Private Swamprat Boogie

[Seth Denko]

FIRST MOON OF KOTHLIS
Somewhere in the Mirewood Basin...

The landing was smooth — too smooth for a place like this.

Seth Denko pulled his cloak tighter as the ramp hissed open, the humid air rolling in thick and wet. The smell hit first: stagnant water, rot clinging low beneath the sway of towering swamp willows, the buzz of insects filling every gap between. Somewhere out there, a marshbird cried, long and sharp, before the muck swallowed the sound whole.

He adjusted the strap on his shoulder, saber tucked beneath the folds of red and gold, eyes lifting toward the silhouette ahead.

“Master Korran,” Seth called lightly, boots finding uneasy purchase on the soft ground. “Tell me we packed enough anti-fungal for this little outing.”

The elder Jedi didn’t so much as glance back, already moving down the ramp, calm as you please. Tall, lean, face carved from the same stone as his will — Master Eiren Korran was the kind of man who wore silence like armor. Gray streaked through his dark hair at the temples, braid tucked neat beneath the hood, and those pale blue eyes held steady on the horizon.

“If you keep your footing,” Korran replied dryly, “you won’t need it.”

Seth huffed a quiet breath through his nose, stepping out after him into the murk. The water lapped at the edges of the landing site, green with algae, and every step forward sank just enough to remind him how much the land here wanted to swallow you whole.

The ruins weren’t far — maybe two clicks north, half-choked beneath the moss and the tangle of the Mirewood. But even here, standing at the edge of the basin, Seth could feel it.

That pull.

It wasn’t loud. Wasn’t screaming. Just… there. Coiling slow beneath the surface like something waiting for the right moment to rise.

“Do you feel it?” Seth asked, voice dropping low as his eyes scanned the treeline ahead.

Korran gave a faint nod, lips pressed into a thin line.

“The Dark Side lingers,” the Master answered. “Not just in the stone. In the air itself.”

They started forward, careful steps through the knee-high reeds, the path winding between gnarled roots and half-sunken logs. Above them, the canopy broke only in slivers, letting the pale light of Kothlis’ distant sun drip down in ribbons, faint and gray.

The further they pressed, the heavier it became. Not the air — not really. The weight sat somewhere behind the ribs. A quiet pressure, like the hold of a breath that never let go.

Seth kept one hand near the hilt at his hip, the other brushing aside the thick curtains of hanging moss as they moved.

“What’s the plan if we find them already waiting?” he asked, casting a glance toward Korran.

The Master’s pace never faltered.

“We’re scouts, not soldiers.”

Another step. Another soft splash of water beneath their boots.

“We watch,” Korran said. “We listen. And if we’re wise…”

His gaze turned, sharp as a blade now, meeting Seth’s fully for the first time since they’d landed.

“…we leave before they ever know we were here.”

Ahead, just beyond the next bend, the first spires of the temple’s ruin clawed up from the mire, slick with moss and time. And beneath it all, that pull only grew stronger.

Like the moon itself was holding its breath.

Waiting.​

Bane Kaohal​

 

[Bane Kaohal]

"Like a wolf tears at a lambs throat..."

Seth Denko​

Bane moved through the overgrown corridor of the ruined temple with a languid, almost meandering gait. The humid murk of Mirewood Basin pressed in around him, yet he remained unruffled—each step measured and calculated, as though the ancient decay and the lingering stench of the Dark Side were but a subdued backdrop to his singular purpose.

His acolytes, a ragtag group drawn to his sheer power and promise of forbidden knowledge, trailed behind like shadows. To him, they were nothing more than expendable tools—warm bodies destined to fade into insignificance once their purpose was fulfilled. They had chosen to follow him, believing in the allure of darkness he embodied, yet their loyalty was as fragile and transient as a whisper in the void.

Bane's left elbow rested casually against the hilt of Shadowrend, its obsidian blade etched with dark runes that gleamed with an eerie red light beneath the pale beams slicing through the ancient canopy. His hand, tucked securely into the sleeve of his traditional kama, moved with a nonchalant readiness that belied the deadly precision he possessed.

Pausing before a moss-choked archway, his amber eyes—molten and unyielding—traced the temple's intricate decay. He was here to retrieve a Sith relic for a benefactor whose benevolence was but a clever guise. In truth, once the relic was secured, Bane planned to dispatch his patron and abscond with the money, leaving nothing but whispers in the darkness behind him.

As he surveyed the delicate layers of dark energy that veiled the ruins, something shifted in the Force. In a subtle, almost imperceptible moment, Bane sensed it—a disturbance beneath the usual decay. There, like a tasteless intrusion, the presence of those devoted to the Light made itself known. A faint, unwelcome sensation echoed in his mind—a reminder that the zeal of the so-called righteous had begun to encroach upon his domain. His eyes hardening, Bane allowed himself a brief, disdainful smile as he acknowledged the intrusion.

"Prepare yourselves," he declared in a low, gravelly tone, his voice carrying the weight of cold determination. "The artifact is near. Maintain your vigilance—and if any of you falter, know that my mercy is as fleeting as the shadows."

His words cut through the humid silence, harsh and unyielding. The acolytes exchanged anxious glances, their uncertainty only adding fuel to the ember of contempt burning in his gaze. For Bane, every step forward was a testament to unerring focus—a deliberate stride on a dark, chosen path. The temple's weight, akin to the pull of a long-forgotten moon, resonated through his very being, guiding his calculated moves.

With one last measured glance at the ruined arch, Bane advanced deeper into the labyrinthine depths, where the Sith relic awaited. Behind him, the acolytes fell in line, their presence serving only as a reminder of the transitory nature of power in a world where loyalty was bought and discarded. In the oppressive silence of the ancient stone, buried beneath the creeping vines and dark energies, Bane's resolve crystallized. Here, in these forsaken ruins, every whisper of the Force—and every intrusion of light—only steeled him further for the lethal dance of betrayals and vanishing acts that was his alone to direct.

 

[Seth Denko]

MIREWOOD BASIN, KOTHLIS
Outer Perimeter, Sith Ruins

The stone gave beneath their boots with a soft grit, swallowed quickly by the curtain of damp silence. Seth moved low, cloaked in shadow, following Master Korran’s lead as they breached the ruins' edge. The pillars loomed before them—massive, timeworn statues of long-forgotten figures whose faces had been half-erased by the creeping moss and centuries of rainfall.

Korran stopped behind the nearest one, hand bracing lightly against the stone. Seth mirrored the motion a few paces to the left, ducking behind a second effigy carved in the likeness of some long-dead warrior—its sword now cracked at the hilt, pointed uselessly at the mire.

The Master’s voice came soft, just enough to cross the distance between them.

“It’s here,” Korran murmured. “At the center. Like a heart… beating slow, but strong. Old power. Feral.”

Seth didn’t respond right away. His fingers slid to the saber at his side, drawing the hilt into his palm. He didn’t ignite it—yet—but the cool weight grounded him, a quiet anchor against the pressure crawling beneath his ribs.

They moved again, silent as they could manage through the rot-slick stone, slipping behind the jagged remains of what might’ve once been a courtyard wall. From there, they saw them: shapes moving between the ruin’s broken paths—figures draped in dark robes, backs bowed beneath the oppressive air, their eyes darting nervously between shadows.

Seth’s gaze sharpened. One… two… three…

Korran began counting as well, voice barely a whisper. “Five… no—six.”

And then—
A flicker of motion.
One of the Acolytes paused, turned—
Eyes locked onto the pale edge of Korran’s cloak as it shifted with the wind.

“There!” the Acolyte cried, voice cutting through the stillness like a blade. One hand shot forward, and with a snarl of unfocused rage, a scatter of stone fragments ripped from the floor and hurtled toward the Jedi Master.

Korran moved with frightening speed—body dipping, cloak flaring, the stones missing by mere inches. He slid into position beside Seth, breath steady despite the sudden chaos.

“Run.”

Seth didn’t hesitate. So much for watching.

They broke into motion, boots hammering down the uneven corridor floor as more voices rose behind them—shouts, curses, the flicker of dark energy stirring in the air like smoke before flame.

They darted down the nearest passage, stone walls flashing past, the ancient ruin now very much awake.​

Bane Kaohal​

 

[Bane Kaohal]

P R E D A T O R Y

Seth Denko
​

The air in the ruins was damp with age, thick with a silence that felt less like stillness and more like restraint—like the breath of something ancient, coiled and waiting. Dust hung in the air, disturbed only by the scuffle of boots and the breathless murmurs of fools who had already forgotten their place.

Bane lingered at the rear, not because he followed, but because he observed. The others—the Acolytes—scrambled forward with the unthinking urgency of prey mistaking itself for predator. They darted between pillars and broken walls, voices rising in alarm, chasing shadows as if they had the right.

They did not.

The one who broke formation first was already dead. He simply hadn't realized it yet.

Bane moved through the shadows like mist drawn into form, his body coalescing from darkness in a way that felt less like motion and more like inevitability. No rustle of cloth, no sound of footfall—only the sudden presence of something that had always been there, watching.

Steel slid free in a slow, deliberate arc—no flourish, no effort wasted. The katana, held in a reverse grip, gleamed briefly in the half-light before its work was done. A single stroke, precise and final.

The Acolyte's body jerked once and dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, limbs slackening as blood began to pool beneath him, thick and slow. The others froze. No one spoke. They didn't need to. The message had already been delivered.

Bane didn't even look down.

He stepped over the corpse as though it were no more than a puddle, the blade returning to its sheath with a quiet hiss of completion. His eyes swept across the remaining figures, all of them suddenly very still—backs straightening, gazes lowered, the illusion of confidence peeled back like dead skin.

"You do not chase without sanction," he said, voice level and cool, the words cutting cleaner than the blade had.

No one moved.

"You do not strike unless I will it. You speak only when commanded."

Each sentence flowed like river ice, smooth on the surface, but death-cold beneath. There was no fury in his tone, only disdain—the kind that came from a place so far above them they were not worth anger.

"You are not wolves," he continued, taking a measured step closer, and the ruin itself seemed to flinch with the weight of it. "Wolves earn their place."

He raised his hand, one long finger pointing toward the path where the younger Jedi had vanished into the dark. "Bring him down. Carve the strength from him if you find any, and leave what's left for the worms."

The Acolytes moved without a word. They had learned, at least, to obey when reminded.

But Bane was no longer watching the Acolytes.

His gaze had shifted—drawn, not merely by presence, but by something quieter, more stubborn—like a flame refusing to go out in the rain.

Master Korran stood beneath the fractured gaze of a weather-worn effigy, half-shrouded in the moss-veiled light. One hand rested against the stone, steady, unmoving, as if holding up more than just himself. There was no fear in him. But neither was there challenge. The Jedi's eyes were calm, and in that calm, Bane read the marks of a man who had seen too much to start flinching now.

Bane's head tilted slightly, the barest motion—measured, quiet, yet unmistakably predatory.

His stare fixed upon the old man like a blade testing for soft spots in armor. Was there strength still buried in that weathered frame? Or only brittle philosophy clothed in a faded robe?

He didn't speak.

He didn't need to.

The question hung in the charged space between them, unspoken but undeniable:

Will you die easily, old man? Or should I ignore you altogether?

The ruins seemed to lean in with him, the air between them thickening with the hum of unseen power. The artifact called from below, ancient and hungry, and Bane could feel its pulse syncing with his own—slow, deliberate, inevitable.

Let the Acolytes chase scraps.

He was here for something deeper.

And if the Jedi chose to stand in his way?

Then the ruin would have one more body to bury.

 

[Seth Denko]

MIREWOOD BASIN
Inner Corridors, Sith Ruins

The scream never came.

Seth only saw it—the blade, the flash, the body folding like cloth—and felt the sickening finality that followed. No dramatic flair. No rage. Just precision. One moment there were six voices echoing through the halls. The next, five—and not one of them willing to speak.

He knew, in that instant, who was in charge.

The figure—tall, slow-moving, effortless—moved like gravity bent around him. Seth’s breath hitched, but only for a second. Then Master Korran stepped forward from the shadows, quiet but unflinching. His stance shifted, his head turning ever so slightly toward the pursuing Acolytes.

“Change of plans.”

The voice was in his head—clear, calm, and unmistakable.

“I’ll hold them off. You push forward. Find what’s beating at the heart of this place. If you can seal it or destroy it, do it. If not… run. I’ll be right behind you.”

Seth opened his mouth to argue, but the sudden boom of stone striking stone cut him off.

Master Korran raised both hands, and with a fluid motion, wrenched the ruin itself to life. Masonry ripped from the walls, broken statues soared overhead, and a storm of ancient stone answered his call. The first Acolyte barely had time to scream before a broken effigy crushed him mid-step.

Seth didn’t wait.

He turned, darting down a parallel corridor, his boots skidding against damp stone as he moved. He stuck close to the walls, breath tight in his chest, ignoring the rising tension that clawed at the edges of his thoughts. Korran could handle himself. He had to.

The passage twisted and narrowed, branches splitting off like veins until—
light.

He burst out onto a half-collapsed balcony, wind curling through the gnarled arches. And there, below—

The man with the katana.

Still. Waiting. Watching.

There was no cover. No more running. Seth came to a stop at the edge of the overlook, his body tense and still buzzing from the sprint. For a second, he just stared—trying to feel what this was. The pull beneath the earth. The pulse in the air. And the predator in the middle of it all.

His thumb flicked the emitter, and his saber snapped to life with a growl of blue fire. No flourish. Just purpose.

He stared down at the killer with the blade, voice echoing just enough to carry across the distance.

“Do you always butcher your help?” he called down, angling the blade slightly. “Or is today just an off day?”

The words hit dry and sharp—Nar Shaddaa snark with an edge of unspoken fury. Seth didn’t flinch. Didn’t posture. Just waited, blade humming beside him, like he was ready to cut the heart out of the ruin itself if it meant keeping Korran alive.

Whatever this thing was at the center of Mirewood…

He was going to see it for himself.​

Bane Kaohal​