Play Testers Wanted Pt. 17

"Reminds me of the Broken Chain Brothel," Ruatha chuckled. "Ah, good times."

"I have never heard of it," I said, but Aoki winked at me. Of course, she had, and there were stories behind that gesture. "Number six, take a look and see what is down there." The camera droid hovered forward, and when it floated over the opening, a flash of blue surrounded it, and it dropped out of sight. "An elevator?"

"Yes. It is a hard light construction and very sophisticated." Traci confirmed. She tied into number six and displayed what it was recording. The shaft was dozens of feet deep, and along the side was new and apparent incomplete artwork. Suddenly, after a command from Traci, the art snapped into completion as the droid altered its standard floodlight to a full spectrum beam. Strange flowing designs and the symbols we had discovered from the statue decorated the elevator shaft. Their meaning was as alien and inscrutable as the moment we found the sculpture. "Pretty, but I have no clue." Neither did any of the others. "It has reached the bottom. Look at the tunnels. They are perfect tubes. See how smooth they are."

"I have seen stuff just like this," Murad said, and his twin nodded. "We were diving a 'blue hole' elsewhere, and there were volcanic tubes like these. The flow of fresh water to saltwater caused a smooth erosion of the tunnels. Since this world is mainly saltwater and islands, I think the race is aquatic. So it must be Rakatan."

"Nope," I said, and they all looked at me. "I have a full understanding of the Rakata and their language and culture. Unfortunately, the language is too old and too different. This race must be something else."

"Think of the science bonus," Kyanna said, and we all smiled. "We better be careful of rockfalls and damaged tunnels."

"Agreed, let's get going," I said, eager to see what was at the end of the tunnels. I approached the hole, but the elevator did not activate. It did not recognize me, so we had to do it old school.

We prepared to enter the tunnels. I lead the way with the Ithorian remaining behind to monitor our progress and ensure we looked great, and call for aid should the situation arise. He would narrate our progress and promised that everyone got equal screen time. I activated my portable crafting table and knocked out one hundred climbing spikes and ten spools of lightweight silk rope along with harnesses for each of us. There was no telling what we might encounter along the way. I divided the spikes and rope amongst our group, and we began our jaunt. I anchored the piton near the edge of the hole. I attached the rope, and we rappelled down into the tunnel. The others followed quickly after and formed up around me. The cylindrical tunnel ran as far as we could see in either direction. The rounded floor was smooth and slick and made for slow going. Thankfully, the tunnel was level which kept us from slipping and sliding. If it angled at some point, we were in for some real problems.

"It is polished and smooth," Aoki remarked as she ran a gloved hand over the wall. "It looks like a dark coral or basalt. There is a... holy shit!" I stopped and looked at the surface where she had touched it. Some activity was occurring. We got close and watched as the patch of stone darkened, hardened, and evaporated. The surface beneath was a bit brighter than that surrounding it. "Well, that explains why it looks so new. There is a self-repairing mechanism built into the wall."

"Look, behind us," Ruatha called out. We turned our heads, and sure enough, our footsteps were visible from where the floor of the tube had repaired the damage.

"If that is the case, we could find surviving technology still intact below. So why does that fill me with dread?" I said, looking directly into the camera for our audience. "Let's go."

The tube-shaped tunnel went on for a hundred meters before I called a stop. We were beyond the confines of the island now. I touched the side of the tunnel, and the wall became transparent, revealing that we were, in fact, underwater and all manner of marine life swam around us, utterly unaware of our presence. The others stood on either side of me, smiling at the beauty of this alien world. Once again, the devs had gone out of the way to create an entire ecosystem. The plants, fish, cetaceans, and cephalopods were identifiable but wholly different from anything beneath the oceans of the Earth. We were still in the euphotic zone or the portion of the sea where sunlight still reaches clearly. I got on my tippy toes and looked down, and I could make out the first transition point or the dysphotic zone. Marine biologists nicknamed it the twilight zone. Here, light is diffused and reaching the limit of its ability to illuminate this depth.

"I wonder what is down in the depths?" Murad asked the question bothering me.

"Let's hope we don't find out," his twin replied.

"Should we turn back?" Ruatha asked, and I shrugged. I called for a vote, and we decided to give it another fifty meters, and if the tunnel continued without anything of interest, we would turn around and try the other way. I let the droid get a good shot of the underwater perspective before we began again. Traci warned me of a power source up ahead, and I stopped and touched the tunnel wall again. This time we could see that we were nearing another island. We readied our weapons and moved on. The power source was a ring-shaped device and inside the ring was a crackling forcefield blocking our path. The disc was inset into the wall of the tube and protruded out perhaps half a meter. The inscription on the flat side of the ring was the characters we had captured from the statue's surface. Some of the symbols were flashing, while most of them were not.

"Something is not right," Kyanna said, frowning. "Shouldn't all of them be shining?"

"They are," I exclaimed as I touched the side of my battle mask and adjusted it for the full spectrum. "Yes! Oh my god, it is a Rosetta Stone! Each symbol is displaying its specific value in the form of a portion of the EM spectrum. Traci."

"I am on it. Measuring the wavelength of each symbol. Saving for future use." She stated.

"How do we use them, though?" I thought out loud, again, for the camera.

"Is there a sequence?" Shurad, the yellow-skinned Zabrak, suggested.

"Great idea," I praised his insight. "Let's watch and see," I said as I displayed the ring via a hologram. We all saw it go through its pattern three times but not knowing which was the first. "Hmm, there is a repeating sequence, but which one starts it."

"Slow it down. Maybe we are missing something," Murad, the red-skinned Zabrak, offered. I smiled and took the recording and played it back at one-tenth of its average speed. On the fifth time through, Ruatha cried out.

"There, one of them pulsed twice!" She shouted in glee. "Back it up about four seconds, and there see?"

"Great work," I said, and we had our first symbol, hopefully. "It might be the last. We don't know how this species thinks. We assume it is the first. Let us see." I projected the sequence beginning with the one displaying the double pulse. The forcefield shut down, and we had our first real success with this alien language. We still did not know what the symbols meant, just the wavelength attached to them. "Let's go and stay alert."

We moved forward, lights playing across the smooth surface of the tunnel. Aoki and Ruatha froze at the exact moment, looked each other in the eye, and nodded. I called a halt, and I saw the silent conversation they had via their lekku or head tails. Unless you were a member of that race or a skilled shapeshifter, the twitches looked nothing more than that.

"...feel it?" Ruatha said.

"Yes. It is the same energy as the forcefield, only stronger, more intense." Aoki replied.

"You tell them," Ruatha said, her lekku giving off the sense of uncertainty.

"Ruatha and I are feeling more of the same power that ran the forcefield," Aoki said aloud for all of us. "We think there is active technology or maybe just a power source."

"Great work, both of you," I said and observed Ruatha's lekku shift a subtle color, the Togrutan way of blushing. "Ruatha, would you like to take the lead? Tell us when we are close."

"Me?" She exclaimed, and Aoki stepped up and took her hand. "Us."

The pair took point, and we followed. I was so damn proud of Ruatha and Aoki. Perhaps a dozen meters further down, I felt it now. There was a sensation that felt like insects crawling over my skin. A formidable power source created a potent field around it, and we were damn near on top of it. I scanned the tunnel, my mask still set for full-spectrum, and nothing stood out.

"Stop! Do not move." Jha called out via our commlinks. "There is something on either side of you. I am scanning. The ring is inset and hidden by an optical illusion. The droid's 360-degree camera picked up on it. Sending to your HUDs."

We all cursed as we stood frozen in fear that we were about to trigger a trap. The ring, covered in a clever transparent shield, warped the light, and unless you knew the proper angle, you'd miss it. The symbols flashed in a new pattern, and we looked for the double pulse, which would signal the beginning of the sequence.

"There!" Murad exclaimed. "That one."

I felt my body stiffen as I prepped to send the new password and hoped it disarmed the trap if this was a trap. Here goes nothing, I thought as I transmitted the code. The lights dimmed, and we let out a collective sigh of relief. The dazzling pulse of light caught us all by surprise. My masked saved me from being blinded, and as the tunnel disappeared and our new location resolved itself, I felt the slow teleportation beam shut down. The others were blinking away the spots while I examined our surroundings. The vast chamber was cold. Water condensed all around us, and the walls dripped with moisture.

"Power surge," Ruatha cried out as the walls dried and the water evaporated. "I feel like a bug about to be squished." She said, wrapping her arms around her torso.

"I know what you mean. I think we are deep underwater." I suggested. "All that pressure."

"Yes, I think you are right, Katria." She said and stepped closer. "You said they were an aquatic species, a jellyfish or octopus, and they are deep, aren't they?"

"Yes, if you have any ideas, call out." I urged her, and she smiled. "Your value is not tied to physicality," I whispered. She blushed and remained silent.

"Hey, what is that?" She asked as she pointed to the floor.

"Fossils," Kyanna said as she squatted and ran her hand over the long-dead marine life petrified and preserved in the stone floor. "These are fish, not invertebrates. Look at the teeth on that bad boy."

The hologram appeared out of nowhere. The typical lines from holo projectors were missing. This thing could almost be confused for a living creature. The colors were vibrant, the movement as natural as a living thing, and accompanied with a slight disturbance in the Force. Curious, I reached out with the Force and felt an odd echo greet me. Like the Rakata, this race had mastered blending technology and the Force. Unlike the Rakata, they used the full unified Force and were grey users like me. The image swam through the air with the same mechanics it might have used within the sea.

It was about the same size as an adult great white shark. There were light-producing organs just below the surface of its outer skin. A ring of eyes formed a crown atop the alien's body, what could have been its head. The hue of its skin changed as often as the flashes of light it produced. The thing had three sets of tentacles and delicate manipulators with their location and form dictating function. The lower end of its body ended in the longest and thickest tentacles. I imagined they were part of its propulsion system to jet through the water or pull itself along the floor of the ocean. The middle set formed a ring and was the thickness of a human arm and half the lower set's length and thickness. The ends of this group ended in three long delicate pseudo fingers. I guessed they were primary manipulators. The last set were clusters of tiny cilia, and I assumed they functioned as tongues or a similar organ. I hypothesized that the host of quivering thick hairlike protrusions tasted the water and helped the creature hunt and navigate.

"Inefficient." The booming voice broke the silence and forced the others to cup their hands over their ears. The next time the volume of the voice fell into the comfortable social level. "So inefficient form of communication. We have studied your species."

"We are different," Kyanna replied.

"Superficial." The voice said, and more holograms appeared. They were images of corpses of most of the sentients active in the galaxy, with a few I did not recognize. The bodies had been autopsied and clinically dissected. "Primitive."

"At least we aren't extinct." Aoki snapped angrily.

"Impertinent but truthful." The voice agreed, showing little emotion. "When your society lasts two hundred thousand years, come back, and we will speak as equals." The alien hologram seemed to study each of us in turn and stop when it looked in my direction. "Nocturnal. You are the current Master of our Star Forge."

"Your... the Rakata took credit for your device," I said, and the thing's color darkened. "Did you evolve here on Lehon?"

"No. Our homeworld was within the galactic core. Our scientists determined that our star was going to go supernova. Our existence requires a concentrated, potent energy source. You call it the Force. The only world we detected that met our needs was this one, Lehon. We transplanted our society here and prospered. The primitives you call the Rakata were just leaving the sea for the land. We existed undisturbed for long eons and continued our gardening project."

"Gardening? Terraforming?" I asked as the others watched the exchange. "Did you help the others evolve?" The sound that it produced, I speculated, was laughter.

"No. We have little interest in the evolution of primitives. Follow the facsimile, and we will reveal our perpetual project that is our forgotten legacy."

The autopsy images disappeared, and we followed the alien swim to the rear of the chamber. A hidden door opened in an iris-type pattern. This tunnel was bright and well-lit. The soft thrum of power was everywhere. The hologram led us to an ovoid-shaped chamber whose one entire side reminded me of a balcony. It looked out over a massive transparent wall. Beyond was the ocean floor, and clustered in their thousands were things that resembled jellyfish. Their size was impossible to determine because of the nature of water, glass, and refraction. They appeared to be two or three feet high, with tentacles at the bottom that allowed them to crawl across the ocean floor. Their bodies were translucent and within what looked like crystal formations.

"I don't get it," Murad stated our thoughts. "What is that thing?"

I watched them as they crawled, and though difficult to see at first glance was a feeding tube that protruded from the bottom of the harvesters as I thought of them. You could see clumps of rock being sucked up and attached to the crystals inside the body of the thing. I felt thousands of connections when I closed my eyes and reached out with the Force. I broke away and exclaimed when it hit me.

"Kaiburr crystals." I cried out. Kyanna and Aoki repeated what I had done.

"How?" Kyanna gasped in shock. "I thought they grew naturally on worlds like Ossus, Jedha, and others."

"Correct, they do." The hologram replied. "Follow me."

We followed it to the next stage in the process. It took two minutes to walk from one chamber to the next. The tube architecture remained prominent, but new artwork decorated the walls. It was a blend of form and function, and the light was everywhere in all its myriad forms. The symbols were grander and more intricate. We had just touched the most basic level of their society and communication. We were so different from one another. The temptation to try and assume their form manifested, but my gut screamed that it was a terrible idea. I listened to my instincts. A second iris opened, and we entered the next room.

"Oh my god," Ruatha cried out and tried to flee the room, but the iris slammed shut, almost crushing her. I managed to grab ahold of her shoulder and pull her back just in time. I heard Aoki cursing, felt Kyanna's rage flare to life, and the others were too shocked to move. I moved to the front of looked out to a shallow flooded chamber behind another transparent alloy wall. Here is where they harvested the crystals. It was not the act of cutting open the jellyfish to collect the crystals. No, it was the workers that had once been land-going air breathers now surgically altered to perform their function better. One of them might have been a Rodian before his transformation. His head and features hinted, but the rest was pure nightmare fuel of gills in his neck, augmented tentacle-like arms to grasp the jellyfish better, and beak-like mouth that allowed them to consume the body of the dead jellyfish for food to eliminate the waste.

Glittering metallic armatures reached down and plucked the freshly harvested crystals from their workers' grip and set it in into a negative pressure tube that sucked the stone from the mechanical arm and deposited it in a room for only the rarest crystals. Those that did not meet expectations reached an adjacent chamber. We continued as the twins held and supported Ruatha. The third and last room was like nothing we could have guessed or anticipated. A multiarmed version of the armature gathered up the large, flawed crystals in its limbs. A metal and crystal sphere in the middle of the chamber began glowing. Three metal rings attached to it spun and shifted before suddenly locking into place. The globe fell dark, and a howling wind tore through the room as the tentacles launched the crystals in their grip into the vortex. As the Kaiburr crystals fell into the portal's event horizon, they shattered, and like glittering sand, they vanished from sight.

"You are seeding Force nexus worlds," Kyanna exclaimed. "Oh my god, how long has this been going on?"

"Hundreds of thousands of years. The crystals fall on worlds rich in the Force. Oh, the Ghostfire crystals make sense now. How they form atop mountains." I said as the image of a portal opening and the crystals raining down filled my thoughts.

"Yes. We seeded that world." The hologram admitted. "The portal affects some crystals differently than most. The Ghostfire is one such example."

"Ghostfire? What is a Ghostfire crystal?" Shurad asked, posing for the camera.

"An exceptionally rare Kaiburr crystal." The hologram replied. "Would you like to see one?"

We followed it out as the impact of what we had learned hit me. This race had created and seeded Kaiburr crystals all over for longer than recorded history. Even though they were extinct, their machines still functioned and planted the most unusual garden in the galaxy. The fourth chamber was a museum. It held the entire range of Kairburr crystals from the most common to unique samples cultivated here on Lehon. There was an adjacent annex that contained the whole history of the lightsaber. Starting on the right side of the room were protosabers with their power packs and cables, the Forcesaber created by the Rakata that drew directly from the Dark Side of the Force, and then a host of lightsabers with their custom designs. The chronological display of weapons showed an exciting progression throughout the millennia. Some portions of the collection looked similar, and then others were wildly different and crafted of rare and expensive materials.

The hologram pointed out a perfect Ghostfire crystal, and I felt my mouth water. Suddenly, I realized that the stone in the Darksaber was a diamond and no longer a crystal. My Ghostfire was unique among obscure Kaiburr crystals.