Cathar

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Telperiën brought her hand down on the table with a resounding ‘crack.’ The durasteel slap dented in result and the screech of durasteel supports from the blow filled the cabin for a nanosecond before she stood up. But he was already gone. She glanced at Hailey for a moment and then followed him aft. 

 

Seeing him and his first mate assembled, she knocked on the bulkhead to get his attention as the klaxons faded from earshot.

 

“Mr Armegedon, you and your men have been pressed into the service of the Sith Lords. There is but only one exit here for you and yours. Death. If you give myself or Lord Awenydd any more lip or defiance, I promise you I will pluck your tongue from your mouth by its roots.” Her voice was an eerie calm as the ship emerged from hyperspace with a tremble. “Understood?”

 

The process of landing and clearance was of little consequence to such a vessel as this and as the ships computer emitted a flight plan and landing codes to the small defensive garrison, Telperiën could begin to feel the faint vestiges of the ancient horror of the mandalorian wars. There was a profound uneasiness in the force in the space around the planet, and its horror called to her. She looked to the dark skinned humanoid, then grinned. 

 

“Tell me Mr Armegedon, can you feel it?”

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Telperiën nodded brusquely to Corporal Armegedon, he had avoided her question and it had peaked her fury enough to make her wish that she could lash out. Maybe strike for his neck? Gut him from throat to groin? Or perhaps she could possess him. Take his very soul from him, drive it out, and then inhabit him? No, not yet. He still had uses, but her patience was at its thinnest, dealing with his insolence. If the man expected to survive much longer he would need to learn the lesson quickly and without complaining. Otherwise it would be a much more miserable death for him down the road, and the Sith were as a whole much less forgiving than Telperiën Ar-Pharazôn.

 

But Hailey was beckoning her and the others planetside, and Armegedon’s flogging would need to wait until after whatever they found on Cathar. 

 

The planet reeked of rot, deluge and disease. The natural smells of a seaside, but something that Telperiën was hardly used to. The salt at least cut through the putrid air with a stiff breeze that made it somewhat breathable. The Nightsisters grimaced in unison as the mounted the landing ramp, and shading their eyes against the bright overcast light of day, the terrain was nearly hilless and flat save a few peaked dunes that bled away their fine trails of sand over the wild grassland. But behind it all, behind all the smell of the world was the smell of desolation. 

 

It tingled at her nostrils, cutting through the distractions of her mind, forcing her to concentrate. She took another deep breath, glanced at the maps that were being displayed by Kaiseng’s datapad, then looked back at Hailey. 

 

“South of here is the ruins of old Adun-Levennia. The shattered world stem.” 

 

She pointed to the gorge and canyons that stretched away to the south, white brown rock, from which ran a black river.

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Adun-Levennia, the mottled stump of what had once been the home of some ten thousand light furred cathari. The intermittent rains, the heat from the reflected sand, had left the old tree’s base not much more than a charred and rock-like preserved stump. The life-giving waters of the the river, which had once been called the Ibel-Luinë in the half remaining language of the old Cathar, was now not much more than a stream of brackish mud. 

 

Either the Mando’ade had been especially good at “salting the earth” of their enemies, or the lack of any vegetation and animals betrayed the reality of this place. The dark side was here, present, in the very waters that the nomadic people had once called their home tree. She stood at the edge of the mud, watching Hailey beginning to search for its power, then she gestured to her Dathomiri and they began to set up camp. She could not bring herself to meditate, not in a place like this, the shadows were unknown, too ancient, and it betrayed her attempts to grasp at it. She would leave such investigations for the much more competent Darth Awenydd. 

 

Taking only Lilia as her companion, she walked towards the beach, crossing through the dark delta that carried no life. Only thick, disgusting mud. But their eyes were watchful, having been raised in such mud to seek for prey, they watched the eddies and flows for any sign of wistful and innocent life. But found none at all, not even an insect could be found, and they walked in silence to the beach whose white sand was being drenched by the resurgent river. It was there, out of the mud that Telperiën and Lilia knelt. The brackish water lapping at their knees. 

 

“Let your mind slowly drop away the peripherals Lilia, concentrate only on what you feel, then peel away each sense until you can only feel the force.” 

 

The girl nodded and Telperiën began to do the same.

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

 

Kaiseng the olive skinned beauty in her early twenties watched the plight of the Sith Lord with an increasing feeling of dread. Did she not know that the force was so dangerous? Were they all to be swept up into some foolish endeavour that would release gods and demons without thought? And if they were trying to summon something didn’t they need a circle of fire and totems? Were these people mad? 

 

She had long been told to stray away from the inherited ignorance of her people but this seemed insane. There were very real demons here. She could hear their whispers! But her curiosity, not yet tamed by the years of ritualistic abuse that had plagued the old sisters kept her feet walking her closer to the stream. To sister Awenydd and the man Shiro. 

 

Then they were seized bodily by the demonic and her pale blue eyes went wider still. They began to falter in the water, the forces there pulling upon them like a thousand arms dragging them to their deaths. Did they not know how to swim? The man attempted a rescue but faltered as well and Kaiseng  stripped off her hide outerclothes and dove in after them. Keeping her connection to the spiritual realm very much closed. 

 

She seized the man and dragged him and the sister out of the waters onto the relatively unmuddy bank. There she sat, silent, judging, and nearly naked. She pulled three fibrous towels from Sister Ar-Pharazon’s pack and wrapped them around each of them. The man too of course, she couldn’t be that rude to someone she didn’t know. 

 

Her soft finally spoke. Addressing the two of them like a mother would address a disobedient child. 

 

"Are you mad? The river is full of them." She wiped at the brackish water with her towel and scowled at no one in particular.

 

_______________________

 

The force roiled in the stench of the planet. There had been massacre here, the mass death called from the edges of her subconscious. Beckoning to be called upon, to be used, abused, brought under the dominion of someone strong. Was it really so bad to take and sup from such a cup? The question was an honest one, for there existed such a divine power that needed only to be used, what was the harm in doing so? Could it be utilized to help her people? 

 

She held out her hand to her companion. Breaking the girl’s concentration. 

 

“Enough of this, return and retrieve the salt for a circle.” 

 

The girl gave a grin and took off running towards the camp as fast as her bare feet could take her in the mud. Tel watched her leave and then knelt back down in the sand and water. Letting her mind settle. Even as the cries in the force came beckoning over the waters to her over the centuries and millennia. It was a cold furor, colder than the water that lapped at her thighs, colder than the cries of Halyee in her struggle against its power. But suddenly there was pain, a whole lot of pain, delicious agony, that furled out like a banner in the wind from the Sith near the stream’s head. 

 

But almost as soon as the problem surfaced it had been solved, leaving the agony that remained that of the ancient dead. But as her apprentice came at a dead run Telperien considered the wisdom in drawing such agony from the planet. It would be worth it. She knew it. She reached into the silt and sand and grabbed an old stick, fossilized now by the wind and salt, but it had been here. Her touch on the old grey wood brought a shock of pain in the force. 

 

Perfect

 

Wiping the water from her knees she stood and awaited the young girl’s return. She held up the ‘Y’ shaped stick and tossed it underhanded to the girl who gasped and dropped the bag of amber coloured salt. 

 

“Scry.” 

 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

 

Telperien followed the girl as she concentrated, holding her scrying stick in front of her like it was a wand. It was in this configuration that they walked, for what felt like many miles but was very likely no more than a kilometer over wet and gripping sand that clung to their bare feet like grasping hands. Amethyst eyes never wavered from that stick until it dipped, then flew from the girls hands into a large expanse of red coloured sand. The girl went after it at first but Telperien shooed her back and knelt, reaching her hand slowly towards the sand, letting the force flow through her to guide her path. 

 

There is blood in this sand. 

 

Maybe it was a visual or spiritual expression, but when she dug the tips of her fingers into the wet sand they came back a crimson black. Curiosity overcame her stupor for a moment and she pushed her hand fully into the sand and felt the watery blood creep up her arm as she pressed even farther into it. And when she withdrew her strong arm, the mixture sucked at it, attempting to bring her back into itself. Perhaps the sand, being so diluted with the wellspring and oxygenated from some kind of decomposition  was playing at a type of quicksand. Not a dangerous mixture, like the swamps of home, but a curiosity to be sure. 

 

She reached once more into the depths of that blood red sand, until her fingers chanced upon a hard object. She withdrew as fast as she dared before plunging her arms in again to prize the object from its grips. It was a knife. The long wicked blade had no handle, the wood, bone, or bakelite grip having long ago withered against the aggressive motion of time. But the blade itself, forged of mandalorian Iron, was warped and bent, the metal having been bubbled away in a section. 

 

So it was here. 

 

She let the knife drop back into the sand. The point fell first, then red muck slowly swallowed it again until it was lost from her sight. She looked back to her exhausted sister, her voice kindly. “Now go grab the Sand that you have dropped and bring it here.” Telperien reached into her belt and fished a flare gun from her survival pouch. She thumbed the colour wheel on the crude mini datapad at the rear end of the device until she selected and emerald green. 

 

With one hand raised to the falling night sky she depressed the trigger and sent a signal flare up, and up, and up until it starburst into green flame. Like a turbolaser falling through a boiling atmosphere. Whatever the other two had found was of no interest. For she had found the-

Massacre 
 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Telperien stepped to the side as the Sithari girl vomited a stream of what looked like blood near where the other nightsisters were drawing runic circles in salt. She leaned down and pulled the girls hair away from the puddle as she vomited again and with a soft hand wiped at her mouth with a scrap of linen. Then she pulled the girl out of the seafoam and watched as the force moved without the girl even trying. 

 

Telperien sighed and sat her down in the centre of the runes, letting her continue her powerful spell, free of the inhibitions of the planet itself. No foam or bile would touch her, and the runes would amplify her power a hundred fold. 

 

It was then that the Sith solder appeared, coming like a dog to its vomit. To lap again at the font of power of which he had no right. She would have struck him then if he had not mumbled something. A slew of words that caused her to pause as she tried to sort them out. Basic was not her mother language, and the words he spoke made no sense. 

 

A blooded drexl? What? 

 

She slapped him upside the head. Hard. Hard enough for her girls to giggle. 

 

“You speak nonsense boy. Speak when spoken to, or when you pipe up say something that makes sense.” 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Would the boy ever stop being insolent? 

 

She struck him again in anger as he said nothing in response to her, and there was a murmur in the force that seemed entirely self indulgent. She cocked her head as if she was listening to the wind and let a grim smile cross her cracked lips. 

 

Was the boy force sensitive? 

 

She considered it. It was true that most of the Sith lords of Memory were male, and though she did not carry the traditional nightsister prejudice towards men she let the anger of it slip into her mind. 

 

So she struck him again, hard enough for a jolt of pain to shiver up her arm. 

 

“Speak boy. Tell me what the force whispers.” 

 

Damn him for hearing it so easily 

 

She struck with a foot that would connect with his ribs with jarring force and looked up to his men. Daring them with her eyes to intervene. 

 

“Speak you fool!” 

 

Then she turned to Awenydd and gestured a shrug. She motioned to the two Sith soldiers and indicated them to join the other Sith Lord before leaning down and hauling Shiro to his feet. 

 

"If you carry the force in you, then we have a task for you. A test as it were."

 

And her yellow eyes gazed at the two Sith Soldiers. A smile on her lips. 

 

 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

A breath hissed from her clenched teeth as Telperien observed Darth Awenyyd’s desire. A quest was coming to its end, a cup of bitterness dranken to its gritty draught. Her semi permanent frown twisted itself unnaturally to a smile that looked more like a grimace, but her eyes made up for it as they looked softly upon her friend. Even in failure, the adventure had been a success, allies had been made, and perhaps, if luck held, a friend had been made. 

 

“I need no blood of such weak lineage, but my sisters will collect it none the less...There are rituals that may purify it fr use in the future. I look forward to our next meeting.” Her gruff voice took on its forced smile. “Friend.”

 

Her gaze hardened as she looked dismissively at Shiro, then with a military click of her heels, she turned and with a gesture, her sisters and her departed for the shuttlecraft. Then towards Korriban.