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‘s 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 ​

 

[Rynar Solde]

Rynar didn't shift, even as Armel's weapons finally began to lower. It wasn't trust — not yet — but a tenuous respect had begun to take root between them. Cupcake sensed the change too, her growling relenting into a quiet, alert silence as she settled once more at Rynar's side.


"A Crusader, conscripted." Rynar's voice carried no judgment — simply acknowledgement. "The galaxy remembers your kind as conquerors. Raiders. Burning worlds, raising banners… but most history has no patience to ask why." He paused, then added, "That's why men like us are still needed."


His visor turned toward the ruins, the half-crumbled archways and dead language etched into every stone like half-erased scars. "Some say this was once a Mandalorian temple. Others claim it was a vault. Storehouse, war hall… or grave. If the truth was known once, it died before even the Clone Wars."


He shifted his grip on the blaster, though it remained ready. "I didn't come here with expectations. Only a mission: to gather what can be saved from time and scavengers both."


The nexu nudged Rynar's knee, and the Mandalorian placed a steady hand on her spined back, his posture relaxing by a degree. "You came here for a freighter. Shot down. Laden with enough goods to keep your clan alive a little longer. That's not dishonorable. It's survival."


Then, with a quiet exhale, Rynar reached up and unsealed the magnetic clamps along his helmet's edge. With a practiced twist, the beskar helm lifted free, revealing a weathered face marked with light scarring, dark eyes sharp and steady. A gesture of vulnerability — and trust.

He tucked the helmet beneath one arm.

"I can help you find the wreck," he said, now without the modulator between them. "But first — if there's any part of you that still cares what it means to be Mando'ade, to preserve instead of take — I'd ask you lend me your eyes and your strength. Just long enough to recover what history remains here, before it becomes nothing more than a footnote in someone else's ledger."

He dipped his head slightly — not a bow, but something close. A silent offering.

"You choose. Walk away, and I'll forget you aimed a blaster at me. Stay — and we share the burden of what we find here."

Cupcake stared at Armel with an unsettling calm, tail resting still.

Rynar's voice cut the silence one last time.

"Mandalorians were not made to walk alone. Even when the creed falters… it remembers us."

Armel

 

[Armel]

​

The Neo-Crusader listened as Rynar spoke, he smirked at the idea of this all being a simple storehouse. He was sure he'd be able to tell, hours upon hours spent labouring in crusade stockpiles readying for the next battle. But a war hall? That would be a sight to see.

"Before the Clone War huh..." he said to himself, not entirely grasping when that was, he hardly had a formal education.

Armel tensed up as Rynar reached up but it soon became clear that he was going for his helmet. Under the helmet he continued to look the part of veteran warrior. Armel's released the hilt of his beskad and his blaster lowered all the way. His mechanical hand spun in place as he considered his next move. Eventually he reached for his own helmet, hesitating more than once along the way.

He unclipped the blastweave hood that covered the helmet and pulled it back revealing the rest of his helmet, a vibrant blue having been hidden away and protected for so long. Grabbing the bottom of his faceplate he lifted the plastoid helmet revealing his own face. He was young, early twenties with maroon skin, darker than the usual bright pink of most Zeltrons. Across his forehead he was clearly marked with a slave brand that has since been disfigured.

Armel tilted his head as Rynar laid out his offer. "It’s rare to find an outsider willing to help one such as myself."

He briefly thought on the offer but it didn't take long for him to decide. "I've long waited for a chance to learn more about my the people that took me in and the historian I mentioned, he would want me to help."

As he stared out across the ruins a smirk appeared across his face. "Besides, who am I to disappoint Mandalore the Anointed? Where do we begin historian?"

Rynar Solde ​

 

[Rynar Solde]

Rynar's eyes took in Armel's face — the youth, the brand, the hard-won edge that survived behind it all. A Zeltron, no less. Rare among their kind, rarer still among Mandalorians. Rarer yet to see one who didn't hide behind the fragrance of charm, but carried scars and steel instead.

"Zeltron," Rynar murmured, not with shock, but with the tone one uses when identifying a fine blade hidden in an unexpected sheath. "We didn't have many of your heritage in the old clans. They likely didn't know how fortunate they were."

A moment passed before the faintest smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth — the closest thing Rynar gave to a smile. He extended a hand to Armel, the gesture firm and warriorlike, not ceremonial. "Then you honor your dead historian. And your living brothers."

Cupcake nudged forward slightly, sniffing at Armel's mechanical hand with wary curiosity before sitting back, visibly appeased by the silent exchange of trust.

Rynar reached to his belt and pulled something small — a battered flask of polished metal, its surface etched with the Mythosaur skull in old Mando'a script. He tossed it lightly to Armel.

"A sip of tihaar before we begin. Cleans the mind, settles the nerves. No better way to enter the past than with clear eyes and burning lungs."

As he spoke, Rynar stepped lightly toward a half-collapsed archway leading into shadow beneath earth and stone. Unrolled parchments and holos rested in a nearby open pack — maps of the ruin's interior, partially reconstructed from ancient data-slates.

He nodded to the entryway, voice returning to business. "There's a collapsed chamber beneath us. I'm here to retrieve what it held before time buried it." His gaze flicked to Armel, noting the young man's wiry strength. "How much can you lift? We'll need to move debris before anything useful can be pulled out."

Another pause. Another thread of a smile.


"And whichever Mandalore the Anointed decides we're disappointing today — let them wait. Today, we start where they left off."

Armel

 

[Armel]

​

As the Nexu approached Armel held out his mechanical hand, his fingers articulating individually as it sniffed.

"The Crusade took everyone. When they took Er'kit from the warlords we were all given a choice, toil away in the forges and don the armour. I saw fair few folk like me amongst us." he said as Rynar mentioned his heritage.

Armel caught the flask as it was tossed to him. He squinted as he tried to read the flask, mouthing the words but soon gave up, he was barely literate in the Mando'a language. He took a swig and winced as he swallowed, the liquor burning the back of his throat, Armel doing his very best to stop himself from coughing. As the tihaar settled in his stomach he wiped his mouth with a gauntleted hand before tossing the flask back to Rynar.

He pondered on Carduul momentarily, with the rise of the Mandalorian Empire the Annointed had disappeared. Deep down he hoped he lived, the only Mandalore he would pledge loyalty to.

He followed Rynar as he walked over to the archway, the Zeltron peaked over the historian's shoulder as he tried to get a glimpse at whatever he had been working on. He could scarce understand any of it, no matter how much he wanted to.

"Spent most of my life digging in the slave pits on Er'kit." he said as he continued to try and piece together Rynar's findings. "If you need someone to clear a few rocks I'm your man."

"I presume using explosives is out of the question. If only we had one of those sorcerers who could lift things with their minds."

Rynar Solde ​

 

[Rynar Solde]

Rynar caught the flask with a soft clink against his gauntlet, tilting it once in acknowledgment before clipping it back to his belt. "You took the armor," he noted, eyes flicking over Armel's vibrant helm once more. "That already sets you apart from most who pick up arms out of fear, not choice."


He stepped through the broken archway and into the cool shadows beyond, raising a glowrod to bathe the chamber in pale light. Crumbled pillars, scattered motes of dust, old symbols — still untouched, still buried under time's refusal to fade.


"You lived in slave pits. Then you dug your way out of one life and into another." His voice carried the faint echo of respect. "You've strength enough for what I need."


Rynar paused before a mound of collapsed stone and duraplate that sealed off a deeper section of the ruin, one hand resting thoughtfully on his chin. "Explosives… this whole place was built before the First Mandalorian Crusades. Even a small blast could take the rest with it."


He crouched low, visor-eyeing the wall of debris. Cupcake padded ahead, hopping atop boulders with feline grace, tail flicking.


"As for sorcerers…" Rynar straightened, giving Armel a rare side-eye. "I've seen what they can do. But I'd rather put my trust in a brother's hands than their 'Force.' One has history. The other has excuses."


He motioned toward the debris. "Find the stones that can be shifted without triggering a collapse. You clear — I'll stabilize and map what's beneath."


Then, with a faint grin: "Besides, if this place does come down, better the ruin bury us than history."


The glowrod cast long shadows against the ancient walls, and in the quiet between them, there was a reverence that words alone could not give.
Rynar eyed the massive slab of duracrete blocking the tunnel entrance, its surface etched with the marks of a long-dead demolition charge. With a grunt, he adjusted the strap of his rifle and strode toward it, placing a gloved hand against the cold stone.

"Armel," he called over his shoulder, voice steady and practical, "give me a hand with this. We can shift it if we work together."


He braced himself, fingers curling around a jagged edge, waiting for the other man to join him before applying force.

Armel

 

[Armel]

​

"You know more than me, only over saw a sorcerer from a distance and usually in the heat of battle." He inspected the debris and slowly began pulling at bits of rock and gently tossing them to the side. Each time he picked something up he checked it.

When Rynar called out to him he trudged over eventually facing the large slab. He ran his hand across its surface and grimaced. "And you're sure we can't use explosives?" he asked, already knowing the answer to the question.

Armel crouched down underneath the slab where he would have most leverage and braced himself as he readied to push.

"Ready? Push!" he shouted before straining his whole body as he heaved the duracrete slab.

The slab creaked as is shifted incrementally, Armel grunting as he pushed. After a few brief seconds of using his whole body he shifted so his shoulder did all the pushing. With his now free hands he tapped the control of his jetpack.

At first there was just a sputter of fuel and flame before the two nozzles erupted a stream of burning jet fuel. The slab shifted further eventually tipping over and falling to the floor with a thud, kicking up dust and rubble into the air.

As the debris settled Armel activated a torch mounted to his shoulder plate, illuminating the tunnel. He dared not go first, remembering the myths and tales he had been told. Of course for a Crusader, he had been taught that these stories were factual history and while a part of him had always remained sceptical he was in no rush to find out.

He turned back to Rynar. "How did you find this place Historian? Better yet, how did you come to this profession? I know few who walk the same path as you."

Rynar Solde ​

 

[Rynar Solde]

Rynar stepped closer, his visor catching the pale beam from Armel's shoulder torch. The tunnel ahead yawned open, stale air whispering from the void like the exhale of a tomb. He studied the darkness for a time before answering.

"Exile," he said at last, his voice even, low — as if stating a fact rather than confessing it. "Self-imposed. There was a time when silence was easier than the questions I carried."

He knelt near the slab's edge, brushing away dust to reveal the faint outline of runes etched beneath. "I found history by accident. When I was a child, I followed my father across the stars. He lived by the Creed — never remove the helmet. Never falter. Never question." Rynar's gloved hand paused mid-motion, the memory drawing his gaze distant. "I only saw his face once… when I buried him."

A faint exhale. "I stumbled across this place while tracking old trade routes, looking for forgotten stashes and outposts long abandoned. The sensors picked up anomalies in the readings, subtle energy signatures — nothing anyone else would notice. Most would call it luck. I call it necessity. It led me here."

For a moment, he said nothing. The only sound was the settling rubble and the faint hum of Armel's jetpack cooling.

"When I couldn't carry his wars anymore, I sought what came before them. The stories buried beneath our boots — those, at least, speak honestly."


He rose and looked toward the newly revealed passage, his hand resting lightly on his helmet's side as though considering whether to don it again. "Come," he said quietly. "Let's see what truths survived down here."

Armel

 

[Armel]

​

"I've heard of those that follow the Creed. Pious but impractical." he commented entirely from the Neo-Crusader perspective, a perspective of ordered war which seemed a strange concept to a such a chaotic people.

Armel's face was covered by an obvious expression of discomfort, oblivious to the fact he had no helmet on to hide his expressions. "In my experience, dark holes in jungles never bring good luck." he commented.

He waited until Rynar took the first step down into the tunnel before following. He felt his mechanical hand gravitate towards his beskad as the light from the outside world began to dim. Instinctively he donned his helmet but elected to keep the blastweave hood down. He flicked another switch on his gauntlet, activating a single torch on his helmet.

As he spoke his voice was now filtered back through his vocabulator. "Do you ever miss it? The battles? I imagine there isn't much in the way of warfare as an exiled historian."

Rynar Solde ​

 

[Rynar Solde]

Rynar chuckled low through the vox before the sound tapered off into something quiet, almost nostalgic.
"I've met many who think as you do. Piety and practicality rarely walk side by side, especially among our kind," he said as his boots echoed down the tunnel's sloping stone. "The Creed gave me purpose when exile left me hollow. But even purpose can feel like a cage."

He raised his rifle's built-in light, scanning across worn carvings half-devoured by roots and time. Cupcake padded behind them both, her steps silent but her eyes never leaving Armel. The Nexu's tail swished once, a slow warning that she was watching.

At the Zeltron's question, Rynar hesitated before answering.
"I miss the brotherhood more than the battles. The noise of war fades, but the silence afterward lingers longer than you'd expect." His gaze softened. "You're right though—these days, I trade blasterfire for dust and relics. Sometimes, that feels like its own kind of war."

He paused at a side chamber, brushing his gloved fingers across a sigil that had once been carved deep into the wall. "It was Korda Veydran who told me of this place," Rynar continued, voice dropping slightly. "He follows Domina Prime's House now—her cult sees war as divinity, destruction as rebirth. We were... allies of circumstance, once. He pointed me here before he vanished again into whatever fire consumes him these days."

Straightening, Rynar turned toward Armel and nodded to the tunnel ahead. "So here I am. Digging through the ashes of our people's faith, hoping to find something worth remembering before men like Korda turn it all to flame."


Cupcake brushed against his leg as they walked deeper. Rynar glanced back at Armel. "Come on, Crusader. Let's see what ghosts still whisper in these stones."

Armel

 

[Armel]

​

"Couldn't imagine the Crusade would've gone anywhere if we couldn't take off our lids." he thought for a moment on the idea of it. "It seems rather... solitary. Lonely."

As the navigated their way further down the dark tunnel Armel allowed himself a glance over the shoulder, his eyes met with the four eyes of the Nexu that seemed to have an eerie glow in the dark. He still wasn't entirely sold on felines, akk dogs and massiffs felt like much warmer company. Regardless he wouldn't push his luck and his hand which seemed magnetised to his beskad fell to his side.

Rynar than talked of war and brotherhood. "Domina Prime eh? She was a hotshot in the Crusade, we'd hear tales about her clashes with the sorcerers." he mused on past nights spent huddled around campfires back on Dxun.

"She's right you know. To worship war. It's how we appease Kad Ha'ranggir." Armel's words reeked of indoctrination and zeal and on the surface seemed as if someone had put them in his mouth. But there was an unmistakable fire to it, a fire that burned deep in his soul. "If only she hadn't shacked up with that 'empire'."

Armel disregarded when Ryanar spoke of how easily folk like his friend Korda would burn down this history. "Had we a few hundred warriors like the friend you speak of then perhaps we really would've made it to Coruscant."

Armel watched with narrowed eyes as cupcake passed him and went over to Rynar.

"How much further does this passage go? I can barely see the light from where we came."

Rynar Solde ​

 

[Rynar Solde]

Rynar's steps slowed as Armel spoke, the weight of the Zeltron's words lingering in the stale air between them. "Aye," he murmured, voice echoing faintly off the walls, "solitary fits it well. We wear the steel to remind ourselves what we are—warriors. But even the strongest iron rusts without company."

Cupcake padded past Armel, the faint gleam of her four eyes flickering against the tunnel's uneven stone. Rynar absently reached out to scratch the creature's neck as she brushed by, the small moment of contact grounding him.


"Domina Prime," he said at last, tone shifting, quieter, but edged. "She was fire once—unyielding, brilliant, and terrible. I respect her conviction, even if her path now leads through ruin. Kad Ha'Rangir calls for rebirth through destruction… but too many forget that rebirth must follow." His gaze hardened slightly. " Korda Veydran never understood that part either."

The tunnel widened, revealing a deeper chamber shrouded in mist and shadow. The air grew colder, damp. As Rynar took a step forward, the ground gave way beneath his boot—stone crumbling under years of neglect. His body pitched forward into empty space.

Before he could react, a low growl erupted behind him, and Cupcake lunged—her jaws clamping onto the back of his belt. The sudden jerk stopped him short, boots scraping against the edge as gravel cascaded into the pit below.

"Dank farrik—easy, girl," Rynar hissed, steadying himself as the Nexu hauled him back onto solid ground. He took a long breath, then turned to Armel with a wry look visible even beneath the shadows. "Remind me to give her extra rations tonight."

Cupcake huffed, tail flicking once before she padded to the edge, sniffing down into the black void. Rynar followed her gaze.


"Looks like the old builders wanted to keep secrets buried deep," he muttered, slinging his rifle to his back. "We'll need to find another way around. You still with me, Crusader?"

Armel

 

[Armel]

​

Armel stopped in his tracks as Rynar spoke. "Rebirth eh?" he said to himself.

He reflected on the words Carduul had spoke to him years back on Dxun, of why they fought. "Been so long since I thought about what comes after. Guess that's how it goes in war, live day-by-day."

Before he could utter another word he watched as the floor beneath Rynar's footing gave in. His eyes widened and he lunged forward to try grab him but the Zeltron was too far behind. It was good that his Nexu was such a faithful companion and Armel watched as the feline caught Rynar before he disappeared into the darkness. He exhaled a sigh of relief.

"Good beast you get there, didn't know you could train 'em like that." he said as he stared at the Nexu.

Armel shined his torch on Rynar and gave him a once over. Satisfied that he was fine he edged towards the hole and shined his torch down it. Whatever was down there it went deep and the darkness seemed to swallow the light. He looked over shoulder to his jetpack for a brief moment but pushed the thought out his mind. There was no telling how deep it went.

"Yeah I'm with you, besides I don't even know if I could find my way back out at this point." He looked to Rynar. "So where now? And please don't say down that hole."

Rynar Solde ​

 

[Rynar Solde]

Rynar dusted off his vambrace and gave Cupcake an appreciative scratch beneath her chin. The Nexu purred—if the low, rumbling growl of such a creature could be called that.

"She's more stubborn than trained," he said, glancing back toward Armel. "But I'll take loyalty in any form. Comes rarer these days."

He turned toward the pit, activating a small wrist-mounted scanner. The device hummed faintly, casting thin blue lines down into the darkness. After a few seconds, a quiet tone confirmed what he already suspected.

"Not as bad as it looks," he muttered, holstering his rifle and crouching near the edge. "Depth reads less than fifteen meters. Broken stone down there… likely part of the lower access hall." He straightened, giving Armel a faint grin visible even beneath the shadow of his brow. "So, unfortunately for you—" he nodded to the pit, "—down we go."

He clipped a thin repelling cable to a nearby brace of collapsed masonry, testing its hold. Cupcake rumbled in mild protest but sat, tail curling neatly around her paws.

"I'll go first. Cupcake'll follow on command," Rynar said, swinging one leg over the edge. "If it gives way, jump clear to the wall and ride the descent. You look built for it."

He paused, looking back to the Zeltron with a flicker of dry amusement.
"Unless, of course, you've grown attached to daylight."

With that, he began his descent, boots scraping against the rough stone as he lowered himself into the dark. His helmet's glowstrip cut through the black, tracing outlines of ancient pillars and dust-choked reliefs below.


"Come on, Crusader," his voice echoed faintly upward. "Let's see if history's worth the bruises."

Armel

 

[Armel]

​

"Not as bad as it looks eh?" Armel said. "Still not sure how much I like cramped dark spaces." He kicked a loose rock down the hole, listening as it clattered when it his the bottom.

He eyed the repelling cable that he set up, grimacing under his helmet. He never was any good at repelling, something about hugging a rope only an inch or so thick to drop a great height just didn't sit right with him. He watched as Rynar readied the descent, as if he had done it a thousand times before.

"Guess this is the norm for you then, with ruins like this." he commented.

As Rynar gave a snarky comment about daylight Armel could do nothing but let out a grumble. As the historian descended he looked to the Nexu who seemed equally as unhappy about their current path forward.

"You and me both." he said softly.

He wandered right to the edge of the whole and grabbed the cable with his right hand and gave it a yank. It seemed secure but the way the rocks above crumbled really didn't put him at ease.

"Ah screw it." he said before grabbing the jetpack key on his wrist. He'd explain the waste of fuel to his comrades later.

The jetpack sputtered and right as it came to life he leapt down the whole, feeling his whole body jolt as an intense blast of jet caught him in the air. The sound echoed through the room as Armel slowly descended.

Rynar was already at the bottom when Armel touched the ground and Armel simply offered a shrug as to why he decided on his own way down. The room was dark but expansive, Armel starting to shine his torch onto the walls looking for anything that could tell him what this place could be.

"So what we thinking? Seems gloomy for a warhall. Probably perfect for a tomb." He guessed, his answers shots in the dark.

Rynar Solde ​