A Lamb to the Slaughter

[Mithridate]

The summoning came in the form of a folded sheet of gold flimsiplast, sealed with the sigil of the Sith Empire. A servant dressed in fine livery wordlessly presented it to Mithridate with a bow and outstretched arms.Mith stared in confusion before carefully taking it. Motioning with their hand to dismiss the servant, they broke open the seal and read the message.

“You have been summoned,” they read, “to meet on the day of Zhell, on the hour of 20:00 in the evening. Signed, Darth Carnifex, Dark Lord of the Sith.”

With a look of disgust they crumpled the sheet and threw it in the wastebasket. Thankfully Mith was no-longer living in the long, open halls that served as dorms for new acolytes. With hard beds along the walls, there was no privacy. A servant dressed like that would have turned heads, and anything mentioning a lord of the Sith would get tongues moving.

Just a joke. Just a karking joke. They didn’t dare for a moment think that it was actually the Dark Lord wanting to meet with them. It was probably some group of punks that had their little egos hurt when Mith inevitably tore them to shreds in the dueling ring. They weren’t worth Mith’s time.

After a pause Mith grabbed the flimsi out of the trash and carefully smoothed it out. At the bottom of the message there was a set of coordinates. An idea was forming in their head. With a cruel smile they grabbed a spare lightsaber and clipped it to their belt. If a group of butthurt newbies wanted to play, Mith would gladly join.
---------------
A dark cloak was the only thing keeping the night’s chill from Mithridate’s skin. The closer they got to the coordinates, the more unnerved they became. They had anticipated meeting in a bad part of the city, a dark alleyway in the slums maybe, but instead headed toward the imperial center. Past the administrative buildings, past the finer dwellings of privileged Sith Lords and high-ranking politicians that were permitted (and could afford to) live near the Dark Lord of the Sith’s palace. They went past those too, right up to the tall, foreboding gates with their solemn anonymous guards draped in red. Mith, fully expecting to be turned away with a shout, slowly announced themself and extended their hand with the invitation plainly seen. To their shock, the guards stepped away without a word, and the gates parted.

A bottomless pit formed in Mith’s stomach as they numbly walked forward. At some point a liveried servant came to address them with a bow, and lead them inside. They stopped inside a large audience hall, left dark and entirely empty of people. With a bow, the servant wordlessly left.

Anger began to rise within Mithridate. Someone wanted them dead. That was the only explanation to this, but instead of asking acolytes to do it, whomever high Lord they angered wanted to be absolutely sure that Mith would die. The Dark Lord probably gave them permission to use this room, they thought nervously. If they saw an opening to escape, Mith would take it, and if not, they wouldn’t die without a proper fight. Slowly they took their lightsaber hilt off of their belt, ready to put a surge of Force into it to ignite the blade at a moment’s notice.

"You want me to die? Me, a lowly sewer rat? Then come out and do it, I dare you!" Their voice was filled with anger and a cocky confidence, yet still shook the slightest bit. Reaching out with the Force, they sensed nothing, and no-one.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

At first there was nothing.

Only their own echoing words responded, bouncing off the high vaulted ceiling of the audience chamber before dissipating into nothingness to herald the return of silence. Then, a door perpendicular to the raised throne opened to let a column of light slice through the darkness and gloom, illuminating the silhouette of a single individual lingering in the door's threshold.

"Careful what you wish for, acolyte. You never know who might be listening, and who could make that wish a reality."

The voice that spoke was of utter aural darkness; hollow, swallowing, engulfing. It seemed horrifically otherworldly, yet was an intimate as one's own inner monologue in its apparent closeness and intensity. Then the figure started to move, and whereas before there had been an absence of any distinguishable presence in the Force now there existed an oppressive darkness the likes many had never experienced before. It radiated off of the figure like physical waves, smothering the light wherever it went; even the artificial lights of the room dimmed and flickered as he passed underneath.

For no other power in the universe could be mistaken for that of the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Around his body was draped a cloak of blood, beneath it a suit of black armor. At his hip hung a single lightsaber, yet it was evident that he wouldn't need to even reach for it to kill her if he so chose. His face was framed by strong cheekbones and dark piercing eyes, eyes that were more like motes of unfathomably hateful flame drifting in a sea of shadows. His hair, equally as black as his armor, was pulled back and bound into a long ponytail that ran down towards the middle of his back.

He came to a full stop a little more than two meters away from the smaller neophyte, his scrutinizing gaze falling on them like a tonne of bricks. "I assume you already know who I am, seeing as that you answered my invitation."

[member="Mithridate"]​

 

[Mithridate]

Mithridate waited expectantly for someone to jump out of the shadows and strike at them. As their words fell silent, they were starting to think that this was indeed some sort of cruel joke, an elaborate form of gaslighting intended to slowly twist their mind beyond sanity. Some Sith Lord was probably watching them from a remote location, dying from laughter and amusement. Clipping the lightsaber to their belt, Mith was ready to turn and leave.

Suddenly a door opened at the end of the room, and Mith jerked around to look. A shadowy figure stood with the light source behind him, obscuring his face. They did not sense, but rather see.Mith opened their mouth to say something, but was promptly cut off. His voice carried a weight and serenity that was hard to describe. Leisurely, almost. He was clearly used to being obeyed. It was as if he was speaking within and without their head simultaneously, and perhaps he was. The young acolyte had mental shields as thin as paper, and didn’t dare issue a retort now.

The Dark Lord’s Aura hit Mithridate like a ton of bricks. A hand was trying to push all the air out of their lungs, making it impossible to breath in more than strangled gasps. Their head felt like it would burst from the pain and the pressure inside. As Mith dropped to their knees, hands grasping their head in pain. Effort to keep quiet visibly marked their face as they writhed on the floor, shaking. A miserable and pathetic sight indeed.

The vision of boots stopping a small distance away forced Mith to look up, seeing the Dark Lord dressed in armor as black as night and a cloak as red as blood, as if he intentionally matched his choice of outerwear to his activities planned for the day. Hopefully, the spilt blood would not be the neophyte’s. His facial structure appeared to have been carved into living stone rather than formed from flesh. Eyes full of indescribable malice and hatred gazed down at Mithridate, through them, dissecting the pathetic specimen that dare.

Mith almost let out a wheezing laugh, despite the fear that sat like a cold stone in their stomach. Anyone who could have gone through all this and yet still not be convinced that this was the Dark Lord of the Sith was an absolute fool. Most acolytes were fools anyhow, but at least Mith wasn’t that sightblinded.

With a shaky breath, Mith quickly responded,“Yes m’Lord,” before pressing their forehead to the ground one more time in a formal act of prostration. Rising to sit on their knees, head bowed in respect, they dared ask one question out of turn, the one thing that had no conceivable answer they could guess themselves.

“Why?”

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Why else?"

Their reaction was not uncommon to those who were not familiar with his vitriolic presence in the Force, though they was strong enough to not be reduced to a mass of whimpering madness. He gestured with his right hand, bading them to rise and stand tall before their Lord and Master. "I keep a close eye on all new adherents to the Brotherhood of the Sith, probing the neophytes for signs of potential. Take solace in the fact that I have meticulously scoured the ranks of your classmates, and found each and every one of them lacking in one area or another. But you? You have shown the most promise out of any of your contemporaries."

The truth was a little more complex than that. Carnifex himself actually never paid attention to any of the new acolytes that were admitted into their academy system, but he had a team of watchers that would routinely scour the Empire's Sith registry looking for those who might pique the interest of their master. Once a list had been compiled, it was given to the Dark Lord for review.

And Carnifex had chosen them out of all others.

"Which is why you have been brought before me, so that I may swear you in as my newest apprentice."

[member="Mithridate"]​

 

[Mithridate]

At his bidding Mithridate rose, fighting to ignore the throbbing in their temples from his oppressive force aura. Hopefully, they would become accustomed with time and more strength in the Force. Patently listening him explain his methodology for picking apprentices, Mith wondered exactly how much of Darth Carnifex’s words were true. Did he really care to personally watch all new neophytes that came to the Sith for training? He surely had more pressing matters at hand than to watch which blubbering children would make it past their first week. People likely reported to him and gave him names. Or perhaps it was a lottery system, where candidates were randomly chosen. Or perhaps, none of those. Such things didn’t matter when one was standing before the Dark Lord.

Mithridate didn’t really process what was going on when Darth Carnifex said he wished to swear them in as his newest apprentice. Dumbly they nodded, before quickly adding in a jerky bow. “I am at your service, my Lord.”
I am chosen, Mithridate thought. Chosen. Whether this was the greatest or worst thing to happen to them was yet to be seen.

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"You and all others that draw breath within the Empire."

He was as arrogant as he was intimidating, and he made no effort to hide or diminish the authority he wielded across the vast Imperium he and his companions had forged through blood and conquest.

Far and wide he was known by many names; Butcher King, Black Iron Tyrant, the Scourge of a Hundred Worlds, Sadist of the Noblest Blood. He wore these titles proudly, for he was not ashamed of his nature nor did he attempt masquerade himself as something else. He left such treachery to the Jedi who torched entire worlds in their zealotry yet preached the tenets of peace and brotherhood to their ignorant followers.

Such charlatans deserved nothing but his utmost scorn.

"Mithridate, as you stand before me I name you Apprentice of the Dark Lord and baptize you in power." Power indeed flowed from the Dark Lord, but it manifested as crimson lightning arcing from the tips of his gloved fingers to hit the Sith Acolyte before him, bathing them in agony for a short period before the lightning receded. In its wake it left behind a web-work of scars and burns that marked them as his own much like a scalding brand would mark a farmer's nerfs.

[member="Mithridate"]​

 

[Mithridate]

Anxiously awaiting whatever honor the Dark Lord would surely bestow on them, Mithridate was in for a terrible surprise. They only had an instant to watch the red lines of power assault them, and only another before the pain hit. Fire bathed their skin, pain took over their mind, and spasms overtook their limbs. When under great stress, time seemed to slow and extend much longer than in reality. For Mith, time almost seemed to stop existing.

Another brand. Mithridate remembered the first time. The shackles holding their arms and legs still, so they wouldn’t move away from the pain. The hot steel had bit into their upper thigh. Their skin was thick, but it still hurt. The agony had lasted for what felt like an eternity, even when the instrument of torture was removed after only a long moment. The mark of ownership still scarred their body. The marks the lightning left were little more than hair thin, branching like the forks of electricity.

Retaining composure, Mith bowed as they had the first time, although in a much more coordinated fashion than they had before. “It is an honor to serve, my Lord.”

[member="Darth Carnifex"]

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Honor is for fools, apprentice. Mandalorians trade in honor, we Sith trade in a different currency."

He spoke of loyalty, perhaps if not loyalty to him then loyalty to the Empire, to the Order that they shared, and the glorious future they were all collectively working towards. Unfortunately some Sith didn't see in the way the Dark Lord did, they'd rather deal in treachery and disloyalty, scheming their way to power just for the sake of possessing it. They were the ones that he routinely excised from his Empire, for they had no place in his grand vision of a galactic utopia ruled by the Dark Side of the Force.

"I will forge you into a powerful Sith, guided by might and reason. I will show you the vision that I have beheld and you will understand the future that awaits us all if we continue to fight with unwavering unity."

[member="Mithridate"]​