"Yes, we should probably go. We do not know what the Dark Jedi, or whoever the attackers were, took, and why they used TWO thermal detonators. They probably stole a part to a ship: a hyperdrive, weaponry, a power core, or something," says Xeth.
He turns to Prefect Moran. "Should you find anything of any significance, please contact us. Here is my comlink frequency..."
Scovione muses for a little while over the hieroglyphs you describe to him.
"The first one is death-related... to a person. Graveyard, or resting place." He hesitates. "Or Mausoleum. Kellan, was the other symbol for Demnos?"
Of course! Demnos! As in DARTH Demnos! His final resting place of legend! It's so OBVIOUS now!
And for you poor people in the real world who were never actually taught Jedi history, here is a full explanation:
----
Darth Demnos was a famous Sith Lord from many millenia ago- way before the last Sith war that destroyed them, ostensibly forever.
The legend tells that Demnos wished to be of benefit to other Sith; to the movement as a whole. To that end he constrcuted his own fabulous
Mausoleum to be his last resting place. He then committed ritual suicide and, so the stories tell, spiritually became one with his Mausoleum, which then faded from plain sight.
The story says that any novice Sith seeking to learn the secrets the
organisation held could journey to the Mausoleum which- if the student were truly dedicated to the ways of the Sith- would then reveal itself to him. The student could enter, and the spirit of Demnos would teach him what he needed to know.
Now, unlike Avalar, which was mainly mythical, the Jedi Order always knew for certain that the Mausoleum existed- many fought under Demnos' banner long after he died. But it was never found- only Sith could see it, after all, and none were ever pursued to its source. Once the last Sith was killed it was to stay hidden forever. But it was certainly a long, LONG way out from the furthest reaches of the Republic
The story itself is barely credible, of course. The idea of a Sith making a
selfless sacrifice for others is the antithesis of behaviour for the Dark
Side- and as everyone knows, even in the wonders of the Force there is no way back to the real world after death. Most modern scholars agree that Darth Demnos was most likely murdered by his own apprentice, who then took Demnos' name and used his resting place as a rallying point for his faction of the Sith.
It is worth nothing that the Astrolabe dates from 1000 years ago, many
millennia after Demnos died and his faction was destroyed. As it is still marked there, clearly the Sith still considered the location important, whatever its true purpose.
---
"Kuylen worked in the Jedi Archives for some while," says Scovione. "He could have read everything there was to know about places like Avalar and the Mausoleum. If he truly seeks to learn the ways of the Sith, the Mausoleum is an obvious place to go to after Avalar. If the Astrolabe has been moved in the way you describe, then someone is trying to discover the Mausoleum's relative location!"
Ok, folks. all of you can now meet up at the spaceport to plan your next move. You have all discovered rather a lot, but you must move quickly to capitalise on any of it, as you know your opponents will not hang around. There are now EIGHT Jedi here, three of whom are Masters, so you are not short on manpower and combat capacity!
What you have discovered so far is broken into three categories; I shall summarise them here for you:
1. The Murder at the Dojo
- Motive?
- Sloppily done- body left for you to find
- Two mysteriously talented students, apparently Mogarians- posing?
- Whole set-up funded by Ascar; does he strike you as charitable?
2. The raid at the depot
- Almost certainly the DJs- bodies and equipment removed to prevent sabre identifcation. very little gunfire back at security system.
- Why use the computer on a destructive raid?
- Why take so long?
- Why use TWO detonators when only one is needed
- Something stolen? If so, what and why?
3. Ascar and the Astrolabe
- Ascar deceitful but not hostile
- Something funny about Persis- immune to mind trick
- The Mausoleum of Demnos, clearly a very good lead for Kuylen. But why has Ascar anything to do with it? It is a place of no use to him, and he does not have the maps required to make use of the Astrolabe. He does not even know where Avalar is!
- But if Ascar didn't use it, who did? And why didn't Ascar notice?
- If the DJs are after the astrolabe, then what are they waiting for? Why have they not taken it already?
You have enough now to learn of the DJs mission. They need to locate the Mausoleum in the belief it will finish what they started on Avalar. For that, they need the Astrolabe which can ONLY be found here. They must be stopped, but unless you can suss out where they fit into these events, it could be hard.
There are a couple of clues you are missing, and a couple of logical deductions that can be made from what you have. But you have all the VITAL stuff. You can disucss all this for a while, and then we can move on.
"Well," says Xeth to the rest of the Jedi. "If they are headed for the planet of the Mausoleum's location, they'd need to travel pretty far to get out of the Republic's reach. It would take forever for their ships to get there by sublight engines, and they raided a depot with ship parts. I make a conjecture that they have stolen hyperdrives, unless their ships already had some."
"There is one thing;" Mah said, "Teshan told us that the Mogarians joined him and his training almost half a year ago. Now Kuylen was involved in other things, focussing only on Avalar at that time. He couldn't have been behind those Mogarians, unless there's something we don't know about his business. Certainly none of Kuylens gang that we know of could be the ones dressed up in suits, joining Teshans place half a year ago-?"
This is true. The timing issue means that if those Mogarians are the fakes you suspect, they are not anyone you have already met, because you can account for the movements of the ones you have met already at the time these Mogarians joined- they were all at Jaglon Beta or Avalar.
Then again, you doubt it is all coincidence at this time.