IC: Darth DreadwarImperial Medbay, Sith Temple, KorribanThe sun was setting on Korriban. Horuset was a carnivorous flower, spitting sanguine flame from its dying petals to drip down the cadaverous canvas of violent violet sky, catching swirls of dust in sinister scintillation. The crepuscular beasts of the carrion valleys were stirring from their dark dens and creeping ravines, crawling from caliginous hibernation during the day to bay at the setting sun with all the forlorn power of mourning widows, as if lamenting the long-lost glory of the Dark Lords whose titanic statues of paleolithic stone brooded silently over the very valleys the Tuk'ata guarded.
Nothing will surpass the might of the ancients, their falling cries seemed to say, wailing into silence,
but our howls will make you remember their power forever.The Sith of the Dread Temple shuddered on its balconies as the air filled with the hounds' longing chorus, hands concealed within the voluminous fabric of their opposing sleeves, hoods drawn over their heads to conceal the baleful yellow eyes that gazed out upon the spectacular vista of sand and stone. They stood in awe of the great mountains looming before them, sharp brown crevices seeming to flow with the blood of ancient battles, echoing with the ghostly cries of corpse sentinels. Without a word passing between them, their hearts knew it to be a sacred moment and stilled their minds, and the Sith on the Temple walls - from the lowest peon to the highest Lord - watched the sun set in respectful reverence, bathing in the last desperate light of Horuset and the raw, splendorous majesty of the dark side.
It was into the stillness of this scene that the
Artificer interjected itself, careening through clouds of vapour and dust in a dangerous trajectory that brought the ground towards the cockpit's viewport at terrifying speed. "Hold onto your butts!" Captain Jacen Thilly shouted, leaning back on the yoke and pulling the
Artificer up in a panicked attempt to avoid crashing into the surface. Thanks to Karina's intervention, they had fled the
Wrath of Vader above at a pace too rapid to suddenly abort, and now they faced the consequences of their improbable survival: the no smaller danger of Korriban itself.
At the last second, the
Artificer leaned upwards, barely missing the mountain it had been plunging towards, the freighter's satellite dish promptly sheared from its hull as it scraped the protruding peak. The freighter bounced upwards from the collision, and Jacen shoved the yoke forwards again, hoping to prevent the perilous possibility of a stall. It was an overcompensation, and the freighter swiftly tumbled downwards, smacking back into the sand and skidding down the steep mountainside. Dust and sand billowed in its wake, and Jacen could only slam the decelarator and mouth a quick prayer to gods he didn't believe in as the viewport clouded over, blinding the occupants to the fate awaiting them at the bottom.
After several screeching seconds, the
Artificer thumped into a large dune, coming to a sudden and painful stop. The sand of the dune had absorbed much of the impact, and Jacen had fortunately slowed the craft enough to prevent catastrophic damage, but the whiplash was significant, and the cockpit was now buried in the sand at the bottom of the mountain. The aft of the
Artificer protruded out of the dune at a 45 degree angle. Jacen, Voidwalker and Karina, and whichever crew members they decided to bring with them, would have to climb up the corridors of their own ship to reach the hold, and then jump from the boarding ramp onto the dune below.
The dunes gradually levelled out into a plain ahead of the ship, from which sprouted the crumbling ruins of Dreshdae, distant yet just barely visible from the boarding ramp through the dust-laden air. The forgotten city stretched from the centre of the plain eastwards, terminating near the edge of a cliff; all that remained was a smattering of mostly toppled pillars and the occasional upright wall. Surrounding the ruins on its other three sides was sand, more sand and yet more sand. The plains, the distant cliff and the valley below it were all encircled by a range of even more distant mountains that dwarfed all of the lesser topography. The tallest of the mountains, towering above the far side of the plain, bore a long, narrow path winding up its jagged slopes, leading to a stone structure perched halfway up the mountainside. The building would seem tiny from the vantage point of the
Artificer, easily an hour away by foot. Fortunately, the
Artificer did have three spider bikes stowed in its hold.
The building was noticeably more in-tact than the ruins on the plain beneath it, suggesting a more recent age, or perhaps renovation of an ancient structure. If Voidwalker was well-versed in the more relevant histories of the Sith, he would understand the late Darth Vassago had discovered it over a century ago, finding in it the vault of a Sith spirit named Lacerus who had proclaimed Vassago the new Dark Lord of the Sith - the first since Darth Vader. Vassago had made the temple the home of a New Sith Order, gathering dark side devotees from the remnants of Palpatine's fallen Empire to reforge the Sith anew under a novel Rule of One. When Vassago had fallen, believed killed, the New Sith Order's structure of rival Houses resulted in instant fracture, the greater portion falling under the draconian rule of Darth Krayt, while lesser offshoots had fled into the the Unknown Regions to continue their civil war in the shadows.
But even throughout a century-and-a-half of tumult, the Temple had persevered as the primary headquarters of the New Sith Order, and when Darth Krayt had died over Coruscant, the Sith had remained behind the protection of its walls, safe from the persecution of the resurgent Jedi Order and its puppet Federation. Now, the newfound Emperor of the Sith had claimed it as his home, while a new generation of acolytes underwent the Sith Trials in its marble halls. It was a fortress, an academy, a library and a palace all in one.
It was the Dread Temple.
Beneath its unhallowed halls, in a vast subterranean cavern carved out of the belly of the mountain by natural and unnatural forces alike, the Cathar acolyte Arcane walked across a bridge of stone towards an invitingly open sept. His pace had quickened, bringing him ahead of his teacher Ermir Marcus, but the tomb's traps did not reward his eagerness. The four obelisks surrounding the sept at each corner were more than decorative; they were shield generators. The moment Arcane walked between two of the obelisks, the shield activated with a crackle of electricity, lightning born of the dark side flashing into eldritch existence. Arcane was forcefully rebuffed, thrown back across the bridge to smack painfully into the floor of the cavern. He had almost been hurled into the moat.
Ermir stopped short of the obelisks, turning to track his student's trajectory through the air. The lightning had winked out, but Marcus knew better than to think the shield had been deactivated.
No, no, if his experience in the Valley of the Dark Lords had taught him anything, it was that such a trap was likely to be defused only through the passage of some recondite trial.
As a low groan reverberated throughout the cavern and the water of the moat began to ripple, Ermir Marcus had a horrible inkling as to what that trial might be. Retreating back across the bridge to where Arcane lay, Ermir called out. "Get up, student! There's no time to assess your injuries. We have company." His eyes scanned the depths of the moat, his hand falling to his hip and plucking the lightsaber from his belt as the rippling intensified.
And then, with a roar, the monster breached the surface of the water.
There was no better word than
monster to describe the thing that erupted from the moat. It was easily a hundred feet long, almost as large as a krayt dragon, but although serpentine in aspect, it was no dragon. Instead, it more resembled a giant space slug with scales, a bloated, dripping thing thrashing in the water, with a squamous skull wrapped in rugose flesh thick with the stench of swampy decay, sporting a vast toothy maw and small dim eyes. Saliva sprayed from its mouth, coating Ermir and Arcane in viscous green fluid, as it roared again at the two interlopers.
"A Sith wyrm!" Marus cried, igniting his lightsaber.
Ermir recognised the species of Sithspawn from his studies of Exar Kun. The ancient Dark Lord had fought one on Yavin IV, bred from the congealed slime of exogorths and the dirt of the jungle moon by the proscribed alchemy of Naga Sadow. If legends spoke true, Exar Kun had almost died - and Ermir Marcus was no Exar Kun.
"May the Emperor protect us!" Ermir shouted, as the wyrm dove towards the two Sith, jaws unhinged and ready to devour.
The Emperor whose name the unfortunate alchemist invoked was currently separated from the two Sith by over three hundred meters of solid rock. Darth Dreadwar was standing in the Temple's medbay on the first floor, towering over the hoary bastard of Talon and Nihl, Darth Coatlec, who still bore the blood-oozing injuries and splotchy bruises of Warlord Zhav'vorsa's savage beating. But Zhav'vorsa was not the only Dathomirian in the medbay; Zul'tar had been taken there, as well.
When the Nightbrother had finally answered Bellorum's questions, the heresiarch harpy had smiled, running a finger down Zul'tar's cheek - this time, mercifully, leaving no trail of lightning in its wake. "See? That wasn't so difficult, was it," she had cooed. "I told you, if you answered me, I would treat you. And I never tell a lie." Bellorum had winked, then, in a way that very much suggested that last sentence itself had been a lie. Nonetheless, Bellorum had made good on her word this time, unchaining Zul'tar and escorting him, along with two Sith shock troopers, to the medbay.
His wounds had been washed and dressed, bacta patches applied to the most severe, but he had been given no time to rest before Bellorum had informed him she was taking him to see someone "rather special."
And thus she had brought him before Dreadwar. Whether Bellorum had been referring to the Emperor, or the Warlord of Zul'tar's own clan, she had left unclear. Nonetheless, for Zul'tar, both would surely be deserving of equal respect; an Emperor of numberless worlds that he had never met before, and the Warlord of his own, who he surely had - and knew him to be a leader cruel and demanding even by Dathomirian standards.
"I am glad you could join us," the Emperor hissed, the wraith's empty hood dipping marginally towards Coatlec and Zul'tar both. Coatlec had just departed his appointed room of relaxation, sneaking a glance at one more page of his grim book as he went. The page had read:
"I warn thee, the path to Prakith beeſt fraught with danger utmoſt foul. Its route beeſt Treacherous beyond meaſure, betwixt Black Holes and Denſest Stars, buried in the baleful bloated light of the Deep Core. Thy wrath ought be kindled againſt one who should aſsign thee such a queſt, even unto thee if thou art the one who seeketh it, for the trek beeſt long and beſet by peril.
Lend thine ear to my warning, Thou Brave Tſis of Korriban, Thou Seeker of Andeddu's Elder and Eldritch Lore, hearken my words and heed them well; Star Dragons are not the only miſfortune that may befall thee. There are more recondite Things still, nameleſs and terrible, in the Dark Places of the Galaxy. Beware Shadow. Beware Flame. And Beware hoſpitable hoſts who tempt thee with craft and suade thee with guile, for the Night is Dark, and full of Terrors."
But there was no time to read another page. The Emperor's demand for singular attention was resolute and absolute. To disrespect the Dread-King by appearing distracted in his presence was to court a sentence by death.
The wraith placed stygian gauntlets of cruel cortosis behind his cloak as he continued, that horrible, hollow whisper emanating forth from his rippling cowl. "Warlord Zhav'vorsa, this is a clansman of your kin. Apprentice Bellorum," he gestured to the half-Chiss woman sneering behind Zul'tar, "was kind enough to bring him here, in hopes you could make use of him on your mission. If he survives, mayhaps we will make use of him as an acolyte. If he dies, the Tuk'ata shall make use of his meat, sundered as it is."
The Dread-King turned, abyssal gaze piercing Zhav'vorsa's flesh with invisible power. "You have your mission, Warlord. Take these three into the wilds of Korriban. Kill them if they annoy you, if that be your will, but let nothing distract you from the hunt. Search for the revenant. If her carcass does not stink enough, follow the stench of her aura in the Force. May the Dark serve you well."
Bellorum appeared surprised if dismayed at the Emperor's orders, clearly not expecting to be sent on a mission alongside the man she had just spent several days torturing, let alone a mission she had not one iota of an idea about, but she held her tongue. The secret apprentice of Darth Insipid, after all, knew better than to challenge her Emperor. Or, at least, not yet, she thought. When my master is ready to strike... So will I. Her red eyes flicked to the floor as the Emperor moved to pass her, only rising to track his trailing cloak as he swept from the room.
The Emperor unknowingly traced Bellorum's steps as he navigated the labyrinthine stone halls to the dungeons. He took note of a pack of Sith acolytes charging past him, the cause of their flight swiftly becoming obvious as two barking Tuk'ata rounded the corner, bounding after the retreating students. Screams rang in the distance, joined by more barks, as well as growls, squawks and roars. The Emperor had little patience for such commotions; clearly, the beast masters had been lax in their duties, and he would leave them to deal with whatever mess they had created.
As it was, the Tuk'ata were no bother to him. They halted in their chase the instant they saw him, red eyes glittering with unnatural intelligence - and recognition. The Tuk'ata were designed to protect the ancient Dark Lords of the Sith, a duty they discharged after their Lords' physical death, and Darth Dreadwar was the first of that line. The ageless guardians of the dead bowed their heads as Dreadwar swept past them, averting their eyes and whining in fearful account.
When at last Dreadwar reached the dungeons, the din of the rampaging beasts faded behind him as he opened and closed the heavy, rusting iron door. The cell he had come to housed only one occupant, dangling from the ceiling by his thumbs, which were tightly and painfully encircled with small, vice-like manacles attached to duranium chains. The chains had been pulled taut, allowing only the man's tiptoes to touch the grim stone floor, barely supporting his weight. The mere posture of his imprisonment was torture, but the man's head was held high, piercing blue eyes meeting the emptiness of Dreadwar's hood with defiance.
The man's earthen robes, homespun obi and silver ponytail betrayed his identity: Jedi Master Ava-Kar Paris.
"Hello again, Master Paris," Dreadwar rasped, pacing into the dim chamber and beginning to circle around the prisoner. "I apologise for the state of your confinement; you, as a member of the Jedi High Council, deserve far more respect. The jailors can be the most dreadful barbarians, I'm afraid."
"Like all Sith," Ava-Kar spat, chains clinking as he turned and attempted to follow the circling wraith, tiptoes carefully manouvering. "You can spare me the 'good cop, bad cop' before you begin, by the way. You're as terrible as they come... Emperor of the Sith. Butcher of Anaxes. Slayer of untold billions." Ava-Kar's chains had become twisted up already with his movement, and as Dreadwar circled behind him, he realised he could not follow any further; his toes felt the pressure, pushing against the chains' desire to unravel.
"You make moralistic judgments without understanding the precepts of utilitarianism," Dreadwar replied, without missing a beat. "Without understanding what it means to rule." Dreadwar completed his circle, turning to face Ava-Kar head on. "An effective and just ruler has to be the precisely right sort of terrible to prevent his people from being moreso."
Ava-Kar snorted. "So you're a bad guy because the Sith are bad guys, so therefore you're actually a good guy?"
"No," Dreadwar said. "My people are far more than the Sith. My Empire envelops billions, here on the Outer Rim. You Jedi, who grew up in a temple of dreaming spires on the richest planet in the galaxy, who had everything provided for you from the creche onwards, whose ostensible foregoing of material goods masks the fact you are the most elite of the Core's repugnant religious and corporate elites, would not understand what we who presume to rule must presume to do in order to uphold said rule."
Ava-Kar's eyes seemed to be trying to burn a hole in Dreadwar's cowl. "Oh, I understand, alright," he said. "I understand that 'the ends justifies the means' is used to justify anything, including murderous tyranny. You rule a dictatorship that kills innocent people. Don't try and say it's for the Rimmers' own good. They got on perfectly fine under a republic."
"Now that is where you are simply mistaken," Dreadwar replied. "Holofilms and plays might repeat a conveniently entertaining narrative of good and evil, where the Jedi and Sith fight for the fate of the galaxy, where great heroes and great villains write the fable of galactic history in blood spilled by the sword. But truthfully, history is not written by great men; it is wrought by social forces, underlying dynamics, population change, economic pressures. Boring, complicated things." Dreadwar calmly placed his gauntleted hands behind his back. "The worlds of the Outer Rim have always been rich in resources, poor in people. And as always, the Core worlds have been happy to exploit that fact, and bleed the Rim dry. It is why the Rim overthrows the shackles of Republic rule once every twenty generations or so, like clockwork.
Yes, yes, the Rim. Not the Sith. It is no coincidence every single Sith Empire has been forged here on the outer edge of the galaxy, since the first fell at the hands of state-mandated, Jedi-supported Republic genocide. The Sith do not impose rule on the Rim. The Rim imposes Sith rule on itself; the Sith fill a need, to serve as a necessary counterweight to the Jedi in the governments the Rim organically constructs for itself, for a nation without Forceful is of course swiftly dispatched by one with. From the days of Naga Sadow to the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the Rim has flocked to the Sith cause, and we to theirs.
There is a brutal honesty about the Sith philosophy that appeals to the Rim mentality, not to mention a strong thread of fighting for freedom. Rimmers have experienced the artifice of false benevolence, how the Core preaches a higher ethic - an ethic that conveniently destroy Rim spice culture and their primary trade - while milking them for all they are worth. But in a Sith Empire, this exploitative aristocracy is dead, and meritocracy rules supreme. A Rimmer can never join the Core elite. But in a Sith Empire, even the most lowborn slave can climb the ladder of power and become a noble Lord. Is it any surprise, then, that to the Rim we are their saviours, their heroes, their legend that they resurrect time and time again? We are the wildfire that burns away the corruption of the Core, and I shall cleanse the very stars of their impurity."
"A midichlorian club is not meritocracy," Ava-Kar retorted. "Sure, a slave who won the genetic lottery might be able to murder his way up the ranks, but you neglect to mention the millions of slaves who will toil under the whip of their dark lords forever. While there is corruption wherever there is power, for power attracts the dark side, the Federation at least outlaws slavery, outlaws murder..."
"Executions are not murder," the Emperor interrupted. "Executions are justice. Remember," Dreadwar raised a finger, forestalling rebuttal, "the Rim is squeezed between the twin evils of the Federation and the Hutts. They have been squeezed similarly for millennia, if you permit me to substitute a name here and there. Where there is economic difficulty, there is crime, there is disorder - and more importantly, vulnerability. The slightest weakness results in the circling vultures picking the Rim apart. These realms are more perilous than where you hail from, Master Jedi. The Sith must do terrible things in order to rule the people. And I must do more terrible things still in order to rule the Sith."
"Well, at least you admit you are terrible," Ava-Kar replied, grimacing against the pain. "But there is nothing just about your Empire's 'executions.' You slaughter innocents. Any Jedi you capture, you torture until they bend the knee, or you kill them. That is not justice. That is evil."
Dreadwar shrugged, his cloak rippling with the motion. "You do not understand ethics, I think," he said. "Ethics are circumstantial. The sort of delusional deontology the Jedi espouse is a luxury they can enjoy only in times of peace, in places of wealth. In the real world, things are more complicated.
Suppose, for example, a decent man was unfortunate enough to be convicted of a crime he did not commit, and was sent to a maximum-security prison on Corellia. Have you been to Corellia, Master Jedi? The prisons are not kind. Rape, murder, bribery and corruption are norms. A good man who acted harmless, who attempted to abide by the virtues of his youth, would swiftly find his innocence plundered. He would be beaten, used in the most barbarous of ways, and discarded when no longer an instrument of gang leaders' amusement. To survive, a good man would have to prove himself terrible, and do things that in ordinary circumstances he would consider evil, in order to stay afloat of the prison's hierarchy. He would have to maim and murder, create a reputation of sadism, strength and brutality, so that he would be feared enough to not be attacked. Perhaps he, too, would come to torment new inmates in their turn, and the cycle of violence would continue."
While he was speaking, Dreadwar brought a hand from behind his back, raising it towards Ava-Kar. With a clink, the chains detached, and Ava-Kar sagged to the floor. He landed on his knees, heavily, but he looked up at the Emperor with a tinge of gratitude. "We execute all Jedi who refuse to convert," Dreadwar continued, "because if we did not, the Jedi we captured would choose to sit out the remainder of the war in the comfort of a prison cell. We remove that option, so that they have to choose: death, or the unrestrained Force. So, you see, it is not evil, but a pragmatic necessity, one foisted on us by the reality of war - and the choice of Jedi to infiltrate us in spite of the armistice, and do our society harm."
Ava-Kar slowly rose to his feet. "I am thankful for the chance to stretch my arms," he smirked, mocking the torture he had endured. "But if you think releasing me from my chains is going to convert me to the dark side, you are wrong. You are Sith. You are evil. Nothing will change my mind about that."
"Sith?" Dreadwar echoed. "I am not Sith. I am a Dark Lord. There is a difference. The Sith were a barbarous people of red-skinned magicians. We colonised them, conquered them, civilised them."
Ava-Kar frowned. Defiance had been replaced entirely with confusion. "You're talking about the redskins under Emperor Krayt, the dye you Sith love to use so much?"
"No," the Emperor replied. "I do not speak of the Jedi pretenders who dye their skin red in a poor imitation of the true Sith, who wield Jedi weaponry and know nothing of Sith magic, who have taken the name Sith for themselves - even though they are anything but supreme."
"Ah," Ava-Kar said. "You mean the Sith species. I read about them as a young Padawan. The extinct race overrun by fallen Jedi who called themselves the Dark Lords. They gave the Sith Order its name."
"Not extinct," Dreadwar hissed, grim satisfaction bleeding through into his sepulchral tone. "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even death may die. The stars have changed, the moons have fallen, and eras have passed, but the Dark Lords endure, and the Sith we rule, the true Sith, survive. In the darkness of the Unknown Regions, beyond the very rim of the galaxy, they have hidden themselves for countless millennia, awaiting the hour of our coming. Now the Old Ones are awoken, and I am returned. When the stars are right, we shall unleash the Sith, the true Sith, upon the galaxy once more. We shall raise the army of the dead to destroy false Sith and Jedi alike. Our numbers shall darken the sky above every world, and the rivers below will run red with blood."
Ava-Kar was stricken with horror. Colour had fled from his countenance at the Emperor's revelation, mouth opening and closing like a fish - Dreadwar's words of ancient doom the bait. After several seconds passed, Ava-Kar found words to speak. "I don't believe you." The first stage of grief is denial.
"Oh, but you do believe me," Dreadwar whispered. Ava-Kar could feel the invisible smile. "You know what I am, now. I am no Sith as you conceive it. I am the first Dark Lord. I am the ancient one, the desolate one, the dreaded one. And I rule this Empire..."
"...Only so that you might gather all of your foes in one spot," Ava-Kar spoke ahead of his thoughts, realisation dawning. "You don't care, do you? That's why the war ended in a ceasefire. That's why you don't attack the Federation. That's where you come from, that's why there's no record of a 'Darth Dreadwar' before you showed up four years ago. And... and the Sith... They... Oh Force."
Ava-Kar sunk back to his knees, despair weighing heavily on his heart. "They didn't attack the Federation because they wanted to," he whispered. "If they'd wanted to, they'd have waited for decades, until they had enough strength to overtake the galaxy, not just the Outer Rim. They attacked because they needed to, didn't they?" Ava-Kar looked up, searching the abyss of Dreadwar's hollow hood. "They fled into the Unknown Regions after the fall of Darth Krayt. And they found the True Sith." It was a deduction, but a confident one. "They were squeezed between the Federation and the True Sith, and so they retreated back into the Outer Rim - and they had to attack, with what meager forces they had. They were terrified. They were just trying to survive. And because the Federation was undergoing a civil war, they got lucky..."
"...And thus the New Sith Empire," Dreadwar finished for him, gesturing around at the cell - and the Temple beyond. "The False Sith Empire. Not knowing they have already been conquered by the very enemy they feared." Dreadwar leaned in. "Not knowing they spelled their own doom the moment they crowned me Emperor. Not knowing I waste their time with pointless kaggaths, weaken them battle-by-battle, until the moment I can wipe clean the dejarik board, and destroy Federation and Sith both... with... one... cruelessst... ssstroke."
Silence hung in the stale air.
For almost a minute, Ava-Kar knelt at the foot of the Dread-King, contemplating the conversation. It had been genial enough at the beginning, the Emperor justifying his ethics, justifying the Sith, entertaining argument. But had all that just been shallow entertainment? Although Ava-Kar had maintained an outward facade of defiance, he couldn't deny the arguments were convincing - far more than any argument he had heard from any other Sith. They might have swayed him, were he a Padawan. He had somehow assumed Dreadwar had spent all day planning it, a well-orchestrated attempt at conversion. But the abrupt turnaround in topic and tone convinced him he had been mistaken; this wasn't Dreadwar articulating his best methods of suasion. This was Dreadwar just... talking. Rattling off thoughts that came to him easily, arguments that seemed to trump all the wisdom of Ava-Kar's youth.
Was Dreadwar toying with him for some darker reason? Or just entertaining himself, holding a fluid conversation with an enemy, a conversation so fluid he willingly spilled the most sinister secrets as if they were nothing?
"Why are you telling me all this?" Ava-Kar asked, finally.
"Because I enjoy confessing to people who can never repeat what they hear," Dreadwar replied. He folded his arms, and the room grew colder. "I know you will never convert. But I heard tales of your exploits above N'Zoth, how you defeated our armies at Metellos, how you broke the siege of Dac single-handedly. I wanted to talk to you, to finish off our conversation we had on Dantooine." Conversation is a generous term, Ava-Kar thought, remembering the battle in the purple grass. Nonetheless, he said nothing, as the Emperor continued, "I respect you, Master Paris, like I respect few Jedi. I respect you enough to resolve any lingering riddles and mysteries that you might have pondered in your long career. And I respect you enough to spare you the indignity of our usual public executions; they are quite bloody."
Ava-Kar's eyes reflected one last realisation. He nodded, gravely, solemnly. "I see, now," Ava-Kar said, slowly. "You're goi--"
Crack. Ava-Kar fell to the floor, his neck broken. "May the Force have mercy on your soul," Dreadwar whispered into the darkness. And thus passed Ava-Kar Paris, Master of the Jedi Order.
The sun was red, as it set on Korriban.
Several hours prior... and several hours away...
IC: Darth Apollyon
Chasm, False Tomb of Naga Sadow, Korriban
Apollyon glared behind her, shooting Scionica a withering look. The crazed assassin had stood out to her as a potential apprentice - there was a wildness about her that needed Apollyon's more gentle brand of taming - but she would have to learn manners. Chortling at the most intolerable circumstances they had found themselves in, however stifled, was not appropriate. Then again, neither was humour, and Catalyst provided that in spades, already desecrating the sarcophagal cavern with disrespectful jokes about undead Sith. Then again, it was unclear whether that had ever been a mummy here to be disrespected, and Apollyon couldn't deny the mental image of a great Dark Lord of old simply getting up and walking out of the sarcophagus after a millennium-long nap was rather amusing...
Her imaginings were interrupted by Neoplix, who had retrieved Xirr's armour his new master had placed in the coffin. The dark energy of the nexus clung to the battle-robes like a disease, but what effects the immersion would have on the armour were unclear. Sith alchemy was a fine art, but sometimes, a sufficiently strong nexus could imbue items with malignant energy simply through exposure.
Neoplix had corrected Xirr's fretful pessimism, and Apollyon found herself in rare agreement with the Gen'Dai; there were many artifacts that would allow them to escape the tomb, from Jania's amulets to, Neoplix had apparently deduced, Xirr's gauntlets. Getting out was not a problem. But that did nothing to dull the disappointment of the empty sarcophagus...
Wait.
Apollyon frowned, black eyes narrowing. It might have been a trick of the dim light, seeing things in the darkness, but she could have sworn she had seen a faint light in the sarcophagus.
She stepped forward, gingerly, peering into the empty coffin. "Sssshhh," she hissed at Scionica, raising her finger towards the other chatty Sith. The ensuing silence was broken by the unmistakable hiss of sparks. Her lightsaber, short-circuited by the nexus, was now spitting electricity into the air, which was growing thicker and heavier with potent power. Hers was not the only one affected so; sparks leapt around the cavern, as every electrical device began to sputter.
And the strange light glowed within the sarcophagus. It was faint, at first, but swiftly grew, shedding wisps of eerie spectral energy into the air as wisps of cobalt aether. Apollyon stepped back from the sarcophagus, eyes enraptured, expression contorted in frozen fear. The sparking died out, and the whispers began. A quiet sussurus, chanting in dreadful tongues. The energy surrounded her feet, now, rolling across the platform like smoke, and wisps of ghostly power were flooding the cavern all around them. The air was calcifying with ancient malice.
Apollyon held a hand out behind her, seeking Viscretus' own for support. A wind was growing in the cavern, buffeting the assembled Sith with unnatural force. Their dangerous positioning betrayed them, as the high wind caught Neoplix, pulling him from his perilous perch upon the platform to cast him into the abyss below. Distant laughter echoed throughout the tomb as Neoplix fell, and Apollyon could feel a thousand eyes watching them.
The sarcophagus spilled yet more energy, billowing with violet and cerulean fire, lightning crackling at its base, and then with a terrible roar and a great gust of wind a seething mass of darkness formed within its midst, sillhouetted against the eldritch fountain of arcane energy. The shadow coalesced into the approximate shape of a man, the abyssal blackness of the cavern lending its bottomless ink to create black robes, cascading and falling around it, and as the chasm grew cold and the evil light died, the Shadow turned...
Apollyon's breath hitched in her throat.
"Who dares disturb the sanctum of my tomb?" Darth Dreadwar hissed.
IC: Darth Anathema
The Sith Citadel, Ziost
Damage to the Citadel? What about damage to us? It was so typical of Insipid, and his vapid, history-obsessed mind, clogged with the dust of the tomes he loved so much no doubt, to care more about maintaining a pointless old ruin in the snow than mastering a battle. Anathema had no patience for such interests. Too many Sith, from the blushing caramel-skinned girl seemingly fresh from a convent that was the Emperor's Hand Apollyon, to the blonde harlot Viscretus who'd probably slept her way to the top of Intelligence, looked back to the past of the Sith rather than to the future. While Anathema could forgive the Emperor's interests, owing to his origins as a primordial spirit, she did not understand why the ancient histories fascinated anyone born in the present day. The Sith of old had failed.
Ruin, Rivan, whatever the name of the turncloak Sith Lord that had sabotaged his own Empire. Palpatine, the dictator who had rewarded a thousand years of Baneite effort with only twenty years of unstable, rebellion-rocked rule. They had all been failures. Whereas Darth Vassago... He had forged a Sith Order more resilient than any other. Co-opted by Darth Krayt, and then by Darth Dreadwar, the New Sith Order had taken over the galaxy with only a few decades of planning, even while split in three thanks to the civil war Vassago's fall had assured. Now, they were poised to do so again, the Rim already firmly in their grasp.
Anathema would view this battle as practice, for the war they were about to unleash upon the Federation. But when that time comes, we won't be the ones besieged in a fortress, she thought. We shall lay siege to the Senate.
Anathema pointedly ignored Helinith's jokes, eyes fixed forwards to the holodisplays. There were live feeds from the Citadel walls, now, and Anathema could see Insipid's orders carried out. Their turrets had been turned on the Gorog, peppering it with blaster fire; enough to kill any lesser beast, but the Gorog was no lesser beast. It merely roared in rage at those who dared tickle its flesh, and continued to inch closer, Sith Inquisitors hiding in the war tower on its back reaching out from their precarious platforms to spray lightning at those on the battlements. Insipid's own contingent of sorcerers were duly carrying out his orders to pick apart strays, casting lightning and the occasional spell from the parapets, but were now forced to concentrate their energy on defense, raising hands to absorb incoming lightning and blaster fire destined for the vital troopers manning the turrets.
And then the Gorog was in range, and with another roar, it pounded its fists into the walls. Anathema could feel the floor quake beneath her with each blow.
"We need to get out there," she hissed at Insipid. "Those Inquisitors on the Gorog's back will be able to storm the walls, even if the rest of the army can't... yet." She gestured at the holodisplay, where Haretisch's Sith troopers were unveiling grappling hooks and climbing equipment, clearly intending to begin scaling the cliff below the citadel. The walkers, for their part, were content to simply stand there, craning their durasteel heads upward and unleashing hell on the battlements, killing sorcerers by the dozen and flinging crumbling stone and bodies into the icy air. "Our power would prevent their efforts. And," Anathema glanced at Helinith, "we need to take out their walkers, or even our battlements won't prevent us from being sitting ducks."
There were two corridors leading out to the battlements, one on the left, one on the right, each leading to a separate half of the Citadel's cliff-facing wall. The Citadel's main gate was fortunately on the other side, but Haretisch's forces weren't intending to use the entrance; they were intending to create their own.
TAG: @sinre , @daughterofvader
