Private Something Wicked Lurks Here

[Darth Bellum]

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| Location | Forgotten Temple, Korriban​

| Purpose | ???​

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Korriban. Home of the Sith, and now little more than a mausoleum of the lost and forgotten. Its sands stirred as if disturbed by an unseen presence, shifting and spiraling as the shadows cast by towering temples and statues seemed to come alive and flicker like dark flames, reaching for a singular point. The hot, arid atmosphere seemed to grow heavy and cold as the air shimmered and refracted light, only to shatter like glass as a maw of shadows split open. Tendrils of darkness slithered out, trying to escape the threshold that bound them to Otherspace, only to be pulled back as a large, hulking figure stepped out.​

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Darth Bellum's decrepit form found itself on Korriban once more. It had been decades since the Dark Side spirit set foot on its burning sands, while he was still alive and walked amongst the living. The nature of his visit was an enigma known only to him, for no one could ever divine his intentions despite his simple motivations. With the rise of the Galactic Empire, Bellum's insatiable thirst for conflict had returned. He had already set the path for Darth Voyance to be found - and now he found himself drawn to Korriban for another relic of a bygone era.​

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The Lord of War strode through the sands, finding himself drawn to a familiar presence. The resurrected Sith paused before a large tomb, a skeletal hand waving over the stone walls as he felt an unseen barrier preventing him from making contact with the ancient stone. A subtle thrum filled the air, dust shaking from crevices in the stone to reveal runes that had been carved into its surface - a countermeasure to keep unwanted individuals out of tombs; or perhaps to keep something locked within.​

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But he did not come for a corpse. What lay within still stirred. Something akin to nostalgia surfaced within the Lord of War's mind - a flash of his youth, a life long since forgotten. He too had been locked away because those weaker than him feared what he was capable of. His lamentations were interrupted as a Sith Order patrol had taken notice of his presence, a trio of soldiers accompanied by a Mon Calamari dressed in black robes. ​

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The Sith stood silently as he was surrounded by the soldiers with blasters trained on him, "Identify yourse-Hurk" The officer's voice was cut off as a skeletal hand raised from Bellum's tattered garments, his index finger curling as the soldiers reached for their chests, dropping their weapons. What felt like iron wrapped around their hearts, unseen hands tightening as their pulses quickened before feeling them get crushed. Blood splattered the insides of their helmets as they fell forward dead, the Lord of War turning to the Mon Calamari - a sorcerer by the looks of it, preparing himself for a fight he thought he would be Bellum's match for.​

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It wasn't long before a half-unconscious Mon Calamari was beaten within an inch of their life, the Lord of War gripping them by the back of their skull as he forced them against the unseen barrier, wheezing for mercy as their blood seeped into the ancient stone. The carved runes glowed and hummed as the barrier faded, dust shifted as hidden mechanisms pulled the massive slabs away to reveal the dark path into the temple, the Lord of War dragging the bloodied Mon Calamari like a sack of potatoes along with him. ​

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Darth Maleva
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[Darth Maleva]

Cobb webs, intricately woven between a body and the wall, fell to dust as the head that held them snapped forward. Empty eternities oft bred delusion - but the rumbling that had taken to the corridors ahead seemed more than a mad woman's reverie. It was different, this time. Real. Stagnant air shifted with Maleva's movements as she stepped down from the niche carved for her final resting place.

Wild eyes swept the nearly pitch room. Everything was as she'd left it before her dreaming - eight mummified corpses, one who still breathed but was locked in the perpetual statis she had freed herself from. Bones of rodents littered the floor. Amongst them lay a glowing blade. The sith lord crouched to collect it, every movement stiff and awkward. Ruby light fell to her side, revealing a form clothed in molding fabric. The backlit form started forward, up the stairs of her crypt, to see who had stirred her from slumber.

The incline gave way to a long corridor, with statues of their history lining either side. Two figures at the end drew her attention. Vague memories of one presence chewed at her mind. Hunger was a more demanding thing. The spirit was a vacant space in the song of life, but oh, how his captive sang to her. The sweet sound almost hurt. Proboscis slithered forth and danced about the air. Before she had realized, Maleva was upon them, a blur who had crossed the length of the hall in sheer desperation. The hunt was all but impossible to stop - yet the same malice that had sustained her all these years offered the smallest ounce of control, stopping her mere feet from the interlopers.

Raising her blade, crimson light pulsed beneath her command, a burning gaze flickered between the pair, before Maleva forced it to settle on the skull. Recognition finally bypassed the haze to make a whole out of pieces. Death had finally come for her after all these years.

"I expected a raider, come to plunder." Maleva rasped, throat dry as the dunes beyond the walls. "Instead, I find an aspect of war."

This was no action of mercy. As was the way, there would be a price.

"Does the galaxy bleed again?"

 

[Darth Bellum]

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| Location | Forgotten Temple, Korriban​

| Purpose | ???​

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Moans echoed through the temple as the Mon Calamari being dragged along the ground struggled and grasped at Bellum's hand, blood trickling and leaving a crimson trail. Pleas of mercy and forgiveness. How disgusting and pitiful the Sith were becoming once more. The hulking silhouette of the resurrected Sith paused, contemplating delivering a slow, painful death, but that would ruin his gift. His hollow eyes became transfixed on the activation of a crimson blade in the dark. Ravenous hunger radiated off the figure's form, almost palpable to the Lord of War as Maleva appeared before him.​

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His slackened jaw widened as a myriad of voices overlapped one another, a horrible mixture of whispers, screams, and cries coalesced into a rasping voice to answer her query. "The Galaxy rots..."​

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A commlink on the Mon Calamari's belt crackled, static bursts punctuating the silence of the crypt, "Repo- krrrrrk. Confirm perimeter breac- krrrk" The lack of a response was likely to draw attraction and bring more unfortunate victims to them. Good, more sustenance for his peer and an opportunity for her to display her edge had not been dulled by time. ​

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Bellum raised his arm up, gripping the Mon Calamari by the back of their skull, feet dangling off the ground, too weak to fight back and struggle - not that they could, considering most of the bones in their body had been shattered.​

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He offered the live meal to Maleva, knowing how ravenous they must be having been trapped in their tomb. And with it, she had been offered her freedom. "I have need for wolves once more, so I offer you this chance to make yourself worthy of becoming one..." He paused as he continued to dangle the Mon Calamari off to the ground, "Or you can join me in my Sea of Memories." ​

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The latter choice came as a threat. In true Sith fashion, he offered a choice: serve his cause or die. But he did not ask for obedience or fealty to him, merely to the cycle in which his existence was inextricably bound to perpetuate. Or the Sith before him could always attempt to take his life if she believed she could best him in her present state.​

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Darth Maleva
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[Darth Maleva]

Fury took her expression at the implications of his words. An observant gaze noted the uniform of the offering - Sith in nature. So her dreams had told it true. Consciousness had wandered past the mortal flesh to see the corpses they had previously put down claw themselves from their own demise. Parasites upon their creed, content to lock themselves away in fortresses and fester in pools of depravity. Too blinded or asinine to see the chain of their own making.

"Do not let my current condition fool you." An edge accompanied her response. "I was bound, not broken. Now I am free. There is no becoming. I am that I am."

It was the death march from Stygian Caldera to the Inner Rim that had earned her this circumstance. Though her joints were stiff, her cheeks gaunt, purpose persisted. Even brutally maimed by the fire witch, her apprentice had not been able to kill her, settling instead for locking her away in this forsaken place. Not so strong was the irritation that it drove her to foolishness, however. Bellum would have been a test in her prime. With feeding, and recovery, she could regain that strength - but for now, it alluded her, and she would assist in whatever plan he hatched.

Attention turned to the Mon Calamari, whose fear ebbed and pulsed with awareness. A bruised fruit, but fruit nonetheless. One hand seized a shoulder, tearing him from Bellum's grasp. Maleva sank to the granite floor to pin his chest beneath one knee. Weak protest formed on his lips as tendrils probed his face. Noise quickly died with a grunt as they slithered forward and up nostrils, to penetrate the barrier that protected his coveted essence.

Grotesque slurps echoed off the walls of the chamber. Though he reeked of fish, the taste was sweet. It was not nearly enough to satiate her appetite. Half-dead and meek besides, the ravenous anzat made quick work of the meal before releasing the grip on his robes and allowing the corpse to crumple to the stone unceremoniously. Beyond the walls of the temple, she sensed the interlopers, louder than their fallen comrade. Their song promised more than an appetizer. Still clutching the sword, Maleva rose, one hand signaling the spirit back in the direction of whence he had come.

"Let us deal with this encroachment, first. Then we may speak on how best to cut away this rot."

 

[Darth Bellum]

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| Location | Forgotten Temple, Korriban​

| Purpose | ???​

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Empty eyes devoid of any emotion fixated on the Sith before him, his voice grating once more, responding to her bladed tongue, "I pray your words are as strong as your conviction and commitment to the cause. Do not disappoint me as many have before." ​

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His grip relaxed as he released the Mon Calamari from his grasp into Maleva's awaiting embrace, surrendering the meal to the Anzati. He watched as the Sith took hold of their prey, like a spider having finally caught its next meal, working swiftly to feed and sustain a malnourished form. It was by no means a fulfilling meal, but her hunger and present state should be temporarily sated for the time being. ​

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He let the Anzati finish her meal in silence, the emptiness only broken up by the sound of static disturbance emanating from the lifeless husk on the ground and the voices of soldiers and Sith Knights sent to investigate. He silently stepped off to the side to allow her to pass. What he valued was not her company or past - simply her strength. ​

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A small, meager test to prove that time had not eroded her abilities and prowess. If she died, then she would have failed his simple test and proven herself to be part of the rot that plagued the Galaxy. If not, then she would be free to feast upon the Galaxy's fear and despair at her leisure and be of use to him and those worthy of his aid in the dark times to come.​

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Darth Maleva
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[Darth Maleva]

Streams of artificial light broke the darkness in the entryway. They rushed in, frantically sweeping from side to side, catching naught but dust and glimmering stone. Dread hung thick in the air. Soldiers and acolytes alike hung about the threshold, daring one another, establishing their pecking order. There was always a fool to stumble forward. The rest would figure out how to capitalize on the fear.

"You go - this place gives me the creeps."

"It's just a bunch of graves. You scared of the dead?"

"Someone broke this seal."

"Yeah, probably looters, again."

"No way, man. Why isn't Tryte answering his comms, then?"

"Taking all the glory while we stand here talking." Growled another voice.

Then the aggressor proved himself. Echani, by the smell of him, and furious. A waste of time, Maleva picked up from his thoughts as he wandered into the domain. A blaze of fire came alight in his hand, its glow enough to reassure his companions who followed him in. One wandered up to the first statue - Luminoth's masked face - to gaze up at its twelve-foot form in awe.

"Never been inside one of these. Kinda cool."

"Did you come to secure the area or admire the art?"

Quieted by the scolded, the soldier looked properly abashed as he turned the flashlight back towards the corridor ahead. The group proceeded, the leader in front, wrapping around statues and examining the area for signs of disturbance. A few moments of silence fell before a blur streaked past the left wing. A cry rose from the nearest figure, meriting head swivels from his allies.

"What?"

"Did you see that?"

"See what?"

With a leap, the what fell upon them from behind the other side, taking its first victim unawares. The Sith Lord emerged from the shadows without mercy, arms and legs coiling around the man, before quickly working their way up to his neck and bringing him down with a crack. Another soldier had been stunned beside him, a witness to the brutality. Maleva seized him by an arm as she rose from the new corpse, slimy tendrils moving to probe the latest victim's face. The others had become aware, breaking the urge to freeze, and plasma began to fly. Ruby began to shimmer with a wave of her free fingers, taking the form of a disc in between them. Shots broke and shattered amongst its surface.

"It's okay." Maleva murmured to the human in front of her, sensing the urge in his hands to move.

Resistance fell away with her shushing. Fear was bent into a passive thing. Then, the crimson glow returned to her blade as it dragged across his belly.

 

[Darth Bellum]

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| Location | Forgotten Temple, Korriban​

| Purpose | ???​

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Screams and cries for help echoed all throughout the shadowy tomb, several more bodies now serving as its eternal occupants as the Lord of War began to slowly head back towards the entrance. Despite his size, he moved without a sound, a shadow moving in the dark. He had arrived just in time to see Maleva descend upon the last of the unfortunate souls sent to investigate who had entered the tomb.​

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He looked down at the bodies strewn around the floor, fallen flashlights illuminating his ghastly silhouette, the flashes of blaster fire briefly illuminating him as he silently approached from behind as Maleva gutted her latest prey. His grissled arm raised itself parallel to the ground, a whorl of shadows forming around his fingertips. As he stepped forward, his fingers grasped around an unseen hilt, slowly drawing his summoned blade, Fellsong, to him.​

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One of the soldiers firing at Maleva's barrier paused as their weapon overheated, suddenly feeling the air grow considerably colder as a chill ran across his spine. Silence fell upon him as he turned to see the hulking Sith behind him for the briefest of moments, the skeletal visage of the Lord of War forever burned into their retina as the last thing they would see. ​

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The massive blade came like a train as it slammed into his midsection, piercing clean through as the blade was driven into the soldier's body, stopped only by the blade's guard. The body was effortlessly lifted off the ground as their hands tried to grasp at the blade, blood splattering across Bellum's features as Fellsong glowed a deep crimson. ​

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Maleva was not the only one who required their thirst to be slaked. The blade greedily exsanguinated its meal as their essence was devoured, the withered corpse left a complete husk. A quick flick of the wrist and the body was sent into the ground. Those still left alive turned to the Lord of War in an attempt to take him down, but to no avail. Fingers froze over triggers as they felt their entire bodies seize and tighten up, robbed of their ability to move, yet fully conscious and aware of everything that they could perceive. The rabble had been dealt with; now the only obstacle to Maleva's freedom lay outside the tomb, where errant Sith Knights awaited.​

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Darth Maleva
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