Creation of the Nether Amulets

[Valik]

Though Valik's skill with Alchemy and Val'Ryss's magic were top-notch, not to mention the powerful though less skilled Velok assisting in both capacities, the old Whiphid was right. This object, while undoubtably powerful, was not the like to warp dimensions and play with reality. Which to be truthful, Valik was happy about. Exterminating and subjugating life from such a perspective seemed a bit like cheating, never conquering the problem directly, altogether less fun.

"Would this draining ability be limited to that which was living?" Valik asked @[member="Velok"], before presenting him with a large bag, full of glowing cubes, pyramids, and various other polygons. "Because if you already know everything these old relics have to teach, they might be a good start."

 

[Darth Hauntruss]

Three. Three Nether Amulets endowed with powers of the netherworld of the force were created and two were to come. While Rave was hammering the other two. Val'Ryss had vanished from sight. The truth was she was up to a more sinister evil. True the five would be made to spy upon the minds they use. But while the others worked on the five, Val'Ryss moved to a hidden spot behind the forge and poured her own personal mold...a mold for a sixth nether amulet, hidden to all.

There one of her azadûn handed her a special hammer. With this she beat a new nether amulet. Every blow, sent a reverberation in the force. Every blow, a piece of Val'Ryss' ancient hatred, malice and magic infested the amulet. The others would be designed to give off no evil but this one would be drenched in it. This nether amulet would be the heart of Val'Ryss' existence. One orb, one orb to watch the others and one orb to corrupt the minds that watched it. For in this orb, Val'Ryss imparted her very soul. The Orb is Val'Ryss and Val'Ryss the orb, in order to have full control over the minds who would be tricked into using the nether amulets, Val'Ryss would empower the orb of her personal creation all her powers and within it fuel sentience.

The hammering came to an end. And out of the fires of her creation, reflected in her eyes, was black orb with a dark maelstrom swirling inside it. Val'Ryss smiled and spoke to the orb, "Can you hear me, my mouth of the deep." A darker voice spoke from the orb she created, the voice was her own but of a more bestial nature, "Er'gah em der."

"Yes, My Master."​

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The Mouth of AzaZoth has opened and now none can escape its whisper. ​

 

[Ashin Varanin]

@[member="Valik"]

"That's right, I never did fill you in on my plan with Dissero, did I." Velok selected a familiar, pallid copy of the Teyan Apologia -- a piece of unrelenting idiocy -- and touched the Darkstaff's glowing crook to the holocron. It promptly shattered, and energy bulged away from it before being sucked into the Darkstaff. The Dark Lord shrugged. "Well, that went more or less as expected. Dissero and I plan to disseminate the greatest secrets of the Sith Archives to the galaxy at large. Naturally we've reserved some special bits, but overall, we're going to delegitimize and undermine the entire Sith Order overnight. We're both making small holocrons as fast as we can. Care to help?" He procured another familiar holocron, a worthless trinket, and drained it dry.

 

[Velok the Younger]

@[member="Val'Ryss Zankarr"]

Rave leaned against the scorching side of the Forge, virtually limp. Her skin steamed, fogged. The simpler hammer hung useless in her hand; she couldn't quite let go.

I helped create that, she she thought, scratching the half-healed or half-cauterized cut on her neck, then scratching dried blood from her chest.

The last two stones were ready for their bath in Chaos.

 

[Darth Hauntruss]

@[member="Rave Merrill"]

Val'Ryss re-appeared with black orb in her hand. Coming to the newly formed last two Nether Amulets, she unleashed her new orb upon them. The two orbs were dropped into the chaos of the black abyss and the spat out again. The job was done. The five Nether Amulets had been completed. Val'Ryss turned and spoke to Rave. "You have completed a glorious task. Excellent work Alchemist of the Spacelanes. Your reward, is this Forge. Here..." Val'Ryss handed a smalls tone with ancient carvings on it, "Whenever you desire this place. Think of this stone and the path will be lit to you. Aza'Zoth is a planet shrouded in shadows, only a few are permitted to access it."

With that she moved to her old friend @Velok "Come she spoke. We are not done yet. Follow me." Val'Ryss hissed. Leading them up a staircase, they reached the top of her tower. The tower that was her personal command chamber. There they saw to stone slabs protruding from the ground. One had a human male body, dressed in fine royal clothes of some noble house.The other was empty. "And now to enter dark hibernation and assume the form that will assist me in spreading these amulets. Velok if you may. Help me cast my soul into this body." Val'Ryss hissed as she lied down. Holding the dark orb she created for herself in her hand on top of her chest.

 

[Valik]

Distributing a large portion of the Sith archives around? For the galaxy at large? There was a bit of folly, in putting such knowledge in the hands of every wannabe dark-lord around, but the chaos that would ensue as a result . . . It would be a perfect cover for Valik's schemes, and a nice jab at the Sith Empire and their poor management.

"Seems an interesting enough play." He said to the whiphid @[member="Velok"]. "One I have no reservations on helpings with, provided I am allowed access to the more alchemical knowledge and history." He said to the living holocron, as they were soon joined by Val'Ryss and lead up a staircase, to transfer her body into some new host.

 

[Darth Vazela]

In the void. Observational deck, of the Obscurity.
Darth Vazela's meeting with Venom Tartarus.

Just as the galaxies most renowned Sith Alchemists and dark figures converged, as Velok and Valik finished their recreation of the Dark Staff...

Darth Vazela's eyes were focused on the dark expanse ahead of him, arms rested on the throne that he had created, via warping the molecular structure of the durasteel floor of the Obscurity's observational deck and subsequently lifting and raising a new form of metal, which formed into the unnatural architectural look of the seat he was currently sat upon. The dark side of the Force was palpable in the eerie setting found on board the Attrition-class Star Destroyer. It was the headquarters of one of the only true Sith Lords in the galaxy, save for the pretenders who could only hope to rule over an Empire as he did.

The foot steps of the approaching Venom Tartarus was beginning to pull him away from his stupor. The Sith Knight had arrived on board his flagship to meet with him, in order to discuss him becoming the ruler of Metalorn, the site of the most recent conflict between Jedi and Sith; Republic and Empire. There was an uprising on the horizon on the munitions world, for Republic insurrectionists had been left behind by the Empire's greatest nemesis. These rebellious curs required attention. Perhaps Venom would be the source of that attention...

Vazela's stupor ended quite suddenly. He felt himself get to his feet, his jet black, darkened robes that hung off his frame like liquid black fall about him and drag on the sleek, dark floor beneath him. He finished his approach to the transparisteel screen ahead, mere inches from it. All his eyes saw were black, an empty expanse devoid of anything. But he knew there were entities, mysteries and happenings beyond what he saw; and although the physical realm betrayed nothing, his saw further, beyond the darkness and into the source of the disturbance that had brought him to his feet.

The source of the disturbance was that of a powerful entity, risen from the depths of obscurity and back into the open to those Force-sensitives who were paying attention. Fear managed to creep into the Sith Lord for the first time in decades. Only one known entity that he knew, his deceased Sith Master Darth Ayra, had managed to bring the emotion he despised to the surface. "Impossible... You are dead," he murmured to himself. It couldn't possibly be Ayra. It was something else.

What was it?

 

[Ashin Varanin]

@[member="Valik"]
"Of course. The plan is to duplicate as much as possible, and not just duplicate it, but put it into production. A specialty product, of course, but ultimately we'll be churning out as many simple holocrons as we can, minimal storage capacity, the kind of thing Jedi used to use as journals. We'll just have to churn through everything we can."

@[member="Val'Ryss Zankarr"]

The Dark Lord ascended the staircase, the Darkstaff tap-tapping on the stone. He gripped the implement, sensing the strength it had devoured -- from the two holocrons, and from the lives he had taken on Tython, the Padawans whose life energies he'd drained while carrying the pieces of the staff. The soul energies of Jedi fountained out from the Darkstaff, bolstering Velok's particularly relevant skillsets.

To rip the soul from @[member="Val'Ryss Zankarr"]...well, nobody needed to tell him twice.

He did so. Viciously and with glee. And then he slammed that soul into the new body with as much power, but more finesse, than he'd used to resurrect Circe Savan.

Some things didn't need, well, art.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Far below the spire that Velok and his allies ascended, a new being had entered the Dark Forge. Garbed in a cloak of maroon and ebony he moved like a ghastly apparition through the hellish environment with single-minded purpose towards the forgeries. He had come here to create, not to destroy, as he was popularly known for. Despite the genocide of Togoria being the brainchild of the witch Val'Ryss, it was Kaine who had marshaled his dreaded Blackblade Legion to the bloody slaughter and lead the carnage himself. It was Kaine who helped craft the new form for Val'Ryss with the bodies of the deceased population, but all of that was in the past. He had not come to dwell on such petty events, he was here to create his own diabolical constructs and he would start with a sword. There was plenty of materials here that would serve in the creation of his new weapon, but such a creation could not be done by himself alone, despite his expertise in the subject. He would require... help, and he knew only one man who would fit that description.

One Whiphid, Kaine corrected mentally, and thus he allowed his presence in the force to be detected freely as he silently announced his presence to all those present.

@Val'Ryss Zankar @[member="Velok"]

 

[Darth Hauntruss]

@[member="Kaine Zambrano"] @Velok @Valik

Val'Ryss awoke, but this time she awoke from another body. But one wouldn't notice this new form to be that of Val'Ryss by both appearance and the force. Velok had helped seal the iconic force taint Val'Ryss possessed in her original body. If one were to sense her form, they would only see the force signature of any other grey-jedi master. Her force appears murky and opaque neither drifting too dark or too close to the light. It was as if she was an entirely different person. Yet she still possessed her powers of mastery over the force. But to keep the disguise she would limit her abuse of them. As she arose in her new body, that of a slender and handsome man, she called it her fair form.

Looking to the orb that her original form held she picked up the orb and rested it in her arms. She turned to Velok and with her new golden eyes. "Please friend." a charming male voice, deep and sensual in tone drifted from his lips, "As of today, I am Annadûr Lord of Treasures. Treasures, I now must 'gift' to those worthy of it."

 

[Valik]

"Mass-producing holocrons? With reduced storage and reliability I suppose it won't be too terribly difficult. Transferring data shouldn't be that difficult, and I'm sure you could make a fair credit or two along the way." Valik said, as the rose up the stairs to where Val'Ryss was directing them. "I'd love to be of some assistance." He said, before watching the whiphid rip the soul of Val'Ryss and plunge her into a new body, noticeably absent of Val'Ryss's more feminine attributes, as well as her signature 'taint' in the Force. The new creation was . . . . strange to say the least, but Valik was used to dealing with esoteric, the abnormal, the arcane. Such was standard when dealing with Val'Ryss, or the more skilled alchemists such as himself.

"This seems more a magical task than I am equipped to deal with. Summon me if you have need of my skills." He said, and bid adieu to @[member="Velok"] and @[member="Annadûr"], passing the Sith Lord @[member="Kaine Zambrano"] on his way down, and acknowledging him as he passed but not engaging the man in conversation. Valik's mind was more set on the tasks down below, thus he took off his jacket and shirt, leaving only a thin undershit on his chest, as he made his way to the center of the Dark Forge, meeting @[member="Rave Merrill"]. A witch he had admittedly little contact with, but had done good work thusfar.

"Some water." He said, and handed the woman a canteen. Even in less encumbering manner of dress she was sweating up a storm, hard at work. "Let us finish these last two stones."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

@[member="Annadûr"]'s taint had been locked up within the Dark Master's body; that much was a necessity. Val'Ryss Zankarr's presence was her weapon; her new form had none of it. An artistic touch, though for the life of him Velok couldn't recall if it had been his idea or hers. Either way, the Lord of Treasures seemed in every way to be an entirely different being.

Perfect.

He bowed gently to Annandûr. "I'm honored to have been of assistance," he said. "Lord Zambrano is here, but I think Rave and Valik will find him more useful. Thank you for your help with the Darkstaff."

 

[Velok the Younger]

@Valik@Kaine Zambrano

Rave accepted the water gratefully. Half the canteen vanished in the first minute; she used the rest to sluice blood and soot from her skin. Moisture rose around her as steam.

"My thanks for that, Master Valik," she said, picking up the hammer and tongs again. She immersed the tongs in the flow of liquid crystal, and a lump began to take form. The hammer pounded the flow, transforming it in physics-defying ways. Kaine would enter the forge room to find a lean teenage girl, stripped to the waist save for a breast band, hammering a glowing sphere on the great anvil while chanting Sith incantations.