Chapter 115: 115. Chapter

Somewhere in a thousand years old and long forgotten, if ever truly explored cave system on the remote and hostile planet of Korriban. A deserted planet that was once home and the central point of a powerful empire, belonging to the sadistic and power hungry Sith lords.

Being in the possession of the dark lords for so long, have left a permanent mark on the planet. Which even now, a thousand years after the destruction of the infamous Sith empire and the abandonment of the planet, was still present. The very ground on this cursed world was deeply stenched in the ominous essence of the dark side. The beings able to still live in such places were naturally attuned to the darkside energies, as they had no other way to survive.

It was not surprising that such a place was rarely, if ever visited by explorers or adventurers of the most brave or most desperate type, who had no other chance, but to search for the treasures of a lost empire while descending into an abandoned tomb of an ancient Sith Lord. Tombs that more often than not still hold onto a variety of deadly traps and risks of many natures, all of which could take the lives of the arrogant and foolish invaders.

Five people possibly belonging to such a category were walking through an ancient cave in search of a tomb that was yet to be cleared by the hands of similar treasure hunters as they were.

Two women and three men were making up this particular team, more specifically two human males, and an especially annoyed looking aqualish man who was often looking around with a suspicious gaze.

The three men were walking in the front, while the girls lagged behind if only a few steps. One was a feisty looking blue skinned togruta woman with white stripes covering her face, leks and montrals, striding after the men while a troubled looking human girl was shadowing her steps, trying to keep up with the fast pace.

She was more than frustrated by her teammates that were striding into a mysterious cave so carelessly. Naturally, she tried to make this clear for them too, but it didn’t seem to work well… She decided to make another attempt to reason with them to get the hell out of this place.

Alas, she accidentally kicked a weirdly protruding rock sticking out of the cave floor and was about to face plant herself on top of the sand covered floor. Seeing the quickly closing ground, she reflexively closed her eyes, but before she could take a bite of the fresh dry sand, she felt a tight grasp on her left upper arm and was firmly straightened.

She blinked, scared and confused by the sudden events.

-Huh?!

She said after gaping for a few seconds like a fish thrown on the shore.

-Are you all right, Suye?

A female voice asked her with slight worry and much more amusement evident in her tone. She looked up at the blue togruta smirking down at her with a patronizing gaze, while struggling to hold back her laughter, witnessing her clumsiness and misery once again.

Suye felt her stomach plummet. She was the least experienced member of this team of adventurers, which meant that it was almost expected from her to be clumsy a bit… Unfortunately, she was finding herself overdoing it… And the worst part was, that she didn’t even try…

She quickly hid her ashamed expression while putting on a cute and stupid act that at least allowed her to more easily get away with smaller mistakes such as this was…

She started whining with an excessive tone of voice.

-Maa! Guys, I have already told you to slow down, its ain’t nice to tease me this much…

The few years older togruta, standing by her side, finally released her slowly building up laughter, and slapped her on the shoulder in a friendly gesture.

-Haha! That’s right boys, you should think about our little Suye here. She is not used to dark and scary cave environments like this one… Did you forget how much she protested when we decided to come here in the first place? I thought she would burst into tears at any moment.

Suye winced in annoyance and shook off the hand of the togruta, which was still firmly holding onto her upper arm.

-You don’t have to put it that way… Malle…

The togruta named Malle smirked at her once more and said with a daring voice.

-Yes, I don’t have to, but what are you going to do about it? Hmm?

She raised an eyebrow tauntingly.

Suye cursed in her mind. She knew that being a treasure hunter was not going to be a picnic in the park, but she never expected to end up on Korriban, of all places. Her older brother and father were always telling her terrible horror stories of the deeds of the Sith, and the thought of coming to a place that was practically their planet once... have filled her with a sense of irrational fear.

She didn’t want to come here for god’s sake… but if most of the team decided against her, she couldn’t say no to it. Those were the rules they agreed upon. If she still went against it, that would mean that she was no longer part of the team, and it was not exactly easy to become a member of such a famous group like this was. Especially in the middle of a galactic civil war… And so she was here, standing on this cursed sand which was covering this cursed planet while shaking in her very boots!

She was feeling pitiful, especially after what Malle had said to her just now.

She looked to the side, deciding to not argue with Malle, she wasn't feeling very good right now, and didn't want the only other woman on their team to hate her.

Seeing that she broke their eye contact Malle, snorted lightly and said.

-If you always shy away from confrontation, you will never be treated any better girly. Especially on a team that is made out of men mostly… Think about it, will ya?

Before Suye could give her answer, a rough and annoyed voice appeared somewhat further in the cave.

-Why the hell are you gawking back there?! Get your legs under you before we decide to leave you for the terentateks or whatever cursed fiends are lurking around this damned place.

Malle shouted back at them in a deceptively sweet voice.

-Now, now… don’t get ahead of yourself boys.. We are coming right away.

With that, she showed Suye in front of herself, making sure that she was not going to lag behind anymore.

Suye growled silently while taking up the pace once more. Malle whispered to her in an uncharacteristically silent tone.

-Get your bearings girly, you are not the only one who is creeped out by this place… If you haven’t noticed; the others are trying to get done with it as fast as possible, too.

Suye glanced at the togruta and sighed.

-Yes… I know that much already… and that is why I am worried. Rushing through a dangerous place like this is asking for trouble!

Malle laughed lightly and added.

-Just like lingering around longer than absolutely necessary. Now stop worrying your sweet little head. This place might seem grim to you, but it was deserted ages ago. There are no more Siths here, and I assure you; we are more than ready for a few beasts here and there, damn we have enough weapons to drive a small horde of the damn things away. Don’t forget that we were planning this expedition for weeks now, and if our information is right, we are just about to reach the cave that was told to hold some ancient equipment.

After that, they silently continued on their path for a while. The girls managed to rejoin the others, who were walking in front of them, and they matched their speeds once again.

Soon they arrived at the position, which was located on the map, the map which they bought from a guy who was specialized in looking for such places, and selling the information to possible explorers. He was using a variety of searching droids and drones in such endeavors. Selling maps with the locations of possible treasures without ever trying to loot them himself. It was the safest way to find such places, but also the priciest one. Buying such droids and repairing or replacing them every time they got damaged was a hassle which they didn’t have the money to afford.

One of the human males, namely Bamadal, called out in a frustrated tone.

-There is nothing here! Are you guys telling me that the bastard made a fool out of us? I hope not, otherwise I will have to kill him for wasting my time.

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The other man stepped closer while still looking at the map with a pair of deeply furrowed eyebrows as he stated in a stoic voice.

- Shut the fuck up, Bamadal. I am trying to read this.

Bamadal whirled around, his expression set in an angry scowl, but he didn’t say anything else. The reason was no doubt hidden in the fact, it was the leader of the expedition who spoke to him so rudely.

-I see… There is supposed to be a crack in the wall somewhere around here… go and look for it!

The small group started to look around in detail after their leader, Ligo, gave them the dull order.

A few minutes of ceaseless searching later, Qaghr, their aqualish companion, spoke up in his alien tongue, which only managed to gain a few annoyed glances from the others. Then he groaned and changed to galactic standard which he was evidently less fluent in.

-Ther’s, somethin, h’re.

Ligo walked over and looked at the weird indentation in the floor… it was filled with the damned sand and that was the reason why we couldn’t find it earlier. He started to dig out some of the sand with his bare hands and we joined in to help him.

The work took up a few minutes, but we were rewarded for our effort. There was indeed a brake on the floor next to the wall. Now that we pushed aside the sand, we could see through it. There was a whole possibly unexplored hall on the other side. It could be anything a tomb, a long-lost warehouse or another sand filled room which held nothing mentionable inside. That was the most likely scenario, to be honest.

However, the chance to find something rare and precious that was laying in a forgotten tomb for a thousand years was enough to risk the possibility of another disappointment. That was how treasure hunters lived their lives at least.

Suye, who has also grown excited by the possibility of actually finding something worthwhile, asked.

-How are we planning to get to the other side? Oh, and I don’t want to hear anything about explosions this time around… no cave-ins for me, do you understand, Qaghr?

The alien mumbled something in his own tongue, which nobody understood and everyone promptly choose to ignore. They were trying to teach the idiotic aqualish to the basic for years now, and they only managed to force him to speak a few words now and then... Luckily, he at least understood it good enough, if not speaking it that much.

Ligo put down his backpack, opened it and pulled out a hand-held laser powered stone cutter. In other words, it was a medium grade personal mining laser, specifically designed and used to mine tough rock-like materials.

-There is no need to go to such extreme lengths this time. I will use this baby here to make us a comfortable path. Now stand back.

The others listened and made him space to work.

The entire process took up about twenty minutes, but it allowed the others to rest while Ligo worked, and in the end, they had a relatively safe path to get to the other side.

-Now we only have to wait until the molten rock cools down a bit and we can head in. Let’s fix the wire on this side until then.

The others nodded and fixed the wire to a pair of titanium spikes hammered into the ground for this specific purpose. Another few minutes went by and when we deemed that the rocks were cold enough to walk on with the use of our gear, we started to descend into the new cave partition one by one.

Suye was the fourth one who reached the bottom of the newly invaded hall, and she couldn’t stop the widening grin on her face. On the other side of the chamber, a pair of huge monk like statues were standing. Between them, a dark but clearly man made corridor was stretching into the unknown. An incredibly long time ago, there was a thick metal door blocking any unwanted visitors here, but now only the rusty remains of a toppled down door covered in red dust could be made out hidden under many layers of sand.

As the last member of their party, Malle also managed to drop down to the lower ground, immediately releasing a satisfied whistle which seemed to echo through the nearby caves, and also indirectly serving as a signal to gather their bearings and decide what to do.

Following that, Qaghr was the first to speak up, but nobody understood his alien growling, so they ignored him.

Next was Ligo.

-It seems, my friends, that we possibly hit the jackpot here. However, I would like to warn you to not get your hopes up too much. There is likely to be a different entrance to this tomb based on the fact that we had to cut through a wall and a floor to get here… There is a chance, that it was already raided before, however, lets hope that it was not.

We nodded simultaneously, while Malle added.

-Ligo, you beautiful bastard, stop being a party pooper already and let us do what we do the best.

-Boasting?

Ligo asked with a flat grin which resulted in a few lighthearted chuckles. 

Malle waved of the comment and stated playfully.

-I meant, searching... After all, I somehow still manage to find your pri...

Ligo spoke up decisively, cutting off the togruta and leaving everyone with a meaningful smile on their faces, except maybe Suye who was already looking around the place too engrossed to notice the ongoing conversation.

-I su-suppose you are right, cough, then get to it, first of all, check out the hall we are in. If you find anything, report it, just as we used to do. Now get to work!

All five of us started to look over different parts of the wide hall we were currently in.

Suye who had gone in with a head start was the first who pointed out something interesting. Above us on the walls of the hall there were a bunch of ancient carvings, which were probably colorful paintings sometimes in the past, but at the current time did not retain any of their original colors anymore.

Malle patted Suye's head affectionately, intentionally overpraising her efforts making it somewhat awkward.

-Gooood job! Who is the smartest girly?

She said with a lively tone, while ruffling her hair.

-Stop teasing me already! Ah.. you are such a handful…

Suye protested under the unusual assault, while a heavy blush started spreading across her face.

While the woman were doing their antics, Ligo directed his flashlight at the carvings and tried to decipher anything meaningful from the ancient symbols. For your every day adventurer such efforts were usually meaningless, but Ligo was somewhat different in this regard.

He was a man who rarely did anything halfheartedly. Someone who visited Korriban in the last few decades, at least a ten times and did countless other somewhat similar expeditions on other planets and wreckage fields, left behind by huge space battles.

He knew that Korriban was an extremely dangerous place, but it was also a place that was very rewarding. There was something here that made him eager to visit it again and again. One time in every few years, at least… the raw thrill this place provided was simply addictive.

Now, as he read the ancient words, his heart started to pound in his chest. Maybe this was the thing that seemed to lure him back to this deserted planet… His eyes ran over the words again and again, with a newfound excitement taking hold of his entire person. His lips moved in a half grin as he translated the mysterious words to galactic standard.

-Sith academy… this is it… we found one of the Sith academies… now the only thing that remains to be seen, if we are the first ones to do so...

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