Red Door

[Mariel Dawnrider]

Edge of Sith Imperial Space
Gala
[member="Vestille Thumahra"] [member="Bushi Nadora"]

It was a risk and she knew it. With the Sith Empire slowly and inexorably gobbling up worlds, there was no telling if, or when, they would reach any given world along their border. And yet she came, with her padawan in tow, because there was word of an old Jedi Holocron. Something that had once belonged to the Silver Jedi but left behind in their flight coreward. Mariel didn't put much consideration into that period. It was before her time for one, and for another- without it, the Silvers never would have ended up on Kashyyyk and she never would have joined them. The series of events could be seen as a gift of the Thermals, and she accepted it for what it was, rather than what it could be seen as. But that meant caution was needed now, because these were worlds and places where the opinions on the order were rather mixed. Some people might look back at it as better days, while others might see it as abandonment.

On their way to the planet Gala, nestled in the small slice of neutral systems between the Sith and the Mandalorians, Mariel had explained the history to her padawan.

Talking helped remind her that Nadi was a student, not a snack.

Usually.

"There is a small nexus. Barely larger than a pond, with a small hut beside it." her beak clacked as the ship made its descent. "Once upon a time, it held a mystic- an ascetic. Someone who believed in solitude and self discipline. She took with her a number of things when she left the order, and one of them is of particular interest if it is still there."

Ruffling her feathers, the Jedi Knight looked out over the landscape. But something gave her pause. Violet eyes narrowed, and she hopped closer to the window as the ship cut through the clouds.

"What is that."

Instead of the tiny oasis they should have been flying over to reach their landing site, there was a crimson sore in the landscape. Crackled black along its edges, it practically pulsed- breathing as they watched.

"That is not the Crystal Oasis," her feathers rose in upset as she hopped from one foot to the other, head bobbing down to peer. "That is wrong, oh, wrong."

 

[Vestille Thumahra]

Oh how they cried.

There had been a legend spread among the Galaxy of a sinister evil spreading across the stars. It was subtle, at first, something that had been contained to nothing more than a few who knew of the existence of the doors and what terrors lay within. Those rumors, those legends however? Stayed mostly just that. The doors and the black stones that powered them and the entities that lay within remained hidden, their ties to the netherworld and their true purpose kept as knowledge to a select few. Yet in a galaxy of indifference, a sprawling sandbox of chaos and war, there had been one that not only knew of it all but had played a much larger part in its plans. Vestille Thumahra, the Sith Empire's haunted General, the man who housed a demon, had died-- Betrayed at the hand of the beast that he had struggled against for control of his body and his mind and his soul? His soul was doomed to act as a source of power for the doors and their masters for eternity. Eternal suffering, eternal hatred...

Eternal rage.

Yet that eternity of torment was not spent in vain. There was no concept of time in the netherworld, no concept of life nor death... Just existence and the twisted abominations that drew the power from what made that man who's blood had been spilled and his very soul turned to nothing more than a source of power, cast down to no more significance than one may look at a battery or a generator but yet... A spark remained, ashes floating in the realms of nothingness but from those ashes? That soul built itself anew. That very thing the soul hated was the very thing the soul needed to thrive and obtain what it sought most...

A way back to the physical realms of existence. A physical form to exact the vengeance the soul so sorely craved. Life.

And it was soon his.

Just how long had it been? His knowledge held little regard for keeping track of the length of his journey nor the hints that suggested the passing of a day into night and the moon making way for the sun. The realm he remained chained to simply had no need for such trivial matters, nor did it concern itself with concerns as to hunger, thirst, sleep and everything else that one that considered itself living might have. The foundry had been established to push that which was once Vestille over the line of humanity; the Death Troopers had stripped most of it away and the events that followed only sought to whittle it down further but now? Now it was to be entirely erased, as if cut out with a scalpel. The perfect being, at least in the soul's impression, something that could keep going no matter how dire the situation.

Yet with this new found freedom... Surely one could have benefited to adjust and perfect the image that it wished to present itself as?

No, for the soul had been busy with its quest, slaying the creatures that infested the doorways that opened to him; becoming the very parasite that the black stones and its minions had sought to be, destroying everything in its path. There was no respite, no sense of mercy or remorse. If those denizens of the netherworld could talk or record their history? The soul turned black would no doubt have gone down in infamy-- The slayer of the pathways, the closer of the doors. The subject of torment and suffering had been reversed; no longer was it the soul offered as tribute and sacrifice but rather, those that sought to inflict soon found themselves under the claws of the prisoner let loose. There was no need for grace nor luxuries in regards to his figure-- Crude, hardened and effective. A twisted return to form.

It was no surprise then that across the galaxy, one of these doors would open and release the black stone's madness across the world-- Creatures from the netherworld spewed fourth not with malicious intent but with fear. Pure, unadulterated terror washed over those otherworldly creatures as they fled from the place they called home or... Tried to, at the very least.

For the slayer stalked his prey back into the land of the living, leaving nothing more than a trail of bodies in his wake.

Something wicked this way came.

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"] | [member="Bushi Nadora"]

 

[Bushi Nadora]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"] | [member="Vestille Thumahra"]

Nadi was scampering back and forth the dashboard.

Trying to get as much of the sight in as possible. This was exciting! When Mariel had agreed to keeping her as her Padawan? Best day of her life. Until they decided to go on this excursion.

Field trip!

Apparently it wasn't a field trip. Her Master found that indignant, she wasn't sure why, but didn't particularly mind either. It just meant more biscuits for her, right? She'd have to make extra pictures though. Apparently this was a holy place for the Je- "Oh." Ears fell a bit. "That... doesn't sound very holy?" A glance over her shoulder.

"What's a nexus?" Asked curiously.

Mariel responded to her question by asking her own question.

That made Nadi blink. "Um. I hoped you would know, Master! I have no idea what.... a.... nexus..." Halfway through the sentence the Nezumi had turned. Realizing she was missing their approach. That's why her sentence started to drag out. Trying to get what she was seeing. Red cutting through nature. "Um. Um. I am not sure I want to go there, Master."

Quickly scurrying away from the viewport and settling next to Mariel's claws.

Usually that would make her anxious. To be fair... it still did, buuuuut. That crimson, that open wound in the planet, was far more concerning to her right now.

"Wrong, very." Repeating her slowly. Finding a little bit of peace in the repetition. Like it was a lesson, something of comfort and consolation. "Maybe we should wait and call for the rest of the Order, Master?" Nadi asked hopefully.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

She was only half paying attention to Nadi. Usually it was difficult for her to ignore the Nezumi- she was, after all, positively bite sized. But in this moment at least her attention was fixated and almost mesmerized by the sight out the window.

"Perhaps....." she murmured softly, absently. "Perhaps we should..... send a message. But..... no harm in looking."

A touch of hubris in the creature that flew so high. This was like nothing she had ever seen. By and large, the things Mariel wrote about, chronicled and cataloged were things that other people had already written about. Things she had never seen herself, certainly nothing she had discovered. The pull to offer something, some knowledge, to the galaxy at large for the first time?

Too strong to ignore.

"I will protect you, Nadi, don't worry. But if you'd rather stay I will be back soon....."

*****

It didn't take long, and though Mariel was well aware of the Nezumi's hesitation, Nadi came along anyway. The padawan had a small recorder on her, because Mariel didn't believe that bringing drawing materials in this case was sufficient. Better to take recordings and work from them later, she reasoned.

While in the past, Mariel had not deigned to allow her padawan to ride on her back, the Songwing was in a hurry, and after a brief, "Yes I am sure, just please hurry," the pair went winging off over the landscape away from the ship and toward the dark wound.

With Nadi's paws curled into her feathers, Mariel tried her best to keep the flight even and relaxed, but there was no mistaking the impatience in the avian.

They saw a small trio of dark shapes scuttle along beneath them, away from the slice of darkness. For a moment, Mariel considered winging off to follow them, but something about the thing ahead of them beckoned and instead she kept on her heading. The winds were with them, the perfect gentle updraft, and she took that as a sign that this was indeed the correct course of action. The Force was only a part of the greater power the Songwing knew as the Slipsteam, and she trusted in that more than anything.

With a dip of her wings, she brought them first in a circle, looking at it below them from all angles. Slowly dropping altitude as they did, each revolution bringing them closer, until her feet came out, wings beating once to arrest the momentum, and landing not far from it on the shattered landscape.

"It co-opted the Nexus," she breathed finally, shaking out her feathers once the Nezumi had climbed off. "It.... ate it. I think." Sounding both fascinated and horrified.

[member="Vestille Thumahra"] [member="Bushi Nadora"]

 

[Vestille Thumahra]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"] | [member="Bushi Nadora"]​

​

The forces that had expressed ominous unity soon found itself torn apart by the one that had been tossed to them against his wishes-- Where they had tried to accomodate and use the soul of the man once known as a Sith Lord General had only built the foundations for their downfall.

How terrifying it must have been for any onlookers to watch the creatures of Blackstone design scatter into the hills that surrounded the colossal glowing door that bled crimson and darkness across an otherwise beautiful landscape but alas, seldom was a thought spared for the destruction of nature's design if one at all had even spanned across the consciousness of the Blackstone entities that had festered on Gala. The lowly creatures fleed without pause, sensing that their home had been all but destroyed and, the one who had brought about its ruin? It certainly had no qualms or reluctance regarding the self-appointed task that it had provided itself, those stomping feet chasing what it could grab, using powers beyond to drag the creatures of darkness flailing into the bite of the soul's harrowing blade, releasing the doomsday cry of corrupted songsteel with each slash and stab. Yet, as the creatures fell one by one, their bodies were nothing more equal than bags of blood for the one that sought to slaughter all in its path; each denzien of the Red Door that fell powered their predator just that little more as the presence and aura of such a beast only grew bolder.

Soon enough, like antibodies responding to a harmful intruder within the body, the Red Door sent its own varation of defense; the Doors opened wide to release warriors of its own... This was no longer a game of cat and mouse, it was a fight; something that the rouge entity had been long overdue.

It was with a roar from those that spewed from the bleeding wound of Gala that was met with the soul's own horrific humanesque war cry that revirbirated from that abyssal mass that carried a sword that sang doom for all that it touched before all hell broke loose. Swarthes of blackened ooze splattered the ground with each swing of the creature's blade and the subsequent scrapes and bites into that distinct figure leaked further tar-like fluids that stained the green grass that was trampled under feet. Truly it was a battlefield to behold but not one of the traditional kind; this was the kind where monsters built their legends, where the horrors hidden away from the greater eyes of the Galaxy begin their circulation into rumours. Be it people were watching or weren't, the effects of the struggle between two shades of evil roared-- With no victor in sight; each creature that fell spawned another from the door.

The green hills of Gala were to become corrupted with the remains of a force of great evil.

 

[Bushi Nadora]

[member="Vestille Thumahra"] | [member="Mariel Dawnrider"]

Even with the horror below part of Nadi was soaring.

Literally.

They were flying. It was one of the most exciting things she had ever experienced. Envy, fleeting but present for a moment, crossed her mind. Is this how it always is for the birds above? To fly. Free and without bound. She was about to say something. To whoop in enjoyment. Because if you closed your eyes (and the Nezumi certainly did so) you could almost forget the bloody scar running through the ground. So close to Mariel, her force presence cloaked the smol clinging shape's own beating signature. Like the rumbling of a storm shadowing the soft heartbeat of a life-form caught inside of it.

This was presumably the reason why everything went wrong here.

Nadi wasn't certain.

All that the Nezumi knew that for awhile they were flying. Then? Then she was falling. A squeak of surprise. "Mariel?" The mouse breathed... and then she was gone. Falling to the ground, closer and closer again. Her eyes widened. Watching that approach with something of morbid curiosity. Instinctively she curled into a ball. There was nothing to do here.

No parachute, no nothing.

There had been no time for that. Her Masters' curiosity caught the better of them both.

Eyes closed. Finding acceptance.

A life worth living does not need to be long. It merely needs to be lived without regret. Whatever else there was? Nadi knew no regret.

Farewell, Master Dawnrider.

That voice in the Force. Older than it had any right to be. Calmer, too. Resolve wrapped in courage of the moment. You only truly found yourself in that moment of life and death, no? The Songwing would feel it. From one moment to the next. A soft quickened heartbeat... and then nothing. Swept away in the tide.

Nadi collided with the ground. And then she sunk deeper into it. No hurt. Small eyes opened carefully. Blinked in confusion. Sticky? No.. this is not the ground. It took the Nezumi a moment to realize that the red scarring had penetrated deep here. Turning the once fertile earth into a gooey mess. Sticky... sulfuric... and luckily porous enough to cushion her fall.

Her heart sang with relief, quickly crawling out of the gooey.

But within the Force? She realized she couldn't reach her Master... or anything else.

That connection wrenched away from her by a presence. It lingered in a waking dream. Devouring the Force within its proximity. Every time it did so, Nadi felt cold and she shivered there. "Truly unnatural..." She whispered to herself, but found herself drawn to that center anyway.

The way back was closed to Nadi.

She had to find her Master, after all, family is never left behind.

 

[Mariel Dawnrider]

One moment there and the next-

Gone.

A sudden gust, wind and more, sending the owl tumbling in the air. Wings beating frantically to regain altitude, gaining purchase in an updraft right before plummeting through the ash and smoke that obscured view of the ground. But where was Nadi? Fallen, falling.

Mariel went skirling through the sulfurous skies, her cry sharp and keen. There. The tiny form, curled in on itself just below-

Farewell, Master Dawnrider.

The Songwing reached out in the Force, but there was no stopping the Nezumi's descent. Not for one as unskilled in telekinesis as she, and for the first time since joining the Jedi, she cursed that defect in herself. Whatever block made those things nearly impossible for her now came with a price.

Again, the keening cry of the owl cut through the echoing cacophony of the events below.

Wings beating hard she flew up, barely a speck. Gazing down with violet eyes she scanned. Occasionally the smoke would clear, allowing a view of the battle that now raged beneath her. Where had they come from? What WERE they? She never should have left the ship with Nadi, never should have brought the Nezumi out into this. She should have gone back, reported..... Jedi Knight? No. She was selfish and had wanted to discover.

Hovering high on a warm updraft, she breathed in deeply the sweet, fresh air this high above. Then, tucked her wings close to her sides, and dove. Slicing like a knife, she disappeared into the haze. The speed breathtaking, she snapped open her wings, maneuvering between foes (foes, somewhere in the back of her mind asked, they do not attack each other, they focus instead elsewhere).

She couldn't feel Nadi in the Force- but she couldn't feel ANYTHING in the Force here. It was all too saturated by this.

The fall should have killed the Nezumi, but what if it had not? Her flight, swift and so easy to miss, darting between dark and furious forms, brought her closer and closer to the epicenter as she sought her fallen padawan.

[member="Vestille Thumahra"] [member="Bushi Nadora"]

 

[Vestille Thumahra]

[member="Mariel Dawnrider"] [member="Bushi Nadora"]​

It seemed that neither side wished to surrender to the other. Each swing took yet another spawnling of the Red Door and fed the entity of discourse. A conflict for eternity.

The unholy nature of the entities that had slipped from the door meant that things like morale, stamina and endurance were all questions and concerns of the past as the doors remained ever open to allow the creatures of evil to spew fourth onto the once green fields of Gaia to do battle with the sole entity that had stood defiant against the control of the powers that lay beyond that gaping wound in the earth. Deep within that black shifting mass that held the blade that sang with each entity it sliced through, the desire for revenge for the endless torment the soul it now carried had been put through as the energy source for the Red Door and those that resided beyond the gates of sanity; each day spent within the spirit hell that the blackstones had put the once named Vestille Thumahra had sought to weaken his resolve, break him down and throw him into a spiral of misery and hopelessness so that the forces of evil could feed upon his captive spirit without interferrence. Yet now? Connected to the void that once held him prisoner? He could feel the horror and panic spread across the realms beyond the door, spilling into each and every entity that flooded into reality like an infection.

And even the antibodies that fought the renegade spirit could not stop it.

So continued the dance of death, the fight to decide which of the two evils was to survive this fracture of interest. Without its power source, the door no doubt grew weaker as the minutes went by; it was a gauntlet, a time trial for the splintered mass, to continue to slay the creatures that rushed through the sinister wound in reality and consume the power offered little by little. To the little ones that sought to draw distance and observe the conflict that continued to corrupt the very landscape, it was evident that there was a fury like no other radiating from the epicenter of it all. This was not like a man driven by sorrow or anger, no; this was an anger and a rage that only someone brought back from death after a lifetime of torment could spurn. The bell tolls echoed across the landscape, that harrowed sound when one remembered that there was no church nor buildings around to warrant such a sound, only made more dreaded by the corrupt chime that riverbirated the blade as it was joined by a chorus of inhuman, eldritch screeching.

It was calling them closer.