Shadows of Bankor

Vaya had gone back and forth about the use of such a public venue for what was probably a criminal conspiracy (if it wasn’t, it was only because the Empire skipped making laws about such things and jumped straight to special agents with licenses to disintegrate). She ultimately decided that libraries were so dull that no-one would bother paying any attention to them, and anyway, the conference rooms had way bigger tables than her apartment, and informational consoles besides.

She’d dimmed the one-way screens on the windows between the conference room and the library main floor, and started assembling materials: flimsies on Bankor’s ancient history, surveys of Orlandis, a large map of Yuvas, spare stylus for note-takers. She’d been part of planning lots of expeditions like this one. Well, like this one in the sense of archaeological. Sometimes like this one in that they were looking into matters ancient, mystical, Jedi. But never before just her, no University or Imperial backing. Realizing she was just re-arranging things already arranged, she sat there for a while at the conference table, her antennapalps waving in the air absentmindedly.

She looked at her chrono. Can’t hurt... She turned to the console, and began digging through records again to see if there was anything she had missed.

OOC: Difficulty and appropriate skills for research check to find information on... (feel free to condense questions to fewer rolls)
1)Parts of Orlandis surveyed for mining in recent history
2)Location of Anzuri settlements on Yuvas
3)Imperial or other non-Anzuri presence on Yuvas
4)Any current activity on Orlandis

OOC: Lore or Outer Rim check at Hard.

Vaya cussed a quiet blue streak in Balosar. These planetary archives were useless. What she wouldn't give for the University datacores, or at least full JCRON access.

D3LA Research! (lore with flip): 2eP+2eA+3eD 0 successes, 1 advantage

---

"Um... hello? Are you the one who is with Verse?"

Sinnya had probably been in the municipal library before. Once or twice. Maybe even three times. It looked pretty different now that she was tall enough to actually see over the raised circulation desk.

She'd skulked around the edges of the reference room like a hunter in unknown terrain, which in fact she was.

Petrus came in, quickly spotting Vaya. "Hello. Uh..." He cast a curious glance at the Twi'lek. She looked kinda familiar...

He looked back to Vaya. "This is the place?"

Vaya pushed away from the console and stood without immediately turning, giving it one more frustrated look while holding up her hand behind her to acknowledge them. With a frustrated sigh she turned around. "Ah, Petrus. And you must be Sinnya. Verse mentioned you. Thank you for coming." The welcome doesn't achieve graciousness, but she had been attempting genuine. She waved them into the conference room and off the main library floor. "Close the door behind you."

She looked between them, thought of several possible introductions she could offer, and then decided that the risk of revealing Petrus' secrets before he was ready or stating her assumptions about the prickly teenager in a way to offend were too high, so she just stuck with, "Petrus is a good friend of mine. Verse didn't say much about how she knew you, Sinnya, but she said we could trust you, which is good enough for me. We're expecting her and maybe one or two others."

Verse herself was apparently fashionably late. She felt she had a pretty good excuse what with her earlier heroics and all...

...at least until she saw some of the other big damn heroes had made it here before her. Thus, her excuse was snuffed out from reality and she had to admit; at least to herself; that she was just late.

"Hello there," she said, as she approached. "I didn't know Bankor had a library. I mean, of course it does. Why wouldn't it?"

"Verse mentioned you?" Petrus echoed, his eyebrows going up. "So that means... ah." He chuckled as Verse walked into the room.

"Hey, Verse." He waved, smiling. "Glad to see that you're doing well. Exciting morning?"

"You could say that," she looked to Sinnya with a knowing smile.

Verse Aura wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 01, 2020 4:41 pm

"You could say that," she looked to Sinnya with a knowing smile.

Vaya's eyes and antennapalps moved between the three of them, noticing the interaction. Well, that could be anything from hot rodding to being responsible for the explosions in the industrial district, she thought. She felt very old looking at the three of them, Verse and Sinnya in particular.

"Jenna will be running late, but Petrus and I can catch her up. Verse, are we expecting anyone else?"

"Oh yes, Qareme is supposed to be here too," she said, looking behind to see what was keeping the other padawan.

There was a tap along the floor to match footsteps as a large Zabrak woman with her walking stick approached, following on after Verse. Likely half the reason for Verse being late, as she wanted to stop by her apartment first before coming.

"Greetings all" Qareme lowered her head to them, her eyes stopping on the Twi'lek from the fight that she hadn't got a chance to see after Qareme had been captured.

"I am glad you survived."

She turned back to the rest. Petrus she knew, Verse obvious as she invited her. The final one she didn't.

"I am known as Qareme, here on invitation by Verse. My apology for my lateness."

"She was instrumental this morning," she said with a smile as Qareme expressed her gratitude for Sinnya's survival.

Verse Aura wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 01, 2020 6:04 pm

"She was instrumental this morning," she said with a smile as Qareme expressed her gratitude for Sinnya's survival.

"Oh yeah?" Petrus looked at the Twi'lek, eyebrows going up. Now he remembered her from last night. He didn't say anything more.

He cleared his throat. "So, Vaya, remind me, what's all this about?"

Sinnya flashed Verse a conspiratorial grin. "We had an interesting ride, yeah. I'm glad you made it out, Horns."

She eyed Petrus carefully. He didn't look like an outdoorsy sort, so maybe he was another scholar. And dissident, considering he'd been at the resistance meeting last night. Then again, by that metric she was a dissident too, with a stolen TIE fighter to prove it.

At Petrus's question, Sinn too turned her attention to Verse's Balosaur friend, Vaya. She knew this had something to do with a trip to the Sky Tree Sea, and possibly with the tribes, but that was about it.

Seeing the door closed upon her finally reaching the destination, having had to see to some rather delicate matters, she gave a quick knock on the door she'd been directed to in order to find Vaya by a clerk.

"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."

"Yes, all of... that," Verse added, helpfully.

"The Empire attacked the Aznuri shortly after, you all know that. Trying to find... well, this Calm, something else that isn't for us. But I'm sure they want to destroy that something, just like they'd want to destroy this temple if they were to find out about it. After stealing everything there of course."

She sighed. "I'm a Jedi myself. I don't think that's a secret anymore at this point. I want to go to this temple, and see if there's anything there worth protecting. Maybe even something that will help us against the Sith if we're really lucky. Either way, it's a link to the past. To when the Jedi helped Bankor before, back to when we did the right thing and didn't have to hide from evil the way the Empire would have us do."

Qareme listened, and read the paper that was passed around also. She had a thoughtful expression on her face.

"I would support your cause regardless Verse, but this one I have even more reason to do so as a Jedi. Protecting the history of the Jedi order while the Imperials continue to destroy it is vital, and we may learn something of importance as well. You may count on my support in any way I can offer it."

"Good, because we're going to need a ship and I've only got like 40 credits left."

Vaya looked serious. "I know some people who can get us a ship without a lot of money up front. They're not nice people, but that was my plan."

She gave Qareme a grim smile. "You're right, but the Imperials aren't only destroying it. They're stealing it -- finding, cataloging, boxing up, and sending Emperor-only-knows where. Quite literally, I'm beginning to realize."

Petrus sighed. "Yeah. As if all the killing wasn't enough..."

He shook his head. "But yeah. Count me in. I'd definitely go along. Help out, I guess. Like we do." He spread his hands. Usually, Vaya did most of the work, while he told her about Jedi stuff. Sometimes he climbed on things, he supposed.

"I'm guessing they're going to want something in return, for just giving us a ship?"

"If my brother is in, I will always help, but," she took a hard look around the room but focused heavily on Verse.

"I don't care what closed doors we sit behind, you speak of yourself as you know you are and you put us all in danger. You risk me or my brothers safety," she didn't finish the sentence, she really wasn't sure what she'd do.

She wasn't immediately sure how to react to that. For one, she didn't even know Petrus had a sister. Much less one that seemed to be smarter than he was. No wait, Petrus had been smart enough to stay hidden all these years too. Their comparative intelligence would have to come down to whichever was more addicted to holos, probably.

Her mind wandered to places that didn't fit the tone of the conversation, and she pulled herself back.

"I'm sorry, I suppose it's true that I can speak too openly sometimes. Though, full disclosure, it might not matter either way. There's some pretty important and evil people who know my face, so just being around me is dangerous no matter what I say. If that's a problem, then I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to keep your distance."

She seemed sincere, taking no offense to the woman's tone or harsh gaze.

"Especially since I probably won't ever be very subtle about what I am. I've been running for too long. Most of us have. I know it's stupid, I know it's dangerous, but I believe things won't change, that they *can't* change if we stay hidden. People need things to believe in, and sometimes they need to be shown others lighting the way."

She looked toward Petrus then.

"Besides, your brother could tell you I'm pretty dumb when it comes to smart stuff like what you're talking about."