The next morning, we were once again going to the road into the desert that the messenger had come down the previous day.  We had spent the rest of that day uneventfully hunting the scorpions around town much like we had been beforehand.  I now had quite a collection of venom glands, but honestly I was beginning to think I should take up some sort of in game hobby to spend my spare time on something other than hunting.  I still didn’t even have a use for these things.  I just figured they could come in handy, or at least entertaining, eventually.

At any rate, now we were headed back at the western side of the city to watch as the caravan arrived.  We knew that in this fantasy world, a caravan of desert nomads would be different than we had expected, but what we saw when we got there was beyond anyone’s expectations.

“...Wow…”

“They’re huge…”

Gradually moving toward Al Omand were three enormous beatles swaying slightly as they moved.  Their extremely thick shells had been hollowed out to create a cavern, and within these caverns were what appeared to be small cities.  Around the feet of the beetles were numerous people on smaller mounts, presumably the escorts to protect the caravan.  Though if anything was able to be a threat to those beatles, I don’t see how a band of guards could do much about it.

Suddenly, we heard a slight chuckling from behind us.  Turning around, we found the older man from yesterday standing there.

“Hehehe, I figured you folks would be back today.  This your first time seeing a Giant Desert Scarab?”

I nodded.  “Yeah, it is.  I had expected they would have something interesting, but this was beyond my expectations.”

“Oh indeed.  As far as I know, these Nomads are the only people in the world to tame them, and they guard the secrets of how to do it very closely.  It might be the only thing in the caravan that’s not for sale.  You see there on it’s back.  They’ve carved out an entire living quarters in there, and expand it as the Scarab grows.  It’s a cramped way of living usually, but it sure beats walking through the desert.  Still, you can’t really blame them for all wanting off once they stop.”

“They don’t just stay on the scarabs?”

“No, no.  You’ll see when they get here.  They’ll all come pouring off the scarabs and set up a bunch of tents all around them.  That’s where they’ll live while they’re here.  Then they’ll set up more tents and booths between their living tents and the city to make a marketplace.  That’s what the governor was offering to help with yesterday.  They always decline, and I imagine it’s because they know what they’re doing, and are good at it too.  We’d likely just be getting in the way and slowing them down.”

“I see, that does make sense.”

The man laughed again.  “Yep, it does.  Anyway missy, you and your friends enjoy.  The caravan should be ready to let folks come trade in a few hours at this rate.  Take care of yourselves.”  He waved, then sautered off toward another group of players.  He seemed to just really like explaining the scarabs to people like us who hadn’t seen them before, as he immediately began chatting with them about the same thing.

Before long, we began feeling the ground shake slightly with each step from the scarabs.  Finally, from somewhere in the caravan a shrill whistle sounded, echoing across the desert.  The three scarabs stopped their advance, then slowly lowered their bodies to the ground causing a small earthquake that nearly knocked us off our feet.  Impressively, the riders around the scarabs didn’t seem to mind and continued their patrols as if nothing had happened.

Once the scarabs had settled to the ground and stopped moving, a number of ramps and ladders were tossed off their sides, and the people who had been living in the shell quickly rushed down and began setting up their tents, just like the older man had told us.  Meanwhile, a small group began to ride towards the city on mounts similar to the one the messenger had ridden on yesterday.

“Greetings, people of Al Omand.  I am Jamal, present leader of the Caravan of the Grand Desert.  I would ask you all to remain in your city until we have completed our decampment.  I will make an announcement when we are prepared to begin.  I promise, it will not take us long.  My thanks in advance for your cooperation.”

After making his announcement, he continued toward the city, where his entourage was joined by a number of the city guard and they began toward the governor's mansion.

I glanced up at Horvath.  “Guess that means you’ve got to wait a little longer, huh.”

“It’s fine.  She warned me ahead of time that it would be like this.  Apparently they have this down to an art though, and it really doesn’t take very long to unpack and get everything set up.”

“I’d believe it.  Look how quickly that tent city has sprung up, after all.”

A while later, Jamal and his guards returned from the city and rode back into the caravan.  By this point, the caravaners had mostly finished setting up the colorful living tents near the scarabs, and had begun to assemble the marketplace closer to us.  It almost looked like a swarm of ants as they quickly assembled the various booths.  Even children seemed to know what their jobs were, and did them without requiring instruction.  I suppose it makes sense.  They do this frequently, and if everyone is involved the setup time is short.

Occasionally, I noticed some of the caravan’s guards would ride off somewhere in a hurry, and large clouds of sand would rise from behind the encampment.  I suppose they’re dealing with various desert monsters approaching from behind.  I wonder if that’s where most of the players are.  Most of us would be more interested in combat type tasks after all, rather than full time merchants.  Though there are some players like Lucelan as well, who want to be traders and craftsmen.

Only a couple hours later, Jamal and his entourage once again road towards the city.  By now, a small city had been assembled on what had just been a patch of desert outside of the city yesterday.

“Allow me to once again greet you, people of Al Omand.  Thank you all for your patience.  I am here now to announce that we are now prepared to welcome you all into our marketplace and encampment.  For the next several days, we will be open for business here.”

A loud cheer rang out from both the city and the marketplace.

“Well, we now have permission to head over there.  Shall we go find Simona?”

Horvath nodded.  “I’ve been talking to her.  She’s helping the guards in the rear, so we need to head over there.”

“Alright, let’s go pick her up, then we can browse through the market later.”

As we made our way through the nomads encampment, I was quite impressed by the variety of available items.  Because they travel around trading with various groups, they had merchandise from most of the different racial and cultural groups on the continent.  Even if a nation didn’t border the desert, they still had managed to stock items from them through one of their trade partners.  After we find Simona, we should really spend some time browsing through the marketplace to see if we can find anything interesting.

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Eventually, we reached the rear of the encampment and looked around.

“Any idea where she is?”

“She said she was asked to go take care of a few monsters, so she should be out fighting somewhere.  We can wait here for her.”

I see.  Waiting here is certainly an option, but I had a better idea.  Looking around, I saw a man giving orders to various groups of NPC guards and players.  I approached him.

“Hello, could you help me with something?”

The guard turned toward me.  “I’m a bit busy, but I’ll hear you out at least.  What do you need?”

“Thanks, It’ll be quick.  A friend of ours named Simona was sent out recently to fight some monsters.  I was hoping you could tell me where she went.”

The man smiled.  “Ah, you’re her friends she was waiting for.  Sure, she went that way.”  he pointed toward the desert where there seemed to be some sand being kicked up by a fight obscuring the visibility.

“If you hurry, you might even be able to help out.  There were quite a few monsters that popped up over there, so we could use every hand we can get.”

“Sure, thanks.  We’ll head off that way then.”

I turned back to the others with a smile.  “Well, then, shall we go collect Simona.”

Horvath just sighed as he brought his equipment out of his inventory.  “Alright, let’s go do this.”

Arriving at the battle, we found several small groups fighting off a large horde of the scorpions we had been fighting for the last few days.  As we approached, a mage near the back called out to us.

“Oh, are you all reinforcements?  We could use the help.”

I shook my head.  “We are, but we’re also looking for someone named Simona.  Any idea where we might find her?”

“Ah, that’s convenient.  We sent all the solos out on the left flank, which is where I was about to send you all.  Since they aren’t used to working together, their cooperation was lacking a bit.  They got hit pretty hard and are barely hanging on now, and we’re already spread too thin to reinforce them.  Could you all go there and help?”

“Sure.  Still, this is a lot of monsters.  We’ve been hunting them for a couple days now, but I’ve never seen this many at once.”

The mage nodded and cast another spell before answering.  “This happens any time the caravan stops.  The earthquake when the scarabs settle excites all the monsters in the area and draws them to us for some reason.  We always station extra guards at the rear and flanks for that reason.”

“I see, we’ll be off then.  Thanks.”

She just waved at me as we headed out.

When we reached the flank, I was surprised to see just how badly things were.  A number of the guards and players were suffering from damage and poison, and there weren’t enough healers to go around.  Not too surprising if they sent all the players that weren’t in a party over here.  Healers are in high demand in any game, so it’s pretty rare to find one without a party.

Horvath surveyed the scene.  “Aurora, looks like there’s a lot of work here for you.  Try to help out the others when you can, but keep us as the primary focus.”

“Hmm, I wish I could transform, but that would probably cause a bit of a commotion.”

With that, we dove into the fray.  Horvath used his abilities to draw enemy attention to himself, bringing a number of the scorpions to us and off of the other players.  Once he had their attention Celeste launched into a charge, impaling one scorpion on her spear while slamming her buckler into a second.  Unfortunately the scorpion was much more stable than most of the enemies we had fought so far, so she wasn’t able to knock it down.  Still, the shield blow was enough to stun the scorpion for a moment.  Aiming for that stunned scorpion, I launched an Ice Spike into it, before casting Frenzy on a few of the scorpions in the back.  Several players and guards were surprised to see a few of the scorpions turn on each other, but they quickly recovered and continued to fight. 

A few other tanks stepped up and Horvath quickly organized them into an impromptu rotation.  This way, they could switch who had the attention, giving the others a chance to rest and recover.  As much as he doesn’t like to be in the lead, he really is good at taking command when he needs to.  Aurora and the few other healers we did have did everything they could for the injured, but only a few had a spell to handle the poison.  Unfortunately for Aurora, she couldn’t cast the Purify spell from her wand often.  The cost was too high, so to conserve mana she had to use it sparingly.

As I continued to cast Ice Spikes and Frenzy when I could, one of the other mages approached me.

“You guys came at just the right time.  Things were looking a bit rough here.”

“Glad we could help.  The guard handing out orders told us to come here.”

He cast a fireball into the crowd of scorpions.  “Ah, you came from the city, right?  Why’d you come to the rear of the encampment, instead of going through the marketplace like most folks?”

I hit a scorpion coming up behind Celeste with an Ice Spike before answering.  “We’re looking for a player named Simona.  We’re gonna be grouping after this.”

“Ah,” he launched a flaming arrow at another scorpion before calling out.  “Hey, Simona, these guys are your party!”

A young woman with deep red hair and tanned skin came jogging over to me with a smile.  She had two short scimitars on her belt, and wore thick clothes instead of armor.  “Hmm, you guys are Horvath and Lilith?”

“Yep, I’m Lilith.  Good to see you ag-” before I could finish, Simona had thrown her arms around my neck.  This has been a habit of hers for as long as I’ve known her.  If it’s a close friend, she’ll greet them with a hug if it’s been more than a couple days since they last met.  I found it a bit uncomfortable at first, but after knowing her for years I’ve gotten used to it.

“It’s been awhile, how have you been?”  She asked, letting go of me.

“I’ve been fine, but we can catch up later.  We should probably finish up here first.”  I sent her an invite to our party.  “By the way, Horvath’s the big statue over there, if you were wondering.  Celeste is the spearwoman running around, and Aurora over there is our healer.  We’ll do proper introductions later”

“Alright, I’ll go help out by Horvath then.”  She said with a wave and trotted off.

I fired off another Frenzy spell before turning back to the mage who had called Simona over initially.  “I’m kinda surprised. Everyone I talk to seems to know who Simona is.”

“Ah, that’s pretty standard for the Caravan.  They’re a tight knit group.  Living quarters are pretty cramped and we always work in groups when helping the guards, so we all got to know each other.”  He said, firing off yet another fireball.  “By the way, how are you making the scorpions fight each other?”

“Oh, that’s Mind Magic.  I opted for more of a support mage, and my class specializes in that.  In fact, my only real attack spell is coming from my equipment.”  As if to emphasize that point, I cast another Ice Spike.

“That makes sense.  Support's not really my thing, but it does seem interesting.  And the chaos it’s causing is pretty handy.”

“Yep, it definitely helps with crowd control.  A lot less useful against bosses, though.  I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeves for them, but I really excel at these types of situations.”  Unfortunately, by this point, my mana was low.  As I downed a mana potion, my conversation partner did the same. 

While I waited for my mana to recharge, I turned my attention toward the other people fighting.  Particularly Simona.  Her combat style was highly mobile and seemed to focus more on speed and number of attacks, rather than strength of the blows.  Unlike Celeste who also focused on charging and mobility, Simona mostly would move in small circles and spin about while swinging her blades.  Her fighting was almost like a dance, aside from the corpses piling up around her.  Also, the somewhat serene smile on her face as she fought was rather alarming.

I sent a message to Horvath, who was currently recovering while someone else held the enemies attention.

Lilith: Hey, was your girlfriend always that scary?

Horvath: No, that’s new.  I mean, that expression is the same one she has when she’s dancing, but it really is a little unnerving in the middle of a battle, isn’t it?  That said, you’re not really one to talk.

Lilith: Sure I am.  I was doing it on purpose to be eerie.  I’m pretty sure she’s just smiling because she’s enjoying herself.  That’s far more unnerving.

I noticed Horvath shaking his head in where he was kneeling, but  he apparently decided not to respond.

By then, my mana was recovered enough to fight again, so I resumed my barrage of Frenzies and Ice Spikes on the scorpions.  shortly thereafter we were reinforced by a group of mounted guards, who performed a swift cavalry charge into the swarm.  With their help, we were finally able to clear out the last of the monsters and return to the encampment.