Big ole author note, you should probably read it.
Surprise surprise, I finally actually did it.
Been playing a lot of SWTOR (Star Wars the Old Republic) recently, and the further I got into the game the reactivity and roleplay value became less and less satisfying by the hour.
Which naturally had me getting all spiteful and inspired.
And so here we are.
A Sith Inquisitor fic for your reading pleasure.
A few things to note however.
Unlike my other fics, this is something I am writing mostly on a whim as a way to feed the muse, I make absolutely no guarantees I will truly finish this (even if my stubborn ass will probably try).
Also unlike my other fic, this one is going to be based on rule of cool and not the almost nitpicky logic that Shiny and Chrome is subject to. I want to have fun with this, and so I will.
Do note: The main character is a Sith, with all that that implies.
To those of you that feel like this is taking away from Shiny and Chrome (which it objectively is) unfortunately imma have to hit you with a good old "it is what it is" and leave it at that.
The muse must be fed, lest I grow to hate the very process of writing.
And that's just not acceptable.
So expect a chapter a week to be dedicated to this whacky little thing for now.
As always, I thank you for your understanding and support, and without further ado, enjoy.
The Dissident
Heavy metal footfalls echoed across a long underground tunnel, the scarce strips of red lighting arranged along the ceiling only barely illuminating a pair of soldiers clad in standard-issue Sith Empire garrison armor as they dragged a slumped slave between them like a sack of tubers.
The man’s face was hidden under unkempt long black hair, his limbs were thin, visibly malnourished, and his clothes could barely fit the descriptor, ripped and dust heavy as they were.
He was tall, tall enough that his bare feet painfully dragged across the stone floor as he was hauled along.
None of this bothered the soldiers of course, at least not if they wished to keep their cushy job at the Ziost doonium mines whipping up slaves instead of charging through blaster fire across the many unruly worlds of the Empire.
A triangular metal door split open as they approached, leading into the Overseer’s office.
The officer in question looked at them with a sneer on his pudgy face. His Captain’s uniform was a few sizes too small to properly button up and he absently wiped away the few crumbs from his colored undershirt.
“Another dissident, Sargeant?” He demanded.
“The other slaves reported him for stealing, sir.” The soldier on the prisoner’s right saluted and reported. “Found him beating a pair that tried extorting him for his stash. Barely managed to drag him off before he did any permanent damage.”
“Is that so?” The officer muttered. “Make sure to reduce the ration allotment for that entire sector. This is the fifth this month.”
“Understood, sir.” The Sargeant saluted.
Satisfied with that, the officer looked at the prisoner for the first time. “Well, slave. What do you have to say for yourself?”
But the prisoner remained completely silent, head still hanging low and not so much as twitching in reaction.
Feeling a spike of fury at being ignored, the officer reached for his belt but noticing the Sargeant shaking his head he paused. “What is it?”
“He won’t say a word, sir.” The soldier reported. “We even tried roughing him up, but he just kept glaring at us. Its creepy.”
“Are you soldiers of the Imperial Army or are you cowards?” The fat man spat and reached for his belt again, pulling a small metal cylinder with a red switch on top. “We will see if he’ll stay quiet after this.”
He pressed down, hard.
The shock collar attached to the slave’s neck crackled with electricity, but the expected scream of agony never came, nor did the pained twitching of his arms, only silence, and a subtle cold spike in the air.
Feeling his anger rising at the slave’s continued insolence, the officer flicked the second setting, and then the third. By the time he flicked the highest setting, the one usually used for prolonged executions and making examples, electricity was visibly arcing across the slave’s back.
But the slave remained perfectly still.
And the officer noticed something even more off putting.
His breath had turned visible, and the two soldiers were shivering.
He was a veteran of the Great Galactic War, and for all his lack of conditioning, his instincts were still sharp. And they were screaming at him to run.
But by the time he tried to find cover it was already too late.
The two soldiers’ helmets smashed against each other with enough force to crack, leaving the slave’s hands they’d foolishly not bound free and now pointed at the Overseer.
Finally, the slave looked up, revealing a pale face, and a pair of hateful, yellow eyes.
In the next instant, all the Overseer knew was thunder, and agony.
The Slave
The little piggy screamed like the pathetic worm he was, and what I now knew to be the Force roiled in demented glee at my cruelty.
I allowed it to flow through me, and the stream of lightning raging from my hands redoubled in intensity, as did the pain.
Admittedly, my plan had been more than a little suicidal, but after spending years underground in relative solitude with barely enough food to scrape by, ending it all in a blaze of glory was by far the superior option.
It had been a full solar cycle since the cave in, since most of the people that made surviving this place bearable lost their lives, and since the visions began.
I was not sure what they were. A past life? An ancestor or descendant reaching out to me across time and space? Or just the delusions of a broken madman…
It did not matter.
The visions, they kept me from losing myself, centered me, and gave me hope where there was once only despair.
They showed me the paths to power, to freedom, and how to grasp them.
Only as much as I tried to reach for the light, for the hope and goodness that I knew resided in the galaxy, and the ‘right’ path, I found that I could not.
My days were filled with struggle, with fear towards the physically powerful Duros that dominated my sector and took most of my daily rations and beat me for their amusement. And with fear of being discovered.
The visions were quite clear about the dangers of the ‘easy’ path, of the Dark Side of the Force. And it scared me far more than anything I experienced in this hell.
But time had a tendency to grind down any and all resistance, and I was no different.
The constant fear soon turned into anger, and the anger into hatred.
And when the moment finally came, and I broke and tapped into those emotions, the Force embraced me like an old deranged lover, and I became the terror of Sector 36.
At first I stole, my weak telekinesis was rudimentary, but no one ever looked up to see their rations floating away. After a month I began extorting, using the Force to make myself stronger I beat the Duros and took from them what they previously took from me.
Until finally my dominance had become clear, and I subjugated the aliens, making them perform my portion of the labor while I reached deeper into the miasma of power suffusing every pore of this world.
Over time, a few of the aliens panicked and tried escaping, and I took no small amount of satisfaction in watching them being turned into examples by the guards.
But my reign of terror was always going to be a short one.
One day after I managed to channel my cold hatred for everything around me into crackles of electricity, the Duros snapped, ratting me out to the guards while a pair of their biggest and meanest freaks tried ambushing me.
Their survival infuriated me, but a greater vengeance was at hand.
My mind snapped back into the present just in time to hear the final squeal of agony rip its way out of the Overseer’s throat before he succumbed to my power.
I pulled my hands back, cutting off the roiling power of the Dark Side and blinking away the spots in my eyes caused by the flashing lights.
And immediately I felt all of my strength leave me, I almost fell unconscious on the spot but my mind clamped down on a string of power still yet to leave me, and channeling my frustration I remained standing, glaring openly at the two squads of soldiers that had rushed in during the execution, and who were now pointing their blaster carbines at me.
There was no way I could fight through them all, but thankfully that had never been the goal.
This was a display, and all that was left was to perform to expectation.
I looked for the one in the fanciest armor and turned to face him, making the man take an instinctual step away before holding himself steady.
“Sargeant.” My voice was raspy from unuse but even then, it made the soldiers around me uneasy.
And I drank greedily from their fear, feeling myself standing just a bit straighter. “Get this accursed thing off my neck. And find me some actual food. Now.”
The man startled, his terror briefly spiking before being overtaken by relief as he saluted. “At once, my lord.”
Good little soldier.
The Acolyte
My little victory feast lasted for all of twenty minutes before a squad of commandoes burst into the office and politely demanded I follow them.
Not being a complete idiot, I did as they asked and soon I was brought to the local city’s garrison, as we were nowhere near the capital, and was promptly shoved into what passed for their dark sanctum.
There I met Mord, a Sith Champion who failed his Korriban trials but still managed to survive and join the army. He was a lazy man, more than content to simply scrape by with his meager power while the galaxy left him in the dust, but I did not voice that as he was also rather helpful.
He gave me simple black robes to replace my ripped clothing, and a cheap, mass produced practice vibrosword.
It was no lightsaber, but it could still gouge flesh and light armor with little trouble, especially with the training I was receiving.
I was taught to focus my mind, to anticipate strikes through the Force, and to lift objects with more precision, which was about the extent of Mord’s abilities.
The jealousy roiling off of him when he caught me practicing my force lightning was a fine meal, but the spike of hesitation and the subdued silence that followed left me completely disappointed in the man all over again.
And I wasn’t even allowed to leave the sanctum, lest I caught the attention of those Sith above us with my disobedience, so he was my only company for the time being.
At least I finally managed to bring my looks into something resembling order. The visions were rather insistent about staying tidy, for some Force forsaken reason.
I cut my hair but still allowed it to reach past my shoulders, and shaved off the unruly scruff from my face, one that I’d dare say looked handsome, now that my blue eyes did not look nearly as sunken. The effect of solid food, and the medical droid’s treatments for my long term malnourishment.
My stay at Ziost’s surface lasted for just under two weeks before a shuttle descended to the garrison outpost, and I was informed that I would be leaving for Korriban within the hour.
My display back at the mines had served its purpose it seemed, and whoever was in charge of the planet decided I’d be more useful off world.
True power was within my reach.
The Arrival
The shuttle shuddered violently as we re-entered the atmosphere, just in time for a wild sandstorm to try and throw us off course. Fortunately, the pilots were experienced, and soon we landed at foot of the Valley of the Dark Lords.
The intercom flickered on. “We’ve arrived on Korriban, my lord.”
Without answering him, I got up and left the shuttle, hearing it take off as soon as I made some distance.
And just in time as well, as I first felt and then saw a group of Acolytes surrounding a more powerful individual, all of them were human save for one, whose red and ridged skin marked him as a Pureblood Sith.
“Ah, the last one to arrive is finally here.” Spoke the Academy Overseer, a man familiar to my visions. “I hope you don’t think you’re special.” The threat in his tone was clear. “It would be a shame if your freedom went to your head, slave.”
‘Now there is a term of endearment I did not miss.’
Feeling my spike of fury seemed to satisfy the man as his attention left me and he proceeded to address all of us “I am Overseer Harkun. Lord Zash has tasked me with sorting through you refuse to find one worthy of becoming her apprentice. And I intend to do just that.” His eyes found me again. “The rest of you gutter trash already know your first trial. Get going while I bring our latecomer up to speed.”
“Watch your back, friend.” A short, thin, red-haired woman spoke softly next to me. “It’ll be alright. He can’t kill us all.”
Her emotions were a mess. She was lost, and her presence weak, grasping for any shred of hope. She lacked conviction.
Chuckling to myself I shot her an amused sideways glance. “I’ll draw his attention, you stab him in the back. Deal?”
Pure terror roiled off her at the mere idea as she took a step back. “Yeah… Looks like you can handle yourself.” And quickly backed away.
Shame, it would have been funny watching her commit suicide on her own.
Turning back to the Overseer, I barely managed to catch a hint of amusement from him in the Force before his face hardened and he spoke. “Now, slave. For your trial: There is a hermit named Spindrall who lives in the tomb of Ajunta Pall in the Valley of the Dark Lords.”
He shook his head, and I could almost taste his disdain for this ‘hermit’ in the air. “Spindrall is a lunatic, but Lord Zash sees him as some kind of prophet. Once you find him, he will test you.”
‘I suppose that’s all I’m getting from this son of a Hutt.’ I scoffed to myself.
A bit too loudly as the Overseer’s eyes narrowed. “You know your task, slave. Don’t keep Spindrall waiting. And don’t show your face without his approval.”
I see now. He wanted me afraid, doubtful. The Trial had already begun.
“Do not worry Overseer.” I gave him a challenging smirk. “It is far too early to deprive you of my company.”
“Get going, slave.” He glared.
And so I did.
The shuttle landing pad was enclosed within a protective wall and shielding, so it gave me no view of the valley from within. This made the scene I found on my exit much more impressive.
The Valley of the Dark Lords was an immense expanse of sand and sandstone, flanked on all sides by grand statues, and ancient tombs of Sith so glorious that I knew of them even without my visions.
And the Force… It felt alive. Back on Ziost, all it was was a blanket of despair, clinging tightly to everything and everyone save for a select few, it existed to make people miserable.
But here…
Here it demanded that I challenge myself, to grow in power and knowledge, and to consume others on the path to glory and freedom, or be consumed in turn.
It was… magnificent.
The Tomb of Ajunta Pall was easily spotted, as it covered the space between the shuttle pad and the great metal Academy towers looming over the far end of the valley.
The message was clear. Anyone wishing to enter its halls had to first prove themselves worthy.
I searched the visions, and listened to the Force, and both guided me towards a single large entrance into the tomb, just in time to see a soldier rushing out, pure panic filling the air around him as a small but terrifyingly toothy K’lor’slug leapt up from behind him, and went for his neck.
The man screamed, but no pain came as the slug was blasted back by a burst of lightning flashing from my fingertips, and the little beast smacked against the nearby wall, leaving trails of green blood as its corpse slid down into the sand.
“Get up, soldier.” I spoke as I approached. “Your life is mine for the time being, and I am in need of a guide.”
The visored helmet stared up at me, and for some odd reason the trooper’s terror only intensified.
He did get up though.
Giving him a few seconds to gather himself and pick his weapon back up, I flicked me vibrosword on, and descended into the first tomb among many.
Admittedly the whole mine overseer and academy overseer thing might have been a bit of a confusing choice to start off with but it is fitting so I will leave it as is.