As was apparently becoming the norm for me, I woke up disoriented and extremely uncomfortable. My head throbbed painfully as though punishing me for daring to return to consciousness.
I tried to raise a hand to massage my temples, only to find myself unable to lift my arm.
I cracked open my eyes and looked down as far as I could. Doing so invited a new wave of pain into my head and I found moving my head was difficult as well.
From what I could see, I was sitting on a rack with my arms and legs held in place by metal clamps, completely restricting my movement. That explained the ache in my limbs.
My armor and my shirt had been removed as well, revealing Ragnos' brand on my chest. I glared at it for a moment with a sneer as I tried to reorder my thoughts. Though my mind was still a bit muddy, I was able to shake most of it off to take stock of my situation.
The next thing I did was probe at whatever was around my neck with my chin. As there was a little bit of movement, I learned it wasn't a secured clamp like those around my limbs.
"Great," I grumbled out loud, "Another collar."
If I had to guess, it was probably the same kind that they'd slapped on me for my stint of solitary confinement. If I tried to touch the Force, it would jab me with a needle and inject an unknown toxin into my bloodstream.
I glanced around the "room." It looked like the inside of a tent, so I had to hazard a guess that I was back at the camp. With Graush dealt with, Scriver would take his sweet time with the tomb.
Of course, that would be after he "dealt" with me. It seemed he took offense to me intruding on his dig site without his permission.
There were a large number of uncomfortable-looking tools arrayed around me. Most appeared like they could possibly be medical equipment, but the rest looked like they had nothing to do with healing.
The easiest conclusion to come to would be that he intended to torture me until I revealed why I was here, who I worked for, and what my orders were. Scriver would find himself disappointed on all three counts as I didn't have an adequate answer for any of them.
However…
I glanced down at the brand again. He might be thinking that it was a clue to my non-existent affiliation. It wasn't, obviously, but the mind of a Sith could go places with only the slightest prompting.
Maybe there was some Ragnos-worshiping cult that he had made an enemy of or he was merely considering the possibility that he had and now wanted to make sure.
Since I really didn't want to be tortured, I needed to get out before he had a chance to find out. I remembered that Scriver had been pretty badly injured against Graush, but I might have been unconscious long enough for him to recover. If I was leaving, I needed to do it soon.
Leaning my head back down, I considered my options. If the collar was the same kind I had worn before, I could possibly deactivate it. But I hesitated.
My main problem with that route was whether or not I could deactivate the collar before it could jab me. I'd need to work fast or I'd be dealing with purging whatever poison Scriver had loaded into it on top of having to sneak past his apprentices.
I wasn't as exhausted as I had been after the incident in the training hall, but I was still tired and in pain. Being unconscious wasn't the same as getting a good night's sleep and I'd been strapped to what looked like a torture rack for God knows how long, unable to move.
At least in the force cage I'd been able to stand up and stretch a bit.
However, there was another possibility…
From what I remember, the needles were on the sides of the collar, positioned over my arteries to better spread the poison. There was just enough space between the collar and my skin that I might be able to put up a pair of thin Force barriers to catch them before they could stick me.
From there, I could push the collar apart.
Truth be told, I trusted my abilities with telekinesis far more than I did my other abilities, at least to point of being able to do it quickly.
Just to be safe, I extended the barrier around the entirety of my neck. That year of practicing nothing but telekinesis before being brought to Korriban appeared to have paid off as I managed it just in time.
The click as the collar activated was deafening to my ears, but I breathed out a sigh of relief when there was no stinging pain afterwards.
With barely a thought, the metal collar snapped in half. I left the pieces to drop onto the sand beneath the table as I quickly unlatched the restraints on my arms and legs. Pulling myself up, I groaned as I moved my aching limbs and I had to grab onto the rack to keep myself from collapsing.
"Why am I not surprised?" A familiar voice remarked, "Not even two minutes after waking up and you're already out of your restraints. I find myself starting to doubt your claims of being a mere Acolyte."
I turned to look and found Tyrene standing at the entrance of the tent, leaning lightly against the tent pole. She had discarded her armor and robes in favor of a form-fitting black sleeveless tunic and pants.
One eye ridge was raised and her lips quirked upwards in amusement, though the latter action caused her to wince slightly.
In the darkness of the tomb, I hadn't quite seen the damage she'd taken, but now I could. A nasty looking bruise ran from the left side of her forehead down to the corner of her mouth, likely from when Graush had slammed both her and Ortan into the walls and knocked them out.
A scabbed-over gash on her lip had replaced one of the rings that used to be pierced through her lower lip, likely torn out in the same impact that had given her the bruise.
Most obviously, her left arm, which looked like one huge bruise, hung limply across her chest in a simple cloth sling. The Sith woman probably had more injuries that I simply couldn't see.
"Are you here to put me back in them?" I asked.
Even in her current state, she could probably pull it off. I was in no condition to fight…and she still had a good arm.
Tyrene brought her good hand up to briefly stroke her chin tendrils, "Hmm…no. Actually, I was planning to release you myself."
This time, it was my turn to raise an eyebrow questioningly. Of course, it was easy to see what she got out of it. By "saving" me from Scriver's torture, she might have been seeking to count it as repaying the favor she owed me.
I'd give her points for trying, but I wouldn't have let it go that easily.
"Why so suspicious? I've no interest in allowing my Master to get everything he wants, not with how he considers me expendable," She admitted freely.
"Of course, this actually works out better for me in the end. With you escaping on your own, I don't have to try to lie to my Master about having set you free. I assure you, I was not looking forward to that."
I believed her on that last bit. Trying to lie to someone with natural telepathy and empathetic powers was hard without some serious loophole abuse and exact wording.
I did have to wonder just how much influence I had been in so short of a time. Of course, she could simply be in her natural environment and hadn't had the opportunity to leverage it earlier. She was Sith and, if I had read her right, was from an old Sith family.
Sabotaging her Master when it benefitted her was a time-honored tradition after all.
"Ortan wouldn't object?"
"My, so cautious. But no, Ortan is still unconscious," Tyrene informed me with a bit of smugness in her tone, though it wasn't directed at me, "So he would not know the truth either way."
Pulling on the Force, I directed it to my aching muscles and tired mind. With the pain gone for the moment, I stood up to my full height.
"You should make haste. Darth Scriver returned to the academy for surgery to replace his eye a day ago, but he should be back soon," Tyrene informed me as I got my bearings, "I doubt you wish to face a Dark Lord in your current state, or at all."
"Another Sith Lord dying while I was nearby would look bad," I remarked.
"Another…?" The Sith Apprentice blinked, staring at me incredulously for a moment. A thoughtful expression made its way onto her face as her head tilted to one side.
It took me a moment to understand that she might not only believe that I had killed a Sith Lord before but was now honestly considering the chances of me managing to assassinate a Sith Lord of Scriver's power.
Coming to the conclusion that it was not completely out of the ballpark. Given what my performance under the mountain and against Graush looked like in hindsight, I couldn't completely fault her for that line of thinking.
I filed that under "problems future me gets to take care of" and moved on, "Will my escape cause any problems for the soldiers?"
Tyrene paused in her thinking to fix me with a look I couldn't quite identify before answering, "No. Fortunately for them, Tu'kata continue to attack the camp in large numbers.
The soldiers that are uninjured are conveniently too busy fending them off to deal with a prisoner escaping. There should not be any blame laid on them."
And injured soldiers wouldn't be expected to take down a Sith in the first place.
Good. Dead soldiers were useless to me.
"Your Wookiee acquaintance used the chaos after we left the tomb to disappear, though I believe he is still nearby waiting for you," She said, turning to exit the tent.
"I suggest you do the same. Your equipment is in my Master's tent. I need to go see to the defense of the camp and make sure not to see a prisoner escaping."
Without even a goodbye, she left. Now that I was paying attention, I could hear the blaster fire in the distance.
As I exited the tent myself, no one even glanced in my direction. Not that there were many people around. The few that were present were soldiers on stretchers outside the medical tent, all of which very carefully turned their heads away.
I took a moment to grin before quickly making my way to Scriver's tent. While I would have loved to rifle through his stuff and see if there was anything to take, he was smart enough to have everything stored away in lockboxes.
Well, besides my equipment. That was piled up in a corner, likely awaiting inspection when Scriver returned.
I pulled on my armor as quickly as I could, my tired fingers fumbling more than once at the straps and clasps. As I strapped on my weapon belt, I paused.
There, at the bottom of the pile of gear, was the melted remains of my sword, though even calling it that was an overstatement.
All that was left of the weapon that had seen me through months of training was a hilt, deformed by the heat of the electricity it had absorbed from and unleashed against the spirit of King Hakagram Graush. Its blade had been utterly destroyed in the last explosion of power.
I glanced at my gauntlets, where some of the metal had dripped down and blended with the equally dark material of my armor.
I placed the ruined weapon into my pack. Perhaps there was still something to salvage from it. After all, there were still questions to be answered about what exactly I had done.
With all the soldiers not bothering to look for me, I had no difficulties slipping out of the camp. Just as Tyrene said, I soon found Gaarurra, who had managed to procure a speeder for us while I was out. With the threat of Darth Scriver on the horizon, we vacated the area quickly.
...
Hours later, I flopped face-first into my bed at the Academy, fully prepared to go straight to sleep and not really caring if someone tried to kill me in my sleep again.
In the bunk beneath me, Gaarurra was already snoring away like a chainsaw. But I had only managed to close my eyes for a few seconds before my comm chimed.
Raising my head, I shot it a glare as I debated if dismantling it with the Force would be worth the trouble I'd get for ignoring the call. Unfortunately, I had to decide that the costs outweighed the benefits too much.
Pulling it to me with the Force, I let out a yawn as I pressed the answer button.
"Acolyte," A miniature blue replica of Iren greeted me, "It is time for your next trial." The Overseer paused, "If you survive, know you will have my respect. If you fail, attempt to die with honor."
I didn't get to ask anything as I heard a hiss from the vents.
Instinctively, I hurriedly took in a deep breath and held it as green gas started pouring into the room, using the Force to make the air in my lungs last longer. However, that was only a stalling measure and I'd have to take a breath eventually.
I leaped off my bed and rushed to the door, slamming my hand down on the open button. But each time I pressed it, it went red and failed to obey.
When that didn't work, I gathered the Force in my hands and launched a blast at the door. The first only dented it outwards, but the next knocked it out into the common room to collide with the couch. Seeing freedom, I rushed out…
Only for my face to meet a black armored fist that seemed to come out of nowhere, the impact of which knocked me to the floor. Dazed, I barely noticed the whine of a blaster powering up before it hit me.
When I woke up next, I was laying flat on my back on the floor of a cargo shuttle with a broken nose.
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The first book of this fanfic has been completed on Patreon, you can look it up in the collection alongside the second book. You can visit Patreon if you want to read in Advance.
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