Treasure Hunt on Shili: Open

[angelnatavi]

This thread is open to people who are willing to go the long haul and continue to the end. I hope to have pleanty of disasters, droids and people to kill as well as a few... 'treasures' to give out.

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Legend has it that on a crashed ship on Shili, one that is thousands upon thousands of years old, there exists a treasure. No one knows what this treasure is, and hundreds upon thousands of treasure hunters have come to claim this piece of 'shiny' year after year. The ship itself belongs to an old empire dating thousands of thousands of years ago, at most one million years, from what the people tell us.

This time, one particular group of treasure hunters have come to this site, looking for adventure as well as possible clues to the civilization that created the hulk that now rests imbedded within the soil it dug it's own grave upon.

Our tale starts a day's journy from the wreck, as our adventurers gather near a Togruta Village to gather supplies. The ship itself is known as the "Hollow Mountain." Most people have never seen the inside, though all peoples around have seen the outside. It is as big as a mountain, probably bigger, since at least half of the massive ship is hidden underground. As a consequence of this ship's landing, the piece of earth it gouged out behind it as it came to a halt has become a long teardrop shaped lake, and due to the... unusual construction methods of the ship itself, this lake has become known as the 'Crystal Lake'.

The ship itself is constructed from crystal. To be specific, crystal capable of being manipulated like an organic piece of flesh. However, this ship's hull was designed with the crystal on the outside, as a skin to the metalic sheath that shields the inside. When the wreck was fresh, raiders had come to try and pilfer the magnificant treasure that was said to be inside.

Once they had entered the hulk, they wern't seen to have exited, and since then the legend only grew. It spoke of the treasure that no one could recover, of the massive amounts of wealth that supposedly were contained within the mountain ship, and with each team or individual to enter and never to come out, the legend grew.




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Ahh, adventure. You don't get adventure like this working at Temple.

Ano'Sken "Blink" Neilo, Jedi knight extraordinair, was sitting off to one side of a comforting fire out in the middle of the grasslands of the planet Shili. For her it was home, or at least as close to home as she could come. The tribe in which she originated lay upon the other side of the planet from her, and she wanted to go and meet them face to face after having grown up, though she was sure she wouldn't be recognized after all these years.

Still, as she sat there with her back resting upon her travel pack, her sightless eyes open and glittering slightly from the fire light, she reveled in being back upon her home planet, after completing her lightsaber all those years ago. She could hear the other's banter, the people she had brought along for the fun, as well as a few she had brought from various villages around the area.

While she couldn't bring her bike along since it was only a one seater, she brought along a multiple person vehicle called a "Mule", and her back was currently to it as she stared at the fire. Inside her mind, she was looking at the stars, seeing their radiance as bright as if they were fireflies floating over head. Her staff was beside her on the ground, her saber safely inside her sheath she had made for it.

Her clothing was typical of a Togruta woman of her age upon this planet, and since they were around the equater, that meant light clothing. Light vest with undershirt, skirt with the tool belt she wore normally, as well as boots with numerous pouches for things that wouldn't be damaged by joustling.

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

The scent of night air.

The call of night animals.

The ripple and glistening of water.

The movement of turu grass under the moon.

Movement. Sight. Sound. Scent.

The rust and white colored form moved with nearly silent grace through the grasses of the planet for the sheer joy of moving, disturbing sleeping birds and making them rise up in small clouds that moved and danced with her as she ran. The force flowed through her limbs and veins like a dozen rivers allowing her to move with a speed, finesse and alacrity not even seen in many of the people of the planet…not because they weren’t capable of it in their own way, but they simply didn’t have the force to aid them and give them that extra step up. Her movement, this run, caused the grasses behind her to flow in a wave behind her, almost like the wake of water behind a boat. She followed a small stream that moved through the land, using it as a trail to follow.

Why?

Simply because she wished to learn where it started.

As she came upon the forest again, she felt it in the force first, followed swiftly by her montral, and then she lept. Immediately she was in the trees. Much like she had fighting Vex on Corellia, or racing Theron on Fondor, she lept lightly from limb to limb…ducking, leaping, dodging…over, under, around, along branches and through leaves. It was both an amazing rush, and extremely calming. As the forest thinned into yet another large clearing, she all but flew, launching herself away from the last branch in an arch that allowed her the air to rush against her. Almost swan diving into a controlled tumble, she was on her feet again and moving with a swish of turu grass and the light tinkle of her headdress and belt.

The long, slender, and flowing strips of white pigmented skin that curled along her body and curving gently along her face could easily be mistaken for the turu grass surrounding her as they bent and danced in the night air. Her clothing was leather, what little of it there was anyway. It fell around her neck, much like a tabard, coming to a point at her chest (and upper back) where it covered the full front of her, thick braids of the leather wrapping around her several times to hold the long strip in place as it fell past her waist and almost down to her knees, her togruta sash overlaying it. The leather around her hips almost could be called shorts, except for the fact that the her hips and outer thighs were exposed save for the braided leather that held them tightly to her without hindering her movements. Around her lower legs and covering her feet, however, were something…rather out of place. Her jedi issue boots…much like the standard utility belt that the Order utilized (yet stripped down to only a few of its many pouches)…were both still part of her attire, out of place as they appeared.

She didn’t seem to mind them, however, as she broke through the next wall of forest, this time sticking to the ground. Like a deer she darted and wove through the undergrowth of the forest, hardly noticing the twigs and branches and leaves that flashed past her, hitting against the protective material that wrapped about her forearms, or scratched and poked and prickled against her shoulders, biceps and lekku. For a moment a patch of moonlight shown through the canopy and struck against the purple crystal that hung about her neck, sending shimmers of the color in every direction and dazzling the eye before vanishing again as she lept lightly over a fallen tree.

That color still burned in her heart.

She missed her saber.

Missed the people she’d left behind…

…Missed the Order.

As she pushed through the underbrush into yet another clearing, she slowed to a jog, then a walk, and gazed at what was before her. The stream was still there, glistening and babbling in the moonlight off to her right, but before her was a good sized lake and a glinting…what was that? It looked almost like a…ship? Panting after her exertion, the scarred former-jedi tilted her head just slightly and eyed it carefully. Pressing her senses out she caught the feel of another…someone in touch with the force…and she immediately strengthened the shields around her mind. She couldn’t see the person, so it was possible the person couldn’t see her (especially around the massive shape of the crystalline formation, through the waist height turu grass, or from across the lake) but she was burning about as brightly as any star through the force, so it wouldn’t make much sense to hide herself in it suddenly.

Slowly dimming her presence, she moved toward the lake…toward something she could utilize should she need to. The dark scar on her chest twinged slightly, but she ignored it. Perhaps Theron had decided to…no…she wouldn’t entertain that thought. She hadn’t seen him in some time, and that was likely for the best. Besides, whoever this was didn’t feel like Theron, and she would have liked to believe she could pick his presence out of a crowd easily after the last time they had spent together. A subtle ripple in the water’s surface as she came to the shore line was the only indication that she had tested it…’felt’ it…and was ready.

Following the curve of the shore, she caught a glimmer of fire near the other end of the clearing. The ends of her lekku curled and twitched slightly as she came to a pause once again. <<Hello there! Are you friend, foe, or neither yet?>> she greeted in togruti, the words trilling off her tongue easily as she looked on, still at a ‘safe’ distance. It was a common enough greeting between strangers on this planet, so she felt comfortable enough that she wasn’t going to immediately make an enemy of anyone who spoke the native tongue. Of course, if this person were from off Shili and didn’t know the language, she would have to find another greeting that would work.