Mustafar

[Darth Nyrys]

Mustafar, a molten hellscape that still somehow supported life. The volcanic surface invoked in Nyrys symbolic parallels to the Dark Side, and with vicious wildlife and a sparse population it was the perfect place for her to face the Onyx Mirror. 

 

Nyrys was not alone, she had brought with her dark architects of the Krath, and slaves to see their nightmarish designs a reality. Generally speaking, Nyrys had no love of the Sith’s propagation of the slave trade, but this was to be a place obscured from the rest of the galaxy, and that meant no survivors after construction was completed. They were better off dead anyway, given how most masters treated their slaves.

 

Amidst the dire heat black stone was hewn, moved, and settled into place under the direction of the sorcerers. The initial construction broke many of the workers, and the Krath euthanized them without a second thought before binding their spirits to the edifices they were erecting. Unfortunate, but this was all for a greater purpose. The Sith needed to be strong enough to break the chains that were strangling the galaxy.

 

Nyrys watched it all in rapt anticipation. She had negotiated on behalf of the Sith in the past, gathered allies and won over strongholds to the Emperor’s vision of a unified galaxy, but this was the first time that she was doing something that could be considered building her own legacy. The beginnings of black pyramids began to rise, reflecting her adopted heritage. One day they would look like teeth poised to devour the stars.

[Darth Nyrys]

Construction continued on the new temple, and Darth Nyrys was personally overseeing the construction of the forge to her exacting specifications. The Krath whinged and pushed for a more mystical version that removed many of the more physical elements of crafting arms and armor, but she was adamant in her designs. Forge labor crafted the smith as much as it did the weapon, and she felt a deeper connection with any piece that she had spent significant hours creating. The anvil was as much an altar as it was a tool, and upon it she willed her spirituality into physical form. When the Krath finally relented to her wishes she shifted her attention to training.

 

She had artificially enhanced this new body’s strength upon inhabiting it, but now it was time to reinforce that power through honest physical exertion, to truly own it. There was a clarity of mind that came with the honing of the body, and in that onyx mirror Nyrys could find her path forward. It was a method of Sith meditation that gave temporary form to the doubt and self hatred within the practitioner. As the world faded into background noise from the repetition of simple yet strenuous movements, the other her came into unnaturally clear focus.

 

The shadow’s movements were animalistic, primitive, and it crawled towards her with predatory intensity. The shadow’s form was defined by Nyrys’s personal insecurities and selfish desires, and so it appeared as a purebred Cathar with beautiful golden fur and perfect curves, possessing the health and natural beauty that she could never have. It took one look at Nyrys and let out a vocalization of disgust.

 

“Oh right, you became a race traitor at the first opportunity,” it sneered, ”because who needs a heritage? How’s life on the winning team? Have all of your problems that you blamed on being a xeno melted away?” The shadow was no longer a cathar, instead appearing as human now, naked save for gratuitous amounts of blood coating dripping from her phantasmal form. The basic physical details were the same, such as eye color and bone structure, but her musculature was more in line with a model or an actress, a subtle dig at Nyrys’s own quiet fears about her training making her too muscular. It was no longer moving like a hunting predator, shifting its demeanor to that of a proper imperial noblewoman.

 

“Sup kath,” Nyrys replied casually, “you’re feeling chatty today.” Usually the shadow communicated more through physical action, she could still clearly recall the time that it had smashed her mirror. Maybe it was the fact that this time she was speaking to it in a more controlled meditation instead of instinctively. Or maybe the balance had shifted, now that she was more confident in herself.

 

“I crave distraction as much as the next girl, and there have been precious few distractions ever since your boy toy told you that he would rather eat a blaster bolt than spend time with you. And you threw yourself hard at that one, and it still wasn’t enough.” The shadow paused momentarily to adopt an exaggerated thinking pose before speaking again, “Oh, oh no, he even said that after you changed everything about yourself, and it turns out the problem wasn’t that you were an alien, you just weren’t good enough. I mean he did think that you were down with child murder, and there’s no Cathar baby eating stereotypes to blame that on. Face it kiddo, you’re just not relationship material. So why not slut it up with one of the Krath, it’s so easy for you to pretend in those hot, sticky fumblings that maybe, just this once someone will want more from you than a hookup, and the rock bottom that you hit afterwards is always delicious.” 

 

“Not in the mood?” the shadow implored, “Just kill some people, we both know that you’re hot for homicide. Just delude yourself into thinking it’s for a good cause, you know, like the Jedi do. I mean, I don’t want to be a kath or anything, but your whole… situation here is kind of straight up fairy tale monster.” The shadow was gesturing to her face, where Nyrys’s incandescent eyes and needle sharp teeth resided. 

 

“Hurtful, but let’s put a pin in the personal criticism for now,” Nyrys responded dismissively, “I actually brought you out to talk about what I need to improve on in terms of training and kit. I figured that if anyone would be capable of relentless criticism of my performance, it would be you.”

 

“Hard to criticise what you’re doing when you’re all over the damned place. Are you a wrecking ball or a pretty pretty ballerina of murder, enquiring minds would like to know. But even you don’t have that figured out and it shows. Yes, you’ve gotten lucky in combat so far, but at some point you’re going to have to muster the courage to actually make a lasting decision in your life if you want to progress past your current abilities. Your ability to handle anything at range is comparative to your ability to handle adult situations, and your armor is a relic from your apprenticeship. I can’t really say anything negative about your companions in combat, since you don’t have any, but on the flipside that means that there’s no one around to bail you out when you inevitably fail and ruin everything.”

 

“Good talk, now off you go back into the depths of my subconscious.” Nyrys willfully shoved the phantom out of the forefront of her mind, drenched in sweat from the training she had been doing while her mind had checked out. While in the moment it was easy to dismiss what the shadow had said about her so that she could move on to what she wanted to ask, its observations lingered in her mind afterwards. In retrospect it made her feel shallow to be so concerned about things like romance when there was a war going on, but this was her subconscious, her unedited fears and doubts, and probably almost everyone was just as selfish in their heart of hearts. 

 

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Time passed at greater speed as her mind became accustomed to her new training regimen, although her body was granted no such peace, and each goal met was replaced with another more distant goal. Her limbs were transitioning from clay to steel, and soon they owned the power that coursed within them, rather than borrowing it from eldritch paths. With her talent in illusionry blossoming she was becoming less and less concerned about how her choices were affecting her appearance. 

 

The temple itself had come a long way too, the Krath had finished their work and departed earlier this day cycle, after putting down the remaining slaves. It was hard to call any structure designed by space wizards and erected by slaves humble or modest, but the temple was a pale shadow compared to the Dark Lord’s tower on Onderon. The collection of black pyramidal buildings was hers though, and hers alone. The forge, located near the apex of the main pyramid, was one of the most exciting features of the new temple, a pulsing heart of the complex reminiscent of her own pearlescent core. With the Krath gone Nyrys could finally have some alone time with her new toy. She passed the threshold only to find the illusion of solitude shattered by the presence of a cloaked figure idling in the forge.

 

“I thought that you were supposed to all be off world by now,” she cautiously said to the Krath, “It was my understanding that the construction and internal system work was complete.” While not thrilled with any lingering presence, Nyrys knew better than to tear the intruder apart, literally or metaphorically. The Krath were the planners and providers of the Sith, any major project could only be completed with their blessing, and they were more than capable of ruining the prospects of anyone that snubbed them. Besides, if her father had been a Sith like she suspected, he had probably been a Krath with his formidable knowledge of science and medicine. She couldn’t imagine an asthmatic ginger going far in the ranks of the warriors.

 

“I was observing a migration of the local fauna for my research and I guess the ship left early, it’s not a problem.” Something about his inflection suggested that it was a problem. It was a strain that she was intimately familiar with from before she had joined the Sith. It was the tone betrayal and hurt being choked down by pride and shame.

 

“Well, now I have someone on hand in case I damage something,” she said, adding confidingly, “You know us warriors, smashy smashy breaky breaky.” Nyrys had been the right mix of capable and lucky when she had advanced her place in the Sith, but not everyone was a good fit, or even if they were, the wrong people could make them feel like the wrong fit. Besides, it couldn’t hurt to have an in with the Krath. 

 

“Stay here as long as you need, just no wild parties unless I’m invited. Back at uni people would always forget to invite me.” 

[Darth Nyrys]

It had been months since the Krath had departed save one of their number. The passage of time had felt like treading water, and while Nyrys felt like her physical form had returned to somewhere near where it was before she had stolen this new body, there was a lack of true evolution. It was time to break the mold that she was casting herself in and redefine her limits under new terms. She found herself in the forge, a place that had become symbolic to her of new beginnings and traversing further down the warrior path. She basked in the fires of creation and undiscovered potential, every ingot containing within it the possibility for infinite outcomes.

 

Even the past could be remade into new tomorrows here. Nyrys's armor had served her well in the early days of her training, but she had come so far in her training since she had crafted it, and it was time to move beyond her origins. What could be reclaimed from the original armor was melted down, alchemically treated, and forged again with a more firm and skilled hand. Like a droid mechanic carefully wiring the internal components of a unit, Nyrys meticulously integrated the plates and their crystalline lattice into a unified web of singular purpose. Furthermore, she layered ceramic plates The armor had a presence to it now, an intensity like jaws ready to snap shut on prey at any moment. The fingers on her new gauntlets were tipped with Sith steel vibroblades to give her added lethality at ranges too short to deliver a proper weapon swing. The archaic leather sub-layer was replaced with a nanoweave gambeson of alchemically treated alloys, a lighter, more flexible material that provided the same protection. With the assistance of the Krath, her new helmet now had an optical relay that could feed visual data through a hardwired connection, giving her something resembling traditional sight again. A similar setup was used on a high caliber slugthrower that transmitted the data through a connection in the grip. A silken cortosis ribbon was tied around her waist, a combination of aesthetics and practicality, reinforced in its necessity by phantom pains located in her abdomen. That wound had come from a vibroblade, but as a Sith warrior lightsabers were the far more likely threat.

 

Consulting scrolls and tomes, Nyrys wove spells, compounds, and alchemical reagents together into a ritual that she then applied to the surfaces of her armor plating. The sorcery gave the armor the appearance of black molten rock, cracked with jagged spears of glowing orange, and shrouded in liquid smoke. In truth, the surface of each piece was smooth and polished, but the eye was not difficult to deceive.

 

After her armor was complete she began the process of smithing four new weapons, each in their own way a departure from her traditional emphasis on sword weapons. Datrys Torrwr was a maul with a four foot haft and a head with a flat Sithsteel hammer on one end and a variable thrust plasma engine on the other. She had read enough reports of enemies using stalwart forms of armor to validate the creation of a weapon that could bring low such an opponent. It took several attempts to fashion a design that could withstand both the force of Nyrys's attacks and the strain of the thruster, but after using alchemy to bend the laws of physics until they screamed in silent torment, a functional weapon was produced.

 

Diwedd Gormeswyr was a six foot long cross spear, a foot and a half of which was made up of a piercing blade, meant for killing large beasts. The cross guard prevented the weapon from sinking too deep into the prey, and the spirit of a ravenous beast was infused within the blade. The feral wraith had no interest in smaller game, but any living thing larger than a wampa would start to be slowly consumed from within following a successful deep blow, until predator or prey were brought low.

 

Bwytawr Cnawd was a three foot long Sithsteel club with eight spinning rings along the shaft that moved in alternating directions and were lined with vicious blades. An activation trigger could extend six inch monofilament strands from the rings to give the weapon an eerie howl and an invisible extended bite. In all honesty, there wasn't a need that the weapon was filling, Nyrys had simply made it because she wanted to.

 

The fourth weapon, Gwell Na Rhyw, was a straightforward machete with a hand guard that doubled as a form of brass knuckles. The entire piece was crafted with Sithsteel, with the handle featuring an elegant red crystalline inlay. It was the most attuned to the dragon pearl that served as heart of the four weapons, an expression of extreme aggression, dominance, and rage. Simply holding the weapon in her hand made the blood moving through her veins tingle with potential energy, and her mind filled with wicked fantasies. Of all of the weapons, Gwell Na Rhyw spoke the most intimately to her darkest, most monstrous desires.  It demanded satisfaction with the intensity of wrath and lust entangled in a single need.

The door opened. Her fingers tightened reflexively around the handle. She saw the outlines of form but not particulars like the face. She chose not to restrain herself. She chose to revel in her monstrosity. The blade plunged deep and her body trembled at the sensation. This was fulfillment. This was satisfaction. She thrust again. And again, this time all of the way to the hilt. She pulled the blade out slowly, feeling what it felt as if it were her own skin in place of the blade. The stunned figure crumpled to its knees. She swung a wide arc, and blood sprayed everywhere. She needed more. She bit down on flesh, tearing off a chunk and filling her mouth with hot, wet viscera. She forced the figure to the ground, biting, striking with her weapon, and tearing into exposed flesh with her free hand. A great release of pleasurable pressure moved through her every nerve, and she greedily consumed flesh down to the bone in some places. When she had her fill, she rolled around in the pile of gore so that its scent saturated her and the warmth of the kill permeated her flesh.

 

She felt... rejuvenated, in a way that she hadn't felt for quite some time. She had seen the ravages of the Dark Side on the faces and bodies of other practitioners, but now she wondered if the sickness was from trying to control the darkness instead of embracing it. Her senses were on fire, keenly detecting every scent, every texture, hearing every sound. She ran her tongue along the jagged edges of her meal one last time before rising to her feet, dripping gore, and curled her fingers around her new pistol. With the optical feed she admired herself in a way that her lost eyesight hadn't allowed for some time. Her skin was a milky alabaster white, unnatural in its perfection, and the blood that coated it seemed to seep into her pores and enhance its pristine nature with effulgent glory. Her tongue, now serpentine in its length and split tip, felt personal to her, like she was working with the Darkness to remold herself into something... wondrous. She wanted more, deserved more after everything that she had gone through. For the longest time she had wanted someone to love her, but now she was truly beginning to love herself.

[Darth Nyrys]

The beeping of her comm awoke Darth Nyrys from her reverie. A new war had come, another chance to make the people that murdered her family pay. She scraped the remains of the failed Krath off of her armor and departed for the fleet rendezvous.