Cienor Shule wasn't fully sure just how he wound up here, but even through the inebriate haze of alcohol and spice from earlier in the evening he knew that it wasn't where he should have been. The sleek metal floors beneath him which trailed up to narrow corridors of the same material hinted at something other than some ordinary backwater jail and the gold-trimmed soldiers that were pulling him along by his arms certainly weren't any Outer Rimward authorities that he'd seen before. Had he managed to piss off some cartel boss or syndicate head with his gambling tricks again? Or did he accidentally undercut someone in their employ on his last spice run?
If he was more sober then perhaps he could narrow down the possibilities but at present it was taking all of his focus to simply not spew his earlier meal all over the front of himself. Whoever it was that he was being dragged to meet, Cienor wanted to be at least somewhat presentable. In his experience the right appearance and attitude made all the difference between leaving a meeting with a contract or being carried out in a body bag. To that end he made sure to swallow the bile rising in his throat before they reached the end of the hall and were let past a sliding door, then pulled inside by the pair of soldiers still barely holding him up.
The smuggler glanced around the room, his vision still blurred around the edges but nevertheless capable of recognizing what seemed to be some observation room aboard a vessel or station. Quite the departure from the cantina that he'd been drinking in earlier when he last recalled being conscious. Before he could quite get his bearings though, the soldiers threw him down and gave him what felt like a bruise on his chin in the process when he hit the floor. "Agh kark! At least buy me a drink first before you get all rough and tumble with me!"
He snapped back at the soldiers with a glare before his gaze was drawn forwards to regard the owner of the armored boots that he now found himself laid at the feet of. Cienor's eyes crept up the robed figure that loomed over him, wincing slightly at the helmeted head that hid the expression of its wearer yet still seemed to convey a sense of utter disdain. "Uh...fancy duds you got there..." The armored and robed man scoffed and shook his head, glancing at the pair of Kaar Sergeti and gesturing off to the side. "Get something to sober our guest up a bit, he looks too poorly to listen properly."
Before Cienor could argue, as he had done countless times before in various circumstances and situations, that he was in fact not at all inebriated enough to warrant any countermeasures, the pair of soldiers were already moving. One of them wrenched his arm up and caused him to bite back a curse, rolling up his sleeve so that their partner could stab a needle into it with no gentleness to speak of. Evidently not just a needle, but a syringe given the cool sensation that soon ran through his arm and spread across his body quick enough to make him shiver.
He was unceremoniously dropped again but this time the impact was far less dulled by drink and drug, though a new splitting headache soon occupied what had been previously fogging his mind. Fogging it enough that it took him a couple of extra seconds to realize that the glaring red light of the helmeted man was now squarely in his vision rather than looking down at him. He jerked back and the robed man straightened up in unison from where he had been bent down previously. "Much better. Now, you're Shule aren't you? Cienor Shule, spice runner and smuggler of all things illicit?"
Between the even tone of the unnerving figure and the substance still doing its work in his system, Cienor found himself disturbingly present and aware of his circumstances all too quickly for his liking. "Yeah that...that's...me. Who-uh, who might you-" "Unimportant." The clipped interruption made him wince but he knew better than to ask any further. "What is important is that you have gained the attention of our Prophet, namely His ire, and He would like to discuss the matter of your...patrons personally."
The smuggler blinked and glanced around the room, quickly noticing a lack of anyone else aside from his captors and the robed figure before him within. "And where might this, er, 'Prophet' of yours be?" He didn't like how the soldiers at his back stepped back several paces at that question. The figure in front of him became very still and for a moment he feared some manner of reprisal, but in the next moment he wished for it instead of what followed. Namely the obscene golden glow that overtook what served as the visor of the helmet, the figure briefly hovering above the ground with his whole form bent back as a dreadful gasp escaped him.
The helmeted man shook in the air, seizing as the glow intensified into a pair of golden eyes. Then his body went slack, his feet returning to the ground but his form hunched and lifeless. Pale translucent emanations seemed to flow from his back and at once reminded Cienor rather grimly of the strings of a manual puppet, the new golden gaze snapping to him with a slight pop of the figure's neck at the sheer speed of the motion before he straightened up. His stance became something different, as though parrotingsomeone else.
Then the figure breathed in and out, rolling his shoulders before crossing his arms behind his back as though nothing disturbing at all had just occurred. "Right here." The voice was different, layered above how he'd spoken before. It eerily reminded Cienor of an old horror holovid featuring a Sith ghost possessing and manipulating one of the characters into being a murderous antagonist. "Wh-what-" "Shhh." The smuggler found himself unable to open his mouth at all, as though it was being held shut, in tandem with the figure holding a single gloved finger up to His helmet.
"I will ask the questions, and you will give me the answers that you know. Anything more and I will have you carve out your own tongue using your fingernails." Naturally neither the figure's tone nor His threat left any room for argument or discussion even when Cienor found himself able to move his jaw again. "Who has been supplying the spice for your smuggling operations? Where have you found safe harbor with the Mahporeem Imperials beginning to establish themselves?" Any who subscribed to the notion of 'honor among thieves' might have hesitated to answer. The smuggler didn't.
"Used to source from those Wild Space folks, b-but now I get everything from some of my old Black Sun contacts. I-I can give you their names and everything! The Hutts are keeping me in business, fighting some kind of war or something I don't know. Look they just pay me and I-" His jaw refused to move again. "You've spoken enough. Your voice irritates me greatly, now listen and listen well for I shall only give you this chance once. You will provide my soldiers with every employer and patron you have, as well as their systems and worlds of operation, and then you will be escorted back to the dreary little bar that they found you in."
The figure leaned down, the baleful golden gaze burning into his own. "And if you give them any, and I do mean any, trouble or withhold any information that they ask of you then you and I will have another discussion. Though next time I'll be far more...generous with my pressuring." For a moment Cienor's breath hitched as his whole form froze, like he had been suddenly dropped into some deep water far beyond what his body was meant to handle. It lasted long enough to rob him of his breath, but not enough to do any real damage. Though he was still stunned as the Kaar Sergeti bowed and dragged him out of the room for further interrogation.
Once the door closed, the possessed Sith spun on his heel and Darth Strosius idly gazed at His servant's reflection in the viewport that showcased the endless abyss of stars and space beyond it. His golden eyes and "wings" were barely visible in the image on the glass for a moment, then they became all too apparent as the reflection morphed into a hooded figure with the same pale tendrils and golden gaze.
A gaze which was turning into a darker burnt amber shade as trails of crimson began to fall from its eyes in parallel tear streaks. Then the Âhayont blinked and the reflection's golden gaze and hooded figure remained but without the darker color or red lines and without the Prophet's presence overriding his body. He took a moment to readjust to being conscious and in control before bowing his head slightly to the image on the viewport. "My lord, how do we know that the scum was being truthful? Should we not hold him for a proper interrogation?"
The shadowed figure's golden gaze blinked. "We don't. Those without morals, without rules, without worth, will say anything to save their own wretched lives. It is not his words that you will abide by in your hunt, but his actions. Only those are certain." The Âhayont's brows knitted together in confusion behind his helmet. "I...do not believe I understand." "He will run when he is let loose. First he will run for safety, and if he runs to someone then they will undoubtedly be able to provide us with further information. However after he thinks himself safe, he will warn his benefactors that we are hunting them. That is how we will know who to chase and who to ignore for the time being. That is how you will have your targets."
The Âhayont hummed, pondering as the Prophet's 'words' echoed in his mind before he nodded. "As you wish. If your will is to see the spice trade torn asunder then such will be my conviction, my lord." For a brief moment, almost too fleeting to catch, he almost thought he saw a glint of something within the baleful stare on the glass. Yet his very mind seemed to forget that he noticed anything at all before he even had the chance to process it. "See that you do. Anything to take some attention and pressure off of our campaign in Hutt space is essential. Hunt well and coordinate with your siblings in arms, your prey is elusive. Be swift and decisive."
With a blink that was neither intentional nor natural, the shadowed figure on the viewport gave way to his own reflection and a distinctly hollow feeling in the back of his mind set in. The Âhayont loosed a breath that he hadn't intended to hold and bid the tension in his body to leave with it, ignoring the new soreness rooted into his being as he set off to give his troops their orders once they had returned their captured smuggler.
