The Dark Academy on Korriban

As the day reached its darkest, just before even the earliest rays would begin to light the horizon, Jun-Tsu walked out into the wilds on her own. She stared at the grey-black landscape, illuminated only by the stars and the moons. The sound of the camp faded away and when at last she could hear nothing but silence she stopped walking.

Her failure today was obvious sign of the Dark Side's displeasure. What should have been hers, whatever small power she might have garnered from her find, was denied her because of her waning faithfulness. She turned her face to the stars, and pulling off her veil and disrobing, she stood in the wilderness.

Running a hand through her fiery red hair, which in the moonlight looked near black against her white skin, she fell to her knees. With arms outstretched and eyes closed she began chanting in some arcane tongue. Whether it was some kind of incantation or just gibberish was hard to tell, but she recited it with fervor.

She called for the Umbră-Ușoară to pour into her, for it to cast out all light and fill her to overflowing. She began to convulse and thrash in rhythm with her chant and around her flecks of green wisps began to appear.

OOC: Discipline or Cool check at Hard, can add Force Die to this dark points can add success of advantage.

Discipline (Willpower) - 1eP+2eA+3eD+1eF = 0 successes, 1 Dark Side (1 success)


The wisps grew in number and began to coalesce into thin contrails that slipped through the air in languid arcs. They darted down in violent lances only to slow again into their slow, almost predatory circling. The Sith witch only grew more adamant, throwing her arms up and raising her chant further.

More mantras to conjure the Dark light of the Force, to purify her of whatever offense she had given. To unify their wills as one, to become a vessel for its glory.

The first contrails finally touched her sending an ecstatic spasm shooting through her frame and she fell back onto the hard-packed sand. A veritable cloud of emerald mist rested around and above her, beginning to encapsulate and spread over her skin.

The tendrils of darkness reach into the dark side of the force and the primal nature of Korriban and something becomes entangled in the darkness a figure that approaches. She seemingly floats as the shadows peal away from the figure until an older woman is revealed, her eyes hidden by the cowl of her tattered hood.

She says, “A child of the dark calls into the night?”

The feeling of the Dark light surging through her made her slow to return to her senses, and she took in deep breaths feeling the forces ebb away to reveal the figure. "I...*pant*....I must be *pant* cleanzed."

She slowly gathers herself and manages to sit upright, clutching a hand to her breast. "I....zeek v'oneness vith zhe Umbră-Ușoară. I hawe not been zhe wessel it vishes. I muzt purify myzelf zhat I am more pleazing to itz vill."

“A witch,” she says, the tone is not accusatory or even disdainful, it simply is.

“You believe you are unclean? Speak of your failings, child.”

Growing more coherent, less euphoric from the abbreviated ritual, Jun-Tsu began to understand, way back in her mind, that she spoke with a stranger. But her senses were still distorted from the intense experience.

"I....I," her head lolled slightly and she placed a hand on her forehead to steady herself. "I am new here. I am not vith mein people. I am....vith zhese non-beliewers. Zhe are," she tried to think of the words.

"Zhey are poizoning me vith zheir vays. Zhey are trying to turn me avay from zhe Dark light to embrace zhere forms, und rotes, und order. It vithholds its boons from me. Zimple talismans, lost in zhe zands, yet it giwes me powerful aid. I..." she felt as though she wasn't making sense and so quieted herself to give time for her head to clear.

“You think there is only a single path to power, child?”

She tsks and says, “The Jedi, the Sith… the witches of your line, Aveeni, the Baran Do sages… the infinite orders, do you think any single path knows the truth?”

"Zhere must be," she said as she finally began to focus, though by now it seemed natural to speak with the woman. "Zhere must be a truth. Vether it iz my House or zhe vays of another zhere must be a truth. Und I hawe felt zhe Dark light, felt its moods, its chaos. It iz alive, mutable und changing. It iz not just zome inert force zhat zome here vish it to be. Zome vell zhat you dip into, passive und at zhere vhim."

“Force is alive, this is true. I do not know if each spectrum has a personality but it lives in all of us. I have seen the dark places… the light places and all things in between. The past and future are mere destinations within the Force,” she says calmly.

“Why must be there one truth?” she challenges.

"I....," she tried to think of a reason that satisfied her.

"Zhere must...," in all honesty she could not think of a plausible reason save one. "Zo zhe Dark Side muzt be ewer changing, surly in each moment zhere iz a truth. A qvality to itz being. A vill und agency. I care not vhat zhat iz from v'one moment to zhe next, I vould only ask to be a part of it. Zhat mein vill und itz vill be v'one."

“What of the Void Engine,” the spirit questions.

“It predates your knowledge, and is steeped in the dark side.”

That caught her attention. She had told only one living soul about the Void Engine and she was certain he hadn't gone and spoken of it. She glanced to where her clothes lay an arm span away. She didn't reach for it, instead turning back to the spirit, "You....know a great deal."

"I...hawen't deciphered zhe Woid Engin yet. It haz taught me much of zhe most ancient empires, but haz told me little about itzelf, itz purpose, or itz intelligence. How it channels zhe Dark Side so perfectly, and consistantly, like a moving convergence of all zhat iz the Umbră-Ușoară. Vhat zhat I could be like it, in zome vay. At zomezhing like harmony vith zhe Dark light."

“I am Darth Traya, I know more than you can possibly imagine, witch,” she says with no spite.

"It seems the time has come to commune with it. Demand its secrets. The dark light is not passive, it is action.”

"I do not," there was a sense of hesitation to Jun-Tsu at the prospect. It did not fly directly in the face of her beliefs, but patience and devotion were core tenants of her faith, such as it was. That in time, through purification and refinement one became like the Dark Side. One did not go out demanding knowledge from a god. What good would it do? And if it were to take notice, would it be lenient towards such rashness.

There was a tinge of fear at the thought, a sense of what it might feel like to be crushed like an insect beneath the infinite power of the Dark Side for her blasphemy.

"H-How does v'one demand zuch things from zo infinite a truth? Zo immense a 'being'?" She spoke the last word as though referring to a state of consciousness rather than a true singular entity.

“Choose your path. You can either master your fear, or be consumed by it. Perhaps patience is the way forward, perhaps it is not. I will not pretend to have all the answers.”

“Fear is necessary, it is the foundation of survival; the primitive instinct that drives all other motivations. It should not define a true seeker of the dark side, does it define you?” she asks watching the witch closely.

Still reticent in her conviction, she steeled herself, even if only for a moment, enough to know what she truly wanted.

"I vant unity vith zhe Umbră-Ușoară," she took in a deep breath. "I vant to know it az no ozther has known it. Und I vant its infinite powver. I vill do vhatewer it takes, vhatewer I must to zee that realized. I care not vhich path, or philozophy, or order. Vhatewer bringz forth zhe glory of zhe Dark Side."

As she spoke her confidence built, and while it was not pervading eve by the end of her words, she could feel a calmness in her.

“Then what will you sacrifice to achieve such unity?” the ghost asks.

"Anyzhing," she was almost surprised at how easy that was to admit. "Eweryzhing. It'z all nothing compared to zhe powver of zhe Dark Side."

“Then let nothing stand in your path, put no love or attachment above your ambition. All steps move towards your goal, be prepared to sacrifice others in your journey. That is what is required,” she says calmly.

"I'we lowe only for zhe Umbră-Ușoară. All otherz are mere diwersionz, momentary bondz. But," again she hesitated but then purged herself of such indecisive weakness.

"Vhy have you come to me?"

“Because I will not allow death to stop my exploration of the Force,” she says.

The ghosts of the past had made themselves known to Jun-Tsu since she arrived. She had long heard tales of Korriban, of the earliest days of the Jen'jidai in the Sith empire. Her family was born from them after all, but for so long it had been so much legend, so much myth.

But she was beginning to understand why this place was considered to sacred even to her family, divorced as it was from the core worlds. The Dark Side permeated everything and everywhere it manifested in unexpected and powerful ways.

"I vish to be zhe zame."

“Then unlock the secrets of the Void Engine, commune with it. Then return to me, and together we can deepen our connection to the living Force, I will be your teacher,” she says calmly.

She took a deep breath and then nodded, "I vill do zhat. I zwear."

In all honesty it was something she wanted to do anyway, but had grown side tracked by trivialities. She'd been lured in by the Academy, as though graduation mattered at all to true knowledge.