Flight of the Resistance

Garrett examines the mural. He smiles, remembering his grandmother telling him the tale of Tavius. The man in the tale was not much older than Garrett is now. As a little boy he had always wished he was Tavius in the stories swimming though the stars and finding the realm of Kavu the Great Whale who swam across the vastness of space and breathed life into the universe. As he examines the pictogram of the starfish he touches it with his finger tips. This is what Kavu gave Tavius. The device healed the sick and saved Tavius's brother. Garrett looked up not seeing the ceiling of the temple but the stars above. A cure was out there for his mother. Garrett's fingers slid off the pictogram and to his side. He turns up the hallway towards the distant light prepared to continue.

What was another dent compared to obliteration? His companions were helping him so it might not be that bad either... needed to invest in something to make such tasks easier in the future. His allies started lowering him, he severed the vines as he calculated the optimal moment where he would land on his wheels on the ground below, they didn't have time to lower him all the way down, the needed to get moving.

Hitting the ground he began heading after Garret, the others would surely catch up (especially once the astromech encountered stairs). The smooth ground was quite the respite from the tangled mess of the jungle above, Rex much preferred this path to the one above.

Kabal/Rainforest outside Spirepoint/Ruined Temple
5:52 PM/Sunset at 6:45

After examining the hole, it wasn't that the slope was so bad, it was that it was slick from the rains and had caught Garrett by surprise. With a controlled descent, Arsinoë and Kospirian managed to slide down without getting more than some mud on their hands and pants, and supported Rex in getting down despite his treads slipping on the mud. At last the three dropped the last few remaining feet into the small hallowed space, just as the whine of approaching speeders was audible from above. Down here, however, only loud sounds would cross the underground boundary of wet earth, vines, and old stone.

Only a few rays of fading daylight reached down here, and even that was quite dim. However, leaving the 3 to 4 meter diameter little room was a passage suitable for traversing in single file, and at the end of it was both daylight and signs of a light tool. Fresh footsteps in the mud, likely from Garrett followed the passage. Ancient Kabalian engravings framed the archway leading to the passage.

As Garrett reached the other side of the passage, he found it opened into an open-air chamber where the ceiling had collapsed leaving the floor covered in rubble from which cordgrass and purple ginger plants grew. About to step out into the light, he heard a sound echoing down the passage of several people entering the way he'd accidentally slipped down. A few heartbeats of silence, and then the operational lights of a droid were visible along with a whirring sound as Rex eyed the ruined architecture, coming towards Garrett.

Kabal/Rainforest outside Spirepoint/Jedi Temple
5:50 PM/Sunset at 6:45

“Ugh. I can’t wait to get home and take a bath,” Arsinoë complained, shaking mud from her hands as they reached the bottom of the hole. She looked down and spotted the light and the footprints in the mud.

“Real smart coming down without a light,” she murmured. “What if I fall in a hole?” She felt her way along the wall, wishing she had a glow rod. “Garret?” she called out ahead, trying to be both quiet, yet heard.

"Better in the dark and hidden the out in the light under the guns of a walker" Kospirian adds with a smile. He makes sure R3 is upright before following Arsinoë as best he can, keeping one hand on the wall with the other holding the holdout blaster. "You don't happen to have a light source do you R3?" he asks.

Stormtrooper transmissions, intercepted by Rex
5:51 PM/Sunset at 6:45

Cutting through Rex's com jammer: 1eA+1eP+2eD 2 successes, 2 threat


Down below the rainforest floor, surrounded by thick stone wall and chunks of hand-carved coral, Rex's comm jammer proved less effective, though the R3 was still reading the First Order's comms clear as day. The sensor technician was able to quickly modulate broadcasting channels to cut through the increased white noise as the walker drew near the tip of the southwestern "arm of the starfish." <<"That's- that's impossible. They were right here, sir. Now they're just gone.">>

As Arsinoë ran her hand over the wall carvings to help guide her way in the dim light, she could feel slight vibrations trembling through the wall as the walker above moved into their last known position.

The sensor tech swallowed his pride, knowing that the message in Binary was sent to goad him into making a mistake. Determined to catch his invisible adversary, the sensor tech redoubled his efforts, leading to a harsh squeal over the stormtrooper's comms.

<<"Bantha balls! That feedback was giving me a headache.>>" Growled the Sergeant, shaking his head as he waited for the ringing in his ears to subside. A scan around the the edge of the ziggurat and the ruined obelisk revealed nothing. <<"We have possible movement at Green Zone center, but no eyes on anything. RSO, what are your sensors picking up for our location?">>

Scrambling to make sense of the erratic sensor readings, the sensor tech's voice was anxious. <<"Calibrating, sir. I just lost the signals. Off the map. I don't underst... Wait a minute... Sir! You've got movement southeast of your position. One humanoid moving east away from you!">>

The Sergeant gave a hand signal to the two stormtroopers with him, bringing their blaster rifles up into readiness. Besides the distant sounds of the walker, all he could hear was the screech of rainforest birds and the whir of cicadas. Slowly, they swept through the ruined open-air temple complex, moving counterclockwise.<<"I've got a bad feeling about this...">>




Kabal/Rainforest outside Spirepoint/Ruined Temple
5:51 PM/Sunset at 6:45

Clambering up the ziggurat was no easy task. Weathered sculptures of mermaids and lion-headed seals, stylized crenellations, and awkward overhangs made for a slow ascent. Just in the nick of time, Rico slipped behind a ruined arch out of view of the stormtroopers, one level above them. It looked like each level of the ziggurat acted as a sort of miniature labyrinth meant to be circumambulated by monks. While ascending to the ziggurat's first level was simple, each level from thereon became incrementally steeper. The long shadows and ornate designs made it hard to tell for certain, but there seemed to be a threshold leading into the ziggurat itself further to the east along the current level he was on.

From his vantage point, Rico could faintly make out swaying trees to the southwest. Something big was moving in the rainforest there. There was also a faint sign of movement in that same direction but closer to him, someone's shoulder peeking out into the temple complex. It wasn't a stormtrooper, so it had to be one of the people he'd felt approaching the temple.

Garrett paused at the opening. He prepared to step out of the tunnel into the open when voices followed him up the tunnel. He steps back into the shadows and looks back down the tunnel. Was that his name he just heard float up the hall. Garrett points his carbine back down the tunnel letting his light shine up the hall towards the voices. He waits expecting his companions but ready in case it is the stormtroopers.

Rico had enough of the cat & mouse game and decided to investigate someone he notices spying on the First Order. "Is the enemy of my enemey... he says in his head as he makes his way across the ziggurat.

Sent from my SM-G935P using EN World mobile app

Kabal/Rainforest outside Spirepoint/Jedi Temple
5:51 PM/Sunset at 6:45

"Better in the dark and hidden the out in the light under the guns of a walker," Kospirian said.

“Are you sure?” Arsinoë asked. “At least with the walker, I won’t have to worry the next day how I’ll scrape together the money to pay for the laundry to get the mud out of my clothes,” she complained.

Arsinoë felt the carvings on the wall and the tremble of the walker on the ground above them. Despite her complaints, she was grateful to be out of the way of the thing.

And then a bright light was shining in her mud-streaked face. “Gah! Watch where you point that!” Arsinoë exclaimed, holding her hand up to shield her eyes. “Garrett?” She couldn’t see a damned thing!

The Light flashes across his companions and Garrett sighs in relief. He drops the light towards the tunnel floor when he hears Arsinoë's voice.

"Yeah it's me. There's an opening here."

He waits for the others to catch up. As they close he flips off the light and looks back into the courtyard.

"Not sure what's in there but it's the only way we can go. Rex what do your sensors pickup?"