Dominion Bela Lugosi's Dead | SO Dominion of Alakatha & Chryya

[The King in Red]

Serina Calis

The Ziggurat was breathing now.


Not in the way a living thing breathes—not in the way lungs expand and contract, pulling in air, releasing it in measured sighs. No, this was deeper. This was older. This was the exhalation of something long buried, something that had been sealed away, not to die, but to wait.


And now, the waiting was over.


The force that had once bound this place, that had kept it still and silent for centuries, had fractured. Not all at once. Not in a violent shattering, but in the slow, inevitable unraveling of something that had only ever been delaying the truth.


And the truth had finally returned.


The figures that stirred in the tombs did not lurch like corpses, did not stumble like men lost in the fog of death. No, they moved with purpose. With remembrance. Their bodies—twisted, elongated, malformed by time and hunger—dragged themselves from the stone like shadows pulling free from the light.


They did not moan.


They did not scream.


They did not rage.


They only walked.


Their heads turned without eyes to see. Their hands flexed, as though testing the limits of limbs they had once known, now changed into something greater, something lesser. They followed in silence, their empty gazes locked upon those who had disturbed the tomb—not in anger, not in devotion, but in understanding.


They knew.


They had always known.


And yet, as they moved, as they followed the pulse that beckoned them forward, they did not yet speak.


Not yet.


Not until the final three seals shattered.


Not until the King in Red was truly free.

The air tightened.

Serina had felt power before—had drowned in it, had carved her name into it, had let it shape her from the moment she first bathed in blood. But this… this was different. The Ziggurat no longer felt like just a tomb, no longer even a prison.

It was a throat.

Something vast and unknowable was inhaling, dragging everything inside.

The sentinels followed her, silent, their twisted, elongated forms watching her every step. They were not mere specters—they were waiting.

For what?

The question burned at the back of her mind, but before she could push deeper, before she could demand an answer from the thing that loomed beyond the veil, the chamber ahead of her shifted.

The floor trembled beneath her boots, stone breaking apart not through destruction, but through revelation.

It had always been there, beneath the surface—she simply had not been allowed to see it yet.

A mirror.

Not glass. Not crystal.

Something else.

The surface rippled, thick like blood, but dark as a void that swallowed the light before it could even try to reflect. And within it, she saw herself.

Not a simple reflection. Not a copy.

A choice.

There were two figures staring back at her—both Serina Calis. Both real. But different.

One wore the scars of a woman who had fought and clawed for everything she had. This Serina stood tall, defiant, unbroken. The conqueror. The manipulator. The one who had survived Woostri, the one who had stood among Sith and never bowed—not truly. The one who sought power.

The other Serina…

Was still drowning.

This one had never left the ocean. Her armor was rusted, her wounds still bled. Water dripped from her golden hair, her throat raw from the salt and struggle. Her eye—the one she had lost—was still whole, but it was clouded, unseeing.

She had never surfaced.

She had never made it out.

And she was still reaching.

Serina's breath hitched.

Her reflection—the drowned one—lifted a hand, palm up, as though offering something.

And in that hand, something pulsed.

A lock. A seal. One of the last three.

The Ziggurat whispered around her, and the sentinels stepped closer.

Watching.

Waiting.

Serina was being offered a choice.

To take the seal, to break it—to let go of the part of herself that had drowned, that had been weak, that had failed.

Or to refuse. To leave it intact.

But there was no neutrality here. No indecision.

She had taken the first step.

Now she had to decide what came next.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

Objective I: The Coffin
Accompanied by Allyson Locke
Aspect of Passion
​

She saw the stone catch, for that fraction of a moment, before it landed in the hand of the former Shadow. Amethyst eyes noticed the further ripple in the structure, of the presence, of the breathing of the stone and mind. That unsettling feeling in her stomach eased as the phenomenon continued around them, no doubt fed by the actions of the others already within the ziggurat. If it was controlling the local reality, calling out to the others team in here would be meaningless. It would make sure the messages would not make it or would be garbled or distorted. Words were a simple thing, and they held such power in how the galaxy could be shaped around them.

But she saw the fear on Allyson's face as the stone simply vanished. Its existence had run its course, and its creator had decided it no longer needed to exist. She didn't feel the pressure as Allyson did, but she could hear it, the hum, the whispers, the call to release. Movement flickered in her vision, shadows... specifically their shadows. Their shadows were moving of their own accord.

She understood now, the pieces clicking together. But first things first, as Allyson yelled, panic settling into her voice for one of the first times Taeli had ever heard Allyson experience such raw fear, she needed to handle that first. She would move, one moment standing a few feet away, and then the next she was right in front of the Shadow, standing next to the bow, her hands on either side of Allyson's face. Purple eyes would lock with the one hazel, a sense of calm held within them as she anchored them to their own space.

"Listen to me very carefully," she said, speaking quietly, slowly, calmly. "This thing makes reality its own. It feeds on belief and the more you believe in what it creates, the stronger it becomes. It can make you perceive the world, reality, how it wants you to to such a degree that you question what was real before or even after. I need you to anchor yourself to me, shut out everything around us, just focus on me."

Her voice would soften even more, taking on that motherly tone.

"It is not Krayiss II again. This is much worse, but only if you let it be. But I need you to keep your focus on me and focus yourself on a sense of certainty in that."

She would then turn from the Shadow, as the voice spoke, as the entity spoke, declaring them late. No, not a simple entity. Towards the coffin that was stirring, of the seal breaking. Allyson would not see her face for a moment, but for just a simple second, amethyst eyes would darken, the sclera blackening while the iris retained its purple hues now mixed with flecks of silver.

It was an acknowledgement. Then it was gone, her eyes returned to normal, but her gaze locked on a point. The coffin stirring, and whatever lay within it, was a distraction. Something to build the reality It wanted them to believe. It was present everywhere because the seals keeping its truth locked away had been broken one by one.

"Are you done yet?" she would ask. "I would think such theatrics were beneath someone that had seen the truth."

 

[Serina Calis]

Bela Lugosi's Dead.
Location: ???
Objective: 1, Coffin.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Aspect of Passion

The dead do not whisper warnings out of kindness. They scream because they were foolish enough to believe they could contain what was never meant to be chained. And yet, here I stand, invited by silence, watched by ghosts who fear what I might do next. Tell me… if I choose to unmake their work, to rip apart their precious seals with my own hands, who among them will rise to stop me?​

The air was thick with expectation.

Serina stood before the mirror—not of glass, not of polished obsidian, but of something deeper, something that did not merely reflect but revealed. The surface rippled, its black depths shifting like oil, swallowing the flickering light of the dying runes around her. It was not a window. It was not an illusion.

It was a choice.

Two figures stared back at her.

Both of them Serina.

Both real.

One was the woman she had become—the woman who had survived. The one who had clawed her way out of death, out of failure, out of weakness. She stood tall, imperious, draped in the elegance of power, woven in the silks of corruption, adorned in the scars of battles won and lost. The one who had never bowed. The one who would never break.

The other…

The other had drowned.

She had never left the ocean.

Her armor, once pristine, was rusted with salt and regret. Her wounds still bled, sluggish and unhealed, her throat raw from water she had swallowed, from cries that had never reached the surface. Her golden hair clung to her face, wet strands obscuring the clouded eye—the eye she had lost, yet here, it remained, unseeing, blind to the path ahead.

This was the Serina they thought she was.

Weak.

A victim.

A creature of sorrow, of tragedy, of shattered ambition.

She had never surfaced.

And she was still reaching.

A single hand lifted from the waterlogged reflection, palm up, fingers curled slightly as though offering something.

A lock. A seal.

One of the last three.

The Ziggurat whispered around her, and she felt the weight of the sentinels drawing closer. They did not press her, did not demand.

They simply waited.

Because they knew what she truly was.

Serina's breath slowed, measured, as her gaze flickered between the two reflections, drinking them in, analyzing, dismantling, understanding.

This was not a test.

This was not a lesson.

This was truth.

The truth of who she had been. The truth of who she was becoming.

And the truth of who she would be.

The galaxy had tried to define her. The Sith had tried to discard her. The Jedi had tried to destroy her.

But none of them understood.

They had always seen her as something fragile, something that needed to be broken or saved, something that had simply fallen to darkness, rather than something that had chosen it.

They did not realize what she was truly meant to be.

She was not a fallen Jedi, lashing out in vengeance.

She was not a misguided Sith, playing at conquest.

She was corruption incarnate.

She was decay with a lover's smile, ruin in a whispered breath, the slow rot of certainty into temptation.

She was not merely one who wielded power.

She was one who took it.

She did not serve the Dark Side.

She would become it.

And when she finally had control, when she had mastery, when her influence had seeped into every crack and crevice of those who thought themselves beyond it—when the Jedi, the Sith, the unbreakable and the untouchable all knelt before her, not out of fear, not out of force, but because she had made them want to kneel—

Only then would she be whole.

Serina's lips curled into a slow, knowing smile.

The drowning Serina had always been a lie.

Not because she had never existed.

But because she had never been real.

She stepped forward, her boots clicking against the stone, the weight of inevitability settling onto her shoulders like a coronation. Her fingers extended, reaching toward the reflection—

Not in sympathy.

Not in regret.

But in acceptance.

"You were never me," she whispered, her voice a breath of silk and poison.

Her fingers closed around the seal.

And she broke it.

 

[The King in Red]

Allyson Locke // Taeli Raaf

Taeli had chosen her battlefield well.

The King in Red's influence seeped through the Ziggurat like blood through fabric, unraveling the weave of reality one thread at a time. But she had done something no other had yet attempted. She had anchored. She had denied. And because of what she was—because of the truth she held in her very being—the encroaching power found something hard, immovable.

The tomb groaned, its bones shifting in protest. The air thickened with distortion, the whispers faltered, but did not cease. Here, in this single point of defiance, reality solidified into something firm and unyielding, a bastion of truth amidst chaos.

For the first time since the seals had begun to break, the Ziggurat paused in confusion.

And then—laughter.

Not from the air. Not from the stone. Not even from the coffin that trembled gently beneath the weight of its occupant's stirring.

No. This laughter came from behind the walls. Beneath the floors. From a distance that was no distance at all.

It did not mock. It did not jeer.

It acknowledged.

"You remember," came the voice, not spoken, but pressed gently into Taeli's mind, a soft pressure against her thoughts. "You hold fast to truths that should have faded. Admirable, Veritas. But how long can you hold back the inevitable?"

The coffin before her shook softly, a crimson mist leaking from its seams like blood from a fresh wound. It pooled at their feet, spiraling slowly around Taeli and Allyson without breaching their solidified sanctuary. It was testing the boundaries of her defiance, searching patiently for a crack.

Inside, something shifted.

Fingers emerged—too long, thin and alien—sliding through the cracks, pushing gently at the lid. A faceless head rose just enough to be glimpsed—elongated, hollow, distorted. The remains of a follower whose form had forgotten what it meant to be truly alive. It regarded Taeli silently from empty sockets, swaying gently, uncertain and unfinished.

It did not rise.

It observed, a curious shadow. Not aggressive. Not attacking.

Waiting.

The voice filled Taeli's mind again, smoother now, almost gentle.

"Do you believe you can stop what has already begun? Do you think yourself stronger than time, Veritas? Even as we speak, the other seals strain. Your strength here only forces my hand elsewhere."

The whispers around them grew louder—other tombs awakening, distant but growing nearer, followers rising, shifting, reaching. The crimson mist drew back slowly, withdrawing its touch from Taeli's anchored reality.

"But you intrigue me. You hold fast to your truth. Show me, then, how much reality you can preserve. How many will you save before they understand?"

Another heartbeat.

A fifth seal cracked somewhere deeper, resonating gently through the stone. Reality flickered briefly at the edges of Taeli's awareness, not breaking, but... thinning. Her bubble of certainty held, yet the King in Red was no longer focused solely on them.

This coffin, its faceless occupant, faded slowly. Unmade, yes—but by Taeli's own resistance, forced to abandon this point of emergence for now. Forced to find another.

She had delayed its awakening, had forced its hand—but it had still drawn blood elsewhere. Its game was not yet over, merely redirected.

Now, a choice stood clearly before her.

Would she remain here, an immovable anchor in the storm, knowing her defiance was a rock the tide must simply flow around?

Or would she take the fight deeper, into the heart of the Ziggurat, where reality weakened, and truth was malleable—into the deepest layers, to confront the core of what was being freed?

The decision belonged only to her.

 

[The King in Red]

Serina Calis

The mirror fractured—only a ripple in the air, a distortion in the stone, yet it felt like the entire Ziggurat had drawn a ragged breath. Serina's hand closed around the seal offered by the drowned reflection, and with a final, decisive twist of her wrist, she tore it free.

A wave of force erupted from her palm, invisible yet undeniable, radiating through the corridors and the tombs, through the Kaiser's hollow remains, through every fault line in this prison. For the briefest moment, the Ziggurat screamed—not in pain, but in the exultant awareness of another lock undone. The drowned Serina's reflection—salt-soaked armor, clouded eye, raw wounds—slumped, then dissolved into black mist, erased from existence as if she had never been there at all.

Serina stood—whole, in command, her heart pounding with the thrill of knowing precisely who she was. No one's victim. No one's regret. The one who would decide.

Around her, the sentinels roused in tandem, each crooked limb, each blank stare, turning with slow, deliberate reverence. They did not bow. They did not kneel. They only watched as if awaiting her next move. And in their silent regard, Serina sensed respect. These malformed heralds—prisoners once, like the King they guarded—recognized a kindred spirit: a being who had shed her weakness rather than drown in it.

The Ziggurat pulsed again, and Serina felt the shape of what remained. Only one auxiliary seal stood between them and the final lock. Once that last chain fell, nothing would hold the King in Red. Already, she could sense His presence, stronger than before, brushing against her consciousness like a lover's whisper. The structure around her flickered, lines of runes bleeding into new, eldritch patterns—a slow reconfiguration to welcome its awakening master.

Somewhere deeper, coffins stirred. Shadows crawled. Others—Sith, explorers, castaways—would be caught in the unraveling. None of that mattered. She was already above them, already moving beyond mortal concerns.

As she stepped away from the fractured mirror, the next corridor revealed itself, sliding open as though the stone had simply ceased to exist. A corridor leading down—down into the heart of the tomb, where the last seal awaited her. The sentinels parted to let her pass, their bodies twitching in half-remembered salutes, still uncertain if they served or simply witnessed.

She strode forward, her every step an affirmation of her power, the halberd Ebon Requiem thrumming in her grip, feeding on the tomb's potent darkness. One final lock. One final barrier before the King in Red was free. Serina's lips curved, a deep, mirthless smile.

She was done drowning.

She was ready to ascend.

 

[Trayze Tesar]

OBJECTIVE 2: AFTERLIFE

---

CURRENT MISSION - Dead Men's Trails
Immediate Goals -
1: Investigate the Kaiser

BLUFOR - Darth Malum of House Marr || Darth Strosius || Sith Order || The King in Red (?)

OPFOR - The King in Red (?)

TARGETING ACTION(S) - Aspect of Passion

---

The air was wrong. The Immanence was incorrect. The air had moved beneath his senses, like a crocodilian beneath the waves of kinesthetic consciousness. But it was what pressed into him, like papers sticking to one another in the very blood cells, or being crammed into a Jutrand mass-transit cart at the peak of noontime winter - too hot, too sticky, too cold, too metallic, all at once.

Under this press of sensation, under the innate guilt gained from touching something he shouldn't have, he babbled. The frays of his desperation as the mind connected the leaps of logic as he externalized the thoughts. Not that trying to keep them hidden was evidently effective against the thing that was with him.

"Clever... ruddy clever..." Trayze exhaled, trying to force what was his far too close neighbor, eyes whirling as he tried not to touch anything but his feet on the ground, moving slowly, surely. "Means of misdirection, a wild goose chase ta' get everyone away from the planet. An old spacer's tale to inspire enough curiosity to prevent people from finding this cell, but spooky enough to deter the smart ones." he snapped his fingers, reminding his synapses to work dammit work. "Chameleon. A means of deterring predators. But you-you-!" that finger swirled to the the empty "You've had nothing but time, you took it as a lure... either changed it or it was an oversight in design."

There were a few pregnant pauses, nothing heard but the heaving of his lungs as he tried to bring his own noise to the overwhelming sensations he's currently feeling. Now came a gambit, a ploy, whether his own innate desire to understand what happened, or perhaps being led on by this immensely powerful entity, he decided to be as unorthodox as his surroundings.

How long had he had his canteen by his side? Was it truly real? With a sweep of his leg, the miniscule amount of dust that lay upon the floor. His mind lurched from the rational to the superstitious, and the stainless steel side-cup was placed an arm's length in front of him, filled with water, and waited.

"...You must've been here a long time, without any visitors." he stated. "...Would you like to talk?"

Silence would fill the hall, as Trayze's own thoughts judged him. But there was some semblance of justification he gave to himself - behaving as Sith was what got them into this mess, so maybe being a Sith would get them out. After all, the entity there, the entity he felt watched him, would know that Trayze Tesar wasn't a Fleet Captain Under Marque. He wasn't the cousin of the Dark Councilor Malum; he wasn't the scion of a runaway member of an ancient aristocratic dynasty - he certainly wasn't a Sith.

He conjured forth the one good memory he had, wrapping that cloak around the weeping child. Where he had his passion, his heart breaking for the sake of others, his pride in doing good work and helping his community. Where he had gained his strength, training alongside his fellow acolytes, those long and thankless hours learning, groaning, frustrated. Where he had gained power, earning his station through his own merit, through staying true to himself rather than compromising his ideals - and the victory he had.

How Quinn Varanin 's lungs were filled with air, how she embraced her mother, how there was familial warmth in the highest echelons of such a treacherous society. How a scrawny dark-haired Malum was snuck up by a bumpkin from Besberra all those years ago.

"Through victory, my chains are broken..." he muttered, directed to himself, but uncaring if it was heard. This thing he felt was scalding away at him, so it would no doubt taste those words, a taste of who Trayze wanted to be. The next words he spoke with defiance, to the Force that devoured, to the Sith who were arrogant, to the whole damned galaxy - to let them know that he wasn't going down without a fight.

"My faith be not in vain."

 

[The King in Red]

Trayze Tesar

The darkness that was the Kaiser – if it truly was a ship at all – seemed to still for a moment, as though listening. The distant groans of metal and the flicker of phantom lights faded, leaving only Trayze's words echoing in the hush.

He had asked it to talk.

At first, no response came. The corridor held its breath, the illusions pressing in around him but not quite daring to reassert themselves. The water in his cup rippled without disturbance, an impossible motion that had no source. A single drop fell from the ceiling overhead—a ceiling that might or might not have been real—and disturbed the surface.

Then, a whisper.

Not quite audible, not quite telepathic, but something deeper—a resonance in the Force that prickled at his consciousness. It was more a feeling than a phrase, a brush of curiosity and caution at once, as though the tomb itself were turning its head.

The illusions, the corridors—they changed. Not violently, but with a subtle shift, like threads being rearranged on a loom. The austere, derelict interior took on flickers of memory: a flash of Quinn Varanin, laughter echoing down a corridor before it vanished; the faint scent of burning incense from a ritual he'd once witnessed on Besberra; the creeping sense of Malum's presence, fleeting yet unmistakable.

Something was rummaging through his mind, gentle but invasive, picking up pieces of him like a curious child. And yet, this presence was also… listening.

"Would you like to talk?" he had asked.

The corridor stretched, the metal floor seeming to elongate, leading further into the Kaiser's impossible depths. Beyond, shadows rippled. For a moment, they took the shape of a towering silhouette, robed and faceless, a quiet mimic of the tomb-sentinels that haunted the Ziggurat. It stood at the edge of vision, swaying faintly, neither threat nor ally.

Then came an echo, half-formed words that might have once been speech. A near-silent, halfhearted attempt at response:

"…No… visitors…"

It crackled away, lost in static on the comms, or perhaps in the recesses of Trayze's own mind. Even as it slipped through the air, it felt uncertain, unfinished—like a being trying to remember how to speak after centuries of silence.

And then… an offer.

A section of wall flickered, revealing an unexpected hallway branching off to the right—a path that hadn't been there a breath ago. Lights—ghost lights—buzzed like old emergency fixtures, forming a line of beacons leading deeper into the ship or tomb or whatever the Kaiser truly was. At the far end, the impression of another coffin or mass loomed, half in shadow.

The shape in the corridor turned, as if beckoning him onward.

It did not command.

It merely… waited, the faint sense of a response repeating in the Force:

"You… talk… I… listen."

A chance to parley, to walk deeper into the illusions—or perhaps deeper into the truth. Trayze could feel the tension: the watchers behind the walls, the King in Red's influence creeping ever nearer, the last of the seals fraying. There was precious little time to unravel this safely.

Yet, for this single moment, he was offered a choice—to follow this corridor and face the presence on its own ground, or turn and try to fight his way free, though where freedom might lie was unclear.

And somewhere distant, a new heartbeat pulsed, echoing through the Force. Another seal had broken, and the final one was close behind. The tomb was closing in on its own endgame, drawing all into a single point of catastrophic awakening.

Would Trayze keep his faith, keep his defiance, and walk deeper still?

The corridor waited, empty but pregnant with purpose. The illusions drifted, uncertain, expectant. The conversation he had asked for had begun.

 

[Trayze Tesar]

CURRENT MISSION - The Tombs of Our Hearts
Immediate Goals -
1: Learn the Truth

BLUFOR - Darth Malum of House Marr || Darth Strosius || Sith Order || The King in Red (?)

OPFOR - Enemy Unknown

TARGETING ACTION(S) - Aspect of Passion || The King in Red

---

He wanted to run, needed to run, every fiber of his body was telling him to. But there was no sense in running... he would die tired. That was the single, inexorable truth of the matter, he was going to die.

The Platoon that he was dispatched with would wait for the appointed time, fire upon the ship to neutralize all means of escape, and hammer the Kaiser until she was nothing but space-slag, before carting her to the nearest stellar object emitting energy, stars, black holes, or whatever and cast the corpse into it. The Kaiser would be considered "lost with all hands", assuming that his fellow Sith would receive and accept the call for evacuation and that would be the end of it.

That would be the end of him.

It wasn't with clear crystal certainty that Trayze walked forward, not overtly. He had picked up the still filled cup of water in one hand, his canteen in another, and walked forward. He had walked through the clinical halls of Inspectorates, the dull chatter of colleagues and peers crinkling themselves into-

-sobs. Gunshots. Siren. Smoke. Chemicals worse than smoke. The shadow of the empire loomed long-

-on Saijo as he saw the dark haired young man beneath the tree, the humidity clinging to his breath as he stepped-

-forward-

-the only way-

As the path became more and more narrow, he felt more at peace. Not claustrophobic. Not chained by fate. Not all that there could be. Something both. Somewhere neither. Somewhere where he had always hoped to be, in his heart of hearts - to love and be loved. His steps stopped, eyes opening after being shut for however long, regarding the figure that whether truly there or in his mind's eye, here would be demonstrated the character of Trayze Tesar.
"...How are you?" he would ask into the emptiness, offering the cup. "...You thirsty?"

It was childish, and Trayze admitted he was childish. He was childish in the notion that people could change, that things could get better, that one's passions meant something, that one's individuality meant something. So if this was how he would greet death, he would do so with as much kindness as he could give, for this Galaxy would need so much of it.

 

[The King in Red]

It came not with a thunderclap, nor the crash of stone, but with the sudden absence of all noise, as if the very air had forgotten how to echo. For a frozen heartbeat, every tremor ceased, every whisper stilled, every last sign of struggle faded to nothing. A suspended hush claimed the Ziggurat, deeper and more profound than any silence before it.

Then, the final seal shattered.

Not in violence, but in triumph. A low, haunting moan reverberated up from the labyrinth's depths, followed by a relentless surge of raw, corrosive energy. Every corridor quaked with the exultant roar of a prison unbound. The eerie geometry of the Ziggurat warped anew—walls stretched, ceilings bowed, glyphs bled with dark illumination. One by one, the half-broken coffins gave a final sigh and collapsed into nothingness, their purpose fulfilled.

Across the tomb's length, disoriented explorers and wounded Sith felt the pulse of an ancient presence coursing through them. Those strong in the Force found their perceptions assaulted by a resonance both infinite and intimate—the unstoppable knowledge that something terrible, yet awe-inspiring, had entered the galaxy once more. Those too weak or too unprepared simply succumbed, staggering or dropping to their knees in overwhelm.

From the Ziggurat's deepest chamber, the King in Red rose—tall, almost indistinct against the scarlet haze of its own coruscating power. No single figure could hold such presence alone, yet somehow, He stood there in flesh that defied logic. Around Him, the Heralds assembled in silent, rapt devotion, their twisted forms bowing not in worship, but in recognition of the inevitable. The darkness at His back was not emptiness, but potential—an endless, creeping tide of living shadow eagerly awaiting His first command.

And He did command. Not in words, but in a deep, trembling pulse through the Force. Ancient wards crumbled into dust. The labyrinth parted, its illusions peeling away to reveal bare, broken reality. Ships overhead might have seen a brief flash of impossible crimson surging out from the tomb and into the starry void, or felt it ripple through their hulls. Comms hissed with static that sounded suspiciously like a thousand overlapping voices, just beyond comprehension.

At the edge of the Ziggurat's perimeter, survivors took one last look into the open corridors where dead coffins lay and the storm of dark energy raged. Some fled, certain that doom had come; others were too transfixed by the King's emergence, enthralled or perhaps enthralled by their own curiosity. But the Ziggurat was no longer a prison. It was a conduit, pulsing with the heartbeat of a newly awakened god—or devil.

The King in Red was loose.
And the galaxy would never be the same.

---

A deep shudder ran through the tomb world as the King in Red's power swelled to fill the ancient halls. What once was a prison now throbbed like a living thing, pulsing with newly unleashed darkness. Recognizing a hopeless situation, the Sith forces began a methodical withdrawal. Panicked squads and battered Legionnaires scrambled through the winding corridors, guided more by stubborn discipline than by any clarity of direction. Strange illusions bled away at the King in Red's behest, granting the invaders a path out. Twisted heralds stood at silent attention, watching from the edges of shadow but making no move to pursue. It was not yet time for war, and the King in Red seemed content to let them scatter—like a hunter who allows prey to flee, certain they will cross paths again.

Outside, the SIN 'Czar' loomed over the silent planet, scorch marks and fractured armor plating proof of the horrors that had been awakened below. One by one, escapees pressed onto its decks. The hangar teams, rattled and disbelieving, took little solace in their departure; victory was a hollow dream now that they knew what truly stirred behind them. As the Czar's engines roared to life, the tomb world receded into darkness. Though the Emperor's servants had escaped, they carried new scars—and an uneasy certainty that this was far from over. High in orbit, the Sith cruiser cut across the stars in a final thrust of sublight engines and jumped away, leaving behind a lone, crimson planet pulsing with the promise of war. And deep beneath its surface, the King in Red and his heralds stood unchallenged—preparing for the inevitable next meeting with those who dared disturb their slumber.

Serina Calis // Adeline Noctua // Lirka Ka // Trayze Tesar // Taeli Raaf // Darth Strosius // Tamsin Graves // Madrona A’Mia // Commodore Helix // Eira Dyn // Zanami // Allyson Locke // Quinn Varanin // Alana Calloway // Darth Malum of House Marr // QK-2510 // Kaila Irons // Nova Ka // Adean Castor // Zachariah Conway