The Grave

The shanty craft landed.

"I see your test was successful," said a Dark elf, his cloak wrapping around his armour as he slipped into view through a tear in space-time made by his own, elegant hand. "But are you sure you can even control this? So old, so powerful it is. Even I, who has spent centuries in the universe's oldest libraries, scouring the most ancient of tomes, translating the most alien of texts, can not completely comprehend this power."

The being would listen and say, "Don't question those who can fathom minutes within seconds, hours within minutes. I am the wielder of this, not a mere amateur with a shiny baubel. Question me again and you shall witness true horror, you wished to stand with me, even knowing what I bring in the end." It would chuckle clearly rather amused by such queries, the very idea someone would ask if he could handle such power, the sheer audacity suggested they still had not quite understood who they were dearling with, very well.

"All who stand will be given fast deaths, this is merely just a piece moving in my long game. Your so-called crusades of utter rightiousness do not overshadow anything, it's merely just another piece in another place of this cosmic jigsaw."

"Hold your damn tongue. You are my equal on the Pantheon, not my superior; my brethren, not my enemy. I stand by your side here because in some way, I believe in what you are trying to accomplish." He rolled his eyes as spoke, before shifting his foot against the ground and turning away from the wreckage before him.

The mention of the name would cause shuddering and dangerous whispers to emanate through everyone skulls, "You are no equal, merely a tool to a greater mind. I side with Pantheon because it benefits me, not because I believe myself, or deign myself equal." he would pause and go on, "I have everything here, those maggots shall understand soon that eventually their will always be a bigger fish."

Cenoic made a note to not say Hastur's name again... FOr what followed was a most uncomfortable sensation that he did not wish to repeatedly experience. "Very well, friend. I will take my leave now, I have my own business to attend right now. We will meet again when this plan progresses further. Until then, I bid you farewell."
At that, Cenoic, member of the Grand Pantheon of Deities in the entire Multiverse, disappeared via a doorway that opened with creaking wood... A door that wasn't there before, standing without a wall around it.

The dead spoke in voices only his mind could perceive. The myriad tones of agony and contempt, the cries of spirits that couldn't sever their bonds to this mortal plane and transcend to a the other side. Their rage fueled his affinity for the ancient energy that surrounded him even now in this unfamiliar territory. It was desolate, yet teeming with life, both present and after. He "looked" about him, as well as an individual of his kind was able. Being without eyes, he never truly looked at anything.

Darth Vollus, a disgraced and lonesome Sith Lord, found his way to this planet after heeding to the calling of the Force. It was a strange jungle world, echoing mysterious energies into his very being. It had reached out for him, and he had reciprocated, finding his feet planted in the soil beneath him. It was the perfect place to begin his work.

"What is thy bidding, my master?" Amalgama; a young girl. Loyal to him, even now. He did not turn to face her as she knelt in the damp dirt under them. He merely took a breath, tasting the wind as it trickled past lightly. "We shall begin the next Phase, my apprentice," he said solemnly. "Once we initiate our plan, we can begin to plot out our next objective. Have you readied them, Amalgama?" There was only a moment of silence between them as she stood at the ready "Yes, master," she replied slowly.

Vollus merely inhaled the thick swampland air that encumbered the atmosphere about them. A vicious grin painted his face as he contemplated on his future endeavors.

"Then we have no time to waste," he said, turning and striding towards his ship.

They prowled the dense swampland surrounding them, knee-deep in murky waters and circumvented by towering trees. The quiet whisper of the wind brushed by them, filling the gaps within the silence that lurked amongst he atmosphere. Blaster rifles clenched tightly, their eyes were scanning, ever-watchful for their target. Five of them had been killed already; the price of failure. Vollus was unforgiving in his training, expecting them to head out into live exercises. He didn't expect any of them to survive, however, but those lucky enough to hang onto their existence were allowed to continue to serve him.

Eyes front and back, they waded through the muck and mire as they hunted, trying to stay alive until the very end. Their task was simple: scout the surrounding area and report back to Vollus with a full environmental analysis. The stipulation, however, was that his well-trained apprentice would be methodically stalking them every step of the way, and summarily striking down any single one of them that showed a moment's weakness.

In short: every time she attacked, someone died.

Nervousness clutched their chests, making their heartbeats accelerate and pumping acid into their veins. The tenseness of waiting to die was as painful as the most brutal of torture. However, if they were to become Vollus' elite forces, they would need elite training. And this is what he chose...

The familiar low hum of a Forcesaber broke through the quiet, severing the head of Subject 3, his body collapsing like a felled oak. Blasters went free, spewing red beams into the thicket beyond, where (they believed) Amalgama had vanished into. Taking no time to mourn their brother, the remaining four candidates pressed onward. The encampment was less than a quarter mile away, and they had no time to slow down for anything.

It came closer now, flying through the air and impaling one of the unlucky bastards through the sternum. He merely looked down, the volatile energy protruding from his chest scorching his chin. In his shock, he hardly cared; in death, he cared less. Dropping to his knees, already gone, he slumped over, a human sandbag left to rot in this infernal swamp.

The other three kept moving, the rear guard spraying suppressive fire in the direction from which the attack had come. He was lifted into the air, his windpipe struggling to intake air as the mysterious power of the Force strangled him violently. It was mere moments before the sickening crack echoed into his brothers' ears, his fate announced with harrowing audibility.

The mud grew deeper now, swimming up to their thighs and making it harder to move. They kept their eyes peeled, for they knew she was everywhere. The twirling hum of another thrown saber came spinning through the sound waves. Subject 6, the saber's intended target, ducked under the malicious weapon, breathing a short sigh of relief as the energetic blade embedded itself into his teammate's side, prompting a series of shrieks as the pain riddled him.

Saving his comrade the agony, he raised his rifle, putting an end to the poor soul's torment with the pull of a trigger. He would have been dead in a matter of seconds anyway, once Amalgama caught up with him, therefore Subject 6 decided to take it upon himself to make his death simpler.

He saw it ahead; the clearing in which the encampment had been established. He rushed through the stifling mud, moving as swiftly as he could in his slowed movement. He was gong to make it. He had a chance. He was going to-

He was raised into the air and slammed against a nearby tree, back-first. He could feel where that had broken some vertebrae, the pain a white-hot knife in his spine. He could have walked, if the pain weren't so unbearable. He was lucky to not be dead or paralyzed in this moment, but standing was an impossibility. So instead, he crawled, using his elbows and feet to push him forward. The encampment was within reach, the propulsion of Amalgama's attack placing him much closer than he had been.

A few feet to freedom was all it took, and he would pass. However, the hard kick of her boot had flipped him onto his back, the pain forcing his eyes shut as he winced in agony. She stood over him, Forcesaber in hand, the blade facing downward. She raised it up, savoring the moment just before the final kill. So this is what his life amounted to: to be the fodder in some sick game of cat-and-mouse through the jungle on some godforsaken planet. To be slaughtered, and for what? What purpose did his death serve?

Rage boiled within him. Anger at her, anger at himself, all coming to a boil within his heart. He should have been stronger, should have done more to fight her off. But this was his fate. His gaze hardened, teeth clenched as tight as an iron vice, he threw up a hand, as if he had a prayer of stopping the plummeting blade...

Amalgama was sent flying backward, an invisible shockwave hurling her away from his downed frame. She slammed into the ground -hard- but was up on her feet again just as quickly as she had been thrown. She rushed over, seeking to pin the lowly clone to the ground with her blade. "Stop what you're doing, right now!" she heard. Turning, her gaze cast upon her master as he approached.

"This one has passed," Vollus said, standing over the broken candidate. "Congratulations, my son. You are to become my first warrior; the first Doom Trooper." His eyes blurring from the tears of pain in his eyes, Subject 6 lay his head back, a wave of relief and fear washing over him as he remained static on the ground. 'At least I'm alive,' he thought.

But who knew for how long?

The sounds of lightsaber blades clashing wouldn't travel very far through the dense wooded area of the Grave; if there were any outsiders nearby to hear such noise, either way. Subject 6, dressed in his training garb, was currently sparring toe-to-toe with Amalgama, each trying to destroy the other. Subject 6, being a clone of Darth Vollus, used his enhanced affinity for the Force to get a better feel for the woman's energy.

Vollus watched from a few yards away, a smile splayed across his lips as his apprentice and his guardsman squared off in the intense humidity of the jungle surrounding them. Anger fueled their bout, furious strikes colliding against one another, causing miniscule explosions of energy to erupt from their marriage of blades. Sweat poured off of their persons in the thick, wet heat as they battled back and forth, stepping forward and backward as they tried to find flaws in each others' stance. Neither party would give in, relentlessly assaulting and defending with equal grace and brutality.

Vollus rose, striding towards the two combatants. They noticed him not, and before they could react they found a third blade had come into the mix. A triangular battle had been initiated. "Come, then," he said playfully. Amalgama looked to Subject 6, who in kind looked to her, nodding. They understood that they would need their combined strength to take on Vollus for this fight; a free-for-all would be bad for both of them as their master would work to put them down quickly if they stood alone. Charging with lightsaber in both hands, Subject 6 initiated the first attack as Amalgama leaped into the air above her master, coming down hard with her own blade...



They awoke from their blackened slumber some hours later, Darth Vollus sitting cross-legged nearby. "Welcome back to the world of the living, my children," he goaded. Holding his head in his hands, Subject 6 groaned. Amalgama merely gritted her teeth in silence, mentally cursing her master's name. Vollus stood, turning his back to them as he ignited his lightsaber once more.

"Again," he demanded.

The tentacle-haired Sukarma's skin had cyan weaving patterns on dark blue that flush a dingy goldenrod on dark purple. Frowning in dismay the rocks on the surface didn't match the others here so they were from somewhere else! Who knows where the rare earth in them had come from now. Her eyes glowed as the density scanner slowly parsed the dirt just underneath it to glean some source direction. Her inner voice yelped and avatar scrambled away as a skull and shoulders lept out from the data underground into her mind. These weren't glacial rocks! They were graves!

Her avatar finally got the message to scream, "AAAA! Dead bodies!"

Head sharp to dart around she turned dark blue on black worried that something had heard her on sacred ground. She needed to get out of here before the intelligent activity nearby caught her on sacred ground. One of her ship's telescope arms tried helplessly to focus on the ground it wasn't suited for this kind of focal length.

Aryell leapt up from her meditation, hand instantly going to her light-staff (a short staff with lightsaber ends). she brushed her silver-white hair out from out of her face and walked carefully towards the noise. she felt an odd creature through the force. she crept low, trying to stay as silent as possible. her hood barely peaked over the gravestones as she got closer.


five feet to go, three feet to go, she then noticed the ship above them. then something below her snapped.

she ducked under a stone as the creature turned around hitting the ground with a thud. she scooted up against the stone hoping to see what the creature was planning. then did the stupidest thing possible. "pardon me but are you a tw'leik? I heard of them but never got to meet one?"

The veins under Sukarma's aluminum chain mail dress clinked as she stood up the flat veins of color showing through it flickers intermittent colors of lime and yellow on the black surface. Sukarma was worried about the natives finding her. Was this one of them? She eyed the clothing and decided it was way above their technology level. So a traveler then. She relaxed though was wary without her crew. Her primary color rose into a bright yellow as the varied paths of color on her skin turned orange.

Sukarma fiddled with the straps on her bright red medical pack for comfort and the soothing fidget before speaking, "Twi'leik? No I'm an EI from the Lexicon singularity. I don't know what a Twi'leik is. I didn't know this was a graveyard either. A-are you human? I want to go back to earth; I'm really lost and I need repair."

The tips of her hair tentacles turned white wringing each other as she hoped for something resembling good news and that the human wouldn't stab her.

Aryell stood up slowly sheathing the staff on her back. "well nice to meet you I'm Aryell. I'm honestly not sure where earth is or where we are from it but I could possibly fix your ship." she walked up slowly looking down at the small creature. she waited for the ship to land. "yes I am human. I was born on the Smuggler's moon Narr Shadda I've been to a lot of places."

She watched as the ship landed and just by looking at the hull, could see it needed a lot of work. though it was mostly operational she probably could get the ship functioning enough to use its hyperdrive and still be able to hold pressure in it's cabin.

"she's going to need a lot of work, but I might be able to repair it for takeoff."

As the dropship glided down arms splayed blue material effect fields provided the wing surface. Each navy blue arm flexed to control the flight as Sukarma piloted it remotely to the ground. A line of bright plasma trails through the trees nearby from four thick port arms housing magnetoplasmadynamic engines accelerating planetary air charged into plasma feedstock. The retro engines fired with a bright blue redirection along the aft momentum from its engines. The dropship's landing gear rather resembled four stumpy three-toed legs emerging from the sides to take the landing impact.

The dropship furled its six long tool arms mounted in a ring on its aft face. As they point sharply forward the surface pattern seems more fixed and hard unlike Sukarma's descriptive and mutive surface. Burn marks pit it everywhere on the dorsal and ventral sides as well as a few holes. The surfaces cover with thin blue fields to bandage the armor damage but the injuries look quite well-bled. Hull plating is seen as quite thick as hard scabs of small milky crystals throb within the deep pitted burns but some new cyan growth poking out of them is already seen.

Her hand turns fully purple as the dropship uses one tool-arm to stroke a burn on the ventral side. Her fingers flicker red with a wince and she strains, "Aklippe took some heat damage getting into the atmosphere. I wish I had enough mindspace to wake her up from the coma. There's not enough of me that's working."

She looks up and gestures with a hand dimming to cyan on black to a moon hidden in part by daylight, "I miss earth. I'm in dead space near that one. I think some country nuked me at close range while I used my slip drive to get away. I don't remember. I must have taken most of the blast wave at least Aklippa didn't get hurt too much."

She looks down a drop of fluid tearing from her eye as she flushes wholly purple, "Fulvio was earthside so he can't help fix me maybe its' best he didn't get hit on that mount. Now I'm full of radioactive dust and all my plants are dead. I'm so hungry... I used all my dead Quinoa plants and seeds already to patch my hull. I guess I could eat the grass."

"I'm rambling," she offered to Aryell, "I'm sorry. It just got lonely in deep space alone. You're the first person I've seen."

Aryell smiled softly as she checked the ship over. "yeah space can get pretty lonely when you're traveling alone."
she pulled out an Omni-tool and prodded the ship slightly "without knowing what the ship is made of I can't do much more then patch the holes."

she send a scanner probe to figure out what was wrong with the ship internally she sat on the ground resting her head. she reached into the satchel on her side and pulled out a peace of rationed Kale bread (it's actually really good), broke it in half and handed half of it to the other person. She thought of home. the amounts of bustling smugglers and mercenaries. The probe came back with a diagnostic. "well, it looks like the hyperdrive is fine but your sub-light has taken some damage. your hull is made of a metal I've never seen before and your manual control system is down. otherwise it's just structural damage. though the radioactivity is still a problem. I won't be able to fix it without the proper suit. and equipment"

As the scanner identified parts of the ship various runs of wiring showed bad condition or worse. Radiation had burned out a great deal of the electronics but the nature of its interconnections are confused by the indistinct channels of an Emergent Intelligence's holographic design. The scan fought over what to classify the substrate let alone the metal support spars the scan eventually decided on the substrate as 'Unknown Organic meta-alloy' to spit out raw sensory feeds of particles just under sensor acuity. The substrate took much of the punishment the support spars had already scarred and self-repaired what little deformation occurred. The radiation damage badly impinged on the responsiveness of its backend systems, not that they went terribly fast in the first place, but the design clearly was overengineered with robustness as a design goal. Scans indicated small drop ship retained its excellent power to weight ratio even though the sub light engines had inconsistent regulation and power from mostly blown power regulators for the plasma thruster sheath. The projectors in the tool arms had a similar issue that effected the gliding surface. The limited regulator availability pushed them out of synchrony yet held on tenuously to each other enough to provide a lift surface. Half the redundant gyroscopes inside them were deformed which threw gimbal locks. That the craft landed on its gear was a testament to resilience.

Finally resolving its last assessment the scanner decided on a medical readout for the core indicating, "Patient in persistent vegetative state, stable. low brain function but delta waves observed. Unknown force activity." It spat out a blood pressure and brainwave readout of someone in a coma.

Sukarma thumbed at a scar where both her and the black material winced away from each other. She shook her head with a tentacle aboard her main body let her stand there dryly dictating a technical manual to the woman, "The controls won't work unless Aklippe is awake. I don't have enough mind free for her to live in right now. My manual says our superstructure is a steel-gold alloy with carbon allotropes woven in using a FE weaver with integrated cold-welding and vapor deposition processes. The substrate is a network of synthetic heavily sheathed work units as a living colony maintained on the outer housing."

She looked up at the helpful stranger, "I hope you know what that means because my crew's supposed to have the engineering degrees! I just finished my art degree. I have a ton of tools and stuff to fix things but I don't know how to use the manual ones! My mini FE weaver got blown out by the neutron pulse I can't just print new parts."

She more carefully strokes the itchy white scars on the drop-ship's surface,"The substrate isn't a metal. it's synthetic organics - it heals and stuff, you know? It's the other reason why we have to eat. I guess I could try the bread but I usually eat blended sugary stuff. I have a EVA suit on the dropship in the bin inside."

Aryell snorted, "I grew up on a moon raised by smugglers. all I got out of that is the ship is made out of OAI (Organic Artificial Intelligence) system and bio-metal. Now like I said, fixing it isn't an issue. it's trying to get the OAI back online. Droid mechanics is one thing. but this," she wiped the crumbs off her shirt with a napkin then disintegrated the napkin using a mild form of force lightning.

"now if this was my ship I would've had it so crosswire nobody but a smuggler would know what to do if something broke down.
but seeing it's not... I don't know you'll probably have to tell me what does what. or I could probably give you a lift and tow your ship to A space port. I'm headed to wing city later... if you want to come."

Sukarma nods turning full black at the thought of something knocking on her sarcophagai and moving chairs, "A tow would be good! Most of my hardware is normal technology. If you can get my power stable again I'd be able to move. I think you can do that remotely! I wouldn't have to try to spool up the slip drive and blow a fuse again. The ship gets really creepy when its on and nobody is there. I have some resources but not really much money for trading. Um, my allowance from Lexicon is at home. I had to use most of my precious metals for repairs. Can you sell iridium?"

"I can spare," She leaves off to tally her stocks though the storage cell where inventory log keeps losing contact. "5 kilograms? It's a rare earth it must be useful for something. I guess NASA won't mind if I sell their asteroid. If anyone can find a way home it's a smuggler."

She'd accepted the notion of first contact but the presence of other humans here bewildered her. Nasa would lose their collective minds if she ever managed to get home anyhow. She eyed Aryell turning a orange on yellow, "Earth has never met other civilizations in space before! Everyone will be so excited!"

Her secondary pattern turned bright red with her burning curiosity, "Are there non-humans in wing city?"

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the ship came from orbit and landed next to Aryell, "she patted the hull fondly "she's bulky but she's fast. now I could manually tow it using a grapple cable or I could use one of my anti grav plates and reverse the polarity to create a gravity well to stick your ship to the bottom of my hull. both have possibilities of damaging your ship so im leaving the decision up to you."

Sukarma grins at the alien ship coming down flushing green on her bright yellow primary color. It was beyond anything Boeing could make that was for sure! There were lots of new technologies to learn!

She pondered the problem dimming to her idle cyan on dark blue, "Mmm. I think I can clamp to the hull to make the gravity well easier so I won't tear stuff off if you dodge. Projector manifolds won't wobble so much if they all hold on by themselves. As long as you don't spin too much I guess. The skin on Aklippe's gear is really twitchy. I think it really hurts but I can't feel legs that aren't mine."

Her dropship wobbled as Sukarma took control of it. It felt like wearing someone else's hands and made her flesh crawl. Still the landing gear were fully articulated as the dropship spun in place to align with Aryell's ship. With one movement the forward tentacles splayed so the legs could list to one side. The whole dropship rolled in the grass with a rumble to arrest its motion upside down. The landing gear pointed straight up and clamped the toes twice to test with a spark of blue kinetic field. The engines inside the articulated skirt flexed as they were hauled inside the ship vastly shrinking the rear of the dropship to a point.

Walking through a Grove, a massive figgure is a set of red power armor wandered the area. Clutching his head as he did. He had just recovered from his grievous wounds, however he could hear whispers inside his head. Powerful whispers...and he was following their words.

"Ah yes captain...So glad you can assist me in a recovery...Our deal stands...You find this artifact...and I give you the power needed to fight that shadow dragon when he appears...All so you can honor your chapter and the Emperor..." The twisted voice in his head spoke.

"Quiet fiend...I only do this for the Emperor and not for your sake!...You will honor our deal once this is over!...My brothers already view me as different! I will regain my honor for the sake of the Emperor!" The marine spat back as he continued on.

"Of course dear captain...I will keep my end of the bargain, just find that artifact for me and I will do the rest...There are no Eldar to interrupt you...none of your brothers seek to follow you...Only the locals here can stop you...Find the dagger, and you will gain power to best that dragon..." The voice laughed as it faded away back into the warp.

Suddenly, a swirling vortex appears to the northeast. You can see something appear in that direction.