The Perennial Sun Continent had a single point of contact with the Old Continent, south of the East West borded, below the Dragon Road.

The Gray Sea to the right, the Bahir River to the left and the Nostrum Sea on the top left formed a pocket of land that easily lent itself to be a trade hub between the two continents.

Even though the region was surrounded by water bodies, the center was full of sand, without much life, mirroring the much larger Alkaruba Desert.

Because of this, for as many times as the people there had been invaded and had influenced and conquered their surroundings that many times more, they never lost the influence of the nomadic tribes of the Alkaruba Desert, the only people that could easily roam their sands.

A long line of caravans was traversing the norther coastal territory of the region, a Nicalua in his late teens in a large carriage between many of the convoy.

He, like many others inside with him, had unfocused eyes and a lost gaze, occasionally looking outside the metal bars that composed the walls of their carriage, before returning again to their bare surroundings and equally desperate companions.

Nicalua would have even convinced himself this was all a dream, if it wasn't for the oppressive heat that dried his eyes and the smell of arid dust kicked up to his nose by the wagon wheels.

Thinking back to it, it was actually reasonable for him to think like this.

With his modern education and open mind he had built a trade business with little difficulty, but just a risk or two taken to study the mental arts and he found himself here, sold as a slave.

Perhaps the experience should have taught him to not mess with whatever high nobility wanted to gatekeep the information behind the excuse of sacred and too important to be sullied by commoners, but Nicalua could only say that he realized how stupid people were allowed too much more power over what little they could handle.

Many shouts from the guards and the traders all around him woke him up from his revelry, in time to see a long line of raiders approaching from the arid inland to the side.

The sashes around their heads were temporarily unwound while the higher ranking bandits wore hard hide helmets.

The usual white flowing clothes of the local people had been discarded for more tight fitting black ones, probably as they wouldn't be easily stained by blood.

Light chainmail armor covered their torsos while some of them preferred a light plate armor.

Curved swords at their ready, they commanded their horses to charge.

What followed could only be called a carnage.

Every swing of a blade either decapitated the opponent or was unfortunately deflected, leaving deep gashes and flailing screaming men.

Desert raiders usually only make blitz attacks to steal a couple of horses or a box of valuables or two. After all if they resorted to raiding it meant that they exhausted their peaceful option and had to risk their lives to continue their survival in the desert.

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But some groups are true and through bandits, relying on the dangers of the work to live an otherwise worry free life. They study their prey extensively before attacking and then they bring overwhelming force to a part of the convoy to let the guards and the merchants give up.

For the civilians, the profit isn't worth the risk.

For the madmen, profit is all.

After the fight was over, Nicalua, still bewildered by the whole ordeal, being in one of the abandoned caravans, was approached by a smaller group of the black robed, rugged men.

"What do we do with the slaves? And who was our informant this time? Our target section shouldn't have had them."

"Boss, it was Al Kawaida."

Another person deferentially replied, but Nicalua could only understand but and pieces of it.

"Uhm, nevermind then. Probably not even him knew about it or they later changed it."

After thinking for a moment, the leading figure finally spoke.

"Alright, kill all of them but the teenagers. Aaliyah and Zeeshid are getting tired of their toys."

In a moment, the bars were opened and the blood spilled.

Nicalua was stunned.

Now that he knew he wasn't one the the chosens to be killed, he finally noticed his throat hurting, probably from his shouting and pleasing for mercy.

His ears were ringing, but the noise couldn't muffle the desperate cries imprinted in his memory. From the start until the last moment, every one of them seemed to blend into one another into a great, endless cacophony.

When he came to, he was in a camp.

A girl and a boy of roughly his same age or a but younger were seated on two wooden chairs next two each other, overlooking the line of kneeled slaves in front of them.

A man was standing behind them, the same that ordered the massacre he had been witness to.

He had each of his hands on the shoulders of the youths before him, speaking dotingly.

"So, what do you think?"

The girl seemed almost afraid to reply, so the boy went first, with an almost exasperated tone.

"Father, we are grateful for your gifts, but we don't have much use for more slaves than we already have. If Aaliyah agrees we can just release them alive."

At this, the girl frantically nodded.

"Yes! Zeeshid is right. Please Father, we don't need them."

The man sighed. But an almost maniacal grin followed shortly after.

"I guess there's no way out of this. Amirad, kill them all."

Zeeshid started.

"Wait! The blood will attract many beasts, you can't do it here!"

But Amirad continued walking.

"T-that's it! I need more sparring partners!"

At this, among the profusely sweating row of teenage prisoners, the one approached by the burly henchman gathered to courage to speak.

"Me! I was trained to be a guard. I'm useful!"

With almost mock commotion and fake tears the leading man spoke.

"Ok Amirad, you can spare him. My precious son finally accepted a gift from me."

Aaliyah also interjected.

"A-and I want someone to teach me arithmetics!"

Even if Nicalua didn't know much about the local language, arithmetics was something he had to use as a merchant every day, even in this land before the incident, and with the bits and pieces of information he could understand gathered together, he knew what he had to do.

"I know! I know!"

The man was gleeful.

"I'm really fortunate, both my son and daughter can have new toys!

Alright Amirad, you know what to do."

The screams were deafening.

One after another, they felt nearer and nearer.

At a point, they were near enough the squelching and cracking could be heard too, forming a crescendo in the sickening melody the bandit leader was surely enjoying.

As the girl next to Nicalua was killed, drops of blood splattered on his left cheek, making him flinch and warming his skin for but a second, before they lost their warmth.

Next, it was the turn of the boy to his right.

This time the blood didn't reach him, but a piece of flesh and bone landed on the ground before his eyes, as if trying to make him acknowledge what was happening around him, trying to not make him evade the truth, trying to not make him forget.

The sounds then lessened more and more as the killing machine of a man got further.

Shrill cries and quiet sobs came from before him.

Lifting his head, he was looking at two sobbing children.

'Just like me.'