For Glory and for Spite!

[Feena]

This is how heroes were born.
Oh, don't give me that destiny crap. Heroes aren't 'destined' to be heroic! They have to work for that! Who was honesty that spoiled that they believed themselves to be some special snowflake just for being born? Just because some idiot made up some junk about them and called it 'prophecy'? That's stupid. Stupidity will get you killed.

Anyway!
Here we are now. I know what you're thinking. *groan* "Not another fetch quest," amirite?

Well, sometimes we all have to do things for people too lazy or too 'important' to do it themselves. Get used to it. This particular important person was Feenarah Mason, the current Queen of Naboo. And she had something in mind for our brave young heroes.

The temple was near Ootah Gunga. Well, okay. It was more of a tomb than a temple. Well, there were dead people inside anyway. The point is, it was very old. We're talking, like, ancient. Like, older than your mother.

"Inside this temple," the Queen had said, "is a jewel. This gem is an ancient treasure, once passed down from monarch to monarch. It is said that it possesses great powers. Be warned, the temple was designed to protect the jewel. None have ever made it out alive- Wait! Don't leave yet! I haven't even mentioned payment!"

Of course, at the mention of credits, i'm sure your interest was recaptured.

"That's better. Now, pay attention. I'm only going to say this once.The Jewel is located on an alter on the lowest level of the temple. To get to it, you will have to find the secret passage way. You will also need to fight your way past the temples guardian- assuming the legends are true and it somehow managed to survive all this time. Shouldn't be hard, right? Not for you. Now. Bring the jewel back, and you get to keep any other treasure you can find. Sounds pretty fair, yes? Great. Get to it. I'm going to go take a nap."


So here you are! Standing outside the temple! What a wonderful day to be the hero of this story!
Now, get your butt in there!

 

[Jack Rand]

Verily Jack Rand hath met with the Queen in great haste, so thateth he might protest his future ownership of a prize sought hardily by many of his fellow adventurers. When the queen wouldeth speak Jack hath listened more than most his fellow adventurers and he would seek this treasure of a time long past. "My Queen, I must protesteth mine thanks for thou allowance of mine own adventures. Hark I shall go force verily, with great speed and agility." And so, our hero hath set off in seek of heroics and adventure.

Jack stood in front of thine castle, his eyes glazing ateth the slightest detail of thoust incredible temple, even the monks of El'Thazor would have shed a tear if thine eyes couldeth have seen what his eyes sought now. But our hero had little time to admire the view insteadeth, he ventured forth into this darkest place he hath been in awhile.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"Y'know, I'd be tempted to say I hate swamps, but I'm not sure that really covers the depth and breadth of my dissatisfaction. For one thing, it's not just swamps. I hate planets."

She'd had to leave her space suit behind. Instead she wore a basic flightsuit, one of about a dozen she owned, all either brownish-gray or grayish-brown, but never both. For gear she had a glowstick phallic enough to remind her it had been a while, a blaster of indeterminate type, and her trusty brass knuckles, useful for punching someone in the arm until that arm turned to ice cubes. You couldn't punch a swamp.

"Ergo, sooner we're done this crap, sooner I can gas up and get off this rock."

She descended into the temple.

 

[RC 212]

[member="Feena Mason"] [member="Jack Rand"] [member="Alec Rekali"]

Here they were. Vassara and Silas, her spacer companion. The two had just come off mission in the outer reaches of the galaxy and returned to Naboo to refuel. But credits called and they had landed a short timers job, which suited her just fine. Vasssara was clad in her usual black spacers under suit , with the red trim.

Between her and Silas they had brought four rebreathers, and a crate of grenades, some rope and her datapad, that contained a shortwave sensor array.

"You ready?" Silas asked, shifting his weight to put on his pack.

"Yep, let's blow this rock and go home." Vassara glanced down one last time, checking her leather gunbelt. Shotgun, check, Machine pistol, check, Knife, check.

Silas pressed a chemical glowstick into her hand and she snapped it, releasing the liquids to produce a brazen white light.

"Follow me!"

She ran into the Temple....

 

[Feena]

Inside the temple, we come to a long empty looking hallway. On the walls are pictures and some sort of ancient writing. I won't bother trying to read any of it, to be honest. It's all covered in dust and webs. And besides, it's like, mega dark. You'd need, like, a glow stick- oh hey! [member="Vassara Raxis"], has one! Well done! [member="Alec Rekali"]Inside too! Super cool!

Well, okay, if they wanted to see, they'd see lots of gross webs. The writing of course, would be hard to decipher. It's okay. It's probably not important. Probably just some warning about traps and giant immortal monsters and things. No big. If it was really dangerous, the Queen wouldn't send just anybody, right?
...Right?

Now that it;s mentioned, I don't believe you guys know each other. Strange, isn't it, that you should all be sent on such a strange quest at the same time, right? Like, that's crazy. Who does that?

"I do, that's who," The Queen said, sipping at a glass of wine, "Now don't bug me, narrator. I'm busy."



[member="Jack Rand"]

 

[RC 212]

[member="Feena Mason"]

As Vassara looked around at the cobwebs and dust she smiled. This was a dark place, full of shadows and creepy crawlies. She felt quite at home in the dark places of the galaxy. Silas was inspecting the markings on the wall and rubbing the dust from each section as he went. Vassara coughed, as the dirt filled the small space.

"You really gotta touch everything huh man?"

"Hey check it, there's some kind of writing here. Not anything I know to read though."

Vassara squinted brining the glowstick up to the wall and reading the markings. She had her datapad, which was the best tool ever.

"Ok too easy. Here hold this."

She pressed the glowstick into Silas' hand and snatched her datapad from her inside pocket of her black coat. As she tapped furiously she ran it along the walls, capturing each bit of text in a long line. Blue light from the holocamera scanned the characters. When she was done she returned to Silas side and smirked.

"Bet this ain't all that ancient. I'm going to run it through the ships datacenter, see if we can get some translation."

The datapad beamed the text file to the ships data computer and the Gypsy Caravan began to run it through all the major databanks on the holonet, looking for a match. As it ran they stood still in the Temple far far away.

*Ping*

"Ok got it sent back, let's see what it says, if it says anything at all."

"Might want to turn the noise off on the datapad."

"Yea you're right." Her gloved fingers tapped the display, closing out all noise functions and opening the file containing the text....

 

[Feena]

The text was super old. Like, really, mega old. Old to the point that a perfect translation was near impossible. Over the centuries, new dialects, new phrases. Kinda like, oh what is it that all the cool kids are saying now? 'That's supernova, man!" You gatta admit, those youngsters really know how to spice up a language. Totally hip. Supernova is totally the new thing to say. Not super lame like saying something stupid like 'That is so fetch'. No. Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen, okay!?

Anyways, so the translation that came back was a little tricky to understand.

"Much danger. So scare. Warn of dead. Purple caution. Crystal perfection at bottom of sky. Godly tentacles."

...Not much to go on, I'm afraid. Sorry, [member="Vassara Raxis"]

 

[RC 212]

[member="Feena Mason"]

"So what'd say?"

Vassara frowned, stashing the datapad back into her coat and swinging her shotgun up onto her shoulder. She held the glowstick up high, parallel to her face looking around for something else of importance. There seemed to be nothing besides the dirt and cobwebs.

"Oh some garbage. Some kind of monster and some kind of death."

Silas chuckled a little bit, reliving the memories of the Reavers they had fought off on Carlan station only a month ago. Being eaten alive by cannibalistic pirates was a real death. Every spacer feared Reavers, but here on the ground?

"So lets keep going?"

"I'm game," Silas retorted, pumping his Czerka shotgun and loading a round of scattershot into the chamber.

"Ok this way, I see a tunnel over here!"

Vassara charged off into the darkness, smashing through cobwebs and kicking up dust, shotgun bouncing on her shoulder as she ran. Silas was right behind her, moving at a quick pace, his shotgun lowered and ready to blast whatever should pop out.

 

[Feena]

....And they both walked into the first trap. With a snap, the most typical Indiana Jones crap flew from the walls at our poor unsuspecting heroes. I mean, seriously, who runs head long down a dark tunnel? That's just asking to trigger a trap. Everyone knows that! Shame these kids didn't, because now they had a half dozen sharp spears flying at their faces.

[member="Vassara Raxis"], Good luck!


"What? Don't look at me," The Queen said raising an eyebrow as a handmaiden paints her nails, "It's the narrators fault."

 

[RC 212]

[member="Feena Mason"]

She could hear it before she felt the air change. Luckily the small inkling of the force within the young woman had tingled her neck just so slightly. That still hadn't stopped her foot from crossing the tripwire though. She felt it snap and tripped, falling hard as the spear began to fly.

WHOOSH

"Oh frak, Silas watch out!"

From her spot on the ground Vassara rolled over onto her back dropping the glowstick and bringing her shotgun to bear. She squeezed the trigger, letting forth a tremendous blast of steel shards. The spear hafts snapped and shattered into splinters as they collided in the paths of their fellow spears, knocking their trajectories off.

Her black boot foot reached out and kicked Silas square in the shin, tripping him also. As he came smashing to the ground the spears flew inches above his head, one grazed his shoulder, drawing a small spray of blood.

And then it was over...

"What the hell? Traps?"

Vassara only pumped her shotgun again, CHK CHK.

As she crawled to her feet she pulled Silas up with her, retrieving her glowstick and hovering above his wound.

"How bad is it?"

"Not too bad, just a graze."

One hand fished out a cannister of self sealing bacta foam from her side pouches. She sprayed a small amount into the cut, sealing it completely.

"Gotta be more careful Vassara, this place ain’t right."

"Yeah no shit. Come on lets keep going."

They moved on, slowly this time, Vassara waving the glowstick around and checking her footing as well as the walls...

 

[Feena]

Watching ones footing was a very good call, especially because, not six feet in front of them, was another trap. A thin tripwire, which of course could easily be avoided if they saw it in time. Well, no matter. The Queen had every confidence that they could make it through alive. Or at least alive enough to get the crystal. Surely it couldn't be that hard, right?

Up ahead, they came to a wall. A dead end? Maaaaaaayybbbeeeee.....

On the wall were two levers. A red one on the left. A blue one on the right. No writing was visible to give a clue.

[member="Vassara Raxis"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Feena Mason"]

All manner of noise percolated up from the tunnel that [member="Vassara Raxis"] had chosen. Didn't sound like much fun, but at least they still sounded alive. Raised in the deep black sea, where you always answered the distress beacon and trusted that the other guy would do the same, Alec would have gone to check if it had sounded critical.

She selected another mossy tunnel, unconcerned by the carvings -- she couldn't understand them and hadn't brought the gear to record'em. She might not like planets, but tunnels were tunnels and traps were traps. She listened to herself walk, and she walked slow, lead foot skating out on the ball to feel what lay ahead with every step. Her glowstick could only do so much; she held it above her field of view to avoid light pollution.

 

[Feena]

Smart lady is smart. Careful. This narrator could tell that this wasn't her first rodeo! nah! This [member="Alec Rekali"] person had this down!
...well, or she probably thought. Ahead of her lay two paths. Both equally dark. Both just as icky. One would lead to treasure. The other would lead to... probably something not very nice.
There was one clue though. The right path didn't smell quite as bad as the left path. Of course, that could mean anything.

 

[Neskar A'toll]

It had to be said, it was a rather bad sign that Neskar didn't remember why he was there. He was no explorer, nor did he rather care for IMMERSION BREAKING FOURTH-WALL SHATTERING (TRIGGER WARNING: SARCASM/IRONY). Much was to be said about what occurred the night before, as he remembered naught. Whatever transpired must have teleported him somewhere. Somewhere was some nasty bog on Naboo, a planet he wasn't too fond of. Too.. no, that's too much fourth-wall breaking for today.

Rather sad was the fact that everyone had left him behind. Whatever. He hated everyone anyway. It's not like this hurt him much. Keeping back the sobs, Neskar stalked silently into the temple, activating the night-vision installed in his helmet (nifty, huh?)

Following the others, there wasn't much to see. Writing on the wall. Bah, who needs literacy? He tapped a fist on the wall, and shards of stone crumpled from the aged masonry. Looking around awkwardly, he walked off at a faster pace, avoiding being blamed for the minor incident. Hah, watch that bite me in the arse later. Well... what kind of mean person would do something like that? Take a minor from the past and use it to harm people in the future? Obviously some kind of moron!

There were a few corridors. Neskar chose one at random and walked down it, beaming. The darkness was rather irrelevant, as the night-vision allowed him to er.. see. He had night-sight for quite a distance, a long way down the hallway. So far, there appeared to be no hostile elements seeking his ultimate destruction.

Jokes on them, I have plot armour.

[member="Feena Mason"]

 

[RC 212]

[member="Feena Mason"]

They had come up to a wall and Vassara held the glowstick up high examining the levers. One red one blue. Ah it was the classic fifty fifty trap. Somehow one would lead to their destruction, or if they were really unlucky both would. Vassara wrinkled her nose at the dust and turned to face Silas.

"Well what do you think?"

Silas hemmed and hawed and at last spoke.

"I think it's going to suck either way. Red is usually bad, and blue is usually good. Unless they want us to over-think it and assume it been reversed and-"

"And then there’s the chance that we would over think it even more and assume they were trying to pull a triple negative on us in which case the red really WAS bad and vice versa."

For a second they stood there, quite stumped and then Silas spoke.

"Well frak it, flip a coin?"

"Sure."

Vassarra took a small coin from her pocket. It was her lucky coin, and flipped it into the air.

"Heads is red." Silas called.

The coin flipped end over end and she caught it.

"Heads, but I have a better idea, let's pull em both!"

"You're crazy."

"I know." Vassara whirled back to face the levers and pulled them both, cranking as hard as she could and preparing to drop or dodge...

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Feena Mason"]

On the theory that treasure had traps, traps killed people, and dead people smelled bad, Alec opted for the smellier of the two paths.

 

[Feena]

Well, [member="Neskar A'toll"] just happened to take the same path that Alec Rekali had taken, so of course he would also come to the fork in the road. Left or right?

Miss [member="Alec Rekali"] took the smelly road. Brilliant! Of course the scent of corpses would lead to the treasure! And she would find corpses. Lots. Dusty decayed skeletons, dead in so many ways. One of them had a nice long spear to the face. One had been chopped clean in two by the giant blade now dangling limp from a thick rope. Yes. Dead people. The good news though, most of the traps so far had already been set off! Thank you, dead people!

[member="Vassara Raxis"], however, seemed less decisive than miss Rekali. Unfortunately, when they tried to pull both at the same time, something locked up, preventing them from pulling. One or the other, my little dears. And try not to break it.

 

[RC 212]

[member="Feena Mason"]

Vassara cursed. Silas jumped and he looked around nervously.

"What?"

"No dice, both levers wont go just one."

"So red?"

"Frak no, red you're dead. I'm pulling blue. Watch yourself."

Sillas crouched low and Vassara gripped the blue lever, uttering a silent prayer under her breath and wrenching downwards, trying to throw the lever and back up before more spears came out no where....

 

[Amun]

A young amateur alchemist would be at the entrance of such ancient temple or tomb on the planet Naboo. Now, if this was truly ancient then there surely be something of value in here somewhere. Reason why he was here? You wouldn't label him as a die hard explorer. No, he explored just to expand his knowledge of alchemy and other skills that he possessed.

So, onward he went through the tombs just like everyone else that had come here. There were weird and ancient letter printed on the walls, but the Epicanthix could not translate nor interpret these texts, and instead of trying to crack the cost he continued on in the trail. He then came across multiple corridors and chose one at the very far end at the right and began walking through it awaiting for its mysterious to unveil themselves.

[member="Feena Mason"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Feena Mason"]

Alec kept taking her time. The skeletons, the traps, the trapped skeletons, the skeletoned traps, all suggested that being careful was a really good idea. An old hand at salvage ops and post-pirate depression (yeah, went there, regret it already), she picked her way through the metaphorical (and potentially real) minefield, taking care not to catch her upraised glowstick on something sharp, rusty, and corpse-encrusted.

Once the area of sprung traps ended, she opted for being even more careful. She drew her blaster and switched the glowstick to her off hand. Not that blasters would do much against Pit-and-the-Pendulum-style defenses, but there could be, like, rabid Nabooian animals down here, like those cows that looked like the love child of an engorged tick and the Death Star. Fearsome.