Highway to Hell

[Jairus Starvald]

~Kyrikal 17~​

~Akure Executive Interstellar~​

~Headquarters~​

[member="Ostanes"]​

The Akure Executive Interstellar conglomerate was known throughout the Galaxy for a few values, and most of those values could be traced back to the ruthless nature of its original creator. In many ways Rave Merrill had been one hell of a woman, ambitious, not above getting her hands dirty when it was necessary, swift with her actions and utterly brilliant. Suffice to say that Ovrani had always been quite the fan of her and her work.

Ovmar had been a… friend of hers, even though the memories were a little bit scrambled here and there there was a clear feeling of trust, warmth and perhaps just a little bit of sorrow that came up whenever Merrill’s image flashed before his ghost eye.

Some things never changed.

They had been business associates, working together on many a thing and it all came together in the daring quest for the Orb of Passage. One of the most interesting artifacts which allowed… relativity to take control, one could say.

Irani wondered if Ovmar would have continued with the quest if he had known what Rave had been planning, erasing herself from this timeline. Not that it really mattered now, what was done had been done and there was no way back.

Carach himself was a regular in the corporation, serving as a consultant for the many alchemical projects it tried to accomplish in the wake of Rave’s disappearance.

They had others, of course. Verd, her first apprentice.

But few held the collective quantity of knowledge that he held in his mind. Velok, Je’gan, the Dark Lord and Monroe, Ordo, and so many others. So many.

Today, the Sith Lord walked into the Headquarters and was quickly approached by some assistants, signing papers here and there, projects that he worked on for Interstellar’s benefit.

There would be a long day of experimenting ahead of him.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

There were some things that changed, often and infrequently. The memory of Ostanes was one that used to be storied for it's depth and accuracy. Damn near photographic really, if truth were told and rumor believed. But today was one of those days where whatever Rave had done when she left, was the biggest pile of bantha fodder he could think of. There were gaping holes in his mind where his knowledge of Alchemy and Sith Sorcery was once the focal point. He could sometimes even remember looking in books and screens and seeing research pertaining to this or that subject. But the letters, the words, the actual information itself was a fuzzy blur in his mind that he just couldn't pierce.

So today, as he sat working on his workshop, rebuilding from whatever set up he had made before to one mirroring the ancient book he had found from Korriban, he did his best to bury the frustration and focus. What he needed was the intellect everyone spoke so highly of. The devious cunning and quick wit. Parts of the book, frustratingly enough the most useful parts he suspected, were at the least in Ancient Sith script, and he suspected they may even be encoded further from that point with how the parts in Galactic Basic were.

Flipping shut the ancient teretatek covered book he tossed it to a nearby table with a clink of chains and began working on the plinth of hjarna stone in the middle. Days ago he had finished various rituals from the book and began the base layer of sorcery to empower his workspace. Today would be the final step in creating an altar to stage a very minor force nexus, if he was right about the steps in the book. The room around him seemed to almost suck in light subtly, dimming the closer you got to the altar in the center, and he had for once not dimmed the door window of transparisteel. Anyone dumb enough to look in would either be driven insane, or powerful enough it wouldn't matter what he did to them.

And so he continued carving slowly into the mirror slate resting in the clawed crooks of the altar, waiting, and actually exulting a bit as the reflective surface turned black, the faint etchings from the back shimmering through in a deep red flare of tendrils of manifested energy, before his grasp on the Force weakened, and he sat down, the mirror managing to not shatter unlike several before it, but still not lasting nearly as long as he wanted to. The ritual was done, and it should have created a nexus anchored on the altar, though by the length of time he had maintained the effect, it hadn't been much. And he would need to discreetly remove a few bodies now draped about the base of said altar in chains. Wouldn't do anything for him to leave them to rot.

[member="Darth Carach"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

[member="Ostanes"]

There were a few signs when works of power were being crafted, some of them were subtle. A slight shine in the air, a shimmer that vibrated through the air, a hum that operated on a different frequency than most people would be able to perceive. There were more signs, of course. The screeching of souls being wrenched away from their ethereal superposition to be used as fuel for unholy rituals, the smell of sulfur and brimstone that signified the reaping of the Netherworld for power, so many signs and not enough time to catch them all.

But it was the sudden darkness that spread, metaphorically of course. The regular alchemists and assistants wouldn’t even notice the change, but the Sith Lord was different. He was familiar with the forging of power, the creation of Wells of Energy for further usage. And yet Carach hadn’t know that there was anyone here, besides him and maybe Verd, who would be able to accomplish such a thing.

And so he nodded towards the assistants and ordered them to set up his room, while he was off to deal with a different thing. The Sith Lord simply followed his nose and as he came close to the source, he would sent a little sign to his fellow Alchemist.

A notice of approach, we all had our own territories. Infringing upon ones without permission… so rude.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

The ritual had left him drained, weakened really. Fatigue had set into him swiftly after he had empowered the mirror, and though he fought to not admit it, he would be like a fly to most anyone of a modicum of power, if they happened to chance upon him at this moment. With a shrug and a roll of his shoulders, Ostanes checked his lightsaber was hidden in his sleeve still, and turned to the door, hand pressing several buttons to slide it open to greet whomever was coming with nothing more than an empty workshop and several bodies chained to a space and place that looked, and possibly even was, the play house of a madman.

He, however, turned to the tome from Korriban and placed it on his desk, taking a seat with his back turned to the door, reading carefully from one selection in the book while another hand flicked through a crude lexicon on Ancient Sith, trying to piece together precisely what this passage meant and what it was for. Suspicions were that it detailed the beginnings of metallurgical alchemy, and so he took to it with a keen and eager eye, as he would need such trappings to begin maneuvering within AEI to consolidate his power-base and begin his take over of the company from the bottom up.

"Come in if you're coming in... Mind the drawings on the floor if they're in purple ink, stepping on them might kill you, or it might turn you into a sithspawn... Not quite sure which is best honestly..."

[member="Darth Carach"]