Braze was easy enough to move. Once he began receiving care and the holocron was pulled from his grasp, the tension drained from his slight frame, leaving him limp upon the cot.
He remained unconscious for some time, his body laboring to mend the harm the relic had wrought. The violent spasms eased into faint, intermittent tremors along his arms and shoulders; his fever lingered, though the intravenous fluids gradually restored some measure of strength to him. Every so often, his fingers curled against the bedding as another shallow breath caught within his chest.
The holocron did not yield its stolen power willingly.
Its crimson seams brightened within Delvin’s grasp, answering his use of Force Drain with a low, resonant thrum. The two currents caught upon one another, each seeking to draw from the other. For several strained moments, the relic’s hunger deepened, pulling against his effort with the weight of everything it had already consumed.
Yet his technique found purchase.
Stolen energy began to bleed from the holocron in uneven pulses, answering the same principle by which it had fed upon Braze. It a contest of direction and control: the relic dragging power inward while Delvin sought to wrench that current back upon itself. Whatever passed through the connection carried more than vitality. Fragments of memory came with it; the phantom heat of burning worlds, voices buried beneath collapsing stone, and the distant sensation of something ancient turning its attention toward the hand now challenging its design.
Red light gathered above the holocron, drawing itself into the hooded likeness of Darth Maltheron. Only his eyes appeared clearly beneath the shadow of his cowl, burning with cold amusement as he regarded the one who had answered hunger with hunger.
“Better,” the gatekeeper murmured, his voice soft enough to invite closer attention.
“Most recoil from the devouring hand. You understood that it may be grasped.”
The image inclined its head slightly.
“Force Drain is command over the passage of power. Do not fight the current as lesser minds would. Give it direction… then decide where it ends.”
The apparition receded into crimson haze, leaving the lesson suspended within the strained connection. The holocron continued to resist, but its gatekeeper had acknowledged the answer, and somewhere within its crystalline depths, another sealed layer shifted nearer to opening.
The holocron was one of Darth Maltheron’s relics, permanently altered through
Imbue Item,
Sith alchemy, and
Sith sorcery, binding several enduring Force effects into its crystalline matrix. The principles behind
Force Weapon demonstrate that Force energy may be channelled into a physical object, though Maltheron’s enchantment was designed to persist without its creator’s continued concentration. Once awakened through contact with the Force, the holocron employs a bound application of
Force Drain to siphon vitality and Force energy from those within its influence, using what it takes to empower its ...gatekeeper? Or perhaps to maintain its internal workings, and unlock deeper layers of concealed instruction.
Braze stirred faintly upon the cot turning on to his side and his breathing picked up in to a sudden deeper inhalation of breath... Dazed, his somber jade green eyes fluttered open to a blurry world view...
