[IC] Holo-Diary - Krassus Yarius Horuset

[Krassus Horuset]

>> BEGIN ARCHIVAL RETRIEVAL: HORUSET.PRIV.LOG_0397-A (DATE UNAVAILABLE)

>> STATUS: CORRUPTED – PARTIAL AUDIO/VISUAL INTEGRITY

>> SOURCE: PERSONAL DEVICE // KRASSUS HORUSET 

>> OPENING FILE...ENTRY I: Farewell Brother

[HOLO IMAGE GLITCHING...]
The figure flickers violently. A halo of static curls around his silhouette, refracting the evening light of Dromund Kaas. It is unmistakably Krassus, yet younger, thinner, untouched by the Dark side and without his cybernetic replacements. 
His face is pale, drawn, lips moving slowly beneath the distortion.
He is seated upon a moss-covered stone beside the icey watered river running through the lower levels of the Horuset estate. He lowers the hood of his Acolyte robe as he was sure no one saw him wander away from the Acolyte camps. Resting his training blade besides him in the grass. The movements of the hologram, glitching, looping, freezing. 
His voice crackles into focus, barely audible. 

"V—...Valeus..." 

[HOLO IMAGE GLITCHING...]

"... When ...Kromus... sneaked out... for your wed—"

"...I did not go..."

"... Father.... Forbade... So I... Evening training...  as ordered.... My Duty."
A long pause. The image skips. For a brief second, his face contorts—pain, or shame, or perhaps both.

[HOLO IMAGE GLITCHING...]

"...When... K-kromus returned..."

[GLITCHING. CONTINUES..]
"...He was... beaten."

"I-I.... Not Regret it... Then."

[ANOTHER GLITCH... THE SENTENCE LOOPS TWICE]


"But no-now... Last opportunity.... See you."

His words glitch, degrade. Only fragments survive, skipping like a damaged disc.

"Now I...regret... upstart slave..."

"You... older... remote..."

"...studying... never spoke..."

The holo distorts violently. His form vanishes, then reappears. His face blurred, audio warped. When it stabilizes, he's looking directly into the recorder. His voice is low now, hoarse.

"....never will again..."

A beat of silence, Young Krassus' face hardens, in anger, determination. Dealing with sadness in perhaps the one way he was taught to by his father.

"...you dine with Typhojem now..."

"...rest well."

"...I will do you proud..."

[VISUAL END – static flood]

[AUDIO TERMINATED – no further signal detected]

>> END FRAGMENT.

>> FILE STATUS: LOCKED / REPAIR IMPOSSIBLE.

>> NOTE: Hidden under six layers of encryption. Marked for deletion but never executed.

[Krassus Horuset]

>> BEGIN ARCHIVAL RETRIEVAL: HORUSET.PRIV.LOG_097F_A (DATE CORRUPTED - ESTIMATED AS ANX MINOR CAMPAIGN)

>> STATUS: DEGRADED — PARTIAL AUDIO/VISUAL INTEGRITY 

>> SOURCE: PERSONAL DEVICE // KRASSUS HORUSET

>> OPENING FILE… ENTRY II: The Vision

[HOLO IMAGE STABILIZING…]

A flicker of static splits the screen. Faint artillery thunder rolls in the background. Distant, then close, then gone. The desert winds of Anx Minor whip coarse dust over shattered terrain. The silhouette resolves: a young Krassus, early in his Apprenticeship. Warrior’s robes, battle-worn. His face is harder now. More angular. His eyes deep set and troubled.

He sits within a shattered ruin, visor on his lap. Sweat-slicking his browridges. His red hair stuck to his face. Glancing at the recorder.

[HOLO AUDIO FRAGMENT RECOVERED…]

“…When I was… young… plagued… by a drea—no… not a dream…”

[STATIC FLICKER — AUDIO SPIKE]

“…Every night… weeks without end. The same. Always the same…”

“…No dream. A vision.”

[HOLO IMAGE GLITCH FAINT PITCH OSCILLATION]

“…Alone. Suspended in the black between stars. Space without shape. Motionless. Breathless. *Ageless.*”

“…I try to scream. but my voice is lost to the void. It swallows everything.”

“…Yet then…”

[LOW AUDIO RUMBLE—SIGNATURE MATCH: REPUBLIC LONG RANGE ARTILLERY STRIKE DETONATION]

“… Our sigil... the Horuset Sun..  appears. Alive. Sentient. Starfire incarnate.”

“…Radiant… Terrifying…  Its face familiar yet unknown... Beyond my comprehension.. Eldritch.”

[VISUAL STRETCH IMAGE LAG: SUBJECT OVEREXPOSED]

“…It notices me..."

"It speaks without sound. It knows me... Unknowable knowledge imparted..”

“…It burns the flesh from my bones, sears my eyes into ash… and Yet I still see it... Feel it.. I am consumed by it.”

“…Its power is limitless. Its presence a divine horror. Typhojem given fiery form. A will older than time. Expanding. Consuming. All things die in its fiery light..."

[HOLO STATIC FRAME DROP: 36% LOSS DETECTED]

“…But then it slows. Something wrong.”

“…Its light fractures. Its core twists. It recoils inward... groaning under its own gravity. It… stagnates.”

“…It hardens. Screams. But there is no sound. A silent cry.”

“…And then. It rots. Cracks. Collapses. Blackened husk drifting through the void…”

“…Dead.”

[VISUAL LOOP—3 FRAMES REPEATING, THEN STABILIZE]

“…Then…”

“…From the corpse of the Sun… two Sith emerge.”

“…Hooded. Cloaked.”

“…They walk as one. Brotherly. Familiar. The fire of the fallen sun returns… igniting in their wake.”

“…Legions rise beneath them. Banners snap in solar winds. Worlds bend knees in silence.”

“…Empires built with a gesture. Enemies unmade with a glance.”

“…And one of them… places a crown upon the other..."

"A fiery crown... Made of the essence of the once blazing sun... the crown of Horuset…”

“…The sun… Reborn in their image.."

[STATIC INTERRUPT AUDIO DESYNCED, CONTINUES UNSTABLE]

“…I told Kromus. He believed it. Called it… our destiny. His destiny…”

“…He dreamed of glory."

“… He said... I saw my hands place the crown on his head.”

“…But now…”

[AUDIO FLICKER]

[LOW AUDIO RUMBLE—SIGNATURE MATCH: REPUBLIC LONG RANGE ARTILLERY STRIKE DETONATION]

“…Here, on Anx Minor… I see the cracks…”

“…The same cracks that shattered the dream. The rot. The nd.”

[BACKGROUND: ARTILLERY DISTANTLY ECHOES // ENVIRONMENTAL SENSOR: WIND RISING]

A LONG PAUSE—SILENCE EXCEPT FOR THE WIND

“Kromus is gone... Missing... Or training... Not here.”

HOLO IMAGE DISTORTION KRASSUS' EXPRESSION FLICKERS BETWEEN ANGER AND EXHAUSTION

“He is nowhere to be found.... I am alone”

[VISUAL END – static flood]

[AUDIO TERMINATED – no further signal detected]

>> END FRAGMENT.

>> FILE STATUS: LOCKED / REPAIR IMPOSSIBLE.

>> NOTE: Hidden under six layers of encryption. Marked for deletion but never executed.

[Krassus Horuset]

>> BEGIN ARCHIVAL RETRIEVAL: HORUSET.PRIV.LOG_02190-A (DATE MARKED AS ALSOLUN CAMPAIGN)

>> STATUS: INTEGRITY 100%

>> SOURCE: PERSONAL DEVICE // KRASSUS HORUSET 

>> OPENING FILE...ENTRY III: The Gnawing
The image of Krassus would appear of the holo, in perfect quality, no glitching to be found. Aged since the last recording my some years. His features hardened, darkened. Jewelry was set in his face and the Dark Side had begun highlighting the veins buried below the surface of his crimson skin. His arms joined behind the small of his back as he paced the floor of his assigned room.

His body language, not that of his usual disciplined and military nature, but that of a warrior without a foe, a beast without prey. Restless. 
His warrior Robes now sun-bleached and carbon scored, its fringes tattered, torn and still stained with the sands and dried bits of viscera of battles past.  His crimson hair cut short in a cropped military cut. Although the grim rigid and stoic 'mask' of a matching expression that usually accompanied it was not present. Krassus was laid bare on the recording, meant only for his own journaling.

"I do not sleep. Not properly."

"I do not dream anymore, not truly... Only fragments.  gutted echoes that vanish the moment I stir. And yet, I wake as if fresh from a battlefield... Drenched in sweat, my head pounding like a drum."

"My mind whirs, but not with thought. There is -Something- festering, something pulling at the edges of my consciousness... Something I cannot explain, and something I cannot Purge from my thoughts."

Krassus said as he clenched his fists, the mechanical joints in his cybernetic left arm whirring with the movement.

"It began subtly. I thought it was fatigue. Some overexertion from battle, sparring or extended training sessions."

"But this this... this thing. It grows. It gnaws. Not like hunger, for hunger is purposeful. Nor like pain, for pain sharpens. This is something different."

"It is without shape, without reason. A quiet, aching hollowness that presses against my sternum and nests beneath my eyes... I try to crush it, focus on my duties and our task here... And yet it remains."

"I focus my rage into our enemy, into my tasks, Into my training... But I cannot quiet the gnawing even as I draw Power from it... It only retreats and waits."

Krassus sighs running his hands through his hair as he pulls out a chair and sits, gazing emptily at the durasteel walls of his quarters. 

"I have done so well in the recent months... My alliance with Rhysand continues to strengthen... Into perhaps something more... Friendship perhaps I would call it if not for the fact we were Sith... The Dark Lords approve of my plans... My strength in the Dark Side only grows... I have been given more authority... Tasks to complete here on Alsolun... This is war... This is where I Thrive."

"I am fulfilling my purpose... My duty... Just recently I had disciplined restored... That private punished. Suspended in agony, screaming beneath the lashes of the whip at my command... Yet still I feel... Nothing."

"No satisfaction. No elevation. Not even the cleansing heat of anger.... Just that emptiness again and again. That gnawing... I do not understand it... I have no word for it."

"It weakens me in ways I cannot explain... Not in combat or in politics.. No. There I remain supreme, practiced, mechanical in precision. But when I return to my quarters, or find myself alone... I falter."

"My thoughts slow. The air grows thicker... I feel heavy, sluggish... Unmoored. Unfocused"

"This thing.. This sickness... It is supposed to fuel me... And yet it does not... Not entirely.  My connection to the Dark Side Deepens with it... yet I feel myself tipping, drowning in it... I fear this is a source of emotion I do not control... But that it controls me.."

With that Krassus grit his teeth in anger, slamming a mechanical fist into the table. As if the only way he can express this emotion is through rage.

"I am not unused to pain. It has been my companion for most of my life. I built my strength upon its agony. But this is not pain... It is absence. A coldness where something once was..."

"A certainty perhaps... An assurance of a future that I have not felt since.... Since Vaera... Since she left.. Since she..."

The thought goes unfinished as Krassus sits up... A weaknes.. that is always what Vaera had called what twisted, bastardised, version of love was between them. Krassus had never truly understood why. To him it had always been a blessing, a spot of welcoming velvet in a sea of gray. A softness he had never known before. Yet now that she is gone, Krassus begins to understand what she meant with it.... And the thought seems to scare him.

[VISUAL END – static flood]

[AUDIO TERMINATED – no further signal detected]

>> END FRAGMENT.

>> FILE STATUS: LOCKED

[Krassus Horuset]

>> BEGIN ARCHIVAL RETRIEVAL: HORUSET.PRIV.LOG_02204-A (DATE MARKED - POST THRONE ROOM INCIDENT)
>> STATUS: INTEGRITY 100%
>> SOURCE: PERSONAL DEVICE // KRASSUS HORUSET 

>> OPENING FILE...ENTRY IV: The Rot

The image flares to life. Krassus, bandaged from clavicle to waist, steps through the grand doors of his personal chamber within the Horuset estate. The telltale hiss of medical ports disconnecting from his body is audible as he throws off the external equipment tethered to his back.

He slams the door shut behind him. An unsteady breath. The weight of his fury anchors every step as he stalks toward the desk. He falls into the chair like an asteroid crashing into a world. the mask is gone. No discipline. No rigid posture. No echo of the 'proud' militarism drilled into him by his late father. There was only rage. Frustration. Anger. Beneath it raw grief. Howling abandonment spiraling like solar flares around a core of a shattered boyhood, and the broken remains of the persona he used to present.

His mind awash with blind fury. Jealousy. Uncertainty. He was lost.

"Do you think I don't know what you have done?!"

His voice was raw. Strained. The fire behind his eyes volcanic as he stares into the recorder, unblinking. The bandages pulling tat as he leans towards it.

"You knew. You knew my father would never stand for it. A second alien wretch on the Pentarchy? The ruling body of *your* powerbase? You knew what that would do to him. To his allegiance. To the fragile, ever brittle, hold you held over his loyalty."

"And so you sent him to confront kelsa. That Echani filth. Knowing no one else would be challenging the alien wretch and his cadre of Progressive allies. As Dark Lord you could have denied the alien's rise. Struck him down yourself, alongside all those who would betray the ideology of the Blazing Sun. To re-establish your hold over your domain. But no!"

Krassus wheezed a breath as he slammed his mechanical fist into the table. 

"No. Ever content with washing your hands of the responsibilities to our House, now that you have garnered the slightest attention from the Dark Council. You sent him in your stead. You sent Lord Teius. You sent *my father* into that throne room.

"Offering him up to the alter of your own ambition. You let him confront Kelsa and that Twi'lek Scum Leive like a simple tool to be discarded!""

His voice lowers, the tone sharper. Controlled fury.

"Because if he had done it. If he had won; you would be rid of the two aliens. All without as much having to lift a finger. Ordered restored without public outcry at the citadel that you had to 'clean house' in your own Powerbase. Without rumors that your hold was slipping. All the 'glory', all the 'blame' falling onto my Father."

"And if he Lost? Then you would be rid of *him*. The Last Horuset with the will and the Power to challenge you. The last remnant of dissent against your claim as Matriarch and Dark Lord following your Father's death. Further aggrandizing the security of your own position at the expense of our House!"

"All without ever having to lift a finger! You coward! You Wretch! MY FATHER DESERVED BETTER THAN TO BE SLAYED BY AN *ALIEN* WITH CHEAP *JEDI* SABERCRAFT!"

Krassus slams both fists into the table now. The metallic crash of his cybernetic hand echoes like a scream through his quarters. 

"Trakata." 

Krassus said, spitting the word out like it was an ancient curse.

"Deceit in blade form. The tools of Assassins, of Jedi too weak to overcome their opponent. A warrior's death the silver haired wretch called it. Bah! Treachery dressed up as elegance!"

"My Father deserved better. He has served this Powerbase, This Empire, the ways of our people since before the Echani wretch even ascended from Acolytehood. He deserved a true warrior's Death! He was not Kelsa's to Kill!"

"He was mine!"

With a crash Krassus pushes himself up to his feet. The Desk, and the holo-recorder, trembling under the weight of his sudden shift in momentum. Pacing the room. Breath Quickening with each wheeze for oxygen.

"And the others? The ones who stood by? Who let this debacle play out before their very eyes? Sith of Pure Blood, Sith Who's ancestors would have torn their tongues out before letting them kneel to Alien Lords. They stood there and *watched*!"

"The Horuset Powerbase. Our Powerbase. *MY* Powerbase. Rotting! Rotting from within!"

"The vipions... They who once claimed to value blood above all else. Sided with the alien as soon as he made his claim! Betraying their own matriarch's Legacy. Opportunists cloaked in Ritual! Lord Vi'kas, a prophet I once revered, now stands so blinded by his dogma and zealotry, unable or unwilling to see he now stands hand-in-hand- with the Progressivists who mock him behind his back!"

"And Sith Andnoa... Rhave 'Vipion'. Halfbreed vermin! No true Sith.  He was the very *first* to raise his blade against me. First to strike on Kelsa's Behalf. Before even Leive and her cohort of alien Apprentices!"

Krassus Seethes. Hands trembling. Not from weakness or the ever present aching of his wounds, but out of barely contained fury.

"And what of Darth Kalkoran? The silent? The passive? The Sith of action, the man who built his House back up from the brink of Ruin? He who now so heavily intertwined his legacy with that of my house? What does he do when the aliens and their supporters rise? Lay the groundwork for their Progressive Coup? what does he do when THE ROT spreads?""

"Nothing! No worse than nothing."

"He ignores it. Giving me a task. *An Errand* to gather information. To deal with some worthless governor on Alsolun. Days after my father's blood soaked the throne room floor. Days after the last true Horuset fell at the foot of our House's Throne."

"He sends me and Rhysand off like common administrative clerks to gather information!"

Krassus slumps back into the chair. Eyes shadowed. Chest heaving. A long silence.

"As I slept in the medbay I had that dream again... The vision. Not since I was a child have I dreamt it..."

"And never before has it been as clear to me as this... The faces filled in, the shadows given form."

"I am living it. The stagnation has begun. The fracturing. The Rot I foresaw... it has already set in. And the Dark Lords do not act. They will not cleanse it. It will stall, decay and halt the Advance of House Horuset..."

"And so it must be burned away."

Krassus sits back up, cleansing his hands into fists. 

"I will be the fire. The cleansing Flame. The Fire of the Silver Sun."

"I will cast down the rot that has set in. To slay the aliens who claw for power at the corpse of my ancestor's house."

"I will strip the crown from my master if need be. That wraith of a once great Horuset, hollow, hiding behind legacy and age in her ivory tower of the Citadel."

"Only through me can the rot be purged."

Krassus leans forward once more. Lost no longer. 

"Only through me can Horuset rise again."



[VISUAL END – static flood]

[AUDIO TERMINATED – no further signal detected]

>> END FRAGMENT.

>> FILE STATUS: LOCKED

[Krassus Horuset]

>> BEGIN ARCHIVAL RETRIEVAL: HORUSET.PRIV.LOG_09YA-59A (DATE MARKED - Post Kesmere Campaign)

>> STATUS: INTEGRITY 100%

>> SOURCE: PERSONAL DEVICE // Sith Atas

>> OPENING FILE...ENTRY V: The Will of the Gods

The blue static flood stabilized and took the shape of Krassus Horuset, now Sith Atas, meditating on his knees in the damp cave. Water dripped from the blackened, oily stone. The Horuset warrior himself was covered in a thin layer of dampness from crossing the waterfall. The three joined claw marks where the late Lord Vi'kas had struck him in their final duel had at last healed, or at least to the fullest extent they ever would. The three deep scars ran across his harsh crimson features like trenches through a battlefield, tugging at the corner of his mouth and twisting the bony ridges of his cheekbones.

The Silver Sun of Horuset’s face was set in its familiar, ever-present grim and rigid scowl, as if carved into granite with hammer and chisel. Yet his vibrant red eyes, that normally burned so bright with ambition and fury as they had since the death of his father, seemed more pensive. Contemplating. The cybernetic fingers of his left hand idly clawed at the damp dirt beneath him, rubbing the brown sand between his fingertips. Some of it still stained by dried blood.

"I haven't been here since that day..."

Krassus said at last, his voice softer than usual, its cadence that of a man at prayer.

"Not since the day I threw Luvane's sword at his feet on this very ground..."

His voice lingered in the hollow cave, low, measured. The steady drip of water filled the silence between his words.

"I still remember the sound of it. I hear it every night in my visions. The way the runed blade struck the stone, like the tolling of a funeral bell."

His fingers stilled in the dirt.

"I had carried it here myself. The Prophet's own Sith Steel sword, surrendered as a symbol of his oath of undying fealty and servitude to House Horuset. His badge of office as Lord of Doctrine, to be returned to him only in death. To be placed in his tomb as an honored artifact once his duty had ended... or to be driven through his chest if he failed."

A breath, slow and controlled. A faint tightening at his jaw.

"And find its way back to him it did."

Krassus stirred once, his eyes darkening, as if being here in the cave brought back the moment all too clearly.

"He did not deny his fate, nor did he run from it. He wore it as he always did... with the calm certainty of a Sith certain that the will of the gods would be done."

Krassus' eyes lowered, staring at the faint dried traces of blood in the soil where Luvane had fallen.

"Lord Vi'kas met his end like a true Sith should. A blade in his hand, the word of the gods on his lips. He died as he had lived. A Sith, a Vipion..." A quiet scoff. "As a Prophet."

The word lingered, not entirely without respect.

"I remember how conflicted I felt when the moment came. For all he was... I considered him my friend. He had always been a champion of my cause.... Yet when the moment came, there was no hesitation. Not because of the oath he broke, not because of my Master's will... but ultimately because I wanted it..."

His lip curled faintly, the scar along it pulling taut.

"I am afraid, Prophet, that I was not fully honest with you that day... It is true that my Master wished you dead... but it was I who called for your sword, it was I who chose to do it that day... because threats made by the House of the Blazing Sun should not lose their meaning... because I did not wish to suffer the shame of watching Ahandra let oaths taken to her and my House lose their meaning..."

A pause, a longer one.

"Because I desired your title... and the Dark Side and the very gods themselves only grant power to those who seize it by the throat."

A low chuckle escaped him. Dry. Hollow.

"...Since the day my father died in the Throne Room of Horuset, all Sith that I have spoken to bid me to proceed with caution. That I risk losing my grip on reality, my political prowess. That I was slipping. That the rage... the shadows clawing at my mind... were consuming me."

His fingers dug deeper into the dirt.

"That I should restrain myself. Temper my impulses. Resist the pull of the Dark..."

A scoff.

"They were all wrong... The Dark Side is a plague no true Sith should ever wish to be cured from."

His head lifted, red eyes sharpening, something colder taking hold behind the fires of ambition that now shone bright within them. The glint in his eyes almost manic.

"Every step I have taken since I arrived at this Powerbase has brought me closer to what I am meant to be. Every impulse followed has seen me rise. Every vision acted upon a bounty..."

His voice hardened, gaining weight.

"They speak of control, of power, as if it is found in hesitation and caution... It is not."

A slow inhale.

“The future is not a river that carries us gently to our destination.” His voice dropped, more intense now. “It is an ocean. Vast. Unforgiving. And those who do not seize it... drown in it.”

His gaze burned now.

“Luvane spoke for gods. Preached their will as their chosen voice...” A slight tilt of his head. “But I now know that the gods do not show their will through words and prayer alone...”

A pause.

“The will of the gods is manifested through the results of their champions... in their victory. Their successes... their ascension.”

Krassus flexed his cybernetic left hand, letting the dirt fall between his fingers.

"And it is my victory they favored... my rise they continue to favor... The gods have not spoken to me since the visions I had as a child... but I know their will is done nonetheless. They answer my call."

A faint curl at the edge of his lips as his chest rose beneath the damp black chestplate.

His gaze sharpened, the pensive quiet giving way to something harder. Hungrier.

“With every act... I grow. With every will made manifest... I get brought closer to my ultimate ambitions...”

A pause.

"And now the gods have placed Advancement before me."

The words were spoken not as aspiration, but as inevitability.

"I doubt the alien is actually dead... but with his throne open, his seat on the Pentarchy empty for me to claim, the future itself seems to bend towards me, towards those with the will to seize it..."

A slow exhale.

"Should the gods favor me... and my plans come to fruition... then perhaps even my Master's throne may soon lie within my reach."

His head tilted slightly, eyes burning brighter now. He inhaled deeply before he suddenly canted his head offset, seemingly sensing the approach of others coming closer to the cave. He looked forward once again and contemplated.

"May the will of the gods be done..."

And with those words, Krassus Horuset ended the recording. The image faded to black.

[VISUAL END – static flood]

[AUDIO TERMINATED – no further signal detected]

>> END FRAGMENT.

>> FILE STATUS: LOCKED