The Force's Balance

Harry Potter x Star Wars Crossover

Created: 10.12.19

Chapter 2: Out the Other Side

It felt like my body was being ripped apart, worse than the cruciatus curse for sure as I screamed into the ether of space as I floated seemingly in mid air for several long moments before crashing into a hard surface covered in impossibly large roots that poked painfully into my ribs and legs and knocking the wind out of me instantly.

I didn't think anything was broken, but damn did I hurt all over. I just laid on the ground trying to ensure I was all in one piece as I stared up at the impossibly large canopy of trees so far up above me that I knew I couldn't possibly be anywhere I had ever been before. The trees were freaking huge, the trunks alone would require several people holding hands to wrap around them, and their tops weren't even visible from my spot on the ground. The leaves and branches I could see were all insanely high up, and I wondered how much further these impossibly large trees could continue into the unseen sky.

With no light reaching the ground I was lying on, it was taking some time for my vision to adjust to what exactly I was seeing, and blinking the bright spots out was proving difficult with all the pain I still felt all over. My charmed glasses were probably the only thing letting me see anything at all in the dark, and the permanent sticking charm was probably the only thing that kept them on my face through my travel to wherever the hell I was.

I didn't trust myself to move, and instead tried to get my breathing under control to center myself and my internal magic, which also felt like it had been through the same ringer as the rest of my body. It didn't take very long to discover that wherever I was, was like no other place I had ever been before as the level of magic in the air was unheard of and very distracting to my internal assessment of my magic. The air was saturated with a dense magic that was almost stifling to my limited magical detection senses, and I worried that I may have travelled far beyond anywhere in my known world.

Not panicking was the first thing I focused on, as I had somewhat prepared for the eventuality that I would end up somewhere I had no idea about, but actually realizing that I knew nothing of where or even when I was, was very unsettling and somewhat frightening. But on the plus side, if I didn't recognize anything as familiar, then the chances of anyone recognizing the Boy Who Lived or the Man Who Conquered were even less likely.

It's important to try and stay positive in the face of the unknown, or some such drivel.

After about ten minutes of just lying on my back staring up at the impossibly high canopy of the incredibly large trees, I was slowly settling down my magic and my mind enough to realize that I may have landed in a somewhat dark and hostile place, as I could feel predators encroaching on my position and circling me. Not knowing what kind of predators where even capable of living among these immense trees in this seemingly perpetual darkness, I quickly decided to pull out what Luna said would be my most helpful trunk, containing a very nice wizarding tent and a set of four pre-inscribed ward stones they used whenever they were off travelling and exploring their countless creatures.

Setting them up in under a minute just at the edges of the four corners of the tent, I instantly felt them charge and establish the series of wards to protect me. According to Luna, they were a camping set of ward stones that protected from extreme temperatures, against insects and animals, with muggle repelling, unplottable, and notice-me-not wards included. Now inside the relative safety of the warded tent, I instantly felt much better protected, but still wasn't one hundred percent reliant on the wards, as I had no way of knowing the type of creatures or even beings that may be on the other side and resolved myself to start studying up on other wards I could put up in the meantime.

Within minutes my idea to study more wards was justified as I started to feel several constant pings against the insect and creature repellent wards, and wondered if they were going to hold against the unknown elements. Only really knowing how to measure the strength of wards, I checked them and was shocked to see them at 100% and wondered if it was due to the heavy magical saturation I felt all around that allowed them to charge up so quickly and hoped it helped me in the long run.

The constant pinging of the wards continued for another three hours as I read up as much as I could on wards in general, but was really behind with my lack of ward knowledge and my current disorganization among my several trunks worth of books. I was finally able to find a book from the Black family that had some very heavy penalty intent based wards that got more severe the closer you got to the protected property, and quickly tried to learn them as well as I could while my current wards were still being constantly tested.

Stepping outside my tent, I encountered several beach ball size insect like creatures that were constantly trying to get at my tent, and had to conjure up a fire whip to clear them off, after stunning and impediment jinxes did very little to their somewhat hard shelled bodies. For the next half hour, I then methodically followed the instructions to set up the Black family ward linked to the ward stones giving me another layer of protection that I felt I was going to need in this dark forest, as I still felt more predators watching me the entire time I worked.

I went back inside and had a large meal, from the hundreds of premade meals I had stored in stasis inside one of my trunks before continuing with my study of wards, having quickly discovered that they would probably be the most important thing I could learn if I wanted to stay alive in an unknown forrest. Realizing that I would definitely need to also learn Ancient Runes, and probably Arithmancy as well, if I really wanted to be able to use warding as I wanted, which was going to be a big time suck.

I thought about leaving the tent to go out exploring, but knew I would need a protected base of operations in case I ran into any problems and thought that was the most important thing for now. The tent was definitely a great place to set up as my base, as it had three rooms which I had designated as a bedroom, study, and potions lab with plenty of room for me to spread out and go through the many trunks I had. Needing at some point to organize my books into a library, I thought about using one of the larger trunks and building or transfiguring shelves to store my thousands of books into like categories for ease of finding.

My list of things to get done just kept growing, but necessity was the ultimate driving force and therefore my continued safety was paramount. Since I felt pretty confident in my fighting ability in one on one fights and even against small groups, I wasn't as worried about increasing or practicing my dueling until I felt more secure. So I continued my studying of wards well into the night until I felt the Black intent wards spike with several hits right after each other and knew I was about to meet the locals.

"Morgana's Saggy Tits!" I exclaimed in shock after stepping out of my tent and spotting three twitching brown colored beasts each standing over three meters tall with several spike like protrusion sticking out of their overly large heads and husks around their wide set mouths.

I had no idea what they were, looking like no creature or beast I had ever seen before. They were however fighting the increasing effects of the intent based Black family ward, and seemed to be slowly making headway against the increasing magical pressure. Afraid the three of them combined may overload and collapse the ward, I apparated behind the largest of the three beasts and released a sectumsempra at it's unprotected back followed by a blasting curse to the same location.

I then sent another blasting curse at the beast on the right, before apparating to the other beast on my left and unleashing the same combo as I hit the first with, before returning to the inside of the wards to see how effective the spells were against the beasts. Unfortunately, none of the three beasts were put down completely, although the first was now on the ground bleeding out some dark purplish blood still trying to get back up. While the third was staggering around bleeding as well. The second beast seemed unaffected by the blasting curse, probably due to the rock-like skin they all had.

It seemed the sectumsempra spell was much more effective against whatever these beasts were, but I wanted to test other spells against them but not while they so heavily outnumbered me. I sent another pair of sectumsempra spells at the two already bleeding beasts, before apparating behind and closer to the unharmed beast before sending a series of different dueling spells I was pretty familiar with. The stunning spell, regular cutting spell, incendio, and blasting curse all did nothing but splash across the beast's skin and enrage him to start lumbering towards me relatively quickly. A quick sand spell at the ground in front of the charging beast caused him to falter and stop his charge, giving me time to send another half dozen different spells to try out to little effect.

Direct spells didn't seem to do much to the tough outer skin of the unusual brown spikey headed beasts, and fire didn't seem to bother them at all based on the fire whip which it just shrugged off. A pair of transfigured wolves were made short work of, and conjured snakes had no visible effect in restraining the beast nor did their poisonous bites seemingly affect them. Transfigured spikes banished at high enough speed were the first things that actually seemed effective, and after sending four of them into various points of his body he too bleed out like the others and finally died.

I then started dissecting the three beasts for possible potion ingredients, getting a few vials of blood, several pieces of rock like skin armor, a few of their head spikes, and all three of their hearts with strings in case they could eventually be used for making new wands. That was one of the things I was most worried about; losing one of my two wands. As I only had maybe a dozen others purchased from the second hand stores that weren't even too effective for me. Wand crafting though was something I knew I was still several years away from even attempting, but knew not to ignore valuable magical resources when they were present.

It didn't take long though before several more of those beach ball sized insects showed up in greater numbers, though whether that was to come after me was undecided as they converged on one of the already dissected brown spiked beasts and quickly started devouring it rather disgustingly. These pests were much more susceptible to fire though and several incendio spells ended the almost two dozen of the creatures rather quickly. I was able to conjure spikes to kill a pair of them to harvest which I quickly did before any more creatures showed up.

I then banished all the remains of the dead creatures to further away from my tent hoping to keep any more scavengers away from me for the night as I returned to my tent to shower and get some sleep. Hoping that I was done dealing with dangerous creatures for the night, I showered but put back on some clothes in case of any nighttime emergencies.

It turned out to be a good decision, as several hours later I was woken up to my wards blaring and on the verge of collapse, and had to rush out the tent to see ten of the same brown spikey headed beasts struggling to get to my tent. Wasting no time, I just started unleashing sectumsempra spells on repeat for at least five minutes, apparating all around the place to stay away from the creatures, who at least weren't too quick to avoid them all, or prone to working together to gang up on me. This time, when I was finished and had killed them all, I banished them into a pile farther away from my tent and conjured some flammable oil to douse them in before starting one of the larger bonfires I had ever seen.

Knowing I wasn't going to get any sleep now that my adrenaline was pumping again, I grabbed myself some food and settled in for more studying of wards. I needed to find a way to make them even more impenetrable against these brown spikey headed beasts that seemed to keep coming after me, so I could at least sleep peacefully through the night. After a few more hours, I had to pause again in my studying to take down a group of only five of the brown spikey headed beasts that were becoming more bothersome than difficult after a couple of sectumsempra spells.

Afterwards I erected another set of wards further out around my current set, a series of perimeter wards that acted like an electric fence, and another beyond that which acted the same way, only with fire instead of electricity. I figured anything that cut down on external pests and gave me a greater warning, would at least be somewhat more beneficial. The final exterior ring was a confundus ward, that I was hoping would just turn any creatures away and add another layer to my defences.

I then returned to another meal and more studying, hoping that was the end of the stupid spikey headed creatures.

It wasn't.

I had another group to deal with several more hours later just as I was preparing to sleep, and after tearing through the almost twenty of them was getting pretty damn frustrated with the never-ending stream of beasts. Hoping that it would be several more hours before the next group showed up, I instantly showered and went to sleep with plans for being more proactive tomorrow instead of simply defending myself and my tent continuously.

-break-

It took me an entire week to get to the point where I could make my own ward stones, instead of continuing to use the sandstone temporary "camping" stones that just weren't strong enough to hold too many wards or enough magic to keep them charged high enough to truly protect me. Luckily, among my countless trunks of randomness I had found several obsidian ward stones that I used for my new set of wards after studying and planning them out all week. With several wards incorporated into the new obsidian stones, I had severely upgraded my protection to the level of Grimmauld Place once I placed and charged the ward stones.

It took no time at all with the overly saturated magic of the forest for the wards to come online, and I could actually feel the power they gave off and hear a low hum if I listened for it. When the next group of the Brownie Beasts, as I had taken to calling them, arrived the wards took no time at all to literally fry and vaporize them on the spot without even a fluctuation in their power, though I did feel a slight ping of alert that the wards had taken care of something. Finally able to rest without the threat of an attack, I collapsed for several long hours of uninterrupted sleep that I desperately needed.

With my home base now safe from any predators or attacks, when I next awoke I finally felt it was time to go out exploring the dark forest I found myself arriving in and try to discover where the hell I was. Other than the Brownie Beasts, and the beach ball sized insects, I had only discovered one other species of animal in that first week of defending my tent, a flying wombat like creature whose body was the size of a quaffle and wing span easily reached two meters. I was able to extract some blood and other potion ingredients from the overly large wombats but they didn't seem too magical in nature and only encountered three of them throughout the week.

The first thing I can say about this forest though, is that it is huge in both size and scale as I had walked and apparated over large distances and still hadn't reached an end or change in the topography. I encountered several more of the Brownie Beasts which I quickly dispatched without even slowing down my search, leaving the remains behind as I had more than enough potion ingredients from them to last me several lifetimes now. And continued on my search for several hours until my hunger became too much.

Knowing that I checked over thirty miles to the north on that first day over the course of almost a dozen hours, I apparated back to my tent and made myself some hearty dinner before settling in for a long rest, planning to continue more of the same tomorrow. For the next three days I covered about the same distances in the remaining three cardinal directions from my tent, returning at the end always tired and sweaty beyond belief, but also ensuring that there was nothing else around me but endlessly large forest for easily thirty miles in every direction. On the fifth day I apparated out to the farthest spots I had previously explored, and set up a barrier alert ward carved into the impossibly large trees that dominated the dark forest, so I would instantly know if anything came even remotely close to my tent.

That ward allowed me to be alerted if anything crossed my barrier from any direction, and the next few days were spent cleaning out the area inside the ward of any more dangerous creatures in order to extend my area of safety and provide me with an area outside where I could continue training my magic. My physical endurance had been greatly tested and pushed to its limits over the past two plus weeks, and I could already feel the increase in my strength, speed, and endurance on my daily treks through the forest. Now, I needed a way to do the same for my magic, as there were thousands of books I wanted to read and study, and many different fields of magic I wanted to learn and practice in relative safety.

I felt one of the most important and versatile areas of magic that I needed to study up on was in transfiguration, as with enough skill, focus, and power you could accomplish almost anything you could imagine. I started by going over all my old text books, and then expanding to any other sources mentioned in those books before searching all of the thousands of books now in my collection for anything related to the field. For almost two weeks, I studied almost nothing else but the fine art of turning one thing into another, and made tremendous leaps in skill with both of my wands.

I felt it was important not to only cast with the Elder Wand, but also continue to use and practice with my original Holly and Phoenix feather wand as well, so I was comfortable using both and not overly reliant on the Deathly Hallow. While the Elder Wand just eclipsed every other wand in terms of raw power, my holly wand was surprisingly effective in the art of Transfiguration and over those two weeks got a lot of practice in transfiguring book shelves by the dozen to help begin my library storage project. I focused as well on transfiguration that would help me in duels as well, in case I encountered other creatures that were less susceptible to directly cast magic, and performed very well.

It was near the end of those two weeks, when I finally felt something very different from the usual creatures that occasionally triggered my alert barrier wards, as several beings crossed my alert wards to the east for only a moment before quickly retreating. Hoping that I had finally managed to discover sentient life in this dark forest, I quickly apparated to the edge of the east barrier tree just in time to see several dark large silhouettes disappear into the distant foliage of the large trees at rather incredible speeds. Not sure what kind of being could travel that quickly through the trees gave me a momentary pause as I had no good way to follow them up higher without going back to get one of my brooms.

When I did return to get my broom, I realized I was an idiot for not using said broom to scout in the first place, as I could go higher than the base of the large trees and finally try to learn more about where the veil had spit me out. Regardless of my own idiocy, I mounted my Firebolt, easily the best of the dozen brooms I now owned and shot up above my tent until I finally reached the foliage and canopy of the impossibly large trees that had been the only thing I knew about this forest up to that point. Breaking through the foliage, I was blindsided by the light of the sky and took several moments for my eyes and charmed glasses to adjust to the sudden change in light levels.

"Oh Fuck!" I exclaimed as my eyes adjusted enough to see the darkening horizon in the distance as well as the cause of my initial alarm ...the three visible orbiting moons.

My mind came to a complete stop as I just floated there and started stupidly at three freaking moons, one of which was orange in color as I didn't even know how to process that. It took several blinks and a few pinches to ensure I wasn't dreaming before I finally realized I was seeing the actual reality of my new life beyond the veil. I was definitely no longer on earth.

Holy shit, I am totally screwed! Another fucking planet! Or at least a completely different Earth from the one I grew up on!

I couldn't fucking believe it, as I just continued to stare, chasing after the beings that passed my barrier ward now was a distant thought in my mind that refused to reboot and contemplate what exactly this meant for me. I was on a different fucking planet ...there was life on different fucking planets ...or at least this current planet, and I couldn't comprehend it.

I slowly floated back down to my tent, my mind now spinning in every direction as I tried to understand how the veil sent me to another planet, and how this affected everything I knew to be true. Was this why the magic felt denser? Was the gravity the same, or have I just gotten used to a slightly different pull? I am obviously still breathing air ...I think, but is it the same as Earth's? Am I even in the same galaxy, or a different Earth reality? What language do the locals speak? Are their sentient locals? A government? Any other humans?

"Fuck, I'm not sure I am prepared for this." I lamented as I crashed into the sofa in my tents main living room, my mind all over the place and wondering what the hell I do now.

It took a while until I started to calm the hell down enough to start thinking and planning rationally, but I quickly discovered that I needed to learn several things really quickly if I wanted to survive knowing I probably couldn't find the "usual" food my body was accustomed to. I would need to learn poison detection spells, and identifying spells before I could eat anything new, and my pre-made meals would only last me another couple of weeks at my current rate. Luckily, I seemed to have shelter covered, and could still conjure fresh water, but food was my next most basic necessity that needed to be resolved with a long term solution in place.

After that, then I could try and make contact with the locals, hopefully I haven't committed several crimes already in killing off all the Brownie Beasts and other insects and wombats I had so far encountered, or in establishing my base tent in the midst of this dark forest. I would also try researching communication spells and methods so I could hopefully avoid any problems if and when I do make contact with the sentient beings of this planet ...provided there are some of course.

From my gathering of potion ingredients, I knew the Brownie Beasts' meat was highly corrosive and not something I would ever want to eat, and the insects' insides were equally not recommended. So I would have to start looking for and gathering some of the local plantlife to test next, and keep an eye out for any more of the large wombat like creatures in case their meat was edible, and any other creatures I could encounter. At least now with my broom, I should be able to hunt the wombats easier and search a greater radius than before.

With at least a small plan in place, I settled down for the night, and a restless sleep filled with dreams of weird aliens and random bits of science fiction tropes I was semi-familiar with. In the morning, I gathered a bottomless satchel with a few empty trunks and set out on a broom to explore the remaining parts of this large forest, starting in the opposite direction from where I felt the seemingly sentient beings cross and then retreat from my barrier ward. Wanting to wait now to establish any contact with this unknown world and its inhabitants, I began my hunt for food.

Thankfully, I found several of the wombat-like creatures on my first full day of exploring in the air, and with my increased mobility and flight capabilities, was able to kill a half dozen of them before I decided to retire for the night. Taking them with me back to my tent, I discovered that they weren't too unlike large turkeys, and the meat while definitely what I would call "gamey" was still completely edible and each creature had a significant amount on them. At least enough that a single wombat would feed me for probably three large meals if prepared and preserved correctly.

I also was able to research several survival type spells and skills used for wizards travelling in different terrains, although none of them went into different planets, mostly just jungles, deserts, mountains, those kinds of things. I was able to learn a couple different detection spells for plants and animal parts to determine toxicity levels, nutritional value, and basic elemental composition, though I wasn't sure that last one would work on a different planet with unknown variables or elements. One author even suggested getting a muggle or house-elf to be your food and plant tester, which was a definite no go for me, but made me wonder if I could transfigure a creature to test my food and any plants I encountered, and if realistic enough could possibly replicate any reactions I might have to them.

I spent a few more days scouring the North, South, and West directions of the forest by broom, collecting several more of the wombat creatures for food and also discovering a large river to the Southwest and another animal species I was surprised to find. A large horned worm that burrowed in the ground, and even spoke a rudimentary and very basic parseltongue or at least could somewhat understand it. Unfortunately, it was not very tough skinned and my simple banishing charm when it got too close exploded its head rather grotesquely, and left it unable to be really studied or for me to learn anything else about it.

The other even greater discovery was a series of caves that went deep into the ground, not too far from the large river. In it, I found hundreds of dark purple crystals that were unrecognizable to me, but all gave off a feeling of concentrated magic many of which I felt a pull towards not unlike my wand. It was the work of several hours to mine the caves using some of the exploring spells I learned to gather and store all the crystals in an unused trunk for later research.

In the evenings I practiced and learned several translation spells I was hoping would still work, even if the language wasn't one known on Earth as I prepared for travelling East towards the sentient beings that had seemingly passed and retreated from the barrier ward a few days previously. I was wearing a set of dragonhide pants and vest that were among the pieces found in one of the second hand junk shops as well as my Invisibility Cloak, and both wands in holsters. I was as prepared as I could possibly be as I got on my Firebolt and headed East towards the unknown.

As I flew to the Eastern most edge of my barrier wards at the tops of the trees, I could start to see the shadows of large structures far ahead of me that extended far above the trees. I couldn't make any of them out, as they were shaped like nothing I recognized, but movement in the tops of the trees in that direction distracted me and forced me to pay better attention to the here and now. I quickly realized that I was approaching a settlement of sorts, as I was able to recognize several hundred dwellings built into the tree tops, with bridges connecting many of them together.

Dropping lower down under the cover of the large tree canopies, I made sure my Invisibility Cloak was tightly fastened around me preventing anyone from seeing me as I tried to observe the settlement without alerting the unknown inhabitants. The settlement was proof that these were sentient beings who lived in community within nature, but there were also several unknown metal elements and devices scattered throughout that hinted at a more advanced technology than basic tree dwellers. The architectural structure and development of this sprawling "town" of sorts also lended to a more advanced understanding and level of knowledge of the current inhabitants of which I was finally close enough to see.

"Fuck me," I whispered in shock as I saw the first of many bigfoot looking beings walking among the tree houses doing all kinds of domestic chores, and even smaller kid sized bigfoot "people" that were already as tall as me.

The adults had to be closer to 3 meters tall and covered in long varying shades of brown shaggy hair from the top of their heads all the way down to their feet, and looked almost exactly what I would have pictured in a bigfoot. Most of them wore straps or bandoliers from one shoulder to the opposite hip, with many clips attached, and a crossbow looking type weapon that hung next to their hips in easy drawing reach of their long hairy arms. Realizing the significance of an entirely armed community, made me glad for my decision to remain unseen, as despite the very domestic looking lifestyles, they were obviously all prepared for a fight at any moment and that didn't bode well for me.

I tried not to get too close, as the few times I did, the bigfoot like beings seemed to almost be able to sense my presence as they looked around and if I wasn't invisible would have been looking right at me several times. Even after retreating a bit and ensuring I was using scent masking and silencing spells to further hide, they still seemed to detect my presence if I got too close and I wondered if they had other senses that I wasn't familiar with to do so. Overall, the tree town was incredibly beautiful and very well run and guarded, and forced me to re-evaluate the level of sentience in these bigfoot looking creatures.

Their language was even more bizarre, as it consisted of growls and roars with different inflections that my communication spells had no idea on how to process or understand, and I wondered if their understanding of my language would be equally as challenging. The other oddity was the appearance of several very high tech looking tools and instruments being used or worked on by many of them. Those were a complete mystery to me, as I had never seen things like them, and was shocked that these seemingly simple tree dwelling creatures were so technologically savvy and advanced beyond what I was familiar with.

As I continued to make my way through the large tree town in the direction of the large shadowdy shapes in the distance, I started noticing more and more examples and pieces of technology among the inhabitants. When I saw a large hairy bigfoot looking thing on a flying motorcycle that zoomed above the tree tops and emitted the tiniest of noises as it headed towards the large shadowy shapes, I had to once again re-evaluate these beings as highly technologically intelligent. The motorcycle thing wasn't really a motorcycle like I was familiar with, as it didn't have wheels and seemed to have a blue light thruster thing in the back that seemed to act as it's main propulsion, but it was the closest thing I could compare it to.

Figuring that I was at least heading in the right direction I continued on my course, but made sure to keep my head on a swivel to ensure I was aware of any more flying vehicles heading near me. My swiveling head came to an immediate stop though moments later as the shadowy mass I was approaching became clearer, and I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

A Fucking Spaceship! A docked spaceship ...not that I knew what a real spaceship looked like other than the NASA Apollo ones that went to Earth's moon, but there was no mistaking what this monstrous metal contraption was. It was enormous, easily the size of a football pitch with metal panels all over it, currently docked on what could only be a pier built for these things, as dozens of the large bigfoot looking beings were in various stages of working on different parts. There were even little rounded looking trash can things that could only be robots, rolling around and seemingly working on repairs as well.

Holy Shit! I can't believe it. A fucking spaceship! Actual robots!

My mind was completely blown. How could a race of bigfoot beings create robots and a spaceship of this magnitude, and still live in fucking tree houses. It didn't make any sense. As I continued to stare at the mechanics work on various parts of the ship, I could hear "conversations" between the bigfoot creatures and the rolling trash can robots that made even less sense. The growls and roars of the bigfoot versus the beeps, bops, and whirls of the robots was confusing as all hell, and my limited communication spell couldn't figure out a damn thing of what either was saying, though body language if it could be called that helped somewhat in figuring out the tone of the conversation.

A loud clunk sound from further away, had me looking around and beyond the spaceship that had dominated my vision since arriving close enough to see, and I was again floored, as I spotted a few more docked spaceships of varying sizes down the metal pier built on top of the impossibly large trees in this part of the land. The other ships couldn't be more different than the large boxy looking one I first saw, as there was a horseshoe shaped curved one about a fifth the size of the first. There was also a really small seemingly fighter jet for maybe only one or two people, and a weird wedge shaped one a little smaller than the horseshoe looking one, and every ship had a team of bigfoot and robot mechanics working on various parts of them.

The clunking sound apparently was a heavy metal plate falling on and crushing one of the trash can looking robots flat, and I watched as a crane contraption lifted the metal plate off the now destroyed robot and moved it back where it belonged. The robot was grabbed by another bigfoot who dragged it over to a door near my location before taking it in what looked like a smaller workshop filled with hundreds of robot parts and a pair of bigfoot working on repairs to some that looked salvageable, before returning back to the dock. Seeing all the damaged parts and pieces of several types of robots in that workshop made me wonder if I could repair one of them with my magic, and maybe learn from or study how they worked.

It would definitely increase my value to these bigfoot beings, and right now I was looking at anything that might help keep me alive on this planet longer. If these bigfoot characters were the only sentient life forms on this planet, then I would need to ingratiate myself to them, and that would be difficult with the obvious language barrier between us. A little repair magic could go a long way to that end, and might be able to help me learn more about this planet I had been sent to, as long as I didn't get myself caught and killed first.

With my plan in place, I made my way closer to the workshop room, being very careful to stay out of the way of anyone else, and waited for an opportunity for the door to be opened again while I continued to observe everything around me in fascination. It was almost twenty minutes later that the door was once again opened and out came both bigfoot repair techs and a different trash can looking robot rolling along between them. They were obviously distracted and gave me the perfect chance to slip inside the workroom well before the door closed on its own.

Not too worried about being trapped inside the room, since I could always apparate out in an emergency, I quickly looked around at all the various pieces of robots spread throughout the room. I didn't want to take anything too noticeable, so I made my way to the back corner of the room where it seemed they piled up the truly junked and most broken pieces before quickly pulling out one of my spare empty trunks and levitating several dozen different pieces inside.

Not knowing how much longer I would have before the repair "guys" returned, I simply cherry picked from several different areas around the room. Anywhere I could see multiples of the same item, I summoned the worst of the lot and continued filling my trunk also making sure to grab a few whole looking robots, three of which were completely flat like the one recently brought in and still up front by the repair desk. Just as my trunk was starting to fill up, though you could hardly tell that much had been removed from the workshop it was still so filled with broken parts and pieces, the door opened again and the same two repair techs returned and came to sit at their desks, now seeming to look over and work on the freshly flattened trash can robot to see if it was salvageable.

I watched them for twenty plus minutes as they removed the outer casing and tried fiddling with and restoring any of the internal components before they put the casing back on and one of them carried it back towards the large pile of truly trashed items I happened to still be hiding near. I moved as far away as I could, but the bigfoot creature still seemed to know something was there as he paused and seemingly looked right at my location as if sensing me in some way even through my Cloak and spells. Luckily, he only paused for a moment, and a call from his partner brought his attention and himself back to his desk area to continue working while allowing me to breathe a sigh of relief.

I continued to watch the two repair techs work on various robots and parts for the better part of an hour, just trying to get an idea of the basic components of the robots, and also to see the different tools they used wondering if I would need the same. It seemed that there were two different basic tools they both primarily used, a kind of probe looking reader that seemed to test the components and make the individual parts move or react, and a small soldering looking gun that seemed to emit an electrical pulse that helped them fuse wires and panels together. Seeing a box of old and used versions of those tools near their desk, I decided that I would need a couple of those as well, just in case.

As the tools were just next to the mechanic's desk, I decided to provide a distraction and conjured a rat and set it loose among the piles of junk, as I stayed well out of the way. It was only moments later that my conjured rat was making enough noise that both mechanics decided to investigate, and were soon combing through the junk piles after the scurrying rat. I used the intended distraction to grab several older or broken versions of their common tools, dropping them straight into my expanded satchel just in time to see the door opened and another pair of bigfoot come barreling into the workshop.

A series of roars and the raising of the crossbow looking weapons both new entries carried, had them quickly advancing on the piles of junk in the back as the two mechanics held back to let "security" take care of the problem, while I used the opportunity to flee the room and go back to the main hangar with the spaceships. Feeling like I had made great progress already today, I was ready to retreat back to my tent and tinker with my new finds and regroup a bit before venturing back into the land of the bigfoot clan. Just before I left though, I wondered if they had a junkyard of old and broken spaceships as well, since they obviously wouldn't be able to repair everything from scratch and need extra parts.

Deciding that a little more exploration was warranted now that I was so close, and with many of the "personal" in the repair hanger occupied with repairs or watching the growing drama from the workshop I just left, it felt like a great time. So I started checking all around the hanger, figuring they wouldn't probably transport their trashed ships too far away, and after another hour struck paydirt. On the Northwest corner of the hanger, I found a large door leading to some type of processing plant with several cranes moving around large pieces of old ships and other components and loading them into a large metal compactor that crushed them all into large metal cubes they were then conveying out to another area.

Having found the junkyard recycling plant, and seeing the efficiency with which they were operating, I didn't think I would be able to hide any theft of these parts, but made a mental map of the area and a good place to apparate too out of sight before deciding to call it quits for the day. I would come back later and check if they worked all day and night, and maybe be able to shrink and swipe something when nobody was here. Luckily, the noise in this section was loud enough, that my small crack of apparition would go completely unnoticed, and within moments I was back in the main room of my tent, my mind a mess of disbelief and curiosity, while my bag was filled with new toys to play with.