Play Testers Wanted Pt. 18

Aoki tapped in and spent less time solving than her first attempt. The same was true for Kyanna. We found it harder to find moves. I solved the last few solutions on the board when I took my turn.

"Teamwork," Aoki exclaimed as the door slid into the floor and out of sight. "The oppressive feeling is less, well, not so intense."

"Holy shit," Kyanna cursed. "Look at all of them." Thousands of sockets containing the mummified remains of the native's honored dead covered the tomb walls. It was a monument to the deceased. "It reminds me of a beehive. The honeycomb design makes it feel like they will swarm us any second now." At the center of the colossal tomb was a tall spire of rock cast in shadows.

"Why are the panels transparent?" Aoki asked, clearly creeped out.

"They revered their dead," I suggested. "There is no natural light down here to hasten the decomposition process." I paused and looked around. "So, where is the light coming from?"

We walked around the area surrounding the pillar. Occasionally a thin shaft of light would fall across one of us. It was Aoki and her gift for spatial awareness that solved this little puzzle. She held up a hand, and we halted our movement. Aoki took baby steps until she discovered one of the hidden lamps. I walked behind her and witnessed the eerie way space warped around the hovering device. While it constantly emitted light, one had to stand within this narrow channel to observe it directly. Just as the brothel possessed pocket dimensions, so did this tomb. We were in grave peril, and I warned Aoki and Kyanna to be cautious. If the lights were all but invisible, so could hidden enemies stand quite close and remain unseen.

"That would explain that sense of being watched I have been feeling," Aoki admitted. "You could hide an army in here and not see any of them." The soft hissing sound echoed her words--a host of sibilant lips laughing in the dark between dimensions. "Aw fuck no," Aoki cursed as the guardian legion of the dead race whispered to us from beyond.

"Get ready to defend yourselves," I called to Aoki, but she was gone and snatched away from this tridimensional realm to God only knew where. "Kyanna..." Too late, she too had fallen prey to the damnable things. The army of the dead greeted me as I realized I was alone and moved unrealized into the hellish realm. The stench of ten thousand open graves greeted me as the slow-moving corpses rose to greet their solitary victim. I readied my weapons as I regarded my surroundings. The maddening geometry was worse than the smell. The hexagonal windows oozed glowing green ichor, but it was the size of those windows that had changed and defied normalcy. They had all once been the same size. Some of them were titanic in breadth, yet they interconnected without fail each to the other. My vision began to blur as my mind went numb under the assault of alien geometry. I tore my eyes from the walls and focused on the shambling dead.

The host had once been a distinct species. They had once been a bright and brilliant race. Now, however, they were singularly unique in their hideousness. Nothing connected them but the rampant change that been inflicted upon them by the Force, I theorized. They had attempted to impart their collective will upon it if the records are correct, and this was the result, a nightmare army. The lure of knowledge drove them to this end. They looked deep into higher and lower planes of existence. Here, down in the depths, the Force lost its sanity. They had sacrificed hundreds to create a single Force-sensitive citizen. It took thousands of them to delve so deep and far away from the light. They must have hoisted millions onto the profane altar to meet their needs. To appease the lost, they built this tomb to house their physical remains. But here, down in the pit of hell, the souls of the forfeited endured. The laws that bound the world I knew of no longer applied. I just hoped my weapons could harm them.

"Join us," the solitary voice of the masses spoke. "The Force is strong with you."

"Fuck no," I growled as my grip tightened on my unlighted weapon.

"If you won't, surely, they will," the host laughed. "We will infect you, and with your power, we will break free and contaminate the galaxy!" I heard the faint echo of Kyanna's and Aoki's voices.

What kind of crossover is this? The legion vanished and the dimensional maze manifested in their place--cyclopean walls depicting hundreds of worlds outside living and going about their lives unaware of the growing threat. An invasion not from orbit or landing craft. No, the very fabric of reality would twist and shred, releasing the army of madness. I navigated the maze, and with each step, I crossed light-years of distance. There were planets I was familiar with and just as many I had yet to visit. Myriad species were experiencing their mundane lives, never guessing the danger hiding behind a thin membrane of folded space/time. The floor of the maze rose and fell as I walked its intricate passageway.

"You idiot!" I chastized myself as I lifted the gem around my neck and gazed into its familiar depths. Then, when I focused my attention on the design at its center, I felt it respond. An indescribable rightness welled up inside of me, granting me strength and a sense of purposeful direction. I knew the way out. Hope burned in me where I had felt only despair. "I can do this. We can do this." I hollered, and they responded. "I feel you! I have strength enough for this." I cried through clenched teeth. The weight of their consciousness slowed me down, but there was no way I would abandon my students. There was no rush, just one foot in front of the other. It was a replay of sorts of the thumbprint test. Only, this time all three of us were striving to solve the maze. I fell forward onto my knees. The abrupt loss of resistance sent me sprawling. I felt someone land on top of me.

"We," Aoki whispered through chattering teeth. "We made it."

"I can't move," Kyanna gasped. Her sweat and spittle splashed my cheek as her sun-cooked body desperately attempted to cool itself. Though all my bars we deep in the yellow, I sent out healing energy to them. I stopped only when my life brushed crimson. We knelt and clung to each other as we meditated and restored ourselves.

"I love you," I said, and they knew I meant both of them. "Do you feel it?"

"Something has poisoned the Force," Kyanna gasped.

"I have felt this before," I admitted as I recalled the trip through the anomaly. "When we left Lehon and journeyed through the tear, it felt like this. Souls of Jedi and Sith that could not join with the Living Force. There was madness there too. We need to heal it if we can. I am going to try and give back for all that I have taken. It is only right to repay the Force."

"It could kill you," Kyanna hissed in fear. "You could end up like them, those things."

"There is no fear, only acceptance," I muttered as I continued to meditate. "There is no surrender, only the path. There is no faltering, only the will of the Force."

"You are making that up," Aoki laughed. Something stirred around us. "They don't like humor."

"So, no shit, there I was," I launched into a bawdy story about a backward world, a curvaceous princess, and how I had turned certain death into a tickling contest. "Who knew ears could be so damn sensitive." We all laughed, and soon we were back in the Green. We rose to our feet and looked at our surroundings. The flat plane seemed to stretch on forever. Occasionally a flash of sourceless light glittered off a spinning mirror-bright object. "We are beyond the maze."

"A red sparkle," Aoki pointed, and after a short pause, we all saw it. "Holocron?"

"Must be, watch your step," I urged as we linked hands. We moved slowly and dodged the rotating panes of glass. They held no images this time as they had within the confines of the path here, wherever here was. Though the area we walked along appeared to be level, the Holocron and the pillar below it came into view over the horizon. The terrain changed again. This time there were a series of concentric irregular bluffs, depressions, and alternating landscapes. It made holding hands impossible. I lead the way, and the others walked close behind. There was nothing but hard-packed earth beneath our feet. We circled the obelisk from a cliff that overlooked it.

"I hate this place," I cursed. "One moment, the pillar is rising from the horizon. The next, it is below our feet."

The towering slab of rock was hexagonal. Each side was twenty feet across and etched upon its surface a different set of symbols. We walked around the base of the faceted sides of the obelisk. Most of the characters were unfamiliar to us, save two. One was, in fact, the full-spectrum alphabet of the ancient race below the surface of Lehon. The other I knew from the world of Tython. It belonged to the giants that called it home before the Je'Daii arrived. I had walked among those ruins many times and failed to decipher the language. "Two deep core species on the same spire, coincidence, I think not."

"Two?" Kyanna exclaimed, her curiosity kindled. I explained my time on Tython and my training with the Je'Daii. Aoki cried out and grabbed her head. Kyanna held her as I strode forward to protect them both. The air buckled, stretched, and finally tore open. Bright blue-green fluid gushed from the rift, and the water propelled a pale-skinned figure onto the ground. The flow ebbed and ended, allowing a second being to enter the area. The hooded entity looked at us from beneath their cowl and regarded us silently.

"Istari!" Kyanna exclaimed and rushed to the fallen woman. I recognized her race instantly once I got a good look at Istari. She was from the same species I took on when I encountered the Mandalorians and the Brotherhood on Tatooine, an Arkanian Offshoot. "Is she okay?"

"If I didn't know any better, I would swear she was suffering from hibernation sickness," Kyanna replied. The Mirialan dipped her fingers into the colored mud and sniffed them. "Strong chemical scent. I am unfamiliar with it."

"Titrocit Megas," the stranger said. "It is refined from a fungus found on Kerallis V. When mixed with a specific regiment of minerals and botanicals, you get a strong regenerative. Istari was barely alive when I rescued her." The woman reached up for her hood and spoke. "Come now, Ghost, have you forgotten me already?" The regal Corellian female winked at me, and I felt a spark of familiarity.

"Xim," I hissed. She had switched from the albino Twi'lek to a human since our last encounter. "What are you doing here?"

"She said we would see her again," Aoki said as Kyanna used Force heal on Istari.

"I was Xim," the former dictator replied. "Now, I am a nameless, faceless shadow wandering the galaxy in search of excitement. After fleeing a particularly one-sided fight, ship damaged, I made a blind hyperspace jump and ended up here. I will uncover the secret of that Holocron."

Then it hit me, how was she able to open that portal? It wasn't obvious, but she had aged since we last saw her. Was time as warped as space down here? It might explain her demeanor, body posture, and a lingering wrongness surrounder her.

"Why? How? You aren't force-sensitive," I said as she changed her shape and took on the playful aspect of the Twi'lek I had last seen her as when she departed Tython and before we entered the thumbprint challenge. "Stupid me. You lured the Jedi here to do the heavy lifting. I guess Istari reached this point but was wounded. She had enough strength to open a portal, and you patched her up for future opportunities."

"I like your current shape," Xim purred, ignoring my words before continuing. "So Ghost, what does this damn thing say? My best translators have failed to crack the code."

"If Istari was in stasis, how did you open the portal?" Aoki beat me to it.

"Yes, how did you get here?" I asked. "You aren't a Force-sensitive." The sense of wrong grew exponentially by the second until Xim replied.

"I wasn't one you mean," she said. Xim's voice was now deep in the male register as her form became fluidic and shifted a second time. She was facing away from me as she continued. "Xim went to Korriban. She wanted to unlock the secrets of the Force. So confident since she had eluded death and let the galaxy believe her destroyed. She wanted to be like you, be with you." He turned to face us, his fingers brushing the sparkling gem at his throat. "There are many uses for Kaiburr crystals some might find unnatural."

"Darth Andeddu!" I exclaimed. "I saw images of you in the Valley of the Dark Lords." His skeletal visage matched the colossal statue of the first Darth and God King of the Sith order. He was death incarnate. I wondered why he was so damned reserved. This guy wrecked whole armies single-handedly. What the fuck was going on? The answer was simple, he needed us alive, for now.

"Andeddu," Kyanna cursed. "I have read about you in the Jedi archives. The histories hinted that you had mastered spirit transference."

"You mean," Aoki said as her hands drifted to her blasters. "That thing stole Xim's body."

"I did indeed," Darth Andeddu bragged. "Though I was not sure you would win through to Karcher, the Black City."

"Karcher," I whispered. Recollection escaped me until a slumbering memory flashed freshly to my thoughts--a dead city of dark pillars and something older than humanity. The image of a strange scepter blazed in my mind's eye--the question-mark-shaped device held in my hand. A dark sphere hung in the air pierced by a hundred thin wires that wove from the inner curve of the relic, through the stone, and anchored on the other side expertly. Somehow I knew that the tool could manipulate gravity and was vital to raising a thousand pillars standing around me. "The Talon of Tiamat."

"What?" The Sith Lord asked. "I have never heard of such a thing." He paused as I recovered. "I will make a deal with you, Ghost. If you get me the Holocron, I will give you Xim's spirit in exchange," Andeddu bartered as he stroked the Kaiburr crystal containing Xim's soul.

"Agreed," I snarled. The Dark Lord's eyes fluttered shut. "If you renege on this, you will wish you were still sleeping among your kindred on Korriban or wherever they buried your ass."

"Ooh, your hatred is so potent," he moaned. "I see why the legends of your exploits are so popular." A momentary pause before he continued. "What does the pillar say?"

"Let's take a look," I replied and adjusted my visor to cover the entire electromagnetic spectrum. While I had little faith in any chance of deciphering the writing, it gave me time to think. I had no skill with spirit transfer. So, even if I did get ahold of the crystal, Xim was still trapped. I hated the thought of the dark lord parading around in her flesh. As Traci and I worked on the translation, I heard the faint tinkling sound like wind chimes. So, why did my skin crawl when I listened to it? The more I listened to it, the more I realized it wasn't chimes but metal chains. In my mind's eye, I saw thousands of chains hanging from a darkened roof or ceiling. Someone or something moved through the chains causing the links to strike the others and give off cacophonic music. I could almost imagine a carefree hand brushing against the lengths and soft demonic laughter.

"I am coming," the demonic voice sang.

I tore my mind away from the vision and stumbled as I recovered with a titanic effort of will. It was sheer luck that I spotted it. I was standing at precisely the right angle to see the second set of symbols. There were two of them. One was the obtuse alphabet of the Lehon aliens, and the other was plain old Galactic basic. I straightened and took a snapshot for Traci to use for the translation. I went around and found the other Rosetta stones and captured them for future use. If I return to, no, when I returned to Tython, I would make a pilgrimage to the giant's city and see what I could learn. For the first time since entering this damned area, I felt a genuine sense of hope.

"We will get out of here," I said aloud.

No one spoke or agreed with me. The atmosphere of this place was affecting them, or perhaps infecting them would be closer to the truth. If I had to be the sole spark of inspiration, then so be it.

"Pleasure... pain... it's all the same," she sang. The demon whispered to me, to all of us. "Welcome to the maze of carnal desire, the Labyrinth of Pain," she whispered in my ear. "I am the illumination of your deepest, darkest desires. Show me your true self, Ghostfire."

I shifted with little effort to the form of the Zabrak I had used on Tython. The shape I had fucked senseless a few of the female students and instructors. The need to pound the living hell out of Kyanna and Aoki was becoming overwhelming.

"Got it," Traci chimed in cheerily. "You okay, boss? Your hormones are off the scale."

"Yeah, fine, show me," I stammered weakly. I had barely escaped having my way with my students, whether they wanted it or not. Andeddu was next to me, demanding a translation.

"What does it say?" He snapped a hint of desperation in his voice.

"He who wins shall lose, and those that lose shall win." I deciphered the rest, and it became clear why Andeddu was here. Despite the longevity granted by Xim's body, time was catching up to him. "It also states that whoever solves the Holocron will be given immortality."

"Whose is it? The Holocron, who made it?" Andeddu asked.

"Darth Cruentus." I looked at the text, but it wasn't clear. The honorifics were all wrong. My best guess was the Mistress of Pleasure and the Lord of Pain. It was the nearest thing I could come to a sadist.

"I approve," Andeddu laughed.

"Look," Aoki pointed at the nearest spinning mirror.

"Yes, I saw that," Kyanna said. "Someone needs to solve the Holocron," Kyanna continued. "The door to the tomb closed behind us."

She was correct. The multi-ton door had slid upwards and sealed us in; we turned our attention to the Holocron and our survival. I demanded to know the nature of the attempts to acquire the relic. Darth Andeddu revealed how he had lured not just Jedi Sentinels but also a single Jedi Shadow to his cause. The Shadows were elite members of the Jedi Order that actively pursued dark siders and Sith artifacts, like this Holocron. Istari was that Jedi Shadow.

"Only one of the Sentinals survived the trials, and she is insane," Andeddu purred. "However, the Shadow failed but endured long enough to be placed in a healing tank." Istari groaned as she gained consciousness.

"Battlemaster? What are you doing here?" Istari asked as she shifted to a sitting position. "By the blood, I am back here."

"As enticing as it would be to have you run around naked, it would prove too much of a distraction," I said. I pulled clothes for Istari to wear from my inventory.

"Katria Forgemaster, your reputation precedes you," Istari replied as she dressed. "I do not recognize the style of these robes."

"They are the equivalent in rank to that of a Jedi Knight," I told her. "They belong to the Je'Daii. Wear them with honor." I looked at her hands and recognized the pattern of calluses. "Here, it is a double-blade lightsaber."

"You are too generous," Istari blushed as she attached the weapon to her belt. "I will not let you or my master down. What is our attack plan?"

"After you tell me what happened to you, we will hold a council of war," I stated and listened intently to not just her verbal account but her body language as she spoke. I looked at the obelisk while I took in the actions of the Jedi Shadow. Finally, I got an idea to look for a weak spot in the Holocron's defenses. My inventory held a slew of things, both practical and mundane. Among those everyday items was a bag of sand from Korriban. It should do the trick. "We need a visual on what is defending the pillar and the Holocron. My idea is simple. The same way certain aerosols reveal laser beams, I believe this sand might expose our goal's security. Get ready to help levitate and spread out the sand."