Gatekeeper Myst Part 3

Myst wasn’t all that impressed with the fourth level, mostly because he was ‘fighting’ hordes of civilian droids in a huge annoyingly cluttered warehouse. Okay, so he was mostly running and shooting them from a distance while the slow ass protocol droids tried to close the distance but he was fairly sure it still counted as fighting as they were trying to kill him. He scowled as he finished tying the piece of wire he’d cut off the roll to the shelf. 

“Fuck it, good enough,” he muttered as he pulled one of his larger explosive devices out of his bag. He pushed and held the trigger button then carefully hung the thermal detonator on the wire. ‘Three seconds.’ He carefully let go of the trigger so the wire wouldn’t shake then ran down the aisle as fast as he could as the horde of droids came around the corner chasing him. He didn’t bother to look back as he ran around the corner and saw a large group of droids in front of him. “Fuck,” he complained as he grabbed a grenade off his belt, pulled the ‘pin’ and tossed it at the group even as he ran toward the group.

Myst ducked left and ran down a side aisle as his explosive trap ripped through the horde of droids and managed to start that group of shelves falling like giant dominoes. He scowled as he realized he’d just ran into a dead end. He spun around and saw a wave of cleaning droids pouring into the aisle with him. “Fuck!” he cursed as he grabbed his blasters off his belt and opened fire on the approaching droids, shooting as fast as he could, knowing it wasn’t going to be enough. He grabbed his last grenade on his belt as he slowly walked backwards while doing his best to keep them from advancing. 

“Please work,” he muttered as he armed the grenade then turned and tossed it at the end of the aisle. He grabbed his second blaster as he turned his attention back to the horde of repair droids crawling over each other to get to him. He kept up a barrage of blaster fire then turned and bolted as one of his blasters ran out of ammo and the droids managed to get within ten feet despite his frantic attempt to stop them. His smile was probably a bit unhinged as he got to the end of the corridor and saw the hole he’d managed to blow in the divider. He ducked through the hole then ran down the nearest cross aisle, trying to put some distance between him and the droids until he found a place to make a better stand and swap the magazine.

Myst shrieked as a roombalike device with a vibroblade bolted to the top of it came out of the shelf on his left and tried to cut open his leg as he ran past. He jumped the next roomba that lunged for him and continued running, feeling the burn as he pushed himself harder than he’d pushed himself in years. He put the empty blaster back on his belt as he burst out into an open section with a tangled mess of burning shelves on the side of the dungeon where he’d set up the thermal detonator. He put on a burst of speed, knowing he’d pay for it later as he saw an astromech next to an eight foot platform that ran the entire length of the room and looked like a display shelf for important items.

‘Okay, I can run and jump off its head onto the platform, yeah… fuck that,’ Myst thought as he turned and ran toward the metal ladder against the wall under the ledge. He shot the astromech droid a couple times as it lurched toward him. He scrambled up the ladder as best he could with one hand then took a deep breath as he tried to swap the magazine for the empty in his blaster.

Myst almost dropped the magazine as he saw a horde of mismatched droids pouring out of the aisles. He forced himself to finish changing the magazine then ran along the ledge toward the far wall so he’d have a decent amount of space to shoot the droids coming up the ladder. He sighed in relief as the droids went for the ladder rather than directly at him. His laughter was a touch hysterical as he did his best to shoot the various droids off the ladder for as long as he could.

He clipped his first blaster to his belt after it ran out of power and reached into his bag for a grenade. He triggered the grenade then tossed it into the mass of droids in the open area. “Fuck you Skynet!” he shouted as he continued shooting the horde of droids, rather happy to notice the numbers slightly thinning. He grabbed another grenade out of his bag. ‘Three more.’ He waited several seconds for the droids to bunch up again then tossed the grenade at the ground.

He scowled as several droids surged up onto the ledge despite his best attempts to kill them before they could reach it. ‘Okay, eight feet down, I can make the jump. Run the circle then back up to the ledge and swap magazines.’ He waited until the last second then turned and jumped off the ledge. He hit the ground and rolled to bleed off the force of the impact then took off running. He stopped at the end of the aisle to catch his breath and shoot as many of them as he could before they reached the halfway mark. 

He would have felt worse about abusing the shit out of their idiotic AI but they outnumbered him by a significant amount. He slowly worked his way back to the ledge, taking the chance to kill as many of the droids as he could without letting them get close. Thankfully once he calmed down a bit and got used to the path, he had plenty of time to change his magazines and take a couple of drinks of water while leading the droids on a death march through the stupid level. He was more than a little glad when finished off the last droid trying to climb the ladder and the level changed... or at least he was until he realized he was in a forest with ewoks.

“Fuck,” Myst muttered as he looked around the small forest clearing at the various glowing panels and at the small group of spear welding ewoks screaming as they ran toward him. He twisted to the side as one of them tossed a spear at him then brought his blaster up and gunned the three aliens down. He grinned as he saw a red invincibility panel three feet from the base panel and a green cloning panel right next to it. “At least I have a spot to stand.” He grinned as he saw a yellow regeneration panel the other direction. He hustled over to the yellow panel and sighed in relief as the healing energy washed his fatigue away.

“That’s the spot.” Myst waited a couple more seconds then walked over to the red panel and stood on it. “Shouldn’t have to wait that long,” he muttered to himself as he changed the magazines on his guns. He glanced at the sort of tunnel that the aliens would have to walk through to get to him then opened his shoulder bag to see how many grenades and things he had left. ‘Some plastic and a couple grenades.’ He pulled his lightsaber off his belt and turned it on. ‘I should probably get some practice while I’m invincible.’ He took a couple of practice swings then smiled as an ewok charged into the clearing holding a bow. “Parley?”

Myst wasn’t terribly surprised when the ewok shot him without any hesitation nor was he surprised when the arrow bounced off without hurting him or even leaving a mark on his armor thanks to the panel. “You’ll have to get closer for that,” he offered ‘helpfully’. 

Myst grinned slightly as the ewok grabbed his spear off his back while it charged across the clearing. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel as he swept his lightsaber through the creature, cutting it in half. He might have felt a touch guilty about it if it wasn’t a creation of the Item World but it was, so he didn’t. He killed the next solo ewok that ran up to stab him then grinned slightly as two ewoks ran into the clearing. ‘At least they’re easy to kill.’ He frowned slightly as one of the ewoks ran up to him him while the other ran over and stepped on the green panel to flank him. He frowned slightly as the ewok pulsed with green light, presumably being copied to one of the other green panels if the panels worked like what he remembered.

Myst ignored the ewoks’ spears as he turned his lightsaber off and clipped it to his belt. He was just glad that the ewoks weren’t imaginative or intelligent as they kept trying to stab him despite the fact that it hadn’t worked the last half a dozen times. He reached into his bag and grabbed the roll of duct tape then ripped off a three inch length of it. 

“Let’s see if this works.” He put the rest of the roll back in his bag then grabbed the ewok’s arm as the alien tried to stab him and stuck the tape on his arm. Myst pulled out his vibro knife as he waited for the green pulse. “That should do it.” He stabbed the other ewok as he saw another ewok coming in his direction.

Myst smiled slightly as he worked on stabbing the various ewoks that showed up until he saw one with a piece of duct tape stuck on its arm. “Sweet.” He turned and stabbed the original on the green panel and smiled as the original patch of tape dropped to the ground as the ewok vanished. “Neat.” He unhooked his lightsaber from his belt and handed it to the ewok that stepped onto the green panel and smirked when the ewok pulsed with green light.

“That hopefully that helps.” Myst raised his eyebrows as the ewok turned the lightsaber on and started swinging it around, not paying attention to the other ewoks around him. “Oops,” he muttered sarcastically as he watched the various other ewoks lose limbs. ‘There is something disturbingly amusing about this.’ He glanced down at the red panel he was standing on to make sure he was actually standing on the panel. He grinned as the green energy pulsed again, duplicating the alien. 

“Every five seconds or so,” Myst muttered to himself as he stabbed the ewok. He reached down and picked up his lightsaber then looked at the lightsaber welding ewok charging into the clearing. He stabbed the ewok with a patch of tape on his arm and frowned when it vanished. “Great, we’ll have to try something a bit more creative.” 

Myst killed the next ewok to step on the green panel then turned and kicked the ewok with a lightsaber that that slipped in behind him onto the base panel. He grinned slightly as the ewok vanished. “Huh, I wasn’t expecting that to actually work.” He laughed as one of the ewoks with a lightsaber stepped onto the green panel. “Okay, let’s see how many ewoks we can recruit for our hunting team.” He would have been a bit more concerned with recruiting ewoks but he was expecting most of them to die.

He spent the next couple minutes killing ewoks without lightsabers and kicking the ewoks that tried to hit him from the side with the base panel into it. He gulped as he saw a large pissed off looking wookie walk into the clearing with a bowcaster, “Shit!” He grabbed his lightsaber off his belt and activated it. He felt like sighing when the ewok in front of him managed to kneecap the wookie by accident then cut off his head before he could figure out a way to get the injured wookie onto the base panel. “So much for wookie durability.” 

Myst cut the ewok on the green panel down then turned his attention to the rest of them, a touch sad that he couldn’t just steal the lightsabers out of their hands. He spent the next couple minutes killing ewoks and making sure they didn’t end up on the green panel long enough to get cloned before he killed the last ewok and reality seemed to blink.

Myst blinked himself as he suddenly found himself back in the base next to the portal with a strange collection of droids, stormtroopers and ewoks with lightsabers standing there looking mildly confused. “Weapons down!”

He sighed in relief as the ten ewoks put down their lightsabers while the stormtroopers put down their blasters.

The female mechanic glanced between the stormtroopers and Myst. “Great, imperial scum.”

The girl in leather looked at the ewoks. “What the hell are they?”

“Ewoks, they should be able to help you hunt stuff in the forest,” Myst replied absently as he stared at the arcane symbols on the wall, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong as the Item World should have ten levels at least according to his memories of the game and his gatekeeper memories. ‘Ah well, it worked.’ He turned his attention to the protocol droid. “Can you access the systems without broadcasting our location and figure out where we are or at least what year it is?”

“Of course, Master,” the droid replied then left the meeting room.

The two stormtroopers looked at each other than back at Myst. “Do you want us to toss the rebel scum into the cells Captain?”

“Nope, we need a cook and a mechanic.” Myst turned his attention toward the girl dressed in leathers. “Do you want to take some of the ewoks and head into the jungle to see what you can find or at least see if there are any local maps?”

“What makes you think we’ll help the empire?” the mechanic asked defiantly.

“Because the alternative is sitting in the cells eating the worst flavors of ration bar I can find until I find a way to drop you off on another planet,” Myst replied as he turned to look at the astromech droid. “Take a look at the computers and make sure there aren’t any hidden codes or anything that will alert anyone if we power up the base. I’d rather not have some bureaucratic flunky screw things up.”

The droid beeped something that might have been yes sir or might have been fuck off for all Myst knew then left the room.

Myst turned to look at the stormtroopers. “We’re running a special project, head to the armory and grab anything you can find that will help you capture people alive.”

“Yes sir,” both of the troopers replied then left.

“You’re not with the Empire, are you?” the mechanic asked after the door closed.

“Nope,” Myst replied as he pulled his helmet off. “I’m just working with what I have.”

“In that case, what’s our mission?” the cook asked as she looked at the fuzzy ewoks.

“That depends on the time period and what type of resources we can find in the Item Worlds.”

“Item Worlds?” the mechanic asked, not sure what he was talking about.

Myst gestured toward the portal. “Basically I can use the portal to improve items and collect related items from pocket worlds.”

“Is this a Jedi ability?” the cook asked excitedly.

“Not really, the Jedi use the Force, I use magic,” Myst replied as he started collecting the lightsabers the ewoks had put on the ground.

“Right, don’t talk about the Jedi stuff, gotcha,” the mechanic replied with an exaggerated wink.

The cook shook her head. “On that note, I’ll take half of the ewoks out and see if we can find something edible unless you have a better use for them?”

“Not particularly,” Myst replied, knowing better than to admit he was planning on using the ewoks as cannon fodder in the Item World. “I need to try to check a couple things anyways.”

“Anything you want me to look at?” the mechanic asked.

Myst gestured at the welding equipment. “You could show me how the controls work.”

“That I can do,” the mechanic agreed, happy to have something to take her mind off being stuck in an imperial base with some stormtroopers and fuzzy aliens she’d never heard of. 

0o0o0

Myst wasn’t sure why he’d been half expecting to get dropped into the start of one of the movies but unless the base’s computer was off by a couple years he was actually four or five years early for the original Star Wars movie. “So you’re telling me that Palpatine has been the emperor for fourteen years and that he controls most of the known galaxy.”

“Outside of Hutt space and several other small sections, that is correct,” the protocol droid said.

“Great,” Myst muttered as he glanced over at where the Ewoks were making a mess of a large roasted lizard that tasted suspiciously like chicken. He made a mental note to activate some cleaning droids when he had the chance. “Did you at least find out why this base was decommissioned without being looted to the ground eight years ago?” 

“Insufficient data.”

Myst scowled as one of the ewoks tossed a bone over his shoulder onto the previously clean floor. ‘Great, hopefully the hunter can teach them the basics of etiquette so they don’t shit on the floor.’ He pulled his attention off the fuzzy stuffed bear like aliens and focused on the protocol droid. “Best guess?”

“Either it cost more to pack everything up and ship it elsewhere or someone in the Empire wanted it for his personal command center.”

“Considering our location in the outer rim, it’s not out of the question that someone made it vanish,” Myst agreed as the two stormtroopers walked into the cafeteria. “Did you get the gear?”

“Yes sir,” one of the stormtroopers replied as they walked over to Myst’s table. “What are the mission objectives?”

The mechanic looked up from her food. “I’d like to know the same thing.”

Myst glanced over at the mechanic then looked at the stormtroopers. “We’ll be using the portal in the meeting room to go into a small dimension where just about everything is hostile unless we’re in a town. We’ll be recruiting some of them by tossing them on a particular panel. In short, we need to recruit some additional troops.”

“Which is why we’re working with rebel scum and aliens, right?” one of the troopers asked as he looked at the mechanic.

“Imperial scum,” the mechanic replied absently then went back to eating her soup.

“Basically, yes,” Myst admitted, not seeing arguing about things at this stage. “There will be glowing panels on the ground in the pocket realm, avoid stepping on them unless I tell you different.”

“Anything else?” one of the troopers asked.

“Not really, you’ll get the hang of it.” Myst turned to look at the protocol droid. “You can help in the kitchen or you can clean up after the ewoks.”

“I’ll find a cleaning droid,” the droid replied as he turned and headed out of the cafeteria to activate the cleaning staff.

“In that case, let’s grab some weapons and see what we can find,” the mechanic said, rather excited about seeing the portal in action.

“Hey ewoks, let’s go,” Myst said as he headed for the door. He figured another half eaten granola bar would be a good place to start. Mostly he just wanted to make sure that bringing more people didn’t screw things up before he tried something more impressive like an unopened granola bar or his shoes or socks.