Byss
Days before the first recorded murder of a Moff and the subsequent discussion between Moff Talith and Moff Kirk, Sable was once again moved to return to Byss. It happened before any weapons were drawn, and she arrived before Sven ever saw the contents of his new cell.
The Dread Lady stood upon Byss facing the entrance to a citadel with which she was intimately familiar, pausing only at the curious sense of calm that seemed to have settled. Moridin was not there, and had not been there for some time as she would come to find out by the attending Acolytes. With some luck, despite his absence, the Acolytes were still ever-faithful to the powerful Master even in private. She was home again, and the resurgence of darkside energies from the Nexus was invigorating. She set to work promptly.
Deep within the Citadel she reached the communications tower and from there a missive was sent. Garbled in nondescript and indiscernible code, it traveled the contents of deep space where it was lost amongst the sea of thousands upon millions of invisible lines of communication. Somewhere far away, nestled between nebulae and a small planet called Toprawa, a long shuttle sat docked at a repair station amongst dozens of others. It gleamed in the light of a moon, slumbering.
Within the ship a transmission received set into action a chain of events that would change the tides.
A loading droid carrying several crates and parcels dropped from the ship then levied it's contents into a passing picker. The parcels moved from station to station, offloading for deliveries upon a sorting line. Eventually they were portioned apart, destined for deliveries across the galaxy, never to see the company of another again.
Back at the dock an explosion sent trembles through the allotted private ships and freighters. Shrapnel pierced metal hulls and exposed skin. Fire licked the air. Where once a home for two had sat waiting patiently to fly again, a smouldering wreckage remained.
Present time
Sitting within a meditation chamber levels beneath the surface of Moridin's citadel on Byss, Sable took within her hands a curiously droll looking mask. At one time this mask had been the facade of a Dread Lord Sith Knight Moridin, in a galaxy not of the one she now existed. Mysterious enough that it managed to follow her here, she was happy to find it maintained a strong affinity with its sibling pieces - those of which had now traversed lightyears of space to planets far away, hoping to find their way into the hands of unsuspecting men. Three of them did not, but one did.
The Dread Lady looked upon the mask in her hands with some apprehension. She'd never worn it out of respect for her demon, but kept it close after his passing. Now it was her to use, it's powers linked to the spirit that her body now hosted, a faint mirror image of the man that wandered the stars sowing discord. She could feel the energies it exuded, influenced and alive again at the presence of the darkside Nexus on Byss. It crackled at her touch, licking across the blackened, corrupted flesh of her right hand and arm, beckoning her to do these dark deeds. Enticing her into the downfall of her doppelganger now locked in frozen fury for the sake of the galaxy at large.
Sable breathed in, allowing the pungent odor of ash and decay to fill her senses, and pulled the mask onto her face.
FIRE. Death, pain, corruption. Searing, purifying flesh. Flooded by feelings of anger, rejection and visions of dreams fallen asunder, she fought through the heat of the Darkside, focusing on those four objects so neatly wrapped in their packages: an amulet, a dagger, a flask, and a pin. She searched through the flames of Chaos, sifting through the madness that these artifacts had been crafted with. Three of them were lost, unattended by their targets ... but one tugged at her mind. A glimmer of dark obsidian in a sea of writhing, angry red.
The dagger.
She would know the sensation of that blade in the deepest pits of pain an despair. It had once belonged to Moridin, in her other realm of existence, and it had seen plenty of use. Sable reached out with the Force, stretching her arms to either side around her as conductors to the darkside Nexus. Arches of dark electricity spouted from her fingertips as she channeled vitality from this well of energy, and focused it inwards. Skin burning, black smoke rose from her robes. The mask clenched hot to the flesh of her face and the woman's eyes went black.
Within the Safehouse Bunkers
"Do you believe this crap? Some idiot gets himself blown up and we're stuck in here. Didn't they get the guy that did it?"
"They have someone detained, but who is to say about these things. I, for one, never felt safe around these...Sith."
"He could have blown himself up. Idiot smoked like a chimney you know. What's that you have there?"
"Oh this?"
There were three men and a woman in the safe-house; Moffs of the Sith Empire collected for security and now well-guarded and provided all things both necessary and not for their comfort and well-being. Naturally any delineation from their normal routine would result in poor attitudes, but how one of the Moff's managed to get a dagger past the guards was a curious development indeed.
"Seemed like a good thing to have, given the circumstances."
"You shouldn't have that," the lone woman spoke as spied the dagger in the hands of a man known as Moff Renault, "we aren't supposed to have any weapons here. Didn't you go through the scanners?"
"The theory is that someone might be out to kill us all, and the first thing they do is take away our right to defend ourselves and lock us up together?" Renault gripped the blade's hilt, barely noticing the tingle of a spark at his fingertips.
"What are you talking about? They caught the lech. You need to calm the fuck down, Renny. Put that away before you hurt yourself."
"He's right. You don't even know how to use one of those," said the woman, "you don't even cut your own steak for crying out loud. Where did you get it anyways?"
"Who cares where he got it, I know where it's going, give it here so I can hand it over to the Guards."
Renault stiffened as his fellow Moff approached and his eyes flickered strangely, "No."
"Damnit Renault, give it here," the man insisted, reaching for his arm.
Renault took a step back, seized, and gave a strange yelp of pain.
"Renault?"
SSSHHHNK.
"...Renault....you fucker."
Blood spilled readily from the gut of the other Moff, but Renault did not seem phased by the feel of it oozing over his hand now holding the blade fully-submerged into his abdomen. His fingers were locked around the carved black hilt in a grip that felt so tight his fingers burned. Searing lengths of dark lightning curled from the blade and up his arm. He jerked, his wrist twisting the dagger to the side and opening the man's middle. Renault felt the slick substance of organ slide over his knuckles.
Kill, Renault's eyes drew wide at the sound of the hissing voice in his head.
them, a vision appeared: a wraith cloaked in black, its eyes deep with pinpricks searing of hate and pain and fury.
all.
He withdrew his arm, turning crazed eyes to the other two. He lifted the dagger, flesh and torn cloth dangling from its tip, and pointed it towards them.
In the meditation chamber back on Byss, Sable willed her control over this man through the connection of the artifacts. Absorbing a torrent of Nexus energy, she let loose a tormented yell brought on by the pain of fighting the inferno of Chaos that connected them.
The blade crackled again, spitting arches of dark energy across the room and ensnaring the woman by the neck, she screamed. Renault vaulted forward over the body of the first fallen Moff, compelled by the unrelenting will of the blade, and sank it into her temple. The resulting shudder that drew up his arm as it broke through the bone of her skull made his gut wrench. Her right eye bulged, red seeping forward around the whites. She choked on a sob and blinked out a well of crimson before crumpling to the floor. Renault made an involuntary noise, something like a wail of misery before turning to the remaining man.
"Guards...GUARDS!" the last made a mad dash for the door, but he had to get past Renault to get there. Clamboring over a couch, he slipped in the pooling blood of the gutted Moff.
Renault withdrew the blade from the woman's head and looked up as the door flew open. His arm outstretched, the dagger soared through the open air before implanting itself in the man's back as he tried to get up. He dropped and Renault was on him in a second, taking hold of the protruding hilt, now with both hands, withdrawing it, and sinking it back in. Once. Twice. When he looked up, finally, the Guards were piling in.
"It was ME," he said, but the words were not his own. Renault grinned as he felt the sting of a blaster bolt set to stun.
Sable gave one last push, feeling the lines of corruption spreading across the flesh of her face like fire. Like acid. She screamed, agonized.
The dagger hissed in Renault's grasp, his arm seizing violently and whipping upwards towards his head The last thing he felt was it driving through his throat.
The mediation chamber suddenly went silent. The Nexus stilled. The mask fell from Sable's face and shattered on the floor. Exhausted and suffering the pain of accomplishment, the Dread Lady collapsed into blackness.
