The greatest structure still standing on the volcanic moon of [Oricon], the ruined fortress that once served as the headquarters of the [Dread Masters], remains as a beacon of darkness. Impenetrable at its heart, the fortress is surrounded by a lava moat with a single bridge for access with walls two stories high and crafted of the hardest permacrete. Its walkways and open courtyards are decorated with eternally-burning braziers, hanging and broken chains, and even plaques and murals depicting acts of tyranny and strength. Statues, obelisks and pillars show signs of aging, crumbling, cracked and ruined, though their fearsome, ancient Sith visages still stand as a testament to the Dark Side and the imposing power that the masters of the fortress willed upon their visitors.

Down into the central palace and through one of the two sets of staircases lays the ruins of the atrium. It has long been looted for all of its artifacts and knowledge, left bare by the raiding and marauding of treasure hunters and researchers. Four side-chambers lead down, two to the left and right, deeper—these rooms, all abandoned, hold obelisks fused into the very stonework of the floor. Ancient Sith wisdom is etched into each one—messages of fear, of control, of domination and madness alike.

At the very rear of the palace is a large, tall stairway, leading up into what can only be considered the throne room of the wicked Council. A seven-sided platform sits atop a bottomless pit, with the walkway from the doorway taking up one side flanked by six green crystals. The remaining six edges are dedicated to walkways ending in a dais, resting upon which are the tall thrones topped with crystal where the ancient Masters of Dread once sat.

The vast landscape of the Dread Fortress was cast in darkness. An eerie, green glow permeated it with neither a beginning nor an end. It seemed to concentrate around ancient braziers that roared with noiseless flames – illuminating a path towards the thrones of the Dread Masters. Periodically, one could see works of art depicting their domination of the galaxy and the Dark Side along the path. Plaques, murals, and statues standing testament to an era passed.

Stale air, heavy with humidity crept into the lungs of the purple-hued Twi’lek. Her golden eyes burned with determination and cunningly scanned her surroundings as she moved along the path. Each step was taken with purpose and executed with the smooth gait of a dancer. Tali Sroka rushed from one spot to another with such fervor that her cape trailed her like a ribbon in the wind; mimicking her own fluidity and haste as she advanced from one point of cover to the next.

As she neared the end of her path, she unconsciously slipped her right hand towards her waist. She flipped the safety off and cautiously drew her blaster. The familiar touch and weight of the blaster filled her hand and calmed her mind. Open to the ebb and the flow of the Force, Tali felt her opponent nearby. His hatred rolling off him in waves the Arcanist could focus on. She possessed both an ability to sense others or create links to track them. She needed neither in this moment. Standing at the center of the dais, obscured by the shadows cast from the braziers, stood the Dark Side Adept, Braecen Kaeth.

Tali disliked the orders her Consul had given her, but the Shadow Lady had demanded the presence of the Elder before the Serpentine Throne. And she had demanded that the Arconan Knight be the deliverer of her edict. As her proximity to the Corellian shrunk, she could feel the dark side churning inside him.

“Braecen!” she shouted, he voice carrying over the distance between herself and the Elder. “You have been summoned by the Shadow Lady, Matriarch of Arcona, Atyiru Caesura Entar Arconae to present yourself in The Citadel.”

Her edict hung in the air, as if the solemn silence of the dais had somehow trapped her words. The darkness parted and the Sith Adept stepped slowly forward. He moved with a quiet confidence. Tali had hoped the unexpected challenge might unsettle her opponent. If she could rattle Braecen, catch him off guard or confuse him, she would have an advantage before a fight even began. But if her foe felt anything at all, he kept it carefully masked beneath a cold, calm veneer.

“And if I decline?” his words hung ominously.

“I’m afraid that is not an option,” Tali responded in kind.

Braecen stripped off his heavy cloak. Beneath his robes, he wore a simple pair of breeches and a sleeved vest. Without a word he held out his balled up cloak and let it fall to the floor. He reached for a pair of weapons at his waist – hilts of ebony and copper – before drawing one in each hand. He pressed the ignition button and the telltale sound of a lightsaber cracked throughout the makeshift arena. Snap-hiss! It was quickly followed by another.

Tali peeled off her own cloak and let it drop to the ground, trying to ignore the cold sting of the air on her skin. Her clothes were tight fitting and afforded her flexibility, but did little to dampen the effects of the cold. She had not really expected Braecen to be flustered by her challenge, but at the very least she had hoped the Corellian would be overconfident. There was, however, a ruthless efficiency in Braecen’s preparation – an economy and precision of movement – that told Tali he was taking this situation very seriously.

Braecen was arrogant, but he was no fool. He was smart enough to understand that Tali would not challenge him unless she thought she had some plan for victory. Until he understood what that plan was, he was not going to take his opponent for granted.

The Dark Adept leapt forward, opening the melee with a series of complex, aggressive attacks. He moved quickly. An unheard gasp of astonishment from Tali at his obvious and unexpected skill, though Tali was able to turn aside his assault and evade easily enough.

Strobing flashes of plasma flares lit up the emerald gloom of the courtyard as a staccato of blows and parries were exchanged between the combatants. The withering hail of strikes raining from the Elder’s dual blades forced the Twi’lek on the defensive, her blaster lying discarded upon the obsidian floor after she’d realized both hands were needed to contain the whirlwind that threatened to overwhelm her.

Braecen brought his left saber down in a diagonal slash, the greyish white meeting her radiant yellow at an angle as Tali raised her blade up in reverse to parry. Spinning around with her lekku flailing wide, the Twi’lek swept at his midriff, dipping her blade low at the last instant to slice off his knee.

Warnings of peril screamed in the back of Braecen’s mind and he eschewed his follow-through, intended to skewer the Arconan through her belly. Swiftly adjusting his stance as he slid his right foot back, the Twi’lek’s blade missing his knee by scant inches, the Elder launched a new assault without pause.

With his foe exposed, her back wide open as she missed her swing, the Human lunged forward with his right blade, delivering the delayed stab at center mass. Even as one plasma blade stung forth, the second was already moving, slicing upwards to ensure she could not block both attacks at once.

The Twi’lek’s motion flowed through the Force as her mind flowed through it, her lithe form twisting sideways and her back arching like a limbo dancer as she avoided the skewering jab. Blade dipping down, she caught the Human’s upward swing against its energized edge, sparks spitting from the violent contact as primordial forces dueled for supremacy.

Though she had managed to evade the overwhelming assault, she knew she was far from safe. In that precarious moment, her instincts took over as she lashed out with her left lek, hurling its not inconsiderable bulk at Braecen’s face more out of desperation than skill. The effect, however, was the one she’d desired as the Sith sensed the attack coming and, before he could even analyze if it was worthy of a response, he’d already withdrawn.

Her lek sweeping through thin air, Tali pulled the appendage back as she coiled her body into a ready stance, wound up like a clockwork spring with her blade cocked high beside her head in both hands.

“You must be very rich,” Tali spat, trying her best to mask the exhaustion in her voice as her chest heaved with labored breaths. She was not made for such extended duels.

A quizzical eyebrow from the Sith prompted the expected response.

“You’re wasting time and that’s the one thing none of us have enough of,” the Twi’lek clarified.

“I don’t consider it a waste. Not at all,” the Sith quipped in return as he took the moment to size up his foe and make a mental note of her lek-control. Had it been played at another time, it might have been a useful trump card; but she had shown her hand too soon and he would not make the same mistake twice. “Besting one of Atty’s lackeys is always excellent sport.”

Tali offered an amused chuckle. “You really think this is about her?”

The Sith furrowed his brow momentarily, the motion so minute an ill-timed blink would have masked it. “How is it not? She summons me to her side. How is this then not about her?” he spat with derision, gripping his sabers tighter as he formulated his next assault.

“The Shadow Lady pulls on many strings to serve her ambition. But this…” Tali sighed and shook her head, the tone of her voice suddenly amicable, almost comforting. “This is not about her. This is about you.”

He knew the Twi’lek was lying. He could sense it. Or at least he wanted to sense it. To his great annoyance, the Arconan seemed to reek of truth. But he had not survived as long as he had to believe such things. When Atyiru was involved, few things were as they seemed and there would only be one way to get to the bottom of this.

Without a further thought, the tornado roared to life once more in a shimmer of brilliant white.

In response to the frontal attack, Tali let herself stagger back into a stumbling retreat – a ruse. For a brief instant she saw her opponent overextend, leaving his right arm vulnerable to a strike that would have ended the contest right then and there. Fighting her own finely honed instincts, Tali held back. She had worked too long and too hard to claim victory with a simple blow to the arm. She wanted to make the Dark Adept pay for his insubordination to the Serpentine Throne. To the Arconae. To the First Clan.

The battle continued in the familiar rhythm of combat, the ebb and flow of attack and defense. Tali made sure her attacks were effective, but crude, trying to convince her enemy that she was a dangerous but ultimately inferior opponent. Each time she warded off one of Braecen’s charges she embellished her defensive maneuvers, transforming quick parries into long, clumsy swipes that seemed to keep the two-headed attack at bay as much through blind luck as intention.

With the surge and swell of each exchange Braecen gently prodded with the Force, testing and searching for a weakness he could exploit. It took only a few minutes until he recognized it. Despite her training, the Twi’lek had no real experience in long, drawn-out battles – none of her opponents had ever lasted long enough to truly push her. Imperceptibly, the strikes of his foe became less crisp, the counters less precise, and the transitions less elegant as Tali gradually wore down. The fog of exhaustion was slowly clouding her mind, and Braecen knew it was only a matter of time until she made a critical – and fatal – error.

Yet even though he was battling the Twi’lek, Braecen real struggle was with himself. Time and again he had to pull back to keep from lunging through an opening presented by his enemy’s increasingly desperate assault. He understood that he could only discover her plot through patience-a virtue not normally extolled by followers of the Dark Side.

In the end it was her patience that was rewarded. Braecen became more and more frustrated as he continually tried and failed to bring his bumbling, stumbling opponent down. As the prolonged physical exertion began to take its toll, his swings became wild and reckless, until he abandoned all pretense of defense in an effort to end the duel he sensed was slipping away from him. When the Corellian’s desperation turned towards hopelessness, every impulse in Tali screamed with the desire to take the initiative and end the fight. Instead, she let the tantalizing closeness of the Adept’s defeat feed her appetite for vengeance. The hunger grew with each passing second until it became a physical pain tearing away at her insides.

It was the power coiled inside the Elder that was unleashed first, though. The Dark Side filled him and he felt it on the verge of ripping him apart, splitting his skin and gushing out like a fountain of black blood. He waited until the last possible moment before unleashing the energy bottled up inside him in a tremendous rush of power. He channeled it through his muscles and limbs, moving so fast it seemed as if time had stopped for the rest of the world. In the blink of an eye he knocked the saber from Tali’s hand, sliced down to halve her weapon, then spun through and brought his saber crashing into his opponent’s lower leg. It bit deep into the muscle before he withdrew his blade.

For an instant Tali was not even aware of what had happened; it took her mind a moment to catch up and register the blur of action that had occurred so much quicker than her eyes could see. She lay crumpled on the ground, writhing in agony and clutching with her hand at the wound.

Slowly, he lowered his saber and turned away. The fury and focus that had turned him into a conduit of the Dark Side’s unstoppable power was gone, replaced by a hyperconscious awareness of his physical surroundings. He was standing in the center of the dais, drenched in sweat, his body aflame from exertion. He began to shiver as he cast his gaze on the ground for his discarded cloak.

A shadow emerged from the gloom. She clapped as she – Atyiru Arconae - spoke, “Well done, Starbuck. Does this mean you decline my summons?”

A chill ran down his spine.

The rain of blows fell upon the Twi’lek’s defences like a hurricane of destruction, white plasma flashing against gold. The overwhelming barrage of strikes offered Tali precious few moments to counter and though she struck back once for each two, four and eventually five blows she took, her waning strength ultimately pushed her entirely on the defensive.

Muscles trembling, her purple skin dotted with perspiration, Tali was on her last legs and her foe could see it. Relenting, the onslaught of blows abating, he pulled back and let the Twi’lek consider her options.

“I’ll give you one chance to buy your life, Twi’lek. Tell me what she wants and I will spare your life.” The words he spoke were cold and callous.

Silence.

She hesitated.

The tip of her saber wavered.

“Tell me!” Braecen roared, the flicker of lightning both in his eyes as well as his fingertips.

Shivering, Tali gave a scared whimper as her eyes stared at him in mute terror. “P-please, I will. Just… stop.” Pausing for long enough to draw a steadying breath of air, the Twi’lek closed her eyes as her lekku sank in defeat.

“Atyiru didn’t say much… but she mentioned a prison break.”

The Sith’s lips pressed into an unreadable line as he hissed at the Arconan Knight, “What prison break?”

“I… I can’t say,” Tali mewled, steadying her stance as best she could though the point of her saber was sagging.

With a roar of anger, the Human swatted aside her blade, extending his fingers to point at her midriff as tongues of white lightning lashed across the distance like writhing serpents. Tali screamed in pain as the bolts burned her abdomen, collapsing into a pile upon the cold floor as her saber hilt clattered to the side.

“I will ask you, One. Last. Time.”

Tali coughed, tasting iron on her tongue and body reeling from the agonizing attack that had almost crippled her. “The Prison of Elders,” she croaked hoarsely.

The familiar turn of phrase stunned the veteran warrior, achieving a more profound impact than all of her combat prowess thus far. He had not heard that term in a long time and he felt a desire to know more. “What about it? Who’s breaking out? What does she want from me?!” the Sith snapped, energy crackling at his fingertips.

The sound alone was enough to make the Twi’lek curl up in a weeping ball, as if it somehow would protect her from his wrath. “P-please, don’t hurt me.”

“Then speak, you sorry excuse of a Knight!”

“P-please, I don’t know much… Only rumors,” she paused to cough and clear her throat, “They say she’s had visions. Visions involving the Prison… and you. They say she mutters about someone breaking it, breaking out. But no-one knows for certain. Maybe not even she.”

Tali closed her eyes, visibly resigned to her fate as she waited for the inevitable. Yet, in her mind she inched ever closer to his aura, gingerly slipping past his carefully laid defences while his attention lay elsewhere, to plant an innocent seed of intrigue for him to find. It was far from a command. Less than suggestion. The simple remark felt so natural he would swallow it hook, line and sinker; Atyiru was up to something, and he should look into it.

The Sith’s expression shifted into one of deep introspection. He had not anticipated this. Atty was playing a game, like she always was, but what role was he to have in it? Was he a pawn, or the king? Turning his attention back to the twitching Twi’lek, he let the blades of his sabers slide back into their hilts.

“Go,” he spat. “Go now and tell your mistress of your failure.”

Crawling away on her hands and knees, Tali offered no further signs of resistance, leaving the Sith to contemplate on the matter and foster the suspicions already growing in his mind.

As she limped away from the Fortress, Tali allowed herself the faintest of smiles. It had cost her much, but the seed of curiosity had been planted. In due time, he would seek out the Shadow Lady, just as she’d planned.