The Wastes stretched out before us like an ocean. Gray and black sands, rising and falling in gentle undulations as far as the eye could see. On this side of the mountains, there was very little moisture, and the heat of the afternoon sun was oppressive. Sweat dripped down my back, soaking my tunic, and the leather overtop of them was one layer too many. The vegetation around us was scrubby and dry, and it petered out downslope as rock and soil gave way to dark sand.
“Why does it look like that?” I said.
Gastard and I were following the trail of the Dargothian force that had raided Erihseht. We hadn’t seen signs of horses, either manure or hoofprints, but amid the marks left by the boots of soldiers and lillits alike, there were scuffs and knuckle prints that had to have been left by trolls, as well as uneven drag marks that had probably been made by shamblers. There were wagons with them as well, though I wasn’t sure what was pulling them.
My horse, Bongo, tossed his head after taking a disapproving sniff of the hot desert air. Gastard’s mount, in contrast, was as stoic as he was. The man was ramrod straight in his saddle, surveying the land before us like it was about to become a battlefield.
“Like what?” He said, preoccupied.
“The sand, it’s so dark. How did it get that way? Is there a story there?”
“Hm?” He gave me a quizzical look. “How else should it look? This is the Wastes, a realm of sand. What other color should it be?”
“White,” I said, “tan. You know, sand-colored.”
“Do you jest? This hardly seems like the time.” The slope leading from the mountain pass down into the Wastes was steep enough that we had to proceed with caution. The occasional stretch of gravel didn’t help matters, and when Bongo nearly slipped on a loose stone, I dismounted, and we stopped.
“So this is normal sand?” I said, looking out over the dark, dry sea. “It’s different where I come from, that’s all.”
“Ah,” Gastard said, “I’m sure there are many differences between the world of your birth and this one. Some sands are white, I think. I have heard that the shores of Flussmund are pale. But the Wastes are dark, and have always been so.”
One landmark broke up the undifferentiated expanse, a bridge raised above the sand. It was too distant for me to make out in much detail, but it appeared to have been constructed entirely out of a reddish-gray stone. A ramp leading up to the bridge came down on the edge of the desert about a mile from where we were.
“Where does that lead?” I said, pointing. The bridge looked like it went on forever.
“To Dargoth,” Gastard said. “The Dark Lord built Redroad in ages past, and it has stood all this time. When trade was open, it was a way for merchants to bring their wares from Dargoth to Drom, and before that, it was a channel for his armies. If we are to find our quarry anywhere, it will be along that road.”
“It crosses the entire desert?”
“From end to end. There are way stations along its length, though I have never seen them. Fortresses for his forces to shelter and resupply.”
“If we follow them on that, it will be hard for them to not see us coming.”
Gastard frowned, considering the sands.
“I would not want to risk my mount on those dunes. It would be too easy for her to injure herself. If we crossed under Redroad, we would go unseen, but there would be no way for us to reach the lillits on the bridge, or for them to come down to us.”
“I’ve got plenty of stone and wood,” I said, patting my backpack, “we can get up and down if we need to.” I probably could have made a better-quality pack out of linen or wool, but I was still using the woven grass version. It did the job, and I had enough extra material to craft as many replacements as might be necessary.
Technically, this was a reconnaissance mission. Gastard and I had spent the previous night in one of my old shelters on the other side of the mountain, and we’d discussed what our strategy might be. While my System gave me some amazing advantages, it was in no way specced for combat. The weapons and armor I crafted were better than average, but they weren’t game-changers. While I had been able to improve my equipment with enchantments, there was nothing earth-shattering about those enhancements either. I felt better prepared than ever to face the monsters that spawned around me whenever the sun went down, but that was a far cry from taking on an enemy army. Even Gastard, as skilled as he was, was still just one man.
My food healed me like a health potion, though it didn’t work that way for other people. And I would return to life if I died out there on the sands, but again, that didn’t hold true for my companion. We wanted to see what kind of force Kevin had sent, and if it was possible to rescue a few lillits, Esmelda’s family in particular, then I wanted to try. Neither of us thought it would be possible to bring everyone back.
If my powers had been like those of previous heroes, shooting lightning, or changing shape, then maybe that would have been in the cards. But Mizu had sent me to Plana on my own, and Survivor was a support class.
“We have come too far for Marie to find her way home,” Gastard said, “even if there was still a home for her to go to.”
“Who?” We’d both been silent for a while, and the statement caught me off guard.
Gastard patted his horse’s neck. “I am loath to leave her behind.”
“We can bring them with us,” I said, “but even if they’re okay on the sand, we don’t have enough water for them.” We had refilled our supply at the waterfall beside my old shelter that morning. It was enough to last us a couple of days, less with horses.
“If we take the road on horseback,” Gastard said, “we would catch them quickly, and be less likely to be overtaken in a retreat.”
“And what do we do when we catch them? That works if our only goal is to see what we’re up against, not if we want to do anything more. It’s not like the lillits could ride with us.”
Gastard frowned. “We could take a pair, one with each of us. I consider Boffin a friend, and I do not like the thought of abandoning him to whatever fate awaits them in Dargoth.”
It was hard to imagine Boffin leaving the rest of his people behind. “Do you think he would come?” I asked. “If we could only rescue two people, I’m sure there would be children out there with them. I might want to get Boffin and Brenys, because I know them, and they are Esmelda’s family, but those are their people. Do you think they would be willing to leave the others behind?”
That was assuming we could even get to the lillits. The soldiers would spot us on the road, and they could easily move back to block us from getting to the little folk, assuming they weren’t already driving them at the front.
“Perhaps not.” Gastard sighed. “I have been treading this same ground in my mind since we parted ways with Esmelda, and in truth, I do not see a way through it.”
“How far is that way station?” I asked.
“They are said to be spaced a day’s march apart. My guess is no more than twenty miles, but I cannot speak from experience.”
“They could already be there,” I said.
“Then they are lost.”
“If they stop at the way station for any amount of time,” I said, “that would be better than meeting them on the road. Getting through the wall of a keep is no problem for me, and if they don’t know we’re there, depending on the layout inside, we could get people out before they knew what was happening.”
Gastard grunted. “Then we take the sands.”
“And the horses?”
“We give them what we have. They won’t die from thirst in two days, and neither will we.”
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“Fair enough,” I said. “But I’m leaving Bongo.”
It had been nice to be able to ride for once, but I wasn’t particularly attached to my mount, and it would be a lot simpler to take care of one animal than two. The mare regarded me placidly as I removed her reins, as well as the extra water I’d been keeping tied to the saddle. Everything else I could need was in my pack in the form of coins and medallions.
“Congratulations, buddy,” I said, “you’re free.”
Bongo didn’t know what to make of this, and as we began to move away, she took a few steps to follow.
“Go on!” I shouted at her. “Git! Go back to your kind!” There were so few opportunities in life to White Fang something that I couldn’t resist.
The horse swished her tail, remaining in place, and we went on. Gastard made no comment, which was probably for the best, as she would never be able to see that episode of New Girl to understand what I was grinning about.
The bridge was fifteen feet wide, suspended twenty feet above the desert. It was an engineering impossibility. The sheer size was one thing, but you could lift a road of any size if it was supported sufficiently. Redroad was not supported sufficiently. There were pillars on either side of the bridge running along its length, but they were spindle-thin, single-block pillars, spaced a hundred feet apart. It should not have worked.
When I crafted a roof out of planks, they would hold their position even when they were completely horizontal, and I had never tested how far that rule could be stretched. The crafting force could hold materials together, and I guessed what we were seeing here was the limit of that mechanic. Kevin had made this with the minimum amount of material and effort he could for it to still be a viable structure. If you were building something that was miles long, you might not feel like wasting effort and resources on making it look natural.
The sand was hot, it absorbed the heat of the sun like asphalt, and Gastard’s horse obviously didn’t enjoy walking on it. She whinnied, stepping daintily as we went alongside the ramp, getting under the shadow of the bridge as quickly as we could. It was marginally cooler there, but there were obvious heat shimmers on either side of us outside of the shade. Our pace slowed as the ground shifted beneath our boots. Walking wasn’t too bad, but I didn’t want to run in this. The sand seemed to suck at my feet.
“Pause for a second,” I said after we had gone maybe a quarter of a mile. “I want to try something.”
Gastard humored me as I converted a couple of coins into wood planks, and chopped them into smaller segments with my ax. Being able to carry my tools in medallion form wasn’t quite as convenient as a proper inventory, but it still felt cool to be able to produce them when they were needed and shrink them when they weren’t. Carving out notches in the plank segments with my knife only took a minute or two with my Artisan skill, and then I dropped some grass.
While I had only a general idea of how to braid anything into anything, my System made the process feel natural and easy. My fingers wove the dried stalks into thin ropes like they had performed the task a thousand times before.
“What are you doing?” Gastard asked.
“Snowshoes,” I said.
“Snowshoes?” He looked like he was trying to decide whether I was messing with him or not.
“Yeah, you sink into snow more than sand, but it’s basically the same issue. I want to tie these planks onto our boots so our feet have a larger surface area.”
“We are losing time,” Gastard seemed doubtful.
“It will make us faster in the long run,” I said. It only took a few minutes for me to put the snow shoes together. They were not high quality, but when I had the planks tied onto my boots and took a few experimental steps, it did feel easier. Gastard allowed me to make him a pair and knotted them on himself.
“Madness,” he said, but kept them on.
We walked for hours, as much sliding as stepping along the sand, and the first way station came into view. It was a dark tower connected to the bridge, a lone sentinel amid the empty expanse of the Wastes.
“Does anything live here?” I asked. I’d seen a few cactuses, but no animals.
“Nothing,” Gastard said. “I’ve heard there are harpies in the Wastes, and a few creatures of Bedlam, but little else.”
Bugs and lizards and snakes lived in normal deserts, not anything big, because there wasn’t an ecosystem to support large grazers and the predators that fed on them. If zombies could starve, they wouldn’t fare well out here. They weren’t fast enough to catch insects or small animals, though it would have been funny to see them try.
“Harpies?” I said, “Like half bird half woman?”
“What a nightmare that would be,” Gastard said. “No. Harpies are buzzards, but larger and smarter. I’ve never met one myself, but it’s known that they are common in Dargoth and the Wastes. When I was young, my father told me that some birds learned the speech of men, but they could never be trusted.”
“Checks out.”
We kept walking. Depending on how long ago the raid on Erihseht had taken place, the Dargothians would have been well past the first way station by now, no matter how slowly the lillits marched. Being under the road meant we couldn’t see who was on it, if anyone, but as the tower rose in the distance, I noticed a larger shadow ahead of us, as if there was a giant umbrella hanging over the road.
I stepped far enough to one side so that the stone above wasn’t blocking my view, and saw something very strange. It was like a cloud had come to rest on the bridge, with its edges extending over either side. It was thick, a slightly yellowish fog, and as we approached, I began to hear very familiar sounds. Voices carried a long way over the silence of the desert, and so did the moans of zombies.
Gastard’s mount froze when she heard the first of them, but there was no threat to be seen, and he quietly urged her on. I didn’t hear much more as we came under the cloud, but I was sure we had caught up to the army. Dongle had said the Dargothian force was led by a demon, and there had to be some way of protecting the monsters they had brought with them from being despawned when the sun came up. Did this mean they were only traveling at night, keeping themselves shaded during the day?
The cloud didn’t seem to move, but the sun was falling, and it would do so well before we reached the way station.
“They are here,” Gastard said, speaking in a low tone so as not to alert whoever might have been listening above. “What now?”
I could have crafted a ladder attached to one of the support columns to get us up to the bridge, but there was no way for me to get a good look at the force above us without risking being noticed ourselves. When night came, just dealing with the extra mobs spawning around me would make helping the lillits impossible.
“What if we took the way station?” I said.
“There will be a garrison,” Gastard frowned, “armed men, sheltered by a tower.”
“How many people could be stationed in a desert? I can get us into the bottom, then we surprise whoever we find, block off the doors and halls we want to be blocked off, and work our way up.”
“It won’t be that simple.”
“Are you saying we can’t do it?”
Gastard awarded me with a grim smile. “It will be a feat worthy of the templars of old.”
“Then we need to stop them from getting there ahead of us,” I said, eyeing the bridge.
We continued until we were about a mile past the fog. The keep was still a couple of hours off at our current pace. We wouldn’t make it there before nightfall, but we wouldn’t need to if I gave the Dargothians a sufficient obstacle.
“Go on ahead,” I told Gastard. “If monsters start appearing before I’m done, you don’t need to be around. I’ll meet you at the base of the tower.”
“I would protect you,” he said.
“We can’t afford to spend all night fighting zombies. I’m going to finish this as quick as I can, and we are going to get inside that tower.”
I’d given him the Cliff notes on what I wanted to do on the way, and as ridiculous as my idea was, we didn’t have a lot of other options handy when it came to dealing with a big group of enemies. Gastard kept going, and I started building myself a scaffold. First, I dug down into the sand to give it a stable foundation. Using a shovel, the sand harvested even faster than dirt would have, and I hit bedrock ten feet down. It was just sandstone, and I removed a single block with my pick to replace it with what would be the base of my pillar. It only took a few minutes to get me that far, and stacking granite to get me up to the underside of the road was only slightly more tedious than it would have been in Minecraft. I wasn’t interested in trying to hop up to place blocks directly beneath me, but once the pillar was four feet above ground level, I affixed a couple of blocks to its side to allow myself to climb and continued branching it up that way a few feet at a time.
Once I was within reach of the bridge, I started mining. It was fifteen feet wide, which meant that with a stone pick, I could harvest an entire row in about five minutes, including the time it took me to extend my scaffold. A one-foot gap was no impediment, but a twenty-foot gap was functionally impassible until they either constructed a bridge of their own or climbed down. I had no idea what a demon was capable of, but I doubted it would have the same skill set as a survivor.
As the section of Redroad vanished, I began to look over my shoulder at the cloud behind me. It was thick enough that I couldn’t see whatever force it hid, and hopefully, they couldn’t see me either. They might have had a watch posted behind them, but it didn’t look like there were any soldiers posted to keep an eye on the way station ahead.
The sun continued to fall, and I extended the deconstruction process until the stars began to appear. It wasn’t quite a twenty-foot gap, but the fog was beginning to lift, and there was no telling how much time I had left before the first phantom would appear.
Rather than recollecting all the stone I’d used for the scaffold, I catwalked back to the pillar and mined out the connecting blocks that held up the extensions I’d been using to reach the rest of the bridge. Unsupported by the crafting force, they reacted exactly like several tons of granite were supposed to, crashing into the ground below and sending up plumes of sand along with thuds loud enough to be heard from the way station. Human soldiers appeared out of the dissipating fog, and I heard shouts from more still concealed further down the road. They saw me, but they couldn’t stop me.
I jumped off the pillar, and thankfully, the untested Feather Fall enchantment on my boots kicked in, carrying me softly to the dunes below.