Invasion Warlords of the Sith vs Th Sith Empire | Invasion of Malachor V |

[Darth Voyance]

---

INVASION DETAILS BELOW
​

Spoiler

---

CALLED OUT RP PAIRINGS[/CENTER]

Warlords of the Sith​	The Sith Empire​
Darth Luminoth​	Cara Dorniarn​
Ashin Cardé Varanin​	Ingrid L'lerim [Eternal Empire]​
Darth Voyance​	Arctus Silmar​
Vora Kaar​	Alisteri Haxim & Sar Calgar​
Zinn Zinn Bink'sa & Ihsan​	Aurelion Nova & Lesaj​
Khamul Kryze​	Ulrich​
Drako​	Lady Marrow​
Dasam Kal​	Valen​
Darth Kentarch​	Darth Xiphos ( Laertia Io )​
Darth Maleva & Quintus Varro​	Alina Tremiru & Kalt Bruq​

[If they are on the same row they are paired]

---

​

INVASION OBJECTIVES [Note: These Objective All Start In Media Res]​
Divinity and Insanity are but only different by the width of a hair. Such is the quiet terror of the Dark Saint of the Sith - Darth Voyance. ​ Having scouted Malachor much earlier, Voyance had engineered the first target of the Warlords’ Sith’ari Crusade to be Malachor. The Dark Sovereigns had made it clear that their aim would be to liberate all the Sith Holy Worlds from False Sith’ari. But, Voyance, ever the manipulator, has chosen Malachor for a secondary reason. Darth Voyance’s real target is the Sith Malachor Temple deep in the ruins of what was an ancient conflict between the Jedi and Sith called the Great Scourge of Malachor. Landing at the Malachor Temple with an advanced vanguard force, Darth Voyance purposely maneuvers herself to be the target of the main Sith Imperial Force - looking to attract as many Sith to her position as possible so that she may face them all down. The battle will consume the entire area and a new scourge will begin.​
OBJECTIVE NOTES: This Objective is further divided into two Sub-Locations:​ Location A: The Fields of Ash: The Fields of Ash is the entire area immediately around the Sith Temple of Malachor. This is the area covered in dark, charred, and crumbling ruins; the ossified and preserved bodies of ancient Sith and Jedi permanently petrified in freezes of torment and anguish. This is hallowed ground for battle and dangerously infused with the exhaustively horrific emotions of the ones lost during the Great Scourge. Dangerous even to Darksiders, as the ash of these corpses bound within them are emotions that can overwhelm in the Force. This Location is wide open in story on purpose so that everyone here can explore their own stories with their own stakes. Go wild. Use it as you please. The environment plays a key role too and has effects on duelling narratives as explained in the Fields of Ash. Location B: Temple of Malachor The Temple of Malachor refers to the Sith Malachor Temple - a multi-level dark step pyramid with ramparts, embattles, and a cratered pinnacle. The battles here are scattered across the very step-levels of the pyramid or on its ruined slopes - or on the pinnacle where Darth Voyance has planted herself and declared a Kaggath against the entire Sith Empire’s Lordships. This is a set up designed to a larger version of the showdown from Rebels Episode 21-22, Voyance will be the meta-narrative plot device here but all are welcome to take her on or break off into other fights along the temple.​
All Sith are graverobbers, pillaging the ancient to conquer the modern. But, some things are best left alone. ​ The Mad Dread King Kascalion Giedfield travels to the core of Malachor and to the ruins of the Trayus Academy with his Knights and Tyrophites. There the Dread King assaults the Academy’s ruined corridors, Sith-Imperial Archaeological sites and defences in order to liberate holy relics as well as the holy world of Malachor from the Empire. But, as the battles spill into the many deep labyrinthine spaces of the subsurface academy - elder things stir. Things infused with the unstable dark side of Malachor, ancient things, creations of ancient Sith - far more ancient than the legendary Sith Triumvirate that had once made the Academy their base. Things from the time of Sith memorial, such as Sith King Adas. Sith Spawn laid dormant, now awoken, and beasts of ancient war, stirred to fight all they encountered - Warlords or Sith-Imperial. The hunters now have become the hunted. ​
OBJECTIVE NOTES:​ This Objective is done as a Dungeon-Crawler/Treasure Hunt Adventure but, at the same time a Survival Horror Game as conflicts between Warlords and Sith-Imperials will be complicated by ancient Sith Spawn awakened by the Dark Side energies discharged by the battling Sith. Take this into account and RP the interruption - and the dangers that follow as you search deeper into the lost corners of the Trayus Academy.​

 

[Darth Voyance]

---

---

[This section was co-authored by Darth Voyance and Ashin Cardé Varanin ]​

​

Darth Voyance

In the crimson haze of the churning cloud citadels that whirled above Tash-Taral, the capital of the Warlords of the Sith, hung the mobile academy of Ashin Cardé Varanin - the Pomojema. Painted by the sunset in golds, reds, and deep tainted purples, the floating academy appeared like a glimmering monolith. From inside, the Dark Saint of the Warlords, Darth Voyance sat within the vast library. She had in her hands a holopad that displayed the digitized preservations of the Sith Scholar Velok the Younger. Voyance eyed the words that scrolled over the pad’s dim blue screen. In truth, Voyance had found it hard to absorb what she normally would devour - knowledge. She was distracted. The former Empress and Sith recluse had requested her presence on the Pomojema for some unknown reason. This irked Voyance who despised not being able to read those she commanded or otherwise.

Her gloved hand halted its scrolling and she stared not at the words but beyond them, in some contemplative middle distance. Her golden eyes narrowed and she sighed heavily, trying to dispel the calculative speculations that meandered in her mind and as a result probed the Force for answers in reflex. Voyance had much on her mind. The Crusades against the Sith Empire was upon them soon enough and even more pressing Voyance’s own machinations were close to activation. Machinations that would bring about what she had foreseen - the Sith End Times. The End of the Sith as they were now. Like sage Sith before her, she had taken that task to rid the galaxy of the current Sth in order to bleed the Dark Side of malformed humors. As if the Dark Side was an ill patient and the only recourse was a persistent sanguination.

Voyance turned off the holopad and gently rested it on an obsidian polished table. She paused for a moment, hearing the actuators of the automatic doors wheeze mechanical groans as they slid the large slabs of the duranium doors apart. Voyance turned only her head to side eye the arrival of the Pomojema’s revenant master. “Lady Varanin,” greeted Voyance cooly and cordially, continuing, “I did not expect such a quick invitation from you just before our holy duties are unleashed.”

Ashin Varanin
The Pomojema's library was a beautiful place, to Ashin's eye. She made a note to get that wheezing door checked. She took a seat at the glossy table across from Voyance. "I'm not a prophet," she said apropos of nothing, "but I employ a few good ones, and I have concerns, Sovereign. I'm aware you plan a ritual of sorts once we set foot on Malachor, as part of your latest challenge to the Dark Council. I need to be sure I understand what you hope to accomplish, and what the cost would be."

Darth Voyance
“I see,” replied Voyance. “You are as perceptive as you are wise, Lady Varanin.”

Voyance turned fully now to face Ashin, she did not sit with her, but instead perched her arm on the back of the seat across from her. “Do you know why I coerced the forging of this confederal covenant of disparate Sith?” Voyance began, sliding her hand down the spine of the chair as she rounded the table to pace about in the larger space of the library. “The narrow-minded and arrogant of the galaxy mark me as another ‘upstart conqueror’, seeking to supplant one hegemony with another. Busy with the game of swallowing worlds on the galactic map. Producing another annexed dot in a flood of hundreds. They are fools,” Voyance lectured.

She stopped and gestured to Ashin, pointing to her as an example of her next, “And what of our kind, the Sith?” she continued, “They call me an Arch-Heretic or another claimant of the mantle of Dark Lord, like those who roost profanely in our holy worlds in the Stygian Caldera.” Voyance laughed and shook her head, “I have no use for titles like Dark Lord, Empress, or Sith’ari. I have no use for vainglorious pursuits. Such things are what has rotted our kind from within ever since the One Sith conquered Coruscant and the Core.”

Voyance looked away from Ashin and to her own raised fists. Her fingers curled against their own flesh, stretching the black leather of her gloves taught and thin. The Dark Side surged in them and they manifested her burning fury, an unholy fury of disgust and ambition for purification. “We have become complacent, vain, misguided...and weak,” Voyance growled. “Look at this ‘Sith’ yielded to us by decades of stagnated self-indulgence and pointless self-aggrandizing. All their power inherited, granted, and coddled by greater ones, rather than being created through proper struggle that breeds resilient Sith. The Empire...itself...is a bloated inheritance of the One Sith Empire.”

“They live in a delusion, thinking somehow that their rotting throne deserves nothing else but utter destruction. It is the way of the Sith to destroy the failing, to cull the ailing, and end the weak. Rather than rise up and destroy what they should see as holding them back...holding all of us back...they suckle at it’s last drips of fed meager power.”

Vouyance sighed and slowly released her fingers from the fists that bound them. “I am tired...Ashin...so very tired of the arrogantly weak suffocating our kind,” Voyance finished, turning to Ashin, her binary golden suns burning waves at her.

“So I created the Warlords of the Sith, an experiment to pressure those who aren’t attached to the carcass of the Empire or to the vanities of the Lords in Korriban,” Voyance revealed, going on, “...And to force them into struggle, strife, and bloodshed until like a diamond the pressures produce true Sith...ones born in the way the Code demands, through Passion, Strength, the Force, and won Freedom. Not through Imperial Bureaucracy or sycophantic placations of an imitation Dark Lord. And should a true Sith’ari rise within our covenant to take the mantle and destroy me to found a new order?...Then so be it. I have foreseen it. I am not afraid. I know my purpose.”

“No. They must all be removed. In order for my plans to bear the darkest fruit, they must be removed. Even the weak among our own covenant,” Voyance said in a deep whisper.

“Wipe them out,” Voyance hissed. “All...of them.”

Ashin Varanin
Ashin was quiet for a long time, sitting there at the obsidian table. Voyance sensed deep fury under tight control.

"It's as my people feared, then. You'll deploy a ritual that'll kill indiscriminately on both sides. Sovereign...I agree with your assessment with all my heart, but your plan is deeply counterproductive. Ninn was a skirmish. Malachor will be the Warlords' first taste of outright war. You absolutely cannot kick off the Sitharian Crusades by turning on your own. If you do this, your war will crumble. You and your ideals will become a footnote."

Her hand on the table tightened, knotted into a fist. "Join me." said Ashin.

"There's another ritual - the Breath of Ash, right there on sacred ground. Our enemies, rivals, and allies will taste the agony that our predecessors felt, every wound they took while the Jedi slaughtered them. Some will fall short, and falter, and die. Some will become strong. And they'll look at us and know - and know - that we are their best hope for authenticity."

Darth Voyance

Voyance said nothing for a moment. ‘Join Me’...the offer bounced around in her mind, ricocheting off of her own resistance, interest, and suspicions. Of course the former Empress was correct. This crusade was the first step in bringing about the death and rebirth of the Sith Order - an end times of the old. But, Voyance saw the poison that still infested the Sith. It infested all of them and everyone. Sith bewitched by empire and peaceful unity, when such things were anathema to the Sith. They had to be taught a final lesson. A deep lesson. Carved into their souls by the Dark Side. A scarring lesson much like the one that was taught at Malachor. Voyance returned to the table and sat down across from Ashin, “Is it possible to learn such power? This ‘Breath of Ash’?”

Ashin Varanin
"I called you to learn it once before, Sovereign." Ashin's face tightened with something like foreboding. "But we're all dragged down different paths to enlightenment, aren't we."
​

The question, of course, was who would be dragging whom.

---

---

---

Location: (1) Tuk'ata-Class Qotsisajakaar Battleship ‘The Reliquary’ [and then] (2) In her Starfighter descending to Malachor Temple
Objective: Scourge of Malachor [1B - Temple of Malachor]
Warlord Horde: Horde Scourge
Paired TSE Targets: Arctus Silmar
TSE Enemies in Vicinity: TBA
Warlords Allies in Vicinity: TBA

---

Suspended above the grated steel plate tiles of the Sith Dojo floor, Darth Voyance focused her mind’s churning thoughts and the Dark Side that embalmed them. She manipulated her emotions, which fumed in soulful gusts of rage, fury, and malice, to manifest the Force in its Dark Side corruption as invisible tendrils.

These limbs of malevolent quintessence gripped, clawed, and snatched the orbiting disparate pieces of her double-sided lightsaber, hovering them around her. Dismantled by the Force, in meticulous ritual, and scattered into gyroscopic encrentic rings they spun around the Rutian Sith Lady on various angled axes. Her conjuration of a floating meditative trance helped temper her powers into a condensed locale that she then used as fuel to power a much more exhaustive mediation - Battle Meditation.

Since the arrival of the full crusading horde of the Warlords of the Sith to Malachor, Darth Voyance had been deep in Battle Meditation, surveying all of Malachor from within the special Dojo built into the armored Sith Meditation Sphere Capsule, embedded in her command battleship - The Reliquary. Using energies d from the dark nexus of Sepulcher before the fleet departed, she energized her Battle Meditation to envelope the portion of the assaulting Sith Warlords Horde she commanded. A crusader contingent she codenamed - Horde Scourge.

As its Warlord Commander, she infused the Sith Battle Chapters, Crusading Holy Orders, and Knights with her whispering thoughts - guiding the planetary assault that was in progress below the ship’s orbit around the ruinous world of Malachor V. She could sense, witness, study it all. The dropships landing on the scarred surface, the Battle Chapter Troopers rushing into the Sith-Imperial tides, and the drop-pods puncturing its withering crust to reach the lost temples below. And it all made her frown, bending her dark blue lips into a pressed crescent. Nothing was going as planned.

Though Malachor V was a dead world and beyond the current attentions of the Sith-Imperial wars against the Galactic Alliance and New Imperial Order, their remnant power could still draw upon the local systems for aid - no doubt reinforcements would add to this. The Empire still consumed over eighty systems and the many worlds within them. Even after the fall of the Imperial Remnant sector in Braxant and the pressures of the Galactic Alliance, the Sith Empire still had their recent victories to bolster their force and morale. After all, the Sith Empire was still an Empire. They had made headway on Malachor, caught the Empire between battles. But still...something was off. Voyance’s brows crushed together and translucent dew like beads of sweat began to trickle down her body. They wept from her brow, down the arc of her nose and dripped onto her lips and neck. For all her powers of empathy, vision, and foresight, she struggled to keep focus and control. Voyance’s doubt grew, had she miscalculated? She grimaced and banished the thought, burying it below the chorus of rage that song her furies of single-minded obsession. Nevertheless, every death, destructive moment, and zealous last battle cry echoed in her mind and ignited her irritations.

As she painfully strategized through the Dark Side, two Mustafarian Lava Kyber Crystals orbited by her face. Like two raging binary suns, they glowed with a furious crimson amber light that painted the blue Twi’lek’s skin a muddied red purple. Lights within the crystal undulated and pulsed in splattering flecks, like the flowing lava fields of its lost homeworld. The guiding tendrils held them in place before Voyance as slowly the various pieces of her lightsaber were drawn to them.

First came the diatium power cell mounted in its own encasing it locked to the primary crystal mount. Together they entombed the two mustafarian crystals, smothering their bright glow. Then the black metal shaft casing, the emitter rimmed by a single long spike, and the ignition button casings. Combined they formed a manipulated dance, controlled by the Force as it was siphoned through Darth Voyance, piece by piece. When completely assembled Voyance slowly stretched out her dark gloved hand and cut the Force from the lightsaber. It plopped into her palm and she curled her fingers around the saber in a taut fist. She opened her eyes and hissed a deep exhale from her nostrils. With the dying exhale, she began to descend. She unfurled her crossed legs and landed on their black booted heels. She slowly opened her eyes and was greeted by a crimson polished protocol droid who had been witness to her meditations.

Voyance, without eyeing the droid, spoke to it coolly, “Report.”

The droid gave a curt bow with a nod and replied, “Initial detail from the battlefield has reported back that they have produced initial punctures in the outer defenses of the planet. But, an avenue for an arrival vector for your Ladyship to the Malachor Temple is still being battled. Vanguard forces have already engaged in the Fields of Ash but the unstable terrain of the environment and the energies available to the Imperial Sith Knights has energized their defense. The advance has slowed by 50%. The odds of a significant offensive push is..”

The droid’s report ended abruptly. Its core chassis and circuitry was crushed into a wrinkled crater. The convolusing droid gargled electric discharges and rattling mechanical wheezes before it collapsed in a cacophonous heap.

Voyance upper lip curled and it revealed her grinding teeth. Something was off in her. Something was wrong. Her usual steeled determination was...wavering. Why? Had something distracted her? Something she had not accounted for. Voyance stood in silence, surrounded by the cavernous void of the Meditation Sphere Capsule. Her mind searched and searched...then it thought of something.

“Varanin,” she pressed through the gaps in her clenched teeth. “Damn that old hag, she’s in my head. Throwing off my balance. My resolve. Why?” Voyance dropped her head to eye her saber, “Have I fallen for her words?...No. No, I must center myself. I must finish what I have begun. Wipe them out, Pythia. All of them. No matter the cost....no matter our cost.”

Voyance stepped away from the smoldering droid and marched to the doors. She spoke into the installed comms of her crimson plate armor’s vambrace. “Prepare the Empyrean for my decent, I will lead the vanguard to the Temple myself.” The hangar commander on the other side complied to the order, “As you wish, my Lady.”​

Reaching her personal starfighter, Darth Voyance mused about the battle and the secret mission she had brewed. Malachor would be the beginning of the end, The end of the Sith Order as it was now. An End Times, just as it was ushered millennia ago in the same world. ‘How poetic,’ Voyance pondered, ‘...it almost rhymes.’ She smiled and thought of Ashin. ‘I’m afraid I cannot join you Lady Varanin. It is too late.’ Voyance confessed to the Force. Voyance entered her starfighter and departed from the Reliquary, flying down with a squadron of Crimson Bolt Interceptors and Verhijukenes-Class Air Assault Gunships. Passing the atmosphere she was immediately set upon by atmospheric Sith Imperial Starfighter squadrons.

Nothing was going as she had planned. Had the Dark Side lied to her? Had it betrayed her?

---

​

​

 

[Ingrid L'lerim]

Lady Ingrid L’lerim Ragal Terassi Vandiir
Eternal Empress of the Eternal Empire, Lord Commander of the Wardens of the Shroud
The Red Witch, The Night Queen, Lady Stuztala, Head of the House L’lerim, CEO of the HPI Consortium, Archon of the Primyn Group​

Location: The Fields of Ash, Malachor V
Objective I.: Scourge of Malachor
Equipment: 2x Sigra vibroblade | 2x Striith vibrosword | Kiss of the Red Witch | Heilagr MK. I ssassin Armour | The Last Gift || Empyrean gland
Writing with: Ashin Cardé Varanin | Kal

[ Just Inside My Head ] ​

The Sith will always remain the Sith… the new Sith faction, led by Darth Voyance , instead of helping the TSE before the NIO and GA came for them, no; they also attacked them in the back. The woman really started to get tired of the war, which she really only started because of Adrian, because she loved her husband, especially since EE remained independent after the first attack. She never wanted this war; and ever since her husband died she especially wanted an end to it.

What else would she have to do to put an end to her?

She has no idea about it; she tried everything in the highest circles. But, if everyone just wants blood, she can’t do anything. And Bryn’adûl will win when they start their offensive. As she read from the files, after a long time, the SJC, who was even attacked by the Worm Emperor, was attacked again. She sighed, if she didn't count BotM, then the western half of the galaxy was at least peaceful.

She arrived on the planet by dropship; actually came to find something to get closer to resurrecting Adrian. She still felt the same way she did that day at Dantooine, still not giving up; never will. However, she promised the Sith Lord that she would take care of herself, which is why she had now brought the sniper rifle to help her own from a distance. Anyway, it used to be that she chose such a fighting style, even though loved it.

However, something wanted to pull her plans through tight away, a "thing" she felt after her arrival. Since the woman was already part of the Netherworld, she felt very well that there was something wrong with the souls and that the Force was swirling over a place. The red-haired woman felt a familiar yet unknown aura from this direction. She had felt it before, but she didn't know whose it was. After all, the Eternal Empress had never met the former Sith Empress.

Ingrid, as always, hid her presence in the Force, and the amulet was there to help her. She was looking for a place where there were countless ruins and landmarks, a rock where she could hide. Here she took a comfortable position and began searching for the source of the Force's confusion with the sniper rifle's binoculars. And she soon found her target on The Fields of Ash, with whom had someone. If Kal might not have been seen, she could still feel his presence very little.

The disturbance definitely came from the woman's direction. The Red Witch aimed at her opponent, carrying a crosshair in the middle of the woman's chest, but she hadn't pulled the trigger yet, just watching what this ceremony or ritual was. Ingid didn't want to do any more damage by killing the woman and the ritual broke loose…

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

OBJECTIVE 1
LOCATION A: THE FIELDS OF ASH
ENGAGING: Ingrid L'lerim
GEAR: Kotsirluuk, DNK0 spotter droid, anticoncussion shoulder pad, basic light armor, Breshig War Forge SR-2M rifle with a variety of ammunition, and a lot of ash
GOAL: Conduct the rediscovered Breath of Ashes ritual on Malachor after eight or nine centuries forgotten


To know a place, know it well, was crucial to a good ritual. And Malachor knew nobody. To her shame, Ashin had largely overlooked the sacred world while serving as Empress thirty years ago. For all the Sith Empire's grandeur, and even though they retained a massive military presence in this sector by the Warlords' standards, they'd neglected what made this world special. The Warlords had decided not to repeat that mistake.

Thus, Ashin had come down early, taken a stealth ship, spent three days here in the Fields until the ash embedded itself in her skin, hair, clothing. She'd worn a simple breath mask except when she wanted to partake of the agonizing ritual again by inhaling the ash and letting the dark side speak.

Over and over, she'd experienced every wound as the Jedi cut down the long-dead Sith. That was the heart of the ritual: breath in the ash of the massacred and purged. Experience their deaths. She'd conducted the ritual several times before, but only on the Pomojema. This ritual was the closest the Sith came to sacredness.

She'd invited Darth Voyance to participate, to take this better way than whatever insanity the Sovereign was planning. And Voyance wasn't here, because Voyance's bloodthirst controlled her. Voyance was over there, a good ways off, at the Temple, preparing a ritual that could kill many on both sides.

Complete this ritual once other Sith arrived in the area, and Ashin might well interrupt that ritual, render it obsolete, preserve the Warlords' chances against the shaken but still-titanic Sith Empire, awaken Voyance to a deeper understanding of how to purify, strengthen, recommit, and actually lead the Sith-

Many hopes. Unusual and incongruous for a Sith Lord, sitting in a giant ash pile with ancient pain in her blood and a rifle across her knees.

Many hopes.

Her DNK0 spotter droid whispered in her earbud comm, despite hovering only a couple of meters away among ash-statues that had been corpses once. The quiet little droid's sensors had detected an arrival. It sounded dubious. In Ashin's experience, that meant someone was very good at remaining hidden. And that could derail...everything.

For the moment, she sat right where she was, covered in ash, presence blending into the background. The other would know she was here, but not where.

Priority number one, of course, was the Breath of Ash ritual - but to do that, she needed to know where the other was. She reached out very subtly and stirred the ash a good hundred meters away, as if someone was walking over there.

​

Spoiler: ritual sources

Darth Maul (2017)

Age of Republic - Darth Maul (2018)

 

[Laertia Io]

Delete

 

[Alina Tremiru]

OBJECTIVE 1: Survive and Delay:
Location: The Temple of Malachor
Called Targets: Darth Maleva | Quintus Varro
Allies In Vicinity: Sith Empire | Kalt Bruq ​

This wasn't what was supposed to happen.

Alina's fingers tightened around the haft of her Lightspear as she impatiently watched the monitor signaling their arrival into the Malachor system. Malachor was a dead system, it's temple barely of use to the Empire now. Ruins to be scoured by archeologists and acolytes. The military presence there was paltry at best, because it served no purpose in the Empire's war machine.

Sith Imperial forces were scattered throughout all of the Empire, preparing for the multi pronged attack from all sides. They couldn't be everywhere all at once, but they could try to predict. All prediction came that the Warlords would attack any of the systems closer to their territory. None considered the need to defend a world like Malachor when Dromund Kaas and other more important planets were better targets.

She was one of many dispatched from their respective warfronts ahead of the Imperial armada. Her ship was among one of the fastest, but it couldn't hold many. Thankfully, she wasn't the only ship en route to hold back the Warlord's armada before they could set up shop on the desolate world. Well, her ship certainly couldn't stop their destroyers.

It'd be a grueling ground battle.

Initial reports spoke of the Warlords forces heading towards the Temple. Why? Alina's anger flooded over. It didn't make sense.

But she wasn't alone. Alina took a breath before replacing her helmet to cover the anger that was obvious on her face. "When we land, stay close. And don't hesitate. These false Sith deserve no honor." She turned the red visor to her apprentice, giving him a single nod. Like many acolytes of the Empire, he would be christened in the fires of war. But she refused to allow him to die.

The Sith Empire's Objective details.

Spoiler

Survive and Delay:

Between the New Imperial Order and the Galactic Alliance assaults upon The Sith Empire ,resources and manpower are already stretched thin. The attack of the Warlords is no surprise, but Malachor was not a planet thought to be attacked. The paltry force already stationed there have been overwhelmed by these false Sith with the last reports speaking of some kind of ritual. A forward guard has been sent ahead in the fastest ships the Empire has to offer. Halt whatever it is the Warlords are doing until the main force is able to arrive. There is no margin for failure. For the Empire.

 

[Kal]

Objective I, Location A: Breath of Ash in the Fields of Ash; Mystical Consultant.
Writing With: Ashin Cardé Varanin | Ingrid L'lerim

Say what you will about the Sith, they were very rarely boring.

Hovering only a short distance from Ashin yet visible only to the deepest of scrutiny, Kal's incorporeal form seemed strangely remove from all that surrounded it. Fields of ash soon to run red with blood as Sith spilled the blood of Sith and brother cut down brother. Well. The latter might well be exaggerating matters, he did not believe these Warlords of the Sith had seen as many defectors join as the New Imperial Order.

Not the Forceless ones, anyway. Who in their right mind would abandon a Dark regime for an even more thoroughly corrupted feudal state?

<I believe you are being watched, though I cannot tell by whom,> Kal said, unheard by all but the target of his telepathy. Normally the living made so much noise, but this one - if it even was a someone - was different. There was the vaguest sense of danger, but no discernible source.

<Will you be able to commit to the ritual even if identified?> Normally he would not be overly concerned by the prospect of a failed Sith ritual, but he was here for a reason - to learn, for one, but also to stave off unnecessary bloodshed in a stroke of pragmatic brilliance. Ashin's suggestion may not have drawn the ear of the so-called Dark Saint, but Kal was a different creature entirely. One motivated by curiosity over bloodlust.​

To him, forcing foolish warmongers to relive the woes of their ancestors seemed a perfectly reasonable approach.

Nevermind the fact that unity would likely involve the Sith turning on someone else; one step at a time.

 

[Kascalion Giedfield]

EQUIPMENT: Armor - X | Main-Hand Lightsaber - X | Off-Hand Lightsaber - X | Right Arm - X
OBJECTIVE 2: Treasures of Trayus
Primary RP Partner: Darth Vinaze
Overarching Opponents: TSE
Overarching Allies: WotS | Respective Allies
NPC Allies: The Convergent Order

​

A dulled thunder shook the walls of Ing Sedisĥ and Kascalion’s eyes, ever burning with cerulean flames, stared out of the stained-glass window of his great sleeping chamber. The toxic clouds of Weken had darkened with a storm and thickened themselves fat with rain, which was sure to be acidic and worsen the already treacherous landscape beyond the borders of the Fortress. Pockets of soot and trenches filled with green water that flayed skin marked this world. They were natural booby traps that identified this world as a place of horror and death where despair was the very life that flowed from end to end, directed to the anguished bosom.

But that is exactly why the Devil enjoyed it as much as he did. Weken was distant from civilization, and its atmosphere - which was lethal to almost all forms of organic life - deterred visitors in the ways of pirates and tourists and traders and the like. Woe to those poor fools who crash-landed here some days ago, blasted down by some happenstance in orbit and faced with the death of sloughed flesh and melted organs.

In this lethality, Weken reminded the Devil of his homeworld, which was not that far from this one and boasted similar effects in both atmosphere and terrain, although it was much hotter in the aforementioned. Yet, Credence was to be the home to something new and vibrant, he decided. A myth-thing reborn from scratch that would require a finer touch than his in formation and operation. This, he could admit, was his only real fault as God. While he was very hands-on with his businesses, it was more so in the arts of breaking and corrupting rather than making something fresh. So he needed someone else to take charge there, and the number of candidates was quickly becoming thinner and thinner. From Darth Vinaze to the Ghoul of Moridinae, the Sith Warlord had conducted many silent observations of those under his charge, and the charge of his fellow Dark Sovereigns.

Who would lead Credence to a new glory age, he wondered.

The snap of thunder thumped once more on the sky’s anvil, and the foundations of the fortress shook again. Rain pattered down in globules that stuck to the semi-transparent environmental shield encasing the fortress both above ground and below. The globules were green, he noted, and slimy as they slowly ran down the shield, sizzling against the energy output as their own toxicity attempted to melt that which could not be melted. A smile would have crossed his face at the stability of his engineering if it could. It had been weeks since the strange inexplicable instance that occurred during the battle with Solipsis - which he once more needed to recount due to its grandeur and vicious nature. Where his skeletal face - incapable of moving beyond the basic opening and closing of his jaw - curved into a Chesire smile from eye to eye.

It was a...surprisingly pleasant experience, but one he had so far failed to replicate, which only infuriated him whenever he felt like smiling in some form of amusement or tempered dark serenity. This instance was once such time. He would have enjoyed smiling at the masterwork of his own making. But he was dead, at least in the sense of his neck up.

His mood now ruined by this inability to replicate such a simple thing, the Devil rose from his velvet armchair and puffed the blue embers from his mouth. It was a harsh sound and a harsher sight as the flickering lights fell to the hard stone floor beneath him and stained it black. The Devil then strode away with clawed raven’s feet towards the rows of metallic racks resting far from his chair. Each section held the equipment that would serve him so dutifully in the coming days. From weapons to armor, he had it all organized and designed for specific types of bloodied encounters, but only one particular set had gained his fullest attention.

First that he set his gaze upon was the lightsaber that belched out yellow-green fumes whenever its accursed Kyber was charged and ignited - similar to the atmosphere of Weken. A truly horrific blade that resembled a spiked obelisk when disengaged, its activation button an all-seeing red eye with a dilated yellow pupil - a serpent’s pupil. In combat, it was a weapon that struck down his enemies with a butcher’s might and - recently - showcased the curious ability to induce paralysis in those it does not kill, but instead injures. However, in spite of its strengths, it also posed an incredible risk.

It was unbelievably weak to cortosis, more so than even the average lightsaber. Once had it already been struck, on Generis against the Young Knight, Kainan . Only after the contest did the Devil realize that had he struck the cortosis once more with full force, the blade would never have worked again. The frantic pace of said contest had hidden away the evidence that the blade was nearing levels of instability that could have resulted in a rupture of the hilt entirely.

Subsequent tests - of a necessary nature - involving increasingly larger contact with the metal revealed a terrible thing. The weakened containment field and bizarre nature of the blade allowed cortosis shards and particles to enter the Kyber chamber and latch onto the crystal with magnetic force. With enough on the crystal, it would never be able to activate again. The only reason, the Devil surmised, that this had not happened yet with either the battle against Kainan or with the tests is that the first strike was not followed up by a second in areas where Kainan’s armor held the weave and that the tests did not apply enough to the already present particles and shards and posed no added risk.

Still, the blade would be taken to battle, alongside the other three, regardless of its inevitable end. One was a simple off-hand lightsaber with a Rancor’s claw pommel. The other, however, was the very same Imperial blade he had taken during his battle against Kainan, which he used as a Shoto in tight areas of combat. Its argent blade, once a symbol for unity and Imperialistic domination, was now nothing more than a curse upon all the New Imperial Order held dear. A spit in the face of their ideals and sacrifices. The Devil would have smiled again at this particular memory, but he did not attempt it this time, and instead he clipped each blade to his waistband. From there they hung static and hungry, ready to help their master spread his sinful reach. Ready to fight.

And then, from the top rack, he gingerly grasped the intricately woven crimson robes that would be set over his more militant black-red clothing. These leathers themselves boasted segments of black armor designed to deflect ranged attacks and glancing blows from melee combat. Normally, for the coming conflict, he would have set out in full battle gear, or even no gear at all save for his normal pants and ornate chest straps. But, what was to come was unprecedented and demanded attire that befitted a magnificent spectacle of such sheer magnitude.

You see, the Devil had finally - after all of these years and reincarnations and deaths - tracked down what he assumed was the final font of power he needed to complete a very special ritual. One that would grant him power unseen in eons and would be spoken of for epochs after. And it was on Malachor V, of all places in the Galaxy. It was here that the Force guided him in its obedience, trying to appease its master. How humorous was it that it was on a world that he once had under some level of control as a Dark Councilor? All those years ago, all that fluctuating importance and confidence. Always so close to the truth, yet never seeing it in his clouded, hateful judgment of his incarnated youth.

He cursed such ignorance upon the reclamation of his old memories and his old name. Cursing the fool that was Darth Abaddon, Darth Malediction, and a Dark Councilor in the Empire. A blight was bled upon these names of the man who lost to Cotan Sar'andor in roughly ten seconds and lost more time and time again in large-scale combat despite his successes in climbing the ladder of the Empire. The mongrel of failure who felt the supreme domination of Irveric Tavlar . The slave to insecurity who failed to sunder the biting defiance of Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt . A thousand and one imprecations were hissed upon he who failed in these moments. The Devil would never again be this insect who failed to grab the brass ring of success. That was the Darth of an Empire. Not Kascalion Giedfield. Not the Devil of the Warlords of the Sith.

The Devil was delighted at this, and his delight only grew more as he swiftly departed his grand chambers for the halls of the fortress. The source of this increased delight came from every Sith and servant who stood near the doors of his chamber falling to their knees in reverence as he stepped out. In his grand visage of crimson and black, the Devil appeared as he was meant to appear: a God. A Sith King. The prostrations of those below his stature only served as proper - but relatively unneeded - reminders of this importance.

The Warlord allowed himself the moment to indulge in the glorious scene of twenty powerful Sith bowing before him, but such indulging would have to end just as quickly for business always had to come first. And so did he move on, granting his warriors and slaves their reprieves and moving towards the Fanged Maw of Ing Sedisĥ. It was a gargantuan monstrosity of a gate, even from the inside, and watching it hiss open to reveal the glimmering edge of the environmental shield was...well it would have been terrifying if the Devil felt such fears as he once did. Instead, he nodded curtly to the man who operated the gate and marched forward beyond the edge of the shield and into the treachery of the Virulent Route. Winding and unpredictable with its landscape’s stability, it was ironic that this was the only area outside of the shield where the atmosphere of Weken did not spew its toxins. Turning his eyes just as the Fanged Maw slid shut once more, the Devil peered beyond the left wall of the path through the gaseous fumes, locking onto a particularly large globule of rain that splattered through the fog.

What a terribly wonderful planet, he thought to himself as his quick steps took him further and further down the 61-kilometer path. At the end of it awaited a shuttle that would take him to a ship resting in orbit. His ship, to be exact. And this would further take him to Tash-Taral from which the Sith Warlords would charge forth into war. It all sounded relatively simple as he took carefully placed tip-toes around the cracked edges of the path, but he had perceived that this battle would be anything but. In his dreams, he saw how this fight would be a dreadful, vile, obscene conflict with untold death on both sides and the mere retelling of it would shock men and women years from now into tears and fits of vomiting at the details. And the Devil could not wait to partake in it.

By the time he reached the shuttle that awaited him - piloted by a woman of middle-years who had been trained in the “Hollow Despoilers” Sith Battle Chapter for support piloting - the Devil was practically frothing at the images rushing through his mind like whitewater rapids. Such beautiful carnage that he could add to his Narrative if he did not write it out himself. Grandeurs of blood and gore on a world once deemed Holy by the Sith, fallen into ruin under the Falsehoods, and seeking to be reclaimed by the True Heirs of Darkness. But first, the Hollowed Grave and something of a more particular nature awaited.

With a calloused hand placed on the stiff shoulder of the woman who began to punch in the activate codes and flip the respective switches, the Devil spoke thusly: “Pilot...set a course for the Hollowed Grave and inform Lord Commander Grodvid that I wish for him to stir the beasts. I would see them before we arrive at Tash-Taral.”

“Yes, Lord Giedfield,” the woman replied with the unmistakable accent of a Coruscanti and carried out her orders precisely. Lord Commander Grodvid did not reply on his end of the transmission, but the Devil knew that he understood his orders.

​

The engines kicked to life as the shuttle began ascending from the clearing at the end of the path, rising higher and higher into the raining clouds that pelted the metal hull. Thankfully, the Devil had thought ahead and ensured that this particular vessel was the only one to traverse the landscape and was constructed out of an environmentally resistant metal with reinforced composite coating. With minimal transportation and a lack of safe areas to park a ship, that just made his fortress all the more secure.

The Hollowed Grave, however, was perhaps even more secure in its own way on account of the tremendous firepower that it boasted like an ancient warrior patriarch. The Devil always admired his own work, and this monstrous ship was no exception to the rule. If anything, it deserved his praise more than his lost Vodvtaki, a ship scorned in distant memory, more so for the fact that it had survived multiple battles whereas the former only survived a couple. Entering its hangar bay was additionally a treat, as every hand on deck ensured his arrival was as smooth as possible and that he was paid the greatest of respect. Only a choice few received as much “adoration” as he did with each appearance, and even then, it was always just slightly lesser than his own.

However, unlike those on Weken, he did not pay any mind to those welcoming him back and instead continued forward with more quick steps that clacked on the metal flooring. His large stature coupled with this speed made what should have been a ten to fifteen-minute walk from the shuttle to the ship’s secluded basin into a five-minute jaunt.

The stench of this room was overpowering even for him. Sulfuric. Hellish, really. The source of such stench was standing in disjointed rows at attention, Lord Commander Grodvid walking between them tall and proud. Inspecting them for defects that would make their service in the coming conflict compromised and weak. None seemed to showcase any, visibly at least, and that is why Kascalion had come.

The Reavers of Cronish, as they were called, were some of the greatest creations of the aged Alchemist. Mortal men and women of the Cathar species transformed into barbarous, ardent terrors wielding archaic weaponry and shielded in thematically fitting gladiatorial armor. They were taller than their creator by two heads and were even fitter. This naturally granted them seemingly endless reserves of endurance in battle. In gladiatorial games held by Kascalion on Weken, they proved this time and time again in hourly or even week-long duels. Very few ever died, and those that did, did so to the guardian of the Beast Stockade, and even then they had put up a grand fight. Interestingly enough, the endurance of the guardian prompted Kascalion to create the blueprint for more to be created on a flash-printed scale. By the next war, his personal forces should have been augmented with at least twenty, and the forces of his allies with twenty more.

“Komu sezh ẑonnë ti Mbitki is ngii,” shouted Grodvid at the Reavers in the language of Kascalion’s people - the Skator Hai - snapping their attention from him to their creator who stood above them on the blood-stained podium next to the turbolift.

Each Reaver, of which there stood perhaps two hundred - with more spread further across the Dread Fleet of Kascalion - spun on their gargantuan heels and slammed their boots against the steel in a thunderous crack. “Jii ndoẑ ndu ofïglë bï!” they all cried out in unison in the same language, crossing their milk-white arms across their chest and slightly bowing their horned heads. “Jüme lëp sëp!”

“At ease, my children,” the Devil hissed quietly through the Force into the minds of all present - in the dialect of High Galactic, no less - waving a hand to ease the Reavers to neutral stances. “I have come to aid your Lord Commander in the inspection. Do you know why?”

There was silence for a long while before any of the Reavers dared to speak, their obedience of silence before the war embedded so deeply that to even utter a word beyond those of ceremony was almost painful.

One particularly massive Reaver close to the podium craned his neck high to look upon his King. For most of the Reavers, this was as close to their creator as they had ever been outside of Weken, and some had never even seen him beyond the images planted in their minds. The brave warrior nodded curtly, shaking off the awestruck emotions filling his corpse-body, and said: “Ndos gu...war is coming for us at long last. We are to slay those who dare to oppose your rule of the Galaxy. To slay these False Sith!”

“Yes, it does. It comes for us all in the Warlords,” the Devil agreed in his hissing whisper once more, a change from the usual tenor and blasting drums he radiated in a duel. “We are to face the Sith Empire at long last on a true battleground. However, it is not so simple as slaying them. The perspective of this war matters. They are the villains in our Narrative, heroes in theirs. But villains and heroes are such umbrella terms in times such as these - what are they really?”

The question was directed at this individual Reaver who, practically beaming with some sickening delight at the attention granted to him by the man he practically saw as his father, responded with: “Heretics, Lord! Sinners and defilers of the true ways of the Sith who resist the changes necessary for our people to survive. Cretins and weak curs from the abyss scrounging for piecemeal.”

The Devil cackled at the Reaver’s zealous words and clasped his red hands behind his back, “You are correct in them being Heretics, my child. Sinners and defilers all. But cretins and curs...they are not. You are all strong, every one of you. I made you all mighty and capable of sundering great swaths of foes, but the Sith Empire - despite its weaknesses and its faults - is still a force to be reckoned with when pressed against the wall. Go into this battle with the idea that they are cretins and curs will see your heads removed swifter than you can process. They are still Sith...regardless of their straying from the true path.”

The Reaver bowed his head in solemn understanding and the Devil returned his gaze to the wider collection. And then he said: “You will go into this battle with this in mind, my Reavers. On this day, you will serve in my Holy Order of Convergence. You will fight alongside men and women unlike and like yourselves. Sithspawn, Trooper, and Sith themselves. And you will fight them as you were bred to. Brutally, but with the intelligence that I have gifted you. You will earn glory for yourselves and for me. You will fight as you are able to. You will make way for the greater horde of our forces to charge in and take what we have come here to take! Jüme lëp sëp!”

The great warriors in the basin roared with delight and feverous passion. To have such words spoken to them by their creator - their father - was a gift.

​

The landing on Malachor V had been a difficult feat of willpower. The utter chaos of Malachor's atmosphere along with the relic space hulks in orbit made landing safely a nearly impossible venture for the Convergent Order. Several shuttles of cannon fodder and even the elite Sith Battle Chapters were disrupted by the electromagnetic disaster of the planet, sent crashing to the planet's surface at Mach speeds.

And while the defense force outside of Trayus Academy was a paltry amount in regards to the vast size of the Empire, getting past the awoken Ancient Sith defenses of alchemy and sorcery...well that was a touch more difficult. This did not even account for the fact that, regardless of plausibility, the Empire was as open as ever to receive nearby reinforcements at any point in the battle.

Indeed, if the tables were shifted in a certain way, the Convergent Order would have a truly terrible time in their attempt to conquer Trayus Academy and retrieve the Sith Holy Relics buried within. Kascalion himself would have a truly terrible time in finding this font of power that awaited him in the bowels of the grand construct, promising untold riches and dominion over all life in the Galaxy.

Yet, the Devil did not view this as a terrible thing. In fact, he viewed it with the greatest of joys and marched forth with haste across the cursed landscape. A final test before his reaching of True Eternalism. One last trial before becoming part of Infinity itself. The idea was enough to make the mouth water, and as the battle raged between Sith and Sith Constructs raged on outside the great temple, the Devil set his sights on the grand gate which, if the schematics were correct, would open up into an even grander antechamber. From there, it would be anyone's guess on where to go, even with the beacon of the Dark that shone like an eclipse in the Devil's eye.

As a row of blaster bolts pierced the ground before him, the Devil stopped and turned to his confidant for this mission and the man in charge of the Convergent Order for this day. Darth Vinaze was a corruptive figure in the Warlords, both mentally and physically, and it was no surprise to the Devil that the man had scrounged together quite the formidable cult to some obscure "Mother" figure that he had not the time nor inclination to investigate. Yet.

His power was undeniable, as was his dedication to the Warlords and Kascalion as a whole - or at least, the Devil liked to believe this. His service to the Dread Ascendancy during its brief existence and immediate following of its forces to the order formed alongside those of Darth Voyance and Vora Kaar ...well, it was admirable.

"Vinaze, have the Order split into as many groups as you see fit to explore the Academy once we open the gates," the Devil hissed through the Force. "Any relics, weapons, armor, and the like that they find, have them claimed and protected. Once this is done, you will aid me in finding my goal here today and then in what is to come after that. Is that clear to you?"

Once Vinaze responded in whatever manner he chose, the Devil would move swiftly through the carnage, protecting himself with a barrier of the Force, intent on forcing open the lock to secrets from time immemorial. Dark mysteries that could have changed the balance of death itself.

 

[Ihsan]

LOST_SOUL
WARLORDS
Location: Trayus
Tags: Lesaj Aurelion Nova Zinn Zinn Bink'sa

​

​

Malachor. An unforgiving craggy wasteland of a planet shrouded in darkness and suffering since time immemorial. A place that might've once invoked fear in the Mirialan when she was still young and ignorant of the ways of the force and its trappings. Now she wondered amidst its rocky outcrops in solemn travel. The only other company a crazed Gungan, but Ihsan paid the creature no acknowledgement as the pair walked through the apocalyptic surroundings of Malachor. Silence permuted the harsh atmosphere save for the occasional howling of the wind that ripped through the barren surroundings, sounding like the ghostly wails of the lost and damned. She could feel it in the air; she could feel it in her bones. This place was dead and full of empty darkness. For they walked among the dead and the dead trod each step with them, for this world had been the site of many an atrocity and battle between the forces of light and dark.


They soon chanced upon the familiar sight of Trayus Academy with arching spiral towers and ancient Sith caligraphy that stuck out in the hostile horizon of Malachor like a malignant tumour that sucked the life out of all good in this universe. What once drew Revan with its call and had done so with many an aspirant lord of the dark side now brought the Mirialan and Gungan Sith to its fabled dark corridors. To quote a famous Sith, the teachings here will lead one to the Sith… the true Sith… and all their shadowed worlds. This place led Revan to the graveyards of Korriban… and beyond. What lay in wait for the pair was ultimately in the hands of the will of the force. But something deep within the catacombs of Trayus stirred, something evil, something beyond her own narrow comprehension.


The dead walked once more. And it seemed that a world once dead now grew alive with the presence of Sith on it's ashen soil.
Ihsans black glove covered hand reached out and stopped Zinn momentarily.


"Do you feel that?"​

 

[Ingrid L'lerim]

Lady Ingrid L’lerim Ragal Terassi Vandiir
Eternal Empress of the Eternal Empire, Lord Commander of the Wardens of the Shroud
The Red Witch, The Night Queen, Lady Stuztala, Head of the House L’lerim, CEO of the HPI Consortium, Archon of the Primyn Group​

Location: The Fields of Ash, Malachor V
Objective I.: Stop the ritual!
Equipment: 2x Sigra vibroblade | 2x Striith vibrosword | Kiss of the Red Witch | Heilagr MK. I ssassin Armour | The Last Gift || Empyrean gland
Writing with: Ashin Cardé Varanin | Kal

[ Just Inside My Head ] ​

Indeed, now in this situation, Ingrid was not invisible, though her armor had a camouflage and chameleon system that helped it blend into the environment. She knew the other wouldn't have too much of a chance in this situation, she didn't know yet she was wrong. It also became apparent that the other knew she was here. The other woman still had a droid with her, it might have noticed Ingrid. Yes; it is precisely because of this that she usually uses invisibility so that the droids’ sensors and scanners can’t even detect her.

She could already see the Valkyrja circling in the sky, though they were invisible to everyone, Ingrid created the species, she was able to see and sense them. Meanwhile, she turned her full attention back to the battlefield; the woman beat up the sand in a large enough area so that she could not be seen. As she began to seek her presence in the Force, she felt a sense of it from a different places. Skillful trick; she had to admit this.

Ingrid used the more sophisticated method than this, though it was also a great solution. It is less energy intensive than what the woman used. The Empress felt the dead better and better; the red-haired woman began to like the situation less and less. Because the Force at this moment was not her help; since it was very swirling there, not to mention that she felt the woman from countless places, she had to choose a different solution.

Not the simple one; which would have been that the sniper rifle binoculars switched to heat detection, no. Instead, she reached out with her mind in the direction where the woman was before. Telepathy. This did not require Force, as she also had Force-independent telepathy as a Shadow-born. The red-haired woman sensed two consciousnesses about that place. She didn't look into their minds, she just sensed them, didn't have time for more yet, and because of this she didn't know the exact places yet, but soon she will find them.

~ If you think you can hide from me, you were wrong. I will not let you finish your ritual and disturb the dead in such an unholy way! Finish it and I will allow you to leave this place unharmed! ~ the cold, military voice of Ingrid was heard in the minds of Ashin and Kal; which Kal may have recognized, but perhaps also the former empress.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

OBJECTIVE 1
LOCATION A: THE FIELDS OF ASH
OTHERS: Ingrid L'lerim Kal
GEAR: Kotsirluuk, DNK0 spotter droid, anticoncussion shoulder pad, basic light armor, Breshig War Forge SR-2M rifle with a variety of ammunition, and a lot of ash
GOAL: Conduct the rediscovered Breath of Ashes ritual on Malachor after eight or nine centuries forgotten

"This particular ritual, Kal?" she murmured back to the shade. "Something this meaningful? I could do it while losing a limb."

She went stock still, right there in the ash pile on the slope, as Ingrid's voice came through loud and clear. This was strong telepathy. Coupled with her general sense of Ingrid's strength, it could only mean that a serious player had entered the game.

Serious and unknown. She sucked in a shaky breath and repressed a cough with difficulty.

The DNK0 whispered angles, distance, lack of wind. The high-end spotter droid had comparably high-end passive sensors, and gear good enough to see through cloaking devices too. Right now it was telling her the other's location with precision.

Very slowly, Ashin adjusted the SR-2M on her knees until the stock nestled into her anticoncussion shoulder pad. Firing would send up a plume of ash, reveal her position, and she couldn't be sure of a hit. But the scope might give her a better sense of the situation. She might recognize the face, even if the mental voice and the presence were unfamiliar. The scope's miniature targeting computer silhouetted the other woman from a good distance away.

Or tried to. The DNK0 could see through optical camouflage; the rifle's scope could not. She flicked off the targeting computer and went with the naked eye, searching the site that the spotter droid had indicated.

You're wrong about my aim, friend, she sent back mind-to-mind, looping Kal in on it so he could listen along. At a guess, you're wrong about which ritual I'm backing. And if you respect this place's sacredness like I do, I'd wager I'll leave the Fields of Ash with more than your grudging permission. I'll leave with your assistance.

Kal, she added separately, mind-to-mind, as she looked in vain for her potential target. The scope - and her eyes - simply couldn't pick up whoever the DNK0 had detected there. The other woman blended in far too well with the gloomy, complex terrain. I have no idea who I'm dealing with. All I know is she's the genuine article. Any insight would be appreciated.

​

 

[Zinn Zinn Bink'sa]

Location: Trayus Academy
Allies: Ihsan
Enemies: Aurelion Nova Lesaj
Equipment: Lightsaber

The Insane Gungan had emerged on the world that was full of death and ash. When the Mandalorians came, the Jedi followed, when the Sith fled here again so did the Jedi come once more. This time it was the Sith against Sith. The first moves were made against them, with the Warlords having met the Sith Empire face to face within the wreckage of Niin. When the battle ended and both the NIO, and the Sith Empire pushed back. The Warlords as a collective came to the conclusion that a wounded dragon was no match for the awakening of a giant caused by the Sith's own making. Now the Warlords would strike while they had the ambition to do so. The road to Dromund Kass was now divided by three fronts, the Alliance, New Imperial Order, and now the Warlords were staking their claim on the Sith Worlds. The first would be the holy world of Malachor. A world that was even forbidden to be mentioned by the Jedi much less journeyed too.

An eerie feeling spooked Gungan as he walked along the ruined surface. The Force had not been kind to Malachor as not only had this world been subject to the wars between Jedi and Sith, but it had largely been reduced to ruins after the superweapon known as the Mass Shadow Generator was used here. The Gungan almost jumped as he had heard the same ghostly wales as his companion did. "HOLY VOYANCE LIFE DAY DAMN IT.... " The crazed gungan reacted, getting slowly better at his standard basic lessons. Despite relying on a mixture of Gunganese and Basic. He was shaking like a leaf, as even though the Sith Acolyte had been through many trials and tribulations.. Yet there was something about Malachor that spooked the hell out of him. It seemed so far that the Miriilan had all but ignored the uneasy tension that the Gungan was attuned to the very dread emanating from this world. Yet as they walked on to the Trayus Academy, the ominous temple had spoke to the Gungan as if he was being pulled by the gravity that was the darkness.

When his companion asked if he felt that. Reaching out, it was more than the dark presence that was coming from deep within. But reaching out more, was presence of the pretenders. The Sith Empire was many, and the Warlords only a few. But they would show the poisoned Sith of the wretched empire that the Warlords would restore the past of the Sith as it's present. Reaching in deeper he could feel multiple pretenders Sith coming deep within the Trayus Academy. The Gungan only snarled, gripping his newly crafted Lightsaber at his belt. "Mesa sense the pretend Sithies.... They are ready to be crunched and in for major ouch times..... Wesa gonna go in now okidae?"

He said with a mixture of excitement, and a rush of fear pumping through his system. Lightsaber activating with a hiss as he attempted to get ahead of his traveling companion as he tried to break through the uneasy tension. Entering inside the ruined door slowly. Calling out through the darkness. "COME AT MESA SITHIES... BOMBAD GUNGAN CALLING YOUSA OUT!!" He said the loud voice echoing, as he started to walk forward mostly much to his companion's dismay that she had to end up with a spicehead energized Gungan that seemed off his rocker half the time than menacing. Yet something called to him, beckoning him to embrace the madness. He didn't know what secrets the place held or what enemies to be had.

 

[Darth Kentarch]

​

Location: Fields of Ash
Allies: Warlords of the Sith
Enemies: TSE, Laertia Io
Equipment: Lightsaber | Nightfall | Duskfall

A crimson blade burst through the chest of an Imperial Sith. His dead body joined the score of men cut down by Darth Kentarch. He gave them no warning, offered no fair contest or duel. A blade through the back, each fell one by one, none saw it coming. The large cavern that housed the Malachor Sith Temple, petrified remains of those from a battle of eons past provided Kentarch the perfect. His black-cloaked form could move among the fallen without even being spotted by the most observant of Sith. Kentarch had infiltrated the planet hours before the first dropships began to fall planetside. His objective was simple, kill as many Sith Imperials in the 'Fields of Ash' as possible and prevent anyone from interfering with the Kaggath at the Malachor Temple.

The battle slowly intensified. More and more warships under the banner of the Warlords of the Sith arrived. Soon the battle would commence in the so-called 'Fields of Ash' in the name of some ill-gotten crusade. Their opposition was none other than the Sith Empire. Functionally this empire was nothing more than what domains the Zambranos still managed to hold onto as war and rebellion swept through what remained of their empire. Kentarch joined after the Warlords proved victorious on Ninn. Yet his allegiance went only as far as seeing to the defeat of the Sith Empire.

No words had to be spoken. No apologies. No warning or sounds of struggling. First an Anti-Aircraftcrew on their AA gun. The officer never saw the blade pierce into his neck. His attempts to scream fell silent as blood filled his throat and his body sank to the ground. His subordinates met similar fates. The black-cloaked figure snagged a guard and drugged him behind some petrified statues, and there in the darkness snapped his neck. The gunner was simply decapitated with a swing of his sword Duskfall. When a response crew arrived on the scene the anti-aircraft battery suddenly exploded, the shrapnel killing them in the ensuing blast.

It was mind-numbing.

Like a cycle, it repeated. The empire sent more men, and he would simply kill them. Battle won and lost, it never seemed to matter. Since the time of the One Sith, he struck down his brothers and those who served them. False gods, prophets, priests, doubt-filled his mind if it would ever end. If there would ever be a final chapter. Now in the twilight hours of the Sith Empire, he dared not think of the word 'hope'.

Through the force, he sensed more troops coming. Stronger force users accompanied them. His mind had been errant and his attention slipped from the task at hand. None the less Kentarch raised his blade and was ready to strike once again.

 

[Onrai]

Enemies: Darth Voyance , other invaders
Allies: Bryn Celli Ddu , Dea, others?

Malachor V, Trayus Laboratory

There was an intrusion. A violating force had descended onto the world where the twice-false goddess's earliest physical property once resided. A Sith, one scantly remembered, had come to this world, often profaned, and sought to claim it as their own. At this stage, this moment within the degradation of the Sith Empire, Onrai cared nothing about her other circumstances, only about maintaining control over what she had, regardless as to who laid territorial claim over what she controlled.

Nathema itself was under attack. The great fleets of Onrai's legions, having fought under innumerable banners and bathed in the blood of enemies for decades, met their enemies with a hatred and furor reserved for only the lowest form of life. Whether they had accepted that their longtime leader had ascended to godhood and was now worthy of their veneration, or whether their loyalty was more based upon the fact that in her mortal guise she had done her best to help them in times of need, they fought with wrath and fury, seeking aggressively to force the pernicious fleets of the invaders out.

"They do not know that which they seek to conquer." The liquid woman said to her most devoted follower, the one she had crafted of crystal anima and infused with the spirit of a debtor whose service would be immemorial. The inky blackness of her indistinct form shimmered, reflecting and not reflecting the spiritual entity's abominably malleable form. "They do not understand that these worlds, these places have been mine since before their first ascension. I have been, and will be for eternity. You know this well." Already other manifestations of Onrai were leading the fleet engaging the Warlords at the Orbital Complex and elsewhere in the Nathema system - and another of her avatars existed at the entrance to the temple itself, the sonorous cries of the starfighters striking overhead ringing through whatever it could describe as ears.

"As do others." Though she had attempted to reach out to all she could reasonably expect to assist her in defending whatever assets she held dear, she doubted that things would go well. A goddess driven into exile would not be a boon to her followers. Perhaps even those she had shaped herself would be useful in time. "But now it is time to fight. Take my hand and let us ready ourselves to fight those who dare defile our sacred lands."

 

[Lady Marrow]

Tag: Drako // Darth Voyance
Gear: The Marrow Blade
Objective: 1

• Location B: The Temple of Malachor!

Lady Marrow strolled the halls, skip in her step as a glee filled smile lay contentedly drawn across her face while the myriad Sith that surrounded her prepared for the coming battle, thunderous booms echoed from the maws of mechanical thereon while their humanoid targets died by the dozen, fertilizer for the arid ground which she was convinced could sprout root again. The wandered the halls, waggling her booty to and fro as the good lady had donned the form of a frilled lizard, not too unlike the Hssiss she had seen nearby Sith working with. Her auburn hair formed the Majority of her neck frill while the rose scales that covered her body were more like the lids of mycetic shrooms. Spines ran down her back in nests of quills while her claws remained sharp as knives.

The Dragon couldn't help but peek into each of the rooms it passed, quizzically observing heavy E-Web cannons assembled and powered up to be moved into defensive formations. Sorcerers were preparing their spells as meditation circles attempted to give what little edge they could over to as many troops as their chants could reach. Tonging the air, the ephemeral taste of the dark side hung thick as blaster rang louder and louder like the playful chirps of ten thousand birds devoured the eyes of the Sith.

Lady Marrows preparations were easy enough, they involved her waddling to one of the many exits of the pyramid, sleuthing between the hardened warriors of the Empire accidentally knocking over implements with her wiley twin tails as it thrashed back and forth flitting happily until her claws would bite into the stone nearby wall. Only when she was within view of the crimson sunlight which bore down on the scene as a melancholy furnace would others begin to notice what her plan had truly been, waddling across the corridors for the better part of an hour as spores intermingled with the dust of of Malachor V.

Her layers of spores would coat most of the entrance floors of the Temple, hiding beneath the senses of those pre-occupied with the battle due to their unique ability to slide undetected in the force by those not explicitly looking for them. Yet now, exposed to the omnidirectional winds of the battle, the constantly regenerating spores would plume off of her body like weighty smoke to blanket the battlefield before her like pollen. The muddy red seeds' colour muted under the sun as they would move to nest in the corners of the blocks of the Steppe, settling in and beginning to grow.

The longer the Sith creature would have, the bizarre lizard perched above the entrance in meditative calm energy brimming as they observed the chaos of the Ash fields below, blades of myriad colour danced in the fragile twilight, the crepuscular rays penetrating the dust clad canopy as ships made their entrance. Lady Marrow with the temple guard would be the first line of defense, the E-Webs more than capable of dealing with the rabble that made it through the front lines, the vivid red energy tearing through the skies with eagles cries penetrating into the bodies of the crusaders that hoped to claim the temple while godlike cannons thundered at the larger ships that attempted to make their runs.

~It looks like we might be a little outnumbered this time~ The creature would muse to itself, chipper and child-like, the terrors of war beneath her falling upon eyes that were deaf to the nature of death and woe. To those who saw her, they would think her to be some Sith-Spawn, potentially of some wayward master attempting to cast some wide effect on the battlefield before her. A Target to be eliminated, but not underestimated. The defensive walls for now seemed to be holding, although the sheer force of numbers, the waves that were crashing against their walls would no doubt soon begin to spill over...

This was merely the beginning. ​

 

[Vector Monk]

// so you wanna play with magic
// boy you should know what you're falling for
// baby do you dare to do this
// cause I'm coming at you like a dark horse
Kascalion Giedfield Darth Vinaze
​

"Think of it, Ygor. The tomb of Darth Scion! Such history...such majesty."

"Please kill me," Monk's native xa fel assistant moaned.

"We're here for just the opposite, my friend! With any luck Scion's final resting place may very well hold the secret to immortality."

Captain Vector Monk smirked with supreme confidence. It was a golden age of archaeology and he was out here on the academic frontier. Ever since his childhood on Galidraan history had fascinated him. History of the noble Sith Lords in particular. Working for the Imperial Reclamation Service was a privilege beyond his wildest dreams. So much lost knowledge. So much valuable knowledge. Of course resources were tight with the war on, but this was the Sith Empire. There was always a war on.

"Look Ygor! They've broken through!"

Throughout the ruins of Trayus Academy Sith-Imperial dig sites staked out several promising research leads. Vector watched with macabre fascination as thousands of scarabs burst from this one and burrowed their way inside several researchers below. Their screams were inhuman, until the tiny creatures crawled up their throats and erupted through their mouths in clouds of red gore.

"Incredible," he whispered breathlessly, "We must be close. I need flametroopers in here to clear this mess out. Whatever happened to the men I sent up to investigate all that racket?"

"They never returned," Ygor's mournful voice answered.

"Bother! What could be more important than the precipice of discovery? I suppose I'll have to send a few more."

 

[Laertia Io]

Wearing: Chitin of Lysandra

Armed with: The Sword of Cinndurr

SynthBreaker

Crime Hunter's Pistol (Charric Configuration)

With: Arianna Belasko (Equipment: Ritual Gown, Subverter's Blade)

Lyli Dragi (Equipment: Dragonflare Armor, Blade of Falsehoods)

Nuetralizer Model 1 (2000)

Objective: Battle Darth Kentarch

Lyli: Objective 1

Arianna: Objective 2

21 hours prior

The Person that had once been purely Laertia Io knealt in front of Darth Themis in her quarters aboard The Ashla's Platter

War, constant struggle, had changed her. Altered her. Made her more determined. Especially after Sarka.

Both her and the conviction of Syd Celsius, Master to Starlin Rand , had renewed after that horrific onslaught. Endless waves of death and destruction, both of them feeling the horror and withdrawing into each other to survive it. The sheer, insane brutality of it.

The person that had once been simply Laertia knew only the harshest, cruelest measures could stop The Bryn'adul now. There was no doubt in her mind now. Their kind had to be exterminated for the good of the entire Galaxy. Something the Jedi would never commit to, not even to save their loved ones.

It required them both getting their hands dirty.

Darth Themis, wearing a younger version of the face of her former caretaker Moya Virtu , stood over her. Themis was wearing her purple catsuit. A heretical Light Side Sith, Themis had been instructing Laertia for weeks, months, on how to twist and impose her will on the Light.

"Have you, at last, truly understood the limits of the Jedi Way?" Themis asked.

The creature that had once been Laertia nodded. She didn't hate the Jedi. She didn't want to kill them. But if they stood in the way of as much of a united front as possible against those monsters then down they would go.

Syd had started having doubts about her doubts if Laertia had truly been wrong in her approach. The horror of Sarka had brought it all back for Syd. The death. The despair. The hopelessness that no matter how hard you fought, more died around you. Syd was at the point even she was willing to do almost anything to stop the Bryn'adul after what she saw at Sarka.

"I do, Grandmother."

"Do you truly wish to separate yourself from them?"

"I do, Grandmother."

"Then recite our code..."

The creature that had been Laertia closed her eyes while kneeling.

"Peace is not a Lie, but is often won with Passion. Passion for Peace gives Strength to reject The Dark. The Strength gained from rejection grants the Power to bring Peace everywhere. The Power gained grants Victory. Through that Victory, the will of the Ashla is realized."

It was done. The Force all around them twisted at the person who used to be Laertia speaking that oath.

"So be it. Henceforth, from this day forward you shall be known as Darth..."

Themis paused, searching the Light, commanding it to answer.

"...Xiphos..." she said after a moment. "Rise, Lady Xiphos..."

Darth Xiphos rose in Laertia's spiky biker leathers, the Light Side in the now Heretical Sith (For indeed, they were Heretics to both sides of the debate) twisted to unnatural ends, and went over to the display case containing the black armor of Laertia's mother, Lysandra. They had recovered it during a visit to Kashyyyk when it was Laertia still calling the shots.

"It doesn't feel right. Even now, using Mother's Armor...for what I am. Mother was a Jedi. She died defending who I used to be."

"You're trying to save the Galaxy."

"I know she wouldn't approve."

"Your mother made her choices. You chose to become Xiphos. Would you rather it rot forever behind that display, Lady Xiphos...to not be of use to anyone? At least you'll honor her in this coming battle by using it for what it was meant for..."

"I suppose..." Xiphos replied with a sigh. "Forgive me, Mother..."

She meant it. Xiphos respected sacrifice, and like the person she had once been, respected Lysandra's sacrifice. Thought of her as her own mother the way Laertia had. Consequently, she perceived Syd as much a Lover to her as she had been to Laertia. And she did love Syd the way Laertia had. Enough to openly advocate turning her into a Light Side Sith. Which Themis seemed strangely hesitant to do in spite of Syd's obvious Magical and Force Strength. After Sarka, Syd had been much more open to it. Laertia had begun showing her things in secret. Now Xiphos would take up the slack.

Xiphos was that icy determination that had gotten Laertia through her youth at Nar Shaddaa, and through all the other hells after. An abstract given sentience and second hand emotions to properly define itself. Xiphos didn't have the doubts about her cause that Laertia had. Xiphos was relatively straightforward: she wanted to kill the Bryn'adul and protect those she cherished, except unlike Laertia, Xiphos would kill anyone who got in the way of doing that. Xiphos, unlike Laertia, thirsted to test her might against powerful warriors the way Adrenaline Junkies go skydiving. Laertia fought such warriors as a necessity. Xiphos fought them partly because of that, but also mostly because she liked fighting, and wasn't ashamed of that, unlike Laertia.

Xiphos quietly, reverently removed the armor from its display case...

It was soon to be put to good use. Especially on a chithole like Malachor...

Laertia had walked all the way back to the ship Syd had docked in the hangar bay of the Militarized Praxeum ship. The Serpents of Ashla, the Sith Cult Themis was head of, were busy training new recruits. Disillusioned Jedi Survivors of the Battle of Sharka, numbering in the dozens. Most of them were War Knight material...Laertia had introduced ruthless Lightsaber Regimens to improve upon that. None of them were ready for battle. Themis hid it, but Xiphos knew Themis was grieving at the loss of Alyosha Drutin. Her newest personal apprentice. The loss stung Xiphos as well. Alyosha had the makings of a fine Light Side Sith. The creature that had just named itself Xiphos vowed revenge on The Bryn'adul for his death. She had lost a personal friend.

He had died defending the innocent. There could be no death more honorable. He had started an Assassin and died a Hero. He'd inspired Laertia to trust Themis, which had led to Xiphos manifesting.

Xiphos went still in a stone passageway with snake motifs on the walls. Syd's 'Other' had arrived.

Carrying the armor in a large case she was soon heading for the bay towards the ship Syd had flown in on, the VT-49 Decimator called the Closed Casket. Laertia knew what that intended. Syd was going as her CIS cover identity, Lyli.

She had never asked how Syd was operating under cover until she had explained it to her a few days prior. She hadn't simply been using another face, like that elderly one she had used on Midvinter. She could pretend she was someone else.

For the first time in crystal clarity, in a way that had not been consciously clear to Laertia at the time. The similarities between Syd and The Amalgam truly jumped out at Xiphos.

Of course, Xiphos, unlike Laertia, who would have been deeply, DEEPLY unsettled, Xiphos, being Xiphos, had thought only in this direction:

It is only natural for the Powerful to seek me out.

Xiphos deliberately chose not to dwell on the issue further. Syd had Laertia's heart captive. But she had captured the stealth heart of what had eventually become Xiphos long before that, at Golbah City.

Xiphos would not wring her hands over any similarities to her hated enemy. She belonged to Syd. She would viciously murder anyone who would dare pose a threat to her beloved.

The fake Dark Side aura of Syd's false identity permeated the hull of the ship. Intense, but only when you really meditated in it deeply for a long time did you notice the aura was all smoke and mirrors. Held up by magic.

Xiphos headed into the vessel and saw Lyli waiting in a skintight metallic green and gold catsuit, exuding and intense, extremely convincing, but fake Dark Side Aura.

Lyli smiled as she examined the beautiful Xiphos. She thought she was an autonomous individual but she was actually just a personality crafted by Syd. She had fairer skin than Syd, as well as sharp blue eyes, the hair a ruddy red color, and looked slightly more muscular and thinner than Syd also.

The Lyli Persona had never met Laertia OR Xiphos before. Xiphos went with the gag, because at this point, why not.

"They didn't tell me the scary Black Knight was so...cute..." Lyli noted flirtatiously.

Xiphos smiled, and the smile was genuine.

"Always nice when someone notices." The Light Side Marauder said back just as flirtatiously, setting the armor down a moment.

She felt Syd's muted spirit hiding in Lyli's flesh caressing hers. Xiphos suspected Syd was wanting to disconnect from herself after Sarka, hence Xiphos didn't blame her for showing up as someone else. They had both been traumatized once more by the evils of the Bryn'adul. Xiphos had no intention of doubting herself or her actions against the Bryn'adul or anyone who got in the way of defeating them. In time hopefully, Syd would be fully convinced...she had already adjusted to "Laertia's" strange new presence, not worrying about the strange new teachings from Themis. Not after Sarka.

Lyli smirked.

"Oh, believe me, its very hard to miss." Lyli replied smoothly, passing the first speech check of the day. "Will you take a seat Lady Io? I have to prep the craft for departure.

Xiphos slinked up to her with Laertia's face, smiling seductively in a way Laertia never would have.

"Please, call me Laertia." Xiphos said smoothly, passing a speech check of her own.

Lyli bit her lower lip, blushing a little, Syd's muted spirit ran its spiritual fingers through Xiphos's damaged brain.

"Well...I...I..." Lyli trailed as The Marauder slinked closer.

"You're rather cute yourself, Red." Xiphos flirted.

"I...it'll be a long trip. You may want to rest and get comfy." Lyli said, biting her lower lip harder.

"Of course..." Xiphos replied with a smile, winking, exuding confidence, practically ejecting charisma from her pores.

"Why, oh why, do I always meet the cute ones on a work day?" Lyli asked herself under her breath as she slowly backed away from Xiphos's seductive smile, the Syd hiding in her almost tempted to escape at that instant and submit.

Xiphos grinned and headed to the spare quarters while Lyli prepped the vessel...

Present.

The Closed Casket streaked over the Atmosphere of Malachor. The armor of her mother instantly reacted, began pushing the darkness away from her spirit, letting her remain focused against its whispers of power. None of the stuff mattered to Xiphos now, except how she might twist it with the Light to destroy the Bryn'adul.

Lyli set it to an auto pilot high overhead at Xiphos's request.

They opened the hatch, the ground of ash speeding beneath, a truly chaotic battle. Her skeletal sons were already below, moving in squads to intercept WOTS Spec Ops Teams as well as hold positions against the general infantry.

"Wanna take a trip down?" Xiphos asked.

"Sure!" Lyli grinned.

Xiphos held out her hand and Lyli took it.

"Express elevator to hell, going down!" Lyli joked. (Stay Frosty: 90 XP)

Xiphos pulled her with her off the hatch, clasping a giggling Lyli by the waist as she fell with her...

...and teleported a meter from the ground, landing on their feet safely and gently, the Decimator landing behind friendly lines.

They however, were not, their blades out instantly, Lyli's a single bladed red Lightsaber, Xiphos's weapons two powerful, enchanted Lightsabers. One the deadly, blazing orange dual vented blade she had been using more and more, and sealing back up less and less in nullification resin, embracing its power instead of fearing it as Laertia did.

Lyli struck fast and hard, her fists and legs carrying an incendiary effect along with her blades that ignited struck foes, Xiphos, now with vastly improved reflexes and speed due to servomotors in the armor, which increased already vast strength by a slight amount, was viciously cutting down soldiers of the Warlords, cutting through them cleanly without fanfare. She used the Shii-Cho Style, due to how packed the battlefield was with enemies, blades seperating heads or halves from each other, setting them on fire, as the Sword of Cinndurr inflicted lethal cuts, the SynthBreaker extending in length and deftly cutting through limbs and catching blaster bolts, though it was unable to deflect them, Lyli's fist and feet setting people ablaze on contact, flesh shuddering disgustingly as she broke people at hand to hand.

A vast tornado of water, taken from the bodies of the already dead, slammed violently into the soldiers shooting at them. Tendrils of water reached out to snap necks and limbs, or simply grab and hurl them away.

For the moment, they were clear of enemies as their back up arrived. One who had an even more intense but ultimately fake Dark Side aura than even Lyli did.

Arianna Belasko, a young and beautiful blonde woman with blue eyes slinked up to them in a long white gown, smirking at the burning corpses.

"Hot Entrance." The Atlanna Expy joked.

While the Narrator facepalmed at having used a Batman Forever Reference, Xiphos raised only an eyebrow under her armored helm.

"Countess."

"Off to cut some fools up?" Arianna asked casually, flinging a spear of water into the head of a sniper taking aim at her from behind without looking.

"That's a trick question, right?" Xiphos joked.

All three of them laughed at the morbid humor.

"I am off to Trayus Academy. Want me to pick up anything? Evil relics, crystals?"

"Snag Synths. Old ones. Especially the crap you find locked." Xiphos requested, turning to Lyli. "You got things handled?"

"I'll be out here killing if you need anything, Black Knight." Lyli assured.

"Stick with the Nuetralizers if you can. They might need you." Xiphos ordered, marching off into the fields past long dead ash remnants of Sith and Jedi.

Fake Sith stared at Fake Dark Jedi after Xiphos was out of sight.

"Go on. Swat one of the ash statues. Its fun." Arianna encouraged, growing more homicidal the longer she wore that enchanted white gown.

"Yeaaaah...I'm gonna feth right off now..." Lyli said, quickly moving to join a squad of Nuetralizers.

Arianna sighed and then began a confident power walk to Trayus Academy...

Five minutes later...

Xiphos locked blades with an enemy sith, ruthlessly slamming her blades on the foe in a Falling Avalanche attack. His blade broke from the twin strikes, and he was soon another sizzling, burning corpse.

She spotted Darth Kentarch , having slain another.

"You there!" The Light Side Marauder called out playfully, already planning out her assault. "Step right up! Don't be shy! I'm not! I'm feeling lucky! Do you feel lucky?" Xiphos asked, playful voice taking a slight edge of menace at that last bit, barely noticed, but still present...

 

[Kal]

Objective I, Location A: Breath of Ash in the Fields of Ash; Mystical Consultant.
Writing With: Ashin Cardé Varanin | Ingrid L'lerim

If anyone else had claimed the ability to complete a ritual while being actively dismembered, he would have responded with amused disbelief, but Ashin? He had seen her in action firsthand. She seemed the kind to be able to push through just about anything by way of stubborn determination.

Listening in on their conversation without actively participating, Kal opted to simply form his own opinions even as he searched for the stranger.

<I believe this to be Ingrid L'lerim of the Eternal Empire, though I have not personally interacted with her before,> mused Kal, quickly organising what he knew of the woman. <She has a reputation for exacting fidelity, seems the type to value concepts of honour highly. A trained assassin, I believe, but also an aspiring sorceress.> Not surprising, given her connection to the late Adrian Vandiir. The sorcery, not the honour.

Considering what he knew, both of the so-called Red Witch and similarly-minded organics, he evaluated their approach. <I have no reason to think she values the Sith particularly highly. Her involvement seems born of obligation, not spirituality or necessarily self-interest.>

Organics were such strange creatures. One might think of little but food, status, and reproduction or fight and died for vague ideals.​

 

[Darth Ahriman]

Allies: The Sith Empire.
Hostiles: Dasam Kal , Warlords of the Sith.
Acolyte Apparel | Sith Lightsaber | Sigma-Five-Delta

​

Malachor V, a world of perpetual darkness and unrivalled power would soon become a battlefield unlike any other for the Acolyte of the Sith Empire, Valen who stood aboard the troop dropship inbound for the surface alongside Sigma-Five-Delta, the recently reformed squadron of Imperial Legionnaires under Valen's command since the battle for Ziost against the New Imperial Order.

Though his days with the Empire were few, the Acolyte had been thrust into one battlefield after the next. At first, the young man had not expected to survive, yet in the darkest of hours where violence and adrenaline exceeded all else, the Dark Side of the Force flowed to him, strengthening his body and mind and making a weapon out of the young Sith. Few had so soon been commanded to take to the battlefront and ascended the expectations of their superiors, Valen's confidence and strength being bolstered with every fallen soldier run through by his blade.

The Jedi had taught that the Force was the lives blood of all sentient creatures, yet Valen had found that in those final moments of life where a man's eyes hollowed out and his soul departed its corporeal shell, that raw, frenzied energy was the strongest well of power that he had ever experienced, drinking in the essence of war and death as though he had been born and bred for the purpose. A weapon to be unleashed upon the enemy.

The time had arrived once more. Zeptepi Zambrano had passed down her orders and Valen would be the driving force behind her judgement upon the enemy, one like no other, for the acolyte would be encountering their very own people. Sith against Sith, a heretical and insulting uprising against the Empire's reign. Valen could not understand it, he had yet to experience treason among their kind until now and where he would have previously questioned their motives, there was nothing left but to see his Master's bidding unleashed upon they who had turned their backs upon the might of the Kainate.

The Dropship descended upon the soil of their objective location, the fields of ash, a dead land of decayed corpses and inherent darkness so wild and strong in presence that it made other worlds feel weak and hollow, whereas here Valen could feel the Darkness swirling around him and the troops as they stepped off of the platform of the ship and out into the open, their surroundings littered with a ruined city of foreign architecture, unfamiliar to him in his few years of life.

"Secure the sector for the arrival of the Sith" Valen instructed Sigma-Five-Delta, his superiors certain to arrive and reinforce the location, the Acolyte would make certain that preparations had taken priority and their arrival would be met with the respect that was demanded of all lesser beings. The Acolyte was a tool sent forth to ready the forward landing zone for those who had earned their place within the Empire, a temporary position until his name would cross the lips of Sith Lords and his Master's reputation would be empowered through Valen's efforts on the battlefield.

None would stand in his way from obtaining the strength and power that he needed to achieve his goals.

 

[Ingrid L'lerim]

Lady Ingrid L’lerim Ragal Terassi Vandiir
Eternal Empress of the Eternal Empire, Lord Commander of the Wardens of the Shroud
The Red Witch, The Night Queen, Lady Stuztala, Head of the House L’lerim, CEO of the HPI Consortium, Archon of the Primyn Group​

Location: The Fields of Ash, Malachor V
Objective I.: Stop the ritual!
Equipment: 2x Sigra vibroblade | 2x Striith vibrosword | Kiss of the Red Witch | Heilagr MK. I ssassin Armour | The Last Gift || Empyrean gland
Writing with: Ashin Cardé Varanin | Kal

[ Just Inside My Head ] ​

Patience game began, Ingrid used telepathy, the other woman used the droid. During concentration, one mind felt more distant, as if they were not completely in this world or did not belong entirely here, while the other was strong. She targeted her and soon found the woman. If Ashin was in her original form and was not wearing a helmet, she recognized the former Empress. Though they had never met in person, she had easily come to know persons of such importance; it was part of her assassination and agent work. Not to mention her royal rank.

~ I am not interested in religious things, nor that this is it a religious or sacred place for the Sith. I am not a Sith and I am not religious. ~ she replied simply and coldly, still to both persons.

Although she did not know, but Kal described her very accurately, although the Shadow was unlikely to be aware of the woman's actual abilities, but he was not mistaken in character. Nor in what she was good at. Only in that the woman was no longer loyal to a person or a state, but to her own people. This now really meant the Eternal Empire, but if there were no Eternal Empire, she would have sacrificed herself to her people. The power did not corrupt her because she did not want to; on the contrary, because of Adrian's words and requests, the power brought out the best in her, not the worst. She was the rare exception.

The two scopes met, Ingrid wore armor, so it didn't look like she could be under the black but light armor mask / helmet that blended into the environment.

~ Welcome, Lady Varanin. We haven't met before. I am Ingrid L’lerim from the Eternal Empire. Who is there with you to greet them too? I may not know exactly what kind of ritual you are performing, but I do know that it attracts dead souls and causes them pain, it won't let them rest. If you listen, you can hear their pain and suffering. No dead deserve this, Lady Varanin! ~