Fane fell to his knees as the Sith dragged him along and into a circular room, where several other Sith sat with Awgro in the centre. It looked like a meditation chamber of some sort. Fane ignored the friction burn he felt on his knees. He took the time to catch his breath.
            Awgro stood, as did others, and walked towards Fane. Awgro scowled.
            ‘I thought you were going to bring back Talyc Kandera!’
            ‘He proved more difficult to capture than we anticipated,’ replied one of the Sith holding Fane.
            ‘More difficult to capture than a Jedi?’ Awgro snapped incredulously.
            ‘He had help! Shadie and Knarf arrived at the scene.’
            ‘Well, I suppose Fane will do. He’s not going to help me claim the Crypt, though, is he?’
            ‘We could use him as leverage,’ another Sith said. ‘We’re not going to claim or gain anything without some of that too.’
            ‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Awgro.
            ‘You know, for a leader, you’re awfully lenient,’ said Fane, defiance in his voice.
            ‘That’s because the Reformed Sith have no leader,’ said Awgro. ‘We work as one, and follow the dark side of the Force as it should be.’
            ‘What are you going to do to me?’ asked Fane.
            ‘That is a matter that is up for debate,’ replied Awgro.
            Fane frowned. ‘I’m more powerful than you, Awgro. I killed Relsor.’
            A masked Sith standing further back made a noise in his throat.
            ‘That you did, but we’ll see how powerful you are once the Force has been completely stripped from you.’
            Awgro ignited his lightsaber and grazed Fane’s arm, ripping his shirt in the process. Fane moaned in pain, putting his hand on the wound to cover it up and holding it there.
            ‘My best shirt. You certainly have timing, to plan this coup on my wedding night!’ Some of the Sith snickered. ‘But you know what? You can never fully strip me from the Force because I have the power of the Crypt and you don’t. I will always have a piece of the Force within me, no matter what.’
            Awgro crouched to look at Fane at hise eye level. ‘Maybe what you say is true, Fane, but you see, I will take your life away from you, I will take everything away from you. I want that Crypt and I will have it. And my companions want the galaxy they were promised, no matter how they get it.’
            ‘If this is about avenging Relsor’s death–’
            ‘This is not about revenge!’ one of the other Sith said firmly, a tall male Chagrian of a pale purple colour. He took Fane’s face and squeezed his cheeks hard. ‘This is about rectifying the error you made and correcting the course of the Force to balance it out towards the dark side.’
            ‘Balance? Pfft! You want to tip the scales!’
            The Chagrian narrowed his eyes and began to drain Fane of the Force again. He seemed to be the strongest in that ability among the rest of them. Awgro began draining Fane of his life. Then they both stopped.
            ‘Let’s lock him up,’ said Awgro. ‘We’ll figure out what to do with him later.’
            The Chagrian nodded and stood. ‘Take him away,’ he said.
            Fane was dragged by the arms out of the room and propped up. He staggered into a room with containment fields and was thrown into one of the smaller cells. The containment field came up. He observed how Awgro and the Chagrian seemed to have the most authority, though they claimed they had no leaders. This was odd, yet perhaps they decided things as a council but with spokespersons.
Fane watched the Sith leave. One of them, the one who wore a mask over his face and hood over his head, turned back to look at him for a moment. Fane tried to get a sense of the man who merely stood there watching him before he turned back and exited like the others.
Fane lifted his hand from the wound on his arm and looked under the rip in his shirt. He sighed in relief. Although he still felt remnants of pain, the mark was gone; there was no cauterization whatsoever.
            ‘Healed,’ he whispered to himself.
            He closed his eyes. Even drained from the Force, his body could regenerate. He focused and tried to muster the Force within him, however much of it that had not been drained, the little bit that was still there. He tried reaching out to the others, but he could not find them in the Force. He focused on Lian, but the Jedi healer felt too distant for him to feel him. So Fane turned his focus on the Sphere, he felt it searching for him, he felt it more strongly than he could feel the others, he assumed it was because of its own abilities. He let himself shine like a glowing beacon for it, ready to be found, calling out to it through the Force as loudly as he could, hoping it would sense him and find his location, wherever that actually was.

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