Chapter Text
“I was told you were the person to talk to about archaeology?”
Jearin looked up from her particularly interesting pile of dirt at the woman, who had a giant durasteel umbrella–though no cloth or anything, so it was useless–strapped to her back. “Yeah. What’s your name?”
“Kio Moardan. Or Darth Naninomai.”
“Oh, you’re the supposed expert?”
“I wouldn’t call myself an expert. I’m an amateur or an armchair expert at best.”
“Wanna see if you can identify a tomb for me?”
“Yes!” She cleared her throat. “Yes. I would like that.”
Jearin stood up and dusted herself off–probably just the combined blood of hundreds of thousands of Sith staining the sand, but whatever–taking careful notice of the man who was storming through the Valley, pure rage on his face. “Alright, armchair expert. Follow me.” She started walking towards one of the unidentified tombs–one of the ones that was far away from that guy. “What’s that thing on your back?”
“Oh, that’s my lightsaber.”
“That’s your lightsaber?” Jearin asked as she stopped and turned.
Naninomai took the thing off, opened the umbrella part, then six lightsaber blades shot out. “I can make it spin, too. Or do this.” She turned the saber off, then took the top part off–though most of the staff was still there–and reignited it.
“Damn. You could probably get a ton of leverage with that thing.”
“I could.” She turned it off, put it back together, and put it back on her back.
Jearin led her a little ways farther. “This is one of the first tombs we discovered, specifically it was number seven and now we’ve discovered over two-hundred. I’ll open it up for you and you can take a crack at it.”
Naninomai kept looking back and forth at the tombs.
“What is it?”
She pointed at a wall of solid rock between the tomb they were standing in and the next tomb closest to the sanctuary. “There should be another right there. There’s enough space for one, considering the distance between the rest of them.”
“What?”
Naninomai held her hand out and Jearin felt the Force shift as two sections of stone with invisible seams swung open like double doors to reveal another tomb. “That’ll be fun for later. Let’s explore this tomb.”
Jearin’s jaw dropped as she stared at the tomb and Naninomai opened the door to the first tomb–number seven–and casually walked in. “Hey, wait for me!” She ran.
There were two skeletons sitting in meditation positions on either side of the door. Nothing Jearin hadn’t seen before. “We haven’t found the actual coffin yet, and that’s our biggest clue as to who would be buried here.”
“Daegen Lok.”
“What?”
Naninomai looked over at Jearin. “Daegen Lok. The first of the Je’daii to use a Forcesaber and Fall to the Dark Side.”
“I don’t understand any of those words in that order.”
“The Je’daii were the ancient–very ancient–precursor to the modern Jedi. They’re so old that the lightsaber hadn’t been invented yet. The Forcesaber was basically a proto-lightsaber, but not a Protosaber, that’s something different. The difference between the Forcesaber and the modern lightsaber is that the Forcesaber required its user to channel Dark Side Force energy directly into the kyber to make it work. Up until its invention, the most anyone could do was channel Force energy into an unhoused kyber crystal and burn themselves alive. The Forcesaber wasn’t even invented within the Republic. It was invented in the Rakata Empire. It used an artificial crystal housed in a metal casing to produce a blade. And Daegen Lok was the first of the Je’daii to use one and to Fall to the Dark Side. The Forcesaber inevitably created a rift in the Je’daii Order, which eventually led to the Jedi and the Sith.”
“Whoa. How can you tell that this is his tomb, though?”
Naninomai tapped the wall. “His name is written right here. It’s faded, and the language and alphabet have evolved, but there it is.”
Jearin put her nose to the wall and stared at the faint letters. “Daegen Lok.”
Naninomai nodded. “Now, let’s see if we can find his corpse, shall we? How exciting!”
“What about the traps?”
“We’ll disarm them as we go along. Sometimes the hard way.”
“The hard way.”
“Yup.”
Jearin grinned. “I like you.”
…
No less than seventeen near-death experiences later, and Jearin was panting in front of a coffin. “Damn!”
“Sith Lords like to protect their mummified remains,” Naninomai shrugged. She used the Force to throw open the solid stone coffin, setting the lid on the ground nearby. “Oh, wow. This is an amazing find.”
“What is it?”
Naninomai bent down, grabbed something from the coffin, then turned around and held a lightsaber up. “Here it is. A Forcesaber.”
“There’s no switch. How do you turn it on?”
“Channel Dark Side Force into the kyber. Let me see if I can get it.” She grunted, then after a second, a dull purple blade shot out of it, humming menacingly as it bathed the chamber in an otherworldly glow. “Would you look at that. It still works, after all these years.”
“How long?”
“About twenty-five thousand years ago.”
“That’s insane. That’s even longer than Ajunta Pall!”
“They must’ve found his remains and transported him here. How they knew who he was, though.”
“Because I told them,” a male voice spat.
Naninomai and Jearin stared at the ghost hovering over the coffin.
“You must be Daegen Lok.”
“I am.”
“You told the Sith who you were?”
“They were my legacy, after all. And they wanted to give me a proper burial.”
“I hope you don’t mind us intruding on this place.”
“Or petty thievery, right?” Daegen asked.
Naninomai hid the saber behind her back.
“There’s not many people nowadays who’d know how to use that thing. Just who are you?”
“I’m Kio Moardan, Darth Naninomai.”
“And I’m Jearin Darkstar, Darth Eidolus.”
“I see. Let me guess: a couple of history buffs who thought it’d be fun to raid the tomb of an ancient Dark-sider?”
“Yes,” Naninomai answered, at the same time that Jearin answered “No.”
“Well,” he sighed, “this is the last time you’ll ever be seen alive.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’m about to kill you.”
“How about…a wager, instead?” Naninomai asked.
Daegen tilted his head and gritted his teeth. “Go on.”
“A duel, between you and me. Obviously, to the death wouldn’t be fair, but to the killing strike. If you win, you get to kill us both. If I win, you have to let us go free and let any other Sith or Jedi in here to explore and document.”
He smirked. “Alright. You’ve got yourself a deal. Give me my weapon and we’ll duke it out.”
Naninomai tossed the saber and the ghost caught it.
“Are you insane?!” Jearin hissed.
“No. That’s why I didn’t say ‘to the death’. It’s really hard to kill people who are dead.”
“It sounds like you’ve done this before.”
“No comment.”
“Hurry up, kid. Haven’t got all eternity.”
Naninomai took her saber off her back and took the top part off, handing it to Jearin. “Hold this?”
“Yeah.”
“The hell is that?”
“That’s my weapon.” She flicked it on, the crimson glow much brighter than the purple one from the ghost’s blade. “Shall we?”
He stared at it a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Since I’m feeling generous, I’ll let you go first.”
“Thank you for that.” She dropped into a guard position. “But you’re going to regret that.” She swung. The ghost blocked the strike. Then his saber buckled and bent in half. Naninomai’s saber rested at his neck. “I win.”
The Forcesaber turned off and the ghost just laughed as he faded into nothingness, the saber dropping to the ground with a hollow ‘clunk’ as Naninomai turned her saber off.
Naninomai picked it up and grinned at Jearin. “Mission accomplished.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Lightsabers have a higher energy output than Forcesabers do, due to Forcesabers utilizing the force energy of the user, whereas lightsabers have their own internal power source so they don’t have that limitation. That’s why they shine brighter, too.”
“I see.”
“Shall we? There’s probably other rooms with artifacts in them, but we should probably get out of here.”
“Yeah.”
They retraced their steps. After the twelfth trap, Naninomai stopped. “What is it?”
She pointed into a chamber they hadn’t seen before, where a red pyramid hovered over a pillar. “A Sith Holocron. We have to get it.” She worked her way towards it.
“What if it’s booby-trapped?”
She shut her eyes. “Stay at the entrance.” She followed an absurd path, weaving through the room until she stood right next to the pillar. “Oh, this is genius. You should really see how this works. There’s seven different–”
“Can you just grab it?”
“Well…yes. But don’t you want to know how it works?”
“Will it kill us?”
“Yes.”
“Then no.”
She shrugged. “Your loss. But when I take this thing, use the Force to hold the door open.”
“Alright.”
Naninomai snatched the Holocron, then ran for the door.
Jearin felt a weight press onto her as the door shut.
“Get out, get out, get out, get out!”
The two ran through the door and it slammed shut as a loud rumble of stone shook the ground.
“The hell was that?”
“The ceiling collapsing. I had to grab it that way otherwise it was gonna release a bunch of poison gas and kill us. Anyway, let’s open this bad boy up.” She set the Holocron on the ground in front of her and started meditating. The Holocron twisted and opened, and a holo started playing of a giant battle between Force-users. All of them were using Forcesabers, and Daegen was there. Naninomai stared with rapt attention.
“What is this?”
“The battle between the Je’daii and the Rakata,” she answered. “From before Daegen Fell.”
“Whoa.”
“I know.” She stood and dusted herself off as the Holocron reassembled itself. “Well, that was fun. We should probably give these to the right people.”
“We should probably go to Lord Anthos to let him know about that other tomb, then the Holocron should go to Lady Kairos. The Forcesaber to Lord Logos. He’d be the only one with ancient enough knowledge into it to know what he’s looking at.”
Naninomai called them to her hands. “Then let’s, shall we?”
…
Jearin had never before seen three Sith so flustered as Lord Anthos, Lady Kairos, and Lord Logos as Jearin and Naninomai gave their report. It was truly a sight to behold. The three happened to be eating lunch, and Naninomai had dropped the artifacts on the table they were eating at. Then the three started yelling. It was great. Then Jearin had popped into the conversation and told them that Naninomai had found a brand new tomb between numbers seven and five. Then Lord Anthos started yelling. Jearin had never had so much fun giving a report in her life.