Log:Jedi: A Lonely Place to Die pt.I

A lonely Place to Die Pt.I

OOC Date: November 6, 2015 (Optional)
Location: Nal Hutta
Participants: Chani Tahn, Zandra naMuriel, Jax Greystorm

Part of Kyle Katarn's notes had led to a remote location on Nal Hutta. The Painted Guardian had to land at the spaceport in the capital. It was just too mushy elsewhere, and the team had departed by swoop bikes deep into the swamps. Though that was probably 3 hours back as soon as they had found the security fence for Dula the huts compound. The trio had continued by foot in the muck, mud, and swamp water.

Finally the team had reached a mound in the middle of a pool of chest to waist deep water. It was too small to be considered an island and probably a hill. It was flattened on top with a stone runes of a few half walls and a stone floor broken up by the occasional scrub tree. A crane holding a cage big enough to hold a wookiee was set up in the middle. The crane and cage were quite a bit more modern. Like the heat and the humidity. The dark side here was palpable.

Jax looks at his data pad again. "This is it. It's never an amusement park. More planets than Zeltos should have a water slide."

[ Zandra naMuriel (Zan) | 20:32:56 ]

Zan got to be lazy today, letting Jax fly. She listens to what Jax says, as they arrive on the swoop bikes, frowning a bit as she looks over the mound in the middle of the swamp. "I bet there are leeches in that water. Also, it seems like we're not the first ones here. Do we now what we're expecting to find with this clue? I mean - is the crane there with the cage it? And we can head out?" There's a bit of a wistful thought with that, and then Zan wrinkles her nose and adds, "Okay, I agree. Water slides are okay, but I don't want to go into this water. It's slimy, dark, and it smells bad."

. [ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 20:34:33 ]

The foetid stench of the swamp is made worse by the horrid humidity. When they'd departed the speeder bikes, Chani had left her robe behind. It would do nothing here but weigh her down. Out in the middle of nowhere, she's less concerned with concealing her identity. Especially if they encounter any kind of trouble. Wearing her cream trousers and tunic, which are quickly tainted by the water, Chani keeps her lightsaber and various pieces of equipment dry by having her belt not on her waist, but up and worn draped across her shoulders. In particularly deep sections, she holds it above her head. A submerged lightsaber won't activate, after all, and that won't do her well. She tries to focus on that rather than the disgusting feel of the muck.

"I've never been to Zeltros, and I never want to come back here." Chani studies the crane with its cage, though doesn't try to approach it. "Stagnant water always smells bad, but this place is way worse than the bogs on Naboo. ..It might even be worse than Rori."

[ Jax Greystorm (Jax) | 20:49:38 ]

"The water slide at the spaceport is fun. The rest of the place is probably not conductive to being a jedi." Jax says looking around. "I doubt it, Zan. I haven't been one of the missions since they came up but I figure it requires some attunement with the force. So I'm doubting that's it." Jax takes a deep breath. "Well guess I get to find out if it's leeches or not. We've already been up to mud. What's the worse that can happen?" He says more to himself than the others. Then Jax starts to wade across the bog. It takes him a bit before reaching the other side. He climbs out of the water and goes up the hill. He then turns back to call out, "There's a pit or a well."

[ Zandra naMuriel (Zan) | 20:54:50 ]

"It's worse than Rori," Zan says. "We might have spent time there with Black Squad." A pause, and then a shrug as Jax heads across. She holds her breath, not even realizing, until he's safe. "You next, Chani?" she suggests, holding back to bring up the rear. She frowns at Jax's comment about the pit or well, a scowl crossing her face. "I don't know if we should go all at the same time." Never mind that Zan doesn't swim well, she can walk across, surely. Hopefully.

When it is her turn she takes a breath, squares her shoulders and holds her lightsaber and robe up over her head, making her way across to join the other two. "I didn't try the waterslide, honestly," she admits finally, once there. "I couldn't swim at all when I was there."

[ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 20:55:37 ]

Not seeing the sense in having only one of them go investigate, Chani follows Jax into the water. Once again, her belt is kept up and out of the water and the muck, and Chani makes soft grunts of exertion while she works her boots through the adhesive-like grip of the mud at the bottom of the brackish pool. She only notices now how quiet it seems aside from the slosh of water around her. The ripples form concentric circles that tear each other apart, and whatever rhythm might have existed in one is quickly broken up by another when she presses forward. "I don't hear any fauna anymore. Just.. silence." And her own voice. And the sloshing of water. She climbs up and out of the water once she's at the mound and traverses to the top, dripping with water.

"I can use my ascension line to head in, if you want." Fastened to her belt is holster housing a Theed Arms S5. "I'll be able to descend safely without attempting a blind jump."

Jax stands there looking at the hole for a moment as there's ominous dread coming from the pit itself. He finds himself not wanting to approach it. "Perhaps. Let's find out what's at the bottom first before we just send one of us down there. But It's a good plan. " Jax not yet approaching the hole. He surveys the area for a moment stopping at the rubble by one of the half collapsed walls. He digs through it for a moment. "We're in the right place. I just found a fragment of the last line of the jedi code."

[ Zandra naMuriel (Zan) | 21:12:48 ]

Zandra stops at the edge of the mound - island, staring for a long moment towards the pit that Jax has found. She shivers, a hand moving to the back of her neck, and then she puts her belt back on, Saber back in place. Despite the humidity and heat, she shudders. "I - definitely don't think we should go down there unprepared," is her comment. She swallows and then says, "And I'm not sure it's possible to be ready. That feels - bad." She too looks around, and then she frowns. "Okay, I can't read this, but but the controls on this crane - don't they look Huttese?"

[ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 21:15:56 ]

"There's something down there for sure. I hear hissing and water splashing." Chani fastens her belt back around her waist where the tunic clings to her skin like another layer. Drawing the Theed Arms blaster pistol from its holster, Chani steps around the lip of the well and aims the barrel of the blaster towards the base of the metal crane. Her left hand slips forward to trigger the deployment of the hook, which pierces into the durasteel and deploys stabilization hooks so that it doesn't simply fall out. Chani gives it a testing tug nonetheless to make sure that it won't just come out. "The ascension gun will allow me to lower myself slowly. I can take a look around with my lightsaber and go methodically." Chani doesn't just go, however.

She glances between Jax and Zandra, first at where Jax is digging and then back to the crane itself with controls in a language she doesn't understand. "I'm definitely not going down in that cage, for certain."

Jax comes over to join the two women. "Alright. If you're sure. Just slowly. I don't know if we got a healer with us or a even servicable medic." Jax looks at the crane, "I'd rather not anyone use that thing. I don't want to know what the hutts are doing with this place." He goes to stand at the edge of the pit and readys himself to help in someway. He just hasn't figured out how yet.

[ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 21:35:42 ]

"The cable holds up to a hundred and thirty kilos. I'm only forty-nine, so someone else should be able to use it. You'll have to use your hands, though. I'll have the gun with me." She's already attaching it to her belt so that she can be hands free. Her right takes the cylindrical hilt of her lightsaber and she sits down at the edge of the other side of the pit, so that the ascension line itself is taut. She edges forward until she simply slips off and starts to swing. Both her feet extend to brace against the wall that comes up at her. She calls on the Force to steady herself and gets her boots planted solidly against the wall, while the belt itself puts tension against her back and keeps her not quite horizontal in the space over the pit.

"Alright, here I go." Reaching up with her left hand to the S5, Chani gently applies pressure to a button on its cable reel. She begins to lower, taking it one step at a time. Her right thumb depresses the activation stud on her lightsaber and it snap-hisses to life. Thrumming with energy, its illumination is cast all around her. As she slowly lowers herself, more and more features begin to come into relief, until finally the glow of her lightsaber is reflected in the bottom of the pit. It's an extremely broken up reflection, given the number of wriggling serpents crawling all over the skeletal remains of who knows what. "There's a lot of bodies down here. And what seem to be snakes of some sort." Chani's face contorts into displeasure at the putrid smell.

She doesn't focus on that, though. Her gaze sweeps around and comes across sealed doors as she cranes her head around. "But there are some entryways down here. They look closed up." Her voice echoes on the way back to the top of the pit.

Chani Tahn depresses the metallic button on her cylindrical metallic lightsaber hilt and with an electric snap-hiss a brilliant blue energy beam rises forth!

[ Jax Greystorm (Jax) | 21:45:34 ]

Chani's report is accurate, there is well a slithering mass of snakes in the pit with a number of skeltons. There are couple of doors or well outline of doors in the stone walls at the bottom of the pit. The snakes obviously need some tending too first. Jax though stands on the edge of the hole and calls down, "Do you need some help back up? We're going to have to deal with the wild life it seems first."

[ Zandra naMuriel (Zan) | 21:50:46 ] "I don't think snakes are entirely what makes this place feel so - off," Zan comments. "Is there a wall with no doors? Could we tk the snakes and - whatnot - over out of the way, and then, oh, how would we hold them there?" Frown. Zan looks around to see if there's anything that could help keep snakes in only half the space they're in or some such. "I'd hate to let one get free though. We'd be bitten before we knew it." She's obviously thinking, not quite sure how to deal with this. "I guess the question first is, remove them or kill them? Are they the sort of thing we should let free on this mushball?" [ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 21:59:11 ]

Chani hangs where she is, feet braced against the wall and lightsaber humming steadily as it vibrates in her right hand. Her mind begins to sort through various options regarding what they're facing. She thinks they need to get through the doors, after all. She doesn't turn much to look around, but her chin tucks towards one shoulder and then the next so she can view as much of the room as possible without losing the placement of her feet. She doesn't want to just be slowly spinning above the pit. Not when that could run the danger of fraying the cable she's attached to. Jax calls down to her and Chani gazes back up, lit in blue by her lightsaber and highlighting where she is. "I can ascend back up with the gun," Chani assures him.

"What if we try to lower our ambient body temperatures so the snakes don't sense us? Assuming they sense by heat." The first crazy idea on the table belongs to Chani. Even she doesn't sound totally sure about it.

[ Jax Greystorm (Jax) | 22:13:26 ]

Jax frowns, "How would we do that?" He scratches his chin, "I know Aryn can alter the outside temperature at times. I don't know how she does it." Jax shakes his head, "I don't know about the telekinesis. Either one of you talented with animals?" He scratches his chin, "I feel like we're missing a piece of the puzzle."

[ Zandra naMuriel (Zan) | 22:13:36 ]

Zan looks around, her eyes thoughtful. She's not liking the options she's hearing, so far, especially the ones out of her own mouth. It's perhaps because she's looking down and thinking about it, that she notices the stones. Just an inch tall or so, ringing the wall - the pool. pit. well. Thing. Her gaze follows the symmetrical stones around the thing, though Zan pauses at Chani's question. "I don't know if that's a good idea. If it's motion at all, whoever tests this will get bitten. Do they hibernate though? Could we freeze them into somnolence?" A riff on Chani's thought. Zan then continues her gaze, moving around the pool as she needs to, in order to follow the stones. She's curious now, expecting that she'll just end up where she started, whether it's visual only or she has to move.

Only there's a whole in the symmetry. Zan goes to one knee to examine the spot where one rock is missing. "Hey, there's a spot here, with a metal plate, just a small one - and it lokos like there's a spot where something could be inserted, about one to two inches around. Circular. Maybe one of these rocks moves?" [ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 22:19:43 ]

"They're all moving against one another and not biting each other. I don't think it's motion. Reptiles have no body temperature control. They're just whatever the temperature around them is. Let me see if I can lower mine. If I can, I'll try to go lower. If I can't, then I won't." She knows she's risking getting bitten if she can focus enough to adjust her own temperature and the snakes turn out not to detect things by heat, but there's not many other options at the moment. They can't kill every single snake in the pit, and Chani would never condone killing them in the first place. They may have been put here, but they're still living creatures simply existing in their ecosystem. Inhaling a deep breath, Chani tries to steady her mind.

She focuses on the symbiotic energy flowing through her. She can feel the air. The heat. She can feel her own presence in it. She starts focusing on that more than anything else. She tries to slow her heartbeat and the friction of her muscles. She tries to lower the very heat that she gives off so that the air immediately around her matches the ambient temperature of the air down here in the pit.

[ Jax Greystorm (Jax) | 22:30:19 ]

Jax circles around to look at the metal plate. "I don't think it's a rock." He kneels down and feels the groved indention. "There's something machined that goes here and old." He calls out, "Chani, you alright? How did the lowering the temperature go?"

[ Zandra naMuriel (Zan) | 22:35:21 ] As Jax moves away from the well and keeping an eye on Chani to look at what Zan found, the violet haired jedi gets back to her feet, moving back to see if Chani needs help. "So, some sort of key?" she muses, based on Jax's observation. "I wonder what exactly it does?" She looks down and then suggests, "Maybe cold will make the snakes slow down? I don't - instead of cooling us off, I mean?"

[ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 22:35:27 ]

Apparently in trying to focus on her temperature, Chani doesn't get any remote sensation of danger at all that would warn her a snake is about to bite her. So she gets bitten. That ruins any concentration she might have and with venom now coursing through where she's bitten, Chani simply ascends out of the pit on the ascension gun to get to the top and away from the snakes that she can't sense about to attack her at any moment.

[ Jax Greystorm (Jax) | 22:48:46 ]

Jax moves from where he was kneeled. He offers Chani a hand, "You alright? Did you get bit?" He frowns, "Is there anything I can do? You need my obi for a compression banadage?" He was concerned and not the medically minded. " I can call Exine and have the Guardian here. I know it's got one of Sesti's med kits."

[ Zandra naMuriel (Zan) | 22:51:15 ]

Zandra is not sure what to do, exactly. She's thinking about trying to freeze snakes, but in order to use that little used skill, she concentrates, meditating for a brief moment. As she does so, she can hear what feels like a breeze, not that there is one, but she gets a sense of something - The Force - pulling at her. She starts patting down her jedi robes, her lightsaber, her pockets, her shoes, her hair. "Do I have anything that might fit in that - " and then Chani is coming up, perhaps not entirely well. "I - feel we might have something in our kits that might open this. or at least fit in that indentation," she says. There's an emphasis on the word feel. "I can try to heal if it will help? I learned a bit from Aryn, but I'm terrible still at first aid. actually I wouldn't recommend my first aid, I bet Exine is better."

[ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 22:54:36 ]

"It's fine," Chani remarks to Jax. The ascension gun carries her up and over the lip of the pit as she walks out rather than requiring that she crawl out. The placement of the hook at the base of the crane was partially for that reason, aside from it being far more secure than the ground that might potentially crumble under too much disturbance. Pressing the activation stud of her lightsaber to deactivate it, Chani hooks the hilt to her belt and then unfastens the ascension gun from where it's secured against the brown leather. She takes a seat as the pain and burning sensation begins to throb through her leg. It's already starting to make her lightheaded and nauseous. "I just need to sit for a moment." The brackish water they'd been forced to wade through to get here is seeping into the wound, but Chani is already pulling excess tether cord from her belt. After tearing the edge of her tunic sleeve into a band and wrapping it about her leg, she uses the tether cord to tighten down hard enough that her artery is impeded and the majority of the venom will be slowed, even if some of it already made it through.

[ Jax Greystorm (Jax) | 23:11:19 ]

Jax shakes his head, "We'll come back. We've found the place. We can come back. I don't know how strong that venom is or what's in the water." Jax pulls out his com unit. << Exine, can you zero in on my position? We need an evac.>> There's a grumpy response of beeps and whistles. Jax looks up at Zandra, "Is Yee still on Nar Shaddaa?"

It takes several minutes before the Painted Guardian comes zipping through the sky towards them. The Astromech obviously flying the ship as it nearly hits several trees more than once. Then comes to hover over the whole thing. The trio lit up with the spot lights of the ship.

[ Zandra naMuriel (Zan) | 23:14:56 ] Zan blinks. "I haven't talked to Yee in forever. it would be nice to." A smile at that. "I imagine she is? I mean, we can give her a call - Or I can, if that helps?" She moves to help Chani, if needed, but lets the other woman decide what help is needed. "We can definitely come back. It's equally important that we take care of each other." She's not got a question in her head, that retreat right now is the right choice. Retreat now, come back to try again. It works. "As soon as we're aboard, I can try to get hold of Yee."

[ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 23:18:32 ]

"Who is Yee?" Chani uses the support of the crane next to her to rise from her seated position. She favors the leg that has been bitten and envenomed. It's awkward to stand on a leg that is numb from the tightness of a makeshift tourniquet, but it's better that sensatino than the potential dangers of letting the venom course through her blood unchecked. Disconnecting ascension line from the weapon, Chani reholsters the S5 and prepares to board the ship with the other two. "Don't forget the speeder bikes." They'd left them out in the middle of nowhere, after all.

[ Jax Greystorm (Jax) | 23:31:10 ]

"Yee is a doctor we can trust. I can't remember what it stands for but she one of those bleeding heart type that's got a clinic on Nar Shaddaa that helps people in need. She's a member of the Waywards. If not better than hanging out here. " The ship drops like a rock as Exine tries to land. It sends birds flying up into sky. There's a loud bang and well the crane is knocked down and part of the rigging is jabbed through the structure into the hyperdrive. The guns under side the hull are well damaged beyond control. Jax frowns, "One emergency at a time, I'll see if the ship is still space worthy. I don't think I'm going to hyperspace anytime soon." The ramp opens with a hiss, Exine rolls out and gives the equivelant of 'Get to the chopper. I'll fly.'

[ Zandra naMuriel (Zan) | 23:36:04 ]

Zan nods to what Jax says. "Ayeeou Wanaii," she says, very very carefully. "But we all call her Yee or Doc Yee. Especially in emergencies. "She was one of the first folks I met on Nar Shaddaa when I was there, so it will be really good to catch up with her again." She winces at the ship, eyeing Exine for a long moment. "Know any good mechanics around here?" she asks Jax, with a half shrug. She does however head towards the Guardian, helping as needed.

[ Chani Tahn (Chani) | 23:38:14 ]

Chani becomes less certain about making it out of where they are when the astromech in charge of piloting the Painted Guardian puts part of the crane through some of the ship's exterior guns and something else she can't be sure of. Only when it's settled down does she begin to move forward and boards it so they can evacuate from this location and go elsewhere.