Once more into the Pit of the Mind

[Laira Darkhold]

The stormy planet of Vjun sat on the edge of Mandalorian space, which was as close to home as any place could be for me. The acid rain spattered on the shields of the ship as it glided towards the ground here. Countless hours had been spent researching this place and the people who operated it. Elsewhere on this planet there were the ruins of a city that mattered little to me, but this place, this shattered castle is what I sought. I had spent countless hours with an analyst droid going through data looking for a place to begin, and so many had been claimed by my enemies, but not this one. This one stood alone, right at the edge of friendly territory was perfect for what I needed.

On the ship there were only a few droids this time. I wanted no other living being around for what I had in mind, but I had been careful to tell Chiasa where I was going and what I was doing on the planet. She had been approving, after all, I was only a little darker than she. When we first met she had killed someone to prove a point. I was just of the mind that the ends justified the means, and so long as the end was the protection and survival of my family, I didn’t really care how I got there. Some of those closest to me suggested I be careful so as not to fall too far into the darkness, but so long as Chiasa was with me, so long as I had her, I could never sink too low. She kept me from going to madness and wanton destruction. She brought out the best in me, the good in me. In truth, I was a good man at heart, I didn’t kill the innocent, I didn’t butcher people, and I didn’t kill for pleasure. That didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy battle however. In fact it was one of my favorite activities. The pitter patter of acidic rain on a view port brought me back from the little introspection. I needed to focus, but I needed to remember why I was here, the short term, and the long term goals I sought to gain from Vjun.

The ship landed, and I could feel the place echoing with the long forgotten power that the castle had hidden here. The Dark Side was strong here, a focal point for its presence, where the Force and the Physical were closest, and had only a thin border between them, where the raw presence of the Force permeated the area and manipulated it with no guiding hand. There were no people about, but I knew Clan Rekali was set up on this planet and at least monitored the castle. I was forced to leave the shields up on the ship, and my own armor in order to maintain against the rain. I couldn’t have my armor pocked and marked by simple rain, and I didn’t want my face to burn, Chiasa would have my hide for something that stupid.

A few droids followed me quickly, carrying equipment covered in protective cloth and placed them within the building, as close to the center of the nexus as I could judge with my considerable presence in the Force. I was no expert, but I knew how some things worked, and I had a fair amount of common sense. If leaving something within a Force Nexus could augment it, then forging it in a Nexus could theoretically have more of an effect, and even more so if I worked to imbue my own energies, enhanced by the nexus into the work personally and actively. That was the plan at least, but I was unsure what the result might be, or if I, a neophyte alchemist at best, would be able to do what I had envisioned.

The droids placed all the equipment within the nexus and set down a small crate in front of me, ready to begin on my order. “Light the forge.” I said under my breath, keeping my hood up, covering my face as I stood waiting for the smelting pot to heat and be ready to receive the beskar ore I had in my possession. The four ores that I had in with me needed to be refined to purity separately before I began adjusting them and mixing them into the proper matrices using more technologically advanced equipment. The droids light the fires and I reached out with the force, clutching a lignan crystal in my hand, and stoked the flames, urging them hotter, higher, and imbuing them with my own augmented energy, causing the black flames to melt the beskar ore into a red hot liquid in a matter of moment, sweat gathering on my brow.

Slowly, the ore purified and smelted into the molds that were laid into the fire, withdrawn after they were filled, and pulled into rods, twisted about themselves, making the bars resemble rebar. The next ore, terenthium was cast the same way, a much faster process, adding only a little high carbon dust to the liquid and letting it conform as I wished it to, a rigid, light material, as strong as durasteel. The next ore, Ciridium was thrown into the smelting posts, refined to purity and smelted into long bars, just as the last do, left in the fires for as long as one could allow. The twenty bars, eighteen beskar, one terenthium, one ciridium sat waiting as the fires were readied for the next project. The Crystal I clutched was nothing but dust and so another was withdrawn from the small box of crystals on the work bench. This would take time, already it had been a full day, just smelting the ores into the bars. The matrixing process had not even begun yet, and already I was exhausted, tired, and angry this was not going quicker. I knew the anger was only because of my proximity to the nexus, but I needed it, I drew on it, gathering it around myself, letting it cleanse me of my physical exhaustion, and invigorating me to push on.

A set of lignin crystals were refined and ground into a dust left in an ancient mortar and pestle. So much of this smithing was to be done by hand, forged and readied just as it would have been in times long since forgotten. This would make the final product all the more special, all the more my own. Having forged the metal in fires I augmented I took the bars and set them in the cast, waiting for them to heat, to liquid state. This next step, the step of liquid state electroforming the metal into molecularly aligned matrices would be done through the Force. It would be long and arduous, but I could, I would do this, just as I had done many things, forged many sets of armor for others, I would forge this for myself.

Lightning arced from my finger tips, leaping over the liquid metal before me, causing it to ripple and bubble as it changed. The air itself was filled with anger and rage, more power than I could have produced erupted from me then, unleashing a hellish barrage of lightning throughout the room I had selected to be my forge for this. The Force was strong in this place and I drew upon the limitless reserves of strength the Nexus provided, empowering me to continue when otherwise I could not have. The lignan crystal in my hand slowly flaked away, turning to ash as the metal changed slowly, forming into the perfect little metal composites I had sought. It took longer than it would have taken to do so through science, but this way altered the metal in a different, metaphysical way as well. I didn’t know whether it was what I was doing or this place, or the powder of Lignan crystal I had ground and poured into the beskar mixture before me, but I could feel a change in the metal.

Slowly I drew the mixture into new rods, ten, twice the size of the old ones, but almost a new metal in their own right. As strong as beskar, but lighter and more flexible, even if only a little, and empowered by the dark side of the force, in more ways than one. Taking up the next Lignan crystal from the small little box, I tucked into my leather glove I donned, ready to begin forging the items I had come here to make. The first rod was taken and poured into the thread machine, in which it cooled, and as I hammered it out on the solid beskar anvil sitting in the center of the room, I watched as the impossibly thin threads became thinner, and were spun on the machine into spools to be used for this project. The spools were wound and then the leather and fabric I had brought took the shape of a glove, then another. Then these were threaded into a beskar glove, the micronized threads of beskar, forged out into the reactive fibers, making the base of these gauntlets into crushgaunts. The works fit perfectly and worked just as they were supposed to, but I could feel they were slightly different in the Force, more potent if that word fit with what I could feel was happening.

Next I set to work molding the plates that would make up the gauntlets and vambraces once together. Like before, this fire was black and reeked of the Dark Side of the Force as the beskar was formed into the many pieces of the set. The Lignan crystals were slowly depleting, but they were doing what I had hoped by augmenting my abilities, hopefully granting me the abilities of a slightly more experienced alchemist throughout the process. As I continued to work I could feel my mind lamenting, slipping into needless hatred and rage. Part of me wanted to harness this power and continue imbuing the armor with these properties, but I thought better of it, and simply let my determination to protect my family at any costs fuel my abilities, pushing the needless hatred from my mind. That was the slipping into darkness I had been warned against. I did not need that just yet, I still had much to live for.

The crafting and forging of the gauntlets and vambraces took time, but the eventually took shape, fitting and sealing against my arms and hands as I crafted them, the fire and lightning imbuing these things with my own power as well as the power of this place. This place seemed to have changed both myself, and the gauntlets I held in my hand, mostly finished. While they had been changed into weapons, I had become more of a shield in my mind. This I could do, as I always would do in the future. I would protect, even if sometimes protecting meant seeking out threats to my own, for what was a dragon but a monster that could lash out at a moment’s notice and take what it believed to be its own, and guard its treasure jealously.

The shape of the gauntlets and vambraces completed, there was only the electronics left. In my youth, and in my early days of owning ArmaTech, I could only have assisted in this process, but given my extensive training in forging and designing equipment for others, and having taken lessons in smithing and armor working, I was capable. Even still I sat, in the Nexus, methodically and deliberately working the electronics into the gauntlets, using shielded wires and electronic devices so as to protect them against EMP attacks, and removing any blemishes on the metal with the grinding belt. The beautiful, dark colored metal glinted in the light as I looked them over slowly. These were good. It may have taken the better part of a week, but these would serve my purposes perfectly.

“Pack everything to go, we are leaving.” I told the droids, who quickly dismantled the makeshift forge in the room. Covering the equipment once again they hurriedly packed everything and waited for me to leave the room behind, to walk away and leave this whole planet behind. There was nothing left that I needed here, not anymore.

The ship’s engines whirred to life and the repulsors fired, lifting the corvette off the ground and angling it skyward, taking me back towards where home truly was, perhaps just a little more dangerous than I had been.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

While I could only dabble in the basics of imbuing items and weapons with the Force and granting them special properties, I had access to the holocrons of the Obsidian Order, and from these I had gleaned some of the basics and how to increase my prowess, and improve the final product beyond what I might normally be able to do on my own. From what I understood, even master alchemists still occasionally sought out these some assistance with their more important projects. For me, I did not take on projects for others, and I was still very new, but with a strong grasp of the Force. This allowed me to work slightly above my skill level, though as much as I thought incredibly highly of myself, I knew I was no expert at this, but I found that I could still possibly create the objects I desired. All that I needed was to know where to go and I kept the forging equipment on my ship, where I could unload it and set up at the desired location. Last time I had forged on Vjun, and knowing the Rekali’s were there made me wary about returning so soon, but it was the closest place I was aware of and the trip there would only keep me from Chiasa a short time. I was sure they would understand that sometimes it was better to fight fire with fire. Sometimes, things just needed to be done and the time for repentance could come later, after the enemy was beaten back and not on everyone’s door step. Mandalore and its people needed to be protected, and in times of war, any weapon you could use was a good weapon. When the wolf growls at the door, a man must stand ready to defend what is his.

Vjun appeared in the viewport, storm clouds filling the sky of the place I sought as always. As the ship slipped towards the planet I turned my mind inward, remembering why I was here, and focusing on the family I had at home, out somewhere in the cosmos waiting for me to return to them. The Force was a tool, but it could corrupt you if you were not careful, if you lost track of what you were here for. Especially in a place like this, where the Dark Side was palpable and hung in the air. Even at this distance I could feel it, calling to me. I had been here not long ago and there I had crafted a pair of gauntlets into weapons of the Force. This time I had something else in mind. Pulling the ship closer to the planet, I pushed the controls downward and let the ship slip into the atmosphere, angling it towards the ruins where the Dark Side was strongest. Where the barriers were the most blurred and the Dark Side affected the area around it physically. This wasn’t the only place like this. Dagobah and Korriban held sites like this, the latter was likely more potent than this one, easily so if common sense could be applied, but with Korriban in the possession of the Primeval, Vjun would have to do. The acid rain pattered against the shields of the ship as it dropped under the clouds, and the ruins of Bast Castle filled the viewport as the ship approached. I landed, in roughly the same spot as before and took a look over everything I had brought with me this time. Not much different from the last time I was here. With a grunt, I spoke to the gathered labor droids, “Get to work.” And they buzzed to life, carrying the equipment and setting it up in the same small alcove as before and prepared the machinery to be put into use.

Looking out over the rocky outcroppings that Bast Castle sat around, I could smell the acrid smoke of acid on metal and pulled the cloth cloak to better cover my chest. My boots sunk into the acidic mud slightly, resistant to the relatively weak acid that fell from the sky. With a grimace, I turned and made my way into the alcove, noting the energy in the air. It felt almost as though this place recognized me and was welcoming to have a return visitor after so many years of neglect. The machines set up and the ores were placed in their cauldrons, ready to be added to the smelting pot as the coals were stoked by the droids. Picking up a lignan crystal and tucking it into my work glove I reached out with the Force, drawing on the power of this place and channeling it through the crystal, heating the forge with all my might, the black fires licking at the two cauldrons containing the two ores, heating them to a bubbling red hot liquid that could be worked and purified. Once complete, the liquid was poured into a different machine and allowed to cool somewhat, though still liquid. The blue cobalt and the dark metallic beskar mixed together and slowly cooled, while I waited. Powdered Lignan crystals were crushed with an ancient mortar and pestle, with assistance of a forging hammer and the fine powder was added to the mixture

Calling upon the Force, the air charged with anger, hatred, and fear, I unleashed the full fury of my might in a continuous barrage of Force lighting, using the wicked arcs to electroform the mixture into molecularly aligned matrices that would retain cobalt’s blue color without reducing the strength and resilience of the beskar ore, with the added benefit of imbuing the metal with the Force. Lightning arced from my fingertips leaving small burns on the ends of each of my fingers, urged into a storm by the power of this place, filling the room with blue lightning, two droids being electrocuted irreparably as I unleashed such power into the mixture, using the Force to chemically alter the two metals.

After several sessions, scans were taken and the matrixing process was complete the liquid was poured into molds, four of beskar and terenthium, the other of the mixture of cobalt, lignan crystals, and beskar. These molds were allowed to cool in water once they had reverted to solids, and then hammered flat on an ancient beskar anvil. The large, heavy forging hammer’s blows were strong and sure, drawing the metal out, flattening the five pieces into plates that could be used for my purposes. The other machinery fired up, producing the vast array of wiring, electronics, and other pieces, with as much of the process done by hand as possible, though there were things that simply had to be machined for something as complicated as a helmet. I knew when I had come here it would take a few days to forge, craft, and prepare the helmet, and that was without anything else I had in mind to do while I was here.

Crafting the majority of the helmet was easy, cutting and forming the beskar to shape and adding the numerous electronics to the advanced helmet required the help of an engineering droid, but that was why they were here. I wasn’t a genius, but I did know how to work a blacksmiths shop. Slowly the helmet began to take shape and adopt the look I had imagined I wanted it to have. Since I was undergoing a change in identity, so would my armor, so would my helmet, which to some, in my culture was my true face. I stared at the red visor and the black mouth piece, still not fully seated in the helmet because it lacked the blue plates to set around it. Taking the cobalt plate and cutting it to shape was simple enough. Heat to red hot, hammer it to the proper thickness evenly and then use a shape cutter and heavy, wide peen hammer to cut the pieces out from it, then use anvil, forging hammer, belt grinder, and a number of other tools to bring it to proper shape. Forge welding the beskar together would strengthen the bond and keep the helmet in one piece during combat. I didn’t want to get knocked in the head and the helmet split apart. Being forge welded basically made the shell of the helmet one individual piece, and then all the added electronics bonded into it with only a few minor details missing. But other than the extended sensors in this helmet, there was not yet anything special about it as far as I was concerned.

Taking up the spare cobalt I reforged it in the black fires of the forge, urging them hotter and larger with pyrokinesis and the darkness of this place, turning the metal back into a liquid. Leaving the red hot metal alone for a moment, I turned my attention to creating a wax model of the emblem I wanted to embed in the forehead plate of the helmet. The small emblem came out nicely, and the mold I cooked around it looked proper. I poured the liquid into the cast mold and set it aside to work on the helmet some more while it cooled and set.

The several hours spent waiting for red hot liquid metal to cool back enough that the plaster could be dipped in water and dissolved was spent checking electronics and sensors in the helmet, making sure it worked properly and was prepared to do what I needed it to on the technological side. With the programs and application systems loaded into the helmet the only task left to do was properly alter the emblem to and attach it properly to the node that I had left for it. The emblem would serve dual purposes. Not only would it be intended to enhance my abilities, but it would second as the infrared emitters in the helmet. Taking the emblem and cleaning up the little bit of flash and imperfections, smoothing it out and making it shine properly took a little time, but made the overall helmet look much better in my opinion. Taking to small red mephite crystals cut to triangular pieces were added in their spots, already prepared and primed for them on the emblem, and then sealed there. Behind them two small fiber optic lines would be attached and the small amount of circuitry could be attached where it needed to be placed once the alterations were complete.

Placing the small emblem at the heart of the Nexus, I bowed my head, sitting before the small symbol, and focusing on it, lifting it into the air and using my essence to imbue it with my power, so that it would be mine, and no others. As time passed, I sat, waiting, sweat and grime on my face, a shine of sweat having built up on my arms, but still I sat, eyes closed. Minutes ticked away and the small rotating emblem continued to hang in the air, steady, about eye level with me as I connected with it, studied it through the Force, and manipulated it. Hours had passed before I was satisfied with the outcome. I rose to my feet, plucking the small little piece of metal from the air and taking back to the crafting station that I had been using for creating this work of art.

Connecting the small fiber optic wires in their places and welding the circuitry in place took only a few minutes, but setting the emblem took much longer as the edges of its seat had to be heated, as did the back facing of the emblem without ruining the electric wires and, granted durable electronics. The careful process required patience and skill, but in the end the setting process worked and the emblem sat flush with the rest of the helmet, sitting at the nexus, cooling while I ordered the droids to pack everything up and leave. I liked Vjun, but it was no place for a family. If need be, I could return here, to this wellspring of power if I needed to craft something again. If there was ever more that needed to be done. Taking the helmet and covering it, I carried it through the acid rain onto the ship and waited for the droids to finish loading the cargo before leaving the planet behind, to return to the unknown regions where my family awaited.