Ask Oh Lorrdi!

[Mako Krim]

Mako watched the interaction between the aged business owner and Zathria play out. Despite the blaster that was threateningly displayed, the man didn't seem interested in conflict. After a few moments Zathria had stated their intent and begun the workings of a mind trick on the man.

He let them into the dusty building, flicking a light on. There were various posters that decorated the wall detailing Lorrd and its various attractions. Dusty mementos and other products meant to be sold to tourists lined the shelves, but something about the room made Mako think that business hadn't been very good lately.

The man led them to a counter where he opened a small lockbox and pulled out a pair of key fobs. "Where are you going, this late at night?" The man asked suspiciously. He was more than willing to rent them speeders, especially with the mind trick at work, but that didn't suppress his natural, or perhaps unnatural paranoia.

"The Catacombs," Mako plucked the brochure back from Zathria and placed it on the table where the man looked at it blankly for a moment as if struggling to remember something, "Do you know where we could find the entrance?" He finished asking.

"Catacombs... catacombs..." The man stared at the brochure for a long moment, muttering to himself before his eyes widened slightly. "We haven't done a tour of the catacombs in... more than thirty years." He coughed and then rubbed his head as if seeming suddenly pained.

"Do you know... where we could find the entrance?" Mako asked again, a little more hesitantly as he pulled out some credits and traded them for the key fobs. There was something troubling about how the man's eyes seemed to glaze over, an expression of pain spreading across his face at the second asking.

"The catacombs... The... Ahh." The man's confusion and pain seemed to increase for a moment before he snapped rigid, face going blank as he exclaimed in pain. A moment passed before he shook his head and snapped out of whatever fit was affecting him. "You're speeders are in the back... Where you saying something?" He hooked a finger at the back door before glancing at them strangely as if he wasn't sure what was going on.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Zathria watched the exchange of the fob and the way the man seemed to glaze over at further questions. She once again sensed something nefarious at play, and her head tilted slightly to the side to examine him both physically and metaphysically. She didn't get the impression that he was the source of any of it, but something was still... here with them.

Thank you, she said to the man with a polite smile and nod that was a bit more joyous than she actually felt.

She didn't press the questions further and instead climbed into the speeder. A run down, old-looking R2 unit that looked like it had seen the Galactic Civil War was the pilot and Zathria climbed into one of the rear seats.

Whatever we're up against here has a great deal of influence. It's clouded the minds of everyone here, and clearly doesn't want us near the catacombs, she said, and as soon as the statement left her lips, she couldn't help but think how crazy this plan was. They were here to go to Dark Side infested catacombs in the middle of the night on a foreign world. Brilliant.

R2. Take us to the catacombs, she said, suddenly having the idea that if the droid was as old as it looked, it may still have the information they needed. In other words, it might still be programmed with the catacombs route.

Sure enough, the droid started taking off right away and Zathria's eyebrows went up and her mouth turned down, looking at Mako with a "what do you know" look.

 

[Mako Krim]

The man's words and actions, something seemed off about them. The way he held a pained expression, the waves of doubt that rode off of him. It was almost like a mind trick but, darker... more nefarious.

"You have our thanks, have a pleasant evening." Mako bowed slightly as they made their exit, leaving the befuddled old man by himself. There was a haunted expression on the man's face as he turned from the departing Jedi. Mako watched the man's back as he climbed into the speeder next to Zathria, trying to discern the situation.

"A great deal of influence indeed." He started as he placed a finger on his chin. "Or a great multitude of influences." The thought came out loud as he considered things. The energy that had affected the woman, the city, everything around them. It was like a blanket that lay over everything. What happened to the man had seemed almost focused. Intentional.

"I think whatever we are dealing with today... It is not what wanted this place hidden before." He said as he flipped out the pamphlet once again, print faded with age, smeared with dust. "The phenomenon with the illnesses and hauntings in the city is... relatively new. The catacomb tours were shut down over three decades ago." He pointed out as Zathria commanded the droid who seemed more than happy to comply.

A smile lit Mako's face for a moment as Zathria glanced at him in brief surprise.

"The force will provide." The Pyke Jedi nodded sagely with the cheesy grin still plastered to his face. There was no such thing as luck or coincidence. As far as Mako was concerned, the force had willed that the two Jedi find their way to the catacombs of the Lorrdian city. What influence the darkside held on the planet and region, the lightside still held sway.

The droid's route seemed to keep to the edge of the city limits, brushing along the inside of the circle of the pit's radius as they cut from one point to another further point. Likely an introductory section where a tour guide would talk about the dark wasteland on the way to the catacombs.

There was no tour guide for the pair of Jedi and they were only left with the sight of an endless flat black landscape and the darkness that seemed to radiate off the slate like heat would radiate off a plate, an almost wavering shadow seemed to flicker and rise to the more discerning eyes of Jedi like Mako and Zathria.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Zathria tilted her head to the side as he spoke, frowning in a hint of confusion.

I don't follow, she said after a moment. You mean a full sect of people with influence? You think someone shut down the catacomb tours intentionally, too? she asked. Her initial thought was that they had shut down for a legitimate business reason, but now that he mentioned it, maybe there was something more nefarious at work. She wasn't allowed to believe in coincidences, she'd been told.

She snorted at his cheesy grin. Yeah, well, you're not wrong, she said. They rode along in relative silence for a while, and Zathria's eyes looked out over the shadowy nothingness beyond.

I hate it here, she blurted out after several minutes of silence. Very creepy. Very wrong, she said with an unhappy shake of her head. It was the lot of a Jedi to confront the terrors of the galaxy, but sometimes it was just icky.

The droid pulled to a stop just after Zathria finished up her bemoaning, and she swung her legs out of the vehicle and looked out to a small archway leading to a stairway down.

Wait here for us, she said to the R2 unit, which gave a shrill whistle of acknowledgment and Zathria walked over to the stairs down, pulling her lightsaber from her hip and activating it. No one out here to see them, and the glowing blue light provided her with enough light to not trip on the way down.

@Arcangel

 

[Mako Krim]

Zathria didn't quite follow Mako's train of thought. Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps the negative energy of the area was just getting to Mako, making him paranoid.

"I'm... Not sure. The feeling was different with the storekeeper. The timing doesn't make sense. That man was clearly affected by some manner of darkness, though, how could he not be with the proximity he keeps to... this," Mako waved a hand out towards the landscape. Zathria had the right of it, it was very creepy and very wrong. However what happened with the old man... It seemed as if something, or someone, had tried to make him forget about the catacombs.

"Nothing about this place seems right, was ever right maybe." He muttered as he glared at the barren landscape and dancing shadows in the dark. The Force was certainly strong here, though it was clearly twisted and malevolent.

Mako wasn't sure to be thankful or anxious as they arrived at some old ruins. He was glad to be away from the darkness of the pit but knew that the catacombs would likely lead to a much closer encounter to the darkness that lay below. They approached the old ruins and found a stairway. Zathria lit her saber, and with nobody around Mako couldn't see why not.

Snap-hiss. Mako's purple blade ignited as well and he approached the stairs. A tumbled down old stone building guarded what once might have been an ornate entrance. Government trespassing signs and a more modern grated cage and door covered the entrance, or rather, did at one point. The gate had clearly been torn from its hinges at some point. Mako's eyes turned away, searching the area around for a moment to find the missing gate lodged into a cracked stone block not far off.

"Someone has been here before, maybe recently." Mako said aloud as he motioned towards the thrown gate. Something strong. A closer examination of the steps revealed a layer of seemingly undisturbed dust. He stood hesitantly at the top for a moment as his heart pounded, the tunnel seeming to stretch down into a bottomless void for a moment. He shook the fear away, exhaling it.

"May the force be with us." He murmured the quiet prayer before taking the first step down, his soft footfall disturbing the dust. Silence. He took another step. And another. Soon he was walking down a twisting stone stairway that seemed to make its way deeper and deeper into the earth through the narrow tunnel it occupied.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Could just be kids, she said. This is just the kind of thing they'd love to get into, she said as they looked at the grating. Not that she was going to make that assumption.

Yeah, she agreed to his comment. The Force was the only thing that would protect them down here. But the Force was her ally, and she reminded herself that she was its representative, right?

As they made their way down into the pits, she looked at the old stone walls and the layer of dust that hadn't been disturbed until them.

The pits were to the south, I think, she said. So we should head to the left whenever we can, she said.

 

[Mako Krim]

"Yeah... maybe." Mako said, doubt in his tone as Zathria mused that it might just be kids that had... ripped the grating from its hinges and embedded the durasteel into solid stone. Definitely just kids.

A deathly silence wrapped around them as they made their way down under the surface, only marred by the gentle hum of their lightsabers. Their glow was soothing in the darkness of the narrow descending tunnel, a light against the claustrophobic shadow that surrounded them.

"South." Mako nodded as they broke the silence briefly. If there ever came upon a split. An unnecessary thought as they came to another threshold, the entryway into the catacombs ringed with a stack of rocks and skulls. The floor leveled out into a more open tunnel that branched in two directions away from the bottom of the stairs, heading north and south.

Mako glanced down each of the two directions. Both directions seemed the same, walls carved with shallow depressions on upon which ancient and crumbling skeletons lay. Smaller depressions in the walls held individual skulls. The north spoke nothing to Mako, but from the South, a whisper. A beckoning. A call of darkness.

"South it is." He said with a nod as he turned in that direction, leading the way with his saber held aloft. The tunnel was quite creepy in the wash of his glowing purple saber. "I wouldn't say its hard evidence, but the interior decoration is quite tacky, something a Sith might think up." Mako joked quietly to calm his nerves that were starting to fray at the edges. It felt as if every step southwards drew them deeper into the surrounding darkness, the glow of the saber shrinking slightly as the proceeded. Surely just a trick of the imagination.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Zathria pulled out her datapad and noted down their turn. Something in her bones just told her wandering the tunnels without directions back seemed like a bad idea. Who knew how many more twists or turns they may confront still.

As he mentioned the tacky architecture, Zathria just let out a loud exhale from her nose, a half-snort, half-laugh to acknowledge the humor, but in the stifling darkness that surrounded them, she just couldn't quite generate the joy of humor.

They continued onward, and as the light of their sabers seemed to shrink, she could swear she heard a whisper from somewhere in the darkness. Behind? In front? No, it was just in her imagination, wasn't it?

Did you hear something? she finally blurted out, unable to keep it to herself anymore.

I don't think we're alone down here, she said quietly.

@Arcangel

 

[Mako Krim]

Mako continued to walk, the light shrinking further. A voice teased on the edges of his conscious, one, then another. Like buzzing gnats hovering around his ears, seeking attention. The darkness weighed heavily upon him, a stifling blanket that sucked any sense of good feeling from the catacombs.

"I heard it t-" He turned his head to speak to her, only to burst into movement as soon as his gaze glimpsed over her shoulder. A pivot around the woman put his back to hers as he swung his saber at the dark. He struck only misty shadows.

"The whispers, I saw a face over your shoulder." He forced out as the air seemed to be sucked from the room. A crescendo of murmurs, whispers, screams, cries and whimpers swirled around them. The light of their saber's sucked inwards away from the sweeping shadows that seemed to encircle the Jedi, illuminating only a narrow circle around them.

The ghastly voices came with a maelstrom of emotions that would wash over the Jedi. Pain. Loss. Regret. The piercing keen of grief. Despair and hopelessness. Mako struggled against the storm as it whipped past his face and tugged at his robes, faint faces flying by in the dimly lit shadows. "Restless souls!" He shouted over the din to Zathria.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

It was death. Death was what they had "discovered" down here. Those who had failed to ever find rest in the Force. So that was what they needed to do: find a way to bring rest to these people. Yeah, it wasn't going to be that easy.

She swept a saber through the air, but likewise found nothing but empty air.

She concentrated on the Force, opening herself up to it even through the pain, trying to focus on the Light and the good, the peace that seemed to be so far away now. She tugged on that connection, letting it pass through her and out, pushing back the darkness if only for a few moments.

We need to keep... pressing forward! she groaned. We need to find the source! she said, straining against the enraged... ghosts?

@Arcangel

 

[Mako Krim]

The whirling maelstrom of spirits and emotion that surrounded them threatened to suck the life right out from the two Jedi, the restless spirits no doubt attracted to the thing that had long ago escaped them. It took everything for Mako to not let his own life slip away from him as the whipping wind stole his breath away and darkness crept into his vision.

He focused on the light within, the light without seeming so far away. The light of the Jedi's saber seemed to shrink ever more. A voice sounded out seemingly in the distance, a living one. It was actually quite near, and the words grounded Mako. Gave him focus.

He focused on the light within him, that kernel of truth that all those who served the light carried within them. He stoked it, even as he felt his vision slipping, letting it grow. Mako rose his hand, letting the light form within it to glow, softly at first. He drew upon the light, projecting it up and out to shine brightly in the catacombs. Not just illumination of the dark, but a source of the Light in the surrounding Darkness. The spirits shied from the light, giving them breathing room as he put his saber away and grabbed hold of Zathria, pulling her forwards.

"Run!" He shouted, his vision beginning to return to him. They spirits lingered in their footsteps as Mako maintained the light that shone from his hand, dimming as he drew more and more from within himself. By the time they reached another stone and skull framed threshold, he was breathing hard. There was a snap in the mind as they passed the threshold, as if they had crossed a sort of boundary.

Mako sprawled to the ground as they crossed the threshold, the light in his hand extinguished. There was silence in the tunnels behind them, the new tunnel they found themselves in appearing different than before. The walls more freshly carved, if still old. The marks that digging machinery left that had been absent from the older catacombs.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

It was all just a blur of what happened next. She felt him dragging her through the whirl of darkness and as they crossed a threshold, she felt like she could breathe for the first time since they had entered this darkness. Whatever was here... it couldn't quite cross into this area.

She had stumbled and fallen, just laying on the floor for a moment as she caught her breath before pushing herself back to her feet.

This is new, she said, pointing to the tunnel ahead of them. The darkness - while still present - felt different here. More distant as if everything were being stifled in the distance, not just the dark but the light as well.

Let's find whoever made this abyss of darkness. I think we have a score to settle with him, she said, though she paused after a moment.

Clearly it's a Force-user of some sort, but this doesn't even feel like Sith. Sith wouldn't want to blunt their own ability to use the Force, she said.

@Arcangel

 

[Mako Krim]

Mako got back to his feet after a moment of catching his breath, savoring the stale air as though he had nearly breathed his last. Brushing the dust from his robes, he looked around at Zathria's words.

"New...ish. Yes, this isn't part of the catacombs." He agreed as he set a hand on the stone wall. His connection to the light felt faint. Blunted. It was still there, but something was definitely interfering with his ability to draw upon the deepest wells of the Light.

"Revenge is not the Jedi way." Mako spoke lightly, half a joke at their own order's expense, half serious. He did wan't to deal with whoever had orchestrated the pain and misery the woman above had been experience, as well as so many others. If there was even such a culprit.

"If not a Sith, then who would have the power for a working such as this?" Mako vaguely gestured to the air around him as he looked around for something to indicate a heading. It was dark around without the light of his saber, but it also allowed him to peer further into the darkness. They had two options ahead of them, to the left and to the right of the narrow threshold through which they had come.

"I think..." Mako started as he let his sense stretch outwards, down the hewn stone tunnel that had been bored through the earth some years before. Muted as his senses were, he could feel a faint circulation of air stirred to their right, bearing the freshness of higher levels in the distance. To the left...

"There's a light. A faint one down the left tunnel." Mako pointed into the darkness. He gave Zathria a moment to find it with her eyes before igniting his purple saber once again to illuminate the tunnel as he led the way. It didn't take the pair long to reach the source of the light.

A metal blast door set in the surrounding rock, the faint glow of its keypad the source. Whatever lay beyond was surely their goal. As they approached closer, Mako noticed a lump sitting some distance away from the door. A skeleton, dressed in tattered clothing that had been ravaged by the years. The figure was sprawled away from the doorway as though it had once ran through them and out into the tunnel, only to drop dead for some reason.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Zathria thumped her thumb against her chest. Justicar, she said. Settling justice for other people's in my blood or something something, she said, also half joking.

As he asked a more serious question about who could be behind this, she shook her head. As much as we all like to forget, the Sith don't have a monopoly on the Dark Side. Cultists, other dark sects... even fallen Jedi, she said. She more than most knew that fallen Jedi could cause incredible damage.

Worst case scenario, it's some Dark Side entity itself, she said, though she certainly hoped that wasn't the case.

She followed as he led the way down toward the light, and the sight that greeted them didn't bring her any sense of assurance. She bent down to take a closer look, looking around and trying to make sense of what might have happened.

Door's locked, he ran out... trying to keep something inside? she suggested. She reached out and placed a hand on the door, trying to get an impression of what was beyond, letting her senses slide through the door and into the room.

There was a backblast of energy into her mind, that made her jerk back from the door, eyes flashing open and saber coming up in a defensive posture out of instinct despite no physical attack.

There is something large, old, and evil behind this door, she said, her voice shaky for a moment before she composed herself again.

An abomination maybe? I'm not sure, she said. She'd never faced a Sithspawn before, but if she had to imagine it, it would have felt like what she sensed from beyond.

@Arcangel

 

[Mako Krim]

Mako raised an eyebrow as Zathria declared herself a Justicar. He hadn't been certain to which branch of the Jedi she belonged, now he knew. The fact that the Sith didn't have monopoly on the darkside was sometimes easy to forget in their war with their enemy.

"Given the darkness that surrounds this place... I hope you're wrong." He finished with trepidation at the mention of a darkside entity. The two Jedi Knights were a formidable pair, but the prospect of taking down a darkside entity by themselves. He hoped this pit wouldn't be his grave.

Mako examined the body closer as Zathria examined the door, turning it over to a clatter of bones. The bones themselves showed years on them as they had lain there in the dark, but two things stood out as soon as he saw it from the front. One, the cause of death was no doubt the hole punched in its sternum bone, the bones themselves seeming melted from the back. The other was a keycard still loosely fastened to the corpses belt, which Mako promptly snatched free of its tether.

"Keep something inside, or escape from somoene." Mako gestured down at the chest of the skeleton. "Stabbed in the back by a lightsaber, i'd wager." There were other things, perhaps, that could cause such a wound, but none quite so clean.

It was then that Mako noticed how shaken that Zathria was, eyeing the doorway suspiciously as he approached it. "large, old, evil, and dead, once we're done with it." He said with a hollow confidence as he put a large three fingered hand on Zathria's shoulder in comfort for a moment before raising the keycard for her to see.

"Let's go find out." He said with a smirk, trying to build his own courage. The frightful walk through the hall of the dead moments prior had been harrowing, but now as he faced the door, he gulped down his fear. There was no room for fear in moments like this. There was a life, two lives, on the line. Mako swiped the keycard across the keypad swiftly, before he lost his nerve, and the hissed open.

Behind the door was a dim sterile hallways, sterile except for a few more of the skeletons littering the floor, long dead. The metal corridor reminded Mako of a military base, or a hospital. Some sort of facility that favored function over form. Lightsaber held at the ready, Mako stepped over the threshold and into the base, expecting... anything. There was no response other than the flickering of lights that snapped on at the motion.

A glance down at the skeleton's revealed more of the same, bones that were mostly pristine except a few places where an energy blade had pried the life from them. One skeleton in the middle of the hall bore an impression in it's chest, and a few partial boot prints of dusted bone headed deeper into the facility. "Someone else has been here recently, might still be here." Mako said quietly to Zathria as he moved past the skeletons.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

So do I, she said as he said that he hoped she was wrong. There were a million other possibilities, and she certainly hoped those were going to be the answer to their question.

She didn't say anything as he mentioned it would be dead when they were done with it. Her jaw just clenched tighter in uncertainty, and she took in a breath, almost wary of opening herself to the Force now for fear of what darkness she might feel on the other side.

Yeah... she said, nodding and breathing in deeply. No way but forward. As the door slid open and the automated lights turned on, she was pleasantly surprised not to be immediately smeared against the wall by some massive creature or impaled by some Sith.

Maybe you're right, maybe it was Sith, she said, looking at the additional bodies lining the corridor. It almost gave her a hospital or lab feeling: as if it were all very sterile and clinical. As if it had resources behind it.

Most other Dark sects don't use lightsabers, she said, elaborating on her comment. While it wasn't impossible or unheard of, the Jedi used sabers and the Sith had come from the Jedi. The lightsaber was a relatively unique weapon.

@Arcangel

 

[Mako Krim]

Mako let his lightsaber fall quiet as they proceeded down the hallway, the light source no longer needed, deactivating it but keeping it ready in hand. The darkside was thick in the hallways despite the lack of any immediate danger, and Zathria's words lingered in Mako's ears.

"Most don't." He agreed as they came to a four way intersection in the clinical hallway, the corridor seeming far too sterile for a facility that had been presumably abandoned. Perhaps the footsteps had merely been the janitor stepping over old bones to carry out his duties. Mako would have normally laughed to himself at the thought, but the dark aura of the facility seemed to sap all cheer from the Jedi.

Mako paused at the intersection, peering down each corridor in turn, searching for some kind of sign as to which direction to go. "Whoever is behind this facility, they obviously didn't believe in hall signs." The attempt at humor again falling flat in his chest as he spoke. The dreadful atmosphere was certainly different than that of the catacombs above, but no less oppressive.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Mako may have deactivated his saber, but Zathria didn't. While she was keenly aware of where the saber was, she kept it active and in hand at least for the moment. It was only once they reached the intersection and had still seen no signs of attack that Zathria finally deactivated her saber though she kept the hilt in hand.

Maintenance droids? she asked as if mirroring his thoughts. Set to charge off the base's power core and running through their systems regardless of whether the base was active. She wasn't banking on it, though.

No, evidently not, she agreed as she, too, found no evidence of signs, directions, directories, or anything else that might help guide them.

Straight's as good as any, I guess, she said, proceeding to press on straight ahead down the hallways rather than turning off to either side. What would await them was an unpleasant mystery.

@Arcangel

 

[Mako Krim]

Zathria led the way with greater decisiveness than Mako in the moment, heading straight through the corridor and leaving the two side passages to be explored later.

"Straight it is." Mako supported her decision, following along. There was an eery silence in the abandoned facility, broken only by their footsteps and when they spoke. The end of the hallway found them facing another door, locked, sealed, keypad glowing menacingly in the sterile hallway.

"Let's try this again." Mako swiped the keycard he had grabbed from the corpse outside. A steady tone before the blast door slid open to reveal a bare turbolift. The Pyke Jedi peered around the corners of the lift before stepping in. Two options, up and down.

"I suppose down is the way we need to go." Mako said, holding back a shudder as he felt a looming darkness radiating from below. Whatever was causing the aura that had pervaded the area, that had plagued so many with horrible nightmares, it lay below. Before Mako could let his nerve break, he swiped the card sent the turbolift plummeting down.

There was no elevator music as the lift descended, no doubt down to the bottom of the pit judging by the length of the trip. The door opened before them and Mako held his lightsaber at the ready. Expecting... what? He wasn't sure. Some great beast of darkness? A relic that radiated darkness?

Instead the turbolift opened up to what appeared to be an observation room. Great windows lined the far wall, one of which had been shattered at some point. Computers sat dark, a few with corpses still slumped in the seats where they had died years prior. Deep gouges were carved through some of the consoles, as well as scarring on the metal floor that indicated some form of battle had broken out in the room. The darkside was thickest here, as if the source were somewhere nearby.

A single monitor still flickered across the room, one of a few large screens that sat above each observation window. The image it showed was a grainy still, the camera feeding it no likely covered in dust. Mako could make out what appeared to be a circular platform, two walkways leading to it from either side. The darkness surrounding the platform indicated a great fall perhaps. Two things stood out immediately in the image to the Jedi.

The platform. A strange symbol seemed to etched into the surface of the circular landing, which now that Mako was looking at it appeared more like an arena. The symbol wasn't anything that the Jedi recognized, but the mere sight of it made his stomach turn.

The circular image seemed to writhe on its own for a moment, though it was most certainly still, like that of a snake slithering around as it sought to swallow its own tail. The other thing that stood out, that sent chills down his spine and sent a spike of fear through his gut. A figure sat motionless on the platform in the middle of the circle, hooded and cloaked, appearing almost formless.

@Phoenix

 

[Zathria]

Nothing that Zathria saw made her feel much better. They climbed into the turbolift and took it down to be met by more corpses. She was starting to get the impression that the slaughter here alone was enough to have left this dark stain behind, but from the looks of things, this had been years ago. Something had to have changed to trigger this all to unfold now.

This was a purge, was all she could speculate. The why she didn't know, but clearly some Sith had carved their way through here and left no survivors. She doubted there would be any information left behind after such a thorough wiping, and she had a nagging feeling she'd leave here with more questions than she'd arrived and with no answers.

She was about to ask if he recognized the symbol when her eyes settled on the hooded figure. The pieces... weren't adding up, and that bothered her almost as much as everything else.

Show us your hands! she demanded across the gap. Matters of jurisdiction and courtesy had no bearing on her now. This being was somehow involved, and if that was the case, it almost certainly made him an enemy... and a dangerous one at that. Her finger brushed along the activator of her lightsaber, resisting the urge to press down on it and, for now, leaving her blade off.

@Arcangel