Ask Blood Pact

[Melkor Damask]

One standard month later—

The North Sea of Bal'demnic crashed around them in a stormy froth, but the Muun cultist Melkor Damask looked entirely unfazed. A month prior, he had begun the process of training a new apprentice, Kholvar Varaxes, and today was the day he proved himself worthy of that station. Just like the ancient Sith before them, those members of the Sith Eternal chose a pivotal moment early in their training to construct a lightsaber. So would it be with Kholvar if he was strong enough with the dark side.

"This cave," he was saying while nodding to the mouth in the side of the nearby cliff, "was used by the Sith of Darth Bane's era to construct their lightsabers. I can furnish the material you need to construct your weapon, but first you require a kyber crystal. One that has been made to bleed." Melkor paused, then continued, "Before that, though, you need to reach the cave. To do that, you must rely upon all that you have learned this past month. Search yourself for your fears, your anger, your hatred — focus them — and the way shall open to you."

The instructions were deliberately cryptic. Melkor had sensed his apprentice's eagerness to construct an energy blade of his own growing over the past week. But this pilgrimage was more than just a lightsaber-constructing expedition. It was a test. Many cultists had come to the Muun for induction into the Sith Eternal, and training. Two were currently full members. The rest were skeletons beneath the very waves above which they currently stood. For Melkor, it was time to see whether Khlovar's bones would join them... or whether he would become something more. @Logan

 

[Kholvar Varaxes]

The past month had been an interesting one for Kholvar. Although he had always felt like he was superior to anyone who stood next to him, he could never really figure out why. Most people, including Kholvar himself, just assumed he was a narcissistic, egotistical piece of shit with a massive god complex. While that wasn't technically untrue, it turned out that in fact Kholvar was better than most people he stood next to. He had the force, and Melkor had taught him to use it.

The cryptic Muun had a way of explaining things that said exactly what he wanted to say without really saying anything at all. As far as Kholvar could ascertain, there were no real instructions given to him on exactly how to cross the massive chasm of raging, turbulent water that separated him from the mouth of the cave. Melkor had mentioned focus to him before, focusing his negative emotions into servitude of the darkside. It was worth a shot, he guessed.

Closing his eye, Kholvar dug into his own mind, sifting through his memories to dig up the ones that brought him real emotions. He remembered the first time he killed someone back when he was just a teenager doing scut work for the Hutts. A guy had owed money and didn't want to pay up.. so Kholvar took payment by killing the man's wife.

He remembered the adrenaline, the scream, the blood. But mostly he remembered.. not feeling guilty, but rather pleased with the work he had done. Through the force it was like he was back in that very moment, the smell of ocean air in his nostrils replaced with the coppery stink of blood, the musky scent of sweat after a struggle.. the feeling of power knowing there was nothing the man or his now dead wife could do but pay the money the Hutts were owed.

Standing with Melkor, Kholvar's breathing became rapid, his nostrils flared and his ears stuck straight up. His one good eye snapped open and outstretching his arm, Kholvar pointed his hand, palm open, towards the sea. He felt the darkside course in and around him, enveloping him with its dark, icy, yet somehow comfortable and familiar embrace. The sea before them parted as if nature itself was bending to Kholvar's will.

The path to the mouth of the cave was clear now and without looking back to Melkor, Kholvar traversed the expanse, assuming the Muun would follow suit. Unsure of the next steps on their journey Kholvar would stop once he reached the other side. Looking towards his Master, the great Triannii smiled, baring his pearly white fangs.

"Your training seems to have worked quite well," He said, although he did his best to keep the surprise out of his voice. Truth be told, Kholvar wasn't entirely sure how powerful Melkor actually was and was half convinced at the start of this whole endeavor he was just selling him snake oil in exchange for someone to watch over his dusty things. "What is the next step, Master?"

@Malon

 

[Melkor Damask]

Melkor couldn't read minds, but he could sense feelings and guess at thoughts. He felt the surprise that Kholvar did not show, and the lingering doubt underneath it. He would have made a fine Sith, the Muun thought to himself. Already, he seeks to test his Master's power. As well he should—I have shown him only glimpses. Then... I will give him but a taste.

Melkor pushed inside the cave until it seemed to dead-end. "I can feel your doubt, apprentice. Your surprise." The Muun chuckled dryly and cast his gaze back over his shoulder. His yellow eyes twinkled in the darkness. "At any time, if you wish to test that strength of yours, you need only to give in to your... jealousy—" He chose the word to deliberately cut at the Triannii's pride "—and take the lunge."

Melkor held his apprentice's gaze as he raised a long, spidery hand up to his mouth and bit hard enough to draw blood. He then slathered the blood on the wall of the cave, where old Sith runes glowed with a deep, threatening crimson hue. The rock shook and the cave split open like a maw, revealing a massive underground lake. Without warning, the Muun reached out with the Force as never he had in front of Kholvar, grasping the Triannii in a death-grip. Then, with but a tilt of his head, Melkor sent Kholvar careening off the ledge and into the frigid water below.

Casually, the Muun strolled into the cave. His laughter, now full of dark mirth, boomed and reverberated off the cave walls. The lake chamber was much larger. Crystals glimmered above and below it; and, at the center of the lake, an island with an altar seemed to pulsate with dark power.

Melkor looked down at where he had sent his apprentice swimming and, voice like thunder, said, "You are no Jedi. I will not coddle you. You think you have strength? You think you have power?" The Muun's answering laughter was high and cold. "You have neither. It is not enough to simply learn from me, apprentice. You must hate me. Loathe me. You must envision my death with every gulp for air. And then you must use that hatred—the fear of drowning—and force one of these crystals to choose you. That is the next step." @Logan

 

[Kholvar Varaxes]

Melkor throwing words around like "jealousy" made Kholvar metaphorically curl his nose in disgust. In what universe would there be any reason for someone like him to be jealous of a being like Melkor. It was preposterous, absolutely in the realm of fantasy on the Muun's part. Kholvar could feel his blood starting to boil when his Master drew his own blood and the cave ripped itself open to reveal its insides.

Kholvar followed Melkor in, his eyes darting to and fro trying to take in all of what was laid before him. The crystal formations seemed to hum with a power he couldn't quite comprehend, almost as if they were whispering to him but just quiet enough for Kholvar to not understand what they were telling him.

The water seemed unnaturally still, the antithesis to the rising, violent swells they'd been met with outside. Invisible waves of darkness emanated from the alter at the lake's center and like the crystals seemed to be beckoning to Kholvar, pleading with him to hear its siren's song and give in to whatever dark promises they were whispering seductively into his ear.

It was then he felt something grip him with incredible strength and launch him cleanly off the ledge and into the water. The shock of being submerged completely in the frigid water paralyzed Kholvar's muscles for a moment, causing the massive Trianni to sink like a rock. The electronics of his cybernetic eye shorted out swiftly, electrocuting Kholvar and singing the fur around his eye heavily.

Instinct taking over, Kholvar reached to his face while his strong lower body started pumping heavily to propel him upward to breach the surface. Just as his head broke through to open air, Kholvar jammed his clawed fingers into his eye socket and ripped the cybernetic out with one solid motion.

All the while, the Muun's words echoed inside of his mind. The anger from before resurfaced as Kholvar pulled himself up onto the solid ground near the alter. His eye still bleeding, coating his otherwise pristine snow-white fur with the deep scarlet of fresh blood, the young Trianii let out a vicious roar befitting his heritage. It reverberated off the stone walls and fueled with all of the rage, blood thirst and sheer humiliation, the darkside poured out of him and shook the very chamber in which he and Melkor stood.

But it wasn't enough. The frustration in his chest only built, he needed to do more. Kholvar wanted to plunge his fist into Melkor's chest, pull out his still beating heart and consume it with the voracity of nexu ripping into a bark rat. If the Muun wanted someone to hate him, to loathe the very fact that he still drew breath, then Kholvar was more than willing to fill that role.

Another snarl escaped Kholvar's lips as he looked up at Melkor above him, the laughter from before still sitting in his ears, like the buzzing of a fly you just can't kill. The crystals surrounding the cavern seemed to pulsate even more than strongly before, their nebulous whispers becoming a pure cacophony in Kholvar's ears to the point it almost overwhelmed up until suddenly... there was nothing, just hard silence.

It persisted for a few moments more, the absence of sound somehow louder than all the crystals sang in unison. The whisper returned, but different from before; like a lone, single voice calling his name through the fog. Walking over to one of the formations near the alter, transfixed as if he were possessed by an invisible monster, Kholvar knelt down in front of it and held out his hand.

A single crystal rose from the formation and hovered in the air before him. Reaching out, Kholvar grabbed it and cradled it in his hands like you would if you were near death in the desert and suddenly found a pool of fresh water.

His gaze returned to Melkor now the blind rage from earlier subsiding into ball of resentful sludge that pooled in the pit of his stomach. He needed the Muun for now, but Kholvar knew that at some point the day would come where Melkor out-served his usefulness and it would be then that he would carve the skin from the alien's bones. When with the ease that one snuffs out a candle he would snuff out his life - and Kholvar would do it with a smile on his face.

"As for step three?"

@Malon

 

[Melkor Damask]

The mirth never left Melkor's slim, eggplant of a face. He could feel the violent anger in his apprentice. The desire to kill the Muun and make him pay for what he had just done. This was good. Apprentices with no ambition were poor apprentices. Useless to the cult. And Masters who hadn't the gall to stoke such emotion in their apprentices were just as useless. The cult needed both if they were ever to come out of the shadows and surpass the Sith who came before them.

"Ah, a fine crystal," Melkor said and then flicked his gaze to Kholvar's missing eye. The smile on his face rose an inch, just far enough to expose the Muun's jagged teeth. "And that wound... it must have caused you terrible pain. Good. Good." The Muun raised a bony finger and pointed to the altar on the island at the center of the lake. "The final test is there. Take your crystal. It is alive in its way. But not fully yours. Not yet. Place it on the altar. Pour your pain into it. Your anger. Your hatred. Make it bleed. Only then will you be worthy of possessing a lightsaber."

Melkor said no more. A good student would realize that the anger Melkor had stoked, the very real pain that he had caused, was a tool that could be channeled for the bleeding process. But what the Muun had also failed to mention was the danger of the bleeding process. A kyber crystal would resist being wounded. Naturally attuned to the light side, it would fight back and many apprentices unprepared—those without pain or rage or hatred to defend themselves—were turned to the Light in their crystal's retaliation. Such apprentices died.

Melkor did not suffer weakness, and so the Dark had to snuff out the Light.

"Our blades are not given to us, apprentice," Melkor said as a final warning. "They are taken. You must be able to use the dark side to take what is yours... or you will die." @Logan