Log:Jedi Order: Revisiting the Ash Worlds

Ban and Aryn revisit Belleau-a-Kiirium.

OOC Date: May 7, 2022
Location: Ash Worlds
Participants: Ban Iskender, Aryn Cortess

Landing in a hidden hangar, the Echo goes through its routine of systemic shutdown. Bouts of steam spout from the ship's belly, heralding the ramp as it began to lower to allow the occupants an exit. Aryn steps down the ramp slowly, the shift of her cape moving with each step until the ground beneath her feet began to level and the garment dragged behind her a bit. She looks around their immediate surroundings, finding nothing of threat, yet.

Their setting was eerie and quiet, power long abandoning the hangar beneath the palace thanks to some surgical bombardment years ago. "It has been years, has it not?" Aryn asked, not recognizing her voice in all the grave silence. The light on her wrist casts an LED cone, its purview of illumination emphasizing the presence of swirling dust.

Years? "So it has, my Lady," Ban agrees. He is attired once again in his dragoon's armor, the overracer primed and maintained, but not yet brought off the freighter as the gentleman walks down the ramp with Aryn. "I daresay the lack of crass greeting-" anti aircraft fire, "upon descent from orbit lends a measure of.." He can't bring himself to say optimism.

"The power core will be long detonated. The central computer razed upon withdrawal to deny the enemy. Truly there can be little left." All while he considers the dark hangar, knowing even without light where the doors like. "Would her Highness first favor the path into the remains of the palace, or into the open air?"

"There is plenty enough left," Aryn argues lightly from her spot. "..a choice still to be made." Aryn abandons her brief look outside the hangar bay. The sudden drop off, whispering winds, and a lunar view of the desolate sea of endless dusty terrain is all that greet them. As Ban said, not even the anti-air cannons sought to acknowledge them.

Returning to Ban's side, (handing slightly behind him) she raises her light to make out the door Ban has located from memory. "Do you think sentinels still patrol the corridors? It is so silent here I think I could hear a pen drop from half a world away."

"Perhaps. Mother be merciful and Father forfend, but if fortune is with us, what sentinels we find will be naught more than statues, inert and powerless."

For all the time that has passed, the new achievements and new home of his family and people, Cophrigin IV still has the feel of an open wound in the dragoon captain's mind. He felt pained and solemn to the edge of being grim as he beheld the landscape he had so long missed.

Aryn shares a look with Ban a moment, her gloved hand coming up to touch his arm in a show of solidarity. She did not truly know the pain he felt, but she could sense the grim scenery all around them. Moving forward, ever forward, Aryn left his side and waved her hand at the door separating them from the corridor that leads inside.

Drawing on her influence of the Force, Aryn willed the doors to part. The action saw that the doors opened against their will, damaging the hydraulic mechanisms that kept the closed to begin with. The way it opened was dark until Aryn shined her light inside. Eerie silence followed the sudden noise, and Aryn's light revealed vigilant figures standing motionless, caked with a layer of dust. They did not respond to the noise of the door, so Aryn felt it was safe to speak.

"What would your mother bid we bring back to her? More importantly, what would you like to bring back?"

Ban looks from the landscape to Aryn at his side when she touched his arm. That bit of outside contact grants the soldier a way out of his circling thoughts, and a small nod is given as they turn toward the corridor and the Princess' power opens the doors.

The unmoving machines are noted for position and stance: had they expired at posted guard, or in motion? Idle curiosities aside, he senses no immediate danger and walks hith a measured and dignified gait toward in the direction of the palace lower levels.

"In this, I daresay Her Excellency and I are in accord: the most valuable items which might survive would be within the deep vaults. The Ash Worlds were once- in distant antiquity- part of the Empire of Xim the Despot." a small sniff of dry amusement. "In the construction of our deep bunkers and vaults, inspiration was borrowed for that ancient tyrant's cunning. Have you read of the discovery of Xim's treasure vaults, Aryn?"

I'm discussing his home, the gentleman has begun a slight shift from stiff and formal to almost casual form of conversation.

"I have not," Aryn notes quietly, allowing Ban to lead their direction and efforts. "What importance did the Ash Worlds hold for Xim?" Aryn slips her hands to the small of her back and interlocks her fingers; with her cape still trailing behind her, the entire motion is hidden beneath its confines.

The corridor turns, allowing passage into a deeper corridor that angles down further. They pass a set of inoperable lifts and eventually arrive at a set of secure doors. These are not tall doors, but they belonged to the undercroft and were large enough to allow maintenance crews and equipment to go below. Aryn wonders if the vaults were there, or if they resided even further down.

"They we're not yet the Ash Worlds in the time," Ban notes. "But as the Kiirium Reaches were counted among the richest of the tyrant emperor's prizes. One of his Throne Worlds was near to this system, forming a frontier against Hutt Space. After Xim's downfall, the Hutts sought to exterminate humanity in this sector, reducing the Kiirium Reaches to ash with nuclear detonations that scoured all life and poisoned air and soil for a thousand generations. This is why no native flora or fauna existed upon this world when my people first took refuge among the ashes."

His baritone voice echoes slightly in the dusty corridor. "But legends of the Despot's lost treasure ship, containing wealth beyond imagination endured for millennia afterward, as such legends oft do. The ship was lost en route to the great treasure vaults on Dellalt. Or so it was believed. For although the treasure vaults had long been plundered, less than a century ago, the truth was learned: The treasure ship had arrived. The cunning tyrant had built in secret a great vault hidden beneath the standing vaults, which had hidden the wealth of an Empire beneath the very noses of those who followed to rob him." A small shrug.

"By then the treasure was worthless, except as a historic curiosity. Outdated military technologies, crystals, beam tubes, early war droids and so forth. The hidden Iskender vaults are similarly lacking in practical wealth, but vue to us. The larger surviving relics of Old Alderaan, humble though they are, were hidden beneath, sealed against all but those of my mother's blood," the soldier considers.

"It is entirely possible that- absent any power signatures, the vaults may have remained undetected. It is equally possible the invaders simply destroyed them out of hand. But we shall see."

"You may be correct. Despite the damage attained through the initial invasion, structures of the city yet remain. I theorize the campaign of the machines was not the destruction of civilization, but of life. To what purpose remains to be seen, but if those sentries back there hold any truth to their occupation, it is that a lack of energy to sustain themselves has begun to take their toll." Aryn walks up to the door from Ban's side and places her hand upon it. Dust caked onto the surface falls off, clouding the air where her light beam manages to capture it.

Aryn draws upon the Force once more to prompt the doors apart. It takes a concerted effort to move them back down their tracks, but it opens wide enough so the two of them may pass. The path leads further down. The darkness adds to the odd foreboding silence, but Aryn tries not to allow their setting to increase her anxiety. They were both well trained Jedi and could handle themselves!

"I recall our last visit within the throne room. It was all preserved despite the active occupation. I do not think these treasures were the reason for the invasion. That said, are there defenses against those not of your bloodline that prevent entry into the Iskender vaults?"

"They came not for wealth," Ban agrees. "They came for hatred of Alderaan, as the Empire and its Remnants came twice before." The gentleman sought to lend a measure of aid to Aryn in forcing the door open, but if his efforts produce any effect, he cannot tell when compared against Aryn's more significant labors. "They cannot rest safe from justice, whilst any son or daughter of Alderaan lives."

As to defenses, "Naught that need concern us, with the power core gone. The locks will open at a drop of my blood. It was.. perhaps petty of Her Excellency, but if she and her children were no more, my mother had no wish to let any other possess what she had kept." His armored shoulders turn sideways as he passes narrowly through the forced door. "One day, perhaps.. if there is need, and there were warrant to see this fief restored, the banners might fly again. But that day is yet far from this, if ever it dawns." Green eyes turn about them again, a steadying hand on his sword hilt.

Aryn pauses on the other side, allowing time enough for Ban to catch up to her by passing between the threshold. She nods to his sentiment, and turns to regard him when the mention of his mother comes up. "Do you feel safe in moving these things from the vault now?"

Their path takes them to the lowest point of the palace, well below the ground and nearer to the foundations itself. Rather than pleasant wall coverings and shined floor paneling, their setting has changed to metal grated floors and walls with their support beams revealed. No sentry occupies this space as none reached this far. It tied into the fact that the droids operated on a signal which conveyed commands for their missions. No such commands could be transmitted or received at this depth.

Thus they arrive within the vault location. It is not marked traditionally as a vault, but set up like a network of storage containers. There is a central lift, likely where these containers were raised and lowered, then installed into the wall for safe keeping. Aryn walks about in the darkness, shining her light to each locked spot on the wall.

"Was it a hidden vault?"

A hidden vault? "It was. Beneath our feet, at present. Accessed by a separate lift, so that no slicer or maintenance technician could physically reach it or know of its existence through the depth of the main turbolift column." As for removing them now, "We will require a clear path to the ship. Many of the relics are statuary, and art pieces which were not on display in the palace above, and which were of too great a size and weight to evacuate when ships were so limited and lives were at immediate risk."

The evacuation of the colony had been a close-run thing, and even then some citizens had been left behind, only to be rescued later. While speaking, he is walking toward a place on the adjacent wall, seeking out something in the smooth metal by memory and feel.

"The Echo's cargo stores should prove useful in transporting a good number of artifacts, then. Fortuitous it is outfitted appropriately." Aryn comments, returning to Ban and shining her light along the wall to watch him quietly. "I always found the concept of biometric locks fascinating. Requiring a sample of blood, the uniqueness of an eye, or a lock of hair; my family never used such measures to hide treasure. Come to think of it, I know very little of the Cortess vaults or the secrets of my family."

Aryn has brought herself to a thoughtful silence as her mind travels to a distant place involving the stories her mother spoke on, and her cousin Lumira Cortess. Though her light is originally focused on Ban, she ends up standing in place and staring ahead in the lost sea of thoughts.

Their surroundings are silent still, save for the sounds of their breathing and interactions with the immediate setting. Dust swirls through the beam of the light, stirred up by their presence.

"It is only with the perspective of distance that I note aught unusual of my mother's precautions," Ban admits, while running a gloved palm along the smooth metal of the wall. "The notion that a great house would not take similar precautions would have been.. incomprehensible to me, not long past. I daresay it some measure of power, menace, and isolation which combine to drive such deep wariness. A common key might be lost or stolen, a combination deduced or sliced. It was ever a maxim: only blood may be trusted." He finds what he had searched for, and draws a knife, and cuts into a smooth expanse of duty metal. The wall beneath is durasteel, but this particular stretch was faced with a sheet of softer lead. As Ban cuts and peels it away, a closed hatch is revealed, perhaps two meters square. Without hinges or portruding handles, it had lain fully flush beneath the seamless lead. Even once the veneer is cut and peeled away, it does not resemble a doorway. "Light, if my lady would be so kind?" Ban asks, for aid in feeling out a pressure plate at the lower center. Once depressed, a handle plate releases and rotates. Once grasped and turned, there is a heavy metallic clunk as unseen bolts within the panel retract from the surrounding durasteel. Then, the square hatch can be removed. Within is a small, two meter square room. Unlit and without feature, except for a niche in the back wall, where some cultures might place the graven image of a saint, or household god. Within it is a small dish.

"Her Excellency installed this vault after the Second Imperial Invasion, after Liren and I returned. After our father had died. I have wondered whether she would have placed such a lock, had he lived. Whether she would have trusted him, or any others. Or whether that loss is what required her to build this vault, at all."

Idly as he steps inside, Ban draws off his right glove, looking to Aryn, as he poses such unknowable questions aloud.

Aryn reacts by being surprised she drifted off and adjusts to shine the light where he bids. She is quiet, listening to him recount what he knew of other vault arrangements, and his mother. Hearing of Ban's father dying, and this vault following that, makes Aryn's brow crease in further thought.

"Your mother is an unyielding woman yet I notice she has not remarried or sought companionship following your father's passing. I can only assume she still, much as she had before, loves him. Maybe the vault is a representation of her.. all that is dear hidden even from plain sight, only those of her blood have an avenue to her heart or her vulnerabilities. Grief is a terrible thing."

Aryn follows Ban, noticing that he has pulled his glove off. Her curious gaze settles on the only other feature in an otherwise featureless room.

"An eloquent and artful assumption," Ban opines. "She had no further need of marriage, a ruler in her own right, with two heirs. There were many suitors at first, before she dueled one for a perceived slight, and wounded him." A short sniff and small, brief smile at the recollection. "Whether a symbolic representation, a lack of trust in those around her, or the dire hand of grief, my lady is correct beyond doubt in this much: only those of her blood have a path."

Ban pricks the pad of his thumb with the point of the knife and holds it to drip above the bowl within its niche. Five drops in rapid succession, before the rate of dripping blood slows, and is absorbed into what had seemed to be a dull metallic bowl. Several moments pass and Ban looks around, curious to see if it has succeeded or failed. "I must confess, my Lady, I have never before been this-" An abrupt grinding of unseen gears, and long idle fittings rumbles through the vault, as the small two-meter chamber begins lowering into the ground; a lift shaft concealed by cunning engineering and expert design. Ban's interrupted apology breaks off with a brief smile. "It would appear to function, after all." The rate of descent is slow enough that the dragoon relates with an edge of admiration, "She did not trust any other with knowledge of the design, or care of the schematics. All were devised, designed, and drawn by her own hand."

Deeper they go, past several meters of durasteel, before opening into a dark chamber, in which the air smells stale and aged. The deeper vault is smaller than the chambers above, but packed quite full with varied objects under dust cloths and in crates.

"A woman of many talents and endless strength, I admire her passion. Few make it passed the relentless weight of grief, but she seems to bear all or make it cower with but a look. I can only imagine what wisdom may pass to our children when the day comes that she will teach them."

Aryn grows silent as Ban goes through the ritual of pricking his thumb and yielding blood to the bowl. When it appears that the device is not going to work, and Ban apologizes, Aryn giggles when the door interrupts. Dust is unsettled by the movement, and Aryn raises her arm to shield her nose from inhaling it and spawning coughs.

"I would be interested to learn of your mother's colleges. Though, I suppose, being that she is of Old Alderaan, then it is there she learned such trades. What was your father like, or was his passing before your memory as a child?" Aryn tries to recall whether Ban has spoken of the departed Lord, but draws a blank. It had been many years since, and they'd fought two wars in that time.

"She is formidable in every way," Ban agrees plainly. "Father adored her. Looking back, it was more than I suspect she was comfortable with, but.." A shake of his head, as Aryn asks, and Ban speaks of his father. "I knew him. He was a soldier. He had a talent for smiling; whenever I think of him, it was with a great warm smile. Those who knew him spoke of him with great fondness. The called him brave and loyal. Always loyal." Ban draws a slow breath of the stale air and recalls, "Always smiling, except at court. He could so stern then, but if ever he noticed me looking at him, he would.. give a small wink, and somehow I knew he was smiling ever when stone faced.

"He would try to get mother to laugh. She so rarely did, but there were many times we could tell she wanted to, despite the frown. There was a certain narrowing of her eyes," Ban relates with recalled amusement. "He was not a pilot, but spoke them highly- no pun intended, I assure you. Every year, he was certain he would convince mother to secure a hover tank for the army. He so badly wanted a tank, but she never gave in. Too expensive, too impractical, too slow, not strong enough on the defense in solitude. So often did I hear it, that even now I recall the myriad ways a hover tank would have been a vain waste of resources against a corp of Imperial walkers, and how we would be better served further investing in towers, trenches, and infantry." A small shake of his head. "Yet every year, he sounded so sure that would be the one, no matter how many times before he'd failed." Ban smiles, wanly.

"I was terribly fond of him. He loved openly, in ways mother could not. We did not need to.. earn his warmth. She was endlessly annoyed with him, but mother trusted him. And with his death, she could trust no other, so."

"I am envious of you," Aryn says with a bit of warmth. "I have always wondered what a father's love felt like. Mine, and my mother, were both fond of Kier and not so me. In later years, that has changed, of course, but to hear your telling of your father I can see now I know nothing of that sort. I would have liked to meet him. I am certain he would be proud of the man you have become, though he may have made you more apt to smiling. You wear your mother's bearing."

Aryn steps beyond Ban to explore the room with her light. She isn't so unkind or unthoughtful as to pull the sheets from the treasures. She recognized this was not her place, so she offered the quiet room more reverence and yielded to Ban's direction by turning back to regard him. "Among those treasures deemed most important, which should make the trip back to the ship first, Ban? You have many choices here.. do any speak to you?"

"My Lady would hardly recognize me," Ban quips deadpan to the notion of smiling more. Aryn's courtesy in not pulling off canvas is pardoned when Ban responds, *I have never been within the chamber, a d there more here than I can readily inspect. I pray you assist me in the search a d see what lies before us."

I'm n the course of his searching, Ban speaks on. "Your brother was given what he did not deserve. I suppose all parents struggle to see past what they expect of their children." As to wearing his mother's bearing, he dips his head. "My thanks."

He reminsces shortly after, "Father had a uniform made for me, to match his. Down to the miniature medals, and wooden sword. I wore it only once. The palace guards saluted me and I salutes back." A slowly drawn breath. "Mother was livid. 'The uniform of Alderaan is worn by men and women prepared to lay down their lives. It is not a costume for a dim little boy'."

He draws a cloth from a large, irregular piece of masonry. It appears to be a section of statuary. Other pieces in the chamber consist of travel chests, paintings in the classical Alderaanian style. A landscape of Belleau-a-Lir on Old Alderaan, and so forth. Toward the back are sectional pieces of masonry and chromium, carefully disassembled. Perhaps an ancient fountain, relocated.

Aryn nods when given leave to help, and she does just that by tugging a sheet off one of the piles. Dust swirls and it makes her cough, waving her hand slightly to clear the air and raising her other hand to shine the light over all the trinkets.

Ban's story is listened to quietly, her own thoughts imagining a young Ban wearing the uniform his father wore and saluting the guards in passing. It was cute to consider. "Thus the seeds of duty were planted from a young age. To be a soldier like your father, and to have the respect of the men when they salute you back. T'was a feeling you experienced one time and it must have carried you through to the present. A Captain of the Dragoons, a veteran of the great war and that of New Alderaan, now."

She coughs again. "It warms my heart to know you had a father fond of you. In that way, his influence resonates more." Aryn opens a small trunk with a wave of her gloved hand, then shines her light to see its contents. "Your mother was not wrong about the uniform, but you are not some dim little boy."

"Mayhap it were her expectation, mayhap it were mine own dread, or mayhap one drove the other, but I always felt that she thought me that dim little boy, chasing after the fate of his dim Father." A slow drawn breath, and a more mild cough for the dust. "Liren was always favored as the clever one, between us. In a twist of irony of which I am quite aware, we two have that commonality, Aryn."

Her kind words give him a moment's pause. "Another trait we share, I suspect, is the sense that for all we have done.. all we have borne. It does not feel enough."

A glance back toward the lady, concern rising for her lungs in the enclosed space of the deep vault. "I suspect this fountain shall serve us well. I recall the image from holograms, it was removed from Belleau-a-Lir. My family on the Old World dwelt on an island renowned for such fountains. I daresay she could not have wasted the water in so arid a clime as Cophrigin Four, but the sea city of Belleau-a-Reyn seems fit. I can prepare the loadlifter, if the air is too thick," he offers.

Within the chest Aryn had opened was an unusual assortment of personal belongings, seeming out of place among the other large works of art or timeworn relics of a dead world. The items within are more humble: a braid of cut black hair, a jewelry box that played music when opened, a case containing datarods, marked in sockets by their date, most between twenty and thirty years old, some older. A holographic marble within the case of a crystal castle. Until placed on a projector, the contents are unknown. A leather case trimmed in chromium and blazoned with a tower.

And among the other odds and ends, toward the bottom of the trunk are a small girl's dancing shoes, a miniature crown, a small wooden sword, and a tiny folded uniform.

"I think this trunk belongs to your mother, perhaps," Aryn says without tarnishing her honor by rummaging through it. She keeps the light aimed at its contents though, picking out what she can see. "Looks to be some personal effects and things close to the heart. Perhaps these carry some meaning to you as well?"

Aryn brushes her cape aside and triggers the call for the load lifting droids on their ship, but remembers shortly after doing so that the signal was made useless at this depth. She sighs, and turns off the pager to look around the room for dormant load lifters around them. She uses what light casts off the walls to create shadows to discern what may be around them.

"I may need help with the load lifter, but not right away. Perhaps we might catalog what should be exhumed first, then move it in such order," Says the doctor and 'list person'.

There are two load lifters within the vault, but both will require new power cells.

Catalog? "A fine notion. That would be the most sensible point to begin." He does step toward the trunk Aryn describes, and glances within for a long moment. "I.. daresay you are correct. both now, and in speech before: it would appear Her Excellency put aside her old self in more than a purely figurative manner." A breath drawn and let out through the nose as Ban regards Aryn, half glimpsed in the darkness and spotty light. Only belatedly is her earlier touch returned as Ban rests a hand at Aryn's cheek, eyes holding, even if only half seen. He is struck immediately and powerfully by a compulsion to speak.

"I have been troubled in returning here, Aryn. Yet never let there be a melancholy so deep that I fail to recall that I endure.. my people and my family endure.. because a magnificent woman sectors away heard me in my moment of greatest despair, accepted an impossible request, and delivered me from doom. Whomever might feel pride in the man I become, the gratitude for my life is owed you, my Lady. My Princess. And my love."

The compulsion strikes an emotional chord within Aryn that makes her eyes water. Ban, in this moment, feels vulnerable as bits of his guarded past are made bare beneath her light and scrutiny. She bears no judgement for it because he has witnessed her in equally vulnerable places in her life. A single tear trickles down from her eye, finding the valley of the scar carved into her face, and over his thumb where it resides on her cheek.

"Yes, well, I could not marry a dead man, could I?" Said in low humor, as if that had been the only reason she answered back then. Aryn manages a smile and raises a hand up to touch his, cupping her fingers over it. "We fought together, and we won. On that day, I felt you. Not when we rode your steed to battle, or when we met upon the battlefield. I felt you sectors away and knew what must be done."

"Come now, let us see what memories your mother holds dear. You once beheld these things with your eyes, but now you know a far deeper perception. What of these things calls to you?" Aryn's hand moves from Ban's to rest against his back, lightly rubbing up and down to show solidarity again.

Ban bends his neck to touch a kiss to the tear-streaked scar beneath Aryn's eye. Touching his forehead to hers for a moment, the gentleman answers with matching low humor: "I admire your Highness's devotion to the spirit of Her contracts." A deep, steadying breath is drawn through the nose before he draws back to his full height, considering the room afresh, and letting eyes go closed. Calm is aided by Aryn's touch at his back, but clarity through his deeper senses remains elusive after a long moment. Brows drawing in a mild frown as green eyes open again, he must rely on his more mundane senses and judgements. "The trunk, for a certainty. Though mother would curse me for a horrid sentimentalist is I returned with naught else." There is a dry sniff of amusement. "Let us begin here," he gestures to the right. "I daresay it shall take some time."