Location: slightly south of the shield generator, slightly closer to the palace.
Objective: Setting the stage.....
Enemies : [member="Omari Vyken"] [member="Rolf Amsel"] [member="Marriskcal Lati"] [member="Rexus Wenck"] [member="Tobias Wrynn"] [member="Kyrel Ren"] [member="Varas Ren"] [member="Primat Ren"] [member="Alkor Centaris"] [member="Elian Keyes"] and any other First Order Fethers
Allies : [member="Tiland Kortun"] [member="Julius Sedaire"] [member="Yula Perl"] [member="Joza Perl"] [member="Darth Metus"] and the remaining ORC forces.
Vorhi gasped, tilting his head towards the sky, seeing it as the blind monk could. Turmoil, suffering. The shields were down. Soon, the First Order would renege or their feigned commitment to non-lethal measures. Their vaunted pacifism would be pulled aside for the chicanery it was.
All his work in goading these supposed titans of order, and none had considered his challenge. Not one. Still, more was necessary. Rituals such as these required time, and presence, and effort. But first, a delay. Or rather, a conduit. The blind monk coughed, spitting out thin, green mist form his lips as he did so. Devotees of Dathomiri witchcraft would know this as spirit ichor—a potent agent used in old Nightsister sorceries—and in the work of particularly foolish thieves, dumb enough to steal and replicate such treasures within their own bodies. The aura wasn't dark or light. It was....something other. Something else. It was not the bitter hate of Sith ritualism. It wasn't the gentle movement of contemplative Jedi. It was mad, and wild, and not remotely tamed. It was....natural. It was primal. It wasn't anything near, or even around human consciousness. It wasn't animal, either. It was more simple.
Primitive. Hungry.
The monk grinned. “There once was an Emperor, then he was a tree, replaced by demons, one and then three,” he opened his gourd and poured a thin, runny liquid upon his strange drawing on the ground, the mist seemed to lick hungrily at the liquid, expanding as if to turn the ground around his little magic circle into a crude cauldron.
The monk stood up slowly, nodding to the mist. “There once once was a thief, of tombs and graves, etched on his goods, a dead emperor's name.”
As the voices rang out, another came into play, singing, angrily. The new voices ,they were not human. They were the primal voices. They came from Vorhi's mouth, and the music came through microphones and jammers, but as the occult noise poured forth, it was not human, or Miralukian, or even Dathomiri. No. The voice that bellowed out began with the scream of the space whales.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/_-XaaTqOICU[/youtube]
The grinning mad monk bellowed and hollered in alien tones as the mist took a shape, moving, creating, drawing upon the soil and the air and the debris and the raw energy of life, stolen and twisted, the force itself seemed to focus. Guided by hunger or madness what else once would now, vines and woods and thorns emerged, forming a massive bramble around the shield generator, each thorn fine and sharp and happy to siphon blood and rage and sweat and love and turmoil. As the emotional energy reached a crescendo, this wicked, labyrinthine bramble filled the gap between the generator and the city, some of it cutting off even portions of the palace.
It's presence in the force, as could be felt, was.....empty. Not null, like one dead in the force, not quiet, like those unattuned to it, but empty. Like a bowl seeking water, or a hungry face, or a greedy child at a banquet table, grinding his forks together, or a student yearning for knowledge, or a wistful sould looking for love. The bramble craved life, or death, or force, or anything in its vacuous hunger. Visually, the darkened mass seemed to form a maze with paths, twenty meters high, easily several hundred meters across. In some places, the thin mist and brambles seemed like a simple briar. However, light and life and lies seemed to shift, to alter, looking like a jungle, or a garden, amidst the wreckage.
It was neither dark nor light. It was merely alive, and yearning.
Another voice came to Tiland on the wind. “I'm safe. This should do. Do not enter the bramble. I can't protect you within it....”
What he, and others attuned to such visions, would see, was a new thing. A living thing. A breathing thing, feeding and yearning and crying and screaming, with the hunger of a newborn infant and the wildness of untamed space.
~Meanwhile, in the streets~
The emotional turmoil was chaining more firmly. A stronger, deeper resolve, seemed to wash over many, and it was feeding back, like wind into a hurricane, or peppers in a soup. Some of the excess emotions were washing over the strange thorns. They were....
drinking the emotional energies. Not draining them from the populace, but siiphoning off the excess. absorbing the ambient energy, like a sponge near a flooding sink.
Brother and sister stood together, hearing the unearthly song of whale and squib and human and near-human. Kindred spirits, the voices rang.
We.....are.......one!!!!
The Thorns seemed to shudder. Black briar and wild vine shifted hues, but thorns remained, still
yearning. Force wielders would see "spillage" of their exertions pulled towards the briar by unseen tides, as if a vortex of whirls surrounded it. Those familiar with the machinations of the Aaang-tii would find a strange familiarity in the shape, but not the energy or the ritual itself.
Still, some energy would enter in, from force wielders of dozens of disciplines, rites and rituals, knowledge both repulsive and righteous, emotions both dark and light. All would be in perfect balance. In harmony.
~Meanwhile, back at the Ranch of Thorns~
Concealed in thorns, the blind prophet smiled. A piece of the bark, stolen from Voracitous's supposedly secret resting place. Some spirit ichor, taken from a nightsister who underestimated him. A city, sown with discontent and rage, forced against the wall by power-hungry fools and moved to love my the mad passion of purrgills.
Vorhi spoke, weaker, now. He didn't have much more. “One last offering, then. Then, we can do what is needed. One last bargain before my haggle prize is earned....” he coughed out, squeaking slightly. Not much longer.
