M E A T B A G
Artwork by Smattila
The blade of meteoric iron sliced cleanly through the flesh of pale alabaster, eliciting a blood-curdling howl from the victim beneath his knife. He was an artist, and this man - nay - this thing was naught but a canvas. Together, they would paint a masterpiece. One that would be rendered into the annals of history. Every rictus stroke of his brush had birthed a splatter of crimson rain, painting everything within its arcing spray in the vital hues of life. It was hauntingly beautiful, and he simply had to finish. He could not allow himself to present his guests with such a gruesome display of cruelty - without completing his greatest work. How would they remember him if the canvas laid bare and incomplete? They'd mock the ashes of his bones when the pages of history had turned. He'd be nothing more than a sniveling wreck that had utterly brutalized a chained stretch of vellum. They had to know. They had to know his name so that he could transcend Death's Icy Grip, and live forever in the hearts and minds of those that bore witness to this masterpiece. He was known as Erebus. That was his name. Others had used it more, but it was his - and his alone. None could have it! When the Imperium had entered the era of Twilight, he had slain nearly a dozen that sought to steal what was his in what others would say was a jealous rage. However, that was until they saw the mangled corpses. Well, what was left of them. With the ashes of his past stirring within his addled mind, the Sith Lord had lowered his obsidian brush and let the waters of life drip onto the blood stained floor. He wouldn't do the same to this imprisoned portrait. No. Severing limbs and carving apart capillaries wasn't his best work, nor would it ever be. Whatever they had considered it to be, when the Imperium had exiled him, was nothing short of monstrous. It was an abomination! A stain on his career as an artist. How dare they immortalize that work, instead of the myriad of other pieces he had presented? Calm. He sued his mind for peace. It simply wouldn't do for him to lose himself to the rage boiling within his heart. The emotion was meant to be channeled through the body of the artist, not possess it. It clouded the sight and deprived the Sith of the ability to reason, to judge.
Breathing out a seething sigh of frustration, the Zabrak Sith stepped back from his shackled prey and began to admire his work. Yellowed eyes, rimmed with crimson, devoured the pale ivory flesh before him, seeking where to make the next cut. Silence had begun to blanket the circular chamber, broken only by the soft patter of ruby droplets pooling into an ocean of blood beneath his oiled leather boot. As time went on, and the silence began to thicken, more and more angles of approach had started to open. He knew exactly what he had to-
A rattle of iron manacles had shattered his concentration.
His eyes shimmered with the radiant heat of anger, as the blood within his veins simmered. He had it! The finishing touches! And all because of his inability to focus, a subtle shift in his prisoner's chains had caused the overlaid image to dissolve and flitter away. Erebus would have to begin again. There was no way to recover what was lost. All that time. All that effort! Lost. Forever. It was ruined. His masterpiece! The thing that everyone would remember him for! Nothing more than a bloodied corpse, hanging onto life by a thread he could never cut. His taloned fingers fanned across the wire-bound haft of the ritual knife, growing tighter with every digit encompassing its length. He could feel his rage flow through his body, coursing through his nerves and setting them alight. The Outrage! How? He began to question himself. How had this one managed to hold on for so long, despite the horrors I had wrought upon his flesh? What made him so special? What made him so worthy of the life I sought to take? So many questions fluttered through his mind, stirring more than just the ashes of memory as this raging tempest built.
Calm.
Calm.
He bid himself to ease this storm's passing, but the more his grasp had tried to simmer this roaring blaze, the further the sparks began to travel. How was he going to be calm after such a travesty? Something needed to be done - but what? Taking this ritual brush to the alabaster flesh of his prisoner would do little more than perpetuate his failures, and no other victim had lasted this long under such duress. This man, this Lucius Varad, was unique. Feeling the hooks of amusement pull at the edge of his lips, smiling in a way that a corpse would smile, Erebus had found his conduit at last.
"Guard!" He called, the throaty sound echoing through the muted silence, causing his partially painted canvas to flinch.
Beckoned forth by his master's call, a soldier, dressed in the ivory warplate of the Imperium, had entered the blood-stained chamber. Though his battle helm had masqued his revulsion, the sickly aura had permeated into the aether, despoiling the harmonious - Well. It wasn't harmonious, Erebus mused. Nevertheless! Such a pervasive atmosphere had done little but invite the Sith Lord's wrath, and as the Stormtrooper had opened his vocabulator to speak - the obsidian blade was several inches deep, slicing through flesh and bone as if it were nothing more than paper. A crimson geyser had fountained out from the wound, followed swiftly thereafter by billowing trails of steam. The Sith Lord relished the kill, feeling every corruptive ounce of rage spill through their point of connection, driving the blade further through the opening and kissing the now closed durasteel panel with a dull clatter.
"Shhhhh," The Zabrak cooed. "Hush now. Your suffering shall end soon. I am sorry it's come to this..." He tried to recall this faceless soldier's name, but for the life of him, nothing emerged. Glancing down at his breastplate and feeling the subtle Aurebesh stenciling above his heart, Erebus smiled. "Corporal Mensk. You see, I cannot despoil my prized possession. Not after all I have done to perfect his youthful beauty." He paused his whispered apology to cast a glance over his shoulder and stare once more at the unfinished masterpiece that awaited his final touches. As his gaze had returned to the trooper within his knife's embrace, Erebus lowered himself and his helpless victim to the floor. His taloned fingers disengaged the seal and removed the helmet from the dying soldier's crown, revealing a hideously disfigured face, bathed in the waters of his own frothing life. "You were my distraction, and for that I thank you. The mind grows stale when forced to revolve around a single font of inspiration."
Corporal Mensk was dead long before the Lord of the Sith had finished.
"Pity,"
Erebus had said as he gracelessly withdrew his blade and roused himself from the floor. "I was hoping for something more then Gurgle this and Gurgle that." Taking the ebony hem of his traditionally thick sackcloth robes, he set about cleansing the ritual blade, rhythmically rubbing the crimson flakes from the obsidian surface. "I suppose I'll have to use the Blood Poison next time. I hear it's all the rage in the Outer Rims."
Chuckling to himself, the Sith Lord finished cleaning his blade and stood once more before his shackled canvas. His eyes devoured the man's flesh, searching for a weakness to exploit, to a flaw to uncover. It was there that our adventure begins...
Lucius Varad. Rouge Twelve. Songbird.
The Alliance Pilot's been missing since the tumultuous victory over the One Sith at Coruscant. While his records had officially labeled him as Missing In Action, many within the infamous Squadron had believed him to be dead, or were too green to know that he existed. For months, Lucius had endured unspeakable horrors wrought upon his flesh at the hands of Darth Erebus, once a Sith Lord within the Empire of the One Sith, now a Master of all and a Servant of none.
Alliance Naval Intelligence had all but given up in their fruitless pursuit of the missing pilot. Just as they were about to label him as Killed in Action, Lucius was spotted upon the world of Arrgaw, where the Vanguard of the Alliance Fifth Legion had caught sight of him with his would-be captors. The chase lasted for nearly several hours through the Sorcerer infested crystalline forest, ending with their quarry escaping into orbit and the azure dimension of Hyperspace thereafter. After having come so close to rescuing one of their own, High Command and their allies in the SIS had taken to the skies in search of the vessel that had vanished into the bespeckled abyss.
Not long after their pursuit had begun, Operatives of the two Intelligence Divisions began reporting of an Ancient Imperial Star Destroyer jumping between systems, doing whatever they could to negate their hunter's mark. That was until the Star Destroyer, bearing the name "Unyielding Hierophant" was caught above the volcanic world of Mustafar by an astronomical anomaly. Now adrift upon the solar tides, the Alliance would finally have their chance to strike, and retrieve their long-lost comrade - provided he still lives.
| [member="Tegan Katarn"] | [member="Aerion Ivelisse"] | [member="Callia Rodez"] |
