Ziost - Crown of the Sith Empire

Dino returns to the Cathedral of Dread the day after the demonstration. He isn't sure who he is going to find when he reaches the door, but he intends to learn more about this...use of fear.

Inside he sees the trandoshans sitting in a circle eating a meal in a well lit corner of the Cathedral.

Dino approaches the group in the circle and nods to them.

"I have chosen to return, to learn more about the Dread Masters. How do we begin the instruction?"

There was usually something set up, right?

They gesture for him to sit and the woman he spoke to before said, “One must become a disciple and Darth Hofu the scaleless hunter chooses who is worthy. Are your scales shiny enough for such an honor?”

"I do not know about shiny scales.They have been scuffed to give me sharp claws aplenty. I have lived a life with fear and dread until it made itself a companion, in one way or another. If I am worthy, it is to share that companion...so that those who have forgotten it may find their own."

They chuckle at his response and she requested, "Bold words... so tell us strange scales so that we may know of what you have suffered."

"I was taken here in my last days of younglinghood, as a slave. My sire had been on a hunt, seeking to take one of these Sith as his bounty. He failed." Dino pauses for effect. "Horribly. He had brought with him on the hunt, and now I was the reward for the human who killed him. I watched him die, and was then dragged here in chains, alone."

Dino was sure that was a standard story for most here. "I was sold to The Instructor, a teacher of their glowy sword fights. They wanted something to prepare the students for actually putting their weapon into the body of their foe. That I could heal...meant they did not have to, as they say, "go easy".

Dino pauses as a deep breath. For some reason, beginning to speak was making the rest of the story, the harder parts of the story, easier. "For years, I faced those who rule this Empire, and stood before their blades knowing that all it took was one mistake, or one bored or angry or sulking student would go one strike too far and end me. I lived in fear of those swings, of the pain that followed. So...I tried to learn how they attacked me, and how I could delay it."

"That's when I learned...fearing the strike that is to come kills more than the strike itself. The fear of the pain, of retribution, makes you wince. Accepting pain...means that you do not fear the strike as much, and that you are more able to act. To actually succeed." Dino cocks a smile. "I learned these students attacks better than they knew themselves. That the pain of losing fingers, or hand, or not being fed for a week as retribution hurt less than a blade in my chest...and the pleasure of stringing their limb bodies off the ground, their throat in my hand had a satisfaction all its own."

"My owner looked for new ways to use me, to break me. He bled me, and sent me out into the wilderness to be his bait. To know that the hunters in the wild would smell me, that I would be the one they were to strike first from the shadows. What he did not expect..." And Dino looks smug "that his own fears would leave him alone when the beasts arrived."

Dino pauses, and his voice loses any hint of boast. "I survived. I persisted. I...earned my freedom with his death."

They listened and seemed impressed with the tale, the savagery and strength to persist make them look at Dino with some respect. The woman responded, “You have endured a great deal and your scales are stronger for it. With such strength why do you stay the second to another?”

Dino nods sagely at the question. It is a completely fair one.

"For one, I am free of my shackles. My employer is exactly that: an employer. One who offers services in return for my services, and we are both free to end the relationship at any time. And I do gain for it."

Dino looks back to his claws. "What I fear...what was shown to me yesterday, is that my might, the might that won me my freedom is no longer enough. The Empire holds many tricks and traps, legal and otherwise that lay to drag me back there. Drag us back." Dino looks back up. "Which is why I am here. To study the Dread ways, to make my fear their own. I wish to make that fear a strength."

She gestured to her fellows and said, “Who is the bright scale that treats you so well as to employ you for their benefit, friend.”

A male trandoshan asked, ‘What did you see?”

"I am employed by the one known as Lord Bellious, Moyr Ahaya. Like us, a "xeno", and a canny hunter in her own right. She is...somewhat like Darth Hofu in what he preaches of liberation, and that has drawn me here, but she speaks of more literal freedom. I do think they have a great deal in common though..."

DIno stops that line to answer the question from the other Trandoshan. "It was as if I was surrounded by the torturers of my youth, but almost as in a dream, it became obvious that they were not. There were six of them surrounding me, their faces that of demons, creatures I can not possible describe with justice. I could feel them strip away my pretense, until I was the yowling, pitiful youngling of earlier years. I saw it and felt it as clearly as I am speaking to you now."

"The twi'lek," one said with disdain, "They are not our people."

The woman offered, "Sith no matter their species are to be feared even Darth Hofu is to be feared for all that he has done for us"

"They are not" Dino responds. "But the Sith, of all beings, should remind us that an individual is not the whole race. They Sith have their airs, and they hate us, but they accept the superior of us further. Slow, too slow, abominably slow, but the superior do seem to rise." Dino shows some teeth. "And we know that Trandoshans are superior."

"I see no trandoshan Sith, only Trandoshan boot lickers," one spits with disgust.

She turned to him and hissed, "Do not be rude."

"It is true he more like Sith than Trandoshan, he is so proud to be pet, his scales dull with submission to their ways. He is more like them than us," he finished.

Dino strides up to the Trandoshan who is insulting him.

"If you are superior, perhaps you would wish to take on the training offered. Surely, you are brave enough to face your fear as well, yes?"

The old trandoshan lowered his head and grumbled, “You are stronger, I am old and broken and my scales have lost their vigor. If I had nothing to lose I would challenge you but I have family that needs feeding.”

"Not with my claws old-molt." Dino gestures inside. "If there is no power to fear, then you can face your fears, can you not? I can't say that it is a simple thing to face. But your emotions care not for your age."

"I am just here for the work, I don't buy into all that salt-trash, just dirty water to me," he said.

Dino looks the old salt over.

"So, you are willing to talk big, but not do anything, either through your own talents, or showing a modicum of courage." Dino claps a hand on the old timer's shoulder. "If you are like him, and simply want work, there are other places, such as my employer. I cannot promise work, but there are options."

DIno looks back over at the female. "However, I do believe there is something here to discover, and I intend to find out.

The woman nodded and the other trandoshans seem to agree and another said, "We are not cowards."