You have a personal message!!!

A few hours after the swords have been stolen, everyone except Mina receives a personal text message on their datalinks:

Read in Private!

Do not discuss this or anything sensitive in front of Mina. Through her Mark, Xel'lotath and her minions know everything she knows. We have to deal with this immediately before we can even begin to make plans concerning Xel'lotath and Mantorok, and time is short. I know of only one definitive way to permanently break this connection, and I would request everyone's aid in coming up with an alternative -- and quickly. We literally have no time to lose.

I'll, uh, go do some research.

[ETA and OOC: It occurs to me that it's not at all clear how Dannel delivers that reply. I think he just says it the next time he randomly encounters you in the hallway. "About that thing... I'll, uh, go do some research." And then he keeps walking.]

A little while after that, Dannel responds with a private text message of his own, also sent to everyone but Mina:

Well, I've looked into it. And I wish I had better news. I don't know how Freya came to the conclusion that Xel'lotath is telepathically spying through Mina, but it's at least plausible. The Mark wasn't designed for that purpose, but it can theoretically be used to strengthen telepathic Force bonds, a bit like being able to sense the presence of an individual through the Force, but vastly more powerful. And between Xel'lotath's immense age and power, and the proximity effect, it's not too surprising that she was able to get right inside Mina's head once we landed on Ando. Exactly how much information she might be getting from Mina, I don't know, but it would certainly be a good idea to be cautious.

As for getting rid of it, the sources I've consulted name two possibilities: "An object or person bearing a mark must be destroyed or killed. Or a person who can corrupt another person to the darkside may be able to pass their mark on in death."

I don't think we should jump to any hasty action, though. I certainly don't think we should kill Mina, which I'm sure is the solution Freya was thinking of. It's possible that the holocron we're trying to acquire might have more information that we can use. Unfortunately, I think we're going to need Mina to get it...

It came from a reliable source.

The fact that the Butcher was able to channel energies to her through the mark the whole way from Nar Shadda would indicate that the range of it is larger than simple proximity, probably because of Xel'lotath's sheer power. Also, the link does not appear to work only one way since Xel'lotath reached out through it to influence my dreams while we were on our way to Ando.

I agree that the holocron might be useful, but I am not going to pin our hopes upon it.

Dannel, is your knowledge in this academic or practical? How far does the connection go? Is Xel'lotath at all vulnerable since the mark was not transferred to one of her minions? If she can use the mark to feed on Darkside energies, can that somehow be exploited to force her to willingly break the connection?

I am currently busy researching several other things, and while these questions are weighing on me I cannot divide my attention any more to address them.

Artemis responds via text messages in the same manner: to everyone but poor Mina.

Freya offers a far better idea than I was going to put out. This sort of thing is definitely not my specialty. That said...I might as well share my own crazy and probably impossible idea. It's possible for people to be cut off entirely from the force, right? If exploiting the mark against Xel'lotath doesn't work, what about selectively cutting the mark off from the force using a similar technique? Is that even possible?

Freya: It's a good question. I don't yet have a good answer, but I'll keep looking. I'm not pinning all our hopes on the holocron, either, but I'd rather not act until we have whatever information we may be able to get from it.

Artemis: I was thinking that if we have to, we can put Mina into the box, although I'd really rather not. But you're thinking... what? Putting Force shielding around just part of her body? It does seem unlikely...

I have a feeling that Mina wouldn't appreciate the box as much as I did. I'd rather not, either. I was thinking ... using Sever Force on just the mark itself. The technique is usually used on entire people, but the mark is unusual in that it's a gateway to another person. I don't know if it's possible, but maybe Sever Force could be used to place a wall of light-side energy in the mark, effectively barricading the transmission.

Do you know how to do that?

We could put her in the box, but that wouldn't solve the root problem.

If I thought it would help, I would just cut it out with my lightsaber. However, I'm pretty sure the mark is just an outward manifestation of her link with Xel'lotath. Simply covering it would not help. Mina herself would have to be encased.

Something along the lines of a carefully crafted warding tattoo inked with Ysalimari blood went through my head, but the little beasts are, coincidentally, having their own problems. And that's also farther away and protected by the Republic.

When I was told to deal with this I was given a second option, although I am loathe to bring it up. However, since Artemis has already mentioned something similar... it is possible for a sufficiently powerful master of the Force to draw the mark from her, but the end result would probably be worse than killing her, in my mind.

(OOC: be careful. I think the board has a problem with simultaneous posting. I had to rewrite this since it looks like I submitted it at the same time as either Betty or Alex, and it lost the post. Hell, I see the problem. The board stores the next available ID# as hidden variable on the page. If someone else posts before you submit yours, their post can take that number and the board fails silently when you post. This must be an old version of phpBB since they fixed that years ago.)

Dannel: I... don't know. I've heard that people with battle meditation can do that sort of thing, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to manage it alone. I'm not anywhere near strong enough. A group effort might work. I'll have to look into it some more.

Freya: I like the idea of the Ysalamiri ink. Rather than trekking across the galaxy, which I agree isn't practical at this very urgent point in time, maybe our contact into the black market could get some. Kerlos? Thoughts?
It seems like cutting the mark out or drawing it out aren't viable options, as you say. If we could just block it, though, without actually trying to remove the mark itself, perhaps that would be easier and less risky to Mina?

Echoing through the air vents, you think you can just make out a voice.

...on sunshine. Whoa whoa whoa. I'm walking on sunshine. Whoa whoa whoa. And don't it....

Listen I know that most of you think I'm just some dumb fighter jock with can mostly wield a lightsaber... which is a pretty fair estimate. There maybe a tactical advantage we may be overlooking. When one finds a leak in their ranks usually you have two options; 1. plug the leak and alert your foe. 2 use the spy to feed false intel and gain a possible tactical over your foe.

Now if we think we can't exploit that fine, I just thought I would bring it up.

Failing blocking/removing the mark and if we think that we will won't be able to steal the cube with out Mina, can we transfer it....say to me, then you can park me in orbit somewhere and go stop the bad guy... the force knows I have already been on both sides of the swords of hate... and we all know how effective I would be on the ground.

I would just hate too see someone like Mina fall..and one of the they teach you in combat flight school is death is always out there waiting for you and you can not fear it.

No. Absolutely not! We are not transferring the Mark to you or anyone else, and, to make myself clear, I would rather kill any of you myself than leave you to die!

I appreciate the sentiment and the courage, but we need to use our heads. Brute force will only make things worse -- especially with the Swords of Hate on their side.

Using her for misinformation is a good idea, but is only useful if we have a plan to distract attention away from. And it will only work once. We should keep this option in mind.

oh don't worry I wasn't planning on dieing in vain..(I know of at least one possible death star reactor out there that could use a suicidal pilot)

I remember hearing stories as a kid of the Inquisitorius who went around to hunt down the Jedi that went into hiding after the Clone War. It was said that they were know to wear amulets made from something call.. T word definitely a T word Talmid Toazre... Taozin yea Taozin that's it.

I did some research on them and these giant lizard creatures could also mask themselves from the Force...

If any of those amulets survived, I'm sure between Daniel, Karlos and yourself we could track one down. So if maybe we took a layered approach to blocking this thing we might be more successful.

OCC: I had vaguely remembered mention of these things in the bad Jedi Private eye book and did some Wookiepedia search.

Much as I hate to agree with Freya, Tryce, I'm also in favor of you not dying.

Also, since Mina already knows we're planning on going after the holocron, I suppose we might as well let her do her part in the plan. Xel'lotath is only watching and talking to her, right? Not directly influencing her actions. So it's not like she'll sabotage the plan. And I still say that we should hold off on taking any action until we see what's on it. If all goes well, it really shouldn't take long to acquire it. And if it does contain anything useful for fighting Xel'lotath, well, we don't necessarily need to tell Mina. (I was going to say that maybe we could tell her that it turned out to be irreparably damaged, but then I remembered that she's the one we'd ask to fix it in that case, so never mind.)

I don't think that Xel'lotath is influencing Mina, although they are in communication. I believe that she can influence the vicinity around Mina, though. In my dream I saw tentacles coming from the Mark, and when I sliced them the events in the dream suddenly stopped. Also, Mina and I woke up at the same time with the same memory of the dream. If Xel'lotath was affecting me directly, Mina would not have been involved. That's my interpretation, anyway.

Either Xel'lotath does not care whether or not we got the holocron, or will either take it or attack us when we get a hold of it.

Are we sure Mina knows about it?

Well, I didn't mention it to her, but I assumed someone had.

I do not have a short term solution but a long term solution might be for Mina to seek redemption. Killing Mina is absolutely out of the question. If you plan to kill her you had better plan to destroy me as well.

Nobody is killing anybody.

Let's not even consider killing as a viable option. Unless it's the sort of temporary death that you can get better from. This is a joke!

I've looked into the Sever Force idea, and I'm withdrawing that. There is just...no way...that I could learn anything that complex anytime soon. If we had an in with someone who does know it and wouldn't screw us over, then maybe that's a viable option.

Thus far, I like the ideas that aren't my own. So unless I get a flash of genius inspiration (doubtful), I'll just...be around...in case anyone needs my technical expertise.

I want to make it clear, that if it ever comes down to any one of you and the Galaxy, I would kill you in a heartbeat, and I would expect the same in return. However, I consider killing the option of last resort. If that truly was the only way I could solve this, I would have already done it without asking.

That said, we are getting off the subject. I brought this up so I could have options beyond killing.

Um, so, OK, I've done some more research into possibilities for somehow getting to Xel'lotath through Mina... The sources I've found do indicate that the connection should be strong enough that Xel'lotath would feel much of what the marked person or object can feel if she is actively scrying through it. Which means that, uh, pain to the marked person could theoretically force her to break the connection, but it would probably only be temporary. And I think we should rule out "torture Mina" as an option, personally.

Oh, but what about something that would cause Xel'lotath pain, but not Mina? Would it be possible to do something with the Light side of the force that wouldn't cause Mina harm, but would injure Xel'lotath through the link?

Artemis wrote:

I like the idea of the Ysalamiri ink. Rather than trekking across the galaxy, which I agree isn't practical at this very urgent point in time, maybe our contact into the black market could get some. Kerlos? Thoughts?

A loud snort of laughter is heard through parts of the ship after Kerlos gets around to checking his messages.

It'll probably be easier to wrangle up half a million creds for the holocon than it would be to get a live ysalamiri.

Besides, we have the nonliving version of the ysalamiri in our cargo hold anyway, the Mandalorian box. If you want ink, metal shavings from the box would probably work as well as lizard blood. It'd probably work better since my understanding is that only a living ysalamiri creates an anti-Force field, tissue from one won't do squat.

Of course we'd first need to acquire a tool capable of getting metal shavings off of the box....

Any of you Jedi scholars know if a universal energy cage would be a better alternative to putting Mina in the box? That might cost less than half a million and cut her off from Xel' without also freaking her out like the box apparently does to you Force user types. I've seen 'em on the market before, the Emperor had hundreds of 'em made back during the Jedi purges after the Clone Wars.

That's why I gave up on the Ysalimir idea: needing to use a living creature, and the fact that they are dying off at an unprecedented rate right now, which I'm sure is nothing more than a coincidence.

I know for certain I could make an amulet that would block the Mark, but it would only be a matter of time until Xel'lotath broke through it and it certainly would not work on Ando where her presence is too strong.

Unfortunately, these are all long-term or temporary fixes.

Does anyone have any ideas, short of drowning her her in the ocean and trying to revive her, that could fix this permanently within the next few days?