Chapter 23: Ch. 19: The Dust Bowl Part II

 

[Analyse]

Classification type: Inspection Skill

A common inspection skill for combatants or those who have an inclination towards the martial arts. This includes adventurers, soldiers and guardsmen whose occupations are fraught with danger. Therefore, [Analyse] helps them gauge the might of their foes relative to themselves. Is the basis for the threat levels assigned by the guilds for monsters; the skill weighs how much of your own ability to pit against someone else in order to come on top; other esoteric parameters are applied by the World and cannot be quantified in discrete terms. Can be rebuffed by Obfuscation artefacts, some magic items or the analysed subject’s magical aura.-World Compendium of Skills , The Order of Vesper, Church of Thea.

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Arthur watched another sun set on the wasteland’s western horizon. The dying embers of the last of the sun's rays glinted off glassy sand, giving the appearance of a sea of low burning embers. From afar, the silhouette of the Humpbeast Ridges looked like a giant humpbeast sitting on its haunches.

Zephyrs, none too gusty to be nuisance, whistled atop the tableland. Arthur was camping out, with his Nightstalker’s robe around his shoulders as he waited for night to fall. The footprints he’d left from walking around the feature, always facing towards the tent, were already filled with fine sand.

‘ Did all that work for nothing. Forgot the desert sands’ He sighed. It had all been part of his plan to throw off his stalkers by fudging the direction of his footsteps. He could have run or flown, so long as his hoverboard was fixed.

On the other hand, there was plenty of real estate in the mesa’s basin, about 1 kilium across, with an entirely different microclimate. Most of the basin was taken up by the moonleaf shrubs with their waxy crescent leaves, more hoghead cacti, some so squat they were almost prickly balls. However, it was the herbaceous J’zhua trees with dendritic branches and clumps of rustling needle-leaves that formed the largest flora

Pockmarking the undergrowth were succulents. They had thick silver grey and waxy green leaves, like flower petals sculpted from jade and for a dash of color to the flora were pink-tipped pencil plants, pink poppies, marigolds, and lilac desert sage.

Such a view was at odds with the rest of the oasis making the mesa’s summit akin to a colourful coral reef. An alchemist would have sold their atelier just to get their hands on any of the plants up there; a merchant would have sold their mother for the moonleaf.

Fauna was nowhere to be found, save for the occasional crested gecko sunning themselves in the waning heat. The rest of the residents were still in their burrow’s waiting for the night to fall.

Arthur might have been on his merry way too. However, lacking information on how many bandits there were and what direction they’d come from, he might have well fallen into an ambush. Ultimately, his own stakeout wouldn't have been possible if he didn’t have the lay of the land and the Dust’s mercurial nature on his side.

To pass the time, he took out some tomes to read on artifacts, while he ate a hearty dinner. He also updated his own travel journal, which he’d made a habit of keeping just in case some of his memories came around. Everything was going swimmingly as he waited for night to make his escape. That is, until sleep creeped up on him. Really, no one would have faulted him for it. Slogging through the Dust and a hearty meal could do that to a person.

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[Storm Dragon's Scion Level 2!]

[Skill- Pathfinder's Call Acquired!]

[Skill- Danger Se…..]

Arthur’s eyes snapped wide open before the monotone facsimile of his voice declared the last skill . His awareness was singing in alarm and the hair at the back of his neck had stood on end. Whatever that new skill had done, the sense of danger in the air had taken on a tangible manifestation.

He could feel dense blood lust trying to smother him, invisible hands of death encircling his throat. For a moment, he thought he was back in Sturm’s Keep, Aeskyre holding him up by the throat. His breath came in hitches, his pupils dilated, blinking as they switched between human and feline. It was so dark and the sun had already set but [Draconic Sight] coloured the surroundings in ethereal hues from the mana rich plants . Moonlight barely reached the ground stymied by the clouds above.

Then the world resumed as if he’d been punted out from a bout of tachypsychia. Sounds buffeted his ears; the yips of beasts, screeches of terrible fowl and the raucous bellows of people.

‘People ! Scat ―I fell asleep,’ Arthur swore as realisation hit him like a bucket of cold water. His stomach dropped, feeling like he’d woken up late for that one final test. And the last vestiges of sleep flew away in the face of apprehension as Arthur’s eyes caught the flickering torches past the lip of the mesa’s basin. There was a group of bandits in his field of view, panning through the oasis. They hadn't seen him yet; Arthur let out a shuddering breath of relief.

“ Where's he? Find 'im!” A throaty bellow rent the air. A glimpse at his decoy tent revealed that it had been upended, a ratty blanket and other non-essentials strewn about. Wary of making noise or sending detritus toppling over the edge, he dipped below the basin and got about spiriting away his tomes and journals to [Inventory Chest].

The practice he’d put in with the skill had gone from having to touch things to just willing them in from at most 1.5 metrums away. It was a quirk he’d cultivated after learning the range of his [Mastery] skills and tried to see if the same held for other spells. [Spark] was an easy one because of his affinity and was the one he’d used to make the bandit knock over their kettle.

Having a higher vantage point than the tallest of the cycad palms was one thing he’d done right. But whether he’d get to keep his skin or not depended on getting out of the place undetected, and he was not one to dither.

Securing his robe around him, Arthur imbued it with his mana, feeling his pool depleted by a significant chunk that left him with a two thirds of his spellcraft. He’d gotten good at gauging the depth of his mana pool and he could stretch the rest of it between his tier 2 [Spark Bolt] and tier 3 [Thunder Bolt].

He'd also known how much mana he could recover and how much he could expend and had theories for economising it. Never had he thought that number crunching could be so useful in magic but it was just that; theory.

If there was literature about artefacts that measured mana in mages, then he hadn’t found it yet. There had to be. It irked him even now because he knew he was not being efficient in empowering his Nightstalker’s robe

But if he’d wanted to be an [ Sygnumeric Sage], he’d have stayed back at the keep and grown a beard, reading the hoard’s library top to bottom. There was no time for regrets whatsoever.

When he deemed himself ready, he scanned the surroundings and moved, picking his way between the shrubs of moonleaf and J’zhua trees. No one was going to be peeking up the mesas and he doubted the ragtag bandits had a [scrying mage]. He weaved around, watching his footing as he kept his [Draconic Sight] active. The skill added colour to the grey scale of the obsiderite lensed goggles that were [Dark Vision] enchanted.

He youth creeped through the mesa copse of short trees, orientating himself away from the centre of activity until he reached the basin lip facing towards his escape route. The night wind had picked up speed, bringing with it biting cold as the sandy desert cooled rapidly.

Dry moonleaf rustled beneath his boots, making him wince at every little crunch. Arthur considered a waste to just leave behind, but he’d marked that position in his journal and map. ‘Huh I wonder if I picked up hoarding too,’ he thought, frowning. Flexing [Inventory Chest], he targeted the leaves around him. He could do something with the menthol-like aroma, maybe even pay an alchemist to make him mouthwash.

Keeping an ear out for the bandits’ movement was easy. They were not being quiet about it, crawling like noisy ants, canvassing every nook and cranny to find him. Smaller buttes trailed away from his vantage point, tens of metra across. He could just make short hops with his hoverboard and then fly out when he was sure they would not spot him from the air. That the moons were blocked by the clouds was fortunate and he was going to use it to his advantage.

Crawling on his elbows and knees clear of the edges, he readied to retrieve his hoverboard and make a hop. A hoot broke out from the J’zhua trees to his left, startling him. He muffled a curse. Staring back at him were pairs of amber eyes from a cahoot of Ossyrian desert stryxffin.

“ Uhm...nice cat-birdies?”

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Three feline gazes met. Three were round big and amber, one almost emerald and hidden behind tinted crystals. The air was tenuous with tension of an impromptu faceoff . It would not have been amiss for a tumbleweed to roll past. More than anything, Arthur felt like he was the one encroaching on their turf.

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He'd missed the pile of thornbush that was home to a cahoot of the nocturnal stryxffin. The owl-cat hybrids were about the size of an Arabian sand cat, 50 centa thereabouts. Their front half was reminiscent of a while the rest was just a sand cat with feathers and fur that were a mottled sandy brown. Their fur-feathers were perfect for camouflage in the sands of the Dust while their undersides were a caramel shade. Feline ears flicked to and fro on owlish heads.

‘Frag, that was close,’ Arthur mused, slowly inching away as non-threateningly as possible. ‘But first...these cat-birds, hmm, cairds.’

They were still watching him as he retracted his foot from their direction. One of them tilted their head to the side and trilled a warning call. Arthur held his breath and strained his ears to catch changes in the bandit’s activity. There was none to be heard.

’That was a warning for a contest of territory I think?’ He wasn’t sure if he’d fend them off without making a racket if they came at him en-masse. His spells were not exactly known for their subtlety. Even his gesture cast [Spark] cantrip would only agitate them.

“Hooo!” louder, another stryxffin hooted in impatience. Arthur stopped shuffling away. The din of noise below suddenly quietened, becoming a susurration of murmurs. Arthur froze as a cold sweat formed on the nape of his neck.

”Whatcha stalling for yer sand rats, it's just a stupid stryxffin!”

The knot of tension in his stomach untangled. Arthur relaxed the death grip he had on his dagger. Surreptitiously, he again peeked over the edge, seeing the flaming torches bob around the oasis bouncing shadows off the mesa. There was no change to their behaviour. He was safe. Then again, those were on the perimeter.

In the middle, their rearguard stalked without any form of light whatsoever, hoping to catch what their compatriots had missed with [Dark Vision] and similar skills. They were being smart, but only just. But for the air? No one was watching the sky, and none of the people down there were mages so he was safe from mage lights.

He looked to the north, and [Pathfinder's Call] triggered on instinct. It felt like an itch between the bridge of his brows, slowly drawing him towards a certain direction. He stopped thinking about it and the skill dropped.

’Creepy,’ he shuddered. Despite getting used to throwing magic every now and then, skills were something else. And it had been a long time since his [Stormdragon’s Scion] class had levelled.

The direction he'd been looking towards was luckily, not watched by many bandits. Even for a small oasis, they were to set up a perimeter. They had to number between twelve to fifteen.

’Hold on... I'm just one person. What could possibly— Ah, I must have made the man mad. Working on zero sleep is the pits, wouldn't recommend’ he murmured more to himself than anyone else. In the meanwhile he kept a wide berth from the pair of stryxffin. They seemed to have found some camaraderie with him because of his feline pupils, a result of having [Draconic Sight] active. Though the skill was not without its cost, he could feel his eyes starting to water after three minutes of its use.

He checked that he had everything. His knapsack was in [Inventory Chest] while he had on him Overkill, his bonded dagger. His leather cuirass vest was secure as was his right arm sleeve. With no other metal apart from the greaves protecting his shins he was as stealthy as he could be. All he had to do was retrieve his hoverboard from [Inventory Chest] and escape

”What?! Wha’ do ye mean ye still can't find 'im? Oi Torpeth! Where’s that skarglith’s bastard at?”

Arthur winced. That must've been the head honcho of the bandits. His gravelly voice that could scrub the grit off a sandpaper had been a constant sound echoing through the oasis. As he watched, more stryxffin eyes blinked into existence around the rocky formations.

There was a colony of the cairds there. If he could just cause a distraction, he'd be scot free. Just as he was mulling over that. The stryxffin hooted again. Below, no one paid any attention. But something changed as the nearby stryxffin started flocking towards Arthur's vantage point.

‘Scat's creek!’ he swore internally. Arthur had overstayed his welcome and so he improvised another much riskier plan to see if the cairds would bite.

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Crooktooth scuttled amongst the thornbrush, wary of the pointy things snagging at his desert garb. His short stature easily let him evade their thorny twigs. He tightened the wrappings around his arms, keeping the sharp end of his shiv away from himself. The cold was nipping at his arms the worst. The number of goosebumps made it hard to see his own warts.

Cleftjaw was right behind him, jaundiced pupils also scanning for footprints in the brush. As if a grown human could fit in there. If there were any to be found, his [Dark Vision] and Skulker's tracking skill would clue him in no problem. But first he had to find them with his own eyes.

The tracks back at the camp had been too bad to pick up, sand had blown over them and messed them up badly enough that they had to meander around for a while. Also, they didn't know which direction they pointed to. The clearest ones had all pointed towards the tent and nowhere else. Unless he was walking backwards then— 'Who walked backwards?' Crooktooth shook his head. 'Stupid!'

That the bossman spared no effort to scour the whole oasis for one measly human did not make sense to him. They even brought the skarglith . The scrawny rabid looking scaly excuse for sniffers couldn't even pick up the damn trail and kept looping around in circles.

Torpeth the bald one even said he was no mage. Surely he couldn't have already flown off while they were not looking? Though if he wasn't, what valuables could he possibly have? But if he swore on his treasure sniffing skills, then he and Cleftjaw had a job to do. Find the human.

But―but what if Torpeth had mistaken the human for one of those skin-wearing horrors that crawled in the crypts? He'd heard the stories of the things lurking in the crypt-tombs that could wear skin and walk around like people. The man had bad eyes.

Crooktooth smacked his lips nervously. His body shivered; maybe the chill desert air was still getting into his garb. ‘No,’ the goblin shook his head. ’Scary things’ Crooktooth thought. If what they were tracking was one of those things, let loose from below the sands, he would run away.

Cleftjaw cuffed him in the back of his clean shaven head. Crooktooth yelped, rubbing at the sore spot with a hurt expression.

“Stop thinkin' lots,” he grunted. ”Scout!”.

’That hurt!’ Crooktooth winced at the sting of the blow.

He felt like jabbing his shivs between the ribs of the obnoxious hob. He was always picking on him because he was small. But if he did that, Crooktooth would remain the only goblin in the gang, and that was not good.

Cleftjaw always kept other bullies away. So he squashed his indignance and devoted his mind to the task at hand.

As he was going to pull the wraps around his face, something even heavier smacked him at the back of his head. Crooktooth whirled, restraint forgotten and ready to shiv the larger hob.

But he found his companion in shock. Cleftjaw crouched and picked up something from the sand. A piece of meat? Suddenly black blurs came streaking from the pillars of stone, claws drawn.

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