Take Alternate Route

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

CASTLE MIRIAMELE
KILIA IV

In a library of offworld datacards and local books, by candlelight, Mara examined her aunt's handwritten list of all she'd lost with her vault ship, many years ago. Mara and [member="Darth Ayra"] had searched for that ship, each for her own purposes, but without success. An encounter with another Sith Lord had set Mara on edge, and she'd resolved to pursue an alternate course, explore other ideas, this time on her own terms. She held stock in Akure, Iron Crown, Silk, and Arakyd; she had connections through her philanthropy; sources at that level Knew Things, and she had access that Ayra couldn't match. But everything came down to this one piece of local paper. With a list that Ayra did not possess.

***​

The internal vaults, also made of nearly indestructible Mandalorian iron, and protected by traps and heavy locks, were crammed full of treasures. One vault was closer to the front of the ship. It contained:

• The Belia Darzu Holocron
• A Jedi datacron on the Chu'unthor expedition and Dathomiri magic
• A datacron on the complete works and traditions of the Sorcerers of Tund

The other vault was closer to the back of the ship. It contained:

• The King Nakgru Holocron
• The Dray Holocron
• A Jedi datacron on the Aing-Tii Codex and the safe routes through the Kathol Rift
• The writings of Odan-Urr

A research lab in the middle of the ship contained:

• The Holocron of Velok
• A scroll on Sith Alchemy, the kind that twists life and can make monsters with enough practice
• A translated copy of the Taurannik Codex
• A Jedi datacron on Force-imbued blades

The main suite contained a very small Selab tree, and:

• A number of Akure products
• Six hundred thousand credits

The bridge contained:

• A Sith Abattar, hung over the communications panel

Mara opened public and semi-private auction records, and began to dig.

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

The Sith abattar, for starters, was a dead end. Rave had recovered that from Ayra and Savan. And besides that, the only abattars found in auction records had been created by AEI, rather than originals. A brief and interesting mention in a Spaarti auction turned out to stem from an earlier bid by Akure. Yes, the abattar was a dead end. Mara found herself wondering, though, where her aunt had stowed it. Not that she had any use for it herself, but as a useful and yet comparatively harmless Dark Side artifact, it might serve as a useful bargaining chip with Ayra.

Mara moved on to the next items she could easily remove from the list. Selab trees weren't rare enough to track. Credits, though, were digital currency -- and yet Rave had been unable to track them down with AEI's resources at her disposal. With a shrug, Mara put in a request anyway. It would be shuttled from her terminal to the castle's comm to a satellite to an Underground relay, and thence to people who could do a little financial intelligence. Maybe something would result. Maybe not. In either case, she could confirm she'd covered her bases. She moved on to the next portion of the list. Akure products -- no serial numbers. Untraceable and too well disseminated in the galaxy. Rave had done her work too well.

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

Now this was interesting. A datacron on Force-imbued blades and similar materials had popped up at auction several years ago. It wasn't a perfect fit, but this 'Rigard Morte' had sold it-

-months before Rave lost her treasure ship. Dead end.

With a hiss of annoyance, Mara continued on to other parts of the list. The Taurannik Codex produced no results.

It occurred to her that she wasn't searching all auction records. The Southern Systems Bazaar auction series, by and large, wasn't included in these records. That constituted a major omission, and she'd have to look into that. She didn't have SSB auction record access by default. In the meantime, she kept looking.

Her eyebrows rose when she actually found one. Probably, anyway. A scroll on Sith alchemy, sold by Isley Verd -- who she knew and liked; he'd given her a chunk of Arakyd for Rave's sake -- and sold to...Jorus Merrill. Along with a bunch of other really nasty scrolls. Presumably, Dad had wrapped them in nullification resin and dropped them in deep space or something. But dang.

Perhaps Rave had meant for her to find all the family secrets; perhaps that's why she'd left the list, but left off the fact that Isley had owned the scroll eventually.

 

[Mara D'Lessio Merrill]

The Holocron of Velok -- no dice, though someone named Alu'ravenor had once bid the location of Velok's stripped-out private vault at a Spaarti auction. A cryptic note, though, led Mara to one of her aunt's journals, and thence to another-

Ah. Dissero had that. Well, that was a pulka of a different color. One more trail that Rave had left her; one more seemingly lost treasure in the hands of one of Rave's closest friends.

"I foresee a really irritated Sith Lord," Mara murmured, and kept looking. At this point, she was starting to actually despair of finding anything. Still, she'd saved the most easily searchable for last. She turned to the writings of Odan-Urr.

Naturally, nothing. It seemed that someone either found Odan-Urr's writings indispensable, or worthless. And if the latter, shouldn't they at least have tried to sell it at auction like every other piece of dross?

Nothing else on the list turned up either, not even big-name tickets like Nakgru and Darzu.