Private Sponsorship

[Corin Trenor]

Shade of Decay

Jutrand was as alive as Coruscant, despite the rumours that floated between spaceports.

Some whispered that the Sith had awakened an ancient plague, dooming themselves and their Blackwall was nothing more than an effort to quarantine themselves. A touch too selfless for Sith, Corin supposed. One rumour told of a Sith ritual resulting in catastrophic failure, imprisoning the Sith inside this Blackwall of someone else's creation. The most common rumour Corin heard uttered spoke of the Sith suddenly, swiftly cannibalizing themselves whole.

On Jutrand now, Corin could tell none of them were true.

Despite the wishes of many in the Galactic Alliance, the Sith Empire still drew breath.

In his dark cloak with frayed edges and tattered fabric, Corin roamed the Jutrand undercity. In quiet, criminal-ridden cantinas filled with a haze of smoke, Corin listened to the patrons while slumped into the booth and an untouched drink warming in his palm. He seemed to gain a foundational, surface-level amount of knowledge as to what occurred. To Corin, however, it was a far cry from satisfactory.

He was determined to remain in Sith space for the long-term.

Corin needed to come into more concrete, reliable information, and soon. Yet, until Corin could ensure communications could bypass the Sith Blackwall, it was worthless. The council were left to trust that it succeeded and Corin was indeed on Jutrand, or died in the result of the attempt.

The latest lead spoke of a lab, somewhere in the depths of Jutrand. Some said it was abandoned, some said it was occupied. In either case, no one dared venture there. A lab housed high-end equipment that Corin could make use of, or possessed information of value. At the very least, it was somewhere better to sleep than the alleys.

He found it sealed shut in a quiet district, seemingly more abandoned than not from the external appearance. It was with some force that Corin broke in, crossing the threshold to see what lay within.

 

[Shade of Decay]

'What lay within' turned out to be a ray shield.

After he had made it a few paces in from the entrance, the tell-tale ionized glow in the air of a projected shield surrounded Corin, barely giving him enough room to stop before he singed himself on it. The door shut once again, glowpanels in the ceiling activating to reveal what lay inside. The red photoreceptor eyestalk of a gatekeeper droid descended from the ceiling near the door, scanning the captured man quickly, before a panel slid open on the wall.

A body extended from it, hooked to what appeared to be a complicated life-support apparatus...before its blackened eyes opened, throwing back a hood to reveal a face that from nose down was nothing but an indiscernible mess of fleshy tendrils. Green skin, mottled and disfigured with age, suddenly flushed darker as the life-support detached itself and withdrew back into its hidden place, leaving the man standing.

He appeared distinctly displeased, as well as his alien expressions could be read.

He silently stepped forward, walking around the trapped intruder, examining him again...sniffed once, and stroked at a scarred tendril.

"You have Brokentusk's stench about you. I did not think I had spent away all of his good graces."

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

Shade of Decay

​

Corin appeared similarly displeased, an almost monotonous expression of bother plainly writ across his face. Though unknown to the owner of this laboratory, it was seemingly a permanent fixture of Corin's. He was as still as a stone, a quiet observer of his own imprisonment.

His mismatched eyes watched as the gleaming red eye of the droid emerged and provided a scanning gaze, waiting. Then, again as another being emerged from somewhere within the wall. Corin studied the tendril-bearing face, withered and decrepit, and reliant on life support.

"I breached the Sith Blackwall from the Nether; Velok provided a tool to assist," lifting a part of his cloak, revealing the crudely crafted carving blade hanging from his waist.

He could feel something dark, twisted in the Force. Beyond the general stench of Jutrand.

"I came to discover the state of the Sith since the Blackwall allowed them all to disappear from view."

 

[Shade of Decay]

"Hmph. It's good that the people beyond their boundaries aren't growing complacent...though your methods leave something to be desired."

He waved a hand and the ray shield disappeared. Giving him a clearer view of the one that stood before him. Tall, taller than he was—especially this stooped, degrading body—with a host of scars, more than evident to perceptive eyes. The amulet that had been made was obvious, its creator's handiwork evident. More than that, though, he could sense clear signs of Velok's power on the boy in front of him.

The Nether, indeed. Souls and bodies blurred in that place.

But there was something more. Something that tasted familiar on the air.

"You were on Tython."

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

Shade of Decay

Tython collected more than a share of notable events, as if there was a readily exhausting number of them to be passed out. Of which, Tython itself had proven, was not the case. As to what this shambling figure referred to, Corin was not precisely aware. It showed with the tilt in his gaze and the uncertainty in his voice.

"Among other places," he said with skepticism. There for the hyperspace war, for the Maw poisoning the planet, and for the Jedi reclaiming it. It all made for an odd concoction in the Force, stained with his own tainted presence. Somewhere in the light, in the dark.

"Who are you, exactly? The more common Sith would have tried to kill me by now."

 

[Shade of Decay]

He did not answer, still walking around the young man that had captured his fascination. "Atop Akar Kesh, yes?" he mused, peering at—or, perhaps, through—the knight. "Amongst those who faced down that fool who thought himself the Sith'ari. The echoes of that battle still cling to all who were present, especially those who came to face to face with Solipsis...precious few left of you around, aren't there?" There were those who had died in the battle; then there were those who had died since, and those who had slipped away into obscurity, making their escape even from his notice.

"Unsurprising that one of you should be bold enough to try and cut through Empyrean's wall via the Nether. Or...foolish, perhaps, but both have their place." Facial tendrils curled in some sort of expression of grim mirth. "Luckily for you, perhaps, I'm not in the habit of killing all such I come across. The Jedi—and their ilk—serve an important purpose in the galactic ecosystem. I'm glad to know you haven't all been complacent in the face of such quiet."

He turned, walking down the hall that proceeded from the entrance. More glowpanels in the ceiling activated ahead of him, as he raised a hand and beckoned the Jedi to follow him. "Your name," he rasped, not bothering to turn and watch. "Don't try to run back outside, at least not until you've told me. I'd hate to have to kill you without ever knowing who you were."

Corin Trenor

 

[Corin Trenor]

Shade of Decay

He remembered that encounter as if it were yesterday. His eyes, for a fraction of a moment, were averted. Younger, weaker. Lightning tore through him effortlessly, the stain of Solipsis left on him then.

The beginning of becoming this tainted mess.

"Corin," he answered with flat voice.

A relatively unknown Jedi in the grand scheme of things. A prodigious student of Dagon Kaze who fell to the wayside, vanished from the galactic stage shortly after the disappearance of his master, only to re-emerge largely estranged from the Jedi Order, roaming the outer rim, wild space and the unknown regions. Though notably possessing two Sith glyph imbued eyes, making him an oddity among his kind.

He trailed after the Sith, a sense of quiet caution in each step. Bold or foolish, as the alien said - there were no half-measures to be made, buried so deep in Sith space.

"If you refuse to tell me who you are, you can tell me what you want from me."