Looking at the map Tanathos had drawn for us, it really didn’t seem all too far at all, just like he had told us. The enemy quikkas must be their arch nemeses or something if Tanathos knew from the start where their settlement was. On the other hand, the map was quite intelligible, scarily so even. It had a perfect route charted for us, and even with common guidelines and instructions like “Weirdly shaped rock, 4km – Turn left. Oasis, 1km – Go straight.” And similar.

“Whoa, hey girl, what’s wrong?” I noticed Lina’s legs getting wobbly, “Everyone get off her for a sec.”

“What’s the matter?” Shaid inquired, “Wait, did you feed her recently?”

“I did, gave her plenty of water too.”

“Hold on, I got this.” Olya slowly and carefully approached the camel’s hooves, “Ah, knew it. Hold on a second, girl, I’ll clean it out for you.”

“Hey Olya, what’s going on?” We asked.

“You didn’t take care of her properly at all.” He reprimanded us, “Well, not like I can blame you, since neither of you knew any better. She’s from the Solaris Desert, so her hooves are made to tread sand, at least that’s what you said.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I kind of noticed that she was walking a bit slanted while we were still in Entropa, and it got me thinking. Maybe all those rocks, grass and mud were making it weird and uncomfortable for her.”

“That’s…” Shaid and I looked at each other, “Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry girl.”

Lina looked at us a bit peeved, or at least that’s what it looked like. I kind of doubt she can understand us, but I’d at least like to apologize for my own conscience. Even still, checking under her hooves proved Olya’s hypothesis right then and there, as a pretty sizeable pebble could be seen lodged in there. Obviously, anyone would tire out from walking quickly if they had such a thing in their shoes.

“But really, Olya, you’ve got some amazing skills, it almost feels like cheating to have you accompanying us.” I honestly praised him, “Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you.”

“Is that so? Well, I appreciate the compliments, but really I’m just a guy who’s lived long enough to learn from his countless mistakes.”

“Hm?”

“Come on now, let’s go save those guys you’re indebted to!”

Soon enough, we had passed the final marker Tanathos had left for us, which led us atop a giant sand dune that served as perfect cover from the people there. Scoping out the scene, we could find all the Havanans toiling away and being treated like slaves by the enemy. It was such a bloodboiling sight, given how little food they were being fed, and the abhorrent living conditions they were placed in. A large part of me wanted to just jump out immediately, fists ablaze, and try my best to tackle the enemies in a head on collision, but these two stopped me.

“Hang on now, Schnell. Don’t get too hasty.” Olya warned, “How about we try sneaking in first? If we’re lucky, we could slowly approach from behind cover and sneak at least some of the Havanans out. After that, we’ll be more free to act since we won’t have to worry about getting them hurt on accident.”

“For once, I agree with Olya on this one.” Shaid grabbed my shoulder, “Look, there’s a rock over there. If we go in a bit closer, we could maybe even find the Old Man.”

“Mnn…” I grumbled a bit more as I weighed out options, “Alright then… Let’s go.”

Slowly inching closer and closer to the enemy settlement, we had one of us move to the next sand dune or giant stone, and soon after that he would give the others the signal for when it was clear for them to follow behind. This way, we could accurately get info on the enemy’s position. Even still though, since Olya couldn’t tell apart Havanans from the enemy, we would often get false alarms from him, which was kind of funny in a way, actually. The idea that two arch enemies could be so similar, and they don’t even realize it, it just goes to show how important mine and Shaid’s plan is.

“Alright, I think we’re in the clear.” I gave both of them a down low quiet high five, “Hey Shaid, do you see Tanathos anywhere?”

“Nope, still no signs of him.” He clicked his tongue, “Let’s…”

“Watch out!” I quickly threw him back into cover just as he was about to get up, “There’s a guy right around the corner from us. Don’t get us caught!”

Despite my warnings, it seems we were a bit too late to act. The patrolling guy had heard us, and as we were hastily burying ourselves in the sand so as to try camouflaging ourselves, his attention was suddenly moved away from us and onto his subordinates’ yelling.

“¡Scirpo!”

Soon after that one yell, what sounded like thousands of others followed suit. Something was amiss, and it was dire enough to get everyone into such a panic. The patroller who was just about to catch us had also run away screaming, so we quickly used the situation to advance further. Soon enough, we had found where they were keeping the Havanans they weren’t using as slaves at the moment. In a cage, rotting away like they were some kind of poor animals.

“Tanathos!” I cried out.

“Eh?” He turned to us, “You two, what are you…?! Ah, heh, you actually found the map. And just when I had finally lost hope…”

“Olya, help us out.” Shaid asked, “Break the lock or something. It shouldn’t be too hard with the three of us.”

“I’m afraid that’s not the case, brother.” Tanathos shook his head, “If it was that simple, we would have broken it ourselves. The lock can’t be brute forced, it has a foreign mechanism that even I know nothing about.”

Inspecting the lock a bit more closely, Olya had identified it as a “Pin lock”. I don’t know the exact details, but he showed us the individual tiny cilinders that made up the mechanism and explained to us that the lock will only open when the correct numbers line up. That being said, since the numbers were in Raamic text, he couldn’t even begin to solve it. Add to that the pressure of the enemies being just around the corner, and there was just nothing we could even think to do to get the Havanans out of this.

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“Hey, Tanathos.” I suddenly recalled, “What’s a Scirpo?”

“¿El Scirpo?” He tilted his head before bursting out into a fit of laughter, “¿Todos escucharon eso? El Scirpo!”

Hearing this, the other Havanans also started laughing uncontrollably, and loudly too. We had tried our best to hush them up just in the off chance that their laughter could be heard by the enemy, but they didn’t at all seem scared. Finally, Tanathos had wiped away the single tear from his earlier fit of laughter as he finally explained to us.

“So that’s what all the yelling was earlier? El Scirpo. It is not native to your nations, so I don’t believe you even have a proper name for it. In short, brothers, it is a giant scorpion-like beast. And if you heard those bastards yelling its name earlier, then that means we have nothing to fear.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s simly Ouroboros’ blessing.” He explained to us the blessing of the Sun God, “We were saved by divine intervention. Those people, they are cannibals. Had the Scirpo not shown up like it did just now, we would have all become their food.”

“That’s disgusting!” Olya exclaimed.

“Hey now, you have no say in what’s disgusting and what’s not.” Shaid glared back at him, “Let the Old Man speak.”

Slumping down all depressed, Olya had felt a strong wave of embarrassment engulf him as Shaid mercilessly reminded him of the drawings he had in his notebook. Confused, Tanathos still didn’t care to ask, given the situation, so he continued his explanation.

“In any case, we might lose some of the Havanans that were toiling away at the moment of the attack, but now we have nothing to worry about.” He stated nonchalantly, “Just unlock this and we can all go home.”

“What? But that’s bad though!” I grabbed onto the boney bars, “We can’t just leave all of them to die! How do I put it…? I know they’re your enemies, but at least have the decency to help out in their fight to save the rest of your people!”

“Schnell, you are too young to be talking like this.” Tanathos rolled his Eyes, “That, or you have been reading too many heroic tales. This is not something one can accomplish, brother.”

“Fuck that!” Shaid sided with me, “We’ll get it done, amigo! Just you wait! Olya, you try to get that lock removed as soon as possible. Schnell, you’re coming with me!”

“Aye aye!” We quickly agreed with him.

“Hold on, you two!” Tanathos called out to us, “Get back here! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

Oh come on, it can’t be that difficult to take one beast on, can it? You have the entire enemy quik and us fighting against it, so surely we can outnumber it.

***

Making it to the scene, a lot of Eyes were suddenly pointed at us, friends and foes alike. We could quickly recognize some of the enslaved Havanans among the people fighting this “Scirpo” beast, but the enemies were quick to be on edge about us. One of them, who was dressed in all red and looked like he was the leader, had ran up to us and started grappling me with all his might.

“¡Hombre blanco!” He yelled, “¿¡Qué deseas!?”

“¡Oye, cálmate! Calmate!” I yelled back, surprising him with my knowledge of the Raamic language, “¡Queremos ayudarle!”

“¿Ayúdanos?”

“¡Si amigo!” Shaid tossed the guy away from me and started running up to the Scirpo’s location, “¡Queremos ayudarle!”

“Woo!” I ran right behind him, “Do you even know what you’re saying?”

“Haha! Not a clue!” He grinned back, “I just repeated what you said, amigo!”

Running full force towards the commotion, we quickly saw what this beast looked like up close. With a giant stinger and a body covered in jet black armor, it was running around and ravaging anyone who dared approach it. Everyone was busy hiding for their lives behind a rock or under the sand, hoping it doesn’t get them. But what no one had expected was for two bozos to run up to it and try and provoke it.

“Hey, ugly!” I yelled at it, “Why pick on those guys when they’re all just skin n’ bones? Come on, I’ve got all the nutrients you need right here!”

Quickly navigating around all the rocks as it dashed towards me, I had begun to feel a sense of regret welling up within me as I started turning back to run. That’s when I had realized that my foot got lodged in the sand, making me fall to the ground. Crap, I didn’t think this through!

“Dying already?” Shaid yelled from up above a large rock, “That won’t do, hyah!”

Jumping the Scirpo from above, he had managed to grab its scaly body, if just barely, and climb on. The Scirpo was thrashing around in a panic, but Shaid didn’t at all budge as he quickly took out the knife he had in his pockets to try and stab it’s numerous Eyes. Sadly, the knife fell out as he was about to stab.

“Shit! Schnell, get your ass up and pass it back to me!” He commanded.

“Will do, bud!” I picked myself up and ran underneath the beast, “Hey, watch where you’re stepping with those pincers! Whoa, got it! Shaid, catch!”

“Thanks, amigo!” He winked back as he grabbed the knife, before lodging it deep into the Scirpo’s ugly forehead, “Yuck! Its blood is green!”

“Haha! Ew!” I chuckled as some of the blood got on my arm, “Ha-ha… Ow! Hey, it’s burning! The blood is making my arm burn! It hurts, it hurts!”

“What?” He yelled as he went to check his hand, which also had some of the Scirpo’s blood on it, “Ouch! You’re right, amigo! Water! Water! Anyone have any water!?”

Noticing our pleas as we made quick work of the beast, the others had realized our panic and quickly ran up to us, instructing us in their native language to bury our arms in the sand.

“¡Arena! ¡Entierra tus brazos en la arena!” They yelled.

“Crap, I can’t understand a word they’re saying, amigo!” Shaid turned to me, “What do they want?!”

“This!” I grabbed his hand and put it up against the sand’s surface, before doing the same myself, “Ahh~! That feels super good!”

Phew, looks like we managed to avoid a crisis, and we even helped save the enemy quik. Now you may wonder why we did that, given they enslaved our quikkas and all, but you’ll find out soon enough. Oh look, here comes the leader that was pulling me by the collar just a moment ago.

“Hombres blancos, lo siento.” He sheepishly admitted, “Y gracias por salvarnos.”

“De nada.” I replied back.

“¿Qué es lo que necesitas? Podemos ofrecerte lo que quieras.”

“Hmm ... ¡Entonces, danos a todos tus esclavos!” I proudly demanded.

Confused, every single one of the enemies gasped in unison. Shaid was afraid I had misspoken, but I was sure I said what I wanted to say. Indeed, if I ask for ownership of all of their Havana slaves, then I can effectively free them without conflict! But that’s not all…!

“¡Y también!” I added, “Estaremos reconstruyendo La Habana. Si venimos a pedir recursos, por favor compártelos con nosotros.”

“¿Por qué?” He asked out of curiosity.

“Por la unidad.”

Bursting out into laughter, the leader of the now ex-enemy quik had offered to shake our hands. Given all the bad words Tanathos put in against these guys, I was worried they weren’t gonna agree to our terms and just eat us here and now or something, but they’re surprisingly friendly. Heh, to think a native couldn’t get through to these guys, but a foreigner like me could…

“Yo guys!” Olya escorted every one of the Havanans to us, “I finally did it. It was a real bitch, but I solved the lock puzzle!”

“Great!” I went to report back our side of the story, “And we singlehandedly killed this giant monster and made peace between this quik and Havana.”

“What?!” Tanathos stood mouth agape.

“Tch, show-offs…” Olya pouted.