The Forge (Solo Dev)

[Professor Mors]

***Pursuer-Class Patrol Craft Mudhorn, Sith Space***

It had taken Sa’ato some time to purchase, requisition, or steal the necessary equipment, plus many more long hours to install, rearrange, and connect the power couplings to his new menagerie of machines. Finally however, the cargo bay of the Mudhorn had been turned into a capable workshop in the weeks since the Neti’s eventful trip to Mustafar. Once all the preparations were complete, the professor immediately threw himself into his new project. Several days were spent testing the heat guns, the elasticity of softer alloys- the academic dare not waste any of his precious material if it could be avoided.

The boots were first, and the simplest. A sewing droid had prepared the high-grade synthfabric and leather framework in advance- all Sa’ato had to do was graft the necessary holding studs with a composite metal. Shearing down the heap of tulrus horns into workable plates was another endeavor entirely. Among the toughest bones in the galactic almanac, it took many cycles of constantly heating and rapidly cooling the broader sections before their molecular bonds eventually gave way. After an aggravating and tiresome period of hammering and bolting, the Neti heaved a sigh of well-earned fatigue before moving on to the next time.

The breaches gave the professor some relief as the armor sections required less-precision work. Sweating at a rapid pace, Sa’ato had half a mind to leap into the cooling tank as he repeated his process from before, now with the added bonus of the brittle carapace of the sher kar. Here, the Neti could afford to slow things down, lightly applying the hammer to various air pockets that appeared during the cooling process, and allowing various machines to stretch and flatten patches of cartilage as needed. Once the literal leg of the operation had been concluded, the retired teacher allowed himself a moment’s reprieve, and spent a long afternoon in the refresher.

When the time arrived to assemble the chestplate, Sa’ato fell back on the support of his droid accomplice once again, and oversaw the dismantling of the scaly blistmok hide he had accumulated on his extensive survey of the molten world. The rawhide was as light and sturdy as the professor had anticipated, and using an automatic needler, he leisurely set about connecting the armored joints he’d built thus far with the rainbow-like mesh. Likewise, the Neti borrowed a simple pattern to manufacture a set of gloves from the same weave, taking care to bolt down the various geometric bone chips that had been cracked free of his stash during previous labors.

Before spooling up the more advanced sculpting matrix, Sa’ato made sure that the droid set aside enough of the reptilian flesh to create a protective cloak at a later date. Last but not least, the helmet. The design was simple and clean, born from a union of the tulrus bone and the merciless arthropod’s chitin. Though severe damage to the head would not mean the end of the professor thanks to his biology, the power of illusion was not to be underestimated. Holes for the eyes and a modest gap in the material for his facsimile of a mouth would be made, while his true identity remained obscured.

It took the behemoth processor three full days to finish melding and chiseling the components to the virtual roadmap, but when the product was complete, Sa’ato was refreshed to find that the helm fit him perfectly without the need to alter his own form. After donning the completed outfit, he spent some time running basic combat sets, measuring the weight, and gauging any impact on his speed. Before long, the Neti was convinced he would adjust, and if the situation called for it, he could easily undress and attempt to outgrow and overpower whatever foe got in his way. The right tools made the job, and after the grueling struggles from the past month, Sa’ato took a measure of pride knowing said instruments were finally at his disposal.

[Professor Mors]

***Mustafar, Atravis Sector, Grid Coordinates L-19***

***Central Volcano, Upper Hemisphere***

It had been a long, arduous climb. The smoldering mountain that thrumbed as Mustafar’s own beating heart was far too dangerous to attempt a stable landing. Sa’ato had no choice but to land several kilometers away, journey to the base of the active lava flow, and heft necessary materials up the slopes on his back. In truth, the professor had made the journey once before, to collect an ingredient for this very venture. And while he knew the way, the elements and incline were no less punishing on his system. Still, many a dream, and the Force itself, the Neti assumed, had led him to this place.

The Force was strong here. It churned and spasmed in time with the magma below, and migrated out into the atmosphere with each wisp of black smoke. Heaving out a sigh from every pore in his body as he reached his destination, Sa’ato could feel the very energy of the molten tower penetrate his soul. Slamming the stout canister that accompanied him onto a stable overlook within the volcano’s interior, the professor organized his tools on a metal-weave tarp, and doused a small bushel of synth-charcoal with oil. Sitting cross-legged, as if to meditate, the Neti let out one more deep breath, and began.

[Begin Lightsaber Construction Application]

Closing his eyes and expanding the reach of his mind, Sa’ato sent his thoughts, and the net-like canopy of his signature in the Force swooping down beneath him. Like some thermal fisherman, his swept his feelings through the hottest reaches of the cataclysmic titan, and slowly began to sap its overwhelming pyrokinetic momentum for his own aims. Dropping a large mental armful of sheer infernal dynamism directly onto his portable forge, flames blared to life as the coals hissed wildly. Aiming to work from the outside in, the professor instinctively took up a brilliant, blood orange lava crystal in a pair of tongs, and held it over the miniature firestorm.

As this was to the main foci of the blade, the Neti sought to shape it appropriately. It was unorthodox material for two reasons however. For one, it had to be impossibly hot to carve, and if it was not properly shaped, the entire saber might explode on use. Thus being the case, Sa’ato committed much of his consciousness simply to keeping the borrowed heat from before trapped inside an invisible bubble, so that the crystal would become bathed in the awesome intensity of the volcano’s deepest recesses. It was only when the molten glow of calcified gem was strong enough to tease the teacher’s eyelids that he moved to alter it.

Exhaling and letting the captured heat gust free in a terrible column, the academic called on the Force to move his limbs on behalf, allowing both it and his instincts to regulate the power and precision behind a specially-insulated scalpel. The blade was significantly cooler by temperature standards, and it gave the professor the means to cut away significant chips from the larger crystalline formation. Sa’ato recognized that technology could only go so far in this arena, and that the crude blade would chip his material given prolonged use. So it was that the professor let the knife fall from his grasp, as he worked to sheath his now-free hand in the brilliance of the physical Force.

Siphoning the raw energy of his surroundings down across his finger tips, the Neti spun the momentum of the cosmos round and round like an invisible buzzsaw. So great was this metaphysical pottery wheel that the very air around his digits began to sizzle and blur, and had the professor’s energy field not crowned and expanded out as it did in that moment, his flesh would have surely liquified in seconds. After some time, Sa’ato became satisfied with the power of his psionic plasma flare, and set about toiling once more, the Force guiding him along nine perfect vectors as he shaped the crystal into a conical diamond.

When the task was finally complete, the Neti allowed himself a glimpse of the finished component, and could not help but marvel at its polished form, and the luster it had taken on having been purged of igneous impurities. Setting this gem on a cooling rack, the academic retrieved several thin sheets of phrik-phobium alloy, and briskly bathed them in his modernized cauldron. While Sa’ato had not yet mastered the basics of telekinesis, he was no slouch when it came to alteration, his thoughts bending and guiding the fired metals into multiple slender rods that wound their way round a central apex.

Ever so carefully, the Neti Locked the contoured lava crystal into the upper arms of the apparatus, and let out a tentative exhale as he retrieved an even more brilliant stone from a worn pouch. A luminous chunk of white kyber glittered up at the professor, its own pseudo-signature in the Force whispering potently in his ears as he scanned its surface with his mind. The small geode could not be fiddled with as Sa’ato had done with the focusing crystal. It felt alive in its own strange way, and like a living being, it had its eccentricities. Feelings of dread, danger, and ruin flashed through the academic's head as he teased various angles with which to set the power source into his geometric webbing.

Gnawing at the Living Force around him to double his focus, Sa’ato made microscopic adjustments as he crept the gem along the alloy rigging, before releasing a puff of hot air and snapping it in place. Dousing his fingers in fierce kinetic power once again, the retired teacher pinched off sections of the rods to conform and hold the natural battery in place, before neatly snapping the inverse diamond matrix in two. Between these the professor fitted a phase emitter he had fabricated prior, and at last, the most taxing leg of the ritual was at the end. What remained then was the most monotonous technical aspects, and a slight touch of embellishment

This time, when the Neti reached into his myriad container, he produced the worn hilt of a defunct lightsaber, shattered crudely just below the emitter. This, the teacher knew to be the remains of a training blade, and as his mind penetrated its mutilated husk, he sought not the memories of the wielder, but the maker. Psychometry did not fail to provide. As if in a trance, Sa’ato laced and threaded wires through the jungle gym of rods and precious minerals that stood erect on his tool rack. Moving on instinct and bereft of the fear from before, the Neti wedged a power field conductor and auxiliary cell at the intravenous base of the hilt, just below the primary crystal.

Similarly, the professor let both his mind and hands flow upward from the focusing crystal as he stacked stabilizer coils, modular circuits, an inhibitor ring, and ultimately, the smooth, conic head of the saber emitter at the very top. For the external housing, the Neti beckoned for the lava’s furious temper yet again, though in a smaller dose as he bid the Force work through him, rolling and locking more common metal sheeting perfectly over the inner menagerie of the power complex. The one remaining task ultimately proved the simplest, but all the more cunning. Dumping out several bone chips and shavings left over from the construction of his bone armor, Sa’ato employed a combination of sheer heat and factory-grade adhesives to dot the almost-complete scabbard with harsh chitinous thorns.

If someone without the ability to alter their form as the professor did attempted to wield it, their grip would be awkward and thwarted by the random jagged ornaments lining the exterior. For the Neti though, it took little stamina or time to contort his long, root-like fingers into just the right shape to maximize his grip. After what had been countless hours, or perhaps even days, Sa’ato brought his consciousness back to the present, to his surroundings, to time and its passing. He stood up, and without hesitation, ignited his newborn weapon. It crackled and hissed to life in an instant, it’s brilliant orange blade warped and harsh against the volcanic light.

Like tears, or nascent bubbles, offshoots of plasma, no bigger than a grain of sand, would leap out from the main laser column. Though all precautions had been taken, and the professor was not concerned, he relished in the faux-instability it represented, and the awesome, deadly power caught within that was real. Very, very real…

[End Lightsaber Construction Application, 1,204 Words]

[Professor Mors]

***Pursuer-Class Patrol Craft Mudhorn, Sith Space***

Though Sa’ato’s own experience with lightsaber combat was minimal, his continued training with the Djem So had revealed several defensive weaknesses inherent to the form: at least, with a single blade. Recently, the Neti had stumbled across a handful of texts singing the praise of a smaller, more compact light weapon. Not only would it expand his options to counter enemy attacks, but it could also prove vital for breaking through the barrier of a reach weapon. Furthermore, by nature of its length, the shoto favored precision over strength, which would project a unique challenge to the professor. With his materials gathered, he took a breath, and began.

[Begin Shoto Construction Application]

The difficulty of the shoto was its diminutive size. Welding the components of his first lightsaber had been difficult enough for Sa’ato. For an even smaller blade, greater care was needed. Carefully sprinkling a line of ferrous dust over a single alloy sheet, the Neti traced the rough outline of the shoto’s hilt components. When the delicacy of his aim failed him, the academic bade the Force to alter the electrical charge of his fingertips, and gently nudged mud-red particles this way and that with a slight magnetic persuasion. Once the stencil for various rods and casings was complete, the Neti fished a small terrarium out from a nearby shelf, and unleashed its contents onto the table.

A Mustafarian lava flea larvae wriggled out onto the broad metal sheet and curiously eyed the trail of iron breadcrumbs. Prior to, Sa’ato had been careful to deny the fledgling insect a proper meal, and now, seized by a primal hunger, it started to feast in earnest. And, as it gobbled up the free buffet, its acidic saliva steadily melted the edges of the intended component outlines. Every so often, the thumb-sized grub would threaten to stray from Sa’ato’s carefully-crafted trail. In those instances, a simple psychic suggestion was enough to keep it on course. Indeed, what little brain the larvae possessed was easily influenced with stimuli and non-verbal commands.

At his most desperate, the Neti would place a foreboding finger off to the side of the bulbous mite, and cause his energy field to flare and mimic a predatory presence. In time however, the dubious bug did its job, and after returning it to its pen, a few light strikes from a small hammer broke the perfectly straightened panels free of their host plate. After some quick metallurgy, a basic skeleton came into being, though bereft of its inner mechanisms. To properly insert the wiring, Sa’ato renewed his magnetic trickery from before. Using the Force to channel a harmless electric charge into each filament with one hand, the Neti simultaneously produced the inverse charge on the other.

Whisking a single, sinuous digit around in a clockwise fashion, wire after wire danced and descended to the professor’s tune. When this was accomplished, the academic steadied his nerves, and willed his middle and forefinger to recede like a parched vine. With the added momentum of the Force, Sa’ato’s lithe appendages swiftly shrank to the thickness of chopsticks. From there, he carefully procured a diminutive sliver of white kyber from a worn box, and carefully snaked it down towards the hilt’s central power matrix. No sooner had the Neti locked the alabaster gem in place did a pitched whine pierce the air.

A claustrophobic hunk of rock?! The nerve! As Sa’ato sensed the crystal attempting to lash out at its unforeseen prison, he immediately moved to bombard the rebellious kyber with thoughts. Channeling his frustration through his presence in the Force, the Neti fought to weaponize his emotions as much as his limited psionics would allow, and impose his will on the lustrous locus. After a time, the Neti had no recourse but to clamp a fraction of his energy field over the fuming power source, almost smothering its presence in the Living Force, until at last it ceased resisting. Thankfully, the professor’s lava-born focusing crystal settled in up above without issue.

Now one single obstacle remained. Searing the emitter and phase amplifier to the head of the hilt, the professor gingerly grafted the exterior power cell at the base of the saber’s casing. Steeling his nerves, the Neti sent a single charge of energy to the wired complex veiling the kyber, and struggled not to blink as a brilliant firestorm of molten flame erupted before him. Normally, calibrating the power intake for light weapons was relatively simple. But given the unstable nature of Sa’ato’s preferred volcanic material, it was necessary to make the adjustments by hand. And, at the same time, he was forced to keep the resulting discharge from frying his hard work, and himself in the process.

On the one hand, the academic had to maintain a constant stream of energy into the power cell at just the right frequency to keep it from exploding: first by drawing upon the Force as it lingered in the air, and then by leeching the vigor of several patches of moss that had yet to be cooked by the dual crystals’s maelstrom. Concurrently, the stray blasts of pure plasma that crackled forth like lightning had to be contained for Sa’ato’s own sake. Acting on a whim, he strove to reverse the polarity of the right half of his body. Manipulating the electric, and spiritual field surrounding his person, the Neti succeeded in turning part of his torso into a grounding trap for the spastic beams.

This act cost the retired teacher dearly in mobility, but he remained intact all the same. What’s more, with time and strained effort, Sa’ato slowly created a channel for the excess energy to travel- a metaphysical tube no bigger that a pin that traveled from the palm of his hand, up through his arm, out the other shoulder, and feeding right back into the struggling power cell at the end of the makeshift loop. After what seemed like a small eternity, the power cell, the crystals, and the phase emitter achieved synthesis, and a font of violent orange energy coalesced into a single brilliant ray.

In time, Sa’ato would apply a handful of ornamental bone chips and belt hook to the metal carapace. But in that moment, he could do little but slump back in his seat, and wearily examine the fruit of his labors…

[End Shoto Construction Application, 945 Words]