Chapter 22: Ch.18: The Dust Bowl Part I

“ Volucitrex; Terror Fowl;Rostrodenato camelus- is a species of beak-toothed bird found in the Dust Bowl. It subsists on the denizens of the desert like scorpions, lizards, rodents, fruits of desert shrubs and cacti, as well as any animal unfortunate to have stumbled into its territory. It is a hardy fowl that has a few predators. It weighs roughly the same as a full-grown horse and is as tall as one at the breast. If they do manage to tame them, they are used as a fast mount by the Clans and some bandit groups. It is rather stubborn, hence the adage, as stubborn as a trex...”-from Philiarz Oonswarner's Bestiary for Adventurers.

---

The Dust Bowl was a large swathe of barren sands beneath the borders of the No Man Skies. And the No Man Skies was just a generic name for skies that contained aerlands had yet to be explored. No one could be bothered with them due to their low strategic value.

Even if there is treasure to be found, only the most foolhardy of explorers would journey out this far. But from the nearest aer port of Chasm's Edge, you would have to pass through the Great Faeriwealds, and pray to Thea that if you found your way to the other side, the Aesylvani arbours between the forest and the Humpbeast Ridges would not shoot you full of arrows.

And that was only putting it mildly. All that was on the assumption that the beasts of the forest and what have you didn’t get to you first. Added to that, it was not worth the time such an expedition would have taken to traverse the forest. The forest was so thick, some regions existed in perpetual half-light, making navigation a momentous task. The lack of trails was the final nail in the coffin.

Even if you had coin to spare, no self-respecting aership captain would want to fly over the Faeriwealds if they could help it. The endless sea of tree canopies hid roosts for some species of wyvern, like the rumoured Nightstalker. With a journey that would take more than several nundines in the fastest winds, traversing the more than 2000 kilia was suicide if you were besieged from above and below.

Aerships flying in the direction of the Humpbeast Ridges were therefore virtually non-existent. Most of the air traffic stuck to well-known shipping routes along the Chasm, following the Misting Rapids to the coast of the Alkerdian continent. And that is what gave the skies above the Dust Bowl their name; the No Man Skies.

For explorers like Glaggis Wundersteel, who chose to brave the Dust Bowl with their own aerships, the most feasible route was to follow one of the Vanishing River’s distributaries. The river’s branches skirted the lands between the Dust Bowl and the Ossyrian Sands after splitting off from its mother river from the ridges. The only other means of transport were occasional overland caravans pulled by the gentle giants that gave the ridges their name.

Beneath the shifting ocean of dunes lay the treasures of civilizations long gone. At times, dust storms raging for nundines long would often unearth majestic edifices, sometimes even entire cities, with treasure vaults; armouries of legendary weapons; manors, villas, crypts, and even mausoleums of many a vain [Merchant Lord] of old. Such ruins would be choked with gold bullions; artefacts and knowledge, both arcane and mundane, from civilizations that peaked, all ripe for the taking. Or so the stories went.

Though many coveted them, even the greediest of adventurers knew better to attempt to delve into any of the shifting cities frivolously. A great many ancient magics were still working in most of the forgotten cities, turning them into roosts for monsters. Maps changed and landmarks could suddenly disappear to emerge elsewhere.

Even the Djy'veli desert clans, long-lived residents of the Dust Bowl, knew to be cautious. Despite the harsh conditions, they learnt to coexist with the land’s peculiarities, sometimes even flourishing. For the same magics that existed in the Dust Bowl birthed other treasures; magical oases.

A few hundred kilia north of the Vanishing River and east of the Humpbeast Ridge had magical oases; persisting areas of biomes that were antithetic to the nature of the wasteland. It was in one of these oases that Arthur thought he’d found respite.

He'd landed somewhere far from the Vanishing River after being blown off-course by a mana storm that was more like a nebula of arcane energies crawling in the sky. His compass had been affected by mere proximity to the phenomenon, and as a result, he had no way to orient himself save for the position of the sun. He had a map, so that was a start. Unfortunately, as things went, he was legging it instead of surfing across the sands. Something had happened to his Mark I.

---

It was the third oasis that Arthur would encounter after being blown off course. No less uninhabited though. As far as oases went, this one was not so big. It had a copse of Byrri trees, with their unmistakable umbrella canopies and pinnated leaflets that hid thorns within.

Long pods like dangling earrings swayed from the branches, close to bursting with their Byrri beans, edible if you wanted to waste your water and firewood hard boiling them. You were better off trying your luck with the koukounari fruit growing from the cycad palms.

They looked like pinecones that tried to become pineapples, spiteful and enticing. They smelled sickly sweet once you pulled back the husk to reveal the orange flesh, tantalising even.

Unless you were desperate to survive head-splitting migraines, severe gastro-intestinal complications, stomach cramps, nausea, upchucking and downchucking, and most probably become manure for the tree, you were welcome to try. Those were Sybyl’s words verbatim, by the way.

There was a reason Koukounari fruits were called dead man’s pineapples but they had their uses elsewhere. In between the Koukounari cycads and the Byrri trees one would find some little undergrowth, yellowspine grass or hogshead cacti if one was lucky. Closer to the artesian spring bubbling from a haphazard pile of boulders were more colourful plants.

However, the most useful of the plants thereabouts grew on the lofty table-like mesas and the buttes , smaller columns of rock only a couple of metrums across their flat tops. The largest of the mesas had sunk in the basins, protected from the desert wind, and therein grew the moonleaf shrubs.

Be it the waxy, crescent leaves, puffy spherical flowers or the rare moonbeans, even the roots, this plant that was so far out of reach could make a man rich. Narcotic from the leaves and alchemical ingredients from the roots, Xazhứ moonshine from the beans.

The trio of men below would have been rich if they could have scaled the flat as a board cliffs to get to the top of the mesas. But alas, apart from getting windbreak against sandstorms, they had no other advantage. The closest they could get to the good stuff was smoking the dung of the civet cats that made their burrows inside the mesa.

“Oy Duval,”

“Hmm?” Replied the man a hat.

“Yer see that?”

“Aye—lost traveller ye thinks?”

“Nah, daen’t seem like. See 'is gear be not worn an' dusty. Methinks 'e fell out o' the sky or something,”

“Ha-ha, yer old sand rat, that's a good one. Mmh, daen't look from these here parts...”

“Think we could make 'im a mark?””

“Yeh, let's get a feel for him. Hey. Psst! Psst! Jerul, wake up. Go alert the boss, tell 'im we got a wanderer. We be goin' to stall; don't let 'im see ye.” The man with the reed-hat kicked at their last accomplice's legs to wake him.

The man in the tent stirred and extricated himself from the tarp tent. He wiped the gunk from his eyes and drool sitting in the corner of his mouth and got to tying his footwraps. His footwear was a pair of worn-out bandages that had never seen water and would not have looked out of place in an old crypt.

[Crypt Robber] was not an uncommon class among the people at the bottom of the totem pole in the Dust. But Jerul was a [Skulker] and, as his class intimated, he made himself scarce by using his [Faint Presence] skill. People of his class were used in place of scouts by bandits if anyone had yet to get the class among their cohorts.

“Hail there, traveller. Care to share our water?” one of the remaining two called out in Continental Common. The sound of steps shuffling in the sand slowed. A tall man, taller than the average Erythean male, hesitated, startled to find a lone pair of individuals this far out—humans.

---

By all means, he had nothing against their persons smelling like dust, piss, and cheap liquor. He didn’t smell like flowers himself, but even he tried to [Cleanse] himself once a while. They were doing a good job of covering it up with whatever one of them was smoking in their pipe that had sharp yet aromatic notes like bitter almonds. They were bandits alright, but he wasn’t going to be so obvious about it, so he played the part of an unsuspecting traveller.

At least he didn’t have to leave right away like the first two oases he’d stumbled upon. The first oasis he’d come across was home to a pack of canine beasts called duskhounds. They were russet-coloured beasts that looked like coyotes and hyenas had a litter.

The dusk hounds had black stripes on their backs and haunches. Had they not rivalled a grey wolf in size he might have mistaken them for extinct Tasmanian tigers. He didn't want to risk encroaching onto their turf. Not even while they slept in the shade.

In the second oasis, he found the bane of all desert travellers, the crimson-bellied sand scorpion. He gave the place one look, and after his brush with a spider, he was leery of another encounter with arachnids. Who knew how many of the things were hibernating under the sands; their exoskeleton was practically camouflage! Were it not for his [Draconic Sight] Arthur shuddered to think what would have happened.

By the third oasis, Arthur was fed up. He was tired, travel-worn and needed some sleep. He had no blisters, because [Regeneration] scabbed them over, but the same couldn’t be said for sand-glass poking at his heels. The last straw was the sand that got everywhere the sun didn't shine.

Thus, for the third time in a row, Arthur cursed his luck. He was making his first acquaintance with Erythean humans, but he could already smell trouble from a kilium away. He was disappointed. They looked like shifty characters, one alley away from stabbing you in the back.

The first olive-skinned man had a thin face, buck teeth, and was yellow with whatever greenery he’d been chewing on. He had an aquiline nose, his nostrils hairy with dust like a sand miner one breath away from silicosis. A ghastly scar ran across his brow, while one too many crows feet creased the edge of his eyes, making him seem as if he had an eternal squint.

An Ossyrian sch’magh covered his hair but from the beard, Arthur could bet that he had soft curly hair. That or he was just bald.

‘I bet there is a knuckle duster under there,’ Arthur thought, barely giving the man a glance. However, he did pretend to be civil. Too wrung out to continue his slog across the desert, Arthur found seating on a log and let his legs go out from under him.

“Pardon me, gents. Don't mind if I do,” he nodded to the speaker and his companion, who had made himself presentable—that is to say, he put away his dagger and tended to the fire under a battered kettle hanging from a dingle stick.

The less said about him, the better. It was clear that he was of the same ethnicity as the first man, albeit with dark brown skin . He had a broken nose, a split lip, and lazy eyes. His bushy brows seemed to have been the target of a lice infestation, trying as he did to hide them under his ratty sch’magh .

Arthur unwrapped his scarf and shook off the sand. Then he did the same for his boots, ridding them of the small stones and irksome grains of glass sand stowing away from his traipse across the dunes. The dusty goggles he left on his face.

“You two part of the clans?” Arthur turned to his acquaintances with a scrutinising eye. Obviously, they didn't seem like the type. It was just a probing question to see how they’d react. If they were too eager to please, well, he had his answer.

A short respite would be fine as he rested his sore calves. Then he would go on. He just needed a place away from their prying eyes to fix his hoverboard. Either the sand, the mana storm, or both, had done a number on the Azure Surfer’s small engine.

The first man who’d saluted Arthur replied, puffing his pipe,

“Hoh, curious aintcha ? Name's Torpeth and this here is Val.” He said motioning to his greasy-looking friend. “We're wanderers like yonself.”

“ Just call me Artur…” he said, giving him a name that was close enough.

“Artur, heh...sounds like a Titled's name. What are ye doing wandering in the sandblasted Dust?”

‘ Oh, aren’t you too curious for your own good as well, old man?’ Arthur's suspicion went up a notch. His expression did not change. The cautious youth did not let them notice he was sizing them through his dusty tinted goggles. Even then, he only made sure to look from the corner of his eyes while his face was pointed elsewhere.

Likewise, he did not let them see that anything was amiss with him. He was just playing the part of an ordinary traveller . His knapsack, bedroll, tent, and tent poles were strapped to his back . He’d stowed away the hoverboard in the [Inventory Chest]. That would’ve attracted undue attention.

“Just passing through,” Arthur answered, moistening his chapped lips. His water had run out and it seemed even his mageflask was starting to have difficulty pulling water from the air. Even using his [Aqua] cantrip was well, like trying to make a stone bleed. He sighed, playing the part of a weary sojourner, “ Heard about some clans who traded in the oasis, that's all,” he answered, deflecting without hesitation.

“Ah...we wanderers stick together. Care fer some Moonleaf tea? 'elps brin' the 'eat down. 'Tis' one of 'em, a rare flower ‘erbs, blooms once two moons.”

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'Aaand there we are. Rare herb, blooms when the moons are full but you’re just going to give it to a stranger you just met ?’ Arthur mused, narrowing his eyes beneath the goggles. He gave them another cursory glance.

Apart from the clothes on their backs, they had a tent made of tarp, perhaps calling it a tent as far too generous. It was just a lean-to made of two wooden poles and two cycad palms to suspend the ratty fabric in between.

‘ A lean-to tent, disturbed soil like someone’s been there recently. The breeze would’ve already erased it if they’d been gone for long.’

Arthur didn't know what the custom here was, but he didn't need to antagonise his two acquaintances. So he got his own metallic flask from his knapsack and extended it to the tea brewer.

“ Rare herb you said?” Arthur said, feigning interest. “I just happen to know a friend who is a tea connoisseur and would love some, ” He grinned. The tea brewer stumbled, knocking over the kettle.

The three men watched the sand sizzle, a wet patch rapidly blooming around the fire. None of them moved so much as a pace to recover the rest of what was left from the keeled utensil. Even from where he sat, the tea smelled fragrant.

It had a minty aroma with dewy and aromatic undertones, like bottled morning essence. A lime green color, it seemed to twinkle in the light and he might have been so eager to try it were it not for the men’s suspicious motives. But all that was gone, sinking into the sands while the rest evaporated into the stifling desert heat.

“ Ah…” Arthur muttered in mock dismay. Inwardly, he was trying hard not to laugh as his practical joke went off without a hitch. Casting the cantrip form of [Spark Bolt] without being seen was literally child’s play within 1.5 metrums of himself. The man must’ve thought his posterior hair had pulled on the rough bottoms of his pants. [Fulgur Mastery] was practically a cheat if he could manipulate some static discharges.

“ Duval yer sand bl—” Torpeth broke character. “ Me pardon Artur, Val's father y’see, he had two left feet, ” he gesticulated wildly.

Duval gave him a look of affront, as if he was the most stupid man under the sun. His hands were clenched so hard Arthur would have sworn he had his knuckles pop.

Arthur sighed, “ Sorry about the tea. I am sure it would have been lovely to taste some of it. A shame truly,” He shook his head. Dusting off his lap, he made it as if to get up.

“ Wait!, I did say it been rare, but didnae say ‘twas the last of it. Me stash ain't what it used to be, but I could sell yer some if ye'd like.”

“I would very much like that,” Arthur said, piqued. “How much would that be?"

“Five gold for this lot,” he said, producing a small leather pouch from beneath his desert garb.

Arthur pretended to contemplate it, “Five gold, huh?” ‘I'm not sure how much that costs, doesn’t even look like a quarter of an aum. Might be a fifth at best; let me see how low they are willing to go,’

“Ha-ha, don't worry lad. ‘Tis the last one of them, they won't be blooming for several months. Trust me ye won't get a better offer than this here anywhere,” he tried to sweeten the deal as his companion nodded to show agreement.

“One gold,” Arthur responded with a straight face ‘You called me a Titled, this is on you’ . “ That pouch’ll hardly last two brews,”

---

Torpeth was flabbergasted. He looked from the pouch in his hands to the travel-weary youth in front of him. Never in his whole career had someone been so brazen. In the desert, you took what you got no matter how absurd the price. You never tested the generosity of desert dwellers, especially if you were a lone traveler,

Things were hard out there, and it was not uncommon for bandits to fall back into a little swindling as traders. There were a lot of alchemical resources and exotic things in the Dust.

However, if they struck at every traveller passing the oasis, it would be bad for business. Not only for them but also for the clans who did things in the grey area.

The bandits? Those were the small fish, living on the grace of the actual overlords of the desert. It would be foolish to draw the ire of the clans. Therefore, they rarely had to kill.

A little wurm root in their tea always did the trick, paralysis set in after a few heartbeats. Thereafter, they cleaned out their marks leaving them with nothing but the clothes on their back.

But today, the youth in front of him might have lucked out because, of late, business had been bad. The damn dwarves liked to get their hands on everything, and the clans just happened to get the short end of the stick.

There was tension between the clans in the Dust causing travelers and caravaneers to take their business elsewhere. Maybe he could just wring the lad’s neck and be done with it.

No, the boss man would throw him to the pit beetles if he did that. Torpeth clenched his fists and tried very hard to keep the fake amiable grin on his face. He would have his chance. Who knew what the brazen youth had under his cloak?

[Pillager’s Itch], that skill of his was telling him that the mark in front of him was worth more than he looked. He was worth more than the camping kit and rucksack on his back. He didn't have any armour on him, so he must’ve been an [Explorer] of sorts. Even his open, carefree stance told him so.

And even though he looked haggard, he was still steady on his feet. He was practically the walking dead, as much as he tried to hide the eyebags beneath those expensive-looking goggles of his.

He was still easy pickings; once the rest of the gang came along, they’d get him wurm root or not. It was such a shame, though, all that wurm root gone to waste. He’d already gone through his allotment for the week; the boss was very frugal in that regard.

---

Arthur was goading the poor man. First the spilled tea, now the price undercutting. He didn't even know what the current market price for an aum of Moonleaf was.

Perhaps part of the draconic woman’s boldness had rubbed off on him. He’d been around Aeskyre too much not to come out of it untouched. But that was like taking candy from a baby.

That the man didn't protest all but confirmed that either they were buttering him up to make him lower his guard, or the current going rate for about 100 gran’aums of Moonleaf flowers was worth 25 silver. Now, he was sure that Torpeth would want to very badly settle the score with him. For one gold piece, Arthur bought the last of the Moonleaf from the man.

When that was done, he informed his acquaintances that he would be taking a rest and cast about for a place to set up camp. Of course, Arthur was not stupid. They would be following him, trying to sniff out his whereabouts. With the size of the oasis, however, privacy was going to be a luxury unless you knew where to look.

‘Guessing that’s why there’s no beasts around. Too small,’ Arthur frowned. He looked at the formation of mesas and buttes making the little oasis look for all the world like a corner of the Australian outback . Besides a potential picturesque view of the brook one of them would make a good place to camp.

Surrounding the brook were some of the thickest hogshead cacti. According to Glaggis’ travel journal, those would always be an indication that the water table was not so far below the ground. That was corroborated by the way the oasis seemed to slope towards its centre. If needed, one could just slice off the top part of the barrel-like xerophyte for water.

First, he meandered around the oasis. The cycad palms offered scant hiding places. Their fronded leaves were too far apart to offer any refuge. Meanwhile, the copse growing close to the brook was only a few trees dense.

Neither place was defensible enough that he could make camp but the meandering was merely to lead his tails around. Arthur had chosen one of the biggest mesas, soaring against the clear blue as one of his camping sites. He wouldn't have conceived of it if he didn’t have Glaggis’ journal. The walls were steep, no handholds; sandstorms had worn the walls smooth. An idea bloomed in his mind. Arthur smiled.

---

Pitching camp in plain sight using one of his fallback tents in, he made a show of entering his tent and then, staying there for a while. While inside the tent, he got down to work, fixing his hoverboard, another essential part of his plan.

He opened the internals of the Mark I and sorted out the runework. The metal had stretched the conduits thin in places, and waiting for it to cool was foolhardy with a looming bandit attack.

To fix the problem, he etched an extension of the conduits and runes in the place where the metal had expanded using the equivalent of enchanting solder. The enchanting solder came in many forms, but the one he used was a gel-like medium that became solid when it set. That was the quickest fix short of etching the rune work on another sheet of metal.

When it cooled again, the metal could contract, bridging the expanded part. The conduits would remain unaffected, if only a little thicker as a result of the metal buckling on itself.

[Diagnostics] informed him that the hoverboard would work, though not as hard as he could push it. A check from [Detect Flaw] found minor defects which might have been from metal fatigue not the runes. It would have to do for now.

---

Paces away from Arthur's tent, beside a thicket, some unsavoury plans were set and decisions were made.

“Would you look at that 'Val, we didn't even need to lift a finger. It be fixin' to be the easiest mark . We strike when the sun be low, 'opefully, the boss be on 'is way by now.

“Y'think he's a lordling?”

“I'd swear by the bowl's blasted sands, I could see it in 'is eyes, 'e’s ne'er been outside four walls an' 'is skin? too pale... But all the way out 'ere? tsk tsk tsk, must be a Titled family’s disowned bastard or somethin.”

“ What'd make ye think that?” asked Duval between side-eyes.

Chewing on a stalk of grass, Torpeth scratched the bridge of his nose and narrowed his eyes. Then with an impish grin, he snorted, “ Titled’s don't let go o' their 'eirs that there easily an' they be all uptight about their bloodlines an' what’s not, unless o' course 'e be a weak useless sap.”

“Y’sure?” asked Duval sceptically.

“Blasted sands Val! I couldn’t even smell magic on him .” Torpeth lambasted, “Lad’s too young to 'ave mastered 'is aura so that there means 'e 'as none. Let’s go aft to camp an' wait till the sun’s down.”

The two lurchers quietly stole away from their hiding place to their camp and waited for the veil of darkness to fall.

 

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