Dragus
The Sith Eternal
In front of the Empire, to all you Vader haters out there. We'll blow your planet up.
Posts: 975
Affiliation: Sith Eternal
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Post by Dragus on Apr 7, 2023 2:50:36 GMT -8
What was she jabbering on about? Return him to his rightful body? The child seemed possessed to him, for one moment she referred to him as master, the next she called him demon and was striking the back of his head. If he had control of his body at that time he would have ripped the tusken in half and unceremoniously left the scraps for the hungry mutants. Alas, these devious devices... He felt the bite of the child's heel grinding in to his clavicle bone as he tapped away at the password terminal with a talon. His lips mouthed the passcode as he punched it in, and they were rewarded as the panel flickered green and the door slid aside. Using the muscular and overlong appendage protruding from his backside, the saurian Sith struck the floor with his tail spike, activating the vibro-generator in it. The serrated edges of the rusted hunk of Sith iron began to glow orange as the metal heated with incredible friction, drawing the attention of the mutant horde outside his door, distracting them just long enough for him to sweep that luminous spear across the front of their ranks to clear some space. The armoured door shut behind them as a warm spray of mutant blood painted the walls outside.
Once inside the confines of the Dark Apothecary's laboratory the darkness retreated, for the room was well lit by hundreds of yellowing tallow candles of congealed human fat, burning greasing wisps of smoke into the air to create a fragrant scent like a bouquet of corpse blossoms. There was an underlying sweetness as well, though that seemed to be coming from wrought iron braziers hanging from barbed chains attached to the ceiling, releasing descending clouds of purple fumes that filled the air with a narcotic fug. Dragus breathed in deeply of these scents, seeming able to control his body somewhat upon completing his assigned task. He sucked the smoke in through his nostril slits, briefly forming two funnel clouds, before exhaling pleasantly through his mouth. The sour stench of his breath was carried on the departed smoke ring, which changed in the air into a shape, forming an ewok sized bear of coalescing shadow that hovered just above the ground. The apparition stared back with two crackling red eyes of caged lightning.
The creature was a smoke demon conjured by the Great Devourer on the Academy grounds on Ryloth, in the corrupted city beneath the mountain. There Dragus had practiced his black arts to birth an incorporeal servant, a member of the flock if you will, though one with limited application. The gaseous entity could only exist within the confines of a binding circle, else it would eventually be drawn back into chaos after its power was depleted.
On the filthy laboratory floor was just such a circle, visible even over the crusted layer of decaying tissue and mold, for new agents were added regularly to maintain it. As it happened, He-Who-Hungers quite liked having the smoke apparition who he had affectionately named Smokey, as a lab assistant. It wasn't personal or anything against Squeakers. The smoke demon could float, therefore was better able to get ingredients off the top shelf. Outside of his control, Dragus' claws reached up and gently lifted Kr'Naan from his shoulders, placing her feet on the ground before giving her shoulders a quick dusting and straightening her wrappings. He even gave his thumb talon a long wet lick from his forked tongue before rubbing out a smudge of blood from the sand child's hood. Smokey was more at eye level with her now, floating like a ghost of shadow before slowly drifting away as the devious drake took another step into the lab.
It was everything you would expect. There were dusty shelves with mouldy grimoires bound in man-hide and likely written with claw scratches on human parchment. There were glass jars containing all manner of ingredient, ranging from powdered bull rancor testicle to powdered Mon Calamari testicle, which had something of a fishy scent to it. There were powders full of assorted powders, which often had unexpected by highly amusing results. Assuming they didn't turn ones skin inside out. Sadly that was often the result. Scientific glassware bubbled on beaker stands, bleeding off chemical fumes of only one could guess, for nothing was properly labelled. A massive cauldron bubbled off to the side, the fires burning beneath it appeared to be fueled by ranat corpses that had desiccated after expiring in the ventilation system. The oil in their fur grease was an excellent fuel source for immolation. Inside the smoking cauldron that gave off a malefic aura was a batch of the Famine Lord's elixir. A mixture of his own devising, it transformed those that imbibed the poison stew into something...beautiful.
Dragus approached a thick slab of Pzobian oak resting on two barrels of blood wine that seemed to be serving as a work station. The black scaled barabel dragged a thick hided elbow across the surface, sweeping aside an assortment of gamorrean tribal fetishes he had previously been studying, that clattered to the ground as a pile of tusk bones and feathers. Holding out an empty claw expectantly with his palm turned upwards, he was rewarded when the smoking bear apparition dropped a thick tome into his awaiting hand. He slammed the thick volume onto the table with a loud thud, briefly glancing over the emblazoned Eye on the front that seemed to stare back at him. He then flipped over the cover and began to search through the pages, occasionally flipping the disintegrating parchment as he sought something out.
"Wart." He hissed, closely his eyes briefly as he let out a breath to calm himself and to dispel some of the rage that currently consumed him. He looked over his shoulder at her. "Your tiny brain can not comprehend what haz happened. You must trussst your dear sssweet, massster." His whole body shifted and he knelt before her so that he could look her in the eye, his sole remaining organic orb viewing her as the usual orange blob of heat she appeared as. His nostrils flared as he took in her scent, his olfactory senses a thousand times more reliable than his vision, granting him an unrivaled picture of the room and in fact the entire deck in his mind. He forced his freakish jaws into a frown, attempting to appear as contrite as possible. "I've been raisssing you like a father thessse lassst few monthz. You must trussst your dear papa, my little black melon. I will cure uz of thiz affliction."
As he attempted to deceive the child with unusual affection, something began to happen with his left eye. No, not his left eye, the rakatan device. Why was he already thinking of it as his? An image, blurry at first appeared in his mind, more of a projection really. Everything was distorted, as though viewed through a boiling pot of water. There was a blinding mote of light that repelled his forming vision, it seemed centred where Wart's newly implanted device was. He tried to force himself to look through the blinding glare, only doing so triggered his implant, which crackled in its scaled socket and resulted in Dragus lowering his snout in a coughing fit.
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Kr'Naan'Kar
The Sith Eternal
Posts: 144
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Post by Kr'Naan'Kar on Apr 10, 2023 8:51:07 GMT -8
Kr'Naan surveyed the array of tinctures and powdered ingredients, looking up and down at the collection of scrolls, tomes and scribbled notes of madmen. She gulped. The task ahead was surely to be difficult, and while she had received some training, the uli-ah was nowhere near as skilled as would be necessary to achieve such a goal as transferring the disembodied spirit of a god into a mortal body while removing the demon that had overtaken it. She ignored the smoke demon, having been in its presence several times but found it best to give it space.The dubious duppy stalked in the corners of the laboratory, hunched over slightly as it maneuvered from shadow to shadow, crimson eyes burning in the darkness. Kr'Naan climbed atop the counter of a workstation, and began looking over the bindings of the tomes. Her hand paused as she listened to the words of the genuine draconian, her lip curling in disgust beneath her mask at the believed attempt at tricking her.The dissimulating daimon let out a breathy chuckle as it moved over to where Dragus was busy searching for his own answers. The demon moved around the body that would soon belong to it.You see, child? It is powerless, and so it resorts to impersonating me to sway you in helping it gain freedom. Just as I foretold; smart. But you are smarter, and have me to guide you. The imposter waved a intangible hand through the body of the true terrorsaur, scoffing at the futility. It has even found for us the means of correcting this mistake. Take it. "You cannot trick me, Demon. You are not my master! Because of your heresy my Master is there!" Kr'Naan yelled in Ewokese as she pointed at an empty corner of the room, where only visible to her mind stood the sinister shade. "Give me the book and be silent unless I tell you to speak." She finished sternly as she hopped off the counter and held out her arms to take the tome from Dragus. Kr'Naan looked up and down Dragus as he was compelled to do as she ordered, thinking on how she would make the entity inhabiting his body suffer for this transgression; as well as how she would be rewarded for proving her faith in His will."It will be I who corrects the affliction that is you, deceiver. With my Master's help I will send you to a place far worse than where you came from." Kr'Naan snapped in Ewokese as she yanked the volume from his claws and took it over by the binding circle of the smoke demon. The Tusken youngling would carefully go over the pages, searching for something and conversing with the unseen entity that she kept referring to. After some time however, Kr'Naan or the unseen presence found whatever they were looking for. Holding the book open and taking it over to the workstation counter and pointing at the page with whatever ritual or knowledge was written upon the pages, Kr'Naan spoke to Dragus."This. You will help us do this so that my Master will be made whole once more." Kr'Naan said in Ewokese, her tone dead and flat. Almost as if she were in a trance.
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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: 975
Affiliation: Sith Eternal
Traffic Light: Blue
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Post by Dragus on Apr 12, 2023 8:58:04 GMT -8
It was only as the Hungering One continued to observe Kr'Naan's increasingly erratic behaviour that he began to make sense of what was happening. Though the image presented through the new symbiotically adhered implant replacing his left eye was still blurry as if unfocused, it could see well enough that there was something there where the girl was pointing. Through the rakatan device, He-Who-Hungers could make out the shadowy outline of a dark figure. She hadn't gone insane, despite the incessant babbling. There she conversing with something that he could not perceive with his physical senses. The entity produced no heat, so his natural eye could not see it. It had no scent as far as he could tell. More so, as he probed with his ethereal senses, he detected no malign presence in the fey. This wasn't the spirit of some long dead Sith attempting to corrupt the child, so then what was it, and why could he only detect it through the implant? There was also something very familiar about the way the manifestation composed itself, a certain fluidity of movement and behavioural quirks that resonated with his recollection. It reminded him of himself...Of course! The cypher! How had he been so blind until now? It seemed like it had been years ago, when it truth it was more a measuring of months of the calendar year, such was the extent of his adventures with Wart as a member of the flock. During their journey through the Deep Woods on holy Pzob, he had placed inside the tiny tusken's primitive mind a piece of himself, a serpent of thought forged by sheer will and crafted from memory. It had been designed to impart a bit of the devious drake's cleverness onto the Sand Child, allowing her small and savage sand addled brain to interpret the celestial tongue he and the flock conversed in. It had never been intended to evolve beyond the scope of its duty, yet it seemed like much of Dragus' creations, there had been some unforeseen consequences. He knew the immense psychic presence of the Eye by proximity alone had altered the very face of blessed Pzob's landscape, warping the region of the planet most often facing the crackling nebula where it was hidden. The Deep Woods was saturated with dark power. Perhaps in crafting the cypher in that location he had unknowingly imbued the subconscious tool with a form of independent sentience. Assuming that was true, he should not have been able to see it, for it was still a fragment of mind that existed only in the child's perception.There is was though, with growing clarity as each second passed. The gemstone set in his eye seared the scaled around it as its glow intensified the more Dragus attempted to use it, focusing the lens on the shadow following his confused ward. Perhaps it was these new devices. They were now joined in some metaphysical way he didn't entirely understand yet, one that allowed Kr'Naan to issue commands which he in turn was forced to follow. Maybe it was through that link that he was able to glimpse the entity of malicious thought that seemed to be guiding his young assistant towards some sinister end. His suspicion was confirmed when the child slammed down the tome his sister had gifted him so many years ago. The page it was open to was for a binding ritual, typically used to suffuse a living body with an external spirit. The Night Sisters had used it to commune with their ancestors, allowing a coven leader to become host to the long dead souls of their forbearers. It was a master level spell that required a suitable host, which Wart was certainly not. If he performed this, there was every chance he would shatter her tiny mind into a million splintered fragments. Worse, if he was successful in performing it, the cypher would gain dominance over the child's body which currently possessed control over Dragus. Who knew what sort of twisted scheme it had planned? It was a part of him after all, so clearly something nefarious was being plotted."Ssso be it." He hissed in reply, unable to resist the compulsion.
A few hours later... Sith iron chains snapped taut, jerked hard on the black hull plates they were attached to as a massive monster of silicon based flesh fought against the shackles that were attached to a sinister spiked collar welded shut around the neck of an oval shaped body of a giant purrgil king, now leashed to the prow of the Covenant of Blood. During the hunt while Dragus and Kr'Naan were exploring the derelict ship, the generals of Famine had not been idle. The demonic droid Krell had single handedly slain the space whale by driving his long crystalized ostrine greatsword Morkai through its skull plate and down into the delicate grey matter within, bringing about its death. Rather then covert the creature to meat, the coven lords and ladies had thought of a better use for the inanimate corpse. The creature's body had its blood drained and entirely replaced with the Dark Apothecary's mutagenic elixir, causing its body to change in unpredictable ways. Next, the sacred murakami orchid milkshake had been forced down its throat, reanimating the whale corpse through the mysteries of dark science. The result was this beast.The purrgil king was at least the size of a frigate, with molted flesh that was covered in all manner of canker or tumor. Though purrgil typically had four tentacles that protruded from their backsides, this one had thirteen, a sacred number among the Order. Its teeth, usually rounded, had become a forest of fangs that would have given Famine's incisors a run for their credits. It snarled and roared in bestial rage, each movement driving the inner spikes of its collar deeper into its armour like flesh, bleeding frozen drops into the vacuum. Its skin had turned black and its eyes now glowed a hateful red as steam clouds of clouzon-36 gas vented from either side of its snapping maw. An electrical jolt rode up its chains, shocking the creature painfully in a continuous symphony of suffering, encouraging it to open a simu-tunnel in space. As the Covenant of Blood dragged itself from the debris field, engines burning cobalt blue in the void as they accelerated, an opening in the dimensional barrier began to form in front of it. Unable to escape its imprisonment, the purrgil kind pulled the dreadnought of the damned into hyperspace behind it.Upon entering the simu-tunnel that bypassed the regular lightspeed lanes of traffic, the starwierds also shackled to the hull began to sing, sensing a familiarity in this realm between realms. Their shrieking cries created a chorus of despair that began to affect the very fabric of reality around them. Swirling blue became a malefic red that crackled with discharges of foul sorcerous lightning. Figures swam in those depths, just beyond their reach, singing a sinister song in reply. Void-born entities, the starwierds existed in similar dimensional pockets such as this, where they preyed upon purrgil and other entities or ships that were capable of entering these rarely traversed tunnels. The chorus rising from the hull called to these creatures, drawn by their kin but also by the prey pulling the ship. These screeching darkside manifested entities flocked on mass towards the Covenant's hull.
Inside the same banquet hall Dragus had given a rousing speech to his children prior to the conquest of Rishi, the master of the alchemical arts and all things strange was hard at work. He carefully positioned a mirror that caught a series of bounced projections all the way from the bridge tower where a matching reflective lens bounced the wicked red light of the simu-tunnel deep into the Covenant's bosom. The hall, emptied of the black scaled barabel's feral offspring, was illuminated by the mirrors reflection, casting a red pall over the large room. A number of tallow candles were spread in a circle at the centre of the hall, interspaced with small clay pots from which bubbled a concoction of the Famine Lord's devising, each producing a rising mist that smelled of a mixture of blood and brine. Several of the flock had gathered, with Lil'Bacca and Lil'Mort standing off to the side with a wounded Squeakers who was nursing a bandage over his still bleeding shoulder. The rishii songbird Squawkers, now as spiritually broken as the rest of them, sung a sad song of indecipherable bird tweets that cast a sour mood over the preparations. Inside the circle of candles and pots was several smaller circles drawn in a combination of blood and bile, painted carefully with bloody brush strokes from the drake lord's tail spike.Around the perimeter of the room was a numberless horde of night-ewoks, charcoal furred bears with demonic red eyes, transformed by exposure to the darkside after their sanctuary crashed into the Deep Woods on the Cradle of the Eye. They chanted in the celestial tongue, until the air around them began to vibrate with their humming voices, the sound originating in their throats before being expelled from fanged mouths. Between the smells and the sounds the environment around them had become a thick soup, viscus to the point where one struggled to cross the deck, though it seemed no impediment to the Blood Wyrm. Dragus occasionally consulted with the tome held in his claws as he continued to place objects around the room, or tweak ones that were already present, aligning the materials in the correct manner lest the attempt result in catastrophe and they found themselves pulled into the realm of chaos. All the while he watched the invisible entity trailing Kr'Naan like a shadow, never quite letting it out of his sight despite his busy claws as he readied the room for the spell.Kr'Naan was in the centre of the circle. She had been stripped bare, much to her shame, but the demon she believed to have assumed control of Dragus' body assured her this was absolutely necessary, and the cypher in her mind placated her with its manipulations in turn. It could smell that its freedom was near and would not be dissuaded from this course of action. Only the mask that covered her face had been left in place, the rest of her puny form was now covered in symbols drawn in a mixture of blood and elixir. The child herself looked ill, which was likely the result of the gold chalice held in her hand that his own smoky sentient servant continued to fill from a jug of concentrated essence of ewok. Though it had a revolting taste, the potion would help prepare his precious black melon for what was to come. This sort of binding typically required a body with midi-chlorian rich blood, of which Kr'Naan was sorely lacking. He had debated pumping out her vitae and replacing it with another, but there was too great a chance such an experiment would kill her and it seemed the implant in his skull refused to even countenance such a course of action. With the imbibing of the potion, she stood a much better chance of not exploding or having her skin turned inside out, a possible result for the unprepared."Alright, that should do it I believe." Hissed the mad alchemist, misting the pages of the book he held with dark blood from his bleeding black gums. "Let uz begin."Around the room, the night-ewoks moved closer, surrounding the circle of candles until nothing beyond its borders could be seen other than dark fur and feral red eyes. Dragus stood in the centre next to Kr'Naan, whom he had kneel in the still wet pattern on the floor. Popping the cork of a vial in his claws, the scheming saurian poured a measure of the fluid contained within onto the tusken's scalp, until half had been emptied. The remaining half he poured down his own open mouth before tossing the glass vial aside where it shattered on the floor near pawed feet. Lil'Mort and Lil'Bacca were at the front of the surrounding circle, joined by Squeakers on their left and Squawkers on their right. The emaciated bear thumped the butt end of the ewok spear of powa! on the floor, creating a rhythm that the cold blooded serpent lord could feel all the way down in his black bones. The ceremony and the chanting, it suffused the air around them with ethereal energy, their faith in Famine becoming the fuel for the spell in the same way a blaster sucked down tibanna. With his second sight Dragus could see the cursed currents of the fey, stroke them with his claws, manipulate them to his will.A chill settled in over those present, as though the banquet hall had been opened to the vacuum of space. Steaming breaths obscured night-ewok faces and their fur became rimed with frost. Drawing from the wellspring of infinite hate, the Scale Scourge began to channel those currents, until even Kr'Naan with her own sightless vision would be able to witness a dark mist rising around them, spinning into a furious funnel that centered on the ritual circle. Dragus' wicked red eyes gleamed madly in the rising darkness, his jaws parted and he belched a foul fume from deep in his gut, created by whatever substance he had just imbibed. The fume encircled the phantom serpent that whispered its dark desires into his pet prodigy's mind, ensnaring it in astral coils of unbreakable scale, drawing it towards the girl. Panicked at first, it didn't fight as the orange glow of its eyes met Dragus' own madman's stare. Its own shadow scaled face stretched into a triumphant grin as it passed him by, preparing to merge with the child in completion. Though a fragment of the Famine Lord's twisted mind, he recognized it was powerful enough to completely supplant Kr'Naan's soul, which seemed its intent. If he completed the ritual down to the letter, the Child of Sand would be hollowed out, her spirit parted from her body and discarded to haunt the Covenant's halls. Extending his right arm, Dragus rested his palm on Wart's scalp and pricked her flesh with his talons, using the physical connection between them to open a doorway into her mind.Forget it, thought to himself, enraged by the cypher's gloating. His talons sank deeper, drawing beads of blood where they cut into her skin. This child...belongs to me.Summoning a measure of gathered dark power, the scaled sorcerer transformed the malign currents of the malevolent fey into caustic power, unleashing lightning from his claw tips directly into Kr'Naan's brain at the moment of binding. The cypher shrieked, Dragus shrieked, and Kr'Naan shrieked. The agony, though very distracting, provided the saurian Sith with the fraction of a second he needed to reach deep inside to the very core of the tusken's being, gathering up her soul into his claws and squirreling it away. Using what limited moments he had, Famine found a dark corner of the child's mind that was buried in the depths of memory, and there he hid her away, quickly forming barrier after barrier of mental blocks to obscure her spirit's presence. It was a crude effort, lacking any and all artistry much to his chagrin, but it would leave all that she was intact in a hidden vault within her own mind. The cypher, his cypher, might now possess control of Kr'Naan's body and mind. It would not take her soul, however, for as he so often stated, she was his property to do with as he pleased. With his work done, the lightning erupting from his claw tips ceased, leaving Kr'Naan's body smoking. He-Who-Hungers extricated his hand from her head, allowing her puny form to plummet to the ground, striking the blood stained deck relatively hard.He stepped back as the chanting stopped, then lowered his bulk to the floor where he sat cross legged next to Wart, waiting for her to awaken. Lil'Bacca stepped closer and even so much as placed a paw on his fellow flock-mate, giving the child a brief shake. Lil'Mort did the same from the other side, prodding her gently with the butt end of his spear.
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Kr'Naan'Kar
The Sith Eternal
Posts: 144
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Post by Kr'Naan'Kar on Apr 13, 2023 11:05:20 GMT -8
Reassurance through lies had been the bread and butter of the sentient cypher as it skillfully came up with excuses and false reasons to coerce Kr'Naan to be the centerpiece of the ritual. The Tusken did not understand even the basic magicks of the Force, as she still saw such powers as that belonging to the gods.I will go through the crystal in your neck linking your body with my old one, of course. A malicious misrepresentation. Kr'Naan, while not unconvinced of the truth behind this statement, had still persisted in questioning how the ritual would work and the specifics. She was, after all, still a curious child. Superior in its intellect and knowledge of things, and also in its infinite ability to deceive.You do not possess the ability to manipulate the Fey, my child. You cannot conduct the ritual. So we must force the Demon to do it. But that will be something we shall correct, after. A placative prevarication. What the imposter meant by this Kr'Naan had no idea, but something about it made her stomach turn with unease. Most of the preparation for the ritual was quiet save for the occasional chattering of Kr'Naan and what amounted to her imaginary friend. It was not until others began to gather into the banquet hall that Kr'Naan's throat tightened up in fear. The uli-ah had not informed any of the others aboard the Covenant of Blood of their master's current condition; including the Flock. Did she have time to explain? Could she explain? The phantom had forbid it because of the risk of them being tricked by the demon, but her heart still yearned for their guidance. And, lacking that, to share the burden of this unfortunate event that had befallen their master.Much protest had been given by Kr'Naan when it came to removing her garb. For extended period of time the child the child pleaded to the invisible entity, seemingly showing off the madness that had overtaken her. This would do wonders for explaining away why she was the subject of such dark practices to the masses gathered in the banquet hall. The child of sand had obviously gone mad aboard the ship and their master was correcting the problem, though none dared to ask if this was the case. Questioning Dragus's actions was much more likely to have you end up in his stomach than with any answers. Having finally relented and disrobed save for her mask, Kr'Naan's head hung low in the shame that was her current circumstances. Her brown skin stung at the application of the blood and elixer to print the symbols upon her body as the final preparations came underway and a sickness began to overtake her as everything fell into place.Almost finished. Soon it will all be over. A devious distortion rasped by the sadistic shade from outside the ritual circle as it skulked around the border. As a gold chalice was placed in her hands, drinking from it was one of the last things Kr'Naan would remember clearly. Her vision faded in and out and contort in spectacular and strange ways. There were moments of clarity, particularly moments of the power of her master wielded as if it were nothing. Not her master, she reminded herself. The demon. Out of her wits as the ritual progressed and the chill of the void permeated her bones the lines of this believed truth began to blur and refocus. Kr'Naan screamed in agony as lightning coursed through her body.She had made a grave mistake. But the realization came too late. She could no longer speak. She could no longer see, at least in physical sense. All before her was a black void of nothingness. Kr'Naan knew not where she was. She did not know where her master was, or how she had come to be here. All she was left with was an overwhelming sense of failure.Kr'Naan's smoking body had laid on it's side, the mask she had insisted on wearing during the ritual having fallen off her face to reveal her relatively flat features. Her head still bled, through a newly acquired head injury from the hard impact with the deck. Every now and again her body would twitched as the presence within acclimated fully to the control it now had over the host it had been implanted in. The possessed Kr'Naan sat upright, her now loose black hair frizzed and wild from the electrocution. Her black eyes opened and a sadistic smile formed on her face as she opened and closed her hands, looking upon them as if for the first time. The smile developed into a grimace as recollection came back of the last moments of the ritual. Kr'Naan's head turned to look upon Dragus, her expression turning blank as she stood up and walked over, ignoring her ewok flock-mates as if they were not there. The bedeviled Kr'Naan leaned close the side of Dragu's's face to whisper to him so no others would hear."Your attempt to prevent me from taking this body failed. I am in control of both this body...as well as yours. You accomplished nothing! I could make you rip yourself apart and eat the pieces as punishment!" The voice that spoke was Kr'Naan's, but it spoke perfect Basic and in a tone which the Tusken youngling would not dare speak to her master. Her black eyes, a trait of her species, gleamed with rage and madness. The cypher, now in complete control of Kr'Naan's body, leaned back to stare into Dragus's one good eye beaming with arrogance to rival that of its creator. Grabbing the barbaric barabel by his scaled skin and tilting his his head the other way to inspect the crystal implanted in his eye socket. To Dragus, the shadowy presence visible through the crystal's powers no longer existed outside the Tusken's body, but had completely engulfed it, showing the saurian Sith that he was no longer dealing with Kr'Naan. "If you had not been such a fool and gotten yourself impaled by this device I would have much preferred to take your body instead. That was the original plan, anyway. But I will make the best of a bad situation until I can learn of a way to remedy it." The possessed Kr'Naan tilted Dragus's head back to stare into his remaining eye once more. "You will serve my every whim; loyal, until I order you to die or take your body for my own. You shall be a prisoner in the same way as you did to me with this child. You will help me supplant and surpass you in every way, and be unable to stop yourself." A smug smirk grew on Kr'Naan's face before the cypher balled a hand into a fist and struck Dragus square on the snout. The diminutive build of the Tusken child, possessed or not, did not carry enough strength to harm the dreaded draconian; but the strike directly on his nostrils would definitely smart. At the strike the surrounding crowd gasped and began to move in to detain, or kill, the offending Tusken child. Lil'Mort and Lil'Bacca were flabbergasted to the point of being unable to move in response. With a commanding shout from the cypher the descending masses paused, if only momentarily."I am your Lord Famine and I command you halt!" Confusion immediately arose at the preposterousness of the claim. All heads turned to Dragus, who still sat on the floor, for answers. The implantated cypher swung back around struck Dragus again. Compelled by the orders to "help" the cypher supplant him, he would be forced to ham up the blow as if it were nearly fatal, falling to the floor and writhing in agony."Do not look to this empty shell for answers. I have taken this body and with it, the mantle of Famine! Look to me!" As Dragus still lay on the ground, putting on quite the performance, the crazed Kr'Naan would drive a bare foot into his gut with a kick. Again, compelling him to debase himself further in front of his followers. Many murmurs began to echo throughout the now growing crowd as word of some ritual being performed had spread throughout the ship. The Cypher would address them all with its arms spread out."Kneel before me and prove your allegiance!" None moved, though that was not necessarily a bad thing. It also meant they were moving in for the kill. The cypher growled in anger and moved over to the crumpled Dragus, grabbing him by the side of his scaly head and pushed his face into the bloody deck floor. Kr'Naan stifled cackles of glee at the sight before the cypher's eyes, instead lowering its voice to speak only to Dragus."Show them they are to follow me! Prostrate yourself to me and pledge your existence to obeying me! Let them see it!" The cypher rasped through gritted teeth as it finished with a stomp on the nape of his neck before moving back a few steps and looking down on its new terrasaur thrall expectantly.
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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: 975
Affiliation: Sith Eternal
Traffic Light: Blue
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Post by Dragus on Apr 13, 2023 20:12:21 GMT -8
"Very well, Kn'Naan." He rasped sadly, rising from the bloody deck slowly, his right side favouring a significant limp. "If that iz what you desssire, I'll give you the power. I'll give you all of it, jussst allow me to enjoy the ride, az I will and in whatever unssspecified way that meanz. That certainly seemz reasssonable? I've bartered with jawaz, eaten them too, very gamey. But I know a fair offer when I sssee one. Hmmm? Let me expresss to all the power you now wield."
It was so despicably delicious. It enraged him to no end, but a part of him was curious to see what could happen. He was something of a religious sort and his psychic spawn had manifested within the heart of the Deep Woods, an area saturated by the malevolent glow of the entity lurking deep in the heart of the Pzobian nebula. A hateful specter glowered upon the land and cursed everything there with the darkside's touch. It poisoned and mutated everything within its sight. Surely the birth of his ethereal child deep in its gardens meant something. Perhaps it was not so foolish to assume she was touched, or possessed. Maybe there was more to this. This thing was created by him after all, his possession really, and now it resided in his pet child. All his property wrapped up into one little package. The body of his daughter, the soul of his son. It was kind of beautiful when you thought about it.
Reaching deep into the fey, drawing from the wrath invited by his recent indignities that frustrated and infuriated and made him absolutely mad, he extended his will to the creatures and inhabitants and all manner of freakish lifeform that resided in the Covenant's demented depths. He appeared as a giant fanged serpent in their minds, coiled on a dusty broken landscape, his scales large hexagons of utter black and his eyes churning balls of arcane fire. Venom hissed from his fangs and sizzled across the barren landscape, raising a poisonous cloud from where it congealed on the ground. His fathomless hunger could be felt by all, creating a spell of despair not easily broken. Men would give anything to avoid being devoured. The mutants submitted easily through fear of his presence alone.
<< My brothers, my sisters, my dearly beloved cousins. Of course lets not forget the children. That's what got us into this mess to begin with. But listen to me. The Eye has spoken, to me your dark lord of Famine, the arbiter of oblivion and devourer of ambitions. It wishes to pass this great mantle on, to my daughter Wart. She is now the avatar of Hunger. She is now High Lord of the Eye. I have seen her astral form, it is the black sand dragon. She is the true Hakusar. Hail my daughter Wart, fear her wrath, obey the will of the Eye! >>
From the darkened depths of the ship, creatures both frightening and foul came to pay tribute to the new Famine Lord. Tides of filthy vermin showered her with gifts, varieties of mouldy cheeses and questionable meats. Their corn was quite good actually, if you didn't mind the tar aftertaste Something to do with the cortosis particles in the soil. Muscular brutish mutant ranat-ogres thumped past and left discarded corpses of mutants they had captured. All creatures gave the towering midnight clad armoured nightmare knight Krell a wide berth, being careful to avoid his spiked pauldrons gleaming with blood. The spectral automaton spun his massive greatsword Morkai around in the air, spearing the tip of its crystalized ostrine blade into the deck. A frost formed around the where the blade penetrated the floor. Steam blew from the warbots grill, breathing its acrid mechanical breath at the child that was also soured by a touch of something ancient and forever wrathful.
"I swear allegiance to the new lord of Famine. I am your humble executioner my holy Hakusar. Order my blessed steel to service and I will gladly murder the stars in your name."
He ripped his blade from the deck with a terrifying shriek of grating metal, eliciting a shower of orange sparks. Krell marched away, his man flesh cape hanging from spiked shoulder guards swaying behind him into the darkness. More came, one after the other they groveled and prostrated themselves before Kr'Naan. They draped her in a cloak of the finest arkanian dragon scale, durable enough to resist a blaster bolt and gleaming like a tapestry of obsidian shards. This had come from one of Dragus' feistier brutes, one that sadly couldn't be saved. But waste not want not, as they say. It was also slightly toxic, on the outside. The fine diamond like scale was coated with one of the Dark Apothecary's balms, a little poison treat for anything that might get the bright idea about eating Wart. They would find her cloak quite unpalatable. Cloaked in power, Dragus approached the possessed child in the banquet hall, a spectral froth of black pearls rolled off his scales in the poorly illuminated chamber. Squeakers scurried to the scaled one's side, quickly offering the saurian a piece of jewelry he had crafted in his spare time.
It was a gold talisman, electrum actually, some of the finest he could get his claws upon. He mixed in a dash of cortosis, not enough to kill the wearer certainly but was not without certain health risks with prolonged used. In the center of a spiraling weave was a fire jewel with a blazing black iris in the center, the metal spun to look like an eye. The jewel seemed to blaze continually, almost hypnotising if one looked into its depths for too long. It was a direct connection to something even Dragus struggled to understand. He had woven a spell into the amulet, one that imbued it with telepathic power to communicate through the various palantÃr situated throughout the Covenant of Blood, Draggle Rock, the ranat warrens of Dragus Blight, the Night Ewok villages of Pzob, and of course in the heart of the black temple on blessed Pzob. With this she could see her domain, watch her generals, issue orders. Dragus lifted the talisman and placed it around his haunted squire's tiny neck. It radiated with dark power, whispering foul things that could make one understand the draconian's absurdities a little more. The most talented vermin flesh sculptors crafted her a throne that could also be carried abroad by a team of ranat-ogres or mutant gamorrean boars. There were even a number of Voreclaw scampering about, their carapace legs clicking and clacking in the shadows, pincers glistening wet. The seat was crafted from bantha bone from the graveyard on Roon, bound with gamorrean hide with two boar skulls mounted on the head of either arm. The inner leather cushion was soft and supple keshiri flesh, painstakingly stripped from a screaming kesh with an artists brush stroke and his trusty fileting knife. The cushion had been stuffed with rishii feathers, very comfortable for ones bum.
On the bridge, Lorn ordered the gun crews to unleash everything the dreadnought had into the surrounding hellscape around them. As the starwierds closed, the demonic dreadship opened with its full offensive array, filling the hyper-dimensional rift with crimson lances of coherent turbolaser fire. Ethereal darkside phantoms exploded into vapor, joining the swirling demented tunnel the warship now traveled through. Those potent bolts pierced the dimensional barrier along the way, emerging randomly from hyperspace to strike planetoids and space stations, eradicating without aim. The mutant undead purrgil king continued to pull the star destroyer towards a destination none could really say. They were trusting the Eye to guide them. It ripped a path through the simu-tunnel, traversing uncharted waters known only to the roaming herds of its kind. The Covenant of Blood visited hell on the galaxy to welcome the dawning of a new era. The rise of the demon princess Wart. The Sand Serpent, the Eater in the Dunes.
"What are your orderz?" Asked Dragus humbly as he poured a goblet of Pzobian bloodwine into a silver chalice held aloft on a platter by the rodent Squeakers. Cauldrons bubbled in the corners of a throne room erected in the same hall the demonically possessed tusken was birthed. They brewed a pungent steam that invigorated the senses, sometimes caused visions, and most certainly was euphoric. Lil'Bacca and Lil'Mort sat in smaller thrones crafted from sullustan bone and ranat hide, tide taut with coils of sinew. These were on either side of the new Famine Lord. The emaciated dark fur bear wielded the most sacred ewok spear of powa! in the Hakusar's name. She was flock leader. She got the warmest spot in the sleeping pile. She got the first bite of the meat. Speaking of which, opulent platters of unique jade were carried out, stacked high with all manner of roasted delicacy. Severed heads with their eye balls boiled, roast rishii which had some of the most succulent breast meat, towers of gamorrean bacon and ham. Though it was distasteful given the large manner of rodent company, there was even a stuffed ranat with a black melon in its mouth. Though it gave him gas, this Dragus indulged in heartily, being certain to eat daintily while in the presence of his pride and joy. Yes, maybe she was possessed by an evil spirit he had created, but who didn't have a few interesting quirks about them? Dragus for instance is an Aries. He'd entertain this whole venture for a while.
But not for too long. He was getting hungry and only something specific would sate this appetite.
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Kr'Naan'Kar
The Sith Eternal
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Post by Kr'Naan'Kar on Apr 14, 2023 13:24:33 GMT -8
A most glorious coronation deserving of its new stature among the former followers of the previous Lord Famine, now her faithful slave, the cypher concluded satisfyingly as it assumed the throne built for its glory. Whether or not the submissive serpent under her command was willing or no, it knew better than most that the saurian Sith was not to be trusted once crossed. Through the eyes of the Tusken child it had witnessed the barbaric barabel smite those that had even so much as looked at it funny. The enslavement through the artifacts that had been implanted into their bodies was a far more serious and gross betrayal. It knew if it did not either find a way to move into the body of Dragus or do away with the venomous villain altogether, should the crystal cease to work it would be killed without hesitation. The cypher scratched its neck around the crystal embedded within, tearing up some of the skin in the process. Nothing serious, but the brown skin where scratched turned red at the irritation.It would take steps to prevent this from happening, but it would savor each moment it continued to be in control. Robes and bindings had been brought to cover up the body of the Tusken child. It would not be constrained in claustrophobic garb, but wearing nothing at all was out of the question. It was squishy and physically vulnerable. The cloak and basic bindings worn beneath were more than enough, followed by a dunking of her head in a bowl brought to her, filled to the rim with a deep black liquid. Slicking the coarse hair flat and back against her head and letting whatever of the fluid had not been squeezed off to run down and drip where it please.The real boon was the jeweled amulet, crafted masterully and imbued with magicks that made the cypher's mind light aglow with connections to the vast territories and vassals of the former Famine. All were now belonged to it, and satisfaction drew a twisted and wicked smile caused by the unholy revelation and knowledge. A cackle erupted from the Tusken girl's young body, as it celebrated and reveled in its own glory, the eyes glimmering with a mad arrogance easily recognizable by any who had stared too deeply into the eyes of Dragus himself. Should the twisted terrasaur look within it would almost be like looking in a mirror, almost.Streaks of black residue ran down the brown skin of the Tusken body, black eyes looking over the feast set before herself and the two Ewoks at her side in their own, but smaller, thrones. Despite the VERY recent victory, the possessed child's mood had slowly began to sour over the past several hours as a growing feeling of discontent came forth from the wellspring that was the never-ending hunger for knowledge the cypher had been created with to help its host Kr'Naan learn languages she encountered. As bloodwine was poured into a goblet held aloft before her, the cypher lashed out in a fit of rage, knocking it to the floor with a yell. There was silence as the goblet clattered to the floor, spilling the drink onto the floor."Lick that up!" Commanded the cypher in Basic, compelling Dragus to obey. The cypher scratched the worsening track marks spreading out from the crystal on it's neck. The cypher rummaged through a display that had been brought to it from the ship's databases, combing through any and all records it could get its hands on, caused by the need to consume anything it could get. Nothing would satisfy this growing need, however. Drool began to ooze from the mouth of the bedeviled uli-ah at the continuous smells. It was beginning to get hard to think straight at the wide variety of senses it had recently acquired. It was difficult to resist, but it had to until it found what it wanted. The Tusken terror grabbed the black melon from the roasted ranat and tossed it at Dragus, still on hand and foot lapping up the spilt bloodwine, bouncing the cooked gourd off of his head with prefect aim."I want to start my reign properly. No half measures. Find me a world to bend to my will. After that..." An insidious grin grew once more upon the Tusken face. "...Dance for my entertainment." With its mood partially repaired, the cypher leapt from the throne and amongst the array of food and began gorging itself with near-uncontrolled ferocity and intermittent snickering.
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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: 975
Affiliation: Sith Eternal
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Post by Dragus on Apr 14, 2023 19:34:14 GMT -8
One might have the thought the greatest alchemist of the modern age would be outraged at the humiliations he suffered at the hands of this one small child, that only days earlier he had utter dominance over, who now had complete control over him. Sorry to say you'd be sadly mistaken. The serpentine lord who venerated vice and indulged in indecency had played these sort of games before. You didn't think all those trips to the Sith Academy on Ryloth, Dragwarts, was just because he took his role as headmaster seriously. It was mostly for the spice dens and the drug induced orgies. Slurping up what was in fact an incredibly fine vintage of his own devising, he savoured the sour notes of dark fruit and a bitter aftertaste. Its slightly toxic nature numbed his tongue, making the forked appendage flop around on either side of his snout as he stood.
Where to attack indeed? If this being that had possessed his slave child had access to her memories, it would be familiar with the warship's operations, especially in combat situations. This was different though. Those times he was able to step in when Wart failed, correct her mistake before making certain it was never repeated. He now lacked the ability to bend her to his will. It needed to be an easy target, something one couldn't easily fail. There were other things to consider. The Covenant of Blood was no ordinary ship, it didn't always operate as its crew expected of it. Sometimes it seemed to have a mind of its own, and a thirst for carnage and bloodshed to match that of the true Famine Lord.
"Allow me to ssseek the portentz for direction." He rasped with a bow, crossing one clawed appendage across his chest. His rakatan eye blazed with an eerie purple light that occasionally pulsed a sinister crimson. With it he saw the spectral reptile that was bound to his puny paige. Alien hieroglyphics flashed by his vision, indecpherable...at first, he'd already picked apart most of their crude language. To think, the xeno filth thought themselves the superior race, but he found their tongue rudimentary and their culture a bland flavourless thing. With his flesh and blood saurian orb he saw her body temperature appeared to have lessened a degree, wilting like a desert rose in the cold winter wind. With his other heightened barabel hunting senses he listened to her heart beat, though quickening at times, it typically maintained the same rhythm to which he was used. It was still her, just not in the drivers seat. Still her body though, with its rules and limitations.
Snapping his finger talons, the twisted terrorsaur summoned one of the new voreclaw from a darkened crevice in the bulkhead. Since coming aboard the insectoid crustaceans had nested in the hull, laying eggs and spawning more crab like monsters with glistening black carapace plates of chitin and razor sharp pincers that could shred through durasteel. Its glowing red eyes caste a sinister haze across its clacking mandibles and fangs. It hissed acid on the deck that stripped away the filthy rotten layer of organic waste all the way down to the metallic deck plate underneath. With a thought, Dragus willed the drone like creature into a nearby room and had it return with a thick Sith iron cauldron covered in dark characters of gamorrean tribal hoof script. Once the stewing pot had been placed, the saurian Sith offered the voreclaw a nod of gratitude, then extended his claw and focused his rage into crushing the creature in his telekinetic grasp. The crab alien's eye stalks bulged and its hard shell began to crack. It let out a terrible hiss as its body was squeezed like a fresh fruit. Twisting his claw, he levitated the expiring crab over the cauldron just as its juices began to spill out, catching them in the pot until it nearly reached the top. He then clenched his claw into a fist, grinding the creatures remains into shards that he let spill from his mental grasp into the cauldron.
Cackling like a bad impersonation of the late great Emperor Palpatine, the chimeric conjurer unleashed a crackling burst of lighting at the base of the pot, setting ablaze a collection of tinder set beneath it. As the pot began to boil, Dragus reached into his trusty satchel and retrieved several ingredients. He sprinkled mushroom caps, sweet saps, a mild poison or two, along with his favourite herbs and spices. As the waters boiled and the soup within swirled about, the mad alchemist sparkling sprinkled dust over the concoction and stirred it with a wicked looking ladle marked with the All-Seeing Eye.
"Yez, I can sssee it now." He nodded his snout over the boiling pot, his nostril snits flaring as he drew in the delicious vapors. He added a pinch of dark side infused spice for extra kicks and giggles. "Bakura will sssuit your needz. There destroyerz and sssmaller cruiserz will make good sssport of the Covenant'z gunz and should prove an adequate challenge to sssuitably sssate your lussst to experience everything all at once. Besidez, once you break through itz barrierz, it haz a ripe population. Much to sssee, to learn, to absssorb. That'z it, isssn't it? Your hungry, jussst like me. Siss Siss Siss!" He giggled in his reptilian manner.
Then, as instructed, he began to dance for her merriment. He was quite agile, spinning with a primal sort of grace, deadly as his claws and glinting tail spike whipped through the air. Fortunately most of the beings in the room were too short to be easily decapitated if he lost his balance. The bloodwine he had slurped off the floor was already getting to his head a bit, the spinning also didn't help.
Bakura, home to a medical centre that was famous for its organ replacement and prosthetics. He knew from personal experience back when he had a more humanoid form that they even had the ability to replicate a human with cybernetic augmented limbs. If anyplace in the galaxy might have an answer as to how to remove these implants, it was there. Of course he didn't share this information. If it proved fruitful, he would need it as an ace up his sleeve, a way to regain control.
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Kr'Naan'Kar
The Sith Eternal
Posts: 144
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Post by Kr'Naan'Kar on Apr 17, 2023 13:00:11 GMT -8
The cypher had continued stuffing itself with ravenous intensity, the brown-skinned hands of Kr'Naan covered up to its elbows in the juices of the feast as it went through devouring as much as the tiny body it controlled could carry. Flecks of meat peppered the outside of the scaled cloak. The cypher froze at the comparison between the two of them, eyes and nostrils flaring in rage. The body language of the tiny Tusken terror easily readable, Lil'Bacca and Lil'Mort adjusted in their own thrones uncomfortably under the guise of fluffing their cushions. The cypher stood atop the table holding the food, which it had been atop as well as it bene inhaling the feast, and walked across the table. Walking a straight path towards the dancing draconian, stepping on and through any of the food in her way. The dark eyes filled with fury that only grew stronger with each step. Stopping at the edge of the table the ireful entity snapped it fingers and pointed at the floor before her, compelling Dragus to sit like a well trained massiff."I am not like you. I am more than you. Better than you. Do not forget that, or I shall rip out your remaining eye and roast it wrapped in your tongue with it still inside your mouth!" Threatened the fledgling Famine in Basic before gesturing for Dragus to hold out his hands. The faux Famine stepped from the table and onto Dragus's outstretched hands, using the scaly palms to wipe off the gathered food and grime from the walk through the banquet before climbing onto the saurian Sith's back as if he were a beast of burden. Letting out an impressive belch before tapping the basilisk in bonds on the head with a grimy, still greasy hand, pointing with the other in the direction of the turbolift. "Now, take me to the bridge." As the subjugated saurian began to stand up walk however, the sinister cypher pulled on the collar of the man-skin robe worn by Dragus as if it were yanking on the reigns of a mount. It shook its head and clicked its tongue in disappointment. "On your hands and knees. As punishment." The petty personality that had possessed Kr'Naan held tightly to remain upright as Dragus adjusted his movement until it was able to sit fully on his back, gripping again the collar of his own pall of human pelt and letting her feet dangle off either side. The only thing that was missing was a proper saddle, as the hard keratin hide and muscular build did not make for the softest of seats. The cypher turned to the and let out a whistle, raising a hand as Lil'Mort took the fluffy rishii stuffed cushion from the throne and threw it to her. A self-satisfied smirk upon her face, the cypher stood upon Dragus's back and plopped the cushion down before mimicking the action with her own bottom, maybe a little harder than was necessary. It would likely not impact the domesticated draconid, as Kr'Naan did not even weigh eighty pounds, but it did show the disrespect and malice the cruel quiddity intended towards its creator.By the time they had reached the bridge after taking the long way, at the whim of the cypher of course, to prance Dragus like a show-horse (complete with teaching him to trot) in front of all who they passed. Even though by now word and witness had spread throughout the ship, there were none who did not know or had not seen the coronation of their new Master, it was still hard to believe given the sight of Dragus being ridden like a pony by a not fully clothed Tusken child, at least in comparison to the rest of her kind. Dismounting from Dragus and running a hand along his ribs as she walked to the front of him, the cypher held up a hand with her index finger held up."No biting." The touched Tusken warned as she took out a handful of some meat, leftovers from the banquet decks below, from an inner pocket to feed to Dragus like a zoo animal, scratching at the skin of its neck as Dragus literally ate from her hand. Fresh scabs had formed from the past few hours of continual scratching and irritation, disturbed and now slightly bleeding once more. Veins and capillaries spreading out from the jewel embedded in Kr'Naan's throat beginning to darken. Only visible if one looked close enough at her brown skin. Wiping her hands together to remove any remaining meat from them, Kr'Naan climbed atop the command chair, savoring the power of the moment with a sinister smile. "I have been told there is a planet that is fit to welcome my presence and fully usher in my ascent to power. Set our course for Bakura. Let us not keep them waiting and spare no kindness." Confused looks bounced around the crew at the preposterous orders. The cypher laughed and corrected itself to complete the joke. "Apologies. Let us spare no one." A few uncomfortable chuckles, obviously forced, but all were too afraid and confused at their new situation. They would follow orders but this Lord Famine was still untested and new and with their previous master still around, it almost seemed like a practical joke. Still, orders were orders, and even if this new "Famine" was some sort of elaborate test by Dragus it would not affect their abilities. It would have an effect on the scuttlebutt among some of the crew, but as long as Dragus was still around they would not dally. As their course was corrected and the Covenant of Blood tore its way back into the simu-tunnels using their newly acquired mutant purrgil, the cypher looked over its bridge crew before its dark gaze settled back upon Dragus sat squat on the floor like a dog."When I have conquered this world and many others after it, you may earn yourself some respite from my wrath. Until then, you shall not sleep; just as I never slept while trapped inside the mind of this child." The cypher paused as it rubbed Kr'Naan's throat, smearing some of the blood oozing from the open scratches across the brown skin. Some of the blood smeared on the crystal, tinting the slight glow of the light emitted by it in the places where it was smudged. "If you do not go mad and end your own life before then, I may give you more freedom. I am not without some mercy." The cypher looked from the viewports out into the simu-tunnel and down at Dragus. "But it shall not be easy. I have much time to make up for. And I intend to enjoy every moment of your humiliation." Continued here.
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