Private Foundations Beneath Ash

[Meri Vale]

Meri slowed beside Vendryn at the landing, her flashlight drifting carefully across the new warning signs as her expression gradually tightened into thoughtful suspicion. At first glance, the notices appeared consistent with the others scattered throughout the ruin, yet the longer she studied them, the more the differences surfaced. The material remained too well preserved, the edges too sharp, and the coloration—though intentionally similar—lacked the subtle fading and mineral wear visible on the older warnings above.

Someone had placed these here later. Much later.

"…those signs were designed to imitate the originals," she observed quietly after several seconds, stepping slightly closer without touching the door itself. "But they are not contemporary with the structure. The manufacturing consistency is wrong. Too precise, too preserved."

Her light traced carefully across the fastening points securing the warnings to the wall, raising the far more concerning question of who wanted this passage avoided badly enough to fabricate warnings convincing enough to discourage investigation.

Meri's attention shifted briefly toward Vendryn as the subtle pressure of his unseen probing continued brushing faintly through the corridor ahead. She still refused to acknowledge directly that she recognized what he was doing, though the strange awareness rolling softly through the walls had become increasingly difficult to ignore now that she knew what to look for. The Force moved differently around him than it did around Master Vex—sharper somehow, and more searching.

When Vendryn admitted he did not trust the situation, the corner of Meri's mouth shifted faintly.

"That is reassuring," she replied dryly. "Because I was beginning to worry we had entered the portion of the ruin specifically designed to reward catastrophically poor decisions."

Despite the humor beneath the remark, her grip tightened subtly around the flashlight while she studied the sealed door again. Then his questions changed, and a shift in tone settled over the corridor immediately.

Meri remained quiet for several seconds after he asked whether she had fought before, her expression growing more distant as her thoughts drifted briefly inward before returning. The dim light reflected softly across the reinforced walls around them while the ruin hummed faintly beneath layers of age and hidden machinery.

"Not like you mean," she answered at last, her voice quieter now. "I have defended myself before, but I would not describe myself as a fighter."

The second question lingered longer: Have you killed before?

Meri lowered her gaze briefly toward the floor between them before answering, the distinction clearly mattering to her. "No. At least… not directly."

A faint crease appeared between her brows as she considered the rest of his words carefully.

"I do not think ignorance survives very long once someone begins seriously studying history," she admitted after a moment. "The farther back you look, the more impossible it becomes to pretend the galaxy was ever particularly kind."

Her attention drifted briefly toward the repaired surveillance orbs behind them.

"People preserve beautiful things, but they also preserve weapons, prisons, surveillance systems, and ruins designed specifically to hide dangerous knowledge from whoever comes next. So no," she said quietly, her gray eyes lifting back toward him, "I do not think I am particularly ignorant."

A pause followed before the faintest trace of dry humor returned.

"Though I am still deciding whether continuing deeper into suspicious underground archives with an armed stranger qualifies as confidence or exceptionally delayed foolishness."

Despite the remark, she did not step away from the sealed door. If anything, the fabricated warnings only made her more certain that whatever lay beyond it mattered.

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

"That is reassuring," she replied dryly. "Because I was beginning to worry we had entered the portion of the ruin specifically designed to reward catastrophically poor decisions."

He laughed at her words, grinning at her biting sarcasm. "You're going to be a hellion once you have a little more confidence, are you aware of that? Jedi and Sith alike will learn to fear you." His laugh continued for a moment as he inspected the door, peering at the edges of it thoughtfully as the touch of the Force became more intrusive. After a moment, he withdrew his grasp, eyes focusing on the lower warning sign. He simply lifted it up and pushed a hand underneath into a small hollow, pushing onto something with a subdued click. He grabbed the door and slid it aside, revealing it to be... flimsier than expected. While it looked like reinforced metal from the front, that was just a shell over an otherwise normal plastboard door. He seemed almost disappointed as he pushed it fully out of the way, looking around, his four-eyed gaze sweeping the walls and ceiling, looking for trouble.

"Which is more telling, do you think: That we preserve our history, or that we preserve our weapons? Even when innovation renders them obsolete, we cling to the tools of war we've always known, reluctant to relinquish them. So, too, is art: Every generation has a million artists worthy of praise, and yet we bestow accolades upon those who came before and ignore the things that are placed before us. Can art become obsolete? When it loses value, loses touch, loses its relationship to the world that it describes?"

He acted casual, calm, as if he wasn't stepping into a wide-open passageway that lay behind a deceptive door covered in fake warning signs. As if he wasn't expecting someone to jump out and fill him with blaster shots.

"War... Is also a form of art. A canvas spanning solar systems, brushes a dozen kilometers long painting the galaxy with banners and sigils and scorchmarks and strife; a sculptor shaving away at the political topography, reshaping reality in the image of their desires. The chisel is a brutal and ugly thing, but look what it can do under a skilled hand..."

He looked down, and scuffed his foot gently along the floor; the dust here had been disturbed, and somewhat recently. Faint footsteps, absences in the even coating of gray, the occasional smear betraying multiple passages.

"I never accused you of being ignorant," he murmured, almost as an afterthought. "But I am pleased to see my beliefs vindicated. We should always be wary of strangers, should we not?"

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri followed a few steps behind him as the concealed door slid aside, her attention lingering on the construction longer than the passage beyond. The disappointment in Vendryn's expression when the mechanism proved mundane rather than ingenious was difficult to miss, and she found herself fighting back the faintest hint of amusement.

"I am beginning to suspect you wanted there to be a secret passage more than you wanted an archive," she observed.

The remark was delivered with complete sincerity, which somehow only made the dry humor beneath it more obvious. Her eyes moved over the doorway itself as she stepped closer, studying the false warning signs and the deliberately misleading construction. Whatever amusement she felt faded into thoughtfulness as she considered the implications.

"Though I admit this is interesting," she said, reaching out to lightly brush her fingers against the edge of the sign. "Someone invested effort into discouraging people from entering, but not enough effort to truly prevent it. That suggests they wanted the area overlooked rather than secured, which raises the question of who they were trying to fool."

As Vendryn continued into his philosophical examination of history, art, and warfare, Meri listened with the focused attention she gave most things, though the slight narrowing of her eyes suggested she was carefully disentangling the argument as he built it. By the time he compared war to art, she had fallen silent entirely, considering the idea while following the disturbed traces left in the dust.

"I am not certain I agree," she admitted at last. The statement lacked any challenge; it was simply honest. "Art creates something, while war generally destroys something. I understand the comparison. Both leave marks behind, and both reshape the world, but if a sculptor removes too much stone, there is eventually nothing left to sculpt."

Her attention shifted briefly toward the faint footprints cutting through the dust ahead. "History survives because enough remains for someone to study afterward."

When Vendryn finally returned to the subject of strangers, Meri's expression softened into something faintly amused.

"I am wary of strangers," she assured him, pausing briefly before adding, "You may have noticed I did not immediately reveal every personal detail about myself upon introduction."

The dry humor lingered there for a moment before her attention returned to the passage ahead.

"Though I suspect there is a difference between being wary and assuming the worst. If I assumed every stranger intended to harm me, I would never learn anything interesting," she mused, her eyes flicking briefly toward him. "For example, I would have missed an afternoon spent exploring hidden archives with a philosophical Volpai who keeps finding suspiciously convenient secret doors, which, admittedly, may still prove dangerous enough to validate your argument."

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

He snorted, but otherwise refused to dignify her question with an answer. Of course he wanted a secret passage more than he wanted an archive. It didn't mean he didn't want an archive, it just meant that mysteries were more likely to have answers when they were recent enough for someone to have fabricated fake warning signs to chase people away. He tipped his chin upward disdainfully, as if the very supposition was beneath him. Besides, he contended internally, the archive will still be there after.

"Art," he finally answered, taking on his lecturer's tone again, "Evokes emotional, intellectual, or aesthetic responses. What is the negative space in an image? Is it art? Without it, would the image still be meaningful?" He posed the question, and let it rest for a moment, as if testing the weight of it. "Besides, in the argument of the sculptor, I would say that there is always another block of stone if the first is not receptive. Who is to say it is always the good things which are chipped away by War's chisel? Can not Good men wield them and carve away at the evils of the world?" He tapped his nails along the wall as he walked, a slow, heavy rhythm that emphasized his words.

"And if you look to the example of the Rakata, Meri Vale, of those oh so ancient times, there was nothing left of the people for millennia. Those who remained had nothing but physiology in common with their ancestors, and even then only tenuously. Nonetheless, those who followed found their ruins, their memorials, their... Tools and weapons of war, and resurrected their memory from the sepulcher of history." He shrugged, upper hands spreading expansively to his sides.

He paused, and glanced backward at her for a moment with his right pair of eyes. "Though I suppose my perspective may be different from most. I am an acquaintance of war; it has touched me, time and again, though I have never known it deeply, not as some of my..." The pause was long enough that it wasn't intentional, clearly mulling and discarding words, until settling on "... contemporaries do, nor with their relish and passion."

He let that topic settle, for now, returning his focus to the space around them, continuing to explore carefully.

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri listened while Vendryn spoke, her attention divided between his argument and the corridor unfolding ahead of them. The two subjects felt strangely connected. Every few steps, she found herself studying some detail of the passage: a hasty repair in the durasteel wall, a peculiar disturbance in the ancient dust, a jagged seam between older construction and newer, cruder additions. It was a physical manifestation of a timeline, layered one over the other, before she returned her focus to whatever philosophical path he had decided to wander down this time.

She had begun to suspect that was simply how he thought. He didn't just look at a room; he dissected its purpose, its history, and its tactical viability.

The observation did not bother her nearly as much as she might have expected. If anything, it provided a strange sort of balance to her own academic hyper-fixations.

"You realize," she said after a moment, "that most people answer a question about art with significantly fewer references to chisels and galactic warfare."

There was no criticism in the statement. Only a mild note of academic observation, a soft teasing quality that she hadn't quite realized she was comfortable enough to project until the words had already left her mouth.

As he continued, however, Meri found herself considering the weight of his argument more seriously. Her gaze drifted across the corridor walls, the beam of her flashlight cutting through the gloom while she sorted through the concepts he had laid out. He spoke of negative space and destructive sculpting, pushing the boundaries of what defines creation.

"I think the difference may be permanence."

She spoke slowly, working through the thought as she went, treating the conversation like a delicate artifact that needed to be brushed clean of debris.

"A sculptor removes stone, but the intention is preservation. The final work remains, intended to withstand the elements and the passage of time. War often removes things without replacing them. It leaves a void, not a deliberate negative space."

Her eyes settled briefly on the disturbed footprints ahead, a stark reminder that they weren't the first ones to tread through this darkness, nor were they entirely alone in the grander scope of whatever scheme had taken place here.

"Though I suppose history would argue against me," she added, a quiet sigh escaping her. "Most of what survives from ancient civilizations are fortifications, weapons, and ruins. The tools of survival and destruction always outlast the tools of peace."

A faint frown touched her features, casting a small shadow over her gray eyes.

"Which is a little unfair, really. Entire generations create art, music, literature, architecture, and philosophy, and somehow the objects most likely to survive the centuries are the things people used to hit each other with."

The dry humor surfaced briefly before fading again, swallowed by the oppressive weight of the subterranean air.

His mention of the Rakata earned a small, reluctant nod. That example, unfortunately, supported his position rather well. The Infinite Empire had left a scar so deep across the galaxy that even millennia of collapse couldn't fully erase its terrifying legacy. Their weapons still slumbered in dark corners of the stars.

"That is true," she admitted, conceding the point with a slight tilt of her head. "Although I would argue that what was resurrected by later generations was not the people themselves, but an interpretation of them. Archaeology is an exercise in assembling incomplete narratives out of broken shards and then hoping future scholars are kind when they inevitably discover where you were wrong."

That sounded suspiciously like experience speaking. More than once, she had pored over texts only to find a predecessor had completely misread a basic glyph, altering the perceived history of a sector for decades.

When Vendryn spoke of war touching his life, Meri glanced toward him, her flashlight catching the edge of his profile. The pause before he settled on the word contemporaries did not escape her notice, though she was polite enough not to examine it too closely. Everyone carried pieces of themselves they chose not to explain immediately, shattering under their own private weights. He was a Volpai, a creature far from home, armed and deeply cynical, yet entirely willing to indulge her intellectual tangents.

Instead of prying, she considered his words and looked inward at her own quiet life.

"I have never known war personally," she admitted, her voice softening slightly, dropping to a tone that felt almost intimate in the silence of the corridor. "Only the evidence it leaves behind."

She stopped for a second, casting her light up toward the ceiling where a massive patch of heavy durasteel plates had been welded over what looked like a catastrophic hull breach or a localized bombardment.

"Burn marks on walls. Emergency reinforcements were hastily added to structures. Cities rebuilt atop older foundations because it's easier than clearing the rubble. Records written by people trying to explain why something beautiful was lost."

For a few moments, she walked in silence, the quiet rhythm of their boots tapping out a steady cadence against the floor.

"Perhaps that is why I view it differently. Historians usually arrive after the fighting is over. We are the cleanup crew of the galaxy's worst impulses."

The corner of her mouth twitched faintly, a small glimpse of the 'hellion' he had joked about earlier peeking through.

"And if I am being perfectly honest, I would prefer to keep it that way."

Her attention shifted entirely back toward the corridor ahead, where the false footprints continued to lead them deeper into the labyrinth.

"Besides, if this ruin has taught me anything so far, it is that the people who leave behind mysterious fake warning signs are considerably more interesting than the people who built the original hallways."

She paused, flashing him a brief, knowing look.

"At least from a narrative perspective. Though I suppose we are about to find out if the ending of this particular story is a tragedy or a farce."

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

Vendryn listened to Meri with quiet appreciation, the corners of his mouth curving into a faint, wry smile as their boots echoed through the dim corridor. Her mind was sharp, precise in the way only a true academic's could be—able to take his wandering philosophy and trim it into something focused without losing its edge. He found the balance refreshing.


"Fewer references to chisels and galactic warfare?" he replied, a low chuckle threading through his voice. "I find myself getting lost in metaphor and allegory, sometimes." He feigned a whimsical tone.


He glanced sidelong at her as they walked, all four sapphire eyes reflecting the beams of their flashlights. "You make a fair point about permanence, though. The sculptor removes with purpose. War simply devours. And yet… even ruins tell stories. Sometimes the most honest ones. The things that survive are rarely the gentle ones, as you say. Weapons outlast poetry. Fortifications outlast temples... Except Jedi temples, or Sith temples which are often both. There's a certain ugly poetry in that." He cleared his throat. "Also, on a more practical note, weapons of war are often meant to survive abuse and mistreatment, while artifacts of peace are not. Peacetime allows the maintenance delicate things require." The way his gaze briefly flitted to her seemed to add her to that list of delicate things; the way his eyes flitted to their surroundings added a subtle or perhaps not.


"I envy you, in a way. Arriving after the fighting. The cleanup crew sees the shape of what was lost with clearer eyes than those who lived it. I have stood in the fire long enough that I have come to call it home... But home isn't somewhere I can relax, very much." It was the closest he'd come to acknowledging what he was, and even then there was a chastising tone in his voice, as if reminding himself to be careful.


When Meri mentioned the mysterious fake warning signs and wondered aloud whether this story would end in tragedy or farce, Vendryn gave a soft hum of agreement. "Let us hope for farce, then," he said, voice dropping slightly. "Tragedies are far too common in places like this."


The corridor narrowed, then opened abruptly into a concealed side passage they had nearly missed. The false footprints—those deliberate disturbances in the dust—led directly here. Vendryn motioned to Meri and slipped inside first, his tall frame moving with careful silence.


The air changed immediately. Thicker. More intimate. It carried the ghost of long-term habitation rather than mere passage.


What greeted them was not another ruined hall, but a hidden workspace, clearly carved out by someone who had made these depths their home for an extended time. The roughly circular chamber stretched about eight meters across, its walls a patchwork of ancient duracrete and newer, crude plasteel reinforcements. Makeshift shelves sagged under the weight of rescued datacrons, holodiscs, and carefully preserved flimsi scrolls, many meticulously cleaned and re-labeled in neat Aurebesh.


A central workbench dominated the space, cluttered with restoration tools—micro-scanners, fine brushes, sealant canisters, and a half-disassembled holocron restoration rig still faintly humming from a portable generator in the corner. Footprints, smaller and more human in shape, crisscrossed the floor in well-worn paths. A simple cot hugged the far wall, its blanket folded with almost painful neatness. A trio of small, palm-sized screens showed blank, endless hallways, subdivided into a dozen total images. Likely the cameras they had passed.


Vendryn stepped deeper into the room, trailing two of his hands lightly along the edge of the workbench. "Someone lived here," he murmured, the philosophical lilt in his voice giving way to genuine intrigue. "Not just passed through. They lived here. For months, maybe longer."


He approached the small pedestal-like table near the cot, and stroked the screen of a cracked datapad left behind. Its screen flickered, revealing catalog logs spanning over a year. His fingers flitted from one entry to the next. Banal, small, revealing next to nothing about who had left them. Simple notations. "Found another cache. Six scrolls, four damaged beyond use, one intact, one recoverable. Supply ledgers?"
Another was of more interest. "Western passages flooded, but eastern passage collapsed at upper entrance and intact beneath. Pumps remain functional. Possibly JCW? Markings, contents, ref. 'the returned'."

A later entry was a little more verbose. "Signs of battle damage. Fighting. Carbonized markings on walls, remnant biologicals. Too fragile to recover intact, but looked like pre-JCW markings. Uncatalogued items, damaged datacron recovered (UI-D-3) should be fixable. Remnant data ref. Malachor V. Contemporary? I think they hid here once. Like I do. They hid but someone found them. I think someone is coming to find me." His voice was soft, uninflected as he read, as if actively trying not to draw conclusions as he read them aloud, trying not to influence her own perception of the words.


The very last one, dated three weeks ago, contained only a brief, stark message:


"History repeats. They've found me."


Nearby hung a singed Jedi-style robe, tattered brown cloth. A small alcove held a cracked emerald kyber crystal suspended in a weak stasis field, and a single holophoto of a young Mirialan man, smiling with optimistic pride before a Temple spire.


Vendryn's gaze shifted toward the narrow, freshly dug tunnel in the far wall, where abandoned crates and a depleted blaster lay half-buried in dust.


"He was trying to resurrect the archives," Vendryn said softly, glancing at Meri. There was real respect in his tone now. "One shard at a time. But something—or someone—found him before he could finish."


He looked deeper into the shadowed tunnel ahead, eyes gleaming with quiet hunger.


"I wonder if he yet lives."

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

For several moments after Vendryn finished reading, Meri said nothing at all. The chamber seemed to absorb sound differently than the corridors outside, losing the cold, detached aura of a historic ruin and taking on the heavy, intimate weight of recent habitation. It felt as though the occupant had only stepped away for a moment, perhaps to look for another fallen fragment, and might return at any second with a recovered scroll tucked beneath his arm. Any lingering trace of apprehension she had carried into the depths was utterly submerged by a sudden, intense wave of academic fascination. This room was everything she loved: a puzzle made of evidence, context, and a quiet life hidden away between the cracks of time.

Slowly, she moved deeper into the space, her focus entirely bypassing the dark, excavated tunnel that drew Vendryn's attention. She drifted instead toward the makeshift shelves, her gray eyes tracing the carefully organized records, the meticulously restored labels, and a workbench worn smooth by thousands of hours of repetitive, solitary labor. A profound sense of familiarity settled over her, not because she knew this place, but because she recognized the exact mindset behind it. Someone had cared. In a galaxy filled with people eager to destroy or conquer, someone had cared enough to spend months, perhaps years, painstakingly preserving shattered fragments that most would have stepped over or crushed to dust.

"They were an archivist," she said quietly, the observation coming as an instinctive murmur. "Or wanted to be. Everything is organized, cataloged, and cross-referenced with incredible discipline. Even the datapad entries read exactly like field notes." There was a rare, soft note of affection in her voice, an unspoken sense of kinship and profound approval for a fellow scholar. Her gaze drifted from the neat rows of flimsi scrolls to the tattered Jedi robe, the cracked emerald kyber crystal, and finally to the holophoto of the smiling Mirialan man. Until now, the chamber had been a collection of fascinating artifacts. Suddenly, it resolved into a living, breathing person, and the realization struck a surprisingly emotional chord within her.

Turning back to the final, stark log, Meri felt the silent tragedy of his isolation. "He expected someone to come after him long before they actually did," she continued, her voice dropping a fraction lower. "The earlier entries show he was already searching for signs of pursuit, focusing entirely on collapsed passages and hidden dead ends. Those six final words, History repeats. They've found me, are not the reaction of someone caught by surprise. It is the quiet resignation of someone whose worst fears have finally been confirmed."

Only then did she look toward the tunnel, noting the frantic nature of the fresh excavation and the abandoned blaster half-buried in the dirt. While Vendryn stood at the threshold, driven by a warrior's instinct to wonder whether the man still lived to fight, Meri remained firmly rooted in reconstructing the archivist's reality. She turned to face her companion, her expression serious.

"You asked whether he still lives, but I think the more pressing question is who he believed was looking for him. People do not bury themselves beneath flooded ruins because they are hiding from ordinary visitors."

She paused, letting the weight of the mystery settle between them before the corner of her mouth twitched with a faint trace of her usual dry humor.

"Although I admit, discovering a secret colleague living in the deep dark was not among my predictions for today."

Taking one last look at the workspace, the life someone had built out of sheer devotion to the past, she added softly,

"I think I would have liked him."

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

Vendryn's touch was gentle as a hummingbird, brushing across the desk gently, stroking a finger through the dust there. "I think I would have liked him as well... In a way, perhaps I envy him. To be so single-minded... to be able to live with such single-minded purpose." There was suddenly an aspect to him, like a cave-in revealing a hidden chamber. There was almost a yearning in his gaze as he stared at the desk and its surroundings.

It was by no means a comfortable place, nothing opulent or luxurious, from the cluttered cot to the small sonic shower in the corner, the tiny heater tucked in next to the cot to chase off the chill of the ruins. The floor was cluttered with a trio of rugs, each of clearly clashing colors and design, each threadbare and ancient-looking; other relics retrieved elsewhere, perhaps.

But it was the tiny crystal, floating in a stasis field, that seemed to hold his gaze. A man who had turned from the path of a Jedi, or been forced from it; it was difficult to say. How different would everything be? What if I just walked away from my life, and became like this hermetic archivist?

His eyes fluttered shut after a moment, and he turned away from the crystal, drawing in a deep breath. "Wherever he's gone... It seems it's been some time. He says that once upon a time, others hid here... and were pursued. Deeper down. Perhaps he has taken refuge there... Or perhaps he has fled this place entirely. It is a shame, for such work to be left undone." He brushed his fingers over the damaged datacron suspended within a repair matrix, the tools left abandoned around it. "And in a place where no one else cared enough to look twice... He made his whole life. Everything he was dwelled here, in a place forgotten by the galaxy. Not... Forgotten. Overlooked. Ignored. Yet it was his whole world." There was a thoughtful, wondering tone... a bitter, sorrowful edge to it, as if he were thinking of something far more personal.

He gently stepped away from the desk, gesturing her forward, if she wanted to explore it in more detail. His eyes were open, but half-lidded, flitting back and forth as if chasing the thoughts that ran behind them.

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Vendryn's words lingered in the cramped chamber long after he stepped away from the desk, and Meri found herself watching him for a moment before she moved. The bitterness beneath his wonder had not escaped her. Neither had the way his attention had fixed on the cracked kyber crystal, as though the small suspended shard had opened some private wound he had not intended anyone else to see.

She did not ask about it.

Not yet.

Instead, she accepted the space he offered and stepped carefully toward the workbench, her movements becoming slow and deliberate as they always did when she felt the shape of a place beginning to reveal itself. She did not touch anything at first. She only looked, allowing the details to settle into order: the position of the tools, the repaired labels, the worn edges of the desk, the neatness of the cot, the absurdly mismatched rugs placed across a cold floor by someone who had clearly wanted comfort and had accepted whatever comfort could be found.

"Overlooked can be worse than forgotten," she said quietly after a while. "Forgotten things are sometimes mourned when they are found again. Overlooked things were visible the entire time, and no one cared enough to look properly."

Her fingers hovered above the abandoned restoration rig, careful not to disturb the delicate arrangement around the damaged datacron. Whoever had left this place had not done so with the easy finality of someone finished with their work. The tools remained where hands had needed them, the open logs had not been properly closed, and the small habits of habitation were still preserved in the room like breath caught behind glass. Meri leaned slightly closer, studying the repair matrix and the datacron suspended within it, not rushing to conclusions when the evidence deserved patience.

"He did not leave because he was finished," she murmured. "No one abandons a restoration matrix mid-process unless something interrupts them."

Her gaze moved from the datacron to the cot, then to the heater, then to the screens showing blank corridors. The arrangement told its own story, one made of necessity rather than comfort. This had not been a retreat chosen for peace. It had been a refuge made livable by discipline, stubbornness, and a devotion strong enough to turn deprivation into routine.

Slowly, Meri crouched near the pedestal holding the stasis field and studied the cracked emerald crystal without reaching for it. The color reflected faintly in her eyes, and for once her expression lost nearly all of its guarded distance. She had seen Kyber before, but damaged Kyber felt different. Not merely broken, but wounded in a way that made the room around it seem quieter.

"If this belonged to him," she said softly, "then he kept more than records here."

For a time, she simply remained there, letting the observation deepen rather than explaining it away too quickly. Then she rose and moved to the shelves, reading labels where she could, noting patterns in the archivist's organization. Supply ledgers had their own section. Damaged scrolls were separated from recoverable ones. Items referenced by the initials JCW were marked differently from the rest, which she noted mentally without yet attempting to define. The care itself was evidence.

Only after several long minutes did she look back toward the tunnel.

"If he fled, I do not think he fled randomly," she said. "This room is too ordered for panic to have been his first instinct. Even the tunnel looks like something prepared before the final entry, not something dug after it."

Her eyes shifted to Vendryn again, quieter now.

"He had already decided where he would go when they found him."

The thought seemed to trouble her more than comfort her. Meri glanced once more over the workbench, the holophoto, the robes, the suspended crystal, and all the fragile pieces of someone's life arranged with such painful care beneath a ruin almost no one had cared to enter.

"I want to know what he was protecting," she admitted. "Because I do not think it was only himself."

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

Vendryn strode slowly over to the collapsed tunnel, and lightly pushed his fingers into the dirt, sweeping across it until it began to crumble away. He squinted at it, and took a step back. A moment of quiet concentration began to bombard the surface with the reaching, touching energy of the Force, more flakes and crumbles sifting to the floor. "There's something... Wrong about it. Something off. It looks too clean." He made a show of picking at it with his extended hand to cover up the way the Force badgered at it, worrying at the cracks and digging into the gaps. "... Staged, perhaps. I do agree, his flight was intentional. Not the timing, perhaps, but the act was definitely planned. But who would come for him? Who would be searching for... This?" He gestured around the room carelessly with his lower right hand. "Archivists and researchers do not often find themselves the target of dedicated pursuit."

A whole pane of clayish soil broke away and crumbled to the floor, littering the ground with chunks. Buried, perhaps six inches deep, was a metal panel that looked like it had been pried off the wall and propped up. Careful pushing and pulling exposed the edge of the sheet, and a hard shove dislodged it, sending it toppling back down to the floor with a mighty clangor.

A gap stood in the middle of the wall of collapsed soil, the ceiling obviously damaged where it had come in, but the tunnel beyond seemed to be in good shape. A T-shaped intersection bore more markings, including one angled downward; a familiar set of symbols from the initial hallway.

Briefly consulting his datapad, he squinted up at it and stated, "I suspect this may be the Eastern passageway. If so... Then this one should be dry, and lead down into the Archives proper. At least, according to the entries he had left." Despite the confidence in his words, he did not immediately move to push through the partial obstruction. Suspicion still hung in his gaze, sweeping edge to edge, as if he thought there might be a trap of some kind beyond. Aside from a furrowed brow and untrusting gaze, he didn't seem to have anything concrete to latch onto.

He was distracted enough by his curiosity that he hadn't been terribly subtle about his use of the Force this time. Careless eyes could still miss it... but Meri was hardly careless, was she?

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

For several moments, Meri simply watched him work. Not the tunnel. Not the falling dirt. Him. The realization arrived gradually rather than all at once. Earlier, she had noticed hints of it in passing, details that could have been dismissed individually. The unusual awareness he seemed to possess. The way he examined spaces beyond what ordinary senses should reasonably allow. The confidence with which he moved through unfamiliar ruins. Now, however, there was very little ambiguity remaining. The soil was not crumbling because he happened to be touching the correct places. The wall had not conveniently decided to reveal its secrets at precisely the moment he became interested in them. Something unseen was helping. Her gaze lingered on the exposed passage before returning briefly to Vendryn. She said nothing. Force users existed. She knew that better than most. More importantly, nothing about his behavior suggested malice. If anything, his actions resembled those of an archaeologist unwilling to damage a site unnecessarily. The Force was simply another tool in his hands, no different from a scanner or excavation probe, merely more elegant.

Stepping closer to the newly revealed opening, Meri crouched beside the fallen metal panel and directed her flashlight along its edges. Scratches marked the surface in deliberate patterns, and the distortions around the frame told a story of repeated movement rather than structural failure. After a moment, she rose again, brushing a trace of dust from her gloves. "I think you may be right about it being staged," she said thoughtfully. "The collapse conceals the passage effectively enough to discourage casual exploration, but not so effectively that someone familiar with it could not remove the obstruction later. If the archivist created it, then it was designed as a barrier rather than a permanent seal."

Her flashlight swept deeper into the exposed tunnel and immediately settled on the familiar markings beyond. The sight drew a faint spark of excitement into her expression. "And if this is the eastern passage, then our archivist appears to have been surprisingly considerate." The corner of her mouth twitched. "Most historical figures leave cryptic warnings, impossible riddles, or maps that only become meaningful after three months of dedicated study. This individual appears to have left directions." That alone earned a measure of professional respect. For someone who spent her life reconstructing fragments of forgotten histories, clear instructions felt almost miraculous.

Her attention drifted briefly back toward the hidden workspace behind them. The cot. The shelves. The carefully organized records. The life someone had quietly built beneath the ruins. "The more I learn about him, the more convinced I become that preservation was his primary concern," she said. "Not just preserving artifacts. Preserving knowledge. Preserving access. Preserving the possibility that someone would eventually continue what he started." There was a quiet admiration in her voice. She understood that impulse all too well. The archivist had not hidden himself away merely to collect relics. He had devoted himself to ensuring that something survived.

Her gray eyes returned to the darkness beyond the intersection. "Which means if he expected pursuit, then whatever was chasing him may have valued the archives very differently." The observation settled heavily between them. "People do not spend years preserving knowledge unless they are afraid it might be lost. And people do not hide themselves beneath forgotten ruins unless they believe someone is willing to destroy it." She studied the tunnel for another moment before adding quietly, "That concerns me considerably more than the tunnel itself."

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

Vendryn lingered at the threshold of the freshly exposed passage for a long moment, his primary eyes tracing the T-shaped intersection while his secondary pair swept the ceiling and walls with methodical care. The air here carried a different quality—drier than the upper levels, yet laced with the faint, acrid tang of old machinery and disturbed sediment. He adjusted the headlamp with an upper hand, the narrow beam from his wrist-mounted light cutting a precise line into the gloom ahead. The markings on the wall matched the archivist's notes, yet their freshness in this context unsettled him more than any overt trap might have.


"The path descends, Meri Vale," he observed, his voice measured and low, carrying the cadence of a scholar delivering a lecture in a quiet hall rather than an explorer venturing into uncertain dark. "The archivist spoke of the archives proper lying deeper still. If his records hold true—and I have little reason to doubt the precision of a mind so devoted—then we walk now into layers of history that have slumbered undisturbed for centuries. Perhaps longer."


He stepped forward with deliberate grace, four arms relaxed yet ready, the sapphire hilt of his lightsaber a reassuring weight beneath his robes. The tunnel sloped gently downward, the floor transitioning from packed earth to older, more resilient stonework that echoed faintly underfoot. Dust motes danced in the beams of their lights, and Vendryn extended his senses through the Force—not aggressively, but with the patient probing of one cataloging the unseen architecture of the world around him. The currents here felt layered, like sediment compressed by time: echoes of old purpose, faint residues of fear, and something sharper beneath, like a blade sheathed but not forgotten.


"Civilizations rise, preserve their knowledge in stone and crystal, and then crumble," Vendryn continued, his tone philosophical as he glanced back to ensure she followed comfortably. His pace remained measured, accommodating her shorter stride without condescension. "Yet knowledge itself does not die so easily. Even now, we stand amongst ruins from the Jedi Civil War—those ancient schisms between the Order and its fallen—which left scars that still shape the galaxy's unseen topography. Archives such as these were not mere repositories; they were battlegrounds of memory. What secrets might an archivist guard so fiercely that he would entrap himself alive to protect them?"


The passage widened slightly after a bend, revealing the first signs of the deeper complex: reinforced doorframes, now askew, and panels that had once housed monitoring equipment. Vendryn paused near one, running a lower hand along the surface. The dust showed recent disturbance—footprints, perhaps the archivist's own frantic passage—but also older patterns, footsteps overlaid so precisely atop one another that they almost looked like one set, except for the layers of dust crushed down into the grooves. He did not voice immediate alarm; instead, he allowed the observation to settle between them, inviting her analytical eye.


"One must wonder at the motives behind such elaborate concealment," he mused aloud, voice echoing softly off the dry walls as they pressed onward. "To fake the collapse of a tunnel, to stage one's own disappearance… these are not the acts of a mere paranoid. They speak of conviction. Of a truth so perilous that it demanded the ultimate sacrifice. What manner of knowledge could be worth dying for, Meri Vale? Not mere historical curiosities, surely. Something alive. Something that still possesses the power to reshape those who encounter it."


Vendryn's secondary eyes flicked toward her in the dim light, a subtle introspection threading through his words. "I find myself reflecting on my own path in this. I have walked into far greater perils for fragments of understanding far less tangible. The willingness to risk everything… it reveals much about a being's core. I wonder, then, what drives your steps beside mine. What truths—or perhaps convictions—would compel you to descend into these depths, knowing the risks as well as I?"


He let the question hang with academic detachment, neither pressing nor accusatory, yet clearly baiting a deeper exchange. The Force brushed against irregularities ahead: an impression, almost like a single fingertip cautiously tracing the outline of the footsteps in the dust, testing its depth and age. "War reshapes not only borders but the very archives that record them. Those who survived the Civil War era hid fragments of truth here, I suspect. Not out of cowardice, but stewardship. Much like our absent friend. One wonders what new chisel might be applied to such stone today."

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri walked beside him quietly, her flashlight wandering across the stonework instead of remaining fixed ahead. The further they descended, the more deliberate everything seemed to become. The upper levels had felt abandoned. These passages felt...protected. Even after all this time, someone had tried very hard to make certain the way forward remained hidden.

"I don't think he stayed because of the building," she said after a while. "I think he stayed because of what was inside it." She glanced back toward the concealed passage they had uncovered. "People usually don't spend years living underground to protect old walls. They do it because they believe whatever those walls contain still matters."

She studied the footprints for a few quiet moments before speaking again. "History disappears more slowly than people think." Her tone was thoughtful rather than authoritative. "A city can be destroyed, but if someone remembers where it stood, or keeps a journal, or carries away a single book... then part of it survives." She looked toward the archivist's tunnel behind them. "Maybe that's what he was doing. Not saving a building. Just making sure enough survived for someone else to continue."

Vendryn's question lingered in her thoughts. She considered it honestly before answering. "I don't know if I'd say I came looking for truth." A faint smile touched her face. "Mostly I just have a difficult time walking away from unanswered questions." She gave a small shrug. "Once I start wondering why something happened, I usually can't stop until I find out. Sometimes that's useful. Sometimes it just means I spend several extra hours inside ruined temples."

Her light settled on the deeper passage ahead.

"As for something worth dying for..." She frowned slightly. "I don't know." That answer came easily because it was true. "But I think knowledge can matter that much to some people. If someone believes losing it would mean losing part of who they are...I suppose I can understand why they'd protect it." She looked over at Vendryn with quiet curiosity. "I just hope whatever he wanted to preserve was important enough to justify it."

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

"As long as one person remembers... That applies to many things, does it not? As long as one person remembers what was, or understands what could have been... Or who you were, once upon a time. Perhaps what you still are." He paused, shooting her a sly grin. "At least, when I'm not busy with my day job. I'm a very different person when I'm on the clock, you know." He lifted his chin slightly in feigned arrogance. "I wouldn't have the time for mysteries, or for teenagers who lack self-preservation. But since I'm not working at the moment..."

He chuckled sympathetically. "I am the same way. Not knowing eats away at me. It's like an itch I cannot scratch, and I assure you!" He held up all four hands in exasperation, "That is something I have very little tolerance for!" He snorted a laugh, peering down at the light tracing the deeply graven footprints in the dust. "When you dig, and dig, and search, and there's still not a grain of truth to be found... No hint, no answer, no... resolution." He sighed again, mournfully.

"Did you know, once upon a time... there were no great divisions in the Galaxy, not like we have now. Small factions always... Doing as they do," he gestured annoyedly, "Squabbling over this or that... But nothing like we have now. A galaxy in flames, wracked by war after war... It was a time of peace. Of knowledge. There are still pieces... Traces, which remain, but most of it is buried, now, or else burnt to ashes. Much of our... Most advanced technology hails from discoveries of this time. Things that once were well-understood, but have had to have been lost and relearnt over and over again across the millenia... Such a waste." There was a look of profound loss on his face, and great pain. Grief for a world he'd never known.

"Can you imagine what could have been? I would like to think that, if everyone could... Experience this," he gestured around them at the ruins, "This sense of... wonder. Of loss. The weight of history. I would like to think that they could come together, instead of trying to tear each other apart."

His voice dropped. "Or at least, I would hope so."

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri listened quietly as they continued deeper into the passage, her flashlight moving between the ancient stonework and the floor ahead. Somewhere during the conversation she realized something she had not noticed before. Vendryn had stopped calling her by name. Until now he had punctuated nearly every observation with Meri Vale, as though testing the sound of it or reminding himself she was there. The absence was oddly comforting. She had never minded introductions, but hearing her full name repeated so often had begun to unsettle her in a way she could not entirely explain.

His reflections lingered in her thoughts. She understood the grief in them, even if it belonged to an age neither of them had lived through. "I think you're right," she said after a while. "As long as someone remembers, things are never completely gone." She brushed a fingertip lightly across the wall as they walked. "Places disappear. Languages change. People die. But someone always remembers a story, or writes something down, or leaves behind enough that another person can ask the right questions. Maybe that's all history really is. One person refusing to let another be forgotten."

His mention of a day job earned the faintest smile. "What is your day job?" she asked, genuine curiosity outweighing caution for the moment. "Mine is technically being a student." She gave a small shrug. "Although I suspect I spend almost as much time climbing through ruins as I do attending lectures, so I'm not entirely certain my instructors would agree with that description."

As they rounded another bend, she found herself considering the image he had painted of a more unified galaxy. "I can imagine it," she admitted. "Whether it truly existed quite the way we remember it... I'm less certain." There was no cynicism in her voice, only the caution of someone who had read enough history to know how easily nostalgia filled empty spaces. "Every generation seems to think there was a better one before it. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes they're remembering what people hoped the world was instead of what it actually was."

She let the thought settle before looking ahead into the darkness once more. "But I do think places like this help." Her flashlight swept across another weathered inscription. "Not because they give us perfect answers, but because they remind us that every civilization believed it would last forever." A small, thoughtful smile appeared. "That's a surprisingly humbling thing to discover over and over again."

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

Vendryn grimaced, as if realizing he had given her a perfect opportunity to inquire. Of course he had. And now if he didn't answer her question, he would likely shatter what trust they had built thus far. But how could he answer?

He paused, eyes half-lidded in thought, as if weighing out the answer in his head before allowing it to pass his lips.

Finally, he sighed, and turned to face her. "I am a planetary governor in service to the Sith Order." The answer was clear, concise, and entirely failed to address whether or not he himself was a Sith. "The world I govern is a moderately populous one, prosperous and stable. My duties and responsibilities consume much of my time and attention, aside from... carefully planned excursions such as this one. If I should fail to return within a short period, there would certainly be a significant effort sent to determine my whereabouts, and a large number of careless and very unpleasant people would scour this place for me." He sighed, irritated. "So I have some peace, and some privacy... as long as I stay within my bounds." He gave her a thin-lipped smile. "Somewhat like a student. Permission slips and everything," he stated, drily.

"So you are a student, then? Awfully remiss of your teachers to allow you such explorations by yourself. You know, there are other institutions which might make better use of your gifts, Meri Vale. And certainly would invest more in your education and well-being than to leave you alone to poke around old ruins."

"In fact, I, myself, was raised in one such institution. Their primary membership is drawn from... those without familial connections," he added, without stating if he was one of those, either, "but the institution has chapterhouses all across the Galaxy, admitting only the brightest of students. You've likely heard of them: The Del'therak House." He held up his primary hands defensively. "Purely apolitical, neutral, with holdings in the Republic, Sith Order, and even the Mandalorian Empire."

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri was quiet for a few moments after Vendryn answered. It was, she realized, a very carefully constructed answer. He had told her what he did without quite saying who he was. She suspected that had been intentional.

"A planetary governor," she repeated thoughtfully. "I wasn't expecting that answer." The corner of her mouth lifted slightly. "Although I suppose it does explain why you speak as though every hallway is a philosophical discussion waiting to happen."

She considered what he had said about students wandering into ruins on their own before giving a small shrug. "The Academy doesn't send me into places like this." Her flashlight swept slowly across another weathered section of wall. "Usually I do that to myself." There was no embarrassment in the admission. "My instructors encourage curiosity. They don't necessarily encourage following it into abandoned underground complexes."

The mention of the Del'therak House caught her attention far more than she intended to show. She had heard the name before, though only in passing, usually attached to stories of remarkable scholars or unusually gifted graduates whose lives seemed to scatter across every corner of the galaxy. A neutral institution surviving for millennia through education alone was...unusual. Perhaps even remarkable.
"I've heard of it," she admitted. "Mostly references in historical material. It seems to appear quietly throughout history without ever becoming the center of it." She looked at him with open curiosity. "That's...rather impressive, actually."

She thought about his suggestion for another moment before shaking her head gently.

"I appreciate the compliment," she said. "But I don't think my teachers have neglected me." A faint smile returned. "If anything, they've been patient enough to tolerate my habit of disappearing into ruins whenever an unanswered question presents itself."

Her gaze drifted back toward the deeper passage.

"Besides..." she said quietly, "I'm beginning to suspect that no institution, no matter how prestigious, can really teach someone to do this." She gestured toward the ancient corridor stretching into darkness. "You either feel compelled to keep asking questions...or you don't."

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

He gave a soft snort. "Please, Meri, don't blame my love of philosophy on that. Most of the people I deal with wouldn't recognize the philosophies in their own 'autobiographies'. I don't understand at all what makes some people think that merely being alive is a noteworthy thing. Perhaps if they had done something with their station that would be worthy of note, but it's the literary equivalent of... writing your name in the snow. It will be gone just as quickly and leave just as much of a mark on the world." It was clear that writing wasn't his first choice of words; the intentional substitution was the closest thing he'd spoken to a vulgarity.

"Much to the misfortune of my peers, I've always had a love of philosophy, and a passion for the role of the Sith's Advocate. I will argue my own stances and those of others every bit as happily; agreeing with me is often a trap I like to lay for the less savvy 'politicians' whom I do business with. It's so rare to see someone willing to speak their mind." He sighed, heavily.

He let her speak, and made a so-so gesture with his hand at the end. "No, but an artisan without the proper tools cannot do their work well. It is not their purpose to teach a desire to learn, anyways; without one, there's no way you would pass the entrance trials." He gave a slight, airy wave. "No, what the House gives you is foundation. Connections, resources, networks, access. The opportunity to acquire the tools to perform your craft to the best of your ability." He paused, sensing he had spoken as much on the topic as perhaps he should; too much would likely drive her away.

"The House has existed, in one form or another, longer than any currently operating multisystem polity. It has seen them come and go, and recognizes that, in the long term, such arbitrary political boundaries often serve only to limit. To reduce. Why, one of my fellow Graduates actually serves as a Senator in the High Republic. I have nothing but respect for him and the devotion with which he serves the needs and interests of his own world. As you can imagine, it has been... complex to keep in touch, but we do still discuss... non-sensitive matters, from time to time, as old friends ought to do. Republics, Empires, they come and go. The Galaxy remains. We are at war and yet we are still friends; one day, we will be at peace, and that friendship will remain."

It was odd to see him speaking so openly of himself, displaying these things proudly to her as if they were walking down a hall of achievements instead of the dusty depths of an old ruin, his hands making small illustrative gestures as he spoke.

Only when they reached another intersection did he pause, peering around it. His lips dipped into a frown, his feet spreading into the beginnings of a fighting stance. He didn't speak, instead letting the grim press of his lips explain his thoughts clearly.

A badly damaged droid lay crumpled against one of the walls. It was difficult at a glance to tell how it had been felled, but it had been brought down in combat; there was carbonized scoring on the walls, though it was hard to tell whether they originated from its own blaster, lying on the floor a few feet away, with a drained power cell, or if it was its attacker. The dust was heavily scuffed and displaced, rendering it difficult to tell what or how many creatures were involved in its destruction.

Finally, he muttered, "Damnable droids."

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri listened more than she spoke, allowing Vendryn's words to settle into place one by one. He had a habit of answering questions in ways that somehow managed to satisfy them while leaving the most important detail untouched. He served the Sith Order. He governed a world. He had studied at the Del'therak House. Yet the question she had almost asked remained unanswered.

Was he Sith?

She glanced sideways at him for only a moment before returning her attention to the corridor. If he had wished to tell her, he would have. If he had wished to deceive her, she doubted he would have volunteered nearly as much as he already had. For now, she was content to let the question remain where so many others in archaeology lived: unanswered until evidence presented itself.

"Why wouldn't I pass the entrance trials?" she asked after a thoughtful silence. There was no offense in her voice, only genuine curiosity. "You sounded rather certain." A faint smile appeared. "I admit I'm curious whether you've already evaluated me, or whether you're simply very confident in your admissions process."

The notion of a place existing outside the shifting borders of governments intrigued her far more than the political implications. An institution surviving through centuries of wars, republics, empires, and changing frontiers was, historically speaking, almost unbelievable. Most organizations became products of their age. The Del'therak House, if Vendryn was describing it accurately, seemed to have outlived ages entirely.

She was about to ask another question when Vendryn abruptly stopped.

Her flashlight followed his gaze.

The battered droid rested where it had fallen, its frame twisted by violence. Carbon scoring scarred both the walls and the durasteel shell, while the blaster lying several feet away spoke of a fight that had ended long before either of them had arrived. Meri crouched carefully beside it, studying the damage without touching anything, allowing her eyes to follow the disturbed dust across the floor.

Then Vendryn muttered under his breath.

"Damnable droids."

Meri looked up at him, blinking once.

"What's wrong with droids?" she asked simply.

Her tone carried no challenge, only honest curiosity.

"This one looks like it was defending something... or someone." Her gaze drifted back to the shattered machine. "I'd rather understand why it was here before deciding whether it deserved the criticism."

Vendryn Del'therak

 

[Vendryn Del'therak]

He quirked an eyebrow at her, a small grin tugging at his lips. "I'm quite confident that you would pass, but that is not my judgment to make. I am not an Adjutant, myself. The testing process is very thorough, but it tests character as much as ability." He made a small, dismissive gesture of his lower right hand, as if brushing the line of questioning away.

"Where there is one droid, there are often more. Many more. And clearly they are armed. Meaning, taken together, that most likely..." A groan of frustration, "There are still active combatant droids roaming the halls, ready to shoot me in the back as soon as I find something interesting or get entangled in my work. They have the most execrable timing with their interruptions." It sounded personal. It also sound like he had learned that lesson the hard way. "I am certain it was following its programming to the best of its limited ability, hobbling around in endless circles until it found someone to inconvenience with a blaster bolt. And droids," he growled, "Never negotiate. Never back down. Then you have to take them apart piece by piece to keep them from getting back up. And then," his voice rose a little in greater frustration, "they'll blow up their cores, making a big damnable mess of everything just when you think they're dealt with."

He looked like he was thinking about passing a kick at the crumpled heap, but appeared to consider his soft shoes a strong argument against it.

He sighed heavily. "But I suppose it's important to determine whether it was destroyed by our archivist friend, those who pursued him... or else long, long before." He squatted down, upper arms clasped before him, lower arms out to his sides for balance. "The fact that they were able to dispatch it... yet so messily... means it was likely multiple assailants, likely armored." He grunted, displeased. "... and there's not a lot of dust accrued since then," in a softer voice, "which means it hasn't been all that terribly long. It seems like there's a chance we might get our answers regardless."

His tongue flicked out, brushing along his lips thoughtfully, and he pinched it gently between his teeth, his expression going distant. He didn't reach out again with the Force; he seemed instead to be thinking rather intently, curiosity and caution warring in his expression... and caution seemed to be pulling his outer eyes' gaze to Meri. Concerned for her, it seemed.

What a strange man.

Meri Vale