Lyra Ventor
He offered her a look but there was a lot as he moved looking through it all in the force. The interior hall opened into smaller chambers that went down. He spoke looking at her though when he moved. "Just think we could have seen giant space whales baattling colossal wasps." He said it more as a comparison and he hadn't seen what they actually looked like but he had fought both and he could see them in the force as he had done it. The inner chamber branched off as it was going down and curved around. He was sensing it more as it was dark but he dug into his belt pulling out a glow rod and activating it as it glowed softly with golden light.
The curved pathway opened into a subterranean rotunda that was a feat of architectural geometry that defying the known records of masonry he was certain. The walls were composed of a seamless, non-reflective obsidian, a stone so dense and dark that it appears to swallow the peripheral light, creating an oppressive sense of infinite depth. The obsidian is not stacked or mortared but seems to have been liquid-carved or fused into a singular, continuous curve. A heavy, low-hanging indigo vapor clings to the floor, moving in sluggish, viscous currents like dry ice across a stage. This mist is thick enough to obscure the feet of anyone walking through it, yet it remains tethered to the ground, never rising above the knee.
The air within this enclosed space remains unnaturally cool and stagnant, lacking the mechanical hum of a standard life-support system or the forced circulation of filtered oxygen found in the main chamber of the temple. Instead, the atmosphere feels ancient even with it having been new air from the thin shafts, as if the room itself has been sealed for millennia, preserving a climate that is entirely alien to the surface world above. The jedi master was looking at more of it as he had been in places like this before and he debated something at the edge of his mind. "This is familiar... in a way." He said it but looked. "This may be something older then Torval thought."
Along the perimeter of this obsidian rotunda, the architectural continuity was broken by shallow, vertical niches cut with mathematical precision every three meters. Within each alcove sat a slab of the same matte stone, though these horizontal surfaces are polished to a high sheen, reflecting the faint, ambient glow of the indigo vapor. Upon these slabs lay various sleepers a diverse and shifting collection of human and near-human species whose physiological traits suggest origins from across the stars, yet their presence here predates any recorded colonization of the sector. The jedi master was looking at more of it as his attention went to it. He looked at them but didn't touch and didn't move closer keeping a hand to still Lyra.
The sleepers were draped in ceremonial wraps, the fabric once perhaps ornate but now reduced to a gray, translucent gossamer that clings to their motionless forms. Their skin has transitioned into a waxy, semi-translucent state, a physical byproduct of a stasis that has lasted far beyond the natural lifespan of their respective species. Veins are visible as faint, dark lines beneath the surface of their limbs, but there is no trembling of the eye or twitching of the finger; they exist in a state of suspended animation so profound that the boundary between biological life and mineral preservation has become indistinguishably blurred.
Standing in a position of eternal vigilance over each occupied slab is an obsidian sentinel, a three-meter-tall monolith that dominates the space of the alcove. These watchers are not carved with the fluid realism of classical sculpture, nor do they possess the sharp, utilitarian angles of a combat droid. Instead, they are stylized, elongated humanoids, their proportions stretched to an unsettling degree. The limbs are spindly and lack any visible joints, rivets, or seams, appearing as though the obsidian was poured into a mold rather than chiseled. There are no optical sensors, cooling vents, or external power cells to indicate a mechanical nature, yet the statues possess a presence that is far more imposing than a standard security unit.
The heads of these sentinels are smooth, featureless ovoids, slightly inclined forward as if perpetually peering down at the face of the sleeper beneath them. The obsidian is polished to a mirror-like finish, a stark contrast to the matte obsidian of the surrounding walls, and it carries a deep, internal luster that seems to trap and refract what little light enters the chamber. The jedi master was looking at it when he spoke. "Beyond shadow." He said it as a thing but was checking on more of the dangerous parts that they had and he spoke only a moment. "It is a place that exists within the force and dreams... where some can drift and become trapped."
The optical properties of these obsidian sentinels create a persistent and unsettling illusion of movement. Because of the specific, high-curvature polishing on the faces and shoulders of the statues, the mirror-sheen reflects the environment in a distorted, panoramic fashion. As an observer moves through the rotunda, their own light source or movement is caught in the convex surfaces of the black stone. This causes a shifting highlight to travel across the featureless brows of the statues, mimicking the glint of an eye or the turning of a head. The jedi masters senses were expanding outwards as he watched more of it though and he knew other places as he walked in the center guiding Lyra to walk behind him.
This watching effect was constant and he could feel it... even see it; from every possible angle in the room, the curvature of the obsidian ensures that a portion of the statue's face is reflecting the viewer's position. This creates a mechanical sensation of being tracked by hundreds of silent, black-glass eyes, even though the statues themselves remain perfectly, unnervingly stationary. The reflection is so crisp that one can see the distorted image of the entire hall captured within the chest and forehead of a single sentinel, turning each statue into a dark, distorted lens through which the room is perpetually observed. "Avoid the alcoves."
The physical temperature of the obsidian adds a final, practical layer of anomaly to the environment. Despite the humid indigo vapor that permeated the floor, the statues remain unnaturally cold to the touch, far below the ambient temperature of the room. This extreme thermal disparity causes a thin, crystalline layer of frost to form and then sublimate on the stone's surface in a continuous cycle, creating a faint, ghostly shimmer around the silhouettes of the watchers. The figures remained but Syn found a place on the other side as he looked up. "The jedi once found a place that was tied to the realm before and there was something worse then a darkside beast."
Syn
