Ask Knights of Cydonia

[Crix Aran]

Giant ruined Temple built into the side of a cliff in the middle of a dusty valley that used to be a bountiful valley? Check.

Group of adventurers who had entered weeks ago seeking historical knowledge lost and presumed dead? Check.

Dark and forbidding feeling in the air hanging so thick that it felt like it had actual, physical, weight? Check.

Crix turned to his companion and, completely deadpan, spoke aloud his thoughts.

"Master Sati we're in the first ten minutes of a horror film." he reported dryly, "And we're the plucky underdogs being sent in on a desperate rescue mission of those sent before us."

They were kitted out for the environment with their regular clothing and a large backpack each containing emergency food, water and medical supplies. As he had so aptly summarized, they were there on a rescue mission after all and that meant being ready to actually, you know, rescue some people. His newly finished lightsaber hang loosely at his side and Crix took a not inconsiderate amount of comfort from it's presence.

Less because it was a weapon and more because of what it represented.

His hand ghosted over his saber for a long moment before he ignored it, pushing on toward the entrance. The thing that was even weirder about the valley was that it honestly wasn't that hot. It felt like a spring day but the ground had given way to sand as though it was baking under desert heats. Honestly, the whole thing just felt Off as far as he was concerned.

"Well there's not going to save themselves... you wanna sing pop songs to freak the evil spirits out?"

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She had to admit, Crix was a decent kid. She never knew his mum, but from what Hans told her he had a decent head on his shoulders and he wasn't as hot-headed as some of her own Padawans. Felix and Drastus were with Hans temporarily, and though she knew both of them would have jumped at the chance to do something productive, there was a need for Padawans to train and mission with others other than their Masters.

At his comment of a horror film, she smirked, a hand on her hip. "Yeah. You think this sounds like an awful idea, try charging a Zakkeg mother and brood after running out of food and supplies. But I appreciate the sentiment." As it was, she knew they were likely diving headlong into trouble anyways. It always seemed to be the case in ancient Temples and Force-using sentimentality.

She peered into the cavernous depths of the Temple, and she couldn't help but grin and chuckle at his comment. "No. Why, does Ha--I mean, Master Grayza make you sing during temple recons?" Golden eyes glittered with amusement, but she too touched a hand over the hilt of the Fallen Blade.

As before, she took a slow, deep breath, glancing to Crix. All joviality was gone. In its' place was the Jedi master, calm and focused. "Keep behind me, and if you see or feel anything strange don't hesitate to shout. And I know it's tempting in a holo-horror..." her lips twitched again, one last hint of humor.

"Don't touch anything."

Silence pressed heavily over with the darkness. Though it was dim, and shapes seemed limited by the light, she took out a glo-stick, stepping into the gloom.

Further ahead, the glint of a blaster barrel peeked from the sand. However, there seemed to be no struggle when it fell to the ground. No blood either. She stared at it for a moment... then peered ahead, frowning. The padawan had a point to be cautious, after all.

The Force could work in mysterious ways.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Oh great so Master Sati had been in horror holofilm situations before? Well shrak that meant she was probably the protagonist who managed to escape which meant he was probably one of the people who got the fun job of dying to make the threat seem real. Or not cus, well, it wasn't actually a horror film so there was no need for the lethal cliches to come flying toward him at neck height.

"Why would anyone ever think that was a good idea?" he asked, bemused before pausing, "Wait... hold on I forgot that Drastus existed for a second... yeah I can imagine someone thinking it sounded like fun."

He liked the guy but Drastus was DEFINITELY the type of kid his mom had always told him to stay away from. Bad influences with bad ideas that could either turn out fun or terrifying or both. He shrugged a little bit.

"No, Hans and I mainly sing show tunes - he says it helps improve my lung capacity to hold longer notes." he admitted with a shrug, not noticing that she probably hadn't expected him to call him Hans rather than Master, "Master Sati... I am offended you would think I'd touch the evil glowing rocks or whatever."

He'd poke it with a stick, like a normal person.

Crix followed along with Indy, his lightsaber now in hand but not activated just yet. He didn't turn it on to use as a glowstick half because Indy already had one and half because it felt kind of... cheap? To use such a weapon as a glorified torch?

From the darkness of one of the entrances to the forgotten temple, a figure emerged at a run. Crix blinked as he caught sight of the figure, a Rodian who was running at a full sprint. Not at them and not to freedom - but instead he ran at full sprint into the wall, head first.

Recoiling in horror, Crix watched as the Rodian almost caved in his head, fell down... then got up and tried to do it again, muttering frantically in his own language as he did so.

What.

The.

Kark.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She chuckled at his words, sighing. "Yes, I forget... you know Drast. He's... a good kid." There was a hint of pride in her voice, a wry agreement with Crix's own assessment. Drastus often had his heart in the right place, but man his head sometimes...

When the Rodian came barrelling in their direction, she snapped her hand out, the hilt of the Fallen Blade in her hand, but it was kept deactivated. At his slamming into the wall, she gritted her jaw. The hilt was put back, and her hand lashed out, putting him in stasis before he could keep slamming into the walls. He grunted and struggled with his legs, his torso stationary as blood trickled over blind, unseeing eyes.

She exhaled quietly, slowly closing the distance. The Rodian's head whipped around, his words increasing in volume and fervency. She could barely piece more than two words together, but when his straining got nowhere the man's body shuddered and convulsed.

"Crix," she spoke calmly to the Padawan, "come here. Help me treat him when I have him settled."

Waiting until the Padawan was with her, she took a deep breath, and, releasing the glow stick to the ground to get her hands free, maintained the stasis until she would press her hand against the man's chest, frowning in concentration.

"Sleep."

She waited until the struggling ceased, and the eyes glazed over to unconsciousness before setting him back in the sand. She exhaled quietly, then glanced at the blood of the man on her palm, and closed her eyes for a moment.

She had to swallow back bile from the raw screaming that had been in the man's head, barely brushing against her own consciousness. At the lack of touch, the screaming faded away again, and she began pulling out some rope, and then knelt, pulling out a medpac as well.

Glancing up at the Padawan, her features were grim.

"How good are you at wound treatment? I'm going to need you to treat that," she nodded to the lacerated mass that was his face where it had greeted rock, "while I make sure he can't hurt himself again."

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Pretty much everyone on Yavin IV knew about Drast - Crix hadn't been involved in the party he had thrown but he had heard about it. Literally the entire Temple had heard about it and Masters up and down the place had taken special care to make sure that their Padawans knew who they weren't to associate with. Of course that was basically the same thing as telling a teenager not to do something; it meant even more Padawans would be at Drast's next party.

Crix ignored that line of thought though - there was a crazy Rodian currently trying to bash his own brains in after all. He rushed over alongside Master Sati but he wasn't the one to take the Rodian down, instead he was tasked with attempting to do what he could to heal the sentient. Reaching the now sleeping Rodian, he placed a hand against the green skinned hand and he felt the Force lurch slightly.

As he often did when meeting someone new, Crix felt a memory come to his mind as he touched the sentient with the Force. He winced ever so slightly as the memory came with some accompanying pain.

... his friends were all at a swoop bike race the night before, one that had ended after a big crash into some spectators... and none of them were picking up and the worry was building...

Removing the touch through the Force, Crix forced himself to assess the damage before getting started on a field dressing. Most of his medical knowledge had come from his mom so it had focused on blaster wounds and lacerations mostly but there had been some about blunt force trauma too. All his lessons had been geared at a Non-Force Sensitive however, hence his immediate use of the limited medical equipment he kept on hand.

"I think there's more of them." he admitted to Indy with a frown, "When I meet people and connect with them in the Force, I get a sense of their current frame of mind or... or their character in very vague senses. He is... he's worried about his friends. Far more than he was worried about himself."

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She worked carefully, mindful to bind his hands and feet so that he couldn't rush out and possibly harm again. They had been tasked with bringing in the previous adventurers alive, but she also wanted them to not try and sprint back in to save their friends. She glanced up at Crix, and for a moment, she didn't speak.

She nodded once, making the final knot to rub at her forehead with a thumb and two fingers. "Hopefully alive. But... I was afraid of this." Dusting off her hands on her pants legs, she picked up the glow stick once again, peering into the darkness. Sparing a glance down at the Padawan's handiwork, she hummed once in approval.

"Nicely done. Feeling alright?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

This whole adventure was starting to reek of something having gone terribly wrong – the guy now tied up by the wall might not have been a Jedi or anything but he was a well-respected scholar and adventurer. The whole team sent ahead of them had been the same and yet they were running around, literally, head-first into walls. This wasn’t a case of people getting spooked by long-forgotten booby traps.

Or if it was, he was suddenly very terrified of booby traps, which he thought could never happen considering their comical name.

“I’m good coach, no need to sub me out.” He joked with a grin back at Indy, “Still got plenty in the tank to show the away team who’s boss.”

Maybe quipping a little bit more to show how ‘okay’ he was but he wasn’t going to just up and admit to being a little bit shaken by the situation. Acknowledging his concerns internally would have to be enough to be moving on with. Speaking of moving on… Crix drew his stun-baton in his right hand and held a glowstick up in his left hand as he advanced into the main entrance hall of the Temple.

It was, as expected, truly huge.

Vaulted ceilings so high above him that he couldn’t make out the detailing on the murals up there that some artist had probably spent his entire adult life making just right. A wide staircase headed down, deeper into the Temple and deeper into the dark. A few lights had been set up by the first team and a small collections of beds and tents as well.

Seeing no sign of the first team, Crix moved over to one of the tents and started to rummage around.

“Researcher and adventuring type keep logs and diaries, right?” he called out to Indy, “If you were using this as your base camp – where would you hide your log?”

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

"If I was a member of the team?" She quipped at the Padawan, giving him an unseen cheeky grin. "Young man, Jedi life aside, I am an archeologist and xenoanthropologist. When it comes to being sneaky with hiding logs..."

She crossed over, passing by Crix to something halfway hidden by loose dirt. Something that, had she not been looking at one of the tents, would have been missed. The glimmer of plas, only lightly scratched. "Let's just say I've dealt with rivaling researchers." She knelt down, beginning to dust it off. As she thought... a datapad.

Humming, she hoped it wasn't locked. Researchers could be awfully paranoid that way--- she almost spoke that aloud, but she let out an amused, self-deprecating huff instead. She was much the same when it came to her old research notes. Even the best slicers would have a difficult time accessing her old research logs, and for good reason. Some of it was highly conflicting with recent events.

"How much you want to bet accessing this won't be easy?" she asked him, holding it up for him to see.

She was deliberately keeping him engaged, allowing him to answer, to respond in his own way and due time. If he was anything like his Master, he would internalize everything, and, though good in small doses, wouldn't do if you had any fear or wariness in you.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

She seemed to know more about life on a dig-site than Crix ever would which made perfect sense - this was the first one he'd ever been on and she basically only did that. Still, he was doing his best to keep up, trying to get some use out of his analytic mind in a way that wasn't focused on droids and their operation. He chuckled a little bit as she dusted off a datapad she had found hidden half in the dirt.

Well, he wouldn't have thought to look under the loose dirt for something like that so he was reasonably sure that she had been the best pick to be on this job and not him. But he was learning a lot so far; namely that Temples and tombs were karking weird.

"Alright so we've got their log so that's a start." he agreed as he checked some of the tents over, pulling out a few blaster pistols half-hidden under pillows, "They brought weapons with them but nothing big - just personal defense stuff."

Still, he removed their power packs before stacking them in a small pile in the middle of the little camp. He didn't think that the researchers were going to be the biggest threat going on here today and it seemed like his worries were no unfounded. When she held up the datapad and mentioned how hard it would be to access he shrugged a little bit and took out his multitool and a smaller set of delicate tools.

"Lay it down for me." he instructed her as he pulled a lamp over for better light, "I know a few tricks used by repair shops... to force a pad open without a password."

Taking the pad, he would fiddle with it briefly with his tools before cursing a little bit and handing the tablet back to Indy as he put his tools away.

"It's unlocked but I've lost data older than two days ago."

And the dig had started a month ago, damn it.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She glanced over the Padawan's shoulder as he fiddled with the scratched-up datapad; whatever happened, they didn't want their tracks to be followed. Or whatever they discovered, they'd tried to remove any evidence of its' existence. She sighed quietly under her breath, holding the datapad a moment longer before setting it back down into the dirt. An image of a group of people had flared to life; one of them was their running companion. The rest were a motley assortment, a few faces she'd vaguely recognized due to their own ancient knowledge.

"We'd have to go further in for any more answers, then." Her voice echoed slightly in the cavern, but she glanced down to Crix as she stood, lightly stretching before offering her hand. "It was a good shot to unlock it, though," she made sure the young man was praised for his efforts; she would have just bagged the datapad and continued on her own way. Still, she was prepared for what laid ahead. The silence beckoned, looming ahead of them like a gaping mouth.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Crix wasn't sure what he expected but for the datapad to be mostly useless wasn't it. Still, he smiled a little bit before accepting the hand offered by the Jedi Master and pulling himself up to his feet with her help. There wasn't much to be gained poking around their camp then it seemed. Dusting himself off, he shrugged and offered the Master a cheeky grin.

"What can I say Master Sati?" he wiggled his fingers, "I've got some real dexterous fingers..."

He smirked a little bit before peering into the darkness that seemed to stretch around the camp. It felt like they weren't going to be heading in a friendly direction and that? That was alright. That was kind of the whole point of being a Jedi, right? Step up and face the darkness.

So he grinned back at the Master as he started to head on further into the Temple. Was it kind of scary? Yep! Was he going to let that stop him? Shrak, no. He was here to get to the bottom of a mystery and save some lives - and he was going to do none of that hiding away where it was safe.

"Last one down there is a rotten egg."

Starting down the staircase at a fairly reasonable pace, Crix wasn't going to go skipping merrily down the stairs but he didn't keep it slow. He just kept going and so did the stairs, hells, it felt like he was going down forever before he began to see it at the edge of his vision.

An end to the stairs, so far underground that the heat of the surface was a distant memory and the first thing he could detect?

"Blood, Master." he called to Indy, "There's a lot of blood at the base of the stairs but... I can't see a body."

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She sighed, but gave a weary chuckle at the Padawan's enthusiasm. It was nice to be young and enthusiastic, but she wasn't going to hurry ahead. Too many times spent in hostile environs taught her that rushing headlong was a poor idea at best. But still she allowed him some headway, because scolding children only worked so far; after all, she could remember being a teen all too well, and she could wryly count on one hand the amount of times she had genuinely listened to her own Master.

So she followed at a measured, but not slow, pace, hand still curled around her own blade and face set, other hand still carrying the glow stick. At Crix's words she caught up with a slightly faster descent, and leaned around him, cursing quietly under her breath.

"Why can't abandoned temples just have a bit less of a stereotypically creepy setting..." she muttered, mostly to herself, eyes tracking at where the blood seemed to smear. What...

It seemed to go further in. Something prickled along her senses, and though there was Darkness enough at the mouth of the cave, she could almost feel it gnawing at her, prodding at her senses. Waiting in the dark, like eyes. Lightly nudging the Padawan with her elbow, she gave him a small nod. "Hold the light and stay behind me; this might get messy."

She stepped around him carefully, then towards the pool of blood. eyes tracking the drag marks of blood deeper still. It smelled like a trap, so she contented herself to guard the young man with her as well; she was careful to step on as minimal of the blood as possible, and follow whatever it was further in.

Even in the Darkness, she could feel the Light within, warming her soul and strengthening her resolve. They would retrieve the survivors and get to the bottom of this.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Indy had a point there actually - seemingly every tomb and temple he set foot in seemed all but designed to be creepy as hells whenever it was anything other than fully, beautifully, lit up. Shadows stretched on forever and the acoustics of the places always meant that even the smallest of sounds suddenly seemed to be someone creeping up behind you. Either that or somehow both closer and further away than they had any right to be based on sound alone.

There was probably a reason for it but Crix didn't really care enough to know. He didn't need to know because he wasn't an archaeologist or whatever; he was a Jedi Padawan and when he wasn't a Padawan anymore? Well he had plans to go into droid engineering and software so he likely wasn't going to be spending much time raiding tombs.

Still, the blood didn't help.

"Its a trail too... great... a direction to follow the horror into." he muttered mostly to himself as he ignited his lightsaber in his right hand both for protection and more light, "This couldn't possibly go wrong, right?"

As they walked deeper into the darkness, it would be revealed by the light they brought to be a rather large, open, chamber. Deeper they went, following the trail of blood until it was joined by another, smaller, trail of blood. This one was more a series of smaller puddles than the lines of something being dragged through the darkness. Another of the series of puddles joined, and another, and on until there Crix noticed something.

"One trail for each member of the party still down here."

Boded well.

Following the trail, they would eventually find themselves in a smaller chamber off the main one and they found the party. In the center of the room they were arranged in a small circle around the eviscerated body of one of them number. Every person around the body had two things in common; they had all cut off their left hands and all of them were muttering in sync.

All of them staring blankly at a black object, all harsh edges and lines. The Dark Side dripped from it like venom from the fang of a snake and even from the other side of the room Crix could feel it - to the point that he could damned near taste it.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She gritted her jaw at the sight.

The Dark Side. Like poison, it infected the air with a sense of dread, and she felt it try to worm its' way in, to settle over her mind and the mind of Crix. "Keep alert," she murmured to him and stared at all those there. She had to help them, and somehow, this thing held control over their minds. She would have to break them free, but carefully.

Perhaps it was a 'no-duh' moment, but she pointed to the thing. "Don't touch that." Her lips kicked into a slight smile. "Please." She lifted up her hand, and focused upon the Object before them, lashing at it with an aggressive assault of the Light, like a Push with no force.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Really?

Really?!

"Oh but Master Sati I was JUST thinking that it looked like something I wanted to pet affectionately - don't you think it looks cute?"

He was a little shrak and he knew it but he was trying to relieve the tension in the room that they both had to be feeling without outright telling jokes. Crix didn't know how conscious of the outside world the remaining sentients were but he would hate for them to have full memories of being trapped within their own bodies and minds while they quipped and traded jokes around them. In fact, yeah, probably a bad idea to have been even that flippant.

Damn it, this was why he needed to get some more diplomacy experience under his belt wasn't it?

Speaking of the group of survivors though, the way they all immediately turned their heads to stare at Indy, no longer muttering, was creepy as hell. That it coincided with the ungodly sound of vibrating metal that came from the Thing they were worshiping in the middle did not fill him with confidence.

"... Master Sati, maybe lets not poke the pointy thing with the Force just yet..."

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She had hoped it would be enough to turn their attention away from the box itself and onto them. And she had been right; the object itself was a Dark Side artifact, no different than the Fallen Blade, nor the myriad of other evil things that lurked in the galaxy. And evil it was.

But Crix's words brought a frown from the Master; did he doubt in them?

"Trust in the Force, Crix," she reminded him gently, though she could understand the trepidation. She wasn't going to add that he had to trust her as well; that took time, and rapport, to figure out. Time and rapport they were building towards. She had a plan... but she would need his help in achieving it.

"The Dark side will attempt to assault your mind," she continued calmly. "You've trained with Master Hannibal; he would have taught you how to guard your mind, correct?" She would glance sideways at him, to affirm. These individuals were weakened, mentally and physically, by both blood loss and psychological torment. She would ease that pain the best way she knew how, before the real work would begin.

Gathering the Light side to herself in case defense was needed; a singular, pressing thought would push itself through the influence of the Dark object with the will of the Master, a single calming thought in the midst of the pain, the chaos, and the torment these people faced, no doubt for days now.

Sleep.

They shouldn't have to suffer from the waking nightmares the thing provided; instead, they would be given dreams of peace. They would be allowed to rest after the torture, and perhaps she could buy them a few minutes of peace before the real work against the object could begin.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Trust in the Force?

He really was coming to dislike that turn of phrase - Crix trusted in the Force just fine. But he liked to have a plan of attack against a determined enemy beyond simply "attack". Trusting in the Force was all well and good but he didn't ever want to get to a stage where he trusted blindly in the Force or, well, anything else for that matter.

Thankfully Indy actually had a plan beyond the trite phrase; many Jedi he knew wouldn't have so it was a mark in her favour as far as he was concerned. When she started talking about guarding his mind, Crix froze ever so slightly for a couple of seconds before forcing himself to move again, giving her a firm nod.

Given his experiences, guarding his mind had been one of the first things he had demanded to learn.

"My head's a fortress - not just dense as a brick of duracrete."

When Indy reached out and forced the remaining members of the archaeological study to sleep, the Dark Side artifact reached out to the closest other available source of sustenance. Unluckily for both the artifact and Crix, he was the closest. It felt like a piercing drill of black sand and smoke was trying to drill its way into his brain through his forehead.

But despite staggering back a step, his shields held.

Through teeth-gritted desperation, Crix held the Dark Side at bay as it lashed out again and again at his shields. It wanted inside, it wanted to take parts of his mind and make them not his own and he REFUSED to let that happen even one more time.

Never again.

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

The moment the last body hit the ground in a peaceful slumber, she struck out to the box. Wrapping around it in the Force, she would Pull it towards her and hold it in place before her. It would be a pity to end such an ancient artifact, but she would not let it torment the Padawan for long. Instead, she would strike at its' physical form with her lightsaber.

Gritting her teeth, she could feel the scream in the Force as its' physical form deteriorated.

As it would prepare to lash itself into a helpless host, she would instead lash the Light towards it. Burning, cleansing Light, chasing and destroying the Thing, burning it away like cauterizing a wound.

"You go back to nothingness and peace," she hissed between her teeth, but the words she uttered were far from bitter; the lives of others were at stake, there was a balance that needed to be struck here. The crew, those that lived on this planet, even Crix deserved. She would protect them, protect their lives with her own if she had to.

This was the price of the Jedi, at the expense of her strength and even her life.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Crix wasn't like Indy, he couldn't just blast something with the Light side of the Force like some cleansing fire. He wasn't quite up to that level of Force manipulation yet but, thankfully, he didn't need to be. The Dark Side from the object was searching for a host to try and sustain itself and that was something he could do something about.

Reaching out with the Force, he Pulled the sleeping people back and away from the epicenter of the whole thing. With them asleep it would be easy for their minds to be overwhelmed and he wasn't about to just sit back and let that happen. Instead he stepped forward.

"Come on then you ugly cloud..." he muttered, mostly to himself as he tried to psyche himself up for another mental assault, "Try it again then!"

It didn't disappoint.

Desperate to escape the Light that Indy was slinging its way, the Dark Side taint from the object tried to latch itself onto Crix. Only to be rebuffed as he mental shielding held firm and he grinned as more and more of the Dark Side taint was burned away.

"Peace at last eh Master Sati?"

@Killa Ree

 

[Indy Sati]

She would not surrender nor relent until the last bits of it would be burned away, until its' Presence was no longer felt through the Force nor tainting any other poor person's mind. The vessel that once was its' home was destroyed, and it would not harm another person. Still, seeing the Padawan rebuff it... she was impressed. Hannibal had mentioned he was a natural in some aspects, but this was a level of mental protection even some Knights struggled with.

When at last it would fade to Nothing once more, she caught the Padawan's quip. She offered a wry smile, resting a hand on his shoulder. In some ways, he reminded her of Hans; perhaps the man was impressing on this youngblood. Good, they needed more jokesters around the Order.

"There's no rest for the wicked, kiddo," she drawled, but in her eye was a glimmer of humor. Releasing his shoulder, she sighed, running a hand over her face. "But hopefully, these people can rest easy now. They've been through enough. I'll comm the local authorities for retrieval, but help me get them out of here first."

@Nefieslab