Of course, while I did spend as much time hanging out with Karasuba as I could manage, eventually, Overseer Harkun found himself a new way to blight my existence.

"Lord Zash has decided on your final trial," Harkun said, looking between myself and Ffon- an actual Sith Pureblood, who Harkun believed very firmly was the only one in our group who deserved success- a group that had been whittled down to just two at this point. "Venture into the tomb of Naga Sadow and retrieve a map... guarded by an ancient Dashade warrior, held in stasis against the possibility of intruders."

"Final trial," I said aloud. "So, after this, I'll finally be done with you?"

"You'll be done with breathing, alien filth," Harkun spat. "Out!"

I shrugged, and ambled out of his office, glad to be rid of him.

Now... which one was the tomb of Naga Sadow again?

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"Fuck eighteen consecutive ducks," I said, groaning and trudging into the chamber of the slumbering Dashade.

Naturally, it wasn't as simple as 'walk into the room, the tomb guardian awakens, and then tries to kill you to death.' Noooo, you had to hunt down the keys, plural, to unlock the fucking tomb guardian fight, and then you could pass.

Finding all those keys had been a hassle and a half, but I had managed it, and now, I could finally fight that goddamn tomb guardian.

"Trespasser," the Dashade began in its ancient tongue, before I punched it in the face with the full strength of a hundred Sith, shattering bone and tearing skin, halfway decapitating the goddamn thing before it could finish its spiel.

"Where's that fucking map," I muttered, trudging through the gore on my way to the newly-opened door.

----------------------------------------

I walked back into Harkun's office- tracking blood on the floor, which was actually hard to manage; it was a hell of a hike back here, and I'd had to save some Dashade blood in a container to re-wet my boots just before I walked in. The effort I put in to being petty...- and set the map on his desk, interrupting his chat with Ffon, who hadn't even managed to find the chamber with the Dashade yet.

"I win," I announced.

"...You," Harkun began, taken aback. "You- No. Ffon, you found this." He snatched the map up, passing it to the Sith.

"Did he really?" a voice behind me asked.

I'd bumped into Lord Zash on my way in, and explained to her why, precisely, I was rubbing part of a dead body on my boots before entering my Overseer's office. She was a surprisingly pleasant woman, for being a Sith Lord, and seemed to appreciate my sense of humor and pettiness. Which, given the way she styled her short blonde hair, dredged up a comparison from Old Rose's memory- a 'self-aware Karen.'

"Because I fear that this may not be the full, unvarnished truth," Zash continued, carefully not stepping in my wet footsteps. Just because she liked that I tracked blood into Harkun's office didn't mean she wanted blood on her own shoes. "Now, tell me, Ffon... did you actually retrieve that map?"

"...N-no, my lord," Ffon said, nervously.

"Lord Zash," I began.

"Yes, my apprentice?" Zash asked, lightning crackling at her fingertips.

"I think I've done quite well so far," I continued. "Don't I deserve a minion of my own? Someone to pawn off the truly menial tasks to, that don't warrant the attention of a real Sith?"

"Hrm..." Zash considered this. "Well, I was going to simply kill Ffon, but I suppose you've earned an underling. Congratulations, Ffon. You get to live."

He glared venomously at me.

"As for you, Harkun..." Zash continued, turning to face the Overseer. "...I don't suppose you have any other ideas, Apprentice?"

"It is tradition for me to receive a lightsaber at this point," I said lightly. "I'm sure Harkun doesn't need his anymore."

"You will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands," Harkun spat.

"That can be arranged, Overseer," Zash said, lightning crackling at her fingertips once more. "Your lightsaber, if you will?"

Harkun visibly struggled with this for a good few moments, before, finally, swearing and handing over his lightsaber.

"Aw, damn, it's one of those with the battery you can't swap out without a screwdriver," I said, inspecting it. "Well, this one's worthless." I tossed it up in the air and vaporized it with my own lightsaber. "Ah well. I guess if I want spares, I'll just have to make 'em myself. Where to next, Lord Zash?"

"Dromund Kaas," Lord Zash said. "Pack your things and meet me in the spaceport. We'll be taking my ship there."

"Excellent. Oh, Ffon, pack light. We'll only have so much room, and I have a lot to bring with me."

He grit his teeth.

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"So, Rose," Zash began. "I have a plan, and I will need you to execute it. I, of course, have my duties to attend to, and cannot afford to go gallivanting across the galaxy like I once could."

"I see," I said, nodding. "Well, I'm used to fetch quests by now. At least you're more pleasant than Harkun."

"This ship was plenty big," Ffon muttered off in the corner, still sulking about having to leave behind... whatever the hell he did. His closet full of racist T-shirts? His vinyl collection? Holocrons detailing how not to become the minion of an up-and-coming Sith Lord who thought you made funny noises when inconvenienced?

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"What will I be fetching first, my lord?" I continued, ignoring my apprentice.

"The head of my direct superior, Darth Skotia," Zash said. "He has a few things I need, which includes the authority of his office. Now, obviously, I cannot be seen to be directly involved in his murder, so you'll be on your own when the time comes, but..."

"Meh, I'll be fine," I said, shrugging. "I killed a Dashade. I'm not afraid of some guy."

"Darth Skotia is not just some guy, unfortunately," Zash explained. "He is, among other things, a highly-augmented cyborg, and has a Trandoshan honor guard. You'll need-"

"I will not," I said simply. "Just his location will suffice, my lord."

"...Leave Ffon behind, when you go to confront Skotia," Zash said. "I'd like to have a spare in case anything goes wrong."

"As you wish, my lord," I said. "I'll simply have to demonstrate my prowess to him some other time."

Ffon rolled not merely his eyes but his entire head.

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I completed my task with discretion, shortly after we landed on Dromund Kaas. One of Old Rose's tricks was shapeshifting, and so it was trivial for me to duck into a restroom, turn into an unremarkable human woman- really, Old Rose but shorter and flatter- and head for Skotia's office. Kick in the door, slip past the guards, and decapitate him before he could really react.

Old Rose hadn't thought much of the ability that gave her a hundred times peak human physical capability, but as someone plunged into the kill-or-be-killed waters of Sith-hood, I very much appreciated being able to so easily circumvent anything my opponents could throw at me.

Anyhow, I'd been wearing a disposable cover-all jumpsuit at the time- the sort construction workers wore when handling chemicals they didn't want to spill on their clothes- and had, of course, disposed of that before returning to rendezvous with Zash and Ffon, stopping along the way to pick up a broken lightsaber- technically illegal to buy and sell in the Empire- from a seedy pawn shop, making it look like that was my real errand.

Zash and Ffon were surprised to see me walk into the high-class watering hole- Zash had quirked an eyebrow, and Ffon's eyes had gone wide for a whole second- but, nonetheless, Zash kept her focus on her fellow Sith who she was nominally entertaining.

"Apprentice," Zash said as I drew up to the table. "How goes your errand?"

"Complete in full, my lord," I said. "Would you like the details now, or in private?"

"Oooooh, details," one of Zash's fellows said, leaning in.

"Come now, Zash, you wouldn't hold out on us like that, would you?" the other pleaded.

"Now, now," Zash began.

"It's harmless enough, I believe," I said, opening up my pocket to reveal the broken lightsaber to Zash, and nudging her lightly with my knee under the table.

"...I suppose so," Zash said, sighing dramatically. "Well, Apprentice, why don't you tell them the whole sordid story?" Translation: okay, fine, but you have to come up with a convincing lie.

"Gladly," I said, pulling out the broken lightsaber and placing it on the table. "You see, Lord Zash is currently investigating a collection of artifacts that we think once belonged to an ancient Sith Lord. It was... gah, their names just blur together in my head... Ludo Kresh, I think it was?"

In point of fact, she'd informed me that the Sith Lord in question was actually Tulak Hord, but this way, I wasn't leaking information she might actually want to keep secret, while also giving plausible deniability in case they did already know she was investigating Tulak Hord.

"Anyway," I continued, "She's traced one of the artifacts to the possession of a Sith Lord out in the middle of nowhere, and wanted something to trade to them for the artifact. And for that, she's tasked me with finding an old, broken lightsaber, so that she can train me in the maintenance of such things, alongside the practice of forging artifacts. The idea, if I recall correctly, was to convince this Sith Lord that we had recovered an ancient lightsaber that had once belonged to someone important, and then trade this cheap piece of shit for the artifact we actually want."

"Ooooooh," the second Sith cooed.

"Absolutely devious, darling," the first said.

I couldn't help but note that, while all three Sith Lords at this table were human women, Zash was visibly the youngest- late 20s, early 30s, probably- by a wide margin, with Sith One being visibly middle-aged, with light wrinkles and streaks of grey, and Sith Two being older than that, her hair having gone fully grey, and her face a bit wrinklier.

How these three had made each other's acquaintance, I wasn't sure. Maybe they were contemporaries of Zash's own hypothetical and late master, who decided they liked Zash better than the old one?

"Inde-" Zash began, before her communicator rang. "Who in the blazes... Oh, deary me, is that Darth Thanaton himself calling me?"

"Thanaton... That's one of the Dark Councilors, right?" I asked. "The ones who keep the Empire running while the Emperor is busy?"

"He is indeed," Sith Two said, nodding. "We're all under Skotia, but Skotia is under Thanaton, who runs the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge."

"Zash, you insufferable worm," Thanaton's hologram spat as Zash answered his call. "You cannot expect to get away with this!"

"With... what, precisely?" Zash asked, furrowing her brow and tilting her head, forming a downright adorable portrait of confusion.

I wonder, does she like women? She was about my age, and really quite attractive. Plus, we didn't have the baggage that Old Rose and Karasuba had.

"Do not lie to me, Zash," Thanaton said. "It insults my intelligence, and demeans us both. Rest assured, you and your brewing heresy will be snuffed out soon enough. With Skotia's death-"

"Skotia is dead?" Zash asked, before clutching at her throat.

"I should simply kill you now," Thanaton remarked, his hand raised and clenched, as though he were in the room himself, personally choking the life from my master. "Fortunately for you, however..." He released his grip on her throat, and Zash hacked and wheezed. "...I already have more than enough paperwork to do with Skotia's death. You aren't worth the trouble. Yet. The Dark Council convenes again in three days; we'll see how Darth Mortis feels about your murder."

He hung up, and Zash kept coughing, tears pricking at her eyes.

"...Darth Mortis would be the Dark Councilor in charge of..." I began, trailing off.

"The Sphere of Laws and Justice," Sith One said.

"Thanaton is a stickler for the rules," Sith Two added, conspiratorially. "He follows them himself, of course, but... well. Easy for him to do, isn't it?"

"Right, well," I said, sighing and patting Zash's shoulder. "We should probably go and get this one some medical attention. Don't want her dying on me."

"Take care, now!"

"Don't die yourself, young lady! I look forward to following your career!"