Dragus
The Sith Eternal
In front of the Empire, to all you Vader haters out there. We'll blow your planet up.
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Post by Dragus on Nov 1, 2022 9:01:11 GMT -8
Across the northern sphere of the planet, the forces of the Sith Eternal were unleashing the wrath of their vile faction in proper villainous form. Swarms of TIEs chased down fleeing civilian transports, filling the sky with streaking concussion missiles and shrieking emerald green laser bolts. Explosions erupted overhead and on the ground below as chaos ran rampant across the surface of Ryloth.
A black hulled Zeta-class shuttle emerged from the clouds as it raced towards an open stretch of terrain, lowering its boarding ramp at the rear before it had even landed. As it flew over the ground, inches above rust red rocks and arid dirt, snarling bipedal forms loped out of the troop compartment and leapt off the edge of the ramp. Two clawed feet struck the hard packed earth as an ubese thorn-back war dragon raced in the opposite direction of the shuttle, joined by two others of its kind. Each of the savage reptilians was laden with a saddle and rider upon its back. Dark Sith iron gauntlets held the reigns of the lead beast, directing it towards a pack of fleeing blurrgs. There was at least a dozen of the blurrgs to each of the war dragons, and twice as many twi'lek riders on their backs as there were Sith atop the dragons. Well, not Sith exactly. The three figures were swathed in black shadow-silk and select pieces of alchemically crafted armour. Their faces were concealed behind dark hoods that obscured their features in shadow, so not even the glare of their malevolent stare pierced the utter blackness of their head shrouds. A terrible wasting aura permeated each apostle of evil, afflicting everything it came into contact with, quite literally leaching the warmth from the air around them.
These dark riders were among the select forces of Famine. Each had once been an ordinary man that had the misfortune of travelling too close to the Pzobian nebula. From there, once under the gaze of the malignant mechanical god the Order referred to as the Eye, their memories were wiped clean and their freshly purified bodies were delivered onto the Eye's cradle where their true reeducation into the order of hannite monks begun. These three in question had been selected to join the Hunger Cults under the despicable He-Who-Hungers. In the ruins of a once great civilization, they dined on the meat of man and drank the blood of brothers to sate an appetite that had been awakened in them, a terrible hunger that they could never quite appease. Raw or cooked, rotten or fresh off the bone, it didn't matter. The Hunger Cults ate, and drank, and ate some more. While those without the 'gift' became as foul as ghouls, descending into new levels of depravity, those with a connection to the fey were altered in other ways. These three beings that had started out as mortal men began to change into something less bound by the physical world. Wounds wept shadow instead of blood, food turned to ash in their mouths, and their tainted souls were hollowed out. Slowly but undeniably they became slaves to that hunger, feeding off the life force of those around them like spectral leeches. Each of them had become a pale reflection of the Blood Wyrm.
Clavicus Blackmoore took his right gauntlet off the reigns of his saurian mount and reached to his hip, wrapping the barbed digits of his armoured glove around the handle of his darkside imbued sword, 'Ice-Fang', a malevolent blade wrought in the corpse fires of the hell-forge beneath the black temple on blessed Pzob. A metallic grinding like steel on stone sounded as the apostle drew his terrible length of crystalline ostrine from its drexl scale scabbard and held it aloft. Frost rimed his gauntlet as he held the sword above his head and out to the side, trailing ice crystals and a cold mist as the super chilled surface of the blade dropped the temperature around it. The dark rider lowered the angle of the sword tip, pointing the diamond hard edge at one of the twi'leks they were beginning to close on. For their part, the native aliens twisted on the back of their blurrgs and fired crimson blaster bolts at the three darksiders. Apostle Blackmoore caught one of the better aimed bolts on the angled edge of his sword and refracted the screaming coherent plasma into the ground where it scorched the earth black. With his left gauntlet he snapped the reigns and urged his mount to run faster.
Behind him his two companions had drawn their own weapons. On Clavicus' left, Khelthrai Helbane hoisted a brutal looking axe with a double bladed head, and on his right Rakarth Poisonblade swung a spiked morning-star flail. Their war dragons exhaled hot ragged breaths of sulphuric steam as they closed the distance between themselves and their fleeing quarry. Blaster bolts were more frequent the closer they got, but still poorly aimed due to the nature of the chase. Leaning over the right side of his saddle, Clavicus dropped down by the legs of his running beast just as they came alongside the blurrg pack, and cocked back his sword arm. Swinging his blade forwards, he swept the razor honed edge across the back of one of the blurrgs thighs, hamstringing it as it dropped to the ground and was trampled by those behind it. As the downed blurrg fell out of formation, the dark apostle slid his own mount into its place, entering the pack and getting a little closer to the armed twi'leks firing at them from the center. Rakarth and Khelthrai sped up, riding ahead of the pack and drawing most of the fire from the beleaguered aliens. From his more rearward position, the leader of these shadowy riders slipped his armoured boots out of the stirrups and began to crouch on his war dragon's back.
His two equally villainous companions, now riding at the front of the pack, dropped back and began to swing their malefic weapons at the most frontwards blurrgs. Much like the leader's frigid sword, Khelthrai's axe parted leathery flesh and sent several of native creature stumbling into the dirt where they were trampled but the pack that was forced to ride over them. The spiked ball of Rakarth's flail was less accurate, but no less effective, braining several of the creatures and causing just as much upheaval to the charging pack as the others. The twi'lek riders near the center were forced to break out of formation as they led their own blurrgs left or right to avoid tripping over the fallen members of the pack.
Using the ensuing confusion from the purposefully organized chaos, Clavicus leapt from the back of his dragon and ran across the backs of the blurrg pack, jumping from one to another as he attempted to make his way towards the center. A searing crimson bolt almost took him in his hooded face as he made a leap that took him within a dozen feet of the middle, followed by several others as the twi'leks finally noticed how close he had gotten. He balanced himself precariously atop the back of a blurrg, raising Ice-Fang in both hands as he used it effectively to deflect screaming bolts back at those that had fired them. One, two, three twi'leks dropped and were trampled. The remaining three continued to pelt and pepper the fearless apostle, forcing him to withdraw. He deflected one last bolt before leaping up and backwards into a flip that saw him land safely into the saddle of his original mount. Their closest foe having fallen back, the three aliens remaining took the opportunity to look ahead once more, realizing at once their mistake. The edge of a cliff came racing towards them. The head-tails of all three swung out in front of their heads as they pulled back on their reigns and attempted to stop, but it was too late.
As Khelthrai and Rakarth peeled off to the left and right, the blurrg pack continued straight ahead, tumbling over the edge where they plummeted to the canyon below. The three twi'leks were helpless to stop their forward charge as their mounts were caught up in the herd mentality, still running forwards as the blurrgs behind them pushed them head first over the cliff. Clavicus' war dragon stopped just short of the edge, allowing the dark apostle to look over the side as he watched the last of the bipedal creatures fall to a messy death. His companions came to join him at the overhang, each taking a turn to observe what their work had led to. Dark inhuman laughter sounded from within the hoods of their robes. They stayed long enough to sate their vile appetite on the expended life energy withering away into the aether, then moved on.
Ryloth was a large planet. Plenty left still to kill...
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Dragus
The Sith Eternal
In front of the Empire, to all you Vader haters out there. We'll blow your planet up.
Posts: 1,193
Affiliation: Sith Eternal
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Post by Dragus on Dec 11, 2022 7:25:51 GMT -8
In his quest to bind the soul of Ryloth to his purpose, the nefarious Night Spirit first looked to the worst this world had to offer. He started with the outcasts, those shunned by polite society because they refused to be slaves to its rules, living on the fringes where strength alone determined a persons worth. So it was that the predominant predator on the planet found himself in the arid wastes, pushing the blurrg between his scaly legs to its absolute limit as he crossed the scorching desert beneath the mid day sun. A tattered cloak of recently flayed twi'lek flesh kept the worst of the suns rays off his obsidian scales, its dripping residue having concealed against his light swallowing surface, which now began to crack and flake off into the reddish dirt. His mount panted heavily, a thick layer of foam built at the sides of its wide mouth and drizzled down its jaws, evaporating almost as quickly as it formed. After several hours ride he could feel its lifeforce on the verge of failing, finally giving out on its overworked body as the beast of burden collapsed to the ground. Our villainous protagonist leapt from its sun kissed leathery hide before the creature took him with it, spinning end over end in the air before coming to land on his clawed haunches, his knees bending to absorb the worst of the impromptu landing.As he straightened, the drake lord turned to regard the animal that had carried him this far into the dangerous wastes. Approaching its side, he placed a clawed hand on its thick hide, seeking a pulse but finding none. The light had fled from its eyes as the soul departed its body. Flexing his powerful claws, he sank his talons into its hide and began to tear away at its tanned flesh, digging into the meat. Jaws already salivating despite the moisture thieving sun that continued to bake him from its place in the sky overhead, he sank his curved incisors into the fresh carrion, ripping off chunks and swallowing mouthfuls of warm blood. Its was a gruesome feast, but the Great Devourer was not about to let a meal like this go to waste. He had his reputation to think of. When he had finished gorging himself, there was barely a scrap of meat clinging to the carcass, save for its organs which he had removed and placed in a steaming pile next to its bleaching bones. Reinvigorated by a full belly, the depraved draconian gathered the offal and began to spread it around on the cracked earth in the shape of a circle. Intestines fleshed out most of the shape, but at varying intervals he placed such organs as its oversized heart, lungs, and liver. The brain he had already sucked out and consumed, what with that delicacy being his favourite part.Far off in the distance he could make out shapes, large predatory creatures that lurked in the harsh areas of Ryloth, forcing its populace to build their homes clustered together in caves. These beasts, such as the doashim or lylek, were drawn to the smell of freshly shed blood. However, the unnatural presence the Famine Lord created in the fey gave them pause, inspiring in their primal minds a feeling they rarely had need to submit to: fear. Dragus' aura was a black stain on the natural order, polluting and corrupting everything he came into contact with. In the eyes of the planet's native predators, he was a sarlacc waiting for them to be drawn down into his clutches, an unparalleled threat. It was for this reason that they waited, mouths watering as they scented fresh meat, yet unable to pursue it. A shame, he thought. Another meal would be nice.When the circle was completed the saurian Sith seated himself at its center, crossing his scale covered legs while encircling his lower half with his thick muscular fifth appendage. The tail spike waggled in front of him, teasing like a worm on a fishing line. Dragus closed his fierce crimson eyes and rested his clawed hands on his knees, then drew in a deep breath through his narrow nostril slits. Then with the precision of a surgeon with a scalpel, the Hungering One focused on channeling the forces of the aether, dredging up old hates as fuel to embolden his diabolical spell. This part always came easily to him. Over the course of his life there was much he had come to despise. Frankly the most difficult part was knowing where to begin, so he started there...at the beginning. A genetic aberration, a mistake of science and technology, the black scaled barabel awoke alone in the forgotten underbelly of Nomad City, a clone of another that was never supposed to have awakened. Oh how he loathed that man, his father and creator, who was so quick to disinherit all he had accomplished. That was a hate that even now still remained strong. Around his cross-legged form, the winds of the fey began to swirl faster, drawn into a dark vortex with Dragus at its malign centre. Permanently kissed by the sun, the heat of the wasteland around him seemed to wane, pulled from the stone beneath his scaled rump and drawn from the dry desert air. High above, clouds began to gather and the sky darkened, crackling with the occasional discharge of lightning as nature's mood fouled.He thought of those that had abandoned him. His father aside, there was one who had been closer to him than any other, leaving a hole no amount of furry paramours could fill in his bitter heart. What had the Fallanassi been to him, hmmm? It was often difficult to put into words. A lover? Doubtful. While they had enjoyed their fair share of physical moments, he had always found her fleshy form repugnant and unappealing. A friend? He didn't really have those, nor did he completely understand the concept. Certainly she had been close to him in ways unlike any other. A mother then? Closer to the truth there, he surmised, though he suspected she had felt little in the way of maternal warmth towards him. No, she had possibly been close to these things, but had never really crossed the threshold required to become one or the other. To him she had been a shadow, a cruel constant companion that rarely left his side, always just behind and to the right. She was always there, which was why it had cut so hard when she wasn't, and had left such a large hole in his life. He hated her for that, for how weak she made him.Grit blew across the desert as sand was swept up into the growing storm. Those creatures in the distance that had been watching, now sought shelter themselves, drawn into their burrows by the expanding blight with Dragus at its core. Shadows coalesced about his body, rising off his scales like smoke. When he inevitably exhaled, a pestilent air was drawn into the swirling currents and shrouded the drake lord in a cloud of his own poisonous breath. His spiritual presence, that of a great gaping wound that dragged those around into its endless depths, expanded and stretched across the waste like a terrible black beacon of utter darkness. He reached his ethereal claws into the minds of the most wicked and cruel, those that shared a small measure of the evil that enveloped the Feaster of Worlds. Dangerous though it was, the spiteful presence in his bones left his body behind and traversed the aether, tracing blood soaked wyrds back to the souls they were bound to as they slumbered. He entered their minds and haunted their dreams with visions of a great black serpent with fiery coals for eyes that bore into their souls and promised them everything their wretched hearts desired. Whispering to their psychic aspects, he burned his current set of coordinates into their brains to the extent that their head tails ached. Then he released them, retracting his claws and banishing himself from their dreams, before returning to his cross-legged body alone in the wastes.When he opened his scaled lids and peered around his surroundings with those two slit crimson orbs, he found the storm had subsided and he was once more seated in the middle of nowhere, soaking up solar radiation from the blistering sun in the sky overhead. There he remained for the better part of a day, calmly counting grains of sand as he waited for them to arrive. Eventually they did, by ones, sometimes twos, even by the dozens. Cutthroats, marauders, slavers...the dregs of society.An army of scum.
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Dragus
The Sith Eternal
In front of the Empire, to all you Vader haters out there. We'll blow your planet up.
Posts: 1,193
Affiliation: Sith Eternal
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Post by Dragus on Dec 12, 2022 12:17:24 GMT -8
By the time the abusively scorching orb above their heads had descended over the horizon and darkness extended to swallow the land, thousands of twi'leks exiled by society had gathered around the Great Devourer, flocking to his side like sheep to a shepherd. The swelling host seemed as numerous as the grains of sand that made up the arid wastes, multi-hued from a variety of family clans, with some bedecked lavishly and others draped in the tattered rags of destitution. Still they came, seeking the being that had reached into their sleeping minds and harrowed their dreams with his nightmarish astral form, that of a great black serpent with sulphuric breath and eyes like cauldrons of fire. When Ryloth's five natural satellites bathed the drake lord in moonlight and night held court over the sky, the Blood Wyrm finally stirred, his overlong tail uncoiling from his obsidian scaled form. He-Who-Hungers stood, his twi'lek flesh cloak billowing in the cold desert air that brought a chill to his blood and caused his hot breath to steam with every poisonous exhalation. His malefic aura expanded to encompass the collection of outlaws and fiends, caressing each one of their souls with a gentle stroke from his sinister ethereal claws, sowing seeds of corruption and decay into their already morally bankrupt minds. In the same way he replenished his earlier expenditure of power, drawing a measure of precious life force from each being he interacted with, suckling on their essence like a parasitic leach.Held in his invisible grip, they resisted their binds and his efforts to bring them to heel, refusing to submit as all rebels do. It became clear to him that a physical display would be required if he wished to command their obedience, so it was that he faced the gathered crowd, focusing on them with two glowing red eyes that seemed able to pierce their very souls and brought uncontrollable trembling on whatever or whomever they rested upon. The dastardly draconian's jaws split to reveal an open maw full of razor sharp incisors, stained pink from his latest kill, steaming in the cold night breeze. He let out a long hiss that saw his forked tongue slither between rows of daggers to flick the air and mist those in the front with flecks of hot crimson. Behind the drake lord, his tail rose up over his head and curled to point the serrated spike of Sith iron capping its end with its tip forwards, like some sort of bipedal scorpion. Without bringing his hands together, he flexed his scaled claws, drawing the full attention of the crowd with the sinuous pops of his cracking knuckles. He held his arms out to the sides, scaled palms turned towards the sky, finger talons curled into razor tipped cages. Expending a portion of the power he had harvested from the feast before him, the dreaded dark lord of Famine amplified his voice so that all might hear his sinister sermon."Welcome outcastz and exilez, thossse sssociety haz forced to the fringez of civilization for nothing more than fulfilling the natural order. You are dessspised by your kin becaussse of what you represssent. Ssstrength! You refusssed to be bound by their rulez. They would call you criminalz becaussse you would not sssubmit to their lawz, their only meanz of claiming moral sssuperiority over you. Az one with ssstrength az well, I underssstand the price you have paid for your freedom. I too dessspise weaknesss. I can sssee what decadence haz wrought upon thiz world and I have no tassste for it. Fortunately it iz not an ill that I mussst sssuffer, for my ssstrength iz unequaled." There were a few scoffs from the crowd, a handful of shout of derision, but most held their tongue. Mostly for fear of losing it. Grinning wickedly, he continued to rattle on in his rasping reptilian manner. "I've sssummoned you here to join me, to ssswear yourselvez to sssomething larger than any one of you, to ssserve beneath my fanged banner. By now I am certain you have all heard about the conquessst of your world. Your capitalz have capitulated, your elected leaderz have sssurrendered. A road of recently reaped skullz now joinz Lesssu to Kala'uun, with the bodiez of their fool hearted defenderz crucified along itz sidez. Thossse that have cassst you out are no more, ssso I welcome you back with open clawz. Ssserve me in Kala'uun az my marauderz beneath the mountain and I will make you ssstrong again."There was much grumbling from the crowd as the Hungering One left off there, turning his snout from left to right as he observed the alien mob, reading their minds as easily as others might read their mood. Many saw the benefits of what he offered, greed easily outweighing their concern at what he was. The evil among them could instantly tell, here before them in a cloak of flesh and scaled in obsidian was a kindred spirit, a beautiful black flail to scourge the proverbial back of Ryloth's obvious deranged inequality. All that aside, they were still rebels at heart that long desired freedom, and he used words such as 'join' and 'serve'. None were eager to bend a knee to a new master, even one so very different from their last. One brave soul among the large gathering stepped forwards. He was a twi'lek like the rest of them, with pea green hued skin and a fierce look writ upon his face. He wore the clothes of a desert vagabond, though was likely a marauder already in anything but name judging by the vibro-scimitar sheathed on his left hip."There is nothing left of Kala'uun. Your vermin horde ate the city down to its bones." He snorted, then hacked a wad of phlegm into the dirt between them. "You would have us become wardens of a mass grave.""I asssure you..." He replied, his slit gaze glowing intensely like two mottes of witch-fire. "...there iz ssstill sssome life in thossse bonez. Certainly it iz in a ssstate rife for sssomeone with ssstrength to take advantage of, hmmm, or to make their mark. If they were willing to ssswear themselvez to my ssservice.""And what, become your slave?" Said the bold vagabond, shaking his lekku from side to side. "We never bowed to the last so called leaders of Ryloth. What madness has possessed you to think we would ever follow you?" He finished with a grin across his green skinned face, eliciting mirthful chuckles from those around him.Yes, a physical display then. Flicking his index and middle talons together, Dragus snapped his claws, signalling his hidden agent. In a quick blur of motion as though conjured from thin air, the ground directly behind the emboldened twi'lek erupted in an explosion of dirt as a shadowsilk clad ranat emerged from a hole in the desert and thrust a thin bladed katana through the back of the vagabond, skewering the twi'lek in place. It was a perfect strike. Chang Fang's accurately aimed thrust had pierced the defiant man's heart, killing him instantly. Exactly what he expected of a Shadow Squeak from Clan Eshin. Chang pulled his blade back through the wound, dropping the corpse to the desert floor, then turned and held his blade overhead as he faced down the crowd. Blood drops sluiced off the end of his narrow sword, soiling the dirt beneath his paws as he displayed his sharp yellow fangs and hissed at the gathering in a feral display of aggression. None were so bold as to try their luck against the waist high assassin.It was at this time that two of the Famine Lord's minions arrived to the gathering of the downtrodden and despised. Astride the saddled backs of two monstrous ubese thorn-back war dragons were a disproportionate pair. On the left was a tall figure, lithe by human standards and certainly so compared to the figure beside him, garbed in a flesh obscuring robe of tanned human hide. He carried a long staff of polished bone, ornately inscribed with Pzobian runes with a rishii-skull capping its top, gripped like a vice in his emaciated left hand. His galandan heritage was concealed by the hood of his robe, though in truth he hardly resembled the creature he once was. Imbued with arcane power, the Dark Missionary was a force to be reckoned with, possessing nearly a fraction of the power wielded by the Dark Apothecary. Next to the preacher was an unique entity, sharing similar features to those gathered around the Blood Wyrm. Like them, his head ended in two long lekku, though that was perhaps where the similarities ended. He was larger than an average twi'lek, more broad across and muscular, practically bursting with tightly corded muscles with risen veins. His skin was ashen, almost black, and his eyes were the same colour of blood as Dragus' own. Boney growths pierced the creature's flesh at the joints, emerging from his dark skin as yellow spikes. The lower half of the creature's face was hidden behind a cloth scarf, otherwise the mess of jagged fangs overflowing from his mouth would have been visible.Offering his fiendish followers a welcoming grin as they dismounted, the saurian Sith bid them over to his side with a wag of his claws, before returning his attention to the crowd, still stunned by the death of their unelected spokesmen. Sneering in his sinister fashion, the twisted terrorsaur continued his presentation for the masses."Sssadly, the alternative iz death. I know, not quite what you were hoping for. But at leassst it makez the decisssion that much easssier, hmmm? Perhapz you require further proof of what I offer. Here iz but a tassste of the power that could be yourz, for thossse of you that would choossse to embrace it." Motioning to the altered twi'lek, he summoned it to the head of the crowd so that all could see the change his alchemy had wrought upon their base DNA. Gasps sounded from the gathering of outlaws as many looked on in abject horror. Some though, were not so easily disturbed. Some looked on the flesh change with intrigue and perhaps just a bit of envy. The Dark Missionary approached Dragus, offering the black scaled barabel a chalice of dark iron that was decorated with flame jewels that seemed to contain an inner fire, illuminating the clearing with their fiery glow. He took the cup into his claws and raised it so that all might bask in the cursed energy permeating its tainted surface. Lowering the chalice, he held it in his left claw while pointing his right index talon at the twi'leks that watched him with a mixture of fear and desire. "Behold the power gained from but a sssip of my elixir, the Urciniz Helix."It was Inquisitor Lord Kryptman that had first inspired the idea in the deranged mind of the Scaled Scourge. Dragus had watched as the Eye's Hound improved his warriors by remaking them at the genetic level. Kryptman's canis helix had warped their DNA, infusing his soldiers with the spirit of the tuk'ata, improving their senses beyond that of an ordinary man. They were stronger, faster, fiercer. Improved by the gifts and power of the God Emperor they claimed to worship. It had all been a lie of course. Having spent years studying the chalice, the ritual, and the so-called canis helix elixir, Famine had uncovered its secrets. What Kryptman had claimed was a gift from their god was actually a spell stolen from the Dathomiri Witches. Ancient darkside sorcery was responsible for the transformation from ordinary man to super soldier, not some false deity. Prideful as he was, once Dragus had discovered this, he crafted his own variant of the potion. He had even cast a new chalice in the hell-forge beneath the black temple of their former capital. Derived from the DNA of the celestial descendants, along with other rare ingredients which included a few drops of the Pater Mutatis' own blood, he had created a potion far superior to that of the Hound's.Another brave but obviously block headed twi'lek emerged from the crowd. Blue skinned and wrapped in sandy stained leathers, he had the look of a desert corsair about him, lean but no less deadly for it. Fearlessly the alien approached the Sithspawn creation standing in their midst, glaring up into the mutants dark red eyes."You would have us become like this freak?" He scowled. "I'd sooner swallow sa..." Gasp! Before he could finish, the words were cut short by a barbed ashen hand wrapped around the corsair's throat, lifting his body off the ground as his legs kicked helplessly. Struggling for air, the criminal tried to pry the fingers of the mutant from around his neck, but their grip was as solid as beskar. With a single twist of his wrist, the abomination snapped the corsair's neck and tossed his body aside with barely an effort."Az I sssaid..." Hissed the mad alchemist, licking his lips hungrily as he stared at the fresh corpse. "...I offer thiz power only to thossse that would choossse it. Your obedience, however, I will have regardlesss. Ssservice or death. Thossse are your optionz. Now, I believe my follower Erebuz here haz a few wordz he'd like to share with you."Dragus turned to go but before he could leave he felt the steely hand of the Dark Missionary, Erebus Cawl, on his arm. A flicker of power was shared between them and the changed galandan's hand removed itself from the serpent's scales almost as soon as it had made contact. They locked eyes, the barabel's own furious crimson orbs boring into Erebus' blackened pits. When the Missionary spoke, his voice was hoarse like a whisper, yet loud and bold with a zealots unshakable passion."You're not staying for the sermon?" Erebus almost sounded wounded, certainly disappointed. "I had selected a few passages from the Tome of the Three Emperor's I thought you might enjoy." The tome he was referring to was a large book used by the cult to spread their malign religion. It was large, written on flayed parchment and bound in gore spattered bronzium. So thick was the text that one might think it a burden to carry, but for the Dark Missionary to whom the volume was chained in barbed links of unbreakable ultrachrome, it might as well have been weightless. He stared hollowly at the Blood Wyrm.Cackling, the saurian Sith shook his snout and brought a talon to his eye, wiping away a tear of amusement. A few seconds of humour passed and he lowered his claw, composing himself. "Don't be absssurd." He mocked quietly, far too low for any other to hear. "I don't believe in any of that nonsssense."This brought a perplexed look to the shrouded face of the Dark Missionary. Erebus bridled with barely contained fury, which was quickly replaced by confusion as he stood before one of the Council of Seven that lorded over the cult."But...you are one of the Supreme Leader's chosen. How can you say you don't believe? Is this blasphemy some sort of test? I assure you, my faith can not be shattered, let alone shaken. I follow the word of the Three Emperors.""It'z no tessst, Erebuz. It'z the truth." He continued to mock. "There iz only one Emperor and hiz name iz Palpatine. The otherz were pretenderz to hiz throne, unworthy of remembrance or worship. I only allow you to ssspeak otherwissse becaussse thiz cult'z dogma makez for an excellent propaganda machine. Don't tell me you believe otherwissse." Dragus looked perplexed. "You do, don't you? Oh my, that'z hysssterical. It'z... He saw the disbelieving face of the Dark Missionary and sank his verbal claws deeper into the meat of the man's belief. "...quite sssad, really. Here I waz thinking you priestz sssimply held your positionz for the purpossse of exploiting the massez. I never expected your kind to be ssso...ssso...hmmm, devout. Well, don't let it get you down. Your faith iz merely misssplaced. Had you ever traversssed the Pzobian nebula I am certain you would have made an excellent hannite, in ssservice to an actual God sssuch az the Eye.""The Eye of Palpatine, you mean?" He raised a challenging brow. "You think it is a god?" "Yez." "It is not." Whatever plans the Great Devourer had for Erebus, they would never come to fruition. While certainly not a slave to emotion, the drake lord was occasionally guided by it. So it was no great surprise when his right claw swept across Erebus' face and took half the Dark Missionaries skull with it. The butchers hooks capping each one of his scaled digits pierced flesh, carved bone, and ripped the front half of the galandan's face off in a fury induced swipe. Blood and bits of bone scattered across the desert dirt. Erebus' body dropped to its knees, leaning forwards just enough for his brains to slide out of the exposed half of his remaining skull. Angered as he was, even Dragus whose favourite meal was brains turned away from the sand covered grey matter in disgust, too bitter to be hungry. Erebus' thoughtless comments had soured his mood. Scowling deeply, the saurian Sith walked over the fresh cadaver, making certain to prick the festering meat sack with his foot talons. Understandably, the villainous gathering of twi'leks looked confused about what had just happened, unaware this was a rather common happenstance as far as the Famine Lord was concerned."Forget the sssermon. To Kala'uun we march!" He snarled. "Whossse with me?"
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