Fellowship of the Dice

"Hmm, maybe they don't like the beacons. Unpleasant vibrations or something that they can feel, or they know the beacons are associated with the tiny beings above-ground that have some nasty 'teeth' to fight back with. Not worth the effort for such a small snack." Something to ponder on, and maybe test later.

"The beacons are all placed, so mission accomplished on that one. Let's get back to base and make sure the system is operating as planned. And let's dig through those storage rooms to find the old archeology equipment you saw in the past. That sounds super useful."

The technician nods to Granite's plans.

A few hours later, Jedi Knight Granite finds himself in a mechanic workshop. Together with the technician's assistance, they've located several pieces of used and broken equipment that might be pieced together to create a tool. However, even Granite doubts it will be a quick process to build a ground penetrating scanner.

Starting a new project is always the hardest part. The archeological equipment wasn't labelled, and any specialized tools are laid around haphazardly. An hour in he lucks out and finds a technical manual which gives him the confidence to tinker around without worrying about irreversibly breaking anything. Eventually he manages to pull together something that will likely fit the bill.

Granite finishes his project and is ready to head back out with his new device. After some quick testing, he's confident in his technical skills and capabilities of the device. It might not be the best device, but it'll work for its purposes for now.

The Jedi Knight collected a hoverlift which will allow him to easily push the device across the planetoid's surface. The hoverlift rests a few inches above the surface, but it's not high enough to cause any major effect on the scanning depths.

In near perfect timing, Padawan Uri and the youngling Tomas enter the workshop as Jedi Knight Granite begins to stow away his tools. "I have the ground penetrating scanner done. I had to jury rig parts from a few different machines here to build one. We'll be able to scan the worm tunnels and see where they lead from the surface."

The padawan and youngling turn to see a hoverlift equipped with what they assume is the scanning device.

"Nice. Me and Master Tan learned that the rocks glow around Jedi, and react strongly to the Force. The geology team call them 'khallid'. A bunch of them must have crumbled when we were using Force techniques and igniting our weapons."

Uri examines the scanning device more closely to understand how it's operated. "So, we can't count on the beacons we put up to keep the worms away, then? Are we going in to kill them?"

Granite stands and begins to push the lift out of the workshop and towards the garage door exit to the surface. "I'd like to see where the tunnels lead. We need to know how close they are to the facility and having them mapped out might be useful."

Turning back to look at the two younger Jedi, he continues, "We shouldn't kill them unless they present a danger. They've lived out there on the surface longer than the miners here in the facility and our encounter seems to be the first any of them can recall. With our recent unique experiences, I believe the worms might be sensitive to Force users in a way similar to the rocks. Creatures such as the Vornskr are sometimes used to hunt Force sensitives."

Uri motions for Tomas to follow, keeping up with Granite.

"I understand. No point in worrying about whether we can avoid them, then. That's not all that might be used to track us in the future. Demand for khallid shipments has been going up on Mustafar. The base will send another a week from now. I don't know what's on Mustafar, but we can't ignore it."

Granite nods at Uri's comment. Donning their breathers, the Jedi Knight, Padawan, and Youngling exit the facility with two technicians. As Granite pushes the lift, the other technician watches the scanning results. As soon as they exit the garage though, the technician speaks up. "There's an tunnel 3 meters wide and 2.5 meters below us. It's going under the facility."

"Well, that's interesting. Could be a security issue if these tunnels go much underneath the Base itself. Either compromising the structural foundation, or the worms causing trouble underneath our feet, or in the future as a method of covert infiltration." The former Temple Guard definitely errs on the side of paranoia when it comes to protection.

"Regardless, glad to see the equipment is working as hoped. Doesn't have a huge scanning radius, but maybe that could be improved in the future, or more of these constructed for better sweeps later. Regardless, let's follow this one."