The Deep-Seer
Brooke Waters
THE WHISPERS OF DATHOMIR
Darth Vhalor had given up on the civilized worlds far ago.
Cities did not interest him. The archives were catalogued. The temples studied. The histories re-written by scholars for generations.
Vhalor wanted more.
He wanted what had been forgotten.
Years of wandering from world to world had passed him by, following leads wherever they might surface. Tombs buried under desert, temples consumed by jungles, abandoned sanctuaries whose builders were lost to time, and ruins scrubbed from galactic records.
Seeking…
Relics.
Ancient writings.
Forgotten fragments of ritual.
And most of all—
The whispers.
Vhalor had heard them long before he discovered the Dwelling in the Deep of Dathomir.
They had started years earlier after his first contact with a fragment that would later become locked within The Tome of the Drowned Star.
At first, they were merely feelings.
A voice heard on the edge of meditation.
A word spoken in a forgotten tongue.
A shadow moving where no figure stood.
But the deeper Vhalor burrowed into the Dark Side, the more distinct they became.
Places.
Worlds.
Ruins.
Objects.
Sometimes they would pull him away.
At others they urged him forward.
He learned not to ignore them.
THE HUNT FOR THE FORGOTTEN
His search took him to forgotten places, worlds that Sith scholars and artifact hunters rarely visited.
On one, he discovered part of an ancient stone tablet depicting a giant creature beneath an ocean.
Another held the ruins of a shrine built around a circle of blackened statues. Their faces had all been destroyed inwards.
A third held the final records of a long dead civilization, its last words: "We looked beneath. It looked back."
Vhalor kept these writings.
They became part of the collection of information that would later fill the Tome of the Drowned Star.
But none of them answered his question.
None of them gave him what he sought.
Instead, they only gave him more questions.
Who created the symbols?
Why did civilizations across thousands of years describe the same unimaginable creatures?
Why did explorers from separate worlds dream the same nightmares?
And why did the whispers always seem to lead him here?
Deeper.
Into mystery.
Vhalor began to believe that each fragment was not an isolated discovery. That they were clues left behind by—
A trail.
Someone had left a trail for him to follow.
And he was finding each piece.
THE RUMOR
The information on Dathomir had come from a rumor. One spoken softly in the corner of a dark cantina by an aging spacer who laughed as he told the tale.
The dive site had been spoken of in legends belonging to two Dathomiri clans: the Scissorfists and the Blue Coral Divers.
They described the same place.
Both spoke of a reef beneath the waves where Blue Corals grew. A cave hidden beneath the surface that even Urghaks dared not enter.
According to legend, shark-types and crab-types avoided it altogether. While cephalopods were known to converge on it from miles around, clustering around the reef as if summoned.
The spacer stared into his drink.
They spoke of a place that could change itself.
Show the seeker what it believed they wanted to find.
He leaned closer.
Falsify its own path through the depths.
Become what the diver either expected or feared to see.
The traveler chuckled again.
And then forget it ever happened.
He leaned back, lowering his voice further.
Those who entered the Dwelling in the Deep forgot the cave itself. When they returned to dry land they often came with no memory of what had transpired within. But they had a purpose. Something hidden inside their minds begging to be set free: a mission. An obsession. Or simply the inexplicable desire to seek and explore.
Then he said the words that caught Vhalor's attention.
"The Dwelling in the Deep."
Vhalor stopped listening.
Every other word became background noise.
"The Dwelling in the Deep," he repeated.
That single phrase echoed throughout his mind.
Then he heard it.
Soft.
Almost silent.
But Vhalor would have recognized it anywhere.
Dathomir.
THE CALL
That night, Vhalor sat alone in his quarters, opening The Tome of the Drowned Star.
He had not written anything regarding the Dwelling in the Deep, nor had he thought much about it since their conversation. But one of the book's many pages had changed while he slept.
New glyphs decorated the parchment. Coarse scribbles that twisted into strange configurations he did not recognize.
When he closed the Tome before sleeping, they had not been there.
He leaned forward.
They pulsed with energy.
And Vhalor saw what they tried to show him.
A reef beneath black waters, blanketed in blue growths that spread across the page like veins.
Surrounding a black hole in the page's center.
Below it was a stylized eye framed by tendrils.
And below that…was written in unmistakable English:
DWELLING IN THE DEEP.
His fingers brushed against the page.
When his skin made contact, everything disappeared.
Vhalor found himself beneath black ocean, staring up at a sky shimmering far above him.
Blue coral illuminated the water around him as he swam toward the cave entrance. Its mouth yawning black and narrow ahead.
Behind him, something moved in the distance.
Large shapes akin to sharks swam in wide circles around the reef. But would not come close.
Crab-like creatures stalked the seabed then skittered back away from the cave's entrance.
In its darkness, something waited.
Watching.
Suddenly, the cave shifted.
It took the shape of a tomb constructed from black stone.
Then a temple lit with golden light.
Then nothing. An endless chasm that swallowed him whole.
Vhalor realized that none of it was real.
The nexus was showing him what it wanted.
Or what he wanted to see.
Something massive moved silently beneath the reef.
Passing through the water without bending a single tendril.
The whispers came then, surrounding him.
"What do you seek?"
He opened his mouth to answer. But his voice was silent.
Instead, the cave around him began to grow.
Cold darkness seeped from its entrance.
And then turned to light.
Warmth flooded through him.
Vhalor felt everything he had hungered for vanish in that single moment.
Power.
Fear of death.
Even his thirst for knowledge faded when he looked into the abyss.
For one perfect second, he felt nothing at all.
Then something touched his mind.
And he was pulled back into reality.
Vhalor gasped for air.
His vision faded in and out as he stared up at the ceiling of his quarters.
The room was silent.
The page within the Tome had reverted to its original state.
Yet his purpose remained clear within his mind.
Descend.
Beneath the Blue Corals.
Seek the Dwelling in the Deep.
THE JOURNEY
Vhalor boarded his ship several days later. He packed lightly, knowing he wouldn't need much aboard besides.
His lightsaber, of course.
Ritual tools.
Several artifacts he'd collected over the years.
His personal logs.
And a sealed diving suit.
Most of all, he brought the Tome of the Drowned Star with him.
As the ship leaped into hyperspace, Vhalor sat in the cockpit alone, staring out into darkness.
The Tome lay open across his lap.
For minutes it remained still.
Then suddenly, a page flipped by itself.
Then another.
And another.
Until the book stopped with a piece of parchment he'd never read before.
Vhalor stared at the unfamiliar writing, tracing the ink with his fingertips.
The characters were crude. Primitive. And not in a language he understood. At least, not one that he could consciously comprehend.
And yet, he understood it.
"There are places where blue branches bloom beneath the waves."
Vhalor smiled behind his mask.
His eyes danced with a hunger he hadn't felt in years.
The Dwelling in the Deep was more than an artifact.
Not like those left behind by primitive civilizations. Built by mere mortals.
The cave was a nexus.
A place that changed between darkness and light. Warmth and cold. Lies and revelations.
A place with no allegiances to the known powers in the galaxy.
A place capable of betraying itself.
He was being summoned to Dathomir.
THE BLUE CORAL REEF
The ship emerged from hyperspace with Dathomir filling the viewport. He stared out at the planet's surface, covered in age-old forests and jagged rock formations that seemed to defy physics.
But his attention was on the oceans.
Here, the Force felt…different.
Thick.
Ancient.
Alive.
As if-
Something else lurked beneath it.
The whispers came again.
Voices that stretched across time and space. Some were distant. Faint.
Others were near, clawing at the edges of his mind.
Some sounded as if they originated from the planet itself.
Vhalor closed his eyes and breathed in slow, controlled breaths.
This time the whispers did not point him toward an artifact hidden among the stars.
They were leading him toward something formless. A place that could become a temple or a tomb with a single shift of perception.
A place that might try to hide its existence from him the second he returned to the surface.
Vhalor cracked open an eye.
His fingers tightened on the tome.
He stared down at Dathomir.
Lightning danced across the surface of its atmosphere as alien storms rolled across the planet.
Far beneath him, hidden under leagues of black ocean, the Blue Coral Reef waited.
Creatures gathered around the reef that shouldn't have been there.
In slow circles, cephalopods drifted past like misplaced ghosts, drawn to the blue coral by some unknown instinct.
Shark-likes patrolled the waters nearby. But kept their distance.
Crab-likes too. Crawling along the seabed, then scrambling back whenever they neared the reef.
At the center of it all was a cave beneath the surface, hidden from sight.
Vhalor smirked.
"So," he whispered.
"You knew I was coming."
His ship opened its bay doors.
THE LEGENDS OF DATHOMIR
The Scissorfists sang of a cave filled with darkness. They said that those who dared to explore its depths were greeted with the realization of their greatest hungers, only to return with nowhere minds and a secret agenda guiding their every action.
The Blue Coral Divers believed otherwise.
To them, the Dwelling in the Deep glowed with light and warmth. Colors swirled around their minds as they described visions of cerulean luminescence coating the waters like sunlight. Blue light gave way to an aura they could feel, but never put into words.
Both beliefs were correct.
Both sides entered the same minor nexus and left with their beliefs validated.
The truth of the matter lied with the individual who sought it out.
The Dwelling in the Deep did not possess an intrinsic good or evil nature.
It reflected the goals of those who entered its depths.
Seekers hungry for domination, forbidden knowledge, or dark power would be greeted by coldness. Seekers looking to protect, learn, or heal might feel warmth when they dived into the depths.
Both could lie.
The nexus could warp the reflection it cast to match whatever the seeker expected to feel.
And when they emerged on the other side?
They forgot.
All of it would be forgotten.
The journey became a dream one might have the night before an important mission. Details wiped clean from memory like unused knowledge imparted by a mustafbeditzu.
But the lesson would remain.
Etched beneath layers of consciousness and purpose.
A drive.
Something that needed to happen.
An obsession.
THE WHISPERS CONTINUE
Vhalor did not mention the Dwelling in the Deep to anyone.
His pupils remained ignorant of its location.
As did the countless scholars who begged for his wisdom across the stars.
He didn't even speak of it to himself.
Not once.
Not until after Dathomir.
The whispers never stopped, however.
They followed him like a shadow through the Force.
Appearing between thoughts when he was awake.
Haunting him in the silence before sleep claimed his mind each night.
Echoing behind his eyes when he slept.
Sometimes they spoke of the Old Ones.
Long dead creatures that ruled the stars before mammals dominated the hierarchy of sentient life.
Sometimes they warned of forgotten places that only served to drive men insane.
Most days he heard nothing but water.
Silently pouring through a darkness as bottomless as the cave itself.
But every now and then.
Beneath all of the other voices in his head, Darth Vhalor heard the sound of water moving through a cave.
He would wake up with salt on his lips.
Blue luminescence burning behind his eyelids.
And open the Tome of the Drowned Star to find a new page waiting for him.
The writing would never stay long enough for him to study.
Changing before his eyes as the moment he opened the book.
But there was always one phrase he found written over and over throughout the Tome.
"The first depth has been entered."
He would stare at the message, wondering what it meant.
He could not remember.
Yet every day he would continue his work.
Knowing full well what he had to search for next.
⛧ "That which sleeps beneath stirs once more..." ⛧