If you’ve read the old Jedi Academy Trilogy, you’ll know Luke Skywalker’s early years as a Jedi Master were far from peaceful. In 11 ABY on Eol Sha, while trying to recruit the colony leader Gantoris, Luke was forced to prove himself — and the second test put him face-to-face with a native fireworm (also called a lava dragon).
But what exactly was this creature? And how did Luke, trapped over a lava pit, manage to kill it and walk away?
Luke Skywalker’s Trial on Eol Sha
The story comes from the Legends novel Star Wars: Jedi Search by Kevin J. Anderson, the first book in the Jedi Academy Trilogy. It follows Luke Skywalker’s search for new Force-sensitive students to rebuild the Jedi Order.
When Luke Skywalker began searching the galaxy for Force-sensitives to train, one of the first names that reached him was Gantoris, leader of a struggling colony on the volcanic world Eol Sha. The planet was barely livable — constant eruptions, burning winds, and unstable ground forced the settlers to survive through sheer toughness. Gantoris had kept them alive for years, using his instinctive connection to the Force to sense quakes and eruptions before they happened.
Luke arrived in 11 ABY, hoping to recruit him for the new Jedi Academy. But Gantoris didn’t see a savior. In his dreams he’d been haunted by a figure he called the Dark Man, teacher who would promise him great power and then destroy him. When a man in dark robes arrived from the sky claiming to be a Jedi, Gantoris believed that prophecy was unfolding.
To test whether Luke was truly who he claimed to be, Gantoris set two challenges.
The first took place in one of Eol Sha’s geyser tunnels. The narrow chamber trembled with pressure, steam hissing from the walls. Gantoris led Luke inside, then slipped away, waiting to see if the off-worlder could survive what was coming. Luke sensed the eruption building beneath his feet. Using the Force, he leapt for the surface just as a column of boiling steam blasted upward, filling the tunnel behind him. When he landed, unburned and alive, Gantoris silently acknowledged that the stranger’s power was real — but not yet proven.
For the second test, he led Luke to a molten canyon where rivers of lava crossed through black stone. There, in a pit surrounded by heat and fumes, lived one of Eol Sha’s deadliest native creatures — the fireworm, sometimes called a lava dragon. The serpent-like beast could dive and swim through molten rock, armored in crystalline scales that even a lightsaber couldn’t slice through. Its triangular head and glowing ridges shimmered in the glare of the lava below.
When the creature surfaced, it spewed a fountain of molten fire toward the ledge where Luke stood. Luke deflected what he could with the Force and waited for his opening. He realized that the armor wasn’t unbreakable — each scale was strong alone but brittle at its edges. As the fireworm lunged again, he struck downward, driving his lightsaber into a single scale near the creature’s neck. The crystal plate shattered, and in that instant the lava surrounding them flooded into the wound.
The heat filled the fireworm’s air bladders, the same organs that let it rise and sink through magma. Pressure built rapidly until the bladders ruptured. With a roar that shook the cavern, the creature exploded from within, scattering molten fragments back into the pit. The entire fight lasted only seconds.
When the smoke cleared, Gantoris stood stunned. The “Dark Man” of his dreams wouldn’t have risked his life to save strangers or faced a monster without hatred. Luke had passed both tests. Gantoris agreed to leave Eol Sha with him, on the promise that the New Republic would evacuate the remaining colonists to a safer world.
That moment on Eol Sha marked the first real step in Luke’s effort to rebuild the Jedi Order — and one of the strangest battles of his career.
