[IC] You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

[freedomliveson]

It was nice to see her making the effort to communicate and form some kind of common ground between them. He chuckled at her comment about her feet before listening intently to her comments about trying to wrap one's arms around something they were trained to hate for most of their lives. It was true; he had mentioned to Aria earlier on the way to Taris that so much of him wanted to eliminate the "Sith" scum that he saw Aria as. Never once did it cross his mind that maybe, just maybe, Aria could be helped, that her murdering of Lysa was a result of an environment that encouraged nothing but. Another chuckle at her thankful comment and a smile at her promise.
"That means a lot. It really does." His lips parted in an effort to say more, but the swirling mixture of emotions and thoughts regarding their newfound partnership were forced to be repressed when the ship's nav computer blipped loudly to indicate their drop from hyperspace. As he rose from his chair, he heard Aria comment about the strange make up of the planet. Yerbol nodded in agreement at her statement.
"It's strange to see such a dichotomy. I do know Belsavis is made up of conflicting ecosystems like this, but to see the contrast so starkly is...odd." He had dropped into the pilot's chair and was now attempting to scan for a landing spot. It was strange that the nav computer had dropped them out of hyperspace right into the atmosphere instead of a few miles away from the atmosphere. Had he made some kind of programming error? Shrugging, the young Knight placed two fingers on the screen and zoomed in on the surface, pressing down on what looked like a clearing in the midst of a dense forest. The ship slowed down to accommodate the landing request, which allowed Yerbol to pay more attention to the planet visible from the glass in the cockpit. There were massive mountain peaks that jutted up in almost every direction, the valleys below loaded with foliage. Smoke rose from a number of active volcanoes and, upon passing a couple more miles, the cracked and scorched earth Aria had referred to was visible.
"What could have caused the environment to segment off like this so much?" He wondered aloud as the ship traveled a few more miles before hovering over the clearing, settling gently down.

Pack slung over his back and lightsaber clipped to his belt, the Knight let down the hatch, his boots almost melting into the soft earth. He looked forward, noting the barrier of trees.
"Let's scout around, see if we can't find some kind of path."

[The Elvenqueen]

She returned to retrieve her shoes and followed Yerbol down the ramp, somewhat apprehensive to leave the safety of the ship. Swallowing, Aria nodded and paused to look around. "Right, well...I go left, you go right; scream if something grabs you?" after all, they have no idea what will be waiting for them in the foliage, and if Korriban is any kind of indication to go by there may be thousands of ravenous beasts looking for a meal here. Moving along is trickier than she had first thought, the ground is less solid than it first appeared and far more like peat than packed earth.

Aria kept one hand at her belt, ready to draw a lightsaber at the slightest indication of hostile movement, as she made her way towards the belt of trees. It didn't take her long to tune in to the energies pulsating from every tree and rock she passed as she tried to search methodically for some kind of path. This was a Sith planet alright, or it should have been given how strong the dark side presence was here. It made her restless. She felt so full of energy that she could have run for miles on end, and yet she had to try and reign it in. They knew nothing about this planet and what kinds of things they could have been walking into.

Subconsciously, Aria made sure to keep tabs on Yerbol and what his thoughts were like as he conducted his own search. The acolyte stopped as the thick swathe of foliage parted into another clearing, marked by a towering pillar into which intricate rune-like texts were carved. Carefully, she reached out and brushed her fingertips across the markings. She'd seen similar carvings before, on the walls in the tombs of the Sith Lords on Korriban. Peering further ahead, there seemed to be some sort of structure there, a temple of some sort perhaps. If this didn't prove that these 'True Sith' had been here before, nothing did.
"Hey Yerbol...I think I've got something here." Aria announced, wondering if he could still hear her or whether she would have to backtrack to go and get him. She didn't fancy her chances of trying to communicate telepathically, not willing to risk the chances of Yerbol reacting on instinct and perceiving it as a potential threat.

[freedomliveson]

Aria's cry was faint, but one that Yerbol could pick up. He found her staring at a stone edifice that towered in the distance, poking up above the tree line. In front of them was a stone pillar with carvings that almost seemed to glow with a soft light. He ran his hand across the carvings, feeling the grooves and indentations for any kind of hidden switch or pulley that could be activated. Shrugging at his lack of discovery, he told Aria:
"Suppose we keep moving forward. Looks like a straightforward enough path, right?" He continued through the clearing to the thickly populated forest, the local jungle wildlife penetrating the silence between the duo on occasion. Buzzing, humming, roaring in the distance, their footfa-

Roaring?

They had only gone a few hundred yards into the forest when Yerbol heard it. He held out his arm, a gesture for Aria to stop. He turned to her, pointing at his ear. There it was again, a powerful, menacing roar that echoed through the air. It seemed to be closer than the last time he had heard it. Of COURSE there would be the potential threat of dangerous animals. It was a planet belonging to the Sith after all.
"Keep moving." He whispered as he trudged ahead, his right hand sliding instinctively to his belt where his saber hilt hung. Another few hundred yards were traversed when a sudden chill burst through the treeline and whipped them in the face, Yerbol's cheeks and nose burning from the sting of cold air that blew through. Accompanied by the chill was the roaring, this time much closer. Just ahead, Yerbol spied a flicker of a shape darting between trees, then another roar. Another flicker, another roar. Saber in hand, he ignited the blade just as the shape rammed Yerbol in the chest, staggering the knight. Refocused, he saw the source of the abnormal noise. It was a creature humanoid in appearance, but it had sharp claws in place of hands, it's face a pale white, mouth agape with sharp teeth, eyes without corneas. It lunged again at Yerbol, the Knight dodging to his left and slicing downward, clipping the monster's back. A howl of pain as it sunk to all fours, looking at the duo before tilting it's head up to the sky, howling as loud as it could. Howls answered.
"Great." Yerbol threw his saber at the creature, whose injury and subsequent call for reinforcements distracted it enough for the saber to slice through it's head, the corpse falling to the ground.
"To the temple." Yerbol could now see his breath crystallize into vapor.
They needed to run.

[The Elvenqueen]

Aria nodded and kept pace with Yerbol as they traversed through the dense foliage. They kept to the path in the hopes of avoiding any encounters with the rather vocal wildlife, so that the pair could maintain their focus on searching for further clues.

Most of the sounds were just ambience, herbivorous creatures that didn't sound all that threatening, so Aria tuned it out and ignored the sounds. Until the roaring started. She grunted, crashing abruptly into the Jedi Knight's arm as he stopped her.
"That sounds like it's coming from something dangerous..." she muttered warily in agreement, her pulse quickening as she trampled on to keep up with him.

A startled yelp left Aria's mouth as the chilled air cut through them. Her eyes watered against the breeze and she had to squint to try and see through the tears. She couldn't grab her sabers in time to stop the creature hitting Yerbol the first time, but she leapt forward and jabbed one saber blade towards the strange humanoid hoping to distract its attention from the Knight long enough for him to recover.

Aria dropped back as Yerbol found his footing again and let him press forward. Sith she may have been, but Aria wasn't stupid. She knew Yerbol was stronger than her and had the better chance of standing his ground against this thing. She paced back and forth, her weight switching from one foot to the other and sabers poised to strike as she waited for a necessary opening.

The creature shrieked in agony and dropped onto its legs. Gasping, the Sith acolyte lunged forward to try and intercept it. She had seen it in its eyes before its head even began to tilt back.
"Kill it, quickly before-!" she began to shout at Yerbol, but was cut off by the piercing howl it emitted and the chorus that answered it.

"Oh, kark." Aria snarled, breaking into a sprint towards the ominous structure. She didn't need to be told twice, they didn't want to be loitering around when this thing'so friends showed up. They were a few feet from the temple when the pack of reinforcements caught up to the pair; then it was all adrenaline and straining for the next breath with the icy air creeping up on them and the beasts baying at their heels with every stride they took. Like the tombs on Korriban all over again, except these were no Tuk'ata or Shyrack, and there were no small openings into side chambers to crawl into where they could wait it out until the creatures got bored of waiting for them to come out again.

Darting through the temple entryway, Aria dug in her heels and spun around to face their pursuers. Yerbol was close behind her and as he passed she managed to shout out a warning. "Block your ears!"
She had little time to wait or repeat it, if he hadn't heard her warning then that was his problem. She would rather momentarily deafen him than have them both eviscerated at the claws of these ice-breathed demons. Once Yerbol was clear of the entrance and the pack advanced towards them, under the illusion that their prey was now cornered and helpless, the acolyte planted her feet and lunged forward a few inches. Her lips parted to let loose a bone-jarring scream that sent the pack of beasts shrieking in agony and terror as they stumbled over one another to retreat from the rippling shockwaves.

They yelped pitifully and paced in the treeline for a few more moments before the pack collectively decided to abandon their quarry for fear of Aria screeching at them again. Turning to face Yerbol, Aria tried to smile through her gasps for breath. Her heart was pounding against her ribs and her sides ached from the mad dash they had made into the temple. "That should...hold them off for a while...! S-sorry if your...ears're ringing..."

[freedomliveson]

The scream that Aria let out pierced every fiber of his being, the Knight collapsing to his knees, mind attempting to focus as the rending shriek continued to fill the air. Just as suddenly as the scream had began, it ended, Yerbol's gaze cast at the now empty entranceway. His ears were ringing profusely, but they were alive. That was what mattered. He could see Aria's face break into a small smile, something he had never seen her do. It was refreshing, even with the splitting headache that was slowly replacing the fading sounds of ringing bells. Yerbol made out:
"Sorry...if...ears...ring..."
He shook his head, responding a bit louder than he normally would have if his hearing hadn't been temporarily wrecked:
"We're alive! That's what counts!" He leaned against a nearby wall, hands on his knees. The ringing was now just a faint whisper, but the headache was still present.
"That was...that was so blasted powerful." He admired, eyes focusing on her.
"I had heard of the ability for Sith to manipulate their vocal chords, but that...that wasn't manipulation, that was just sheer force. You'll have to show me how to do that someday. It'll work wonders for when I don't want to lose an argument." His breath wasn't turning into vapor, which comforted the Knight. Eyes turned to the treeline, watching cautiously for a few silent moments. When satisfied, he looked back into the temple. There was a wide hallway that stretched down towards what looked like an open area of some sort, light filtering in through the ceiling.
"Let's not wait around to get ourselves slashed to bits. Shall we?"

The open area that Yerbol had spotted was littered with chunks of rubble, patches of the ceiling and wall strewn about randomly. In the center of the area was a somewhat rusted statue of a hooded figure, lightsaber in one hand, the head of a nameless foe in the other. Yerbol walked closer, examining an inscription on the pedestal before reading it aloud:
"Those who walk down the Path of the Truth will rise to conquer their enemies." The inscription glowed with a crimson light for a flicker of a moment before returning to it's dull state. Yerbol looked around, senses straining to pick up on any anomalies that the glowing may have caused. There was silence for a couple of moments, then a soft click. Beyond the statue, a stone wall slid away to reveal three different paths branching north, northwest and northeast. Above each pathway was an inscription that glowed the same crimson as the one on the pedestal. The Knight walked forward, reading each aloud:
"The Path of Vengeance..." The left.
"The Path of Redemption..." The center.
"The Path of Power..." The right.

"Almost feels like a trial of some kind."

[The Elvenqueen]

The acolyte smirked and shook her head, leaning back against the temple's wall while she caught her breath back. "Yeah? Well they ain't just stories, Yerbol." she panted, pushing off the wall to head towards the opening he had found. They should make the most of the absence of any hungry animals before anything else (including the ice creatures) decided to have another go at making them dinner. She was surprised when he asked her to teach him how to do it. It was the last question she had expected to come from a Jedi, it made Aria chuckle. "I thought you your Masters believed Sith techniques were cruel and unnecessary?" she shot a question of her own back at him, a slight hint of humor creeping into her tone.

She skirted around the piles of debris as the Knight picked his way towards the statue, pausing at his shoulder as he began to read the inscriptions aloud. Aria's brow knitted into a frown, studying the three pathways first and then returning her gaze to the statue, she was trying to figure out how they all connected.

"It probably is a trial." she agreed slowly, "Designed to test strength, resilience and loyalty or something like that." Aria shrugged. "The statue talks about the Path of Truth though, none of these three?" Perhaps there was a fourth hallway hidden somewhere? They likely had to prove they could handle the first three before the next step of the tests would reveal itself.

Aria thought back to what she knew about how the Sith worked these kinds of trials on Korriban. "We could try splitting up again, but it might not work properly." she pondered out loud. "Either we just need to finish the tests and it won't matter, or they might have designed it that we both need to complete all of them before we can move on. Guess we won't know which till we try something."

Brushing past Yerbol, she stepped forward into the rightmost archway. "I'll take Power, you take Vengeance, if we both make it out alive and in one piece we meet back and take the middle one together?" She wasn't sure what kind of challenges would be waiting in a hall marked for 'Redemption' (or what a REAL Sith would want with redemption in the first place!), but she was less prepared to go in there on her own than either of the other archways. She straightened her back and sucked in a deep breath, heading forward into the darkness ahead of her.

Aria moved forward a few paces and stopped to survey her surroundings. It was so dark in the tunnel she could hardly see anything, even the faint light from the previous chamber a few feet behind her didn't stretch far enough to be of any help. She would have to rely on her Force senses instead, reaching out she probed further in looking for any disturbances. Nothing had jumped out at her yet and she couldn't sense anything that was an imediate threat to indicate that they were going about the test wrong by separating again.

Holding her breath, she listened for any exclamations from Yerbol to indicate whether he had come up short or had the same response as she had. If he had even left the central chamber yet, that is.

[freedomliveson]

Yerbol nodded at her plan.
"Fair enough. If either one of us gets into trouble, we'll try to double back, ok? Don't need to get caught in the snare of some ancient trap and die on a forsaken planet. That's not how my obituary is supposed to read anyway." A soft chuckle at the morbid joke escaped Yerbol's lips before lining himself up with the hallway he had been assigned. It was pitch black ahead.
"What a surprise." He whispered to the darkness, trudging slowly forward, left hand extended in front of him. He focused mentally for a couple of seconds before a light shone from his hand, the soft blue hues illuminating a couple of feet in front of him. Taking a breath, he continued to walk forward. It was then that he realized that he had been able to read the inscriptions quite clearly, without any hesitation on his part about misunderstanding. Did the True Sith know the Basic tongue? Or did the inscriptions have some sort of power that allowed for any to understand? What would that say about the kind of people the True Sith were?

His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden flickering from both sides. Torches jutted out of the beige stone walls, their orange light both a comfort and a scare. How did the torches come on? Did he step on a switch or did he-
"Yerbol! Bolllllllllll!" That teasing name call filled the hallway, bouncing off the walls. No, no, couldn't be. That's not her.
"Bol, come on! We've gotta get through this!" He mouthed her name, then a second time with barely a voice:
"Lysa?"
"Ahead of us! Ahead!" The torches grew brighter, intense. Yerbol could see an opening up ahead, the Knight running to the sight to find he was standing on sand. Looking behind him, the hallway disappeared, replaced by an endless horizon of dunes that surrounded him. Stars lit up the sky and on the earth they shone on was her. She was shorter than he was, but not by much, standing at about five eleven. Her hair was a much darker ebony than his, her eyes a sparkling aqua that got the attention of several young men that Yerbol had to chase off as the hulking brother that denied his sister would ever ACTUALLY get involved romantically. She was standing a few feet away, her eyes glinting with mischief.
"What? Don't stare at me like that, it gives me the creeps." One step forward.
"Lysa, you're not here right now. This is an illusion of some kind, part of the trial." She shook her head.
"Nope. See?" She stuck out her arm, Yerbol touching it gently with his right hand.
"But you-"
"I what? I know where we're going, if that's what you mean. Glad you got my message. There's a Sith I saw nearby in the place I wanted you to see. Come on, we can get her out of the way." What was this? Alternative reality? Some strange vision of what Yerbol thought could have been?

[The Elvenqueen]

Yerbol shouted back his agreement. He didn't sound panicked either, so everything muse be okay...at least for now. Aria trudged onwards, hands outstretched in front of her to keep her bearings. It was so dark she could scarcely see in front of her nose so she had to rely on her other senses to find her way and make sure she didn't trip on any cracks or breaks in the ground.

The further onwards she moved, the colder the air got. For a moment Aria nearly panicked. Had those beasts come back and followed her down the passageway? Had they gotten Yerbol, too? When she began to hear movements close beside her, the Sith acolyte almost jumped out of her skin. Her hands flew to her lightsabers instinctively, keeping them steady in front of her as she waited for the next sounds. The red light emitted by her weapons wasn't much, but it was enough to give her scope of her surroundings. Perhaps she should have used them sooner and whatever this was wouldn't have managed to creep up on her unawares.

Swinging to face the direction of the footsteps, she was met with a familiar and all to disconcerting face smiling coolly back at her.
"You've done very well, Ari." He praised, stepping towards her. "I knew you would convince them to trust you."
Warily, Aria took a few steps backwards as her father began to move towards her.
"Wh-what are you doing here?" Her voice shook unsteadily, ordinarily she would have been offended that he felt the need to check up on her but this time was different. Did he know she had been considering the Jedi's offer of escape?

The Sith lord's saber hummed to life and he kept moving towards her. "Just a reminder for you, kid." Was he here to kill her? Aria planted her feet and raised her blades as her father lunged for her. They exchanged blows while he forced her to move further into the passageway. Panicked, the acolyte realised she could not longer sense Yerbol. She was on her own now.

"You can do better than that! I taught you to kill, now use it! There is a time where the apprentice must take the Master's place, by force if necessary!" He taunted her, lunging again. Snarling, Aria darted sideways to avoid the blow and pushed the Sith lord back into the passage wall with the Force. Panting for breath, she swallowed and faced her father again.

That's when it hit her, something wasn't right here...she studied him more closely. Her father never went anywhere without the pair of Tuk'ata he had tamed, they padded ever faithfully at his heels like pet dogs.

They weren't here. At all. Even if they had been concealed by Force techniques she would have been able to smell their breath from miles off. Slowly, Aria began to realise why. This was an illusion. This was the test, she was supposed to kill him, too. Sacking in a sharp breath, the acolyte struck back again, this time delivering a killing blow. The dying gasp emitted by the apparition was startlingly lifelike, but any illusion of reality was gone as it dissipated.

Silence. Aria swallowed and turned around in a slow circle. Was there something else she had to do? A grinding sound echoed through the chamber, and part of the rock face receded into a smaller hallway. Torches roared to life along the walls, illuminating the path she was to take next.

Aria stowed her weapons back at their place on her belt and followed the trail of flickering lights to find herself back at the original chamber where she and Yerbol had first parted ways again. The middle hallway yawned ominous and dark before her. Peering down the one marked for 'Vengeance ', Aria thought she could faintly see a blue light of some kind but no immediate sign of Yerbol. Was that light coming from his saber?

[freedomliveson]

Yerbol tried to stop a few times while following Lysa in order to speak to her further, but she didn't respond to his attempts, choosing instead to plow forward, shouting back at him:
"We can talk later! Sith! In tomb! Let's go!"

When she got an idea in her head, there was absolutely no way of stopping her. So he would follow Lysa, see if this was indeed part of the trial of vengeance that the temple was constructing or maybe, just maybe...
"Here, see!" She stopped, pointing at the entrance to a rather familiar tomb. So this WAS a trial after all. How could he believed anything else, even for a moment? To think that the sight of Lysa's cold, lifeless corpse was just a mirage was a moronic lapse in judgment that he wouldn't allow to happen. Maybe if he verbalized this, he could move on from the trial and complete it? No, that wouldn't make sense. There had to be an instance of where vengeance would be enacted. This path that he was taking could only lead him to the same tomb he had fought Aria in. Would it be the real Aria or a mimic of her? After all, she had gone down the path of power. What if she had been given more power to strike him down with and was waiting for him, to get her chance to end his life like she should have done on Korriban.
"C'mon, don't just stand there! Once we take her down, then we can get inside and I can show you what I found." Lysa stepped forward, but Yerbol shook his head.
"No, Lysa. I'm not going to follow you." She turned on her heel, her eyes blazing.
"And whyyyy would that be?"
"Because you're not real. I won't give into this path of vengeance you're trying to lead me on."
"Jedi." She snorted, her lightsaber crackling to life before dashing forward, attempting to slice Yerbol at the torso. He barely dodged in time, the heat of her viridian colored lightsaber perceived by his skin. He wouldn't take the chance that this version of Lysa couldn't actually end his life, the Knight igniting his saber and delivered a succession of slashes, all of which were dodged gracefully. Grimacing, he tried an overhead slash only to be blocked, Lysa's foot planting itself in his chest, driving him back.
"You're weak, brother. You were always the weaker one of us."
"That so?" Their sabers clashed as blows were made and blocked swiftly. A pause in their skirmish allowed Lysa to answer:
"Of course you were. You never wanted to go outside of that little comfort zone Master Braga gave you. But me? I wanted more."
"That was your problem; you never knew when to stop." Lysa let out a cry as she thrust her saber forward, Yerbol knocking the saber aside and plunging his own into the false Lysa. A moment later, she was vapor. Darkness enveloped the dunes, the only light coming from his saber, which was held with both hands, his legs bent and ready to spring at danger. Instead of being assaulted by a malicious force, he was back in the hallway he had started in, the wall to his right receding. He stepped through to find himself in another torch-lit hallway, except this one had a visible opening to where they had started. He emerged, spotting Aria. A sigh of relief.
"Well, how'd it go?"

[The Elvenqueen]

It turned out to in fact be Yerbol approaching again. She feels a rush of relief filling her for a brief moment, shaking it off and trying to remain objective. He seems a shade paler than when he had left and she has to wonder what it was he had seen in that hallway.
"You look like you've seen a ghost." She snorted at the irony, if her own experience had been anything to go by then perhaps it wasn't a far off assumption.

She let out a breath, turning towards the center passageway. "Shall we?" Aria gestured into the yawning darkness, looking over her shoulder at him. "Or do you need a moment?" After waiting a while just in case, the acolyte stips forward into the third and final archway marked out to test 'Redemption'.

The passage is just as eerily silent as its predecessor. Clearing her throat, Aria spoke in a whisper in an attempt to not draw undue attention to them in case there was something other than illusions lurking in here.
"So, redemption...that's a Jedi thing, why the hell's it part of a Sith trial? And...what is it going to ask us to do?" Aria squinted towards Yerbol, fully expecting him to come out with some kind of explanation to her question.

[freedomliveson]

He laughed delicately.
"You could say that." The stone wall next to their final path was utilized as a leaning post for the young Jedi, attempting to mentally collect himself. He knew it had been a trial, a projection more than likely powered by the Force, but it felt so real. The power infused into this place was not to be underestimated. Yerbol nodded in thanks at her offer of a break, the Knight allowing some silence to pass between the two of them before he peeled himself off the wall, following Aria into the stillness. It was disarming for a place this powerful to be this quiet, as if the walls themselves were waiting for an opportune moment to reveal some horrific terror that would swallow them whole. Aria's voice startled Yerbol slightly, but the question didn't.
"I wonder the same things." He extended his hand, allowing the soft blue light he had emitted when he was alone to illuminate their path.
"Makes me believe that somewhere down the line the Sith code we know today might've been morphed into something different from the original...or maybe this trial will lead us to redeem ourselves from the 'light' and place ourselves into the full power of the 'darkness'." He snorted at the melodramatic tone he had unconsciously taken.
"Forgive me. Sometimes our orders can instill such...theater in the way we oper-" Torches once again flickered to life, but this time the soft rustle of flame was accompanied by a cry of what sounded like mortal terror coming from ahead. Yerbol looked to Aria, brow furrowed. The cry rang out again, words now audible:
"PLEASE! SAVE US!" He strode ahead with his companion down the path, which led to a similar opening to the main chamber they had just left, except this one had crude iron cells hanging from the ceiling, suspended by rusty chains that allowed the cells to swing gently to and fro. There were five cells lined up next to each other, each of them holding an individual. Three human, one Twi'lek and one Rodian. The humans looked down at their visitors, one of them breathing a sigh of relief.
"Thank the Force you're here! We would've died if it hadn't been for your arrival! You...you are here to save us, aren't you?" It was a middle-aged woman who looked at him with pleading eyes, hair swinging loosely with the rhythm of the cell.
"And I suppose you feel like you're worth saving?" The Twi'lek chirped, his voice a pitch higher than what Yerbol was used to hearing from the species.
"You know why you're here! YOU were the one who did this to us!"
"No, she didn't! You were the one who-"
"SILENCE!" Across from the young Force wielders entered a looming figure with a hooded tunic. He removed the hood, revealing crimson colored skin, tendrils jutting from his chin and eyebrows. He walked forward assuredly, his jagged white teeth showing as he smiled.
"Good. New acolytes. It has been such a long time since we've seen any grace these halls. Allow me to inform you of what you must accomplish." He pointed at the cells.
"These five are branded criminals, each one with their own crimes. However, one is innocent of his crimes; in fact, this person could be used as a spy for us, given their skills. Your job is to find out who is innocent and redeem them to our cause." Before Yerbol could ask a question, the mysterious alien disappeared.
"Well then." He looked to Aria.
"You interrogate first, yes? I think you'll get more out of them than I could at the moment. I'll have a go at it if we feel it necessary. How's that sound?"

[The Elvenqueen]

Aria had opened her mouth to answer Yerbol's theories with her own, but just as he started to apologise the scream from further along the passageway cut both of them off. Narrowing her eyes warily, Aria picked up her pace into a brisk walk. She paused and craned her head up to peer at the five prisoners, before her attention was diverted to the strange alien as he gave them instructions on their task. He was unlike any race she had seen in the past, but before either of the pair could ask him anything else pertaining to the task or the alien himself, he had vanished entirely from their sight.
"Well, of course." For once she didn't argue against the suggestion. "I'm sure I have more experience in the field of interrogation than you do...besides, I don't think you have the stomach for it." Her teeth flashed faintly in the dim light of the torches as she grinned at him. While it was a snide comment for the most part, there was an undertone of a witty nature (perhaps a sign that she would slowly warm to Yerbol's company over time), if he could see past her lack of repulsion at the thought of torturing people.

Resting her hands on her hips, the acolyte bounced on the balls of her feet in agitation, gaze returning to the prisoners. "Did you have to hang them from the ceiling? This doesn't make this any easier." She muttered under her breath. Trying to intimidate someone into giving you the answers you wanted when they were higher up than you made things tricky at best. There was a general lack of other implements (from more generic equipment to the starving beasts that would occasionally be used on prisoners at the Korriban academy), at tjeir disposal; therefore she would have to focus on Force-based techniques alone...it was doable. Perhaps more difficult, but doable nonetheless.

Rattling the chains that the cages were suspended from was effective. After their squeals of surprisehad died down, she began to speak again. "Right. I'm going to start asking questions-"
"More questions? We've been here for long enough, we've told you everything, just let us go!" The Rodian interrupted, perhaps hoping that if he appeared brave enough it would persuade them of his innocence.

Aria rolled her eyes; dropping her lightsabers into the clips at her belt, she extended her hands out towards the cages. Blue bolts of electricity jumped from her fingertips towards the five prisoners, causing them to cry out sharply in pain. She started with low power, for now.
"-every time you don't give us a satisfactory answer, or if you lie to us-and believe me, I will know if you are-I'll turn up the voltage." She studied the prisoners with a quirked eyebrow, her head tilting slightly to one side. "So, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. First question: someone explain to me exactly how you ended up in here." Her attention directed towards the Twi'lek who had seemed rather quick to condemn the first woman. "You. Start talking."

[freedomliveson]

Although Yerbol knew that these weren't real people, it was still disconcerting to see Aria electrify the prisoners so readily. He wanted to say something about being a touch more merciful, but instead he folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall, allowing Aria to conduct the interrogation. Again, if there were REAL prisoners, he would object vocally, but these were just manifestations created by powerful emanations of the Force. Or at least, that's what he told himself.

The Twi'lek's lekku twitched angrily at Aria's question, glaring down at the interrogator before shifting his malicious gaze to the humans to his left.
"Those three tricked me into bringing them here! They came to me with a sob story, telling me about how they needed to get back home to see their families on a settlement near the edge of Wild Space. Said they were in danger and needed to be helped. I tried to refuse, but they kept piling the credits on the table, telling me that they would pay 'any price' to make sure their families would be safe." He spit, the projectile landing on the temple floor.
"Ten thousand credits with more to come, they said. I didn't question where they got their money; after all, I smuggle all sorts of contraband across the galaxy from people a whole lot skeevier than these people, I thought. Got into the ship, set the course and they knocked me unconscious, tied me up in the back of my own ship and piloted it here! Heard them talking about how they were gonna make sure that no one found them or som-"
"That's because we couldn't trust a two-bit thug like yourself!" One of the males hissed. The female continued the thought:
"I saw you! There was a Hutt on your holo recorder and you both were chuckling at how stupid we were, how you got your 'future slaves to pay for their own servitude'. Ha! To think we would've let you fly us into Hutt space, throw us off like cargo and move on to the next person you could fool..."
"That's bullocks!" He looked down at Aria.
"They're lying! You're one of those Sith, aren't ya? Can't you tell?! They're lying!" The Rodian shifted uncomfortably in his cell, silence being the only contribution he gave to the proceedings.

[The Elvenqueen]

Aria listened to the Twi'lek's tale, remaining largely quiet and keeping her expression stoic. She couldn't give away any of her thoughts on the matter by her facial expression, they would draw upon that and use it to their advantage. From his recount alone it sounded like any one of them could have been guilty. The humans had planned to stiff the alien out of pay, perhaps dump him here on this Sith-occupied planet and make off with his ship-that was as good as stealing as far as anyone would be concerned. But then again, the Twi'lek appeared to have alterior motives as well. Selling others into slavery wasn't something that should technically be rewarded either.

The other four reduced to clamouring to talk over one another, each trying to raise their voice louder than the previous speaker. It did little to convince Aria of any of their innocence, in fact it rather got on her nerves. She found herself probing into their thoughts to verify their claims, but there was one who she had yet to form a judgement on. Everyone had weighed in on the story at one point or another, except for the Rodian.

He was far, far too quiet. Turning her attention to him, the acolyte's head tipped to one side questioningly. "And what about you?" she addressed him directly, hoping to coax some kind of response out of him-with lightning, if necessary. "If you think that being quiet will convince me then I'm afraid you're mistaken, my friend. You must have found your way here somehow, so tell me or do I need to remind you that I can pull anything I want out of your head and there's nothing you can do to stop me?" she extended her mind towards his as if to prompt him, withdrawing before she caused enough discomfort to cause him to cry out loud. And then waited, to see if he would say anything.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Yerbol flinching whenever she would exert more pain on the prisoners. Rolling her eyes slightly, she turned her gaze to him briefly while the Rodian was quiet. "You don't get people to talk by being nice, Yerbol." her voice echoed in his mind, she clearly didn't want the prisoners-whether they were real or not-overhearing their speculations before they made their final decision. "At any rate, what do you reckon so far? The Rodian might be innocent, or maybe he's being quiet because he knows if he says nothing the other four will incriminate each other and he'll walk free even though he's a criminal himself." If she could have shrugged without giving it away to them, she would have.

[freedomliveson]

"I know they're not actual people, but it's still rather jarring to see interrogation techniques in person." He stepped forward so that he was right alongside her, weighing her question and observation carefully. The Rodian had remained oddly quiet, his shoulders hunched over, large eyes darting from the two Force wielders to his fellow prisoners and back once more. What was he not saying?
"Allow me for a moment." Yerbol turned his gaze to the incarcerated person in question.
"You haven't spoken very much. I find that surprising, given that you could be the one we choose to set free." The Rodian shook his head.
"Not gonna set me free, no no no."
"And why is that?"
"You Sith. Sith never keep their word." The Knight bristled at the accusation, but calmed himself before responding:
"Ah, but I am not a Sith. I am a Jedi Knight. I belong to an order that values loyalty and doing the right thing above all else." The Rodian emitted a high pitched laugh, prompting the other prisoners to groan.
"Right thing? Don't talk to me about right thing. We all do wrong things, make us bad people. Can do all good things in the world, but that make no difference. We all bad."
"Hey, look, you can listen to that nutty Rodian all day or set us free!" The second male implored.
"Yes, please, that alien is bonafide crazy! He's done nothing but rave and ramble on about nonsense!" The female added.
"Bad bad bad. See people there?" The Rodian pointed at the humans.
"Told me there was much treasure here, told me that we could have it all. Need pilot, I said, let me get pilot. No, no, they said, we have one." The second male's face contorted in rage, screaming:
"YOU'RE GOING TO GET US ALL KILLED!" The Rodian shook his head.
"Sooner or later, we die, we all die, die die die." The pilot sighed audibly, looking at his cellmates with confident contempt.
"Well, you see there, my Force using friends? The Rodian confessed it all. The humans can burn for all I care and my Rodian friend and I can go free." Yerbol grimaced, turning to Aria before telling her softly:
"Something's not right. The Twi'lek wants he and the Rodian to go free, yet the alien told us only one was innocent...I think you need to press both of them, see which one is truly innocent. Feel free to do what you have to. I'll try not to flinch this time." A half smile formed on his face before it disappeared, telling the two aliens:
"Now why on earth would you both want to leave together? Honor among alien thieves?" The pilot chuckled nervously.
"Yeah, yeah, sure, something like that."

[The Elvenqueen]

Aria stood with her hands on her hips while she let Yerbol take over the questioning. She snorted loudly as the Rodian made a comment about the nature of the Sith meaning that they would never keep their word, breaking into laughter despite her best attempts to contain it. The acolyte wiped a year from her eye, grinning at the alien.
"And here I thought you were stupid, he's the smart one of the lot of them it seems!"

The human male's shouting cut her off again as he and the Twi'lek resumed their verbal sparring. "Hnnh." She grunted in agreement with Yerbol. "Shut your eyes and turn around then if you can't handle watching." Aria quipped back at the Knight impatiently, "I'll kill them if I have to and I'm NOT cleaning up the mess if you start throwing up." Turning back to the two aliens she scrutinised them further. Yerbol was right about that too, there was only one 'innocent' here and both aliens claimed that they were the one in question. Arms crossed over her chest, Aria's head tipped to the left as she began further inquiries.
"You say that he is your friend and yet we have strict instructions that only one of you may be pardoned."

She fired off another few volts of electricity, purposefully glancing it off the bars of the cage. Some of the bolts bounced off the metal and singed the aliens inside. Aria narrowed her eyes, focusing, she reached out with one hand. Slowly, she began to close off their airways. Not completely, or they would never get the answers they wanted; but just enough to make the Twi'lek and Rodian start to squirm uncomfortably. "There is no honour among thieves, it's every man for himself right? So why try to barter for one another, if we were to believe you and set you both free you would just be trying to kill each other to keep this so-called treasure to yourself, wouldn't you? Save yourself the trouble and come clean now, or I'm going to start losing my patience and I might just off the lot of you and make it look like a terrible accident."

The acolyte let the threat sink in, leaning closer to Yerbol again she spoke in a whisper. "They could work for a criminal syndicate I suppose. But if we're heading down that route then the lines start blurring together and then I have to wonder if we've been put up to a trick question." The possibility had only just occured to her, perhaps none of them were innocent after all. "Though if I had to put my bets in I'd say we let the Rodian go. His story matches up the best with the others..." her shoulders lift and then drop in a shrug.

"Thieves are capable of honouring agreements still." The Twi'lek sniffed, his eyes darting between Aria and Yerbol. "Perhaps we may still have some morals even if they are...selective."
"At any rate you're losing your case right now." The acolyte retorted, "As it stands you have nothing of use to offer the Sith if we set you free; so you can fly...so can I and so can my friend here. The Rodian at least has the smarts to know he can't trust anyone, he's probably smart enough to crack other problems for us." She laid the ultimatum out for the pair, hoping it would entice the last tidbits of information out of them so they could finish this up and get it over with. Aria was pretty certain of her view on the matter but she wanted to give Yerbol a chance to weigh in his piece as well before she inflicted anything fatal on the prisoners that they deemed to be guilty or unworthy.

[freedomliveson]

"Him, smart?" The pilot chortled.
"That guy couldn't pick out a Hutt on Kashykk. Not a bright individual, him."
"And how would you know that?" Yerbol asked, the formation of a smirk beginning to show on his face. The pilot's eyes widened.
"Well, I ah...didn't you hear him say that he was the one that reached out to me? He was my contact and besides, it doesn't take very long to know stupid when you see it."
"But see, that's not what I asked. How would you know if the Rodian wasn't very smart? You would have to see an example of his supposed ineptness in action. But maybe it wasn't ineptness; rather, it was the double dealing of a smuggler who saw the opportunity of a lifetime."
"No idea what you're talking about." The humans were listening intently as Yerbol refuted the pilot's assertion:
"You say that you were hired out by the humans under false pretense, that they blindsided you when you got into space, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I told you th-"
"Which means that you would have met the Rodian planetside? After all, he and the humans were working together, right?"
"Yeah, but-"
"You seem the type to only want to save your own skin, but are more than happy to lay your life on the line with others when some kind of monetary gain is involved. The Rodian has the location of the treasure, doesn't he? You and the Rodian are conspiring together to ensure that the humans stay locked away while you both escape with the loot. After all, you both were deceived: how could you have known that you were being roped into such an affair? The humans were the instigators."
"Yeah, yeah, that's totally true!"
"But so was the Rodian. He was the one that agreed to the treasure hunt in the first place. You, on the other hand, were actually deceived. While you may be reprehensible in character, you're innocent of the affair itself." The Rodian's eyes seemed to grow larger, venomously declaring:
"We were going to kill that son of a whore! Leave his body, take his ship and be off with the bounty of a century, but-" Suddenly the cells vanished, leaving Yerbol and Aria with nothing but an empty chamber. The wall just ahead of them slid open to reveal yet another path, except he could see what looked like natural lighting at the end of it.
"I think we might've passed." He looked to Aria with a relieved smile.

[The Elvenqueen]

Aria whistled, turning in a circle to look around them for any sign of the prisoners that had been in front of them moments before. Nothing else happened, the light filtering in from the end of the pathway was awfully tempting after the darkness they had faced in the chambers.
"Looks that way." She smiled at him in return, taking steps towards the newly uncovered exit.

The acolyte paused, her brows knitting together in a frown. "So, is that it? I mean all those trials to prove we were strong enough and we just leave?" It didn't seem right. "Maybe there's another test somewhere else?" Aria shrugged and made her way along into the light outside.

The path put the pair around the other side of the temple, where a similar set of pillars. Aria circled around the pillar, examining the carvings etched into it. She blinked and had to look away for a moment, staring while the lettering appeared to shift before her eyes into a more common dialect that they could understand. "Woah...did-did the writing just change or am I seeing things?" She glanced over her shoulder at Yerbol wondering if he had seen it too. " 'You have proven yourself worthy of the way of the True Sith. Now you must continue on your path if you are to join your brethren in our quest to regain control of our Galaxy. This is only the beginning."

She swallowed nervously and turned towards Yerbol. "Looks like more co-ordinates as well. Guess we should make a note of them and head that way next." Aria wondered if they would have enough communications signal to contact Yerbol's Masters beforehand or whether he would agree to just press on first.
Despite how risky it was, she wanted to take a look around the place before they left the planet for good too. "I think we should look around some more, might find some artefacts that could save our skins later on."
If he would ever be brave enough to use them.

"Unless there's too much dark side energy for you, Jedi." The acolyte grinned, stretching out her muscles. Despite the trials they had just completed she still felt restless. There was so much power here that she could draw on even subconsciously that it left her with a lot of pent up energy. Being stuck on another long hyperspace jump wouldn't help that feeling. "Dunno about you but I feel like I could run for lightyears!"

[freedomliveson]

He followed Aria outside and went the way opposite from her, scrutinizing the pillars. A few moments later, Aria called out that the text from the pillars were shifting and read the message that Yerbol could now read as well.
"It's a testament to how powerful the Force flows through here. I could think of what both our respective Orders would gain from studying a place like this...the scholars would have a blast." His companion suggested following the coordinates located on the pillars and scavenging as they went, to which he nodded.
"We've gone this far, might as well keep moving ahead." As Yerbol took a couple of steps forward, he chuckled at Aria's tease, but then realized there was something to what she had said.
"I think you may to be onto something. About the energy part, mind you." The Jedi pointed a finger at the ruined pillars.
"How is it that we both were able to read the inscriptions on the pillars, that I managed to read the writing above the hallways in the temple? The Force seems to be working with both of us, irrespective of our alignments. I would think that on a Sith planet I would be immobilized due to the dark energies, but I feel more alert, confident." Another few steps forward.
"Did you ever read up on studies of the Force? I don't mean how to manipulate the Force through Light or Dark channels, but just raw Force..." His right hand twirled in the air until he landed on the right word.
"Power. I came across some things in the Archives, tales of Force wielders that were just that: wielders. They refused to align themselves to the Sith or the Jedi, choosing to walk their own paths. I brought some of this to my Masters attention, who balked at the idea." He chuckled.
"The Masters can be a bit too...traditionalist for my taste at times." Up ahead lay a tree lined path similar to the one they had come across on their initial excursion to the temple, prompting Yerbol's saber hand to go to his belt. Wildlife chirped, buzzed and flitted, but no bursts of cold could be felt, no chilling howl resonated. Maybe those were guardians of the Temple? In any case, he would need to plug the coordinates into a nav unit.

Which he didn't have.

BUT there was a path in front of them.
"Let's keep moving. Here's hoping we can figure out where the makers of these trials are."

____

It was hot. Blindingly, oppressively, bone crushingly hot. Starting off in a dark brown tunic and thick wool pants was a terrible idea.

The trees on the path were less sparse, more shrubbery and grasses dotting the paths. In the farthest distances were plumes of smoke rising from volcanoes that jutted out of the planet's surface, contrasted with mountain peaks capped with heavy layers of snow. They seemed to occupy a valley in between the Temple and whatever lay ahead, said valley now seeming to be set ablaze by the suns. He cursed vehemently, leaning against a tree to get some shade as he dropped his tunic to the ground, a sleeveless off-white t-shirt soaked in sweat. In a violent motion, he ripped the sleeves off, his boulder-like shoulders and impressive arms covered in a slick sheen of sweat.

It was hot.

"Let's...let's stop for a moment, shall we?"

[The Elvenqueen]

Aria frowned thoughtfully as she considered Yerbol's theory that there was a way to use the Force without it being either Light or Dark aligned. The suggestion seemed farfetched to her, but he claimed that the Jedi had written records in their archives that said otherwise. She wasn't sure if he wasn't just stretching the truth a little.
"But...that's not possible." She muttered in protest as they started along the next tree-enclosed pathway.

"Raw Force power? The Force can't exist without there being Light and Dark. It's why you Jedi are always chirping about all that 'balance and serenity' bullshit, isn't it?" The acolyte's features creased into another toothy grin, her thin eyebrows disappearing into her hairline.

As they trudged onwards, the level of heat steadily increased. Sweat began to bead on her brow, dripping down into her eyes, which she reached up to swipe away with the back of her hand.
"Shit, it's hot out here!" Aria huffed, her strides slowing considerably. Yerbol was starting to falter as well, also suffering under the heat.

It wasn't long before he was spitting expletives and shedding layers like a drexl shed its skin, until he was left in just his pants and his cotton undershirt (sleeves removed and discarded with his outerwear).
She tried not to stare, which was difficult given the impressively toned musculature that his shoulders and forearms sported. The suggestion of stopping went down well, Aria slumping against the tree trunk immediately beside where Yerbol had taken cover. The heavy boughs of the trees provided just enough shelter from the blistering sun rays to prevent the duo collapsing with heat stroke then and there.

"Karkin' hell!" The Sith gasped, throwing aside her own cloak and the reinforced leather vest that protected her torso. "This place is...hotter than Korriban and...Tatooine put together!" They should have brought more water with them, in hindsight. If only they had known. "Nice of them to...tell us the planet would be covered in...magma." She scoffed, though how were the Jedi to have known? No one had come out this far, not for a long time, at least as far back as Revan's second disappearance.