Private The Canonization of Saint Vulcanus

[Aspect of Passion]

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Korriban
The Red Gate
864 ABY

Deep beneath the surface of Korriban lays a place none but the Worm himself and the Sepulchral have walked in many centuries. A massive cavity deep beneath the surface, in its center lies a massive obsidian pillar glowing with a soft red light that washes outwards against the walls - constant and unwavering in its intensity. To even reach it within the center of the cave is to walk nearly two kilometers, but it is a trip many welcome with great appreciation. It is the path of the Sith, the greatest among them have taken for millennia - and now another walks its path.​

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The Sepulchral, with small kyber lamps in hand, walked in front of the two others. The Worm Emperor and Other Space Kaiden would tread behind - but while the Worm glided ever forward, Vulcanus would feel his body fail with every step. Muscles broken down by the ritual he had undertaken, pulled from, Vulcanus's body was layered with poison and power beyond his means - and those around them understood what he was experiencing. Most who would undertake the ritual would be secluded to Red Gate even before they had taken it - but the Worm had faith Vulcanus would survive long enough to bring him back from the orbit of Ossus.​

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And he had, even mastering the first stages of a lost ability, awakened in his knowledge of the Dark Side.​

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"It is not much further, m'lords...", the corpse riddled voice of the Sepulchral member said from beneath his hood.​

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The other Sepulchral before them spoke as well;​

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"Darth Vulcanus... Enlighten us - what is it you saw?"​

 

[Other Space Kaiden]

The great rifts below Korriban felt as home to Vulcanus as Gratos itself - but he did not have time to appreciate it. Ossus had left his body a shambling corpse, even more so than it had already had been. Pain ravaged his every movement as muscles and ligaments tore free only to be haphazardly healed again so that the next step could, again, peel the meat and rip the flesh anew. His new understanding of the galaxy kept him from simply entering a blind rage, but it did it not stop the beast from growing more violently insatiable with every breath.

"Darth Vulcanus" the haggard whisper of the corpse guiding them drew his ire, "enlighten us - what is it that you saw?"

"The maker of my kind, Darth Sanem. The Lord of Hate, Tulak Hord." Vulcanus answered sharply, "they showed me truth and bore me witness to true power...then I took it as my own.

"It would he a waste of my time to describe anything more to something so much lesser" the beastial lord spat abruptly, the pain of his body fueling his rage. Having decided himself finished with speaking to the guides, Vulcanus turned his attention to The Worm,

"Sanem spoke of you. Claimed that your existence has been known before even he lived. What games are you playing, Worm? Why have you chosen to appear only now?"

 

[Aspect of Passion]

For a moment, the Worm remained silent as they moved forward - leaving the air full of the dark energies of the distant pillar and the cold stillness of the underground. Then, the Worm spoke - his voice carrying the regal intonations that had become well known of him;

"Not by choice.", the voice mused back.

"We have been defeated many times - once when we went by Valkorian, before we knew what we were; another when we went by Sidious. The Force brought about destiny, prophecy, destroyed us and attempted to separate our strength in the Nether. Each time they failed - and after eight hundred years, the Sepulchral brought us back once more.", the Worm offered the newest canonization to the Pantheon.

"Once more to claim the throne.", a woman offered from the darkness.

"Our finest hour come again.", a man spoke.

Other Space Kaiden

 

[Other Space Kaiden]

"Vague answers do nothing to hide your hypocrisy" Vulcanus sneered, a puff of flames escaping his nostrils, "Sanem claimed that your goal was to free The Sith from The Force. To empower the individual to rule and conquer...yet you speak as if the most touted Sith were nothing but another flesh mask that you wore."

As the group descended deeper, the pull of the darkside grew stronger. Though the pain of his body did not cease, the flow of darkness allowed his body to mend that much quicker. That much more efficiently. Soon The beast was able to quicken his pace, the pain subsiding - if only marginally.

"You speak like Zambrano" the beast lord hissed the name as an insult, "perhaps your finest hour is meant to be spent burning. Perhaps I was not wrong in my thoughts to destroy you and these corpses that serve you."

Despite the bluster, something was itching in the back of the old Emperor's mind. An understanding that he didn't quite know how to grasp. When Autume had entered his mind Sanem had done...something. It was as if the firery, violent aura that was Vulcanus had been shifted ever so slightly. The violence and anger were there but underneath it he could feel a presence in his body. A cold, calculating darkness that was just as foreign to his body as it was familiar.

As if the Sanem's own presence had not been destroyed as he had assumed.

 

[Aspect of Passion]

"And you listen like a child.", the Worm retorted.

"Infantile, you do not understand the depths to which I speak because you have not experienced them.", the Emperor seemed to say with a callous snap - not dissimilar to what he had done to Ashin before.

"Do not besmirch the Darth title you carry, or the canonization you will soon receive. You will understand the importance of your position soon enough, child - and the visions you recieved will make more sense."

The Sepulchral chimed in directly after, its black wooden staff clicking to a slow as they reached a cliffs edge - peering down to the base of the monolithic structure holding up the entire cavern.

"We are here, m'lords.", he offered.

Below them was a set of homes cut into the stone on either side - members of the Sepulchral spread around. Some were far more crippled than the ones that had walked them there - unable to move in their positions, others making noise as their tongues lay out of their mouths and eyes upwards; but in the Force, Vulcanus would know every single one for a Master - far beyond the general standard of Sorcerers on the surface.

In the center of their mass, as the various abominations of the Dark Side gathered in their red robes, lay an alter - large and covered in sith runes. In the center, an image - an alchemic sigil with the Sith Eternal logo in the center; all inlaid into obsidian. It was large enough to fit multiple Vulcanus's upon it - but in the moment, it was cleared for only him, no adornment across it, only the drawing sensation of its presence.

"Take your place upon the stone, Darth Vulcanus.", the Sepulchral Lord motioned.

Other Space Kaiden

 

[Other Space Kaiden]

Vulcanus peered down at the ornate stone and the Sith Eternal symbolism emblazoned upon them. For a long moment the beast allowed the Sepuchral's command to hang in the air without answer. This place was...strange. Vulcanus sniffed the air and found it heavy with power. Ancient power. Yet all he saw before him were haggard corpses that could barely shamble to and from.

turning towards The Worm, Vulcanus released another cloud of flame from his nose, "few have spoken to me like you and lived to speak of it" Vulcanus noted, "The childish awe you struck in me at Zygerria faded with Sanem's vision. I suffer your continued insolence for one reason, Worm."

Turning back towards the stone tablets, Vulcanus accepted - perhaps for the first time since Ossus - the truth. "Understanding. I see now why my conquests led me to destruction before. I knew power, but did not understand it. Knew The Force but did not see its truth."

Taking the first step onto the winding staircase that would bring him to the ritual site, Vulcanus spoke with such conviction and truth that The Darkside itself shifted at his words.

"Once I understand - once you have served your purpose - I will kill you."

Another word was not spoken to The Worm as the beast limped down the stairs, shouldering past the corpses with little care for the power he smelled upon them. Arriving on the stones, Vulcanus centered himself inside the Eternal emblem with such confidence that it was as if, to him, the entire order was meant to center upon him.

Power seemed to trickle upward from the stones, rising through his bones and out through his limbs. For a moment it had become hard to even breathe, as if he was drowning in the sheer potency of this place.

"Show me, then." Vulcanus issued to The Worm and its servants, his arms stretching wide, "show me your truth."

 

[Aspect of Passion]

The Worm didn't respond as Vulcanus moved down the stairway - one of the five masks watching him as he moved down. Leading him was one of the Sepulchral still able to stand and move; but his limbs were visibly skinny even behind the depths of the robes. Contrary to Vulcanus's belief of strength in form, each of those around them seemed nigh on par with his Force potential; but the leader in front of him, who's head was covered in sith runic tattoos marred on muddied grey skin seemed beyond even his depths.

"Darth Vulcanus...", the assumed man spoke through a voice that stuck to the air like dust.

"Long have you been the God of the Graug, the Flame, the Seventh Day Emperor - a thousand titles, a thousand stories. Today, you will gain one more.", he offered as he tapped his wooden staff on the ground - forcing those who could still move of their own accord to begin to draw lines around him in trails of ash from bags.

"Today you become the Saint of Flames, and forever more the Sith will know you for one who has ascended. You shall be strengthened through the Force, given secrets known only to the Saints, and made a horcrux for the Sith'ari. Many of these things will be for only you to know - but we will do all we can to ensure you survive."

Those crippled pulled themselves into a circle around the center tablet, eyes bulging as some seemed to stare off into the nowhere above them - though their presence in the Force couldn't be more prevalent in the moment. As the ashen circle was finished around Vulcanus, the leader of the Sepulchral approached with a toothy grip, lips long since rotted away. In his hand, another pouch of ash.

"The Lord of Hate, Darth Vulcanus. Consume him - and feel his power course through you. When you awake, you will be reborn."

In the distance, the Worm Emperor remained unmoving, but now all the masks seemed to point towards him. Their attention felt like spears piercing his thick flesh, but their eyes were empty. For the briefest moment, Vulcanus would almost feel a connection to the Worm that he hadn't before, as though they were one - stretched across time. For a moment, they were together.

But the feeling faded as the ash was put in his hand.

Other Space Kaiden

 

[Other Space Kaiden]

Burning eyes peered down at the pouch offered out to him on frail, meatless fingers. The beast sneered, a blast of hot air fluttering the tail ends of the lead corpse's robes.

"This again? Have you no other tricks?" Vulcanus glanced at The Worm perched on the overlook above, then back to the bag of ashes. Yet the bluster was just that - so much unlike the monster that had spoken to The Worm on The Red Dragon.

A set of razor-edged claws eclipsed the corpse's hand, crushing it beneath a loose fist as it drug the pouch from its palm. Leaving behind tattered skin, Vulcanus brought the entire pouch up to his mouth and tossed it whole into his fangfilled jaws. The beast gagged, coughed and choked as the finely dusted Sith Lord coated the inside of his throat.

It wasn't long before the same sensations overtook him as they had aboard The Red Dragon. The cave began spinning slowly in his vision and he felt his gut wrench before a steam jet of bile was evicted from his stomach. The steaming, ooze filled jet of vomit sprayed forth before the beast's jaw could part - sending three distinct streams of putrid, green slime spraying across the cavern floor and the lead corpse's robes.

Suddenly the pain in his muscles turned to a body-wide agony. Stones shuttered loose and fell as Vulcanus unleashed a thunderous roar that echoed through the caverns - bouts of flames exploding forth from sharp claws as he fell to his knees. He felt his muscles pull upon themselves, peeling from the bone in strings of wet meat.

Agony. Pure agony.

Then it was gone...the pain, the cave...the physical world itself. Vulcanus' eyes slowly shook back onto focus. He was on his hands and knees, just as before, and his eyes were fixed to the ground. The painted glass was there, but gone were the flowing robes of Sanem and golden rivers of hair that belonged to Sanem. Replacing him was a figure covered from head to toe in a black armor, darker than any metal he had ever before seen. Two horns jutted from a red eyed helm and over its shoulders was draped a cape of flames as if it were a trophy of a conquered animal to be worn. This imposing shadow sat upon the obsidian throne where Sanem once sat.

Vulcanus' eyes followed the painted glass with his eyes, up, up, up until he saw the same stone throne jutting from the glass. No one sat upon it and now it seemed broken, tattered and shattered - a crack running down the center of the backrest with armrests that were crumbling to dust.

Vulcanus rose, eyes fixed on the throne for only a moment before he searched the mindscape for something...anything.

 

[Aspect of Passion]

The Sepulchral Sorcerer didn't move as his flesh was rended from the bone of his hand - long since deadened by the corruption of the Dark Side. Physical sensation meant nothing to him, and a grin beamed haphazardly across his lipless skull even as the bile was thrown upon him. His words came quick, confident, authoritative -

"Begin.", he said with a tap of his staff, splashing some remnants of the bile as he did so. Those encircling Vulcanus began to chant in ur-Kittat - harsh and grating with every word empowered with the Dark Side. The room went from overbearing to a swirling maelstrom that threatened to strip flesh from bone - and in the center of that storm was the writhing, unconcious body of Vulcanus.

---

As Vulcanus looked upon the black armor of the figure, and the cracked throne, he would hear voices behind him.

"Once more unto the breach.", the Worm offered, standing tall behind the leader of the Sepulchral Vulcanus had cut deep only a moment before.

"Indeed, m'lord.", the man offered.

They strode together, the Worm floating forward only slightly behind the Sepulchral member before they stopped on the other side of Vulcanus opposite of the Throne. The void beyond their vision began to have faces form within it, like sillouhettes, and each watched Vulcanus carefully - as though this time there lay an audience for his ascension.

"In your mind you can feel the unlimited scope of your potential - but it is a stranger, foreign to you. You must learn to conquer what you know, what you were, and know the new truth Darth Vulcanus.", the Worm said mask unmoving.

Then it transitioned - from the golden face of the Worm, to Sidious, to Valkorian, to Bane - a thousand faces moving quickly and intangibly between themselves. Every Sith that had given themselves to the collective existed both at once, an in order - seeming to shift together and apart like a super position, only collapsing as Vulcanus could focus on them - only to transition against as his eyes would move.

"Our fight, as Sith, is against the chains of the Force. The Celestials, The Ones, Abaloth, The Father, The Daughter, the Son - the names do not matter, they are all one. It is this force that tries to strangle us, bring us to our knees through Fate; yet we persist. The Jedi could not destroy us after the Great Hyperspace War, nor could they when Darth Bane had ended the Order on his terms. We survived the fate of Darth Sidious, and we persisted through the Great Darkness; all to take the throne now."

"But each of us must be strong enough to take it by their own measure. The Sith'ari spirit exists to gain strength from each concurrent generation - so that inevitably, we will rule the Galaxy. Our goals, aspirations, they can not stop at conquering planets and subverting sentients - these are the laymens games. The Saints must strive for more, for the eternal..."

"You must strive for the Eternal, Darth Vulcanus. To lay the ground work for Sith stronger than us, to conquer the greatest throne - when the Celestial's are weakest."

"But you must defeat your mortality...", the Worm offered as he motioned to the distant figure sitting on the throne.

"... Kill the weakness that remains. Know only strength."

Other Space Kaiden

 

[Other Space Kaiden]

Vulcanus was silent as The Worm spoke. The Celestials? He had heard the name before - they were a precursor race to even The Rakata. The Son? The Daughter? The Father? All old names that had meant little to him, even when he had ruled the Sith for his Seven Days of Fire. The inplications of what The Worm said now, however, were vast and beyond his understanding.

"These Celestials, you speak as if they are The Force" Vulcanus spat the question like poison from his mouth, "how can one conquer such a thing as The Force? It is immaterial. It has no armies. No borders."

The Great beast would wait for whatever wisdom The Worm would impart and then, with a likely unsatisfied huff, would turn towards the throne. With no words to be spoke Vulcanus lumbered forward, the shadow on the throne only standing once Vulcanus had made it half the way. Closer and closer the Sith Lord walked, his sulfuric eyes locking with the glaring yellow eyes that stared back at him. He had killed Hord once, he reasoned, he would do so again.

But as the beast lit a black flame in his hand and moved into striking range, the truth unfolded. Vulcanus looked into his own eyes...but not his eyes, no, these eyes belonged to a younger warlord. A warlord who had faded away on Atrisia two decades ago.

"What is this?" Vulcanus hissed, to which his younger self opened wide with a toothy grin, his head cooking.

"This truth" the reflection spoke back in the broken basic Vulcanus had once been cursed with, "no grow. Your power small. Always small. No grow. Always me."

The reflections fangs began drooling as it pounded its ultrachrome chest plate, "Always me."

A blast of black fire engulfed the apparition, swallowed the throne and disappeared into the unending darkness of the mindscape. When at last the flames disappeared only the throne stood, smoking. The reflection was gone. Vulcanus laughed, moved to turn - but stopped cold when he heard it;

"Always me. Fire burn not fire" suddenly Vulcanus' left arm swept upward without his control. The possessed hand dug razor claws into the flesh of his right arm, unleashing a roar of pain.

"Weak mind" he heard the voice again as if it was from his own mouth. That was when he caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the glass beneath him. His face had morphed, mutated and changed until the left had become a perfect reflection of his former self while the right remained the twisted corpse Carnifex had provided his soul.

"Weak body" another voice attacked from his past. The beast turned spun like a top in search of its source...the sound peeling, popping flesh drew his attention to his left forearm.

A reptillian eye glared up at him, it's lid made from his own hide as if it had grown from his own muscle and bone...it was unmistakable whose it was. Grax, brother and father to him - and former Warlord to his clan. "You should have died. Been tossed from the Mother's peak and forgotten." Grax spoke in the Graug tongue - cursing his existence just as he had when he fell from his mother's womb.

Vulcanus lashed out at his own flesh, tearing and rending...

 

[Aspect of Passion]

"They are.", the Worm offered, his tone shifting between Palpatine and Plageius in tune with one another - yet grating, like they fought for control.

"In a sense. They sit atop the Throne of Balance; and through it, they are both rulers of the Force and the Force itself - so far separated from our concept of mortality, not even the Jedi have been able to understand their existence or influence.", his words ending in the raised tones of Darth Zannah.

"To conquer it, is to be Sith. Every moment you draw on the Force, take strength from it with an iron grip - you conquer it. Small, but ever use of the Force is a battle you have won. Where the Jedi seek boons from the Force, Sith steal strength from it - Power for Power's sake, to show the Force we can."

The Sepulchral priest next to them tapped his staff against the ground - and the world changed from its center point. From the dark abyss with only a throne - the world of Zygeria, burning eternal from the forges he had placed on the planet. Graug moved in the distance, but they were alone - the throne of his mind standing empty overlooking the growing fight he was now facing.

"But there is more to face than the Force; as any thought that is not under your control is littered with subtle cues from the Force. To be in control of ones self is paramount, lest the Dark Side corrupt you, make you lose your mind..."

"... Turn you into an animal."

Other Space Kaiden