Trial of a Lorrd: Convergence
Posted on Tue Oct 11th, 2022 @ 9:10pm by Amare
Edited on on Tue Oct 11th, 2022 @ 9:24pm
4,757 words; about a 24 minute read
Chapter:
Additional Stories
Location: Institute of Aquatic Studies, Lorrd City, Lorrd
Timeline: Morning, Day 4, follows "ToaL: Avatar"
Tags: Trial of a Lorrd, Alefgard, Darth Archonus
TO: Lord Serus
FROM: Lady Amare
SUBJECT: Holographic message via astromech droid
“My Master...
“While I’m afforded some spare time to recover following the attempt on Bomoor’s and my life here on Bastion, I am discreetly forwarding a report to you via a protocol droid which will pass it to a gonk droid which will then slowly and awkwardly direct it to the care of a black and grey astromech droid. That droid will present the secured data chip to you upon playback of this message. The chip is biometrically encoded to self-destruct if it’s accessed by anyone but you or me. The droid will also carry a device with which you will be able to read the contents but will only do so in a secure place of privacy such as your guest quarters or on the Red Raptor if you prefer. It will also scan for listening devices in the room just to make sure before playing this message. This all comes as no innovation of mine, but rather a tradition among the paranoid intelligence officers who answer directly to the Grand Moff.
“The chip contains a transcript of knowledge I gained from contact with a Sith artifact while spending two days as a prisoner on Lorrd. At the cost of much sleep, I have compiled and reordered the ancient Sith’s insane ramblings from scattered pieces in my mind for quite some time since last I spoke to you and Bomoor about my journey on that world. After encountering the Sith’s spirit face-to-face on Korriban, I gained insight on how to rearrange the pieces in the correct order, but it was still a maddening challenge.
“The story of my trials there was never complete due to various reasons you are all too familiar with and bear no repeating. I have done the best I could to reconstruct the echoes of the Sith that have rumbled in my mind since leaving Lorrd. Because of your training, I have learned to use meditation to filter out the noise and feelings the dark side uses to cloud our vision through the Force and record only the raw truth into words.
“The chip also contains the remaining chapters of my trials on Lorrd in my own words. You will come to understand how I changed so much so quickly by the time I finally returned to you on the Yavin moon. You will also learn of my affiliation with the Bounty Hunter’s Guild and why the Rift Jedi are a threat which we cannot afford to ignore in the days to come. There are also a couple of lingering secrets regarding my own physical health as you will see. Nothing urgent, I assure you. Certainly nothing as dangerous as being shot out of the sky.
“One more thing, you are likely to share this with Bomoor. When you do, please forward to him that I swear the unsavory things said about him on the chip are not my words. He and I may have our differences, but Bomoor remains a friend in my eyes, and I owe him my life. Hatred may be one of the spices that enhances our dark powers, but I’d rather die than devolve into a bigoted lunatic. I hope you feel the same.
“Long may you reign as Lord of the Sith.”
(Holo-message ends)
(Encoded transcript begins)
Korriban is a grand old receptacle for the legacies of failure attributed to the Sith Lords. It is an expansive arid landscape baking under a vermillion atmosphere; colossal statues serving as silent caricatures of the megalomaniacal kings that ordered their construction; and tombs...scores of cavernous tombs, some simple with little adornment, some caved-in and forgotten, others labyrinthine and dotted with ingenious traps and vicious beasts to protect unique baubles and dangerous little secrets.
There is, however, no such tomb for me, for the one who lived as Darth Archonus. No holocrons, ancient scrolls, or even an inscription marking the place of my death. Mine was the worst fate of all: to be forgotten and erased from history for all time.
When the day of my assassination fell upon me thousands of years ago, my remains did not receive the rites or the honours of a proper resting place, but rather became a hearty meal for an adult terentetek belonging to a Dark Council member, or perhaps the Sith Emperor himself. I had it coming...oh yes. Most would say that for a man willing to sacrifice his own kin in the pursuit of power and prestige is deserving of neither. A Sith Lord of my calibre, however, pushes aside all sentiments and attachments to go the distance in his pursuits because sentient life cannot advance without considerable sacrifices. There are no amount propitiations that I can offer to atone for what I have done, nor do I care. A true Sith sees past all the minutiae to look upon and plan for the bigger picture. Most of our kind obsesses with defeating their rivals, reaching the top of the social and military orders, and controlling the galaxy through brutal conquest, but these material interests are trifling and beneath me. Such pursuits mark the greatest failure of all Sith.
Knowing myself to be the pariah that I was in the eyes of my rivals, I tossed aside the petty notions of a private tomb and instead poured my sweat and resources into the secret construction of a forge. It was designed not to craft an object that would wither and crumble over time, but to take a worthy living soul and rebirth them into the form of an unstoppable god. A god of what, you may ask. Why, the Force itself, of course. All the crude matter in this galaxy pales in comparison to the energy of the Force. It is a prize without peer. To be the supreme master of all its power is to master existence itself. It is power eternal to make kings and emperors bow down to you. Nothing is greater. Why rule a galaxy with a limited lifespan if you can live forever and command an entire universe...or perhaps create a new one? The possibilities exceed the imagination of us mere mortals. Perhaps what I seek is folly, hubris, the impossible pursuit of a foolish madman whose soul is trapped in a dusty and forgotten hole in the earth. I think it is madness not to try.
Dead, though I may be, my experiments manipulating the power of the Force within my own flesh prior to my murder have afforded me tormented consciousness in spiritual form, locking all of my thoughts and remaining energy in my secret lair on Korriban. Were I to leave this place, my consciousness would be swept up into the heart of the Force and the one called Archonus would be lost forever like all expired mortals. To safely extend my influence beyond my lair, I anticipated my demise and worked diligently to enhance my personal focusing gauntlet with a crystal phylactery that anchors within it a portion of my essence, a piece of my very soul. Doing so created a kind of psychic tether linking me to the phylactery unrestricted by relative distance or time. Unfortunately, the process permanently weakened my abilities in life making me an easier target by my enemies, but in death, my near-destructible relic has given me a window into the outside world for thousands of years. To my regret, however, much of that time was spent seeing my relic locked away in private collections gathering dust, or sitting on the shelves of antique shops to be sold to unworthy rabble for the most insultingly low prices.
Nevertheless, my patience has finally borne fruit, and through the relic’s power and my influence, I have recently acquired a worthy new minion into my service. Doctor Alefgard, from a planet with the interesting name of Lorrd, came into possession of my persuasive little relic, and I came into possession of his mind and body. Though his intellect is remarkably keen, his curiosity lacked the tempering of wisdom, and thus gave in to the compelling desire to don my former trinket of power and became my supplicant.
I have quietly used many such individuals over the millennia to accomplish my singular goal of locating and capturing a candidate worthy of being reborn on my forge. In all of this time, I have encountered nothing but failure and disappointment. Still, my little treasures proved quite resilient and desirable to many collectors throughout the ages trading hands between those from all walks of life and all corners of the galaxy. Many have swindled and backstabbed one another for the gauntlet, all of which having no idea its true purpose. Such sweet barbaric iniquities. The violence I witnessed from afar provided much needed entertainment, fleeting though such delicious moments were.
My relic has come into contact with so many different aliens, and for each that I sensed through the Force, more and more I came to the conclusion that there was no race greater or more worthy of absolute power than the true pureblooded Sith species. Alas, with the extinction of my people, I believe that the next most worthy are the Humans for all of their versatility, admirable resolve, and incredible potential in using the Force for those fortunate few with the ability to do so.
It seems that after months of endeavours, Doctor Alefgard has somehow managed to capture a female alien this time...a Nautolan of all creatures at that. I have had dealings with the males of their kind a few times in life. Culturally, there is nothing terribly remarkable about them. Biologically, however, there are considerable possibilities I have seldom considered until now. A much more preferrable aquatic species than the Quarren or the Mon Calamari. Strange, I have never before encountered one of their females. Not quite as physically impressive as their males, but...this one...the Force is indeed strong in her...considerably so. I sense something else...a witch’s mark? Several centuries ago, my relic was in the possession of an exiled Witch of Dathomir, and she bore a similar mark along with a strange perversion of the Force flowing in her body...something called ‘spirit ichor’. I was unable to control her, however, and she did not keep the relic for long. This may be my opportunity to learn more. Perhaps I can—
Wait...what is this...? Alefgard is acting of his own volition. How is that possible? The man is resisting me! He is...wait...I still have control, but now I feel something new. He has equipped the girl with my artifact. Fascinating...I can sense her powers with far greater clarity now. So much untapped potential! Yessss...resist me, little one. Scream. Beg for mercy. The walls are soundproofed; none shall come to save you. Good. I like this one. Her mental fortitude is stern and amusingly stubborn. Almost like...a Jedi. Give her rest and nourishment, Alefgard. We will resume this later...
From Amare:
During the time I was at his mercy, Darth Archonus learned that I had the spiritual mark of a Nightsister of Dathomir. My mother, Zenarrah, secretly betrayed the Reborn Jedi and became one of the Sisters after she was captured while trying to save a fellow Jedi being held hostage. When I was born, someone triggered a dark ritual that caused the deaths of my two brood brothers, but I survived and I absorbed energies that grew me from tadpole to infancy faster than normal. I was barely a toddler when mother and the Nightsisters baptized me in their spirit ichor, and it bonded to me. Later, I was given to be raised by the Wolph family on Glee Anselm so that mother could return to the Jedi Temple as a double agent for the Nightsisters. She was able to hide her duplicity, but her personal vendetta with Grand Master Quellus prompted her to resign in protest and disgust.
At first, I thought the ichor may be the very reason why I was blessed with the power to feel and use the Force in the first place, but Archonus learned I was born with Force sensitivity, and they marked me with the rites of a Dathomiri Witch for a different reason, one he was unable to uncover, but suspected my mother knew what it was. It is a secret she has yet to share with me.
I first noticed the presence of the ichor in my body when we first arrived on Korriban. Upon stepping off the Red Raptor, the dusty air sent me into a coughing fit and puffs of the ichor escaped my lips in what I think was a reaction to the dark side’s influence there. After Archonus' forge, the ichor was replaced by the azoth. My being linked to the Nightsisters was the most recent and final secret I discovered through my meditations sorting through Archonus’ words to me...
(Archonus’ words resume)
...Two days have passed since initial contact with the Nautolan female, this Zaracoda Wolph. The probing continues apace, and her mind is now an open tome. The trouble with reading her is the same with all sentient females regardless of species: an overabundance of emotions. For this woman, however, those emotions are intimately tied to murder. She was a mother for a very brief time, and so much of her is tied to a very specific night in which she sacrificed her only child. It was a remarkably impressive act of spite. To kill one’s own flesh and blood as an act of defiance shatters one’s chains almost as effectively as the power of the Force itself. She was worthy of Sith training long before her journey to the dark side began.
I have once theorized that females have greater potential for dark side power due to their deeper connections to emotions, both in themselves and in others. One must have tremendous passion to succeed and become stronger as a Sith, and in this we have seen tremendous power from the feminine side of the Sith Order. But males always rise above because we keep our feelings deep within our breasts, burning like steel in a furnace, and we wear those feelings like armor, reinforce them with our aggression and ambitions, and we unleash them like cannons on the fields of battle. Nevertheless, I have seen the frailest and most lithe of Sith women destroy the mightiest of our men with a mere gesture. Those same women even annihilated entire squads of elite Republic commandos with just one stroke of lightning from their dainty little fingertips. Never underestimate the ways of the Force, for it balances the game of war in ways even the wisest of our kind least expects.
There is another name I hear echoing somewhere faintly in this Nautolan’s skull...’Amare’? The name...how did she hear of that name? Is she somehow linked to me, able to hear my own thoughts? Hmm...her powers are insidious...the kind we used to see emerge from the slave pens in the old Sith Empire and rise into the ranks of the Emperor’s Inquisition. She has been exposed to Sith teachings already...by a powerful Human named Thane.
There is another...an equally gifted disciple called Bomoor. What a shame. Why would a man of considerable power in the Force with knowledge of Sith secrets travel with such pathetic cattle as an Ithorian? Ahhh, I see. They were once both Jedi. Of course. One must start as a fool in life before he awakens to his true purpose after all. If this Thane is worth his measure, he will dispose of that loathsome cow sooner rather than later. Ithorians cannot be trusted, especially those schooled in the ways of the Jedi. My own master was triple-crossed by one of their more clever ilk, and it cost my master dearly. Of course, I was the puppeteer behind the complex betrayal, but a lesson learned nonetheless!
Oh, now this is good, very good. Zaracoda continues to provide more tiresome snippets of mental trauma. She was tricked by a pirate into shooting her own father. When it was over, she replaced her shock and guilt with...gladness...great gladness. She enjoyed the kill. Years of doting love and care and wise corrections of her behavior, a male who owned up to the responsibilities of a father...and yet she was glad he was dead, and she did not know why. There is so much more, but I have seen enough for now.
It pleases me that her hatred and pain and recent experiences has made her capable of Sith bio-electric evocation. That shall prove most useful for the task at hand.
Zaracoda, it is time. Obey me. Heed my words, and I shall break your chains. Recall your feelings when Thane forsook you to your fate in the desert. Channel all of those feelings you had when he left you behind for the stars. Yes...your anger is ripe. You feel betrayed. Let those feelings flow into your hands. Yes, just like that. Now, carefully unleash your power into those electronic restraints. Commence...
No! Do you have a death wish?! I said CAREFULLY! Short sparks, minimal voltage. Proceed.
You are not a warrior like your master. I see the makings of both an assassin and a sorceress with you, Zaracoda. Traditionally, the more Force-aligned Sith of my time would specialize in one path or the other as I did (much to my detriment), but I have learned that the Force has changed since then. I feel a new age is at hand. The Force is becoming again what it once was, long before I was born, when the Sith were young and the power to destroy entire stars was within reach! Even the strongest of Sith in my time were like idiot children playing with toys compared to the old masters. With practice and time, you can reclaim the glory of the ancients by learning to balance both Sith sorcery with the shadowy flights of a trained silent killer. Your master will come to rely on your ability to adapt and be versatile under all circumstances and environments. This is vital for a Sith Order consisting of only two. Short of your master’s presence, you must always be the most powerful person in the room. Even if twenty soldiers with blasters surrounded you with no cover or means of escape, the ability to end them as quickly and efficiently as possible must always at your disposal. Failure is never an option!
The role of an assassin requires one to be swift and silent as a razor cutting an unseen swath in the darkness, but not always with weapons or your powers. Deal with your enemies quietly with lies, tricks, and quick decisive strikes. If you are on deadly ground and must fight, do not fall into the trap of any of that fancy Jedi prolonged combat nonsense. Know the forms of the lightsaber, master them, but never be enslaved to them. Intelligence and wisdom will always trump brute strength and bravado, but only if you hone your mind and your powers to a sharp edge. Even a god in the making must always train and prepare. There is no substitute! Subtle manipulations and carefully planned machinations were more effective in the days of the Old Republic than the most terrible of Force lightning storms. Lord Kallig and Darth Baras understood that, as did my other closest allies...and now they are all dust in Korriban’s winds, forgotten...like me. Do not let their fates be your own.
Ah, do you see what obedience to my will brings? Your first reward is freedom from that table. Now go to the computer console. There is data you need to access before making your escape...stop! Alefgard approaches. He is again resisting my control. Ignore his shouting. Focus on me. He is afraid your being free will displease me. He has no idea that his usefulness is coming to an end, and that yours is just beginning. Proceed to the console.
He is growing aggressive and is going to sedate you again. I will assist you now. In this instance, we cannot allow you to operate on an emotional level. He may be a middle-aged academic, but he was his class amateur boxing champion at university. Fortunately, you temporarily now have my knowledge of the fighting art of Teräs Käsi and the Force itself to overcome his middling fisticuffs.
Follow my instructions to the letter. First, distract him by throwing the scanner from the table next to you at him. Good. Next, slap aside his blind jab. Counter with left cross punch to right cheek. Now discombobulate by striking both sides of his head at the same time at the ears. He is now dazed and enraged. Duck low beneath wild haymaker. Rise up with uppercut to his crotch. He is doubled over now. Grab back of head and viciously shove his face down to rendezvous with your raised right knee. He is incapacitated. Return to the console.
There is a package of blank optolythic data cards next to the terminal. Break the seal, take one card, insert into slot, and copy all of the doctor’s research. I recognize the images of the microbe he is studying as being that of my handiwork. A clever little piece of potential genocide spawned by the miracles of Sith alchemy. It never amounted to anything thanks to the bureaucratic imbeciles on Dromund Kaas withdrawing my funding for its further development.
Traces of the inert phage on my gauntlet somehow became reactivated as it came into contact with...interesting. I have come across this name before through my past minions: the Yuuzhan Vong. It appears they had a considerable presence here on Lorrd during their invasion of the galaxy. Traces of their bioweapons remain uncleansed from this world, even after a thousand years. It seems Alefgard was tinkering with Vong microbes in his lab and succeeded in introducing them to my phage. He created a kind of synthesis between microbes from entirely different galaxies purely out of curiosity, inadvertently creating a biological weapon of mass destruction capable of both air and droplet transmission, but then the fool somehow caused the sample to escape his lab into the suburban water supply near Lorrd City. Most of the contaminated water has been sealed off and purged by the authorities, but some of the sample remains at-large and it is multiplying.
In all the great wars we Sith waged with the Republic over the ages, never had we taken so many lives and wreaked so much havoc as the Vong did. There is war and conquest, and then there is sheer wasteful barbarism. I do not mind killing if there is something to be gained from the many sacrifices involved; if the cost of war is exceeded by the spoils and the terms of surrender. But those Vong...they were locusts, vermin reaping the harvest by the trillions of lives. So many lives that could have been enslaved and put to good use, and resources that could have ensured a prolonged and lasting dominion over the galaxy. In truth, were I alive, I would have joined forces with the Jedi to exterminate those invaders. With my intellect, I would have found reliable methods to overcome their resistance to the Force, and I would have enjoyed butchering every last Vong that I could and used their blood to weave the darkest of rituals to destroy more of their kind.
If you can hold on to any of my words in that wistful salt-water addled brain of yours, Zaracoda, always remember that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. That said, once your common foe is vanquished, shake your friend’s hand in celebration, and then quickly proceed to stab him in the gut for he is once more your enemy. This applies to the Jedi, the Republic, and above all, the Sith.
Given that your modern Sith Order is restricted to only two, at least now betrayal is desired by your master as a matter of course. That much at least removes a great deal of the paranoia from the era when the Sith were great in number. I deeply appreciate the honor and merit of an apprentice destroying their master in mortal combat to become Lord of the Sith. Perhaps there is indeed great value to this Darth Bane and his Rule of Two legacy, though I would suspect many of the other wailing souls trapped in the barrows under the sands of Korriban would disagree.
Now that we have the good doctor’s data, pocket the data card and guard it with your life. The card is solid state, has military-grade magnetic shielding, and is impossible to be tampered with; it can only be destroyed. I command you to not reveal this card or its data to anyone until the time is right, most especially your Sith Master. It is to be your future weapon, and no one else’s. Someday, you may grow powerful enough to resist my directive, and so if you offer the data to this Thane of yours as some foolish show of loyalty, you will be handing over the secret of one of the deadliest plagues ever conceived. Do so at your own peril, but for now, you will do no such thing.
I will now use your hands to enter Alefgard’s passcode...like that. Now, put your criminal knowledge to use and slice into root access, delete the security archives, purge the doctor’s entire research database, bleach the storage drives, and then disable the computer coolers. With that done, have the CPU perform a multiplicative processing loop. Set the number of times to infinite. That should meltdown the machines here and burn this lab—
Stand ready! The doctor is attacking. You fool! You were not strong enough to knock him out completely. Get up! He is on you! We have no time for this. Fight him! We must get you to Korriban before we—
Ngghh! Something is wrong. I cannot sense your essence...I’ve lost our Force binding! No!!!
(Archonus’ words end here)
Amare:
Let it be said that I hide no secrets from my master. Archonus wanted me to embark on a mad quest for godhood, but though I went through his forge on Korriban, and even hibernated in the chrysalis before coming to Bastion, I believe he was gravely mistaken to think the azoth was a path to ultimate power. I can tell you more about it later in person when things on Bastion stabilize, or when we leave this place. It’s nothing so dramatic as ‘commanding a universe’, enticing though that may be. You and I both know that I would make for a fine and most beautiful goddess using my power to ensure the eternal reign of the Sith, and when I got bored, I think it would be fun to twirl the universe on my fingertips like a gyroscope. Maybe it does that on its own already. If I ever so happen to achieve ultimate power, and you’re still alive, I’ll be sure to let you know in a future report. Maybe instead of droids and a chip, I’ll send it to you in a magic scroll written in ancient Sith delivered by flying sea demons with teeth sharp as swords and as long as you are tall.
Bad little jests aside, I find it most incredible that Archonus wanted me to conceal knowledge of a potent tool of mass-genocide from you. I have chosen to reveal to you the truth of the phage’s existence and will share what became of it further below. I now continue the story on my own in the next section (in third-person as I do not consider myself to be Coda anymore). Please forgive the upcoming crudities of my narrative due to most of this being written in a rush in between training and our recent dire adventures. If there is a secret Force power that improves creative writing aptitude, I would be very interested to learn it...
TBC
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