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Vorin Blackmorne

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Everything posted by Vorin Blackmorne

  1. The Sith Warrior slipped from the fetid bog, the lichen and moss clinging to his pale flesh like strands of rotting hair. A swarm of midgeflies and corethrows began to lance at him in their numbers, their buzzing wingbeats a buzz that matched the discordant tones of the tinnitus he had gained from his war with the Jedi. It was unpleasant, but the Naboo marshlands allowed him to focus on the training of war, with all of its baser discomforts. A loose braid of hair rose from the reeking bog, its color that of the setting sun reflecting with hints of bronzium. He looked at it, bereft of any emotion but that of dissatisfaction, as an architect to a collapsing bridge. Blackmorne ran his fingers through the hair, tangling it into his scarred fingers, as stands of moss to weave into it, carried by the bracken water. With one hand he pulled upon the locks of hair, as though reeling in a rope, until its full form broke through the matting of dark sphagnum and mycelium. Unseeing eyes of pale blue, the pupils dilated in desperation, sclera flooded crimson from its former white. Stripings of creamy brown stained her ivory flesh, the markings of unspent youth.. She had been half a Cathar, and half something else, but now was nothing but slack flesh and a belly already swollen with the putridity of the bogland. The girl’s jaw hung open from one joint, exposing the fractured ivory of her misplaced teeth and the darkness degloved tongue. The Sith let her drop back into her festering grave. The bacteria would strip her flesh, and she would feed his sanctuary much the same as all the others. With his footing secured by the churnings of bones beneath, he made his way from the heart of the swamp, pursued all the way by the noisome crowd of bloodletting insects and rotflies. The Warrior grasped Bloodletter from its sheath, stepping into a furious set of blows as his naked flesh found its release from the water. This was the last day before departure, and his joints were stiff from the night's proclivities. Each step caused the ground to fountain with freezing water, The Force channeling through each of the forms he had grown to use. There was little time left.
  2. The Sith Warrior nodded his agreement to the child queen’s request, turning it into a stiff bow. He stepped wordlessly from the room, focusing not on the machinations of former prostitutes, but on the preparations of war. The coming war would be a tool to wield, a card to play to get close to her. His emotions boiled darkly, emotions rising to the surface, melting the layers of ice that kept them in control. She protects this planet, these people. These Naboo. I will hunt them wherever they travel, wherever they seek refuge. Vorin’s hands started to shake as he stumbled into the armory where they had stored his armor, causing him to clench them into fists. He nudged the door closed with his booted heel and collapsed against it, sliding to the mud-tracked floor. He took a slow breath, forcing his body to not take it in gasps. I will bring their corpses to her and caste them at her feet. It will be as if killing her children. I will kill all she protects, all she shields until her dreams are drenched in blood. Another ragged breath, and his quivering hand found Bloodletter’s leather-bound pommel and the blood-stained bindings of linen. Familiarity. With the other he dragged his lamellar-plate armor from where the guards had tossed it. He forced his mind to tend to his weapons. The plating needed new strapping, some torn by blaster-fire, others by a Jedi’s blade. He traced one of the jagged gashes with a finger, forcing away murderous intentions as they rose. He concentrated instead upon memory; each mistake made in the last battle, and those before. If he did not learn, there would be no strength. Taking one of the sets of leather armor that had been recovered from one of the queen’s dead bodyguards, he began to restitch the bindings between the leather plating. Into each of them, he pressed a portion of his emotions, those dark and evil intentions that twisted the mind, until they were all but spent. Each knot seemed to singe and curl with the touch of dark magic, sealing the armor together with desired revenge. The call of Onderon would be strong, but it was only the cries of the dead, and those yet to die. Any Sith that remained on that cursed world would be easily excised. With armor repaired, the Sith Lord stripped the remains of his tunic from him, and began to dress his wounds with bacta-bandages. The burns were easily handled with a layer of kolto-salve, but the fresher blaster-wound to his thigh required several sutures to bind the tattered flesh together. That wound had been a revelation in itself, the stoic queen was quick to anger, and easily manipulated. Perhaps the temptations of power would cause her to stumble. He dressed then, placing the armor on his body piece by piece, and with it sealing away the ravings of his mind beneath a layer of churning sea-ice. Stepping then with refreshed intention, the Sith approached the child-queen, inclining his head as he approached, slamming a fist across the darkmetal breastplate. "Fires will rage once more upon the Dxun moon at your command. How shall I prepare your guard for actual war?"
  3. Even a Sith who had been put through the rigors of the Court of Madness could be surprised, and the mask of marble that he wore almost fractured from the Queen’s decision. Blackmorne’s eyebrows rose a few centimeters unbidden, knitting his forehead momentarily with a mix of concern and astonishment. And yet, he was free of the cell. He looked into the eyes of the Queen for a count of four heartbeats, returning her stare with respect. There was no use in killing her, here. With a footstep, the rush of the living Force poured into him as he passed out from the Ysalimari’s influence. He could smell the floral undertones of the Namari’s scent, enhanced by the pheromones of battle. Crystals of ice rushed to stem the bleeding of his wounds and the dark rhythm returned to him. That fatal song. Bloodletter. …She does smell delightful… A prickling warning ran up his spine and The Sith Warrior stared cooly at the Zabrak brothers, taking in the stance of their bodies, the forms of their muscles, and the instincts they imprinted upon the Force. Their impression was of strength, but with no substance. There was no history or trauma of consequence that built them into the types of warriors he had seen upon the battlefields of a hundred worlds. The frigidity of his stare was that of a butcher assessing inferior cuts of meat. They had never heard the rhythms of war. He turned instead to their master, the Twi’lek with the skin of deep blue and the eyes of a self-important diplomat. Her best years were far behind her. He breathed in, searching for any scent of her, but found nothing. Had it been on a Sith-world he might have at least seen how a diplomat’s lips felt upon his blade, but he doubted the young Queen would appreciate the unfair usage of her servants. Yet. Instead he blew her a kiss before turning to the fair Queen and bowing his head. “Onderon, the spider's seat. Lead the way.”
  4. ...of my own kind? Did she not know what the Sith were? Of course not, she was a monarch used to modern sensibilities of hierarchy. The Sith were little more organized than a tribal confederation. Blackmorne despised Religious zealots, he had been sick of hearing about them for a decade now, servants of Chaos, or of Nurgle, or that damned Fanged god. To kill them would lose him nothing, it would undermine other Sith on their conquest to power, and that was nothing to him. Only his own power mattered. The Sith Lord passed a hand across his brow, feigning concern, leaning back from the bars and sagging his broad shoulders. His eyes did not change, those of an apex predator considering his next meal. "Take me to them, and consider them destroyed, my queen."
  5. The Sith warrior placed a pale hand upon the cold steel that kept him confined from her. That brilliantly beautiful Queen of a fallen world. She had proven herself to be quite strong for the leader of a slaughtered people. He had watched in the decades past the rise and fall of the world, of the Genocide and Holodomor of its various species, and yet one had risen above their sunbleached bones to challenge Sith hegemony. Muscles rippled on his scarred arm as he leaned close “Rarely do world leaders throw away the blessing that comes with a captured Sith. To send one screaming into the Maw would a move for…” He motioned with a sneer as though surveying bodies upon a battlefield “Jedi.” Blackmorne rolled his head back and stared to the ceiling, the pain causing stars to jump in his vision and fall about him. Nimue’s advice crawled within his skull, echoing amongst the howls of pain he kept repressed. “I offer you a bound duty. I will train your guard properly to fight in a manner of your choosing, a respect I give to them for their courage and outlasting their supposed superiors, those Jedi. After, I will undertake one mission for you, against your enemies, to show you the Strength a warrior can bring to your kingdom.”
  6. Her returned attempts of humor were hollow, stirred by passion and without the subtlety that made humor interesting. The Sith couldn’t truly blame her, women were inherently terrible with even basic comedy. The way her fist seemed to ball, how the lines of pale white began to ring about her joints, the manicured fingertips losing their pallor spelled her next move as plainly as starlight. She was, at the end of it all, a spoiled child. The Sith Warrior watched the emerald bolt of blaster gas discharge, creasing his knee above the joint, stitching its way through his skin and muscle like a surgeon’s plasma cutter. He didn’t move a muscle, but the sulphoric eyes that panned slowly from the blaster pistol’s smoke to the child’s blue eyes. His own lips curled into an ungodly smile. The kid needed more education it seemed. “You asked why our order destroyed itself, that is the very nature of us. Our strength. The Darkness, invites rivalry and strife. It culls the weak.” Vorin placed his hands on the bars above his head, resting them nonchalantly upon the cool steel. “Those that survived… I know little of those others that fled in disarray; but of my own, I can say… The Devourer rests within the Maw. The Huntress was upon the fields of Cathar. The others of the seven, scattered in conclaves unknown to me. Of fleets, well... that was never the forte of the Court of Madness”
  7. The Sith’s eyes narrowed, taking in the subtle change in the Queen’s countenance, the imperceptible way the skin around her eyes folded as she held an idea. She seemed younger here before him, smaller. Her presence on the battlefield had been commanding, but here she was but an attractive, petulant child. Her words still carried her ill-placed conviction when she spoke next, forming words upon soft, thin lips. Blackmorne cocked his head to her first statement; if she thought they had fought well and honourably, she was not much of a commander. His own words carried little bile, but the correction of a warrior to a new-blood. “Honor? That is a fool’s prize. Glory is of little use to the dead.” Vorin stretched, letting the pain of his wounds dig into his shoulders as he brought his hands before his face. He passed them in the mimicry of removing a mask, casting it to the floor at her feet. “Beneath my mask, I assume you don’t care who I am. Why retreat? It was an odd thing, unforced errors and the whole galaxy flips sides.” He shrugged his broad shoulders in an uncaring gesture, but continued, his countenance becoming grim. “We trusted the galaxy to a woman, and in one month we lost the whole damn thing. The changing of hands between one Dark Lord and the next can go terribly wrong.” The Sith Warrior leaned forward, his hands steadying himself on the bars, looming above the Twi’lek and the Queen. “Ask your questions more directly, Queen.”
  8. Sulphoric eyes, stained with flecks of crimson, narrowed at the queens words. But they relaxed as the emotional strains of her voice echoed in the small cell; she was, beyond all that regality and posture, a frightened girl. When he answered the first parts of her question, it was with a soft voice, calming and sympathetic. He didn’t glance to the pistol, he knew he had little protection from it in the small confines. Either he lived and survived, or he died to a queen, one who seemed to want to be good. Death would be a step to drawing her into darkness. “Men and Women die in war, that is a reality that a Queen must accept.” The distant sound of knuckles popping made the Sith smile despite the pain. Simple Bravado of those unmarked by real war. So typical of bodyguards to glittering prostitutes. It drew a deep, grinding laugh from his throat, a sound not unlike the grinding of ice upon granite. They always showed the weakness of pride. He glanced to the queen with almost an apologetic eye, but one filled with the dark mirth of unresistable challenge. He lulled his head to call down the hallway in a lustful, goading voice “Worry not children, your wine-drunk harlot will have her mouth full in a moment.” The Sith warrior spread his hands before him, watching the small trickle of blood come from one of his previous blaster wounds, opened by the movement. He turned his attention back to the Queen, staring into the deep blue of her eyes, reflecting in that ocean. The warrior let the drips of blood fleck upon the cell floor like a pattern of stars. How he wished his blood was drawing a design upon her naked flesh. “Do you truly believe the Sith are gone? That the great Lords would fracture and fall into oblivion in one battle? The Court of Madness still twists and turns, The Spider spins his web, the Heart of the Revel still beats.” Vorin stood shakily, his form flexing against the pain. He towered over them both. Despite the rush of agony, and no relief from the force, Blackmorne gave a small bow. “I did not intend your death, Queen. In the great game, just like within Dejarik, one can simply find a path to victory through the movement and capture of pieces. One pawn, a simple Warrior of lowly rank, from the Sith is captured, and yet two of the Jedi’s best bodyguards lie rotting in Naboo’s beautiful sunlight.”
  9. The mud clung to him, tearing at every step, dragging, grasping. Immeasurable weight seeping into his bones. A world shaped of nightmares. The darkness crept behind him, burning into the shadow cast by the crimson sun upon that mud-stained world. No feeling at all, except from that shadow. It was as if that red mud had drained him of his very sense. All but that voice Why do you go on? When you give everything and face that which torments you, only to find that it is worse than you could have imagined... why do you go on? Eyes of sulphor flickered open. A gaze devoid of humanity, nothing but the reflection of emotions he had left in that dark red mud of Myrkr. Nothing but the deep stains of a forgotten despair. The muscle-bound body shuddered, the natural release of adrenaline from nightmares. Pain came then and eyelids flickered, fighting to close Do not look away from the hell of your creation. Of your failures! The voice was bodiless. Undefined as it once was, crawling through a muddied mind. Slow. Stupid. A pained smiled masked a face no longer grim and emotionless. The Sith Warrior let out a sigh and sat up, pushing through the fog about him to command his weary body to follow his commands. He breathed, each breath filling his chest with pain and warm air. They hadn’t killed him. Why do you still fight on? Maybe you should suffer with your failures in this rot and let your blood seep into the Solleu. Isn’t that what you deserve after all you've done? So Accidie had been unbound, the that rot of Myrkr crawled within his skin once again. Ysalimari. Another breath and his vision cleared, but remained disjointed. Closing one overcame it, and The Forceless Sith glanced about his containment. Nothing but the Queen outside, with a Twi’lek whore crying beside her. Royalty had such odd proclivities. When he spoke, it was with tired gruffness, impossible to hide the pain from the wounds without the gifts of the Force, but he leered a cruel grin at her tears nonetheless “Did I kill your lover, twin-tails?”
  10. Eyes of sulphoric yellow flickered, to a world of pain, and that of defeat. It was an emotion that had been drilled into him by the Hutt for years. To lose a fight was but the next step to victory. Victory rarely taught valuable lessons, it was in defeat the warrior learned to overcome. Another step towards power, and the victories of the future. He breathed in, haltingly, feeling the searing scars of blasterfire on his body. Bloodletter’s voice filtered into the world, its figure reduced to but a handle. At least you killed the two… Jedi. A grim smile curled through the pain, memories of their aborted attacks and violent deaths would be a boon in the torture to come. Words and voices swam in and out of focus about him, but he caught a name; Vihk Ahzinger. The Mandalorian weapons smith that had operated on Coruscant, in a shop of one form or another. He would be sure to convey this one to the hunters of the Court of Madness, if he survived what was to come. Those that aided the new sovereigns would die beside them.
  11. Frost-smoke shimmered in each breath the Sith took, catching and twisting the fading sunlight. It was a bitter contrast to the steam that rose from the spilled lifeblood that soaked the road upon which the battle took place. Naboo soil was once again thick with native blood and the force was awash with terror of the dead, the dying, and those who remained. Screams began to fade into an unearthly silence. One by one, the flock was falling. A most pitiful gasping came from below him; the fallen soldier, the one whose entrails coated his fist, was choking on his last breaths. The mewing of a dying man. Had the fury of battle lessened, Vorin would have taken the time to meditate beside him, to take in the cries to their fullest. To scribe them upon his own heart, to reflect upon in times of lesser power, but for now they would be a sacrifice to greater destruction. A harsh step and the shattering of bone echoed from beneath his hobnail boots, and the gasping stuttered to a halt. He had a queen to slay, and a flock to decimate. The blood continued to cry out to him as it trickled into the dust, joining itself to his consciousness, that warsong of battle. And yet, for now, the shepherds yet lived. Bloodletter smoked an inky crimson, and he could feel its joy; for it had tasted of the Blinded. Had it been the weapon of an Assassin, it would have imbued the wound with nanites or poison, but for a Sith Sword, Bloodletter thirsted for knowledge. With her blood came information, an intimacy of taste. The Miraluka’s blood was now bound into the threads of fate that made up the blade itself, joining with the blood of hundreds before it. Let’s have more of that one The Sith Warrior looked across the battlefield surveying the hands at play. Momentum remained the highest priority. The Boy remained unharmed, depending on evasion and cheap tricks to stay alive, but at the cost of his allies. The Blinded was wounded but remained a threat. The Queen and her remaining lambs continued to show their teeth. The blood called for him, moving within his locus of control The Sith Warrior took another step, intent on snipping the threads of fate that had been spun for the queen, and yet it seemed to falter. Cold warnings rippled within his flesh. It was as if a hand was grasping at him, the fell gravity from an unknown sun. Sulphoric eyes narrowed, and a smile formed across his thin lips. The Blinded was speaking, something Jedi tended to do in battle, announce their actions like fools. Blasterfire ripped into the air about him, singing the breeze with the bitter bite of ozone, but they were to him but the buzzings of maggotflies. Dirt flew again, burning upon his skin. He changed his momentum, letting the Jedi’s directional grasp upon him turn him towards the fateless Miraluka. The Lightsaber Pike glowed as a beacon above him, but all it would show to her was the reflection of the glee within his eyes. Distance was always the advantage of the Consulars, and yet this one had decided to get close. His right hand gripped Bloodletter, while his blood-frosted left reached for something else entirely. Has this one never been to war? The Sith Warrior simply stepped into the current, letting the Jedi’s pull take him towards her. The Silver blade came for him, and he let it crash past him, burning into the lamellar plating upon his side. Pain broiled up from beneath his armor, a roiling sickening thing. The armor blunted the blow, but yet the Jedi’s blade had still scarred him. A wound would have drawn a Sith Warrior towards the emptiness of berserker rage, but it was not so with Vorin. The rush of emotion became cold, hidden beneath a grim, determined smile. Frost licked at the trickle of blood that ran from beneath his armor, overrunning the pain, numbing it. The only sound that came from him was the groaning of teeth grinding together and a bitter laugh. Across the blaster-wound he still carried, another layer of ice formed, and it called to him, a weapon of his own pain. A single step and he was close enough to kiss her. This Jedi, this foolish Counselor, had closed into his realm, within the circle of the first and sword, the distance where strength and precision were most important. Not even the Force could hide her now from him. The realm of a warrior. She would not escape it alive. The grim smile twitched with the dark delight of victory. Within him, the rhythms of war became a song. He would let the ravens pick her tattered body to the bone. With a burning voice, filtered with ash and dirt, the Sith warrior roared. It was not some bloodthirsty cry of a of a berserker, with their throaty tones of rage; it was that of the ice that grinds mountains to dust. The blood of the soil, bound as it was to the battle-song, leapt from the ground, tearing the battlefield into a frenzied uproar beneath the feat of its defenders, to unease their footing, to trip and disarm them. The planet itself rose in rebellion. A blasterbolt furrowed his armored shoulder as his left hand found the crimson ice of his previous wound. He wrenched it free, a cudgel of ice, bound with his own blood, and he stepped through the fateless Blinded with a sickening speed and the battlefield rose about them. The Warrior brought his gauntleted fist, bound with that bloody ice, to dash her brains from her foolish skull with a Force-sped and strengthened strike. His hand and thate weapon of Ice would be hammer, and her splendor would be its anvil. He would ruin her beautiful face for getting so close. And then The Sith Warrior was past her, to strike again at the flock. His wounds screamed, and yet he moved, bidden by that dark destiny; the bitter call of the Dark Side. The rhythms of war sang to him, and with sword in hand he answered. He twisted, both hands meeting upon the leather-bound hilt of Bloodletter, one of ice and blood, the other of flesh and darkmetal. The sword reached out as he stepped, to strike a sideways blow at the chest of the Boy, as his momentum built within the chaos of a battlefield that was in motion. But the Boy was not his main target of his wrath, it was her, that queen of the dying lambs The Blackmorne leapt into that whirlwind of rock, blood and ash, his sword a howling cloud of wind-swept night, its glittering, crimson tip whipping with the speed of summer lightning as it sought the heart of a queen. ((3)) ((Took a lightsaber strike across the side, a blasterbolt to the shoulder, used the Sith Power Tremor Impact to disrupt the field of battle, struck at Pandora with an Ice-Punch, hit at Aiden with his blade, and then did a leaping attack at the queen. It has been a pleasure.))
  12. The blade had not tasted of the Jedi, it had not wrought its bane upon either The Blinded or the Boy, both having survived The Sith Warrior’s initial assault quite unscathed. Bloodletter’s shadowed darkness however, was tinged with the bright crimson of lifeblood. It had not been that of the Queen, but one of her lambs. He lay in the course dirt, upon that charred and pockmarked earth, dying. It was not an easy death, and his pain and sorrow came in waves within the Force. The lifeblood pooled onto the battlefield with each faltering hearbeat, soaking into its depths, permeating the soil beneath their feet. The Sith let his locus of control flow with it, driven by the fear and terror to expand outwards into the battleground. Bloodletter and the Blackmorne let the emotion settle like a pall upon the battlefield, and began to drink from it as a wellspring. Frost crystallized on the Sith’s fingers as the pangs of regret and unrealized dreams built within the Force, and it came in waves. But it was not just regret, and not just from the dying, but from the Queen of Nerfs herself. Fear and terror. It almost broke through his composure, that passionate, delicate taste of her dread. He saw it painted crimson upon her pale features with his sulphoric eyes. A white canvas he would soon pollute with his own designs. The ice that had scarred the blaster-wound closed began to grow as ice built upon itself, ripping through the white tunic in a cluster of blood-tainted crystal as he the terror within the force build upon itself. He would take the gift of the wound she had caused and make it her doom. Finally he would taste of her flesh. A shock reverberated through the Sith Warrior’s arms mid-swing, the greatsword taking the full weight of the Blinded as she came down in an odd style of vengeance. Dust leapt from the ground with her decent, adding to the turmoil of the battlefield. Blackmorne wrenched the sword into a low guard, the shifting greatsword pointing away across his right hip, absorbing the Miraluka’s weight into a transition of his own momentum. Dirt stung at his eyes, kicked by the Boy. The world became momentarily dark as the Warrior blinked away the Jedi’s assault. Why didn’t we kill them the first time? Are you getting slow in your old age? The warrior’s teeth ground together as he set his jaw, a flare of rage building within his gut before he let it bleed away into the ground about him. Rage added nothing to war, and cast even the best warriors into recklessness. He let out a shallow breath, the air hissing between his clenched teeth, the warm wind of his lungs turning to crystalline fog between his lips. He welcomed the dust and grime that pitched up into the sunset with the coming of the Blinded; it added to the chaos of the battle, and to one outnumbered, such chaos was freedom. His harsh features warped into a demented grin. Another blink of his yellow eyes and vision partially returned. Frost shifted into hardened ice upon his hands The rush of emotion became cold, hidden beneath that grim, determined smile as he embraced the reality of what was about him. The Boy hung back near the Miraluka, not engaging him directly. The Queen of Nerfs yet lived, terrified amongst her dying lambs. The Blinded had engaged him in a foolhardy attempt at self-sacrifice at close range. The Miraluka had made a tactical error by getting so close. Most would have taken the time to negotiate. The only sound that came from him was the groaning of teeth grinding together. It sounded like ice-sheets cracking and gasping as they ground against each other upon a glacier. The Blinded bore a saber-pike, pointed towards the earth. The shepherds had lived to protect their flock, but now they would see it put to the sword. He marked where each of them moved upon the battlefield, each playing into a dark calculus. A thousand paths shimmered in the air before his partial vision, and he chose one. They thought him surrounded, but that was where a Sith Warrior was most efficient. So many, so close, all within the reach of a greatsword, was no disadvantage. The Miraluka had set herself between him and his target, but the queen had negated that defense completely. Arrogance had been many a Sovereign’s undoing. The Sith Warrior strode forward, with a determined, impossible speed, beckoned forth by the Force, by that panic. By their fear. The ground froze and shattered with each footstep as if it bore an impossible weight; the momentum of a warrior in his prime. The crimson staccato of blasterfire burned deep furrows in the ground and air about him. Green fire leapt again, scattering frost, and singeing the white cloth of his tunic as it burned into the plating that covered his left shoulder. Despite the pain that seared on the edge of his mind, the Sith advanced undeterred under the cover of dirt and dust, bearing forth his black brand as a warstandard. Three meters wasn’t nearly enough. With a single stride the Warrior met the Blinded. He let Bloodletter fall into his right hand, its leather and ice-bound pommel true within his grip as he stepped, ripping it from the low guard in a long, devastating, single-handed sweep. He matched it with his right foot to bring the blade’s shimmering, shifting edge across the chest of the Blinded, to cut into her body and shatter her in pieces in the cursed dirt. Another wide, diagonal step with the left foot brought him to her, the little queen of the nerfs. This time there would be no mercy of the blade. He wanted this little girl screaming in the embrace of pain, twisted in shattered bone and bruised flesh. Drowning as her lifeblood choked her lungs. He matched that step with a fist of ice, the punch of a frost-studded darkmetal gauntlet meant to cave in the queen's shallow chest with all the power and momentum of a Sith Warrior. It was driven with a cold determination and sped by the Force With that same leftward step, his right arm sped the momentum of his leftward punch with the dragging backhand swing of Bloodletter towards the throat of The Boy. No matter the Jedi’s speed or his unwillingness to engage, The Sith would bring the coward to heel upon the swirling crimson of the Sith Greatsword. It was time to commit, to either death or battle. ((2)) ((An attack deterred by Pandora's landing, and vision partially impaired by the dirt-kick, Vorin takes another partial blasterbolt, while advancing under the cover of the dust cloud pandora kicked up. He cuts once at Pandora, punches at Namari, and cuts at Aiden's throat))
  13. Ice formed at the edges of the Sith Lord’s mouth, frosting into the stern creases, causing his shallow, slow breaths to come with the dancing air of fog. He watched the scene at the landing pad unfold as he marched slowly onwards, each step advancing him towards the Jedi and the one they protected. The white tunic began to rip free in the gathering wind, revealing the armor beneath. He recognized neither of the Jedi, and his eyes narrowed; he had expected members of the council to be protecting this girl. The Sith looked at the pair with measured disappointment. They were children. The one, the Blinded; she appeared beautiful in her own way, but a Miraluka did not hold his interest. Blind eyes never reflected the terror of imminent death, nor could panic and despair be so beautifully painted in tears and glazing expression. There would be no desperation reflected within them. Once she was dead, the beauty beneath her robes could sate other lusts, but such things were secondary to the rhythms of war. Another breath of frost, and Vorin pushed the passions deep into the farthest reaches of his mind. He attuned the whispers of battle, viewing the Jedi for what they were, but obstacles to his path. Bloodletter shifted upon his back, yearning for release. The other, the Boy; a strong and handsome youth, but with little spark within the Force. Sulphoric eyes appraised stance and stride. A fighter, but nothing beyond the half dozen Jedi he had slain before. The silver blade thrummed to life on the saber-staff, marking him of the revanchist faction; the Sovereign Knights. Makashi. The Sith considered the patterns and movesets, the treatise for a single and double blade. His would be the strongest opposition. He saw them all for what they were, Shepherds that had stepped away from the flock. Another step and the Warrior’s eyes flicked beyond the insignificant Jedi to the girl who stood several yards behind them surrounded by armored men and women. This was no queen with a befitting royal guard, but a nerf amongst lambs. They had formed a ragged and anemic line of no consequence. He almost pitied her supporters; for it was obvious they had never fought a Force User, light or dark. Why haven’t we killed them already? Are you weak? Hobnail boots paused, the frost building about them, turning to shifting ice. The Jedi had forgone an attack and had chosen to simply bargain, to talk. The two Jedi spoke in their turn, joining together to stand before him in their confidence. Their words bore little but caution, and the unmistakable stench of nobility. Of Sugma protocols and the admonishments to peasants. Yet something beyond their defensiveness lay smoldering in the unsaid, a truly unjedi-like emotion. Rage. But not from the two. The lambs were crying for a war they were not prepared for. The tactics and realities of the battle played out before him like cards in Sabacc, shifting but holding the patterns of war. Two Jedi, clustered together in front of a line of five non-force-users. The Queen of lambs in the middle. Many avenues of attack presented themselves and he shifted his mind to acknowledge each in their turn, projected into the Force as blurred lines. Resh. It was a letter of the Aurebesh and fit the best pattern of attack for such opponents. The Jedi would be its base and its strike would be across the ragged line behind. The thrill pounded in the back of his mind, prickling the hair along his spine with warning. He smelled her intent, felt its pitiful cry within the force. He pressed the thrill into his legs, feeling the energy course through his muscles in a cold rush. He set his jaw. He was not one to be shot down like a dog in the dirt. Certainly not by weak children. A single step became a sprint towards the Jedi, casting shards of ice into the wind. Bloodletter’s leather-bound pommel found the depth of his left palm and it cast off its shackles forming into a greatsword of inky darkness, shifting and blurring with the reflections of the night within which it was formed. To the Blinded, that Miraluka, the true depth of Bloodletter would be revealed, for it was no simple sword made by The Sith, or some relic of a bygone age. Once released from its scabbard, it was Tristitia, despair made manifest. It was a raging fire within the Force which fed upon all positive feelings, turning them to sadness and so devouring them. It was a black standard under which countless Jedi had fallen. A bitter unending wound within the Force. A Shard of Sheog, forged within the Maw. Green fire burned through the white tunic, crashing into the lamellar plating beneath, causing a white hot stab of pain that echoed through the Sith Warrior’s mind as the blaster bolt seared a path across his right side. His jaw ground together, the sound like granite falling as he stumbled and he gripped Bloodletter with both hands. Crimson flame danced across the pockmarked ground skittering like rabid ranats. Ice began to form upon the charred skin. The girl’s shot diverted his original attack, a sweep to behead the boy into something else entirely. Bloodletter screamed into the Force a warcry of death as the lambs had found their teeth The Sith Warrior rammed the tip of the greatsword towards the Boy’s lower abdomen as he stepped forward with his left foot, driving his weight into the blow like that of a spear thrust. He aimed below the silver blade, relying on his greater reach to disembowel his opponent. He shifted momentum immediately, dragging the sword towards the Blinded as he stepped diagonally with his right foot, aiming to cut through the boy and into the Miraluka beside him with a single blow. If he was lucky, the two halves of the Miraluka would still be warm when he returned. With another step he broke away, shifting the greatsword into a low guard. Blasterfire stirred the air with the sweetness of ozone as the Sith sprinted the few remaining steps to the right of that ragged line. He advanced with a grinding malice blessed with the unnatural, inhumane speed that only the Dark could give. He could smell them, the oil on their leather cuirasses, of soap and perfume. He could see her so close now, that little queen of nerfs. He passed the blade from the backhand, whipping it forth before him with the momentum of a heavy step, swinging the smoking blade with his momentum towards the heart of it all, the Queen and the right of her line. The greatsword’s length was at an advantage against these opponents for its ability to strike so many clustered together as they were. With one swing it would hew through her lambs like a knife through butter, before the shifting tip found the small of her gut. He wanted to ensure she would see the despair in her men before it cut through her beauty. He would leave her crying upon the dirt of her scarred world, unable to bleed enough to die, awake enough to watch her guardians perish, and her lambs screaming in their slaughter The Sith was amongst the flock and the shepherds were away ((1)) ((Takes a Shot from Namari, which causes his initial attack plan to change, he strikes at both of the clustered together Jedi before attacking the right of the Queen's Line))
  14. Sulphoric eyes stared down the winding road to Theed, pockmarked as it was by the bitter stains of war. Those eyes lingered on each crater, seeing within them the ghosts of innocents, huddled and fractured forever in their fear. They stared towards a feeling; a vibrant, soothing presence that beat against the shadows that had risen from the war-torn planet. That darkness, the abject terror of genocide and wanton slaughter would be their imprisonment, the cage about the light. Her words. Hobnail boots shifted upon the burned and upturned loam. A shovel fell, its handle shattered into shards of splintered wood. So that was her song directly from her lilly-white throat. So sweet upon her lips. How he longed to strangle forth a blood-churned cough. To taste her cooling flesh upon his lips. To see the desperation and horror of her own defilement etching into her soul. The heat of desire seemed to cool as the Sith Lord reached past his baser passions to rid himself of such feelings. Lust had been the undoing of far too many Sith Lords. The air itself seemed to chill as the Dark Side twisted internally, the warrior drawing his feelings and presence into himself like an ocean breathing in its water before a tsunami. Frost formed as the Sith Warrior attuned his mind to the warcries of blood, bootprints steaming in the filtered sunlight. It was his own sin, a distant companion that guided his actions. He stepped onto the road, the white tunic of a refugee beginning to rend and fray to reveal the armored plating beneath. He held his gauntleted hands out wide, as if inviting her, that young queen to a ruining embrace. He brought with him the fell wind of frost, but no raging fire. He bore not the rage of a warrior, staining the force with the unrestrained anger and wrath; his was a cool sociopathy. Vorin set his jaw, a placid expression removing emotion from his face. Bloodletter smoked in the wind like a burning flag upon his back, staining the wind with curling wisps of inky crimson
  15. “We welcome all refugees, please sign up for a work task to help restore your future home!” Vorin stooped low, driving a long-bladed spade into the sandy loam beneath his boots with a powerful blow. The words of a well-meaning Twi’Lek, some NGO bureaucrat for the Sovereignty, would be the doom of its hope. The Sith Warrior had chosen to assist with reforestation. He had always cared for nature, as long as he could bind it to his will. Bind or break. Charcoal ground beneath his boots as he slipped a bare-rooted sapling into the slit in the earth his shovel had made. A droplet of sweat beaded upon his brow as he stepped another hole into the forest soil, before making its run down his severe features to wet the pale hair that hung in long ringlets about his shoulders. The Sith kept one eye on the ground, analyzing the torn soil and scorched earth into which his shovel dug, while the other scanned the roadside before him upon which lines of refugees moved in huddled masses. In the background, the thrill beat on its predatory tone within his veins, driving exhaustion from his muscles with its dark energy. The thrill fed upon and twisted the emotions of those around him. Laboring refugees, toiling in burned soil. Another tree in the dirt and a shadow blurred the ground around the Sith. Sulphoric eyes turned skyward; A Mon Calamari Cruiser had made atmospheric entry The very air seemed to shudder and warp, the heat of the spring sun whipped into a cold wind. The sorrow that had been his feast was interrupted by the unremitting light; much more compelling than the backwash of a cruiser. Jedi were near, and their taste upon the winds was sweet and unmet. The dread that had clung to his fellow treelayers, that which weighed their steps like muddy clay seemed to evaporate into a slight hope. Jedi. Did you think she was just going to be… alone? A single rose ripe for the picking? Bloodletter shifted on his armored back, beckoning him to war with an unquenchable thirst. It threatened to break through the loose-fitting refugee’s tunic the Twi’lek girl had given him. It was a distasteful white, barely disguising the lamellar-plating below. Vorin took in a steely breath, calming the rising thrill within him, letting it pass into the breeze. Such passions would do him little good. The mindless rage so befitting his warrior brethren would lead a fool to rush an entire garrison. There were ways to get to a monarch who walked in the presence of Jedi The Sith warrior leaned raggedly upon his shovel, pushing his rising passions into the farthest reaches of his mind. There was no rage within him, no inferno of flame from a maniac berserker. He laid out the realities of his situation like a hand of sabaac upon the table. The Sovereignty had sent Jedi with the girl, and doubtless a whole cruiser’s compliment. Yellow eyes narrowed. Perhaps a ruse to catch her in transport. He smelled blood, and he touched the torn scrap of tunic to his lips, reminding him of her; That weakling that had claimed the title of Grandmaster. Draygo. He could still taste the euphoric interbreeding of her lifeblood and battle-sweat that had stained blood-flecked lips. The bubbles that had streamed from her mouth a tide of crimson froth. She had been given to the Force as a sacrifice upon the dimlight blade, denying him his passions, but she had tasted so sweet in those last emotions. Surprise, disappointment, fear for friends. Bravery. All of those he let into the force. Frost formed on his lips as he breathed, positing her into the Force, but as through a dark mirror. The Force as it acted through him, could not put forth an unadulterated image. An anemic, feeble cry, like a child wounded or a Tooka caught in a Ginntho’s web came forth within the Force. The hook was baited.
  16. The sickening perfume of the poor and oppressed cloyed at the Sith Warrior’s nose, clinging and clawing its way into his senses with decomposing, despondent hands. Refugees, the displaced and hopeless, huddled together in masses and each carried with it a new smell. It was beyond simply the spices of a meal, or the sickening stench of unwashed, half-rotted sweat; it was the reek of despondence and depression. It crooked a smile at the corner of his severe features. Wartorn and shellshocked, each migrant carried their trauma openly within the Force. It was a feast of dark emotion that was unmatched for a Sith. Blackmorne leaned his head against the bulkhead wall, listening to the distant hum of the hyperdrives as they began to power down, a subtle announcement of their arrival. With each breath he took of the fetid air, the Sith Warrior’s pulse began to quicken, driven by the thrill of the hunt and the cacophony of dark emotions in which he lay. His sulphoric yellow eyes were darkened to a deep umbar by application of dryhese compound, made for him by Awenydd, his sister and leader of the hunters, from whom this mission had been suggested to him. The lamellar plating made almost no sound as he slowly stood from where he had been huddled amongst the squalid masses, its bindings muted by a heavily torn cloak and the hours he had spent rubbing its edges with the tallow of a dozen Kath hounds. Even stooped and with the appearance of a war-shocked refugee he still towered over those surrounding him, with his haggard and unkempt white hair hanging in ringlets below his sagging shoulders. Iron screamed as rusted and carbonized loading ramps lowered, and the Sith was met with the mixed floral scent of a hundred trees in bloom and a distant, and a stale decay of a world not yet recovered from war. Bright light filtered in, and the Warrior saw the ruins of a once great city, Theed. He had seen its fall, in explosive fire with its shining streets soaked in blood, but now that damage was being slowly rebuilt. Hundreds of scaffolds swarming with loading droids and workers restoring the jewel of naboo to its former glory. It would be a grand achievement for the Sovereign Alliance, rebuilding what the Sith had destroyed and casting hope of a grand rebirth into the hearts of billions. The corner of Vorin’s mouth was tugged unbidden into a smile as the thrill of the hunt began to race ever faster within his blood
  17. The Sith Warrior reclined upon the edge of his bunk within the quarters assigned to him within Ziost’s garrison command. It was a spartan residence, lacking the finery that had adorned the Warrior’s Barracks within Lord of Gluttony’s reign. It was, however, fully functional for his uses. He ignored the conflict outside. Dark Lords came and went these days like credit-chit whores, he had his own machinations to pursue, and none a change of leadership would interfere with. The datapad he held lit his pale, severe features with an unsteady glow as data streamed across its holoscreen. As Blackmorne thumbed through news articles streamed from the heart of the Sovereign Alliance, the whole right side of the datapad reflected a single face, pale and thin, with hair the color of honey and eyes a severe blue. He had been obsessed with this creature, every angle of her royal features caused the thrill to hum within his veins, that rush of cold adrenaline that drove him. Bloodletter’s devious words turned through the rush within his mind Have you discovered where you might snip… This bud from its stem? A half smile tugged at the edge of his frown, enticed by the thoughts of future joys. His voice churned like falling stones “The Alliance speaks greatly of hope, a frail human emotion.” With a flick of a finger, the galactic view of the mid-rim settled on his screen. It panned to the Chommel Sector and towards Naboo, the world from which his target hailed. A planet once devastated by war, brought to ruin by the natural turns of galactic fate. A few news articles came with it, outlining the efforts of a young queen to rally the galactic community to action “They will try and rebuild with that hope at their core. That is when the foundations of this Alliance are most fragile.” The light of the datapad died away, reflecting only the dimness of the barracks, the Sith Warrior, the crimson bedsheets, and the tangled remains of his bedmate. The Sith had found her amongst the captured padawans, the honey-stained hair drawing his sulphoric gaze. Her screams had fed his desires for a time, but such passions were always short-lived. Blackmorne stood, binding his long, white hair with the scrap of bloodsoaked robe he had kept as a totem from his first victory. He placed Bloodletter within its sheath, its long blade shifting from a mass of star-streaked deepspace into blackened steel. The hunt was about to begin.
  18. Bloodletter seemed to hiss as it drank deep of the Jedi’s lifeblood, an appetite whet but never satisfied. Beneath that Ice which made up the Sith’s soul, lay the deep-eddying river of the Dark Side, and the Jedi’s blood spent its current into a fevered rush. Fist shattered bone, and yet the Jedi lived. Her blades came for him then, orange-fire and bitter silver, flung in desperation by the frail power of the Light. The power of the Dark Side flowed within him, channeled into the promises of pain and terror upon which to feast, and the Sith Warrior spun upon his feet, the hobnail boots he wore sending scattered sparks into the stillness, sweeping the greatsword through the air in a whisper. He let that blade which had scarred him do so again, burning a line across his abdomen, while Bloodletter sent the other careening into the scattered bodies where it orange fire sputtered amongst the half-clotted blood. Vorin advanced, his eyes gleaming a sulpheric yellow in the half-light, leering at the Jedi as she fell into unconsciousness. She was still beautiful, stained as she was with blood, her features misshapen with a tattered jaw. Her soul gleamed as bright as a fire in the deepness of the forest. He, and the Dark Waters within him desired nothing more than to quench that flame, to drag the girl who carried it into the muck and mire and drown her. The Sith reached the fallen Jedi swiftly, the shifting shadows of his greatsword reflecting her pale beauty. He knelt by her, his lammelar plating creaking and grinding with the sounds of fracturing ice. With armored fingers, he ripped a long line of her tunic from her, letting the cloth soak in the blood that trickled from her mouth. He bound it then into his long, white hair, beside the cloth that he claimed from the Grandmaster. The Sith’s fingers twisted in the mess of her hair. …Will you let her live? The Sith Warrior considered Bloodletter’s question. He could take this thing as a concubine, a slave upon which he could whet his desire, defile her purity with offspring. But he could never allow the corruption she would bring, that light that tried to purify. He picked up her head by the hair, watching her eyelids flutter, the blood dribble from her lips. His gaze shifted from her beauty to the sword that had spoken. His own voice was like the shifting of gravel when he answered the question. …No… Armored finger played across the Greatsword’s handle, feeling the coolness of the leather as he drove the weapon through the Jedi’s belly. He watched the toned flesh flex and spasm around the shifting darkmetal, the blood slicking away into the sword, turning its dark shadows a hazy crimson. By the hair, he dragged her lips to his, tasting of her sweetness. Of her lifeblood. A sacrifice of his own pleasure upon the alter of the Dark. Holding the Jedi’s spasming body to his, he slid the sword from her belly to her throat. The warm blood pumped with each of her weakening heartbeats upon his armor, frosting against his flesh, filling his mouth to overflowing. Her breath sputtered into his own, her pathetic, shaking mews, going unanswered by pity. And thus he sent the Jedi into oblivion, that bitter shade of the death, Master and Blade drinking deeply of her soul until even its hollow recesses were empty of life.
  19. Oh she is delicious… Can we have more of her? The Sith Sword, its edges warped in shadowed space began to gleam a deep red, as if its starfield had wandered into a nebula. He let the greatsword fall to a low guard, strengthening his left hand and loosening the grip of his right. The Jedi too, seemed to change. Her ordered nature becoming bestial, her beauty, feral. So this was the fabled Jedi, wounded for the first time and already willing to give over to the immorality of the Dark. Their light was always cloaked in shadow, and hers seemed to be streaming in around the edges. It was a pity she had not fallen sooner, he had no intention of sparing even a convert today. Her anger was delightful, but would not save her from doom. As she retreated, so the Sith Lord advanced undeterred, emotionless, and calculating. He began to feel something, small invisible hands beginning to grasp at him, to tear at his arms and hands. The Sith Lord took a slow breath, letting his sensations rise to his flesh, expanding the locus of his control. So many of those that used the force did so externally, but he had never mastered that. He was a warrior, flesh and blood were his blessing. So, she meant to draw him close. A lure and a trap, but one ill-calculated. A bitter mistake made by even a Grandmaster of her order. He could feel her pull, beckoning his grip to the woman’s right, to that blade of pure silver. Both hands were bidden, and so, in his calculations, he made a sacrifice. He let that Jedi pull his left hand to her weapon, his sword-arm, letting her power drink greedily of the offering as stepped forward, wrenching his right arm from the anemic grasp of the Light Side. Her own attack would be her doom. He let the greatsword rise in its hilt towards her right hand and its silver blade, leaving Bloodletter's point directed at the blazing orange of her left. The Sword seemed to cry with glee. The lammeler plating buckled against the woman’s lightsaber, searing the silver blade through and into the flesh below with the cracking of ice and the sputtering of cold-blood on a superheated blade. His left arm burned as he came within a handsbreadth of the Jedi. His fingers tightened to a white line on the handle of Bloodletter, and The Sith Lord pressed that left arm forward, cutting under her right guard to shove the handguard and a half meter of the greatsword towards that thin, pale neck with the speed of summer lightning, to strike the head from the tameless girl. Pain raced in cold fire down his left arm, ice beginning to crust over burned flesh. His teeth ground, yet his face showed no emotion. The rise of emotions he tamped down, letting the release of them feed his speed and strength. His right arm, free from the Jedi’s grasp, was brought to bear against his enemy. It was bound in the crimson glass of blood-formed ice, and he would use it as a greathammer. The Jedi’s delicate face, rare with beauty, would be his anvil. That complexion, exquisite as if carved from alabaster would take the full might of a Sith Warrior, again and again, until nothing would remain but deformed skin, shattered bone, and brains scattered upon crimson tile. ((3)) ((A pleasure, apologies for the delay))
  20. The Sith Lord was close enough now to take in her scent, the hints of subtle spices upon her deep violet hair, the undercurrent to that vile perfume of death that clung to the stale air. When she moved to oppose him, her lithe body seemed to twist and contort in that unnatural way only the Force seemed to bless. The orange flame of her lightsaber twisted about her, highlighting the beads of perspiration upon her young flesh. Simply, she was breathtaking in person, but she would look far more alluring when the spirit of life had been crushed from her delicate veins. Blackmorne’s fingers dug into the leather-bound handle of Bloodletter as the greatsword locked against the Jedi’s shoto. It would be all to simple to overpower a child such as this, but the Sith Lord released the building rage into the Force, letting it flow as a raging river bound in its surface with ice. His teeth ground together, and he let out a half breath. His sword tasted of the orange flame, seeming to draw sparks of the fire into its swirling darkness. The Sith Lord could feel the opposing weapon’s power, and to it alone he spoke promises of that power yet unrealized in the arms of a simple Jedi’s service. Pity, I was hoping to hear her cries. Such small things can make such pitiful wails in their final moments… Ice cracked upon The Warrior’s armor as the air seemed to change from its bitter staleness. The Force concentrated in that air, rushing forward as a great wind, meant to smash the Sith Lord like a flitmoth against the tearing of a hurricane. There was a choice within that wind, an invitation to stand against it as mountain or let it take him. The Sith chose to follow the momentum, letting his right-hand fall limp while the other held fast to Bloodletter. The rest of his body he let drop into a tumble, letting the blast of energy carry him instead of breaking him. The blast ripped his hair free from its bloody binding and his long mane of white became a windswept tangle. The sulpheric stare of glowing yellow never left the Jedi’s as Blackmorne allowed himself to fly a few meters upon the Jedi’s wind, stretching it to his advantage like the reptavian Hawk-Bats once harnessed the jetties of air from passing speeders in the skylanes of Coruscant. Bloodletter he allowed to rest upon his left shoulder, tucked into the tumble. His right hand reached from the air, catching the bloody strapping of cloth from the ground, twisting it in his fingers as he guided his armored form into a landing. Frost clung to the cloth, crimson crystals leaping from it as he lashed it into his domain. It was the trophy that remained of that beautiful Grandmaster he had slain on Lehon. His boots slipped to a solid footing as he came fully from his tumble amongst the trampled remains of Imperial troopers slain in his initial assault. The air here was rank with the astringency of spilled blood and bowel. The crimson crystals seemed to grow about his right hand, pulling in the remnants of terror and death with it. His jaw set. From within that fetid tangle of bodies, The Sith Warrior strode towards his next victim, the girl who would soon lie broken and lifeless amongst those she had sworn to protect. His right hand reflected the pathetic light of her duel lightsabers within a wine-dark mirror of ice. He joined his hands together as Bloodletter seemed to dance and shiver on his left shoulder, grinding against the gathering of ice upon the darkmetal. The Sith advanced in long methodical strides, the hobnails on his dark-plated boots cracking on the forming ice. Bloodletter shrieked into the force, its voice a wicked, thirsty thing. Give her no pause, no mercy… The Sith Warrior brought the greatsword up with his left hand, its orange-flecked blade twisting in the darkness, his fingers twisting white around its handle as if it were the Jedi’s throat. His right hand wrested on the weighted pommel, to guide its momentum for the quickening of the kill. The sociopathic cold seemed to twist its way through his veins, drawn to Bloodletter itself, attuning it to the methodical beat of his heart. The Jedi looked so small, highlighted on each side by orange and silver. The Sith warrior cut downwards with the timing of his left foot’s advance, hefting Bloodletter in an arc towards the right of the Jedi’s head, aimed the maim that beautiful face before cutting her into unequal halves with the strength of the Force. The advance of the Sith would never be abated. She shall have only the doom and violation of the grave. ((2))
  21. Within the mangled wreckage of starship armor and permecrete a Sith Lord walked, hobnail boots kicking sparks from the fractured flagstones. The Greatsword, Bloodletter seemed to shift and morph as an oily black shadow within his large hands, its flamelike edge slipping through the flesh of a defending trooper, lifeblood seeming to flow through it like ruptured dam. There had been relatively few defenders in the upper levels of the tower who had survived the shuttle’s impact, and those that had were little more now than mangled heaps of armor-adorned flesh. It stank of spilled blood and discharged Tibanna-gas. The air, which had festered blood-warm and stagnate seemed to take on a freshness, and the Sith Lord turned to meet the one that had come. A Keshari, one whose scent dripped with equal parts the fragrance of one strong in the Force and that intoxicating odor of youthful beauty. Sulpheric-yellow eyes leered down at the girl, seeming to glow amongst the whisping curls of black smoke, highlighted by arcing sparks from cut wires. Blackmorne could imagine her small form, free of its armor, lithe and squirming in a pool of her own crimson lifeblood. The contrast of that purplish flesh growing paler, the resistance fading, the panic raising her cries to shrieks. The edge of his mouth curled slightly in a cruel smile before the edges set into a dark grimace. His Sith-Sword stirred in the shadows, its awakened voice mocking and heartless A small, delightful thing… The heat of passion seemed to cool as the Sith Lord reached past his baser passions to set himself into the sadistic ice of a soul bereft of any feeling. Lust had been the undoing of far too many Dark Lords. The air itself seemed to chill as the Dark Side twisted internally, the warrior drawing his feelings and presence into himself. He took her in, the small Jedi beneath him. A pair of lightsabers, held in the inferior reverse-grip, Imperial armor, grenades. He had killed this type of Jedi before. The Rhythm of battle always pounded the same with these, as was the momentum. The Sith Lord’s deep voice ground out from clenched teeth “Sen-tin-el…” The cold air turned frigid, the blood beneath the Sith’s boots beginning to turn to slush. Blackmorne’s mind focused sharply upon the diminutive Jedi, the rest of the world falling away to embittered numbness. He stepped forward, and the ice about his boots shattered with an earsplitting crack. He fell from the smoke-curled heavens towards that Jedi like a star of darkness filled with immortal hate. Bloodletter, that fell, awakened Sith sword, seemed to draw its strength from the Sith who wielded it, its edge encrusting itself with shards of crimson frost as it was drawn into a high guard. The Warrior brought the greatsword in a sweeping arc to match his descent, his muscles straining from the effort, all its cruel malevolence brought into a cut that would enter the left of Jedi’s neck and exit through her right hip. The Lamellar armor that bound his body squealed in resistance, micro-shards of ice cracking and shattering. There was little time in the rhythm of war to allow the bantering monologues of other Sith. Momentum was all. He would have plenty of time with her corpse once the planet was won. ((1))
  22. Do you think there will be competition for these… Rebel Souls? Lord Blackmorne stared down at the whispering blade as the dropship began to thrum with the heat shield activating. It appeared as a Zweihänder balanced upon his knee, as dark as the depths of the Maw. It devoured the threads of light that streamed dimly from the emergency lighting, drawing in and spinning the light into pure darkness. It had not been a week’s time since the blade had been stained with crimson, the lifeblood of a grandmaster, and yet the sword had devoured it all into nothing. The inertial dampners strained, and even then, there was movement in Blackmorne's stomach as the assault ship wove it's way in perilous arcs and impossible angles to avoid the detection radius of the anti-ship mines the Rebels had placed in halo about the planet. Such a minefield would spell hell for anything that came after their lonely stealth operative Sentinel-class landing ship. One of his troopers emptied his partially digested lunch onto the floorboards, and an acidic stench filled the cabin. It brought back such memories... Lehon had been a baptism of violence, one for which he had been given the commendations of the Dark Lord. The Sith Lord leaned forward, resting his forehead on the lamellar plating of the palm of his hand. In the weeks since, he had been consumed with the thrill of the hunt, the cold bloodlust the Dark Side rose within him. His sleep had been troubled by nightmares, the mewing cries of dead men, gurgling weeping. The smell of it still cloyed at his nostrils; the sickly-sweet perfume that rose in humid air from spilled entrails and bowels. The Twi’lek girl’s stuttering cries. Sulpheric eyes stared into the inky darkness that clung to the sword, the surface crawling and flowing as if covered by a layer of rank oil. “Sir?” The Sith Lord stared up at the young soldier, a Zabrak no more than seventeen standard years old. Fresh recruits from the captives of Lehon, refugees pressed into service. The boy wore armor three generations old, with a blaster rifle from the era of Emperor Black. Twelve of them, the youngest around fourteen, the oldest near thirty. Undertrained and ill-equipped for a vanguard unit. A sulpheric stare poisoned the question on the boy’s lips, and the soldier sat down heavily in his jumpseat. A proximity alarm began to trill, the sound growing louder and more desperate. Red lights began to flash. The main display showed a tower of the Alliance headquarters growing very swiftly larger. The pilot droid put its hand on the emergency braking system, but beeped in wonder as the metallic hand bent and melted under the power of the Force. Terror arose from the squad en masse, screams of desperation as they scrambled to gain access to the cockpit and to halt the meteoric fall towards the enemy. Kilometers to target became mere meters. Oh… how delightful. Bloodletter lashed in a sweeping pass, swallowing life and snuffing out hopes, and dreams. Reaping terror at its height. As the assault craft smashed into the tower, a single life remained, fortified with recent death and the power of the Dark Side. From the mangled wreckage, strode a Lord of the Sith, long white hair tied back with a strip of bloodied cloth. ((Open Duel Challenge to any Rebel or Jedi Forces Otherwise Not Promised in Duels.))
  23. Vorin stared into the dirt-flecked boots of the Dark Lord. A small tendril of ice stained the ground with crimson as it slipped from the void of Bloodletter. He had listened closely to the words of the Lady, most of the words uselessly diffuse about the core of what she had to say. She was Dark Lord, but she appeared to flower the former with decrepit praise, as if she needed to appease any who had stirrings of rebellion. It did not smell of strength. It had the air of an Empire on the verge of collapse. The Sith Lord’s voice was low, gravelly, and calm. “It would be a lie that soured the tongue, to say I have no aspirations for the post you now hold, Dark Lord.” There was a murmuring, scraping, laugh that skittered across the ground, forming from the voidless shape of Bloodletter. It was a gleeful anticipation, icy and manic, reflected in the steel eyes of the Sith Lord. Those sulpheric yellow eyes seemed to glow as he brought his gaze from the Dark Lord’s boots to her face, sizing her up. It was for but a moment, but it was as though he was tasting her blood. A smile came instead, overcoming the predatory pull that the Dark Side set into his heart, dragging him always like the heart of the Maw. The tension bled from the room, and the void that had been Bloodletter dropped into cold steel within its sheath, harmless and no longer wielded. “But the Court of Madness has made its pledge, and I will not the ties that bind our Empire.” Vorin bowed his head, the whitened hair spilling from his shoulders, lightly bound by a scrap of bloodsoaked cloth “Hail, Dark Lord.”
  24. Umbra’s bray of laughter caught the Sith Warrior by surprise, disconcerting as it was. A small wince crossed his placid countenance. He had expected the emotion in its wake to be mockery for some unimagined aberration, but it was genuine happiness that had arisen. So, that woman had been the leader of the entire Jedi Order? He had heard stories from the kretch-tellers of the Grandmasters, such names that had reached galactic infamy; Ara-Lai Kaipi, Starlisk, Kiralloca and so many others… The name Draygo had been among them. The one without a heart. Disbelief boiled into shock and doubt. Blackmorne was saved from a stutteringly doubtful reply by the voice of a woman and the staggering weight of power he felt swirling within the Force. The presence was contained, held fast behind walls of iron, but it was not unlike standing before the Mad Hutt. A storm of energy, swirling in the background. It was like the instant you can taste and smell the rain before the first drop lands. He turned to her and forced his battle-weary shoulders to bend, his scarred and roughened lammelar plating grinding as he bowed. This was no lotus-eater, bound into ivory towers with chains of arrogant gold. This woman had trained in the Court of Madness and had become the Dark Lord. Such a title never fell by de-facto, nor was it disgraced by nepotism. The Sith Warrior took from its bindings the sheathed Zweihander, its only tassel the bloodied strip of the Grandmaster’s tunic and proffered it before him, a ceremonial offering of the victory over the Jedi. His hands held firm before him, but beneath the skin the muscles ached and cried for rest, the burnings of lactic acid lashing at his mind. One of his knees sunk unbidden to the ground and he bowed further. “My deeds are few. War only makes heroes in stories. Had I known the Jedi I had fought to be important, I would have brought her to you alive. I offer you my sword, as a symbol of your victory here.” Bloodletter was its own identity within the veil of the Force, forged as it was from Sheog himself. It was one of the Seven heirlooms of the Court of Madness. Its name of secrets was Accidie, for that was the emotion from which it was forged; that listless torpor that made mankind heavy in their own minds, driven in flight from their divine nature into the pitiful sorrow of the world. From his knee, The Sith Lord contemplated the words of the others, and the newcomer whom he recognized from reports. He smell bacta on her, but even yet there were the stains of raw battle. He flashed her a genuine smile, one of warm welcome. “Darth Tyra, you stood alone against what broke all the nightsisters and turned the tide of battle before the very gates of the Temple. I would raise her, Dark Lord, as a champion of this world.”
  25. The Sith Lord stared into Umbra’s eyes, his own narrowing as the Intelligence Officer spun a tale of betrayal and treason. It was a story he had heard often of one Sith Lord or the next. It was the nature of the Dark Side, unrestrained passions moved a soul towards independence and a natural conflict with leadership. The other side of the credit chit was the obvious pairing, those that delved deep into the darkness were driven to paranoia; such power was never a stable thing. “If the Rebellion has truly become united, then The Spider’s plans were not but folly. A time of purging then…” Bloodletter almost purred in its sheathe, its voice serpentine and nearly orgasmic with the thought The useless Sithlings cast to the carrion. How beauteous that would be! Blackmorne’s grim jawline became more defined as he gave the Sith before him a rueful grin and spread upon his arms and hands in a gesture of more familial greeting, blood still dripping from him. The Court of Madness had never been one for the crippling haughtiness of a Dark Lord’s Court, and often spurned the formalities. “I am Vorin Blackmorne, of the Court of Madness. I have titles to throw about, but who cares for such things. Call me Vorin.” Tza Anachas, one of the Sith Warriors that had joined Blackmorne from Sheog’s court, a handsome Cathar girl, handed Umbra a datapad, with vid records of the battle and set up a small projector which displayed the battlemap as it now stood. “The nightsisters seemed to have led a strong attack at the temple’s outer walls and on the enemy’s skirmish line in the forest. Reports are that most of our nightsister allies were slaughtered there. Some pretty Jedi with an Acklay I think.” Vorin shrugged, Tza displaying a few numbers in the basic script demonstrating approximated dead on each side for the skirmish and assault. He gestured to the landing pad, a fleck of blood pixelating the display for a moment as it passed through the hologram. “My warriors, a dozen of the Court’s finest, attacked from the side of the landing pad, at their retaining wall with me at their head.” The image blurred into a still image of Vorin and Armenia Draygo facing each other, Bloodletter driven through the woman’s chest. “I met a fierce fighter, some Jedi woman of considerable strength… But the Dark Side prevails. When she fell, the garrison faltered, then crumbled.” Numbers appeared noting only a few wounded from Vorin’s squad, with an opposing number of Jedi and Soldiers displaying medium to high casualty rates. “They were able to evacuate at the last, we could not get through a Force Shield in time to route them truly and kill what had remained. Many refugees escaped. Some did not.”
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