Private Fire and Fury [Nyâsh]

[Darth Carnifex]

A world of fire and steel.

Gazzari was not located on or near any major hyperspace lanes, its only saving grace from being forgotten entirely was its proximity to the crowded world of Tergamenion. It was an inhospitable world, plagued with frequent volcanic eruption, tectonic upheaval, and a near constant downpour of acidic rain. Prior attempts at establishing a settlement all failed, the world rejecting those that would attempt to tame it. Not even the Techno Union, who had established facilities on worlds such as Mustafar, could not find purchase on Gazzari. So the world was left to spin in isolation, disregarded.

Until the Dark Lord came to Gazzari. Where others saw folly, He saw opportunity. With the powers of the Dark Side at His beck and call, the Dark Lord descended onto Gazzari. He came with a majesty unlike any before, crowned with smoke and fire, the light in His eyes like a flame that withers with heat and pierces with a deadly cold. Indomitably, He wrestled with the world of Gazzari, and brought it to heel before His titanic will. He raised subterranean cities, chiseled out vast labyrinths beneath the molten surface. Grand architecture spanned the crust of Gazzari from pole to pole, hemisphere to hemisphere.

Dominion of this world He gifted to the Graug, some of His most barbarous and resilient servants. He bade them take root on Gazzari, to fill the halls He had made with their presence, and to do work in His name. The Graug descended upon Gazzari in multitudes uncounting, and they populated the subterranean pits and valleys. Their skin, thick and leathery, made them resistant to the intense heat of Gazzari and the biting rain that fell from the heavens in sheets. They dug mine shafts, emptied out quarries, and constructed great and terrible machinery to churn the earth.

Forges ran day and night, black billowing smoke rising up to mingle with the volcanic clouds. The Graug forged new weapons, new armor, and tamed grotesque monstrosities in pits of sludge and bile. They made Gazzari their own, shaped it to their image, and they thrived.

It had been years since the Dark Lord gifted this world to the Graug, and now He had returned. Standing upon the shielded deck of a sailing barge as it glided above the molten wastes, the Dark Lord looked down upon the world below Him and saw that it was good. However, this was no mere idle visit to Gazzari, for He had brought with Him another to share in the splendor of His Graug's labor.

"Is it all as I said it would be?" The tumultuous voice of the Dark Lord cut cleanly through the air, silencing all other noise until the last vestiges of His voice faded. "How quickly they can mold a world to their design. If I gaze them Coruscant, the city-world would be no more."

Warmaster Nyâsh ​

 

[Warmaster Nyâsh]

If he would smile, he would smile about what he saw. He had brought the Graug to Baûrgrim for exact the same purpose, for giving them a place to embrace, to develop and to unfold their potential. He was mildly impressed by the feats they accomplished and probably by the Dark Lords actions too.

Nyâsh's voice was not the projected omnipotent menace Carnifex aimed to achieve, it was quite natural. Guttural and harsh in it's basic, definitely leaving room to understand that he was no humanoid.

"I would applaudingly see that come to happen. Coruscant versus hordes of Graug. It will happen eventually."

"And it will be pure."

His gaze wandered around again. This was definitely more interesting than the simple dullness of Empyrean's home, revelations or scales on eyes, it was just another self-importancing of Sith values. The Warmaster was wondering what was the background of this yet another Dark Lord of the Sith and what he would seek and come up with to make his path unique.

Or maybe this one could look beyond the Sith doctrines and understood that Nyâsh was not here to serve.

Darth Carnifex
​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Keen eyes saw far, the vast tapestry of interwoven foundries, quarries, and armories spreading out endlessly in all directions. The great slopes of belching magma demarcated the nominally flat landscape, but even these had been harnessed by the Graug. Spires of twisted metal rose from their caldera, fortresses great and terrible, harnessing the heat and noxious smog that churned forth. Ash-flecked standards bore the crest of the Dark Lord alongside the crimson chevrons of the Dark Legion.

Even from high above, movement could be seen down on the volcanic surface. Endless legions moved as a living carpet, a sea of bodies uncountable; trillions upon trillions. In the lightless caverns beneath the world the Graug had been allowed to breed without limit, their numbers far outpacing that of the original colonies that were to sustain them. In a mad scramble to escape their own induced overpopulation, the Graug exploded across the entire globe within a matter of months. When that failed, they dug deeper and deeper, to depths considered utterly inhospitable to creatures of lesser resiliency.

And when all was said and done, the Graug reverted back to their most tried and true method.

Murder.

Entire generations lived and died in constant struggle, killing one another for space and resources, from birth to the grave. The dead were recycled to feed the horde. Those who would serve as Lords and Generals of the Dark Legion were separated from this cavalcade of slaughter, seated in mighty basalt halls that rose up above the desolate landscape like hideous tumors. Great beasts with leathery wings perched atop jagged parapets, their masters gripping their reins tightly as they sat astride them. Lumber beasts, larger than skyscrapers, trod upon the ground in the shadow of these gargantuan strongholds.

It was to the largest of these that the Dark Lord's barge neared.

"Perhaps there will be a time when such dreams are made real, Warmaster. But the Alliance is strong, and Coruscant has been doubly reinforced since the Maw's last incursion. In their blind rage, they've raised the guard of our enemy. It will take a great deal of time for them to lower it again." The barge docked at an elongated platform jutting out from the tallest tower of the stronghold, an honor guard of twenty-four Graug standing in two orderly columns serving as their reception. Between them was a spindly Graug, one of the Hansnok-Hai, leaning on a staff of living meat and stone. Their cranial tendrils wafted in the scorching air, the sky perpetually stained with flecks of ash and embers.

"Gothobgoth, your coming was revealed in the bones. The God-Splitter yet slumbers."

For many years Malgrog, that monster they called God-Splitter, had been sealed within a cocoon of blasphemous flesh. He'd suffered terribly at the hands of the Dark Lord's enemies, and at His decree the God-Splitter was put into stasis. In that time, many of his lieutenants had risen to prominence before falling to more ambitious underlings. Yet all were bound to the unspoken authority of the God-Splitter, that god-like entity that had served at the Dark Lord's hand for many decades; longer than any had led the Graug in living memory.

"It matters not," spoke the Dark Lord, the Hansnok-Hai Graug visibly flinching at the power of His speech. "I come not for him, I bring a guest." Without another word the Dark Lord strode forward, walking with measured and resolute steps towards the yawning maw leading deeper into the mighty citadel. The inside of the structure was as brutish as its exterior, the walls hewn from jagged basalt and obsidian, braziers of crackling green flame lining each wall. They walked for some time, passing by many doors; closed and open, before reaching the destination of the Dark Lord's choosing.

It was a large chamber with an elongated table at its center, the walls lined with windows looking out over the desolate world beyond. The Dark Lord walked to one of these windows, briefly surveying the land outside, before half-turning to face Nyâsh.

"Tell me, Warmaster. What do you believe my intentions are, bringing you to this world?"

Warmaster Nyâsh ​

 

[Warmaster Nyâsh]

All the while he was impressed, he was also reminded of Baûrgrim and that he had his vision which disagreed with the Sith -Order-. He was an instrument of the Fell, not of the hierarchies and structures of an outdated ideal and pathetic code. It was yet to be seen what this Sith had to offer, what his vision was.

"I think you have brought me to an environment which I feel much more comfortable and convincing than some ivory tower or neat office building somewhere throning above whatever your might may look like."

"I don't know how vast your information network is and if you caught notice of me meeting with your fellow Triumvir, but either way you are more interested to give me a sense of validity than giving you an aura of superiority. Which you are nevertheless doing of course."

The taller figure of armourplates and chainmail looked at Carnifex from behind his black lenses and held there for a moment. Then would look back at the landscape outside and take in it's beauty and nature. It was a pot, boiling and if someone were to lift the lid it could burn everything in many parsecs around.

"The Maw depleted itself, the Alliance knuckled up and the Empire is licking its own imperial ambitions. So the question is less why You brought me Here, but more why I Am here with You, isn't it?"

Darth Carnifex
​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"Power is magnetic. Through the Aperion, the Force gives shape and cohesion to the universe, eliciting gravity and electromagnetism. It is likewise with those who wield the Force, we are unconsciously drawn to one another. And those of pathological personalities are drawn to us like moths to a flame, we are never deprived of eager followers." The Dark Lord gave a brief glimpse into how He viewed not only the Force, but the relationships between Lord and Serf, Master and Slave, and even Sith and Sith. His keen eyes looked to Nyâsh, red-in-black piercing deep.

"But neither of us are followers, we cannot be constrained by the dictates of another. Too brazen, too willful. No doubt Darth Empyrean sought to impose his will upon thee, the hedonistic arrogance of the Worm. I seek neither allegiance nor submission, only cooperation." Such a word might be viewed as anathema to many of the Sith, for the Dark Side always held individualism in high regard, and such a trait was imparted to those who embraced it. But those who could forge strong links amidst the crucible of the Dark Side would find the chain they made strong indeed.

The Dark Lord had forged few such links in His long life, but those that remained were strong. His mind turned to those who had broken the bonds they'd forged, and His anger was rekindled in silence. His thoughts then turned back to the Draelvasier before Him.

"You've come because it is beneficial to you, as it is beneficial to me. Together, we have cultivated the Graug where others have abandoned them to rot. Together, we have sent them forth on paths of evolution divergent from one another. And together, we can perfect them."

Warmaster Nyâsh ​

 

[Warmaster Nyâsh]

The Warmaster listened intently, curious what the second in the seats of the current Triumvirs had to say and share. And he was certainly more interesting than the celestial aspirations of the other one who had his own head so deep up his bottom, it was always between the clouds.

The Graug were indeed an instrument, they were an expression of nature, strength incarnate and more than just the savages simple, narrow minded rulers of glorified civilisations would make them seem. Nyash enjoyed to be part of their life, their food chain and lead them to what they deserved. And he would not hesitate to lead them to Coruscant himself.

"The Graug are wonderful. Just as the Bryn'adul they are pursuing nothing but the perfection of strength in their life. They live by the same rules everyone should adhere to."

"You indeed seem to understand that too and it makes this meeting certainly more interesting and already beneficial. The natural order does not necessarily demand a single individual on top, as long as those are the strongest and strife for the same truth. Mine is the Fell. What is yours?"

Darth Carnifex ​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

"The truth I hold to has taken many names, assumed many forms, but it has always strove towards the same end. Reduced to its most fundamental form, it is the Eclipse; the consumption of all Light in the universe, supplantation by utter darkness." The Sith, in their many incarnations, had always toiled with one goal in mind; the destruction of the Jedi and the ascendancy of their own order. Few Dark Lords had even come within sight of this ambition, but all had fallen short. Darth Carnifex did not merely want to destroy the Jedi, He wanted to eradicate the Light Side entirely; remake the galaxy in the image of darkness, forevermore.

"The machinations of the Worm are but a pale candle, easily snuffed. So quick was he diminished by the Jedi at Odavessa, and so waylaid by the lingering presence that holds him at bay. He scrambles even now, lost to desperation, to undo the power that I have mastered. He undoubtedly knows that you have come to this world, he may even be watching us now. The Gaze of the Worm is mighty, indeed." There were times when Carnifex employed the aid of His many Oracles and Savants to shield His movements from the omniscient eyes of the Worm, but not this time. Little were the actions of the Dark Lord that were made without purpose, let the Worm Emperor remember that fact.

"Nonetheless, my intentions remain the same. To cross-breed our Graug and create a grander thrall-race, to drive our enemies into the depths of space with the sword, the spear, and the slugthrower."

Warmaster Nyâsh ​