Knights of the Old Republic 48: Demon, Part 2
What is it ? : Jarael embraces the man she recognises as her teacher, Antos Wyrick, and he tells her how he searched for her after she was taken, but when he returned to his school after one such trip, he found it pillaged and all the students gone. He joined with the Mandalorians, who accepted him and gave him a purpose, although he often disagreed with their methods. Jarael thinks that's why Rohlan, who she believes that Antos has been acting as all these years, had the reputation as Rohlan the Runner.
He allows her to believe this, and takes her back to the world where their school once was.
Meanwhile on Coruscant, Malak is heading the search for the missing Demagol (actually Rohlan), but Gryph and Zayne have him hidden out in a warehouse that Zayne has purchased. Rohlan explains Demagols history, how he was once Antos Wyrick, but was kidnapped by the Iskalloni, a race of cybernetic slavers. He was rescued by the Mandalorians when they attacked the Iskalloni, and he joined and trained with Mandalore the Ultimate himself.
But was astounded when Mandalore was defeated by Ulic Quel Droma, and became fascinated by what made the Jedi more powerful warriors. So he stole a robe from Ulic's possessions, taking it to the Arkanians to learn about genetics. But while he was there he discovered that the robe did not belong to Ulic, but his master Arca Jeth, an Arcanian himself.
He set up on Osadia with the aim of making Mandalorian Jedi, Mandalorian Knights, and began modifying embryo's with the DNA of Arca Jeth, but the experiments were unsuccessful, as he later discovered that Arca Jeth was not pure Arkanian, but had Sephi DNA as well. But he discovered the DNS of Arkanian Offshoots worked with Jeth's hybrid DNA, and the first offspring was born from Offshoots, and named Edessa, which Zayne recognises as Jarael's birth name.
For more experimental victims, Antos made a bargain with the Crucible, but they betrayed him and raided the laboratory stealing all the children as slaves. So Antos returned to the Mandalorians and became known as Demaragol, The Flesh Carver.
Rohlan finally tells Zayne that one of Demagol's first experiments was on his own child, a Zeltron like him, who is now Chantique.
On Osadia Jarael find the old school, which is under guard by the Crucible, and Jarael recognises some of the guards as high ranking which surprises her.
Zayne and Gryph with the help of Shel Jalevan provide Rohlan with the decorative armor that was used in the arena's by Demagol when he was pretending to be Rohlan. And Zayne reveals the Rogue Moon Project, an organisation to help people, as Zayne was aware that the Jedi weren't doing that part of their duty.
Gryph wonders if Zayne is now the mastermind, as he got all of this going without Gryph being aware, but Zayne say's he's only a contractor. Shel gives him a new lightsaber as payment for his efforts, one made from fusing the crystals of all his classmates from Taris.
Gryph and Slyssk discover a tag left behind by Demagol from the Sith Artefacts, from Exar Kun's lightsaber, and they realise that Demagol is going to give it to Jarael to make her a Mandalorian Knight.
Although they now know that Jarael and Demagol are on Osadia, the location of the world isn't know, but Zayne knows that Dace Golliard will know, so asks Rohlan to call in a favour with Cassius Fett to locate the Crucible captain.
Meanwhile on Osadia we see Jarael igniting the double bladed lightsaber of Exar Kun, while Antos Wyrick stand behind her grinning.
High Points : So we're rushing towards the end here, and it's really great stuff, as we tie up all the plotlines. We see what Zayne has actually been doing, we see the history of Demagol, Jarael and Chantelle, and we've got a clear path forwards towards the climax of this story.
Low Points : But that's one hell of an infodump dropped on us, which seems at odds with the detour we're now going to take to capture Dace Golliard, rather than having Rohlan simply know the schools location, and giving us all that extra space to communicate Demagol's history in a more natural fashion.
And while I thought we were going to get a conclusion to the story about the Crucible, I'm getting a feeling that it's really not important any more, and all the memories that Zayne received are now just pointless.
So what do you really think ? : For it's flaws, I still really enjoyed this one, the history of Demagol, although just dumped on us, still is horrifying and fascinating all at once, so makes for a compelling read. But I'm really starting to think we're not going to take this series to a satisfying end (which might be why they later released Knights of the Old Republic: War, which continues Zayne's story.
Final Words : So, only 2 more issues to go, and we've still got the Crucible to deal with, Demagol, Chantique and Zayne and Jarael to make up, so lots more to go and the path doesn't look straight, so it could really be an interesting journey.
Score : 9/10
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