In My Dying Time....

[Julius Sedaire]

Location: Dathomirian Swamps, Ostanes Home/Workshop​

​

Realizations had come to pass in the current months. He had been to the Spirit World... Bound a God from the Beyond with the Codex. Created countless trinkets, and items of dark power and aimless diversion. But eventually, he would make something he could not control. Something for which he didn't have a counter. Or, barring that, is was all but ordained that when he died his death would give birth to a monster worse than anything [member="Rave Merrill"] had ever dreamed of. The bargain struck with Obeah still haunted him at times, made him question himself and his sanity and clarity of thought.

These haunted dreams kept him up and night, staring into the depths of the Dathomirian swamp he called home. Strange, that. Him living in a swamp would have been unheard of half a year ago. But here he was, in a finely crafted white marble thing, a hut just in view where some of his more less trusted guests were guided. The home was new, but already lichen and spanish moss creeped and clung. For the time being, he sat out on the porch. Attired in his splendid white and silver silk robes, the mask of Moridin was for once not on his face. And that face was bared of hood and any cover, open to the wind and rain that came down.

You see, today was a rare day. A day he had dreaded and looked forward to. The man, perhaps his only friend in the Galaxy, named Seydon was coming to call. He hadn't seen the Dunaan in far too long. Part of him feared the mans perceptions of what he had become, and wanted to continue to hide. But another part, quieter yet stronger, preached that someone besides [member="Dissero"] needed to know. On the off chance Obeah became too strong, or wrenched control. Besides, he could trust Seydon with the spirits true name, and that was a powerful tool in slaying it.

So now he waited, slender fingers grasping the tea-cup expertly. Soft, delicate porcelain from Alderaan. Expensive beyond measure, delicately lacquered. A matching pot and second cup and saucer waited, the smell of Ankarres tea with Atrisian spices and honey quite aromatic. Though, to be honest, he didn't expect his visitor to partake of it, or the powdered biscuits from Bespin. It was an inside joke he hoped eased the tension of long separation. And maybe took the hunters' mind off the smooth black-stone staff resting against the chair Ostanes was in. As ever, it gleamed and pulsed, a vile aura around it, and consequently the sorcerer himself.

He will understand... And he will accept our own bargain... I can trust no one else to see it through...

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7mNmiW9qts

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/blacklabelsociety/mydyingtime.html

 

[Seydon of Arda]

Ostanes was connected, urbane, and undoubtedly paranoid. A squadron nest of drone fighters slaved to a controlling patrol-cutter challenged the Relentless for authenticity keys twice, before an hour long wait as the stationed crew triple-checked credentials and potential media presence resulted in the drones breaking into an escort formation. Their outfit was an obscure PMC, possibly a shell-front maintained by AEI for just such precautions. That Ostanes got permission from both Marshal Rekali and Warmaster Verd to have them settled amidst Dathomir's orbital crowd of eclectic warships, spoke of his clout, influence, and persuasion.

The Reliquary ship settled into an automatic cruise, diving through cloud banks growing progressively thicker the more the atmosphere filled out. It flew down a slate and silver tunnel, washed by cold rainfall, the long, hooked brow knifing forward, vortexes of spinning vapour spiralling off the wing. Rendezvous was a tract of light swampland in a northerly peninsula, just before the marsh spotted into a long tail of disconnected islands within a landlocked sea. 'Home' was a hollowed stump converted into a livable cottage.

Seydon of Arda arrived with a downwash of flaring landing jets and flight lamps blinking off across the vessel hulling. Pond fields dressed in crowns of salt-grass swayed under the jet-blast. Families of skittish waterfowl and water-traversing salamanders watched from cover, awed by the ungainly 'creature' hovering overhead, yawing side to side as her pilot tried finding adequate landing space. In a moment, the Relentless shrugged its weight across to an empty section of overgrown lawn and put down, one starboard landing claw sinking into what had been an old, abandoned mole colony. Settled lopsided robbed the ship of its usual dignity. A debarkation ramp sighed open regardless and a cowled man slid onto firm loam. He was across the sectioned lawns and up the shelf of porches growing out of the 'cottage' mansion in manicured, neat terraces.

The waft of spiced tea and sugar-bleached cookies tickled something fierce up his nose. To Ostanes, it was a cultured set of exactingly arranged plates, cups, and doilies. To Seydon, it was a riot of intensive scents, and he wanted to sneeze.

[member="Ostanes"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

"You, my friend, look positively like you just wrestled a rancor, dueled a sand-demon, and then tried to have sex with a Sand Person.... How do you do it? Is it natural, or do you work at it a little each day?"

A curled lip, a smirk that would be cruel to most eyes, but was a good natured grin to others. Comments, too, were meant as less scathing than they sounded. One who knew him, such as Seydon? He would know the grin, the joking manner in which he sipped the tea, quietly. Ever so careful to make sure his pinky was extended out straight. Sighing appreciably, he put the cup down, saucer first, and rose. The rising was slow, as if pained, and for once he was grateful that he had learned of the alchemical ability of Mask... Hopefully Seydon would not see, nor sense, the infirmity that spread in him as the Dark Side corrupted and weakened his physical shell, making him rely ever more upon his mind.

"Seydon, thank you for coming... I've been away from things for too long, amongst strangers and others like me... Does me good to see your dour face and your sour demeanor fills me with joy. Sit a moment?"

Gesturing to the chair, he grinned broadly as the inquisitive creatures began to crawl and poke at the Dunaan's ship. One thing, looking oddly like a squirrel crossed with a butterfly, danced about the engine intake for the ship. A curled and shrug of the shoulders by the sorcerer seemed to say it all. Not quite a dismissal of the fact he had gotten bored and toyed with local wildlife with the Force. But not quite an admission or apology either. At least these creations were mild and mostly harmless. The squirrel certainly did not possess any sort of Force-Enhanced form of rabies. Nope. It did not. And Seydon would never know unless it bit him. Or so he hoped.

"Don't judge me... A swamp gets lonely, and these are my pets... There is tea, a good brew... And biscuits... Alternately, there is also more of your usual, if your taste is as crude and dull as ever..."

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“A 'flying squirrel'? Is that your joke?” Seydon gestured toward the mutated miscreant currently jigging up and down the too-warm intake grille, burning its food pads on the steel until it hit an epiphany: it leapt away and landed in a soggy grass puddle, cooling off its paws to immediate satisfaction.

“...The Dathomiri can handle it, if it starts edging in against the ecology,” He said, easing into the porch chair, taking a proffered tea cup out of a want to prove that, indeed, he had some manners. Seydon bothered with a slow, sipping taste and blanched, pressing the Alderaan porcelain aside. “The witches don't like us much.”

He thought of Ostanes retreat as another exactingly engineered facade. Symmetrical steppe lawns resembling Asahi rice fields, sandy pathways that meandered according to various cardinal directions, tracing a protective glyph, and hemmed by transplanted nikko blue hydrangea shrubbery, blooming petal snowballs. One lonely cherry tree bent in the wind. A pink, wan petal floated and deposited itself onto Ostanes lap. Seydon waited for him to dislodge it off his steamed Atrisian gown.

When he didn't, Seydon coughed into the back of his knuckles. “The tea is nice, I'm sure. I bet you probably slaved trying to get the leaf brew just so. Found satisfaction in the exacting colour, aroma. I can appreciate that, you know. It's just a frivolity I can't enjoy. Think of it this way: dull and crude is sure as hell inexpensive.

“...So why don't you say why you've been wearing that funeral mask look on your face since I sat down?”

[member="Ostanes"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

What did he expect of someone who quite literally lived or died by the keen sharpness of their perception? Since the first moment meeting him, the hunter had seen through the veneer of sophistication and polish. Saw to the inquisitive tinkerer underneath. Past the unhinged mind and madness to the man he was before the mind-wipe by Rave. The brilliance that once drove him in pure pursuit of knowledge had been corrupted when that happened. Twisted into an unhealthy and dire fascination with what he saw as true power - knowledge. The slow downward spiral had resulted in the creation of the staff close at hand. Glancing to his side, he nodded to it.

"Still an absolute and unrefined lout, I see...The creature is mostly harmless. The worst is does is nest in my bushes. It shat on my chair once. That's when it started to keep its' distance. I threw the chair at it..I would cage it, but I can't catch it..."

With that, he sniffed a bit, as if trying to clear his sinus of a certain smell. He reached down and grabbed the delicate cup, taking a drink slowly. A biscuit gripped in the fingers of the sorcerer was nibbled on. Eventually, he seemed to draw a deep breath, raggedly exhaling. Shook his head as if clearing errant thoughts from a scattered mind. Pain crossed his expression, flooded his face, scarring his eyes. Within, shame filled him, which was utterly at odds with how he normally was. Pride. Confidence. A depth of esoteric knowledge that was fast approaching unfathomable reaches. But this was his friend, and he could trust him. Had to.

"Rave used to caution us... You warned me... Others thought but never said it. The mind I bear, the natural inquisition and thirst for knowledge, paired with my ability... It would lead me to ruin if it were not paired with caution. I brushed it off. Confident in my ability. In my superiority. It failed... I obtained things I was not prepared for. Copies of the Taurannik Codex... Ancient Holocrons, Datacrons. I delved too greedily, and too deeply... I summoned a being comparable in knowledge, if not in application of such, to the one you and the others fought from that same Codex. And I bound it to that staff... Obeah, Dread Sage of the Netherworld. Many cultures call him many things, but he is a spirit of absolute and total knowledge of such spheres as I travel in"

A pause. A ragged heave of breath, eyes locked to the Dunaans' for the first time. Changed from the brilliant sea-green to a fiery, poisonous yellow. A sign of corruption, of the depth of both his fall and his ability. From the last they had met, the two had become something both more akin, and worlds apart. Seydon was unwavering, solid, steady as a rock in the storm. Ostanes was wild, unsteady, chaotic as the chain lightning in the storm. Yet the hunter kept him honest. But the cat-slit eyes stained like magma pulsed faintly in time with the staff as he rubbed at his head. The next part was worse, if he were honest.

"Obeah is bound to me, and I to it... A single entity with two facets. For all of its' power and knowledge.... It gains the ability to sense and feel the physical world through me... And upon my death, or sooner if it should conqeour my will, the places will switch. It will use me to tear a gateway into this realm. and wreak a havoc much like Akala did. I have become a worse monster than I ever dreamed. Whom do I call on when I fear a monster? I call my faithful friend, the solid Dunaan.... And he puts the beast down..."

Nothing more was said, and silence hung heavy on the air as the shi'ido gazed out across his little paradise in the swamps.

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

“...It was the djinn in a bottle, wasn't it?” He said after a taut beat, rubbing the ache in his brow. He took the bottle of waiting Corellian whiskey off the tea stand and tugged the cork free with his teeth, splitting the plug with a bite, wanting the acrid fire to wet his throat a moment so he stopped feeling so dry. Ostanes had played him for confessor: each consecutive detail, spoken without any shade of apology, outlined his apocalyptic sins and what he stood to lose when their shared game played out. Seydon saw a mega-city block coated in spinning fire, streets chocked with desiccated bodies piled fifteen high, mega-pixel and hologram sign boards all displaying their single image: the 'toymaker's shattered face, skin peeled, the flesh below pink, bloody and seamless, crowned with steel protuberances like so many horns struck through the bone.

The whiskey bottle smashed across a porch beam.

“God-damn you,” Seydon turned on Ostanes, but the heat in his glare softened, the Dunaan sinking against his wicker seat, hands over his eyes.

“...Sorry. Sorry. You don't need that. Remember? Promised I'd never lecture you. I won't. All that's left, all that you've left me, is to wait. Damn it. ...You know,” He paused. “Rave was the same. Absolutely. For what it's worth, you're exactly the heir she wanted to helm her estate. Anyone else would have sold out to ATC. If Jorus got his hands on the shop, it'd have burned down.

“...I wanna help you, Doc,” Seydon murmured, Ostanes occasional nickname, a shorter variation of 'Doctor Death' he once pinned him with. “I couldn't help Rave. I want to help you. I just don't know how. Never came up against something like this. I've dealt with some possessions but... Those are just picking weeds out of a flower bed. You've got the seed ingested and now the whole rotten plant is a part of you. I can't wrench one away without killing you. I...

“I can do a lot of things,” The witcher looked out across the lawn. “...But gods does it feel like saving folk just isn't one of them these days.”

[member="Ostanes"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Slowly, the Force Aura around Ostanes seemed to build to a crescendo, emotions roiling uncontrolled. Regret, sadness, fear, rage... All the building blocks to seal his fate and his fall. The staff near at hand seemed to faintly glow, and for the moment Seydon went unanswered as within his own mind... Within his own mind Ostanes saw the future as Obeah willed it. Worlds falling under its' yoke, thousands sacrificed in blood rite to birth its' brothers and sisters into this dimension, an ever increasing fount of insanity and death, with Chaos all around. Arrogance had blinded him to many things and warnings. True, he had knowledge and power beyond almost any dream at his touch now... But the cost was inevitable, excepting one thing.

Keenly, for reasons he didn't fathom, he ached for his old employer and mentor. Ached to have Rave there for a final piece of guidance and teaching. But it was not to be so... Could never be so. Not even his magic and powers could bring her across the divide now unless she willed it. And he dared not plunge further into the darkness to learn how to. The very thought made his stomach turn, actually. One was what they were, but there was no way he would further abase his mind and soul in this darkness. It was a tool, and his recently past actions had made it much closer to a thing of worship.

Shaking his head, he reached to the lower shelf of the delicate table between the two chairs, and retrieved a box that he set on it, heavy bronzium locks thudding open. Flicking his hand, the Force pushed the lid open, revealing the weapon nestled in plush black velvet below. It was a curious thing, by modern standards. But Ostanes' had done his homework as best as he could. Studying both the Dunaan and his friend, their separate and entwined destinies and history. The crossbow laying before him, nestled in the box, was a weapon of honestly fearsome power. Quite literally, he had designed it for one purpose, and one only. To kill himself. With a nod, he indicated Seydon to take it up.

"It is yours... Ankarres wood bolts with solari crystal tips. I helped a Jal Shey Mentor in Shardrock on Yavin... The combination makes it absolute anathema to Sithspawn and other alchemical creations, and bane to Dark Sided spirits. Action similar to a pump or lever slugthrower, and it holds six bolts before you need to reload. Even put a canteen with Water of Life in it, should help stave off fatigue, infection, and speed minor injuries to heal. You need something besides swords in your line of work. And... When my time is up... If I haven't found a way to cheat this bastard inside my head... You put one of them between my eyes and save us all a lot of trouble. That is my only asking if you take this. When the time comes, you end me with it before I turn."

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

 

[Seydon of Arda]

In his hands, the crossbow was close to four kilograms and a comfortable weight when he leaned forward and tested how wieldy it moved when controlled with only a single grip. The pistol-handle swept gracefully into the gunstock, naked frame of silvertine wood and polished chrome durasteel, a single fat drum-canteen welded in place by an electrum cage. Seydon stood up from the wicker chair and paced over to the balcony of the porch, sweeping the bolt-sights across the lawn. The Dunaan was briefly gone: lost in examination, playing his touch over weaponry architecture, running it against several extreme scenarios that might begin to test its craftsmanship. It handled like a diamond when wedged against his frame: seemingly delicate, beguilingly sturdy, precise, accurate.

A wind flustered the lawns and carried a clutch of petal blossoms off the cherry tree. Seydon followed the fluttering cloud, exhaled crisply, and then went still as a boulder. His finger flexed round the trigger and squeezed. The bolt whispered free with a sinewy twang. In neat succession, before Ostanes could catch his next breath, Seydon's hands a tight blur across the instrument, he cranked another two bolts into the flight groove and loosed them. Each shot was a wink of silver rippling across the lawn. And each bolt-head snagged an errant cherry petal on the breeze, before thudding home against the trunk of an ageless willow.

“I love it,” Seydon said, unabashed. He collapsed its limbs and let it hang off a rung on his waistline. Distraction passed, the conversation awaited reply, the witcher looking aside and rubbing tension out of his heels. “...I don't believe you're done. You've made a point of cheating the rules and I know you can nick a win out of this. Somehow. Maybe not unscathed. But you're fiendish, reckless, amoral, and ambitious. Part of your charm. If you can't... Then fine. We'll have a last cup of your ginger tea. ...And then I'll save you...”

[member="Ostanes"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Nodding, Ostanes gestured about the manicured lawns he was beginning to culture and build. Dunaan eyes had undoubtedly noticed. From the air, could one see it, he was literally turning the ground he lived on into a massive Force Nexus, mostly netural in nature. The specifics of the Circle were oriented to Arcane and outdated Force Crafting. Combinations of Force Imbuement, Alchemy, and more. Crystalline powder from imbued varieties of Crystal the likes of Adegan, Pontite, Kasha and even Lorridan... No one of truly ill intent would step foot on his retreat without him knowing what they intended, and that they were there. Not without extreme skills.

Ankarres trees grew here and there, along with bushes, making their own pattern and symbol, lending an air of peace and calm to the idyllic setting. Other plants and symbols, like the Kasha powder, opened the mind and expanded the propensity for knowledge and wisdom. Everything exuded an air of potential and power, with nothing of morality or dogma attached to it. What the practitioner did with that energy and that aid and influence was up to them. Power itself, as the Thamaturge was learning, was ammoral and uncaring. It merely existed, and the mental bend of the user determined the good or bad of it as it was utilized. It's end, not the means, was the final say.

"All I can ask of any friend is to watch my back, but you do so and even face the storm with me. Trinkets such as that crossbow are drops in a sea of gratitude I owe you... There was a master tradition... Before Sith Alchemy.... Before Force Imbuement... There was something they all came from.. I know it... It had to be.. I will use this... This thing.... And I will discover it.... And balance will be attained"

[member="Seydon of Arda"]