Of all the pieces of technology to remain working Molari was most thankful for his saber. It had been the only piece of technology to remain functioning in the strange land he traveled across, the man packing up what few pieces he had and returning them to his ship. The lights were completely off, everything dead as she sighed, running a hand through his short-cropped hair.
He had no words for the creatures he had encountered. He felt their taint though, a grasping evil nature that clung to their flesh, their rotted flesh. He wondered what Sith had twisted them and raised their mangled corpses from the dead for that was a power he had never encountered before. But it was one he knew was possible and yet...
And yet the place crawled with a lower taint, something that left him uneasy at night, uneasy during the day. The sounds of the forest were unfamiliar, the cries in the deep woods were different, the creatures not similar to anything in the archives he had studied since childhood. A few days past he had stumbled on a small creature, rounded and pudgy with hairless skin and towering ears. There was something a bit like a fox, but longer in leg, with larger ears. And there had been a towering shadow that swept across the air like a thranta, but its cry was unlike anything he had ever heard.
And it looked like...
Like a dragon.
But dragons, he knew, were nearly extinct; the monstrous Krayt dragons had begun to vanish and the large ones called as mounts by the armies of old had gone not just out of fashion but seemingly out of existence.
But the recollection, the resemblance, had been uncanny. And it had shaken the man, awoken a primal fear that he had thought he had trained past; when the rumbling cry had torn the air the Jedi had stopped his motions, moving under the cover and letting the beast swoop overhead. It had crested the sky and disappeared towards the mountains and the Jedi had waited until the forest itself had slowly stirred back to life before he found his breath easing.
There were armies and bandits who crawled the hillsides and woods, primitive weapons that made even slugthrowers seem high-tech brandished. The Jedi had slipped unmolested until he came near a town, one enclosed by guarded walls manned by heavily armored Knights. But they bore no lightsabers and their connection to the Force almost seemed...artifical.
Her had no words for the strange feeling they gave him, as if something noble and yet wrong stood tall. And beyond those guards there were bells, an unfamiliar song of an unfamiliar religion. Where had this come from, this song praising Andraste and the Maker? The cries of 'mage' and 'templar' were spoken of as if they were world-shattering forces and there was no planet he had learnt of, Republic or Empire or Hutt or Rim, that had sects called by those names.
What was a mage? What was a templar? What were the green cracks people spoke of, and what were demons?
The last two he found answers to as he watched the small township. For slitting the air a green light coalesced, and from it tore out creatures he had never seen before, figments of putrid nightmares - misshapen forms with hands too long, features too horrific, and a presence he had never encountered. The Knights were prepared, drawing their weapons - but their weapons were plain ones. Against what looked to be demons from the nightmares of even the most stout of Sith.
The demons - for the towns people screamed and yelled enough that he could pick out the names - cackled and roared in exultation. The Knights fought but the air ripped and then squeezed and more demons came from the sickly-green rend in the sky. The Knights rallied against the barred gate, defending valiantly, but... Molari started to run forward.
They were cut down as a boil of hatred poured from the rift in the air. It quaked the ground, claws red with fresh blood as it cut through their armor as if it was cloth and not the metal he could tell it was.
He wasn't fast enough to save them all.
He accepted that, even as he drew his saber, blade hissing through the air as it ignited.
He could save the ones who were left. And he could, perhaps, save this town of innocents.
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