Log:Catch The Light: Part Two
Catch The Light: Part Two
OOC Date: November 30, 2021
Location: Ahch-To
Participants: Vega, Rey, Jax Greystorm, Ax, Yuun
The Jedi Order had made a discovery on one of the outlying islands of Ahch-To. There was one BIG problem though, there was a very large and deep hole to get down. And there was no real idea what was down there other than the darkness that greeted them after the group had last been there and disposed of the rocks that were covering the entrance. There had been the call made to return to Devaron and Chandrila to gather resources to get down to see what possibly could have been going on down there.
Or what was being hidden.
Now with climbing gear in hand and a better grasp of what might be the challenge the The Jedi have returned to the place and thankfully the hole has not moved. Fortunate that!
Vega's grey gaze flicks over the surroundings and then down to the blackness that yawns before them. She's dressed in her usual black but left the over robe back on the ship given they were going to be climbing and 'no capes!' were needed in that realm given they could get caught, "Well, whatever is down there they were sure not wanting it to be found by someone." she states as she looks to the others.
Jax was sitting cross legged on a small rock junting out of the ground not far from the unsealed hole. He looks to be meditating but perhaps he's sleeping. He's done that before. His eyes opening at Vega's statement, "Indeed. Though why they don't want it found could be a variety of reasons." He says as he stands up and starts to removes his hooded cloak. Then starts to fold it up and lay it on the rock. "What is the plan?"
~
Ax is near the edge of the hole, strapping into his climbing gear. Fortunately, his clothing was designed with maximum mobility in mind, not heavy robes. Looking into the darkness, Ax is blinking a few times, adjusting his eyes to different spectrums of light to see what seems to work best in penetrating the dark abyss below.
"Kind of reminds me of some caverns I used to explore as a kid back on Socorro. Though, it was no island cavern there, just a crevice of black stone in a desert of black sands."
~
Having come back to Ahch-To, this time with gear in tow, Yuun is dressed in his typical lax clothing. Yuun looks to the hole and he also adjust his sight as he focuses through the force. He looks at everyone and checks his gear, "Are we ready for this?" he asks as he looks to everyone.
Rey had spent awhile going over the climbing gear with a very suspicious eye. "What is the purpose of-- oh." She muttered. "This is intricate..." She mumbled. "Oh, I like this." She added. But in the end most of the gear was left in the bag it was packed in and Rey just picked up the ropes and fasteners... the items she was most used to from her time on Jakku. Climbing was a way of life for her, and this new-fangled equipment just seemed cumbersome to the young woman.
She approaches the deep dark chasm and shakes her head. "It shouldn't be too hard to get down, I don't think." She states. The conical shape of Dio looking over her shoulder from his custom backpack on Rey's back...
"I think this is a bad idea, R-Rey." The little droid says.
"Nonesense. We'll be fine." She says as she secures her line and looks to the others. "Lets have at it then." Rey says as she begins to descend after tossing her line down, and lighting a chem-light that she hangs on the back of her belt.
"Hopefully we are all on top of our reaction times now just in case." Vega states with a little frown as she looks over the side. She then turns and crouches down in front of her BB-Unit, "You stay here and if there is any trouble you can radio me, alright?" she gives him a nod. He warbles and rolls from side to side in a bit of a shimmy before he beeps in compliance. The droids didn't like it!
Neither do we kids.
Once everyone is set to climb and repel down there are lights attached to the ropes to guide them. It's surprisingly well carved out for just a 'random' hole in the ground and looks like a some point there might have been something that helped with the construction of it.
They get good ground covered, the dextrous folks leading the way and the less dextrous still making a good show.
Jax had been setting up his repelling gear. "This is like too many of my missions when I was in the Resistance. We were so short handed before Starkiller base. Somebody kept having me reassigned to ground missions." Jax says as he starts to repel down, "Nobody brought grenades right?" He says as starts to repel down. "How deep were those holes, Ax?"
~
"Going down is the easy part," Ax says, looking over to Rey. "The fun part is going to be ascending. Kinda makes me wish I'd brought a jetpack." He chuckles, and with a quick 'bounce' off the cavern wall, he's dropping another long distance down. From the way he's moving, climbing and rapelling are likely things he's done a good bit of.
Looking over to Jax, Ax shrugs. "Likely not as deep as this one." There's a brief pause as he's taking a breath. "I'm getting too old for this stuff," he mutters to himself. His own BB-series droid was topside, likely complaining to any other droids that would listen about how reckless Ax was as a pilot, always taking bad risks.
~
Yuun looks to those gathered here today and honestly he smiles, he feels better and allows himself to focus on this. Once they are set, he moves down into the hole with the others. Having doubled checked his gear. "Oh this is going to be fun." he says with a smirk playing on his lips. Upon hearing Jax he chuckles, "Well they had you doing ground missions due to how cool you are." he laughs. Looking over to Ax, "Are you too old?" he asks. He checks his footing as he decends further down, "How you doing Vega?" he asks the Padawan. "I guess our fearless leader done this a time or too." he chuckles.
Dio clicks on his head-lamp light as he watches straight down behind Rey while they descend. "I certainly can't argue with that, Ax." Rey says up to the man about getting back up this way. "Perhaps we'll be able to find another way out." She suggests then as she too bounces from one wall to the other to find the best route down. She glides with experience and ease as she pauses only for a second or so to look back up at the others. "We're doing great. Keep it up." She encourages. "No time like the present to enjoy life before it passes us by, right?" She says with regard to the thought of age and, well, all of this!
"I'm doing okay." Vega tells Yuun when he asks. If this place was well lit she would not be okay. Heights were a weird thing! Thankfully the white haired woman only gets her foot tangled in rope for a few seconds and she doesn't completely freak out and go plummeting to whatever is below. "Just fine." she nods to this as she has a death grip on her rope and continues to climb down.
As they get lower, there is a faint scent that greets them, it's the scent of the sea...and stagnation. Something that might not be the best team up in the world. No one had been down this hole in awhile. Which is both good and bad in this instance. Fresh air would be a nice thing to have down here.
You've received a +nom from Rey Skywalker. +nom/pending to review.
Jax was climging down just fine. He finds himself at the end of his rope before swinging over and driving in a pin then dropping a new rope. Then rigging himself over to the new line and continuing his descent. "I am never that cool, Yuun. You can confirm that with Ax. Nah I don't know if Mom was trying to kill me or considers me proficent in ground combat that I wasn't a total embarrasment."
~
Between smoking, drinking, and spending most of his time in processed air, Ax doesn't pick up on the scents. "How deep you think we are?" he asks as he unhooks the rope from his harness. He's looking around, then up.
At Jax's comments, Ax chuckles. "Don't let him fool you, Yuun, he's cool. The twins love their unca Yakz. They think he's the coolest, though I think that's because he gives them stuff they're not supposed to have."
~
Yuun has to stop and do as Jax is doing setting up a new rigging and rope and starting back down again. He looks down and notices that there is faint light eminating down below. He makes a face at the stinch, "Oh you have to love that." he says with a grin as he looks down and starts moving down further as he works on keeping up with the others.
He laughs at both Jax and Ax, then he looks to Rey and gives nod of his head, "I think you're all cool so no worries tehre." he says as he continues moving down, "Though it does smell so good and refreshing down here now." he jokes.
Rey continues to nimbly move down the tunnel until she looks down. "I see a light. We're almost to the bottom, I think. Vega you dropped a chem-light down here before, didn't you?" She asks as they all continue onward and downward.
The last hop and jump has Rey touching down on the ground near indeed the light that Vega had left behind. Rey unties the rope from around her waist and lets it hang against the cavern wall. She looks up then.
"Two hundred feet, maybe?" She answers the question of depth. Her eyes come back down then as she takes a tentative steps around the basin of this elevator shaft. Dio peaks his head around one shoulder, then the other.
"S-Scary." The Droid says in a dry tone of voice, as ever.
"It's just a little dark, is all." Rey replies as she looks to the others.
Vega looks down, squinting, she cannot see the faint glow. Or she's just a dummy. "Yeah, I tossed it down last time hoping it was shallow...or at least we could see it from up there." she frowns. There's a little swing of her rope and she looks up towards where the faint light is from the surface, "Roundy I swear..." she cuts off abruptly as the young woman's rope suddenly falls...and her with it.
"ROUNDY!" is the echo of the yell that bounces off the walls.
There is a loud splash that follows it and seems to swallow whatever sound was coming after that.
A few seconds later there's the sound of sputtering, "I found the bottom!" she calls up to them as she tries to stand in it, grabbi
And indeed, the bottom of the hole is not far...and apparently there is a good deal of water below.
"Are you alright?" Jax calls out as he finish sliding down. He got the hand break held tight. "You guys seeing any dry land to put our feet down on?" He frowns, "Vega are you able to touch anything with your feet?"
~
Ax drops down the last bit to join Vega. His senses shifted to allow him to see in the darkness without the aid of light. The force was an amazing thing. "Well, lets hope there's nothing down here that wants to eat us," he mutters. "Let's see if we can find a good place to set up a base camp that's hopefully dry. Anyone know whether it's high or low tide?"
~
"Yeah I did see the chem stick. I should've said something earlier." he says as he looks to the others. Though as he too makes it to the bottom, he looks at the ground or water. He stretches a little and looks side to side, "I agree. Having wet feet isn't a good thing at all." he frowns a little bit. He scans the area to see if he sees any place for them to drop down in.
By the time Rey realizes that Vega was tumbling it was too late. She'd reached a hand out to catch her, but splash.
With a wince, Rey rushes toward her to help her. "Are you all right?" She asks, hoping to reaffirm it as so.
She looks back up then before over to Ax. "The moons should be on the other side of the world for another several hours. So... we're still in low-tide." Rey sighs then as she sweeps her gaze around. "At least we're making some ground now." She says then next.
"Cold, but alright. Water is ice cold." she grumps. "I'm short, Jax." Vega chuckles as she finds some footing. "Thankfully that water was here to break falls. Or we'd be in trouble." she nods to this. She stands up, but water is still pretty high, "Looks like it's about three feet deep...and it's salt water." she frowns. "Wonder what was going on." she reaches up to ring water out of her hair.
The others that drop down would have to deal with the water sadly. There is a large opening, that is arched and looks like doors or panels of some kind were supposed to be attached, but it never happened. It's a short hall (though a huge one) into what appears to be a large cavern like room. Across the room there appears to be another circular doorway, but it is blocked by debris and seals off the rest of whatever is down here.
Jax drops down into the water, "I'm not supposed to point out you're short." He says standing up and finding himself not drowing. "But at least we're not having to try to fish out of deep water before something tries to eat you." He looks around for a moment, "Looks like this is a hallway of a facility that's flooded out." Jax looks at the impacted rocks. "I believe they're holding back the ocean or are they what are holding the water in?" ~
"Kinda think that it's holding the water in.... but I've been known to be mistaken once or twice in my life," Ax says. "In other words, don't take my word for it. Probably should try to sense it out with the force, considering we don't have any ground penetrating sensors on hand."
~
When Vega seems to be doing okay, Rey nods softly as she spots the corridor and walks through the water that is up to her waist-level. She keeps her hands up out of it as the chill of the water doesn't seem to register on her face YET. She moves closer to the passage that is blocked, as the others speak, she listens as best she can.
"It's holding the sea back, I think..." Rey whispers loudly as she looks back to the others. "Thankfully." She adds more loudly. "There must be another way." She then says as both she and Dio start looking around.
Vega finally gets done with wringing out her hair, but it's going to be all fuzzy and wild given it's wet. She gives a look around, "Well, it's a fifty fifty at this point. Maybe there was something that they were building and had to abandon it for some reason." she frowns.
Once lights are brought in and illumination is cast on the lay out they notice that the room is larger that first expected and there seems to be an old set of stone stairs that lead up to a landing of sorts, out of the water more importantly. Up on the raised place there is a pile of long abandoned debris.
More things to search through while people try to warm up!
