The Scrutiny of the Basilica

[CholmisTyr]

Tund

​

Humid winds carved their way through the jungle from the east, disturbing deep trees that slouched in an almost exhausted fashion, leaves heavy as if plagued by some degree of fatigue. Nettles and weeds of the thorny variety webbed their way through the underbrush, and often snagged an unwary beast that crept between the thick stitching of the forest in search of prey or shelter. The nettles and predators and trees of the wilderness had something in common though, and that was an aversion to a place of unholy descent. That place was the Black Basilica, and its dark, sheer faces were what Cholmis Tyr had come to find.

Cholmis' mask was cruel, even when it shone in the hues of Tund's burning sky, and it had been the main factor behind the punctuality of his pilot, for there weren't many that didn't crumble beneath its glare. Long robings of muted color covered a gilded cuirass, and its hem whispered a forbidden song to the damp soils below. The Sith moved gracefully, and though the jungle was thick, neither root nor branch dared inhibit the fanatical creature that drifted through it. Cholmis' mind had been racing since touchdown, plagued by questions and a knot of anticipation he rarely felt outside of his studies, and its climbing tingle urged him on all the faster.

Corrupted eyes and their molten crux soon found purchase in a small clearing, and though every sight was unique on this world, this one conquered all shamelessly. The Black Basilica and its foreboding walls was a paradise for Cholmis, glinting walls as tempting for the Sith as the curves of a woman was for a man, and it was at its entrance that he took pause to revel. Tempered by new zeal and - in his eyes - the worthiness of a king, it was the eddies of Cholmis' convictions that drove him inside to meet whatever stirred in the belly of the church.

 

[Vinny]

"Steward." The ghost whispered. Cain looked up into the eyes of an ancient Sith Lord. He knew it's name, but that was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. He raised an eyebrow and reached out into the force. Closing his eyes he could feel it. A presence. It was unlike the other entities that landed on the world now and then. This one had not come through the spaceport. No, they had landed on the outskirts. Testing themselves? He could not rightly say. The Dark Lord of the Sith quirked a lip into a Corellian half-grin as he lounged among the blood red flowers that dotted the promenade.

"I feel it."

The priests had all returned to the interior of the Basilica to meditate and study. It was the only time of day that Cain could enjoy the sunshine. So he did. The unexpected visitor, however, changed his plans. He sat up and took in a brief breeze that shoved its way through the withered trees that circled the great church like a horde of gnats. Scenting the air, the Dark Lord rose to his feet. He took several steps back, throwing his hood from his head and muttering a spell. His face shifted, growing more youthful, until he wore the unmarred face of Wake Olpierr, the man he once was.

The visitor marched his way from the dampness of the jungle and up toward the great doors of the most holy place of the Priesthood. Cain, on the other hand, lurked off to the side. It was only when the newcomer graced the steps itself that Cain stepped out from the left, hands hidden in his sleeves. Brown hair pulled back into a short ponytail and bright eyes gleaming with inquisitive mirth. Around his neck was a golden holy symbol, the mark of the Church. His robes were simple enough, a muted dark gray that was held in place with a crimson sash. He inclined his head.

"You are welcome here Sith Brother. What brings you to this Sacred Basilica?" He asked.

 

[CholmisTyr]

Any man who knew who had stepped from the shadows would have collapsed there and then, going to their knees to prostrate themselves before the Dark Lord, their tongues dried by the thirst to obey. But in a guise woven by illusion, the Darth was paid no such respect, instead earning himself an inspection from forge-born eyes. Cholmis wasn't disrespectful, in fact he even tipped his head in a greeting, wholly unfamiliar with what was expected in the dark temple, and who was who.

"Suns will be riven as our black legions cross between the celestial bodies, brother, and with that knowledge I have come with neither indecision or delay lest I be savaged by regret." He drawled.

His words were careful, his voice a monotonous and perverse rattle, dulled by the faux mouth that shielded his real one. Long fingers sparkled alongside his mask, talon-tipped armored digits that had wed across his middle, almost as if he were in prayer to the deity that must have carved the Dark monument he now stood in.

"I hope to find a purpose here -- and ascension."

Of all his years studying, betwixt the grand shelves and archives of old, his mind kept sharp through sheer force of will, he had never experienced the grandness that the Basilica had inflicted on sight. Cholmis' mind was near deafened by the roaring of promise, tempests of knowledge shackled in ebony chambers, and the whispers of what he might become -- those utterances were selfish, but not forsaken.

 

[Vinny]

The Dark Lord in the guise of a humble priest gave a delighted smile. In truth, Cain was pleased, very, very pleased. He had not heard a Sith hopeful utter words of faith like that in some time. Words straight from dark texts spread throughout the empire. Perhaps this one even prayed at one of the churches he had overseen the construction of. Perhaps. Yet faith and earnestness could be falsified, curiosity was a powerful motivator-after all. So too was the hunger for power. Power and Knowledge both lurked behind the walls of this temple.

"Purpose?" The youthful priest repeated. "There is more than purpose that can be found behind these walls." He turned, resting a hand on cold stone.

"You too can find purpose on Korriban or Ziost, Great Sith find purpose in their tombs on Moraband. Soldiers find purpose on the battlefields across the galaxy. An ant finds purpose beneath the boot of it's better." Darth Cain mused, taking a step past the hopeful before looking at the gates.

"So why do you seek purpose here? Why not elsewhere?" He reached out with a hand to touch the gates before turning back to him. Youthful eyes tinted close to crimson glinted in the summer light.

 

[CholmisTyr]

None of the 'priests' movements went without being registered, the easiness in which he carried himself should have roused suspicion, but alas the zealot was enraptured by the holy site and failed to pick up on any hints of dishonesty. When the questions came, molten eyes rose to the heavens, piercing dark-bellied clouds while he pieced together a careful response, hands still interlaced across his middle, never shifting from their comfortable roost.

"Among those who betray in service to themselves alone? No. Those that would avert their eyes from the Dark in pursuit of the petty are creatures I cannot indulge. To mires those tower-traitors should be flung, to a city of chains to be slaked by the newbone-warmth of despair." There was a lilt of disgust that had fastened itself to the hopeful's voice, but it was minimal.

Down came lidless eyes, all six stitched to the youthful face of the pretender-priest, studying the man a second time while he spoke still, sounding as if he preached the doctrine the walls inside were inscribed with.

"I have heard the voice of the Dark, brother. The words, they form and reform around you, blooming to an echelon of dissension, a Voice unbroken, that resounds throughout eternities, exempt from change, immune to ruin, all the sounds of destruction in one."

 

[Vinny]

Ah, so he did have much to learn. He hated the Sith for what they were, yet there was nothing wrong with pursuing strength and position over the bodies of those weaker. Such was natural law, such was reality. The true evil of the Sith was in the inevitable destruction of the strong to uplift the weak. That too would change, with time. The priesthood would make it so, for they loved the Sith and the Empire. They devoted themselves to creating a lasting, beatific Darkness that would spread throughout the galaxy. That was the will implanted upon the Steward of the Dark Side, the voice of the Dark God they all worshiped.

"You have heard the voice of the Dark Side?" The priest laughed. "You claim to speak for it, as the Pontiff? That is quite a claim coming from a hopeful." Cain said cooly, his eyes upon the lowly Sith. The Dark Lord crossed his arms behind his back and stood before the gates. In truth, there was nothing truly glamorous or bewildering about what went on inside. Prayer, study, learning, it was a Church when one looked at it objectively, casting aside the presence of the force. Yet this man's Zeal was promising, his faith was something to consider.

"You want to enter? Could you look into the eyes of madness and come out unscathed? Could you face the Dark Side, walk along the great crevasse above the temptation of it's depths, and remain devoted to cause above self-interest?" The Dark Lord of the Sith, Second only to the Emperor in authority and rivaling the Emperor in raw power of the force narrowed his eyes. "Could you show me your conviction? Here? Now?"

 

[CholmisTyr]

"I claim nothing of the sort, for I merely serve the Dark Side, and I am here to put into symbols what I already know; I will one day speak fire to those bound by fetters of Light so that they, with maniacal faces, will take chains and teeth to their jailers." There was nothing but firm conviction in the Sith's words, a self-certainty found in only a zealot.

Skepticism had been roused at this stage, for the unctuous pretender-priest had dropped his mantle of modesty and cloaked himself in a shawl that crept towards the fringes of authority -- And though Cholmis did not yet know who he faced, the draggled fingers of mistrust pulling at his thoughts. Crisp orange light burned alongside the Sith's golden mask, hues that hung easily from his shoulders as if to be divine pauldrons signifying his adherence to the Dark Side, a strange glinting reality when considering his devotion was to the shadows, not the light. His raspish voice went on, clear despite the ceremonial armor that clung to his face.

"I will show you, gatekeeper."

 

[Vinny]

"Really?" Cain asked dubiously. His smile stretching ear to ear. The Lord of the Mind's eyes twinkled with a rising sense of amusement. The interplay between this poet zealot and the Dark Lord in disguise was nothing short of a fun little diversion. A diversion that, unfortunately, needed to end. Cain looked up into those burning eyes behind the mask and bore his teeth. With that one movement the facade came to an abrupt end. The first thing to fade was the smooth skin of youth. What remained was a man, just stepping into the rungs of middle age, his eyes burning with force corruption.

"I see you. Cholmis Tyr. Behind that mask of yours." He hissed, the illusion that maintained the face of the man flickering once in the presence of the Sith. For a brief instant the horror that hid behind the guise of a man could be seen. Six eyes, slits of red that broke his skin, a wide mouth of needle sharp teeth, skin flecking and falling away to reveal some manner of crystal that was slowly creeping its way across his flesh. Veins bulged beneath the skin, black and twisted. A heartbeat, half a second, in the face of darkness. "Do you see me?"

He let the moment hang, Cain cared little for introducing himself with titles and grandeur.

 

[CholmisTyr]

The Darth needn't introduce himself, as Cholmis had already discerned the man's identity when the web of illusion had begun to rot away in revelation. If Cain's mind still reigned sovereign over the place in which they stood, he would find the hopeful Sith strangely absent of fear, and where that asphyxiation should have been in any sane man, reverence dominated instead. Cholmis went to his knee in a swift step backwards, robes now unheeding to the hot winds of Tund, while the golden mask fell to coppery deference, turned upon the obsidian below.

"I see you my Lord, and I have heard talk of those that refused and went mad with the overflow. Every quarter has known you and none bore your passing except with trembling." It would have been easy to mistake this as brown-nosing from any other man, and yet its delivery here was barbed with truth.

Steady fingers lay dormant across a robed knee, broad shoulders level and fleshly eyes sheathed behind the wide forge-born one's of his mask. Cholmis had studied what he could of Darth Cain; for a man whose station is never earned quietly, Cain had stood as an edifice to what it meant to be a Sith in his eyes, a figure to aspire to, and it was only fitting that they should meet on the lowest wards of the Basilica.

"I ask that you see me, my Lord Cain. I hope to show the heretics the truth, and that whether they come from palace, hut, or cave, they can leave all the fog worlds of conception behind for the truth of the Dark."

 

[Vinny]

Darth Cain watched as the supplicant dropped to a knee, his head inclined. There was a certain poetry of the moment. Six eyes engraved on that mask looking up into six eyes burning inside of Cain's skull. The force had warped and marred the Sith Lord, turning him into something utterly unnatural. Now here he was, an aspect of the Dark Side looking down into some strange mockery of a reflection. It was a chilling feeling-perhaps it was destiny? He could not say for certain. Yet the ghosts in the dark urged him to accept the plea, and when the Dark Side called to him, its Steward answered.

"I do see you, Cholmis Tyr, as I said before." He said, and gave a low chuckle. "Now get on your feet. You are welcome in this place." He said and relaxed his shoulders. Playing the role of pontiff and master was tiring at best. Cain allowed his usual casual veneer to wash over him and turned to the doors, waving a relaxed hand. They groaned open, heavy stone sliding along stone. He glanced over his shoulder. "Prayers are currently in session in the sanctuary and classes are in session in the east wing. The dorms are in the west wing. Training is in the basement and the library is on the second floor. My sanctum is above that."

With that he began walking, not waiting for the other to fall into step. It was his own prerogative to do so.

 

[CholmisTyr]

Cholmis played the biddable role, rising when instructed, and though far from a pliant person he wasn't stupid enough to deny the wishes of a Darth, even if the arcanist wielded a strangely casual demeanor. Surely to step through the maw of the Basilica would require one to strip and don a chrisom, surely they were to tread unto turbulent waters to test their faith -- Whatever was in store, Cholmis ruminated idly while falling into place beside the Dark Lord, his fingers joining across his front in half-prayer as they coasted along black stone.

The halls were exalted in Cholmis' eyes, and his thoughts already preyed on the books and archives above -- Each word was razor-fed and secret, thinner than cataclysms, tarnished like red-drink. The Priest-to-be would one day cut his name into the weight of the Galaxy, and the Basilica would be the first stone from which he stepped.

"Where are we heading, my Lord?" A strangely direct question, one without the overwrought prose he delivered so often.

For any Sith, this place struck awe into ones very core -- and Cholmis? If those golden lips ever were to turn heavenwards in delight, it would have been in that moment. Waxen light tiered unlit corridors, pillars rose up into friezes of devotion, and great murals bordered by blisters of age illustrated the triumph of the Dark Side.

 

[Vinny]

Cain had to admit that it felt good to see someone so eager to learn come through those gates. Certainly his peers did as well, but they sought the power for their own ends when it came right down to it. This one had promise, something the others seemed to lack. Cain crossed his arms behind his back and strolled through the narthex-the entry hall of the basilica-and into the west wing. From there he ascended the straight band of stairs that rose up into the black stone.

"To the place you wish to see the most. The Library. You can go to the sanctuary on your own time to pray." Cain said as he alighted at the top of the first landing before ascending the second set of stairs. At the end he opened the door beyond and strode into the surprisingly well lit repository. For a temple, most of the equipment was quite modern though along the walls there were still plasteel faced cases equipped with devices to preserve the ancient texts contained within. He gestured around himself.

"This is where you will gather knowledge, knowledge that you will need to overcome the trials and tests set before you by the high priests. Beyond this room is the hall where myself and the other leaders of the priesthood dwell." He gestures toward a pair of doors at the northern side of the room, beyond the bent heads of many priests in cowls and hoods.

 

[CholmisTyr]

Cholmis would spend many an evening entombed in this wide chamber, drinking in the hieroglyphics and pages of pictorial descent, literary caverns that would no doubt consume him just as he would try to pry secrets from their abysm. For a creature whose mind was engorged by a thousand thoughts, he prowled effortlessly through the twilit shelves, a true disciple of the beliefs held here, one who had forsaken the petty gnawing of fear many years ago. Truthfully, fear still lingered in him, buried beneath a mountain of fanatical purpose and the perpetual yearning for things to add to the summit of that mountain -- Darth Cain, were he as powerful in the art of the Dark Side as he was reputed to be, could detect as much.

"The principalities of the Galaxy would sparkle as gems in the black reaches of space should what lays here find freedom." He mused, mostly to himself, a perverse rattle of words that tapered off to silence so that clearer ones could rise to the fore. "Who are these other leaders?" That sounded almost venomous, a seething doubt that anybody was capable enough to lead the clergy outside of Darth Cain.

If he had the capability, Cholmis would have laughed. To think of all those deluded by false gods and the creatures that posed as divinities in the dying light of faith. Those deities hid behind statues and the faithless words of traitor-priests, but the Dark Side? A man could feel it. The great doors that the Dark Lord had motioned to had surely been carven from ancient stone of some monolith-crowned citadel, it would seem only fitting. Cowled priests were all but ignored, for even though Cholmis was the newest of the flock, he felt as if others would have to prove their devotion to him. He waited for Cain to answer.

 

[Vinny]

Cain raised an eyebrow at the sudden muted hostility. There was a tension that came from Cholmis. Obviously he did not understand the necessity for wider hierarchies, that or his devotion had a key flaw. Overt loyalty to a singular being was the way of a fool. The Dark Side was the only entity that should be devoted to with anything close to that level of loyalty. Respect and admiration for the priests of the church should, and would, be enforced without question. Cain turned and narrowed his eyes at Cholmis.

"The High Priests are my first subordinates in the church, Cholmis. They have earned their higher ordinations. I do hope you show them the respect that entails." Cain intoned darkly. He turned away, that part of the conversation over as far as he was concerned. He gestured toward those gathered, working tirelessly. "You will learn from your peers, you will grow strong, and you will impress me. I have high hopes for you Cholmis. I do hope you do not disappoint me as so many before you." The Dark Lord said and strode toward the hall of the masters.

The doors opened and he walked with Cholmis through the stark black hallway. Stone echoing with each footstep. They arrived at the end of the hall, flanked by doors belonging to the high priests. The last door though belonged to Cain himself, and appeared to have some manner of seal on it. He ran his hand down the surface of the door and it shuddered, beginning to open. An absolutely unholy aura could be felt within. Cain turned and looked at Cholmis. "What you do from this moment is your perogative. When the time comes I will test you. Should you pass, I will induct you into the priesthood and ordain you as a priest of the faith. You will be allowed to choose your function in our order and you will be sent on tasks. Until that time comes. You are a hopeful."