Many kilometers below the duracrete peaks which dominate the Coruscant skyline and far away from the buzz of the flashy speeders which swarm around them, there resides a dark urban underworld. A place where no natural light can touch, it is said to harbour the scum and villainy too poor and notorious to survive any lawful society. Its streets crawl with ravenous vermin with which many of its inhabitants are forced to share a home, hidden amongst the festering squalor with nothing but a knife in their pocket. The more fortunate have the luxury of spending their days and nights lost in a drunken torpor, left to rot in the corners of blood-spattered barrooms and seedy strip joints until taken by disease and death. Deeper still, concealed from the garish glow of last stop establishments, there are devolved wretches, an unsightly subclass of human cast into the depths and amputated from the world like a gangrenous limb. If the city planet is truly unsleeping, then its Underlevels are left unwaking from its black stygian nightmare.

SLAVE GIRLS
SLAVE GIRLS
SLAVE GIRLS

A sign illuminated a street popular with night-time revellers unable to visit the Uscru district. The neon lights fizzed and crackled above the open doorway, occasionally the Girls part of the sign dimmed and attracted questionable clientele, and the last line hadn't worked for years. In places, the glowing crimson floor glinted with broken glass. On the other side of the street there was a tiny liquor store called The Bar Destroyer, white light spilled out from its open door, in which lied its unconscious owner, Taby, cradling an empty bottle of Starschnapps. A side street, barely wide enough to accommodate a single speeder, slipped away from the throbbing music and clamour of violence and into darkness it plunged. It led at length to a double door made of thick riveted steel, on either side the walls were plastered with faded posters, except one shimmered in the pale hue of an overhanging streetlamp. It had been freshly painted and simply read:

CHURCH OF THE DARK SITH BIMONTHLY MEETING
MYSTERY GUEST TO BE ANNOUNCED

The simmer of mass conversation burbled beyond the weighty doors where a sixty-strong congregation of local down-and-outs had assembled in anticipation of the special visitor they had been promised. They sat in rows on wooden benches, some sat on barrels arranged in semi-circles around empty crates on which they leaned, hands clasped in prayer. The walls stretched and curled in arches high overhead, ancient symbols and iconography had been scratched into the paintwork, in some places the ceiling had collapsed exposing a maze of rusty dripping pipes, but in spite of this, the building was still very much an old church. A candle lit alcove sat at the end of the cavernous room, in which were nestled three robed figures around an altar made of damp rotten wood. Over the chanting of foreign tongues, excited whisperings were heard:

"Do you suppose it could be a new priestess for the master?"
"Don't be daft, Huxley, there can only ever be two at any given time, remember?"
"Then what about the old mystic who lurks about on the other side of town?"
"The Cartographer of Dathomir? That's just a rumour, surely."
"I bet it's one of those exiled Nightsisters Priestess Paradoxia mentioned last month."
"Could be! Could be! Or it could just be the philosopher again..."
"I hope not! Not again!"
"If Biletongue walks through that door I swear, by the Emperor's black bones, I'm walking out."
"I'm with you..."

"Welcome! Welcome, brothers and sisters! Welcome!" boomed a voice from the far end of the building.

The central of the three robed figures raised his arms in greeting of the latest arrivals to be granted clearance through the hefty metal doors. Heads turned in unison.

"Make yourselves comfortable in my home, my dark brethren, the ceremony shall begin shortly," he said, the dancing light illuminating beneath a large hood a rather crudely painted face.

The sound of conversation resumed and the strangers took their seats at the back of the room, muttering to each other while casting about cautious glances. It was their first visit to the ill-reputed Church of the Dark Sith and if anything, they expected a memorable evening. And the rest of the congregated faithful felt the same.