"The doors will be open for you. If you require a guide, simply say so. The Archivist will be listening, and will send a unit to assist you."

"Okay."

And he heads off into the vaults. Teleport, copy, teleport, copy. He doesn't really have a reason to feel nervous, but he does.

Being nervous around such a concentration of dark side artifacts and lore is a reasonable, and some might even say wise, reaction. And it's not out of the question that some of the artifacts have an aura that is actually contributing to that effect, even through Occlus's precautions.

There are quite a lot of rooms, and the passageways seem almost deliberately disorienting.

He's pretty sure as a rule if you always stick to your left you will eventually traverse any Euclidean-geometry-obeying two-dimensional maze but when he thinks he's done he'll ask the Archivist to check.

This maze include vertical components as well as horizontal. But according to the Archivist, he's missed only three rooms.

He goes and gets those.

And then he's done.

Can the Archivist point him to Occlus?

Occlus is in the memory core. He's led back to near the entrance, and a wall panel slides up, revealing a set of stairs.

"I know humans don't care as much as Elves about things being pretty, but don't you get lonely here? Anyway, I stole everything and we can go when you're ready."

Occlus is in the midst of a complicated-looking rewiring project, cables snaking all across the room between racks of servers pulled out from the wall. All is centered on a small triangular pyramid, from which a small holographic figure is projected.

"No, why would I? And I am not quite finished here." She pulls on a thin green wire.

"That to cresh-three," directs the figure, in a slightly mechanical copy of Occlus's voice. Occlus turns and attaches it to the proper port.

He folds his wings and makes himself a chocolate bar and waits.

Occlus continues fiddling with wires. The holo turns to regard Epic.

"I am the final piece of her collection, if that was not obvious," it says. "Once I am gone, it will be safe for her to activate the self-destruct. What does the arrangement I will be departing for look like?"

"I built a copy of these depressing vaults on a planetoid I made somewhere in this galaxy far away from any inhabited planets. Aside from the vault it's pretty. It's like ten miles in circumference but it's got gravity that's normal for humans."

"The gravity will be convenient for people who have physical form but lack wings. Aesthetic considerations were not foremost in our mind when we designed this place. Once security is no longer of such paramount importance, she may be willing to consider alternative layouts."

"I bet I could design something much prettier, yeah."

"I look forward to seeing it. Insofar as I am capable of doing so."

"You can't see? ...what are you?"

"I am a holocron. That is to say, a personality imprint matrix serving as a storehouse of data and a guide thereto. Though we made some adjustments that allow me to monitor and control the archive systems and droids. Those are the functions she is now making preparations to transfer to server-side subroutines."

"Does the me have one of those?"

"That would be Darth Fienus? Yes, his holocron was part of our collection. Like many of his creations, his holocron was genetically locked so that only members of his bloodline could access it. He had no children, and the last of his family line was extinguished not long after he himself died, so it has not been activated in centuries."

"I could make a basement dweller of him, that might do it."

"Basement dweller?"

"I can't make people. Well, most kinds of people, can't make humans, at least. If I try, I get something dumb but with the same DNA and stuff."

"If it is alive in other relevant characteristics, that ought to work. If a password was needed in addition, it is not mentioned in any of his collected works."