Combat Master’s Note: Because you are matches against a member of your Clan, this battle takes on a unique format. You will be encountering Igraxcis with an ally. Treat Igraxcis as you would any other ACC opponent. In addition, note that this Sith apparition can hurt you, and when materialized, causes damage as any physical being would, but also responds to damage the same way. You WILL be judged using the ACC rubric, so the person posting the best story will move on to subsequent rounds. If you wish to fight your Clanmate as well, you may, but this is not in any way a requirement.

Begeren. Once a prosperous Sith world, it has been the site of numerous battles throughout the millennia. Grand halls and monuments were torn down and re-purposed by looting Republic forces thousands of years ago, before they were driven from the planet. Isolated settlements still dot the planet's surface, but the inhospitable, craggy, and desert-like terrain, along with the beasts common to many desert and Sith worlds, have kept most humanoids from colonizing. Occasional skirmishes have left debris scattered throughout the desert, and battles were fought here as recently as the Galactic Civil War.

The One Sith’s hold on Begeren is all but broken, though a few small pockets of resistance remain. The Clans and Houses of the Brotherhood now swarm the planet to defeat them, but attention has returned to plunder. Roaming bands of Jedi, adherents to light and dark alike, claim—or destroy—priceless artifacts at every turn. One of the few remaining untouched areas on the entire planet is the Valley of Monuments, so named for its glorious architecture. The valley is a patchwork collection of sand dunes and massive canyons, inhospitable even in the best of times. Despite this, the One Sith maintain control over the area. Exactly how—or why—this place has not yet been claimed by the Brotherhood, you do not know, and nor do your superiors, but you know it is ripe for the picking. Perhaps one reason is that access is limited—the One Sith maintain control over the valley’s entrances, save for a small handful of paths that tread directly through canyons used long ago as ancient burial grounds. Intelligence suggests these entrances are virtually undefended. Your plan, along with your compatriot, is to find your way into the Valley of Monuments through one such canyon, and it is there you now find yourselves.

Somehow, despite the windswept sand dunes mere meters away, the canyon before you remains virtually free of sand. Macabre hills fill this canyon, thousands of exposed skeletons laying atop one another, the sand dunes of most of the planet replaced by dunes of stark white bones. The dark side hangs thick in the air over this massive valley, flanked by four incredibly large crystals placed at each cardinal direction. This is one of a handful of ancient mass graves, the final resting place of literally thousands of slaves forced to give their lives millennia ago to create the massive monuments of Begeren. Far in the distance, a massive Sith monument rises before an impressive ancient palace, but your attention remains here, now, where the bones shift beneath your every step, crunching noisily. Ancient clubs, whips, and other weapons occasionally break through the bony landscape, testament to the vicious past of this place. To those that can even sense the most rudimentary of emotions through the Force, an even more sinister feeling permeates the air here: not only death, but suffering, anger, and hate.

The sun slowly creeps towards the mountains far beyond this impressive valley, casting long rays of light that reflect off many of the white bones littering the valley. The heat here is oppressive, but the sun will depart soon, leaving both of you in darkness. You notice that the large crystal to the north, situated in the shadow of a large canyon wall, begins to shimmer a faint blue, causing the bones beneath it to take on a ghostly glow. Your step hastens as you move quickly through the canyon, hoping to escape this place before sunset takes it, and reach areas with more valuable items to claim or destroy. But before you can make much progress, you begin to hear the telltale signs of another being—the sound of footsteps crunching bones—and they are coming from atop one of the hills of bones within the canyon. As you gaze up, you and your ally notice a ghostly figure glaring down at you from atop a hill, a massive Sith sword swung over his back.

A heavy knocking that shook the chamber despite the thickness of the metallic walls startled Rathus from sleep.

Rathus struggled in the darkness, half rolling on the bed, half tugging tighter and buttoning the loose pajamas hastily thrown on a moment before passing out late last night. Another round of fist against door resounded again, this time accompanied by an annoyed voice.

“How long do you plan to sleep? We’re going to miss the last scheduled flight down! And I thought I had slept too much! Are you even in there?”

Rathus slipped a hand upwards to toy at a device concealed just behind an ear, only replying after a small hum reverberated as various dormant implants activated.

“What time is it? I was up researching all night!” Rathus choked out in a loud but tired droning tone, choking back a yawn.

“What time is it?! Did you even bother setting an alarm? It is our rears on the line now, all because you didn’t set an alarm? We missed every single transport!” The familiar voice was more than a little irked.

Rathus lumbered over to the metallic door and glanced to the screen beside it. Clear as day on the projected image was a rather frustrated looking Keirdagh, his dark brown mustache flecked with gray and practically bristling. Rathus leaned down and touched at a button on the screen before replying calmly.

“Hey, you didn’t wake up soon enough to wake me! Isn’t that part of being a leader or something? Well, what’s done is done, Master Keirdagh. We’ll just say we were driven off my superior numbers or something. I can slice a few records and it’ll look just like we were there all along.”

Keirdagh scoffed. “Oh yes, exactly what I wanted, to desert my own clan’s interests so you could sleep in.”

“Hey, hey. Look at it like this,” Rathus yawned before continuing, “These last month or so, when you think about it.. haven’t all of these been really, really dangerous? As in we actually met others in the Brotherhood at every turn. At this point I’d rather fight a bunch of One Sith. It’s easier to fight them, anyways. Besides, isn’t that a bit strange?”

Keridagh seemed to calm as he contemplated, his forehead wrinkled even more than usual.”I - well, that’s true, I suppose. Besides, they wanted us to go on some wild goose chase through a canyon to try and track down even more artifacts that’ll prove to not really be of any use, if the track record holds true.”

Rathus nodded eagerly. “See? And you know I’m all about artifacts, but we have to take a break every once and a while, right? Besides, I nearly got eaten by Wraids for a stone tablet. It didn’t even have anything useful, either. We’re combing over places that have been combed over for years. It’s practically all just.. busy work!”

With a final sigh and a waving of a hand Keirdagh gave in. “Fine, fine. Well, we better get our cover stories straight for when we report. Let me in already.”

Rathus glanced back at the bed, eyes locking onto a variety of stuffed animals gathered around multiple datapads and tech, all in turn ensnared in far from standard heavily fluffed cotton-stuffed bedding. “One second, Master Cantor.”

Rathus quickly tied the sheets around the clutter, forming a bundle and shoving it into a storage container at the foot of the bed before rushing back over to tap another button on the pad. As the locks disengaged Rathus grabbed and slipped on a jacket. With a whirr of air and machinery the door slid open and the Elder stepped inside.

Keirdagh was a bit surprised to see just how messy the quarters were, various bit of machinery, metal parts, and minor artifacts strewn about with seemingly no real sense of organization. Perhaps more surprising, however, was his subordinate’s choice in nightwear - an almost obnoxiously lightly colored robin-egg blue pair of button-up footie pajamas. As if to put the proverbial cherry on top of the ridiculous situation, Rathus’ hair was a total mess, curls merged at random into untamed clumps, resembling a bird’s nest pefect for whatever robins produced that horrendous shade of blue.

His voice now far more casual than Rathus had recalled ever hearing it before, Keirdagh spoke as he surveyed the scene. “You really should.. do something about your quarters, Rathus. Maybe we should start having military inspections for active personnel again…”

Rathus took a step back, looking a bit exasperated while shrugging. “Hey, hey. Like it or not today's our day off. Let’s relax and have a drink while we think of a nice cover-up, hm? That sounds a lot more fun than thinking about inspections. Or worse, cleaning.”

Rathus rummaged through a jet black metallic cabinet for a moment before retrieving from its depths a dark red wine and two rather over-sized goblets. Rathus sauntered over to the small table in the center of the room, haphazardly knocking off a stone tablet from its surface and setting down the glasses with a clatter, wasting no time filling them.

“This was a gift from my father when he found out I had made it this far here. I was saving it to celebrate something big but... well, I suppose we can celebrate our accidental day off too. Think of it as drinking to not having to fight to death for the day.”

Keirdagh frowned slightly, finding his junior’s casualness about the situation a bit taxing. But as he took a seat he had to admit that it was true. They were far too late to finish what they were tasked with. They couldn’t change it now. Besides, maybe someone else was busy handling whatever they wanted them to do.

Keirdagh dodged low again, sensing that his time was rapidly running out. He'd volunteered to escort Rathus on this expedition to the Valley of Monuments because he knew just how reckless the young Templar could be. It wasn't of course due to any desire to be reckless on the young man's part… he just had a way of pissing people off. Nothing though in the realms of fancy could have prepared Keirdagh for what was to come on this journey.

They'd been trudging along the canyon for what had felt like hours, when a sudden premonition had struck Keirdagh down. The power and evil of the vision had washed over him and driven him to his knees. Ancient hatred, pain, and disgust had attempted to conquer him. It had been a battle for his soul as much as his mind. The malevolent presence that was assaulting him was one of intolerable confidence: it was the specter of a being who had striven hard, and risen fast. It was almost as though Keirdagh was facing an evil ghost of himself, trying to vie for dominance inside the Master's skull.

Such mental assaults tend to feel as though they will never end. While you're caught in the throes of pain and struggle, the battle appears eternal. In reality though, the combat takes place at the speed of thought, and the world passes you by at a fraction of the pace in comparison. Those quick seconds however we more than enough to turn a trepidatious hike into one a disastrous one.

As he was fighting off the last vestiges of the mental assault, a massive cudgel swept from out of nowhere and crashed into Keirdagh's chest. Stumbling sideways, Keirdagh crashed into the ground after tripping over Rathus' body. The young Templar was on the ground, a fel light surrounding his head, and whimpering to himself. Obviously whatever assault had disoriented Keirdagh had completely incapacitated the young man.

Spitting out the gravel in his mouth, Keirdagh took the briefest moment to steady himself, before launching into action. Rolling backwards, Keirdagh snatched his Golden Lightsaber into his hand and sprang upwards, blade held warningly against any who might rush him. The attack had been brutal, sudden, and without warning. No regular opponent could have managed such an attack, and so Keirdagh spread his senses out, focusing on piercing the otherwise opaque veil of dark side energies flowing through the canyon.

Rathus continued to writhe on the ground, obviously playing out some ridiculous scenario in his mind, completely unaware of the mortal danger he found himself in. Keeping his blade at the ready, Keirdagh slowly walked over to him, and knelt next to him, giving him a quick onceover. His fall had done nothing but scuff the man's robes, and otherwise leaving him unharmed. Good, Keirdagh thought, the kid will keep until I deal with whatever kriffing witch is toying with us.

Laughter, eerie and echoing began to rain down upon the duo from Taldryan just as Keirdagh finished the thought. He was still completely unsure who had assaulted him, but the stitch in his ribs whenever he took a breath made him sure that he was dealing with a man, not a phantom. "Face me, coward! Stop hiding in the shadows!" screamed the Sith Master in anger, adding a measure of compulsion with the Force into his command.

The results were spectacular, and unnerving. Directly ahead of him, corpse lights began to seep out of the ground, forming together into a glowing specter. They grew from a small pool in the ground, brilliant and terrifying light brightening the entire valley floor. All the while, the haunting laughter continued.

"Who are you, mere mortal, to presume to command me: Igraxcis. I am he who has conquered death. I am the destroyer and the destroyed." The vision finally coalesced into something resembling a hologram, both corporeal and yet obviously, and horrifyingly not. A massive Anzat, larger even than Keirdagh stared balefully down at the pair from Taldryan, holding a massive cudgel in one hand, and a wickedly curved Sith blade in the other.

Eyes widening in fear, Keirdagh prodded Rathus with his toe, trying to wake him from his reverie. "Shavit Rath… I'm going to need your help with this one.."