A Test of Morality

[Vereshin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPPUVffyOOU&t=96s​

The Blades of Fate drifted smoothly in orbit above the surface of Telos and Vereshin wrote ferverntly before a large window in the small quarters he occupied during his visit to the Dark Lord. Below the atmosphere, a pious gathering of Light Side extremists preyed to a deity and slaughtered any being tainted by darkness. They called themselves the Ophia, a holy brethren of hypocrisy infiltrating Sith worlds and cleansing their road of the dark taint. Vereshin regarded himself as a tolerant man. Hyper-religious fanatics who believed their powers were granted by a god tested that tolerance dearly.

Sitting on a pot of white tea, he immersed himself in numbers to distract the rising fear of addressing Carnifex in person. The ship offered to provide him with robes, which he refused, they were not garments he truly felt comfortable wearing and appreciated the benefits of blending in with the masses. He nibbled the end of a chocolate biscuit before gripping the handle of the teacup and enjoying the contrast of the ethereal taste with the sweet. He completed the formula for a ritual to compress the surrounding gravity of the territory the cultists occupied, crushing them where they stood and squeezing their bodies in a moderate and agonizing pace. The numbers suddenly seemed earthly compared to the practice of the feat and Vereshin did not truly comprehend the idea of a ritual conducted from space.

Coursing over the final equation, he checked his calculations repeatedly until the formula was complete and shuffled his notes. A knock at the door alerted him to the end of his privacy and he rose from his seat to prepare for leaving. Swapping his jacket for a smart black coat with a standing collar, he wore a scarf beneath the lapel and buttons, with a silver pin bearing the symbol of the Sith Empire hooked into the fabric on his neck. He wore boots with cross lacing up the back and slicked back his hair severely. Refreshing and gathering his notes, he followed the knock to leave the door and wandered into the corridor outside.

Sith guards lead Vereshin to the bridge of the Star Destroyer where Darth Carnifex stood before the viewport, hands gathered behind his cape. Standing in the entrance, Vereshin held his breath for as long as he could before releasing slowly and secured his glasses out of habit. He took a step forward and maintained his posture, approaching the Dark Lord with subtle confidence. Stopping before the short level of stairs, a few meters separated Carnifex and himself while Vereshin held his formula dearly and felt his palm grow damp on the paper.

"The preparations for the assault are complete, my lord. I am ready to begin on your orders." The sorcerer stood up straight and spoke without suggesting any nerves. One of Carnifex's hooded mages beckoned forward and Vereshin handed him the plans. Something within the back of his mind told him the assault on the Ophia cult was only the beginning to something greater, a test of the young Sith's morality, or lack thereof, an aspect to himself he kept tightly coiled until the right moment. Conducting the assault on the Ophia only brought him closer to his goal, of serving as one of the Empire's greatest Dark Side scientists. Whatever tests and projects Carnifex was too order, the young intellectual welcomed any challenge.

The gargled sound of a constricted throat drooled from the shadows. Vereshin's attention diverted to the corridor where a man was strapped to a chair. A bag covered his features, but the pristine white tunic of the Ophia glowed beneath while the hand of one of Carnifex's mages gripped his shoulder firmly. There seemed to be an interrogation to take place and he quickly contemplated his involvement. [member="Darth Carnifex"] tested the limits of Vereshin's power tonight, and the coldness of his heart.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The Dark Lord stood idle throughout the interrogation.

At first they had attempted to coax information from the captured Ophia cultist, but the man had professed that he would never willingly give up the secrets of his order to anyone let alone the wretched Sith. He had said more than that, used much more vile descriptors and even profanity when referring to Carnifex and his entourage, but he was momentarily silenced by the butt of a rifle jammed squarely into his throat. After that the Dark Lord had declared that trying to ease information out of him would be useless, and that more severe methods would have to be used to acquire what they sought. And thus they had started with the hands, slowly tearing each nail free from its digit until the flesh was soft, raw, and bloody. Then they began to drive small blunt rods of metal into the distal phalanges, the sound of screams and the faint clinking of a hammer echoing across the warship's bridge.

Then they had moved onto the intermediate phalanges, and then the proximal phalanges, metacarpals, and finally the carpals until each of the cultist's hand was a ruined mess of broken bone, serrated flesh, and bloodied metal. The cultist's resolve was quite spectacle, he still refused to budge on his false faith and relinquish all that he knew to the Empire. They would play it his way then, and the torturers were ordered to move up and start working on the cultist's face. They pried open his mouth painfully wide, dislocating it in the process as they began the meticulous process to relieving the cultist of his teeth and tongue. The process took quite a long time, the suffering prolonged and the cultist's pumped with chemicals to keep his conscious and aware of the torment being inflicted on him. Eventually they just decided to take his entire lower jaw if he was so adamant on not saying anything of value.

Then they started to peel back the flesh of his face, taking great care to carve thin lines in the curvature of his cheeks and forehead before delicate hands gripped the exposed skin and pulled back to reveal wet muscle and skull beneath. Each hair on his head was simultaneously being ripped out, follicle by follicle, until his head was slick with blood. However, with the arrival of [member="Vereshin"] they were forced to suspend their 'interrogation' for the time being, as exposing to someone so young blooded might create a mess of bile upon the pristine bridge floor, and the Dark Lord would rather avoid that if possible. So a sack of blackened zeyd-cloth was thrown over his head, and his body further restrained as the torturers went about in preparation for its inevitable continuation.

The Dark Lord turned to face Vereshin as he approached with confidence, although Carnifex could feel the man's nervousness despite all that he tried to showcase outwardly. Still, he allowed one of his sorcerer to take the plans and slink away to share it with the other hooded hierophants. "Tell me, Knight. When you see these members of the Order of Ophia, what do you feel?" It was an out-of-the-blue question, one would expect the Sith Lord to get right down to business but he seemed content on probing the acolyte next to him about his own feelings on the enemy they were facing today. "Rage, anger, pity, disgust? All of them? None of them?"

 

[Vereshin]

Vereshin watched unmoved as blood trailed from the sack over the head of the cult leader. A sly green eye moved beneath his glasses from the window to watch the discrete trace of sanguine stain the white tunic. He moved his back towards Carnifex, as the enormous man turned from the window to face him. Repressing a gulp, Vereshin breathed deeply and faced the Dark Lord. The size difference between them stood in overt contrast, with Carnifex towering over the thin sorcerer. He pondered the question the man offered and parted his lips in brief thought while he looked for an answer.

"Anger, my lord, and frustration." Vereshin answered. He was not the kind of Sith to feel rage and the Ophia hardly seemed worth the effort. "They believe their powers are granted by a god and deny any notion of science, while butchering anyone they deem as sinful." A voice, monotonous and eloquent, yet soft as air explained his disdain of the religious fanatics. While Vereshin held no particular grievance towards Jedi, religious militants with no regard for science or logic, who hunted and slayed any individual who did not fit their notion of purity, angered him genuinely. He turned from Carnifex to walk over to the man strapped to the chair and stood before him for a moment, while cocking his head to one side in curiosity.

"Although I am curious to speak to the leader of this particular cult." Vereshin nodded to the mage gripping the cult leader's shoulder and he lifted the sack from his head. A mutilated appendage, barely remnant of a face bled and festered in the air and gargled before the Sith Knight. Vereshin felt nothing. His mouth remained fixated in a line and his eyelids did not rise, merely focusing downward towards the struggling man while his hands held each other behind his back. He cocked his head again and breathed in the metallic smell of blood.

"Let me show you something." Striding forward, Vereshin spoke telepathically into the mind of the cultist. The man spat and gargled, rolling his head back and forward at an irregular pace. Vereshin extended his arcane reach into his mind and delivered images of the vast reach of space, the Universe beyond the wider galaxy to the very heart of matter itself. The Ophia leader suddenly jerked as he received the mental images, coiling in his chair and regaining his thoughts.

"You will not tempt me with your godless visions, vile demon!" The man responded to Vereshin's question and spat a wad of blood and saliva onto the pristine bridge floor.

"God seems like a small-minded fellow. I assure you the Universe is far too large to be controlled by one man." Vereshin patronized. The telepathy was not closed to a single mind, allowing Carnifex and the guards to hear the conversation.

"God's reach is infinite and we are his avatars. Through his will we purge all evil from his realm." The man diverted his words from Vereshin's statement and the sorcerer quickly found himself losing his patience. There was no logic to be found in the Ophia, leaving an intellectual discussion out of the question. A pause held between the two and Vereshin took a step backwards.

"Your God is dead. I am the Devil." He uttered one last sentence into the mind of the Ophia and quickly shifted the mental mirage to visions of indescribable horror, forcing him into a state of psychological panic and terror, although no true harm was coming to him. "...and you will tell me the locations of the remaining Ophia settlements." Extending a hand, Vereshin strengthened the mental torment and watched as the man coiled in his seat, his bloodied head trembling as matter dripped from the gaping hole in his face.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The Dark Lord regarded the smaller man, eyes of molten fury reflected the light of [member="Vereshin"]'s lime green eyes, and nodded approvingly. "These fiends are a mockery, but do not think them harmless or insignificant. Superstition, like a wildfire, can rage out of control if not tended to. Their rejection of science and reason is a dangerous heresy, one that we as Sith cannot abide to exist."

The Knight announced his intentions to question the cultist, and Carnifex said nothing as he let him do so.

Without a jaw the cultist could do little to vocally protest, but his mental skirmish with Vereshin was clear even to those who were not as versed in such methods such as the Dark Lord. Mentalism was a trait lost on his people, they held in them a genetic immunity to that aspect of the Force and in return could do nothing to replicate it save for very basic telepathy that came across as simple and often included visualization rather than detailed descriptions.

Still, Carnifex could understand all that was discussed and could well imagine that Vereshin was showing him, but he thought it was a futile gesture. When the seed of ignorance was planted and allowed to grow and blossom to such a degree there was not a whole lot one could do to alter that perception except through tearing it out root and stem.

Violence was the only language these heretics were going to understand, and Carnifex was a well-versed linguist in such tongues.

"Tear the information from his head, Knight. We need not linger on theatrics."

 

[Vereshin]

Vereshin beheld the cultist with a solemn twitch of scorn in his eyebrow. Simple probing would not not suffice when dealing with mind so heavily brainwashed and rooted in fanaticism. As Carnifex commanded, he extended a palm and grabbed the the very fiber of the man's mind in his telekinetic grasp. His head surged backwards then rolled slowly in the opposite direction as Vereshin tore the knowledge from within. Information and words filtered into his thoughts as he emptied the head of the cult leader, leaving him nothing but a mindless vessel, recoiling and babbling indiscernible garble.

"The remainder of the Ophia cults operate on Vaynai, Dantooine and Kalee." Vereshin received the names of the worlds as the cultist's thoughts entered his mind. Strengthening his hold, he creased his brow as sweat gathered on his forehead, concentrating on the information he received. Obscure names and faces of little importance surged past his closed eyes until the image of a figure, his eyes white and skin a golden tan from the power of the Light Side, remained hovering within the vision. "Their leader is a Force User named Kyriad Scarpia, he is powerful and rules on Vaynai." As Vereshin sucked the remainder of information from the cultist's head, the vision turned to static and the man fell limp in his chair.

"He is of no more use to us anymore." Vereshin stood upright and opened his eyes, leaving a vegetative husk of a man. Barely a movement communicated from the swaying head of the cultist. "He can no longer think or feel pain." He did not execute him before the Dark Lord gave his orders.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The Dark Lord could barely suppress a snarl of disgust as [member="Vereshin"] relayed the information that had been torn from the depraved cultist's skull. The revelation that Vaynai was the cultists headquarters came as no surprise, such ignorance could only fester in the territory of the Silver Jedi. Nor did the idea that such heretics had gained a foothold in Imperial space, there would doubtlessly be many who would rise to challenge his Empire as it spread across the stars.

What did surprise him, however, was that it was Kyriad Scarpia who led these brigands.

Many years ago when the Old Empire was at its height, there arose an army of extremist Jedi who through acts of terror and subversion sought to weaken the hold the Empire had on its outlying territories. They were known as the Army of the Light, and Kyriad had been one of their most dedicated soldiers. He had been considered dead for years after the attempt on his life resulted in the corvette carrying him and fifty other Jedi extremists had been confirmed destroyed over Vorzyd. As Grand Vizier Carnifex had been one of the individuals to approve the order, and had reviewed the details of the assassination himself.

But here he was, a ghost from the past, leading another ragtag army of zealots in some damned crusade.

"We will excise these heretics from our land, Knight." The Dark Lord reached out and grasped the catatonic cultist by the head. Mystical fire sprouted from his grip and enveloped the cultist in searing flames, burning away clothing and flesh until only a skeleton, charred black, remained. Carnifex effortlessly crushed the skull and the entire skeleton crumbled to blackened dust and smoldering cinders. "I will not rest until each and every one of them has been reduced to ash."

 

[Vereshin]

Hands gripped behind his back, Vereshin listened to the gargles dripping from the cultist's gaping mouth as Darth Carnifex gave the orders to begin the assault. The sorcerer did not suggest any nuance while Carnifex raised a hand and turned the festering remnants of a human to ash, crushing the charred skeleton in his telekinetic grasp and leaving a pile of fine dust behind. A pause held on the air while the ash settled and waned, falling slowly to gather on the pristine floor. The name of Scarpia struck a memory with Vereshin and he recognized the figure as a sadist who carried out experiments in the name of the light, in effort to purge the Dark Side through biological means. The Ophia believed in redemption through pain, as a means of bringing the sinner closer to god.

"It would be a privilege, my lord." Vereshin spoke as he felt the ship surged closer towards the atmosphere. He raised his hand slightly and motioned for the mages to depart, servants and engineers following them out of the room. They dragged the body of the cultist away and removed the chair. The mages gathered the preparations and took to their positions in the bridge below, leaving Vereshin alone with Carnifex. The sorcerer straightened his posture and gripped his sweaty hands behind his coat. Slowly, he moved forward towards the Dark Lord, taking cautious strides until he joined him directly before the window and stood by his side.

The Dark Mage recognized an uncharacteristic rise of excitement. On this day he conducted the largest ritual of his career and the satisfaction he derived was not merely from the feat itself, but from the knowledge that he condemned a massive gathering of hyper-religious hypocrites to a slow and agonizing death. Civilians, no doubt would be caught in the attack and Vereshin could not tell himself why he felt no remorse for their deaths. They were nameless obstacles, disposable pawns next to the will of a single Sith. A longer pause escalated between the two while the calm before the storm waned and Vereshin mused on his inner self and his intentions. He desired power, to be a magus of otherworldly means and to command the laws of reality and beyond.

"The sorcerers are in position below the bridge, the slower we apply force, the longer their deaths will last." A thick eyebrow raised in a suggestive arch towards Carnifex, a trace of excitement ringing on Vereshin's final words. He moved towards the window and released his hands from behind his back, turning the palms against the glass and channeling the rising energy the sorcerers delivered from below. "The gravity surrounding the perimeter will be compacted, crushing the pressure surrounding the bodies present." He spoke in a monotonous tone while furrowing his concentration. A violet miasma now gathered above the planet's atmosphere, thick panes of energy soared over the surface of the world and entrapped the individuals occupying the selected perimeter. He began to apply greater force against the area and gradually crushed the matter below.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Carnifex crossed his arms, his face a grim scowl of hate-filled determination. He could feel the tendrils of magic at work in and around the Blade of Fate, reaching down from the heavens to caress Telos IV's atmosphere. The clouds churned and discharges of lightning permeated the growing storm as the Dark Side swelled around the planet, the dark energies manipulated in a way that isolated the designated area off from the rest of the world.

The Dark Lord appreciated [member="Vereshin"]'s desire to see these heretics suffer a slow and agonizing demise, "Let it be written, let it be done."

The planet-side effects would be almost immediate, with buildings buckling and straining as gravity itself was manipulated to serve the Lords of the Sith. Living beings would suffer a far more horrific fate as their bones broke and their flesh liquefied under the oppressive force, every attempt to move fraught with unimaginable agony. Those that didn't die instantly would live long enough to see their body reduced to a gory smear on the earth before their cranium caved in on itself.

In one fell swoop an entire section of Telos IV would be annihilated under the weight of its own gravity, killing everyone within in the most brutal of fashions. The Dark Lord cared not if civilians had been caught in the ritual, it was a necessary loss to ensure that the cancer of the Ophia didn't contaminate the rest of the planet.

"This is but the first blow we shall deal against them, many more will have to die before we can be rid of such filth." A price that Carnifex was willing to pay for order.

 

[Vereshin]

The equations coursed and joined like imagery through Vereshin's mind while the ship moved gently towards the surface. Deep chanting echoed below the bridge as the sorcerers gathered over the ritual chart he prepared. He extended his wrists and splayed his palms to the extent of their space, compacting the thick pane of energy slowly closing in on the atmosphere and tightening the pressure surrounding the small population. Blood vessels burst and innards popped out orifices, eyes squeezed from their sockets like loose spheres and the sorcerer raised his arms, strengthening his hold while he conducted the ritual below.

In the final moments of the assault, Vereshin reversed the effect of the energy and absorbed the remaining lives into his own. An invigorating rush of energy filled his form and his irises glowed a luminescent red in the brief moment. His head fell backward slightly upon receiving the life matter and the barrier compacted in a final surge, crushing buildings and unearthing roads as the ritual concluded. The Ophia festered in their remains and filthy doctrine, receiving their false god while Vereshin tore their souls from form and consumed every last essence, stripping them of their ability to become one with the force, while denying them entry to void.

Light erupted from the earth below and filled the opaque hue of space a brilliant indigo as the ritual ended. Releasing an involuntary gasp, Vereshin flung his neck forward and gasped for breath, his eyes now their usual lime. His skin was visibly more pale and just shy of true white. Black discoloration surrounded his eyes. He felt more alive than he remembered in his life as a Force user, having bypassed science to become a demon of the arcane. The Dark Lord's gaze found him and he turned around to face Carnifex, still breathing heavily with the exhilaration of the ritual.

"I thank my lord for this moment." Vereshin raised a hand and lay his palm on his chest, with a subtle bow of his head in Carnifex' direction. The onyx of his ring now glowed with a feint purple hue. "It would be my pleasure to continue serving you during the destruction of the Church of Ophia." He spoke with a smile of revealed teeth, now completely black with the effects of the ritual. A pause held on the air while Vereshin gazed through the glass towards the rising dust on the surface of the planet, tinged with the sanguine remains of blood and fluid.

"I feel..." He spoke with a dreaming tone as his eyes seemingly moved in time with the swaying dust and waning energy. "More alive than I have ever have before." Life may have been meaningless to Vereshin, his task then, was to create his own meaning among a void of nothing.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

The ordeal seemed to leave [member="Vereshin"] exhausted, a clear indicator that he had not performed such a ritual before in his lifetime.

Carnifex could remember a time, many decades ago, when he too was an unblooded pup standing besides titans of sorcery. He found it amusing that he had been reminded of his past often during his travels in the Empire, observing the new generations of Sith as they fought, trained, and died in preparation for the ultimate struggle.

He chuckled and moved to lay a steadying hand on Vereshin's shoulder, "The invigoration that comes with such power is intoxicating, but delve too deeply and too recklessly and you'll find yourself as fuel for the power of others. There will be times where the temptation to indulge yourself might overwhelm all reason, but reason is one of the strongest weapons a Sith has in his arsenal. It sets us above pacifistic idealists like the Jedi, and the weak, ignorant masses."

But there was no better example of the dangerous of a lack of reason than the Church of Ophia, as Vereshin was keenly aware about. Such delusions were not just products of the light, Carnifex had seen too often the price of overextending one's self in the Dark Side. The death cult on Mirial had been one of them.

 

[Vereshin]

As the effects of the ritual subsided, Vereshin's breathing slowed and he stood upright, feeling the hand of the Dark Lord on his shoulder. He reached into his jacket pocket and found a black, embroidered handkerchief which he used to clean the damp layer from his forehead and neck. Carnifex warned him of the consequences of abusing the Dark Side, words Vereshin only slightly paid heed to. A pause of silence held the air as the dust and energy settled on the atmosphere below.

"My Lord..." Vereshin began as he reached inside his pocket again, this time for his glasses. He slipped them over his ears and procured his notebook, the latest of which was filled with revisions for a specific form of curse. "If I may propose a diverse solution to be rid of the Light Side from our midst, this is a curse designed to lure those affiliated into rifts which erases them from our reality and the Force as we know." The Light Side, as Vereshin knew, was utilized in many variants before turning to darkness. The pacifist Jedi monks, the militaristic Silver order and the supremacist Ophia and while turning their crimes against the more hypocritical, aggressive Light Side user was simple, combating the innocent required deception and cunning. Something the sweet and disturbed sorcerer knew all too well.

"The Jedi who wields a blade is a simple opponent." He flicked through his notes and purveyed his latest page of theory. "The truly passive must be countered with guile and deception." With a rising eyebrow and sly wink, the ends of the sorcerer's mouth curled upward in a mischievous grin. "Trust me." Innocence, like light, was fast and fleeting. Initially pure and tainted for eternity by one trace of darkness. The Sith Empire ruled as a body of order, restraining aggression to be used when needed. They could not risk combating a pacifist order directly, leaving more insidious methods to be undertaken.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"You speak truth, Knight."

Though his exposure had been limited, Carnifex had met those Jedi who had refused to bring a weapon to bear against him in his travels. They were the ones who took the Jedi code to its most sickening extreme, fully embracing passivity and stagnation.

And, oh, did they preach true hypocrisy.

Railing against the 'evils' of the Sith as a defamation of nature when in truth it was the Sith who embodied the truest aspect of nature itself. Evolution has taught that those who do not adapt will be rendered extinct, while those that move beyond what they were to become something greater will thrive and pass along their superior genes to succeeding generations. This fundamental truth has allowed the Sith Order to exist despite several run-ins with near extinction.

The Sith Holocaust, the Seventh Battle of Ruusan, the Battle of Endor, the Battle of Coruscant.

All of these events nearly spelled doom for the Sith as a whole, yet they endured despite it.

Carnifex believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Sith would persist long after his bones had wasted away to dust. Though he also envisioned himself leading the Sith for millennia to come, but he was confident that they could succeed without him if it ever came to that.

"This curse of yours holds merit, I would like to see it in action if it is possible at this stage."

[member="Vereshin"]​