0 PTC. Year Zero, Post Treaty of Coruscant.
The Treaty of Coruscant, the Sacking of Coruscant, and the Battle of Alderaan…all of that had taken place a month before I arrived at the academy. I had still been working in the cortosis mines when Darth Malgus stormed the Jedi Temple.
As I stared at the date displayed on my datapad, I was mentally split on how I should be reacting to this.
Part of me was grateful. That meant I had somewhere around twelve years to prepare for the shitstorm that was the Galactic War. Jedi Knights, Sith Lords, and random adepts in the ass-end of nowhere could become galactic figures in about half of that amount of time, with the true prodigies like the Wrath and Kallig only taking a tenth.
The rest of me was terrified. The Cold War era was a time of shadow games and proxy wars. While the Sith Empire and the Republic didn't officially fight each other with armies, the neutral worlds became the battlegrounds. Both sides were spoiling for a fight, but neither side was going to be anywhere close to ready for another decade.
If anything, this was even more dangerous than the Galactic War as everyone was hiding their cards.
The wrong move at the wrong time could reignite the war before anyone was ready. Including me.
With a sigh, I shut the datapad off, pausing for a moment to stare at the image reflected back on the blank screen. In my mirrored face, only my eyes and the dull silver gleam of my cybernetics were visible in any detail. Molten orange had replaced hazel, emphasizing the dark circles around my eyes and casting the scars on my forehead and nose in shadows.
Look at me. Not even a year as a Sith and I've changed so much. I can barely correlate who I am now with what I was like a year and a half ago.
My left hand rubbed the exhaustion from my eyes as I set the datapad aside and sat up. I hadn't been sleeping well lately. General restlessness and the occasional stress-induced nightmare made getting a full night's rest more and more difficult as everything piled up. Meditation helped keep my strength up, but it wasn't a true replacement.
A shaggy hand reached down onto the desk and picked up one of the vambraces sitting in front of me. Gaarurra turned it over in his hands as he examined the changes I'd made. Like what had happened to my sword, the metal had darkened, though it was a pitch-black instead of storm-gray.
The Wookiee ran a finger along the symbols now etched into the armor, which glowed a pale blue, before shooting me a questioning glance.
"A few improvements," I replied truthfully, "Makes the armor stronger."
Gaarurra huffed.
"It's not a waste of time," I shot back, "If you bothered to wear armor, I might whip some up for you too. For someone training to be a Sith Juggernaut, you seem to be rather against the idea of actually wearing armor."
He rolled his eyes. This was an argument we'd had a few times before. For whatever reason, Wookiees did not like wearing more than a bandoleer. If they needed to armor up, they added pauldrons and maybe vambraces.
Maybe it was something to do with how Kashyyyk didn't really have any metal to use, so they never bothered with making any.
And yes, it was awkward for a while after I remembered that my roommate was actually constantly naked. I tried not to think about it too much.
Gaarurra examined the vambrace for a few more moments before handing it back and flopping down on his bed. I think he was more interested in taking a look at the craftsmanship rather than any interest in what it would be used for.
My first venture into Sith Sorcery had gone better than expected. And by that, I mean that nothing unfortunate and/or mind-shattering had happened. I got the materials, went out to an unoccupied cave, did the ritual, and came back.
Using the book Thanaton had recommended, I was able to track down a few interesting tomes that had not been checked out by other acolytes. While most of the material was beyond what I was willing to risk, there had been one on wards and protective enchantments that didn't seem too bad.
That said, there was another spell I made sure to copy down for later practice. I'd been surprised to find it in the section of the Archives I had access to, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. At least, not too closely.
Sith Sorcery usually required one of two things: a focus or a sacrifice, though sometimes both are needed. One example that came to mind was when a neophyte sorcerer destroyed his own hand with a blaster to summon a phantom version of the limb to strangle an enemy.
Not exactly a useful spell when Force Choke was an option, but an example nonetheless. To be fair, the sorcerer in question had been on a power high at the time and not exactly in his right mind.
Braziers were the most common focus for spells, along with ritual weapons, fetishes, and amulets. The spell I laid on the vambraces technically required both the focus and the sacrifice. However, the sacrifice called for was a source of energy separate from the caster. A lit brazier had fulfilled both roles.
If the charm worked right, it should have improved the properties already present in the armor, rather than adding something extra.
From where I propped it up against the wall, my sword quietly hummed.
Like I said. Should. Apparently, I didn't have a great track record with that word. I still didn't know what I did to the thing and that was before I ever touched Sorcery. It already drinks the blood of my enemies, I wasn't sure I wanted to know what else it could do.
And now, it was humming. I blamed my mistranslations.
Gaarurra looked at it with a raised eyebrow.
The sword was quiet for a moment before letting out a short hum.
Gaarurra looked at me. I shrugged. He woofed a question.
"No, I'm not making you one. We don't need two humming swords. We'd never get any sleep," I shook my head, "Besides, I'm still not sure what I did to this one."
As the Wookiee grumbled, I swore I heard the sword rattle in its sheathe.
I massaged my eyes to fend off a growing headache. A woof from Gaarurra got my attention again. When I looked up at him, he gestured at my eyes.
I forced a smile on my face, "Using the Dark Side a lot makes you ugly. This," I waved in the direction of my eyes, "This should go away soon. I didn't exactly do a major working."
Gaarurra gave me the stink-eye and huffed, likely unconvinced. Still, he left it at that and rolled over. He wasn't one to talk though. I thought I saw a hint of gray at the edges of his fur.
While I wasn't too enthused at getting hit with the ugly stick, I was genuinely proud at what I'd done. Though it wasn't quite a professional job, I had created my first piece of true Dark Armor.
For Sith, armor was almost a form of identity. There were many Sith in the galaxy that could be identified by the marks on their armor alone, to the point where their armor became more recognizable than their own faces. It could range from the heavy durasteel plates favored by warriors to the armorweave robes used by inquisitors and sorcerers.
Many made their outfits as ornate as possible to display both their wealth and their power to intimidate their enemies. While full suits of Dark Armor like Warb Null's were rare, many wore at least one major piece of armor augmented by Alchemy, Sorcery, or both.
However, actually making Dark Armor was not a widespread practice. Most current suits of Sith armor were of the mundane variety mass produced in factories. Sith with family history could add on a piece of Dark Armor, usually from an ancestral set of battle armor.
Very few Sith made their own armor anymore. While Sorcerers and Alchemists were still prevalent in the Empire, the number of warriors had begun to eclipse them as a result of more "cannon-fodder" Sith managing to survive as time went on, who had different priorities.
So, these battered and pitted vambraces would become part of my identity, the face I showed to the galaxy. Once I'd repeated the enhancements on the breastplate, that too would be added to my image, with its burns and pits. I glanced at my reflection on the datapad again.
It fit pretty well, all things considered.
A snort from Gaarurra made me look over at him. He'd rolled over on his bed, shaggy back facing me as he snored away like a chainsaw.
I glanced at the time and grimaced at how late it was. Might as well hit the sack as well.
After doing some last bits of hygiene care like brushing my teeth, I climbed up into my bed without changing out of my robes. I didn't have anything else to wear and it got damn cold at night on Korriban, even inside the Academy.
Though I tossed and turned for about an hour, I finally managed to get to sleep.
...
The swish of the door opening and closing woke me up some time in the middle of the night. Everything was dark, so I couldn't see who it was or if they were going out or coming in. Probably Gaarurra getting up for some water or something.
I was about to go back to sleep when a weight pressed down on my bunk.
My eyes snapped open in full just as cold, hard fingers wrapped around my throat, cutting off my air. Above me, two glowing red eyes stared unblinking at me from the gloom. For a moment, all I could do was struggle against its grip, panicking and choking.
Sluggishly, I finally realized I had to do something. I grabbed at the strangely thin wrists of my attacker and pulled, flooding my muscles with the Force to enhance my strength. Metal groaned in my grip, but the hold on my throat held fast with inhuman strength of its own.
When that didn't work, I had to try something else, but I couldn't concentrate enough to use telekinesis. Instead, lightning crackled around my fingers as electricity surged into my attacker, the discharge of energy illuminating their body for a brief moment, revealing blue-gray plating and a skeletal body.
But lightning proved not to be a good idea. While the red eyes above me sparked and dimmed, the grip on my throat was still locked in place. I grit my teeth as my own lightning was conducted back into my body.
Just as I was morbidly wondering if I would be able to tell when my sight went black in a dark room, something grabbed the inert body of my attacker and heaved it off my bunk. Unfortunately, with its deathgrip on my neck, I was pulled along as well. As I landed awkwardly on the floor, the arms cutting off my air flow were ripped away.
Suddenly finding myself with the ability to breathe again, I took great gasps of air to try and alleviate my burning lungs. As I started coughing, the lights flipped on, revealing Gaarurra standing next to the switch. He must have been woken up by the lightning and tried to pull my assailant off me.
At his unspoken question, I nodded to show I was alright, not quite trusting my ability to speak just yet. Seems I owed him one now.
Finally, I got a look at my attacker…and blinked. There, with its arms ripped from its shoulders courtesy of Gaarurra, was the factotum droid that had been tidying up my room for the past five months. Its chassis was scorched from where my lightning had made contact, which had likely fried its internals as well.
Rage flooded me as it hit me.
I'd almost been killed by the fucking factotum droid! After killing Castor and Renning, this was what almost did me in?!
My right hand reached out towards its head for a moment, poised for a Force Crush. But I stopped myself. I breathed in, held it, and then let it out. My knee-jerk reaction wasn't going to help here.
I slowly closed my hand and went back to massaging my throat irritably.
Had the droid finally snapped…or was this someone's attempt to get rid of me? If it was the latter, then who?
I reached out towards the droid again. Metal shrieked and groaned as the joints connecting its head to its body were crushed and torn apart. Its disembodied head then floated up and I stared into its deactivated eyes.
If its memory banks survived the lightning, I was going to find out. If not, I'd find another way.
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