A little more than meets the eye

[Julius Sedaire]

​

Ostanes wasn't exactly new to electrical work and engineering. Truth be told he had started there years ago before he had became an acolyte of the Sith and started down the path of Alchemy and the Sorcery of the Dark Side. But, again, lightsabers were an utterly different beast of burden than he was used to in most of his ventures, and so he had sat up his alchemy lab with a few of his favorite electronic toys.

Diagrams lined the walls, on old fashion paper as he favored, a neglected holo-projector beaming a form into the air of an exploded view of a lightsaber. Parts were highlighted or enlarged, and he noted each. There were simple things he wanted in this, like the ability to lessen and the return the blade size to normal. Some blades could even become larger, but he wasn't quite sure how that worked. But making it smaller was, to his mind, simple enough anyone could do it.

The shii'do bent over the projector and pulled a piece of paper from a pile and studied it intently, reading with a crooked brow. With his reintroduction back to the ranks of Akure Executives alchemists as he began to rebuild his workshop, he had chosen a new form unknown to most, a synthesis of hundreds of faces to chose one both professional and intelligent and oddly sinister in some lights.

The paper though, was more important than the smoldering look his new face gave it. It detailed the basics of a way to eliminate dimetris circuits from a lightsaber, thus making it immune to cortosis shorting it out. The requisite paths and alternate circuity were confusing, but reaching out with the Force, after a moments struggle of concentration, and fighting again the blur of stolen memory, he managed to pull a stool to himself. It was easier than last time at least. It seemed whatever Rave did also made relearning even more complicate in some regards.

Sitting down, he turned to the project at hand. If he was going to begin his ascent again, he would need a tool that the masses would recognize him by, and that he could use against any Jedi who might get too jumpy about things.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Picking up a monocle bound to a head band, Ostanes clicked several lenses over his left eye and bent over the work in front of him. The monocle magnified the work to the microscopic level thanks to a series of technology that essentially reduced the technology of a microscope to the side of his face on a box just before the lenses. Brought into focus, he begin to move several manipulators in over the circuit board braced in soft clamped vices in front of him. The soldering and electrical work was too precise for the naked eye and bare hand, so he moved a tiny track ball like device on the mouse in front of him.

From the movement of the track ball, he began re-routing circuitry paths in different patterns and ways. The dimetris circuit would, when the blade was ignited, would form in little cubes to help direct the field of energy keeping the blade coherent. The first step was to remove them, and build a functioning blade without them. He had obtained a small rock of cortosis, on the promise he give it back to the AEI engineer who loaned it to him, to test it with. Piece by piece he bypassed and rerouted, and began to work on establishing proper routes to send impulses along for focusing the beam.

As this was achieved, he smiled, a cold and calculated gesture, and nodded. Stepping away from the mess, he slid the circuit board into a chasis of durasteel and connected a few wires, and stepped back further, using a remote igniter temporarily wired into the chasis to activate the blade. There was a snap, a hiss, and suddenly like a limp noodle of pure light, the blade hissed forth into being and sheered through the cheap flim-board table he was working at, cutting off the outside corner, leaving it burning on the floor accompanied by several curses from the young alchemist as he turned off the blade and approached again.

"Wrong button..."

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The first attempt had been a failure. Simply routing around and removing the dimetris circuit made what appeared to be a light whip. While that was useful and all, it certainly wasn't what Ostanes was after. Not in the slightest imaginings would him wielding a whip really be viewed as appropriate, useful, or much of anything. So he set about disconnecting various temporary wires and pulled the main board out of the chasis, mounted it again to the work board with manipulators attached, and grasped the control device in his hand as he locked the monocle in place at the exact and appropriate magnification.

So, removing them wasn't the option he wanted.... So he removed the tiny threads of solder and replaced a few little parts on the board and restored the circuit to it's original configuration, nodding silently as he checked and double checked and triple checked his work reversing the process and then began to merely pull the monocole off and remove the board from the workstation. This time he left it in a stock standard configuration, but with a press of a button it would convert back to the previous routes, so he could examine the difference of the blade sheath itself since that seemed to be the prior issues. With a grunt and a wiping of his brow with a shirt sleeve, he merely shuffled the board over and installed it into the chasis from before, plugging back in wires to the test frame and stepping back, but this time only a few steps.

Hitting the button, he watched the virulent red blade hiss into life and hum, straight and steady, a little brighter perhaps than the standard blade. Walking over, he absently tweaked a dial on the chasis, pressing in as he did, and the blade shrank down to the size of a plasma cutter and he took his seat again, attaching the monocle to his head and again. With a bend of his neck he began to look at the blade in front of him, his gaze intense as he clicked several smaller lenses in front of the magnification device, enhancing the image even further so he could get a look at the microscopic structure of the blade.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

There was little to say about the cube like structures forming the dimetris circuit. They were as expected and hoped for, and they maintained a very good spacing and structure of the blade. Without them he saw the results of what would happen to that structure first hand. The blade had been limp, wobbly and unstable. He was not sure it would have even maintained coherency when swung, and especially unsure of what would have happened to the thing if he had struck anything more solid than flimboard or even the flimboard itself with any kind of force. So the key now would be to reach over, hit the alternate switch, and watch the blade. To be safe, he put a few blocks under the vice and tightened it down extra tight, hoping it wouldn't explode when he hit the switch.

With a click, the switch was flipped and the blade immediately went limp again, this time thankfully not cutting anything. And more thankfully not producing a very loud explosive boom or even a small boom. Or, shades and shadows, it had the respect to not even catch fire. Which electronics were annoyingly prone to do when doing such experiments on. With his eyes narrowed he gaze over the blade, watching the dimetris circuit change from a stable, secure cube to a more fluid, free flowing spherical shape that allowed the flexibility and whip like nature currently involved. They still retained their sharp edges though, and this was a curious thing.

The edges! That had to be it. Even in a mostly spherical shape there was tiny ridges on the blade! With a sure hand he moved the cortosis rock over and screwed it into a clamp and extended the arm on the vice to bring the gleaming rock in contact with the blade, making sure before he ever touched the cortosis to put the rubberized gloves he had procured on. Sucessfully upon contact he watched a shock of energy pass through the blade and bounce and flow off the ridges in the circuits maintained the blade shape, pushing them apart and frazzling the shape then shorting it out entirely via feedback loop.

Now that explained it in one form. Just to test it in a standard configuration and then go from there!

 

[Julius Sedaire]

With the switch clicked back to standard array, Ostanes pulled the board yet AGAIN, sighing at the headache beginning behind his eyes as he slowly slid the monocle back in place over wearied eyes. Patience was a key virtue in this endeavor here, and slowly he began to evaluate for any damage from the cortosis. Even though it shouldn't have affected it, one never knew, and this was a volatile enough set up he didn't want to risk anything, especially his health or wellness, or the wholeness of his body. Shapeshifting was hampered by having a prosthetic eye or such, after all. And besides, he was just too damn pretty.

With the board evaluated and showing no damage, he plugged it back into the casing and again hit the switch to project a solid and straight beam, watching the tiny cubes in the blade. Taking a deep breath he slid the gloves from earlier back on and flexed long fingers, silently hoping the unstable testing rig he had built would remain stable. As the cortosis dropped back onto the armature, he let the breath out and quietly pushed the gleaming material into the path of the blade, watching it hit. A similar reaction happened this time as prior, the discharge bouncing off the edges and scattering things. With a sigh, he shut the blade off and pulled the board. There was a possible solution, but if he mistepped even once he'd likely be creating a highly volatile mini-bomb right in his lap.

Wiring was pulled, rerouted. Transistors, resistors, varistors and other 'tors added at key places along the circuitry on the board. The trick here wasn't in the power output, or the wiring itself. It was in how the blade sheath around the energy projected was emitted. If it had those sharp edged ridges, when the feedback introduced from the cortosis 'jumped' it would push the demetris circuits apart, and short out the blade. But if he could just slightly alter that feature, he'd be in and golden. Miniature manipulator arms keyed again to his control device, he began to work. Now he could fix this for certain!

After a few minutes, he almost ripped the board from the work clamp in eagerness. Fitting it to the chasis he ignited the blade at the same miniaturized length, and then introduced the cortosis to it. The blade flared, as if blocking another blade, where the material touched it, but nothing more. And the sheath showed stable diamond shaped forms with completely rounded and soft edges floating around the feedback, tumbling about from it, but because of their shape always managing to maintain a fair degree of coherency. Sure if you dipped it in a vat full of pure cortosis dust and left it there it might short out eventually. But it was unlikely for that to happen, and strikes against the material, even repeatedly, would yield no results. He turned now from the chasis and stood, walking over to the nexus in the center of his room where other things awaited.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Reaching over, Ostanes grasped a fang in gloved hands. The thing had been put in stasis quickly, and the glandular portion of it from the terentatek Venefica had slain on Korriban had been excised along with others and kept in a vial. The smaller of those organs preserved thus now sat in front of him in a cold pak, preserved perfectly. The gland wasn't fully mature, so the toxin wouldn't be as powerful, but Ostanes was not the sorcerer he once was, and so starting small would be fine for him. Even at this lesser level, the product should be quite vile and produce a rather unwelcome reaction in it's victim. And the poison wouldn't take as long to produce either.

Taking a slight bone drill from the tool tray of burnished durasteel next to him, he powered it on with a high pitched whining hum and began to go to work. Slow, steady sweeps smoothed out the usual cavity of the fang's gland. The gland inside the fang originally was too much of a different shape, and he had designs for the one on hand, so he was making a smooth socket for the gland to rest in. It would cradle the poison in a way, and muscles long since withered would be restored, so he hoped, via the alchemical machinations he had learned, thus allowing the fang to ever produce poison so long as it was in existence, even if slowly and less virulently.

To help the procedure, he swapped drill bits out and grooved channels in for the venom to drip and run down, small holes and tunnels as well so the tip would be coated as soon as the gland produced the venom. The quick it was to act when he needed it, the better a system it was overall in his eyes. Care was taken though, especially when drilling the drip tubes, to not cross any weak sections of the bone, or weaken its' own integrity by drilling too large of holes or too many holes too close. A series of thin, almost imperceptible holes would be drilled right around the tip of the bone, which he would later sharpen so as to make it's job easier. But for now, there was another task at hand....

 

[Julius Sedaire]

With the channels drilled and cut sufficiently with care into the preserved terentatek bone, the young shii'do alchemist turned to a basin of white bone. The chilling thing about this bone was, if any knew, it was the cranial cap of an Ithorian, killed in cold blood by Ostanes himself. The skull-cap basin was engraved with runes and sigils and text, and even a few pictographic scenes of horror and unspeakable acts. Gathering his courage, Ostnes took his arm, baring it to the bicep, and raised the basin to it, using a jagged spike on the back to slice his arm. The spike was sharpened and grooved for just such a purpose, and cut easily into the flesh. As it parted, blood flowed smoothly down the slice, into the basin, filling it swiftly.

Taking a fine brush of hair, the origins of which are best left to the worst of imaginations, or not at all, and bound in a handle looking suspiciously like the humerus of a small infant, Ostanes brushed a swath of the blood across either of his eyes and lips, and then dipped each finger tip into the vital liquid. set the tools aside he would need, selecting first a fine obsidian scalpel. With swift practice, the sith acolyte began to scratch symbols into the fang he had begun to work upon earlier. Each symbol flowed into the next, almost like cursive script, shifting from zoomorphic forms to runes to glyphs and back in a nauseating fashion. As he carved, he hummed an oddly disharmonious tune from deep in his breast, occasionally speaking aloud a certain word or sound, the blood on his arm still freely flowing..

What seemed like hours later he stood up, straightened his back and sighed as it popped. He had covered the surface of the fang and other parts of teretatek ivory in tiny script and symbols almost too intricate for the naked eye to reveal as anything but faint scratches, but thanks to his monocle they were revealed to be, and he checked nervously a piece of paper next to him he had copied onto from the Alchemy book from the Korribanian tomb to make sure, precise and tiny inscriptions just so and correct. Hopefully, in his inscribing, he hadn't lost

The next part came as he picked up the infantile handled paint brush.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

With the brush in hand, Ostanes dipped it into the ithorian skull basin and swirled it around. There seemed to be a precision and deliberateness to the way of his motion. Again there were words spoken as he moved his hand, his Ancient Sith had improved to the point he no longer wore the Abattar he had dredged up from the AEI vaults, and used to teach himself the language in a round about way. He still could barely read it, but he could at least speak it verbally, which was a big proponent of the sorcery and alchemy rituals contained in the book. This one he had modified himself, from a basic poison creation ritual and a corpse preservation one. He could only hope it would work.

As the blood from his arm mingled into the tiny red cracks, the bone seemed to drink it up, and age before his eyes from fresh white to an ancient yellowed-brown color, sickly and faint looking as if the beast if was from had exceptionally bad dental hygiene. Taking it from the table he stood and turned and placed it on the altar where the focal point of his nexus was. It wasn't particularly strong, this nexus, and already he desire one more capable, but for now it would do. For now it would have to do. The chanting started as it touched the black mirror on the altar, and immediately the bone glowed with an umbral light that seemed to seep into and trace along the scrawlings, first the fang, then the other fragments of the beast bone he had shape, all from the same animal.

Swiftly he moved, sprinkling some powdered resin onto a brazier at his feet, which was in reality an igniter chemical that lit a fire in the basin of the altar, swiftly heating him but leaving the hjarna stone unaffected. The stone could take strikes from a lightsaber itself, and even then stand tall, taking several minutes to cut through probably. Swiftly and surely his hands placed the gland into the cavity of the fang, and with a wince he sliced off the top tip of his thumb with the obsidian scalpel, leaving bone exposed and biting his lip to ignore the pain and place the piece of his own flesh in the well with the gland to help empower the preserved organ and decaying muscles to live again.

A second handful of Korribanian sand was thrown to the brazier from the pouch at his side and immediately thick red smoke snaked up and around the altar, flowing into the bone and seeming to get sucked into the work piece on the mirror, somehow making them gleam white like polished bone with a faint reddish tint as the light slid across them. They also would have a slight aura now, a foreboding sense of evil. The ritual was done, and he swayed slightly with fatigue from even such a slight event. Truly, any talent was like a muscle, and when not used, would decay.

The ritual complete, the acolyte gripped the basin of blood in one hand and cast the ivory pieces into the fire as he poured the blood from the carved skull-cap onto the brazier, and with a slight hiss and ripping sound the flames appeared to be sucked into the bone, leaving them unharmed, but alchemically treated. They wouldn't stand up to lightsaber blows over and over, but a glancing strike or three wouldn't sever them, and now the glands glistened wetly, the blood and tissue transferred to them, tendons cording to help push and inject the toxin. Carefully he moved the collection of bones from the hot brazier via tongs to his work station, and sat down to assemble his lightsaber.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The first step was to extract the modified control board from the test chasis it was currently mounted in and wire it to the permanent one. With a grimace and knuckled hand to the small of his back to combat the ache, he bent over and slide his magnifying monocle onto his forehead and flipped several lenses down again, carefully extracting the board from the chasis. Just as carefully he slide it into a black duraplast and durasteel cradle, and began running wires to the appropriate contacts to connect the board to the saber controls and other features. This board was the brain of the saber, and if he karked it up he likely would not live to tell the tale to anyone, let alone try again. Such finicky technology, lightsabers were.

With the wiring mostly done, he set about various control dials and switches. From the changes he had made to the control board earlier, he would need to adjust some of those to accept new parameters and currents, so as to operate without a demetris circuit and accept the new... Well... He wasn't sure what kind of circuit it was, but it was a whole big middle finger of 'kark you' to anyone with a cortosis affectation, that was what it was. A small smile he allowed himself at that, imagining the look on someone's face when their fancy armor didn't short out his lightsaber like they expected. There was almost the taste of fear on the air at the very thought of it.

Sighing, he calmed his mind as he reached out with the Force. The next part was the most sensitive to the whole process really, and more intricate than any before. And he was already mentally and physically fatigued from hours of work. But somehow, he sensed it would be best and should be done rightly in one shot, so to speak. Reaching out the various parts of the lightsaber floated up from the work table, his brow beaded in concentration as he tried to keep them steady, having never been too amazing at such displays in the first place, but knowing the parts would need to be tuned to his presence in the Force, and the Force itself.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The crystal was the last thing on his mind, so it hovered just barely off the table in a steady fashion. The chasis containing all the controls rotated and closed, looking for all the world like a grenade canister (and in reality if he did not succeed it basically would be!) as it closed except for input prongs and dial connectors. This chasis then rotated and slid into a durasteel sleeve set with random rubies quite elegantly, the sleeve itself having holes and bucks for other things to slide up into and against. Those 'other things' would be the ivory platings from the skull and neck of the terentatek, or shaped pieces of them, and the alchemically enhanced fang of the very same beast, still dripping venom from the ritual.

Each piece of the ivory floated up slowly, the chasis and sleeve rotating internally like the springworks of an elegant clock, locking pieces into place as if in some sort of grand jigsaw puzzle. The last was the fang, sliding into a hefty collar like ribbing of durasteel which Ostanes then applied the Force to to rotate and lock into place. A final twist opened the entire thing like a spring loaded knife, revealing an empty chamber with an empty resting place for the focal crystal. Not wanting to waste precious resources on what was, in essence, an experiment, he had chosen a simple red synthetic crystal for his saber. It gently floated from the table into the cradle, and with a snap it closed and the lighsaber rested, complete.

All that was left now was the test, as it floated elegantly to his outstretched hand as if inexorably urged on by some unseen siren song or call. As it dropped to his hand the Sith spun, bringing it up in a rough approximation of a guard. Being no master bladesman, it was likely no elegant process, but as he flicked the activation stud and spun the length dial, a hissing beam of red light shot from the emitter and formed steadily into an unwavering beam of energy. In eagerness, he brought it down and across, and touched the beam to the cortosis in the amarture. The durasteel of the tiny arm melted and bent, and the blade arced and spat, but nothing shorted out. He had done it.

With a feral grin, he flicked the stud to the off position and the saber vanished within his robe, careful not to touch himself with the fang until the venom had dried.