Consolidation Litanies of the Dark Side: Heralds of Ruin

[Eosfor]

The restrained shell of the Dark Lord was immobile, the heart of the machine tree of grim engineering. His will heavy in the air, encouraging, even, as the bleak thoughts of self-sacrifice overcame Roshia's mind and she summoned the saberstaff's spiked hilt to her hand in iron determination. The entire chamber dove in darkness, as a shroud extended from the Dark Lord, consuming the very air until the very light of the chamber was erradicated by the pitch blackness.

The very sensation of the hilt against her bare palm a piercing bite of a hundred needles, manifesting the shattered crystal's own protest to her will in sparks of lightning. There was no button to ignite the blades. No trigger to bleed light into the chamber. The very hilt, a puzzle solved by its master in the eras it served as his weapon.

Suddenly, there was light.

Crimson and unstable; Plasma so fed with darkness it screeched in pain, as the Kyber within shook in torment of the oppresive Dark Side energy consuming its wielder. The dim light illuminated the hand and horrid face of Hazdrabal, as he aimed the blade to Roshia's throat, a warning for the fate awaiting her should she pursued her plans any further.

But alas...

The air grew thick like trasparesteel, and her exposed flesh besieged by a freezing sensation, with intent to hold her still of her action. The Dark Lord's will piercing like a barbed spear through her cortosis ribcage, Force Crushing it into ceasing the pumping of blood that fuelled Roshia's muscles into action.

"To strike against me is to die in vain."

The Dark Lord's whispering voice reverberated in the air.

"So eager, thee, to join the River of the Blind, in the Netherworld... Deprived... Denied... Stripped of all but Defiance... It is in the Dark, where the light shines the most... It is in Pain, when you are most Alive..."

 

[Roshia Chamiane]

An immediate wave of regret washed over Roshia the moment the hilt landed in the palm of her hand. The sting of a hundred needles coursed through her hand and arm, somehow, she still kept her grip on it through will alone. Another wave of regret washed over her when she realized the hilt had no button to ignite it or another other form of ignition trigger. In short, the hilt was a useless tool.

She held still when Hazdrabal aimed the blade at her throat, unable to defend against it. Before she could get a single word out, a freezing cold washed over her then the sharp, searing pain within her chest, followed by a crushing pressure that made her see stars in her vision and her breath stop. Roshia did not need any further orders, she released her grip on the lightsaber hilt, having it fall onto the ground, as she struggled against The Dark Lord's grip.

 

[Eosfor]

The machine tendrils pierced the carcass, fixing the plates in place in a maze of cybernetic miscreation, eventually covered by layers of thick armour. The oozing tissue molded to the back of the mask gradually shrinking, as if the very body craved the embrace of the cold metal. The tendril moved the mask closer.

"Feel thee, too, does thee not? Regret... Crawling under thy skin..."

Several lesser tendrils begun screwing bolts around the remnants of the skull, while plates curved and reforged were layed to conceal the up to now exposed brain of the carcass.

"Madness; Creeping in through the cracks of thy mind..."

The armour gradually completing, regranting the Dark Lord the humanoid appearance that masquaraded his own decay. Eyes blazing red, piercing through the sockets of the mask, into Roshia's very being, as her heart and flesh were released from His vile grip.

"They will thy soul for their's... Thy sanity; A trophy... Madness... Death..."

The stretched mechanical fingers curled, as the Dark Lord gained control over the exoskeletal abomination. He removed a leg at a time from the Tree's grip, taking a step closer to Roshia, still blazed by Hazdrabal's blade, burning beneath her chin. The Dark Lord lowered himself like a hulking predator gazing down its prey. And yet... She was more than simply prey, to Him...

The mask finally pushed against Him, bolts piercing it into place in what could only be a most painful a process...

"Do not let them in... Do not let them Win..."

His voice finally sounded from behind the mask, casting physical sound in the form of a mechanically distorted deep growl, bestial and yet in an abnormal tranquility, as if boiling within a container untouched by its heat.

"Thee have tasted Death already. More than enough to know what awaits thee, if given a Blind's Death..."

 

[Roshia Chamiane]

She couldn't move, she couldn't breathe, the pressure within her chest only grew the longer The Dark Lord held vice grip on her heart. More and more dark spots appeared in her vision as she watched the wretched corpse put itself back together, like some sort demented puzzle of body parts being put into their rightful places. His words hardly registered in her mind.

When he finally released her, Roshia fell onto her knees. Wheezing in gasping breaths and clutching at her chest with a hand, her body desperately compensated for the restricted blood flow. While the crushing pressure was gone, the pain still lingered.

She did not look up at him. Truthfully, Roshia had no idea what he meant by Blind's death or what awaited her after death. Her memories of what she saw shortly before pulled from the bacta tank remained fuzzy, and she didn't quite connect the two.

"I should have just cut off my own head..." Her words was a hoarse, dry whisper that was a far cry from the voice she had before the suffering was inflicted on her. It was less addressed at The Dark Lord and more her thoughts spoken aloud. Speaking was a difficult struggle in of itself when she struggled to take consistent breaths.

"What did you do to me?. Why?..."

 

[Eosfor]

The Dark Lord kept his gaze upon the knelt woman infront of him. His hand extending to the side, summoning the spiked hilt from the ground as his palm spread and curled again, this time around the hilt in a reconnection long awaited. His red eyes piercing Roshia, his towering figure a looming dread over the broken creature.

"Yes... Should thee... But thee did not."

The mechanically distorted growl polluted the foul air once again, as the Dark Lord spoke.

If only thee knew what awaited beyond the cut... If only thee knew...

He did not speak the words, loud as they were in his mind. That knowledge was already engraved in her, though her mind might refuse to revisit such a memory. Alas, in due time, should she proved strong enough, she would eventually face Death again. And, if his plan was to work, she will be ready for it.

"Thee dead." he answered her question. His voice coloured with cruel honesty. "Who yet live. Blind as thee were, thy blade fought with valor unmatched by thy comrade Jedi. That is why they fell, like thee. Yet thee ascended. While they met the Nether."

 

[Roshia Chamiane]

Roshia only shook her heads at his words, feeling nothing but continued denial and grief. She considered his words nonsense and mad ramblings, yet every time her thoughts returned to Karideph, she felt the burning sting of his lightsaber across her chest. It made her wince, despite the now healed wound. Continued regret that she both had failed to slay him and failed to slay herself.

"They all fought with as much valor I have, if not more." Roshia slowly looked up at him. "Your torture is not ascension and never will be. You will not temp me into the dark side, your false honeyed words of temptation will fall on deaf ears."

 

[Eosfor]

"So humble, in denial. So defiant, in desperation..."

The Dark Lord nodded to a thought never spoken.

"Thought thee, I wish to bribe thee with promises of power? Thought thee, I am but a Sith?"

His exoskeletal armour clanked as he slowly knelt on one knee, descending to Roshia's own level. His hand resting on his leg, his fingers performing rhythmic motions as if debating whether to curl into fist before regreting the endeavour, only to start again. His mind adhering to the pattern, as he debated the fate of the individual before him.

"Such promises are never made in the Dark Crusade, young warrior..." he shook his head the slightest, emphasizing the contrast of His reality to Roshia's statement. "There are no power seekers here... No Jedi renegades..."

His hand brought the spiked hilt under her chin, to push her gaze up and meet his own.

"Mine Chains are broken. Thine have just been wrapped."

The Dark Lord's head tilted to the side, never falling astray from her eyes. His piercing gaze feasting on her psyche, as his venomous words spoken like spell too dark to banish, yet too bluntant to deny.

"There is anger, within thee. Hatred, even. Neither as strong as regret. Wish thee to banish all. Wish thee, to wake up from the nightmare that has invaded thy reality... But cannot. Can thee?"

 

[Roshia Chamiane]

Much of her courage or ferocity Roshia had from earlier had been slowly washed away by both fear and despair. Shrinking away from The Dark Lord when he knelt in front of her, his close proximity caused her to feel immense anxiety, as if expecting him to strike her or worse.

She did not move away when he placed the spiked hilt beneath her chin. Even in her fear, her mind was still sharp enough to see the subtle threat behind the gesture. One activation, and she'd be slain by the lightsaber blade. An idea she'd have welcomed not too long ago.

Still, his gaze made her blood run cold, hands shake, and her heart race frantically. Whether from dark side influence or just from natural fear, Roshia did not know.

"What did you do to me?..." Roshia asked again, clearly unsatisfied with the answer he had given earlier and willfully choosing to ignore what he had asked. For she had no answer for it nor wished to even acknowledge it.

"How did you bring me back? What did you do?"

 

[Eosfor]

The hilt pressed up against her chin. The cold metal freezing the skin against it.
Her questions hung in the foul air, as the Dark Lord remained silent. His gaze studying her, in what felt only in appearance a physical inspection. His eyes already seeing deep past the skin, to the very marrow of her being. He calculated; planned the following actions as if prewriting a transcribed fate yet to unwrap itself from the ether's twine.

Her defiant nature a pile of dirt; Her torment, the water to liquify it into clay. His Will the hands to shape her into a monument of Defiance. A monument built by his image. Clear of impurities that plagued the Dark Lord to this very moment, of which the abominable machines that served as his body stood as a bleak reminder.

No, she could be far more... She could be far greater...

If only her eyes could open...

"I've walked the hollows of Death too many times to count to know how to stop his claws from claiming those marked by Him."

He lied. He could recite in his rotting mind each and every one of the moments of gloom, pain and desperation, which he had found himself an empty shell, crawling to the River with only drive Death's final decree on his fate. He still resented himself for words spoken in despair, craving the bliss that was, to his blind eyes, the ignorance of rebirth, past the River.

No longer.

His very being in Realspace now a fortress of Defiance itself, denying Death the prize of his soul, now sought, once much denied. His mind a Citadel from whence he taunted the nightmarish Beasts of the Nether, so cruelly latched to the name of Dhefion. His name. A name he had longed for untold time, only now to deny it, just how he denied his fate when the Days of Judgement befell him.

He turned his hilt lower, its spiked edge aimed at her chest.

"Thine mind has failed thee, once. Twisted by lies... Moulded into a false idol; All crashing down before the inevitability of thy fate. And then..."

He thrusted the hilt against her, the spiked crown piercing the skin, only for a metalic "tak" to cast a most unnatural sensation beneath the flesh, as the silver spikes hit the Cortosis implants.

"Thee surrendered thineself to Death... And pledged, to the Darkness..."

His gaze fixed, his head unmoved, as if the words growled a spell of her ruin so precise, a Dark aura embraced her in a motherly heat.

"Who were thee, no longer is. Perished, thee, the moment thy blade kissed thee."

His Will a conquering tide; The Dark Side tempting her mind with memories perhaps discarded to maintain what shards of sanity had yet remained, now summoned through his very gaze to besiege the last remnants of her self. The very mental image of her piercing herself with her own blade cast in her mind, as if for a brief moment, he openned himself in the Force to let her relive her demise through eyes not of her own.

There is no Death

There is the Force​

The fractions of the Jedi Code whispered by an amalgam of voices, half of which she could swear had heard too many times before, repeating themselves again and again until the lines became a noise too vague to distinguish into words, before the Dark Lord's voice reverberated in manner fitting of a hellish fiend creeping in from the sally door of her mind, to torch her psyche in Darkness.

And I, her Will​

 

[Roshia Chamiane]

Meeting his gaze filled her with an intense feeling of dread. Wanting to look away, but unable to, forced to have The Dark Lord's gaze bore through her very being. It might seem like a superficial judgment of her physical appearance, but Roshia knew it was far deeper than that. It made her feel exposed and vulnerable, more so than she already was right there.

Even then, perhaps a continued symptom of her complete denial, Roshia still attempted to think of ways to escape. How could she release herself from the nightmare she had been dragged into, how she could defeat him. Her thoughts turned to the memories of her Jedi Master, her mentors, friends, and all of them. She yearned for their presence deeply.

Her eyes widened when he had aimed the spiked edge of his saber at her chest. She braced herself for pain when it was thrusted into her chest. It broke skin then.... abruptly stopped, with a soft metallic 'tak' as if it had struct metal... which it *did* strike metal. Roshia felt it, but it did not hurt as it should if it had struct actual bone.

Before she could fully register the newfound change in her change in her body. His will was upon her mind, forced to watch her demise from his gaze. Seeing herself stand in front of him, stumbling back with a gaping wound across her chest, then impaling herself with her own lightsaber.

"No... no..." Roshia muttered repeatedly, shaking her head and covering her ears in an instinctual act of attempting to block out the whispers from her mind. She pushed herself away from him, desperately wanting to distance herself from The Dark Lord.

She should be dead, Roshia thought. Perhaps she already was, and this was the hell she had been sent to. She could not accept it, her mind refused. It could not be her reality. It just couldn't be.

"Please, let me go, please, please..." Roshia sobbed as she pleaded. Long gone was the time she'd rather fall on her own blade than give him the satisfaction of her pleading. Her will and body were broken, her mind now left vulnerable.

 

[Eosfor]

The Dark Lord's gaze remained fixed, his body almost warping, freezing in place as Roshia pulled herself away. He remained knelt, observing as her fall was reaching a climax. His Dark Will finally trapped within him, letting the oppressive artificial air in the chamber to perform the magicks of corruption for his accord.

Hazdrabal remained still. His lightsaber having fallen silent long ago, in a time beyond anyone's notice. He remained standing, staring at Roshia with the same ill-intent he once did, back in Karideph. To him, she was still the same Jedi he fought in the battlefield. To him, her blood spilled was all he could see a satisfying end to this ordeal the Dark Lord had ventured into. Alas, though his hate made manifest in her sobbing face; A pathetic mockery of the Jedi Master who had claimed his face, Hazdrabal restrained himself from acting to his craving for bloodshed.

The Dark Lord turned his hooded head over his shoulder, to Hazdrabal.

"Mezdi mus"
"Leave us" (In Sith)

His voice commanding, casting an invisible wind in the fabric of the Force enough to banish Hazdrabal's piercing hate that willed to drown Roshia. Few breaths followed in which neither of the Sith moved. Hazdrabal curled his palms into fists, tightening his grip around the hilt.

"M̸̛͕e̵̻̚z̴͓̿̏d̷͙̊͋ǐ̵̬ ̸̜͌̌m̴̟̯̀ü̶̘̞s̴͈̓̕,̵͓̊͝ ̶͕̯̓H̶͈̖̓̉a̷̝̓z̷͎̀̏d̸͎́́r̷̭̥͊̅a̷̤͛͌b̸̢̓̑ä̴̫͓́ḽ̸͂̅."

The Dark Lord growled, his voice corrupted by the Dark Side into a gutteral sound of a beast, warning the prey of its coming. Snarling; To mark the dominance over its territory...

Hazdrabal took a deep breath; His mechanical lungs ticking by the inflow of excess air. He turned, attaching his hilt by his belt as he walked out the chamber.

The Dark Lord's gaze remained frozen to where Hazdrabal once was, altered only when Roshia spoke up. Her voice having lost any will or might she originally had; Her will finally broken, her mind shattered by the crushing weight of the hellish state she found herself in.
A flawless trail paved by the Dark Lord, who turned to look upon his creation...

And then, it happened.

She begged.

An admition of defeat, and last ditch effort of the one clinging on to what was already lost. It was now, the moment the Dark Lord awaited. It was now, when he would claim the true prize of Karideph...

"Thee know not. Does thee?"

The hulking figure of the Dark Lord slowly ascended to his full height, standing tall as he approached the curled shell of the Jedi that had wounded him not too long ago...
His metallic claw extended, offered to Roshia like a Deus Ex Machina, in an act of twisted compassion and miasmatic cruelty masquaraded by a miasmatic shade of so horribly offered mercy...

"Come with me."

And so, the Dark Lord shared a single moment that felt an eternity, time warped by the weight of the so symbolic a decision forced upon Roshia...

 

[Roshia Chamiane]

The presence of Hazdrabal had hardly been noticed by Roshia when he had backed off. Her attention was purely focused on The Dark Lord, but she still felt a small sense of relief when Hazdrabal left. Not that it was enough to change her newly broken state.

Of course, she, too, was oblivious at how she had fallen exactly where The Dark Lord intended her to. It was not something she had even considered then. All she cared about was escaping the terrible nightmare she was in, through a twisted, naive hope that he'd somehow allow her to.

She shrunk back even more when he stood up fully, fearing physical retribution for her outward weakness. Roshia stared blankly at his offered hand. She did not accept it immediately, as a part of her still screamed not to. Reminding her that she was still a jedi, bound by their code, and practiced their ways. To not fall to the dark side, to not be tempted by the Sith ways.

In the end, even in Roshia's broken state, even when she had begged for release. The Padawan turned away from him, tears still streaming down from her eyes even when she fell silent.

 

[Eosfor]

The Dark Lord's hand remained still, just like his posture. Towering over her curled body, he simply stood in silence for few seconds to pass. As the time progressed, or at least the perversion of it as experienced onboard the cursed ship, perhaps minutes, even, passed without him altering his posture.

"The Galaxy is drenched in Darkness." he said then. His voice sincere, seemingly drained of the malice that once adorned his words. His hand slowly lowering, as he took few steps back.

"To die is to relive what brought thee to Death. To heed mine call, is to end the circle. There will be no beauty; There will be no glory, to what shall be. But, together... We shall End This."

He let his words hang, as he turned, walking towards the exit of the room. As the blastdoors opened, beneath the doorframe, he halted his pace to look over his shoulder. Though his eyes did not meet her, now buried in shadows and distance, beyond the Tree, his gaze heavy enough in the Force to place a weight upon her curled body, for the duration of his final words.

"Thee did not find Hell in Karideph, young one... Thee have lived in Hell up until Karideph. And now, thine eyes were plucked open. Sunlight burns a Blind's eyes. Yet I can only make thee see, by cutting off thy eyelids."