Nightmare

[Darth Voracitos]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nbZZaICuvI​

An eldritch being of unimaginably ghastly horrors slumbers deep below the surface of Dromund Kaas, surrounded by an dry and cracked field devoid of life, marking a clearing within a growing jungle, shrouded by the cover a massive funnel of clouds and lightning that had been raging over this spot for over a decade.

Crude glass statues of a tyrannical figure of recent history lined a path way to a crater in the ground, surrounded by teeth-like spires the size of small skyscrapers. It was a deep, and dreadful place. Befitting the tomb it contained.

A tomb, and a prison... as well as a man, if still that monstrous being can be called such. Being both living and not, that all the while dreamed... and whose dreams leaked outwards into the galaxy. Into, individuals.

It lived a nightmare.

Spoiler: Peace, is a lie

Peace.

For once, the man known as Darth Voracitos knew what peace was, what if felt like. What it meant to him. A long time ago, while still trapped within this boil, a man had come to this Asylum and begged him to waken. He invoked the name of Ashin Varanin, the source of all the fat man's perceived woes. An Emperor's hatred for a predecessor who continues to live unauthorized, is a hatred that lasts forever.

It feels illegitimate. Wrong. Incomplete. That naturally human thing to believe, that something must meet completion. His entire life, was a lie so long as that woman had lived, and she did live for a while. Though the Dark Lord had not actually been around to notice, for he slumbered in a scenario not unlike this one.

In the Garden of Thorns, while the manifestation of his Jealousy rampaged across the galaxy and tarnished his good name. The fragments of his soul that encompassed all the inferior traits of his personality, rested within the nine shards of his Holocron, as it feebly attempted to influence the politics of the galaxy. It gathered Warlords, and attempted to infiltrate the Mandalorians in a bid to use them for conquest of the worlds he had lost and beyond... even further, it had attempted to proclaim it had seen something beyond the force, and divine, deeming it necessary that the fragmented Sith must adhere to it in unification.

All these things feeble, unfulfilled, and ultimately shameful. That is not how a Dark Lord, of the Shadow Emperor's magnitude, operated. Thus, it faced the ultimate punishment: to be consumed by the very manifestation of the voracious unending desire to devour. It was more than a hunger, ravenous or otherwise... for Voracitos had never known hunger, only the desire to consume more than he needed or deserved. It was a game, he had become a master of...

... in all but one, very special, infuriating case.

Ashin Varanin. The one that got away. One of the only two beings he knew who were capable of defying his will. The other one, had put him in this Asylum of his own Gluttonous pursuit of control.

Then she was killed by Sage Bane. He saw it. He felt it. There was no doubt, his consciousness awakened for that moment alone outside this body of decay and suffering. When it happened, he became at peace with his life. Learned to accept that now he could exist, and lie and wait until such an age came that he could awaken.

That peace was a lie.

A raging, crackling, violent shaking overtook the land surrounding Voracitos and the Asylum of Gluttony. The dust that rose seemed to coagulate in the air nearest to a figure in the distance, as if some invisible massive force approached her - Ashin Varanin - in a wave. At two points above the ground, exactly next to each other, spaced a nose width apart from one another, the sand particles that had risen to the air pressed against each other so tightly they began to glow, burning in a passion of hatred. The particles rained over the fat apparition, the ephemeral power burning the sand with a red glow. In the distance, the magenta blistering boil began to churn and writhe, but moved no more.

"YOU DO NOT EXIST." A clattering thunder echoed across the skies, serving as his voice. It was a statement, not a question. This was a fact that he knew in his heart, and could not believe the presence before his own. A finger of accusation rose in the air, composed of burning sand.

"YOU ARE A LIE." More and more sand coagulated into the molten glass that had composed his pointed finger, and glaring eyes, his mouth releasing a fire into his face which caused the air to generate a mirage. The ground beneath him, cracking in heat, and almost melting.

"I WATCHED YOU DIE, HOW DO STAND BEFORE ME?" This time, it was a question... genuinely incapable of comprehending how she existed. Now before Ashin, there stood a pile of burning sand, that only vaguely resembled Voracitos, containing only the recognizable girth of his stomach, his massive arms, and that unmistakable bloated face. He bothered not to care for legs. This would not be the Avatar which he would combat Ashin by any means, but it remained his only means to communicate to her until freed.

Suffice to say, Voracitos appeared awake... and he was extremely displeased.

The woman blinked, but didn't step back or draw her blade.

"I have the ability to survive death," she said. "As for being a lie, I assure you I'm quite real." She glanced past his glowing shoulder at the alchemical creche. "I assume you're over there," she said walking past the avatar, heading for the sphere. Growling with the thunder of the clouds, the molten sand churned slowly around continuing to point the finger of accusation. Slowly, the heat died from the structure, cooling into a blackened hateful glass. The eyes continued to glow, the mouth opened and closed in mock speech, while the thunderous skies which began to swirl around the Asylum grumbled.

"PERCEPTIVE..." The Lord of Gluttony was not always prone to sarcasm, but in this case of frustration he had little other power over the respect she showed him, and was reduced as low to use it. She had the walk of an Empress, and he despised it. It was unnatural. It was wrong. It must be extinguished from this world and next. He could not live without her soul tossed to oblivion, or locked away in a trinket of his own.

The glass statue which resembled that of Voracitos, stood slowly inanimate behind Varanin as she made her last walk to the foot of the Shadow Emperor. Roiling rage, now took the form of dancing light in the skies above, reminding the budding jungles below of a past once utterly dominated by the lightning of the skies. A funnel cloud crept ever closer to the highest teeth of the Asylum's ensnared maw.

"TO SURPASS DEATH IS NO DIFFICULT TASK, 'EMPRESS'. I SIMPLY DID NOT KNOW YOU WOULD BE SO LOW TO STOOP TO MY LEVELS." A tremor could felt underfoot as she approached closer, though it was soft. As she approached him, her nauseating presence made his oceanic stomach roil in rage... and when the boom of lightning did not sufficiently shake the land... it became unsatisfying. Thus the ground began to shake under his weight to better reflect the magnitude of his displeasure.

"TRUE POWER EXISTS IN THE FORM OF OBLIVION... YOU WALK CLOSER TO THIS POWER."

In the distance, a new maw began to burn a bright white-magenta within the boil... before molten alchemy seemed to sweep away as if curtains being pulled. An entrance.

"I'm not one to fear proximity, Voracitos, but I'm also not inclined to put myself in someone else's power voluntarily." She turned her back on the distant alchemical crypt and faced the molten-sand avatar again. After some moments locked in her own mind, the woman reacted. Webbed tendrils of crimson lightning sprayed from her hands, seeking to latch onto the glass avatar. Force Drain relied on Force-bonds in complex and dangerous ways. By attempting to drain the molten-sand presence, Ashin aimed to drain energy and life from its distant creator. Dromund Kaas' blasted ground cover withered and died around her feet.

A shooting pain erupted within the dull throbbing heart of Voracitos, suspended in time, becoming once again aware that his center laid with his body; time moved forward once more, if only at a crawling pace. The pain spiraled outward in a network of spider-like threads. Tendrils of his energy pulled closer towards his center, drawing energy from his entire body. The life force of his very being being sapped in the bond manifest with the black glass of his avatar.

Time would pass, the Avatar and the forces of nature under the command of an unnatural monstrosity would compel the Empress of Ten Thousand worlds into the catacombs of alchemical prison, as the zenith of the Asylum crumbled under the funneling weight of Voracitos' storm. Power of untold magnitude would turn more and more of the prison into ash, as the oncoming storm of Ashin Varanin approached the epicenter of his flesh, and the more powerful she became.

Spoiler: Ironic, no?

Addiction was the most powerful motivation a human being could suffer from. It was intrinsically tied to all of them, within their own natures. If any should understand addiction, it would be Voracitos. A beast of a man by his own right, whose question to devour had gone far beyond hunger... the man hungered for nothing, but even as he was filled with food, or power, or respect, it didn't matter; he wanted more.

Ashin, though? She had only understood hunger, and now he would teach her the true reason why he was known as the Lord of Gluttony.

At one point in his life, he had been compared to the Ancient Sith Lord Darth Nihilus, a figure Voracitos in his youth had often looked up to in awe... and disgust. As an adult, Voracitos had often fancied himself as having grown to be superior to that living wound in the force. Granted, the fat man had never devoured all life upon a planet, but when his maw did open, it sought no substance, and it completely absorbed whatever it attached to, until literally nothing could be gleaned from it.

Where Darth Nihilus "Lord of Hunger" had become enslaved to his desires, his body deteriorated into the very thing which he consumed. He had become the Lord of Starvation, and suffered for his addiction.

In contrast, Voracitos would never allow such a thing to come to pass, and instead became master of his desires, never ceasing to consume something simply because it offered nothing to him. He devoured for the sake of the act, not because he needed to. Nihilus only scratched the surface of what could be consumed out of desperation, and scratched every surface to glean some substance from it. Voracitos shattered the surfaces he came upon, and if life was a plate by which vitality rested upon, not a crumb went un-turned.

Force sensitivity did not play into what Voracitos considered palatable.

Nonetheless, to be consumed himself did bring up that itch which ever-presently existed in the back of his throat. A desire to unleash as easily as the desire to speak. He swallowed that addiction though, for the sake of a different kind of gluttony: indulgence in the dramatic.

In the moment, the Dark Lord felt a restlessness in his breast, a palpable tug towards the woman whom he shared his presence with, crushing down upon the earth and upon her. It wasn't immediately apparent as to what she attempted to accomplish, though nonetheless one thing was true: Voracitos was no ghost.

Returning to the Galaxy from the Garden of Thorns had granted him new life: actual life. This was no false body, no Avatar of his Jealousy, this was the real deal. This literally was, Voracitos, in the flesh. If she wanted his soul, she would have to rip it from his newest cadaver.

And that, would be no easy task.

Like an eggshell, quakes on the surface of the gigantic maw which composed the Ayslum, cracked the teeth which had sealed the Darth to his fate. Pieces of that alchemical flesh fell from great height and disintegrated as it fell to the air, and letting through behind it a ray of light onto the deformed and ugly face of the Shadow Emperor. Stasis had now become an illusion, and his body writhed against the agony of his predecessor's hunger to defeat him, to defeat his rule and supremacy.

Within the Asylum itself, the hands which grasped Varanin trembled under her power, and recoiled from her hunger, they too vaporizing into dust. The eldritch face which had served to draw out her hunger, quavered and disintegrated into an ashen pile at her feet, revealing before her a crumbling passageway deeper into the prison...

... where Voracitos waited, famished for her presence.

"Behold," A weak and feeble voice carried through a massive cavern as the former Empress walked herself into the very heart of the Asylum. The occasional ray of light illuminated a fat, tall, spire decorated by the mutilated torso of a grotesque being. A single luminous, magenta eye glowed dimly in the darkness which shrouded the nearly unrecognizable form of the monstrous lord.

Though his word seemed to convey he had more to say, for many moments it was followed only by silence. The word itself seemed to convey all that it needed to for Voracitos, he needed only his predecessor to observe all that had become of him. Then, he broke his silence.

"Ironic, is it not? An asylum composed of my greatest strength, made incarnate. Finally, it seems, my opulent weight has rendered me immobile." Once more the uncharacteristically tired voice, let out a soft and lonely laugh, accompanied by neither further laughs, chuckles, or even a single jeering tone. It was muffled as well, as Ashin might learn, his mouth was sealed. The voice did not come from his throat by the whisper of the winds themselves... the dry and still air made to movement by his whim.

His control over the Asylum itself had grown a thousand fold, now that his body no longer was rendered immobile by stasis. She had effectively freed the Dark Lord from his prison. He could leave almost at any time. It was a matter of will. It was a matter of closure. This prison had become more than a physical one, more than one bound by the force. It was a mental prison; a true asylum. Leaving this place was not an option until he died once for all, or if the woman standing before him submitted to a death she would never return from.

"I suspect you have come to end me?" The voice now grew more sinister, more baritone and ingrained with power. Dust fell from the mutilated maw that silenced him with nothing more than a slurred muffled voice. The tower vibrated slightly, anticipating movement. Then without warning the ground surrounding the tower, and beneath Varanin would begin to collapse, a darkness below them that seemed unnaturally deep...

... but the depth was no where as deep as the seated horror that rested within the chest of the Shadow Emperor, as his preceding Empress stepped upon stones which refused to fall under his command. The mannerisms of the Empress changed, her face no more than a blur, her identity unclear. He began to feel her more than he observed her.

She spoke no words as she approached, ignited lightsaber in hand.

In a fury laced with fear, the ensnared Dark Lord cast beams of viridian hatred towards the woman who, without effort reached out and grasped his out pour of corpulent energies. In desperation, Voracitos attempted to redouble his power, cracking the blackened flesh encasing him entirely as he summoned a thousand obsidian spears, and hurled them at her all at once.

The few she could, all the while absorbing his greedy assault with on hand, she deflected some with her lightsaber, before she lept from her staircase which fell into darkness - destroyed by the spears. The woman though, did not fall, for every time that this process was repeated... a new pillar would rise from the infinite depths to catch her fall, and to give her new rise higher more than ever before.

No longer able to contain his voracious desires and needs, his necessity for gluttony, and desperate from his inability to stop her rise and advance, the Emperor roared.

"ENOUGH! I WILL NOT PUT UP WITH THIS INDIGNITY ANY LONGER..." At that moment, an open maw like no other would shatter the depraved jaws of the Lord Voracitos, and a red plague would fill the infinite chasm entirely, its toxic fumes rising higher to the beams of light the illuminated his prey's face with her rise. Lightning filled the room... red... violet... viridian... scarlet, all them flashing intermittently as the walls crumbled into ash as well as they grew as the circlet of death around the Asylum grew larger... subsisting from the struggling jungle which grew upon the Throneworlds surface.

In his chest, the Lord felt his breathing further restricted, and heat rising within him. For all the progress he had made in freeing himself, once more he found himself giving in to base desires, to devour Ashin Varanin... to eat her soul and to subsist from her life force, even if it should engorge him further in the nectar of the dark side.

Even if it should strengthen the power of his prison against him.

He heard a scream over the din of his roar, and for but a moment the Shadow of Gluttony had a taste of victory.

"Your reign is forfeit... your life is oblivion." Just as she whispered the words into his ears, while shrouded within the red mist, a lightsaber ignited once more through a new cavity in the Shadow Emperor's throat...

Voracitos died.


-------

"YOU DO NOT EXIST." A clattering thunder echoed across the skies, serving as his voice. It was a statement, not a question. This was a fact that he knew in his heart, and could not believe the presence before his own. A finger of accusation rose in the air, composed of burning sand.

"YOU ARE A LIE." More and more sand coagulated into the molten glass that had composed his pointed finger, and glaring eyes, his mouth releasing a fire into his face which caused the air to generate a mirage. The ground beneath him, cracking in heat, and almost melting.

The nightmare continued... projected through the dark side of the untold evil which suffered beneath the surface of Dromund Kaas.

[member="Karn Zhakul"]

 

[Darth Prazutis]

Kador, Gratos System
Spire of Clan Zhakul

Months Prior...

A storm gathered over the great spire of Clan Zhakul as darkness descended upon the land like a sweeping cloak enveloping the moon in the shadow of night. High in the sky a storm gathered and erupted its howling winds, pounding rain covering the landscape. While not completely unusual on Kador what was entirely unusual was the more than consistent booming of thunder, the ravenous lightning that struck down from the heavens. A storm of such magnitude was not seen in...ages. It was high in the very apex of this spire in a massive bedchamber that a monster slumbered.

Karn Zhakul Spire Lord of the Holy Clan.

The monster of a graug stood head and shoulders above all of his fellow priests, a true legend rising from the shadows of obscurity. None saw Karn Zhakul coming when this beast rose from the depths, like a spider he weaved plots and concocted schemes driving priest against priest, brother against brother. He fueled rivalries to the breaking point and sought complete advantage in the destruction of both parties. The game of power the priests played was a deadly one but he played it the best, ensuring no one saw him coming until it was too late.

It was his gifts that led him to behead the fool who managed to keep himself as leader, in the process weakening his people by ensuring the spineless Horde Queen Tiras remained in power. "A blessing of the gods, the last living relative of Lord Vulcanus!" The spineless man said proclaiming her the heir of the Sith Lord turned god who raised his people to heights never seen before. But it wasn't Tiras who they silently worshiped, it was Karn who was heralded as the reincarnation of Lord Vulcanus himself with his legendary successes, exploits in slaying great beasts of Gratos that brought his rivals to their knees making him Spire Lord of Clan Zhakul.

Through his deep slumber and frequent periods of meditation the mind of Karn wandered through the vast oceans of the force, diving beneath its great waves. But unlike any other when his mind wandered through the expanse something latched on to him, like a fish grabbing a baited hook. The wandering mind of a slumbering eldritch being of terrible power trapped in an endless nightmare. A being sealed away deep beneath the surface of a forgotten world who's mind roamed absent minded, his great power spreading through the force. Out of all the minds it could've touched, out of all the people it could've forged a bond with. It was Karn Zhakul who forged, or was perhaps ensnared into a powerful bond with none other than...

[member="Darth Voracitos"] the Shadow Emperor, and so began the dreams.

Dreams if only one could call them such. Every time Karn slept and every time Karn meditated immersing himself in the force it happened. These dreams and nightmares afflicted his sleep and peaceful times of meditation. While he was knowledgeable in visions through the force, and was able to understand dreams before, not these ones. They were so real and vivid it was as if they were parts of his life. But in another sense when he was immersed into these dreams he knew the sights he saw were not ones seen with his own eyes, people met he never encountered. The words that flowed from his mouth weren't his own and his thoughts and emotions weren't his own but they felt so familiar.

But it was undeniable the impact of seeing these windows into another life had on the man.

The doors of the massive and elaborate throne room swings open revealing countless hundreds dressed in a variety of uniforms and all kneeling as Karn sweeps into the room. He stands like god with his head held high as he approaches the great throne positioned on the opposite side of the chamber. In his consciousness he knows that it's a place he's never been and people he's never met but at the same time it's the opposite. Deep beneath a growing hatred boils for nearly every individual in the room. Such incompetence, such foolishness, they're all weak...

But then the dream changes.

The doors of a dropship slam down and out strides Karn amidst a great battlefield. Starfighters clash in the skies their debris falling down to earth in a ruin of metal and flame while the entire battlefield is riddled with blood and death, the dead and dying laid out together while blaster bolts fly through the sky like oceanic waves, the glow of lightsabers dancing in the night. As Karn strides through the battle lines surrounded completely by a cadre of black armored guardians men locked in battle turn to get a glimpse, to see him with their own eyes. Countless hundreds drop to their knees and bow in deference to the great god. "Good, the insignificant pests learn their place beneath me." He thinks as he strides towards the enemy lines.

Power.

Power unending. Power eternal. Unbelievable power both alien and familiar to him flows through his veins as he unleashes his anger. Scores of men collapse into a gibbering insanity at a mere glance, their will cracking under the crippling weight of his own while entire formations vaporize by his lightning. A resistance is mounted and bolts began to strike him but that only fuels his anger. He growls and roars "YOU PATHETIC WHELPS DARE STRIKE ME? YOU DARE STAND AGAINST ME? FEEL MY WRATH YOU RUNTS!" He roars down at the men who all seem dwarfed by his height, his size. He outstretches his hands and ravenous clouds of dark green mist explode like a tidal wave, ripping the life from their bodies turning what remains into worthless husks.

Power, Hunger.

Always does he wake up in a rage by his personal guard, who heard the Spire Lords yells of rage and rushed in concerned. There were rumors spreading of his growing insanity and perhaps they were right. These dreams consumed his mind, they consumed his desires, they were intoxicating. Over a period of several months Karn investigated these dreams using the aid of his priests and resources to draw out locations, narrow down people, use anything to find out who or what he was. But it was those shadowy guardsman that finally gave him a breakthrough.

Darth Voracitos.

The Shadow Emperor of Dromund Kaas, the Lord and Master of Gluttony and Sin. The legendary mastermind and power behind the Old Sith Empire who manipulated the Dark Council to his own whims, his own purposes. Until finally seizing power in a violent coup. The more he dug into the great legend of this walking tyrant the more dangerous, and vague information became. Voracitos was a private man who excelled in keeping himself out of the spotlight and into the shadows. All rumors and all who experienced the gluttonous Emperor said he was dead. Slain by [member="Darth Carnifex"] on Dromund Kaas never to return. It was a good story but only that, a story.

But it seemed he was the only one who believed the survival of the Shadow Emperor. No word came from Voracitos after his supposed death on Dromund Kaas, that would be the perfect place to start. The closer his ship came to Dromund Kaas the more frequent and powerful these nightmares became. Always in pieces and fragments never whole, never did he see the bigger picture all at once. But whatever happened to him Voracitos was living an eternal nightmare that much he knew was true, he saw it. He fought a battle that he never would win, always killed by the same mysterious women he held so much hated for.

Dromund Kaas
The Prison of Darth Voracitos

Present Day...

But for all the pain these nightmares brought they also brought satisfaction. Satisfaction in knowing he was right about the Shadow Emperor's survival. Finally after several days of travel the ship of Karn landed in the expanse of Dromund Kaas, the slumbering Voracitos acting as his guide. The dreams were more complete now that stood on its surface surrounded by a cadre of Zhakul Priests and guards. Karn saw what one could describe as the final days of Darth Voracitos amidst his battle with one Kaine Zambrano, and through these dreams he was able to find the Prison of Madness.

A storm of dark side power boiling deep beneath the earth showed him the prison's gate sealed through ice, earth and magic locking him beneath. So Karn and his priests drew a dark ritual circle in the earth with four runes where each priest accompanying him stood. It was here that they all began to pray calling upon the dark side of the force, the runes glowing and the final incantation thrummed with power. "Dordmakk raor kae corr, raad kae verr. Accavs sraka ukkaremsk uk reka I vrakams aeui vesr, omd krossar sra bemdemsk uk raoresae sros kaor ovoae sria vuvar!" In an instant every one of the four priests crumbled into dust their entirety flowing into Karn who stood in its center. The Spire Lord then outstretched his hands and released the influx of power, shattering the bindings that locked away the prison to get to his lord, and deep inside he walked, the six graug guardsmen around him as he moved.

 

[Darth Voracitos]

A giant sleeps soundly, knowing peaceful his destiny was fulfilled, and he had watched her die. It would sleep soundly, unaware of the galaxy at large, and its thoughts would be empty. Then, without warning in the decaying furnace of voracious hunger, that destiny became unraveled, and unfulfilled as that woman appears beyond the prison of the abomination, who was its own ward. The impossible woman would walk towards him, and his glass fingers would point and accuse.

"YOU DO NOT EXIST." It would say.

"YOU ARE A LIE." It would declare.

The glass would shatter to the winds, the woman would find herself deep within the bowels of an unimaginable prison, a living structure as well as it was unliving. It was the embodiment of nature's upheaval, replaced by ancient horror and blasphemy. She would face within in, the surprising and twisted nature of its demented prisoner, compelled by desperation to move against his own nature in order to facilitate his escape... but in an endless struggle he was not aware of, the prison worked in cycles of famine and engorgement. The living essence of the force ebbed and flowed throughout the structure, as its captive mind affected the world around it in its subconscious dreams...

... its subconscious nightmare.

Waves of the darkside radiated outward... and then fell back inwards, towards the source. It resembled labored breathing of a long hibernating beast, beckoning some poor unfortunate soul to disrupt this unnatural flow of refuse energy. These waves though, even if they should return to its master, left ripples in the force around it, ripples which issued their own waves, expanding the ripples further and further. The whole of Dromund Kaas, and all its darkside energy, served as the antennae of a supernatural horror that lured unfortunate souls sensitive to its insane sirens call.

Not all could hear the eldritch whispers, though those closest to the source felt the promises of the demonic being and its life the greatest... and those most familiar with the imprisoned, seemed to form a bond to this place. Plagued by the chagrin of a tortured mind, walking forever in its own wallowing and colossal failure... as well as its undiluted power and success.

[member="Karn Zhakul"] as he stepped within the menacing structure, would be assaulted by storming winds and threatened by lightning and partially animate statues of semi-molten glass, receiving the sleeping whispers of the madman stronger than ever before in his proximity to the very source of his sleeping moments. Even those, who were unattuned to the beckoning darkness beside him, the guards... would hear and feel the unease crushing down upon them approaching this place.

They would stumble upon stones as they got deeper into the Asylum, only to discover those stones were in fact bones. This path was a beaten one, and the exploits of hundreds could be heard moaning deep within the prison. There were things, living in the walls. Things which used to be people, madmen, women, and sometimes even children. Arms, faces, and all manner of body parts would line the walls of the prisons foreboding entrance. Reaching, ever outwards.

They were not the first to hear the whispers, the beckoning, they were not the first to answer the call...

... would they be the first to survive it?

 

[Darth Prazutis]

The Asylum of Gluttony

A short journey of a couple dozen steps down into the Shadow Emperor's prison now seemed like it was thousands of miles. The closer Karn moved, the closer he came it felt like it climbed ever further away. No longer did he feel as if he was being drowned in the force by [member="Darth Voracitos"] whose nightmares often brought terrible agony. No the Shadow Emperor was trying to crush him now under maddening waves of terror, raw power that thrummed from the sphere prison deep into the eye of the storm like a beating heart. Howling winds, booming thunder and crashing lightning echoed off the walls in this great prison, but even they were overshadowed by the wailing sounds that assailed his ears. Karn speculated since these dreams, this bond was bestowed upon him if he was the only one who heard its lull, the seductive and painful song of a fallen tyrant, and a part of him thought he was the only one.

He was wrong.

As he moved from stone to stone ever closer down to the prison of this malefic entity these massive stones caught his eye first. The powder white of their color was unmistakeable: bone. But the sound visibly made the Whispering Ghost of Kadow jump as the moans, cries, and shrieks of countless hundreds crashed down like a tidal wave. The mind of Voracitos was incredibly unpredictable in who it latched onto whether you were truly gifted or less so, it didn't matter. Once the Master of Gluttony and Sin latched onto you there was no letting go, no breaking his bond. For Karn it was an incredible feat not to fall to madness and insanity like these nightmares tried to drive him to. But for many others clearly this wasn't true as the entire prison was lined with victims some just a year old and some decades old that wailed from within these walls, speaking maddening words of gibberish in one last attempt to claim the sanity and sap the will of the Spire Lord.

But he would not let them succeed.

The will of the Shadow Emperor was too strong for the guardsmen to handle and they stopped in their tracks defending against this malefic presence while their leader, their prophet approached the massive prison made of both warped earth and corrupted flesh merged together, trapping the Dark Lord in a prison where he was as much the inmate as he was the bars on the door trapping him within. Statues of semi animate molten glass moved with reckless abandon trying to strike down at the approaching graug, powered by the un-tamable rage of the slumbering giant. But just as he neared these statues the visions grew powerful, incredibly powerful. They were far clearer and brighter than ever before seeing sights across the galaxy that were now familiar to him, faces that somehow he knew through this connection with the Dark Lord. But then....

Darth Voracitos.

The slumbering giant unknowingly felt the presence of the Spire Lord, strong in the force and filled with the black power of the dark side. The power of Darth Voracitos crushed down like a tidal wave as it used the bond the two formed to bridge their consciousness, further strengthening the link between their two minds for a purpose he could only begin to understand. The experience was violent and agonizing. Karn spun and stumbled back and forth his arms flailing wildly as his consciousness attempted at defending against this malefic attack and the power that tried surging through him. But quite suddenly he outstretched one of his hands vaporizing one of the two statues closest to the prison.

Again he continued to flail and seize violently while this link formed and again he thrusted his hand outward and an massive blast of bright blue lightning arched across the room, the stench of ozone briefly overpowering the decay and death that hung heavily in the air. The statue vaporized into nothingness right down to its base. Quite suddenly Karn then charged the prison and slammed both hands palm first down upon its surface and then everything changed. First he would see darkness...but then...then the same familiar words rang out in the air as they had so many times before...

"YOU DO NOT EXIST!" Voracitos would say.

"YOU ARE A LIE!" He declared.

Their minds were finally linked together as once and in an instant Karn was inside the never ending nightmare of the Shadow Emperor. There he lay on the ground roaring defiantly up at the women who approached him lightsaber in hand, a grin wide on her face. The rage from the Dark Lord filled him in palpable waves ensnaring his mind in its grip. Karn walked first but then broke into a run towards the women who tormented the great lord again, and again, and again. "YOU DO NOT EXIST!" Karn bellowed out as he stood behind the former Empress just before the death blow came down. The towering graug pressed a knee against her back and pulled with his titanic strength.

Snap.

The visage of nightmare let out with a wailing scream as she dropped down to her knees her lightsaber rolling out of her hand and down onto the ground. Quickly Karn called the blade to his hand and raised it high up in the air. "YOU ARE A LIE!" Karn howled out his voice carrying across the vast nightmare. Then he brought the blade down and severed her head off cleanly at the shoulders. Suddenly as soon as the blade stroke fell he was back in reality, pressed against the now cracking prison as rays of light emerged from beneath. Just as he took a step away from it the rock exploded throwing the Spire Lord across the cavern colliding up on the wall. Karn fell and hit the ground with a loud thump, his body aching from the raw power and his mind recovering as the strong link faded leaving their powerful force bond. Karn stood slowly with his eyes fixed down on the prison in front of him.

 

[Darth Voracitos]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGIu6-WtwEs​

​

The woman rose the red mists before him, lightsaber in hand, and he shouted those words which had rung through his head for years. In confusion, the Dark Lord began to sense something. A cycle had been broken, and he had felt it, as well as he saw it standing before him. She was not supposed to stand before him, she was supposed to appear behind him...

... kill him.

How many times has he lived this nightmare? How many times had he felt the fires in his throat ending his conscious thoughts... his sense of reality. What broke it now? Out of the corner of his eye, even as they dilated to the sight of a lightsaber raised above him from which he felt defenseless, something moved.

"YOU DO NOT EXIST!" He heard his voice bellow through the darkness... but they were not his words. A shadowy figure materialized behind the apparition which he had imagined to be Ashin Varanin, forcing her to her knees, and relinquishing her of her deadly lightsaber. Voractios stared at the being with his singular magenta eye, as the lightsaber called to his hands and cut an arc through the air...

"YOU ARE A LIE!" His voice declared once more without his ushering, and she was beheaded before him, as her body disintegrated with the nightmare that now exploded and collapsed all around him. The phantasmal creature standing before him though remained for only a second longer, as the Dark Lord stood in shock for the first time in decades.

Reality began to distort between perception and falsehood, the earth rumbled, lightning boomed, and the Asylum cracked under the pressure of his awakening. The cycle was broken, and a deep seated hunger began to take place in the pit of the Master of Gluttony's corpulent stomach. His sense of reason had not returned, but the full might and sheer power of the Shadow Emperor had awakened, and its desires were more powerful than ever before.

​

"WHO ARE YOU??" ​

A booming and monstrous voice would shake the heavens as the Pillar of Knowledge rose higher and higher from deep within his prison, as energetic light began to escape through their alchemical confines all throughout the structure. The skyscraper teeth which had closed and sealed Voracitos in began to open, or fall inwards, allowing loose earth and decayed vegetation to fall into the great chasm which once held the Sith Lord.

Great red tendrils began to leave his midnight carapace enclosing his massive girth, as the unliving armor turned slowly into dust, revealing little by little of what remained of Voracitos since being consumed totally by the rich nectar of the dark side. These tendrils reached out for the dozens and dozens, possibly hundreds of individuals trapped here with him in the Aslyum of Gluttony. The whole sproutling jungle which surrounded the clearing of his prison began to wither and die as enormous thin red tendrils of the dark side reached all over the planet... absorbing the essence of life from it. Although, only those closest to the Dark Lord and the Jungle surrounding him died, anything upon the planet will feel his hungered awakening deep within their souls. A great dread would be felt all across the world, and would ripple across the galaxy in a grand disturbance. Those poor unfortunate souls trapped in the walls nearest to Karn, he would see wither into dust as their mind, soul, and flesh were consumed of all their energy... sacrifices to the unending consumption to their unwitting master. Karn himself though, would be spared the horrors of his new Master's awakening, bonded to him fully in such a manner as to directly benefit from the influx of power entering his mind and spirit.

A fully awakened Darth Voracitos now breathing fresh air for the first time in a decade, would clear a great section of the Aslyum with a wave of his hand, dissipating the energy which had created into dust, revealing a cut out of his prison, where a single living figure remained at its base. To Karn, Voracitos would appear as a giant pillar in the center of an enormous crater, surrounded by a still unending storm of lightning, the lower half of his body fused to a gigantic pillar reaching all the way to the bottom of a seemingly endless canyon. The whole pillar moved forward towards the one he had seen in his nightmare, bending unnaturally without breaking, so the one red eye of Voracitos could get a good look at the creature which had set him free.

"Who are you?" The words would repeat, as a mouth appeared from underneath the alchemical dust that fell from his face, in a deep baritone that was no longer so booming and ethereal in nature.

[member="Karn Zhakul"]

 

[Darth Prazutis]

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDjZceUNr3E[/media]​

​

"WHO ARE YOU?"

The booming baritone voice of [member="Darth Voracitos"] roared across the prison a hypnotic lull of power forcing the towering graug to his knees. The rising mass that was the Shadow Emperor left him in a state of one part awe two parts shock as the Dark Lords power unleashed in its entirety. Red tendrils of pure dark side energy manifested on a whim all across the chamber by the whim of the hungering eldritch monster that moved before him. Through their bond in the force Karn felt the ravenous hunger that surged through the powerful being, so many years locked away in slumber causing his very being to be what sustained him over so many years. All across the chamber hundreds of the insanity afflicted victims vanished, bursting into clouds of dust their life essence torn from their bodies by the whim of a monster.

The jungle and vegetation that long overtook the Shadow Emperor's prison was hardest hit with everything that possessed life withering into gray dead husks, their energy returning back to the great Dark Lord. But through their fully realized bond Karn also felt the influx of power. In his entire life never had he felt as divine and powerful as he did now, the buildup of energy rising like a mountain pumping through his veins as it did his new master. After watching his rise into the sky Karn remained in his kneeling position before the Dark Lord looking down at the ground while the very rock and walls around him warped by his master's beckoning call. It was in this moment before the Dark Lord that Karn received the full vision of his demise entirely, all of the pieces he once saw now coming together into a cohesive whole while their bond truly solidified.

The graug attempted a reply to the massive man as soon as he finished his bellowing words but no sound left his mouth, his words caught deep in his throat frozen in just as much shock as the rest of him. It was good perhaps that he didn't, the aspect of hunger simply gestured with his hand and a clear pathway was carved right out of the prison, the rock still falling off of his warping form while Voracitos worked to separate himself from the pillar of rock he was once merged with. Once more the words rang through the air but this time in a much calmer voice than before "Who are you?" Karn looked up towards him this time, his pale eyes meeting the bright red one that gazed down at him inquisitively "I am Karn Zhakul, Spire Lord of the Holy Clan Zhakul of Kador. You have called, beckoned me through the vastness of the force and I have answered. None believed the Shadow Emperor still lived, none dared to see through the lies spilled about your death." Karn said.

The first thing Voracitos would notice about the graug that knelt before him would be his accent. Clearly basic wasn't the first language for the graug. But for a typically savage people his rough, rocky, yet snakelike voice spoke a clear and concise basic. The second thing he'd notice even from his position would be the graugs massive size, at his full height he stood seven feet and six inches tall his hide a rough gray. Next he would notice the graugs appearance. A tribal headress secured in a helm sat atop his head and he wore an ornate set of light armor covered in high religious symbols, clearly showing off his high status. Over the armor was a light zeyd-cloth brown robe decorated with runes and embroidered in gold. Karn stood from kneeling to his full height before replying. "They were wrong."

 

[Darth Voracitos]

Dust fell from the Dark Lord's face, as his eye fell from its crimson hue, to that of magenta, and finally violet speckled with the gold of the dark side's corruption. Thunder echoed within the newly formed canyon, and the Pillar of Voracitos leaned over the Gruag, standing now to match the height of his curious eye. It would seem the alchemy which had claimed his body for the dark side, deformed him in ways that were not repairable, without years of focused healing. Whether or not the Sith Lord would allow himself the patience to reconstruct his corrupted flesh, was a matter for another time.

"[member="Karn Zhakul"]..." He would repeat the words in his mouth, now filled with blackened serrated teeth, making speech to him feeling foreign. There was much about the Lord of Corpulence that had suffered and changed under his transmogrification into the Asylum of Gluttony. His mouth until now, had been fused together, teeth growing in such a way as to grow into solid columns within his mouth. They have now been shattered and reduced to dust, leaving behind only shards within his mouth. His appearance was mottled with deathly white skin, or reflective black carapace. roughly half his face manage to remain human in appearance, though as mentioned before, one side of his face was not so lucky.

Momentarily, the dark lord looked past Karn, and saw the piles of dust that had once been bones. He waved one clawed hand and from the dust blackened bones rose to the air and fused together in front of the Pillar of a man. First there were too legs, then there were four, and soon enough the bone legs were filled with dust and appeared almost like the legs of some gigantic insect. Finally, the behemoth slowly descended before Karn, as the tower which hoisted him up broke apart and was whisked away into ash by the winds of the storm above, slowly dying away, though no less thunderous.

The legs formed up against the body of their master, and did not allow for their Master's feet to touch the surface of this unholy place. Those feet were shriveled, and barely took on the appearance of legs at all. They were little more than stubs hidden beneath the massive bulge of his stomach... which had shrunk considerably, considering how much had been stolen by his own corruption.

The two figures now stood evenly, eye to eye.

"You were a fool to come here," The words were venomous and quickly spat, "But if not for your foolishness, I fear I may have rotted here for something like eternity." The words softened. "I grant you a gift rare few, have ever received from me - my gratitude." The Dark Lord raised a clawed hand, outstretched to take the hand of the alien. Voracitos pondered the appropriateness of smiling, but decided there was no feast prepared for his return, and that in all likelihood punishments would need to be administered to those who mistreated his fortunes... and retribution to contend with for his imprisonment.

He would smile when there was food, and carnal pleasure to be enjoyed.

It was the simple things of life, he thought.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

The tower of a graug paid close attention while [member="Darth Voracitos"] commanded the dark side with yet another mere gesture, the black power bringing forth dust reforming bone and infusing it with black power. An apparatus of dark side infused bone formed in front of Karn by his master's command. Voracitos descended then locking into the apparatus and immediately taking control, the apparatus allowing him to stand at an even height with the towering graug. Unlike the imperial clan of Gratos the priests of Kador were much taller and lanky, their muscles compacted and distributed it was almost deceiving how they appeared. Often they were taken to appear as weaker but once one engaged into combat with the priests they quickly learned the error of their ways.

Even with such raw power at his command the time locked in the Asylum of Gluttony had taken its toll on the body of the Shadow Emperor. When he fully separated from the pillar Karn was oddly surprised at how twisted and corrupted the mans body actually was, with its gray mottled skin and twisted flesh. The dark side took as much toll on his body as the imprisonment did. Even with his large size something told the graug that the behemoth was a lot bigger before was was jailed, his body eroding away layers of fat over the years to ensure his continued survival. He wondered curiously whether such corruption gave the dark lord any degree of pain to go with the price of power and prison, or if he was so powerful such pain was barely felt only as a fuel for his other dark powers.

"You were a fool to come here," Voracitos said to him. It became clear suddenly to the Spire Lord that his new master wasn't at all aware of what happened outside of his prison. He wasn't aware that while he was locked inside his nightmare, his mind wandered absentmindedly snaring and bonding with individuals through the force. To some level he had to be aware but to the full scope of it he wasn't. Every pile of dust that once formed a person came here from those same maddening nightmares inside their heads, only they weren't as lucky. Karn made sense of the nightmares and was able to curtail the damning effect they would've had on his very insanity. He was a master at finding the hidden meaning in visions and with a strong will to combat the mad claws that tried to rip into his very sanity.

Karn raised his clawed hand and took Voracitos's own giving him a firm handshake. The skin of the graug wasn't skin rather it felt hard and rough, almost like hide rather than actual flesh. It was an adaption the species developed while dealing with the torturous elements of their home world. He gave Voracitos a respctful nod at his show of gratitude. "In truth I never would've been able to find you, master. While you slumbered your mind reached out through the force, and found me. I received Vekeumk omd Nesrskorak, or visions and nightmares in your tongue. It was the Makureak, memories you showed me in these visions that led me to you." Karn replied.

The graug dropped to kneel before the Shadow Emperor once more and immediately began speaking. "I Karn Zhakul pledge myself and all at my disposal to you, my lord. If you so desire I will be your hand, enforcing your word and your will." Karn pledged to the great master. To a trained master like Voracitos he could feel the force was incredibly powerful within Karn, and the dark side naturally flowed through his veins much like it did with the ancient Sith priests of old. Only the force within Karn was also raw and unrefined. Either he was still early in his training or he wasn't being trained past a certain degree. Once Voracitos bid him to stand up he would do so and then speak. "In one of these visions I saw places, worlds. A great city once bearing the banners of the Sith Empire. There were individuals...men in power you spoke to, their fear felt like palpable waves. There was an orromsakams an arrangement."

 

[Darth Voracitos]

Though he tried hard to suppress it, Voracitos felt the urge to smile. Sometimes, he was a being of nostalgia, and to be revered once more as an Emperor... the Emperor of the Sith Empire (regardless of its current nonexistence) created a great deal of pleasure within him. Gratification was a quick way to get on his good side, not the best way but a good start nonetheless. Though it would be difficult for Karn not to be in his good graces in this condition, having released him in a manner most promising and prophetic... and his visions had never been wrong, from a certain point of view - not even to mention Voracitos granted him his official gratitude.

"You do well to serve me voluntarily... your pledge is accepted. Though first, I must issue you a word of warning: all things which I own and give, are to be treated as a burden - a responsibility - though I have given you my gratitude, remember well one day I shall want it back... make certain you treat it and maintain it well." As the Dark Lord finished speaking, his four spear-like legs stabbed the ground in rhythm, as he walked past the kneeling Karn.

"As for the city, and my pitiful thralls or pawns who served me... there were three of which I most frequented. The first was on my birthworld... Korriban, and the second was Lorrd - an estate of mine invested in me as a Sith Lord and governor of an Imperial Sector; it was the capital -, and lastly there was Dromund Kaas - this world, left in ruins." Voracitos paused as a memory passed through him, experienced by the jealous phantasm left behind when his soul descended into the Netherworld, as the Mandalorians unleashed the asteroids 'he' was helpless to stop even for all the power the artifact contained within in. Pitiful. He thought.

"I imagine there is little for me to gain from Korriban, other than a tomb where my old body lay... should they have shown their Emperor his due respect. I expect little from the likes of Ardik," Another memory flashed, it was his last living memory before returning to the plane of the living... and it was at that moment he remembered something.

"Karn... you implied you had discovered my identity in some manner through your dreams of my memories. I ask, how?" Voracitos turned around to look upon Karn, who was previously kneeling away from him.

[member="Karn Zhakul"]

 

[Darth Prazutis]

When [member="Darth Voracitos"] gave his warning he respectfully nodded acknowledging that he understood exactly what the gifts of his new master meant, everything that he gave ultimately belonged to him. If and when he might choose to take said gifts back, then he must be ready to offer them with nothing less than a grateful smile on his face.

"Karn... you implied you had discovered my identity in some manner through your dreams of my memories. I ask, how?" The dark lord asked and through just a single sentence memories surged through his mind. The visions of the Shadow Emperor personally striding forth onto the field of battle, surrounded by those black armored, silent specters and their crimson visors. The dark armored soldiers killed anything that moved towards the Emperor, while he himself rained down death and destruction on the battlefield. While he didn't personally see the Corpulent One rather being in his position, it was the infamous spectral guards who surrounded him that gave him the first lead he was looking for.

"I received visions. Visions of you raining death and destruction down on your enemies. I stood in your position in these visions so you were never visible. It was the coven of wraiths materialized as men in suits of black armor with visors of red. They swiftly killed any man who approached you. All sources identified these as the wraiths of the Shadow Emperor, his personal guard."

 

[Darth Voracitos]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEMMMi8WsUc​

There was a twinkle in the eye of the four legged Bloated One.

Even in death, they serve their true master. Such service, requires acknowledgement...

In a silent moment, Voracitos closed his eye and his legs rose his fat body higher in the air, as a hand searched the air and a green mist began to fall from his other palm. The earth trembled lightly, shaking more loose dust from above them. The storm winds grew in intensity just outside, a funnel growing closer to the canyon, resuming its tremendous power... rain fell.

No, it was more like oil. Oil fell from the heavens, as a trail of green mist seemed to race past Karn and Voracitos, leaving behind only an echoing scream silent as a whisper. This was a magic Voracitos had never before practiced, but in this place of absolute darkness, this nexus of death and upheaval he had created by his saturated presence... allowed him to conduct this ritual all the same as if he had been in good practice.

"Your observation..." The Dark Lord's voice joined the chorus of lightning, wind, and the faint banshee screams of whatever he had summoned within the green mist. "... is commendable. You wouldn't suppose, wish to observe them for yourself?" A wicked grin exposed the black shards within his great consuming mouth.

Suddenly the Master's raised hand fell into a clenched fist, as his outstretched palm rose upwards with his claws pointed to the sky, and his violet eye turned crimson as a new chorus of unknowable sounds echoed deep within the canyon, where a river of oil had begun to form. Out of the oil, twenty one clouds of green mist heralded the rise of monstrous beings, given undeath once more by their Dark Lord and Master. In the space of a single blinking eye, the whole group kneeled before the pair at the base of the opening.

"These," The Dark Lord began to speak, as the visibly exhausted Sith dropped both his hands. "Are the Ethereal Slaves... buried now for at least two decades... they are not entirely alive, and the ones before you are not entirely the same ones I once entrusted my life with. They are..." He thought for a moment, as he tried to explain the current state of these creatures he had been so proud of - crafted by the greatest alchemical and sith magic masters of the time in conjunction with himself. To truly bring back their former glory, all of the masters would have to enact a ritual to truly "resurrect" these beings of undeath, but Voracitos alone in this place, had sufficient strength to bring back these - "... Shadows."

"One day, they may arise again to their full potential, but only once a significant number of foes have been absorbed." His red eyed turned away from the kneeling guard, and looked instead to Karn. "Much the same, can be said of you... Shadow Hand."

[member="Karn Zhakul"]

 

[Darth Prazutis]

When [member="Darth Voracitos"] once more began to rise into the sky with a wicked grin on his face, weaving cryptic words of truly seeing the dark shadows with his own eyes, Karn could only eagerly nod. The memories flashed to the surface of his mind while the Dark Lord calling upon the force and once more Karn felt like he was back on that battlefield. He could see the black armored wraiths again, working in complete unison their minds virtually synchronized with one another butchering all opposition. They were strong, fast, often opponents never actually saw them coming. It didn't come as a surprise to him that these slaves of the dark lords will were known only as wraiths of the Shadow Emperor.

Once more the Spire Lord even with his skill as crude as it was could feel the dark side shift, he could feel it in his very bones when the Emperor's eye turned the same shade of crimson and he called upon the black power of the dark side. A shade of envy rippled through him by witnessing this dark invocation. For all the power he held climbing to the top of the priest clan earning their absolute loyalty, all the power he wielded over the graug species simply by proclaiming what the will of the gods was could easily spur them to do what he wished. All that he had earned it became clear it was nothing, but small titles and trinkets, it was all trivial compared to what he now could and would learn under the tutelage of the great being he released.

When the twenty one shades rose from the depths surging towards their now exhausted master Karn took steps back accordingly. Already through those shadowy visages he could feel that they've discerned dozens perhaps hundreds of methods to kill him if he raised a hand towards their charge, they might've bowed before him but ultimately it was the Dark Lord they protected and it was his will that commanded them to kneel before the Shadow Hand as well. But these weren't the same slaves he said, not the same ones he knew. He speculated these were only fragments of the true ethereal slaves, the only power he could muster without a long drawn out ritual created these apparitions. They were weaker but perhaps in time after the right amount of souls had been consumed they would grow.

"I will prove myself worthy of your tutelage my master. Come this way my ship is standing by waiting to bring us to our next destination: Lorrd."

 

[Darth Voracitos]

"To the point. Most excellent... No doubt the galaxy has changed much since my - leave of absence - Lorrd will be no exception, and there will be much to correct, I am certain of this." Voracitos, lowering himself until his mangled legs nearly touched the earth, extended one hand outwards towards the entrance that would now be their exit. Simultaneously behind them, the Ethereal Shadow Slaves stood up, all a wavering image of black particles with a soft green glow deep within their clear bodies filled with oil-slick blood, encased within their broken armor. They appeared almost as if they were a kind of being seen only from the peripheral of one's eye.

"Lead me, Hand. Show your Emperor the way, and my presence shall always be behind you." Like an enormous predatory shadow, one might imagine him as. The only sound Karn would hear, would be the rhythmic clacking of his Master's legged aparatus fasted to his body, carrying across the world without every setting foot upon it.

This was an eventful day for Dromund Kaas, [member="Karn Zhakul"], Voracitos and all his holdings... and the galaxy at larger. An apprentice, surviving the madness of an eldritch horror locked away by its own horrendous gluttony of the dark side, where hundreds others have failed and became one with the Asylum itself, and shattered the nightmare which locked away the conscious thoughts of this Dark Lord of all things unholy and sinful, preventing his escape.

Now a horror has been awakened after twenty years of death and silence to plague the galaxy with its corrupting influence, both mundane and magical. The well of power this Graug had found himself, has forever shaped his destiny...

... but would he survive it to become the living legacy and embodiment of the Shadow Emperor?