Ruševine Sithovske akademije

The constant rapping of the sand against his helmet was beginning to irritate the man underneath the armor. He ground his teeth, firm in his resolve not to lose it. It went without question that he was going to find what he came here for – provided he first found a way into the shattered building before him. The library on Ziost lent him the knowledge of recent catastrophes that had hit the Dreshdae settlement and subsequently also the Academy itself; rupturing earthquakes and a Republic bombardment, not to mention the foul strength of the howling wind and its immense power of erosion. He wanted to wipe a bead of sweat off his forehead, but found his hand colliding with the cold metal of his headgear. Growling in frustration, the hunter turned his gaze back to the ruins of once no doubt a magnificent structure.

He took a few probing steps towards the red blocks of stone that lay scattered across the expanse of field before the former entrance into the Academy. He now seriously doubted if there was any possibility to enter through the front gates that lay blasted away beyond recognition – of course in such a way that left no space for a man to squeeze through. He bemoaned the absence of heavy explosives in his pack and his own forgetfulness for not grabbing a few upon his leaving the Ziost citadel. With a long sigh, he set about finding ingress even amongst the shattered red rock and bent, charred metal.

Were it not for the strange wind that rose in that moment, the task might've taken much more of precious time that the bounty hunter didn't have, but with the help of whispers he didn't stop to muse whose they were, his eyes were opened to a single detail that would've and in fact had easily escape even the eye of an individual who was used to spotting hidden details. He shook his head at his unprovoked carelessness, and crossed the space to the secret hatch with a few long strides. A careful push revealed a sighing and moaning, but importantly, a still working hydraulic mechanism and Kareem couldn't help but smile at the sight. Very well, he thought to himself and proceeded with caution. After all, there was no telling what awaited him inside.

He landed on the soles of his feet and only the light sound of small stones being crushed under his boots. The roof had long ago caved in and at some or other part of his continuous exploration of the building he even had to crawl. When he could draw an easy conclusion that wherever the holocron was, it certainly wasn't here, on the upper floor – for it would've been crushed mercilessly by the stone or annihilated by the bombardment – he went about finding an entrance to the subterranean part of the Academy complex. The datapad he had with him contained the structural plans of the Academy, but no one had ever bothered to alter them according to the now present damage and so many paths were left collapsed or blocked by rock and debris.

Frowning his brow in annoyance, the hunter pressed onward, squeezing through the smallest holes and blasting away more than a handful of stone. He was fully aware that such actions – blasting, that is – could easily bring about the impending collapse of the whole building above him, but it was a risk he was prepared to take. He hadn't come here to return empty handed, and there were grand lengths he would go to for success.

Finally lady luck smiled upon his fate when the last staircase mapped on the plans was in fact accessible, allowing the hunter to descend further into the bowels of the red, evil planet whose very heart pulsed with the Dark Side of the Force.

All he felt was enthusiasm.

There were times when the hunter, amid all the cross-Galaxy flying he did, had spare time to question himself and his motives. It was far from being a favorite of his, and for two reasons; he felt that, if his conscience was to be stirred to often and too deeply, he would lose the touch for his work; secondly, the thought of all his acts accumulating and bearing down on him wasn’t something he wished to ever experience. Nonetheless, in the oodles of time that presented themselves even with the hyperspace travel being freely available, he found that after practicing every possible manner of keeping himself in shape, there was no other way to busy himself than to let those long-buried, wandering thoughts to barge into his conscious mind.

And some of the answers he'd pursued within those moments, or had fiercely avoided them at all costs, came bubbling onto the surface the deeper he descended. They were more images than anything else, but be that as it was, they were no less disturbing and unnerving. It was like some unseen entity was bringing all his self-doubt and questioning, askance and untoward thoughts out in the stark light, to force him in a confrontation. For a few long moments, the hunter's stride halted to a full-stop, eyes clouding over in pondering. His breath came in shallow gasps as he felt, for the second time in not so long a period, a ghostly specter pulling up his misdeeds and crimes of various degrees, burning them into the inside of his skull.

He ground his teeth and, having experienced this before – in a much more powerful way – pushed the pictures away. "I hate my mind," he rasped out to no-one in particular, his eyes regaining their look of acute and rapt attention to his surroundings. He was immediately aware that something was terribly amiss; someone, or, more likely, something, was trying to confound him and lower his defenses in order to overcome him with greater ease. "Damn the Sith and their tendency to stick around for a long while," he cursed into the supposedly empty air, trying to banish his own trembling fears with a rough humor and ragged exterior. Showing fear was begging for death in his world – and he certainly wasn't going to lose a fight on his own turf.

Resuming his determined pace, he quickly closed in on the source, the very nexus of that which tried to invade his mind. Gripping the heel of his blaster with almost painful a force, he turned the last corner, facing a surprisingly big chamber. He eyed the place with curiosity, his fears quickly dissipating at the sight of students' bunks. Spread throughout the room intermittently were beds, footlockers and diverse consoles, but nothing peculiar drew in even the trained eye of the hunter. Hs face was marred with a frown when suddenly the onslaught of painful imagery and depressive conscience returned, this time full force. He let out an agonized groan and, pressing his palms on his forehead, releasing his blaster from the grip of his fingers, the sound of clattering echoing through the room. "Ow," he simply expressed the pain he was feeling, feverishly looking around to find the cause of all this. "All of you, trying the same old, boring way," he shouted out, not caring if whoever was doing this could even hear him. "Wouldn't you rather do something challenging for a change?" forcing out a derisive laughter, he stepped forth, pretending he knew where to go.

"Come out, Sithy, Sithy, wherever you are," a chuckle mixed with a heavy sigh left his lungs and he reached his hand to his blaster at the slight sound of a shuffle to his left.

"A stranger!" The whisper hastened swiftly among the pillars and columns. A stranger had dared enter their domain! He strode undaunted among the fallen stones and the rubble that was once their temple of power, knowledge and ambition. Shadows and vapours began to emerge from the many fissures in the ground and the gaping crevasses that separated the floors from the walls of every room. It was like the mists themselves had come to life and began to swirl around the intruder.
"Intruder! Thief! Opportunist! Burglar! Grave-robber!" and many other words of similar meaning were heard whispered and hissed among the shifting vapours, yet no shape or form was visible to represent the origin of these voices. And yet, the man did not break from the pressure they exerted upon him, nor did he seem to be weakened by it. What was more, he asked for a challenge. Such an act was not to be ignored; not here, where the ghosts of the dead held power over life and death.
It was as if the darkness had grown stronger; more intense, and more sinister. The mists condensed in front of the man, and while their form was ever-changing, they now stayed more or less in place, taking the shape of a hundred bodies stemming from the belt up from the same unintelligible mass of vapours. Twisted gaps of emptiness formed where mouths should have been, and a hundred hissing voices spoke as one:
"Who be thou, mortal, who are come before us? Who be thou, who now stand so proud and dauntless in our domain? Who be thou, who dare disturb the ashes of The Fallen?"

He gripped at his weapons with a start as the mists came swirling from the cracks and crevices in the worn building. His eyes tried to follow every strand of smoke, but they moved too quick for the eye and were of ever-changing shapes that meddled the mind. He was grateful though, for the pause in the mental assault, as it seemed that the materialization had taken a toll even on the powerful Force of whatever the entity they embodied. With his shoulders slouched and his body hunched over, he didn't seem like much of a threat. In reality, though, his mind was racing, now mercifully free of the imposing presence of the many-faced specter that begun to form in front of his eyes. He had to admit, it was a sight that he'd never seen before, but truth be told, he had no wish to witness it – on the upside, it was an experience to better prepare him for further such encounters. To him, it seemed that apparitions and ghosts were a thing that hit you at an alarming frequency; therefore, it was only smart and natural in order to heighten your chances for survival to learn from each such experience.

"Who?" he repeated, an eyebrow arching up his forehead, doing his best to look as nonchalant and undaunted as the faceted ghost believed him to be. "If you were as almighty as you'd like me to believe, you'd already know. Therefore, I see no point at all in explaining myself to you…whatever you are," he pulled at the ever-present strings of a Sith's famed pride, this time in a different manner. While he had chosen to play Exar Kun's self-importance and seem humble in his presence, his gut, which he trusted at all times, kept telling him that the course of action had to be the exact reverse of that. He smiled diabolically, the memory of Kun spurring an idea.

"One thing you should know, though," he purred silkily, the normal huskiness all gone from his voice, "is that I come as an emissary of the Dark Lord of the Sith, Exar Kun. I am quite confident that you know of him, as his great deeds far precede him." A faint breeze, a draft even, billowed, whistling through the invisible holes amid the stones, adding to the sinister atmosphere. "Give me your knowledge and I shall disturb you no longer. If you fail to do so, however, I shall make it my foremost goal to depict your disrespectfulness and lack of obeisance to the Great Lord," he smirked, eyes shining in debauched pleasure he took in imbuing fear in others.

"Were I you, I wouldn't strive to anger someone who has surpassed the realm of physical existence much farther than you," the glint in the silver of his eyes grew ever more fiery as he concluded, menace dripping from every word, "especially that someone having knowledge of setting anything afire with so much as a snap of their fingers."

"Not to mention that I am by pure happenstance very familiarized with that particular technique."

A loud, crackling cackle shook the building, and the ground itself trembled as the creature of mists laughed on the notion of Exar Kun.
"Lord Kun was a Jedi who played at being Sith and has long since perished, his spirit crushed by a clandestine ritual he did not fully comprehend. It was desperation that drove him, not knowledge, for he strove to outwit his pursuers, who were already at his throat. All for naught, for his presence had not been felt by the living nor the dead ever since his untimely demise. Invoke a name that no longer holds any power if thou so desire, but know that we are not intimidated by it."
So spoke the misty shape with a hundred hissing voices, while it's form grew ever more concentrated, almost tangible. The spirits converged more and more into one, and the misty being moulded and changed to accommodate the new souls that joined the others. Soon, the forms merged into one, a horned jinn of ashes and shadows, with features of both a man and woman, yet ever-changing, unstable. Its eyes and mouth were empty orifices of darkness, while the rest of the creature was dust and ash and vapours. The dust devil shifted, as if pondering, then spoke once more:
"So it is knowledge thou seekest within our hallowed halls. Knowledge we possess, but we are Sith, and the Sith do not share. Yet all is not lost to thee and thy quest for secrets most dark. Our knowledge will not be given, as had been told before; but it may be won. Should'st thou pass our challenges three, we shall deem thee worthy of our mysteries."
Even though its shape merged into one being, its voice still echoed with numbers. The gaping hole where its mouth should be stretched into a grin. The creature did not wait for the man to accept, but already revealed to him the first task:
"First, we demand of thee the knowledge of our Code. Invoke the words and thy understanding thereof, so that we may better judge thee."

For all his practice and training, he was unable to stop the look of unbridled dissatisfaction and even a hint of anger from crossing his scarred face. Lifting his chin, even if just for a notch, he glared at the apparition that slowly took form with proud insolence, refusing to be dismissed in such an offhand way. Just as he was about to speak up and state his opinion matter-of-factly and loudly too, the spectre howled again with thousands of voices that sounded like long-deceased corpses trying to use their vocal cords and tongues in various stages of decay.

The hunter himself wondered where the gruesome comparison had come from, but he ultimately ascribed it to the all-encompassing presence of the Dark side of the Force, its will forcing many a image into his mind that he otherwise wouldn't have thought of. He focused his tempest-like eyes back on the entity that finally resembled a shadow of a man – or was it a woman? - , for its voice rang throughout the chamber, demanding attention.

As all "pure" Sith, it seemed that these, too, had a thing or two for delivering whatever was on their minds in most pompous a manner possible. He was, thankfully, well-versed in High Galactic and had little trouble following the meaning of what the horned demonic apparition meant with its flourished speech and seemingly bottomless source of rare adjectives.

"I can hardly disagree with that proposition, can I?" he chuckled more at himself than at the condensed, swirling mist with many a mouth and eye.

The Code? he repeated in his mind, racing down the corridors of his memory with fervor – he would not fail this task.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

He recited from memory, with his eyes closed and a faint smile playing at his lips, but his hand still held the vibroblade in a firm grip, a reminder of his awareness.

His eyes snapped open, revealing a keen sheen. "As for my understanding," he phrased slowly, without rush whatsoever. "You see," he began softly, moving with a barely detectable pace, " I'd be lying if I said I am a Sith. By title, anyway. I lived by this code before I ever read it, before I even knew it existed," his voice was now smooth, full of cadences that appealed to the ear. "I am, however, fascinated by the passion and through it the perfect freedom they pursue. By birth I am a hunter, and even more by my own volition – pursuit is in my blood. Therefore, I have only to abide by a few rules, until I grow in power enough to surpass everyone and everything that would dare oppose me," he smiled, sweetly and with nary a hint of a veiled threat.

A moment of silence came and went, while the ashen apparition pondered the hunter's words. Even though the man did not specifically elaborate on every verse of the code, the spirit found his explanation sufficient and in line with the desired answer.
"Do not delude thyself," the spectre spoke in a voice that was now less aggressive. "To be Sith is not merely to possess conscious knowledge of our words. Thou hast passed the first of the challenges three, but whether or not thou art Sith, by truth or title, we shall be the ones to judge. Mayhap thou shallt yet prove to be one of us, and mayhap thou shan't."
The spirit grinned most unpleasantly, then spoke onward:
"The next test among the challenges three shall be a test of strength. The dictums thereof are simple: Should thou prove strong, thou shallt proceed to the final test. Should thou fail, thou shallt perish."
With those words, the spectre once again laughed. But this time, it was not the amused cackle like before; it was a deep, tremendous bass staccato of utter malice. The eyes of the dust devil shone like flashes of ruby and it's mouth gaped even more. The essence of which it was made seemed to fade into non-existence, yet even when it became almost invisible, its presence was to be strongly felt. Behind the place where the being used to be were now no less than a dozen tuk'ata. Large, fully grown, and starved tuk'ata, quite willing to extract with fang and claw the man from his armour. Had they possessed the wit and sarcasm, they might have thought of him as food in a tin; but that was not the case. These creatures now felt only agonizing hunger and the warmth of veins pulsating with fresh blood that fed the meat on his bones.
And as one, they leapt into attack.

He found, and with a great deal of unease, that the silence, stretching out between them, agitated him more than it should have. He was, after all, used to all kinds of evaluations and exams, more often than not far more concealed than this one. Whatever test he was going through now was laid out in plain sight, and it left him more bemused that he would've liked. A slight frown stretched the white scars of his face and he scrubbed at the stubble on his chin – a weird quirk of his that surfaced when he was somewhat under pressure.

The bout of nervousness passed, though, and the concentration, the focus returned, just in time for him to stoically bear through another session of the apparition's heavy duty High Galactic; not to mention all the archaic expressions it managed to weave into its speech. With a resigned sigh, he set unto the arduous task of accepting the next challenge. Strength. Just perfect, he smiled inwardly, even he himself not certain if he was being sarcastic or not.

The moment his eyes spotted the pack of drooling tuk'ata he let his instincts take over. With almost imperceptible flick of a wrist, the vibroblade was firmly situated in his hand, the other mirroring its position around the handle of his blaster. With a feral snarl that mixed with the beasts' own, he broke off to his left, leading them to a wild chase throughout the maze the collapsed dormitories presented. Now, in this moment, he himself was little more than a growling beast, led by his basest urges. He weaved and zigzagged his way amid the fallen stones and shattered bunks that were once filled by many a Sith neophyte. He rounded yet another corner, beads of sweat sent flying off his slick skin at the sharp turn. He was fit, true, but he knew he could no more outrun the tuk'ata as a boulder could hold its own against aeons of eroding sandstorms.

He came to a screeching halt, turned on his heels in the time it took you to blink an eye, and fired a couple of half-aimed blaster shots, scurrying off again in hope of gaining another chance for such surprise attack. With a satisfied exhale he noted the metal stink of blood and charred flesh in the air as he ricocheted forth, folding himself in a half-crouch just in time to roll on his feet and pull the trigger again.

A beast, hit straight in the chest, in its dying rage flung itself at him. Immediately he was crushed by the sheer force of the hit and pinned to the cracked floor by the heavy mass of a still-warm dead body upon him. A struggled for a moment, but the sound of the tuk'ata closing in had him wedged between a rock and a hard place. Here goes nothing, he let out a puff of air and felt for the stinging sparks of his nascent power, suddenly unbelievably grateful for all the training of the past few months.

The cadaver removed and its suffocating presence gone, he sprang to his feet, redirecting the first tuk'ata that jumped him full speed, sending it crashing into a nearby piece of rock. Spitting out a mouthful of blood, he impaled another one, the footwork coupled with the sprint he'd ran before getting to him slowly but inevitably.

The searing pain sent his body into shock and the reaction that followed was purely his natural 'fight or flight' reaction. With a scream of fury he dropped the blaster in his bitten hand, spinning around to sever the offending limb. With uncontrolled anger spilling over the barriers of his control, the power seeped out like from a pressurized pipe that's been screwed too tight for too long. Two of the closest tuk'ata flew back-first into the walls of the narrow passage they were stranded in, their spines meeting the hard stone with a sickening sound of breaking bones. A hint of stark madness glinted in the hunter's eye as he pushed onward in an unrelenting frenzy, none of the other beasts even getting the chance to close in for the kill. One by one, they were cut down, like the trees falling to the force of raging winds.

His breathing was labored as he finally opened his eyes, chest rising and falling in rapid, ragged inhales and exhales. His left hand hurt like hell and for a moment he tried to avoid looking at it, but with a determined bite to his cheek, he opened his eyes to the sight of fang marks. "Great," he sighed out, wiping the sweat off his face with his good hand.

" So what happens now?" he threw into the empty air around him.

This time, the dust devil materialized in front of the hunter almost instantaneously after he spoke the words. In truth, it was never gone; it merely dispersed into myriads of invisible spirits from which it consisted. Unseen, but seeing everything.
"Thou hath done well," spoke the waft of ashes. The warrior, while far from perfect, had passed the test. In fact, the embodiment of the fallen Sith now spoke with a very faint hint of respect in its voice. "Some of us see in thee how we have once been; foolish, arrogant, fragile... but also ambitious, full of passion and untapped power. Thou shalt now face the third and final of the challenges three. Only should thou pass it, will we find thee worthy."
The form of the spirit began to wiggle wildly. Then it split into two shapes, which continued to wiggle and split on their own. More and more shapes were amassing around the mortal, bubbling, shifting, duplicating, until there were too many to count. But now, each of them was unique, their shapes and faces similizing those of humans, twi'leks, zabraks, and many other humanoid races. All were clad in robes, and all had empty, void eyes.
"Thy final test and question is this;" the apparitions spoke as one in hundreds of voices. They sounded almost like a choir; deep, imposing, powerful, and in perfect harmony.
"Who are we?"

A little self-satisfaction had never killed anyone, and frankly, Kareem wasn't just anyone. That is also why instead of a small smirk, a grand, proud and unbelievably smug Cheshire cat grin split his face at the spectre's words. The sting of the wound on his hand seemed to diminish by the minute and the silver eyes grew ever more brilliant. Flexing the fingers of his bitten hand, he chewed at his lip, pulling out the blaster. True, he wasn't done yet, but the stalling tactics always worked fine when one had to figure out a tricky puzzle or avoid a potentially lethal trap. So his firing of the blaster served partially as a diversion and partially as a way to keep his injury from further bleeding. Gritting his teeth, he fired a few laser rounds, scorching a deep black hole into the nearby cadaver of a tuk'ata.

Sure, pressing a red-hot barrel of the blaster against his freshly marred flesh mightn't have such a good idea in terms of pain but considering his other options – that is to say, none – he went along the most sensible course of action. "Ow," he grunted out between tightly ground teeth, the inescapable 'hiss' of flesh being burned resounding in the empty silence of the corridor.

"Well then," he raised his voice and his eyes with a merry note, "who are you?" he repeated the question, kneading his chin with a pensive quirk of his lips. His look darted from one swirling gray shape to another, taking in their hooded robes and a plethora of different sentient species. He saw a myriad of diverse aliens; from zabrak to rodian, to bith and twi'lekk, humans, togruta and much more. A silent, yet of volumes speaking eyebrow rose up his forehead and a thin grin curved the edges of his lips. "Ah, yes, they all ask us that, don't they?"

"Who are you? Who paid you to kill me? Why are you trying to hurt me? What's the price of staying alive? … I could go on for hours," he rolled his eyes in exasperation, turning on his heels to gaze at the other half-circle the spirits had formed around him. "But that's not what they ask you, is it?" he smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. It was seriousness time. Business time.

Rolling his neck and popping his knuckles with a sickening crack, he gazed at no entity in particular. "You'd have me believe that you are…well, what exactly? Really, it's not that hard. Anyone with a couple of braincells and a common sense could figure it out." He shrugged, wincing at the pain in his left hand. "I just suppose no-one ever made it past the first two assignments, if even past the door?" he threw the more or less rhetorical question amid the swarm of apparitions surrounding him.

"You," he pointed at one zabrak in a armor, half covered with a black cloak. "Everything about you," he swirled around, "or you," again, "or you," he emphasized with shaking an accusing finger at a particularly…Sithish figure in the mists, "you all look so…so Sith there's no mistaking it."
A low chuckle left his lips and he raised his eyes to the crack-ridden ceiling.

"You see, I may not really work for Exar Kun, but I certainly am an associate of a very powerful Sith Lord. Bear in mind, though, I said 'associate', not 'mindless follower'. That is, however, what you used to be. That's what you were before your bodies withered and died by this or that cause, be it natural or more…handmade."

"You asked me who you were, and this is my answer; you once were young men and women who had strayed from their path – now, however, I believe that you have in death learned what you couldn't have in life. You can project fear, awe, even respect. You hold great power and I am most certain you can subdue almost any a sentient who strays here. Provided, that is, they don't have the willpower to resist you. Therefore, I'd ask you with all the respect that is due to you, for the knowledge promised beforehand,"

The spirits stirred, spoke; but this time it was not in perfect unison as before and addressing the mortal among them, but in many discordant voices and to an unknown recipient. In fact, it seemed almost like they quarrelled among themselves. After a few moments, however, they stopped as if by some unrecognisable signal.
"We are Sith," said they now once again as one. "But we are also not Sith. We are hopefuls and we are apprentices, we are warriors and we are masters. And we are Sith. But we are also the Followers, the Fallen, the Unworthy, the Eternal, and the Ascendant Ones. We followed Darth Revan and we followed Darth Malak. We studied under Master Jorak Uln and under Master Uthar Wynn. And as we trained, as we grew stronger, we were wiped out by one whom we had once served. He came to us, cloaked, disguised as one of us. We didn't even suspect until it was too late. For once he had Master Wynn and his apprentice Yuthura alone, he killed them both. And in the same strike, he swept through the academy, wiping out any and all of us like cattle."
The chamber grew silent, but the spirits seemed to close in on the hunter, coming ever closer to him. Then they spoke again:

"We thought ourselves powerful, we thought ourselves masters of our fate. But he showed us our weakness and destroyed us for being weak. That is what we deserved; that is the way of the Sith. It was Revan, of whom the ancient prophecies of the Sith'ari spoke. One who would destroy the Sith and make them greater than ever before. Destroyed us he did; but through destruction we became stronger than ever. No longer are we chained by the needs of flesh, we are perfect and we are eternal. While we guard these places of old, the true Sith will grow ever stronger, until the Galaxy shakes in terror of our rebirth!"
Now once more the walls and foundations of the former academy shook with the malignant laughter of a hundred horrible thoughts. Then, one of the spectres stepped closer to the man, close enough that the mortal could discern the bald human head covered by tattooes and a more elaborate version of Sith robes.
"Within the headmaster's chamber lie two holocrons. One you will not need, for it is too large for one man to carry on his own, and it was damaged to non-functionality several years ago. The other however is small enough, and it contains all that was once taught here. A safety measure, if you will, in case the headmaster was too careless and replaced by his student before he could pass on all he knew."
"This we grant thee!" shouted all of the spectres as one. Then again they went silent, and the one who spoke alone before now reclaimed initiative:
"We bestow upon you this reward, for we know whom you serve and where you will go next. Within, you will find what you seek. Stay strong, grow ever stronger, and remember: The Dark Side will always be with you."
And as if there were a symbol or sorts in the words he said, the apparitions jointly became more and more transparent, until they had finally, completely and utterly, vanished from sight and thought. But unbeknownst to both the spirits and the man, there was also another device worth of notice hidden in this ruin. A concealed scanner at the exit to the Valley of the Dark Lords, placed by a certain infiltrator and waiting for an exactly specified DNA scan to give the directions to a certain hidden location.

Had it not been for the hunter's notable schooling skills, the change in his facial expression would have been abrupt and plain obvious; thus it was just at the edge of perception. A slightly quirked eyebrow and a hint of musing smile curving up the corners of the man's mouth, the scar across his cheek warped in length when his muscles flexed. Nevertheless, he remained stoically still, curbing his curiosity and impatience; he was going to wait for the ghosts to finish their speech, for he had no wish to bring their ire upon himself so close to his goal. Concentrating on the speaking apparition instead of the wound on his hand that drew to it painful attention, he found himself strangely intrigued by the entity's words. He pushed that thoughts away, filing them somewhere in his memory for later pondering and discussions he didn't want to have, yet knew he would have to.

"I thank you for the knowledge," he replied curtly, but neither his eyes nor his voice ever wavered. He dipped his head in silent farewell to the dissipating specters, lingered for a few prolonged moments there still and then turned on his heel towards the chambers they had directed him to. There was a gnawing worm of doubt in the back of his mind, albeit a little one, whispering that maybe the ghosts had lied. After all, it wouldn’t be a far stretch for even a long-death Sith to enjoy in torment and malign deeds to people who still tread the dust and breath the dry air of Korriban. He shuddered inwardly at the thought of going through the whole ordeal without gaining anything; his right hand balled into a fist completely subconsciously and he muttered some choice words under his breath. What if? the thought nagged at his jumbled mind, but he pushed it back, angrily punching the wall and immediately regretting the action.

What is it with me today? It's like I can't control myself, he mused eyes narrowing in suspicion. Had the ghosts done something to me? Or maybe it's the injury from the tuk'ata, he continued while he followed the map on his datapad.

All the ugly thoughts dispersed at the sight of the two aforementioned holocrons and the hunter left out an appreciative whistle. The one that the tattooed entity had spoken about, the large one, indeed seemed broken; black debris and pieces of the half-collapsed ceiling lay all around it. But amid all that, surprisingly sound an well, lay the other dark pyramid, this one more intricately ornamented with pieces of metal and what he assumed were letters of the Sith alphabet. He gave himself a mental pat on the shoulder as a self-satisfied smile assumed its reign on his features. "Come to daddy," he cooed to the small black holocron, as if it were possible of it to suddenly come alive and spring into his waiting arms.

The return to his small shuttle was smooth and without any kind of complications, for which the hunter was silently thankful; the sting in his left hand had grown ever more persistent on his journey back and once he'd arrived on the ship he immediately went to treat it. The searing pain of the disinfectant sent black spots swimming into his vision – apparently it was worse than he'd initially thought – but he continued to clear the wound until he was satisfied with the results. The warm bandage felt good at the numb pain that now coursed through his lower arm, like a soft, soothing pressure that whispered of healing.

He sat behind the controls and initiated the take-off sequence, when a faint beeping sound on his right drew his attention. Turning, he found a single, brief message on one of the screens. His eyes darkened with suspicion as he regarded it for a moment, judging the possible deceit of the coordinates and two initials that were displayed blue on black for his eyes to see.

"Humm," he murmured aloud, pinching the bridge of his nose. Before he could've come to any kind of decision, however, the shuttle spluttered to life all on its own, proving him wrong. "Well, that settles the sincerity of the message," he chuckled as the navicomputer was overridden with the received coordinates. The ship took off in a cloud of reddish dust, obscuring the raging sun for a moment, but Kareem only smiled at the initials glowing softly on the screen.

DP