Anaslinea-Hoc, Vagran, the same day

Blobbo the Hutt was reclining on his repulsorlift floating platform and eating plain apex tree nuts. A true Vagranite despite having been born on Nal Hutta, he was aware of the dangers of junk food and, luckily, his immense wealth and enormous appetite allowed him to be incredibly well-fed and, in his opinion, incredibly healthy at the same time. The reason he chose to carve his palace inside of a mountain was pretty much of similar nature – he thought that the stone would protect him from the dangers of cosmic radiation. This was the reason he never travelled to any other planet as well.

He called the mouse droid over to clean up the slime and activate the ceiling sonic shower. Despite the loud noise of flowing water from the Solvo sea, enhanced by minerals, he was pretty sure his probe droids registered somebody approach the cave-castle. What kind of a visitor would bother him close to the early bedtime he needed for his beauty sleep?

"That has got to be either Darse Loor or Aerenna Gelmeen." He said, with a strange accent that could only belong to a Hutt who spoke Basic by choice. "Fly to the door, Taggo and Maggo! Mousee, perfume me. Now!"

Blobbo's twin Toydarian majordomos collided in the air on their way to the gate.

"Watch out where you're going, Trunk-Brain!" Taggo yelled at his brother.

"No, you watch where you're going!" Maggo shook his fist. "I am going to make sure your trunk full of booger actually gets into your brain, through your eye sockets…wermo!"

The person at the door was a woman, but she looked nothing like Aerenna Gelmeen to Taggo and Maggo. She had no hair to speak of, was very pale and the jetpack on her back looked like something stolen from a Mandalorian armour. She did not seem one bit interested in the twins' blasters aimed towards her.

"Who are you?" They asked in almost perfect unison.

"The pleasure is all mine…boyos. I'm Dryxa, from the Bounty Hunters' guild. A Dathomirian, if that matters to your employer. I am coming here on behalf of a group of us who have a little proposal for you. And the two of you would be…?"

"Taggo and Maggo, His Greatness' most faithful servants. What kind of a proposal is this?"

"Oh…he will get more than he bargained for." The woman winked and reached out to one of their trunks. "But I am not willing to disclose the details to anybody below him…if you know what I mean. Cute trunk, by the way."

One of the Toydarian twins - the one whose nose she did not compliment - shrugged, titled his head and went to introduce the visitor to the Hutt crime lord. The other, seemingly kinder and slightly smitten, decided to warn her about his Master's practices.

"What you have to know, Dryxa, is that Blobbo is no stranger to extreme measures when he does not get what he bargained for. Last year, he started dismembering a rokna blue addict who owed him thousands of credits. And the other, wimpier one cried like a tooka and ended up giving us pretty much everything he owned to pay his debt, effectively becoming a slave here."

"What happened to these rokna addicts, Taggo?" Dryxa raised her eyebrow.

"I'm Maggo! The first bled to death before the Master's eyes in order to show others what will happen if they don't follow the orders. The other was taken away to Naboo by Darse Loor. The Master traded him for a rancor cub that he wanted to raise. I assume he is nothing but ashes on the bottom of the Solleu River, as he was too far gone to be bribed with spice to go on some undercover missions. You don't want to end up like him, don't you?"

Dryxa swallowed a lump. That was an unpleasant story. Poor rancor!

But this had to go on. There was no way back. She followed Maggo into the main chamber of Blobbo's cave. A couple of large amphorae stolen from various archaeological sites around Anaslinea-Hoc were displayed in a corner. Everything else was almost sterile, like a sight from a med lab. A large viewscreen was located on the straightest wall. That was the kind of place she had never seen before. Most Hutts' lairs were dirty and full of dust.

On top of that, a Hutt that smelled of flowers and ordering a mouse droid to clean the path before his visitor, Blobbo sure was an interesting sight.

"His greatness, Blobbo Fasolia Toupé." Taggo pointed to his Master who, to Dryxa's surprise, moved his tail in a curtsey-like position and opened his mouth wide upon the first sight of her.

"Dryxa Farr. Why is his greatness looking at me like that?" She turned to the Toydarians.

"You…you have no hair. That's clean! Very, very clean." Blobbo's tail swirled. "I always need to disinfect the place after Aerenna Gelmeen comes around. I once found a red hair in my food!"

"His greatness hates dirt." Maggo flew towards Dryxa and whispered. "And yes, he speaks Basic. His own language reminds him of goo." He looked at Taggo, who nodded.

"So, what do I owe this pleasure to?"

"As I have said to your loyal servants, I need certain information. Rumours travel fast and I am pretty sure that you know what I need and why I need it. And…I will bring you something you can then exchange for whatever kind of a servant or Imperial protection you desire."

"That's…cryptic. I am going to slime and…I don't like to slime!" Blobbo looked down. "Can you be a bit more straight to the point?"

"I could. Then again, I am not afraid of what you may do otherwise. I know your rancor died because you fed it a vegetarian diet. And I know most of your dangerous henchmen are out and about around the sector, chasing spice addicts and pimps."

Blobbo slapped himself on the head with his own tongue and then, realising what he had done, activated the sonic shower again. Dryxa rolled her eyes.

"So, what do you want?"

"Something that I know your faux-Imperial associates Aerenna Gelmeen and Darse Loor could give you…a location of what is rumoured to be built somewhere in the Outer Rim…right now."

"And why would you need that?" Blobbo straightened his tail again and reached out to grab some more snacks. "You are a mere bounty hunter, Dryxa!"

She leaned on him. He moved back and then set the platform to raise one metre higher. She casually activated her jetpack and flew up to him again, the confused Toydarians following her. Blobbo was getting nervous.

"D-don't infect me with otherworldly germs. Just tell me why you need that location!"

"You know, and I know that there will be blood spilled, just like the last time around." Dryxa made a summersault in the air. "And once that happens, we can both triumph. Sure you would want a lot of high profile hostages and you will need some skilled spacers to get a hold of them? Bounty hunters are known to be great spacers, right?"

She leaned on the Hutt again. After he failed to respond, she continued.

"I will bring you one of the COMPNOR's most wanted reactionaries and then you can swap him for whomever you want, whatever you want. He is true scum. Your kind of bounty."

Blobbo drooled and Taggo immediately flew towards him to clean his slime. Now, that would have made some good negotiation material.

"Is he a spice addict? Can he be bullied into gathering others' debt?"

"I don't think so. He is more of a party man, but that's not what matters. All of his band's works have been banned and COMPNOR has recently disposed of the person who discovered him. It was quite a scandal, even if you would ask somebody from Juicy Blabber, or whoever else is equally brain-dead."

"So, who is that? Could it be…"

"…Charon Valorum of Deeply Religious. I will bring him to you; you will give me the location."

Blobbo drooled again. This was like the New Year's fete coming early!

"I accept. Darse and Aerenna will be back from Thaeme in the morning. I will get you what you need, provided that you bring me Valorum in no more than two days. Otherwise…I assume Maggo told you how I deal with those who don't respect their part of the deal?"

"He sure did. And trust me…you won't need to dismember this girl. Plus, you like me. You want me to dance for you or whatever else turns a Hutt on. And I would need my limbs for that."

Blobbo nodded. He could not deny what Dryxa just said. As he watched the Dathomirian walk away, he accidentally knocked the snack bowl with his tail. Taggo and Maggo ran to eat the nuts from the shining floor before Mousee would arrive to dispose of them.

Dryxa activated her backpack the moment she was out of the cave-castle. Five minutes later, she landed on the roof of one of the last buildings in the town, right behind the sign that read "TALIORE – ROOMS AND BREAKFAST – AFFORDABLE – OPEN 23 HOURS". The roof and the sign were the only things that actually looked like a building; below them was a dense, dense hedge-like structure.

She knocked on the transparisteel roof door. It seems that nobody was up, which was slightly unusual for Taliore. Luckily, she did need some time. The waist bags below the jetpack were immediately dropped to the floor, so was the long scarf around her neck. She then proceeded to remove the pale make-up with markings from her face, to reveal a more or less standard Human tint.

Just then, her radionics device beeped.

"Sweetcorn, is that you?" the scrambled voice on the other side spoke through an immense amount of static. "Answer me!"

"Yes!" She jumped up in the air, almost stepping on her scarf. "Lucky you're close, so we can communicate without any significant delay. Though really, you could have opted for hyperyak chat instead. I've been using that for a couple of years and with a good filter, nobody can trace you. Nobody."

"I thought you called to say you were missing me." The voice sounded concerned. "This has got to be the strangest place ever; to the point where I cannot even believe it's real. But at the same time, it's nice. Not what I expected, clearly."

"Of course I am missing you, love. I have not seen you since…that unfortunate event. But remember, this will be over, soon. And we will be together."

"Love you too, Sweetcorn!" The static was annoying at this point and the voice was getting more and more breathy. "Now, tell me, did you manage to get the deal with Blobbo?"

She put the radionics gadget on the letter Trill to remove the bare scalp mask and spill on her hands and run them through a tiny bun on top of her head. Seconds later, she had luxurious, long hair.

"That I did. And we're going to get what we need to know."

"What if those hairy wermos may get it before us…"

"Even if they do, knowing the situation, not everybody will make it to the one who needs to know. By the way, where are you? What is that noise in the background?"

"Don't ask. Just wish me luck for tonight."

"It's already night on Vagran."

"Heeey!"

"Don't worry, I am just teasing you. Good luck, love!"

There was nothing but the static on the other side. Her partner had already gone. Just then, somebody opened the transparisteel door.

"It's you!" the woman in a flower skirt clapped her hands and let the young girl in.

"Laoda Kaeni! It's been a while!"

They hugged and continued towards the narrow, spiral stairs.

"I have somebody for you, by the way." Laoda said, as she was turning on the light in the dining room on the ground floor. "He arrived just the other day."

"Oh?"