"Thank you."

And out she gets.

Okay. Step one: refresher, she's having a proper shower, and she will wash her hair. She will get into a new set of nice clean robes. She is going to rebraid her hair afterwards, so it's out of her way for when the Sith want her to go get into some more peril. Then she is going to go to the cafeteria and eat three scoops of gloop, because she will likely need the calories, and she should not eat her rat bar in a fit of angst just because it's easy. And then she is going to find some place very very quiet where she's not likely to be found or disturbed, and she is going to freak out.

Does anything impede her in all steps up to the freak out?

Nothing up until the finding a quiet place part. The academy is somewhat busy, and she'll have to hunt for a while to find an unused room with a door she can lock.

She can be very, very stubborn when she wants something very, very badly.

Then she will eventually find a room that suits her needs.

In she goes, locking the door behind her.

She picks the corner furthest away from the door, and she sits.

She wonders if she's supposed to cry. She doesn't feel like it. Mostly she just feels angry, at this entire insane system, at how it makes people glower at her when she's trying to help them or how it rewards idiots like that posturing imbecile or how it makes her set animals on each other and watch them kill each other. How it drives lost acolytes mad in the tombs of long dead Sith Lords and how it makes others lose hope entirely, despairing in the cafeteria because nothing about this is fair. How she is surrounded by people and yet completely, utterly alone, and how they're trying to twist her in to something she doesn't want to be.

...

Now she feels like crying.

She does, silently.

She's going to burn this entire fucking academy to the ground one day.

But she will not be what they want her to be. She's going to live, and - probably do some more awful things, realistically, but she will not let them break her. She is not lost. She will not submit. She's going to live, and then when Lord Occlus has her as an apprentice and she has more space to work she is going to slip away on a ship the first chance she gets and flee to the Outer Rim. It will be okay.

She's going to be here a little while assuring herself of that.

Occlus is naturally keeping an eye on her favored candidate. When she senses the emotional distress Nariveth is in, she goes looking for her.

The door softly clicks open, and Occlus enters. She's not the best at comfort, but she does not want to lose this one.

"Would you like to talk?"

Nariveth is utterly shocked to see her. She stares, blinking.

"... I. Maybe? I'm. I'll be okay," she assures.

"Good. The trials are intended to push acolytes beyond their limits, to force them to become strong or perish. You will do things you never imagined that you could. But you will do nothing you were not already capable of. Do not lose yourself to self-doubt."

"That. Wasn't really my problem," says Nariveth, softly.

"What was?"

"I," she begins, and then she stops. She has no idea how to explain this. "I don't know how to succinctly explain, it's.... Okay, I did that last trial, um, beautifully, all on my own. Some - issues with not getting everything perfect, but honestly, when you're dealing with fancy new powers and are under a lot of pressure in a, a death competition that is sort of to be expected. I still walked into the tomb before anyone else, took out half a pack of tuk'ata on my own without taking a scratch, walked out, finished, as everyone else was walking in, and then for good measure when the big idiot thought he could bully me I fried him with lightning." Pause. "I mean I won't sit on my laurels and say that clearly I will win now because I was just that awesome, I'm not an idiot, that'd be crazy, but. I. I don't like feeling like I'm being manipulated, and I feel very much like this academy is manipulating me. If I become something, I want it to be because I chose to become that, not because I was dumped in an academy and put in a death competition and told to be a Sith or die."

"You want to be master of your own destiny. Not only the end, but the beginning as well."

Occlus can sympathize with that.

"Essentially. And I think I'll turn out exactly how I intend to anyway, but that doesn't mean I don't want to burn this place to the ground in retaliation just to be sure."

Oh yes, she likes this one.

"Continue as you have begun, and you may yet see that desire fulfilled. Remember, you cannot always control your situation, but you can always control your response. Succeed in this contest, but do so on your own terms. I am very much looking forward to seeing what you become."

Nariveth nods, smiling a little.

"Thanks." That wasn't quite the whole story, somehow she suspects that Occlus would look at her blankly if she ranted about how this academy is a grievous and senseless waste of lives and resources, but it was enough of it that the Outer Rim's looking less tempting.

"I will be okay, just. Needed to freak out a little. ... This helped. Thank you."

Smile.

"Good. I have high hopes of you, Nariveth. I trust you will not disappoint." And with that Occlus departs, as quietly as she arrived.

Nariveth is sort of weirded out by how she's getting used to the Sith Lord. ... How she's starting to like the Sith Lord.

She takes a little while longer to compose herself, darts to a refresher to wash her face, and then it's back to work.

She has a landing pad to look for.

There's nothing out front, she remembers that much from her trip to the Machine Vault today. Where else is there likely to be a pad? The roof or in the back are the two mostly likely places. She could also start at the kitchens, under the assumption that the food is shipped in from offworld and therefore there will be a landing pad relatively close.

Hmmm, kitchens seems her best bet for backtracking, she goes there first.

Kitchens, kitchens, where are you hiding? Cafeteria is here, look around a bit, oh here they are.

Staffed entirely by slaves, unsurprisingly. No one is willing to look at Nariveth when she enters.

The door on the far side is probably her best bet.

... She is mildly surprised by being scary. She certainly doesn't see herself as scary, and three days ago, she could have easily traded places with any one of them. But then, three days ago she would have thought she'd just be dead instead of the most promising candidate in her group, getting out of each trial physically unscathed and personally favored by the Sith Lord looking for an apprentice.

So it's probably just as well.

She goes to the door on the far side.

It leads to a pantry, and then there's another door on the far side. This one leads outside to a shuttle pad.

It's guarded quite heavily, for such a small space. Let's see, one, two... five, in total. Annnnd one of them is coming over to her.

"Acolytes are not permitted. Leave, now."

"Certainly," she agrees, and out she goes.

So she knows where that is.

Is there a place near the pantry door that is not actually in the pantry or the kitchens, where she can sense this place and try to figure out weaknesses?

No, that seems to be the only close approach.

How distressingly well designed of them.

Can she extend her range far enough to sense it?