After a long and uneventful trip, the ship drops out of hyperspace at its destination. “This should be right; it looks like we’re in the place the coordinates specify,” says Feryss. “We’ll need to find a place to set down."
After the ship comes out of hyperspace, Irdis gets a holo-message. It's not a current call as the ship must have been uncontactable while in hyperspace so close to the Deep Core and the black hole at the center of the galaxy. Once more it was Tora Ninn, the xenobiologist that they rescued on Rodia. She shared with Irdis that she appreciated his offer to use his facility to avoid the unknown followers that seemed to be tracking herself and Doctor Tam. She mentioned that she had just been especially worried that night as pursuers seemed closer than normal. At the last moment, one of the Sysworks agents, Lt. Bonuda, had stopped her and apparently scared those tracking her away. Tora indicated that they were close to accessing the information and deciphering it and seemed very excited about the progress they were making.
Xander is not feeling well and is resting in his room. R5 chirps up that it can handle some of the tasks while Xander is unavailable. The little green R5 droid plugs into the sensor system. A landing beacon is sending a very weak signal from the ground. The group started to question how long this place may have been deserted if a beacon still has power. R5 clarifies that the signal is very weak and that with a solar receptor, it's possible to run for centuries.
A few moments later as Ymira flies the ship closer to the surface, R5 is able to lock on to the landing facility with a sensor scan of the beacon's signal. It transmits the coordinates to Ymira's dashboard. As the landing facility draws into view, you can see a large mesa, into the cliff-face of which is set an ancient stone and metal building. Two small docking platforms extend from the building, although one of the arms is occupied by the wreck of some ancient vehicles. The are not familiar and R5 indicates that they may date back to near the beginning of the Old Republic.
As Ymira brings the Archelon in closer, it's clear that the docking platforms are too small for the light freighter. They seem to be built for landspeeders which are what seem to be on the one platform. The only close, safe landing spot is the mesa above.
The craft sets down with a gentle “clunk” onto the rocky surface of the cliff tops. As the team disembarks, it can be seen that the landing area has been built into the mountain, and there’s obviously a little more to it than just a landing pad. However, you can also see – with the aid of a little perspective, now on foot - that the floor is actually quite a ways down. It's necessary to scale the rock face – carefully – to make it down there.
Rappelling down to the landing area is no small task. Fortunately the team has climbing gear from the rescue on Sullust recently. Roona easily makes the descent and then tells everyone that she will help to control their own descent one at a time. Zavi has a fall on his way down, but Roona stops the fall with the belay line before he is hurt too badly. Irdis also has a moment, but manages to catch himself before dropping too far.
Once arrived, everyone looks around and takes in the full breadth of the landing complex. Several large statues of robed, hooded figures gaze down on the stone pathways. The largest part of the facility is built back into the cliff side, and in amongst its weathered walls, you can see three sets of large doors that lead into parts of the facility.
Feryss chimes in. “Hmm... I’m not sure that what we’re looking for is here. I expect that it’s in a larger, temple-like structure. Maybe we can find some clues to its location here, though."
Zavi inspects the speeders and sees that they are missing some parts to operate properly. Others examine and inspect the huge statues. There isn't much to see although there is a specific insignia on plaques that some find strangely familiar in some way. Eventually the team inspects the rooms behind the doors.
The first door to the right as they enter is slightly ajar. It is dark inside but Irdis sees two large, sabre-toothed cats with their backs up. The Manka cats look very on edge. Ymira decides that she wants to capture their young for a pet. Zavi tries to dissuade her and they move on to other rooms. The far left room is rather empty and partially destroyed.
The middle room however has an ancient computer, as well as some old long cases, almost like rifle cases. A few of the group examine the cases and find they are locked, so do not proceed further. Xander works on the computer. It's a process just to turn the machine on. Clearly this is extremely old technology. Eventually he was able to access the database. They learned that this was the planet Tython, which was the homeworld of the Jedi. Feryss admitted at this point that they were indeed looking for an ancient Jedi artifact.
Xander played around with it a bit more and a message popped up on the screen. "All nearby training and temple facilities located within thirty kilometers of this facility. Trainees recommended to take advantage of pre-programmed speeder transports to shuttle to and from points of interest." The group easily deduced that the damaged and wrecked speeders were the means to get to the temple that they were looking for. Unfortunately, it appeared some of the wreck parts had been taken into the den of the Manka cats.
Brave Old World (Episode 15)
Moderator: GM Fang
Re: Brave Old World (Episode 15)
Returning to the Manka cat lair, Zavi grudgingly agreed with Ymira's plan to capture the Manka cub. They needed to lure them out to get the parts to find out if there was enough there to get the speeders working. The group agreed that they would not kill the adult cats, just steal their cub. They had put out food earlier but that was not enough to draw them out permanently. So this time, Ymira went in with her sidearm blazing! At least this time it was set to stun.
She hit one of the cats and it leapt at her, drawing blood with its powerful tusked teeth. The rest of the group fired and managed to take the first cat down, but the second also attacked Ymira and slashed with its claws. She was not in a good condition, but the cats were both knocked out. Irdis medpack was needed once more!
With some wounds bandaged up, Ymira went into the den after the cub. However it was too fast for her and small enough to evade behind and between rocks that Ymira, even with a slim figure, could not fit through. Finally Zavi went in after it and after a few moments managed to grab the cub by the scruff of the neck. Of course, it bit him on the arm. The cub was stuffed into a backpack to take to the ship.
Next required Zavi to try and repair the speeders. He was able to do enough to get one to start up, but it was obvious to anyone with mechanical aptitude that it still was not flyable. Roona suggests taking a datapad and connecting it to the speeder as one of the missing or broken parts was the control interface. Xander hooks up the datapad and manages to get it to spit out some information on where the temple facility is located. Success. Now they just had to get there.
There was a moment of realization that now they had to get back to the ship. Roona started with Ymira, using her ascension pistol to quickly ferry her and Ymira to the top of the mesa. Ymira got the ship ready to take off and locked the cub away. The worry now was that the Manka cats would recover from being stunned before they could get everyone to the mesa one by one. Roona had a solution for that too.
She jumped into the speeder cockpit and entered some keystrokes to the rigged datapad. Like a shot, the speeder raced toward the doorway to the landing platform arm and crashed against the opening. Roona had jumped free just before contact! "Goola Keejeckta!" she said in Huttese. She regarded her handiwork. "Meendeeya nagoola."
Before long the team was back up on the mesa. Roona made one last drop to recover the datapad. One of the Manka cats had broken through the barrier and Roona ascended away just in time to avoid a clawed swipe. With the coordinates of the Jedi Temple input into the Archelon's computer, Ymira lifted the freighter off and headed in that direction.
After the reasonably quick journey, the group finally sees the forests down below open up into a clearing, and central to the clearing is a
clearly ancient temple. Vines and moss emerge from cracks in the walls of the great edifice and it bears ancient scars on its exterior – large chunks of the ferrocrete exterior have been carved out or chipped away. The large staircases and promenade leading up to the entrance are still relatively intact, though. Two large robed statues flank the entrance into the temple.
The area around the partially visible stone tiles before the stairs has a small computer panel, a closed lockbox, and the scattered remains of droids on the floor.
-----------------------------------------------
Unspent XPS:
Irdis - 5
Roona - 5
Xander - 0
Ymira -25
Zavi - 0
Group spoils (update)
5334 credits (-520 fuel on Arda II)
Gear: quick sale value in ()
2x Blaster Rifle (450 ea)
1x Holdout Blaster (100 ea)
2x Laser Pistol (200 ea)
1x Stun grenades (45 ea)
Tool Kit (175)
Glow Rod (5)
Brass knuckles (10)
5x Breath Masks (25 ea)
She hit one of the cats and it leapt at her, drawing blood with its powerful tusked teeth. The rest of the group fired and managed to take the first cat down, but the second also attacked Ymira and slashed with its claws. She was not in a good condition, but the cats were both knocked out. Irdis medpack was needed once more!
With some wounds bandaged up, Ymira went into the den after the cub. However it was too fast for her and small enough to evade behind and between rocks that Ymira, even with a slim figure, could not fit through. Finally Zavi went in after it and after a few moments managed to grab the cub by the scruff of the neck. Of course, it bit him on the arm. The cub was stuffed into a backpack to take to the ship.
Next required Zavi to try and repair the speeders. He was able to do enough to get one to start up, but it was obvious to anyone with mechanical aptitude that it still was not flyable. Roona suggests taking a datapad and connecting it to the speeder as one of the missing or broken parts was the control interface. Xander hooks up the datapad and manages to get it to spit out some information on where the temple facility is located. Success. Now they just had to get there.
There was a moment of realization that now they had to get back to the ship. Roona started with Ymira, using her ascension pistol to quickly ferry her and Ymira to the top of the mesa. Ymira got the ship ready to take off and locked the cub away. The worry now was that the Manka cats would recover from being stunned before they could get everyone to the mesa one by one. Roona had a solution for that too.
She jumped into the speeder cockpit and entered some keystrokes to the rigged datapad. Like a shot, the speeder raced toward the doorway to the landing platform arm and crashed against the opening. Roona had jumped free just before contact! "Goola Keejeckta!" she said in Huttese. She regarded her handiwork. "Meendeeya nagoola."
Before long the team was back up on the mesa. Roona made one last drop to recover the datapad. One of the Manka cats had broken through the barrier and Roona ascended away just in time to avoid a clawed swipe. With the coordinates of the Jedi Temple input into the Archelon's computer, Ymira lifted the freighter off and headed in that direction.
After the reasonably quick journey, the group finally sees the forests down below open up into a clearing, and central to the clearing is a
clearly ancient temple. Vines and moss emerge from cracks in the walls of the great edifice and it bears ancient scars on its exterior – large chunks of the ferrocrete exterior have been carved out or chipped away. The large staircases and promenade leading up to the entrance are still relatively intact, though. Two large robed statues flank the entrance into the temple.
The area around the partially visible stone tiles before the stairs has a small computer panel, a closed lockbox, and the scattered remains of droids on the floor.
-----------------------------------------------
Unspent XPS:
Irdis - 5
Roona - 5
Xander - 0
Ymira -25
Zavi - 0
Group spoils (update)
5334 credits (-520 fuel on Arda II)
Gear: quick sale value in ()
2x Blaster Rifle (450 ea)
1x Holdout Blaster (100 ea)
2x Laser Pistol (200 ea)
1x Stun grenades (45 ea)
Tool Kit (175)
Glow Rod (5)
Brass knuckles (10)
5x Breath Masks (25 ea)