Hide and Seek

[Taegin Roan]

 

A crystal cave on Coruscant?!?! SWEET!!!

Very very well written this entry. As I read, I could picture every single detail, the hammering sounds only heard in the force, the red light of the crystal, then the yellow of the other crystal. The cave glowing and twinkling from the light of all the kyber contained within. Amazing. Once again, your story has risen above all SW stories I have read in some ways. Maybe it is your descriptiveness, or maybe it is something else, but whatever it is, it is awesome. Can't wait to see what happens now.

[TheDutchman]

A crystal cave on Coruscant?!?! SWEET!!!

Very very well written this entry. As I read, I could picture every single detail, the hammering sounds only heard in the force, the red light of the crystal, then the yellow of the other crystal. The cave glowing and twinkling from the light of all the kyber contained within. Amazing. Once again, your story has risen above all SW stories I have read in some ways. Maybe it is your descriptiveness, or maybe it is something else, but whatever it is, it is awesome. Can't wait to see what happens now.

This SO much^^

During Karm's assault, I'm reminded of In the Mouth of Madness, that is, a very Lovecraftian scene of metaphysical...cacophony. And afterwards...more questions  . Personally I like the fact that Coruscant would have these secret crystal caves; generation upon generation of constant building only serving to hide such relics...and their motives  . And, as always, the end came too quickly 

Until next installment friends 

[Karmack]

LOL   I just read back over what I had written, and it almost felt like Karmack has a piece of a Vorlon inside of him...

;-) 

I don't know what its like for you guys, but this scene took on a life of its own as I was writing.  I had a plan going in and ... that wasn't it.  I like what ended up on the page, but its left me in a different place plot-wise than I was planning.  So now...

Well.  Now its time to improvise!  LOL

[Karmack]

The lotus position was ... painful.  The sunrise, however, was spectacular.  The deep reds and golden hues bathed me from my perch as the orb of the sun slowly cleared the horizon.  It almost made the pain worthwhile.

Almost.

I was still unclear how our current "hideout" had been procured.  Arnor had informed when I awoke of the move.   Something had warned her off, so rather than trek back to our own apartment toting my unconscious form she and Talia had found alternate accommodations.  That had been three days ago, two of which I had slept through.  I had awoken hungry, thirsty, and very, very sore.  My first day "back" had consisted of a meal, a shower, a very brief discussion of what had occurred, and then pain medications and more sleep.

Now I sat watching the rising sun and trying to sort out what had happened ... and why we were still here?  What was the mission?  I had thought it was to stop the flow of smart kyber crystals into the Emperor's Death Star II project.  But that station was now destroyed and Sheev Palpatine aka Darth Sideous dead in it's destruction.  The Empire wasn't exactly dead, but it reeled headless.  Violence had erupted even here.  I looked down at Monument Plaza, where damage was still evident following the violent riots that had broken out the night Palpatine died.  From our balcony I could just see the mountain top that was the last bit of exposed natural surface on the planet.  It had become a monument to all that the planet had lost in becoming the unbroken urban wasteland it was today.  Over a trillion people lived and worked, many spending their entire lives getting only a rare glimpse of the sun, an occasional lungful of fresh (or at least non-toxic) air.  All to many of those lives were painful, violent and short.

I looked down at the plaza again, reaching out to feel the pulse of the place, the quickness, the life that flowed through it.  Even now, in the aftermath of the riots and crack-down by the local authorities, there were throngs of people who came to look at, reach out and touch the last exposed rock of this world.  Even in the perpetual urban environment that visceral need to have some contact with the bones of your world was there, expressed in the long lines and throngs of people who came daily to do nothing more than see and touch proof that yes, this was a planet and not some giant ball of machinery floating in space...

I was open to the song, and the sudden twist surprised me.  What? 

I listened and my first narrowed, then widened as the flow of the melody became apparent. 

Its not just the cave...  Its the mountaintop.  That's the key...

I started to rise, groaned and sank back down as a red haze of pain flooded me again.  I had direction, and as usual I was impatient to be about the work.  But not yet.  First, my body needed to heal.  The wound in my thigh was still not fully healed and every ounce of me still ached from the force energies I had absorbed in .... that place. 

No, first I needed some time to heal.  Illian and Arnor as well.  We were all battered and bruised.  I sang a healing song and dropped back into meditation, letting the soothing energy flow into me.  Time...

Time to heal.

And maybe ... time for a resurrection...

[Lord_S_Gray]

LOL   I just read back over what I had written, and it almost felt like Karmack has a piece of a Vorlon inside of him...

;-) 

I don't know what its like for you guys, but this scene took on a life of its own as I was writing.  I had a plan going in and ... that wasn't it.  I like what ended up on the page, but its left me in a different place plot-wise than I was planning.  So now...

Well.  Now its time to improvise!  LOL

Yeah I get that feeling in a sense...I have the major plot points all panned out though so its more a case of the details of each scene taking on a life of its own...mean I have to spend time cross checking for consistence later though, that's probably the biggest thing that slows me down.

Anyway the semi sentient crystals sound familiar from somewhere.  The notion of a deliberate unbalancing of these crystals is intriguing, sound like another Palpatine plot...to channel the dark side better or something like that.

Keep improvising!

[Karmack]

LOL  Thanks.

Part of the improvisation was also because of a big continuity error on my part, something I didn't catch until I was to deep into the creative process to easily fix it.  So that was also an improvisation.  I won't say what exactly my error was because I'm about to "fix" it.  I hope.  LOL

Sorry for the short segment on the last bit.  I might have a couple more little ones like that.  I'm still repositioning...

Enjoy!  :-)  I have to say this has been a LOT of fun.  I did something like this a while back and didn't even get a comment.  Its so much easier to sustain the effort when there's feedback!  Thanks guys!

[Karmack]

I yawn, stretched, and drained my coffee mug.  It had been a very long night, but the physical build was complete.  I typed a few commands and ran a final diagnostic and systems check on the chassis, noted in my log that all checks were green, and initiated the data transfer.

This would take some time: Two had a LOT of data stored on the mainframe...  It hadn't been all that hard getting a replacement R3 chassis.  Industrial Automation still had the R2- and R3- lines in production on Coruscant, after all, though they were not as popular as they once were.  As the data flowed, my only real consern was for Two's personality matrix and core memories.  Yes, he was a computer at heart and not really alive, but it would help a great deal if he at least remembered who everyone was...

The console beeped: data transfer complete.  I disconnected the feed, took a deep breath, and initiated a system reboot and full operating system restart.  The droid immediately shut down, sat still for 30 seconds, then the systems came back online....

...and I was greeted with a long string of grunts, tweets, and whistles.  It was Two!  Rude, but definitely Two!  "Welcome back, my friend."

More electronic noises followed.  "I'll tell you all about it, fear not.  For now...  well, I left an archival file in your memory.  Header 2-Omega.  Its the best reconstruction of what happened between your last upload to off-chassis backup storage and... well, you'll see."

Two generated a series of low, woeful beeps.  "No, you're not going to like it.  But it's what happened."

There was a long pause, then another inquiry. "No, I didn't have time to re-mount the blasters and force-field generators.  It was hard enough getting the high-output thrusters and flight stabilizing gear.  Be happy you have a body and you can fly.  The guns will have to wait."

Rude beeps and sounds.  "No, I'm NOT giving you a lightsaber!  Now, plug in and start analyzing file STS-224.  I need a pathway."

Two made one final rude sounds and plugged into the data port.  After long seconds of clicking he chirped another question. 

"Yes, we're going there."

More rude sounds.

"I know.  But its necessary.  Just do your best, we need a way in."

A final chirping twill.

"Yes, a way back out, too."

[Taegin Roan]

"No, I'm NOT giving you a lightsaber!"  Great. I've always wondered what a droid would do if it had a saber. I'm completely okay with the short ones, I just want there to be a lot of them Great job. It is cool to actually read about rebuilding and reloading a droid, so I'm glad you put that in there. It seems to me that all Astromech droids are extremely rude. Except maybe BB-8, but R2, Chopper, Two, and probably some other ones are all rude. I guess it is just part of their personality matrix.

[Karmack]

"No, I'm NOT giving you a lightsaber!"  Great. I've always wondered what a droid would do if it had a saber. I'm completely okay with the short ones, I just want there to be a lot of them Great job. It is cool to actually read about rebuilding and reloading a droid, so I'm glad you put that in there. It seems to me that all Astromech droids are extremely rude. Except maybe BB-8, but R2, Chopper, Two, and probably some other ones are all rude. I guess it is just part of their personality matrix.

LOL.  I see Astromech droids as, well, engineers and technicians.  They're highly technical and short on social skills.  They tend to be blunt.  Add in that they speak a totally different language and can probably get away with being utterly rude in most situations anyway...  :-)  But earn their trust and loyalty and they are EXTREMELY loyal.

Where protocol droids are programmed to be polite and politically correct....  LOL

[Karmack]

"You want to go WHERE?!?  Are you out of your mind, husband?"

I turned away from the view of Monument Plaza and faced Arnor.  There was no anger in her eyes, just concern tinged with fear.  Not for herself, but for me.  Fear for my physical well-being - and mental state.

I smiled.  How could I be upset?  I was a little concerned and even fearful of my own mental state as well!  But days of meditation while we healed and I rebuilt Two had only convinced me that this was the melody we were to follow.  Perhaps the final song in this journey.  "It is the melody we've been given to sing, my love."

I saw resignation in her eyes, and she suddenly rushed forward and wrapped her arms around me in a fierce hug.  "I know.  I just..."  She leaned back and met my eyes.  "I don't want to lose you."

My smile turned into a lopsided grin.  "Lose me?  Where are you going to lose me?  I mean, I know its a big place, full of dangerous passages and no doubt many secret rooms, but I'm sure someone as loud and obnoxious as I am, never mind tall, would be hard to lose.  Though if it will make you feel better I can wear a bell around my..."

Her kiss silenced my teasing.  After a very brief moment, I kissed her back.

It was a good kiss...

With another hard squeeze Arnor let me go and stepped back.  "OK, so we're going to the Imperial Residence.  I'm pretty sure the Emperor won't be there.  Palpatine is dead, Vader is dead with him, his Imperial Guard as well...  I'm not even sure who's in charge on the planet anymore, let alone next in line for the Emperor's throne.  That being said, I doubt they'll just let us walk in off the street."

"No, you're right.  We'll be going in through one of the old Jedi entrances, near what used to be a secondary vehicle hanger."  I pulled up the composite schematic that Two had constructed from the dispersed record files in the system.  "The Temple was badly damaged during the purge, and Palpatine totally remodelled and made cosmetic changes to the interior, but the fundamental structures remain intact.  Including this one."  I zoomed in on the schematic, isolating a small, ancient structure very near the pinnacle of the mountain outcropping that was encased within the former Jedi Temple. 

Arnor peered at it.  "Why there?  What's so special about this place?"

I shrugged.  "Honestly? I'm not 100% sure.  But the Order of Mactor on M'Tzigon originated on Coruscant, before the foundation of the Old Republic.  Our Order had a temple on this very mountain, long before it was covered over.  It was..."   I moved my hand down and to the side, near the bottom of the current Palace structure.  "...here.  It was removed by the Sith when they took over the site, then when the Jedi threw out the Sith they let us rebuild.  Then during the Galactic War the Sith again took over the site and removed all of the Jedi influence.  When the Jedi returned and the Republic was established again, they wiped out the Sith temple and preserved whatever was left of the old sites while rebuilding their own Temple over top of it all.  But this site..."  I returned to the small shrine near the peak of the rock outcropping, directly below the central spire of the Jedi Temple turned Imperial Palace.  "This site was removed and covered over ... but not destroyed."

Arnor peered at the schematic again.  "But if it was covered over, why does this small temple and shrine show on the schematic?"

"That's the million credit question, my love."  I said, shutting the schematic down.  "There's no record of it being rebuilt, but from some of the tidbits Two uncovered Palpatine moved a bunch of artifacts into the Palace after they were done rebuilding and remodelling it from the old Medical Center.  We think they're Sith artifacts.  And this small shrine has a direct connection to a larger cave near the base of this same outcropping, where there is ANOTHER Jedi shrine built over an ancient Sith Shrine, built over an even more ancient Mactor Gray Shrine ... and cave."

Arnor's eyes widened.  "The Mactor Cave?  THAT'S where we were?  But ... that's just a legend!  And even in the legends it was utterly destroyed..."

I nodded.  "I know.  I didn't recognize it either, until Two showed me the connection.  This is the upper chamber, where the Kage would go to meditate while the Council convened in the circle below.  The Sith desecrated it with a crystal of 'unprecedented power' augmented by a specially built focal chamber..."

"The monolith you described!"  Arnor sat and stared for a moement.  "But the chamber had room for three crystals..."

"Yes.  More legend.  The Sith crystal was something unnatural.  The Mactor Kage uttered an oracle from his perch minutes before the Sith broke through and killed him stating that the balance of the place would only return when a Knight brought the Sith crystal it's opposite, then retrieved the final crystal from the mountain top nitch.  The Kage died without drawing his own blade to defend himself and the Sith took over the site, but the legend states that the reason the Kage didn't fight was because he had already placed his own saber's crystal into the grotto and hidden it, so that one day it could act as the bridge between the Light and Dark crystals in the cave below."

I sat back and shook my own head.  "I didn't even think about the legends until I was looking down at Monument Plaza the other day.  The exposed mountain peak reminded me of the stories ... and they suddenly didn't seem like simple origin myths anymore."

Arnor only stared for a moment, her eyes opaque as she ran over the mythic legend in her own memory.  "But...  Wow.   Its true?  Its REAL?"

I felt my own smile widen.  "Yes, Arnor.  Its real.  The good news is, I finally know what our true mission here is.  The bad news is..."

I saw her eyes cloud with sudden recognition and we spoke the words in unison.

"The curse..."

[Taegin Roan]

*Warning! Not Enough Information Given*

Curse? What curse?

The amount of detail you have put into your world building is incredible. From the three crystals to all the monuments and temples. And now you are going to break into the Jedi Temple (now Imperial Palace)? Everything is starting to fit together finally, but still you only let us in on maybe one per post. You have made it so that even if we wanted to stop reading it, we couldn't. We know are required to finish reading it just so that we find out the answers to everything. I'm not complaining... well, maybe I am, but I'm only complaining because I don't like waiting. Don't rush it though, make sure it is how you want it before posting, or you may end up not liking it.

[TheDutchman]

I'm not complaining... well, maybe I am, but I'm only complaining because I don't like waiting. Don't rush it though, make sure it is how you want it before posting, or you may end up not liking it.

I'm not complaining... well, maybe I am, but I'm only complaining because I don't like waiting.

This^^   

TR is so right: this world that you've built is fantastic and I really enjoy being able to share it 

A...no, THE Mountain, is a perfect visual given the backdrop of a planet-wide city.  And home to an ancient Gray Jedi temple?!  If it isn't already, the SHOULD be canon!  Keep them coming Karm because--like TR--I'm hooked 

Until next installment friends 

[Karmack]

Thanks guys! 

On the details of the Temple/Palace - I pulled a lot of this from the Wookipedia.  According to that source, the Temple is built around and over other shrines that have been there for millenia.  The mountain it encases has been a holy site / force focal point for multiple sects of force-sensitives. Honestly, the first character that sprang to mind when I first read the entry was the blind force-sensitive from Rouge One.  :-)  A force-user, a force-worshipper, but not a Jedi.  Or like Mans in TFA.    Other clues are that the site is riddled with caverns and caves, and during the Sith occupations of Coruscant there was a Sith temple there, which the Jedi deconstructed and built over when they took over the site at the foundation of the Republic.  This Sith influence is sited as the reason the Jedi's ability to use the force was slowly eroded, a circumstance that Palpatine used to his advantage.

My order of Grays, the Mak'Tor, originating there is my own invention.  It gave me a plausible way for Karmack to know more than the average person about the place. 

As for the curse...  Well.  You'll just have to wait.  ;-)

[Greywolf]

This calls for a double-quote

...  Well.  You'll just have to wait.  ;-)

...I'm not complaining... well, maybe I am, but I'm only complaining because I don't like waiting....

Just kidding, please don't rush anything !

[Karmack]

LOL  I am SOOOOO tempted to go dig up a link to the final end-credit scene from "Spider-Man: Homecoming"...  ;-)