Regardless of the reason or reasons why she chose not to reside here on Kalevala, I am finding this world easy to find myself at home. I have never felt that way on Mandalore even though I have spent most of my life there.
Amis and I came here to move / change operations. The the work operating and supervising the government warehouse slowed down considerably after the initial clean up, and increased Imperial presence. So we began looking into the design and building of new smaller transport ships. The custom variety. This was in addition to what we have been doing, making custom modifications and repairs to ships, it first started out doing things like upgrading weapons systems, and installing containment facilities for a bounty hunter by the name of Hondo Ohnaka that was hired by the new Mandalorian government to nab and transport some unwanted types out of Enceri. Apparently Hondo gave our names to to one or two of his acquaintances and now we are looking for a new base of operations.
While asking around the area that Satine was from, I noticed an individual skulking about. A short (0.7 meter tall) humanoid with dark brown skin. bald on top, with thin gray hair on the sides. After asking a couple of contacts that I was given about some property options, I quickly grabbed the creeping little guy and demanded him to explain his intentions.
He started stammering a bit, tripping over his own tongue, when I noticed that he was staring at the spot on my shirt that displayed the crest of the house of Kryze.
After a few seconds, it was apparent that he was harmless, so I put him down. I started to ask him what he wanted, but he interrupted me by demanding, in a low gravely voice, that I explain by what right I had to wear that crest.
I explained "I am Korkie Kryze of the house of Kryze."
Then I inquired "Who is asking."
He stared at me for a while, just as I was going to walk away, he decided to talk.
"Ah-Zhna" he responded slowly. "Ah-Zhna is my name. Me you will follow. Something for you I have."
Then he started to walk away.
Amis was laughing more out loud than to himself by this point, so I had him go ahead and follow up on the leads we had made earlier, while I entertained my curiosity with this odd fellow.
I followed Ah-Zhna for about an hour on foot until we came to what I am going to call his office for a lack of a better term. It was set up like a store front. There was a lot of what I would categorize as junk laying around. He led me me through the junk to what appeared to be a medical room. There was an exam table in the middle of the room, and a smaller table with three chairs around it on the far side of the room. "A seat you take." he instructed. followed by an invitation to have a drink. "Some water would be good." I replied. "you said that you had something for me?"
"Of course, yes, yes, something for you. Get it I will."
He handed me a glass of water and left the room.
I could hear the clanging and banging of things being tossed aside when suddenly, I was scanned from a node that had dropped down from above the exam table.
"Hey!?! What did you just do?" I demanded.
"Apologize, I must." Ah-Zhna exclaimed. "To be sure I had to be."
"'To be sure' of what" I insisted.
"You are, as you stated." He said with a much more calm voice, as he slowly re-entered the room holding a data pad. He looked at me a couple of times as he reviewed what I assume to be the results of his unauthorized medical scan. After a few minutes of waiting, he took notice of my look of disapproval. Then he focused his gaze on me and queried. "Know, do you, who your mother is?"
"How did you...?" I began to ask
" All Kryze, I know about." Ah-Zhna interrupted. My job, it is. "A good friend Satine was. About her death, sad it was to hear."
"your father, have you known?" he asked to change the subject.
"I didn't know about Satine until after she was murdered." I exclaimed. "Bo-Katan would not tell me who my father is even though she claims to know who he is."
"Of the Mandalore system he is not." he responded and began to grin. "Helps little I know this does, but something more about him I know."
"Yes, what is it." I eagerly inquired.
"A wielder of the force he is. A Jedi perhaps..." He trailed off as if he realized something.
"Well, what is it?" I prodded. "And how did you know my father was a wielder of the force"
"High enough to tell about your father, your midi-chlorian count is." He said after looking down at the data once again.
"A Jedi Padawan helped your mother, not long before you were born." He explained "Your Father he could have been. Right the timing is."
I must have shown my keen interest in learning more because he began to look very nervous. His voice cracked as he turned the conversation to why he brought me here.
"With me you will come. Something very important I have to give you." Ah-Zhna blurted as he stashed the data in his clothing.
I followed him out a back entrance to a speeder. After contacting Amis to let him know that I was going to be a while. I got in and off we went, not knowing where it was that we were going.
After about three and a half hours later of crossing all kinds of terrain we stopped at a structure that was, I would guess to be 500 meters square by 100 meters tall at the corner of a walled off area of 1500 meter squared off area. The wall was 50 meters tall. What ever this place it is impressive. It would be perfect for what we were looking for. As Ah-Zhna and I approached what I am guessing to be the front gate, he took out the data pad that he had in the office. There are now two new lights on the top edge that are lit up. This was easy to notice since it is dark outside this time at night. He began touching, typing, and swiping. After about ten minutes a node protruded from the wall. scanned us and the area around us including the speeder. A door just big enough for the speeder opened. and speeder and all, we went inside.
As we started to walk around I noticed the air was stale and it somewhat dark as the lights began to come on.
Be careful, Ah-Zhna alerted me. As the lighting began to get brighter, He triggered a switch that began a process of opening huge sealing door that sat upon the floor. As I begin to look around. This immense structure is set up on top of a huge jagged hole in the otherwise flat ground made of a deep purple quartz. I didn't see any cracks in the stone outside the apparently cut out hole. It looked like this.
It is 200 meters across at the large points (point to point) and 100 meters across at the smaller ones, but that is at the top it get larger the further down it goes. Which looks to be about 500 meters.
"Okay Ah-Zhna" I began. " What is this place, and why did you bring me here?"
"Go to the bottom first we will, then answer your questions I will" he replied.
"Down?!?" I thought to myself. "To what"
A lift lowered from high above and came to rest at the top of the giant doors.
After we got in it lowered down to the bottom. There were lights set up in what opened up into a round room some 350 to 360 meters in diameter. The apparently perfectly round walls go up some 50 Meters then become the enlarged version of the jagged opening that tapers up.
At one point in the round room, there was what appears to be a rectangular opening 30 meters across and 30 meters high. next to the rectangular opening were three engraved images with old text engraved along the side.
I cannot make out the old text for now.
"For you to figure out, this place is" he began to speak after seeing that I was taking it all in. "To hand over possession of this place to you is why you are here."
Before I could escalate the questions, he continued. "To Garethe Kryze, ten generations ago of Kryze, a promise I have made. This place to look after. The Kryze Family to follow. For you to find, help and guide."
For the next few hours we discussed the what, who, how and why although, all I can say for certain is that I am more unclear about all of this than when I started.
but one thing that I do know is, we got our place for our new ship building business. And I got more mysteries to unravel.
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