IC: Darth AndedduThe Dead Keep, PrakithThrough crimson veins sewn through igneous rock of vitreous luster flowed the lava, casting its daemoniacal light upon the gleaming black of the obsidian ceiling and ignimbrite walls. For seventeen years, the serpentine hissing of the seething magma was the only sound heard in the central chamber of Andeddu's Keep, occasional tongues of flame lapping at the impermeable sarcophagus it surrounded. Glowing more feverishly than the cracks of lava, a shattered jewel of ruby set upon a broken scepter, left carelessly by the coffin. Otherwise, no artifact was to be found in the dark tomb, shelves rimming the perimeter bereft of all treasures and tomes, the victims of Wyyrlok's ransacking during his frenzied quest to unlock the secrets of immortality.
He had failed. Instead of saving his Emperor from disease and death, he had pushed his master across the threshold; if Krayt could not be saved physically, Wyyrlok had reasoned, he could be immortal in his legacy, in his dream that Wyyrlok would preserve. He had failed even in that, of course; not one tenet of One Sith philosophy had survived the Jedi's victory nor the Federation's formation, and those who had once bent the knee to Krayt and his successor now embraced the ancient ways that Dreadwar had restored.
Ancient ways that had been started, in large part, by the occupant of the sarcophagus.
Sarcophagus. Literally, flesh-eater, in archaic High Galactic. In most cases, a metaphor. In this case, literal; its last victim lay beside it, an emaciated corpse with flesh sunken and dried as if it had been deprived of all vitality. A morsel to feed a starving beast.
And today, that beast's eyes opened, and the lid of the sarcophagus was violently hurled away, sinking into the nearest rivulet of fire. Withered hands gripped the edges, leveraging itself upright, and the bloodshine of the lava illuminated its ghastly features. The mummiform visage of the Dead-king reborn. The Lord of Heresy, revived.
Darth Andeddu, returned.
"Zhol kash dinora," the ruin of a rotting mouth rasped in return to the oily whisper that had woken it. "Ja'ak." It is done. I am free.
TAG: No one... yet
COMBO WITH SHIRAIC: Darth Dreadwar, Kevala and ScionicaTuk'ata pens, Sith TempleKevala stared dumbly as the two Sith hounds fell dead before her, trying fight through the physical fog of her lightning-ravaged body.
"This is where the fun begins."
Kevala brought her attention back to Coatlec at the sound of igniting lightsabers. She glared at him noting the same double-weaponed style she preferred. Kevala was no fool; she knew she could not beat him, particularly when his blades could slice through hers as easily as a knife through water. Scionica's staff, however, had some defense against plasma weaponry and she looked at it side-long.
Scionica was insane, the screaming inside her head was relentless, unceasing. Her mind felt as though it would burst, but the pressure kept building and building; it never came to a head.
Tallia, give in to your hatred. Answer the call of Korriban. Realize your potential as a Sith. You will break your chains and strike down your sister. There was no logic, no judgement, no sense of rationality. Only the knowledge that this agony, this insanity, would end with her sister's death.
It's all her fault!Senseless, blind, illogical rage, but a means to an end. She could not survive while her sister lived.
Kevala reached for Scionica's electro-staff, flinching as a hand touched her own. She looked back at her twin in shock.
"Sci, are you ok?"
There was no answer, merely a silent stare, flames flickering in the void. Then, faster than one could blink, the staff snapped open and the end of a high-voltage weapon came crackling towards her skull.
Kevala gasped and jumped to the side, her twin blades lowered carefully to the floor in uncertainty.
"Sci...?"The opposite end hissed past her face, the woman twitching her head to the side just in time.
"Scionica! What's the matter with you?" Fear and confusion made her voice snap sharply and her arms brought her blades up in a cross-form to block another swift blow. Bolts of electricity sputtered across the alloy, the reinforced handles halting conduction at the hilts. Kevala received no answer from her sister, only the blank look tinged with a hidden roaring fire. The only sound she heard through their Bond was madness.
Red hair flew wildly as Scionica lunged for her twin and a lethal duel ensued. The twins had sparred against each other from the time they were five years old, honing individual technique and skill as a matter of survival. Their combat skills had been a large part of what had made them such perfect assassins and each twin knew the other's physicality as intimately as they knew themselves. Blades and staff parried, struck, plunged; bodies leapt, dodged, rolled. Movement flowed and ebbed, akin to the dance of water and flame. Kevala was horrified; this shouldn't be happening. Their bond was eternal, immovable! Scionica was the one person she could always rely on, the one she could know with absolute certainty would never betray her.
And yet...here she was.
This cannot be happening!Scionica's staff flew towards her again and Kevala struck it away with parallel blades, circling the weapons above her head and bringing them down to fly at her twin. The blades came away tinged with blood and collateral wounds appeared on Scionica's ribs. Kevala's face was taut with stress and fear and she fell back, circling around her sister, who had made no noise or realization of pain. She merely stared a long moment and the rivulets of blood flowing slowly from her side and back up to Kevala.
And that's when Kevala would feel it. It had always been there, in retrospect; an abstraction, a way of interpreting the world and input from one's senses, that one could have easily dismissed as mere synaesthesia, or a vivid imagination. Miasmas of colour, usually in lashes of silver like the blades she wielded, slicing through sluicing oceans of icy blue. Rushes of power when she felt emotion, that one could have dismissed as merely oversensitive adrenal glands. Yet this was something more, and Coatlec having revealed their latent sensitivity, the truth of it was undeniable.
Kevala would see the world bathed in red around her. As her fear grew, so did that ocean of ordinary blue become saturated with the blood of the sister she had already drawn forth, fire filling her veins, impossible temptations clawing at her mind. It was the euphoria of imminent apotheosis, feeding off her emotions, and with each second Kevala stood, it was if the world around her responded, flooding her bloodstream with yet more passion, creating a frenzied feedback loop of rage.
How dare she attack you, it was as if the world whispered to her.
She was plotting this from the beginning. Always jealous of you, always jealous of how you seemed to lead. Now, as soon as the Sith offer her power for the price of your death, she seeks your head. Kill or be killed.No, not the world. It was not the world corrupting her.
The dark side!There it was. Power, power at her fingertips. No sense of how to use it, no knowledge, no training... But it was there, undeniable, hovering just out of reach, torrents and torrents of unlimited power, all hers if she but reached out and took it... If she embraced her rage, and let her racing heart, overflowing with spiraling emotion, pump her into the entropic abyss whence the cosmos came. And in those torrents, she could
see, for the first time, without her physical eyes. She could see the glacial void hovering near her, the aura of the Emperor Dreadwar. She could see the fountain of crimson that represented Coatlec. She could see the more muted flames of Jania and Scionica... and how easily they could be snuffed out, if only she gave in.
Utilise your aggressive feelings, child. The ineffable temptation of the dark side, and the whispers of Dreadwar crawling in her skull, were indistinguishable.
Let the hate flow through you... and let yourself flow into the hate, for this is a font of power that never stops giving. A frothing pool to bathe in eternal.
Darth Dreadwar withdrew his mental probe, satisfied at how close the precipice Kevala was being nudged. A lesser intellect would have described it as her fear and pain lending her strength, empowering the dark side so that it could empower her in turn. Yet such feeble metaphysics did not satisfy Dreadwar's scientific inquiry; the dark side was not feeding off her emotions, nor were Kevala's emotions feeding the dark side. No, no, there was no dark side. There was merely the Force... and what Sith and Jedi alike so naively labelled its dark side was merely the Force unrestrained; the Jedi arts were not about tapping into some separate pool of energy, but merely about limiting oneself from the Force's natural state. Just as dire need could see a mother transcend the limits the brain unconsciously placed on the body to prevent one damaging one's own tissues, and lift a speeder off her baby with raw strength, so could a situation of sufficient fear, pain and rage trigger the brain to desperately seek out new roads that led to survival... and in the case of the Forceful, that survival was in the Force unrestrained.
The Force was affected by biological evolution, going by sensitivity's evidently hereditary nature, going by the evolution of entire species such as the Ysalamiri and Vornskr. Quite simply, these measures of breaking people in to the Force's unrestricted power made evolutionary sense; force a situation in which one must embrace the Force, unrestrained by ethics or one's own foolish superstitions, or perish. It was how torture broke Jedi so easily. It was how the harsh training methods of the Sith Temple's proverbial furnace forged so many new acolytes.
And that is something Jania Kio, regrettably, did not seem to grasp. She should have. Not because she should have known the finer details, no, but she should have known that Dreadwar and Coatlec had a higher purpose in their actions. So close to the breaking point, and the fool girl was attempting to
discourage the twins from embracing the unrestrained Force!
Dreadwar threw her into a wall.
It seemed like a careless gesture, a flick of a finger, but the angle of trajectory was carefully calculated, such that Jania Kio's cheek made impact with the unforgiving stone of Korriban and split.
"That is for your cheek," Dreadwar issued a brief, hissing laugh as he folded his arms, impressed by his own wit. That was only half of the truth; it had mostly been a punishment for interfering in the delicate process in
completely the wrong way, undermining the objective. But the Emperor could appreciate Jania, as well; she had been bold, too bold, yet she was being bold in a way that was worthy of respect. She could see how Coatlec had seized the initiative, and now she wanted to prove her worth alone.
"If you wish to earn the privilege of proving your worth alone," Dreadwar whispered to Kio,
"you will first grasp the basic tenets of our Order. Peace is a lie. It is through conflict that the Sith achieve greatness... and through conflict that the uninitiated become Sith."
Dreadwar's hood remained level, focusing on the twins.
And will you become Sith? he thought to himself.
Or will you die among the dogs like ill-bred she-whelps, suckling at the teat of power without claiming it for your own? And the words of the last man to call himself Sith Emperor came to him, then, as he pondered the lethal dilemma he had presented the sisters.
A man can have anything
... if he is willing to sacrifice.
Kevala saw red, in a way she could not explain. It was not the red one spoke of when enraged. It was not quite in her vision and yet not altogether in her mind. Everything was so clear! The fiery red of Scionica came into focus, as well as hazes of colour around those Sith, so insignificant in the heat of this moment. Yet, it wasn't just their colours; although muted against Scionica's immediate presence, she could see, quite clearly, the ferocious, all-powerful presence of Dreadwar and how it spoke of his power, then of Coatlec and Jania and their respective capabilities.
If Kevala had not more pressing issues to attend to, this would have captivated her, filling her mind with theories, excitement at this knowledge and ability dominating her waking thought. Then she heard the whistling of Scionica's staff and she leapt above the strike, aiming her blades at Scionica's neck, who dodged them neatly.
How dare she attack you. She was plotting this from the beginning. Always jealous of you, always jealous of how you seemed to lead. Now, as soon as the Sith offer her power for the price of your death, she seeks your head. Kill or be killed.
And that was the truth of it; Scionica would never stop. She could feel her twin's fury and single-minded resolve and she would not stop as long as Kevala drew breath. Fear gave way to despair and, ultimately, fury. Fury at this unthinkable betrayal, fury at herself for ever allowing them to come here.
Utilise your aggressive feelings, child. Let the hate flow through you... and let yourself flow into the hate, for this is a font of power that never stops giving. A frothing pool to bathe in eternal.Kevala's physical abuse dissipated like smoke in the wind, leaving her body fresh and rejuvenated, matching the mania in her mind. If a fight to the death this was, she would not lose. Her lips twisted in furious expression of hatred and she launched herself at Scionica, the twins' deadly dance growing in speed and grace, testing their abilities to the utmost reaches as they sought for each other's blood.
Swords flashed and electricity leapt through the air, crackling as loudly as the clash of blades against staff. The twins dodged, parried, struck, their speed increasing the longer they battled. Kevala no longer held back, throwing all of her being into surviving and striking down her sister, whose insane, single-minded objective lent her the same primeval energy.
Ebony and ivory eyes glared at each other, spitting hatred. In one final, decisive move, they hurled themselves at each other, Scionica's spitting staff-tip and Kevala's gleaming blades aimed for the other's heart.
Scionica's staff-tip smashed into Kevala's chest with brutalistic intent, and she would feel her sister's breastbone caving under the supernatural strength with which she jabbed the stave, a single jolt of electricity stopping Kevala's heart. "Tallia," Kevala gasped out one last word, before her blades dropped from her nerveless hands, and then the leather-clad form of Scionica's sister fell backwards, to slump against the side of the cage, unmoving.
Whether by application of Dreadwar's mental powers or the shock of the sororicide, Scionica's madness broke in that moment, and there was only perfect, crystal clarity of the magnitude of what she had done.
Kevala's blades sunk into Scionica like a hot knife through butter, copious amounts of blood pouring not only from her chest, but from her lips, as her mad eyes softened to devastated sadness and she breathed her last... "Why, Elara..." And then she was dead.
And then, with a wave of Dreadwar's hand, the morbid illusions dissipated like smoke, and Kevala and Scionica would see each other again, alive and mostly whole, their weapons an inch from each other's chests... Then six inches, then a foot, then six feet, as Dreadwar telekinetically pulled them from their respective grasps and through the bars of the kennel, hurling them outside the door of the pen and into the corridor with a clatter.
His stygian gauntlets came together in slow, mocking applause, producing a horrid clashing noise redolent of swords meeting on a corpse-strewn battlefield.
"Well done, my children," Dreadwar's hollow whisper was infused with mirth.
"You have passed your first trial. To be Sith, one must be willing to sacrifice that which they love their most, for the chains of attachment must be broken before one can begin learning the arts that shatter the rest of your bonds." Dreadwar curiously emphasised the last word, as if suggesting to the twins that he was pleased their telepathic bond remained intact, despite their lethal intentions towards one another. A truly strong bond, no doubt forged over the course of their entire adult lives. A bond to be shattered? His tone indicated not; no, this was a bond that was the exception to the rule, a bond that would strengthen them, not weaken them.
"Yes, you heard me correctly... To be Sith. You are both strong in the Force. Your ability to read another's thoughts is symptomatic of a strong Force bond between you both - and a strong ability to form such bonds with others. If you stay in this Academy, you will be taught, in time, how to form those bonds with the unwilling - and siphon their strength and life. You will be taught how to vibrate those bonds violently, creating the lightning that was your torment tonight. You will be taught to influence the mind and ensnare the senses; you will be taught to harness the hate that you felt; you will be taught to tap into that unlimited power you felt at your fingertips; you will be taught to bathe the world around you red with the blood of your enemies."Dreadwar clenched a fist.
"I am your salvation through destruction, who will uplift you from a life of insignificance to the pinnacle of true power. You have tasted enough of the Force to whet your appetite... but to truly feast, you must be trained."The Sith Emperor turned to Coatlec.
"You have more than earned your release, Lord Coatlec," he hissed.
"Take Jania Kio to the Valley of the Dark Lords; hurry, and use a speeder, for I sense the sands of Korriban shifting in storm. The tombs of the Valley will test her further... and test you, and your ability to lead an apprentice, if you ever desire to have one of your own." His empty hood swivelled back, his invisible gaze passing over the twins.
"If you desire to transcend the life of mere assassins and become Sith, you will both follow them, and perhaps find masters there. And if you die, consider it the Force's punishment for daring to attack, however unwittingly, its divine Sith'ari. Or... you can stay here among the dogs to rot." Dreadwar did not believe the Force had any agency nor, thus, any capacity for punishment, nor did he believe his chosen title of Sith'ari represented anything more than the title 'Sith Emperor' or 'Overlord' in the ancient Sith tongue, but poetry superseded the teaching of rationalism, sometimes, particularly when it sold the mask he wore, of the absurdly vainglorious Dark Lord with a god complex.
TAG: Shira @lordjania Sedriss Nathemus the Conqueror
IC: Darth ApollyonOutside the tomb of Naga Sadow, Upper Valley, KorribanKEEINSAND. Key in sand. Perfect. Lord Catalyst had solved the riddle, demonstrating wit beyond the purely rhetorical sense. Apollyon thought his first suggestion was the most obvious; a key of some sort buried in the sand, yet, as Robyn pointed out, there was no keyhole, so it would likely be some sort of device or lever than a literal key.
She could sense Viscretus pour perception into the Force, avoiding any potential of activating another trap through sifting through the sands with her mind rather than her fingers. Yet there was nothing. No anomaly, no subtle ebb and flow of energy around machinery, nothing but sand and more sand, to the very limits of her perceptions. And to Apollyon, it made sense that Viscretus would find nothing.
The facade of Sadow's countenance was buried up to the chest. It was likely that this entrance had been cut relatively high into the Valley walls when it was built, a perilous climb the primary defense, the full statue of Sadow in view, torso and legs and all, much like the seated colossus of Ragnos in the Lower Valley. Indeed, the pitfall traps may have been a later addition, perhaps built when the Sith reclaimed Korriban under Vitiate millennia after they abandoned it, when the necropolis had already filled with enough sand to make the uppermost tombs accessible at ground-level. She could imagine it now... Grave-robbers of a bygone era scaling hundreds of feet of Valley wall, braving high winds and perhaps attacks by Shyrack, only to find the inscription 'key in sand' as a reward, having to return to the Valley floor to scour. If that was the case, the key could be hundreds of feet below their feet. Yet the presence of the stele indicated that the One Sith, or whichever more recent Sith had built the stele, had entered the tomb through solving the riddle, and there was no sign of an excavation of such magnitude around them. Perhaps she was wrong, and the statue of Sadow was just a head and a chest...
As for Xirr's suggestion, his mumbling the word 'sand' certainly did not open the door. And why would it? The builders of this tomb did not speak Basic. But the thought itself, that the key was not in the sand but in the
word 'sand' itself, was a clever one, if a stretch.
Apollyon broke her silence at last. "An excellent thought on the builders' possible use of reverse psychology, Initiate," she complimented, genuinely. "Yet if there's one thing I have learned from my Master, it's that... Well, if a mere Initiate," she glanced at the half-Zeltron apologetically, "no offense... If an Initiate could think of it, then I'm quite sure the builders would have
thought Initiates would think of it, so perhaps actually it's a case of reverse
reverse psychology, and they
want us to look in the sand, and actually it will trigger a more deadly trap and punish us with, well, death I guess, for not thinking," Apollyon chuckled, thinking of her Master's lessons, "
one level higher."
She frowned, her fiery eyes staring at the inscrutable rock. "And I do not agree, Catalyst. There is something wrong with this storm, you're right..." She glanced at Viscretus, knowing her friend sensed it too. "Danger brews on the horizon. We cannot risk being cut off from the Force in those pits, and if the wind," she had to raise her voice, as the whistling gusts picked up around her, threatening to become a howling gale, "AND IF THE WIND SLACKENS! WE'LL BE BURIED ALIVE!"
The grains of sand were stinging now, pelting her caramel cheek with violent force. She squinted. Auditory activation? Surely not... But did anything on the inscription of 'sand' move or shift, as Xirr suggested? Apollyon began pushing the hieroglyphs, first the 's' and then the 'a' and then the-
She missed the 'n' entirely, as the entire door began to shift to the side with a rumble and the ticking sound of ancient machinery, and suddenly she was veritably blasted with cold, stale air rushing out from the sealed mausoleum, heavy with the scent of distant decay.
I bet Xirr is going to rub that in Catalyst's face! Apollyon rushed into the gloom, eager to find shelter from the biting sands, grabbing her ivory-skinned friend by the elbow and pulling her in after her in an instinctive gesture of caring that would likely get her in trouble with her Master if he knew.
Or not... There was only darkness ahead of them, the passageway of sufficient length that the end was not illuminated by the sunlight outside, and of sufficient width to allow them all to walk beside each other.
"COME IN, COME IN!" Apollyon shouted to the team, looking behind her to see more of those strange white droplets in the torrents of flying sand.
Just in time.
TAG: Volshe Darth Catalyst dice Padawan4687
IC: Darth BlightLower Valley, Korriban"I'm not sure, Lord Nihl," Blight warbled, eyes narrowed behind her mask as she watched the white fluid desecrate the sand. Nihl's lightsaber had likely struck some vital part of the machinery, triggering the eldritch craft to explode - or perhaps self-destruct as a defense measure - and now there was white fluid everywhere, coagulating around writhing lumps that--
Wait.
As the white fluid dispersed from the craft, soaking into the sands, it revealed that which had floated within. Bodies. Dead bodies, yet writhing as if life had refused to leave them. One had a face like a squashed shuura, oozing pus, another had a face pockmarked with thousands of tiny holes, as if its skin had very selectively rotted away into a honeycomb - and the sickly sweet, flowery white fluid was the honey. Another's eyeball had burst, gushing white fluid, its pupil swirling like blue paint in the rivulets of ivory liquid. Twelve in all, misshapen creatures of horror, standing from where they had been deposited in the sand, the yellow grains clinging to the sticky white and creating a most unaesthetic mixture of slimy wetness and coarse dryness.
FOUL CREATURES OF THE DARK SIDE! One of them roared, more through the Force than anything, given that it was missing the entire upper half of its cranium, including the upper half of its jaw, leaving only a squamous tongue to flap feebly amongst the exposed semicircle of bottom teeth. For such an abomination to call them 'foul creatures' was disconcerting to Blight, but she had no time to dwell on it, for suddenly the monsters were upon them, charging with rotting hands outstretched and foaming at the mouth with saccharine fluid that reminded her of shampoo.
Blight activated her lightsaber, jabbing the impossibly talkative one through the heart, which proceeded to pump white fluid through the hole, splattering all over her mask. She angrily wiped the mess away, the Force prickling with danger at the close contact in a way that made her think something very bad would have happened if it weren't for her mask. "Kark!" She swore. "Kill these kriffing schuttas, Nihl! What the kriffing kriff are they?!"
And over the sounds of battle, neither Nihl nor Blight could hear the approach of Dynami from behind, the sun scorching the weathered grey figure as she made her way from the false tomb of Andeddu towards the Sanctum of Sakkra-Kla - and the shattered egg that lay in front.
TAG: Volshe Sedriss Nathemus the Conqueror
IC: IsisEntering the Cathedral of Holy Jedi Spirits, Odessen"Ah, yes, the Guardians of Light," Isis nodded sagely as she continued to lead the procession across the grassy knoll and towards the great archway that was the entrance of the Cathedral. Six statues of Jedi Masters stood as eternal sentries over the entryway, all humans holding lightsabers - yet the stone lightsabers were connected to the statues' belts with the facsimile of cords. Depictions of ancient Jedi, when lightsabers had required hefty powerpacks, when the hilts had sprouted handguards of flickering plasmic flame. "I felt the Sith attack Saridona Prime, even from here," Isis continued, bowing her head. "But remember Alisha, the Guardians did not die. Not truly. There is no death; there is only the Force, and the foolish Sith merely helped them on their way to transcend flesh, and become one with the light. They live still, in every flicker of a candle, in every flare of compassionate impulse a sapient has, in every flash of the lightsaber as we battle the servants of darkness in this lower world."
They passed under the archway, into a vast courtyard in which were arranged a dozen tables of stone some fifty feet long, rows and rows of white-robed Jedi of all ages and skin tone sitting at them. Their laughter shone warmly in the Force, as the monks exchanged dishes of soup and towering plates of meats both red and white, of fruits, vegetables, pastries, grains, cakes and bread.
A feast.
"To answer your question, Shira," Isis said, weaving between the throng of Jedi younglings as they raced towards the buffet, "there are indeed many others who bathe in the light of Odessen, seeking refuge here because there are only two systems in the Unknown Regions, the spacers say, where the pyramids do not come. Here, and a foul place called..." Isis' lip curled in distaste. "Zakuul. The throneworld of a vast and evil Empire of idolators, ruled by a false god. I have only heard of the Eternals in legend, but I warn you, do not step foot in the realm of the Infinite Empire. They are home to evils older than the Sith, and are dedicated to overthrowing the natural order; it is said the entire populace is cursed to
never die."
Isis shook her head, taking a seat at an empty spot along one of the tables; among the Jedi of the Ordu Aspectu, the High Shaman was no Grand Master, entitled to her own fanciful Council chambers and a head table at the feasts. No, Isis was merely first among equals, and that much would be obvious to Alisha and Shira as a youngling, no more than five, giggled and poked Isis in the ribs as soon as she sat down. "Now stop that," Isis chuckled, tickling the child back with telekinesis, eliciting howling laughter and cries of surrender. Isis picked out a loaf of bread as the youngling calmed, and began buttering it, as she gestured for Alisha and Shira to sit beside her on her right. "Sorry for the interruption," Isis shook her head again, continuing to respond to Shira between bites. "The Shado Varmiri, they call themselves, including Febrayasi, Seyugi Dervishes, Baran-Do Sages, Matukai... An eclectic mix of every tradition, in their own Temple on another continent."
Chattering immediately around them began to die down as the other Jedi noticed the newcomers, peering over and frowning. The courtyard grew quieter still as Grand Admiral No arrived in his floating tank of cyanogen, attended by his Trandoshans, as the rest of the Imperials from the three shuttles, and the Jedi that had escorted them, filed through the archway.
"Jedi," Isis spoke up, standing. "These are our guests from far away stars. Make them feel welcome, and do not trouble yourself with any taint of the dark side you perceive. The light reaches all who let it." Isis smiled warmly at Shira and Alisha as she sat back down, gesturing at the veritable mountain of food on the centre of the table, dishes of every sort available. "Help yourselves."
TAG: Shira Padawan4687 Volshe
Persevus did not respond, likely because the Mind Freer had worked a little too well, and freed his mental state to the point that it resembled that induced by refined garkle crystals of the Ellium depths. Or, to borrow Masarian terminology,
tripping balls. Yet Persevus' temporary incapacitation made little difference to the fact that Kint needed his cooperation to retrieve the Holocron from the Mirror, his plan to use the Mind Trap to download Persevus' memories of psychometry having failed. It was thus singularly unwise to attack Persevus... Yet in any event, any further actions were forestalled by the sounding of proximity alarms.
"Oh no," the tarp yelped in alarm. "I have a bad feeling about this."
As far as sapient tarps produced by unnatural artifacts went, the tarp was remarkably intuitive. The
Durendal had dropped out of hyperspace in the middle of nowhere, and the interstellar void in this region of space was dangerous indeed.
Another ship hung suspended in front of the cockpit's viewport. It was the
Dauntless, which had been wrenched from hyperspace unexpectedly far from its destination.
Floating out of the darkness, the culprits. A fleet of pyramids, the largest of which bulged with globular protrusions that could only be gravity well generators; their scans had detected the reversal of a ship in the region, and instantly the fleet had teleported in, activating interdiction fields to prevent their prey from escaping - interdiction fields that had pulled the
Dauntless, pursuing Kint, out of hyperspace.
Kint and Lemmy both would recognise the ships' profiles from spacers' tales common in the Unknown Regions; to some, they were the Destructors, to others, they were the Harbingers of Mugg Fallow, to others, they simply meant
You're dead. And yet if either Masarian or pirate wanted to escape the system, they would first have to board the ship responsible for ensnaring them, and disable its gravity well generators. This would be a bad enough situation on its own, but as was typical of the Unknown Regions, things were rapidly revealed to be worse.
They appeared aboard both ships, one in the cockpit of the
Dauntless, the other in the holding cell of the
Durendal. Three meters tall, skeletally thin, with feverishly glowing eyes in gaunt, pale faces framed by wild, floating bushels of white hair. A truly experienced spacer would recognise another legend: the Starweird. And they were screaming; not through sound, but a banshee's screech projected straight into the minds of Kint and Lemmy both, a constant, monstrously loud, high-pitched whistle over which it was impossible to focus, almost impossible to even think. The one aboard the
Dauntless simply found Lemmy and charged him, long talons raking towards his torso. The one aboard the
Durendal stood still, yet its astral eyes glowed brighter still, coalescing into lethal beams of silver energy that shot towards Kint faster than a blaster bolt. It was an art born of the dark side: Deadly Sight.
TAG: gorzan, elu, Darth Catalyst
Aboard the
Triumphant, meanwhile, the Stormtroopers simply looked down at the astromech dumbly, neither having learned the intonations of binary. "Ah, you want to use the computer?" One said, pointing towards the console the cables leading from the drop-pod attached to. "There it is. Or do you want to get aboard?"
If Hypnos plugged into the computer, it would reveal an imcomplete map of the Unknown Regions, entire swathes dark and most systems bereft of names or details, merely the positions of stars calculated from scans. Yet some features stood out; the current system, Odessen, and the system the
Triumphant had left four years ago, in a painfully slow meander into the Unknown thanks to the lack of knowledge of local hyperspace lanes. Terminus, the gateway to known space.
And of course, glowing scarlet, a nebula that had been denoted as "a significant celestial phenomenon." Hypnos would recognise it instantly. The Perann Nebula, that cloaked the twelve interstellar clusters of the Nihil Retreat. The Infinite Empire's seat of power, the lair of Edworion. But that was not all; the Imperial map indicated another "significant celestial phenomenon," a nearby star system with an incredibly dim sun. In the attached notes, it seemed Imperial scientists had thought the strangely low output of stellar energy indicated the sun was completely surrounded by some sort of technological megastructure.
TAG: Darth Catalyst
