The shyracks didn't get a chance to screech a warning to the rest of the hive before they were crushed into a fleshy slurry. Carefully lowering the bleeding mass to the floor, I continued on. That made swarm number nine, though a small one this time.
Turned out, the Rite wasn't carried out in the academy proper like in the game, mostly because the Sith didn't want to have several hundred wild monsters roaming around in the basement. No matter how prestigious the trial was, no one wanted a k'lor'slug escaping and bursting into their lab at an inopportune moment.
Or worse, building nests where the extermination squads couldn't reach without leveling the building and then bursting into their labs at an inopportune moment.
Instead, the trial grounds were located well outside of the Valley of the Dark Lords. I didn't keep track of how far, but the trip took about three hours by speeder. Nestled in a mountain range I couldn't name, it was housed in the ruins of an old mining town.
While there were a few settlements currently on Korriban, the largest of which was Dreshdae, they all only dated back to the Jedi Civil War at latest. A few more had been established when the Empire retook the planet. This one was far older.
Most of the original Sith settlements were bombarded into dust by Republic forces at the end of the Great Hyperspace War. This one, however, had survived completely intact.
However, I believe the reason had something to do with the place being abandoned some time during Tulak Hord's reign, somewhere around one thousand years after the Exiles came to Korriban. The exact cause was never really elaborated on, though it probably had to do with the hordes of monsters that naturally gravitated to the site.
The town and the surrounding region were used as a hunting reserve of sorts. Unlike the tombs, the Sith deliberately stocked the place with monsters from all over Korriban explicitly for use in the Rite. Though given that monsters migrated here on their own, they didn't really have to do much.
With the size of the town, there were multiple entrance points for the Rite, so multiple acolytes could run the trial at the same time. The twisting mine tunnels stretching deep into the mountain almost ensured that those same acolytes had little chance of encountering one another.
I glanced at a pile of humanoid bones as I walked. I didn't have time to count the bones to figure out how many bodies there were, but there were no skulls among them.
Well, not living acolytes.
A shiver raced across my skin and I huddled under my heavy robes, grateful that I had thought to bring it. As it was, my fingertips, nose, and ears had all gone numb nearly an hour ago and my eyes itched.
Here in the depths, it was bitterly cold, though how much was real and how much was imagined I couldn't tell.
My boots echoed on the rough-hewn stone floors as I walked, the darkness carrying the sound further in. I didn't bother lighting a glow rod, instead using my Force Sight to get by. Soon enough, the tunnel split in three directions.
I felt inside my pockets until my fingers found what they were looking for: the knuckle bone of a humanoid. I concentrated on it for a moment.
Though the owner of the bone had long since been killed and stripped of flesh, their skeleton was still connected by strands of the Force. By using one, I could find the rest. Namely, the poor bastard's skull.
One strand pulled me back the way I came, towards the rest of the body. I ignored it in favor of the other, which pulled me towards the right-hand tunnel.
The Rite of Blood and Bone was as much ceremonial as it was mystical. Trial-goers would venture to the depths to retrieve a skull from a central pile, then trudge back to the surface to soak it in a pool of blood.
Apparently, this would attune it to the one carrying it and cause it to form patterns, which Ragate would then read and tell you something about your future. It was the really morbid version of palm reading.
Exactly how the skulls got there and how they accumulated that much blood were questions left to minds more fractured than mine. Instead, I concentrated on hoping that I wasn't just following the trail to a skull that had already been used for the rite. That would just be downright embarrassing.
So far, the only creatures I'd encountered down here were shyracks, though I'd seen evidence of some k'lor'slug tunnels. There had been some tuk'ata up in the town, but they preferred to roam the surface and avoided the deep caverns unless pushed there.
As for other creatures…well, I didn't doubt there might be a pair of terentateks down here somewhere. If there were any…well, I was screwed. Plain and simple. I had nothing I could use to kill them.
They shrugged off the Force like water and had chitinous hides durable enough to withstand lightsabers with only mild burns. Thankfully, I hadn't seen any sign of them, but they really liked living in places strong with the Dark Side.
That was another worry on top of everything. There was no way this place wasn't a Dark Side nexus, not with the way it attracted monsters. And it was old and powerful.
A nexus like this one didn't just pop up for no reason. They tended to be created by objects of power or by events traumatic enough to leave massive impressions on the universe itself.
The dark miasma in Marka Ragnos' tomb was generated just by his corpse's presence, as the former Dark Lord's power didn't just dissipate with his death, warping the minds of any who wandered in.
The cave on Dagobah was created with the death of a powerful Dark Jedi, forcing visions upon the unwary. The Valley of the Jedi, which contained enough raw power to turn a mortal into a Force god, was spawned by the simultaneous deaths of hundreds of Jedi and Sith in the same spot and the usage of a Thought Bomb.
There was definitely something here, and I wanted no part of it.
With all that, it made sense to have the Rite here, as dangerous as it was. Where a nexus existed, the world twisted around it, allowing a Sith to peer into the future like a Jedi.
That was why there were so many corpses down here. The path to power was a long one and many would jump at the chance to find out where to take the first step. It was a temptation I couldn't resist.
And so here I was.
Another intersection. I turned left this time. The strand of Force gleamed in the darkness.
"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine," I hummed under my breath, just to have something cover the deafening silence.
It sounded distant, rather than from my own mouth.
...
The deeper into the mountain I went, the colder it got. I was starting to wonder if I'd be able to open my fingers to let go of the bone. I've had to stop more than once to try and get feeling back in them with little success. My gloves and heavy clothes were starting to feel useless and they certainly didn't stop the shivers.
I didn't think I could even hold my sword at this point.
The cold took feeling. The silence took hearing. The mustiness of the old tunnels took smell.
Three of my five senses weren't getting much input. It might become four soon if the nexus started overriding my Force Sight.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Each footstep was a second. I'd lost track of how long I'd been down here, but I kept moving forward. Each step reminded me that I was still alive. The tug on my hand reminded me that I wasn't lost.
Not yet.
My breath came out in frosty clouds. It was starting to hurt to breathe, but it wasn't the kind I could negate with Crucitorn. My lips had cracked and started bleeding, but the blood had frozen as it dribbled down my chin. My eyelids were starting to stick and I had to force them open.
Worse, the cybernetics in my face had locked up and iced over, so I couldn't even open my mouth until they defrosted. At least my teeth weren't chattering.
I wanted to stop, but I couldn't.
I kept moving. Stopping meant freezing to death. And I wasn't going to die in some hole in the ground, eldritch horror or not. I was going to get that fucking skull, dunk it in some big-ass pool of goddamn blood, and give it to Ragate.
Then, I was going straight back to my dorm, taking a shower hot enough to melt my fucking skin off, climbing under fifty blankets, and then not come out again until feeling came back to everything.
Then I'd complain to the doctors about not ice-proofing my goddamn cybernetics. Seriously, not being able to open my mouth was really annoying.
The thought made a little warm spot in my chest. Of course, that might be some internal problem making itself known, but I'd take the warmth where I could get it.
I blinked as I took one final turn. Was that…?
There, in the middle of an enormous cavern, was a literal mountain of skulls, bleached from age and surrounded on four sides by unlit braziers. Unlike the tunnels, this room had been shaped into an artwork. Carvings decorated the walls, though many were too worn to see clearly.
In the gloom, the skulls grinned back at me. In my cold-addled brain, they almost seemed congratulatory.
Yeah, definitely the cold. They'd probably be laughing at me.
As I was about to enter the room, I looked up and froze. If my jaw hadn't been iced shut, I would have gaped.
Clinging to the ceiling were thousands of shyrack, with a single massive one in the middle. None of them stirred as I stared. Slowly, I realized that they were asleep.
If I woke them, I died. I could only fight so many at once.
The skull pile was in the middle of the chamber. And it wasn't exactly close.
I tried to reach out for a skull with the Force, to draw one to me without entering the room. It refused to budge.
Letting out a quiet, frustrated breath, I resolved myself to creeping up to the mountain inside of the mountain.
My first step sounded like thunder. Above, a single shyrack stirred. I held my breath until it went still again. My next steps were more confident, but also more cautious. I made sure to keep a wary eye up as I went.
I made it to the mountain without incident other than a few near heart attacks. My near frozen hand reached for a skull, numb fingers wrapping around bone.
As soon as I picked it up, the supernatural cold vanished. All the numbness, all the pain. Gone in an instant. My jaw even worked again, though it was still cold to the touch.
I blinked and looked at the skull. There wasn't anything special about it to my eyes. Just bone. I couldn't tell if it had been a man or woman.
It wasn't until I remembered I was still holding the knuckle bone that I realized that it was from the same body. Strange, but I wasn't going to question it too much.
I placed the skull in my pack and started the nerve-wracking trip back to the door. I was halfway there when I was stopped.
Something stirred, but it wasn't on the ceiling.
Beneath my feet, something moved.
I jumped for the tunnel, reaching it with a single Force empowered leap. As soon as my boots hit the floor again, I ran.
Ragate claimed that this was an altar for the academy's failures, though she was likely speaking metaphorically.
It was an altar, all right. Just to something else.
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