LibriumArcana.Games

13 Kelona, 21,050 GSC

Today was a good day.

This planet has proven to be precisely what I expected it to be, a wretched hive of scum, villany, and other such pursuits. The sort of place no self-respecting Sith Lord would ever consider visiting, lest someone drunken Twi'lek neglect to grovel sufficiently at their very presence. Exactly the sort of place I have been searching for. The turmoil and chaos boiling through this aptly-named "Pit" is like a breeding ground for all of the challenges one could set oneself to, and the authorities are blind enough by the lack of profits to be made here to neglect what happens, to a degree.

The guards at the port authority tried to dissuade me from going down into the Pit. An excellent sign. I thanked them for their warnings, but assured them that I could take care of myself. I declined to give further details, but I imagine they understood the message. Probably took me for a smuggler or Spice dealer, though they made no attempt to stop me. I made immediately for this "Pit" place. It merits the term, though as slums go, it has its own sort of charm. And if it continues to yield me the gifts it did today, I may well wind up calling it home for some time to come. Compared to Telos, it's as placid as a Jedi meditation chamber.

The place was clearly dangerous, but I encountered no difficulties simply through walking around. The would-be pickpockets were few, and the obvious smuggler's dens well served with enough oversized hired thugs out front to clearly advertise that the premises were closed to outsiders. It was sufficient to stare intently at those who had a mind to steal from me to force them to withdraw. I encountered no organized mugging gangs, though in fairness I was only there for an hour or so before my gift was presented to me.

She was standing in the entrance to a refuse-filled alleyway, tears dried on her face into red crusts, a human girl of about nine or ten (though I've no idea if humans grow at the same rate as we do). She was skinnier than she ought have been, and dressed in thin rags, and was staring over the crowd eyes darting to this person and that, clearly looking for someone, though equally clearly she had no idea who she was looking for. I caught her eye through the simple expedient of stopping while everyone else was walking by, and meeting her gaze evenly, and before I knew it she had run up to me and began to blurt out an impassioned plea for assistance, mixed with frequent interruptions for tears that made it very difficult to understand what she was actually trying to say. I managed to catch the word "slavers" however, and decided instantly that this would prove a valuable diversion.

I took her aside, nobody else paid us the slightest attention, and told her to start over. She told me that groups of slavers were wandering around this part of the Pit looking for captives. Two salient points caught my attention. One, the slavers were looking specifically for children, a matter which instantly elevated them beyond the common sort. And two, the slavers in question were Gamorreans.

I loathe Gamorreans.

I rather doubt she expected the anticipatory grin that came over me as she explained the circumstances, but to her credit, she didn't react to it. Her interest in the matter was quick and obvious. Her younger brother had not come home from his rounds of pickpocketing (she admitted to me upfront that they were petty thieves, the little imp!), and she was absolutely certain that the slavers had taken him. She clearly had nobody she could call upon for aid, not the police certainly, and no gang to protect her, and so in desperation, she had approached a random stranger and pled for help. And in so doing, dropped a lovely gift right into my lap, though of course she didn't see it that way.

I stood back up and smiled and assured her I would handle the matter, and walked immediately away. Normally I might have asked in regards to a fee for my er... services, but it was plain enough that this girl had nothing to offer, or else she would have done so upfront. It didn't matter anyway. This was the sort of challenge I would accept for free in a heartbeat. I've no moral objection to Slavery. The strong should by rights rule the weak, rather than the reverse, but my appreciation of the social dynamics of the system does not extend to the emotionally-drained thugs who put it into practice. Slavers are invariably the scum of the universe. Perhaps the job stunts them emotionally or some such, or perhaps only petty bullies too stupid to learn the ways of the Force are attracted to that line of work. I spent much of my childhood dodging their Razzias, and have followed a strict regimen of repaying them for their cruelty ever since I learned to wield a lightsabre. That these slavers preferred to deal in children, and that were Gamorrean brutes on top of it, well it was almost too good to be true.

Finding the slavers in question was not hard. Everyone seemed to know where they were without needing to be asked. I had only to follow the trail of suddenly abandoned urchin camps and let the Force guide me towards the nexus of the various sorrows I could feel around me. I came upon them in a small cul-de-sac off of one of the smaller alleys, overlooking the Pit itself. Three of them, Gamorreans all, along with eight children of various species locked together with force chains around their necks and ankles. They were grunting to each other in the guttural dialect that passes for speech among Gamorreans, no doubt arguing about what their cut would be. I did not announce myself or advance on them, but simply waited for them to notice me. It took an embarrassingly long time.

When they finally saw me, they quieted down. They made a few remarks to one another, and one of them stepped forward with a stunner-club in one hand, and a force chain in another. I am not a large Rodian, indeed I'm fairly small even by our standards. The girl who had desperately begged me for assistance was only marginally smaller than me, and so I suppose to a Gamorrean, I could easily appear to be a child myself. Either way, the Gamorrean advanced on me smugly, no doubt pleased at having secured another captive for sale to the slave broker. I let him approach at his own pace, trying to look like a wamprat caught in speeder headlights, while I focussed my emotions inward, built up my anger and rage. By now it comes easy. By the time he was within range, I was ready.

The look that came over that Gamorrean's face as he saw me draw a lightsabre out of my coat is an image I will cherish for years.

My sabre entered his left hip, and came out beneath his right shoulder. He was large enough that I had to jump to complete the stroke, and turned it into a full 360 degree spin. His body fell in two pieces on the ground next to me. There was almost no blood. I landed facing his two companions, who were as astonished as their friend was, and I have to admit that I smiled as one of them hefted one of those enormous vibro-axes that Gamorreans are so in love with, and charged me. Crude, monstrous, bludgeoning tools, well suited for the Gamorrean temperament. I let him raise it into an overhead blow and easily sidestepped as he buried it into the ground next to me. I used an overhand slash to strike downwards as he was doubled over with the force of the strike, and decapitated him without so much as a whimper. This time there was blood, a lot of it, but directed back up the alley. I feel I was a hair too slow in returning to my ready position, but it turned out not to matter.

The third Gamorrean did not have the stomach of the other two, and when I turned back, I saw that he had snatched up one of the slave-children, a waifish human boy I instantly deduced had to be the younger brother of the girl from before (the resemblance was strong). He was holding the boy with one arm wrapped around his chest, and had a blaster planted to his head, howling something in what I assume was Gamorrean. Looking back, I think he must have thought I was a Jedi, and that the implied threat would stay my hand. I doubt he noticed the amused grin that came to me at the sight. I confess, I couldn't help it. The sight of a full-sized Gamorrean trying desperately to hide behind a rail-thin human child of seven is much funnier than it sounds. This actually posed something of a problem. Mirth, I continue to maintain, is an endlessly useful emotion, but I must admit it is not exactly the perfect tool for when one wishes to kill through the force. Had I more time, I might have tried to find a way to use my amusement to my advantage. As it was, I simply buried it in hatred, a crude method, but an effective one.

Two observations are worth making at this point:

One, as I have long suspected, the mere act of attacking someone who has taken a hostage generally does not cause them to execute their hostage by reflex. This is particularly true when the attack used is one that the hostage-taker does not expect. The body's reflexes are clever things, and resent being pressed into service of an alien act such as pulling a trigger. The instant the Gamorrean felt the Force gripping his neck, he dropped both blaster and boy without thinking about it, and began to claw uselessly at his throat.

Two, while I'm not entirely sure how this is even possible, it turns out that Gamorreans are actually heavier than they look.

In replacing my amusement with hatred, I had conjured up my memories of being in that boy's position, of being helpless and afraid and at the mercy of tyrannical brutes who enjoyed causing pain to make themselves feel alive. My feelings on that matter are very strong. I reached out my hand and took my anger like a weapon, and grabbed the Gamorrean's throat with such force that I actually lifted him into the air. He squealed and kicked and pawed at his collar, and I let him sit there, afraid and helpless for long enough for him to start to weaken. I might have just killed him like that, but the battle had been invigorating enough to get my blood up, and I resorted to a more difficult method. While still holding him in mid-air, I tore open a conduit between my life essence and his, and used the Force to drain him of his very life. His energy erupted out of him in a stream of orange fire, and I drank it up like nectar until he was nothing more than a Force-dessicated husk. And only then did I snap my hand forward, and pitched him over the railing down into the bottomless mining shafts below.

That was a mistake, of course. I should have searched him for valuables before disposing of the body. But I was in the throes of a surge of power, and on top of that I have never successfully used the Force to both Drain and Grip at the same time before. I shall chalk that one up to experience.

It took me a few moments to come down from the rush of power that slaying the last Gamorrean had been, and when I did, I turned to the two remaining dead bodies and quickly searched them. There wasn't much, a few dozen credits, two vibro-axes heavier than I am, a blaster so dented and pitted I'm surprised it was still functional, and around the waist of the Gamorrean I had decapitated, a bandoleer of explosive grenades. Not Thermal Detonators or anything fancy, of course, home-made improvised bombs, likely as valuable as the trash they were made from.

I was finishing up with the Gamorreans when I noticed that I still had a witness. Most of the children had run off as soon as they could, but the human boy, the one I had been tasked to find originally, still stood in the corner of the alley, watching me as I set to work. He caught my eye as I retrieved the belt of grenades, and ventured to ask a question.

"Mister," he asked, "are you a Jedi?"

I laughed. No matter that my sabre is as red as human blood, no matter that I had just slain three Gamorreans in front of him and drained one to death with the power of my undiluted hate. The Jedi mythos is so strong across the galaxy that anyone holding a lightsabre who is not presently in the process of stomping upon small kittens while drinking the blood of innocent babies and setting entire planets on fire must be a Jedi.

"No," I said back to him with a smirk. "I am Sith."

He didn't run! The little urchin didn't run! Didn't even look afraid! Either stupid or very brave, and stupid ones don't live long in a place like the Pit. He actually approached, not within sabre range of course, but he was clearly fascinated. Reminded me of myself at that age, when I first met the Sith and what they could do. I confess, if that little human had possessed force sensitivity, I might have been tempted to change my course, but alas, only one in ten million sentients is so-blessed, and this little one had no such luck.

I'm sure a real Sith would have simply gutted the child and walked away, but then a real Sith would never have been in this position in the first place, being too busy trying to take a cut of the slaver's profits in preparation for taking over their business entirely. In any event, I beckoned him over, mostly to see if he would obey or not, and he did!

"Did my sister send you?" he asked.

"She told me you were here," I replied. "But I came because I chose to."

He nodded. "How come?" Clever child.

"Because I wished to kill them," I said. It would do as a brief explanation.

"Are you gonna kill me?"

I admit, I laughed at that. Probably not the most re-assuring thing to do.
"I think not," I said. And I meant it too.

He looked up at me and asked a very perceptive question, I felt. One that indicated he had some understanding of what a Sith actually was. "How come?"

Obviously, he wasn't asking me to kill him. He was trying to understand a thing he did not comprehend. So few of us ever bother to do that. It is a real pity this boy was not attuned to the Force. I've heard told that there are Jedi and Sith masters who can open people's minds to the Force even if they are not sensitive, but that task lies well beyond my capacities for now.

I crouched down to face him at eye level, my lightsabre still held lightly in one hand. He held his breath but did not flinch away. He was afraid of me. I would be too, in his position. But he did not let the fear control him.

"Because we grow strong by facing challenges," I said to him. "Because we learn to use our experiences and feelings as weapons." I touched the tip of my sabre lightly to the force collar around his neck, and it fell off. He didn't flinch, watching me like a hawk, and I smiled, though I doubt he knew how to read it on a Rodian's features.

"By facing our fears, and learning from them, taking on challenges and surmounting them, in that way gain power."

I don't know what possessed me to do what I did next, but on a whim, I lifted the belt of grenades and gently placed it around the boy's neck, like a garland of flowers. It was large enough that it hung down to his bare knees.

"And in gaining power," I said, "we are set free."

And with that, I stood back up, and turned, and left the alleyway. I did not go back to the girl who had set me on this path, nor did I bother to eliminate the other two bodies of the Gamorreans. That second part was no-doubt dangerous, as a clever man would thereby learn that a force-wielder is on this planet, but this challenge came to me, and I accepted it. If it should lead to further tests, I will not hide from them.

Of course it's possible that the boy blew himself to paste with those grenades the moment I left his sight, just by tinkering and playing with them. It's also possible that he was snatched by another band of slavers after I left. I doubt seriously that those three were the only ones on the planet. But I have a vague feeling that he probably made his way back to his sister with that little trophy in tow. The bombs were useless to me, crude, improvised dust-kickers, better suited to noisemaking than any real damage, but to him and his sister, they likely represent a month's worth of food if sold to the right people. And I have no doubt they know that. One does not survive in a place like this without knowing it. And perhaps, should he survive, he will remember what happened here, and think about what I said to him.

Either way, today was a good day. And I have every faith that tomorrow shall be as good, if not better. This place holds great promise, a place strumming with conflict and challenge to pit myself against. I find myself positively buzzing with excitement, and that too is a useful emotion.

I shall find great and terrible things here. I can feel it.

She looked to Marcus and Dewaddik, the more martial of the three. "I'm going to let you two decide how much weaponry is 'discrete'. What I can dig up by other channels on the planet suggests dressing warmly and carrying a good blaster."