Destiny on Coruscant

[Grouchy224]

It had been another long jog into the Unknown Regions, and Octavian had come to Coruscant with new Hyperspace routes mapped and ready to be sold to his contacts on Coruscant. Octavian didn't usually venture this far into Sith Space, but this is where the contact wanted to meet him and he usually got payed better dealing with the Sith than he did the Republic. Truth be told, Octavian didn't hold any real loyalty to either side, willing to work with whatever faction was feeling more generous with what he had to sell, and with how it seemed his work got more dangerous with each trip, he was only going to start selling his coordinates to those he knew had the credits.

He touched his ship, the Myrmidon, down in one of the seedier ports on Coruscant, paying his way through customs and making his way down to level 1313. He was being met in a tavern/brothel in the slums, and once he arrived at the meeting place he had chosen to have a seat in a corner booth and have a few drinks. Time went by and the contact didn't show, the empty glasses starting to pile up on his table...

@Kaane

 

[Kaane]

Coruscant. Home to many of the basest forms of life in the galaxy.

How he detested it.

But Salazarrh was here for a quite specific reason. He did not venture anywhere without purpose. A Priest of the Inquisition had innumerable responsibilities, ceremonial and secular, at any given time. When he did have time to devote to extraneous pursuits, he was adamant that said time be used wisely, and his activities were planned accordingly. He was a principled man, after all. A principled man with an equally-principled schedule.

Today his principles were dictated by a vision that had come upon him whilst meditating on Korriban, immersed in his roiling anger and the holy power of the Dark Side. Though he was no clairvoyant, he knew full well that when the Force spoke to you, it had something of import to say. Its sacred voice could not be ignored.

He was told to come here. Level 1313, on Coruscant. A seedy place for the dregs of society to haul their legal baggage through the muck as they deserved. He would never spend time here for any other reason BUT the Force. Though, if he were frank, he had absolutely no true idea of what the reasoning behind his vision was to begin with.

Until suddenly, the Force called to him. It drove him to look in a singular direction...a bar. A cantina. Right before him. And within he could sense an unnamed man, with gifts he obviously did not yet fully understand. Untrained, yet untapped was the soul within.

One of the Chosen. This was what the Force had called him to...one of its lost lambs, to be shepherded back into his own destiny for greatness.

Though a small crowd was walking around the bar, they literally broke in half to make way for the Sith walking amongst them. At 6'3" and clothed in his ceremonial Executioner's Robes, hiding even his face from view to these mere mortals, he was an intimidating figure. An emissary from the darkness sent for a single man to bring to its embrace.

The door to the cantina opened; the sound of raucousness died down somewhat before continuing in far more hushed tones than before. Salazarrh Gwyllon walked with calm austerity to the bar, and stood behind the man the Dark Side had drawn him to.

"I was not expecting to witness a child of the Force here, of all places."

@Grouchy224

 

[Grouchy224]

Octavian hadn't been expecting anyone to come up behind him, much less calling him a "Child of the Force" or anything like that. He had felt kind of uneasy since he arrived on planet, a feeling that he couldn't help but have more and more often lately. He had almost choked on his drink when the man spoke, his very words sending a chill running down his spine. He visibly shuddered, and turned to look at the man who had come up behind him so suddenly. When he beheld Salazarrh, his eyes went wide.

"..What are you talking about? Did Davan send you? Listen, your boss was supposed to meet me here himself, not send a Lackey to come do business with me." Deep down, he knew that this wasn't meant to be his contact, but he didn't want to come to that realization himself. The color had drained from his flesh, and the dull roar he was feeling in the back of his head was now a scream. He slammed his drink back, his eyes never leaving the stranger before him. "Who are you?"

 

[Kaane]

A smile graced Salazarrh's hidden visage. It was not uncommon for the uninitiated to tremble in the presence of one of the Dark Side's holy conduits. He would let him go through the process of realization that his life was suddenly about to change drastically peaceably...he would be happy to take his time with this one. Those uninitiated into the Force were some of the priest's favorite people. Bringing them unto their own destiny was a joyous task indeed...and they all seemed to connect to the Force as they learned the ways of the Dark Side in different manners. Some sought spiritual ecstasy as Salazarrh did...others found power in knowledge, and still others embraced the freedom their gifts brought them in battle. It was a mystery to uncover. Another way the dark missionary occupied his mind whilst not consumed by his responsibilities and inner turmoil.

He would take a seat right next to Octavian, fetishes of bone hanging at his sides rattling as he settled on the somewhat uncomfortable barstool. It would seem the man was frozen in place by fear...obviously he was on edge, Sal didn't even need the Force to comprehend that. But this spike in terror seemed to be a mere startling moment in a life dominated by fear. A furtive personality resided within, indubitably...he was a man locked in a cage.

Little did he know he had possessed the key to that cage since birth.

The priest took off his hood, allowing a face painted with intricate markings and blazing yellow eyes to greet the dim, artificial light of the bar. If the man wished to know who he was, he had nothing to hide from him. All with the gift of the Force were worthy of his presence. "I am Salazarrh Gwyllon...a Sith, most would call me. An inheritor of the birthright to the Force. But I call myself merely a Priest...nothing more. What of yourself?"

He would then allow the man to answer how he wished. However, he wasn't quite ready to tell the seasoned spacer why he had singled him out...there was a methodology to his proselytizing. Many years of bringing the word of the Sith to the deserving had left him a practiced missionary. "I can tell there is great fear in you, my friend. Not merely of me, either...tell me, what gnaws at your consciousness so? Something to do with this...Davan, perhaps?"

 

[Grouchy224]

The stranger uncovering his face did a lot to set Octavian's mind at ease, and when he started explaining himself Octavian's demeanor relaxed. He couldn't overall shake that gnawing feeling, but being able to put a face to this dark figure did a lot to soothe him. "That's the thing. I don't know. I spend a lot of time beyond the outer rim..outside of civilization. I noticed the feeling first on a recent trip to Jedha, but now..with you hear it's getting worse. It's hard to describe the feeling. Almost like a hot iron being sunk into my pineal gland. Something screaming at me, something I've ever never felt before or never bothered paying attention to." The words came pouring out of his mouth, and he didn't know why. The was the first time he had ever really talked to an honest to god Sith that wasn't just some soldier or bureaucrat.

He would grab a half empty bottle and pour some into his empty glass, putting the bottle in between him and the Sith. "You're the first actual Sith I've ever had a conversation with. Sure, I've seen your friends from a distance, but this. This is something. So, tell me. Why me? Out of everyone in the bar, why am I getting such special notice? It's not like people being nervous around you can possibly be a new thing, correct?"

 

[Kaane]

He would listen, attentively, a look of genuine interest on his face. The fact that he seemed to have such a deep reaction to the Force's presence on Jedha was no mistake; he was deeply aware of its divine form, whether he understood it consciously or not. And for him to have actually listened, rather than run from Salazarrh's admittedly-intimidating form...this was the providence of the Dark Side speaking to him, most undoubtedly. And he just seemed so eager to share...it was if he had an innate understanding of what this could mean for him.

Of course, he would then ask exactly what it was that set him aside from the rest of the riff-raff in the tavern. For all of his feeling of the Force calling to him, he still didn't quite know what it was. A combination of innate wisdom and child-like ignorance that often seemed to be the case with those who were untrained.

It made the Sith smile, almost heartwarmingly, if not for his frightful features to begin with. But perhaps now, given that he asked, he would answer as to why he was singled out so. "Quite simply," he would begin, "you have something that these people do not. Something that has drawn you and I together with a will that is beyond the both of us."

He would lean in somewhat, as though he were telling some sort of casual secret. "Tell me. Beyond Jedha...has anything ever called to you? Have you ever had close calls where it would seem that any other person would have died? When you felt anger welling up within you...have you ever made anything happen? Anything you couldn't explain?"

 

[Grouchy224]

Octavian remained in deep thought as the Sith spoke to him, taking his words in and processing them, letting his words sink in before he would answer. Salazarrh didn't strike him as some Big Bad Wolf those have made Sith out to be, or at the very least not yet. "Sometimes..sometimes I feel something is about to happen before it does. Nothing too specific, just..I don't know. A gut feeling that I need to react, and I do. It's gotten me out of more situations than I'd like to admit..but it's also gotten me into trouble. Recently my ship needed emergency repairs..dropping me out of hyperspace above Malachor. There was a derelict ship there that for whatever reason I felt drawn to. I boarded it to cannibalize parts, and found a few items on the way out. The whole thing is kind of a blur and I'm not sure WHAT I found, except that I feel like I would be making a mistake giving them up."

The words were pouring out of him at this point and when he was done, he leaned back in his seat, watching the man intently. He didn't exactly KNOW why he was being so open about all of this, for all he know this guy was just going to kill him at the first opportunity. Octavian was armed, as always, but he wasn't feeling threatened at all. Yet. "So. What comes next?"