#inquisitorium

Drew that one for Ask Star Wars where i'm gonna be answering for my OC :) Also used mostly new brush i recently found in medibang.

I have been focusing on my combat skills the last two days. It helps to stretch my muscles after the shock rod. Keeps them from seizing up and aching. The medtech said it would likely take a few weeks for my muscles to get back to normal. That there is a path back to normal is comforting. And my two-weapon fighting has significantly improved. I M proud of that. 

Standing alone is uncomfortable. Not physically, but mentally. I have always established bonds easily and the fact that I failed so fully here is as much a wound to my pride as the scar on my neck. 

It never occurred to me that she could hate me so completely because of my family. It was a blind spot. A chain that I never realized until it tightened around my throat. And pulled.

I was wrong.

I thought I was clever and brilliant and I was not. I was, in fact, playing into a trap that I didn’t see coming until the jaws closed around me. 

I was an idiot. 

The last few days have been hectic. We have been grilled on mandates and legal procedures constantly, even to the point of skipping some of our combat training. Tomorrow we will hold a mock interrogation. I believe I am adequately prepared for it.

Also, I have found more on Lord Siva. 

As I suspected, she stopped carrying the lightsaber once she became an overseer, as I found the induction ceremony holovid when she was made assistant overseer. She didn’t have the saber on her. I have done as much searching on the holonet as I can and from what little I can gather, the saber was indeed something she took from a Jedi. But why would it be taken from her? 

I got the opportunity to visit her office today during our evaluations and though I looked carefully, I couldn’t find any evidence of a saber on display, or having ever been displayed. 

I woke up a few minutes early to look at the results of the algorithm this morning. It wasn’t much, but I did notice something. In the holovids prior to her commendation, she doesn’t have a secondary lightsaber hanging from her belt. Yet after the commendation, she has one. At least until she arrived as an assistant overseer here. I wouldn’t find it significant except that her commendation, brief as it is, mentions defeat of overwhelming enemy combatants. And when I looked closer at the holovids, the lightsaber she wears, but never seems to use, looks nothing like those that I have seen in Imperial hands. There is a softness, a roundness to it, as if it is meant to be pretty, not deadly. An Imperial saber is obviously a weapon. 

I believe this means she wore the captured saber of a Jedi. And now she no longer does. Was it taken from her? Is that why she is an overseer and no longer an inquisitor? I set out to find out.

During the evening classes, I approached her. We were alone in the hall for a few moments, so I took my chance. I had turned on the recorder for my datapad. I am surprised the recording was not jammed. But perhaps she meant to allow it. 

“Lord Siva, do you have a few moments?”

“Yes, initiate, but only a few. I am busy and you are slow.”

“That is why I wished to speak to you. Why do you hate me?” Miserie’s voice sounded confused, hurt. 

“I hate most of the students here. They think they can turn into Inquisitors, do the job I was born for, in just a few weeks? They are pathetic, doomed to failure. You are just like them,” the woman’s voice sounded older, raspy. 

“Your hate toward me seems different. More intense. I wonder if I have done something to anger you specifically?” 

Siva laughed. “And what if you have? Do you think you can win you to your side with your charm?”

“No, Lord Siva. But perhaps with cunning?”

“You think yourself cunning. How quaint. Show me your cunning tomorrow. We shall see if I still hate you.”

I believe Lord Siva is looking at me as more than just a punching bag or a way to vent her anger. She pushes me in class, seeks to find my limits in a way she doesn’t with the others. Minor missteps are met with disproportionate punishment. I ache and I have visited the medbay already for deep burns across my back. 

I had thought it only her method of correction, to make an example of me, at first. But others have made more significant missteps — one ridiculous pureblood bobbled the words of the Code — and have not been given such harsh punishments. Examining her actions, I believe Lord Siva either sees me as a worthless cause or one with potential she wants to hone. If I was worthless, then I suppose she might still drive me hard to attempt to encourage what strength there is in me. But I also have been singled out. And when I do not fail, she gives me an assessing look. One that I have seen before. In my uncle’s eyes. 

We have been studying investigation and interrogation. We were given an assignment: find a hidden truth about something at the Inquisitorium. I heard the others talking, discussing topics such as architecture — one of the others thinks there is a hidden basement level — and former students. 

But I understand that these are surface-level investigations. Information without purpose. Drive without passion. Something that is personal is infinitely more effective as a goal. So I sought to find Lord Siva’s need for me. 

It is after midnight and I will be very brief. 

The day was a whirlwind. The training is both physical and mental, without a lot of time for reflection. I think I will likely end up spending many nights reading and studying the texts we have been presented during the day so I can properly absorb them. I am not so blunt as I had feared, but not so sharp as I had hoped. This will be a lot of work. 

Lord Siva has been charged with watching over six of us. She is hard, cold, ruthless, and imperious. She expects a lot of us and her displeasure can be quite painful. It reminds me somewhat of my time as an apprentice. I seem to have caught her attention or gained her ire — I’m not sure which — and I have so far been on the receiving end of a bladed electrowhip three times. 

The study of laws and mandates goes well. Most of them I know or understand. I am studying a few cases in depth to write about their merits and flaws as a part of a project for the week. 

As has been pointed out to me, an outline of the facts of my ongoing missions is not necessarily a bad idea. And it will only lead to heresy or treason if I am a heretic or a traitor, which I am not. 

I arrived at the Inquisitorium on Dromund Kass at midday. It is a large, dark, imposing facility, as almost all Imperial facilities are. I’ve always felt like the architecture tries too hard. There is power in beauty as well. Ask any beautiful woman. Hell, ask an ugly woman. It will get you a better answer. 

Orientation was long and included a number of exams and tests. The physical examination was intrusive and uncomfortable. The psychological exam was more uncomfortable than when the Dark Lady interrogated me. Likely because I didn’t know the Sith in charge. I will be sending a short message to her later. After all that has happened, I do not want to lose touch with what family I have left. 

Then I was run through a combat test. To no one’s great surprised, I am not as skilled in unarmed combat as some. Despite my training and trials in the Dark Lady’s service, combat continues to be an area where I need improvement. I have been recommend an intensive regimen of blade training so that I can fully embrace a two-weapon style of fighting with my daggers. As they can all deflect a lightsaber, it gives me an advantage against those who are used to dealing only with other long blades. At least that is my hope. 

I have been assigned to the Mynock Wing. All the different wings are named for the animals representing the saber forms. Each wing has an Overseer and three Assistants. Mynock is run by Darth Etolian. He is very tall, at least seven feet, and pale as if he has never seen the sun. I am unsure if he is a near-human or an alien, but he has an excellent reputation, as I heard a number of initiates asking to be placed in his wing. 

That is what I am now: an initiate. Back at the bottom again. But at least this time I have more skills and knowledge to use. I have been studying these things already. It is my hope that I will merely be honing myself rather than having to build up the edge from bluntness. 

The three Assistants in Mynock are Lord Siva, Lord Drisk, and Lord Meara. I have been nominally assigned to Lord Siva’s group.