Naboo

[Krath Inmortos]

The Eternus slowly began to descend towards the planet’s surface, the dozen crew kobold-esque lizards. Evenly divided between living and undead, worked beneath the mental lash of their god-king. They were honored to serve. 
 

As the craft began it’s descent towards the battle-ravaged and decimated world, the hunched necromancer in his blackened robes smiled. His white teeth blended against his icy pale lips; as white as his deadened flesh. His tongue snaked across those same parched lips, lapping up the taste he could sense even within the ship in the processed air. Death was everywhere. It was magnificent! 
 

Coming to rest at a makeshift landing platform within a Sith military camp, the crafts wings settled into their docking  position and the landing ramp descended. There was no pomp or fanfare at the Sith’s arrival. In fact, he had not even been summoned to the battlefield world. Yet the call of darkness had echoed across the cosmos to him, bidding him forward.

 

Slowly, like the withered and aged elder his body betrayed, twisted and bent by the will of the dark side, Inmortos descended. He was not escorted by soldiers or carried by slaves; his only companion was the deadened latticework of cold air that was the deepest unmoving recesses of the force itself. The pits of hell accompanied the man in breathe, icy and deadly, and spirit, deadened and putrid. Leaning heavily on his cane/walking stick, Inmortos advanced. Each clack of his stick and fall of his foot echoing in eternity.

 

The machinations of lesser Sith usually were not worthy of Inmortos’ attention; but here, here his interest had been stoked. The actions of those he would look down his nose upon echoed into the expanse. They were worthy of his sight.

 

Across the encampment, a flurry of soldiers moved beyond the usual activities. Inmortos had gained clearance high above, the inly herald to his arrival. It had given time for a detachment to be assembled to welcome him.

 

As the commanding officer opened his mouth the speak, Inmortos waved his hand, tendrils of icy air following his motion as he sought the man’s silence. He needed not nor desired a welcome. He was a god. Those he desired worship him would in due time. The man stoped, jaw slack for a moment until the Sith Lord spoke. “Where is he that is called Akheron, I have brought him a gift worthy a warrior of the Sith?” His voice was raspy and cold, deadened of emotion and it’s words carried with it a cool stillness that dared one interrupt at his own peril.

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos’ cracked lips parted as he let out a singular laugh void of entertainment, but carrying a dark glee. “Heh.” They were in the heart of this world that radiated black across the surface. Inmortos felt a twisted entertainment at the though. The Necromancer knew something about hearts. From his studies of ancient lore beyond the realms of the Sith, he knew the heart. It was a gateway to life. He relished it. Crushing it beneath his will. But the heart could be a wily thing, slippery and pulsating, bound and protected in earnest. ‘An apprentice’, he pondered for a moment ; ‘perhaps more a sacrifice’. The heart was no easy thing to master and while the flesh and skin of the planet had been filleted unrighteously, Inmortos knew of this world. It tended to come back with life renewed each time. The heart needed subdued. No, not subdued, crushed; it’s blood running through the fingers of the Sith’s crushing fingers. Only then could death take a true hold and carve an unholy tear upon the ripples of the force itself, spewing forth the darkest of powers and magics contained within.

 

“Take us to them,” the necromancer hissed, his soft retched voice carrying with it an air of authority as he waved his hand back towards his ship and a pair of pint-sized lizard beings, one living and swarthed in dark flowing robes and intricate gaudy talismans and one dead, adorned in little more than rags and carrying a jagged spear in one hand and an ornate black case carved from unknown wood native to his world, scrambled down the ramp to his side. They did not bow. They knew their place. Chosen as ones of their god-king to be heralds unto immortality. 
 

At an annoyingly slow pace, Inmortos made his way to the submersible, his servants trailing in his shadow. The man’s white knuckles bulged as he had to exert himself to climb the stair into the vessel. Inside, he nestled himself into a cushioned seat within the bowels of the craft, his minions standing sentinel on either side of him. Within minutes, the sub departed and began it’s winding descent into the dark cool depths of the planet.
 

Deeper. Deeper. They pressed onwards into the inky black depths, the lights of the sub not the only spear to pierce the veil of dark crushing pressure. From his seat, Inmortos had but to call upon the dark powers of death and the rituals of the forgotten and doomed, in doing so, he closed his eyes, willing the force to allow him to see beyond, to see not the physical but the spiritual. Opening his eyes, the necromancer’s cold gaze pierced beyond the durasteel confines of the ship. He could see the life force of everyone on board, even the weak glow of the piddly lives of the fishes that parted way before the craft. He watched. He sensed. Reaching out on dark jetties, he probed for Akheron and his apprentice amongst the vileness of this life-filled world. It would be a worthy sacrifice befitting a god.

 

Shouts of surprise and an urgency surged through the ship as they neared. A battle was underway. On Naboo, one would have expected that the battle take place far from here. This was too close. It did not matter. The lives of monstrous beasts and strong warriors pierced the veil, but dimmed in comparison to that of the Sith that stood to stop them.

 

Rising from his chair, Inmortos leaned heavily upon his cane for support and balance as the submersible heaved to a stop a safe distance away. Makibg his way to the helm, Inmortos regarded the acolytes there, judging their cowardly stoppage. 
 

“Take me into the fray.”

 

“But sir!!” the commanding officer objected in despair knowing their craft to be unarmed. He was cut off by a gargling nose from his throat as the robed Sith crushed the man’s windpipe with a thought.

 

“Closer.” He commanded, his voice absolute. The fear that rippled across the deck was palpable and no more concerns were voiced as the sub churned into the fray.  
 

As the submarine neared, Inmortos walking stick clattered to the floor with a bang that made the rest of the crew jump; the dense metal handle denting the smooth deck plating. With one hand, Inmortos held to a handle above. The other, he held in the air before him. With an intentness that radiated a deathly cold stillness on the very force itself, the dark magician turned his concentration to the aquatic world outside. The air in the ship dropped in temperature rapidly, crystals of ice forming on the consoles from the humid air. From the prow of the craft arced an icy spear, growing as it traced a path along the watery medium, it zigged and zagged as the frail wizard’s hand jerked, directing it upon a path of his own devising. It’s angled jagged tracing tore through the sea, cooling the water about it that did not freeze, release bubbles along it’s path. Arcing forward the icy skewer froze small fish in place before it speared through the center of one of the massive colo claw fish, tearing like a frozen demon out the opposite side of the fish, it’s blood pouring into the water as the ice raced onwards until it drove into the neck and spine of a fighting gungan. The warrior instantly went limp. Inmortos smiled, tasting the death as it radiated in the force.

 

Feeling the Sith, he called out to them on the force, “I am Inmortos.”

 

 

Edited July 24, 2021 by Krath Inmortos

[Krath Inmortos]

The invitation was granted. Who was he but to accept such a gracious offer. Here amongst the freshly dead, there was, as always, wealth to be harvested. Death was aplenty. Such a field of destruction presented by the core, guarded by but a membrane. It held back the death of an entire world. Such membrane alone held back a tear in the force itself.

 

A twisted smile of glee cracked the frail sorcerer’s flash-weathered face. The force deadened about him, the temperature dropping even further as he projected this deep eternal stillness outwards. The cold shrouded the viewport of the vessel, crystalizing the seawaters before it encasing the fore of the ship and the approaching gungans in a rapidly expanding field of ice as it spread outwards in all directions. The craft shuddered to a standstill against the ice.
 

A throbbing of metal echoed through the ship menacingly.  The crewmen exchanged worried glances, but remembering the fate of their brother on the deck, chose to remain silent.

 

The ice continued to spread, a dull dry chuckle reverberating from his mouth. It grew in cacophony as the ice continued to crystalize the waters reaching outwards with icy tendril-like fingers towards the plasma core, seeking to suck the life and energy from anything it could grasp.

 

The comms crackled, their transmission scrambled and scratchy beneath the expanding plumes of ice. Still, what did come through gave the demented soul pause. He turned to look towards the speaker as if it made him better to hear. An entire city?

 

The expanding field of ice ceased it’s crawl as Inmortos turned to the leader of the craft. “Prepare me a pod. There is work yet to be done before this planet is extinguished.” he growled as he signaled his two lizard entourage and stalked slowly back through the ship, cane in hand.

[Krath Inmortos]

Aboard the aubmarine, the venerable Sith Lord moved with purpose towards the aft of the craft and the escape pods therein. Such a thing would be of most use to Inmortos. He did not fancy a swim. As the duo of other Sith boarded, the Necromancer regarded them with a silent icy stare. Where his eyes passed, heat vanished, dissipated into lost energies in the cosmos.

 

As Akheron spoke, Inmortos nodded briefly, but as the Sith warrior fell silent, the sorcerer allowed the still air to hold it’s place amongst the silence of the sea. He could feel the force move, subtle yet absolute. The tightening of the bands that seemed to bind the warrior to his robot-like apprentice.

 

The sorcerer’s eyes followed the trail of the force, felt the life force twinge and grieve beneath the crushing power of darkness. The droid-being reeked of pain and suffering, his soul bound by the agony of Akheron’s dark will.

 

A smile played across Inmortos’ lifeless pale face; a sparkle of glee shining against his shadowed yellowed eyes. So this droid had a spark of life, a soul. His body though . . . his body was mechanized, an urn for a life; of little use resurrected as a servant for his cause.

 

He felt the fear and rage welling up in the apprentice. He could taste it, a dark cacophony of swirling emotions, hot and raw even as the stone sought to conceal it. Turning his eyes on the Shard, he spoke. His voice was raspy and dry, cold and biting. “I brought you a gift, but if you would like, I could just kill him instead. I find death to be a great teacher and a gift greater than any other. After that, we can accomplish what I came for, to reach the darkest depths of the force itself.” Leaning heavily on his cane, Inmortos’ stared into the eyes of the apprentice, icy tendrils of invisible cold reaching on his sight to sap the heat and life from that which filled his vision. “The Force shall free me,” he spoke the final line of the Sith code, spitting it with a glimmer of lustful desire.

[Krath Inmortos]

The dark magicians eyes stared unblinkingly into the receptors of the Solus-bot as if staring beyond the seen and into the very soul of their owner; but just as suddenly, they shifted. Inmortos’ eyes turned towards the apprentice’s master, he that had began the training of Apothos. Training that Inmortos had brought to fruition.

His eyes flickered with glee at the mention of his gift, and while it was not death itself, it was still a gift that would bring such to bear. Motioning, Inmortos’ necromancic disciple came forward, an elongated case of blackened polished wood held reverently in his arms and hands as he presented it to his dark master.

 

”It is quite simple Darth Ahkeron. I shall bestow upon you this weapon, for you are one of few that might wield it properly. With it, you will help me carve a gateway. A gateway through the very force itself, deep beyond where mere mortal cowardly powermongers and Jedi dare swim. A gateway built upon a cursed altar. A gateway beyond the frail bonds of life and death.”

 

Inmortos turned to fully face the Sith warrior, stepping aside as he did. With a flick of his hand, the locks that held the case closed opened and the case opened upwards in silence. Within, upon a bed of inky black velvet lay a weapon, a blade, instricate and ornate, gilded with crystalized bone and jade. The blade seemed to shimmer with a vorpal blackness as if it did not quite exist or belong entirely unto the reality and realm upon which the trio of Sith stood. It’s edges were honed to an atom’s width and it’s hunger palpable in the air itself. 
 

As the case opened, the lighting in the room dropped, drawing shadows out of nothingness. The temperature dropped several degrees, sending a pale chill beckoning through the air.

 

“A limnal blade, hewn by the darkness of my own hand and crafted from the utter hopelessness that makes up my very own necropoliptic tomb. This blade has yet to taste flesh or be carried into battle by a worthy possessor. I present it unto you, you have but to name it and take it in your hand.” The sorcerer beckoned Karys forward with a skeletal white bony finger, budding him to take the blade as the stillness of the room pressed in, almost suffocating within the weapon’s aura. “But be warned,” he added hastily, his dry voice cracking, “such a weapon is not possessed by spirits, but will still destroy he that is unworthy. Strengthen yourself. Steel your soul against the call of timeless eternity.”

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos smiled wickedly as the warrior took the blade. It left a frosty air behind wherever it moved, sucking the energy from whatever it touched. “What is left may be harvested by your servants. What falls will be harvested by me. The wealth of a city is minimal compared to the wealth that this world offers. We will summon forth the darkness to the precipice, thinly veiled from reality. Once your harvest is complete, we will burst the bubble and darken this entire world.”

 

Looking to Solus, he added, “Brace yourself, the wave of death that is about to descend upon this deep Gungan fortress of solitude is enough to overwhelm the most seasoned. Battle, slaughter, mayhem are nothing compared to annihilation.”

 

Before he could continue, the Sith were interrupted by a shipwide comm from the bridge of icebound craft they found themselves on. “Masters, communication from topside. A Dr. Zylus is requesting the location of Krath Inmortos. Something to do with  . . . a contract? Please advise.” 

Inmortos paused his diatribe, his face twisting with surprise at the announcement. ‘What? How was he here? Why was he here?’

 

”Send him down.” the Krath spat aloud, his deathly voice dripping with contempt and annoyance at being interrupted. He would teach this mad scientist, but he needed the man alive, for now. He needed his mind and killing the clones seemed only to set him back, any new experiences or knowledge being reintroduced. “Hell forbid you ever become as useful to your master as this one is to me! He lacks the power to resurrect you when you sin!” Inmortos spat before turning back to Akheron, “I will join you at the city to partake of the slaughter; but first I must handle an unexpected variance. Perhaps one or two of your finer force-attuned specimens might be bought for their weight in jade. My associate desires their souls. With them, we might tear a hole to your dark god that rends the universe asunder.” He smiled evilly, his lips blue with cold;  dry and chapped. This may yet work to his advantage; but first, he would insure that Zylus watched, stood by his side as an entire city was sacrificed to draw forth the darkness of the beast.

 

The pilot relayed approximate coordinates and directions through the maze of the planet to their location within view of the pulsating core back to the surface. Hopefully it would not take long for Dr. Zylus to join him. In that time, Inmortos hoped that Akheron and Solus would begin the slaughter, churn the deep city of supposed safety into a ripe panic. He looked forward to the taste, garnished with hopelessness; followed by destruction and it’s stillness amongst the collapse of fire and ice.

He had but to wait.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Krath Inmortos

[Krath Inmortos]

The good doctor had arrived just before the submersible had been able to free itself from the icy web that had ensnared it; a byproduct of Inmortos’s display of power. There was little time for pleasantries before the craft  was hurling towards the Gungan city.

 

The Sith lord had barely enough time to brace as the liquid medium holding the ship gave way to a tumultuous screeching of metal on metal. That was not going to buff out. Like an icicle, Inmortos’ feet kept him stayed to the deck even as the craft jolted and listed violently before stopping.

 

The forces of Akheron and Solus were first to the fray, falling screaming upon the Gungan defensive forces still mustering to their sudden location. Inmortos acolytes acted differently, the necromancer and undead taking up their place at the breech to ensure that none gained access within.

 

Turning, Inmortos regarded the clone with visions as grand as his own. “Doctor. Your arrival is most, unexpected. As you can see, I am about the business of our mutual beneficial arrangement. Shall we secure your souls before I convert the remainder to my will?” 

[Krath Inmortos]

A wicked smile cracked Inmortos’ frozen features, “Most excellent to hear. If you or your,” he regarded Zylus’ more militant copy, “associate wish to walk the streets with me, you are welcome. I suspect that you might be able to identify more material. Material I may otherwise purge.”  Inmortos gestured for the breach and the chaos and carnage that echoed into the submarine. The smell of carnage was in the air.

 

Gingerly, leaning heavily on his cane, Inmortos picked his way to the Gungan coty beneath the crashed submarine. His failing eyes surveyed the chaos; blurs of movement beneath his gaze. Where his eyes rested, the energy dissipated like heat in a snowstorm rising in puffs of steam and vanishing int the air. 
 

Inmortos took in the bulbous structure that had withstood the impact of their vessel. “Fascinating” he whispered as he approached it. Reaching out with one ghostly pale knobby hand, the sorcerer pressed his palm to the bubble’s interior. Like an opaque curtain being drawn, the ice seeped outwards, obscuring the outside world as the bubble was consumned. Once frozen, it would take but a touch. Once the bubble froze, Inmortos looked to his comrades and laughed. “Who likes to swim?” Tapping the sphere, a crack formed and Inmortos stepped through a gelatinous membrane into the next sphere. The bubble quickly destabilized and cracked, water pouring in at the seams for a moment before it gave way to the might of the sea all at once.

[Krath Inmortos]

Advancing into the next bubble, Inmortos gave little heed to his cohort’s plight, though he was secretly glad the clone had made it. The knowledge in his mind was too valuable to lose and plucking it from a dead body took time he did not have. He would need to be a bit more careful. As fun as popping bubbles was and all, he had already loosed their sub back to the seas.

 

Still, his doctor and compnay were now somewhere in the chaos that the more worldly Sith were creating. A sinister smile cracked the Sith’s frozen far off features. It was going as he planned. Deliberately walking forward, Inmortos waded towards the chaos, his frail hands rolling at his waist as he mumbled. The words were barely discernible, like an old man lost from reality, but each was carefully chosen and woven with the others into an ongoing spell of icy destruction. Where he stepped, ice crystalized outwards across the floors and up into the bulbous walls. Where he looked, heat vanished in a puff of cold steam, glow lights flickered and went out. Where he gestured, spears of ice arced outwards blocking doorways and impaling any who gave inclination to stand against him. As he breathed the temperatures dropped, crystalizing the very breath of any before him. Those that did not bow before the frail old wizard died, their bodies hanging from spears of ice, the lifeblood dripping out of them.
 

As he moved, Inmortos felt a twinge of dark side power, an unknown being or beast of power was radiating it’s presence in the darkness. The dark lord licked his lips, whatever or whoever it was might make a welcome addition to the doctor’s collection. The greater his collection grew, the more powerful Inmortos became. The twisted doctor’s creations were but a breath away from becoming slobbering undead slaves, extensions of Inmortos’ will. If it was strong in the force, it might also allow the doctor to unlock the mysteries of biological force manipulations; another power for the god-king of the lizardmen.

 

Glancing about at the kowtowing gungans, Inmortos surveyed their very souls. “Worthless,” he spat as waves of atomizing destruction ravaged their bodies like swarms of insects. The grand hall was filled with screams and then fell silent aside from the clatter of bones to the ground. The dark sorcerer shuffled on. Any Gungan before him met a similar fate until he found Dr. Zylus or one of his clones. He struggled to tell them apart. “Doctor, it is time we secured transport to the surface. A beast of dark side power beckons. I think it may be one worthy of your research.”

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos regarded the Sith warrior with a nod, “You have our thanks Akheron; but if your apprentice can secure one transport, surely he can bring us two. My associate here has samples and clone servants that must be brought back with us and, if you may be so willing, a sample of your own flesh would make his journey here worthwhile. Should you be struck down, I will ensure you have a mortal form upon which to cling, lest you be lost to the void.”  
 

Inmortos shuffled along alongside the warrior, leaning heavily on his Ithor wood cane. He was as much an anomoly on the battlefield as he was in life itself; for while he was alive, he was suspended in a nigh eternal cryostasis of life and within the force itself. His presence stretched across the cosmos connecting him to the world he ruled as a god.

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos fell behind as the Sith warrior and his metallic minion scurried forward to take their place at the gathering. The Sith Sorcerer’s bones ached with each step, his body prematurely aged by the magicks that pooled within his veins. He felt the darkness of the devastated city. The toppled columns that masked the scores of mangled and mutilated bodies, scorched and crushed beyond recognition. Soot filled his nose as he licked his dry lips, tasting the utter devastation of the place, of the world. 
 

Inmortos’ dried lips cracked into a twisted smile, black bloody ichor dribbled from them. A raspy rough cackle of glee emanated outwards, low at first, but growing in strength and volume. Dropping his cane, the necromancer fell to his knees in the rubble filled street; waves of dark energy radiating outwards in fractured icy gusts of frozen wind. He could feel the souls of the recently departed extending outward in every direction, raw and ripe for the plucking; wealth and power bound as one. He knew it was true, there was a place for the worldy Sith, those who sought to conquer and destroy. They were those who carried the platter upon which the feast of the masters was served. They were the servants of the darkness, their souls bound to the truly free.

 

Inmortos felt the power radiating from the palace. He could feel the gathering of Sith within. They were like a pustule awaiting burst. He could feel the swirls of rage and hatred, of darkness and desire. Cold and coagulated, Inmortos rose. Calling his cane to his hand, the Firrereo leaned heavily on it, shuffling forward towards the palace and gathering of darkness with his escort of lizardly minions trailing in his wake.

 

Inside, the wizard entered the room. He saw the warrior and his crystalline apprentice kneeling removing the headgear, or in Solus’ case head itself. The reaper-clad magician stood at the back of the room, melding into the shadows. He shook his head at they that bowed. He had never met this dark presence, this dark woman. He had served under the Spider as their goals had aligned. Even then, he had been on his own more often than not, emerging from the darkest shadows of the Empire when he had need of raw materials or his skills at drawing forth armies of the damned were purchased in bloody sacrifice and ritual. Now would be the time to see what she that had assumed the throne might do; if she was worthy to trod where he had. And so he stood, hunched and withered, pain pooling in his muscles and death frozen in his limbs. Cold air oozed from his robes and his breath crystalized with each deliberate exhalation. From the dark recesses of his shroud he regarded the Sith all around them, silent and cold.

 

 

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos stood in silence, his cold gaze radiating out from beneath his cowl. He took in the spoken words and waves of feelings in the room. He had no desire to claim such a mortal throne, one that by admittance was weaker than the Spider himself had portrayed, held together by the assassin overlord’s strength of will. This vacuum saw the machinations of the Sith begin to crumble. He did not know this Nyrys, nor did she earn his fealty by right of inheritance. He did not either desire to challenge her or assume the mantle she bore. He had served his own ends within the Sith Imperial war machine, his goals being served by the eternal trudge of Imperial might. The carnal desires of these others were not his own. Power and territory, slaves and authority were of little value to his master plan. But to give up such a prize like the galaxy seemed a waste of such resources and might; one that Inmortos was surprised to see the likes of warlords give up without resistance. Still, they were not his battles or his losses and he cared little for them. He would do as he had always done, lurk in the shadows and construct his eternal memorial. When empires and rulers were forgotten, when bodies decayed and souls dissolved, the memory of Inmortos would remain etched amongst the eternal fonts of true dark side power, a black spot of never ending torment on the fabrics of reality itself. He would but adjust his ways accordingly and continue as he did allowing this new plan to follow it’s course.

 

Inmortos stared at Nyrys for a minute more while the others spoke before turning his gaze upon Akheron and his mechanized apprentice. He hoped that they could feel the iciness of his vision, the sheer deathliness of his deadened emotional lack of response. He willed that  the warrior and his pet, and the dog too, to know they had a place to welcome them should they so desire it. Even as their ideals differed, Inmortos had a use for these dark worshipers.

 

And then, without a word, Inmortos turned. Shuffling he made his way from the room, the heavy tap tapping of his cane all that acknowledged his departure, his retinue of diminutive undead and worshipful necromancic lizards flowing silently behind him. He would return to his ship. This world had little left for him. The dead here could be harvested by the lesser necromancers, by those who craved the spirits and not material. If this was to be the beginning of the end of the Empire, he knew it best to fade now before others began. From there he would protect himself and his eternal plan. He would not be the Sith to die for the cause of others’ power. This Imperial fade would not be his doing. He would use it for his own end.

 

Once aboard, Inmortos reclined himself within his chambers, reaching out to take control of one of his undead servants. Then, with scaled reptilian hands, he started his ship. Keying the comms, he related a message to his associate, Zylus. “Doctor, gather your wares. We depart immediately. The fall of the Empire is at hand.” The message was brief and to the point, but Inmortos knew even in his servant’s body, the maddened scientist would understand who it was and what would follow.

[Krath Inmortos]

The engines flared to life as Inmortos’ puppet made final adjustments for takeoff. As the hangar roof slid open, the comms flared to life but it was not Dr. Zylus that cackled across the speaker. Instead it was from above. Apparently the Sith fleet also were in some sort of game, kowtowing so soon.

 

With a suspicious squint through lizardly eyes, Inmortos surveilled the control panel and beyond the viewscreen. There in the hangar stood a solitary figure, a Sith. A Sith Inmortos knew, militaristic and violent. He was one the Krath had been surprised to see give up his ambitions so easily. He had expected so much more, perhaps this this one might even via for the mantle of leadership amongst the Empire. Keying the outer speaker’s Inmortos voice carried through the lizard’s hissing mouth out into the hangar. “What is the meaning of thisssss Darth Mavanger. I, a lord of the SSSSith, do not heed the commandssss of naval officerssss.” 
 

And yet the Darth motioned for him to join him on the bay floor. Whatever may be transpiring, the sorcerer had not made it this far without a strongly developed sense of paranoia to augment his abilities. His diving into forbidden texts and rituals having warped his mind so that past, present, and future, myth and reality all blended as one. He would honor this warrior-minded Sith. That was deserved. He would not; however, risk much for this strange display of behavior on the heels of such revelations.   

 

Jumping from the corpse at the helm, leaving it to sink forward dead and decaying at the controls, Inmortos’s spirit jumped to another, a darkly clad necromancer of his own line, willing to give up his body that his god-king might live. Clad in priestly garments of black adorned with talismans and profane ruinic sigils, the cleric of evil disembarked, accompanied by a guard of lizardmen. The guard stood back from the Sith warrior that had followed them, leaving Inmortos’ servant whom he now possessed, to continue forward alone. Their weapons were held at the ready and as soon as they had left the ship it sealed itself again.

 

With all the lithe grace of his kind the possessed body stalked forward, a jagged spear of a scepter tonking ceremoniously with each step until he stared up at Mavanger, his clawed toes scraping against the Sith lord’s booted toes, through slitted dead eyes. “I am no dog to be sssssummoned by ssssscrapssss at the will of any. SSSSStand down your navy that I may leave unhindered assss I came Lord Mavanger.” He smelled putrid. His scales shone with blood and ichor that was his own and others. Held together by dark side magicks, the diminutive creature’s scales provided it a measure of protection. It was something Inmortos hoped would be unneeded; but he did not trust this Sith. He had thrown away his passions for peace to easily. Still, he would honor him with a word. He had seen this one’s powers on the field of battle. He had earned a moratorium of respect from the twisted wizard. Perhaps, Inmortos hoped, he might rekindle this one’s passions.

[Krath Inmortos]

An uncharacteristic sigh escaped the lizard’s mouth as he listened to the Sith’s words. It came out more like a hiss than anything. “Your risssssk is appreciated brother and will be reeeemembered.” The undead lizard slumped forward onto Mordecia’s feet as Inmortos’ soul left it, dead, the putrid odors of decay oozing and wafting freely as the ravages of time took it; unheld within by Sith magicks.

 

Back in the cold black bowels of the ship, Inmortos’ eyes opened. With an angry groan, he stood, calling his Ithorian wooden staff to his hand, the weighted blade tucked in the handle smooth and icy against his gnarled knuckles.

 

With a pneumatic hiss the ramp descended. Through the clouds of steam the Sith sorcerer descended, his black robes hanging loose over his gaunt and twisted body. He clacked and shuffled towards Mordecai, falling into step with him as they turned to return. With a wave of his hand, the undead necromancer rose, it’s bodily fluids reanimating as the lizard’s body twisted and cracked unnaturally before falling into line behind the dark visage.

 

They made their way back towards the gathering of Sith, as they did, Inmortos spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. “I care not for kingdoms of this world, for empires and armies. They are but tools. We have a greater purpose brother and gatherings to showcase power and soothe insecurities are but a waste of the time we have to act; especially when none would dare to challenge the Lady Nyrys. Not I, not even you, who might take it as tradition would afford. I will not stand against the dark master, whoever that may be; nor will I suffer foolishness and waste by one.”

 

Slipping back into the gathering as Akheron’s mechanized living crystal spoke, oh how he would like to subject that stone to the tests of Doctor Zylus, to put it into a saber and send dark energies coursing through it, he heard him pledge his loyalty, chanting his allegiance. “Hail the Dark Empress” he hissed with the others as his undead minion hissed the same.

 

Whatever this council was for, Inmortos hoped that it would be productive, more than an insecure princess seeking acknowledgement from men of war. If the Empire was to fall, there were things that must be done, pieces set up to fall so that in the end, he, Inmortos the Eternal might reign over a kingdom not of flesh and blood of land and wealth, but of the expanses of eternity, a kingdom that knew no bounds, a kingdom of the mind. 

 

 

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos stood still and listened. So this was the plan. He would do as he always did, provide the finance of souls and the material of bodies to be ground before the Sith war effort. It mattered little for what reason. The dead were but fodder to be burnt upon the altar. He had no criticisms or challenges. He would pay his due to a war that was below his disdain to fight.

 

As the crowd began to mingle, the dark lord pondered his departure, for he had tasks that beckoned. He did not desire the promised attention his premature departure had apparently wrought. So he stayed, immobile as a specter of solidified shadow wraithed in black. Yet, in the mumblings and conversations, one approached. It reeked of death, of one who had crossed the veil and returned beyond what was natural, blurring the lines of nature, grasping at souls as if they were more than a valued commodity upon which to build. Yes, this Darth Oni was one who was shrouded in the mists of religions and ritual; but even one as misguided as this carried a power about him and was worth acknowledgement by the Necropolis King. “Mon Cal was not mine to rule,” he offered in sly correction to deflect any disdain at the failure of the Sith to hold such a jeweled world. “It was only a mine to be stripped of raw materials to a greater end. It belonged to Krath Apothos who even now rots within the cells of they our Empire seek to empower. He was not trained in the arts of death nor empowered to hold it. His death would be most welcome, but he clings like so many to the mortal coil fearful of what might lie beyond the void.”

Gesturing to an alcove that led from what remained of their gathering chamber, he continued, offering a momentary alliance with the mystic necromancer. Such a thing would complete their tasks and keep them within the graces of this mortal monarchy. Besides that, the icy necromancer had business to conduct with the grotesque Hutt. “Let us retire, as soon as we may, Darth Oni, to the gluttonous master of the Krath. Together we might in a single ritual raise forth the horde so desired for this campaign. With our contribution completed then might we turn our attentions to our own immoral and immortal ends.” 
 

As he began to glide ethereally through the group, a smile twitched at the corners of his frozen features when he heard the whispers of the crystalline Sith. He placed a cold hand on the robotic being’s shoulder as he passed, imparting a heatless void as he withdrew his hand, a hissed wordless warning, more snakelike than anything, cracking his lips beneath his breath. 

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos stilled as the Imperial Head spoke, unable to continue in conversation with his fellow necromancer as all eyes turned to focus on Lady Nyrys. The frail looking Firereo weathered the display of power much as the dead, silent and still, his lips pressed into a thin line. He grimaced, his eyes flashing briefly, at being offered to serve beneath the Mandalorian in battle. He knew his place in this regime though and the dark lord would do his part, even if he was not to return to the core of this watery world or venture forth to find the lord of the Krath as he had desired. It was but a divergence of his plan; one he would take in stride as he plod inwards towards his eternal destiny.

 

As the group was dismissed to mingle and interact, Inmortos stayed for a drawn-out moment, surveying the eclectic group. His conversations with Oni and the others forgotten in the shadows of what had been brought about. Seeing the Mandalorian making his way towards the feast hall, he elected to follow. If he acted now, perhaps he could forego any premature encounters with death later. Shuffling along with his weighted walking stick, the black-clad necromancer hurried after Tros. His bones creaked and his joints popped as the decrepit wizard lungingly snaked forward.
 

“Master Mandalorian,” he wheezed when he finally drew close. Stopping to lean heavily in his stick as he caught his breath. “On the field of battle, one such as I am a liability at best. Look at me, barely skin and bone knotted together by sinews too stubborn to die. I cannot lead men into battle or flail about with a mighty sword. Antiquity, not technology, is my area of expertise.

 

Might I propose a better arrangement?

 

Armies of undead to distract and demoralize these rebellious souls, drawn from crypts and battlefield across the galaxy. Mindless monsters and beasts to terrify and ravage your foes resurrected from the depths of space and the madness of the mind.” The necromancer stooped his head even lower on his twisted frame in a bow before the Mandalorian, both hands clutching his cane to remain upright. “I await but your word m’lord.” 

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos’ attention was caught by the crystalized Sith slinking away from the gathering. He decided to follow. This one interested him on a scientific level. To be a crystal presented many opportunities; to carry life, a whole new way with which to store his harvest.

 

Weaving his way through the gathering of Sith, would take the hunched sorcerer several minutes. Each movement of his body a creaking ache of deliberately inflicted pain upon his mortal form. It was a small price to pay in Inmortos’ opinion.

 

Leaning heavily in his cane, the reaper-esque man slowly followed the trail of life that rippled across this deliciously dead and devastated world. He could not match the hurried speeds of the robot. His only hope remained that he would catch the apprentice before he tried to depart this world, a task he worried little about seeings as how they were still bound to this place.

 

Inmortos did not stop to admire the remaining architecture or revel in the destruction. He pressed forward, gaining the clearing ringed by cultists just in time to see the robo-Sith carve a path through the rubble with his flying form. A smile twisted across his face as he watched the Sithling return fire.

 

Shuffling forward the stooped magician’s icy presence was not something to be obscured, not as each padded step seemed to leech warmth from the air. The linworms quieted and parted before the cryomancer’s icy crawl.

 

He stopped a couple meters behind the kneeling crystalline droid Sith. “Yes. You do.”  he responded to Solus’ statement. “To be bested by such a hideous malformation as that,” he pointed to the unmoving, yet breathing form of the alchemist Solus had taken to battling for reasons yet unknown to him. “Would be an embarrassment even the likes of Darth Akheron could not tolerate in a slave.” 
 

Inmortos stood regarding the metallic form before him, a sense of curiosity playing across his deadened glassy eyes. He stared beyond the droid’s chassis, beyond his crystalline nature, and regarded the fiery soul of the stone itself. He would make a warrior a fine lightsaber crystal, Inmortos mused as a smile tugged at his frozen features, creasing his sallowed face with wrinkles and cracking by lips. So much potential if it could be harnessed properly.

 

The necromancer ran a dried sandpapered tongue across the ichorous blood that dribbled from his cracked lips before his voice rasped again, “What happened to your pet? Did you kill it in your rage? What is it that you truly desire oh Sith of stone and steel?”

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos’ smile widened to reveal his greyed and rotting teeth. This young stone had spirit. It was a shame that they had sought to crush him; but then again, it wasn’t. It had shown the shard what and where the intentions of the others lay. With time, if he were strong enough, Inmortos hoped the droid-bound slave might even free himself from his shackles.

 

As the apprentice remarked on Inmortos ‘crumbling facade, the necromancer could not help himself. He broke out into a cackle that seemed to echo across the courtyard as rolls of frigid icy fog began to billow forth from beneath the reaper’s robes, cascading from his deep cowl and sleeves. It billowed forth to fill the courtyard, rising like clouds of deathly clenching mist that clawed at every surface it could touch until. As this happened, Inmortos brought his laughter to an end, turning his eyes upon the form of Solus even as the fog and icy mists obscured their sights. “My frailty reveals more of you than it does me young stone. It is your own chain that binds you.”

 

Suddenly, Inmortos’ body convulsed. His eyes rolled back in his head. Falling backwards his body succumbed to the cold, entering a deathly state. All body functions ceased and the sorcerer’s body crumpled to the ground, as dead as one could be without the touch of the force. Even that though, portrayed the man as such.

 

Wrenching from his body, the spirit of Inmortos tore free from his body as it fell. It erupted with an ethereal scream as it vanished into the mists.

 

”Remember the code,” a disembodied voice spoke from the mists, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. “The chains that hold you down can only be broken through victory.” 
 

“Victory only gained through power and power”

 

“through strength.”

 

The air whirled and swirled as the invisible force spirit raced about tracing trails in the frozen mists for a mere moment before they disappeared.

 

”Your strength is limited by your perceptions.” 

 

“Your power is hindered by your lack of strength,”

 

“of mind and imagination.”
 

“It is because of these that you fail.”

 

Each time the voice spoke, it paused, before continuing from

another direction. As he finished the cold tendrilled hands of Inmortos’ spirit ran passing fingers through  Solus’ chassis, the icy grip of death, the touch of the reaper thinning the veil between this life and the great beyond.

[Krath Inmortos]

The disembodied spirit cackled with glee at the apprentice’s vain attempts to slash at his ethereal being with his saber. Even in this form, Inmortos could feel, perhaps even greater unbound by  his mortal frame, the other’s raw emotions, his potential power as it bled through his shell on the rising tide of the  stone-Sith’s fury. And so he laughed. Even as the bounds of force-made tethers began to coil, circling to try and ensnare the sorcerer’s spirit, he laughed.

 

As the chains tightened, dragging and clawing with emotion barbed edges at the necromancer’s very presence, he laughed. Like the tales of old, chains forged in life dragging sinners into the abyss, they pulled him downward. But Inmortos was no mere Sith, bound to this world and battle. No, he was a being of power and might, unhindered by such paltry bounds like death and hell. His very existence had become hell itself, a frozen wasteland of nothing that stretched for eternity in all directions; and, he was it’s king.

 

Sliding from the chains, the spirt swirled about and doge back into the billowing mists and fog, dense as the tormenting fire smoke that still now ravaged the wilds of this world and as cold as the touch of the Reaper’s hand itself. Back, into the body of Inmortos where it lie in splendorous riposte, dead on the battlefield.

 

Sitting up in the ensnaring shadows of the fog itself, Inmortos voice carried, echoing against the plaza walls and the choking mists until it seemed to reverberate from everywhere. 
 

“Gooooood” his voice carried his glee, drawn out in it’s echo. “I can feel your passion; but victory is attained through power, and power through strength.” As he spoke, the cryomancer’s hands began to weave a chilling spell in the air. “Many Sith like your master and even the Empire itself see strength only where one is strong. You must become more if you wish to one day rule the Sith young Shard. Find your strength in the shadows, where others would never see strength in you. Where there is strength, there is no weakness. Destroy your weaknesses Solus! Destroy them and within their wreckage find strength you knew not that you possessed! Bind your weaknesses as slaves to your will and work them to their death.”  Inmortos’ words dwindled off into the mists, their power hanging in the thick icy air. 
 

Then suddenly, from within the center of the choking cloud came a spark of unnatural blue energy. It arced from the spirit of Inmortos returned to his frigid form. The cold did not bother him; for he was master of the stillness of death. It spread like crackling electricity in every direction solidifying any liquid it could touch, entombing those within the mists’s grasp in solid ice. It reached for their souls seeking to drain them of energy as Inmortos poured his entire attentions to the task at hand. The clouds of fog and steam began to crack and twist as they began to solidify into an unholy monument of jagged edges, towering walls, leaning towers and encasing ice. Linworm, soldier, Sith, dead and living; it mattered not. All would be ensnared equally as the power lashed out from the depths of Inmortos’ frozen empty soulless heart.
 

Any energy claimed would be lost to the cosmos, violating the very principles of nature. Energy claimed here was destroyed, a step in the endless quest towards absolute stillness and the end of the need for the very Sith Code Inmortos now taught and ascribed to. 

 

In the center of it all, the Krath pushed himself first to his knees and then, with great pain, stood upright to his hunched visage, held up and empowered by the very ice that entombed the world around him. 

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos smiled at the Sithling’s words. Was he even listening to the dread necromancer’s instruction to have gotten caught on such a phrase? But still, one could be taught, lime a dog, to heel. If this one did not desire to rule the Sith, perhaps he desired more. If he did, Inmortos could help shape him and form him. If all he desired was the table scraps of impressing a master, then he was already lost; another cog to be ground to dust in the machinations of more worthy Sith. 
 

The cold had no effect on the sorcerer. It’s encircling embrace did not ensnare him like it did those lessers whose souls it sought to drain. Still, being entombed within the ice itself did restrain the wizard and muffled the outside world, even as it was muffled and slowed by the powers of stillness and cold outside. And within, Inmortos continued to manipulate the ice, casting the energies of the air, water, and souls into the void. The ice continued to twist and crack and expand until it reached the fringes of the foggy battlefield. Even there, it creaked and groaned as it sought to bind more heat, more life, more existence within it’s eternally silent grasp. And still, Inmortos worked, in his silent tomb of cold his hands churned forth the cursed ancient sigils of a time long before the name Sith was even known to the cosmos.

 

A flash, a blur of color, emotion, and energy, zipped overhead; a stark contrast to the stillness of absolute zero. Inmortos’ eyes were drawn to it, even as he felt a shift in the force, a movement on the absolute glassiness of the void within the ice. The stone plunged downwards riding the emotionally charged wave downwards crashing through the thick ice in a torpid assault first on Inmortos’ senses, destined for an attempted assault on his very person.

 

Inmortos, stooped as he was, ducked, his spine curling even more with the will of the ice. The stone bullet crashed through the ice overhead coming to rest in the ice across the small tomb that contained the sorcerer. It had been breached, and like the tombs of Sith kings of old, doing so unleashed the cursed and evils contained within.

 

From his stooped position, Inmortos grasped his frigid hilt, ripping it from his sleeve as he activated it in the same motion. A blackened blade erupted from the end, sucking in light and warmth, icy fingers crawi from it’s aura as the temperatures dropped further obscuring the evil lord in mists and thermal blotting cold.

 

Directing his stillblade towards the vaulting mechanical being, a twisting spiral of galeforce winds erupted from Inmortos. It tore through the icy enclosure blasting spikes of razor sharp projectiles along it’s billowing path. He traced the movement of Solus above, carving his tomb open to the heavens as he sought to blast the Sithling from the sky on a explosive wave of tearing wind. 
 

As the blast of supercharged supercooled air struck Solus’ chassis and tore at the edges of his plating, it rocketed the Sith apprentice skyward until he fell from the directed maelstrom, plummeting back towards the ground where he landed in a heap.

 

Climbing from his icy enclosure like a wild cat atop a mountain overlook, Inmortos regarded the mass of droid and force energies. In one hand he clenched his still ignited weapon, cold mists radiating from his form as his edges were blotted from sight and his temperatures equalized with the air. The wind, once pointed and directed now howled about the sorcerer, billowing his robes and swirling the mists as they clung to the area about him.

 

Inmortos stopped across the clearing from Solus. “Do you hear my words apprentice? If you hear them, why do you not heed? Are your loftiest goals so low that you think you can achieve them bound in the mortal coil you now possess?” his voice boomed supernaturally on the wind, weighted with the cold deadness that was the inevitable final fate of the dark side. 

 

“I see now that you are not one to take analogies and lessons to heart, but that I must speak plainly as if to your dog. I care not what your aspirations are. A pawn such as yourself will never become more than a pawn if he has not goals of his own beyond the approval and whims of he that holds your leash. So long as you think only of what this world is, what you can do with this world, you will never be enough. You will fail, bound by your own lack of insight and imagination. You are but a stone. See through the force, not your attached eyes. See the truth. Find your own weakness and cultivate it so that when the time comes, your very weakness may become your strength.”

 

”When your lightsaber failed, you reached out upon the force. That shows me you are capable. Then you resort to throwing stones at me, a god? If that is all you learn by the way of the warrior I know now why we seek to surrender our Infinite Empire to the likes of the Jedaii.”

 

With a waive of his hand, ice materialized about the apprentice’s lightsaber hilt as it rolled on the ground, entombing it and binding it to the earth

 

”You, Solus, are more than that. Find your fears, bind them and make them your slave. Face them so that you might overcome them.”

 

Inmortos reached for his belt line and withdrew a phial. He regarded it for a moment in silence, before tossing the crystalline container into the wind where it crashed and splintered at the base of the heap that was Solus. A heavy vapor rose with the crash, before settling and washing over the Shard and his automaton, working it’s way into every crevice and clinging wherever it might find a microscopic hold. Despair, bottled and purified from the tortured souls held within Inmortos’ care. The Curse of Howling Despair did not care upon whom or what it inflicted it’s touch. Beings were sapped of their emotional energies, struck with immediate severe depression and apathy. Machines reduced to the slightest slimmer of power, only emergency generations holding off the complete sapping away of power. And it spread from the spot where it had erupted, creating a festering pool of thick despair to any that dared come near.

Lowering his hand, Inmortos regarded the Shard.  “I teach this lesson but once Apprentice Solus. If you cannot find your weakness, it will be exploited by those who can.”

 

((Curse of Hollowing Despair: Unsealing a crystal phial, the cryomancer releases a miasma of distilled despair that clings to any living or powered things that it touches, sapping away both emotional and technological energy. Victims of the curse suffer immediate severe depression and apathy, and machines afflicted by it struggle to function on the barest minimum of power. The cone of effect is short but broad, reaching ten feet away from the sorcerer but spreading thirty feet wide.))

 

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos blinked. The chaos that unfolded was the mark of darkness in motion. Had the apprentice listened? The next moments would tell. The cacophony of antiquated slug throwers echoed on the air. The powdered stillness that followed, broken by the cries of the luckiest linworm as his life was ended in a tearing and rending of flesh. The cold dark sorcerer licked his lips. The taste of death like a sweet garnish to his nose. He knew the moment the sickly servant’s life drew to a close.

 

With a swift gesture upwards, Inmortos tore the soul free from it’s shackled existence; still warm to the touch. A shade of the now-dead servant arched upwards with an otherworldly scream, a translucent ghost with his face contorted in the agony of death and the pain of undying. His existence now held in the controlling grasp of Inmortos’ skeletal hand.

 

Turning his attention back to the glacially shorn and torn training field, the wizard’s weak eyes surveilled the mists. The Sithling was gone from the pool of positive-sapping potion. He reached out on the darkness, feeling the shifting waves of dark emotions. His presence was one of deathly calm. He could not feel the apprentice either. A smile played across his face. The stone had not died. No, he would have felt it. Yet, Solus was gone. He had listened after all.

 

Twisting his elevated hand, Inmortos commanded the restless spirit. It’s emotional state twisted and screamed in agony. He cast the spirit forward towards the nearest outcropping of ice. The spirit followed his command arching and charging forward with an otherworldly cry. Crashing into the ice, the spirit detonated, creating an implosion that shattered ice and drew it inward unto a singular point with deadly needled points.

 

Bringing his second hand up to his waist, Inmortos began to mumble ancient words of power, of decay and entropy. He called forth inky black orbs of ethereal nothingness. They swirled in a vortex about Inmortos carving furrows in the ground as the stoney surface of the ground disintegrated at their touch. Sulphuric plumes of choking smoke clouded the air about the sorcerer as the orbs spun violently and chaotically. Anything they touched would degrade at frightening speeds, their lives accelerated beyond death to a point of unmaking. The power of absolute destruction, pure offense, would serve as  his shield and protection until he could cast it onto the shell that contained the shard; until he could see Solus again. He would learn or be destroyed.
 

And if he fled? Inmortos did not even entertain the idea. The stone wanted to be a Sith. Cowardice was not in his frame.

[Krath Inmortos]

Inmortos’ senses piqued at the  resurgence of the apprentice in the force. A wicked looking smile of glee crossed the wizard’s face.

 

The force surged as Solus used his emotionally charged power within the force to wrench his pinned weapon free; tearing the saber hilt and the chunks of trailing ice from the ground spinning towards Inmortos. The blade illuminating midair, as if born by a chaotic unseen wraith. The echoes upon the force clashed with the absolute chillings molecular stillness of death that exuded about the necromancer even as his whirling orbs carved centuries of undoing into the stones and air about him

 

Like an unseen ripple in the force, as if a beast plucking a bird from the glassy surface of a lake, Inmortos struck. With precision, he moved but once as he faded back into the ethereal nothingness of beyond. With a wave of his hand, a single orb of unmaking zipped to intercept the cataclysmic whirling crimson-bearing weapon. They collided midway from where the weapon had been wrought free and Inmortos. Quickly the energies began to devour the external casing of the hilt, entering  the haft itself within milliseconds. Delicate relays, safety mechanisms, and more all destabilized in an instant. The contained energy loop of the the lightsaber lost integrity and without guidance and energy still pouring through it erupted in a blinding explosion of fiery red plasma.

 

The concussion of the blast shattered the ice and echoed off the remains of the devastated structures that surrounded the square. It was, quite literally, like a bomb going off.

 

The concussive blast was enough to easily circumvent the vortex of destructive energies that streaked around Inmortos. It knocked him backwards, falling to the ground, a surge of pain emanating from the frail magician. His protective orbs shot out, uncontrolled as the necromancer’s concentration was broken. 
 

From his place on the ground, Inmortos was offered but one advantage, he saw the airborne predatory form of Solus falling at him from the sky; his fist reared back to deal a skull crushing blow at unnatural speeds.

 

Even as unnatural as his connection to death, dying, and beyond was, Inmortos was still a mortal being, controlled by thoughts and reflexes. The instinctual response to imminent pain and injury about to be inflicted by the heavy metallic fist-les charge of the Sith-bot had the decrepit man moving without thought. He was a man of flesh and blood; and yet, he was more. Like a dark pool of unfathomed depths, murky to the eye and gnawing to the soul, Inmortos instinctually tapped that same energy as well. With a howl breaking his lips sounding like a torched fel beast, he raised his hands. Instinct and the force convulsing as one. In his hand he still clasped his weapon, the signature weapon of a Jedi corrupted by his own dark magics. The blackened blade erupted towards the imminently inbound Solus, pulling light and warmth from the air. Like the dance of gods the world seemed to shimmer and stand for an instant before the great metallic chassis crashed into Inmortos, driving his blade into the apprentice and crushing the Sith sorcerer beneath his weight. A surge of dark side energy erupted outward as Inmortos blade found it’s mark and Solus fist his own. Plumes of dust, debris, ice, and mist billowed from their contact, obscuring the view of onlookers for a few seconds. In that moment, Inmortos blade flickered and died having found it’s mark.

 

As the dust cleared upon a single gust of icy wind, one could see Solus’ battered and sliced chassis atop Inmortos’ crushed frame. Neither moved. In that moment, the pain that radiated from the reaper’s bent and broken form stilled. His body went slack as a death-like state overtook the man.
 

A cold wind blew, and a single snowflake landed squarely atop Solus’ cracked photoreceptor for a moment before vanishing on the wind. In that instant, a cold ethereal hand passed through the apprentice and a disembodied voice spoke to the crushed being’s soul. It was a voice carried on the force, One that could not be heard by any other. “So you think you have won? Death is my ally; my weakness made strength.”

 

And then one of the orbs of unmaking, still bound to it’s master’s dying wishes, crashed into the fallen sorcerer’s cursed saber hilt, the process of unbirth beginning anew.
 

And the life of Inmortos was snuffed out.

[Krath Inmortos]

An encrypted communication was relayed from the holonet for Akheron and his apprentice:

 

The pale blue three-dimensional image of a scarred lizard being with an eye patch appeared, filling the screen, a bloody knife held in his hand. His priestly robes belayed a dark religion with skeletal ornaments hanging in a heavy breastplate down his. “My master invites you to come and partake in the Baptism of Blood during the Feast of Souls on the necropolis world of AARIS III before the upcoming slaughter.” Screams of pain and dying echoed behind him before the transmission abruptly ended in a scramble of static. 

[Krath Inmortos]

Krath Inmortos stood within sight of his viewfinder, a chilling visage presented in the video comms of the other Clan vessels. A skeletal head swarthed in black with unblinking lifeless eyes. He did not say a word as discussions were had. His men would do their job either in this life or the next. Those who carried the day would live on in service to their dark captain, those who died would be bound for eternity, servants of the god-king himself. Even now his magics had begun to seep into the very souls of his crew and the ship itself. Death had come to live in their midst.

 

Just before ending the comms, Inmortos’ voice rasped gratingly across the speakers, “Drive your ship into the maelstrom. Leave none alive.” His eyes  then seemed to focus squarely Solus with exclusion to all others, “next time, leave their mind intact. It hastens the process by which truth is laid bare.” And with that, his comms deactivated and the ship of the dead began to angle itself for immediate hyperspace departure