The Old Sith Trials

IC: Emperor Dreadwar, Zul'tar
Sith Temple, Korriban


The cold cobalt light flickered in the darkness.

Small ghostly figures, thin as drifting mist, moved in unstable perturbations of static about the blue-white glow. Their voices, reedy and metallic, echoed throughout the cavern, distorted and wavering like their supple forms.

"Welcome to the ambassador of Zakuul," one voice dipped and warped, a sudden buzz of electronic interference almost drowning out the femininity of the speaker's identity. The ghost's hair bore a silvery sheen, but the frost did not intractably cool the rich brunette tones that surrounded the streak of vitiliginous grey, coiled in the most fashionable styles of the Core Worlds about an attractive if angular face a touch too aristocratic to be considered conventionally beautiful. The face of Marasiah Fel, Empress of the Galactic Federation.

Flanking her on either side, two more ghostly figures, one tusked and toothed with a long furred snout at once crocodilian and mammalian, the other bearing the leathery blue skin and large red eyes of a Duros. K'Kruhk, the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, and Gar Stazi, Admiral of the Alliance, together, Co-Chancellors and Heads of Government of the Federation. Facing the spectral triumvirs stood a hulking figure in armour of silver and maroon, giant relative to the triumvirs yet still only inches in height, enshrouded by a pastel-pink robe with a unique spiked helm that left the ghost's features entirely in shadow, twin sparks of scarlet sufficing for a sinister approximation of eyes. The overall effect of the figure's ensemble was an invocation of the Imperial Sentinels of Byss, or, to those more learned in the caliginous obscurities of Onderonian lore - which the Triumvirs certainly were not - perhaps the Naddist Royal Guard.

Escorting the armoured figure was a coterie of dignitaries and aides, all in resplendent garb of silken finery, with high collars popped around baubled necklaces and cursed objets d'art. Most were human, albeit with sallow faces, but some had a distinct pinken cast to their skin bleeding through the cerulean wash of their tiny spectral forms, suggestive of interbreeding with some coral-hued race; Zeltrons, perhaps, or Rutian Twi'leks.

"Welcome to Atha Prime," K'Kruhk bowed, following Empress Fel's example, only without the caution in displaying deference to a foreign plenipotentiary as required of the image-conscious Head of State. Gar Stazi bowed as well, but said nothing, eyeing the ambassador of the so-called Eternal Empire with silent skepticism.

"Thank you," the armoured ghost responded. "It is good to be here on Coruscant once again, representing the will of the Eternal Empire as we formalise this treaty between our governments. For too long we have been cautious of one another, and who can blame your wariness? It must have been a strange thing indeed, that day one year ago, when we first approached you - a polity from Unknown Regions you had never explored."

"Indeed, Ambassador," the ghost of Marasiah chuckled, clapping her hands. "To have a polity larger than even the Chiss Ascendancy, one we had never before heard of, offer their aid against the Sith... It came as a shock to us all, yet over the past year we have grown to know one another, an increasingly pleasant surprise. Now I know how Princess Leia must have felt when the Nagai came out of the blue."

"We owe you this alliance," Atha Prime returned. "If it wasn't for us, the Sith would never have fled the Unknown Regions. We unwittingly chased them out of our territory, and onto your doorstep, and now it is our duty to rectify the threat we drove into your realm."

"We chased them into yours to begin with," Marasiah countered, eager to seem the more self-deprecatingly graceful dignitary. "If the forces of the Federation hadn't been so relentless following Darth Wredd's purge of the Sith ranks at the Battle of the Floating Moon, we'd have mere remnants to deal with; instead, we drove them into the Unknown Regions, where they were able to hide and gather strength in the unnavigable hyperspatial knots of deep space. And thus, together, it is both our duties to destroy the evil of the Sith, the evil that murdered my father." That was false, of course; while the Sith had indeed attempted to kill Roan Fel, the late Darth Krayt had only succeeded in murdering a double; Emperor Fel's actual death had come at the hands of Imperial Jedi Antares Draco, now Head of the Imperial Knights, when Roan's hatred of the Sith had seen him slip into darkness. Nonetheless, the death had been pinned on the Sith; sometimes, for the benefit of morale, the light required a lie.

The ghost of K'Kruhk shifted uncomfortably. Politics, diplomacy, deception... The New Jedi Order was increasingly entangled like the old.

Atha Prime inclined his helmed head. "As you say, Your Highness," he said. "In two months we shall be ready. The Sith have yet to notice our fleets joining your own. With the Eternal Empire surging from the Unknown Regions, and the honorable Jedi striking from Coruscant, the Sith shall be overwhelmed."

"Indeed," Marasiah said. "Together, we shall destroy Mitth'res'pheie."

The tiny ghosts vanished in a haze of static, each figure pulled like screaming specters towards the vacuum of the small holoprojector held in the hand of the Sith agent, before winking out entirely. The agent looked up, his glowing red eyes piercing the darkness of the cavern he stood in. It had been the thirteenth time he had played the holo-recording. No matter how many times he replayed it, the conclusions stood in place, as firm as the armour of Atha Prime.

It had been two days since he had absconded with the recording, intercepting it mid-transmission to the holographic projector built into Dreadwar's throne during otherwise routine if off-the-books reconnaissance assessing cyber-threats to the Emperor's life. He had not expected a threat to the Empire itself.

Chiss by birth, he knew of no individual by name of Mitth'res'pheie, and due to his own Intelligence background and the context of the conversation, it had not taken long to work it out. The identity of Atha Prime had also been obvious. The implications of it being transmitted to the Emperor were horrifying, but equally undeniable.

The moment he had realised, he had fled to the catacombs beneath the Valley of the Dark Lords, without reporting to Sith Inteligence. The implications were too large. This went too high up, and Viscretus' fondness of the Emperor made her potentially unreliable. No, no, if he wanted this hologram to see the light of day, it had to go public before he could be stopped. The Sith had to revolt against their leaders. They had to know the truth of what the Emperor was planning.

Footsteps echoed in the darkness. Job'onjior'nuruodo gripped his pistol. Before it is too late.



At 0300 hours, the Sith Emperor, The Deathless, The Never-Sleeping, summoned Zul'tar to the throne room.

Zul'tar had awoken that morning with a stiff neck and dizzying nausea. The moment his eyes opened, the world around him began to spin, causing him to grip onto the nearest object, a wooden dresser. The old man closed his eyes, waiting for the nausea to pass before opening them once again.

Where was he?

He had been laid onto a bed, and the stone decorum of the room he was in told him that he was still trapped on Korriban, and the darkness past his window showed that it was still night.

Of course he was on Korriban, now that he thought on it. The last few days had been a blur, mostly due to the victory celebration along Zhav'vorsa after a successful hunt. Although Zul'tar would hardly call it a hunt, when the prey decided to come to them.

Lying by his bedside, propped against the wall, was his axe. The details on how he retained the axe, or where Zhav'vorsa was now, had left Zul'tar's mind, escaping as it was flooded with alcohol for days on end. No matter. While Zhav'vorsa was one of the few men that Zul'tar respected, he did not need his old warchief's permission to find a way off this planet. After all, Zul'tar was an exile. He had no place among the clan anymore, and he felt that he had no place among these Sith, either.

That is, until a blinking light called his eye. The drowsiness he suffered had made his thoughts slow, and it was only now that he realized what had caused him to awake at such an hour.

Still not sure how to work these confounded datapads, the old warrior fumbled with the blinking device until he clicked onto the notification. It was from the datapad's only contact: marked unknown. “Report to the Emperor's throne room immediately,” it said. The light of the datapad made the old man squint a bit before reading the text, but upon doing so, his eyes suddenly widened. What in the name of the Winged Goddess could that wraith desire from an old warrior? Something else to kill?

Thinking on it would take too long, therefore Zul'tar decided it would be best to save those thoughts until he arrived. Realizing that he was just a loincloth away from totally nude, the brute dressed himself from what little clothing he possessed in his dresser: loose-fitting black robes, with his rancor-leather armor lying beneath. Outstretching his left hand, the axe flowed to his grip without his attention even focused on the action. Rather, he was focused on trying to remember exactly where the throne room was.

Leaving his quarters with no further preparation, the old warrior roamed the halls of the barracks he was staying in, finding his way to the exit and into the temple courtyard. His eyes, even in the darkness, found the tower of obsidian that stretched to the sky, like armored claws hoping to pluck the moon from its resting place. The memories began to come back to Zul'tar now that he was entirely sober, and he began to march towards the throne room, eventually making his way there.

The old man had drawn the gaze of the Emperor's guards along the way, though they no doubt knew that Zul'tar was expected to be arriving. Though by the arrogance that poured from them, they knew the Emperor had expected Zul'tar earlier. No reason to fret over being late, Zul'tar thought. Not like anyone has much to be doing at this hour of night, besides either resting or other pleasurable activities.

Zul'tar finally stepped foot in the throne room, his eyes glancing at the phantom sitting in the throne before instinctively lowering his gaze to his feet. He walked forward, maintaining a steady breath to match his pace. Thinking on such simple things often helped him cloud his fears in the past. For in truth, the Emperor possessed an aura that reminded him of tales about the Fanged God. And while he doubted the Sith Emperor often decided to take the form of a giant, sharp-toothed beast of darkness, the sheer power and cold that radiated from those simple black robes sent a chill down Zul'tar's spine.

A respectful distance away, the old man kneeled, ignoring the pain of doing so. He remembered a time when something so simple was as easy as breathing. Now, the bones popped and muscles ached, protesting that so much of his weight be focused on the knees rather than the femurs. His aging body's protests would go unheard, for his attention lied elsewhere.

“You sent for me,” Zul'tar spoke, his voice gruff and deep. He paused a moment, trying to find some nicety to add on to his sentence. He could say, “My Emperor,” or “My Liege”, but in Zul'tar's heart, this creature of darkness was neither to him. In his own eyes, Zul'tar was a victim of the Empire's raids on his homeworld, nothing more. But he had to say something, otherwise he knew this wraith would take it as disrespect. “I am at your service, ifak akkelenak.” The closest translation would be, “leader of a foreign people.” It was a courtesy that did not leave a bad taste in his mouth. He only hoped it did not leave a bad sound in Emperor Dreadwar's ears, if he even had ears.

The ancient wraith stood facing away from Zul'tar, his gauntleted hands clasped behind his back, dark hood fixated on his empty throne. His cloak rippled with unnatural silence in the deathly still room, as if inexplicably caught in a charnel wind. Zul'tar could feel the cold.

"Leader of a foreign people," the Emperor rasped, the spectral whisper echoing powerfully throughout the chamber. The tongue of Dathomir was well-known to him, autodidactic polyglot that he was. He turned, the caliginous cowl levelling upon Zul'tar an invisible gaze that crawled slowly, shuddering, up his spine. "It is precisely for that reason I summon you, beast," he said. "You hold no allegiances to the Sith, no cloying connections, no political ties. You are an outsider - and in that there is a trust I cannot hold in the Sith Masters, who seek ever to betray, to rise."

The Emperor paused. "There has been a security breach," he continued. "A transmission to my throne was intercepted by a rogue agent within Sith Intelligence. The contents of said transmission are not important. What is important is that the agent be eliminated... silently... and with no trail leading back to this Temple. Sith Intelligence must believe he has died in the field, of other causes."

If he had lips, then, they would have curled in an invisible smile. As it was, the empty hood remained as expressionless as ever, darkness lapping powerfully around the Emperor's shrouded form like a night mist from the gravemoon of Sarcophagus. "You are wondering, now, why you should do this thing for me," the Emperor whispered, confidently, walking closer. "You shall be compensated, of course, but that is not the reason you shall serve me, Zul'tar of Dathomir. No, Zul'tar, you shall serve me because you always have, as you have served all the spirits. I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. I am your god."

Manipulating superstitions to one's favour was easy with primitive peoples; as he and his Heresiarchs had impersonated the Old Ones, winning the devotion of the tribal Sith purebloods, as the Lost Tribe of Sith had impersonated the Skyborn to exert dominion over the Keshiri, so was it a trivial matter of pragmatic efficiency to convince this Dathomirian barbarian he was divine. Before the Emperor's mental prowess, Zul'tar's mind was an open book, his most sacred memories easily plucked from his head without leaving the slightest psychic trace - or perceptible touch. Sifting through them even as he continued speaking, the Emperor easily discovered the ones most useful to his ruse.

"Your people may most prominently worship the Winged Goddess, Niphal, and the Fanged God, Eipha, but you have forgotten the older spirits that even your most learned shamans, as you know, confess ignorance of the names of. But I was there, Zul'tar, at the beginning of the universe. I was there, at Niphal's birth." Utter lies, of course; Darth Dreadwar may have roamed the stars for seven thousand years, an immortal specter by virtue of his great ritual, but even his hundred lifetimes was but a blink compared to the billions of years the cosmos had existed, and the true Celestial being that had inspired the Niphal myth, Dreadwar knew, predated his meager mortal birth by hundreds of thousands of years.

"I was there," Dreadwar hissed, "when your loving mother, Frel'dara, laboured to bring you into this world in that filthy mud hut. I whispered to you a secret, as I have whispered to all babes, and I put my finger to your lips, and said 'Sssh' - leaving that dent above your lip." Dreadwar referred to the medial cleft between the nose and the upper lip that all humans possessed; it was a minor thing, but its obscure evolutionary purpose had always fascinated him, and it was an easy thing to claim credit for.

"I was there, listening to your frightened prayers, when your father, Torkstan, beat you and broke your nose; I was there when he died in that plague when you were fourteen. I was there, smiling, when you thanked we gods for giving you such a beautiful wife - with long, dark hair that smelled of lavender, eyes as blue as the Great Glass Sea. I know what you dream of, my child, the dreams that waken you in the night - Delylah's dying screams echoing in your mind, the word 'Madri' chanting in your skull, the two black eyes staring at you from the heavens, the memory of the trees slashed with the word 'Mother.' I was there as I always have been and always will be, for the gods of Dathomir are inscrutable... terrifying... and real."

The empty hood leaned in close. The stench of decay, mingled with the bitter cold of frozen breath, emanated from its depths, yet the sense of power between them was absolutely electric; Zul'tar would feel as if he was standing on the precipice of a black hole, a dying star discharging unfathomable power. "I created you for a reason, my child, though the ways of the gods be veiled in mystery, my purposes beyond your mortal mind."

The Emperor withdrew, turning back to face his throne, powerful arms folding across his chest. His mental powers continued to ply Zul'tar's mind, tilting him towards adulation and obedience. "You shall do this task for me," he said, "and serve me without question... and then I shall raise your wife from death."

Zul'tar listened intently at the Emperor's words, the hiss of every utterance filling the old warrior's mind like tar, quickly hardening into a perfect lookalike to what Zul'tar considered the truth. In these few moments, the Dathomirian exile went from faithless to faithful, from a skeptic to a believer. He felt his upper lip as Dreadwar mentioned the cleft that this god had left there. He remembered the pain of his broken nose, but most of all the shame that he felt because of it. These memories that the Emperor recited were perfectly in line with what Zul'tar remembered, making it unquestionable that this wraith, this… god, spoke the truth.

But most of all, what made Zul'tar believe was the promise to bring Delylah back from the dead. It was, perhaps, the only thing Zul'tar had ever wanted. The one being in this universe that gave him clarity and purpose. Knowing that doing this task for the god known as Emperor Dreadwar would give him all he had ever dreamed of having, Zul'tar made no hesitation to accept the mission.

Tears welling in his eyes, the old warrior nodded in reverence. “I will do whatever you ask.” Part of Zul'tar's psyche nagged at him in the back of his mind, not questioning if the Emperor could bring Delylah back, but simply wondering how she would return. Would this god take to cruel fancy, simply raising the long-dead corpse of Zul'tar's wife to feast on his flesh? Or would he be merciful, granting Zul'tar his beautiful wife in the form he truly remembered her in? Only time would tell, and Zul'tar would not dare question a god, now that he knew one existed.

However, the grief in his heart made him tremble, and summoned his courage to instead ask a different question. One that Zul'tar had demanded of the gods but found no answer. Now, that he was face to face with one of those gods, he had to ask one more time.

“Why did you let her die in the first place?” Zul'tar asked. His words showed none of the rage he once had, only his sorrow. If one so powerful as the Emperor had allowed such horrors to come to pass, why should Zul'tar follow him? Worship him?

Zul'tar's question was a good one, Dreadwar mused, staring out the window, and the true answer, of course, was not one he could utter; no one had let her die. The universe was a blind, uncaring thing; the stars did not care, the void did not care, the trees from Zul'tar's memories were deaf and dumb, sapient life scarcely more attentive. There were no gods or powers; neither the animal-headed idols of primitive worlds, nor the inscrutable will that the foolish, superstitious Jedi ascribed to the Force, which, to any discerning intellect, was merely another form of energy that could be harnessed by life.

Fortunately, civilisation had spent millennia dreaming up pleasant rationalisations, grandiose myths and trite cliches of good and evil featuring villains that were still more comforting to the average person than the terrifying and barren truth of a meaningless universe, and these tired precepts easily slipped from the emptiness of Dreadwar's hood.

"There are vile powers of fire and light," Dreadwar said, his back turned, "who seek ever to ensnare the innocent in the hellish flames of Chaos. Their temporal servants wield brazen brands, sabers of light, and you know these apostates as Jedi. They hate and despise the forces of cool and peaceful night. It was the gods of fire who claimed your beloved; we gods of ice and darkness mourn every soul lost to us, and in that great battle of universal turbulence, we seek ever to restore those claimed by the great enemy of death." Dreadwar could not quite resist slipping in his own genuine conceptions to the fable he spun, aligning the fictional deities of fire with the light side of the Force, and setting up death as the ultimate nemesis.

"Now go," he said, waving his hand. "Assemble a team if you need, but if you do, draw its ranks from stragglers and strangers, acolytes and fresh recruits of no import who you can easily dispose of after. Any higher ranks may leak."

A short baton of white marble, no longer than one foot long, floated from between two kneeling telamones, drifting lazily towards Zul'tar. Affixed with seals of wax - or congealed blood, it was difficult to tell - was a piece of parchment wrapped around the baton, bearing lines of writing in Aurebesh and High Galactic. "You will need this," Dreadwar said, as the baton was levitated into Zul'tar's reach. "The baton of my Imperium. Show it to anyone who doubts that you act in my name, whether it be the highest Lord or the most recalcitrant slave, and they shall instantly render obeisance unto the servitor of my will."

The Emperor fell silent. Zul'tar was dismissed.


Four hours later, four individuals stood before the aged warrior. He had tracked these beings across Korriban, gathering them at the gates to the Sith Temple with the word of Emperor Dreadwar binding them to Zul'tar's will. They would either serve in this mission or die, whether by Zul'tar's hands or the Emperor himself.

The first that Zul'tar had found was a young man named Manfred Jekyll. A quiet young man who seemed terribly afraid of his surroundings, it did not take much prodding for Zul'tar to realize that Jekyll's soul was not the only one residing in his body. A woman who identified herself as Ivana Hyde greeted Zul'tar after Manfred seemed unwilling to listen to the Dathomirian. While Zul'tar did not have all the details of how two souls shared the same body, he quickly realized that the female side was quite capable, and Manfred's lack of rank made him perfect for this task.

The second was a red-skinned Twi'lek by the name of Nuz'wogan. She had caught Zul'tar's eye when he was passing through the courtyard, and he heard some foolish Rodian lad demand that the Lethan Twi'lek dance for him. Next, Zul'tar heard a sickening crack as the Rodian's body was tossed into the nearest stone wall, leaving a crack in the wall and leaving the Rodian in far worse shape. A quick conversation made it clear that Nuz'wogan was new here; another perfect candidate for this hunt.

The third was a being whose name was Renn Turon. He was a humanoid creature, with brown skin and hair, yellow-green eyes, and a rounded hump where his nose should be. It did not take long for Zul'tar to realize that he was a shapeshifter, a Neti specifically. What he did not know was this Neti's past. All he knew of the stranger was that he had come to Korriban in search of a place among fellow darksiders. A mysterious one, but one that fit the Emperor's description of who Zul'tar could bring nonetheless.

The last of the misfits that Zul'tar had gathered was most assuredly the strangest-looking one. A member of the lesser-known species, a T’landa Til, this being looked closely related to the Hutts, save for a long, thin, whipping tail and four trunk-like legs with huge, padded feet rather than a body resembling a slug. He also had a tiny pair of arms with delicate hands, each of which boasted four supple fingers. His name was Mitth Tsuro, and he had been in servitude to a Sith Master for some time, never earning an official rank beyond being little more than a slave. Though it seemed his master had been generous with knowledge, leaving Zul'tar to view Mitth as the perfect candidate for this mission.

And now that all stood here, side by side, Zul'tar began to question if he had gone mad. This had to be the scruffiest bunch of nerfherders this side of the Outer Rim. How was he going to lead them on an assassination?

Sighing, Zul'tar let the doubts fall away from his thoughts, instead focusing on his goal. Delylah was at stake here. That was all that mattered.

“You four, or five, know why we're here,” Zul'tar spoke. Everyone save for Jekyll and Hyde seemed confused by the remark, but no matter. If they wished to reveal their little secret to the others, that was for them to decide. “There is a Sith agent who has gone rogue, stealing valuable information from your Emperor and hiding in the tombs of the dead like the coward be is. We must find him and eliminate him. The information he stole is not required of us to find, only that we make sure his death is not in any way linked back to the Temple. That is why I have chosen you all to accompany me. We're newcomers, outsiders. We have few, if any, ties here. This is for the Emperor, and we must not disappoint. Am I understood?”

TAGS: Mitthfisto , taciteoccultus , darthbernael , claiomhsolais