Madness

In the darkness the faintest echo of wind far off in the distant could be heard, followed by the sound of few rocks shifting in the chasm below. The gravel sliding itself was only the softest hiss, but in the depths of the dark abyss it might as well of been a thunderous roar. It served to mask the quiet footsteps on the stone bridge, deftly navigating the precipice in the unending night. The figure moved swiftly and silently beneath the gaze of the carved giants that stood watch, their eyes as lifeless as the stone they were carved of. At the end of the stone bridge the figure stopped, peering forward and listening intently behind for any sounds of a shadow that was not his own. He would quickly dart across the open forum, coming at last to his destination; the giant stone doors rose in front of him, sealing the great secrets held behind them away from prying eyes. The figure ran his fingers across the surface of the door, feeling for the runes carved in its surface. Glancing behind him, his dark black eyes searching for any sign of a follower, he decided against caution and reached into his bag. He quickly produced a glow rod, and with a near imperceptible click illuminated the abyss with the brilliant yellow-gold light.
Blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted, Mir Stodja's glow rod shone like a bright star in the void illuminating the dust covered Nautolan's face. It had taken him several weeks to get to this point. First he had trekked through the Wastes above, losing his way more than once as the labyrinth of towering junk piles seem to shift to block or confuse his path. This was not made any easier by the wildlife, dianogas waiting hungrily in pits of filth, rogue and broken down droids waiting in shadowy places, and the very air itself threatening to choke the life of any would be traveler. Then of course he had to find his way into the temple, the passage ways long blocked by piles of thruster parts, starship hulls, and any other refuse from the years. Finally came the long dark. The days of wandering through the darkness. He of course could see, but miles of featureless stone walls and the ever present obfuscating fog and mist made it difficult to track one's whereabouts.
Some days in he had felt as if something was watching him. He had the ability to move stealthily if he chose, but even his surreptitious movements could not seem to shake his shadow. Worse even, he never once spotted what was tracking him, only felt the eyes upon him. But now, high above the chasm and in the face of his destination, he chose to forgo caution. He must be able to read the runes carved upon these doors. In the pale light of the glow rod, he slowly read the runes and studied the inscriptions upon the doors and surrounding walls. Definitively Sith in origin, he thought. Layers of dust suggest these haven't been open in some time, possibly thousands of years. There must be something important in here for this temple to be buried so deep. But the doors are sealed.
Mir spent days studying the doors. The inscription was plain enough, it would require two to open the door. But he was alone. He had searched the entire length of the cliff, looking for a hidden way inside. After the third day he realized the solution as he absently mindedly coiled the fibercord he had packed over and over, contemplating the problem. He hooked the grapple onto the door handle, ensuring it would not come loose, and walked the cord around a single stone statue before tying it off around himself. Then with all the might and strength he could muster, he pushed on the outer door, the rope slowly pulling the other side as he used the statue as a pulley. As he pushed he finally felt the mechanism give way, finally allowing the doors to swing open. He felt the rush of stale air as it opened, air that had not been breathed in a millennia. With unabated excitement he walked forward into the darkness, stashing the glow rod and dousing himself in the abyss.
The other riddles of the Sith proved to be trivial. Mir had studied the Force for so long that knowing how they, and the Jedi, thought was second nature. He spent months pouring over the texts within the walls of the temple, trying to learn the secrets that were guarded by the watchful eyes of the stone warriors within its halls. The long darkness slowly consumed him. He had not heard the sound of the wind, felt the sun upon his face in some time. He began to speak aloud, talking through his theories just to hear his own voice, any voice, within the crushing abyss. It took time for him to carefully unseal the doors, his first attempt had collapsed the central passage way as he too forcefully tried to bypass the ancient lock holding them. After the first few weeks he found the center antechamber, and unsealed a room unlike anything he had ever seen.
On a large central dais, lorded over by the stone visage of ancient Sith warrior, rested a small box, sealed against the passage of time. It was made of a dark metal, one that reflected no light, absorbing it and forcing the room to appear dimmer despite the several glow rods hanging in various places. There was no visible lock, nor seam that gave a hint at its opening. Mir had dug through the temple for weeks, reading and examining everything he could find, but this box was not mentioned once. Its make was old, older than the temple itself. He struggled for days to open it, prying at it and searching its surface with his fingers over and over for some imperfection that may belie its perfect surface. It was too heavy to move, though it was not clearly fastened to the stand it rest upon, as if the great weight within it was keeping it place.
After so many days he accepted that this was not a secret he may yet unearth, a secret he would need more tools and time to learn. He began to search through the old belongings of the temples former Masters, the long forgotten vaults and store rooms. While he had decided to come back to the box later, he continuously found it calling to him. He would walk through the dark halls on his way to another chamber or office, and instead would find himself back within the ritual chamber, staring at the black box upon the dais. Something in the darkness would whisper, so softly as to not be understood. Mir became paranoid. In the darkness he had felt the watchful eyes upon him grow in number. He heard whispers just out of sight. Had he moved his bag? Had he been in this room before? The days stretched, the endless night pressing upon him like a great vice.
In the darkness he stumbled over a robe, the body within only a skeleton of its owner. He was going to shove it aside, move it from the path when in the darkness he caught the faintest glint of red. Within the rob he discovered a small prism, made of a fiery red crystal, contained with a harsh silvery metal. He turned it over in his hands, and swiftly realized what he held was a Sith holocron. He had seen drawings of a few in his studies, but this was the first time he had ever beheld one in person. In his excitement he forgot the faint whispers and watchful dark, and he brought the holocron back to his temporary home within an old bedroom off the ritual chamber. In the light he studied it intently. He knew that the holocrons took a strong command of the force to open, something he was decidedly incapable of. With hope he buried himself in the writings of the Sith, investigating the holocrons and their make, but he found no such answers. The holocrons were ancient, and in the writings of the Sith the secret of their make stayed just that. For hours he stared into the fiery red crystal, the light of his cooking fire reflecting in its center like a flickering heart.
For some days he thought of and examined the holocron. He tried prying it open, his frustrations growing day by day as he failed to find the secret to its knowledge within. He cursed the darkness, cursed the temple that worked against him. He again found himself in the ritual chamber, staring into the depths of the black metal box that too held fast against his attempts to open it. As he stared into the depths of the dark metal, he felt a burning rage inside of him. The holocron would not open. The box would not open. He was being followed in the dark, whispered to at all hours, and within his mind the oppressive darkness crushed the light of his very soul. He stared into the blood red prism, and felt the white hot anger within as he let out an anguished yell into the darkness, "WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!"
With a murderous rage he lashed out into the dark, as if the very air was conspiring against him. He kicked and punched the walls, blood now trickling from his fists as he smashed them against the stone that would hold back his desires for knowledge. He turned to the box, felt as if it had eyes of its own boring holes deep within him. He felt his hand grasp at the sharp edges of the holocron, wrapping them around it and attempting to crush it within his hand as he panted and snarled at the box, and with an unbridled fury smote the holocron upon the box. Over and over he smashed it into the box, like an angry man beating his opponent to death. With a final angry yell he smashed the holocron into the edge of the box, and was blinded by a brilliant flash of light as he felt the prism crack and the tip break. In that moment, the millisecond before the flash of light that would blind his vision, he had felt something. He had felt the very mechanism within the holocron, not through his hands but almost with his very soul. But that moment gave way to a thunderous crack, a flash of light, and then darkness enveloped him.
He awoke to a smoldering headache, his eyes still burned with the flash of light. How long had he been out? Had it been just a few minutes? Or hours? Days even? He slowly shifted himself up, noting the cuts on his hand from the broken holocron and blood smeared on the floor. It sat just a few yards away, beneath the alter in the center of the room, broken and no longer shining as it had before. Before he could even scan the room he felt immediately a call. Something in the darkness whispered his name, and it grew louder and louder until he could not even hear the sound of his footsteps and he stumbled his way to the now open box. He slowly reached for the now slightly ajar lid, and as his hand touched it the deafening whispers stopped. Slowly he opened the lid, feeling the fear swelling within him. Within the box was a soft, almost velvet, material, made of a dark red cloth. In the very center, the visage of a bright white skull, and two eyes like abysmal black holes staring back.