What Lurks Below

[Darth Abyss]

Saleucami - Magma Caverns

It was always risky to hold an hideout within enemy space, but time had always worked in his favor. The days when his people came to Saleucami, deep inside the borders of the Silver Jedi, were long gone, and by now no one could separate them from the common populace. Other than most of the Cells of the Chorus he had tasked his agents not only with keeping a low profile, but with not not acting at all. Their main task was to keep their eyes and ears open, buy a few soldiers a drink every once in a while and stay silent when they talked.

In return for such secrecy they had lived on the world for years undetected, keeping the sith lord posted with the more public happenings of the Silver Jedi and their allies. Not information that was inaccessible otherwise, but interesting enough to keep them there. Since he was no longer human he had refrained from visiting them himself, to not create suspicion where none had to be. Yet recently contact to one of his man went silent, leaving the Mindeater to wonder what had happened. His fellow agents knew as little as the sith lord himself, forcing him to come himself to look into the matter.

Hidden under shadows and darkness the husk that had once been a man had walked among the people, trying to find clues within the thoughts of the weak minded. He hadn't found much, besides a few traces that lead deep into the Caverns below the capital, where his agent was presumed to have hidden after picking a fight with the wrong guy. It was disappointing to find one of his make such a grave mistake, but at least the bones in the cave suggested that this problem had solved itself.

Quietly the eldritch entity began its long path out of the tunnels, making no effort to hide himself so far from everything that could even remotely endanger him and his identity. What little light emerged from the glowing magma in the depths of the caverns illuminated the edges of the strange being, a rusty, hollow set of deformed armor held together by nothing but magic and darkness shrouded in a ragged black robe, a face that was an unmoving wooden mask and a mechanical jaw filled with sharp metallic teeth.

Even if one would make the mistake to discover his presence, there was little chance they would survive the encounter.

[member="Rhane Varless"]

 

[Rhane Varless]

[member="Darth Abyss"]

He felt it.

The Jedi Knight Rhane Varless was investigating some sort of cult that appears to operate around a Sith Lord simply referred to the Mindeater. Rumblings around the city suggested there were Sith agents in deep cover, providing intel for the Sith Lord. These rumblings turned into full blown requests for help from some of the local Jedi, a request that was heard by the Jedi Council. Soon, Rhane Varless was dispatched to deal with the cult, which he seemed to think was more of an espionage group. He had tracked down a Sith agent by the name of Gūdon Vartet, one of the mid-ranking members of said espionage cult. The man was tight-lipped with information, that is until Rhane promised him protection under the Silver Jedi Order and a nice line of credits.

It was getting closer.

Eventually, word got out that Gūdon was a snitch and in less than one day he was dead, higher-ups had ordered his death. Rhane went poking around, he felt an obligation to find Gūdon's killer since he did offer him protection after all. Couple of harsh words, some threatening gestures, and maybe a fight or two later and he had the location. He traveled down into some deep, dark, mysterious caverns and found his body, rapidly decaying due to heinous chemicals the clean up crew had used. Rhane searched for clues, but unfortunately there were none. Satisfied with his extensive search, he swung around and headed for the exit.

It was almost upon him.

Rhane was almost out of the tunnels, he could even see a faint glimpse of light, when he felt a presence approach him from behind. Rhane wasn't exactly running out of the cave, so it was entirely possible someone had managed to take the same route as him and manage to catch up the him. He pondered his options, perhaps approaching this presence would help enlighten the situation. Turning his back on the faint glimpse of light, he turned around and started to walk towards the presence. In just a moment, clarity overtook him. This presence was obviously heinous in nature, he drew his weapons but did not activate them. Rhane had, unfortunately, not trained on how to mask him light side presence but he tried his best, in order to provide some sort of element of surprise. When he thought he was close enough to the dark side entity he yelled..

''HALT!!!'' ​

​

..enhancing the words with his extensive knowledge of Force Bellow. He activated his lightsabers and readied himself.​

 

[Darth Abyss]

"Why should I?"

The words, not spoken by a human voice but by an ethereal echo so distorted that it was nearly impossible for ears to comprehend it, resounded within the cave, bouncing from side to side without any clear point of origin. It was followed by the shadow of the Mindeater, the entity so well aligned with the darkness that it was hard to make his form out between walls around them. Abyss steps had not changed the slightest, the husk was still moving towards this sudden opponent with slow, menacing strides. Other then the jedi, Abyss made no effort to reach for his weapon. He had other means to erase this little inconvenience without the need to call upon a blade.

"I would advise you to put that what weapon right where it came from. It would be a disgrace to taint this beautiful wonder of nature with dirty jedi blood."

Even the alien nature of Abyss voice could not mask the sarcasm, and that he couldn't care less about the empty caves he was traversing through. Neither did he expected his opponent to disarm himself, not even the jedi were so foolish, all he desired to accomplish was to demoralize the jedi before the fight had begun. His voice, his appearance, and his twisted, hungering presence within the force aided such efforts in most cases.

"Your masters could never grasp the full extend of the dark side. Allow me to show you."

A broken laugh filled the air, layers upon layers of otherworldly sound escalating into a crescendo of white noise, while the husk lifted his left, performing a series of gestures with the small ring wrapped around his index finger. Moments later dark side energy began to gather in front of his hand, like a portal leading into a dimension of chaos. From it emerged a swarm of thin, black tendrils, all of them reaching for the jedi in a erratic storm of darkness.

[member="Rhane Varless"]

 

[Rhane Varless]

[member="Darth Abyss"]

Arrogance, a quality far too common among the Sith.

Rhane remained solemn and listened to the ramblings of it, for the simple fact he hoped there was a surrender at the end of it. But, The Sith were far too arrogant and prideful, never even considering defeat as an option. The prospect of defeat was always at the back of Rhane's mind, even now facing this Sith, and this constant kept him on his toes.

Surprise, the sith always had something up their sleeves.

The Sith revealed something, a ring on his fingers. In fact, he didn't so much reveal it, as it was always there, but rather he revealed it's power. Through the power of some ancient Sith Magic or optical illusion, he he used the ring to create some sort of portal. Rhane braced himself, what was to be expected? Would the portal suck him in? Almost instantly, the portal poduced ten tendrils of evil, clawing, reaching, grabbing for him.

Overconfidence, is defeat never really an option?

Rhane began to spin his blue lightsaber and marched confidently towards the Sith, hoping his sabers would have some effect on the tendrils.

 

[Darth Abyss]

Many mistook true, almost absolute power for arrogance, but those that fought Abyss knew that he had none. Even the smallest being could make a giant fall if he didn't watched his feet, a piece of wisdom that had aided him more then once during his days as an acolyte. He never lost the cunning he was forced to developed that time, and even now that his power was enough to simply crush most with a single move he would never make the mistake to rely on strength alone.

The dark tendrils had been a feint, and a flashy one at that. Yet they, other then their original counterpart, wert not designed to exist for long, the magic holding them together far to volatile to keep it from falling apart. So instead of [member="Rhane Varless"]'s blade even touching them, they had already faded, the short burst fading in merely a handful of seconds.

In the time the jedi wasted with contemplating the dangers of his spell, Abyss reached for one of the throwing knifes hidden in his right sleeve through the force, pulling the weapon out and throwing it in one swift movement. It was no the sharp steel that made his favorite weapon the prefect tool for killing sith and jedi alike, but the spell placed upon them that allowed them to store a mix of deadly poisons within them. One to affect the body, one to affect the mind, and one most deranged to disrupt the victims connection to the force.

The knife danced through the air, am almost perfectly straight line that was aimed to end at the Jedi's left shoulder. At the same time he spoke again, manipulating his voice through the force to not echo out of the nothingness, but from right besides his opponent.

"I wonder what your little jedi thoughts taste like."

It was merely another attempt to mock and intimated his adversary, as Abyss had little interest in devouring the mind of the jedi. Like most of his kind he expected to find little of worth within it, but that was something he didn't had to know.

 

[Rhane Varless]

[member="Darth Abyss"]

For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the Guardians of Peace and Justice in the Old Republic, before the dark times, before...The Empire. Thousands of Sith had been slain during the that Old Republic, and this one would soon fall among their ranks. Rhane mentally prepared himself for the inevitable escalation of this battle, he had a strong and sound mind but he attempted to fortify it even more.

Rhane's lightsabers almost danced upon the tendrils when they suddenly disappeared, an elaborate illusion after all. Rhane had very little time to react to this feint when a time seemed to slow down and a glimmer of metal flashed across his field of vision. He had little time to react, when the blade shattered into two pieces, he had not stopped spinning his lightsaber. One of the pieces, changed course radically and ended up on the other side of the room, but the other stayed true to it's course. Rhane barely had time to adjust his body to the attack, the knife grazed the outside of his armor, creating a noticeable cut in the fabric. He was not able to recognize the poisons in the dagger, but he wasn't exactly wanting to get stabbed today.

He hadn't noticed it, but Rhane had most of his weight on his back foot, a bad position to be in. Wanting to surprise his opponent, he deactivated the spinning lightsaber, pushed all of his weight forward, and thrust his other ligthsaber at the armor of the Sith. The attack had power behind it, but Rhane was beginning to wonder if anything physical would harm this...thing.

 

[Darth Abyss]

"I see you masters passed on their foolishness."

After the dagger danced into the air and shattered at the blade of [member="Rhane Varless"], the husk once more feel dormant. His form allowed him to perform exceptional physical feats, but Abyss preferred to rather use the clear lack of experience of his opponent to his advantage. There was no need to show his strength, as the Besalisk would use his own so freely that he could use it against him.

Abyss arsenal was nearly endless. Daggers, Lightsabers, Swords, each of the forged to stop the most common weapon of sith and jedi alike. Yet he made no move to reach for any of them, as he needed only his body, the strange, hollow armor created by alchemy for what was about to come.

As the saber of the jedi pushed forwards, both hands of the husk lifted up, the claws on his left extending into long, deformed talons forged out of cortosis, metal that couldn't just stop but short out lightsabers. With them he reached for the incoming blade, making sure to angle his claws so that they would hit the blade and short it out shouldn't the jedi react.

At the same time his right, now a fist, pushed forward, sending out a simple, straight forward punch aimed at the chest of his opponent, using both the momentum of the jedi and the his own strength, only limited by the metal he was made of, to break the bones of most less resistant species.

 

[Rhane Varless]

[member="Darth Abyss"]

Rhane had extremely good reflexes, his Jedi training showed that, but even he couldn't have predicted the cortosis claws emerging from it. The claws grasped for the blade and found their mark, deactivating one of his two sabers. Initially surprised by this move, Rhane had little time to brace himself for the incoming punch. It would land a powerful blow right in Rhane's ribcage. Rhane wasn't certain, but he thought he might've heard a small crack. The strike would send Rhane flying back, normally such an attack would not faze him but he was unprepared for such a simple maneuver.

As he was flying thought the air, Rhane had enough sense in him left to deactivate his remaining lightsaber. Tumbling to the ground, Rhane found himself kneeling down. He quickly clipped his two lightsabers on his belt. This Sith was very talkative, Rhane preferred to let his abilities and fighting skills do the talking. Rhane then used all four of his arms to let out a seismic power Force Push aimed at it.