The Deep-Seer
Darth Vhalor came to know this truth long before he ever became known as The Keeper of Secrets.
Before there was The Drowned Path. Before there was the symbol. Before there were whispered prayers to things that had no names…there was only a question.
"What lies beneath the Force?"
Darth Vhalor had spent years devoted to study of the Sith teachings but found himself growing more discontent the more he learned. The Sith taught power. They taught domination. Immortality. Control of the Force. But archaeological fragments recovered from ancient temples told another story.
Something older.
Something that did not fit within the Sith teachings nor the Jedi ways.
Vhalor became obsessed with these references to what ancient texts only referred to as the Deep. He scoured ruined temples and long dead civilizations searching for any records that hinted at the existence of this mystery. For the most part what he uncovered was useless: broken tablets, decayed holocrons and cryptic writings in languages no one living could read or understand.
Then, on a nameless world now lost to time itself, he found the first physical piece of the puzzle.
It was small.
Deceptively small.
But within it rested what could only be described as the remnants of a will.
Not a message.
Not a recording.
A thought.
Remains of a consciousness uploaded into an object long before Vhalor was born.
When Vhalor touched it with his mind he heard it whisper to him.
Not words.
An actual voice.
A presence.
And for the first time since he began his studies of the Dark side of the Force years ago…Vhalor realized the emptiness he had learned about his entire life might not actually be empty.
Not at all.
Something was there.
Something ancient.
Something had noticed him.
The fragment became Darth Vhalor's sole obsession.
Months were spent attempting to decipher its secrets. Drawing on ancient Sith magic and Force meditation techniques lost to time. He slept next to it. Meditated on it. Offered it small pieces of his own life force in exchange for a whisper of its knowledge.
Slowly it began to give.
At first it was just visions.
A starless ocean stretching into infinity.
Streaks of black liquid that seemed to move of their own accord.
Things.
Endless ruins and malformed structures drowning beneath fathomless waters.
But most of all he saw life.
Observed things that had lived hundreds of thousands of years ago staring back at him through the endless dark.
They were watching him.
As the visions grew in intensity so did the contact he experienced when reaching out with his own mind.
He began to hear the whispers outside of meditation.
They traveled with him into his waking life.
Plagued his dreams.
Sometimes they spoke his name.
Sometimes they offered vague bits of knowledge.
And sometimes they simply laughed at him.
The fragment had no perceivable intelligence but Vhalor became certain that it was what remained of something far greater.
Remains of sentience.
Remains of a race that hadn't just discovered the Deep…but were born from it.
He learned to refer to it as:
THE FIRST FRAGMENT
Vhalor craved more.
He wanted to know why it was here.
Who had created it.
What had become of them.
And why the gods cared that he knew.
The fragment answered his questions.
…but knowledge comes at a price.
The more Vhalor grasped into the empty depths the more the presence within the fragment reached out to him in return.
Until one dark night he poured every ounce of his being into an ancient ritual and dove into the nothingness himself.
He constructed a circle of ancient Sith runes and placed the fragment in the center. Surrounding it were cathedrals of his own blood, his lightsaber, his personal effects and every book and research document he had acquired over a lifetime of study.
Then he made his offering to the nothing.
Not his blood.
Not his life.
He gave up his own soul to the Deep.
Vhalor forfeited his claim on his own life that night.
His future.
His mortality.
His very soul itself.
It would belong to whatever lurked down there.
In exchange he would have what he sought more than anything else in the galaxy:
Answers.
Knowledge beyond his wildest dreams.
Hours passed as he delved through the empty depths.
When he emerged from the ritual he was found kneeling at the center of the ruined circle. His body was unaffected but his eyes were…different.
Visions he experienced that night changed everything he thought he knew about life itself.
He spoke of abyssal creatures hovering through the darkness of the Deep beneath dead stars.
Civilizations that had fallen after discovering the same truth he now knew.
Eons passed between messages.
The vision of the Deep was too much for his mind to comprehend in one viewing.
But he had seen enough to last him for several lifetimes.
And what he saw scared him.
Something had been watching the fallen empire of these ancient creatures.
Watching and waiting for the correct moment to appear.
When Vhalor realized what he was seeing took his breath away.
He didn't discover the Old Ones.
They were waiting for him.
⛧ "That which sleeps beneath stirs once more..." ⛧
~ Arcane Seal Confirmed ~