"Ah, Jenna! So we're all here." She waved her in. "That will save time." She waved at seats, but alternately stood and paced a little, her attennapalps angling like the rigging of a wind-powered sea vessel as it turned.
"I'll let other people introduce themselves in whatever depth they wish," she began, speaking like a lecturer. "For myself, I'm trained as a Xenoarchaeologist, and I have a great interest in sites and artifacts related to ancient mystical traditions, and especially the Jedi." She purposefully looked at no-one as she said the last word. Then she took a breath. "Not just... interested as an academic," she said, clearly sounding uncomfortable. She took another breath, as if she might elaborate, and then shook her head and moved on.
"Verse and I came across each other..."
kriff, only two days ago "...while both visiting sister Hulia. She, uh, quickly figured out that we shared an interest, and invited us to speak to Sister Viati the next day.
"She also told a story... from the Anzuri traditions. I wrote it down as soon as I left her, as well as I could remember it." She slid a pile of flimplasts copies of hand-typed notes, enough for everyone.
Sister Hulia wrote: ↑Sun Jan 26, 2020 3:16 am
“It’s an old story to a time when Bankor had many cities and people, before there was Aznuri, just those who would become Aznuri. There was great war, we call them the Sky Devils… I believe the word in your tongue is Mand-alorius? Something like that, they came and brought war,” Hulia explained.
“Those that would become Aznuri were split into three, the tribes of the Cursed lands, those who kept true and those sought to serve the Sky Devils. The Cursed lands were a dark place and from it dark and twisted things came it was the lair of the Darkness, a Sith evil.”
“The Republic and Jedi come to Bankor and fight the Sky Devils and they come to our lands and help our people become united, drive out the Sky Devils and then the Jedi came and cleansed the Cursed lands, this was our birth this is the Calm,” she makes a warding sign and smiles warmly.
“The Calm is where the ancestors go along the River, they rest and guide us, Peacewalkers commune with them, they are of all the tribes and all tribes end up in the Calm. The Jedi were friends and we learned from them, they from us but soon the Jedi never came back, we do not know. Bankor has been vibrant world, wild place and now this, many times over the history of the people but we remain and endure and have protected the Calm,” she finished.
“So yes we know the Jedi, or maybe we
knew the Jedi.”
"That night, I dug through the archives, and found a suggestion of a possible Jedi temple on Orlandis, Bankor's larger moon." She gestured at another stack of flimsies, full of information on the celestial body. "Sister Viati confirmed its existence, or at least her belief in it, when we spoke. She said it was somewhere under the surface.
"She also didn't know any more. But she said the Chaldi do." Vaya picked up another scrap of flimsy, and read, "'The Chaldi live in the Sky-Trees but make their homes on the cliffsides on the edges of the great forests.'" She looked up and gestured to the large map of Yuvas. "I've got another lead, but it's tenuous -- some smugglers who made trouble in the Enclave a few months ago claimed to have a map to an underground temple on the moon.
"That is the pretty much the sum total of what I currently know about the matter. I can infer a few things -- the site is almost certainly pre-Ruusan in construction, and possibly untouched since that time..." she trailed off.
"You're all here because Verse and I think you're trustworthy, and invested in finding this temple before the Empire does. If you're not the second, feel free to leave, and we'll hope the first is true enough you'll keep our secrets. If we're right on both counts, we'll need to make a plan for an expedition as soon as possible to find the Chaldi and learn what they know."
