The storm slowly faded, both Zalia and Sazcha’s cuts healed instantly by Healing Presence. As the storm faded, a little notification popped up before the storm disappeared entirely.

Scour, The Desert Wind wishes to grant you a blessing. Do you accept?

She pushed the stone wall she had built back into the ground and looked around the room.

“Huh.”

Sazcha glowed with a golden light and Zalia looked over at her to see a sheepish expression on her face.

“Did you just accept the blessing immediately?”

“I got excited!”

Zalia sighed.

She took a few tentative steps and peered up the stairs to the floor above. There was nothing there.

“I kind of expected it to at least… talk to us.”

Sazcha, obviously distracted reading whatever the blessing had given her, only murmured a reply.

“Why would you expect that? We freed it, it paid that back with a blessing. Deal done.”

“I don’t know, all the other ones have spoken with me quite a bit… the ones I knew about at least.”

Sazcha murmured a bit, eyes flicking over invisible text.

Zalia sighed again.

“Alright, what does it do?”

Sazcha finally looked up.

“Well, it’s basically a free pass to the entire desert. I could only dream about something like this!”

Interested, Zalia considered it. She had taken blessings from many other nature gods before and it hadn’t ever gone wrong.

“Accept.”

Blessing of Scour, The Desert Storm.

When in the Yi’tharan deserts, you are protected and led to your destinations. This manifests in several different ways:

* The deserts seem to shift in a way that naturally leads you to your destination. Follow the dunes and they will guide you.

* The desert will periodically bring to the surface long-lost items that will be of use to you.

* The desert will warn you of dangers before you stumble into them.

“Wow. Not exactly what I thought with what you said but I can definitely see it being useful.”

Sazcha was looking more and more excited.

“I don’t think you know what this means for me! Life is going to be so much easier with this. We lose people sometimes and it’s always to a mistake or something overlooked. I would have been one of those losses if it hadn’t been for you saving me from that rock outcropping a few years back. The chances of me making it high rank enough to survive have just gone up significantly.”

That sounded a bit off to Zalia.

“Making it high rank enough to Survive? What does that mean?”

Sazcha waved like it should be obvious.

“We’re a very small group of people Zalia, everyone needs to contribute to the city or things fall apart. The choices are contribute or be exiled and either option means going out to the desert. As you might have noticed, it’s not exactly safe out here. Silver brings relative safety but if I make it to Gold rank, there isn’t a lot out here that can kill me then.”

Zalia drummed her fingers on her leg, thinking about it. It made a kind of sense, everyone had to pull their weight or there wouldn’t be enough to go around.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“What about your parents? Surely people normally wouldn’t be expected to go about alone at Iron rank like you were that day?”

Sazcha shook her head, face darkening.

“Normally, no. My mother died on a trip out to the desert. Surprise attack by a group of sand elementals going wild for some reason. Dad just wasn’t ever the same after that day. I’ve had to look after him ever since.”

Her face had hardened but a hint of pride was showing through.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve survived so far and if this blessing helps you survive further, well, it’s a godsend.”

Sazcha looked over at where the remains of the sphere lay on the ground, then back at her.

“Uh, yes, it was a godsend.”

Zalia stared blankly for a moment before realising.

“Oh, no. Godsend is a turn of phrase where I come fr… never mind. We’re splitting everything fifty-fifty right?”

Sazcha nodded and Zalia headed straight for the sphere’s remains. It was a shame the thing had been destroyed because she would have loved to have one, for personal use. The ability to trap a god was no small thing.

Ruffling through the debris, she found something that gave her hopes.

God-Trap Core (Constructed Heirloom) - Gold Rank.

“Oh, ho ho I like this.”

Sazcha came over to look at it.

“Not super useful despite its power. You can have it.”

Zalia tapped on the metal plating, hearing that it wasn’t entirely solid.

“I’ll cut you a deal. I’ll take this, all of the debris from the rings and the journal and everything else is yours. I was more looking for a location like this than the stuff in it anyway.”

Sazcha shrugged, agreeing easily to the request and Zalia opened her vault to start collecting and storing all the pieces of the sphere. She had to pull a few out of the walls and ceiling but managed to get everything, even the tiny fragments, stored away in one of the vault pockets. While she had no idea how it worked, what it was made from, or how to fix it. Hopefully, the remains and the journal would allow someone smarter than her to figure that out though.

When they were both done, they left the bottom floor and started exploring upwards. There were no more spirits or Soulroot to be found, like Scour being free had dispelled them all. It was interesting to Zalia that the distress of an Ascendant was actually enough to change the environment around them. There were a whole lot of broken and old fragments all of which Sazcha wanted to take. Zalia even had to store a few of them in her vault for the woman after she was unable to carry any more in her own bag. They used similar spacial bags as the one Zalia had once had here and while the strength of a Silver ranker was able to carry a lot, there were also a lot of fragments.

When they reached the top, Zalia asked Sazcha to wait for a moment while she created her Grove.

She’d started the preparation for the ability right at the bottom of the pyramid, wanting it to be a part of the Grove, leading all the way up and then circling out around the few trees on the surface. When she went back to the entrance of the pyramid, change exploded across the surface of the desert.

While she couldn’t see it, Zalia could feel every change that took place. The very bottom floor of the pyramid was cleaned of dust and cobwebs, the tables were repaired and placed themselves orderly. The floor was covered in soft comfortable sand and little yellow glowing orbs floated about the space. Similar changes flowed up each floor of the pyramid, creating a complex of rooms fit for all kinds of creatures.

When the changes reached the top, the pyramid itself was wiped of the imagery dedicated to Scour, replaced by starry depictions of Boreal, Ember, Aylie and the journeys they had all been on. It became a beacon to what they had been through during the war and invasion.

In front of the Pyramid, a section of sand cleared away to reveal a square plot of dirt. From that dirt grew a huge tree of the same species as the others, a leafless palm tree with spiked branches reaching diagonally up into the sky. In the base of that tree a portal arch like Zalia’s vault portal opened and through it she could see the front of the statehouse all the way back in Nature’s Reclaim.

All around the pyramid and portal, the desert transformed from steep dunes to soft rolling waves of sand. Multiple pools of clean turquoise water formed all around the place, with many more of the palm trees growing from the ground. Some small, tough shrubs like the one Zalia had saved also grew, transforming the dead desert to a beautiful oasis.

When that was all done, Zalia turned back to Sazcha.

“This is where I’ll leave you for now. I’ll put all of the things you can’t carry in a pile within the pyramid's entrance for your return.”

Sazcha was still gazing about in wonder at the transformation.

“Wow, that is some ability you have there.”

Zalia nodded in agreement, waiting.

“Right, yes. I’ll see you later I suppose. How can I find you if I ever need to?”

Zalia gestured to the portal.

“You should be able to get back here easily now because of your blessing. If you ever need me, you should be able to find me or someone who knows where I am through there.”

Sazcha nodded a few times, then stepped forward, hand outstretched. Zalia shook it.

“Good working with you.”

“And you.”

Sazcha wandered off, still gazing about the Grove. If she had never left the desert, Zalia thought this might possibly be the most green the woman had ever seen.

Zalia looked about a bit herself, then stepped through the portal to Nature’s Reclaim, ready to be with her family again.