Edna is extendedly absent... and that's actually it.
The lift opens up on the top floor, which is done in a tasteful red. NOW you are in a reception area, with a pretty and young receptionist behind the desk, doing her nails. Kuylen approaches her.
"I'm here for Ascar," he says. The receptionist nods.
"Please wait a few minutes. You may take a seat," she says.
"Well, just MAYBE I'll be waiting..." she says, as you pass through the doors to Ascar's room.
Ascar is sitting behind a desk at his office. He is a well-dressed but ageing gentleman, who looks at you keenly with an intelligent but rather unsettling face.
(For those who know of him, he looks excactly like Malcom MacDowell)
"Kuylen," he says, as the doors close behind you. "What an unexpected surprise to see you again..."
"Seeing as you wouldn't come to me," says Kuylen.
"Well, of course not," says Ascar. You noticce that far to your left there seems to be a museum of some sort, with display cases and the like. Behind Ascar is a large living area and corridors that lead off elsewhere.
This is a very impressive collection, Quam. It seems to be mostly Jedi artifacts from the Pre-Republic era, and in such a case this collection is larger than the Jedi's own, as little remains of that time.
But some of this stuff is Sith as well. It seems Ascar has cast a wide net in his collection. It is mostly stuff of archaeological interest more than practical value, though that might well appeal to you as well. One of the cases, rather notably, contains a Lightsabre. You guess no collection of Jedi artifacts would be complete without one but it cannot have been easy to acquire. It could be ancient, of course; sabres have changed little over time.
Your instincts are buzzing. SOMETHING here is useful, though.
"How was Avalar?" asks Ascar, politely.
"You know damn well how everything went," says Kuylen.
"I followd the news, but that doesn't tell me the whole story. Certainly not how the Jedi found your base on Jaglon Beta. That shows infallible instinct. I warned you that uncovering the Archive would have unforseen consequences."
"I can deal with consequnces," says Kuylen.
"Did you recover anything before the Order's untimely intervention?" Kuylen reveals one of the tablets, and hands it to Ascar. He looks at it curisouly, holds his hand to its back, and the lettering on it lights up in green. Ascar reass the tablet, quickly. He seems to know Sith rather well. This man is no mere collector, Quam. He must have done a lot of archaeology in his life.
"Interesting," he says. "Though ultimately rather irrelevant, especially without the set."
"You don't want one for your collection?"
"I think that would be unwise in the current climate." Ascar looks at the rest of you.
"Tell me," he asks, "were you ALL at Avalar?"
"Ah..." says Ascar. "You've never ben one to be free with information, have you, Kuylen?"
"I tell people what they need to know."
"Do you mind?" asks Ascar. Kuylen motions for him to continue. Ascar tursnt to you, Takuan.
"Avalar is a myth. Or at least it was; I had some idea about where it can be found but your Master here had the will and the resources to find it for real."
"I'm their leader, not their Master," says Kuylen, but Ascar brushes this aside.
"The Avalar legend spoke of a group of Sith monks who decidd to make a new school, an Academy to match the Jedi's own, during the last Sith War a thousand years ago. To make this a reality, they built their fortress on the remote world of Avalar, and then at that fortress they started to write down EVERYTHING about the Sith. They codified every tenet, every rule, every law... every secret, of the Sith, so that it may be told unto others." Ascar smiled. "This did not sit well with the more traditional Sith, for whom it was heresy to pass down the information in any way other than word of mouth. And one day Darth Bane and his army stormed and destroyed the fortress, and Avalar was never to be seen or heard of again. Until recently. Because, you see, the archive was written on these tablets," says Ascar, holding up the one that Kuylen gave him, "which are sacred to the Sith. So Bane did not destroy the archive, he merely sealed it. Avalar passed into legend, and then myth. Kuylen had the quaint idea of digging it all up."
"That archive could tell us everything it was to be a Sith," says Kuylen to you, Takuan. "We could have taken their power and ruled the Galaxy."
"But sadly no longer, I hear!" says Ascar. "Because you only got part of it before the Jedi arrived, and part of it is useless, and the rest is gone."
"There are other ways," says Kuylen.
"Of course, and that is why you are here..." Ascar turns back towards you, Takuan, and Quam. "II see you like my collection?" he asks.
Gald looks at the Darksaber hanging from the wall. He took off his glove and ran his fingers over the designs on the sword. "Very impressive. You are a very busy man Ascar," says Gald. Gald puts his glove back on and looks at the Darksaber. He then shifts his attention to the lightsaber in the display case. "So how'd you attain that? Bounty hunters? Other Dark Jedi? I've heard Aurra Sing is skilled in getting lightsabers from a Jedi..."