The Search pt. 1

[Jaqen H'ghar]

Nar Shadaa, a moon practically owned by the hutts, vongformed, and then rebuilt over once more. Always it seemed throughout history the moon was a home for smugglers, theifs, lowlifes and general scum. It was with great ease that the sith lord Atroxus, his wings wrapped around himself, armored still and hidden underneath a to-large set of outer robes navigated his way with his apprentice towards one of the bars that said lowlifes tended to frequent.

He leaned over and whispered quietly for his apprentice to find a seat, and keep a careful eye out for anyone who seemed to be more interested than they should in the pair, but with clear regards for discretion. Atroxus then headed to the bar, requesting to speak with the owner. The owner in question was apparently not in... The Sith Lord looked the man in the eyes, and basically kicking down his mental defenses with ease. "You will call him, and he will meet me here in the back room in one hour. You will get him here." He commanded, the mans eyes seemed to look terrified, as the force made his mind bend and twist to the will of Darth Atroxus. The bartender hurried off to make the necessary arrangements and the Sith returned to the table at which his padawan sat.

 

[Miranda]

To enter the gates, from the docklands into the city-proper, on Nar Shadaa was to enter a swarming hive of miscreant refuse and diabolical murmurs that swept from some deep cityscape abyss upwards to a twilit sky that seemed breached and stabbed by the clusters of neverending skyscrapers. Each tower flickering with a million phosphorescent lights seemed to knuckle at the core and spire acutely upwards like dark and blasphemous fingers pointing towards the heavens. Liina could not hold back a small shudder. She had spent months in solitude and darkness in the depths of her Master's subterranean lair, attuning herself to the Dark Side of the Force, honing her skills and learning from the dreaded Sith Lord, Darth Atroxus. And now, abruptly, as if an infinite number of voices all cried out to her at once, she felt deafened by the immense monster that was this planet.
The two Sith, Master and Apprentice, waded through the thronging sea of people towards their destination. An innumerable amount of sentients of every ethnicity and racial progeny slid past them, an erratic splay of horned or tusked or red-skinned or reptilian or winged. Liina had seen many places in the galaxy, but nothing akin to this. Accustomed, for years, to worlds steeped in shadows and darkness where she could skulk and shift in the silence, Nar Shadaa was a rude awakening.

The Acolyte followed her Master to a derelict looking cantina and followed his instructions exactly. She gathered her obsidian cloak about her and sat at a corner table where the entire vista of the place opened before her. With the frantic array of bizarre and alien and strange, she knew that she would go unnoticed. A dark figure amidst darker figures. And she scanned the drinking den continuously as was her mandate, and waited for her Master to finish his business.

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

Atroxus returned to his apprentice and spoke quietly to her across the table. "We shall have our audience shortly, I believe...if all goes according to plan, the smuggler will not have left Nar Shadaa...Patience in this case, will pay off I feel...I sense we'll find the person we're looking for here, the first step on the journey..."

He waited, curious if his apprentice would ask him what it was they were searching for, he had been incredibly vague on the subject when he told her to ready herself and even now after traveling halfway across the galaxy he still hadn't given anymore information than they already had. His eyes shifted across the group of people, none here seemed to pay any attention, and he sensed no certain threats from them at this time...it seems they would simply have to wait for the owner of the club to come, then get the proper information...and Atroxus would not be denied that.

 

[Miranda]

Liina had not thought to question her Master's motives for the entire duration of their journey. From the depths of the cavernous underground laboratory, through the long and reticent voyage to Nar Shadaa, and now into the very bowels of the infernal city-planet, she had remained silent. Liina had swiftly learnt that to question a Sith Lord's intent and purpose was to meet an equally swift demise, or at least severe punishment. Acolytes had to know their place, had to learn their station very fast, or meet certain death.
It was not until now, in the cesspit cantina, that Liina had been invoked by curiosity as to what this mission was all about. It had to be of the utmost importance if her Dark Master, Darth Atroxus, felt compelled to leave his post on Korriban.

"Master, forgive my impertinence...but what does our journey concern? As always, my Lord, the Dark Side shrouds you...I cannot place it, but I feel this has very crucial significance for us."

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

He looked at her curiously across the table. He had given her nearly unrestricted access to his scrolls, books, datapads. In his mind he calculated how much to tell her, and finally he settled that he would see how much she knew first, and then attempt to simply go from there. Atroxus took a breath, and looked around, paranoid as ever. No one was paying them any attention however, and it was with this certainty that he spoke.

"Everyone knows of Darth Sidious...Also known as Emperor Palpatine. How his apprentice Vader betrayed him for his son shortly before his death. You've learned of the Rule of Two, from Sidious's writings I would assume, but tell me my young apprentice. Do you know how the Rule of Two came into being?" He asked the last words, curious to see just how much his apprentice had been studying. This would be a test for her, in some ways, as much as it would be a test for him...though for him, the stakes were much greater.

 

[Miranda]

The Sith acolyte beheld her Master for a moment, while he versed to her an introductory note on Sith history. She had indeed been studying diligently, she knew of Darth Sidious and Maul, of Count Dooku and then of the myth of the 'Chosen One' who became Darth Vader. Liina had found the ancient histories and lore of the sacred Sith Order to be compelling and fascinating, and of course, an ultimate source of power and understanding. As her Master asked her the question of the 'Rule of Two' doctrine, a dogma that was now obsolete, she nodded for a moment in reply.

"Two there should be; no more, no less. One to embody power, the other to crave it", she quoted Darth Bane who had been the doctrine's founder. She recalled for a moment the readings and research she had filed through weeks ago, "I believe, my Lord, that Darth Bane instituted the 'Rule of Two' because he understood the Sith Order to be subject to internal chaos and disorder. The Sith Order in which he had been cultivated, that of Lord Kaan's brotherhood, Darth Bane perceived as being essentially self-destructive."

Liina paused for a moment, deep in thought. "A house divided against itself cannot stand. This is what Darth Bane attended, division amongst the Sith would only force the house to perish. And this, my Lord, is why I believe he established a new philosophy and rule."

But as she spoke she realised that she had not truly answered her Master's question. He had expected her to understand and remember the sacrosanct histories of their Order, but he had not asked why the 'Rule of Two' had come into being, but rather how.

"The means by which such doctrine came into existence, Master, was explained briefly in the chronicles that I have read. I understood that Darth Bane did not in fact devise the ideology all himself. But rather...he adopted the teachings of the ancient Sith Lord Revan, after uncovering a holocron on the world of Lehon."