Once, it was the home to the witches of Dathomir, otherwise known as the Nightsisters. Tucked away in from the rest of the galaxy in an isolated cluster, the Nightsisters were able to draw energy from the planet itself, and pursued a type of ritualistic magic. They ruled over the population of Zabarak—Nightbrothers—and used them as a warrior caste to serve their purposes.

Then, the Clone Wars. The Nightsisters were pulled into the conflict due to the machinations of Mother Talzin and her rival Darth Sidious. This ultimately lead to the eradication of the Dathomirians and their settlements. The desolation was claimed by the Confederacy of Independent Systems after the last Nightsister fell.

Now, the planet known as Dathomir is a haunted skeleton of its former greatness. A perpetual crimson glow coats the planet. The bleak world has become an amalgamation of ruined forest, decrepit swamplands, and withered mountains worn to the sands of time.

In the desolate swamps, faint echoes haunt the graves of the long-dead witches, infusing the green fog that spreads above the damp ground. Dreadful whispers rumoured to be lingering incantations defend the world from intruders. Tall tales and rumors of zombies and ritual sacrifice alluding to grisly flashes of imagery.

The trees, large and misshapen, promise misery to those who touch their tortured bark and open themselves to the memories of the place. Eerie as the voices over the wind, the water beneath the fog appears red and bubbling, as if the land itself were pockmarked in cauldrons of blood to keep the incantations alive.

Creatures unaffected by the purge of the Nightsisters still remain. Snakes, reptiles and insects of varying lethality wander the wasteland. Reports have even said that rancors still roam freely.

This is Dathomir.

Prompt

Dathomir.

It was always a remote planet, full of mysticism and dark magics. Rumors, whispers of witches and heresy had always plagued the place. Such tales always included the inevitable ritual sacrifice. The dead rising from the grave. Man-hating fiends who would revel in torrid parties with their sisters. It was hard to determine which stories were true, and which stories you certainly hoped were false.

None of these stories trouble the Tarenti. The Clan of Life and Death, long some of the darkest practitioners of the Brotherhood, had certainly heard worse. Or had done worse themselves.

The Clan Summit of Tarentum has decreed that, under the cover of all possible secrecy and oaths of silence, no one is to know that the Clan of Death and her Grey Jedi sworn to Life are searching for the lost secrets that might otherwise revive the memory of the Nightsisters, and return the vaunted powers of the Tarenti to Yridia.

This is your mission. Bloodfyre has paired you with another member of your Clan. Enter the swamps with your Clanmate. Work together. There are secrets of power to be revealed, and the Summit needs them to gain an edge in the battles that Tarentum faces ahead.

Find the Orb of Daka, a Nightsister relic that may reopen the powers of Necromancy to Tarentum. Make your Clan proud.

Members paired will enter the swamps and be met by guardian beasts, twisted versions of the natural denizens of Dathomir. These nightmarish beasts were warped by the power of the Nightsisters to guard their matriarchy. The beasts will stop at nothing to block your path and rend limbs from bodies in order to protect the secret tombs of the witches. You must succeed at all costs.

A Tarentum dropship hovered a few dozen meters above the steaming swamp. The bay doors slid open with a hiss revealing two men; one with hair greyed by age, the other with a thick head of hair the same color as fresh snow. The later crouched down and whistled.

“Man this place has seen better days.” He rises to his feet. “Pilot, are you sure this is as close as you can get us?” The pilot nodded at the Knight. With a sigh the Epicanthix turned to his partner.

“Let’s get this underway.”

“Agreed. Pilot take us down.” As he gave the order the white haired man gave a chuckle.

“Alright then. I’ll take the express route.” And before the other Sith could say anything, Solas stept out the open door. Scion leaned over the edge and watched as his ally dropped like a rock. Landing with a wet thud as his feet sank into the putrid muck that covered the planet. Solas looked up as the dropship descended to surface.

Scion stepped out into the swamp and glanced down into disgust as the mud seeped over his boots. As he looked up he saw his partner climbing up onto a spot of dry ground under the ruined corpse of tree. Sloshing over Mortis’ Quaestor stepped up onto the dirt and began kicking the mud from his boots.

“So Solas what do you th-”

“Shh!” Scion turned to see his partner kneeling by the tree examining the dirt. Giving the man a silent nod turned back and waved off the dropship. Once the ship was in the air Scion joined his ally by the tree. Solas gave him the signal to keep quiet and then he pointed to the swamp in front of them. At first Scion saw only trees and mud, but as he squinted he quickly saw why solas had silenced them. Twenty meters in front of them stood a pack of Rhoa Kwi. Normally the kwi are predatory reptiles that stood taller than the average man. However these beasts were nearly as tall as the trees that surrounded them and they looked like something out of a nightmare.

Something tickled at the edge of Scion’s mind. A noise in his head that he could not place. It reminded him of alien voices in a grubby watering hole on a backwater planet, where all the patrons seemed to be making noises but none of them were speaking Basic. As he and Solas watched the group of Rhoa Kwi stalking slowly between the gnarled husks of trees, it dawned on him that something was very wrong.

“They know we’re here,” he murmured, just loudly enough for Solas to hear. The Knight nodded back to him, gesturing over his shoulder. Scion followed his gesture and, although it was hard to discern through the dim red light, counted at least three or four more Rhoa Kwi fanning out behind them.

“No use hiding,” murmured Scion. “Hope you’re ready for a fight. I get the feeling we’ll be paying for every inch of his mission with blood.”

“Better make it theirs, then,” Solas retorted with a grin.

Scion smiled, turning to face the beasts closing in behind them. He drew his DL-44 and drew a bead on the one he could see the most clearly. Taking mental note of the positions of the others, he opened fire.

It was pandemonium. The Tarentae’s opening volley scorched the head off one of the beasts, and every other Rhoa Kwi descended on the two men from every direction as a coordinated pack. He managed to drop another before they got too close, finally dropping his blaster in favor of his two lightsabers at about the same time as the first set of black, razor sharp teeth nearly sawed his face from his skull. Standing up, the animals were as tall as the stunted trees. They hunched over when they ran, their bodies dropping parallel to the ground and making them look like nothing more than giant dagger-toothed mouths on legs. They strafed the two Tarenti with those vicious teeth, taking turns to run at the men from several angles at once and waiting while their pack mates did the same. Scion and Solas were little more than three crimson blades twirling under the pallid red sun.

The creatures were massive enough that even a deep scoring from a lightsaber was little more than a flesh wound across the side of its body. Scion noted that the only hits that seemed to deter the beasts at all were across the thigh or lower on the legs. He had managed to sever the leg of one of the Rhoa Kwi at the knee as it passed him, and now it lay several meters away from them howling in agony. Occasionally it would lift its head and spit a greasy black substance toward them in defiance.

It felt like forever before the pair had felled four or five more of the animals and the tide of battle finally seemed to shift. The fallen Rhoa Kwi were all injured primarily in the legs, and their massive thrashing bodies blocked the path of their pack mates. Now the onslaught came from only a few specific directions and fewer of them could attack simultaneously.

The respite was short-lived, though. Solas hollered when he saw them come: a group of Rhoa Kwi crept up, keeping as low as a tree-sized creature could, and sank their black teeth into their fallen companions. They worked in pairs and threes to drag their screaming casualties back into the depths of the swamp, reopening the blocked avenues of attack. As soon as the way was opened again, a renewed barrage of teeth soon followed.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” bellowed Scion. “We have to move out!”

“Which way,” Solas shouted back, “do you want to go?”

“You go forward,” hollered Scion. “I’ll be right behind! On three!”

All the while, the two men were still ducking, dodging, and counterattacking the storm of oversized scaly bodies the best they could.

“One!”

Red blades hummed and crackled, searing flesh and truncating the vicious black teeth, but Solas was starting to agree that there were just too many of the Rhoa Kwi to kill in any reasonable amount of time. The two would soon become exhausted and one of them would make a mistake, and that would be the end.

“Two!”

Solas tried to peer as far as he could into the swamp, beyond the lizards and into the trees, but there was little in the way of identifiable landmarks or even serviceable cover.

“Three!”

The Knight focused every ounce of concentration he could muster and took off running, straight ahead. He slashed at the oncoming creatures, ducking around them with agility only the power of the Force could provide. Its currents bound themselves to his muscles and propelled him faster than he thought he had ever run before.

It took the Rhoa Kwi by surprise, as Scion had hoped. The two Tarenti darted off across the broiling muck at inhuman speed, making a run for it in what he hoped was somewhere near the direction Bloodfyre had indicated. The beasts soon gave chase, and in spite of their size they were very fast. He tugged at the back of Solas’ shirt, and pointed at a place in the distance that seemed to have a few more trees than anywhere else. The two men sprinted toward it, hoping to lose their pursuers in the denser vegetation.

As the Sith pair entered the dense forest, Solas drew his saber and felled the tree to his right hoping it would slow their pursuers. Unfortunately the Rhoa Kwi simply weaved around the fallen tree. Their chase soon became a test between the kwi’s natural instincts and the Sith’s Force amplified senses. The truth is that without the Force, the pair would have fallen and been devoured long ago. This point was driven home by the fact that they didn’t need the Force to know that their hunter’s were quite literally nipping at their heels.

We need a plan. We can’t keep running forever.

Solas pondered as he swerved in and out of the thick foliage. Deciding to test a theory, the Knight fells another tree. As he threw a glance over his shoulder he noticed something that made him smirk.

I see, for all the muscle in those hind legs they can’t seem to jump very high. They’re built for speed above all else. That’s our way out of this.

“Scion!” The Epicanthix shouted. “Go up! Into the trees! They have a weak jump!” At his words the pair channeled as much strength into their legs as they could and leapt into the air. Landing on a high branch Scion looked out over the forest. His eyes immediately locked onto a single tree that towered above the others.

“There! We can try and catch our breath up there!”

“Got it. Let’s move!” The pair took off leaping through the trees. Glancing down every now and then both men saw that the kwi hadn’t given up the hunt. The sun had begun to dip below the horizon by the time that the partners reached the massive tree.

Despite standing in the upper canopy of the forest, they were only about halfway up the towering tree. With a sigh the pair leapt as high as they could and landed on one of the trees lower branches. Despite how low they were on the tree itself, they were easily ten meters above the heads of the Rhoa Kwi. The two quickly climbed the branch closer to the trunk of the tree. The moment they arrived they felt their strength drain from their bodies and both collapsed against the wood.

Panting Solas spoke. “Damn it all. This place in a bloody nightmare.”

“You can say that again. It’s no wonder this place never hosted any true society.” With a chuckle both men passed into unconsciousness.

As the sun rose over trees the two Sith were awoken abruptly as the tree began to shake. As the pair collected themselves, Solas took a look over the edge of the branch and watched as the Rhoa Kwi, that had gathered at the base of the trunk, scattered in all directions. Suddenly the entire tree shifted to the left.

“What the? Scion can you see anything?”

“Yes and it’s not good.” Scion sounded truly panicked. Carefully walking over Solas joined his Quaestor. And then he saw it.

Lumbering past was the mother of all rancor. The beast was as tall as the tree they hid in, and nearly as wide. The massive horns on it’s head added another several meters and looked like enough to split a man in half. The scariest part; the rancor isn’t what had Scion worried. What worried the grizzled soldier was what rode on the beast. A living Dathomrian witch. Time seemed to crawl by as the pair lumbered past the tree. After what felt like hours the two Sith finally exhaled. The paired shared a look that said all they needed to.

That is going to be a big problem.

The two men never made it to the copse of trees. Scion got a foot stuck in the mud and instantly went face first into it. Solas heard him cry out and stopped, but when he turned around he saw nothing. Baffled, he took a step backward. His foot didn’t make contact with anything solid until he was completely underwater. The thick black water was impossible to see through, but he could feel all kinds of tree roots and other entanglements all around him. He pushed off the bottom gently, rising to the surface to take a breath and look around. The Rhoa Kwi had come up to where the two men had disappeared and seemed to be searching for them. Solas took a deep breath and dropped back down below the surface.

The world went dark in an instant as Scion’s foot stuck in the mud and he went head first into the water. He thrashed instinctively for a moment before realizing that he had become stuck underwater. Gathering his self control, he focused on holding his breath and reaching out around himself with his thoughts. In a few moments he had constructed a mental map of the obstacles holding him under, and the fact that the Rhoa Kwi had gathered around them. He was able to grasp one of his lightsabers and activate it for a moment, slashing through the vines he was trapped in. He rose to the surface briefly, taking a breath and pulling himself back under. He could sense now that Solas was underwater nearby.

Scion focused his thoughts on Solas, sending a message directly into his mind: I’m about to grab your hand. Follow me.

Carefully, he made his way through the tangle to where Solas was and grasped his hand. The two rose to take breaths of air, then Scion focused his thoughts on finding an underwater path through the swamp. The men half swam and half crawled through the enclosed space, lungs burning after a minute or two without breathing before they found a spot where they could briefly surface again. This went on for what felt like hours, making agonizing slow progress.

Finally they got far enough away from the Rhoa Kwi that Scion felt safe rising to the surface for a look around. The beasts were still in sight, but now they were just small gangly figures swaying in the distance. If he hadn’t known better, Scion would have mistaken them for just more trees. Solas and Scion crawled up onto the bank, staying low to try and avoid detection.

“We need to keep moving or we’ll freeze to death,” said Solas. “I already can’t stop shivering.”

“Yeah. But we need to stay low and quiet, or those Kwi will spot us. No lightsabers, no noise. Which way do you suppose our objective is from here? I got disoriented while we were underwater.”

“I think it’s that way,” Solas said, pointing.

That way appeared to be a low mountain range in the distance. The swamp continued as far as Scion could see, dotted with occasional withered, leafless trees. A low fog clung to the ground in many places, making it impossible to tell where the swamp ended and the mountain began, although he knew that at some point the lowlands must give way to the higher ground. It was just a question of where, and whether they could get there in one piece.