Famine's Blade

[Xevek Nekonis]

It was not often that Xavka Duquo, or Darth Lykos as he was now known - his own efforts obscuring his past to the point that his name was left as knowledge only to those that had interacted with his younger self - that he had the chance to return to his Homeplanet of Iridonia for anything other than business or a chance to seclude himself away within the cave that Lykos had slowly transformed into a place within which his efforts in meditation and connection to the Force gained a greater strength from years of time spent meditating. As such, when he did have the chance to return the the desert planet without the intent of pursuing those two objectives, the Zabrak would oft seclude himself within his make-shift forge that he kept sequestered away in one of the many ruins of structures of an age passed that littered the planet.

Sat at the makeshift desk that he had placed within his forge, Xavka sat, hunched over with his forehead resting against his hands, as he stared down at the sheets of flimsiplast that littered the metal surface. Before his were the recorded conversations that had been held between himself and Darth Abyss: the Mindeater, The Prophet of Darkness. But, more importantly, the man who held the titles of the Black Assassin and Aspect of Famine within the Sith Assassins, granting him a seat on the Council. As someone skilled in the creation of weapons, particularity blades of any sort, Xavka had offered to create personalised weapons for his fellow Council members, weapons that would bear the legacy of their Aspect.

Abyss himself had asked for a dagger, one that would be capable of resisting lightsaber and blasters alike. When pressed, the Sith Lord had spoke of his intent to imbue the blade with more power after it would have exchanged hands between the two Assassisn, so, Xavka had not pushed deeper to learn whatever else his fellow desired within his weapons and, instead, had stet about discussing the desired dimensions of the blade.

It was said dimensions that held the Zabrak's attention as he stared down at the scribbled numbers and the rough sketch that he had started on a separate piece of flimsi. The problem was that, with the described dimensions, the blade would be too front heavy, the weight too far forwards, and the handle to thin to support any addition weight. Humming to himself, Xavka dropped a hand to scribble a correct to the sketch of the dagger before running the calculations through his head and grunting in satisfaction as the addition fixed the problem.

Raising his head from his hand, the one-eyed Zabrak would push himself to his feet with grace and walk over to the other side of the large room, picking his way around built up mounds of sand, formed from when the wind would carry the small grains inside, and cracked stone flooring to where his forging equipment was set. Absentmindedly channeling the Force into the Sith Runes that empowered the fires, causing the flames to roar upwards, Xavka picked up a block of durasteel and carried it over to the forge.

It was time he set about bringing the blade to life.


[member="Darth Abyss"]
(For now, I'll just keep posting and let you know when it would be time for you to jump in and finish of the thread.)

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

Setting the block of durasteel down next to the forge and one more checking on the fires as he did so, Xavka picked up the tongs that he had already removed from where he kept his tools gathered and grasped the durasteel block with the prongs on the tool. Setting the durasteel block within the fire, uncaring of the lick of flame that brushed against his hand and the small sparks that bounced against his chest from where the block of metal disturbed the coals set along the bottom of the forge, Xavka stepped back to wait for the entire block of metal to take on a cherry red glow, taking the chance to gather the other tools he would need and bring them closer to where the majority of his equipment (like the anvil) was set.

Once the durasteel block had reached the temperature that he had wanted, Xavka grasped it with the tongs once more and carried it over to the power hammer off to the side. Setting it down upon the plate of the power hammer, Xavka began to process of drawing the block of durasteel out into a flat bar that very much resembled a blade with no edges. Once the form was completed, Xavka grasped the cutter, basically a one-edged blade attacked to a long bar of metal, and cut the form to size, discarding the leftover metal and carrying the, now much shorter, length of durasteel back over to the fires, once more letting it heat to a rich red heat.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

As he carried the now heated length back over to the hammer, he made sure to pick up the handheld press pieces that he himself had forged a while back. Nothing special to the look at, being nothing more than a bent over strip of metal with two blocks on the ends, the press piece would be essential in this stage of the forging process.

Setting the piece atop of the base of the power hammer and the glowing chunk of metal between the two rounded blocks, Xavka slowly pressed his foot down on the pedal and watched as the hydraulics made the hammer slam down atop of the piece, clamping it closed as much it could with the piece of metal, flattening and deforming the heated block. Constantly twisting his wrist ninety degrees with every strike so as to keep the flattened part of the block squared, he rapidly drew it out into a thin tang, just as Abyss had wanted. Grasping the cutter that sat next to the power hammer, he place it partway down the drawn out tang and used the hammer to drive it through, cutting the tang to size.

Walking back over to the forge, he set the durasteel back into the flames to once more heat it up so that he could begin forging the bevels of the blade.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

Carrying the durasteel within the grasp of the tongs over to the anvil set off to one side, Xavka lay the length of metal along the anvil before removing the hammer from where it sat in a bucket of water to the side of the anvil's base. Setting the work on the bevels, Xavka ensured that he kept the process slow, having no desire to rush to material and risk opening up any cracks. As such, every three hits on one edge on one side was then replicated on the opposite edge on the reverse of the edge, creating the main edge of the Dagger, one that stretched from the shoulders of the tang to the tip of the metal.

For every two time he focused on the main edge, Xavka would switch his focus to the back edge, slowly forming the bevel of that edge. Due to this bias when it came to where the hammer would strike, slowly, a curve was being added to the blade, manipulating it to match the sketch that the Zabrak had been provided with by Abyss. Also, due to the desire of the Black Assassin for his weapon to still possess a spine, Xavka was careful not to have all of the bevels to reach each other along the length of the blade, only at the tip.

Since Xavka was taking his time in adding the bevels, it took him eight heats to what he would have normally achieved in one. However, he did not mind the time that it was taking him, after all, he would prefer to get the forging correct the first time than have to start over again. However, eventually, the bevels of the edges were formed.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

Pulling the slowly-taking-shape dagger out of the flames once more, absentmindedly boosting the flames with a faint flare of the Runes lining the forge, Xavka carried the glowing metal back over to the anvil with a small sigh of annoyance billowing from his lips. Whilst he was happy to craft this weapon for his fellow Assassin, the design that he had been provided had by no means been something that, to Xavka's trained eye, encouraged much awe. For, while he could see why Abyss had chosen that aesthetic, the guard was ugly to the Zabrak, a unnecessary hunk of metal that would only have served to ensure that the point of balance of the blade would have been too far forwards, especially considering his thin and frail looking the tang had to be. However, thanks to his earlier corrects, he knew how to fix the problem by using the guard - but that did not mean that the guard would be easy to make.

Setting the blade point down within the clamps attached to the anvil, Xavka set a pick against the side of the durasteel where the guard would be and began to gently hammer the pick downwards, peeling away a layer of the metal. Managing to repeat the process before he needed to reheat, Xavka ended up returning to the clamps with the blade now possessing two 'wings'. Setting to work properly now, Xavka began to gently manipulate these wings, bending them this way and that to install a odd, none-symmetrical pattern over the course of a series of reheats until, finally, he bent the tips of the 'wings' over so that they touched against the shoulders of the tang.

The end result of these efforts was the guard bulging outward slightly while being altered to fit the, in Xavka's opinion, shell-like design that Abyss had wanted for the guard. While it was not and would never be Xavka's most pride filled efforts, the fact that he had managed to find a way to match the requested design and fix the balance issue (by having the bulk of the material of the 'wings' pulled back to the tips before he had even started on manipulating the shape, leaving more weight towards the hilt) did install some semblance of pride.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

Finally being able to set aside his hammer, Xavka carried the blade over to where he had set up his grinding wheels, each a rudimentary design but each usable and each belt possessing a different grit. Staring out at one of the lower grits, Xavka started the belt, causing a whir to fill the silence of his workspace, before slowly running the belt along the barely defined bevels, adding more definition than he would have been able to do so with just him hammer while also smoothing out the metal and truly forming the blade. As he did this, running the blade along the belt numerous times, he ignored the shower of sparks that danced away from the connecting point between belt and metal with ease, even as they poured down his front. After all, they did nothing to harm him.

Finishing on the first belt, the Zabrak would then proceed to move down the line of wheels, moving to higher grit to higher grit as he went, each pass refining the edge once more while serving to slough away the darker metal on the surface to reveal the lighter, shinier metal beneath. After he finished moving down the line, Xavka returned to the start again and began to move from one wheel to another once more, this time focusing on refining the shape of the guard and even tang until, eventually, he once more reached the end of the line and turned off the final wheel, letting the whir fall away and for the soft sound of the flickering flame behind him to be the only sound that served as the background noise of the workspace.

Moving back over to those very same flame, Xavka rested the end of the tang against the coals at the base, letting the heat in that area raise until it was glowing. Carrying the dagger back over to the anvil and clamping it tip down once more, Xavka paused to attach a small, handheld clamp to a small bit beneath the end of the tang before beginning to separate the metal above the clamp into three prongs, bending each away from one another, with the use of a flat-headed pick.

After separating that part of the tang into three prongs fully and returning the heat of the metal up to the point that it was glowing, Xavka began to slowly, using a smaller hammer than before as well as a rounded pole of metal, began to twist and manipulate the prongs into thinner and longer shapes before twisting them around each other until they all ended pointing away from the blade with the tips of each prong converging in one place. A design specified by Abyss.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

After finishing the pommel, Xavka reached out through the Force to begin to tidy away his tools, leading to them whipping around his form as he set the now nearly finished dagger within the flames for what was nearly the last time. just as he had repeatedly done so within the past day, as soon as the dagger reached a cherry-red colour from heat, he pulled out from the flames. However, this time, instead of taking to the power hammer or anvil, he immediately dunked it in a bucket of oil that was set next to the forge.

As soon as the heated metal was submerged flames leaped upwards from the surface of the oil, licking along the prongs that held the dagger before reaching the cybernetic hand that held the prongs and serving to do nothing when it came to harming Xavka. As soon as the flames stopped forming the dagger was pulled out, dripping oil, and held up to Xavka's eye line. Seeing that a very minor warp had formed within the blade, Xavka quickly carried it over to the clamps once more, bending and manipulating the blade to remove the warp before the material cooled too much.

Bringing it up to his eye line once more after a few seconds on manipulating the blade, the Zabrak grunted in satisfaction at the lack of any warping after the quenching process finished and the blade cooled once more. However, it was soon reintroduced to the forge for the final time, being heated to a lower temperature this time before being removed and let within the clamp, caught by the tang with the tip held aloft. Leaving the dagger to slowly temper, Xavka left to gather what he needed for his next stage, the alchemisation; absentmindedly quelling the flames within the forge by pouring water onto the hot coals and pulling all energy out of the Sith Runes, ignoring the billowing steam as he did so.



[member="Darth Abyss"]

Spoiler

Just got to work on the alchemisation, as I say above, then the final stage of applying the Runes will be left up to you. I'll obviously tag you when that time is reached. Oh, and I'm sorry for any poor quality in the above posts. I'm afraid that while I know a bit about forging I don't know a lot nor do I really know how to write out what knowledge I do have, which left some of these posts hard to do.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

It was a couple of hours later that Xavka would return to the forge, carrying within his grasp a basin filled about two thirds of the way with water and possing the dimensions of being half a meter in diameter and having a maximum depth of only ten centimeters. Setting the basin down at one of the workbenches in the room, Xavka turned towards where the dagger remained clamped at the anvil. With a negligent gesture of his hand, the clamp would come undone and the blade would float through the air towards him, being caught in the grasp of his cybernetic hand.

Bringing the dagger up to his eye, Xavka quickly inspected it for any cracks or other imperfections before grunting in satisfaction and turning his focus towards the alchemisation of the blade. Holding the dagger over the water, he let his eye slide close as he wrapped his right hand, his flesh and blood hand, around the blade and, with a hiss of pain, sharply drew the blade across his blade, feeling the edge slide through muscle.

Keeping his hand wrapped around the blade that he had just used to slice open his hand, Xavka ensured that his blood would fully coat the length of the weapon, watching the red streams of his blood drip down the length before landing in the water, tendrils then reaching out through the liquid from where the drops of blood would land. All the while, the copper smell assaulted his nose. After the entire dagger was coated in his blood he let it fall into the water with a slight splash, letting the still flowing blood then fall directly into the water before, after a few seconds, the wound began to close as he drew upon his training from his childhood among his Clan and healed himself.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

After flexing it for a moment, checking that his palm was now fully healed from the wound that he had inflicted upon himself, Xavka held his right hand just above the surface of the now blood filled water. For a few beats of his two hearts, nothing would happen before, with a sharp crackle that filled the quiet forge, lighting would blossom into being, white arcs dancing between his fingers and along the skin of his palm while lances of electricity would dance down towards the water, spreading throughout it.

This was not the best way to create the Waters needed for Alchemy - or, at least, not the best way that he had been taught - and he knew this well. While the Blood was supplied, as was the Darkness, as provided by the Force Lightning, by using his Blood and not Blood filled with darker emotions, like betrayal, the Waters would still serve their purpose but he would not be able to use them again, their power being consumed in his next act of Alchemy. Still, this did not matter to Xavka, not really, as he had no wish to make these Waters permanent, only desiring to use them this once for the dagger.

Finally letting the production of the lightning come to an end after half a minuet, Xavka pulled his hand away only to set it upon the rim of the stone Basin. His cybernetic hand soon mirrored it, grasping onto the lip of the opposite side of the Basin. Bowing his head over the rippling surface of the Waters and the dagger held within their depths, Xavka reached out with his mind through the Force, tying his will and focus to the Waters, making it so that they would bow to his will, the power contained within now his to utilise as he saw fit.