"This is boring."
Noelani glanced back at Kor and shrugged her shoulders.
"Maybe."
She looked past Noelani, towards where Ben and Poll stood, Poll's handlight shining into yet another room, one that was probably as empty as the rest of them.
Kor turned her light away from the boys, playing it out over the walls again. "We should probably go. There's nothing here – it's all been taken away already."
Noelani nodded her head. "Yeah, but let's see the third level and the catacombs first."
Kor frowned slightly and Noelani noticed that the fur on her snout rippled with her displeasure at the situation. "Yeah. I guess we can do that."
Noelani smiled brightly for her. "Thanks, Kor!"
"You've got it bad don't you?"
Noelani stopped walking and turned to face Kor. "What are you talking about."
Kor's grin grew larger. "Ben. You like him."
"Do not. Now hush." Noelani turned away and started walking faster towards the boys.
Kor laughed and grabbed Noelani's arms, slowing her down slightly. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. You know my feelings about Poll. It's only fair that I know who you like."
Noelani dropped her chin to her chest, watching her feet as they slowly walked down the hallway.
"Guess so," she said. Then her head bounced up and she looked over at Kor. "But I don't know if I like him like that or not. And then there's Chase…"
Kor shrugged her shoulders. "That's okay. I know. And forget Chase, he's somewhere on Coruscant, playing delinquent. Bens' right here."
Then Ben's voice called out from in front of them. "Hey! I found the stairs leading down."
The two girls rushed ahead, just in time to see the light of Poll's lamp fading away down the stair well. They turned the corner and began quickly skipping down the steps. Hurrying to catch up to the two boys.
They arrived at the bottom to find Poll and Ben waiting for them. Poll's light flashing over the various walls of the room they were in. Noelani began walking a circuit of the room, her own light playing out over the walls and the baseboards, searching both visually and in the Force for something interesting.
A small niggle in the back of her mind stopped her, and she let the light flash along a blank wall.
She frowned as she looked at it, glancing to the right and then the left.
Visually there was nothing different about this stretch of wall than all the rest of the walls in the room.
Yet the Force said otherwise.
She reached out and traced her hand along the wall at about shoulder height. Then she stopped and dipped her hand, pushing against the wall.
She frowned as nothing happens. Reaching out with the Force, she grabbed onto that part of the wall and pulled. A small square slid out from the wall and Noelani laughed.
Kor stepped up beside her. "Hey! Did you find something?"
Noelani glanced at her, a smile twisting her lips. "Yes I did. Now to find out what it does."
She grabbed the square, feeling a tingle rush through her body and tried to twist it to the right. When nothing happened she frowned again, looking at it. Shrugging she pushed against it. The square easily slid back into the wall and settled home with a subtle snickt.
Then with a loud groan a section of wall swung inward, revealing another room.
The noise attracted the two boys and they came over as all four teenagers crept into the room.
Weapons, jewelry and holocrons lined the shelves and racks which filled the rooms.
Noelani picked up an amulet and a wave of Force power rushed over her – but the energy felt different, corrupted somehow. She dropped the trinket and took a step backwards her head shaking as she bit at her lower lip.
"You all right, Noelani?" Ben's voice sounded worried.
She quickly nodded her head while still looking at the amulet where it laid on the ground. "Yeah, everything's fine. Just… just a chill."
Turning from the shelves, she looked at the small desk set by the door. She saw a crystal about the size of her hand – it had been polished and cut to have numerous facets. Something about the crystal yanked at the back of her mind. She knew that she had seen something like that before, but she could not quite remember where.
Shrugging her shoulders, she dropped the crystal into a pocket, intent on figuring it out later. She then continued into the room weaving through the shelving until she came to the back end of the room. And let out a scream at what she found.
"Noelani!"
The other three were by her side in a flash, even as she stared in fright at the mummified remains of the massive creature. It towered over them all, its rough, scaly hide coated in a layer of dust. Small glassy eyes stared out from above a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth, two of which were long, thick fangs.
"What is it?" Poll asked.
Noelani, still shaken by seeing the creature, hesitantly answered. "It's called a terentatek. They're animals… beasts infused with the Dark Side of the Force."
Ben stepped forward and poked at the creature. "This one is dead though."
She rubbed her arms as she stared at the massive creature – a cold hard knot resting in the pit of her stomach. She stopped rubbing her arms, and looked down at her palms, remembering how the dark energy erupted from them when she had fought the terentatek in the Deep Forest of Kashyyyk.
"'Lani, you all right?"
"Huh?" Startled out of her thoughts and memories, Noelani's head darted up to find Poll staring at her, a confused expression on his face.
"I asked if you're all right. You look like you've seen a ghost."
Noelani looked over his shoulder at the mummified remains of the terentatek. Then she returned her gaze back to Poll. "I feel as if I have."
Poll looked at her for a moment more and then shrugged his shoulders and turned away from her to look through some more of the artifacts that lined the shelves.
She lifted her head again to stare into the glassy eyes of the dead terentatek. Then in a simple, smooth movement, she ignited her saber and sliced at the creature's head, severing it from the body.
She shut down the weapon, staring at the now headless corpse, the splash of blood on the back wall seeming somehow incongruous to the desiccated corpse.
"Why did you do that?"
Noelani turns to see Ben looking at her with an odd expression on his face. She just shakes her head. "I… just because."
Before he could respond, she stepped away from him. Quietly, Noelani slipped through the shelves and walked from the room, taking a deep breath of air. She frowned as she considered that it just smells fresher out here. As if the air was better in some fundamental way when she was away from the terentatek and the weird artifacts in the room.
She heard a noise behind her and turned to see Poll stepping from the room. An odd-shaped amulet hung from the thin chain around his neck.
Noelani frowned at it for a moment. "You sure you want to take that thing?"
Poll grinned at her, a mischievous light in his eyes. "Yeah, I think I do."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Suit yourself."
Then Ben and Kor stepped from the room. Ben glanced back over his shoulder for a moment before turning his blue eyes onto Noelani. "I think Master Tionne and my dad would love that room."
Noelani nodded her head. "Maybe. So what's left? The catacombs?"
Ben grinned happily. "That should be it. And if I remember right, they should be over this way."
He started walking down the hallway, and soon came to a stone arch with steps, hewn from the very bedrock itself, leading into the depths of the planet.
The four stared into the blackness, a cold wave of air struck them and Kor muttered something under her breath.
Noelani found herself frowning again. "What's supposed to be down there?"
Ben replied. "No one really knows what the Jedi used to use it for. It wasn't listed on any of the archives, and none of the holocrons I asked would tell me. In fact most of them didn't even know the place existed."
"Maybe," Poll began with a laugh, "you just weren't advanced enough to find out."
Then Kor spoke up. "Well, if that's the case, then maybe we shouldn't go down there. Ben's ahead of all of us – Jedi wise – and if the holocrons don't think he's advanced enough to know about this place, and then maybe we shouldn't be down there."
Ben shook his head. "No. I think the holocrons just didn't know. The only ones I talked to were the ones created after the Jedi left Ossus. The secret of the catacombs could have been something so simple and mundane that no one ever bothered to actually record it."
Noelani glanced between her friends and then stepped forward. "Well we won't find out by hanging around up here."
With that said, she darted down the steps into the darkness.
She heard the others stomping down the stone steps behind her as she reached the bottom.
Playing her light along the walls, she saw a room carved from the rock walls with two corridors on the far side. A podium was set in the middle of the room. She stepped up to it just as the rest of the group arrived in the room.
The podium was a flat console, its glossy surface marred only by a raised holder for some type of object. She ran her fingers into the holder, feeling the hard angles.
"Ah. I know now," she muttered out loud.
"Know what?" Ben asked from beside her.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the crystal. "What this is for. It's a data matrix. Information is stored in the light trapped within the crystal. I saw one once on Tatooine. It's an old technology and not really used anymore."
She lined the crystal up with the holder, and pushed down. The crystal seated itself with a snap and a bright white light flared around them.
Floating in the air in front of the podium was a being. He wore a blue cloak with a golden metal collar. Grey skin was stretched over a curving skull with wide set eyes and rows of carnivorous teeth.
His voice seemed to come from everywhere. "Greetings, Young Jedi. I am Master Odan-Urr. Welcome to your trails."
Then before any of them could react, an earthquake shook the
Next Chapter
No comments:
Post a Comment