Abyssal Ascension

[Darth Ophidia]

The air was frigid and tore like icy claws upon the flesh of those who dared walk the unknown moon. There was no life to be seen; no grass to collect frosted dew nor insects or reptilians to crawl beneath the barren salt dunes; even though the air was perfectly breathable, it was a barren land. Behind dark clouds, the pale sun remained a shrouded speck dying the land in perpetually shifting hues of grey. Everywhere there lay shattered stones like shards of black glass and jagged teeth erupting from the ground.

This was a planet of death, where the dark beings of the galaxy came to die and be reborn, or be forgotten.

There was one place on the moon where the Dark Side of the Force lingered in thicker concentration; upon a hill, crested by jagged mountains, lay a pyramid of dark stone. Leading up to it was a path flanked by monolithic statues of lost Lords of the Sith. They stood forever as nameless, faceless sentinels of the traditions and the trials that protected the ways of the Sith.

Atop the stairs leading one from the foot of the hill to the base of the pyramid stood a single figure in a dark cloak. She was tall, slender, still like the gigantic pillars. The cloak and cowl in which her form was draped hung perfectly still in the dead air; her burning eyes stared down the steps in waiting for one.

[member="Darth Abyss"]

Spoiler

Welcome to your knighting thread. This is a bit of a tradition, from my master to myself and my apprentices. I will keep you updated through these spoilers and PM.

 

[Darth Abyss]

With every step Abyss could feel as the darkness of a past age pulsed under the surface of the nameless moon. He could hear the echos of hate, of anger and passion resound in the force, like the dark lords themselves were standing on his path. The lunar body itself was dead, no life was to be sensed in the ancient stones and barren fields he stood upon.

The acolyte was more than amazed by the moon his master called him to, but he had yet to learn why she had wanted to meet him here. There was much power that surrounded him, and he knew that whatever it was would be a important part of the future ahead of him.

His mask shrouding the upper half of his face, and the rest of his body shrouded in the tattered, old robe he already wore when he first meet his master, Abyss walked towards the pyramid that stood like a temple of death on top of a hill. Since they last meet his robe had been cut apart, sprayed and bathed in blood and looked even less like the attire of a sith. His cybernetic leg left almost no sound anytime the metal touched the stones that plastered the way.

As his feet meet the peak of the hill, Abyss eyes meet the silent and motionless figure that was his master. After making another step towards her, the young man bowed down before her, keeping his head down afterwards.

"Master. I am here to continue my training and execute your will."

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

She stared down at him where he stood, many steps below and climbing. She watched how he moved, how he constantly struggled to become more, greater, perfect. He was the archetype of the apprentice: Inquisitive, tenacious, hungry, foolish. With time, patience and much refinement, he could become her greatest creation. He could become a Lord of the Sith. However, such times were far ahead and shrouded in the many chance outcomes of the future.

On this day, she would sanctify his ascendance to the Sith in the only way she knew: Success or Death.

"Peace is a lie; there is only passion."

He had probably heard the words spoken a thousand times, and she had probably spoken them ten times more. They were the truth, the rule by which the dark side of the Force turned like the moons, the suns, the planets, stars and the galaxy itself. And turn she did. She pivoted, showing her back on the kneeling man in his ragged cloak, marked by battle and strife. Her hands clasped behind her back as she stepped towards the gaping maw of a door that lead into the bowels of the pyramid.

"Through passion, I gain strength."
"Through strength, I gain power."

She was swallowed by the dark embrace of the pyramid, but her words echoed on. Within, there was a single light of pure crimson, emitted from what appeared to be the dead centre.

"Through power, I am victorious."
"Victorious, my chains are broken."

She listened for a moment, did he follow? Would he pursue her down the path, through the darkness and the hatred, in search of that ultimate power? Would he say the words, drink the poison, become truly Sith?

[member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

Wordless he kneeled and watched, waiting for her to fill the silence between with the greatness of her words. Abyss could almost feel her eyes as they judged him, his actions and achievements up to this point of his ways. Then finally after what felt like an eternity to him, her words broke through the silence. She was reciting the ancient code they both had dedicated their live to, the words that had formed any great sith to greatness. So he himself began to repeat after her, but like at their first meeting he chose the language of the sith for his words. The only difference to the last time was that by now the words came fluid and without mistakes in the way he pronounced them, without his tongue stumbling over the strange, alien language.

"Nwûl tash.
Dzwol shâsotkun."

Abyss slowly rose from the ground as his master turned around, following her in step for step, his head still hanging low. With every centimetre he could feel the darkness that had found its home inside the pyramid becoming stronger, a black hole that was drowning any light around it.

"Shâsotjontû châtsatul nu tyûk.
Tyûkjontû châtsatul nu midwan."

As he traversed into the inside of the ancient temple his eyes adjusted to darkness around them, showing him the red glow that seemingly marked the center of the place, and therefore the destination of their path, or at least that was what Abyss thought.

"Midwanjontû châtsatul nu asha.
Ashajontû kotswinot itsu nuyak."

Abyss had no fear inside him, no inhibition that told him to turn around. Driven by his hunger for knowledge he would follow his master everywhere as long there was something to satisfy his obsession.

"Wonoksh Qyâsik nun"

The force shall set me free. The day had come.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Studious; if there was one thing to call [member="Darth Abyss"] , it was studious. Many Sith did not bother to learn the language of the ancients past the ability to read their texts in hopes of uncovering their secrets, yet he had come to speak it with a certain fluency. It filled her with a certain pride, but it never leaked through to the surface. Instead, she kept her focus on the tasks ahead, the ritual to be performed. For all she knew, he could be deemed unworthy and perish. She had seen it before. The acolyte had been too weak and the ritual rebounded on him, consuming him. Such was the dark side of the Force.

The walls of the pyramid were thick, but soon gave way to an interior hall. On either side of their entrance, knife sharp arches reached up into a peak before coming crashing down upon pillars carved in the visage of kneeling humanoids, struggling to maintain the weight upon their shoulders. The faces, were blurred, but the bodies clearly expressed tension and a struggle captured in stone. Past the pillars, the interior of the pyramid opened up in its full vastness. While the room was bathed in crimson light, its corners were claimed by deep shadow, old shade that always watched.

Aloft, suspended by nothingness were two pyramid shapes, both of a crystalline, luminescent red hemmed with what appeared to be black iron. Slowly, they turned in opposite directions, barely not touching. A flight of stairs led down under the elevated shapes, and directly under them there was a slightly elevated pool of thick, black liquid that bubbled and seeped within its stone container.

Ceremonially, the Sith Lord stepped into the hall and down the flight of stairs to a mark carved into the floor before the basin, then turned sharply and made her way around to the other side, where she stopped on a second mark and stared at her apprentice, waiting for him to follow. She made no sounds, said no words. He would have to follow in her steps without her guidance. Words were precious in this context, and the less she spoke, the better.

 

[Darth Abyss]

Every crumb, any particle of the cold and ancient black stone that was surrounding master and apprentice was touched by the darkness, a never ending echo of death and despair that would resound through the force for all eternity. Months ago he would have felt fear, but after all he had done there was no fear left in him. He looked death straight into her eye, and crawled through the dirt, crippled and more dead than alive, only clinging to live because his hunger hadn't allowed him to leave this galaxy just yet. Every time he dragged his broken body of the ground to rise again stronger than before had formed him into what he was.

Abyss stood and watched as the pyramid decided to reveal its secrets to him and his master, opening the path down into the nothingness. For the first time in years his mind felt somewhat in order, the chaos kept under control by an feeling of elevation, of complete and honest dedication to the darkness that had blocked out anything else his mind could wander of to.

Wordless like his master he follower her deeper into the pyramid of darkness, his hands wandering over every piece of the giant relic they stood inside of, his mind listening to what once was to find the reason he had been brought her. The echoes of death told him that some kind of challenge was a awaits him, a test designed to test his strength. That itself was unsurprising, as it was the way of the sith to always struggle and fight for ones live. Only the strong shall rule.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

Darth Ophidia's hands unclasped from behind her back and splayed out to either side. The fingers begun to curl into cruel talons as she channelled the dark energy of the room through herself. It was a rush, a sensation without equal. The unbridled power surged through her veins like a drug and threatened to cloud her mind. However, she bit through and maintained control. The Sith is the master, not the slave; the puppeteer, not the puppet. She piloted through the storm and bent its destructive gales to her will. That was the meaning of being Sith: To obtain Perfection.

Her eyes set on her apprentice once more as they stood face to face, interposed by a bubbling pool of thick, black liquid. There was no heat coming from it, nor smell. Yet, it was heavy with the dark side of the Force.

"Success or death, apprentice. Fail and die; Succeed and be reborn."

From within the basin, a cup of red glass similar to that hanging above, emerged brimming with the same black liquid. It seemed to become still as it left the basin and the cup appeared to barely have any residue on its outside, as if it had barely touched the liquid at all.

"Drink."

[member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

Where others would only see death and fear, Abyss only saw the might of those who were called sith. A old ritual hidden inside a building that shouldn't be standing anymore since decades ago. Yet it was still there, the stones serving as remainder of the might of the dark side. Now the time had come to follow into the footsteps of those who came before him, to finally ascend, not in the eyes of soldiers but in the eyes of a dark lord of the sith.

His right tightly gripped the cup, his body feeling tense and electrified by the power that pulsated both in his body and the liquid he had just been asked to drink. He couldn't say what it would do to his body and mind, but as part of an ancient alchemical ritual it would hold power far beyond his own.

Without hesitating for even a second, the young man downed the black substance, feeling as it was running down through is throat and into his body. It felt like it was spreading into his veins, darkness flowing through his body as if it were part of his blood.

Then blackness.

Like falling into a never ending abyss.

Reality around him had just been shattered into pieces, his body fighting against the poison and his mind struggling with the darkness that wanted to devour his sanity before it would break him apart into nothingness. There would ne nothing left of him but a faded memory, he would be a man that would be forgotten by the galaxy.

No. He would leave his mark on the history, he would create a legacy for himself that would never be forgotten by the galaxy, bringing darkness even longer after his death .... but only if his mind would not break apart beforehand. Death was a part if live, death meant nothing less than evolution. Insanity on the other hand would be live long despair and misery. He had been there before, his mind gone and only hate and rage left to drive him. His knowledge would be lost, even to himself and his mind never again would be able to advance.

Or would it be knowledge that would be his downfall? Would his obsession, his hunger consume him sooner or later, would he become a second lord of hunger and lose anything including his physical body?

A masked figure, in many aspects resembling the young sith appeared in the nothingness around him, a shadow from a past time that had come to taunt him. The words spoken in the old language of the sith echoed to him from a time long gone.

"Foolish boy, you think you have learned anything from the past, and yet you will become a consumed husk that only lives to satisfy its hunger. You will be like me, but without the strength I had."

Dissolving into dust, the memory of a dark lord was gone, leaving behind the acolyte that was lost in his darkest thoughts. No, Nihilus made his biggest weakness his most feared strength, his hunger became the weapon that broke the galaxy apart. He would do the same, and one day overshadow the dark lord.

Again a shadow to form, standing above the man with disdain. The bald man stood exactly 2 meters high, his body formed into perfection. Once again the greatest of all sith would be the bane of an acolyte.

"Traitor. You call yourself sith, but I have breathed the darkness with my every waking hour. You are weak, following a rule created by a coward. When I look at you I only feel shame."

The eyes of the dark specter pierced through Abyss mind, as he remembered the day he asked [member="Darth Ophidia"] why the one sith had abandoned the rule of the two. Back then he saw truth in her words but now he realized how wrong he had been. One day he would be strong enough to best his master, he would challenge her and plunge his weapon deep into her heart. Then he would call himself a lord of the sith.

Once more the specter dissolved, replaced by yet another historic dark Lord who came to break his mind. The broken shell of a man, a body burned and scarred to a degree that made him nothing more than a living corpse. A broken body kept together by a even more broken mind, a chaotic storm of nothing but hate and rage. Sion, the lord of pain stood before him, the expression of his eyes as dead as his body.

No words left the ghosts mouth, he was a silent remainder if what would become of him if he allowed his mind to break apart, if he wouldn't clinging to the small part of his sanity with everything he got.

All around him a cacophony of voices resounded in the void, as sions shadow disappeared. It was impossible to make out words in the chaos, a thousand tortured souls crying in despair, threatening to push him over the edge and break both his body and mind.

Then there was silence.

Another shadow appeared, formed by the energy of the darkside from nothing but dust. No echo followed the man, as he was no memory of the past. Suddenly he noticed the all to common mask, the shape of a face he had seen so often before. His own. The entitie extend his hand, offering the sith acolyte the strength to rise to his feet instead of kneeling on the ground. Under the mask he could see his own cruel grin, in his eyes he saw his passion.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

When Abyss drained the cup of poison, Ophidia closed her eyes and folded her hands over her midsection, right covering left. She could feel the force bond between them and she gripped the thread with her mind. She could not interfere, but she would be watching. Only bits and pieces came through; fractured images and blurred sounds. It took focus to catch anything at all except the all-consuming darkness.

A fragment, a chorus of tormented souls. She saw the disapproving frown of the one they had once called the Sith'ari; Darth Bane. He never understood the Rule of One. His vision was limited only to the harnessing of power, not the direction in which to wield it. His Rule of Two was a cornerstone in the Rule of One. It remained in how they trained their apprentices, but time had proven it obsolete on the grander scale.

The glimpse was gone so quickly.

Yet, she could feel her apprentice's resolve to fulfil the inevitable destiny of all Sith: To be exceeded and killed by one's apprentice. Of course, he would have to get in line. There were others out there with just as much desire to put her down, and she would not grant anyone an easy victory.

The silence, deafening. She saw nothing, heard nothing. Was he dead? No, he lived still.

[member="Darth Abyss"]

 

[Darth Abyss]

"Follow me"

Hearing his own voice breaking through the void was a rather strange experience, the sound so unfamiliar and alien like it belonged to someone else entirely. Maybe it did, the future hadn't been written yet. His future moved deeper inside the abyss, his present following close by. With every step he could see the specter of Darth Abyss change, advance. Every step revealed a glimpse more of the power he could hold one day.

The nothingness around him began to change as well, a blurred and surreal version of a possible future.

First he saw the last knight of the one sith, breaking apart kuat, a massacre unseen to the acolyte. Then another glimpse, Darth Abyss commanding a ship of absurd size, as it entered the orbit above a burning cityscape.

A alien man, the height of his body overshadowing that of the sith knight, but a mind raw and unformed. Potential and submission. His legacy.

With every of these battles he could see the muscles on his future self get more defined, see new scars and injuries. He could see his face grow older, harder. The specter turned around, his eyes once again piercing through his own.

"The future awaits, but to reach it you have to overcome your past. Leave everything that binds you to this world. Become one with the darkness."

Reality broke into pieces like it did before, the specter released into thin black smoke. Once more he faced the abyss, the all devouring darkness that lingered in his mind.

Another specter, a faded memory of a live that was long behind him. The father of another man, another mind inside the same body. In the eyes of the specter was no anger or disappointed, but only worry.

"Son, come home. There is nothing to find for you on the path your heading. Leave if behind, there is still another live waiting for you."

Abyss expression was emotionless, cold and without any sign of sympathy for the man that had raised him. He was nothing, not in live and not in death. Never he had seen the ultimate truth that was hidden inside the code of the sith.

"You are not my father, and you are dead, both to me and to the galaxy."

The clothes of the ghost became red, sucked up with blood like the day he watched him die. He still felt nothing, when [member="Darth Ophidia"] made him her apprentice he left behind his past, and finally truly became Abyss. The specter once more became one with the void. He could feel his body slowly regain his strength but there was still a final piece that had to fall in place before he would rise from tbe ground, reborn as Darth Abyss, knight of the sith.

 

[Darth Ophidia]

She watched him as though seeing through a fog. Ascension and legacy, the path of the Sith laid bare before him. All he needed to do was reach out and take it for himself. Or so it always appeared. Greatness never came easy, even to the great. Yet, there were those with the latent ability to rise above all obstacles and become the dark side incarnate.

The words, the voices, they all blurred and cut. She could not perceive, but through the Force and the bond forged between them in his training, she felt his resolve being challenged and rising to the occasion. It all appeared to come to a summit. Would he be able to come back? Or would the final challenge prove to be too much? Who would he be when he came back from the other side? If he came back.

There were always those who shone, then faltered at the finish-line; heroes tripped by a single weak point.

[member="Darth Abyss"]

Spoiler

Not much I feel I can write here, but press on. I'm excited to see where his dream goes and to get to the official naming.

 

[Darth Abyss]

The darkness around him began to twist, a storm of the future, presence and past breaking apart the abyss. Banners of unseen armies, battles that had not taken place yet. Empires rising and falling, millions that found their death and millions that came into being. A galaxy at war, chaos and destruction and Abyss in its center.

Then silence, the battle frozen and motionless. Banners breaking apart, until only one was still to be seen. Abyss couldn't tell who it belonged to, or what was depicted in black on the crimson red fabric dancing in the wind. Out of nothing the final specter came into being, but it was no memory of the past, no ancient dark lord, nor a part of his path to the darkness.

The woman looked at Abyss, and he could feel himself getting lost in the yellow of her eyes once more. Dangerous and beautiful like twin suns dieing as one. The first being in a eternity that had been able to break through his darkness and saw what lived beyond. He fought against his desire with any part of his passion and hate, and yet she managed to make him less sith with any time he meet her.

"You have done well, dearest Abyss. Come home now, your enemies are dead and buried. The galaxy is at peace thanks to you. Let us life the live we always wanted"

He could feel her hand at his neck as she was slowly pulling him towards her, his lips coming closer to hers. He could feel his hate fall apart, fading away into peace and calmness. For a second his eyes turned brown, the yellow glow gone.

"Sorry. Peace is a lie."

He could feel a tear running down his face as the knife pierced her chest, blood running down on their touching bodies. The yellow of her eyes gave him a last, judging look before the live in them died down.

"There is only passion"

Gigantic battle cruisers bring fire and death over the galaxy, all under the same crimson red banner.

"Through passion, I gain strength"

A blue lightsaber extinguishing, lost and faded forever as crimson broke apart the hilt.

"Through strength, I gain power."

A memory of a memory, an echo that wasn't meant for him. Coins and serpents and darkness.

"Through power, I gain victory."

A kaleesh warrior, shrouded in an old and tattered robe, in his hand a wooden mask, and in his eyes pure dedication and power.

"Through victory, my chains are broken"

A man walking upon the endless sands of korriban, inside a old tomb. The coffin broken and in it only bones clinging to a book, and a wooden mask over the skull.

"The force shall free me."


Abyss eyes widened as they meet the cold stones that marked the beginning of his journey through the darkness. Breathing heavily he tried to lift himself of the ground, his mind still confused and foggy from the visions.

[member="Darth Ophida"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

When he opened his eyes, his master rose to her feet. Her eyes opened, black-painted eyelids pulling back to reveal the burning irises inside. Having witnessed what she witnessed, she was left with no doubt about who this apprentice was, who he could become, and what he could accomplish. He had the trace of war on him. The last knight of the One Sith's great empire, perhaps, but there would be no end to his dynasty.

"You have made your choice."

Raising her hands, she made the bowl from which he had drunk lift up into the air and sail gently back down into the black liquid.

"In the face of adversary, doubt, and temptation, you have persevered."

She cast back the hood of her cloak, revealing her full features and the hairless, scarred scalp of her head. Dark grey lines, lightning frozen in her flesh, grasped her skull and trailed down her neck. Lines were tattooed on either cheek and sides of the head in a merger of Rattataki and Sith fashions. A white serpent emerged from the hem of her robe, curving around her slender neck before looking straight at Abyss as it slithered down her robed arm.

"Now, you enter the true ranks of the Sith - Not one order or one empire, but a lineage that stretches through time from its conception to its end."

She strode around the right side of the well, while the white serpent came around the left. The alien, black, ophidian creature that functioned as a belt on her midcoat stirred and peeked out, feeling the tension in the air.

"Kneel."

The smell of ozone and a certain electric tension rose in the atmosphere. Abyss he had called himself and Abyss he would become, [member="Darth Abyss"] .

 

[Darth Abyss]

His mind had been lost since he awoke, but as the words of his master cutted through the air, the old fire that drove him returned, with an intensity unseen before. The trip into the abyss had left him confused, but now there wad confidence, focus and power. Lifting his body of the ground he was laying on, he moved into a kneeling stance, his face showing towards the ground like always when he stood before his master, but this time his eyes rested on her, his hunger burning in the yellow glow of his iris.

He had awaited this for so long, had been beaten, broken and now poisoned to stand at this place, at this moment. There was no arrogance in him, only dedication. With every enemy he fought, with any battle he commanded he earned himself the right to stand here today.

There where no words needed to tell him why he had been brought here, why he had to be poisoned and broken once more. It was a test, like everything on the way to become sith. And he had survived and emerged from it stronger than before. Now was time that he took for himself what he had already claimed in his mind:
The title of Darth, a open challenge to anyone who meant to oppose him, the only true title that should have any meaning for a sith.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

As he knelt, she raised her hands to the height of her own shoulders and the serpent at his back rose as tall as it could, arching its body in an S and opening its maw with a hiss.

"And I name you, [member="Darth Abyss"], Knight of the Sith."

Her hands turned until the palms pointed down and the fingers curved into vicious talons. A torrent of crackling, blue lightning travelled up her form and arced from her fingers to envelop the newly dubbed knight. Simultaneously, a torrent burst from the mouth of the serpent at his back in order to connect at the middle. The electricity would hurt, but this was no ordinary, baleful Force Lightning. This was the stamp on his knighthood, the signature, the end of the ritual that had pushed him to the verge of death and seen him return.

He was to be given the dark mark: An individual symbol used among Sith to identify one another. It could easily be concealed or displayed at will. In the palm of her right hand the symbol that had carved itself into her very soul and grown forth as she became more powerful, nearly glowed with the surging energy she channelled into her apprentice.

The torrent ended, the room fell to silence as she expected him to rise once more as the Darth she had forged. Her breath was heavy. Such rituals took a toll on the master. Yet she stood erect, proud and watchful like the day they had met.

 

[Darth Abyss]

He could feel the electricity shoot through his body, dancing in his bloodstream and overloading his synapses. Still he rose to his feet, his face fighting against any representation of the pain that made every of his limps cramp and twist. He could feel the mark that had began to form on his right, the symbol of an order, a dynasty that existed for an eternity, a symbol that would forever show who he had become to the world.

"Thank you ... Master."

The words were pressed out between his teeth, an almost inaudible mumble, but there was still no hint of pain in his voice, only the sound of exhaustion. Pain couldn't stop him before and would most certainly not stop him now, in his hour of greatness, his real ascension, by the power of true lord of the sith and not by simple soldiers. All the glory and praise he earned himself as commander of the one sith forces had been ignored by him as he saw no worth in it besides the options it opened up to him. Being named knight by [member="Darth Ophidia"] on the other hand had meaning, it was prove of the way he had come, an honor only a master could grant her apprentice.

He stood straight, unfazed by the lighting. He stood, reborn as Darth Abyss, the Ascended, the last Knight of the One Sith.