Private Hidden Fissures | The Enclave

[The Quartermaster]

S E V
T O K

The pre-recorded holomessage winked on.

"Listen. I know that this isn't exactly what you signed up for, but it still might be of interest."

"The place is called Sev Tok. It's an uninhabited world, probably because of the constant seismic quakes and volcanic activity. Thing is, I have some old datacrons that say an entire clan once had their covert on the world. It doesn't say what clan, and truth to be told, whatever clan tried to live on the world is probably extinct by now. But, that's beside the point. I sent out a few scouts a while back, and they reported back that a new fissure opened up an entrance into what could be an old Covert."

"Thing is, they were only able to get a glimpse of the entrance. I'm going to need someone to get down there and report back on what they find; this could be a possible base of operation in the future, or it could have old relics of our culture. Usually, I wouldn't send in someone solo on a mission like this -- but in these conditions, a lone wolf that's light on their feet might have better luck."

"So that's it. Get in and get out. Once you go down into whatever it is, you're going to be on your own. Stick to your guts, and I have faith that you'll be able to make it out alive."

"Good luck."

The pre-recorded holomessage ended.

Kreslin Westwind​

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[Kreslin Westwind]

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O B J E C T I V E: FIND THE VAULT​

The Descent-Part One

Kreslin descended slowly down the cliff face, his hands clawing at the few handholds he can find while his feet try to lead the way further down into the darkness. As he lets go with his left hand to reach for his next handhold, the rock he was using to balance on suddenly gives way. Kreslin has a single, sickening feeling of weightlessness, his stomach rising up only to be slammed back down along with the rest of him, as his right hand locks in place. He lets out a strangle grunt as he slams into the cliff face, sparks flying off his armor before vanishing far below.

Kreslin takes a few moments to catch his breath as his feet find a new, sturdier rock on which to stand on as he cautiously releases his right hand's death grip. Glancing down at the glove covering his hand, Kreslin is surprised to see no new cuts in the torn cloth, though a wound he had earned earlier from a similar event was open once again. Reaching down to the belt at his hip, Kreslin pulls out a small can, which he proceeds to spray on the wound, wincing slightly at the sudden sting and cold rush. The next moment, he relaxes his hand to see the bleeding has stopped, and the wound mostly closed.

Turning around slowly, Kreslin lowers himself into a sitting position on the outcropping he is now on, his feet dangling over the side and into the depths below, that even his helmet's flashlight and night vision setting can see entirely through. He leans his head forward, able to rest it without straining himself on the opposite side of the ravine he was climbing down.

“This whole planet’s one karking mess, isn’t it, Galia…” The words are barely a whisper from the Mandalorians lips as he rests there, his mind drifting back to different times, better memories, and generally locations that did not involve a five hundred meter free climbing expedition.

The whole expedition to the world of Sev Tok had been poorly planned and rushed to fruition, exactly how Kreslin hated doing things. During one of the planet’s regular groundquakes, a large ravine had been torn open out in the wilderness of the planet. Nothing really new about that, and most people wrote the uninhabited planet off as little more than a nuisance. All except for the Quartermaster, though.

Luckily for Kreslin, the Quartermaster had shown his interest in the world with spades, and dispatched several scouts to investigate rumors of an old Clan that used to call the world their home. They had since vanished from any modern records, and no one even remembered their name. The scouts however, had found the potential location of their old covert. The Quartermaster had given the task to Kreslin if he had wanted it, and with the clock ticking for the rest of the galaxy to explore the Vault, Kreslin had leapt at the chance.

He had initially planned to simply jetpack down the ravine to the entrance, but the groundshake that had opened the way to the compound was still having some effect on the landscape. The ravine, formerly several meters wide by the scouts reports, had shrunk down to less than two. Kreslin was not sure how such a thing was possible, but at the same time, he was not a geologist. So, instead of debating why things had happened, he had simply decided to plunge feet first into the ravine, and see whether or not the children had truly been liars.

Opening his eyes, Kreslin pushed himself back to his feet, determined to keep moving.

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[Kreslin Westwind]

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O B J E C T I V E: ENTER THE VAULT​

After what felt like an eternity of slow, careful climbing down the ravine, Kreslin finally spotted the tunnel entrance the children had been talking about. Pushing himself down the last few feet, Kreslin let out a groan sigh of relief as his feet touched the solid ground of the tunnel. Turning, Kreslin walked to one side of the tunnel, roughly three meters by three meters in a half circle moving further underground. There, he detached a small bundle from his belt, flipping open a small latch and grasping two points of the grey cloth within.

In a quick flourish, Kreslin unfurled the grey and gold cape of his armor, attaching it above his right pauldron, and letting it settle over a majority of the right side of his body. The cape itself was nothing outstanding, only a thin reinforced cloth to add a slight second layer of protection to Kreslin, though in a true fight it would amount to little. But, it held significance to Clan Westwind, and for that reason alone he would wear it. The only reason he had worn it climbing down was the sheer stupidity of the idea and the climbing hazard it would have been. But now, as he reached back and pulled his ARC-9965 from where it had been maglocked to his back, it was time to don it once again.

Raising the rifle in his hand, he activated the flashlight attached to the side of the barrel, and combined with the small flashlight of his helmet, was finally able to pierce the darkness of the ravine. For some reason, night vision was not effective here, and Kreslin suspected some kind of compound in the walls was to blame, but he did not have the time, or interest for that matter, to stop and investigate. No, his slow, careful march down the sloping tunnel led him ever further underground.

Kreslin had lost track of how long he had been walking for when the tunnel suddenly ended, and was replaced by a metallic archway, and two massive sealed doors. Lowering his blaster slightly, Kreslin directed the light to a slight discoloration of the door, and with a smile, realizing what it was, he deactivated both his helmet light and the blaster light. A passed after both lights went out before the mythosaur skull blazoned on the door came to life, casting a dark green glow a few inches from the door.

Reactivating both his lights, Kreslin watched as the skull faded, a smile on his face as he put together why the tunnel was so dark. Any invaders or threats who traveled down such a dark tunnel would have been using lights of some kind, if only to ensure they were not walking into any traps. Anyone who knew what they were looking for, or had been told to know, would not need any lights. The simple trick would have been enough to help anyone inside distinguish between friend or foe, simply by seeing whether or not they were using a flashlight. Kreslin smiled slightly, thinking that Galia would have enjoyed such thinking and preparation on the part of their people.

Reaching back, Kreslin attached the blaster to his back once again as he kneeled down before the door, running his hands along the arch that extended out into the tunnel a full meter before the doors even began. Slow, careful searching eventually found a small indention in the arch, and Kreslin worked his fingers against the hidden panel he had found for a few seconds before a clicking sound, followed by a quiet hiss echoed down the tunnel as the panel retracted, revealing a series of circuits beneath.

Kreslin was not the most adept when it came to splicing technology, and he had only recently really started picking up the talent. Leaning forward, he pulled a small toolkit from his belt, producing the equipment he needed as he set to work. A small twitching of his fingers sent a shower of sparks from the console, burning across Kreslin’s exposed hand. Grimacing against the pain, he corrected himself silently. It was not a talent he had picked up. It was a stubbornness that refused to let him be stopped by simple technology.

It took him another ten minutes of careful work, rerouting individual circuits with the small tools in his hands, before a chime sounded from the door. “It’s about karking time…” Pushing himself to his feet, Kreslin turned to face the doors of the compound, putting the tools back into the toolkit and attaching it to his belt, before reaching back to grab his blaster. As he was in the process of doing that though, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

Instinct and training saved him. As the second panel in the archway slid back, revealing a small blaster turret aimed directly at Kreslin, his body was already moving. The crimson bolt shot out and struck his left pauldron, sending him spinning to the ground from the impact of the blast, as well as his own motion and momentum. He had barely touched the ground when his blaster rifle cleared its place on his back. Rolling where he landed, Kreslin narrowly avoided a second shot from the turret, scoring a small crater in the rock of the tunnel. Bringing up his rifle, he fired three quick shots into the turret, detonating it in a shower of shrapnel and sparks.

He was back on his feet in the next few seconds, crouched down slightly, and his blaster rifle tracking for any more potential traps. After a few seconds of silence, Kreslin slowly rose back to his full height, the blaster never wavering as he advanced towards the door. His initial thought he had unlocked the door had been proven false, and after a second of staring at the cool surface for signs of further traps, he crouched back down at the exposed circuits, looking at his work. Narrowing his eyes, he sees a single circuit that he had changed in the wrong direction, and a simple flick of his slicer tools lit the panel, and the door, with a bright green light.

Mumbling to himself under his breath, Kreslin slowly hauled himself back to his feet as two meter thick doors slowly slid open, revealing another dark tunnel. This one however was lined with permacrete and durasteel, with a few light fixtures located at regular intervals along the hallway. He nodded to himself as he stepped forward into the darkness, his blaster barrel tearing a hole through the shadows. A hallway was more appropriate, and it finally meant he was on the right track.

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[Kreslin Westwind]

For an underground complex, Kreslin was rather surprised by how spacious the covert was. He had been moving carefully through the complex for a little over an hour already, marking locations for future investigation with a small smear of red paint it got from a small pod on his side. All it took was a quick move of running his thumb across the pod and then running his thumb across the surface. Under different circumstances, he would have investigated each room he came to, but he wanted to see if the hallways and large chambers connecting different sections of the covert were rigged with traps first, so he would have a secure place to fall back to wherever he was in the covert.

Emerging from another narrow hallway, Kreslin entered what appeared to have once been a dining hall for whatever Clan called this place home. Several long tables were scattered around the room, which itself was massive. Easily twenty meters in every direction, and a ceiling roughly half that in height. After scanning the room quickly for potential traps, Kreslin lowered the rifle in his hands. Reaching back, he stowed the weapon on his back as he stepped further into the room. Approaching one of the tables, Kreslin crouched down to right it where it lay crookedly against the wall.

Settling it in place, he leaned down to look at the cloth that covered the metal table, running his hand across the dusty white and red tabard used as decoration. On it, he could see the broken sword and flame sigil he had seen all across the covert so far, and he had quickly decided it had been the Clan’s symbol, but he could not place a name to it as hard as he tried to remember from Mandalorian history back on Recluse. The tabard here, however, had one added piece of information that was useful to him. Small text written beneath the sigil.

Gaanla Aliit. The most direct translation would be Chosen Clan, though writing it this way in Mando’a was not the usual way one identified a Clan. It did not sound right for the Clan’s actual name to be placed before the designation, and other more traditional Clans would have written it as Clan Chosen. Perhaps it was just a minor thing Kreslin was fixating on he mused, pushing himself back to his feet and reaching for his blaster.

A sound behind Kreslin sent him leaping forward, rolling across the top of the table he had just righted and flipping it over with his free hand, creating a rudimentary barricade. He rested the blaster rifle on top of the lip of the table, staring out across the rest of the room and searching for the source of the sound. After a few moments, Kreslin tracked down a small movement along one wall of the chamber.

A small rodent was scurrying along the wall, a long extended tail dragging along behind it and creating a trail of space where dirt had been moved. Kreslin stared at it for a few seconds before letting out a breath he had not realized he had been holding. He was still looking out for any potential traps, and it was a good idea to not take any chances, but his reaction to such a harmless rodent was a bit embarrassing.

“For once, it is a good thing to be alone.” Pushing himself to his feet, Kreslin was about to depart the room when a second thought crossed his mind. The compound should have been fully sealed from the outside world. The entrance he had come through would have been the only entrance left if the Clan who lived here had left, and for a myriad of other safety reasons. Raising his blaster, the light at the end drifted across the ground and Kreslin began to track the trail the rodent's tail left in the ground.

Following the trail which quickly led him from the room, Kreslin pushed further into the compound, crossing hallways and chambers he had already been in, before finally coming to a door he had initially only glanced at and marked for future searching. Crouching down towards the ground, Kreslin spotted the small hole that had been made between the wall and the door, possibly from the groundquakes. Rising, Kreslin reached over and thumbed the activation on the doors terminal, and a slight his echoed through the hallway as the door slid open, revealing a large, shadowed form waiting in the doorway.

He did not have a chance to bring up his weapon before the shadow moved, tumbling towards him. Kreslin felt its impact against his shoulder, but instead of a potential threat and the agony of wounds inflicted at such close range, he was confronted with the skeletal remains of what looked like a human. With a disgusted grunt, Kreslin pushed the skeleton off of him, the weathered bones clattering to the ground and dispersing in multiple directions. Even from the brief view of it, Kreslin could see the claw and tooth marks in the skeletons bones.

They were too large to have been from the rodent he had seen.

Glancing back up at the room he had opened, Kreslin could see the smooth walls of the chamber had been warped in at the very back. Large shards of shattered metal were strewn across the floor, and a looming, rocky tunnel loomed just beyond the forced opening. “If I was a betting man, I would say that was not part of the original plans…”

Glancing down at the skeleton one last time, Kreslin shook his head and raised his blaster, marching into the room before beginning his descent into the newly discovered tunnel.