The crawlspace open to us wasn't meant for people. Or maybe it was, but only in the past. Perhaps it was not even an entrance but some kind of venting pipe or… whatever. But it wasn't used as an entrance…That much was clear the moment I scraped my shoulder against a jagged edge of twisted metal and hissed through clenched teeth. Behind me, Vila was muttering something about needing to shrink herself, but her hand was still clutching the back of my ankle, keeping us connected in the tight tunnel, crawling forward.
When we finally tumbled through another opening, the tunnel opened into something much larger, allowing us to stand up and stretch. I took a sharp breath as I stood, my neck craning to take in the towering vault of the chamber we found ourselves in. It was wide, maybe forty meters across, and rose in tiers like a stepped arena, built in concentric circles. There were multiple strange statues standing along the inner walls, their insectile, humanoid features eroded away by the passing of time. But, even then, without much detail surviving, they had to be Rakatans. That was what I guessed, and I wouldn't really believe otherwise.
"This place is massive," Vila whispered beside me, gulping as she broke another glow rod, tossing it forward, bathing the chamber in a soft, blueish light. "Look at the ceiling... those hanging chains used to support lights, I guess.
"Or prisoners," I added, although I couldn't tell why. Maybe it was the effect of this place… "Never mind," I said as I swallowed, as neither option made me feel better. "Let's take it slow and try to see if we can find more signs where HK went after coming through."
We started moving carefully, our steps echoing loudly across the stone floor, pushing thick dust into the air. As we walked, we could see that pillars had fallen here and there; some were shattered from the impact, but others looked as if they had melted away as if hit by acid or something. Then… There were scorch marks along the walls, burned symbols and shapes of the same humanoids, but no bodies or skeletons. Only their outlines, their shadows burnt onto the surface… It was as if someone had tried to destroy this place long ago and failed. Or maybe they didn't, and this was the result of their victory.
"What do you think?" Vila asked, stopping at a mural that was way too faded to read anything from it. But there were enough marks and holes to infer that something fired a dozen or so blaster bolts into it.
"I think that the people here went crazy and murdered each other," I answered plainly.
"That… I can see…" She grimaced, "There was for sure a battle in here a long time ago. My question is, who won? And what happened to the winners?"
"Probably dead. You heard what Master said," I muttered as we continued our trek. "They fell apart tens of thousands of years ago. Whoever won this ancient conflict is also dead."
Continuing our exploration led us to a side hallway, narrower and descending towards darkness. But just by investigating the amount of dust on the ground, we found that this path was used… recently, which meant that HK may have headed the same way. Trying to find him, heading down along the wall, we found a series of pressure plates. Or, Vila found them when I almost stepped onto one. They were 'obvious' traps, if slightly rusted, allowing her to notice them. I stepped around them with ease, now that I knew what to look for, and I switched places with Vila, as her eyes were clearly more used to spotting them.
"These are ancient," she muttered, examining one. "But they're not inactive. There's power running here..." She stretched out with one hand, gently rubbing its surface, "I can feel it... like a hum under my skin."
"Let's try not to activate them, okay?" I said, stepping into the next chamber and looking extra carefully where I placed my feet… Yet, there was still a click, and the door behind me closed, making Vila look back at me with a deadpan look.
"…"
"Um… sorry…?" I tried, but she simply shrugged, shaking her head.
"It wasn't your fault… that I also missed." She whispered, looking where my feet were, activating… something.
But besides the door closing, nothing else happened... for now. The room itself was circular, with a dais in the center and three pedestals surrounding it. On each pedestal, there was a crystal, one red, one violet, and one white. In the center, there was an enormous door, sealed shut, leading somewhere. As for what the multiple symbols pulsing out meant… it was a question without an answer.
"I don't think HK came this way…" I shrugged, looking around, "Because I can't see him anywhere."
"Or he did," she hummed, "And after passing by the puzzle here, it was activated."
"A generous but highly unlikely proposition," I answered, watching the crystals and getting a strange feeling from them. "This has to be A Force-based puzzle," I muttered, already feeling the pressure in my chest rising as I tried using it. Damn this planet! Ignoring the feeling, keep using the Force; I tried investigating them one by one. The crystals weren't keyed to react to me lifting them or moving them. But… the moment my feelings flowed outwards, still enveloped in my Force grip, they responded to my emotions.
"Kael?" She asked, touching my shoulder.
"It is a Force puzzle…" I gasped, lowering my hand. "And with how corrupted it is here… I am afraid it is not the kind of puzzle the others back home would be happy with."
"I see." She nodded, looking at them, "Let me try. You are too sensitive to the changes; leave this part to me!"
"Be careful," I warned, but I wasn't going to argue with her.
"I will be." She smiled, and then, with one arm stretched out, she reached forward with the Force.
The moment her consciousness brushed the violet crystal, a surge of power pulsed through both of us. My breath caught as the Force strained against me, pulling at my thoughts, emotions, and memories without me activating them.
There was a good amount of fear, suffocatingly so. But suddenly, Vila reached back, grabbing my hand, and through it, I could feel her determination, which helped fight it. As if feeling our resistance, another wave came… This time, there was doubt washing over us both.
Yet, as we tried to stay clear-minded, the chamber responded—maybe to the fact that we managed to match it and not succumb to it. The runes on the great door shifted and realigned, and the crystals began to glow brighter.
"I think we need to keep going," Vila said, her voice trembling slightly. "Don't break contact, and we should push through the emotions these crystals emanate."
"As if it tests us… our willpower…" I groaned but nodded nonetheless. It was time to touch the red one.
The effort drained us both, but we continued. I felt my knees buckle slightly as the mental tug-of-war intensified, but I didn't let go. I focused on Vila and our shared bond, and her presence steadied me. Of course, the red crystal, as I expected, was filled with anger, hate, and self-pity. Yummy. However, it was so much easier to push back against that than the violet one… And when the symbols kept rearranging themselves, with a final flash, the central crystal, the white one, began to glow. Vila, despite our exhaustion, reached toward it, and I joined her.
Together, we touched it. Physically.
To both of our surprise, nothing really happened, not like with the other two. Instead, the great door groaned, its ancient metal mechanisms shifting somewhere, and slowly began to open. Looking at it, what lay beyond it was just more darkness… No. There was something else… The moment the opening was wide enough, we could clearly hear it, too.
A deep thunk. Metallic.
I froze because it wasn't HK… It sounded different… Heavier.
"Something's waking up," I whispered.
"Yeah," Vila reached for her lightsabers. "I hear it. And I don't like it."
I didn't like it either, especially as shapes began to emerge from the gloom. At first, I thought they were statues, but then their eyes lit up red. There were dozens of them, broad-chested, tall, with armored plating, looking like the Rakatan statues. The only difference was that their arms ended in staff-like appendages that sparked to life with a loud buzzing cackle, filling the room with violet-colored, pulsating light.
"Guardian droids," Vila cursed under her breath.
"Yeah. And a lot of them."
We didn't have much time besides activating our sabers as they moved surprisingly fast, even though they were ancient machines. Damn it, these Rakatan bastards knew how to build something to last! The first droid lunged at me, its staff spinning like a blender. Of course, I ducked and slashed low, catching its legs. Sparks flew as I twisted and stabbed upward, disabling it.
"Good thing they are not made of something lightsaber-resistant!" I chuckled, realizing that maybe time did have an effect on them. Perhaps they were once, or possibly they had other abilities to deal with the issue, but… not anymore.
"Don't jinx it!" She yelled from behind me as she whirled through two of them, her saber carving arcs of orange light, disarming them before cutting their heads off.
By then, we fell into a comfortable rhythm.
I shifted into Makashi, my blade dancing in tight, efficient flicks, keeping the droids at bay, letting them focus on me first and foremost. On the other hand, Vila was a storm, flipping through the air, her movements a blur, using every opening I created by deflecting and countering to disable them with her twin sabers. Each swing of her attacks cut clean through their armor, and when they tried to retaliate, I was there to redirect their attention.
The issue was… They kept coming, and they came in waves. Their tactics were simple but effective: flood us with numbers, herding us toward the walls. But we adapted.
"Left!" I called, ducking beneath a staff strike as Vila surged past me, shoulder-slamming one of the droids into the wall and pinning it with a sharp thrust.
"Behind!" she warned as I turned just in time to deflect a blow that would've shattered my jaw. But, instead of that, I was twisting its hand away to take its arm off the shoulder.
As the bodies kept piling up, they found it became more challenging to navigate by the minute. Unlike us, it seemed they were unable to adapt as quickly as needed; some even tumbled over their dismantled compatriots. Time… wasn't kind to them, it turns out, as their programming most likely degraded to an elementary level as they became more like some kind of rudimentary automaton than an actual guardian droid.
It was no wonder we were the last ones remaining standing. Still, there were at least fifty or so dismantled droids around the chamber now.
"Damn!" Vila staggered back to me, her saber held loosely at her side. "That was... intense."
"You're telling me," I gasped, my chest rising faster than it should. We had to rely on the Force… but now I knew that using it made us exhaust even quicker than we should.
At least the chamber was quiet again around us, except when the broken droids littering the floor spasmed and puked out some electrical sparks. This also illuminated the eerie darkness of the still-active door before us.
"Maybe the room let HK pass because he is also a droid? You see… This was very, very, very familiar with a certain situation! This was also exactly how I met him…"
"Let's not stick around to see what else wakes up, though," Vila muttered, brushing a smear of oil from her cheek. "Let's continue instead before the second round starts!"
"Good point," I nodded, holding up my saber, entering the open doorway as we began descending downwards…