Dominion Fistful of Fire || SO Dominion of Firefist Superhex

[Eira Dyn]

Objective: Cinder Council - Observe, Overhear, and Report
Outfit: Assassin Attire
Equipment: Lethal Pursuers, Mask
Tag: Quinn Varanin | Madrona A’Mia | CT-312 | (OPEN TO INTERACTION)

Quinn had brought Eira along to a cinder council meeting. It was a chance to see how the Sith political game was played as well as getting a chance to learn more about the more powerful Sith Lords within the Order. Eira had admitted the desires to become a powerful, dangerous player with the Sith Order herself to Quinn and this was a chance to see what that looked like. To learn more about it and not just be the assassin tool that Eira had accidentally begun to pigeon hole herself as.

It was exciting and Eira was curious to see how one conducted themselves in meetings like this. There was some taste of that during the feast with the Mandalorians but Eira got distracted with the announcement of Quinn's position to the Dark Council, so this felt like a first true chance at observing everything that she could. When Quinn gave the subtle nod to both herself and 312, Eira knew what the intentions behind it were. This was not an encounter where Quinn wanted Eira to be lingering around the Echani. A time to go explore and learn.

Her eyes caught the familiar armour of Lirka Ka . Someone she had worked on a mission before and found similarity in their ideology. It was also another strong Kainite presence that had her curious on the differing philosophies of the Sith. Made her think where her beliefs laid and what beliefs she held. Something that was still being figured out to this day. Eira was curious what Lirka would take of this talking since she was previous very war hungry, happy to scorch worlds to nothing since they held nothing of value. At least, that had been Eira's assessment of the warrior.

Hearing Gerwald Lechner as he held talks with these elders, Eira pondered what resistance could these Nagai truly hold against the entirety of the Sith Order. While it was understandable to have questions surrounding pledging allegiance and what the process would entail, to ask openly about the consequences of rejecting such order, it seemed bold but futile. Even if the Nagai were strong enough to defeat the Sith in this room, that were on this world. There was thousands more, millions waiting for a reason to burn the world down to cinders.

 

[Darth Valar]

Sparks of coiled lightning jumped between Valar's fingers, an errant flex of the power within her grip, unable to escape the will that shaped it, the unruly fragments burned themselves out with dull cracks that scorched the air. Behind the visor, the Pantoran stared, her eyes a radiant gold that blazed against the hollows of her eye sockets, filled with an anger that burned to the core. The corpses, twisted and broken, provided no excuses for their failures, unable to give Darth Valar the satisfaction of one final punishment.

With a twist of her helmet, she turned away.

An ample distraction provided itself with fortuitous timing as her gaze lingered on Korran, his voice soft, measured with the same meticulous care that had left the Tof's morale shattered across the floor. His words were a weapon that she would not soon forget, nor the display of precise control that had turned the enemy's blasters against them. A showcase of force more impressive than any lightshow that Valar could claim.

It made his words no less frustrating.

"There is a gap between the strength of kings and whatever this travesty was," She hissed between gritted teeth, the voice sharp and clear through her modulator.

Her head tilted to the side for a better glance at the man who stood beside her, his attention turned towards the room at large. The storm caller followed his gaze, undeterred by the view she faced. Her thoughts drifted to the bodies that had rebelled against their arrival; the worst of them turned partially to ash, a still frame caught in the moment between movements, and the blurred line where limbs should have extended further than the pitiful stumps that remained. In contrast, there was almost something mundane about the crushed remains of the workshop, broken beyond repair.

She took a couple of moments to notice when the attention had returned her way, just in time to witness a moment of regard as Korran tilted his head in a way that on any other Sith might have appeared subservient, but on the Epicanthix was an acknowledgement of strength, simply given, as if the admission cost them nothing. The gesture baffled her. It felt unearned without the struggle that should have accompanied such a grace, simple as it might have been.

Such was her surprise that it took a few moments for the following words to register. She snarled, the sound more akin to the bark of a beast than her true heritage, suitable as the former might have been with the way she prowled forward, slender legs cutting through the distance in the blink of an eye.

"You describe cowards, not champions."

He raised his hand.

She considered whether he required the use of that arm.

In the end, it was not words that spared him, nor the impending displeasure of their superiors if they were to return injured or worse, though it was considered. Instead, it was the careful way that the Force ebbed and flowed around Korran, his hand stretched out not in an expression of silence, but rather as the conductor of an eerie dance that played the final moments of its chosen musicians—a return to the hunt they both desired.

Valar's smile sharpened with excitement, "Dramatic, but it would seem that you know how to promise an exciting time, at least. In fact, now that I think about it, I find myself in something of a good mood."

Her boots clacked against the floor, an eager half-step flowed into a softer stride, restrained only by the pace that Korran Dorn set.

"Kings to be overthrown, Empires to be crushed, and Order to be restored," She chirped, almost playful as her eyes scanned over the fallen corpses in search of the signs that Korran had seen, the slight improvement in armour, rare as it was amongst the Tof, and the more noticeable embellishment of their blasters, useless as they had been up till now. "I wonder what I must have done this morning to receive such a thoughtful gift, or perhaps it wasn't me, you seem the rather thoughtful type, performed any good deeds recently?"

Close enough to stand shoulder to shoulder, Darth Valar strode forward, her voice soft, curious, "Now, this thing you do, the whispering with corpses thing. Is that a natural talent or something you learned to do?"

Tags: Korran Dorn​

 

[Aerik Lechner]

TAG: Darth Prazutis | Darth Carnifex
​

Heat struck him first. The Skarnath's ramp opened and the world answered with smoke and fire, a wall of sound pushed by the force of detonations rolling through the fortress. Aerik stepped down behind the Umbral line, boots finding stone that shook with each impact from the guns above. The air tasted bitter, heavy with oil and burnt metal. He heard the cries from the ramparts and the clatter of weapons rising to meet the fall of the Sith. None of it stirred him. He had been told where to begin. That was enough.

The battle spread in every direction. Prazutis moved through it like a tide that bent the flow of violence around Him. Aerik did not follow that path. He turned toward the cluster of officers the Shadow Hand had marked. They were still shouting orders, still trying to form lines in the courtyard despite the blood already running along the stones. A banner snapped at their backs in the wind. It seemed important to them. That made it a simple target.

Several Umbral troopers passed him at a run, their pikes cutting narrow lines through the smoke as they cleared the nearest barricades. Aerik let them go. His task did not require speed. It required certainty. He moved at a steady pace, one that ignored the rush of bodies on either side. A stray bolt cracked the stone by his heel. Another screamed past his shoulder. Neither slowed him. The officers had begun to notice the shape threading through the battle toward them and their shouts grew louder. They pointed. They tried to gather what remained of their guard.

A cluster of Tof officers stood near a broken pillar, trying to organize the defenders with shouted commands. Their armor gleamed with elaborate crests and carved trophies. Four standard bearers held heavy poles marked with bone totems. A captain in ornate plating pointed toward the anti air guns on the ridge above the harbor. They did not see Aerik cross the rubble. Their attention stayed locked on the ramp where Prazutis carved through their front line with broad, efficient strokes of his blade.

Aerik closed the distance without a word. The first officer turned too late. A short strike from Aerik's saber burned across the Tof's chestplate and dropped him into the dust. The blow disoriented the others long enough for Aerik to step inside their formation. His movements stayed measured, each choice simple and purposeful. A second officer swung a long blade toward his ribs. Aerik pivoted and cut the weapon at the hilt, then stepped forward and drove the point of his saber through the Tof's collar. A third officer attempted to withdraw behind the standard bearers, but Aerik reached him before the retreat took shape. The saber passed cleanly through the officer's shoulder joint, sending him collapsing over a pile of shattered stone.

The standard bearers broke formation when one of their own fell across their legs. They backed away in uneven steps, pulling the banner poles toward their chests as shields. Aerik pressed forward. A single upward cut severed the nearest pole. The carved totem fell in splinters at his feet. Another bearer thrust forward with his pole like a spear. Aerik deflected it and stepped in, palm striking the Tof hard enough to send him sprawling into the base of a ruined staircase. The remaining two dropped their banners entirely and ran for the inner courtyard.

The retreat of the officers sent a ripple through the larger Tof line. Warriors who had been shouting for the guns to find new angles stopped mid command. Others stared at the bodies scattered near the broken pillar. A few attempted to rally with louder cries, but the shape of the field had already changed. Moments earlier they had held formation with defiance. Now they saw a Dark Lord cutting through their strongest fighters and a silent figure destroying their officers with no hesitation.

A surge of blasterfire rained down from the northern battlements. Aerik shifted behind the fallen pillar as bolts chewed into the stone. Graug drop barges slammed into the jungle behind the fortress. Their landing shook the courtyard again. Screams rose from the far side of the wall as the first breach collapsed under the torrent of Graug assault. Tof warriors who once filled the parapets now abandoned their positions to escape the monsters pouring into the flanking trench.

Aerik stepped from behind the broken pillar and pressed deeper into the courtyard. More defenders ran to meet him now that panic had begun to spread. Their discipline fractured. Their charge lacked coordination. A heavy axe swept toward his shoulder. Aerik dropped low and answered with a clean stroke across the attacker's thigh. Another Tof lunged with a hooked blade. Aerik caught the weapon on his saber, twisted, and sent the attacker staggering backward into a cloud of dust where an Umbral Guard pike pierced his armor.

The field belonged to the invading force now. The fortress walls burned. The harbor churned with wreckage. The officers lay defeated near the broken pillar. Aerik did not pause to watch the final collapse. He moved on, following the path carved by the Shadow Hand, and let the momentum of the invasion carry him deeper into the fight.

 

[Korran Dorn]

WHISPERS

Tags: Darth Valar​

Korran’s stride did not falter when Valar lunged, her snarl vibrating through the modulator like a blade dragged across stone.

Another Sith might have reached for a weapon.

Another might have prepared to parry her fury.

Korran only lowered his hand with calm deliberation, as if smoothing the wrinkled page of a book.

“It would be disappointing,” he said mildly, “if champions behaved like this.”

He glanced toward the ruin she’d left, mangled limbs, blistered steel, ash settling like pale snow. Her fury was a beautiful, primal thing… but the silence that followed it? That silence belonged to him.

Valar’s anger rolled off him like heat against obsidian.

When she spoke again, playful, sharp, curious, Korran allowed a brief smile, the kind that shifted continents in its subtlety.

“A good deed?” he repeated, tone warm with amusement. “I assure you, Darth Valar, nothing in my morning would qualify.”

He let the words linger, a quiet ripple in the air between them.

“Though,” he added, “I did spare the life of an admiral last week. Long enough for him to realize the true depth of his insignificance.”

A soft, contemplative hum followed.

“Perhaps that counts.”

Valar drew close, shoulder to shoulder, and her question hung in the air like a challenge polished into curiosity.

Now, this thing you do, the whispering with corpses thing. Natural talent, or something learned?

Korran paused. Not in hesitation, but in invitation, allowing the moment to stretch, to darken, to deepen. His eyes, pale gold and steady as a forge-heart, slid toward her.

“The dead,” he said quietly, “do not whisper.”

He stepped over the hand of a fallen Tof, the fingers still curled around the memory of a weapon it no longer held.

“They cling.”

A soft pulse of the Force, subtle as breath, stirred the ash around his boots.

“To their last fear. Their last command. Their last certainty that they would live another minute.” His voice dropped, velvet and fathomless. “I do not speak to corpses. I simply listen to what their final moment has not yet released.”

His hand drifted through the air, not touching her but brushing nearer, letting her feel the resonance, not light, not crackling, but deep, tidal, ancient.

“It is not talent,” he said. “Nor trick. Nor sorcery.”

A moment.

A breath.

A truth.

“It is patience.”

He moved forward again, the shadows bending subtly toward him.

“Your lightning scorches their flesh,” he continued, “but their fear scorches the Force. And fear leaves an imprint deeper than bone.”

His gaze returned to the path ahead, where the corridor narrowed and the distant tremors of retreating feet quivered in the Force.

“You break the body,” he said, serene. “I follow the echo.”

He inclined his head toward her, not subservient, not grandiose, but the same measured acknowledgment that had unsettled her before.

“And so,” he concluded, “between the two of us, no king will hide long.”

He gestured forward, the corridor darkening as if the shadows themselves eagerly awaited their arrival.

“Shall we retrieve your elusive champions, Darth Valar?”​

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Lirka Ka | Quinn Varanin | Madrona A’Mia | Eira Dyn | Jorryn Fordyce | "Templar"

The hall settled under the weight of expectation as the Nagai elders returned their attention to him. Their expressions carried worry mixed with a desire for control. Rumors, fear, hope, and caution all lived behind their eyes. Gerwald felt it settle across the room like humidity before a storm. No one here wished to appear weak. No one here wished to appear desperate. Yet the world outside these walls was proof enough that Nagi had reached a moment it could not navigate alone.

He did not move from where he stood. Presence mattered more than motion. The elders watched him carefully, but their attention flickered as Lirka stepped forward. The mechanical resonance of her armor carried through the floor, and her greeting to the Nagai landed with a mix of admiration and threat. She was a new power on the Council, one who wore authority openly. Gerwald allowed her words to stand without interruption. It was wise to let them hear multiple voices before judgment formed.

Quinn Varanin and her apprentice Eira Dyn entered as Lirka spoke, and their arrival drew glances from the younger Nagai gathered toward the back of the room. Madrona A’Mia was not far behind them. Gerwald sensed their presence without turning. Quinn carried calm precision with her steps. Her apprentice radiated a wild sort of calm. A’Mia carried quiet intention. Their arrival shifted the balance in the chamber, steadying it.

When the elders looked back to Gerwald, he answered the question that had begun this meeting.

“You want to know what the Sith intend. You want certainty. You want to know what our presence will become now that the Tof can no longer decide the shape of your future. That is why we are here. You asked for clarity. I will give it.”

He paused long enough for the room to settle.

“The Order did not come to Nagi for tribute. We did not come to strip your world or silence your people. Firefist has opened. The Tof sought to claim it. They chose you as the first stone in that path. We broke their attempt before it reached full strength. That is the truth you have seen with your own eyes.”

Several elders exchanged guarded looks. Gerwald chose not to soften the reality.

“You stand at the threshold of a galaxy that has changed. New routes. New dangers. New alliances. The Order needs stability in Firefist. You need protection from the next attempt to claim your home. We did not come to cage you. We came because you hold a position that affects every world now drawn into this shift.”

He let his gaze travel the room. He acknowledged Lirka first, a silent recognition of her earlier words. Then Quinn. Then A’Mia. Their presence supported the weight of the moment without a single spoken cue.

“You fear what we might demand. You fear that our presence is another occupation. I understand that fear. It does not offend me. It tells me your people are not careless with their sovereignty. Good. That will serve you well. What I offer is partnership. Not as equals in strength, but as voices able to speak and be heard. Nagi can shape its own future within Firefist while standing under Sith protection. Work with us, and you will have a hand in the decisions that affect your world rather than watching them fall from the sky.”

An elder with silver at his temples stepped forward. His earlier suspicion had softened, but only slightly.

“Protection comes with cost,” he said. “You do not move armies for sentiment. What will you require from us?”

Gerwald met his eyes.

“Commitment, cooperation, and a willingness to prepare your world for what Firefist will draw to it in the cycles ahead. The Order needs access to secure staging grounds. You need safety from whatever follows the Tof. Both are achievable without taking your voice or your identity.”

The elder held his gaze a moment longer, then slowly nodded. Others murmured among themselves.

Gerwald did not push them further. He had planted the foundation. He let the weight of his words settle.

Only then did he step aside enough to acknowledge the other Councilors.

“Councillor Ka has spoken. Her view reflects strength. Councillor Varanin and Lord Seer bring perspectives you would do well to consider also. You asked for clarity. You will receive it from more than my words alone.”

His eyes returned to the elders once more.

“We can shape this together. Or you can allow uncertainty to decide for you. The choice belongs to you.”

The room breathed again. The discussion could finally take shape.

 

[CT-312]

//: Quinn Varanin Eira Dyn Madrona A’Mia //:
//: Nearby: Gerwald Lechner Lirka Ka Jorryn Fordyce //:
//: Attire //:
//: Objective II - The Cinder Council//:​

CT-312 was not on the front lines today. Instead, this time the Scout moved with the Princess, her apprentice, and her newly added… tall associate. The shift from battlefield to political chamber always felt strange, but not unwelcomed. She understood that missions came in different shapes. This one simply required more vigilance over violence. As they entered, CT-312’s visor automatically swept the room. Cataloging details of the chambers structure as well as its inhabitants inside.

Further in, standing at the forefront of discussion was a figure CT-312 recognized. Gerwald Lechner , Second Legion Commander and Dark Councilor. His presence anchored the hall as he spoke. Off to the side, a familiar armored figure the Scout identified stood Imperator Lirka Ka , a recent addition to the Dark Council. Even without words, the warrior drew wary glances from the Nagai.

The Nagai whispered among themselves. Uneasiness rippling through their body language. Their shoulders drawn tight and eyes shifting between the different Sith Delegates as if waiting for the sword to be drawn first. Their caution was justified. The galaxy had not been gentle with them.

CT-312 moved instantly at the Princess’s silent order, splitting from her side without question. Her boots made no sound as the Scout swept the room in a controlled circuit before splitting back toward the entrance they’d come through. As she passed only a few feet from Dark Councilor Lirka, CT-312 paused for a fraction of a moment. Helmet to helmet, a gloved hand curled into a fist and pressed against her chest. A silent congratulations for Lirka’s ascension. No words. No theatrics. Just recognition. Without breaking stride, CT-312 continued on toward her post.

At the back entrance, she stood against the wall. The rifle angled across her chest, lowered but ready. CT-312’s stance relaxed enough not to draw attention or alarm, still disciplined enough that no one questioned her purpose.

Her HUD scrolled with incoming data as BARCA filtered transmissions:
[SOS signals] - Defeated Tof remnants scattered across the Firefist
[Nagai chatter] - Anxious and hushed
[Sith vessel updates] - New arrivals and orbital positionings
Multiple encrypted messages blinking without priority markings

The feed was a mess. BARCA controlled the flow. Condensing and organizing it to readable segments that scrolled across her visor’s HUD in silent green and yellow text. Only highlighting important messages in orange or red. CT-312’s fingers subtly adjusted their grip on the rifle. Breathe remained steady with her weight staying balanced on the balls of her feet. The Scout wasn’t tense, she was prepared.

Behind the visor, her eyes tracked the room. If negotiations happened to sour, her position allowed her to intercept anyone fleeing toward the exits. Or anyone trying to enter the room. CT-312 continued to listen. Silent and watchful. Remaining disciplined and ready, as the fate of the Nagai and Firefist unfolded before her.

 

["Templar"]

//: Jorryn Fordyce //:
//: Somehow Always Nearby & Watching: Spencer Varanin //:
//: Attire //:
//: PREVIOUSLY - Objective II - The Cinder Council //:
//: CURRENTLY - Objective III - The Unclaimed Glow //:

From the corner of Templar’s eye, she caught the Sith Delegate ( Gerwald Lechner ) had stepped forward to receive the group that once surrounded her. Glances from the Nagai and Sith, eyes followed her or looked in her direction. Templar felt them the way one senses a shift in air pressure before a storm. She did not bother to acknowledge the looks given. Their whispers washed over her and faded as the chamber’s attention returned to the negotiations and discussions.

Templar was left alone. Which suited her.

She continued studying the map. Regions of Nagi. Routes stretching into Firefist. Markers of ruins and settlements. The Relic weighed the possibilities… deciding. 'Where next?' Which place might stir memory or jar loose one of the fragments locked inside her mind?

As Templar continued, she felt a presence behind her. A lingering aura. Following her steps as she moved toward the outskirts where the transports waited. Not hostile. Not frightened. Simply… curious. The voice called out to her.

She halted. Turned toward the figure that was following. ( Jorryn Fordyce )

The tone alone told her this one was not Nagai. Their attire confirmed it. Their Force signature faintly brushed against her senses. Familiar enough to place, but not clearly. Sith? Perhaps. The words they spoke of: treasure hunting, maps, being discovered, meant nothing to her. Templar had no interest in gold, artifacts, or its plunder. She lifted a hand from her cloak. Palm opened toward the white-haired horned Sith who had addressed her. A simple gesture. No.

Her head moved slowly side to side in emphasis. Then the hand vanished back beneath her cloak. Behind the helmet, Templar’s mouth opened— but stopped herself. Closing her mouth. Jaw tightening in the memories of her recent and past attempts. She refused to repeat the humiliation of broken sounds. The recent moment clung like residue, circle of Nagai barking and shouting over her. And beneath it all... old memories of earlier efforts since awakening stirred beneath the surface. The frustration. A frustration she not felt in centuries pressed inside her ribcage and chest.

Templar's eyes scanned the ground around them instead. A fallen branch caught her attention. ‘That will do.’ She crossed over to the branch, crouched as she picked it up. Turned the primitive ‘tool’ once in her fingers before lowering it to the ground. Scratching into the dirt:

TREASURE HUNTING
Templar drew a harsh ‘X’ over it.
‘No.’

DISCOVERY
Another ‘X’ slashed on top.
‘Do not care.’

SITH?
To confirm her observation of the unknown figure.

Slowly the Relic rose. Lifting her visor to the white haired stranger. Waiting. Watching. Measuring their reaction. Wondering whether this one would prove as insufferable as the Nagai who had boxed her in.

Templar dropped the stick. Her mind slipped back to her ‘Master’ ( Spencer Varanin ). To their words. To their patient insistence that Templar use her voice more. That she speak freely despite the fracture in her being. Free from fear. Untouched by humiliation. A faint low rumble slipped from her helmet. A sound of frustration and warning. She’d try one last time, this time with this supposed Sith Delegate. The sound broke apart. “H-h-ueee—” A warped vibration rattling from a throat unused for centuries. Another frustrated growl escaped her. Low, sharp, almost animal sounding like. Templar swallowed. Attempting again.

"E-ehhsspp—pp–" She could feel the raw strain of muscles waking from too long of a silence. Another breath. The Relic’s vocal cords burned. "Pp--pll—errrr... " The simplest of words cost her more effort than combat ever had. Throat aching as her frustration burned beneath the helmet and armor. Lifting her hand again from the cloak, pointing lazily toward a transport shuttle preparing for departure. Then pointing beyond it. Toward the land outside, smoke plumes marked the horizon where shattered Tof vessels lay scattered across the plains.

Without waiting for permission, Templar boarded the shuttle. Just before the hatch closed, she turned her head back toward the white haired figure. Making a simple gesture, a tilt of the chin and two fingers curling inward. Come. If you choose.

Whether it was an invitation or a warning, it was impossible to tell. If they proved irritating like the Nagai, Templar would deal with it. Decisively.

The shuttle lifted off. Its engines humming against the wind. Inside the cockpit, she placed a finger on the illuminated map before the pilot. Marking her destination. A cluster of ruins deeper inland.

When the landscape came into view, Templar silently observed. Broken stone spires, half-buried structures, and the unmistakable shapes of Tof lifeboats scattered across the perimeter. One small vessel lay in half as smoke and fire puffed out from its torn hull. As they descended, Templar was able to get a better look at the remnants. Two pods were in flames while the remaining three were intact. The moment the shuttle touched the ground, Templar rose. Sliding open the hangar door, she tossed several credits onto the pilot’s console as she stepped off the shuttle.

The ruins could wait. Templar set out toward the life pods and broken vessels first.

 

[Darth Valar]

Valar chuckled, the sound hollow and dull, unnaturally distorted by the mechanical tinge of the modulator, unprepared for any sound but the hiss of her voice, a rare failure she was willing to tolerate, if only because a piece of her appreciated the haunting echo, and the sheer inhumanity of it—a fitting funeral dirge for the late Admiral.

She did not ask further, though curiosity burned on the edge of her tongue. Some things were best left to the imagination. The Admiral's fate lingered in the aether, a different execution for every recollection, an ever-changing torment, unrestricted by the chains of the past, at least, till such a point that their memory was forgotten, a final death.

Already, some had surely forgotten him, just as surely as Valar had reduced him to nothing more than an amusing thought.

Another joke to be shared between the two on their enthusiastic walk.

Humour, however, could not last forever.

Unbidden, her back cracked harshly, the delicate curve of her spine aligning like a taut bowstring against an unseen brace. Her whipcord muscles tensed in silent recognition of Korran's solemn words, instinctively steeling herself for a transformation she was just starting to sense, like the faint crackle of a storm gathering on the horizon.

It was instinct to prepare for a threat.

She blinked behind the helmet, her eyes glazed with confusion, a bitter heart wary of the trick that was offered. An ember, soft and crackling despite it all, flared in encouragement, a warmth against her shoulders pressing her forward. The fears shrugged off like a ratty old cloak, Valar's senses stretched outwards, immaterial probes pressed against the broken veil.

She stared as the Force shifted.

Korran's manipulations balanced delicately between gentleness and severity, anchored by an unwavering certainty in his own ability. Like the slow, relentless shift of ancient tides, he worked, a guiding hand that gradually wore away at the protective barriers surrounding their hidden prize, meticulously unlocking the fragmented shards of memories from their unseeing grasp.

Not through power alone, but through control and temperance.

She turned away, faced with a moment of inadequacy that filled her soul with want, a desire for strength that she did not possess. The world would crumble at her touch, scorched with the memory of her passing, but in the end, she left nothing but ashes in her wake.

Perhaps, one day, she would reach for the echoes of more.

Dreams, however, were for another day. Her head turned towards the corridor ahead, gilded with swarming shadows and the promise of bloodlust, her booted feet strode forward, an eagerness crackling off her slender frame.

"It would be my pleasure," She whispered, her voice low and laced with an enticing tension that hung in the air, sharp and expectant like the first rattle of thunder before the storm.

The shadows guided the hunters deeper into the facility, through twisting corridors and abandoned rooms still warm to the touch. Despite their hurried retreat, the occupants were not far; the acrid scent of their fear lingered, like a trail of blood scattered across the floor, enticing in the glimmer of light from above. Another door, titanic in scale, blocked the way, the metal locks buried deep into the walls and interlocking connections.

"I sense them," Her voice was unhurried, the words in time with her steps, a hunter's stride in equal measures eager and relaxed, approaching the structure that dwarfed her. "They shelter here, cowards and champions alike. The former hide, uncertain of what they fear more: our wrath or the vengeful vindications of those they cower behind in hope of salvation. The latter, their hope is shattered, they see the truth, but that does not lead to acceptance."

She paused as she reached the door, her head tilted upwards in appreciation of the craftwork that barred her way. "They would tear it all down, if only to ensure that none other can have it. Their tenacity has led them here."

In the distance, she heard the booted footsteps of marching soldiers.

Tags: Korran Dorn​

 

[Korran Dorn]

STORIES END

Tags: Darth Valar​

He felt her chuckle before he heard it, hollow, metallic, a laugh shaped by machinery rather than mirth. A sound unfit for anything living.

Fitting, then, that it served as the Admiral’s last memorial.

Korran did not laugh in return. He merely watched the echo die, as all echoes do, absorbed into the quiet he carried with him like a mantle.

When Valar stiffened, muscles coiled, spine taut, instincts bristling, he did not chastise her readiness. He understood it. Power that burned too hot demanded vigilance. Power that burned too cold demanded fear.

His remained neither.

Her confusion, her momentary falter, the ache she tried to bury, it brushed against him in the Force like ripples against the hull of a ship passing over deep waters. Her hunger was raw. Her inadequacy sharpened. Her ambition, alive.

Good.

Ash could burn again if given enough pressure.

As they walked, shadows drawing tight around their flanks like a procession of silent honor guards, he spoke, not loudly, but with the certainty of someone who expected the galaxy to listen.

“You envy control,” he said, unhurried, as if commenting on the temperature of the air. “But envy is simply the first door one walks through on the way to mastery.”

He didn’t look at her. He didn’t need to.

“Fire consumes. Tides reshape.”

His hand drifted in a slow, deliberate motion, and the cold metal of the corridor seemed to bow inward, not physically, but perceptually, as though reality itself leaned toward him to hear more.

“You leave ashes because you strike too quickly. You take before you discern. You destroy before you have learned what was worth keeping.”

A pause, thin as a blade’s edge.

“One does not need more power, Valar,” he murmured. “One needs longer patience.”

Not a rebuke. A truth offered like a key.

Whether she would use it… was her affair.

The titanic door loomed ahead, its locking mechanisms buried deep, an armored monolith meant to withstand bombardments, breaches, desperation.

It had not been built to withstand inevitability.

Valar spoke, voice filled with tension, thrill, and the scent of blood just beneath the words. She named the cowards. The champions. The ruin they would choose over surrender.

Korran listened.

Then he stepped forward, placing his palm flat against the cold metal. The door did not tremble. but everything behind it did.

“They do not fear us,” he said softly. “Not truly.”

He turned his head slightly, golden eyes half-lidded, as though considering a piece of sculpture rather than a barrier.

“They fear the loss of the world they imagined themselves deserving.”

His fingers curled, not in exertion, but in thought.

“And when a man realizes he was never meant to rule… violence becomes his final religion.”

Behind the door, the footsteps gathered. Panicked. Commanded. Preparing.

Not to defend.

To destroy.

To deny.

Korran’s voice dipped to a quiet, near-reverent tone.

“They will burn their own kingdom to keep us from touching its crown.”

He withdrew his hand from the metal, letting it cool in the sudden absence of his presence.

Then, he inclined his head the slightest fraction toward Valar, echoing her earlier eagerness with something far more unsettling:

Approval.

“Shall we take from them,” he asked, “the luxury of choosing how their story ends?”

The marching grew louder.

The storm waited.

And Korran smiled, calm, composed, assured.

The kind of smile only given by a man who already knew the outcome.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

In the end, the application of force had proven to be excessive. The Tof, though lauded as a martial and domineering species, had proven far below what was expected of a warrior culture. Perhaps it was their isolation in Firefist that had cultivated their weakness, or perhaps the sheer scale of the Kainite war-machine was far greater than anything the Tof could've realistically opposed them with. Regardless of the reasons, the stark fact remained that the Tof Kingdom was being devoured by flame and sarassian iron.

Darth Carnifex watched the world burn from atop Xorvyrnog, nudging the great beast forward with slight pressure to His armored scales. A great multitude of dead fanned out around them, mangled and burnt beyond recognition. The main fanfare of the battle had concluded for the Eternal Father, now they were sweeping up the scraps. Xorvyrnog's forked tongue lashed the air, tasting the scent of life among the wreckage and ruin.

So deeply in tune with His beast, Carnifex only had to glance in a direction to ascertain the location of surviving Tof. Unfurling from His back, shards of Qabr'azm rushed forward like heat-seeking missiles, curving around corners and through narrow openings to find their prey. When they returned, they were covered in a thin sheen of blood; evidence of their successful hunt.

Some He didn't even have to hunt down. A few had thrown themselves at the feet of His great beast, pleading and moaning about foreign concepts like mercy and succor. Their pleas for a reprieve were all met equally, between the gnashing teeth of Xorvyrnog's fanged maw. Each death fed the horrid curse that began to seep into the world's bones, an insidious and ancient magic that the Dark Lords of the Kainate wielded with impunity.

Bringing His beast to a halt for a moment, the Dark Lord produced a small cube of amorphous metal. From it, emerged a miniaturized image of Darth Prazutis and Aerik Lechner. "The world quiets, Mortarch. How fares your hunt?"

Darth Prazutis | Aerik Lechner ​

 

[Olyssandra]

Location: Edge of the Warbound Clan Compound, Northern Island Chain - Tof
Thread Objective: The Unclaimed Glow
Objective: Kill the Tof clan heirs.
Tag: Reina Daival

Making her way down the stairs, Olyssandra came to a sudden halt as her ears twitched upon registering the guttural grunts of the Tof tongue and the thunderous cadence of their heavy footsteps. A quick mental command saw her form shimmer and dissolve, the cloaking device melding her perfectly into the gloom as she leapt up onto the ceiling of the stairwell. The dynamic traction nodes in her boots and palms activated with a thought, adhering her to the ceiling just as a trio of hulking Tof warriors came pounding up the steps.

Olyssandra waited until all three of their brutish forms were directly beneath her.

Then, she dropped.

Monomolecular Fyrirdögun talons enveloped in a searing energy field sprang forth from her fingertips like claws coming out of their sheath. Olyssandra landed on the head of the warrior directly beneath her, before plunging the Fighting Claws of her left hand into his skull. The energy-sheathed monomolecular blades simultaneously ripped, tore, and incinerated the grey matter encased within.

The tiny assassin used the dying twitch of the Tof’s body as a springboard to kick off into a balletic mid-air backflip. As she spun, her left arm lashed out in a vicious, sweeping arc, four talons carving through the second warrior’s head with the ease of a hot wire through wax. His face ceased to exist, slivered by four parallel trenches that split his skull into five distinct, smoldering chunks that slid apart with a wet, hissing gurgle of charred flesh.

The third warrior tried to raise his blaster to meet her, but was far too slow. Olyssandra descended upon him, before driving one set of talons deep into the juncture of his neck and collarbone, while the other hand buried its claws into the side of his head with the wet, percussive pop of rupturing bone. The warrior stood still for a moment, before collapsing into a twitching heap.

Olyssandra was gone by the time the last warrior’s body hit the ground. And from the stairwell, the small-statured assassin-priestess swiftly made her way directly to the shuttle bay.

"There's a group trying to leave the Landing Pad. Pretty sure there's a fair few Heirs amidst them."

“Tell me where they are headed. I will move to intercept them!”

Spoiler: Loadout

• Midnight Graveglass
  
  • Arms
    
    • Velocity-7 Dart Shooter - L Forearm
      
      • Mk. I Saberdart - Blood Boiler Payload (6)
      • Explosive Dart (6)
• Midnight Harmony (2)
• Siqsa-S1 Semiautonomous Seeker Obscuration Canister (2)
• FAE/MDE-01-S1 Semiautonomous Seeker Thermal Explosive (2)

 

[Darth Valar]

Valar's sharpened nails, covered in the smooth fabric of her bodysuit, trailed down the side of her helmet, the metal canvas it traced, spotless, despite the bloodshed that it had seen so far. The rest of her armour was not quite so pristine, dotted with splatters of gore that turned the silver and grey plates a pinkish tint, wrapped around her torso and shoulders like a tattered shawl. Her gauntlets gleamed in contrast, bright as the day they'd been forged, a picture of perfection crudely intersected by the sharp line between them and the rest of her armour plates.

Her message of what lingered beyond the threshold delivered, Valar settled into silence, content to share the space between herself and her fellow Sith, excited by the challenge that lay ahead.

For that, she would allow them their moment, the opportunity to assess the situation, unharried by her impatience.

It was not patience, not truly, though, one might be forgiven for assuming such. She looked towards the future, the unsettled currents that fell still in Korran's passage, a certainty of self that allowed nothing but that which he would tolerate.

Metal creaked under the Sith's touch, rime gathered in the shape of an imprint that crept outwards, a cold finality to the verdict delivered.

Valar stepped forward, the storm gathered at her fingers, "It was never there's to possess."

Dozens of soldiers stepped around the corner, their rifles at hand, ready for combat. They did not falter as they spotted the Sith ahead, the vanguard that had paved the way, a trail of bodies that even a beast could follow. Booted feet stamped forward, a song of war, drummed to a violent crescendo that crackled and roared. Their shadows stretched far, looming in size, empowered by the flickers of blue and purple that enveloped Darth Valar's arms and fingers.

Her hands ascended, the weight of an eclipse dawning.

With fingers stretched, she reached forward, an open channel to the greater power that flowed through her veins.

Darkness descended, emboldened by the dying of the light.

The sudden silence of the crackle and static, still, like the absence of a heartbeat.

The Storm held its breath.

It exhaled with the howl of absence, the trembling futility of existence, stretched beyond the mortal coil. The world turned blue around the edges, an imperfect colour, translated in the forked tongue of a terrible truth.

Nothing lasted forever.

Tons of metal, cracked inwards where it wasn't simply erased, the first layers turned to dust in the blink of an eye. Seconds later, it imploded inwards, fragments of metal crumbling even in the flash frame, a flicker of light that burned the unprepared, their eyes turned blind and others unfortunate enough to find themselves close to the entrance way smited in turn.

Valar stumbled, a moment of weakness as the Storm was sealed away, her hand braced against the wall, unseen by the terrified foes within.

Cowards fled, their false dreams crushed under the pillar of existence.

Champions, those who would declare themselves tyrants, stepped forward with thunderous steps, their monstrous bodies stretched towards the looming ceiling, with weapons in hand and firing through the chaff that had failed to do anything more than slow the Sith. As she looked through the entrance way, Valar witnessed a dozen different weapons, slugthrowers and vibroweapons alike, human-sized armaments reduced to children's toys in their grips. A few carried weapons closer to their own size, though many of them were cruder than the rest, with sharpened implements wielded into the sides of weapons and onto pieces of armour that could only hinder the charging behemoths.

Tags: Korran Dorn​

 

[Korran Dorn]

SHADOWS

Tags: Darth Valar​

The blast of Valar’s storm rippled across the corridor like a deity’s exhale, beautiful, annihilating.

Korran watched it without flinching.

The metal dissolved.

The light died screaming.

The world buckled beneath her will.

And as the shockwave faded, Korran stepped forward through the settling haze in the same measured, unconcerned pace with which he had walked every corridor before this one.

Her stumble did not escape him.

Nor did her refusal to acknowledge it.

He said nothing. He would not cheapen the moment by offering steadiness to someone who would sooner bite her own tongue than accept a hand. She braced herself against the wall; the storm sealed itself behind her ribs; her breath steadied again.

Good.

A Sith who never faltered was a liar, or a corpse waiting to happen.

The remnants of the door crunched beneath his boots in a fine, glittering dust.

Inside, the chamber shook with a different kind of thunder.

The champions surged forward, towering monsters clad in crude armor, wielding weapons more suited to siege engines than infantry. Their roars reverberated through the chamber, dissonant and furious, a final hymn to their own doomed defiance.

Valar’s lightning still flickered faintly along the seams of metal and bone.

But Korran did not reach for saber, nor raise his hands, nor brace.

He simply walked.

The first of the behemoths charged, a mass of muscle and rage that could have toppled a starfighter. It brought down a slab-sized cleaver of iron, the weight of it enough to split a hover-tank in two.

Korran lifted a single finger.

The blade stopped.

Not halted with strain.

Not caught in a clash.

It simply… ceased its descent, held in stillness as complete as vacuum.

The champion’s muscles bulged, veins straining, tendons cracking, but the cleaver remained frozen in the air, untouched by effort or roar.

“Strength,” Korran said softly, “without discipline…”

He turned his wrist a fraction.

The champion collapsed inward as though reality folded around him, every bone crushed in perfect symmetry, a sculpture imploding without sound. The cleaver dropped onto what remained of its wielder with a hollow clang.

“…is merely noise.”

The others hesitated. Just for a moment. Just long enough.

Korran’s eyes swept across them, golden and calm, ancient in a way that had nothing to do with years lived.

“These are not kings,” he murmured to Valar, voice smooth as deep water sliding over stone. “They are monuments to fear.”

One of the champions roared back, spittle flying, a vibro-pike twice Korran’s height trembling in its grip.

Korran exhaled.

The air folded.

The champion’s roar cut short.

Its weapon vanished, erased from the world, and a heartbeat later, so did its head.

The body took three lumbering steps before it realized it was dead.

He stepped forward into the chamber, his presence expanding outward like an invisible pressure, bending the air, dimming the lights, sipping at the boundaries of what these creatures had believed possible.

Behind him, Valar’s storm still simmered, a promise of further devastation.

He glanced at her, not pitying, not indulgent, but deeply approving.

“That door,” he said, nodding at the void where metal had once been, “was never theirs to possess.”

A faint smile curved his lips, serene and cruel.

“Neither is this room.”

Behind them, the last of the champions bellowed in rage and charged.

Korran did not turn.

“I will take the left,” he said calmly, as if discussing a seating arrangement. “Unless you wish it?”

The shadows curled around his fingertips like obedient serpents, eager for the next command.

 

[Darth Strosius]

​

Equipment: Lightsaber - Sword - Dagger - Robes
Tags: Lily Rhodes / Revna Marr
--------------------------------------------

Darth Strosius had been content to let His officers and captains direct and command the battle in orbit whilst He in turn prepared for the planetside excursions. Revna was more than willing to pick up His slack in that regard, aiding in the shattering of the Tof fleet via Battle Meditation. While the pilots and captains themselves may not have noticed their nerves smoothing and their focuses growing sharper due to her efforts, He certainly had.

"Putting your lesson to use hm?" He had asked when His daughter joined Him in one of the shuttles, naturally one of the first to set off from the Harbinger after the first wave of fighters had began clearing the path towards the surface. A flurry of gunships escorted the larger shuttles down into the atmosphere, occasionally streaking off to chase a stray Tof fighter or strafe a concentration of them on the ground. Darth Strosius peered out of the slim viewport next to His seat and idly glanced over the chaos unfurling amidst the market stalls below.

In spite of the potent swirl of terror, fear, hatred, and determination that saturated the battle below however He sensed something else. Someone that was familiar, oddly enough. The masked man snapped His gaze to Revna and gestured towards the shuttle's door as He stood, marching to it in spite of them still making their descent. He pulled the blast door to the side, much to the shocked questions of the troops within the shuttle itself, and rather nonchalantly stepped out of it.

Darth Strosius idly took a moment to stretch and enjoy the feeling of falling through the air before His pale golden wings flared wide and His boots roared to life. His hidden gaze searched the stalls below until He spotted His target, and right in time too as she was just getting caught off-guard and smacked to the ground. He clicked His tongue at the sight. "Amateurish."

He dove and as the Tof leveled their blaster towards Lily He lashed out and all but squashed the threat by catching their head in His clawed gauntlets and using them to cushion His landing. "I see you're still using the stick." Darth Strosius idly wiped the blood from His claws onto His robes as He casted a glance towards her from over His shoulder. "To your own detriment, again."

 

[Reina Daival]

Tag: Olyssandra
Objective: The Unclaimed Glow
Outfit

It would take a few moments before Reina responded down the comm-link. After all, it was more important to focus on the barrage of blaster shots being sent your way. Reina thought the Tof would be more focused on dealing with the flames from the wreckages than dealing with her...but at the same time, she had probably done some kind of affront to their culture by attacking them. They were more of a warrior race at the end of the day, so she should have realised they wouldn't do the smart thing.

"They're heading North. More than likely to try and find somewhere secure to lock themselves down in, now that they know there's assassins."

Of course, there weren't many rooms that Reina could think of in the compound that the Tof would be able to secure their heirs in. That wasn't Reina's problem though. The Priestess could hunt them down. Reina had to deal with these Tof in the hanger, and get the unconscious heir somewhere they'd be able to extract him from.

The Ersansyr reached her hand out towards the flames of the wreckage, keeping herself covered by some storage boxes. Using the Force to manipulate the flames. Feeding their growth and heat, letting more and more smoke spew outwards before she unleashed the flames onto the Tof, waves of flames erupting from the wreckages, incinerating the Tof nearest to it. Even if it didn't do much damage to the number of Tof there were, the sounds of your fellow warriors burning would do enough psychological damage for Reina to focus on throwing the heir over her shoulder, to let her book it back towards the way she had came. She just needed to find a room to put the heir down, and then focus on clearing herself an exit.
​

 

[Darth Valar]

Aftershocks skittered across Valar's arms and shoulders like the coils of a vicious viper, its passage a force of nature, utterly uncaring of the scorched ozone that it left behind. Her limbs, tight cords of refined muscle, shivered with leashed tension, weakness that in her moment of struggle she could not dismiss. An ember of dissatisfaction built in her chest, a spark that grew stronger with each faltering step she took, roaring wind sneered upon the dismal sight, and the flame flared. In furious fire, nerve endings screamed, brought into alignment as a spine straightened, and once again, Darth Valar stood.

Her steps devoured the space between herself and the entrance way.

Golden eyes burned the vision of Korran Dorn's passage into memory, his journey guided by sparks of lightning. Valar smiled, her teeth bared in a cheshire grin that reached her eyes, an expression tinted with madness, sharp and eager for the promised bloodshed.

An inevitable conclusion. The first champion of the Tof charged, a vision of power and strength amongst those who had gathered themselves upon an altar of those two values. His dismissal was beautiful, a display of sheer disdain; the reality of the situation, hammered into reality with the thunderous crack of metal and bone, crushed into the shape of failure.

Afterwards, there was no need for trophies, no need for further messages.

That which was unneeded was erased.

The message would linger in the absence, a void shaped with intent, less than the pressure that gathered upon their shoulders and souls, an expression of power that shaped the world around it.

Lightning crackled across the metal floor, the return of the Storm, thunderous in the caress of shadows.

Darth Valar stopped only for a second, a moment of consideration as eyes fell upon her and she turned her attention their way. Her helmet, expressionless, stilled in the instant of connection between the two Sith, a moment of approval shared between peers, she lowered her head in a thoughtful nod. "Take what is yours, Korran."

Then, without a moment of hesitation, she launched herself forward, a flicker of movement that settled into a solid shape, only moments before a blade of red light tore through one of the Tof's knees. They screamed, unable to silence the shock that tore through their mouth like a wild animal, an injured cry that rattled over the sound of their limb sloping to the ground. Unable to support themselves, the champion's weight unsettled them; their arms flailed in pain, unprepared for the blade that impaled through their hip, metal and flesh turned orange, before, with an almost playful flick of her wrist, Valar sliced up through their side and tore the blade out through the joint of their shoulder.

Voices in a language she didn't deem to learn hissed curses her way, ineffectual as the slugthrowers that tore into the space around her, one hand raised, plating and corpses spun around her, absorbing blows that would have dared to halt her advance. The only suitable response followed, another flick of her hand, an expression of disdain, before slabs of metal descended upon their horrified targets, crushed under weights that bisected warriors and cowards alike.

"Our hosts were ever so kind to provide entertainment," She remarked, a side step carrying her past one of the brutish blows of a warhammer twice her size, their failure punished with a kick that brought their leg low. Slugthrowers fired, projectiles tearing through the warrior's armour, an unwilling barrier between herself and those who had nothing else to lose. Through the pain, he grunted, his muscles bulging over blood-slicked skin that tore with another swing of his warhammer.

Crimson light carved upwards, an arc of dissipating light.

The rest of the warhammer landed a moment later, a hand still attached.

Across the fingers of her free hand, lightning gathered, a spark that became a storm before she turned upon those who had torn through the warrior and, in turn, were torn apart as bolts of sheer disdain screeched across the chamber, an erasure of that which did not deserve to exist within her presence as bodies and armour turned to ash.

Tags: Korran Dorn​

 

[Korran Dorn]

FINAL

Tags: Darth Valar​

Valar flew into the fray like a blade hurled by the hand of an angry god,

heat, violence, a streak of crimson and crackling blue.

Korran moved with her, but not like her.

Where she struck, the air screamed.

Where he walked, the air yielded.

He did not rush to match her frenzy, nor did he need to. The chamber bent to his presence as subtly as iron filings shift around a magnet, nothing overt, nothing loud, but everything inevitable.

Valar erupted into a cyclone of violence, her saber carving red geometry through flesh and metal, her lightning chewing through life and armour alike. Her storm devoured the space like hunger incarnate.

Korran stepped through the aftermath like a man strolling among quiet gardens.

Ash settled on his shoulders without daring to cling.

Blood sprayed but refused to stain.

Even the smoke parted before reaching him.

The champions roared. Their weapons thundered. Their massive fists crashed against the stillness he carried.

It did not break.

One of the remaining behemoths barreled toward him, its warhammer twice Korran’s height, swinging down with all the desperation of a creature seeing the end of its world.

Korran simply extended his hand, not in a gesture of defense, but of acknowledgment.

The hammer slowed.

Slowed.

Stopped.

The champion strained, muscles splitting, tendons screaming, veins bursting under its own futile exertion, but gravity itself no longer obeyed it.

Korran’s voice slipped into the struggle like a soft blade.

“Nothing here,” he said, “was ever yours to wield.”

He flicked two fingers.

The hammer shot upward,

and the champion’s body did not follow.

Ribs cracked. Spine snapped. The creature folded around an absence where its weapon had been, collapsing to the floor like a marionette with cut strings.

Korran stepped around the corpse, gaze drifting toward Valar as she bisected another brute, her storm peeling warriors apart with the artistry of a sculptor and the disposition of a hurricane.

Her earlier nod, thoughtful, earned, shared between equals, echoed in the Force like a lingering warmth.

“Take what is yours, Korran,” she had said.

So he did.

A cluster of Tof warriors broke through the smoke to flank him, slugthrowers blazing, vibroblades raised, desperate to overwhelm him with numbers.

Korran didn’t draw his saber.

Instead, he breathed.

The breath became a pressure.

The pressure became a verdict.

The verdict became a wall of invisible force that crashed outward from him, not explosive, not violent, but crushingly absolute.

Their bullets slowed mid-air, hovering like insects suspended in amber.

Their weapons shook, metal groaning as if begging to be released.

Their bodies, caught mid-lunge, bent beneath the weight of a presence older than their bloodlines.

Korran tilted his head, expression serene as a winter sunrise.

“You mistake noise for purpose,” he told them.

His fingers curled as though closing a book.

The Tof warriors folded inward, imploding without spectacle, their bodies crumpling silently into compressed heaps of armour and bone.

No scream.

No terror.

No fight.

Just… cessation.

Valar’s lightning carved the last line of resistance into ash and glowing fragments. The chamber glowed blue along the edges, the echo of her storm lingering like heat after a fire.

She remarked on the entertainment their hosts had provided, her tone sharp and sweet as polished steel.

Korran stepped forward to join her, his voice a calm counterpoint to her undiluted fury.

“Entertainment, yes,” he allowed, studying the ruined hall with a scholar’s contemplative eye. “But unrefined. No vision. No purpose.”

He cast a brief glance toward the warhammer still clattering across the floor, severed from both life and intention.

“These champions,” he continued, “were not chosen. They were offered by leaders who confuse size with strategy, and brutality with destiny.”

He turned his gaze back to Valar, golden eyes catching the crackle of her fading storm.

“You and I, Darth Valar… we claim what strength alone cannot grant.”

A slow, knowing smile traced his lips, quiet, assured, a promise rather than a boast.

“We claim the right to shape what comes next.”

Ahead, deeper into the facility, another tremor of movement whispered through the Force, more foes, more fear, more fools who still believed they could bar the path.

Korran nodded toward the shadows.

“Shall we?”​

 

[Darth Prazutis]

The fortress Prazutis had chosen as His anvil held longer than most.

But only in that it took slightly more time to die.

By the time the outer courtyard finally folded, fire had taken the upper barracks, and the inner gatehouse was reduced to a smoking wound. Umbral Guard locked it down not as conquerors, but as executioners who had moved on to the administrative part of their work. Tof who had thrown down their weapons knelt in rows now, hands bound behind them, heads forced down by armored gauntlets. Those selected for use, in chains, in pits, in arenas and factories and laboratories, were marked with shock-collars and glyph-tags, herded toward holding pens under the watch of Legion detachment officers and pitiless droids. Those of particular stock were tagged differently, a percentage that would be delivered to Taeli Raaf as promised for her experiments. Those deemed unnecessary to the Kainate's designs were walked to the edges of hastily gouged trenches and made to kneel again. Such would become the fate to all Tof living within the system.

The report of massed blaster fire became a steady, workmanlike sound.

Here and there, pockets of resistance still spat and clawed from inner chambers or secondary towers, but they were noise, not threat. A Blackblade walking through a doorway turned a room of diehards into a red smear on the walls. An Augur, flanked by Umbral escort, stood at the intersection of two halls and let a pressure wave roll out from his outstretched hand; the bodies that tumbled down the stairs afterward barely resembled the soldiers they had been.

Within, the keep's main hall was a slaughterhouse dressed as a throne room. Broken banners drooped from the rafters. The great table where raids had once been planned lay overturned, pinned beneath the bulk of a dead Tof lord who had insisted on making his last stand in ceremonial armor. A few of his personal guard lay around him; more lay scattered at the far end of the hall, where something huge had broken through. One of the Graunk had forced its way inside before being called away toward richer hunting; the rents in the stone floor and the crushed columns it had left behind told that story well enough.

The Mortarch stood beneath the shattered remains of a stained-glass window that had once depicted some ancient Tof victory at sea. Now only jagged shards clung to the frame, the image destroyed as thoroughly as the history it commemorated. Through the empty spaces, the harbor burned. He could feel the planet's tone changing.

Not in the currents of the Force alone, but in the rhythm of sound and heat. The roar of organized resistance had already been reduced to an uneven undernote: Choked screams, isolated detonations, the deep, sickening crunch of collapsing structures. Overlaying it now was something uglier and more honest, Graug war-songs echoing through stone canyons, the crack of electro-whips, the hollow thunder of massed boots as Legions marched prisoners from one horror to the next.

Right beneath it all, like a low, spreading poison, He could feel the Father's work.

Carnifex's presence seeped into the bones of the world, an ancient, coiling malignance that tasted of dead gods and broken empires. The soil would remember this night long after the last living Tof forgot what their stars had once looked like. The darkness of the Kainate, the ritualistic carnage would gouge deep into the bone marrow of the world and transfigure it forever. A flux of sorcerous signal tugged at His awareness.

Prazutis turned His helm slightly as the amorphous metal cube rose from His belt into the air before Him, its surface crawling with dark refractions. It twisted, unfolded, and from it emerged a miniature projection: Darth Carnifex astride Xorvyrnog, reduced in scale but losing nothing of the weight of His presence; beside Him, the small image of the battlefield around the beast, a smoldering wasteland of mangled bodies and smoking ruins.

"The world quiets, Mortarch." rumbled the Eternal Father's voice, tectonic even when compressed. "How fares your hunt?"

Silence hung for a heartbeat. In the distance, somewhere beyond the fortress, an entire Graug warband howled in ragged exultation as a new section of wall came down. "Their first teeth are pulled." Prazutis replied, vocabulator carrying the cavernous echo of His helm, that layered, multi-toned resonance that made normal speech sound like a verdict. Behind Him, an Umbral Guard strode past, dragging a chained Tof noble to his knees before a waiting Blackblade for escort. "This bastion is broken. Their officers lie in pieces. Their banners burn in their own courtyards." He took a step closer to the projection, the ruined hall framing Him like the inside of a grave.

"Their harbors choke on wreckage. Their slave-pens bleed into our logisticians' ledgers. Those who might be of use learn new words for obedience. The rest are learning how long it takes to fill a trench." Outside, a line of prisoners shuffled past the shattered doorway, hands bound, collars blinking dully at their throats. One stumbled; an Umbral Guard corrected the problem with a precise shot to the back of the skull and motioned for the next to step over the body without breaking stride. "This island chain will be quiet by night's end." The Shadow Hand continued. "The others are falling on schedule. The Dark Legion is already feasting in their hinterlands. By the time Firefist's suns rise again over this ocean, the Tof will understand what has been taken from them. Not merely their ships or their fortresses." His helm tilted to one side, as if listening to something only He could hear. "Their future."

He paused, letting the word hang like a dangling wire over a flooded floor. "We drive them toward their center, Eternal Father." Prazutis said. "Let their remaining kings and captains flee inland, toward whatever they still call a throne. I will be the wall that closes behind them. When they look up from their last stronghold, they will see you falling and my shadow already on their necks."

Outside in the courtyard, a brief flare of motion caught His peripheral vision. The young wolf moved through the aftermath with the same measured certainty He had shown in the height of the fighting, shape cutting across the ruin, blade rising only when it needed to, wasting nothing. Pockets of Tof who had tried to rally around secondary standards now lay scattered in his wake, their symbols trampled into mud and blood. Umbral and Blackblade detachments flowed past and around him, folding his work into the broader slaughter with professional ease. The apprentice was learning to move with the machine, not against it.

Good. He would need that skill in the nights to come. Prazutis' focus returned to the cube. "This is the first correction." The Mortarch said quietly, and the ruined hall seemed to lean in. "By the time we are done, the word 'Tof' will mean whatever we decide it means. Thrall. Beast. Ash. Myth. I care little which, so long as it does not mean kingdom ever again." The image of Carnifex and Xorvyrnog flickered, Netherlight crawling along their edges, then steadied. Outside, smoke rolled upward in thick columns, turning the sky above the archipelago into a bruise. The sea below caught the reflection and turned from turquoise to something darker, streaked with oil and blood. On beaches where generations had once welcomed victorious raiders home, chained lines of captives now knelt in the surf as overseers walked behind them with scanners and shock-prods, sorting them like livestock.

Above it all, Kainate banners snapped in a wind that smelled of salt, burnt meat, and new dominion. Tof had been a kingdom once. Tonight, it was learning the shape of its new name. "Once full compliance is achieved. We will grind everything they possess from the bones of this world, and ensure their new existence is forever carved into memory."

Darth Carnifex | Aerik Lechner​

 

[Revna Marr]

Tags: Darth Strosius // Lily Rhodes ​

Revna’s lips lifted upward in a half-smile at her Master’s comment as she held on to one of the hand holds in the shuttle as it left the Harbinger for the surface of the world beyond them. “Of course. What good are lessons unless I put them to use?”

Everyone within the shuttle waited with quiet anticipation for what was to come. Alisteri looked out a viewport near to Him, then glanced sharply at Revna before He gestured with His head towards the shuttle door, rising as He did so. Without fanfare or explanation, the Sith Lord leapt from the still airborne shuttle - no doubt with the expectation that Revna would follow His lead.

She had never leapt from a descending shuttle, but there was a first time for everything she supposed. Revna hesitated only a heartbeat or two after her Father leapt out, watching how His golden wings spread to guide Him down to solid ground below. She didn’t have wings - but she had the Force and the knowledge on how to use it and manipulate it.

So she made her leap too, armor glinting in the light and cloak billowing behind her. The ground below rushed up to meet her and she pulled the Force around her to cushion her landing, the lightsaber at her hip already in her hand and igniting with a crackling hissing sound, prepared and ready to cut down any Tof that dared to cross her.

It was only then that she felt a familiar presence brush against the edges of her awareness….a presence she hadn’t felt since…

“...Lily?!”

“Amateurish." Darth Strosius said as He took in the sight of Revna’s cousin trying to beat back her attackers with a staff. He easily dispatched a Tof that was aiming at Lily, all the while mildly rebuking her for using such a weapon. "I see you're still using the stick. To your own detriment, again."

Revna spied another Tof and coiled the Force around the neck and clenched her fist, crushing windpipe and bone with a simple gesture of her will.

“...what are you doing here?!” she inquired of her cousin. She had the desire to run up and hug Lily but she tempered that flood of emotion; such affection could wait until after they were done fighting.