Mand’alor the Infernal knew the night would come, elements outside howling at the fragile walls constructed to keep them at bay. She held fast for the Accuser to enter her bower, cold uncomfortable eyes holding no mercy, no pity. As sterile as a t-visor before the execution. Yasha produced a signal jammer, and flicked it on.
“All I divulge is to be kept secret and unrepeated in any form or method. Mandalore’s future depends upon its’ secrecy, and thus I command you tell, record, or express none of what I shall say.” One would come, and desire the answers good and evil vode died to receive. A young woman heaved in her chair, forearms akimbo upon the chair’s arms. Her lovely face contorted in the severe and calculated ruler, who commanded millions and conquered planet, nebulae and cataclysm alike. The amber eyes which crawled to [member="Jor Kvall"]’s face held inside them an ever sparking fire.
“By three months of age, I was tossed into the Netherworld with my frightened arueti mother. I was raised in the Chaos for six years, surviving on blood rivers, and whatever prey we could slaughter. For a while, mother followed the tracks of a King of her People, who also lingered in that unholy place. Kaine Zambrano’s shadow kept us alive long enough for her to teach me how to be silent and hide… I rescued my mother from those pits. I met my father, and a few years of acclimatizing later, the Cataclysm stole my mother from me, as it stole many. This sounds like a ramble, but Kvall, it has meaning…
Upon meeting the Undying, I recognized a… kindred spirit in him. I could tell the aging Gurlanin had been where I grew up. It is the reason why he never intimidated me, why I took to carrying his spear and making myself useful. I was small, I could fit in spaces vode could not. I could kill quietly, hide and kill again. It was what I knew, but he feared it… did you ever notice him sitting by the fires, Jor? Stoking the flames. Even in the Palace, he would sit and muse upon the greater reason Manda brought him back to life. There must have been more, more than the Cataclysm and Monroe’s villainy, another reason that would spread across the Galaxy like a crimson ocean leaving nothing but stained bones.”
The caustic wind billowed, bashing at the fluctuant walls of the war tent. Yasha sipped her tea, clearing her throat. “Ra never knew. He truly believed Manda brought him back to us. He was a devoutly religious man, a fervour I share, after experiencing such things for myself.”
The empty tea mug clanked down on the table. “There is only one of whom I bear witness to being resurrected by Manda, and her name is [member="Ginnie Dib"]. Others noticed something off with the Undying, I was close to him, studying under him, for they repeated in my ear every day, every hour that someday decades from then Mandalore would be my responsibility, and if I was not ready for it… the cataclysm would look like foreplay. They didn’t listen, when I mentioned how I knew where he’d been, because I too was there… and I continued to worship my beloved Guardian and Mand’alor… he rewarded me with the opportunity to stand by his side for a treaty negotiation. It was after the War, I was wearing my beskar’gam for the first time… proudly standing behind and beside him, dwarfed utterly by the mammoth men in the room.
I saw the Dark Lord, and in my youth I spoke to him in our mutual native tongue, Epicant. He smiled down at me, offered his hand… and I recognized the sensation I felt pouring off Ra. I told Ra, but… it was not long after when he assigned me to the Cuir Rekr and disappeared. I knew, Jor. I knew Darth Carnifex had a hand in the Undying’s resurrection, but I could prove nothing… so when I prepared for my Verd’goten, I demanded one fit for Katlaydr. The Dominion of Dathomir, on the surface, was an attempt to cleanse the Witches, but I had a greater purpose. Ra taught me much of the Mandalorian histories, and the Nightfather Ember Rekali was the wisest of all exiled vode. He would come. If we took the Warlock Gate, his Gate, and we rounded up the Witches, he would come. If any held the knowledge of resurrection, it was Rekali. He came, and we negotiated the cease fire, Dathomir’s freedom for a Mandalorian presence at the Gate, and use of the space lanes… if he gave me proof, taught me what he knew. Before that proof came to my ears, Rekali ventured back through the Gate, and I dove into the Chaos, trudging through horrors for seven years, before he gave me the information I sought. Yet… Ember sent me back to the minute I left Dathomir. Seven years older, in a blink and flash of light. We lost Malika and Aryn over Utapau, my father abandoned Mandalore to become a tourist, and I challenged Kaine Zambrano upon a derelict space station along our border with the evidence I found. There, the Lord of the Sith acknowledged all.
Using clone-meat from DNA taken through the Omega Crisis, Darth Carnifex cloned Ra Vizsla, and utilized Dark Transference to implant Ra’s beleaguered and punished soul back into a living vessel. He desired an alliance between Mandalore and the Sith Empire, one which would last for centuries, we the loyal and capable soldiers, and they the mystics. The aggression and dictates of the Undying were implanted desires from the puppet master, who recreated him in his own skewed image… and Vilaz Munin helped Carnifex do it. Vilaz knew, and cautioned me to accept the marriage proposal of Ancius, when the next morning, word came that Malika was dead, killed by what seemed to be Darth Carnifex’s own apprentice… and so she was, for the apprentice betrayed the Emperor to kindle a war between Mandalore and the Outer Rim Coalition. Malika and Aryn dead, Preliat gone, and Vilaz and I all that were left of Ra’s totalitarian government, I moved quickly to attempt damage control… and a pair of wrist rockets blew up my attempts at reconciliation in my face. Vilaz escaped to Carnifex’s protective hedges, as did most of Clan Vizsla. I admit in my youth I handled it poorly, but with the secret of the Undying known only to three, I had to act as fast as possible to staunch the wounds and strengthen the Empire… for I knew if we showed weakness in those mean weeks, Carnifex would billow over us and we all would be his slaves. The Undying was meant to surge upon the galaxy and destroy as much of the old ways as he could. To throttle the Force Users into submission, while the Sith Empire kept the only strong supply.
Knowing this, I focussed on bridging new economic treaties with our Southern neighbours, and bringing an influx of finances to fund the ecological reconstruction of Mandalore. Meanwhile, Australis focussed on expanding our outdated and abandoned navy and military… All in preparation for the days to come, where we shall fight to continue our Mando’ade without a Master’s boot on our necks. This is the Infernal's Empire, not the Sith Lord's. I will do what is required to continually ensure the independence of Mandalore… but I cannot do it alone.”