Rohak

Whip led me into the village of Aurillia, past smouldering, ruined buildings, the wreckage of all manners of structures. I sensed fear and anguish all around. The voices I heard all around me were filled with dispair. Horror had been visited on Aurillia, and its touch still lingered.

To the center of the village we walked, until we reached what appeared to be a central meeting area. An elderly man stood speaking to a soldier dressed in battle-worn armor. Whip approached the older man and said a few words, then beckoned me over.

"This is Rohak," Whip said, "He is the Elder of Aurillia."

I bowed my head. "I am honored," I said.

"Whip tells me that you survived a Sith attack," Rohak said. His voice crackled with age.

I nodded, then briefly recounted my tale of meeting the mysterious old man, and the subsequent Sith ambush. I showed Rohak the crystal that the old man had given me. He examined it silently, then looked at the soldier next to him with a raised eyebrow.

"This is Captain Sarguillo," Rohak said finally. "He will show you to a place where you can rest. You've had a long journey, I'm sure you're tired. Rest, and we will speak again later."

With that, Rohak nodded to the soldier Captain Sarguillo, then turned and headed off into the village.

The Captain brought me to a small hut at the edge of the meeting area. There was a small cot inside. He motioned to it, then departed, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I did not think I was very tired at first, as I had only journeyed a few kilometers from my camp that day. Nevertheless, after a few minutes I felt the weariness of the whole journey on Dathomir wearing on me, and I dozed off into sleepy blackness.

Sometime after the fall of night, I was awakened by Whip and led to see Rohak once more.

For the next several hours, I learned the story of Aurillia.

The Village

It is a strange sensation, suddenly encountering something that you did not know was there. It is something akin to falling from a great height with no sense of how far you are from the ground. That was the sensation that ran through my body when I crossed through the mist.

The mist.

The mist that was not there, yet was everywhere. From a distance I saw only a barren, empty plain. Yet after only a few hundred meters of driving from the edge of the tangled Dathomirian forest, I was suddenly engulfed in a deep blue fog, so thick that it eliminated almost all visibility and forced me to slow my bike to a crawl. I could not explain what it was, but I sensed that it was a protective cover of some kind, concealing whatever was beyond it. I felt nothing on my skin as I passed through it, but I sensed that it was there, teeming with a power of some kind.

The mist persisted for several hundred meters before suddenly dropping off. I emerged suddenly on the other side of the mysterious expanse after several hundred meters, and the air was suddenly clear again. It was darker, though, as if the light had been blotted out. I looked up and saw that the mist not only covered the ground, but extended up into the sky, creating a sort of enormous dome.

To say that I was without fear at this point would be a lie. The mist was such an alien entity, such an unexpected turn of events that I could feel myself tensing involuntarily. Yet I was determined to get to the bottom of this. I pressed on.

After about another kilometer's drive, a plume of smoke appeared on the horizon. Soon, I saw a large wall appear ahead of me. I slowed as I approached to get a better view of what lay ahead.

It was a settlement. The wall surrounding it was a defense installation, but that defense had been breached. There were gaping holes all around it, and evidence of explosions and carbon scoring. There were no sounds of battle currently, but it was clear that a large one had occurred here, and not long ago.

I drove around the perimeter of the wall until I reached a gate. There, I was surprised to find a young man. Small enough to be mistaken for a boy, he clutched a battered stun baton and stood nervously, shifting his weight back and forth. When he saw me, he swallowed and took a step back.

"Stay back!" he warned. "Don't come any closer!"

I shut down my speeder and dismounted slowly, then raised my hands in a peaceful gesture. I did my best to exert a calming influence. "I'm not here to hurt you," I said.

"Who are you?" the man said quickly, "Why are you here?"

"My name is Lofor," I answered. "Maast Lofor. I'm here because...because I'm looking for information. I was attacked. One of those who attacked me was carrying this." Cautiously, I reached into a pocket and produced the waypoint datapad that I had found on the Sith thug. I offered it to the man.

With even more caution, he approached me, stun baton always at the ready, and took the datapad from my hand. His eyes widened as he looked at it, and seemed to recognize the device. "They attacked you?" he said.

"Yes," I nodded, "They tried to kill me."

An incredulous look crossed his face. "And yet, you live."

"I defended myself. The won't trouble anyone again."

The man swallowed again, but his demeanor had clearly changed. I sensed relief in him.

"Where am I?" I asked. "What is this place?"

"This is Aurillia," he answered. "My name's Whip."