Public The Khe’Ruun-Tal Codex

[Liin Terallo]

LOCATION: Rakatan Prime

There are some discoveries that you publish. And some that you bury so deeply that even the Force itself forgets where you hid them. The Null Codex belongs to the latter.

Rakata Prime is steeped in the Force. The air itself carries echoes of domination, of an empire that once divided the galaxy into rulers and subjects, attuned and expendable. But beneath the jungles and shattered spires lies something far less triumphant. A final argument carved into the planet’s mantle by a species that understood too late, what unchecked imbalance inevitably becomes.

This world is what remains when no one wins.

The Rakata who created the Codex no longer exist in any meaningful sense. Their cities still scar the surface; great latticework spires half-consumed by mineral bloom and rot. But whatever ideology once sustained their empire finished devouring itself long before the jungle reclaimed the rest.

The Codex was not kept in a temple. It was entombed beneath a late-era research complex cut directly into Rakata Prime’s crust. A place designed for iteration and failure rather than reverence. Sealed chambers. Redundant countermeasures. Entire sections collapsed inward, as if even the architects no longer trusted what they had made.

Whoever authored it did not want it remembered. They wanted it contained. This artifact does not radiate power. It does not sing. It does not call. It subtracts. In it's proximity, the Force behaves as though it has encountered a conceptual error. Not resistance but absence. Sensitives report vertigo, nausea, a deep instinctive revulsion; like pressing one’s awareness against a void that should not exist. Non-sensitives experience something else entirely: pressure, stillness, a clarity so neutral it becomes unsettling.

There is no favor. No rejection. Just equilibrium.

The lattice structures embedded throughout the chamber; repeating geometries, isotopic anchors long stabilized suggest this was never meant to be a singular device. It was a framework. A model. One refined through generations of failure with each iteration pushing closer to permanence. Their final mistake was believing nullification alone would end the divide.

But I know better. I have spent the last few years of my life being hunted for attempting to add what the galaxy insists must be inherited. Synthetic resonance. Artificial access. A way to close the gap that breeds inequality, resentment, and wars disguised as destiny.

The Rakata attempted the reverse. A nullification process so complete that prolonged exposure does not merely suppress connection - it rewrites it. Cellular. Heritable. A silence that persists long after the source is removed.

If refined… it would change everything. Which is why I am not here simply to study it, but to expand upon it. The same lattice principles that strip resonance could, in theory, be inverted. Paired. Delayed. A failsafe embedded into power itself. A counterweight that sleeps until needed. Insurance, should my own work ever fall into hands less restrained than mine.

Power without consequence is what destroyed this world. I will not repeat their error. That is why I came to Rakata Prime. And why I know that I did not come alone. There are others moving through the ruins above me already - drawn by fear, by hope, by ideology, or by the belief that no one should be allowed to decide who gets to touch the Force at all.

They may be right. Because if the Codex is real - and all evidence suggests that it is - then my freedom, my research, and the lives of everyone who has set foot on this planet are already entangled with it's outcome.

The question is no longer what the Null Codex is. It’s who Rakata Prime will prove right. And who it will erase.

Tags: Persephone Dashiell Kiran Arlos The Lord of Hunger Xitli Sacul @anyone else wishing to join in.

 

[Persephone Dashiell]

RAKATA PRIME

​

The lead about Rakata Prime came from her personal tutor. Rumors of a small group planning on hunting for a mysterious object only known as the Codex. From what was known to herself it was a valuable piece for Force Users. As usual, for those who didn't have the Force unique pieces always sold well with collectors.

Did Persephone hold any illusions about capturing the piece? Not in the slightest. However, if there was one valuable piece it meant other, slightly less valuable pieces may be in the same location. Ones that would be overlooked by the other groups digging through the ruins. Lucky for her, Zee had an old map of the ruins he was able to refer to in real-time.

As usual, the entrance went down quite sharply. She was moving quietly and with intention. Running afoul of some hot headed idiot looking to make a credit wasn't in her game plan. She was smart. Calculated. Let others go for this device and she could walk away with Rakatan technology to sell while others had their back turns.

A nice way to ring in the post Life Day holiday stretch.

"Remember, just be quiet. Let the others make fools of themselves."

Kiran Arlos | Liin Terallo
​

 

[Kiran Arlos]

Persephone Dashiell
​

Kiran Arlos gave the barest nod, keeping his steps light as the passage angled down.

"Understood," he murmured, voice low enough to vanish into the stone. "Let them shout. We'll take what they miss."

He slipped to the rougher edge of the stair, eyes tracking the dark ahead while distant voices echoed somewhere above, already too loud, already too proud.

Kiran exhaled once, slow and controlled, eyes scanning for seams in the wall, hairline fractures, old conduit lines that suggested hidden doors or maintenance access. The kind of places a group chasing a legend wouldn't bother to look.

"We stay quiet," he finished, the words more promise than agreement. "We let them make the noise. We take what they don't even think to see."

 

[Persephone Dashiell]

RAKATA PRIME

[ I am detecting life forms a good distance from us. The nature of the ruins does limit my range though Miss Persephone. ]

She and Kiran Arlos were on the same page. She would let the others duke it out for this item, a codex? Some type of knowledge bank she suspected, different than a holocron. Lots of cultures had codex-like devices with knowledge scattered about in academia or in museums. Rakata were known for their technology prowess so this was even more special.

Now if these idiots shot one another and she just happened to scoop it up in the aftermath? She wasn't going to say no. Which is why she had a plan in place.

"True. Now, we need to get close-ish to them." Flashlight bounced around, looking for anything worth stopping to explore. Nothing yet but they had barely started their journey downwards. "First, probably more good stuff. You know, the further away from the entrance the more valuable. Second, because if the others get into a shootout and kill one another, we can scoop it up. Always one of my contingency plans."

[ I suspect a high chance of betrayal among loosely aligned individuals given the amount of credits that can be obtained. ]

 

[Vexorion]

​

[]

Torture Me - Davey Suicide

​

Location: Rakata Prime
Objective: Ascertain the Truth of the Codex
Tag: Liin Terallo : Anyone


Vexorion descended through the planet's pearlescent cloud layers as if sinking into a dream that had forgotten it was meant to end. Rakata Prime unfolded beneath his ship in impossible beauty: emerald jungles braided with silver rivers, stone spires softened by moss and time, the air shimmering with a false serenity that made the Force feel distant and muffled. He set down on a stretch of blackened soil, the landing struts hissing as they met ground that remembered fire better than life.

When the ramp lowered and he stepped out, the planet greeted him with warm air and birdsong, an almost devotional calm. Vexorion paused, letting his senses widen, only to feel the rot beneath the splendor: ancient suffering fossilized into the bedrock, a history of dominion and collapse whispering from every leaf and stone.

He surveyed the horizon with open contempt, seeing past the surface beauty to the truth beneath; this world was not sacred, not lost, not misunderstood. It was a wound that had learned how to bloom. "If the Codex exists," he spat, voice swallowed by the jungle, "it will be buried beneath lies like these."

The Force here did not flow; it curdled, looping back on itself in patterns that suggested intelligence without mercy. Whether the Codex was a relic of power or merely a myth grown fat on fear no longer mattered. Rakata Prime itself was the evidence, proof that civilizations could master gods and still rot into irrelevance. To Vexorion, the planet was nothing more than blight on the backside of the galaxy, masquerading as paradise, and he advanced into it not as a seeker of truth, but as an executioner of illusion.

Vexorion moved through the jungle as though it recoiled from him, broad leaves trembling and folding inward, vines tightening in slow, nervous spirals as he passed. The air grew thick with the scent of damp stone and ancient decay, each breath tasting of ages best left undisturbed. Ahead, the terrain rose into a modest outcrop of weathered black rock, its surface etched with half-erased geometries that made the Force itch and misalign.

Nestled against it was a lone encampment: too orderly, too alive; canvas shelters glowing softly under portable lights, sensor pylons blinking in patient rhythms. Archeologists clustered over dig sites like ants worrying a corpse, hired laborers hauled crates with weary obedience, and droids skittered and hovered, recording, scanning, cataloging things that did not wish to be remembered.

He stopped at the jungle's edge, unseen, watching them with something colder than curiosity. Their voices and machines formed a thin, defiant bubble of noise against the vast, listening silence of Rakata Prime. None of them felt the way the ground subtly flexed beneath their feet, or how the shadows leaned inward, attentive. Vexorion stepped forward at last, letting his presence leak into the air like a pressure drop before a storm.

"Well," he said softly, the words carrying with unnatural clarity through the camp, "this looks like a good place to start."

​

 

[Xitli Sacul]

Location: Rakata Prime
Objective: Retrieve the Codex
Tags: Liin Terallo Persephone Dashiell Kiran Arlos Vexorion

Notable Equipment:
Tlapixqui

---

Arrival

Rakatan, he knew the name, he knew their world. It carried much the same importance to them as Xak Tharakus did his species, a holy world, a paradise world but that was where the similiarites ended. The Trade Federation had once described his kind as a race of Shopkeepers, it was an apt but crude description of their culture. The Rakatan were conquerers, Avali weren't supposed to be, so then why was he here? Chasing Khan Terallo across the known universe like a raven chasing wolves.

"We breached atmosphere Great One. Should I prepare your retinue?"

"No, not this time." Xitli answered, his voice delivering a payload of authority that subdued Acalan from asking further questions. It wasn't subtle and made the Satorian's body flinch, as though he'd just been punched in the gut. Acalan's reaction made Xitli pause to consider his actions, he didn't like asserting his glamour to enforce his command but patience with the galaxy was wearing thin.

"Keep the Chico in low-orbit and await my command, I hope to conclude our operations here quickly."

"Yes. Great One." Acalan replied, his snout curling into a concerned expression, this was unusual.

------

Descent

Unfurled the winged-serpent descended down to Rakantan Prime, the canopy waving beneath him and the wind brushing against feather and scale until he struck ground. In the shadow of a stone monolith, the Avali admired the craftsmanship to had stood so long, and all without access to Novarium. It was a feat worthy of the people that once claimed dominion of this world. Tasting the air, he relished the tea-like aroma's that clung to the forest and surplanted the monolith with the amber spires of his home.

Alone. He could finally let himself loose, and relish in this opportunity to relive an experience that felt almost foreign to him. It had been centuries since he laid talons on the dirt of his homeworld, lesser races had children and died in that time.

Designed by Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Liin Terallo]

I sit on the stone floor because standing feels optional. The chamber itself is older than symmetry, carved when mathematics still bled into faith. Latticework etchings spiral across the walls. They were crude at first glance; but deliberate the longer I study them. Ratios repeat. Angles correct themselves. Someone calculated here, not with instruments, but with conviction. I copy the carvings by hand, making slow, reverent strokes with my pencil onto paper in the same way that an art student might copy a master’s work in a gallery.

The Codex is close. Not close enough to see. But close enough to interfere. My synthetic abilities do not activate so much as they misbehave. A flicker behind the eyes. A pressure change in the air that never quite resolves. It felt like static crawling across my skin. I press my teeth together and breathe through it.

That is when I feel them. Not one presence. Several. Diffuse. Untrained. Above me - one level up, perhaps two - movement echoes wrong. Too light. Too careless. Voices drift faintly through stone conduits, young and excited and catastrophically optimistic. Treasure hunters. Children, really. The kind that mistake surviving ruins for earning them.

Elsewhere, further out, there is structure. Order. The careful footfalls of professionals. An encampment complete with canvas tents, portable lights, field tables. Archaeologists, I would guess; probably drawn here by the same holo-documentary that has been circulating for weeks now. “The Rakata: Architects of Absence.” Sensationalist title. But surprisingly solid research.

I shift my weight to stand and the world tilts violently to the left. Pain blooms at the base of my skull, sharp and punishing, as if the Codex itself disapproves of ambition. I drop back down to the floor with one hand braced against the stone, the other clutching my head until the stars retreat back where they belong. My notebook and pencil half-hazardly strewn about in front of me on the floor.

Right. Take it slow. I fumble for my canteen, the water warm and metallic but grounding. Drink. Breathe. Do not rush artifacts that predate the concept of mercy.

Somewhere beyond the walls, something changes. The sense of disciplined calm I felt earlier sharpens and narrows. A presence steps into proximity near the archaeologist camp, heavy with intent and ceremony. The air itself seems to recoil from it. I do not need to see crimson banners or hear declarations to know what that is. A Sith has arrived.

And further still; off-axis, almost deliberately avoiding the obvious paths - I feel another anomaly settle into place. Familiar in it's presence. Calculated. Observant. Xitli.

I let my head rest briefly against the wall, eyes closed, fingers still tracing the latticework I have copied half a dozen times now. And somewhere nearby, stone waits to be opened. It begins with a sound that does not belong to this level. A hollow clang like metal against stone echoes far too long for comfort. The noise rolls through the ruin like a question asked too loudly in a sacred place.

Then the latticework beneath my fingers warms. Not by heat but activation. The etched lines I have been copying respond first; faintly luminescent, as though someone has drawn over my sketches with light. The geometry does not glow uniformly; it propagates, jumping from cut to cut in a sequence that mirrors the calculations I had just finished sketching.

Above me, something heavy slides. Stone grinds against stone; ancient and reluctant, almost as if a seal long forgotten has been nudged out of tolerance. The teenagers - wherever they are - have found something they were never meant to touch. That must be it.

My synthetic perception flares in protest. The pressure behind my eyes spikes with a sharpness that steals my breath. The sensation is wrong; both directionless and unstable. I brace myself with both hands flat against the floor as the chamber subtly reorients.

Not a collapse, but a correction. Gravity shifts by a few treacherous degrees. Loose debris skitters toward newly relevant edges. A distant shout echoes, abruptly cut off as the sound is pulled somewhere it should not be able to go. Water sloshes inside my canteen without me moving it.

Across the chamber, seams I had not noticed before illuminate in staggered intervals like lattice responding to lattice; a planetary-scale circuit waking in pieces rather than all at once. Whatever the Rakata built here was never meant to be activated cleanly.

And the Codex while still hidden answers. Not with power but with absence.

For half a second, the flicker in my head vanishes entirely. Silence. Perfect, terrifying silence. Then everything rushes back at once, leaving me dizzy and blinking, my balance utterly compromised.

Somewhere above, the archaeologist camp erupts into urgent motion. Voices are raised, instruments scrambling to recalibrate, field lights flickering as the ruin decides which rules it still intends to obey.

And somewhere closer than I like, the stone wall to my right exhales dust. A narrow fracture opens along a line I had just finished copying - precise, intentional - revealing darkness beyond it that feels… unfinished.

The ruin has noticed us. And it is adjusting accordingly.

Tags: Persephone Dashiell Kiran Arlos Vexorion Xitli Sacul

 

[Vexorion]

​

[]

Torture Me - Davey Suicide

​

Location: Rakata Prime
Objective: Ascertain the Truth of the Codex
Tag: Liin Terallo : Xitli Sacul


Vexorion moved through the archaeologists' camp like a shadow given intent, his presence bending the spotlights and making the canvas tents seem thinner, more fragile, as though they might tear under the weight of what slept beneath the sands. Scholars hunched over crates of relics and half-cleaned stone fragments, their brushes whispering against ages of dust while generators hummed with a nervous, insectile pitch.

He observed them in silence; callused hands tracing symbols they did not understand, eager eyes glittering with the hope of discovery, each motion a small defiance against the vast, patient ruin rising from the ground nearby. The air tasted old, saturated with secrets that had waited millennia for careless minds to uncover them.

An archaeologist broke away from a worktable to walk beside him, a gaunt figure with ink-stained fingers and eyes rimmed red from sleepless nights. They spoke of the Codex in low voices, as if volume itself might wake something listening beneath the stone. The scholar described fragments; references to a living text, a thing that did not merely record knowledge but remembered those who read it, altering them in ways subtle and irreversible.

Vexorion listened, his gaze fixed on the jagged silhouette of the ruins, and when asked whether he believed the rumors were true, he paused just long enough for dread to bloom between them. "Truth," he said at last, "is often the least dangerous thing hidden in legends like these."

As he continued his slow walk, Vexorion felt the Codex's absence like a pressure behind the eyes, a gravitational pull from somewhere below the shattered halls. The camp bustled on, unaware that their careful measurements and cataloged shards were brushing against a history that despised being known. He sensed that the Codex was not waiting to be found; it was waiting to be acknowledged, and it marked those who drew too close with a patience that mocked mortality. Around him, the archaeologists worked with hopeful urgency, while the ruins watched back, ancient and amused, already counting the cost of curiosity.

Vexorion ignored the stares and the half-swallowed whispers that followed him as he crossed the threshold into the ruins, their curiosity clinging to his back like damp ash. Ropes creaked above, lanterns swayed, and the laborers' murmurs fractured into uneasy silence as he began his descent, boots scraping against stone that had not known a living footstep in epochs.

The air grew colder with each step downward, thick with a metallic tang that tasted faintly of old blood and older prayers. Symbols carved into the walls seemed to recoil from the artificial light, their angles wrong in ways that made the eye ache, as though the ruin itself resented being seen.

Deeper still, the ruins pressed inward, narrowing into corridors that felt less constructed than grown, their stones fused like bone around a hollow spine. Vexorion felt the Codex's pull strengthen, a low, resonant thrum that vibrated through his chest and into his thoughts, whispering promises of revelation wrapped in annihilation. He did not hurry; haste belonged to the fearful, and fear was nourishment for whatever waited below.

Above him, the world of camps and scholars faded into irrelevance, while ahead, in the waiting dark, something ancient seemed to inhale; aware at last that he was coming.

​

 

[Kiran Arlos]

Persephone Dashiell
​

He angled his light briefly, just enough to map the next bend, then cut it back down.

"We get close, but not seen," Kiran added, eyes narrowing into the dark. "Let them turn on each other. We stay patient, stay breathing…and pick up whatever falls out of their pockets when the screaming stops."

The field lights flickered in uneven rhythms, throwing nervous shadows down the shaft like the ruin was blinking.

He killed his own light immediately. "What the heck was that?" Kiran whisphered.

He heard Zee's voice chime in his ear, but he couldn't hear any of it. Kiran didn't need the droid to tell him the ruins were shifting their mood. He could feel it in the way the air tightened, in the faint tremor that threaded through the rock under his palm when he brushed the wall.


"Something tripped," he whispered, barely moving his lips. "Or something woke up."

 

[Xitli Sacul]

Location: Rakatan Prime
Objective: Retrieve the Codex
Tags: Liin Terallo Persephone Dashiell Kiran Arlos Vexorion

Notable Equipment:
Tlapixqui

---

Xitli stepped out of the illusion, letting the pain of nostalgia sharpen his mind. He stared at the structure a short while longer, it stood like an island amongst a sea of flora, surrounded by a beach of green blades that swayed gently in the wind, but no trees, only a small band grass, flanking it at all sides, and patches of unidentified fungi. The carved stone was decorated with geometric patterns of indiscernable purpose or value, they were random and Xitli's claws traced the maze with idle curiousity. As was to be expected, the sun-baked stone radiated heat, yet he remained suspicious.

Xitli, had spent decades on the surface of Xak Tharakus, he saw the wonders crafted by the females of his species, and even the most prestigious crafters amongst them - who had lifespans measured in centuries - would not go to such lengths. The chisels bite deep and extended far above what would have been necessary, Xitli took a step back, and glanced again at a patch of mycelium. "Moisture." He said, beginning to hum like a bird as he sliced his claws through the mud. It was soft and mallable like clay.

He considered the structure with a more critical eye, if it wasn't decorative than maybe it served a pratical purpose?

"The moist ground would make for fertile land, so then why aren't there any trees?" He spent a minute circling the structure, confirming there was no deep rooted plants. It suggested to him that something was hindering their growth, but left enough space for grass, ferns, and fungi. An structure concealed underground? If that was the case, it would need a way to dissipate energy. He glanced towards the stonework, maybe they chiselled it this way to increase the amount of surface area...

"A radiator?" He clicked his head arching back to the dirt, he sensed something moving below. His feathers rippled in the calm air as the tremor rippled across the landscape. The monolith groaned as if in answer and Xitli turned his attention to the wisps of moisture raising above it, prompting him to leap into the wall and begin his ascent. He moved quickly, utilising his powerful coils to propel him forward while his claws functioned as stone-picks, allowing him to cover the 50ft ascension in a few short seconds.

Designed by Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Persephone Dashiell]

Persephone didn't kill her light. Something was going on and whatever was about to happen she wanted to see it with her own eyes. Craning her head up, she blinked rapidly, some dust falling down. Lights were being activated. Distantly she was certain there was some kind of mechanical humming or activation. Yet she still wasn't surprised this was happening. Rakata and its people have been known for centuries over for their technology. Very secretive and well-guarded technology. It was one of the reasons she was here - good credits to be made even if she didn't get this Jedi device. Maybe even more credits with a small piece of some unseen technology.

[ Power detected. Source is below us. ]

A small nod, that made sense.

"Try not to trip into their lips Kiran."

She was still a little miffed over Life Day. The kiss was nice - if he had been smart and did it elsewhere. Definitely facing more heat now, more scrutiny from Zee, more questioning on her movements. Part of her didn't even want to bring Kiran along to this little adventure but clearly she didn't follow through with it.

Soon she would be away at Kalinda University either way. Plans were being scrambled and changed now thanks to the mandos deciding to crucify and torture a whole town's worth of people. Her parents wanted her no where near such an event, despite the prestigious university.

"Let's go closer to the power source. Come along Zee"

Kiran Arlos ​

 

[Vexorion]

​

[]

Torture Me - Davey Suicide

​

Location: Rakata Prime
Objective: Ascertain the Truth of the Codex
Tag: Liin Terallo : Xitli Sacul


Vexorion moved through the darkened corridor as though it were a cathedral built for shadows alone, his boots whispering over stone slick with age and unseen damp. His cat eyes kindled softly in the gloom, night vision peeling back the darkness layer by layer, rendering rot and ruin in ghostly clarity. The walls were scarred with old violence; blackened gouges, half-melted metal, and the faint suggestion of symbols scratched by desperate hands. Bones lay strewn across the floor like discarded prayers, pale and brittle, some cracked, some fused together by ancient heat, all of them silent witnesses to a slaughter long since forgotten by time but not by the Force.

He slowed when one scattered shape refused to remain just another relic of death. Among the bones, a skeletal hand still clenched with stubborn purpose, fingers locked tight around the hilt of a lightsaber dulled by centuries of neglect. The weapon's emitter was scorched and cracked, yet it radiated a lingering presence, a cold echo that crawled along Vexorion's senses like a funeral chant.

He stood over it in reverent stillness, recognizing the defiance frozen into that final grip, the will to fight persisting even after flesh had failed. In that moment, the corridor felt less like a passageway and more like a tomb, and Vexorion knew he walked not merely through darkness, but through the aftertaste of a fallen warrior's last, unyielding stand. What was really down here?

A prickle crept along Vexorion's spine, subtle yet insistent, as though unseen eyes traced the seams of his hooded robe and the spaces between his thoughts. The sensation was not wholly unnatural, no screaming terror, no violent surge of malice, but it carried a weight that pressed against his patience. The air felt occupied, thick with a presence that neither revealed itself nor withdrew, hovering just beyond the reach of sight and certainty. Shadows seemed to lean inward, listening, and the corridor breathed with a slow, expectant hush. Whatever watched him did so with a quiet familiarity, as if it believed itself entitled to his attention.

Vexorion did not slow his stride, but his irritation curdled into something sharp and deliberate.

He exhaled through his nose and spoke into the gloom, his voice cold and edged with disdain. "Why don't ghosts just stay in their coffins?" he hissed, the words echoing like a rebuke carved into stone. "Why feel the need to haunt the living, when in your own life you were a failure?"

His eyes narrowed, orange reflections sliding across the walls. "Death didn't elevate you, it only made your weakness linger." The presence did not answer, yet the silence that followed felt offended, disturbed by his contempt. Vexorion continued forward, unamused and unafraid, certain that even the dead should know their place when confronted by something far worse than memory.

​

 

[Liin Terallo]

The chamber decided it was no longer content to pretend like it was dead. I felt it first through the soles of my boots. It was a subtle vibration, not quite a quake, but more like stone flexing after centuries of stillness. The walls around me began to hum, low and resonant, the sound threading through the fractures that spidered outward from the vault. Hairline cracks shimmered faintly, not with light, but with something closer to absence. As if the stone itself had thinned.

Voices carried from above. Young, unrestrained and curious in a way only the unafraid ever are. They were a level or two up. I could tell by how their words echoed, bouncing unevenly through the chamber’s geometry. Further ahead, louder still, the treasure hunters made no effort to quiet themselves. Metal scraped. Something clinked. A laugh rang out, sharp and bright against the ancient quiet. Too many people, I thought. Too much attention.

Then a different voice reached me through the newly formed cracks below. Cold. Controlled. Laced with disdain.

“Why don’t ghosts just stay in their coffins?”

The words slid through the stone as though the chamber itself wanted me to hear them. I froze. The voice carried the unmistakable distortion of the Force pressing outward, probing, misreading what lay ahead.

I lowered my gaze to the vault. The codex was not a book. It was a construct of interlocking plates of obsidian-dark material etched with Rakatan geometry, suspended in a lattice that no longer fully existed. As the contempt in that voice bled into the chamber, the glyphs responded. Lines ignited one by one, not glowing so much as activating. Purpose replacing dormancy. “No,” I murmured under my breath. “Do not do that.”

The chamber answered instead. A harmonic pulse rolled outward; felt more than heard. The fractures widened with a sound like stone exhaling. Dust lifted in slow spirals around me. Somewhere above, startled voices cut off mid-sentence. Ahead, metal clattered as the treasure hunters abruptly fell silent. And below something shifted. Not rising. Not moving with intent. Just… responding.

The skeletal remains I had glimpsed earlier tightened imperceptibly around the hilt of an ancient lightsaber. The codex pulsed again, stronger this time, and a filament of energy snapped outward and then straight into me. My ring flared violently. For a single heartbeat, I felt exposed. Not illuminated, but outlined - my presence etched into the chamber as if reality itself had acknowledged me. Then the resonance recoiled, snapping back into the codex as quickly as it had emerged. Silence crashed down around me.

I staggered a step, pressing my hand to the stone to steady myself, pulse racing. My heart hammered against my ribs as I forced my breathing to slow. I had not touched it. I had not activated it. But the codex had responded to contempt, to the Force, to attention. And now it knew I was here.

Somewhere above, stone scraped softly as someone shifted position. Far beyond the chamber walls, I felt rather than saw the structure subtly realign; casting a fleeting shadow across one of the fractures as something moved along the exterior. Xitli.

I swallowed, lowering my hand, keeping my voice to a whisper. “…So much for remaining unnoticed.”

Tags: Persephone Dashiell Kiran Arlos Vexorion Xitli Sacul

 

[Kiran Arlos]

Persephone Dashiell
​

Kiran's head dipped in acknowledgment, but the corner of his mouth tightened like he was swallowing a comment.

"I'm not tripping into anything," he murmured, quiet and dry. "Especially not their lips."

He didn't miss the edge in Persephone's tone, didn't miss the way Life Day still sat between them like an unresolved chord. He had an instinct that she perhaps didn't want him here. He didn't blame her, but she still brought him along. That had to count for something right? "I'm sorry Persephone." He spoke, honest and true but Instead of poking at it more, he kept his focus where it belonged, on the ruin, on the flicker of power, on the shifting rules of the stone around them.

At her order, he moved immediately, slipping in behind her shoulder and taking the outer line of the corridor. One hand hovered near the wall, ready to steady, ready to feel for vibration. His eyes tracked the dim pulses ahead, the faintest bleed of light that didn't belong to their gear.

His hands lingered along the walls, as he seemingly focused on something in between the threads. "What is that..." Kiran spoke just above a whisper, she may have heard him, maybe not. He cleared his throat and shook his head as he moved up ahead.

His gaze flicked upward once, listening to the distant scramble.

"Can you tell if the power source is unstable through your scans Zee?" Kiran asked quietly, unsure if it was radiating power outward, or these structures were just incredible old.

 

[Xitli Sacul]

Location: Rakatan Prime
Objective: Breach
Tags: Liin Terallo Vexorion Kiran Arlos Persephone Dashiell

Notable Equipment:
Tlapixqui

Retinue:
None

---

Carrying his momentum forward, wings unfurled, the feathered serpent ascended, his dark canvas gliding across ancient sun-baked stone until vibrant plumes brushed it with colour. Glamour in full flare sapphire, emerald, and ruby radiated celestial light, a shining beacon atop the stone mountain.

Claws drummed the stone, familiarising himself with it's smoother texture. He could feel the movement of heat cycling below and the whistle of wind cutting between the stone-carved rivers. Once satisfied, lay his belly against the stone and purred. He could feel the warmth raising from below, and cautiously he slithered the pinnacle in a circular search pattern. After a couple minutes of careful scanning he found what he was feeling for, a cool spot off-set nearer the structures heart.

He curled around it, brushing away the dust and debris gathered over millennia. Smooth cracks revealed themselves in the stone, and Xitli beak clicked in satisfaction. With a light tug, his Tlapixqui was dislodged from its magnetic housing. Training on the nearby stone, he heard the harmonic buzz turn from a electric hum to the buzzing of insects. Satisfied, he twirled the blade towards the earth and traced the crack until he felt miniute resistance. The 'stone' hissed, stale and humid air rushing into the atmosphere, switching the transonic emitter off, he used his spear for leverage, and forced the seal open.

A dark bottomless tunnel awaited him, stainless bars covered one side, and dead lumens the other. For a species his size it was cramp, but Avali's superior biology would work in his favour here. Securing his weapon, and tightening his wings around his body he dove into the darkness like a preying eel until, finally, his claws struck marbled stone.

Xitli groaned, stretching his back, tail and neck like a feline. Wings fully unfurled he took a moment to preen his feathers of dust and grime, it would be no good if he met Khan Terallo looking like he just burst from a pipe.

'"Although, it wouldn't be entirely inaccurate." He mused playfully, cocking his head to a vertical pane to see the broken bulkhead above him.

Designed by Lossa Darcuhl​

 

[Persephone Dashiell]

"You're sorry for kissing me. Sorry." Persephone sounded incredulous because she was. "Nice to know I was just a pity kiss. You didn't have to kiss me back Kiran. Especially at Life Day. Just so you know messing with my emotions is a real asshat move. Here I thought you might be a little different."

Persephone wanted to rage. To yell at him. To let Kiran know any trust he had built up had been dissolved. She didn't find it fair that it seemed anytime she got close to a boy something ruined it. Yet if she thought about it, really thought about it, she was the common denominator. Maybe it was her. Even when she went slow and vetted Kiran via her adoptive father it was just a cluster fuck.

More than anything, she just felt like an idiot. An idiot who trusted someone to at least put her best interests at mind. It was growing clear that only her family had her best interests at heart. A few years ago she had the idea that once she grew up arranged marriage would be the way to go. A contract with a Companion or someone of similar standing. No love. No feelings. Just held together by a contract to do whatever they pleased otherwise. Maybe her younger self hadn't been wrong. She had nothing but continual disappointment.

Taking a deep breath, she shook her head.

"You know what? Don't worry about it. I don't have anything else left to say. It won't make a difference."

Squaring her shoulders, Persephone compartmentalized her feelings and stuffed them down. She was good at that. Done it multiple times before. It was as if someone flipped a switch. Another deep breath and she looked down the tunnel.

[ Power is stable. Located centrally not far from our current location. I do not suspect an explosion. ]

"Good to know. Zee, I'm headed closer to this power source. Keep an eye on the readings for me as we walk."

[ Of course Miss Persephone. ]

Kiran Arlos​

 

[Kiran Arlos]

Persephone Dashiell
​

Kiran held his ground, Persephone's anger hit like a blade, not because it surprised him, but because he understood exactly where it came from.

He kept his voice low, careful not to let it echo down the tunnel. "If that is what you thought," he said gently, "Then why did you invite me here?"

He did not wait for an answer. He was not trying to corner her, only to remind her, remind both of them, that she had chose to bring him along, despite everything she was feeling.

"Persephone… it wasn't pity," Kiran continued, the words steady and sincere. "When I said I was sorry, I meant I was sorry for the heat it brought down on you. I was careless with your privacy, and that is what I'm sorry for."

He glanced at her then, just once. Not long enough to demand anything from her, only long enough to show he was still there.

"I'm not sorry for kissing you," he added, quieter still, he was offering the truth without forcing it into her hands. "That was the best part of any Life Day I've ever been a part of."

A few moments passed. The ruins hummed faintly, distant activity still stirring above, but Kiran stayed anchored to the moment between them. He was not going to leave. He was not going to make a dramatic promise either. He knew her well enough to understand when it was time to be quiet.

So he did the one thing he could do without making it about him.

He fell into step beside her, keeping his pace matched to hers, his posture angled outward to watch the corridor ahead. His hand hovered near the wall, sensing for vibration, for movement, for anything that might reach for them in the dark.

He took one quick glance at her again, brief, almost shy, and then looked forward, focusing on the path and the mission.

He did not even bother looking at Zee. The droid was likely calculating fifteen different ways to remove him from the equation after this, and Kiran was not here to argue.

He was here to stay.

Quietly, steadily, he walked alongside them into the deep, letting his presence say what his mouth had the sense to stop repeating.

 

[Persephone Dashiell]

Looking at him, she said nothing. Persephone had already decided it wasn't worth it to speak any further on the subject and she was sticking to her guns on this. Instead she was refocused on finding what she came for ; a piece of Rakatan artificial intelligence. Given the type of ruins they were in she knew it was a crap shoot. A crap shoot she didn't tell Kiran about.

Zee knew however. Which is why they wanted to head towards the source of the power. Thought was they could take a control panel and sell it off from there. Very simple really. Harmless in a way - it would allow the other hunters to risk themselves with the mysterious Force object. Yet if it happened to roll her way....

Reaching the end of the tunnel they were faced with a steep set of stairs. Immediately she began descending. There was a turbolift but at this point she didn't trust it. Too old. Too much risk to take when they had come so far.

[ Down the steps Miss Persephone. After that the power source is somewhere to the left. Unknown exactly. I might know a more precise location once we draw closer. ]

Kiran Arlos ​

 

[Vexorion]

​

[]

Torture Me - Davey Suicide

​

Location: Rakata Prime
Objective: Ascertain the Truth of the Codex
Tag: Liin Terallo : Xitli Sacul

Vexorion halted mid-stride, one foot suspended above the dust-choked stone as though the air itself had thickened around him. The sensation crawled over his flesh: wrong, unfamiliar, not merely hostile but alien, as if the chamber he had known a heartbeat before had quietly rejected his presence. This was not the cold certainty of the Force, nor the electric tension of prey sensing its hunter.

It was something older, stranger, a pressure that did not push but leaned, inquisitive and patient. His breath slowed, each exhale fogging faintly as the ruins seemed to draw closer, listening.

He thought he heard a whisper then; thin, almost tender and curling around the edges of his perception. A voice, perhaps, or the idea of one. It spoke words to quickly he could grasp, yet it resonated with implication, with memory half-remembered and regret never fully buried. Was it the Force, fractured and distorted by this place? Or the ruins themselves, stone and shadow murmuring in a tongue eroded by millennia?

Worse still, it could have been his own mind, splintered and echoing back at him like a hall of broken mirrors. He clenched his jaw, unwilling to grant the sound the dignity of fear.

When he stepped forward again, the world shifted without warning. The corridor was gone; no slow transition, no sense of passage, only absence, replaced by a vast chamber he did not recognize and could not recall entering. The walls curved unnaturally, etched with symbols that seemed to recoil when directly observed, and the air thrummed with a low, invasive hum.

Vexorion's instincts screamed that something was watching him, not from a corner or a shadow, but from within the space itself. The sensation pressed inward, probing, testing the edges of his psyche like fingers seeking a seam to pry open.

He straightened, drawing his will around him like a blade, and forced the feeling back into the dark where it belonged. Ghosts, he told himself; nothing more than psychic residue, old fears wearing new masks. And yet, as the whisper lingered just beyond hearing and the chamber seemed to breathe in time with his pulse, doubt crept in like rot beneath bone.

Perhaps they were not ghosts at all. Perhaps they were simply waiting, and he had finally stepped where he was meant to be seen.

Vexorion sneered into the hollow dark, mocking the dead and their tiresome parlor tricks, suggesting with biting sarcasm that perhaps a séance, candles and whispers included, might finally grant these spirits the mercy of eternal rest. His voice dripped with derision, as though the unseen were nothing more than failed performers clinging to a ruined stage. Then he laughed, a cold, rasping sound that echoed through the chamber like sacrilege given breath.

"But you're not a ghost are you," he finally managed to say, "come forward and show yourself, and I promise we can find an understanding of why you're here and why I've been drawn here. And if this Codex is nothing more than a fable."

​

 

[Liin Terallo]

The dust whispered as it settled.

That was the only sound I allowed myself to acknowledge as I crouched where shadow folded neatly into stone. The structure breathed around me; old, layered, patient. It's vertical bones carried echoes in ways that made distance seem meaningless. Above, somewhere beyond the stone and the long fall of a chimney, Xitli had found his way inside. I could feel him now; the faint comfort of familiar movement as he preened and resettled, feathers rasping softly against one another. Alive. Alert. Watching in his own way.

Then there were the others. Footsteps. Too many. Too careless. The teenaged voices spilled downward in uneven fragments, irritation sharpening their words as they descended. The sound carried poorly, distorted by the geometry of the place, but the cadence was unmistakable - bickering, distracted, blind to where they were. They were moving closer to my level, not intentionally, but inevitability had never required intent.

“Show yourself.” The voice cut through everything else. It was close enough now that I felt it in my chest more than my ears. Controlled. Commanding. Not shouted but demanded. My breath caught before I could stop it, a quiet hitch that I swallowed back down as my pulse spiked. He had heard me. Not the words thankfully, but the presence of them. A whisper where there should have been none.

A ghost. The thought almost would have been amusing if the situation were not so fragile. I shifted just slightly and my heel brushed paper. The soft scrape was thunder in my ears. My sketches lay scattered where I had dropped them earlier. Thin sheets fanned across the stone like shed skin. Diagrams, notes, lines and annotations that meant nothing to anyone else and far too much to me. Leaving them was not an option. Neither was revealing myself.

I lowered myself fully to the ground, movements slow and deliberate despite the tremor in my hands. One by one I gathered the pages, pressing them flat against my thigh, willing them not to betray me with another sound. The stone was cold through the fabric of my gloves. Grounding and real. “Ghosts do not answer,” I reminded myself silently, forcing my breathing to steady.

I did not move. Not yet. The last page slid back into place beneath my palm. I held it there for a moment longer than necessary, listening and measuring the space between sounds. I then rose slowly, unfolding from my crouch as if the structure itself were permitting it. No sudden movements. No defiance. Just presence introduced carefully into the world. The edge of the shadow peeled away from me as I stepped forward, boots touching stone where light both thin and ancient managed to reach.

“I am not a ghost,” I said at last. My voice was low, measured, carrying just far enough to be heard by the one who needed to hear it. I kept my hands visible, the gathered sketches held loosely at my side, their edges catching the dim light. Not a threat. Not a plea. But a fact. “I did not realize that this level was occupied.” I stopped where the distance still belonged to me, my posture neutral but grounded. Every instinct tuned to the man watching from the dark. I could feel him now; attention sharp and coiled. Not surprised, exactly. Evaluating.

Above us, somewhere in the structure’s hollow spine, feathers shifted softly.

“I will move on,” I added, calmly, before anything else could be demanded of me. “Once I am finished collecting my things.” The statement was intentional. It set an end point. A boundary. Whether he respected it was another matter entirely.

Behind me, the echoes of approaching footsteps grew louder. The moment to leave unscathed was narrowing.

Tags: Vexorion Persephone Dashiell Kiran Arlos Xitli Sacul