Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Creation of the Nether Amulets

@[member="Velok"] @[member="Rave Merrill"]

Dark Forge of AzaZoth

Val'Ryss was dressed in different garb per usual. She had removed her dark tattered cloak for simple black robes and black gloves covering her hands. Her long black hair had been tied at the back in a complicated knot. She had summoned her accomplices to the Dark Forge of AzaZoth to complete a task that required their assistance. The Dark Forge is a great chasm with thin stone bridges collecting at the centre were an enormous crucible is hung from the ceiling of the chamber. Their inside the crucible a large green flame of evil grows and dancing in the darkness. Looming over the fire from a balcony was Val'Ryss. Held in her hands were jedi crystals she had taken from sabres of the jedi she slaughtered on Tython. On the balcony she stood and waited for her assistants to arrive. In the meantime the dark forge began to bubble and boil. The Azagûl, creatures of her creation, wandered about the forge below preparing the necessary ingredients. Even some of them were forcedly grabbed by the others and tossed into the green flames.

Val'Ryss' ruby eyes watched the flames. The green of the dark lights flickered in the red of her pupils. As she sensed her assistant arriving she spoke in lowly hisses. "Now begins the creation of five amulets. Five, with the power to peer into the force and amplify the users clairvoyance in all matters. Amulets that allow the amplification of the channelling of the force and give to the user the power to rule whom they command." She then turned to the others as they arrived. "And then we shall gift this amulets, these Nether Amulets, to the dominions of this galaxy so they may use these amulets of power to rule and guide their people. But, of course what they see in the void...shall be of my creation and their minds clouded by my dark whispers. The Amulets shall give them power but their power shall be my own."
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
"And we can use this," the Dark Lord rumbled, "as a model."

The raid on the Sith Archives had netted, among other things, the ancient Oracle Stone. Mottled red and white, smooth and oblong, it sparkled in the glow of the forge as Velok tossed it and caught it again -- one of the most significant artifacts of the Dark Side in history. "They'll be flawed reflections of it, of course, but deliberately so. Take a look, Zankarr. Tell me what you see."

He tossed her the Oracle Stone.
 
Velok's lab assistant hung back. Like Val'Ryss, maybe even more so, her alchemical talents leaned more towards the biological side of things. More flesh-warping than artifact-building. Even so, she'd always been able to craft a basic lightsabre-proof sword. But the Oracle Stone, and things of that kind, were outside her level of power. By far.

Instead, she focused on the Azagul, approaching them without fear. This girl had created life, built monsters -- feth, the bulk transport they'd flown here contained a few of the failed prototypes of the Akure Leviathan. Creatures that, while uncontrollable and flawed, had their uses. The true Akure Leviathan belonged to the Sith Emperor, but the castoffs had gone with Velok.
 
@[member="Velok"]

Val'Ryss caught the stone. Its dark power swirled in powerful gasps of energy. Her ruby eyes were transfixed on it. It showed her the doom she possessed and her own doom. But she had foreseen her demise long ago. A woman born by the light of the force, burning her in flames of Ashla. She knew who this woman was and when she would come. But seeing it from the Oracle Stone made her rage for a moment.

"I have heard legends of this stone. Never in my years would I think to come to possess it." Val'Ryss hissed and then looked at Velok, "Old friend, this stone will give us the power to create copies in these Nether Amulets. Those who wield shall peer into the abyss and then be consumed by our darkness. It is an excellent example." Val'Ryss gave the Oracle Stone to one of her Azagûl. It carried it to the forge and set inside a altar. The dark energy of its construction was analysed by the forge of Val'Ryss' creation. Suddenly the flames of the fire exploded to an enormous height. Raising her hands she shot a bolt of lightening into the fire and spoke black words. The flame turned red and danced in dark bouts. Val'Ryss continued to speak dark words, until she spoke to both Rave and Velok, "The Fire is ready, but it needs dark words to fuel its flame. Speak now friends. And Young Alchemist Rave, when the flame dies down and a molten fire bleeds out, you shall be the one that hammers their shape. Go now, down to the base of the crucible and prepare your instruments."
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
Velok rolled up his sleeves, exposing immense and furry forearms.

"Oh, I'll give it dark words."

His presence surrounded the forge.

"Forge, whether you're a being or not, aware or not, I reject the forms that say I must approach you on your terms, in the patterns and footsteps of those who have come before. I reject all assumptions, languages, symbols, requirements and rites. You will bow to me on my terms and no others. I will use you as the tool you are, you will enhance my powers in depth and detail as I require, and all things associated with this project will bow to me and to she who created you.

"But I understand the need to prime the pump, so to speak. You, Forge, must be brought to an intermediate step before the creation of a full set of such artifacts. And so I present to you a lesser task, but still a necessary one." He threw open his robe, revealing long slivers and chunks of dark wood, all tucked into a belt. "The fragments of the Darkstaff will be remade."
 
@[member="Velok"]

Val'Ryss hissed in glee and called out to the Dark Forge, in the cursed language of sorcery.

"Tak'Rûm Ash Nazg yah'Grah, Ya'I'Unatûm! Ürth'yas massa'Krakül." The fire replied with a loud roar and began to swirl in a fiery maelstrom that leapt out of the curcible and began to orbit like a cyclone. The Azagûl, down below hid in fear as the fires licked about.

Val'Ryss continued in her sorcery, "Odojinya, Drahk'dûm! Mwintuska hâskûjontû, Yas'krakül! Eryin'badadûr Ârtharûr' Nacrom Hazavad!" The fire blew harder and then the began to spew out molten fire in eerie green lava flows that poured from the forge onto a large pool down a groove at the base of the crucible. Val'Ryss called out to @Rave Merrill "NOW DO IT! Hammer the liquid fire into a crystal form. Impose your will and repeat these words as you punish it! Ya'I'Unatûm, Ürth'Yas Massa'Krakül!"
 
"I have not the faith in my own way that Lord Velok claims. And so - Ya'I'Unatûm, Ürth'Yas Massa'Krakül!"

Rave's hammer crashed into the flow of liquid fire, and rebounded rather than splatter her and kill her. "Ya'I'Unatûm, Ürth'Yas Massa'Krakül! Ya'I'Unatûm, Ürth'Yas Massa'Krakül!" Her understanding of nonorganic alchemy was relatively simple, but this was not unlike forging an indestructible sword, which she'd done once or twice. The fire bent to her will, and the incantation became a chant.

The first palantir began to take form.
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
The excess energies of the Dark Forge siphoned away from both women, as Velok removed the pieces of the Darkstaff from his belt. It was not, by and large, the fulness of the Darkstaff. The jedi Order had only possessed so many portions of the ancient artifact, and he'd been forced to drain one section, damaging it, in order to ensure his escape. But now, working by instinct, he laid out every portion he owned -- something like two-thirds of the staff. Not enough to complete the artifact that had once ripped a solar system loose from time, but more than enough to make something incredible. Wood of a blood-drinking tree had been prepared, and he began to cut it to precise measurements with his lightsabre.
 
@[member="Rave Merrill"]

Val'Ryss was very impressed by Rave's work. Indeed she understand well that the incantation protected her from the demon fire's energy as she hammered it and bent to her will. As Rave went about her business. Val'Ryss continued her chanting. Black words burst into life like notes in a dark melody. Soon she would have her five palantir, her five Nether Amulets. Her words became violent and more venomous. The fire responded by whirling about even greater. The dark-side erupted from Val'Ryss' fingers and shot large arcs of lightening into the fire storm. The fire storm broke into an array of colors, red, green, black and white. The force itself was being warped to produce more eerie green plasma flows that swelled into the grooves of the crucible. The fires burned and bubbled. The Azagûl, gathered around Rave and helped her, they carried off the pieces of the flames she hammered and dunked them into black waters to solidify their shape. All around the crucible the darkness swelled, the fabric of realm crafted into dark amulets.

All the while Val'Ryss continued in her evil chanting, "Tak'Rûm Ash Nazg yah'Grah, Ya'I'Unatûm! Ürth'yas massa'Krakül. Odojinya, Drahk'dûm! Mwintuska hâskûjontû, Yas'krakül! Eryin'badadûr Ârtharûr' Nacrom Hazavad!"
 
"Tak'Rûm Ash Nazg yah'Grah, Ya'I'Unatûm! Ürth'yas massa'Krakül. Odojinya, Drahk'dûm! Mwintuska hâskûjontû, Yas'krakül! Eryin'badadûr Ârtharûr' Nacrom Hazavad!"

The incantation opened Rave's mind in ways that Velok most certainly was not experiencing. But it wasn't like him to disdain any portion of learning. Perhaps there were some things even he feared. Perhaps he had transcended them. Or, most likely, he'd filed them away and chosen another path he considered equally valid. For her part, Rave had her hands full. Hammer and tongs shaped the Nether Amulets one by one. The incantation she repeated kept her alive in the heat of the Forge. She stripped to the waist, apart from a simple band, and her sweat sizzled on the hammer.
 
@[member="Velok"]

Val'Ryss turned to Velok. "Old Friend, Dark Friend. I give the forge to you, as payment, use it to reconfigure this artefact of your preference." Val'Ryss approached the shards of the staff he had presented out onto the balcony of the forge.

"Command me on how I must summon the fires of this forge to serve you" Val'Ryss hissed in dark whispers. "What must be done?"
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
Velok spoke as he trimmed lengths of blood-soaked wood. A Tree, nourished by sorcery and corpses, was a rare thing. He'd chopped one down for this, killing it after thousands of years of continued existence. Chunks of heartwood sat between the existing pieces of the Darkstaff.

"I intend to grow them together. Did you ever perform the experiment of alchemizing a wooden sword? An old favorite of mine, that. We will do the same thing, then throw the entire staff in the Forge. At that point, we can unravel the edges of the remaining spellwork and fill in the blanks as best we can approximate. Feel free to throw in whatever spells are compatible. I daresay we can improve on the original, and there's much room to work."
 
Rave's hammer rang like a bell. Sweat adhered her trousers and breast band to her, dripped into the liquid crystal, turned to bitter steam. She swept back her hair with the knuckle of her thumb, still holding the hammer. Damp hair slid down her jawline.

And she began to apply something that neither Val'Ryss nor Velok could do. She had long since know everything of the nightsister tradition; what she lacked, of course, was the power to use it. She was a Knight, and a relatively weak one.

But the Paecean spellchant that rolled from her was empowered by the Forge itself, bringing back old, old memories from someone else's life.

E' questa la vendetta
che noi vi domandiam
Ma tu che ci discacci
con una vil menzogna
repubblica borghese
un dí ne avrai vergogna
Ed oggi t'accusiamo
in faccia all'avvenir
Banditi senza tregua
andrem di terra in terra
a predicar la pace
ed a bandir la guerra
La pace tra gli oppressi
la guerra agli oppressor
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
"My balance between organic and materials alchemy should suffice to...feth."

Velok's eyes went wide as alchemy betrayed him. The wood and the metal warped away from each other, rejecting each other even in momentary contact. When they did touch, both metal and wood grew tendrils of themselves, as if warped at the level of individual molecules. "The spells on this, even the broken version -- they're stronger than they should be. Stronger than I'd expected. Val'Ryss, I'll need you to suppress and twist those spells while I integrate the metal with the heartwood. Your magic is better than mine, by far."
 

Valik

Professor of Alchemy
"And my alchemy far better than yours, slayer of the Osarian System." He said, as Valik, Mad Scientist, Alchemist, Shaper, and maker of all things devious entered the Dark Forge and pushed Velok to the side, only slightly so as to get himself closer to the staff, not to push the whiphid away. They had last met on the jedi world of Tython, where the two had pulled one of the greatest heists in the modern era, perhaps second to only of one of Velok's other holocron archive heists. They had split the bounty, with Velok taking the things arguably more interesting to Valik and Valik taking the things arguably more interesting to Velok, but he had no worries, as two minds like theirs would naturally meet eventually. And what better place to do it than here, the Dark Forge, an alchemical and magical creation that could empower a couple of alchemists and magicians like the ones assorted to create anything their hearts desired?

"As much as I admire your skill and knowledge Velok, it seems at times limited to merely the Force. Sometimes to advance one's own alchemy you must know your target from a scientific standpoint. It helps to know the natural to create that which is abnormal." He said, as he began to extend his hands over the darkstaff, finding it's materials, it's density, it's construction, it's past through a combination of alchemy, science, and psychomtery, before finally taking hold of the pieces and exerting himself to attempt to bend the pieces to his will. With the magics and spells guarding the staff it would be difficult, but Valik would not be made the better of by some old arcane wizard, not here, not now, not ever.
 
@[member="Valik"] @[member="Velok"] @[member="Rave Merrill"]

Val'Ryss spun to see Valik. She hissed with a sinister glee, "So you've come...good." she continued to speak to Valik, "Assist Velok with the production of his dark staff. I must descend to the bottom of the Dark Forge and assist Rave in the final construction of the Nether Amulets." Val'Ryss departed from the two descending into the bowels of the forge. Appearing from another set of stairs she came up behind Rave and spoke to her. "Your craftsmanship is exemplary. Excellently done Alchemist Rave. But now I shall take what you have hammered into life and give it the life of the force." Calling out to her Azagûl, the horrific orc like creatures came to her and took the first batch of crystal balls hammered out from the green plasma flow and were placed onto a pedestal.

"Now I shall cast these crystals orbs into netherworld of the force so they may be bathed in its ether." Val'Ryss muttered in low grumbles. She then raised her hands and a dark mist erupted from the centre of the space the orbs occupied. The orbs were soon swallowed by this dark mist and the mist expelled ghastly images and violent storms of lightening. Val'Ryss poured all her malice into this spell, in order to activate the orbs as proper items of force clairvoyance. Her spell, unusually, was not evil in nature but a simple spell often used by the elder jedi for deep meditative purposes. But this time she was sending the orbs not her mind. The mist crackled and then dispersed and from it the orbs re-emerge bathed in the multicoloured array of rainbows. The force was activated within them and they were now Nether Amulets, near perfect copies of the Oracle Stone that could be used for powerful meditation purposes, clairvoyance and summoning of massive energies of the force. Val'Ryss hissed in glee and then turned to wait for the next batch.
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
@[member="Valik"]

Velok grunted. There was no point in contesting Valik's claims -- they were, by and large, accurate. Though Velok went back to the academic community every few decades to renew his membership in all things archaeological -- his doctorate was a prized possession -- he admittedly had never studied the cellular makeup of a Tree or the metallurgical composition of the Darkstaff, not from a scientific perspective. That, and he could count on the fingers of one Whiphid hand the Force techniques he did not know. Teleportation. Phasing through solid objects. Force Light and its derivatives.

And Valik was a specialist. He shifted his focus to the Sith Magic aspect of things, knowing that Valik had no such expertise. Val'Ryss, herself a vastly better magician than Velok by most standards, had done the lion's share of the work, enough that the Whiphid could hold up his end.

The staff took form, save for two small slivers, their spell fragments relatively inconsequential. These he set aside for Valik's own use. The staff was sharply crooked at one end, a tight helix evening out to a straight tail. The other end was a broad, angled hook. As the staff's freshly awakened, corruptive magics distorted the surface of the Forge, a glow took form within that hook.

Darkstaff_Varrow_TOR.jpg
 
@[member="Val'Ryss Zankarr"] turned to find that Rave had phlegmatically cut her own neck, high on the corner of her jaw. Blood, of course, was an old component of Sith alchemy as well as Nightsister spells, and Rave's blood had been altered long ago by both spells and alchemy. For different purposes, true: Sirella's alchemy had made her immune to pheromones, and the Blood Trail ritual transformation likewise had nothing to do with this. However, empowered blood beat normal blood any day of the week. It dripped from her chin, slid down her neck and chest, and pooled in her hands when she stood just so and laid the tools away. This little quantity of blood couldn't hope to fully cool the stones on their exit from the netherworld, but somehow it did anyway.

That done, she reapplied her hammer to the fresh crystal.
 

Valik

Professor of Alchemy
Valik smiled as the whiphid turned his attentions to the more magical aspects of the creation of the staff. While Valik was master of all things metallurgical, he admittedly had no talent for the arcane arts, the fabric manipulations that Velok and Val'Ryss were capable of. Thus their intervention in such matters was beyond helpful, speeding the process up tremendously. The wood and metal of the Darkstaff no longer rejected each other, save a couple difficult slivers that Valik would have to attend too personally later, with the rod forming a a spiral at one end and a large hook at the other, before the Darkstaff began focusing magical energy into the hook, the arcane force of the object being so great it's magic, it's power could not only be felt in the Force, but perceived physically as well.

Truly this creation was the strongest, the most complex he had ever worked on, but it wasn't quite done yet. Valik could feel the wood and metal still at combat with each other, still having slight warps and knots forming throughout the Rod. Valik ran his hands across the now formed rod, focusing on the still protesting parts of the Darstaff, exerting his force and imposing his will as he made the materials listen to his influence, whether nature, any Jedi tricks left on the device, or even the Force itself didn't wish to comply.

@[member="Velok"]
 

Ashin Varanin

Professional Enabler
Velok gripped the still-warm Darkstaff two-handed, immense fingers tightening around arguably the most powerful Dark Side artifact in existence -- and as a man who owned a set of supernova crystals, he'd be the one to know. The staff had an aura all its own.

"This thing was supposed to have the following properties," he said. "First, sentience. Force Drain, fairly constantly. Absorb enough energy, and it can destroy a world or create spacetime distortions, hyperspace wormholes, time travel. It can, according to legend, teleport itself. Nullify the Force around itself like a ysalamir. Its sentient identity can possess people or animals. Create sithspawn. Raise zombies. Aura of uneasiness. Create Force bonds. Sometimes strip the wielder of the Force. Interfere with technology.

"Fortunately, perhaps, it was destroyed, and even this version of ours will never have those powers. My instincts tell me we've managed to save only a relative handful of effects, and that the staff's sentience is severely damaged. I suspect the staff is only capable of its most basic power -- enhancing and amplifying Force Drain to a really ludicrous degree, and storing that power. It's a high-capacity battery. Charge it enough, and it can amplify the wielder's power in accordance with their knowledge, their specific skillset. Which means we need targets on which to test it."
 

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