Private Relic of the Self - Dromund Kaas

[Avarice]

Avarice had been given a simple task to complete. A fetch quest. Darth Carnifex desired a thing of value… sentimental value. Avarice had been surprised by the request, as it was not an order of conquest. The Butcher King was not a man who lingered long on matters beneath eternity. He had no time to wait for a petulant acolyte still learning which way the currents of power flowed.

The choice of what to bring him came easily enough. It had been some time since they last stood within the same chamber, eye to eye. Their last meeting had been at one of the Sith revelries following an unlikely crossing of paths. Avarice had done as he was bade and played the ornament in the Dark Lord's entorage, appearing polished, quiet, and watchful. He even went so far as to test the room with a soft barb at the King's rhetoric, a little needle made of words to see who bled. Srina Talon answered with a look that cut colder than steel and delivered to him a single warning to mind his tongue. She had called him a child, and though the word might have stung another, it only drew the faintest touch of amusement behind his mask.

Let her believe him a reckless youth; it was easier that way. Better they see a fool than a threat. The lesson settled easily enough, however. Wit is coin that spends quickly in halls where propriety is a blade. Since then, the tides of power had shifted as crowns traded hands, and it was wiser to move as a shadow, unseen rather than swept beneath the sea.

Finding Carnifex required no guesswork. The presiding Lord of Dromund Kaas was never subtle in his dominion. His presence was a storm felt long before one saw it.

When the relic was secured, Avarice took a retrofitted Skipray Blastboat that he had decidedly borrowed from Okuma Milogen and set his course for New Kaas City . The flight was uneventful; the security codes gifted by Teresa Zambrano | Darth Pellax saw to that. The black spires of the city rose from the clouds like fangs waiting to devour him, and for the first time in a long while, he wondered whether the Dark Lord would greet him.

The Citadel was his destination, as he surely would have the best chance of finding the Dark Lord. Yet a faint spark of interest stirred when he learned of the library nestled within its shadowed walls of this city. Knowledge had always tempted him more than conquest; the promise of what lay written and forgotten called to him far louder than any throne or blade.

The Sith Citadel and the Onyx Library were within the same district from what he could tell, the heart of Kaas, where the air itself seemed to hold the weight of ancient power. Towers of black rose like jagged teeth, their surfaces alive with faint red circuitry. It was a place built to remind all who entered that knowledge and dominion were one and the same, and both were bought in blood.

He wondered if a brief detour would be noticed or punished. Curiosity, after all, was not a sin among the Sith, but it was often mistaken for ambition. And ambition, in the wrong eyes, could be fatal.

He turned the small toy over in his hands, studying the embroidered eyes of the Munyip. It had already been some time since the task was given to him. Better to deliver it and be done with the matter before the Butcher King decided patience was no longer one of his virtues.

---

"Knowledge is power."​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Banking through the dark, oppressive clouds came two medium-sized cutters; each armed with a pair of moored blaster cannons powerful enough to blow apart a starfighter in only a few shots. Emblazoned upon their dark hulls was the sinister sunburst of the Kainate, at the center of which was stamped the notched hex-crest of the Sith Eternal. Each moved to flank the Skipray on either side, guiding the ship towards a docking port jutting out from the Palace's grand facade, the pilots transmitted instructions garbled by the mechanical whir of their vocabulators.

+Do not deviate.+

Awaiting on the gangway attached to the docking port was a small cadre of red-armored guards, and at their head one of the Palace's many functionaries. He stood with a posture of languid arrogance, his robes dark and severe. His face was narrow and bloodless, skin stretched taut over sharp, unforgiving bone. His hair, the color of burnished steel, was swept back and secured with a severity that bordered on punishment rather than style. But it was his eyes, pitiless pale flecks of ice, that were the most striking.

He seemed to regard the young Sith as less of a person and more of an item on an itinerary. Little warmth radiated from the man, if any did at all. "He's been waiting for you, acolyte. It is not wise to delay the Master's summons." That was their cue to follow, as the man pivoted soundlessly around and began to walk into the Palace itself. The red guards took up position on either side of the young man, wordless encouragement to obey and follow.

The interior of the Palace was built upon the geometry of absolute power. The walls and floors were hewn from a single, continuous expanse of black marble, it's surface so profoundly deep it seemed to not reflect light. This monolithic darkness was slashed through with seam of glimmering gold, not delicate filigrees, but lightning-strike fissures that spiraled up the colossal walls and across the vast floors. The veins pulsed with a faint luminescence, not warm, but hot and metallic like cooled magma.

In various places these walls were not blank, but transformed into vast, sprawling reliefs depicting the grim history and grandeur of the Sith. On some panels, figures were etched deeply into the stone's face, their forms emerging from the gloom with muscular definition with their eyes and weapons often inlaid with the same glowing gold that veined the palace. In others, the carving was so high and undercut that Sith Lords and ancient beasts seemed to strain to break free from the marble entirely, their limbs and snarling faces casting long, dancing shadows in the ambient light.

Scenes of warfare and conquest unfolded like a frozen avalanche, armies of etched warriors marching in perpetual silence while their adversaries writhed in silent, eternal torment. Throughout it all, the faces of the Kainate Lords were repeated again and again. Their presence was a constant throughout, their gold-veined eyes always watching as the young acolyte passed underneath their gaze.

At the end of their journey rose an immense gateway, less a doorway and more a sheer cliff face of polished black marble. Upon it's immense surface the palace's narrative of power reached it's horrifying apex. The entire door was a single, breathtaking relief, so deep and elaborate it gave the impression of being grown rather than carved. At it's center was Darth Carnifex, the Eternal Father, rendered in the highest relief. His form projected from the stone to such a degree that He was more like a statue trapped within the door. Beneath His feet, a litany of lesser beings, receding deeper into the relief as if consumed by it.

There was no visible handle, keyhole, or panel that indicated that the door could be opened. The only break in the vast sculpture was a near-imperceptible vertical seam down the center, a hairline fracture that followed the line of Darth Carnifex's spine. Upon their approach, the deep, subterranean groan rose up to meet them; the mechanical grind of gears and servos. The hairline seam at the center of the colossal door split open, not with a clean part, but with the reluctant, grinding separation of a continental shelf. A sliver of unbearable, blood-orange light sliced through the darkness of the hall, so sharp and sudden it seemed to cut the air itself. The light did not spill out gently; it poured, thick as plasma, illuminating the swirling dust motes and turning them into a storm of embers.

The two halves of the mountain began to withdraw, each sliding sideways into recesses hidden within the walls. The movement was agonizingly slow, majestic in its indifference. As the doors moved, the great carved figures upon them were torn asunder. Darth Carnifex was split vertically down his spine, His imperious visage divided. The golden veins that outlined Him were severed, their light flaring for a moment as if in protest before being extinguished within the stone.

With every foot of it's retreat, the door revealed more of the chamber beyond: first, the tips of obsidian stairs, then the base of a towering dais, and finally, the oppressive, waiting silence of the throne itself. A monolithic structure of polished obsidian, the throne was complex of sharp angles and hard surfaces. Yet, the throne was not free-standing by itself, but rather buttressed by a colossal, raw chunk of kyber crystal that formed the entire rear-wall of the dais.

Sith runes had been intricately carved into the crystalline surface, forming a latticework of interconnected symbols and geometry. The whole structure pulsated a deep, violent crimson, sharply contrasting with the utter darkness of the chamber surrounding it. In contrast, the seat of the throne itself appeared mundane. Yet, seated upon it was the Dark Lord of the Sith, ensorcelled within the miasma of darkness and power that swirled about the throne and the crystal it was woven into.

He measured Avarice's arrival with a cold gaze, His bright, baleful eyes watching the boy's every step. "Welcome, young Avarice, to Dromund Kaas. Have you brought what I requested?"

Avarice ​

 

[Avarice]

Avarice did not offer much in the way of words to his escort initially. "With respect, I followed the instructions as they were given. No hour was mentioned, and I was never told when the Master expected me. If there was a schedule, it was not shared with me. Though I suppose I should apologize for assuming that when one has eternity, punctuality becomes more of a polite suggestion." He walked where he was guided, remaining relatively quiet and compliant as he followed along, moving through the immense architecture around him. One could not help but be in awe of the sheer and overwhelming monuments of power and authority the citadel practically oozed.

He kept his gaze forward, though his eyes darted to every corner they could catch. The Citadel pressed in from every angle. Its presence crept along the walls and soaked into the stone until even the air felt heavier, saturated with cold, unyielding authority. The sensation crawled beneath his skin and made the muscles between his shoulders and across his back tighten with unease. It stirred the nausea that pooled low within the very pit of his stomach.

Even with his presence folded small through careful discipline, he felt as though thousands of unseen eyes traced over him, weighing him, prodding at the edges of who he truly was. The amulet’s dark aura covered him in a convincing shroud, yet the pressure still pushed through that surface disguise and lingered wherever it could find purchase.

The presence within this place settled over his mind like a thick, choking fog, clouding thought and scraping at the inside of his skull. A sharp, searing ache pulsed behind his eyes, as if the Citadel itself tested how deeply it could sink its influence into him. Crossing into the Web was like walking into a pressure chamber, with an intense gnawing of constant psychic static pounding into his skull in agonizing, perpetual waves.

He paused briefly and took a terse breath, gritting his teeth before letting a soft exhale slip past. He shifted his attention and enacted pain suppression. He breathed a light sigh of relief, but his focus sharpened again to maintain his guise against the crushing weight of the baffling sensations around him.

Maintaining the illusion by feeding a steady flow of energy into the amulet was akin to holding a cramped muscle in place, making him want to shift away from it. And so… he almost relinquished his concentration. If he chose to relent and let the guise fall away, his natural signature would almost certainly ignite within this realm like a flaming beacon of the light side… like a pyre in the dead of a moonless night upon a sandy shore.

It took considerable effort to funnel power and maintain his concentration. It was an ongoing battle against the crushing opposition of the realm itself just to remain hidden. To say that maintaining such an output of focus was a monumental strain was certainly an understatement. He leaned on the subtle Meditation Crystals woven into his attire to assist him in such a futile task. This was not something that could be sustained over a great length of time.

Of course, the path they took was painstakingly long. The irony of the time it took him to simply walk to the required destination, contrasted with the idea that he was accused of keeping the Dark Lord waiting, was not lost on him. The journey was irritatingly agonizing and exhausting, making it difficult for Avarice to take in everything around him.

Pain suppression offset the agony, and maintaining his concentration fed the amulet while keeping his Force signature small. Darth Carnifex would be able to notice something was wrong, as the amulet the youth wore struggled to maintain its guise, offering small glitches here and there.

"I cannot say the Palace feels welcoming, my Lord… though perhaps that is the intention. Even so, I am grateful, and I thank you for sending an escort. It was a gracious consideration, and it is an honor to be received so directly."

He was even inclined to offer the Butcher King a cordial, elegant bow, with a flourishing motion designed to look graceful.

He slipped a hand into his sleeve, grasping hold of the object he had brought. "Yes, my Lord. I retrieved the relic as instructed and brought it with me."

He withdrew the object and held it up for view. It was a simple Munyip plush toy… well worn, though carefully cared for despite its age. It was white, with little reddish-pink embroidered eyes and pink bits in some small areas.