Private Experimentation by Moonlight-Solo

[Darth Acharon]

Darth Acharon stared down at the table before him, his eyes scanning over the cracked and hole ridden scroll. Torches placed at either side of the small table Acharon stood at flickered every few moments, extending and shortening the shadows the danced across his vision. His mouth moved wordlessly, translating the ancient High Sith text he had found deep beneath the sands of Korriban. When the Sith Empire had been driven from the ancient homeworld of the Sith, the world had been left open for the exploitation of many different groups. The Lords of the Sith being but one example, and Acharon himself being another. Formerly off limits and guarded vault had been cracked open, and at the end of a blade Acharon had managed to steal many scrolls and documents, most being simple history that the Empire would have preferred forgotten.

He had enjoyed reading those, but one item in his new collection stood out among the rest.

A simple scroll, bound in red chains, and covered in High Sith text of a kind Acharon had never seen before. The black ink lettering seemed to writhe on the scroll itself, and every time Acharon looked away from a certain part of the text he could have sworn trails of smoke began to emerge. It was a tome of knowledge that even the ancient Sith had considered too dangerous to be left unguarded, and damage at the edges of the scroll told of failed attempts at destroying the scroll. It had taken Acharon several weeks to decipher the text held within back on Ailara, and what he had discovered still sent chills through his very being. A small part of him had urged for the scroll to be sealed away once again, and best left forgotten. The greater part of the Sith, though, had urged him to experiment.

"Open it." The single order echoed through the chamber Acharon was in, shrouded entirely in shadows. Heavy, armored footsteps reverberated in the room, followed by the sound of a metallic chain slowly being pulled against stone. High above, the ceiling of the chamber slowly began to vanish, dragged into a alcove and allowing the three moons above Ailara to cast their light into the chamber. He turned his head to the side, taking in the figure that was now stepping away from the chain. A Silent Knight, a being of the Netherworld trapped in real space, and confined into a physical form of its makers choosing. It was one of several in the chamber, spread out at regular intervals and armed with ancient halberds. The Lords of the Sith made good use of the constructs in their efforts across the galaxy, though Acharon himself was not the greatest fan of them. But for what he planned to do today, they would be better suited to the task at hand.

What Acharon planned to do was not for the eyes of the living.

Finally, Acharon turned his eyes towards the center of the chamber. Ten pedestals had been placed in a circle around a lowered platform. All were made of a dark grey marble, and lined with High Sith carvings. Each one of the pedestals had taken a week of careful work by Acharon to completed, with even the smallest misstep on his part risking everything failing apart, and potentially even his death. On top of each pedestal, wearing long, light blue robes were ten humans, five men and five women. They were unconscious, their minds put to sleep by Acharon shortly before they were brought into the chamber by the Silent Knights. They were prisoners, civilians taken from Alderaan in a mission he had only the week before returned from. The moonlight from above fell across their still forms, and for the briefest moment, Acharon questioned if what he was about to do was worth the cost. He was a Sith, and he had just returned from an attack that he had ordered to kill thousands of innocent civilians.

What he planned to do to these ten was much worse.

Silencing his doubts, Acharon turned to the nearest of the Silent Knights, nodding to its immobile form. "Wake them, it is time to begin."

 

[Darth Acharon]

The Silent Knights approached the Alderaani captives, their armored hands reaching out and shaking them fiercely. It was not a subtle effort, he was unsure if the constructs were even capable of such, but it proved effective. Slowly, the individuals on the pedestals began to wake, and their first signed was the demonic visages of the Silent Knights forms. They began to scream, uncontrolled and wild sounds that boomed in the chamber they were in as the Silent Knights stepped away. Their cries pierced the small protection Acharon had for his ears, and he used that annoyance to fuel him as he reached his hands out.

With a force of will, Acharon ignited braziers located around the pedestals. Blue and red flames erupted all around the pedestals, spreading across lines carved in the ground. The captives could only watch in ever increasing horror as the flames continued to spread, slowly filling out shapes and designs along the walls and floor of the chamber. Murals were illuminated in small pockets of space where the flames did not touch, showing grotesque imagery designed to fuel the terror each individual felt.

Acharon let the terror fill the room, the sheer force of it assaulting his senses within the Force. It invigorated him, and he had to force the pleasure the emotions brought him out of his mind as he turned his attention back to the scroll in front of him. Gripping it, Acharon began to recite the words on the scroll, each syllable dripping with a combination of hatred and disgust. The story the words told were ancient, far older than the galaxy itself. Each word was an affront to those that heard it, and only the Silent Knights were unaffected by the reciting of the text. If anything, the emotionless, unmoving and unfeeling Silent Knights seemed to stand taller, a new fire burning in their eyes unseen before.

Acharon finally reached the end of the scroll, gripping its side and holding it up before him. As the last words left Acharon's mouth, there was a change in the room. The flames began to rescind from where they were, drawing into the center of the room between all the pedestals. They were drawn into a central point, a darkness far darker than the shadows around the rest of the room. The flames began to spiral around the point, a mixture of blue, red, and now black in a rapidly growing form. First, arms began to appear, long limbs covered in barely visible muscles and talons three inches long on four digit hands. Then, legs, bent in the wrong direction, with four digits and talons as well. Finally, a head began to appear, large and bulky, and seeming to almost float above the rest of the body.

The being opened its eyes, one filled with blue fire, and the other red, as it stared at Acharon directly across from him. In an instant, the creatures body erupted into flames, a mixture of blue and red tattoos forming across its body and illuminating the pitch black skin beneath. This action, and the appearance of the being, brought renewed terror filled screams from the Alderaani captives, though Acharon paid them no heed now. All his attention was focused on the thing before him.

A Smoke Demon.

"Little Sith...why have you summoned me?"