Chapter 3:
Nightmares

Endless green fields… My mind was filled with wonder as my eyes opened to a world only imagined by the wildest of dreamers. Ever flowing emerald fields and lush green trees covering endless rolling hills. It's not like we would ever see this. In the distance, a flock of birds flew, peacefully. That's what's wrong… It's so peaceful. The clear blue skies and the white clouds towered comfortably above my head. But… How? In the back of my mind, and image of my family crept forward through my peaceful state. No… This is for them… I will bring this to the world… Only for you… Suddenly, the image of Klain, ravening the Boneyard with his minions, flashed before my eyes, briefly replacing the gentle image of my evergreen surroundings. In the blink of an eye, my dream of green and Kelly turned to a raging firestorm. Back into the fire… As I spun around to find a way to get out, through the flames, I made out a large shape. Quickly, the distance between us closed. The closer it came, the more I could make out of it. Moro! Strangely, there was no response. Moro? Are you all right? There was no response. Something was wrong. Through the flames, I noticed a movement that I had never seen from her. Her mouth was moving. She was trying to tell me something.

With a jolt, I shot out of my covers. A comfortable feeling passed through me when I reached under my covers and grabbed the holster on my hip. I had to get to her. Wirily, I crawled out of bed and grabbed my pack. That night I had been so tired I had slept in my clothes. My dream had made no room for excuses for me not to go find Moro. Carefully, I dug through my pack to find food and, strangely, I found none. I was afraid something like that would happen in a city like this. Luckily, whoever it was that stole my food wasn't smart enough to take my caps so I could go and buy some food. With my stomach growling, I walked to the front desk, paid the man at the counter and left.

On my way down the street, the first place I ran into that looked like it sold food was a place boldly titled: "Bob's Iguana on a Stick." Desperate for anything that I could eat I walked up to the counter. An interesting aroma filled the air. Suddenly, from inside the tent that stood right behind the counter, a rather large man emerged.

"Can I help you?" asked the burley man. As if to look a little more interested in my business, he leaned his arm over the counter and placed all of his weight on it.

"Um… Yeah. How much for one of those iguanas?" I asked, hoping that they were at least decent.

"Fifteen caps," the man replied, pointing at a sign that was pinned on the flap of the tent. Not only was the sign worn, but also the writing on it looked as if the man had written it in blood.

"Alright…" I reached into my pack and grabbed my caps and counted fifteen. "I'll take one." With a grin on his face, the man reached under the counter and brought up an odd looking piece of food. Slowly, I set my caps on the counter.

"Here you go," he told me as he handed me the stick. With a polite grin I took the iguana and walked away. Cautiously, I examined the strange piece of food, hoping that the still whole iguana wouldn't jump off the stick and attack me. Although the iguana took up most of the stick, a few pieces of meat that I couldn't recognize were on either end. Tenderly, I pulled off one of the pieces of meat on the end. Curiously, I took the meat and put it in my mouth. A rather salty taste mixed with an odd marinade flooded me mouth. Reminding myself that I needed to eat, I chewed and swallowed the piece, and then I repeated the same process with the rest of it. Even though it wasn't filling, it was better than going with an empty stomach. Now it was time to get down to business.

What could have happened? I thought to myself as I made my way to the entrance to the city. The tribals were there to protect her. I quickly fought back the thoughts that ran through my worried mind. We shall see what we shall see.

* * *

Tanned and cracked landscape expanded all around me with the only traces of the town that I just left behind was a slight shadow of a few buildings. On the horizon was the edge of a plateau that was cut into with a large-mouthed cave. Squinting, I looked to see if Kerosher and his fellow tribesmen were anywhere in sight. No sign of them. Quickly, I reached for my pistol. My heart pounded in my chest.

"Hello?" I hollered, hoping that there would be a response. "Hello?" There was still no response. Where are you Moro? Dreading what I might find inside, I pushed myself further on to the entrance to the cave. A sharp breath escaped me when the scene inside the cave unfolded before me. Eight bodies lay about the cave, seven looked like tribals, the other, I couldn't tell. I walked up to the nearest body of a man, stretched out on the ground. Gloomy shadows swirled around my hope and diminished all light when I looked at the bullet wound in his chest. Wanting to look no further, I stood up and almost turned and ran. Only one tie kept me here, Moro. Striving to find some string of a clue, I went to the unidentifiable body on the ground five feet or so from the tribals. As I walked forward, I saw that he was wearing armor. His sleekly shaved head was back against the cave floor making the few tattoos and scars on his cheeks visible. Three visible slashes shown across his stomach. One creature alone could make those marks, a Deathclaw. Moro had been here.

Searching, I sat for a moment, pondering on what I should do next. Possibilities and dead-ends formed in my mind. The plan had to be flawless. Suddenly, a thought struck me like a bolt of lightening. Although I had only seen it done once by the resistance back in the Boneyard, scavenging through the dead seemed to be a rewarding task. When I thought about it, I clenched my stomach. First, I looked at my tribal garmets. Then, I looked at the armor. After that, I looked back at my clothes. Teal streaks flooded over a rough leather top with a leather pair of pants, both a desert shade of brown.. Silver spikes extended from a solid metal surface in the armor. It looked heavy. Dents scattered all along the shoulder plating. It can stand bullets. More wishfully now, I looked at the armor. Something inside me made the decision for me. Slowly, I got up and walked over to him.

On my approach, I noticed something. In the blood, was something that made my already queasy state increase. His intestines were on the ground, three feet away. Disgusted, I turned and almost retreated, but the armor was there and I wasn't about to pass up a chance for a slight bit more protection than my jacket. Shaking, I turned back to the gruesome task. Instead of looking at the mess on the ground, I averted my eyes to the armor. There was a huge section missing where the slashes were.

"This is not gong to work," I mused to myself as I looked at the corpse, finally giving in to the fact that it was worthless without the stomach plating anyways. "Where did you go?" With a sigh, I leaned back on the rough cave wall. What am I going to do now? Wonder and confusion flooded through me as I traced and re-traced and back traced every possibility. Through all this, I came up with a conclusion, I was going to return to the tribals and get more information. Whoever did this, whoever this man worked for, was going to pay.

* * *

"Who took her?" I exclaimed as I paraded into camp, soon greeted by Kensaun. "The cave, your so called 'safe house'… Well it's not so safe. They killed all your people and I don't know where Moro is. Now tell me, is that normal 'safe house' procedure?"

Quickly, he tried to hush me. "Let us go to my tent. We don't want to alert the others." Hastily, I made a move for the tent, the wise elder, close behind. Finally, we reached the tent, he entered first, lifting the flap for me. Inside, nothing had changed, I could even see my footprints in to dirt outside. "Now, what is on your mind child?"

"Your grandson and his followers, who said they would protect Moro. When I woke up this morning, I went to see how she was doing, and no one was there. A few bodies were scattered on the ground," I was a raging firestorm. How could they have been protecting her... They couldn't even protect themselves.

"Slow yorself. I'm sure that she couldn't have gone far. Her-"

"Far? All there is is desert out here! The would have had to have gone far to hide a creature such as Moro. So don't tell me that they couldn't have gone far!"

"Alright. How many bodies were there?"

"Three were your men and one was some metal plated, tatooed, guy who Moro killed."

"That means that they took two others," he concluded.

"'They?' Who is this 'they?'" I pushed for answers.

"'They' are the slavers that take my people and unsuspecting travelers and turn them into profit," he scorned.

"Great... Slavers." The word rolled around in my mouth then went down into my stomach, leaving a bitter after-taste. Slavers... People used to talk about them in the Boneyard. They travel in packs and hunt like dogs. Snapping back to the problem, I remembered a subject that had been left in the back of my mind since my odd dream this morning. "Not to change the subject, but why didn't you ask me to take the trial for the 'chosen one?'"

"I didn't ask you, because you didn't seem intent on it, but since you are, do you want to go throught the trials?"

"I would if we could just make the whole thing with Moro disappear, but that can't happen. What do you think they will do to her? Does she have a chace?" Moro, what's happening?

"If it would be any comfort, I can get some of my worriors to begin collecting information on the different slaver gangs around the area of the New California Republic."

"That would be helpful. What can I do to help in the meantime?" I inquired.

"Nothing really. You can go though with the trials."

* * *

Clad in my tribal garments, I trudged to the front of a massive stone temple. Looming over me was the cliffs that lead Moro and I to the encampment in the first place. They built it into the cliffs… Very nice. White markings, such as the ones decorating the cliff faces, were accenting the temple. Parts of it looked as if they were almost ready to fall right off the wall. Framed by a darker stone than the rest of it, the door stood many feet taller than me. Compared to the grandeur of the temple, I felt insignificant. Go thorough the doors and come out the other end, he says. That doesn't seem too hard. At that thought, I grinned and trudged forward to the grand doors.

Without any warning, the doors opened. A loud thud echoed down a long corridor as dust rose from the gust of wind that the hallway released. One step at a time, I walked into some sort of catacomb. Okay… now what? Before another moment passed, a pebble moved from the side of me. As I spun to meet my opponent, I was met by a near miss by an oversized scorpion's tail. Trying to collect myself, I jumped to my right, pulling out my pistol and taking aim at its head. Before it had another chance to attack, I fired off two shots, both hitting their marks perfectly. When my feet hit the ground, the scorpion's body fell limp and collapsed to the floor.

Let's not wait around to see what's next. Mustering up as much energy as I could, I sprinted down the hallway. At the end of the hallway, another grand set of doors stood tall. Next to it was a box. Curious to it's contents, I looked inside of the chest. Dust rose into my eyes as the lid flew open. "Nothing," I whispered to myself as I closed the lid. Hoping that it was the exit, I walked up to the doors. Just as the first ones did, these doors slid open easily. Inside was not the exit, but a room with three pillars with fire burning on them. From the darkest corner of the room, a man emerged.

"Hello, Dakarri. I am your final challenge," the tribal man said.

"You mean I have to kill you?" The thought of killing another person for a test didn't exactly cross my mind as civil.

"No, we will fight, but not to death, to the ground," informed the man. "No weapons."

"Okay… That makes sense." Waiting for no more pleasantries pass between us, I came back in a fighting sort of stance. Just the same, the man positioned himself. Another gust of wind passed through the room. With my hands raised, I stood in waiting for a moment. Mimicking me, he made no move. You want to play it that way do you? You asked for it! Swiftly, I took three rapid steps towards him. Without any hesitation, he threw a paralyzing punch at me. Luckily, I narrowly escaped from impending doom. In an attempt to retaliate, I went in to kick him in the head, again, a miss. This time, he meant business.

Almost perfectly, he jabbed right at my chin. To my unpleasant surprise, the attack hit it's mark. I stumbled back a few steps, thus leaving him the opportunity to strike again. Taking advantage of my disadvantage, he sent me flying onto my back with a smooth and solid kick. Ouch.

Civilly, he approached me and offered me a hand. "You are a worthy contender, but I'm sorry, you aren't strong enough." The thought of weakness brought me back to the situation at hand. Moro!

* * *

After rushing out of the exit, I found myself surrounded by the night. Bright stars and the ever-glowing moon illuminated the cobalt sky. What happened to you Moro? I need you here now, more than ever. Failure lingers a long time in a cloud of sadness. I need your help on this one. I don't know the next turn, I can't predict them anymore. With sadness weighing heavily on me, I climbed up the cliffs back up to the settlement. On the top, I was met by a younger boy.

"You are Dakarri?" The curiosity rose in his voice, he couldn't have been any older than eight, but he looked so ready for anything.

"Yes." I could feel a warm smile cross my face.

"The elder, Kensaun, told me to find you a place to stay and that he will speak to you in the morning," he informed me matter-of-factly. "I set up a new tent for you." Pride twinkled in his eyes. Everything in this boy's life was worn on his sleeve, or rather the band worn where there would be one.

"Thank you," I graciously replied. A bed… that sounds nice. "What's your name?"

"Serm. My father is a great warrior. He's out by the New California Republic. He said he would be back in a few days." My heart sank. If he was one of those whom I found dead on the floor of the cave, I wouldn't be able to bear it.

"Thanks, Serm." Still just as exuberant as he was a few moments, although my joy had left me, he guided me to a tent placed by center of the village. Warmth flooded out of the open flap as he opened it. A quaint fire burnt within, the smoke flooding out through a hole neatly placed in the top of the large tent. To one side, there was a pile of blankets and pelts from cattle.

"Come in!" he welcomed. Without me knowing, he had entered.

"It's great! Thank you again, Serm." Letting the tent flap close behind me, I entered the tan room. All of my things had been brought in from where I had left them up at Kensaun's tent.

After looking around one more time, he walked over to the exit. "Good night, Dakarri."

"Good night, Serm." At that, he left. Tired, I laid back on the pile of blankets. I swear I will find you Moro.