The wild planet of Kashyyyk is known to be home to the gentle, but short-tempered race of Wookiees. Wild and untamed, the lush, wroshyr tree-filled forests form a multi-layered deathtrap. The local wildlife presenting more dangers as one descends towards the forest floor. However, as one ascends the vertical environment, the danger of falling increases until one comes in contact with the Wookiee settlements. Fauna and flora flourish in delight, growing within dirt pockets in the crevices of the trees. Some of these plants are carnivorous, becoming larger and deadlier closer to the forest floor. Others have some form of consciousness, able to communicate with the Wookiees to give some understanding of their use.

In one particular forest, you have traversed the vertical nightmare from Wookiee settlements and into the unknown to become lost within the canopies. Within the crevices in the trees, empty fruit and rotting shells from seeds show the spring season has ended. A soft wind whistles between the thick vines and shrubs that stick to the trunks of the ancient and sleeping giants. Despite the near-ending lack of footholds aside from the branches of wroshyr trees, you have found a series of abandoned and rotting platforms suspended a hundred meters above the surface, once home to a Wookiee settlement. Overgrown and decayed, it has since nourished countless plants and trees with their outstretched branches sheltering the dense and soft floor from the extreme sun rays and torrential rain. Upon closer inspection your eyes can pick up unusual signals. Moss carpets particular areas on the platforms and nowhere else, tree-dwelling animals and birds never land on the surface. In the corner of your eye you see something swaying, at first thought appearing to be another species of vine. But when you turn your head fully, you clearly see it is rope, damp but tightly locked. You feel that you have entered an arena without invitation, and the motivation to search further intrigues your mind. Tread carefully, or you will fall whim to the creatures that inhabit this terrain.

The wooden platform creaked ominously underfoot, and Terran carefully drew back his boot. He moved to the side, slowly applying pressure to the section beneath his foot before taking each step. The last thing he needed was to crash through the platform and get tangled in the vines below. Isshwarr, his Wookiee companion, had warned him not to go wandering off through the forests. He had tried to wait patiently while she paid respects to her departed family. He really had. But patience had never been his strong suit.

It had been an interesting trek, descending over a kilometer towards the forest floor. The wroshyr trees were magnificent and tremendously resilient. So what could have caused them to decay like this? The first time he had passed through the abandoned village, on his way down, he had been intrigued. Curiosity had pushed him to descend further, to see how far down the rot had gone. He wasn’t sure if the Wookiees above knew that their trunks were decaying. If not, he had wanted to be able to tell them the extent of the damage.

A hundred meters down, he had encountered the first plant that tried to eat him. After the third, he had decided Isshwarr had been right. Now, back in the forgotten village, he simply found himself anxious. The air seemed somehow both damp and stale, and the stench of rotting plants was pungent and cloying.

This is no place for the living.

The thought felt odd; wrong, as if it wasn’t his own. Shaking his head, the Kiffar decided to make one last circuit of the village, noting the extent of the damage. Isshwarr’s family lived in the trees above, and no matter how many times she insisted otherwise, he knew that he was the one in her debt. If it wasn’t safe for her family, they needed to know. Pulling out a holocamera from one of his duster’s pockets, he slowly made his way around the outskirts of the village, documenting the ravages that time and decay had visited upon the habitat.

Only the dead have purchase here.

“You got that right,” he murmured to himself. Focusing within, he tapped on the Force to extend his senses. It was unintuitive - to feel outside, one first had to look inside - but his awareness spread out in a large sphere and he could feel life all around him. There were thousands of living creatures nearby, not counting the trees themselves. Though most of the foliage in the immediate vicinity had died off, whole colonies of insects crawled or flitted along the once-lush wroshyr branches. Birds of all size and description soared above and below the platform, and a number of mammals crawled through the trees. None of it, though, felt sentient, or even particularly dangerous. Karkin’ flights of fancy, he thought, admonishing his own foolishness.

The Kiffar continued his circuit around the village, snapping holos and trying to ignore the itch at the back of his neck. He kept his sphere of awareness extended, but it did little to alleviate the feeling of being watched. He completed his circuit and pocketed the holocam, a dozen meters from the damp rope he had used to descend from the level above. Running his fingers through his dark hair, he took a final look back at the rotting platform. Glad that’s done. At this rate, I’ll be happy to hear Issh give me an ‘I told you so’ lecture. Stepping carefully towards the rope, he began to let out a sigh of relief. Then an aggravated growl cut in.

“You should have heeded my warnings, offworlder.”

Terran spun in a circle, surveying the area, but he still saw - and felt - nothing malevolent. The voice, both firm and feminine, was alluring even as it threatened. Like Selonian silk over a vibroblade. The words, however, struck a discordant note in him. There was something odd about them. Something that didn’t quite fit. ’Offworlder.’ As if she feels proprietary. But that’s definitely no Wookiee.

“Listen,” the Kiffar answered to the open air. “I don’t know who you are, but I—”

“Leave. Now. You will not be warned again.”

A growl sounded again, this time from the Kiffar, as he hand dropped to the blaster at his hip. “Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t take ord—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Terran felt a prescient clamor and lunged to the side. A blow - no doubt meant for his back - cracked against his thighs and he saw a humanoid form from the corner of his eyes. He caught the impression of horns and roughly a mile of exposed skin before he hit the ground, hard. The Arconan rolled with the impact and lurched to his feet, unholstering his blaster and spinning to face his assailant. He found only empty air.

“Frakking Shadows,” he snarled under his breath. “Seriously, listen. I’m not some tresp—”

He cut off as he saw a blur of motion, and his hand moved instinctively to track it with his blaster. The Kiffar aimed just ahead of the shimmer and fired a bolt. This far beneath the upper canopy, it was eternally dusk, and the blast of sapphire plasma ripped through the darkness, shredding Terran’s night vision. He squinted, trying to spot the telltale outline that would indicate movement. There was nothing to see. Good. Maybe I’ve deterred whoever that was. The last thing I need right now is to show up with a battered body on top of a battered ego. The Arconan turned back towards the rope, but the crack of rotted wood finally splintering spun him around just in time to see a half-clad Togruta barrelling towards him.

The Kiffar had time for a single thought — Is that a bouquet of bark in her satchel? — before the violet shedevil swung a length of wood as long as she was tall straight at his head.

Crack!

His skull shook with the impact of the she-devil’s quarterstaff—stars faded in and out of existence after the blow made contact. Instinct guided his boot-clad feet, reeling from harm before he came to his senses. One moment longer, and he would have made the fatal error of tumbling backward through the hundred-meter expanse that awaited beneath this rotting platform of outdated construction. That is—if he hadn’t found himself caught in the tangle of vines that clung to the underside of this platform.

“Stang! That hurt!” cursed the Kiffar, clutching at the side of his cranium to appraise the damage. Besides a trickle of blood forming droplets that ran to his forehead, the wound was far less severe as it was debilitating. Although it was superficial, he suspected that he would have a headache lasting for the next weeks after this was done.

“That was just a warning,” A’lora hissed, “do not test my patience.”

Terran smirked, regarding her lithe form for a moment while flicking the blood from his fingers, “Well then, it seems we have some common ground, after all.”

Knowing that it was his time to show his abilities, Terran channeled the energies surrounding them. Cracking under the strain of being torn free from their bonds, an unfathomable number of small, needlelike slivers rose from their resting places in the platform’s rotted surface. Frozen in suspended animation, the shards of bark and wood that once formed the platform’s outermost surface hovered in mid-flight with ominous dormancy.

Following the flick of his wrist, countless slivers of bark and wood shot forward, converging on a single point in space where the Togruta once stood. Were it not for her reflexes, the bombardment of wooden fragments would have flayed the flesh from her bones; instead, the torrent of splinters burrowed within the rotted floorboards of another platform behind where she once was. Unable to withstand the ravages of sustained barrage, the blast of ligneous shards whittled down the rot like sand against rust, revealing the wood beneath.

Needles ravaged the Fallanassi’s flesh, serrated ends piercing skin deep into her arm and shoulder as she rolled against the tide. Blood, crimson and thick oozed around the shards embedded within her nerve endings, running in thin lines down her left shoulder and along her arm in a crisscross pattern that changed direction whenever she moved. Where she managed to avoid the brunt of his assault, a few of the shards vectored in ahead of her maneuver.

The feeling was not unlike that of being dragged across the sands of Tatooine’s dunes. Several of the splintered fragments grazed along her skin or otherwise failed to burrow within her flesh. As a result, minor lacerations and cuts scored the left side of her abdomen—although too shallow to bleed, the abrasions nonetheless sent a fleeting moment of discomfort through her nerves.

“I’ll bet that it’ll take a while to pluck those out.” the Jensaarai mused, finding satisfaction in the sneer that she returned. Fortunate that his foe had lacked for protection against the torrent of debris that he unleashed, Terran had drawn the better hand.

Canine teeth reflected white, contrasting with her violet grimace that revealed her ferocious nature. Terran had heard the rumors of Togruta—false observations of those who witnessed a glimpse of their barbaric culture. Travellers to visit their homeworld claimed of savage practices of the worst kind—cannibalism, as well as those insisting that a Togruta’s bite was venomous. He dismissed these as false pretenses, based on the misperceptions of some disgruntled trader or traveller. Transfixing his attention on the Togruta’s reaction, Terran wondered if he was wrong to have neglected those warnings so effortlessly.

More unsettling was when her unspoken threat vanished. Uncreasing her brow, A’lora focused on where he was standing—within a blanket of moss that concealed something else just beneath the surface. Terran must have noticed her sudden shift of behaviour, as he moved a moment too slow. Tendrils seemed to part the cover of foliage, closing in around his ankle and triggering something else that rustled in the trees overhead. Seeing the familiar damp fibers clutching around his boot, Terran wasted no time in lowering his blaster and severing the cord in a single burst of plasma.

“Grrrwraaahh!” A low-rumbling voice called out, echoing the warnings that rang in Terran’s mind. Large hands gripped at the Jensaarai’s shoulders with crushing force before Isshwarr tossed him aside. Webbed in a tight blanket of rope, the net fell onto his Wookiee companion, pinning Isshwarr against the moss-covered ground while she cried out in protest.

Horrified, Terran’s mouth gaped open at the sight of his friend clawing desperately for freedom against her bonds. Although she was uninjured, the Jensaarai felt a torrent of hatred seething from his being, rage boiling in his veins.

"Isshwarr!"