First Reply The Flame’s Tithe

[Korda Veydran]

The night was quiet — too quiet for a city that should have been alive with noise. From the roof of the freight depot, Korda Veydran crouched low, the glow of red optics cutting through the dark. Below, the convoy of supply crates sat stacked and waiting, stamped with the sigil of some forgettable corporation. To most, it was just cargo. To Korda, it was the marrow of survival — munitions, ration packs, fuel cells. Everything his next campaign required.

His gauntleted hands moved with a brutal precision, wiring shaped charges along the security locks of the warehouse skylight. Each click and snap of the detonators was as steady as a prayer bead in a zealot's grip.

"Kad Ha'Rangir," he muttered under his breath, the words muffled by his helmet. "Bear witness to the fire I gift to this night."

One last charge in place. He straightened, the crimson skull emblazoned on his chest catching a sliver of moonlight. To any passerby, he was just another shadow among the machinery — until the quiet gave way to the low, ominous hum of primed explosives.

The timer began its slow count.
The silence before the storm.
And Korda waited, ready to tear the heart out of this depot and claim what he needed.

 

[Darth Keres]

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Gear: Basics
Tag: Korda Veydran

Carisma's Master seemingly found the strangest and oddly chosen missions for her, dispatching her to varying different worlds in her attempts to reshape Carisma into a perfect Sith. The teenage Sith was always successful, considering most of her missions dealt with political moving's and the occasional search and seizure. This time, Carisma had been dispatched to observe the movements of illegal cargo from a shady reputable corporation; or what her Master perceived to be shady reputable anyway.

Upon entering the city, with nighttime already in full bloom under a starry night, and guarded by the brightness of the enveloping moonlight, she noticed the quietness and easiness of the place. Very few activities were about, most eighter tucked away cozy in their homes or haunting the nearby drinking holes. This would be simple, she mused to herself, while walking through the streets. To the untrained eye, she was just one single, lonely teenager out past curfew strolling the streets, soaking up the nighttime air. Underneath that facade, she was dangerous; and growing more so by the day.

The shipping yards, where nearly all the cargo of the city passed through or was stored at it, was busy with activity. Late night workers earning that extra pay; unaware that tonight would forever change their lives. She was not to disrupt the transferring of cargo, only to steal the shipping logs without raising suspicion, such as not getting caught. If she were to be caught, her Master warned her of the repercussions for failing this mission. In layman terms, don't get caught; die fighting. Carisma had no grandiose ideas of dying tonight, or in the near future, she had come so far to fail herself; damn her Master.

Traversing and skipping from one rooftop to the next, she observed the worker ants earnestly, putting to memory their patterns. Her Master failed to mention where these logs could be found, and of course, that was the lesson. Nothing in life is easy or simply handed to you; you need to make your own destiny, fate, by any means necessary. And so, the game was afoot. So many buildings to search, and another tiny bit of information her Master also failed to mention was which building it was. Damn her Master.

​

 

[Korda Veydran]

The charge went off with a thunderous crack that split the night wide open. A wall of fire and dust blossomed outward, coughing smoke and molten sparks across the shipping yard. Stone and steel screamed as they tore apart, the shockwave rattling the stacked crates and scattering workers like startled animals.

The debris struck him in a shower — jagged shards clanging harmlessly against beskar, ringing in deep, metallic notes that rolled through the quiet like ritual drums. Korda did not flinch. Instead, he straightened, shoulders squared, and drew a long breath that fogged the inside of his visor. His lips curled behind the helm into a smile too small for joy and too sharp for sanity.

"Kad Ha'Rangir is fed," he rumbled, voice reverent in its brutality. Each word left his throat like a prayer dragged across steel.

Through the thinning haze, he saw her. A lone figure on a rooftop across the way, slight in frame, yet standing too still, too aware. The girl was no worker and no wanderer. His red optics narrowed, tracing her movements — noting the deliberate balance of one accustomed to watching, waiting, surviving.

He shifted his stance deliberately, a mountain of iron turning to face her. The satchel at his side clattered with the sound of shaped charges, the music of a siege priest. Rubble still slid down his armor in tiny showers, each ping a reminder of the joy he drew from destruction.

Silence stretched between them, taut as a tripwire, until Korda finally spoke. His voice cut low and heavy, reverberating off the depot walls.

"You stalk after words and records," he said, helm tilting slightly. "I claim fire and steel."

A pause, long enough to test her patience, long enough for the weight of his gaze to settle over her like an executioner's axe.

"We can bleed this place together. You take your logs, I take my spoils. No quarrel. No wasted blood." His tone was not a bargain but a decree, spoken as one who expected the galaxy to bend or burn.

Another pause. His red optics flared as the ruined wall behind him belched smoke and flame, casting him in a furnace glow.


"Or refuse me," he growled softly, almost hungrily. "And you will learn what it costs to stand in fire."

Darth Keres

 

[Darth Keres]

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Gear: Basics
Tag: Korda Veydran

Perched on a ledge symbolizing a bird-of-prey on the hunt for those scurrying morsels below, an explosion erupted off to her right, throwing flaming debris and other nasty forms of shrapnel in every radial direction. She wasn't impressed, it had nothing to do with her, and thus, it was none of her business. She did, however, enjoy the little show below in the aftermath of the explosion.

Breaking her from the spellbound effects from the circus below came a voice directed at her. She heard, she didn't care. Then came the words infused with threatening tones, and again she ignored the armored man, giving no response. She found it strangely amusing that in one breath, a proposal of a partnership, and in the second breath, a threatening ultimatum. If the scenario was reversed, she would only give one breath, the ultimatum. Sith always deal in absolutes. Intriguing, though, was the idea of working together; only for the benefit of the young Sith girl.

Aided by the Force, Carisma gracefully landed to the ground a few yards from the standing man, promptly walking straight at him. "Parlour tricks weaved by the magics of technology," Carisma mocked, "And with such needless destruction." Carisma eyed the individual up and down before adding, "Rather difficult to sneak around in that, I suppose."

Folding her arms, she gave the proposal of partnering up a quick review before saying, "I fail to see how it benefits me personally to work with you, however, strategically it would benefit me greatly. One rule, I do not take orders from you. Deal?"

​

 

[Korda Veydran]

Korda's helm tilted ever so slightly — and then came the sound. A low, jagged laugh rolled out of him, reverberating against steel and stone until it seemed the broken yard itself joined in. It was not the laughter of mirth, but of a predator who had found entertainment in the boldness of smaller prey.

"Needless destruction?" he echoed, voice cutting like a rasp across iron. Shards still slid down his armor, ringing out in tiny, stubborn notes. "Every charge is a hymn. Every flame a sermon. I do not hide in shadows. Fear spreads faster when it has a face."

He stepped forward, slow and deliberate, the crimson skull across his chest catching the furnace glow from the shattered wall. For a moment he seemed more monument than man, a shrine built to violence.

Her terms hung between them, and after a beat he inclined his helm in a sharp, acknowledging tilt.

"You set your rule. So be it. I do not give orders to carrion birds — only to warriors." His voice dipped into a growl, heavy with ritual. "We work together, not as master and servant, but as fire and storm. You take your logs, I take the steel. The Destroyer will judge who leaves with more."


The satchel of charges rattled faintly as he turned back toward the yawning wound in the warehouse. "Come then, Sith. Let us bleed this place dry."

Darth Keres

 

[Darth Keres]

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Gear: Basics
Tag: Korda Veydran

It was her turn to laugh now. Composing herself she replied, "Fear doesn't need a face attached to it. It just needs to be heard when it speaks." She was not an imposing figure, despite she was taller than most her age, due in part to her species and a very early growth spurt, but she knew how to install fear in other facets. Her Master incorporated that message in her lessons. Then from behind the armored man, another explosion followed by falling fiery debris of durasteel and other flammable materials, prompting Carisma to look around the man, this newly formed partnership she agreed to, and smiled darkly. "If destruction quells those tremors in your loins, far be it for me to judge your passions and kinks."

Destroyer? Was this this some kind of Mando God or Goddess, or just a fabricated entity in this man's mental motion pictures, she wondered; but ignored it. It occurred to the young teen that there was a race forming between the two, and though she cared nothing for antics, or unwarranted challenges and games, she was eager to see where this would lead.

"Yes, Mando," she spat, deliberately emphasizing the word 'Mando' in response to being called Sith. She was Sith, but she had a name, not just an obvious label because of her choice to walk the path of the Sith, but she would never speak it to this 'partner'. Secrecy, like fear itself, was a strength she boldly clung to. "Lead the way, Mando. I rather my eyes watch your back than your eyes on mine," she added waving a hand to gesture him to begin walking. "I promise, you can trust little me," she lied.

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[Korda Veydran]

The word Mando struck like a blaster bolt—sharp, deliberate, but not unexpected. Korda let it hang in the smoke-choked air between them. He didn't rise to the bait. Let her think herself clever; pride was the first mask of fear, and he had seen it worn by foes far deadlier than her.

When the explosion thundered behind him, he didn't flinch. The firelight washed over his armor, gilding the runes carved into its plates, runes worn smooth by war and prayer alike. His gauntlet hovered near the hilt of his vibroblade—never drawn, but close enough to remind her that Mandalorians did not turn their backs unguarded.

"I have no passions, jetii'ad," he said evenly, his voice low, like gravel beneath boots. "Only purpose. Destruction is not my pleasure—it is my tithe to the Destroyer. Every ruin left smoking behind me is a prayer answered."

He stepped forward, his boots crunching through shards of scorched durasteel. The fires behind him reflected in the black visor of his helmet like the gaze of the god he served.

"You may lie, Sith," he continued, the word spoken with a grim sort of respect, "but even lies serve the Destroyer. Truth, deceit, blood—they all end the same way. In flame."

He paused just long enough to turn his helmet slightly toward her. "So walk behind me if it comforts you. But know this—if you mean me harm, your ashes will make the same smoke as my enemies'."


With that, he began moving again, silent save for the hiss of his breath and the low creak of beskar under strain.

Darth Keres