Private Weathered Corruption

[Darth Virelia]

"To be, or not to be."

Tags - Carisma Rostu

The wind along the Valley of the Dark Lords never truly stopped. It whispered through the shattered red stone, curling across the jagged ridges like a thing alive, dragging with it the taste of dust and forgotten blood. Darth Virelia stood at the foot of one of the tombs, where the carved façade of some long-dead sovereign rose out of the canyon wall like a broken crown. The face was half-eroded, its once-perfect lines now a ruin, but the weight of its presence had not lessened. Time only deepened the silence here, the kind that pressed down on the lungs and demanded reverence—or surrender.

She did neither.

Virelia stood motionless in the shadow of the archway, her halberd resting upright at her side, its obsidian haft gleaming faintly where violet light caught the edge. A slow exhale curled from her lips. She had chosen this place deliberately, not simply because it was where the acolytes gathered for their endless trials, but because the tomb itself was honest in its cruelty. The ancient Sith who lay entombed here had not sought to be loved or remembered. Only obeyed. The acolyte she awaited would learn that lesson, one way or another.

The valley below was alive with small sounds—shuffling steps of initiates carrying torches, the hiss of stone disturbed, the faint crackle of distant lightning storms trapped in the chasm walls. Virelia ignored them. Her attention was fixed, inward and outward both, tracing the lines of the Force that seeped from the tomb's threshold. The presence was fetid, hollow, yet strangely eager, like a predator starved of prey. It clawed faintly at her mind, tasting her, testing her. She allowed it. What better welcome than the touch of a thing that knew only hunger? It reminded her of herself.

Her armor bore no dust despite the storm's efforts. The runes etched along its pauldrons pulsed faintly, answering the tomb's low resonance with their own steady rhythm. Her hood was drawn, but not to conceal. Her face was calm, deliberate, violet eyes glimmering with that neon sheen that betrayed neither patience nor impatience, only inevitability.

The acolyte was late, or perhaps only slow. She allowed the anticipation to build in the stone around her, in the gnawing Force that hungered for fresh fear. It mattered little. When the child arrived, Virelia would know what was real beneath their mask. Fear. Hunger. Defiance. All of it could be sharpened, stripped, or broken. That was why she had agreed to meet them here, in the valley's open air rather than the safety of a temple cell. Acolytes trained best when the dust of their ancestors was under their nails, and when the shadows of those who failed stared down from the cliffs.

A faint shift in the current of the valley caught her attention. Not sight, not sound, but the ripple of presence that betrayed a footfall far off, still winding its way toward her.

At last.

Virelia's grip tightened, slow, deliberate, on the halberd. She did not move. She wanted the acolyte to see her exactly as she was: waiting, unbothered, inevitable.

 

[Carisma Rostu]

​

Location: Vallley of the Sith Lords
Gear: Whatever

The arrogance of the young Sith was debacle, a miserable intelligence that stood overlooking the sands; the Valley of the Sith Lords where those swirling energies engulfed the Sith. She was not late; she chose her deposition by a proxy of her desire. Proudly she stood, caustic eyes overlooking the tombs, her innocence deep throating the energy of the Dark Side. Those tombs, those laid to rest in fashion of celebration was growing tiresome; they died, she stood living, promptly like a monster over ravaged tombs.

Sadly, she believed triggered was nothing of importance, outside a lesson. The deathly air of the Dark Side fumigated over and around her; the energy of the Dark Side impertinently born into her, the genetics from her parents sowed her life into a world of indifference; a product of misguided love. She felt the other, the power radiating like falling black rain, but she shrugged it off. Her travels to this point were uneventful, minus the severed head of a Hississ in hand; a monster meeting another monster, and she held staunch. Survival at all costs, it was the Sith mantra. Weakness....putrid.

And she kneeled, putting that training blade to her side, cusping a handful of sand to her mouth, breathing in the red sand of history. How many Sith, before and after, walked through these valleys? How many tombs of those historic Lords and Ladies have been molested? Dead, taught int the Academies? Rising up, her eyes spied the malignant tumor, the one who thought she could shape her. Oh, how the Sith thought of power.

And she smiled at this enigma.....then Carisma snarled.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"To be, or not to be."

Tags - Carisma Rostu

The girl's snarl rolled across the valley like the growl of a starving hound, raw and without polish. Virelia did not flinch. She let it wash over her, let the arrogance breathe for what it was: a mask worn far too soon, lacquered over flesh that had not yet learned what it meant to bleed.

Virelia's lips curved, slow, deliberate, a smile carved out of ice and promise. She did not move toward the acolyte, nor retreat into the tomb's shadow. She let the space between them remain charged, a cord strung taut with expectation. Her voice, when it came, was low velvet—dark silk unraveling, meant to be touched.

"Beautiful," she said, as if the word were not praise but a diagnosis. "The way you bare your teeth, as though you've already conquered the valley. As though you've taken every name carved into these stones and crushed them under your heel." A faint chuckle, like glass breaking softly. "But the sand on your tongue tastes the same as theirs, does it not? The taste of ash. Of inevitability."

Her violet eyes shimmered, catching what little light bled down from the fractured sky. They drank in the acolyte—the blade laid aside, the hississ's head still clutched like a trophy, the defiance that stood straighter than her spine. Virelia let the sight linger in silence long enough to make it unbearable, then tilted her head with feline elegance.

"You came here because you are hungry," she continued, voice tightening into a whisper that carried despite the winds. "Not for food, not for water, but for someone to notice you. To chain your chaos into something sharp enough to matter. You think the Dark Side has already claimed you—yet I see it still gnawing at your bones, not yet satisfied, not yet whole."

The halberd's haft shifted lightly in her hand, more caress than grip, a gesture that made the weapon less a tool of war and more a promise of intimacy. She leaned forward slightly, lips parting with something close to invitation.

"You could kneel to the ghosts of this valley. You could mouth their names, breathe in their dust, pretend their strength is yours. Or—" Her smile deepened, licentious, cruel, "—you could kneel to me, here and now, and let me show you what it means to be more than bones waiting for a tomb. I do not promise safety. I do not promise affection. What I offer is worse, and sweeter."

The air around her thrummed, not from a deliberate push of the Force but from the weight of her presence, steady and inevitable. She straightened, letting the tomb's shadow stretch long at her back, her silhouette framed like a sovereign's statue.

"Tell me, little storm," Virelia breathed, violet eyes locked unblinking on the acolyte. "Do you crave to be unmade and remade? Or will you cling to your pride until it rots you from within?"

 

[Carisma Rostu]

Location: Vallley of the Sith Lords
Gear: Whatever

"Hungry," came her reply through slightly pursed lips as Carisma relaxed the fingers on her hand, letting the severed head to drop silently upon the sand, where in mere seconds would be claimed by those tiny carnivores living underneath. "Such a simple word, this hungry. A word that holds several outlining attachments, and yet as Sith, I am always hungry, craving sadistically for knowledge. That is my food, my water, the substance that will eventually transform me into something far greater than my darkest dreams and desires."

"I don't think the Dark side has already claimed me, I am of the Dark Side...born into it since birth, and yes, it's always gnawing and gnashing at my bones, seeping into my very essence; consuming, corrupting, and most importantly, always reshaping me. But you are right, what fun would it be if I denied myself to be unraveled and restitched into perfection. Only a blind fool would fail to perceive what is being presented to outstretched hands."

Carisma could feel the powerful energy radiating off this enigma, it was all together a different sensation from those Sith Masters, where theirs seemed more predatorial while this individual's tasted differently. A new flavor? Perhaps. More importantly, this creature was offering her a chance to teach her, as a mentor or a Master even. But kneel, that was something Carisma could not do. She was defiant by nature, suffering many painful reprimands from the academy teachers for this. However, each scar cast upon her both physically and mentally only strengthened her resolve to surpass them, to one day be the one holding the whips and hot irons; brandishing upon them the pleasures she held for them from fuming vengeful memories.

"For now, I will accept the proposal to learn from you. However, my prideful nature forbids me to kneel before anyone in a manner of subjection."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"To be, or not to be."

Tags - Carisma Rostu

The girl's words curled into the air like incense—arrogant, fragrant with defiance, but intoxicating all the same. Virelia let the corners of her mouth tilt upward, violet eyes narrowing in deliberate, feline amusement. She let silence linger, let the valley hold its breath while Carisma's refusal hung raw between them. Then, without a word, she turned from the acolyte and strode into the tomb.

The shadow swallowed her first, then the violet gleam of her armor's runes, until she was little more than a voice echoing from the stone. "Pride," she called, her tone velvet stretched taut over steel. "You wear it as others wear chains. Every scar you cling to, every refusal to kneel—it is not strength, child. It is a leash you fasten to your own neck."

Her halberd's haft clicked against the stone floor, each measured step a rhythm of inevitability. The tomb's air was heavy, choked with centuries of death and devotion. The carved walls shimmered faintly with mineral veins, their faint glow catching on the steel curve of her smile as she turned her head just enough for the girl to see her profile.

"You mistake kneeling for subjection," Virelia continued, the syllables dripping with licentious pleasure. "It is not. It is alignment. To kneel is to place yourself within the current of inevitability, to let the river carve you into something sharper, harder, more inevitable. Defy it if you wish—thrash, scream, flail—but the water does not break. You will."

She pressed her palm to the stone wall, fingers tracing the outline of an ancient carving half-lost to time. "This tomb," she purred, "is littered with the bones of those who believed as you do. That defiance was freedom. That scars were proof of power. Look where it led them. Their names reduced to dust, their lessons feeding dogs and scavengers." She tilted her head, voice dropping to a sultry whisper that nonetheless carried to the girl at the threshold. "But those who knelt, those who surrendered to something greater, they live on—in me, in you, in every breath that shudders through this valley."

She turned then, her silhouette framed by the jagged arch of the inner sanctum. The violet light in her eyes burned brighter, their glow a seductive promise, equal parts hunger and inevitability. "You claim hunger. You claim knowledge is your sustenance. Then feed, little storm. Step into the tomb, and I will show you how to drink until your bones crack beneath the weight of it."

Her lips curved into something obscene and intimate, a smile meant to seduce as much as to terrify. She let the halberd's butt kiss the stone with a resonant strike, echoing like a heartbeat through the cavern.

"But remember this: you may refuse to kneel before me. I will not demand it. Not yet. But every word, every glance, every lesson… each will bind you tighter than the knees you refuse to bend. You will kneel, whether your body does or not. And when you realize that, it will already be far too late."

She turned again and walked deeper into the tomb, her voice lingering like perfume in the red dust.

"Come."

 

[Carisma Rostu]

Location: Vallley of the Sith Lords
Gear: Whatever

Carisma listened as each word; each syllable was pronounced with exquisite precision by her Master while causally stealing glances at the tomb entrance. There was no denying the power inside that tomb, it flowed like clear and pristine water, a raging resonance crashing upon her shores. And she allowed it to drown her, following her Master into the tomb in silence. There was much the young Sith needed to learn, Carisma was aware of this, and perhaps over the course of her Apprenticeship she would learn to balance out her defiant and ambitious nature, or maybe not.

The exact moment she stepped through the threshold of the tomb her eyes were blessed with a delightful sight. The power of the Dark Side was here, that was already known, but what she didn't expect was to see how beautiful the tomb was, with etched and carved out designs, symbols, and images dotting both sides of the wall; even in this dimly illuminated corridor. Sadly, written words occasionally spied on the passing walls were unknown to her. She could only assume it was written in the ancient tongue of the Sith species, a culture once though dead, putting to memory she would learn this language. She was guilty to a fault for overextended craving for knowledge.

"Master," she began, feeling a sense of pride of speaking that one singular word. She had watched others plucked by Masters and Lords, joined by a bond between teacher and student for the sole purpose of creating the next generation of powerful Sith. She was always looked over, not because she was weak, she was far from such a plague, but because she was a loose cannon; the proverbial problem child, filled with angst and hatred so deeply rooted in someone so young as Carisma herself. "Who lies within this tomb besides the bones of poachers, scavengers, and thieves? The air, this radiating weight of the Force and the Dark Side ever flourishing and, might I include, tasteful."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"To be, or not to be."

Tags - Carisma Rostu

The word Master lingered in the air, brittle, unsatisfying. Virelia paused mid-stride, her halberd's steel haft clicking lightly against the carved floor. Slowly, she turned her head, violet eyes catching the dim glimmer of the wall's etchings. Her smile was faint, precise—surgical in how it revealed both amusement and correction.

"Not Master," she breathed, the syllables soft as velvet dragged across skin. "Mistress. The word is heavier, more honest. It tastes better on the tongue, don't you think? Master speaks of dry authority, brittle command. Mistress… carries promise. Chains that cut and caress. Learn the difference, Carisma, and you will already be more than the whelps cluttering the Academy halls."

She turned fully now, walking backward with a languid ease, her gaze never leaving the acolyte. The tomb seemed to bend with her words—the symbols on the walls catching shadows, the air thickening with an invisible pulse, as if the stone itself approved of her correction.

"You asked who lies here." She extended her arm, fingertips brushing the grooves of a worn carving: a figure robed in jagged lines, eyes etched with fire. "A Sith Lord long forgotten, entombed not by reverence but by necessity. He was dangerous, even to his own kind. They feared him, they tried to erase him. His name matters little. What matters is that his power lingers—hungry, patient, waiting for hands bold enough to draw it out."

She stepped closer to Carisma, her presence pressing like heat, close enough for the acolyte to feel the faint brush of her breath. "This tomb is not filled with bones of thieves and poachers. It is filled with lessons. Every stone here remembers the one who ruled it. That weight you feel, the taste you find pleasant—it is the echo of domination, of hunger turned to permanence."

Virelia's gloved hand ghosted past Carisma's cheek without touching, an almost-caress that promised and denied in the same motion. Her smile sharpened, licentious and cruel. "If you would feed on knowledge, then you must learn to enjoy its leash. Every secret you devour binds you tighter. Every word of the ancient tongue you crave will coil around your thoughts until you cannot think without it. Power chains the ambitious more tightly than obedience chains the weak. That is the truth the others never tell you."

She turned again, resuming her path deeper into the tomb, voice trailing back like a silken snare. "Call me Mistress. Learn to savor the word. Let it remind you that pride is not strength but clay waiting for the sculptor's hand. If you are willing, I will sculpt. If not, the tomb will."

Her halberd struck the stone once more, the echo chasing her deeper into the dark.

"Now, follow. Let us see if this dead Lord has left us something worth chaining you with."

 

[Carisma Rostu]

Location: Vallley of the Sith Lords
Gear: Whatever

"Mistress," she said, "My apologies." It was a far better noun than Master, it spoke power, it spoke volumes, it spoke respect. It spoke to Carisma like a mother to daughter, and she hated it; but for now, accepted it."Speak of chains, please? Those foolish teachers at the Academy, and I apologize for overstepping, sound factitious in their tones."

Carisma had no friends, no peers, no "hey let's hang out" announcements from the others; she hated them, likewise tenfold. And she was treated with far more disrespect than the others, not because she was inquisitive; she was defiant in the eyes and judgments of those that ran the Academy: and she cared less. She was defiant, a subject debated with impudicity. And it made her ego swell like bloated corpses. She would be perfect.

"May I pose a question, Mistress," she asked, stepping on a spiderroach not because it crossed her path, simple wrong place, wrong time. "I was taught a name represented power, respect, a demanding of....oh yes, bending a knee; Like the title Darth.. And yet, you claim the name entombed here holds no value. Explain?"

Bending down, she scooped up a handful of sand, watching with delight the numerous lives that ran amok in that sandy handful; and crushed it quickly when she violently closed her fist. "Chains, how mundane. And yet," she said dropping to a lone knee, "I wish you to repurpose me, Mistress."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"To be, or not to be."

Tags - Carisma Rostu

Virelia's pace slowed at the sound of the word Mistress. She let it hang between them, thick as incense. Her smile flickered — a soft curve of lips that was at once indulgent and predatory. The echo of her halberd's butt striking the stone died away, leaving only her voice to fill the corridor.

"Good," she murmured. "It already tastes better when you say it. Remember that taste."

She moved a step closer, her armor's runes glowing faintly violet in the dim light, and crouched so her eyes were level with Carisma's bowed head. The air around them seemed to deepen; the weight of the tomb's Force signature pressed like a warm hand at the back of the skull.

"You were taught names are power," she said, her tone velvet with razor edges. "That is only half the lesson. Names are not power. They are tools. They are keys, brands, hooks. A name like Darth draws fear because it calls up an image — but the image is nothing without someone to wield it. A dead man's name, carved into stone, feeds the worms. Power is only in the one who dares to take it, to fill the name with their breath, their will, their hunger."

Her gloved hand extended and, with deliberate slowness, she slid one finger beneath Carisma's chin, tilting it up until their eyes locked. "Chains are no different. The weak are bound by them and imagine themselves prisoners. The strong learn to wrap them around their own wrists until the links become weapons. You take a leash, and you strangle with it." Her smile widened, licentious and knowing. "That is what I will teach you. Not to wear chains, but to forge them and make them sing for you."

She released Carisma's chin and rose smoothly to her full height, turning deeper into the corridor. Her voice trailed back like silk. "But first, you will learn what it feels like. You will learn to crave the weight, to crave the shaping. You have given me permission to repurpose you. Good. Then listen, watch, and breathe."

She stopped at a great arch of stone, where the air thickened with a dark resonance, and laid her palm against a sigil cut deep into the wall. The carved lines flared faintly at her touch, the tomb's energy stirring like something waking from a long sleep.

"This place is a crucible," she said softly. "It will melt you down. I will hammer what remains." She glanced over her shoulder, violet eyes burning like coals in the dimness. "When I am finished, you will not be a problem child the Academy overlooks. You will be a chain in my hand — and one day, if you are worthy, a chain in yours."

Her smile returned, slow and inevitable. "Come, little storm. Step closer. Let the tomb and I begin our work."

 

[Carisma Rostu]

Location: Vallley of the Sith Lords
Gear: Whatever

Each word that spewed from the mouth of her Master, each syllable hanging thick with sweet pronunciations, each tone changing and deepening with drenched commanding wisdom sent shivers down her spine, not sating her cravings, rather teasing them before her like a dangling carrot. She wanted what her Master possessed, and more. Carisma didn't want to be labeled a carbon copy of Darth Virelia, rather an extension of the woman's teachings; the embodiment of evolution that should far supersede her Master in every aspect.

Slowly she looked up, locking gazes with her Master, feeling a distinct glimpse of her future standing before her in the form of her Master Virelia. Then her Master released her chin, one lesson resolved, future trials lying ahead.

Carisma walked in tandem with the dark woman, not a step behind but alongside her, matching step for step with every footfall not as a mark of defiance or a thought of equality between the pair, rather out of pride. As she walked, with a few particular ghostly words haunting pleasantly the attic of her mind, clinging to them as a dying man helplessly clings to the last memories of his life before they fade into obscurity, she began to understand two concepts.

The first concept was the descriptive narrative of chains. The Academy had spoken of breaking chains, freeing yourself from bound restrictions, and yet, Master Virelia spoke of forging them into weapons. Fascination set in. The second was her defiance, or as her Master referenced adjectively: a problem child. Defiance was her nature, but there was a time to be defiant, and a time to hold restraint, pulling in the reigns for the betterment of growth. A sense of reevaluation set in.

"Yes, Master," Carisma said stepping further into the tomb, "There is much work to be done for you two. And for myself, I am ready to evolve, to metamorphosis from this weakened caterpillar form into a beautiful and darkened butterfly."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"To be, or not to be."

Tags - Carisma Rostu

Virelia stopped at the next chamber's threshold, a slow, sinuous motion that drew Carisma to a halt beside her. The air here was thicker; the tomb breathed. Veins of faint crimson light pulsed along the walls, living currents of the Dark Side coiling through carved sigils like blood through veins.

"Mistress..." she reminded. "That is my title."

"A butterfly," Virelia murmured. "How delicate a thing to bring into a place like this." Her voice was soft, dangerous, coaxing. "But even the fragile can cut, if its wings are sharp enough."

She turned, the dim glow painting her armor in violet reflections, her expression unreadable but her eyes bright with amusement. "You speak of evolution, and yet you still measure yourself by what you wish to become, not by what you are. The caterpillar does not dream of flight. It devours. It consumes until its body breaks beneath its own hunger. Then, and only then, does transformation come."

Virelia stepped closer. One gloved hand rose—not to strike, but to trace the line of Carisma's jaw, down the column of her throat to the hollow where pulse met skin. The touch lingered there, just enough pressure to command attention, not enough to harm. "You will learn to devour. To take, to want, to chain, until nothing of the old girl remains. That is evolution."

Her hand withdrew. "But first," she said, voice darkening to a velvet murmur, "obedience. It is not subjugation, but foundation. If you cannot submit to my hand, you will never wield your own. You will obey because I choose to shape you—and because, deep down, you crave to be shaped."

She turned away, pacing toward the center of the chamber where an ancient sarcophagus rested. Its stone lid was sealed with black resin and ancient glyphs that thrummed faintly as Virelia approached. She raised her halberd and traced one rune with its edge, the glyph flaring briefly in violet fire before dimming again. "This tomb is a crucible," she said, her tone distant, reverent. "It will not wait for permission to test you. Every presence here watches, listening, tasting. It will feel your fear and your desire. It will press until something breaks."

She looked back over her shoulder, her voice lowering to a purr. "When it does, I will be there to decide what is remade."

The violet light from her armor cast twin reflections in her eyes, giving her a faintly inhuman beauty—something sculpted, inevitable. "You will learn what it means to be a weapon that chooses to serve," she whispered. "And in time, Carisma, you will call it pleasure."

She turned to face the sarcophagus fully and set her palm against the cold surface. The glyphs began to stir, the stone groaning as if waking from centuries of silence. The chamber vibrated faintly beneath their feet.

"Now," she said, the word a command and an invitation, "show me how hungry you truly are."

The tremor deepened—stone grinding on stone, air thickening with the scent of dust and something older than decay. From the sarcophagus' seam, a violet mist began to rise, slow and serpentine, twisting into shapes that almost resembled limbs before dissolving again. Whispers filled the chamber—broken Sith, the fragmented memories of pain and triumph, spilling into the present.

Virelia's eyes half-closed, her voice threading through the sound like silk through smoke. "Every Sith leaves something of themselves behind. The weak leave corpses. The strong…" She gestured toward the mist, "…leave hunger."

The haze coalesced into a figure—genderless, translucent, crowned in horns of fractured light. It watched Carisma without eyes.

"Face it," Virelia said softly, stepping aside, her halberd lowered but ready. "It is drawn to what you conceal—your fear of being forgotten, your anger at being overlooked. Feed it. Let it taste you, but do not let it devour. This is how we begin to chain power: not by denying hunger, but by learning its rhythm."