Private The Mnggallophage

[Onrai]

Mugg Fallow

Evidently, Onrai had not been thorough enough in eradicating the menace of Mnggal Mnggal from its homeworld.

The interference of Valery Noble in the ritual Onrai had sought to perform had allowed for only partial success at eradicating the remnants of the infernal extradimensional spawn of the Architects from the planet. The portions of the creature that existed beneath the surface of the world had begun to emerge into the surface, once more corrupting the planet, and there were still small quantities of it in orbit on board the ships that made up the infernal ring, preventing their salvage for risk of spreading the creature's corruption to any of the worlds in Onrai's own domain. So it was that she had, with no Jedi interference this time around, returned to the world aboard the Ablution, her aging flagship, with a noted associate, Tu'teggacha , in tow.

"You know much of interrogation, of breaking one down and rebuilding them from the ground up." She said, fingering the Sunstar-Shadowstone in her hands. "But you know nothing of truly consuming a person, to absorb every facet of their existence until there is nothing left and they are fully under your dominion. That is what Mnggal Mnggal is. It knows all because it is the infinite consumer of all life, as it has been since it was birthed from the Soulworm many hundreds of thousands of years ago. It has spread far beyond this world, yet we may still deal it a blow of crippling proportions through this ritual. And from its purgation, benefits for our own base of power within the Maw." It was rare for Onrai to sound so Sithy, but there were far deeper motivations here than just the acquisition of physical power, even if some pittance to the power struggle had to be given in order to satisfy her tentacled associate's proclivities.

"So, shall we head to the surface and begin?"

 

[Tu'teggacha]

Tu'teggacha had never been to Mugg Fallow before, but he knew the legends - the ship-eater, the planet of no return, the place on the map that says here be dragons. This place was like the entire reputation of the Unknown Regions rolled into a single system. It was distant, it was isolated, it was bizarre, and it was very, very dangerous. The ancient thing that dwelled here was the stuff of nightmares, hollowing out the travelers it captured and turning them into its puppets. The idea repulsed the Taskmaster... and yet it also filled him with envy. To create such completely devoted servants, mere extensions of the creature's will...

He wished he had the power to transform his own servants so completely.

Despite his morbid fascination with the eldritch entity that dominated the planet, the Ebruchi had never felt any particular desire to travel to Mugg Fallow. He was not an adventurous being, and though he was curious and inquisitive, he preferred the kind of discovery that happened in a controlled laboratory environment to the outdoor exploration kind. Still, when his mysterious patron Onrai had invited him to accompany her to this strange, blighted place, he had been more than willing to accept. Danger-averse though he might be, he recognized that some things were worth taking risks for... even risks to his own body and soul.

His interest was twofold. He did want to study Mnggal Mnggal, to better understand this entity that had more power to dominate other beings than any torment or scientific brainwashing could create. But he was also motivated by logistical concerns. The Brotherhood had suffered terrible losses of troops, ships, and materiel in their Core Worlds campaign. So too had their enemies, of course... but those enemies both outnumbered them and had greater industrial capacity. In order to stay in this fight, to keep from collapsing under the weight of the Alliance's reprisals, the Brotherhood needed fresh supplies. Lots of them.

That was why the Maw had returned to widespread raiding, launching attacks against the Eternal Empire and Mandalorian Enclave in order to seize what they needed to keep up the fight. But the Mawites were excellent scavengers as well as raiders, and Mugg Fallow was an excellent place to scavenge. A cloud of starships and associated debris drifted around the world, all of the vessels captured by Mnggal Mnggal and its servants over countless millennia. If the Brotherhood could beat back the eldritch horror below, they could reap the bounty in orbit, using it as fuel to keep the fires of their war machine burning hot.

This was the primary reason that Tu'teggacha stood aboard the Ablution, listening to his ghostly patron speak of utter consumption. "Yes," the Ebruchi replied, salivating slightly at the thought of such power. "It is... fascinating." He did not care about its origins, about the ancient and arcane history of this bizarre being. He cared only about what he could learn from it, and how it could expand his own power - and aid the Maw, of course. It would be interesting not only to study the creature itself, but also how Onrai sought to banish or contain it. Such rituals would no doubt be useful when he faced other powerful Force entities.

"I am ready," he said. Time for the descent to begin.

 

[Onrai]

The descent was, for the sake of Tu'teggacha , done via shuttle as opposed to tearing a rift in reality or consuming him in shadow in order to manifest on the world's surface. It was a quiet trip for the duo that only grew interesting when Onrai's form dissipated into nothingness on their arrival, the shade standing outside the door to greet the Ebruchi as it opened to a brutally barren and crater-filled charred landscape. Onrai had brought an entire fleet to bombard the planet's surface to nothingness, evaporating practically all of the monstrous blobular entity with the potent firepower of baradium missiles and proton beam cannons. Mountains had been pulverized into heaps of rubble, lakes and seas were practically bereft of anything but the naryest trickles of Mnggal Mnggal that bubbled up from chasms beneath the world.

"We won't have much time. It knows why we're here and what we intend to do. We will have to act quickly in order to eliminate the threat and turn Mugg Fallow from a world the Rot God calls home into another bastion for my power."

Already she sensed it. The agonizing cries of Mnggal Mnggal, like a wounded animal. It wanted to repay the slight upon its being. To return vengeance tenfold upon the entity that paraded around with the names of its mother girdled around her essence. And were the creature to try anything, Onrai was unsure as to whether or not she would be able to resist - with all it had devoured, the gestalt psyche that manipulated and puppeteered husks and protoforms alike would be extremely dangerous to conflict with on a mental level.

Yet perhaps there were more answers to questions as yet unanswered - questions that consuming yet another of the Old Ones in part could answer.

 

[Tu'teggacha]

Tu'teggacha had learned of Mugg Fallow from the meticulously-kept records in the Chiss Ascendancy's Expeditionary Library, which the Brotherhood had looted before Csilla's destruction. The files therein told of a planet of dead continents, with only fossilized trees to show that life had once thrived there. Around those continents, in place of the seas, was the grey sludge that made up the horrific, amorphous form of Mggnal Mggnal. The impossibly huge creature had replaced the mountains and the rivers, attached to the planet like a parasite that gradually subsumes the host's entire body.

But as the shuttle from the Ablution descended through the cloud of starships which the creature had placed in orbit, grim trophies to proclaim its power over all who entered the system, Tu'teggacha saw that Mugg Fallow was much changed. There was only brown now, heaps of rubble left over from a truly comprehensive orbital bombardment. Mggnal Mggnal had been scoured from the surface, forced to trickle down into the cracks of the planet in order to survive. Once there had been a grim but awe-inspiring wonder of the galaxy here. Now there was only an echo of that magnificent horror amidst the ruination.

But that echo still spoke. Tu'teggacha could feel its presence as the shuttle drew closer, at first only a whisper at the edges of his mind, but growing steadily stronger. By the time that landing struts hit the surface of Mugg Fallow, the creature's voice was a bellow in his head, almost painfully loud. There were no words in its shout, or at least none that the Taskmaster could understand, but he could easily sense the emotions behind the screaming - pain and rage, the fuel of the Dark Side. An animal, he remembered suddenly, was most dangerous when wounded. Mggnal Mggnal was hurt, its power reduced...

... but the Ebruchi would still be in terrible danger every moment he was here.

"I sense it," Tu'teggacha replied. "The seething anger. The lust for vengeance." He shuddered, his hunched little form vibrating with the motion. "Show me what must be done." The sooner they could finish Onrai 's ritual, the sooner he could depart this place. He would feel much safer up in orbit, past the reach of the creature's much-diminished influence, overseeing the salvage operation that would keep the Brotherhood war machine going. But before he could reap the spoils of war, he had to win the fight... and only Onrai knew how to do that. He would watch, and listen, and learn.

And he would survive. He was good at surviving, even against all odds.

 

[Onrai]

"It is not a creature so typically spited." She said, sighing. "It is used to conquering and claiming dominion over all things. As it said once upon a time, 'Does it sound more lovely if I read it to you like this? I can be anything to anyone, but in the end, I will always be Death.'" The very world seemed to rumble as Onrai spoke the words, and a smile formed on her face - that the malevolent entity felt such a need to respond to her was a satisfying sensation for sure.

Onrai got upon her knees and gently placed both hands on the ground. Looking back at Tu'teggacha , her head turning humanely unnatural as though it were an owl's, she stared directly at him. "Place your hands upon my shoulders. Let yourself be lost in my embrace yet remain focused. It is but critical now that you place your unfettered trust within me as your patron." Once he had presumably done so, her presence began to fill the Ebruchi, to empower him to empower her as she focused on tapping the core consciousness of Mnggal Mnggal and speaking to the creature directly, eyes closed as it was just her, Tu'teggacha, and it.

You once said Death does not serve, but rules as king to all who will be food for the worms. I am no food for the worms, and I say yet that that is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons, even death may die. The aeons have come for you here upon this world, and you will know that Onrai has reawakened.

Within the link shared, the duo heard a response.

How mockingly you come, "mother," phagic of your own spawn. The devourer seeks to devour the devourer, the consumer of all life whose appetite cannot be whet even by consumption of myself? Have you freed Athla'giroth from the impunity of his prison on Plawal, or unbound the dimensional chains of Lotek'k? Do you seek the sisters of the Queen of Ranroon, or the pathway to Oozultharoum? You know that your actions will never cease the grand galactic feast. All will be consumed in time.

Yes yes, your name. Unrestricted growth. It was for that reason Ap'aci sent you to this world instead of one vibrant with life. And I know the hidden things of your own mind as you know those of mine. Your secrets revealed, your treasures elicited - yes, I see them now. From the hidden technologies of the Viis to the lives within, the neurons degraded and information consumed. With this, I grow more complete.

As she continued to focus, burning streaks of light began to come from the sky. The Mnggal Mnggal on board the derelicts, whether of the creature's own actions or through Onrai's power, had begun exiting the hulks, falling through the atmosphere and coming to the surface of the world itself. Within minutes flaming streaks of the amorphous entity filled the sky, crashing down upon the ashen surface of Mugg Fallow. The very air around them became charged with a power - and a hunger for life.

You have tampered with things mortals were not meant to touch, Vanessa Vantai. Or should I speak of your true name, Circe Savan? My brothers and sisters were born as we were, congealed of primal forces unlike that which has, is, or will be seen once more. Not even the Dark Harvest compared to the bounty once reaped, the flesh fed through the Gulag. For all the intricacies and intimacies of what you are now, at heart, you are still a being born of flesh, and you cannot end that which may dance without end through the cosmos, for all your mimicry of the co-creator.

Then you do not understand what I do or why. I have made many mistakes in my life, irredeemable acts that have ensured my inability to take a seat as an equal of Lluxos or Wutzek without resistance. Yet now Nakhash and his brethren yet wait to emerge upon a galaxy, his threat revivified by a mortal, and all shall become the domain of the Father of Shadows should you yet resist. As you may yet consume the flesh, still the spirit is without you. Yield to me, and you may yet have a purpose to serve in this transient universe.

Around the duo, where the Mnggal Mnggal from orbit had crashed into the surface nearby in such quantities as to survive reentry, golems rose, monstrous forms with false eyes and tendrils that began to slowly ooze across the world towards Onrai and her charge. Yet as they grew closer, a chill ran down the spine of the goddess as blackness emerged from the world - a blackness not of her own doing. Shadow-beings, whose form were simultaneously indiscernible and terrifyingly grotesque, began to fight the constructs in a clash of unnatural interaction - a clash in which Onrai chose to strike.

Her psychic pressure upon the mind of Mnggal Mnggal grew strong - far stronger than it had been when she had ended the lives of Ooradryl and his brood. With the first strike she had delivered prior, and with the monstrous entity as yet occupied on this world, the pressure grew - a pressure Onrai could yet take advantage of as the constructs sought to consume the shadow-beings who yet slashed at them, dark energy drawn into the corrupted plasmodium of Mnggal Mnggal.

Yes, a weak moment.

Deep within the world, the Ouroboric cycle began. Great seas of false aqua began to war, cell by cell, microbial bit by microbial bit, against itself. Mnggal Mnggal was driven to consume that which it had hoped not to by a will exerted upon it - the will of Onrai. Across the world, the process of self-immolation took place, and raw nutrients bled into the world as the alien flesh was dissolved into its constituent nutrients. The golems were possessed by infernal beings, yet they too began to deteriorate, forced into the process of immune hatred of their own beings. All the while, the screaming through the link of the entity was like a knife in the cranium of Onrai - as though she was watching a god have a limb severed from its flesh so irrecoverably that not even a cybernetic would allow it to wield even a facsimile of what it once held. Echoes of this spilled over into the mind of Tu'teggacha, the wounding of an alien presence seeking to scream upon and scar his psyche, to spitefully leave Onrai with but a shattered husk.

Typhojem is no more, and his heart belongs to the one I have chosen to replace him. Tharragorogarraht is no more, for her shadow was yet extinguished by one whose will was stronger than she. Ooradryl and his brood were slain personally at my hands, the first step on my pathway to achieving that which I possess. And the spirit of your Mother still lives within another creation of mine, who has drank and bathed where the final semblance of her being existed in the galaxy. Uniquely you remain. Uniquely you have been struck from this world. And uniquely, you shall no longer interfere. When I call for you, you shall aid me, and when you are told to leave, you will leave or suffer my wrath.

The voice of Mnggal Mnggal then grew silent as its last connection to the world was severed, the final pieces of its essence having devoured themselves in autonomous autophagy. From the nutrients and the power that could be, Onrai was once more invigorated as the remaining minerals soaked into the ashen soil of Mugg Fallow. Before it was fully broken, however, a last message was sent, not in words but in a vision that both Onrai and Tu'teggacha witnessed: within the charnel void of fluidic Otherspace was a vortex, an untapped font of raw chaos and contradiction that poured into the swirling nothingscape of Dark Illathurion. Perhaps it was a gift, the being knowing who had subjugated it. Perhaps it had been offered in mockery. Or perhaps it had been offered out of a desire for vengeance, to see the humiliator be humiliated when such energies could not be controlled. Regardless, when the vision finally ended, Onrai's form slumped forward and scattered upon the surface of the world.

Tu'teggacha was alone, aside from the shuttle, which practically beckoned for him to return to the Ablution and leave the infernal planet.

 

[Tu'teggacha]

Though it baffled and discomfited him, Tu'teggacha did as he was bid. He placed his knobby, gnarled hands on Onrai 's shoulders as she knelt on all fours, a bizarre position for them both. But there was little time to reflect on the uncomfortable physical strangeness of the moment, for soon the uncomfortable mental strangeness began. To feel Onrai's power within him was both intoxicating and deeply concerning, for it carried her consciousness with it. The Taskmaster had no desire to let anyone else into his thoughts. He was the breaker of minds, the scrutinizer of secrets. His own head was supposed to remain secure.

But soon his head thundered with not just Onrai's voice, but a far more alien one.

Tu'teggacha did not really understand the conversation that followed. There was much talk of strange places and eldritch beings, entities whose bizarre names the Ebruchi had never heard before. It was evident that Onrai was locked in some kind of ongoing struggle with this creature and its fellow void-spawn, and had been for quite some time. The Taskmaster did not particularly care about that, of course. He did not care if creatures like Mnggal Mnggal unleashed horrors upon the galaxy - he would only care if and when those horrors affected him. But he tried to listen anyway, and to remember what he heard.

Knowledge was power. Secrets were influence. This conversation could give him both.

Knowledge like Onrai's true history. Secrets like her true name.

Strange sounds from above distracted the Taskmaster's attention, and his eyes fluttered open. He found that the sky was suddenly full of flaming streaks, objects undergoing reentry. At first he thought that Mggnal Mggnal was calling down a meteor storm on them, or perhaps messily crashing the starship trophies in orbit down on their heads. The truth was far stranger - and far more terrifying. Those little streaks were bodies, the bodies of the creature's infested spawn... as Tu'teggacha discovered when they rose up around him, their forms monstrous to behold, twisted by the impact they had somehow survived.

Clearly this wasn't going as planned. His glassy black eyes darted to the shuttle ramp.

Could he make it in time? What would happen if he pulled out now?

Before he could ponder his next move too much, however, strange defenses emerged - shadow creatures that seemed to slide into Realspace from some impossible dimension beyond it. And as the two armies of horrors began to fight, the mental struggle intensified. Tu'teggacha experienced only partially the struggle between Onrai and Mnggal Mnggal; he was only tangentially involved, one conduit of strength, and the conflict filtered back to him in a slow, distorted way. But he felt the scream. He felt the hot knife of another being's mad agony as Mnggal Mnggal writhed in rage and torment, and it drove him to his knees.

Then, all at once, it was over. The battling creatures were gone, and Mugg Fallow was just as silent as it had been when they had arrived - and somehow even more dead. Before Tu'teggacha's eyes, Onrai keeled over and seemingly smashed against the ground, scattering into dust. Had the struggle been too much for her? Was his patron finished? Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way, she wasn't here with him now, and the Taskmaster had no desire to stay on Mugg Fallow without her protection. Turning back to the shuttle, he scampered up the boarding ramp and commanded an immediate dustoff. It was past time to leave.

Mnggal Mnggal did seem to be gone, or close enough. He could order the salvaging op now.

And if Onrai returned... well, hopefully it would be in orbit, and not down here.

The shuttle headed back up toward the Ablution...

... and a half-expected reunion.

 

[Onrai]

The half-expectations of Tu'teggacha were indeed met as another of Onrai’s avatars greeted him, though this one wore the more human-looking face of the honey blonde woman that she had originally been prior to her transfigurative experience with the dead gods of Otherspace. She gave a bit of a grimaced smile in response, sighing as she eyed the corrupt Ebruchi. “Well, I hope you enjoyed that.” She said regarding the power that had been channeled through him. “We'll begin salvage operations swiftly and the resources taken from these hulks will be passed on to the appropriate locations."

Specifically, to Kinoss and Ool. They were going to be added to her own powerbase, and not left as free reign for any in the Maw to claim as their own. Her thoughts traveled momentarily to what she and Tu'teggacha had seen in Otherspace.

"Do you wish to find what we saw?" She asked him.

 

[Tu'teggacha]

Tu'teggacha knew he should not be surprised to see Onrai as he disembarked - or at least some version of her, for this body was much different from the ghostly form that had accompanied him to the surface. The spirit had powers far beyond his understanding, inhabiting multiple avatars, persisting beyond the bounds of death. If he had suddenly crumbled to dust on the surface of an ancient, accursed planet, there would have been no coming back for him... but for Onrai, ritually blasting Mnggal Mnggal into near-oblivion seemed to have cost comparatively little, merely disrupting one of her many guises.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Inwardly, the Taskmaster frowned. He knew that she meant the power she had channelled through him - she had used him like the lens of a lightsaber, which focuses the energy of the crystal into a beam. Truthfully, however, it had not been a particularly pleasurable experience. He had known that the immense mystical might flowing through his body was not his own, and could easily be turned against him. He had been used as an instrument for his patron, and that was not the role he desired. He craved power and security. He wanted others to do his bidding, not the other way around.

And he did not remotely understand what had happened down on the surface.

As ever with Onrai, he felt that he was only a small part of a great war...

... an ancient conflict that he could not even fully comprehend.

And it seemed that his role in that conflict was not yet concluded, not even for the day. Onrai spoke of the vision they had shared, the vision that Mnggal Mnggal had shown them in the moment of its defeat. A vision of Otherspace, the bizarre and twisted realm beyond realspace where Onrai had brought him in the midst of their first patronage conversation. The Taskmaster had no desire to return to that maddening place. He would be far safer, far more comfortable and in control, if he remained here to direct the salvage operation. That was something he could understand, something he could master.

But the power of that vortex... it called to him.

"It is... potential," the Ebruchi finally replied, struggling to wrap his mind around what exactly the strange fount represented. "Something that could be shaped to our advantage. We should secure it, before someone else does." He gritted his squidlike ring of teeth, not at all looking forward to the transition to Otherspace that would soon follow. He needed to steel his mind, to shut out the pervasive horror of a realm inverted, where the void was white and studded with stars of purest darkness. But if he could seize a little of the power from that raw chaos, he could grow. He could become stronger.

Wasn't that the whole reason he had agreed to aid Onrai?

 

[Onrai]

"There is only one thing that could have created such a coalescence of power." She said. It was quite obvious given their prior experiences with the carcasses of Ooradryl on the world Onrai claimed.

"A dead god."

The ship was quickly back to Kinoss for deliberate reasons - Kinoss was one of the worlds on which a permanent rift to the Otherworld existed. Establishment of such a rift took tremendous amounts of resources, as Onrai did not have the finesse and experience of Ap'aci or the other Architects of old, but she did have power - power to create such a tear in the fabric of reality. If there was in fact a dead god in Otherspace whose power was still bleeding into the warped fabric of that dimension, it was utterly critical that she bind it and make it hers - with at least a token provided to Tu'teggacha for his "loyalty" and "devotion."

As the duo traveled through the portal into otherspace, once more stepping foot on the landscape of a world whose surface seemed to defy the laws of physics, Onrai's gleaming eyes looked over towards a landing pad where a smaller shuttle awaited them.

"We'll use this to find the place in question." The image of the void was practically seared into the skyline, as though it knew they were coming.

 

[Tu'teggacha]

Sometimes it seemed that the galaxy never gave the Taskmaster a moment's rest.

Certainly it was true that the situation was evolving with truly astounding speed. When Tu'teggacha returned to the Ablution, it had been barely a half hour since he had watched Onrai throw down with a planet-sized god-thing, a feat she had achieved within moment of touching Mugg Fallow's surface. He had expected their journey here to be much more dangerous, and to take much longer; the Ebruchi himself would not have known how to conquer such a being as Mnggal Mnggal at all, let alone in the space of a few minutes. Instead he had spent more time in the shuttle than he had on the planet.

And now they were off somewhere else entirely, zooming across the galaxy to a completely different planet and the Otherspace rift on its surface. Tu'teggacha had traveled through this rift before; Onrai had brought him through it at their first meeting, when she had shown him the giant corpses of the eldritch beings she claimed to have slain. He was not looking forward to venturing back into the mind-bending nightmare dimension, that inverse place that threatened to turn his consciousness inside-out every time he thought too hard about being there... but if he wanted access to the power they had seen, he had little choice.

The Taskmaster spent the journey steeling himself for that dark venture, letting the gentle rhythms of hyperspace travel soothe his anxious mind. He did not meditate as the Jedi and Sith did, but rather focused on shoring up the defenses around his thoughts. Like a gardener he trimmed and shaped his own memories, keeping his brain orderly, clipping off anything that might become a vulnerability in his brain. He had deliberately censored or cast out some of his most painful recollections, ensuring that they could not be used against him. He censored his own awareness of Otherspace as well.

If there was knowledge that threatened his sanity, he deliberately forgot it.

By the time they reached Onrai's stronghold on Kinoss - even hyperspace travel was far from instant, after all, giving the Taskmaster considerable downtime - he was as ready as he would ever be. Ebruchi and spirit passed through the rift together, the former carefully controlling his own thoughts and perceptions; he had learned well from his previous brush with madness. Still, he could not fully shake the sense of wrongness that permeated this place. It was as if the galaxy was turned inside out here, and the very laws of "nature" wanted to turn him inside out as well in order to compensate.

Nor could he avoid the sight of the horrific void that churned on the horizon.

Tu'teggacha swallowed hard. He very much hoped that the power he stood to gain from this bizarre nexus of energy was worth the risk they were taking with their minds - and indeed their very souls. "So be it," he replied, turning toward the shuttle Onrai had indicated. He scrambled up the boarding ramp, as though hoping that the metal bulkheads would somehow shield him from the pervasive insanity of this place, though of course they did no such thing; the interior of the craft felt no more secure than the madness outside. "Let us make haste," the Ebruchi burbled. "I do not like lingering in this place."

 

[Onrai]

"You find the sensation as gnawing upon your own mind as your techniques are upon others." She stated, pointing out the obvious to the interrogator as they stared into the dead face of the charnel cocktail of chaos, the being that had chosen to die so it could yet know life. This was - or was it 'had been'? She was not sure how best to describe what they were looking at, and in fact was unsure if it was truly dead. Could something that had infinite power infinitely bring an end to its otherwise infinite existence? She had no idea, nor was she eager to find out.

As the duo traveled through Otherspace, it felt as though their sojourn through the fluidic fabric of the alternate dimension took forever. The empty and blackened eye-sockets gazed out upon them from the burst of infernal energies, and its presence grew closer - yet at a perceptibly slow rate. Such was that Onrai desired to, perhaps for once, engage in what could best be described as "small talk."

"What is your end goal, Tu'teggacha?" She asked him. "I don't mean the acquisition of power, as that is nothing more than an open-ended loop which will never find you satisfaction. I mean, what must happen in this galaxy in order for you to relax and finally experience a sense of truly filling satisfaction for the first time in your existence?" She further inquired.

Tu'teggacha

 

[Tu'teggacha]

You find the sensation as gnawing upon your own mind as your techniques are upon others.

Onrai was right, of course. The churning madness of this place, the unnatural influence that pressed against the Taskmaster's psyche, was not unlike the powers he himself unleashed upon his victims. Tu'teggacha had tortured countless prisoners until their minds broke, using insanity as a scalpel to scrape their brains into clean canvases upon which he could work. He had stripped away memories, destroyed the personalities of his subjects so that they could be reshaped into fanatically obedient slave-soldiers of the Maw. He knew the process well, better than anyone in the galaxy... and he did not want to experience it.

He didn't really appreciate Onrai pointing out that truth, of course.

But they had to pass the time somehow, the Taskmaster supposed. The journey was long, lengthy in a way that ordinary travel times could not explain; the distance, and the rate at which they traversed it, made about as little sense as all the rest of the rules in this unnatural place. And along the way, Onrai began to ask questions. She asked about relaxation and satisfaction and when the pursuit of power might actually come to an end. Tu'teggacha looked at her oddly, wondering why she wanted to know. What did his goals matter to her, so long as their partnership advanced hers? What did she gain by asking?

Was she looking for some secret insight to wield against him?

Still, the Ebruchi could not help but ponder the question once it was raised. How much power would be enough for him? Could he envision a way that he could let go of his paranoia, of the fear that had followed him all his life, driving him to dominate others in order to protect himself? If he could not, did that not doom him to inevitable failure? The great failing of the Sith over time was never finding that satisfaction, never knowing when to stop. Emperor Palpatine had dominated much of the galaxy... but for what? What personal pleasures or satisfactions had ruling the Galactic Empire actually brought him?

Power for its own sake had little value. It had to serve other goals.

"I seek security," the Ebruchi finally answered. "I want to be powerful enough, or protected enough, or hidden enough, that none of my many enemies can move against me. I want to be master of my own domain, a place where I am safe and free to do as I please." His hidden laboratory on Exegol was the closest he had yet come to such a place... but he held it only at the sufferance of the Maw, for Exegol was their planet, and his service to them was a payment of rent. In a perfect galaxy, there would be no one above him. He would have no master, need no patron. He would be secure against all challengers.

He would never again suffer as he had in his childhood.

"And what of you? What is your end goal?"

Onrai​

 

[Onrai]

"Security." She said, as though the word were a new flavor on the tip of her otherwise nonexistent tongue. "The problem with security is it's so often inverse to independence. The most secure place where your enemies can never move against you is from the inside of the Maw's most well hidden prisons." The irony was of course particularly palpable as she considered the circumstances in question.

"Of course, the right solution to your need is something isolated. Something that is somewhere so few people know about." Her ethereal eyes turned to the many twisted specks of corrupted star systems, failed experiments sterilized long ago by natural selection, the Old Once, or perhaps even the Charon. "Have you considered perhaps that the answer to your problem is closer than you think? The definition of what you want can be found here, amongst the ruins."

To his final inquisition, she pondered a bit. "Ascension. I can fulfill the tenets of godhood to my worshippers now - I can heal their sick, bless their crops, and envigor them to war, but I am not one who can access the Prime Universe, the place where the Celestials reside and where the fabric of the universe is at reach. Through access to such, this galaxy will once more have a god that is willing to do the things that must be done so it might continue to function appropriately. I know of one who accomplished this once before, though she is no longer with us - and I do not intend to recreate the mistakes that led to her destruction."

Whether the Ebruchi knew anything about Akala or not was another story in and of itself.

Tu'teggacha

 

[Tu'teggacha]

The problem with security is it's so often inverse to independence.

It was true, of course. Tu'teggacha had gained security by making himself indispensable to the Brotherhood of the Maw, ensuring that he was deeply tied to the complex logistical networks that kept their war machine running. Losing him would be a catastrophe to the ongoing effort to ravage the galaxy in the name of their dark gods, and so they protected him well... but it was a protection that remained contingent on his willingness to continue serving them. If he ever became independent of the Brotherhood, then the organization would cease to provide him with the security he received in exchange.

In fact, he would be worse off than when he had begun...

... for he had made many enemies while serving the Maw in their conquests.

Onrai seemed to be suggesting that the kind of refuge he sought - a hidden place, one where his enemies could not possibly locate him, let alone touch him - might be found here in Otherspace. Certainly the idea was tempting - an extradimensional bolthole, somewhere no hyperdrive could possibly follow and no sensor could possibly trace. But it seemed to the Ebruchi that a sanctuary of this kind would be just as dangerous to him as it was to any who tried to follow him. The very nature of this place assailed his mind every moment he lingered here, threatening his sanity.

And there were things, terrible old things, that lurked in this realm.

Onrai's own goals were far more ambitious - to become an active god over the universe. "Many have tried, and in many ways," the Ebruchi replied, doubt obvious in his tone. "Vitiate. Daiman. Solipsis. Each sought in his own way to transcend the bonds of mortality and access power over the universe. Vitiate thought he could consume so much life that his power would become infinite. Daiman thought all beings were an extension of his own consciousness, able to be controlled if he only learned how. And Solipsis, of course, thought he could crack open reality like a gate to godhood."

Tu'teggacha shook his squidlike head.

"Perhaps you will fare better than the Sith. But perhaps not."

Onrai​

 

[Onrai]

"I already have immortality." She said. "And godhood. I receive the prayers of my worshippers, wherever they may be, and they empower me. Through my power I can give them easy childbirths, keep their fields fertile and harvests bountiful, and aid them in conflict as conflict so arises. So many who attempt to achieve godhood seem to forget that as a god, you are obligated to justify why worship of you is a beneficial thing to their lives. Why should they not just leave their existence to the Force itself, or perhaps even cosmic unexistential fate? Fear works, for a time, until something happens and the people lose their devotion to you. You must as a god provide them with a tangible benefit."

As their journey continued towards the almost endless traverse to the dead-alive sphere, she continued. "I already provided the former Sith-Imperials who served me in the old Empire with my protection and guarantees of support. They in exchange gave me their loyalty - and when I ascended, their worship. It was because I had done for them enough to deserve such. Whether it was to give new lives to the wounded as cyborgs, that they might continue to be a part of society, or whether it was aggregating the resources to keep them alive and thriving instead of grasping to whatever scraps post-invasion they could receive, I had sought to fulfill their needs. Consider how old some of my followers are, and how long they have followed me. Their support has been since before this band of madmen and warlords formed, and it may yet remain after its collapse."

She paused for a bit. "What would you need to accept that there was perhaps something somewhere in the universe that cared enough about you to offer you its aid in exchange for veneration?"

Tu'teggacha

 

[Tu'teggacha]

Whenever Onrai spoke of herself as a god, as she had a number of times in conversation with the Taskmaster, Tu'teggacha's immediate response was to scoff at the claim. When he thought of gods, he thought of eldritch entities so powerful and distant as to be inexplicable and unknowable. Omni, the Droid God, who had rebuilt entire planets and dragged the Netherworld into bizarre digital servitude. Akala, who had obliterated Corellia and caused entire planetary populations to vanish into the void. Perhaps this Father of Shadows that Onrai spoke of, locked away from the galaxy, lest he bend it to his will.

Countless beings claimed to be gods, but just being very powerful wasn't the same as being divine. Many had considered Mnggal-Mnggal a god, but Tu'teggacha had just watched the creature be vanquished. Vitiate had thought himself a deity, and it had taken much to slay him, but he had been slain. The dead cubical "god" that Onrai had shown him in Otherspace had never been anything but a corpse to the Taskmaster. Gods in his view were supposed to be beings that shaped the fundamental forces of the universe, that decided the fates of star systems with a wave of their divine hands.

Onrai did not seem to him to truly merit such a lofty title.

"Easy childbirths, fertile harvests, help in battle, recovery from injury..." Tu'teggacha clicked the beak that hid behind his face of squidlike tentacles, his closest approximation of a human clucking his tongue. "Is a Jedi healer a god, then? Or an Imperial Moff? They can provide all those things, whether by mysticism or technology." He looked back at his patron, somewhat surprised at his own boldness but barreling on all the same. "Of course I accept that there is such a thing, making such an offer. It is the Maw. I offer it my service, my veneration if you like, and receive its aid in return."

"It is a simple transaction. Any soldier or wage-slave is familiar with it."

Onrai​

 

[Onrai]

"The power of technology does not lead to godhood, though such can easily be mistaken by the more primitive as devilry." She said, more strange and unknowable worlds coming into vision as their shuttle further flew through the void. "As for mysticism - Jedi can do a great many things, as can Sith, but neither Jedi nor Sith can truly grant supplication to those who would pray to them as I can." Insofar as his latter comments, she remained silent for a bit as they traveled ever closer to the face of the dead-alive world.

"The heathen priests in their infernal madness believe in the words written by those in the Unknown Regions who once encountered the dark gods of the void, those now deceased and yet still living, or those imprisoned yet free. Yet for all the vile acts committed in their names, none know their names or histories. The 'scriptures' are naught more than the corrupted words of generations of madmen further manipulated for the aims and goals of those who have yet to truly succumb to the madness their words are based off of. Things have learned to walk that know not to crawl." They were within surprisingly close proximity of the unknown entity, whose undead state seeped unreality into the cockpit. Instrumentation of the shuttle began to give readings that were not physically possible, and unease began to swell.

"The truth is that I have gained the answers to the questions the books ask, at a cost of damnation eternal. Godhood is the only solace that keeps me from succumbing and reenacting to the horrors of the galaxy, of things no one needs know. He is one such answer." She pointed - despite the stretched and lifeless face of the great planet of negative energy having remained, it gave no evidence, no suggestion that it acknowledged them. The ever-collapsing forces of the being perpetually drew its essence within, like a black hole that ever-consumed and rejuvenated itself, a thing that should never have been.

"'He has become the eversion of a reversion and has created a new thing,' were the words of the one who left him in this state. "You had been a master of the anti-concept, but the final one yet remains, the ultimate contradiction, a paradox that you have not yet attained, and the final new thing; for you know that you are immortal, and yet now exist as one who is dead. If you are able, you should die that you may come to life." And so, in eternal death he finds the life he failed to find as one born dead. And it is through death that life may yet be found indefinitely. The life of the one known as Kopa Kahn, the god of death and dying, and one of the deities the Maw's worship is given to."

She thought for a bit. "And the god of paradoxes - to be born dead yet die to become alive. Only here is such impossibility possible." She looked at Tu'teggacha , curious as to his thoughts on the undead and unliving god.

 

[Tu'teggacha]

Onrai described the faith of the Heathen Priests as not so much false but ignorant, reflecting the existence of eldritch beings beyond mortal comprehension but ignorant of their true names. It was more credit than Tu'teggacha would have given the Mawites. In his view, the entire Gospel of the Hidden Maw was little more than Solipsis's puppet faith, a tool that allowed him to inspire masses to fight and die for his goals. The now-dead Sith had been a master manipulator. His machinations had achieved the deaths of untold billions across the Galactic North... and yet he had perished short of achieving his mad dreams.

Solipsis had never believed in anything but himself.

The lurkers in the void had only ever been symbols to him.

Onrai, by contrast, purported to know the names and natures of these impossible beings. She spoke of blasphemous knowledge and damnation of the soul, and Tu'teggacha felt a chill run down his spine. What did godhood mean to her, that it was the only thing keeping her back from... being corrupted? Consumed? He was not sure what fate she was holding at bay, but he began to fear it for himself. This place they were passing into was wrong, even by the standards of Otherspace. It should not be. The impossible readings on the sensors added to the dread that the Taskmaster felt through the Force.

Tu'teggacha beheld the wretched thing - born and unborn, dead and alive - and retched.

"That thing has nothing to do with the Brotherhood," the Ebruchi said, once he regained control of his throat. "Or at least not of any Brotherhood sect I know of. This is no Avatar of the Great Cycle. This is an aberration of a twisted realm, the spawn of the frayed edges of spacetime." He retched again, trying to hold in the contents of his stomach. "What do you want with a wretched thing like this? Why poke and prod this unliving horror, which blessedly lies beyond the ordinary galaxy? I see no opportunities for power here, only a vile, twisted thing, consuming and being consumed."

Onrai​

 

[Onrai]

“The Brotherhood of the Maw are the remnants of the failures of the Architects.” She said in response. “Perhaps it‘s time to elaborate a bit more.” Despite their proximity to the undead god-thing, as the shuttle slowed to a place dead in relative space, the instruments became normalized and the sense of unease, for the moment, grew tolerable.

“The Architects were the imperfect spawn of one of the Celestials, born from emotion, from sensations as yet never experienced. Four of them were created, but one did not believe it to be best to continue down the path their incomplete natures led - and thus the balance between them was broken. The Architects were left vulnerable to corruption, to the whispers of the ancient evil from which all corruption spreads - an evil that once claimed something very near and dear to me personally, but which I have wounded before.” She did not need to elaborate on her journey to the prison of the Father of Shadows and his fellow fallen Celestials, of the discovery of Bacathe’s desecration of her apprentice, Sasmay Cull - or of the creation of the parasitic lifeform that she now sought to guide and instruct through life. All she needed to express was that it was real and something she had encountered before.

“The Architects created this place as a laboratory. Worlds were created, seeded with life that evolved into civilizations, and either thrived in mockeries of paradise or wallowed in the ruins of their own extinction. The Architects were worshipped as a triune of gods and goddesses, who later sought dominion over the material realm
- over realspace - with others as their devoted servants. They would spawn further horrors whose perfidious natures would ever further pollute the galaxy - from their line came Typhojem, the left-handed god. Tharagorrogaraht, the Night Spirit, who sought dominion over all the insectoid races of the galaxy and among them all wished to subsume the Killiks to her service. Ooradryl, the father of the monstrous Waru, whose dead remains lie on the world you have seen before. And Mnggal-Mnggal, the ever-consuming parasite, devourer of worlds and lord of the eternal feast. All can be traced back to the Architects.”

She motioned to the creature whose chaotic and self-consuming nature still swirled outside the shuttle’s cockpit. “The Soulworm was tricked by one of the Celestials into devouring herself. Kopa Kahn, long tired of having done every deed and experienced everything the galaxy could offer, was guided to death so he may yet live. Ap’aci, his cognition different from the others, accepted the wisdom of the Celestials and was raised to join them in the Prime universe, where the laws of our reality are decided and made known. But their destruction and ascension did not change the worship of the gods, or the remnants of scrolls and books that survived the destruction of their aberrant and malevolent followers in the millennia to come. And that is where you must again take your mere mortal grasp on reality and throw it aside, understand that things which seem to make sense do not always do so.”

She turned to face him directly. “The faith of a small band of cultists who discovered the book of a dead religion on a dead world is not enough to affect reality. But the faith of billions, perhaps trillions of lives in the Unknown Regions who are fully devoted to their gods, cultivated like a tree in a forest over millennia, can bring forth such maleficent terrors from the minds of mad mortals. And so, in the echos of the gods before them, the Avatars were formed, wrought with the perceptions of generations of men and women and reflective of interpretations of arcane scripture.”

She turned to look back at the body of the creature. “You ask me what power can be gained from something such as this. Something so purely chaotic, so defiant of sense and order. There is much that can be done - we need only take from it a mere sliver to understand how it may yet be useful to us in the wars yet to come.” She stopped for a bit and slowly reached her hand out to the window of the shuttle’s glass, shadowed essence slowly starting to ease through it and into the chaotic ether about. Soon she would be outside of the shuttle, floating in the fluidic void of Otherspace as glistening white eyes looked at Tu'teggacha through the window.

Stay here, and do not do anything. I will be back in a moment.