Star Wars - Relics of the Sith

Chapter 1: A Threat Emerges

On the remote planet TR-37X a young Twi’lek student named Arckess was a true joy for her teacher Dor’Yun, professor of archaeology. The orphan whose heritage was shrouded in mystery was very curious and knowledgeable and showed great talent for researching ancient cultures, their artifacts and their language. And so it came to pass that during a library research for a study project Arckess stumbled upon a mysterious book in her campus library that was written in very ancient and hard to understand glyphs. Curious as she was the Twi’lek began to translate the book and was shocked to learn that the author must have been a Sith-Lord who had written down some of the dark secrets about Sith-Alchemy in this volume.

When Arckess showed the book to her professor he first believed it to be a scam and had it thoroughly examined, but it turned out to be genuine. In order to keep his student safe he then hired mercenary Prayn Haag as her bodyguard. At the same time he sent a message to the (to his knowledge) last remaining Jedi-Master Luke Skywalker. The Jedi had just helped the New Republic liberate the core world of Coruscant from the Empire and was deeply involved in the bureaucracy of setting up a new government and all, so he could not deal with this situation himself.

In his stead Skywalker sent one of his early Jedi-Students, the Nautolan T’Klurr, to assemble an able team that could protect and support Arckess during her research for more information on this new Sith threat. T’Klurr was given a budget as well as a recruiting letter to command essential personnel for this mission. The young Nautolan took this assignment very seriously and promised his master that he would take good care of everything.

First of all T’Klurr went for a list of the best starfighter pilots the New Republic could offer. Unfortunately, his first choice, Colonel Wedge Antilles and his Rogue Squadron were unavailable, so he got down to Captain Charles T. Wesley, Callsign “Sirius”. The budget was too small to afford more than one pilot, but Captain Wesley had a good deal of experience and brought his own starfighter, a modified B-Wing with a gyroscopic, spherical cockpit.

Captain Wesley then suggested a friend, Doctor Selissa McArthur, as technical support. Even though Selissa had a doctor’s degree in cybernetics she was a passionate engineer who didn’t mind getting her hands dirty on a starship engine.

Lastly they required an inconspicuous means of transportation. Captain Wesley gave T’Klurr the addresses of some cantinas on Coruscant’s middle levels where one could find freelance freighter pilots. In one of these questionable establishments the Jedi-Student met Trance Killian, a young woman who seemed to be able to hold her own in this shady underworld. For a nice advance payment the smuggler was willing to fly the Jedi and his companions around the galaxy.

So T’Klurr and Dr. McArthur brought their luggage onboard the Ghtroc 720 freighter “Moon Goddess” while Captain Wesley took his B-Wing. Together they traveled to TR-37X where Arckess had meanwhile deciphered the first part of the writings.

Chapter 2: Terror Machine

Once the whole team had met on TR-37X they immediately took off for planet Yaruk-Nar where, according to Arckess’ translations of the ancient Sith-texts the first temple utilizing this dark technology would be situated. It wasn’t hard to reach Yaruk-Nar which turned out to be a jungle world, and with a few good scans they could easily locate the structural environment of a ruined city on a clearing. There were remains of city buildings and a large pyramid built from dark stones overgrown with foliage. Trance Killian safely set down the “Moon Goddess” on a grassy field outside the city and the group set out to explore the terrain.

Since the ruined and overgrown houses seemed to hold nothing of interest the explorers went straight for the pyramid. A steep outer stairway led up to the top where a solid slab blocked the entrance. Through combined efforts it could be pushed aside and Arckess found an inscription warning trespassers of entering the pyramid.

Naturally, the adventurers did exactly what they were warned about and found a complex mechanism in the center of the pyramid, surrounded by a set of stairs leading down to three different chambers. The upper room was where the power was received, the middle room held a device that was fueled by darkest Sith-Alchemy and the lower room was meant to restrain the giver of the power – or rather the victim of the procedure. Hieroglyphs on the walls described the process of sucking a living victim dry of its life force and storing it in a crystal in the upper room.

Unfortunately, the dark aura of the device seemed to influence the force sensitive members of the group and enhanced the level of aggression every minute until the situation escalated. Suddenly, Captain Wesley drew his assault rifle and T’Klurr instantly split the gun with a swift move of his lightsaber. This incident served as a wake-up call and so all members of the expedition were able to shake off the subtle manipulation of the dark side and act normal again. Captain Wesley was a bit grumpy over the loss of his rifle, but eventually he made amends and moved on.

All hieroglyphs were recorded to be examined later and then they all moved out. Prayn had brought along some thermal detonators and these were placed inside all three chambers to blow up 10 minutes after the group had left the pyramid in order to destroy this unholy place.

When the group stepped outside they immediately felt better, but this feeling only held mere seconds until they heard the sound of blaster rifles being charged. A band of mercenaries, pirates or bounty hunters – which exactly they did not bother to say – had set a trap and now trained their weapons on the explorers. They were disarmed and held at gunpoint while part of the pirates went down into the pyramid, probably to look for treasures. The timing of the detonators was perfect, so they blew up when the pirates had reached the chambers.

The explosions rocked the pyramid and created the kind of diversion that the explorers needed to break free and subdue the rest of the bandits. But only moments later, their reinforcements arrived from the back of the pyramid, so the group decided to run for it. While they ran down the front the reinforcements had arrived on top and fired down upon them. Arckess was hit by a blaster bolt in the back and was seriously wounded. The others pulled her up and carried her along until they reached the “Moon Goddess”. Trance could show off her piloting skills with a quickstart, and before the bandits had any ships in the air they were already in the safety of hyperspace.

Arckess’ blaster wound was treated with a medpack and T’Klurr also used his force healing abilities on her, so she was already feeling much better after a day. She insisted, however, on a new, blaster-proof backpack for future expeditions.