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 Dathomarians and their settlements. The desolation was claimed by the Confederacy of Independent Systems after the last Nightsiser 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 rancor still roam freely.

This is Dathomir.

The green fog parted around the dark robes of the Palatinaean Rollmaster. His ruby eyes scanned the scene of desolation. How it was he came to find himself returned again to the eerie swamp, he could but question in some mild irritation. Dathomir made him uncomfortable. The ghostly energy of the place set him on edge. Perhaps, though, it was the presence he sensed more than the locale. He opened the door the slightest of cracks, letting the Force guide his vision to the presence while trying to keep the evil energy of the swamp out.

“You best come out of hiding,” Mune warned.

It was not for the first time he had begun to feel followed. To be hunted, if he were to be more precise. He could but guess at their reasons. His eyes swept the roots of the twisted trees grown massive overhead. Their misshapen trunks did nothing to ease the Hybrid’s mind. His stalker could be anywhere. Steeling himself, he opened himself up fully to the Force and the energy of the forlorn wasteland.

Qyreia steadied her blaster rifle and watched the movements of the Seer. She hid among the grotesque roots of a large tree on the slightest of hillocks. Her target acquired, she waited. The Zeltron exercised her patience, experience guiding the slightest of adjustments to her aim. She bet upon the sinister energies the place was rumoured to have, to cloud the senses of the Force-User. She knew her mission, and so, increased the pressure on the trigger of her rifle for a long range kill.

Mune turned, the mist swirled about his shadow wrapped form. His ears laid back, he sensed the presence within darkness and its murderous intent. Murderous intent, all for his blood. He grasped at the Force, felt it like water through his fingers, to solidify and mold to his design. That design was the barrier that warped and contorted into being before him. The blaster bolt struck, its energy cascaded and washed the Seer in the brilliance of its light before it became just as quickly snuffed out. The Seer’s eyes met those of the Raider. She was found.

Without hesitation, she rose and brought her rifle up against her shoulder. A second shot lined up, she fired. The Seer maintained his barrier, seen as a ripple before him upon the bolt’s impact. A third shot followed and a fourth. Experience told her that a barrier could only be maintained for so many blasts before it had to crumble. Crumble it eventually did, with a flinching back of the Hybrid's ears. Her next bolt travelled the space between them to strike the soil upon which the Seer had only just been planted.

Mune rolled, the fog stirred up violently. When still another bolt was fired, Mune jerked sideways, putting his faith in the Force to guide him and his reflexes. Too close, the bolt whipped by, searing a hole through the edge of his cloak. He drew on the Force all at once and plunged its power into his muscles, amping up his speed. The distance became as nothing, and before she could think to drop her rifle and draw her knife, Mune was upon her. For now, he declined the drawing of a weapon. His knee caught the Zeltron woman in the stomach, the air all at once bursting from her lungs.

She gauged his strength in the first physical contact, assessing her own strength compared to his. When an elbow came at her face, she managed just barely to get her hands up to catch the blow. Her superior strength let her gain a hold on the arm.

“I can only guess, by your lack of an introduction that you are an assassin bent on killing me?”

Qyreia held Mune’s left arm by wrist and forearm, the grasp strong upon the Seer’s limb. “A name matters not to a man about to die.”

A vulpine grin crossed Mune’s face, “Well, my name is Mune.”

“Are you a talker? Ugh… why did I have to get a talker as a target.” She grinned, mirth alight in the grey of her eyes.

“It is boring otherwise,” the male retorted with an edge of laughter in his voice.

As much as the mercenary enjoyed a good dose of banter, the pleasantries were already wearing on the mercenary’s nerve. “Personally, I prefer my missions boring. Less chance of getting injured. Now,” she said, heaving the would-be opponent forward, “let’s get going. I’ve got to report this.”

“You are not going to kill me?”

Qyreia rolled her eyes, adjusting her rifle as she backed away a few paces. “No. I’m here on a reconnaissance mission. I don’t know who you are, Moony…”

“Mune,” he corrected.

“Right. Mune. I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but you’re now a hitch in my plan that my bosses need to know about, and I’d rather they handle it personally with you.”

The human walked casually in the direction the Zeltron pointed. “And who are your superiors?”

“None of your bloody business,” she chided. “I assume they want you dead as much as I do, so you don’t have much to worry about unless you’ve been doing some naughty things.”

The half-breed nodded in understanding, though he was hardly listening. The conversation was more of a diversion, allowing him to visually observe his opponent and his surroundings; whatever she said was unlikely to be trustworthy anyway. When the gun-wielding creature behind him turned toward her wrist mounted commlink, the time seemed right to break free from the bondage he anticipated — that which came before some execution.

He caught one last sideward glance at where the blaster was pointing and, drawing his swords, bolted right several paces before activating and bringing the vibroweapons around toward his would-be captor. What little distraction had held Qyreia’s attention was broken by the sudden movement, to say nothing for the flash of metal coming her way. A staccato yelp burst from her lips as she brought her rifle up, knocking the blades aside and allowing her to backpedal in an attempt to get more distance.

Mune was not about to relent, pressing his momentum while he still had the initiative. Only, the woman’s defense couldn’t be penetrated. Her movements were sloppy and chaotic, but she parried his graceful attacks with a skill he did not expect. Especially so when she knocked one of the swords clear from his hand, leaving no small amount of sting in his knuckles as a reminder. Another stroke of her buttstock was only narrowly avoided, forcing him to step back apace, granting the mercenary the breathing room she wanted.

“Enough games, schutta,” she growled, her breath heavy from the fight as she aimed down her gun sights. “Last chance. Final warning.”

“My thoughts exactly.” In her frustration, Qyreia let loose a round from her blaster, only to have it deflect off the purple-hued energy of a lightsaber blade.

“Oh goddammit, really?!”

“You started this fight. I will finish it.”

“Umm…” Qyreia’s eyes looked around frantically for some escape before finally steadying. “Howaboutno.”

The rapid stream of words paused the human, his confusion only compounded when his opponent aimed upward and fired. This confusion did not last long as he quickly noticed the crack of breaking branches above him, one fair-sized specimen dropping almost directly toward him. A burst of concentration and a motion of the hand diverted the lumber so that it crashed safely to the side. When he returned his attention to the woman, she was already several dozen paces ahead, firing off one last shot before making quick speed elsewhere; presumably for her ship.

Red plasma met purple and was dashed aside easily enough. If it was a game of hide and seek that she wanted, then Mune would gladly oblige.

Qyreia paced herself as she wove through gnarled tree trunks. She heard the Seer uncomfortably close behind. They sprinted through the shadows, maneuvering around bubbling crimson pools. Qyreia reached for the grenade on her belt, removed it and tossed it blindly over her shoulder.

Mune saw the fragmentation grenade lobbed back at him. He slowed. The Force answered his summons and he planted himself. He forged the Force again into a barrier, wrapped protectively about him. The grenade struck the wall of its intended target and exploded. Had it been anything more powerful, Mune shuddered to think. It took plenty of focus to protect himself against as it was. The dust and smoke swirled around him, his barrier fading. He worked to control his breathing. “That is one way to gain some distance, I suppose,” he muttered.

Qyreia knelt on a knee in the cover of a tree. She could hear every squelching footstep of the Force-user’s boots in the wet earth. She estimated his distance from her current position. Quickly she moved, gingerly picking her way path to the next tree in the general direction of her ship. A twig snapped underfoot and she nearly cursed. The sounds of the Seer had grown completely silent. Did he hear that? she wondered. She very nearly held her breath until she heard the Seer wander in the opposite direction.

Qyreia moved around an especially thick trunk. In the distance she could see her ship. The crunch of a twig drew her attention back to her current position. Her breath caught in her lungs. The sound had come, at least she thought, from directly behind the tree she had chosen to hide herself. She readied her rifle,drew it up to her shoulder and froze. Leaning against a tree ahead of her, between her and her ship was the Palatinaean Rollmaster. He smiled mockingly.

“Found you, is it my turn to hide yet?”

She swung the rifle towards him. The Zeltron aimed down her sights but the figure seemed to evaporate altogether. An Illusion that fell apart the instant she focussed on it in the least. She could only assume the Seer was not overly practiced in the ability. Why would he use… oh, her internal dialogue shattered in an instant.

The violet blade of the saber plunged through the tree. The girl screamed, the plasma searing her right upper arm. The cut was shallow, a horribly stinging line of red. The scent of burnt flesh and fabric assaulted her nose and her rifle fell from convulsing fingers. The blade drew the rest of the way through the trunk and Mune stepped out of its shadows. His ruby eyes stared into hers, analysing what he saw there in her features, twisted by the pain of the wound.

“I think I tagged you…” Mune spoke in a light tone best reserved for a pleasant third date rather than a battle field. “Now then, what is your mission?”

“I told you, reconnaissance.”

“Oh I believe that, but for what? For whom?” Mune pressed.

She hoped he did not think himself intimidating. If anything, his lightsaber was the most intimidating thing about him. “Oh come now. You can certainly ask me nicer than that.”

“Are you requesting I say please or something?” Mune almost laughed.

“I am glad you think it funny.” Her fingers closed on the grip of her DL-44.

“Don’t draw your weapon, or I will be forced to hurt you.”

“You seem to have no problem killing. You do have a lightsaber levelled at me,” she retorted.

“I do not kill unless absolutely necessary. Remember, you shot first. Why?” Mune’s eyes narrowed, “I somehow doubt it was a mistake.”

Mune caught the movement a second before she actually moved. By instinct, he reacted to the warning from the Force. His saber flashed out, the barrel of the pistol removed in a quick cut. Before the girl could think to shout in surprise, Mune’s free hand gestured and the back of her skull slammed into the trunk of the tree. She slumped to the ground unconscious, an ugly smear of blood trailing a path along the bark. The fight over, he sighed and eyed her prone form. “I told you not to draw your weapon.”

Qyreia looked back again, only to see nothing but the thin vapors of swirling green mist amidst the trees tinted red by the ambient light. Normally she would have paused to examine the situation, but given how easily she had broken his earlier attack, she figured the safest course was in leaning on her physical attributes. Besides, she knew better than to lead him directly to her ship. That would be too easy, she thought, angling her route just enough that they would run parallel to the landing site but outside visual range.

Further back, the human half-breed was watching his newfound quarry warily, though his attention was somewhat split. The Zeltron wasn’t necessarily faster, but she was holding her pace better than Mune, and he had to call on the Force to bolster his frame and close the distance before he ran out of proverbial juice.

Cease running, assassin. You will only die tired.

If the mercenary hadn’t known that she was facing a Force user, the sudden mental invasion might have scared her into faltering.

“Get out of my head, choob-licker.”

“If you insist,” came the too-calm reply as the pale human dropped from the forest canopy directly in her path.

Should’ve seen that coming. Her rifle swung around to fire only to be caught by Mune’s vibrosword, the red plasma searing the air just shy of his waist. Then she saw the flash of purple light arc toward her. Sithspit! Leveraging the rifle, she threw the metal blade over her head and dipped to the side, just narrowly avoiding the lightsaber. Qyreia was about to bring the buttstock into the Force user’s rib cage, but was as he tried to trip her behind her heel. She responded by grabbing the collar of his black clothes to catch herself before stomping on the guilty foot.

There would have been a knee to his gut if not for the elbow to her face. It wasn’t enough to really hurt, but the bundle of nerves he struck stung fiercely. It also put her off balance; enough that he could bring his weapons around to strike once again.

Qyreia barely caught the vibrosword with her rifle, but the lightsaber seared through her jacket and left a painful but shallow slash across a shoulder blade. She wanted to scream. Some part of her brain shut out the impulse, reducing it to a gasp as she tumbled away, turning onto her back to fire a burst at the swordsman. One round went wide and another was deftly swatted aside by the violet beam, but the short range offered enough of a handicap that Mune’s thigh felt the harsh burn of a third shot.

“Suck it, schutt-ack!”

Mune’s hand flung outward and Qyreia felt as though a boulder had slammed into her gut. The force of the invisible strike sent her flying from the ground and into a nearby tree, where she fell in a slump on the ground. She was fairly certain, as she tried to recover, that several ribs were cracked or broken.

Weary and gasping for air, she was reaching for the rifle that was only an arm’s length away when she felt herself lifted from the damp soil and pulled through the thin mist into the arms of the hybrid. The vibroblade hummed in the hand that pinned her trigger hand away from her pistol, while the lightsaber glittered just within view.

“Now is the time for your last words, assassin.”

The Zeltron swallowed back her racing thoughts, bringing a hand down to the seam of the Force user’s trousers.

“Your bodily pleasures won’t save yo-eow!”

Qyreia’s hand was like a vice as she grasped between his legs, narrowly winning the dangerous gamble as she twisted the grip viciously. Mune’s hold on her was gone, his face contorted into an expression of grotesquely pained shock. Wasting no time, she tore away, drawing her blaster while the whir of the saber sun just behind her head. Two deep thrums of her pistol brought silence to the air save for their labored breaths.

“I’d feel bad,” she said through grit teeth to the badly-wounded Mune, “but I gave you the easy option.” Qyreia keyed her commlink. “Remee, prep the medical supplies and get the ship ready to go.” She looked cautiously at the dilapidated Dark Jedi. “Our guest can find his own ride home.”