Abandoned and forgotten, the ruins of the Dark Temple have slowly succumbed to the erosion of time. In the central chamber the walls have crumbled, the ceiling has caved in, and the jungle now flourishes within the once pristine halls.

Green light filters through the temple, mixing eerily with the dark, violet hue of Dromund Kaas’ sky. Lightning flickers overhead, the raw energy of the Force clashing high above. The floor is overgrown with large plants and grasses that have swallowed the old stone. Wild creatures roam freely, skittering away from the presence of intruders while vicious predators hide just out of sight.

The main hall is lined on both sides by towering statues, heads bowed in supplication. They stand in deference to the sculpture of a pure-blooded Sith, which towers over the chamber with outstretched arms. The sculpture has been split diagonally down the middle, as if cleaved in two by a rusted blade, but the majesty in the stone still echoes to the past.

On either side of the main hall, remnants of branches to inaccessible parts of the temple remain. One might tilt their head to take in what is left of the mezzanine—the balcony overlooking the chamber—still held aloft by the great pillars standing behind the statues. Several of the pillars have fallen, providing a pathway up to the mezzanine for those willing to take the risk for higher ground. Spirits of the Sith are rumored to still haunt the grounds—waiting for poor, misguided fools to walk blindly into their domain.

The Dark Temple groaned under distant thunder, green light slicing through the jagged cracks in its walls. Lucien stood dispassionately but silently, nestled in shadows beside a shattered pillar on a dark corner of the main central chamber. He was cradling a double viol like a lover in his arms. Unbeknownst to the Wookie at the main hall of the ruined temple, he had been watched since his first steps inside the ancient structure.

The Anzati was not dressed for battle but for a ballroom — fine wine, whispered debates, and candle light. He was garbed in a custom-made, rich dove-grey coloured three-piece suit, that sported a silky sheen that shimmered silver under the bright green celestial skylight. The gothic ensemble included a long frock coat and a matching waistcoat which lazily grazed the rubble as he bent low to observe his prey, and tailored trousers to match. To these was paired a crisp high-collared white shirt and a loosely tied silk cravat. On his head was a black top hat. He looked as though he belonged among chandeliers and fine wine, not ancient tombs.

Karracca prowled below, rummaging at the feet of a Sith statue, his massive form tense with purpose. The Jedi’s intent was clear enough: destroy what survived of this place, reduce relics of the Dark Side to ash.

So Noble. So Predictable. And so utterly Infuriating.

Lucien’s bow drew across strings, releasing a seductive note that curled down into the hall.

The Wookiee jerked in surprise, muscles tensing as his hand flew to his vibroblade.

But Lucien? He intended to make the Wookiee regret ever stepping foot inside the temple. These gothic ruins were a place of great reverence for him.

Lucien’s smile was thin and disdainful. “So eager. How predictably pedestrian...” The music swelled, its notes beautiful and cold. Shadows stretched unnaturally at the Jedi’s feet, whispering. Beneath fur and muscle, old chains rattled, ghostly whips cracked. Shackles he thought long buried snapped shut again around his mind.

Karracca snarled and swung, his massive arms shattering stone.

“Oh, did I strike a nerve?” Lucien purred. “Or awaken a memory best left… forgotten?”

He plucked a high, teasing note, the sound like a dagger across thin glass. Karracca lunged—and found only emptiness. Lucien was gone, reappearing atop a broken pillar.

The Wookiee bellowed in frustration and slammed his fists into the stone, toppling the column in a storm of rubble. But again, the Anzati was elsewhere—smiling in the shadow of another statue.

“Chains suit you better than that blade,” Lucien jibed. “Shall I fetch a set?”

Karracca’s eyes burned. He wasn’t graceful, but he was practical. With a sudden shift of weight, he swept rubble across the floor with his leg, trying to trip the dandy Sith where finesse failed. His dirty fighter’s instinct was raw, desperate, and real. He was a survivor.

But the shadows clung to his mind, feeding his fury. With another roar, Karracca cast his vibroblade aside and thumbed the switch on his lightsaber. Its blue blaze spat defiance into the green gloom, casting its jagged light across the scared temple.

Lucien let the viol’s final note linger, then bowed in theatrical mockery. Setting the instrument aside with care, he drew his Sith Sword, the black edge catching the temple’s ominous light.

“Now,” he said, voice smooth as silk, “we may proceed… properly.”

Karracca instantly recognized the interloper. He was an heir to House D'Anzat. A disreputable den of manipulative, meddling, miscreants if there ever was one as far as the Wookie was concerned. He had been dispatched to the ruins, indeed, to find and destroy a potentially hazardous Sith artifact that was believed to be there. But he would accept the credit and adulation when he brought this deviant and dangerous, unaligned, aristocrat back to a cell where he belonged. 

The massive Wookie stared at his opponent and then swiftly waved his arm in the direction of the young man. A barrage of boulders were flung at the slim Anzati. It took another second for Karra to recover from the exertion before he then leapt through the air, lightsaber held high, slashing down, the nearly 400 pound wookie landed right in front of Lucien.

Karra roared “You're family is nothing more then a glorified extortion ring draped in ill gotten finery” he said as he slashed and hacked at the lithe enemy whose family Karracca had loathed for decades.

Karra had read a few reports about the predatory actions of Luciens and his House in Envoy files over the past few months, adding to the quickness with which he recognized the youngster.

Karra he slashed and missed again Karra was filled with primal rage as he recalled one of Lucien's ancestors swindling a close friend of his. Karra now fervently wanted to apprehend the arrogant blueblood. He welled up and after a deep breath he shot himself right at Lucien essentially body checking him right into one of the pillars. The Anzati struck the stone obelisk with such force that a crack had instantly formed on the 3 foot wide 16 foot tall column

The shattered column still rang in Lucien’s bones. Stone dust clung to his dove-grey coat, and pain lanced across his shoulder where the Wookie’s massive shove had driven him into the pillar. A lesser man might have crumpled beneath the blow. The aristocrat merely straightened, adjusted his cravat, and smiled thinly, though his ribs ached beneath the gesture.

So crude. So brutish. How very… expected.

Karracca bore down on him with his lightsaber, the weapon’s azure light spitting shadows across the ruined hall. The Wookie’s roar filled the chamber, heavy swings carving holes in stone where Lucien’s body had been seconds before. He moved with dancer’s grace, each sidestep a deliberate insult. His shoulder protested each motion, but he refused to give the beast the satisfaction of seeing weakness. Pain and injury are a private matter, not something to be displayed to the world.

Lucien’s bow-like voice cut between the echoes of the saber. “You still hear them, don’t you? Those whips? Those chains?” It was never hard to know what was troubling the Jedi. Even before the fight started, Lucien had observed the whip marks on the creature's back, and gash-marks of padlocks on his ankles. Surely he was a captive in the past, chained like a beast. That much was clear.

The Wookie’s blade slammed into a column, sparks hissing. He snarled, ears pinned back.

Lucien let the Force coil through him once more, subtle and suffocating, a thread of darkness plucking at the fractures in his foe’s mind. Terror slid into the cracks like ice, widening them, forcing old images to the surface. Shackles clamped down in memory. The smell of singed fur. The taste of helplessness.

The great warrior’s swings grew erratic. No longer measured strikes of a Jedi, but desperate, primal hacks. His resolve, already fragile, now wavered visibly.

Lucien leaned against the ruin of a statue, feigning weariness, hiding his labored breath. His voice was silk wrapped around a dagger. “Come now, is that fury… or is it fear? The two sound so alike when you scream.”

Karracca bellowed in fury and denial, charging. His saber slashed too wide, too heavy. Lucien blurred away, vanishing in a ripple of shadows, reappearing on a higher ledge, looking down with contempt.

“Do you feel it? The melody of your fear. Exquisite, isn’t it?”

Every moment the Wookie fought his own fears, his rage grew. However, it was no longer the righteous fire of a Jedi. It was the panic of prey that realizes the hunter has already chosen the manner of its death.

Lucien exhaled slowly, allowing the viol’s last note, still echoing in his mind, to fade. His pale eyes darkened, and the aristocrat’s form melted into something older, more primal. Limbs dissolved, spine elongated, flesh twisting into iridescent scales. What stood in his place was no man at all, but a monstrous Ro-Hypa, coils thick as pillars, fangs glistening with venom that shimmered green in the unnatural light.

The serpent hissed, its sound echoing like a dirge in that ancient, cavernous hall.

Karracca faltered. Terror had hollowed him, and now the sight of that monster set him cowering. His saber wavered. His breath came in ragged bursts from fear and exhaustion.

The Ro-Hypa did not rush. It did not coil. It slithered forward with the languid patience of one who knows victory is inevitable. The Wookie tried to roar again, but the sound cracked halfway, betraying fear beneath the fury. He swung at shadows, blade cutting only air.

The serpent reared back, neck expanding, venom sacs pulsing. With a sudden, violent snap, it spat.

A jet of glistening poison cut through the air, catching the Wookie across his broad chest and muzzle. Steam hissed where it met fur and flesh. Karracca staggered, howling in pain, dropping his saber as the venom burned through him like wildfire. He clawed at his face, at his throat, his eyes wide with panic.

The serpent watched, unblinking and unhurried. There was no satisfaction in the strike, only inevitability. The Ro-Hypa hissed again as he circled around the cowering, wounded Jedi, the sound almost mocking. Then he spat venom once more, before moving in for the kill. He coiled and twisted around Karracca, trapping him, crushing his great limbs. And then...came the final, venomous and inevitable bite on his furry flesh, fangs burrying deep, venom working its way into the bloodstream.

The Wookie flailed helplessly. His great strength availed him nothing now. Each breath rattled weaker, each movement slower. The venom was doing its work swiftly, mercilessly. He collapsed against the stone, hands scrabbling weakly before finally going still, the blue glow of his saber extinguishing beside him before its master's life did.

For a long moment, eternal silence reigned in the temple. Only the slow drip of venom hissing against stone floor punctuated the stillness.

The serpent shifted, his scales rippling, his body folding inward. Lucien stood once more in dove-grey suit, all silk and shadow. He smoothed his coat, adjusted his hat, and picked up the viol where it had been left against the foot of a broken statue.

He drew the bow across strings, one soft, haunting note filling the chamber.

“Plebian and predictable to the end,” he murmured. A faint smile curved his lips. “But do not fret, dear creature. Even in death… you served your role.”

With that, Lucien turned and vanished into the ruins, leaving only the echo of his music, and the corpse of a fallen Wookie, behind.

The force with which Karra had struck him had caused the smaller and much thinner Sith to actually fumble his Sith Sword momentarily. Karracca then wound up for a mighty blow with his clawed free hand. The quick moving quasi-dilitante was able to dodge the 4 inch long claws that had been swung with lethal intent, but only just. The kid dove and somersaulted back to where he had dropped his Sith Sword and retrieved it. What ensued was a melee of dirty fighting and the occasional clashes of saber and sword.

As if from nowhere Lucien slashed at the Wookie with an, as of now, unseen blade. The old and very overweight wookie was either too slow or too lazy to dodge the razor edged sword and ended up with a nasty gash on his upper left arm for his trouble. As he roared in pain Karracca reached out and seized the aristocrat by the arm with his free hand and smashed the Anzati in the face with a cellulite laden, bloodsoaked elbow that connected with the side of Lucien's head.

Lucien stumbled backwards into another stone obelisk. Sending that he stunned his opponent Karracca moved in to finish him off, he trundled toward him and let loose a savage front kick from his chunky left leg. Again the spindly 20-something was able to narrowly dodge. The kick did land against the obelisk, hitting it hard enough to cause the entire thing to snap off at the base and tumble over and crumble as it smashed against the next pillar over. 

“I will end your pesky unrepentantly evil bloodline Sithspawn!” Karra roared in shryiwook. Lucien swiftly landed a side kick and then back flipped onto a raised platform several metres away. Karra scrambled to the shaped boulders edge and heaved himself onto it intent on finishing this charade. Just then the young rapscallion instantly disappeared in front of Karracca and reappeared on an escarpment about 40 metres away.

“Won't even fight me fairly! Your entire House is full of spineless cowards!” This time Karra didn't roar the words out loud. He sent them telepathically directly into Lucien's head as they stared at each other unflinchingly.

“Better luck next time you worthless old man” An evil grin emerged on the youngsters face before he back flipped off the short escarpment and hustled over to his waiting ship that had been hidden in the bushes. Lucien has already secured the prized Kyber crystals that he had found before the old fat Jedi wookie had arrived.