Sheog the Mad

A whisper came upon the winds, carrying the taste of silicate upon its wings and something far more ancient. About the feline the world changed for an eyeblink, steaming verdant jungles replacing the deserts. It was there in the background, hidden by the veil of sands and time. It was the energy of the wilderness that spoke ...You stand upon ash, green eternally enthroned in shattered glass. Stand from your sleep of entropy and gnaw from the ground your lifespring… It was there, a faintness of life now gone. The overwhelming life of the jungle calling through a crack in time. It was as looking at life through a darkened mirror, stained with ancient blood. ...The tongue of silence shows old paths to those who seek. Whispers in the trees of the carrion flying in skywheels above.

A shadow formed in the corner of the feline eye of the apprentice, hanging like a windblown pall just outside of her vision. It was as black as smoke, and moved as if it was breathing. Each inhalation brought with it the caress of the sand. It was a skulking remonstrance of tranquility that began to eclipse the danger of the even the Krayt dragon. ...Dragons die, kinsmen die, but who will sing you to the death-sleep? The ignored? The Thralls of the feline, those borne of necromancy increased their furor unbidden. A heart was hammering from somewhere in the deep, and with it a second voice. It had neither breath or spirit, nor warmth, nor complexion upon its tongue. ...I come unto the desert, eternally shifting and grinding bone to sand. You upon its shore, so distant from your stars, with no fixed fate. Sorrowed in solitude, astray from warm life.

From the sands a figure stepped, cloth once ebony was now sand-stained wrappings, clinging to its form in tatters. A low hiss spread from the pursed lips that were cast in unnatural shadow beneath the burning sun. Sand shifted beneath its feet, cloth crumbling, and the figure collapsed into shapeless darkness. Across the shifting sands came a pale whisper to the ears of the feline Death some would pray, could you wait to come upon me another day, Broken children prayed, your master preached, but time and mercy is out of your reach. With it came the feelings of a thousand eyes prying at the soul, seeking only lies. There were lessons to be learned amongst the sands, that the comfort of company could not comprehend. Salvation or damnation, either could be brought to heel.

The young teenager jumped as the disembodied voice startled her. Her sulphuric eyes narrowed at the man and his electric-blue hair. He certainly looked princely enough. Being blood-spattered was a nice touch. He reminded her of her master’s crazy friend Terra. She listened to his words carefully, her fingers gripping the glass tightly. When she spoke, her voice was pleasent “Thank you for Hospitality, dear Prince. If you wise experience death, head to Kashyyyk where my Master is raising the dead at the moment.” She activated a live-cam, showing the Mad Hutt’s force-bound husks fighting their former friends. A Force Storm was growing above the camera, a chasm in life itself. Her voice was darker now as she could feel her master's pull. The liquid in the glasses and bottles about them began to ripple, touched by the storm, even across the galaxy. “He is creating a wound in the Force, the echoes of which he hopes will shake the galaxy. Death is but one factor of power.”

The brothers Vermandois watched their apprentice as the Demented Madness began to shake and shudder, taking fire on its shields from anti-aircraft weapons across the capital. Their lips were smiling, their form calm as the ship shook beneath them. The Sith troopers behind them began to check their weapons, and the Tuk’ata began to howl. There was a madness growing about them, a lust for the fight, and perhaps even for death. The voice of the AI, a sarcastic recording of Hayley sighed out an update “Coming in for a landing, get ready to reinforce.” As the landing ramp lowered, a few quarrels smashed into the decorated ceiling. Karema waved Celora to his side, wrapping her shoulders in a gangly arm that smelled of sweet spiced rum and singed velvet. “Get over your fear of mortality. Surrender it to the force and strength will find you.” He leapt with her into the fight, the trio of Sith landing behind the skirmishing line, into a field churned into fresh dirt by mortar-fire. The sound of the Demented Madness’s heavy weapons began to echo about them as the gatling guns poured durasteel rounds into the Wookiee trenches. Before them was trench of wide-eyed Wookiees holding weaponry, ten in number, but caught by surprise. The Mad Hutt could feel the rage of battle about him, the potent strength of the Warrior Kind, the shadowed manipulations of the Spider, and all the chaos that moved about them like a fog. The meal he had made from the dying Wookiees was a sacrifice to the Force, he yielded their strength to it, as it was not his to possess. Strength not made of his own, was of no interest to him. The Force accepted his sacrifice, foregoing his own Hunger for its sake. The Hutt could feel the swirling madness of his mind coming to a fever-pitch, the insanity of war feeding the storm. He breathed in a blubbering breath and passed the insanity through to his own actions, letting it guide his actions with Force-bound instinct. As Exodus and Raynuck worked their way through the Wookiees that rushed them, the Master of the Krath focused on consuming more power. Crimson eyes found a rushing Wookiee and the force bound the beast in tendrils of darkness. Like leeches, the tendrils sank into furred flesh and began to consume the life from the strong Wookiee. Black fur turned ashen, muscles to emaciation, and the withered corpse fell. The last thought of the beast echoed in the Hutt’s mind as its power was consumed by his own Family. A nursing welp, fresh to life. Detached from himself, The Sith Master followed the thoughtless spirit to its doorstep, overtaking its hope, sending it into despair. The Wookiee’s mind found only desiccated and broken corpses scattered about their domicile. A genetic line was ended, and the terror fed the Hutt, trapped forever in hopeless abandon. -Thud- Sheog opened an eye to observe the fallen child of The Golden God and the Nightsister, laying crumpled upon the beachhead beside him, a gaping wound marrying pale flesh with crimson stain. He passed her the rhythm of war, and the strength of the Sith about her. She had no reason to yield to death so early in life. ...Rise to your heritage. I will never forget your father, do not fail my hope that one day you will eclipse him in power… As he opened his mind to the battlemind, he could feel the other Nightsister-child (Raia) falling, grasping weakly to ideologies and friendships that could not save her. To her, he offered the larger portion of his madness, an invitation to the darkness that would be necessary to save her own life. It would be like a crimson thread of temptation that would strike through the falling darkness about her. An invitation to fight once more, and not to yield to weakness. ...Relying on others will only get you killed. Find first your own strength, daughter of The Warrior King, then ask for others… As the Hutt’s mind returned to the battle at hand, he could feel Exodus break the minds of all those about him, driving them to The Hutt’s Hunger like cannibalistic zombies. He bathed in their ferality, adding his own pressure to their minds. The orgy of violence was beginning to echo in the Force, driving to his own wound in the Force. The Hutt allowed the Force to consume him, and the air about them began to shake with vibrations. The dead began to rise and fight back at the living, bound to the Hutt’s will. A storm was rising that would echo across the galaxy

...Of course it’s a damn prince. Only the wealthy have the time to dabble in sorcery or find The Krath to be of particular interest... The Sith girl’s sulphuric eyes narrowed as she observed the droid’s revelations. Reaching out with the Force, she could feel the truth in his words. She was annoyed that she hadn’t thought to check first for such things, but she was young yet in the Force, and was still learning. She nodded and poured a glass of the wine, hoping her host did not care for the drinking laws of the Galactic Core, where she was yet four years from being able to enter a cantina. The label was flashy and covered in golden filigree, the scattered lables fortelling the vintage and age of the wine, which was made from Aderball Fine-Pressed Muja, harvested and hand-squeezed by special-needs prisoners held in the ruins of Dantooine. Hayley brought the crystalline glass to her lips, not realizing it was a high-ball glass and not an appropriate glass for such a fine wine, and breathed in the sweet and sharp aroma. She tipped the glass back, letting the keen edge of the alcohol burn upon her cracked lips, pool over her pink tongue, and blaze down her throat. As she breathed out she pulled the alcohol into purity and set it aflame, letting it swirl around her like twisting vines before it vanished into smokeless light. “My master has bound soul to flesh, entwined in metal, as your… Prince… desires. Eternal Life isn’t all it’s puffed up to be, at some point we all need to be free of these mortal coils." She brought up a hologram displaying the necromanitc battle of her master with the Sith Master Geki, and his experiments in bringing sentiance to the Tuk’ata of Korriban. “There is much to be taught, and much to be explored together.”

...Creepy. The things I do for this kriffin Hutt. Hayley sighed, blowing a lock of greasy hair from her vision, only for it to settle back to obscure it once more. She removed the leather flight gloves from her nail-bitten fingers, and guided the fighter into the automated docking procedures. As the ship began to secure itself, the girl slipped her DL-44 into its holster, and untangled herself from the oversized crash-webbing. She pulled the red lever to her right and the cockpit slid aside, revealing a ladder within reach. Hayley pulled herself from the cramped cockpit, stretching her back as she clambered up the worn ladder. When she came to the secondary airlock, she could finally stand up straight. Running her cold hands through her hair, she tucked the unruly mess behind her ear, revealing her one good eye, a mix of corrupted yellow sulphur and bloodshot crimson. She opened the door and stepped through, feeling the decking beneath her boots, suddenly aware of her rumpled black flightsuit and her unkempt appearance. “Well, I’m here. Shall we discuss?”

The bright swirling blanket of hyperspace was drawn back, sending the heavily modified Mark VI Supremacy class fighter into the meeting place. The Fallen Ember rested a moment in the darkness of space as the pilot observed the flamelike tendrils of fluorescent nebula about her, backlit by a myriad of clustered stars. Hayley adjusted the navicomputer and activated the transponder-code forwarded to her by the Vermandois. Mysterious meetups were, to the teenager, a bit ostentatious. The girl removed the flight helmet, shaking out the locks of auburn hair as they fell across her shoulders in a greasy mess. Her nose wrinkled as she adjusted the metallic eyepatch that had been grafted to her flesh, not yet used to the way it felt against her skin and bone. It was a pitiful and temporary replacement for the eye she had lost working alongside Karys. With a tired hand she toggled the longscan com and spoke softly “Whoever you are, I come with the greetings of Sheog of the Krath… What exactly do you want?”

As the overlarge Hutt watched the Warrior King fall from the sky in a way far more gracefully than himself, he gripped the handle of his alchemical axe, Armalite, in the chubby palm of his left hand. It was a hefty weapon, crafted in a mixture of soul-energy and Sith steel. The edge of the weapon smoked in the fog, turning the vapour into crystals of ice, giving form to the living weapon’s potency. The smell of the alchemy in the air brought back the nostalgia of its creation, the hallowed ground of Hoth. The murder of his fellow apprentice and the anger of Ason at the Hutt’s avarice. It had been only hours after its forging that the bearded axe had taken the life of the great Krath master. A whispered malice sprang to life as the mighty Hutt began to swing the broadened head, the smoking blade prepared to claim life once more. ...Beastflesh will suffice for now. Memory it will bring of the destruction of Kiralocca… The demon swirled down the shaft of the axe, twisting as an emerald serpent. The veil of the Force was beginning to bend, the clutches of hunger devouring, at the epicenter, a wound in the Force at which centered was the Hutt. The Master of the Krath spoke in response, a muttered utterance to his brothers and demons alike. His eyes became as coals, stoked bright with hunger and greed. <> A hail of quarrels fell upon them as rain, uncharged of plasma, rods of sharpened steel. To the Hutt’s wrinkled hide a few stuck, driving a low growl from his deformed lips. The earth beneath them trembled as the Hutt brought it into his consciousness. It tasted of rot, generations of forest succumbing to entropy and time, to the devouring lust of worms and beasts. Whithered branches and deepset roots sprang from the loam with a cracking anger, betraying the rage of the planet, corrupted to the will of the Sith. Blasterbolts and quarrels dissipated upon the raised earth before it settled once more The roaring of the Wookiees increased as they approached, and the onslot of ranged fire decreased, the weapons ineffective. Three Wookiees emerged from the fog at speed towards the Hutt, and Armalite met them where they stood. The Axe bit flesh, shattering what it froze before passing through. The foremost Wookiee was cut down immediately, his flesh turning to frozen strands that entangled his closest ally, driving them both to the churning ground to be devoured. The third Wookiee fared no better, the arching tail of the Hutt snapping sinew and bone with a swing that sent the corpse tumbling to disappear into the fog and the oncoming ranks of raging Wookiees. The Mad Hutt could taste the thrill of battle from his brothers and he bolstered it with his own insanity. A twisting smile contorted his normally handsome features as he prepared for the wave to come.

Karema’s sneer turned to a frown of pity and he knelt beside the girl, seeing the broken pieces of life unable to be healed. As he placed a hand on her shoulder a voice echoed across the training room, a foreboding shadow of starvation that desired to devour all life <> A long droning alarm signaled the call to arms. Karema sighed and placed a hand across the fallen blade, resetting it to combat strength. They were going planetside. The Lord of Madness had wasted his hunger in the void of space long enough. The Dark Lord himself was falling to the planet to whet his thirst for violence, and the Hutt passed the patterns of the battlemind to the planet itself. The Wookiee fleet was shattered and broken, it was time for the planet to face the true wrath of an angry pantheon of Sith. To all his brothers and sisters he uttered a suggestion of violence and destruction <> Each of the Sith commanders acknowledged the command without a word and a surge of hate-filled joy washed through the battlemind. As the battlemind descended into the lust for pure unadulterated violence, the Mad Hutt moved to his own ship. It was not often a planet’s populace would meet the Grandmaster of the Krath, an opportunity he would not pass up. He could not hold back his hunger. He would not be denied what had been stopped at Onderon. As the Demented Madness descended towards the planet, the jewel of the Wookiees, Sheog could taste the delectable terror of the populace, and he passed it to his brethren as an appetizer of a greater feast of death. With a sigh, The Hutt pressed the landing ramps toggle, the side of the ship yawning like a tired Bantha. Air rushed forth as the descent quickened, blowing debris about the group. <> A wry smile crept over his twisted face as the treetops whipped past, The Demented Madness skimming close to the surface. With a tap of his staff, the Hutt used a mighty sweep of his tail to lunge his bulk from the ship. His uneven nostrils took in the spicy smoke of burning evergreens as he fell, he could almost taste the dying around him. It was so succulent, the defeat of primal beasts and their feeble rage. With a tremendous application of sorcery, The Hutt landed beside the Dark Lord, his crimson eyes the only reflected light beneath the shadow of the trees. The Lord of the Krath was unleashed, unhinged, and truly given to madness. The hunger was consuming without end. <> A low and crawling laugh rippled through the fog, the shadow of the Hutt twisting with power of the Force. He was the eye of the storm, all life feeding into the currents of his insanity, a hunger without end. The trees around them began to creak and bend, branches snapping and shredding to splinters. Distant howls greeted them, the rage of the Wookiees was upon them. <>

Karema brought his blade in a wide arc, his haughty gaze appraising the Hutt’s apprentice with disdain. She had far too much fear of everything in the galaxy. Everything seemed to scare her, and what scared her pissed her off. He breathed in a sniffling huff, dragging the girl’s blade down to the matting at her feet with his raw strength. He held her blade down and brought his face close enough to hers to see the drips of perspiration on her face, smell the trepidation that emanated off of her like a perfume. “This weapon is your life…” His eyes continued to glow with their hidden fire “Your fear consumes you. What exactly is it that makes you so weak?” --- The other Vermandois observed the overtly mysterious message with little but boredom. The cliche of a mysterious master was all but played out in the galaxy, but he would do his best to answer in similar fashion for the Master of the Krath. The Bleeding Kyber was the loom upon which the destruction of Kashyyyk was woven. Threads of colour coming together for a grand design. The crimson strands of lifeblood, Wookiee and Ally both, laced the masterpiece into macabre twilight across the Wookiee homeworld. Greed echoed in its avaricious emerald, twinkling with each blast of turbolasers. A cheer of victory across the battlemind as superheated plasma burned life to fading, sparkling ash that would alight the evening sky in a meteor shower for decades to come with every orbital pattern. The Wookiees were losing. Still, their rage burned with primal strength, intertwining the victorious crimson with its sulphuric yellow. It tasted of wildfire upon the mighty Hutt’s wiggling tongue, a smoldering bitterness that would need to be purged before it could ignite into hope amongst the enemies of the Sith. Supported by his brother Krath, Draken, his essence a bright star in the tapestry, fed by upcoming union with Alora. Draken’s star burned bright within the battlemind, and Sheog brought its strength in synchrony with his own. The Lord of Madness focused upon the patterns within The Force, following the threads of rage back to their source, pressing the weight of the combined Sith masters to bear upon the Wookiee High Command. Like a swarm of Piranha beatles surging to tear a Runyip to mouthfuls of flesh within the Jungles of Yavin IV, the Sith fleet set upon the Golan III defense platform with an avidity for death. The prideful rage turned to fear as the full might of the Sith came upon their souls. Terror ripped apart the cohesiveness of the Wookiee fleet, devouring their strength. A shadow void of form stripped their power from the Force, the grasping strength of thousands of Sith consuming their holiness and their pride, leaving them only the antipathy of nightmares. Their dread was far easier to manipulate. As the Golans fell, and the enemy fleet became disjointed, Sheog restained the inherent violence of the dark side no more. It would be an orgy of slaughter, an echo that would resonate through the Force to the edges of the galaxy.

Karema eyed the young girl warily, his gaze alight in burning sulphur. Her stance was, like her person, uneasy, filled with self-doubt. He could feel the rumble of the ship beneath his silken boots as it exited hyperspace. A creeping hunger wrapped its way around his icy heart. “Do you feel it? Our master’s clarion call?” He brought his lustrous boot to hook beneath the girl’s knee tossing her to the ground. He brought her immediately back to stance with the Force. The girl’s body was a puppet and he held the strings. He forced her stance to deepen and strengthen, forcing her muscles to work unbidden. “Come from strength… Never stand with unease or fear…” He licked his pale, thin lips with a pink tongue “You are the predator, not prey. You are master. Not slave. Hold your form and do not yield!” He approached swinging his blade lazily at her head As the Sith Fleet and its allies dropped from hyperspace over Kashyyyk, Sheog considered its appearance. It appeared as a sparkling jewel set into the darkness of space, radiating with reflected light and a deep sense of life in the force. The Mad Hutt was fully open to the designs of the Force, and it buffeted his mind like a storm. It was a cacophony of emotions drawn from everywhere, pulling him in every direction. Sheog placed a shaking hand upon the comforting, gnarled handle of his briar-wood pipe, bringing the well-worn bit to his soggy lips. A deep breath brought the taste of Anderan Tobacco, spiced with Bravia Latika. As it filled his lungs with the sharpness of nicotine, The Lord of the Krath began to draw the minds of all about him together. He knitted the minds of those aboard the Bleeding Kyber as if he were assembling a grand tapestry. The slaves and the soldiers were easy to absorb into his own consciousness, sharp focus on direct tasks was easy, but the Lords of the Sith were far more difficult to bring together. The Mad Hutt’s crimson visage narrowed as he beckoned all to unity in the battlemind. So many directions, so many desires. So much power pulling in separate direction, selfish threads that desired to misdirect or deceive. ...No wonder Exodus is so often exhausted… These Sith are unwilling to join together for common purpose. It’s like herding strills… He breathed out a long puff from the pipe, the shadowy smoke enveloping him. To be Sith was to crave power, and he had to guide them to the strength of unity. His weaving brought the minds of the masters together, not by overpowering them, but offering them the strength that would help them overcome their enemies. Each craft would be brought into the battlemind, their pilots and crew foused, a creeping hunger entwining them to feast on those they brought low. The ships assembled themselves into formation, moving in unity, awaiting instruction. Sheog did not grasp onto the power himself, the minds of so many would consume him, and he used himself as a focusing crystal for the battlemind, much akin to the crystal in his own lightsaber. He spread the threads of the tapestry through the ship itself, using it as a loom to direct the threads together. He could not allow himself to overwhelm the connection. To the individual Sith which had come with them, he offered the gift in turn, for them to enter into or to turn away. He would not force those like Darksong, Quietus, or the Dark Lord himself into such a thing, unless they desired it. They would be welcome, and would have much influence over the tapestry, to direct its pattern. The Hutt’s hands continued to tremble as he reduced himself to allow for the others. It was almost an impossible task, to direct this orchestra of death to its task, but he was capable of it.

Connected all by the Battlemind, the Sith fleet would act in unison against any and all opposition. At the heart of the fleet would be the Bleeding Kyber, the Star Destroyer that was commanded by The Masters of the Krath, and from which the Sith battlemind would originate. The Sith’s three Corvettes would flank the Star Destroyer, adding their turbolasers to the targets it called. The Black Sun fleet, their two Victory-Class Star Destroyers and MC30c, would follow the same vector commands, the combined turbolaser fire enough to overwhelm the shielding systems of any Capital Ship they targeted. They would be arrayed in a half-moon, where their firing vectors could combine for maximum damage. Antifighter capabilities would be from their own fighterscreen, and the newly arrived Lancer Frigate. In command would be all the Sith Masters of Sith Empire. In full, the fleet would consist of the following ships and fighter compliments, all set to purpose under the battlemind of Sheog.: The full might of the fleet would concentrate on breaking the enemy capital ships with sustained turbolaser fire, while the starfighters and bombers assisted. The fleet would exit hyperspace at distance after the assault shuttle carrying the squad to destroy the shield generator, and approach while devastating the enemy fleet at distance, while the sensor-scrambling bombers and fighters under Delta approached under stealth. The Wookiees would stand no chance.

Karema’s pale lips crooked to a smile as the protein cubes trailed their way to the hand of his apprentice, and one to his own hand. He nodded, his curls flouncing as he tossed the double-bladed lightsaber into the air. It came up in a lazy arc, spiraling in crimson light, holding in rotation at its zenith as if frozen in time. The cube of brown powder shattered into dust on his outstretched palm, each particle holding a pattern in the air. The shards of protein shook as if trying to escape the bonds of the force, the cloud forming into the spiral nature of a galaxy. With a whisper, it blew away on a callous wind, its old form forgotten. “Yes… Like that. Eat, you have done well... Celora.” Her name carried a curious tone, a taunting debasement of her achievements that bade her to do far better. The blade crashed to the matting beside him, the wicked handle falling into his outstretched hand. Cruel fingers twisted around the aberrant form, falling into worn grooves, highlighting the decades it had been wielded. A simple handle fell to the matting before the girl, a training saber “When you are ready, we will go over the stances of battle.”

The apprentice was escorted, along with the retinue of Sheog the Mad, to the training chambers aboard The Bleeding Kyber. Once there, Karema showed the girl a spartan chamber, whose only decorations were the crimson mats and banners of the Sith. It was a sparring chamber, made for hand-to-hand combat. His pale lips formed a thin line as he tossed a handful of protein cubes onto the matting, where they flaked brown dust. “In order to eat, you must show some spirit… Some… Dedication…” With a wave of his delicately painted fingers, hunger began to spread through the young woman's guts like an insatiable hand, grasping and pulling, causing her stomach to knot and turn. He ignited his double-bladed lightsaber, and held it before him like a flaming brand. “Darling… Pull the food to you in the Force, or I will cut you to ribbons!” The overlarge Hutt Master waived a chubby hand across the holoscreen, taking in the formations of starfighters, as well as the armoured figures before him. Delta was recognizable from armour and accent, and at his side was the Greyjoy girl, Terra. He passed a greeting to Raynucknuck as he entered, a mix of happiness and desire for a battle at the side of his friend. <> He turned to the Dark Lord, leaning upon his staff of darkmetal <>

The Mad Hutt’s crimson gaze gleamed with pride as he watched the fleet assemble, his amphibian eyes seldom wandering from the figure of The Bleeding Kyber. Even across the vast emptiness of space he could feel the mixture of Krath magic and darkmetal calling to him, its voice wicked as it crawled through his skull. It met his desires and begged for sustenance, for souls to be harvested for reciprocal rise in power. This corrupted Star Destroyer would be the centerpoint, the beating heart of the Sith fleet. The center of the web, to which all prey was drawn and devoured. <> The overlarge Hutt turned his face to the Dark Lord of the Sith, and inclined it in respect. <>

The Vermandois watched their young charge interact with the mindless beast that had joined them on Nubia. Its nature confused them, it had aspects of humanity and beast, but no personality. It was disappointing to see such wasted potential bound to human form. Karema stood, allowing the Ewok-leather from the couch caress his robes as they clung to it with an oily stickiness. His sneer of disgust deepened as he wrenched the crimson and gold silk from the couch’s grasp to the giggles of his brother. Karema let his cape flow about him and gave it a quick swirl about his frame to ensure it still fell in a way that accentuated his hips. Delicate fingers, painted in a variety of patterns stifled a yawn as it escaped his pale lips. “Oh goodness girl. All the food is certainly edible, however your meager sense of taste would scarcely fathom all the subtleties obscured by their nature.” With a sniffle, and a flounce of his curls, Karema seized a chocolate eclair with the Force and let it past his lips in an unseemly rush, eliciting another giggle from his brother. “Oh not so deeeep Karema!” The Sith Master channeled the flush from his cheeks away as he chewed, eying Celora as he swallowed “A marvelous confectionary masterpiece. Flaked crust from an Alderaanian starter, butter from freshly milked nerfs… Chocolate harvested from Rathaki V, mixed with a creamed stimcaf tartar, handchurned by an Ewok, before his sacrifice to Lord Ar-Pharazon.” He let out a small sigh of happiness, before continuing. “Now, let's put these lessons together. Bind a dessert in the Force, and draw it to your lips. Explore its creation, find everything within it.” ------- Hunger swirled about his mind like the grasping currents of the sea. It touched every part of him, it drove his desires and his loves. The massive Hutt breathed in a deep breath of the recycled air. He could feel the life about him, each creature unaware of their entanglement within his currents. Their thoughts were their own, but directed within their will to his own gains. Each breath of the air carried with it the taste of a new thought, a new direction of the current. His tastes were vast, and with each exhale he channeled strength into the current, letting it bind with the shadows that were spun beside him by the spider. <> The currents were fed now with the joyful deaths of Corellia. The Jedi Council reduced to ash and bone. Broken and twisted permacrete, painted crimson in the blood of thousands <> The Master of the Krath lifted his wooden pipe to his lips, caressing the taste of the ironwood and clay as he stoked an ember within the spiced tobacco. A cloud of sweetened smoke stained the air, following the unseen currents <> Another exhalation of smoke and the glowing ember illuminated a smile on his greasy lips. <

((Ex’s movements posted with approval)) With the brush of the Dark Lord’s hand upon his oily flesh, the massive Hutt pushed himself to follow the man from the chambers of the factory. The air smelled far cleaner outside of the bonds of the facility, and there was a much clearer feeling in the force. No longer were things oddly obscured by enigmas. His hide rippled with a shudder. He spoke as they moved together towards the docking bay <> The Demented Madness rose from its moorings as they approached, and the apprentices were ushered in behind them as they moved. The girl and the beast were moved to the lounging area where their training would continue, while the Dark Lord and the Master of Gluttony made their way to the command bay, which also served as a throneroom. With greasy fingers, the Hutt placed a handful of salted meats into his gullet from a passing servant girl. The Dark Lord’s ship followed as they passed into the atmosphere. A departure path was plotted and approved from Lemnos industries, by the Imperial Remnant’s flight control <>

The halls of The Marie were filled with the rushing footsteps of soldiers and pilots preparing for departure. To Scarron, the scattered thoughts and borderline panic flowed around her like a river as she tasted its sweet waters. Fear was in the background of every conversation, even those of Black Sun’s finest warriors, and it was delicious. Her brother followed in her wake, taking the hum of war in with each breath. To the half broken kitten, the Sith twins were an enigma, a brooding pair meditatively silent to the proceedings around them. Anders broke his silence with a gravely word “Zirtani, your exhaustion causes your mind’s clarity to wane like a winter’s moon.” Scarron’s words carried a venomous undertone, like the reverberating hiss of a coiled serpent. “You would find yourself swiftly dead with such distraction..." Her voice softened slightly and she outstretched her hand to the snow-white creature, staring into bestial eyes of vivid cerise, matched with tawny sulphur. “Reach into that pain, cast away the deadness of your mind… Refresh yourself with the caress of the dark. When your mind is fully immersed, what do you see?”

Karema held the teenager’s unconscious form as it dropped, ensuring she didn’t dash her pretty skull upon the unforgiving durasteel tiles. Girls were such fragile things. Delicate minds so easily overwhelmed by the Force. He breathed in a small breath while he waited, taking in the girl’s fragrance, observing her closely. Her sense of style almost made him wish he had not caught her, and she stunk of slavery. The soured smell of the frightened, the odour of spoiled potential. As she awoke, he kept his arms supporting her, leaving behind the evilness that might compare him to a slavemaster in her mind “Darkness was in the soil in which is was planted. When the rain came, its darkness sprouted with it, gorging in corruption. Darkness waited behind the star that gave it warmth and light. Darkness followed it where it went, as it follows your path. As the days are determined by the night, we are all defined by darkness.” The Sith Master pinched the flower’s pressed form, and a sudden heat began to flow around them. Wind swept back the Sith’s curling locks, and his sulphuric eyes flashed. His delicately manicured hand closed about the flower, and it disappeared into his flesh, leaving only a patterned scar. “The Force is like an Arachnid, forever spinning her web, connecting all life. Ensnaring us all. Beyond the physical, beyond the emotions… What do you see about us? Where does the Force flow? What does it look like?”

Vindalo turned on the reformed beast, Uriel with eyes that portrayed his questioning. The Sith Master kept his dark robes about him as he placed a hand between the two of them, drawing upon the feelings of the city about him. He could feel the life of everything, the suffering of the downcast, the elation of the greedy, the fear of those dying. Within his palm, lay the glittering surface of a Coruscanti gem. “You starve? A sailor surrounded by undrinkable water, dying of thirst? Focus that hunger into your mind, let it allow you to see the Force about you. See everything I hold, beyond the physical…” Karema’s thin lips twisted into a more of a grin as he extinguished his blade, tossing his head to cause his blonde curls to swirl about his neck in a cascade. His robes continued their dance of gold and crimson as he stood above the girl, and examined his manicured nails, removing a bit of dust with a quick exhalation of breath. “Kriffing, darling? Such language from such a young girl. Such…” His sulphuric eyes stared daggers into hers “Spirit. Spunk. Such quintessential Outer Rim Soul. That was the gorram power of the Dark Side!” He dragged her to her feet with the force, the clutching fingers of a thousand hands righting her, before releasing her from their embrace. From his belt the Sith Master took a small golden flower, a pressed and preserved acrerose from Belsavis. Tightening his lips into a pout he pressed the flower into the girl's forehead with the tip of his thumb, letting the sweat seal it to her alabaster skin “Use that hate, that rage, that teenage angst. Tell me everything about this flower, where it was found, who plucked it… See without seeing. Let those emotions guide your mind.” A slobbering breath was his intake as he stopped his wormish pushing at the end of his destination, beside his Dark Lord and friend. The caress of Sith-imbued metal upon his own flabby knuckles was a rainstorm upon a dried field, and an awakening rose from deep within his corrupted mind. The words of The Shadow Spinner were beginning to weave themselves with his own demons. Worldbreaker… A slithering hunger crept across the tasteless tiles, a grasping avarice feasting upon the sterilized and inhumane structure. Far too clean, far too inhuman, far too unlived. With his exhale came his own vision, beyond the emotionless words of bureaucratic industry. Growth, Investments, Production. Tools that were unbound to their will. All paled before the darkness. They must not lose sight of their goals. A tattered corpse of a beaten enemy, a feast for the carrion, flesh rendered by the consuming maws of a thousand maggots, hanging like tattered rags from bleaching bones. Face half-torn, the larval-knit tapestry of musculature still contorted in pain. A swarm of botflies darting like squadrons of fighters on their attack runs about the bloated and oozing body. Her hair hung in rivulets of rot down an emaciated back, entangling exposed ribs in a cascade of ebony. Beneath shriveled toes of the crucified, dripping with the castaway filth of maggot’s excrement, lay a pile lightsabers. Scrawled upon a splintered breastplate in the fading vermillion of dried blood bore the words of victory ...The Jedi’s Failure… The Hutt’s crimson visage took in the Sith before him, comparing their own words with the vision of the Sith Empire. His gift was the vision of what it meant to be true Sith. To crush their enemies completely and without mercy. Not to hide in their fear-filled barrows like flitting ghosts. He cared not for their admonishments, it was not the Hutt that had set up a factory on an enemy planet. He cared not to speak, but to share the glory of the enemy's destruction with his brethren, without contempt. The death that was coming, the fear, the terror was a mighty feast for all to partake in. Power beyond the untamed tools of industry.

Balanced like a feline upon a stone-hewn helm of a long dead king, the conduit called to the spirits of Korriban’s past. A feast of carrion upon a decaying soul. Only one of a legion appeared that did not desire sustenance through torture. Leaning against sandstone, a small murmur of the Force would call to the daughter of Ar-Pharazon, like a stone cast upon a placid lake, breaking the surface to reveal a swarm of life lurking beneath. A living shadow, holding faint semblance of the Valley of the Dark Lords. A smile of sharpened teeth was all that could be seen from cowled shadows. “Do you forever desire to wield the creation of another? Without a bond forged in creation, your weapon only carries the scent of weakness… The odor of a thousand unknown shatterpoints... ”

Vindalo’s corrupted eyes flashed a sulphuric yellow as he listened to the young girl speak in her ambling tone. There seemed to be a growing propagation of young teenage prodigies that thought themselves to be the absolute topmost in all things. Former slaves made the best Sith, their past traumas were an absolute joy to work with. His lips pressed into a forced and tolerating smile as the girl’s voice continued to grate upon his ears. “Oh yes… Public relations people are such absolute bores. Bureaucratically Philistine in their taste in decoration…” Karema swept his robes about him in a tight swirl, a tinkle of unmanly laughter spilling from his lips as he mockingly danced a Kuatian Two-step, the air acting as his partner. It was a flash of crimson and gold and bouncing curls. “As for us my dear, we are SITH!” He emphasized the word with the ignition of his double-bladed lightsaber, staining the decks with crimson light. With a flip he landed before her, passing the rotating blade behind his back in a flourish. With the touch of a finely manicured hand upon the decking, the Sith Lord caused Celora to levitate and then drop to the ground in a rush of clothing and the clattering of a blaster rifle. Fire swirled about her in a dance of ethereal scorpions painted in bloodied flame “You'll know what power is when we are done."

Anders Rae slipped silently beside the young Cathar the darkness of his cloak swirling about him like a shadow. His eyes were those of a demon, and without his Master’s influence, the Sith Lord was eager to leave behind the abhorrent laziness that had consumed him. Scarron Rae, his mirror in every way but sex, stepped to the other side of the Cathar, brushing aside a long lock of auburn hair from her sulphuric gaze. They were both clad in simple cloaks and tunics of pure black, stained from years of work beside the former Dark Lord of the Sith. Scarron pressed the credit-chit back into the Cathar’s furred paw with delicate fingers, painted in crimson with the symbolism of the Sith. A swirling tapestry that foretold the spells of witchcraft in which she was proficient entwined every finger, arising from the cuticle to disappear within her robed sleeves like a vine creeping up a marble pillar. “Keep your money, young thing… You are the apprentice of Sheog the Mad…” Anders stepped forward, his boots of blackened steel making a satisfying click. “Worry not about material possessions or comfort, for with the Sith you will have both, but as an apprentice you must first earn them.” Scarron pressed a simple knife of durasteel into the Cathar’s hand. “You have shown you can be a diplomat, now show us you can do more than talk. Take a room for your own, and bring us back the body… And the story.”

The Hutt eyed his apprentices with great interest. The former beast had regained its humanity in part, a gift taken with its death on Hoth, and given again upon Onderon. The overlarge Hutt nodded to the twins and pushed himself further into the interior of the facility, leaving behind his retinue. Vindalo placed a hand on the shoulder of the young woman whom he had equipped with a weapon and nodded to the Master of the Krath. He beckoned for Uriel and his associate to join him with a smile and a wave of finely manicured fingers. His other hand brushed fine strands of darkened hair from his corrupted eyes. The man considered himself a dandy, and as a Sith Lord of the Order of Assassins he took every opportunity to blend into the lavish surroundings he often found himself in as he followed the Master of Gluttony. Karema was no different in his taste of men and the finer things that Avarice had bound him to. They were fraternal twins but held a bond forged through the Force that even their opposed orders could not break. The Vermandois brothers were the last of their family, having lost everything under the savage Jedi attack on the innocents of Kuat. Lords of Assassin and Warrior, bound to Sheog through friendship more than pure force of will. Vindalo spoke to both Uriel and the girl who still held her E-11 like a mocking soldier “While our master is occupied with the inner workings of the Sith, let us train together…” A small bead of sweat trickled through the back of his long hair, and a nervous laugh filtered through his thin lips. Karema stepped forward, bringing his cape about him in an overdramatic sweep which filled two roles, to distract from his brother’s nervousness, and the bring attention to the beautiful stitching on the crimson and gold robes. They were inlaid with the language of the Sith, which neither of them could read, and so it only served the purpose of a flashy display of wealth and opulence. “Soooo… What emotions do you both feel the most power from?” The insane Master of the Krath followed the sound of of The Dark Lord’s desires, winding a trail of slime towards the inner facility where his friend awaited him. He was wary of his surroundings, and gathered his gluttonous hunger about him like the web of an overly chubby arachnid. His staff bit into the tiled flooring with each push of his muscular tail, and through it he could taste the facility about him. <> The Hutt passed slowly through the doorway, disliking the standard-sized doors that were built for humanoids. He breathed in a blubbery breath and observed the scene before him, before slithering up to the Dark Lord with a large smile plastered across his deformed face. His voice showed reverence and respect but no grovelling sucking up that was common for such interactions <> The Great Master of the Krath held out a slimy fist towards the Dark Lord, in a symbol of greeting he had recently scene on a midday holodrama. His heavily lidded eyes blinked as he obsereved the others in the room. A cloaked droid, with eyes of fire and the same rude Twi'lek as before. His mind recalled the lessons of Galactic History as he faced the two of them <