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.

Squelching and bubbling beneath his leathery feet, the crimson ground of Dathomir felt wrong and uneasy to Lexiconus. With each careful move he made, the mud sunk further and started to swallow him. The Quarren carefully looked around the wildlands, a box in his hand, as if searching for something. The calling of the beasts and the unknown lands perked his attention, while reptiles sang their songs and snakes hissed from the bush.

Trudging onwards, he came to a dip in the climate, and was greeted by the wide, tainted swamplands. Bubbling, brewing and fluctuating away, Lexiconus scanned the scene carefully. A green glimmer caught his attention, like a flash of an orb. He grinned and began to carefully descend the loose bank.

I finally found it, this is perfect, He thought to himself, as his feet dipped into the hot bog. While the steam from the water rose and surrounded him in an emerald glow, he carefully tip toed through.

Easy does it now, He thought to himself, taking a nervous gulp. Don’t scare it now.

As Lexiconus stalked closer to the glowing orb on the branch, he could finally see the clear details. It was a Dathomir beetle, with a diamond-shaped shell, two antennae used for sensing and fighting, as well as eight legs. Due to its ability to spit and spray acid from its mouth and anus, causing skin and metal to dissolve, Lexiconus prized this beetle. This supernatural ability is also why it is called the Fire-breathing Scarab. With the steadiness of a surgeon’s hands, the Quaestor slowly opened the box towards the beetle and began to carefully surround it.

“Get off me, snake!” A deep, bellowing voice shrieked out from the distance, which caused the beetle to quickly scurry away.

“Blast!” Lexiconus threw his box to the ground, and stormed off to the voice to investigate.

As he climbed the ledge up from the swamp, his eyes caught the sight of a hulking Pau’an clad in an exoskeleton of some sort. His neck was slowly crushed while the constrictor snake starved his lungs. Despite his mighty size and strong affinity in the Force, the Pau’an struggled with the writhing mass of muscle. Thinking more about his life than the snake’s, Lexiconus slowly ignited his lightsaber and rushed over. With his steady hands, the Quarren slowly sliced the constrictor away, and watched as the poor beast writhed in agony on the floor.

“Hah! Puny lizard!” The Pau’an roared, his metallic boot stomping the snake’s skull with a sickening crush. The Pau’an turned to Lexiconus, and his smile grew into this menacingly grim look.

“You squid, I have come for you! Prepare for your death!” He shouted, as his lightsaber snapped to life from his boulder-like hand.

Oh, not again, Lexiconus thought, as he began to backpedal, his saberstaff in a defensive position.

Dathomir was a corpse of a planet, its devastated surface pitted with desolation and what wretched lifeforms could survive such abject darkness. The landscape was lonely, rotting and touched only by those who did not fear death.

Here, Thanadd Mawgath would absorb one more life. As the stygian vigors of Dathomir flowed through him, he felt invincible. Here, in a place governed by ends, another would perish. The Dark Side would flourish in the violence of his final moments.

"Your carcass will feed the carrion of this dead world," he sneered, stomping within striking range of the Quarren. The hiss of conduction echoed in the stolid atmosphere of the swamp, emerald meeting ruby in a mighty clash.

Lexiconus Qor buried his heels into the bloated mire, the hue of his blade almost disappearing into the foreground of stubborn foliage and frothing sludge. With defiant turns and shifts of his saberstaff, he weathered the battery of his Sith foe, whose powerful blows seemed unceasing.

The Grey Jedi winced, feeling his posture begin to buckle. As the Tarenti hacked and pummeled, both beings knew the bulwark could not be maintained.

"Why?!" called the Quarren, intimations of compassion still coloring his voice as he dug in against the onslaught. It was enough to earn him a brief reprieve, the towering blackguard too arrogant to resist the opportunity to disparage his enemy.

"The Force is not for you, pretender!" Mawgath spat, his anger pouring through the modulator in an awful drone. He knew now that his foe could not overcome his strength of arms, confident that the final blow would come soon.

"Death will reign through the supremacy of the Dark Side! You are not worthy of its embrace! It has been foreseen!"

The fearsome cleave which followed met only wind and mud, as if Lexiconus were anticipating such a maneuver. Now, the Quarren waited on firmer ground, meeting the Knight of Tarentum at his oblique.

"Wh-?"

Cholera welled in the Dark Jedi's molten irides, his exasperation escaping like heat from his terrible armor. How had the squid done such a thing?

Mawgath concentrated on his anger, pulling on his frustration and tried to reach out with the Force, waiting for the Dark Side to fuel his berserker rage --

-- but it never responded.

“Bah! What has happened to my power?” Thanadd roared out, his metallic voice echoing across the crimson plains. Lexiconus twirled his lightsaber in a flurry and prepared the blade in his defensive position again, his concentration slightly occupied.

The Pau’an charged at his opponent, his powerful and heavy stomps upsetting the mud beneath and caused it cover Thanadd entirely. With a smirk, the Quarren watched as the Knight’s weight slowly became his demise. With each struggling step he took, Thanadd’s mechanical armour sunk further into the swamplands.

“What trickery is this, squid! You have no power over the Sith!” His spittle accentuated his words, while the lightsaber in his grasp swung around with aggressive intentions. Silent and observant, Lexiconus took this peaceful moment to educate the Knight.

“A small tip for you, the next time you return to Dathomir, swamps have mud and quicksand. The bogs here are never ending and have claimed the lives of many unskilled travellers. You are now going through that torturous moment, where your struggles quickens your death, and your might is the lesson of failure. This is the price of the swamps, and this is your first lesson with me, Sith.” Lexiconus nodded as he slowly sat on the edge, a good enough distance from being chopped or worse.

It didn’t stop Thanadd from trying however, as he flung the lightsaber as hard as he could, the crimson blade twirling across the air. The Quarren’s sense of danger forced his body to tumble aside, as the Sith’s lightsaber stabbed into the bank of rocks.

“I have more where that came from, Quarren! You mark my words!” Thanadd shouted, his feet struggling more against the gravitational pull of the mud. Lexiconus shook his head and slowly picked up the Sith’s lightsaber, inspecting the work.

“I don’t think so, Knight. But I am eager to see you try and leave the quick-sand. So I’ll be here, waiting. Some bogs take less than five minutes to eat a man, some take an hour. Let’s see how long you have to live,” The Seer slowly smiled as he hooked the lightsaber to his waist, and watched with crossed arms.

Chided by a lesser warrior, Mawgath seethed, the glow of his chest panel piercing the sludge which now decorated his armor. His massive chest rose and fell with labored breaths, the mired colossus struggling to gather the poise necessary to escape this mess – and finish off the squid.

“Peace is a lie. There is only passion,” he muttered, trembling syllables nearly silenced by the bubbling of the swamplands. Perched and self-satisfied, Lexiconus Qor watched his would-be assassin begin to relent, black eyes now hidden beneath mottled grey eyelids.

“Ah, are we trying patience on for size, ancient one?”

Beard-like tentacles stirred, the stoic humor of the Gray Jedi infuriating the bog-ridden Tarenti.

“It suits one with your lifespan quit well, immortal,” Lexiconus jested, now leaning against the petrified trunk of a great gnarltree. The slow crawl of mold beneath him did not seem to disturb the Quarren in the slightest, who felt a great connection with the humid quagmire.

“Through passion, I gain strength,” Mawgath growled, feeling his rage pool into a font of dark potency. His hatred for his foe, who so easily outmaneuvered him, fueled his broken body. His descent into the sullen earth slowed, mitigated by his concentration – however ireful.

“Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken”

The Pau’an trailed off, his steel-shelled jaw rising from his chest. Cavernous eyes snapped to life, the Force coursing through furrowed flesh.

“THE FORCE SHALL FREE ME!”

Impossible steps launched the Dark Jedi into a bounding leap, which carried his armored frame from the swamp and onto the Quarren’s dreary mesa. Lexiconus responded with a surprising finesse, the crack of his lightsaber blade goading Mawgath into wild rage. His gauntlets fell with deadly force against an invisible barrier, and from behind the ghostly bastion, Lexiconus prepared to land the killing blow. He would wait for Mawgath to tire…

…but it never came. The Gray Jedi shifted to create space between himself and the groaning tyrant, winding up for the penultimate strike. Mawgath refused to let such tactics deter his assault a second time.

“I will crush you!”

He bellowed as he lifted the earth-stained boulder, drenched flora-husks and swarming insects trickling from its filthy underbelly. Lexiconus easily avoided the massive projectile, clambering over the rocky banks and sinking into a defensive posture.

“Your darkness limits you, Sith,” the Quarren advised. He was simply educating his opponent, who now called his lightsaber to his grasp with a telekinetic gesture.

“Darkness has no limits, squid,” Mawgath spat, his crimson blade lighting the ground beneath.

“It is all around us. It grows, spreads, into the cracks and beneath the surface of our perceptions. It is irresistible, and never gone for long. Darkness is eternal, and this is the power of Death!”

The final syllable was accentuated by the mincing of blades yet again, and even the Quarren held no illusions about what would happen now. Exhausted and outclassed, the Gray Jedi could not stir himself to madness – not even to save his own life – for he felt no terror. The Tarenti scowled as he beat Lexiconus down, struggling to grasp a satisfaction which never arrived.

As the killing blow was struck, tearing the Quarren’s orange hide asunder, he did not fear death. His consciousness ceased, leaving only the darkness which Mawgath so worshipped - one which would never give him the closure he sought.

Lexiconus Qor died in that swamp, never succumbing to the terror which his murderer tried so desperately to inflict – and so it was that another passed into the Force, their death as hollow and as silent as the fallen logs of Dathomir.