Dathomir

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

 

The Forging of the Nightsisters of Myrkengodi

 

Pt 1. The Council

 

The Apprentice stood still before the seven women, all older, all wearing a mix of hide and dark capes. Their white hair dirty, filled with twigs, and unbrushed, giving the elders of the combined tribes a haggard appearance. Talketa their leader, whom Telperiën had known a decade prior was laughing at Telperiën’s own appearance. Their voices mocked her beauty, the lack of blemishes that harried their ideas of the darkside. But Telperiën had seen much more horror in the depths of Korriban and on Onderon that she could not find it in herself to fear these old women.

 

Talketa was jabbering on in the language of the High Dathomiri to her fellow coven leaders. Though the seven were arrayed before her beyond the large bonfire that cast cruel shadows in the cave, their figures were diminished by the light. Telperiën was not impressed by the haggard witches, or the flock of young children and old ladies at her back that were all that was left of her people from the black sun’s wroth. The children, some odd two hundred of them aged from the very young to the middle teens could be salvaged from this wreck of a society, the rest would have to be judged for their worth. Those before her, in their shamanistic robes, wearing totems, and carrying staffs that were wrapped in poisonous thorns would need to be taught humility.

 

The old witch leaned forward towards the fire and spoke at last to Telperiën, her voice cracked and withered, and her grey white hair tangled in the crown of the witches, a woven crown of thorns.

 

“Tell me child of the Nightsong, why should we not just kill you? Your blood is tainted child, you come with the marks of the Sith upon your skin, and we will not bow to the king beyond the stars.”

 

Telperiën stayed silent, her eyes flexing between their natural purple and an unnatural yellow hue. The silence provoked her to anger as Telperiën unslung the bow from her back. Two guards started forward but were waved back from her by the coven council. Gilgramoth spoke next, the youngest of the council, some sixty years old and her face covered by the purple blotches of long force use.

 

“We do not fear the bow, nor do we fear you Ar-Pharazon.”

 

Her smile was filled with just righteousness, and she spat out Telperiën’s surname with disgust.

 

Telperiën only grinned.

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Eyes in their hundreds stared at the lamellated armour that stretched across Telperiën’s back like a second skin. The expensive Sith armour was held together and bonded to the skintight jumpsuit that she wore, the lamellated scales duly reflecting the firelight in hues of green and dark crimson as the muscles on her back arched as her strong mailled arms brought the bow into its curve. The kyrat bone tip of the yew shaft shoveled into the ground as she held it in place against her boot, one hand brought the hemp cord from the grounded edge to the other end of the bow as she bent it into its shape. The apprentice of the Spider was strong and the bow itself was nearly two meters in length, which while bent into its bow configuration still came to rest an inch above her temple. She finally spoke when the bow was placed before her and the bag of arrows opened and tied to her waist.

 

“Then I will challenge you seven. The Herald of the King Beyond the Stars against the leaders of the Coven of Nightsisters.”

 

Her yellow eyes flashed as she grinned as they smirked back at her. There was so much that she had learned in the years she had been gone from this backwater world. Learned at the hands of the King which they so easily dismissed. A backwards culture for a backwater world. They would need updating, and the Sith would not let their children, no matter how backwards, remain in destitution and obscurity. This was the Age of the Sith. And they would not be left to cower in caves while their brethren rose to the noontide of their power. For she was the Herald of the King, his apprentice, and she would bring these people to heel, and she figured it would only take seven lives.

 

The crowd grew silent at her back as the seven stood, beginning their attack. She held up he hand as she grabbed a bodkin with its wicked point.

 

“And you will be silent before his glory.”

 

Their chanting had begun and the room begin to fill with static electricity as they called down their magiks into a storm.

 

“Korrastan-”

 

And the bow sang, its arrow carried in the arms of the force.

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

As the self contained storm within the cave became a crackling inferno of whipping winds and static electricity that caused every hair to stand on end on Telperiën’s bare forearms. The storm beat at her, buffeting her in its wind as the crowd behind her cried out in terror. It was that terror that Telperiën held onto like a vice. The terror, the anger, all of it held her firm against the storm. Step by step the young daughter of the Golden God strode forward, her bare feet finding purchase on the rough surface of the cave’s ground.

All the while the bow sang, its arrows carried in the arms of the force. Slithering tendrils of her presence arced out in a multifaceted approach, carrying the arrows true to their targets. The slashing pain of the bow string cutting deep into the scab in her arm and slinging blood in a fine mist to cover the fletching of each arrow. She could have angled her arm better so that the bite of the hemp rope was not so painful, but the reason was twofold. The pain sharpened her mind and her blood on the arrows allowed her to concentrate fully upon them and bend them with her mind. Covering them with the force and blood to pierce the breast of the leader of the council. As Telperiën spun her counterspell.

På Helvegen

Lightning arced towards Telperiën and she held up a long fingered hand which was covered in the scars and calluses of a bowman. It would take everything within her to resist the coven.

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Telperiën placed her bare foot against the withered skull of Talketa, the leader of the coven. With a quick pull of her hand and a push of her foot, the long wicked arrow withdrew itself from the left eyesocket of the fallen nightsister. The grinding slurp of the arrow against eyesocket and brain echoed in the small antichamber and the Herald of the King Beyond the Stars finished her work. The coven had been defeated, their leader felled, and with that done the Sith would begin their force civilization of these brutes.

_______________________________

Some time later, the Apprentice walked on bare feet through the forest, her Amethyst eyes catching sight of Eve. Her voice was like gravel as she hailed the girl. With a breath she could smell the potential on the girl. So she broke into a run and skidded to a halt next to the Melodie.

“Where art thou going stranger? I have not seen one such as you around Dathomir before.”  She pointed to where her ship was coming in to hover some hundred yards ahead of them in a clearing among the bracken and fallen rocks. “If you wish to leave this place, you need only follow.”

And with that the daughter of Ar-Pharazon broke again into a run, disappearing up the ramp.

 

@Chaotic Tranquility 

Feel free to Join me aboard my ship. 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

The lone shuttle slipped out of hyperspace over the dark planet of Dathomir. Once a thriving society of light side witches, now in the dark ruin that remained, the Nightsisters prowled. In the years since the massacre and subsequent planetwide forestfires, the wetland jungle had returned. Dark plateaus of ash still jutted out of the bright green of the wetland, and no trees older than Telperien stood except on the isolated southern continent. But to Telperien it was home, and the bumpy ride towards the surface gave her and the apprentice time to talk. 

 

“So tell me Camik, what do you still have left to learn?”

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Telperien smiled ruefully as she looked out of the viewport towards the distant and descending marshes and jungle which stained the planet with dark splotches. 

 

“My full name is Telperiën Tar-Myken Darksong Ar-Pharazôn.” She let her hand absentmindedly run across the leather armour she wore until it found the sheath of a knife, where the nervous fingers found purchase and ceased their wandering. “My Father was the great Dark Lord Ar-Pharazôn the golden, of which there are many tales that I will not tell. He is dead and destroyed now, laid low by the Jedi order and their exorcists.” Her fingers twitched again and then were still. “My mother was the matriarch of the Nightsong Clan of nightsisters. A clan that now lies also buried and destroyed.” She looked back to Camik and smiled.

 

“I am a Nightsister, and I restored the covens from their despair. But there is much work yet to be done.” She pointed to the rocky mountains that they were slowly approaching. “Welcome to Dathomir Camik. My home, as bleak as it is.” 

 

The bundle of other nightsisters who had served Telperiën gathered eagerly around the viewport so that the pair of Sith were pushed back. 

 

“Then we will make you a mighty lord of the Sith.” She looked up as the ship settled on its landing struts. “Do you have any further questions? Or should we let them come in their due time as we go?” She shrugged on a heavy pack from one of the compartments and gestured to Camik to take the other that stood beside it. 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

“Indeed.” 

 

Her rough voice fell flatly against the dank air and the light drizzle of pale rain. There was little wind in the marsh plains, so the air tasted stale and dark. She took a deep breath and sighed. It was home, and she loved it. They continued their walk in silence as they waded through the muck and mire until she spoke again after an hour. 

 

“Find me hunger Camik. Reach into the force. The hunger is here stalking us.” 

 

For a rancor had smelled them several miles back and had begun its long stalk.

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

“That.” Telperien whispered as she set her pack down beside her and withdrew a long wicked arrow from the bag at her hip. She placed it point down in the mud beside her. “Is a Rancor. It looks to be just shy of its mid twenties, and look at that.” She pointed to the smaller rock like form that huddled against the large creature. “It has a cub to protect.” 

 

She leaned down and withdrew a long stave of yew from her pack and set one horn tipped end against the side of her boot. Her amethyst eyes watched the two forms as the mother rancor considered its own approach. Then she dipped her hand into her pouch to take out a long cord of waxed hemp. 

 

“So.” She grunted as she bent the yew stave cross her thigh, connecting both ends with the hemp cord. “I will kill the cub, then you deal with the mother. Its hungry now, but after the cub dies, it will be angry as well.” She talked as if murdering a defenseless animal was nothing at all. She leveled the longbow and pulled the arrow from its resting place. “You need to exploit these emotions. Use them as you fight with her until you can grasp her mind. Then subdue. Bring her under your will completely” 

 

She bent the bow, her muscles bulging along her arms and back as the grey feathered arrow came to rest along her chin. She loosed a second later and the long thing blade of the bodkin punched through the small rancor cub’s brain stem. Dropping it with silent precision that was broken by a horrendous roar from the mother rancor. 

 

“Now show me how a Sith subdues his prey.”

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

The Beast stopped dead in its tracks. It’s thin, beady eyes staring at Camik with a mix of straight hostility and hunger. Its thick claws stretched and clasped at the air, as if it was grasping the man himself, to bring him to a bitter end in a toothy maw. 

 

“Camik.” Spoke Telperien, her fingers tracing the edges of the black fletching of one of the arrows. “You have stopped it, you have begun the process but you must find another approach. Brute force does not control a mind.” 

 

Her voice was a stern whisper. 

 

“You must come alongside it, guide it. Manipulate its feral emotions. Use its anger, use its rage. Use its hunger!” 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

The great beast stooped its neck in obeyance of its new master and Telperien let out a laugh as she unstrung her bow. She recollected her arrows from where she had stuck them and motioned back to Camik. 

 

“It is a good time to rest now and to meditate. Make us a fire to warm us using only the force. While I prepare our meal.” 

 

She crouched at the side of the dead young Rancor and began to quickly skin and degut the beast as she kept her amethyst eyes on the Sith across from her and his now very large companion. 

 

“Focus your emotions into explosive energy, but first find us timber and kindling.” 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Anger was a constant in the young man’s heart, the roiling emotions that buffeted him in every direction keeping him barely in control. Could a man live for long in such a fashion? Telperien had known many men, and had watched many more fall to the blades of the Jedi Order. That passionless cult of reason and sexlessness. The Sith in their ‘wisdom’ rejected such methods, instead seeking to dominate through pure will of anger and emotion alone. 

 

In such things they rejected the natural order. They killed for fun and for pleasure. They did not hunt, they did not kill to survive, they killed for the joy of killing. She had seen wild rancors do much the same, and always the mothers of clan darksong had put them down. For it had been better to snuff out the wild brutality than to wait for it to turn its jaws upon their friends and allies. 

 

Perhaps in time the Sith would learn the lesson of nature. But for now they would run rampant, killing millions if not trillions like at coruscant. She was grateful to her former master for his strength to keep the Sith in check, and at the same time dreaded when the galactic leash would slip. 

 

They were sitting in the aftermath of one of those rampages after all. And though the low brush had grown back, the charred remains of trees could still be seen toppled here and there like discarded children’s toys. The remnant of wrath. 

 

The fire started with a splash of yellow orange flame that quickly fed into a roaring blaze. She smiled up at Camik and quickly fashioned a skewer that she placed near the fire so that the rancor meat could roast. 

 

“You did well Camik. Now meditate and tell me of the source of your emotions. What brought you the anger or hate or lust that drove this fire?” 

 

A giggle sounded from the edges of the brush as a few young women pushed their way through the scrawny branches. They were Sisters of her clan and they spoke no further words but sat silently, hungry eyes watching the meat roast against the golden flames.

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

 

Telperien raised an eyebrow, an expression that was very likely lost in the firelight, as she looked into Camik’s pale face. When she spoke it was a question, a genuine one, and not the cutting question of a Sith trying to make a point. “Do those emotions make you happy Camik?” It was a leader to her next question, one that followed as easily as the Dathomiri nightsisters would have eaten the cooked rancor. “Does any of this journey make you happy?” 

 

Could power and the lust for it really make anyone happy? Her father, in his golden esteem, had burned the galaxy to find a legacy. He had taken everything from everyone he knew to establish a dynasty, but now no one spoke his name. Would Camik be the same? A great lord who is easily eclipsed by the legacies of stronger men and the cruel erosion of time? Would he sit enthroned in the tombs of Korriban another weather beaten statue with inscriptions of Ozymandian horrors? Would he too lie in state in a husk of a once great empire? 

 

She could not know. She could not see the future. That had never been her gifting. 

 

“Tasmeria. Anathia.” 

 

She pointed to the huddled women who looked hungrily at the roasting flesh before them. Their grey-gold eyes looked up expectantly to Telperiens. 

 

“They are remnants of a great house of this world.” She pointed to the girl beside the pair, a redheaded girl several years younger than Camik himself. “Kailya. Of the Whiteriver clan. They are the remnants of a once mighty society. Refugees of the destruction of the Black Sun and the Sith Lords. There are many like them in these wilds.” 

 

She gestured again and the girls carved slices of the rancor meat with small knives and bowed in turn to both Camik and Telperien before retreating back to where they sat. Eating as quickly as they could while being polite. 

 

“Do you think me weak Camik? Giving the young and destitute a home? Should I have enslaved them? What would have your old master have said?” She turned a soft smile on the girls who sheepishly returned it before looking back to their meal. Another few gaunt faces appeared at the edges of the firelight, two pale orbs that showed the horrors of the burned world. They looked desperate and hungry as well. Two young girls surviving through luck and shear determination. "What do you say Camik? What should we do with them? Feed and clothe them?" The delicious smell of the meat would no doubt attract more. 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

“Slavery is a powerful trauma. It plants the deep spike of anger and injustice into your heart something you can draw on for a very long time.” Speckled amethyst eyes narrowed as she glanced across the fire to Camik, her voice turning to dark reproach. “Until it turns to poison in your veins. Would you really let your defining moments revolve around such emotions? Would you turn this inner angst against the galaxy until every good thing tastes of salt and ashes in your mouth?” She let her eyes travel across the impromptu gathering of young women and now two spacers. “There is a saying in our clans that every pain left untended bites worse than a rockstang. For just as you need to but the wounded flesh from yourself so too should you cut this trauma from you before it consumes your very soul. Tasmeria,  Anathia! Get these young men something to eat as I tell you all a story.” 

 

The two youngest of the girls rushed to gather some cooked Rancor, offering it to Sevarta and Sarlacc. They did not know them, but the Nightsister had commanded it, so they would obey.

 

Telperiën extended her hand and summoned the force through the clear crystal that lay nestled against her wrist. Whispering a word of power. “Thandrim.” The young Witches gasped in awe and settled down on their haunches, eagerly eating the cooked rancor they held in their hands as the fire began to morph and change. 

 

It was nothing like a holoprojector of course, but the girls would not have that comparison. It was only the two spacers and Camik that would likely be unimpressed. The fire jumped in a flash of white and orange then settled into a blue flame. And within the flame there was a face. A face much akin to Telperiën’s though older and more regal. 

 

“The Nightsongs were once a mighty clan.” The name drove a shiver of fear through the youngest of the witches gathered around the fire, and a look of stern resolve over the older faces. “They believed that their strength could contend with the very stars of heaven.” The scene in the fire shifted again to a large group of alike looking women, who were beating several young girls. Blood like lava dripped into the burning logs at the base of the fire. “But to find that strength they believed that they must purify their lineage. They would change their bloodline by force and terror.” Telperiën gave a sidelong glance to the spacers then back at the awestruck girls. “And they succeeded. Through their terror they produced a sister of frightening power.” The fire morphed again to that original face. 

 

“They say She could summon magiks without words of power. Through harnessing hate and lust she could command even the strongest of this world to her bidding. But like all creations of violence this golem could not be controlled.” The fire showed a village in flames. “And she nearly destroyed the Nightsongs before they exiled her to the stars. She found a new coven there. Of Men and women who harnessed their hate and violence, she even found lovers among the stars. Great Kings of Men with powers Devine” The fire showed a man with a dark face, eyes of coals and the girls cowered before the hate in his eyes. “The Sith Lords they named themselves and begat much evil among the stars.” Depictions of a city in the clouds bursting asunder in fire and death wove themselves through the minds of all those around the fire. “But the sister did not forget the hate. She did not forget the beatings. She carried it with her through the stars. Like a coal carried in ashes to start another fire she carried it. Sleeping and dangerous.” 

 

The woman's face now reappeared, but with the burning eyes of the Sith Lord. “You see she desired to come back to Dathomir. Even as she bed kings and men alike she desired to come home. As even the Rancor does when it needs to sire its pups.” The girls nodded. “And so she came home to bring forth the spawn of her lovers. And when she came to the Nightsong camp, she could not control that coal she had tended for so long.” The fire surged into a column that lit the night and bushes around them. “The fire raged out of control. Consuming all that she had once loved and hated. And instead of conquest or reconciliation she brought death and doom. And so her home burned and with it all of our homes.” She looked to Camik, then the spacers, and finally to the girls. “And that is why our villages are dispersed and the ground gives up no life. It is because of hate. So do not let yourself harbour such things. For it kindles outside of your control. Now eat, there is much left on that haunch.”

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Thin eyebrows raised suspiciously 
 

Despite their purely alien features, Telperiën was not repulsed by the blue skinned duros or the hook nosed ryn. Their voices were pleasant and did not carry the stuttering halter of Dathomiri ‘basic.’ Their presence at the fire was wholly unexpected, for Dathomir held no tourism, save for the downed or lost spacer trying to make a fortune from the mystical remains of the Chu'unthor. But those had been men of greed and passion, neither of which Telperiën could sense. A quick glance over showed no suspicious equipment or even means of defense and she suddenly found herself cursing the weakness of her blood. 

 

She could not easily rip into the minds of these men like the Sith Lords could. But then they were of no danger, for what could they be? Not rebels or Jedi, for they would have never just simply come to Dathmir. 

 

“Hate is a power that few can control before it eats them whole. Yes.” She cocked her head to the side, the tiny crystals that were tied into the braids beside her ears making an almost musical tone as they touched each other and collided. 

 

“Savata and Sarlaac.” She spoke the names like she was tasting them. The syllables difficult to pronounce with the heavily accented basic. “I must apologize that we have little lodging to offer other than hide tents.” Then her eyes widened a little, the amethyst purple-pink iris’s catching the firelight. “But I must introduce myself as well before I accept your assistance.” 

 

She stood and offered a bow that shook the crystals again. The lightsaber showing itself for but a moment at the edge of her belt. 

 

“I am Telperiën Ar-Pharazon of the High Coven Myrkengodi.” Would they know the name Ar-Pharazon? The surname of a once famous Dark Lord? Or like all things from decades ago, had it been lost in a trillion more crimes and genocides conducted by the Sith that had followed Ar-Pharazon. So she continued. “And these are scattered sisters and witches of our burned world. If you have the means to restore our fountains and streams, I would be most grateful.” And the girls around the campfire stood awe of whatever the two spacers could bring. Their eyes were and their faces expectant, their food momentarily forgotten. 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

The young women and girls at the fire looked at each other quizzically and Telperiën finally spoke. Her voice reflecting the general mood of the nightsisters and witches. 

 

“Why would an entire organization help us? We are nothing to the galaxy.” 

 

It was not a self defeating prophecy, it was simply the truth as far as the dirt streaked girls could think. What was there on this world that attracted the attention of the galaxy? Did they want to export mud, or extort some yet unmined mineral. 

 

“Help is not given freely, and deed carries a debt. This is the law of nature. This is the law of the predator. This is the law of Dathomir. To accept help without debt is to accept weakness. We are a broken people. But not a helpless one.” Her voice lowered and the embers began to die down, now a dark orange that barely shone above the starlight. “If there is a deal to be made we would make it. But we are no charity.” 

 

She cocked her head to the side and held out a hand. The fire jumping back up to full brightness. She asked a probing question that hinted at her lack of ignorance. 

 

“Are you working with the survivors foundation?” That jedi aligned group that had restored old Naboo. “It does not matter of course, for if you can return life to the world we would give you many slaves. And gladly for it.” 

 

She sat back down indicating that they should eat, and break out the rations. 

 

“The coven is all that remains of the sisters of the night. Those the Jedi would call ‘darksiders,’ though i would spit at that definition. All animals must have pack leaders, and Dathomiri are no different.” She snapped her finger and one of the girls brought out a jug of alcohol that they passed around. “The coven, like  the sisters before them, are merely the alpha pack.”

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Telperiën’s eyes glanced between her apprentice and the Ryn. She opened her mouth for a moment then quickly shut it, grinding whatever fast retort she had to dust between her clenched jaws. Who were these men? But she would answer them each in turn. 

 

“Camik, while true they are tools to be used, I am merely suggesting that using them constantly is not only detrimental, but completely destructive to your journey and your goals. That Sister who left and brought destruction to the homeworld was my Mother. Though I am a product of her endeavours, it is also because of her that millions died. My sire and her lover was a great lord of Darkness. One that kept the galaxy firmly within his grasp before he too was cut down. Who now remembers him? Only bitter enemies and childless mothers. It is because of him and my mother that this galaxy now lies in ruins. They undermined the peace and security of that great Galactic Alliance.” 

 

She cocked her head to the side and looked deeply into the fire. As if to watch the spirits that danced there. 

 

“She died dissatisfied and alone and no one buried her bones in the crypts of our mothers.” The girls around the fire looked shocked and spit a hurried incantation towards the fire. “Yes, her spirit wanders far from the world she destroyed. So what is the lesson, is it never to use hate? Never to touch anger? To be besotten fools without emotions like the Jedi? No.” She looked back towards her apprentice. “But they must only be used when they have their utmost effect. They are not a table to constantly sup at. For in doing so you will mark your own destruction. That is the lesson, though I must warn you if you seek to destroy slavery, that the path you are on will not satisfy you.”

 

She let her gaze wander to the others around the fire before resettling on the Sith Apprentice. 

 

“Will your blade stop at the neck of the Dark Lord? Will you crumble the Empire? For they all bring and benefit from slavery.  Or is your purpose to bring enough power to enslave those that were cruel to you as a child?” 

 

She looked to the Duros who went by the tatooine sand creatures name. 

 

“Kindness is a doorway in which weakness can enter and is not our way. For does the Sarlaac ever let its prey go out of kindness of heart? Kindness is not the way of nature. Nature is brutal and unrelenting. Can a sister live and not hunt for herself? No, the pack is weaker when you freely provide for all.” The girls who had eaten the freely offered rancor meat glanced quickly at each other before Telperiën held out a calming hand. “But we will not turn away strangers at the door. For they can be useful.” 

 

She looked back at the Rynn and Duros. 

 

“So you too are force users, then you are more than welcome at our table. Such as it is.  Our knowledge is yours to do with what you will. should you heal our world." She retrieved a knife from her side and plunged it freely into her palm, the blood spashing and bubbling from the wound to fill her palm. Dripping between her shaking fingers to disappear into the dark loamy earth. "A deal is struck.” And she tossed the knife to the duros. 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

The force moved. Safely at first, like a breeze against the back of her neck that stiffened into a wind when the duros caught the gently tossed blade. She inclined her head in agreement and turned back to the girls and her apprentice around the fire. They finished their food and pitched their tents, leaving a good amount of food out to eat should more join them during the long night. 

 

When Telperiën awoke she let the force flow through her, the crystals at her wrists softly glowing in the dawn light. She breathed in and caught the scent. Her blood. On the Duros’ palm. It did not take her long to find the ship after she roused the rest of the camp. 

 

She knocked on the landing ramp. The cluster of girls crouching in the low shrubbery beside her. The dawn showing their dirty faces. 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Telperiën waited for the rest of the girls and sisters to board as well as her Sith Apprentice before she followed them up the ramp. They lined the interior of the ship, hungry looking and dirty, their leather and hide armour seeming barbaric against the smooth interior hull of the ship. The various weapons they clutched in small hands also looked equally bizarre. Weapons of a time harkening humanity before spaceflight. Bows, quivers, spears. The weapons of savages. 

 

The girls did make an orderly line and gratefully accepted the food and drink the two spacers offered, though they waited until Telperiën had began to eat before they ate. WHen she had finished her meal she watched the holo presentation with a stoic expression placed across her face. 

 

Her voice was soft when she finally spoke. “Dathomir was never a beautiful world, and it certainly could never have been described as a gaia world like Naboo. We do not wish the life of city dwellers or farmers for that is the path of weakness and democracy. We are hunters. A restoration of the world to allow that lifestyle to return is all that we need.” 

 

She reached forward and tapped the planetary map where large swaths of the planet remained burned and barren. 

 

“A return of the forests and its fauna is all that we need. Though if you wish to bring settlers in for sport we would not be opposed. That sort of hunting we have not done in an age.” 

 

The girls said nothing but simply nodded and Telperiën grasped the scab of her earlier cut. She ripped it open and blood yet again purged forth, slowly at first then it began to cup in her hand. 

 

“Annah.” The young woman stood and closed her eyes fearfully. Telperiën flung the handful of blood onto her face causing the other woman to grimace for a moment beforeshe ran down the landing ramp into the underbrush. The eyes of the other girls followed her then looked back to the Nightsister. 

 

“The first lesson is the lesson of blood. Kaila and Liana and Jess.” The three girls stood as Telperiën tossed her knife to Camik. 

 

“Now do the same.” She said to Camik and the offworlders. “Draw your blood and the life that goes with it. I will teach you how to track.”

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

As the three girls ran off into the underbrush, Telperiën wiped her bloody hand on her tunic and looked at the three force users. Her amethyst eyes glanced across their alien features in a look that was partway between disgust and reservation. The question was on her mind of course, could they even attempt the blood magic her people had perfected for so many generations? Or would they dismiss it as useless knowledge that served little better than a high powered ship scanning array? 

 

“Now sit and close your eyes.” 

 

When they had done so she knelt upon the decking at her feet. She looked down to her bleeding hand and then made a fist, squeezing more blood up and out of the open wound. 

 

“Those of us with weak lineage, using totems or traditional runes to fully access the force, what I will do is one such way, you may follow along but as you do not suffer from our curse it is not likely that it will do you very much more good.” 

 

She wiped the bloody hand across the decking in a arching circle in front of her, leaving a crimson smear that she dotted with a few other markings. Runic letters from the nightsisters unpublished grimoire, they were a stylized old basic, dating back to the first settlements of sisters during the old republic. 

 

“Let your mind focus on the wound, on each drop of blood that leaves your body. Feel the aching pain. Concentrate on it. Let the pain fill you. Harnessing the power you can feel from it. Now reach out and find the source of that pain. It will naturally draw you first to the knife that cut you but you must ignore the wounds desires and assert your own.” 

 

She took a breath and the blood arrayed before her began to glow with a faint luminescence. 

 

“Let your senses expand about you until you find the pains connection. Its missing piece.” 

 

A half mile away the girl who had received the first does of blood screamed as the blood that spattered her face began to smoke. Etching into her skin in permanent façade. 

 

“And when you find it. Mark it. Make the blood stay a part of you forever. Bind it to you and submit it to your will.” 

 

She let her eyes flutter open.

 

“And you will be able to track your mark for lightyears.” 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

“Hunting is a two sided adventure Sir Sarlacc. And it is one the girls have to learn. Must learn. Life is not kind on Dathomir. And even less kind in the galactic disk.” 

 

Her pink purple eyes met his and she sighed. 

 

“In a way this is a simpler hunt than offworld. On Coruscant you are hunted by corporations for the contents of your wallet, on Nar Shaddaa you are hunted for the content of your character. Especially if you have the nature of darkness as my people do. But though it may be far more obvious here on Dathomir, you are hunted no less in the galaxy.” 

 

She laughed, her dark voice embodying bitterness. 

 

“So yes we will hunt these girls. Perhaps even hurt them if you wished, but it is for their own good. For they will learn lessons here that a child at the Rebel Base on Nar Shaddaa will never learn until a Sith Lord kills their family in front of them. They will learn to persist. To fight through pain, and to fight fiercely.” She pointed at a scar that crossed her neck. “It is how my people will survive. To turn from the hunted to the hunter. But to learn how to be a predator, you must first become prey.” 

 

She gave him a serious look. 

 

“We do not derive strength from schools or learning like the Jedi do. For a moment spent in study is a moment not preparing for a fight." 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

Telperiën  pursued her own quarry at a walk, letting the force work its own magik. She flicked the knife up again and pressed it deeply into the long scar on her arm before casting the knife into the dirt. Tendons screeched their protest, muscle tore, and blood was let free to seeth in rivulets down her arm, which she collected gladly with her free hand. She flung the blood into a circle around her and knelt, licking the remaining blood from her fingers. Now the force of Dathomir could really show itself. 

 

Terror

 

Its threads were as thick as old cobwebs over the world. Stretched from almost every being to every other being. Her mouth moved in a ritualistic chant as she began to pull on those threads of terror. She traced them to the girls running, and amplified the terror until it was overwhelming.

 

________

 

The girls made their runs as fast as they could, but none could meet the power of the Jenssarai or the speed of the Sith Apprentice. But they had the burning pain of the blood magic spurring them on, and the prospects of a punishment so they did their utmost to escape. Their terror could be tasted like a thick film on the force, bubbling out of them as they ran. Terror embodied the spirit of Dathomir, and they ran from the force users as fast as their feet could take them. For they did not know what fate would await them. 

 

Kaila, the youngest in her middle teen years ran until the blood from her bare feet and rough ground was as visible as her terror in the force. When at last she could not go any further in the rough ground she turned on Sarlacc with a cry of pain and terror. The force moving through her as she threw whatever she could reach at the Duros knight. Sobbing tears that ran trails through the ash and dirt that streaked her face. 

 

Kirain, a young woman in the later years of her teens turned ferociously upon Camik as he tracked her down. Her face was a mask of horror as she flung everything from rocks to tree branched as the young man in an attempt to get away.

 

The fastest runner among the girls, Saeth, lasted the longest before the terror overcame her too. Instead of fighting like the others she collapsed into a begging sobbing mess at Savata’s feet.

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

The threads of the Terror moved beneath Telperiën’s fingers as she called upon the force. Each thread connected to a tired and scared mind. Each pluck like on a harp brought a scream of fright. There was so much power there, so much potential. But it required so much power, and it was exhausting, even with the pain from her arm to sustain her bodies desire. The power, of course, was addicting and Telperiën bathed in that addiction. Wallowed in it. Covered herself in their pain, in their Terror. 

 

She supped on it, feeding like an Anzati on brain matter. The power coursed through her veins like a self consuming fire. Delicious as it was painful. Controlling even willing minds had its own cost of course. But this was another lesson to give to the offworlders and her apprentice. Two separate lessons in one. The price of power and its allure.  

 

A throbbing pain struck at where she had cut her arm and a single glance told her that it was time to stop. For the next Curse had awakened. And Telperiën fell back from her circle of blood, exhausted. 

 

________

And so Kaila was released from the terror. Her eyes unfocusing for a moment before she burst into tears and embarrassedly stopped her retreat. She whispered an apology and followed the Duros. Tears trickling through the dust on her face. 

________

 

Saeth was the first to return, her small form barely stumbling into the shade of the transport, she was grasping an offworlder’s canteen in her tired hands. Trembling from the aftereffects of terror and exhaustion. Telperiën greeted her with a kindly smile and a motherly embrace. And whispered for her to take a place at the fire, which she gladly did. It was a long time from that point until the older offworlder appeared, somehow looking even more old and tired than he had when he had left to pursue Saeth. Telperiën looked up from where she knelt and sprang to her feet, Saeth joining her as they brought him a plate of food and his own canteen. 

 

Telperiën sat down next to him wiping at the blood that was still seeping from the deep cut in her arm, the surrounding flesh somehow having already gone black with dead flesh.

 

“Failure is never an option, Svata.” She looked to the tired Ryn and grinned a toothy grin. Teeth which were surrounded by gums that showed an unhealthy hue of red.  “But you found one of my sisters and rescued her, so you did not fail.”

 

She coughed and sat back. 

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

“Was it truly fun dear Camik?” Telperien wondered aloud as she stood from her position near the fire. “You have gained a servant, a slave, and tools to bring you into the wider world of the Sith. What more can I teach you? Or should I hurl you into battle against the Rebel Alliance and their Jedi without a second care? What do you wish dear Camik?” 

 

The question was an honest one, and she leaned forward to hear his answer.

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

“Why Camik I was your mentor. And to me you have passed my tests.” She shrugged her thin shoulders instinctively. “I will never claim to be a good mentor, but I think you are strong enough to take the next steps.” She flicked her hand towards the fire and its coals began to glow white hot as they consumed their own carbon supply. The flames began to show a dark world with a close set moon. A singular city standing like a monolith in the midst of the jungle, and a Super Star Destroyer in a lazy orbit. Then it dissolved into sparks and they were plunged into darkness. 

 

Telperiën stood and placed her hand on the top of his head. Almost gingerly, almost caring. 

 

“Then I will teach you what I know of the Sisters. And then we will see the Spider at Onderon. First I must ask you to bring me your prize.” 

 

(Describe your NPC in detail, give her a background, and bring her to Telperien)

[Telperiën Ar-Pharazon]

"Then let us depart in peace. We go and seek the Spider."

 

Telperiën Ar-Pharazon turned and led their company, including Rancors to the Sith landing craft, and together they made for Onderon. The planet of the Emperor