The Bookworms

[Halajiin Rabeak]

The burning heat of the early summer sun was all but a memory inside the cool, dark confines of the great Jedi Library's walls. No longer did light filter down through cracks in the ancient building's ceiling, all of them patched months ago, cracks braced by durasteel. Massive girders of metal supported the sagging roof, and braced weak corners or crumbling supports. In its state of partial restoration, the Jedi Library resembled more of a construction site in its main hall than it did a library or temple.

Halajiin Rabeak had been there more times than he could count, but seldom had he allowed the repair and research teams to see him. They moved about in such sedentary fashion, Hal felt it was a wonder than even the main hall had been cleared. Crumbled balconies still hung in shambles, plaster peeled off the walls, and most of the visible shelves were cascades of fallen books and tablets. It was a wealth of knowledge buried beneath an ocean of decay.

An ocean Hal wished to get to the bottom of.

Artificial lighting illuminated the massive, windowless central chamber, and Hal walked through it, his boots treading carefully as the Nehantite avoided a loose tile. Over his back was slung a small pack, while climbing rope and pitons hung from his belt. Loose cargo trousers and a snug, black shirt comprised his attire, all accented by the black eyepatch over his left eye. That patch caused him to turn his head back further than usual as he surveyed the progress of his companions.

"It's back this way," Hal said. "I usually took a roundabout way to get to it, to avoid the working crew's detection, but, I don't think that... thing would make it through very easily." He nodded at the six-limbed KM1 spider droid which followed. Ever since setting eye on it, he'd appeared wary of the thing, and kept his distance.

Ducking under a beam supporting the breadth of a doorway, Hal worked his way into darker, unlit realms of the Library, heading towards the basement steps. "You guys okay, back there? Watch your step, the floor gets really uneven, here. My way down is up ahead."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suriyesh Rajinaathra nimbly paced the Nehantite Jedi over shattered stone floors and under massive durasteel spans, some of them erected by members of her own droid fleet. Beside her skittered KM1 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/KM1_mining_droid)-C3A4 with the sure-footed grace of a subterranean arachnid, sensor-manipulator arms swaying in the dark. Suri scoffed at the apprehensive look the yellow-fur had sent her newest reclamation project.

"Oi, watch your mouth. Kim here could dance circles around the both of you, upside-down. Couldn't you, girl?"

KM1 chittered unmusically and simply maintained her slow and steady pace as she reached the chipped and crumbling stone of the basement steps. Despite her sprawling legspan, she was a fairly compact machine - her boxy body was less than a meter long, and glided smoothly on four multiply articulating legs, with a pair of manipulator arms folded mantis-like over her durasteel carapace. As they left the glare of the standing worklights behind, the spider miner switched on a pair of floodlights on the grasping tips of her arms, for her organic companions' benefit rather than for hers. She navigated by means of pulse sensors, which were currently streaming a live-updating three-dimensional map to Suriyesh's datapad.

"Trust me, you Jedis are going to wonder how you ever explored a creepy, ruined library without her!"

[Rev Solomon]

"Hal's done a creditable job of it already, from what I understand," Solomon replied. He brought up the rear for now, by far the tallest member of the party, and he wasn't looking forward to stooping through the collapsed archways and constricted corridors that littered the basement levels of the library, but the Council had agreed unanimously that Hal should personally show them the extent to which he'd explored the ruins. Bringing the excitable droid mechanic along hadn't been his first choice, but Ms. Rajinaathra had insisted on supporting her new mining droid in person. If he was honest with himself, the skittering spider droid left him a little uneasy as well, reminding him of the DSD1 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/DSD1_dwarf_spider_droid) mobile cannons that had given the Grand Army of the Republic so much trouble in the tunnels of Geonosis.

The Jedi preacher eyed his footing carefully as he descended the crumbling steps. They led to a landing, an about face, and another set of steps descending into deeper darkness. "There are a few worklights already set up, but we'll have to turn them on as we go. The dig crews didn't go much further than ensuring the floor above was stable. From what I understand, it's a real mess down here."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

The closer the KM1 drew to him, the faster Hal seemed to go, constantly edging away from the spider droid. Even his tail appeared to flick away from it - he couldn't be given to assigning genders to non-humanoid droids - and about him was a general air of unease.

"A real mess is an understatement," Hal chuckled, leading the way into the dark. Reaching the base of the first set of stairs, he paused and shifted his eyepatch from his left eye over to his right.

All sense of color was lost immediately, his surroundings flicked to grayscale in entirety, thanks to the carbonite damage to his left eye. But, that damage had turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as his retina, rods and cones had become attuned to seeing infrared and ultraviolet light, effectively giving the yellow-furred Nehantite a form of natural night vision. As the spider droid's light bounced off the walls, there was more than enough residual light to illuminate the chamber before him with exquisite detail.

Much of the roof itself had fallen, baring the support structure for the floor above. Shelves all lay collapsed, dust and dirt covered everything from thousands of years of neglect, but through it all there was a set of small, visible tunnels of recent make. "I've sorted out most of this chamber by subject. A lot of it is history that didn't really fit into any of the four towers above, or non-Jedi reference material. Took me two months just to figure out that much. The good stuff, though, is below."

From his pocket, Hal produced an elastic headband with a small light attached to it. Yanking it on over his head, there was an audible click from its button, but no visible light was emitted. Infrared lamps burned, giving Hal plenty more light to see, all without blinding either of his guests. "Follow me. But... be careful not to touch the ceiling. It, uh... likes to keep falling down."

Hal gave them no more time than that, the mongoose stepping surely up onto a small ramp of debris before climbing into one of his tunnels through the mess. It was easily one of the widest, as it was his most commonly used tunnel, but even still it might prove a challenge for Master Solomon's broad shoulders. Scampering through on all four paws, knees never touching the ground, Hal nearly forgot he was leading others, and slowed down as he exited on the other side, the entrances to other tunnels visible beyond. "The droid can map all this later, nothing great to see here, to be honest. We're going to have to go down another level, though, and... the stairs are kind of out."

True to his word, where there once used to be a stairwell, there now remained only an empty, black shaft, with a pile of stone slabs resting broken at the bottom. Attached to one wall was a self-setting piton, and from it dangled a length of sturdy climbing rope descending nearly thirty feet down to the chamber below.

"You, uh, gonna be okay with the rope, Master Solomon?" Hal asked. He didn't want to imply that a one-armed man might not have been the best choice to come with him, but at the same time, at least Hal wasn't going to have to worry about Zem's arthritis, Serena's mood swings, or Wei's... really long, mostly pointless parables disguised as moral stories. At least Solomon had good taste in beer, thus making him Hal's favorite Council member by default.

[Rev Solomon]

Solomon peered down at the empty maw of the vacant stairwell as the KM1's floods plumbed its depths. Thirty feet wasn't that far to fall for a Jedi, but given the state of the floor, he didn't want to risk his ankles even with a Force-assisted landing. "I'll be fine, Hal. Just keep the lights on the floor."

He reached out with his left hand to grasp the rope, gave it a sharp tug to test its anchor point, then swung out into the void in a one-handed grip. His other arm, cut off just above the elbow, hugged the rope tight against his chest. His nerfhide coat, weathered by a decade of Dantari sunlight, provided enough friction to make the descent manageable. Once he was safe on the ground, he stepped back from the rope and shielded his eyes against the droid's spotlights.

"I'm clear."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"Gods, the things you get up to for fun," Suri said, and she hopped nimbly onto the rope herself. "I could've recommended a couple good books for you if you were looking for reading material, mate."

With that, she shimmied down the rope with the agility of a spider monkey. KM1 burbled, sank a grappling hook into the floor beneath her, and reeled herself down to the floor below in a creditable impression of her biological cousins.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

A shiver went up Hal's spine as he watched the metallic arachnid descend, and the Nehantite found himself frozen momentarily by the sight of it. Halajiin Rabeak hated spiders. No matter how much he told himself it was a droid, no matter how metallic it looked, the simple fact that it moved and somewhat appeared like a spider was enough to set off his wholly irrational fear, and he waited to hear the click of the cable being disconnected before stepping out and grasping the rope, himself.

Aided by the Force, Hal slid down it with ease, then tugged it carefully to ensure the piton was still firmly set. "Okay, this is where we start finding some fun stuff," he announced.

His infrared beam shot forth like a floodlight, combined with the actual floodlights of the KM1. Once again, the ceiling panels and superstructure had collapsed, but here the shelves seemed to bear their weight for the most part, and beyond the first few rows of shelves stood covered display cases and locked racks. Any piece of glass was so coated with dust it may as well have been painted over, yet several had obvious paw marks and fingerprints upon them. "As far as I can tell, this was sort of like a vault. Lots of important things were kept here, but it stands to reason that most of them were taken when the Jedi left. Some likely wound up in the Temple on Coruscant, really."

Stepping over piles of debris, Hal's booted footpaws led them to a row of display cabinets, their doors mostly open. "Found some lightsaber parts in this one, all corroded to hell. That one had what used to be robes, but the bugs got to them. Couple data pads were left over here, and I'm still running translation programs on them, with a tiny bit of success." Hal walked them down the aisle, detailing his exploration. "Most were empty. Some have stuff too heavy, or too big to get out of here, so I left them. We've got a dessicated body of... someone imporant, in the big one, back there. Scared the hell out of me when I opened it. Don't really want to revisit that, right now, to be honest. Books down here are mostly on theory, and theory about theory. Or, books about whatever used to be down here. Found some pretty nifty legends, but with the artifacts gone, it's basically impossible to verify anything. Little bit of Ysanna presence detected, but all of it looks like it happened long, long ago. Couple other things I wanted to take back to study, but... I think I'd get in trouble if you found this in my tent."

Reaching into a display case, Hal withrew an ugly, rusting bar of metal over a foot long. It had ridges, dented flanges, and fragments of broken glass where lights had once been upon its surface. Extending his arm away from the others, Hal closed his eye and gave a curt nod of his head.

The snap-hiss! of a lightsaber echoed through the subterranean chamber, but instead of the piercing glow of a brilliant blue or green light, there was only a faint glow around a shaft of black. Easing his left eye back open, Hal looked upon it, able to see the swirls of light within the black plasma that the others could not, and he gently brought the black-bladed lightsaber up for inspection. "Any idea whose this was? I have never seen a black one," he said. "Shot dibs on it, though."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suriyesh's pale pink eyes widened at the sight of the... dark... lightsaber. Though it didn't cast much light on their surroundings, nothing else looked quite so dark by comparison with the shimmering - or was it seething? - shard of blackness. Even in the glare of KM1's spotlights, it was as black as the spaces between the stars.

"Garfife!" she swore. "What... how is that even possible?"

[Rev Solomon]

Solomon stared as well, with a feeling of unease creeping in his heart. It took him a moment to pin down exactly why, and then he realized the degree to which the Force itself was resonating with the pulsing black blade, like a great, beating heart, and drawing all his senses toward it no matter how he wanted to look away.

"Darksaber," he murmured, and then, feeling two pairs of inquisitive eyes on him - even the blasted droid seemed to turn - he elaborated. "There were rumors during the Clone Wars of a black-bladed lightsaber. I always figured it was a myth, something cooked up by a couple bored clones. But this looks ancient. Ms. Rajinaathra, is your droid getting any readings from it?"

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri almost didn't hear him, transfixed by the parodox humming in Hal's paw, until the telemetry started filling up her datapad from KM1's sensor suite. "Um... no. I mean, there's a power source in the hilt, but the blade just... absorbs everything in the spectrum. Like it's not even there."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"It's there," Hal said. His voice was quiet, his one available eye drifting back toward the blade.

The darksaber was unlike his own lightsaber, or any other he'd built or come across, not only in that it was black, but the way that the power coursed through it. Suri and Solomon couldn't see it, their words were enough, but Hal, Hal could see far more going on within the blade than they could, with his damaged eye. The darkness held a storm of energy, exploding and collapsing upon itself like ravenous lightning. How the power source had lasted so long was a mystery, but nothing compared to the life which seemed to exist within the blade. There was the Force, there. The living Force, though its essence was so faded that he could not tell to which side it had once leaned. All he knew was that he wanted it. He wanted to own it, to take it back to his tent, take it apart and see how it worked, to discover its secret, so that it could be his secret.

Upon the floor there was a pair of scars - lightsaber burns - where he had tested it when he first found it. Had the Knight not been worried about having it found in his tent, he would have taken it then. But, this wasn't a scavenging run, this was a demonstration of his prowess. Surely Solomon would understand the need for him to take it, this time.

So you can study it? Hal's base natures asked.

Huh? Oh, uh, yeah, study! Study it, that's why I need it... His intelligent thought replied.

Left eye closing, Hal reached out through the Force to find the saber's internal switch, and he could feel the thing recoil as its blade shot back into its hilt as if there had been mass contained with it. A deep breath raised and lowered the mongoose's chest before he looked back to Suri and Solomon, squinting against the glare of KM1's floodlights. "I think this is something I should study," he said, then reached down to clip the thing to his belt.

[Rev Solomon]

"It's certainly something that should be studied," Solomon replied. "But I'd like to find out why it was stored here. There may be a good reason for it."

He moved past Hal to the case where he'd retrieved the darksaber and ran his fingers over its dusty surface. As he felt along the lower rim, he found jagged edges of metal on either side. He turned a questioning look back toward the Nehantite.

"This case used to be locked."

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal's heart both sank and quickened simultaneously in a most displeasing sensation. Ears perking, the Nehantite replied, "Oh?"

He knew exactly what Solomon was feeling. The smooth, non-corroded texture of melted metal, its surface still containing elements of bubbles from where they had formed from the heat of a lightsaber blade. Reaching up to scratch the back of his neck, Hal attempted to pull a sheepish smile, then let his arm fall. "Well, yeah. A lot of these used to be locked. I couldn't pick that one, so... I picked it aggressively." He was met with uncompassionate eyes. "What? I had to open them to find out what was inside. That's sort of the point of exploring. It's not like I damaged any of the contents."

[Rev Solomon]

"Maybe not," Solomon replied, "but there are many reasons an object might be under lock and key. Jedi reliquaries may contain tools of the Dark Side as well as the Light. Until we can find some sort of catalog of these vaults, we should treat what we find down here with caution and respect."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

And there's where the mystical mumbo-jumbo came in. Suriyesh tuned out the old preacher as he started droning on about Light and Dark like one of those sacred crystal peddlers on late-night holonet, and instead turned her attention to the vector map on her datapad. KM1 was roving about the perimeter of the chamber, working on filling in the corners, and though the geometry of the room was interrupted by various piles of detritus and minor structural collapses, the basement level was beginning to take shape. It was a honeycomb of chambers, most of them with thick walls of heavy stone blocks, cunningly threaded with conduits for wiring and ventilation. Of course there wasn't anything left of the wiring but oxidated dust - no chance any of the library's electrical systems were still functioning.

She sighed at the realization that Hal's mystery weapon was probably the most interesting thing going on down here, and the second might be the unusual color of the dust lying in heaps on every horizontal surface, when KM1 parked herself in front of an unassuming stone wall and scanned it repeatedly.

Perplexed, Suri sidled up to the spider droid and cleared her screen so she could take in the new telemetry. A complex structure was taking form under KM1's spectroscopic scrutiny - mechanical, but definitely not electronic.

"Um, guys?" she said. "Did you know there's a door here?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"There is?" Hal's attention snapped over to where the droid stood. Mild rebuke from Solomon forgotten, the Nehantite clambered over debris and tripped and fell on his face before getting up and dusting himself off as if nothing had happened.

His left eye squinted, staring at the section of wall, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. "No there isn't," Hal scoffed. That's just stone, like every other panel around here." Shaking his head, Hal patted the section of wall with his paw, then froze. Slowly his fingers spread, feeling over the stone, and he began to closely examine the fitting of the stones between that panel and the support pillar it butted into. There, just there, was the tiniest of gaps.

"Wait a minute," Hal whispered. He stepped forward, both paws against the panel, and he felt along its surface for some kind of trigger mechanism, kicking up a cloud of fine dust as he went. "Where the hell is it?" he muttered. Only then did he close his left eye, bracing both palms against the stone surface. "Of course..."

A few moments of silence hung thick in the dusty air as he stood there, unmoving except for a slow, careful slide of his paws down along the wall, until he stopped. "Gotcha."

From within the wall itself, there sounded a creak and groan of metal. Rusty scraping akin to the sound of claws upon a blackboard echoed through the lower chamber, until a sudden CLANG rang through like the striking of a gong. Immediately Hal leapt back, tripping over one of KM1's legs to fall on his tail, as the wall before them shuddered, then began to slide sideways, drawing back into the wall to reveal a black hole beyond.

"Well I'll be..." Hal mused, still sitting on his tail.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suriyesh shrieked and squeezed her paws over her ears against the unholy din of the grinding door, which meant she was already in a bad mood when she turned and saw Hal topple over KM1's outstretched leg. "Kurrsh, will you be careful? You'll break something!"

KM1 gave no indication she'd even noticed, but simply intensified her claw-mounted floodlights. The passageway beyond was relatively pristine: an arched corridor of blackened stone bricks that quickly became a steeply descending staircase. Swarms of pale, segmented insects scattered into cracks in the walls as the brilliant light passed over them.

[Rev Solomon]

"Hmm." Solomon scratched thoughtfully at his chin and squinted into the hidden passageway. Then, with a stirring motion of his hand, he began moving the air with the Force as if working a great bellows. Some of the dust on the floor flew up in wisps and disappeared down the corridor.

"There's an opening on the other side," he said. "Hal, have you ever found your way to a second basement level before?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal took a nice rest before getting up, patting the seat of his trousers to clear the dust from them, tail shaking more out like a feather duster. "No, I haven't," he replied. "I mean, there's another stairwell, but it's totally caved in. Nearly brought the roof down on myself when I tired to clear it, the first time. I've left it alone since."

For a moment, Hal lifted his eyepatch, allowing color back into his vision once more. "Weird," he said, pulling it back down. "I thought it was just dark, but... those stones are black. Almost like..."

The yellow-furred Knight didn't finish his sentence, instead stepping through the threshold, and standing on his tippy-toes to let his fingertips brush the ceiling. They came back dark. "Soot."

His visible pink eye turned back to Solomon, filled with questions. "This library doesn't predate electricity. It's old, but not that old. Why would the ancient Jedi burn something for light, that would leave soot like this, instead of just using electric lights? This door was fully mechanical, too." Looking back to the darkness, Hal eased his personal lightsaber from the back of his belt, thumb hovering over the on switch as he took another step down, then stopped. "Better idea: let's let the droid go first."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suriyesh wheeled and laid a protective paw on one KM1's upturned knees. "Oi! What exactly do you mean by that, Goldilocks? You're the ones with the laser swords."

[Rev Solomon]

Solomon raised his hand in a placating gesture. "I don't sense anything dangerous down there. If anything, that passage is better preserved than the rest of this basement."

He stepped to the dark doorway, careful to keep out of the way of the droid's floodlight beams. "If I had to guess, it's either a secret passageway or some kind of bolt-hole. Something for the Jedi of the Library to use if they fell under attack, and the power was knocked out. They may have even used it during the Cron Cataclysm."

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"The what now?" Suriyesh hadn't yet moved her paw from KM1, who simply stared stoically down the staircase.

[Rev Solomon]

"The Cataclysm," Solomon replied. "A supernova that wiped out the Cron Cluster during Great Sith War about four thousand years ago. Ossus used to be a Jedi stronghold, but the planet was devastated by the blast. The ecosystem is still recovering."

He glanced toward Hal, who he knew had treated extensively with Ossus's remaining inhabitants. "I've often wondered about the Ysanna perspective on the Cataclysm. Do you know if their history reaches back that far?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"And further," Hal rolled his eyes. "From what I could get out of them, they think they've been here since forever, and the Jedi who built this place were intruding on their land. The Cataclysm was their gods' way of forcing the intruders out. Good luck convincing them otherwise."

He turned his attention to Suri, snapping, "And, yeah, we've got lightsabers, but what we don't have is full spectrum mapping and structural integrity analysis processing, like your droid, there. But, whatever, I'll go down first."

The Knight gave them little choice as he focused his infrared headlamp to a wide spread, then headed down the steep stairwell, peeking his head around the corner to make sure nothing nasty awaited them on the second half. "Got another door," he called back. His boots tramped down the rest of the clean, nearly pristine steps, and soon the grinding of stone could be heard as the other side of the passage began to slide open.

"Ho-lee shit..." were his next words, low and almost reverent. "Yeah, droid would be a good idea, here." Through the sparking bits of dust in the air, Hal could see a nearly intact chamber before him, few bits of debris having fallen from the ceiling, and only a thin layer of dust coated the many cases and shelves his eye fell upon. It was a time capsule, and for once he was going to listen to Solomon's wishes to have the place inspected before messing with it. Well, at least until he saw something interesting, that was.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"Oh," Suri said, and with another glance down the dark passage she dismissed all thoughts of dark magic space wizard ghosts or twisted laboratory experiments. "Well, I'm glad someone read the brief I wrote."

KM1 followed Hal's descent without comment, and Suriyesh stuck close to the nimbly skittering spider droid just in case. If any trouble did arise, she was realistically the least equipped to deal with it.

[Rev Solomon]

Solomon brought up the rear by default, but when he saw what lay before them he slipped around KM1 to stand beside Hal. "This is extraordinary," he said. "We thought there might be a few storerooms on the third basement level, but... are those more passages back there?"

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Sensing her cue, Suriyesh started punching a directive into her datapad, but KM1 was already scanning the environment and building a new map. The wireframe construct materialized in patches on Suri's screen, color-coded by structural stability, pocked with black voids where obstacles interrupted the droid's line of sight.

"This whole level looks intact," the Munjan engineer said. "Structure's all in the green everywhere Kim can scan. Those cave-ins from the ceiling are just paneling. The durasteel frame, even the foundation of the next floor up is all solid. Should be safe to go in."

She looked up and squinted into the roving beams of KM1's floodlights, which revealed a gallery of floor-to-ceiling shelves and plasteel-wrapped displays. It looked deceptively ancient, but even the technology of the Old Republic from five thousand years ago left Nehantish and Munjesh's most modern efforts in the dust. This room had probably been built to look ancient.

KM1 ventured gamely into the new room, and as her angles on the obstacles, the map began filling in. "There are definitely more passages," Suri said. "And... I guess these must be vaults? They're several times denser than the surrounding rock, Kim's scanner's can't even penetrate them. What would the Jedi be sealing up in vaults?"

[Rev Solomon]

"Any number of things," Solomon said as he joined KM1 in the gallery. "Valuable relics. Dangerous weapons. Holocrons."

He met Hal's eyes, which was enough to tell him the same had occurred to the Nehantite.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Or treasure," Hal grinned. Of course, the Jedi didn't collect or keep treasure in the traditional sense of the word, as they so often espoused the virtue of simple living a detachment from material possessions. Or at least they did in Hal's day, but he was certainly keeping the darksaber.

Pacing into the main chamber, he studied everything he could lay his eye on. Ancient books lay preserved beneath their display case covers, next to old bits of tech Hal couldn't identify. Standing cases once held robes which remained in crumpled heaps upon the floor, ready to turn to dust the moment they were touched. Case after case held things that were likely important, but not particularly interesting or what Hal would consider valuable. No lightsabers, no real weapons other than some old sword that was more rust than steel, and certainly no holocrons were to be found anywhere. Still, Hal swept dust off of display cases hoping to encounter something special while Kim skittered around, mapping and scanning.

What is this one?

A voice echoed through Hal's head, and for once it wasn't one of his own. Immediately he spun, lightsaber in paw, ready to flick its activation switch.

"Who said that?" Hal called out, but he could see no one other than his two companions.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri, nose deep in KM1's telemetry, jolted and spun around to face the twitchy yellowfur, her tail puffed up like a bottle brush. The spider droid's floodlights gimballed around, and for a moment her eyes shone flat and acid-green in the dark. "Who said what? Gar, stop it, that's not funny!"

[Rev Solomon]

Solomon raised his hand in a placating gesture. "It's all right, Ms. Rajinaathra. The Force is strong in this place, but I sense no immediate danger."

Of course, he hadn't sensed what Hal heard, either. "Hal, what did you hear? Is there a presence here?"

"Presence?" Suri complained, laying her ears flat. "Oh, you gotta be drenning me."

KM1 burbled and happily resumed her scans.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal's left eye furiously scanned every alcove, nook or hiding place he could see from his position, but there was no one but himself, Suri and Solomon in the chamber. The adrenaline which had momentarily coursed through his veins slowed as a cool rush of calm overcame his hot blood. Lowering his unlit saber, Hal's battle-ready stance returned to ease, though his face seemed far less placated.

"I heard a voice," he said. "Or maybe I felt it, I'm not sure." The yellow-furred Nehantite reached up to rub his left brow. "Or maybe I've been watching too many holomovies lately."

There is another one. The voice echoed inside Suri's head, that time. This one is different from the first. Is it machine?

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"Gyaaaah!"

Suriyesh bent double, pulling her satellite-dish ears shut with both paws. It wasn't just the voice, but the searing pain that accompanied it, like brainfreeze and a migraine had a baby and it was throwing a messy tantrum in her head.

When the pain subsided, she peered up at the other two, her eyes flecked with red. "Someone tell me you heard that! Kim, did you get it?"

The telemetry flow on Suri's datapad looked the same as ever, except for the audio spike that marked her own yelp of pain.

[Rev Solomon]

Solomon was immediately at her side. He expanded his sense into her own and caught the tail end of her pain. "You heard a voice, too?" he asked, keeping his own low and even. "What did it say?"

Suri bit down on a taste of acrid panic and tried to answer like a rational, educated adult. "You mean I was the only one who heard it? Aw, Garfife... It said... it said there's another one, and then asked if it was a machine. What in the bloody blazes does that mean?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Fast-twitch muscle fiber activating without thought, Hal leapt to Suri's side, red lightsaber blazing to life as he scanned the chamber. Again there was nothing, and he had heard no voice, but it was clear the Suri had.

Hal's tail whipped back and forth, some of its fur lifting as it did its best attempt at a brush as his strain of species could muster. "Not sure," he replied. "It asked me 'What is this one?' Sol, I don't think we're alone in here."

Artifacts, books, all manner of Jedi history surrounded them, and the air was heavy with the energy of the Force. It moved, but not in any particular direction, instead swirling and convulsing like water in a washing machine, making any Force signature impossible to track.

Some of it swirled around Solomon, though never so close as to touch him, until a voice spoke to the human. They are different. What are they?

[Rev Solomon]

Solomon could sense the swirling eddies in the Force. It was deep, ancient, and powerful, and they were standing in the middle of it. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, expanding his own presence as a protective bubble around the three of them.

"I hear it now," he said softly. And then he opened his eyes and spoke in a voice that filled the room:

"You want to know about my companions? They are known as Nehantites. My name is Solomon. I am a Jedi. We have come to seek the knowledge of our forebears."

"Munjan," Suriyesh mumbled, but she didn't want to interrupt the space wizard talking to the space ghost. This was supposed to be a simple survey mission! KM1 continued mapping the chamber and its surroundings and assuring Suri that nothing out of the ordinary was taking place.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Hal's saber remained lit, bathing his immediate surroundings with its monochromatic red glow. "Your arm might be confusing it," Hal whispered to Suri, in regards to the machine description. Though his fur did not move, he could feel Solomon' aura wash over him, distinctly different from his own.

For a full, tense minute the three stood, awaiting a response, yet the only sound was the click and shuffle of KMI's legs, and the hum of Hal's lightsaber. As no threat revealed itself, Hal powered his saber down, and attempted to search beyond Solomon's bubble. Books he had read in the archives, and in the great library spoke of places where the Force lived, and how it could permeate a location, though Hal had never before believed it. If the Jedi Temple on Coruscant was not imbued with a concentration of the Force, how could any other location be, after all? But he could not shake what he felt around him, and he reached beyond the barrier to feel it moving in strange and obscure ways, just beyond the edge of protection.

"Sol, I don't think it can get in," he said, his head following something that clearly wasn't there. "Drop the aura for a moment. I'm curious."

As the bubble fell, both Jedi could feel the strange concentration of the Force flow over and through them once more, and all three could hear the voice.

You are not Jedi. Jedi are bones. Come back when you are bones.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

Suri winced again and rubbed her ears as if trying to rid herself of a bot fly. "Gar, that's shrill! Wait... bones? It's a ghost, isn't it? It's a dark magic space wizard ghost! Oh, Garfife, I should've known!"

[Rev Solomon]

"Suriyesh," Solomon said quietly. "Whatever this is, it has offered us no harm yet. And it seems I can keep it away if I need to. I need to speak with this presence. You're welcome to return to the surface if you like."

The brown mongoose stiffened from her neck to her tail. "I didn't say I was goin' back! I'm not leaving Kim here with you two. Er, three." She snapped a paw to her side, and KM1 came trundling over, unhurried and calm. The droid's presence seemed to do a lot for Suriyesh's nerves.

Solomon took a few measured steps deeper into the hall, trying to determine where the presence was emanating from, if there was a source. "The Jedi have been gone from this place for a long time. We have returned to see what has been left behind. I assure you we are not your enemies. Who are you? What should we call you?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

Bones. We are bones. The voice spoke inside their heads, its voice lilting and nearly sing-song with hints of madness, trailing off toward the hall as it faded out.

It spoke no more, and the overwhelming sensation of the Force pulled out of the chamber like the unraveling of a squid's tentacles before they too receded into the darkness beyond. Only when it felt as if it had truly departed did Hal turn his attention back to Suri. "The pain in your head is you not being able to correctly process telepathic signal, but it dulls over time and with exposure. Our race really isn't built for it, I found out. We have a similar, but lessened effect on others when we send our messages to them, too."

He looked back to the hallway where Solomon stated. "As for what's talking to us, I'm not sure."

Creeping up to Solomon's side, Hal whispered, "Sol, I read a bunch of obscure old shit in the archives, but I've never even heard mention of a place like this. If the Jedi chose not to document this place, it might be for a reason. Besides, I don't like how it called itself 'we.' Are you up for chasing the cobra into its den?"

[Rev Solomon]

Solomon pursed his lips in thought. He didn't fear ghosts, but he had heard of Dark Side spirits before, and the mischief they could cause to the unwary mind. He had tried to get a read on the disposition of the presence as it swirled around them, but he couldn't sense anything substantial. It felt wild, unpredictable, not fully Light or Dark, but perhaps containing fragments of both.

"Ms. Rajinaathra, do you still have a communications link to the salvage crews on the surface?" he asked.

Suri nodded, knuckles whitening as she clutched the datapad in her paws.

"Let's leave a comm repeater here, just in case the interference gets thicker up ahead," Solomon suggested. "And keep your wits about you, both of you. Attend to your senses, but don't trust them too freely. If I give the word, Miss, retreat to the surface and find help. Your droid should be able to lead you to safety should the way become unclear."

The preacher stepped into the darkened hallway where the swirling tendrils of the Force had slipped away.

[Suriyesh Rajinaathra]

"Use your senses, but don't trust them," Suri muttered. "Load of mystical rubbish..." She froze where she stood, staring at the dark corridor, her real paw shaking and her artificial one still. But KM1 trundled forward with a will, and the droid mechanic padded after her, head low and her tail twitching.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

"Sense of smell can typically be trusted," Hal quietly reassured Suri. "Most who study illusion focus on sight and sound, but scent is much more difficult, and many don't bother. At least that's been my experience."

Leaving her to ponder that thought, Hal advanced to catch up with Solomon, igniting his saber for more light along the way, the darksaber tucked into his normal saber's holster along the back of his belt. From the length of the passage, they had to be moving out from beneath the library and into the grounds surrounding it. As no new construction was being permitted anywhere near the library, it made sense that no such subterranean structures had been located on ground-penetrating radar by the construction crew. In the back of his mind, Hal began to wonder how long ago this portion had been built, and whether the library was built on top of it, or if the underground chambers were dug out at a later time.

The yellow-furred Nehantite, looking almost orange in the crimson glow of his saber, could not resist his natural curiosity, and quickly took the lead into the darkness before them. Dust erupted in delicate clouds beneath their feet, while the carapaces of long-dead insects crunched and ground into new dust of their own. The hallway stretched on farther than he had anticipated, while all around them the air was alive with traces and tendrils of the Force, though its intentions seemed to change and fluctuate constantly. The dark side's cold presence could be felt, but only long enough to deliver the briefest of chills before it was gone, swept away by the reassuring touch of the light side, or the cool, refreshing air of the whole of the Force in general.

Thanks to his damaged eye, Hal saw into the chamber beyond before either of his flesh-and-blood companions, and what he saw made his step slow. The hallway opened into a round room with a domed roof, the shadowy arches of small doorways branching off from it like spokes of a wheel, but what caught his eye most was the ring of what appeared to be stone sarcophagi around a circular plinth which held ancient jars and canisters amongst loosely strewn bones. It was a crypt. A crypt still brimming with the energy of the Force, despite having gone unvisited for what had to have been thousands upon thousands of years.

Hal paused in the doorway, holding his saber high to provide the most light. It's red hue cast an even more ominous pall upon the crypt, though Hal didn't notice as it only registered in black and white to his exposed left eye.

"Ooookay, have you ever heard anything about a Jedi crypt?" he asked, dreading the answer the moment he's said it.