Faction In Restless Dreams || SO

[Master of Terror]

Nestled in the void of space, an uncharted moon, consumed in an unyielding blanket of thick fog, drifts silently. Its name is long forgotten, but it seems this moon is cursed—forever cloaked in swirling mist that draws travelers in with an eerie, silent call. Once they step into its ghostly embrace, they vanish from the universe—or so it is whispered. Few who enter ever leave, and those who do are forever changed.

Bound together, Sith and servant alike, are drawn into experince a truly horrible truth: the moon feeds on their deepest fears, conjuring visions and shades that threaten to consume their very souls. If they remain for too long, their minds will forever be claimed by the endless abyss of madness.

The only escape can be found in overcoming the demons of the past, the monsters who live to see their doom. Yet while some may leave satisfied that their inner demons are vanquished, others may seek an end to the evil that conjures these terrors once and for all. Others still might find this moon to hold the party of a lifetime, a ball of such opulence that they may just never leave.

The fog manifests as haunting phantoms—images of their worst nightmares and regrets. They must confront these shades and overcome them, or be lost forever in the terror's abyss.

Battle past Demons. Embrace past Sins. But can you win with your sanity intact?​

While battling the phantoms, some sense a dark core within the fog—an unnatural source of the terror. They seek to find and destroy this heart to end the torment, but doing so risks further exposure to the darkness.

Put an end to this nightmare forever. Just be careful of what lurks at its heart.​

Not all are to wander fog-haunted ruins. Some have been granted entrance to a grand ball, all the pomp and circumstance of a Sith celebration are underway, and yet something isn’t right. Will they break free from the dream or be lost forever in an endless celebration?

Drink, Dance, and let revelry turn to terror! ​

Welcome to the Sith Order's Halloween extravaganza! For this story, the idea is to really understand just what scares a Sith Lord. Embrace the terror, and let's see just what keeps our scary Sith up at night! For the sake of ongoing stories, this is just a fun little side project and will not affect the outcome of any ongoing or future faction stories.

Thanks again to Gerwald Lechner for his amazing art and Happy Halloween!

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Úlfs Reiði (Wolf's Fury)
TAG: @OPEN

The suit, the tie, constricting clothes, and uncomfortable shoes, were enough of a nightmare for the Dread Wolf. There were few reasons or occasions that he would ever dress in such attire, and all of them revolved around his mate, Naedira Darcrath . He remembered with great fondness the first time she had convinced him to dress up and join the rest of his Confederates for a formal celebration. They had been friends and fellow Knights.

Their first meeting had been a mission together. She had melded their minds for the battle. When the mission was over they should not have remained linked, and yet part of them had.

Whether that had been the reason he fell in love with the woman or not, Gerwald could not really say. He could recall exactly when he knew, but whether it had been gradual or sudden, that would always remain a mystery.

He had lost her.

That had been his worst nightmare. Perhaps losing her again would be still, but there was not much which haunted the Dread Wolf any longer aside from the recurring dream left by the touches of the Nocna Mora. Even though Srina Talon had absorbed it and brought Naedira back to the land of the living, the feeling that death was still chasing him had never subsided.

Maybe that was why he knew this ballroom was abnormal. The music which played was not quite right. His steps on the floor did not land as steady as they should have. Even the scene of others enjoying their partners or the celebration itself seemed more form and robotic motion than passion and nature.

Gerwald’s senses were dulled. Something smelled wrong, but he could not place it.

His clothing should have been uncomfortable. It should have bothered him.

It did not.

“Something is not right.”

He looked for those he knew. His eyes searched for his mate, for the Empress, for any of his apprentices, anyone that could confirm it was just an odd feeling. The restless wolf inside him told him everything he needed to know.

This was a trap.

 

[Srina Talon]

Tags: OPEN
Location: Haunted Moon
Objective: Heart of Evil

____________________________________________________

There were places in the galaxy where even the dark refused to linger…But this moon was not one of them.

The fog pressed down like breath against her skin. It was thick and cold…Carrying whispers from this that had no voice with which to speak. She walked through it as one might move through a memory or a dream, curious, but not all that bothered by the strange surroundings. She felt as if she had been walking for an age without seeing any landmarks or even signs of a ship or a portal. The ground was soft, half-ash, and half-bone. Every step left a mark that the mist tried to erase…

It was almost petulant.

Alive—Perhaps. It acted like something that wished to swallow what it could not understand. Her mind drifted through phases, awareness, unaware, and every other state between. There were moments when she thought she felt someone with her… "Maliphant…", but the name would not summon Darth Empyrean anymore than the name she had given him when they wed. He felt close.

But so far away.
​

Out of sight…Out of reach. Taken from her—Again and again.

The slender Echani found a fountain by the sound of it breaking the emptiness of the fog. It was the only motion or movement in dead air, the only thing, that seemed to have some sense of life to it in otherwise desolate graveyard. This moon was a place that people surely never returned from. Slowly, she sat down on a patch of ground beside it. Small and unintimidating. Things were flying in the air overhead in a place she couldn't see. Screaming things, shrieking things. They swooped down to torment her, but a chilling glare sent them back to the sky…

Searching for more victims. Srina did not give them any further attention, to acknowledge the fear they brought, was to feed it. She scoffed internally…They were not the scariest thing in the fog.

The Dread Queen exhaled slowly, and the mist drew back, wary. Her irritation, sharp and quiet, radiated outward. This was a cursed moon, a feeding in the dark. Another test of the universe that seemed intent on unmaking its children… It was predictable cruelty.

Afterall…The universe was nothing if not cruel.

Her head felt heavy. Not…From some invisible burden, but actually heavy, while sleep threatened to consume her. It was rare that she fell into a restful slumber and even more rare that she could accomplish it in a place of unknown origin, but something strong kept pulling her down. Something sweet…Like the Darkside singing, weaving the sweetest, coldest lullaby in the blackest of places. There were no stars to see by, no sky to tell orientation…This moon was simply…

Haunted.

Something strange began as a pulse under her skin while her eyes fell closed…When rest finally came for the wicked. It was a slow migration of something ancient, coiled too long, suppressed by her need for control. Scales surfaced where skin had once been, black as the void, their edges catching the drowned light like oil skimming across the surface of water. Her bones shifted, breaking, with the most horrific of sounds. Golden eyes opened…But they were all wrong. Not her eyes. The pupils had vertical slits, reptilian, with faint rings of amber and bronze swirling around the center.

When the transformation ended, the small woman was nowhere to be found.

In her stead was a creature the size of a building, curled around the fountain, as if it were her horde. She did not roar, she did not rise, nor burn the world around her. She merely was—A dragon wrought from shadow, pain, and fear. It created a beast that she controlled, rather, than letting her succumb to the poison on this landmass. When she finally spoke, it was…Endless.

Not made for human ears.

"Stay away."​

The fog hesitated, strangely, and the dragon put her massive head down.

She wanted to go back to sleep.

 

[Darth Hydra]

Tags: OPEN Srina Talon
Location: Haunted Moon
Objective: Heart of Evil

Funny thing about fog. It always had an eerie quality. As if anything could come out of the thickness. Whether it be an ambush of enemy fighters, or simply a rock you trip over, causing that slight bit of uncertainty. That slight bit of doubt, but a doubt is a funny thing as well. It hovers, it lingers, it festers. Doubt in your abilities. After all to walk was of the most basic of abilities, to trip so easily casts doubt upon them. Doubt in your senses, your ability to perceive the world, to identify what's coming at you, after you. Uncertainty in your future, if one can trip so easily from one moment to the next what else is in store for you. For a master of martial arts it was a troubling reality. Focus on training your body, your mind, your senses to the peak of their capability and to almost fall due to one rock thanks to a bit, a lot of fog.

Hydra frowned at the growing anxiety. He had never been a worried sort of fellow. Yet here he was pondering on the nature of doubt, of fear really, over stumbling over a rock. It was an annoyance yes, but hardly a cause for self fulfilling prophecy of doom.

Hydra shook his head. Yet the doubt remained. Not only remained, it grew. It reminded him of past failures. Hydra considered himself a capable swordsmen, yet he had been beaten. Nearly killed. Twice. By his own- his former- apprentice.

Would Xuan Wu have stumbled?

Hydra snarled dismissing the thought with irritation.

Maybe you aren't as good as you think you are.

"I've slain more Jedi than I care to count." Hydra snarled not sure who he was talking to.

Jedi! You yourself consider them weak to Sith. How many Sith have you defeated? How many Darth Hydra.

Hydra snarled.

Or did you lose to the one Sith you fought? The very one you trained.

"I will find him and kill him!" Hydra snarled. "He means nothing! Nothing!"

"Do I truly mean nothing father?" Xuan Wu stepped out of the mist.

Hydra stopped shocked, snarled, drew his lightsaber and attacked. Xuan Wu avoided the blade easily seemingly gliding past. Hydra snarled and kept attacking.

"You have a lot of hate for someone who means nothing to you. Father." Xuan Wu continued to dodge effortlessly.

"Don't call me that!" Hydra spat, growing enraged as his heart clenched at the word. In fear yes, but fear of yearning. "I am not you! I am not weak! The Sith Code is pure!"

Xuan Wu shook his head sadly.

"If it was so pure, why does it demand you kill those you love?" Xuan Wu asked.

"To prove our strength, our devotion, our loyalty!" Hydra scoffed.

"And yet you were never stronger then when I was by your side. You think that was hate, envy, anger, fear. It was love father." Xuan Wu said sadly.

Hydra's heart almost broke. Again. An old ache, he thought he'd mastered.

"Than why did you betray me?" Hydra whispered.

"Ah father. I left the Sith, because of my love for you. I did not want to kill you." Xuan Wu pleaded.

Hydra felt confused. He looked down, and noticed something odd. Xuan Wu's feet disappeared into the mist. Hydra was fighting a ghost. A ghost making him weak. He was beginning to turn into his worst fear. Rejection of the Sith Code.

Hydra scowled as he realised how close he'd come to betraying his entire life's purpose.

"Begone spectre. I will find your source and kill or destroy you. You shall not weaken me again."

Xuan Wu looked at him sadly, for a moment, then grinned wickedly and disappeared.

Hydra took a breath. Reaching out with his Force sense, he attempted to find the source, yet found something else instead. Making his way towards the presence in the Force.

"Empress." Hydra bowed courtesy due to her rank. "Darth Hydra of the Korriban Academy. I have not had the honour. I believe we are under attack. I have fortified my mind as best I am able, but I would be surprised if there is not more in store."

"Personally I have resolved to hunt down this entity to end it for daring to toy with the minds of Sith. Would you care to join me?"

 

[Srina Talon]

Tags: Darth Hydra
Location: Haunted Moon
Objective: Heart of Evil

____________________________________________________

The head of the dragon lifted, a subtle motion that made her seem older than any myth dared name. Gold pooled in oversized pupils, a patient, almost bored light glimmering there, while her voice rose slowly from the chest of a great beast. Where it had been a rasp of wind when she warned the phantoms away, it now filled the fog with perfect calm. The woman she had once been was accustomed to command, and this was no different. Her words folded like smoke into the mind of the serpent-headed man who had disturbed her rest.

He wore ceremony like armor.

Could he not see that she was weary?

A low growl rippled up from her throat but subsided as quickly as it came...Finding the courtesy unnecessary, but she knew better than to argue. Rank, after all, was not bound to pale flesh and wintry hair. It was a burden she carried no matter her form…A black mark on her soul.

Privilege and chain, glory and damnation.

Fear lingered in this place. Thick, tangible, and intoxicating, but for the Queen of Dread, it only seemed to deepen her fatigue. The air was so dense with terror that she felt saturated with it, like a predator that had feasted too long and had grown impossibly drowsy. Her breath fogged the air, and the fountain she wrapped her large body around trembled. Her tail lashed once, twice, before settling again.

For a moment, she simply watched this Darth Hydra with some measure of interest. Unblinking.

Long enough to let him feel the weight of her verdict.

The reptile she had become could not quite decide whether he was friend or food.

"I came to this moon because there was music in the dark…", she offered after a moment, distant, as if listening to it now. She couldn't recall how she arrived, but she had retained bits and pieces of her purpose. "There is an old hunger…And some things ought not gnaw at the Order's bones. Left in the wrong hands, a plague on all who trespass, but in mine…"

The dragon rose from the dust, uncoiling from the fountain's broken rim. Her head dipped until her gaze met his, wings unfurling in slow, thunderous arcs as her talons struck the ground hard enough to make it quake. She did not seem aware that she was no longer herself—not Echani, not even human. "I will make it kneel. I will turn this hunger into silence and I will teach it obedience—"

Her eyes narrowed, the gold burning hotter.

"—Or I will break it."

Her meaning tightened like a fist while she began to move forward. There was no invitation while she began to lead the way, graceful, despite being huge with terrifying claws that clicked when she lumbered on. Leathery wings, tinged with silver and gold, drew back before thrusting forward to send sheets of fog scattering into the void. "Since you have disturbed my dreaming…This way, Darth Hydra."

"I will not go with you. But you…May come with me."