Private The Vault of Whispering Stone

[Caelan Valoren]

There was a lot to be said for spending time at the temple on Coruscant. Many Jedi came in and out and it was a great place to get to know the others. Over the course of his training, Caelan had spent a great deal of time within its halls, between learning from his own master, studying under other students in martial arts, and just spending quality time in the library. It was like a second home to him, especially since he had spent a good amount of time there when he was unable to return to his own home for fear of being killed should he do so. The Coruscant temple would always be special to him.

But there was a lot to be said about taking the time to venture outside of it. He enjoyed missions. Not in the sense that every mission was enjoyable. There were certainly some missions that he had been on that were far from it. The last mission he'd gone on with Grandmaster Noble had been quite dangerous. Important for him, a trial placed in his path by the Force itself, but it had not been what he would define as fun. The experience of learning outside of the temple, though, of growth in doing was what was fun. While the experience hadn't been fun, the act of solving a mystery and taking part in cleaning up a problem for the Alliance had certainly made him feel fulfilled.

Now, as a new Knight, he was taking on a mission with a padawan that was assigned to the mission. It appeared, on the surface, to be relatively easy, but he understood that even the easiest of missions came with their own forms of trials.

"We should arrive in the next ten minutes," the pilot of the Jedi transport said.

They were enroute to the world of Elphrona. It was dangerously close to the expanding borders of the Sith, and the Jedi outpost there still contained a vault of artifacts that needed to be recovered and brought to safety in the vaults of the temple on Coruscant, or the various other temples spread far and wide around the galaxy that were not in immediate threat of being overrun by Sith forces. Caelan turned in his seat to look at Phoebe, the Jedi padawan he was assigned to work with on this mission.

"This should be relatively simple. The Order has known about the artifacts in this outpost for a long time and has moved many of them out, but a few still remain. It's our job to collect them and bring them back to Coruscant. There is a slight chance we will run into adversaries, however. How comfortable are you in combat?"

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ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace), Prosthetic Left Arm

TAGS: Phoebe Winsloe ​

 

[Phoebe Winsloe]

Phoebe had been relaxing in her seat in the shuttle, glad to be away from the temple on a real mission, even if it was just temporarily assigned to help a knight with a little grave-robbing, or archeology, depending on whether the dead people were still alive when they got there. But she could be babysitting younglings on a day trip into the forests of Kashyyyk and just be glad that it got her out of the temple and the nasty Coruscant smog-filled air. Phoebe was looking forward to this since her only other excursion so far was just to attend a lesson from Master Si from the council, and while interesting lacked excitement.

"Now that you said it should be simple, you know it's not going to be now?" Phoebe joked as she sat up properly and put her datapad away "I am pretty comfortable in combat when it comes to sparring with other padawans or facing people who can't use the force, but if you get me duelling a Sith Lord well I ain't coming out on top of that one."

"So what kind of artifacts are we picking up? And are we expecting some opposition; looters, treasure hunters, pirates, or maybe some Sith trying to get their hands on this stuff before we can?"

Phoebe was pretty interested in what they might be running into and had plenty of questions, she had to force herself to stop there and keep from overwhelming Caelan with too many things.

Caelan Valoren

 

[Caelan Valoren]

"Missions are rarely simple, even if they should be," he agreed, a smile tugging at his lips. "Can't remember the last time I had an easy mission."

Probably cleansing the old temple had been the closest to easy. There hadn't been any danger involved, just some malevolent markings on the walls, and they'd been working in teams to cleanse those marking. There had been a LOT of other Jedi around then, too. Not a lot of danger when the grandmaster and most of the members of the council were around.

"I don't think we're going to be dealing with Sith Lords. Possible, but unlikely. More likely they would send some of their underlings to pilfer the outpost. Though, since most has already been removed, I doubt they'd trouble themselves. I just suggest we exercise caution."

Outside, the ship reverted to real space, and the world of Elphrona loomed before them. Nothing jumped to attack them, so that was a good start. Their pilot flew them into the worlds atmosphere, and down towards where the old outpost rested, carved into the face of a great rock outcropping. There weren't any other ships landed in the vicinity, and Caelan didn't get a feeling that any dark side entities were lurking about, but that didn't mean they weren't hiding their presence and lying in wait, having landed a ship further afield.

They landed with only a light bump and Caelan undid his safety harness before standing and moving past Phoebe towards the ships exit ramp.

"Least the air is breathable. Last mission I went on was to a space station that had lost all power. Had to wear a space suit the whole time."

He stepped out onto the rocky ground and looked around while he waited for her to join him.

"Tell me, Phoebe: what do you feel?"

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ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace), Prosthetic Left Arm

TAGS: Phoebe Winsloe ​

 

[Phoebe Winsloe]

"Better to be prepared for something that doesn't happen than be caught off guard by something you weren't ready for." Phoebe agreed.

Phoebe knew damn well that if she didn't set out ahead of time to shift into a proper mindset for a cautious exploration then she'd get tunnel visioned on the objective and probably get in more trouble than if she went in blind.

Phoebe felt slightly miffed that she was being treated like she was a much younger student being ask what she could feel like it was some sort of test. She still did it without complaint since this was her first time working with Knight Valoren so he didn't know where her proficiencies and weaknesses lay.

As her awareness in the force was cast down towards the planet Phoebe didn't pick up anything too alarming. There was a faint aura of danger down where the ancient outpost stood, but she couldn't get a good feel on what flavour of danger it was. Phoebe wasn't sure if that was because the danger was something very serious but able to keep itself mostly hidden from the force, or as she hoped something minor such as just the hazards of poking around in ruins that hadn't had a building inspector in the last Millennium.

"There's something down there, very faintly dangerous. But I can't tell if it's something hiding or just something minor." Phoebe said as she let her awareness spread out again, and thinking that maybe she shouldn't have been annoyed about the simple test.

Caelan Valoren

 

[Caelan Valoren]

Even that little touch of annoyance at being asked to do something simple was worth noticing. There was a lot that went into being a Jedi. If they allowed themselves to become annoyed at the minor things, how much easier would it be for them to fall apart when something worse happened? Knowing that she felt that way about him asking her something simple told him that she believed she was well beyond such things, and that she felt she should be treated as someone closer to his level, not someone new to the Force. That was fair, but he also had never worked with her before, and he didn't know her skillset.

Still, he merely nodded and let his own feelings continue to drift over their surroundings as his eyes scanned the face of the rock before them and then settled on the entrance to the outpost. Something suddenly made him feel a bit uneasy about this situation.

"Well, we can't let it deter us," he said, turning his eyes to her. "We'll just have to keep our awareness up."

He motioned for her to follow him and then started ahead. As they approached, he could feel that something was off inside of the temple, but not something of extreme darkness. It wasn't the same sort of feeling that he'd had when he was in the research station with Valery. This was something else, something... elusive. It didn't worry him. More it made him curious and want to investigate. Which worked out because they had to go inside to get to the vault anyways.

The doors to the outpost were shut tight. He looked at them for a moment and then looked over at her.

"See if you can get us inside."

The doors were barred on the inside, strangely enough. Not like a bar going across the inside, but a bolt going between the doors from one to another, like someone was living within and had activated a security mechanism. There were controls to the door to one side, and they did have power, so there were options. He was curious what she would do.

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ATTIRE: Link | WEAPON: Lightsaber | COMPANION: BD-F8 | OTHER: Sigil Bead (Necklace), Prosthetic Left Arm

TAGS: Phoebe Winsloe ​