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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2426927" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 250: Blue WallsThere was a definite change in atmosphere when Jyren and the Knights(with Kato in tow, of course) arrived on the next level up. The cream white colours were now etched with black scorch marks and blue smears that were easily recognizable as Alraxian blood. But one didn’t need to see the blood to know Alraxian’s had been slaughtered. The hallways were literally filled with the bodies, all in various states of mutilation but none looking to have had a quick or painless end. Here and there, the armored corpse of a Knight could be spotted, but that was almost as rare as the metal of a lost war droid limb. There were no dead husks of metal to show that the war droids had been taken down.    Kato had been sick.    Twice.    In all honesty, Jyren couldn’t really blame her. Even though he was used to death, this was something completely different. His eyes did their best to simply glance over the carnage, not wanting to focus on any of them at all, especially the many smaller bodies that were undoubtedly children. But the visible pain was not all their was.    Through the Force, Jyren could feel an air of pain permeating through the entire building. The palace itself hurt. Biting his lip and thinking quickly, Jyren took a glance down the corridor to make sure that nothing was coming before stepping back to Kato and kneeling next to where she was crouched behind a couple of the Knights.    Getting her attention, he asked, “I need to know what Ket would be doing to hurt the Palace...and why, if anyone has any ideas.”    Kato nodded in that slow, distant nod of someone confronting death for the first time. Slowly, she relayed his request to the Knights. It took another couple of minutes as the Knights thought about it before he got a response.    “He could be extracting information from the Palace,” Kato translated slowly, “They said he tried the same thing on the Capital but the building there wasn’t strong enough to survive.”    Jyren didn’t like the sound of that. Ket was treating the palace like a prisoner. Extract information violently, and if it dies...oh well. He probably planned to kill the palace in the end, anyway. But why extract information from it in the first place?    That was something Jyren didn’t need to ask about. The palace was...older than old. Thousands and thousands of years of knowledge and information collected right here. Ket was not stupid. He wasn’t going to just destroy an important resource. One thing that was comforting was that Jyren found that Ket seemed to be thinking like...well, a human. Whatever had happened to Ket, his outlook on life and how to do things was something Jyren could relate to and understand...to a point at least. The whole reasons for all of this were still a blur for him. It was yet to all add up, and Jyren couldn’t help but feel like it never would.    But that didn’t change the fact that Ket was killing innocent people by the thousands. No matter what was planned, that alone meant he deserved a swift justice. Jyren took a deep breath after that thought. Something was innately wrong with it, and for some reason he couldn’t pinpoint just exactly why. It wasn’t evil to kill someone in a situation like this...was it? He sighed as he got to his feet again. The Force had been so simple when he’d simply used it here and there and didn’t have to worry about what was right or wrong. But maybe that had been the problem all along. Even if the Alraxians were right about the lack of a Dark Side, Jyren was slowly starting to come to the point of no longer wanting to risk that fact and find out the truth the hard way.    One of the Knights said something to him. When Kato started to translate it, Jyren waved her off, “I know what he said...and we’re going.”    After a deep, calming breath, Jyren stepped back to the front of the group and led the way down the hallway. All the while he allowed the Force to guide him, but at the same time was doing his best to block out the intense pain and death he could both feel and see. He had to focus through it. They all had to. The Knights seemed to be doing about as well as he was. On the edge, yes, but holding together and focusing on where they needed to go. At least he wasn’t alone.    The group turned left at the end of the hallway to find no end to the carnage. In fact, it was arguably worse.  Gripping his lightsaber a little tighter in his hand, Jyren stepped over the bodies and continued on. Ket was close. Very close. But there was something else. A lingering danger. A trap, definitely. Even knowing it was there, though, wouldn’t stop it from springing and possibly killing the whole lot of them.    A door opened. The only way Jyren noticed it was through the corner of his eye as the things made no noise at all. Immediately, he spun around to see it was between him and the Knights. No...the door wasn’t. The two droids that quite literally jumped out were. The snap-hiss of his lightsaber was echoed by a cry of pain from one of the Knights as a metal blade dug through his neck.    Jyren’s lightsaber went up by instinct, slicing in half a blade aimed at his face. Instead of cutting him, he got a good smack from the flat end of the ruined weapon. The pain was, thankfully, much more tolerable than losing one’s face. The next few moments were a blur for him. Jyren did not so much see as he did feel. The next thing he realized, two war droids were down and so were three of the five Knights.    The remainder of them stood in silence when the adrenaline rush faded, but it was one of the Knights who was the first to look into the still open door. Jyren leaned over to look, too, finding it to be a larger looking chamber. There were a few interestingly designed columns here and there, but the point that got all of their attention was a central cube-like structure about twice Jyren’s height and made of an odd, semi-translucent blue material that reminded him of crystals.    “One of the central um...brains for the palace,” Kato said quietly from about two meters away, translating something the taller of the two remaining Knights said.    Jyren nodded. No surprise there. After a quick thought, he looked to Kato and pointed back the way they’d came, “Get back to the others.”    Kato nodded slowly, a wide-eyed terror very apparent on her face. It took her a strangely long time to scramble up over the bodies and up to her feet before she made the same awkward escape down the hallway. Jyren sighed and looked to the two Knights. They both nodded, holding similar expressions to his own. They all knew what was likely to be found in there, and they didn’t need words anymore.    Lightsaber still bathing them in a soft blue-green light, Jyren stepped into the room, eyes and ears alert.</blockquote>

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