A Stolen Flame (SW)

[Thief of Words]

Korriban--Sith Homeworld

The Valley of Golg
First Year of the Great Galactic War
28 BTC
3681 BBY​

Prologue I: Fire from the Gods

It occured to Darth Promethan that it said something--perhaps that he'd been far too long on Dromund Kaas--that he was disappointed by the lack of properly dramatic weather to herald the sheer grandeur of his coming triumph. Oh, certainly there was noise enough as ravening zombies tried to hack his moderately sized legion of droids to pieces in order to reclaim the appropriated grave goods of Dathka Graush, Last True King of the Sith, only to be repeatedly blasted to flinders by encamped assassin droid snipers. Elsewhere, above the planet and away from the equator, the Imperial Fleet shredded the remaining Jedi watch-craft and reclaimed the planetary orbital. Perhaps he should feel vindicated, consider those apt accompaniment, even take pleasure in the enraged screaming of the ghost of Graush himself, but he found there was simply no substitute for a properly terrific thunderstorm to set the mood for sorcery, rituals, or to revel in the glory of the Dark Side.

He could not help but find the uncooperative weather a slight. Admittedly, it was one in a long line of such for the Kaas-born Dark Lord. But, when the very thing that most knew of that made you useful to the Empire was also the thing that all but guaranteed you were not accorded recognition, a Sith could take such irony as insult. Promethan very much did. Yes, most force users could not sense him in the force unless he were actively and visibly channeling the dark side. Yes, that meant he was an invaluable asset to the Empire in the years preceding the coming war. But when that same talent had a tendency to cause others to forget you utterly only moments after a conversation, it did nothing to assuage the pride of one who had earned his status as a Dark Lord of the Sith. Particularly one for whom that status had been as hard-earned as his.

His initial intentions as a newly-fledged Lord had been to join the Sphere of Mysteries, the Sphere of Biotic Sciences, or the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge. He'd made the mistake of applying for the Sphere of Mysteries first. That detestable old bat Darth Ekkage had laughed at his application. She'd laughed. And worse, she'd dripped poison into the ears of most of the rest of the Dark Council, and so he'd found himself treated with contempt in each of his preferred Spheres. It was not his fault the minds of lesser Sith could not recall him or his exploits to back up his claims. He had graduated as the most promising student of his grouping. He'd made sure of it. All the other strongest candidates had died, inexplicably. Of spontaneous combustion. In their sleep. On five separate occasions. There had, of course, been an inquest. No one could recall any details of the one who set the fires, however, and so one of the weaker acolytes was framed and scapegoated for the crimes. He had, of course, been accepted by a master as apprentice. Unfortunately, his own master either forgot he was around or cared not for the proper instruction of apprentices. As such, he'd been forced to frequently see to his own acquisition of knowledge.

As with most things, it was what he did to overcome that particular indignity that proved his superiority over the lesser beings of the galaxy, even over others of the Empire's elite. It was also that particular method of transcendence that set him upon his current path. Without the instruction of a master from whom, quite frankly, he'd never been able to tell if the neglect was deliberate or not, Promethan had sought out every scrap of ancient Sith wisdom and knowledge he could find. Holocrons, writings, artifacts, and sorcery. If his finds were not always precisely 'lost' before he acquired them, well, he had learned his 'difficulty' had its advantages. It was in fact due to that course of study that he had been so set upon the spheres he had once he'd earned his Lordship.

But back to Darth Ekkage. That...that human who dared presume to reject a son of the Sith. Lord Viktas Trustane, as he'd been known then, had not taken rejection well. Filled with the proper sense of spiteful fury at the dismissal, he had not bothered to apply for or request assignment to the Sphere of Intelligence. He had instead presented the Dark Councillor in charge of Imperial Intelligence with a more...practical demonstration of his utility by providing meticulously detailed dossiers on the five projects of other Spheres most likely to negatively impact Intelligence, its influence, or its goals. Each dossier included a minimum of three ways to disrupt the project it pertained to, ranked from least to most disruptive to overall Imperial interests. It hardly need be said that he was welcomed into Intelligence. To his delight, his first task was to implement the plans in his dossier. He had savored the anguish those Councillors' minions had felt as their works burned.

After having amply proved himself to the Councilor over Intelligence, he'd been accorded a privilege and a duty unheard of amongst the trueborn Sith. He was accorded the right and responsibility of being the only Lord of the Sith at large in the wider galaxy. They accorded him a crew, a bleeding edge stealth ship, and wide leeway in how he accomplished his missions with only two critical restrictions. First, none could learn of the survival of the true Sith Empire. Second, he must be the blade in the dark, the lurking secret amongst their enemies and catspaws.

It gave him unprecedented access to both resources and research sources. His studies flourished like never before, as he was able to draft a network of contacts, smugglers, and spies amongst the criminal elements of the galaxy. He prided himself on his spy network being second only to the Hutts' own in Hutt Space, and second to none elsewhere. He passed several profitable, purposeful years in this way before he came to the realization that for all his accolades, for all his accomplishments, he had reached a dead end. He was too useful where he was for the Council to want him to rise any further. His indignation grew worse, one fateful visit to Dromund Kaas, only to see the Dark Council itself further diluted by human blood. His loathing for the wretched humans had burned in his heart since his first days of lordship. The Sith blood had grown disgustingly dilute with time. He would not stand it. And yet, it was clearly the Emperor's will. Or, if it was not, the Emperor of the Sith cared not enough to act to forestall the gradual extinction of his own race. He would not abide that. He could not stand idly while miscegenation brought about the genocide of the Sith.

Galling though it was, he had come to the realization that it would take a truly grandiose accomplishment to cement his legacy amongst the Sith, else his status-obsessed people would see him forgotten in scarcely a decade. And what grander a feat could there be than to bring about the resurrection of the True Sith, the Pure Sith. If the last living Sith of non-hybridized, unbastardized descent did not care to save his own species, then someone else would have to do it for him. He would return the True Sith to glory. They would see their destiny to rule the galaxy, untarnished by the plague that was humanity. And thus he had set out to resurrect a species only technically extinct.

It had taken decades, but he had done it. He had meticulously collected artifacts, knowledge, and expertise. The Arkanians had the requisite knowledge of purposeful genetic modification and a refreshing lack of 'moral scruples' against applying them for financial remuneration. Nar Shaddaa, in the heart of Hutt Space, had all the technological expertise, facilities, and resources needed for his purposes. His web of contacts and smugglers served perfectly to collect the tissue samples and gene-samples upon which to experiment.

And so his plans had come together. He meticulously tested and built a perfect Sith genome through often excruciating and expensive trial and error. He'd had woven together strands of ancient Sith genes, Kissai and Massassi offshoots, and the best traits from the unavoidable hybrids--female genetics being harder to find in truly ancient Sith. In the process of collecting genetic samples of long-dead Sith Lords, he'd garnered quite the aptitude for manipulating and transfiguring Sith spirits as a practical necessity.

His perhaps grandest realization was that he could not leave his efforts up to chance and the vicissitudes of child-rearing. The Queen-Mother of his new Sith would need drive and will fit to shake the very stars to go alongside her power and perfection. Were the Emperor to take it ill, she would need a brutality and ruthlessness to match the current ruler of the Empire.

He found his answer in, of all things, the private artifact collection of the up-jumped lackey of some Hutt or other. The holocron was truly ancient. It spoke of the days before the exile of the Sith from the galaxy, before their exit from Korriban. It spoke of a King whose brutality had become legend even amongst Sith kings. It spoke, in short, of Dathka Graush. A Sith so driven to dominate that he developed the spell still in use to reanimate the zombies guarding Korriban's tombs--as a method of waste disposal. He developed it because his wars had left that many spare corpses sitting around.

Eventually, several spare apprentices and failed gene-configurations later, he'd perfected a spell to strip a soul of its memories and power and return the latter without returning the former. At that point, he had been informed the war would start in earnest soon.

And so his final preparations had begun. Droids to prevent the spread of Graush's zombies, his ritual to ensnare and dissect the distracted ghost of Graush himself, his final and perfected Sith'ari-to-be-born, and the sceptre of Marka Ragnos, greatest of the half-breed Lords of the Sith ever to stride Korriban.

It was the hilt of the Sceptre of Ragnos which Promethan now clenched tighter in his grasp as he strode to the side of his creation's birthing pod to await the final ingredient for her perfection. He watched as the raging spectre of Graush screamed orders at its rapidly-thinning zombie horde, demanding they reclaim his Heart. Even as the crystalline jewel seemed to rage with a bloody internal flame, no doubt merely his perception of the raging torrent of thousands of dark-side-strong souls the late King had entrapped within it to fuel it.

And then, with clockwork precision, his assassin droids vaporized the heads of the last wave of corpses able to reach the pod or Promethan's own position in time to stop him. A smile spread across the living Sith's lips. He dipped deep within himself and began the ritual he'd created for this purpose, feeling the inferno that was the Dark Side roaring within him and then out from him, purple-black flames racing from his fingertips out into droid-carved channels in the surrounding stone.

Graush, of course, noticed Promethan's presence at precisely that moment. With an enraged scream, the spectre lifted a hand and sent a torrent of hungry lightnings at the intruding grave-robber. The entire stream was caught by the forked horns of the Sceptre's head and absorbed. Above the tableau of violence, a great cloud of dark side power gathered, as the deeply-steeped energy of the Dark Side which suffused the Valley of Golg from Graush's long interment there began to be absorbed by the Sceptre, as Ragnos' artifact carried out its primary function. As that rush of power came in, Promethan took hold of it and reached out into the spirit of Dathka Graush through the channel of his own attack, siezing his soul, his power, and beginning to drain them both, to imbue them into his creation.

It was a long battle, and it left him feeling weakened down to his very bones. In the end, however, the spirit of Graush was sundered, entrapped within the Heart alongside the multitude of souls he'd imprisoned there. And the valley itself was stripped bare of dark side energy, all of which was poured into the heart, to imbue itself into his creation.

He knew it was a vulgar habit, but he could not help but lick the blood from his blade once he'd carved the infant's chest open to implant the heart. It was with joy and burning pride that he watched her chest close itself around the Heart (formerly) of Graush. He sealed her back inside her pod and loaded his Phantom for the trip back to Hutt Space. It had taken every resource and every asset he was able to scrape together in 40 years of work, but he had succeeded. Every sacrifice and indignity would be worth this. He would be father to the mother of a new Sith race. A better Sith race. She would be his immortality. She would guarantee his legend.

As his droids loaded themselves back into the droid-piloted light freighters which had delivered them to the Homeworld in the first place, he watched the sands of Korriban recede beneath him, even as the freighters and their droids scattered to a multitude of Outer Rim destinations, to await further need. His last reflection before settling in for his first rest in days was to feel relieved. No rival, no enemy, nothing could stop him now.

He'd won.

It was the greatest victory of his life. He had created life itself. He had conquered death. Not merely for an individual. Not merely for himself, like the short-sighted Lords of old. No. He'd had wrenched the entire Sith species from maw of oblivion. If death itself could not stop him, what force in this or any other galaxy could?

Much later, as he drifted through the cold expanse of space in a deadened ship, watching his perfect creation drift towards Nar Shaddaa in the Phantom's escape pod, he would have plenty of time to loathe his arrogance and lament his ruination.

For now, however, for the first time in his life, Viktas Trustane, Darth Promethan, was truly content.