The fire had burned down to red hot coals. The sword lied atop them rivaling their heat. It still looked broken and cracked, although it was a decent bit longer.

The hollow king pressed his hand against the fireplace and lifted himself up. As his body moved, he let out a low groan, like a middle-aged man getting up from a chair he had been in for far too long.

He turned away from the coals and shambled through the mostly cleared ruins of The Oasis. He stumbled against a loose piece of burnt wood but managed to catch himself against one of the new wooden pillars that had been erected. He paused there for a moment before he patted the wood. He straightened himself up slightly and then pressed on.

He stopped as he crossed the boundary to outside of the boundary of where The Oasis had stood. His eyeless head turned slowly from one side to the other, as if he was looking around. With his mouth slightly agape, he lifted his right arm straight up into the sky. He opened his palm, and the eye on his hand sprung open. It shifted its pupil around as quickly as a mouse being chased by a cat.

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The hollow king turned over to his right and nodded slowly. He lowered his hand and shuffled off into the distance. Each step seemed confident and certain, as if he knew exactly where his next destination was.

After ten minutes of dragging his feet forward, he suddenly stopped. He was in the middle of the field of bush grass things. It rustled silently in the wind as he stood firm among it.

The emaciated man crouched down, and dug his left hand down into the dirt at his feet. Through the roots, pebbles, and dirt his fingers searched around. Finally, they grasped something and he slowly pulled his hand back. Roots, branches, and dirt stuck fast in his clenched fist, but he pulled his hand back as easily as if there was no resistance at all. The plants seemed to groan as he pulled against them, until they snapped! He held the crushed remains up towards his mouth and then opened his fist.

With a couple fingers of his other hand, he dug through the mess that he had excavated. He pushed dirt to the side. He pulled out a root and lifted it up towards the lightning in the sky before he tossed it away. Slowly he sorted through what his hand had collected, until he finally found what he had been searching for. A small splinter of metal, no larger than a potato chip. The hollow king held the tarnished piece up towards the sky as he stood back up.

He turned the metal over in his hand as he slowly nodded. Then, he opened his mouth, and gently placed the piece on his tongue. As his mouth closed again, he lifted up his right arm and opened his palm. His eye sprung open and darted around for a moment, before he lowered it. Once again, he turned towards a new direction, and with clear purpose started to shamble onward. His destination clear, he pressed towards the next piece.