Confrontation Litanies of the Dark Side: Bygone Era

[Sith Master Veraxis]

Veraxis did not recoil, though the air itself seemed to rot around him. The bogs churned as if the planet had become sentient—an ancient, unseen force slithering between realms, seeking to devour all that trespassed. He could feel it creeping into his mind, a clawing, writhing presence that slithered through the folds of his consciousness like a Nexu stalking its prey.

“No,” he snarled within himself, his will a razor-sharp dagger against the unseen assailant. He had bent the minds of lesser creatures, shattered psyches with a whisper, drowned entire beings in the abyss of their own fears. But this… this was no mere beast.

The whispers of the unseen entity dug into his thoughts, their chorus of agony latching onto the deepest parts of his being. For a fleeting moment, the Dark Side did not feel like a weapon, but a weight—pulling him down into the depths, promising to consume.

His vision blurred. The stormtroopers were nothing now—corpses, husks who would never again draw breath. They had served their purpose, their deaths insignificant. But what gripped him was the sensation crawling through the Acklay—his Acklay.

It twitched in its kneeling position, its ruined skull leaking black ichor, its very mind unraveling before him. His grip on it faltered, not because it resisted, but because something else had coiled around it, sinking its fangs into the space Veraxis had occupied. The Dark Side had never been shared. He was its master, its wielder, its conduit. And yet here, in this rotting world, he was being contested.

A coldness wrapped around his throat—not physical, but something far worse. A presence demanding entry. A force not merely of darkness, but of undoing.

“All Corruption ends in Fear. All Fear is Death.”

A sharp breath left him, the weight pressing heavier.

For the first time in many, many years, Veraxis realized what this presence wanted. It did not seek to break him as he had broken others. It did not seek to tempt him. It sought to replace him. To hollow him out as it had hollowed the Acklay.

His mind strained against the invasion, his will battling the unseen force with every ounce of dominance he possessed. He had taken minds, twisted them, shattered them—but never had something tried to take his.

“You are mistaken,” Veraxis growled, his hands tightening into claws, his body trembling as he fought to remain himself.

“Fear does not end in Death. Fear… ends in mastery.”

And with that, he did what most Sith would never dare—he did not resist the presence. He let it in. But he did not submit. No, he turned his mind into a labyrinth, a shifting, endless expanse of corridors and voids, traps within traps. He had spent his life bending others to his will, understanding the folds of the mind. And now, he would make this entity drown in the depths of his own madness.

The bogs screamed. The stormtroopers lay broken. The Acklay shuddered violently, as if caught between two masters. And in the midst of it all, Veraxis fought—not with his saber, not with brute strength, but with the weapon he had always trusted most.

His mind.

 

[Empor]

Fear ends in Mastery...

Fear ends in Mastery...​

Like a foul tempest of the blackest abyss, the nameless fiend invaded the maze of the Sith Master's psychic fortress. In a single instance, reality bent and cracked like ill-maintained lumber, yielding to the pressure of water and time, though barely moments passed between eons of mayhem. Myriad claws reached out from the consuming tempest, scratching against each and every edge of the mind's hollows. Each thunderous quake shaking the amalgam of insanity and perversion, depravity and obsession, with the cries of a billion souls amalgamated in a wave of flesh and blood too horrid to comperhend. It crashed against the bulwark of black crystal protruding outward to sever the flesh from the bone as the tides pulled low, only to be stirred back again by the flapping of the black wings of the fiends that flew above, preying to the stray cadavers dragging themselves in a perpetual state of un-life and naked Death, until finally reach the edges of the bulwark only to become one with the River.

Death has only one Master. Death is the only Master.

The walls of the maze flayed of stone, revealing the soft entrails beneath, only to be torn off and consumed by the mighty tempest, ever advancing across any and all corridors, recklessly descending into traps and chained into cages laid scattered, as if no loss was enough to contain such a demon.

You shall know Fear; you shall know Death. Burried, yet unclaimed, risen in unlife.


The bodies of the stormtroopers cracked and bent beneath the bogs, as if squashed by unseen powers of the Beyond, brutal enough to shatter any bone and tendon they had beneath their armour. One after the other the troopers emerged from the waters, standing straight enough to retain their balance. Their limbs twitched and bent, as if the powers puppeteering from within their flesh became accustomed to the new dwelling.

Death sees all. Death commands all.

A wave of frost spread within the Sith Master's mind, as if poured from a foul container from beyond the reach of realspace. Unseen, invited, and powerful, drawing power from the surrounding landscape and the beaming fountain of Netherworld energy, perpetually fuelling the Wound carved in the Force, the unnamed devil battled the Sith with its corruption.
The black tendrils reached from the unseen void of the Netherworld, as the nightmarish entity contested its grip in Realspace. Its freezing touch an invitation, its hellish words a summons.

Lightning boiled the Ackley's throat, jumping out in a sudden discharge of black light that contrasted any and all reason or colour. As the entity's grip grew like infection on a festering wound, black lightning sparked from the Ackley's body, causing permenant holes large enough for the skeletal entrails to spill out.

 

[Sith Master Veraxis]

Veraxis stood amidst the chaos, his mind a fortress besieged by the relentless tempest of the nameless entity. The bogs around him pulsed with malevolence, the stormtroopers’ lifeless forms now grotesque marionettes animated by the intruder’s will. The decayed Acklay convulsed, arcs of unnatural black lightning searing through its decomposed flesh, illuminating the darkness with each agonized spasm.

The entity’s voice, a cacophony of tormented souls, echoed within Veraxis’s psyche:

“Death has only one Master. Death is the only Master.”

The words slithered through his consciousness, seeking purchase, aiming to erode his resolve. But Veraxis, a master of Sith alchemy and the dark arts, recognized the tactics of psychological warfare employed against him. He had spent years delving into the forbidden techniques that bent reality and will to his command. This confrontation was not merely of strength, but of dominance over fear itself.

Drawing upon the depths of the dark side, Veraxis channeled his rage and hatred, emotions that fueled his power and sharpened his focus. He envisioned the teachings of the Sith Code, embracing the conflict as a crucible to purify his strength. With deliberate intent, he began to weave a counter-insurgency within his mind, crafting illusions and deceptions to mislead and entrap the invading presence.

“You seek to drown me in fear,” Veraxis projected into the maelstrom, his mental voice a blade of cold steel. “But fear is my ally. Through it, I have mastered death itself.”

He summoned forth memories of his darkest triumphs, moments where he had bent life and death to his will through Sith alchemy. The creation of Sithspawn, abominations twisted to serve his purposes, stood as testament to his command over the unnatural. These recollections were not just remembrances but weapons, each one a beacon of his indomitable will.

The entity recoiled slightly, the storm within his mind faltering as it encountered the labyrinth of Veraxis’s making. Seizing the advantage, Veraxis pressed forward, entwining his consciousness around the intruder like a serpent constricting its prey. He projected visions of endless voids, of consuming darkness that offered no purchase, no refuge.

“You are but a shadow,” he intoned, “and shadows exist only because of the light I cast.”

The bogs quaked as the battle of wills intensified, the very fabric of the Force around them trembling under the strain. The reanimated stormtroopers hesitated, their movements erratic as the entity’s control wavered. The Acklay’s spasms grew weaker, the black lightning dissipating into the ether.

Veraxis knew that victory required more than defense; it demanded subjugation. With a final surge of dark energy, he reached into the core of the invading presence, seeking its essence, aiming to bind it as he had bound countless others. His will, tempered by mastery and unyielding ambition, closed around the entity’s heart like a vice.

“Submit,” he commanded, his voice resonating with the authority of one who has conquered fear, “or be unmade.”

The tempest howled in defiance, but Veraxis could feel the shift—the hesitation, the creeping doubt. The entity, once so certain of its dominion over death and fear, now faced a master who wielded those very forces as his own. The battle was far from over, but the tide had turned. Veraxis stood unbroken, a testament to the power that comes when fear is not shunned, but embraced and mastered.


Tag: @Empor

 

[Berecca]

As Lok stepped into the mist, his figure dissolved into the thick fog, swallowed whole by the shadows and so did his crew.

Then silence.
His presence vanished from her commlink.​

MEMBER: Lok
STATUS: UNAVAILABLE

Her brow furrowed.
Their equipment was built to withstand interference in the harshest conditions yet he was gone.
Just like that.
Lok was right. Something was off.
But she had her own mission.


Exhaling through her nose,
she steeled herself, then turned back to the warriors at her command.
The Basilisks loomed at the edges of their formation,
their metal frames still and waiting, like beasts on a leash.
She cleared her throat.​

“Ahem.”
The air between them tightened as all eyes turned to her.
“Children of Mandalore. Of Mandalore of old.”
She let the words settle. Let them carry weight.
“We are here to hunt Acklays.
Savage beasts some rumored to reach six meters in height.
Others, they say, can breathe lightning.”

A pause.
She watched their expressions carefully,
noting the shifts in posture, the subtle flickers in their gazes.
Good. Let the reality of the hunt sink in.
Mortality was never absent.
She would not let them forget that.​

“Our objective is clear. Capture as many as we can.
If we find a female, we search for its nest possibly retrieve its young.
You have all been supplied with tracking darts. If we see young in the plains, they take priority.
Their weak spot is the underbelly. Remember that.
If an opportunity presents itself use stun, max power.”

She allowed a beat of silence before continuing.​

“Now. The plains.
We make two camps.
Eight of you will remain airborne, patrolling between them.
If one side comes under strain, you assist immediately.
The other four will continue sweeping the perimeter
if necessary, reinforce the settlement in need
or reallocate troops between settlements..
Communications on this planet are unreliable.
We will rely on our old ways.”

She let that linger.
Mandalorians did not falter in the face of adversity.
They adapted.
They thrived.​

“Scouts your task is to locate Lemnai nests.
The rest focus on tracking and hunting.
That is our primary goal until we secure enough beasts for capture.
Droids will not leave the transports unless required by the eight in flight.”

Her gaze swept over the gathered warriors,
lingering for a moment on the bog
on the place where Lok had vanished.​

Then, voice firm, unwavering
“You have your orders.
Move out.”
;Tag: @Dreadheart