Private The Creation of Monsters | Halketh

[Darth Vinaze]

Caught in a Sith Spell, Unknown Location
Halketh ​

Odojinya. Derleth was familiar with the spell, which made made him all the more surprised that he had been caught in it. He had assumed the New-Imperials had finally caught him and that by now he would be facing the firing squad. Instead he was locked in a cocoon of dark magic that only someone powerful in the dark side could create. After Bastion, there shouldn't have been anyone like that in the New Order. Thus he began to consider who else might want him dead or imprisoned. The Sith Emperor was high on that list, but Derleth had not even been on Bastion when Darth Voyance declared her kaggath. He was probably nothing more than an ant in the peripheral vision of the Emperor. The Jedi perhaps? Not likely. Derleth had only crossed paths with a handful of Jedi in his life, and none that would be able to perform such a feat as this.

He was a sorcerer captured by sorcery. How ironic. How sad. The room was dark, but his Umbaran eyes made him see perfectly clear. The room was not much different from the one he himself would have kept prisoners in back on Exegol or Sepulcher. Both worlds he was now estranged from, wandering the Sith Empire in search of power and knowledge as he had in his youth. It had been quite some time since he had engaged in his most beloved pastime that was the creation of monsters. Sometimes he wished he would go back to the library on Exegol, but that planet had little more to give him. He was also unsure if he would make it out alive from this current predicament.

"Show yourself. What is the meaning of this?" Derleth called out loudly so his captor might hear, but with his typical monotone, calm voice. If he was going to die he would at least like to see the face of the man who out-witted him...

 

[Halketh]

D E P R A V I T Y
ENTER THE VULTURE

CAST | Darth Vinaze
STAGE | FACILITY 42A - CARLAC
∞

​

In the tumultuous aftermath of Kyber Dark, the Sith's time had been declared short. The raging machine of the New Imperial Order was to sweep across the galaxy, extinguishing those who kept to that creed- the creed which had existed long before they ever had. Such was the way of the slow spiral; the new would always seek the destruction of the old. The room was not unlike any other nondescript holding cell, save for the Sith Lord bound in sickening coils of Dark Side energy, leeching and lashing at the sorcerer's being. It was not a pleasant experience. It was not one of kindness. No hand of compassion held him up from the cold durasteel floor, suspended there by fiery whips meant to cut through to the bone- or so it felt.​

​

Torture of the body would only go so far. Pain was easy to understand. But the very sap of energy from the veins of a being so reliant on The Force for strength, now that was something far more sinister. Far more agonizing. It was the slowest death, drawn out for as long as the one who had woven the incantation would allow it to be.​

​

And as the Sith Lord cried out into the dimness of the room, he was met by only silence. ​

​

Hours of it. ​

​

The preparations had to be made for his fate. These things took time.​

​

Eventually, however, light would beam into the room as the door to Derleth's front slid open, spilling the fluorescence into the chamber. The long drawn shadow of a humanoid frame disrupted the cast of this light, shrouding the Umbaran's sensitive eyes from the sharpness of it. Footsteps echoed as the silhouette drew closer, stopping a mere meter or two away. The layers of black wrapped around it settled in a gentle rustle and steadily, the hood of its head tilted up. No features could be made out, despite his expanded sight. Where there should have been a face, features- humanity- there was only a void.​

​

Judging by the swelling unease in the room with the figure's entry, this was the one he had shouted for.​

​

"Hello, little Sith Lord," Lord Halketh's voice purred off his tongue, dripping with silken delight at the situation he had orchestrated, "Tis time for your medicine."​

 

[Darth Vinaze]

Halketh​

For hours he yelled. It began with demands to know his captor, to understand him. As the life force was drained from him, Derleth's calm veneer began to break. Even if the Sith had looked down upon it he was always proud of his ability to hide his emotions, to let them fester and boil beneath the surface. That was a true feeling of power. Yet as dark side energy pulled him apart his emotions began to roam free, and the feeling of powerlessness came over him.

It began with rage. Perhaps the strongest of emotions. Derleth did his best to yell, to protest his captivity, to break free of his bonds. But alas nothing would do that. Trying to move any piece of his body in the slightest felt like his muscles were being stretched and warped, and it always resulted in nothing. He was trapped completely.

After hours came fear. The most primal of emotions. His voice was hoarse and and strained, his muscles were burning, but felt like they had withered away to nothing. No one should feel that feeling. Derleth remembered all the people he had done things like this to. The people he had maimed and killed for power, information, or plain satisfaction. It felt like Derleth was dealing with a mirror of himself, and he had no idea what to do. He could scream no longer, his body was numb and empty, and his mind was wracked by unbridled fear and confusion.

He stared at the floor. He had already lost track of time, now he began to lose track of self. Emotions he had pent up for years, that he had learned to control with prowess, had come and gone in a matter of hours. The leeching sensation that he could feel surrounding him in the force clouded his mental imagery. After hours of this torture he couldn't bring himself to argue, to hate his captor, even if deep down it was all he wanted to do.

When his captor finally entered the room, a silhouette in the light that Derleth could barely raise his eyes to see, the fear began to swell once more. If this man was quite as much like himself as he believed, nothing good was about to come.

"Who..." was all of the sentence that Derleth could form. He may not have been able to ask his question, but he was certain he would learn a thing or two about this man in the coming hours. You can tell a lot about a man by the way they torture others...

 

[Halketh]

D E P R A V I T Y
ENTER THE VULTURE

CAST | Darth Vinaze
STAGE | FACILITY 42A - CARLAC
∞

"Who?" Halketh echoed with some wistful sigh parting from his nose, "The answer to all the questions you've ever asked yourself." An unnecessarily cryptic answer to spare the man who had accepted his fate nothing. Distinctly scarred hands lifted from the depths of the cloaks Halketh wore, gesturing as he stepped backward, tugging the snare to pull Derleth with him. "I do hope the wait was not too intolerable, there were many preparations to be made. Much to be done. Your arrival was... unexpected." ​

So this wasn't a revenge plot.​

Halketh didn't even know who he was.​

It was random.​

The Sith Lord was lofted along as Halketh turned his back, walking down the narrow, fluorescent corridor which rank of bacta and sterilization, complimented only by the dreadful undertone of distinctly rotten flesh. It was subtle, but the nauseating smell was still there. Every door they passed was closed, offering no preview as to what the Umbaran should expect. The only sound which surrounded both of them was the hollow tap of the lord's boots against the polished floor as he ventured on gleefully. Just before the end of the corridor, where a door resembling one belonging to a safe stood guard, Halketh turned sharply and drew Derleth into the room with him. The door was closed behind them by a figure waiting, and soon, the much smaller, slimmer shape stepped up to peer at the Sith Lord- just as thoroughly masked as the lord was.​

"He's still conscious? I'm surprised." A feminine voice rolled from the figure. "The table's ready."​

"Wonderful, let's get him situated then, shall we?"​

This room was very different from the last. Arranged at the center of the room was a raised block with a series of robotic arms stretching down from a hub centralized over it. Tools rested on tables to each side and at the foot and head of the chrome table stood strange, obsidian-like stones. There was a subtle, passive power from these, though the closer Derleth was pushed towards them, the tighter that dreadful knot his stomach had been twisted into likely became.​

He wasn't a prisoner, he may have realized then, he was a test subject.​

 

[Darth Vinaze]

Halketh​

As he was paraded down the hall, his situation became more clear. Paraded for whom? No one but the force itself. If the galaxy was a stage, he was being forced on to it, bound and alone, the only member of the audience may well have been whatever entity the force truly was, staring in horror at depraved way its children used its gifts. He felt like the force had been drained from him, his connection desperately cling on to the last of his mangled sinew. If there were anyone else around who wasn't a subject of his captor or someone who worked for the man, though it was highly unlikely, they might only have felt the smallest presence in the force, like that of an infant manifesting their powers for the first time.

Derleth chided himself for his weakness. This may not even have been real. The feeling of emptiness in his body and soul could very well be a result of the emptiness in his mind. In the hours that he had been bound he felt as if he had not eaten or slept in days. His body felt like it wasted away from his bones. If that were truly the case, Derleth could not see why his captor would want the emaciated husk of a Sith Lord. Then again, there was little he could do to understand anything in the moment. His torturer's motive was sealed by a wall of haze in his mind. He was awake, he was perceiving his surroundings, yet in his mind it was like he was walking in complete darkness.

Darkness was almost unfamiliar to Umbarans, which frightened him the most. And the Dark Side of the Force was supposed to be a pathway to illumination and power, yet right now it failed him on both accounts.

As they entered the room at the end of the hall he was washed over by a nauseating sensation. He could feel it emanating from the stones that flanked the table he was now being put on. He felt as though he was about to vomit, but had nothing to eject from his body.

They had joined with another of his captors. She examined him closely, Derleth did no do the same. He stared with dead eyes at the woman, but took in none of her features. It wasn't going to matter soon.

As they finally laid him on the table, he stared up at the robotic operating arms. It was then that he reached the peak of his awareness, or so he believed. He had spent years using magic in his operations, honouring the ancient ways the best he could. He knew that mechanical aid could be of use, but he never attempted it. He knew one story of its folly the best. Derleth had studied Sidious his entire life, and he knew one creation of the Dark Lord's had relied on mechanical aid. It had created his worst monster...

 

[Halketh]

D E P R A V I T Y
ENTER THE VULTURE

CAST | Darth Vinaze
STAGE | FACILITY 42A - CARLAC
∞

Halketh hummed softly as he secured the man down, latching the steel locks into place properly and tugging at them roughly. Secure. Marvelous. "Get him some water, would you kindly?" He spoke to the woman on the other side of Derleth who nodded in response and quietly left the room, sealing the door behind her as she went. Without turning his head up, the miraluka grasped the control rail of the mechanized assistance hanging above, pulling it on its rail to the side. This removed that looming threat as well as the beaming light directly over the Umbaran's body. "You feel that, don't you?" He asked as he turned to brush his fingers along the tools arranged to his side, finding the first of a series of syringes. Its contents were sickly and dark, resembling oil of sorts in the sluggish disruption his palming of it brought the vial. "And you've accepted it, hm?" ​

​

The Vulture trailed the tips of two fingers along Derleth's arm, tapping gently to feel for the slight bounce of major vein beneath his bared flesh. "Unfortunately, you'll feel this too. We'll see if you accept it or not, in time." He found his mark and pressed the needle to the skin, puncturing through- and as he slowly compressed the plunger, the Sith Lord's veins would blaze like molten iron was pumping into them.​

​

It was a prolonged experience, as the liquid itself had such a thick consistency that it took a considerable amount of time to funnel it all through such a narrow space. But once he had, that burning sensation rapidly became widespread, likely spread in such rapid disperse by the hastening of heart. Halketh placed the empty syringe down and stood back, senses alight as he waited.​

​

Somewhere, deep within Derleth's being, he might have felt a shift. A strange squirming sensation as his body struggled with the toxic mixture he had just been injected with. ​

 

[Darth Vinaze]

Halketh​

Accepted it? Perhaps. He liked to believe in this instant that he would fight back if he only could. But of course he could do no such thing. The needle sunk deep into his flesh and he roared with pain and anger. The fiery feeling that began coursing through his blood felt as if he was immolating. His whole body tensed up to absorb the pain. He gritted his teeth hard enough that he felt they might crack. Slowly the pain subsided and he came back into the focus of the world, not consumed by the pain. His insides felt less like they were on fire now, and more like they were smoldering. As the pain subsided he began to feel less altogether. His mouth had gone numb and he lost a sense of his limbs. If this were general anesthetic he would have been unconscious within seconds. This was some form of numbing agent, no doubt so his captor could revel in Derleth's fully aware misery in whatever was about to come. Derleth knew he would have enjoyed this if the roles were reversed.

After all the years of subjecting people to this form of treatment, he pondered if he would ever do it again should he survive this. And then it dawned on him. This was not karma of the force, but rather the force was testing him. The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. He was weak in this instant, but he knew that this would only make him stronger if he survived. The Sith were no strangers to harrowing experiences, or at least that was expected of them.

He thought back to his youth and the ritualistic murder of his master that so many young Sith engaged in. It had been a standard tradition for 2000 years with roots going back even further. It had arrived at the point where there was little challenge, and the masters simply accepted their fate for the good of the Sith. It had made the Sith ultimately weaker. Few Sith had to endure trials such as this, and Derleth deserved this. He had been a young man when he killed his master, and he had not taken the title of Darth. No one but Derleth himself had recognized him as a lord of the Sith. Perhaps no one would, and his death here today would be entirely ignominious.

But if he could channel the dark side, if he could only reach out and reconnect through the haze... then perhaps he could turn his suffering into strength. Perhaps the Code was right. Perhaps the Force shall free him...

 

[Halketh]

D E P R A V I T Y
THE VULTURE

CAST | Darth Vinaze
STAGE | FACILITY 42A - CARLAC
∞

Tsaiwinokka Hoyakut. ​

​

Reanimate dead. ​

​

It was a complexity of its own, really, as complex as the conjurations requiring one to instill life force inside of another to restore wounds, but there was something far more to necromancy. It was nuanced where healing was so simple, even if the acts often felt as though they foiled one another almost directly. Halketh considered this as he sensed the struggle taking place within the Sith Lord. Would he survive the first dose, or would he go into systemic shock and ultimately cardiac arrest? A curious gamble for the sake of progress, no doubt. Should he have survived, then great, it was another minor victory to add to the tally board. Had he perished, it was only more notes and an adjustment of theory before The Vulture would simply scrape him up off the table and reanimate him as another marching corpse in his personal rank.​

But was there a way to achieve a similar vitality and control without having to slaughter soldiers like pigs?​

​

Curious.​

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His hidden face harrowed with a smirk tugged across his scarred lips. This one was a fighter. Good.​

​

The sealed door unlocked and opened, and with it came the light patter of the familiar footsteps from the woman. She hummed along as she walked, seemingly as unperturbed by all of this as the man she joined was. But yet, she drew closer to Derleth, offering him the mouthpiece of a water bottle. It was a strange gesture given the torturous hours he had endured thus far, but it was seemingly important to both of them that he was given his basic necessities. "Here, let me do that dear, you record the findings thus far." Lord Halketh reached to take the bottle from her and they switched places over him, with the sorcerer now extending the water to the Umbaran.​

​

"Fine, fine." The woman moved to a portion of the room out of Derleth's periphery- given that his forehead was strapped down too. The faint beep of datapad echoed through the otherwise silence.​

​

"So, Sith Lord." Halketh cleared his throat, "What is your name, hm? For the record, please." He extended courtesy before anything, at least in this case. It was up to Derleth to decide if he would cooperate or not.​

 

[Darth Vinaze]

Halketh

The cool water trickled down his cracked throat, and he struggled to swallow. How humiliating. The water felt less like an act of charity to Derleth and more like just another way to remind him of his mortal fragility.

His captor asked him his name. For the record no less.

This man was a professional, clearly. But Derleth would not indulge him any further.

"I am... no.. one." was Derleth's simple reply, spoken through cracked lips and the rasp that had suppressed his normal deep, dark voice. His name mattered not. If he survived today, Derleth Par would be dead and gone. Par was a weak man, clinging to the shadows left by greater beings of eons past. Whoever was yet to come would make those shadows his own. The man who was yet to come had no name, but Derleth willed himself above the man he had been before today. Therefore he was no one, and his captor would have to suffice with that.

Derleth closed his eyes for whatever was going to come. He focused and thought back to his meditations in the deepest crypts of sepulcher in which light had never touched. Anything to take him out of the moment and back to a time when the force had been with him, and he had felt at one with it. Therein would lie his strength. He only had to reach it to become a new man...