...thus H'tqal ordained

[Zef Halo]

UNKNOWN PLANET
UNKNOWN REGIONS


They had finally reached it. Or so their research had led them to believe. Before them the large maw of a cave stood wide open, an odd almost faded feeling of beckoning loomed from it. This planet's civilization had ceased to exist eons ago. Reasons remain unknown.

It was all wildlife. Nature unburdened by the two Blackguard's unnatural intervention.

Not yet, at least.

The fragments they were able to collect, in their separate researches, had concluded to both Khalafi and Shule that a mystery remained raveled here. To seek its answer had brought them here, an answer they had no clue to what it is.

The duo took their bold steps forward into the cave, the light growing eclipsed with every step they took eventually leading them to turn their belt inducted flashlights lightning the way forward.

"Intriguing as to how a civilization could come to an end even before reaching the stars." Yrvan commented, his head swaying to the walls of the cave for any possible signs that might've remained.


[member="Oran Shule"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Yrvan Khalafi"]

He wondered if a planet with no name truly existed.

Names mattered, they gave power, purpose, identity. A planet without a name was like a cat without its collar, bounding free and without direction through the soup of the Universe... until someone or something came along to catch it. Name it. Own it. That was the other thing about being nameless, it gave power to those who could whisper the syllables and chain them with their perspective. It was something to consider, but Shule supposed that this particular world had no place of consideration any longer.

The last life walking here had been eons ago.

Their traces worn out... or were they?

"A pity." Shule added to the comment calmly while studying the rockwand and the gaping mouth etched into it. "What surprises me more is the rumors floating around."

He took the first step, but that was par for course with the two of them. Khalafi and him had met years ago, just after his escape from the followers of Vahl, they were still children back then. Curious, but shaken in ways that they did not want to share with one another. Whereas Khal was cautious, Shule was uncaring... or rather it was the Vahla kissed by fire who had something to prove. One more step and that was when Oran noticed the secret hidden.

"See that? The ceiling of the cave... there are carvings hidden there."

Now Oran did not suffer the waiting any longer and stepped into the cave proper. It was damp, dark and as he looked up, the Vahla noticed the etchings. They were figures, entwined together in a strange dance and colored with octarine.

"I still do not believe they would have the Heart. I wonder if we are being..." Head tilted as if listening to something, then a nod. "I believe we are being hunted, brother."

 

[Zef Halo]

​Ah, rumors. The bastard son of imagination and what a man had heard or misheard.

Never completely true but never completely false.

Yrvan's head tilted upwards to follow Oran's direction. Long forgotten carvings giving meaning to a civilization they had no grasp of. If he could try and decipher anything, some of the carvings resembled humanoids in half-circle. An odd shape their center of attention. The rest he could not give any logical meaning to.

Nor could he think of, as Shule's suggestion forced him to concentrate on the present.

Could Khalafi been foolish to think the Heart would remain untouched in an inhabited world? Perhaps he had. A naive thought, but all sorts of spectacular items have remained in ruin.

Lost.

"A presence, brother?" He half-asked, half-stated, looking around as if to find it.

Yrvan cautiously stepped forward before abruptly halting, the light on his belt revealing a steep hole.

A foundation of rock shaped into a spiral staircase led downwards into what imagination could label as oblivion.

He turned to face Shule. "Backing away was never an option was it?"

The beckoning feeling they could've felt earlier before the maw of the cave seemed to increase.

And so did the feeling of a presence.

Could this be a trap? The question remained unasked.

[member="Oran Shule"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Yrvan Khalafi"]

Spindly fingers curled around the balustrade, it was made of cold white marble its solidity only barely masked by darker veins inside. He tested and found it still strong after... years? decades? hours? It was difficult to say, as he was not a stonemason, but the sensation he got from it was a shape of exhaustion.

As if the stone was tired of its guard, but stayed out of a sense of duty.

"Maybe, maybe not." Shule retorted after a moment of thought, before leaning over the edge and watching the darkness down below. Not possible to simply pierce the darkness with a glance sadly.

He turned to glance at Yrvan after his next few words. There was a form of fear there, the shape of his shoulder, the twitch of the eye, but he kept it in and that was what mattered in the moment. Courage was not a lack of fear, after all, it was moving forward in spite of it. "Never." He calmly agreed before pushing himself off and brushing past his old friend.

The staircase led down and it was only Yrvan's light that made sure their steps were firm and secure.

It took them a while to get to the bottom- long enough that beats of sweat were gathering around his temples, his breath was starting to grow shorter and Oran could feel his heart beating in his ears. At the bottom they found a spherical room, he leaned against the hold and warded off Yrvan's help. "I am fine. Fine. To sit and study for two decades... then to travel the Galaxy? It takes time to grow used to it."

It was then that Shule saw it.

"Look," His finger pointed without shaking much. "The wall, it has... hmm."

Tiles, different colors and some empty but containing drawings that seemed familiar. "They remind me of the book you read, Brother Heesra found it amidst the ruins of Tund, remember?"

 

[Zef Halo]

Off they went down the staircase, the lanky man before him bolder than Khalafi. He felt his breath shorten and sweat drip from his forehead. Palms were becoming sweaty despite the growing coolness the further down they went.

It was a mixture of fear of the unknown and boldness of curiosity.

They were scholars, both of them. In their own ways, of course.

Both of them seemed weakened by the long walk down with Shule fully refusing any assistance from his Blackguard brother. Dignity? It did not matter, really.

"It truly does." Yrvan confirmed. Spending most of your life behind doors, studying and researching. Your physical capabilities would certainly deteriorate.

He looked ahead to where his colleague was pointing. The light from his belt revealing the spherical room before them, what was left of it spoke of ancient technology levels. Fairly primitive, as well.

Then he saw it and the surprise choked him.

Hastily, losing caution he stepped forward to examine the drawings.

Not possible.

"This...this is not possible." Yrvan muttered underneath his breath. The unnamed remains of a book Heesra found on Tund told tales of sorcerers seeking a more...divine status. Or at least that's what both Heesra and Khalafi concluded. "Could this be...an incarnation of the Sorcerers of Tund cult...or more like its origin?"

Before Shule could answer, a murderous intent would flash through their senses. An intent screaming death.

Death to both of them.

[member="Oran Shule"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Yrvan Khalafi"]

There were a lot of possibilities here and while Shule was less excited (because he had not been studying this particular field and was quite unfamiliar with it all), he recognized the beginnings of joy on Khalafi's breath. If given the opportunity the man would probably set-up camp here and study the tiles for weeks to come without pause or even considering wandering further into the complex.

"Either answer brings a flood of new questions-" Before the Vahla could finish his sentence danger laced through his mind and caused him to act, before it could come to pass.

Hand curling around shoulder and pulling down.

Following.

Both of them dashing to the ground, where knees got scuffed but the sounds of a swoosh followed by metal cutting into the far-side wall, before clattering to the ground. No immediate sense of continued danger followed... so Oran looked up, saw the sharp disk firmly embedded into the wall and then followed the trajectory.

"We must tread carefully, brother, this place is clearly filled with traps."

 

[Zef Halo]

For a man complaining of his physical condition, Shule was certainly exceptionally fast to react. The Blackguard brought Yrvan down just on time as the latter felt a tide of air passing by his scalp.

He could see its source after the danger was gone.

A sharp metal disk now hanging on the wall.

Khalafi only nodded to Oran's statement. This wasn't going to be a walk in the park and Yrvan regretted thinking it would be.

"Traps. Why?" The question was vague, its answer possibilities - over a thousand. Perhaps its answer lied in the way forward which was a dark corridor that's end could not be seen.

"Carvings, drawings, a staircase of stone and traps. It doesn't seem to speak of coherence in time." Khalafi commented both to himself and to Oran as he cautiously trod towards the corridor. Fear mixed with curiosity still running high within his veins. The unknown always gave a man such feeling.

Passing by the sharp metal disc, he gave it a glance but his lack of knowledge on that subject gave him no hints or whatsoever about it.

"I never mentioned it, brother but certainly you have felt the distant feeling of beckoning that speaks louder the deeper we move into this place." Yrvan said. "Does it remind you of anything you have ever researched?" Since Khalafi could not remember anything like this in his own searches for knowledge.

[member="Oran Shule"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Yrvan Khalafi"]

Hand touched brushed metal and the cold seeped into his skin.

"Odd. The disk reminds me of..." Hmm- "Zeison Sha? This is becoming stranger by the moment, brother." They wandered into the corridor and Khalafi aired a concern that had been shared by Shule from the moment they stepped into the brink. He did recognize it, but had remained quiet because at first he couldn't place it.

It was still... strange to him that it was here out of all places.

"I did notice it, yes."

Quiet, a beat or two, then as the corridor's end seemed to come Shule continued. "It's the call of the Old Ones." It shouldn't be here, but for some reason it was. That concerned him, because Oran had been certain that their Order had been able to localize every copy of the Codex and destroy it after the last time one of the Old Ones had been brought into this Galaxy. That time had gone well, the hubris of a young old woman begging to be fed by power.

"The Knell of Muspilli." Shule clarified. "They used the Codex to summon Gods from beyond the veil millennia ago."

 

[Zef Halo]

This expedition was getting odder and odder the more information they found.

Zeison Sha? The Knell of Muspilli? The Sorcerers of Tund?

Could this have been a museum? Some powerful collector of artifacts...that sounded stupid.

There had to be a link between all these. Were all these influences here at the same time or did they come progressively, one after the other?

The questions were piling, the answers remained a mystery.

"If...if there is some sort, or has been some sort of attempt to summon them. We need to stop it." Yrvan stated the obvious. He'd not been part of any of the missions the Order went after copies of the Codex, destroying them but he had heard of them.

Sometimes he wondered - was it really necessary to destroy them?

Surprisingly, the corridor ended. A natural wall of the cavern before them.

"That's a-"

A terrifying, unnatural screech interrupted Khalafi. His head darted back to the source. It had come from where they had just come. He felt his heart skip a beat.

Then another.

This time closer.

No footsteps, no running, nothing as movement could be heard.

But the feeling of dread increased tenfold.

"Shule?" Yrvan barely uttered. His peer was a man he trusted more when it came to action.

[member="Oran Shule"]​

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Yrvan Khalafi"]

If Yrvan had asked Shule his opinion he would have received frustrating ambiguity, because he didn't know the answer to it either.

It was his nature to covet all knowledge, from the most simple lotus flower to the question to life, the universe and everything, but it was his experience from his youth that taught him that some individuals did not deserve to learn and study. The Shadows of Vahl had tried to sacrifice him in an attempt to usher their God into the Galaxy, to make him into a vessel and ensure that Vahl herself would guide them for eternity through him.

They had failed, of course.

But the lesson was still there - some groups and individuals were too short-sighted to be given access to important knowledge. Was the answer destruction then? This was the trouble that Shule had with the conundrum.

By the time the second screech was uttered, echoing through the corridor, Shule was already standing at the natural-conclusion of the corridor. It seemed strange to him that the single passageway would only end in a wall of stone and rock. It made little sense, but when his hand brushed the stone there was nothing but friction and rough opposition to his push.

Truth? or elaborate lie?

Difficult to say. "I hear it, Yrvan." Shule said calmly, before turning around to see the source. It was only the fifth screech that brought the beast from around the corner and into their eyes. Translucent, the face of a maiden but eyes bloody and crying, a veil still shrouding her neck and down. She floated. A ghost, then. Spirit? Was there truly a distinction between the two on the moment. "A spirit of the Sith."

It seemed to calm once it saw the both of them.

Not the calm of peace, but the calm of determination of prey acquired and not running from it.

There was no rush to play with toys that had nowhere to go, was there?

 

[Zef Halo]

It would be a lie if he said he was not afraid. The banshee screeching tones of psychological horror worked their way through his mind barriers. Yet, it was not the screeching that felt like ice cold fear but the belief of no escape.

The state of powerlessness.

Desperation. The driving force of almost everything in the galaxy at some point. The feeling of helplessness was able to break down codes, ideas, heck, even civilizations. It could reveal new opportunities and new identities. It could forge a society and it could destroy.

Right now, it could open doors.

The Force spoke to Khalafi and his hands played a tune on the wall that ended the corridor. As if it was fate for the both of them to survive this encounter, the ground beneath them switched open and off they slid down into darkness.

Not before long as the echoes of the screeching Sith spirit were left far behind, the two men would land in a pool of unknown liquid. It took half a minute before Yrvan could shake his bad landing off and attempt to stand. The pool of liquid was odorless but its taste...

"Poison." Khalafi barely uttered as if to reassure himself of the awful revelation, he spoke louder for Shule to hear him clear. "Dignitary's Bane. Poison. Odorless, airborne, taste morphing to the taste of whatever consumable it touches." He was not going to go into further detail of how it was sourced from various plants and technical data that was useless to be shared now.

"We have...we have maybe an hour, Shule."

[member="Oran Shule"]​