Aria raised her arm as if to hit him in retort for his cheeky comment, but then froze in mid-air as if thinking better of the gesture, given his current fragile state. 
“It’s not funny, Bol. I was really worried about you.” she shot back at him, . They wasted no time in beginning the trek up the cliffside, though the party did stop very briefly to look down at the damaged transport. As Ethan apologised for the state the landing had left it in, Yerbol was quick to reassure his apprentice that he had done the right thing, and Aria supplemented it with a nod of her own, telling the boy:
“You’ve nothing to apologise for, Ethan. A ship can be fixed, getting one of us killed can’t. What’s most important is you got us down all in one piece, we can fix the ship one way or another.” 
“Why is it green?” Kytra muttered as she too, studied the magma with trepidation. “That can’t be normal…” 
“Dark side energy, possibly, or some other kind of mineral in the rocks.” Aria shrugged. “We may never know, and I wouldn’t advise leaning in to get a closer look.” 

They all fell abruptly silent as they came to the top of the rise and found themselves staring at a labyrinth of likely-impassable pathways.
“Oh, for Force sake.” 
“It could take us days to figure that out…” 
Ethan’s suggestion of splitting up, unsurprisingly, did not go down well with either of the Champions.
“No.” Aria protested just as quickly, but fell silent as her partner continued his train of thought and put forward a plan of action. “Yerbol’s right, it’s too dangerous. Force knows what could be waiting for us in there, and we may never find each other again. We’ll have to stick together and hope that there’s some kind of clue to guide us onto the right path to the other side.” 
After some time spent squinting at the snaking pathways, pointing and deciding just which one was most likely to take them to their end goal, the Qyaari began to pick their way back down the other side of the slope, completely unawares of the danger they were about to walk right into.


Nothing at all had seemed out of the ordinary (aside from the obvious death and decay which seemed the norm for the place) which might have warned them that they were being followed. If it hadn't been for Chwuq’s vigilant watch at the tail end of the group, they may not have realised until it was too late. Aria stopped as the Tuk’ata gave a warning snarl, turning to glance behind them, the Champion frowned as she spotted the brief ripple of energy, not unlike that which was produced by a stealth field generator. Her heart dropped into her stomach. There was only one thing which could cause that kind of a disturbance on a planet like Malachor, and it was NOT here to make friends. 


“RUN! MOVE, NOW!!” The Champion barked,  too late as the air in front of Kytra and Ethan began to shimmer too. Seconds later, the ripples ceased and in their place there materialised the obsidian-scaled form of a lizard...perhaps more accurately described as a dragon from its size alone. It was easily seven feet long from head to tail, and at least half that height, thereby towering over most of the Qyaari in front of it. The beast’s cavernous jaws gaped to reveal seemingly-endless rows of serrated teeth that could have snapped Kytra clean in half, had the Selonian not heard her mentor’s warning. She froze in time to see the creature looming towards her, screamed, and leapt several feet into the air, her spine contorting at an angle unnatural for any human so her hindquarters sailed clear of the bite before the Dark side dragon could grab her. It landed snout-first in the peat instead, spitting in fury as it wheeled around for a second offence. 
“SCREEEEEE!!” Chwuq let out a piercing shriek of her own as she leapt between Yerbol and the second beast, her teeth bared in a challenging snarl as the pair of Sith beasts squared up to their attackers. 
“WHAT IN FORCE IS THAT THING?!” Kytra shouted, rebounding off a ledge above the lizard’s head and landing with her back to Ethan’s.
“Hssiss!” Aria grunted as she dodged a tail swipe, calling her lightsabers to hand and spinning them into an attacking position as she darted forward to help her partner. “History lesson later, when we’re not about to be EATEN BY ONE! Stay clear of the head and the tail and aim for the underside where the scales are thinnest, DO NOT let them bite you!!” 

Kytra nodded, gripping her own weapon tightly as she and Ethan jumped and dodged one attack after another. The Hssiss were large and clearly very powerful, their senses and bloodlust sharpened by centuries of starvation, they were desperate to feed at any cost. Kytra almost lost a few whiskers to an unexpected swipe from the Hssiss’ paw, had Ethan not brought his blade down to deflect the blow in time. Aria was sent flying into the cliffside courtesy of the second beast’s tail as she faltered briefly to check on the youngsters. As it reared up to try and bring its full weight down on her, Yerbol’s lightsaber flew through the air and clipped it across the underbelly, sending it tumbling back down to the ground. Aria scrambled to her feet and put her own lightsaber through its eye socket for good measure as Yerbol’s returned to his hand. Kytra and Ethan were managing to hold their ground reasonably well, but struggling to land any substantial blows against the lizard’s thick hide. Kytra tried employing a similar technique by leaping up onto its head while Ethan distracted it by feigning attacks on its legs, but the Hssiss shook the lightweight Selonian off before she could land a blow anywhere near its eyes, as if she were nothing more than a piece of paper thrown at it. 


A sharp whistle from Aria rallied the two Sith hounds to join the apprentices, their well-muscled shoulders finding them better purchase on the larger creature as they leapt onto its back from both sides and each grabbed one of its long, curved horns in their teeth. The lizard became so preoccupied with dislodging the Tuk’ata from its face that it seemed to disregard the Qyaari it had originally been hunting (though Kytra was almost squashed by its flailing feet as Ethan and Yerbol launched another offensive and finally managed to bring it down). Aria leaned down to help Kytra to her feet once more, the apprentice pausing briefly to pat herself down as if ensuring that all of her appendages were in fact, still attached.
“Are you alright, Kytra?” 
“Y-Yeah. I think so. Thank you.” she nodded, peering at the exposed fin of the ship, much closer now than it had been. “We should get out of here before more of them show up, right…?” 
“Agreed. The sooner the better, we don’t want to get caught in the tight corners of that ship and be surrounded by them...they feed on Force sensitives, so believe me, any others around here WILL be looking for us, so we’d better move fast.” Aria warned, patting her apprentice gently on the shoulder before she turned to forge onwards, clearly in a hurry to move on before more Hssiss showed up.