Some fifteen years ago, a very tall and stout woman by the name of Jules had arrived in the north-west of the wastes. Like Eregos well before her, she could reasonably been called a refugee. She had a different objective in mind.

Jules had arrived alone in the wastes, with a nice spear in her hand and a bag full of papers and maps. Had she had anywhere else to go, she would still have come to the wastes. She was in search of treasure.

Some six years before the Church would destroy the town called Eregos and expand into the edges of the northern wastes, the desert was not so dangerous as it would be thirteen or so years later when Tengu arrived in Haven. It wasn’t exactly safe, but neither was Jules.

After a few weeks of scouring ruins in the northwest of the wastes, Jules set down in one of three crumbling buildings that were still in fairly good condition. As she ventured out from her base, she brought back much more in the way of building materials than treasure.

Some of the papers and maps in her bag were hundreds of years old, it was no surprise that she wasn’t the first to find most of these ruins. But it was a touch disheartening.

Jules had been in the wastes for three months, the building she had chosen was in just about acceptable condition and she had quite a good store of food. It wasn’t the first time she had seen the slavers in the desert, but it was the first time she had had to fight them.

A group of five with a dog and a camel survived about forty seconds after managing to get the jump of Jules and her quite nice spear. Two of them left without dog or camel. Jules was not badly injured, the small cut on her forearm wouldn’t scar.

The man who was strapped to the back of the camel was in distinctly worse shape that Jules. So, being a kindly sort, Jules brought him back to her base and helped him get back on his feet.

He wasn’t so interested in the life of a treasure hunter, and after a few weeks he went on his way to Journey, with the hope of joining a caravan headed to Altok or Yarkot. Jules didn’t see him again, but that didn’t mean very much.

As the war between the Lord’s House and Oszrath carried on, the wastes seemed to get more dangerous. Oszrath outlawed slavery entirely, and the slavers started to concentrate more in the north and northwest of the wastes. Deserters and refugees fled into the wastes, some to be enslaved and some to raid passing caravans and attempt to rob large women with nice spears.

Jules acquired several small scars and a knack for disappearing into the dunes and hills to pop out without warning and finish the job. She also, very sensibly, taught herself the use of a bow.

Despite the spreading rumours of angry ghosts in the northwest of the wastes, Jules was only human. She was capable of making mistakes. And she was a kindly sort, after all.

What had appeared to be a train of six slavers force-marching eighteen slaves north toward the Lord’s House turned out to be a train of twelve slavers force-marching twelve slaves.

It was in this fight that Jules made two important acquisitions. The first of her scars, from a sword through the gut, that really seemed it should have killed her. And second was twelve new treasure-hunters to carry her bleeding and semi-conscious body back to her base.

They ate her food and drank her drink and marvelled at her bravery for trying to kill so many slavers all on her own. Thankfully, Jules’ main objective had been achieved and with the acquisition of three more camels and all of their packs, she had more than enough food to feed twelve new treasure hunters.

Jules survived the stab through her guts with minimal issues, she simply needed to cut her food very fine to avoid pain and blockage. And twelve new mouths to feed were also twenty-three new hands to gather food and fight off raiders and slavers.

A man by the name of Ozran was missing his hand up to his elbow, but he took well to swappable prosthetics for whatever his current need may be. Some people called him Fork, because of the fork attachment he wore most of the time around the hideout.

It was a young woman by called Beetle who proposed the name the Sand Crawlers, after Jules’ method of disappearing into the dunes and hills when a direct fight became too much trouble. The name replaced the previous moniker Jules and Co, which had been proposed by a man called Wall because of that one time he had walked into a wall and everyone thought it was quite funny.

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Though word of the Sand Crawlers, or angry ghosts with spears, spread around the raiders and slavers in the wastes, they were never short of fights. Jules had, slightly unluckily, set herself up very near the most direct path between the edge of the Lords’ House and Journey, where raiders congregated to attack the caravans headed along the road from Journey to Ovek.

There were certainly worse things. The Sand Crawlers had reached twenty four people and forty-six hands. The name Fork Too had not stuck for a man called Eastin, who was missing most of his right arm from mid bicep. For one thing, he was older than Fork, and for another, he very rarely had a fork attached to his body.

When Tengu finally appeared, without warning, in the middle of the Sand Crawlers’ hideout, Eastin was still very much the messiest eater of the group, after shunning the use of forks nearly four years previously.

The Sand Crawlers had lookouts, they had scouts, they even sometimes had patrols. None of them had spotted Tengu before she arrived in the hideout, just standing there and looking around.

When Jules and several of her Co threatened Tengu with spears, she simply asked if they wanted some meat. She had too much to deal with herself, they should understand.

And so began a tense friendship. Jules was certainly not insecure about finally meeting someone taller than her. And would not have admitted under any circumstances that she went around camp topless because the Sand Crawlers seemed so impressed with her horrifying scars.

Tengu was happy to admit that she didn’t much like being hugged, or talking so loudly, or being around people who were talking so loudly. And yet the relationship endured and even flourished until, one day, Tengu brought a teenager who dressed like she was from the Lord’s House and had a strong desire to do violence against slavers.

One of the unexpected, but not unwelcome, side-effects of Jules wandering around topless all the tope was a level of casual nudity that made Ora want to blindfold herself until Tengu carried her away somewhere with better manners. Many of the Sand Crawlers found this quite funny, a couple of them put on shirts for the poor girl’s comfort.

As Ora went to find a bed, Tengu explained the plan to the Sand Crawlers. The new bunkhouse in Haven could house as many as sixty people, though fewer was better. Ideally, the people who would fill the bunkhouse would be rescued from in and around the wastes.

The part of the plan that Ora didn’t know was that Tengu hadn’t really expected to find anyone yet. She had just wanted Ora to get comfortable with being in the wastes and with fighting actual opponents.

So they had come to the Sand Crawlers, where a raid on a slave caravan could be a fairly safe endeavour.

Jules and the Sand Crawlers looked around at their collection of bird-faced masks, acquired the last time Tengu had asked them to hunt slave caravans. They had tried to put the masks in silly places and orientations, but it didn’t change the fact that they’d kept them.

Usually, the Sand Crawler held a neutral position on slavers: if they saw some, they’d kill them, but they didn't normally hunt them down. Everyone was in fairly good shape, and Ora had been adorably passionate about it.

Jules agreed.

This plan of Tengu’s was very good for the Sand Crawlers, all things considered. While some of the slaves they’d freed from slavers and caravans had taken themselves off to Journey on the way back home, the Sand Crawlers generally escorted them across the wastes to Yarkot, which was the much safer option.

It was about eight days travel from the Sand Crawlers’ hideout to Yarkot, compared to about two and a half to Haven. And despite the preponderance of raiders and slavers slowly dwindling in the wastes, Haven was a very safe place to be.

Ora was very disappointed to hear that she wasn’t allowed to wear the bird-faced mask that the Sand Crawlers had let her take. Tengu wasn’t wearing her own mask, either. And it was sensible: enough people associated Tengu with Journey and Haven that wearing the mask would attract the wrong type of attention.

The woman called Beetle explained that that was why none of the Sand Crawlers wore them either, just left them sitting in silly places around the hideout. Jules muttered something about how they were the Sand Crawlers and not the Tengu Crawlers.

A caravan of slave traders coincided perfectly with Tengu and Ora’s visit to the Sand Crawlers. Thirteen guards, four traders, eight camels, four dogs, and twenty slaves meandered along the edge of the wastes on the winding road from Journey to Satek.

Arrows flew. People shouted and screamed. Dogs barked and snarled. Camels groaned or mooed. Ora had no idea what was going on or what she was doing. It was over almost as soon as it began. There was a man dead at Ora’s feet. Her sword was bloody.

She vomited.

One of the traders escaped on a camel, running as fast as it could be bothered. The Sand Crawlers watched him go and debated who was a good enough shot to still hit him as he got further away.

Tengu held Ora’s hair and patted her on the back.

Fourteen of the slaves agreed to come to Haven with Tengu and Ora. The other six, armed with the guard’s weapons and three of the camels, were headed back through Journey to Altok and then Kzara.

Once Ora had finished throwing up, she was very excited for the whole of the three day trip back to Haven.