Venom and the Murder [Silas, ask to join]

[Kressara Thryn]

“Whoa, Thryn! You look like you crawled out of a dumpster that you slept in last night. Overdose again?” One of the acolytes of the temple mocked Kressara as she stumbled in through the landing pad gate, to which the would-be apprentice narrowed her bloodshot hazels and snarled, “Shut up, Ghroth-nir. Where’s Silas?”

”Excuse me?” Ghroth-nir raised both eyebrows and reached for the saber at his hip. Kressara halted her shambling and seethed, “Reach for that saber, boy, and I’ll be picking pieces of you out from my boot tread tonight. WHERE. IS. SILAS?” Reluctant, the acolyte lowered his hand away from the weapon. Lightsaber or no, Kressara had bested him time and time again in combat. She was developing a reputation for breaking sword arms and busting out teeth in her refusal to focus on obtaining her own light weapon. Ghroth-nir did not want to test her now when there was absolute venom dripping from every word. “Should be in his personal study. I wouldn’t interrupt him though, unless you have a death wish. What do you need to see the dark lord for so badly anyways?”

“i WoUlDn’T iNtErRuPt HiM tHoUgH- Mind your own business and I MIGHT mind mine if you’re lucky, cupcake.” Kressara spat and stormed down the hallway as best her battered bones would let her. Every step felt like hot irons digging into her side and glimmering lights danced in her vision. Whatever fight the sith assassin had taken part in, she’d only just barely managed to escape with her life. Purpose alone spurred her quaking bones onward into the heart of the temple where she hobbled before a set of impressive heavy doors. The dark lord of the sith stood behind them and without a moment to spar on etiquette or protocol, the bruised and beaten blonde pushed them open to lock eyes with a familiar face. The sovereign.

Kressara was wearing tattered, blood covered street clothes popular on the urban cityscape surface of Euphornis Major, most noticeably destroyed in singed sections on her left arm and torso. Saber wounds. They were for the most part shallow and somewhat cauterized, but painfully obvious. Glass bits still littered a bloody patch of hair where she must have fallen through some sort of window, pieces (luckily) dug into the skin around her left eye/temple without actually having damaged her vision. Several bleeding pinpricks littered her neck which had been soaked in a silvery glimmering substance. Glitterstim, but why so much of it? It looked as if someone had stabbed her in the neck with a handful of syringes and pushed out all their contents at once. She looked like a walking corpse.

But most unlike a corpse, her dry lips spoke with unmistakable urgency.

“I need you to help me.”

[Silas Karn]

Peering upon a holotransmitter as it displayed a remote system the Dark Lord witnessed the his offspring being shuttled down to join their mother in exile. Both otherwise loose ends were to be marooned, sealed away deep in Alliance territory. “All that remains is the death of the empress.” Silas noted as he shut off the device. Pleased with the course of events the Sovereign turned to walk back to his study only for a burst of commotion to erupt over the localized palace com channel. “That voice…”

Silas emoted before pivoted to face the grand entryway to palace antechamber. With a bit of a rush the Sovereign reached the heavy doors just as a familiar fowl breached his chambers. The unsightly disheveled, burnt, and blood soaked form revealed to Silas took him by surprise. A flash of concern could be seen fleetingly in Silas’s face before angry robbed its presence. "Perhaps I was wrong in allotting you such a long leash. I thought you were cleverer than this.”

Silas had discerned most of what had occurred and was about to intercede before detecting the pinpricks at the source of Kressara’s wounds. “You foolish girl, allowing such a weakness to linger this long!” Despite the Sovereign’s biting words his actions spoke not of fury. Helping the crow to sit down Silas’s aura lit blaze with the might of the Force as he reached out and put a stupor on the worsening condition of his acolyte. An inky black viscus substance began to overtake Silas’s right eye as the Dark Lord uncharacteristically imparted his own vitality to Kressara (Manipulate Life Force).

The young Sith’s wounds soon closed and her condition stabilized. With an understanding of how dangerous her drugs might be used as a weapon Silas swiftly altered the manner of his use of the Force. Harnessing a largely unpracticed technique the Sovereign looked upon Kressara and with great fervor shattered the lethality of the illicit substance (Detoxify Poison). With several labored breaths Silas slowly withdrew his influence and attempted to recollect his composure. However the damage left by his hurried transfer of vitality remained clearly visible.

Silas’s right eye had revealed its true form almost a mirror for the void of space. Extending his left arm the Sovereign aided Kressara to her feet and with a half step back renewed his inquiry. “Now, explain yourself. Where is the gemstone I gave you? Who did this to you? What has carried you to my door?”

[Kressara Thryn]

Leash? Oh, the temptation to correct the man was almost overpowering. If anyone managed to keep Kressara on a “leash” again, they’d be better off hanging her by it. There was a very prominent reason as to why she remained masterless, and that was because she didn’t take authority well. Authority was to be fought, undermined, and dismantled. It never once resulted in her actually gaining anything other than a bad track record for stupid decision making, trauma, and lack of growth. Look at her now! She got hurt defying someone who sought to exert control over her and now she needed to keep her teeth grit on the matter, lest she lose any chance of help from the only one who could manage it.

Wincing as the sovereign aided her into a sitting position, Kressara groaned, “Foolish, unclever, stupid, big head no thoughts, I get it.”

Maybe there was still some part of her that felt wounded pride. In fact, it showed in the rolling of glitter tainted golds and the clenching of her teeth into a pained, forced grin. True to the assassin’s easier going demeanor however, she rolled with the insults rather than contesting them. Arguing intelligence is the opposite of intelligent behavior after all, and there wasn’t enough time.

Nobody ever wants to talk about how nasty rapidly closing wounds looked and felt. Meat, blood, char, and skin rejected the rot and scorch, stretched to bond with other cells, and stung like a handful of razor blades being dug into her body. Thankfully he had the decency to heal her wounds first before detoxifying whatever pain killing elements remained in her body. The wounds closing was tolerable enough, but feeling an overdose undoing itself and dispersing through the force within her veins left the masterless sith feeling woozy, dazed, and close to the edge of unconsciousness. “Oh...oh that sucks…” Kress murmured and let her head hang, pieces of broken glass still falling from mended wounds. “That feels like eating bad poultry, slamming a strong drink, and diving into a vortex head first.”

For as much as Silas’s wounded subordinate didn’t take to detoxifying her poisonous blood, looking up from her dizzied stupor to see his blackened eye did bring her out of her own misery to question his. “Hey. Is that normal? You good?”

Once all was said and done, the beaten crow hoisted onto slightly steadier feet, Kressara considered the dark lord with the utmost of humility. There was no effort to save her pride, no attempt to mask her failure. If he had beef with her because of it, because of a fight she lost that had nothing to do with him, then she’d make him another name on a long list of people who’d have to wait a while before she paid them back for their cruelty. Approval was a luxury she had no time to strive for today. Still, in spite of her obvious lack of sith-like need for a lord’s faith in her abilities to function, she was showing something for the first time to Silas.

Trust.

“Time is of the essence and I’m worried I may already be too late, but I’ve lost someone and I can’t recall anything clearly at all thanks to that miserable, dishonorable, cheap striking, no good, rotten, disgusting-!” Her voice was rising in anger with every adjective, eyes growing a hateful fire like they hadn’t held since she scorned her former master. She was uncommonly livid. Calming herself, Kress continued, “...Let me start by introducing myself a bit more entirely to you. I’m not just a glitterstim, spice smoking, stimulant pumping addict. I’m the leader of a bunch of glitterstim, spice smoking, stimulant pumping addicts and I’ve been using our database and reach to locate someone particularly in need of a vibroblade to the gray matter. You wanna know how I ended up with Lord Blood? Certainly not because I was dumb enough to choose him. He picked me up as just a kid hopping interstellar transports because a certain someone murdered my entire family, gave me a head injury, and chased me off my home planet with a vengeance because oops, wouldn’t ya know it I pushed his violent little poodoo stain of an apprentice into a crop husking machine. NOW, to present day...we found him. After years of searching I finally found the slimy little mouth breather and tracked him down with my second in command at my side. Lorcan's a big guy, pointy teeth, blue mohawk...can’t miss him.”

Kressara squinted, trying to recall what happened next only to get frustrated and forcefully sigh, “The man I was hunting is a rogue sith. Never likely to have been part of our order, but he’s smarter than I gave him credit for. I don’t know how he overpowered the both of us, but he did. I can admit when someone gets the best of me, but I can promise you it was underhanded and cheap. I don’t remember the fight, the location, or what happened, but when I woke up Lorcan was nowhere to be seen and I was hardly alive. The loser probably thought I was dead, but SURPRISE! I just keep coming back! Cause at least you can say one thing about me, Silas. I don’t die easy.”

The statement was followed by a gesturing of arms lifted to her sides, as if presenting evidence that she’s nearly indestructible. Hands fell haphazardly back into place and she paced nervously for a moment, coming to stand before the dark lord again.

“He must have gotten into my pockets and used my stash to OD me during the fight. I had extra on me in case he ran. I would have needed the boost to trace him...so I’m coming to you now to ask, please, if there’s any salvageable information up here,” A shaky finger pointed to her bloodstained skull. “I need you to dig around in there and help me find where my second hand is. I don’t know why this guy would have taken him instead of just offing Lorcan, but I need to find him.”

[Silas Karn]

The taint that had claimed Silas’s right eye in its entirety was a glimpse behind the mask. Noting Kressara’s inquiry the Sovereign offered a cryptic response. “You might say it’s a gift granted by our lost Lord.” It wasn’t much to go on but was the truth. The final ritual of the former Triumvirate had cost Silas dearly and with far less tact than his own Tormentous had attempted to stave off the damages with sorcery.

After a moment’s contemplation Kress returned to the more pressing topic at hand. The Sovereign’s eyes widened as she opened up to him. Though Silas had put together pieces of intel regarding the crow, however even he wasn’t fully aware of her activities away from Sith territory. ‘So her parents were slain. There are of course worse fates…’ Sovereign mused as he listened intently.

A scowl formed at the mention of Blood, a relic of the machinations Silas’s own thoughts had alluded to moment’s prior. Not a soul beyond the Sovereign his self fully understood the scope of what had set into motion the events surrounding him prior to his birth. To think that the same schemes could have manifested in a being, one that consumed its host and drew ever increasing strength from the undesired symbiosis.

Yet, Silas steadied his temperament in the knowledge he had contained then sealed and ultimately dispatched the entity in such a manner that the possibility of Blood’s revival was beyond even his augmented prowess in foresight. All that yet remained from the dragon was a single cask bearing the flesh that had been burned and torn from its host. The Dark Lord’s thoughts were brought back to the present as Kressara ranted about the individual that had robbed her from a normal life.

The rogue adept attuned to the darkness could only loosely be considered Sith. However, it was odd to Silas that despite her prowess in combat and unorthodox style the man had succeeded in nearly slaying the crow outright. ‘Perhaps a stronger foe than she is willing to properly discern given the situation. Hardly a concern in a proper duel yet cornering such an animal might lend itself to the state Kressara finds herself in now.’

The Sovereign deduced as the conversation swerved. “The wayward lord would have been a far better choice for such. Far less ceremony is needed when one possesses the capacity to merely read minds.” Alluding to a disparity in techniques between the pair, likely only known to Silas his self as his mind controlling was never demonstrated to any current Sith. Seeing that the crow was undaunted by the risks involved the Sovereign called out to the Force and opened a domain in front of his chest (Sith Sorcery).

With several minutes preparation a ritual circle was burned into the floor around Kressara with four crystals helming a prime coordinate. “I’ll do my upmost not to harm you though it is certainly a crude method to achieve this.” With black tendrils began to claim the light of Silas’s left eye as the Sovereign reached out and physically touched Kressara’s forehead with two of the fingertips of his right hand (Mind Control). The light of the room was swiftly quelled as the pair met moments later in the ephemeral plain of the crow’s psyche.

With a direct physical and supernatural link formed the Sovereign had immense mastery of the domain such that the maelstrom began to ebb. “Reading thoughts through telepathy is simple, forcing memories to surface and be readable is difficult, controlling the totality of what exists within the mind without burning the subject out and leaving a husk is the epitome of the art. Given the situation your will is all that will separate failure from success.”

[Kressara Thryn]

“Seems as though that gift is more of a curse. Does it hurt?” Kress pondered. Even a sith lord with advanced power wasn’t exempt from tokens of the past. Mention of Tormentous’s mind reading abilities brought a short lived smirk to the blonde’s red stained lips. “Yeah. He would have made quick work of it. You know his abilities were the reason I wiped my mind to begin with? Sure, I had other reasons for using glitterstim, but when I was running from the sith initially after the fall of my former teacher I tried to cover things that were important to me. Funny thing is, I doubt they’re important now. Oh, and the gem you gave me is safe by the way.” Raising her hand, she lifted back a section of flaxen locks where the crimson jewel dangled on her ear. “Safe and sound.”


A promise to avoid harm reminded the acolyte to breathe, closing her eyes as his fingers lifted to touch her forehead. For a moment everything went blank, and then their consciousness fled together into the corridors of her mind with a windy, rising sensation. When the feeling of falling upwards stopped, the pair was once again standing face to face in a very ethereal setting. Unlike the last time the entire place was thick with a shimmering haze. It was likely the glitterstim’s effects still lingering even after the danger of death had passed. Kressara blinked hard, vision then refocusing on the silver haired man before her.

“Don’t you worry about that. If I was going to fade away into my own headspace, I would have done so years ago. As it happens, I’m more introspective than people give me credit for. Just focus on keeping yourself safe in here and if something DOES happen to me and I can’t make it out of this? Please, at least find Lorcan for me. I should have never let him come with me.” Kressara was disgusted with herself for letting her enemy take him. If this effort resulted in self injury, she felt it was deserved.

Steeling herself with another deep breath, Kressara took the first step into the storm with Lorcan in mind. Maybe if she recalled him, she’d find memories involving the incident. Memories in the rain and wind began to form as she walked, but they weren’t the memories she intended to conjure.

**The first was a rain soaked back alley, a real gutter to die in if ever there was one. A lanky, tan skinned, cyan haired punk with pointed ears and cybernetic blue eyes sat slumped against a brick wall. He was shaking uncontrollably, gaunt, and crying. This memory of Lorcan painted him as an addict on his last leg, desperate, and heart broken. Heels sent ripples over the water covered streets, Kressara walking into view to stand before Lorcan. She was significantly less impressive back then too. The Kress of this memory was thin, sick, and grieving the loss of her son. Even with nothing to give, she held out her hand to the man.**

Dissatisfied, the blackbird of the sith wandered into another memory.

**This one was of her and Lorcan struggling together in an apartment of some sort. Kress was helping him get clean, making sure that he didn’t fall back on spice as the withdrawals ate away his will to turn it all around.**

Not recent enough.

**The next memory showed them both looking better, actually dignified compared to the prior visions. They were standing around a holo table with others dressed in similar, punk fashion, planning their first heist. Days later they returned victorious, celebrating together. Heist after heist, deal after deal, and trade after trade built the scenery around the group and formed the cartel into what it was today. The city slums they started in began to change. Things were repaired, people were fed, and businesses opened. They were building something far bigger than just a small-time drug ring and it had only just begun.**

“This is too far back.” Present day Kressara turned to Silas. “I tried to think of Lorcan, but maybe I should be thinking of the darksider who stole him instead?”

**Mere mention of the rogue sith dissipated memories of how Kressara and Lorcan came to be partners in crime. A young girl ran across their path and into the next vision which was a barn filled with crop processing machinery and crates where the fleeing girl hid herself. It was Kressara, though significantly younger. She appeared to be a teenager. A raspy voice called out over the sound of the crop husker. “Oh, that’s not very brave of you little girl! Your parents wouldn’t be proud of a child that fled from their murderer to save their own skin, would they?” Young Kress was huddled behind a pile of wooden boxes, grasping a bleeding head wound that leaked scarlet into her frightened hazels. A second voice, less weathered sounding yelled, “It wouldn’t matter even if you fought back! My master and I are going to break every bone in your body. You’re weaker than the force let on. Almost nothing by comparison. Do you even know what the force is?” Kressara’s breathing sped up, her teeth gnashed, and she swallowed back tears as all that stood between herself and the invading sith was a pile of boxes stacked nearly to the ceiling. “We’re going to catch you, we’re going to make you hand over the map to your pathetic dead family’s tomb, and then we’re going to flay you and hang you up somewhere nice and desolate for the birds. If you’re a good little brat and come out of hiding, I might even kill you before I peel off your skin.”**

Present day Kressara’s brows furrowed. Map? Tomb? That wasn’t something she remembered on her own. She turned to Silas, stating truthfully, “I don’t remember that part about a map. Why would I have a map to a family tomb? They were farmers. They didn’t have a tomb. They hardly had a house.”

**The younger image of Kressara took one last breath before shoving off the ground and tipping the mountain of crates onto her attackers. Heavy boxes filled with canned goods slammed down on the sith, giving her the chance to scramble through the barn and up a ladder into the loft. When the invaders freed themselves, she was hidden again. The oldest sith could still sense her. He grunted a command to his apprentice and drew his lightsaber. While the student searched the loft, his master set to burning the barn. He intended to smoke the girl out.**

Kress stepped away from Silas’s reach for a moment to glance over the devaronian sith lord who took her family from her as he set fire to the place. Though he couldn’t sense her, or interact, as he was only a memory, Kressara felt the need to glower. Whatever fear she felt as a girl running from this sith, it was dead. The terror in her younger self’s eyes no longer lived within the woman before Silas. Something far stronger resided in her mind instead. “You weren’t just looking for other force sensitives, were you? You wanted something my family had access to. I just can’t recall what it is…” Gold optics peered back to the sovereign. “I think he knows something about me that I don’t know. Something valuable if he’d go to all this trouble, wouldn’t you think?”

**A scream tore through the memory, drawing attention up into the loft where the apprentice snatched his prey by the neck, holding the blade of his saber to her ribs. The heat burned away clothing, singing flesh, branding her in such a way that still remained visible today. That was Kressara Thryn’s very first experience with a lightsaber. No wonder she inherently had no love for them, and true to the acolyte Silas knew now, the girl in the vision would not go down without giving it everything she had. She stopped trying to peel the fingers around her throat away and instead, dug her thumbs deep into the darkside tainted eyes of her tormentor. He let out a yelp and tossed her away to grasp at his face, but Kressara climbed to her feet, charged, and knocked the sith apprentice off the edge of the loft. He fell legs first into the crop husking machine, blood spattering over the whole of the downstairs, fire rising all around him. The wind and smoke carried the scent of gore up into the rafters and for a moment, the rogue sith lord and Kressara locked eyes. She’d just killed his student.**


“I ran away. Jumped right out that window into the fields. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore. Then I crawled. I kept going until I reached the city. From there I lived off of the help of strangers, then eventually fled the planet within the week. I don’t think he stopped hunting me. He probably would have found me too if Blood hadn’t forced me to join the order.” The memory faded in smoke and flames and Kressara shook her head.

“As intriguing as that was, I need to find Lorcan. So come on brain, show me my last memory of him...NOW.”

The storm reacted to her demand, freezing in place before winds blew stronger and slow moving lightning arced throughout the torrent. A section of the storm as black as night emerged, but even worse than its foreboding shadow were the fractals that distorted it. Sparkling lights crackled throughout the memory and muffled sounds of voices, sabers, gun fire, and glass shattering attempted to flee the blot in the clouds. It was a corrupted memory, the very one they needed to restore.

“...I think that’s our stop.”

[Silas Karn]

“Safe huh? Then your injuries should have been reduced in nature, by now.” Silas granted a barbed reply still irritated that the crow had not fully advanced beyond the need for chemically induced connection to the Force. As the pair delved into Kressara’s subconscious she spoke of his safety as he had prior to their entry.

“Don’t misunderstand, the danger is not in being consumed as perhaps there existed in the waning hours to which I first revealed this art to you. It is in the possibility of hollowing out your will in a permanent fashion as this root of this traversal was never meant to be employed in such a finite measure.” The early memories that were to follow seemed immaterial in nature.

Revealing only in a confirmation of assumptions rather than any true insight and irrelevant to what the crow sought. The moment Kressara mentioned the acolyte brought forth a scene granting more questions than answers. Listening to her question aloud Silas gave a discerning reply, “Perhaps there is more to this bird than meets the eye? The past is easily clouded once one goes to cycles before one’s birth.”

The Sovereign in some measure spoke of his own situation. Watching the young Kressara escape a trained adept brought a smirk to Silas’s face almost tasting the indignation radiating from the failure. Such mirth was short lived as the crow swiftly delved further into the confrontations with the pair of darksiders. “You know I could fix that…”

Silas noted as he witnessed Kressara receiving her first scar never missing an opportunity to show off. However the conversation shifted to object of the crow’s search. Finally reaching the depths of her mind it was obvious that what lay beyond was a corruption.

“Interesting, you know these traversals are only possible with a willing vessel. After all this is a far more intrusive methodology than the simplistic ripping of memories. That said one could not read a memory such as what you have found here. You, Lady Kressara, no longer hold the events that lay before you. They have been fractured. Even the capacity to withdraw memory would fail here. It is disturbing that I may be the only entity capable of restoring this to you. Whomever you’ve crossed paths may prove to be far more formidable than I would have anticipated. Furthermore there are limits to this skill. I lacked the proper preparation time and meditation to go much further. Whatever you find beyond this fracture will have to suffice.”

With that the Sovereign seemed to close his eyes and steady his self for long moments before lifting his right arm and outstretching his hand. A sundering quake alongside bursts of lights erupted all around the pair yet Silas stood resolute as the flickering of images coalesced with the sounds merging to a coherent scene. Even as it played out and the Dark Lord opened his eyes anew Kressara could feel a shaky unease as the realm beyond the memory began to slowly fade. Only precious fleeting seconds remained, hopefully the blackbird had found what they sought.

[Kressara Thryn]

I could fix that.

Glancing down at the place where that old scar hid beneath her clothing, Kressara smirked and proudly announced, “And lose proof that even a child can out match a sith lord and his apprentice if they’re fast on their feet? Pssh…as if.” But there was something hidden within that memory. Everything happens for a reason, or so Lorcan always said, and maybe this resurgence of recollection would serve a greater purpose indeed. “After Lorcan is rescued, I’d like to venture deeper into what we just saw. I never heard of a family tomb that I can recall, but who doesn’t like a little crypt crawling?”

The corrupt memory rumbled like a bad storm before them and when Silas reached out his hand to repurpose some of it’s broken pieces, the flaxen sith darted into the fractured fray with eyes and ears peeled.

They were in an unfinished skyscraper overlooking a subterranean city. It was in disrepair and the world outside the broken windows looked dingy, but well populated. It was quiet, until a Devaronian man burst through a crumbling divider wall and slid on his back mere inches from her. She watched herself leap from the newly demolished wall and land with taloned boots on the chest of the Devaronian sith. He reached up, swatting her off of him with the force and through a window which she just barely managed to grip lest she fall to her death. Another entered the room, blaster aimed at their enemy. It was Lorcan. He fired off a few rounds, each one missing the Devaronian who scrambled to his feet to evade them. Calling to the force once again, he snatched Lorcan by the throat and dragged him closer, forcing his firearm to the ground with a haughty smirk.

That smug look didn’t last long, because Kressara was already climbing back through the window. By the time he realized she wasn’t a splattered mess on the concrete several stories below, it was too late. A garrotte wire slipped around his throat and the assassin tugged hard, cutting his neck and choking out the sith lord from behind. Lorcan was released, coughing hard as he regained his blaster, taking aim at their enemy.

But the memory distorted, their surroundings twisted, jumped, and scattered like a puzzle falling apart, but some pieces stayed together. Kressara saw the sith reaching for her stash, grabbing a fist full of syringes, and injecting them into her. The memory was breaking apart. Her own recollection was about to end as her consciousness faded in a glittering haze.

The imagery was nothing more than particles when she heard Lorcan’s voice whisper into her mind, much like the way Silas used the force to communicate telepathically…did Lorcan know how to do that? Was it a memory of a hallucination?

His voice reached out through the ether, “Void Breacher…599374-4159-32…North…Kisgrot’s shipyard…”

“LORCAN!!! LORCAN CAN YOU HEAR ME?!” Kressara felt the memory collapsing all around her, but she knew it was Lorcan reaching out through the force. Somehow, he called out details as he saw them, reaching her mind even as she felt herself lose consciousness on the floor of that disgusting old high rise while her heart threatened to stop. The overdose nearly killed her that time. It was more than she ever took at once.

As much as the present day crow wanted to stay and search for more, her opening to leave the dying memory was almost closed. Silas stood on the other side, his image just barely visible now. Kressara retreated and pushed her way through the threads of mental abyss sewing the door shut, breaking free from the collapsing construct just in time. She doubled over, hands on her knees, breathing heavily as fractals clung to her hair and skin. Dust of the corrupt memory clung to her ethereal form like a mold threatening to leech onto her soul, but the stubborn assassin forced herself to stand tall, brush off the excess, and center herself.

“Void Breacher, 599374-4159-32, North, Kisgrot’s shipyard.” She repeated after a moment to recover from nearly being swallowed whole by her own mind, adding, “I think we were in the undercity of Coruscant. It was pretty nasty…definitely a bad part of town.”

Kressara hacked up a few clouds of memory debris, sneezed, and tried her best to regain composure.

“Those numbers sound like a ship’s identification. I think we have somewhere to start and…I think I need a breather.”

[Silas Karn]

It was disturbing, and infuriating, how? How could any individual reach this domain without Silas’s own aid? A mere voice to most meant far more to the peerless master of sense. The Sovereign’s eyes gleamed with fury even as Kressara cried out. The domain shuttered as the Dark Lord’s mind latched on to the connection formed to reach the pair.

The crow repeated the interlopers’ words as Silas dispersed the art that held them within her mind. The Sovereign may have held a far greater, more immediate reaction to the destination if his energies were being consumed tracing the source of the adept. Returned to the physical realm Kressara was likely left confused as Silas’s gaze bent upwards and away from her. The room was increasingly darker than it had been prior to the activation of the ritual, with each gem on the floor now ashen in color and slowly losing cohesion.

Pure dark energies leapt out from the Dark Lord’s armor as Silas reached out through the Force at the peak of his abilities. However, the extensive use of so many gifts had left the Sovereign diminished with labored breaths marking the fatigue he had suffered under. Kressara’s voice soon tore Silas away from his efforts. The dark side corruption he had suffered had reached its apex with the Sovereign’s formerly perfect countenance cracked and grey.

Irritated with his inability to simply track the interloper with his peerless senses it was only now the Silas realized where the coordinates led. Looking back to Kressara the Dark Lord finally spoke, “It’s been over ten cycles…” Even through the void that stained Silas’s eyes a distance could be read. “Fate, as perverse as the entity that seeks to weave it.” A distinct disdain flowed from his words as he continued. “We will need Alliance approvable transport.”’ As Kressara voiced her need for rest Silas took inventory of the situation. “Yes, I must recover my lost vitality as well. We should meet at the landing port. I expect you possess the necessary connections for our departure.”

With that the Dark Lord departed for his private chambers. Once her arrived he swiftly opened an ornate chest that rested on a pedestal next to his bed. The same resplendent relic to which the Sovereign as High Priest had forged to hold his soul in a bid to attain true immortality, now merely housing gemstones to preserve the life he had. Tormentous’s departure had dampened many of Silas’s aspirations and this was no different. Recovering a single blood hued crystal the Sovereign channeled its profane power to supplant the corruption of his flesh. Reclaiming his youthful perfection the gem’s appearance darkened and soon turned to ash.

With the immediate need accounted for the Dark Lord began to gather his equipment for a lengthy incursion. Placing his helmet at its rest at the height of his back plating and taking up the Irus’s Mirtis within its sheath and attaching it to his left side Silas swiftly outfitted his self. Setting the four unadorned straight hilt lightsabers within their latches at the small of his back the Dark Lord finished his preparations. Departing the palace with a swift word to the guard captain Silas took a transport to the vast landing ports of Moraband. With some ceremony Silas arrived to meet Kressara as he had outlined.

[Kressara Thryn]

Panting, greyed, and ill looking, Kressara screwed her eyebrows at the withering appearance which took over Silas. The sorcery keeping him young and alive ran thin as his focus dwindled. He was none too happy to receive their first location, a negativity Kressara didn’t share with the sovereign. This was their first lead. If they could pick up the trail on Coruscant, then her chances of rescuing Lorcan were all the greater. Heaving up the last of the ether dust in a coughing fit, the glitbiter sith paused in the door.

“I have a crew. If they don’t have clearance, they’ll get it.” Not really sure how to part ways in this situation, Kress awkwardly added, “See you in a bit, then.” before crossing the threshold.


Silas wasn’t the only one in need of regained vitality, but Kressara wouldn’t be stopping by her room in the temple. Instead she marched onward, hailed the first transport to zoom by, and moments later stepped off onto a landing pad where The Shyyyo perched. Jasper, a man smaller than Kress who’s red curls alone gave the illusion of similar height, leaned against her hull with his arms crossed. He didn’t look like much in his ill fitted bomber jacket and outdated holo glasses that swallowed half of his baby face, but he was the best pilot in Kressara’s cartel. In fact, she’d wager he could out maneuver every able body in the entire sith faction, including the droids. Noticing her arrival, Jasper’s face lit up hopefully and his body pushed off of the ship wall into a jog towards her.

“Kress! Did you find him? Do we have a lead?” He came to a stop a couple feet from the battered, but recently healed sith, then fell in line beside her. She answered, “We couldn’t locate him, but I do have a start. I was knocked out in a subterranean layer of the Coruscant undercity, in a tower, and we have a ship’s ID numbers, along with the name of a yard which they could have escaped from. It’s not Lorcan’s exact location, but with that ID and a starting point, you can track them, right?” Jasper chewed his bottom lip and stammered, “W-Well, in theory yes! With an ID I could track any checkpoint and verified landing pad they pass through, but that’s assuming the pilot doesn’t use burner IDs to mask his progress. We’d need a descriptor-”

“Orange paint. Lorcan said he saw orange on the ship.” She interjected as they walked up the ramp into the old Skipray.

“That’s a bold color choice for someone trying to flee fr- wait. Lorcan said? Did you have contact with him?”

Kress made her way to a wall of crates that lined the makeshift table/lounge area of the small ship and popped one open to reveal a surplus of clothing and gear. She’d need to change into something that didn’t look like she lost a fight in a window factory. After some rummaging she settled on a pair of distressed and torn grey pants, a plain high collared tank, and an oversized jean jacket covered in patches and studs. Taking up the supply closet while Jasper stood watch outside, She pulled on the new outfit and spoke through the door, “Not exactly…it’s sith stuff. It’s sort of hard to explain.”

Actually, it was easy to explain. Jasper wasn’t an idiot. He knew about the force from conversations with Kressara, even if he couldn’t access it himself, but it wasn’t a matter of if he would understand it or not. It was the fact that Lorcan reached out THROUGH THE FORCE that Kressara meant to keep secret. That’s not the sort of thing you let pass down the grape vine. Especially if he’d hidden it for so long. Lorcan must have been hiding something indeed, if he could call out to her mind and she could pick up those transmissions through a memory of hearing them.

The closet door whirred open and out walked a newly dressed sith with her hair pulled back into a messy bun behind her head.

“Let’s wait outside. Silas is coming along shortly.” Her words elicited a stiff response from her pilot. “Wait, the reigning dark lord of the bloody fraking sith is tagging along?? Kress! Are you serious? I can’t fly with a…” He lowered his voice to a whisper as they exited the ramp. “...a sith lord! He’s going to sense fear in me and electrocute me to death, or something!” Poor Jasper. The skills of a master pilot with the frazzled nerves of a frightened rodent. Kressara choked on a sudden bubble of laughter and glanced over her shoulder at the nervous redhead. “Calm down, Jazz. The sith don’t really do that sort of thing these days. Besides, if he so much as accidentally occurs even a spark of static electricity from the atmosphere and it’s aimed at you? I’ll shove an entire bottle of gin down his windpipe before I throat punch him into the next life, okay?”

Not comforted in the slightest, Jasper chided a bit too loudly, “YOU CAN’T KEEP THREATENING TO PUNCH SITH LORDS IN THE THROAT! One of these days, someone is going to turn you into a creepy mindless death android that feeds off of the pain and misery of others, and you’ll be kept alive with breathing machines and-”

“Jazz.” She attempted to brake his morbid train of thought with no success.

He sputtered on, “You’ll have no brain of your own anymore! It’ll be all darkside, remote controlled MURDER TENDENCIES! Or what if one of them takes a whack at your head with a saber, huh? Have you ever tried running a cartel while mostly headless, Kress? Sith lords are no joke! What if-”

“JASPER!”

At last, there was silence on the tarmac. The exasperated young sith smiled her best, reassuring, dauntless grin and put a hand on his shoulder to ground the babbling pilot. “The sith are just like every other kind of sentient moron out there. We breathe, we eat, we think, we crave things, and we eventually die. The difference between a sith and anyone else is that they give into their anger and their desires waaay too easily. How do you think I’ve made it this far? Do you think I survived this drag of an organization by overpowering and pissing off everyone I meet with more power than myself? No. I flatter them, offer them trades, make them feel special, act like a hopeless slacker with just enough skill to keep them from offing me in the night, and if one of them attacks one of my people against my permission? I hunt them down to the far ends of the galaxy via any means necessary so I can trade parts of them on the black market for enough credits to buy myself a vacation home somewhere remote with nice trees, and a front porch where I can bird watch.”

The pause between them was accentuated by the look of unreserved disbelief on Jasper’s face. He piped up in a much quieter tone as a transport approached the landing pad. “You’re actually insane, you know that right?”

Kress chortled, turning her attention to the opening door of the vessel that ferried the sovereign, only for that amused smirk to drop from her lips.

“...You’re planning on an undercover search of Coruscant in THAT?” She motioned with her chin to his attire, a get up befitting a warlord about to raid the place, rather than an inconspicuous nobody just out for a walk. Jasper muttered to Kressara, “This is a horrible idea.”

Her worn old belted boot soles tapped a straight line over the pavement towards the sith lord, stopping before him with a hand on her hip and a single platinum brow lifted over her scrutinizing hazels. “You know if you step foot on the planet wearing that, you’ll have every authority and bounty hunter looking our way before you can say, “Are there free pamphlets at the visitors center?”

If Silas looked back to Kressara and the limited crew that were gathered outside the Shyyyo, he’d notice they were all dressed like common street punks. It wasn’t just a fashion statement, even if she fancied the look herself. It was to keep people from suspecting that they were anything worth worrying about. Bigger syndicates didn’t bat an eye at her punks. Authorities brushed them off as every day troubled teens that never grew up. They weren’t traveling to a populated cityscape with him looking like a sith lord.

He may have arrived with ceremony, but Kressara was anything but ceremonious when it came to business.

Sighing, she turned her back to Silas and motioned for him to follow. “I have spare clothes on the ship. Something is bound to fit you.”

The skittish pilot hurriedly ran ahead of the casually dressed assassin to ready the ship, barking orders at the rest of the crew before he disappeared into the vessel. Kressara led the way after him, walking Silas into a ragtag interior. There was graffiti on the walls and pipes, a table and chairs bolted to the ground in the cargo hold left of the entrance, about six beds lining the hall leading to the cockpit stacked in bunk formation, a small bathroom, and a supply closet. It was small, only needing one person to fly and operate the whole ship, but three others not including herself, Jasper, and Silas would be joining them aboard the Shyyyo.

“Street clothes are in the open crate by the table.Where we’re going, you’ll need to blend in. Pick something that will allow you to easily hide those lightsabers, or don’t bring them at all. A saber is the first dead give away to prying eyes that you’re a force user. Believe me, from there it’s all downhill. We want to get in and get out with our next destination in mind. I know they didn’t stay on Coruscant. No one would be that stupid.”

Kressara slipped the battery pack gauntlets from her arms, then the hidden garotte wire rings they attached to, and hooked her self invented apparatus to a charging dock on the wall. Afterwards she’d lean on the threshold to the cockpit and call out a few details to the crew, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

[Silas Karn]

Leaving his personal shuttle the Sovereign was accompanied by Nil. The assassin led the way to the Shyyyo. As per usual removed from the normal chains of command and fleet assets Silas was set unease. Perhaps sensing this or just out of confusion in her lord’s attire, not simply one barb but several hurled at the Dark Lord’s selection of equipment. It would have been more frustrating were it not for the palpable fear elicited from the crew of the modest ship.

Silas looked Kressara dead in the eyes with a grin, “Just exactly who do you believe you are addressing?” As he spoke the Sovereign’s visage darkened rapidly before losing all contrast and fading into the dim lights of the Shyyyo (Shadow Walk). Moments later the Dark Lord released the technique and allowed his form to recover. Seeing the look on the crow’s countenance and reluctantly looked to Nil and snapped his fingers. “Oooh yes my…lord?” With an audible groan Silas responded, “It seems we have conflicting ideas in regards to my appearance. Depart from here and recover my wardrobe.”

With a metallic confirmation Nil left the vessel at peak movement. Looking back to Kressara, Silas removed his helmet and sat it down in front of her. “To be fair ‘I’ have been cleared by the Alliance…for the time being. It is actually the travel through imperial space that we will truly have to be on guard.” After several minutes of discussion Nil returned as instructed. Removing the ornate plating from his armor-weave Silas took the time to adorn his finest dress garments. Black threads lined with silver gave the Sovereign the intimidating presence of a crime lord. Returning to Kressara he spoke out, “Well then does this suit your tastes better?” The outfit was likely worth more than a small starship and played to Silas’s vanity. His confidence just loomed over the crow and her crew.