Faction Fundamentals (TSC | Desevro Academy)

[Vestra Tane]

DESEVRO
SITH TEMPLE COMPLEX
UNDERGROUND TUNNELS
TAGS: Anet Raine | Acier Moonbound | Ghruna | Valephor Crokell | Varin Mortifer | OPEN to Covenant Acolytes and Apprentices!

The air was still in the tunnels beneath Desevro.

None of the Acolytes had been told why they were summoned; only that they were to gather, in this cobweb- and bone-littered cavern, deep beneath the central temple. Glowlamps littered the ground, providing harsh, unfriendly illumination. It was fitting, really; the very atmosphere was unfriendly. It clawed at its occupants, beckoning them at once to flee and to stay trapped forever.

"To be Sith is to be free."

The formal voice, this time. This was serious, apparently.

"And to be free is to be tested. To test others. Passion, Strength, Power, Victory...you've heard it all before, surely."

Vestra Tane paced, hands clasped behind her back. Finally, she was back to what made her comfortable; her coat, her boots, her mask. Everything rugged and ragged and combat-ready, lightsabers at her side. She held, in her hand, a rock; mottled black-and-green, jagged and rough. If her hand still had blood, it would've trickled down onto the ground. It felt dark, invasive.

She looked, impartial and impassive, over the faces of her charges. Some she'd taken special interest in, or dragged to Desevro herself.

Since then, she had left them in Arris's hands. The Dark Horse had done an admirable job teaching them to survive; the Knight wouldn't deny her that. But there was more to being Sith than survival. More than killing nobles and looting treasure ships and extorting shipyards for starfighters.

Mercy had little interest in teaching the Acolytes personally, as far as Vestra could tell. And Arris didn't have the...temperament.

"Today you're being tested. You are standing in a vergence. It stretches through the tunnels. It will attempt to trap you here; to muddle your senses and decieve you. It will attempt to break you, as well. I will watch. And I will teach."

She paused. Just for a moment.

And then she sat, on the cold, rough-hewn floor, with her legs crossed.

"Go. When you return to me, you've passed."

​

 

[Vexorion]

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[]

Edmund Kemper - SKYND

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Objective: Merely Observe w/ Permission. Seeking One Out of Many


From the high facets of the tunnel, Vexorion watched as one might observe a graveyard at dawn; silent, patient, and unblinking. Below him, the students who moved through dim-lit corridors and blackened halls, their shadows stretching long and warped against walls engraved with dogma and threat. He did not see pupils or aspirants; he saw weapons in various stages of ruin, sharpened too quickly or left to rust by fear.

Their whispered rivalries, their staged cruelty, their desperate attempts to be noticed bled into the air like incense burned too thick. Most were hollow, animated by borrowed hatred rather than true resolve, and Vexorion dismissed them with a glance as the unworthy dead pretending at life.

He lingered, studying the rhythm of the hallowed halls, mapping its cruelty with the precision of a surgeon. He noted who struck first in sparring pits and who waited, who screamed in triumph and who endured in silence. Calculation governed his gaze; each movement was weighed against instinct, each ambition measured for depth rather than volume.

Power alone did not interest him; raw strength was common, even cheap, within these walls. What he sought was fracture: a fault line where suffering had not yet collapsed into obedience, where a mind still questioned the chains, it wore.

The underground itself seemed to resist him, its ancient stones humming with Sith arrogance and ritualized despair. Statues of long-dead Lords leered down at the students, their carved expressions frozen in eternal judgment, daring anyone to rise without becoming monstrous in the same familiar way.

Vexorion felt the Force churn here, thick and oppressive, teaching cruelty as virtue and betrayal as breath. This place did not forge greatness; it devoured it, leaving behind echoes that mistook survival for destiny. He wondered how many before him had once been worthy, only to be broken into something useful.

And that why he never took a Darth name, names are only respected in death, not accomplishments.

Yet he remained, patient as a drawn blade, certain that among the many failures there must be one soul not yet claimed by the academy's rot. Someone who endured without worshiping their torment, who learned without surrendering themselves to the lie that suffering alone granted meaning.

That was the one he would pluck from the darkness, not as a Master collecting an Apprentice, but as a reckoning altering the course of a life. Vexorion did not need an army. He needed a single spark, unextinguished, to prove that even here, in a place built to corrupt, fate could still be rewritten.

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Spoiler: Loadout

Weapons

• Whisperer {Lightsaber}
• Lightsaber Daggers

Ship

• The Apparition

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Desevro

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace lingered at the edge of the tunnel mouth longer than he meant to, assessing. Vestra hadn't given them an opponent, or a rule set, or even a direction. Which was... odd. Sith tests usually came with teeth you could see. This one felt like a question with the answer deliberately smudged out.

Then she said vergence. Before he could focus on it, absorb the words, something else shifted. A presence. Ace didn't look, but his shoulders tightened a fraction as the sensation passed over him: measured, distant, surgical. Definitely not Vestra. Not the others either. Someone was watching without participating. Ace filed it away automatically, the way you note a sniper's perch without breaking stride.

The tunnels exhaled, and the Force swelled, his stomach dropped again. Vergences always felt wrong to him, like a predator watching. Teth flashed through his mind uninvited: the version of himself he'd seen there, older, colder. Then Dathomir... his own actions, the vergence he'd torn open without meaning to, the way the air had screamed as the Mother of Teeth noticed him.

Ace swallowed. For the first time since arriving on Desevro, he didn't trust his feet to move. Fear crept in, a tight, unwelcome awareness of how badly this could go. How easily the Force could lie when it had a place to anchor its lies.

He breathed in, held it, then let it out. Running wouldn't help... and stalling would only make it worse.

"Of course..." He muttered.

Ace stepped forward, and the moment his boots crossed the threshold, the tunnels responded. Pressure bloomed, the vergence reaching for him like it remembered his thread in the Force.

Whatever waited inside, he'd face it on his feet.

Vestra Tane | Anet Raine | Ghruna | Valephor Crokell | Varin Mortifer | Vexorion​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

Varin’s red visor illuminated the walls around him, the runes that had heat colored his armor glowed softly over his arms, ribs and back. The smoldering cloak trailed behind him. He listened as Vestra spoke. His arms loosely at his sides as he glanced from wall to wall. The cavern was malicious all around them. It pulled at the threads of the mind, yanking at threads that seemed to be release points for anger and anxiety. He saw the evidence on Acier and slowly walked up to him, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.

He did not say anything to him but he squeezed his hand over Acier's shoulder a bit to show that he was not truly by himself in this.

Varin knew what awaited them, and he knew of Acier’s emotions. The further he buried them, the more agitated and determined to come out they became. It was a dangerous maneuver. He gave him a slow nod. A nod of understanding and one of recognition. Whether Acier took it that way was on him. Though none of the acolytes were tied to him he felt as if there were some semblance of responsibility for them he had to uphold. He wanted to be something they could possibly look up to. But he would never admit it.

He stepped up to Vestra stopping just in front of her, unclipped his saber hilt and set it on a shelf right by her, then unholstered the heavy mace and leaned it on the wall by her as well.

Again, he was silent. His reasoning for leaving them was his own. He knew what he would likely face in these caves. It was something he avoided for the longest time. Even now he tried to avoid it.

He looked down at the mace once more before falling back towards the front of the tunnel. The runic brands on his body pulsed over his flesh, acknowledging what was to come. But he waited for a moment longer. Silent. He picked up his bone rosary and began to thumb each bead as he slowly walked into the tunnel.

Acier Moonbound | Vestra Tane | Anet Raine | Ghruna | Valephor Crokell | Vexorion​

 

[Anet Raine]

Vestra Tane | Varin Mortifer | Acier Moonbound

Anet had arrived in the chilly cavern beneath the Academy proper. She detested the environment - not because it was cold, oh, this merely qualified as brisk for her. But it reminded her of that moment with Kirie in the pits of the Red Library. She changed after that. They both did. But unlike Kirie, Anet had yet to fully embrace the Force. It left a sour taste in her mouth and a sizable chip on her shoulder. How was it that the more timid of them could accelerate where she hadn't?

"Ugh", Anet groaned to herself as she pushed past Acier, nearly bumping his shoulder.

It wasn't like her to be this bitter and petty about something, believe it or not. The Academy - the Dark Side that emanated from it - had a corrupting effect on her thoughts and emotions. It was like a constant state of stress just beneath the surface. Not enough to drive her crazy, but enough to keep her from ever feeling at rest.

The acolyte clutched the lightsaber at her hip. Not ready to draw, just... something to touch for comfort. Her nails scratched against the worn metal.

"That's it?" She asked Vestra after the Triumvir finished speaking. "And here I thought we'd have to brave another battlefield," words drenched in sarcasm, and a self-satisfied expression.

Anet sauntered with confidence through the threshold until she passed onto the other side.

Suddenly, she heard the fluttering of birds and found herself at the center of a tiny clearing at the heart of a great forest. Like someone had plucked a mighty tree from the soil, and left sickly white flowers in its place. The Force had always affected her strongly. Visions weren't unusual as of late, but what concerned her was the familiarity. It was the same sights every time. An idyllic world, and when she looked down...

Just as she suspected. Those milky white robes hung rather loosely from her frame. Comfortable and surprisingly mobile. She felt confident in keeping her own mind despite--

Anet felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked to see who it was. Then, she found herself back in the cave. Further down the tunnel than she remembered, and her lightsaber was in her hand. And she was sweating.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Desevro

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes| Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace felt the weight before the touch registered. Varin's hand settled on his shoulder. Ace didn't turn, for a moment, he wondered if it was meant to ground him. Reassure him, maybe. A strange instinct for a Sith. The thought unsettled him more than the pressure itself.

He let it sit. Didn't lean into it. Just quietly acknowledged it and kept his eyes forward. Whatever Varin intended, Ace wasn't sure he wanted to know. The hand withdrew. Ace noticed Varin step past him, watched without comment as the man unhooked his lightsaber and mace and left them with Vestra. That earned a quiet note in Ace's mind.

Then Anet brushed past him, shoulder clipping his arm. He glanced sidelong, recognition clicking into place. Anet. He didn't know her well, not like some of the others, but he'd seen her around the Academy often enough. He said nothing as she crossed the threshold.

Ace followed. The moment he stepped inside, the world tore open. Coruscant. Burning. Coruscant? He'd never been there, nor was he sure why it was even-- oh... because of Mercy. She wanted to move to the Core...

He stood amid shattered duracrete and bodies strewn like debris. Sibylla lay still near a collapsed spire. Lorn beside her. Fatine... bloodied, unmoving. Tic's chassis lay twisted nearby, his photoreceptor dark. His friends from the Path - Aris, Everest, Zaiya, Michael, Jane... all motionless. Lifeless.

"No..." Ace breathed, but the vision didn't care.

It shifted. Then war again, Mandalorians clashing with the Diarchy, and at their head, Aether. Charging. Falling. Ace turned, and saw himself. Sharper. Hollowed out by power that fit too well. The other Ace smiled, slow and knowing.

"Told you."

The world snapped back. He was back in the tunnel. Ace staggered, breath shallow, eyes burning. Anet and Varin stood ahead of him, real. Present.

He swallowed hard and steadied himself.

Vestra Tane | Varin Mortifer | Anet Raine​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

He stepped into the silent tunnel, the weight on his back now much lighter than before as he scanned over the walls. The water from various puddles hissed under his feet as he stood on them. He was still silent, focusing. He knew the tunnel would show him something.

“Varin…”

A whisper of his name caused him to pick his head up, his armor shifted and clicked from the slight motion, then his head slowly turned towards Anet. But what he saw was his younger sister. Bleeding out from her ribs. He slowly turned his body to face her. But he remained silent.

“You left…”

Beneath his visor his eye glared at her. His heart beat slightly elevated as his fists tightened. He slowly shook his head blinking his eyes only to see Anet again. His head tilted in confusion. His hands slowly relaxed. A scream in his head echoed down the tunnel causing him to jerk his gaze over towards the direction.

He could smell smoke in the air. The smoldering cloak slowly snuffed itself out without him noticing. The runic inscriptions burned into his armor began to cool around him. A cold sensation washed over him and a shiver ran up his spine as for the first time the cold of Desevro bled into his core. Instinctively he went to grab for his saber on his belt only to find purchase of nothing.

A slow sigh left him.

But he had to move deeper. He had not quite found what he was to face yet.

Vestra Tane | Anet Raine | Acier Moonbound​