The Force of Magic [Star Wars SI]

[lord trilobite]

Boroda Orka, I really appreciate you doing such a great job translating. A lot of translated stuff is borderline unreadable but with this you can't even tell.

 

[readsalot]

Let's make one last round and head back to the Academy. Force forbid someone's gone and put the Dead Man to rest again…

Click to shrink...

TBH he probably is dead….again, at this point I'm thinking he likes it….. eh Wizards gotta have some quirks I guess

 

[Boroda Orka]

"Oh-ho-ho-hooo!" the portly man sitting across from me chuckled happily. "Master Dziha! Anything you want! Honestly! Do whatever you please on this damned planet! Even if you start taking the 'local attractions' apart stone by stone"—the face of the head of the Commerce Guild branch on Korriban twisted into a grimace of disgust—"I swear, every last one of us will pretend we never noticed a thing. In fact, it's always been that way!"

"Thank you, esteemed Macron," I said with a nod, keeping an impassively dignified expression on my face. My welcoming smile upon landing on Korriban had triggered a minor firefight which, only thanks to sheer luck and the composure of this short, rather amusing-looking man, had failed to turn into a genuine bloodbath. "Naturally, I have no need for such extremes, but I do intend to visit the 'local attractions' in the near future. I've heard and read quite a lot about the tombs of the ancient Sith, so I'm extremely curious."

"Anything! You! Want!" the man declared with deliberate solemnity, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling with obvious pleasure, as though savoring the very "taste" of the air. "But I do want to warn you again that it's extremely dangerous out there. Of the ten expeditions we sent into the tombs, eight disappeared completely, one came back only partially, and everyone in the one that returned intact went insane."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said with a thoughtful nod, inwardly rubbing my hands together and narrowing my eyes in bliss.

The planet looked extremely promising. And news of losses that severe… It wasn't that I was exactly happy about them, but something like that practically guaranteed the tombs hadn't been picked clean and that there was still something interesting left inside!

"And now," Kronus Macron said with a conspiratorial wink, "how about a little banquet? I guarantee you'll enjoy it! The cooks have gone all out for our dear guests and saviors!"

"Saviors, are we?" I said, feigning embarrassment while snorting inwardly.

"Benefactors!" the man laughed. "And don't even argue! I'm thinking of naming my son after you!"

"Uh…" This time I really was a little embarrassed. "I don't think that's a good idea. The Jedi couldn't handle another Siith."

The head of the Korriban branch burst out laughing again, flashing a genuinely warm, white-toothed smile.

---

"Phew, Boss. The locals creep me out." Romri thoughtfully sipped caf from her mug. "And I honestly can't decide which version scares me more: when they're gloomy and hostile, or when they're freakishly friendly."

Instead of the single day we had planned to spend at the Commerce Guild headquarters on Korriban's surface, we ended up staying there for four. A profitable little side job came up, then there was a genuinely decent banquet, after which several members of the crew had to be treated for hangovers… Only today had we finally managed to break free, so to speak.

Right now, we were sitting in the Rung's common room. The ship had landed at a suitable spot not far from the Moraband necropolis. There were landing pads large enough for us right by the tombs, but we had decided not to take unnecessary risks. Only three of us would be going to the burial complex itself: me, Arvik, and Karr. The others would stay behind aboard the ship, safely protected from whatever nasty surprises might be lurking out there. Mlada had complained, of course, but at least one Mando had to remain on the Rung.

"First, make someone feel absolutely miserable, then put everything back the way it was. That's it—you're their best friend." Arvik drummed his fingers against the helmet sitting on the table in front of him. "Can't really blame them for either the welcome we got or the way they started treating us after Boss fixed their problem. The locals damn near had a collective breakdown when Korriban finally stopped pressing down on their minds."

"Yeah," Mlada said with a shudder. "Being outside the Rung is genuinely creepy. You don't notice it at first, but after a couple of hours you start feeling like something's watching you. Not in a friendly way, either—more like a threat. Even the air starts to feel… heavy, I guess. Like it tastes wrong."

"An extremely high concentration of negatively aspected mana," I said. I'd explained this already, but the "atmosphere of Korriban" was a popular topic among the crew right now. "So high that people in poor health waste away and can even die, while sentients with low mental resilience and weak willpower go insane. Paranoia, obsessive thoughts, sociopathy… And those who already weren't entirely right in the head can go completely off the rails."

"Boss-sa, you mean that case where the security guy chopped up a couple dozen Guild workers?" the Gungan asked.

"That one. Macron mentioned the guy wasn't exactly a psychopath, but he'd been through a nasty mess on the Smuggler's Moon. Sending him here 'to rest' was a pretty reckless decision. Bureaucrats are bureaucrats everywhere. Still, I think the Commerce Guild will be a lot more careful about mistakes like that from now on. And they'll probably be more than happy to sign contracts with a couple of our malefics and necromancers. While we're at it, we might even scout out some land for an Academy branch—and perhaps buy it outright while Macron is still running things here."

"You didn't even charge them!" the Togruta burst out. Apparently, the mention of contracts and buying land had struck a nerve somewhere deep in her soul—the nerve labeled lost profit.

"You really shouldn't be so greedy, my little aurodium girl," I told her with an affectionate smile, while Mlada giggled merrily. "I've already wrung free deliveries of filled negative-energy reservoirs out of the Guild, and on top of that I got complete carte blanche to do whatever I want around the tombs. A man has to have some conscience."

"Conscience is something you listen to, not something you have," Karr guffawed, though he quickly deflated under Arvik's reproachful stare.

"Jokes that are tens of thousands of years old," Mlada sighed. "Brother, your sense of humor isn't just ancient. It's mummified."

"Force ghost of Sense of Humor, though," the Gungan agreed with a solemn nod. "Karr found it in ancient tomb of bit-bit shitty joker."

"For decades, our Mando studied the ancient wisdom of millennia-old recycled jokes, until his dead Teacher finally decided he was Ready!" Romri picked up the story.

"And so the ancient Evil broke loose upon the Galaxy," I joined in, unable to resist.

"And only the Great Mlada Vast stands between her brother and the Republic being plunged into the nightmare depths of shitty humor," our warrior declared smugly, lifting her chin.

"Oh, fuck all of you," the target of our attack said with feigned offense, making a moderately obscene gesture at everyone in the common room. "Nobody loves me except Talli!" The guy winked at the faintly smiling Dathomiri.

"In the Nightsister clan, witches are taught to ignore stale jokes." V'arna's faint smile turned into a mocking grin as she figuratively stabbed the Mandalorian in the back. The guy had been strutting around her like a peacock for days now, but the witch seemed completely uninterested in him. "By the way, Teacher, what did you do to block the Dark Side's influence on the Guild personnel?"

"An absorption barrier. The simplest kind of ritual-artifact complex, built on mana-conversion principles and powered by this world's natural background energy." I broke into a blissful smile. Sometimes it was nice to simply switch my brain off and work on something primitive. "Twenty ritual circles, each five meters across, absorb negative mana around the perimeter of the Guild complex and fill simple—and therefore rather bulky—quartz reservoirs. Then the inner conversion circle takes over, purifying the output from the reservoirs and sending already-neutral mana into basic artifacts built beneath the ritual-circle platforms. Those, in turn, generate a spherical barrier over the entire Commerce Guild complex, repelling negative energy and filling the space inside with neutral mana. That's it."

"Simple," Romri snorted indignantly. "Don't believe Boss, Talli. There's nothing simple about it. I've been making amulets and charms for sale for years, and I still couldn't make sense of whatever our Chief Sorcerer cooked up there."

"That's because you neglected rituals, my little aurodium girl," I said with a cheerful wink at the Togruta, who pulled a displeased face. "I told you a dozen times that was a mistake. All magic began with rituals. They are a divine gift bestowed by the First Mentor herself—the point where it all started."

"Might as well be speaking Ancient Huttese," Mlada muttered.

"Can't understand a thing, though," Koit agreed.

"Will you teach me?" the witch asked, fidgeting as she put on an utterly pitiful expression and fixed me with an adoring stare. Oh, she was laying it on thick. Really laying it on. Still, pleasant enough. I was extremely fond of her hunger for knowledge. Sometimes the witch reminded me of a dog in a butcher's shop: she wanted to devour everything in sight and was deeply distressed by the fact that both her stomach and her mouth had limited capacity.

"I will," I agreed, winking at the girl as she smiled in satisfaction. "Once you've mastered the basics, we'll move on to the simplest rituals."

"A moment of silence for our little witch's brain." Romri raised her mug of caf with a mournful expression. "I tapped out while calculating the 'most basic' dependency patterns for the positions of celestial bodies."

"You're just not interested," I said, shaking my head. "You learned how to crank out amulets and charms, the credits started rolling in, and now you don't care about anything except those and piloting."

"Not anything. Far from it," Mlada giggled mysteriously, earning a raised fist from Romri. "All right, all right, I'm shutting up…"

"Did I miss something?" I asked, looking from the Togruta to the Mandalorian in surprise.

"Don't mind her, Boss." Romri waved a hand dismissively. The usual reddish-orange tone of her face had deepened slightly. "She's just talking nonsense…"

For some reason, Talli let out a long sigh, looking at the Togruta with something almost like sympathy.

---

"Tum-tum-tum, tum-tudum-tum-tudum…" Lately, humming the solemn, ominous tune I'd so often heard from Ir'rina had become something of a habit.

And now, as I stood there wondering whether to activate the spell and unlock the secret door or leave the tomb first, I couldn't help myself.

"Nah. Who knows what might crawl out of there?" I made up my mind and trudged toward the exit, ignoring the ancient gifted one's insistent, indignant muttering. Like I was going to let some dark ghost that looked like a solidified humanoid fart tell me what to do.

"Do you even know…" The undead seemed to have started in on the same rant for the twentieth time already.

"Do you even know who you're dealing with, huh?" I cut the ridiculous thing off. "Seriously! All I ever hear from you are the same tired threats and boring promises. Maybe your creator really was a powerful gifted, but she clearly half-assed it when she made you!"

"I am my own creator!!!" the ghost shrieked.

I just spat to the side in irritation.

Noisy undead, but an unusual one. It could use the Force, too. Not on the same level as a living gifted, but it might have been enough to deal with some Padawan. Mostly, though, this flying bedsheet kept trying to scare the hell out of me with psychic pressure and Jedi mind tricks. Intelligent undead were traditionally good at laying on the horror, while suggestion was, so to speak, a "native" ability of the gifted in this universe. But I'd eaten more than one ghoul in my time, and I was hardly a novice either in necromancy or in defending myself against mind-probers—people I wouldn't say I hated, exactly, but whose company I certainly never enjoyed.

"Oh, don't bullshit me." I waved a hand dismissively while catching the chunk of stone flying at my head with an aura tendril. "You're just an ordinary projection of a Life Shadow. There isn't a soul in you at all. You fly around, howl, frighten people, tempt them. I'd bet good money that somewhere deep inside your cozy little 'home' there's something like a phylactery containing a crude imprint of the personality that projects you outward. Primitive, but effective."

"I'll kill youuuuu!!!" the monstrosity howled, but I was already ignoring it.

An exceptionally persistent creature. I couldn't even discorporate it properly. Or rather, I couldn't make it stay discorporated. After being dispersed, this fart of a dark cloud—sometimes looking more like a torn rag—needed only a couple dozen seconds to come back.

Much easier to just ignore it.

At first, I tried to be polite, strike up a conversation, introduce myself like civilized sentients. But apparently this projection really had been slapped together with zero effort. First, as I said, it simply tried to crush me with Dark Side pressure, fear, and suggestion. Then it started hurling objects with telekinesis, zapped me once with something like lightning, and when none of that had any effect, it moved on to swearing at me, telling me to fuck off, and spouting nonsense about how I was supposedly "unsuitable."

How am I unsuitable? I'm the perfect candidate to be entrusted with every last secret!

The ghost let out yet another furious, offended hiss when I chuckled in anticipation. This tomb, like several others, radiated more than just Korriban's general Darkness; it had its own distinct "personal" emanations.

And what did that mean?

It meant there was something here.

At the very least, the undead interested me. I knew how to create similar guardian phantoms myself, but I was just as curious about the principles behind creating this sort of sentry within a Force-based tradition.

I hoped these weren't those legendary ghosts of the Ancient Sith. Otherwise, I was going to be seriously disappointed.

Although… I'd already gotten plenty of pleasant things out of visiting this planet. Good relations with the local boss, for one, and regular shipments of filled reservoirs to Jabiim. Even with the conversion cycles, Korriban's background was simply too saturated with Darkness and Death; the quartz would wear out quickly. So instead of supplying ordinary consumables, I'd decided to make the storage crystals themselves the consumables.

Once a year, the locals would simply replace the crystals with fresh ones. I'd already unloaded the first two batches from the Rung's cargo hold, and twenty spent crystals—one from each ritual circle—would be shipped back to the JMG. We'd give them the next batch of new ones free of charge, then drain the negative energy from the used crystals into a proper high-quality reservoir.

There was no such thing as too much Darkness and Death, at least not on Jabiim. We had no necropolises, no cursed places, and I considered that a blessing. Ordinary cemeteries wouldn't produce this kind of "output" even in a hundred years.

So, basically, I'd arranged to export the Dark Side of the Force from Korriban.

Heh.

If only I could find something genuinely tasty in the tombs. A Sith holocron, for example… yeah…

Probably not in this particular burial site, though. The swearing phantom hovering nearby hardly lived up to the reputation of the "terrifying and nightmarish" ghosts of the Ancient Sith.

"On the other hand…" I actually stopped for a second just before leaving the tomb. "Maybe this sort of thing simply isn't scary to me, but would be plenty dangerous to the Jedi! After all, I'm carrying protections that not every fortress back on the Turtle could afford…"

"Listen, Xo-Kusan," I said, turning toward the "dirty rag" hanging in the air nearby, which had gone quiet when I started speaking. "What level of gifted could you actually pose a serious threat to, roughly speaking? If we measure it in Jedi terms. Padawan? Knight? Master?"

The Shadow froze. In every sense of the word. In midair, and otherwise. Just hung there in silence.

No matter. I'm a patient man. I could wait for the dead "brains" of a Life Shadow to catch up.

For about five seconds, we stared at each other. Then it started screaming at me again.

Hmm… maybe there really was a soul in there after all? Inside that same phylactery, perhaps? Because a mere projection shouldn't be capable of flying into a rage like this.

The screaming was so furious that I couldn't even make out individual words—the infernal overtones in the ghost's voice didn't help either. On top of that, I had the distinct impression that, given another moment, the phantom would start spraying ectoplasm like spittle from sheer fury.

"What a temper…" I shook my head disapprovingly, raising a force dome to protect myself from a hail of rocks. "Oh! Now that's something new…"

A Force construct of some incomprehensible design tried to close over me, but got stuck against the shield dome.

To my surprise… the damn thing started eating through the shield!

And quite vigorously, too.

Well, well…

I added a couple of conversion blocks to the weave, which had already begun losing stability, and changed the mana in the dome from neutral to light.

"Well, that's no fun at all," I said, almost offended, when the apparently vampiric structure burned away and the ghost, howling as if in pain, darted off into the depths of the tomb. Probably swallowed a mouthful of light mana and gave itself indigestion.

Still, the structure of that peculiar spell had been several times more complex than the Force Pushes demonstrated to me by our chimerologist trainees, Rig Nema and Stass Allie. I'd even say it looked more like magic than Jedi techniques. The only problem was, I hadn't understood the underlying principle at all.

"Could that be… actual Sith sorcery? Or alchemy? Well, the spell itself is nothing special, of course, but I'd really like to understand the principle behind it. Better not destroy this undead thing after all. I should swipe it instead… might come in handy."

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[readsalot]

I should swipe it instead… might come in handy."

Click to shrink...

Sith Force Ghost gets kidnapped XD
Hmm reminds me of a 40k/Star Wars crossover a chaos space marine Sorcerer escaped to Star Wars, then proceeds to trap Sith ghosts into their bones to get them to teach him their secrets.
I can see Siith doing the same XD
I can't wait to see the Jedis reaction to him dealing in "Evil Sith Teachings" and getting dark side infused rocks

 

[Vyraco]

Who needs treasure?! A real academic takes the guardian-beasts for vivisection and dismantled traps for later analysis! If you can get a ghost to extract knowledge from that's even better!

 

[FTR2017]

I have the nagging suspicion that Siith would get along splendidly with The Chaotic Good Barbarian going by how he reacted to the 'sheet-tier' ghost haunting that particular tomb.

Will he turn said ghost into a book from which he can read what it knows at his leisure? Perhaps bind it to a roomba with a speaker?

 

[Boroda Orka]

"Master?" Windu looked at the head of the Order with concern when he suddenly froze in the middle of their conversation.

"Something has happened," the little Jedi said uneasily. "Changes in the future, I sense."

"Changes… for the better?" Master Rancisis asked cautiously.

"Unknown to me, that is. But the fates of billions already living and yet unborn have changed their course," the green-skinned Jedi said, thoughtfully chewing his lip. "Some will never be born at all. Some will die, while others will not pass into the Force when they were meant to. What is coming… it will be… not as it was supposed to be. The shadow of the Dark Side still conceals the future, but these changes… too vast even for it, they are. And… and now there is something else there. Or someone else. To the Corps of Balance, I must go. Speak with the Stargazers."

The two Masters watched the head of the Order trot briskly away down the Temple corridor, his cane tapping against the floor tiles.

"Lately, I've been hearing far too often that something has changed," the Korun sighed.

"But that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad." The Thisspiasian shrugged, flicking his tail. "Quite the opposite, really. The changes I've been noticing have mostly been encouraging."

"Something new about your friend from Jabiim, Master?" Windu allowed himself a faint smile.

"No, no, unfortunately not." Rancisis shook his head. "Though I doubt anything will ever top that report about an army of Gungans riding rancors for sheer absurdity and entertainment value. I was thinking more about matters within the Order, albeit ones connected to Master Siith. For example, those amulets we've been buying from Jabiim…"

"At those not-so-modest 'friends' rates?" the dark-skinned Jedi snorted.

"Well, you have to admit, Master, everyone else gets even more outrageous prices. And I, for one, feel much better about the Jedi we send out on missions."

"There is that, though I still believe we shouldn't rely on artifacts. A Jedi should be capable of doing without them. I'm afraid some may grow overly complacent." Windu frowned. The use of protective amulets and charms purchased from the JMG had already come up before the Council, and the Korun had even managed to draw the others' attention to the problems that might arise in the future.

"Every coin has two sides," Oppo Rancisis sighed philosophically. "Risk teaches us caution, but I would still prefer it not to be excessive. The dead learn no lessons. Knight Fe Sun, Master Shaak Ti's former Padawan, survived her last mission thanks to a little trinket from that rainy world. Master Ti, by the way, is still upset that her teaching methods failed to prove themselves, and she too feels a certain gratitude toward Master Siith. According to her, if not for their meeting on Shili and the doubts her Padawan's questions about the sorcerer planted in her mind, even the Jabiim artifact might not have been enough to save the young Togruta.

"Besides, the sorcerers' wares aren't sold only to us. We've merely gained a temporary advantage. Sooner or later, the amulets will fall into the wrong hands, even if they don't get there directly from Jabiim. The charms are already turning up among criminals, and the Hutts, according to rumor, are actively buying up amulets even at obscenely inflated prices."

"Jabba outsmarted himself," Master Windu said, his smile widening this time.

"But he didn't get burned nearly as badly as our Greens," the Thisspiasian hissed with amusement. "The Hutts were merely shoved to the very back of the line. Corellia wasn't even allowed into it at all."

"Something Rendili, Kuat, and the others couldn't be happier about." The Korun nodded. "Though I still think Master Siith went a little too far with the Corellian shipbuilders. The greater share of the blame lies with the Green Jedi, after all."

"And you have no objections to their 'punishment'?" Master Rancisis raised his thick eyebrows. "To be perfectly honest, the 'offense' committed by our brothers from Corellia… hardly qualifies as an offense at all. In my view, the head of the JMG dug his heels in rather childishly. It feels… immature, I suppose."

"The Corellian Jedi." Windu let out a heavy sigh. "Their enclave has long displayed a certain degree of isolationism and disregard for the Council's decisions. So, in a sense, I'm even grateful to Dziha for giving them a sharp flick on their upturned noses."

"Hmm? Do I hear a touch of gloating in your words, Master?" Rancisis gave a surprised, hissing laugh.

"You're mistaken." The dark-skinned Jedi shook his head. "As far as I'm concerned, it was a lesson. If not for the arrogance and dismissiveness of some of our brothers from Corellia, none of this would have happened."

"But that arrogance did not come from the enclave's senior Jedi."

"Undoubtedly. But properly training one's Padawan is a teacher's responsibility. And if Padawans treat us with disregard, that isn't a very good sign for the Corellian enclave as a whole, you understand? Even before that incident, I'd noticed something of the sort more than once when speaking with the Greens, and I'd even discussed it with Master Yoda…" Windu didn't continue. Instead, he simply spread his hands as if to say, and this is where it led.

"Hmm… I still hope Master Siith changes his mind eventually."

"I'm certain he will," the Korun said with a faint smile. "As soon as he's fed his ego with enough apologies and wrung out compensation that satisfies him."

"Masters." Knight Kenobi's Padawan, passing by, respectfully inclined his head.

"Padawan Skywalker." Rancisis greeted him with a good-natured smile, while Windu gave a slight nod.

"Speaking of which, there goes another thing I'm pleased about," the Thisspiasian said, turning his attention back to the Korun once the boy had moved farther away.

"Knight Kenobi's Padawan?"

"That's the one, that's the one." Oppo Rancisis nodded in satisfaction. "Obi-Wan told me his Padawan has grown calmer. And there's something about him now… Let's put it this way: I can feel that the boy has come a little closer to the harmony with the Force—and with himself—that a Jedi needs. I don't think anyone would argue that the hem of our mutual acquaintance's robe is peeking out from behind all this."

"Yes, I won't argue with that." Windu shook his head thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "I opposed Knight Kenobi's decision, but Master Yoda was right: a teacher understands his student better. Skywalker really has become calmer since learning that his mother is safe. But I still believe Master Jinn's decision was a mistake. Chosen One or not… the boy was simply too old to be accepted into the Order."

"That's exactly why his upbringing should be different." The Thisspiasian waved one impressively clawed hand, inviting Windu to continue down the corridor. "Now I simply don't understand how we failed to arrive at such an obvious solution ourselves: buy the boy's mother out of slavery and give her a peaceful life on some quiet world… And even before that, think back, Master—not everyone who joined the Order was a child. You could find fully grown sentients among the Padawans as well."

"But we abandoned that practice…"

"Forgive me, Master Windu," Rancisis interrupted the Korun. "But let us not forget that a vast Shadow of the Dark Side now hangs over the future of both the Order and the galaxy, clouding the sight of even the strongest Jedi among us. Just imagine that Master Qui-Gon Jinn was right and the boy truly is the Force's Chosen One.

"Separatist sentiment across the galaxy is growing stronger. Even if the Sith are not behind it—which I doubt—I don't think the Dark Side will pass up the opportunity to exploit what is coming. And I very much doubt the Sith would have overlooked this child. That Zabrak proved there were dark gifted on Tatooine, and they could easily have taken notice of young Skywalker once Master Jinn showed an interest in him. Especially after the boy's feat on Naboo.

"Personally, I would rather none of our brothers or sisters ever have to face him in the future, trained by our enemies and armed with a red lightsaber."

---

"What a quarrelsome hag! No wonder she called herself Xo-Gnawn… or was it Xo-Kusan?" I muttered, mounting a proper defense against the guardian shadow.

By now, I was practically certain that this undead thing really was an artificially created incorporeal necroconstruct with a pseudo-personality, rather than the spirit of some ancient Sith. Its behavior gave it away: before I opened the hidden door, it had acted more or less harmlessly—relatively infrequent attacks, threats, attempts at psychological pressure.

Not that any of it had been entirely safe. It would definitely have killed any one of my students. At their current level, they simply didn't have the skill to stand against it.

As for gifted trained in the Force tradition, though, that was another question. With their tricks—precognition, telekinesis, acceleration, physical enhancement—I figured a well-trained Jedi Knight could probably handle her.

But!

Everything changed the moment I opened the door to the hidden cache, and now I seriously doubted anyone short of a Master could stand against Xo-Kusan. The undead thing, which until then had merely been angry and aggressive, completely lost what passed for its mind and turned into a howling engine of death, bombarding me with every Force technique it had and whatever physical objects it could get its hands on.

This time I actually had to work up a bit of a sweat, adjusting to the guardian's changed behavior. My spellcasting speed was nowhere near that of combat mages with their "narrow" pool of memorized spells, but I was very good at rapidly modifying and restructuring magical constructs that were already in place.

Good thing I sent the Mandos back to the ship, the thought flickered at the edge of my mind.

My vision was swimming with flashes of lightning, chunks of shattered wall, and all kinds of smaller debris whipping through the air. A dozen or so Force constructs had latched onto the multilayered shield—some vampiric in nature, while others, apparently, were trying to break through the defenses.

Good.

Excellent, even.

You couldn't really get much proper practice against Jedi on Jabiim, after all. I didn't want to reveal some of my own tricks, and they never went all-out either.

Though even if they had…

For all my fondness for Knights Nema and Allie, the two of them together still didn't amount to a truly serious opponent.

"Well… I think that's enough," I muttered once I'd gathered the information I needed and was already countering the guardian's entire arsenal without much effort.

I suspected the rag could have unleashed something more serious, something more powerful, but neither of us did. Probably for the same reason I hadn't: she didn't want to wreck her creator's tomb. She was a guardian, after all, not part of a demolition crew.

I found the phylactery.

The vessel-projector stood right there in the hidden chamber, and I was already about to start constructing a seal around the area…

"Indeed. It is time to stop."

The aggressive rag vanished an instant before a rather beautiful female voice, carrying only the faintest trace of otherworldly overtones, rang through the tomb. All the lingering "Force spells" dissipated with it.

"Not Jedi, not Sith, not Je'daii… unexpected. Come inside. I wish to speak with you."

"Hmm…"

I'll admit, I felt a little disappointed again. I was curious to see how the ghost would behave once it lost its connection to its vessel.

Oh well.

As far as I could tell, the woman who had just spoken to me was the creator of that scandalous little monstrosity, so if our introduction went well, there would still be a chance to test it all properly.

I stepped into a fairly spacious chamber done in the same style as the rest of the tomb: gloomy desolation.

Near the center of the hall stood a stone pedestal, and atop it rested the little pyramid I had glimpsed from the corridor and identified as the guardian's phylactery.

Quite a beautiful piece, I had to admit.

Blood-red, with gold inlays, covered in unidentified symbols and ornamental flourishes. It gave off a faint glow… if you could even call it that. The pyramid's dim radiance was more like the light of darkness, though it didn't stop me from seeing everything clearly.

A rather interesting effect. And, I had to admit, the contrast of crimson, gold, and darkness was impressive in its own way.

"Curious…" I drawled, studying the legendary holocron itself while inwardly rubbing my hands together in anticipation.

"Curious," the female voice echoed from a sharply defined, translucent figure that looked nothing at all like the gray rag from before.

"Pee-peeee!" the Quartermaster, poking out of my pocket, chirped with obvious disappointment as he looked around. My pet was clearly upset by the absence of piles of gold and precious gems.

"Because knowledge is the true treasure," I said with a smile, scratching the hamster under the chin before giving the incorporeal woman of a species I didn't recognize a polite bow. "My name is Siith'khara'Dziha. I'm glad to finally behold the mistress of the tomb, and I apologize for my persistence in seeking an audience, esteemed Xo-Kusan."

"Lady XoXaan," the mistress of the complex corrected me, her voice carrying mockery, a trace of irritation, and a generous helping of undisguised curiosity. "Who are you? You were not supposed to be here. In none of the futures the Dark Side showed me was there a man with a rodent so… persistent"—a slightly malicious smile cut across her white face, marked here and there with black patterns—"in securing an audience."

"My apologies, Lady. The tomb guardian's diction was somewhat… difficult to make out," I said with a polite, apologetic smile, earning nothing more than a raised eyebrow in response.

Interesting! That smile of mine had unsettled liches before.

"As for me, I'm a sorcerer, a researcher, and the head of the Mages' Guild. I've long been interested in, uh… the Dark Side, so when I finally got some long-awaited leave, I decided to visit Korriban. There are plenty of legends surrounding this world, so I was hoping to find something interesting here."

"Interested in the Dark Side?" A faint infernal chuckle carried a touch of disdain and a small measure of curiosity. "And what is it that draws you to it? Strength? A thirst for power? Freedom?"

"No, no. I already have all of that." I waved a hand dismissively, dispelling the faint, almost imperceptible pressure on my mind and watching my conversational partner raise an eyebrow once again. "Research interest. I'm curious about the principles by which the gifted—Jedi and Sith—interact with mana, or the Force, as you call it. I'd be interested in questioning the Je'daii you mentioned as well, but as far as I understand, they're even harder to find in the galaxy than living Sith."

"Je'daii," XoXaan corrected me. "I'd say they're impossible to find." A faint smirk touched her lips, though most of the disdain had vanished from it by now. "Those who followed the Balance… ceased to exist a very long time ago. Time proved that Balance was a dead end."

"Hmm…" I fell silent in thought.

Probably best not to point out that practitioners of the Dark Side had nearly vanished from the face of the galaxy as well.

"That is temporary." The woman's smile turned anticipatory. "The day is not so far off when the Baneites will demonstrate both the power of the Dark Side… and the failure of Bane's own teachings. And after that… well, that hardly concerns you, my uninvited… guest." This time her smile was awash with sarcasm, and it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. "No, I'm not reading your thoughts…"

"It's just written all over my face?" I finished for the translucent figure with a restrained smile.

"Correct, sorcerer. That hesitation of yours was rather eloquent." A short chuckle. "The cycles of endless war between Sith and Jedi follow one after another. These days, though, the scale of the conflict has dwindled considerably. Especially disappointing is this pathetic scurrying of two rats… Always two there are. A Master and an Apprentice."

Now my conversational partner's smirk twisted into a genuinely vicious sneer, her face showing open disgust.

"You don't agree with their teachings?"

"That much is obvious." The woman snorted, folding her arms beneath her breasts. "And I don't give a damn about their justifications. Master-apprentice, master-apprentice… Killing one another over and over again, they only lose strength and knowledge."

"But…" I glanced toward the holocron.

"Nonsense." The woman's cheek twitched. "With rare exceptions, a Sith will never teach an apprentice everything they know. Some knowledge and experience will inevitably be lost. Repositories of knowledge can be damaged, hidden away, or deliberately destroyed. Back when our Order was numerous, that wasn't critical. But over the last millennium…"

Well, someone had clearly been stewing in this for a few millennia. Or maybe the old fossil was simply starved for a living audience—she'd already forgotten all about that solemn this doesn't concern you from a moment ago.

Old people. The sky used to be bluer, the grass greener, and today's Sith couldn't hold a candle to the "real ones."

To be fair, this particular fossil had actually been there.

"Still," XoXaan went on, neatly confirming my thoughts, "the Jedi have sunk as low as they can go. For a thousand years they've failed to notice the Darkness right under their noses. They've grown weaker, gone soft, lost their authority… Pathetic. Those sanctimonious prigs were weaklings even in my time, and now they inspire nothing but contempt. Turns out all it took for them to start degenerating was to lose sight of the Sith."

"Ahem… maybe." I shrugged, trying not to provoke a negative reaction from my conversational partner. "I haven't been around here long, so my information is limited. Just the broad strokes: Jedi good, Sith bad, Jedi won, but somewhere out there the resistance is still scurrying around."

"Exactly—scurrying around. Excellent choice of words." The woman laughed, though a second later she frowned. "But I wouldn't call what the Jedi achieved a 'victory,' either. The war between Darkness and Light has raged for so long that the confrontation a thousand years ago could be called little more than a skirmish. I know. I am XoXaan. I was one of the first Sith Lords—one of those who left the Jedi Order to seek the truth through the Dark Side."

"Oooh…" I barely stopped myself from rubbing my hands together in anticipation. "Then I really got lucky!"

"I would…" She gave me an ironic look. "…not be so quick to celebrate, sorcerer. Incidentally, I'm curious about something as well. That is the only reason you're still alive, and why I have graciously deigned to give you my attention." The ghost's lips curled into a mocking smile. "Tell me, you who calls yourself Siith: why is your fate a blind spot? Why do your manipulations of the Force look so utterly alien? Satisfy the curiosity that has unexpectedly awakened in me after thousands of years, and perhaps I'll allow you to leave this place unharmed."

---

Original Russian story

You can find more chapters on my Patreon.

The translation of new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.

 

[FTR2017]

Later on ... .

The Gungan: Why is bossa pulling a trinket and ghost with a leash?
Siith: They thought they could kill me, so to the vivisection department we go!
The Ghost Sith: I'm a ghost, I can't be vivisected!
Siith: That's quitter's talk! I knew some liches who loved turning wraiths into books to dissect their thoughts and learned to do the same!
The Ghost Sith:

 

[haylo]

The translation is still in progress, and new chapters will also be published here—but with a bit of a delay.
[/QUOTE]

Absolute monstrosities of bones

Click to shrink...

he doesn't seem to understand the implication of giving gods a whole new universe of people to convert and the rewards he could request? Which feels very very odd for his character