Why do we regain our essence, our well of energy, our inner Mana, more rapidly when we rest? The time when consciousness fades and we walk upon the land of the dream.

And why is it that the most intellectually capable of us are able to command greater reserves of arcane power? Is it because of rote practice, technique, or a deeper understanding of our element that allows us to perform greater feats of magic, like the writings of the ancients suggest?

Perhaps it is both. Perhaps it is neither, and our capacity for mastery of the arcane is decided at birth. Some of my peers posit it is because only a greater intellect can ponder, can visualize, the higher truth of the universe. To understand concepts that go beyond mere space and time and to touch, in a limited way, the face of the divine.

I have heard some argue that it is only when we are free from conscious thought that we can allow our minds to fly unshackled from the misguided preconceptions of things that we view as real. And in doing so, we allow for a greater connection to the world, and to god-gift Mana itself.

Perhaps, it is in the land of the dreams that the answers to the greater mysteries of this universe can be found.

- Notes found in the quarters of Master Bertrand of the University of Quas.

By their blessing, or perhaps they were simply distracted, the other gods of this world did not turn their eyes upon us. As for Iasis, though I never gave the words of the gods much weight, it seemed that she had kept her promise. There were no further attacks by the great Guardians, nor any other monster or savage desert tribes. The rest of the journey was blessedly uneventful. What would the people of the Ravens and the Crows think if they knew that it was the blessing of a very different goddess that had guaranteed their safety?

Time passed, a slow inexorable advance as one day bled into the next. Not counting the nearly incessant nagging, the only constants were the pervasive heat of the day and the icy chill of the desert night.

Like Elwin, and now the rest of my companions, I had taken to wearing the flowing clothes of the desert over my armor. This fusion of attire conjured images of the crusaders in the Palestine, a blend of medieval European armor with the traditional desert garb. It did, somewhat, help to mitigate some of the heat and cold, but then again with my high Constitution, the boiling heat of the sun and the freezing night were minor discomforts at worst. If anything, I did it for the simple human need to just fit in.

For nearly two whole moons, we traveled along the Green Road. I had spent all of that time throwing myself at physical tasks like cutting obstinate proto-trees that even the Xaruar had difficulty removing from the path.

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On a day much like any other, a wagon wheel snapped and broke. Wishing to test my Strength, I dug my heels into the soft sand and tried to lift the vehicle before it overturned. Kidu, trying to be helpful, or perhaps viewing this as a sort of challenge, rushed to my aid. We both strained together in a weird sort of contest. For our Herculanean effort, I earned a point in Strength, a growing rarity, as the numbers got higher.

I had even taken to playing games with the children. Not that I enjoyed their company, but it gave me an excuse to practice the use of my Stealth skill as we played this world’s variant of hide-and-seek. They were even able to persuade me to shed my armor as, no matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to garner even a modicum of stealth when clad in a suit of steel.

Thanks to these fun and games, I was able to raise my Stealth skill to level two. Though by no means a ghost in the night, I was learning to move with a certain economy of movement that lent me a quieter stride. It was progress.

It was with a little regret that one of the children had gone missing, and we were only able to find his shriveled corpse inside a monstrous large pitcher plant analog. Desi was his name, and he was perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed, but his passing cast a pall on further games. The funeral was a rushed affair, no doubt due to Laes wanting to reach Al-lazar as soon as possible. At times the man had no respect for common human decency.

Across the evening meals, I heard the tale of the worm riders, of how my companions rode one of the great Guardians. With every retelling, the tale gradually grew with embellishments until now it was a thing of living legend.

Up until the present, the people of the Ravens thought, in their ignorance, that the Guardians breathed the sand as if it were air. However, Kidu had doubted this, thinking that the worms of the desert were like the whales and porpoises of the frozen seas of his home. The Hunter intuited that the Guardians breathed air and not sand, and in a stroke of natural genius, he forced one of the spiracles open with his spear. These organs, the holes running along the sides of the monster, were what the creature used to breathe. Like the blowholes of the cetaceans on Earth, it needed to close them before burrowing beneath the sand. Unable to dive beneath the dunes, the Guardian was forced to travel across the surface, until finally, exhausted, it stilled, allowing my companions to dismount safely.

There were now other variations of the tale. One such divergence was that it was Kidu himself and his great bulk that kept the spiracle open. Yet another was that Cordelia prayed to Avaria, and the Goddess herself interceded. It was interesting to see the truth so easily twisted in such a short span of time.

*****

The mist would often form along the river in the early hours of the morning, making the line of vehicles ahead of our wagon look like ghosts. The only substance they had to them was their sound, calls that echoed far. The movement of the caravan was, by far, not a quiet affair.

It was on one such morning that I was gifted with my first vision of the great city of Al-Lazar. There, in the far distance, I mistook it for a heatwave or a mirage, but a glint of gold flashed. Next to this flash, was a thin line of iron gray, the Blister Sea as I was told. That sparkle of gold was the Dome of Becoming, the tallest monument in the city of Dust, according to Laes and the other people of the Raven.