Ewww, Ysalamiri goo.

They helped the new arrivals get settled in, left Lydia (a Sith temple is noplace for a little girl, no matter how capable), and tried to get more information out of Zan.
The Jedi told them about this temple. It was built on a Dark Side well, which naturally generated evil energy that had flooded the moon with its taint long ago. When opened, the temple stayed that way for 24 hours.

The temple had been sealed before, but when they got there this time, it was wide open. Looked like the crew had been right about their guesses regarding Dalt.

They entered, and soon stumbled across some still-operational Sith alchemy labs. Dude, are those Vader clones? Oh, we are so bombing those. There were also notes about three books that the Emperor had written, that told a person all about how to become a Sith. Definitely need to get those out of enemy hands. Also, they worked out that some device had been built to cap the well and channel its power into things in the temple. It seemed to be providing power to the lab, and perhaps to something else as well--some other device located deep within the temple that probably needed to be shut down.

At about this point, they decided that this building would need to be destroyed. But it was made of materials resistant even to bombardment from starships. Z had the solution. He carries an awful lot of explosive, and started planting them along the hallways. Blowing it up from outside? Not doable. Blowing it up from inside? Oh so very doable.

Then they split into two groups. The first group found...hey, that says this is Zan's room! Man, this guy gets around way more than we thought. Scoping that out, they found a closet full of different uniforms, along with ident cards for, oh, about fifteen different people...all of whom looked like Zan. Well, well. Our Zan is quite the spy. My, don't we have questions.

They tried to keep this under wraps, but that didn't work out when people started getting attacked in the hallway. They killed three droids, each of which had a human organ hidden within it. Not so coincidentally, the Emperor's chambers, which the other group located at just about the same time, had little holes for various organs. Looked like he was using them as a key, the psychopath.

Since the cat was out of the bag, they confronted Zan about the thing. He calmly answered that he was a Bothan spy. "You don't look like a Bothan," said Ree. "Okay, not a Bothan spy, but I mean I worked with them during the Rebellion." Right. Well...it's not like it could hurt, so Kedrihm'Val gave him back his ident cards. Zan was very happy. He said he'd put a lot of work into those.

Okay, so , *glop glop glop* they got his rooms open. Z waited outside to keep lookout while the others went in. But as they stepped into the antechamber, the front door closed, trapping Z outside, and a divider came down, leaving Oola, Ree, and Zan in the main chambers while Kedrihm'Val, Erin, and Onna got boxed in. The outer chamber began moving, apparently circling around the inner rooms in disorienting fashion, and then a passageway opened up with stairs. Nothing else to do but head down, I guess.

Meanwhile, the others walked on in to the Emperor's private chambers. And what should they find but Dalt, sitting on the throne that the Emperor had (rather obsessively in my opinion) had installed into his bedroom.

(Insert various jokes here about thrones and flush buttons. I mean, really, the guy was seriously geriatric! *flush* Vader: "Oh. Aw, come on, not while I'm standing talking to you! Man...")

Aaaanyway. There was Dalt, sitting cheerfully on the Emperor's throne. "Feels pretty good," he says. Then he asked the group if they'd found the Emperor's books yet. He'd been looking all over for the things. He thought they had to be in a secret chamber here someplace, but not a sign so far (cut to other people walking down stairs). They admitted they hadn't found a thing, and then the fighting started.

It was a good fight. Ree confronted Dalt, with Zan and Oola backing her up. The latter two dropped a desk on him at one point, but then Ree faltered and nearly got nailed by Dalt's Force Lightning...which Zan intercepted with his own lightsaber. Okay, Zan's a Jedi?

Aha. AHA! Jedi Master in disguise! Yes!

Meanwhile, the others found their way to a secret chamber downstairs, with a small library and a desk with a robe draped over it. There were two books in a drawer, an evil holocron, and a third book, lying open with a pen beside it. Kedrihm'Val and the others were a little freaked out about how it all looked like he'd just stepped out for a moment and would be coming back any second...but anyway, figuring they'd found what they were looking for, they carefully dropped those books into a pack while Kedrihm'Val stowed the holocron in a pouch on his belt (following the 'don't put your eggs in one basket' adage). They started back upstairs.

While the Jedi fought, Oola was trying to figure out how to get the others back out. Eventually she worked it out, and got the moving chambers moved back to where they'd started. When the new arrivals emerged, Dalt telekinetically pulled the holocron from Kedrihm'Val's belt. He'd finally got what he'd come for. He paused for just a second to gloat, and then as he moved to leave, Ree shot the holocron, shattering it.

While he was frozen in shock, Z took him out from the doorway.

They gathered up the broken pieces, and moved on.

Deep within the Sith temple, they came across the device they'd been looking for. There was a living brain hooked up to the gizmo--apparently the remnant of an ancient Sith lord--which kept the temple running. They dealt with that, then went past to find a deep, featureless shaft. Looking upward, they saw wiring and piping, along with maintenance robots moving along it, along with a cap, waaaay far up at the top. It all seemed to be equipment to channel the well's energy into a beam. None of it was within reach. Looking down, they saw...nothing. Just a seemingly bottomless pit.

Oola tested the drop with a bit of metal, and counted about 60 feet. It was just very dark. After contemplating it for a bit, Kedrihm'Val finally jumped down, only to land on a hidden mobile platform just a few feet below them. It carried them to the bottom, where they found a computer chamber. Several really horrid-looking mutated evil Wookies resided in stasis in capsules in the room. The crew decided it'd be best to leave those alone. This seemed to be the bottom, and yet no power source was visible.

Oola found a secret panel. Sliding into the tunnel and down, they wound up in a simple cave, with two rock slabs lying on the ground like grave covers. It turned out, there were two powerful ancient Dark Side spirits--the spirits of ancient Sith who'd been buried here--captured in little bottles. They were powering everything. But what was the purpose? Study of everything revealed that the Emperor had apparently blended Sith alchemy with modern technology to create a massive, planet-sized Dark Side weapon. He could have zapped a world with this thing and tainted it all.

Time to put that sucker out of commission. They ruined the mechanics, and took the flasks with the trapped Dark Side spirits, and then ran away from the evil mutant Wookies that came after them. Escaping the temple in two Sith fighters that were hidden outside the cave, Z bombed the whole monstrosity to kingdom come.

Z carries an awful lot of explosives.

"Good riddance to that thing," said Zan. "I think there's at least one more," replied Kedrihm'Val, who had a feeling they'd just found the cause of what had been done to his planet.

Locking the spirits away inside the ship's vault, and stowing the books and holocron bits safely away, they headed back to Coruscant. None of the Force-sensitives got a decent sleep for the first night, until Zan peevishly brought a container out of his belongings, took out the flasks, and dumped them into the container of bluish goo. Suddenly, an oppressive presence seemed to vanish from the ship.

"What is that?" asked Kedrihm'Val.

"Ysalamiri pheromone," replied Zan. "How do you think I was able to work so close to Vader for all those years without him ever noticing? I used to inject this stuff."

They just stared.

Back at the Jedi Temple, none of the Masters really wanted to touch the goop. "Yuck," said Kyp, opening the box. "What is this, lizard pee?" The look on Zan's face was priceless.