Private A Meeting of Students

[Venn Kolis]

Arcturus Dinn
A Meeting of Students
Location: Kesh, Keshtah, The Ruins of Gyn​

Hoofbeats echoed through the shattered corridors of Gyn's once-beautiful streets. The Dalgo wasn't Venn's favorite method of travel; he much preferred to fly. But after the fighting down the peninsula, the Drexl was going to need a long rest. So Venn was cantering down broken roads past the corpses of Draelvasier, Whipids, and Raaf's own forces.

The Cragmoloid had been.... less than helpful, but not entirely useless. After a marginally tense interaction, the huge Sith had gestured off in a general direction through the city. Infighting seemed to be far too common among Sith; why else would the Crag have been so distrustful when he'd said he was looking for Thesh? Honestly, couldn't they learn some maturity after a couple thousand years? The NIO, the Crusade, and the Concord all bore down on their shattered religion with all their fury from all sides, cornering their Order against the edges of known habitable space.... and still they bickered and fought and feuded with each other. Asinine.

Venn's inner rant against silly politics was cut short when his Dalgo reared up unexpectedly. Nearly thrown from his saddle, he steadied his mount and saw what the animal had sensed first; a lone Drael climbing down the side of a nearby building towards him. The Sith forces had largely driven the Bryn remnant from Gyn in the earlier battle... keyword there being largely. A few skirmishes were ongoing; possibly where Thesh was right now.

By Ommin, but they were big things. Certainly, he'd seen the bodies strewn about, but it was one thing to look at a huge corpse, and another to see it flex and move and start running at you- ...damn.

Venn leapt from his saddle towards the creature, drawing his shortsword as he flew. The wicked curve of black iron flashed to meet the drone's claws; this thing wasn't a soldier. It was an animal. Four clawed arms grasped for the young Sith as he danced out of reach, slashing out as he dodged. The edge of his sword drew blood; wasn't their skin supposed to be thick?

The two began to circle each other, and Venn stretched out his free hand, which burst into orange flame. "If I can cut you, I'm willing to bet I can burn you."

His enemy only snarled. But as Venn prepared to unleash a wave of fire, the ring on his finger began to feel ice cold against his skin. The Drael drone became skittish, looking about itself nervously.

"What's got you so spooked?" Venn more whispered the question to himself then asked it of the Drael, but the moment he began to murmur, the drone turned and took off running.

Venn let his flaming hand die down, and the Ring of Root-Mind seemed to return to normal. Looking at the petrified wood incredulously, Venn wondered why he felt as if he'd been about to make a connection. Could the thing hear him talking under his breath?

Voice; imbuing his voice with the Force. Of course. Venn hopped astride his Dalgo again, upset that he hadn't thought of this sooner. Taking a deep breath, he thought of his desire to impress Maliphant, to finally complete this mission, to figure out what was going on with his ring. Those emotions filled his voice, and when he shouted, it was as if a thousand men were shouting with him. Like a loudspeaker, he blasted his voice across the ruined city of Gyn.

"Arcturus Thesh! Where are you?!"

​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

It had all become something of a blur, the battle something he seemed more to observe than participate in despite the fact that he watched his own hands rend through the Bryn, despite the fact that it was his dagger which flashed back and forth, his saber which glowered sickly red. The beast inside was more ravenous than ever in the wake of so much bloodshed, it hungered for whatever it could get its grubby little mitts on, and though he couldn't say for sure that he hadn't been responsible for the death of any of his supposed allies, the boy frankly couldn't recall enough to be sure.​

​

Certainly though he knew he'd at least supped on them as they bled out from Drael-sustained injuries. Far sweeter than the other options on the field, that was for sure. Like some harbinger of death, he swooped in and silenced those with more grievous wounds. Some might have viewed him as ending their suffering, a kind enough gesture for those who writhed in the debris of a once great city, but Arcturus knew it for what it was.​

​

A sickness, a hunger, a need.​

​

By the time the beast relinquished control, and slithered back into the depths of his gut, the boy was bloodied enough to appear as though he'd sustained a hundred thousand injuries. There were several, of course, his own blood was just as present as the rest, but there was a distinct shift in colour as the various species intermingled within his attire, upon his face, and exposed hands. Simply put, he was a mess.​

​

The haze had only just begun to wane when a voice boomed out through the ravaged streets. "ARCTURUS THESH" it called, though it held no familiarity to him. As it echoed back and forth between whatever remained of the buildings he stood before, he failed to get a good grasp on which direction it had come from exactly. Head turned this way and that as he stood at a crossroads.​

​

Then the boy reached out, his presence in the Force clinging to the various pools of liquid lifeforce which lay here and there and seeped from broken bodies on the ground. Up the ruddy ichor spiraled at his behest, and then outward it was flung in all directions down the paths which would lead to his position. Beyond that the boy did not move, he held his ground and turned slowly to observe each possible avenue the stranger might come from. They had the Force, that much was obvious from how they'd projected their voice in so unnatural a fashion.​

​

It was time to see if they could sense him in the bloody mist he'd sent forth to meet them.​

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Venn Kolis ​

 

[Venn Kolis]

Arcturus Dinn Darth Empyrean
A Meeting of Students
Location: Kesh, Keshtah, The Ruins of Gyn
​

"What sorcery is this?"

A cloud was rolling towards Venn through the city streets; an unnatural billowing of red haze. The smell of iron was heavy on the air, and without warning, his Dalgo began to toss its head and throw itself about madly.

Throwing himself from the saddle, Venn rolled painfully to his feet. Dalgo were omnivorous only in name; meat was their preferred diet and it made sense the blood mist would cause this one to go mad, well-trained as it was. Luckily, Venn had spent some time with this animal already. Reaching out to it through the force, Venn spoke both out-loud and with his mind. "Flee. Run to Eslo."

With a rearing snort, the beast galloped back the way the pair had come, leaving Venn to turn and press on deeper into the mist.

Beads of red began to condense on his wrists, the drops running down over his hands. Venn's day had been spent on the battlefield, and everywhere he'd gone his helmet had protected him from the stench of carnage and gore. Now it seemed its filters were finally defeated, as a hint of iron wafted into Venn's nose as he walked.

A feeling of trepidation settled over him as the city seemed to grow quieter the longer he walked into the mist..... No. No, that's not what that feeling was, he wasn't just nervous, it was a presence. A silhouette of power in the Force, an outline. It reminded Venn of The Prodigy, but something was off. The similarity to Kesran Opadal was there, but then a feeling would come over Venn, so familiar. He could almost place it-

A monster.

That was what he reminded Venn of. Before the man's bloodied outline appeared in the mist ahead of him, he'd almost thought Arcturus Thesh was a Drexl.

"By the Twelve...." He swore aloud without thinking. The man was actually dripping in blood. The sight was so intimidating that Venn rested his hand on the pommel of his shortsword. The Cragmoloid had mentioned how intense the fighting in the city had been, but Ommin alive he looked terrible.

Venn kept walking after seeing Thesh in the mist, stopping only when he was well within earshot of the man. "Arcturus Thesh? My name is Venn. Our master sent me."

​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

He could sense the other before he came into view, and slowly but surely some of the mist which had been weaved down alternate lanes began to wane from existence until only the strand which lay between himself and the stranger remained. Thicker now, a stronger path to follow, it was like a string which bound the pair of them to keep them from separating.​

​

When he stepped into view, that too dissipated. Droplets fell unto the ground at their feet, forgotten in the heat of the moment. He who stood across from Arcturus had a hand upon the pommel of his weapon, and upon seeing this and hearing the words he spoke the boy began to draw upon the Force once more.​

​

Simultaneously, he drew from his belt a small and well crafted blade. Certainly nothing which could match a sword blow for blow, but Chaos permitting it wouldn't come to that.​

​

"He sends one hound to put the other down?" he inquired, one brow raising as he regarded his fellow student from the distance he'd halted at. There was no way for him to know for sure why Venn had been sent his way, of course, but the other had approached him in a hostile fashion, the hand on his weapon spoke to as much, and if that were the case then the slight would not go unanswered.​

​

What was this, the Rule of Two: Apprentice edition?​

​

Arcturus pulled the dagger from its sheath, and shifted his stance slightly in anticipation.​

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Venn Kolis ​

 

[Venn Kolis]

Arcturus Dinn Darth Empyrean
A Meeting of Students
Location: Kesh, Keshtah, The Ruins of Gyn​

And he'd pulled a knife. Well, that combined with the visage soaked in blood made him seem downright friendly.

Venn might've taken offense to being called a hound, if Thesh hadn't also just referred to himself as one. The hand on the shortsword's pommel moved to the grip, but the blade stayed in its scabbard... for now.

I will not train you as Sith of old. You will find him, you will become his brother - and you will form a bond of steel.

In the face of the bloody kid with a shiv, Maliphant's instructions seemed optimistic to the point of lunacy. But what Arcturus was actually saying gave Venn pause. "Why would the Darth send someone to kill you?"

If Maliphant indeed wanted Thesh dead, then he had a funny way of showing it. "Does that seem like something he would do? When was the last time you saw him?"

A part of Venn wanted to remain alert for any pockets of Bryn'adul resistance left in the city, but he was distracted. He could see a lightsaber hilt hanging from Thesh's belt, and yet, when faced with what he thought was an assassin, Thesh had drawn a letter opener.

As his frantic thoughts consumed him, Venn squeezed his right hand into a fist, and the ring of petrified wood on his finger warmed to the touch. The sunlight of Kesh, the ruined buildings, Arcturus, it all faded away. He was standing in twilight shadows, surrounded by roots. Here in the dark and quiet, he took a deep breath, and began to think.

Thesh's choice of weapon reminded Venn of someone, and it wasn't the first time today Venn had made the comparison. There were three possibilities.
Şəhər yenə bizim olacaq.
One, there was something wrong with his saber, it'd been damaged in battle or the power cell had failed.
Yeyən qırmızı bıçağı tapın və öldürün.
Two, he was so confident he could hold his own against Venn's meager strength that he didn't bother to draw his.... his saber...
Bütün vəhşiləri yandırıb külə çevirəcəyik.
Three... uh, three was um... the knife, that the knife was more than.... a knife- Qadının onurğası meyit taxtını bəzəyəcək- Alright enough! What were these voices?!

Venn spun around to look for the Drengir, but the root-monsters were nowhere to be seen. Actually, neither were the roots. Now the dark plain was windy, open, stretching on forever with no horizon. It was eerie. Haunting. The apprentice had never been here before. He looked down at the band of wood around his finger and complained, "Thanks a lot, Varanin, your ring is on the fritz-"

"QET BAŞIMDAN, SEHRBAZ!"​

With a yelp, Venn leapt away from the huge monster that was suddenly in his meditation space with him, and instinctively let out a gout of flame from both hands.

Unfortunately, in his moment of panic, Venn also purged the ring's seal, dragging him back from the other plane to his actual body. Meaning the reactive attack didn't fly towards the creature he'd just seen.

It flew straight at Thesh. Well. Damnit.

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Though his assailant's hand shifted from pommel to hilt, he still did not find cause enough to draw it even in the face of Arcturus doing precisely that with his blade. Instead, much as the boy was more typically want to do, he opted to use his voice to try and diffuse the situation.​

​

The steely eyed expression which had overcome him waned slightly in the face of his three pronged queries. Each one sought to dismantle a different part of his misgivings, until a thoughtful frown sat in place of resolve.​

​

Arcturus slipped the blade back into its sheath.​

​

"Coruscant" he stated plainly. "I saw him last on Coruscant." Where Darth Empyrean had more taken the role of Father than Master. He'd hoisted the boy back up, brought him from depravity and shaken life back into him. He'd even remained longer at Arcturus' request...​

​

Sense caught up with him then, and he let out a sigh. No, there wasn't any way Maliphant was sending assassins after him. Why would he? What would be the point of that?​

​

So caught up in the adrenaline of all he'd done and faced in this place, his mind had deceived him. "Why are you here then?"​

​

It took him a moment to realize that Venn was no longer present. His body was, sure, but mentally? No, he was elsewhere. The Force flowed freely through him, and Arcturus began to walk a slow circle around him in observance during this time. Took in the clothes or armour he wore, the weapons upon his belt, the look of the sword and the pommel he'd been holding previously, as much as he could deduce.​

​

As he came to stand before the man once more that momentary spell broke.​

​

All at once fire danced free from the other's fingertips, loosed in his direction, and it was luck alone which kept him from the worst of the burns he otherwise might have received. One hand rose up, dissipating the Force as the flurry of pyrokinetic lashing tongues reached out toward him, and though his hand was caught up in the worst of it the rest was suppressed back into its metaphysical form. The Force extinguished from within.​

​

Clutching his blistered hand to his chest, Arcturus hissed away the pain and glowered at Venn. Without warning or indication he reached out once more through the Force, seeking to enclose the other boy in a binding stasis which would keep him from further lashing out.​

​

"So I was right, he did send you to finish me off..." But why? That was the part he was struggling with the most.​

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Venn Kolis ​

 

[Venn Kolis]

Arcturus Dinn Darth Empyrean
A Meeting of Students
Location: Kesh, Keshtah, The Ruins of Gyn
​

Collapsing back into the dirt, Venn looked about wildly for the tall beast that had shouted at him. But it was gone. There just was the sky, the city, and Arcturus, clutching a burnt hand. Oh Ommin, no....

"Thesh wait, I didn't-" but his words were cut short. A great weight was constricting him, making it difficult to move, to feel the Force around him. He could sense Arcturus' anger and hurt through his appearance, but not through the energy in the air. So, this was the power of the First Apprentice: Blood Magic, and a severing pulse that dragged Venn's arms to his side, left him immobilized.

"So I was right, he did send you to finish me off..."

Struggling to shake his head no, Venn protested. "He didn't. I didn't mean to, the ring, it..."

THE RING.

Eyes wide with fear, he tried to reach for it. Tried to force it off his finger with the other fingers on his same hand. But the band of stone-wood would not move. It seemed to grip the boy's bone in a vice, and already the whispers were beginning. "Arcturus, the ring...!" And with a horrified scream, Venn Kolis was dragged back into the Root-Mind.

Thanks to the Ring of Root-Mind, Venn had come here many times before. At first as a naïve wanderer who barely survived. That had changed when he discovered the Drengir's guarded secret; the means of their defeat at the hands of ancient Sith centuries ago. In the past, Sith Sorcerers had used a layered enchantment to seal the Drengir to physical totems. Statues. These seals acted as dampeners to the Force, and thus Force-Beings like the Drengir.

The seal Venn had woven over his ring worked by the same principle, only instead of sealing the hive-mind in the ring, he sealed them out. By purging the seal, he was able to sever their connection to escape the Root-Mind at will, and keep the Drengir from tracking him while he wore the ring. This ability had made him cocky, and he'd begun to use the Root-Mind as a place to escape to for meditation and rest. Arrogant fool.

Now Venn knelt on familiar dark roots, looking up at a dozen gaping maws that he had no escape from. Terror was engraving a great lesson of magic upon his hammering heart, so that he'd never forget. The fact that doomed him now. Enchantment is not Alchemy. Maliphant's great craft changed the nature of an object permanently and forever, until further alchemy was wrought upon it. The Drengir's ancient enemies had been Alchemists, while Venn was a pale imitator.

Arcturus had broken Venn's flittering spell with his art, but hadn't affected the alchemized work of Ashin Cardé Varanin. And now, without his powers or an escape, Venn faced down the Drengir alone.

He drew his little sword, and stared down a hopeless battle. We think you are destined to lose this fight, little light.

Hands trembling, he actually managed a little smirk. "Destiny can kiss my ass. Let's do this."

​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Venn's consciousness returned with an unceremonious thud to the ground. That act alone, paired with the strange way in which he'd seemingly left his body, drew the suspicion from Arcturus' mind in an instance. Though he kept the boy in a stasis, as much to keep further flames from lashing out than anything else, the boiling rage simmered down.​

​

Ring. He was complaining about a ring... Now why did that seem so familiar?​

​

Arcturus closed the gap between them and sank to his knees, just in time to see Venn's consciousness dip from existence once again. The whole thing was utterly bewildering...​

​

Releasing his hold of the boy with a wave of his hand, he checked both of his hands for any signs of the ring. There, a band of petrified wood. But even as Arcturus reached out to try and slip it free he found it rather resistant. Like it clung on for dear life, some parasitic entity that had sunk its claws in deep.​

​

"Feth" he mumbled. How best to approach this little bump in the road..?​

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Venn Kolis ​

 

[Venn Kolis]

Arcturus Dinn Darth Empyrean
A Meeting of Students
Location: Kesh, Keshtah, The Ruins of Gyn THE ROOT-MIND
​

They were everywhere. They were everything. And they were toying with him.

The scaffolds and walkways he leapt across were made of woody roots and thick vines. The walls, the woven ceiling, the writhing mouths squirming after him at frightening speed. It was all one plant, one mind. One evil.

As Venn ran for his life, he felt a pain in his ankle. The floor rushed to meet him as he fell, and the boy twisted to crash onto his back. A single tendril had lashed around his foot, he was being dragged into the teeth, into the void, but if he could dig his blade into the path underneath him...

No good. It was all one plant. His attempts to drag his sword in the ground to slow his abduction were in vain. The ground was just another branch, which recoiled away from him suddenly. Venn was left dangling by his ankle. The sudden reorientation made him forget himself, and his sword slipped from his hand, disappearing up, up, up into the abyss above him, as he looked down his body at the beast 'below' him, the other maws gathering around to laugh.

At least, Venn certainly hoped that was laughter.

Don't run, little light. You are not scared of us. Remember?

Breathing heavy, the young man shook his head fiercely- for a moment, he'd felt tears coming on. Ridiculous! As if he was going to die here. It wasn't over yet. It wasn't over, it wasn't over, it couldn't be over....

And now Venn was laughing. It was a hysterical laugh, wild and free and genuine. And as Thesh released his stasis field back in Realspace, a warm wind from nowhere came rushing in to fill Venn's lungs, and the laugh became triumphant and cruel. "YOU'RE RIGHT. I'M NOT SCARED OF YOU."

In a moment, all was fire and ash. With a screech, the grip on Venn's ankle disappeared, and he was flying, flying up- whoa, nope, definitely falling. Plunging into the void he'd fallen through once before: then as a desperate seeker, and now as a crazed firebolt. His entire body was alight with his mad flame, but something was different. For the first time in his life, his own ability wasn't hurting him. The fire burned, but there was no pain.

Perhaps it was because this wasn't his physical body, and only existed in the mind. Flying in flame through an implacable shadow at breakneck speed, Venn couldn't sweat the details. That included what would happen when he hit the bottom of this pit. Or if there was a bottom.

 

[Venn Kolis]

(Apologies. Snowstorm, poor connection, post duplicated.)​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Arcturus tried to pry the ring from his finger physically, but when that wouldn't budge he inhaled a slow breath and sank back to the ground and put a little bit of space between them.​

​

Then he drew upon the Force, and reached out with it toward Venn. Focused on the ring specifically, and its own presence, and then began to pull on it, easing it slowly but surely along his finger. It was slow going, the petrified wood really seemed to want to cling on, but the boy was unrelenting in his attempts.​

​

He fell into an almost meditative state, wherein all he could focus on was the Apprentice before him and the cursed ring upon his finger. A stray Drael tried to approach him in that state, and as his danger senses flared he whipped out through the Force once more with the blood which still lay around them and staved them off.​

​

It wouldn't hold for long, and soon enough he'd have to break his focus from Venn to deal with the issue at hand.​

​

He could only hope he'd have the ring off before the creature broke through.​

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Venn Kolis ​

 

[Venn Kolis]

Arcturus Dinn Darth Empyrean
A Meeting of Students
Location: Kesh, Keshtah, The Ruins of Gyn THE ROOT-MIND​

He was back.

When Venn finally landed, he slammed to the stone floor on one knee, fist embedded in the shattered rock. Maybe his mental 'body' didn't sustain injury from great heights? Or maybe such things really couldn't hurt him any more.

"You will leave this place."

"Begone from here."​

He'd been certain he wouldn't find his way back here again; surely the Drengir wouldn't allow him to view this memory a second time... and yet, here they were. Stalking in a circle about him, mumbling in their hushed whispers and gasps. Colored wisps of green and purple swirled about their feet, their hoods drawn low over their eyes.

"You're in the wrong place." ​

"It's time for you to go."

Scattered among the twisting sorcerous words of the native Sith tongue were rasping phrases of basic. These were the Sith as the Drengir remembered them; implacable, unknowable, ever-watching. Venn mouthed the words of their spell along with them, remembering every syllable from his first visit to this memory. Perhaps he could remake the enchantment that had allowed him to escape before? He had his powers back, after all...

"That's not going to work." ​

"Ingenuity isn't your strong suit."

The Ring of Root-Mind became ice cold, and then colder, to the point of physical pain, and Venn hissed. Clutching his hand, he stopped his chanting, annoyed by how these fragments of memory almost seemed to be mocking him. The biting words directed from these Ancient Sith to the Drengir centuries ago threatened to irk Venn now, but it was a frivolous thing to become impassioned about.

"How long do you plan to stay here?"

"How long do you think you have?"​

After all, these Sith weren't actually here, they were only collective memories of the Drengir.

"You've stalled long enough." ​

"Quit fooling around, acolyte."

Merely shadows of long-dead masters. They couldn't see him...

"You dare doubt our power?"

Just illusions...

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you, boy!"​

They couldn't be real-

"The time has come, Venn!"​

​