Star Wars The Old Republic: The Jedi Crusader

CHAPTER 15 - ORICON - VENGEANCE

The ship came out of hyperspace and into the vicinity of Oricon. It was a red planet with a volcanic surface and rivers of lava. The dark side was strong here. Mara could sense it from orbit. "R3. Scan for life forms or large structures. Whatever you find is our LZ. Take us in for landing and be ready to depart whenever." Mara ordered as she prepared to exit the ship, her heart racing with anticipation. R3 completed his scan and set the ship's approach vector to touch down on the Dread Palace's outskirts. Mara exited the ship with Grimm to see it laid bare before her.

The Dread Palace stood like a cursed watchtower over the planet, a testimony to the Dread Masters' tyranny. A long bridge stood between her and the entrance, the castle surrounded by lava. She stared at its malevolent architecture before entering, the castle gates being of little obstacle to her path. She entered after opening the large doors on the front of the palace, revealing an entire army of Dread minions waiting for her. Mara grinned as she drew her blade and engaged them.

There were hundreds of them. But they weren't enough to stop her. Those who charged her with their blades were cut down by Mara's or a whirlwind of rotating blades from Grimm, while those who chose to remain far away had their shots deflected back at them or were cut down by a bolt of darkness from Grimm. While it took a few minutes, Mara had eventually cut through all of her opponents, leaving a scattered mess of bodies all around the main area of the palace. And luckily for her, this time they stayed dead. She looked to her next challenge, which was the closed door before her.

The grand doors had four locks on them – ancient runes that were attached to chains that could not be physically broken. "We must unlock them in the four rooms of the Masters. There were seven, but three have been shut as they are three down." Grimm explained. "When we unlock the door, we can progress into the heart of the palace, where our adversaries are undoubtedly waiting for us."

"Well, let's get started." Mara said as she made her way to the right.

"This is Bestia's chambers." Grimm explained. "Expect some perverted form of nature lurking between us and the lock."

They entered the dark room to see hives and corpses of animals scattered around. Korslugs poured out of the hives and made their way towards Mara. She drew her blade and began to cut them down, only, their flesh and scales were not being pierced by her blade. Realising, Mara switched her tactic. She used the force to crush them, push them and throw them around instead. Combined with her work on Onderon, it was probable Bestia was working on a way to make something that would be unstoppable for a force user.

Given how she had made a toxin that drained force power and the life of the subject as well as scales that were resistant to lightsaber blades, she had been looking for a way to render Jedi, and maybe even Sith, obsolete. Mara thanked herself on behalf of the galaxy as she destroyed Bestia's experiments before finding the totem that controlled the lock on the door and destroying it, removing one of the runes.

Next, she went to the other side, where Tyrans' room was. The totem was in sight, but the room was empty. It was just the totem on the other side. Something was up. Mara threw a small stone she found on the floor across the floor, revealing it was made up of platforms that fell under pressure. Mara thought about what to do. One wrong step and she fell on to the spikes below in a painful death. She had an idea.

She pulled the stone back to her grasp and used the force to touch every plate there was, eventually revealing the way forwards. But as she touched the last platform, the walls illuminated, revealing what Tyrans had been researching. Countless texts on Sith rituals and a whole wall of his room had inscriptions of essence transfer and one called 'Tenebrae'. Another wall was laced with information of information brokers and networks. Including the Rat King's. It all explained how valuable information was in rule and undermining it. Mara pieced together that Tyrans had been planning to take over Rat King's information network and use it to uncover more mysteries of the dark side.