Krath Inmortos

Inmortos tore his eyes away from the unseen scene above, what became of Apothos was not a mantle for the necromancer’s shoulder; not while the Sith still breathed anyway. All about him, the undead surged, their countless eyes relaying to the shadow-clad skeleton of a man the goings on of a city in turmoil and hopelessness. Even now, the city itself quaked beneath the lord of death and time eternal. Still, the rebels pressed on, intent on some unfathomable fools’ errand to try and lap up that which had rightfully fallen from the master’s table. The city would be lost. Inmortos was sure of it. He had seen to it. There were other cities that Apothos could ply his trades upon. This one, this one would serve as an example for all who opposed the Sith, and as warning to these so called rebels that their meddling came with a price; one too great for them to pay again and again and not be clasped in the steel maw of darkness and despair. And yet still, they fought. Carried by his surge of undead, Inmortos flew through the city. His legion of undead lizards had fallen to unknown forces. They were a worthless sacrifice and yet, Inmortos found that those people, they who worshipped him as a god in life and death, their sacrifices here pulled at the strings of his withered heart. Those had been his minions, sacrificed to serve him and butchered senselessly by these usurpers to the throne world of Apothos. Apothos would pay for them. These rebels would pay for them. And so, back towards the shipyards, the surge carried the dark lord. The canted spire that once was the pride of the galactic industry, battered, broken, listing and frozen barely stood. Hordes of undead surged through the shattered doors and windows. They deposited Inmortos inside the devastated main entry hall. The security post was vacant and decimated, Apothos’ deepguard having followed their programming and seeking out insubordinates and degenerated. Clutching his heavy cane in hand, Inmortos began his slow shuffle through the hall. He felt the force whirling lime a tempest, clawing in hunger for more blood, more death. Making his way throughbthe complex, Inmortos followed the call, the taste, of death. It led him to a locked door; blast doors sealed by the security countermeasures. What was behind it tasted other-than-heavenly. The taste of death was almost overwhelming. With his free hand, Inmortos slammed it into the door with a resounding gong. The sorcerer’s nails dug into the metal as wisps acidic rose beneath his palm. Energy poured forth from the dark side manifesting in tendrils of rapid aging and unmaking. The door began to crumble before the necromancer’s magic; slow at first, but as the door gave way, it clattered to the floor before him with a resounding bang about the hangar. Inmortos surveyed the scene within. The icy air was a remnant of his magics and he welcomed their cool embrace. The undead and dead littered the floor, some stacked like cordwood by the rebels. Behind him, more undead surged, held at bay by the will of the sorcerer. He regarded the rebels with a sick curiousity. They certainly looked like mortals, but their souls . . . their souls did not exist? They were droids! Blasphemous creations, tools of Apothos will. They were of little use to Inmortos; but their smoking husks may yet be of use to his fellow lord of Mon Cal. With what they carried in their cores, the rebellion could be quashed for eternity. The mortals, well, their souls would be added to his trove of souls gems. Treasures to be ferreted away in his vault. Standing there in the shadows, Inmortos allowed the dark bess of the force to swirl about him, manifesting as a cold breeze that whistled towards the door that contained the rebel forces. With a sharp crack, the Sith lord’s blackened saber hissed to life, it’s blackened energized blade drawing heat and light towards the abysmal maw of it’s existence. Steam and fog curled from the hilt, bathing the Sith in an ethereal fog of war painting him a cloaked specter; the embodiment of death itself. “It is the end rebels. Be gone.”

Locked in physical combat was a place that Inmortos did not desire to find himself, especially with a rabid dog such as Mythos. He felt the beast’s anger, it whirled within the blowing winds in an invisible vortex of power that buffeted and empowered the very darkness the Sith was drawing upon. The heat of that passion became ice cold as it flowed through Inmortos and back out into the rebel commander. The icy tendrils snaked along the wolfman’s body, freezing muscle, bone, and blood in an ever expanding grasp of ice. His bladed hand caught in the rebel’s mechanized paw, left Inmortos feeling even more exposed to the incoming surge of teeth and rage. With a cry, the cryomancer did the only thing he could do, he fueled the ice that branched from his fingertips. Overhead, Inmorts could sense the clash of light and dark as Kirlocca and Apothos sought to best one another. Even if he was bot coherent enough to know what it was, the chaotic surges of darkness only empowered the Sith more. And then it happened, a horrible darkness erupted across the cityscape. The wailing and gnashing of teeth was but a whisper compared to the dark tear wrought upon the natural world. Apothos’ own machinations had struck a blow, in unison as only droids might, killing thousands in an instant. Apothos had sacrificed his own subjects. Nothing was beneath him. Nothing would stop his quest for power. Without a conscious thought on it, Inmortos’ face twisted in evil glee. The Necromancer’s tongue lolled from his mouth like a beast trying to taste the meal that it sought. He drew the power inward sending it cascading forth in an unhindered flow of heat-draining, life-sucking power. Mythos began to crystalize, the cool blue of absolute timelessness and lifelessness metastasizing across Mythos’ furred skin and armored form. It moved rapidly across the dog, cementing the canine in a twisted statued form of his final rage; his teeth, mere inches from Inmortos throat. And still Inmortos poured the energy of absolute nothingness from his hand ibto the dog, a ragged growl of anger searing from his mouth. Grasped in the dog’s dying grasp, Inmortos was trapped until the energies of cold and darkness overwhelmed the steeled mechanics of the arm, causing it to split and crack and rupture beneath the onslaught of cold. Ripping his arm free, Inmortos stumbled backwards still clutching his saber. He blinked and regarded the frozen figure before him, sparks fizzling from his exploded arm. Shaking his head, the Sith lunged, hacking away at the dog’s arm with his saber as he sent bits of frozen flesh and electronics clattering to the ground. He howled into the wind, the force feeling his raw emotion and feeding off it. The gale force winds whipped the snow into a fury about him and did not relent until the frail sorcerer tired of his onslaught; the dog’s stump of an arm reduced to nothing but a frozen stump. Stretching his back, he righted himself from his display of anger at having been touched, no attacked, by such an inferior animal. Inmortos lowered his arm that clutched his saber, deactivating it with a hiss. The force responded to this act even, the winds about the dark lord subsiding briefly before being picked up by the storm overhead. Inmortos regarded the rebel before him. He had fought and his soul bellied a being of power, power that yet existed within the frozen corpse that stood. Reaching into his robes, Inmortos produced a stoppered flask of milky white etherous liquid. Opening the bottle, the Sith approached, holding the flask near the frozen being’s snarling maw. Beneath his breath he chanted ritually, his words a long forgotten tongue of ancient forgotten magicks. He called to the soul of the dog, drew it into his throat until it streamed from between his teeth and into and unto the bottle. Catching what he could, Inmortos chanted until the vial was full and overflowing. Only the. Did he stop. He stoppered the flask with a squelch, stepping back to regard the soul-drooling statue with disdain. It was not his entire soul; bit it was enough. He would use it to the furtherance of his power, perhaps embed it into his throne or the walls of his citadel. Maybe even, with such power contained within this liquified shard, he would use it as a portion upon which to craft a crown worthy of his brow. He brushed the thoughts away with a wave of his knuckled white hand. Those were for another time. He regarded the dog again for a moment. He had tried and failed, as the Sith knew he would; for what else could be expected of a dog. There, amongst the maelstrom of force and weather, of death and dying and undying, Inmortos put the dog from his mind. He had other matters to attend to. Turning, Inmortos raised a single hand. It wavered in the air for but a moment before he let it fall. As he did, the command that held the hordes of undead back was broken and both the Sith and Mythos were swarmed by the hungering lifeless throngs. As he made his way through the surge of his own creations, they parted before him. Behind him, he could hear the slobbering and snapping as the zombies claimed another unto their own. Inmortos eyes glanced skyward; somewhere amidst the gale his partner danced the dance of death. If he were to fall, Inmortos had a plan for his body as well. ______________ Elsewhere throughout the city, the throngs of undead continued their tireless advance. Scores more continued to crawl from the seas. Where the ice, cold, and wind had not forced open sealed entrances and walls, the press of thousands of undead often did. Pressing inwards, upwards, and downwards, the legions of death were met with fear and revision wherever they went. Where two were cut down, three more surged to fill their ranks. Where innocents fell, their deaths were but a final moment of sanity before they joined the throng. Into the city, into the buildings, into the depths, the horde advanced, caring not for preservation of life or matter. They tore at whoever or whatever was in their way, their singular goal apparent: destruction of anyone or anything that might hold life. Beneath the water line, the city itself began to crack, trickles of water erupting into torrents as even the mechanized safety measures of the city failed beneath the accursed machination’s of Apothos’ mechu-deru. The dead surged with the water as it cascaded downwards into the city beneath the city, a city beneath the waves. Icy torrents of destruction that bit and tore without thought of who or what was before it. And the city, floating upon the once pristine, now frozen seas of Mon Cal lurched mightily as the water began to reclaim her birthright.

Inmortos eyed the wolf even as he righted himself, his pulsating blade still in hand. The freezings mists rolled from the activated blade about the Sith mage. His gaze did not falter, his vision following the swift movements of the wolf. It was due to this evil-fueled gaze that Inmortos saw as the moving blur of fur and fang tossed an explosive into the air overhead. The sorcerer’s lips twisted in a smile of evil glee. The dog was rushing his encircling array of razored spears and shards of ice. The fool. As the explosive detonated overhead, Inmortos winced, his eyes squeezing shut out of some bit of primal survival reaction still carried in his decrepit and defiled form. And as his sight was obliterated in the moment, ending his continual glare of disdain, the Sith laughed. It was a deep rasping cackle of glee that carried over the battlefield; magnifying as the wolf threw itself onto the spears of ice. He could taste the blood in the wind-whipped air. Like a dog, this rebel had thrown himself forward, unable to calculate a safer path to it’s goal. So focused on it’s rabid intent that it did not care what could befall it before such a task could be completed. With his vile saber in hand, Inmortos lashed out. He did not need his eyes to see, for he was a creature of thebdarkness, a servant of the black eternal abyss. His was the vision of the ancients. His was the vision of the gods. His was the vision of the darkest realms of the force and it was this that he allowed to speak to what remained of his tattered and shriveled soul. Twisting Inmortos, drove his saber forwards into the storm of emotions that painted his attacker. He directed a broad sweep and stab of his black blade of despair towards the dog’s maw. He was not a bone to be chewed upon, cast away from the master’s table. He was the master, this battlefield his table, and this dog an infidel to be put down. Even so, the dog’s claws raked against Inmortos’ arm. It was a touch. It was pain. The dark man’s flesh split beneath the canine’s rabid talons. The touch, the pain, was all he needed. The dark energies of the force rejoiced in their servant’s pain. Inmortos’ face twisted in pain and rage. How dare this dog touch him again! Inmortos’ blade flurried blindly against the wolf, the winds of the gale surging once again to try and drive him back unto the spears of death. The wolf’s claw-filled paw that raked the sorcerer’s arm were met by the touch of icy flesh. Inmortos own hand, the one free of the saber, came down atop the muscled tendons and fur of the dog, the deepest recesses of the force pouring forth their storehouses. From the lowest depths of hell, Inmortos called the absoluteness of nothingness. No heat, no life, pure still death. With a touch, Inmortos loosed these powers unto the world, their frigid grasp expanding, seeking to draw the wolf into their gasp, a frozen statue, breath sapped from his body, life imprisoned for eternity in a moment of time. Rapidly these tendrils exuded outward, seeking whatever they might touch, so as to entomb whatever fell to their grasp in an eternity of timeless ice and death. ((3)) ((ACTIONS: -was blinded by the flash grenade, but guided by the force and close proximity of Mythos’ raw emotions. -moved his saber to intercept Mythos’ bite attack to simultaneously seek to skewer Mythos in the face. -Used a blast of wind coupled with some indiscriminate slashes of his saber to try and drive Mythos back into the spikes from last round. -Received lacerations to the arm from Mythos’ claws, using the skin to skin contact to try and freeze Mythos via a direct touch attack of Creeping Doom.))

The billows of smoke were enough to obscure the sorcerer’s vision, if but for a moment before the winds of the storm began to carry them away. It was enough. As the whispy necromancer’s eyes searched for the signature soul of the wolfman, he moved forward, his blade held at the ready. Such a dog was not worthy to die by such a hallowed weapon, but if he wanted to play these games Inmortos would not hesitate to smite him in whatever way became necessary. And then he struck. Inmortos barely caught the soul-bound canine’s surge out of the corner of his eye as he scanned the battlefield. On instinct, the sorcerer spun, his singularity-fueled blade whirling in the snow and smoke as a surging blast of wind erupted from the Sith lord’s very being. The chaos that followed was immediate. Inmortos blade tangled with that of the wolf’s, his foe’s physiciality a power that Inmortos could not hope to meet head on. The surge of wind from the Krath raged towards Mythos, sucking away heat in the air and attempting to drive the warrior back by the power of the force, the power of nature’s life-claiming fury. Allowing the wind to throw him back on the waves of the force, Inmortos flew backwards towards the spire of Apothos, landing with a clatter on the frozen ground. The dog’s blade had been parried in part by the saber and Inmortos flung away from the brunt of the injury by the dark winds of the storm that he commanded. And yet, the wolf’s blade had not entirely missed it’s mark, tearing a gash in the dark lord’s swirling robes and tracing a track of blood and ichor across the Sith’s thin-skinned hip. Blade still in hand, Inmortos righted himself to a crouch, his robes still swirling about him in the tempest he drove towards his foe. With his free hand, the Sith touched the ground, the force surging forth from his frozen hand into the ground sending erupting spines and spikes from the frozen ice-covered ground outwards from his location in every direction, snares of certain destruction should the dog charge him again powering upwards and outwards in a shielding ring of destruction. And still, he glared at his foe. It would not due to let the beast from his site again. Inmortos’ eyes simmered with hatred and pain powering his unholy gaze of cruel disdain as he sought to stare into the rebel’s heart and soul, to freeze it in place and lock his musclebound body in a statuesque pose of pain. “Stay down dog.” he hissed, his voice billowing out on the steam of his breath. Never again would Inmortos allow such a lowly mortal to touch him again. He would see to it that this dog was frozen solid. From that crystalline statue, he would draw forth the dog’s very soul. Such a powerful essence would be used to build his temple, his entombing monument of eternity. The dog’s soul was worth more than his body. After this battle, the dog’s body would be too frozen to be of much use in the ensuing battle. ((2)) ((ACTIONS: Tangled Inmortos Stillblade with Mythos weapon to divert the brunt of the attack while simultaneously using Darkness Reigns to blast Mythos with a surge of icy wind and blowing Inmortos back to create space between the combatants. Some damage was still taken from Mythos’ blade. Landing, Inmortos used Maw of Inevitability to send a surge of icy spikes erupting from the ice and snow covered ground outwards and pressing his Glare of Cruel Disdain in a renewed surge. NOTE: Inmortos as a cryomancer and necromancer is not directly seeking to deal direct damage in a conventional sense, but is seeking to entirely shut down his opponent, freezing him and hindering him until he can no longer stand against the powers of entropy and death. ))

Inmortos stood there, his guttural cry sending the wolfman’s dogs running. All about the two that still stood, like a fluid pulsating wave that defined the amoebous edge of their battlefield, the hordes of undead surged against a seemingly invisible barrier, held back by a mental tick issued by the necromancer himself. They would not surge, would not move towards the Shistaven as long as their master deemed it so. If one were to come to close however, they would not be controlled outright. Such was the power over the entity known as death. The only place about them that was not a mass of moaning hungering dead was the spire of Apothos tower that Mythos had sent his pups into as if it would protect them. His shouting voice fell to a hiss, Inmortos regarded the sole soul that lingered before him. He was an alpha dog; a dog that bore it’s fangs in defiance of certain doom in hopes that it might intimidate this unknown foe. Today, this dog would learn it’s place. Today, the dog would be put down. Blinking once, the man whose soul was as cold as his flesh, concentrated the power that flowed through and around his body. He called forth the forces of death and timelessness that were heralded by the cold and directed them with an unblinking glare of cruel disdain towards the wolfman. He sought to convey an unnatural chill even more frigid than the arctic winds and snow that flew about them; to shatter the dog’s focus and disrupt his aim, causing von Howlster’s muscles to seize and tremble resisting the will of their owner. With a glance, the Sith Lord showed his power. He had not even moved from where he stood, his blackened blade crackling against the blowing snow. But to freeze the mutt was not enough. This dog had bore his teeth to a superior and needed to learn his place. Inmortos knew enough about the ways of life and death to know such a challenge could not be left to stand. With a skeletally knobbed hand clenching his wicked saber, Inmortos used the other to gesture menacingly, drawing a single undead forward, a rebel of unknown background or breeding. The only known was that this interloper he had fallen to the scourge and been absorbed amongst them. With a clenching of his fist, the undead crumpled to the ground his soul manifesting in the dark man’s palm. With a twist of his hand, the dark waves of the force destabilized the soul of the rebel and Inmortos sent it careening forward towards the wolf. A wraith of the fallen rebel surged forward with a scream, charging towards the rebel leader, unable to recognize his once ally or stop his advance. He would only stop when he reached the Shistaven’s location, the destabilized soul going to implode in upon itself. It was akin to a fragmentation grenade in reverse and would seek to draw deepguard, snow, ice and anything not bolted down upon itself with lethal velocity. Accompanying this shattered soul, a trio of undead surged forth from the mass, commanded by the will of the necromancer. Animalistic beasts in a shambling rush, they sought to claw and gnaw and tackle, bind and ravage the wolfman to the frozen ground. Inmortos pressed their corrupted minds to the point of breaking, all it took was a touch of their mind by one who understood death. Tearing past the dark man clad in his deathly robes, the dead charged for Mythos. And still, he stood. ((1)) ((Powers are drawn from The Cryomancer’s Guide and from The Necromancer’s Guide. Both are linked here for perusal. I tried to include some description of the power’s potential effects in the post. ACTIONS: -Glare of Cruel Disdain directed towards Mythos -Used Soul Shatter on an undead to seize it’s soul and destabilize it, sending a ghostly figure of the former owner towards Mythos’ current location. This is fragmentation grenade for a sorcerer. The only exception being that instead of exploding, this implodes upon a point of singularity -Gravetide used to send three undead surging towards Mythos to try and take him down, the dead coming from behind Inmortos and passing by him to go towards Mythos))

The screaming fireball of Nok Morliss’ ship was enough to draw Inmortos from his fervor. Even as the whitened surround of the city’s cold grasp ensnared and shrouded the world mere feet in any direction across the city, the vastness of the explosion tore over it all. The heat of it erupting in a cosmic inferno that signaled above the storm-swept chaos below that the battle was far from settled. Allowing his fueling of the storm to cease, Inmortos regarded the maelstrom that he had breathed essence into. It, like the undead that surged all around him now, had taken a life of it’s own. It would be several hours before it would dissipate from the intensity it now bore down upon Mon Cal and Coral City. The Sith lord’s glowing essence within the force faded some as he breathed a sigh of relief. Such a conjuring was a signature weapon of the cryomancer and yet the act drew a price from the caster. The Sith’s skin was frozen and blackened, in places by the ichor that clung clanily to his ice cold skin; in others by the frostbite that had taken hold of his exposed flesh. Coupled with flayed flesh that exposed some of his skeletal features beneath from the biological weapon of the Mandalorians and Inmortos was a visage of the reaper himself. And yet, over the howl of the storm, another howl pierced the winds. They were almost indiscernible against the blizzard until too late. The bombs and ordinance of the Mandalorian onslaught erupted in explosions across the surface of the shipyards. They sent billows of flame and duracrete into the wind, crating the ground and punching holes in buildings. All about Inmortos the hellfire of the children of Mandalore fell. The dead surged still, unaffected by the incoming doom. Those that were caught fought to pull themselves forward, the pain meaningless. Only the truly valorized were halted in their undead singular aggression. Around Inmortos those that were not cut down by the assault were felled by the necromantic powers of evil. The Sith Lord tore the essence of life from their bodies forming them each into swirlibg vortexing spheres of deconstructive power that whipped with fury and frenzy about his frail form. They swallowed the bulk of the debris that sought to tear at his flesh and render him into countless pieces. And even then, a pulse of light side energies radiated across the darkness that clung heavily to the world only shadowed by the dark powers Inmortos had come to recognize as that of Apothos. It would do no good for the Nemodian to fall. This world was his to command and Inmortos had many resources still to harvest from here before he tired of the sniveling lizard. As the onslaught of bombing ceased, Inmortos waived the remainder of his ubdead kobold-lizards off, directing them to find they that were assaulting the shipyards and end them, to swarm the tower up and down and to not cease until death was all that remained. Inmortos threw himself into the press of undead. He was carried by their writhing bodies and hands quicker than any mere mortal might be able to traverse. With a glance and a thought, Inmortos directed his chaotic carriage towards the spire from which Apothos called down his dark machinations. The battle surged greater here. Blaster fire and the screams of the damned and doomed pierced the howling winds. At the entrance to the tower formed a band of rebels. They were fools. They would die as fools. The snow crunched underfoot as Inmortos approached slowly; the ice beneath a hidden temptress awaiting a foolish surge of physicality. The wind whipped the snow, icy razors of pain and suffering to exposed flesh. Only the dead did not surge, withdrawing at a mental break issued by the black robes being of death and darkness. A wolf and his dogs. That is what Inmortos observed before him. With a blink of his eyes he surveyed not their physical forms but their souls. The towering wolfman would make an excellent addition to his retinue; but first, he needed to be broken. Some men used the lash. Some used affections and awards. Others used tortures unspoken of in civilized society. Inmortos was different. Those ways were so uncivilized and wasteful. The answer was simple: death. The dog would be broken by his death, reincarnate a subservient soldier at Inmortos’ beck and call. But Inmortos was not devoid of manners. Even death had some manner of decorum. From within the depths of his cowl, held in place by ice and ichor, he licked his lips tasting the souls of those he was about to vanquish. Summoning the dark waves of the force, he enveloped himself in the swirling vortexes of it’s power. Drawing the hilt of his saber from his sleeve, Inmortos clutches the haft of evil before him like a dark priest might carry his sacrificial blade. His staff clattered to the ground beside him. With a deathly hiss the blade erupted. Instead of bathing the blowing snow in a hue of red or any other color, the blade did the opposite. The denatured crystals within created a blade of infinite blackness that drew light unto and into it, shadowing the world about the wielder. Frigid mists radiated from the sorcerer obscuring his form and winds seemed to radiate from him in an outward direction. With the hum of the blade, evil seemed to break free of his chains and an unholy roar of phlegm and blood surged forth from Inmortos. It was a call of animalistic and mythical power. It was a call of the ancients. It called for battle. ((Pre-duel set up between Mythos and Inmortos. The weather and the undead mentioned here are environmental hazards from the battlefield, not NPCs.))

The hordes of undead pushed deeper into the city, their rotting corpses pressing through the snow, pressing each other forward when the elements or defenses hindered them. The city was overwhelmed. The necromancer’s defensive measure was not designed to preserve. It was a spell, a sorcery meant to corrupt and destroy. With gnashing teeth and tearing claws and fingers, the swarm advanced, their cold deathly touch only amplified by the elements. _________________________________ In the shipyards, the sorcerous powers of Inmortos painted him as a beacon in the force. He was the epicenter of the storm and from there he poured power into the storm, it’s power beyond his control as it ravaged the city and the seas beyond. In the turmoil of the vortex overhead a pair of missiles churned through the chaos focused on the highest energy output of the storm: Inmortos himself. They were tossed by the winds and buffeted by the snow and ice that coated their hulls. The dark lord sensed the power of the incoming weapons even before they became visible. His hands slowed their tracing of the intrinsic and profane as he redefined his focus. Staring up into the whiteout, the Sith clenched his fists in defiance. As the missiles began to appear as faint outlines in the flying snow, Inmortos inhaled deeply pulling any of the residual warmth in the air towards him. The missiles lurched and jolted as they closed in rising and falling on the currents of cold and colder; slamming down into the rooftop of the overgrown hangar, detonating on impact. The missiles erupted and the entire western portion of the structure, large enough to construct one of many of the Mon Cal’s massive vessels in, collapsed with a thunderous ground shaking rumble. The weapons’ payloads were detonated in a fiery expulsion, launching them into the maelstrom. Their biological flesh-eating particles were detonated into the building and whipped on the wind currents of the storm dispersing them across the storm. Inmortos stood there, the force a whirling vortex of darkness about him as. The building he stood in collapsed in plumes of dust, ice, fire, and snow all enveloped by the storm. Inmortos vanished into the collapse. The hollow building settled into the cracked ground. All about the undead lizards tensed, pulling themselves from the rubble where it consumed them; grasping their weapons as they moved to guard their quarry yet. Overhead, even without the fuel of the dark side to grow and power it, the storm was strong. It would be hours before it would begin to dissipate; but without fuel, it’s edge was lessened. _________________________________ For minutes, the rubble stood unmoving. Then it shifted, subtly at first. Over and over again the duracrete slabs shifted and quaked, their rumbles shaking the grounds about the shipyard as a large slab that had been held up by a standing portion of the wall collapsed. In a sulfuric plume of smoke and ash, blackened spheres of cracking darkness erupted through the falling slab. Their smoke mixed with the storm overhead. The ground shook as the rest of the duracrete slab crashed down. In the middle of it, a hunched form crouched covered in snow and dust. Orbiting about this form were a dozen spheres of the same black energy of decay and entropy trailing smokey sulphuric gases and bathing the necromancer in a cloud that stood against the call of the biting wind. Slowly standing, the dark visage rose. His robes were ragged and torn, their deep black grayed by the snow and ash and dust. Burnt holes peppered the deathly cloak. Extending his hands out from the thick sleeves of his robe, Inmortos’ hands were pocked with deep and horrid burns from the hex missiles’ payload. Bones and ligaments were exposed against the skeletal hands, blood and ichor pooling and coagulating in the cold as it dribbled out of the wounds. Reaching upwards, the Sith Lord pushed back his hood. His face was ravages by the weapon, a large portion of his skull exposed to the elements. A swath of Inmortos face was missing from his nose across his right cheek and up along his temple. Ichor and blood flowed slowly down his face, bit at by the wind and the cold. Half dead and frozen between life and death, the Sith Lord called his staff to his hand. With a thumping walk forward the orbs of destruction carved a path before the necromancer until he approached the edge of the rubble. Turning his head to the sky, Inmortos let out a howl like that of a lich of legend. He called his lizardly warriors of death to him. Their muscles ground and churned against the bite of the cold as they snapped to lifely movement making their way across the windswept whitened battlefield towards their master. And through it all, Inmortos hands started to move again, calling forth the deepest recesses of the force. He reached deeper than the most crushing depths of Mon Cal’s oceans and high into the sky. He drew the darkness from these unseen heights and depths, calling it, controlling it, bending it to his will. He poured this power back into the storm, his hands tracing runes of power and destruction into the storm. The only things that kept the Mandalorian weapons from destroying Inmortos was the cold and the dark lord’s natural healing abilities. The frozen particulates dissipated across the city in the maw of the storm. Al they need do was be warmed by the world’s sun to renew their deadly quest.

Inmortos danced. His body flailed about almost as if he were possessed. The cold winds tore at his robes. The razored snow and ice tore at his flesh leaving infinite furrows against his pale taut skin. It did not blossom a rosy red against the onslaught of cold. It could not. The Sith Lord was becoming one with the storm, his own body encased in an aura of cold timeless death. Still he danced on. His rooftop perch was swept free of the droves of snow that fell sideways from the sky, carried by the force of the maelstrom. In the distance thunder cracked and rolled, it’s own power unchecked as it rained down flashes of firey power from above. The winds blew. The weight of the darkness of the force Inmortos’ only anchor against being swept downwards. Ice accumulated across any surface it might cling to even momentarily and snow began to drift in deep dunes of crystalline power wherever the wind deposited it to lie. And yet, Inmortos danced on, pouring more and more power and hatred into the storm. He hated these fools who thought that these worlds were worth saving. He hated they they sacrificed their lives so wantonly for something so mortal. He hated the Sith domination. He hated the rebels. He hated the overlords who ground his parents into oblivion. He hated the very idea that this could happen to him. He feared it and reviled it and that gave him power. He raged in anger at the waste this battle created; that it tore him from the one thing that mattered, eternity. His emotions fueled his dance. His frostbit fingers carving their unholy sigils into the biting wind. His words torn from his mouth and lungs to fuel the feast of immortality the storm carried upon it’s fronts. The blood and ichor that seeped from his wounds blossomed into icy shards binding the sorcerer to the storm itself. He was the storm. He could not be stopped until all that he hated had been cemented in ice, ceased in their tracks to be redeemed by his own hands in death. ________________________________ The undead soldiers that Inmortos had ferried with him from his burgeoning fortress world stood guard; sentinel statues amidst the chaos. Their undead muscles froze and solidified in the cold. They felt no pain. They did not shiver or seize. They stood. When the time to move would come upon them, they would quake and snap. Pain that would fell a living thing was nothing to them. Broken limbs and torn muscles were merely a hindrance to be overcome. The twenty undead lizardfolk progressed asa barbaric mass against those assaulting the slowly closing doors. The hissed and cries and bit and clawed and struck with their fanged metal weapons. Driven back and knocked down by the overwhelming firepower of the rebel force, they kept getting up, dragging deadened limbs or crawling forward with their hands, raging the whole time. The only way to stop them would be atomization or destruction to a point that they flopped on the ground, no longer a threat. They felt no pain, their vision burned red with the master’s will: destroy. It was the gift of their god. Their will for no more pain, no more loneliness, no more death. Elevated above their mortal peers to demigod like status back on their homeworld. The assault pressed forward unhindered even as an explosion rumbled in the building behind their prey. Even when the ground opened up swallowing some of them, there were no cries of pain, no whimpers for mercy. Instead they clawed their way out, burnt and smoking, focused on the hunt. __________________________________ Elsewhere about the fringes of the city, the sea gave up her dead without question. Long since having crawled forth from the depths, summoned by profane powers, the long dead of Mon Cal surged forth, oozing, shambling, and even crawling. Some carried ancient and not so ancient weapons akin to their time of death; many advanced empty handed, hans clawing for flesh and anything that got in their way. Their skin and sinews hung as ragged as the remnants of their clothes. They came and they kept coming, clamoring up the city sides and across the ice. Wheb the ice broke beneath their crush, the fetid remains of Mon Cal, Quarren, men and women, and more pressed on and up. They were called by a darker purpose and they would not be denied. They were the dead of Mon Cal brought back unto unlife. Pain did not hinder them. Cold and loss of limb were but a hindrance to be overcome. At the city’s edges they pressed and inward they drove en masse, ransacking anyone and anything in their paths. Locked doors gave them pause, but even then the crush of their weight was enough to overcome but the greatest of security measures. Those unfortunate enough to be caught in their midst and grasp were devoured and destroyed until their mangled bodies rose upon the necromancic energies that radiated from the swarm; joining their undead kin. _______________________________ The pipeline explosion shook the structure Inmortos’ used as a perch. He was so lost in his neurotic dance that he hardly noticed, stumbling only to right himself and continue to throw himself into his profane ritual. ((OOC NOTE: Both the blizzard and the undead horde are environmental hazards brought to bear in the environment that is the battlefield and skies above and seas beneath. The NPCs that Inmortos brought with him are not environmental , but are simply flavorful NPCs.))

He felt it. Inmortos felt the dark rippling of the force currents as soon as the Mandalorians burst into the atmosphere. It made him grin, a sickly smile of bloodstained yellowed and blackened teeth. It was a flavor long remembered, to when the Sith and warriors of Mandalor had bathed together in blood side by side. That dark fealty was a power few could command. Not in life at least. Inmortos cackled as he made a mental note to resurrect the dead shield maidens and berserkers at battle’s end. For it was to be a battle. All around him, landing craft had rained down from the sky. Their steeled shells spewed forth legions of commandos unto the city, Apothos’ City, a City of the Sith! It had been fortuitous that they had returned, almost as if the force itself willed their presence upon this world; called forth to defend with dark savagery that which was theirs to claim. Looking to the sky, Inmortos could see the battle beginning to unfold above, the swarms of Mandalorian riders a herald for an unnatural pairing. Inmortos head whipped downward as if he could surveil in a glance. Children of the light, children of weakness, they were here as well. Worthy sacrifices perhaps? With his eyes narrowed, the Sith Lord could see the beginnings of an assault across the massive duracrete field that made up the largest shipyards in the floating city. He stood amongst the warehouses and construction bays, but in the distance the sound and flash of blasters foretold of death. Inmortos licked his lips. Ah death. With a wave of his gaunt sallow hand, Inmortos wordlessly directed twenty of his hundred undead lizard primitives to aid in the defense of Apothos’ divine sanctuary of finance, the unholy halls of Mon Cal Shipyards. Clad in angled blackened plate and mail, bearing weapons of medieval evil nature (spears, swords, etc) the diminutive lizards fell into a haphazard charge, their hissing battle cries heralding their chaotic advance on the men, women, and droids pushing against the entrance of Apothos’ sanctum. Without waiting to see if his undead minions would succeed, Inmortos turned and approached the nearest hulking enclosed ship bay, a rickety stair provided all the access he needed. With a thought he directed the eighty remaining kobold-esque undead to surround the structure. No access would be allowed, wilingly. Hand over hand and step by step, the prematurely aged sorcerer ascended the rocking stairs, the winds beginning to whip his heavy robes about him as they began to grow and crescendo following the chanting rasp of the Krath’s voice as it formed ancient words that were carried forth by the wind and the tempestuous roil of the dark side. Gaining the roof, Inmortos leaned into the wind, clasping his ithor wooded cane against the howl. With steps as sure as the encroach of death itself, Inmortos walked to the center of the roof. Once there, the Sith Lord’s voice rose as he threw back his head howling his accursed tongue unto the winds. His staff fell to the room with a clank as the Sith’s hands preoccupied themselves with repeatedly tracing profane sigils unto the air and wind, each born and carried forth into the darkening sky. Across the city and centering upon the sorcerer, radiating out in etching arching bands of cold, the temperatures began to plummet. It would take some time, but soon enough even the seas that lapped at the city’s edge would begin to crystalize, frozen in the embrace of darkness, death, and eternity as the warmth was sapped from them. Overhead, deep dark clouds began to channel themselves into existence, exploding exponentially over and over again with each unholy cast of Sithly magic. They began to poor forth sheets of driving rain that froze to whatever it clung to. The city that was bathed in darkness by the rebels own assault would fall even deeper into the black as the power of the Sith sought to block out the very sun. And still the temperatures fell and the winds howled their ethereal call. Across the city, liquids began to solidify, fuels began to gel before solidifying in time. Joints froze. Engines seized. Lives began to wither against the onslaught of winter’s beauty unleashed once again upon the city and world. Still, Inmortos chanted; his words were torn from his lips by the wind. His body sho with the cold as it overtook him. He felt it. The pain of frostbite and beyond wracking his body. That pain drove him, focused him until he looked to be half mad with pain and dark enthusiasm, his frail body dancing in the wind as he traced the darkness of his soul unto the world before him. His cloaked ripped with rage against the frail being’s body, held in place against it’s will as it sought to free itself unto the grasping teeth of the wind. In the distance, thunder pealed out in a chasing cacophony across the city; lighting raining down haphazardly without aim or cause. In centered locals, the wind s began to form themselves into grasping funnels. And all the while, the temperatures continued to fall. Eventually the cold caught up with the onslaught of the weather and the droves of falling rain turned to sleet and then to snow. Driven like innumerable falling shards of glass on the wind, the snow carved farrows into anything soft and exposed. Bathed in the glow of dark side energies, Inmortos allowed any control of the storm to supersede him as he poured forth energies into the blizzard.

In close formation with Apothos’ ship, the Eternus dropped from hyper. The bridge was cold and empty save for one black-shroud being who stood at the helm. The temperature in the ship was just enough to preserve life, bearing back the eternal embrace of the emptiness of the cosmos. The phrase ‘like a meat locker’ was only apt in that it barely touched on how cold it was within. The edges of the crafts view panes were spiderwebbed with frost. The dark lord shivered momentarily against the cold, a vestigial reminder of his still somewhat mortal body. He had departed Aaris III before his ritual had been completed. The man longed for nothing more than to continue his construction on his tombworld, a legacy to remembered across tome eternal; but with his power came responsibility. A responsibility to the more carnal ventures of the Sith Empire; and so he had returned with Apothos to his throne to obtain crafts of war upon which to carry the legions of his undead servants, to subjugate the galaxy and in that allow Inmortos time to cement his own legacy in stone, blood, and ice. With slow deliberate movement, Inmortos surveilled the orb before him. Mon Cal, that perfect jewel, hung weightless against a backdrop of stars. The flaws of the world wrought by the weakness of Nok Morliss, a weakness now carved free of his flesh, glimmered like cracks on the world’s surface. A dark presence emanated from the ship, connecting with the lingering sorcerous necromancy Inmortos had left in place upon this world. If it had been a test of his abilities, the stating power of the magics, even this far away, boasted of unseen success. The status of the bodies reclaimed from the deep was another matter entirely, one of which had yet to be seen. Yet something was wrong, Inmortos could feel it, a chaos not of Sith machinations blended with the cries of recent and long ago rendered evils that echoed from the world. Surveying the cosmos, Inmortos pondered as to the location of Apothos vast fleets. Had the one he had unshackled been deceiving him all along? With a determined depression, Inmortos keyed a comm directly to his comrade. His voice was a harsh grating whisper, cold and heavy, in a word, lifeless. “Apothos. Your world smells of chaos wrought not by our hands. Revolution unto a god is sacrilege. Punish them.” He lifted his finger from the comm before adding with a hiss, “Or I will.” So much water. So many servants cast unto the deep and forgotten by their brothers in arms and loved ones. So much potential. This world was truly a gem to behold and with the proper urging could be transformed into an icy tomb of immortality; but first, it must be crushed. The Eternus angled itself, not waiting for Apothos reaction and began a sharp descent towards the planet. Whatever was going on would be dealt with. Permanently. All the Sith Lord needed was a place to land. The shipyards were open and known to Inmortos to contain the prizes of his brother. They mattered little to him; however, the ships and knowledge contained within would be of great use in establishing Inmortos’ own contribution to the Sith war effort. Then at last, he might be left to his own devices, to eternity. The Eternus landed softly in the midst of the yards, a flurry of armed deepguard noting the ship’s arrival and logging it as the dark lord’s. A token emissary stood to greet him as the clunk of his cane heralded his decent to the planet. “Go.” he waived his hands at the droids, sending them off to their more oressing tasks of suppression. With a grandiose wave of his hands, dark ripples of energy cascaded outwards from the Sith, swarming back unto the ship like a pack of ravenous howlrunners clawing atop one another until they surged within and awoke the slabs of undead stacked within the hold. Within minutes an entire squadron of diminutive lizardfolk armed with jagged evil spears and blades and clad in bulk plate and mail trudged forth. The life was gone from their eyes, replaced with a hunger; obedient, subservient, and deadly. The first of Inmortos undead servants from Aaris III to be blessed to be chosen by their god and carried forth unto the stars. At home, they had already become the stuff of legend. Across the city, chaos seemed to reign in the moment, as even now the hordes of Apothos magicks brutally restored order to what should have been a lesser servant race.

Over the coming days, the foundries that Apothos had discovered beneath the city churned evermore to life. There was all the taw materials a fledgling foundry could ask for. Soon enough the dull roar of their fires could be heard grumbling faintly beneath the city. Weapons, armor, and even the beginnings of an ancient lizard-designed corvette began to take shape beneath the surface. The entry to the foundry that Apothos had found was but one of a chain of such structure, some larger and smaller. Most of them were still secured; although a couple had to be rid of lizardly inhabitants and their primitive abodes. On the surface, Inmortos’ will began to reverberate from his display of power. The lizardfolk warriors who had witnessed the dark lord’s display of power had been quick to spread the news of what they had seen to the others until hisses and chirps were resounding about the island. Within a day’s time, the people were bringing offerings to appease this new being that had descended from the heavens and called forth powers to overthrow their own gods with a wave of his hand. Nothing they brought was good enough. Nothing could appease Inmortos’ appetite. A chosen few, given the mark of the beast, for that is what they called the blackened palm print Inmortos bestowed upon those who quivered bjt dared to stand up to him, had become a sort of vanguard for Inmortos. While they could not stand against his undead Mon Cal and Quarren servants, they served a purpose. They were allowed into the presence of their dark deity. They alone were not struck down in his presence without a gift. They became his hands in their tribes. Over the weeks they began to assemble vast populations of their kin. Some began to slave away in Apothos subterranean realm of fire and shadow. Others worked to clear the rust and overgrowth from the downed city. When one died, his soul was drawn forth by Inmortos himself. It was the only time labor ceased, when the dark deity strode forth to reclaim the life lost. In grief, hope was found; for those who died in the service of their new god-king were reborn, stronger, fearless, and strange. Those blessed enough to die in service worked without ceasing, elevated in status over their mushy mortal brethren. The secrets of necromancy were Inmortos’ alone; but to the primitives, he was their god. He was a defier of death, conqueror of all that was seen and unseen. Those who did not work were sent into the abyss of fire and darkness to slave before the master of the hellscape, never to be seen again. Long dead warriors, ancestors, and friends were unearthed and brought before Inmortos. They too received his touch and rose again to ‘live’ and serve alongside those that had counted them lost for all eternity. And so, the peoples worked diligently. They harvested their foods and purged their city at the will of their overlord. Each lizard that was worked to death had his soul frost harvested, the beginnings of Inmortos’ temple and tomb. Atop the toppled spire of the city’s highest point, a ziggurat of ice began to take shape, it’s cold tendrils branching outwards over the city blanketing the area in an eternal autumn of cool winds and cold nights. Fallen sheets of metal and stones were hoisted by the primitives sheer strength of numbers and desire to please their new god-king. The tower took shape looming over the landscape. The city was coming to life. The world was bowing before the Sith and in that submission, the ancient prosperity was coming to the present and growing exponentially. Within a grand circular central chamber atop the ziggurat, Inmortos stood, his hands raised high and blackened by the frigid air that whirled and swirled about him. He chanted, dark ancient words of prophecy, older than the Sith Empire, older than the Jedi or the Sith, almost as old as the universe itself. From his maw spilled the frost of countless souls, primitives, Mon Cal, any and everyone Inmortos had harvested from. He poured their deaths, their darkest emotions into his creation until it was complete. An ornate throne of swirling whirls and jagged maws of mythical creatures sat there. It was the center of the room and from it radiated an ink cold darkness. It was the lack of fire, lack of heat and light. It was an analogy of death itself, sustained by the darkness and frost and blood that were poured into it. For days, Inmortos carved bloody deathly runes into every sacrifice his enforcers brought to him until the blood flowed freely down the throne and poured forth from the ziggurat unto the masses below. As the days turned to weeks and the weeks to almost a month a vast horde of living and dead assembled beneath the command of Krath Inmortos, deity of life and death. They were armed with fanged blades and clothed in feral armors of night. The dread corvettes that slowly chugged out of the atmosphere were unable to contain the mass army of undead that were being pulled from the soil. The city continued to serve. The ziggurat grew and it’s icy halls expanded outwards, bolstering the foundation and oozing darkness, cold, and ice. It was only then that Inmortos and Apothos opted to depart their newfound conquered world, to return to the lair of water and machine, to Apothos’ den of iniquity. A fleet needed to be commanded to augment the smaller ships of Aaris III and carry forth the armies of Inmortos and the navy of Apothos unto the galaxy.

Inmortos stepped from the shadow of the ship, exiting the breach he had made. Outside he surveyed nearly a dozen skin, tunic, and leather clad lizardfolk. Each clutches a spear or some other makeshift weapon. Towards the back there were even some with crude bows of wood and sinew. The locals eyed the interloping Sith nervously. He could taste their fear. It was almost more sweet than the fear of the fish folk Apothos commanded. These base minds knew much less and feared even more. There was one thing they did know however: power. Power was what subjugated them to their false jungle deities. Power they feared and could not match. Power was what kept order in their subterrainian commonwealths. The rule of might still clung ahold to them, even if they were relatively peaceful. It was true, they were not warriors. Still, Inmortos could taste the baseless death and destruction they had wrought upon this world as if it was yesterday. So fresh, so blurred was the passage of time to the decrepit Sith Lord. All these people needed was a push. A push to show them true power. A push to inspire and invoke fear. A push to bring them under his thumb. Looking out over the gathered few, the chosen, Inmortos knew what he must do. They did not share a language or culture. They did not need to. Stepping forward, Inmortos footsteps crinkled with icy intensity as the moss and growth froze and snapped beneath his death-shod feet. He approached the militia, licking his dry lips and tasting their unease. He did not stop moving forward, slowly. They withdrew, pressed against one another until they were practically crushing their comrades for fear of this man and the aura of death that radiated from his very visage. And then it happened. Finally. With no where else to go, no where to run, no where to turn, a young male drove his stoney spear point into Inmortos. The carved edges sliced through his cloak with ease and the weapon lodged in the Sith Lord’s side drawing blood and ichor in equal amounts to pool and saturate his garment. Only then did Inmortos stop his progress. The dark Firrerreo locked eyes with the lizard-like local who was even now shaking uncontrollably with fear. Not a word was said as silence seemed to fill the air and press in heavily from every side. Running his hand upon his blood-soaked robe Inmortos drew his hand up to look at his own mortality before he turned his attention back to the trembling cowardly soldier before him. Slowly, with the intensity and purpose of oncoming death, Inmortos reached down to grasp the haft of the spear in his bloody hand. With a hiss the weapon dissolved in a crackling of splinters, falling downwards in a fine dust of aged sawdust. The offending lizard gasped as he held out his hands to see the dust that was his weapon sticking to his palms. His shock was not over though, far from it. The Sith Lord lunged closer, his hands shooting out to grasp a limb and face of a lizard on either side of he who had struck him. In a ethereal tidal surge of power that vibrated the leaves of trees down the way, Inmortos unleashed his power so that all might behold. Both the lizard to the right and the left disintegrated to dust amid screams of agony. No one dared to move even as they cringed at the sounds of the pain. Righting himself, Inmortos ran a hand down his wounded side, his innate abilities already trying to stitch the wound. He coated his hand in blood and with it reached out. The lizardman who had attacked him nearly fell in fear, his knees knocking together. Inmortos grabbed his face and the lizard hissed in pain as the blood seemed to burn and freeze leaving a blackened raised scar across his maw. Then and only then, did the Sith throw back his head and cackle. It was a laughter that reached to the sky. The air above them plummeted downwards in a whoosh of wind, it’s tempersture dropping rapidly at the touch of Inmortos’ voice. And all here would know that he, Krath Inmortos, carried forth the powers of life and death, that by the touch of his hand eternal damnation was wrought, and by the kiss of his lips their gods would fall.

Carving a swath of ice and downed trees, Inmortos advanced a sole entity of entropy on the humid worldscape before him. Creature and primitive alike fled before the icy tendrils that branched out into the undergrowth. As he passed, a path of dense ice coated the way in a glassy smooth frigid walkway. As he progressed deeper and deeper, the reptilian residents of the world began to cautiously appear at the edges of the ice, gingerly touching the solidified liquid and chittering in hushed clicking tones. What was this thing that subjugated their world at will? Did it not appear in the same way as the offworld interlopers, in a smooth stone from the sky? What then was this power this darkness-clad being commanded? Where others commanded light in fixed displays, this one subjugated all that stood in his path. Even the ancient forests fell at a breath. Inmortos drew upon the darkness all around him. Life and death were prevalent here amongst the green. Tipping the scales drove the life-filled jungles towards the inevitability of death. With each moss heap that withered and tree that fell, the cryomancer’s necromancic powers grew infinitesimally. Every step was a surety towards the eternal guarantee. This world was ripe for the plucking, all Inmortos need do was reach out and grasp it. With Apothos having set off to handle the small off world remnants, Inmortos was free to subjugate all that befell him. Finally, Inmortos lowered his hands, the direct blasts of frigid air dwindling, remaining only in the deathly aura of cold and shadow that seemed to cling to the Sith like a uncleaned coating of barnacles. With a trail of glassy cold coated destruction behind him, the Sith stood alone. Before him rose the collapsed and rusted walls of an ancient citadel. Forgotten by time, lost to the grasp of eternity. Beyond, Inmortos could see collapsed towers, skyscrapers, and other structures that boasted of an ancient civilization that had ruled this world. Forgotten to all, but not to the Sith. He could see beyond. With a glance, Inmortos could see what had been and he knew what would be. With that realization, he began to laugh, a raspy cackle that echoed along the ice trail and down along the deserted twisted streets. Forgotten no more, here, in the service of a Sith Lord who would not be forgotten, the city would be returned to a glory that it’s former might could ne’ar hold a candle to. The dark Krath was wrenched from his machinations of glee by the crashing of a mighty, albeit derelict vessel, into the desolate city. The screeches of destruction mingled with the tangible cries of terror and pain that seemed to radiate from the ground itself. Immediately, Inmortos’ eyes glazed with unholy anger. This was his city, who dared touch it? Leaning heavily on his cane, Inmortos plunged himslef at a rapid clip-clopping walk into the desecrated city. At the fringnes, emerging cautiously to glance were the innumerable reptilian residents who had once owned the city only to have become the slums of their own failures. The Sith Lord was cognizant of it, he did not care. This city would serve him, her occupants would serve, subjugate, or become the mortar upon which eternity was crafted. Into the city he moved, a solitary reaper. Fallen obstacles dissolved at the press of his hand to clear a pathway towards the city center. The closer he came to the downed vessel, the more Inmortos could taste the putridness of Apothos. What had he done? Had his power overwhelmed him already? Had he been but a pawn that strove for eternal glory only to be snuffed out? As he finally neared the ravaged ship, a twisted thing of metal from a bygone technological boom, he tasted them, rising on the winds: the souls of the men desecrated by the Sith’s display of electric rage, bound in the cackling static of the force as even in death, they struggled to find peace. Touching his hands to the bulkhead, Inmortos leaned, pouring necromaric energies of destruction and decay from his fingertips into the metal. The hull glowed an eerie orange as if it were superheated. It’s glow heightened in intensity before suddenly the entire panel gave wave in a plume of rusted dust leaving a hole large enough for the necromancer to stoop and enter. Inside he could smell the death. The tendrils of electricity and dark magics doing little mask their aura. The mangled bodies of the soldiers, burned and crushed would be of little use; not in that form at least. Sweeping his hands outward, Inmortos began to quietly chant in a tongue more ancient than that of the original Sith. He called upon powers that ruled before civilization itself was more than an infant in the womb of the galaxy. The Sith’s raspy voice cracked and boomed with each horrid whisper. The temperature dropped with each syllable. He moved as a carrion bird, almost hopping from meal to meal, surveying each for the choicest of morsels. Running his hands across their ragged forms, Inmortos drew the last puff of breath from their lungs, carrying with them the essence of those who had died at Apothos’s hands. Each breath materialized into a glassy coat of snow across the fallen’s bodies. It was swept up by a telekinetic wave of the sorcerer, vanishing into the folds of his robes. Soulfrost. The temple had begun. Only once his dark ritual was complete, the husks of the damned left to somidify in the cold or rot in the hest did Inmortos right himself to a fully standing position. He turned to look upon Apothos. “Worthy sacrifices my brother; but it is not enough. There are more here. More to be seen and subjugated to my will. Here, in this forgotten city, will my legacy be born for eternity.” Outside the ship, numerous lizard-folk had gathered eying the ship and who or what it might contain. They withdrew fearfully at the swelling of cold that seemed to breathe from the ship itself in a steam as it met the humid airs all about. They hissed and whispered to one another as their hunter-caste, if it could be called even than, clutched their primitive spears and clubs in nervous anticipation of what was to come. The cry had gone out, something had come to their world. The bravest had gathered to investigate and if need be confront it. Inmortos could feel them outside. He could taste them. He hoped to use them in life and in death. For now, he hoped that their lives would serve. Death was a readily available commodity; but each had it’s value. One not needless waste it when life could hold such a gift until the proper time.

Apothos wasted no time. Inmortos raised a questioning eyebrow as his fellow sorcerer crashed into the underbrush. So many Sith were occupied with the here and now when eternity was all that mattered. Inmortos shrugged. The warped and twisted Neimodian had a role to play. In fact, the lizard wizard was proving to be quite useful now that his shackles had been removed. Standing on the beach, a beachhead to his new dominion, Inmortos surveyed the lush growth that turned up in wall-like fashion at the edge ls of the sand. Vines, limbs, and greenery were all that could be seen when one tried to survey beyond. Yet still, Inmortos could sense them, their spirits, as they eked closer, their curiosity overcoming their sense of self-preservation. Apothos was off, Inmortos could feel his ripples in the force as clearly as the winds overhead washed through the swaying trees. The subjugation of Aaris III was beginning and unlike the bread and butter warriors of the Sith, sorcerers had a different tact. There were no army-laden menaces falling from the sky to spill forth their conquering cargo. Bloodshed; Inmortos delighted in it even if it was not always the most direct application to a problem. There would be plenty of it in the coming days; just not yet. There were quicker, more efficient, subtler ways to accomplish the same goal. This world would fall not just to the Sith, not just the lords of Mon Cal, but to his dark touch: his eternal touch. As the curious reptilian eyes began to peer through the foliage, Inmortos acted. Apothos would handle the offworlders. The locals here were now within Inmortos domain. Inhaling deeply, the air about the Necromancer paled; it’s temperatures dropping several noticable degrees. Taking a step forward, ice began to snake out from the Sith Lord’s feet and staff as they touched the ground. Exhaling, a gale of frigid wind bellowed forth. Greenery shriveled and withered in a moment as the cone of cold sprung forth from the frail Lord’s lungs. Plumes of what seemed to be steamy smoke billowed upwards into the yet untouched humid air as anything caught in the projectiled blast of arctic air succumbed to the assault. Arcing out in lighting-like all-embracing patterns, ice spread at a rapid rate outwards from the font of power: the darkly swathed sorcerer himself. The sand crystalized into a solid, the sea began to solidify and break apart only to welcome in more rapidly cooling water that froze and repeated the cycle, the jungle withdrew as it might before the first trees bowed before the might of the cryomancer’s spells. They toppled with groans and crashes of thunder beneath the onslaught as they were iced over, their humid homeworld entombing them as they fell. And there as the ice advanced, so to did Inmortos. Within the wood, curiosity turned to shock, awe, and trembling at the display of power. The scaly cold-blooded primitives hissed warnings back and forth filling the jungle with a cacophony of noise as they watched and fell back before the onslaught of one man, his undead minions standing motionless behind him, towering sentinels of unknown purpose. Perhaps they too possessed the powers of the gods?

The two ships, a yacht and a shuttle, were little to get excited about as they entered the atmosphere of Aaris III. For the few beings planetside that had the technological abilities to note the ships, there was little to incite a response. The Death Striker base, long abandoned by that organization, was on the far side of the world. It was currently home to a small loosely-organized band of smugglers who used the wayward world as a storehouse and ad-hoc base for this portion of the galaxy. These two ships that swung low over the treetops presented little threat or fear to the minor criminal enterprise and their ill-gotten booty. It was not entirely uncommon for ships to descend planetside. In as much as Aaris III was out of the way, forgotten, and of little use to the galaxy at large, it still attracted the occasional band of rich partying socialites or treasure-hunting history buffs. Nothing threatening to burly smugglers and sleazy fences. It was not an entirely wrong assessment. Inmortos and Apothos were fans of the historical. They did not present a true threat to the smugglers’ compound; at least not yet. Inmortos’ Imperial shuttle hummed above the treetops. The world shone like a jewel both from space and on the surface. Every inch of industrialization had been taken back by the natural. The metallic cities were now covered by the sea, the sands, or the jungle. The external vents of the craft opened and began to scoop up the unadulterated air of the world. It replaced the reprocessed death-tainted air within the craft. Inhaling deeply, the necromancer breathed in the heavy humid air above the jungles. Where another would have smiled at the fresh nutrient-filled life-tinged air, Inmortos did not. His smile was different, his dry cracked lips twisted in a demented cackle of delight. Where others smelled life, Inmortos tasted the lingering odor of death. Death was here alright, wherever life existed, death followed. The death here was different. It was planet-consumning. It was violent. It was omnipresent. As the ships settled into a clearing along the sand-covered beach a short hike through the dense undergrowth from the forgotten city, their engine blasts kicked up plumes of sand and churned the beach waters into a froth. The vessels settled in as they began to go through their shutdown procedures. The landing ramp to The Eternus descended to the beach and the dozen undead Mon Cal residents shambles out to the world below, forming up two equal lines on either side of the walkway out towards the moss-covered trees. Slowly, the Sith Lord descended the ramp. Each step was accompanied by a deep-seated clang from his heavy walking stick. Making the sandy beach, Inmortos paused. He inhaled deeply as he awaited his cohorts arrival on the world. A lesser man would have thought such a pristine and peaceful place would be beneficial for the soothing of a ravaged soul, the healing of a wracked husk. Inmortos was not a lesser man. Closing his eyes, Inmortos adjusted his focus. Instead of focusing on the world before his eyes, his sight turned to that of eternity, of times present and past. Where his natural sight struggled, his view into the world of souls, life and death, was keen. Instead of jungles and trees, the Sith Lord saw the distance flickers of life, of souls, weak and pathetic as they might be. They were drawn to the rumble of the ships; curious but wary. Some visitors brought gifts; sweets, treats, and shiny knick knacks. Other visitors terrorized the primitives of this world. They had once ruled until an unnamed malady nearly drove them to extinction. They had nearly killed their entire race, pulled from the pinnacle of their status to where they now languished. They were lost in the bowels, within tunnels dug with their own bare lizarded hands underneath the now nature-reclaimed metallic cities and their ancient foreign technologies they once ruled. Inmortos could see them. He could sense their patheticness. He nodded in silence, assuring himself. They would do.

The necromancer stood silently as he listened. The man’s breath crystalized with each frigid exhalation. He leaned heavily on his cane as his eyes flicked from one person to another in the room. He could feel the life presences of each in the room. Some of them would be worth more in his collection than others. Regardless, should any of them fall, Inmortos would be there to salvage their dying breath. As his name was spoken, Inmortos turned his eyes to the projection. Aaris III . . . . archeological? The world was ripe for the plucking, bodies, the stench of death, technologies of a bygone era. It was a veritable playground. Inclining his head upwards towards Darth Mordecai, Inmortos dried lips cracked, bloody black ichor running down his chin. “We shall partake of this feast. In two weeks time, an army should be raised at our command.” Turning a hungering gaze towards Apothos, Inmortos nodded. “Let us see how your freedom manifests itself beyond the industrial stage. Bring your guard. The force will do the rest.” Inmortos turned as the groups broke up to discuss their pending assignments. Beneath his swirling robes he shuffled alongside the clattering chair of Krath Apothos towards the exit. He paused at the door to look back at the gathering of war masters, “Two weeks. Two armies for the Sith war chest.”

Krath Inmortos sat perfectly still within the confines of his sparse yet luxurious vessel. He did not need, nor did he desire, to see the amassed naval forces of the Sith Empire. Such trivialities were but a means to an end in the necromancer’s eye. At the helm, a partially decayed Quarren held the controls deathly still. It was good, for he was dead. The spark of life that powered him was a gift from the necromancer. He was little more than a mindless shambler, dedicated to the one task he was set to, in this case, docking. Elsewhere in the ship a baker’s dozen of other shambling dead Quarren and Mon Cal stood at the ready; armed with blaster carbines taken from the Mon Cal security forces and hodge-podged armor. The sweeping wave of darkness that Inmortos felt upon their arrival in the system was as unsettling as it was comforting. There was power here. It was Inmortos’ to tap and use, just like the life forces he could see across the orbit of the barren world. Pleasantries had been exchanged by lessers; pleasant being a strong word when one conversed unknowingly with the dead. Regardless, an offer to board the Krayt’s Fury was extended and in a short time both Inmortos’ craft as well as newly minted Apothos’ had docked and the Sith Lords of Mon Cal descended to the deck within. Inmortos’ grizzly escort had formed up in ranks at the base of his craft’s walkway heralding the black-swathed lord. The Sith lord’s skin was fresh havibg been regrown in a matter of days, the last telltale sign of Inmortos’ and Apothos’ profane rituals on Mon Cal. The skin, new and fresh, appeared pale and sickly yet. The dark side taking it’s toll against the being’s naturally increase healing rate. The man’s footfalls were nearly silent. Each one taken with a certainty that seemed to carry across time itself. The echoing thump, thump, thump of Inmortos’ Ithor wood based cane carried across the bay. Meeting with a lower commander, the duo of Sith were escorted along the same path Darth Akheron had followed shortly before. Inmortos could feel the tendrilled trail of evil that clung to the air in the Sith warrior’s wake. After several minutes of slow methodical walking, the Sith of Mon Cal joined the warriors within the command center. It had been a long and nearly silent trek through the ship; save for the whir of Apothos’ machinations and the hubbub of the ship itself. Once at the command center, Inmortos drew himself up a short distance from the warriors. He knew better than approach unannounced. He could feel the ragged spirit within the cursed blade that hung at his waist. It seemed to hunger for the warriors’ bloodthirst. Inmortos’ face cracked into a smile as one hand held the heavy dagger-pommel of his cane, the other patting the sword’s hilt like a parent silently reprimanding a child. He was the blade’s master and with it the malevolent spirit within. Shadowed beneath his deep cowl and flowing silk robes, Inmortos turned his eyes to the other Sith in the command center with a smile that revealed his blackened gums and yellowed teeth. “Our presence has been foretold. Bloodshed and death united. Ten thousand years of peace beneath the Sith rule. I am Darth,” the necromancer paused as he silently caught himself and corrected, “Krath Inmortos.” The eccentric cold lord of the dead introduced himself as if the third-world ancient pagan prophecy he spoke of was common knowledge; that all present had poured their lives into the most obscure reading of Dread Lord texts. From the furthest reaches of the Sith Empire, Inmortos had only just presented himself to the wider galaxy on Mon Cal. It was time to claim slaves, bodies to throw into the grinder; upon which to build his eternal resting place. Few may know of him, but it did not matter. After this campaign, once the galaxy was secured beneath the boots of the living Sith soldiers, all would know of Inmortos. His tomb would enshrine an entire world to his name. He would never be forgotten.

As the winds whipped about the duo of Dark Side practitioners atop the seating spire, so too did the tendrils of dark side power. It manifested at first as a faint fog, but it grew exponentially. It expanded outwards until it seemed the whole of the ravaged sky across the city was one raging vortex of clouds, ice, and thunderbolts. It was enough to ground even the heartiest of ships trying to leave and turn back the most daring pilots on sea or air trying to approach. Amongst it all, countless faint strands of light and energy seemed to buzz forth, congealing and separating at whim. Life energies of the immeasurable dead lost to the expanses of seas and watery graves combined with the tendrils of life lost that hovered about relics of the dead scattered throughout the city. All of these energies rose upwards as if in sheer defiance of the maelstrom that buffeted the worldscape in every direction. High into the air the alien orbs streaked until they blended into haze-ish glow that enveloped the sorcerers. Inmortos let out a bone-chilling scream into the winds as he extended a frail filleted hand out before him, blood dripping from it before being torn away by the winds. Beginning to clasp his open hand into a fist, Inmortos drew the orbs, the streaks, the amorphous blobs of foggy ligjt and energy into his hand. The light extinguished in a blink as Inmortos hand closed into a knuckled fist. Raising his fist into the air, Inmortos sleeve fell to his shoulder. His newly revealed pale flesh was instantly set upon by the ravaging weather and powers of the transforming force. Forcing his fist as high as he could, Inmortos opened his hand casting the light upwards in a short burst of light into the crushing vortex. It vanished in an instant, the power being dispersed in the storm until it rained down as an indistinguishable fine mist across the city. Clinging to the spire, Inmortos felt the power of the force surge through him with unholy might. For an instant, Inmortos felt the power of every life that he had touched. It flowed through him. It touched his own life force. It ravaged his single life as it entered and exited his body in an instant. The vacuum left Inmortos destitute of all but the faintest glimmers of power. He pulled unnaturally against the force, willing himself to stay concision, to survive. With this energy he clung to the spire alongside Apothos. For hours he hung there, clinging to life as the storm ravaged itself into nonexistence with the rising of the sun. Below the city and seas appeared normal, untouched by Inmortos’ sorcery. Below the surface however, the Sith’s magicks took ahold. They bound the city itself to the energies of the dead. Trespassers, defilers, those who sought to overthrow the rule of the Sith, who would dispute their claim to the world, would be met by waves of undead hordes drawn from the seas and catacombs with no other purpose than to destroy they that dared to desecrate the hold of the Sith here. The spell was complete. Inmortos was spent. Reaching about the spire, Inmortos grasped for the hem of Apothos neck with a blood crusted hand. He pulled the Krath close. In a deathly whipser Inmortos hissed, “Geonosis. Take us to the gathering. Power beyond this world is within our grasp.”

A gleeful evil radiated across Inmortos twisted face at the sight of Apothos rising up, his body contorted by darkness. The continued writihing and twisting that intermingled with the visceral pain that the newfound Sith Lord willingly subjected himself to only made the necromancer salivate, bloody phlegm running freely down his face. As the Nemodian spoke, Inmortos was struck by the sinister darkness that radiated on the man’s words. Gone was the sniveling businessman and his cowardice, his small desires of power to keep himself afloat in his cushioned lifestyle. Here before him now was a being that had overcome those chains and would do infinitely more given the time. “Like Nok Morliss used many names, so do I. Darth Inmortos strikes fear. Krath Inmortos is eternal. Study your histories as I and learn. Darths are tools. Show the semblance of service, as a darth. Seize power, true power, a Krath.” ”Come. The force is ripe.” Inmortos turned and gestured. His slow heavy footfalls echoing in the darkness. With a swipe of his hand, the ceremonial blade returned to it’s sheath within the Ithor wood cane. Thump. Thump. Thump. ________________________ Through the winding city the duo shuffled, a cloud of shadow followed them. The wind blew stiff and cold. Down alleys and streets, up stairs and lifts. Ascending the tallest spire, beyond the reach of the lift, up shaky ladders and out a rusted door, the two exited into the cloud-filled sky. The city was barely visible below. Here the wind buffeted them. The tallest spire in the city swayed precariously beneath them. “Fear. Wind. Death. Heights. Let the fear feed you. Embrace it.” Looking upwards, Inmortos began to climb between the waiving antennae and sensor suites. Hand over hand he climbed until he clung to the uppermost spire, designed to catch and ground lightning from the violent ocean storms the world was known for. Here, there was barely enough room for the two sets of feet that were the Sith Lords’. Placing his back against the icy spire, Inmortos howled into the wind. He grasped Apothos’ hand, helping him to the spire, his frail frame bellying a secretive strength. Hefting the Lord up, Inmortos hissed into the Nemoidian’s ear, Let us call down the vortex. With it, the city and world will be cemented in the tendrils of darkness, within your grasp, forever. The cities yours. The seas mine.” Releasing the Krath, Inmortosnstared out into the vastness, beyond the horizons. Here, high above the world Inmortos could taste the energies of life that radiated from the world. He also could taste the death energies waiting for eons to be mined by one willing to profane themselves. By binding his powers with Apothos, Inmortos knew they would exponentially power one another. What one could not control, two could not help but seize. The wind whipped the dark necromancer’s robes in a fury about him. Raising his hands to the sky, he let forth a blood—curdling screech that was torn from his lips before it could carry beyond his maw. It was then that he began to chant. Inmortos’ hands whipped about in the air tracing invisible sigils into the wind to be carried across the world. He felt Apothos’ power. He drew upon it, combining it with his own. The temperatures began tp plummet as ice formed about them on the spire and in the air. On the wind the crystals were whipped tearing at robes and flesh flaying Inmortos flesh until blood and ichor flowed freely. Still he writhed in his evil dance calling forth the energies of death from the deep, manipulating lives to spark the deceased back to an eternal servitude. Below the waves began to crash, whipped to a frenzy by the rising maelstrom of the force. Ice and snow tore through the air, coating the city below in a slick of ice. Those who were near death, the old and feeble, the sick and dying; they were pushed towards the maw of the open grave. Embraced by death before they were ready. The fell into the eternal rest of death, but inly for a moment. Their death energies pulled them back to the world, binding their carcasses to Inmortos will.

From his tomb of a ship, encrusted in ice, Inmortos felt the irrefutable power of desperation, desire, and the festering of rage at being denied. It swirled together on the tendrils of the purest energies of the force. A twisted smile parted the Sith Lord’s mouth, ichor dribbling from the corners. He cackled quietly in the silence. Finally, the baron of Mon Cal had felt the truth. Finally he had traversed beyond. He could now learn the deeper truths that transcended mere life, time, space, and the physical worlds so many bound themselves to. Nok Morliss would be forgotten. In his place, an unforgettable nova of darkness would erupt. With a wave of his hand, the Firrerreo called his heavy Ithorian wood can to his hand, the metallic hilt smooth against his fragile flesh. It was time. With slow heavy footfalls the Sith left his ship, the icy encasements shattering at the necromancer’s touch, his heavy midnight robes hanging loose about his form. ______________________________ Thump. Thump. Thump. Inmortos’ cane fell heavily against the uneven floors that had once been Nok Morliss’ secure medical facility. An orb of entropic energy had been all it took to gain access to the twisted and warped hallways. Darkness reigned here. It was a presence that fell heavily upon the mind and soul. Pedestrians and passerbys gave the area a wide berth unsure of what was going on, but innately feeling the somber unholiness of the place. As if the cracked roadways and twisted building jutting upwards was not enough. The hallway was silent save for the spray of sparks that occasionally fell from a twisted fixture like a waterfall of yellow energy. These flashes of light were all that illuminated the Sith Lord’s way. They were unneeded. Each tap of his cane, each footfall carried with it a sense of eternal forboding. Each step was sure across the uneven jagged surfaces that had been twisted by the maelstrom of Nok’s fruition. Inmortos mind churned, a vortex of unfathomable depth. His conscious plodding mingled seamlessly with the numerous histories that were contained in his decaying mind. Reaching what had been the last secured door before Nok’s private medical chamber, Inmortos did not stop. The blast door that dangled by a power cord was of no concern; nor was the door that had been driven through the wall and lay crumpled in the hallway. Inside it was black. Electricity crackled unseen behind the walls. There was not a photoceptor to be seen. The mechanized temple of the Nemodian had been rendered void. Within Inmortos sensed one thing, one life; and it was devastated. It was unleashed. Moving forward, the Sith Lord slowly and directly made his way to the heaving Sithling. He poked the mass on the floor with the worn end of his staff. “Get up. You have been weighed by the force and found acceptable. Do not lie like the dead or be treated as such.” Inmortos waited until the wretched husk of a being slumped himself to a standing position. Then with a heave he pulled the neuranium ceremonial dagger from the end of his cane. The wooden haft tumbled to the ground with a clatter. The heavy weapon hung in the air, an unholy energy reverberating about the blade. Without a word, Inmortos lunged forward, ubtil his blade pierced Nok’s flesh. “O waed yn tywallt bywyd. o fywyd, marwolaeth. Mewn marwolaeth mae meidrolion yn cael eu hanghofio i ddifrod amser.” Inmortos chanted, his voice low and crackling with dark side energies. He drove the blade deep into the rotted flesh of the Nemoidian; the Sithling’s blood spurting and spewing forth in warm sticky gouts. “Goresgyn amser,” he growled. The energies of Nok’s lifeblood literally boiling forth into the air in a steam that the necromancer inhaled. Nok slid from the blade and fell to the floor in a puddle of his own blood. Standing over the once-apprentice, Inmortos regarded him in the dark, his voice booming through the still air as it swirled with mystic energies. “Cwympo marwol. Codi anfarwol. Krath Apothos! Gods do not bleed!” The Sith Lord fell silent, waiting to see if Nok would rise and fill his newfound name. It was not a Darth. It was more apt, more ancient, more befitting one of which Inmortos would stride beside for a time building his own sanctuary. This man would become like a god to these lessers. They would serve him and in the shadows, in their deaths, they would serve Inmortos. No, he was no darth. He was more. This wretched sorcerer before him was a Krath, not bound to serve and fall in battle, but to carry on his faithful charge unto eternity. “Rise!”

It took hours for Inmortos to drive the spirit entirely from his mind and body. He never let go of the sword, even as he slumped to the floor. The Sith Lord’s limbs lolled to either side of him as he gasped for air in the still coolness of his ship. In the distance Inmortos could still feel the spirit as it beat a trail down the path of least resistance. It howled and slashed digging for freedom. The Sith Lord did not care. For a moment, the struggle was over. How long he lay there, the decrepit Sith did not know. It was hours more. Hours in which Inmortos’ hunger manifested. His fingers tightened around the hilt of the blade. With it, he knew he could stride forth with an edge to control the living. In death, he would be remembered forever. Carefully, Inmortos began to pick himself up from the frigid durasteel floor. His breath hung crystalized in the air. Adjusting his disheveled robes, Inmortos’ cast his gaze about for a place to secure his newfound weapon. The ship was destroyed. The power of the force had torn the nearly empty craft asunder. Arcing wires hung low, light panels flickered against the shadows, the smell of melted plastics and electrical burning hung in the cold. And then things changed, the calm was beset by an audible howling and a wind that whistled through the ship coming from nowhere and everywhere. The demanding spirit careened back along the expanse that joined Inmortos and Nok. It’s hunger, hatred, and darkness struck Inmortos’ mind like a jackhammer, sending the Sith Lord sprawling back to the floor with a crash. The sword nearly leapt from his hand, but Inmortos reached up grasping it with all the strength he could muster. With a new surge of vengeful power, the spirit drove it’s claws into Inmortos’ soul only to be met by an icy wall of hunger. The spirit’s claws raked the ice, opening wounds that sucked it in. Inmortos would consume it. There was nothing this long dead spirit could offend or offer, imprisoned within a vorpal blade, cursed to an existence of servitude to a worthy master. Inmortos was that master. He knew it. He would make it so. With a cry of anguish and anger Inmortos allowed the spirit to flow into his soul, to rake it’s vengeful claws against that which made Inmortos who he was, to taste life and inmortality. With a colossal heave that caused the temperature to drop significantly, freezing any moisture in the air, and drawing on the life forces in all directions for miles, casting a shadow of the reaper on any it touched, Inmortos grasped the spirit within the icy walls of death of his own soul and funneled it along a slippery slide. Back along his arms and into the weapon itself, the Sith channeled the spirit before slamming his mind shut against the call of the weapon imprisoning it back within it’s cage. Inmortos could feel the spirit rattling within the weapon, raging for release. It longed to rule, to destroy, it would not allow this weak sorcerer to contain him. Inmortos could hear the spirit screaming in the back of his mind. Eventually he hoped to tune it out; but for now, Inmortos was content to have conquered the blade and inhabitant within. Picking himself up from the floor again, Inmortos leaned heavily on the ravaged wall beside a jutting spear of twisted metal clung to by icy tentacles that crackled with electric energy. Regarding the blackened blade in his hand, Inmortos shoved the weapon between his belt and robe. It was not a deserving place for such a forbidden evil blade. It would have to do. His eyelids were heavy. Inmortos’ soul was ragged. The Sith Lord’s power was ravaged and hungering. He had won. That is what mattered. Even as he felt weakened, Inmortos was not defeated. Slowly the Sith extended his hand out into the air before him reaching along the drug-induced tendon towards Nok’s soul. He felt the power, the emptiness, the greed. He smiled darkly as he twisted the tendrils of life all about them, pulling them along towards death and driving that energy along their bond. Life and death blended together as it surged from Inmortos to Nok grinding against one another in a cacophony of gnashing teeth and a maw of destruction. “Morliss, this spirit is mine. Now taste the truth. Life and death stretch beyond mere things. Use them or be consumed by them; lost within their grasp.”

Inmortos lay on the deck of his own ship panting. All about him the air swirled within invisible jetties, buffeted by the ragings of the dark side of the force. In his hands, he still clasped the hilt of the cursed rapier. He would not let go. He refused. Even if he could, the spirit within clung to him with such strength that he would not have been able to unwrap his fingers from where they were frozen about the hilt. Blue icy tendrils laced down the length of the weapon equally as they traced intricate lightning-like patterns along the veiny bulges of the decrepit Sith Lord’s arms. A combination of the dark forces that dueled for control within the void. Cold, dark, and devoid of life; the siege continued. The spirit’s anger surged against the inky walls of fear that Inmortos cast to meet it. He would not be forgotten. All would know his name. No damned spirit condemned to an eternity of servitude imprisoned within a single blade would stop it. He would die one day. Not today. He would die free and resting upon a throne of power, not whilst striving to achieve it. “Not. This. Day.” he snarled grasping the icy cold nothingness and hurling it against the attack. Icy winds surged from Inmortos’ mouth entering the maelstrom, lowering the temperature within several degrees. Ice and death held back the inmortal memory of the current fires of rage and lust. Even as the Spirit fought to keep the ground it had gained, it slipped against the slick freezing exteriornthst coated the core, coated the soul of Inmortos. The more it grasped, the more he pushed back. The spirit refused to be contained. It would not be driven back to his eternal prison. He had tasted freedom and knew he had but find a host to wield his power. A victim to carry forth his will until he could grow in strength, taking another host, then another and another until he could reform a body of his own. It would be one forged by hate, lust, desire, passion; sustained by the desire to lay waste to all in his path. The colossal clash of a titan of yore and the immortality of a life that existed in the present and would for eternity rocked the the ship, cracking the ice it was embedded in. Inmortos slowly backed the spirit from the recesses of his mind and body. He forced it backwards, condensing it’s power into a smaller and smaller space in his body. It held against being forced back into the sword. Eventually as it flailed and raged, rocking Inmortos’ body, causing his limbs to flail and the sword to slash against the walls carving deep furrows, the spirit began to bleed. It would not be crushed. It would not be contained. So it bled. Finding a way of escape from being pinned against the aura of the blade, the spirit found an opening. It surged forth. Distance did not matter, what mattered was that it allowed the spirit to escape the crushing press of crystalizing tendrils of ice and the darkness of death. At the other end, another maelstrom raged. It was different, defenses and attacks were thrown about with little concern for the newly arrived presence. The spirit followed the bridge that linked Inmortos to Nok, a creation of the elixir. Behind it surged the cold tendrils of ice and voids of death that Inmortos pushed after it. “You will not escape me!” Into the maelstrom, the spirit threw itself, his rage and desire mingling with the chaos of the storm as it sought a foothold from which to fester and grow. It would find a servant and with it, be it Nok, Inmortos, or another, he would rule.

On instinct, Inmortos inhaled. It was as if he had been struck firmly in the gut by an unseen beskar fist. He would have doubled over but for raw fury that seemed to course from the aura of the blade through his hand and through his form. It was as if liquid fire boiled his blood within the prematurely-aged necromancer’s veins. Accustomed to cold, Inmortos cried out in pain. It was not in words, but a bestial roar of pain, of agony, of rage. The blade pulsed in the Sith’s hand. Through the fog of pain and smoke of rage that coursed through the air and his body, Inmortos tried to steel his own mind against the spirit contained within the blade. It fought him. It sought to contain the spirt and will of the wizard so as to use his body as a vessel to accomplish it’s unfinished will. Inmortos was no mere mind to be trifled with, possessed as a toy and cast aside when the fun was over. No. He was a master of more than his own physical form. He was a Lord of the Sith, a practitioner of the most profane arts, one who bent the force to his own will and was not controlled by it. If the force bowed to him, this spirit would be no different. Still, as he fought, every nerve ablaze, he was not victorious. Yet, he was not victorious yet. “You are not worthy. You are but a morsel; chewed, forgotten. Give me your body. I will give you a flash of worth before you die.” A masculine voice reverberated throughout the ship, rattling the walls and toppling anything not secured. It spoke with disgust and disdain. It’s formless words seemingly spat from unseen lips. It had measures Inmortos and seemed to have found him wanting. In those words, the presence of the ancient spirit entrapped in the blade surged, grasping at Inmortos mind. Inmortos could feel the spirit’s blackened tendrils of hunger clawing at the fringes of his mind. He tried to form words to respond. He couldn’t. All that escaped his mouth was a slurred “Guuuuuhhhhh,” as a strand of saliva drizzled downwards from his lips and dangled from his jaw. Even forming the words in his mind seemed lacking as Inmortos felt the spirit’s hold cementing. “Weak. Pathetic. A vessel to carry me to a more worthy slave.” the dark voice scoffed. The whirlwind of it’s power intensified within the ship. It tore at the icy walls Inmortos had crafted sending shards of glassy blades into the air before melting them in the heat of it’s rage. The words that emanated from the void before now fell from Inmortos’ own maw, the spirit having gained a foothold within the mind and body of the frail Sith. Inmortos could feel his control being torn from him. It slipped away, cell by cell, as the spirit claimed any recess of his mind not possessed by the power of the dark side. Any portion of Inmortos that he had not gilded in dark desire was endangered. He was not conquered; not yet; not by a long shot. Inmortos felt the spirit surging against his weaknesses. His physicality may have been his vulnerability; but where his form lacked and his mind was ravaged, his will would prevail. Inmortos buried himself in the darkness of the force itself. He called forth the darkness of death, the despair of life, and mentally threw it back against the warrior spirit. The spirit betrayed itself. Powered by passion and rage, it was a herald of death and destruction. Inmortos, on the other hand, was not a mere herald. He was a master of death, toying with the line and breaking it, shaping death and life as he saw fit. Most Sith reveled in destruction and that is where Inmortos would succeed. They tore down, he used the darkness, used death, to build. Visions of impregnable fortresses and frozen impassible tundras filled his mind, thrown up in defense to the destruction the spirit threw forth in unrelenting assault. As the battle for Inmortos’ mind raged, elsewhere within the city another battle was commencing. Nok Moriss had consumned the elixir. The mysterious draught had been crafted to Inmortos’ direct specifications. Amongst it’s chemical properties, it bound the consumer to the necromancer. It’s catalyst; the force itself, a poison beyond the realms of simple medicine and one that would prevail until it was purged in its entirety. In that moment, Inmortos felt the bond pull taught, like a chain of darkbess that linked Morliss’ soul to his own. It was a distraction. It was enough. As Inmortos’ attention was turned to the plan that he had all but forgotten within the maelstrom, the malevolent spirit sensed the recession of the tide and swelled against the momentarily weakened walls of Inmortos mental defenses. It was enough to pull Inmortos back to the battle at hand. Nok Morliss was unimportant now. This vorpal blade and it’s dark passenger were more than the Sith had expected. Something this powerful had been held in the collection of an unknown Sithling? How? What other secrets did the blind lizard possess? They were thoughts that passed briefly through Inmortos’ mind before being seized and consumed by the gnawing hunger of the spirit. It was taking more and more. Inmortos sank to his knees, both hands wrapped white-knuckle tight about the hilt of the weapon. Even it’s weight was too much as the blade fell to the floor, slicing into the durablast flooring several inches. Inmortos could not release the blade if he tried. The spirit willed it. It would claim Inmortos as it’s own. It would use his frail body to once again bring havoc to the stars until a more suitable warrior might be found. Inmortos mind continued to fall, secrion by section. The distraction had allowed it to breach the walls of dreams that had repelled it. The spirit began to sift, consume, weigh and evaluate Inmortos’ deepest secrets, his darkest desires. The Sith lord laid bare like a book of yore. Each a weapon in its’ own right to one that knew how to wield it. Words were unimportant now, all the spirit had to do was poke a memory, drag it to the surface and expose it and Inmortos did the rest. The death of his parents. The deaths of countless others, buried and forgotten. The initial concern with death before the galaxy returned to a normal flow. Each life snuffed out as if it were nothing. The corpses of the reanimated dead, stripped of individuality and purpose beyond the will of the necromancer. All of these memories swirled with countless others of rejection, failure, hopelessness. Each memory opened Inmortos up more, allowing the spirit to dig with impunity through Inmortos. It was almost as if the spirit took a sick glee in torturing the Sith. It’s laughter carried in the force itself, dark and evil and entertained entwined with hunger and rage. This continued for who knew how long. Inmortos’ defenses had been overwhelmed. His body was all but possessed. The spirit delighted in Inmortos’ suffering. It continued to dredge up painful memories, morph them, combine them, rewrite even happy ones all to destroy the man within and leave whatever remained a quivering mass of ethereal plasma that could not harm a thing. It was then that the spirit pulled forth the core that had carried Inmortos to this place. The fear emerged from the depths like a specter of yore, swathed in the billowing robes of death as it stared down into an unmarked grave. It was a grave that contained Inmortos himself. Alone on an uncharted world without a soul to be seen or sensed. Buried, dead, forgotten before he even cooled. No one and nothing to remember his name. Fear. It was palpable. It was everywhere. It was everywhere. Fear drove Inmortos even if he would never admit it. The spirit of the sword cackled in glee as it shoved the memory against the last vestiges of Inmortos’ being. Crippling fear thrown against a forgotten death. It was a fear that Inmortos had used to drive himself. It was his base. It was his core. Inmortos felt the fear. It was a fear he had sworn he would conquer. It was a fear that drove him and gave him purpose and power. It was that fear now that gave Inmortos pause as he fell back against the onslaught. He could not be driven any further. He would be forgotten in an instant. And so it was that fear that Inmortos clung to. It could not be twisted or morphed into anything worse. He had held it and nurtured it for years. Grasping this fear, Inmortos cast it onto the spirit in an effort to drive it back. He would not be conquered, not by this. He had seen fear. He did not fear this spirit. He only feared what would happen if he failed. He would not fail. Like a bludgeon, Inmortos flailed his core like a chained mace against the lesser weapons formed from his own shadowy mind. He had one fear that he had mastered and from it, all others would be driven back. The ancient spirit continued to fight, casting whatever it could grasp at the weapon Inmortos clung to within his mind. On the deck of the ship, Inmortos’ body flopped forward driving the blade deeper into the floor and the hilt into his own gut. The glowlamps surged and burst in a chain reaction one after another. The icy cold about them surged with the internal surge of Inmortos responsive assault to retake himself, bathing the darkness in an icy grasp that fought against the fiery rage of the spirit. Ever so slowly, the spirit gave up the mental ground it had claimed. It refused to be cast back into the blade. It refused to be imprisoned for eternity once again. So as it’s own power was forces back, it followed whatever lines of escape it might find, grasping, shaking, and manipulating whatever it could find. Memories, feelings, emotions all were weaponized and cast about in a maelstrom of destructive energy. The easiest means of escape: the phantasmal chain that bound Inmortos to Nok.

Inmortos understood his host’s hesitation, even if it was masked behind an aura of excitement. He would have been shocked and disappointed if the self-proclaimed ruler of this world gad unstoppered it and downed the concoction without a hesitation. It would have made him just another pawn of the Sith, like so many mindless warriors that prowled Korriban and the like. This one though, craved power; yet was wary of it. He might go far if his love of corporeality could be realigned. Inmortos did not rise as his host left. In fact, he barely raised a hand in wave as some sort of casual dismissal. Both parties seemed to have what they had come for. For the cameras that undoubtedly watched them, it would seem so. There was more. These traded barbs of Sith machinations were but the opening piece exchange on the dejarik board of their relationship. It was only a matter of time before he was called back to deal with the piece Nok Morliss had claimed as his own. Surveilling the encased sword before him, Inmortos knew he had his own trial to undergo. Inmortos patted his bulging belly after Nok left. He diverted his gaze to the remains of the feast before him. He was full; full enough that the idea of another bite repulsed him. Calling his heavy-headed cane to his hand, Inmortos pushed his chair back. It’s ornate legs scraping loudly across the equally decorative inlaid floor. He rose to his feet, reaching out to cradle the wooden box and it’s dark blade beneath his free arm. He could feel the tendrils of evil grasping at their bonds, their hunger seeking an outlet, someone worthy enough to take on the mantle the weapon’s previous master once carried. He could feel it. Inmortos knew he was not the supposed worthy warrior the spirit sought. It did not matter; he had no doubt that he could master it. It was mind over matter. It was that simple. With the dark side as his weapon, he would master this dark dirk just as he mastered death. With his trophy tucked away and his cane in hand, Inmortos turned. He did not need Nok Morliss servants. They were no more than spies and pawns; spies and pawns that were living, not Inmortos’. The skeleton of a man shuffled out of the hall and down the walkways back towards his ship. It was the only place on this world that Inmortos felt that he could expose himself to the dangers of the sword. Inmortos had read and read, he academically knew what to expect; but he was not going to allow Nok or his henchmen to see him in such a way; not that Nok would not have his own turmoils to address. That concoction had been altered especially for the Nemoidian, not biologically, but for his soul. It would open him up to the faintest suggestions, make them real, plunge the Nemodian into a world of his own creation. All he needed was the right nudge and his deepest fears, innermost turmoils, and faintest neuroses would become a reality that bound the Sithling to his own soul. Inmortos would return to him when the time was right, to conclude his baptism of darkness. For now though? As the door of his ship sludged shut behind him, Inmortos heard the locks engage. It was a simple enough distraction to pull the heat from the air, and seal the exit amongst a tomb of permafrost inside and out. It took some time, but the ship was soon enough encased in an opaque crystalline tomb of stagnation made matter, frigid and lifeless. Only then, when he was sure that he was entirely alone did Inmortos set down the ornate wooden case atop a workstation table. Gently, with almost a holy reverence, Inmortos undid the clasps and opened the box. As he did, a wave of invisible lust poured over him, inviting anyone who felt worthy to clasp the carved hilt of the needled black blade. The Sith runes seemed to almost glow a soulless black that radiated as it drew in the light about them. Inmortos could almost hear the desire to destroy radiating from the weapon, all he need do was reach out and take it and the battle of wills would begin. Reaching out his knobby hand, Inmortos clasped the weapon. A surge of darkness pulsed from the weapon up through the Sith Lord’s hand. Inmortos’ veins bulged and vibrated beneath the tidal surge of power. He sharply drew his breath, inadvertently lowering the temperature in the ship by several degrees. Move number two was underway.

A smile cracked across Inmortos face, the grease of his meal congealing in the corners of his mouth. “Goooooood.” he hissed gleefully as the force twisted and cracked in the air, the accursed blade coming into view. A dark glee emanated from the shrouded Sith Lord. His plan was beginning to come together. He could not take his eyes off the weapon. He could feel it’s evil desire contained within it’s form. All part of the grand plan. It called silently, subtlety on the force, for anyone who could hear it; any mind and body that it might control to wrought it’s original owner’s darkest most base desires. To control such a weapon would unfathomably escalate the Necropolis Lord’s skills in bringing about death, death upon which to build his legacy. He just needed to best it. Inmortos’ eyes stared at the weapon, regarding it hungrily, a predator pondering how best to take down it’s prey without being gored. With a raised hand, he carefully shepherded the gilded box the sword had lifted from out of the table into the open room, gingerly enveloping the weapon in it’s padded embrace. He then maneuvered the box towards him, gingerly depositing it on the table in front of him. He could not take his eyes off of it as he stooped close to take in the ancient intricacies of the filigree covered sheath and hilt. Even the ancient battle damage was in a word, “exquisite.” He breathed the word in awe. The closer he was to the blade, the more he could feel the still tormented soul within the weapon, it’s owner long dead, searching for a host. Inmortos licked his lips hungrily. He wanted to grasp the hilt of the weapon, to draw it from it’s sheath, to wield it in a flurry of devastation. Scanning the weapon end from end, Inmortos resisted. He knew the dangers. He would not expose himself or the power before him to Nok Morliss. If the Nemodian did not know what he was giving up, it was not up to Inmortos to correct him. They had a deal. Tearing his eyes from the weapon, Inmortos slammed the lid of the case shut, it’s latches swinging shut on a wave of dark power, sealing the sword within. It would remain there until Inmortos was in a safe location from which to combat the wraith within and master it. Glancing at the sloshing liquid in the aged vial, sealed with an unknown animal wax, Inmortos’ focus shifted again to Nok across the table. “They are the hallmark of our order, yet they may be your undoing.” He spoke a vague dark warning about the weapons he had just asked about as he tapped a gnarled and chipped fingernail atop the ash-infused glass. “The power you crave, the key to the doorway lay within. Drink it to the last drop Nok Morliss. But, only if you are strong enough to withstand the storm. Are you, Nok Morliss? Are you prepared to journey beyond the power you now have? To risk it all, to gain eternity? Take it, Nok Morliss, the power is at your fingertips to seize, if you crave it.” With that, Inmortos tipped the stoppered vial forward, but before it could clatter to the table it arced through the air. The Sith Lord gingerly deposited the vial in front of his host. “Take. Drink. Such a cordial has not been tasted by mortal man in millennia.”