New Je’daii Order Temple Kaleth Rebuild

REBUILDING THE JE'DAII ORDER

series of one shots about rebuilding the nine great temples of Tython.

Kaleth The Temple of Knowledge

160 ABY

West of the foothills of the Tythos Ridge and near the coast of the Deep Ocean, lay the ruins of Kaleth, nestled into the embrace of the gently-sloping mountain range. After centuries of abandonment the walls of the temple of knowledge and the city surrounding it, had crumbled away. Leaving nothing but lower stories and the entrance to the city. Grand Master Bathor let out a deep sigh, as she gazed at the ruins. As usual the Prakithian, Esbern, stood next to her, making scans of the ruins. There was little left of the temple, Mab knew this would be a challenging project, especially without any of the original building plans. All she had found were a few images of the ancient temple, sketches even, but that was all. But not enough to rebuild it the way it was when the Je'daii built it. "Well, these are definitely the original foundations, Your Majesty. According to the scans it is over 30.000 years old" Esbern told her with a smile but then his face changed "but why wasn't it rebuilt by the Jedi when they came to Tython after the Great Galactic War?" The witch smiled, she was pleased to hear he had paid attention to her stories about Tython's history. "Good question my friend" she said and turned around to face him "the Jedi did come to Kaleth, and many of them believed it would be an ideal foundation for a new temple. But from what i could find, the High Council voted against it, and thought it would be more wise to study the Temple from a distance" she explained to Esbern. Still holding the datapad in his hand he listened carefully to his Queen speak. "The Jedi built a new temple not far from here, I think before we landed, i saw it in a valley to the North" she added and before she could say it herself Esbern said "we can have a look, and see if there's anything useful there." "Like you read my mind, sounds like a good plan" Mab replied.

~\*~

An hour or so later, the busted plugga hovered above the ruins of the Jedi Temple. It was in a far better state than the temple at Kaleth, but still the centuries of abandonment caused nature to take its course. The temple was overgrown with plants and trees of all sorts. A large herd of Uxibeasts was grazing on the temple grounds. "Those look dangerous" Mab heard the engineer mumble from a passenger's seat. "Oh they are, the Uxibeasts may be mammals but they are very aggressive. Apparently even Manka Cats and Wingmaws are no match for these beasts" she replied and reached for the weapons interface "better get rid of them." Mab added as she switched forward cannons on. The witch had no wish to harm the horned beasts. With a push of a button she fired a warning shot, close to the beasts to make them run off and hopefully stay away long enough for them to explore the Jedi Temple.

Moments later, with the ship on the ground, the two approached the temple. The temple consisted of three round towers surrounding a larger central tower. Two large statues on each side of the entrance, both green from moss and vines. "It reminds me of Alderaanian architecture" Esbern said as he took out his datapad and activated the DRK-1 probe droid. "Or a B'omarr monastery" Mab added as the droid flew from the ship up to the temple to make scans. "B'omarr your Majesty? I'm not familiar with them." "The B'omarr Order is quite a mysterious religious order from the Outer rim territories, they had monasteries similar to this temple on Tatooine and Teth" as she spoke, Mab remembered the visit she made to Teth many years ago. Together with the young Chiss Cayde and their friend Urizen they explored an old Sith temple. The Witch wondered what had happened to them, 'did they survive the war?' She thought to herself as they reached the entrance to the temple.

Like the rest of the temple, the stairs and the arched doors were overgrown with vines. Therefore Mab took out her lightsabers and switched them on. The purple and minty green blades crackled loudly. Moving forward, the witch swung the humming blades at the vines, clearing a path up the stairs. Augmenting her strength and speed with the force she jumped up, spinning in the air, cutting the vines that blocked the door. With a smile she landed on the ground, and switched her lightsabers off. Using telekinesis she cleared the way and said "let's have a look inside."

Esbern pushed the doors open and they stepped over the threshold into the main spire. Golden beams of sunlight seeped through the broken windows, nature had found its way into the temple, vines had creeped over the wooden walls and twisted around the central staircase. The statues along the walls were covered with moss and had mushrooms growing at their feet. Leafs rustled, they could hear birds chirping. At the centre of the main spire, on the ground between the stairs lay a large object. It was made from metal as it shimmered in the sunlight, but like everything else it was overgrown. Mab stepped closer and took out her lightsaber once more. Carefully she began to cut away the plants, slowly the large object became visible. "What is it?" The Prakithian asked as she continued to remove the vines. "I think a kind of monument.. there should be a plaque somewhere" the Witch said. Esbern took the hint and began to look for it. After a few minutes, when Mab was nearly done he found it. "The Eye of Zallow" he read out loud as he wiped the plague clean. "In memory of Master Ven Zallow who gave his life protecting the Jedi Order during the Battle of Coruscant" Esbern continued whilst Mab finished up clearing away the overgrowth. When she was done a large metal Dodecahedron lay before them on a broken repulsor lift, two small Holocron shaped objects lay next to it. "It's quite beautiful" the Witch said as she stepped back, imagining how it must have looked in the past. "We could restore it, your Majesty" the engineer suggested. "I'd like that. As a respect to those who came before to Tython us" the witch smiled as she walked away.

For the next hour they explored the old temple, although the structure looked intact from the outside, from inside they could see the real damage. It turned out that most of the temple was made from wood, and over the years as nature took over, that began to rot and dry out. They had to be careful as they made their way through the old building. On the ground floor they found numerous lecture halls, study rooms, a canteen and several offices of Jedi Masters. In the northern spire they found what was left of the archives, which wasn't much as the Jedi managed to take the archives with them when they abandoned the temple. In the eastern spire, behind heavy double doors, the two found the council chamber. In the southern spire, opposite of the archives they found the Temple's map room. At the rear of the temple were two hangars with open air ceilings, completely overgrown with tall grass and even trees. Finally as they exited the temple, they located what seemed to be a speeder pool, located at the front promenade. A couple of broken speeders, rusted so badly it was hard to make out what they were..

As they stood on the promenade in front of the temple, the droid returned to them. "Well, if you want to restore this temple we would have to start over your Majesty. The building has too much damage." Esbern said as he read the scans. The witch let out a sigh, "so we are back at where we started?" "I'm afraid we are my Queen. Both sites would have to be cleared, excavated and then rebuilt again" the Prakithian paused and looked up "the choice is yours." With a nod she turned away and looked at the overgrown temple, in the distance the herd of Uxibeasts was approaching again, flocks of birds landed in the trees, this place was part of nature now. "We will build the new temple at Kaleth, where it should be" she said with determination and turned around to face the engineer. "We'll start clearing and excavate at Kaleth, and a team will come here to salvage what we could still use. Like the Eye of Zallow." She continued. "Sounds like a perfect plan my Queen, and since we are rebuilding from the foundations, do you wish to restore the original temple or something completely different." Esbern, asked. For a moment it was silent, Mab thought about it, the witch usually would choose to restore something to its former glory, but now as she wanted to merge what was left of the Je'daii Temple, with what they could salvage from the Jedi temple, it seemed more fitting to build something completely new. "I'll have to think about the design, but i want to build something new." The engineer's face lit up "a new temple it is." And with those words the two returned to the ship.

~\*~

A month later, Mab returned to the excavation site at Kaleth. The master Engineer and architect of the new temple had sent her an urgent transmission, that they had discovered a new chamber with a security system that still was operational. She had read a report of the archeologist, Jedi Master Till'in who came across certain ancient Tythonian wardroids when they started excavations at Kaleth during the Cold War. The witch wondered as she approached the site; 'could it be.. after centuries?'

As she stood at the edge of the excavation site she gazed around. The workers had cleared most of the debris and even discovered entrances to levels below the surface. It didn't take long before Esbern came to welcome her. "Welcome back Queen Mab, I apologise that it had to be under these circumstances" he said and took a bow. "I'm curious to find out l what kind of chamber you found and what kind of security system it has" she replied with a curious grin on her face. Before he could say she added "droids perhaps?" The Prakithian responded with surprise "yes, indeed." Her grin turned into a bright smile. "So you knew about these droids?" The engineer asked. With a nod she motioned to him to lead the way and began to explain what she had learned "when the Jedi began to excavate this site during the Cold war, they came across ancient Tythonian War Droids that began to attack them." The witch continued to talk as she followed Esbern into a tunnel the workers had excavated "The archeologist of that time hired someone to collect the memory cores from the droids. The cores revealed that the darkside forces of the Force Wars activated the droids." "The Force Wars? That's over 20.000 years ago" the Prakithian said with shock. "25.943 years to be exact" Bathori said and paused for a moment, then added "one would think no droid could survive that long, right?" "That sounds impossible, your Majesty." Esbern said as they turned into another tunnel. "I couldn't find much about the purpose of the droids, but what I did find is that they were designed by a Je'daii known as the Weapon Master. He…. or she built the First Blade. Which was the foundation to the lightsabers we carry today" Mab said tapping with her golden hand on her lightsaber clasped on her belt. Her face changed "Unfortunately the Jedi took the hilt of the first blade." "That is a shame my Queen, maybe you should retrieve from the Jedi as it belongs to the Je'daii Order" the engineer suggested as he stopped in front of heavy double doors. There was a sign next to it, heavily corroded. Mab stepped closer and tried to clear it to read what it said. 'C.am… o. .pe.ch' was all she was able to read, but knowing the history of Kaleth she knew instantly what room it was, "the Chamber of Speech" she said out loud. "My queen?" Esbern looked curiously at her. "The Chamber of Speech was the ancient version of a Holocron, it was a vault of knowledge dedicated to.. well… language. Here the Je'daii learned other worldly languages." the witch began to glow with excitement, and softly added "I wonder if it still works." she looked at Esbern and continued to explain "the Je'daii tried to replicate the Kwa technology they had found here under Kaleth, it even had a Gatekeeper, an artificial personality that presided over this language database." The witch approached the door, curious to find out if the database was still there or if the Jedi took that as well. She glanced at Esbern "I take it the droids are in here?" With a nod she replied "two of them My Queen.. but.. are you sure?" She smiled "if a padawan was able  to take out several of these droids and take their memory cores, then I am confident I can handle two ancient droids on my own." And with those words she took her lightsabers off her belt and switched them on. As the blades ignited she motioned to the workers standing by the door to open it for her. Two stepped forward and pushed against the heavy ancient doors, with a loud grinding noise the doors slowly swung open and Mab stepped inside.

Instantly the two droids activated when the Iktotchian witch approached. they said something but their voice modules had been damaged over the centuries, all she heard was cracking sounds as they reached for their weapons one ignited an old lightsaber while the other grabbed blaster rifle and began shooting at Bathori. But Mab was fast and deflecting the blaster shots back to the droid, disabling it with ease. The other droid ran towards her and began slashing its lightsaber at her in a basic pattern. Having two lightsabers  she could block the droid as she used her other saber to chop its legs off.  As it dropped to the floor it tried to reach for their blaster but Mab slashed its hand off and used her other saber to disable it completely. When the droid stopped moving she switched her lightsabers off and clasped them back on her belt. "You can come in" Mab said as she approached the interface.

Esbern followed by the workers stepped inside, looking impressed at the two disabled droids. The interface was covered  with a thick layer of dust, Mab leaned forward and blew it away. She placed her right hand on the interface, but nothing happened. "Hmm I guess we need power" she said. "We can work on that," the Prakithian said as he stood next to her.

Moments later Mab was outside again, she was about to go to Anil Kesh to see the progress they had made at the Temple of Science. But before she left she gave Esbern her plans for the new Temple and the city. "I've thought long and hard about the new Temple. I want to build a new temple over the ruins." "Over? My queen?" "Yes, over. Like a protective shell. A similar idea to what the Lost Tribe of the Sith did with the Omen. They build around and over the crash site, preserving the ancient dreadnaught. I want to keep the ruins as they are and build this" she held out a holopad and switched it on. An holo image of a singular tower with a city surrounding it appeared. Esbern looked at the image and nodded "beautiful my queen. I think we can accomplish that." Mab smiled, "good. I'm looking forward to seeing it." She handed the holopad to the Engineer and turned around to her ship.

~\*~

Building the new temple at Kaleth took over a year and when the Witch came to see the final results the city itself was still in construction. This was their biggest project by far as completing in the city would take another year.

Grand Master Bathor took the Busted Plugga through the clouds over Talss. Gliding over the Tythos Ridge towards Kaleth. In the distance she noticed a silvery tower, shimmering in the noon sun. The navcom began to beep as the ship drew closer to its destination. Her eyes wided, from the air the tower looked mesmerising. The city walls had been built, a perfect circle, but the city itself was no more than an open space, ready to build on. Circling the beautiful new temple, Mab took the ship down towards the landing pad where she as usual was welcomed by Esbern.

"My Queen, welcome to Kaleth" he said with a bow and when he rose up he waved his hand towards the tower  "welcome to the New Temple of Knowledge." Mab could hear the pride in his voice. "Thank you Esbern. I must say the tower looks beautiful" the witch responded as she gazed up. "I think this is my greatest achievement, and when the city is done Kaleth will be even more beautiful" Esbern said with a bright smile, eyes twinkling he added "it would be my pleasure to give you a tour." "Please do" the Witch responded eager to get the tour started.

The Prakithian led the Grand Master to the entrance of the temple. Beautifully crafted double doors, with on each side a statue. "These are the statues we salvaged from the Jedi temple Your Majesty, as you  requested." Pleased to see that they had followed her instructions she gazed at the statues, they were cleared from moss and restored as new. "Perfect Esbern" she replied. As they approached the doors they opened into a large entrance hall, with curved stairs as in the Jedi temple and at its centre the Eye of Zallow. The repulsion lift was repaired, the large Dodecahedron now hovered above it and the two smaller  Holocron shaped objects circled it slowly. Mab stepped towards the silver plague and read out loud "the Eye of Zallow, in memory of Master Ven Zallow who gave his life for the Jedi Order in 3653 BBY during the Battle of Coruscant." She paused and smiled, looking at the monument. "Taken from the ruins of the Jedi temple in 160 ABY and restored by Grand Master Bathor to honour the history of Tython" Esbern added as he pointed out the line underneath the text the Witch just read. "Let's start at the lower level, the ruins of Kaleth" he then said and pointed to the turbo lifts on the opposite side of the entrance hall.

Moments later they stood in the lift and it zoomed down. "We tried our best to keep the ruins un touched. But for structural integrity we did have to build columns to carry the weight of the tower" Esbern explained just before the lift reached the first level beneath the towel. The doors slowly slid open and instantly lights flickered on in the darkness. As they stepped outside on a platform with stairs leading further down. "We managed to excavate all subterranean levels of the original temple, the lift could take us further down but from here you can see view of ruins" she heard the Engineer explain as she walked to the balustrade overlooking the ancient temple. Mab gazed in awe at the huge chamber, lights still flickering on in the distance. "This is exactly how I imagined it" she said softly as each sound seemed to be amplified by the acoustics of the large round chamber. "What about the Chamber of Speech?" she asked and turned towards the engineer. "The original computer is still down here, but we managed to reroute the interface to the New Temple. It accessible from the new Chamber of speech on language section" Esbern said as he pointed with his index finger up. "That's wonderful." "We did find more down here when we excavated" instantly Mab's eyes began to glow excitingly "do tell." "We found another temple deep underneath the ruins" he told. "That must be the original Kwa temple" the witch responded. "Indeed, we could go now if you'd like." Her heart skipped a beat, she wanted to go and explore it, but that was not why she was at Kaleth today. "I'd love to, but i'd rather schedule another day to explore it. I'm here now for the New Temple. So please show me." "As you wish my Queen" the Prakithian responded and led her back to the lift.

They returned to the great entrance hall where Esbern led the Iktotchian up the grand staircase to the first level. Where they found numerous rows of tables and benches where anyone could study. Here all basic knowledge the Order had collected would be accessible for any visitors. From the main study hall, the Prakithian took the Grand Master to the Cultural levels, this was also the level where the New Chamber of Speech was located.

Going higher, Space exploration levels, here one would find records of space explorers and Star Maps, recovered from the database at the ruins.

The next stop were the science levels, dedicated to recording the strides in scientific progress developed at Anil Kesh, Mahara Kesh. Techniques in math, medicine, alchemy, zoology, and other realms of study would be stored and collected here. The Prakithian showed Mab a collection of full skeletons of sentient and non-sentient species ranging from mammals to plant-based species to insectoids that were recovered from the ruins of Kaleth.

Further up the tower, Esbern took the witch to the Philosophy levels where they would store and have access to the works of not only Je'daii and Jedi philosophers, but also the musings of thinkers from every system and culture ever discovered. As Well as an assorted collection of Force- and non-Force-based thought. Closer to the top were several.labs dedicated to the study of ancient texts.

And finally at the top were the new Council chambers. Mab walked to the centre of the chamber and looked around at the seats. "Esbern, you have out done yourself. The temple is truly your greatest achievement." The golden horned Iktotchi said with a satisfied smile. "Thank you your Majesty, that means a lot to me" he responded with a proud grin. Mab walked to one of the seats and sat down "now we need to fill this temple with  actual knowledge." "We have already added the Andeddu collection to the database my Queen, as well as what we could recover from the ruins" the human male said as he approached her. "That is wonderful , and ofcourse the studies we have recovered from Anil Kesh and Mahara Kesh?" She asked. Nodding, Esbern responded "yes indeed.. from where will you get more knowledge?" looking out of the window at the view of Tythos Ridge she thought about it and replied "well, my mind set on two worlds… Odacer-Faustin the home of a Sith Academy and Obroa-Skai the home of a Jedi Academy. I hope their archives are still intact then we could bring them here to Kaleth."

\*\*\*