Ask In The Back of Your Mind(or)

[Maura Starwalk]

OOC: Open to a few more Jedi participants :)

"...and after they've been dehydrated, I coat them in Iridonian pepper powder."

Maura was leaning against her rented speeder bike, talking on and on to Vida while the two of them waited for the rest of their group to arrive. They were waiting a bit outside Cito Teme - one of the few settlements on Mindor large enough to even qualify as a city - for the others to arrive from said city. The farther from the city one got, the flatter, windier, and more grassy the landscape became, but the city itself sat on a hill. The two of them would be able to see when the others finally started making their way over.

"I've been building up my spice tolerance for a while now," she continued, leaning with her elbows against the seat of her bike. It was windy there, even under the shadow of sparse trees and rolling hills, and bits of the blonde's hair kept slipping out from the small ponytail she had pulled them back into. "I bet I could win any spicy food eating contest now." She grinned, her fangs catching her lip on one side. It was an unconventional snack, but she'd been eating rose petal chips since she was like, ten.

Black eyes glanced back over her shoulder, then squinted at a rising cloud of dust in the distance. She couldn't quite make out whether it was from approaching speeder bikes or something else, and she turned her face back toward the green-eyed, raven-haired girl she was with. "If they take too much longer, we should just go by ourselves," she suggested, not clear on whether or not she was being serious or half-joking. "We could totally sniff out this ol' temple by ourselves." she added, her grin returning. "Maybe we'd get to name it if we did."

It was unlikely since the ruins probably already had a name, but it looked like that dust cloud actually did have some speeders in it, so Maura focused on that. Maura leaned back and turned her cheek, watching as the other Jedi slowly got closer.

tag: @GABA

 

[Rain]

The cloud of dust kept getting closer, ultimately revealing the speeder bike it was being whipped up by. The bike came to a drifting stop before the two padawans, sending up a plume of dust and smoke around them, the bike not being in the best of conditions.

As the smoke and dust settled, the grinning visage of Rain in a worn in jumpsuit would be left sitting on her speeder bike. "Evenin ladies," she said through a friendly grin as she switched the bike's engines off and left it to hover on its repulsors, "ready for some tomb raidin?"

She was beyond excited, searching for a ruined temple, the possibility of unexplored dungeons, and minimal oversight (at least as far as she knew), and time away from lectures, what wasn't there to like about the assignment? Pulling out a bottle of water from her bag of supplies, she took a sip as she sat down on her bike, ready to wait any other arrivals as they others had for her.

"Either of you thirsty?" She offered them the bottle, other hand going to rest on the blaster in the holster on her upper thigh. Her training blades were in her bag, but she was still new enough to the whole lightsaber thing to feel more comfortable with a blaster. Besides, you couldn't go tomb raiding without a blaster and a whip (one of which she also had in her bag), even if it was set to stun.

@lizziie @GABA

 

[Vida Harp]

Vida sat on her speeder bike while she waited for the others to arrive, she wasn't sure when she got lost by Maura's conversation but now she was on the topic of food. She found giving universal responses of interest such as a head nod or asking more questions, continued the conversation. Now it was something about spice tolerance? Internally, Vida frowned, wondering if Maura was on spice or if she meant something with the food she was eating, the context was vague, but again, she didn't say much other than a head nod. Quietly, her thoughts drifted in wonder if this was what Ezra meant by people talking at him.

She wasn't too sure about this temple exploring stuff, she couldn't necessarily admit that she read the information, she was already trying to still understand her basic material. This place on Mindor sounded promising in adventure and just a cool place to explore, her naivity seemed to run wild as she tried to fit in with the Jedi. Marua spoke again, mentioning something about leaving if no one else arrived in the next few minutes and Vida agreed. "We shouldn't hold out if others are taking too long." she said, but wasn't really sure on her thoughts about naming a temple.

Luckily, their last member joined, Rain, who Vida met just recently at the party had arrived. The darked haired girl grinned, feeling more than ready to get going. "I got my water and everything else." she said patting her pack on her back, "Lets go before it gets too late."

@Wit @lizziie

 

[Maura Starwalk]

"Absol-fuckin-lutely!" Maura exclaimed, turning around to happily greet the new arrival. "Been waitin' ages," she added teasingly, pulling her own water bottle out of her bag and shaking it when Rain offered a drink. "Yeah, got my own too."

She pulled out a bag of her spicy rose petal chips, some dehydrated meat sticks, and probably granola bars of some kind. "Snacks too, if anyone gets hungry."

Maura swung her leg over her rented speeder bike, revved the engine, then glanced down at her little GPS device before glancing at the other two. "Everyone has the coords, right?" While they didn't know the exact location of the temple ruins, they'd been given a general area to start looking for it. Maura wasn't quite sure how hard a temple placed on a planet littered with endless grasslands was supposed to be.

As long as the two others answered in the affirmative, Maura would grin and say, "Last one there's a rotten porg egg!" With that, the blonde padawan squeezed her hand and roared off with her speeder, swerving left and right before straightening out on a path toward their destination.

The race was on!

tags: @Wit @GABA

 

[Rain]

She was glad to hear that the others had also come prepared, and returned her bottle to her bag with a satisfied grin. This was a good start, and made her that much more optimistic about the rest of the mission. If everyone pulled their weight then there might be even more time for some fun, which was really the main reason she was here.

So when Maura whizzed off, letting out her challenge, Rain was quick to jump back onto her bike and kick it back to life. "Oh you're going down!" She called out after the other padawan as she prepared to shoot after, more than confident enough in her ability to catch up with the other padawan. Her bike, on the other hand, had other ideas. And as the thrusters kicked in the bike shot forward, picking up speed before suddenly, and catastrophically, dying beneath her. Not only did she lose all thrust, the repulsors simply stopped working. One moment she was flying forward a feet or two above the ground, and the next the bike had slammed down into the ground, momentum still trying to drag her and the bike forward.

The result was the padawan going flying off the bike, spinning through the air, and landing in a tumbling mess on the ground almost a dozen feet from where she had started. Bruised, battered, but still alive. Her bike on the other hand went flying past her, tumbling across the surface before coming to a stop in spectacular explosion that likely caught the attention of anyone not sleeping for miles around.

"Ouch."

The single word was all she managed to get out she turned herself onto her back, body demanding that she just lie there for a moment, and mind finding no reason to deny it.

@lizziie @GABA

 

[Vida Harp]

She looked at the navigation device, seeing there were coordiantes already entered; she managed to get Maura to do it for her without admitting she couldn't figure out the difference between some of the numbers. Regardless, everyone seemed ready; she reeved her engine to her bike, Maura counting down, but Vida already took off, her own navigation instincts kicking in as she was feeling faster than she was processing. Her body moved subtly to balance the speeder, keeping low as the wind whipped around her body as she flew over the rolling grassy hills.

Though she would get too far as something else tugged at her; despite not being far into her jedi training, she could feel something was urgent. Slowing down, she turned the speeder around, seeing one of the speeders cartwheel along the ground before exploding. The girl gasped and accelerated, rushing back to see what had happened as she already assumed the worse; her stomach twisted with unease as she got closer, but then she could see the faint strains of white hair.

"Rain?!" she yelled out, slowing down to jump off the speeder. Swiftly she ran through the grass, jumping over the rocks in her path until she reached the fallen padawan's side, "Rain! Are you okay? Is anything broken? What happened?!" she spewed trying to get an answer as quickly as she could.

@Wit @lizziie

 

[Maura Starwalk]

There was no mistaking the sound of an explosion.

Even though she'd already begun trying to catch up and overtake Vida, the sound of Rain's crash caught Maura's ear and turned her right around. Her eyes widened at the sight of the fiery hunk of metal smoking to the side, and her eyebrows pushed forward with worry when she spotted Rain's body laying face up on the ground.

"Rain!" Maura's voice rang out just after Vida's, and she arrived just moments after her as well. Immediately, she noticed that the Kiffar's eyes were open, which was a good sign. She didn't appear to be writhing around casping for breath either, which maybe meant she wasn't lost for breath? Having little to no medical experience or field medic training, Maura could only guess at the situation and compare her own stumbles to what was happening just then.

For now, the two of them could only wait to see how Rain responded, the both of them hovering over their injured peer. Unbeknownst to them though, the explosion had indeed attracted the attention of a particularly curious pack of canines.

tags: @Wit @GABA

 

[Rain]

Her head groggy, stars flashing before her eyes, the Kiffar padawan just lay there on the ground, trying to blink away the confusion that had fogged her mind. Then she heard Vida and Maura, as if calling from a distance, and something about their words tickled her funny bone.

"Rain, Rain," she muttered as she turned her head to try and spot the source of the voices, "go away, come again another day. Little Maura wants to play, rain, rain, go away!" She chuckled, immediately regretting the decision, as while her funny bone agreed, the other, less metaphorical, bones in her body most certainly did not. But the pain did help clear her head a little, and so she turned her attention away from trying to not laugh to get rid of whatever was poking her in the back, realizing that her bag had landed beneath her. So with some effort she managed to push herself up to a seated position, world immediately spinning all around her.

"Wow," she gasped as she tried to lift a hand to swat away the stars and failed, "this must be what it's like being on spice!" She chuckled, this time things didn't pain as badly as before, so she continued laughing, but stopped when she heard her laughter echoing around them. Eye-brows furrowing when she realized the laughter hadn't stopped even though she had, she looked up at the others with a question on her lips.

"You're not laughing, are you? I can't see all that well," leaning forward, she continued, squinting up at them, "but I think those are serious faces."

The laughter continued, as a pack of local predators got closer and closer, having a laugh not just as Rain's expense, but at the misfortune of all three padawans whom they hoped to make their dinner.

@lizziie @GABA

 

[Vida Harp]

Vida was relieved when Rain answered, she seemed a bit delirious, but otherwise alive as she swatted her hand in the air. She asked if her and Maura were laughing and the girl gave Rain a puzzled look, as this was not a laughing matter. In which the speeder had crashed, she was lucky she didn't go up in flames with it. "C'mon, lets get you up." she said reaching out to take her arm, but then she heard the odd laughter too. There was a sense of urgency, a danger approaching and Vida turned her head swiftly to see the three animals prowling near them.

The dark-haired girl rose to her feet once they got Rain up, clutching her vibroblade tightly. She wondered if they had ever seen people out here, they didn't act curious or afraid, and that made her stomach sink as to think they had eaten unlucky locals before.

"Get back!" she hollered waving her blade, but she was only met with more growls, one even crouching into position to pounce, "I said get back!" she yelled again, trying to look bigger and stronger than them, but it seemed to only agitate them more and then they attacked.

roll = 7/20

@lizziie @Wit