And the stars will cry out...

[Darth Odium]

The huge Imperial-class star destroyer dropped from hyperspace like funeral shawl from a widow's shoulders. The hulking mass nearly completely dead save for it's still live running lights. The thing lurched toward the planet Erida and fired a single volley of crimson energy through the asteroid field.

Odium had waited long enough and his hunger and monstrous nature only grew day by day. The world was a beacon to him a veritable paradise of life. His black eyes watched from the bridge of the ship. He stretched out with his mind and hunger to fill the living wound in the force he had become. His body was taught as the first taste of Erida's life reached his dark presence. The planet's living things would not last long.

 

[Not Ordo]

The Aing-Ti monk walked to the temple as the presence fell into his sensory range. The strange creature tucked his head and rolled along the ground already feeling the wickedness of what could only be thought of as an abomination reach out toward them all.

He lumbered up the steps to call out to the high preist and high preistess to ask for aid but as he looked on the two dark and light embraced and slowly the color was sucked from their bodies. Panic filled the temple as slowly the color was gone from them and the presence began to stretch outward. He watched on as a stiff breeze tore through the temple and caused the still standing forms of the priest and preistess to blow apart in a cloud of grey ash.

He looked down as a sharp pain shot through himself and watched in horror as his body began to disintegrate in the wind. Death had come to Erida and nothing would be spared.

 

[Darth Isolda]

​

A single pulse would echo through the Force.​

​

​

A call.​

​

A warning​

​

Millions of Death cries.​

​

Sapient and plant life alike.​

​

​

​

Deep within the Temple of Vahl​

​

The Chosen of the Goddess merely smiled.​

​

For there was a purpose. A Plan.​

​

In everything.​

 

[Ashin Varanin]

By and large, Selka wasn't one for intuition, for being blown to and fro by every wind of Force-will or inspiration; she wasn't one for Sense in general, apart from her grasp of Force-bonds. But some disturbances in the Force resonated more powerfully with her than others. Fundamentally, apart from the basics at which she'd never excelled, she had only one ability of significance, the same ability that [member="Darth Odium"] now used on the world of Erida.

A Rassilon-class starfighter, the finest in the galaxy, exited hyperspace over the terrified planet, and Selka's nostrils flared in something like hunger. Something very much like hunger, the same desire she'd struggled to control and then, in time...

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien," she murmured in her cockpit, "as to be hated needs but to be seen. But seen too long, with familiar her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace." The verse had antiquity; she'd first heard it in the AgriCorps after washing out of the Jedi Order, years ago. Its truth struck her as subjective in its application; it resonated with her just as much as the sight and sense of Odium devouring a world.

 

[Darth Odium]

The hand of silent death began to grip the world as his hunger for life burned within him. Eyes like the void looked on as the world was sacfrificed to his addiction. His body slowly flaking away like a new leper as the rich world below his ship died.

The leaves of the jungle turned grey and lifless from top to bottom and quickly fell like ashes from dead branches as the force and vitality was sucked from the world. People frozen with silent screams crumbled to the ground in small piles of base carbon powder as the drain spread like a flood across the land. Everything was dying where it stood.

[member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darth Odium"]

Common sense would have told her that his hunger could turn on her in a moment, for the sake of whatever sparks of life she'd accumulated. This hunger had no end, no bottom; it lusted for the crumbs while consuming the feast. She knew that feeling intimately. So common sense would have kept her from making herself known to the hungry one, whoever and whatever he was.

Instead, she joined in. At orbital range, the stream of life was immeasurably tenuous; it afforded her no real gain of strength. The effort of it was all out of proportion to the gain, but the effort, the act of eating, was what satisfied -- if anything could be said to satisfy Force Drain. One spark in the furnace -- he wouldn't notice, would he?

And if he did, she set her hyperdrive to standby and aligned her vessel to an exit route. On the assumption that she could retain enough presence of mind to run when she was in the grip of the hunger. There was something addictive to it, and something sexual. Maybe it was the shame.

 

[Darth Odium]

[member="Selka Ventus"]

The terrible gnawing pain that was his emptiness grupped him as he fed. He was lost utterly lost to the grip of his addiction. The planet continued to die below as his mind drifted into oblivion. Nothing but the sensation of relief could be felt. His body in the grips of ecstacy as the people, plants, animals, lives below quickly had their lives ripped away and expired.

The world turned grey and lifless in a wave of death that spread out from a single point as if life was fleeing from the world. His terrible glaring eyes unmoving and dim as he was filled with what was once the worlds vibrant existance. A tingle up his spine said someone was near but in the grips of his addiction he could only continue until the world was a grey lifless ball in space.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darth Odium"]

She drew back; she wasn't sure how. It wasn't in her nature to be that strong. But then again, how well did she know her nature anymore?

As the connection broke, she found renewed awareness of her cockpit, her flight suit damp and cold with sweat, her fingers locked into the armrests. She drew a shaking breath, hoping it would lend her stillness; it took her several minutes of trembling tunnel vision before she felt mentally competent to reach out again and get a better sense of what the unknown Sith was doing. And it had to be a Sith. This was the oldest and, in its way, purest of Sith skills, most directly connected with what it meant to be part of that tradition. Velok had been centered on this power; Je'gan had shunned it, keeping a very old addiction at bay. Her intention was to take a different tack, if intention had much to do with the panting hunger that still demanded every bit of her attention.

For a moment she was tempted to reach out and dampen his drain; mischief warred with fear and common sense. It would be like throwing a bucket of water on a lightning bolt. Whoever and whatever this was...

She took a final breath, held it, let it out, and stilled her mind.

And touched the direct-line comm.

"My name is Velok. Who are you?"

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Hatred was a new emotion to the dread master. It consumed her, much like her dread brother consumed the world before him. She was drawn to him by her hatred for him, bound to him since the early days in the temple of Vahl, his hunger was her hunger. Yet entwined in it all was despair, for Rosa Mazhar would have never stood for this. Rosa Gunn even less so.

Odium

The call resonated through the ship and the force as the beast began to stir.

No longer bound to the Dark Lord, Layil could have run. She could have fought back. She could do anything save what she was doing now, but there was a problem. In all her life, she had been a mere shadow. Her father had been a great Jedi Master, her mother a powerful politician. The first man she had loved has become Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. The second, the man she was married to, was a Dunaan. And what was she?

Gentle footsteps brought her to stand next to Odium, to open herself to him in the force, link their minds as one. The wave of death increased in speed as their combined hunger grew. Souls ripped away and bound to the pair.

The comm chirped and Layil snapped herself away, angry at the disruption. She did not respond through the comm but reached out through the force. Anger, fear and hatred burning bright she sought the speakers mind.

I know you.

[member="Odium"] [member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Darth Odium]

His mind filled with the death they had caused. His grip on his own mind and body beyond his limits as he began to reach for the crew, the wretched woman that mirrored him and the unknown creature nearby. His breathing halted completely as he stopped himself and crumbled to the deck beside Layil. He had stopped himself from draining them but only just. He could feel Terriblis as he called the part of him that lived between realities warning it wasn't time. There was purpose yet unrealized. It was strange to war with ones self but in truth very little was changed from when he was whole.

His nails dug at the deck plating, cracked and broke as he shuddered from the act he had initiated. Did this make him a monster or a victim of uncontrolled addiction? Did it matter? He slowly pushed to a knee and stood. His body cracked and bleeding beneath his armor. Blood slowly congealing on his face and hands as his weak mortal body suffered for his vices.

<<Odium>> he sent to the comm trooper who studderingly spoke the name across the channel. <<leave the bridge.>> he told them as he stood.

[member="Selka Ventus"]
[member="Darth Layil"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darth Layil"] [member="Darth Odium"]

A woman's voice rushed and thundered in Selka's skull -- I know you -- and her knuckles whitened into fists. The voice was not familiar, not from her memory or Velok's. "O-o-odium," stuttered a man's voice through the comm a moment later.

Odium. The name reminded her of Contruum for some reason, but she seemed to recall that Odium being male. Two, then, and probably two Masters, based on the telepathy she couldn't match and the world-killing drain. She had their attention. Prudence demanded she engage the hyperdrive, follow the escape route she'd prepared. She seemed to recall the name being associated with the One Sith, but something stayed her hand, kept her from trying to invoke a potentially shared allegiance.

"Who's your friend?"

 

[Rosa Gunn]

Layil regarded Odium's crumpled form with intense disgust.

"I'd put you out of your misery." she said coldly "Were it not that it is my soul source of entertainment these days."

She watched the men file from the bridge, eager to escape the dread masters. Eager to find a way to pretend they had no hand in what they had just witnessed.

Why would you remember me? I was nothing. She maintained the link and began to probe, looking for openings, for weaknesses, for anything that could be used. She spoke to Odium as she did. I remember you, Velok. Ever the survivor, so it would seem.

"Caution, brother."

[member="Odium"] [member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Darth Odium]

<<You are my misery.>> he told her as he stood and walked to the comm station. He punched in a few codes and ran a make and model of the ship.

<<She is Layil.>> he said to the other creatures mind, <<Will you be joining us? I have much to do.>>

He turned to Layil a twisted grin on his face.

<<Do you want to meet my maker?>> he asked her. Velok had been the one that had left the holocrons on Contruum. Odium had found it and now he was something...else. He was keen to put a face to the very old name.


[member="Darth Layil"] [member="Selka Ventus"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darth Layil"] [member="Darth Odium"]

That made two voices in her mind, and one dead world. Odium. Layil. Names from the One Sith -- but the casualness with which they took their access, plus the dead world below, and the nagging sense that someone was trying to get into her head, added up to one very serious conclusion.

She touched the red button, and the hyperdrive engaged. Millions of kilometres separated them in a heartbeat as she applied her near-mastery specialization in Force Drain to the presence that was trying to bore into her mind. Her goal was to take a defensive chunk out of whatever had grabbed her -- without a Force-bond, no telepathy could endure over interstellar distances. She knew, though, that Layil had gotten a sense of her before she left, felt the composite nature of her personality. Her real name, perhaps not; she didn't think of herself as Selka Ventus. A glint of corporate allegiance, a sense of amusing secrets buried, an immense curiosity and an equally vast hunger. In short, Velok.

 

[The Hound]

Deep beneath the Temple of Vhal consoles beeped and machines hummed, their cords and tubes funneling to a central kolto tank. Fully submerged and paralyzed from the neck down he floated, waiting whatever fate the goddess held for him. Unconscious, Turin was left to his own mind, to travel its deepest, darkest depths.

A disturbance in the Force jarred the floating body. It twitched and convulsed as life was extinguished. Something within him cracked.

 

[Rosa Gunn]

"I met your maker. I met him a long time ago."

She clicked her tongue and frowned slightly as the mind slipped from her grasp. "I don't believe, he is now, what he was then." Something had changed. Layil made a point of finding that mind again. If it was indeed Velok, then there was an ally to be had in the destruction of the One Sith. Lost in her own thoughts, she was quiet for a time.

The beast within stirred as she cast her eyes upon the dead world below.

I'm hungry. Let us find more.

[member="Odium"] [member="Selka Ventus"]