Private THE THRONES BENEATH | Buried Offerings

[Darth Virelia]

"A discovery to change the galaxy."

Tags - Itzhal Volkihar



There were no windows on Polis Massa. No day. No night.

Only the breathless thrum of filtered air and the low, constant murmur of machines that never slept. This was not a world of life. It was a mausoleum that had learned to function, a graveyard with a pulse. And within its deepest arteries, past the administrative levels and beyond the reach of casual command, there was a room that even most governors would not know existed.

She stood at the center of it now. Still. Unmoving. Crowned in silence.

The chamber was circular—obsidian metal, devoid of ornament. Holo-emitters lined the walls like recessed eyes, blinking in rhythm with the datastreams. The floor was glass, backlit with the violet glow of a subterranean power node. It bathed the room in a light that was neither warm nor cold—only unreal. Suspended above her was a single, slow-spinning holoprojection: a map of Askaji. It glimmered like a phantom globe of dust and ruin.

And beneath that, Serina Calis waited.

She was not seated. She was not at rest. She did not rest.

Her armor—Tyrant's Embrace—absorbed the light like a black hole wrapped in sovereign geometry. Every inch of it glistened with the sheen of purpose: sculpted plates that suggested strength without bulk, grace without softness. The violet circuitry that pulsed through the armor's lattice mirrored the glow beneath her feet, making her seem less like a woman and more like a creature drawn up from the abyssal dark, crowned in entropy.

Six violet eyes gleamed from the smooth void of her mask.

They did not blink.

They observed.

Before her, a console extended from the ground in a seamless rise. Upon it danced the decrypted fragments of the Askaji datacore—a delicate weave of Old Republic command codes, planetary echo-maps, and encrypted metadata that defied standard parsing. But Serina did not view data the way others did. She did not read numbers. She felt patterns. Threads of power, woven through the galaxy's fabric. And here, on this forgotten desert world, something had stirred. Something old. Something structured.

A sound pulsed through the chamber—three tones, descending.

The door behind her opened.

She did not turn.

The soft sound of footsteps followed—measured, even. The presence that entered was armored. Not like her. Cruder. But competent.

She spoke only after the door sealed again behind him.

"Welcome to the depths, Mr. Volkihar."

The voice that flowed from her helm was not mechanical, but it was distorted. Warped gently at the edges, like a whisper echoing through too many rooms. Soft. Smooth. Irresistibly measured. It caressed the air like silk passed over steel, every word engineered.

"I trust the journey was… tolerable."

Her arms folded behind her back now—no gesture wasted, no movement casual. Even in stillness, the segmented armor of her cape shifted like a breathing thing. The faint red undertones of its synthweave whispered as they moved, like blood trickling down the walls of a forgotten crypt.

She let the silence return—not heavy, but tight. The air always grew thinner in this chamber. Whether from design or psychological effect, no one could say. And she liked it that way.

The projection of Askaji turned slowly above them, its weather systems and fault lines etched in runic overlays. She stepped forward once, placing herself between Itzhal and the map—not to block, but to reveal.

A region near the equator pulsed once in gold.

A mark that did not exist on modern cartography.

"A structure has been uncovered. Beneath the Sand Seas of Askaji. Preliminary scans identified it as an old listening post. Obsolete. Broken. Forgotten."

Her head tilted slightly—not inquisitive, but surgical.

"But I do not believe in forgotten things."

A new sequence of data filtered onto the console, static-wrapped and erratic—ghost readings. Power signatures. Anomalous energy fluctuations. Bio-signs... faint and flickering.

"You will go there. You will enter the ruin. You will extract the primary data core, secure any active systems, and leave a beacon for follow-up recovery teams. Standard protocol."

Pause.

"No casualties… unless necessary."

The six eyes on her helm refocused, narrowing like slits of violet fire.

"I have assigned no secondary team. I trust you will suffice."

There it was—subtle, perfectly measured praise. Not flattery. Not sentiment. Merely truth, presented as inevitable.

She moved to the side now, allowing full view of the map.

"Askaji is a crucible. History forged beneath silence. I intend to shape it."

Her tone changed ever so slightly—cooler now, not distant but lower, as if speaking closer to the truth of things.

"You will be my chisel."

She turned her head, one fraction of a degree.

"Any questions before you descend into the sand?"

And for just a moment—beneath the armor, beneath the voice, beneath the enigma—there was the ghost of something deeper. The faintest pull of a thread long buried.

The galaxy does not bury its dead. It forgets its mistakes.

And Serina Calis had come to remember.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location |Polis Massa, Outer Rim Territories

Enveloped in the haunting glow of a subterranean power node, Itzhal's plates of beskar—once a striking blend of black and crimson—shimmered a tint of purple, the red distorted to a vivid glow like alien blood splattered across the armour, which pulsed in time with the beating heart of power sealed beneath the surface. His steps unhindered by the unusual sight, he continued onward, closer to the centre of the room, as his presence was noted.

"It sufficed," Itzhal acknowledged, tone steady and assured, a subtle nod punctuating his words.

If not for the flex of armour that folded Serina's arms behind her back, he might have believed the figure before him was a statue, crafted from glistening steel and delicate circuits, both rigid and unyielding. It stood motionless, an imposing silhouette that seemed conjured from the shadows, twisted by the ominous light from above, until the instant it chose to awaken, transforming from a silent effigy into an iron shell for the avatar of purpose and precision that stared upon the room with half a dozen eyes.

Once he was closer, the illusion lost its pretence. Restrained until that moment, pieces of her form vividly moved, even when the woman beneath came to a stop. Her vision focused upon the projection, which Itzhal turned his attention towards shortly afterwards.

He knew little of Askaji. Unimportant in his time, it had served as little more than another population within the grasping reach of the Hutts and their various criminal enterprises. It was unsurprising to learn that something else might linger there, another relic of the ancient past, a story as old as time itself. It almost felt nostalgic.

With his eyes still focused on the display and what information had already been acquired from distant scans, Itzhal wondered what complications were going to occur this time. "And if others have taken an interest in the outpost, what is the priority?"

Tags: Darth Virelia​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"A discovery to change the galaxy."

Tags - Itzhal Volkihar



The question did not surprise her.

Serina's gaze remained locked on the projection, as if her violet-lit helm could see beyond the hologram—past sand and stone, beyond history itself, into the silent geometry of fate. She did not respond immediately. Her head tilted by a fraction, as though calculating the shape of the question from multiple angles.

When she did speak, it was like a dagger sliding free from velvet.

"Neutralize. Quietly."

The word neutralize was smooth, almost clinical. It did not imply rage, or revenge, or spectacle. It implied necessity. Like cauterizing a wound before infection spread.

She stepped forward once, just enough for her cape to hiss across the floor, the durafiber tendrils beneath it shifting with fluid autonomy—serpents coiled beneath a queen's train. Her helm turned to face him fully now, all six eyes narrowing into luminous slits.

"If they are scavengers, remove them. If they are prospectors, discourage them. If they are... competitors—then you may escalate."

A pause, and then her voice descended a register, softening to something far more precise.

"But do not desecrate the site. I want what lies beneath it unbroken."

She began to circle him slowly—not a predator, not a superior—but as one orbiting a fixed star to measure its pull. Her steps were as silent as breath. The ambient glow of the power node beneath the glass made shadows dance across her armor—turning her carapace into a flickering silhouette of bone and crown, adorned in dusk.

"You are permitted force, Itzhal Volkihar. But use it as a scalpel, not a cudgel. I am not interested in displays. I am interested in control."

She stopped behind him now, and her next words came low, intimate, threading beneath the seams of his armor like a cold current.

"Any fool can burn an outpost. I require a surgical silence. When I move openly on Askaji, I want no one to remember what came before it."

There was something in her voice, now—a tension wrapped in silk. Not urgency. Not fear.

Anticipation.

"This is the first stone laid in a structure that will one day blot out the sun."

Then she passed him again, returning to the projection.

Another command entered the console—his ship would already be fueled. Coordinates loaded. Local weather patterns projected in real time across the hologlobe. In the far corner of the room, a case sat unopened—simple, black, marked with a thin line of violet.

"You'll find a support drone inside. Atmospheric slicer. Adaptive uplink. It will respond only to your signature."

She paused.

"And if it doesn't return with you—nothing comes back at all."

The statement was final. Not a threat. A law.

She turned again, once more a monument of sovereign war wrought in flowing geometry and absolute restraint.

"Anything else, before I loose you upon the sands?"

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Polis Massa, Outer Rim Territories

Shifting sandstorms swept across the vast desert landscape, ethereal blue grains of light from the holoprojection sparkled like precious jewels caught in the embrace of starlight. Their minuscule forms hung suspended in sharp relief against the otherwise tranquil room, lingering in anticipation of Serina's response, much like dust particles dancing in the gentle pull of gravity—inevitable yet languid, a moment weighed down by the declaration of what was to come.

The complications that followed were expected and relatively reasonable, with some flexibility for whatever situation followed. Itzhal had never considered himself particularly charismatic, but even he believed dealing with the pressure of a few choice words delivered to the right person was preferable to another blood bath. Serina had read him well enough to understand that he had no interest in serving as just another executioner. He would have dismissed the contract immediately if she'd suggested otherwise.

With a subtle tilt of his head, he acknowledged her words as she circled around him, her movements sharp as the draw of a blade, whisper silent in the quiet that punctuated her decree. The ambient glow from the holoprojector flickered in the dimly lit room, illuminating the contours of his helmet in a soft blue light, contrasted sharply with the unsightly purple that crept across the edges of the room, swallowing Serina in stretched shadows tinted purple. Her prowling stride through the darkness carried her past Itzhal, his form still as a statue, despite his watchful gaze supplemented by multiple sensors that remained fixed on his employer, tracking her steps with unerring precision.

"No," Itzhal declared firmly, his voice cutting through the silence that lingered with an unwavering conviction. The information prescribed in the debrief was sufficient, even beyond what some other jobs frequently provided; anything else would be a matter of assumptions and details so inane as to waste time that could otherwise be spent on his task. He would have plenty of time once in hyperspace. "I understand the situation. I'll assess the rest of the information in transit."

A couple of steps crossed the rest of the distance between Itzhal and the unopened case, secured with a thin seam that seemed to leak a purple light, almost invisible if not for the relative darkness of the room. Undeterred by the sight, the Mandalorian's thumb ran across the seam until it reached the centre, at which point, it slid open, with just enough force to reveal the contents within before he sealed it back into place. Shifting his grip, he lifted the cargo with a twist of his shoulders, bringing him smoothly back to face Serina.

"Is there anything else, then?"

Tags: Darth Virelia​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"A discovery to change the galaxy."

Tags - Itzhal Volkihar



The six violet eyes narrowed with slow intent.

Serina Calis did not move when he turned to face her again. She remained where she had stopped—half-swathed in the projection's glow, the rest of her consumed by the hungry shadow of her own silhouette. Tyrant's Embrace shimmered in fractured hues of violet and obsidian, the thin streams of data reflected across her armor like symbols of divination—divine not because of some ancient mysticism, but because she had chosen them to be.

Itzhal's readiness pleased her.

He did not posture. He did not preen. He did not beg for more than was necessary. Most operatives required reassurance, or veiled threats to ensure compliance. Most needed to be reminded that they served beneath her, not beside her.

But this one… he asked the right questions. Then moved.

She liked that.

Serina lifted her chin slightly—not a nod, but an acknowledgment, as a queen might give a knight before dispatching him into the night to do what needed doing, without the distraction of sentiment.

"There is nothing else I need you to know."

Her voice was calm again, but it bore an undercurrent now—weight that hadn't been there before. Not urgency. Not command.

Purpose.

"But I will give you this."

She took a slow step forward, the motion gliding, almost silent, the segmented plates of her armored robes trailing behind her like coiled obsidian serpents uncoiling in solemn procession.

"Askaji is not just a desert. It is a tomb. Not the kind you bury the dead in—no. The kind that is built before the war ends."

Another step. She stood before him now, not at arm's reach, but just enough for proximity to press in, heavy and reverent. Her height—not overwhelming—was elevated by the psychological gravity she wove like a spell into every gesture, every syllable. In that moment, she was no longer simply a governor, nor a Sith, nor even a woman.

She was momentum made flesh.

"You will go down into the bones of a forgotten war. You will pull something from it that others missed because they weren't looking with the right eyes. They saw ruins. We will see infrastructure."

There was no threat in her tone. No warning. Only inevitability. Her voice was not cold—it was measured. And the precision was more terrifying than rage ever could be.

She stepped back again now, arms returning to their rest behind her back.

"Go quietly. Return alone. And above all else—remember everything you see. I do not send weapons into the dark."

Her helm tilted slightly.

"I send witnesses."

Then she turned away—one smooth motion, her cape flaring in a controlled ripple, a flourish more ritual than fabric—and returned to the console as if nothing more needed to be said. And truly, nothing more did.

For what could words add to a storm already called?



The descent into Askaji was not swift. It was ritual.

As the starry void peeled away into the bruised haze of atmosphere, Itzhal's vessel cut a clean vector through the upper stratosphere, the hull trembling as desert thermals clawed against the stabilizers like the hands of a thousand forgotten dead trying to claw their way home. Askaji did not welcome visitors. It simply endured them, the way ancient stone endures wind and time—impassive, eroding slowly, keeping secrets beneath its skin.

The surface came into view through the forward viewport—a sea of dunes sculpted by unbroken storms, stretched endlessly across a horizon where sky and sand conspired to erase all definition. The coordinates Serina had provided brought him not to a ruin in plain sight, but a deep depression at the edge of a long-forgotten canyon system. It was unmarked on any cartography. No satellite relay passed overhead. The planet itself seemed to recoil from remembering it.

As the landing gear hissed down and the repulsors pushed against the scorched stone with a low whine, silence reasserted itself.

Not the silence of peace.

The silence of pressure.

The loading ramp extended, and the winds greeted Itzhal not with violence, but with whispering indifference. Dust curled like smoke across the landing pad—fine, dry particles that shimmered faintly under Askaji's twin suns. Their presence distorted the light, giving the impression of movement just beyond vision—phantoms born from heat and isolation.

And there it was.

The outpost.

Half-buried in the sand. Angled sharply, like a blade that had once been driven into the ground with intent but never withdrawn. What remained visible was no more than a third of the original structure—rusted permacrete, fused alloy plating, sensor antennae twisted into brittle skeletons. Nature had not reclaimed it. Nature had ignored it.

The entrance lay beneath a collapsed overhang—little more than a dark aperture framed by broken support beams and shattered durasteel. It might once have been a hangar bay. Now it resembled the jaw of some great creature, caught mid-scream and turned to stone.

A single blinking light pulsed near the threshold.

Blue.

Still active.

Still waiting.

The ground around the site bore signs of disturbance. Not recent—but not ancient either. The sand had been brushed back in places, revealing the edges of manmade flooring. Footprints, partially filled by the wind, suggested others had passed through here. At least a half dozen. Their pattern was erratic. No formation. No order.

Scavengers, perhaps.

Or something else.

The heat clawed at every seam in his armor, but even through the filtered lenses of his visor, Itzhal would feel it—that tension in the air that spoke not of danger, but expectation. Something beneath the surface was listening. And it had been for a very long time.

A faint hum escaped from below. Subsonic. Felt more than heard.

A heartbeat.

And then—a flicker.

Just for a moment, his HUD lit up with a burst of motion at the very edge of sensor range.

Dozens of signatures.

Gone in a blink.

Phantoms.

Or something deeper, waiting beneath the dust.

The entrance beckoned now, its shadow long and still.

Waiting to be disturbed.

Waiting to remember.

And beneath Askaji's dead wind, the ruins whispered back:

"In sleep, we served the Light."

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Askaji, Outer Rim Territories

The nameless vessel trembled violently as it pierced the atmospheric threshold, carving a luminous path through the sky. Flames enveloped its hull, ignited by the furious friction of its descent, transforming the surrounding air into a roaring blaze that enveloped the craft in a shimmering cocoon of fire. The orange glow was blinding in its beautiful fury, all-encompassing against the transparisteel viewport.

Sitting back in his pilot chair, Itzhal forced himself to relax during the troubling period of atmospheric entry, when the sheer collision of force—kinetic and thermal energies combined into a wave of plasma contained by the ship's shields on the nose of the vessel, rampaging wildly over what sensor systems the light frigate was equipped with. It never got easier. They just found better ways to handle it.

As the ship descended blindly through the layers of the atmosphere, the countdown ticked away, slowly approaching the point where the friction reduced to barely tolerable levels. Itzhal, well used to that moment of helplessness, turned his attention to the stream of information displayed on his HuD, a short summary of the most recent planetary update provided by an orbital beacon passed on his way planetside.

The results were nothing special; they were a mere update to what Serina Calis and her people had already provided. He hadn't expected much else; the area designated had long been lost to time, unimportant to those who mattered, their wars and cultures fought over a dozen different reasons, none of them close at hand.

By the time he'd glanced over the summary, the viewport had settled to a simmer of heat, little more than the rays of sun caught against shaded glass as outside rolled an ever-present storm, whirls of sand scratching at the hull like nibbling teeth. Their relentless press, harmless against the shield of dura-armour, for all that he'd seen similar storms once tear exposed skin to ribbons, a thousand lashes from an uncaring world. Unaware of the victims it attacked with every breath, nor those that escaped over the horizon, to destinations further afield.

As the ship settled, he leaned back into the chair, with only the whirl and beep of machinery to greet him; his droid assistants working elsewhere in the vessel. There was no real reason to delay; he'd read the information they had on the location, whatever sources and theories that could be scavenged from the tales of a place once forgotten, more myth than legend, if one could even claim it valuable enough for either title.

Still, Itzhal paused, his heart thumping steadily in his chest as he gazed out of the viewport, his eyes drawn to the jagged silhouette of the towering structure in the distance. Its awe-inspiring peak heralded a story forgotten, twisted and distorted by the ravages of time—or perhaps something much worse from a history torn asunder, a tapestry with more holes than tales. Whether it was the former or the latter, he could not say, not as he lingered in this ship, far from the grains of a greater mystery yet untold.

He'd always had a taste for mysteries.

Itzhal's boots clacked as he marched down the landing ramp, greeted by another world filled with possibilities and the promise of violence that followed him everywhere. One hand held close to the holster of his belt, and the blaster stored there.

Vague blurs shimmered in the distance as his gaze travelled across the horizon, the sensors in his helmet, ancient by common standards, whispered threats, seen and forgotten, as all things seemed to be on this planet. Wary and aware he could be walking into another death trap, Itzhal took another step closer to the entrance way of the structure, his head swiftly scanning from side to side, searching for movement best seen in his peripheral vision or signs of whatever had brought ruin upon the outpost.

Tags: Darth Virelia​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"A discovery to change the galaxy."

Tags - Itzhal Volkihar



The desert did not roar.

It listened.

Each of Itzhal's steps across the scorched stone floor was devoured by the air itself—no echo, no reverberation, as if the very space resisted memory. Dust clung to every edge of the half-buried ruin like dried blood on old teeth. And even with the sun overhead, the interior passage ahead was swallowed in shadow, dark as a sealed tomb, unmoved by the centuries that had passed above it.

Sand scraped against his armor as the wind curled inward behind him, dragging reluctant light a few paces further into the corridor before abandoning it altogether. He passed from heat into stillness, into air that had not been breathed since the galaxy was younger.

His HUD flickered for a moment. Temperature drop: 23.8 degrees. Atmospheric pressure unchanged. But beneath those readouts, something else—an unshielded signal. Weak. Broken. Pinging once every 44 seconds. Encryption. Obsolete. Outdated. Still running.

It should have been impossible.

He advanced.

The corridor narrowed quickly, the architecture brutalist and slanted, like the claws of some vast machine had carved it in haste, then left it to rot. Faded strips of electro-insignia crawled the walls—tactical routing marks used by military engineers, half-scorched from a fire that had long since burned out. Above him, a half-collapsed gantry loomed, its safety rail dangling like a skeleton's grin. Below it, the floor gave way to a chamber sunk several meters down—circular, smooth, reinforced.

A lift chamber.

Still functional.

The pad beneath him gave a soft shudder, then slowly, with a mechanical groan that echoed into long-abandoned caverns, began to descend.

As the lift creaked lower, a cold breath of air met him. Sterile. Preserved. Conditioned. That was the first real clue. The air here was being recycled. Maintained. Whatever this place had once been, something had kept it alive.

Then the lights came on.

Not violently. Not in alarm. But slowly. Sequentially.

A soft thunk. Then a flicker. A hallway lighting strip blinked to life. Another followed. Then another, until the entire shaft was bathed in low golden light—the color of memory.

The lift stopped with a low hiss of depressurization.

And before him, the heart of the outpost unfolded.

It was massive. A circular operations chamber, dome-shaped, the walls constructed from duracrete and alloy so old it had taken on a greenish patina. Broken consoles lined the perimeter, wiring exposed like spilled entrails. In the center of the room, a raised dais jutted from the floor, its edges beveled with a precision no scavenger would've left untouched. Several panels were cracked. Others, whole.

Itzhal's sensors flickered again. Life signs—none present.

And yet… he was not alone.

The air here was aware.

Against the far wall, half-collapsed under the weight of a fallen ceiling support, was a mural—maybe once a display screen, but now fused into the wall like fossilized circuitry. Its surface had been scraped clean in some places, as if hands—human or otherwise—had tried to erase its message.

They had failed.

And from beneath the dust and erosion, from beneath the scars of time and battle and burial, a single image burned through:

A crest.

Circular. Bold. Etched into the alloy with proud symmetry.

At its center: a stylized starburst—its rays held between two raised wings.

Above it, the faint outline of a sword, point downward.

Surrounding it: six broken hololights, flickering faintly with forgotten energy.

It was not a military seal.

It was not a planetary flag.

It was a symbol of the Old Republic.

The seal of the Galactic Senate and its Armed Forces—intact, defiant, untouched by the passage of time.

It stared back at him now, as if daring him to remember what it once meant. As if whispering not in triumph, but in warning.

It had not been destroyed.

It had been buried.

And Askaji, it seemed, was not yet done speaking.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Askaji, Outer Rim Territories

The near silence wrapped around Itzhal like a whisper, a secret shared between him and the ancient desert. A slithering wind carried a threat—subtle yet unsettling—flickering through the armored plates of beskar and the fabric of his bodysuit, searching for seams and vulnerable spots hidden beneath, poking and prodding as it led his steps out of reach.

Itzhal ventured deeper into the ruined structure, a tomb of storied history, forgotten like everything else in this place. Even the wind dared not move, already another victim of the stillness.

His footsteps echoed like a desecration, a jarring intrusion upon what had been immortalised in the sands of time. As if the departed had any desire to cling to their buried secrets, left behind for men like Itzhal to uncover, there lingered an old adage: Two can keep a secret, as long as one of them is dead.

In truth, it was merely a matter of time. Throughout his career, Itzhal had learned that the dead could indeed convey their tales, whispering through the silence that enveloped their final slumber. It was all about deciphering the unspoken language; wounds etched upon a body, fragments of memories preserved in artefacts, and each memento of their existence held its own poignant narrative, desperate to be told once more. His previous life as a lawman, hunting criminals and discovering the truth behind the lies, bore striking similarities to the exploration of tombs like this—both professions were woven with the threads of stories yearning to be unveiled.

In a way, it was sometimes easier in these cases; the departed so long gone that their tale could be told without the baggage of living relatives and cruel secrets dragged out to lash at those still standing.

Easier, not necessarily safer.

The descent into the underworld took only a moment, a soft touch to signal his deliverance deeper into its depths on a chariot of lifeless steel.

Yet, the depths were not dead.

They stirred with the gentle caress of air, untouched by the stale decay that ought to have pervaded the depths. A whisper of vitality, an incoherent melody amid the lifeless expanse of steel and shadows, beckoned life within the desolate necropolis. Harmless as fresh air, it sent a shiver down Itzhal's spine, igniting every instinct to hunt the shadows that lingered, threats hidden in the darkness, ready to pounce upon an unsuspecting foe.

His free hand settled upon the curve of his thigh holster.

The other travelled across the room, his arm extended under the steady gaze of cold blue eyes, ready to fire at the barest sign of threatening movement from the unrecognisable creatures. Beneath the polished surface of his visor, a snarl simmered, burnt into place across worn lips that bared back white teeth, unseen against the mirror of the symbol that had shattered his life into fragments.

With a steely resolve, Itzhal wrenched his gaze away, striding into the room's heart like a predator on the hunt. Each step was sharp and deliberate, a strike against the ground delivered with purpose, each press of his heel scrunching deep into the surface. His fingers left the stressed grip of his holster, moving swiftly to jab at the buttons on nearby terminals, a test to see if anything remained functional in this forsaken place.

He should have known.

Tags: Darth Virelia​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"A discovery to change the galaxy."

Tags - Itzhal Volkihar



The shift in atmosphere was not gradual.

It was total.

The moment the panels hissed open, a pulse of ionized air spilled into the room, dry and sterile, as if freshly exhaled from the lungs of a long-dead war machine. The lights faltered—then stabilized, their glow not flickering now, but watching. The air thinned perceptibly, or perhaps that was only perception, the ancient systems struggling to interpret the presence of an intruder for the first time in untold centuries.

From the open alcoves stepped the Droids.

Not crude war machines. Not cobbled together scavenger constructs. These were monuments in motion.

They stood tall and broad, humanoid in silhouette but exaggerated in every dimension. Their armor was plated durasteel, smooth and angular, finished in bleached white and gunmetal tones—like a sculpted exoskeleton of sanctified death. The plates were heavy, reinforced along the joints and chest, braced at the shins and forearms. No nonsense. No ornamentation. Every edge was a compromise between mobility and defense.

The helmets were faceless.

Broad, visorless, with a reinforced brow ridge and angular chin that gave the illusion of a head shaped like a closed fist. There were no eyes. Only a black strip of mirrored alloy across the front—one-way armorglass housing their optical sensors. It absorbed the light. Refused to reflect the world.

And then, they moved.

With a hydraulic whisper and a low, thudding step, the first droid advanced into the chamber, servos murmuring as power surged back through its limbs. The second followed, its steps slower, more deliberate. Both raised their rifles in perfect synchronization—a pair of compact, short-barreled weapons built directly into the arms. These were not sidearms. These were integrated systems, precision-forged to fire high-velocity slugs or ionized bolts with brutal accuracy.

No flourish. No threat display.

Just action.

Itzhal's helmet sensors detected it before the eye could catch it—subtle magnetic shielding unfolding across the droids' chestplates, arming for combat. Their internal reactors were online. Fully charged. Combat-capable.

The first of them—marked with faded rank lines on its shoulder plates—spoke.

"Designation: Unauthorized. Class: Hostile Unknown."

The voice was mechanical, yes, but not emotionless. It carried a weight, a tone crafted to simulate authority. Not just to warn—but to command. It echoed through the chamber like a judge's verdict.

The second droid stepped into position across from Itzhal, creating a flanking formation. They moved with unnatural unity, neither organic nor mindless. This was not the AI of Separatist models or cobbled-together assassin droids. These constructs had been made for a different kind of war—a war of principle, of doctrine.

"You are in violation of Republic Statute One-Three-Seven-Alpha. This facility is under classified protection."

Their weapons did not tremble. They did not threaten. They waited.

"Identify yourself. Comply. Or be neutralized."

A soft hum filled the air as their targeting arrays calibrated, red glints flickering beneath the surface of their armor. One tilt of the head. One twitch of movement. That would be enough.

The Republic had long fallen.

The galaxy had moved on.

But these droids had not.

They remembered the mandates. They remembered the protocols. And to them, the war had never ended. It had only paused.

Now it had resumed.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Askaji, Outer Rim Territories

A sharp hiss of air escaped from the freshly opened gaps in the stark grey room, torn open like bleeding wounds, disturbed by Itzhal's passage and warped further by the deathly silence ripped asunder. The resonant echo of a chilling wail flickered ahead of him, a haunting accompaniment to the arrival of a presence that had stormed in unannounced.

Suddenly thrust into the brilliance of a harsh light that illuminated the space around him, Itzhal stood clad in plates of beskar, their surface a deep, haunting obsidian hue intersected with deeper shades of crimson red. Each piece, sculpted and repainted long ago, a promise made yet unfulfilled, an Oath without an end. There could be no justice for the erasure of his people, every memory of them bled with regrets that could not be forgotten or fixed.

Around the edges of his eyes, Itzhal's expression sharpened as his gaze focused on a point beyond the horizon. With his sight limited to the dimly lit elevator and the looming walls of the surrounding chamber, he leaned into his other senses, allowing the thud of approaching steps and the faintest shifts in the air to compensate for the limitations of his vision.

A shiver danced along Itzhal's arms as the air crackled with tension, like the periphery of a thunderstorm, danger held at bay through distance rather than intention as the threat neared closer.

Then they arrived.

Stalwart sentinels arisen from ancient tombs, duty-bound to a code unknown.

Itzhal's hand never strayed from its position close to his holster, the grip exposed and waiting as the droids entered the room. Their presence was unchallenged by such a paltry weapon, designed not for war but the cheapest offer of self-defence—unnecessary for a man cloaked in the source of his people's resilience and the myths that followed.

Not that his armour would matter much if they focused fire on the lesser plates, Itzhal acknowledged.

As the first droid moved to face him, Itzhal mirrored the inhuman figure, his steps creeping into the rhythm of their approach, past the terminals that had yet to reactivate despite his insistence. Their blank screens watched as he stopped near the centre of the room, not far from the barrel of a weapon pointed at his face, and the threat of another looming nearby as the second droid strode across the room.

Outnumbered and outgunned, information poured across the Mandalorian's HuD in a deluge of facts and assumptions provided by the sensors spread across his armour, desperately searching for something that could switch the tide in his favour. As no piece of the puzzle was considered too small, his eyes strained under the sheer input, a barrage upon the senses, barely restrained by the sliver that remained untouched, a window to rest his focus upon the judging sentinel.

When it finally deemed to speak, its voice grated against his ears, a sense of authority unearned except for by the strength of its arms and the lingering threat of violence.

"Republic investigation team," Itzhal lied, aware he needed to buy time as old codes pried from bloodied lips were spoken for the first time in centuries. "This facility has failed to provide external reports to the appropriate agencies. This unit is to confirm the last known external report. Explain. This unit is to identify the last known internal report."

Beneath the unforgiving glow of stark overhead lights, Itzhal glanced over the slowly progressing sensor readings that accessed the ceiling above his head and the two droids.

Tags: Darth Virelia​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"A discovery to change the galaxy."

Tags - Itzhal Volkihar



There was a pause.

Not hesitation. Processing.

The Sentinel droids stood immobile, towering monuments to a war long buried beneath time and sand. Yet within them, banks of code stirred—ancient, imperfect, eroded by entropy but not erased. The moment Itzhal's lie touched the air, the protocols behind their armor began sifting through forgotten command trees, parsing his words against subroutines and key phrases etched into their command hierarchy centuries ago.

It wasn't a match.

But it was close enough.

The droids didn't lower their weapons.

But they didn't fire, either.

A deep vibration coursed through the room, faint and resonant. It was not sound. It was motion—the creaking exhale of something massive redistributing its power, as if the room itself were shifting in its sleep.

Then the ceiling groaned.

Above Itzhal, segmented metal plates began to rotate with the mechanical rhythm of a lock being undone. Hidden recesses clicked outward in a precise spiral until, from the center, a thick alloy cylinder descended on a humming magnetic rail. Three meters above the floor it stopped, hovering silently as charged air prickled across Itzhal's visor.

The droids said nothing.

But they watched.

From the cylinder's base, a projection emitter crackled to life.

Not crisp. Not stable. Blue lines of static rippled through the chamber, fighting interference, until an image—ghostly, flickering, impossibly old—stabilized in the air.

He stood tall in the holofield, clad in the formal field armor of the Old Republic: ceremonial pauldrons reinforced with combat plating, rank stripes etched. His face was youthful by comparison, yet already lined with purpose. Strong jaw, trimmed beard, dark hair cropped in the style of a long-dead army. His bearing was unmistakable.

Cassian Ravel .

He looked straight ahead—into the recording device, into the void—and began to speak.

"This is Commander Cassian Ravel. Galactic Republic Army, Strategic Command—designate 31-Delta, Askaji Suppression Zone."

His voice was smooth. Controlled. But beneath the discipline lived exhaustion. Resentment. A man who had followed orders even when he knew they would not be remembered.

"As of this recording, we are initiating full lockdown under Contingency Order THRONEWARD. We've received no transmissions from Coruscant in over twelve cycles. Jedi Command has gone dark. The Senate has ceased all contact."

"This station, and the men under my command, are entering cryostasis effective immediately. Not because of defeat. Because… someone has to survive."

The projection wavered—just slightly. Then he leaned forward.

Eyes hard.

"If you're hearing this… then the worst has happened. The Republic has failed."

A beat.

"But duty remains."

"You are to assess the galactic situation. Retrieve the command codes sealed within Vault Theta. Reactivate only what you can control. Do not, under any circumstances, awaken the entire complex unless you are prepared to command it."

"These are soldiers. Veterans. Patriots. They don't know they were abandoned."

His jaw flexed. His voice lowered.

"They deserve better than another politician using them for leverage. If you're not here to lead them… walk away."

The image trembled, corrupted by time.

Then, softer:

"If Seras is still alive… tell her I kept the promise. I—"

Static cut him off.

The projection blinked out.

Darkness returned.

But not silence.

Because the Sentinel droids—those steel guardians—had shifted.

Weapons lowered. Stance changed. No longer walls. Now… gatekeepers.

And behind them, a newly lit corridor unfurled from the far end of the room—narrow, sloped downward, framed by walls covered in stasis glyphs and power inlets. It led not into another hallway, but a vault.

The air that flowed from it was cool. Sterile. Mechanical.

The kind of air that preserves.

The kind of air that waits.

Somewhere down that corridor, Cassian Ravel slept.

And behind him, an army.

Still dreaming of the Republic.

Still waiting for orders.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Askaji, Outer Rim Territories

In the centre of the room, Itzhal stood resolute under the glare of lights, the stiff frame of his spine unwavering in the presence of the armed threat that surrounded him. His buy'ce was angled slightly upwards, the sleek stretch of his T-visor locking onto the slender black strip of transparisteel that shielded the optical sensors of one of the droids, their metallic frame, sleek and imposing as the lights above beamed down upon the stark white plates of the war machine.

In his peripheral vision, Itzhal could make out the other droid, a gaunt spectre that loomed silently in the background, the gleaming barrel of its integrated blaster arm, angular and sharp as any blade, was aimed directly at Itzhal's side, a phantom dagger pressing against the exposed weakness as the inhuman sentinel waited for the excuse to fire, ready and poised for the executioner's strike. The worst part was knowing that the droid cared little for the threat it maintained, mission parameters and walls of code weighed up against the Mandalorian's presence here.

It would have inevitably fired, if not for the deceitful words that spilt from his lips. Intended to buy time as Itzhal's gaze prowled across the room, assessing ventilation grates and ancient computer terminals for whatever advantage they might provide, unlikely as they were to provide a golden bullet; he was no stranger to shifting the tide with whatever came to hand.

In the end, his gaze fell upon a worn power generator nestled in the corner, its once-vibrant paint now dulled with dust and neglect, likely a forgotten backup for the array of inactive terminals that stretched across the weathered southern wall. A faint hum vibrated from the machine, barely audible even in the silence that followed Itzhal's declaration. Not unlike the soft click of his visor switching sensor modes, overlaying the scene with an intricate web of sparking energy that flowed from the machine, illuminating the exposed cabling of a damaged connector that sagged beneath the weight of age, tenuously linked to a series of lighting rigs overhead.

He would have one shot at deploying his fibercord thrower; the droids would not give him a second.

With a hushed word contained by the seals of his buy'ce, Itzhal shifted his weight as he prepared for the chaos to come.

It never did.

Static sparked across the overlay of the Morellian's HuD, old channels and cables flooded with an unexpected burst of power that lit up his visor as sensor systems in his armour struggled to keep track of the shift in attention. The facility brought gasping to life with a grumble of mechanical parts that rumbled and groaned with their sluggish movement, a giant awakened from slumber.

He instinctively stepped back as the ceiling above him began its slow descent. Determined not to tempt fate, he vividly imagined the ancient facilities' crumbling structure succumbing to age, and he refused to be caught off guard—surviving the droid's judgment only to be crushed by a simple servo failure was not a fate he was willing to accept.

As he faced the recording device, its activation sparked to life, and the holofield bathed the Mandalorian's armour in a soft, creulian glow that flickered like the slow ebb and tide of the waves. A gentle hue contrasted against the harsh, blinding overhead lights, which had embraced his armour in a ghastly shade of grey.

Ironic that his description of a tomb had been more accurate than he'd initially assumed.

Itzhal's gaze travelled across Cassian Ravel's uniform, a relic consigned to history, and over the attached rank insignia that stood at odds with his relatively youthful face. A surge of temptation coursed through him—to pull the trigger, delivering a final brutal blow that would drive a last nail into their proverbial coffin before he sealed the tomb away forever.

The greatest punishment of all, to be forgotten and resigned to history.

Yet, there was a fear and anger that resonated in the glare of Cassian's steel blue eyes, a disgust that he carried even with the compromise of his request to an individual he could not prepare or tailor his words to; they wanted to be used again but for more than just the fickle whims of politicians that turned men to toys.

Quiet now, as the message came to a close and he was left with the decision at hand, Itzhal wondered if these soldiers would have carried out the destruction of his world, whether they would have looked upon the order that had damned his people and proceeded regardless. He would not be surprised to find a bloody answer.

He wondered then if Serina Calis had suspected what he would find here. Whether or not it was a test to see what he would do, faced so soon with ghosts from his past.

Did the fact they'd been sealed away before that fateful day matter, or did they bloody themselves by association?

It was too soon to tell.

Hardening his heart for the decisions to follow, Itzhal tilted his head back towards the nearest droid. "Take me to Vault Theta."

Tags: Darth Virelia​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"A discovery to change the galaxy."

Tags - Itzhal Volkihar



The droid did not speak.

For a moment, the command hung in the air like a challenge—not to its authority, but to the very systems that governed its existence. The artificial mind inside the armored shell parsed the sentence with ancient precision, its logic trees sifting through authorization levels and access hierarchies forged in a Republic that had not drawn breath for nearly a thousand years.

And then—

It stepped forward.

The movement was sharp. Controlled. The heavy footfall struck the ferrocrete with the sound of a final verdict being delivered. Then the second Sentinel mirrored it, falling into lockstep with its twin. They did not question. They did not confer. They simply obeyed.

Cassian Ravel's orders still held sway here.

They began to move toward the corridor that had opened behind them—its walls now fully lit, casting long amber reflections that danced across the scarred chamber like echoes of forgotten torchlight. Every surface was reinforced, stamped with the hexagonal motifs of military engineering, reinforced bulkheads ribbed with shock-hardened plasteel. This wasn't an access tunnel.

It was a sealed artery of war infrastructure.

The passage twisted, sloped, then descended. Step by step, the light behind Itzhal grew dimmer. The sounds of the upper chamber faded into memory. And as he moved deeper, shielded doors hissed open ahead of him in a rhythm of mechanical reverence—the tomb unfolding for its inheritor.

Along the walls, frescoes etched into burnished metal panels began to emerge—half-symbolic, half-practical. Dozens of stylized warriors in archaic armor, enshrined in poses of vigilance and duty. It wasn't decoration. It was indoctrination. Whoever had built this vault wanted the men inside to remember who they were, every step of the way.

Eventually, the corridor widened.

A massive pair of blast doors stood at the end, stretching nearly eight meters tall and sealed with concentric locking rings that glowed with recessed blue light. A sigil was carved across their surface—the crest of the Galactic Republic, faded but defiant. Below it, in bold Aurebesh script, the name:

VAULT THETA – COMMAND GROUP RAVEL

To its right, an ancient control pedestal rose from the floor, its interface flickering to life at Itzhal's approach. The console was different from the ones above—smoother, more heavily shielded, its power signature steadier. A biometric sensor extended, along with a key slot intended for a physical command cylinder.

But the Sentinels did not stop.

One of them raised its arm, and a sliver-thin blade extended from its bracer—not a weapon, but a data spike. It was inserted directly into the pedestal.

"Command recognized," came the droid's voice. "Authorization key: Ravel, Cassian—Commander. Voice imprint confirmed. Contingency protocol—THRONEWARD—resumed."

The blast doors began to move.

Not swiftly. Not with ceremony.

But with weight.

Each ring rotated in sequence—massive, ancient machinery protesting with deep, thunderous groans as they twisted apart. As they unlocked, pressurized air escaped the vault in a low hiss, the stale breath of centuries exhaled all at once.

A final clunk.

Then silence.

The doors parted.

Within, the chamber opened into a space that defied its buried nature. The walls were lined with cryostasis pods—hundreds of them—arranged in cathedral-like rows, stretching toward a vaulted ceiling choked with shadow. Blue light pulsed softly from beneath each pod, illuminating the preserved silhouettes of soldiers clad in Republic armor, pristine and unaging.

Some had arms crossed over their chests. Others had hands at their sides, frozen mid-rest. All of them had their helmets secured, their faces hidden—save one.

At the far end of the chamber, a single cryopod stood apart from the rest, embedded into the raised dais of the command platform. It was larger. More reinforced. The canopy of the pod was clear.

Inside, Cassian Ravel lay sleeping.

His uniform was untouched by decay. The command stripes still gleamed against the dull fabric. One hand rested on his chest. The other, curled near his side. His expression was tranquil, but unreadable—like a general waiting for the next mission briefing.

His vitals blinked slowly on the side of the pod. Stable. Holding.

Ready.

Beneath the display, a line of archaic text scrolled in military code:

STASIS PROTOCOL ACTIVE. THRONEWARD CONTINGENCY: STANDING BY.
AWAITING COMMAND INITIATIVE.
AWAITING WAR.

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Askaji, Outer Rim Territories

Stepping confidently in the wake of the Republic's past misdeeds, Itzhal advanced purposefully, his presence a silent companion to the rhythmic thud of the imposing security droids that escorted him onwards. As the dim lights gleamed ominously over their metallic frames, stretched arms ending in blasters cast long shadows on the ground before the surrounding darkness consumed them, their descent passed beyond the fickle boundaries of the lights from above.

The muted clink of sliding passageways echoed through the air, heralding the Mandalorian's arrival as the droids ushered him deeper into the heart of the tomb. Each dim corridor stretched before him, with the oppressive weight of the ancient metal closing in around him, its lingering judgment held in reserve for the awful fate that awaited. His own steps, a whisper as he continued downwards, Itzhal meticulously counted the number of blast doors that passed, each one a grim milestone marking his journey into darkness. As the minutes ticked by, his calculations morphed under the weight of grim certainty, the stark reality that fighting his way out was becoming ever more improbable with every row of stalwart defences they traversed.

His gaze lingered upon the hissing frame of the next door they passed, another checkpoint between himself and the surface. Another step closer to Vault Theta and the threat that slumbered beneath the sands, sealed away like past misdeeds, left in the dust to be forgotten.

So at odds with the frescoes that pressed deep into the walls, their pride left to linger in spaces unseen till now, a message for the stark few allowed to remember or incapable of forgetting.

He did not falter as they reached the final set of blast doors, momentous slabs of metal that groaned with their passage, awoken by the uncaring sentinels that had guided him here, unaware of the thoughts that consumed him.

The mercenary's heavy boots made muted sounds against the cold, metallic floor as he entered the chamber, his visor casting a vigilant sweep across the dimly lit room. Rows of cryostasis pods splayed across the walls like a swarm of spiders, awaiting the command to open. Inside, countless men and women lay in suspended animation, their features obscured by the sleek contours of their armour and the fractured veil of misted glass.

The air was thick with an uneasy quiet, disturbed only by the soft hum of machinery, as Itzhal's steps carried him past the two droids and towards the command controls. Where the Throneworld Contingency awaited.

He was not here for the sake of the old wars.

No matter how tempting it was to punish them for loyalty to those who had allowed his people to burn.

Errantly, he brought up a line of text on his visor, a memory sealed in writing: "You will go there. You will enter the ruin. You will extract the primary data core, secure any active systems, and leave a beacon for follow-up recovery teams. Standard protocol."

Extract the primary data core.

Underneath the cover of his visor, steel-blue eyes stared across the room and the countless lives held in his fingertips.

People weren't data or systems.

"Droid. Do you have information on the suspected side effects of prolonged cryo-stasis?" He pondered aloud, memories of his previous awakening on the edge of his mind, a link between himself and these unfortunate souls, he didn't dare to linger on. His abrupt revival was different; the technology was nothing alike the cold slumber of cryostasis, he assured himself. "Also, I need a status update on the primary data core and any unauthorised movements in the area. Is this site secure?"

He could save the dilemma of awakening them for later, if not outright leaving it to Serina herself. It would be easier to judge her than face the choice himself, as if handling Republic soldiers to a Sith wasn't a choice in itself.

Tags: Darth Virelia​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"A discovery to change the galaxy."

Tags - Itzhal Volkihar



The Sentinel on his right stepped forward at the question, its reinforced frame casting long, predatory shadows across the mist-veiled pods. The soft whir of its servos and the dull hiss of hydraulics filled the air as it interfaced with the command pedestal. A moment later, the surrounding consoles—silent until now—began to stir. Amber lights flickered to life along the platform's perimeter, and faded displays blinked in protest as ancient systems were brought online.

A synthesized voice issued from the droid's central module—warped slightly, like a sermon replayed from worn holotape.

"Query received. Cryostasis records indicate ninety-seven percent structural integrity across all stasis pods. Life signs remain stable. No system-wide degradation detected."

The droid's red optical sensor narrowed with a soft pulse.

"However—prolonged exposure exceeding designated temporal limits has produced secondary anomalies in twenty-one units: cortical desynchronization, muscular atrophy exceeding threshold parameters, and elevated neurochemical volatility upon reawakening. Projected risk: psychological destabilization. Containment protocols prepared."

A pause followed. Then:

"Command protocol allows for individual revival upon direct authorization. Group reactivation requires secondary biometric clearance or military directive Alpha-Twelve."

The implication was clear. These were not civilians placed into peaceful slumber. These were weapons, suspended in case of final need. They were not meant to wake peacefully.

Another console lit up behind the droid. A narrow display recessed into the wall rotated from its housing and began to scroll diagnostics across the screen—faster than the eye could comfortably follow. Itzhal's HUD caught a summary translation midstream:

DATA CORE STATUS: INTEGRITY 92%
ACCESS: RESTRICTED
AUTHORITY SIGNATURE: COMMANDER RAVEL, CASSIAN
LAST ACCESS: ERROR
EXTERNAL LINK ATTEMPT: 3 DAYS PRIOR
SOURCE: UNKNOWN – PING ORIGIN TRACEABLE
SECURITY RESPONSE: NON-ENGAGED
RECOMMENDED ACTION: CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL RED-VIOLET

The droid's voice returned—calmer now, yet somehow more mechanical, the tone stripped of all human modulation.

"Primary data core remains functional. Partial data defragmented for viewing. Full access requires Cassian Ravel's active confirmation or retrieval of his command cylinder from sealed personal effects."

It rotated its head smoothly to face Itzhal once more.

"Unauthorized signal was detected entering the outer perimeter three days ago. Source was unable to penetrate core vault. Signal carried minimal decryption signature. Estimate: low-level scan or accidental contact. Intruder did not engage Sentinel response. Possible stealth technology."

A pause.

"No internal movement has been detected. Site remains secure."

The air in the chamber shifted slightly then—not physically, but psychologically. The weight of the sleeping soldiers, the narrow gaze of the Sentinels, the nearness of Cassian Ravel, so perfectly preserved in the command pod... it all settled over Itzhal like a leaden hand on the shoulder.

There were no alarms. No threats.

But the room itself was now aware of him.

One choice could open the doors.

Another could leave them sealed forever.

The command terminal pinged softly. A blinking prompt emerged on the holoscreen:

COMMAND ACTION REQUESTED
— ACCESS CORE DATA
— INITIATE PARTIAL REVIVAL
— INITIATE FULL REVIVAL
— LOCK VAULT

The system waited.

The Sentinels waited.

Cassian Ravel slept on, haloed in blue light, a man out of time preserved like a blade sheathed in frost.

And at the edge of all things, Askaji itself seemed to hold its breath.

Waiting for Itzhal's choice.