Ask The Witch-Queen Cometh

Vex

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Several Standard Days Later​

Vex took the Empress' offer to travel with her. She had never actually been inside a Star Destroyer before, and there was no way in Bogan she was going to give up the opportunity to travel on the Empress' destroyer. She had also never been to Mustafar; but she had heard the tales. Fortress Vader had been a major inspiration for Castle Gaol. Both its exterior appearance and the reputation she intended for it to have some day.

When they arrived on the volcanic world, she peered out the viewport of their ship and gazed down at the obsidian spire spearing out from the molten flats. The power radiating off of it... It wasn't just impressive, it was menacing. Immediately she was chilled to her bones. And this was what it was like with Vader dead. It was hard to imagine this place when he was alive. The terror it must have inspired. It was almost enough to be envied.

"So, that's the legendary Fortress Vader," Vex voiced alloud, not quite sure if the Empress heard her. She spoke up slightly louder the next time. "I must confess, I didn't expect Darth Vader to be the alchemical type." She recalled the Empress saying there would be supplies here that they needed for their experiments. She was curious what those supplied were. "Then again, I don't think anyone knows everything about the man. He was said to be very reclusive." @Phoenix
 

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Renfry stood next to the Champion as they descended into the lower atmosphere. She looked down at Fortress Vader below. She'd been here before, but not spent much time here over her years. It wasn't a particularly hospitable world, but then, plenty of people would say the same about Dathomir.

They boarded a shuttle and descended down to the surface. The heat was stifling and the air was stale with soot. She didn't have interest in lingering outside in this "weather" for long but waited to see the body unloaded and brought inside.

Yes. It's been reconstructed in a lot of areas, but this is where Darth Vader honed himself into the hyperlethal cyborg that he was, she said. There were many down through history who had gained their reputation as Sith Lords, but Vader was one of those who would always stand out. Even having allegedly turned back to the Jedi before his death, his reputation was well-earned.

Most of the alchemical additions were added by the overseer of the refurbishments. His interest in alchemy was and is extensive, she said. Even as she thought about it, it brought back numerous memories. She'd trained Veles in much of the arcane ways he knew, but his study had deviated from her own with time. Then he brought Wildfire into the Sith academies and his light... it had flickered and his Lordship was stripped. She still hoped that one day he would reacquire the skill and dedication that he had once shown.

He was, supposedly. You'll find many more people present at the facility now than I imagine there were at the time, she said, watching the engineers pushing the hovercart down the exit ramp.
 

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Vex followed the Empress' entourage into the dark fortress, nodding as she listened to the monarch's explanations. She made sure to look around once they got inside, mentally filing away the architectural additions she liked for the prison she was bidden to design. Eventually, they crossed a long obsidan bridge, dangling over a volcanic pit, and reached a surgical chamber on the other side where the Rakata's body had been transported per the Empress' instructions.

Much of the alien's armor and equipment had been stripped away, leaving it bare. Vex didn't hide her disgust upon observing the full nudity of the creature, but didn't express this aloud. There was work to do, and she expected she was about to learn a lot of important information. The Empress had not taken her on as a student, persay—but she was going to act as if she were one anyways. One did not take a lesson from the Queen of the Sith lightly. She would be sure to pay attention to every step of the process here.

"What sorts of experiments do we intend to conduct here today?" she asked, hoping she was not out of line in doing so.

Even as she asked, she felt something different in this room. It wasn't in the room exactly, but below it. Far down, beneath the castle. She finally could sense the source of the darkness she had felt from orbit. A great wellspring of the dark side. A convergence. And, already, Vex was beginning to understand. The Empress planned to use the nexus for something. She was eager to find out what. @Phoenix
 

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Renfry walked into the chamber along with the other woman and the door snapped shut behind them. A variety of equipment and vials of liquids were spread across one side of the room and all the equipment sat atop a wooden floor that quite obviously didn't belong here normally.

She moved over and grabbed a towel, tossing it over the alien's exposed parts and turned to Vex with a shrug. I don't need that staring me in the face all day, she said. They would probably get to that eventually, but for the moment there was no need for it.

Tissue sampling for genetic analysis sent off to our scientists, comparison against what records we have of Rakatan biology, and some more arcane techniques. Signs of Dark Side cloning, resurrection, physical augmentation, and that sort of thing, she said.

Have you studied any alchemy outside that holocron? she asked, grabbing gloves and a gown to cover herself as she spoke.
 

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Vex followed the Empress' lead, slipping into the necessary clothing and equipment that she would need to properly perform whatever experiments they were going to conduct on the dead alien. She was looking forward to this. Not just for what she could learn, but also because it was a small opportunity to get revenge on the creature that had so brazen invaded her mind. See how he liked being probed. Her one regret was that he probably couldn't feel it.

"I've studied the basics," she informed the Empress truthfully. Her Master had not been the arcane type, but Vex had poured over the scrolls and old vornskr-skin volumes in the Sith Academy's libraries when she received her promotion to Champion. Self-study was no replacement for real experience, but she would at least know what the Empress was speaking about. "And I'm a quick learner."

The Empress' words were the first time she had considered cloning to be a possibility. She knew Sidious was obsessed with eternal life. What Sith wasn't? But she had never been to any of Sidious' labs beyond the vault on Belsavis. Had not seen the extent of his experiments merging dark side science with cloning technology. She wondered if this was going to be her first peek into what those experiments yielded. @Phoenix
 

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Renfry went to work almost immediately, cutting the creature open to expose its insides. It hadn't actually been preserved, so they only had a limited amount of time before rot would set in. Already there was a great deal of rigor mortis as she cut through.

Look pretty much like what you know of Rakatan physiology? she asked, looking at the organs packed inside. Without a working circulatory system, there was limited blood and most of what remained was coagulated in the vessels.

I'm not an anatomist. Most of my experience with this stuff if skinning animals, she said, which was very different from this. What she was good at were the rituals, which would come later.

She cut off several pieces and placed them in preserving fluids of different types for sending off to the labs.

I wonder what this is, she said, pointing with a scalpel toward what looked like a tattoo on the inside of the body. It was highly unusual and not something she ahd seen before, but the markings looked almost... runic.
 

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Vex surveyed the dissected torso of the Rakatan cadaver, feeling for the first time confident and at ease since she met the Empress. This she could do. This was something she knew. She refereced everything she was seeing with her mental notes about Rakatan physiology, nodding as her eyes raked across the body. "Yes," she replied. "This all looks consistent. I can't see any signs that this was another species glamoured to look like a Rakatan. Everything is consistent with the notes in the archives."

She then flicked her gaze to the marking the Empress indicated. She too noticed the runic nature of the symbol. But what was more interesting was the tissue surrounding it. "Do you see that?" she asked, gesturing broadly to the area around the marking. "No scar tissue. This wasn't surgically grafted. This had to be some sort of Force application. But I've never seen or read about such a delicate mark being applied inside the body of the target."

Then again, she did not have near the magical education the Empress had. There may indeed be Sith sorcery—or some other sort of dark side wizardry—that would allow for such a flawless procedure. But if there was, she had never seen it. As if to confirm her theory, she held her hand out over the mark (without touching it) and closed her eyes. At once, her senses were assaulted by the rancid scent of cold darkness.

She gasped loudly, her eyes snapping open. "But whatever made that was dark. Dark and vile," she managed as she struggled to regain a steady breath. @Phoenix
 

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Renfry's head tipped back and forth several times in thought as she looked at the mark.

Hmmm, she hummed to herself. She wasn't surprised to hear that the mark was dark side in nature. While different, it reminded her of some of the rune she had seen that altered the body of the wearer.

I've heard about tattoos supposedly laced with Dark Side infused ink before. It was the origins for some of the old Red Sith tattoos... allegedly, she said. She'd not found strong evidence to support that assertion, but it had been put forward by some old Sith researchers. She reached out and poked it with a finger. Nothing happened, but she couldn't resist. It was totally smooth and indeed lacked any indication of scar tissue.

I wonder if it's part of the reason he didn't age. If Rakatans can infuse their technology with the Force, maybe they could do it with their ink as well, she said.
 

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"That would explain why Palpatine was keeping him around," Vex thought aloud. She crossed her arms and began to pace back and forth in front of the table without peeling her gaze from the body. "From everything I read, the man was obsessed with ruling forever. His last clone body decayed rapidly under the weight of his dark side power. Perhaps he was trying to harness the technique keeping this warrior young and alive to extend his own vitality."

Although, clearly that had not panned out.

She thought back to her time at the Temple of the Ancients. The knocked over iron sconces she had encountered, consistent with dark side ritual props that even the Sith still used in some of their dark magic rituals. The Rakata were certainly no strangers to such processes. Vex wouldn't be surprised if they invented many of the early rituals that the Sith then took and molded for their own purposes. There were Rakata ruins on Korriban, after all.

Then, suddenly, a thought struck her.

"Are you aware of a spell or ritual that would allow us to walk through his memories?" she proposed. "He's only been dead a few weeks, the body preserved almost the whole time. The brain should still be mostly intact. Perhaps we could see what happened to him?"

It was a long shot; and what she knew about memory-tampering technique was that they were... delicate. But it was the only thing she could think of that could eliminate their speculations and give them some real concrete answers. @Phoenix
 

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Renfry's mouth twisted up slightly into her thinking face again as she pondered the various rituals she knew and the way that they might impact this. She shook her head after a moment.

I'm not psychometric, she said, knowing that those with the ability were able to read objects and, yes, even bodies for glimpses into their memories. Though more often than not, all they received was flashes of the person's death.

I do know... a necromantic incantation, that might let us question him... though very briefly, she said. It would be easier to do because they were at the site of a Nexus.

She held up a finger to say "hold on" and across the room from the table, her grimoire floated to sit in front of her face. The pages flipped of their own accord. Benefits of having the Force when your hands were covered in guts. It had been quite some time since she had used the incantation, and the words were not fresh on her mind.

Ah yeah, that's right, she said with a nod, floating the book back across the room again.

She stripped down from the garments she was wearing and washed her hands, pulling her knife from her belt and starting to carve runes into the "wooden floor." The reason for it being brought here was now made quite evident.

Rituals like this require some preparation, even somewhere like this with a Nexus, she said.
 

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Necromancy.

In that moment, Vex understood how incredibly short-sighted she had been. She had always been told that, through the Force, all things were possible. All things except bring the dead back to life. But it made sense that the Empress would be keen to secrets she herself did not know. She glanced back at the body of the dead Guardian, briefly dreading his return to life. She remembered the kind of power he brought to bare. Just how overwhelming it had been. But then she put that fear aside.

The Empress had to have considered how dangerous he was. She was not fool enough to bring him back without precautions. So long as Vex followed her instructions to the letter, they should be fine. She looked up at the Empress and nodded. "I will follow your instructions, my Empress," she said. "What do we need to do?" She gestured to the incisions the Empress had made in the body. "Do we need to sew him up first?"

She half-hoped the Empress' response was 'no.' She wanted that retched alien to feel he had inflicted upon her before he died again. Either way, she stepped out of the Empress' way as she drew her runes into the floor, keen not to interupt the ritual preparation process, but taking careful note of the procedure as she went. This was the first time she was seeing the Sith Queen's magic in action. There was no way she was going to forget it. @Phoenix
 

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Renfry shook her head at the woman's question. No, we're not going to bring him back fully from the dead, she said, taking a moment to consider how to explain it.

It's more like channeling his spirit, tearing it bit by bit back across the Veil. The process is not pleasant for the targeted, she said. She didn't add a "brace yourself." Vex was a Sith, after all. She wouldn't have made it this far if she were squeamish.

Certainly planets make a ritual like these easier. The Nexus will help, but still more difficult than a Korriban, for instance, she said. Or a Dathomir. She didn't say this aloud because the less people knew about the capabilities of her world, the better. People already went poking around there way too often.

She continued to carve the runes into the floor and finally stood after they were positioned at the four sides of the table.

Okay, she sighed and stepped back, re-sheathing her hunting knife. We won't have much time. You know more of the Rakata than I do, so you'll ask the questions and I'll maintain the spell, she said.

She bent down again and touched one of the runes as she began to speak the incantation, channeling her power.

Indep tel epism iwar toth regio! she said, and the power of the Nexus flowed through her, into the runes, and into the body. She could see the soul on the other side of the Veil, and ripped it across. Her eyes and the runes on the floor glowed bright green, whisps like green smoke rose from her hands, and then the body moved.

It jolted upward on the table, shrieking as if in agony and then gasping for wheezy breath. It didn't say anything, but ripples like crashing waves could be heard throughout the room.
 

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Vex got a nod out before the whole castle was shaking and the runes the Empress had drawn were glowing. The room filled with a green light and then the corpse jolted up, gasping out in agony as its spirit was slammed back down into its body from somewhere beyond the Veil. Vex was momentarily awed by the display of power—to think that the Empress was capable of channeling this much power without needing another's assistance. But then she got her act together and went for the spirit. It recognized her too.

You! it wheezed accusingly.

"Me!" Vex all but spat. "Answer my questions, wretch! Who carved that rune into your flesh? How were you able to live for so long beyond your natural lifespan?!"

The Rakata corpse's face contorted, as if it were resisting her attempts to question it—resisting giving her truthful answers. But it looked to be in terrible pain. Vex very much guessed it wanted this whole ritual over. To return to the world of spirits where it belonged. She assumed it would do anything for that sweet release. Even give up eons of secrets that it would never have given up in life.

A slave... collar! the corpse shrieked. Punishment for my crimes...! An eternity imprisoned, guarding... It struggled again, coughing, wheezing to get the words out. ...my fellow traitorous companions.

Vex's mind raced. Yes, the Rakata were a slave-holding species. But she had never heard of them enslaving their own. Whatever this man had done had to have been horrible. He spoke of treason. Perhaps he had betrayed his own. Sided with a slave species. There were no other Rakata buried on Belsavis that she knew of; but she did know that many slave species imprisoned there were allowed to die in their underground cells, the walls of the cell themselves serving as a tomb.

"A curse?" Vex asked. "What kind of curse is immortality?"

It... bound me... To that place. the Rakatan gasped. To live forever... Watch the world around you change... And change again... Until even that world died... And all I loved with it...

He seized then and stopped moving, the spell dying away, the corpse falling hard back on the examination table. Vex stared at it wide-eyed for a long moment before she spoke again. "By all the gods," she hissed. "No wonder he was a right jackass. I knew the Rakatans enslaved those who crossed them, but to curse someone with immortality, and then bind them to a single place to serve their sentence... It's certainly creative." She glanced across the table at the Empress. "Sidious probably spent decades trying to figure out how to modify the spell, so it wouldn't have all of those nasty, er, drawbacks." @Phoenix
 

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Renfry held the spell under her concentration, keeping the spirit in place for as long as she could, but she knew that it would only last so long. The answers were mixed with screeches of pain and he answered in ways that she wasn't really sure what he meant.

That wasn't her concern right now. Her concern right now was to make sure they didn't lose the connection until the last possible moment.

She could feel it slipping back across, nearly rent in two by the stress it was placed under by the spell, and then it was gone.

The body flopped back onto the table and Renfry's eyes returned to their normal form. The runes faded from their glowing green, and she sat back onto the ground rather than standing right away. It was an exhausting spell. Much more so than she remembered, and she guessed that was because this wasn't Dathomir or Korriban. The Veil was much thicker here, and the power required to do what she'd just done was much higher. Such was the nature of things. She hoped the results were worth it.

What did he mean by traitorous companions, do you think? she asked. It was a curious thing to say and the part that stuck in her mind as as question mark.

She pushed herself back up to her feet and looked down at the body. Well, it had answered a lot of questions at least. Yes, a Rakatan. Yes, enchanted by the Force. No, not a clone. And yet not even Sidious had managed to figure out the secret behind the techniques.
 

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Vex shook her head. "I have no idea," she admitted. "My best guess is that he sided with one of the slave races against the Infinite Empire and was... punished." But there was one thing that bothered her about that hypothesis. "His strength in the Force when I fought him was phenomenal. I can't imagine he was just any soldier. And the severity of the punishment... Whoever branded him with that mark wanted to make an example of him. He had to have been someone important."

She thought back to the vault. Tried to picture its contours again. It was spacious, but not cavernous. She or the Empress would have noticed the tombs he was doomed to watch over. And yet, all that was in there was decades worth of Sidious' trinkets. It would take months to go through it all. But maybe...

"There might be more clues in the vault," Vex suggested. "A false wall or shelving unit that leads further underground, into the prison where his companions were buried." Her mind then turned to the Temple of the Ancients. "There's also Rakata Prime. Its a long shot, but Lehon was their homeworld. There might be a leftover grimoire or whatever predated the holocron that explains the nature of their ritual." It made sense in her head. Jedi and Sith historians believed that the Rakata were the precursors of the holocron technology they came to use.

She ran her hand over the skin of the Guardian's forearm absentmindedly, her eyes fixed on the black mark carved into his insides. "Do you think there's anyway to replicate it?" she asked. Then, added quickly. "Not that I think it's something that should ever be applied lightly, but... I'd imagine a ritual like this would go along way to deter traitors to our Empire. Or even punish our greatest Jedi enemies." @Phoenix
 

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Maybe a senior general or royal guard, she said. It was purely conjecture and she doubted they would ever know. She had come to accept that, and more importantly, she wasn't sure it was important that they did find out.

Renfry shrugged. I don't know, maybe, but I kind of doubt it, she said. People liked to expunge traitors from their history. If so little of their empire had survived to the modern day, she doubted it would be that. But who knew?

She thought for a moment about her question, head tilting back and forth again in that thoughtful motion.

I mean, maybe? But I kind of doubt it, she said. Sidious never figured it out and... she leaned forward and squinted at the mark again. I've never seen anything like this placed before. Assuming we could enchant the ink - which is a big "if" - actually getting it under the skin? she said, shaking her head.

Still might be worth looking into, but I wouldn't hold your breath, she said honestly. It might be a bit negative, but she considered it a realistic evaluation. If immortality were that easy, everyone'd be doing it, she said with a snicker.
 

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Vex smirked as well, and caught herself doing it. It struck her then just at how at ease she had become. And she wondered if it was a good thing. The Empress and her shared not only a love for her Empire, but also a hobby—if dissecting long dead alien species and using necromancy counted as a hobby. She had even enjoyed the experiment, the rush of power that filled up every corner of the room when the Empress cast her spell. It was a type of beauty she wasn't used to seeing.

"Of course," she said, agreeing with the Empresses' assessment. "Besides, most of this magic was practiced hundreds of thousands of years ago. Even if we could find the spells, there aren't any living practitioners to show us how it works." And given the temperament of the Guardian, she rather thought they wouldn't give her those secrets even if they were alive.

She glanced up at the Empress. "So, where do we go from here?"

Another question flitted up in her mind then. A risky one. An ambitious one. But she had to try it. The things she had seen here today. The things she'd learned—so much, even though the Rakatan had truthfully given them so little. More than she had ever hoped to learn since her old Master passed and she became a Champion. It was like ambling in the dark. Searching for answers. And finally finding one, if only the door would open for you.

"I hope I'm not being presumptuous," Vex said carefully. "But the magic you displayed just now. It— Well, it was really something. Beautiful, frightening— damn scary, actually, but..." She huffed and decided just to come out and say it. "I started studying that holocron because I needed a teacher. Someone who could show me how to use magic. There aren't many teachers in the Empire, and most Sith horde their secrets. Rightfully so." She sought the Empress' gaze. "I want to fulfill the job you have given me. I want to do it well. I want to meet your expectations. And I think, if I were to learn the arcane arts, I might become a better jailer and warden. The best in the Empire, even."

She didn't know what else to do, so she knelt. It was an absurd thing. Her kneeling next to the opened-up corpse of a dead alien, amidst runes of necromancy carved into the floor with a knife. "I would like to learn from you, Your Grace," she said, and she smirked again. "And perhaps dissect a few more aliens while we're at it. If you'll have me, that is." @Phoenix
 

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This was a part that Renfry was well familiar with. Everyone wanted something from her. Nearly every Sith she met wanted her to teach them. To learn her magick. The things restricted to her people and her people alone.

Ah yes, "the ask," she said. Her voice sounded almost fatigued as she said it. A constant reminder that she had few actual friends in the Sith. Mostly just people who wanted something from her. It was the nature of being Empress and the bittersweet burden of power.

She knelt and Renfry just kind of... looked at her for a moment. Get up, she said, turning toward one of the notebooks on the table and writing something in it. She didn't look at the other Sith, but she was still acutely aware of the movements she made and the actions she took.

I'm not going to teach you the magick of the Nightsisters, she said plainly. Perhaps they would revisit that someday when they knew one another far better. Or perhaps they would never know one another in that way.

She finished with whatever she was writing and closed the book before turning back to Vex.

"I need magic to run a prison" isn't very convincing, she said. She couldn't deny that the woman had potential and a drive to excel. Perhaps she'd give her a chance at least for the power of Sith magic.

You'll find no better resource than here on Mustafar. Why do you need me to train you? she asked. And why should I? she asked.
 

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The smile on Vex's face faded, but she obeyed anyways. Clearly she had made a miscalculation, or overreached. But there was something. Something she wasn't seeing. She sensed it, fleeting and flickering before the Empress' walls came down hard and the went back to being the imperceptible monarch that she had always been. Even so, Vex couldn't believe what she had felt for a moment. It was almost like the Empress was... lonely. Like she was looking for something to fill that void. But what could Vex do?

Her Master had taught her cruelty. Her Master had taught her to reject bonds. But she was beginning to see that perhaps... Perhaps he was old fashioned for a Sith. First Altair, then Varyn, and now this. Her mind grappled for answers, a solution, but she didn't think anything she could say right now could make things better. If she wanted to fix this, the best thing she could do was get to know the Empress more. And the best way to do that, ironically, might to convince her to teach her. "I apologize, Your Grace," Vex said. "I would never presume to ask you for the secrets of your people. I meant only to gain an acquaintance with ordinary Sith magick."

But how did she explain it?

The truth doesn't hurt, her brain supplied. The Sith were about deception, but if the Empress didn't buy her claim about running a prison with magic, then she doubted she would buy a lie. It actually might make things worse.

"Because something clicked just now," Vex confessed. "This work — these experiments — this quest for knowledge. It's something I've searched for in other Sith but never found. Until right now." She hated how vulnerable she sounded. Her Master would have sneered at this display of honesty and openness. But it was becoming clear that his ways weren't her ways. Not all of them, at least. "You share my love for the history of our people. For obtaining greater power through the acquisition of yet greater knowledge. And we both know the arcane is a door to that greater knowledge—it assisted us right here in this room learn a bit more about the Rakata." She gestured broadly towards the corpse. "All the better if it should help me serve as your jailer."

She didn't kneel this time. She was beginning to understand something. The Empress wasn't looking for another yes-woman. Some faceless, nameless checkmark to her agenda. She was looking for someone to relate to. Vex didn't know if that person could ever be her. How cold she understand the weight of managing an entire empire? But she could try. She could learn. "And maybe, when I know more, I can help you with more of these experiments," Vex offered. It was the one thing that connected them. The only bridge they had built in the short few days they had known each other. "I can share more of my knowledge of the Rakata with you. Sidious might have failed—but he did everything alone. There's no telling what two Sith could accomplish on this matter together." @Phoenix
 

Renfry

Character
Independent
Rank
Nightsister Queen

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OOC
Phoenix
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Sep 20, 2020
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Renfry looked at her but didn't say anything. Her eyes were distant once more and that more cold gaze evaluated her as she spoke. Indeed as Vex had ascertained, the walls had gone up once again.

Still, Renfry did like the other woman. She'd shown proactivity and been an interesting conversation even if it was all a means to an end. She wondered if it was the case that Vex would simply pretend to be friendly to her with the hopes of getting something.

And so Renfry's answer was a simple solution to that question.

No. You can have access to the archives here and begin teaching yourself, but I'm not going to train you from the ground up, she said. Though she knew she would reevaluate that response at a later time, she had no intention of telling the Champion that. She wanted to know what was fake and what was real, and there was no better way than placing what the woman wanted out of her reach and seeing how she responded.

I'm going to continue working. You're welcome to stay or welcome to go now that you've given your actual motivation for being here, she said, pushing herself off from the table she was leaning on and turning back to the books on the table.
 
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