Leaderboard

Feeling the walls, floor, and ceiling dissipate into the void of endless nothingness, Bernon Mrrgwharr was caught off guard. He had not suspected such a thing, and had no idea how to counter it. The feeling was horrid, unnatural, no feelings were here, he couldn't even feel the blade that was in his hands. He tumbled around, and knew that this void had no escape. He could not take the feeling, he would not become a damned soul thrashing in the void in pain for all eternity! He had nothing left to do now, as his inner monsters, the demons of his past crept in. The brutal training he faced that shaped him into the uncaring, Lawful Evil, monster that he was. He was trained to be merciless, brutal, and disciplined. If only his parents had known what daily physical pain he faced there he might not have been sent. While he was grateful for being turned into the man he is today, he hated those who trained him, they were abusive and cruel, and they had turned him into the same exact thing. He was kicked around by even the other students, treated as if he was worthless junk, and nothing but a nuisance. Only his instructors were worse, it seemed as if he was beaten almost daily. He had to become like them, and only through his strength did he force those students around him to treat him like he was something more than a slave, like he was the master. He could never make his masters, the instructors, however, feel like they were his underlings, and he was always abused by them, as long as he lived around them, he was in danger. He had been shackled, as a slave, metaphorically. Those were his chains, just like the chains the Alliance had given him, and he would never have a chance to break those chains as a true Master of the Sith, because he was condemned to die in the void! His mind could not take this fact, and it began to tear at him. Negative thoughts crept into every corner of his mind. Most prominently the idea that he had been tricked, this Maze was no test, it was a trap. His irrational and insane thoughts went all throughout his mind, breaking it as it had nearly been broken not too long ago. His mental pain was horrid, and so was his physical discomfort. Here, while there was no pain, he could feel nothing, nothing at all. It was like all life, all existence, had been sucked out of this place, even the concept of time seemed to have no meaning here. As a last ditch attempt to save himself from this abomination of an existence, he lashed out with the Dark Side. He drew upon all the mental anguish he had ever felt, the horrid treatment at the Academy, the hate he had for the shackles in his life, and all other passions in his reserve. As he drew upon these, he brought upon the void the most power he could give. He brought out all his pain, his hatred, his anger, and his fear, and as he screamed and released it into the void, it fell apart. The void was gone, and he found himself, with a broken mind, crumpled on the ground. He rose, shakily, to his feet, he was back in the Maze, and he could feel again. He now truly grasped the Dark Side of the Force, in all its power, its glory, and its horrifying nature. He rose, rested for a few minutes, regathered his strength, both mentally, emotionally, and physically, and began to move once more. He prepared himself for another encounter as he walked. He also realized that his thoughts on this place being a trap instead of a test were incredibly irrational, if it were simply a trap, he wouldn't have made it this far. He continued traveling down the pathway in the maze, and held the Limnal Blade out before him, marveling at the weapon he was gifted with, and at the same time, staying cautious for another attack. As he had given himself more to the Dark Side, he began his slow transition to the possible future of his looks that he saw, as the vision had some merit, in that he would one day look like the man that was before him in the vision. His veins had begun to become darker, and his skin was a bit more pale, though he had not lost any hair just yet.

Deep below the Praxeum, Darth Xervatus picked his way through a set of winding tunnels. It was interesting, you could see the increasing urgency of the excavation work as you walked along. At first, it was perfect grid of square passages, mathematically precise, clean cut, and reinforced at regular intervals. The floor and walls were swept clean and sanded smooth. Then, the passages stopped following the grid, and instead started to move with the stone instead of through it. Several spots had uneven floors where the workers had taken advantage of existing passages formed by underground streams. Further along, the once clean stone was coated in gradually thicker layers of dust. Just a bit further along, Xervatus had to weave past discarded bits of machinery, left behind where they'd broken. As he neared the end of one tunnel, he had to step over the body of a worker, similarly discarded after he'd broken. "Foreman, report," he called. A boxy DV-supervisor droid waddled up to the elderly Sith Lord. "PER SCHEDULE, WE HAVE REACHED ALL REQUIRED FAULT POINTS. STRUCTURAL READINGS ARE WITHIN EXPECTATIONS. HOWEVER, EFFICIENCY OF EXCAVATION HAS DROPPED BELOW ACCEPTABLE LEVELS. DETONATION OF SEISMIC CHARGES AT THE PRESENT CONDITIONS WOULD ONLY RESULT IN A 47% CHANCE OF MAJOR STRATUM SHIFT. EXCAVATION BY THE INVADERS WOULD STILL BE POSSIBLE." "How much longer do you need?" "WORK FORCE IS DETERIORATING. WITHOUT ADDITIONAL-" "Brief answer, please." "...42 HOURS, AT MINIMUM." "Then we're out of time. 47% will have to be enough. Begin readying the charges. Have the other preparations I requested been completed?" "AFFIRMATIVE. ALL REQUESTED MATERIALS HAVE BEEN ENCASED IN CARBONITE." "Good, at least that's on track. Have the detonation code sent to my commlink, I'll detonate once I receive the signal from you that everything is ready. My chamber should be just beyond here?" "AFFIRMATIVE." If the droid had an opinion of Xervatus openly stating he would bury him and his entire workforce alive, it didn't show it. This was their plan. Or rather, this was Xervatus' plan. The calculations to pull this exact stunt off had been lengthy, but if they were right then Xervatus could bury the Praxeum out of reach of these rebels. With seismic charges set in precise locations, they could fracture the very bedrock down to a nearby fault line. The tunnels beneath the Praxeum would collapse, but the building above would seem unharmed...at first. The newly unstable ground would move with the fault line, and if Xervatus was right, the Praxeum would begin to sink as the planet swallowed it up over the course of several hours. Too slow to take any invaders with it, but it would deny them the prize they'd fought so hard to take, along with all the lore and relics still contained inside. Excavating it would be a difficult prospect with the ground so unstable, as any attempt to dig out the Praxeum would hopefully just result in it sinking deeper. It would take a major effort, and even then Xervatus had been determined to spite the invaders. Most of the valuable materials had been moved into these very tunnels, and sealed in carbonite to preserve them. A trained Sith might be able to detect them, but to most scanners they would just be indistinguishable bits of metallic rubble swallowed with the Praxeum. Now, maybe the invaders would commit the resources necessary to undo Xervatus' plot, but even then he wondered if they'd truly be able to find everything he'd scattered. Or if they'd be able to find him? He wasn't planning on dying here. He would encase himself in carbonite just before the detonation, and wait for the Sith to return to Korriban. The Sith always returned. _______________________________ The Home Guard Commander snarled, trandoshan features twisted into what might seem like an expression of hostility to those not familiar with his species. And while he was undeniably hostile, that wasn't the reason for the expression. He felt alive. It had been a long time since he'd been in the field on the front lines. He'd forgotten how much he'd enjoyed it. They'd driven back the first invader to poke their head in, a droid by the looks of it. If they hadn't already, they'd soon learn just how devastatingly effective this strong point was. The entrance hall was wide open in the center, and the artistic sculptures and statues that had once occupied its center had been blasted to rubble to provide a clear firing line. Sandbag emplacements replaced them, each manned by a heavy weapons team with their guns trained on the door. An elevated platform ran around the edges of the room, originally intended to hold monuments to ancient Sith Lords, but now served as a firing line by the Commander's best troops, crouched behind makeshift barricades while training standard blaster rifles on the doorway. One way in. Heavy weapons emplacements scattered across the entire hall. A firing line on three of the four walls. It was a killbox. They might take them, but the Commander intended to make sure they paid for it. Still...they had Jedi with them. And the only Sith they had was down below.