From The Ashes

[Vrak Nashar]

Nathema
[member="Yidhra"]

They were close now, very close.

Things had moved fast lately, faster than when he'd returned from Naboo. Part of it was due to necessity, another part was simply because he had no had resources to spare. A small smile crossed his lips as he slowly looked over expanse of the small outpost. So far only a series of tents had been erected, half a dozen of them sitting just before the odd platform he and Yidhra had discovered weeks prior.

A few of them contained beds and other furniture, but the largest of them contained a laboratory of sorts.

All of the equipment that Yidhra had desired, from Lab materials to ancient Sith texts had been transferred here to this world. Vrak's reach now extended farther than ever before, and it had taken but a little push to get the Council to see things way. He smiled slightly as he stepped forward, hopping off the edge of the small rock he had been standing on and wandering into the encampment, his ship hidden in the rocks behind him.

No one back on Athiss knew of this place of course.

If the others learned of this discovery they would all clamor for a piece of it, not something he was ready to allow.

"Yidhra." Vrak said as he slowly pushed back the flap of the tent, his eyes wandering over towards the other Pureblood who was currently leaning over a desk and reading from a scroll of some sort.

The woman was one of the few aspiring Sorcerers left on Athiss. She was gifted, though not as learned as he might have liked her to be. The power she now held would of course multiply in time, but for now he would have to make due with the way she currently was. Though of course, he would give her a small nudge if necessary. "Have you found anything?"

He asked, slowly picking up a small black orb resting on the table.

 

[Yidhra]

Being disturbed mid-reading was to Yidhra like coitus interruptus was to other people.

She pooled all her displeasure into the knife-line of her mouth. Spidery digits carefully rolled up the tome again and slid it back into the leather-bound valise. Yidhra folded out of her seat and maneuvered it into place on a heaving shelf, then finally turned to face the new arrival.

“The excavations are proceeding just as we expected,” she replied tersely, eyeing the sphere in his hand with itching fingers. If it fell…

“Which is unfortunate, because predictions were slow.” A scowl crawled onto her features and set up camp. “With the restrictions on usage of the Force, progress is less than optimal. There was an incident with one of the Kissai,” her lips curled, “but as Nathema would have it, that sort of thing takes care of itself. Nobody has tried anything since, as the scene was quite… public.”

Oh, how Goyr Hlagash had screamed. Gouged out his own eyes and scratched his fingers down to the bloody bone on the black marble. He’d finally stopped twitching after the pool of his own vomit got deep enough to drown in. It had taken a while. And if he’d received a nudge in the wrong direction prior to his tragic and gruesome demise… well, Yidhra Dottash knew nothing about it.

“My own exhumations have produced better results, however,” she continued, leading him to the other table in the tent. Her notes and cross references were organized on the surface with great attention to detail, showing the extent of her research into past devices used to harness the Force.

“We’ll have to adapt, of course… no-one has dealt with such… fractures before.”

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Yidhra"]

Vrak viewed everything on the table, taking it in quietly for a few moments before slowly nodding his head.

Everything was about as he had expected. This place wasn't something that they could rush, nor should they. Athiss was finally becoming a bit more calm, his position was secured, and everything was for once, in an upswing. It had seemed for a long time that things wouldn't improve, ever since his capture on Naboo things had taken a turn for the worse, yet now...now things were finally going his way again. He smiled slightly and turned towards the Sith.

"Take your time." He told her.

They had no need for this yet. Though he had his seat on the Council now, things wouldn't progress in an instant. Athiss still needed to be brought to it's realization. Armies needed to be raised, navies constructed. All of that would take time, months, maybe even years.

"The more we rush the worse this will be." His fingers floated over one of the pages. "I want everything this has to offer."

That meant taking their time, it meant doing things right. Sith so often tended to cut corners, by it's very nature the Darkside was a bit of a shortcut in it of itself. The raw potential of their side of the force was a way to instantly achieve a strength that took years of discipline with the lightside. That was why honing this particular edge was so important. "Have you learned more of the history of this place?"

He asked with genuine interest.

"How he did it?" There was still more than a little amount of jealousy in his tone.

 

[Yidhra]

“Oh, trust me,” she grinned, folding her papers. “I’m not rushing one bit. This needs to be done with precision, patience, and perfection.” The three ‘Ps’ that Yidhra adhered to with religious devotion.

At his second question, her grin faded and curled her mouth downwards on its way out. Scowling at the worktable, Yidhra gave a grounding pinch to one of her tendrils. “Not… quite as much as I would have liked,” she spoke, pinching her lips around each word.

There were factors in play that lessened the blow to her self-esteem, though. One, all the business with Vitiate and his sprawling Sith empire had happened nearly five millennia ago. Two, most of the Sith archives had been burned, robbed, tampered with, and scattered across the ages that followed, filled to brimming with wars, coups, and pan-galactic catastrophes like the Gulag plague. Three… well. Three was, Yidhra plain and simple didn’t have enough hours in the day to devote to everything equally, and so certain things had to suffer.

While her curiosity about the ritual surely burned as bright as that of [member="Vrak Nashar"], the truth of the matter was that they had other priorities now.

“I don’t believe he ever recorded the ritual he used,” she said after a moment. “If he did use a holocron – which, really, is the only logical tool for this – it’s been kept hidden very well.”

“If it exists in the first place, of course. The lack of recurring attempts at his ritual leads me to believe it doesn’t… I can’t imagine a Sith alive who wouldn’t try to use that kind of knowledge if they ever came across it.”

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Yidhra"]

Vrak frowned for a few moments.

Her logic was of course, flawless. The secret to Vitiate's ritual must have been of gravest concern to the man himself. Whatever had happened here, whatever he had done allowed him the greatest amount of power that had ever been granted to a single person in galactic History. The Empire had been unmatched, he'd made the members of the Dark Council seem like children in comparison. That feat alone marked him as one of the most powerful men who had ever existed.

Had it all been this ritual? It certainly seemed that way, why else would you keep the thing such a secret. The Pureblood frowned for a moment, his fingers slowly clasping behind his back as he considered the weight of her words. "To my knowledge Vitiate did not ever create a holocron."

That didn't meant there wasn't one.

"He may have died before it's creation." No one truly knew what happened to him. "Or..."

Vrak trailed off in thought. There were so many possibilities with this. The fact of the matter was that Vitiate was still very much an unknown quantity. Sure they knew bits and pieces about him, but most of his life was still shrouded and wrapped in mystery. That didn't make figuring any of this out easier. "He hid it."

Not unheard of.

 

[Yidhra]

A smile curled her thin lips, oozing across her features with the same foul glint as the small leak on the side of a nuclear waste tank.

“That would be the only logical explanation if we proceed with the belief that it does, indeed, exist,” she nodded. Her yellow eyes settled on the datapads and sketches scattered across her desk. It was quite unseemly, really, the mess she’d made in her little bout of rage earlier.

“Still…” she sighed, picking up one of the devices to show it to [member="Vrak Nashar"]. “I’ve compiled a list of known scholars who had so much as looked in Vitiate’s direction, and none of them enjoyed any success whatsoever. Not even a single mention of a holocron.” Yidhra shook her head with a scowl.

“You’d think something so important and powerful would surface through the ages, but no,” she scoffed, “it’s like looking for a single shred of intelligence in a human Jedi: time-consuming, grueling, and absolutely pointless.”

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Yidhra"]

He frowned for a moment.

"Vitiate was always secretive." Vrak said more than himself to Yidhra, considering the implications of her words.

The Sith Emperor had been powerful, enigmatic, but most of all mysterious. He had hidden himself away, his power lingering just as the edge of everything. In truth towards the end of his Empire the Emperor had been more of a reminder than an actual guiding force. The man had always been dangerous of course, but he mostly let the Dark Council do as they pleased. In a way that had proven The Emperor's strength even more than a show of force.

"It's entirely possible he created a Holocron." Probable even, as she had said. "He wiped out this entire world just to keep this ritual secret."

It was important to remember exactly what they were dealing with. "We have to go to the source."

He mused for a moment.

"Dromund Kaas." It was the Emperor's residence for centuries, his throne world. "The remnants of the city there."

Perhaps they could find something, some trail.

 

[Yidhra]

“Don’t get me wrong, Nashar,” Yidhra was quick to reply, “I agree completely that he had to have made one. We’re a people driven by power and vanity.” She smiled with half her face, features stretching into an unpleasant grin.

“I don’t think we’re actually capable of not commemorating our achievements. The galaxy ought to remember our greatness… so we tie it down, beaten and bleeding, and force it to watch.” The pureblood chuckled, tendrils curling.

“Dromund Kaas… a world that can’t forget. Vitiate would never have allowed it.” Yidhra nodded, dropping the datapad back on the desk.

“I’ll have one of my, ah, trusted lieutenants oversee the last of the proceedings here.” Not that she wouldn’t keep a close eye even whilst far away; one of the beautiful upsides of technology. Fascinating, how very small cameras could get these days.

“Will you accompany me to the ruins of the Emperor’s city?”

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Yidhra"]

She was right, Vitiate would never have allowed the desecration of Kaas, not on the scale it had experienced. First the Mandalorians destroyed it, now the Jedi ruled it. The very notion of that brought a bit of bile into his throat, disbelief at the very thought of it lingering within him. He scowled slightly.

"Yes." He had never made it to Dromund Kaas before, though he had been close.

His gaze shifted towards Yidhra.

"I have an outpost on Dromund Fel." He explained to her. "We can get to the planet from there."

No matter where they came from it would be dangerous. The Silver Jedi were laughable in some ways, but in others they were a threat that could not be ignored. There was a danger there that Vrak couldn't just ignore. If he were to be captured again...Athiss would not recover, not now.

Not when they were on the cusp of everything.

 

[Yidhra]

“We’ll have to use a stealth shuttle, of course,” she picked up where he left off, already moving through her tent towards the other table. “The Silver Jedi may have grown complacent with so many years left unchallenged, but they maintain careful sector patrols over Sith plantes.”

They would have to plan their approach carefully, timing the descent so as to cause a minimum amount of disturbance. Ideally, no-one would realize they were ever even there. But since even the best of plans only hold until their first kiss with reality, contingencies would need to be put in place to ensure a safe extraction would be possible in case of insurmountable difficulties.

“Any prolonged absence on our part would be… unfortunate for our effort.” To say the least.

“I’ll put together the archival data and my personal notes from holocrons. A cross-comparison should demarcate any points of interest that might yield results.” She nodded, already perusing her files with a fixed gaze.

“A week, shall we say?”

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Yidhra"]

A week was nothing.

Vrak was on the Council now, he stood as one of the most powerful Sith Lords within the Empire. "A week."

There were things that needed to be done, preparations for Ziost, a push for the fleets, but other than that everything was already set. Since his ascension he had kicked Athiss into overdrive. Their armies and navies were rapidly expanding, their technology evolving. Before long things would fall exactly where Vrak needed them to. They would be ready for their first conquest.

It was an exciting moment, his glee was almost childish.

"In time we'll take Kaas." He was more speaking to himself than her. "In time."

There was much still to do. "I'll return when the week is out."

 

[Yidhra]

_________

The week was out.

Yidhra was out too, standing on the sturdy metal platform constructed above the broken slab of black marble. It was at the bottom of a massive rig, excluded from the main outpost but still protected from the elements (and prying eyes that lacked the proper authorisation). A necessary precaution taken in the process of securing the remnants of Vitiate’s powerbase from the ruins now encased in the soil.

And it was a barrier, too, a layer of defense that separated the main population of the facility from the site of the fracture. More of a benefit to the living, really, than to protect the site itself.

She’d been there at first contact. Anyone dumb enough to go poking around would wind up exactly like those Massassi. (And that one Kissai competitor of hers. What a tragic loss that had been.)

They’d pried the heavy stone further apart, digging a deeper hole while shrouded in the bubble of a few vigilant ysalamiri. So far, nothing had come up yet that they hadn’t already excavated, but prodding at ancient rubble wasn’t exactly a business for the impatient.

In any case, it was also a business that Yidhra would shortly leave in the capable hands of other people. Greater excursions awaited beyond the lip of Nathema’s horizon; greater power, greater knowledge.

She glanced down at the gaping hole with a smile and a nod to whatever lingered in its depths. “See you around,” the pureblood said into the empty air, then walked away to gather her research.

[member="Vrak Nashar"] was coming, and with him, new strides.

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Yidhra"]

Dromund Kaas would be dangerous for them.

Going there had never been easy, and now it was even more difficult. There was no doubt in his mind that the Silver Jedi watched the planet carefully. Though destruction had been wrought there, it was still a gathering point for many SIth. The world radiated with a power not unlike one could find on Korriban. There was strength upon that world, and walking on its surface was enough to give any Sith a boost. Vrak knew this, he had visited the world ages ago upon his twentieth nameday.

It had been dangerous at the time, though not as much as now.

If the Silver Jedi caught them they would be imprisoned, and once again things would fall apart.

That was not something he could allow, not when he'd just endured the tortures of that queen on Naboo. His lips thinned slightly at the thought, his head slowly shaking as he decided to banish the memories. It was best not to dwell on the past, at least until he could get his revenge. "Yidhra."

He called as he stepped forward.

The faster they did this the better it would be.

 

[Yidhra]

“Nashar,” she echoed and dipped her chin.

“I’ve compiled every scrap of data available to us. There’s three sites in particular that seem the most promising. I doubt the ruins of the temple in the old capital will hold anything belonging to Vitiate, but expect we will uncover further leads there. Then there’s some sort of cave that’s likely flooded by the swamps now, so that’ll be difficult…” she begun to explain as they headed for the stealth transport waiting in the hangar.

“The last one is some sort of refuge that was only mentioned once in the whole archives, and even then it was very… ah, fragmented. I expect someone was trying to strike it from record but didn’t succeed completely.”

She offered him the datapad with the map and the general details about each location. “I am unsure, however, where we should start first. The Dark Temple is likely to shed some new light on things,” she chuckled, “but the other two will be much harder to find. With the Silver Jedi breathing down our neck…” Yidhra trailed off, frowning.

“What do you think?”

[member="Vrak Nashar"]

 

[Vrak Nashar]

[member="Yidhra"]

The Silver Jedi were a true problem. They couldn't just wander onto the planet and do as they pleased, an outpost like here on Nathema was completely and entirely out of the quesiton. Such activity would be immedaitely noticed and they would very quickly be found. No, they had to do this more carefully.

Vrak was worried that even a handful of Massassi would be enough to set off the Jedi on Dromund Kaas. Though the world was still shrouded within the darkside, there was still the lingering issue of his own presence. That plus a dozen warriors...it could become problematic. He frowned for a moment and then glanced towards Yidhra. They would have to make due with only visiting a single site, for now at least. Perhaps when the Empire was stronger he would take Kaas.

Then the truth could be uncovered.

"The refuge." He told her simply as he turned on his heel, motioning towards the exit.

There was no time to be wasted. With everything quickly falling into place Vrak simply didn't have the luxury of sitting around. Every minute counted at this point, every second would be required in order for him to achieve his true goal. "Bring your human servants."

They wouldn't be as easy to notice.

 

[Yidhra]

“Very well.”

With a few commands easily and quickly issued through her wristlogger, a small entourage met the two Purebloods when they arrived. Two dozens, all disposable, all with the basic training in archeology and excavation that Yidhra required of all her servants and slaves. It was quick work, and brainless, and thus perfectly suited to such an inferior species.

They filed into the shuttle with lowered gazes and hunched backs – all the product of a liftetime of abuse.

The Sith followed behind them, and within minutes, they were off.

To find… what? Yidhra wondered. A week of meticulous research held a great many hours, and though many of them she’d spent with her eyes glued to a screen or thumbs to frail old tomes, the Pureblood had also lain many a night unblinking and with her head full of speculations. Concerns, too, and doubts.

Still, excitement and greed ruled eternal.

Wasn’t that what their new Empire was all about?

[member="Vrak Nashar"]