USH'S GAME EPISODE V- 'MAUSOLEUM'- DARK SIDE AREA

A flailing leg from Wriath catches Saar in the chest.

"Hold him down before we have to STRIKE him down!" yells Saar.

Dak's trying to hold you down as well, Wraith! Traitor!

"You bastard!" Wraith says. "I'll kill you, Dak! You are in with them!"

"What the hell is going on?" Galder says as he runs into the room. He watches Wraith for a bit. "Sith spit, what the hell is he doing?"

"Get his sabres, Galder!" yells Saar. Wraith just nearly eviscerated Dak.

Galder ignites his lightsabers and tries to knock the blades out of Wraith's hands without harming him.

"Come to your senses!"

I hop back, also attempting to knock the 'sabres out of his hands. "Dammit, what the hell is wrong with him?"

"I have no f***ing idea," Galder says. "And where the hell is Rah? He should be helping!"

Great, he seems to be fighting back... your sabres lock with his, Galder.

"For the love off..." says Saar. He stands, and thrust his right hand downwards. Wraith, panicked and already fighting two assailants (and several imaginary ones) is in no position to counter the push that pins him to the ground. Then Saar stabs down hard with his other hand, carrying the hyperdermic.

Wraith, you feel as if the world was just pulled away from you, like your brain has been sucked out your ears. Then, you are sitting in the corrdior, covered in sweat, with Dak, Saar and Galder around ypu. A look at Saar sends a pulse of fear running through you. Saar rolls his eyes.

"Just how many times did you press that button?" he asks.

Wraith jumps up and backs away from Saar, lightsabers still ignited.

"Bu...button? What button?" he says, dazed.

I shake my head. "Idiot..." I deactivate the 'sabres and reattach them to the gauntlets.

Wraith merely glances at Dak, still very much afraid and enraged.

Saar sighs. "The Sith HAD to have had an easier way than this... though who knows, mayber harder?"

-

Kuylen's main problem when deciding to build a group of agents to compete against the Jedi was that of training. Kuylen could teach people how to handle a sabre and the basics of the Force, but how could he possibily rival the training facilities offered by the Temple? He improvised his own solutions. In having training in which you could die practicing against him or each other, Kuylen enforced the survivalist edge in all of you. In combat practice aginst live targets who could kill you in the arena, he gave each of you the instinct of a fighter.

But although Kuylen may be talented in the Force, he's not a Master. He can't teach you the secrets of creation. His wisdom does not match the Council's. But he had a solution- the Dark Side is, after all, quicker. IF you know how to get in touch with it.

The Fear Room is Kuylen's primitive but brutally effective solution to replace what for Jedi is years- a decade or more- of dull meditation and contemplation whilst they are children. The button contains a miniature hyperdermic which floods your system with a chemical that causes a chain reaction in the brain- which causes it to continually disgorge the chemical that causes fear, and you become incapable of experiencing anything else.

The experience is incredibly unpleasant. Your worst possible nightmares come true and you cannot escape them as your conscious brain shuts down and only your primordial fear is left. No-one EVER likes it. But- it doesn't half put you in touch with the Dark Side. A slight amnesiac affect in the drug makes you forget what it does whilst you are using it. Of course, the problem with that is that you may press the button several times, having forgotten what it does and thinking it has done nothing. The hyperdermics contain mood stablisers- just in case.

Still, whilst this place has gotten you far, it won't get you any further. 'Fear rooms' won't make you Masters. Only the Sith knew how to do that.

Hence Kuylen's main objective... he's moving up to the next level.

Wraith deactivates his lightsabers, and puts them on his belt next to the other four.

"I...I...I..." Wraith stutters. "I..." Wraith stops to think for a bit. "I didn't know that was how the fear room worked..."

"Well, now you do," Galder says, having pushed the button himself many times before. "I've had to fight off my worst fears before many times."

"In fact, Master Kuylen, is there any time for me to push the button?"

Kuylen is actually elsewhere right now.

"Your arm is FINE..." he is saying to Rah, rather tetchily. "It's all over. It's done."

Rah, you are in your room- having kicked over a few things- but your limbs are more intact than you thought they were a moment ago...

"I've had enough of that damned fear room long ago..." I say, remembering back to the training here.

(So...it was all fake? Damn that thing was scary!)

"What was Rah experiencing, Master Kuylen?" Galder says, looking for Kuylen and Rah, finding them in Rah's room.

Well, I am GLAD it was scary! That was the idea!

I am sure Rah can fill you in...

"So we are more or less prepared to go, as far as I am concerned. When are we leaving?" I ask of no one in particular.

(*reads Rah vs. Kuylen duel*

Baylin ran off, so we'll pretend he filled me in...)

"Well, it would have been worse if you pushed it a few too many times..." Wraith says. "I got to have Chion rip off my legs and Saar fry me with lightning..."

Even though it was a vision, I do not like Saar at all, Wraith thinks to himself.