Junction The Divide | TSC & TSO & ME Junction of Carratos, Ank Kit'aar, Sarka | IC

[Darth Prazutis]

The God of the Graves didn't arrive so much as appear.

A colossus cut from the deepest nightmares, a legendary figure wrought in the blackest pages of history formed amidst the darkness, and allowed His suffocating shadow to pass over the assembled individuals like a Grave Sovereign presiding over the death knell of a broken world. The scent of blood, ash, fire, and the dissonant, agonized whimpers and agonized screaming of those choked beneath His dominion snaked through the room, caressing its walls and bouncing like a distant echo chamber of warning. The giant wore no vestments fit for war, carried no weapons and yet that made it worse, it forced those in the room to witness the totality of His horror, His hair cut short and facial hair carefully curated framing the visage of a conqueror of stars, a face whose microexpressions were so buried it'd drive a lorrdian insane, trying to decipher intention and predict what flowed.​

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He wore layered robes of black death-weave and richly patterned brocade, their severe tailoring accentuating the breadth of His shoulders. A high, flared collar framed His jaw, its crimson edging continuing down the front of the outer robe. Intricate embroidery wound along His sleeves and cuffs, while subtler patterns lay almost concealed within the black fabric, emerging wherever the light caught the weave. An ash-white runed stole rested across His shoulders, its twin lengths falling down His chest beneath columns of angular Sith glyphs embroidered in black and blood-red thread. Fine blood-aurodium chains swept between three crimson gemstone settings across His breast, with a slender, pointed pendant suspended beneath them. At His waist, a broad sash of gathered black silk was secured by a circular clasp bearing a scarlet emblem. Heavy rings adorned His bare fingers, their dark stones and rune carved settings completing the austere splendor of His regalia.​

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The Arch-Butcher was here.​

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Beside Him stood a horror drawn from the blackest pits that could only be described as destruction given form. A mountainous Graug of such size, his immensity eclipsed everything in the assembled room, a figure more fit for a battlefield than a council with his arm an immense cannon, and his left hand gripping a huge axe. High Warlord Malgrog the God-Splitter, the Cl'ogag-Hai of the Daeux Los'ar. The other side stood a figure smaller smaller in stature but casting an imposing presence of his own, the Bringer of War, the Warmaster of the Kainate. These two were living destroyers who coordinated among the greatest legions of the sith ever assembled, bringing brilliance and different perspectives to their undying master. Fresh off the devastating victories of the Sith at Abregado-rae and Thyferra, it showed the galaxy that the iron curtain of Sith dominion was closing once more.​

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Next steps must be taken, to ensure it remains so.​

Srina Talon | Aether Verd | Mercy | Quinn Varanin
Arris Windrun | Lirka Ka | Mia Monroe | Lily Rhodes
Adelle Bastiel | Ivalyn Yvarro | Kurayami Bloodborn | Astra Sadow
Leontis Antalis | Zeptepi Zambrano | Gerwald Lechner | Nagual
Varin Mortifer | CT-312 | Darth Carnifex | Siv Kryze
Amelia von Sorenn | Darth Reign | Veyla Krinn | Dral-Kar'ta Saandyr | Adonis Angelis IV​

 

[Seren Gwyn]

Objective: 3
Tag: Tobias Dib

Seren had been content to remain several paces behind the others as they continued deeper into the tomb, allowing their conversation to fade gradually into the strange quiet surrounding them. The farther they traveled, the more difficult it became to reconcile what she saw with what she knew of the complex. There should have been dust beneath their feet, erosion along the stone, some evidence that thousands of years had passed since anyone had walked these corridors. Instead, the tomb seemed less abandoned than waiting, and that difference bothered her considerably more. She slowed whenever they passed another opening branching away from the main passage, amber eyes searching briefly into each before she continued.

Then someone spoke her name.

Seren stopped immediately. She knew the voice, though recognition brought with it an association considerably more complicated than it had been before Thyferra. Her attention shifted toward the adjoining corridor, and the enormous silhouette concealed within the darkness resolved into Tobias as he stepped into view. For a moment, another image occupied the same space in her memory. Blue light instead of crimson. A Jedi standing beside her in a refinery while the battlefield collapsed around them, accepting her surrender and placing himself between her and dangers she could no longer defend herself against. Troigs had kept his word. He had protected her all the way to the prisoner transport, and only afterward had Seren learned that the Jedi she had trusted with her life had been Tobias all along.

That revelation had become tangled with everything else she had carried away from Thyferra.

She had spent years of her life thinking of Jedi as allies almost without conscious consideration. Once, seeing a Jedi lightsaber on a battlefield would have told Seren where she belonged. Then she had stood opposite Aiden Porte with Voidstar burning crimson in her hands and answered his attacks with every intention of hurting him if that was what survival required. She had not regretted leaving the Jedi afterward, nor had she suddenly discovered some desire to return to what she had been. What troubled her was how easily the war had supplied the categories for them. Jedi on one side. Sith on the other. Enemy and ally decided before either person ever raised a weapon.

Tobias made those categories considerably less comfortable.

A faint smile touched Seren's lips as she regarded him. "Tobias."

She glanced toward the others continuing along the main corridor, their voices already beginning to recede, before stepping toward the passage where he waited. They had their own exploration underway and hardly needed her to continue. Tobias's invitation interested her considerably more, particularly when one of his soldiers returned with news that the sarcophagus concealed stairs leading downward into a portal. Seren's amber gaze shifted immediately toward the chamber beyond him.

A portal into the Netherworld hidden beneath an obsidian sarcophagus was considerably more compelling than another corridor.

Seren stepped into the side passage beside Tobias and allowed the others to continue into the distance. There was no dread attached to the decision. Malachor had been her home long enough that darkness, tombs, and the lingering presence of the dead had ceased to possess much novelty by themselves. The Netherworld was something different, certainly, but difference was precisely what had brought her to Abregado-rae in the first place. A tomb that should not exist had emerged on a world where the barrier between realms had been damaged, and now someone had discovered a direct passage into the very place bleeding through that wound. Walking away from it would have required considerably more restraint than Seren possessed.

"Yes." Her answer came easily as she looked from Tobias toward the uncovered descent. "I think I'd rather see where that leads."

She moved farther into the chamber, studying the pristine stone and the obsidian sarcophagus while keeping her awareness open to the currents moving through the Force. The strange pressure she had felt throughout the tomb seemed worth examining before they crossed whatever threshold waited below, though Seren resisted trying to force meaning from it. Her thoughts returned briefly to Thyferra instead, and to the man standing beside her now. She suspected she would consider the irony for some time. She had fought a Jedi because he had been her enemy, surrendered to another because she refused to continue killing merely for the sake of sides, and then discovered the Jedi who had protected her had never been a Jedi at all.

Perhaps the labels had mattered less than the choices each of them made while wearing them.

Seren rested her hand loosely near Voidstar as she approached the opening beneath the sarcophagus, then looked toward Tobias. "I've been thinking about Thyferra more than I'd like." Her expression grew thoughtful rather than troubled. "I spent part of it fighting someone I would once have considered an ally simply because he was Jedi and I was standing with the Sith. Then I surrendered to a Jedi because continuing that fight felt wrong." A trace of dry amusement returned as her gaze settled on him. "Except, apparently, he wasn't a Jedi either."

She let that sit between them without trying to force an answer from him. Seren was not even certain there was one. The distinction between Jedi and Sith had once seemed fundamental to her understanding of herself, and somewhere along the way it had become considerably less useful than judging what someone actually chose to do. Perhaps that was why discovering Tobias beneath Troigs's identity had bothered her less than it logically should have.

Her attention returned to the stairs descending toward the portal, curiosity steadily winning over introspection. Whatever answers waited beneath Abregado-rae were unlikely to resolve anything she had brought with her from Thyferra, but Seren had never required an ancient mystery to solve only one problem at a time.

"Come on." A small smile returned as she looked down into the descent. "Let's go see what the dead have been hiding."

 

[Ives]

It was dark and damp in the back-alley behind one of the dozens of corporate data-hives where Ives was unloading a truck full of servers. When he'd arrived, it had been raining in droves, and the rainwater was rushing beneath the exposed sewer grates.

He scratched at the patchwork stubble on his chin, flicking away a damp strand of hair that had gotten stuck on his face. This was the third double shift in a row he'd pulled for mouthing off too much to his foreman. Though the foreman's definition of 'mouthing off' was being stretched enough to cover the distance from Abregado-Rae to its star, probably twice over.

The knowledge that his shift would be over in two more hours was just about the only thing still keeping him on his feet at this point, though barely. It was physical labour--a monotony of carrying delicate tech up several flights of stairs. It would typically be menial droid work, but whoever owner this place apparently had a bad streak of paranoia against metal servants. Kept Ives on the payroll though, so he didn't mind.

"You look like a Hutt shat you out," one of the security personnel remarked as Ives unloaded the sixteenth...twentieth server rack?

Ives laughed half-heartedly. He'd caught a glimpse of the gaunt, disheveled figure he'd turned into within the reflections of the data-hive's polished windows. The description was pretty much spot-on.

"Been through worse," Ives grumbled in response, straining to hold up the box of tech in his hands.

"I bet. How much longer you think you'll be unloading these? I'm gettin' tired standing around out here all night," the security officer said.

"Got three more in the back, shouldn't be too long. You wanna help out?" Ives said.

Security gave a grimace, and grumbled.

"Yeah right, you think I'm--" but a blaster bolt to the face interrupted his response.

The lights in the man's eyes flicked out like a candle flame before he unceremoniously collapsed. The alley lit up with another red flash. Ives dropped the server package, and jumped forward on instinct. The blaster bolt nailed his hat, but nothing else. He rolled and desperately scrambled inside the building in a half-crawl, half-sprint. He managed to hit the door-switch locking the entrance just as a few more bolts narrowly missed him.

The doors closed with a hiss, the transparent material accumulating several blast marks that had been meant for Ives. The server rack he'd been carrying laid broken into a dozen pieces on the floor. A tall Rodian stepped over the now-trash, locking eyes with Ives, clearly displeased about this turn of events.

 

[Vestra Tane]

Nilira felt something...familiar in the air for a moment.

Static in the air. Tension about to break. Blood between your teeth, and a smile on your face. She was here, all right. Nilira’s could-have-been teacher had a distinct (and, perhaps, obnoxious) energy to her, and it was unmistakable.

Nilira was right.

She was dead.

But Sith didn’t always stay on the other side, and the dead Triumvir had always been good at getting into places she wasn’t welcome.

The sensation would lead the young sorceress down an alley, pocked with blaster-marks and the telltale signs of intense heat. At its end was a corpse, half-melted face peaking out of a fractured beskar’gam helmet. The Covenant’s cleaners had steered clear of this little corner of the city, it seemed.

“Hey, Vornix.”

Same voice. Same confidence, that felt just a bit too easy to be genuine.

The specter of Vestra Tane congealed in front of Nilira, formed out of ambient, transparent nether-stuff wicked like moisture out of the air. She wore the same ragged coat she always did, and propped one leg up on the head of the by-now decaying Mandalorian. Smoke trailed, eternally, from the yawning wound in her skull where pink-red flesh pulled away from blackened bone, and where an eye socket used to be.

She had the biggest, chit-eating-est grin on her face.

“When’d you start smoking?”

Tag: Nilira Vornix​

 

[Madrona A’Mia]

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Tag: Anet Raine

Distraction and more than a little preoccupied with matters of higher magnitude, both regarding power and personal affairs alike, A'Mia still carved out the time to attend to the next generation of Sith. Her personal project in Anet was crucial to attend to here and now given just how much she'd grown of late.

A good gardener knows when to leave well enough alone, or when to dig in with firm hands.

Anet clearly took naturally to the proverbial sun and soil provided within the framework of the Sith Covenant. Her ambition and social aptitude served her well. Now though? The girl was reaching for power above and beyond, with an appetite that was sure to inspire bite-back if she wasn't cautious.

The neti stood above her apprentice on what remained of crumbled stairs, her many-limbed form able to effortlessly perch upon rough terrain as if she floated there and the uncanniness of it all was somewhat disguised by her robes.

"I'll grant that your pride in work well done is deserved," A'Mia offered in soft, thoughtful tone.

Anet's enjoyment in gloating would have ordinarily earned reproach, but today it merely diminished A'Mia's initial praise.

"Before you claim more, I wonder girl if you can admit that which you are not. Do you know your own weaknesses? Where perhaps you are primed for a fire just waiting for someone to strike the match?" She snapped her long fingers to emphasize the speed at which disaster could strike

A'Mia made a half turn to more properly regard the girl but did not yet give her leave to stand. Let her think on the answer to that question on bended knee.

 

[Anet Raine]

Robes | Mask | Lightsaber
Madrona A’Mia
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Oh. The Master's response earned a vile retort; how Anet fumed in the Force, emanating all her pent up fury. She was an arrogant woman, who believed her philosophy and understanding of the Dark Side's nature to be superior to all. Even her Master.

She relented to rise from her knees, and instead bunched the cloth of her leg up into her fist, grinding the dark fabric between her hand.

Weakness?!

Anet didn't believe herself absent of weakness. All creatures were fallible. But she could not imagine anything except being diminished by the question. It was irrelevant to her - either she would succeed or she would not. Either she would survive and learn, or she would die ignorant. It was really that simple to her, and so anything else... Even questions such as this... Were pointless to her mind. It hadn't escaped her either that her Master neglected to make a point of the question. It was obvious to her then that the point would be made when answered, or was meant to leave Anet wondering with no proof but speculation as to the Neti's intentions.

Of course, her answer wasn't some quality or fear. No, it came in the form of a person, of her ambition. Kirie.

"I will strike my own match... Master."

She had said it quietly.

"My weaknesses will not be realized... You won't know them... I won't know them... Until the moment they are exploited."