A minute later, he's back. "He was on this hallway a few minutes ago, eager to meet you and confident that he could get to your room by himself. And then he was seen climbing up to the surface in a rush. We should hear back from the kite workers soon what he did after that."

...what. He would have noticed him if he was that close, almost certainly. And that 'almost' is 'if he was purposely hiding his Force signature', which doesn't square with him being eager about the meeting. "Something strange is going on. I want to talk to him as soon as you find him."

Rafiik hasn't said aloud that the other Jedi is an imposter, or commanded they apprehend him, so he's going to 'get away'. That means the hastily-assembled 'interrogation room' will go to waste, and they can't use it as an excuse to bring Rafiik farther from the shrine, but this way is still safer than the conversation with the fake Jedi would be.

The next update: "He stole a bicycle and is riding bright - towards the sun - faster than we can follow."

Rafiik has concluded by now that the most obvious explanation is that the guy is an impostor, and it's occurred to him that Mirana and the rest of them might be lying to him, though it's still possible that there were Jedi here at one point to inspire imitators. He's probably going to need to Force Trick somebody, getting this sorted out, but it's less skeevy to start with the person he knows is lying to him. "Do you have another bicycle I can use, I can probably catch him."

"Yes, just a minute, sir. Mirana, take him to the surface?"

Why are they doing this. Doesn't the Emperor understand they're already doomed?

Well.

He'll do his job to the end.

An equartier can go fast enough but will leave an obvious trail of destruction through the farmland.

Maybe there's a cat thing with steam that would work? But they don't have it, and how would they get rid of it, and it would take minutes at least to build it. 

Ah! Two equartiers! Plus a very very very long rope, a mouseling, and a flock of harpies.

It's just up the ladder here and then Saiel will bring the bicycle in a moment ah here he is

(The bicycle is actually a velocipede with solid stone wheels shaped like two cones glued base to base. There is no clear path through the grass.)

Rafiik has never so much as seen a velocipede before, but he's a Jedi, he'll figure it out.

First, though, he needs to figure out where he's even going; a moment's meditation to sharpen his eyesight and then he crouches and leaps into the air, rather higher than you'd expect a creature with the form factor of a human to be able to.

There's an awful lot of movement on the horizon, some kind of flapping or reciprocating motion being done by a lot of people. And a trail of crushed plants leading straight towards a frantically-bouncing and wobbling humanoid figure.

Very weird for the guy to have accomplices, and probably complicating. He'll sort it out when he gets there, though; onto the bicycle, now, making liberal use of telekinesis, and away he goes, somewhat awkwardly at first but quickly getting up to a speed that makes it obvious why he thought he could catch him.

"Crash now!"

The two equartiers charge through the fields holding the rope strung between them, with it passing through the frame of the bike to pull it forward. The harpies fly low, keeping the rope just above the crops.

The mouseling holds onto the rope on left side and saws through it farther to the left. For a moment, the rope on the right is still pulling on the bike, throwing it into a roll. Then the cursor is pulled through the gap between the wheel and the frame and smashed. (The mouseling is still perfectly safe back at the shrine complex.)

The harpies keep flying, the equartiers keep running, and all that's left is Tomas, a crashed bike, and some fragments of wicker in the middle of a field of squash.

He tumbles over twice and lands in an area of seedlings, avoiding the hard full-grown squashes.

It doesn't take long for Rafiik to catch up; he jumps off the bike and lets it crash rather than try to figure out how it's supposed to be dismounted, rolling to a stop next to Tomas and grabbing his wrist, gently but firmly enough that he's not going to be able to run away. "You don't want to lie to me," he asserts with a brief wave of his free hand, and it's just obviously true, Tomas doesn't. "Are you hurt? Are we in danger?"

That's right! He's going to show them all by telling this asshole the truth! "Well, I sprained my wrist and I'm bruised all over and my vision is blurry but I guess I'm not hurt in any way you'd care about. I have no idea what they're going to do now but I'm sure you'll be fine, super Jedi man."

Blurry vision might be a detached retina or something, better not to let that wait. "If I let go of you are you going to run away? I can heal you, but I need to catch my breath first."

"No, there's no point running."

"Is there any other reason you know of why I might not want to do that right now? Are your people going to come back or anything?"

"It's a stupid waste of effort. I'll be fine.

What do you mean, my people? The Lei? They're not my people, but they'll catch up in a minute."

Indeed, Mirana and Saiel are climbing out of a hole about a hundred feet away and running towards them.

He lets go of Tomas and gets to his feet. "If your vision gets worse tell me, if you hit your head you could be going blind and I can't fix that if I don't catch it early. It's fine, I've got him," he shouts to Mirana and the others.

"Wow. Are you okay?"

Hey Rafiik is away from the shrine, get the undine over there!

...Which will take like fifteen minutes.

"Yeah, I'm okay!" He meets them partway, checking back every few steps to make sure Tomas doesn't get too much of a headstart if he tries to run off. "I did a Force thing to him so he can't easily lie to me; if he notices that I did it it might stop working, though, so don't act surprised when he tells me things." He's watching Mirana's emotions in particular very closely as he says it.