"Doors to Milliways are rare enough that it's unusual to have two people from the same world there at once if they don't come in together, but I don't know if they know that. They do know I can bring people there, maybe they just checked to make sure?"

Ana chews on her lower lip. "I hope so. I think an area anti-Force spell should take care of any problems from that."

Nod. "Really what we should probably be trying to think about is sneaky unexpected stuff. I know they like that kind of thing; when I asked them why they wanted to learn my magic, that's the answer they gave, was so that they'd have an unexpected advantage against their enemies."

Hmm.

"I think having it in a different universe she can't sneak up on and not being able to use the Force is going to pretty well limit her options on weird sneaky Sith-y things. But I don't really know a whole lot about what she might be capable of along those lines. You should ask Master Satele."

The kobold nods and ponders.

"Actually, I should make it so that if they leave, everyone leaves, just to be on the safe side... I'm not sure how my magic will interact with force ghosts."

"Force... ghosts?"

What.

"...apparently that's what they're called? The translation spell thinks so anyway. The, um..." Sketchpad, go. "Those."

Glowy see-through people-shaped things. Um.

"I've never heard of these before. Um. I think maybe we should move to the library. Or see if Bar has any information."

"Sure. Bar will have everything the library does and then some, probably, I haven't asked if they have holocrons yet." Hand?

Hand.

Milliways.

Hi, Bar. Research time again. What are force ghosts?

Bar has very few books on the subject. It seems Force ghosts are an obscure, unstudied phenomenon. When a powerful Force user dies suddenly, they may leave something like a psychic imprint in the surrounding area. This imprint will have the knowledge and memories of the person who died, but will not be able to form new ones. One book draws parallels between ghosts and holocron gatekeepers. There are rare instances of ghosts that seem to actively use the Force. Ghosts are always confined to the area where they died, usually within a radius of approximately two hundred meters.

...huh.

"Well, the bit where they can't leave an area is definitely wrong, and these ones can use the Force. The rest is right as far as I know, but not very useful."

"Yeah. It doesn't look like Bar can do holocrons, we might be able to find something in the Archives. Or ask Master Satele."

Nod. "I'm going to be telling Satele everything I know about them anyway, it won't be hard to ask. ...actually... Bar, is 'the Sith with the force ghosts and the big collection of things, on Dromund Kaas' enough for you to check if there are any things that mention them? It seems like there's a chance, anyway, if Satele recognized them from even less information than that."

Bar is able to produce materials identifying the Sith as Darth Occlus, member of the Dark Council and head of the Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge.

"A Dark Councilor? She's important, then."

"...huh. That doesn't make as much sense as I'd like. Well, that or they lied to me, but that doesn't make very much sense either - I asked what they thought of the other Sith and they said they avoid them as much as they can because they think they're boring, and I hadn't told them enough to have a good guess of why I was asking, I don't think."

"Huh. Maybe she was lying, then. Wouldn't put it past a Sith to lie just on principle. But... the Dark Council is basically the governing body of the Empire, but 'Pyramid of Ancient Knowledge' doesn't sound like it would have much to do with day-to-day stuff. So maybe she actually doesn't have to deal with other Sith? I don't know."

"It really wouldn't've been to their benefit to lie, there, and I did tell them enough to know that." She shrugs. "Maybe we'll be able to figure it out later. Anyway, Bar, do you have anything else about them?"

Darth Occlus, original name unknown. Born a slave, her Force talent is discovered early, is sent to the Sith Academy on Korriban. Becomes the apprentice of one Darth Zash. Is a key element in the Empire's final subjugation of the factory world Balmorra. Darth Zash dies under mysterious circumstances, is made Lord Occlus. Almost immediately has conflicts with a Darth Thanaton, who sat in the Pyramid of Knowledge before Occlus. Assists in driving off Republic reconstruction efforts from the planet of Taris. Records become spotty for a while, she resurfaces much stronger than she had been and continues clashing with Thanaton. Finally kills him during the fighting on Corellia and takes his seat on the Dark Council. Reorganizes her inherited power base, makes changes in archival policy that increase her direct control over artifacts and lore, pursues a more aggressive acquisitions strategy.

Partway through this she orders lunch for the two of them - finger food platters for both.

"That sounds pretty promising. I should probably read up on Thanaton at some point, but I'll save that for when I have more time. I'll want to make extra sure that they don't bring any strange things with them, but I already knew that - I can teleport someone without the things in their pockets, if I set the spell up just right; they might not be happy about it but I don't think they'll be able to claim that it's not a reasonable safety thing."

"Promising how?"

"There's a way this story makes the other things add up. Maybe they picked a fight with Thanaton so they could become a councilor, but maybe not, maybe Thanaton picked a fight with them, and becoming a councilor was a side effect of killing them. Or maybe they just really wanted that pyramid thing and that was the way to get it, or maybe a little bit of both. If they're not actually interested in being a councilor, it's going to be much easier to get them to be okay with a plan that involves their council maybe not existing any more."

"Ohhh. Yeah, that makes sense."

Nom nom. "These cheese sticks are pretty good. Thanks, Bar." Pat pat the magic bar.