[Log 3.8]

[The Falling Sands]

Zephyro turned away, lost in his own thoughts, but eventually, he held up his hand and another screen appeared.

It showed a panoramic view of his city. The picture wasn’t quite stable. Houses popped in and out of existence, and the sun stuttered between approximately 4 and 5 pm.

“It started with poor Alkashafa-1.” Zephyro’s voice was calm and quiet, only a slight tremor gave away how he really felt. “She ventured out to gather some materials and never returned. The Kashaf brothers tried to find her, but at first, they came back empty-handed.” As he spoke, the story played out before us. A young woman smiled as she headed out the gate. She reached the city borders and disappeared. Time passed, then a few men set out in the same direction. Their steps were fast, and they gripped their hunting bows tight. When they came back, they were arguing with each other. Their steps were unsure, their bows slung over their backs.

“It was always dangerous to go outside, but Alkashafa-1 had tools to defend herself. We hadn’t thought— No matter.

“By chance, we found her—” His voice was replaced by a deep error sound for a few words, then returned. He did not seem to notice. “—later. She had been drained of your Blessing, her body pilfered for parts. We thought some Ferals had gotten to her and while we mourned Alkashafa-1 for a week, we did not think more of it until it was too late.”

“So it wasn’t a Feral then, whatever the hell that is?”

“It wasn’t, Sultana. Ferals are machines with but a spark of intelligence who roam outside the city, hunting for scraps of your Blessing.”

“So, kind of like the Old Guard?”

“Yes, Sultana. But where the Old Guard adheres to your Divine Protocol, Ferals just care about themselves. The Old Guard are aware of who they are, even in their… madness. It is the one thing that separates them from the Ferals. Once they lose that spark, they are but the same.”

Next to us, the smoke coming from the open door was replaced by more fire as the wooden support beams inside started to burn. But we kept watching, neither of us acknowledging our time and place weren’t ideal. We had fallen into the companionable silence colleagues took on when they disagreed but were still forced to work with each other. One wrong word could send us back to arguing, and we both knew better than to risk it.

On the screen, time passed quickly. The sun sunk lower, towards the endless horizon. More people left the city and did not return. The buildings glitched, back on fire for a second, before Zephyro’s hand glitched through some gestures, and everything returned back to its original state.

“You see, our numbers started to dwindle. Even though we were many, and our faith in you was like the sand in the desert, we needed to rove out further and further to sustain our workshops. For this, we needed to be more. And for that, we spread your Blessing thin. Too thin. Alkashafa-1 was one of our proudest scouts and fiercest warriors, imbued with a great amount of your divine energy. When she fell and was drained, her Blessing was lost to us, and we could not replace her. In many ways, losing her was the beginning of the end.”

As we watched, construction stopped on new buildings. Then, some outlying workshops stopped working and townspeople scrapped them for parts. “Before we knew it, they had found us. Ferals from outside your blessed lands, and—to our surprise—also humans trying to plunder your resting place. While we do not know how the ferals first stole your Blessing, for it is clear you would never endorse these creatures, we do know the humans hunt them for it. That is how the humans found this place in the first place. They followed the Ferals, like vultures following a hyena’s trail.”

As the sun sunk toward the horizon, more and more buildings fell first into disrepair, and then to ruin. There weren’t enough workers left to salvage them. Then, the first few go up in flames. “The Ferals harassed us for a while, but we could fend them off. They are mindless things, and easily overcome. Still, they got some of the outlying network hubs as time passed. And then, smelling prey, they came here.”

The screen showed a wild animal approaching the city. It was some sort of insect, barely larger than a cat. A soldier defeated it with quick jabs of his spear and as it died, blue sparks spread from its body, vanishing into the air. Another animal approached and was killed. Then another. And other. They all die, but eventually, bigger ones arrived. A pack of small wolves, a sort of buzzard thing, even something that looked like a pony on fire. They killed a soldier here, a soldier there. Sparks rose from the corpses of the citizens, too, but instead of vanishing, they were sucked into the beasts. Sometimes, the creatures flee afterward, other times they are killed, but none of the Logic ever gets absorbed back into the city. As time passed, there weren’t enough soldiers to kill them anymore, and people just hid whenever they saw a Feral approaching.

Zephyro watched the recording with the intense scrutiny of a man hoping for a better past. I had seen it in drug addicts looking at their stash, in CEOs going over their final sales report, and in parents quietly stroking a picture of their estranged kid. They were all the same, reliving the past over and over again, convinced that if they just thought about it hard enough, they will find that one thing that will make everything better. But in the end, it was futile. There is no way to undo what was done. Those are historical statements, Frau Schneider. The board wants to know what you are going to do about the situation. The memory flowed through me like ice water.

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I shook off the thoughts, angry at Zephyro for wasting our time. Just as I was about to tell him to snap out of it, I caught movement at the end of the alley. With the fire waning, it was getting dark, and the light of other houses burning in other streets barely brightened the corridor of sky above, framed by the walls of the houses on either side of the alley.

Zephyro did not seem to notice, still entrapped in the looping recording while his face glitched through a series of emotions so fast I couldn’t decipher any of them. At first I was worried. Shouldn’t he be protecting us, catching movement like that? On the other hand, it was his Domain. He was like a god in here, and if he didn’t react, it was probably nothing.

Still, my instincts were not quieting down.

“Zephyro?” I asked, still watching the entrance of the alley.

“Yes, Sultana?” Finally, he snapped out of it, focusing on me again.

“Why are we going to the palace?”

“It is where we both need to be for me to do my final duty. We will be safe there, for a while, and it will allow me to explain. I need you to understand why—“

I snapped up my free hand, one finger raised, shutting him up. There was more movement behind him and a rustling noise came from above us. “Alright, then we need to go.”

“Why, Sultana?” He seemed genuinely puzzled. Behind him, something looking like a giant spider slowly moved down the wall. Suddenly, I remembered that he had not seen the kill squad either.

I shoved him aside as the spider pounced, barely missing us both. Its mandibles made a sound like an arc furnace malfunctioning. We landed on the floor, dust swirling around us.

“Sultana, why—“

I pointed at the monster behind us, coughing. “Giant spider!”

His eyes go wide. “Ferals…“ he whispered. “But how—“

The spider pounced again, just as Zephyro rolled over me to cover me with his body. The creature landed on his back and sunk its fangs deep into his armor. The additional weight pushed his heavy form, armor and all, down on me. I wheezed as the impact pushed the air out of my lungs “Where is it, Sultana? Tell me! I cannot feel it, and I cannot see—!”

“Still on your back!” With a trained motion, I twisted out from under him and towards the entrance of the alley, just in time to spot two monstrous, four-legged forms entering the narrow street. Their fat bodies were low against the ground, their long faces pulled back into a snarl. They showed too many teeth, dripping a green liquid that smoked when it hit the ground.

“…and two rats in front of us!” I added.

My anger was right there, offering me strength. Protection. Behind me, Zephyro ineffectually swatted at his back, muttering small curses interrupted by the sound of his sword hitting his armor. I tensed. I was ready. The scepter felt right in my hand. My instincts took over. In one motion, I turned around and hit the spider atop Zephyro with a massive swing.

It didn’t care. The scepter just bounced off and it kept trying to bite Zephyro. It was like I wasn’t even there. I’d probably need to hit it harder, and far more often, but that was hard with Zephyro moving erratically to shake it off.

“Hold still so I can kill it!“

“No, Sultana, it is not your duty to defend yourself, it is mine, I am your prot— Yakhsaf allah bih al’ard!“ He screamed in pain as another spider dropped from above and sunk its arc-welder fangs into his uncovered neck. Oh shit, how did I not notice it coming? What if the next one landed on me? Would I be protected? Was I still immortal? Would it hurt? And why didn’t I do any damage?

My heartbeat pounded in my head. Despite not wanting to turn my back to the spiders, I threw a worried glance back over my shoulder at the approaching rats. They were still a ways off, but closing in at a steady pace. They seemed to know we couldn’t run, and I had a feeling they also thought we couldn’t see them. Their approach was too sure, too casual and brazen for a scavenger. Then again, were they even real rats? Were the spiders real spiders? Or were they more?

Ever since arrived on Tobes, back during my first days in that forest in that forest close to Peruti, I hated both spiders and rats equally. The only thing I hated more was wolves. The rats kept their casual pace as Zephyro fought with the spiders. His attacks went wild because he had to balance hitting an enemy he could not see without hitting himself, all while being in some amount of pain. At least they weren’t hurting him too much if his annoyed expression was any indication. I briefly wondered why I could see the Ferals when Zephyro couldn’t, but shoved the thought aside. I was still trying to find an opening to strike either of the spiders, but Zephyro was moving too fast, and whenever I had a good opening, he brought his body between me and the insects on accident.

“Zephyro, let me help. I swear to God if we die here because of your fucking pride, I will—“

“But Sultana, my honor commands me to keep you from harm and—”

I swung the scepter at a spider on his back, missed, and hit his armor instead. It dinged ineffectually off of his weirdly anachronistic tactical combat vest, but it got the point across.

“Peace, Sultana! As you command!” he grunted, still more annoyed than in pain.

{USER Zephyro_alpha_1 HAS ASSIGNED USER Samantha_V1 THE RANK OF Administrator}

{YOU ARE NOW Administrator OF [Zephyro’s Domain]}

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