Mystery on Bardotta! An oasis of peace during the Clone Wars, the galaxy-wide conflict now threatens the ancient ways of the Bardottan people. With their spiritual leaders mysteriously vanishing, the foundations of order in its systems are near collapse. In desperation, the Queen of Bardotta has called upon the Republic Senate with a puzzling request to help save her people from certain doom....

An immense hologram of Queen Julia, monarch of Bardotta, dominates the Senate chambers where she requests aid from the Supreme Chancellor. Before Palpatine can introduce his hand-picked ambassadors, Bail Organa, and Padmé Amidala, Julia specifically requests that Jar Jar Binks be the Senate representative.

Within the Jedi Council, the Jedi Masters discuss Julia's surprising choice of delegate. Via hologram, Palpatine is at a loss to explain the Queen's selection, and hopes that the Jedi will intervene. He continues to brief the Council: Several of the Dagoyan Masters, an ancient order of mystics on Bardotta, have vanished.

The Dagoyan Masters have an affinity for the Force, but connect to it passively, as seers and visionaries. The Bardottan people had long had an aversion to the Jedi Order, over the mistaken belief that the Jedi Knights were child abductors. As a result, Queen Julia has not requested a Jedi presence, a decision Mace Windu believes to be a mistake. With the agreement of the Council, Mace volunteers to accompany Representative Binks.

Before long, Mace and Jar Jar pilot a Jedi T-6 shuttle to the mountainous world of Bardotta. Jar Jar explains to Mace that he has known Queen Julia for a long time. The shuttle sets down at the Dagoyan Temple on Bardotta, where it is met by dignitaries High Seneschal Peteen and Savatte, flanked by honor guards. Peteen greets Windu coldly, saying he was uninvited, but Jar Jar vouches for him. Per custom, Savatte asks Windu to hand over his lightsaber.

The delegates are escorted into the temple's candle-lined royal audience chamber where the Bahk-tov Council presides. The striking Queen Julia sits at the head of the chamber in the largest throne, but seven of the 12 thrones are conspicuously vacant. Julia questions Mace's presence, but Jar Jar explains that Windu is actually his servant.

Julia accepts this, but asks for Mace to leave. The Jedi Master is escorted out the chamber, and the Queen worriedly tells Jar Jar that she fears an ancient prophecy is coming true. The Dagoyan Masters are vanishing; should they disappear from the galaxy, darkness will arise and engulf everything.

Jar Jar is committed to stopping this. Julia asks the rest of the Bahk-tov Council to leave, to give them a moment of privacy. Alone, Julia embraces and kisses Jar Jar, her love, and invites him to meditate with her.

The next day, Mace paces the hallways outside the royal apartments, talking to Yoda via hologram. Windu senses a great disturbance in the Force, but it is difficult to pinpoint. When Mace approaches the chamber, the Dagoyan guards bar his entrance. Not even a mind trick will get them to lower their guard. Mace then walks away. Curious as to what he is up to, the guards follow him around the corner. Mace gives them the slip and works his way back to the apartments.

Inside the royal apartments, Jar Jar and Queen Julia practice a form of Bardottan meditative exercises. She confides in Jar Jar that she has discovered a terrible secret, buried within the rippling waves of the Force. When the Dagoyan Masters began disappearing, she meditated to try to discover their whereabouts and stumbled upon a terrible plot. Julia does not trust anyone else with this information, so she is angered when Mace barges into the apartments.

Julia orders the guards to take Mace away. Jar Jar promises to handle this, and escorts Mace out of the apartments. Windu demands an update from the Gungan. Jar Jar explains that he had spent the night rekindling a romance with Queen Julia. Mace worries that Jar Jar is jeopardizing the mission, but Jar Jar explains that it is only Queen Julia's love for Binks that allows for a Republic presence on Bardotta. Mace gives Jar Jar a comlink, and instructs him to keep him updated.

When Jar Jar returns to the royal apartments, he is shocked to find that Queen Julia has disappeared. The guards are at a loss -- she has vanished from a closed room, like the other Dagoyan Masters. The guards call for an emergency session of the Bahk-tov Council.

The hurried councilors nervously take their seats as Savatte calls for order. High Seneschal Peteen declares that the disappearance of the Dagoyan Masters and the Queen is proof that the prophecy is being fulfilled. If Julia does not return in three rotations, then she will be gone forever and a new era of darkness will rise throughout the galaxy.

Mace Windu steps forward to speak but is shouted down by the Bahk-tov Council who proclaim the Jedi to be a harbinger of doom. Jar Jar speaks, vouching for Mace, and assures the Council that Queen Julia has called him to help solve this mystery. Mace must speak through Jar Jar to find answers, so Jar Jar asks about the origin of the prophecy.

Savatte explains the prophecy was spoken by the Frangawl clan, worshippers of an ancient demon, Malmourral. An ancient Frangawl shrine is buried deep beneath the Dagoyan Temple, a cursed place that no one enters.

Mace decides that is where they must begin their search. Jar Jar announces as much, drawing the applause of the Bahk-tov Council.

Each holding a torch, Savatte leads Mace and Jar Jar into the darkened corridors beneath the temple. Savatte explains to the offworlders that long ago, the Frangawl ruled Bardotta for most of its early history. Warriors and barbarians, they exhibited a spirituality that gave them power. Savatte returns to Mace his lightsaber, hopeful that the Jedi Master will not have need of it.

As the trio approaches a set of three altars set into the ancient stone walls, Jar Jar spots a fragment from Queen Julia's headdress in a passageway. Jar Jar picks it up and examines it, but is suddenly accosted by a masked figure who blows sparkling dust into his face. Jar Jar recoils, and tries to shake the dust off his hands.

His hands glow with an otherworldly blue light, and Jar Jar begin to vanish. A heavy stone door intersects the corridor where he stands, sealing him off from Mace and Savatte. Mace uses the Force to push the door open, but when he runs into the chamber, Jar Jar is gone. Only his torch remains. Mace orders Savatte to return to the temple to get help, while he will find Jar Jar.

A masked Frangawl cultist carries the writhing -- yet invisible -- form of Jar Jar over his shoulder, and shoves the panicking Gungan into an iron cage. Jar Jar is in a massive cave, a sacrificial chamber of the Frangawl cult that crackles with supernatural energies. His cage is hoisted up to a gantry from which hang other cages.

The spell that has rendered him invisible fades, and Jar Jar comes face-to-face with Joseph, one of the Dagoyan Masters of the Royal Council. The missing Masters are similarly suspended in cages. They despair that they will be sacrificed to Malmourral, demon of war.

The cages dangle over a massive volcanic vent, crossed by bridges of heat-blasted stones. On this structure is a massive carved creature head that crackles with unknown magic. This is Malmourral. An oiled slide extends from the monstrous mouth up to a sacrificial altar.

Jar Jar's spirits rise when Mace contacts him via comlink. The Jedi Master tells Jar Jar to stay put so he can track his signal. The Frangawl cultists begin to flip levers that pull the chains holding the cages. One of the captive Dagoyan Masters is lowered into a horde of cultists. The shaking of his cage causes Jar Jar to clumsily drop his comlink, and a cultist smashes it to pieces with a staff.

Jar Jar spots Queen Julia chained to a platform. With a weary voice, she tells Jar Jar the cultists' horrible plan: "They are stealing the Force within us." The Frangawl cult leader holds a shimmering green orb over his head as part of a ritual sacrifice. He pushes a helpless Dagoyan Master down the oily slide and into the webbing of crackling energy suspended above Malmourral's maw. The energy tears the Force from the Dagoyan Master's body and shoots it in the orb.

In the caves outside the altar, Mace feels this disturbance and runs to its source. He enters the sacrificial chamber in time to see the Frangawl cultists take Jar Jar from his cage and place him before the slide on the altar. Mace vaults into the chamber, kicking his way past cultists. Taking advantage of the distraction, Jar Jar slinks away and nabs a cultist's spear.

The damage he does waving the weapon is more incidental than deliberate. A cultist knocks him down the slide, but Mace uses the Force to stop Jar Jar's slippery descent, all the while grappling with cultists.

Though Mace is focused on combat, Jar Jar is insistent on rescuing Julia. Mace hurls the Gungan with the Force to Julia's platform. With Jar Jar safely out of reach, Mace ignites his lightsaber and begins cutting his way past the cultists. The cult leader has unchained Julia, and drags the groggy Queen and the glowing Force orb with him as he leaves the sacrificial chamber and into a narrow corridor.

Jar Jar gives chase but it's too late. The cult leader has made it to an escape shape that blasts off away from the mountain temple.

Later, Bakh-tov Council reconvenes, with their newly returned members. Joseph proclaims that the demonic cult of Malmourral is once again active, and that if the essence of the Queen is stolen, darkness will fall across the stars. Jar Jar swears to find and rescue the Queen with Mace's help. The Dagoyan Masters cheer them on.