His breath ran ragged as he fell behind.

The mountains that he called home served as the training grounds for himself and his family. Every day consisted of testing their mettle against the surrounding woodlands. They conquered the challenges of the harsh lands through physical prowess and dexterity. They traversed the hazardous terrain with intimate wisdom born from experience.

Here and now, in a place where nature was uncaring towards those that traversed it wantonly, his legs burned from effort. He had lost count of the minutes since he had started running. The muscles in his legs were working with all their might as his feet navigated the uneven ground, trees scattered about and fallen branches threading every nook and cranny.

Sweat stung his eyes as he spotted the smaller figure ahead of him. The simple tunic and pants were smaller than his own. But the tanned skin and short, black hair that billowed in the wind were shared among all his siblings—it was his youngest brother.

A competition between the two was the nature of today’s training. The difference in height and years should be enough to push him beyond the youngest of their family. At the very least he should be beyond his brother in terms of physical ability, but he was instead falling behind.

Determination fueled him to surpass the figure in front of him. The blood pounding in his ears over the howl of the wind was like drums beating a frenzied pace. He fought down the burning pain to run full-speed after his kin as the world surrounding him began to pass by.

And somehow, he managed to catch-up to him despite the difference. Keeping pace with his younger brother, he only briefly glanced at his face as they ran. It was as glistening wet as his own from the sweat and his breathing was just as labored.

Yet, the young set of red eyes were unwavering as they remained fixed on the path ahead where every step was treacherous.

He swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth to ease the ache in his throat as he turned his gaze ahead of himself to spot the last obstacle. It was a crevice in the earth where the land had split apart, an abrupt parting that had been induced by some movement below the surface. Falling would mean dropping into the earthen maw below.

Getting across the gap would be a jump of roughly thirty feet. Too far even with his best effort. They would have to turn towards the right, where the ground would dip into a slope before joining up once more with its other half and rising back up.

He slowed down. Not enough to come to a stop. Just enough that he could grab the tree near the end of the path and use it to make a sharp turn.

His brother couldn’t do the same due to how slender his hands and arms were due to his age and stature. He would have to slow down even more to make the turn, giving the eldest of the pair just enough of a lead. He would use that to clear the finish line first.

Yet his younger brother didn’t slow down at all.

Instead, his breathing changed in an instant. What was frantic but natural instead became refined. It became controlled and practiced. Rushing towards the widest part of the gap without any intention of slowing down, an inhalation that carried enough depth to expand his small chest gave birth to a loud exhale.

Then his younger brother became the very wind.

Shooting forward at an even faster pace towards the edge of the crevice, the boy leaped across as if he had been fired from a bow. The gap that was thirty feet long was easily cleared in a moment, his small body landing on the other side with ease. Then he fell into a roll to soak the momentum and then sprung up to keep running.

…He had stopped running. His legs had stalled at the edge of the crevice as he watched the small figure rushing ahead of him disappeared into the trees that threaded the other side of the crevice. Never once did his brother slow down or look back at him.

<->0<->0<->0<->0<->0<->

The monk opened his eyes as the memory of the past gave way to the present upon waking.

It had been some time since he dreamed of how humiliating that day had been. He had taken so long to get moving again after that the others had already begun heading back home to bathe, leaving himself and his father behind. Back then he couldn’t even look at the man knowing that he was a disappointment.

Not because he was last. The nature of the race ensured that someone would be the last to cross the finish line. But because he had stopped entirely instead of pressing onwards, even knowing that he would become the last.

He had given up.

There was no way his father would be able to understand what he felt at that moment. What it was like to watch as the youngest of their family managed to reach that point well before he had. To be left behind so readily.

It felt like a crushing weight pressing down on him. Grinding his will to continue into dust and leaving him wanting nothing more than to scatter to the four winds. Even after years of training and hard work, all of that amounted to nothing when he couldn’t keep up with them—that there was an insurmountable gap between him and the rest of them.

Yet, his father’s disappointment in him for giving up had been just as heavy.

…He took a deep breath before pushing the memories aside to focus on what brought them to the surface. It was because, as he went through his practiced breathing exercises the night before, he thought he had finally felt the sensation that they had often mentioned. That inner wellspring of power that was different from that which drew from the world around him.

The others had described it as being akin to a tight knot in their gut. It grew tighter and tighter with practiced breaths, at the same time swelling with molten heat. The moment it reached its peak, exhaling would push it into exploding within oneself and they could surpass their limits for a fleeting moment in time.

One hones the body through training and trials. Recalling that he felt the weight of the fangs and claws around his neck. The trial that should have pushed him to this point was no doubt when he had killed the Brown Bear. He should have reached that point much sooner than his coming of age.

Yet, the only reason he survived then was because of what the elven druid had bequeathed him and the primal magic of the land surrounding them. They were the reason he was still alive now. Even though he may have finally managed to reach the threshold his brothers had long since passed, it wasn’t through his own efforts or merits.

As much as he hated to admit it, he was envious of how they gasped that in training and practice so easily. He languished so far behind that he only brushed the surface after nearly dying in battle. It only proved that he was the inferior of the family with it came to their martial arts.

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…I can’t dwell on it, he concluded after some time. Rather than remain fixated on his failings to this point, he needed to focus on his duties as a caravan guard. So, he rose to his feet and readied himself for the day before stepping out of the cart he’d taken to sleeping inside of and into the morning sun.

And the first thing to greet him was the maui’en ranger with a question on her lips. “Did you do something?”

He met her question with silence, only raising a brow to show his confusion.

“I mean, the air feels… different.” Her hand rose to her chin and covered her mouth as she struggled to put it into words. “I’ve had magical healing before, so I know it feels like that only…foggier, I guess. And I know you were moving those jackal corpses and burying them here last night.”

“…That was because the child was too overeager,” he said. Then he noticed her feline ears tilting slightly forward as her head quirked to the side. “This place was made by a druid in the past. It is young, so when I brought up the nature of our injuries it decided to offer succor to those within without considering the cost.”

His initial attempt to commune with the child (for it was as much) was to borrow its power as he had before to heal himself quicker. The surge of energy would hasten his body’s recovery to a much faster degree from how concentrated it would be. Yet, it had gone and saturated the air with nature’s energy instead—trading the potency for a wider radius.

He had the feeling that it was trying to impress him because he could commune with it. His master had told him when she’d first taken him under her wing how the land spirits could range from being mature and wizened to being like children needing a parent to look after them. Whoever had created it hadn’t visited in quite some time, though considering time was related to perspective it could have been hundreds of years or longer. It wanted his attention because he was the only one that could hear it and so it had gone beyond what he desired initially.

That was why he had gone out to retrieve the corpses that had been left behind, dragging them into the Oasis and then letting it swallow them beneath the earth. Offering up the dead would help mitigate the cost of it saturating the air for a short while. Though keeping it up for a longer period was out of the question. “It won’t last long, but they’ll be in a condition to travel again soon.”

Her brows creased as she took a moment to process that before shrugging. “I knew that guys like you could do stuff like turn into animals and heal, so I guess this shouldn’t surprise me. But as long as everyone still here gets better, I guess that’s all that matters.”

Still here? He looked around the camp and noticed that there were fewer people than before. “Did something happen?”

“Most of the guards deserted during the night shift. They took some camels and remaining carts that were intact, along with supplies. The boss isn’t pleased, to say the least.”

“He should have expected as much,” a third voice chimed in. It was the mercenary with the shield. “He picked most of us up out of a tavern, looking to make some quick coin and get a free trip. Monsters like those weren’t part of the deal, so they bailed while they could.”

“…Parasites.” That was the first word that came to his mind. They held no conviction nor sense of obligation, simply running after being compensated without seeing things through.

“I’d frame it they valued living more,” the mercenary said. “I mean, if they manage to make it back to civilization alive then there are no real consequences. They aren’t well-known or affiliated with any organization or group, so they don’t have a reputation to protect and can just keep quiet. That’s the risk of hiring a bunch of guys with weapons without anything keeping them from turning them on you to save their own skin.”

The monk's brows folded inwards before looked towards the ranger for confirmation.

“Unfortunately,” she admitted with a sigh. “Unlike if he’d hired from the company itself, there’s no tangible consequence to ditching the client. Theft is punishable, but… by the time we get back or a report reaches the guards back where we came from, they’ll be long gone.”

“Honestly, it works out nicely for us more by letting them go when we did.”

Her feline ears twitched in what annoyance she could muster under the influence of the Oasis’ magic. “And why do you say that?”

The man pointed towards the monk. Then her. Then off in the other direction. “The only people who could do a thing to those monsters are all here. If the others get attacked along the way, they’ve got nothing covering them. Those jackals get an easy meal and won’t bother us. Win-win as far as I’m concerned.”

Her face twisted into a look of notable discomfort. “That’s horrible.”

He simply shrugged. “Anyway, we’re needed in the main tent to discuss how we’re going to move forward. We’ve got fewer men now so we’re going to have to change things up a bit.”

They followed the mercenary into the tent that was situated within the center of the makeshift camp. Inside they found the leader of the caravan kneeling in front of a crate that was serving as a makeshift desk that had a map on it. He was tracing a line with his finger along a path while discussing something in a rapid tongue that the monk didn’t recognize to another member of the caravan.

Their conversation continued for nearly a minute, giving the dwarven spellcaster time to arrive before the second man got up and went out of the tent. That left the caravan leader free to address them in the common tongue instead. “You’re all here. Good.”

“We were told there had been a change of plans?”

“In light of what happened, we were discussing an alteration through the travel route.” He pointed to the map where the Oasis was marked. There was a curved path that would lead to their destination on the coast over the course of two days at the average pace. “Normally, we would take the remainder of our trip along this path. However, if move forward in a straight path we can cut that time down in half.”

The ranger’s ears rose with muted tension. “Those are Sandworm hunting grounds. It might be shorter to travel through, but the chances of running into them increase to the point where there’s a very real chance we’ll be attacked.”

“I am aware of the creatures,” noted the caravan leader. “But some of those who were injured are showing signs of illness and infection. Though the bliss of this paradise has afforded them some comfort, they need treatment by a physician to survive as soon as possible. And with so few of the guard remaining we would have little chance to survive if the bandits that I hired you to fend off appeared.”

She argued against it. “Bandits are far less of a threat than these things. They can be dealt with through normal means, but these things could tear all of us apart and there’d be nothing we can do. Please, reconsider.”

“Those jackals left us with a bad hand,” the mercenary said. “We have to play the cards we were dealt with and do the best we can. Your fear of them is clouding your judgment.”

She turned her gaze towards the mercenary. The monk imagined that it would be a particularly venomous glare had the magic of the locale not kept her emotions in check. All the same, it showed some truth behind his words.

“…The ones that are willing to surface will be large enough to swallow camels whole and their membranes are tough enough that without a lot of men or magic we may as well not even try fighting. And before you suggest that you can handle that last part, the mucus coating their bodies is both acidic and provides them with a strong resistance to fire.”

The dwarf grimaced. “That limits our options by a fair bit, but still manageable. I think we can give it enough of a shove that it’ll find the meal too much trouble and scamper off. Not like those jackals, I would think.”

She shook her head. “They can sense tremors on the surface from well over sixty feet below and trying to fend one off can cause enough commotion that more will be drawn to the scene. Outrunning them is also something that isn’t easy to do, much less while carting people around. That’s why caravans take routes that are divined by the priestesses of the Temple to avoid them. Going out of your way to intentionally run into them is…”

There was a tinge of emotion in her voice that was only kept in check by the magic pervading the Oasis. And even though they waited for her to finish, the words never came. Only silence padded out by the minute quivers running along her body as she exhaled through her nose.

Then she walked right out of the tent.

“…You have my apologies for the girl,” the dwarf said after a pause. “That was unprofessional. I’ll talk about it with her later.”

The caravan leader only shook his head. “She is a child of this land, so I would not be surprised if she has a tale with them and her warning comes from experience. Even so, I would roll the dice and pray that we do not encounter one of the hungry creatures over the course of a day than I would we encounter the bandits over the course of two.”

“Agreed,” said the mercenary as he walked over and gazed down at the map. “Still, if these things can sense tremors on the surface, we might have to spread out what’s left of the caravan. That way if one does come looking, not everyone will be taken out at once.”

The monk listened as they discussed what their course of action would be from there. He had nothing to add because he was unfamiliar with these lands or the creature in question. The best he could do was understand why they made the decision they had, and what he could do to assist.

It was simply another trial to overcome in keeping his promise.

Just another trial.