Darkness Ascending

Posted on Tue Nov 4th, 2025 @ 3:26pm by Reave & Thane & Bomoor Thort & Mentis & G2-O7

3,122 words; about a 16 minute read

Chapter: Chapter VIII: Broken Chains
Location: Cloud City, Bespin
Timeline: Week Two (Around a week after Irrikut) - After "As Above, So Below"

OLD

Reave pulled a fresh cigarra from his belt, struck it on the edge of his rifle’s casing, and muttered another gravelly line of Jawaese around it - somewhere in between a curse and a prayer - before readying his weapon again and firing at a few choice foes not armed with lightsabers, their axes, swords and chunks of metal unable to deflect his assault.

Bomoor gestured upwards towards to the Jawa in acknowledgement and appreciation before turning to Mentis and indicating the way. As the pair ducked into the obscured path and disappeared from the Jawa's view, he saw his Rattataki companion grab his own commlink.

"Nice work, little partner," his voice came through with a little pride, "You keep hitting the glow-spots and we’ll get out of this yet."

The Jawa's lightshow had bought seconds, maybe minutes. But he’d made his point clear: time to move, before this entire level fell into the storm below.

NEW

The wind had shifted by the time Bomoor and Mentis reached the base of the Administrator's Palace they had spied before.

Dark clouds rolled in above the spires, the fading orange skies casting the upper tiers in a rusty brown hue. The structure loomed down at them; its upper balconies flickering with the molten glow of watching eyes. Figures moved in the haze: these corrupted cultist, these Molten Ones, their twisted silhouettes half-shrouded by gas and shadow, peered down with silent anticipation.

Reave was already there, crouched behind a fractured support strut, his wide-brimmed hat tilted low against the wind. He gave a short, sharp nod as Mentis and Bomoor approached, his blaster still warm from the last exchange.

Mentis slowed beside him, casting a wary glance upward: “They’re watching,” he muttered, voice low, “Waiting.”

Bomoor’s gaze lingered on the palace façade, the Force humming faintly with tension. Since feeling that crystal, he could sense these figures better than before, “Then let’s not keep them waiting long.”

Reave gave a dry, rasping chuckle from beneath his hat, a string of mutters following that came across as amusement, or perhaps just another curse at the weather. He flicked the last inch of his most recent cigarra into the breeze that still ran through here, and watched it spark away into the nearby gloom. He then patted the side of his satchel with a muffled clank that promised a few more surprises inside. Adjusting the strap of his ill-fitting blaster, he jabbered something curt toward the palace entryway, half commentary, half challenge, and then, without waiting for orders, started trudging forward through the settling ash, as if the whole siege was merely an inconvenient detour on his way to the next smoke.

The three strode forwards together, ignoring the cultists looming behind them and the eyes peering from ahead. As the shadow of the building engulfed them, the trio maintained their composure in spite of not knowing quite what lay ahead. Was the crystal craftsman Mentis recalled even still in charge or had these cultists just devolved into molten monsters? Bomoor felt a familiar power ahead: whatever threat lay ahead, a true shard of the Kaiburr crystal was here.

They stepped through the double doors into what would have once been a grand foyer. Igniting his blade, the Ithorian pressed his blade between the two metal doors and sealed them together.

"It shan't hold those creatures for long, but might give us a little more distance," he noted.

Mentis shifted uncomfortably, "I hope we won't need it for a quick exit,"

Bomoor eyed him dismissively before stepping past, "Courage Mentis: this is the time to fight, not take flight. Your skills with a blade would have impressed even my old master. I could always see his passion, even with years of Jedi caution wearing him down."

He turned back, now more passionate, "Let's show both our old masters we have grown beyond their limitations."

Mentis nodded, seeming to ease slightly at Bomoor’s words. He peeled away from the wall and began to look around.

On the far side of the room, beyond the tattered seats and the worn welcome desk, were two turbolift shafts, one clearly collapsed and another likely just as unusable. But between them, lay a grand staircase up to a mezzanine level. They peered up, seeing no eyes staring down at them yet.

"Let's start heading up then," Mentis agreed, as he headed across the room.

Reave slowed as they advanced through the plaza, his heavy boots crunching through dust and broken glass. The walls here bore the unmistakable marks of the Cult, their sigils scrawled in molten pigment, banners hanging limp and frayed - yet something else caught his eye.

Set crooked in a cracked durasteel frame, half-buried behind fallen structures, hung a painting. An old oil piece, sealed within an intact transparisteel casing, its surface untouched by the years of ruin. Reave shuffled closer, head tilting, the faint glow of his eyes reflecting off the glass. The image within was serene: a Bespin sunrise, golden clouds lit by the first light of day, being a vision of calm utterly alien to the storm around them. He stood there for a moment, the light breeze tugging at his cloak, then gave a low, thoughtful grunt and tapped the casing with one gloved finger. Whatever meaning it held, he kept to himself. Then, with a soft mutter of Jawaese and a last sideways glance at the forgotten art, he hitched up his rifle and trudged on after the others, not forgetting the danger they were still in.

The trio ascended the grand staircase as the first sounds of thudding at the door behind them began. The air grew heavier with each step, tabana gas intermingling with an old incense. Alongside a greater number of the scorched sigils on the walls, tattered banners hung limp from the mezzanine railings, marked with the same symbols.

Halfway up, a low hiss broke the silence.

Figures emerged from the gloom above: cultists cloaked in soot-stained robes, their eyes flickering faintly with light and their skin glowing along those same pulse lines as the others. They didn’t speak. They simply raised their weapons, jagged and improvised, and began their descent.

Mentis flinched at their sudden appearance, his blade igniting with a growling hiss. Bomoor stepped forward, his own weapon already drawn, its pale light standing defiant against a sea of red and orange.

The skirmish was brief: a clash of light and flame in the narrow stairwell. Now armed with their weakness, the trio dispatched their foes with efficiency. When the last cultist fell, silence returned, broken only by the crackle of scorched fabric and resonating plasma.

Then, a voice boomed from all directions: the building's intercom springing to life. It was distorted only by the age of the speaker circuitry and spoke with a great power, presence and confidence. Nothing like the cracked voice of the cultist before.

The ancient intercom system had hissed to life, its aged circuitry protesting before a voice filled the palace. It was deep and cold, the kind that seemed to rattle through bone before reaching the ear. Each word carried a weight that pressed against the air, deliberate and unwavering.

“You walk in my city. The city of the Baron.”

The sound reverberated through the marble and metal alike, carried by the storm winds that howled through the cracks of the structure.

“Your kind crawl through its bones,” the voice continued, distorted by the mechanical hum of some other device, perhaps a mask or respirator. “You reek of fear... and failure.”

The pause that followed stretched too long, until even the flicker of the burning sigils on the walls seemed to falter.

“In the time before, this place was ruled by merchants and fools,” it went on, slower now, as though the speaker savoured every word. “Now, it serves true purpose. Divine purpose. Every furnace. Every scream. Every crystal.”

A faint hiss of air preceded the name, spoken with reverence that bordered on worship.

“For Axion.”

Mentis stood still, as the voice took a pause, all the while still hissing faintly with the still open channel. That cry to Axion still evoked something deep within him.

“That must be him,” he spoke in a hushed tone, eyes set on the middle distance, “The man branded with the symbol. A mark of the master’s desire to forge his own power by the craftsman’s hands. One more extension of the master’s will”

Bomoor gazed up the now empty stairwell, their pathway now seemingly clear of cultists.

“Then we cut off those hands,” the Ithorian’s voice resonated, “And prove once more that Axion’s will is as fallible as the man himself. We will cut this so-called Baron down just like his decaying acolytes.”

“You think yourselves strong... You think yourselves free and righteous,” the voice growled. “Jedi. Pretenders. Carrion gnawing at the feet of the divine.” The static swelled, and the tone shifted, descending into something darker, the rhythm more primal. "The Kaiburr remembers you, traitor. It knows your weakness.”

Then came the stillness. No wind or hum of machinery. Only the slow, mechanical breath of the unseen speaker reverberating through the broken foyer.

“Come to me.” The words dropped like stones. “Stride into the heart of my city. Burn. Bow or break." One last, machine-breathed sigh swallowed the feed.

The transmission cut with a final mechanical exhale.

Mentis flinched at the final line, his hand tightening around the hilt of his blade.

“He’s not bluffing. That shard he has is real. Not some synthetic copy. You know its power, Bomoor. You’ve wielded it against me.”

Bomoor’s eyes narrowed, the glow of his weapon casting long shadows across his face. He didn’t respond immediately: the memory of Jericho was not a pleasant one but the raw tidal wave of Force power he had unleased when holding just a shard of that crystal was impossible to forget.

“I do, Mentis,” he turned to the former servant of Axion, voice quieter now, more grounded, “And you are right to temper me. Even with a weakened body, I did a lot of damage and this man has possessed the shard for years.”

Bomoor looked up the stairwell again, the silence above now heavier with meaning:

“Still, we must face him. That shard represents the ultimate control that Axion wants so we must either take it from him or destroy it. If you ever want to be free of him, if we ever want to wrench his cursed claws off our galaxy, then we must go on.”

Mentis nodded, the flicker of doubt still present, but held in check by purpose.

“Then let’s hope my saber skills are half as good as you say,” he said, voice low but edged with a nervous humour. “I’m not sure what your Jedi Master would think of my training, but I hope it’s improved since the last time I faced a Kaiburr-charged Ithorian. My ribs are still sore from that one.”

Bomoor gave a quiet chuckle, the sound brief but genuine: “You know, I think he’d quite like you, actually. You’ve come far, Mentis. Let’s put an end to this place.”

Now aligned, they stepped over the ragged cultist remains and continued upwards towards the voice on the intercom. Towards the Baron.

The stairwell stretched upward, its upper levels vanishing into shadow. Now silence had fallen again and the trio were left only with that low rumble from below, with an expectant silence above. Tattered banners flanked their ascent, marked with the same sigils that had haunted the lower levels. Some fluttered faintly, stirred by choking vents, while others hung limp, their fabric scorched and brittle. The architecture grew more ornate as they climbed towards the upper chambers of the city's ancient centre of power. Remnants of Cloud City’s opulence, now twisted by cultist hands. Gold etchings blackened by fire, marble floors cracked and flowing metal handrails tarnished with rust.

The stairwell broke at last into a vast circular chamber that opened onto the city’s edge - the highest point of the Administrator’s Palace. Once, this would have been a sanctum of light and elegance: a boardroom for Bespin’s elite, where art and glass had met the dawn in harmonious design. Now it was a hollow shrine to desecration.

The great transparisteel windows were shattered, jagged teeth framing the roiling orange clouds beyond. Stormlight poured through the rents, washing the room in a molten hue. The sculpted curves of the walls had been overlaid with iron girders and twisted metal sigils, welded crudely into place. Once-white marble had run black with soot.

The centre of the room had been cleared for ritual. Machinery pulsed beneath the polished floor - heat vents glowing through the cracks like veins of magma. Where once a corporate logo had been inlaid, a single, glowing crystal had been embedded: a false Kaiburr shard, caged in iron latticework, humming with stolen life. The air shimmered with its power, and the tang of scorched ozone made every breath burn.

Around the edges of the room, the cultists stood in rows, silent. Their faces were masked or half-fused, bodies trembling from proximity to the crystal’s radiance. Yet they did not move. They were not the frenzied beasts of the lower levels but obedient sentinels - awaiting command, their eyes dim and blank like statues of ash. Some clutched makeshift weapons. Others simply knelt, heads bowed, hands clasped in devotional ruin.

Mentis, Reave and Bomoor crossed the threshold, the hum of their ignited sabers faint against the deep vibration that thrummed through the palace structure. The floor underfoot felt almost alive, quivering with the pulsing heartbeat of the shard embedded in the ritual dais.

For a time, there was only the wind and the deep groan of metal. Then a sharp clatter above, a sound like chains falling free, echoed. From the upper balcony, a shadow detached itself and dropped. The impact hit like a seismic charge. Marble fractured under the weight, dust rising in a ring around the point of impact.

The figure straightened. His armour was blackened and heavy, plates layered over old industrial plating, pitted and reforged a dozen times. A cracked respirator mask hid his face - half welder’s mask, half primitive knight’s helm - its visor glowing faintly red from within. A smouldering shard of crimson crystal pulsed at the centre of his chestplate, set into the armour like a heart graft. When he moved, the light throbbed, and the air around him distorted with heat.

He stood a over a head taller than Bomoor, every motion deliberate, the faint hiss of servos accompanying the grind of metal plates. His right hand gripped the hilt of a blade unlike any other. It was not a lightsaber, but a massive sword forged from the fused alloy of Bespin’s mining drills, its edge glowing with liquid heat, veins of molten red running down the fuller.

When he spoke, it was a voice that filled the chamber and the bones of all within it — deep, deliberate, mechanically resonant.

“Behold the city of my master.”

He took a slow step forward, the metal groaning beneath him. “Once it belonged to men of greed and commerce... hollow rulers who bartered all for nothing. But I was chosen to reclaim it in his image. To feed its heart. To forge its flame anew.”

The molten glow from the chest-shard pulsed, and the faint tremor in the floor synchronised with it.

“I am the Baron.” His head inclined slightly, the title half-mockery, half-ritual. “This city, this forge, this world - they are Axion’s will made metal. And I am his hammer.” He raised the great sword, resting it across one shoulder, and the sound of its heat set the air to shimmering. "You come seeking shards you cannot bear. You come to defy the master’s ascension. To cut away the hand that feeds the end.”

He tilted his head, the visor’s red slit focusing on Mentis. “The traitor walks with you still.” The cultists shifted at that word — just slightly, a low murmur passing through their ranks. “The Dark Master has spared your life until now, pretender, so that your failure might serve his purpose. Now you will return to the crystal — and through your death, his perfection will be complete.”

The Baron lowered the blade, point scraping against the floor with a sound like tearing metal. “I am the bearer of true Kaiburr.” The crystal in his chest flared, bathing the room in blood-red light. “I will perfect the craft. I will burn away impurity. And I will bring the master’s divinity to those worthy.”

He spread his arms, voice rising into a guttural roar.

“For Axion!”

The cultists echoed in unison, their voices rough and uneven, a chorus of the damned.

And then the Baron stepped forward, each pace shaking dust from the rafters, and he raised his molten blade as the furnace light behind him flared, painting his silhouette against the storm beyond the shattered glass, their conflict assured.

Bomoor also took a step forwards, his blade still ignited, its pale glow cutting through the dull haze of the room. He and the Baron both cast long imposing shadows on the marble floor. The Ithorian, however, fixed his gaze on the Baron’s chest: on the shard within the armour pulsing like a great monster's heart.

“You speak of perfection,” Bomoor said, voice steady yet resonant. “Of divine craft and ascension. But I’ve seen your crystals. I’ve felt their power and I’ve watched your acolytes fall beneath it.” He gestured downwards indicating the remains of the scorched and broken cultists who had wielded that same corrupted energy, now dead and lifeless.

“Whatever you’ve forged here, it’s a pale imitation. A furnace built on flawed shards and even more flawed ideals,” His tone sharpened, his conviction rising. “I’ve held a true fragment of the Kaiburr. I know its weight. Its clarity. And I now know this place is no true threat.”

He cast a hand forwards, now pointing directly at the Baron's chest.

“There’s only one prize here worth claiming," he declared firmly, "And it’s beating in your chest.”

TBC

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