The Forbidden Castle

[Lord Ire]

-the Forbidden Castle, as seen from the Capital Codru Government building-

The Forbidden Castle was an ancient castle on Munto Codru near the planetary capital Capital Codru which was built by a long-extinct alien civilization prior to the arrival of the planet's sapient species the Codru-Ji. It was filled with a long network of mazes and corridors. Its rock walls which were decorated with symbols and petroglyphs were carved so thinly that they appeared to be translucent.

-Upper levels of the Forbidden Castle-

Most Codru-Ji avoided the castle as they considered it be the domain of evil spirits. Greater inspection of the castle would prove to yield some interesting finds; multiple hidden corridors and passages, secret rooms and compartments through out the castle. For its age, the castle looked very well taken care of. Their thin rock walls appeared to most visitors to be translucent and were decorated with mysterious symbols and arcane petroglyphs, causing a sense of mystery and awe to many offworld visitors. Despite these wonders, many Codru-Ji avoided these castles as the considered them to be haunted.

While most of the upper part of the Forbidden Castle was uninhabited, the lower levels were reshaped and remodeled by Ire over the passing years. Security being one of his first concerns, Ire placed Model Dz5 security doors throughout his facility. These blast doors included an artificial intelligence with a vocoder and photoreceptor set in them, as well as an advanced laser cannon defense system. Numerous security locks were also installed.

-Model Dz5 security doors at work-

The facility itself is rigged with numerous sensor negators and thermal dissipaters so that anyone scanning would not pick up what was going on inside the Castle's lower levels. Even the hangar bay, which is built into the side of the mountain, is concealed with a special hologram that looks like the side of the mountain.

-The Facility located in the depths of the Forbidden Castle-

[Lord Ire]

Ire's ship makes its way into the Facility's hangar bay and lands gently. Shutting down the ship, Ire exits and wals towards the turbolift in the back of the bay. Ire enters the lift and is quikly whisked to the main chamber. The room looks dark and feels a little cold as its look is that of the Empire in the days of Palpatine. It has numerous items throughout its space, control stations, holomap tables, monitors filled with images of multiple places being watched for flashpoints. droids at perminate placements and monitoring data from throughout the galaxy.

-Ire's command center inside the Facility-

Ire walks over to the station of a B0-BB13 analysis droid and begins looking at the readings. "Anything new to report, BOB?"

-B0-BB13 analysis droid, BOB for short-

The droid gives a shake of the head, indicting no. Ire looks back at the infomation and then moves away. He begins to make his way towards a door off to the right of the main chamber.

When the door opens, it reveals Mustafar obsidian floor, walls and ceiling. In the obsidian were etching like those on the Forbidden Castle's walls only these etchings were in ancient Sith, anceint incantations used to channel the dark side. In the back of the room is an alter, which Ire kneels at. He raises his hands up and out pop two concealed lightsabers from the sleaves of his cloak. He places them on the alter and then begins focusing on the dark side and slips into meditation.

As the hours pass, Ire continues to feed off the well that is the dark side and feels almost lost in its vastness. Soon comes image of a ghostly red shape, pointing at Ire and speaking with an eerie voice. "You are the harbinger of death, you will bring the Jedi to their doom."

-Ire's vision of a ghostly image proclaiming him the harbinger of death of the Jedi-

If his face could be seen, he would be smiling like a killer. He feels the dark side surround him and he focuses on it power with all his anger and rage. Ire doesn't sleep at all during this; to him meditation is sleep.

[Lord Ire]

Ire finds himself transported back to a time during his training, doing two finger push-ups with a 20kg pack on his back and Darth Zealous watching him with teaching cane in hand. As he circles his apprentice, Zealous lectures Ire.

"There is a place within you, a place as briskly clean as ice on a mountain top, cool and remote. Find that high place, and look down within yourself; breath that clean icy air as you regard your guilt and shame. Do not deny them; observe them. Take your horror in your hands and look at it. Examine it as a phenemenon. Smell it. Taste it. Come to know it only as you can, for it is yours and it is precious. Handle your emotions. Dissect them, reassemble them, do anything with them to your pleasure. You may still feel them, they may even be there more noticeable than before, but these emotions, no longer will they have the power to cloud your mind. Do anything in this place within yourself. That cold distance -the mountain top within yourself- that is the first key to the power of the Sith."

Zealous' words were cold as Hoth ice, their meaning precise and to the point, but that was not the point to his lecture. Everything was a lesson to Zealous and was reinforced by another lesson.

"Do you understand its meaning?" Zealous asks Ire, and then gives Ire's ribs a strong thwack with his cane.

"No, Master." Ire responds. It was customary to say 'no' even if you did understand. Again comes a powerful thwack from Zealous' cane.

"Do you now understand?"

"I'm sorry, Master. The meaning still escapes me." Ire says with a calm voice as he continues his push-ups. Zealous expected this of Ire, as his first lesson to Ire was to under stand about pain. Then Ire's eyes open to the sight of his chamber, his lightsabers on the alter in front of him. Ire's cold gaze signals his awareness while the lingering voice of Zealous rings in his mind.

"Pain is the only lesson you will never forget."

[Lord Ire]

-Layout of the Main Chamber-

As Ire's eyes open from his meditation, the words of his former master still ring in his mind. He quickly rises to prepare himself for the coming work ahead. His dark mind had been working, all the while he meditated, and in that dark place of contemplation Ire's devious mind thought of pain as a teaching tool. The Sith would teach the Jedi the meaning of pain and Ire has the means to show them.

He rises and disrobes, leaving the robes in a pile on the floor. The room is dark and under these conditions would be considered too dark to see anything. Ire doesn't care, he likes the dark and can see better than most in it. The shadows were a blanket and he worked well withing them. Ire readies himself for the day ahead and sets out on a task, something that will please his dark Master Paymon.

Ire grabs his lightsabers off the alter before he leaves and puts them in their concealment. He exits his quarters to the main chamber and walks up to BOB. "Report."

"Nothing new at this time, sir." BOB replies in his robotic voice. Ire says nothing. He continues off towards the turbolifts and proceeds to anther level of the Facility, the Lab.

-Layout of the Lab-

[Lord Ire]

-A GH-7 medical analysis droid, nicknamed Seven for short.-

As the lift doors open, Ire finds a GH-7 medical analysis droid waiting at the lift for him. Ghost synthesized voice calls out to his master. "Hello sir."

"Enough with the warm welcomes Seven, we have some work to do." Ire says as he walks down the hall towards the main lab. They turn down the hall and go down a set of stairs before reaching the door. The door opens and the scene is like one of a mad scientist's lab, machines and computers. various experiments being run by a few droids.

-The Main Laboratory-

Ire has spent a great deal of time studying science; chemistry, biology, and xenology. He has even studied the knowledge of the Followers of Palawa, the ancient founders of Teras Kasi, who were the first to study midi-chlorians and their relationship to the Force. Its this culmination of this knowledge that he intends to use to destroy the Jedi.

Seven hovers over to the viewer and motions with his hand to his master. "This is the sample of the virus you asked me to test sir. It appears to be in working order. I have had it time lapsed to show you its progression."

Ire walks over and looks at the viewer, the image is one of wonder. The sped up datastream shows the viral agents of the toxin spread like a swarm over the healthy cells and begin to attach themselves to the cell walls. Slowly they seep into the cell and then attack the various working parts of the cell, moving from cell body to cell body before attacking the nucleus. It isn't long before the cell finally collapses from total cellular decay, roughly 3 days after initial infection. Ire looks up at Seven nods.

"Very good, I can see why they had such problems with this one on Naboo."

"Yes sir, Blue Shadow is very contagious to many species." Seven concurs.

Ire looks at the images and smiles behind the shadow of his hood. "It will prove interesting to see what people think of it when we're done with it."

"If I may ask sir, why did you ask me to procure this sample?" Seven inquires.

"We're going to improve it and make more."

"But sir, that virus is easily cured with..." Seven begins to tell Ire but is cut off.

"I know that, Seven. That is why I said we are going to 'improve it'."

[Lord Ire]

Ire knows that the cure for Blue Shadow is Reeksa root and that it will be finding a way around the healing properties of the root that will be the biggest leap. The virus itself would need to be retooled to accommodate the change so that it doesn't lose any potency. Suddenly something hits Ire, something he had learned about from his master. "Tell me Seven," Ire asks inquisitively. "what do you know about Nanoviruses?"

"A Nanogene virus is fast acting and highly fatal. Similar viruses include a virus created by Separatist-aligned Kaminoans to kill all clone troopers during the Clone Wars. Another form of nanovirus was created by Imperial agents to kill the New Republic Head-of-State in 7 ABY."

Ire is impressed with his droid's knowledge, he programmed him well. Ire points to the image of Blue Shadow and looks at his droid. "We're going to modify this virus with the a nanovirus that targets specific cells. If I get you the means Seven, can you make this work?"

Seven's analytical brain begins working quickly; it doesn't take him long to answer. "Yes, sir."

"Good."

[Lord Ire]

Ire turns to leave the main part of the lab and is stopped by Seven's voice. "Sir, would you care for me to continue analysis of the virus?"

"Yes; isolate the virus's main genetic markers if you can and keep me up to date on your progress." Ire says as he steps through the door and leaves the lab. He walks down the hall towards the turbolift. He enters the lift and selects the hangar bay as he plots his next course of actions. Remembering of the crime syndicates on Nar Shaddaa, Ire enters the hangar bay and boards the Silent Knight. He begins powering up the systems and plots a course for Nar Shaddaa. Taking off under the cover of night, Ire blasts off and heads for the world were the shadows breathe.