Faction Vanishing Act - [JO]

[Braze]

The Restored Temple of Dantooine
Tags: Leos Dirk | Open to Members of these factions:​

Spoiler

The Jedi Order Open Faction 5K 24 3 0 The Jedi Order is a spiritual knighthood, sworn to the service of Balance, guided by Compassion, and rooted in Discipline.

Jedi Outcasts Open Faction 2K 21 3 0 A roaming band of lightsiders on a journey to defeat the evil. They take an ancient name from days long past.

​

Following the events in the Kinrath caverns on Dantooine, Braze decided the time had come to teach the younglings a few important tricks. It was early evening when he left the first message...

It appeared simple at first glance, written in ink invisible to the typical naked eye… ink that only came to life once the light of day had thinned and the halls settled into their evening hush. The words scrawled up high across the archway to the entrance of the mess hall, pale enough to seem almost secret in the faint low-lighted glow of pale blue-green, though bright enough to catch the eye of anyone passing beneath whom did more than watch their own feet.

A test laid bare for those who dare, and lost to those who pass unaware.

CLUE

The foolish let me bleed away.
The common spend me through the day.
The wise invest what seeds they can.
Yet every living thing surrenders to me in the end.

You may know my answer, if you think yourself clever;
but to find where I am hidden, you must pull the lever.

​

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Dirk , Braze

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

Leos looked over the letter and frowned. It was a little bit misleading. One would look at a glance and assume that it was money being talked about, but that wasn't quite right. Plenty of people lived just fine without giving in to money. More than just that, if people didn't exist money didn't have a purpose. It surely wasn't that. Perhaps, then, it was time? Maybe. You could let time bleed away, spend it through the day, and invest time into things... but a lever? Was that like the hands of a clock, or...

The Themian paused and spoke to the nearby Dirk.

"You can't read yet still, can you?" he asked.

He wondered if Dirk would be able to figure anything out if he had it read to him. Leos wasn't sure how far the Dantari was into his education.

 

[Dirk]

Location: Dantooine
Tags: Braze | Leos

Standing next to Leo, Dirk’s eyes scanned the words once, then twice, and thrice. Trying to decipher the meaning. He could make sense of the individual words but together as a riddle it was too advanced for him. Internally not translating very well.

Through closed lips Dirk groaned some before looking over to Leos and shaking his head. “Nnnope…” His literacy couldn’t quite create context for the text yet. Even the idea of currency itself was still largely unknown to him.​

 

[Braze]

Tags: Leos Dirk ​

Should Leos wish to find a clock, there was a new one installed in the heart of the temple, waiting at the end of a long hallway where the evening light fell thin and blue across the floor. It sat opposite the archway they faced now.

Lamps burned low in their wall sconces, each flame cupped behind frosted glass so the shadows gathered long beneath the arches.

At the far end, the clock stood mounted above a relief sculpture, its face made of dark metal and white enamel. The hands moved with a slow, patient clicking, though the sound of its ticking only became clear once one stopped walking and listened for the faint sound.

Beneath it's placard and face, carved into the wall, was a stylized night sky.... It's stars alignment and constellations did not belong to Dantooine's sky.

The moons were wrong, and the constellations bent in unfamiliar shapes. Tiny points of polished stone had been set into the carving to mark the stars, each one catching the faint blue-green light in a different way. Some were dull whilst others were pin pricked with small embedded Rhine stones. One, near the lower edge of the relief, seemed almost too carefully placed, half-hidden inside the carved curve of a crescent moon.

The sculpture looked decorative at a glance, but the longer one studied it, the more deliberate it became. The carved sky had depth to it; grooves like old orbit-lines circled certain stars, and a narrow seam ran through the crescent's shadow.

There was indeed hidden away and tucked where 'night met stone', a small lever no larger than two fingers.

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Braze , Dirk

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

“Nnnope…”

"That's okay," Leos decided. "I think it's about time. It talks about something foolish people waste, common people spend in a day, and wise people invest. It said there's supposed to be a lever near it. I think it's probably a clock. Not sure where the lever is from there, but it's at least a direction."

Hopefully Dirk got all of that. Leos did know where a clock was, so that was a start. It was in the opposing arch way after all. The Themian turned himself around and made his way over to where it stood, mounted above a sculpture. From there his eyes were drawn to the mural of sorts representing the sky. From what planet Leos wasn't sure. He had never been much of a stargazer, on account of the smog on Daiyu being too thick to ever allow for such a hobby. His eyes were drawn into the grooves of the night sky, taking in their depth before he finally settled on a tiny lever. Leos let out an exhale when he saw it.

"Who would even design something so convoluted?" he muttered to himself. "It's like the building was made around the puzzle..."

With a hesitant hand he reached out and pressed on the lever.

 

[Dirk]

Location: Dantooine
Tags: Braze | Leos

The idea of wasting time was interesting to him. He tried to think of times he may have wasted time. Being in a place like these he felt like it would make it easier to do so since his basic needs all seemed to be covered. He followed Leos some to the other end of the hall with the sculpture carved into the wall and the stars. Living in the Savannahs of Dantooine, starry nights were abundant. No light pollution or smog to conceal the cosmos from him.

Dirk pointed up at the stars and moons and remarked. “Not… home…” Claiming that it didn’t depict the constellations found on Dantooine. His word came out low and gravely with a heavy dantari accent. He watched closely as Leos pressed the lever.​

 

[Braze]

Tags: Leos Dirk ​

The hidden mechanism clicked into place. A thin seam split through the relief sculpture, followed by a soft hiss as the sealed wall decompressed. For a moment, the carved foreign stars trembled in their places. Then the whole section silently eased open from where it had been held tight against the temple stone.

Beyond the false wall waited a narrow passage, dark and descending lower in to the depth of the temple, its air cool enough to taste faintly of dust, old stone, and things long undisturbed.

A secret passage had been revealed.

 

[Leos]

Dantooine
Tags: Dirk , Braze

Epo-1, YT-1760 small transport
​

“Not… home…”

"Oh... the stars, you mean?" Leos asked.

He hadn't taken the time to recognize them yet. As he flicked the lever the wall became a door, leading into a dark and narrow passage way. Leos felt his heart beat a little faster for a moment. It reminded him of being back in that stupid cave. The ground dropping out from below him hadn't been fun.

Still, Leos steeled himself and drew out his training saber, igniting the blade to serve as a source of light. He glanced back at Dirk for a moment then began to descend down the passageway.

 

[Braze]

Tags: Leos Dirk ​

Down… down… down into the bowels of the temple he was led, into a vast antechamber built within the stone caverns below. It bore an uneasy resemblance to the caves Leos had encountered some time ago, though this place had clearly been shaped for a particular purpose.

Pale blue fire burned in wall sconces along the chamber's edges, each azure flame low and cold in color. Black sand lined the floor in a smooth, dark spread, swallowing the sound of footfalls and leaving the room with an unnerving sense of quiet.

Far ahead, just beyond the reach of the light, an ominous figure stood draped in a dark cloak. They waited within a hollowed alcove of shadow, nearly imperceptible at first, little more than a deeper shape against the dark. Then the figure moved to stand up.

Slow claps echoed through the chamber as they stepped forward, then hopped down from the stone parapet where they had been perched.

"Congratulations… you found your way here," Braze said, his voice carrying softly through the blue-lit chamber. "When out in the field, one must use their mind just as much as their blade. A Shadow who only knows how to fight is merely a weapon waiting to be pointed... A Shadow survives by seeing what others overlook, hearing what others dismiss, and asking why a door was hidden before asking where it leads."

A black-gloved hand rose, and behind them, the doors slammed shut with a heavy crack of stone and metal, closed by a powerful surge through the Force. The sound rolled through the antechamber, chased by the faint rattle of disturbed sand across the floor.... Whatever path had led Leos and Dirk here had just vanished behind them.