Where Gods Fear To Tread...

[Julius Sedaire]

Sand stretched for as far as the eye could see, undulating hills of it with etched waves and tides, golden lanes that turned blinding white as the twin suns of Tatooine glared onto them from above, almost as if in disapproval at the lone figure that wound its way across the valley. This particular place was remote, a deserted part of the desert, the irony not escaping the figure who walked across the sands with a heavy pack on his back. The man, if any who were Force-sensitive stretched out their senses to him, would fairly reek of the Dark Side and it's cloying, rotting caress. Whether it came from him, the things he carried, or something more, one could not really tell.

Regardless of the specificity of the source, death and just an air of something wrong hung about him like a sense of terrible anticipation. At some point almost at random, but to the man walking not random at all, he stopped walking. The action was abrupt, yet natural, and he sat the pack down, settling down next to it in the shifting grains. Moments ticked by like honey, slow and full of golden light from the sun as the form sat motionless, barely even breathing. Eventually, a sort of pressure was felt descending around it, and what little life remained fled, or tried to, as the being sitting in the sand seemed to grow even more sinister, the light around him dimming, the pulsing presence in the Dark Side growing.

Truth be told, the figure had been wandering this particular area of the desert for a few days already, and some of the more intelligent beings had already begun to avoid the areas his presence and shadow darkened. Un-natural abominations had been sighted, and some slain, by the sand people in the area, with reports of most of the beings dying long before they became a problem, grotesque and twisted by a power the nomadic tribesmen were unsure and in fear of. But not all the creatures twisted so had been found yet, and some still slumbered, the toll of his experimentation sapping their strength and will for the time being.

From within the depths of the pack, he withdrew a stack of texts, spreading them out before him. One was an ancient grimoire, actually made on paper and leather bound, it's age beyond most peoples reckoning. There were several odd shaped datacrons or holocrons, and lastly, a simple looking lockbox of jet black hjarna stone laced and bound in what looked like phrik, etched all over in odd runes that seemed to wiggle as you looked at it. From that last object came a sort of tremor in the Force, neither Dark nor Light, and it seemed to almost come from the man and it, as if their union sent out ripples in the more ethereal realms. Whatever this figure was, his intentions did not bode well, and it seemed as if he were the Herald of something even more omnious.

Spoiler

[member="Rave Merrill"] | [member="Isley Verd"] | [member="Spencer Jacobs"] | [member="Draco Vereen"] | [member="Corvus Raaf"]

OOC Note: Those I tagged, or any particularly strong Prophets, Force Users or the like, feel free to chime in with your reactions... Nothing has happened yet, but the ripples/tremors I mentioned are sort of a psychic tremor of the Force as the ritual and study of the texts begin. This will be where Ostanes studies the texts and rites, and summons the spirit via the Codex, and the resultant hijinks will see the Spirit bound to a Greater Kryat Dragon, etc... He is about to start mucking with stuff way beyond his level....So you're welcome to respond with foreboding posts, or noticing it and making your way to Tatooine, but it's sort of a fainter recognition of something happening, like a much weaker version of Obi-Wan realizing Alderaan has been destroyed. Don't feel obligated to reply if you are tagged, but feel welcome to if you are, or to come to see what Ostanes is doing.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Standing tall, the figure seemed to stretch, almost as if wearied from a long night of toil, and shed the heavy black robe it bore. The heavy fabric fell with scarcely a rustle to the ground and pooled at his feet. The face revealed was that known to the Galaxy as the public controller of Akure Executive Interstellar. Privately, through various shams and shells, he also ran or controlled those who ran the company, and represented an odd paradox- at once in control of one of the greatest Forces in Alchemy in the known Galaxy, yet thanks to his mentor and teacher, he himself was a middling talent just now on the rise again.

Upon her departure, Rave had mind-wiped many of her more skilled and brilliant minds, and Ostanes had been no exception. He had just simply woken one day, ready to go to work, and realized he suddenly could no longer remember that which he had once been an expert at. Half finished projects sat on his desk that he could no long understand what their intent or purpose was, or how they had gotten to the state they were in. Notes in journals and the like may as well have been in a foreign tongue, for he could not make heads nor tails of them anymore, most of them referencing techniques and ideals and philosophies he no longer knew.

This loss of knowledge and ability had perhaps been the driving force behind his shift.... From an ardent student of mysteries, to a darker bend that would take him to a dangerous place. An insatiable hunger grew in him from that day, what professionals would call an obsession. An obsession with regaining his former knowledge and power, and one day surpassing it, so that he would become such that none could ever do to him again what Rave had subjected him to. And so, he had tread in places where before he might not have... Studied texts and gained knowledge that a man with his level of abilities were not of the capacity to comprehend, let alone control. But caution and prudence shattered in the path of ambition, as was often the case.

And so, as the twin suns began to set, the man began to remove the fine white suit coat he wore, unclasping the white-gold cape he wore over it, folding and setting it and the coat to the side. Almost ritualistically each layer of clothing was removed, revealing once smooth skin scarred and branded and marred with eye-turning, stomach churning sigils and figures. The shirt folded, the man continued to undress, finally turning and shrugging back on the heavy black robe he had worn. Any who might meet his gaze would see once deep, intelligent eyes of green burned sickly, unnatural yellow, swirling Sith runes cut into the flesh of his brow which still bore flakes of dried blood. Reaching into the pack, Ostanes withdrew a simple and unassuming Alchemist dagger, and held it up, watching it glitter in the sun as his eyes seemed to dance in the shadows of his hood.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

As Ostanes stared at the dagger edge in the twilight, he reached into his robes with the other hand, removing a leather purse from within his robes and undid the bindings. Sticking a hand i, he let the red sand fall back through his fingers into the pouch. It was the last of the cache of sand he had gotten from the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban... In the methodology of Alchemy he had begun to study and develop, and indeed in the same grimoire he learned from it also taught Sith Magic very similarly, such things were essential in preparing the work space. With a grimace to his face, he held his left hand up and brought the knife slicing across it, seeming to stare in almost ecstatic joy as the blade parted flesh. Blood trickled and ran off the appendage as he held it over the pouch, letting it pour onto the sand therein, chanting all the while the lines of Ancient Sith he had painstakingly memorized.

This was a ritual of darkening, of desecration. Truth be told, it blurred the lines between Alchemy and Magic in many ways, but it was a way of creating a minor Force Nexus... It would not be such that he would gain much from it at all really, it was more a pretext or precursor. The Nexus served as the anchor point in what he should be attempting next. When you went to someones house and wanted to let them know you were there, you made a noise in some way. Typically, by societies rule, you knocked on the door or rang the door buzzer. In this case, he was trying to get the attention of several things much larger than a neighbor in their home, and so the Dark Sided nexus was one of the first-steps. The others had been done through the weeks since he had begun acquiring major bits of knowledge from various scrolls, grimoirs, holocrons, and datacrons.

Ostanes began to walk the ground around him, continuing to chant in Ancient Sith, his hand moving periodically to grasp more sand from the pouch. As he walked, the hand grasping the sand let trickles of it escape its' grasp, moving in precise patterns and motions. By some sorcery or dark art, the sand fell like granules of lead, and left a faintly glowing trail of red granules in the golden surface of Tatooine, the design he was tracing into the sand staying put even in the high winds that swept the plains. Each grain of Korribanite sand seemed to scorch the Tatooine sand, smoke rising from the ground, the red sand giving off a faint glow that was somehow just wrong, seeming to glow with darkness, almost like a black-light rather than a proper lightsource...

 

[Corvus Raaf]

Corvus was in her small and somewhat spartan home on Tatooine. If she had time off, she spent it here. The new temple was nearly ready and she knew she'd spend a good deal of time there. But given it was underground and the alternative was the Kenobi-Class Praxeum, daylight was something she wasn't seeing a lot of lately. And if there was something Tatooine had in abundance - it was the sun.

And [member="Braith Achlys"] was with her. They tended to venture outdoors at dusk and dawn more often than not. So she sat in the main room of the underground hut, re-reading Obi-Wan's notebook for the umpteenth time, aware Braith was nearby and busy - although what she was actually doing she was not aware of. Not that it mattered. Just being near her was a comfort.

It was at that moment that Corvus sat up straight. It felt like someone had dropped a stone in a pool. And the pool was the Force. And she was feeling, in some ways, the ripples. It wasn't cataclysmic by any stretch of the imagination. But it was there, none the less. The question was - was it a large disturbance far away, or a smaller disturbance closer by?

She put her book down and connected with the Force, entering into a deep Meditation in the forlorn hope she would be granted more clues.

[member="Ostanes"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Still the chanting rose and fell as the light failed and gave way to darkness. Still the ground around him was fitfully lit and flickering, as if some infernal source powered it. Striding round the circle he had drawn, the precious sand was doled out, etching Sith runes onto the lighter sand with it, the forms wiggling and twisting in insane patterns, seeming to move all of their own volition and accord. Smoke still rose into the now night sky as the form of Ostanes continued on his insane mission, tracing and looping back and forth, until finally he stood back in the center, arms raised to the sky, the chanting growing louder and somehow more guttural.

Turning to the collection of objects near him, he took the phrik-bound case and began to press latches, and with a few moments work the sides of the case opened with a hiss and a small cloud of steam. Wave after wave of unease began to roil off as the shielding spells etched into the cover were deactivated, and the contents were revealed. Smaller lifeforms, desert crickets and rodents, who had begun to creep back into the area would silently fall dead without reaction, blood leaking from eyes and ears and any orifice found... Whatever was being done was not safe to anything living, and indeed Ostanes himself stumbled a bit as he pulled a book from the coffer, blood leaking from the corners of his eyes.

Studiously, he sat in the middle of the glowing circle he had summoned himself, smoke rising from the sand. The air smelt of rotted leaves, burning hair, and the worst of charnel houses. Eyes flickered across the pages of the tome, and lips moved, giving voice to something that by his mouth and throats movements should be ringing from dune to dune, but for some unknown reason not a syllable uttered made sound, though the glow of the circle began to steadily dim. The cut sigils on his form began to glow, and a faint hum could have been heard the closer one got to the center of the circle.

Almost, it felt as if the very air of the world were sick with anticipation and awaiting something to arrive...

 

[Julius Sedaire]

As the silent chant seemed to end, oddly enough nothing happened immediately... Sweat beaded down his brow, between his shoulder blades and slicked the hollow of his throat. And it was not the sickly sweat of one in the heat, as might be expected in a desert. It was the cold, stinging sweat of panic and fear, of adrenaline..... But the smell that could have been scented if one stepped close enough was as if one had entered an exceptionally dangerous medical ward... There was a slight copper tang to the air, and a sickly sweet scent that those familiar with immediately associated not with death, but with the slowly dying who refused to go off into the netherworld. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated and nostrils flared, panic coursing through his aura. Though nothing changed outwardly, except the light around him dimming more and more, to the point past what it should... Inwardly?

Inward in his mind was a different story altogether, and not something anyone could experience and remain whole. Physically the air began to shimmer in front of him, sand eddying and sliding about in small dust devils, but never disturbing the sigils on the ground. Within his mind, those eddying clouds danced around a dark shade that was nothing more than smoke and darkness, but somehow tugged at the mind with eldritch horrors.... Vaguely, in his inner perceptions, the thing looked like a Sith Pureblood, but impossibly tall, with blackened, broken and bleeding skin and sickly yellow eyes. Teeth like the rows of fangs of a shark, each yellowed and crooked, grinned out of a mouth able to swallow him whole.

Denial screamed, or tried to. What happened was a small escape of air from his mouth, as if choking and managing to finally get out a puff of air. His neck muscles and tendons strained, eyes bulging and bloodshot as a cyanotic tinge began to show in his extremities and lips. The thing turned it's eyes from the heavens and seemed to spy him, covered in blood and sand and sweat, unable to move or breathe from it's mere malign presence. What had become of this brilliant mind and indomitable and singular will? It had retreated, fled from this being whimpering and whining. When it's mouth began to move, the sound heard in the physical realm sounded akin to a swarm of locusts, but in his mind, it was a gravelly voice of brass drug over gravel, a multi-chorded and atonal screeching.

"This is what drug me from the Nethers by will and blood? You, such a pathetic wretch as to not even greet me on your feet? I will end you here and feast on your life-blood, and use your spirits death to become whole..."

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The sneer, though it had little in the way of a face, wreathed in twisting shadow as it was, seemed to assault his mind in a boil of contempt and emotion. Somehow, it emboldened him with a surge of rage to be viewed as beneath this thing... Pride was quite a downfall of his, and his eyes twitched, muscles tremoring, as he manged a sudden and ragged breath. The feel of fresh air on his lungs burnt, stung as if he had aspirate powdered glass and acid down his throat into them. Another hitching set of breathes, slight gurgling, as his mind rallied against the oppressively dark and inscrutable presence. Fury began to course in him as his breathing sawed in and out without any regularity to rate, depth, or anything.

Finally, muscles all across his body began to tremor and convulse, almost as if some storm of electricity course through them the corners of his mouth twitch into grimaces and smiles like a theatre mask, grotesque and unreal. Ostanes began to rock back and forth, see-sawing wildly, until in an explosion of motion he collapsed face-forward into the sand. Long moments passed, the wind whistling eerie in the space between dunes, the locust-swarm hissing rising ever higher in volume. Minutes passed, with limbs spasming on occasion, before suddenly one arm and then another bunched under the fallen Alchemists torso.

Sand began to pour from his shoulders and folds of the robes as his arms straightened in a smooth, sudden motion. Defiance radiated from sickly yellow eyes that met the shades, radiating fury and determination. Though his knees wobbled and his legs trembled, he raised a bloodied face with utter calm, and too first one, then a second step toward it. His hand came up, and darkness gathered about the Codex and flowed in sickly tendrils to swirl about the digits of it and down his extended limb, seeming to sink into the cut-marks on his flesh, a faint grimace tugging at his expression as if the action pained him. As the darkness flowed into him from the book, the umbra of the shade dimmed, and it became less shadowed, more clearly defined, and fully translucent. Where he had trembled before, he now stood straight-back and proud. Words rolled out, cold and ringing as his minds' fog lifted.

"Silence until you are spoken to, beast."

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The shade, as if enraged, roared, sand scattering from the force... Oddly, as it grew less substantial, it's visual presence in the physical realm steadied and grew, easier now to see with the naked eye. To Ostanes' eyes, with the living contacts he had acquired from Akure, it was a sight to see. Whilst the tendrils leaked from the Codex into him, wisps and tugs of dark energy and smoke tugged and snaked from it, joining and mixing with that of the book and flowing into the Alchemist. Whether in reaction, or in rebellion, or something, to this his form straightened and seem to grow slightly, eyes growing perilous with a certain gleam that spoke of confidence and command. The words were spoken... Hundreds of beings had died in this desert, all fed into the staff within the circle. The ritual was done, and this thing within it would obey him.

"Armonsi diâ udai! Irsia iw ri kûts-waznirja tnamri an ki waria, Titiai ki satyijau'ira, ki natita sotus... Nu mirji tauz, Obeah...."

With the commands spoken in High Sith, the ritual he had painstakingly constructed from pieces of others in the Codex, various holocrons, datacrons, and grimoires blended with his own theories... It was complete... There was a hushed silence across the plains of sand, even the chorus of locusts falling silent at the uttering of the word... Obeah... The name of the entity before him was a powerful thing, and in the Codex, he had managed to sift out that knowing the true names of these creatures from the void gave you some sort of power over them. What that power was, or how complete it was.. That was an unknown. But regardless, the name had been spoken, a phrase of command sourced not only for it's literal meaning in High Sith, but for the meter and rhyme when spoken...

As the silence stretched on almost unbearably, the air seemed to grow cold, frost beginning to form across the sand within the circle, causing the fires that flicked to snuff out in a counter-clockwise motion, the smoke drifting in slithers to Ostanes, who breathed them in slowly, as if a connoisseur scenting a fine beverage. The taste of blood, rotted fruit and meat, and what flashed in his mind as what must be the visceral experience of fear in sensory form, flooded his senses all at once. The smoke seemed to fill his lungs, soothing the burning in them, and his vision twinned, at once gazing at the fading apparition before him, and himself naked and bloody beneath a robe. Suddenly, the temperature spiked, and the last tendril of smoke filled his lungs.

An expectant gleam entered his eyes, as the wounds swiftly began to heal, tendrils of black wriggling from them as they closed, inching to swirl around the staff of hjarna stone on the sand floor and fill it with a sickly dark light. Moments passed, and suddenly the tension in the air decompressed in a massive thud, flattening every dune and formation for several meters and more in all directions, and the minute sounds of life seemed to return to the desert air.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

As sound and life began to filter back into the area, Ostanes stood mute, eyes fixed where the being he had summoned had once been. He still breathed, if slow and shallow, but his pupils were pin-pointed, the irises turning a poisonous amber in hue as he stood in silent inner turmoil. For though outward to appearance he was in a meditative trance, inwardly he was fighting a battle for control of his mind, his very consciousness and identity. Originally, the intent had been to utilize Force Walk to bind Obeah to the staff he had prepared for just such an occasion. The ritualistic markings on his body were to provide a telepathic link for him to use with the totem to utilize the being for his own ends. However, his ambition outweighed his capability and knowledge, and such a link was almost always two-ways, and so at this moment Obeah was invading his mind, struggling to wrest control.

Scenes of ancient horrors, dark secrets and more flooded his mind as the two entities battled wills, and memories locked away long ago by [member="Rave Merrill"] spilled forth as if sprays of blood from deeps cuts in a duel of the flesh. Back and forth Obeah and Ostanes struggled and fought, pitting self against self. The binding had been successful, as when the being struck out with it's will to unhinge Ostanes, the staff pulsed with an eerie and sickly light, humming just at the edge of hearing. Sith runes flared here and there as well, binding and warding charms straining to contain the being. Eventually the light seemed to stay at a steady pace, shining in both the staff and from Ostanes' eyes like a night predators eyes might glow in the light on the hunt.

When he spoke aloud to the emptiness, it was with the same gravelly voice wracked with atonal warpings that Obeah had spoken with, and the words came thick and slurred, eventually trailing down and off into the softly educated accent the Alchemist used for his form as Ostanes. Whilst without it may have taken just bare minutes, within it had seemed like weeks of struggle across ethereal realms that were made of the stuff of such deep nightmares not even his mind could conjure them forth. Eventually the struggle had ceased, and in the scant moments before he spoke, the two had existed in limbo, making a compact that would in the end result in a gain for both of them. But, like many crossroad bargains, the mortal side had a price to pay that would in the end perhaps outweigh their gain...

 

[Julius Sedaire]

In the end, the first movement of the Alchemist was to bring his hand up to trace the drying trails of blood-tears from his eyes, pulling back his fingers to gaze at the crimson staining and red-black flakes stuck to them. Revulsion for a moment filled him at what he had done, as he realized what he would become in the coming weeks and months. Great knowledge was now his to wield in his craft, but the price was steep in every angle. Already he could feel the mind of Obeah peering in from it's housing on the staff, and he realized the clawed cap remained empty. Without a host, eventually the spirit would dissipate and be released to the Netherworld. How long it would take to do so, and if it could overcome the wards on the staff and break into this plane of being, Ostanes could not say. And so, gathering his things, he set out to a cave nearby.

The lair he entered some minutes later once housed a sand demon. Once. Ostanes had descended upon the beast in a fury, knowing it would be distracted guarding it's clutch of eggs. The lightsaber he so rarely used was instrumental, as was the Sith Spell for an Aura of Unease. Distracted by the magics unsettling effects, the legendary beast tried to flee from Ostanes, and came up against a wall, wherein it turned too late, and attempted to attack. Ostanes slew the creature, though it had given him a few parting injuries that would need attention soon. However, the prize he sought lay in a clutch surrounded by rocks. A nest of the creatures young, as yet unhatched.

Such a cunning and deadly predator of the sands that it had become legend to the sand people themselves, it would be a fitting capstone. Ostanes selected an egg that would fit roughly the size of the claws, and slid it between them. It had some slight wiggle and movement, but that would matter little in the end. Taking the corpse of the mother, he began to use the cooling and half coagulated blood to draw a singular sith rune on each of the other eggs, and then drew the same on the butt of the staff. The rune was the symbol for dwomutsiqsa and the ritual for invoking spirits, combined rather expertly so that it functioned to bind nothing more than the life essence of the unborn sand demons with that of the intact fetus in the egg, thus providing a host for Obeah to occupy, though the magic would render the fetus in a sort of inert suspension. If ever the bound spirit was freed, the egg would likely resume maturation, and what would hatch from it, if anything hatched, might be its own horror all on its own.

With a grimace, he stood over the clutch and brought the blunt end down into one of the eggs, blood-rune covered staff tip piercing the rune-marked egg, both of the runes touching, and with a flare of crimson light, black veins began to form on the egg. A dozen times the gesture was repeated, each time a blackened vein scrawling and squiggling across the still whole sand-demon egg, and the already tough surface of the egg hardening each time. Finally the presence of Obeah seemed to dim from the staff, being funneled into the egg as Ostanes marked the rune again, double tracing it in mixed blood from the mother and crushed eggs, and his own, a ritualistic linking by shared blood, that merged the minds together through a shared telepathic link. Neither could compel the other, and Obeah would now be unable to affect the physical realm through his power alone. But the knowledge, that would remain intact for Ostanes to learn...

And knowledge was true power....