Painful Masquerade

[Mauda]

Coruscant - Low Orbit​

Sat in the helm of the Burnt Hand, I reminisced on the day I acquired my Transport Dock. It was good practice and I discovered quite a healthy amount of.. things about myself. One in particular I'll be better off forgetting. While I thought, I suddenly became aware of that pain again. The blaster graze that pulled flesh off the right side of my face, exposing my teeth and burning a permanent one-sided grin up to my ear had recently been announcing it's presence with a low, searing pain. Like a burn that never went away and indeed it wouldn't. This was good and I didn't intend to remove the pain. It fueled me, added to my power. But it was distinguishable and a business man like myself was expected to maintain some sophistication. So I put out a request for a half-mask. Or anything intimidating really. Fear was a valuable asset and I needed a balance between that and sophistication.

On top of that I realised I really needed a new personal craft.

Just as my thought process trailed off into buying a new ship, a Krayt Gunship warped into view not far from my current position. Assuming this was my craftsman, I hailed the ship and was approved boarding. At a steady pace, I approached the Gunship and docked.

I stood from my seat, walked to the boarding ramp and prepared to exit. With a flash of steam, the ramp lowered and I walked down. A few steps from the foot of the ramp, I was greeted by a particularly fancy looking Mandalorian. Something I certainly wasn't expecting. The word made me think Death, Pillaging and Conquest. Not skilled metal workers. But regardless, I outstretched my charcoal hand and introduced myself.

"Orex Mauda, Grand Thanatosi of the Decentralised Equipment and Arms Dispersal."

With that, I offered a smile, one that flexed exposed muscle tissue and bared molars at the back of my mouth.

"I'm sure I don't have to explain my need for a mask."

[member="Valdus Bral"]

 

[Valdus Bral]

Valdus' large hands gripped the flight stick with his left hand as his right hand reached over head to flip a few toggle switches that activated the short range warp drive to his Krayt Gunship. As stars elongated and became streaks only to shrink and become bright spheres again he was several jumps out. What a larger ship could do in a few minutes took Valdus well over an hour of warping, cooling down the warp drive, and recharging the warp engine only to repeat the process over a dozen more times. On his twelfth jump he saw the somewhat familiar orbital clutter of Coruscant.

"Maybe I should invest in a ship that isn't lookin' like i'm a scout to a fleet." Muttering this to himself in his canine like growling voice. Tilting the flight stick forward and pulling back on the throttle, Valdus began his descent towards the dock. After sending out a docking request beacon and receiving clearance, Valdus docked his gunship at the given port. He unlatched his armor clad body from the pilot chair and moved to the rear of the gunship before opening the boarding ramp and descending. Valdus was greeted by who he assumed was his client, almost immediately.

Valdus was a hulking figure, a meter across from shoulder to shoulder and a bit over two meters tall, all wrapped into a beskar package. The whirl and hum of miniaturized motors sounded as Valdus' massive right hand clasped at Orex at the forearm and gave a firm squeeze. Not only was this a traditional way of greeting for Valdus, but it also served as checking if this one was hiding a weapon up his sleeve; which was not an uncommon occurrence. " Valdus Bral." He growled out in the gruff and firm monotone.

" My eyes work fine." Which he proved by tilting his helmeted head this way and that to get a better angle of the damaged face. " I assume this isn't gonna be just any mask, you'll want respiration and voice modulation too, right?" Valdus was not one to beat around the bush, he had taken this task up as a soldier would a mission; he'd get it done as efficiently and satisfactorily as possible.

[member="Orex Mauda"]

 

[Mauda]

"That would be ideal"

Small talk was something I hated so it was a pleasure to cut straight to the business at hand, allowing no room for pointless chatter. I looked him up and down. Big, armoured and very gruff. As a craftsman he had the temperament of a Mandalorian. Certainly a bizarre mix of character.

"Where shall we proceed?"

[member="Valdus Bral"]

 

[Valdus Bral]

Valdus nodded as Orex confirmed his assumptions. Plans on how to make a mask that was both visually cohesive and functional flooded his mind. Silently standing there Valdus was brought back to reality, " I've brought my tools, ingots of various metals, as well as parts for what I thought you may want as well as some additional parts I have not discussed yet. I'll need a furnace and a place to work the metal into shape. This won't be done in a day, it takes time. First we figure out how much you're going to be paying me for my time and skill, then we'll go from there."


[member="Orex Mauda"]

 

[Mauda]

"I can pay you immediately to cover material cost and use. Depending on the quality of the end result, which I'm sure will be exceptional, I'm willing to pay a bonus."

[member="Valdus Bral"]

 

[Valdus Bral]

Valdus turned away from the client and walked back into the cargo hold of his gunship. He returned shortly with a large crate under one arm and a belt of hammers, chisels, tapered rounds of metal, and so forth over his left shoulder. " A bonus? Well now ... I guess I'll have to try harder. Show me to your forge and make sure I'm not disturbed. I'll also need your facial measurements in order to get the mask fitted in a rough sense before fine tuning takes place after creation."

[member="Orex Mauda"]

 

[Mauda]

I lead the craftsman through the Armouries to a relatively small Weapon Foundry. Fitted with all the facilities necessary to construct your own weapon, though mostly used to repair and refine blasters.

"If you intend to form a rough mould of my face, feel free to. In regards to disturbances, Here's the key to this foundry. Only you can open the door from the inside."

I passed him the keycard for the door and sat on a crate near the furnace

[member="Valdus Bral"]

 

[Valdus Bral]

Valdus followed behind his client, the sound of metal bricks clanking, and tools clinking in their holsters as he walked. " I do." he gruffly responded when [member="Orex Mauda"] assumed that he would make a cast of his face in order to create the custom mask. Reaching out, Valdus took the key to the foundry in his large palm. " That'll do." Looking around he found an empty table and promptly put the heavy crate of ingots onto it, quickly followed by tossing his tools onto the table. He seemed careless with them, the tools, but to be fair they were made of tough metals in their own right.

Opening the crate he then withdrew small sack of sediment from it, tossing that to the side then went about pulling pins from the hinges that attached the crate's lid to the bottom. Placing those hinge pins back inside the crate he put the crate lid on the table upside down. The lid had a wide and deep indent, much like a bowl. Valdus picked the sack back up, pinched the top with both hands and ripped it open causing a small puff of dust to rise up towards his face. He then filled the entire bowl with this sediment. Reaching down he pulled his canteen out and dumped the watery contents into the sediment filled bowl. As one would expect, he was making a sort of casting material.

Once the sediment and water formed a thick paste he turned to Orex, " Either put your head into this bowl or I can spread this on your face, choice is your's and it doesn't much matter. The mask won't need to be entirely accurate to your face anyway. This'll harden in about a minute so decide quickly."

 

[Mauda]

I stood up from my crate, walked over to the bowl of paste and stuck my face in. I stayed for around 20 seconds, allowing the paste to form itself over as much detail as possible. The only problem was that the subject of this mask, the gaping smile on the right side of my face, wasn't closed. So stood there, I had to put up with pasty liquid seeping into my mouth.

I slowly pulled my face from the bowl and stood, allowing [member="Valdus Bral"] to continue his process.

 

[Valdus Bral]

Valdus watched the man dunk his face into the bowl, crossing his arms. A smirk crossed his face in amusement, though it quickly fell before [member="Orex Mauda"] could see that it was there at all. He had traveled across the galaxy to get here, he needed something to lighten his day. " That'll do. I'll get on making the shape an' I'll wire up some necessities. I'll be makin' this out of songsteel, I've only got one, one kilo ingot though - cost me a ton of credits to just get that much and this mask will be takin half of what I have. Call it 12,000 for the material cost and the work involved ... not includin' that bonus." Valdus was visibly sure of himself that he would indeed be receiving the bonus for excellent craftsmanship.

 

[Mauda]

Keeping my emotions in check was a task in itself. Embarrassment was quickly replaced with Anger as I had to contend with paste finding itself into my mouth. Other than that, I was impressed by the use of Songsteel. Although I knew he must be exceptional, I suppose I still harbored one or two reservations. But they were all but gone now. I was certainly satisfied.

"!2,000 will be fine. Don't disappoint me and expect at least triple that"

[member="Valdus Bral"]

 

[Valdus Bral]

Valdus gave a single pointed nod to [member="Orex Mauda"], "Good. Now I'll be gettin to work." He waited until Orex left him to his own devices before locking the door behind him and turning back to the aforementioned crate full of various ingots. Reaching inside he pulled out the songsteel ingot and tossed it into the furnace with as much carelessness as you would expect someone to toss trash into a bin. Songsteel was notoriously durable and very resistant to the blade of plasma induced heat known as a lightsaber, this furnace would take ages to heat the metal to workable conditions. Valdus prodded the ingot with a metal rod, aligning it roughly in the middle of the furnance for when it had to be extracted. An hour would pass before the metal went from luminescent silver to a blinding white glow.

At this point Valdus picked up two large tongs and flipped the metal over to check the underside's visible heat. It was glowing just the same, albeit a bit dimmer. Valdus moved the ingot to the nearest power hammer (a type of automated anvil and hammer) that he had fitted with a sharp V shape wedge and the anvil was missing the middle third of itself. This enabled metal to be effectively "cut". Now there were much easier ways to go about this, but that would require wasting some of the precious metal as it was turned to particles by a grinder. Doing it this way virtually eliminated waste, though it would require several hours of repetition. After all, song steel was also notorious for being difficult to work with.

Once the ingot was split into halves, Valdus returned one half to the work bench to cool and the other back into the furnance to continue heating. Withdrawing the ingot again Valdus took it to the power hammer and used the automated hammer and anvil setup to draw the songsteel into a flat sheet. This flat sheet then was marked by an etching pen to mark bends, cuts, and punches for the mask. When all of this was said and done he unlocked the door and looked around for a worker until he found one. " Get yer boss to come down here and tell him I'm done with the shape, see if he likes it." Of course Valdus did not entrust anyone with the mask made of precious songsteel, Orex would need to return to the forge room in order to inspect it.

 

[Mauda]

I was stood at the balcony, looking out over the landing pads. The freighters had left and were due to return in the next week. Good. We'd be stockpiling produce for a bit too long and I didn't want another.. Incident. Deep in thought I was disturbed by a young man with remnants of his past spice use littering his face. He approached me, a few steps off;

"Sir, The Mando wants you to see him."

I stood for a moment longer then turned and paced back to the forge at the back of the armoury. The door was open and I could hear the Furnace roasting its contents. Certainly a change to see it being used for once.

I walked through and approached [member="Valdus Bral"]

"What can I do for you?"

 

[Valdus Bral]

Valdus reached behind his head and scratched at the short black hair of his. He wasn't a patient man but he would keep his cool for 12,000 credits and more. When [member="Orex Mauda"] did finally reach the forge room Valdus walked over towards the workbench, giving a beckoning gesture to his client. " I've got the rough shape done. The eye - " he pointed to an irregularly shaped hole, " - will be covered over with armor grade Transparisteel. I'll hook up a micro-projector to give ya a heads up display - it wont be nothin' fancy just a standard holonet connection to the projector." He then moved his finger down the mouth area that was cut out, " Respirator with a microparticle filter - changeable I might add, no dusty lungs for ye - an input 'n output for yer voice." He then flipped the mask over and motioned generally at the concave shape, "I'll put in a matrix of environmental element wire insulated with armorweave 'n other stuff to keep this side of your face regulated in temperature." He then turned his head upwards to the client. " I could jam more into there, but my policy is to make it simple and make it work. Your choice though."

Spoiler

 

[Mauda]

I analysed the rough mask carefully. It was good, very good. I expected nothing less and I was eager to make good use of the outcome. [member="Valdus Bral"] ran through all it's specs. They weren't exceptional, but they were adequate and would prove to be very useful. But there was room for more and so I quickly considered all the various activities I'd be getting up to in the near and far future.

"Optical Filters for Infra-red and Ultra-violet wavelengths. That's all. Anything else?"

 

[Valdus Bral]

Valdus nodded his head, " Alright, I can get that for you. Do you mean you want to see in those spectrum only? Or do you want to exclude those, sort of like shielding yourself from Ultraviolet instead of isolating it. Regardless though, I did not bring those parts with me, so you'll need to provide that yourself."

[member="Orex Mauda"]

 

[Mauda]

"To see in the Dark, and see through blockers like Smoke. Variable vision settings. We can indeed provide such parts"

The young man was loitering around the doorway still and so I turned to call on him.

"Go and sift through the recent EMASaRE stock. We need RTSCE parts and optics".

With that, the boy scuttled away to fetch the necessary parts.

[member="Valdus Bral"]

 

[Valdus Bral]

Valdus paused momentarily, contemplating the request and being damn sure he was confident in agreeing to it - he was not one to go back on his word. Eventually he slowly nodded, " Right, once I get those parts your mask will be ready in roughly a day." When the attendant fetched the parts Valdus would begin working on sizing up the components, etching the inside of the mask for cuts, grooves, and holes in order to rig up the system he promised to deliver. He would not ask for [member="Orex Mauda"] to leave this time, he only cared about privacy when he was doing his metalworking - wiring was not anything remotely sacred to him.

 

[Mauda]

I watched Valdus as he quite artistically etched cuts and grooves into the interior of the mask. I wasn't a capable engineer, and as interesting as it was, I had other things to attend to.

"I will leave you to your work. A day is perfectly fine. I can wait."

With that, I left the room to go and deal with a certain uncooperative woman.

[member="Valdus Bral"]

 

[Valdus Bral]

Hours passed as Valdus cut, drilled, bent, wired, welded, braced, and tested the mask. Everything was going smoothly and he had been able to fit in the devices as requested, though he had to put the Micrel Power Supply on the back of the head instead of behind the mask. Due to the nature of this power supply, it would not create uncomfortable heat, and is bracketed to the brace that wraps around the back of the head that holds the mask against the face. It's a highly durable mask, especially with the backing containing thin layer of armorweave and blast-resistant fabric.\

Valdus laid the mask down on the workbench so the face was upwards towards the ceiling.

"Fetch your master." He gruffly said in a slightly tired tone to the nearest employee.