Post by Karl the Unfettered on Feb 15, 2009 16:58:47 GMT -5
((Couple of random Sith Lords, characters of mine from a board I used to RP at; one insulted the other, and now they fight to the death. Comments welcome!))
---------------------------
Duel of Fate
A Star Wars Story
---------------------------
The temple loomed high above him, dominating the surrounding jungle like a rancor dominates among rontos. Imperious and intimidating, the sheer black rock of the edifice did not reflect light, but seemed to gather it in, sucking the very heat of the air into its depths.
The tall man who stood at the base of the steps was not impressed; he had seen many such sights and marvels in his lifetime.
Slowly, unhurriedly, he began climbing, taking the stone stair one step at a time, his gray eye fixed unblinking upon the great maw that was the only way into the interior of the temple. Twenty-seven steps did his boots thud softly down upon before he reached the top; in the same unhurried, patient step, he kept on walking, through the doorway and into the temple.
Inside, it was not dark; arcane torches flared to life as he passed by, and flickered out again when he went beyond their reach. A lesser man would have been rendered hopelessly lost in the intermittent darkness and confusion produced by this effect, but this man was not easily fooled; even as he made his way deeper into the ruin, his left eye was recording and analyzing each step, to be called upon when his deeds were done to get him out. He doubted he would need the help, but it never hurt to have a map ready, after all.
The halls of the temple were wide, ornate, high; clearly it had been well-used long ago. No longer, though; dust covered everything, and every now and again a fallen statue or a collapsed doorway gave testament to the neglect and disuse that now marked the temple’s existence.
It was not, however, without its inhabitants. For the temple, through whatever passed for the consciousness of worked stone, remembered its creators and former occupants. It did not comprehend that they were long dead, even extinct; it only knew that those who had come in the long years were not of the master race, and thus needed to be extinguished, smashed. To this end, some of the statues were not merely statues…
As the man walked by an alcove, occupied like many others with a carven stone warrior leaning on a massive stone sword, the torches extinguished themselves entirely; simultaneously, a loud grating of stone joints was heard, followed very shortly by heavy footsteps. The statues, for there were two, one to each alcove on either side of the corridor, had come to life to protect their realm.
The man did not hesitate, or even break stride; for the brief space of a second, the corridor was lit up by a red-purple glow, and a loud snap-hiss was clearly heard. Just as suddenly as it came, it left; two simultaneous heavy thuds, of stone falling to stone, were heard; the man walked on, unperturbed, as if nothing had just happened. Behind him, the beaten statues picked up their heads and returned to their vigilant stances; the temple’s guardians had been bested. For now.
Onward the man walked, with the torches lighting his way, deeper into the temple. The stone walls had long since gone from carved to hewn; he was now inside the earth, no doubt walking beneath the weight of the range of weather-beaten mountains he’d seen from the air hours before. The mountains were old, worn down, little more then hills; in another few millennia they would be utterly flattened, consumed by the vicious jungles that covered the planet. If the jungles themselves weren’t by then worn down into vast, pathless, pointless deserts and endless seas of sand, that is.
At last, the man reached a different room, a very different room. It was circular, well-lit, with bright fires burning in pits around the rim. In the middle was a dais, with a great sarcophagus resting upon it. Before the sarcophagus was the most profound difference in this room; another man.
He had a patient air about him, and stood like one who has not moved for a long time. His back was to the first man, but as his steps rang out in the vast chamber, he turned.
“I did not expect you to come, Brewster,” he called out, mockingly.
“I did not expect you to even show up, Kaern,” the first replied in a similar tone.
They looked at each other across the chamber, sizing each other up. Brewster was tall, old, powerful, with dark gray hair kept in a tight braid down his back. His weather-beaten skin did not bear many signs of the Dark, though there were many scars; one in particular went down his face, through his left eye; there was a glittering prosthetic replacement there. His other eye, a placid gray like the overcast skies of Telos, gazed calmly back at his opponent.
Kaern was not so composed anymore; he was breathing heavily in anticipation of what was to come, his pale face flushed. His eyes, formerly a deep, alluring green, had gone yellow and sickly; faint yellow puss dribbled from the corners in flat, lethargic drops. His hair was black, limp, with a distinct greasy sheen; it drooped down his back, unbound and flaccid.
Both men were dressed in black robes, though Brewster’s were fine, well cut and expensive; he was clearly a wealthy man, and did not hesitate to flaunt it. It did not conceal the fact that he was powerfully built, though still lean and tough; the sword at his side, a long and vile affair, had tiny emeralds glittering in the pommel and hilt, which were themselves made of silver, though something about it made it clear it was not ordinary silver.
By contrast, Kaern was unkempt, his robes ragged and torn, stained with blood and who-knew-what. He was thin and appeared ill; the rags of his robes hung loosely from his chest and shoulders, and the belt at his waist was pulled to its last notch. It wasn’t even a man’s belt, but that of a boy, so thin was he. Thin or not, sickly or not, this was clearly not a man to trifle with; he radiated malevolent power, and his lips were drawn back in a crazy grin, revealing yellowed teeth.
Both men were Sith Lords, powerful in the Empire and strong in the Force. One of them, however, had given deadly insult to the other, and there was no choice but to fight to the death, or face dishonor and exile, a shameful ending at an assassin’s blade and a quiet reshuffling of Imperial power. Neither of them wanted that, of course, so they had to fight.
The other Lords, prudent and uninvolved, had made them one request; to please take their squabble far away, so that it would not disrupt the working of the Empire. It was bad enough having to loose one Lord and have the other unavailable for a time, the least they could do was figure out their differences in isolation. It was a reasonable request, and both combatants acceded.
None of that mattered now, though. All that mattered was that deadly insult had been given, and must be repaid in kind. “You were a fool, Kaern,” Brewster said quietly, “to say such things in front of the whole Council.”
Kaern laughed madly. “No! You are the fool!” he screamed, pointing a yellowed and distended fingernail at his nemesis. “You do not embrace the Darkness like the rest of us! You muddle about with that pretty little apprentice of yours, with love and all that rot! You do not even embrace war like the rest of us! You, whose sector is mighty and whose background is war and strife!” He cackled again and screamed the insult to the ceiling of the chamber, making dust fall to the ground; Brewster’s eye twitched, and his hand tightened on the leather grip of his blade.
“Enough,” he said, taking a single step forward. “This ends… now!”
In a flash, that vile blade was freed from its scabbard; its green-black surface swirled in the firelight, though it did not reflect the light; the swirling shadows were within the metal itself. This blade was truly a wicked weapon, full of strong emotions like anger, rage, lust, bound to the cold metal by foul and unholy means. It was here that Brewster channeled his inner darkness to keep his mind clear and his spirit pure, whereas the other Lords indulged it and allowed it to consume them, as Kaern was so obvious an example.
Kaern shrieked with glee and flew forward as well, his acid-yellow lightsaber activating and slashing down. Like Brewster’s sword, it was a fell weapon, meant for nothing but slaughter and bloodlust.
With a resounding clash! the fighters met, pressing blade against blade, but just as quickly falling away, only to spin about and meet again with another crash of energy. Brewster’s sword was enveloped in a writhing black sheath of power, the same coloration as the grim shadows locked within; the energy seemed to encase his arm as well, up to the elbow; it was this energy that caused the violent clashes.
Kaern was not surprised at how his weapon did not affect Brewster’s sword; Brewster was well know for his skill at swordsmithing, and was rumored to be in possession of a few last secrets of Sith Alchemy. But there was one fact known to any fighter worth his salt, one that was extremely hard to overcome; lightsabers, by their very nature, were much lighter then swords. They were pure light, after all, focused and refracted through special crystals to create the deadly thin rod that was the cause and target of so much envy and strife amongst the Force-using cults of the galaxy. Though difficult to master, the lightsaber was literally weightless, thus very easy to swing about and wield, though it took years to achieve enough proficiency not to be a greater danger to oneself rather than others.
Kaern, despite his wasted appearance, was an accomplished fighter, and he swung his yellow blade with ferocity and vigor. “You’re old and slow, Brewster!” he crowed over the repeated impacts of their weapons. “You can’t keep up with me!”
Brewster did not reply, not even to correct Kaern’s lie. For although Brewster was well known for his iron constitution, that phrase did not adequately address the sheer stamina and toughness he possessed; he had outfought rancors, Krayt dragons, even a Terentatek; Kaern’s threats were baseless, therefore unworthy of response. Brewster merely fought on, swinging his blade with all his might; one advantage Kaern had over him was a closer, more ready connection to the Darkness, which he used to enhance his speed and agility. Brewster thus fought defensively for a time, lashing out with powerful overhand slashes or forward thrusts. Kaern evaded most of them, each time countering with an attack of his own, and Brewster was always ready with a parry or block.
Eventually, however, Brewster’s greater might wore Kaern down, and the ruse worked; Kaern found his stomach pierced and screaming in pain; the dark sheath was writhing inside him, worming around and sapping his power. Nevertheless he laughed merrily as he jumped back, pushing the sword and its fell effects off him. “You cannot withstand me, Brewster!” he screamed, gathering the Force and sending a wave of dark lightning at his adversary.
In response, Brewster whipped out his own lightsaber and activated the long red-purple blade, catching and absorbing the electrical energy; it was sucked down to the hilt, where a dark crystal below the blade began glowing as the lightning was absorbed. Neither man moved until Kaern realized his attack wasn’t working properly, but by then the crystal on Brewster’s lightsaber was glowing brightly; he deactivated the blade and brandished the hilt; Kaern’s own power was flung back at him, two-fold!
Kaern could not block, and he was caught on the full blast of the attack and sent flying backward, slamming into the wall of the chamber and slumping to the ground head-first. “Uhhnn…” he muttered, trying to scramble to his feet; Brewster leaped forward, though, and hauled his nemesis up, thrusting the edge of his sword to his neck. “Any last words, Kaern?” he asked in a final sort of voice.
Kaern knew he was defeated; Brewster’s greater skill, experience, and sheer physical might had overcome. Even if he had beaten the older man, Kaern knew with the clarity that comes before death that the fell energy in his gut would have taken him anyway. It was almost a mercy on Brewster’s part to end his rival’s life quickly, and they both knew it.
Nevertheless, Kaern spat in Brewster’s face. “Fool!” he tried to scream; but it came out more as a strangled gargle; Brewster frowned, wiped the bloody spittle from his face, and drove the edge of his blade home, cutting clean through Kaern’s neck and severing his spinal cord; and just like that, Kaern was dead.
Brewster stepped back, regarding the corpse before him for a second. Then, with a shrug, he flicked the blood from his blade; the dark energy had receded back to its holding place. He sheathed it again, and turned to examine the sarcophagus on the plinth in the middle of the vast chamber. “Oh?” he said in surprise when he saw inside. “This place hasn’t been looted yet?” He marveled at the rarity of an untouched temple such as this, then laughed and proceeded to mar it by removing the fine armor and weaponry from the corpse. It was all masterfully made stuff, beyond even his own ken; he would have to examine it thoroughly when he returned to his fortress on Stenness.
He would also have to mark this planet; he had no doubt there were other internment chambers within the temple like this one, and he wanted to ensure he would be the only one to retrieve them. “This was unexpectedly profitable,” he said to himself as he walked out of the arena, and on to the exit.
His apprentice would doubtless be quite glad to see him back…
---------------------------
Duel of Fate
A Star Wars Story
---------------------------
The temple loomed high above him, dominating the surrounding jungle like a rancor dominates among rontos. Imperious and intimidating, the sheer black rock of the edifice did not reflect light, but seemed to gather it in, sucking the very heat of the air into its depths.
The tall man who stood at the base of the steps was not impressed; he had seen many such sights and marvels in his lifetime.
Slowly, unhurriedly, he began climbing, taking the stone stair one step at a time, his gray eye fixed unblinking upon the great maw that was the only way into the interior of the temple. Twenty-seven steps did his boots thud softly down upon before he reached the top; in the same unhurried, patient step, he kept on walking, through the doorway and into the temple.
Inside, it was not dark; arcane torches flared to life as he passed by, and flickered out again when he went beyond their reach. A lesser man would have been rendered hopelessly lost in the intermittent darkness and confusion produced by this effect, but this man was not easily fooled; even as he made his way deeper into the ruin, his left eye was recording and analyzing each step, to be called upon when his deeds were done to get him out. He doubted he would need the help, but it never hurt to have a map ready, after all.
The halls of the temple were wide, ornate, high; clearly it had been well-used long ago. No longer, though; dust covered everything, and every now and again a fallen statue or a collapsed doorway gave testament to the neglect and disuse that now marked the temple’s existence.
It was not, however, without its inhabitants. For the temple, through whatever passed for the consciousness of worked stone, remembered its creators and former occupants. It did not comprehend that they were long dead, even extinct; it only knew that those who had come in the long years were not of the master race, and thus needed to be extinguished, smashed. To this end, some of the statues were not merely statues…
As the man walked by an alcove, occupied like many others with a carven stone warrior leaning on a massive stone sword, the torches extinguished themselves entirely; simultaneously, a loud grating of stone joints was heard, followed very shortly by heavy footsteps. The statues, for there were two, one to each alcove on either side of the corridor, had come to life to protect their realm.
The man did not hesitate, or even break stride; for the brief space of a second, the corridor was lit up by a red-purple glow, and a loud snap-hiss was clearly heard. Just as suddenly as it came, it left; two simultaneous heavy thuds, of stone falling to stone, were heard; the man walked on, unperturbed, as if nothing had just happened. Behind him, the beaten statues picked up their heads and returned to their vigilant stances; the temple’s guardians had been bested. For now.
Onward the man walked, with the torches lighting his way, deeper into the temple. The stone walls had long since gone from carved to hewn; he was now inside the earth, no doubt walking beneath the weight of the range of weather-beaten mountains he’d seen from the air hours before. The mountains were old, worn down, little more then hills; in another few millennia they would be utterly flattened, consumed by the vicious jungles that covered the planet. If the jungles themselves weren’t by then worn down into vast, pathless, pointless deserts and endless seas of sand, that is.
At last, the man reached a different room, a very different room. It was circular, well-lit, with bright fires burning in pits around the rim. In the middle was a dais, with a great sarcophagus resting upon it. Before the sarcophagus was the most profound difference in this room; another man.
He had a patient air about him, and stood like one who has not moved for a long time. His back was to the first man, but as his steps rang out in the vast chamber, he turned.
“I did not expect you to come, Brewster,” he called out, mockingly.
“I did not expect you to even show up, Kaern,” the first replied in a similar tone.
They looked at each other across the chamber, sizing each other up. Brewster was tall, old, powerful, with dark gray hair kept in a tight braid down his back. His weather-beaten skin did not bear many signs of the Dark, though there were many scars; one in particular went down his face, through his left eye; there was a glittering prosthetic replacement there. His other eye, a placid gray like the overcast skies of Telos, gazed calmly back at his opponent.
Kaern was not so composed anymore; he was breathing heavily in anticipation of what was to come, his pale face flushed. His eyes, formerly a deep, alluring green, had gone yellow and sickly; faint yellow puss dribbled from the corners in flat, lethargic drops. His hair was black, limp, with a distinct greasy sheen; it drooped down his back, unbound and flaccid.
Both men were dressed in black robes, though Brewster’s were fine, well cut and expensive; he was clearly a wealthy man, and did not hesitate to flaunt it. It did not conceal the fact that he was powerfully built, though still lean and tough; the sword at his side, a long and vile affair, had tiny emeralds glittering in the pommel and hilt, which were themselves made of silver, though something about it made it clear it was not ordinary silver.
By contrast, Kaern was unkempt, his robes ragged and torn, stained with blood and who-knew-what. He was thin and appeared ill; the rags of his robes hung loosely from his chest and shoulders, and the belt at his waist was pulled to its last notch. It wasn’t even a man’s belt, but that of a boy, so thin was he. Thin or not, sickly or not, this was clearly not a man to trifle with; he radiated malevolent power, and his lips were drawn back in a crazy grin, revealing yellowed teeth.
Both men were Sith Lords, powerful in the Empire and strong in the Force. One of them, however, had given deadly insult to the other, and there was no choice but to fight to the death, or face dishonor and exile, a shameful ending at an assassin’s blade and a quiet reshuffling of Imperial power. Neither of them wanted that, of course, so they had to fight.
The other Lords, prudent and uninvolved, had made them one request; to please take their squabble far away, so that it would not disrupt the working of the Empire. It was bad enough having to loose one Lord and have the other unavailable for a time, the least they could do was figure out their differences in isolation. It was a reasonable request, and both combatants acceded.
None of that mattered now, though. All that mattered was that deadly insult had been given, and must be repaid in kind. “You were a fool, Kaern,” Brewster said quietly, “to say such things in front of the whole Council.”
Kaern laughed madly. “No! You are the fool!” he screamed, pointing a yellowed and distended fingernail at his nemesis. “You do not embrace the Darkness like the rest of us! You muddle about with that pretty little apprentice of yours, with love and all that rot! You do not even embrace war like the rest of us! You, whose sector is mighty and whose background is war and strife!” He cackled again and screamed the insult to the ceiling of the chamber, making dust fall to the ground; Brewster’s eye twitched, and his hand tightened on the leather grip of his blade.
“Enough,” he said, taking a single step forward. “This ends… now!”
In a flash, that vile blade was freed from its scabbard; its green-black surface swirled in the firelight, though it did not reflect the light; the swirling shadows were within the metal itself. This blade was truly a wicked weapon, full of strong emotions like anger, rage, lust, bound to the cold metal by foul and unholy means. It was here that Brewster channeled his inner darkness to keep his mind clear and his spirit pure, whereas the other Lords indulged it and allowed it to consume them, as Kaern was so obvious an example.
Kaern shrieked with glee and flew forward as well, his acid-yellow lightsaber activating and slashing down. Like Brewster’s sword, it was a fell weapon, meant for nothing but slaughter and bloodlust.
With a resounding clash! the fighters met, pressing blade against blade, but just as quickly falling away, only to spin about and meet again with another crash of energy. Brewster’s sword was enveloped in a writhing black sheath of power, the same coloration as the grim shadows locked within; the energy seemed to encase his arm as well, up to the elbow; it was this energy that caused the violent clashes.
Kaern was not surprised at how his weapon did not affect Brewster’s sword; Brewster was well know for his skill at swordsmithing, and was rumored to be in possession of a few last secrets of Sith Alchemy. But there was one fact known to any fighter worth his salt, one that was extremely hard to overcome; lightsabers, by their very nature, were much lighter then swords. They were pure light, after all, focused and refracted through special crystals to create the deadly thin rod that was the cause and target of so much envy and strife amongst the Force-using cults of the galaxy. Though difficult to master, the lightsaber was literally weightless, thus very easy to swing about and wield, though it took years to achieve enough proficiency not to be a greater danger to oneself rather than others.
Kaern, despite his wasted appearance, was an accomplished fighter, and he swung his yellow blade with ferocity and vigor. “You’re old and slow, Brewster!” he crowed over the repeated impacts of their weapons. “You can’t keep up with me!”
Brewster did not reply, not even to correct Kaern’s lie. For although Brewster was well known for his iron constitution, that phrase did not adequately address the sheer stamina and toughness he possessed; he had outfought rancors, Krayt dragons, even a Terentatek; Kaern’s threats were baseless, therefore unworthy of response. Brewster merely fought on, swinging his blade with all his might; one advantage Kaern had over him was a closer, more ready connection to the Darkness, which he used to enhance his speed and agility. Brewster thus fought defensively for a time, lashing out with powerful overhand slashes or forward thrusts. Kaern evaded most of them, each time countering with an attack of his own, and Brewster was always ready with a parry or block.
Eventually, however, Brewster’s greater might wore Kaern down, and the ruse worked; Kaern found his stomach pierced and screaming in pain; the dark sheath was writhing inside him, worming around and sapping his power. Nevertheless he laughed merrily as he jumped back, pushing the sword and its fell effects off him. “You cannot withstand me, Brewster!” he screamed, gathering the Force and sending a wave of dark lightning at his adversary.
In response, Brewster whipped out his own lightsaber and activated the long red-purple blade, catching and absorbing the electrical energy; it was sucked down to the hilt, where a dark crystal below the blade began glowing as the lightning was absorbed. Neither man moved until Kaern realized his attack wasn’t working properly, but by then the crystal on Brewster’s lightsaber was glowing brightly; he deactivated the blade and brandished the hilt; Kaern’s own power was flung back at him, two-fold!
Kaern could not block, and he was caught on the full blast of the attack and sent flying backward, slamming into the wall of the chamber and slumping to the ground head-first. “Uhhnn…” he muttered, trying to scramble to his feet; Brewster leaped forward, though, and hauled his nemesis up, thrusting the edge of his sword to his neck. “Any last words, Kaern?” he asked in a final sort of voice.
Kaern knew he was defeated; Brewster’s greater skill, experience, and sheer physical might had overcome. Even if he had beaten the older man, Kaern knew with the clarity that comes before death that the fell energy in his gut would have taken him anyway. It was almost a mercy on Brewster’s part to end his rival’s life quickly, and they both knew it.
Nevertheless, Kaern spat in Brewster’s face. “Fool!” he tried to scream; but it came out more as a strangled gargle; Brewster frowned, wiped the bloody spittle from his face, and drove the edge of his blade home, cutting clean through Kaern’s neck and severing his spinal cord; and just like that, Kaern was dead.
Brewster stepped back, regarding the corpse before him for a second. Then, with a shrug, he flicked the blood from his blade; the dark energy had receded back to its holding place. He sheathed it again, and turned to examine the sarcophagus on the plinth in the middle of the vast chamber. “Oh?” he said in surprise when he saw inside. “This place hasn’t been looted yet?” He marveled at the rarity of an untouched temple such as this, then laughed and proceeded to mar it by removing the fine armor and weaponry from the corpse. It was all masterfully made stuff, beyond even his own ken; he would have to examine it thoroughly when he returned to his fortress on Stenness.
He would also have to mark this planet; he had no doubt there were other internment chambers within the temple like this one, and he wanted to ensure he would be the only one to retrieve them. “This was unexpectedly profitable,” he said to himself as he walked out of the arena, and on to the exit.
His apprentice would doubtless be quite glad to see him back…