Almost Alone in the Dark, [Viera]

[Senator Palpatine]

The surface of Korriban is an unforgiving desert, full of sunburnt rocks, and devoid of life. In some places the forces of time and the unforgiving wind that sweeps most of the planet dry of sustainable life has created valleys. The wind is not quite as harsh here. Eons ago, a species evolved here, humanoid, with tentacles on their faces in the places where humans and other races grew facial hair. They carved terrible things in their viscous language into the walls of the caves that they hewed from the rock of the valleys. They sacrificed members of their society to the violence and cruelty that they saw as inherent in their dry dusty world. The Terentateks killed the Tuk'ata, the Tuk'ata hunted the Wraid, and the Wraid killed the Shyracks. The large murdured and stole from the small, and in the end, the largest survived. This was the way of the universe as they saw it, and lived by that, constantly in a state of war, which was necessary to survive for their culture. They drank the blood of their enemies, and practiced sciences mixing the mysterious life force around them with the simple physical.

They died off long ago, but their spirit remains in the vaulting catacombs created by them, and expanded upon by those after them who revered and worshiped their memory. Sunburnt stone hewn and thrown out to be distributed by the circulating winds, created these dungeons of great power. The force is strong in these places, but only the darker side of things is illuminated here.

In one such catacomb, in a small dungeon with no light source, a young lady lies, and begin to regain consciousness.

[Viera]

Perhaps the ale had done her in, or maybe it was that strange tasting drink she had decided to ingest at that last Cantina, whatever the reason, she couldn't remember falling asleep let alone where she was. Darkness, everything was dark and her head felt like it had been split open.

Giving a groggy groan her body shifted and twitched for but a moment as her hand struggled, pressing down against the cold surface beneath her feeling around for anything familiar. Clearly it was not a bed that she had fallen asleep in, and with no physical body next to her she knew she hadn't made some creepy mistake after too much alcohol.

Slowly her eyes opened, blinking several times to be greeted only with more darkness. Well now, this wasn't creepy at all. Her eyes shifted franticly, attempting to ascertain her location and perhaps for a way out but with no light source and total darkness the chances of seeing anything with her physical eyes were next to known.

The Force, it had once been her ally, yet now when she called to it to give her some sort of vision, some sort of hope as to where she was, she could see nothing but darkness as well. And then a simple shiver ran up her spine as thoughts of anger, passion, lust, and all of her deepest darkest desires long since suppressed by Jedi training started to creep up. Having experienced that she quickly abandoned the idea of using the force, where ever she had awoken clearly had strong ties to the Dark Side.

"Well....Isn't this just lovely..." Groaned the ex-jedi outloud, watch, some cult kidnapped her and intended to play Experiment-on-the-Jedi or some such. If she knew the truth of things, she probably would have quivered at the moment instead of having such silly thoughts.

[Senator Palpatine]

Deep in the stone of the derelict temple, ancient stone mechanisms began to churn. Stone grinding against stone created heat and sound. The sound rumbled though the stone and tore into the room, filling it with the unpleasant sound. The heat from the churning began to heat the stone of the room, turning it warm to the touch. After a few seconds a slab of stone began to pull up, and revealed a deeper darkness. After a second, an uncomfortably bright light flickered on in the new darkness revealing much about the surroundings. The small room that the girl was in appeared to be only 6' by 6', and too tall to see with the light. The doorway was large enough to fit a wookiee through, and outside of it was a long hallway spreading out in both directions. The walls of the hallway as well as the room had been viciously etched into, leaving arcane runes of hard curves and barbed accents. There was no visible order to the writing (or so it appeared to be, sometimes one could swear that there were pictures hidden in the scrawl) and it seemed to hold no bearing on up or down, left or right. After a few seconds, the mechanism sound started to move away down the left hall, and lights began to flicker on down the hall, revealing further scrawled writing. No lights came on down the right side of the hall.

[Viera]

Of the times she had spent exploring ruins and reading in the Jedi Archives, she could say that she'd never been as excited or frightened as she was right now. The thought of how she got here had managed to quickly escape her mind as she lept up from where she was. The churning sound and the heat had brought forth uncomfortable light which resulted in a hand hovering over her eyes before they could readjust.

But when they did, that was when the excitement began to tingle inside of her as with several flutters her vision focused in and her squinting eyes opened fully, stepping to one side to examine the walls her eyes attempting to focus upon them as if attempting to ascertain the origin of the etchings.

They seemed to have a purpose of some sort but without proper knowledge of what they were they were just simple etchings, a truth that made her give a small sigh. What knowledge could this wall possibly hold? What stories could these etches possibly mean? She'd never know as further churning caught her attention and her head cast side ways down the large stretching hallway as further wall with further etchings were revealed to her.

"Interesting.." Murmured the ex-jedi who collected her self, tracing a hand along the etched wall slowly as she walked toward the large doorway. Her sense of caution seemed to have escaped her in the brief moment of excitement, only for her to suddenly remember what she had sensed before and then remember the fact that doors did not tend to simply open on their own.

Was something trying to guide her? She couldn't help but ask but she felt as if the answers to her questions would be located at the end of the tunnel, so she walked, stepping into the hallway while still examining the etched walls, and ultimately deciding that since one hallway was lighting up while the other was not, it was safe to assume that the light path was the one she was intended to follow and so she continued to walk down the left hallway, her eyes flickering back and forth from one side of the wall to the other.

[Senator Palpatine]

The lights continued to flicker on revealing further etchings on the walls. The hall continued for fifty feet before coming to what looked like a dead end at a rock wall on which all the writing was obviously vertical, and bled onto the floor, stretching out unevenly for at least a yard, some scripts longer. Ancient sensors were hidden in the walls, waiting patiently for something warm, organic to trip them up, then they would raise the rock at the end of the hall, and reveal a larger room, twenty feet wide by twenty five feet long. The room was barren except for a table at the left side of the room with a well polished glass cup on it, devoid of contents. The floor rose in one foot steps, creating a stage at the back of the room. A the top of the stage stood a humanoid, dressed in a rough black cloak, face covered, with only the drooping unsatisfied frown of an old man's mouth showing beneath the unending shadow of the garment. The room was not as well lit as the hall, and there was no writing on the rooms wall, floor, or ceiling.

[Viera]

Her explorations led her farther and farther down the hallways, every curious as the lights continued to flicker on and off her hands brushing over the runes that were carved into the walls as her eyes scanned over them, slowly walking forward. She'd of never noticed it had she not accidentally not accidentally tripped the sensors, blinking a little as the rock ahead of her slowly lifted upwards.

And with that, the dead end became a room, to which she slowly stepped forward glancing about curiously and cautiously she stepped forward, and then forward again, until finally she was within the large room and her eyes turned quickly to the man in black cloth.

"Hello..?" Were the only words she could think of as her hands came up and folded them selves over her chest, the room was not so well lit and if she had to guess it was either a statue or a person she was addressing.

[Senator Palpatine]

The scared girl in the hallway crossed her arms over her chest. She looked terribly small in the daunting cold room. The light cast several shadows across her face, and she tentatively addressed the man in black with an unsure "Hello..?" That echoed weakly through the catacombs, dying out a little bit more with every corner the sound came across until it was gone altogether. The dark figure on the other hand looked gargantuan in the room, even though he was only a few inches taller than the woman. Perhaps it was the way he held himself, straight up, and even a little forward, leaning over the edge of the stage. Perhaps it was the way that his cloak blended into the shadows of the room, making the man look more of a part of the dark rather than a separate entity. Or perhaps it was simply the height of the stage that he stood on, and the presence with which he took it. None the less, he dwarfed her in stature, height, and control. He knew this place, he knew its secrets, the meaning of the writing on the wall, of the bones broken hewing the caverns, building the stage, and of the men and women that had died in this very room as homage to simple sentient nature, to create and destroy. The circle went on, the weak died and their blood was consumed by the strong, making the strong stronger, perfecting itself.

The man spoke, and while his voice suggested age and weakness, that was not the impression that it made. Dripping with mental persuasion, and forged in the power of the force, the voice commanded, reprimanded, and soothed all at the same time.

"Your name is Viera Shaia, you were once a Jedi Knight until your love, Inyri Kala'myr, also a knight," he paused here, and inflected the next few words with intense pity. "Died on a mission." Again he paused, ready for a reaction, but if none came he would continue quickly.

[Viera]

"My...My..." Was the only thing Viera could mutter, biting her tongue from lashing out as her life story was recalled as if it were some simple matter for the amusement of some strange robed figure who towered over her on a stage. If she'd been of sound mind, she might have made connections to what this person might of been, afterall, strange ruins, dark side energies, strange old person in robes speaking on about her life story.

Unfortunately, she was not focused as she normally would be, her head thumping still from the aftermath of whatever happened to her and so her groggy body readjusted and her arms switched, tapping a little upon the stone beneath her boots.

"You seem to have done alot of research..." She replied, waiting to see what the figure would say next. Fear, anxiety, curiosity, all of these emotions flowed easily from her, and yet the most prominent of them was just that, curiosity. She was still infatuated with the ruins for which she was within, she wanted to understand them, to learn them.

[Senator Palpatine]

She seemed subdued, the bump she had taken to the head to get her here was obviously having effects on her thinking capacity. She fidgeted, and then in a vote of confidence in his pause said, "You seem to have done alot of research..." But he wasn't telling her all that he knew of her, and probably never would. Always make your enemy think you are weaker than you really are was a motto that Darth Sidious tried to live by, something his own master's mistakes had taught him. He reached out to her mind, trying to ascertain what she was feeling. The fear was still there, but it was not prominent, curiosity, a desire to learn was the most pressing feeling in her.

Good. She would learn more than her share here, and then be left with even more questions.

He took a few steps forward, coming down onto the second highest level while speaking; "What did they tell you happened to dear Inyri? How did they tell you she died?"

[Viera]

Her eyes seemed to twitch at the simple mention of it all, huffing and puffing a bit as her anger built, thinking back to that day in the council chambers...the Jedi...those annoying little...But she had to maintain, not lose focus, she'd worry about them later. Unconsciously her hand had flexed, tightening into a tight fist before being released as soon as she realized it.

Her guard relaxed as the man stepped down, it didnt matter now, whoever he was, if he wanted to kill her, he could have. He already proved that fact when he had her abducted there was no point in worrying at that time.

"The council told me nothing...Only that they were aware of our relationship..and how such a strong tie proved to be a weakness...they were still investigating the matter...It was still being investigated when I left the Order as well..I don't think they wanted to find the answers." Murmured the ex-jedi, especially developing a lone tone toward the end of the sentence. Inyri and Viera had been on that mission together, and both she and the council knew that Inyri fell back to buy Viera more time.

[Senator Palpatine]

She began to breathe heavily, and he could feel anger, carefully hidden, begin to crack through the seals that she had put on it. She had balled her hands into tight fists, and he watched as she forced herself to let them relax. After a short time she spoke. "The council told me nothing...Only that they were aware of our relationship..and how such a strong tie proved to be a weakness...they were still investigating the matter...It was still being investigated when I left the Order as well..I don't think they wanted to find the answers." He let her words sink into the stone, the helplessness of the situation die with it. The pause gained weight until he shattered the silence.

"Hmmm..." He mused, "strange isn't it, how the jedi," the word was said as if speaking of an acquaintance one considered to be slightly less important and intelligent that the speaker, "think that such a strong bond as love is a weakness... Very strange..." He trailed on, trying to jog her thought pattern to warm it up for the shock to come. He continued down the platform, and as he passed her, said, "Come with me, I have something to show you."

Not waiting to see if she would follow, and knowing that she would, he walked towards a seemingly solid wall behind her and off to her right. As he neared the wall it raised into the celling, revealing another dark hall. As he walked along it lights flickered on, revealing his path before him. After a full minute of walking, he abruptly turned to the left, and, revealing a long spidery finger with a very well taken care of nail, traced a certain passage of the sinister script with it. The wall in front of him was sucked back into the wall, and then slid slowly to the side. Behind the wall was another room, much more gently lit. Within, two preserving coffins rested on stone slabs. The one to the left contained under pressurized crystal, a brunette, beautiful to anyone's eyes, hair that still shimmered in the dim light, and dressed casually in Nabooian style, and several flowers native to that planet were still fresh in her hair. Her neck, however, was purple, bruised, visible hand prints of pain laden on that vision of perfection.

He did not look at the left coffin.

The coffin on the right contained Inyri, her face as calm as spring rain, and preserved in all of her serene life loving beauty. Her clothing was torn, singed, and the wounds beneath had never bled, codderised as they were inflicted. He stopped next to the coffin containing Inyri, and waited for Viera's reaction.

[Viera]

Though she had a bad feeling about these things, she could not resist following after the man. He clearly had power, for whatever it was worth, and clearly had gained mastery of the language which was inscribed upon the walls as he manipulated them in a way the maestro would play a finely tuned instrument. Everything seemed perfect, too perfect. The knowledge on the walls begging at her, seeming to call out to her as their runic symbols pulsed and burned within her brain, it had captivated her far more then the man in the robe had...and yet...she wanted to leave this place the more she stared at the strange etchings.

Something about the place felt entirely wrong, any Jedi would have been able to sense it, but it was far worse then that. The entire planet had felt wrong, her emotions stirring higher then they had ever done before and thoughts which would normally have been well maintained even for the exile were boiling over to extreme heights. Lights flickered on and she was quick behind him, holding her silence.

A lust for knowledge burned deep within her, her memory attempting to capture every bit of etching on the wall and commit it to memory so that she might later investigate into it and find what it meant. But again he showed his power, tracing a finger across the line of script and revealing another room, this one dimly lit with two coffins inside.

And she winced...Her heart sinking to a new low as she quickly moved across the floor. Before she had even seen it she had some how knew what that coffin contained, and when she peered down below, upon the person she had once known and loved. Her body seemed to quiver and quake for a moment, her fingers clenching tightly and dragging across the smooth surface which she peered beneath.

"H.How...Why...Why do you have her here!" Hissed Viera in a new and low tone her head never turning to face the man as a single tear drop fell from her eye...and it was worse...the wounds, the wounds which had killed the one she had loved were unmistakable. A lightsaber had been the cause of her death.

"...a lightsaber..." She uttered the pained word out, still hanging over the coffin as she took a heavy breath. It had been a lightsaber which had killed Inyri...Is that why the council tried to hide it so?

[Senator Palpatine]

She had followed, as he had intended, and he could feel her burning passion for knowledge, and it pleased him. She could obviously tell that this had been carefully planned, but, hopefully her passion for her lover would cover up all of her suspicion. Her reaction when she reached the coffins was all that he could have hoped for. She stammered, hissing and spitting, and then, she noticed the manner of the wounds. She managed to slur out the world "Lightsaber."

He could feel what she was thinking, and it was exactly what he had wanted her to. He smiled, loose skin rising under shadow. "Ahhhh," he breathed out, "you are beginning to see what really happened to Inyri, impressive. Trust your feelings, reach out, who really killed your lover?" He of course knew that a small group of dark jedi had killed the young Inyri, but he hoped that her feelings and desire for revenge would blind her, and lead her to believing the the jedi were at the heart of her misfortune.

[Viera]

Her body had laxed, as if in total shot and recoil from the revelation as she pulled fully away from the elegant coffin, unable to bare the sight anymore her eyes fell upon the secret writings that were etched within those strange walls.

"The Jedi.." She uttered the simplest of phrases, only one force by their own admission existed within the Galaxy anymore that used Lightsabers. The Sith were long gone, they would say. A lightsaber was now a Jedi's tool, and upon the Jedi the blame for her loves death fell. It boiled up almost at once, her anger and hate peaking and resonating outward through the force enough so that the coffin it's self moved forward a foot or two before the woman gave a heavy breath and re-calmed her nerves.


There was a fire in her eyes, the hate which she had harbored for the Jedi was like a powder keg that was recently introduced to a match only to explode into a blazing inferno. She would leave a trail of bodies in her wake if she had her way, she would kill every last one of them until she was upon the floor of the Council it's self to demand answers for what had happened. It was almost funny how easily an emotion like love could be played upon.

"I'll make them pay.." She spat out suddenly, clenching her hand into a tight fist as her body seemed to quake upon the very spot "I'll make them all pay..." It was a vow to her self more then anything, she didn't even really stop to ponder anymore as to why this man had her beloved's body, he had shown her all that she had needed to see.

[Senator Palpatine]

The tension in the room dispersed for a moment in a calm before the storm. Viera withdrew from the glass casing, and her eyes drifted to the scratchings across the walls.

The man in black could almost feel her mind freeze.

Two words fell from her lips and shattered on the stone floor, glassine as her hopes: "The Jedi." The dark energy of the room was drawn to her like metal dust to a magnet. She shadows seemed to be drawn to her, shifting silently along the stones as if in search for sustenance. The pure anger coalesced, and then pulsed out, sending dust, shadow, light, and the glass coffin slid several inches along it's stone support. The rage was contained within her, and she radiated it like ice, freezing the air around her. "I'll make them pay," she spat, a second explosion, less violent, but powerful none the less. "I'll make them all pay..." She repeated, this time not erupting, but seething. Her vow witnessed by the powerful darkness around her that would doubtless hold her to it.

A smile as silent and dark as the shadows spread across the man's face.

"Good, good!" He exclaimed, "You're control is impressive! Feel the anger! Let it guide you, feed you, surround you! It is you're only friend now." The smile dropped from the mouth, replaced by an angry grimace. "Viera, do you know what I am?"