Abattoir/Part 12

Alecto barely even looked at the ladder at the base of the stairs, except to savor how very much not the same it was, before she moved on.

The fourth level of the Abattoir was apparently designed to test the physical dexterity and reflexes of Anzati aspirants, but here Darth Alecto found rest at last, even when the ground started to give way behind her and forced her onto the wobbling balance beams and retracting platforms. Even calling on the Force she might never match an Anzat for brute strength, but a Mirialan's agility outclassed a Human's any day; even on a bad ankle, Alecto could lean on the Force for enough focus and channel enough pain to dodge the arrows, fire, crushing blocks, and traps over almost a kilometer of terrain, coiling and winding down deeper into the earth. Alecto vaguely sensed that It was chasing her, but falling farther behind. Swinging through a waterfall on a rope even allowed her to take a drink; she had so much time before It and the arrow storm and fire chasing her would catch up that she swung through another two times to re-hydrate. Her ankle was in agony by the time she landed one-legged at the final platform, but she still grinned in malevolent satisfaction as she staggered through the door.

The fifth level was a warren of caverns and caves, a dozen branches all twisting out of sight, bioluminescent fungi and an ethereal glow from each bend providing lighting enough to see. Alecto had a brief moment to take in the sight of hundreds of little pteropine reptiles, each wearing a collar thinner than her finger, before they dropped from their stalactite purchases en masse and descended on her in a tornado of leathery wings and snapping teeth. Alecto drew her vibroblade, but only one of the things actually bit her before they all flew off in different directions. She sensed that the goal was to test hunting and pursuing skills, but she was still flushed with her victory in the fourth level and not averse to cheating. Calling on the Force, she let the dark side drag her eyes to the sense of her own blood and threw her vibroblade. The Force carried it true, and it speared the reptile through the middle; when the dark side carried her prize home, Alecto saw its little collar was actually a key. Hobbling to the center of that first open space while a few of the winged reptiles circled back and hissed in dismay, Alecto pressed the key to an indentation in the rock. While the door was opening, she skinned the key bat and ate as much of it as she could stomach.

Five levels down, two to go. Beneath lay the sixth—the most of which Azeroth Seji was capable. She still hadn't equaled the bastard. That thought goaded Alecto right past the ladder up to the temple without a second glance and into the penultimate trial.