Making her way across to Yerbol and Cheriss, the Champion glanced quickly over her partner to find that his most serious injuries appeared to be the gash marks on his chest.
“Stay still, you're bleeding.” she murmured urgently as he began pacing and muttering though at first she could make no sense of what he was saying without his explanation. “O-Oh.” for a brief moment, she felt a flash of pity for Illesia, it must have been hard for her not having a place to call home, somewhere to feel safe….
Then she remembered all the terrible things the Xiis had done, to Yerbol and to those younglings, and squashed that thought like an ant. She didn't deserve anyone's pity. Yerbol averted his gaze and mumbled something about sharing some of Illesia's memories, she could tell he was withholding information but didn't press him for it, however much she wanted to.
Instead, she glanced over the first statement and focused on his suggestion.
“It's as good a place to start as any.” the Champion agreed, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently.
It's okay...You don't HAVE to explain anything to me that you'd rather not, you know that right? She managed a smile, and hoped it would help him feel a bit better. Drawing back again to give him a bit of space, she turned to check on Chwuq, who was still on her side while her mate nudged her frantically to try and get her back on her feet. Frowning in concern, Aria moved across to her and knelt beside the beast, who to her relief, opened her eyes and glanced towards her.
“Come on, up you get. Don’t make me carry you, you big baby.” the Champion quipped, patting the hound’s flank. Chwuq thumped her tail weakly but still refused to move at first, drawing an amused chuckle from Roan who lingered only briefly to check on his old friend as well.
“You have grown soft, my friend.” the Tuk’ata growled crossly and champed her teeth at him in retort, the Sith Lord’s apparition disappearing with one final nod at the duo once he was satisfied that Chwuq was indeed able of getting up again and none of the trio needed his assistance any further. With some encouragement from Aria and Taral, the injured tomb beast managed to haul herself back to her feet, snorted, and shook the loose shards of stone from her pelt, unharmed apart from a few clumps of missing fur, a gash or two and the fact that she refused to put weight on the foreleg which had hit the wall first, leaving her with a pronounced limp.
Aria had tried to put her hands on it to examine it and determine what was damaged (please don't let it be a broken bone…) but was warned away by a low growl.
“Hurts.” Chwuq huffed, licking her lips rapidly.
“I know.” the Champion scratched under her chin soothingly. “Don't worry, we'll get you fixed up when we get back, then it won't hurt anymore.”
Before heading back towards the settlement again, the trio made a quick search of the rest of the tunnel network and stumbled upon a small group of bedraggled Force users who had not yet been consumed by the Five. Apparently the Qyaari had interrupted that process when they had arrived and Illesia had called them away. They were gaunt-faced and rather badly wounded but their eyes brightened immediately at the assurance that the Five had been dealt with. The Qyaari accompanied them to the med center back at the settlement, where their own injuries could be treated as well; Yerbol's wounds required a few shots of kolto and some antiseptic salve held in place with bandages for a day or so, Aria had a few bruises and a gash of her own to her left shoulder that required similar attention, and Chwuq turned out to have dislocated her shoulder which was a simple matter of coaxing the Tuk’ata to allow a medic close enough to pop it back into place (“For Force sake, just man up and do it already, I'm more likely to get bitten since I'm the one sitting by her head!”). After filling the Alliance lieutenant in on their findings, the group departed Dromund Kaas and made their way back to Zinuthra to search the archives. Aria spent a large majority of the time meditating this time around as she tried to discern any clues she could from their former experiences with Renso without questioning Yerbol too much about his experiences with Illesia (even though the information might have been useful, she didn't want to seem like she was probing for information he wasn't ready to share with her).
She had very little to show for her efforts by the time they landed, only images of towering glaciers that stretched as far as the eye could see, but no clue as to where or why which meant it wasn't particularly useful. She decided to keep it to herself until she could make more sense of it. When they arrived back at Zinuthra again, Cheriss disappeared back into the Council chamber to inform the rest of the Elders of the events that had taken place on Dromund Kaas while the two Champions made their way to the archives on the second floor to comb through what remained of the True Sith texts Renso had left them with. As the place Renso had initially steered them towards when they had met with him, they began with Nuncata. The files were well hidden and somewhat tricky to find (likely due to the backlash Renso and his associates suffered when the experiments went wrong) but thankfully had been kept hidden away. They could glance over the initial documentation of the experiments and their results due to their first-hand knowledge of the events from Renso, allowing the duo to instead split up and skim over records to discover what had happened and where the Xiis had gone after the project had been disbanded and shut down.
Presently, Aria sat on the edge of one of the chairs situated in the corner across from the windows, one leg crossed over the other and a datapad perched on her knee as she scrolled through the texts which Vano had managed to digitize, for better storage purposes, after a very time-consuming and painstaking process (or so the Mirialan liked to remind everyone: “while you guys were out having fun beating people up, I’ve been bored to death reading all of Renso’s old archives and organising them so you better appreciate that!”). She had been about to scroll right past it after glancing over it twice and thinking not much of it, but she couldn’t ignore the visions that kept returning whenever she saw mention of the “safe place for the Xiis to be left, away from the rest of society” (or other such similar word choices). Raising a hand, she beckoned Yerbol over again.
“I think I’ve got something; Renso made notes of where they sent the Xiis after they lost control of them” Clearing her throat, the Champion read aloud:
“In order to protect ourselves from the threat the Xiis possessed, we had no choice but to take them to a place where in time they would become nothing more than a bad memory to the elders, where no-one else would ever find them or remember them. It’s inhospitable, it would be surprising indeed if any of them managed to survive the ice that has had its grip on the landscape for centuries now.” her mouth curved upwards in a wry smirk. “If only they’d thought of the possibility, huh?” she commented, scanning further down to try and find a name of some description. “Chufion Prime, we believe it is called. Not that it matters, I am ordering all records of it on our galaxy maps to be erased after this log entry, we cannot risk anyone else stumbling upon our mistake. I only hope that with time the ice will erase the last traces of them, perhaps then I will finally be free of this horror I have created.” the two Champions exchanged a somber glance for a moment, before Aria opened the planet database on the datapad and attempted to figure out how they were going to find out the co-ordinates so they could travel there.
“That’s got to be it, right? But if he erased all the data…”
Nothing, of course, was a match for the diligent duo and the eagle-eyed (for someone who was missing one, especially) Mirialan archivist who seemed to have a talent for finding information that others wished to keep hidden.The duo had begun by flagging up every planet in the vicinity of Wild Space they could find that documented frigid temperatures, but couldn’t come close to finding one cold enough to be covered in the vast expanses of ice that Aria had seen in her visions...which Yerbol with some reluctance later also confirmed he had seen in Illesia’s memories. After hours of fruitless searching in a similar manner, the Champions had thrown in the towel and implored for Vano’s help.
“Did it ever occur to you, my dearest Ari and Yerbol,” she had taken great delight in reminding them with a satisfied grin on her face, “that you might not looking for a planet?”
The pair had stared at her, dumbfounded, exchanged a glance and stared at her again.
“...I’m sorry?”
“Well, you’re looking for a place that’s uninhabitable to most beings but that would still provide some kind of living space to those who could specialise to it. THINK, a moon like Pantora, or Endor.”
Aria groaned softly and pressed her forehead into her palm. OF COURSE it could have been an ice moon.
“Do you know where we might find one? One that Renso tried to keep hidden?”
“Ari, you underestimate how boring it gets in here without company. Of course I know where it is. You could have asked me two hours ago and Id’ve told you.”
With a little more pleading, the Mirialan had left them with the information they needed, which only left the matter of planning the journey, and more importantly how they would deal with anything the moon had to throw at them once they touched down (including tracking down and dealing with Illesia, of course, should that opportunity present itself).
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