Chapter 25: Ch.21: Encounters

“Gliding Spider, Lapsa aranea-an arboreal species of spider that lives in the Great Faeriweald and a few forested aerlands. It is a territorial spider that loves to glide over the top of trees using its silky webbing that is woven using Aer mana. Its Aer attuned silk is a very valuable component for making aership sails and is always in demand. Due to the difficulty in obtaining it, it is only used on top of the line aerships. Its alternative is obtained from the Slyphid Silkworm that also spins Aer attuned silk…” from Philiarz Oonswarner’s Bestiary for Adventurers.

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Arthur found the mage who was, in part, the cause of all his predicaments. His hoverboard was shot; a mana conduit was severed into two where the mana sail’s receptacle went to the engine. It was a loss, but it could be fixed. As for the arrow head that did it, it was buried too deep for him to extract it. He’d do that later, because right then he didn't believe what he was seeing.

There was a teenager cowering before him. Her eyes were round as if she’d seen a ghost, and her hands trembled even as she tried her best to clench them against her sides. Even from the way the spell around them seemed to falter, sand dropping down before lazily levitating up to fill in the gaps, he could see she was straining.

Either she’d kept the spell up for too long or she was afraid of him; she had to be—he had his dagger unsheathed after all. That said, she didn’t really fit in with the bandit motif. If anything, she seemed more like a runaway princess. She wore a dusty tunic with sleeves that flared and covered her palms; dusty harem pants secured high on the waist by a corset belt with pouches. The hems of her pants were tucked into a pair of calf-length moccasins with side laces.

Long dusty lashes framed large green eyes while a brass piercing sat on a pert nubian nose. Holding her ruffled hair was a waterfall braid and a choker made of courier shells adorned her neck. From the looks of things, she must've come from somewhere close to the coast. She had to have been very far from home. Arthur felt bad about it; there was no way he was going to get the girl's blood on his hands. He wouldn't touch a hair on his head if he could help it.

“ Hey, I know what this looks like a big misunderstanding right?” Arthur started. “ I can look the other way if you do one thing for me, “ Arthur grinned in what he hoped was an easy-going smile.

He took slow, measured, non-threatening steps towards her. He was 6 foot 2 after his hybridisation, she was a measly 5 foot four. She cowered like a small animal corralled into a corner.

‘ Scat's Creek, now I'm going to feel bad about this,' he said, just on the verge of touching her shoulder, to deliver the [Spark] spell that would knock her out.

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That was it. The mage was going to do despicable things to her. How could she live with herself knowing she’d been sullied; it was better if he killed her and got over with it. It was better if she followed her brother into the Sands below, instead of being touched by a filthy, depraved monster. She didn't want to die. He touched her shoulder―

And Sahra screamed. She screamed loud enough to make the dead slumbering beneath the Dust Bowl's sands stir in their eternal sleep. The man flinched back, utterly in shock but Sahra was not in the state of mind to notice. The girl recoiled from his touch, stumbled and fell on her rump. Nor did she notice that the mage with the shining eyes was flustered and trying to reach for her.

All Sahra saw was a monster reaching for her with his insidious claws. In that moment of panic, she remembered the poisons she’d been brewing for her brother. She remembered the little crossbow Tahir had made her. She’d holstered it to her wrist as self defensive measure. She didn't like men and the little weapon was supposed to hit them where it hurt the most. Her aim was bad—

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Arthur was flustered. This was not how it was supposed to go, and gods, she packed a squeal. Arthur fumbled, putting away the dagger and the hoverboard so he could get things done away with.

But as he was reaching for the girl, at a loss at why she was screaming as if he was the most vile of creatures ever to walk Eryth, there was a twang as the air whistled. Pain bloomed on his wrist. Despite the protection he’d worn, in the most unlikely of circumstances, she shot him straight through the hand with a bolt. The barbed projectile went through his hand and stayed there.

“ Ow!” Arthur winced, with a betrayed expression as pain lanced through his arm . He'd forgotten to don his left glove after his evening meal. It would have stopped the bolt outright, but the waking moments after the nap had been frenetic.

Suddenly, he’d lost all sensation on his left side. It felt like the whole of his arm was being consumed alive, swallowed and ground by a thousand teeth crawling up from the tips of his fingers to his shoulders.

Then his left foot collapsed under him. He turned his gaze from the girl in front of him as he hit the sand with his knees, greyscale as seen through his crystal goggles. Her eyes were wide as if she didn't believe what she’d done either.

He was fighting against an urge to suddenly sleep, his eyelids were too heavy, slowly shutting as if they had a mind of their own. Where had he felt this before? He remembered it when he was studying for his final aviation exams and had to stay up late.

That the Nightshade knocked him out while the Wurmroot was steadily crawling up his arm might have saved him. Otherwise, he’d have been screaming in agony. Nightshade was slow-acting, inducing deep sleep and slowly inducing hypothermia as metabolism dropped below normal thresholds. Another side effect was that it induced nightmares in high enough doses. Wurmroot induced paralysis and burned like molten metal that stuck to the skin. But before the poison’s burn could entrench itself in his nerves, [Regeneration] had already kicked in like an autoimmune reaction.

At the expense of his bottoming mana reserves, the skill fought back, overdrawing to exorcise the poison being conveyed into his bloodstream. But for all the skill’s versatility, when it came to clearing poisons, it was indiscriminate and couldn't prioritise which one to eliminate.

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Sahra found her brother. Thank the eternal Sands he was alive, otherwise she would not have known how to live with herself. As she dropped her spell, feeling the all too familiar sensation of overdrawing on her pool she stumbled into him. Her brother was on the ground, looking for all the world like a half-dead man.

She averted her eyes from the spectacle of her twin groaning, flinching as some of the agony bled into their connection. He’d live. It couldn’t even compare to her moonlies.

As the last of the sand continued to dissipate into the wind, she cast her eyes about to see if she could find the flying artefact. She was dismayed, it was nowhere to be found.

The mounds of sand in the vicinity would make it harder to find before the rest of the bandits came around, but it was already too late. The bandits had already come, with their fearsome skarglith hounds loping ahead. Some of them were on foot, while others rode a couple of terror fowl . She felt sorry for the man she’d shot. At least his death was going to be quick.

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“You failed…” the voice broke through his fugue. It moved him. Arthur did not feel his body. It felt distant, removed, as if all his senses were just cords that’d been unplugged. Being in a state of sleep and unawareness was unnerving. It felt like he was always destined to find himself in such situations. ‘Ah, the third time now?’ he chuckled ruefully.

‘Guess this is the end of the line.’ He felt indifferent about the inevitability of his death, regarding it as a matter of fact.

“ You failed!” said the voice again, louder this time. Space twisted on itself and Arthur found himself straining his non-existent neck to gaze upon familiar heterochromatic eyes.

Instead of condescension and indifference, he saw rage. He stumbled back but there was nowhere to move with ethereal legs. The eyes, electric blue and amber gold, bore into him and he felt the gaze crush him under its weight.

‘No no…Aeskyre, it's me,’ he croaked. His mind dredged up memories of the first time he was held up by his throat. The feeling came again as if reliving it for the second time only, he had no hands with which to fend off the unseen force.

“You failed!” As the words were repeated, Arthur felt his existence quake, about to be torn asunder. “ I have no use for failures!” A gigantic maw opened and Arthur found himself staring into the essence of the sun itself.

Plasma roiled in a sphere, bright and searing, yet he could not close his eyes, for he had no eyelids in this place. He found himself hurtling into the maelstrom as he felt his disembodied form becoming atomized.

Averse to going out, Arthur clawed with every ounce of his will. Will become Intent and Intent become Form.

[Conditions….

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Outside Arthur’s nightmare, the bandits had arrived. Yelling and whooping were heard as mounted bandits and those on foot approached the archer and mage twins.

Most of them had eyes only for the young man lying face down on the sand, as though he was peacefully sleeping. They knew he was anything but sleeping. Probably dead. Two of the bandits covered in scratches and feathers had a bone to grind, so they went ahead and kicked him in the torso.

…Met…

“All of yer shut yer shaggin’ yaps!” boomed the [Bandit Chief]. Even the beasts quietened. “Torpeth—Oi Torpeth!, Where's that sand rat?!”

“Here bossman!” said Torpeth, making his way to the front of the throng with a poorly concealed grimace on his dusty face.

“Why did yer not think to mention he was a sandblasted mage?”The chieftain growled, spittle flying out of his lips. His hand swung so fast and so hard that the bald man could do naught but get smacked upside the head. The bandit chief’s mount squawked indignantly as its harnesses were shoved whichever way.

…Temporary Skill…

“ I swear boss, Val was there with me. We didnae smell a whiff o' magic on the lad.”

The bandit chief turned to the twins. Sahra leaned on the ground against her recovering twin. A few bandits were having a laugh at his expense.

“You! waif—how strong was 'e?"

“ He was scary,” Sahra said, a quiver in her voice as she suddenly became the centre of attention. Looking at the youth’s body from the corner of her eye, she shrank further when she saw the way two goblins were kicking at him. “ And he was holding back." She swallowed thickly, recalling how terrified she’d been.

Now? She was the one left standing. As for the artefact, maybe they could lie about that. Surely the bandit chief didn't have a truth crystal on him. He didn't even know how the mage had escaped their perimeter in the first place.

Luck was smiling on them. If she could feel it with her sand, she could bury it a little deeper and then they would come for it later. That thread of thought evaporated when a sense of foreboding dug into her psyche.

Her [Mana Sense] screamed at a sudden build up of magical aura. She felt like a gnat before a giant. ‘No!’, she was loath to turn her head behind her.

…Instigated!]

“Uh,bossman! bossman!” the two goblins with the [Skulker] class slowly backed away from what they’d presumed was their mark’s body. Only dead bodies did not levitate unless they were possessed. And neither did the possessed or levitating bodies start arcing sparks.

“What yer sappers?!—I'm busy here cleaning up your mess!”

“ The body!” the bandits closer to Arthur yelled.

"I think we should run,” shivered Sahra. “Monster, “ she mumbled, standing up on shaky legs. She shrieked at her legs to move, but her legs were frozen.

Her twin felt the same dread through [Twin Soul]. As he was the faster of the two, the awkward pain was forgotten as he scooped his sister into a fireman's carry and started running.

“Hey, come back here!” The bandit chief roared. It was already too late. Whatever happened next, even the perpetrator had no idea it would happen.

Before anyone could heel their mounts or even hightail it on foot, [Danger Sense] skills went off. A wave of terror swept through the observers and transfixed them to the ground as they gazed upon the ethereal spectacle in front of them.

Lightning crackled and thunder boomed, and it was not the rainy season in the Dust! Yet the clouds above were moving as if forming a storm. Twin crescents peeked from between the maelstrom in the sky, looking for all the world like a malevolent deity sneering at the bandits from above.

[Storm Dragon’s Aegis!]

Arthur’s supine body levitated off the ground, a golden sphere surrounding him. Stray lightning struck the air, heating it uncomfortably so. While thunder temporarily deafened those afar, arcing lightning grounded itself on their metal weapons, temporarily incapacitating them as their muscles locked up.

A blue glow mingled with the swirling sphere of amber, spinning in reverse, swallowing up the sand. Then it contracted, once, twice, thrice, and like a depth bomb going off—it expanded in the blink of an eye.

A tempest of wind floored the people on their feet, bringing them to their knees. Then, grains of superheated, glazed sand billowed outwards at such a speed that the bandits could barely gasp in shock before the shards of glass peppered them. However much they tried to shield their eyes, it was futile.

More lightning looked for places to ground, and let it be said that there were a lot of eligible candidates lying around, save for two people who cowered inside a dome made of sand. But even that was baking from the inside out. They were the luckiest of them all.

Faraway, a dragon looked up at the air and scoffed, ”Idiot.”

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