Athiss (Flashpoint) – Story Guide

Summary: You survive the horrors of Athiss, purging all remaining traces of Vodal Kressh’s alchemical experiments and forbidden knowledge from the galaxy.

You take a starship to Athiss where you land near the location of the Republic distress signal. The area is sandy with sparse vegetation. Empty tents surround a large temple complex. The archaeologists’ camp appears to be abandoned but is filled with hostile excavation droids. Recent footprints lead to and from a nearby tomb, but the door is firmly seaked.

Although warned away in a recorded message by the survey team leader, who claims most of his team are already dead, you proceed underground through two nearby lift shafts, either jumping down or slicing one of the lifts. You explore the underground tomb complex, fighting your way through stone passageways and halls infested with yozusks and trinthans. You take some explosives from the body of a dead survey team member in a chamber near the entrance and use them to blow open a sealed door, leading to a huge open room lined with statues (alternatively you bypass the explosives and take a longer route).

Fighting your way past the excavation droids and trinthans in this area, you can hear the last message recorded by the survey team leader. It seems that his team were attacked and corrupted by the descendents of the servants of Vodal Kressh, sealed on the planet a millenia ago. You can also hear Professor Ley’arsha, a lower ranking member of the Republic team, speaking to you from nearby. She has been corrupted by the dark power and has killed the team leader. She cryptically says that she and her fellow team members can ‘hear his voice in our minds’. As you near her, BOSS: Professor Ley’arsha engages you in combat supported by a tomb dweller shaman and two corrupted explorers. She fights with blasters and poison and periodically summons more corrupted survey team members to help. All the while she claims you will ‘embrace his word’ and that ‘He shall rise again and [they] will be his favored children.” As she dies, she claims that the servants of Vodal Kressh will slay you and return to the stars.

A nearby archway leads outside, but it is blocked by a ray shield set up by the Republic explorers. Surviving members of the survey team lie writing all around you, driven mad with horror. You access a nearby research console and disable the shield. It appears the Republic survey team have fashioned an improvised distress beacon from scavenged equipment. You have the choice of destroying it, thus dooming the surviving archaeologists but sealing the corruption afflicting the planet, or activating it and ensuring their rescue.

You leave the dankness of the tombs and emerge into a large open sandy space dotted with pools of water and surrounded by gigantic ruins. It seems clear that Vodal built an entire city here. Yosusks and Vodal’s servants, many of whom are force-sensitive, fill this area and you avoid or fight your way past them. You pass the open entrances to several small tombs and eventually encounter a gargantuan sithspawn created by Vodal Kressh, BOSS: The ‘Beast of Vodal Kressh’ that has lived through the centuries, sustained by dark side energy. The beast is surrounded by prostrate tomb-dweller warriors and shamans who are worshipping it. After killing them, you and your team fight the beast, a monstrous alchemical snarler which has the ability to paralyze with a terrifying roar, can throw you many meters away and summons alchemical Tuk’ata to attack you in groups. After a mighty struggle, you kill it and enter the tomb behind it.

The markings on this tomb name it as the final resting place as Vodal Kressh himself. You can feel in your bones that this is the source of the dark side corruption. More enemies lie within, including winged Alchemical Shreakers and Vodal’s most devoted and powerful servants, the Temple Guardians and Disciples, many of whom wield lightsabers and force powers against you. As you progress through the tomb, among the stone passageways, crypts, and mysterious sculptures, you hear the echoes of a strange voice. It says that ‘he’ will take your bodies and your ship and use them to rule the galaxy. After killing a great many of the various enemies present on Athiss (Secondary Targets | Bonus Quest (Stage 1)), you disturb some ancient offerings inside his tomb (Secondary Targets | Bonus Quest (Stage 2)). This angers a sithspawn, the BONUS BOSS: Ancient Abomination. It attacks you with tooth and claw and a powerful jump slam attack before succumbing (Secondary Targets | Bonus Quest (Stage 3)).

Eventually, you discover the burial chamber of Vodal Kressh himself, where a large man awaits you. This is BOSS: The Prophet of Vodal Kressh. Claiming to speak in his name, and possibly possessed by his spirit, he mocks you for challenging him in Vodal’s ‘place of power’. He fights you with a double-bladed lightsaber and powerful force abilities, including evil vitality draining spells that he casts beneath you. Periodically he vanishes from sight and summons living fire, indestructible balls of flame that follow one of your team, who must keep out of range until the Prophet reappears. Eventually you manage to defeat him. As he dies he claims Vodal Kressh will return in another thousand years. Finally, you recover the artifacts and writings of Vodal Kressh from his tomb and leave the planet.

Summary: Darth Malgus confirms the total destruction of Vodal Kressh’s spirit. The Dark Council will decide what to do with the relics you have recovered.

You return to Vaiken Spacedock and report to Darth Malgus via comm, telling him you have the artifacts of Vodal Kressh. Malgus tells you that his augurs felt the final destruction of Vodal’s spirit, which was possibly leading his followers from beyond the grave. The situation is now over. No matter how powerful Vodal was, he and his servants fell in the end.

Darth Malgus believes that no Sith should put themselves above the Empire, and in his estimation the name of Vodal Kressh and his work should be wiped from Sith history. However the Dark Council will decide what to do with the artifacts you recovered. He bids you rest. You have done the Emperor’s will.

Summary: Satele Shan reveals that Athiss was the sanctum of Vodal Kressh, who raised an army of slaves to challenge the Emperor. Any recovered artifacts will be destroyed, and the Empire will never be able to use Vodal’s knowledge.

You return to Vaiken Spacedock and report to Satele Shan via comm and tell her that you have gathered Sith artifacts from Athiss. She is relieved to see you safe and tells you that no more disturbance is emanating in the Force from the planet.

Based on what you have discovered, the Republic has deduced that Athiss was the sanctum of Vodal Kressh. According to the artifacts, he built an entire city there and raised an army of slaves to challenge the Emperor. The planet was sealed by the Sith before he could launch his attack and you fought the descendents of his servants.

Believing you have prevented the Empire from using the dark power for evil, she tells you the Republic owes you a great debt. The artifacts will be sealed away; knowledge is power, but corrupted knowledge is deadly. She wishes you well and signs off to make her report to the Jedi Council.