"Just debris and a badly damaged room," says Moran.
-
"Please, call me Kir, Master Jedi," says Ascar, accepting your hand taking you into his room. "And I hope you will forgive Persis; he is the most stubborn man I know but that is why I hire him. Security is for the dedicated rather then the intelligent- no insult to your job in the Republic, of course."
Ascar's office is cool, and VERY expensive and impressive. He has his desk with bits of computer euipment, a bar, a living area, and doors leadign elsewhere.
And in a large area to your left, slightly lower than the rest of the room (requring two steps downwards to reach) is what appears to be a museum. A good deal of display cases and wall mountings of all sorts of old stuff- at first glance at which yo can identify some old Jedi artifacts immediately.
The door closes behind you, with Persis at the other side.
"I like to think I have amassed quite a collection, yes," says Ascar. "Some I found myself, and the rest I dealt for. Would you care to look around my collection?"
-
Mah, you are in the control room. The cameras have been shot out and parts of the system have been crudely but effectively sabotaged. The intruders sealed all the doors from here after the fire alarm was started so the fire doors had to be cut through from the outer side. However, it seems that the main computer system for the area has been left intact- and shows signs of use.
"I used to be, in my younger days," says Ascar, leading you to the collection. "I used to work in the Outer Rim, where there are still things to be found. But such a thing is a young man's game, I fear."
And so, the two of you espy his collection. Three things occur to you in quick succession.
1. This collection is VERY good. Some of the stuff that is here are thinga that the Temple itself holds only very hallowed examples of.
2. Some of this stuff is not Jedi, it is Sith. Nothing dangerous, before you ask, but relics of the most staggering rarity and interest to any academic.
3. Mounted on the wall at the side is something you are surprised to see- a lightsabre. While you suppose no Jedi/Sith collection would be complete without one, it must have been hard to get. It looks like it has not been used in some time.
Gundark, Ascar seems to be watching you from the steps, as if expecting you to find something... and somehow, you feel there IS something important here...
Meanwhile, Marcus, you and Scovione and Corelay are now in flight on your charter ship, about halfway now to Malastare. By now you have received news that Gundark's team intercepted an attempted hijack on a passenger liner on the way here- and some of the pirates were from the Red Lance. A link! Worse still, Balek was on board, as a passenger. There is little chane of this being a coincidence.
"It is very much my lifetime's achievement," says Ascar. "Other than my fortune." He continues to watch you carefully as you step around the collection.
Suddenly, you and Sieri stop at the same time as you get an instinctive feel for something important, and you catch Ascar smiling.
The display case you are next to contains an artifact about half as high as a man, and as wide, wrought of heavy metal. It is a cacophony of complicated looking moving parts; much of the top half being a diarama of various globes and stars. Hieroglyphs adorn a rim at the bottom where a slider can be moved to different settings. The hieroglyphs are in Sith.
Ascar steps over to join you.
"Just beyond the Rim," he said. "It is one of the finest pieces on my collection. It is an Astrolabe, as used by the Sith."
Of course, Gundark! You have seen two of these before- deep in the Jedi Archives. But they were both broken and non-functional. There are supposed to be no working copies left anywhere. But this one is intact!
"The Sith were a naturally arcane and obscure people," explains Ascar. "Everything was secrets within mysteries within puzzles. Even getting from one place of theirs to the next was made difficult; but then the Dark Side is historically obfusc [that IS a word, guys...]. When navigating, Sith Star Maps were useless without the proper instrument to calibrate the astrogation data from. This Astrolabe is one such instrument. Of course, without any navigational data or starting point, it has no practical function, but a fascinating piece, all the same."
Gundark, you are starting to get a bad feeling about the current setting on the Sith Astrolabe.
"For its actual intended use?" says Ascar. "Millennia ago, I would imagine."
Odd, Gundy. This thing has been well-oiled, and not millennia ago. And... now you are looking closely... it has been moved to a different settling lately, to judge by the marks in the oil, and then moved back. Damn it, you are sure you have seen the markings on its current setting before!