Rancor Graveyard
Southern Edge
Felucian Jungle
Felucia System
Outer Rim
Talis covered his nostrils as the stench of death wafted up from the fresh rancor corpse before him. The villagers were right, someone was killing rancors as they entered the valley. “Not that dead rancors are a problem,” thought Talis. The real issue was when these old bulls were driven out of the graveyard and into unsuspecting farmland.
The Miralukan reached out with his sight, scanned the bodies around him, and noted that all of the corpses were in various stages of decay, each bearing a deep plasma cut that caused him to conclude that a lightsaber had been the cause of these otherwise peaceful beasts’ demise. His contact on Felucia had been an elderly Felucian, pleading for Jedi assistance in his village’s “rancor problem”. But after he arrived at a demolished village and met with a rag-tag group of survivors, Talis would have never imagined it to be a ‘dead’ rancor problem.
He sighed as he made his way North, away from the graveyard’s entrance and towards an oppressive, ever-increasing Dark Side taint. After about fifty minutes of walking, the heart of the graveyard came into sight. Among the bones were crews moving back and forth, frantically scavenging what they could.
“Well that’s messed up,” Talis thought to himself. “Never been one for graverobbers.”
Sitting down, he decided to watch as the workers went about their business, waiting to see if their protector, the ‘Rancor Killer’, would make an appearance. Though seemingly idle, Talis was far from it, actively taking in his surroundings as he reached out through the Force to create a map of the area. On the northern edge of a giant ring in the center of the valley was a small freighter, and around it, workers harvested not only rancor bone, but also poison from the Felucian spore plant. Their method of harvesting from the spore plants, the poison of which is only released when provoked, was both crude and amusing; kicking the plants before hurriedly using a handheld vacuum device to suck the spores into a sealed canister.
Over time, Talis shifted his attention from the work to the workers themselves. “Interesting,” he mused. So far, he had not spotted a single lightsaber, or even a weapon that could make similar cuts. “Well that is bothersome. Couldn’t ask for him to show himself right away could I? I guess I will just have to sit and wait.”
Twenty minutes later, a lean Cathar exited the freighter and began barking orders. Talis recognized the man's aura as being touched by the Dark Side of the Force almost immediately. His hatred and rage swirled blackish red and his distrust, a dark orange, as he yelled and barked at the workers. It seemed Talis found his Rancor Killer.
“Well this ought to be a blast,” Talis mumbled, shifting to a crouching position from where he was sitting.
Maneuvering to a position where he could launch an assault on the whole company, Talis drew his lightsaber hilt and pooled the Force into his legs. With a deep breath and a grunt, he leapt through the air and towards the center of the open field. Almost immediately, he was met by dancing tendrils of electrical energy, only barely intercepted with the erupting hiss of his lightsaber, the clash slowing the Miralukan mid-air and causing him to land well short of his intended target. Regaining his footing, Talis bent his knees, but stayed on the balls of his toes, turning his left shoulder toward the Cathar and keeping the point of his lightsaber trained on him, held diagonal in-front of his body. With a smooth motion, Talis began spinning his weapon in tight circles, ending each orbit with a flick of the wrist, in an attempt to draw the green-eyed glare of his opponent.
The Cathar he was facing reached into his robes with his right arm and retrieved his lightsaber, igniting the blade and taking a similar stance across from Talis, but making no move to engage.
