First Reply Echoes of an Ancient Creed

[Rynar Solde]

Warm dusk light filtered through the dense canopy of the forested planet, casting long, soft shadows across the worn but resilient armor of Rynar Solde. His silhouette crouched atop a moss‑covered outcropping — the muted hiss of his exhaled breath and the distant squawk of a native bird were the only sounds.

Beskar plating — the "Solde‑pattern" scout build — hugged his frame. His visor's night‑spectrum optics flickered briefly as he surveyed the world below: an ancient Mandalorian ruin, half‑sunken and forgotten by time, where he had come seeking scraps of history, whispers of a creed he no longer claimed.

Beside him, the pale‑grey nexu known as Cupcake padded silently. Her reddish‑spined fur glinted in the last light of day — loyal companion, recon partner, reminder of survival and strange mercy.

Rynar's data‑slate lay open in his gauntleted hand, text displaying archaic Mandalorian glyphs he'd only recently decoded. His fist tightened around the device, the knuckles showing faint wear. He muttered to himself, quietly: "Knowledge preserved through strife." The sigil etched on his cuirass echoed that thought.

A flicker in his peripheral vision caught his attention. A soft crunch of leaves. Not entirely unexpected — old ruins attract more than explorers. He didn't lower his weapon. The Valken‑38x long‑blaster lay ready. The forest held its breath.

 

[Armel]

​

A shrill cry echoed through the forest and Armel froze in place as he scanned the vegetation. He gripped his blaster pistol before reminding himself this wasn't Dxun. The thought of being out in those primeval jungles made the hairs on the back of his neck stand.

<"You find anything yet? We're burning fuel up here."> his comrade Yel'ana chimed in.

He gave the forest one last search before he raised his hand to his helmet. <"Nothing. You sure the ship crashed out here?">

<"Mag-pulse sent the freighter down, last track put it somewhere within a fifty mile radius of you."> she replied.

"Great. Fifty mile radius." he said to himself.

<"Ship's sensors are picking up some sort of structure ahead of you. Could be our ship."> Armel's HUD lit up with a path leading to the 'structure' that Yel'ana had picked up.

With a sigh Armel continued on, his blaster pistol in one hand and his mechanical arm gripping the hilt of his beskad. After another thirty minutes of trekking through the forest it was evident whatever he had been guided to was not the prize he was after. Armel was about to radio back to the ship when he spotted a silhouette that didn't belong. Armel lowered himself at an incremental pace and slowly began to stalk forward.

As he closed in Armel's eyes zeroed in on the beskar'gam of this stranger. How he so rarely ever saw the real thing, his own armour just a plastoid imitation 'forged' our of necessity. Still the sight was hardly a comforting one, his kind had become insular and often clashed with their 'kin'. Armel approached with a blaster pistol drawn and pointed at Rynar, his free hand balled into a mechanical fist.

"Go for the blaster and you're dead."

Rynar Solde ​

 

[Rynar Solde]

The unfamiliar voice cut through the still air like a blade, and Rynar's body shifted before his mind caught up, instinct dictating the white-hot precision of survival.

The long-blaster was already in his grip, angled up in a fluid motion — not toward the interloper's center mass, but slightly off-line. A warning. A measured response. He did not flinch, nor turn fully. Just enough to let the one watching know he'd been made.

Cupcake's reaction was less subtle.

The nexu's hackles rose in a wave of spiked fur from shoulder to tail, the low rumble in her throat growing into something just shy of a snarl. Her eyes fixed on the stranger's weapon, then his fist, then back to his visor. She didn't lunge — but the coiled readiness was unmistakable.

Rynar's voice, when it came, was calm, quiet, and resolute. A man who knew a hundred different ways this could go wrong, and was equally willing to avoid all of them.

"Blaster comes up only if yours fires first," he said through his helmet's modulator, tone edged with dry steel. "Mandalorian blood gets spilled on this world today only by fools — I'm not here to add to it."

His gaze locked on the other's armor. The make was wrong — plastoid, not beskar. A soldier forged by necessity, not by creed. But still: the cut, the symbols, the weapons.

"You wear the crest. That earns you a name before a wound. Rynar Solde."

His blaster didn't lower — but neither did his finger hover over the trigger. The barrel tracked the newcomer, steady. The wind shifted between them, stirring the edges of worn capes, leaves, fur. Cupcake circled, a silent shadow, but didn't attack.

"I'm here for the ruins," Rynar continued, helmet turning slightly to indicate the stone half-buried ahead. "What lies under them belonged to our people before the wars. Knowledge. History. I claim it, not for a clan — but to keep it from strangers who'd twist it."

A pause. Static filled the space between breaths.


"You came looking for something else. But now you've found me. So—" A final beat, voice cool. "—give me your name, vod. Or we both walk away thinking the other meant to murder a brother without cause."

Armel

 

[Armel]

​

Armel didn't see the nexu at first, proving yet again why the nexu was one of the galaxy's dominant predators. He saw the spines on its back first and his blaster shifted towards the creature. Unfortunately for him it gave the perfect opportunity for Rynar to ready his own rifle. Armel stared back and forth between the master and his beast, his mechanical hand now gripping his beskad, ready to unsheathe it.

The stranger offered his name and purpose, but the Zeltron still looked wary. Armel felt his weight shift between his feet as he changed focus on each assailant as he considered his next move. After a long few seconds he relented and gave his name. "Armel... of Er'kit."

His eyes drifted over to the ruin that Rynar pointed to. So that was what spike on Yel'ana's sensors. He pondered contacting her, calling for back-up. A quick word over their comm channel and the Nogai would come roaring over guns blazing. But there was something about Rynar, his purpose, that intrigued him. His blaster lowered ever so slightly.

"Those ruins, they're Mandalorian?" he said like a child who did not recognise his own reflection. "You some kind of historian then?"

Rynar Solde ​

 

[Rynar Solde]

Rynar's visor swept over Armel once more, cataloging every line of his armor, every worn edge of the plastoid plating. The design, the colors, the sigils — Neo-Crusader, almost painfully obvious. Not a brother, but close enough to make his presence… interesting.

"Historian, yes," Rynar admitted, voice low and measured. "Scholar of what's left. Keeper of what fools would see lost. These ruins… they are ours, though the wars have scattered the knowledge."

He tapped his gauntleted hand to the ground, and Cupcake leapt lightly to his side, claws clicking against the stone. Her hackles rose again, tail swishing, a silent warning.

"And yet," Rynar continued, keeping the long-blaster trained steadily on Armel, "I do not take kindly to strangers poking around the remnants of our past without purpose." His tone was calm, but each word carried weight. "Tell me, Armel of Er'kit… why are you here? Your armor… it speaks of Crusaders. And yet your intent may not match their creed."

Cupcake shifted slightly, brushing against Rynar's leg. A predator's presence coiled in the air, reminding Armel that any sudden movement could provoke consequences far heavier than words.

Rynar leaned back on one knee, weapon unwavering. "Speak truthfully. And remember… even the smallest lie in these ruins carries a price."

Armel

 

[Armel]

​

Armel‘a eyes followed the Nexu as it approached its master, easing him ever so slightly that he no longer had to shift his attention just to keep track of either. He allowed a quick glance over his shoulder down the path he came and briefly pondered an escape but even he knew he wouldn't get far.

“You know your armour. I'm a Crusader, 'conscripted' after they liberated Er'kit." His head dipped ever so slightly as he began to reminisce the old days.

"There was once a time we threatened to burn the galaxy. Now? Those of us left raid to survive. We shot down a merchant freighter laden with goods, it crashed somewhere in this forest." he made no attempt to hide who he was, there was no reason to for the armour of the Crusader said enough about what time of man he was. There was also the supposed price the Historian warned of. Armel looked out to the ruins uneasily, surely he was just trying to scare him.

"I knew another historian once, one of my number. Where other Rally masters were only interested in readying us for war he would make sure we knew the history, try make us understand. I still remember when he'd tell us tales of past Mandalores." Armel was now fully enraptured by the ruins, a mix of reverence, fear and curiosity. He had never been to the ancestral worlds, never seen anything like it.

His pistol lowered yet further and the grip on his beskad began to loosen. He wanted to know. "What... what is this place historian?"

Rynar Solde ​