Mission to Tython

In the aftermath of the New Sith Wars, a Sith Lord by the name of Darth Bane sought to create his own holocron, a device capable of harnessing the essence of its creator and storing their knowledge. After several unsuccessful attempts at constructing such a device, Lord Bane reached an impasse in his efforts, though he nonetheless refused to give up. At a later date, his apprentice, the Human female known as Darth Zannah, encountered an individual called Hetton, a dedicated researcher of Sith artifacts and lore. In their meeting, Hetton divulged information regarding Belia Darzu, a deceased Dark Lord of the Sith who stored her knowledge of creating holocrons inside a hidden fortress. In exchange for a datacard containing the fortress's location on the planet and a hyperspace route to Tython, Zannah agreed to join forces with Hetton against Darth Bane. This was merely a ruse, however, resulting in Hetton's death during his later encounter with Bane. With the information collected by his apprentice, Bane embarked on a new mission to find the fortress of Belia Darzu, and with it, the secrets to creating a Sith holocron.

In preparation for his mission, Darth Bane analyzed the datacard acquired by his apprentice, learning as much as he could about the Dark Lord Belia Darzu. Confident about the legitimacy of Hetton's research, the Sith Lord confirmed that his new target, the holocron of Belia Darzu, contained key information that would allow him to construct a holocron of his own. To reach the fortress where the device was being held, Bane used his personal startfighter, the Mystic, to traverse into the Deep Core, a region of the galaxy where the planet Tython was located. Traveling alone, he successfully navigated the hazardous hyperlanes of the Deep Core and arrived at Tython. Detecting no lifeforms within Lord Darzu's fortress, Bane converged on its location, only to have his vessel fired upon by a pair of automated tower-mounted ion cannons. Using his piloting skills, Bane evaded the barrage and destroyed the turrets, allowing the Sith Lord to land a short distance away from the fortress. As he approached the fortress's entrance, Bane used the power of the Force to blast open the front gate, providing him access to the building's interior.

Within the fortress, Bane explored the facility room by room for any sign of his target. In this time, he briefly looked upon the remaining parts of Darzu's alchemical research, though eventually Bane refocused his attention towards locating the holocron of the deceased Dark Lord. During his excursion in the fortress, Bane felt the power of the dark side lingering throughout its halls, prompting him to seek out the source of this energy. This search led Bane into an underground section of the fortress, revealing a large chamber that served as an inner sanctum. Inside this chamber, Bane finally discovered a pedestal in the middle of the room holding his ultimate prize—Lord Darzu's holocron. Surrounding the device, however, were the remnants of the Metanecrons, an army of mutated cyborgs known as technobeasts. When Bane drew closer to the pedestal, the technobeasts initially ignored him completely. Immediately as he attempted to seize the holocron, however, the creatures became enraged and attacked the Sith Lord in a swarm.

With both the Force and his lightsaber, Bane defended himself and destroyed several of the technobeasts, using his orbalisk armor for protection against their melee attacks. In his battle against the creatures, Bane was abruptly pummelled by one of the larger mutated rancor variants. The attack hurled the Sith Lord face-first into a humanoid technobeast that infected him with the nanogene spore, a virus that transformed living beings into the metal-organic hybrids themselves. Once again, however, the orbalisks on Bane's armor saved his life, purging the virus from his body and preventing it from lobotomizing his brain. As the effects of the nanogene spore subsided, the Sith Lord launched a counterattack against the rancor, ultimately destroying it and continuing his fight against the remaining Sithspawn mutants. Despite the relentless aggression of the technobeasts, Bane single-handedly destroyed all of the creatures in the chamber. After a massacre that lasted for over an hour, Bane took but several minutes to recover—both physically and mentally—before finally claiming the holocron of Belia Darzu.

With the holocron in his possession, Darth Bane began to scour its contents, interacting with the device's gatekeeper in the form of an avatar depicting Belia Darzu. While doing so, Bane came across a set of instructions detailing the entire process of building a holocron. Though he was already familiar with most of this information, one particular element of these instructions had eluded him up to this point: the trapping of the creator's essence into the capstone of the holocron. After Bane questioned the gatekeeper on this process, the holocron depicted a Sith ritual known as the Rite of Commencement. Despite the complexity of the ritual, of which Bane mused would likely take him months to memorize, the Sith Lord was nonetheless satisfied with the new insights he had gained.

The mission to Tython first appeared in Darth Bane: Rule of Two, the second volume of the Darth Bane Trilogy by author Drew Karpyshyn.

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