Side Quests
Murdered Settler
While walking through the grove, you'll come across a Twi'lek Jedi who's been sent to investigate a suspicious death. He'll ask for your assistance in the case, not because he thinks he can't handle it alone, but because he thinks it'll build character.
Like all character-building exercises, this side quest is a bit tedious and will test your patience. You'll have to question the men involved in the killing, and then tell Bolook whom you think is lying. In between each round of investigation, you'll need to question both men and the information droid to unlock the proper comments to Bolook.
To make a very long story short, the liars are:
- Rickard, who couldn't have seen glare, because the sky was cloudy.
- Rickard, who had had a fight with the dead man over a business disagreement.
- Handon, who lied about having his blaster stolen.
After all of this, get the blood report from the droid, make sure you've explored every dialogue option with the two men, and save your game. Talk to Bolook and tell him that it was Handon's blood, because he is holding his side. Go on to explain that both men are guilty, because Handon held a grudge against the dead man for sleeping with his wife. If you did everything correctly, you should find yourself with 1,310 experience; if you solved only parts of the case, you will find yourself with a substantially smaller reward. This quest doesn't involve Force attunement adjustments; screwing it up will only convince Bolook of your incompetence.
The Crystal Cave
This isn't an official, in-the-journal side quest; merely a desirable, but out-of-the-way place to visit. If you find yourself in the Sandral grounds, head to the eastern end of the upper plains to find the entrance to the cave. Inside, you'll find small groups of spider-like beasts; kill them all and you'll find a motherlode of lightsaber crystals. There are even crystals hiding inside of eggs; Bash these open to automatically gain the crystal inside. The crystals aren't all very useful, mind you; many of them are simply color-changers that you probably won't want to use unless you have extra lightsabers hanging around, but there are a few that add damage or attack bonuses to your lightsaber.
Mandalorian Raiders
You'll meet Jon in the courtyard of the Jedi Academy. He'll spin a tale of woe and dread, and ask you to kindly wipe out the Mandalorians that are preying on the settlers in the nearby hills. If you promise to slaughter them, you can get a small Dark side shift.
There are three groups of Mandalorians, one each in the Matale grounds, the Grove, and the Sandral grounds. Once you've eliminated all three of the groups, return to the grove and fight Sherruk, the leader of the Mandalorians, and a small group of his friends. No bones about it, Sherruk is incredibly tough, both in terms of his health reservoir and his ability to deal damage.
A single use of the Force whirlwind power can incapacitate the entire Mandalorian party, if you've obtained it, but without some kind of Force power intervention, Sherruk will chop up your melee members quite quickly. Even if you can't deter the other enemies from attacking, your best bet is still to try to stun Sherruk somehow and concentrate your attacks on him while he's incapable of fighting back. Powers like Force push, stun, wound, or slow should all be concentrated on Sherruk; hopefully one of them will grab hold of him, allowing you to chop-socky him until he's dead. If worst comes to worst, you might want to have whomever is using a melee weapon in your party activate the Mandalorian melee shield you found in this spot earlier to negate some of the damage Sherruk deals. The shield will drop quite quickly, but you can keep reactivating it, or simply save up the charges and activate them when your tank nears death, then heal up.
Sherruck sure talks big. Deliver a beating to shut him up - permanently.
Once Sherruk falls, finish off the rest of the gang, taking down the Mandalorians first. Check all of the bodies; Sherruk, especially, has some nice loot, including two lightsabers. If you've been priming your character to dual-wield lightsabers, then rejoice; your time has finally come.
Return to Jon to get the experience for the quest. Even if you refuse his reward, he'll push it on you (1,000 credits), but, of course, you can pressure him for more if you wish to obtain more Dark side points.