"...That is not false, and - well, I have been being more cautious than I already was, myself - but I don't know how the idea that I was assuming that the teleportation was Force-mediated arose; it surely can't be, or we would see more teleporting Jedi.  Which we don't.

"But...  What threat is left, really?  What things could yet lurk in ways that meaningfully pose a threat?  Where could some disastrous consequence arise?  There's not..."

"Oh.  Right.  You don't have my intelligence reports.

"I just can't find where the Jedi would have the time to have new, secret ways of fucking with things with which one should not fuck.  They're too busy with the teleportation already, and I haven't seen any other major diversions of resources - which they would almost certainly be doing if they had something else like teleportation, or even just some scalable edge.  ...That doesn't necessarily speak to the longer future, but - for the next six months, I'm not expecting any big surprises beyond the one we already have, and I expect our strategic situation to be very different by then regardless.

"I do suppose there could be some sort of niche where the possible divination is outsizedly useful, but...  Well.  It seems to have so far been of use only to archaeology."

She's still skeptical, but coming around. "Say more about that last part?"

"...Elcie, if you would?"

"Yes, of course.  Much of this is speculative in part, as, if anything, the Dark Council is a lot more dangerous to poke into the affairs of, compared to Jedi - Jedi will not take pleasure in inventing new and horrible ways to die - but even as impenetrable a fief as the Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge has been under the present Councillor's tenure, you do find that people talk around the edges - and sometimes, things not happening is as big a sign as things happening.

"It is the considered belief of our analysts that the behavior of certain contractors that are favored by the Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge indicates a disruption in their usual patterns that is not prefaced by concurrent environmental disruption such as a Sith Temple appearing from under a landslide, but some other sort of discovery - the sort that would normally follow from, say, finding a star map in another ancient ruin...  Except that, to the best of our knowledge, there wasn't anything relevantly pending at the time - the last big temple find was a while ago - and the actual dig would not have been scrambled into existence so hastily, judging by the billing, if anyone had been even suspecting that secrets necessary for Ancient Lore were to be had.  It's as if a key to knowledge fell out of the sky and landed in the Councilor's lap."

Hm. "I could see that being the teleportation, places I can see but not see how to get to aren't common but a Temple would be the sort of place that would have one and that could have gotten them a new map. The real question there is how the Councilor got access to the teleportation or anything like it."

"At the moment we think that the Councilor in question was quite literally the first local person our teleporter encountered, and that - well.  We don't know why there wasn't a more serious attempt to press the teleporter into the Empire's service, but if we were so pressed...  I suspect the Councilor didn't actually give one single damn about the Empire except instrumentally, in retrospect, because if that's the case, then that explains some other things."

"That is a disadvantage to the Emperor's approach, yes," she says, clearly amused. "I still wonder how it happened that the Councilor and the Jedi both got the teleportation, that seems odd from any angle, either of them would want to stop the other. Unless the Councilor had a way to know that this would happen and wanted to be the biggest fish by far on this side of the pond, but even then I have trouble imagining the Jedi playing along."

"I'm not sure that matters to us directly - I'm certainly not interested in coming to a Councilor's attention - but if we can figure anything out about it maybe we can take a similar route."

"My present hypothesis is that neither the Jedi nor the Councilor actually have the teleportation, yet - that the uses we are seeing and have seen are still mediated by our singular outside-context actor.  I...Hm."

"If I had to speculate about how this could happen...

"Our teleporter - lands in the Pyramid's domain, somehow.  The Councillor, somehow, leaves a positive impression despite...  Everything that would seem to indicate that that shouldn't have been possible, but - outside context problem, outside context morality, possibly.

"Quite likely, even.  The Force is rather a heavy factor in our lives.

"Then...

"Well.  If you are travelling to a new world, you do not just ask the first person you meet there what it's like and be done with it, and I assume that our visitor did some research and decided they liked the Jedi much better, institutionally speaking....

"...but, nonetheless, probably didn't stop liking that Councilor, because - the Pyramid alone still stands, of all the spheres of power.  And I just can't see how that could have come to pass without agreement with the Jedi... that only our teleporter could possibly have pressed.  Only the teleporter would have leverage to get them both to the negotiating table.  Only the teleporter could be a reasonably external third party, for that matter.  One without sufficient historical ties to either side and thus the best option available, even if, you know, it's clear who our visitor favors, of Jedi and Sith.

"If I could get someone who only somewhat favored the Jedi to ensure they didn't stab me on sight while I tried to talk them into continuing that policy, I'd go for that."

"Yeah. And I don't know anything about the Councilor but I can't imagine we have a worse case to make for being left alone - I am a little worried about what happens if the Councilor finds out the offer has been extended to other Sith, though."

"...I can't rule that out, but that seems like it's a consequence of things already going quite well.  I don't think either of us are going to want to displace them from the Archives, either, and - well, if there's one thing that definitely matters to them, that is it."

"If the Jedi agree to leave us alone but the Councilor wants to hunt us in particular down I'm not sure that's any better than the current situation. I suspect that's an easier issue to address than most of the others, though, it seems reasonably likely that we'll have an opportunity to find out more about the Councilor in the process of setting things up to talk to the Jedi and we're already going to want to wait until as late as possible in that process to start limiting our alternatives, I'm sure, or if that doesn't get us the right kind of opportunity we might be able to find or make one of our own, with fewer unknown unknowns lurking everywhere."

She nods.  "I think that any Councilor that is capable of making a peace with literally our ancient enemies who have undoubtedly tried to kill them is not going to bat an eye at living and letting live with a few more people who haven't personally attempted to kill them and don't have any plans to.

"Though I don't imagine that being of too much positive interest will necessarily be good for our health, either.  Depending on their motivations."

"Anyway...  Yes.  That sounds about right."

"That is true," she says thoughtfully. "If they can make peace with the Jedi they can probably make peace with us. It occurs to me that we could try going to them and asking to be under their protection, but I don't want to, I want the Empire to be fallen not just in general but for myself and my crew in particular and that's not that."

She nods.

"Honestly, it is going to be interesting, figuring out what it means to be a Sith beyond the Empire."

"It is," she nods. "I have - some experience with that, I wasn't completely isolated in my hermitage, but hopefully it'll be different with the Empire gone altogether."

"...I think it would be very different, to be a hermit somewhere now that the Empire can't hurt anyone anymore."

"It might. They'll still have plenty of reason to be afraid of us, though, if we're living openly as Sith."

"I suppose so.  But - if we are some of the only Sith remaining, we can make it mean something better."

"Mm. Maybe."

"I think it would have been possible, if you'd started out differently. Shall I-" she nods indicatively at Kalbetis.

"I trust your judgement."

"She'd Fallen, killing her master. She's better now."

A soft 'oh', more a noise than a word.

Then, a nod.

"You got out.  And then you clawed yourself back out of the depths of the Dark that you'd been driven to."

"Much of what I could say here would no doubt seem trite, but please know that you have my utmost respect for this accomplishment."

"Yes."

"And they won't need to know that that's a possibility, with such a negligible chance of it coming up for them."

"Yes, all right."