A good run of bad luck...

[Reverance]

The table creaked against the weight of his presence, the caution thrown to the wind was evident in his demeanor, his very persona. He had been an acquaintance of Darth Carach's for some time but for all the time they had waged war and shed blood and pushed the machine forward, the Wrath hardly knew the Voice. And that struck him as odd, given that Gabriel was such an awe struck companion of Matsu Xiangu's - that influence, that character, that power - it could have origins, if only scraps, in the behemoth figure of the mentalist. And that interested Gabriel more than he cared to admit.

Chinking the glass back and forth, ice cubes smacking against one another, amber whiskey sloshed against the crystalline construction of the tumbler. He took a sip, wincing just slightly at the strength of the reserve, and placed the glass on the table. Sucking on air, he pushed the button back and forth across the centerpiece before him, acknowledgment of his turn to deal. The stack of chips, blues and reds and greens, indicated an expanse of wealth, one mirrored by a near identical column before the Voice. It seemed they both weren't impacted by the woes of poverty, reaching into the same pot of power and pulling back what they desired. Shuffling his stack with a twist of his fingers, over and under, Gabriel picked up the cards and dealt. Two to the man across to him, two to himself. And the deck back in the center.

He raised the corner of his cards, revealing the shades and numbers beneath. He gave no indication of his hand as he looked over to Carach, looking for the tell-tells of a solid hand. Scooting a stack of chips forward, Gabriel wagered 10,000 credits for the opening bid.

"Why the Sith?" He said, quietly. He had known enough about the Sith Lord to know that this choice for factions, will right, may have initially been fleeting. He was a pragmatic individual, more business like in approach. It didn't always suit the One Sith, especially when massacre was so easy. But more than just this faction, Gabriel wanted to know what made the man tick, what had stirred his choices that led him down this path - the one that sat him at this table, playing poker with a murderer.

[member="Darth Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Identity, character, names.

Such illusive little things. They were the foundation of their society, and yet the pillars of said society largely kept to themselves in the actuality of life - Carach was not isolated, as much as a figure who enjoyed a modicum of privacy while steering his interests in the right direction.

It was a mentality he had instilled upon his last and only Apprentice.

Oh the heights she has achieved since those simpler times.

He was proud, of course. It was the pride for a student who had made a life of her own, who commanded the kind of respect that she deserved, it was the pride of a Master who quietly observed from the shadows and liked what he saw. Though, Carach supposed that her desire to inflict pain wasn’t as tempered as it had been back in the day - but that was the thing with your students.

Sometimes it was just time to let them go… let them decide for themselves what to do with the lessons they had picked up.

“They had promise.” the Sith Lord replied simply. He accepted the two cards, but did not move to take a quiet look, because at the end of the day this wasn’t just a simple game of cards.

If anything? The cards were just a parallel to the secrets, truths and facts they would or would not be exchanging today - it was a game that the Voice had grown to love. A game he had been playing for a very long time now.

“Promise deserves cultivation.”

It was a blanket statement that would reveal not only part of his interest for the Sith, but also why he had done so many other things in the past.

Such as training Xiangu in the first place.

“Why the Yun’Do?”

[member="Reverance"]

 

[Reverance]

He smiled. The answer was simple enough, especially for someone such as the Wrath. In the end, the right choice needn't deserve intense scrutiny. But the question about the Yun'Do, that answer ran deeper than he was currently prepared to delve. Reaching forward, he grabbed the bottle of whiskey and uncorked it. "Why Darth Carach...the Yun'Do? What ever do you mean?" He smirked as he tilted the bottle, the amber fluid soaking the melting ice chips. As he filled it halfway, he titled his head and re-corked the bottle. Except to the members of the hierarchy, the horrors and truths of the Legion Yun'Do were largely lore and rumors. Villains in the night, experiments and fantasies, all true and false. A coexistence that attracted the Wrath, among other things.

Taking a sip, he winced and jutted out his bottom lip, bracing against the proof. "We pray to the same God..." He looked across the table, the failure to place a bet was one quickly noticed. But the cards were merely the dressing, this conversation the course. "To pain...to pleasure..." An ocular tick. "They are one and the same."

"You see, we are very similar in that way. I saw promise in the Yuuzhan Vong, an opportunity to re-polarize their beliefs towards an achievable goal. My..." Fetish? "...Fixation with pain. That was merely the key that opened the door, everything else flowed freely as the Hrosha-Gul slowly became the Legion of God's woe."

He wondered, quietly grinding the bottom of the cup against the table as it sloshed back and forth. He wondered if could tell that story to Carach, one only told to a few others. This wasn't the tendency of the weak, to sob over an ill begotten past. It was the celebration of it, the realization that the misdeeds of one man created another, a terrible figure unburdened by conscious and care. Well, care for anything he deemed unworthy. But this conversation, it was something worth considering.

"What do you chase, Carach?" He squinted at the Voice. "To what are you fixated?" There was no question, something lied beneath that brooding exterior. Some imperfection, a counterbalance to the traits that reflected across from Gabriel.

[member="Darth Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[SIZE=10.6667px]The lack of a bet in the present did not mean there was no bet forthcoming in the future, in general Carach was a patient man. It was in his nature to wait out the moments of opportunity, to stay his hand from acting until the axis of chance was firmly in his wagon - this was not really a surprise, considering that the Sith Lord firmly believed he had all the time in the world. True immortality was… still a [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]hypothetical[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] situation for the Voice, but true scientific process always started with an assumption followed by an hypothesis.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“Fascinating.” Carach granted, raising his own glass - filled sparingly with the same amber. His personal feelings for the Yuuzhan Vong were complicated, a pragmatic man by default meant that the Sith was inclined to use them for his benefit.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]But the implications of what their disconnection to the Galaxy could mean, worried him just slightly.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Still. It was beyond any reason of a doubt that the Legion Yun’Do had been instrumental in the victories of the One Sith, this deserved a certain level of respect and allowances in how they were treated in the Voice’s opinion.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Not that the Voice would actually… [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]voice[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] those opinions, he did not need to. Not with the Wrath of the Dark Lord already positioned to reward the Legion for their efforts - staying publically neutral gave Carach the ability to move amidst the dissenters and biggests voices against the Yuuzhan Vong, it gave him access to [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]listen[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] and [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]collect[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px].[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“My [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]fixation is[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]…[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]” and then the Sith Lord allowed himself to ponder just a little bit.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]He tasted the burning liquid on his tongue, allowed its taste to move his mind to a higher echelon of existence, to float on the currents of the then and now. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“...perfection. To attain a state of [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]knowing[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] all there is to know, to be intimately aware of all that was, is and will be.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]The Sith Lord shrugged and finished his glass.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“In simpler terms, I chase knowledge in all its forms.” [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]and he collected it, inventorized it, somewhere in the Galaxy was a storagehouse of a magnitude that has not been seen since the destruction of Veeshas Tuwan… and yet it was not enough for Carach.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]It would never be enough.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“I wonder, though.” Carach added after a brief moment of respite. “How long this will last.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px][member="Reverance"][/SIZE]

 

[Reverance]

"Perfection?" Gabriel offered a curious expression, inclination towards perfection never having been something he considered. Somewhere between wonderment and pondering if he could ever appreciate such things in the way Carach has, the Wrath smiled and checked his cards again. In his own mind, the brevity of the expression of pain, no matter how long it occurred, was the epitome of perfection. That turmoil between the long chase and the fear of plummeting to the edge, he was addicted to that thrill. That hunt, that never ending quest. But in testing the limits, he knew that one day he would go too far. Cut too deep, plunge too far into the abyss, too hard and fast to ever return. And that risk, that inevitable end, excited him. "There are few things more worthy of such a fixation..." He stated in agreement.

More than anything, Gabriel looked forward to that conclusion. Because no matter how one interprets the score, the runner always looks forward to the finish line. To be done with the life and all it's uselessness, Gabriel smiled at the thought and the blaze of glory and pain that would proceed it. It would be one hell of a show, one that truly showed how subjective perfection could be. Mid thought, he ran his fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp, as he considered the notion of this empire and how long it might truly last.

"We are founded upon the notion of change...At least, that is my way of seeing things." He smiled at the irony of his current thought processes, taking another sip of the whiskey. "One side thinks the other side weak, one side thinks the other side ruthless and wrong. That cycle is one etched in stone, cemented to the axis of time. It will never change, which means our efforts are fruitless. Scars and wounds heal, our impact forgotten for the next big movement." He titled his head, assumption of a met bet, and turned over the first three cards. Tonguing his cheek, he looked over the two cards and pursed his lips. "The better question is...will this last? Time doesn't really matter, we either go on or we don't." He smiled. "But I am no mentalist. A time frame would be far better in your capable hands, than mine."

He played with the row of chips. "It's your bet."

[member="Darth Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Yet… sometimes the Mentalist envied the existence of the lucky ones who had picked a different path for themselves. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Men like Adekos who were so deeply ingrained in the technological that they missed the subtle shifts in the metaphysical, women like Vrag whose entire usage of the Force revolved around enhancing her own body and ended with that - they were the lucky ones, even if they didn’t know this. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“I'll call that.” the Sith Lord responded softly, before pushing a suitable amount of chips over to the pot. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“Nothing ever lasts, Lord Wrath. We are founded on the notion of change - as you say. A constant movement, inertia pulling us further and further over the brink until we all shatter. Only for the newest brand to rise up from the ashes and take over from us.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]He brushed his cards, but still did not take a look. It wasn’t necessary, because as mentioned before… it wasn’t about the cards.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“It might be an Order of Two, upstart Dark Jedi or perhaps Vendefica’s puppets, but there will always be something that will view itself as the next best thing.” [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]even if they were just a dilated, murky substance that wasn’t even close to the glory that had come before, children always thought themselves grand in the beginning.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Wisdom came later.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“As to [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]when[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]. Too soon, I think. A pessimist I might be, but we have already lost much of our founding strength - I merely hope we will be able complete the task the Dark Lord gave us, before time runs it course.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px][member="Reverance"][/SIZE]

 

[Reverance]

"Gabriel..." He interrupted. He wasn't a fan of titles, nor was he of being referred to as the Wrath in such intimate situations. He was a man of action, title as weightless as objects in space. And assuredly not necessary in this circumstance. He smiled at the call, drawing another card on the turn. Four were out now, though they were nearly of no consequence. This was a game of the minds, and maybe something more. But where the cards landed, no one was really sure. But it helped pass the time, tactile stimulus for the time being between drinks of whiskey and philosophical discourse.

"The Covenant of the Rose..." Gabriel laughed at the idea, shaking his head. "They were elevated by the proximity to the Dark Lord, his absence will cause them to wilt in turn." He paused, recalling that proclamation of Darth Venefica as traitor. While she may have not been the formal leader of the Covenant, she was the Voice during ascension and as such, guilt had been offered due to proximity. And since none had spoken of discrediting her declaration of war, it can only be assumed that those in her company agreed. What else was the hierarchy going to do? Give them the benefit of the doubt?

Gabriel chuckled into his glass, the viscous fluid melting the chips of ice as he stood up with the empty bucket. Cracking open the ice chest, he scooped in some chips and carried them to the center of the table. Taken to a certain fondness of style, as of late, he had worn a simple set of black dress pants and a casual white button up shirt. There was a simplicity of that, as he rolled up his sleeves. Scratching his forearm, tracing nails across the tattoos and scars, he thought long and hard on Carach's words. Too soon...or maybe just in time. He exhaled at the thought, grabbing at the ice with the tongs and placing a few chips in his tumbler.

"We have you, we have Kaine, Darth Hauntruss, Vrag, Sage Bane, Darth Isolda...The Assassins. The Grand Republic crumbles at the very sight of us, stooping to laws such as black flag. They turn to Imperials and Rebel groups, both of which are easily deterred." He smiled. "They might as well have surrendered by now, with how successful they have been." He shook his head. "No, with the state of the Jedi currently, if we descend into irrelevance it will be at the hand of another Darkside Order. And currently, none exist of note."

Of course, he had heard rumblings of a new alliance. But that group, as of now, wasn't even worth the words and time to mention.

[member="Darth Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Half a smile came up. [member="Reverance"] and him never really had much of a [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]social[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] history, most if not all of their interactions came forth from necessity forged through emergencies - be that the treason of Titan Industries, the realization that more advanced armor was necessary to curb some of the Republic’s past advancements and the general duality of fighting side by side in the last few years of the struggle against the dying behemoth. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]But never a real first-name basis. Not that Carach had taken offense at that, they were all busy people at the end of the day: maybe some upstarts Sith Knights or the rare Sith Lord could afford to spent their time messing around, but the hierarchy of the One Sith was different. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]They had many responsibilities, and most of them could not be simply deferred to underlings.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“Darell.” Carach exchanged with a nod. His secret identity as a titan in business was [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]that[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px], a secret that wasn’t known to many people, but there were key people who [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]were[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] aware. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]The Dark Lord, of course. Vrag, their first meeting had been one between Irani and her. Matsu, always and ever and now [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]officially[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] Reverance.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Maybe it was a sign of trust, maybe it was just another move in an esoteric game that Carach loved to play or maybe… he considered it a fair exchange. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Hauntress… and where is the legendary Sith Lady, do tell? I haven’t seen her around. Bane… ah, I miss the times when Sith Lords were more than pampered little boy toys with more than just sticks up their behinds. The Assassins… my, oh my, what a collection of competent individuals.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]The rest the Voice could agree with at least. [member="Vrag"] was one of deadliest warriors he ever had the pleasure of knowing. Zambrano had held his position as a Voice for as long as he had, if not more than that. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Isolda[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]… Carach did not approve of the connection she shared with the Dark Lord, but in the end their liege would do as he pleased, and he was not in a position to… heh… [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]voice[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] any opposition at any rate.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“Reasonable assessment, and yet. [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]When[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] we break the Republic… where will our attention go next?”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]It was then that the Voice looked back at the cards and received something akin to a [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]premonition[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px], the cane hummed in pleasure at the destruction unfolding before his eyes, and Carach couldn’t help but wonder if the threat would come from a new Darkside presence… or if it would come from the inside, from traitors within the rank.[/SIZE]

 

[Reverance]

"Darell..." He spoke the name slowly, rolling it around, getting a feel for it. It was a good name he decided, one he had never heard uttered before. With a nod, he took another sip and listened to the question, quickly following his answer. The certainty of the statement pleased the Wrath, the acknowledgment that it wasn't a matter of if but merely timing. The sort that the Republic had borrowed, long overdue for return, and now were preparing for collection. They were a carcass floundering in turbulent waters, white foam spraying upward in their last gasps and coughs. The final moments where they realize no amount of struggling, no amount of flailing, nothing - nothing would change their current direction - these moments were now upon them.

Gabriel longed to see it, that dead thing finally accept it's fate. To be peacefully serenaded by the silence, to be overcome by the rushing water and tides and sink to the floor. To be forgotten and reborn, a fate they were always destined to experience but ever willing to fruitlessly fight against. But times were changing and the Sith Lord would have what he wanted, he always seemed to find a way. Whether that meant that it would occur soon or he would prevail over the foreboding sense of destruction, washing over the One Sith continually, that remained to be seen.

"Who is next on the chopping block, you mean?" He said as he smiled, turning over the next card. The river, how appropriate. He fingered the two cards, sitting on the edge of the table, fanning their corners without really looking at them or looking at he hand. He was too busy trying to get at the mentalist, to figure out what sort of game was being played here. "Well, we've all but dismantled the rebel alliance...if you can even call them that, with a simple word. They flee at the mention of...Dave." He said with a smile, enjoying that piece of propaganda and it's delivery. "We engaged Imperial vessels on Ord Mirit, so I assume they are out there in the darkness...waiting for just the right opportunity to once again fade into their haze of triviality." He smiled. "I've heard very little of the Omega Protectorate and the Mandos are just as likely to close off their borders as they are to engage us in open warfare." He shrugged and finished off his whiskey, uncorking the bottle and filling once more.

"We have incorporated a large subset of the Yuuzhan Vong, but that threat always remains outside our domain. And if not them...then something else, always something else." He paused, chewing on his cheek, as he exhaled and scratched the scar over his eye. "Trust me, Darell...there will always be an enemy to claim our attention. That's why we are so successful. Our job is our vocation." He smirked and raised the glass slightly, clinking the half melted ice against the crystal.

[member="Darth Carach"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Long ago the Sith Lord had learned the importance of [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]anonymity[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] - it was even better than plausible deniability, because it avoided the looks and the deep-seated biases that could evolve from even a passing suspicion… which was just [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]annoying[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] to deal with when you were trying to conduct any form of business. No, it was a sign of trust that Carach had shared his first name with Gabriel, more so than most Sith Lords in the One Sith he valued his privacy immensely. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Even now his face was hardly seen in public, most underlings couldn’t even link his face to a Voice of the Dark Lord.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]His own hand brushed his cards, feeling the texture of it, but his eyes didn’t left the Wrath’s. He spoke and in the back of his mind there was churning, gears calculating and trying to figure out what Carach was up to.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Finally then he raised his own glass, amusement glancing off his lips as he took a sip himself - it burned, but it burned in the good way.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]As a reminder to the sheer triviality of life itself, as a reminder that all the good things in life shared a single thing… [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]it required pain to be worth it[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px], but [member="Reverance"] would have known that better than anyone.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“I am more concerned about [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]misguided[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] ones within our ranks.” the Voice finally replied, it was not a secret that when Vendefica left… some of the Black Rose kept on fighting for the Dark Lord… without even mentioning their sister’s treason - almost as if they were trying to ignore it and hoped that with that they would too.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“I counsel caution.” [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]and perhaps a plan B, if the One Sith would ever fall.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]But his own plans were already settled, Carach would never let anything hinge upon something as trivial as [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]fate[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px].[/SIZE]

 

[Reverance]

"Mmm...it concerns me as well." He shook his head with a shallow dip, pulling his cards up and inspecting them. He slowly ticked the base against the table, looking beyond them towards the Sith Lord with an almost consuming expression. With a squint, he continued to stare, though his mind trailed off. "Betrayal is the nature of the Sith. Loyalty is a rare commodity and even rarer to maintain. Fleeting, if you will."

He breathed in loudly, returning to view as he blinked steadily. "Would you change that nature? Would you reach into the Sith ideology and remove that constant competition. I personally see it as progress, the strong constantly requiring vigilance for survival. Self-clarifying." He lifted the drink and sipped, rotating the chips within it as he brought it close to eye. The melting ice surfaced across the top, like oil and water, and he swirled it to mix it in. "The weak removed because they've lost their way, because they have been misguided." He smiled again, taking another sip and chewing on a piece of ice.

"Some would claim my proclivities as misguided. Some would say the same of you. We all have things we don't share, secrets that we hold as more valuable than others, and we keep them locked away." A clench of his jaw as he folded the hand, pushing the chips over to Darell. Stacking the cards back into the pile, he shuffled and pushed the deck to the other Sith Lord. "There are times when caution is called for, other times we must entertain the notions of calculated recklessness."

He watched eye-fully at the deck, waiting for the initiation of the next hand by Darell. "Have you ever felt misguided...or are you simply perfect?" Of course, Gabriel didn't hold a single notion towards the man being perfect. But he did accept that Darell would chase the idea, with every fiber of his being. As he had alluded to before.

[member="Darth Carach"]​