Tomed walked into Kor Vella, looking around for a bazaar terminal. He'd managed to get few Corellian
Butterfly hides, and was sick of carrying them around. Not that they'd sell for all that much, but at this point, a small
amount of change was better than carrying the ever growing pile, and he needed a new rifle. He was born in a small village
nestled in the mountains north-northeast of Kor Vella on the world of Corellia, during the beginning of the Clone Wars, and
had recently left home to start off on his own wanting to see the galaxy. "See the galaxy, huh. Maybe I should've started
out this spring instead of waiting until summer." he muttered to himself as he spotted the bazaar terminal... with very few
people standing around it. Kor Vella wasn't usually crowded anyway, but if there weren't many people around the terminal,
there probably weren't that many people buying either, and he didn't have the credits to get to get to Coronet at the moment.
Coronet, as the capital city of Corellia, was always busy, and you could usually sell almost anything there. Perhaps not
for as much as in other places, due to the number of people selling, but the amount of buyers almost guaranteed a sale of some sort.
Checking prices on the vendor, he sighed to himself as he tried to figure out whether it was even worth
posting the hides or not. He had always preferred staying outdoors, and leaving the figuring, sales, and all the hassle to his dad.
His father was a man of many creative talents, and used them to create and repair assorted items for the residents of their
village. He had grown up on Corellia, as had generations of his family, and, even with the ease of intra-galactic travel, had
never been off planet and didn't really like to leave the village they lived in. Tomed had taken more after his uncle Dalk, who
liked to explore, hunt, and travel wherever his ship could take him. It was his uncle who had taught Tomed to love the outdoors
and trained him in the basics of how to survive on his own in the wilderness. Tomed's mother, Aila, was born on Naboo, and her
family moved to Corellia when she was in her late teenage years. She met her future husband Jall while she was studying medicine
in Coronet, and he was there to buy supplies and sell various items. After Tomed had grown into his teens, his father was more
than happy to let his son do all the gallivanting around for him (along with several other men and boys from the village),
so he got see at least the major cities on Corellia, but always wanted to see more, especially after seeing the spaceships
take off and land from star ports, and the various interesting looking aliens mingling around them.
"Well, that's enough reflecting, I'll never get to see all those spaceports and such if these hides
don't sell..." Tomed muttered to himself as he frowned down at the terminal. There really didn't seem to be many people
interested in as small of a stack as he had, but he might be able to sell them if he got a few dozen more hides. With that
in mind, he headed south out of Kor Vella, and started looking out in the brown grass covering the sloping hills for more
Corellian butterflies. In a few minutes, he spotted one hovering above a bed of flowers growing in a ravine, and started
making his way carefully to it. Corellian butterflies with their half a meter to a meter wingspan, while not the most dangerous
of animals, could still injure a man pretty badly if they wanted to. Tomed crept up behind the butterfly, and glanced around to
ensure that it was a ways off from the rest of it's hive. They were social animals, and while one wasn't a problem, if the drones
saw that one of the workers was under attack, several of them would come and fend off the attacker. This worker butterfly looked
to be alone and intent on gathering nectar. He raised his gun, took aim, and fired. The blaster bolt hit right above the wing,
and as the butterfly slowly spun around in the air to figure out what hurt it, he took aim and fired again, but nothing happened.
Tomed glanced down at the blaster, "Hmm, doesn't look like anything is wrong with it..." he fired at the insectoid again, got
a clean shot, and, as it was advancing toward him, tried again, with another failure. "Well, that's not good..." he muttered. He
got up, and started running away from it before it could get too close. "Hmm, it's a little faster than me, but if I run away and
get as many shots off as I can, I should be able to get out of this OK.." "Well, if this stupid blaster would work.." he muttered,
as the weapon started to fire less and less reliably. Just as the perturbed insect caught up to him, a young zabrak ran up behind
the butterfly and finished it off. "Looked like you needed some help there." he said by way of greeting. "Yeah, thanks, my name's
Tomed." "I'm Vusin, pleasure to meet you." the newcomer said, "Say, you look a tad worn out there, wanna get something
at the cantina?" "Sure" Tomed replied, as he stripped the hide from the butterfly and folded it carefully into his pack. "I could
use a bite to eat, and I guess I'm done until I get a new blaster anyway."
The cantina was fairly empty as Tomed and Vusin walked into the cantina. "So, new in town? " Tomed asked. "Yeah,"
Vusin replied, "I wanted to get out and see different worlds, and Corellia is different enough, but is still a core world, so I
figured I wouldn't be in too much trouble if something went horribly wrong. Unfortunately, the Imperials destroyed my ship, so
now I'm stuck here." "Heh, yeah. I grew up here, and the general plan is to get enough credits to get out and see the galaxy."
As they continued talking, Tomed leaned that the two of them had a lot in common with their interest in exploration and hunting.
He grinned to himself as he realized that they wore similar clothing too. "Well, you can sure tell who the hunters are in here,
can't you?" Vusin looked around the room and laughed, "Heh, yeah, we're the only ones in cammo!" The zabrak yawned, "Looks like
it's time to call it a night. Hey, it was nice meeting you, give me a call sometime if you want to go hunting together." "I'll do
that, nice meeting you too." Tomed looked at the time, it was later than he thought. "Hmm, too late to wander outside the city and
camp for night..." He looked around the cantina, and spotted an empty booth in the corner. "Well, I've slept in worse...."
he thought as he settled down into the padded booth.
The next few days Tomed spent wandering around delivering packages for various townspeople, trying to make
enough creds for a new blaster. After a few runs, a quick look through the bazaar showed a few cheap rifles. "Hmm, not much
to look at, but better than nothing, and it's in decent condition for the price." The next few days were spent hunting with Vusin
and practicing his outdoorsman’s skills. He'd found a hunter in Kor Vella that was teaching him some more scouting and hunting
skills to complement the ones he already had, and was also learning which of the local animals were most wanted for their meat,
bones, or hide. Almost all of them were used by someone or another as part of the process of making all kinds of goods.
“Not that I mind living in a tent, but it gets a little old after a while.” Tomed mused to himself as he
setup camp after another long days hunting. “And I’ve got look into getting some place to store all this stuff…” he reflected
glancing at the increasing piles of harvested animal products. “Hmm, lets see, I’ve got a crate of animal bones, several bundles
of various hides, my tend, a portable crafting station… How does all this stuff fit in here?” He and Vusin had been looking
around the area for housing, or at least a place they could rent to store some of their gear, for the past few days now.
He sighed as he opened the comlink to check for new messages, he hadn’t found anything promising, perhaps Vusin had. “Hmm, lets
see… confirmation message about that rifle I bought, I thought I deleted that one already…” he murmured as scrolled through
the messages. Ah, there was one from Vusin, “Hey Tomed,” it read, “I found a great guild called ‘Souls’ based out of a city
called ‘Perdition’. Seems like a great group of people, and they’ll give you a house too if you join.” Well, that sounded good,
but people just don’t give out free houses. “Well, I don’t know, perhaps they’re trying to expand the city…” “Well, it’s worth
checking out anyway.” he decided. The guild sounded promising though. Guilds were loose organizations of people with common
interest that had banded together from either common interests, or a variety of other reasons. Many different guilds were in
operation on the various worlds of the explored galaxy, and it was a good idea to belong to one, weather you wanted help in
fulfilling a hunting contract, needed contacts to get work, or, due to various inter-guild arrangements, needed someone to turn
to if one ran into trouble in the middle of a backwater planet. He’d been looking for a good one, (in today's times, it was
either that, farm, or join the imperial navy...) and he was pretty sure he could trust Vusin’s instincts. They’d been on
enough hunting trips together already that they had learned to depend on each other in a tight situation, and seemed to have
similar ideals from various talks around the campfire… and they’d had plenty, there wasn’t much else to do when all the game
had gone into hiding when it started raining.
Tomed got up early the next morning and headed off to the southeast where Vusin had said Perdition was. Along
the way he spotted a grove of red grass where wild melons sometimes grew, and, since it was lunchtime anyway, decided to see if
he could find any. After a few minutes of searching, he found a vine of several ripe melons. He carefully packed one up for later
and put it in his pack. “Hmm, didn’t think it fit, but there still seems to be plenty of room in there.” He was really getting
curious about the amount of room in that thing. When he took everything out of the pack and spread it out, it made a pile bigger
than the backpack itself, yet it all fit in with a little room to spare. “Ah well, at least it all fits… better than having to
get another speeder or something to carry it in.” After packing up the one melon, he sliced open the other one, and settled out
on the brown grass to watch a herd of badgerassetts grazing off in the distance while he ate. “Well, time to go” he said,
glancing at his chronometer, “Vusin said he’d be there about now.”
Hopping back into his X-31 land-speeder, he headed back out in the direction of the co-ordinates that Vusin
had sent him. A few minuets later, a cluster of buildings came into view over a hill. It looked like a nice town, a few trees
here and there, close to the river, and mostly appeared to be standard Corellian house construction, with just one large skyscraper
rising from the center of town. “Must be the city hall..” he reflected, “Either that, or someone here is very rich….” Pulling
into town, he navigated through the streets looking for Vusin’s house. Pulling up to one of the small, gray houses, he saw
a zabrak come out of it and wave at him. As he got closer to it, he saw that it was Vusin. Tomed turned off the speeder and
hopped out to greet his friend. “Hey Vusin!” “Hi Tomed, decided to join Souls?” “Yeah,” Tomed replied, “Sounds like a nice group
of people.” “Oh, they are” Vusin replied “lets go see Thayne and get the forms and stuff filled out.” They walked toward the
towering spire of city hall, and as they walked past, Vusin pointed to a large, rectangular building with flowing black and red
banners just to the east of city hall. “That’s the guild office right there.” “I think Thayne is still inside.” As they ascended
the steps and entered the large building, Vusin pointed to an Ithorian who was standing next to one of many sales-beings that
lined the walls of the large open main room of the building. He was talking to her about something, and handing her different
models of blasters, and presumably giving her instructions about it, as she took notes on each item on a datapad that she was
holding, before carefully shelving it away. “That’s Thayne, Vusin stated, “He’s the guild’s main armorsmith and weapons expert.”
Vusin explained, “If you need any armor, or a new blaster, or parts for different weapons, he’s the one to talk to.” “Ah, OK”
Tomed replied. After a few moments, Thayne finished instructing his saleswoman, and walked over to where the two of them were
standing. “Ah, Vusin,” he said, “Nice to see you again. This must your friend you were telling us about.” “Yup, that’s him.”
Vusin replied. “Hi, I’m Tomed Nor. Vusin has told me about the guild, Nice city here too.” “Thank you” Thayne replied, “You wanted
to join the guild?” “Yeah, if I can” Tomed answered. “OK, this way please.” the Ithorian indicated the direction to a small room
in the left from corner of the building. They walked into the office, and Thayne efficiently filled out several forms, and
welcomed Tomed into Souls.
Their business concluded, they walked out of the guild hall. Vusin turned to Tomed, “OK, now that that’s
done, lets see about getting you a house.” “OK, who do we talk to about that?” Tomed asked. “Ah, we’d want to talk to Eemeia,
she’s the mayor here.” Vusin responded. They walked over to the city hall, and as they were approaching the steps, a human women
approximately Tomed’s age was walking down them. She had long brown hair, had a simple tunic on, and started walking toward them
when she recognized Vusin. “Hi Vusin!” she waved in greeting. “Hi Eemeia!” he replied. “This is Tomed, he’s just joined Souls
and needs to get setup in a house”. “Ah, yeah, I just saw the paperwork come through and was on my way to find you.” she
replied cheerfully.
Eemeia led them out toward the west side of town. They stopped in front of a small new looking structure
just behind the towns cantina. "If I can just have you place your hand on the scanner, I'll get it all transfered over
to you" she said, "and if you need anything else or have any questions don't hesitate to give me a call."
"Thanks, I'll do that" Tomed replied. As Eemeia headed back toward city hall, Tomed and Vusin walked into the house
to look it over. "Well," Vusin said, "looks about the same size as my house, but the floor plan's a bit
different." "Yeah, looks like it should be enough to hold my stuff anyway. I just need to find some furniture!"
Vusin laughed, "Yeah, unless you want to stand up all the time!"