Ascension is the seventeenth installment in Sakaros's Untitled New Sith Wars series. Ten aspiring Sith arrive on Lisal to serve their new master, Darth Alecto.
Opening Crawl[]
Excerpt[]
| Source: Ascension | Attribution: Sakaros |
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Space is always cold, Nillan Deys'lro thought, snugging his crossed arms over his chest and hoping it looked standoffish and intimidating rather than like an attempt to conserve body heat. He had never liked space travel, and his impending arrival on Lisal did little to keep the shivers off his back. He preferred that explanation—the cold of space—to the alternative: They're more powerful than you, Nillan. The dark side is stronger with them, and their cold is freezing you out. He had felt it before in the company of Sith Lords whose power far exceeded his own—felt the dark side not as the scalding heat that had become so familiar it was his daily warmth in the way no sun could ever be, but instead as a cold so piercing that it turned his bones brittle and frosted the marrow inside. It was a cold no number of midnight robes could insulate him against. They were all cramped into a personnel transport that looked like it had been in service since Darth Ruin was running things—ten Forceful agents of the New Sith Empire, en route to their next assignment. For some of them, Nillan suspected, it really was their next assignment—certainly the enormous, four-armed brute that seemed as much wolf as man, or the long-armed reptilian Nillan thought might be called a Phindian. But it was Nillan's first assignment, and the scrutiny in the eyes of his fellow Sith told him it showed; his goatee hadn't grown in nearly as fast or as thick as he'd hoped, and fourteen years could only put so much muscle on his body. He was tall for his age, but that just made him lanky instead of intimidating. Most of the others looked at least in their late teens. The only person who appeared younger was a girl squeezed in between the four-armed wolfman and a tall, gray-blue-skinned man with a long, gaunt face that looked like a Muun's skull—all teeth and hard edges, with coal-black eyes. The green-skinned girl, small to begin with, seemed an afterthought between her hulking neighbors, and indeed neither seemed to notice her. Her hood was up, but a small blossom hung down over her right eye; Nillan had wondered why she was wearing flowers in her hair until he had put it together with her green skin and the two water bottles she had exhausted just on this flight and realized the flowers were her hair. She was attractive in a vegetable-girl sort of way, and Nillan started wondering where else she had flowers growing until he caught himself. Can't get distracted. There would be plenty of girls, vegetable and otherwise, when he became a Sith Lord—not just girls, but women, all of them willing and eager for a Sith Lord's touch. But now wasn't the time. He crossed his legs before his body could get away from him. She looked up, and Nillan had a moment to appreciate her bright green eyes—green as sunlight through a forest canopy, like a Jedi's lightsaber blade. He wrenched his eyes away, more concerned about where they had been than where they were going, and found himself locking eyes with the wolf-man. His lower arms were thicker than Nillan's thighs; his upper arms looked strong enough to rip Nillan in half. His lips pulled back to expose a row of gleaming fangs and to let loose a growl; he cracked the knuckles of his upper hands with a sound like splintering wood. Desperate, Nillan looked away only to find the skull-faced man returning his gaze instead. He was barely shorter than the wolfman, if half the width; without lips to close over those long teeth, it was hard to tell whether he was smiling, snarling, or just hungry. He took a snorting breath through nostrils that were little more than holes in his face. Leaning toward Nillan, he sucked another wet, rattling breath through his teeth, then rasped, "You smell like food." | |
Segments[]
Appearances[]
| Characters | Creatures | Droid models | Events | Locations |
| Organizations and titles | Sentient species | Vehicles and vessels | Weapons and technology | Miscellanea |
Characters
Dramatis personae
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Other characters
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Events
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Locations
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Organizations and titles
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Sentient species
Vehicles and vessels
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Weapons and technology
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Miscellanea
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Plot Summary[]
Aboard the Unquenchable Fire, Darth Saleej and Lord Rhutizh'chal'safan, his spymaster, discuss the impending death of the Cold One, a member of the Council of Five, and the vacancy on the Council that will result.
Meanwhile, dark side adept Nillan Deys'lro arrives on Lisal with nine other adepts and Sith Acolytes to enter service to Darth Alecto. Alecto subjects her new recruits to a series of tests, learning their strengths and weaknesses while relying on Nevya Khiyali for advice and delivering an unexplained message, though Nevya wears Alecto's patience down by requesting a chance to retry the Abattoir in hopes of achieving a higher rank in the Brotherhood of Shadows. On the third day of trials, it emerges that Megaera, one of the new recruits, actually escaped her former master, Lady Basrasht, and fled to serve Alecto; seeing potential in the girl, Alecto dismisses Basrasht's Acolytes and keeps Megaera in her service.
Zurgharjhen, a former Acolyte Alecto demoted, loses patience with the trials and engages Alecto in a duel; she wins, but spares his life in exchange for his pledge of service, taking only a finger to remind him of his limits. Darth Hokhtan summons Alecto back to the Unquenchable Fire, where she, Rhutizh, Hokhtan, Lord Sar-hent, and Darth Shakelli receive a communication from the Council of Five making Hokhtan their new Overlord.
Behind the Scenes[]
Alecto's description of how Nerlus Zedum would have treated Zurgharjhen's challenge—"[he] would've had his pet torturer, Ondar Vargh, skin the flesh off them all, then waited until you begged him to cut them off for you"—is a nod to a preferred torture method of Ramsay Bolton in A Song of Ice and Fire.