"This castle feels like it's asleep." Inside the Sith citadel, Ralkai Wren muttered as he walked, "It isn't crying anymore, and it isn't singing like that temple outside the village did."
It had to be said: the Sith had built this fortress well. After thousands of years, it still stood as solid as ever.
Spend where you must, save where you can. Max planned to keep the castle and turn it into a forward base for developing Exegol.
Of course, it would need to be cleaned out first.
"Don't relax too much," Max warned. "The Goddess didn't turn Exegol from a dark side nexus into a light side one. She only pulled it back from total darkness into a state of balance between light and dark. There may still be dark relics left inside this castle."
"Yes, Chief!"
"Keep your eyes open. Search carefully. Find any remaining dark side artifacts and either purify them or seal them."
"Yes, Chief!" father and son answered together.
Perhaps because the Sith loved darkness, there was little in the upper levels of the fortress besides the standing and fallen statues of ancient Sith Lords and dark masters. No other objects tied to the Sith or the dark side were in sight.
But as they followed the stairs deeper underground, and the surroundings grew darker and darker, Sith runes and murals began to appear more and more often along the walls of the passage.
Snap-hiss. // Snap-hiss. // Snap-hiss.
The helmets of Max and Christopher Wren naturally had night vision built in, but little Ralkai did not yet have a suit of beskar armor of his own. So all three ignited their lightsabers and used them as improvised lanterns.
Yet after a while, the darkness around them seemed to begin receding on its own. Somewhere below, there appeared to be a soft white light, glowing steadily.
"This..."
Before long, all three stopped dead and stared, stunned speechless.
What was shining below was a colorless, transparent kyber crystal the size of a mountain.
Goddess above, thank you for your favor, Max prayed silently in his heart.
In the later course of the original timeline, during the age of the Galactic Empire, the dark side power radiating from this crystal—in its red state—would instantly burn out the eyes of the Sith assassin Ochi, shatter Darth Vader's will when he tried to turn against his master, and force him back to his knees before Darth Sidious.
After that, the Sith Eternal would use this crystal to help create miniature Death Star cannons, arming more than a thousand Xyston-class Star Destroyers with axial superlasers.
"The wailing we heard before, and the illusion we went through—those were both connected to this thing, weren't they?" Christopher Wren asked Max. "Was it you who purified and healed it?"
"I'm not that capable. Not yet, anyway." Max waved a hand and explained, "This was a miracle worked personally by the wielder of the Force, the embodiment of the will of the light—the Goddess of Life herself."
And yet, after hearing that, Christopher Wren's gaze toward Max only grew more fervent.
If the Chief can move a goddess to work miracles in person, doesn't that make him a being favored by the divine? The gods protect the Chief. The gods protect Mandalore.
By the light of the great kyber crystal, the Mandalorians found the ancient Sith laboratory hidden beneath the lower reaches of the citadel.
The walls of the laboratory were inscribed with the oldest of Sith runes. Thick layers of dust and debris covered the floor, which had once been marked with a pattern of interlocking symbolic circles.
On obsidian worktables, bottles and jars lay scattered in disorder, filled with unidentifiable tinctures and foul substances.
Some damaged tomes, bound in the cracked hide of some unknown beast, sat on warped wooden shelves beneath thick webs of dust and spider silk.
And in a filthy basin filled with some unknown fluid, something that had once been flesh and blood—but had long since rotted beyond recognition—hung suspended.
"Blech—" Ralkai Wren gagged. "This place is disgusting..."
"Ralkai, step back."
"Yes, Chief! Blech—"
Once he had waved the boy back, Max reached into the basin and began digging around inside that nameless mass.
"Blech—"
Ralkai Wren completely lost the battle with his stomach and bolted out of the laboratory to vomit.
"Found it."
Hearing Max's voice, curiosity got the better of him. Fighting back his nausea, Ralkai poked his head in through the doorway and asked, "What did you find?"
"A Sith dagger."
Holding the dagger tightly, Max turned to Christopher Wren and ordered, "Chris, ignite your lightsaber and strike it with full force."
Crack.
Christopher's blade slammed into the Sith dagger and produced a sound more like a blaster shot than metal meeting energy. When the blow ended, the dagger was completely unharmed. Not even the slightest nick or scratch had been left on it.
"This..." Chris blinked. "Is that beskar?"
"No. Beskar isn't this hard." Max shook his head. "If it were a beskar dagger, it would at least have taken some marking or chipping from that strike."
"Is there really a metal in the galaxy harder than beskar?"
"Not that I know of. It's probably the Sith runes on the dagger doing the work." As he spoke, Max started walking out of the laboratory. "Chris, take Ralkai and fall back to the Kom'rk immediately."
Once back in the Kom'rk's cargo hold, Max used the aid of the yellow kyber crystals and, following methods recorded in the Jedi holocron, temporarily sealed the Sith dagger.
"Oh, right—" Ralkai exclaimed belatedly. "Why have all the kyber crystals here turned yellow?"
"They resonated with me and changed color earlier," Max explained. "Without the kyber crystals aboard this ship, the three of us probably would've been trapped in that castle."
"Good thing I found a blue one ahead of time, then. Heh."
"Get some rest. Then we'll keep exploring. The sooner we find and seal or purify relics like this Sith dagger, the sooner we can head home. And the sooner we get back to Bespin, the sooner you can forge your first lightsaber."
"That dagger is really that evil?"
"Of course." Max nodded. "From the moment I picked it up, it's been whispering for me to stab you and your father to death."
"Eugh—" Ralkai instinctively took two steps back. "Then why didn't you purify it or destroy it? Why only seal it for now? You haven't already been affected by it, have you?"
"It was with this dagger that Darth Noctyss killed Darth Sanguis, who had achieved a false kind of immortality. There's a very good chance this dagger can steal life force. The Sith can use it to kill ordinary people and Jedi. Which means the enemies of the Sith can use it to kill Sith as well."
"Are Sith really that hard to kill?"
"Very hard."
Not even counting Palpatine, that outrageous monster who died, came back, died, and came back again, even Maul had turned out to be the sort of lesser nightmare who could survive being cut in half and having a shotgun emptied into him. With a Sith relic like this—something that was both a holy object of the Sith and a weapon against them—Max at least had a little more confidence for the day he stood against one.
Over the next three days, the Mandalorian trio entered the Sith citadel again and again, exploring its depths and purifying or sealing one Sith artifact after another. But the castle was simply too vast for three people.
"To search the whole place thoroughly, we'd need at least a month."
"Then we head back for now. Next time we bring reinforcements and come back in a capital ship. We'll turn this place upside down."
"Yes, Chief."
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STAR WARS: THE RISE OF MANDALORE
🛡️🔥 STAR WARS: THE RISE OF MANDALORE 🔥🛡️
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📢 FOR MANDALORE! 📢
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In a galaxy filled with war, betrayal, ancient grudges, and rising factions…
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If you want Mandalorian honor, galactic conflict, brutal battles, and the return of a legendary people…
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