Azura had mixed feelings about how well things were going. On 1 hand they had probably confirmed the smell thing, but on the other he really was quite curious. How big was the actual body? Did they ever get to a point where they couldn’t sustain the weight of the armor anymore? A part of him was tempted to try and aggravate 1 of them just so he could study it, but even he wasn’t that reckless. There weren’t many things he wouldn’t do for a chance to study something, but unfortunately he was too competitive to risk failing at this event for something like that.
“I guess we can say rumor confirmed? Surely if they could detect us we would have been swarmed by now.” He wasn’t so sure. Most monsters weren’t intelligent, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be cunning. Monsters as a whole were well known to deploy some surprisingly complex tactics. Like sending a weaker force out to get people to give chase and then ambushing them. Or letting people get to the middle of their territory without attacking them to make it harder for them to escape.
“Possibly, but I wouldn’t count your chickens just yet. We aren’t safe until we’re well out of their nest.” Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so harsh about it, if the monsters did attack he would be the main target rather than Arbeid, but he had learned that relaxing in this kind of situation was never a good idea. All it took was 1 delayed reaction and the consequences could be quite severe. His father had drilled that lesson into his head with years of sudden attacks whenever he relaxed for even a moment.
Arbeid gulped, and began to frantically look around once more. “Couldn’t you move us through faster like you did away from the bandits?” He chuckled, it would seem his guide wasn’t very familiar with monsters, which he supposed was to be expected given that the only ones out here usually laid dormant, and they ate metal and were thus not usually attacking people.
“I could… if you want all of the monsters around here to swarm us that is. Most monsters have magical senses, even if scent is how they typically hunt. If I use a ton of magic like that you can be sure they’ll feel it, just like I’d feel it if they did anything magical.” Sneaking around was an interesting game between mages. You needed to try and sense everyone else without being sensed yourself. That was one of the reasons clairvoyance was such a useful spell. The mana infused light was nearly impossible to distinguish from just natural mana in the area. Enhancement was not nearly as subtle.
“If they do attack you’ll protect me right?” He didn’t blame the guide for being nervous. It was obvious Arbeid had no combat training, magic or otherwise. Although his knowledge of the area, and all the involved parties was incredible. The guide had been able to guess which group of bandits had attacked them just by their method of attack.
“I’ll do my best, but if I can’t beat them all I can do is run away from you since they will follow me.” Between 3 of him going in different directions, hopefully none of the sharks would choose to go after Arbeid, especially considering the guide had no metal for them to eat. “Worst case I’m fairly confident I can keep them distracted while you run.”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that, the white serpent bandits don’t normally operate this close to towns, so I can only imagine something big is going down. And it’s probably not something good.” That was probably what worried him the most. In the story It said she was met with a terrible tragedy when she got to the oasis, but it didn’t say what that tragedy was, and he had no idea how much time passed between that tragedy and the story of the kingdom of glass.
“Well good to know we have a fair trade then. You guide, and I guard.” Arbeid chuckled a little. That seemed to have relaxed him a little, but the guide still looked alert and nervous. Good, fear meant you weren’t stupid. As long as you didn’t let it dictate your actions, fear was good. People who weren’t afraid were either ridiculously powerful, or ridiculously stupid. Usually the ladder.
“I suppose that does make things fair. If I guide you to your doom, it will probably be mine as well.” The guide chuckled, and he found himself laughing lightly too. The joke was a little morose, but he felt it fit the mood pretty well. On a darker note, the fact they had made it halfway across without having any of the monsters attack was concerning. It was possible they were deep sleepers and it would take more than a couple seconds for a scent to wake them up, but he wasn’t particularly hopeful.
“Well I wouldn’t go that far, bandits don’t usually kill people. Bad for business and all that. You’d probably live just you know without any valuables, and depending on what kind of bandits they are, maybe as a slave.” Personally he’d take death over being enslaved, but enslavement came with the possibility of being free again. Death was permanent.
“Ah yes, because those are much better options.” He shrugged at the sarcastic response with a small smirk on his face. He actually quite liked his guide. Arbeid was a nice guy, very down to earth, and surprisingly resilient for a civilian. Not many would have had the guts to bring up a monster nest as an alternative route. Especially considering that the guide wasn’t stupid and was appropriately terrified of the monsters that dwell below.
“Just-” His words were cut off by the sand shifting beneath him. His well honed reflexes saved their lives as he managed to tackle Arbeid out of the way. They tumbled in the sand, being pushed even further as the sand from behind them slammed into them as a gargantuan figure burst out of the ground. The shark was huge; his shove wouldn’t have even come close to moving them out of the way if its mouth had been open. The sand being shifted and pushed aside by its body emerging to the surface must have moved the 2 of them an additional 50 ft. It had to be at least a hundred yards long, and apparently was fast and strong enough to launch itself completely out of the sand.
“I’m going to be honest, I don’t think I’m prepared to handle that. You did not tell me they got that big.” He wasn’t overly concerned though. He couldn’t handle something like that in a fight, but he also didn’t really have to. He had shoved them away from the direction the shark was set to land from its arc, and it wasn’t an enemy that really did subtle. He had felt it moving even without extending his magic senses. “Time to go.” He threw the gawking Arbeid over his shoulder again and took off. He didn’t use any magic though. They were only about 3/4ths of the way through the nest, and getting surrounded was a sure fire way to end up dead.
It was a little awkward carrying the taller man in this way, but it would have taken too long to wait for the guide to properly react. He heard a boom as a geyser of sand shot into the air behind them he began taking leaping strides having his feet touch the ground as little as possible as the sand began shifting backwards to fill the hole the gargantuan shark had left. He hoped his guide didn’t get whiplash from all the flinging around.
On the bright side, keeping track of the shark's location didn’t require any magic so he wasn’t attracting any more attention, the downside being that the shark could move deceptively fast, and without magic avoiding all of its attempts to eat him while carrying a person was far from easy. Especially when the beasts' open jaw had a diameter of at least 50 ft. He couldn’t out run it outright, but the shark couldn’t turn very quickly so when he dodged to the side the beast had to make a wide circle to come at him again from another angle.
Unfortunately as he had thought earlier, monsters were a lot more cunning than many gave them credit for. It didn’t take long for the beast to realize it wasn’t going to catch them the normal way so instead it took another leap like it had at first. He had to dive backwards in order to avoid it in time, and unfortunately that led to him being pushed back by a wave of sand and then sucked in as the sand began filling up the space it had been displaced from. The monster was no doubt circling to strike at him now that he was stuck in the sand whirlpool.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
He growled, getting far enough to avoid the follow up would involve moving quite a ways backward, and if the beast kept using this strategy he wouldn’t be able to make any progress. Risky last dash it was. He pumped his body full of magic, enhancing himself to his upper limit, and then thanks to his enchantments going beyond that. He jumped forward creating wings with his mana. The mana here was a little on the thin side, so he wouldn’t be able to maintain them for long without dropping dangerously low on mana especially when it would take much longer than normal to recover, but just for the few seconds he needed to escape from the whirlpool shouldn’t leave him with too little mana left.
Once he cleared the sinking sand he landed, dispersing his wings and breaking out in a sprint in one smooth motion. Now that he wasn’t going for discreet anymore he was able to expand his senses, and he wasn't happy with what he found. There were hundreds of them, and they were coming from every direction. Thankfully at least the rest of them were much smaller, barely bigger than a regular shark. He carefully measured his air intake with slow but deep breaths as he sprinted full speed to the end of their nest.
Now that he was enhanced none of the sharks coming from behind were keeping up, so he only had to worry about the ones in front of him. He used his blink spell to avoid one of the sharks stepping out of the magic circle a good distance away from where the shark emerged. He wouldn’t be using that trick again if he could help it. Something about being in a subspace made that cost way more mana than it usually does. He’d have to look into that later.
The monsters quickly adapted to his new location. He was almost to the edge, once he was past all the monsters they wouldn’t chase him very far, and even if they did he could easily outrun them. He grabbed an earth shard from his case, and formed the ground into rock below him. The scrap shark broke through it, but it slowed the beast enough that he was well past the area once it got through. He growled as one shot out towards him from directly in front, putting its body in his way. He ducked whithout breaking strideputting his shield underneath the creature and filinging up and over his head as hard as he could. The beast soaring into the air behind him.
He created a rock wall on both sides of him to stop the 2 sharks that had jumped at him from his sides. The rock shard was about to shatter, he had been using it a lot lately, but that was fine he overloaded it, and tossed it in front of him. It exploded, but the energy it released wasn’t directly harmful, it did however turn a good chunk of the sand into rock catching several of the sharks as the sand they were moving through suddenly became solid. He dove forwards to dodge another jumping shark. Rolling to his feet was a bit more difficult than usual due to the person he was carrying, but he managed to get back to his feet semi-gracefully. Arbeid probably had a lot of sand in his mouth though.
With one final push he managed to get out of their nest, of course he knew better than to slow down until he had some decent distance. “Well that was fun huh?” He could practically feel his guide's incredulous stare.
***
Azura had let Arbeid down, after running for a minute. He was fairly confident that they were far enough away the sharks wouldn’t bother to follow, but he had his senses out just in case. “I can’t believe we’re alive!” His guide clearly wasn’t used to life or death situations. He was honestly impressed it had taken this long for Arbeid to freak out about their very near miss with death.
“I told you we’d be fine.” Not that he had been super confident either, he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t considered reaching for his amulet instead of an earth shard. But they had made it through, and that’s what mattered in the end, and now they were less than an hour's walk from the oasis. Which apparently was protected by some kind of mirage that made it look like ordinary dessert until you got close enough. He idly wondered if that was a barrier spell someone had cast at some point, or just a natural magic phenomenon.
“You said we’d probably be fine! When I asked how sure you were you said, ‘more sure than I am about the bandits.’ Neither of those are particularly reassuring!” The guide took a mocking tone when quoting him. He chuckled, he had been trying not to lie, but apparently hadn’t been as misleading as he’d hoped.
“And we are fine, see I’m as good as my word.” He struggled not to laugh at the stink eye Arbeid was giving him. He once again found himself unsure whether Arbeid was a phenomenal actor, or an even more phenomenal simulation of a person. His guide looked about ready to speak again when a small shiver went up their spines. Apparently they were past the veil. Which is what the locals called the mirage that protected the oasis. The sight that greeted him was not a welcome one. Smoke rose into the air. Various fires were sprouting from the small wooden buildings arrayed around the oasis.
Arbeid’s eyes widened. He held out his arm to stop his guide from running recklessly towards the town. “What are you doing! We have to go try and help them!” He couldn’t imagine how intense this man’s feelings were, assuming the simulation was based on real events anyway, but they couldn’t just rush in. The bandits hadn’t been following their normal routine, and now this? He couldn’t help but think this wasn’t a coincidence.
“We’ll go help, but we need to be careful. I think I know why the bandits are acting the way they are, and if I’m right the town isn’t their target.” He walked towards the fires keeping his clairvoyance active and to its maximum range. He didn’t see a single person. No one trying to put out the fires, no one running away, no bandits waiting to ambush them, not a single soul outside of him and Arbeid.
“What could possibly be so important they’d risk attacking a whole town?” If his guess was right Arbeid’s father had been in that city the bomb went off in to take the artifact away from the bandits, what were the odds that in trying to hide it the girl took it right to the people who were chasing it? Unless she hadn’t really been here to hide it. He sighed. She already knew they were after the crown. She came to take out the bandits so they didn’t hurt anyone else, but she underestimated their numbers. So one of the bandits would become the mad king then?
“The same thing that caused your father to flee and got him killed.” Arbeid’s eyes widened again in shock as the man turned towards him so fast he was amazed the guide didn’t get whiplash. In hindsight, probably shouldn’t have revealed that part. On the other hand the quick glance Arbeid sent to his small bag led him to believe the guide knew what his father had smuggled out of the desert.
“Are you insane! You brought the crown back here!” Well that theory was confirmed, but unfortunately his guide knowing what he had didn’t really help him any. Even worse was the fact the town was completely deserted. His sensory range engulfed the entirety of the small town if it could even be called a town, and there wasn’t a single person here.
“There’s nobody here? Nobody at all? Why would there be nobody?” He expected an ambush, but there weren't even enemies present. Just what was going on? He didn’t like this. Something big was about to go down, and he had a bad feeling he wasn’t going to like it. He looked around hoping his eyes might catch something his sensory spell didn’t, and sure enough he did.
His guide had been standing stock still. Probably still upset about the crown, and his blatant lack of an answer to the question he had been asked. Or at least he had assumed that, but as he had been looking around he saw the letter plastered to the wall that Arbeid had been staring at. He had some trouble making out the message from the rough handwriting, but he got the jist
“The crown rightfully belongs to the bandit king. If you don’t return it to us in the next 6 hours everyone from this little town will be executed or sold into slavery depending on how much coin they might go for. The mage isn’t to come. This is a matter that should be handled solely by children of the sands. If we so much as suspect the mage is approaching everyone dies. If we suspect you don’t have the crown everyone dies. I hope you make the right choice son of Salizar, your father certainly didn’t, and look where it got him.”