Echoes of the Past (Episode 16)

[GM Fang]

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. With Xander still under the effects of space flu, Zavi decided to try his hand at the ancient computer terminal. After several attempts to operate it, the terminal came to life.

“Verify: Trainee equipment access?” Zavi responded with an affirmative. It then continued, Trainee access level three granted. Training program Cresh activated.” This makes the box pop open and will cause the droid parts to reattach themselves. Essentially this spawns a training droid that attacks Zavi.

The droid is quick and very quickly it becomes obvious that it is a challenging course on level 3. The droid hits Zavi in the shoulder wounding him, while the Squib returns fire. Even the droids considerable armor plating takes some damage from the blaster. The droid is on the move and hits Zavi again, nearly taking him down. Fortunately the droid's blaster is set to stun. Ymira and Roona try to help taking down the training droid, but it is made of stern stuff. However, Irdis finishes it off with the ancient sabre he found in the opened box.

The training sabre has a pair of buttons on the hilt and turning it on encases the durasteel blunt blade in a an energy field. It seemed to be quite effective and Irdis smiled a fanged smile at the new weapon.

Upon entering the temple, the team sees that the inside is as dilapidated as the outside. Staircases lead up to a crumbled and ruined second floor. A large podium device sits in the middle of the staircases, but there doesn’t appear to be anything on the podium any more. On either side of the entry hall, two staircases lead down to the sides of the building, but one of them has been almost completely obstructed by a fallen pillar.

Everyone notices that Feryss has fallen to his knees. “I never thought… I never believed… In all my life, I couldn’t have imagined finding something like this.” You can hear small sobs coming from behind his sleeve, which has reached up to cradle his brow. He looks up and turns to you, wiping his face hurriedly.

“I’m sorry. That was… unprofessional of me.” He takes a deep breath.

“It’s just – I’ve been pursuing this for so long, and I’ve been holed up on Nar Shaddaa, hiding in the big city from those that would pursue me. There are so many in the galaxy that would simply bury this – any history related to the Jedi – I almost can’t believe that I’m so close to the opportunity to really dig in to this ancient history. Can you not feel it? Can you not almost taste the history present in a place like this?”

Feryss looks around for a few more moments. “If you would be so kind, I’d like some time alone to connect with this place for myself. I’d like to start by inspecting the grounds outside, and if you would, please see what you can find inside the temple’s interior. We’re looking for a small icosahedral device – it’s about the size of my hand,” he gestures with his hands to show you.

“Please contact me on the comlink if you find anything. I will likewise let you know the same.” And with that, Feryss turns and walks back through the entryway.

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The team inspects first the left stairwell, but the stairs to the lower level are blocked and Roona estimates that they have completely collapsed and even with explosives they are not likely to bypass with bringing down more of the temple. They find the hologram meeting and training room and then go to inspect the fallen pillar in the right hand stairs. It appears to be wedged in place and while Irdis and Roona try to move it and it shifts ever so slightly it actually settles more into a stuck position.

However, Zavi and maybe the girls might be able to fit through a small opening on the left and top of the pillar. Zavi and Roona discuss the idea of trying to detonate the giant pillar to get it to shift enough to allow them to pass more easily. The Squib demolitionist sets two frag grenades, just to be sure, and places them so they will blow apart the bottom of the pillar and maybe part of the wall where it is wedged. With everyone far enough away, the explosion creates the desired effect and the pillar shifts and slides part way down the stairs.

First they explore the rest of this level 1 and Ymira is rummaging through some storage crates. Between her and Roona they find 10 permacrete detonators. Zavi also smiles a toothful grin at this discovery. However, the ancient computer also reveals some intercut video that shows the temple in ancient times and also some recording log about a Sith attack. The most immediately concerning part is the comment of the Jedi having mined the floor on the lower level.

[GM Fang]

After descending the staircase into the temple’s depths, the group emerges into a small antechamber. Similar to the statues above, a large robed statue can be seen – although this one is holding a sword up in front of its face. The statue, however, is damaged, and the group can see that the floor bears ancient wounds – there’s significant carbon scoring on the floor and the parts of a few destroyed droids nearby.

When Ymira steps part way across the room, a flash mine goes off. Fortunately she was not blinded by the explosion. Neither was Zavi and the group starts to be more careful in their progress as the record log they saw above warned of this very thing. Roona took point in searching for the hidden mines. He skills as a scout lent to her being the best option for this task.

Leaving the antechamber, the group enters a long hall, with the first step into an ancient computer room. There was some trouble accessing these computers and they were quickly left for possibly later examination, especially with Xander having a bout of space sickness. The other antechamber was discovered with the blocked stairwell.

Moving on the team entered the center room of this section. A door at the back of the room was securely locked and unable to be opened by the team. There was also a large hatch in the floor. Around the room were four white pads in the floor, each with a long box next to it. The group was wary of this situation, based on what Zavi experienced outside. Roona tested out a theory and stepped on one of the pads. It lit up but nothing else happened. "Rudnee Cherek, Chuba Wompa," she said in Huttese. The idea was that all four pads had to be lit at once for the hatch to open, not just one.

Next moving further to the left, the group comes across a stuck door. Upon forcing open the stuck door, the group sees a room with several vents in the floor. There is an orange-red mist covering the entirety of the floor and floating up to about two feet in height above the floor. Roona explains that this is a plasma gas discharge, similar to the release of an ion weapon but at much higher concentration. She estimates that anything entering the gas which is flammable will burst into flame almost immediately. Everyone can feel the high heat just from stepping into the room. There is an exit further along on the opposite wall, but no obvious way past. Another possible dead end.

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In the category of dead ends, the right side of the level also presents a serious obstacle. As the team enters through the set of double doors, there is a room with two features likely unintended by its previous occupants. For one, the roof has collapsed into itself – a pile of rubble extends from floor to ceiling. This appears to be a symptom of the second feature – the floor appears to have collapsed into a watery sinkhole, which extends deep down underground. Ymira investigates somewhat, climbing some of the rocks but finds that there is no passage above as the way is completely blocked. There is some discussion about possibly trying to swim under the rocks and see if there is an opening there. For now the team decides to try to blow their way through the door in the middle room.

Taking a plasticrete detonator and attaching it to the door, Zavi remotely explodes the device. Much to everyone's surprise, the door is damaged but still sturdily in the doorway and blocking the way. Undaunted, Zavi placed a second detonator and once more remotely fired it. This time the door gave way and the team passed through.

[GM Fang]

The team of explorers pass through what was likely a group training room and find passage down. To the left a staircase descends into darkness. Ahead of them is a computer terminal and on the wall on the right is an ornate chest. Examining the chest, there is writing carved onto it.

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There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.

The team had trouble reading all the words and went through it several times before reading it all in order. Once that was done, the chest opened. When the chest opened, it revealed thousands of crushed fragments of small stones. However, they do notice one small teal-colored stone that appears undamaged. This is claimed for future sale.

Moving on, the team heads down the staircase to a mid-level area. They head through the only visible door on the sublevel and walk into a room with a number of computer consoles and monitors set up. Unlike the rest of the facility, however, this room is not completely unoccupied – they immediately notice the maintenance droid puttering around the room, checking on the various computer screens and making small adjustments on the computers.
As the team enters, the droid turns and says: “Unit WRK-17 notices return of organics to temple. What is your programming, organics?”

The team tries to get information from the worker droid, but it is a frustrating affair. The droid indicates that "the generator is leaking dangerous plasma upstairs, but it has no negative effect on the power generator. Minimal efficiency increase achieved". It answers with little more information than this and does not allow the team to examine or touch the computer consoles. It does say that going through the next door would be very dangerous. Despite the numerous attempts to get the worker droid to help or provide more information, it is futile. Zavi attempts to access the computers and the droid threatens him, but is quickly put down by a blaster shot to the back of the head from Roona.

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Once the power generator room is accessed, Xander comes forward and despite his space sickness manages to access the controls and with Zavi's help then manage to shut down the venting plasma. This allows the explorers to bypass the Containment Room, once the plasma has fully dissipated.

[GM Fang]

The explorers then find another large room looming before them. As they cross the threshold into the large room, they can see several destroyed stone pillars around the room. The bases of the original four pillars remain, but they only sit about two meters high – the tops have fallen off and are scattered in pieces around the floor. Destroyed parts from a number of droids litter the floor.

The destroyed droids seem foreboding and so Zavi, being the smallest, tries to work his way across the room along the right side, but is hit by a laser trap before he reaches the right hand wall. There are concealed blasters that fire when someone crosses their targeting line. Zavi is then quick enough to dash past the blaster in the lower right corner but is then hit again by the dual blasters almost half-way to the door in the upper right corner. Zavi collapses unconscious just below the right-most pillar.

Irdis then has a plan to try and avoid the lasers and get to the wounded Zavi. He goes left instead and passes behind the fallen shard of pillar. The laser targets the pillar and hits it, instead of Irdis as he steps carefully to the north. Just past the pillar shard, he then heads around the southern-most pillar and a laser from the left wall hits that pillar. Weaving through the maze of lasers, the team is able to reach a point next to the pillar where Zavi fell.

Roona takes out her ascension pistol and fires it carefully into the Squib's utility suit and vest, trying not to wound him further. She then unceremoniously reels him in, sliding the unconscious demolitionist along the tiled floor. Once there, Irdis uses his medpac to treat some of the damage and Zavi comes to, quite the worse for wear.

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(The map shows all the laser traps that have fired to date in pink. The blue line indicates the path taken by the explorers. The blue X indicates the team's current position in the room.)

Others may have come to the same conclusion, but looking at the destroyed droids on the floor, Roona indicates that there appear to be several more firing points, still to bypass. (These are indicated in yellow.) Unfortunately, unless the conclusion is incorrect, there is a point where there is no opening. This trap still has a puzzle to unlock before the explorers can move forward.