Public [Ask to Join] Bauraj Ishi tab Paaz | The Ruination of Zygerria

[Narosh]

The world was ablaze.

A chorus of wails echoed in the path Narosh blazed toward glory, and cinders rose in his wake. He dug his fingernails into the flesh of a man no older than twenty and peeled away his scalp. A sickening rip heralded the spray of gore that followed. He lifted the hair to his lips and sucked the pulpy mess down into his gullet, disinterested altogether in the flavor. In order to braid it and wear it, he needed only the leathery and preserved skin.

He continued on his warpath and flung the limp body, still suffering from periodic nerve spasms after the shock had stopped his heart. It landed with a hollow thud.

Narosh tucked the hair into the waist of his loincloth. It hung, bleeding.

He hefted his weapon and howled his anger to the uncaring heavens. They tolerated his existence where a just god would not ever. That was why Vulcanus was the one true deity. He never lied. He never cheated. He brought suffering in equal measure to all nations that stood against him.

So too would be the fate of Zygerria.

Narosh slammed his axe against the ground, calling out a challenge. It was mindless, but it served his purposes. Is there no one with the spine to face me?

None.

The Graug madman lifted his weapon overhead and barked again, this time infuriated by the lack of enthusiasm. One of the few instances where he was unleashed, and no one existed to challenge him? Such a pity- such a waste.

Narosh would continue to kill. It was the only way to rationalize such a slight.

"MAIM! KILL! BURN!"

 

[Darth Vulcanus]

"I think what I remember most about the Graug invasion was...the smell. The planet was burning and the corpses were just...laying in the fire and The Graug themselves had this, I don't know...musk? Like they'd just crawled out of a swamp filled by a waste pipe. That mix of...death a-and burning and them it...it was suffocating. Sometimes I wish it had killed me. At least then all of me would be gone."
- Zygerrian Survivor

Part 1: Alina Tremiru Baalagor

The terror knew no boundaries. The street gutters overran with crimson tides that poured from the sidewalks and buildings, the river of blood cascading down into drains like a spring storm. The firestorm engulfing the city cast an ominous glow that illuminated the growing mounds of corpses as they were cast aside by careless claws. Sith troopers scrambled, at first, to usher civilians towards the landing craft - firing the blasters randomly into the sea of monstrous bodies that gave them chase. Soon enough, however, the survival of a mere client race became negligible in the face of such reckless and violent hate. It was then that Sith Troopers began abandoning the Zygerrians in their care, some even going as far as to shove and push them out of their way - dooming them to disappear in a cloud of blood and terror.

This same horror unfolded around the likes of Alina and Baalagor - the Sith forces slowly losing faith in the face of the overwhelming horde, blatantly leaving the Zygerrians to their fate. Countless innocents coward beneath the shadow of the spider-like Folloik Draagha as it emerged from the ashen cloud that plumed outward from the toppled building. In a blink of rubble and screams another crowd of Zygerrians disappeared in a thunderous crash as the beast brought down its massive claws - shattering what remained of the glass nearby with a wretched screech. Then, all at once, the many glowing eyes of the beast set upon Alina. It's maw widened and teeth dripped with thick globs of mucus-green saliva and its body coiled in preparation to pounce.

Then a shower of light fell from the sky - ripping through the air and slamming into the beast. Like bursts from the stars the cylindrical rays of death erupted into a cloud of sparks, embers and burning flesh as they struck with unparalleled power; shaking the ground, cowering civilians and shattering the beast's hide. The Grave Watcher howled in agony, kicking up clouds of debris as it stumbled through buildings, its canon exploding into shards of metallic rain and sliding from its back. Tumbling, searing and shrieking in pain the Grave Watcher plummeted towards the ground - it's massive shadow growing quickly around Baalagor, still trapped beneath the rubble.

Part 2: Darth Strosius

The marketplace had become but a cage for the terror - the streets echoing the cries of violence, the smell of copper lingering heavy in the air. As Haxim ran through the streets he would be assailed by Graug, their reptilian eyes narrowed and fangs bared as they fired upon him with slugthrower rifles or struck out with claws and swords. Even then, however, they would lose interest quickly in the man, opting to instead sate something that grew inside the horde as the frenzy continued. Hunger. Limbs, organs, blood...all of it began showering the streets as the Graug took to their primal desires and devoured the dead and living alike.

As the Sith acolyte made his way for the building he would see a whip of fire emerge from the darkness, its forked end lashing the face of an assailing beast. Men shouted in Zygerrian as the horde clambered over itself to get inside the doorway. A hail of blaster bolts punched through the shadows, pelting the Graug in front and blanketing the area in a haze of smoke and burning scales. The Graug returned in kind, the second wave firing aimlessly into the darkness before charging again.

More male screams. A woman shrieks. An infant cries.

The whip would explode outwards again for the last time, taking the eye of a Graug before another of the beasts seized the Zygerrian arm holding it. In a blink of brutality the arm was torn asunder with a wet tearing and sharp snap. The howl of pain was quickly silenced as the Graug turned the arm into a flail of meat - beating the Zygerrian who assailed him with his own whip, held in his own arm. The rest of the horde surged forward to the terrifying shrill of a woman screaming. A blaster discharged - ozone filled the street.

Then a bundle of crying blankets was launched from somewhere in the doorway, a tiny tail fluttering from an opening in the back. The cry of confusion and utter, base fear arched through the air for only a short distance before a clawed hand snatched it as it came back down to earth. A mob of beasts rushed to fight for the bundle. A split second of chaos. The bundle cried one last time.

Then was abruptly silenced in a flurry of shredded cloth and plucked fur just feet from Alisteri.

Seela Leini and Narosh

There was an explosion. Fire. Wreckage. As Narosh gave into his bloodlust he would see the smoke rising from a crashed Sith ship and the sudden surge of the Horde around him. The Graug were on the hunt for a downed piece of meat.

The ground around 2121's fighter rumbled against the approaching horde. Already there were dark, hulking forms sprinting towards here starfighter - weapons raised. Moments within their arrival the ship would rattle violently as they littered the hull with automatic slug fire.


Part 3: Kal

Ia'dall's ears slumped against the sides of his head as a ball of fire blew through the ceiling of the Noble Mansion just blocks from the palace gates. His hands shot up to cup his ears and backed away from the blaster-proof glass that the screams still managed to pierce. Even that was not enough. He felt them burning. He could feel their fire peeling flesh from bone and the marrow bubbling inside. He stumbled forward, catching himself on a golden table beside the window - sending the potted plant atop it soaring towards the ground.

The sudden crash catapulted the others for cover, the Queen's guardians pulling her back behind themselves until they all realized what had happened.

"Ia'dall you bumbling idiot! I swear by the Emperor's black, rotting bones that I'll throw you from that window!" The Queen screamed, pushing aside her guardians and starring down her loyal subject with swollen, red eyes. Her guardians tried to calm her but she only lashed out at them too, flinging ill-aimed fists and cursing the name of The Sith.

The Sith. They'd abandoned them. The escort convoy that had been headed to the palace diverted their course abruptly before shutting down communications and heading for orbit. The troopers stationed at the palace abandoned their grounds as soon as they learned the name of the traitorous lord who had ordered the attack. They couldn't even get through to Sith planetary command anymore.

In less than an hour a suffocating Sith presence had vanished like tears in the wind. Ia'dall watched as the Queen's rage devolved into a fit of hysteric sobbing until she collapsed onto the ground. The nobles and guards huddled into the throne room tried to help her to her feet but she simply pulled away, satisfied with the cold embrace of her palace floors. There had been talk of using her personal shuttle to escape to another city until an opportunity to escape to orbit presented itself...but the nobles of other cities were already contacting the palace in hopes of their own safe harbor. Nowhere was safe. All they could do was fly aimlessly into the horizon and hope they found something. They all knew that in of itself was a death sentence with the sheer number of enemy vessels in the air.

All was lost.

Until a voice spoke into Ia'dall's head. His eyes shot wide and he looked around the room for the source. No one was even paying him mind, they were all to busy looking after the queen after her tumble. Save him?

"W-who are you?" he asked quietly as to not alarm any of the others in the room - his question was underlined by an explosion outside, yet another ball of flame...and a dark horned shadow making its way out of the crumbling backside of the noble's mansion below...

 

[Seela Leini]

Objective: Survive
Location: Zygerria
Equipment: Sith-Imperial Armada Flight Suit Mk. II │ “Judicator” Adaptive Battle Rifle
Fighter: Nexus-E Starfighter - Dancer Ten
Tags: @Open Kal Darth Vulcanus Narosh (Proximity) Alina Tremiru Darth Strosius

It was the discordant harmony of slugs striking her ruined starfighter’s hull and the pings of shrapnel bouncing within the cockpit that pulled the diminutive strand-cast from the jaws of unconsciousness. In twisting her body to grab her rifle and survival kit from the cargo area after she snapped back into awareness, she immediately felt a sharp stab of pain in her chest, which only got worse as she hacked blood into her helmet. Her body seemed to protest all over, a pounding headache, a stabbing sensation in her chest, along with various unrelenting aches all over, from her legs to her shoulders. Fortunately, most of the slugs striking the downed husk of her fighter failed to penetrate the durasteel, but the shrapnel from their impacts had a cascading effect, turning her cockpit into a death trap which was only getting more precarious by the second.

With the press of a button on her chest plate, 2121 dumped more adrenal into her system, not yet resigned to her fate in spite of the odds against her. She moved quickly, taking up her rifle, survival kit, and comlink, attaching them to her person, then dropping into the underside of her cockpit in an effort to escape from the bottom, where hopefully her disappearance would go unnoticed under the torrent of fire.

Even so, she had only seconds to act.

Another sharp, hacking cough exploded from her chest, spitting out blood into her helmet that immediately splattered over the lenses, covering up her heads-up display and blinding her in the process, until she pulled off the now useless bucket. Even so, she continued to work, utilizing a small fusion cutter to create a hole in the bottom of the cockpit, in an area where the plating had already been compromised from the force of her landing. As such, it did not take long for her to cut a breach that she could slip her small frame through. However, in glancing out through the small hole she had created, she could already see massive, boot-clad feet approaching her fighter, the monstrous creatures speaking a language that was as foul as it was barbaric and unintelligible.

She would only have one shot and her window was already closing.

The hull shifted as one of the monsters moved to rip open the shredded durasteel plating. All the while, 2121 slipped through the gap, taking her helmet with her, as she crawled out from beneath the fighter. Utilizing a quadanium steel wing which was still attached to conceal her exit, 2121 didn’t stand up until she was behind a nearby alleyway, hopefully out of sight from the monsters in the streets.

Then, pushing herself up onto her feet, she launched herself into a sprint, driving her legs as fast as they could carry her away from the bloodthirsty horde...

 

[Kal]

The Zygerrian - Ia'dall - was as fearful as all the rest, but in different ways. He could sense that she could sense the death and suffering that surrounded this as-of-yet-undisturbed metaphorical island. It would not remain for long, however; the Sith were not coming to their aid, for all their empty talk about protecting their citizens their resolve too often crumbled in the face of authority...

... and what authority could be higher in the field of war than that of the Pillar of War?

<I am Kal and many other things - in this case, your potential salvation.> A sense of concern accompanying the message as the great horned figure of the Sith Lord from earlier emerged from his initial location, the telepathic communication turned more urgent, relaying in a moment what mortal speech would in seconds. <You have power, however untrained. It is why you feel their deaths. I can use both to slip through the veil. To escape.>

Hardly ideal, since it would see them plunged into the Nether; the smuggler from before's ship would have been better, but he was dead and it ruined beyond repair. Given the circumstances, it would do - he was a good enough guide to bring this one back to realspace elsewhere... probably.

Darth Vulcanus | [Open]​

 

[Baalagor]

The two of them noticed each other at about the same time, and their reactions were approximate: uncertainty and a knowledge that something wasn’t right. That mutual dissonance stopped her in her tracks, and she stood and watched Alina Tremiru for a long moment, aware that she was different and that was wrong but unsure exactly how to rectify this. The insignificance of non-Graug had been explained to her countless times, but never expressly how she was to deal with them when encountered.

There was little time to ponder the complexities of the equation further before a looming shadow became a fast-approaching dead weight capable of crushing her. Without thinking she moved, narrowly avoiding the wounded monstrosity as it crashed to the ground. In the aftermath she picked herself up, aware that she’d sustained further injury but caring little for her own self-preservation beyond that she returned to Darth Vulcanus ' side.

Before her the Grave Watcher still lay, its legs splayed beneath it and its breathing labored. Carefully she approached it, resting her hand on its body and listening to its suffering and animal fear of death, something even the Graug were incapable of breeding out of the beast. She listened through the Force to the pain and terror it had experienced thus far, and then did all she could to make those things cease to exist. Reaching into its mind, she twisted the pain into fuel for further destruction, pushing aside the fear in favor of the supremacy of its masters.

Opening her eyes, she took several steps back. If the other woman was still there she would turn and look at her once more, still wholly unsure of what to do about her presence before she reunited with her master.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Alina was ready to rush forward and bring this creature down, only to pause just in time. Hellfire rained from the sky, hitting the creature. Damaging it. Destroying the cannon on it's back. A grim smile formed on the young Sith's face. Maybe now she could actually kill the creature. Yet before she could, her gaze went back to Baalagor . She was still trapped. And now underneath the creature? No, she would die. Alina rushed forward, prepared to help this woman. Maybe save her.

Only to stop after a couple steps.

It was clear what happened as the Grave Watcher pulled itself up to it's feet. Even Alina could feel it. This woman, she helped the beast. Helped the Graug. How could any person ever help the Graug? Concern turned once more to rage. "They're our enemy! Why did you help them!?" She screamed at the white haired woman, but she'd never be there to get an answer. Instead, her gaze shifted to the Watcher. She still needed to kill it. With a burst of speed she ran to one of the nearby buildings, scaling the stairs as quickly as she could. She needed to get to the roof.

 

[Darth Strosius]

Location: The outer streets of the Zygerrian Capital City
Objective: Lead citizens to safety
Alina Tremiru / Baalagor / Seela Leini / Narosh / Darth Vulcanus
------------------------

Barely a block ago Alisteri was alone and made his way through the streets without much fuss. Now however, he found himself surrounded. He had been making his way towards the sounds of screams when he suddenly found himself under fire from some street nearby, ducking down and nearly sprawling on the ground to try and avoid the spray of slugs. By the time he realized that it was more than one Graug however, another one had leapt at him and sought to tore his head off.

Thankfully the acolyte had gained a fairy decent reaction speed due to his training.

In a flash his lightsaber ignited and the Graug fell right on it, a look of surprise blossoming on the Sith's face once he realized that he was still alive. He quickly pulled the blade up, cleaving his foe nearly in half before he scrambled back to his feet. Just in time to avoid a sword hitting the ground where his leg had been a moment ago. His head whipped around, the Graug swiftly bringing the sword back up to try and go for another swing. Alisteri didn't give him the chance, sending the head of the swordsmen flying off down the street with a quick flick of his wrist.

With two down the masked acolyte wheeled around to face the rest of the oncoming horde, only to realize that he was no longer the target of their rampage. He pursued them, only to stop in horror as he saw the sight before him. The spirited defense of whoever was inside the house that the horde was targeting soon gave way, and then they descended upon the poor souls that resided within. Alisteri's blood ran cold at the sight, and for a brief moment all that he could hear was his own breathing.

Then the screams came.

It all seemed to happen in an instant. The last crack of a whip accompanied by an orchestra of blaster fire. The sickening noise of flesh being torn from broken bone. The awful, heart wrenching sound of dying scream. And then, a bundle of cloth that held an infant suddenly landing on the street. The infant didn't last long. Before he knew it, all that remained of that young life was whatever remains coated the claws and maws of its killers.

The whole time he watched, his weapon still humming with power amidst the symphony of the massacre.

A part of him was content with watching the horror with bated breath. Another told him to get out of there while the Graug were occupied, that staying only meant death. And yet another part bid him to stay. It told him to toss caution and his own survival to the wind, to let his blood boil and slaughter the beasts before him.

After a moment of hesitation, Alisteri turned and sprinted away from the building faster than he had ever gone before.

 

[Darth Vulcanus]

Part 1: Alina Tremiru Baalagor

"They're our enemy! Why did you help them!?"​

No sooner had the question been uttered than did the beast shatter the air with a screech as it rose to its many jagged legs, the pain and terror it felt replaced by a sudden surge of violent rage. Baalagor may have been young, but it did not take the most powerful mentalist in the galaxy to turn pain to natural instinct...and a Folloik Draagha's instinct was always to kill. The spider-like warbeast lunged toward the Sith, who disappeared suddenly from her spot with an unnatural burst of speed - leaving behind only air for the Watcher to trample with its massive claws. It starred at the empty ground in confusion for a moment before one of its many eyes caught sight of the woman as she threw herself into a nearby building. ​

The Folloik Draagha shrieked once again before pouncing on the building. The foundations of the structure rocked under its tremendous weight - meaty claws puncturing the stone and destroying the traces of mundane life on the other side. The creature's many eyes searched the windows furiously until catching sight of the Sith as she powered up the stairs. The next attack was instant - the beast throwing its body against the stone and aiming to pulverize the woman beneath a barrage of striking legs. ​

As the spider attacked Alina, Baalagor would find herself alone on the streets for a moment - the only life to be found around her in the dying gasps of a the mortally wounded. That was until a tiny hand reached up and grabbed hers, yanking the Sith Spawn towards the darkness of a nearby alley. The frail fingers were attached to a bone-thin wrist and lead to the light blue face of a twi'lek girl no older than ten. Her face was dirtied and her ragged, burlap clothes worn. Around her neck was a thick shackle that hung around her thin frame, a red light blinking the front of the device. ​

"Come on! This way! Hurry! Before they find you!" ​

Part 2: Darth Strosius

The screams would only die out once they had faded in the distance - but running would be no solace. Where Alisteri had left behind the shrieks and terrible nightmares that The Graug had brewed for him at the plaza, he found now only more of the same. This was no longer the small scale wars he had seen Vulcanus rage - this was the immense barbarism of The Graug displayed for all to see. The heinousness of their species unleashed without limits, without concern for right, wrong or morality at all. For the first time since his joining the New Sith Empire, Alisteri was baring witness to a piece of The Sith that so many before had try to drown out.

He was baring witness to the fury of Krag. The fury of Darth Vulcanus. The fury of The Graug Horde. A darkness that had not been unleashed in its true primal way since the fall of The Seventh Day Emperor.

That's when Alisteri would see it. The Sith soldiers as they too abandoned the Zygerrians to their fate in the face of such merciless violence. Duty. Honor. The false sense of care the Sith expected them to uphold all these years...gone. Vanished.

Turned to ashes. The soldiers here now did what the apprentice found himself doing now. They ran. Scurried. Abandoned.

"My lord!" an officer in pitch black yelled over to Alisteri, his pistol drawn and smoking, "the last shuttles are preparing for departure! This way!"

Seela Leini and Narosh

There was a sudden roar in the skies above SV as she dodged the storm of fire driving towards her. A quick glance to the skies would show her yet another Sith shuttle's engines igniting to full - roaring to life with a blinding blue flash and then quickly fading as it took to orbit to escape the onslaught. Was there still time to reach a shuttle? Would they wait for her? Did they even care too? The answers to these questions were impossible to answer now. No plan of action existed for this scenario. No training holo or mission briefing had ever discussed the possibility that The Pillar of War would lead an attack on their own men without warning or provocation.

What was a Sith soldiers duty when their ultimate authority, aside from the Dark Lord or Empress themselves, descended upon them and their garrisoned world without warning nor mercy? Many would argue that their duty in this instance was singular.

Live to serve another day.

"Help us! Sith, help us!" a group of Zygerrian warriors called to her as they spent their last canisters of ammo firing into the endless horde. The warriors sprinted towards her from down a street crowded in fire and corpses, one of their own falling to the ground in the mad dash with the hungry maws of The Graug close behind them. They screamed for help. Their comrades abandoned them. But perhaps, just maybe, SV was close enough to lend assistance...

...But at what cost?


Part 3: Kal

Ia'dall stumbled for her words as she looked on in terror at the horned beast bursting through the flames. Blast fire rained down from the roof of the palace towards him and yet he barely flinched. She could see some of the shots hitting and yet they did nothing, they simply vanished as if swallowed by the beast's body. The Zygerrian wiped away tears as she watched The Sith Lord throw forth a claw, summoning a hellish vortex of flame that ate away the sky and turned a row of warriors into a nightmare she couldn't bare to look at even for a second.

She barely realized she'd closed her eyes before she began speaking aloud to Kal, "What is it?"

The answer may never have come, for no sooner had she spoken it than was she violently thrown back from the window by an intense wave of heat and shattered glass. La'dall screamed in pain as she tumbled across the floor, her arms and legs flailing as they were caught and tangled in a falling window shade. The smell of burning fur filled her senses, smoke stung her eyes and it took her a moment to realize the horrifying truth. She was burning.

The Zygerrian screamed, fighting back against the long silk shade that was constricting her - its ends glowing white hot as the flames cast by the thing outside burned away the tight weave. "By his cursed bones please! I'll do anything just help me!" La'dall panicked as a great pain caught fire on her tail, "do anything just save me!"

 

[Darth Strosius]

Location: The outer streets of the Zygerrian Capital City
Objective: Lead citizens to safety / Escape Zygerria
Alina Tremiru / Baalagor / Seela Leini / Narosh / Darth Vulcanus
-------------------------------------------

There was no reprieve from the Graug anymore, no silent streets for Alisteri to hide away in and catch his breath. Nowhere for him to hide or run to in order to try and escape this madness. The young man had seen war, had fought in battles across several planets. He had seen civilians die amidst the combat of course, no war was waged without civilian casualties.

The war that the Graug were waging around him however, seemed to be waged against the very concept of civil itself.

All throughout the acolyte's run through the city, he saw nothing but brutality and carnage. Every house was filled with screaming and dying people, every street littered with the mangled corpses of the innocent. No one was safe. Coming here was a mistake, all it meant was that more people were available for the slaughter. A shame that it had taken so long for him to realize that.

He wasn't surprised to see the Legionnaires retreat, wasn't in shock as they abandoned those that they were supposed to save from the hordes that descended upon them. In truth, what surprised him was that they hadn't fled already.

"Huh?"

Alisteri was snapped from his thoughts by the officer, too engrossed in watching the valiant defenders of the Sith Empire run in fear. At first he gave no response, turning back to spare a final glance to the city around them as the Graug advanced ever-onward in their conquest of this world. "Indeed. Let us leave this accursed graveyard."

His voice was hollow, broken.

Halfheartedly he would give the officer a nod and move to run away alongside the soldiers of the Sith, all of them seeking a ride out of the butchery that was present on every street in the city.

They had to leave, else they would only die alongside the Zygerrians.

 

[Kal]

"What is it?"

<The Pillar of War.> As if to prove why the creature had earned that title despite its lack of subtlety and restraint, the window exploded outward by one of many displays of incendiary power. Kal flinched backwards on instinct even though the force could not harm him; he entirely too corporeal Zygerrian he was conversing with could not say the same, however, burning silken drapes falling onto her, igniting her sleek fur.

"By his cursed bones please! I'll do anything just help me!"

Their agreement sealed, Kal lunged forward, shadowy form flowing into Ia'dall. Pushing through her panic to save her took a moment or two, but soon enough he had her desperation working for him rather than against him. Squashing the pain she felt, he pushed her muscles beyond their usual limits through a mixture of the Force and efficient control, ripping the burning silk, including some clothes, off before dropping and rolling.

Squashing the little fire than remained with a quick act of telekinesis, he calmly noted the utter anarchy that had befallen the throne room - the Queen was even more panicky than before, her protectors seemingly divided between shielding her with their bodies and running away.

<We need to leave. Now. I might be able to bring some of the others, but no guarantees.> Yielding some control back to her - if this was to work he had to have her cooperation - he began doling out instructions directly into her mind. Focus, gather her thoughts, reach out for the veil...

... and he would do the rest. This wasn't the first or tenth time he would enter the Nether, but it was the first time bringing organics along.

Darth Vulcanus​