Faction Race Against The Roots - [Dark Court]

[Darth Virelia]

Race Against The Roots

The jungle had not been tamed.

It breathed, it hunted, and it remembered. The clearing once marked for the Court's forward base now shuddered beneath a living canopy that refused to die. Every fire lit to clear the growth was snuffed out by thick, wet fog. Every chemical burn only fed stranger mutations. The air reeked of iron and rot; roots whispered beneath the soil like veins beneath the skin.

The Dark Court's banners still hung—torn, half-swallowed by vines—but they remained. The world itself wanted them gone, and yet here they stood. Barely.

Reports came in from every quarter of the perimeter: missing scouts, twisted carcasses dragged half into the underbrush, weapons jammed by spores that grew inside their barrels overnight. The engineers whispered that the soil itself was moving. The alchemists said the planet was healing its wounds faster than they could inflict them. And the commanders knew what that meant—failure.

The Court's delay had given Nathema time to fight back.

Now, the foothold teetered on the brink of annihilation. To stay above ground was suicide. Below, however, the sensors picked up faint hollows—ancient structures or tunnels, shifting faintly like a heartbeat under the crust. The readings were unstable, but they pulsed with energy unlike anything the Court's archives had recorded. Something alive, or something remembering what life once was.

And so the decision was made.

The surface would be abandoned to the jungle for now. The expedition would move beneath, into the wounds of the planet itself, to seek what could still be salvaged—and to find the power that Nathema hid so jealously beneath its skin. There would be no second retreat. No reinforcements. What remained of the Court would descend together, or perish separately.

At the edge of the sinkhole, the air hummed with unseen pressure. Roots swayed as if tasting the fear that hung on every breath.

A voice cut through the static of comms—measured, low, and cold.

"The jungle reclaims the hesitant. We do not hesitate. Move."

And with that, the descent began.

Objective One: The Shattered Sanctum

The first descent opens into the hollow bones of a forgotten temple, its ceiling fractured by roots and fungus that pulse like veins under thin skin. The walls hum faintly, vibrating with an energy too precise, too rhythmic, to be natural. At the center of the sanctum lies the prize—a crystalline engine, still intact, though cracked and thrumming with unstable resonance. It is a machine of impossible design: part conduit, part prison, and unmistakably alive. The air around it distorts as though the Force itself recoils.

The task is clear: recover the engine before the collapsing structure claims it, and before the planet finishes waking. But the engine resists removal. It sings in subsonic frequencies that burrow into bone and thought, summoning phantom voices to mislead, to delay, to tempt. Those who draw too near may glimpse the memories of the world it devoured—the moment Nathema died.

Extraction will require precision, coordination, and perhaps sacrifice. Disturb it clumsily, and the sanctum will shatter in full, taking the expedition with it. Handle it too gently, and the engine may slip deeper into the earth, lost again to time.

The Court must move fast. The jungle is already listening.

Objective Two: The Root of the Maw

The second descent is no ruin—it is alive. Vast caverns open into a tangled pit where the jungle's roots have grown downward to feed on something black and restless. Thick cords of flesh-like wood plunge into a fissure that bleeds ichor instead of sap, and the air is sweet with rot and pheromones that mock the scent of blood. The deeper one goes, the more the roots move—not in the wind, but in response to sound, heat, and fear.

Your task is destruction. Burn, sever, or corrupt the Maw's heart before it consumes the surface camp entirely. But what the alchemists call the "Maw" may not be mere vegetation. Shapes emerge from the walls, formed of bark, flesh, and armor scavenged from fallen Sith. They speak in your voices, finish your sentences, and bleed when cut.

The deeper you strike, the louder the planet screams. And somewhere beneath it all, something answers back.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Jungle Fever."

Objective 1: Tags -

The sanctum's breath was shallow.

Every sound seemed half-devoured by the walls—the soft rasp of boots through dust, the hiss of filtered air, the quiet pulse of the crystalline heart deeper within. Darth Virelia stood at the threshold where the descent ended and the forgotten temple began, the light from her gauntlet cutting a narrow path through the gloom. Behind her, the strike-team fanned out in disciplined silence, each step measured, each glance wary of the slow, rhythmic twitch of the roots that crawled along the stone.

The air was thick, charged, tasting faintly of ozone and decay. The ancient circuitry etched into the walls still glowed with a faint inner pulse, veins of cold light that traced the sigils of a civilization long erased. Virelia watched the patterns dance, eyes narrowing—not in wonder, but in calculation. Nathema remembered. The planet's memory was pain, and pain, properly harnessed, could be refined into power.

"Hold perimeter," she ordered, voice soft but absolute. "No weapons discharge unless provoked. This place listens."

A pair of operatives moved ahead, their lamps sweeping over the broken statues of figures whose faces had melted into blankness. The shadows shifted in strange synchrony, almost breathing. Beneath their feet, the ground vibrated with a slow, arrhythmic heartbeat that did not belong to any living thing.

Virelia stepped forward only once, boots brushing aside a carpet of pale moss. "Do you feel it?" she murmured to no one in particular. "It resists us—not out of malice, but out of memory. It fears being emptied again." Her gloved fingers brushed the air, tracing the invisible outline of the engine's distant pulse. "Fear makes things violent."

The first tremor rolled through the floor—distant, deliberate. Dust fell like ash. Somewhere below, the crystalline engine sang a single, trembling note, and the Force itself seemed to wince.

Virelia's violet eyes glimmered through her visor as she turned to the others. "We advance to the inner chamber. No one touches the core until I say. Map the entryways, watch the ceiling, and keep your breathing steady. If it begins to hum in your head—speak it aloud. Let the rest hear it."

Her voice lowered, a thread of command and promise.
"Nathema is awake. Let's remind it who walks its veins now."

 

[Veyra Kryze]

"Pain and Corruption."

Objective 2: Tags -

Veyra crouched at the lip of the sinkhole like a predator taking measure of new territory—cold, patient, interested. The jungle above had proven itself a jealous thing: it swallowed banners, choked fires, and drank scouts whole. Below, the earth opened its throat and hummed. She tasted that hum in the back of her teeth, metallic and sweet, and felt it answer the hunger behind her ribs.

Around her the Queensguard moved with the quiet confidence of ritual — armor whispering, blades close to the palm. The strike team would arrive in moments; their boots heavy with the last of the surface, their voices rough from smoke and rot. Veyra welcomed the weight. She wanted the grind of it. She wanted the fight to bruise her.

Her gaze slid over the sinkhole: fang-like roots aglow with a sickly sheen, steam rising from fissures where sap had become something else. The Maw pulsed beneath, a heart beating through veins of wood and iron. It was obscene and gorgeous: half-plant, half-memory, feeding on the dead honor of Sith who had died here long before the Court arrived. The thought uncoiled something delighted inside her. To corrupt it for the Dark Lady would be a deed worth singers' lies.

She flexed her fingers, feeling calluses like maps. The haft of a vibroblade hummed in her hand. She imagined thrusting it into root and bone, into bark that healed like a wound with will. Imagine corrupting that healing—teaching it to clutch, to worship, to bleed for the Court. Imagine a forest that yielded obedience, not rot.

A smell crawled under her hood—pheromones and rot braided with the sharp tang of old blood. The roots shivered as if in answer. Somewhere below, shapes shifted in ways not fully human. They spoke, reports said, in voices like echoes of your own. Veyra grinned and felt a hot savoring rise; mirrors were useful when you wanted to teach a thing to love you.

She rose, hoisted the cloak over her shoulders, and stepped until the sinkhole's edge pressed at her boots. Many straightened, eyes catching the fever that made her pulse quicken. She did not fear the Maw. She wanted it to notice her.

"Let it remember why it kneels," she said, low and sharp, handing the Dark Lady's intent like a blade to the waiting earth. "We will make it sing our names."

For the Dark Court.

 

[Iskera Valest]

At the rim, Iskera crouched with one hand pressed flat to the soil, feeling how it breathed—slow, rhythmic, a pulse drawn from something buried far below. Heat radiated through her palm, faintly chemical, faintly hungry. The readings in her wrist-display skittered between biological and tectonic, as though the planet could not decide what kind of creature it wished to be.

Fine mist curled over the sinkhole, a cocktail of pheromones and decay that clung to her respirator filters like perfume. She took it in all the same, a controlled inhale through the mouthpiece. Data through scent, she reminded herself. Everything could be analyzed if you refused to flinch.

Around her, others muttered oaths or prayers. Iskera only unsealed a vial from her belt and tipped a drop into the dirt. It hissed, then bloomed outward in fractal frost, tracing how the roots moved beneath. It was neuronal. The jungle above had been a body; this was its mind.

Her voice over comms was calm, unhurried, the tone of someone dictating notes rather than giving orders.

"Samples confirm cellular mimicry. The Maw responds to stimulus. Suggest we test contamination potential before direct combustion—fire may only feed it."

She glanced toward the descent teams gathering, her eyes unreadable behind the glass. In the reflection, she saw the roots twitch toward heat signatures, drawn like predators or eager followers.

Perfect.

Iskera re-capped the vial and stood, cloak brushing her boots. She turned over to the Mandalorian.

"Don't burn it all down." she said simply. "If it thinks, it can be taught."

Their kind were known for their simple ways. Maybe a little pointer could help, enlighten them.

Tags - Veyra Kryze

 

[Evangel]

OBJECTIVE ONE

The Dark Mandalorian bound in red glyphs moved at her Lady's side in silence. The red visor panned across the thriving, decrepit landscape and long abandoned halls. Others of the Queensguard were tasked with securing the camp until their return, but Evangel had accompanied Darth Virelia; the woman was strong, but none would be allowed to touch her uninvited. Her Will was Law, but when Her word was not given Evangel guarded her jealously. A silent sentinel awaiting someone or something ignorant enough to think themselves worthy.

"As you command," the Mandalorian intoned. Anyone found straying from her guidance would answer to Evangel if the ruins didn't devour them first.

Nathema sung. Blue eyes veiled by her visor swept over the work that had been devoured by the plants time and time again. She could taste it. An eagerness to flourish. To strike. Echoes of those that had fled into the wilds so long ago. "They were here," she breathed to no one in particular. It hadn't even been a conscious obedience to speak it aloud as commanded. There wasn't anything Evangel could put to words except... hunger. Desire. A refusal to surrender. Its death? Evangel was awash in its rebirth set free from its desolation.

A dangerous place. Somewhere Evangel belonged. It would be interesting to witness the Core that held Virelia's attention so fervently.

Darth Virelia | OPEN​

 

[Darth Dreer]

Objective I
​

Dreer's boots crunched over the carpet of bones and dead vines that blanketed the ground, disturbing the occasional scuttling arthropod. The jungle was hungry, that much was clear. The evidence was plain for all to see; the very earth was composed of the packed remains of its victims. He was not intent on joining them.

He'd split off from the main group early on, scouting side passages and occasionally reporting back to Virelia. So far, he'd seen kark-all worth mentioning, save the slow tightening of the net around them.

His sword glittered green in the dim light cast by the conjured flame in his other hand. Occasionally, it lashed out, cutting a particularly intransigent vine from his path. Where the blade touched, life withered, turning ancient root and tree to dust as their essence was leeched away.

Dreer had probably wound up cutting more vines than people over the years, but they all withered the same in the end.

Foliage-clearing wasn't what he'd had in mind the day that Darth Virelia had found him on Kohlma, but he supposed it was business as usual. There was seldom a tomb worth plundering that lacked defenses.

Occasionally, he was forced to teleport up or around towering obstructions where the path had collapsed, vanishing in a brief burst of emerald sparks. It came as naturally as breathing, unlike most other talents of his these days.

His heart skipped suddenly, and he could have sworn he felt something tighten its grip around it. He staggered, caught himself against a wall, and pressed onward with a growl.

The artificial part of him, the part that surged through his blood and seeped into his bones, never liked teleporting, and seldom lost a chance to express its displeasure. He'd first experimented with the art in the hopes that it would be left behind, dropped to the ground while the rest of him moved. No such luck, of course. Nothing was ever that easy.

Still, it hadn't harmed him yet. Only let him know that it could, should it want to.

Two more static-snaps, as he briefly teleport-jumped up one crumbling wall, then another.

Simple. There wasn't a ruin in the galaxy hostile enough to keep him out, and he didn't intend to allow this one to ruin his perfect record. With luck, he'd get there soon, or find a shortcut and earn a few brownie points with his new employer.

"Employer" seemed a rough word for it, but it was the only one that came to mind. He was performing a service in exchange for room, board, and money. What else was one to call it?

He paused at the top, looking down at the crumbling path behind him. Briefly fascinated by the sight, he slipped his ragged leather notebook from his bag, etching out a brief sketch. The vines were already crawling back in, reclaiming his path like it had never happened. Getting back out might be difficult... if he had any intention of walking.

Dreer wasn't good for much, but he flattered himself that he was the best around at getting into (and out of) places where he wasn't wanted.

Dreer tapped an earpiece, wincing at the burst of static, and spoke, hoping Virelia could actually hear him when they were encased in so much signal-distorting stone. "Nothing so far. This might well be a waste of time. Do you want me to keep checking side passages, or rejoin the main force?" He asked, taking a seat at the edge of the edge of the artificial cliffside and digging some dried rations from his bag. "Plants are getting more aggressive." He added between bites of lunch. "We're definitely on a timetable. Whatever controls these is sluggish, but it's getting quicker. Smarter."

 

[Kasir Dorran]

Veradun Sharr | Darth Virelia | Darth Dreer | Evangel ​

The whispers of Nathema stirred, beckoning Kasir to come, and that was reason enough. Rumors, like wildfire, spread. Tales of a scout gone missing, banners of an outsider fluttering, all signs of someone else lurking in the shadows, something that sang like a song in the night.

Rumors were but another scent for the Sangnir.

This would also be his little brother's first foray beyond the fiery hell of Mustafar, a welcome respite from the suffocating heat, and its relentless ash. Here, there was a different kind of life, one that thrived in rot and decay. And whether the boy was hunting for sustenance, for blood alone, or both, it mattered not, for in the end, all creatures were slaves to their primal needs.

Hunger itself was the lesson.

Hunger was the blade.

To suffer was to learn.

Ache had a way of sharpening.

The cargo hold of his 578-R no longer bore any trace of the Wonosa doctrine, not even with his loyalty to The Prophet of Bogan. Once it had been used to ferry Jedi to the former Lord Inquisitor, but now it served a different purpose. It carried blood bags to be used, as the fledgling saw fit, their lives a tool for his hunger.

Kasir knew the boy’s thirst was nearly impossible to sate, a void that’d clawed the edges of even the most disciplined. Perhaps, that was why he purposely withheld the crimson nectar a little longer than necessary.

Sith fire was passion. But the fire of their kind was deprivation, one that burned slowly, which no indulgence could ever quench. In the hands of two Sith, that fire did not diminish.. it multiplied until it became lethal. He would not let Veradun escape it. He needed him to feel it, to carry it in his marrow, to understand what it meant to burn.

His transport shuttle sliced through the atmosphere without ceremony, a dark bird with a determined trajectory. Long before that descent, he compressed his Force signature, until he was nothing more than a stone dropping from the sky. But even concealment was not without flaws.. the glint of a hull, a ripple in the air, it didn't take much to be given away. Let them see, let them try, for a glimpse of him would be the last thing those who dared to face him would ever see.

Predators weren’t afraid of being noticed.

The ramp hissed open, and he stepped down alone. Like a specter, his obsidian armor glinted with malice in the dim light, a stark contrast against the pallid perfection of his features. Chiseled and cold, the visage of a forged weapon was intimately familiar with bringing death and ruin wherever he roamed.

With a twist of the neck, a satisfying pop echoed. Unforgiving orb, colored of charred wood, swept upon the land. The air stank of rot, and roots shifted beneath his boots.

Something in the distance was humming, making his fangs throb.

Nathema’s memory.. was pain.

He tasted it.

The extended hilt of his saberstaff clung to a utility belt. Beside it, the ritual dagger rested, a comfort no mortal could understand. More than a weapon, this one was a promise, a promise that was selfish as it was sick.

Shoulders drooping with nonchalance, head cocked slightly, he would simply listen to each breath through the currents. With time having no power over his existence, he simply waited for Veradun's appearance.

Then the hunt would begin.