Your senses are overwhelmed as you set foot on the planet [Oricon], the base of the ancient Dread Masters nearly lost to time. The landscape is an unforgiving nightmarescape of lava flows and volcanic rock dotted with strange plants and starship wrecks from a battle thousands of years ago. The smoky, sulfuric air of the surface nearly chokes you as your eyes struggle to adjust to the foggy haze illuminated by the soft glow of the lava flows. Tall, luminous blood ferns adorn the landscape, surrounded by vicious predators hardy enough to survive the intense conditions. Trenches and outcroppings formed from flowing lava serve to make footing uneven, adding yet another treacherous element to this already dangerous world. In the distance, the ruins of an ancient tower call to you - the fabled fortress of the Dread Masters. Remnants of ancient cults can be seen here and there, from wrecked huts to blood-stained altars and crumbling oubliettes.

The Dark Side is strong here, but somehow feels different from other Sith planets you have encountered. You are not alone on this ancient world of nightmares.

Andrelious mopped his brow as he wandered among the remains of several ancient spacecraft. The Warlord was making his way towards a dig site that had been contested between his Clan, Taldryan, and the light siders of Odan-Urr a couple of weeks previously. His wife, Kooki, had been in charge of the Taldryan contingent, but had fallen under attack from the Jedi. To his surprise, the leader of the Odanites was apparently none other than his old rival, Turel Sorenn. Kooki had managed to defeat the Jedi, but had abandoned the site soon after, telling Andrelious that it was ‘more his sort of scene’.

On arrival, Andrelious spotted digging equipment, and soon saw that several members of Taldryan’s military were still active in the area. Large trenches had been dug, and a pile of ancient ship components made neatly to one side. The Warlord identified them quickly, realising most were either broken, or completely obsolete. He approached the senior soldier, a female whose rank insignia identified her as a Lieutenant. She, like the rest of her men, was wearing equipment to keep Oricon’s extreme heat at bay. Without such an outfit, Andrelious was struggling a little, but he did his best to hide this: he did not like to show weakness in front of a mundane.

“Status report, Lieutenant. Have you found anything useful?” Andrelious questioned as the female greeted him with a quick salute.

“Nothing of any note, sir. Aside from scrap metal, anyway,” the soldier replied.

The Warlord frowned. “Then why was I sent for? I already told Kooki that you’d find nothing,” he stated. “We didn’t send for you, sir. Your wife dealt with the Odanite incursion, and there’s been no trouble since,” the Lieutenant answered, the tone of her voice indicating her surprise at seeing the Sith was genuine. “Keep working, then. Try for one more week, then you’re to leave this place. This dig is looking like a waste of time,” Andrelious ordered, turning to leave.

The Warlord had got around a hundred yards away from the site when he began to sense something that was incongruous with the darkness that enveloped the planet. This presence shone brightly, breaking through like the freshly risen sun. There was a Jedi here.

Following his senses, Andrelious soon came to a ship that was unlike the others. It was modern, and undamaged. The Sith quickly identified it as a Baudo Class Star Yacht. Inside were a number of beings, including his apparent target.

The Taldryanite pulled out his comlink.

“This is Mimosa-Inahj. Lieutenant, we have an incursion, sector one-six-five-three. I’ll handle it. Stay on task,” the Warlord ordered. An affirmative reply crackled back over the airwaves.

Andrelious headed over to the Yacht’s entry ramp, noticing it was down but the hatch into the ship itself was firmly closed. The Sith gingerly climbed up the ramp, trying the outer controls: the door remained shut. Meanwhile, inside the Yacht, the crew waited with baited breath as their current Commander moved towards the hatch. Turel Sorenn had been a little jumpy since arriving back on Oricon, but the crew had put this down to the fact that he had been injured on his previous visit to the planet. Now, as the Peacekeeper opened the ship, they spotted a small figured, swathed in black, stood on the outside. From Sorenn’s reaction, it was clear that he knew the other man well.

“Greetings, Andrelious,” Turel began.

“I don’t know why you’ve come back here, Sorenn. Kooki told me she sent you and your team packing. What happened to promising her the dig site?” the Sith spat. “The dig site is hers, as I promised. But, the chance to bring you down, again, was just too much to pass up,” the Odanite answered calmly.

Andrelious glared at the Jedi. “I’ll guess it was you who sent the ‘distress’ call. A bit premature, don’t you think? You’re not in distress. Yet.”

“We’ll see who ends up in distress,” Turel replied, smirking.

With its familiar snap-hiss, Celestia activated within moments of arriving in its owner’s hand. Andrelious followed suit, arming his own, unnamed lightsaber. He tried to move into the ship, but the Peacekeeper barred his way.

“Outside. You’re not harming any innocents,”

Andrelious looked disappointed. “Very well, Sorenn. Not that you’ll be in any condition to enforce that soon,” he threatened, taking an almost theatrical leap away from the ship. Turel followed, immediately engaging the Sith with a powerful downward slash.

Counter attacking, Andrelious blocked the initial attack before following up with a well-aimed stabbing attack that aimed straight for his opponent’s throat.

Time to finish what Kooki started.

“Great, I have his attention, now to lead him away from the dig site.” The Jedi thought as he blocked and parried the Sith’s blows with tight saber orbits and minimal movement. Turel’s purpose on this mission was to create a believable diversion, which due to Andrelious’ fortuitous presence, was working perfectly. Settling a personal grudge with the Inhaj family was a far more believable cover than whatever the Odanite could come up with against some other random Taldyran Force user.

“You’ve been training a bit since we last crossed swords.” Turel taunted with a sneer and sarcastic tone. He reached out with the Force to ever-so-subtly bolster his opponents feelings of hate toward him. The Jedi wanted Andrelious to follow him and to get so cross he would make mistakes.

“More than enough to finish you for good this time!” The Sith retorted as he launched an overhead strike with as much leverage as he could muster into the blow. Much to Andrelous’ dismay, Turel simply dodged the blow and took off running in the opposite direction. “Come back here and face me you baby-snatching coward!” The irate Taldryan yelled as he launched into a pursuit.

The Jedi had made it a point to run away from the ship and dig site, up a nearby hill. He had to leap over two lava flows and dodge several sharp boulders on his way to the base of the hill. One misstep around the rivers of molten magma and he’d be on fire for real this time. The heat and sulfuric fumes made breathing more difficult and caused him to expend more energy running away from Andrelious than he had anticipated.

Turel turned around to face his opponent as he crested the hill. “I just thought we could use a change of scenery. Isn’t the view just lovely up here?” The Sith responded by deactivating his saber and pulling out his blaster as he traversed the treacherous terrain on the hillside. A few plasma bolts streaked by a little too close for comfort and the Jedi had to deflect two bolts with his saber. “Not a nature fan I take it.” He remarked to no one in particular.

The Odanite needed to divert the Sith’s attention for several more minutes to buy time for the team of Jedi Sentinels on the Arthos to sneak past the Taldryan soldiers and recover a key relic from the dig site. Status reports intercepted by the Sentinel Network had indicated that the Taldryan team had recovered a holocron from the dig site which had been supposedly created by the Dread Masters, but they had yet to transport it off world. The Sentinel team had a fake holocron to substitute it with; all they had to do was sneak in and make the swap while the soldiers and Andrelious were distracted. This would be a blue milk run, Turel just had to avoid getting killed by his rival. He had no idea what the Sith had been talking about when he mentioned a distress call.

The Sith using his blaster complicated things; Turel did not want to get shot in the back. He ducked below the opposite side of the hill crest for cover and examined the terrain below. This side of the hill was relatively smooth with no real rocks for cover, only loose gravel that would make it hard to keep one’s footing. “Only one way down,” the Jedi resolved to himself. Turel lept onto the gravel and purposefully slid down the side of the hill in his back side. It was an uncomfortable trip down and left him with numerous scrapes and bruises, but he’d happily take those over a blaster burn.

Once at the bottom of the hill Turel noticed the mouth of a large cave. He couldn’t quite place where the feeling was coming from but something was beckoning him to enter. A cave was a good enough place for an ambush so he took off running toward it just as Andrelious crested the hill. The Jedi held his saber in his right hand, the side closest to his opponent and deflected a hand full of blaster bolts before escaping into the safety of the cave. At least the Sith saw where he went, that would make the ambush easier.

The large chamber just inside the cave was nearly pitch black save the small amount of daylight which crept inside and the Jedi’s saber. The chamber was surprisingly humid for such a hot, volcanic world. Turel deactivated his saber and hid behind a large moss covered rock. Placing his back to the stone, the Odanite took a deep breath and centered himself in the ebbs and flows of the Force.

Andrelious enter the cave not long after, his ruby saber illuminating the darkness. He must have switched weapons again prior to entering. “You can’t hide from me Jedi filth, you’ve no where to run to now!”

Turel held his breath as the Sith passed close by him. The Jedi reached out to Andrelious’ mind and made the sound of rushed footsteps seem to emanate from the back side of the chamber. When the Odanite heard the Taldryan take a few steps in that direction he popped out from behind rock ready to ignite his saber. He never got the chance.

A torrent of glowing lavender fingers of pure energy reached out from Andelious’ free hand to grip the Jedi in the chest. Turel cried out in agony as nerves all over his body blazed and spots of flesh on his torso began to singe. The attack only lasted a few seconds but was enough to bring him to his knees.

“Your parlor tricks won’t work on me this time Sorenn!” The Sith exclaimed as he stepped closer and closer, ready to end their rivalry once and for all.

Turel had to act fast. The lightning had left him in a great deal of pain, but that was nothing compared to the kind of treatment that Andrelious was known to mete out. As it was, the Peacekeeper’s task was twofold: not only did he need to protect himself, but losing would likely result in his opponent catching up with the Sentinel team. Now that he ended up pinned down in a cave, Turel could no longer escape easily once his fellow Jedi had completed their mission. He’d have to defeat Andrelious soundly enough that the Warlord could not give chase.

Raising his hand again, Mimosa-Inahj summoned another wave of lightning, directing it straight towards Turel. This time, however, the Jedi was prepared. The Taldryanite’s smirk turned into a frown as he watched his attack collide with his opponent, but fizzle out uselessly.

“Lightsabers and lightning. You’re such a deep character,” Turel sneered.

“At least I’m not afraid to use what weapons I’m given, Sorenn. You and your pathetic Jedi ilk hide behind the Force as if it’s some kind of shield. You treat it as an ally. Didn’t you learn anything from your time in Arcona? Even Atyiru could see the value of the dark side, even if she was totally misguided in her approach. You, on the other hand? You won’t open your mind to the bigger picture. And that is why you will always fail,” Andrelious hissed, knowing he was wasting his time.

The Jedi chuckled. “You’re dedicated to your followings. I’ll give you that. I just wish you’d see that you’re the servant, and that the dark side is your master. You can’t hope to control it, Andrelious. Every day the darkness feeds at your soul. You think you can rule your emotions, but one day, how do you truly know that Kooki won’t upset you? How do you know you won’t upset her? Do you want your daughters to grow up to be like their half-sister? Saskia is one ice cold bitch. I should know.”

“Leave my family out of this, Jedi scum!” the Warlord roared, his fury boiling over. He was so angry that he unleashed yet more lightning, completely forgetting that Sorenn could easily shield himself from such an attack. Again, the lightning simply reflected against the Jedi, doing no further damage.

Andrelious came to his senses a little, and began to move in with his lightsaber. The Peacekeeper waited until his opponent was almost in range before leaping to his feet, grabbing Celestia. As he descended, Turel swung his weapon directly at the Warlord’s right arm, hoping for a quick removal and a speedy resolution. Andrelious blocked the attack, trying to use his strength to interfere with the Jedi’s landing. Sorenn countered, allowing himself to land as intended, but without having hurt his opponent.

Leaping above the Warlord’s head, the Jedi somersaulted, slashing downwards, forcing the former Imperial to take evasive action. Landing on the far side of Andrelious, the Odanite smiled.

He was no longer trapped.