Knights of the Old Republic: Fragmented

Korriban: Mantle of the Force

We found Carth unconscious in front of the tomb of Ajunta Pall. Mission rushed ahead of me and got onto her knees at the soldier's side while I tried to find Dustil who had obviously been the perpetrator.

It was open. Somehow, Dustil must have figured out how to get the tomb open. I approached the entrance, trying to see how he managed to figure it out. The sword slid into the pedestal with ease. An ancient key. My head throbbed with pain with that vision—the same pedestal had an ancient sword with an intricate hilt.

"Carth!"

Mission slapped his face and he groaned in pain. Thankfully, that got him to wake up. He jumped onto his feet immediately and rushed towards the entrance of the tomb, ignoring me.

"Hey!"

He turned and shouted.

"We don't have time—Dustil is going to be killed in there!"

"So are we. I'm not exactly armed with a lightsaber if he or whatever is in there decides to retaliate."

He lifted his blasters.

"I'm not going to make the same mistake I made on Telos. I will not abandon my son." He narrowed his eyes. "I will go in there with or without you if I have to."

Idiot.

I groaned then turned to face Mission. There was no way he was going without me.

"Go get Jolee. If we get into trouble, at least he can save our asses."

She didn't argue with me and sprinted off towards the Academy. Carth didn't wait. He ran into the tomb with both pistols out and I took my own spare blaster pistol out as well as I followed him. To say that I had a bad feeling about this would be an understatement.

No light. Compared to the other tombs which had been recently explored or inhabited, this one had no lights or fires whatsoever. Carth grabbed a pocket torch from his belt and lit our surroundings. It almost felt like that time on Dantooine when we found the first Star Map. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as we walked beneath the entrance.

A tall, cracked statue sat in the middle of the tomb of a balding man in long robes. Ajunta Pall, perhaps, or one of his servants. Surrounding us, from one end of the room to the other, statue after statue of robed, faceless Sith lined the walls like soldiers. Their shadows multiplied their numbers.

Crack. I glanced back at the sound which came from the entrance. Yeah, I should have listened to the bad feeling. Lashowe smirked at me, holding the sword with a lax wrist.

"Master Uthar was right. Knowledge really is power..." She tossed a holocron into the air as she walked away. "Have fun starving to death with Dustil, Wes Gale."

I used the Force on the door or at least tried to. The weight multiplied as I kept trying to hold it in place and Carth shot at the Sith yet she already left.

"Kriffing—!"

I released the door and it slammed shut with a boom. Trapped. We were all trapped in here. Our only hope now was with Jolee somehow getting the sword from Lashowe. That could take a day or more for him to even figure out that she even has it. And if we were stuck in here for that long then we had no hope of finding the Star Map. All of it, killing those people, torturing that student, using the dark side...it would have all been for nothing.

My mouth felt dry. I turned and glared at Carth.

"This is why we should have waited."

He took a deep breath and searched the tomb with the torch.