Sheog the Mad

A message arrives for Darth Mavenger via secure commlink

Wookiee Jedi vs Mavanger This duel was a good read for the most part for myself and for my second for this duel, Darth Nyrys. This was a well fought battle from both perspectives, with good writing and references to character building that were for the most part an enjoyable read. These are both Master Level Characters with a strong history to draw on and a lot of background narrative. The Good Wookiee Jedi: I felt your narrative was very strongly written in the first and third post, and tied very well to your attacks and defenses. You respected your opponent’s numerous attacks well with good damage taken. Mavanger: There was a lot of great emotional narrative here, with the tumultuous nature of the Dark Side on display. There were strong attempts at personal growth, as well as a decent narrative of how your character perceives his opponent. The Need for Improvement Wookiee Jedi: The second of your posts I feel was your weakest, the attacks were less clear, and the narrative link and flow was weaker. Specifically here; The “Lifting his leg through his knee” was incredibly confusing by itself, a good tactic is to be more clear in how your attack can be interpreted. Mavanger: With your attacks, there was not a lot of overall description of where you are in space and time making it difficult for us to follow how things would look which would have allowed your opponent to better respond to your attacks. Your attacks felt highly condensed and numerous in the last paragraph, where they could have been much better used within the narrative you are spinning so the connection of attack and inspiration makes more sense. The Swords: I appreciate a good Irish name for stuff, but I ended up having to write down which sword was in each hand to better keep track of the attacks; a good way to differentiate them for the reader would be names that are quite different as well as color differentiation. The Overall Breakdown There is an issue with multiple strung-together attacks that hurt Mavanger overall more; if the first is appropriately defended against, your other attacks can fall apart narratively. Another is the ideals of quality vs quantity, when you have a post with 6 attacks in it, having to respect each of these in turn becomes a bit of a slog, or since they’re all linked together, stepping into the first defeats the following ones and they simply become ‘thrashing about’ as was so well worded by your opponent. Fewer attacks with more narrative link would give them more power. If you make multiple attacks, let them cook, take narrative between which allows them to become significantly more meaningful into the whole story. ‘Momentum’ played into this quite a bit, and both sides of this made attacks and defenses in contrary to their flow; A good example of this is Mavanger’s second post, where his defense to WJ’s shin strike was to jump upwards, in opposition to his whole flow. There was a lot of emphasis on being in close quarters, and narrative writing of who would be better at it; in theory you both are good at it, but for Mavanger, nothing was done to emphasize or take advantage, it was still slashes and cuts whereas WJ took more control in that zone. Both of you did great, however only one winner and so; Wookiee Jedi Wins

The bartender, an overlarge and gregarious Hutt watched the three clone trooper swho sat at the long table, their armor gleaming in the dim light of the cantina. They were a sight to behold, each one a perfect copy of the other, their faces set in determined lines. The bartender watched them from behind the counter, a feeling of unease settling in his many many stomachs. These were not ordinary soldiers, but fighting machines, created for one purpose: to serve the Republic and fight in the Clone Wars, or at least it was, many many many years ago As he mixed various, idiotic and fizzy drinks, the bartender couldn't help but wonder what horrors they had seen on the battlefield. What atrocities had they committed in the name of duty? And yet, despite everything, they remained stoic and resolute, their loyalty to, perhaps The Republic unwavering. Or was it the Empire. Or perhaps some form of Sovereign Alliance. Or maybe they were Jedi. The clone troopers lifted their glasses and clinked them together, their eyes meeting in a silent toast. The bartender watched as they drank, his greasy hand shaking slightly as he wiped down the counter. These were not men, but weapons, and he couldn't shake the feeling that their presence bode ill for the future of his comfortable and definitely not a mafia or Sith Front of a bar. The overfat Hutt couldn't help but notice a Twi'lek across the room. She was tall and slender, with a lithe grace that caught his eye. But it wasn't her appearance that captured his attention, it was the way she moved. It was almost as if she were dancing, her body flowing with an unconscious grace that he had only ever seen in one other person. Lallu. The name hit him like a physical blow, bringing with it a wave of memories and emotions that he had thought long buried. Lallu had been a dancer, or maybe a Sith Assassin or something, a Twi'lek like this one, with the same flowing movements and captivating presence. He had met her in a cantina much like this one, or maybe a Sith Temple, or maybe on a Mission, and they had spent a wild and passionate night together, at least in his mind. But in the harsh, and yet dim light of the bar, he had realized that he could never truly be with her. She was a dancer, and he was just a Hutt, he was a punk, she did ballet, what more could he say He had said goodbye and slithered out of her life, hoping that she would find someone who could give her the life she had deserved. And he had never looked back. Until now. As he watched the Twi'lek across the room, he couldn't help but feel a sense of longing and regret. He knew that he could never go back, that the past was the past. But he couldn't shake the feeling that he had made a mistake, that he had let something special slip through his greasy, chubby, dirty fingers. Great crimson eyes, welling with tears, stared from behind bright blue contacts while his greasy hand fiddled with the poorly made prosthetic beard and large hooked nose that adorned his face. He couldn't help but notice a Wookie, all too familiar, speaking to a young blonde woman at the other end of the counter, and what may well have been Admiral Ackbar himself. The Wookie was tall and muscular, his fur ruffled and unkempt. He gestured wildly with his hands as he spoke, a look of intense concentration on his face, as if reminiscing upon the time he slept with an Empress or something. The young woman listened intently, her blue eyes fixed on the Wookie as he spoke as if imagining his ringlets of fur deep in her nostrils. She was slender and graceful, her blonde hair falling in soft curls around her shoulders, something of a flitmoth. She seemed to be hanging on his every word, her expression one of the rapt attention that often graced the faces of mindless young women The Hutt watched the pair with interest, wondering what could have brought such disparate beings together in this seedy cantina. But he knew better than to ask questions, especially in a place like this, or meddle in a new budding romance, rife with shower scenes. He had learned long ago to mind his own business and keep his fat head down. So instead, he turned his attention back to those clone troopers, their presence a constant reminder of the dangers that lurked beyond the doors of the cantina, and that some people didn't know how to dress for a covert ops mission. With their distinctive armor and precise movements, they stood out like sore thumbs in the dingy cantina. It was as if they wanted everyone to know exactly who they were and what they were capable of. The overlarge and sweaty bartender watched them cautiously, his grubby hand never straying far from the blaster concealed beneath the counter. He had heard stories about the clone troopers, about their strength and their bravery on the battlefield. But he had also heard rumors of their ruthlessness, of their willingness to do whatever it took to win. His mind wandered to the Nightsister Quesadillaea, and how she had slept with a clone or two. He couldn't help but wonder what had brought them to this backwater planet, to this seedy cantina in the middle of nowhere, so filled with phermones. Was it a mission to retake the planet, or were they simply passing through on their way to somewhere else? Perhaps they could use a large Hutt for some nighttime activities... His multiple, greasy folds seemed to quake with potential excitement.

The Great Hutt breathed in, his corporeal form barely able to hold the air into his multitudinous lungs. The living Force, corrupted as it was by countless deaths, moved through him, folding into his blubber, filling his mind with its essence. With its addiction. With its hunger. Ruins hung about him, ancient and twisted from galactic destruction. The Bitter Feast’s hull shook with the impact of a hundred asteroids; the remnants of what had once been the Heart of the Sith: Ziost. The Master of the Krath could taste it all upon his waggling, greasy tongue; that corruption had a physical toll. He savored every death that had fed his power, the deep flavors that had been with him since the very beginning. Those he had slain on his path to power. That of his fellow apprentices. Luficer. Gelfast. Orion. The blood of his master, Ason Antilles. All those that had come after to feed his hunger, and yet he was never sated. Another breath and the power coalesced about him, streaming through him. His rotting flesh, streaming fluidous maggots joined itself with the Force itself, and all of him becoming the locus through which the dark side flowed. All the lives taken from Sullust, Corellia, Nar Shaddaa. Everything Consumed, bound itself to his essence, in a pulsing insanity of hunger, a primal madness. A heartbeat of gluttony and sin. A power that consumed without end. A Force Storm that crossed an entire star system and at its center; a wound in the Force The ruins, those shattered stones and starbleached bones reacted to the Hunger, drawn to the heartbeat like carrion to a bloated corpse. Spirits moved in echoes, matched in ravenousness by only the Master of Gluttony himself. The shattered, broken storm smiled for this place was more than the Heart of the Sith, it was the Soul of the Krath themselves. He could feel the greatest of their number, some long dead, others yet living in the fringes of darkspace. The heartbeat embraced them, inviting their spirits to inhabit what was to come. Even the dark mistress of the Maw spoke then, her dark fingers stretching out to him across the rushing storm, reflecting the galaxy within her glittering web. An invitation to devour it all, to feed upon the Jedi, the Republic, The Empire, even the Sith. On life itself. ...Devour or Create... For the first time and the last, what had been Sheog the Mad turned from it all; releasing it all into the heartbeat of gluttony. He could consume all the life in the galaxy, and yet at the end he would never be sated. To create was at least not a boring choice. To eat everything had become simply too cliché. He had passed the test. He would diminish, and go into the West, and remain Sheog. Bound as a shade to the same madness that would create the new heart of the Sith. The Force storm collapsed into itself, drawing the wreckage of Ziost into the wound at its center, binding it all to the heartbeat of madness. The Bitter Harvest became the core about which the planet, once sacred to the Krath, was formed once more. Mountains and valleys of crushed stone turned to magma and ice to ocean. The rebirth of life, yet corrupted in the image of its creator. A ravenous world and a Nexus of the Dark Side. -Ziost was made anew- A living wound in the Force, kept alive by a heart of madness, fed by veins of hunger.

<<Oh, did we win? I feel like we also lost…>> Large, cruel eyes stared at the disintegrating wreckage of the once great Misercordia fall into Nar Shaddaa’s gravity well. Thousands of deaths in an instant. Their horror froze in time within the Force, adding deepening the well from which the Great Hutt drew his power. Each shattered soul, each mangling mewing cry of death, each unmet desire, each unfulfilled dream fed his hunger. Sith ships fell, broken and venting oxygen into realspace, fragged and destroyed by Rebel fire. Cruisers and Corevettes, carriers and retrofitted transports. The Court of Madness dwindled. The Great Super Star Destroyer, that bitter throne of the Lord of the Krath seemed to pitch and warp under the combined firestorm. The Singularity seemed to pulse to the heartbeat of the Dark Side, drawing in light and life into great arteries to feed its ever-hungry master. The Great Hutt breathed in a monstrous, flabby breath into his multiple lungs, his bridgecrew following his unbidden orders, locking in the coordinates that would spell the doom of the light. <<I suppose I simply... don't care.>> With a blink, the singularity shattered into nothingness, its grotesque power taken in by its host. And with that, the Sith Command Ship disappeared into the starscape of hyperspace. The paltry remains of the fleet left behind seemed to scream into the void before detonating into starbursts of misshaped light,

The Grand Admiral watched the Squib-Hapan attack with a moment of terror, for they had somehow gotten through their own minefield to approach his fleet without losses from the mines that had claimed the lives of so many of his men. Sexy Chiss fingers steepled under his chin, a sign of brooding contemplation. Crimson eyes watched the Ardent-class frigate, Umbarian Nightsweats be torn asunder by the fierce attack of both Squib and Hapan. A starburst of light indicated the enemy’s Hutt allies gunline fracturing the hull of the Vigil-class corvette Fayne East. A sudden hunger rose in him to match his Terror. The Bridgecrew stiffened visibly, the Under Admiral nearly collapsing beneath the mental weight of the realization. Their fell Master had come to join the Battle. As the massive Hutt entered the bridge, The Master of the Krath called upon the fell powers of the Dark Side. He fed the Force his own hunger, corrupting space, tempting it to change, to shatter forth to consume all. The very front of the Vanguard of the Sith Fleet seemed to shake. The Tector-Class Star Destroyer, Billibringi Starlight, seemed to warp and change, the metal of its hull turning to red-hot iron, before collapsing into itself. All eight-thousand crew died instantly; their souls frozen in abject terror. A delightful meal of emotion, which the Former Dark Lord of the Sith fed into the Force. A feast of souls awaited. The many Krath scattered throughout the fleet joined into the psychic battle, feeding the growing singularity with both their power and their lives. Sheog joined it all to the heartbeat of the revel, that fateful dance of hunger and death. A gravemind, that fed upon all that had bound themselves to his cause. Into it all Sheog poured the doom of Sullust, millions of lives devoured, the defeat of the Masters of the Jedi, their shame, their terror, their shattered hopes and dreams. Of children torn from the breasts of their mothers to be devoured by demons. The doom of all life, a true perversion of the nature of the Force A wound in the Force appeared where that fateful star destroyer had been, a bitter ravenous, all consuming thing. It carried none of the storms or cliché lightning of those weaker Sith that had come before, it was purely the Maw. It lensed all light, devouring all before it, tempting all to join in the feast. Reaching tendrils of radiation into realspace, to destroy all before it. The Mad Hutt smiled cruelly. He offered the Hunger a most tempting prize, a planet of innocents, all their dreams and desires, to consume and devour. It would make Malachor V and Sullust look like the efforts of a child. The singularity surged forward, ripping the Sith’s Secutor-class battlecarrier Jenuax, and its crew of forty-thousand into nothing more than fractured starlight. A deep phlegmatic laugh echoed across The Bitter Feast's now lifeless bridge. It was time for the Rebels and their pitiful Empire to witness the true power of the Force.

The Grand Admiral of the Court of Madness observed the swirling mass of enemy ships before him, protected by their millions of mines. How the devil they had remained able to get civilian ships in and out of the sector was beyond him. He stroked his peppered goatee with long, slender, sexy blue Chiss fingers. He flipped a single finger towards the viewscreen and he channeled an open commlink to the enemy. “Greetings, Rebellion. Or Empire. Whatever you are. Fear not, stand down and stand by. We are here only to hunt Nar Shadaa’s famous Azov Battalion, and to rid you of the evils of fascism. Please disarm.” His subordinate, Under-Admiral Pog’Champ, stared up at him with similar crimson Chiss eyes. “Admiral Frawn, I believe it’s pronounced ‘Imperial Knights’” The Grand Admiral waved his had dismissively. He would suggest the Under-Admiral to throw himself out an airlock at some later time. His eyes caught several fleet elements within the Enemy ranks, of particular interest. He waved another hand indicating full fleet forward. “Admiral… The Mines?” A highly annoyed Chiss Admiral stamped his foot in dismissive rage. “Damn the mines, there are Squibs to kill. Sheog would not want any of them to escape.” The Grand Fleet lurched forward, losing countless ships to strike at the irritating creatures. Several Corevettes exploded almost immediately, whether it was the mines or just the will of the force, one would never know. No matter the losses, those Squibs would perish. Grand turbolasers lashed out towards The Rebels, and their beloved Squibs.

A rank, slovenly, overlarge form slithered its way onto the Bridge of the Raven’s Bane, no longer hidden in the form of an mere apprentice Huttling, but a corporeal, rotting form of the Master of all Krath, and Necromancer of them all. His voice was far more jovial than the all-consuming hunger that paled his form and stained the Force with his presence <<Mavie my boy, what brings you to Naboo?>> Multilidded eyes drooped over rotting, pale eyes, that seemed ever out of focus as they passed over the battlemap to drill into the Lord of the Sith before him. A large snuffling, phlegm-ridden sniff came from the Hutt <<My, you smell like revenge.>> Another sniff, a deeper, horrifyingly seductive tone to it. <<My vanguard presses its advantage. I assume, as always I’ve jumped some form of gun.>> The leering mouth twisted into the sweet smile of toddler, absolutely grotesque on the half rotted face. <<Planning on wiping out that sweet Empress all on your onsie, are you?>>

There was a rending cry within the Force, the veil torn by ravenous jaws. The thousand stars of heaven’s field were awashed in black, waning like cooling embers before the power of the Dark Side. Hundreds of glittering ships twisted and tore their way into realspace; no organized fleet of uniform ships. It was the reflection of the entropy and diversity of the galaxy, all those bound to the heartbeat the revel. Sharp lines of Imperial Ships in contrast with the lurid waves of the Mon Cal design, battleships and cruisers, all broken and shattered things. The great warships stood as open wounds, spewing forth the pus and rust of their entropic master; corvettes and patrol ships; carrion, surrounded by the buzzing thousands of starfighters, TIE-Uglies and unrecognizable hulking ruins of millennia past. Some were biological beasts of living metal, others carpets of rotmoss, Rotted behemouth Purrgil… Amongst their number a sharp eye could see the bound carapaces of the collous-wasp and Neebray, rot and innards frozen by deepspace, sentience long since bound to the will of Hunger. At the very center of it all lay the hulking remains of a Summa-Verminoth, far from alive, but very far from dead. Its body had been all but consumed, stripped of flesh and lifeblood, replaced by living sithsteel in the form of the Vengence-Class Star Dreadnaught. Its heartbeat was that of the Maw, bound to the master of all Necromancers, bidden only by gluttony and avarice. The Flagship of the Court of Madness, The Bitter Feast. The Court of Madness had come for the Rebels. To bind them to the Heartbeat of the Revel. To feast upon the Rebel’s supple flesh and dine upon their agony

The great Hutt sipped slowly upon the bit of his longstem pipe, watching the deep black of the spiced smoke curl and dance across the briarwood bowl. The smoke took the shape of a small skeleton, dancing about the glowing, embers of tobacco. Crimson eyes, flecked with sulpheric gold stared through the wraith and to the Sith Lord before him. <<Every Sith has roots of power, that if not cultivated into greatness, wither and die into abject uselessness.>> The smoke dissolved away, as did the corpulent form of the Master of the Krath. Smoke shifted and smiled, rumbling with laughter. The voice was still the Hutt’s streaming from formless shadow. <<Eternity>> The word was spoken in a pondering and cruel way. <<You want to be remembered, and yet throw away the very path to that power.>> The smoke became the shape of the planet Aaris, split half aflame and half a populated with a metropolis the likes of Coruscant. <<Memories. Cruelty or Love. Wanton cruelty makes a man remembered in the bedtales of toddlers and the whispers of wisewomen in their curses. Great works, prosperity beyond measure makes a man loved for generations.>> The smoke smiled, more kindly. The echoes of the dead began to scream in the wind, the wound in the Force raw and ragged about them. <<Unite them before the cause of the Dark Lord. Build of your people a fortress of strength, a wall that can resist the winds of time. From them, either their deaths or their strength, you will be immortal. If you ever desire the elevation of power, do not let strife consume you. It is how the Sith have always fallen.>> A deeper sigh on the winds <<To consume a world, you first know how to reap souls, bending their will to yours, to consume and destroy them.>> The Hutt’s staff revealed itself in that spiced smoke. <<It must be created from the very heart of your power. You must kill someone powerful, and bind their soul to an object. That totem becomes the focus of power, all things flow through it, like a lens focusing light. For myself that lens if the sins of gluttony and greed, the souls of my former master, and that of the grandmaster of the Jedi.>> A great eye winked and the smoke disappeared, revealing nothing more than a dead world.

There was a new heartbeat within the storm of death and violence. Not a physical one, but one deeply held within the Force. The wind lashed the newcomer, bringing back the macabre perfume of Force-bleached bone and weathered sinew. The Master of the Krath breathed it in, letting the essence of a necropolis king whet his tongue like an old wine, just over the edge of becoming vinegar. Multi-lidded eyes of sulfur-stained crimson stared at the Sith as it fell to its knees before him. The words were like honey, slathered with formalities reserved for the courts of men. A fell diplomat who desired power. Disappointing, but like all broken things, the Necropolis King spoke of the thirst which was the estuary of the Dark Side, but betrayed not the wellspring from which that ambition flowed. The words that spilled then from the Hutt’s misshapen maw were kind, yet firm. Smoke came with them, spiced as if blown from a pipe to whirl about the fallen skeleton, caressing where there had once been flesh. <<I am the master of none, Lord of Bones.>> A shuddering breath that echoed within the ground itself, heaving with a grating, wheezing, laughter. <<Why desire power if you’re already a god? Or are the people of Aaris III so infantile that their praise feeds not that pride that grips your heart, Necromancer?>> The smoke pulled in, and the Hutt’s grandiose nature drew into itself like the waves that retreat from the shore before the tsunamis strikes. He was but now a mountain of a Hutt, scarred and grotesque, no longer reflected upon the landscape like the gods of heaven. Those eyes blinked and stared through the clearing sky, towards the stars of heaven's field <<There is always a lie we tell ourselves when first start down the path to the Dark Side, a good intention upon which we pile those dead and destroyed innocents to let us sleep at night. Rare and cliché are the psychopaths and sociopaths that consume a world for fun.>> The crooked mouth, stained with half-hardened phlegm and partially digested food, curled into a knowing, comforting smile <<So what is it that drives you to power?>>

Armalite whipped away, its edge gleaming in the fading light. The blade of the great axe glimmered as it drank deeply of the Mandalorian Iron, taking into itself its essence and beauty. It was a jealous thing, always eager to change when it saw something better. A bitter feminine, her name of secrets was Invidia, that serpent’s fang, that biting eye that sets upon the heart dissatisfaction with love. The fell breeze of rot and putrid death carried her back to the hands of her Master, the Lord of all Krath. Before the Hutt lay a broken opponent, alive, but listless. The Mandalorian rested upon the event horizon of infinity, pulled towards doom by a strange rhythm. A Thermal Detonator blinked in a gore-covered hand, lazily counting down to lonely catastrophe. Beneath its shell, the Baradium had taken on the Master of the Krath’s heartbeat, terrible and unending. Invidia’s bitter laughter, grinding and bright as fresh-forged steel, bid it to change, to follow the echoes of its master’s will. The axidate melded to it and with it the rest of the thermal detonator flowed into melted Aurodium, burning, and passing through the Mandalorian’s hands like water. The Hutt returned the lively axe to its worn leather sheathe, the laughter fading into nothingness. The beast of the quiets would utter no more curses. Eyes of yellow-speckled crimson stared at the Mandalorian before him. He could hear her fitful breaths. The creaking gasps of broken ribs. The pain that emanated from her was palpable and as delicious as a dumpling of spiced Ewok. He drank it in greedily, relishing it. Lifting her body before him, The Master of the Krath cast out an image of precious, honorable helmet, casting it to the dust and grime where it rolled aimlessly, no longer bright with electronic color. The hawk-fashioned T-Visor reflected the dying world and the grim colors of death. Brown hair fell in locks about her head, grey eyes fluttering in the fashion of all those that stood on the precipice of death, about to jump into oblivion. A child on the brink of death. <<You were foolish.>> The vile Hutt smiled, focusing the touch of the Dark Side, letting it fill the listless girl with curling, twisting pain. The smokey eyes shot open with a touch of bloodshot terror as the Master of the Dark Side shattered and devoured her mental defenses. With a grubby hand, the Sith Master picked up one of the Mandalorian’s fallen weapons, a modified shotgun, and held it before him like a wand. Her mind fell open to him, for a brief terrified second. <<A father’s gift?>> A great pillar of volcanic stone; obsidian, peridot and granite, rose from the shattered ground to loom behind the Mandalorian. That dripping evil darkness seemed to swirl about the shotgun, running into it with gleeful streams of liquid night. <<Becomes a curse.>> The Great Hutt rammed the Ori’kad through the woman’s chest like a stake, shattering through beskar’gam, flesh, viscera, and spine, to pin the Mandalorian to the pillar like a bug in a madman’s collection. As the twisting metal mixed with the woman’s blood, the shotgun became a lightning rod for the darkside. The death of an entire planet, shattered into reality, forced into the blood like a withering poison. <<Can you hear their screams?>> And with that, the Hutt left the girl to live or die, tormented in flesh and mind by the wailing dead. The planet had suffered a worse fate than being conquered by the Sith, it had been exterminated and consumed.

The overlarge Hutt let out a blubbering, hissing sigh, which echoed with a crack of thunder. The Mandalorian, despite the power of his dark energy, had denied his corporeal desires for a deeply fried meal. His stomach lurched, turning and crawling within him, responding to unrequited gluttony. He could hear distant voices, those consumed and turned into his power. A flitmoth speaking into a storm, yet her voice was a clear tone within the Rhythm. Armalite rose into his other hand, held loosely beside the saber-staff, glimmering with the fire of its glow. Ice seemed to shimmer on its blade, curving the light about it into a dark rainbow. The Mandalorian’s words bore the truth, she was child screaming as if against a too strict parent. Strike a Mandalorian in their honor, and they crumpled into a petulant toddler, all tantrums and tears. Laughter echoed in the storm, and the world about the Hutt seemed to grow dark. His maddened mind turned to Maw, and that which devoured the light. <<You do not see my designs. The echoes that shall rise from this place…>> The Mandalorian’s redirection of lightning came swiftly, and Sheog had little time to catch it on his own saber, it wreathing the blade in darkness. His hand sparked and smoked, and the great Hutt let the staff fall to the ground. The lightsaber drove into the surface of the shattered world and remained ignited as a pillar of dark flame. Crimson eyes narrowed. The growing darkness continued to drip from his wounds, pooling like liquid night around him, gliding like mercury upon the ground, seeping like tendrils across the shattered earth, searching, clawing. He would have his satisfaction. The Mandalorian would be a paltry meal, but a morsel nonetheless. Hunger had nearly consumed all his control. When the fire came, the Hutt embraced it. It singed and burnt, boiling away chunks of steaming fat, but his designs were drawing to an end. The Storm withered away, consumed as the Hutt unleashed everything upon the lone Mandalorian. Emotions, passions. Pain coursed through the Hutt, but he dove deeper into the Heart of the Revel, that rhythm of madness from which his power grew. Rage came as it always did, overbold and unbowed. From that wave of fire would spring Armalite, that great alchemical axe cutting through the air towards the helmet of the Mandalorian. It was bidden by the force, by the spirit of Rage. The blade itself seemed to warp, bound as it was to the designs of its master, each part of the Sith weapon crying to be first to strike lifeblood. The voices of those that had been bound into the blade cried in terror, Jedi and Sith alike; Teravast, Black, Furion, Sarna, Dahar. Five of the greatest had been felled by it, and now corrupted forms of them bade the blade to sink into another victim and strike true. Gluttony followed with its sister in a wave of vomit, spewed from the great Maw of the Hutt. He would bid the fool to suffer, encompassed in an acidic river of rotting, denatured flesh and wriggling digesting undeath. It would rush towards the Mandalorion to devour her in its murky, fetid embrace. Stone smoked where the river ran, contaminating all it touched. He never minded a partially digested meal, and the Mandalorian’s acid-torn flesh would wonderfully tender. Avarice , that bitter jealousy that lurked beyond the stars. It was patient in its attack. Avarice corrupted all power, dripped contempt into compassion, and the bitter seed that poisoned love with doubt. The Master of the Krath had found her within the Maw, where it took all light into an embrace of nothingness so strong was its desire to take. Those grasping, crawling hands of night stole from the ground to leap at the Mandalorian. If she could, Avarice would drag the Mandalorian mewing into the void. The Hutt had become more than an insurmountable mountain of filth, he became that which fueled the Sith; unrestrained passion. The Mandalorian would be the rock upon which three loud-roaring rivers met; Steely rage, one of decay, the other of unfettered consumption. The void had been flung open, the shadows rent, and the true power of emotion had been belched forth in steel, bile, and darkness. The Mandalorian would die in streams of murky flame and noisome mud. She would be the star consumed by the Maw; broken and ripped asunder by forces beyond her understanding. The Heartbeat of the Revel would be disturbed no longer. ((3)) ((Lost the lightsaber to lightning, boiled away some extra chub with the flamethrower. Attacked with a three-pronged attack of a force-thrown Axe, Force-Vomit, and a radiation beam. Well done, very enjoyable duel.))

A haggard, greasy eyebrow rose in surprise as the Mandalorian just simply, didn’t die. Nor did the Wookie or his other apprentice. The lack of death was simply disconcerting. A flare of anger began to build in one of his many hearts, adding a staccato rhythm to the revel, a dangerous beat. One that pulsed nearly out of control, revealing portions of the madness that had been hidden by the emptiness of the Maw. Blasterfire scorched into the hide of the Hutt, digging deep in a gout of coagulated blood and wriggling maggots that sprayed the air. The maggots didn’t last long in the intense heat of the building volcano, the liquid in their bodies superheating into steam causing them to rupture in small pops of rancid vapor. The pain accumulated within the Hutt’s mind, adding itself to the rising madness. The dark lightning that swirled about the Hutt became more erratic, sparking with blackfyre, dancing to the heartbeat of the Revel. Then the detonation came and there was a new, unnatural rhythm spreading now, trying to unyoke the storm below and unleash what the Sith had restrained. The Hutt smiled, the invitation to chaos too great. What the Maw could not consume it would happily destroy. He didn’t need the city to stand, the lives had all but been consumed now by the howling, ravenous force. Such destructive impulses for a Jedi, perhaps this young one would prefer the natural chaos of the Dark? The Hutt took up a paving stone with the Force, holding it before him like a casual shield against any further blasterfire. The Hutt let the heavy weight drop from his shoulders. To restrain the geological storm had been an act of mercy to the planet, one that had outlived its usefulness. What had been a dribble of lava, became an estuary of steam, ash, and superheated stone. The last act of the Hutt upon the storm below was to redirect its fury from the steps upon which he sat his bulk. It raged out towards the city, to consume and devour what the natives of Sullust had built in their arrogance. The materials from which it had been built had been pulled from its depths, and now it would have its vengeance. Buildings began to collapse in a fury of flame from the unleashed earth. The Hutt gestured to the destruction with a clumsy wave of his saber. His own stomach began to growl, shuddering with an unending hunger. <<Are you sure you aren’t with Mandalore the Bloody? You've destroyed a city!>> Maddened eyes stared at the Jedi Apprentice, the words hanging on the storm above, thunder echoing. The Dark Lightning began to shiver down the lightsaber, reaching for a release. The Hutt’s words were coated in a mirth that was fitting such a show of destruction. <<Your actions are… ures ijaa… Wouldn’t that make you… Kyr'tsad?>> With a wave of a chubby hand, the Hutt cast the stone shield at the Mandalorian, aiming in an arc to attempt to hit the woman from the side, to cast her into the lavastorm she had created. At the same time, the dark lightning leapt forward in a shriek and crack, reaching to snag the Mandalorian in an embrace of withering electricity. ((2)) ((Took damage from the blasterfire and released the firestorm to consume the city. Attacks with a force propelled stone and chain lightning. Also insulted the Mandalorian’s beloved honor.)) Translation: ures ijaa is Mandalorian for without honor

A breath through uneven, collapsed nostrils brought in the smells of a world, teetering on the edge of environmental chaos and sterilization. It had happened before, many species had faced extinction from climate change, a stars detonation, or proliferated nuclear holocaust, but it had been generations since a planet had died due to the influence of that power which drove him to consume. The last had been on Katarr, and before that at Malachor. Yet there was something new, an encroaching rhythm on the heartbeat of the Revel. The overlarge Hutt sighed, a deep and throaty sound that was accompanied by a spray of globs of phlegm and partially digested food. The matted hair of the Wookie picked up a few wriggling maggots, and large chunk of rancid Ewok. Yet another interloper. The great Hutt was forced back once again, fire from a starfighter stitching the still-molten lava surrounding the fallen Jedi with gouts of flame. The ground beneath him surged against his control like a bantha trying to throw its rider. The yokes of geomancy were heavy indeed. The Master of the Krath leaned again on his ornamental cane, shoulders sagging as if under great weight. Crimson eyes blinked blearily at the newcomer as they disembarked. Mandalorian. Female. Young. The many-lidden eyes squinted, focusing on the creature’s armor, stance, the way they carried themselves. What was Terra doing here of all places? No, no touch of ruin. No rhythm of darkmetal. But there was… fear. The Hutt’s face, even with his torn maw, curled into a wicked smile. A lightsaber’s glow illuminated the swirling ash, bathing the Mandalorian in a halo of light. When it spoke, it was of a mocking tone that smacked of misplaced arrogance. "Is this the part where you belt on about some weird Darkside BS, or go on about some evil plan that's been going on for some vaguely impressive amount of time?" The Hutt’s unsinged eyebrow sagged upwards in relative surprise. He hadn’t even thought to monologue, but now that the girl had said it, he felt in the mood for a grandiose speech. His stomach roiled in protest, a digestive bile building in his gullet. How he desired to eat this creature before him, but first he’d have to crack open the tin can all such warriors billeted themselves in. "I just want to make sure you get it all out of your system before I shove this fancy laser stick down your throat." The Hutt’s many-rolled neck rippled as he nodded to the Mandalorian, considering the words. Greasy fingers held up the ornate staff upon which he had leaned, waving it like a wand in the ash-filled air. His voice came not from his broken jaw, but from the rumbling storm above, each word that of thunder. The ground seemed to bend with his words, and an electricity piqued the air. If the Hutt had any hair, it would have stood on end. <<I half expected a darksaber. They seem so… in chic amongst your… sort.>> The last word was one of deep distaste, a cycnical hate that surged in a wave of heat from the ground. Orange light streamed from his cane, the blade shimmering with golden lightning as if embodying the storm above. There was a rhythm to it, a heartbeat that echoed in the air, a madness in which restraint was fading. The Hutt latched onto the fear that he had felt before, and into it he pushed his own madness. His pain from the last fight was wearing on his physical form, and a sickening, dark light seemed to leak from his wounds like electrified sewage. <<You see, I have a laser stick too…>> The Krath swung the blade with stubby fingers like it was a baton, like a sugar-high toddler swings at a pinata as he stared across the distance to the Mandalorian. He hoped it would draw the eye, distract his young opponent. He latched onto the storm below, tempting it into the darkening sky, to consume and make the world new in its own image. The forces of change, that which made up the magma of many worlds was so easily bound by promises of rebirth, of exploration, of consumption. A great rush of volcanic ash belched from the earth before the Mandalorian, followed by superheated lava that seemed to shatter the air itself from its very heat. Magma belched forth, unbridled by the earth, shimmering in the same lightning that bathed the Sith’s lightsaber, for it was a mirror of the Hutt’s unrestrained madness. It would come as a great wave to wash the Mandalorian from Sullust like the vermin her kind was. ((1)) ((Attacked with geomancy in the form of a volcanic eruption aimed at the Mandalorian while trying to distract with rather... unwieldy lightsaber flourishes))