Reximus Boneclaw's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

The black holocron on the ritual ring sputtered. Reximus watched the dark veil over the windows thin for a heartbeat, then snap back. The charge was draining. If it failed, every farmer for miles would see the bone hill heaped against his door. He knelt and pressed both palms to the crystal. He would not lose this place. Not yet. He needed more power, and he needed it fast. For seven days he did not stop. Eighteen hours a shift, he bled dark side energy into the stone. He carved sith alchemy runes into a reinforced steel cabinet and stacked it with vials to feed the holocron a steady drip of charge. A patchy zombie kitten padded around his boots, yellow eyes watching, as if it understood the work. His hands grew steadier each dawn. The whispers came louder. By the fifth day, he could darken a window with a glance. By the seventh, he bound the cabinet to the holocron and felt the veil lock into place, fed now by alchemy instead of a draining battery. Still, he was not a fool. He walked out past the watching tree at the edge of the lot and crossed to a boarded warehouse he had scouted weeks back. He pried up the floor and marked a second ring in the dust below. A fallback. If this place ever burned, the skeletal pile would have somewhere new to sleep. He returned to the funeral home at dusk. The veil held, steady and black. The kitten followed him inside. The hidden place was safe again — and stronger than before.