Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage - Chapter 71 (Patreon)

I passed the two-day trip to our destination by learning two spells, Create Soul Gem and Transmute. I needed the Create Soul Gem spell to finally confirm a hunch that I had had for a while about what kind of gem or crystal I would need to actually create a functional soul gem. Transmute, on the other hand, I needed to test the purity of the metal sample I was hoping to get.

When I finally learned the advanced version of Clairvoyance not too long ago, a few things came to mind. Some of them were obvious but not exactly helpful at the moment, like the exact direction of Darth Vader or where Mara Jade was. A few others could be useful but varied in danger from risky to down were damning. There was one idea, though, one singular planet that came to mind that would let me test my theory and provide a resource that could prove extremely valuable in combination with Transmute.

Dantooine

My in-universe knowledge told me that Dantooine was a backward farm world and not much else. I knew that it had a reputation as somewhere people could go when they wanted to leave the galaxy behind, but beyond that, it was a blank spot.

On the other hand, my Star Wars knowledge, most of which came from the Knights of the Old Republic video game, knew that Dantooine was much more important. Thousands of years ago, it was the location of a Jedi Temple, which had a long and tragic history. Well, it might have a long and tragic history, depending on what portion of it was true in this amalgamation reality. To be honest, it didn't really matter because I had no intention of going to the temple. Nothing really prevented me, and I would most likely find plenty of things worth salvaging and selling, but I wasn't sure I was ready to ransack Jedi history quite yet. I might not be a fan of how the order turned out in general, but the individuals were mostly good.

Besides, Luke had a way stronger claim over anything there, anyway.

No, I had a different target, or two targets, to be precise. After we arrived, I guided Calima down to the surface of the planet, leaning on the back of Tatnia's chair as she was assisting as the co-pilot. Using the images in my head, as dated as they might have been, and Clairvoyance, I quickly guided us to the general area of the Jedi Temple, landing in an open field. Tatnia and Calima stayed on board the Chariot while Julus, Nal, and I left on my treasure hunt. Nal piloted the Arrow with me in the passenger seat, guiding him down to our first target while Julus sat in the back, keeping an eye on the sensors. There were two labor droids awkwardly sitting in the spare seats as well, ready to help with the manual labor.

The trip wasn't that long, though it was a much greater distance than the game had insinuated. Eventually, we landed slowly in front of a small cave entrance, and I couldn't help but feel the rising excitement. The fact that Clairvoyance latched on to the location so easily, just by what I remember from the half dozen or so times I played the game, was incredibly encouraging.

The Crystal Caves.

In Legends, there were dozens upon dozens of different types of crystals that could be used in a lightsaber, many of them with special properties. In Disney Canon, Jedi used crystals that had a presence in the Force, that could connect and even choose its Jedi. As I understood, there were still dozens of types of Kyber crystals, some of which did have special properties, but they were all Kyber. I had yet to find out how it worked in this amalgam universe. But, if any crystal was capable of being turned into a Soul Gem, it was going to be a Kyber crystal or a Legends equivalent.

As Nal turned off and locked the Arrow down, I let my two crewmates know what we could be facing.

"There is a chance these caves are infested with relatively large arthropod… things," I explained. "Not sure what they are called, but if they do show up, the strategy is to retreat and pick them off one by one as we move. They aren't anything special, meaning regular weapons should work on them, but if we charge in, they might overwhelm us with numbers."

My companions nodded, and we climbed out of the Arrow, slowly making our way inside. The cave's interior looked very different from what I remembered in the games, which wasn't surprising considering that they were working with a single underground tileset. Still, the underlying themes remained surprisingly true. The ceiling was rounded, about three meters above us, and made from a single type of brown and black stone. The floor was uneven, which was made even more treacherous by a thick layer of fog around our feet that shifted and swirled as we walked.

Nal and Julus were carrying bright, military-style lamps that we had salvaged from our work on Itander, which almost perfectly lit up the dark space. Unfortunately, that also meant that Nal's rifle was slung over his back, his sidearm in his free hand, while Julus was only using one of his pistols. I had both my hands up, ready to cast at a moment's notice.

"How deep does the cave go?" Julus asked, looking around nervously. "And what exactly are we looking for?"

"I'm not really sure," I admitted with a shrug. "It could be just a bit further or a long trek down. Just keep your eyes peeled for-"

A screech echoed through the cave, and a spider-esque abomination the size of a golden retriever pounced on me, driving me to the ground. I could hear Julus curse as the bug drove its sharp front appendage into my arm. With a loud, pained scream, I conjured my sword and swung it around, cutting off the limb that was buried in my shoulder before I could spin my blade up and drive it into the arthropod's carapace. Nal grabbed the creature's legs and dragged it off me, where Julus confirmed it was dead by shooting it a few times.

Meanwhile, Nal was helping me stand. He paused for a moment before grabbing the pointed limb and yanking it free of my shoulder. I barely held back a scream as the barbed weapon was violently removed, the pain threatened to knock me back down. Thankfully, I managed to hold on to consciousness and cast Fast Heal a few times on myself. I could still feel something burning in the wound, though, so I cast it again, followed by a sustained Healing.

"They appear to be venomous," Nal said, peering closely at the limbs he had just pulled out of my flesh, still dripping my blood. "Will your healing deal with that?"

"Eventually, I just need to give it some time," I managed to get out through clenched teeth, feeling the venom spreading out. "In the meantime, let's keep moving. And we should keep talking to the minimum until we make it to the end."

Julus nodded sheepishly, but I only shrugged before again taking the lead, this time conjuring my armor to protect myself, as well a conjured sword in one hand and my blister pistol in the other. In hindsight, I should have had that all out already. It took a bit for the burning in my shoulder to eventually stop, the venom spent, and its after-effects washed away by my magic.

Feeling a bit more confident now that I was armed and armored, we explored deeper into the caves. Much like the distance between the temple and the cave entrance, the cave was a lot bigger than the game, going deeper and deeper underground. After about five minutes of walking, we were attacked again, this time by four of them dropping out of a crag in the ceiling. Three of them were smaller than the first one, but they were all still plenty bi to be dangerous.

"Keep moving back!" I said as I opened fire, managing to zap one in the shoulder joint, causing it to collapse momentarily.

Keeping together in a loose formation, we slowly moved backward, peppering the decently sized abominations with laser fire. When they got too close, I would slash at them with my sword or spray them with fire, keeping them back and away from Nal and Julus. Eventually, we managed to take down the three smaller bugs, so I dropped my sword and launched an Ice Spike at the last one, the icey projectile punching through its neck and splattering its body with gore. It collapsed, twitching wretchedly before finally curling up, dead.

While Julus quickly double and triple-tapped each bug, I grabbed my sword and pushed more magicka into it, the conjured construct having lost a portion when I wasn't holding it. Once we were recovered and ready, we headed out again.

We dealt with three more attacks over the next ten minutes, and I was beginning to wonder to myself just how deep this cave would go. I could tell Julus was beginning to question my sanity, while Nal was clearly just happy to be on an adventure. At the fifteen-minute mark, I noticed a slight glow in the distance, coming around a downward curve that hid its source. I motioned everyone to stop.

"Okay, the space ahead will likely be the central chamber and the nest. Lots of eggs and probably a bunch more bugs," I explained in a whisper. "Same strategy as before, a slow retreat backward, focusing on the ones that are the closest. Ready?"

When they both nodded in confirmation, we continued on, the glow getting brighter and brighter until we stepped around the final corner and got a look at the central chamber.

The massive, gigantic cavern was easily twenty-five or thirty meters across, with a thick pillar from floor to ceiling, off-center by about seven or eight meters. There were four cascaded platforms along the curved wall furthest from the entrance, and along the base were a few small branches that didn't seem to go more than a few meters. In the center of everything was a pool of water, an almost perfect circle of what appeared to be clear, clean water about three meters wide.

Of course, all of that absolutely paled in comparison to the crystal structures that filled the cave.

There were dozens and dozens of crystal clusters dotting the cave, growing from the ground like large latticed bushes. Each cascaded platform had around a half dozen growths, and I could see each shallow cave branch was also filled. There was a massive cluster almost as tall as I was less than six feet from the entrance, and the massive pillar next to the small pond was studded with pointed shards. The colors were incredible, with purples, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, and even white, with every shade in between. I could even see a pink cluster, high up on the wall not too far from the entrance.

It was stunning, all three of us standing and staring at the incredible view in awe.

Unfortunately, dotted around these crystals were two dozen watermelon-sized eggs, and around them were at least ten of the gross bug abominations. One of them spotted us almost immediately and screeched out a warning, breaking us out of our moment of wonder. With a curse, I conjured a flame atronach, letting it stand in front of me and hose the incoming swarm of bugs with fire. They shied away at first, letting all of us, including the atronach, slowly move backward as Nal and Julus laid out a barrage of blaster bolts.

Seeing that some of the bigger arthropod abominations seemed to be tanking their shots, I quickly cast Bound Bow, drawing and firing an arrow at the nearest one. The arrow streaked across the gap and blew a fist-sized chunk out of the closest larger bug. A second shot punched through the gap in its armor and dropped it.

We slowly chipped away at the bugs for two minutes, moving backward, letting them chase us through the cave system, burning and killing them as we went. The smell of burnt bug was horrific, but we kept going, eventually killing every last one. I let my conjured constructs fade, save for my armor, leaving us alone in the cave.

After taking a short break, we headed back down to the cavern. Once we arrived, we cautiously walked and explored the space, doing our best to ignore the incredible scenery and focus on making sure there weren't any more bugs. We also made sure to destroy the eggs, either driving my sword through them or burning them with a spell.

When the cavern was cleared, we sat down on a rock and recovered, taking in the incredible view and catching our breath. I cast Respite on each of us as we did, quickly replenishing our stamina and soothing our overworked muscles. When we were feeling better, we slowly made the trek back up to the Arrow, where we sat by the entrance of the cave and had lunch.

"Boss… I'll never doubt you again," Julus swore, shaking his head. "I never imagined seeing anything like that in my lifetime… Thank you."

"You're welcome," I said with a smile, slapping his shoulder. "I'll be honest, I knew it would be impressive, but… That blew what I had in mind out of the water."

When we were done with lunch, I commed back to the Chariot to let Tatnia and Calima know that everything was going well. I happily confirmed that our first destination was an incredible success and that we would probably be here for the rest of the day. I asked Calima if she was all right hanging out alone with our new security bots, and she assured me she was fine, so I gave Tatnia the location and told her to join us.

While I was doing that, Julus and Nal detached the cargo crate attached to the back of the Arrow and activated the labor droids. Julus stayed at the Arrow to wait for Tatnia, while Nal and I headed back down, slowly walking alongside the cargo crate and the labor droids as they moved it through the cave. About twenty minutes later, we were all back in the cavern, and Tatnia was looking around with wide, wonder-filled eyes.

"Even with the smell… this is incredible," She said before looking at me sharply. "Please tell me you don't plan on smashing all of this."

"No, absolutely not," I assured her, shaking my head. "We are going to spend the rest of the day picking up any fragments of these crystals we see off the ground. If we don't have enough by then, we will carefully break off some pieces of the larger clusters. This is too important for us to strip down to the ground."

"What is this stuff then, Boss?" Julus asked, his eyes trailing down the main pillar.

"It's Kyber crystal," I explained, Nals eyes going wide and both Julus and Tatnia whipping their heads around to look at me. "It's the main component of lightsabers, and…"

I looked around at my feet, taking a few seconds to find a shard of blue crystal about an inch longer than my thumb. I focused and cast one of my new spells, Create Soul Gem. I could feel the magic gathering around the crystal as if analyzing it. After a long moment, the magic seemed to resonate with the crystal before a purple crack of mana turned the deep blue crystal into a much lighter shade. The spell had successfully created a soul gem.

"It's one of the main materials I need to start making some magic stuff for you guys," I explained, tossing the newly minted soul gem to Tatnia.