UNKNOWN - ARCHAIS
Tag Direct:
Darth Vinaze
|
Vireth
|
Talon Draven
Janus Vipsanius
Tag Indirect:
Shannic Wulf
|
Veodora Kadnessi
|
Derix Tirall
Equipment:
Bōchōr | The Vow of Saud | The Helm of the One-Eyed Prophet | Korrûg Kuûr
What stark contrast, what wondrous opposition.
This place stirred wanderlust in him, a pull he hadn't felt since the events of Cademimu V.
That fateful day. Decades of days dedicated, and every day since.
The birth of the Galactic Empire.
The events of Ord Lithone lingered, they were the pinnacle of his rite of passage as a disciple of the church.
Oh, how he would have wished to besiege Arkania with his brethren, stand beside them in ice-cold trenches, blade drawn.
Crimson red sprawled across frozen white, flaring hues of scarlet and ember, the metallic grays of towering walkers blotting out the horizon.
All the while he would scream passages from their holy book, and douse their foes in fire and flame, burn them, bone, sinew, and all.
He had heard the tales, traded the stories, oh, what a sight it must have been.
But it was not his lot. No, his craft was honed in darkness. No glorious tales of valor, but corpses in alleyways, data heisted from unheard-of vaults in silence, demise dealt by unseen hands, like
Kelig Ward
, a shadow among shadows, victims not knowing of their passing until the instant it was upon them.
Satchel bombers in elevators on Coruscant, Jedi assassinations in the Temple, corporate espionage and infiltration on Ord Lithone.
Such would be his legacies.
Weaker men would succumb to doubt. Weaker men would have wavered, considered alternatives.
Da'Razel was no weaker man. His destiny was clandestine, his threads were his threads to spin, and he would obediently knot the ties of fate until the grand spool yielded no more wool, until his tapestry was realized, until it was time to put his loom down.
His clawed digits curled carefully around a round yellow fruit, not much larger than his fist. He felt the object contract under his grasp, his touch growing delicate not to spoil the food. He lifted it from the maroon-brown dirt back onto the wooden rack of the market stall that carried the wares.
A Native, a human looking male before him, croaked a sound akin to approval.
The red giant inclined his head in the slightest bow.
It was a rare sight, the Devaronian's face a macabre meld of burn wounds atop leathery, sandpaper-like skin in the hues of Korriban's desert sands.
Lips pressed taut. A gaze that impaled. He looked both lost and anchored, drifting elsewhere yet guided towards a unseen destination, as he stalked through the marketplace.
His horns were filed and jagged, more like a Zabrak's crown than the bone spikes of his kin.
He wore a long black tunic, draped from his waist like a robe. Bare feet ending in black talons. His right side was cloaked, his left exposed, swollen chest, muscular shoulder and arm marked with occult sigils. Golden hoops clasped his garb around his abdomen, shoulders, and ankles keeping the cloth in place as it flew and settled in the grassland winds.
His gaze had not yet left the stall before him, enticed by the taste and feel of what was on display.
Then, the sound of muffled boots in the dirt finally pulled his attention aside. A small squad of white-clad troopers patrolled through the market.
In tow marched two humans in well-fitted black uniforms, marked by stripes and insignia Da'Razel did not recognize, but clearly defined them as high standing bureaucratic. Men with career.
Before them trailed a ragged group of prisoners, shackled by their feet and hassled into a hurry by the armed troopers herding them.
The Saint turned his head back to the merchant, whose sorrowful stare clung to his fellow countrymen.
Da'Razel spoke, with a broken Arkanian accent but with well-versed vocabulary:
"What happened to them?"
The man answered, slowing his speech when the priest beckoned him with a hand gesture.
"These men… they were ripped from their homes, their families, for nothing! For suspicion! For beliefs! Just because!"
So often it was nothing but cruel fortune, the wrong place, the wrong time, that tipped fate against you, knocked citizens over the edge, and into the abyss that was the Empire's rustling engine of justice.
It was not his justice.
The Devaronian moved, leaving the fruit vendor behind.
He marched with determined focus, one step after the other, each stride accompanied by the clink and chime of prayer beads, trinkets, flasks, and other utensils on his person.
By the time he reached the group, the prisoners had been forced to their knees, backs against a wall of a neighboring warehouse.
The firing squad stood before them, weapons raised, while the two officers droned out a passage of last rights.
A crowd had formed in the market, but the Saint parted it like a tide and stepped before the troopers.
Their grasp on their weapons tightened. Even without expression, confusion spread among them.
"Get out of the way, or be killed!" one barked.
"You, civilian!" the blackcoat bellowed.
"Stand aside—or by the Emperor's name, be struck down for your insolence, you filthy beggar!"
Da'Razel remained calm. His hand slid into the folds of his tunic, tugging at something within.
The razor-sharp scream of a blaster shot split the air.
Gasps tore through the crowd. Panic rippled among the soldiers.
The bolt froze in place, suspended between muzzle and mark.
The Saint's outstretched palm made it so, twisting and distorting the searing plasma.
An eerie silence fell, like an invisible blanket over those gathered, until the Darksider tore it asunder.
"Are you children of the Empire?" he thundered, gaze locked on the kneeling prisoners.
They returned his stared in blank disbelief.
"My flock, I ask again. Are you not believers? Followers of our Emperor?"
Grasping this second chance, many nodded, others murmured in assent.
"Yes, lord… yes, we are."
"Do you see?" The Saint turned back to the troopers, his other hand revealing a large medallion, a mark of his station as a high-ranking member of the Church. A credential not all troopers fully understood, but one whose weight could not be denied.
"These men and women kneeling before us are your brothers, your sisters. We are all children of the Great Emperor, our god, our savior, our fate."
With noticeable exertion he curved the trajectory of the fired shot upwards, it bend like a weak beam of iron, before the force holding it back was released and it hissed once more escpaing into the sky above.
He swayed to one side than the other like a priest before an altar, sermon swelling across the crowd.
"My fair people of Hirkenburg, rejoice! You are now within His embrace. You see only turmoil, only change, but hear me. This change is necessary."
His arms lifted high, as if to embrace them all.
"Look past the cold steel of bureaucracy. It is but a vessel, but a tool, needed to touch a thousand planets, to contain a billion people and billions more after. Within it lies warmth, within it lies destiny. Within it, each of us has a place, a calling."
He pointed to the shackled men before him.
"You, and you, and you, all of you have a calling in this new Empire. You have been set free. Yes, it will be hard. Yes, it will be tough. But now you have a chance. A chance at a new life. A better life. A life dedicated to your new God"
Whispers spread, fearful, others excited. Even the officers exchanged faltered glances.
"My siblings, let us kneel together. Kneel like these men before you. Pray. Pray for us, and for all those who are yet to join our flock. Today, we embrace them. Today, we make them part of something greater. Together, we make something greater."
The Saint suddenly held a scroll, parchment unrolling in his grip, one end raised into the air, the other falling before his bare feet.
At first only a few troopers. those already believers at heart, dropped down. Then, as Da'Razel's pale gaze pierced the crowd, more joined. And more still. Even the officers, at last, bowed.
"Repeat after me."
"Zi'lah do'kuut. Miis do'Jidai. Tyûk do'Jen'ari."
And so his sermon continued, each voice in the choir pledging their soul to their Emperor.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Da'Razel had almost arrived too late to the gathering.
Deep underground, in a facility founded long ago by an on-world cell of the Church, the lords, saints, prophets, and heads of the order convened, ready to indulge in discussions of the past, haggle about future outcomes and strike arrangements yet to be made.
It was the first time he had gathered enough favor, enough standing, to be granted access.
Most of its members where elsewhere, ghastly illuminations cast across the stars.
He stood amongst the many black garbs, operatives of the Church, silent sentinels.
The visage of their Grand Master, Chief Minister
Janus Vipsanius
, made his heart pound audibly. The great herald of the Church blessed them with his address, delivering the distilled will of collective belief.
Da'Razel was honored.
The voice that followed, he recognized instantly. Even in the faint blue shimmer of the hololithic display, no one could withstand those eyes, that golden gleam.
Vireth
. His heart lifted at the sight of his compatriot. It had not been long since their shared operation, since her injuries—and yet she stood a perfect image of cold-blooded composure, ever prepared. Her logic was flawless. Her plan, commendable. Had he been allowed, he would have roared in agreement. Instead, he remained a silhouette among other silhouettes, a black-clad figure among black-clad figures.
Yet even among the nameless, the operators, the assets, the next apparition that shimmered into the forefront loosed murmurs and whispers across the chamber.
It could not be…
Darth Vinaze
. Believed to have perished more than two years ago, in the same conflict that had claimed a life of their Lord.
If one considered the Dark Side Elite the prophets of the Church, then Darth Vinanze was an archangel, one of the first, a force before their forces had been formed, a cosmic storm that walked in flesh.
The Devaronian had difficulty concentrating. Part of him longed to back-trace the signal of the projection beacon; if he had direct access, he might have discerned the Lord's true location. But he bit his tongue instead.
The mere mention of the
Keepers sent another ripple of reactions among the gathered. Legends within legends. Secrets within secrets. Ghosts that slew demons.
Before he could act, another figure took to the blue-lit podium. Da'Razel did not know this man,
Talon Draven
but he felt the truth in his words. His own heart could have spoken the same.
It was time to act now. One last look. Even draped in black, he recognized most of the shadows that lingered in the darker recesses of the assembly.
And then he stepped forward, out of line. With a press of a button, his own figure projected into the midst of the council.
"High Lords. Ladies. Brothers. Sisters. Our holiness, Chief Minister Janus Vipsanius. I am Saint Peterius, a humble servant, a devout vessel of our God-Emperor's will.
I plead my case, my lords: let us, your true believers, raise your monuments in His glory and topple those of the faithless. Let us herd this flock until they too are astute believers.
Archais will not fall. Archais will rise, an altar-world, a beacon of worship. While stale bureaucracy shuffles paper, the Church bends not stone or steel, but souls.
This can be the first of many. Civilizations conquered , not by battle, but by sermon. Not by conquest, but by conversion. An Empire of believers, for our God-Emperor.
My lords… let me serveee."
He almost hissed these last syllables, his words ripe with devotion, his gospel so raw from his heart. Then the Saint dropped to one knee, bowing his head before the council, pleading for both their forgiveness and their mercy.