fandomhigh | Archaeology for Fun and Profit! [Tues, 1st Period]

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Archaeology for Fun and Profit! [Tues, 1st Period]

Aphra was actually holding class in the Danger Shop today, which she was unreasonably excited and disturbingly cheerful about.

She stood by an entrance of a vast forbidding temple deep in an alien jungle, albeit with less Imperial and Rebel equipment or explosion damage than the last time she'd been here. Look, she was trying for a sense of wonder here, kids, pay attention to the overhanging gas giant in the sky or something.

"Hey, kids," she said waving at the temple. "Now that we've gotten a bit of theory out of the way, let's get your feet wet on what you really signed up for, adventure, excitement, and ancient ruins!"

"This here is a Massassi Temple, it's about five thousand years old and abandoned for at least a fifth of that time, which probably makes you think about how small and insignificant we all are, or something." Such poetry, Aphra. She started handing out palm-sized crystals. "Anyway, today we'll be making our way from here to a room at the top of where placing these babies in the right spot will reveal a message from one group of previous inhabitants."

Just not the one doing that in the real thing would, Aphra wasn't stupid.

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Adventure!

Look at the temple. Admire the shiny stones. ~~Have a bad feeling about this.~~

Admire the masonry, be aweful of the carvings, notice Aphra jumping over that one flagstone.

[Stepping on that flagstone will cause the floor to fall out from under you, and unless you have exceedingly good reflexes you will fall down a 'bottomless' pit and end up back at the temple entrance.]

Edited 2017-05-16 15:27 (UTC)

After a ridiculous number of stairs, you find yourself on a floor that looks remarkably like the first, with different carvings. And another flagstone Aphra jumped over.

[It's a spear trap this time, and you zip back to the start again if it gets you.]

Even more stairs, more carvings, and while Aphra doesn't do any flagstone callisthenics this time, at one point she does very carefully step over something.

[Trip wire, poison darts. No checkpoints, no quicksave feature.]

About now, Aphra started explaining how the ~~Sith~~ people who'd had the Massassi build this place had anti-grav tech and lifts, so the all the steps clearly served some kind of symbolic purpose. She also ducked at several times during this lecture.

[At least you can see the giant killy decapitators of doom, this time?]

Surprise! There are no traps. There are also no steps leading to the next level, just ropes dangling from a trapdoor.

[Hope you didn't skip arm day.]

Edited 2017-05-16 15:31 (UTC)

Yay, it's the top, and once everyone finally manages to make it (because otherwise there's not going to be enough crystals) and the last crystal is slotted into place, a light show appears, complete with diagrams and glowing words.

In a language none of you read.

Wasn't that worth the trip?

She's having a great time shaping young minds.

...

Jason Lee Scott

Hmm. Ancient structure, palm sized crystals?

All seemed a little too familiar, if you asked Jason.

"Aw, sh-"

On the bright side, at least he didn't end up falling in to an underground river.

Well, at least he'd learned his fucking lesson this time and managed to avoid the flagstone trap. That was something.

The poison dart didn't even puncture his skin, but since this was a simulation, that didn't actually matter. Back to the start he went.

... And if he used a little bit of that super-speed when he was fairly certain no one else could see, well. He didn't want to fall too far behind, okay?

And see, now Jason was really wishing he could have just scaled the outside of the building. Would've been so much quicker. And probably less perilous.

Stupid rules.

Well, this one was easy, at least. HAH.

Jason made a point of at least pretending to be slightly winded by the time he finished the rope climb.

And then there were crystals and glowy lights and Jason tensed up, peering suspiciously at the wall in front of him, just waiting for a giant face to appear and start lecturing them all about letting go of their masks or whatever.

Peebee

Rhys

Ooooooh. Ancient structure with mysterious long gone inhabitants? This wasn't familiar to Peebee yet, but she decided she liked it.

Which was good, because guess what she'd be doing with her life in a few decades.

Peebee almost stepped on the flagstone. Almost. She was really caught up in looking at everything, okay?

Never mind the Protheans. That was boring. (On behalf of the narrative, sorry, Liara. You too, Ryder.) This was something new and totally different, and she was going to have to find herself something like this to study.

It was a close call again, but Peebee still managed to avoid the trap. And she was still going to take her time looking at all the carvings, okay?

Was it cheating horribly to use her biotics to deflect the poison darts?

Pfft, no. Peebee would argue that was just honing her excellent survival instincts.

These steps here? THIS WAS WHY PEEBEE WAS GOING TO LOVE THE REMNANT AND THEIR NOT-EXACTLY-GRAVITY WELLS SO MUCH.

Dodging the decapitators of doom was fun, though. What?

Know what one of the best things about being biotic was? At least in this situation? Being able to alter your own body mass for things like this. Ha.

Are you kidding? It was totally worth the trip, and Peebee was recording the language onto her omni-tool, because this would make an awesome translation project.

Mara Jade

Mara narrowed her eyes at her surroundings and made a mental not to follow what Aphra was doing very carefully.

"Gotcha," Mara murmured to herself, jumping over the same flagstone Aphra did.

June Iparis

Kaylin Neya

So Jason had meet Rur the Stashed-in-an-Airport-Locker too, huh?

"Don't worry, there's no final booby trap, or angry natives in stasis, or anything like that," Aphra informed him cheerfully.

This time.

If she did manage to translate it, she'd find a bunch of ancient Sith Lords (at least half of whom hadn't lived at the same time) trash-talking each other and a recipe for Wookiee Cookies Aphra'd gotten off Black Krrsantan one time he'd been drunk.

Wisdom for the ages.

It was leg day too, huh.

Mara made sure to jump over the same flagstone Aphra did again and emerged unscathed.

Mara was watching, but didn't see Aphra stepping over the trip wire, which was why she was very annoyed and back at the front of the temple.

Mara looked less than pleased as she dodged and ducked around the things determined to make her shorter than she was already.

Up Mara went, muttering under her breath about Aphra.

If she did manage to translate it, she'd be utterly delighted.

And probably try to make the cookies, let's face it.

Shiemi Moriyama

"Oooooooooooh!" Shiemi was impressed (mostly by the jungle) but she listened carefully to the lecture.

It took three times for Shiemi to skip the stone that was the trigger. She wasn't that dumb, she just kept getting distracted and forgetting to watch where she stepped.

...

Shut up.

This time, when Shiemi caught up, she had Nii-Chan with her!

Which was good, since he could shield her from the poison darts when she tripped the wire.

"Good to know," Jason said. "I've already had enough of a workout today, thanks." And he still had Anakin's class to go, joy!

Maria DeLuca

Shiemi and Nii managed to make it through this time!

It wasn't cheating if you had your demon familiar help you climb up, right? Shiemi was a bit of a weakling...

Shiemi ha no idea what any of it meant but she was writing it all down in her notebook just in case.

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Archaeology for Fun and Profit! [Tues, 1st Period]

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