War Is Coming.

[Darth Ferus]

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'I was born without claws, without fangs, without scales. So I forged them in fire and crafted them of steel.'​

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Sparks danced across a dimly lit floor. The echo of metal hammering down against red metal filled the basement with a steady beat of music. A song of fire, of warping the toughest metals to the will of the blacksmith. Red skin glistened with sweat, glowing from the fire of the forge underneath his own home. A top the anvil he was currently before was a large bar of durasteel. Each blow smoothed the lump of red ore down, shaping and sculpting.

Krest's brow furrowed in concentration as he began to form the raw block into a bar. It was to be one of three, but this was the first, and most important. A smile formed on his lips as the final strike landed, forming it into just the shape he wanted. This was just beginning, but it was starting at a good pace.

 

[Darth Ferus]

Back into the fire the bar went, resting in the hot coals. Slowly the dull red glow that it had been beaten to brightened and brightened, until the metal turned almost molten red. It was then that the metal was removed and set into a basin of oil. The metal needed to be heat treated after all. Once again it was pulled free, catching fire for just a moment. Perfect. The bar was settled upon one of the workbenches nearby, where it would rest.

Krest went right to the next chunk of durasteel, lifting the other bar to set into the flame. The first chunk, heated to be strong and hard. The second, to be heated to be flexible. A solid blade made to be hard all the way was brittle. Easily broken. Shattered. The middle of the blade needed to be flexible, and the edges needed to be hard. So he stood there, holding the block over the flame as it gradually heated to a point where it would turn almost purple. Just to the point he wanted. Right before the color reached the edge he would pull it free, and begin the work of hammering the bar thinner and longer. Sweet poured down his brow as he hammered away, and a smile stayed on his lips.

There was nothing better than forming metal to what one wanted to be.

 

[Darth Ferus]

The final smack of a hammer ending it's song once again signified the final strike needed to form the bar to just the right length. There, the two parts were finished. Now, to bring them together. Staring down at the larger hard bar to the thinner flexible one, the next move became clear. Cut the larger bar in half, and set the thinner one within. So he went right to the cutting. The bar was placed once more into the heat, to heat up to a point that it could be severed evenly.

With hammer and chisel the Zabrak went about cutting the bar in two, evenly as possible. The Force burned through his body as he did so, stilling his hands and focusing his gaze. Soon enough, there were three bars. Next, the red man placed the hard metal bars around the more flexible one, and brought it to the flame. There he would melt the bars together, and finally begin to form the blade.

 

[Darth Ferus]

Once again sparks danced across the floor of this Blacksmiths basement. Once again, the rhythmic blow of a hammer filled the air. Krest stood over his anvil once again, striking at the molten metal. Each blow forced the metals together, eventually forcing them together into one solid mass. Once together, the Zabrak set the metal onto the heat to seal them. The idea of his blade was a tricky one however. It was not one solid blade, but two, with hardly any space between them. As the heat melded and sealed where his hammer could not, he breathed deeply, letting the Force flow through him.

When the metal burned bright like the flame below he removed it, once again hammering down upon molten steel. This time, he set to form it into a perfect rectangular prism. Again and again he hammered, until where the two harder steel sides were flat and wide, with the sides for all three layered were thin. It was like a book by the time he was finished, and the metals made the pages.

Once again the steel mass was to be cut in half. Heated and chiseled the Zabrak made one into two, leaving him with the two halves to his one sword. Now, he would have to sculpt the blade.

 

[Darth Ferus]

All up to this point had been easy. Melding and tempering metal. Forming the blocks needed. Most metallurgists could do this as if they were tying their shoes. What most had a harder time doing was forming two identical blades. Harder still, forming them to sit side by side with just a fraction of an inch of space. All the Force he had been collecting, meditating upon, focused his mind to the task. As he lifted up his hammer, he closed his eyes one last time, listening to the Force around him in the silence that would only last a moment longer.

His blue eyes snapped open as the image became clear in his mind, and Krest set to work, slamming down upon one of the metal bars. Again and again he went, drawing out the metal as sweat dripped down his brow and onto the red hot steel, where it sizzled away. Each strike was placed with precision, made to draw the blade out in just the way he wanted it to go.

For hours he struck, focused in each, taking his time. When the metal became too cool, back into the flame it went until he could shape it to his desire. The outer side of the blade was raised in the center, with the edges tapering out to a thin edge. The inner side, flat. For what Krest wanted done, it needed to be flat. Each strike had changed the block into something else, something more. Soon enough, the proper shape of a blade was visible. Even the tang was finished.

But Krest was not.

 

[Darth Ferus]

With one half finished, the difficult task of replicating his work would come next. If not for the Force on his side, it would have been a much longer and painstaking task. But with the Force the task was simple. He repeated his steps to the letter, heating the metal to even the same degree with the unnatural focus that was born of the mystical energy. In only a couple hours the Zabrak had finished the second half.

Now all that remained was one last temper. To seal the deal, and let the blades cool. Once they reached the ideal color in the middle and just before it spread to the edges, they were pulled free and set into the oil, just as the bars were. There they rested, and were pulled free only after they stopped smoking. Once they finished, he pulled them out to cool, and finally sat down. A chuckle escaped his lips as the Forge died down. He had been working for hours, and this was the first time he had rest.

Now was the easy part of polishing and engraving, but even then the work wasn't finished. The hilt had already been crafted, and soon the metal would rest in there. But to seal it fully Alchemy was needed.

[member="Darth Lykos"] was needed.

And so War reached out to Conquest, asking him to meet him here, to finalize this weapon.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

Dressed as he usually was in a dark robe that served to obscure and occlude his form, Darth Lykos would step into the room that Krest had been using to forge his new blade on silent feet. Casting his gaze around, taking note of the scattered tools an cooling blades, the Zabrak would reach up to remove the hood that hid his face, revealing his single orange-coloured eye, ashen grey hair and jagged horns. Setting his slitted gaze upon the red skinned form of Krest, Lykos simply greeted him with a nod of his head before sweeping over to examine the blades with a practiced eye.

Reaching up to run his hand across the flats and bevels of the blade, checking for any warping that may have formed during the tempering as his training demanded he should, his gruff voice would call out over his shoulder. "You did well with these. I cannot find any warping. The bevel is finely set, the lines straight and parallel with each other." Despite the familiarity the the Zabrak held with his fellow Zabrak, there was no form of levity within the tone of his voice, for, right now, he considered this a job, something for him to devote the entirety of his focus towards as his teacher had trained him back when he had first started to work with metals as a child learner.

Straightening himself, Lykos cast his gaze across to the Aspect of War as he began to remove his robes, revealing the leather plate armour beneath. "Do you have a Basin prepared for my usage?"


[member="Krest"]

 

[Darth Ferus]

"I should hope I did well. Been forging for decades y'know." A chuckle escaped the Zabraks lips as he listened to [member="Darth Lykos"] speak. He was very appreciative of the White coming down, and when he came into view Krest offered a nod from where he was sitting. The old man was tired, and didn't feel like standing just yet. A wave of his hand however called the blades over to him, letting them float around his body.

"The Basin's farther in. I'll be joining you once I finished." And with that, the red mans eyes closed, and the Force flowed through him. The scattered pieces of the blades hilt all began to float around him. Slowly the pieces came together, and soon enough the hilt, blade, and even the unique lightsaber emitter was in place, and sealed. Shortly after he would walk to where Lykos would be, bringing the almost finished blade with him.

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

Nodding in response to Krest's direction as to where the Basin was, Lykos simply turned and glided on bared feet deeper into the basement that the red-skinned Zabrak had seen fit to turn into his forge, picking his way around anvils, racks of tools and the odd twisted chunks of metal that had once been attempts at a sword but were now discarded attempts that had ended in failure. As he did take in this sight, a small, melancholy smile pulled at scarred lips, after all, it had been more than years since he had last set foot into a proper forge, not a makeshift one like the one he had built within a ruined temple on Iridonia for his own usage.

Coming across what was obviously going to be where he would be working, Lykos ran his flesh hand around the lip of the large bowl set before him on a raised plinth, feeling the uneven surface of stone as he did so. As he went around the Basin, he was careful to ensure that his hand never once strayed too close to the Waters that were cradled within the stone, even as his orange stare did not once flicker away from them, the scent of blood strong in his nose.

It was the sound of approaching footsteps that would break him from his focus, causing Lykos to whirl around to come face to face with the assembled blade that Krest would soon be wielding in his position as the Red Assassin and Aspect or War. Reaching out to take the large blade, something that would be classed as a Bastard Sword. Reaching out, Lykos would accept the blade, cradling it gently within his hands as, instead of the Basin, he strode over to a near by workbench and set the blade down whilst also seating himself.

"You would not happen to have any engraving tools near by, would you?"


[member="Krest"]

 

[Darth Ferus]

"I do, yeah. Drawer on the top of the toll box." Box didn't do the shelving unite justice. It stood as tall as Krest and three times as wide, and each drawer was labeled and filled with the tools any blacksmith would want. The old Zabrak wasn't one to spend a lot of money on much, but here, this was his playground. His pride and joy. After he handed off the blade to [member="Darth Lykos"] he moved to a nearby stool, plopping down. He was still tired after all.

"What do you plan on engraving?"

 

[Xevek Nekonis]

"Despite my rather... lacking knowledge of some of the more powerful ways to manipulate the Force, whether within the Darkness or Light, I do have an understanding of alchemy and Sith Runes, as you well know. These two facets serve as what can be considered my deeper understanding of the Force and ways that I can compensate for my lack of power. This may be a weapon for yourself, but, it is still a project of mine and, as such, shall be subjected to both of these techniques."

While he had been speaking, the tanned Zabrak had been picking through the draw indicated to him by Krest, picking up and setting aside a number of different engraving tools in a variety of different degrees hardness. The shape of the tools were different, there was no uniform shape or size, apart from they all tapered down to the point. The final tool he pulled out before pushing the draw closed was a small hammer, one that looked very odd in his large hand. Settling back into his seat, Lykos began picking up one tool at a time and running the width of it along the edge of the blade, working from softest to hardest. Every time he would do so, he would stop and shake his head before pushing it aside. However, eventually, he didn't shake his head on one of the tools and set that one down next to the blade. Pushing the discarded tools to the edge of the table, Lykos pulled the blade closer to him so that he was able to lean directly over it.

Slowly, ignoring the tiny hammer, the Assassin began to speak out loud to Krest once more as he began to gently trace out different lines that slowly began to form into shapes: Sith Runes. "I plan on engraving four Runes to form a Runic Structure which will then be repeated down the bevel of the blade. Gilta'desVeratatious. A Rune of Death. Physical. Serves the purpose to Smash, Crush, Mangle and Disfigure. With this Rune, when activated, you should be able to empower your strikes with more power and strength. The Dinara Rune, another Rune of Death, physical again. Its traits are Damage and Hurt. This one would just simply serve to increase the damage done by Gilta'des'Veratatious. The Kilthor Rune is a spiritual Rune of Power that serves to define the potency of these other two runes while also directing where the effect of the force goes - outwards obviously. The Korribunious Rune is another spiritual Rune of Power and will also increase power while also adding a balance to the Runic Structure."

Since he had been speaking slowly, his mind more focused on engraving the Runes than explaining to Krest, by the time that he had finished speaking, one of the bevels had the Runic Cluster repeated down its length.


[member="Krest"]

 

[Darth Ferus]

"Rune magic huh? I never did get into that back in my day. I always heard good things, but I never had the time." Well, he did now, but there was no reason for him to get into the subject. There were too many gaps, too many stolen memories. If it hadn't been for Ferus, he would have stood up to learn the runes as [member="Darth Lykos"] carved them. But, instead the older man sat there, watching the White carve away. "An interesting assortment of runes. Sounds like I'm going to be able to hit things and watch em fly. Something like that eh?"