![[-]](https://www.horuset.com/images/igame/collapse.png "[-]")
29-04-2023, 01:48 PM
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
These works are not entirely or necessarily in order. I have tried my best to make them so.
- Cain.
A LONG TIME AGO....
IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...
Distant thunder rumbled over the rain-swept landscape of Dromund Kaas. Here and there, the dark clouds were illuminated by brief flashes of lightning grounding themselves in one of the dozens of storm-generators which litter the planet’s surface.
The Sekker estate glittered under these flashes, its harsh durasteel edges turning into jagged formations like daggers amidst the jungle; seen from above the harsh structures, already uninviting by design, were made nothing short of fearsome - just as the architect had designed them.
At the top of the tallest of the slanted towers, the Dark Lord Sekker looked out upon her empire. She was dressed in her customary red and black silk robes, the hood pulled back from her face slightly and her mask set to one side for the time being.
“May I help you, Lord Hesei?” she asked the apparently empty room.
From the depths of a black shadow in the office’s corner, the insidious figure of Lord Hesei emerged as though he were materialising from the depths of the darkness itself.
Lowering himself to a bow, he intoned in his deep voice, “Dark Lord - a shuttle approaches bearing the crest of House Horuset. It requests permission to land.”
The Dark Lord’s crimson eyes narrowed slightly. “Grant it permission. Have the servants open and ready the second chambers for Viren’s arrival.”
“It is your cousin, then?”
“Oh, yes it is him…” A hint of a smile curled the Dark Lord’s thin lips. “I can sense his anticipation already. Have him shown to his chambers… allow him to change, prepare himself however he sees fit. I shall greet him in the audience chambers.”
Lord Hesei bowed once more. “As you command, Dark Lord.”
“Young master Sekker, how nice to see you again.”
“Enough prattle. Where is my cousin? Where is the Dark Lord?”
The servant, dressed in the customary black formal jacket and pants, faltered for a moment under the young Sith’s abruptness. “She has instructed that you be shown to your chambers, young master, to change and dry yourself before greeting her in the audience chambers…”
There was a moment of tense silence as Viren considered killing the man. He was a snivelling, pathetic thing - drenched to the skin from the rain, just as he himself was, but shivering almost continuously from the cold. Viren barely felt the chill.
“Very well,” Viren growled eventually. “Show me to my chambers. Have fresh towels brought - and food.”
“Yes, young master,” the servant bowed and began leading him through the corridors. The cheap letharis of their boots - both the Acolyte’s and the servants - squelched wetly as they went.
Viren’s chambers were just as he had remembered them when he left them nearly a decade before to go to the Academy on Korriban. The floors were panelled in a dark ochre wood from Serenno, while the walls and surfaces were carved from an even darker wood from the jungles of Kaas itself.
At the room’s center, a four-poster bed with grey satin sheets and black semi-transparent curtains dominated the space; to one side, a simple writing desk and chair stood next to a chest of drawers… there were no other decorations, no portraits or posters, not even a holograph or statuette.
Viren found a selection of clothes had been laid on the foot of the bed - two sets of day robes, one in deep crimson and the other in black, and a suit in the style commonly worn on Serenno. He selected the crimson robe and started to change… then caught sight of the shower in the ensuite.
“It has been too long since I enjoyed any kind of luxury…” he mused, leaving the robe on the bed and stepping instead into the refresher.
A short while later, he emerged from behind a cloud of steam feeling cleaner and more refreshed than he had in a very long time. The basic showers at Korriban’s academy were little more than lukewarm jets of water - and the Acolyte Showers offered at House Horuset were similarly spartan… he had missed the necessity of a real hot water shower more than he cared to admit.
Dressed at last in crimson robes, Viren admired his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror set into one wall. He had aged since he last saw himself in this mirror… Where once his face had been smooth, there were now lines at the corners of his eyes.
These robes, at least, were properly fitted; the simple sizing scale of the Horuset Acolytes robes had left much to be desired. The black material was scratchy and rough, adorned with cheap synthetic letharis for both the chest and gloves; not to mention the way the ill-fitting robes had hung from Viren’s slender frame.
His personal robes were properly tailored - fitted to his exact measurements. He noted with some surprise that these must have been altered since last he wore them, and wondered how his cousin had acquired his new measurements.
With one hand, Viren smoothed his moustache against his lip, taking care to make sure not a hair on either it or his head were out of place.
He turned to leave, but at the last moment stopped and retrieved both his old Acolyte robes - still somewhat damp from the rain - and his training foil.
The halls were deathly quiet as Viren stalked down them. With each step, he let his emotions swell inside him like an invisible tide of boiling ocean. It built and built until he could feel heat rising at his collar.
At his approach, a ripple of the Dark Side blew the double doors to his cousin’s audience chambers open, nearly knocking down a slave stood attentively to one side.
“My Lord!” Viren called loudly, his voice echoing through the chamber accompanied by a rumble of distant thunder. “I return home.”
“You are welcomed, cousin Viren,” the Dark Lord Sekker’s smooth, modulated voice replied as she rose from her throne and descended from the stone dias at the rear of the room.
The floor of this hall, like the dias and the throne which sat upon it, were carved from black obsidian; there were no seams, no discernable pattern to any of them, giving the place the impression it had been hewn from a single behemoth block or outcropping of the stone. Polished and shined over and over, the floor was almost perfectly reflective, giving Viren the impression he was walking over open space itself.
“Such vim,” the Dark Lord continued as he reached her, “Such vigor and emotion. I love to see you in such empowered spirits… but whatever are you clutching those rags for?”
With a flourish, Viren tossed the robes to one side. They landed on the floor with a wet slap, but he paid them no mind and dropped to one knee, proffering up the training foil with both palms upwards.
“Nuyuk Jen’ari,” he began, speaking in the common Sith tongue, “I present to you the first of my chains to be broken: my time serving as an Acolyte to House Horuset and the Academy of Korriban are both concluded. Thus begins my apprenticeship under Sith Narazri, and my tutelage under the true ways of the Sith.”
For a moment, there was deadly silence, broken only by the patter of rain on the windows behind the throne and the rumblings of yet more thunder.
Just when Viren began to think his cousin wouldn’t speak, the room was illuminated by a bright flash of lightning and the Dark Lord began to laugh.
It was not the laugh of someone genuinely amused, or in good spirits. It was a cruel, mirthless laugh that sent a cold shiver to the base of Viren’s spine.
“The true ways of the Sith?” the Dark Lord laughed. “Oh forgive me, young Apprentice, for I was unaware I stood in the presence of a master of the true ways of the Sith.”
She snapped her fingers. “Kill him.”
From behind the throne, two figures in grey robes emerged. Viren recognised the cut of their clothes immediately - members of the mysterious cult presided over by his cousin.
He recognised also the vibroblades each of them pulled from their sleeves as they approached him and his cousin stepped towards her throne.
With a hum, Viren brought up the training foil; it was far from a lethal weapon, but better to be armed with something than nothing.
The first cultist lunged at him with a wild overarm swing that Viren dodged easily - nearly bringing himself into the path of the second cultist’s upward stab.
He brought the training foil down to bat the stab to one side and slammed an elbow into the cultist’s jaw, forcing him to recoil and giving himself breathing space.
“Cousin, I don’t understand,” Viren started to say, but was cut off by another wild swing from one of the Cultists. He caught the blow before it sliced through his neck with the edge of the foil, retaliating with a powerful Force-Push that sent the cultist tumbling backwards.
“You do not need to understand,” the Dark Lord said from her throne. “Merely survive.”
Very well then, Viren thought. If she wishes me to survive, I shall do better than that…
When the next Cultist came at him he grabbed him by the wrist and twisted until he felt the hold on his blade loosen. Viren twisted, and the blade came free and fell towards the floor.
With a quick motion, his speed enhanced by the preternatural might of the Dark Side, the blade was in his hand - then buried in the Cultist’s neck.
They fought fiercely, but were barely more than marginally Force-Sensitive; they lacked formal training with even the weapons they carried, and were more symbols of status than true bodyguards.
The second cultist barely seemed to register the death of his companion; he circled Viren slowly, made wary by the vibroblade he now held in his left hand.
But Viren wasn’t going to wait for him to come for him again.
A simple over-arm throw, enhanced again by the Force, and the blade went from his hand to the Cultist’s chest.
With a final sweeping blow from his training foil, he knocked the cultist over. “Have I passed your test, cousin?” he called, looking up towards the throne.
A voice from behind Viren growled, “Not yet,” and the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber split the air.
He turned just in time to catch the purple-white blade on his training foil, but nearly crumpled under the force of the blow.
The blade pulled up away from him - and a second caught him across the thigh, cutting through his robe and searing his skin.
The imposing figure of Lord Hesei swept his burning purple dualsaber around him in an impressive flourish before launching himself at Viren again; the swirling purple blades moved almost too fast to see, certainly too fast for Viren to counter.
With each blow, he lost more ground, retreating under the onslaught of upward and downward blows - yet, no matter how poorly he was already losing this duel, Viren knew in his heart of hearts that he was being toyed with.
“Finish this,” the Dark Lord’s voice cut above the almost deafening roar of the dualsaber.
With impossible speed Lord Hesei was behind Viren, his boot planted firmly on the small of Viren’s back and kicking him to the ground.
Viren hit the floor with his hands out, barely stopping his nose from cracking into the floor. His training foil clattered away from his hand, the safety circuits ceasing the blade’s hum before it had finished rolling.
Lord Hesei’s boot stepped into Viren’s field of vision towards the training foil.
With a single stamp,the weapon broke in half.
“Shall I end him now?” Lord Hesei asked, glaring down at Viren with an unsettling glee glinting in his sulphurous orange eyes.
There was a long pause before the Dark Lord said, “Of course not. Help young Apprentice Sekker to his feet.”
The roaring hum of Hesei’s blade died away, and Viren felt himself hauled up from under his shoulder by a strong metal hand.
“Why, cousin?” he asked, frowning up at the Dark Lord Sekker. From within the shadow of her throne and hood, only her eyes - burning bright crimson in the darkness - could be seen.
“To teach you,” she mused, “that there is more to being Sith than ascending in rank. You may be an Apprentice now, boy, but you are not a true Sith. Not yet. Don’t worry too much…”
She descended the steps of the dias towards him and took his right hand in hers - the hand not stained with fresh blood.
“You are right that you have broken your first chain, however. You have taken your first step into a wider world… and have earned the right to be called Sith. Not true Sith… but Sith nonetheless.”
She clapped her hands together, and the high double-doors at the far end of the chamber opened again.
Two Pureblood Sith females entered, side-by-side, wearing the red tunic and black trouser of Korriban Academy uniforms.
Each of them looked Viren and the Dark Lord over critically before bowing - one of them a little stiffly.
“Ki Ari,” they said in unison.
Viren cast a puzzled glance towards his cousin.
“These,” she explained, “are your younger cousins. I present to you Rehara and Gitce of the Vassal House Qel-Sekker. They are each interred at the Academy on Korriban for the time being, but I thought it prudent you meet each of them in person now. Furthermore… I have an announcement to give.”
The Dark Lord swept back to her throne, standing before it and adjusting her robe momentarily.
From some unseen alcove, a hovering holocamera floated down towards her, centering itself just ahead of Viren’s shoulder.
“This message is to be broadcast across all channels used by me and my allies in the Galaxy. Hear my voice and rejoice! These past years have great rewards to House Sekker. The scion of my house, Viren Sekker, now rises in the public eye - an Apprentice to the great House Horuset, with the eyes of the Sith upon him. The youngest daughter of my house, Rehara Qel-Sekker, also rises in the public eye - courting marriage and seeking an alliance with another House. For a long time, House Sekker has remained hidden in shadows… now is the time for rebirth in the light of the Empire. As such…” the Dark Lord paused then, breathing in deeply. “As such, from this day until my death, I shall be known as Darth Sekker, first of her name to bear the title since it was relinquished by my great-grandfather Dinoosh. Glory to the Empire!”
There was a moment of silence as her proclamation rang in Viren’s ears.
Darth Sekker.
And she was right, too - she would be the first to take the title in decades, centuries even, and this would not go unnoticed.
“Long live Darth Sekker,” Lord Hesei raised a fist in an ancient warrior’s salute.
“Long live Darth Sekker!” Rehara and Gitce Qel-Sekker said in unison, falling to one knee before her.
Viren turned his gaze up towards his cousin, and felt a smile curl his lip before he too fell to one knee. “Long live Darth Sekker,” he said, his voice just loud enough to be heard.
“And long may she reign.”
These works are not entirely or necessarily in order. I have tried my best to make them so.
- Cain.
A LONG TIME AGO....
IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...
Distant thunder rumbled over the rain-swept landscape of Dromund Kaas. Here and there, the dark clouds were illuminated by brief flashes of lightning grounding themselves in one of the dozens of storm-generators which litter the planet’s surface.
The Sekker estate glittered under these flashes, its harsh durasteel edges turning into jagged formations like daggers amidst the jungle; seen from above the harsh structures, already uninviting by design, were made nothing short of fearsome - just as the architect had designed them.
At the top of the tallest of the slanted towers, the Dark Lord Sekker looked out upon her empire. She was dressed in her customary red and black silk robes, the hood pulled back from her face slightly and her mask set to one side for the time being.
“May I help you, Lord Hesei?” she asked the apparently empty room.
From the depths of a black shadow in the office’s corner, the insidious figure of Lord Hesei emerged as though he were materialising from the depths of the darkness itself.
Lowering himself to a bow, he intoned in his deep voice, “Dark Lord - a shuttle approaches bearing the crest of House Horuset. It requests permission to land.”
The Dark Lord’s crimson eyes narrowed slightly. “Grant it permission. Have the servants open and ready the second chambers for Viren’s arrival.”
“It is your cousin, then?”
“Oh, yes it is him…” A hint of a smile curled the Dark Lord’s thin lips. “I can sense his anticipation already. Have him shown to his chambers… allow him to change, prepare himself however he sees fit. I shall greet him in the audience chambers.”
Lord Hesei bowed once more. “As you command, Dark Lord.”
* * *
“Young master Sekker, how nice to see you again.”
“Enough prattle. Where is my cousin? Where is the Dark Lord?”
The servant, dressed in the customary black formal jacket and pants, faltered for a moment under the young Sith’s abruptness. “She has instructed that you be shown to your chambers, young master, to change and dry yourself before greeting her in the audience chambers…”
There was a moment of tense silence as Viren considered killing the man. He was a snivelling, pathetic thing - drenched to the skin from the rain, just as he himself was, but shivering almost continuously from the cold. Viren barely felt the chill.
“Very well,” Viren growled eventually. “Show me to my chambers. Have fresh towels brought - and food.”
“Yes, young master,” the servant bowed and began leading him through the corridors. The cheap letharis of their boots - both the Acolyte’s and the servants - squelched wetly as they went.
Viren’s chambers were just as he had remembered them when he left them nearly a decade before to go to the Academy on Korriban. The floors were panelled in a dark ochre wood from Serenno, while the walls and surfaces were carved from an even darker wood from the jungles of Kaas itself.
At the room’s center, a four-poster bed with grey satin sheets and black semi-transparent curtains dominated the space; to one side, a simple writing desk and chair stood next to a chest of drawers… there were no other decorations, no portraits or posters, not even a holograph or statuette.
Viren found a selection of clothes had been laid on the foot of the bed - two sets of day robes, one in deep crimson and the other in black, and a suit in the style commonly worn on Serenno. He selected the crimson robe and started to change… then caught sight of the shower in the ensuite.
“It has been too long since I enjoyed any kind of luxury…” he mused, leaving the robe on the bed and stepping instead into the refresher.
A short while later, he emerged from behind a cloud of steam feeling cleaner and more refreshed than he had in a very long time. The basic showers at Korriban’s academy were little more than lukewarm jets of water - and the Acolyte Showers offered at House Horuset were similarly spartan… he had missed the necessity of a real hot water shower more than he cared to admit.
Dressed at last in crimson robes, Viren admired his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror set into one wall. He had aged since he last saw himself in this mirror… Where once his face had been smooth, there were now lines at the corners of his eyes.
These robes, at least, were properly fitted; the simple sizing scale of the Horuset Acolytes robes had left much to be desired. The black material was scratchy and rough, adorned with cheap synthetic letharis for both the chest and gloves; not to mention the way the ill-fitting robes had hung from Viren’s slender frame.
His personal robes were properly tailored - fitted to his exact measurements. He noted with some surprise that these must have been altered since last he wore them, and wondered how his cousin had acquired his new measurements.
With one hand, Viren smoothed his moustache against his lip, taking care to make sure not a hair on either it or his head were out of place.
He turned to leave, but at the last moment stopped and retrieved both his old Acolyte robes - still somewhat damp from the rain - and his training foil.
The halls were deathly quiet as Viren stalked down them. With each step, he let his emotions swell inside him like an invisible tide of boiling ocean. It built and built until he could feel heat rising at his collar.
At his approach, a ripple of the Dark Side blew the double doors to his cousin’s audience chambers open, nearly knocking down a slave stood attentively to one side.
“My Lord!” Viren called loudly, his voice echoing through the chamber accompanied by a rumble of distant thunder. “I return home.”
“You are welcomed, cousin Viren,” the Dark Lord Sekker’s smooth, modulated voice replied as she rose from her throne and descended from the stone dias at the rear of the room.
The floor of this hall, like the dias and the throne which sat upon it, were carved from black obsidian; there were no seams, no discernable pattern to any of them, giving the place the impression it had been hewn from a single behemoth block or outcropping of the stone. Polished and shined over and over, the floor was almost perfectly reflective, giving Viren the impression he was walking over open space itself.
“Such vim,” the Dark Lord continued as he reached her, “Such vigor and emotion. I love to see you in such empowered spirits… but whatever are you clutching those rags for?”
With a flourish, Viren tossed the robes to one side. They landed on the floor with a wet slap, but he paid them no mind and dropped to one knee, proffering up the training foil with both palms upwards.
“Nuyuk Jen’ari,” he began, speaking in the common Sith tongue, “I present to you the first of my chains to be broken: my time serving as an Acolyte to House Horuset and the Academy of Korriban are both concluded. Thus begins my apprenticeship under Sith Narazri, and my tutelage under the true ways of the Sith.”
For a moment, there was deadly silence, broken only by the patter of rain on the windows behind the throne and the rumblings of yet more thunder.
Just when Viren began to think his cousin wouldn’t speak, the room was illuminated by a bright flash of lightning and the Dark Lord began to laugh.
It was not the laugh of someone genuinely amused, or in good spirits. It was a cruel, mirthless laugh that sent a cold shiver to the base of Viren’s spine.
“The true ways of the Sith?” the Dark Lord laughed. “Oh forgive me, young Apprentice, for I was unaware I stood in the presence of a master of the true ways of the Sith.”
She snapped her fingers. “Kill him.”
From behind the throne, two figures in grey robes emerged. Viren recognised the cut of their clothes immediately - members of the mysterious cult presided over by his cousin.
He recognised also the vibroblades each of them pulled from their sleeves as they approached him and his cousin stepped towards her throne.
With a hum, Viren brought up the training foil; it was far from a lethal weapon, but better to be armed with something than nothing.
The first cultist lunged at him with a wild overarm swing that Viren dodged easily - nearly bringing himself into the path of the second cultist’s upward stab.
He brought the training foil down to bat the stab to one side and slammed an elbow into the cultist’s jaw, forcing him to recoil and giving himself breathing space.
“Cousin, I don’t understand,” Viren started to say, but was cut off by another wild swing from one of the Cultists. He caught the blow before it sliced through his neck with the edge of the foil, retaliating with a powerful Force-Push that sent the cultist tumbling backwards.
“You do not need to understand,” the Dark Lord said from her throne. “Merely survive.”
Very well then, Viren thought. If she wishes me to survive, I shall do better than that…
When the next Cultist came at him he grabbed him by the wrist and twisted until he felt the hold on his blade loosen. Viren twisted, and the blade came free and fell towards the floor.
With a quick motion, his speed enhanced by the preternatural might of the Dark Side, the blade was in his hand - then buried in the Cultist’s neck.
They fought fiercely, but were barely more than marginally Force-Sensitive; they lacked formal training with even the weapons they carried, and were more symbols of status than true bodyguards.
The second cultist barely seemed to register the death of his companion; he circled Viren slowly, made wary by the vibroblade he now held in his left hand.
But Viren wasn’t going to wait for him to come for him again.
A simple over-arm throw, enhanced again by the Force, and the blade went from his hand to the Cultist’s chest.
With a final sweeping blow from his training foil, he knocked the cultist over. “Have I passed your test, cousin?” he called, looking up towards the throne.
A voice from behind Viren growled, “Not yet,” and the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber split the air.
He turned just in time to catch the purple-white blade on his training foil, but nearly crumpled under the force of the blow.
The blade pulled up away from him - and a second caught him across the thigh, cutting through his robe and searing his skin.
The imposing figure of Lord Hesei swept his burning purple dualsaber around him in an impressive flourish before launching himself at Viren again; the swirling purple blades moved almost too fast to see, certainly too fast for Viren to counter.
With each blow, he lost more ground, retreating under the onslaught of upward and downward blows - yet, no matter how poorly he was already losing this duel, Viren knew in his heart of hearts that he was being toyed with.
“Finish this,” the Dark Lord’s voice cut above the almost deafening roar of the dualsaber.
With impossible speed Lord Hesei was behind Viren, his boot planted firmly on the small of Viren’s back and kicking him to the ground.
Viren hit the floor with his hands out, barely stopping his nose from cracking into the floor. His training foil clattered away from his hand, the safety circuits ceasing the blade’s hum before it had finished rolling.
Lord Hesei’s boot stepped into Viren’s field of vision towards the training foil.
With a single stamp,the weapon broke in half.
“Shall I end him now?” Lord Hesei asked, glaring down at Viren with an unsettling glee glinting in his sulphurous orange eyes.
There was a long pause before the Dark Lord said, “Of course not. Help young Apprentice Sekker to his feet.”
The roaring hum of Hesei’s blade died away, and Viren felt himself hauled up from under his shoulder by a strong metal hand.
“Why, cousin?” he asked, frowning up at the Dark Lord Sekker. From within the shadow of her throne and hood, only her eyes - burning bright crimson in the darkness - could be seen.
“To teach you,” she mused, “that there is more to being Sith than ascending in rank. You may be an Apprentice now, boy, but you are not a true Sith. Not yet. Don’t worry too much…”
She descended the steps of the dias towards him and took his right hand in hers - the hand not stained with fresh blood.
“You are right that you have broken your first chain, however. You have taken your first step into a wider world… and have earned the right to be called Sith. Not true Sith… but Sith nonetheless.”
She clapped her hands together, and the high double-doors at the far end of the chamber opened again.
Two Pureblood Sith females entered, side-by-side, wearing the red tunic and black trouser of Korriban Academy uniforms.
Each of them looked Viren and the Dark Lord over critically before bowing - one of them a little stiffly.
“Ki Ari,” they said in unison.
Viren cast a puzzled glance towards his cousin.
“These,” she explained, “are your younger cousins. I present to you Rehara and Gitce of the Vassal House Qel-Sekker. They are each interred at the Academy on Korriban for the time being, but I thought it prudent you meet each of them in person now. Furthermore… I have an announcement to give.”
The Dark Lord swept back to her throne, standing before it and adjusting her robe momentarily.
From some unseen alcove, a hovering holocamera floated down towards her, centering itself just ahead of Viren’s shoulder.
“This message is to be broadcast across all channels used by me and my allies in the Galaxy. Hear my voice and rejoice! These past years have great rewards to House Sekker. The scion of my house, Viren Sekker, now rises in the public eye - an Apprentice to the great House Horuset, with the eyes of the Sith upon him. The youngest daughter of my house, Rehara Qel-Sekker, also rises in the public eye - courting marriage and seeking an alliance with another House. For a long time, House Sekker has remained hidden in shadows… now is the time for rebirth in the light of the Empire. As such…” the Dark Lord paused then, breathing in deeply. “As such, from this day until my death, I shall be known as Darth Sekker, first of her name to bear the title since it was relinquished by my great-grandfather Dinoosh. Glory to the Empire!”
There was a moment of silence as her proclamation rang in Viren’s ears.
Darth Sekker.
And she was right, too - she would be the first to take the title in decades, centuries even, and this would not go unnoticed.
“Long live Darth Sekker,” Lord Hesei raised a fist in an ancient warrior’s salute.
“Long live Darth Sekker!” Rehara and Gitce Qel-Sekker said in unison, falling to one knee before her.
Viren turned his gaze up towards his cousin, and felt a smile curl his lip before he too fell to one knee. “Long live Darth Sekker,” he said, his voice just loud enough to be heard.
“And long may she reign.”
