behind one of the intact columns and away from the door. She didn't want to be caught anywhere near the shrapnel.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

Valery didn't move when the screech tore through the chamber. She stood in the center of the ruined room like a drawn blade. Her fingers twitched at her side, hovering over her saber. Not yet ignited. Not yet afraid. The sound of claws ripping across stone echoed again, closer now, followed by a gust of foul, humid air that carried with it the stench of rot and long-buried hunger. Then — the door gave way.

It didn't open. It exploded.

Stone and metal shrieked as they were wrenched apart, hurled inward with crushing force. Shrapnel flew in a deadly arc, ripping across the chamber like daggers —

And met resistance.

Valery raised a hand, her stance unwavering, and the Force surged outward from her palm in a curved, transparent wall of power. The barrier shimmered, absorbing the debris with a heavy, concussive thrum. Dust spiraled in every direction. Light flickered behind her like the eye of a storm.

The creature that emerged from the breach was a nightmare made flesh. Plates layered over thick muscle, its serpentine body coiled with impossible speed and strength. Dozens of limbs, tipped with scything claws, flexed as it dragged itself into the chamber — and eyes, if it had any, were buried beneath armored ridges and slick, pulsating tissue.

Valery exhaled, and her nose wrinkled.

"You are one ugly..." she muttered, her voice dry, unimpressed, and cutting through the tension like a vibroblade through silk.

With a snap-hiss, her lightsaber ignited in a brilliant orange flare, casting her face in the glow of its heat. She held the blade low at her side, angled forward — a duelist's stance, aggressive and unapologetic.

Her eyes locked on the creature.

She didn't flinch.

She called it to her.

"Come on, then," Valery growled through gritted teeth, her body lowering into a grounded stance. Her voice dropped into something sharper, almost daring. "Let's see if you fight half as hard as you smell."

Niysha ​

 

[Niysha]

Don't panic.

Niysha was safe for the next second or two, on the other side of the room, behind stone and shrunk into herself like a tiny ball of nothing. That would give her time to take stock, take account, and take in her surroundings. Big room, one broken corner, multiple pillars, two functioning lights, one broken light. The remains of a big metal door. Enormous snake-thing with a half-dozen sword arms and a head like a battering ram. The eye-to-limb ratio in the room was already imbalanced in favor of limbs, but now it was something like one-to-eight.

Valery was standing about two meters from the monster, aura-farming.

Do-or-die situations were basically the easiest possible thing for Niysha to handle. While she wasn't a fighter, she didn't need to be to make it out of this sort of thing alive. There was a dangerous end, and all she had to do was not be there. This thing's aura wasn't bright enough to be Force-sensitive and not dark enough to be any kind of Sith creation besides, meaning that it had somehow evolved to have all of its main weapons arrayed in the front like... twenty percent. Granted, that was probably also the most heavily armored portion, but it meant that there was a safe place to be. It'd take much longer for the beastie to turn on her if she was in its rear one-eighty.

So the Miraluka scrumpled along the edge of the room, out of sight, moving as quietly as she could with her presence muted to the point that she was getting a little dizzy. Beast tricks weren't her most confident field, but Ignus had taught her a thing or two. When she noted the thing turning its massive head in her direction when she started her sprint for far cover, she reached out a hand and scoured every thought of her from its mind. That sort of hard, blunt-force control was easier, but it came with significant costs: it was basically impossible to repeat, useless if the animal had any reason to remember her, and she'd need to move fast to make sure it couldn't see her again. If it hadn't had Valery to distract it afterwards, the whole thing would've been just shy of pointless.

The monster's confusion was over in a heartbeat, but Niysha was long gone, saber deactivated, curled up behind a big stone pillar. For the moment, she was safe.

Valery Noble

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit: Jungle Valery
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsabers

The moment the beast's head jerked toward the shadows, Valery moved. She didn't need to see Niysha to know what she was doing. The air shifted, a faint ripple in the Force where presence had just vanished, scrubbed clean. Smart girl. Risky, but smart. It bought her time.

Now Valery had to make sure she kept it.

The creature lunged. Its entire body coiled back and slammed forward like a siege engine wrapped in muscle and bone, limbs cleaving through the space she'd occupied a split-second earlier. But Valery was already gone. She darted sideways, boots skimming across broken stone as her body twisted low beneath the first scything strike. The second claw came for her ribs, faster and sharper. She spun again, letting the momentum roll her over one shoulder, the blade of her saber carving an arc of molten orange between them. Sparks flew as claw met plasma. Not deep enough to wound it. But it felt it.

Valery landed in a crouch behind the creature's shoulder.

"Eyes on me," she said under her breath, and launched.

She rose like fire, blade flashing with practiced grace. One slash, testing. Another as a feint. She wasn't trying to kill it yet. But she was trying to hurt it. Distract it. Control the space. Every strike angled to keep the creature turned toward her and away from the girl behind the pillar.

Its roar cut through the chamber.

Valery gritted her teeth and smiled.

"Yeah," she muttered, ducking a blade that could've split her in two. "There you are."

Then she moved again. The dance had only just begun.

Niysha ​