Aria had frowned in concern as he mentioned the bruising, rolling up her own sleeves to check her wrists. Sure enough, they too sported angry purple fingers shaped bruises. “Tell me about it...I thought she was gonna break my wrists.” her concern for the state of his ribs meant she took little notice of his jest at how hard she could hit, instead asking: “Are you sure your ribs aren't broken? Cause we might need to think about getting you back to a kolto tank as soon as we're done with Renso…” 
Force forbid they should ignore it and a broken bone end up puncturing his lung or….STOP IT. She knew it was her brain catastrophising and tried to push the terrifying thought it had brought aside, squeezing his hand in return as she commented on some of the questions he raised. “ ‘Xiis’. That's what the woman said to me. I don't know if that's someone's name or a species...I guess we'll have to ask Renso.” rising from her chair, she nodded gratefully and slipped off to shower and change quickly as Yerbol brought them back down again
______________

They had to pick their way through a vast expanse of horrible, swampy ground to get off the edge of the loading ramp. It wouldn't get any better the further away they went in search of Renso with only one dog in town  (Taral had taken one look outside, tucked his tail between his legs and cowered refusing to leave the ship. She hadn't taken that as a good sign, even if he was slightly less brutish than his mate he still wasn't one to startle easily). With Renso's clue in mind it didn't take them long to find the pillars that stuck out like sore thumbs from the rest of the landscape. 
“Well, I'd bet it's a tomb alright.” Aria chuckled wryly, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder before they ventured forward into the cave, Yerbol conjouring another of the blue light orbs to illuminate the path in front of them.
“You've got to teach me how to do that sometime.” she murmured, breaking the eerie silence that seemed to permeate the entire tomb but for their footsteps and their breath. “How deep do you think this thing goes?” 
Well, it WAS a tomb after all….

It could have been only a few minutes later, or closer to a whole hour (Aria lost all concept of how much time had passed as they trudged through the cold stone passageways) before they glimpsed a dim orange-ish light from up ahead, the narrow tunnel they had been in opening out into a chamber with a cavernous ceiling. She couldn't begin to think what it would have been used for. Some kind of rite to put the spirits of those buried in the tombs to rest? She shuddered at the thought. 

Her attention however would be immediately drawn to the frail figure perched against the stone slab in the middle of the room. He looked frail, and old. Very old. His skin closer to sickly pinkish-grey in tint than the vibrant red they had witnessed in the mysterious projections in Quensu’s temple, and well weathered with age; the tentacle projections sagging so far down on his chin and eyebrows that it looked as if they would fall right off his face at any moment, a few whispy white strands were all that was left of hair on his otherwise gleaming, bare skull. The yellow eyes which may have at one point been sharp and alert had become slightly sunken back in their sockets, glassed over with pain and yet still reflecting many years of hard-learned wisdom. And very, very much alive.
Chwuq’s hackles bristled, the Tuk'ata's lips peeling back to show her glistening white teeth as she studied the man with wary eyes.
“Power bad.”
“We don’t know he's bad.” Aria reasoned, patting her head soothingly as the trio advanced closer in unison. “He helped us before…”
“You're Renso?” It was nerves really that had prompted it to come out as a question, or perhaps surprise when she had been expecting that they would be conversing with a Force spirit rather than a several several-thousand-year-old  (from what they could infer of Roan's previous studies of the dates and lore  they had uncovered) man. Or alien. Or whatever. How could ANYONE physically live that long, Force sensitive or not?! The question stuck in her throat despite her desperation to voice it out loud. 
A thin smile cracked further wrinkles into the alien’s face that made Aria worry it might shatter from the effort. 
The familiar voice that had spoken through the bond before confirmed what the duo had already known for themselves. 
“It's good to finally meet you both in person. I had worried you would not arrive in time.”
“We were...delayed.” Aria apologised, taking another step forward despite an anxious grunt from Chwuq. 
“Yes, so I was aware. I can feel their mark on you already.”
“Mark?” she echoed. Roan had said the same thing about the True Sith after picking up the duo from Manaan nearly a year ago. “What mark?”
“Powerful beings, or beings strong in negative emotions that draw heavily on the dark side, leave a Force signature, an imprint, behind on everything that they come into contact with. Rock, tree, animal, person.”
“The creatures we encountered can use the Force?” Aria frowned in confusion. “But we couldn't feel anything...we didn't even know they were there until they jumped out at us.”
“Perhaps some of them can, we're not sure.” Renso answered. “Most of them don't. But they don't have to be Force sensitive to leave echoes in the Force. The same way that it shifts when things die, so it can change when you come into contact with strong presences. And they have grown very strong in the years that they spent festering their hate.” the old Master sighed, shaking his head slowly. “Yes, there is much hate in them…”
“Why?” Aria asked carefully.
Renso was silent.