This was probably the worst soup Eryth had ever tasted in her entire life.

The odor was pungent. It managed to hit every wrong note in a symphony of flavor missteps. It was somehow both bland, sour, and musty all at the same time, with an aftertaste like a dead rat desperately trying to crawl down her esophagus.

She channeled all her experience back at the Post Guild’s canteen. Every dish prepared by a nose-dead trainee serving a punishment, every mystery meat stew (the mystery was what they were pretending was meat), and every serving of salted fish that was so heavy on the salt that finding the fish was a relief, all those culinary experiences became fuel for surviving the next bite.

If only the cook’s brain hadn’t been turned into a runny jelly by a particularly nasty vis user’s mental attack.

Off to Eryth’s left sat Sam, glaring at her boots. It was hard to place what Eryth saw in her face... guilt maybe? Huh. Sam feeling bad about something. This trip Sunside seemed entirely committed to throwing as many curveballs as possible at Eryth.

Off to the right, the clatter of a falling mess pan and the slosh of soup mingling with sand rang out. Or, well, the clatter rang out, the slosh… um… sloshed out? That probably makes sense.

At that Eryth looked over at Arnold. He had looked better. He usually had two arms.

And two ears, and two legs, and a nose, and skin, and opposable thumbs, and a bunch of other stuff, but that was hardly relevant since he still mostly had all those things.

The big difference was the change in arm quantity. He didn’t have his matrix arm anymore. And if Eryth had to guess, that change in limb configuration had a major part in him dropping his dinner.

Eryth leaned over to Arnold and offered him her soup, which he accepted with sullen silence.

It was all very uncomfortable.

When Eryth and Sam had stumbled upon Arnold in the cargo hold he was already being fussed over by a couple of protectors. He had become something like a mascot over the course of the trip, with crew members competing to see who could get the most Arnold sightings. He really didn't leave the cleaning closet very often. A true homebody.

They had done a good job keeping his heart pumping, but he wasn't truly stabilized until the sadist was called down and gave him a good look-over. He had shrapnel just about everywhere, which would have been much more dangerous if Sam wasn't there to remove it. His arm was ruined. The best the doctor could do was cut it off at the shoulder. Which she had.

Also, it turns out the caravan did have a stock of non-magical anesthetic, but they only used it if absolutely necessary. Eryth didn’t envy Arnold the privilege.

To add insult to injury, while Arnold was being treated Lead Protector Arnett had found out Arnold ran off after being deputized, and he started chewing out Arnold something fierce. He must need some time to flip whatever switch swaps him between angry combat mode and overly friendly uncle. He was also probably upset about the fact that four of his men had died. Including the late cook. Apparently there had been rumors of a secret romance between him and Protector Arnett.

May those he left behind find peace. Eryth was certainly missing palatable food.

The verbal beating only seemed to escalate, and honestly Eryth thought it would end in violence until Doctor Sadism stepped in. In her words: “Yes yes, you’re quite intimidating lead protector.” Those last two words were accompanied by a particularly potent eye-roll. “But unless your words pack more punch than a hand grenade I suggest you go back to organizing your troops.”

For somebody with such a high and posh sounding voice she could supply quite a bit of sass. Actually, maybe the sass was augmented by the classy airs.

In summary, Arnold had gotten messed up bad.

There was another clatter and slosh as Arnold dropped the pan of soup Eryth had handed him.

Sam visibly cringed while Arnold just stared at the spilled soup with an expression between rage and despair. Not like his usual expression of resigned exasperation. This one came from deep in his green eyes, and just seeing it hurt. It managed to cut past the growing disconnection Eryth hadn’t even noticed she had been drifting into since the battle. Wasn’t she usually more thoughtful? She should cheer him up.

Okay, uhhh… how do people get their mind off things? She thought about it and realized that typically Sam was the one managing the group’s mental fortitude with her aggressive nonsense. Or in the case of the slap Sam had given out before the raid, her aggressive aggression.

As she thought backward through the day Eryth realized Sam had been managing her emotions throughout the attack. When she spaced out Sam pulled her back, when Eryth freaked Sam grounded her with humor or pain. She had essentially handled Eryth throughout the combat, guiding her into certain actions and away from others.

Eryth turned to face her larger friend, suddenly considering how much of her personality was just Sam’s “Sam-ness,” and how much was the erstwhile mercenary managing Eryth and Arnold like they were lost ducklings.

It was a confusing mix of comforting that Sam cared so much and violating that Eryth was being manipulated that had her gut doing strange things.

Sam looked up from the ground and met Eryth’s gaze, the guilt giving was to surprise at Eryth’s expression. Then a smirk grew on Sam’s face, in the exact same way it always had since the day Sam beckoned Eryth over to sit with her and Arnold over a year ago.

This time though, Eryth could see it.

The brief flicker of something else before the mask devoured it and smiled to the world.

“Hey Eri, what’s with the laser eye’s? You-” Sam started in her usual playful tone before Eryth cut her off.

“Are you okay?”

Sam blinked. Nice, another first. Eryth had caught Sam off-guard twice in the last week alone!

“What do ya mean?” Sam laughed out her reply. “This isn’t my first caravan shootout. Or my second, or my third, or fifth, or tenth, or twentieth, or-”

Eryth cut in before Sam could get into the groove. “You’re always so chipper. And I realized that you kinda managed me during the entire fight on the roof.” Eryth's face was mostly painted with concern, but a bit of questioning accusation lingered in the corners.

Sam sighed, and floated her spoon up from where it had slipped beneath the surface of her soup during her initial surprise at Eryth's expression.

“You noticed that huh?” Sam murmured as she grabbed her spoon from the air with her hand, frowning when she realized she had just transferred some of the supposedly nutritious goop it was coated in onto her fingers.

She wiped it on her gray shirt before continuing.

“I was feeling nostalgic.”

“Nostalgic?” Eryth didn’t get it. Sam had basically just baby sat her and killed some people.

Unless…

“Sam, do you get a kick out of killing people?” Eryth straight up asked.

Sam was frozen for a brief moment. Then she broke out into a genuine laugh. Or, well, Eryth thought it sounded genuine. “Jeez Eryth, your conversational tact has only been improved by your brush with death.” Sam calmed down and quickly and continued with a lighthearted chuckle. “No, I was just remembering what it was like when I was working Sunside. The thrill of everything, you know? I don’t do well with boredom and that was like a breath of fresh air.”

Eryth didn’t feel like that actually answered her questions. Either of them. At least not definitively. But before she could follow up, Arnold broke his silent vigil and spoke up.

“I don’t get it.” His voice was flat.

Sam’s smile melted like snow among flames as the same expression from earlier reclaimed her face.

Yeah, Eryth was pretty sure it was guilt. Right. Eryth was trying to figure out a way to cheer up Arnold. The lingering arm pain must be making her distractible.

Arnold looked up from the soup-dampened ground before him and met Eryth and Sam’s eyes. “You two did the crazy thing. I did the right thing.” Arnold looked at where his left hand would probably rest if he still had one. “Why are you fine?”

He must not have expected an answer because he returned to staring at his soup sand, now with a blank look.

Somehow Eryth had managed to make the mood even worse than before she started trying to cheer her friends up. Truly she was one of the conversationalists of all time.

Well, if at first you don’t succeed, keep beating that dead horse until you’ve at least got some good glue.

Before Eryth could start work on her glue manufacturing empire, the booming voice of Lead Protector Arnett swirled across the temporary campsite. He was apparently still in angry mode. Would he be stuck in that setting for the rest of the trip? That was an unpleasant thought. Bring back the scruffy uncle!

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Wake up! Tandy says there’s a dust storm coming in. Pack up and head back to your wagons!” It was hard to tell if he was angry or if that’s just how he was when he raised his voice. “We’ll finish moving everyone around after the weather clears. For now, just go back to your initial posts. If you need a matrix you’ll have to wait it out. Waiting a cycle or so won’t kill you. Now move it!”

Eryth & Co. hadn’t bothered to lug any of their gear out of their sleeping spot since they’d be staying in the same wagon no matter what. Well, Sam and Eryth had left their stuff on purpose, Arnold just kinda ambled around like he was a lost puppy until the other two couriers collected him.

Still, they took their time getting up from their dusty impromptu mess hall, and by the time they started heading back to the wagon almost everyone had already made their way inside.

Eryth had wanted to go inside already to get out of the heat (her skin was hurting for some weird reason. Was this what they called sunburn? Wild!), but she couldn’t think of a good way to ask. The mood was grimmer than the time a flash typhoon had smashed its way through Breakwater the day she’d arrived in town.

As they started to saunter back to the catwalk at the rear of their treadwagon Eryth latched onto the change to start up conversation. Please, any distraction was better than this suffocating gloominess. Determining Arnold to be not quite in the mood for random questions, Eryth pinned her conversational hopes on the giant.

“Hey, Sam.” Eryth sped up slightly to keep up with Sam’s longer stride.

"Do you know who that Tandy person the lead protector was talking about is? And how do they know a dust storm is coming? I don’t see any hints of one.”

All around them were clear skies and the cheery eternal blaze of the sun. Only one or two faint wisps of haze where the wind crested a dune offered any break in the uniform rolling horizon.

“Hmm?” Sam looked up from where she was frowning at the ground. “Oh, that’s easy. Tandy’s probably the caravan’s wind watcher.”

“Uh-huh, I see.” Eryth nodded thoughtfully. “What’s a wind watcher?”

Despite herself the corners of Sam’s lips pitched upwards. “Well, caravans kept getting stranded when important crew got lost in dust clouds. So a few decades ago the bigwigs of some transport corporation or other smacked heads and decided that longer trips should always bring a vis-user who could scout the weather. Did all your nights researching Sunside like a nerd drain out your ears? I bet you barfed out your knowledge when that user knocked you down.” Sam giggled at the end of her explanation.

As she elaborated Sam started to idly play with some shards of metal she found on the ground. The mechanics had been hastily doing some field repairs to the shells of the treadwagons and were just throwing away the chunks that were too screwed up to make real use of. Like really iron-rich candy wrappers in a public park. Err.. anyway, despite how nonchalant Sam often was with her vis alignment, users who could manipulate metal were rare. Even rarer were people who could reshape it. If she wanted Sam could probably get a cushy job as a highly paid metalworker in a manufactory somewhere.

Eryth remembered how carefree Sam was while tearing people apart with her steel manipulation.

Yeaaaahhh, Sam probably wouldn’t be a good fit for that kinda work.

Eryth nodded along to Sam’s words. As long as it broke up the weird silence going on she would happily let Sam taunt her a bit. Well, maybe she would meticulously keep score and find some way to get back at Sam the next time they meet somebody new but that was hardly relevant.

“So… how? What kinda vis do they use for scouting the weather?” Eryth asked.

By now they were climbing up the small stairs onto the catwalk, the sound of their footsteps shifting from the rustle of sand to the now familiar clack of rubber on steel grate. They were the last people to climb aboard it seemed, the wagon's treads had already started their familiar rumble.

“Well, back when I was exclusively contracting with a single caravan company, we had this really lanky guy called Clydesdale who could literally feel the air currents for a few kilometers all around us like somebody was breathing down his neck. Jumpy guy, but he never missed a storm. We joked that the reason he could feel the wind so well was because his beanpole self acted like an antenna.” Sam grinned mischievously, a sight which sent a shiver of fear down Eryth’s spine. Prank trauma was no joke. “Oh boy, was he fun to mess with. This one time, he was sleeping past his shift hours, and the protector in charge of our wagon told me to go get him. Now, usually he was a hard guy to sneak up on. The whole wind perception thing y’know? But since he was asleep, I had these spicy pickles I had bought whi-”

“What is wrong with you guys?”

Arnold had turned around and was staring at the two girls with a complicated expression. He cut quite the figure, his scrawny frame and dour expression combined with the bandages and missing arm. None of them had had the chance to sponge down either, so his clothes were still covered in his own blood. Eryth had felt really twitchy since they found him, and part of her compulsion to talk was an attempt to distract herself from the weird energy.

The rumbling of the wagon grew in intensity as it got up to speed.

“We almost died. People died!” He was shouting at them, probably in part to be heard over the racket. At the shout, Lead Protector Arnett poked his head out from the entry to the wagon to see what was going on, a spark of fury rekindling at seeing and hearing Arnold’s words. Arnold didn’t notice, he was too busy looking at Eryth and Sam with disbelief.

“Look here kid.” The gruff voice of the veteran protector thrummed. ”You don’t have a right to talk. You ran.”

Arnold jumped as he turned around, even more intimidated by Arnett than ever. No doubt helped along by the merciless verbal beatdown he gave earlier. Arnold’s shock was wearing off though, and his bottled up emotions from the sudden raid and loss of his arm were breaking out in a very public way.

Eryth cringed both in sympathy and out of sheer awkwardness of the situation. She desperately wracked her brain for some way to diffuse, but she was being distracted by this annoying humming sound in the back of her brain. It was like a fly ninja had crept in her ear and was playing the kazoo. It was louder than the treadwagon.

Arnold wasn’t budging. “You asked me to fight! I can’t burn people! I’d have to be some kind of psychopath.” Arnold looked around at the three people around him. Eryth, Sam, and Arnett. “You three, you’re all evil. ”

“Arnie, please.. Just calm don’t for a bit alright? You need to sit down for a bit.” Sam reached out to touch his shoulder but he pulled away.

“Don’t touch me! How could you be so relaxed? You were telling jokes with Eryth just a minute ago, when you were fighting real humans earlier. You talked about killing people in your stories. I bet you even killed people earlier today.”

Protector Arnett suddenly grasped Arnold firmly by the shoulder.

“Kid, shut up.” His voice was cold. “You ran. They fought. My crew fought. Some of my crew died. Will died. You lived. You lived because you were the only one cowardly enough to let others do the risk for you. And you’re alive, talking shit.”

A grim aura dripped from the old protector’s words. Arnold had managed to piss him off. He had sounded pissed even before Arnold insulted everyone, but apparently there was a whole prestige level of angry that Arnett could channel. Spooky.

Oh right, also Arnold had probably just fucked himself. Eryth looked over at Sam, who had a focused look on her face, like her mind was running in overdrive. As much as she would torment him, Sam was always looking out for Arnold. It was what had initially endeared the duo to Eryth. And now the jokester of a courier was probably desperately trying to think of some way to get Arnold out of the path of the speeding truck he had just dived in front of.

Arnold, for his part, seemed to realize that he had perhaps chosen a very unfortunate set of thoughts to voice out loud. Understandable. Eryth said stupid stuff more often than she said the non-stupid variety, so she could relate. Whether being born from his survival instincts or the fact that Arnett’s grip on his shoulder had suddenly transformed from merely stern to near bone cracking, Arnold got to work becoming very, very pale.

“Ww-wait, Mr. Arnett sir, I mean-” Arnold’s speech was drowning in the saliva Arnold was swallowing as the words tried to escape his throat. “It’s just that, it-t w-was all so scrary.” Arnold trembled.

Arnett slowly lowered his hand to his waist. Firmly resting his hand on his holster as he ever so slowly and deliberately lifted the clasp.

“Kid." The word hung in the air. There was no warmth. "In the Great Dessert there are not laws. And as the Lead Protector my only job is to keep the people under my charge safe.” As he spoke he slowly drew his gun. “From the moment we depart to the moment we disembark, I determine the law in the caravan. You’re from that fishing town right? I’m the captain of this vessel and we are at sea.”

It was an old energy model. Eryth had had one before switching to classic ballistics. An Andrews PRB, a simple plasma pistol that was famous for all the ways that you could mod its replaceable battery mags to accept more or less whatever combination of volts and amps you had on hand to supply it with. Before she sold it, Eryth had tried using a potato battery as a power source. It made it tickle like a water gun. Eryth kinda expected the lead protector of a caravan to have something flashy; the Andrews was a really generic choice.

That said, the stock model could still punch a self-cauterizing hole as wide as a soccer ball through a person with a single trigger pull.

Ballistics were cheaper for a reason.

Arnold was in trouble, and he knew it.

In the corner of her eye, Eryth could see a few small shards of steel begin to hover off the catwalk. Looking at the metal vis-user herself, Eryth could see actual sweat beginning to form on her brow. Uh oh.

As much as she wanted Arnold to not get himself killed in the desert due to his own dumb mouth, Eryth decided that the best thing for her to do was to be as small and unimportant as possible. She wasn’t great with diplomacy, and she was well aware enough of that fact that she knew that this was a moment to keep her mouth absolutely fucking shut.

Just fade into the background.

Hope Arnold or Sam somehow diffuse the situation.

Because there was no way they could fight their way through an entire caravan of protectors. And trying to run away to survive in the desert was just a prolonged suicide.

Unfortunately for Eryth’s cunning plan of pretending to be a potted plant, Arnold was a drowning man.

And drowning people pull others down with them.

“P-please! Wait!” Arnold was shaking, and his eyes were darting around between the gun now leveled at him, his surroundings, and an extremely tense looking Sam. Eventually his eyes settled on Eryth. Eryth had the absolute worst feeling. “Raiders aren’t n-normal on this route right?” Arnold looked up to meet Arnett’s cold glare for a moment before panicking and glancing away.

“Is that an excuse?” The veteran protector questioned.

“N-no! I just, u-umm.” Arnold pointed at Eryth. “S-she smuggled something. Does shady deals!”

Eryth’s heart rate went from elevated to hypersonic in about, oh, naught point three seconds. Even Sam looked flabbergasted that Arnold would try and sell Eryth out like that.

Arnett’s glare pivoted to pierce Eryth where she stood. His raised gun followed. Eryth was beginning to suspect that some terrible accident had befallen Arnett’s uncle mode.

“Explain.”

Ah, ok. Ok. This is totally fine. Explain. She needs to explain. It’s not a big deal, and she just needed to communicate that concisely while also not trying to give the wrong impression. Easy! All Eryth had to do was not put her foot in her mouth! Then she could get Sam to smack Arnold for being such a fucking asshole. Maybe wait until some of the holes he was full of to heal a bit more, but the smacking would surely happen one way or another.

Back to the matter of not getting shot, Eryth did her darndest to diffuse the situation. “Er. No! Well, yes but. It’s probably not a hot potato. I think. There were these people shooting but they wouldn’t, I hopped on the wagon after losing them. Um….”

“You were being pursued?” Came the low reply.

The look in Arnett’s eyes changed.

Eryth tasted foot fungus. She needed to get new socks.

“Fuck.” She exhaled.

A lot of things happened very quickly.

Eryth turned and dove off the catwalk, hoping against hope that Arnett would miss.

Arnett pulled the trigger, and after building charge with a high-pitched hum, a bolt of plasma shot directly towards the back of Eryth’s unprotected scalp.

A heavy impact smashed against the back of Eryth’s skull, followed by another that came with a sensation of angry heat.

And for the second time in what was shaping up to be a highly eventful cycle, Eryth lost consciousness.