Private Lair of The Witch

[Kaila Irons]

A loud ✱clap✱ caused the young sith lord to jolt as a branch whipped her from behind.

"...sorry" she sighed, knowing what it meant.

Nearby shadows, disappointed that the woman had deviated from the path, morphed to point her in the right direction as the Dathomiri woods continued to guide her away from traps and into the arms of she who had built them. Pom Stych Tivé had been in league with her lord Darth Carnifex since before Kaila even knew of the dark side, and the two woman knew of each other distantly for some time. Yet, as the utter strangeness of Dathomir now reminded her, there was so much she did not yet understand. The one thing she did know of Tivé however, was the woman was a powerful Nightsister. And so here she was, wandering the vast wilderness of Dathomir in search of the witch's lair.

Dathomir had a way of making even the mightiest warriors feel small, she thought.

The crystal felt cold in her hand as she held it up, listening carefully as her eyes scanned the ground for those pointing shadows, their fiery glow piercing even the red mist with their golden hue from beneath her hood. Yet it were her ears that alerted her to the path as the trees creaked, bent and bowed in the witch's direction, hoping to direct the sith who wished to return this crystal to it's rightful Dathomiri owners.

And in exchange, hopefully have her questions answered.

Eventually she would come to the witch's shack, a humble, dilapidated looking thing that almost felt uncharacteristic of a woman of such power. How else would she have the ear of her soon to be former master?

She came up to the door, staring at it for a moment as she worked up the courage to knock.

✱slap✱

"Will you stop that?!" She hissed, a rogue vine shirking away when she turned.

Really though, it was the whispers that concerned her more than nature's physical "encouragement". They had grown louder the closer she got, and more numerous still. Voices she could not identify, speaking a tongue which she did not.

Finally, forming a gentle yet determined fist around the crystal, careful not to crush it with her metal bones, she knocked twice on the door, and waited...

But what awaited her in turn? She could only imagine.


Pom Stych Tivé

 

[Pom Stych Tivé]

Kaila Irons
​

Whispers regarding the visitor arose, catching PomStychTivé along with the Wanica Coven at the final stage of casting a series of spells over the cauldron. At the moment the Base Stock is almost perfectly prepared. Without skipping a beat, a nonchalant flick of her wrist drew into existence the Matriarch's Doppelgänger. "Time is of the essence," it said, while the Coven continued chanting undisturbed.

The Warlock's Gate will activate soon within its hidden location, behind the veil of the Nether Realm, secured from approach by laymen among the physical world. The Gate permits the living and the dead who dwell in this section of Dathomir to merge into a single realm, allowing the Nightsisters of yesterday and today to exchange knowledge and sew their magickal powers together. Only those who the Matriarch permits, have been welcome to enter within the enigmatic materializations of the Warlock's Gate. It had been unlocked by Darth Carnifex personally, and under control of the Kainate from Malsheem, is heavily guarded by his devoted personal henchmen.

The Nightsister Matriarch's ruse of a little shack, most would pass by for appearing dilapidated and abandoned. The foliage set many traps for those disrespectful enough to the culture here, the vain seeking control and to do harm. The shadows however are not governed by physical boundaries, save that of Force Light.

The worn wooden plank door of the mysterious shack opened outward to Kaila Irons as the Doppelgänger stepped from the shadow within. "Welcome," the soulless embodiment of PomStychTivé greeted with a broad foreboding smile. "The Witching Hour is nigh upon us. Come." The Doppelgänger stepped lightly across the floor and disappeared once again into pitch black shadow.

Adjacent the shack, stood an ancient burial mound. It laid the spiritual foundation for the Wanica's Bone Temple, from within which a haughty wailing erupts across the land. The cries are not mere ghostly echoes of the past, but the discorporated spirits of Jedi, who had been slaughtered on this most unpopularly hallowed Dathomir soil. Under prime conditions of the planetary alignment the Warlocks Gate energized, transforming a portion of Dathomir within its reach into an ethereal playground. The Gate erected an enormous ethereal barrier dome across a great portion of Dathomir, casting its literal physical existence into the Netherworld. The barrier began its transformation at the threshold of PomStychTivé's doorway,

All light would seem swallowed up by the shadows beyond her threshold, until Kaila crosses over.

"Come." The Dopplegänger reached a hand out from the darkness to Kaila, beckoning her to join the Wanica under the remarkable Magick of the Warlocks' Gate. Knowing Kaila had never been here before, it added, ”It will feel like walking a mile straight to your perdition, but that will fade and all will become clear, as soon as you cross the barrier.”
​

 

[Kaila Irons]

"Lady Tivé," she bowed her head in greetings, unsure what to expect. Though in fact, being welcomed was not what she had imagined, and neither was this "Witching Hour" the Nightsister illusion spoke of. Yet she was none the wiser as to it's true nature.

Initially she was taken aback by the mystical barrier which suddenly grew over much of Dathomir, initially suspecting it to be some manner of wall until she looked up at it's dome-like structure, then back down to see that, though enshrouded in darkness, the door remained open to her.

"Come." the conjured witch repeated, and Kaila was quick to acquiesce.

With but one last glance to the burial mound outside, and a vague hope that she did not join the disembodied souls which haunted it so, she took the witch's alabaster hand and was pulled through to the other side.

In all honesty, the young Darth had no idea what to expect. Her previous expeditions to Dathomir had gone quite wrong, ending in her own possession by the spirit of a sith lord who once terrorized jagged mountains and thorny swamps on the far side of this world. The clan who directed her to his tomb were far more interested in sending her away than in teaching her, and her own studies of Dathomir proved ineffective due to the scarcity of documents regarding the world's history and culture outside of the scattered villages tucked neatly into the wilderness.

What awaited her here among this coven who were unlike any she'd seen before? Perhaps even the other clans could not know.



Pom Stych Tivé

 

[Pom Stych Tivé]

The Dopplegänger grinned again watching the expression of their guest, while the surface of Dathomir transformed, slipping into the masterful effects of the Warlock's Gate. The land disappeared and their surroundings fell into non-existence momentarily. PomStychTivé and every other beast dwelling within the barrier experienced their heart skip a beat and begin once again in synchrony with the sudden stillness. Then The Darkside of the Force invigorated into a frenzy. The air staled, fouled by the stench of the corpses of Nightsister elders, recent and long deceased, who howled with excitement as they resurrected and climbed down from their burial scaffolds. Disjointed rickety bones clacked as they ascended from the trees. The elders each evolved quickly into their individual personifications.

They knew one another by face, name and individual skill, and noticed the newcomer. "Welcome." "Good timing." "Never too soon to begin." All manner of kind greetings were cast towards Kaila Irons .

The land took on an ethereal glow, altered and vastly more dreary than the physical planet. The Wanica left the cauldron base to finish, and the witches living and dead all huddled in one large circle. PomStychTivé's Doppelgänger approached and placed Kaila's hand into the Matriarch's before vanishing. Pomsty gave the young student a nod and cast a genuine welcoming smile, not at all crazed as that of her Doppelgänger. Suddenly the entire coven teleported at once into the Nether; the event marked by the familiar sensation of falling down and swooping upright again, as if being turned upside down yet your feet never leave the ground. The witches were not lost to an unfamiliar flat plane, or nothingness as one might describe of the Netherworld, before they learn to plot a course through it in order to go to different places among the physical realm. They are actually standing upon the familiar landmass of Dathomir which fell inside the farthest reach of the Warlocks Gate's, now existing within the midst of that nothingness of the Netherworld.

"I have been expecting you. Conjuring here is far more…fantastical than in the physical realm," she said. The extent of the reality is that the Potions Ingredients cultivated here are more potent because of the constant tending by the elder spirits. "Also, we have many teachers here willing to share what they have learned, with those worthy. They care vehemently about the future progress of the Nightsisters." PomstychTivé explained to Kaila as the witches stepped away from one another to go about their conjoined tasks. "The Warlock's Gate marks the time we may come and go, but this section of Dathomir was made by it to always exist in the Nether. The Gate is now also safeguarded within the Nether. It protects the Covens from genocidal maniacs."

The mound of the dead who sought to conquer the Nightsisters of Dathomir began to wail, as these invaders too began to take on their prior physical existence once again, however their existence is horrendously altered, as none of the witches would share the incantation to form them properly. "The Bone Temple," which is fed by the mound of the damned, "is primed for a ritual. What brings you here this night?" she asked finally, willing to spend time with Kaila, as the coven is perfectly capable of continuing the ritual with or without her presence.

​

 

[Kaila Irons]

The Dopplegänger certainly wasn't lying. Kaila felt as if a hike across all of Dathomir suddenly caught up with her in an instant, muscles sore and throat parched as she stumbled through the door, wiping sweat from her brow onto her sleeve.

But then it was gone quickly as it came.

To say that this was all new to Kaila would be an understatement. She may have been a dark scholar, she may have known a few lost arts or forbidden techniques, but for all her recent momentum the young darth was still a student discovering new things in her seemingly endless quest to find her place in this universe.

But this was an ancient power before her, something not even sith understood.

Her heart skipped a beat and everything went still. The sounds of distant nature went silent, but they were not replaced by the crackling of a fireplace or the footsteps of the witch.

Kaila looked up, golden eyes aglow like fire as the dark side seeped into every fiber of her being and that every stone and plant in the strange clearing she now found herself in. But it was not the cold and artificial embrace of the corrupted force as she once knew it, but the subtle warmth of a primal nature that once seemed so painfully distant amidst the metal interior of imperial starships and habitation blocks far from here in the "civilized" worlds bordering the core.

The screams which broke the silence however, that was familiar.

She had spent quite some time among the undead, both in the tomb of Parasideus and Adeline Noctua 's occult academy deep within dead Yalara. The stench of death caused her nose to scrunch but it was surprisingly short lived. She watched with morbid fascination as the cycle of decay seemingly reversed, faces many, both soft and withered alike, soon took shape. And from smiling lips came friendly greetings that caused the young darth to nod, a feint smile about her own.

The previously stoic apprentice of Darth Carnifex seemed dumbfounded as she stared at the elders in awe of their reanimated forms and pleasantly surprised by their greetings. These were not the false promises of friendship that spelled certain betrayal as she had come to expect from most, no thanks to the sith, but something weirdly genuine.


It wasn't until a moment passed that she felt the sensation of a warm hand against her own, The Dopplegänger having joined Pom and Kaila's together before vanishing.

Her eyes were torn from the scene as the Nightsisters huddled in a circle, bringing Kaila with.

She looked down at the Lady Tivé, the real lady Tivé, noting the gentle contrast between the Night Mother and her strange Dopplegänger.

"I-"

It felt as if the whole world was violently spun the wrong way, then immediately corrected.

She groaned, and when she opened her eyes again she found herself in a world that was both familiar and yet new, surrounded by nothingness as far as the eye can see. Yet here in this little pocket, like an island amidst a dark sea, she was safe.

"I have been expecting you. Conjuring here is far more…fantastica than in the physical realm,"

"...expecting me?" she inquired softly, hand still lingering in the witch's.

"Also, we have many teachers here willing to share what they have learned, with those worthy. They care vehemently about the future progress of the Nightsisters."

"The Warlock's Gate marks the time we may come and go, but this section of Dathomir was made by it to always exist in the Nether. The Gate is now also safeguarded within the Nether. It protects the Covens from genocidal maniacs."

She watched the coven disperse around this strange pocket of Dathomir, though she was certainly listening to the mysterious Night Mother all the while. A pang of guilt struck her upon hearing The Gate's purpose, knowing that sith not unlike herself numbered among the ever growing list of peoples who had sought to eliminate the witches at varied times in history. It was good to know that at least one coven had secured it's future so thoroughly. There's was important knowledge and a fascinating culture, something the academic sith wished to see preserved.

Then she heard the screams again, causing the young darth to turn sharply.

It wasn't like the elders, who howled with excitement as their bodies were restored, rather these were of utter anguish. She narrowed her eyes at the malformed undead in the distance, breath a little heavier than before.

"The Bone Temple," which is fed by the mound of the damned, "is primed for a ritual. What brings you here this night?"

Kaila remained quiet just awhile longer, lips pressed into a thin line as her thoughts finally returned to her. As wonderous and exciting as this place could be, she knew it could also be dangerous, and it was not a territory familiar to her.

She was in Tivé's home now.

"...I'm not sure, I..." Kaila turned to face the witch.

"I came to return something, liberated from the hands of another sith"

It wasn't her true purpose here, something else which she could not yet explain had drawn her here. But it was a start.

She placed the nightsister force crystal in Tivé's hand, hoping the witch would not assume she'd stolen it as the previous one had upon seeing the red wrappings of her lightsaber, which was currently fastened to her hip.

"I felt... compelled, to see it returned to Dathomiri hands. My wanderings took me here. I assumed that was your magick which saw me safely through the woods?"

Compelled was the closest word she could use to describe the vague but strange feeling which brought her here, like an instinct that had never seen use till now. But she had other reasons too.

"In truth, Dathomir has been the source of a great many questions recently. I find myself coming often of late, to escape the exaustion of sith politics."




Pom Stych Tivé