Crystalidium [Order of Shadows]

[Darth Ayra]

Crystalidium​

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| [member="Darth Animus"] |

Following their duel on Ambria, Darth Ayra had left Darth Animus with a broken arm, several fractures and a concussion that would have put even the mightiest warrior out of commission for a few weeks. She had entered the Order of Shadows to enter a conspiracy against the Sith Empire, with the idea that she was to become a Shadow Lord and member of the organisation. Instead of allowing the founder of this sect to merely allocate her a place as a Shadow Lord, Darth Ayra had challenged him to a Lightsaber duel, resulting in many injuries. But the fight had proven that Darth Animus was not some weakling pretending to be a Sith Lord but was the real article, and as such his organisation, if not his partnership, would be beneficial rather than a hindrance. He was not like the other Sith she had met. He was a true follower of the dark side.

Instead of returning to Humbarine, Darth Ayra had taken a route away from Ambria to the fringes of known space to a place that she had set up for eventualities such as these. It would not do well for her to return to the life of Ella Nova with all the injuries that she had sustained at the hands of her opponent. She needed somewhere to allow herself to heal, and recuperate. But above all else, she needed to prepare for an inevitable outcome, one that she knew that was going to happen soon, but one that she would instigate herself. To accomplish this she was set to return to a field of science she hadn't revisited in years.

Standing on board the observational deck of the Skyhook, Darth Ayra waited for her quarry to arrive so that together they could create something that had never been done before.

 

[grammaticus]

Animus flexed his arm as he stepped off his transport, ignoring the pain that shot up his arm at the simple action. Despite the Order's best medical care the arm was still sore from its recent breaking at the hands of the one he had come here to meet. He still felt the rage clawing at the edge of his control, eager to be unleashed against the one who had caused him such harm, yet he kept it in check with an iron will. The duel was over, and now, he had to look to the future. At the moment, that future had Darth Arya in it as an ally, if a loose one, and that ally had asked him for assistance.

Walking down the corridors of the Skyhook, Animus took in the architecture with some curiosity, though ignoring most of it. He cared very little for this station, he hadn't even heard of it until he had been given the coordinates for the meeting. He was sure it held some value, but at the moment it was just another space station to Darth Animus, and he truly detested space stations.

The door of the observation deck slid open as he approached, revealing [member="Ella Nova"] across the deck. Animus walked towards her, his armored boots replaced with that of simple leather, and his custom armor gone in place of noble attire. He needed to look the part of his new objective these days. Coming to stand next to Darth Arya, he looked out at the space around the station, his eyes focusing on nothing in particular. "What is it you have summoned me here for?"

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Animus"] |

As Darth Animus arrived on the Skyhook and boarded he would feel the dark side was strong in this place. Years ago, Darth Ayra had traced the lineage of the Order of the Sith Lords back to one of it's earliest members. In that time the master had been Darth Vectivus, a Dark Lord of the Sith who had lived a double life of Sith Lord and a mining contractor who had set up a base of operations out here in this sector of space. He had discovered that the asteroid, which he would later call the Home, had a powerful dark side energy source that had been discovered by his mining company. Most of this information had been put together through a collection of manuscripts and data files that had survived the eons, combined with her own intellectual guesswork to figure out why Vectivus had come here.

The only thing that Darth Ayra hadn't figured out was what her predecessor had been planning to do with the energy source. Regardless, whatever Vectivus had achieved in his time had yet to be discovered, but like him, Darth Ayra was going to use that energy for her own machinations. As Darth Animus walked onto the observation deck, she turned and begun climbing down a ladder onto the bottom floor where he was standing. Several computer stations, deactivated droids and crates lined the Skyhook, covered in overalls that had clearly been put to use a long time ago. There was large sheets of dust that had collected over the sheets and screens of each stations. This place hadn't been visited in a long time.

"To answer that question I will have to show you one of my inventions," Darth Ayra countered, turning around briskly and limping towards the center of the station. Scratches, cuts and a deep gash at the back of her head could be seen clearly in the artificial lighting that shone from above as she limped her way into the center, with Darth Animus expected to follow. She stopped at the edge of a railing that overlooked a deep shaft that led down right to the bottom of the Skyhook. There was a life connected into the shaft that could allow someone to travel down, where they would find space suits to wear so that they could exit and explore the asteroid on the outside in the deep vacuum of space, which would lead them into the asteroid where the dark side energy was clearly visible and most potent.

Beside the life the shaft was tapped into the energy source, which was how the Skyhook was powered. Along the power couples that was connected to each station, used previously to gather intelligence on the galaxy, was the Creatura Reactor and it was precisely this invention that had brought both Sith together this far out in space. Gesturing to the reactor, Darth Ayra turned around to Darth Animus to explain.

"This is why you are here. Together, we are going to invent a new strand of crystal based technology. Like many Sith Lords before us there have been advances into the science of Sith Alchemy. Darth Plagueis the Wise was said to be able to manipulate the very basics of life in the form of midichlorians. Rave Merrill constructed great leviathans and weaponry based on the dark side. Darth Voracitos constructed a vessel that incorporated crystals that could house and store his consciousness, which far exceeded the physical vessel that was too weak to hold his almighty girth."

"Like these pioneers, we will advance our understanding of the dark side through the creation of a weapon. But before we can create it we must first experiment and gain better understanding of the field of crystology, a term that I came up with to describe the field of science that we will embark upon together. In this first phase I want to construct a crystal that will make it seem that I am not Force-sensitive, so that if my blood were to ever be taken, or another Force-sensitive was to try and feel my powers, I would appear dead in the Force. If my blood were to be taken they would discover that my midichlorian cells do not possess the necessary count for Force-sensitivity, which is around the 7,000 mark for an average Humanoid. I possess a midichlorian count of 28,000."

"What are your thoughts?"

 

[grammaticus]

Following a step behind Darth Arya as the two Sith set out across the space station. The closer he got to the generator the more powerful he felt, the ache in his bones fading away as he soaked up the power of the Dark Side of the force. He turned to Darth Arya, his eyes lit by curiosity and eagerness as he began to speak, keen to push forward the idea that was forming in his head. It would pay off in time for him to put aside his grudge against Darth Arya to achieve this goal. An ally could always become an enemy down the road when they were no longer useful.

"It is an interesting prospect. The ability to hide our force connections would allow us to act in secret with little risk of discovery. Though, the task of completing such a crystal would be difficult to say the least. The force is a strong power in this universe, a power that even we who dedicate our lives to it can never fully understand, and yet you plan to shackle it, and cover it presence entirely. Audacious to say the least, Darth Arya. What do you have in mind?"

Animus folded his hands behind his back, his thumb idly rubbing over the formerly broken bones. The plan that [member="Ella Nova"] had in mind would be difficult, yet the possible reward it could bring to Sith agents across the galaxy, both inside and outside the Order of Darkness, was limitless. To have agents be able to infiltrate almost any organization in the galaxy, with their connections and power over the force masked. They could appear as simple non force users, and trick all those around them into a fall sense of security. He had to secure such a power for the Order of Darkness, at any cost.

Turning to walk away from Darth Arya, Animus paced across the room, his eyes taking in all the details that he could, his mind racing with all the history that filled this chamber.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Darth Animus"] |

"I have many theories about the modification or creation of crystals that I seek to create with the intended effects. In this case it would be a crystal that makes the wearer appear to be completely Force dead down to a molecular level where, even if midi-chlorians were to be tested, it would come up as a negative result for Force-sensitivity. This requires some understanding of what a crystal is, which has been attuned to the Force, naturally or otherwise, and understanding of how people like ourselves become Force-sensitive in the first place."

Lifting a hand to the reactor, Darth Ayra continued her explanation. "I constructed this device. It is called the Creatura Reactor. When two or more crystals are placed into the reactor it atomizes the crystals into their base elements. When this happens we are able to see how the crystal was attuned to the Force and how it was given the affects or attributes associated too it. For example, the Qixoni crystal is both rare and well sought after due to it's ability to increase the users connection to the dark side. In the reactor we are able to atomize the Qixoni and come to understand why it gives the user increased potency in the dark side."

​"With the reactor it then becomes possible for the user to begin molding the atomized crystals into something new, by binding and forging it's structure into something else. This technique is something I call Crystalidium. In theory it is similar to how a Sith Alchemist is able to bind together the structures of two or more creatures to create a new beast that becomes subservient to it's new master. In essence we are creating our own new leviathan, but rather binding together organic flesh and tissue with the dark side, we are bonding two crystals. It requires tremendous focus and resiliency."

"One miscalculation or drop in concentration will result in the crystals becoming too unstable for use, much like what happens when someone tries to build a Sith Holocron without a capstone in it's center. The crystal fragments that make up the Holocron disassemble and fragment. Here, a crystal loses mass at a molecular level and falls apart, leaving nothing behind but dust. As such it also loses it's attributes and connection to the Force, effectively killing the crystal."

Moving away from the reactor, Darth Ayra led her quarry to one of the storage crates nearby. Leaning her body over, she lowered a hand down to the keypad and entered the password to open them, using her body to physically hide the numbers she had entered from Darth Animus' view. When it opened she stepped back to reveal a vast collection of rare or not so rare crystals, ranging from basic Adegans (the most commonly used crystal in Lightsaber construction) through to the more rare Firkrann crystals from Rafa V, which dispelled electrical charges which could be used to amplify Sith lightning attacks.

She imagined that a Firkrann crystal in the hands of Darth Animus would make him slightly more lethal, recalling the barrage of lightning attacks he had used to force her out of hiding during their Lightsaber duel on Ambria. Looking through her collection, Darth Ayra reached forward and selected two crystals by using the Force to lift them both into the air. Spinning before both Sith Lords, caught in invisible energies that held them aloft, were the Katak and Stygium crystals. Each both possessed unique abilities, with the first able to drain the life forces of others, whilst the other could render someone invisible, and was commonly used for cloaking devices. In fact, it was these crystals that powered the cloaking device on board the Initium.

Turning back around, Darth Ayra used the Force to guide both crystals into the reactor, walking behind both of them as they levitated and spun ahead of her. When they were inside, she closed the reactor module and then activated the device. When she did the power of the dark side increased as the energy source far beneath them, inside the asteroid, was tapped into by the Creatura Reactor, creating a red hue that surrounded the machine and the immediate area in which both Sith stood.