Consolidation Echoes on Malachor | Hunt in the Shadow Maw

[Sith Master Veraxis]

Malachor V – The Mind’s Abyss


As Yulvaris turned to flee, corpses levitating behind him like grim trophies, the stone walls seemed to stretch. The collapsing cave became… quiet. Too quiet.

Then—darkness. Not the absence of light, but something deeper. Living.

The air warped. The heat of his force speed vanished. Time… slowed. Or stopped.

And in that suffocating stillness, a voice slithered into Yulvaris’ ears—familiar, cold, inevitable.

“You move too quickly, child.”

The ground cracked beneath him, but it was no longer stone—it was flesh. Veins pulsed beneath his boots. The ceiling above? Now a sky of hollow eyes watching, judging, whispering in a tongue only madness knew.

“You let your hunger for power make you sloppy. Victory is not in chaos. Not in screaming rage. Victory… is in control.”

Suddenly, the heads Yulvaris had claimed began to laugh. Karnis’ mouth moved though severed, chanting:

“We’re not done. We’re not done. We’re not done.”

Varkas’ head screamed, and the cave erupted into fire—not physical, but mental. A nightmare crafted by the one being who had long lurked behind his rise.

Veraxis.

From the molten shadows, the Sith Master emerged, robes untouched, his eyes like twin voids. His voice didn’t echo in the cave—it echoed inside Yulvaris himself.

“You rush like a beast chasing scraps. What good is power if it is unrefined? Did I teach you to thrash about like a drunk brute?”

Yulvaris tried to speak—couldn’t. His jaw was stone. His limbs paralyzed. His own saber ignited—against him. Hovering inches from his throat. His reflection in the blade showed him not as a conqueror, but as a boy with bloodied hands and empty eyes.

“Your strength lies not in spectacle,” Veraxis whispered, now behind him, inside him. “But in dominion over the mind. To twist their reality… until they beg you to end it.”

With a gesture, the illusion deepened: Yulvaris now stood in the middle of a throne room made of bone. Karnis knelt before him—alive. Varkas at his side. Both laughing. The corpses were illusions. His victory? A mirage.

“You learned only the pain. But not the patience. You are not finished yet.”

Veraxis finally allowed Yulvaris to move—just enough to fall to one knee. The nightmare began to fade, reality bleeding back in as the countdown ticked into its final seconds.

“Leave the rubble. Let it bury your arrogance. If you want to be more than a rabid mongrel with power, then listen… and learn.”

And just like that—

The nightmare ended.

The real cave returned.

But the seed was planted.

Yulvaris would never know what was real in those final seconds.

Only that Veraxis had always been watching.

And he was far from pleased.

Tag: @Yulvaris

 

[Yulvaris]

As he fled, he could see the walls stretch, the darkness darken, and time slow to a crawl. Having been under Veraxis’ tutelage, he has grown very familiar with the sensation of the force being used to warp his mind. Unfortunately, his master seems to always find a way to slither past his defenses. He slid to a halt as the voice reverberated within his skull and he could feel and hear the stone that supported him now squelch and pulse beneath his weight as it turned to flesh.

Then came the laughter from the charred head of Karnis which only added to his disease as the roof of the cave turned to a sky of eyes and the air was filled with an eldritch chorus of maddening whispers.

What’s the fires arose and began to scorch the surroundings within this hellish nightmare, he could feel the presence of his master ever closer. He gritted his teeth as the noise grew more piercing and present. He would open his mouth at his master’s queries and rebukes, but it was just as paralyzed as the rest of his frame was. He then looked to the vibro-blade held at his throat, and saw the reflection. If he could move, his face would twist into one of disgust and fear, which would only make him burn with anger.

As the environment shifted from an inferno to a throne room of bones with the ones whom he killed alive and laughing at him, it made his victory feel so small. But he would be given the mercy of allowing to move so as to bend the knee; yet even this would still come with the sting of his masters rebuke lashing against him.

At last, the illusion would fade and everything would return as it was. His face twisted into one of anger and frustration as he just continued to run using force speed to escape the cave with his hollow trophies still floating behind him. He would mutter to himself, “Why is it always a failure…?!”

Tag: @Marcus Aumont

 

[Sith Master Veraxis]

The Meditation Chambers of Veraxis – Deep within the Obsidian Vault


A silence older than stone. In the stillness of his private chamber, lit only by the cold flicker of black-flame braziers, Sith Master Veraxis sat unmoving, cloaked in shadows, entombed in darkness. He did not chase after the boy. He didn’t need to.

The boy’s rage, fear, and now—self-loathing—drifted to him across the stars like a poisoned whisper. It was enough. He listened.

“Why is it always a failure…?!”

The chamber trembled faintly as if in response to the boy’s words, but Veraxis did not open his eyes. His mind remained tethered to Yulvaris’ fractured psyche, feeding silently on the storm growing within.

“You feel it, don’t you?” he thought—but did not speak. “The gnawing edge. The cracks in your pride. That… is the beginning.”

He had seen it before. Many apprentices flailed in the dark, obsessed with power but blind to its price. But this one—Yulvaris—had tasted victory, and yet still found emptiness in his triumph. That made him useful. That made him moldable.

Veraxis finally drew in a slow breath as his mind retreated from the boy’s spiraling thoughts and returned to the present. He did not pity Yulvaris’ suffering. No, this was the crucible. The boy’s torment was his awakening.

He reached for a quill of obsidian crystal, and with a flick of his hand, scratched a single phrase onto a black slate beside him:

“He bleeds. Good. Let it fester.”

He would not summon the boy. Not yet. He had given him pain, doubt, illusion—and in time, the boy would begin to grasp the lesson:

• That the mind is a battlefield.
• That power means nothing without dominion over the self.
• That fear was not a weakness to be cast away—but a language to be learned, mastered, and spoken fluently.

If Yulvaris wished to be recognized by Lord Malvus, if he hungered to be named the true heir and apprentice of that monstrous Warlord, then he would need more than lightning and theatrics.

He would need restraint.

He would need subtlety.

He would need to play the long game.

And so Veraxis waited in silence once more, his thoughts like daggers coiling through the Force.

“Let him run. Let him doubt. Let him hate himself. When he learns to weaponize it… then he will be ready.”


Tag: @Yulvaris

 

[Yulvaris]

Upon reappearing from the cave, he wore a scowl as his thoughts continued to race and his anger began to simmer toward his master.

What had I done wrong? I was given a kill order with no specifications and fulfilled it! Not only that, but I executed them with far more finesse than the actual brute within the cave!!

His scowl deepened as his gaze bore through any passersby as he stomped his way back to his master’s quarters.

Besides, I did use mental subjugation…!

His scowl fades for a moment. Was there another way to approach where he could have executed them all by warping their minds? His thoughts rest on this query for a moment, but not any longer than that before he sighs and his face becomes stoic. He continued to sojourn to Veraxis’ quarters until he stood silently outside the door. He did not enter nor called out: only waited for his presence to be felt.

Tag: @Marcus Aumont

 

[Sith Master Veraxis]

The Sanctum of Shadows – Outside Veraxis’ Chamber


Yulvaris stood silently—brooding, simmering, a storm within flesh.

He did not call out.

He did not enter.

He only waited.

And that was his mistake.

---

From beyond the obsidian-carved doors, the shadows themselves twitched—and then screeched.

The Force tightened, not around Yulvaris’ throat, but within his very skull. A creeping, pulsing sensation—like teeth biting down on his mind—began to close in.

“You stand outside my sanctum,” came the voice, not spoken, but boiled directly into his nerves, “without intent… without cause… without purpose.”

Suddenly, the walls began to melt—not in the world, but in his mind.

The hallway around him shifted.

The stone turned pale, and the veins of the floor began to pulse like arteries. The lights overhead snapped and twisted into leering faces—mouths agape in silent screams, their eyes hollow and accusing. Whispers coiled through the air:

“Failure…” “Showman…” “Pretender…” “Tool…”

Yulvaris would feel a needle press into his chest—not of steel, but of memory.

He would relive, in excruciating clarity, every moment he hesitated in that cave. He would see Karnis’ scorched face again, not dead—but laughing as flames danced over his charred skull. He would hear the sorceress mocking him in tongues he had never learned. Varkas’ brute voice would become eloquent, reciting his flaws with surgical precision.

“You toyed with them,” Veraxis’ voice surged again. “But you never truly took hold of them. You struck their flesh. I would have flayed their minds.”

Then came the worse part: the illusion of Veraxis himself.

He stood behind Yulvaris—towering, draped in an ever-writhing cloak of smoke and blood. His face was a swirling void, but the presence was unmistakable. A single skeletal hand would reach out, touch Yulvaris’ shoulder—

And in that moment, Yulvaris’ bones would scream.

His own body would twist in the vision, as though being unraveled from the inside, muscle by muscle. His organs would feel as if imploding, but still he would live. Still conscious. Still aware. Still learning.

“You followed my lessons, yes… but you do not yet understand them.”

A pause.

“You executed your orders. But power is not measured in obedience. Nor in kill-counts.”

The pain paused—but the pressure in his head did not.

“It is measured by how thoroughly you break your opponent before the blade. How perfectly you make them beg for the end before it comes. The mind is the path to absolute control, and you have barely stepped upon it.”

At last, the vision faded. The world returned. He stood once more outside the chamber, drenched in sweat. His knees ached as if they had buckled, though he had not moved. And Veraxis’ voice came one final time, cold and direct:

“Enter only when you seek truth… not validation.”

And with that, the doors slowly, silently opened.


Tag: @Yulvaris

 

[Myrren Naarah]

"Failure must be such a difficult pill for you to swallow, Yulvaris."

The woman's voice came from behind him, chiding and mocking. When Yulvaris turned, he'd see the hooded figure of Myrren Naarah, a familiar face. She was one of the many Sith Acolytes of Veraxis, one raised alongside him to be trained in the dark side, and in turn, making her one of his many rivals clawing for favor and power in the eyes of their master and the coveted position of becoming Darth Malvus's apprentice. Myrren in particular was one of the more loathsome and formidable ones whom held a deep hatred of Yulvaris. To see his pride broken brought her great joy, shown by the smirk on her pale lips.

By Veraxis's orders, she had followed him and watched from a distance as he took down each of the Dark Crusade filths within the cave, not to help him but to learn. She did not see everything, only hearing the commotion within the cave and feeling the usage of the dark side. Though, it was not difficult to discern the displeasure of Veraxis after Yulvaris had finished his test. She'd been on the receiving end of it many times, as much as Myrren tries to pretend she had not been.

Myrren had seen his mistake the moment he initiated combat with the Dark Crusade remnants, owing to her penchant for cruelty and causing suffering. Of course, she'd never advice Yulvaris in such a way, better to watch your enemy make a mistake. It should have been her that was sent to deal with them anyways!

"It must be hard for you to be the disappointing child. Now, instead of seeking repetence for your mistakes, you chose to stomp into his Sanctum. sully its floor with Dark Crusade filth, and whine about how you hadn't failed him." Myrren snickered. She kept a few pace distance from him, her hands resting near her waist. "It's emberassing even for you."