Private Hell, thy name is Rhand

[Lirka Ka]

PERANN NEBULA, APPROACHING RHAND

Lirka had never thought she would return.

Indeed she had never thought she’d ever need to return to the hallowed ground of Rhand - yet the universe had a funny way of bringing about the unexpected. The knowledge of Rhand was a resource exhausted to the Once-Sephi - but there existed many who had yet to be graced by its darkness.

There were many in the Galaxy who would say darkness, evil, was a thing born on Korriban alongside the Sithlings. Lirka thoroughly disagreed. She knew within her hearts, evil was born on Rhand. The forces that had broken Csilla, ravaged the Galaxy and now remolded to do it once more, had been born upon the plains of Rhand.

She had decided to introduce her newest of “associates” to the evil that laid within the world and its foul knowledge. Vakhari Lutris had become one of the handful of servants of the Empire Lirka deemed crucial to a new age, such divergent belief was a thing to be nourished, enabled. And of course, her family named certainly helped pique the monstrous woman’s interest. Indeed, the young Lurtis had been among the first who had been graced by the omnibus of Lirka’s works detailing the Darkness beyond Darkness that she fought against.

In shadowy motion, Lirka had acquiesced the girl aboard her transport - a sleek thing of dark metal plate the color of the void, a vessel that radiated the Kainate design philosophy. She wanted this visit off the books, no flight plans, just two people with eyes to the future and minds expanded to new beliefs encroaching upon the birthplace of darkness, and boundless cruelty that laid within.

The Perann Nebula should have been its prison - it was not. They pierced the veil, entering into the domain of the 12 worlds. Yet it was Rhand itself that held importance today - as they approached, the scars of war became evident. Husks of warships trapped in orbit, and a world that had been maimed by the vast industry of warlords and marauders turned to bringing the Galaxy aflame. Turning her head away from the controls of the vessel, she acknowledged her passenger.

“Are you prepared for what you will see upon Holy Rhand, Vakhari Lurtis? It is not a world for the weak willed.”

She’d never have stopped her from going. That was against the ways of the Great Enablers, but the Great Lie of Rhand was a tempting notion - and she would loathe to lose the girl to mindless destruction when she could be made infinitely more…productive.

 

[Vakhari Lutris]

Tag: Lirka Ka

Conniptions, a swallowing of pride had to be allowed for this whole excursion into territories uncharted by the strange girl. For years now she was the one in control, she was the leading mind, the master. But what of the architect today? At this very hour, within this minute? She was not the lead, for the tables had turned. Vakhari was the one being inspected, picked and pulled apart like how she had done to so many before.

As they pierced the veil to plunge into this described womb of evil, her eyes saw it. The mass grave that orbited around the planet, it made her grit her teeth. Was it the word of the fate controlling force? Threatening her? This is how she saw it, a threat by some omnipotent being. One she met with a stubbornness in the hope that one day all were to control their fate.. But hope was not the right word to describe how she felt, it was so much more...
​

“Are you prepared for what you will see upon Holy Rhand, Vakhari Lurtis? It is not a world for the weak willed.”

Will. Yes, that was it. The will to defy fate itself so that we may be our own gods, our own masters.

"I have looked forward to this day, and I look forward to what all I may find here."

Her voice, covered and metallic, yet there was no hint of denial. No drop of rethinking, Lirka had found another who has the will to see this through.

"You had mentioned to me that you had been here before, what was that all about?"

She strikes up conversation as the ship was getting closer to the target destination.​

 

[Lirka Ka]

That was the great humor of the Dark Path laid out by Lirka Ka, wasn’t it? It was not a path for the followers, for the meek, or the shackle - and yet, the Once-Sephi was the guiding hand of the Primordial Darkness beyond. Always coaxing. Always enabling. That is why people like Vakhari Lutris had drawn her the, after all. She did not need to command someone like the young Lurtis, make them into a proper apprentice as traditional Sith doctrine would’ve ordained. Nay, she merely needed to make sure the girl was on the right course.

The graveyard may have made her companion grit her teeth, but Lirka acknowledged it casually. As if the mass monument to war and death meant nothing to her - why, she had been there upon its creation after all. She was retreading old ground, a return to another battlefield that upon which she was tested by the crucible of worth.

Fate. Perhaps they would talk about that silly word today, the Eternalist mindset simply lacked the scope of what “fate” truly was. The one fate. The primordial fate. That ever onward death march of reality…

“It is good to be eager when stepping your feet into hell. Yet, temper yourself. I do not speak idly, the teachings of this place is a siren song. It lulls the senses with the beauteously simple temptations of cosmic annihilation.”

The history of Lirka Ka. An apt question. Lirka had certainly kept hush-hush about many aspects of the fact - especially how much of her tale dealt with matters of…fickle…loyalty to the throne.

“In that moment, when all you have built crumbles to dust. An empire within its death throes, ousted from a throne upon a world nobody would even know existed. The mind can only seek the simplistic calmness of destruction, of truth. When Carnifex’s empire collapsed, I was adrift. The teachings of Rhand, and the Darkness, had already began to trickle into my mind. Unburdened, unshackled, I made way for the Holy world. The Mawites had already staked their claim, the forces of chaos were massing once more. For who was I not to answer the clarion call of the beyond? The great stores of knowledge upon this world, at the tip of my claws. The firsthand accounts rather than censured retellings from the Sith archives. I built myself a “home” within the shadow of warlords and marauders, finding company within the Lorekeeper and the tomes of this world.”

She spoke rather plainly about the whole ordeal, flying them closer. The planet loomed, with each passing moment its scars became more and more visible. There was a palpable evil to be felt, the force cried out at a beacon of cruelty. Lirka did not feel such cosmic forces, but even she could feel the tingle - the knowledge that true foulness had taken place here.

“Of course, I was violently ousted from Rhand for one reason or another when the battle you see around us took place. Which lead me back into the arms of the Butcher King”

 

[Vakhari Lutris]

Tag: Lirka Ka

The girl had found that this one was not how she seemed to be, most may think Lirka Ka to be nothing but a brutish thug.. Yet, Vakhari saw it differently. Behind the molded plates and twisted flesh was a scholar, this observation is what had enticed the pale stranger to indulge in the 'heresy' they both so joyfully choked down.

"Is there truly an empire in this day and age? How can one have full faith in something like that when the threads of fate are controlled not by us?"

Vakhari sighs, taking in the long abandoned remains.

"I dream of a perfect existence, where we control our own destinies.. No gods to hold us back, nothing to stop the advancement of science. Everyone is too busy being enamored by useless things like credits, or debating over old and dead monastic practices."

As they loomed ever closer to the wounded surface, she could indeed feel the strange ripples within the force. It was something she had almost felt before, yet the difference between Rhand and Yalara was that one was primal chaos, the other was an insomniac darkness.

"When a forest burns, it comes back healthier than before.. New and better life grows in the place of the rot and decay that once greedily resided there. My time within our existence has taught me that the galaxy as a whole needs this, it needs to be burned to the ground so that we may grow back stronger than before."

It was hard to explain a sensation that had been creeping within her since they started to close in, whatever shared her body was becoming more excitable.​

 

[Lirka Ka]

Such was the first step of enlightenment, as self centered as it were - though, Lirka Ka was ever the narcissist, such a thing should not have come as a shock. To see beyond the veneer and understand what laid beneath her armored form was but a microcosm of reality itself. It was the chance to reach out and look beyond, to see the darkness that laid beyond darkness. To cut through the veil of perception and open ones' mind to the true beauty and horror of the existence they found themselves - enter, Rhand. The precursor of understanding, the warning against the Great Lie.

Lirka answered, a confidence behind each word. Fate. The Sith loved to prattle of fate, and their endless struggle against it - such was the nature of Eternalism, indeed such was the Dark Path as well. Yet the divergence was stark, for Lirka understood fate well.

"One need but look around, Empires exist most certainly. Some, mere planetary drops in the endless puddle. Others, like ours, span the stars as a great blot of suffering upon reality. For what is an Empire but a means to an end, such shackles tightening their grip, such authoritarian misery that inflicts grand suffering upon all - till only the worthy can dare to rise above it."

Lirka was a patriot, in her own way. She'd never stop the Empire, not truly. She would not be opposed to testing it, to inflicting those stressors that would see stagnation burnt away and the worthy few rise up - but she'd never dare to indulge the foolishness of democratic alliances.

"To be strong is to control - yet, here we sit before the precipice of fate, dear Vakhari. The Eternalists would say the endless war against the Force shall end in its chains broken, fate annihilated and true freedom in its place. You know the words of Rhand, you know the taste of darkness. We, who exist upon the mortal world, can indeed control our fate if we are strong enough; the strong will do as they do, the weak will suffer what they must. Yet, there is but one fate. One undeniable, cosmic fate."

She paused, ever so briefly. Reverence, hatred, fear all in the words to follow.

"Primordial Darkness. That from which all began, that from which all will return."

She veered, avoiding a floating piece of warship that lingered above Rhand's graveyard. The atmosphere loomed now, heavy with soot of long dead industry that hid the marred plains below. Each moment, the heavy weight of misery grew more and more pronounced. Lirka would never have called Rhand home, but there was a slight comfort in its darkness.

"Wise words. Such is the nature of suffering, for in suffering it is the weak, and the stagnant, that collapses beneath the weight. In the transience of misery, it is the mighty and the strong that survive. Such is the lot in life for those worthy few who walk the Dark Path."